See Megan Run (15 page)

"Only with my chicken wings. Back to Uncle
Bobby, Mom is willing to have him and his wife stay at her
place."

"And where am I supposed to stay?"

Aiden sighed. "You can stay with me, but I’m
telling you now—the alcohol is for the party."

Butch patted Shep’s chest. "I promise to
steal only two bottles."

"None."

"The Bacardi. I hear Chandi’s here."

"No," both Aiden and Shep said.

"I wouldn’t do anything Jesus wouldn’t do.
Just lay hands on her."

"Adding blasphemy to ignorance," Shep pointed
out, but he sighed.

Aiden laughed. The bickering had only just
begun. Man, he loved his family.

*****

Twelve freaking days. Megan leaned against
the door to her bedroom. How would she survive it? She’d hidden in
her room for the last two days, only leaving for meals. She
couldn’t escape, and those meals had seemed to last for hours. She
placed a clammy hand over the tic in her left eye.
Deep breaths.
It’s only family
, she told herself again. She stilled and
placed her ear to the door, hearing them in the hallway. They were
coming for her.

She dived for the bed and pulled the covers
up to her neck. The knock at the door resembled her heart beating
against her rib cage. "Come in," she said, forcing the rasp in her
voice to stay there.

Hoping it would stay there.

Chandi came in first, with a tray, then Aunt
Bette tsking and tutting. Nicole trailed in with her arms crossed.
Her mother wasn’t buying her "sickness," but Nicole still hadn’t
ratted Megan out. She was starting to like her mother. Her stomach
cramped. Maybe playing sick had really made her sick.

"How are you feeling today, sweetheart?"
Bette asked.

"A little better." She made her voice small.
Nicole turned up her lip, but she didn’t say anything. "Really, I’m
fine, if I can get some sleep."

"Here, you need to eat for your strength.
Don’t want you sick on the wedding day."

These women were really nice when they
weren’t scouring over every detail of her life, most importantly
her love life and, most annoyingly, what she planned to do now that
Aiden was back in her life. She wanted to tell them, "Screw his
brains out if we could ever be alone again," but that would only be
opening herself up to more questions. These women didn’t seem to be
deterred by her cussing.

"I’ll feed her," Nicole offered.

"I think I can manage on my own."

"Nonsense," Bette said. "You’ll probably
spill it all over the good comforter. Let your mother help
you."

Mom might shove the spoon down my
throat
, Megan almost replied. "Thanks, Mother." She coughed for
effect. Nicole rolled her eyes again. Her mother waited until the
women left the room before she spoke.

"I should spoon you to death for leaving me
alone with them."

This was the last thing she expected her
mother to say. Megan’s only reply was, "What?"

Nicole sighed. "They are our family. I love
them, but they can be…" Nicole paused, searching for the word.
"Overwhelming."

Megan sat up. "You invited them."

"To the wedding. To come and see you, since
they haven’t seen you in a while."

The blame was there, and it pissed her off
more than being interrogated by family members. She tried to bite
the anger back, but it was there, glowing, hot, and ready to spew.
Had it been waiting? Probably. "What did you say when I left?"

"You went to college." Nicole said it as if
it were a no-brainer.

"Did you tell them why I left?"

Nicole picked up the spoon.

Megan held up her hand. "You lied to them,
didn’t you? You want them to believe I just woke up one morning and
decided to go to college a thousand miles away from here."

"You’re here now."

"And I bet they know the only reason why I’m
here."

The spoon clattered against the bowl.

"Everyone knows that, but no one knows how
Taylor cornered me, tried to feel me up, and offered me sex, so he
could have two for the price of one." Megan’s voice rose. She
should have seen her anger coming the moment things felt fine and
good, just when Megan was starting to think she could forgive her
mother.

"Let’s not forget how my mother called me a
liar when I told her. Why isn’t that in the gossip mill? Why isn’t
anyone asking me about the real reason why I left?"

When an answer didn’t come, Megan kept
talking. "You owe me, and that’s why you’re giving me the house.
It’s not because you’ve changed. You’re feeling guilty." Megan
moved away from her mother, needing the space, and the truth
finally hit her. "You’re buying my silence."

