Summer Kisses (70 page)

She touched Mac’s shoulder to wake him and a tortured sound ripped from his chest. He bolted upright, his eyes wide with terror.

 “Shhh....it’s okay, Mac.”

He stared up at her vacantly, panting as if he’d run a marathon. “I’m sorry. I must’ve dozed off.” He glanced up at her friend standing next to her. “Hi, I’m Mac. You must be Lucy.” He pushed himself to his feet. “You’ve got a great kid.”

“Thanks. He is wonderful. I’ll just take him and get going.” Lucy slipped by them into Tommy’s room to pick up her son.

“Whoa.” Mac followed and quickly stopped her. He lifted Royce to his shoulder. “He’s too heavy for you. Let me carry him.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it. At the rate he’s growing, pretty soon I’ll have to start waking him up to take him home.” Lucy led the way to the kitchen and whispered to Abby, “I see what you mean about his eyes. He seems very nice.”

When they got to the door, Mac turned. “I’ll see you in the morning, Abby. Thanks again for everything. Dinner was incredible, as usual.”

Even Lucy agreed he was probably just hurting and lonely. She couldn’t let him sleep on the damp concrete floor. “Mac? Come back in the house. You can use my guestroom.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Are you sure? What about what’s-his-name? If you were my fiancée, I wouldn’t like some strange, homeless guy sleeping in your house.”

“I don’t particularly care if Robert has a problem with it. I’m not his wife, yet. Until I am, I’ll decide who my guests will be.”

~*~

Matt followed Lucy, shaking his head. He was wrong. Independent wasn’t the word for Abby. Defiant and rebellious was probably a more accurate description.

At the house next door, he stepped into the beer-scented living room where a husky, light-haired man sat sprawled in front of the television watching a boxing match.

Beat-on-defenseless-children
Harmon pointed at Matt and snarled at Lucy, “Who the fuck is he?”

“This is Mac. He’s been painting Abby’s house.” Lucy turned to Matt. “Mac, this is my husband, Bill.”

Matt held out his hand, and the man shook it with a begrudging grunt and then glared at Lucy. “What’s he doin’ here at this time of night?”

“I’m carrying your son home. He’s too big for Lucy to haul him so far.”

“Then she can wake the kid up. He’s perfectly capable of walking.”

“I’m sure he is. Just like you’re capable of getting off your ass to come get him. A kid his age shouldn’t have to be woken up every night. So, as long as I’m around, I’ll be bringing Royce home.”

Lucy laid a trembling hand on Matt’s arm. “His room is this way.”

Why the pretty blonde woman would marry such a nasty son of a bitch was beyond him. He followed her into her son’s bedroom, and after tucking Royce in, he stroked his fair head. “Goodnight, Sport.”

Matt turned to find Lucy smiling at him. “I want to apologize for my husband. He really didn’t—”

“No. There’s no excuse for....” He pursed his lips. “Why do you let him talk to you that way?”

“You don’t understand. If I argue with him, he’ll—”

“Hit you?” he finished for her. “If that’s the case, you should leave.”

“Bill wasn’t always like this. The gambling and drink—” She cut herself off and lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “Besides, if I left, where would Royce and I go?”

“Anywhere. You’re already supporting your son and yourself.”

“What do I do when he tracks us down? And if you’re going to suggest calling the police, don’t. It wouldn’t stop him when he’s drunk. I couldn’t live with myself if he really hurt Royce.”

“If you stay with the bastard, he eventually will, Lucy.” He waved his hand. “Never mind. I’m sorry I interfered. I should mind my own business.”

“It’s okay.”

“Just promise you’ll call me if he starts in on you or Royce, again.” If he heard so much as a raised voice coming from her house, he’d be calling the police.

“I will. Thank you for your help.”

He hoped his so-called
help
hadn’t made more trouble for her than she already had.

~*~

Matt returned to Abby’s house and stopped in the garage for his duffel bag before he slipped quietly in the back door and locked it. Passing the living room, he saw her standing at the front door, kissing Robert goodbye. Pain plowed into Matt’s chest like a sledgehammer.

