Three Wishes (17 page)

Without a second thought, Bree came forward and curved her hands around his neck. His pain was real as real could be. She was desperate to ease it.

He raced on, the dam broken. “I tried calling my father, but he wouldn't talk with me. Neither would my brothers. My sister did. We'd always had a special relationship, being the last of the six. But it was awkward with her, too. So I got on a plane and flew out there. I went straight to the cemetery.” He took a shaky breath. Tears brimmed on his lower lids. “Looking at that grave with the dirt that hadn't had time to grow grass . . . looking at that stone that had just barely been carved . . . I thought . . . I thought that was the most awful moment in my life, but I was wrong. I hadn't been there more than ten minutes when my father arrived. He came up the hill with his head down and his shoulders huddled, like he was ninety years old. He couldn't have been more than twenty feet away when he looked up and stopped dead in his tracks. He straightened his spine, took a cold breath, and told me what he thought of me. Then he turned right around and walked back down the hill.”

Bree held her breath. “Did you go after him?”

“I called, but he didn't stop, and it was weird, after all those years, but I just couldn't leave my mother, couldn't leave her alone in that place, so I stayed awhile. Then I went to the house. He was there. I saw him through the window. He was there, but he refused to open the door when I knocked, and he's right. Looking at me—knowing the opportunities I had that the others didn't have—knowing everything I didn't do when I could have—knowing all that I squandered—knowing how I let
my own mother
down at a time when there was literally no tomorrow . . . all that must be hell for him.”

Present tense. “Still? You haven't talked with him since then?”

“I try. I call every few weeks. He won't talk.” He looked down. “That was ten months ago. I went back to New York after that, but I hated it. Nothing fit me the way it had before. I didn't call people, they didn't call me. I sat alone in the loft that I had thought was so chic, and I hated the chrome and the leather and the gloss, and in the middle of that . . . starkness, all I could do was think about the people I wanted to be with, who I couldn't be with because, one by one over the years, I had picked them off and tossed them away like they were pieces of lint messing up my Armani tux.”

He stopped talking. Slowly, he raised his eyes. They were bleak, challenging her to say what a worm he was.

But Bree couldn't. She didn't know the Tom who had done those things. The one she knew had been attentive to a fault. He had given up nights of sleep to see to her, had put his own needs second to hers. “You haven't tossed me away,” she said, going at the tension in his jaw with small strokes of her thumbs.

She felt a faint easing in him. “Things are different here. The change has been good.”

“Things here are basic. And you're basically good.”

“I don't know as I'd go
that
far,” he said, but she could see that he was pleased, pleased and so very close to her that when the first glints of warmth reached his eyes, she felt them.

Her thumbs slid up and back under his jaw. “What about writing?” It was time she asked about that.

In a reprise of disdain, he grunted. “I haven't written anything worth reading in four years.”

“That's not true.”

“Tell me honestly. Which of my books did you think were stronger, the first or the last?”

She thought back. “It's hard to compare. The last one was shorter—”

“And more shallow and less well plotted. I went through the motions of writing, but I wasn't involved. That last book was awful.”

Bree wouldn't have used the word
awful.
But he was right about depth and plotting. “Still, lots of people read it.”

“They sure did. It sat right at the top of the best-seller lists, so I told myself it was great. Now I can say that it wasn't. That'd be my second wish. To rewrite that book and the one before it.”

“And the third wish?”

His eyes softened. A small smile touched his mouth. “A kiss.”

Pleased, she smiled back, pointed to her lips, raised her brows.

“Yes, you,” he said.

Something about the reality of what was about to happen caught a tiny train of her thought, and for an instant, just an instant, she wondered if she was buying trouble, playing with fire, with a man like Tom. Then the instant passed. It didn't have a chance against all he had come to mean to her.

“Consider this your lucky day,” she said, and didn't have far to go, not with Tom meeting her halfway, but it wasn't his mouth she thought of first. It was his hands, one cupping the back of her head, the other threading through her hair in gentle possession, then both moving to shift her head, hold it, caress it with exquisite intimacy. She had guessed that his hands could do anything they tried, and she was right. His hands knew how to kiss.

Not that his mouth did a bad job. It was gentle but firm, soothing, challenging. It opened hers and ate from it, staying one step ahead in anticipation of her needs, and when those needs escalated to the point where her insides were humming and breath was scarce, it knew to withdraw.

Too fast.
She clutched his shoulders and tried to steady herself.
Too hot, too fast.
He put his forehead to hers. There was heat there, too.

He dragged in a long, deep, shuddering breath and let it out with a tortured moan that said he wanted more but had no intention of taking it then.

Different. So different from other men. And sweet.

What if he loved me?
Bree thought, then chased the thought away and simply enjoyed the moment for its closeness, which was so much more than she'd ever had that it was beautiful even if there wasn't love.

After several minutes' cooling, Tom pulled the pillows down from the wrought iron at the head of the bed and set them where they belonged. He switched off the light, helped Bree slide under the quilt, and stretched out on top of it. He lay on his side, facing her. Incredibly, given the pleasure of it, they weren't even touching when they fell asleep.

 

As November nights went, this one was cold. Had Bree's furnace gone on, Tom would have been fine. But the room was chilly when he woke up, and Bree seemed plenty warm, all bundled up. So he slipped under the side of the quilt where she wasn't, pulled it up to his neck, and went back to sleep.

 

Bree opened her eyes at dawn. Her head lay on Tom's arm, her cheek on his shirt just above his elbow. He lay on his side with his eyes closed, dark lashes resting not far from the yellowing remnants of a bruise and a fading suture line. She reached up to touch it but stopped just shy and drew her hand back. Holding it tucked to her throat, she looked more.

