Half Moon Hill: A Destiny Novel Page 26

  It was late in the day, and the El Dorados sang “Forever Loving You,” the music pouring out the window over them, when she said, “Think I’m gonna go put together a casserole for dinner.”

  “Sounds good,” he said with only a light glance her way.

  “I’ll let you know a few minutes before it’s ready so you can clean up.”

  He gave a short nod in reply.

  That was part of the routine they’d fallen into—they’d continued to eat lunch and dinner together when she was home; since he was there working at mealtimes, it only made sense. The chicken casserole she was about to make was a simple one, the recipe coming from Tessa, who was too busy to cook much more than Anna did. And just like when working together, she and Duke didn’t talk much during the meals, but he always thanked her, and even though she knew he was a big boy and could take care of himself, it still made her feel good to know he was eating something he hadn’t had to catch in a lake and cook over a campfire.

  After a quick shower, Anna threw together the casserole, put it in the oven, and then decided to give herself a treat while it baked. She’d been so busy the last couple of weeks that she’d barely had a chance to read Cathy’s diary. And in fact, the last time she’d stopped, she’d finished the first volume, and so now she picked up the second and carried it out onto the screened porch, settling on the wicker sofa to read.

  Tonight when Mother and Daddy attended evening church services, I stayed home, pretending to be sick. I hate to lie, especially on the Lord’s day, but all I know is that it didn’t feel wrong. And that I have to follow my heart because it’s the heart God gave me, after all.

  When they were gone, I met Robert in the woods and we walked to the lake and took a ride in the little red rowboat Daddy keeps for fishing but only takes out on the rare occasions when Uncle George comes to visit.

  I’ve never cared much for boats, but one ride with Robert changed that. I can honestly say I never realized the lake was so pretty. I never noticed how the willows droop down over the south bank, almost dipping into the water. I never knew the sun setting behind the woods on the far side could make the trees glow orange and pink.

  When Robert had rowed to the center, he gave me one of his more devilish smiles and asked me what he got for all his hard work. I asked him what he wanted. And he told me a kiss would be nice. I was nervous, just like always so far, but at the same time it felt like the colors from that bright, glowy sunset were somehow running through my veins. And so I leaned over to kiss him, feeling ever so brave, ever so ready. But then I lost my balance and slipped off the wooden seat and ended up on my knees on the floor of the boat—and in Robert’s arms, because he caught me when I fell forward.

  My face was so close to his. And the closeness was maybe the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt. Embarrassed, I whispered that I hadn’t done that on purpose. And he grinned and teased me, saying, “Sure you didn’t.” And then we kissed for a very long while, so long that I got lost in it—and never wanted to be found.

  Last year in school we had to write an essay about the most wonderful place we’d ever been. I chose the city of Cincinnati because we go there every December to see the skyscrapers all lit up, and the toy train display, and the department store windows all decorated with sparkly immitation snow and reindeer whose heads move mechanically.

  But if I had to write that essay now . . . and, well, if I could be honest about it . . . I would write about floating in a rowboat across the lake hidden in our woods with Robert. I would write about kissing him there, surrounded by the tall summer trees and the calls of tree frogs and hoot owls. I would write that being on that lake in Robert’s arms is definitely the most wonderful, beautiful, heart-thrilling place I could ever be.

  Turning the diary facedown on her lap, Anna sighed. And felt at once how wondrous life and love were, and also how fleeting. If only we could freeze such perfect moments in time and just stay there, just keep them. What would my perfect moments be?

  She sucked in her breath as the answer came. Because they were all about Duke. Making love to him on the staircase, and in her bed. Dancing with him at the Dew Drop Inn. Driving along, the wind in her hair, stars twinkling above, with the gentle caress of his hand on her thigh.

  And the truth was, even earlier moments—being carried by him through the woods, feeling captured in his arms when she’d backed down the ladder—held a certain magic. Because she hadn’t known exactly what was happening—only that something was. She wished now that she’d realized those moments were important so she could have appreciated them more, savored them somehow.

  But then she bit her lip. Aren’t you supposed to be concentrating on Jeremy Sheridan now? Didn’t you decide that was the smart thing to do?

  She just let out a sigh, though, and faced the truth. I love Duke.

  And he might not love me back, and he might not be in my life for longer than it will take him to finish the house, but I love him anyway. And I’ll move on—maybe with Jeremy—but for this moment, right now, I’m just going to own my feelings and not deny them. I’m in love with Duke Dawson whether I like it or not. Or . . . maybe she was in love with David. Maybe David was the guy who’d danced with her even though he didn’t know how, the guy who’d opened up to her about his family, and his past. And maybe Duke was the one who’d run away from all that when it had . . . gotten too heavy for him or something.

  Picking Cathy’s diary back up, Anna continued reading. As usual, some of it was about everyday life in Destiny, but more and more of what she wrote focused on Robert. There were more clandestine dates—more boat rides on the lake, walks in the woods, picnics in the meadow filled with wildflowers.

  He tucked a daisy behind my ear. And then he made a chain of small purple flowers—statice, I think—and put them around my shoulders like a necklace.

