Back To Us (Shore Secrets 3) (17 page)

“I have my moments.” Running a hand over his forehead and down the side of his face, he continued, “All the suggestions in the journal were pissing me off, anyway.”

“What suggestions?” A horrible suspicion crept up on her. “You don’t mean you asked the town for advice on how to date me—in the mailbox journal? Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously?” Piper twisted around to kneel. “Why? Why on earth would you do that? What will everyone think?”

“Who cares what anyone thinks?”

Honestly, sometimes they might as well be speaking two different languages. His laissez-faire attitude toward public perception boggled her most of the time. “I do, of course!” Even if she did care twice as much as she probably should
.

That netted her an eye-roll. “There’s a ticking clock on this whole thing we’re doing here. I don’t have time to fall into and then recover from the boneheaded mistakes guys always make. I’ve got to get this right. So, yeah, I asked for help. No stone unturned, blah, blah, blah.”

It was equal parts horrifying and romantic. Piper took a long gulp of wine while she figured out which way to lean. “I should be mad,” she said slowly. “That seems like an appropriate response to you opening up our lives to the entire town for a vote.”

“They didn’t know it was you. Or me. No names.”

Thank goodness. She never would’ve been able to stand the humiliation. Now Piper could relax and focus on how sweet it was that Ward was trying so hard. Harder, she realized, than she was. He deserved more of an effort from her. Something to ponder after he left tonight.

Leaning back to fully recline on the slanted chaise, she said, “Probably explains why the answers weren’t personalized to us at all.”

“Not one whit. You wouldn’t believe how many people suggested I take you to bingo. Or the Catholic Friday night fellowship potluck.”

“Um, neither of us are Catholic.”

“Neither of us looks for a good time in a church basement.” He pushed her skirt up over her knees. Quirked his eyebrows up in a sexy invitation. “Unless you want to put on a Catholic school girl uniform and get frisky after hours.”

“How about we save costumes and toys until we have just regular sex once?”

Ward slapped his hands together, as if wiping her request off of them. “Sorry. I can’t downgrade my performance to regular. Can’t dial it back to anything less than mind-blowing.”

“Big talk.”

“Big everything.”

Piper burst into laughter. They’d survived the serious talk, cleared the air and come out the other side. Ward definitely had the right idea for the evening. Relaxing with him was the perfect way to end the day. It didn’t take any effort at all to picture them just like this three months in the future. Or three years. It made for an enticing vision. An aborted dream come true. One she’d given up on, but always craved. “How about we start with a really big pizza, and go from there?”

“Already ordered on the way over here. Sausage, pepperoni and mushroom, like always.” He looked at his watch. “Should be here in ten minutes.”

Just enough time to put into action her put-more-effort-into-this-relationship plan. Well, it was more of a single bullet point at this moment, because she had no plan. Yet. But she had to start somewhere. So she crooked her foot around Ward’s hip and dug in, urging him closer. It didn’t take much. With one foot on the floor, he scooted up to prop himself alongside her. Propped his head on his fist and threw a leg across hers.

“Yes?”

“I’ve got an idea how we can kill those ten minutes.”

He rubbed the cold bottle down the length of her arm, sprouting goose bumps in its path. “I’ve got one, too. Want to compare?”

“Not really. I’m not in a talking mood anymore.”

“Makes this a red-letter day.” The damp bottle moved to the sliver of belly exposed between her top and her skirt. Ward’s leg was the only thing that kept her from bowing off the cushions at the sensation. “Since when doesn’t Piper Morrissey have a stream of thoughts coming out of her mouth?”

“Since you drive them all out of my brain.” The sentence ended in a gasp as his tongue trailed across the line of condensation left by the bottle. “Ward, this isn’t fair. I’m trying to put the moves on you.”

“There’s time enough for you to get a turn. Later.”

He did some swirly thing with his tongue in her belly button that unfurled a coiled spring of lust that ran from between her legs out to the tips of all four of her limbs. Piper scratched her nails across his scalp. Clenched her hands in two fat fistfuls of hair and held on tight.

