Ginger's Heart (a modern fairytale) (37 page)

I’m in love with you
, he thought, flinching even as he held her closer.
I’ve been in love with you for most of my life, princess. And I promise you, here and now, there’s only you for me. I’m not sayin’ I’ll be good at this, because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doin’ when it comes to stickin’ around. But no matter how long it takes, I promise I’ll wait for you. I’ll help you find the peace you need. I’ll do anything, darlin’. Just to be with you.

“Cain,” she whispered into the darkness, her voice so tired and small, he wasn’t sure if she was awake or asleep.

“What, baby?”

“Don’t leave me again,” she murmured, sighing deeply before falling back to sleep.

He had no idea if she was aware of her words or what they did to him—the hope they lit inside him, the longing they assuaged, the beautiful dreams they set in motion.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere, darlin’,” he said softly, near her ear. “I’m stayin’ with you.”

She didn’t speak again, but she snuggled a little closer to him, and he adjusted their hands so that their fingers were woven together. Ginger. Cain. Ginger. Cain. Ginger. Cain.

Be good to her.

Care for her.

Love her.

“Thank you, son,” whispered Cain into the darkness before falling asleep beside her.

***

Warm.

Safe.

Cain.

Early-morning light streamed through her bedroom window, which was a very good excuse to keep her eyes closed and pretend that she was still asleep. Their fingers were still loosely braided together, and the front of his body was still pressed flush against the back of hers. She felt his breath on the back of her neck, deep and even, warming the skin and causing goose bumps to rise on her arms. She moved experimentally, shifting against him, and was rewarded with a low groan and the tightening of his arm around her.

She had no disorientation or confusion. She didn’t wonder if she was still dreaming. She knew where she was and with whom, but what she could barely contain was the rush of feelings that accompanied waking up in Cain’s arms because there was an immediate rightness to it, an organic yes to it, a sense of coming home that she’d never experienced in her life. Not with Woodman. Not ever.

Turning in his arms, she stared at his sleeping face.

The angles of his cheeks were as cut as ever, and his square jaw was covered with overnight scruff growth that was jet black against his pale complexion. She stared at his lips for a moment—they were pink and pillowed, slack with sleep, and she flashbacked to the feeling of them moving over hers. So carefully when she was fifteen, so hungrily when she was eighteen. How would they feel now? The same? Different? She took a deep breath, her breasts pushing against his chest and her nipples pebbling under her fleece sweater. His eyelashes, obsidian and long, fanned out from his eyes, and his eyebrows were thick and dark over his closed eyes.

He was so beautiful, her breath caught, and feelings that she didn’t expect crashed over her in waves. For her whole life, Cain had been a dark angel on her shoulder: the voice of recklessness, the ice-eyed charmer, the shatterer of her heart and executioner of her dreams, throwing shade on whatever felt safe and defying her to choose spectacular. And in return, she had loved him in different ways—passionately, fiercely, furiously—for almost as long as she could remember.

And now here he was, beside her, all grown up, sticking around.

Old someones can be new, Ginger.

Cain had served his country. Forgiven his father. Traveled the world. Lost his cousin. He was no longer a swaggering boy or an angry teen or a rootless, roaming young man. He was a new man, a new person. And yet, if she squinted her eyes and tilted her head so that the sun kissed his inky hair, she saw Cain from forever, in all his forms, in all his phases, right up until this morning, holding her in his arms.

Nothing—
no, not anything
—had ever felt so right.

Felt right to her heart.

Felt wrong in her head.

Woodman had died only three months ago. Wouldn’t it be wrong to switch her affections so quickly to Cain? It would be. But she’d never loved Woodman the way she’d loved Cain. She’d never been
in love
with Woodman. The cold reality that made her a terrible person was that she hadn’t been engaged to the love of her life. The love of her life held her in his arms now. She hadn’t lost her soul mate. Her soul mate was lying beside her.

Was it possible that
their time
had finally arrived?

She winced.

How could they embrace it at the cost of Woodman’s life? Could they truly have a future together? Was she even what Cain wanted? How could she even know? The Cain he was now—coming when she called, staying when she asked—was a new Cain. She had no idea what he wanted.

But hadn’t he hated her when she confessed her feelings to him three years ago? Hadn’t he hated her when he came home in October? What had changed? Losing Woodman? Was it a common bond of grief that bound them now? But their grief would fade. It wouldn’t be this wrenching forever. And then what? What would happen when the sorrow that bound them together faded away?

