Slow and Steady Rush (21 page)

Picking up a six-inch long charred piece with a fork, he tossed it to Avery. Not only were his dog’s instincts better, but so was his taste. After a disdainful sniff, he sat on his haunches and stared down his muzzle at Robbie. He could almost hear his dog tsking.

“What? You’re a foodie now? You want me to hire you a personal chef?” Robbie asked him. Excited panting followed the affirmative bark.

“Dream on, it’s back to dry kibble for you, my boy.”

Avery sniffed the charred bacon one more time, settled on his belly, and rested his head on his paw, looking up with sad puppyish eyes.

“You are so pitiful,” Robbie said, irony dripping. Avery rolled to his back. With a disgusted snort, Robbie settled on his heels to rub his dog’s belly, casting his gaze toward her. It was a helluva lot easier to talk to Avery.

Darcy wandered to the bag on the counter. “What’s in here?”

“Figured I’d bring a few things over from my place to tide you over.”

She riffled through the bag. “Only the necessities, I see.” She held the box of condoms and tapped her quirking lips with a finger. “Are you sure you brought enough to tide us over? Extra-large, extra-ribbed, extra-value box. Was it buy a thousand get ten free?”

Heat bloomed from his belly up to his face. He had a feeling he looked like a turkey six inches from a loaded rifle the day before Thanksgiving. “It was … I didn’t mean … I thought maybe—”

“You thought maybe we could use one later?” She tossed him the box.

Making a one-handed grab, he asked with a fair amount of embarrassing, teenage eagerness, “Could we?”

“Maybe. But, first I need to eat. I missed dinner last night.” She rummaged in the freezer and pulled out a frozen pizza he stashed the night before. “Better than nothing, I suppose,” she muttered, turning on the oven and pulling out a metal cooking sheet.

Embarrassment still formed a knot in his stomach, and he turned the box in his hands. “Hey, it doesn’t say extra-large or extra-ribbed. Maybe I was a bit optimistic about the extra-value part.”

She stuck the pizza in the oven and waggled her eyebrows over a shoulder. “Maybe you weren’t.”

Her T-shirt rode high up her thighs. He imagined getting on his knees, pulling her white panties down, spreading her legs wide, and—

“Oh my God, did you win last night?” Straightening, she turned and flicked the oven door shut with her heel. Her fingers were laced and held in prayer at her chin.

“42–17.”

“You killed them!” She hopped up and down which, in her braless state, sent his imagination veering down a different path. He would rip her shirt off and feast on her breasts first.

Screw it. She hadn’t kicked his sorry ass out. In two steps, she was tight against his body. Her softness molded against him.

“I missed you.” He couldn’t believe the words had escaped the hidden recesses of his brain to his mouth. It was one thing to admit it to himself, another altogether to reveal a hint of his feelings to her. He pulled away, preparing for a painful rebuttal.

“I missed you, too.” She snuggled closer.

Amazement held him still.

She continued as if she hadn’t rocked his world. “I had to make so many decisions. Ada wants one thing. The doctors recommend another. It was exhausting. And when I couldn’t sleep, I kept thinking about the other night. You wouldn’t believe some of the texts I almost sent you.”

He hummed and nuzzled her temple. Lifting her to the counter, he pried her legs apart and invaded. Not that she put up a fight. Her knees clasped his hips and her ankles locked around his butt.

Her face tilted for a kiss, but before he dropped his lips, the gentle wash of her blue eyes made him ache. Made him long for something he couldn’t name. Something foreign and terrifying.

The fear stalled him. Her lips reached for his. When they touched, he wrapped her in his arms, his heart cracking open.

#

She had given him the power to drive her off the road, to utterly wreck her. Reluctantly, and with misgivings, but willingly, nonetheless. One of his hands cupped the back of her head as his tongue courted hers. His other hand roved under her T-shirt to where her nipple begged for his attention. It wasn’t disappointed. He was a wildfire consuming everything in its path, and she was the martyr ready to conflagrate.

He tore open the ridiculously large box of condoms that had made her heart stutter when she’d pulled it out of the bag.

“I’m going to take you right here. Like I wanted to that first time.”

