Home Sweet Home (14 page)

A
doctor came into the waiting room. “Evelyn Thomas’s family?”

Andi asked, “What happened?” just as Carol said, “Is my mother going to be okay?”

The doctor sat down with them on the blue padded chairs. “Evelyn passed out because her lungs were almost completely full. From our first round of X-rays and tests, it seems that she’s been walking around with low-grade pneumonia for weeks, if not months. Oftentimes this kind of infection can go on for a while before flaring up and causing big problems. We’re waiting for the results of a few more tests to see how her organs have been holding up.”

“Her organs?” Andi asked. “I thought you said her lungs were the problem?”

“It’s just a precaution to make sure the lack of oxygen hasn’t done more damage. But I have to tell you, that is one strong lady in there with us. She’s been sucking in oxygen through a very thin tube. Most people half her age would have collapsed long before she did. We’ll be keeping her sedated and on oxygen for the night at least to give her body a chance to rest while it takes in the first round of antibiotics. As far as you know, is she allergic to anything?”

Andi looked at her mother for the answer. “I don’t know,” Carol said, her words barely above a whisper. Her voice quivered as she added, “She was never sick. Not until recently.” Tears came again. “I thought she had a cold. She told me she had a cold.”

The doctor handed Carol a Kleenex from the box on the side table before standing up. “We’re going to keep her in the ICU until we have a better handle on her situation. You’re welcome to stay with her there for as long as you like.”

During the hours Evelyn went in and out of sleep in the hospital bed that dwarfed her, she heard many voices: Carol’s, Andi’s, the doctor’s, the nurse’s, a man’s voice that she recognized but couldn’t place. She tried again and again to find the surface, to awaken completely, but her lungs felt so heavy, like trying to breathe with a hundred pound weight strapped across her chest. Her eyelids were as heavy as her limbs.

Slowly she began to lose the thread of where she was, and then something cool flooded her veins and it was easier just to let herself settle deeper into the recesses of her mind.

Into her memories.

Seventy years disappeared, erasing everything but Carlos.

1941

It had been one week since their trip on the freight train. Seven days. 168 hours. 10,080 seconds.

Too long.

It wasn’t just the kiss she hadn’t been brave enough to give him that hung over every one of those seconds…it was learning something about herself that she hadn’t liked learning.

Namely that she wasn’t anywhere near as brave as she’d always thought she was.

Somehow she needed to figure out a way to see Carlos again. To be alone with him again.

And to finally be brave.

But after a full week where she hadn’t been able to find any way to be with him, she finally realized just how precious their stolen moments had been.

Every Friday night in fall, her family went to the high school football game. A onetime star when he was younger, her father would be out there with the team on the field, helping the coaches, supporting the players, while she and her sisters and mother enjoyed the evening under thick blankets with cups of hot chocolate to help keep them warm.

That Friday night she was surprised to look out from the bleachers and see Carlos at the edge near the trees looking back at her.

“Mom, I think I just got my period. I’ve got to head back home.”

“Maybe one of your sisters should go with you,” her mother replied.

Seeing that her mother was still half focused on the game, Evelyn said, “No, I’ll be fine biking home with the full moon out tonight.”

Evelyn’s heart raced with delicious anticipation as she rode her bike through the crisp night air. Assuming Carlos would be waiting for her at her house when she approached the park at the edge of the downtown strip, she was surprised to see him leaning against the carousel.

For a moment she felt like a little girl as she dropped her bike onto the grass. But then as she walked across the stretch of green and saw his eyes on her, dark blue eyes that were full of the same need she was feeling, Evelyn felt her first real rush of feminine power. And pleasure.

Finally she reached the carousel, and it was hard to breathe as she put her hands on one of the horse’s flanks and stepped up onto the platform. Running her fingers along the painted beasts, she slowly moved to the two-person sleigh being pulled behind a pair of horses and sat down.

She watched him as he made his decision. Watched him as he climbed up onto the carousel.

Her heart raced. She was scared, frightened of the strength of her feelings, the strange sensations that had taken over her body inch by inch from the first moment she’d set eyes on him.

Carlos, her Carlos, was graceful as he moved toward her. And then he was kneeling in front of her, ignoring the open seat next to her.

