Learning to Love Again (7 page)

“You never told me about them.”  Jason led her down a short path to the small creek that ran behind the barns.

Nicole stopped walking, staring out at the shadows. “It was hard talking about them.  I was fifteen when they died.  I was determined not to wind up like my mother, spending my life looking back and seeing what I hadn’t done,” Nicole turned and looked at him, deciding in that moment to throw caution to the wind and let him know her thoughts.  “I met you and we started hanging out, and then we started dating, and it seemed like before I knew it, you were mentioning settling down and starting a family.  Everything my mother had warned me against.  I was becoming more independent and all of a sudden, there you were, trying to take control.  I saw that independence disappearing, just like my mother had always warned me it would if I ever let a man control my life.  I was too immature to try and talk to you, and too scared that you’d be able to talk me into letting you have it all your way, so I left.”

He stared at her for a few tense seconds and she began to wonder if she had imagined seeing that flicker of desire
in his eyes at dinner.  Maybe it had been annoyance.  Or maybe being so honest just now had just pissed him off and she’d ruined everything.  “I...”

He reached out and laid a finger over her lips.  “Yes, I started talking about settling down and starting a family.  I was almost thirty years old.  But that didn’t mean I was going to hog tie you to the kitchen stove and keep you barefoot and pregnant!” he reached out and took her hand and pulled her a step closer to him.  “I knew you had your own dreams, and I know how hard you worked to get through undergrad and then law school.   I mean—Christ, Nicole!—you were twenty-one when you were accepted into law school.  I knew how hard you had worked to get there.”  His hand came up to cup her cheek.  “I never asked you to give up your dreams.  You just assumed I would and left.  You didn’t give us a chance.”

She stared at him in wonder and then looked away.  “I didn’t have anything else to go by.  And what I felt when I was with you…I was scared,” she whispered.  “I never even had a boyfriend until you came along.”

With a sigh, he tugged on her hands until she stepped into his arms.  He wrapped them around her and held her close.  “I never meant to scare you away.  What I felt for you, I knew it was intense but you were so…secretive, I guess is the word.  You never talked to me about your feelings or the past.  So much wasted time,” he murmured, rubbing her back and shoulders, feeling the tension.

Allowing herself to relax, Nicole leaned into him and he shifted to support most of the weight.  He reached up and framed her face with his hands, tilting her head back until he could see her eyes.  “We could try again, start over?” he questioned.

Without a word or breaking eye contact, she nodded her agreement.

Jason leaned his head down and rested his forehead against hers.  “But this time, we both have to be honest with each other to a fault… and no running away from our problems or our fears.  Deal?” he whispered.

“Deal.” she whispered back, and he tilted his head and kissed her.

IT WAS LIKE AN ELECTRIC SHOCK THE SECOND HIS lips touched hers.  It started slow and tender, and as Nicole began to respond Jason deepened the kiss.  After hesitating for a moment, she opened her mouth and met his tongue with her own.  His fingers ran through her hair, massaging her scalp.  Lost in a sea of emotions, she slid her arms up his broad chest, and then wrapped them around his neck.  Pressing herself closer to him as his hands skimmed over her back and down to her hips, she felt the hard ridge of his desire through the layers of clothes.  His fingers flexed and bit into her hip pulling her up against him, hard.

He slid one hand up under her shirt, his fingertips skimming along the lacy edge of her bra cup before he placed his whole palm over her breast and started kneading.  She gasped, feeling her nipples harden and tilted her head back, allowing him access to the tender areas on her neck.  As her hips moved against him, everything else faded away.  Nothing mattered but him being here with her.

With a groan, he stopped the sensual assault and held her away from him.  “If we keep this up, you’re going to be flat on your back on the ground,”
he
explained when she opened her eyes to look up at him in confusion.

“Oh my God.”  She muttered, stepping back another step.  “Jason…”

“It’s okay, baby.  We have all the time in the world to get to know each other again.”  He took a step towards her and reached out with a finger and stroked her cheek, then leaned in and gave her a tender kiss.  “Okay?”

She nodded, a little embarrassed by her ardent response to him even after all this time.  “You always could do that,” she muttered, as she ran her fingers through her hair in attempt to restore some order, and not to just to the strands.

“What’s that?”  Jason reached over and helped tuck a few strands back into place for her.