She’d never had sex anywhere but prone on a bed, almost exclusively on her back. His words drove her arousal even higher. The part of her brain tasked with keeping her life on the straight and narrow protested, but she shoved aside any anxiety. “Yes. I wanted you so bad that day.”

The foil packet was between his teeth, ready to be ripped open.

“Darcy! You up, girl? Ada thought you might need food.” The voice cut them apart like a knife. They stared at each other as the clomp of boots grew closer. Avery’s welcoming bark hurled her out of her daze.

She grabbed the box of condoms and looked around desperately, shoving them into the refrigerator behind Ada’s pickles. Normally she would welcome her cousin’s thoughtful behavior. Today, she wanted to shoot him dead.

“Morning, sunshine.” Logan backed through the swinging kitchen door holding two stuffed sacks. “Howdy, Dalt. What brings you out this early?” His gaze narrowed and flitted between them. He set his bags next to the one Robbie brought and squatted to rub Avery’s ears.

“Similar mission. Brought some food over.” Robbie jerked his chin toward his bag.

A long, awkward silence hovered like a black cloud.

Logan moved first and checked the oven. “Frozen pizza? You’ve fallen to new lows, cuz. I’ll make breakfast while you hop in the shower. You look like a raccoon that’s been dragged through the bottoms.”

The hand she smoothed through her hair got stuck in a mass of tangles. Running to her bathroom, she gasped at the hot mess reflected in the mirror. Her fourteen hours of sleep had only marginally reduced the dark circles and added not a hint of color. And, her hair. How had Robbie wanted her in this state? But he most definitely had.

She pulled herself together with half a bottle of conditioner, a flat iron, and a tube of concealer. It was as good as it was going to get without a few more nights of solid sleep.

She approached the swinging kitchen door, and her stomach repeated its tumble upon finding him puttering around the kitchen. The sight of Robbie cooking had seemed so natural and homey. Well, more accurately, he’d been burning pancakes and bacon. He had seemed uncertain and sweet, and the look on his face when she’d pulled out the box of condoms … an adorable combination of excitement and embarrassment.

Robbie’s voice drifted through the door. “… caught the pass. That juke around the safety was SEC worthy. What do you think about—”

Her appearance in the doorway suspended him. His lips stayed parted. His eyes removed her prim skirt and blouse until she felt naked, body and soul. He’d propped his hip against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, their roped strength emphasized.

“What do I think about what?” Logan cut Robbie a glance and then looked all the way over his shoulder at her.

“About …” He cleared his throat. “About getting a scout from a Division II school in here.”

“Good idea.” Logan expertly flipped the fluffiest, most beautiful omelet she’d ever seen. Protest over her skipped dinner rumbled her stomach. “Simmer down, over there. You can have the first one.”

Like Dickens’
Oliver
, she grabbed a plate and waited expectantly at the stove. Logan slipped the perfect yellow semicircle onto her plate.

Half of it was gone before she managed to speak. “This is the best omelet I have ever had.”

Robbie joined her with his omelet and took his first bite. “Damn Logan. I shouldn’t be surprised. You could turn MREs into gourmet meals. Almost as good as Darcy’s cooking.” Robbie tossed her a gallant wink she didn’t know what to do with. “Did Ada teach you to cook too?”

Logan’s ease in the kitchen was obvious. “I paid attention to Ada, but I got put on KP duty with a chef in juvie. He taught me a lot.”

“You were in jail?” Robbie asked incredulously.

Darcy poked her fork in Logan’s direction. “He’s being overdramatic. It wasn’t jail. It was more like a court-ordered attitude-adjustment camp.”

“You weren’t lying when you said you had a misspent youth,” Robbie said.

“It’s not something I’m proud of. But my plans are coming together.”

Darcy pushed her clean plate away and rested her elbows on the table. Logan’s brown eyes shined, and his smile couldn’t be contained. She asked, “What happened?”

“The loan was approved. I sign on Monday. The Tavern will be mine.”

Darcy leapt up to give him a quick hug. “That’s awesome. What’s next?”

Logan chewed on his lip, and his brows fell forward as he considered. “Status quo for a while. Then, small changes. I need to save some money before I can gut the kitchen. I can do most of the work myself, with a little help from my friends, maybe?” He sent a sly glance in Robbie’s direction.