She took a shaky breath, raking her teeth over her bottom lip as she stared at him, a mountain of emotional detritus suddenly making her feel much further away from him than she had moments before. Too many hard questions. Too much to sort out to clear a path to any kind of future. It felt hopeless.

Cain, however, was oblivious to her struggle.

“Mmmm,” he groaned, pulling her closer, arching against her and fitting them together in his sleep. Beneath his coveralls the hard bulge of his erection found the valley between her thighs, and he rubbed, a low growl slipping from his throat. His hands, which were around her, slid down to her hips, and he pulled her against him, holding her sex perfectly aligned against his and gyrating deliberately against her, into her.

And damn it, but it felt good. So good, her breath caught and a small whimper escaped from her lips.

“Baby,” murmured Cain, his eyes still closed as he leaned his head forward to nuzzle her throat.

She gasped in surprise. “Cain. Cain, that’s enough.”

His lips razed her skin, the tip of his tongue darting out to circle her throbbing pulse. “Aw, let me, baby,” he drawled, his voice still thick with sleep.

“Cain!” she said louder, leaning her head back. No matter how good it felt, she didn’t feel comfortable letting it continue. She had no idea where they were. She had no idea where they were going. There was too much for them to sort out before they could even consider the possibility of more. She pushed at his shoulders. “Cain, quit it!”

His eyes popped open, and he jerked his head back, his eyes wide open. “Gin? What the hell? Where am—?”

She blinked at him, watching his face as he remembered last night and put together where he was waking up. “Good mornin’.”

He rolled onto his back, scrubbing his hands over his face, which was turning very, very pink. “Mornin’. Fuck, I’m . . . sorry.”

Cain, the big bad wolf, who’d been with more girls than she could possibly imagine, was blushing like a preteen found looking at a nudie magazine. She giggled softly and shook her head as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. When she looked over her shoulder at him, he was still staring at the ceiling like his life depended on it.

“Want eggs?”

He turned to her, his eyes dark and rattled, yet somehow soft, and she felt her heart skip a beat as he stared up at her and nodded. “Yeah.”

***

Fuck.
Fuck.

You were fuckin’
dry-humpin’
her, man! Get it the fuck together!

Wincing, he felt his cock flinch in his shorts, hot, thick, and throbbing. He had a massive boner, and she was downstairs making fucking eggs for breakfast.

He took a shaky breath and tried to think of football, baseball, snowfall, vomit, but nothing worked. All he could see was her big brown eyes less than an inch from his. All he could feel was her delectable fucking body fitted against his like a second skin, like she was made to be with him, and
only
him. Sitting up, he looked over at her bathroom and considered heading in there to rub one out, but she called upstairs, “Cain! Breakfast is ready.”

There were two solutions: jog in place for five minutes to get the blood flowing elsewhere, or force himself to piss. Option two won out but put Cain in a fairly foul mood that he attempted to fix between her toilet and kitchen.

Three months without a woman sucked.

That
was
the fucking truth.

Or it was the fucking truth until he found himself standing in the kitchen doorway watching Ginger McHuid putting eggs on two plates. She turned from the stove, surprised to find him standing behind her, and her sweet lips tilted up into the most beautiful fucking smile he’d ever seen. And suddenly he didn’t give a shit about three months of abstinence. All he could think was the same thought he’d had last night before falling asleep:

There’s only you for me. I’ll wait for you.

Which meant he had to figure out a way to see her. Regularly. And if that meant coming up to McHuid’s every weekend, so be it, but he wished he could figure out another way.

“Hungry?” she asked, putting the plates at the little table where he’d shared breakfast with her three years ago, after washing her gran’s truck.

Un-fuckin’-believably hungry, darlin’.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, sitting down across from her.

“I can’t believe I go back to work tomorrow,” she said, spearing a plump piece of scrambled egg with her fork.

Fuck. That’s right. That’s just goin’ to make seein’ her that much harder. Who was the fuckin’ genius who encouraged her to go back to work? Oh, right. Me.

“What days you workin’ again?” he asked, taking a bite of eggs.

“For now? Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and every other Sunday.”

“What’re you doin’ on Tuesdays and Fridays?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll try to pick up some extra hours.” She shrugged. “You want orange juice?”

“Sure,” he said. Then, “Huh.”

“What’s ‘huh’ mean?” she asked, taking the juice out of the fridge and grabbing two glasses from the cabinet. She sat back down, pouring them each a glass and sliding his glass over to him. “Huh?”

Is this a good idea? Bad idea? Fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know how this fuckin’ works. I just know I need to see her. A lot.

“Why don’t you come work for me?” he asked.

