The Lion's Den (Faraway Book 2) (31 page)

THE DREAMS STILL CAME EVERY
night. I’d seen him almost every weekday for months, and the anticipation of being with him was overcoming the logical argument that I didn’t deserve him. After Dharma had died, nothing felt right anymore. Vince was too good to be involved in any part of the Brad-Dharma-Meredith circus. He was too good for me.

But that reality didn’t keep the dreams away. It didn’t keep me from dropping off papers in his empty office and inhaling deeply just to smell him. It didn’t keep me from remembering every inch of his naked body when he spoke to me at work, and it didn’t keep me from him. And now that my marriage was done, that couldn’t keep me from him, either.

“So how are the renovations going?” he asked. He still always asked me something about my life. Something meaningless to everyone around us, but it was his way of letting me know he still cared about me.

“Actually, they’re done. You should stop by after work and see the place.” I tried to keep my voice light, but I really just wanted to take him into his office and beg him to touch me.

Vince stood motionless, shocked by the invitation. It could have been just a coworker asking another over to view the recent renovations on their house. Vince still didn’t know that Brad didn’t live there with me. No one knew but Jenna. He also didn’t know my children were staying at my brother’s for the weekend.

“I’d love to. Tonight?”

I kept an easy flow to the conversation. “Tonight’s fine with us. We’ll be there.”

“Okay . . .” He waited for more information, but that was all I had to give him. I walked away and wished he’d follow me home right now.

I drove Liv and James to Pennsylvania. I showered. I made a spanakopita, or attempted to make one, and put it in the oven. If Vince still wanted me, we would exist in the light. If he didn’t, we’d have a Greek dinner. Either way, I just needed to be with him.

It was the end of June, and the weather was finally warm. I had on a short denim skirt with a sweater. My feet were bare. At almost exactly six o’clock, the doorbell rang. My heart stopped at the sound of the chimes. This was it. There were no more reasons for us to be separated, except the ones that might be lingering in Vince’s head. He knew everything. But I wouldn’t give him up without him forcing me to. He was at the door to my house, and it felt more right than anyone who’d ever come before him.

I opened the door, and he was still in his uniform. The one that made my heart skip every single time I saw him in it. I took a few extra seconds to appreciate him, mainly his shoulders and chest before landing on his beautiful green eyes and taking my time there, too. A warmth spread through me. I could have melted.

“Meredith?” he said, a smile covering the entire bottom half of his face.

“Hi.” I stepped back and held the door open. “Come in.”

Vince stepped past me, and I lowered my head, inhaling him and praying he still wanted me the way I needed him. His presence in my house was a drug. His closeness sent me back to his cabin in my mind, solidifying the fact that I was done living without him. If he didn’t want me after everything we’d been through, I would settle for a friendship. That was worth more than anything.

“Just friends,” I muttered, reminding myself I already had more from him than I deserved.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing. Did you come right from work?”

“Sorry.” Vince looked down at his uniform and then back at me. He knew how his uniform affected me.

“I’ll bet.” I turned and walked toward the great room. “I’ll show you around.” I could feel him following me, and instead of a nice dinner, I considered abandoning the plan and attacking him on my couch. My eyes wandered to the countertop in the far room.

Maybe in the kitchen . . .

“Was this the original bar?” Vince dragged my mind back to the house.

“It was.” I loved having him in my space. Sharing this with him. “The house has an extraordinary story.” He walked around and perused the walls, the windows and their sills, and the hearth. “Speaking of bars, would you like a drink?”

Vince relaxed right in front of me. He looked around the rest of the house that was visible and listened to the silence, and then he looked at me. “I’ll have what you’re having.”

I paused, unable to release him from my sight long enough to pour him a glass of wine. I slowly walked to the kitchen with Vince following me.

“When you said ‘we,’ I was expecting your family to be here. At least the kids.”

“No,” I said and poured his wine. I took a sip of my own, still cherishing the sight of him. “I meant me and the fish.” I nodded toward the two fish tanks on the counter. “The one on the left belongs to James. His name is Bolt because he’s fast. The one on the right is Michael. Liv used an old baby name book to name him.”