One more swirl. This time Ward paired it with a sweep of his hand up her torso to land on her breast. Well, she
wished
it was right on her breast. The layers of top and bra that separated her skin from his hand might as well have been the Berlin Wall. Impenetrable. Frustrating. Ten minutes was plenty of time, given how hot they both were for each other. Four freaking seconds of foreplay and Piper was ready to explode.

There was no reason to play coy. No reason to wait. No reason to drag out this sensual torture. Right now, Piper couldn’t think of a single reason why they’d even waited this long. Sex was a logical and normal thing for a couple to indulge in on a random Wednesday night, right? As obvious a next step in the evening as the pizza they were expecting.

“We should just do it,” she announced. “Take the edge off.”

He nipped at her waist with his teeth. “Nope.”

Since when was it this difficult to talk a man into sex? Had hell frozen over? Piper tried again. This time she stuck her hand down the collar of his shirt to skim lightly along the warmth of his back. “We’re primed and ready. Forget foreplay.”

“Careful.” Ward lifted his head to smirk at her. “A statement like that’ll get your membership in the sisterhood of women revoked.”

Of all the times for his stubborn streak to surface! “I’m serious. Let’s do it now, fast and hard. We don’t need to make a big deal out of it. Think of it as a tension release.”

“It won’t work. You might as well give up. I won’t be rushed.” He caressed her breast, molding it in a series of slow squeezes. “And I intend for it to be a very big deal when we have sex.”

The problem was that Ward had the upper hand. Literally. Since he was on top of her, she couldn’t shift enough to tease him in return. To fire him up to a point of no return. All she could use was logic. Which was never as surefire a method of persuasion as naked touching. “We’re not breaking new ground here. We’ve done all this before. Ten years ago. This is a rerun, not a splashy premiere.”

“We’re not the same people now that we were as teenagers. Everything about this experiment, about the way we’re dating today, is different. Brand new. We’re building something this time around. I hope.”

Piper’s heart melted. Just puddled right off the edge of the chaise onto the floor. “I hope so, too.”

“Then respect the process. You’re gonna need to be patient.”

That word—
need
—was exactly her current predicament. “Okay, but I don’t need frills and foreplay. I need you. I need you a lot. I need you now.”

“Babe, that’s the tip of the iceberg as far as begging goes.”

The phone rang. They both jerked at the unwelcome noise. “Why the hell do you still have a landline? It’s like you’re stuck at the turn of the century.”

“Very funny. I keep it for safety. A woman living alone can’t be too careful.”

“Your cell phone’s practically grafted to your hip.”

“Not that kind of safety. I mean if there’s a bad storm and the power goes out.”

He moved up until he was lying across her entire body. “Well, you’re not answering it.”

“No, I most decidedly am not.”

The answering machine clicked on. “Since you were so put out when we dropped by last week, we’re calling to share with you our disapproval. This thing with Ward has gone too far.” Piper closed her eyes. It didn’t stop the horror of her mother’s voice leaving the most ill-timed message
ever
. “We’re only trying to save you from heartbreak again, dear.”

That tinny, echoey quality meant her mom was using the speakerphone. Which could only mean her dad was bound to put in his two cents. Piper tried to roll out from beneath Ward. He shouldn’t have to hear this. But he pinned her wrists to her sides and remained on top of her, motionless.

Her father cleared his throat. “We heard from Frank Rogers that Seneca Savings turned Ward down for a loan.” That snapped her eyes back open. Ward hadn’t mentioned he was in a money crunch. Certainly not that he’d been desperate enough to go to that snaky scumbag for help. If things were that bad, why hadn’t he mentioned it? Ward’s face remained a stony mask, giving nothing away about how he felt. “He’s after your money. Our money.”

“Let me up,” she whispered harshly in his ear. But Ward might as well have been a marble statue on top of her.

