Gatlinburg Getaway (Destination: Desire) (12 page)

“Ha. My house is mid-century modern. Though there are also a bunch of Craftsmans in Half Moon Bay.” She watched from the doorway as he pulled out two glasses and poured the wine.

“Half Moon Bay. That’s where you’re from.” He remembered her home address on the form she’d filled out. He handed her the bottle, waved her back into the living room, and picked up both glasses to follow her.

“Yeah, I grew up there.” She moved gingerly, as if afraid to run into anything. Considering she barely missed whacking her shin on the corner of the coffee table, that was probably for the best. “I spent a few years in the Silicon Valley rat race. Not my speed, so I talked a couple of my college friends into throwing in with me on a new venture in HMB.”

“I’ve never cared for big cities, personally.” He settled onto the sofa and she set the bottle on the table and curled up beside him. He handed her one of the glasses. “Nice to visit, not so fun to live there. They have lots of everything you could want, and more of everything you don’t.”

“Exactly. Tons of museums and restaurants and shopping. Too many people, too much traffic, not enough down time to enjoy the stuff you like anyway.” She took a sip of the Syrah and heaved a blissful sigh. “Oh, that’s good stuff.”

He toasted her. “It’s from Australia, but I also have some local muscadine wine, which is sweet.”

“Not feeling sweet tonight?” She grinned against the rim of her glass.

More hot and bothered than sweet, but he was trying to behave since her eyes were still red-rimmed. Of course, he was wishing he’d gotten another long, lingering taste of her before disaster struck. Such was life. He took a swig of wine, which was good, but nowhere near as good as kissing her.

Going back to their big-city discussion, he left the sweet remark alone. “I prefer the smaller environs of towns over cities.”

“You’d never consider living anywhere else but here?” She picked up the thread of the conversation without missing a beat. Her fingers flicked in the direction of downtown.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Because he’d considered it many times. More and more lately. “I’d just pick somewhere smallish. Maybe a suburb if I had to be near a city.”

She shook her head before taking another sip. “Nah, suburbs always get overtaken and just become more of the big-city crush. I like my beach town. I have ocean, mountains, no traffic, and a short walk to work. That’s my kind of commute.”

“Ocean and mountains, huh?” He liked the way her eyes sparkled when she talked about her hometown.

“Mm-hm. You can take your pick.” She rocked her hand back and forth through the air. “We’re sandwiched between the mountains and the sea, south of San Francisco, west of San Jose, and the only way in or out is along two-lane highways.”

“Sounds perfect.”

She sighed, a dimple digging deep into her cheek. “It is. I love it there.”

“Traffic seems to be one of your major criteria for a good or bad place to live.” He reached for the bottle and poured them both refills.

“It should be for everyone,” she said firmly.

“Agreed.” He was with her one hundred percent on that, which was about the millionth thing they had in common.

She glanced aside, her free hand rubbing her leg. “Too much time in the car makes me…uncomfortable. And traffic adds extra stress that doesn’t help. I don’t have flashbacks or anything, but I sometimes end up with nightmares.”

“Understandable.” Though he’d never have guessed from her demeanor in his Jeep. He took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. It still blew his mind that she’d been through something so catastrophic. Many people wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel ever again. The ordeal would have ruined their lives, but she didn’t seem to let it get her down. She coped beautifully, nightmares notwithstanding. Brave didn’t even begin to describe her.

“I rarely talk about that with anyone. Most of the time I just suck it up and deal.” She waved her glass in a graceful arc. “I like that you don’t just say you’re sorry and give me a pitying look whenever the accident comes up.”

He frowned. Pity was the last thing on his mind when he thought about her. “What you went through was tragic, but you picked up the pieces and you do your best with the hand you’ve been dealt. You have no idea how much I admire that. There’s no way I’d find you pitiable, and anyone who does is just an asshole who missed the point.”

By the way her eyes and face lit, he could tell that was the right thing to have said. Not that he’d done anything other than tell the bald truth as he saw it, but he was glad he hadn’t put his foot in his mouth.

