When the Stars Come Out--A Cottonbloom Novel Read online

  She cleared her throat and stepped away. He let her go. They were in a constant dance of coming together then pulling apart.

  River lifted her head where she was curled up in the corner of his couch. Willa went over, scratched under her chin, and dropped a kiss on her furry head. River licked her cheek and settled her head back on her paws.

  “You hungry? I could rustle up some soup and crackers. Maybe a grilled cheese?” he asked.

  “I’m always hungry.” She gave a little ironic smile.

  Behind the smile lurked depressing implications. How many nights had she gone to bed hungry? Or cold? How many nights had she gone to bed scared or lonely or desperate?

  “I left a towel in the bathroom. Make yourself at home,” he said even though there were a million other things swirling in his head. A million other things he wanted to offer her besides food and a hot shower.

  She disappeared into the bathroom with one of her bags and the toiletry case. He stood and listened to the sound of the water for a few minutes. It was a small comfort knowing she was here and safe for now. He heated up canned chicken noodle soup and buttered bread for grilled cheese. The smell never failed to invoke his childhood.

  They’d lived on soup and grilled cheese as kids when their pop had been too busy working to fix dinner, which was most nights. The aunts had brought over casseroles once or twice a week, but food didn’t survive long with four boys in the house.

  The self-sufficiency and independence he’d gained had carried into adulthood. If the accusations of his few girlfriends were any indication, he was too self-sufficient and independent. He’d never needed them like they seemed to need him.

  Willa was the opposite. She fought needing anyone—especially him. Was the compulsion a defensive habit or was that how she really wanted to live?

  River sat up and Jackson stopped stirring to stare at the bathroom door. She stepped out in yoga pants and a T-shirt that read CAT HAIR IS LONELY PEOPLE GLITTER with an uneven scattering of sequins.

  Without the hundred layers and with her damp hair tamed and tucked behind her ears, she looked so pretty his breath shuddered out. How had he gone nearly two years with blinders on where she was concerned? Maybe it had to do with self-preservation. Willa was a force of nature when he was used to living on placid waters.

  * * *

  “Smells good.” Unable to endure his examination a moment longer, Willa cracked the silence.

  “You don’t have a cat.” The weirdly domestic sight of him cooking offset the rough, sexy edge of his voice.

  “No, but I assume whoever dropped it off at the secondhand shop did.” She touched the rough sequins on her shirt with an eye roll, but her gaze streaked to his to assess his reaction. “After the tornado, most of my stuff was ruined, and I didn’t have the funds to jaunt off to the mall.”

  Instead of reacting with pity or sympathy, he laughed. “Things are starting to make more sense.”

  Her stomach felt like it was being dragged across river rocks. The dig at her wardrobe stung more than it should have. “I know I’m not fashionable like Sutton, but—”

  “Not that.” He waved her over to a small stereo and handed her a CD.

  It was Outkast. She shrugged and handed it back. “So?”

  “You were wearing an Outkast T-shirt at Rufus’s. You said it was your favorite band. Are they really?”

  She’d forgotten about that. A giggle escaped. A giggle? She stifled it immediately. “No. I do have a fading smidge of pride left. I didn’t want to admit where I bought it. Are they any good?” She handed him the case back.

  “Not bad, but not my style. I was trying to figure out what you liked about them.”

  The significance of his admission hit her like a slap upside her head. He had listened to Outkast to try to understand her. Who did that? No one she’d ever met before.

  “That was really sweet of you, Jackson.” Where had that wobble in her voice come from?

  Thankfully, he didn’t call her on it. “Soup and sandwiches are ready.”

  While he doled out two bowls, she located silverware on the second try and set the table. He plopped down a box of crackers between them and sat down across from her. It was … homey and nice. Really nice. Like “she could get used to it real quick” nice.

  Before she could panic, he asked, “If it’s not Outkast, who is your favorite band?”