His hair fell onto his forehead from a mussed, off-center part. His ear was neatly formed and small-lobed, his sideburns neither short nor long. A day's growth of beard added even greater texture to his face than that already left by the sun. His tan was just starting to fade.

That tan had been the cause for much speculation. LeeAnn had bet it was from the jungle, Flash from a tanning parlor, Dotty—with a disapproving sniff—from a beach “for
naked
people.” Bree had always figured that a man didn't have to be nude to get tanned on his face, throat, and arms, which was as much as any of them had ever seen of Tom, until now.

Now, with his shirt unbuttoned, Bree saw that the tan covered his chest—no surprise, since she knew that he had spent much of the summer in the yard behind his house, preparing the ground and laying stone for the terrace she so admired. She imagined that his chest muscles had grown while he was doing that work, though she assumed they hadn't been small to start with. But they were certainly impressive, tight and well formed, his skin dusted with tawny hair that spread wide before tapering. His entire torso tapered along with it, right down to a lean waist and hips that were angled slightly forward.

She let her hand go this time. The backs of her fingers brushed the hair at the center of his chest and found it surprisingly soft, but the warmth coming from the skin beneath it was no surprise. Even more than the quilt, he had kept her warm while the rest of the room got colder and colder.

The furnace needed another kick. One of these days, even that wouldn't work.

Then again, if she had Tom in her bed, the furnace could die for good and she wouldn't care. His warmth was a wonder. She could feel it stealing into her, stealing ever so slowly, deeper and deeper.

Fingers spread, her palm whispered its way down his chest to the tauntingly low point where the snap of his jeans lay open. She withstood the taunting for only a minute before, less steadily, folding her hand over the snap and holding on tight. The heat there was intense, his hardness unmistakable.

“Having fun?” came a thick voice from above.

Bree tried to find a reason why she shouldn't do this. Nothing came to her, except that life was too short for one to pass some things up. She had died and come back. Next time she could as easily die for good. So maybe Tom had a dark side, and maybe, just maybe, he would break her heart. But right here, right now, he had the power to make her feel loved. And right here, right now, that was all she wanted.

Was she having fun? “I
am,”
she said, with a grin.

“Can I join in?”

She raised her mouth in answer, and in that very instant knew she had made the right choice. His kiss was everything she had dreamed a morning kiss would be. It held the sweetness of rest, the warmth of intimacy, the fire of awakening. Slipping fully into his arms was the most natural, most exciting thing in the world. It was where they had been headed since she had woken up in the hospital little more than a month before and found him there.

He fit her. Hands, chest, hips, legs—everything wound and pressed in its proper place as though it had been there dozens of times before. Only the arousal was new. It simmered through kisses, grew more heated through touches. It positively sparked when clothing came off, and when the freedom of that allowed for even greater intimacy, it burst into flame.

Bree had expected to feel twinges of pain when she stretched hard against him, but there were none. Nor were there any when his kisses moved down her body, because in this, too, he knew where she had been. His gentleness was a turn-on, as was the catch in his breath when he first saw her scars and the feel of his mouth there moments later.

If this was love, Bree had never even come close to receiving it before. If this was love, she never wanted to feel anything but.

He knew what she wanted and gave it, always in charge, ever careful. In a voice that was low but made rough by desire, he let her know that.
Can I? Does this hurt? Let me kiss you there.
He never gave her the brunt of his weight, not even when he made a place for himself between her thighs, and then, though the drive in him had his arms shaking as he held himself above her, he asked if he needed a condom.

Bree shook her head, a frantic no. Her men always wore condoms, but there was no need, no need at all with Tom. She urged him lower. For the care he took when he entered her, she might have been a virgin.

Emotionally, she was. For the very first time, her heart was involved, and the beauty of that was stunning. It enhanced everything she felt, made everything hotter and richer, drove her higher than she would have thought possible several weeks before. It made her feel that anything,
anything
was possible if she only dared take the chance. For a split second, at the very first moment of orgasm, her world was so blindingly bright that she thought she had died again. The realization that she hadn't only heightened the pleasure.

 

Tom felt pretty damn good. He had his favorite corner booth, a good book, a super turkey club with a double dose of Flash's curly fries, his favorite Sleepy Creek Pale, and Bree. She was moving from table to table, from the counter to the grill to the kitchen. Every time he caught her eye, she blushed.

Finally, she slid into his booth with her back to the rest of the diner and, trying to be stern, whispered, “Stop
looking
at me that way. I can't do my job. My hands start shaking. I forget what I'm supposed to be doing. It's embarrassing.”

“You're doing just fine.”

“You know what I mean.”

“How do you feel?”

“Surprisingly good.”

“Doesn't surprise
me,”
he said. The second time around, she had made love to him in ways she couldn't have if she hadn't been healed. She was more woman than he had ever held in his arms.

Now she looked him in the eye, touched her tongue to the bow of her lips and left it there for a reminiscent moment, before pulling it back in, giving him a smart look, and sliding out of the booth. He imagined that her hips swayed as she sauntered away.

Moaning softly, he shifted on the bench. He was staring after Bree, thinking that redemption felt sinfully good, when a blond mess of hair surfaced on the other side of the table. It was a minute before Joey Little's face appeared.

“Hello,” said Tom.

Joey stared.

“Well, hello back,” Tom said.

Joey looked away for only as long as it took to settle himself on the bench.

“Have you had lunch?” Tom asked.

Joey nodded.

“What did you eat?” Tom asked. When Joey didn't answer, he said, “You have a macaroni-and-cheese mustache.”

Joey sucked in his lips.

“Macaroni and cheese?” Tom asked.

Joey nodded.

Tom reached for the cap he had twisted off his beer bottle. He set it in front of him, took aim, and gently flicked it toward Joey. When it barely moved past the center of the table, he brought it back and tried again. This time it landed within inches of the table's edge.