Resisting Samantha (Hope Parish Novels Book 10) (11 page)

He sighed and eased
away, his eyes dark and smoky as he gazed at me. “That was
good,” he murmured, then kissed me again, a devilish gleam
appearing in his eyes. “Really good.”

“Yes, it was.
You’re a pretty good kisser.”

He nudged me with
his shoulder, pulling the basket toward him. “Not bad yourself,
Yank.”

Smoothing my hand
across his face, I pulled him down for another kiss, my lips brushing
as I whispered, “You better mean Yank in the best possible
light.”

He grinned against
my mouth and nipped my bottom lip, then soothed it with his tongue.
“Absofreakinglutely,” he deadpanned.

We ate cheese, cold
crab meat, and asparagus, along with French bread. He’d also
managed to put a bottle of white wine in the basket, and it was
crisp, sweet, and delicious. For dessert, plain, ripe red
raspberries.

“You’ve
got this romantic thing down pretty good, mister.”

“It’s
easy with you, Samantha.”

I leaned forward,
and he sampled my offered mouth, slipping his tongue inside, and I
tightened my hold on his head, feeling almost as drunk on his
absolute sweetness—his kiss slow-moving and savoring—as I
was on the wine.

“You’re
also pretty good at this picnic meal thing, and made an excellent
choice with the wine.”

The sound of the
waves was a natural music which, along with the wine, lulled me into
relaxing against him. He cupped my cheek and languidly working his
mouth against mine, infusing me with a fluttery weakness that was as
sweet and as slow as his kiss.

It was a long time
before he sighed and eased away, trailing a row of moist kisses along
my jaw. Releasing the air in his lungs, he cradled me against him,
then rested his jaw against my head, his hand still against my cheek.
He held me like that for several moments, then he finally said, his
tone quiet. “I think we should talk, Samantha.”

“Only if you
want to,” I said. “Don’t feel you have to explain
anything to me.”

He exhaled heavily,
absently rubbing his thumb against the side of my neck. “Yes, I
want to.”

Readjusting his
position slightly, he settled me against him as he stretched out on
the blanket.

“You know all
about what the Colonel did, I’m sure. The gossips were obsessed
with it two years ago.”

I nodded.

“What is not
common knowledge is that I knew about it long before River Pearl
discovered the secret, and the only reason she did was because I had
the last of the Colonel’s journals she was looking for.”

I didn’t say
anything, just nodded and listened.

“I found the
journal one day after school my senior year. When I read it, I
was…shattered. Luckily it was after finals, or I’m not
sure I would have finished out high school. I didn’t show up
for my graduation. While everyone was at graduation, I packed a bag
and left. I haven’t been back in ten years.”

He shifted so he
could look directly down at me, my heart skittering when I saw the
look on his face, the same one I’d seen at Outlaws. Guilt,
shame, anger, resentment, and bitterness.

I met his gaze while
the faint light cast his face in disturbing shadows.

He stared at me for
a moment, then looked away while he smoothed his hand over my hair.
His voice gruff when he finally spoke again. “You probably want
to know why I left.”

“Yes, I do. I
want to know everything about you.”

I wished he would
look at me, that he wouldn’t avoid meeting my eyes the way he
was. A flutter of uncertainty stirred in my middle, and my voice was
just a little uneven when I said, “I would never judge you.”
This was all about honesty and openness and trust.

He took a breath and
said, “I made myself into everything my daddy wanted. I had
followed every edict, got perfect grades, and was the dutiful, golden
son. But that day, the day I found out everything was a lie, made a
mockery of everything I’d worked so hard to achieve, and I
had…nothing. I didn’t know who I was without all those
trappings. I knew I wasn’t going to figure out who I was in
that beautiful house, so I started from nothing and built a
foundation, alone, isolated.”

“Didn’t
go over big with your family?” I asked softly, toying with the
ribbed neck of his tee.

He finally looked at
me, his gaze so somber, sad, and his voice broke. “No. My
father was livid, and Jake probably feels I’ve abandoned and
betrayed him. And I guess, in retrospect, I did.”

“You had to
find your way. How could you be any good to your family until you
worked it all out?”