  The small talk calmed her impulses, and she dipped the corner of her grilled cheese into the soup. “Music isn’t really my thing. I like the classic rock that you guys play in the shop okay. The radio in the Honda was broken when I … got it.” She stumbled over the words, not quite a lie, but not the truth either. She forced a smile. “I guess you’re a big Eagles fan?”

  “They’re all right. Pop liked the classic stuff. It would be weird to hear anything else in the garage. Around here, I listen mostly to country. Some Southern rock. I’m a simple man with simple tastes.” He smiled and his dimples flashed.

  Simple, her butt. He was the most complicated of all the brothers. “You keep telling yourself that, stud.”

  The shift in mood was immediate and tangible. Even though she’d said it with a certain amount of tease, there was no denying the sexual undertones. Or overtones. All sorts of tones were blaring like tornado warnings. She concentrated on her soup as a potent silence spread.

  “I wish you’d told me your trailer got trashed during the tornado.” His voice was low and rumbly. “I would have helped.”

  That day was imprinted on her memories, but not because of the loss of her trailer. The time she’d spent huddled in the back storage room of the garage with Jackson had cemented her infatuation with him. She hadn’t been working at the garage more than a couple of months, still feeling out the brothers and Mr. Hobart and always on guard in case one of them got any ideas.

  The roaring wind overhead had forced her to abandon her position of aloofness. The fear was raw and primal and acute. Different from the gnawing anxiety she grappled with on a daily basis. She had latched on to him, the one warm solid thing in her existence at the time. He’d been stoic and calm and exactly what she’d needed in the dark.

  “I hadn’t been working at the garage long and my experience with people—men in particular—is that help isn’t free and the price is usually more than I’m willing to pay.” She kept her voice light, but his expression turned stormy.

  “I’m not like that. None of us Abbotts are.” He shrugged, and his face cleared of most of the darkness. “Except for Ford. He probably would expect something.”

  “Yep. He’s one reason I tried to stick with you at work at the beginning.” She grabbed a cracker and stuffed it into her mouth. The defense mechanisms that kept her silent had obviously been shorted out by the snow. At this rate, she’d spill her life story before the soup got cold.

  “And here I thought it was because of how good-looking I am.” The self-deprecating edge to his voice made her want to crawl into his lap and do things she’d only dreamed about.

  Yes, he enriched her fantasy life, but no way was she going to confess that. Instead, she forced a tease into her voice. “Well, you are the pick of the litter, but that’s not why I like working with you.”

  “Then it’s my extraordinary skill under the hood?”

  That was true too, and at his side, her expertise had grown leaps and bounds. She could certainly claim his mechanic prowess as the reason she preferred working with him over his brothers. But, in this at least, she could offer a partial truth.

  “After the tornado, I felt safe with you. Wyatt and Mack are nice and all, but they’re not…” special. Her brain finally clamped off her mouth.

  “Willa.” The way he said her name was both heartbreaking and hopeful.

  The longer they stared, the more fractured her breathing became. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she stood. “I’ll clean up.”

  “Not a chance.” He took the bowl out of her hands, stacked it on top of his own, and p
ut them both in the sink. “Dishes will keep. How about I make some hot chocolate and we enjoy the snow while it lasts?”

  Thankful for the chance to escape for even a few minutes to compose herself, she retreated to the window. The flurries had lightened, but enough had already fallen to dust the ground and decorate the trees as if Mother Nature had sifted powdered sugar over Cottonbloom.

  Her reflection wavered indistinctly in the window, as if she were a ghost. And wasn’t she close? She was living a half-life between past and present, truth and lie. She was tired. Tired of being strong and silent. The loneliness was like hauling around chains that added links every year.

  Jackson joined her and handed over a mug with a few floating marshmallows. His reflection somehow seemed more solid than hers. She took a sip, the rich sweetness recalling the simplicity of her childhood.

  “That hat you wear. For a long time, I assumed it was an ex-boyfriend’s, but it’s your dad’s, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it’s his.” Both good and bad memories were connected to the hat. “He was straightforward and honest. Taught me everything he knew. I worked in the garage from the time I became useful. Worked the register at first, but he had always let me tinker. Bought me an old engine when I was ten and taught me how to take it apart and put it back together.”