Her eyes widened, and she grinned at him in surprise. “
Work
for you? You mean . . . fix motorcycles?” She wrinkled her nose in a way he’d always thought was fucking adorable. “I don’t know the first thing about—”

“I need someone to answer the phones, don’t I?”

“Oh . . . you mean, be your secretary?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what you call it. Answer the phones. Say hi to people.”

“Receptionist.”

“Yeah. That,” he said, taking a gulp of orange juice.

She rolled her lips between her teeth for a moment, then licked them.
Oh, fuck, Gin, I’m a weak man, please stop.
He looked away from her, back down at his plate, and speared another cluster of eggs with a little too much force.

“Whoa! What’d that egg do to you?”

This egg is on a plate that’s on a table that’s between my body and your body so I fuckin’ hate this egg. I want to lunge across this table and kiss you senseless until you’re beggin’ me to fuck you until the sun sets and rises all over again. That’s why I hate this goddamned egg.

“So?” he prompted her, frowning at his plate before looking up at her.

“What’re the hours, boss?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sassy.
Damn, but he fucking loved her sassy.

“Twelve to seven.”

“Late hours.”

“I like sleepin’ in,” he growled.
And I’d like it even better next to you, princess.

She grinned. “And how much you goin’ to pay me?”

And that’s when it occurred to him:
She’s sayin’ yes. She’s fuckin’ sayin’ yes. I’m goin’ to see her every Tuesday and every Friday.

“Seventy-five bucks a day.”

“Ninety-five,” she countered.

“Done.”

“Done,” she said, her smile blinding.

He stared at her—at her blonde hair, golden in the sunlight that streamed through the window over the sink, and at her pink lips that he was dying to taste again.
Soon, brother. Soon.

She held out her hand, giggling softly. “Shake on it?”

Reaching across the table, he took her hand and clasped it. “Happy New Year, princess.”

“Happy New Year, Cain.”

As she pressed the button for the fourth floor, Ginger sighed contently. Her feet ached after an eight-hour shift, but she felt energized and invigorated . . .
and
that much closer to tomorrow, when she would see Cain again.

Yesterday, after breakfast, she asked Cain if he would visit Woodman’s grave with her, and he’d agreed, driving her to the cemetery and holding her hand as she wept. After a moment, he dropped her hand and wandered away, giving her some privacy, and she talked to Woodman for a while, telling him how sorry she was and how much she missed him. When she had no more words to say, she found Cain standing twenty yards away, under the bare winter branches of a tree, watching her, and she walked over to him.

“You okay, princess?” he asked, leaning away from the trunk and opening his arms.

She stepped into them gratefully, her own arms limp at her sides as she rested her cheek over Cain’s heart and closed her eyes. Seconds turned to minutes, and he never said a word, just held her in his strong arms, his chin resting on top of her head for as long as she needed him.

With every breath, his chest, hard and broad, pushed into hers, a reminder of his strength, of the strength he was sharing with her. And with every breath, she felt more and more certain that she could bear the loss of Woodman, provided she’d never have to bear the loss of Cain.

Finally, almost on the brink of sleep, she raised her head from his heart, and he raised his chin from her head, looking down at her.

“Better?”

She took a deep breath and nodded. “A little.”

His eyes, bright blue and sad, searched hers. “A little’s better than nothin’, right?”

“I miss him,” she said softly.

“Me too.”

“You think we’ll always miss him?”

Cain sighed. “It won’t hurt this much forever, but yeah. I think we will.”

He let his arms fall from around her, and though she instantly missed their warmth, he made up for it by taking her hand.

“Why don’t I take you to get your car?”

“Okay,” she said, letting him lead her down the path from Woodman’s grave to the parking lot. “You know, before he left for the . . . the fire that night, we had a—I don’t know what it was, exactly—a little fight, I guess.”

“You and Woodman?”

She nodded. “Yeah. And I just . . .”

“You what?”

“I wish we hadn’t. I wish I’d kissed him good-bye and told him I loved him.”

“He knew,” said Cain softly, dropping her hand as they reached the motorcycle. “And he loved you more than anythin’, Ginger.”

The elevator opened to the fourth floor, and her thoughts of yesterday scattered as she stepped out, looking forward to seeing her grandmother for a few minutes before leaving for the day.

As she approached, she realized that Gran’s chart was still in the clear plastic box on the wall outside her room. Ginger wasn’t assigned to the fourth floor, but she couldn’t resist taking a peek at the chart. Almost instantly she wished she hadn’t.