Taking a drink, she regarded him over the rim of her glass. “So what do you do for fun?”

He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “You mean when I’m not letting nature accost my dates?”

She chortled. “Yeah.”

“I’m on a local baseball league.” His favorite sport, in fact. He’d played all through college. “I like it a lot better than running for miles and getting nowhere in the gym. Despite the mountains around me, I’m not much on hiking. I’d rather go for a swim in the lake or even take off for an afternoon and go fishing.”

“Anne taught me how to fish.” Her expression softened. “She liked to take us camping, and it gave us a chance to escape Mom for a weekend somewhere there was no cell reception, so she couldn’t call every five minutes and spoil the fun with her neediness.”

“Mmm. Camping’s really not my thing.” He had some gnarly memories attached to his last trip.

“No?” Her mouth curved down. “How come?”

He could demur, but hell…he’d already told her a lot of the bad shit. Why stop now? “Aunt Opal didn’t care for sleeping outdoors, so we didn’t go much. But Uncle Landry took me camping with my father once, just the three of us.” He took a gulp of his wine, steeling himself against the onslaught of ugly recollections. “Dad had a flashback of the war.” Using his glass, he gestured to his face, his Asian features. “He called me a gook, jumped me, and maybe would have tried to kill me if Landry hadn’t been so quick to pull him off me.”

“Dalton.” Her grip went white-knuckled and she leaned toward him. “Holy shit.”

“That was the only time he’d ever gotten physical with me, and the only time anyone’s ever used a racial slur on me—at least to my face—and the last time I ever saw my father. I think Landry told him not to bother coming around unless he was going to get some psychological help. Dad wasn’t interested.” He shrugged, tried to smile, and failed miserably. “I haven’t been camping since.”

“I’m so damn sorry, Dalton. No one deserves that, especially not from their father.” Anger flashed in her gaze. “If that wasn’t enough of a wake-up call to get help…Jesus Christ, what would it have taken?”

“I don’t know.” He let a breath ease out. “I can wish forever that he’d have found a way out of the hell his mind was locked in, but what good would that do? He’s dead and gone. The worst part—aside from him blaming me for Mom’s death and the time he tried to end me—is that, despite all the efforts of various family members to get him into treatment, he would never go. He had every opportunity to turn his life around and he just…couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Did he not want to get better? Did he not see how bad off he was? Those are the questions that linger for me. The way he behaved toward me, I can rationalize—he was mentally ill. That he knew he was mentally ill and never accepted help…that’s what hurts the most.”

She nodded. “I get it. Not to that level, of course, but my mom is hardcore codependent. She can’t live on her own, always has to have someone around supporting her—emotionally and financially. After Dad died, Anne gave up attending her dream university to go to a state school nearby, worked nights and weekends to help us make ends meet, because God forbid Dinah Kirby be responsible and keep a job longer than six months.” Her head fell back against the couch cushions. “I’m no psychologist, but…she meets more than a few criteria for certain personality disorders. Maybe if she’d owned up to her problems and sought treatment, Anne wouldn’t have had to raise her younger sisters. Maybe my sisters and I could have functional relationships with our mom, but…she doesn’t even have a functional relationship with herself.”

“That’s sad.” He tightened his fingers on hers. “At least I had Opal and Landry. They were adults who chose to take me in—it wasn’t forced on them like it was on Anne. My grandmother and one of my second cousins offered to foster me too, but Landry wouldn’t hear of it.”

“I’m glad they were fighting over you, that you were wanted.” She bit her lip. “And if I wasn’t leaving so soon, I’d drag you out camping and do it Kirby style. Because your dad shouldn’t get to ruin the awesomeness of camping.”

He was almost afraid to ask, but he had to know. “What’s Kirby style?”

Twin dimples popped into her cheeks, making her look impossibly young and adorable. “Breakfast is s’mores, water balloon fights count as showers, and ghost stories are mandatory before bedtime.”

He had to fight a grin. “Really scary ones?”

“Or super funny, but you had to get a reaction.” She pursed her lips. “No boring stories allowed.”