“He’s playing you, dear. Using you. You don’t deserve to be dragged down by him. Not again.” It was the most sympathy and concern she’d heard in her mother’s voice in months. When Piper came down with walking pneumonia last winter, her mom had ordered chicken soup to be delivered exactly one night, and ordered her not to visit the house until her cough had disappeared. Olivia Morrissey wasn’t a cuddly, maternal sort. She must truly be worried. For Ward to be the cause of such an extreme level of worry gave Piper pause.
Was
she missing something? Was she so happy tripping down memory lane that she was ignoring the warning flags right in front of her face?

“You need to face reality.” Patrick’s tone made it clear this was an order, not a suggestion. “If you don’t break it off with him soon, we may need to re-evaluate your position at Morrissey Vineyards. Think about if he’s worth all you could end up losing.”

The silence that hung in the air was thicker than Joel’s famous clam chowder. Piper didn’t know what to say. Where to start. Except maybe by pulling the ancient answering machine from the wall and tossing it into the lake.

Ward let go of her wrists and rolled to the side. Grabbed his beer from the floor, propped himself on an elbow and drank. His Adam’s Apple bobbed up and down repeatedly as he drained the entire bottle. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Stared across the room at the dark windows. “Did your dad just threaten to kick you out of the family business? For dating me?”

“I think so. Yes.”

He set the bottle on the coffee table. Still wouldn’t look at her. “Think he’s serious?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Piper weighed the various permutations of what that would encompass. “I think he’s serious about wanting to do it. But I’m not sure he’d actually go through with it. The scope of the potential scandal might give him second thoughts.”

“In other words, you don’t have to decide right now if I’m worth it. You can wait and see how things go with us. See if he gives you another warning.”

Ward was giving her an out. Or at least a way to delay deciding. Which was incredibly sweet of him. But that would be the death knell for their burgeoning relationship. It was crystal clear to Piper, if not to Ward, that she had to pick a side and commit right now. Not even wait until after the pizza arrived. This was a turning point.
The
turning point.

She’d made a choice all those years ago by breaking up with him without any discussion. In hindsight, Piper could see that might not have been the best choice. In ten years’ time, she didn’t want to look back to this night and regret her choice. Regret her cowardice. Regret the moment she didn’t commit to the possibility of a future with Ward with every bit of the conviction and passion with which he’d showered her for each of the past eleven days. That vow to make more of an effort with him? It was time to put up or shut up.

Piper grabbed his hand and brought it to her heart. “You’re worth it, Ward. Not for the land for my port line. Not for the sake of our friendship with Ella and Casey. You’re the man I’ve never stopped wanting. You’re the man who makes me happy, makes me laugh, makes me
feel
more than I have for anything else in the world. No job could measure up to all that. Of course I choose you.”

The invisible bubble of tension filling the room burst. Ward exhaled with his whole body. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I really, really do.”

His hand tightened around hers, so much so that it verged on pain for a split second. Then he dropped a kiss on her forehead and let go. “I’ll go grab a couple of plates. Pizza should be here any second.”

So that was settled. Mostly. Piper had meant every word. But she did have lingering questions. Not that she’d bring up tonight. No, that phone call had been all the drama she could stand. But the question of Ward needing a loan did still niggle at her. Like a fire ant in the corner of her brain. Not so much that he needed it, but that he’d kept it a secret. What else wasn’t he telling her?

Chapter Thirteen

Eyes glued to the fridge and the life-giving store of coffee beans inside it, Ward rounded the island he’d made out of an old barrel. And banged his hip on the sharp edge. Damn it. This after he’d banged the hell out of his wrist on the nightstand trying to turn off the alarm. Not to mention finding a hole in his socks. Zombies had better hand-eye coordination than he did while half-asleep.

Either he’d convince Piper they belonged together—or he’d die trying. Amazing how two people who already knew each other inside and out found so much to talk about. Not that they’d done much talking after midnight. Made good use of his mouth in other ways, though. Ward hadn’t left her house until 3:00 a.m., and then spent a good ten minutes braced in the coldest shower of his life.