He met my gaze then,
his expression drawn; then he frowned and looked away, carefully
smoothing back my hair. “That’s just it. I thought I had
when my cousin tried to kill us. I thought I could see my family, but
my dad was so disappointed, and Jake wouldn’t forgive me,”
he said gruffly. “It hit me after I talked to Brax, how empty I
was, and it threw me that my daddy wants to move on, to be a family
again, and I’m stuck, and I can’t.”

“Oh, Chase…”

The torment in his
eyes made my heart stall, while he continued as if I hadn’t
spoken. “I can’t get it out of my head that I was
stubborn and judgmental when my daddy came to visit. Maybe he’s
truly willing to put the past behind us. I never gave him the chance
to say so.”

His voice broke, and
he roughly massaged his eyes, then he hauled in a tight, unsteady
breath. His voice raw with emotion, he continued. “I don’t
know what to say or how to make them understand. Even River, who just
wants everything to go back to the way it was. It’s never going
to happen.”

He swallowed hard
and rubbed at his eyes again. He drew another breath and dropped his
hand, his expression scored by the same raw emotion that had
roughened his voice. He didn’t meet my gaze as he went on, his
voice strained to the limit. “But I was so damned torn up
inside, and I was having a hell of a battle with feelings I thought
I’d buried years ago, that I couldn’t put it all
together.”

Feeling such pain
for him, I touched his face. My voice shaking with emotion, I told
him, “You will. When you’re ready. When you’ve
figured it out. They shouldn’t be trying to rush you.”

He buried his face
in my neck, pulling the blanket over us as we snuggled together. I
tried to handle the ache around my heart. He had a lifetime of change
to go through with his family. His aloneness, his wariness, created
such a vast hurt in me that I could barely stand it. He urgently
needed someone to show him what love was.

Hit by a rush of
emotion, I locked my jaw against the awful constriction in my throat.

I had given my all
once, everything I was.

Could that person be
me? Did I have the courage?

Could I love like
that again?

SAMANTHA

It had been a
tiring, labor intensive, emotionally draining day for Chase, and as
we lay in each other’s arms, he fell asleep, his breath even,
his heavy, strong body relaxed against me.

I thought about what
I had experienced in the past week.

Going through what I
had with Jeff and Scott had scarred me deeply. I wasn’t sure I
was ever going to be capable of giving myself over to that kind of
vulnerability again.

But then there was
Chase, also scarred, still struggling with his own identity, and
working to put everything from his past into perspective.

And damn if his
struggle wasn’t admirable. He was examining everything, and
reconciling his reasons for leaving with his reasons for now staying
away. It was more than I had been willing or able to do since Jeff
and Scott were murdered. Without answers or closure, the deep wound
in me from their deaths remained open and bleeding.

So I understood his
fear of challenging that pain again, sifting through it, and finding
the answers that were there, but obscured. I wasn’t sure I had
that kind of courage.

He stirred and
opened his eyes.

“Hey, I fell
asleep.”

“So you did,”
I murmured.

“Wanna go for
a swim?”

I looked up to see
stars by the thousands, bright and twinkling above us, and it felt as
if they were trapped inside me when he looked at me like that, smiled
at me like that. Did I have anything to give at all?

“Sure. Give me
those scraps of material, and I’ll change.”

He sat up, grabbed
the bag, and then stood, pulling up the blanket to shield me from his
silvery blue eyes.

“You expect me
to believe you won’t peek?”

“I won’t.
My word as a Southern gentleman.”

I raised a brow and
he laughed at my skeptical look. His voice low and husky, he said,
“Not that I’m not tempted. You’re beautiful
Samantha.”

The wind teased
across the beach, the moon a little higher, heading toward midnight
as it caught Chase’s hair and ruffled the thick mass. I had
never done anything so reckless, and I didn’t mean agreeing to
fly in a small plane here to the coast on an impromptu beach picnic
and camping trip.

It was about this
feeling. This kernel of emotion which longed to do a complete buy-in
on Chase Sutton. Every nuance of him, from his bronzed hair down to
his well-formed feet. He was six feet of temptation wrapped up in a
hard-packed, knee-melting body, with a heart that was true, strong,
and courageous, whether he believed it or not.