  On another Sunday evening when Cathy feigned a headache, Robert pushed her in the swing hanging from the big maple tree, and Anna couldn’t help thinking how far Cathy had come from the days when she’d been so lonely that she’d counted butterflies as her friends.

  And on another voyage across the lake, Cathy brought her father’s camera.

  I took a picture of Robert across from me, and he took one of me, as well. Then we put our faces close together and Robert held the camera as far away as he could and took one of us together. His birthday is soon and so I’m going to secretly get the photos developed at the drugstore in town and frame them for him.

  And then Anna reached an even more stirring part of the diary.

  We lay on the blanket kissing beneath the sun, and to feel his body against mine gave me almost a sense of . . . drowning. But in a good way, if that makes any sense. And when his hands drifted onto my breasts, I didn’t move them. I couldn’t. God help me, I had longed for his touch there, and when it came, it felt like being touched everywhere.

  When he unbuttoned my blouse, I let him. Neither of us spoke. I remember hearing grasshoppers chirping, and the song of a bird somewhere. I ached to give myself to him. And I have wondered and worried if that’s wrong, and I always come back to the same answer—following the heart God put inside me.

  And so when he undid my blouse and then even my bra, I didn’t protest. I even—heavens above—found myself arching, somehow trying to push my breasts more thoroughly into his hands.

  His touch made my whole body feel . . . liquid and melty, that’s the only way I can describe it. And when he kissed me there . . . I couldn’t have imagined such pleasure.

  He told me he’d fallen in love with me. I confessed that I loved him, too.

  And I would have denied him nothing in that moment, I’m quite sure—but he stopped there, telling me it was best, reminding me how young I am. I pointed out that I’m sixteen, and that his being eighteen doesn’t make him so awfully much older. He said he thought I was a young sixteen and he was an old eighteen.

  Something in that stung, made me feel silly and naive. And I asked him what he
was saying. Was he saying he loved me and then getting ready to break my heart all on one hot September day?

  But then he said he just thought it was best to go slow, that he didn’t want me to do anything I might regret later. And it’s very good of him, I think, to care enough to show that sort of restraint. And yet . . . I fear I want him to be unable to show restraint. I want him to be mad with desire for me. Because then I would know we both feel exactly the same way, and after that . . . well, nothing could happen that I would ever regret.

  Slipping the ribbon she’d been using as a bookmark in between the diary’s pages, Anna snapped the book shut. She could smell her casserole and knew it was probably ready, and she hadn’t even warned Duke to give him time to clean up. She’d been too swept up in Cathy’s first love. She knew those feelings, that desire. And she wondered desperately what would happen next, how Cathy’s love affair with her Robert would end up.

  But at the same time, maybe she didn’t want to know. Because if Robert ended up breaking Cathy’s heart . . . well, she thought she was dealing very maturely and capably with her own broken heart at the moment, but if Cathy’s heart got broken on top of that, she feared it might just make her crumble to pieces and decide there was no such thing as real, lasting love and that she’d be afraid to ever risk her heart again.

  But . . . maybe Robert won’t break her heart at all. Maybe they’ll find a way to be happy. Maybe Cathy’s father will come to accept him. Maybe I’ll discover they got married and lived for many happy years together in this house before he died and she ended up here alone.

  But either way, Anna thought it seemed like high time to set the diary aside and go take her casserole out of the oven. Then she’d have another quiet meal with her heartbreaker, waiting to see what tomorrow would bring.

  Duke was almost sorry to find out the next morning that Anna wasn’t working at the bookstore today and didn’t have any plans. It was a Saturday and he’d figured she’d be gone for at least part of the day.

  The truth was that she’d been a pretty big help lately. And that there were times he was finding it nicer to work with somebody than to work alone. Which told him that his self-imposed isolation wouldn’t last forever. Spending time with Anna, and then Lucky, as well as the one night out he’d had with them and Tessa, had shown him that maybe he really was starting to miss being with people. And maybe he didn’t want to be quite so invisible anymore. Maybe he was done with trying not to exist. It sure as hell hadn’t worked anyway.

  But he also continued to value some alone time.

  And more than that, the longer he was around Anna, and the nicer she was to him . . . the harder it got. Not to want her.

  Well, he’d never stopped wanting her, but it was getting harder to push those hellaciously strong urges aside.

  When he’d seen her with Tessa’s brother, it had been like a light bulb going on over his head: You’re not right for her. You’re not good for her. You’d better realize that and stop with all the damn talking and sharing. In fact, you should get out now, before this gets any heavier. He still wasn’t sure even now how the hell he’d ended up in such heavy places with her. Since when did he go baring his damn soul to people anyway? You’d think living in the woods alone for a couple of months would have made you better at shutting the hell up and keeping stuff to yourself.

  But damn, the fact was . . . he still wanted her. If he was honest with himself, he fucking ached for her. It was hard to work with her, even in silence, and not be agonizingly aware of her body. Her boobs filled out the little tank tops she wore all too well and it was no secret, to him or to her, that he’d had a thing for those short denim shorts from day one. He wondered if she had any idea that there were times when he was working with a hard-on, when he was hammering a nail but instead thinking how much he wanted to nail her to the new yellow siding or the newly repaired porch.

