The Weekday Brides 04 - Single by Saturday (16 page)

“Hey, babe.” He draped his arm over her shoulders. “Have you met the guys?”

“You introduced her to us hours ago, moron,” Larry said as he tipped his cup back.

“Hey.” She waved at Keith and Ryder, who were watching her a little too closely.

“Can I talk to you a minute?” she asked Michael.

“Sure. Be right back,” he told his friends.

She pulled him away from the ears of others.

“What’s up?”

Karen turned toward him so his back was away from the Gardner crowd.

“Your Aunt Belle is on to us.”

Michael narrowed his eyes. “On to us?”

“She told me she always thought you were gay,” she whispered.

He stiffened and the playful smile on his face fell.

Karen caught his arm to keep him from turning around. “No, don’t.”

“Is that
all
she said?”

“She asked about babies. The usual stuff. But if I had to guess, I’d think she’s the one to watch out for.”

A muscle in Michael’s jaw twitched.

Michael leaned over as if he was picking something up from the ground, and when he stood, Karen had to turn her back to the crowd to continue looking at him.

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and glanced over her head.

She wasn’t sure what was going on inside his head, but there was a fierceness in his gaze she’d not seen before.

“Michael?”

Something flashed behind his eyes as he looked beyond her, then without any warning he gripped the back of her head and forced his mouth on hers.

She stood motionless, her body rigid as Michael fought some of his demons and used her as a battering ram. He tried to pull her close and she pushed against him. He’d never kissed her like this. Not for the cameras, not for his family. This was feral and dangerously close to abuse.

Oh, Karen knew he was doing it for effect, but it didn’t make her any more forgiving of the line he was crossing. When his free hand dug into her side, she was close to kneeing his groin to make him let her go. Tears sprang to her eyes as she felt her lips bruise.

It was almost impossible to grab hold of any flesh through his clothes, but she managed to twist the skin under his arm and pushed him with the other.

Michael gasped and let her go.

They stared at each other, shell-shocked.

Karen lifted her hand to her lip and worried that he’d split it.

“Oh, God, Karen.” Instant remorse filled Michael’s face.

She stepped out of his reach. Memories of other unwanted hands on her broke through her memory and had her trembling.

Never again.

“If you ever touch me like that again, our divorce will be anything but friendly.” Without waiting for his reply, Karen nearly ran away from him and his family.

Zach caught Mike looking over Karen’s shoulder as they stood apart from the family having a private conversation. He cautioned himself for staring, but something in the way Karen was standing, her fingers flexing her sides, or the nervous and shifting gaze of his brother kept Zach watching.

When Mike reached for his wife to kiss her, Zach started to look away. Then he noticed Karen push against him.

Let her go, Mike.
Only Zach’s mental message to his brother didn’t work.

The longer the kiss went on, the more apparent it became that Karen wasn’t a willing party.

Wife or not, no one deserved to be manhandled. Before Zach could take one step in their direction, Karen stumbled away from Mike and then ran out of the park. Zach waited to see if his brother would follow.

When he didn’t, Zach did.

He caught up with her as she turned down the road to Beacon’s barn. Her pace was so fast, he was out of breath when he ran up behind her.

She swiveled her head long enough for him to see the tears in her eyes.

He considered grabbing her arm to make her face him, but he pictured her punching the next man who touched her. Instead, he jogged in front of her and stopped.

“Hey?”

She simply stepped around him and kept walking.

This time he kept her pace at her side. “Where are we walking? Back to LA?”

“Maybe.”

He decided silence would be his friend at this point. Eventually she’d get past whatever had pissed her off and talk…right? They passed Beacon’s barn and continued down what he knew was a dead-end road. He doubted Karen knew this or she probably would have taken another route.

A half a mile of silence later, Karen asked, “Why are you following me?”

Zach made a show of opening his arms and looking around. “Wouldn’t want you to get lost.”

“Hard to get lost in a one-horse town.”

“So you know where you’re going?”

She walked another block before answering. “Thought I’d go and see if old man Beacon wanted to have an affair with a younger woman.”

Zach liked the fight in her voice. “Old man Beacon would have loved that. Too bad he died a few years back.”

Karen snorted, but didn’t smile. “Just my luck.”

He laughed, hoping she’d follow suit.

She didn’t. “Really, Zach. You don’t need to follow me.”

He didn’t slow his pace and didn’t make excuses as to why he stayed by her side.

The farther away from the park they walked, the less he heard her sniffling. He never could deal with a woman’s tears. If that woman was as strong as he felt Karen was, those tears weighed even more on him. Strong women didn’t crack easily, and when they did, whoever or whatever made them crack deserved to pay. Even if that someone was his own damn brother.

The inevitable end to the road approached, and he saw Karen looking around for a path or some escape route. She twisted around and he noticed her dismiss the idea of going back.

“C’mon,” he said as he led her though the long weeds and forgotten trail behind Beacon’s property.

Karen followed as he ducked into the woods behind Beacon’s old abandoned house. The trees thickened and the brush at their feet thinned out. Eventually the trail widened so they could walk side by side. Even if it was in complete silence.

They stepped over fallen trees and around overgrown brush as they moved steadily uphill. Zach felt his heart rate shoot up, even though their pace slowed. He was ashamed to say that his legs started to burn with the strain of Karen’s pace.