“Turn yourself off before making that final leap.”  Nicole was having trouble looking at him and couldn’t make herself look him in the eyes.

He stepped in front of her and placed a firm finger under her chin and forced her to look up and meet his searching gaze.  “Baby, you were a virgin.  It took everything in me not to take you to bed and seduce you.  No way in hell did I want you to think you were just a notch on my bedpost.  Besides that, you are my best friend’s cousin.  He trusted me with you,” he pulled her back into his arms and pressed his erection against her again.  “And for your information, I don’t ‘turn myself off’.  I could lay you down on the ground right now and spend the rest of the night buried deep inside of you, and still be hard as a rock tomorrow morning.”  Jason studied her flushed face.

With a groan, Nicole buried her face against his chest refusing to look up at him.  Chuckling, he wrapped his arms around her.  “Now, let’s go back up to the house before Mitch feels the need to send out a search party.”  He turned her around, and, linking his fingers through hers, led her back up to the house.  “I don’t think I could take any comments from Mitch right now, so I’m going to go ahead and get out of here.  I’ll call you tomorrow,” he whispered against her lips when he leaned in for a goodnight kiss.

“I’d like that.”  She nodded returning his kiss.

With a soft groan, he took a step back from her, gave her a wink, and then gave her a gentle push towards the door.  “Tomorrow,” he promised her as he headed back down the steps to his truck.

She watched as his taillights disappeared down the drive before turning to the door, but decided she wasn’t quite ready to head inside.  Walking over to the porch swing, she sat down.  With a push of her foot, she set it into motion and then watched the stars as they started to fill the evening sky.  Not even in Austin were the stars this bright or numerous.

It had been a night much like this one when she’d been told her parents were dead.  The day had been spent at the lake with some friends, doing the typical teenager-on- summer-break thing.  Thinking she was going to catch hell for being late, Nicole had rushed into the house.  But to her surprise, the house was empty.  She’d called Aunt Helen and Uncle Steve, thinking maybe they had gone over there.  But Helen hadn’t heard from her sister in days.  Helen checked with Uncle Steve and said that her father had left the job around noon that day, claiming he had personal business to attend to.

“Do you want me to come over and wait with you?”  Her aunt had asked.

“Oh no.  I’m sure they’ll be home soon.”  Nicole had assured her.  “I’ll have Mom give you a call tomorrow.”

She had taken a cool shower before making herself a sandwich.  Because her father didn’t believe in air conditioning even with the Texas heat, she had taken a large glass of ice tea and a new book out to the front porch and sat on the porch swing.  There was always a gentle breeze in the evenings that helped cool things off.  She settled into her favorite reading position on the swing and had been reading for a while when she heard the sound of a car coming slowly down the ranch road.

It wasn’t her father’s pickup truck, she’d realized, so she stood up and moved to the railing.  A sense of foreboding swept over her when she saw the distinctive lights on the roof of the car.  Her grip tightened around the porch railing as she watched the Sheriff Aunt Helen and Uncle Steve exit the car.  She watched as they approached the house.  Helen had looked up, and seeing the grief on her face Nicole had known without a word being spoken that something awful had happened to her parents.

“Nicole…”  Helen hurried up the steps and put her arms around her niece.

“Tell me.”  She pushed away from her aunt, her gaze on the sheriff.

“Nicole, I am sorry to be the one to have to tell you this…There was an incident involving your parents.”  The Sheriff cleared his throat, looking at her aunt and uncle.  “Nicole, your parents…were they having problems, do you know?”

Nicole looked between the three adults.  Aunt Helen was twisting her hands together and Uncle Steve looked like he was ready to throw up. 
What is going on? 
She looked back at the Sheriff.  “Well, they always argued about money and mom wanted dad to take more time off.  What do you mean by problems?”

Uncle Steve looked at the Sheriff, who nodded curtly at him.  “Nicole, your mom was trying to leave today.  She called your dad at lunch time and he took the afternoon off, told me he had personal business.”  Now it was Uncle Steve’s turn to clear his throat.  “I don’t know how else to say this, honey, but your dad followed your mom and it looks like they argued.  The police will do more tests but they think he shot your mom and then shot himself.”