“Pretty Evelyn.”

She took his face in her hands, the solid lines of his jaw firm against the flesh of her palms, the dark stubble across his chin rough against her skin.

Just as the fireworks that marked halftime at the football field exploded in the sky above them, she pressed her lips against his…and knew that she was his forever.

Nothing—no one—would tear them apart.

Not without tearing her apart, too.

The whole time she held her mother in her arms on the floor and in the back of the ambulance, as they waited for news in the hospital, Carol hadn’t stopped thinking how right the needles and yarn had looked in Andi’s hands.

Andi was knitting a shawl.

And then there was Nate. Carol had known him his whole life, knew what a good boy he’d been, what a wonderful man he’d turned into.

These past hours she’d watched him watching her daughter and saw what her daughter hadn’t dared tell her.

The love between them had never gone away.

Nate loved her little girl with such devotion, such purity, it simply took Carol’s breath away.

Did Andi know? Did Nate?

And even if they did, would it matter? Would it change anything for her beautiful daughter?

Even as a child, Carol had marveled at the fact that Andi was actually half hers. Not so often when she was a little girl, when they would bake together or play with yarn or fabric or make sand castles on the beach, but later when it seemed as if Andi was going out of her way to grow up too fast. When the only thing that mattered was what her father thought. When her sole purpose was getting out of Emerald Lake.

Carol had loved her husband, even if she hadn’t always understood him. But now she was afraid that those things she hadn’t understood—the pressures he had always put on his only child, the way he’d repeatedly told his beautiful daughter that she had to be more, bigger, stronger—had only been magnified in his death.

Carol was afraid that Richard Powell now loomed larger over Andi from the grave than he had as flesh and blood.

She was afraid that just as she’d never known how to be the kind of mother her daughter really needed as a child, she didn’t know how to help her as an adult, either.

She worried that Andi’s return to Emerald Lake would only make those demons that ate at her daughter’s heart and soul stronger.

But most of all, she worried that this time if her daughter left for the city again, she wouldn’t be coming back.

So many questions, so many worries, too many for this hospital room full of beeping machines and bright lights.

But through it all, she held onto that picture of Andi with the barely begun blue shawl on her lap…and how right it had looked. Like her daughter was finally coming back to a home she should have never left.

“Thank you for being here with us, Nate,” Carol said. “You should go home and get some sleep. Andi, you too.”

Her daughter looked surprised. Then stubborn. Always so stubborn.

Even when something as beautiful as true love was staring her straight in the face.

“I’m staying here. With you. With Grandma.”

But for all that Carol had rarely pushed her daughter to do anything she didn’t want to do, she wasn’t afraid to do it now.

“Since the day your grandmother opened Lake Yarns, her store has been open Monday through Saturday. Not once in fifty-five years have the doors been locked shut. We’re not starting now. Not when she’s counting on us. The doctor and nurses have already told me that I can stay here with her as long as I need to.” Carol gestured to a pullout couch that had been supplied with a pillow and blankets. “You’ve got to get some sleep with what’s left of the night so that you can run the store.”

Andi’s eyebrows raised in surprise. Carol held her breath as she waited for her daughter’s reply to see if she tried to call her bluff.

She worked to hide her relief when Andi nodded. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do. Anything, Mom. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, honey,” Carol said in a softer tone, letting go of her mother’s hand long enough to hug her daughter.

When Carol turned to hug Nate, he whispered, “I’ll take care of her,” into her ear.

“I know you will, Nate.”

But would Andi let him?

Nate drove Andi back to Emerald Lake in the car his ambulance chief had left for him, but when they pulled up in front of her mother’s house, her legs didn’t want to move.

“Don’t worry, there’s no way you’re going back to that big house all alone.”

How had he read her mind?

She didn’t trust her voice as Nate came around her side of the car and opened her door. Taking her hand, he said, “We’re going to pack a bag for you, and then you’re coming back with me. To my house.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew it wasn’t a good idea, that she should be strong enough to sleep in her mother’s empty house. But god, how she didn’t want to. Which was why she threw some clothes into a large shoulder bag, along with her toothbrush, and got back into his car.