  “You must have enjoyed it.”

  “I did. Plus, I got to hang out with him, which sounds totally geeky, I know. When I got on up in high school, things changed.” One of her biggest regrets. If she’d spent her spare hours at the shop fixing cars instead of trying to fit in, would everything have worked out differently?

  “How so?”

  “He remarried.” It was an old story. The wicked stepmother. Except she hadn’t been. Not really.

  The snow petered out as they stood and watched darkness stretch across the sky. The world was preternaturally quiet. She felt like one of the kids from the Narnia books after they’d stepped out of the wardrobe into an enchanted land.

  He slipped the mug from her hands and set it down on the coffee table. She kept her gaze on his reflection as he paused behind her, not touching her but close enough for his heat to radiate.

  After a near eternity, he wrapped his arms around her from behind, one low on her waist, the other heavy and solid over her chest. She should step away and distance herself from the spiderweb of entanglements. Instead, the elephant-sized weight on her heart ambled to the corner of the room, not gone but ignored.

  She leaned back into his chest and reveled in his strength, both physical and emotional. Was it so wrong to take comfort in his arms? She wouldn’t let it go too far.

  His heat was near incinerating. She would never be cold in his arms. To someone who’d spent more than her fair share of nights shivering in a ball under scant covers, it mattered. She turned her head and nuzzled her forehead into his neck, the stubble at his jaw rasping across her skin. Shivers erupted.

  She took hold of his arm across her chest. His forearm was a thing of beauty. A part of his body worthy of being sculpted by a famous artist. Now instead of visually admiring it, she took her time exploring the crisp hair, the soft skin of the underside, and muscled ridges with both hands.

  He coasted his lips along the shell of her ear to her jaw and tightened his arm around her waist, fitting them together. Good thing, as her knees wobbled and weakness flooded her system. Or was the heavy, sugared feeling pure arousal?

  Her experience with men varied from quick teenaged grappling in the back of cars with Derrick to pinches and grabs inflicted when she least expected it. Whatever tender alchemy Jackson performed was foreign and intoxicating.

  She turned her head enough to detour his wandering lips to hers. A gaspy moan escaped her when his mouth found hers. She didn’t have time to get embarrassed. Urgency thrummed, and he bypassed the coaxing preliminaries of their last kiss. His tongue pressed for entrance, and she didn’t hesitate to open for him.

  His grip on her hip had a slight bite, but in concert with his tongue and lips, it only fed her arousal. Heat coiled in her lower belly. She arched her back and pressed her bottom into his pelvis, trepidation and excitement warring.

  He switched his hold and scooped her into his arms, moving so fast her head swam. She squeezed her eyes even tighter, wanting to stay in her semidream state. Any light behind her eyelids was snuffed out and she peeked. They were in his bedroom, the king-sized bed against the wall getting closer. His profile was unreadable in the darkness. She leaned forward to press kisses along his jaw.

  The world tipped again as she made contact with the mattress. A portion of his weight settled over her, but he held himself over her on his elbows. He speared his fingers into her hair and held her still while he resumed dominating her senses with his lips.

  He rocked his hips slightly, and her legs spread to accommodate him without an order from her brain. His erection ground against her. After so many years of forcing her desires dormant, her body was slick and begging.

  She slipped her hands under his shirt and explored his back with fingertips and nails. He hissed in a breath and arched into her touch. Power zinged through her like a lit fuse. She moved her hands ever higher. He propped himself up, grabbed the back of his shirt with one hand, and jerked it off in a less-than-graceful motion.

  Instead of coming back over her, he slid his hand under the hem of her T-shirt and stroked the bare skin of her stomach. Her muscles flexed in response. He lifted the edge of her shirt, and between the two of them, her shirt joined his on the floor.

  She wrapped her hands around his biceps and tried to pull him back over her so he wouldn’t have time to evaluate and judge her cheap white very nonsexy bra.

  “You’re amazing. Everything I’ve dreamed about,” he whispered.