“Where is everyone?” Vince took his first sip of wine. “And is that spanakopita?” He laughed aloud as he walked over to examine my concoction closer.

“I think it is. I tried.” I walked up behind him and buried my face between his shoulder blades. My body relaxed at the touch of him. He was my safety. I inhaled deeply as I wrapped my arms around him and laid my hands flat on his stomach. He was strong and solid. I closed my eyes as peace overcame me.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. His voice was low.

“I know.”

He turned around and ran his hands through my hair. He tilted my head up to his and kissed me, and every single wrong in the world was righted by his tongue in my mouth. He would fuel the good inside me, and I’d be better because he was near me. He pulled away from my lips and rested his forehead against mine.

“What is going on?”

“It’s a date. It’s our first date. If you want it to be.”

His body stayed perfectly still in my arms. The seconds dragged by as his eyes searched mine for answers.

Vince took a step back from me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking or if there was still hope for me. “What’s changed?”

“Everything. Except the way I love you.”

“I still don’t understand.” His voice was low, his words were even. Vince would not falter.

“I’m no longer married. The kids and I live here alone.” He lowered his head, and I watched his chest rise as he inhaled. His silence was my tribulation. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Why didn’t he tell me he loved me? First, I found my breath, and then I found my voice. It was unsteady as I said, “If you’ll still have me. I’m saying the word.”

He looked up at me. He was trapped some place between desire and rage. For the first time, I had no idea what Vince was thinking. “Which one?”

I pressed myself against him. I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “All of them.”

“Meredith.” He was on top of me. Pressing me back against the island as he said, “This is the truth?”

“Always.” He kissed me, and I was lost in Colonel Vincent Pratt. “It’s real. We’re real.”

“We’re here all alone?” he asked, breathless, in my ear.

“All alone. All weekend.”

His lips trailed down my neck. “That’s some first date.”

“I know. Are you free for the next forty hours?” I reached down and stroked him through his uniform pants.

“I’m free for the next forty years.”

Please see the next page for an excerpt of the stunning first installment of The Lost Souls Series.

FORGIVE ME

~ 1 ~

“My soul is forgotten, veiled by a boring complication”

MY FOOT WILL BLEED SOON
. Judging by the familiar curve in the road, I’m still at least two miles from home. Of course I end up walking home the night I’m wearing great shoes. The pain shoots through my heel as the clouds flash with lightning in the dark sky.

Maybe I’m bleeding already. I mentally review the last few hours. Anything to distract me from the agony of each step. The texts, the endless stream of drunken texts, run through my mind.

We’re soul mates.
I roll my eyes. Brian deserves a nicer girlfriend; someone sweet like him. Someone who doesn’t roll their eyes at this statement.

We belong together.
Bleh.

What does it say about my relationship when the only thing I ever tell people about my boyfriend is, “He’s a really nice guy”? And how, after two years of being apart, did I ever take him back? The last three weeks have felt like years, years I was asleep.

We’re perfect together.
My mother thought we were perfect. Hell, this whole town thought it.

No one is ever going to know you the way I do.
He was watching me as I read this one and I had to work hard to keep a straight face. At the time I wasn’t sure why, but here on this deserted road, in the middle of a thunderstorm Brian would never walk through, I know it’s because he never knew me at all. Or my soul. It’s not his fault. I’d nearly forgotten it myself.

I stop to adjust the strap on my sandals and two sets of eyes peer out from the ditch next to the road. They’re low to the ground, watching me. I’ve always hated nocturnal animals.

“Anyone else come out to play in the storm?” I say to the other hidden night life. I move to the edge of the shoulder, facing the nonexistent traffic, and give my new friends some room. I wince as I step forward, and watch as a set of headlights shines on the road in front of me and the scene around me turns mystical. The steam rises off the pavement at least five feet high before disappearing into the blue tinted night. The rain only lasted twenty spectacular minutes, not long enough to cool the scorched earth.