Nate parked behind his house, and this time she got out of the car by herself, but instead of heading into his house, her feet took her, almost like a sleepwalker, down to his dock, not stopping until she was standing out over the lake.

Her mind wasn’t racing anymore. Instead it was blank. Completely empty.

All that remained was a deep ache in her chest, her stomach.

She didn’t hear Nate come up behind her, didn’t know he was standing right there until he said, “That one looks like an elephant.”

Her brain tried to restart, but it was like an engine without any oil. The key had turned, but all it could do was sputter before dying out again. And then his hand slipped over hers, and she curled her fingers into his and held on for dear life.

Warm. He was so warm.

“The one over to the right looks like a headless horseman.”

She finally realized he was looking up at the sky, up at the clouds. She couldn’t believe it when her mouth almost found a smile.

This was a game they’d played as kids, lying out on the end of the dock watching the clouds change shapes.

Her heart and her head were both glad for the chance to focus on something that didn’t hurt. She finally found her voice. “That one’s a witch on a broom.”

Nate moved closer, pointed up at the sky again. “And she’s being chased by three little witches.”

Maybe it was the fact that she knew she didn’t have to try to fall asleep in her mother’s big, overly quiet house, maybe it was the relief that Nate was always there right when she needed him, or maybe it was simply how he always found a way to make her smile, but as the clouds moved apart in the sky and covered the moon for a split second, her heart also split open for the second time in as many days.

As Nate’s arms came around her, holding her tight, she cried for her grandmother, for her mother. She cried for herself. For everything she didn’t understand.

And for everything she wanted but had never let herself have.

When her tears dried, Nate led her back up the dock and into his house. She barely noticed Dorothy getting up off the couch and saying “How is she?” barely heard Nate’s reply. And then he was taking her into his bedroom and helping her pull her sweater off over her head. He took off her shoes, her jeans, and settled her into a large bed.

He was pulling the covers over her, whispering, “Good night, sweetheart,” when panic settled over her.

“Please,” she said. She couldn’t be alone. Not now. Not anymore. She was so tired of being cold. So tired of feeling empty. “Please don’t go.”

Her eyes closed of their own volition before she heard his response, but she was still awake when the bed dipped. She sighed with relief, finally letting herself fall all the way into blessed darkness just as his body found hers and pulled her back into his chest.

For the first time in a long time, she wasn’t alone.

A
ndi woke up as the first, faint rays of light began to brighten up the sky outside the bedroom window. She hadn’t slept many hours, but they’d all been good ones, safe in Nate’s arms.

She shifted slightly beneath the soft covers, wanting to sink deeper into the mattress. Into Nate.

He pulled her closer, his arm tight over her waist, his hand curling into her rib cage. Holding her breath, she listened to his breathing. It was even, and she assumed he was still asleep, that his reaching for her had been completely unconscious.

A week ago, she would have been up and out of his bed in seconds, throwing on her clothes and getting in his rowboat, speeding across the lake as fast as her arms could take her to make sure she put distance between them.

But last night, he’d been there for her in a way no one ever had. He’d been there for her mother, too, taking care of both of them in the ambulance and in the hospital.

Somewhere between then and now, between that moment when he’d come rushing into Lake Yarns with the paramedic crew and pointing out cloud formations on his dock, between how she’d trusted him to strip her clothes off to put her into his bed and slept all night curled up in the safety of his arms, she realized a new truth: no matter what happened out in the real world, whether there were condos built or not, if they lived in cities or small towns, she could always count on Nate.

They had always been in it together, best friends and playmates practically from birth. He’d been the boy in sixth grade who had taken her to the office for ice when they’d been playing kickball and the ball had nailed her straight in the nose. He’d been the teenager who had asked her to dance in eighth grade at their first real after-school party when she’d been standing all alone in the corner. He’d been the one to pull her out of the way of the propeller when she had fallen out of the speedboat in tenth grade, letting her cling to him long past when she’d stopped shaking.

And he’d been her first lover at seventeen, the night she’d outdebated him over “doing the right thing,” tackled him in the backseat of his beat-up old car, and made him take her virginity.