Lack of sleep was a small price to pay. He believed that most of the time. Just not when the sun battered at him through the window and there was zero caffeine in his system. Waiting for a hit until he got to Cosgrove’s would be impossible. The way he was feeling, he’d probably drive on the wrong side of the road to get there.

Pounding rang through the house. It sounded like a fist knocking on the front door, but who would do that at seven in the goddamned morning? Ward hitched up his low-slung pajama bottoms and hustled to the door. Somebody had better be dead.

His first thought upon flinging open the door was that he’d been half-right. Somebody was
back
from the dead. Because he hadn’t seen the woman in front of him in more than fifteen years. The bleached blond hair was different—especially with the bright green strips framing her face. Thick black eyeliner and fake lashes were new...to him. But Ward sure as hell recognized those bright blue eyes. Because they were a mirror image of his own.

One arm, covered in at least a dozen clanking bangles, raised in a half wave. “Remember me?”

“My own sister? Of course I do.” He pulled her over the threshold and into a hug. The impulse was natural. You hugged your kid sister. Except for when she got in your stuff, and then you gave her noogies. But that didn’t feel familiar at all. Lori had been a skinny nine-year-old with a cast on her arm from falling out of an apple tree the last time he’d hugged her.

Now it was weird. Awkward. Like hugging a stranger. Plus, how long was the damn thing supposed to last? Not like you could cram fifteen years’ worth of missed hugs in all at once. Ward remembered he was only wearing pajama bottoms. No shirt. Probably explained why her elbows sort of pushed in at his ribs, instead of her arms going all the way around him. Yeah. This was past weird and shooting toward uncomfortable. He let go and shut the door.

“So, um, hi.” Lori jammed her hands into the pockets of her faded black hoodie. It was open over a T-shirt for some band he’d never heard of. Black-and-white checked leggings ended at hot pink open-toed booties. It was a look—for a rock groupie, maybe. Which would explain the psychedelic hair color.

Not that he had a clue what she did with her life. She could be undercover with the NSA. Or an artist. Hell, for all Ward knew she was a meth addict, which would also explain the odd getup. He hated that he didn’t know jack shit about Lori’s life. He’d been sad about it for a bunch of years. Then angry. Since his dad died, Ward had tried not to think about her at all. Clearly that was no longer an option.

Ward grabbed a flannel shirt off the coat rack and shrugged into it. “Hi.”

Now what? Was he supposed to invite her in, like a guest, to the home where she’d grown up? Wait for her to pick a room and follow? Say to her,
Hey
,
thrilled you’re back
,
but hang out for a few while I shower and make coffee?
He sucked at small talk. But it didn’t seem right to burst right into demanding to know where she’d been all this time. Even though it was blaring through his brain brighter than neon bar signs.

Lori crossed her feet and rocked back and forth. “Guess you’re surprised to see me.”

“Yeah.” Without thinking, he blurted out, “Less surprised than I was when you didn’t show up to Dad’s funeral.” Okay. Guess that old anger flared back up pretty fast.

“He was dead,” she shot back. “In a coffin. No way to know or care if I showed up.”

“I knew. I damn well cared.”

Her shoulders drooped. Then her head, like those daisies Piper loved that were too heavy for their stems. “Oh.”

Shit. He’d blown it already. Ward wished, even more than he wanted coffee, that Piper was next to him. She’d know what to do, what to say. How to smooth out the tension. Clearly they needed some sort of third-party mediator. Pathetic when he didn’t know how to be alone with his own sister.

“Come on.” He jerked his head at the hallway back to the kitchen. “Let’s sit down and talk.” His bare feet slapped against the dark pine boards of the old farmhouse. The walk was too short to give him time to think. Or breathe. Or figure out how to make a stab at a better start.

Off to the side of the kitchen was the breakfast nook that had barely changed since Ward’s earliest memories. The small space was crammed with a scarred wooden table, the bookshelf he’d made in sixth grade shop to hold his mom’s cookbooks, and a Christmas cactus Casey gave him as a joke a few years ago that was now practically a jungle plant.