“Hold up the
blanket, Romeo,” I quipped, and he grinned. I went to pull my
shirt over my head and I said with a wry inflection, “Close the
eyes, mister.”

He dutifully
complied, and I stripped off my clothes and donned the skimpy bikini.
He might as well see me naked. It was my turn to hold the blanket for
him. Right in the middle of his switcheroo, the wind whipped the
blanket up and exposed his very gorgeous backside while he scrambled
into the board shorts.

He gave me a
knowing, sidelong glance, and I laughed. “Don’t blame me.
Blame the wind.” I wasn’t going to complain and was, in
fact, ready and willing to thank the wind personally.

We ran into the
surf, the waves gentle and warm enough, where we cavorted and
frolicked until the moon reached its apex. Once we were out and
drying off with the towels Chase brought, he pulled some stuff out of
the bottom of the basket.

Holding up the
marshmallows, he said, “S’mores?”

We made the gooey
graham cracker, marshmallow, and chocolate treats and ate them while
once again sitting on the blanket, sipping more of the wine.

“This is so
peaceful,” I said. I took a bite of the s’more and licked
chocolate off my fingers. Chase watched me intently. “It seems
like everything just fades away when you breathe in the ocean air and
let the sound of the waves crashing lull you into a coma.”

“I think
that’s what I love about fishing out here. The ocean is a
constant, the fish always biting. I love what I do.”

“Me too.”

“You don’t
miss the big city?”

“Not at all. I
thought I would, but the quiet, meandering life of a small bayou town
suits me.”

“In what way?”

“I know the
people. I see them every day. It feels good, and permanent. There’s
no rush, ever. If I want to go faster, I can, but I don’t have
to, and that helps with stress. Food means something here, and people
appreciate my baking, and it serves my soul to feed them. It’s
a symbiotic relationship.”

“You see
beautiful things in humble places, where other people see the
mundane.”

“I have X-ray
vision,” I said.

He laughed, then
sobered, his expression relaxing, his eyes softening. “I see
you, Sam.” The husky intimacy in his tone set off a wild
flutter.

Bracketing my face
with his hands, he leaned down and kissed the bridge of my nose.
Capturing my mouth in a drugging kiss, he took me with him when he
reclined on the blanket.

With the cat out of
the bag, and no way to deny my attraction and affection for Chase, I
wanted him to be forewarned about the machinations of three
determined women in his life. “I got invited to your Aunt
Evie’s.”

“Oh?”
Drowsy contentment in his voice, he sleepily caressed my arm.

“Yeah, she
said
she wanted to replace that vintage plate I broke when AnnClaire
showed up in my kitchen and left me the gris-gris bag.”

“That was nice
of her. Any more ghost sightings?”

“No.”
After a comfortable silence, he tucked in his chin and brushed a kiss
against my forehead. “It was so nice. I brought her some
rosemary and mint.”

“Did you get
the plate?”

“I got the
whole set, and a bit more than I anticipated.”

“Oh, how’s
that?” he said absently, his hand slowing. “Another cool
vintage find?”

“No, your
mother and sister, ready and willing to grill me about our
relationship.”

“What?”
He pushed up on his elbow.

“Yeah, I was
ambushed.”

He clenched his jaw
and angled his head in annoyance. Releasing a heavy sigh, he said,
“Goddammit.”

I wanted to hug him
so much I could barely stand it, my senses overdosing on the scent of
him, on his closeness. “My thoughts exactly.”

“What did you
say?”

“To their
eternal frustration, not a damn thing. I don’t kiss and tell.”

He grinned and made
a face. “It was that lap thing at the brunch, right? That’s
what set them off.”

I didn’t know
why, but I felt all shaky inside. “I guess we didn’t fool
anyone with my lame attempt at humor.”

“No, I guess
we didn’t.”

“That wasn’t
all.”

He groaned, “Jesus.
What else? Did my momma want to talk weddings with you?”

My whole system
crashed, as in needing a full reboot. I thought I would shy away from
anything that mentioned, smelled, tasted or sounded like a wedding,
but I shocked the hell out of myself with the vision of what it would
be like to walk down the aisle with Chase. That overloaded my system
again, and I had to take a quick breath.