As the magnitude of her realizations, coming one after the other, brought her more and more awake, she realized Nate’s breathing was no longer even and there was a slight tension in the arm slung across her.

Last night had been pure comfort, without even a hint of sexuality between them. But this morning, with his muscles hot and hard against her skin, she had another epiphany.

Not only was making love again with Nate a given.

It had always been a given.

Not if.

Now.

And even though the voice of common sense screamed inside her head, trying to get her to listen, to stop before things went any further, something much strong than common sense had her silencing that voice and moving her hand over Nate’s to thread her fingers between his.

Slowly she brought his hand up over her stomach, her rib cage, losing her breath as she took him between the valley of her breasts, not stopping until she held his fingers against her lips.

She pressed a kiss against his fingers, the small hairs on his knuckles brushing against her lips as she followed up with another kiss and then another.

Against her hips, she felt the growing proof of his arousal. It was pure instinct to shift herself into him. His low groan came from behind her and that one sound, combined with the incredibly sensual pleasures of finally being so close with Nate, had her skin prickling with awareness.

With unabashed need.

It was the most natural thing in the world to turn around, to put her arms around his neck and press her mouth against his. Not breaking their kiss, a heartbeat later, his heavy weight was completely over her, pressing her down into the bed. His tongue found hers, and as a soft moan of pleasure found its way from her chest to her throat and out her mouth, her legs moved apart for him so that he could press deeper against her.

She’d never had another lover like Nate, never wanted to run her hands and mouth everywhere at once. But she already knew he wouldn’t let her mouth go, not when he was holding her a willing prisoner with his, so she used her hands instead. She wanted to go fast, but she made herself go slow, running her hands down from his neck, across his broad shoulders, then down his back.

Her hunger was even stronger for the memories of how good it had been between them so long ago, stronger for the sure knowledge that it was going to be even better—so much better—after denying herself for so long.

She didn’t want anything between them, not even the thin cotton of his T-shirt or hers, so when she found the rim of his shirt, she gripped it in her fists and pulled it up, letting the edge of her fingers, her nails, rake lightly across his skin. His muscles rippled beneath her hands, and she felt him suck a breath in deep as he lifted himself high enough that she could take the shirt all the way up and off.

There was enough light in the room now for her to see him, to stare at his incredible beauty.

Perfect, he was perfect, his muscles rippling as he held himself in place for her inspection. And when she looked up at his face again in absolute wonder at finally being here with him, she saw the same wonder in his eyes tangled up with such heat she lost what was left of her breath.

“Now you,” he said, but she couldn’t wrap her brain around his words, not until she felt his fingers skimming her belly as he slowly lifted her shirt up across her sensitive skin. His fingers caught against the curve of her lace-covered breasts, making her shake with need.

He took his time looking at her, his dark, hot eyes burning a sizzling path across her skin that had her trembling. He’d seen her without her clothes before, but ten years had passed between then and now. She wasn’t a girl anymore. And he definitely wasn’t a boy.

And then he was lowering his head and she felt the soft press of his mouth on the upper swell of her breasts, first one and then the other, and she forgot all about the lost years. They were just kisses at first, until his tongue began to lave her skin, dipping into one cup of her bra.

Andi’s memories of making love with Nate had been so sweet, so good. But the truth was it had never been like this between them. Andi arched into him, desperate for more, and he groaned at her obvious pleasure before moving his mouth to her other breast. She was turning to liquid pleasure, melting as his mouth came down over the other sensitive peak.

She couldn’t remember a single reason why she’d ever denied herself Nate.

“Beautiful,” he said as he pulled back to look at her, and she cried out not just from the delicious physical sensations, but from the look in his eyes, the emotion that he wasn’t trying to hide from her anymore.

And the fact that being together like this felt so right.

So perfect.

Her bra was gone a moment later, his large hands cupping her flesh so that he could run kisses over both breasts at once. Her head fell back against the pillows as she tried to take it all in, pleasure so deep she thought she’d burst. Just when she thought she had found a way to deal with it, he was moving away from her breasts, his mouth kissing a path down her rib cage, his tongue finding the hollows in between her ribs.