The table should be familiar ground for her. It was where they’d carved pumpkins. Played board games on snow days. Ward and Lori had done their homework together every night at that table. Until she left.

Sure enough, she crossed around to what had been “her” seat on the opposite side. Ward had stopped using his own seat once she left. He didn’t like to look up and not see her face where it belonged. So he pulled out the chair at the end, flipped it around backward and straddled it.

“Didn’t mean to bite your head off,” he said gruffly.

One shoulder jerked up and down, fast. “No big.”

This couldn’t be more stilted if they started talking about the weather. “Lori, you’ve got to help me here. I don’t know why you’re here now. I don’t know why you left back then. I don’t have a fucking clue how to talk to you.” Ward reached out his hand across the width of the table, palm up. “The only thing I do know is that I’m glad to see you.”

Her hand brushed across his. More of a low five than anything. But he’d take it.

“It’s good to see you, too. The beard...it makes you look all grown up. Well, that and the chest hair,” she added with a laugh.

Self-conscious, Ward twitched his shirt closed. Buttoned it for good measure. “I can drive a car now, too,” he joked.

“The ultimate proof of adulthood. Car keys in one hand, and a shot glass in the other.”

“Not at the same time.”

“Yeah.”

They weren’t snapping at each other anymore. But they weren’t exactly talking, either. “So...it’s pretty early for a surprise reunion. Is everything okay?”

“I figured you’d be up. Life on a farm, you know? Always starts with the sun.”

One of the eighty reasons he’d always hated living on a farm. “This isn’t really a farm anymore, Lori. I turned it into a distillery.”

“I saw the sign when I drove up. It looks good. Impressive. The kind of place that can hook tourists in and convince them to drop a wad of cash.”

Not exactly the Lakeside Distillery mission statement. Might as well take the compliment, though. “We have our share of good days and slow days.”

“You really made something of yourself. Way to go.”

“Thanks.” Another beat, while he waited for Lori to volunteer something—anything—about herself. “How about you?”

“I’ve done a ton of stuff. Right now I’m all about supporting Rich, my boyfriend. He’s the drummer in Yellow Snow. God, Ward, he’s so talented. His playing is what gets people in the door at every gig.”

It didn’t escape his notice that she’d glossed over everything that had happened over the past fifteen years. No mention of college. A career. Where she called home. Ward didn’t want to judge. He just wanted to fill in the gaps. And wondered why the hell Lori was slow rolling it with the information. Why was she here if not to catch up?

Trying to muster up a smile, Ward asked, “Are you in the band, too?”

“No. I stay behind the scenes. I run the promo table for them. Sell CDs and posters and shirts.” She plucked at her own shirt. “That’s where you make the real money.”

“I’ll bet.”

“We’re set up over in Ithaca now, making plans for their next tour.”

Ithaca? It was an hour away. One measly, stinking hour, for fuck’s sake. That long-ignored anger simmered to the surface. Ward swallowed it down. No jumping to conclusions. “How long have you been there?”

“All summer. They were the house band at this great club for a couple of months. Now that Cornell is back in session, they’re working on playing at a bunch of different places. Get exposure to different fan bases.”

“Lori, you’ve been just down the road all summer?” In as calm a tone as he could muster—which probably sounded grumpy as shit—Ward asked, “Why’d you wait so long to stop by?”

She picked at chipped electric-green nail polish on her thumb. “Wasn’t sure you wanted to see me.”

That ejected him from his seat. He was around the table in four long steps, to crouch by her chair. The bad parts of the past didn’t matter. All that mattered were the good parts. The life they’d grown up sharing. For that, he’d always love her. “Of course I want to see you. I’ve wanted to see you for fifteen years. I search for you on Facebook every couple of months.”

“That wouldn’t get you anywhere. I changed my name. Cantrell was boring. It didn’t have any zing. Now I go by Lori Lee.”

Lori’s idea of zing sounded more to Ward like either a country singer or a hooker. “Explains why I never found you.”