I’m lost in it as the truck pulls up beside me, now driving on the wrong side of the road, and Jason Leer rolls down his window. I glance at him and turn to stare straight ahead, trying not to let the excruciating torture of each step show on my face.

“Hi, Annie,” he says, and immediately pisses me off. I might look sweet in my new rose-colored shorts romper, but these wedges have me ready to commit murder.

“My name is Charlotte,” I say without looking at him, and keep walking. The strap is an ax cutting my heel from my foot.
Why won’t he call me Charlotte?
Of course the cowboy would show up. What this night needs is a steer wrestler to confound me further. The same two desires he always evokes in me surface now. Wanting to punch him, and wanting to climb on top of him.

“What the hell are you doing out here? Alone—” A guttural moan of thunder interrupts him, and I tilt my head to determine the origin, but it surrounds us. The clouds circle, blanketing us with darkness, but when the moon is visible it’s bright enough to see in this blue-gray night. We’re in the eye of the storm and there will never be a night like this again.
God I love a storm.
The crackling of the truck’s tires on the road reminds me of my cohort.

“I’m not alone. You’re here, irritating me as usual.” I will not look at him. I can feel his smartass grin without even seeing him, the same way I can feel a chill slip across my skin. It’s hot as hell out and Jason Leer is giving me the chills.

Lightning strikes, reaching the ground in the field just to our left, and I stop walking to watch it. Every minute of today brought me here. The mind-numbing dinner date with Brian Matlin, the conversation on the way to Michelle’s party about how we should see other people, the repeated and
annoying
texts declaring his love, and the eleven beers and four shots I watched Brian pour down his throat, all brought me here.

“If you’re trying to kill yourself by being struck by lightning, I could just hit you with my truck. It’ll be faster,” he says, stealing my eyes from the field. His arm rests out his truck window and it’s enormous. He tilts his body toward the door and the width of his chest holds my gaze for a moment too long.

“Annie!”

I shake my head, freeing myself from him. “What? What do you want? I’m not afraid of a storm.” I am, however, exhausted by this conversation.

I finally allow myself to look him in the eyes. They are dark tonight, like the slick, steamy road before me, and I shouldn’t have looked.

“I want you.” His voice is tranquil, as if he’s talking the suicide jumper off the bridge. “I want you to get in the truck and I’ll drive you home.” Thunder growls in the distance and the lightning strikes to the left and right of the road at the same time. The storm surrounds us, but the rain was gone too soon. Leaving us with the suffocating heat that set the road on fire.

I close my eyes as my sandal cuts deeper into my foot, and Jason finally pulls away. My grandmother always said the heat brings out the crazy in people. It was ninety-seven degrees at 7
P.M.
The humidity was unbearable. Too hot to eat. Too hot to laugh. The only thing you could do was talk about how miserably hot it was outside. By the time Brian and I arrived, most of the party had already been in the lake at some point. Even that didn’t look refreshing. The sky unleashed, and Michelle kicked everyone out rather than let them destroy her house.

I stop walking, and shift my foot in the shoe. The strap is now sticking; I’ve probably already shed blood. Jason drives onto the right side of the road and stops the truck on the tiny shoulder. He turns on his hazard lights and gets out of the truck.
He’s a hazard.
I plaster a smile on my face and begin walking again. As soon as he leaves I’m taking off these shoes and throwing them in the pepper field next to me.

Before I endure two steps, he’s in front of me. He’s as fast as I remember. Like lightning: always picked first for kickball in elementary school. His hair is the same thick, jet black as back then, too. The moonlight shines off it and I wonder where his cowboy hat is. He’s too beautiful to piss me off as much as he does. He blocks my path, a concrete wall, and I stop just inches from him.

“I’m going to ask you one more time to get in the truck.” A lightning strike hits the road near his truck and without flinching he looks back at me, waiting for my answer.

“Or what?” I challenge him with my words and my “I dare you” look on my face. He hoists me over his shoulder and walks back to the truck as if I’m a sweatshirt he grabbed as an afterthought before walking out the door.