  The words shot ice into her veins. He brushed his lips over hers, but she was frozen and unable to respond with an answering fire. She wasn’t amazing. She was a liar and had lived a nightmare, not a dream.

  She pushed at his chest and scooched backward on the bed, hitting the mass of pillows and trapping herself in the corner.

  “What’s wrong?” He knelt on the bed, sitting back on his heels. His voice had gone wonky in her ears as her heart pumped furiously.

  “I’ve been lying to you. To all of you.” Her conscience tried to soothe her frazzled nerves. Omission of the truth wasn’t as bad as outright lying, was it?

  “I figured.” He moved toward her, but she held up a hand and he stopped. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “What if you hate me?”

  “I won’t.” He said it with such certainty that she almost believed him. Almost.

  She drew in a shaky breath and whispered, “I hate myself sometimes.”

  “It can’t be that terrible, Willa. What’d you do, kill someone?” The slight tease in his voice didn’t make headway through the ominous distance that separated them.

  “Yes.” The word croaked out. She grabbed a pillow and used it to cover herself. A weak sort of protection when the damage done wouldn’t be physical.

  “Self-defense? Was your ex hurting you?”

  Now the literal moment of truth was upon her, she found the story ready to burst from her like an infected wound needing cauterizing.

  “Not my ex, my best friend. She died of a drug overdose.”

  “Did you make her swallow pills or force her to shoot up?”

  “Of course not.” She buried her face in the pillow and didn’t worry about whether he could make out the words. Her confession was as much for herself as him. “But I introduced her to my boyfriend. Derrick sold pot around our high school. He was funny and charming and made me feel … important.”

  The high school social hierarchy seemed so unimportant now. If-onlys went on repeating as usual.

  “What happened to your friend?”

  “Her name was Cynthia.” Her best friend had snorted when she laughed and bit her fingernails to the quick. She’d loved pineapple on her pizza a
nd listened to old-school R.E.M. She wasn’t a nameless, faceless, forgotten statistic. “She loved Derrick’s parties. Neither one of us had ever been popular in school. It seemed harmless, mostly pot and alcohol.”

  Willa had felt so grown-up with a beer in one hand and a joint in the other. She’d even considered dropping out, but Cynthia wouldn’t hear of it. She had loved school. Her dream had been to go to college and teach elementary school. So Willa had stuck it out, but after graduation, she’d drifted, lost and rudderless, while Cynthia had started classes at the community college.

  “After high school, we didn’t hang out as often. Maybe I was a little jealous that she seemed to know what she wanted out of life. I don’t know.” Her feelings back then were like a faded black-and-white picture. “But she never missed one of Derrick’s parties, and he and I stayed together for a while. Until I found a stash of heroin in his trunk.”

  She’d been shocked and terrified, of course. Confronting him had only confused her. He’d told her it was a one-time deal. God, she’d been so naïve.

  The bed shifted as she continued to excise the story bit by bit. “Cynthia wanted one hit, she said. Just to say she’d done it. I tried to stop her, but not hard enough. Derrick said it would be fine, even tried to talk me into taking some, but I was scared.”

  “Did she OD?”

  “No. When she came down, she said it wasn’t even that good, and I was relieved. After that, Derrick changed, or maybe he stopped pretending with me. He could be mean.”

  “Did he hurt you?” Anger roughed his voice even more than usual.

  Derrick had shattered her in ways she was still understanding, but that’s not what Jackson was asking. “He broke up with me. Said I was too immature and needy. It was hard, and I pretty much shut myself off from everyone including my dad and Cynthia. At the time, I thought it was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.”

  “But it got worse.”

  “Way worse.” She made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “Cynthia still went to Derrick’s parties. I was so mad and hurt. I thought they had started dating so I ignored her calls and texts. Turns out she had tried heroin again. And again. She needed my help and I … I ignored her. Once I realized, I went looking for her and found her in his basement, high. Her arm was lined with at least a dozen needle tracks. I didn’t know what to do or who could help me.”