“I didn’t think you’d be looking. Mom always said it would be easier for everyone if we just kept our distance.”

It was hard, but he had to separate his anger at his mother from his regret at all the lost time with Lori. Not take it out on her. But Ward couldn’t let a statement like that go unchallenged. Lori seemed to only see one side of the story. “She sure as hell did that. Walking out the door on her husband and son, leaving the state for God knows where—that’s a lot of distance.”

“It was what she needed,” Lori insisted. She pushed out of the ladderback chair and started pacing the length of the kitchen. “Dad broke her heart when he slept with that woman at the feed store. No way could she stay in the same house with him.”

“I get that. Sort of. But that’s no reason to walk away from
me
.” Ward’s hand flexed on the table, in an effort not to slam it down in frustration. Because when your mother abandoned you, even when it happened at age thirteen, that left some heavy-duty scars. This conversation with Lori was scraping them raw.

“You
know
that she asked you to come with us.”

How did that make any of this okay? “Don’t you get it? Sure, she asked us both to go with her. Except that no mother should put that kind of choice in a child’s hands. There was no way to win in that situation. What was I supposed to do? Just leave Dad? All alone? Pick Mom over him?”

“Isn’t that what you did anyway? You picked Dad. So we left, without you.”

He jolted out of the chair. Planted his feet wide and let his temper lick free like flames bursting through a roof. “No. I didn’t pick anyone. I told Mom I couldn’t decide. I begged her not to go. Not to leave me. Not to split us up. She didn’t just leave, Lori. She took you away from Seneca Lake. Away from New York. The last I heard, you guys were headed for Colorado. There’s no every-other-weekend visitation from Colorado. There’s no coming to my games, or my musicals, or even my high school graduation. She cut herself off from us. And she made you do it, too.”

“We went to Vegas,” she murmured.

“What? Mom took a nine-year-old to live in Vegas?” Ward was no expert on kids, but that didn’t sound right. Not a real nurturing place to get over losing half your family.

“She needed to get a quickie divorce. Just get past it all. Then, after that, we went to Colorado. Didn’t stick. Moved on to Arizona, then to New Mexico. That’s where we stayed the longest.”

And then what? Because her answer sure left some holes wider than Seneca Lake. Ward busied himself with getting the coffee started. Not that he needed a jump-start anymore. It gave him something to do besides look at Lori pacing. She sure wasn’t looking at him. Well, if they were really doing this, he might as well ask every uncomfortable question that had been eating at him. Who knew when he’d have another chance?

Raising his voice over the gush of water filling the pot, he asked, “Why didn’t you ever come back to us? After high school, maybe? Once you were old enough to make your own decisions. Or at least ask questions.”

“I told you, once we left, I thought that was it. All ties cut on both sides.”

“Well, you were wrong.” He’d long ago slammed the door on ever reconnecting with his mother. She’d made her choice. Ward refused to ever put himself in a situation where she could choose to walk away from him a second time. But Lori had just been a kid stuck in an unwinnable situation. He didn’t blame her. So yeah, he’d always wanted to reconnect. Get his sister back. Ella had suggested once that’s why he had girls as his best friends, as a way to make up for losing her. He’d told her it was time to stop seeing her shrink when she started analyzing him instead of herself.

Lori tossed her hair over her shoulder. Cocked her head and smirked like she was about to show him up in a trivia contest. “Dad knew where I was.”

“Bullshit.” He’d asked his dad all the time. If there were letters. Why Lori and Mom weren’t calling. If he even knew what state they were in, so he could figure out what time it was where the rest of his family was. “Dad got sporadic updates, at best. Usually messages from a P.O. box that got forwarded to another box. Just enough that he knew you two were okay. Never enough to find you or talk to you.”

“At first. But he knew how to get in touch with me eventually. He had my email since about ten years ago.”

“What? Why would he keep it from me?”

“Said you had enough going on in your life, and didn’t need the complication. Or any more drama.”