  And he was beginning to wonder . . . if he didn’t let shit get heavy between them again, if they just kept it all light, and hot, about fun and sex, if they could get back to that.

  Nah, would never work. Once you’ve gone there, you can’t back away from it.

  But as he looked over at her where she stood painting the new porch rail, he wanted her so much that his fingers itched with yearning to touch her, and his cock twitched with the rough need to plunge back into her tight warmth. Damn, they were good together in bed. And on the couch. And on the stairs. And right now, if he could, he’d happily take her right here on the front porch in broad daylight.

  But then he remembered—Tessa’s brother.

  Maybe Anna had already fallen for him. Yeah, she’d seemed pretty broken up over Duke backing off with her, but she seemed a lot better with it all now, so maybe things with the war hero had really taken off. Maybe she’d want nothing to do with Duke if he made a move on her anyway.

  “Since I Don’t Have You” by the Skylines echoed through the window—in recent days Anna had resumed playing the old records she’d found in the attic and he liked that it filled the quiet space between them. So it came as a surprise to him—probably as much as to her—when he suddenly decided not to be silent anymore.

  “Heard you’re seeing Tessa’s brother.” He tossed a quick glance her way, but by the time she looked over, he’d returned his gaze to the paintbrush he swept back and forth over new wood already primed in white.

  “Any reason I shouldn’t be?” she asked.

  Feeling her pointed look, he just said, “No,” as casually as he could. Then he dipped his brush in the paint tray and smoothed more white paint onto the porch.

  A few minutes passed—he didn’t know how long. The harmonizing voices of the El Dorados spilled through the window to his left. Then he heard himself ask her what he really wanted to know. “Is it serious? With that guy?”

  Now it was she who kept her eyes on her work as she answered, her tone much more easygoing than before. Maybe even kind of . . . aloof. “I just met him.”

  Yeah, well, you’d just met me, too, when things started up and they still seemed pretty damn serious—no matter what I said about it. “Is that a yes or a no?”

  “No, actually,” she said, now seeming almost haughty about it. “At least not yet. Why?”

  He gave his head a short shake, tried to sound unconcerned. “Just wondering.” But . . . shit—he was happy and sad at the same time. If she’d said it was serious, it would have made it a whole lot easier to just leave the idea—of being with her again—alone. Which sounded smart, and . . . safe. But at the same time, he couldn’t deny a sense of relief that she wasn’t head over heels with the dude.

  But you still can’t make a move.

  No matter how good she looks, no matter how good she’d feel.

  No matter how much you still sense that weird electricity between the two of you that started this whole thing.

  So he wouldn’t. He’d just put it out of his head and keep working on the house. And ignoring his urges as best he could.

  Even if a mere glance just then tightened his groin.

  It’s okay. Just keep working. You’ve done it all this time—just keep on doing it.

  Anna bided her time, focused on her work, and then—eventually—dared sneak a surreptitious glance in Duke’s direction. What was with him and all the questions? It was one of the longest conversations they’d had since . . . since things were good between them. And the nerve of him to even ask! Seriously! He dumps me and then interrogates me about seeing another guy? Who did that?

  But maybe he’s glad—like relieved—that I’m seeing someone else. Maybe he just wants to make himself feel better, like he didn’t abandon me. Whatever. Jerk.

  She looked back to her paintbrush, concentrated on covering a deep nick in the wood.

  And then she let herself peek back over at him again. Who had told him about Jeremy? Lucky? Had to be.

  And why did he have to look so hot, damn it? Why did he have to be so darn muscular? She’d personally never been
much of a tattoo-loving girl, but somewhere along the way, the inked motorcycle on his arm had begun to appeal. Vroom, vroom.

  Crap. Stop lusting over what you can’t have and get back to work.

  As Anna continued painting, she was almost angry at Duke for even starting that kind of discussion with her, for making her think he might care, for reminding her—even if not directly—that she and he had so recently had a closer relationship. But that they weren’t close anymore.

  And right when she’d been doing so well, too. Or . . . sort of, anyway. Right when she’d come to appreciate just spending time with him, even if silently, but convincing herself there would never be any more than that. It wasn’t as if she’d ever quit wanting him, feeling that gut-deep tug between them, that powerful chemistry. But she’d at least managed to make some peace with it and accept that the good part—the amazing part—of their relationship was over.

  Well, it is. Just get that through your head. He’s made it more than perfectly clear, after all.

  And I wouldn’t want him now anyway. Not after the way he just pulled the rug out from under me emotionally. Chemistry or not.

  Seeing that the paint tray resting on the porch between them was nearly empty, Anna lowered her brush to the edge, then stood to go get the paint can and refill it. She started past Duke—when his hand shot out to close firm around her ankle.

  She flinched, going still. “What is it?” she asked, thinking something was wrong.

  She peered down at his handsome face—just as his grip softened, and he grazed his work-roughened palm up her leg, over her knee, and onto her inner thigh.

  She sucked in her breath, feeling the touch in her panties as she read the pure lust in his eyes.

  Oh boy. Now she knew why he’d asked.