Somewhere in the fog that had taken over her mind, she knew what was going to happen, that he was going to kiss her
there
, but she was already so far gone that when she felt his fingers slip into the side of her underwear, she needed his help lifting her hips so that he could slide them off.

As he pulled that final piece of her clothes off, she waited to feel shy, expected to be embarrassed at how her body had changed from a skinny girl’s to a woman’s, complete with a little cellulite on her thighs.

But those feelings never came.

Only a sweet anticipation that told her how long she’d waited for this.

“You are so beautiful,” he said against her stomach between kisses, and then his fingers were moving over her, across the slick patch of skin between her thighs. “More beautiful than ever.”

She lifted her hips into the soft press of his hand over her mound, groaning as he cupped her, begging silently for more. He must have heard her silent plea, because the next thing she knew, his mouth was there, over the aroused swell between her legs. She cried out as his mouth covered her, peaking and falling beneath his mouth.

It was too much, so much more than she’d ever felt with anyone else. She couldn’t remember anything or anyone that came before Nate, couldn’t possibly think about what would come after.

She’d never felt so soft, so womanly as he moved his mouth down over her thighs, kicking the covers off so that he could press kisses against her knees, her shins, her ankles, the tops of her feet.

Only with Nate had she ever felt this much love.

And now, she thought as he laid back on the bed and pulled her over him, it was her turn to show him with her body, with her mouth, with her hands, all the things she could never say.

Straddling his hips, looking down at him with such satisfaction, Andi was soft and naked and so beautiful Nate could hardly breathe, could hardly believe she was finally here with him in his bed.

He hadn’t been a saint in the past ten years, but being with Andi again made it painfully clear that she wasn’t just his first, she was also the only one who mattered.

All week, ever since he’d seen her outside the yarn store, he had been warning himself about keeping his distance, and this was why. He wouldn’t have had to warn himself to stay away if she hadn’t been so important.

Nate couldn’t escape from the fact that he was going to have to stop and figure this all out soon, too soon. But later, not now, not while Andi,
his sweet Andi
, was soft and sweet and giving herself to him so openly. Not when he never wanted to stop loving her, not when he could listen to the sound of her coming apart beneath his mouth, his hands, over and over for a hundred years and never tire of hearing it.

Her hands were splayed flat across his chest. “I don’t know where to start,” she said, almost as if she were talking to herself.

“Anywhere, sweetheart.”

And then she was leaning down over him, her soft hair blanketing his chest, his shoulders, as her mouth ran a path across his skin from his arms down to his hands, loving each finger separately before she moved back up to his shoulder, to his neck.

He couldn’t keep from stealing a kiss, from capturing that sweet mouth and tangling his tongue with hers. She tasted so good. Everywhere he tasted her.

She continued her sensual assault down his chest, over his abs. He tightened his stomach muscles, fighting for control as her tongue slid into the hollows. Finally she removed the last barrier between them, his boxers joining the rest of their clothes on the floor.

It killed him to have to shift away from her for even a second to get a condom out of his bedside table. All the while she was pressing kisses against his face, his neck, his shoulders, and chest. With a groan, he ripped open the package and shoved the condom on.

And then, she was wrapping her legs around his waist and guiding him into her, gasping with pleasure until he was finally right where he belonged.

He looked into her eyes and saw wonder in them—along with pure joy—and he knew that only emotion could have them wanting each other so much, so badly. Only love.

“I love you, Andi.”

Before either of them could really react to the words he hadn’t planned on saying, nature was taking over, their tongues slipping and sliding against each other as their hips did a similar dance. He had dreamed of this moment a hundred times. A thousand. But being with her, as adults, was so much better than it had ever been when they were kids.

All he knew, all that mattered, was that Andi was finally his again.

Sweet Andi.

And then she was saying, “Please, Nate, now,” and he was lost, his body joining hers in an explosion of pleasure more incredible than anything he’d ever thought to feel.

When it was all over, he rolled back onto the mattress, taking her sweat-slickened body against his. She was already asleep by the time her head found his shoulder.

The sun was almost up completely, and Nate knew it was time to get his sister ready for school. First, though, he’d steal another sixty seconds with Andi.

And say his prayers for another sixty years.