The Welcome Home Garden Club (19 page)

“Yeah well, I need something to keep me from thinking about it. Let’s go work on the victory garden.”

They spent the day at the garden, Caitlyn tending plants with the volunteers, watering, weeding, fertilizing, while Gideon worked on the carousel with his own set of young volunteers from the high school. They worked until well after dark and came home exhausted.

Caitlyn headed for a long hot soak in her tub. Gideon commandeered Danny’s bathroom for a shower. She shut and locked the bathroom door behind her. Sitting on the side of the tub, she adjusted the faucets to the right temperature and let the water flow. When the tub was filled, she stripped off her gardening clothes and sank down into the warm, inviting water. She picked up the bar of lavender soap, held it to her nose, inhaled the relaxing scent, and laid her head back against the cool porcelain. Closing her eyes, she luxuriated in the moment. Through the walls she heard the shower coming on in the other bathroom.

She imagined Gideon standing naked underneath the spray. Her heart slammed against her rib cage at the thought of his hard-muscled body. Her nipples hardened and her breasts swelled. Heat pooled deep inside her.

Just thinking about him made Caitlyn feel achy and wet and hot.

In her daydream he looked at her with the ravenous eyes, his manhood thick and swollen with desire for her.

You’re making yourself crazy. Stop it.

But she didn’t want to stop it. She wanted to climb out of the tub, rush into the other bathroom, and slip into the shower with him
.
Shaking with need, she got out and dried herself off. Did she dare act on impulse?

Before she could make up her mind, she heard the shower cut off and the bathroom door close. She stood listening to her heart beating loud and fast in her ears. She couldn’t make herself move, even though she wanted to make love to Gideon more than anything in the world.

She put her hand on the doorknob, but didn’t turn it. What if she couldn’t measure up to his memory of her? What if he was disappointed in her stretch marks and breasts that had nursed a baby? What if she wasn’t sophisticated enough for him?

Fear held her in a tight grip. In the end, she stepped away from the door, moved back, put on her nightgown, and slipped into bed.

And lay in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling, wondering if she was ever going to have the courage to ask for what she needed. Finally, she fell into a fitful sleep.

At ten after three in the morning, she was yanked awake by a tortured scream.

Gideon!

She leaped from her bed, raced from her room and into the hall. His cries were ear-splitting now, as if he were being tortured. She burst into the guest bedroom.

Moonlight shone through the open curtains, illuminating the strange sight in front of her. Gideon was on his knees in the middle of the bed, totally naked, pummeling his pillow with his fist, howling and gnashing his teeth like a wounded animal.

“Gideon!” she cried. “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?”

He swiveled his head and stared at her with eyes so empty a dark shiver of despair lanced her heart.

That’s when she realized he was still asleep and apparently in the throes of a vicious night terror. Just what had he seen in Iraq and Afghanistan? What horrors ate at his soul?

“Gideon?” she whispered.

“Who’s there?” He frowned, shifted around so he was now sitting in the middle of the bed.

“It’s me, Caitlyn. Wake up, you’re having a nightmare.”

“Caitlyn?” His face softened.

She crept forward and tentatively stretched out a hand to touch his shoulder.

He flinched, drew back.

“Gideon, you’re home, you’re safe, you’re back in Twilight.”

“Caitlyn?”

“Yes. I’m here.” She eased down on the bed beside him.

“Caitlyn.” His eyes glistened in the moonlight and he looked at her with such utter desire, it took her breath. “Caitlyn.”

“Are you awake now?”

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head.

“Your nightmare seemed so awful. Have you ever talked to anyone about it?”

Again, he shook his head. “Can’t.”

“Please, please let me in. All I want to do is help.”

“All I want to do is kiss you.”

She didn’t have to look down to see his erection, it was growing between them, but he was using sex to derail her from questioning. She knew he didn’t like to talk about his feelings. And she imagined it must be extremely hard to relive what he’d suffered. “The nightmares aren’t going to go away unless you talk about them.”

“Women.”

“What?”

“Women always want to make you talk about your feelings. What good does that do?”

“You won’t know until you try it, will you?”

He sighed.

“Do you have post-traumatic stress syndrome?”

“Why do people have to label it? What’s the point of labeling it? Labeling doesn’t define it.”