“Tough critics,” he mused.

She stared down her nose at him. “I need to be entertained. Dance, monkeys, dance.”

There was no stopping it now—a laugh bubbled out of his mouth. “Really? You call your sisters monkeys?”

An expression of angelic innocence crossed her face. “Yes, because at least then it makes sense when someone reminds me that this is my circus and those are my monkeys.”

He snorted. “My cousins would scalp me if I compared them to primates.”

“And you’d deserve it if you were dumb enough to say it to their faces without getting them to laugh at it.” She saluted him with her glass. “It’s a lot harder to get mad if you laugh.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, though I don’t think that’s true with my cousin Leigh. She’d laugh and then punch me.” He considered it for a moment. “She might even still be laughing when she took the swing.”

Camille appeared impressed. “I like her already. She’s got style.”

He let his head fall back, groaning mournfully. “Please, don’t encourage her. Or her twin sister.”

“Are they identical or fraternal?”

He blew out a breath. “Identical, and pretty as pictures, which caused me no end of suffering when they got old enough to notice boys.”

“Nah.” She shook her head, her eyes twinkling with wicked glee. “It wasn’t when they noticed boys—it was when boys noticed them.”

“Okay, you’re right.” He set his empty glass down, feeling a nice warmth in his belly as the wine took effect. “My best friend had the balls to notice Savannah. They’re dating.”

“Savannah is Leigh’s twin?” She pulled her hand from his and her glass landed on the coffee table too. Her arm brushed his knee as she moved, and awareness zinged through him. Her light perfume—or maybe it was her shampoo—filled his nose. He was starting to associate that scent with her. Something floral and spicy, all at once. Roses, maybe.

“Yep. Savannah and Raleigh-call-me-Leigh.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Neither ever listened worth a damn and it figures one of them would be contrary enough to fall for my friend.”

It looked as if she was fighting a giggle. “Made you squirm, did it?”

“Still squirming, sugar.” He shuddered, trying to block any mental images that wanted to form of his best friend and his baby cousin. “I know a little too much about Warrick’s sexual preferences to be comfortable with what they do in private.”

She gave up all pretense and laughed, the sound rising and falling like a music scale. “I thought your kink level was flexible.”

“Mine, sugar.” He poked a thumb at his chest. “Savannah’s kinks are none of my damn business.”

“Poor Dalton.” The mockery in her tone told him how sympathetic she really was.

He folded his arms. “What if your best friend was messing around with your sister?”

Hugging herself, a belly laugh exploded out of her. “No chance of that. My best friend is a gay cross-dresser. I’d be more worried if I had a gay brother.”

“Lucky,” he muttered.

“I adore Feng, even though he has a much better sex life than I do, the rat bastard.” Her tone was fond, though she shook her head ruefully.

“You’d have no problem changing that if you wanted to.” Who wouldn’t want her? She was smart, loyal to her loved ones, and curved in all the right places. Any man—any straight man—would give his eyeteeth to have her.

“Really?” One brow rose, and she ran a finger along her bottom lip. “You’ve seemed pretty intent on keeping my sex life…chaste.”

Dear Jesus, she was trying to kill him. He couldn’t move his gaze away from the slide of that fingertip. Heat that had nothing to do with the wine flooded him, and he tried to push the desire aside. Tried, and failed.

“If you hadn’t been injured today…” He made a frustrated noise.

“What?” she challenged. “What would you have done?”

“Anything you wanted,” he retorted baldly. Didn’t she see how difficult it was to hold back? Christ, he had some scruples but he wasn’t a fucking monk.

“I want you to kiss me again.” That gauntlet was thrown down with a tone that was feather light.

“I thought you’d never ask.” Anticipation burned in his gut, though he knew this was likely nothing more than a simple dare, and he wasn’t likely to get further than this. Tonight, anyway. He could always hope tomorrow turned out better than tonight had. For now, he could enjoy the shit out of this, knowing he’d be spending some quality time with his own palm later. Cold showers had never been a coping mechanism he’d prescribed to.