Her vision had narrowed down to just the sheriff in front of her.  She could see everyone’s lips moving but the words weren’t making sense. A roaring sound filled her ears and her vision blurred before she blacked out.  She remembered bits and pieces of the next few days as she moved through them in a haze of grief and shock.  Aunt Helen and Uncle Steve had bundled her up and moved her over to their house and had taken care of all the details for the funerals and burials.  She hadn’t returned to her parents’ house since that day.  Uncle Steve had gotten a couple of his ranch hands to pack everything up for her.  They'd sold off anything of value that she didn't want.  The rest was boxed up and still in the attic here at the ranch, waiting for her to go through it all.

She was thrust back into the present when her cousin sat down next to her on the swing.  Letting out a screech of surprise, she turned her head to glare at her cousin.  She’d been so wrapped up in thoughts of the past, she hadn’t realized he’d joined her.

“What are you doing, sneaking around in the dark like that?”

“It’s my house; I can sneak if I want to.  Besides, it isn’t dark yet.”  Mitch settled onto the swing with her.  “What are you doing out here by yourself, are you okay?  Where’d Jason go?”

“You can stop asking me that all the time.  I’m fine.”  She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees.  “Jason decided to head on home.  I think he was afraid of what you’d say if he came back in with me.”  She paused and turned her head to meet her cousin’s knowing look.  “He wants us to start over and to try again.”

Mitch studied her for a few brief seconds before speaking.  “Nicole, I stayed out of it the first time around, but this time I am going to give you my opinion, whether you want it or not,” he paused for a second, looking out at his ranch before turning back to her.  “Before you start anything, you need to figure out what
you
want and where Jason fits into that equation.  I know you want to be happy and not to have any regrets when you look back at your life.  But, honey, that’s part of life.  We all have regrets.  I know what your mother used to say to you about love and marriage, and how it was all a trap.  But for some reason your mother was not a happy person and she refused to try to change that.  Don’t let her continue to dictate your life from the grave,” Mitch stretched his arm out across the back of the swing, his foot starting the motion of the swing up again.  “If that’s here and with Jason, then great.  If it’s not, then tell me what you need my help with, and you know you’ve got it.”

“Mitch, right now, the only regret I have is staying away from this town for so long and listening to that voice in my head telling me to never trust someone who says they love you,” she answered him.  “You know what a miserable childhood I had.  I realize now that I have been running from it.  Being back here, being able to remember some of the good things from my childhood instead of just mom’s anger and hatred, well, I’m beginning to let go of the past. I just wish...”  She swallowed hard around a sudden lump in her throat.  “I just wish Daddy were still here to answer some of my questions, you know?  Like how did he ever fall in love with someone like her, or what changed her?  And why did he do what he did?”

Mitch curled his fingers around her shoulder and she laid her head on his shoulder and they sat there for a few silent minutes, the soft creaking sounds of the swing blending with the other night sounds.

“Mom might be able to answer some of those questions for you, you know.  She’s made comments over the years about how much your mom changed, but whenever she realized I was around, she’d stop talking.  But I think if you were the one to ask the questions, she’d talk to you.”

“I have asked a few questions.  Maybe it’s time I asked a few more pointed ones,” Nicole agreed, thinking about her parents.

“So, what
are
you going to do about Jason?” Mitch asked after a few more seconds of silence had passed.

She stopped the swing and stood up.  “I’m going to take it one day at a time and see where life leads me.  I can’t change what I did before but I hope I’ve learned a few things since then, about life and myself,” she leaned over and kissed her cousin’s cheek.  “I know you care, and I appreciate it.  And thanks for listening.”

“Anytime, kiddo.”  Mitch smiled up at her.  “Hey, Carly asked me to tell you to stop in the den on your way inside.  I think she wants to ‘chat’ with you about our friend Jason.”  He gave the air quotes with a slight smirk.  She laughed at him and headed inside to find her friend.

Carly was still in the den, but she had drifted off to sleep with her book on her lap, a finger tucked inside marking her page.  Nicole reached down and eased the book out of her friend’s grasp.  Carly woke up as she was tucking an afghan around her.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.  Not having caffeine in the evenings is working,” Carly mumbled around a yawn.  “How was your walk with Jason?”

“Fine.”  Nicole sat down beside her friend, handing the book back to her, and gave her a knowing smile.  “I’ll spill if you spill.”  She offered.