“You’re talking. This is good. Keep up the talking.”

“How can I tell you about it? I can’t bring that darkness into your world.”

“It’s in your world and you’re already in my world,” she pointed out. “If you tell me, at least I can understand why you scream and beat your pillow in the middle of the night.”

His erection had disappeared. He wasn’t trying to use sex to deflect talk anymore. This was good. This was progress.

“I’m not who you think I am. I’m different. I’ve changed.”

“Change doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

“It is for me.”

She heard the rasp in his voice and saw the vulnerability in his eyes that he tried to cover up with that tough warrior thing. “I can still see you in there,” she whispered, reaching up to cup his cheek with her palm. “The boy I used to know hidden beneath all the sorrow and loss and pain.”

He winced, pulled away from her touch.

Ouch. She tried not to let it show that his rejection hurt. She understood. Okay, not really, but she wanted to understand. “Gideon? What is it? Tell me what you’re feeling.”

He’d always had trouble expressing his feelings, but she could see him trying. He was trying for her. “I was hoping—”

“What?” she asked after a few seconds passed and he didn’t continue. “What were you hoping for?”

He shook his head. “I guess I hoped we could somehow turn back the clock, but I see now that was a foolish thought.”

“No, no, not foolish.” She laid her hand over his. “Not foolish at all.”

He didn’t move. Didn’t look at her. But he left his hand there, underneath hers.

“Just say it, Gideon. What’s the worst that could happen?”

He met her gaze and his eyes were tortured. “That you’d kick me out. Tell me you couldn’t bear to look me in the face because of what I’d done.”

A cold chill passed through her. What had he done? “Nothing you could do would ever make me turn away from you,” she said bravely, and reached out to lay her palm over his heart. “I know who you are deep inside. Tell me, Gideon, who are you fighting in your nightmares?”

“Me,” he said. “I’m trying to kill me.”

His words sucked the air from her lungs. “Trust me,” she whispered. “Trust me with your darkest secret.”

Gideon’s eyes misted and he clenched his jaw. “It’s the bombings and losing my hand and . . .”

“There’s more.” She said it as a statement, not a question.

He turned his head, stared at the wall, and for one hopeless minute she thought he was not going to open up to her, but then finally, he spoke in a voice so soft she could scarcely hear him. “During my first tour of duty, I was sent into a house where they suspect Saddam Hussein had hidden weapons of mass destruction.”

Gideon paused but Caitlyn didn’t fill the silence. She waited. Giving him the time and space he needed.

“There weren’t any weapons there. We’d finished sweeping the house and we were leaving. I was the last one out.”

Caitlyn reached out to run her hand over his upper arm.

Finally, he turned back and looked at her. “He came out of nowhere. He’d been hiding in a secret panel in the ceiling. He just literally dropped on top of me.”

She moistened her lips, unable to imagine what that was like.

“He had a knife. We engaged in hand-to-hand combat.” Gideon held up his left arm. “Obviously, it was before I lost the hand.”

Another long pause stretched out.

“It’s okay,” Caitlyn said. “You don’t have to say anything more.”

Gideon wiped his hand over his mouth. “I killed him.” He pressed his lips together. “It was my life or his. But then once the heat of the battle was over and I looked down, I saw he was just a boy. A kid. Probably no more than fifteen.”

“Oh, Gideon, you didn’t know. You were only a boy too. Nineteen. Scared.”

He laughed a shaky humorless laugh. “It was as if in that moment, I killed myself. Gideon Garza from Twilight, Texas, was dead and a killer was born.”

Caitlyn wrapped her arms around him and rocked him as she would have rocked Danny after a nightmare, and he let her. Obviously needing the comfort of her body.

She kissed him on the forehead, and then moved to his lips and he responded. Kissing her back with a heat born of the desperate need to blunt his emotional pain with the physical passion of sex.

And Caitlyn welcomed him.

In answer, he wrapped his arm around her waist, drew her to him, and kissed her as if both their lives depended on it.

Chapter Seventeen

Traditional meaning of marvel of Peru—flame of passion.

T
he passion born from confession soon developed into full-blown lust for only each other. Gideon’s kisses left her breathless and hungry for more, more, more.