Nicole folded her hands in her lap. "I’m not
trying to buy you. What I want from you doesn’t have a price tag."
Nicole let out a breath. "That’s not why I’m giving you the
house."

"You’re not giving it to me. You are making
me stay here for your wedding. To Shep," Megan said softly. "Does
he know?"

Nicole’s silence told her the answer. "You
make me sick. It makes me physically ill to know I’m your
daughter."

"You don’t mean it. You’re angry right now."
Megan raised her brow. "Can you hear me out?"

Megan looked heavenward. "No. So you can
explain to me why I should let others think I’m cold-hearted, for
your benefit? So you can tell me how it’s more understanding to let
my family think I left on a whim, when it’s much more serious than
that?" Megan shook her head in disbelief. "There is nothing you can
say. I’m here for the house, and that’s it."

Megan went for the door, not caring that she
was supposed to be sick.

"And Aiden?"

Her hand stilled on the knob. "Weren’t you
warning me off from him? What is it now? You want me to be with
him?"

Megan heard the frustration in her mother’s
intake of breath. "If you don’t listen to anything else I tell
you…" She hesitated. "Don’t lead him on. If you don’t plan to be
with him, tell him."

"I have. Not that it’s your business."

Megan flew down the stairs, thinking her
exits like this were beginning to become a habit. She closed the
front door on Chandi’s and Bette’s voices in the living room. Megan
tensed again when she saw the green truck parked next to her
mother’s car. Her mother was wrong about this, too. If Nicole knew
about the ache in Megan’s chest, the fluttering in her stomach, and
how she got dizzy after every kiss, Nicole would understand it
wasn’t Aiden who stood to lose the most.

She’d always had the most to lose and, yes,
it burned, a lot, that no one else saw it the way she did. No one
seemed to notice how well things bounced off Aiden. The threat of a
million family members descending on his city, and Aiden took it in
stride and humor. Bumping heads with his ex-girlfriend, he seemed
impenetrable.

Megan was a ball of nerves and tics. Not
knowing how to act around him. Hiding in her room from her family.
Maybe sometime in the next millennium she’d forgive her mother for
choosing a man over her. Aiden would have handled it all with a
shrug and a smile. He would have moved on, forgiving everyone. He
should have woodland creatures fluttering around him, and a fairy
godfather.
God, god
. Everyone else might have shied away
from her in the mood brewing beneath the surface, but here he
was.

Aiden came toward her with a smile, and her
heart thudded in her chest. That was the most precious thing she
had to lose. Why could no one but her see it?

"Get me out of here."

The smile transformed into a frown.
"Okay."

Chapter 14

Only one thing made Megan this tense—her
mother. This was more than the she’s-on-my-back type of tension,
because the city limits were behind them and Megan was still mute.
He’d always known the women had their differences, but what mother
and daughter didn’t? Yet something in their relationship was
fractured and refused to heal.

"Are you going to tell me?" He slowed the car
and took the unpaved exit on Dead Man’s Curve.

She rolled down her window. "Nicole’s
thwacked out, and that’s the usual." She blew out a frustrated
breath. "I thought since I was older things would be different
between us. I’d have a real mother who wouldn’t try to foist off
responsibility on me."

Megan laughed. Aiden didn’t see the
humor.

"What is she asking you to do?" His hands
tightened on the steering wheel. He wanted to look at her, but he
kept his eyes on the road.

"She wants me to stay mum about why I left.
You’d think she wouldn’t care what people would think. It was
twelve years ago. Who cares if her fiancé then tried to feel me
up?"

Aiden stamped his foot on the brakes. "He
what?"

Megan frowned. "I thought I told you."

Aiden stared at the small path ahead. He
could only go forward until they hit the break in the trees. "I
didn’t know he touched you. She kicked you out over that?"

Megan nodded. "Is this where we were
going?"