January 2
nd
: Palliative care recommended. Patient not advised, per her son.

Palliative care, otherwise known as end-of-life care, was recommended when curative care, or active medical treatment, had ceased working. It meant that Gran’s body was no longer responding to the medication meant to slow the Parkinson’s. It meant that she was coming closer to the end.

Had Ginger failed to notice, as she grieved Woodman, how rapidly Gran was declining? She could still speak pretty well, even though she was in the advanced stages of Parkinson’s. She hadn’t experienced any dementia or blatant forgetfulness. But her chart noted incontinence, constipation, breathlessness, and problems swallowing. She would be given certain medications to manage stress and pain, but her body was failing, and apparently Ginger’s father had advised her grandmother’s medical team not to make his mother aware that time was dwindling, which meant that Ginger needed to put on a brave face whenever she was around Gran.

She’d known, of course, that her grandmother’s disease would take over eventually, and she’d observed enough to know that Gran was in the advanced stages of the disease. She just hadn’t considered that it would be so soon.

Then again, she reminded herself of what she knew about Parkinson’s: a patient could live on for years with palliative care. Parkinson’s was a complex disease, and by itself it wasn’t enough to take a life. It would take complications to jeopardize Gran. As long as she stayed at Silver Springs, cared for by the staff of nurses and doctors, she could still have some time left. And Ginger chose to concentrate on that time rather than on the prospect of losing someone else she loved.

Lifting her chin as she placed the chart back in the holder, she swiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands and fixed a smile on her face. If anyone in the world deserved her bravery, it was Gran.

“Hello, beautiful,” she said, walking into the room and immediately noticing the bouquet of wildflowers that hadn’t been there when Ginger visited on New Year’s Eve.

“D-doll baby,” said Gran softly.

Ginger leaned down and kissed her grandmother’s cheek. “More flowers?”

Gran’s eyes flicked to the flowers, then back to Ginger. “How w-was . . . w-work?”

“It was good,” she said, reaching for her grandmother’s trembling hand.

“W-will I . . . see you . . . t-tomorrow?”

“I can come by in the morning if you like, but I’m working at Cain’s new business on Tuesdays and Fridays.”

Was it Ginger’s imagination, or did Gran’s eyes light up at this news?

“How is . . . C-Cain?”

“Confusing. Wonderful. Terrible. Amazing.” Ginger scoffed softly, tracing the blue veins on the back of Gran’s hand before lifting it to her lips for a kiss. “Remember when I was fifteen? You warned me against him.”

“I didn’t . . . t-trust him . . . then. B-but d-doll b-baby . . .” Gran struggled to take a deep breath, and when she finally did, she sighed a long breath before continuing. “P-people can ch-change . . . Has C-Cain . . . changed?”

“Yes,” said Ginger, lying down beside her grandmother’s constantly trembling body. “He
has
changed. He’s, well, he’s settled down, for one. He isn’t drinkin’ and angry. He grew up, Gran. He isn’t a boy anymore. He’s . . . he’s a man now.”

“A g-good man?”

Ginger considered this. She thought of how he’d come to tell her about Woodman, how he pulled her out of her deep and dark depression and back into the world, how he risked her feelings by telling her the truth, how he came to her on New Year’s Eve when she’d called and kept her company for most of yesterday.

“I think so . . . but Gran, I loved him once before, and he couldn’t love me back. He didn’t want me.”

“Cain al-ways . . . w-wanted you.”

She shook her head. “No. That’s not true.”

“Yes, s-sweetheart. Always. He j-just . . . d-didn’t feel . . . w-worthy of you. And m-maybe he w-wasn’t . . . racing all a-around . . . the c-countryside . . . w-with God . . . knows who.”

“He isn’t like that anymore,” said Ginger quickly. “He has a business now, Gran. He’s changed. I promise you.” She took a deep breath and released it carefully. “Since Woodman . . . since Woodman . . .
died
, he’s changed.” She exhaled shakily, as acknowledging Woodman’s passing was still new and painful. “He’s still ornery. He cusses a streak. And he’s bossy as anything. But I think . . . I mean, I feel like I might still be wastin’ away without him. In his own way, he saved me, Gran. He saved me from grieving my life away.”

“You said . . . you l-loved . . . him once?”

“Very much,” said Ginger, remembering the courage it had taken to find him at the old barn and confess her love to him. His hands cupping her face. His body pressing hers against the barn wall. Their kiss. His hands.
Cain, Cain, Cain . . . I love you. God, I love you so much.

“D-does that . . . k-kind of l-love . . . d-die?” asked Gran.