When she was seventeen, she couldn’t imagine anything more powerful than Gideon Garza’s kisses. He’d hypnotized her, entranced her. Making love to him had been the most exquisite sensation she’d ever experienced. It had been more than just physical, although he certainly knew how to make her body hum. But what catapulted
their
lovemaking to the dizzying heights was the love they’d shared. It had been raw, primal, undeniable, unique.

Later, with Kevin, she’d been struck by how truly wonderful things had been with Gideon. She’d known it was great at the time, but it was not until she was with Kevin that she discovered precisely how special her bond with Gideon was. Her husband had been a man of mild passions. He’d lived simply, loved simply, nothing grand or earth-shattering. She’d been placated by the ease of it, knowing she could never again have what she’d had with Gideon.

And now here he was, back from the dead and loving her the way she’d never been loved. Not even when they were teenagers.

He’d learned a few things over the years he’d been away. His skill amazed her. He was a better lover than men with two arms. He took his time, not rushing. That was different. Back then, he’d taken her in a heated rush, and while she’d enjoyed the excitement of that headlong dash, this slow tempo suited who she was today. A woman, not a girl.

Gideon trailed his fingertips over her skin, feather light and warm. Little pools of heat burned everywhere he lingered.

A hushed sound of pleasure slipped from her lips and she lowered her eyelids, embracing the moment.

“You like that?” His voice was husky.

“Mmm.” She purred.

He kept it up, the gentle stroking. His hand became a paintbrush, swishing back and forth, back and forth, combing her nerve endings with layer upon layer of sensation.

She luxuriated in his caress. It felt so perfect. Too perfect, perhaps. She never wanted it to stop. Never wanted to get out of bed. She wished she could freeze time or put it in a bottle. Hold it still so she could savor this moment endlessly, forever. They’d missed so much. She didn’t want it to slip by so fast. Now she understood why he’d made her wait, why he hadn’t wanted to hurry. Nothing wrong with a quickie, by and large, but their first time together after their eight years’ separation should indeed be special.

He lowered his head and ran his tongue over her forehead, licking where he’d just caressed, dampening her skin gone red-hot from the rubbing. The man’s tongue should be labeled a lethal weapon. It was undoing her in a hundred different ways. Her heart rate sped up. Her toes curled. Sweat pearled between her breasts. Her breathing was so shallow she couldn’t understand how her lungs continued to function.

He took the hem of her nightgown in his hand and slowly pulled it over her head, then dropped it to the floor. She was naked underneath.

One by one, he dropped kisses up her arm to her shoulder, then from her shoulder to the hollow of her neck. His lips pressed against the pulse fluttering there like an exhausted runner after a marathon. And they were just getting started!

“Tulip,” he whispered.

The sound of that nickname poured honey over her ears.
Tulip.

It shot her right back to seventeen and the first time they’d made love.

It had been on a blanket between a tall thicket of juniper bushes in Sweetheart Park. They’d had trouble finding a place. Her father was strict, and Caitlyn had been afraid of what he would do if he caught Gideon in her bedroom. And at his house, his sick mother had been in the next room. That would have been really bad manners.

So they’d settled on Sweetheart Park at midnight on a weekday. She’d brought the blanket, he’d brought the condoms. It had been rushed. They’d both been afraid of getting caught, but it had been glorious. The next day she’d been very sore between her legs, but every time she’d moved, felt the ache, she’d smiled. She was no longer a virgin, having given herself to the love of her life. In spite of the furtiveness, it had felt so incredibly right.

“Giddy,” she answered with the nickname she’d given him. She wasn’t sure if he really cared for the silly moniker, but it fell naturally from her lips.

He kissed those lips, softly, quietly.

She savored it, closing her eyes, focusing on the moment. He tasted different than he used to taste. Once upon a time, he’d carried a greenish flavor. Like Granny Smith apples. Today, he tasted more like apple pie—deeper, more complex than a single flavor. It suited him, the depth. She feared that she tasted shallow and one note. She’d never been out of Texas. Had never seen the world. She had no idea what was out there, but one kiss from him and she could taste it.