He smacked his hand against the guestroom doorjamb. “Shit.” Even though Abby was a virtual stranger to him, it still tied his gut in a knot to have another man put his mouth on his wife—even if he couldn’t remember ever actually kissing her himself. Unless, of course, he assigned Abby’s beautiful face to the ambiguous green-eyed blonde he’d made love to again and again in his dreams.

He yanked open the buttons on his shirt and sank onto the bed, thinking about a conversation he’d had with Ben Danvers, one of his other POW buddies.

Ben hadn’t understood how Matt could have such vivid memories of sex and not recollect any of the women he’d slept with. Ben had gone on for hours about how much he missed making love to his wife, Julie. He’d been positive he was being punished for the mess he’d made of his marriage and worried constantly his wife would find someone else.

After their first attempt to escape, they’d been hunted like animals and beaten unconscious before being locked in the ankle stocks for several days.

“Damn it.” Ben groaned. “If I knew for sure I’d never get home to Julie, I’d let them kill me.”

“Not me,” Leonard said. “Now that I have a lot better appreciation of what my ancestors endured, this place just makes me more eager than ever to go home and join the fight for civil rights.”

Three years after Matt’s capture, his whole cellblock had been moved to a new camp, which made life a little more tolerable since they were no longer kept in solitary the majority of the time. Shortly after the transfer, they’d gotten word from a recently captured prisoner that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated.

Upon witnessing Leonard’s anguish, Matt had confided to his two friends how profoundly empty he felt. “Most of the time, I’m happy living in ignorance about my past. But when I listen to you talk about your lives and families, it makes me wonder what I’m missing. I feel sort of dead inside. They’d be doing me a favor if they put a fucking bullet through my head.”

“Hey, don’t give up.” Leonard punched his shoulder. “There’s always a chance we’ll find a way out of here. And who knows, you could discover you’re a millionaire.”

“Or find out I’m a dirt-bag.”

“Nah.” Ben waved at him. “A dirt-bag wouldn’t play medic and take care of everyone. I doubt a guy’s character would change that much simply because he’s forgotten his past. I believe you’re a good man—no matter what name you go by.”

“For all we know, my portrait could be hanging in the post office. Not knowing anything about my past scares the shit out of me. I’ve got a feeling I had something great at home, and I’m afraid I’ll go nuts if I find out I’ve lost it.”

“Yeah.” Ben laughed without humor. “You, me, and every other guy in this rat-hole.”

~*~

After Robert left, Abby glanced at the back door. Had Mac come back yet? She stopped halfway down the hallway and tapped on the door of the guestroom. “Mac, are you in there?”

Getting no answer, she knocked again and opened the door a crack to peek in. He sat on the bed with a haunted look in his eyes, his shirt hanging open and his jeans unzipped. It appeared he’d zoned out in the middle of undressing.

She crept in and touched his arm, and his whole body jolted. The same trapped look he’d gotten when she’d woken him earlier returned. Mac stared blankly at her for a moment, wearing a confused expression and then stood. “I’m sorry. What’d you ask me?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to tell you to help yourself to towels in the linen closet in the bathroom.”

Her gaze drifted to the patch of midnight sprinkling his chest. A thin line of hair tapered to his navel where it grew dense again and disappeared into the snowy briefs peeking through the V of his open zipper.

Without a spare ounce of flesh, his torso consisted of an impressive array of solid, well-defined muscles that formed an intricate network of ridges down his chest and abdomen, suggesting he must have passed a lot of his idle time in prison exercising. Still, his ribcage stood out so prominently she could count each bone.

“Oh, Mac,”—she reached out toward his ribs—“those monsters really did starve you, didn’t they?”

He grabbed her wrist before she could touch him. “I know you don’t mean anything by this, Abby. But please remember I’m a man who’s been without a woman for a really long time. You’re incredibly beautiful.” He closed his eyes and sucked in a shuddering breath. “And very sexy. You’d better go.”

Her breasts grew taut, and a nearly forgotten warmth unfurled in the pit of her stomach, radiating southward. Why did it feel so good to hear him admit he wanted her?

And Robert worried
Mac
would be attracted to
her
.