He lifted his foot off the brake, now
understanding why she called Nicole 
Mother
, such a
formal way to reference one of the most important women in a
person’s life. The cop part of him saw both sides of the story.
Nicole was embarrassed. It sure as hell didn’t excuse her. He
chanced a glance at Megan. She was leaning back against the seat
with her eyes closed. The breeze from the open window pushed back
her hair, but she didn’t bother to put it back.

For the first time, he allowed himself to
wonder about the years she’d been away from him. What had it been
like to know you couldn’t come back home? What was it like to know
that if you did, the only welcome you’d get would be cold? All from
the people you loved the most.

He couldn’t imagine. His family was
everything to him, no matter how dysfunctional they were on any
given day. Hell, since his mind was going down that road, he
wondered if she even knew what being around family felt like. Maybe
that was the reason why her first words had been, "Get me out of
here," instead of, "Come in and join us."

These thoughts put Megan in a new light. It
made him want more to share what he had, which was a bad thing.
Wasn’t it? She was leaving her family, her hometown and him again
in less than two weeks. None of those things stopped him from
parking at the edge of the lake, turning up his radio, and pulling
her out of the car. He kept her close, making sure every part of
their bodies touched. It felt only right as Bobby Blue Bland
blended into Otis Redding.

She asked, "What’s gotten into you?"

He answered truthfully, no holds barred,
"You." And how right it felt for her head to curve into his neck.
He held her close, wanting her to feel how she made him feel.

"We shouldn’t be alone." Her words broke the
silence.

"I know."

He cupped her hips in his hands and brought
her closer. He wanted them skin to skin, but that wasn’t what she
needed. Instead, he laid a kiss on her forehead and continued to
sway her to the music blaring out of his truck. The sweet moment
changed when her eyes met his.

He saw through the vulnerability she hid with
sarcasm, and he saw the bitterness her mother spilled into her,
making Megan who she was. He wasn’t sure if Megan recognized it as
that, but he did. The yearn started as a burn in his chest. He knew
in that moment he couldn’t stop it. Common sense with Megan had
never been high on his to-do list, so why now would things
change?

"I want you to make love to me."

The plea shot through him, and it physically
hurt to say what he had to say. If she’d asked for anything else,
he’d have given it to her tenfold. "I can’t." He held her tighter,
knowing she’d push away from him. "I don’t have a condom. Not that
I don’t want to." Every part of her was soft and warm against him.
"Because I really want to."

"Oh." She shrugged and put her head back down
on his shoulder. "I used to think you were a boy scout. Go ahead
and shatter my illusions."

Aiden chuckled. "I’m here to serve." He
placed another chaste kiss on her forehead and felt her shiver in
his arms. "Cold?"

"The complete opposite. I think we should
separate and sit on either side of the lake."

"We should."

He didn’t let her go.

She didn’t try to step back from him.

"Aiden, what are we doing?"

He ran his hands over her waist, her back,
and then let them bury themselves in her hair.

"Tempting fate."

She leaned in, closed her eyes, and kissed
him softly, then urgently. The temperature of the kiss rose and her
mouth became demanding, needing more from him than he could give
her. When she pulled back from him, her lids were heavy. "We are as
dumb as our families keep telling us." Megan sighed.

He dipped his head down for another kiss,
making this one last longer, until she moaned against his
mouth.

"We are," he answered, when he came up for
air and maybe for a clear head.

"Okay." She shook her head and let out a
breath. "I’m going to step back now."

She leaned in again. Her lips felt swollen
and soft this time. He sank his teeth into her bottom lip and was
rewarded with another moan.

"I’ll step back, since you can’t seem to do
it."

He nipped her lip again, and this time when
she shivered he knew it wasn’t from the breeze coming off the lake.
Finally she tore her mouth from his and stepped back. The only
sound was their heavy breathing.

"I’m going to stand over here for a minute,"
Megan said.

She shook her head again, and Aiden realized
it was to get her thoughts back. He understood. He felt the same
way. It probably sounded sappy to admit, but this was the most
attracted he’d ever been to a woman.

Megan asked, "Do you think it’s the fear of
us getting caught?"