“Whatever you need, bro,” Robbie said. They clasped hands in a distinctly masculine way and bumped shoulders to seal the deal.

Logan cleared the plates and slid the egg carton into the refrigerator. “You about ready?”

“Ready for what?” Robbie asked.

“We’re meeting Malone and Grayson to study video, remember? You want a ride … or … ”

Darcy and Robbie’s eyes held. He didn’t want to go. His frown and the crinkle in his nose told her as much.

Logan straightened and stroked his chin. His lips curled up slightly as he stood in the open fridge and studied the box of condoms. “Found these behind the pickles, which is certainly fitting. You could probably keep them upstairs, cuz. There’s nothing on here about refrigerating after opening.”

Seeing her cousin waggle the box of condoms was something out of a horror movie. She grabbed the box, tucked it into her chest, and covered it with her arms. She choked words out. “You’d better get on or you’ll be late.”

Logan laughed and hit Robbie in the chest with the back of his hand. “Let’s go, Coach.”

Retrieving his shoes, Robbie followed Logan out the door with a final word—less farewell and more promise—“Later.”

Chapter 16

After checking on Ada, Darcy headed to the library. She’d promised to meet the ladies after they got out of early church to work on the new e-book lending computer system but found she needed technical support unavailable on a Sunday.

Instead, she restocked the shelves and as she ran her fingertips over the perfectly aligned spines, a childish sense of wonder overtook her. Books were magical creations. Everything was in order. Now would be a good time to look into what had become of the Golightly family.

“Miss Esmeralda, is there a section on local history? Property deeds, death certificates, that sort of thing?”

“There’s a whole room upstairs.”

“You mind if I look through it?”

“Not a bit. I’ve been meaning to get up there. The library board has been after us to organize it.” A spark lit her eyes. “I don’t suppose you’d want to give it a start?”

“I suppose I could.”

Miss Esmeralda caught her arm as she swung away. “Fair warning. Nothing’s been done with it for years. It’s a god-awful mess.”

The room was more of a hellish mess. Papers were stacked haphazardly on the floor, on tables, on every horizontal surface. The lone filing cabinet had documents poking from too-full drawers. Boxes of pictures acted as bookends. She wandered, fingering crumpled paper and rummaging through boxes, overwhelmed at the chaos.

The first paper she picked up was dated before the turn of the nineteenth century. Were there papers from the Civil War or even before? Falcon had been out of the swath destroyed by Sherman’s march of destruction. There was a possibility records had survived. An excited tingle zoomed to fingertips suddenly itching to get started. She attacked the closest box full of pictures. Many had family names and dates scrawled on the back. She sorted by date and surname.

One caught her attention. She squinted at the faded picture. Several things set it apart. For one, the family pictured was black. For another, they were smiling, which was unusual in pictures this old.

Darcy found her own lips curling in response to a decades-old joy. But what had her examining the picture in the sun was the white house framing the family of six. It was the house in the woods.

The picture was black and white, of course, but the house appeared well kept and the land was clear of trees and brush, the start of the steep bank to the spring on the right side. She flipped the picture and found, written in faded ink,
The Golightly family. 1952.

Three boys and a girl. The boys’ hair was shorn close to their heads, but the little girl had braided pigtails and the biggest, happiest smile Darcy had ever seen. The littlest Golightly was a poignant reminder of the kids who came to story time.

She tracked down the librarians. “Do any of you know what happened to the Golightlys?”

The three women passed the picture around. Miss Jane said, “I remember they were a nice family. Everyone was sad to see them go. They headed north.”

Miss Esmerelda said, “Lots of people left for Lansing or Detroit. Cars, you know.”

“Of course.” Darcy tapped the picture on the circulation desk. “Let’s see if we can find them in the Detroit census.”

“How do you plan on doing that? Fly to Michigan?” Miss Constance asked tartly.

“On the computer. You really need to get with the times,” Darcy teased, taking a seat at one of the computers. The ladies pulled up chairs while Darcy logged onto an ancestry research site.

Armed with a surname and approximate date, she found them easily. The scanned record came up on the screen. Miss Constance gasped. “Why that’s amazing. How do they get such records?”

Darcy glanced at the three ladies from the corner of her eyes. “Research librarians scan records and enter names and dates. We could do that with the documents in the room upstairs.”