No. It doesn’t. Don’t lie, Ginger. Don’t say it’s dead when you can feel it alive inside you right this minute.

She bit her bottom lip in thought, finally answering, “It becomes cautious.”

“Then t-t-t-take . . . your t-time,” said Gran.

She was slurring her words, and her voice was becoming softer and softer even as her body kept moving and jerking. Ginger rolled to her side and gathered her grandmother into her arms as best she could.

“I’ll miss you . . . someday,” said Ginger as a tear slid down her face.

“You’ll . . . h-h-have . . . C-Cain.”

Will I? Is it possible, after everything, for Cain and I to be together?

Gran’s eyes were closing. “C-consider . . . who he
is
. . . not who . . . he
was
.”

A new man. A good man. A tender man. A man who stays. A man who sets her blood on fire. The man she’d always wanted, and yet . . .

“If I let myself love him, I don’t think I could stand to lose him. Gran, it would take so much courage to fall in love with him again.”

“L-lionhearted l-l-l’il . . . g-gal,” murmured her grandmother, drifting off to sleep.

Ginger started, wondering when in the world Gran had ever heard Cain call her that . . . but then, Cain had been calling her that forever. Certainly Gran could have heard it at some point or another.

Stronger’n death, with the heart of a lion
.

But was she strong enough to give love, and Cain, another chance? And was that a chance he was interested in taking?

***

It was only his second day open, but nothing was going right.

Cain had bought two laptops—one for himself and one for Ginger—but the guy he’d hired from Geek Squad to set them up basically told him they were both shit. Great. So Cain had to run up to Best Buy in Lexington and get two new ones, at twice the price.

Upon returning, he noticed the flowers on her desk were gone, and the IT guy sheepishly admitted he’d knocked them over and the vase had shattered. He’d thrown them in the bathroom garbage bin. So Cain had to take out the trash and make another trip out—this time to the Piggly Wiggly—for a fresh bouquet.

When he came back from that trip, the phone was ringing. Someone was calling about a funny noise on his custom chopper’s suicide clutch. Could Cain take a look? Sure, he could. Would twelve work? He made a face. He definitely didn’t want to turn down new business, but he’d really hoped to have a little one-on-one with Ginger when she first arrived.

“Sure,” he said, feeling grouchy but keeping his voice professional. “Twelve is great. Bring it in. I’ll take a look.”

“Mr. Wolfram,” asked Linus from Geek Squad as Cain hung up the phone, “you want Wi-FI, or were you plannin’ to use DSL? Or cable?”

Cain, who’d been a rebellious teen, then a naval firefighter, had very little knowledge of computers. “Uh, I need the Internet.”

“Yeah. But to connect: cable, DSL or Wi-Fi?”

Cain clenched his jaw. “If you were me, what would you do?”

“DSL or cable hardwired to your laptop, Wi-Fi to your assistant. Then you can offer it to your customers when they’re waitin’ on service.”

“Fine. Great. Do that.”

“The DSL or the cable?”

“Whatever!” yelled Cain, picking up the phone. “Wolfram’s DSL.”

“Oh, sorry. Wrong number.”

The caller hung up before Cain realized his mistake, and he groaned, slamming down the phone.

I have to get out of here for a few minutes.

Except that just then, as he was about to pull out his hair, the bell jingled over the door signaling that someone had walked into the showroom.

“Hello? Cain?”

And fuck if every bit of stress from the morning rolled off his shoulders and faded away. She was here. He looked down at his clothes and made a face. He hadn’t been able to change from his coveralls back into jeans and a T-shirt, but he hoped like hell that she didn’t give a shit.

“Get them workin’,” he growled at Linus, who shrank back nervously, busying himself with the two computers.

Cain crossed the office and stopped in the doorway, looking across the showroom to where Ginger stood in a beam of sunlight checking out his favorite bike. Her blonde hair was up in a ponytail, her perfect ass was tight and high in jeans, and her hand caressed the shiny chrome fender of a fully restored 1952 Zündapp K800. Cain took a moment to burn the image—way hotter than the hottest porn—into his mind before clearing his throat.

“You like it?”

She turned around, and her face broke into a smile. “It looks real old.”

“It is. Almost sixty-five years old.”

“Wow. It’s beautiful, Cain.”

He looked down at the early-model motorcycle. “I met this guy in Sweden . . . his name was Sven, and he was from Iceland. He restored old bikes, and when I finished riding across Europe, I headed over there to check out his shop. Ended up staying for a couple of months. That’s how I got the idea to open my own place.”