She stared at him, unable to pull her hand away. He had a little more body hair than Matt ever had. As his heart pounded under her palm, she lowered her gaze to the white bulge pushing past his open fly. She squashed the urge to let her hand slide down his corrugated stomach. He looked as huge as Matt had been—maybe even bigger.

It was only after she’d been held by several of her dates in the last few years and stroked Rob that she’d realized how well-endowed her husband had been compared to other men.

The thought of freeing Mac’s thick length from his underwear and having him thrust his hard flesh into her left her panties damp. She shook off the mental image of their naked bodies joined. What was wrong with her? She’d never fantasized about a man’s privates like this before.

She had to leave.
Right now
. Only—how could she with her feet glued to the floor?

~*~

Abby’s high color told Matt she’d seen the intense excitement she’d stirred in him. The desire flickering in her eyes left him completely confident he could have her in his bed naked in thirty seconds flat if he told her who he was.

However, the strategy his lower half was demanding would destroy the one his head had previously decided to pursue. He gritted his teeth and whispered roughly, “You’re still here, Abby.”

He would hate himself later if he let his dick do his thinking. But he was so damn tired of having sex by himself. Lately, he’d gotten as bad as Ben with how much he thought about it.

He longed to sink inside Abby and find out if the reality of making love to her compared to any of his fantasies starring the green-eyed blonde he’d conjured up all these years. If it felt as incredible as....

No.
He couldn’t even think about it. If he did, he’d give in to his pecker and blurt out his identity. He had to get Abby out of there or else he’d end up throwing her on the bed and screwing her until she couldn’t see straight.

At the moment, revealing their relationship was the only way he’d get her to sleep with him—unless he seduced her. And she’d hate him in the morning if he did that.

She stood riveted to the carpet and stared at him. His breaths came hard and fast. It took every bit of self-control not to pick up the ball and run one of the plays he’d entertained. Nonetheless, neither game plan would achieve anything other than to relieve the ache in his groin.

He bore no resemblance to the man she’d married, either inside or out, and to allow her to think she was getting into bed with that guy would be wrong. He’d never be sure of her feelings for him if they jumped in the sack together just because he had the same name as the boy she’d loved so long ago.

If Abby truly cared for Robert, Matt wanted her to stay with him. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with a woman who imagined someone else was holding her at night.

He caressed her cheek and whispered, “Abby, if you don’t leave this room in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to kiss you.”

Disappointment mingled with relief when she finally fled as he muttered through gritted teeth, “And I’m not altogether sure I’ll be able to stop with just a kiss.”

“. . . you look like a sergeant, and you act like one—”

A rocket-propelled grenade shrieked past the Huey, cutting off the men’s rowdy birthday chorus. The projectile self-detonated in a blinding flash only ten meters away, illuminating the dark hillside below.

“Damn, that was close.” Matt heaved a breath of relief and braced himself.

“Just some belated New Year’s fireworks,” the pilot muttered as he banked the helicopter in another evasive maneuver, slicing through the smoke trail.

“Fireworks, my ass.”

Seconds later, a tooth-jarring blast overhead told Matt another RPG had most likely clipped the main rotor. Seven pairs of terrified eyes stared at him as he prayed for a controlled crash so they could twirl gently to the ground like a maple tree’s seedpod.

Instead, their damaged chopper plummeted toward the earth like a three-ton meteor.

“Shit! Mayday! Mayday!” the pilot shouted and then rattled their coordinates into his headset.

“Heads down!” Matt ordered, ensuring his men obeyed before folding himself into the crash position. Please, God, no. Abby and the baby need me.

On impact, every bone in his body vibrated like a tuning fork quivering to the pitch of his men’s agony. Mercifully, an airborne M-16 clobbered him, hurling him into a black void.

In what seemed like only seconds, Matt groaned, regaining consciousness to the crunch of footsteps and voices cutting through the black night. If the artillery barrage in his head would stop pounding, maybe he could think straight. He wrinkled his nose at the suffocating petroleum fumes, and his heart revved into overdrive. Please don’t let this damn thing explode.

Wincing, he shoved Black Jack Lewis off him. The wound to the card-shark sergeant’s neck had nearly decapitated him. Matt retched from the gruesome sight, and pain shot through his head and battered body.