When Beacon’s pond, which was more lake than pond, opened before them, Karen finally stopped. Zach wanted to sing.

“Wow.” Karen gazed over the majestic pond and quiet landscape.

Zach leaned forward and caught his breath. “Don’t think anyone gets up here anymore.”

He diverted his gaze from her breasts as they pushed against her shirt with each deep breath she took.

“It’s beautiful.” She paused. “And quiet.”

“No crazy aunts to be found.”

Karen glared at him. “Mention her again and I’m going for another five miles…uphill.”

Zach lifted his hands in surrender. “Did I say something?”

She moved closer to the oversize pond and sat on a fallen log. He parked himself beside her and picked up a handful of rocks from the forest floor. He tossed one into the water and watched the ripples flow from the center of impact. After a few pebbles made it to the water, Karen picked up her own and joined him.

She grunted with a particularly forceful throw and Zach decided it was time for a diversion. Whatever weighed on her mind was getting worse and not better.

“When we were kids,” he started, “my friends and I would sneak up here to fish.”

After a couple more tossed pebbles, she asked. “Why did you have to sneak?”

“Old man Beacon didn’t like kids in his pond. He’d stock it every few years but wanted the bounty all to himself.”

“Seems like a long way to walk for an old guy.”

“That’s what we’d thought until he came at us with a shotgun.”

Karen’s horrified expression made him laugh.

“He’d fire a round in the air and we’d shit ourselves getting away. I’d lay money on finding all our old fishing poles in his barn.”

“The burned-down barn?”

Zach tossed another rock. “You heard about that?”

“Judy’s my history teacher for Hilton.”

Zach wanted to ask what Mike had told her about the town, but mentioning the man who drove her on her aimless walk would rank up there with bringing up crazy Aunt Belle.

“After Beacon died, a few of my friends and I came up here and toasted the old man.”

“Toasted the man who came at you with a shotgun? I’m surprised he didn’t get arrested.”

“He was harmless. Probably laughed when he collected our fishing poles and the buckets of fish we’d caught.” He scratched the
stubble of his beard. “Come to think about it, we were never run off until after we’d spent half the day here and had a crap-load of fish.”

Karen smiled now, and the effect on her face was this side of magical. “Sneaky bastard.”

“Smart.”

“Too bad he’s not around for that affair.”

Zach laughed at that.

This time when Karen laughed, her smile grew and she winced. She brought her fingertips to her lips and that’s when he noticed the swelling.

He couldn’t stop his hand from reaching toward her and touching. She lowered her eyes and didn’t look at him as his thumb lightly swept over her lips.

His heart rate sped up again, only now it was with a strong desire to lay a fist into his brother’s face.

“He should never have kissed you like that.”

Karen easily backed away from his hand but kept silent.

Although Karen didn’t seem like a woman who would put up with abuse, Zach had to ask. “Has he done that before?”

She shook her head. “No. And he won’t be given a chance to do it again.” Her words were bitter and full of anger.

What does that mean?
It killed him not to ask.

Karen changed the subject. “Did you ever bring girls up here and give Beacon something interesting to watch?”

“Oh, no…Hilton’s inspiration point is up by my family’s cabin.”

She stood and grabbed a handful of rocks. Leaning over, she attempted to skip a rock over the flat surface of the water only to see it fall into the pond without a bounce.

“Isn’t the cabin several miles away?” The next rock she skipped bounced once.

“Far enough away to not get caught.”

“Is there such a place in this town?” The next three rocks dropped into the water.

Zach stood up behind her. He took her hand in his and slowly guided her in the right motion to skip the rock. “It’s in the wrist.”

He demonstrated and skipped it four times before it gave up and fell in.

Karen tried again, failed. Zach placed one hand on her shoulder, the other on her arm. Her next attempt skipped the rock three times.

He kept a hand on her shoulder, unable to move away as she skipped a few more.

She straightened her spine and he expected her to move away. Instead, she leaned back into his arms and sighed.

He held her and they both stared out over the water in silence.

Zach looked down when her hand reached up to caress his arm. The simple touch spoke volumes.

He placed his lips next to her head and indulged in the peachy smell of her hair. He closed his eyes and savored the moment.

“If I turned around right now,” she whispered, “I’d want you to kiss me.”

Zach forgot to breathe. His arms tightened around her as he soaked her in. Her honesty humbled him. “I’d want to taste you, too.”

Instead of acting, they stood there and enjoyed their embrace.

When Karen moved away, Zach let her.

Chapter Twelve

The house was quiet when Zach walked her up to the steps.

“Looks like everyone is still at the park.”

“Sunday dinners go well into the night,” Zach explained.

The walk back from Beacon’s pond wasn’t nearly as intense as walking toward it. Karen and Zach had come to a strange understanding. The attraction was there, but neither of them planned to act on it. Yet she knew, without a doubt, that if she needed him, he’d be there. She wanted to cry when she realized that Michael used to be that for her.

Her hike to Beacon’s pond reminded her of a different time in her life. Where the murky waters of reality darkened her life and made her question everything. If Michael hadn’t been a friend to her, she would have used every means necessary to bring him to his knees for what he’d pulled at the park. But because she knew, on a deeper level than most, that he acted out of fear, she allowed him his indiscretion. Not that he wouldn’t pay for his abuse, he would. But she didn’t feel he needed to give up everything.