Gideon propped himself up on his left elbow, arranged the blanket to hide his stump. She didn’t know how to reassure him, to let him know it didn’t bother her. Honestly, she was just so happy to have him back. Battered, scarred. It didn’t matter. Gideon was alive and in her bed once more. The world was a wonderful, forgiving place.

He looked down at her, his eyes shining bright. “Eight years ago, I thought you were the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen. You moved like water, smooth and calming. I wanted to be a part of you so badly. I thought if I could make love to you that some of that cool smoothness would rub off on me.”

“Little did you know that cool smoothness was a cover-up for my insecurities. I never felt beautiful until you.”

“But I was wrong.”

“Wrong about what?”

“You’re way more beautiful now than you were then.”

“My breasts aren’t as perky as they once were.”

He leaned to kiss one nipple and then the other. “They nurtured our child. That makes them even more beautiful.”

“Ah, you really know how to charm a girl.”

“I wish I could have been there,” he said. “It rips me up that I wasn’t there.”

She studied his face. He looked so sad.

“I missed out on so much time with Danny that I can never get back.” The pain in his words cut her to the bone.

“Gideon, I’m so sorry.” She reached out to run a finger along his cheek.

He forced a smile, trying to hide the pain, but she saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“But Gideon, you’re not the only one who lost out. Danny and I had to go on without you.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m feeling sorry for myself.”

“That’s not what I meant. You have a right to feel hurt and cheated.”

“What’s done is done. I can’t go back in time and change the past.”

“We both made a lot of mistakes.”

“Yeah.” He looked away.

She cupped his chin in her palm, directed his gaze back to her. “But this isn’t one of them. Danny isn’t one of them. He might have been a happy accident, but he was never, ever a mistake. That’s what my father didn’t understand.”

Gideon pulled her close to him, buried his face into her hair. “I’m so sorry, Tulip, for all you suffered.”

“It wasn’t a tenth of what you went through.”

They lay there for a long moment, absorbing warmth and comfort from each other, then slowly, Gideon began to stroke her again. First her hair, then her face, then his hand fell to her breasts.

Caitlyn’s nipples beaded instantly, jutting into hard little peaks.

He laughed a throaty laugh and then moved to suckle first one knotted bud and then the other. The heat of his mouth shot sparks of desire throughout her entire body. Her belly quivered, her womb tightened. How she wanted him!

For the longest time, he languished there, kissing and suckling, nibbling and tasting her breasts. She could feel the tension building inside her, growing higher and hotter with each flick of his tongue. A long, low moan escaped her lips.

Gideon’s adept mouth drew responses from her that she didn’t know she was capable of, and when he started to trail his mouth from her breasts southward, she groaned, threaded her fingers through his hair, arched her back upward, and egged him on.

Down, down, down, he went. His slick tongue pausing to tease her navel before sliding lower and lower until he reached the apex of springy curls nestled between the notch of her hip bones.

“Gideon,” she whispered.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“You don’t have to do that. I—”

“Shh,” he interrupted. “Shh.”

She didn’t need any more reassurance than that; she let her knees fall open, giving him full access to her queendom. The king was in the house. She smiled up at the ceiling as his hot tongue touched her trigger point.

In a matter of seconds, it quickly became apparent that Gideon had indeed learned a thing or two over the years. Before, when he’d performed this particular act, it had been hesitant and hurried. Now, oh wow, now.

Caitlyn’s eyes slipped to the back of her head and her entire body tensed. She clutched the quilt, patterned with the delicate marvel of Peru flowers, in both fists. What a proper quilt for an improper lovemaking.

His tongued danced, flicking quickly back and forth over her straining clit.

Instant heat poured into her womb. Her thigh muscles spasmed around his head. The brush of his hair was soft against her skin. Gideon. Not only alive but back in her bed, doing wild and interesting things to her with his mouth. And what a mouth. Made of pure lava from the feel of it. Molten, devastating, breathtaking.

His tongue quickly became an instrument of torture as he took her to the edge of orgasm and then ebbed away, stirring two simultaneous emotions—urgent desire and rank frustration.

“Oh please, oh please, oh please,” she begged.

“Please what?”

“Please, please—”

“You have to ask for what you want,” he teased.

“Please make me come. Please, please.”

“All you had to do was ask.”

Then the torture stopped and he took her where she’d begged him, riding high on the wave of his wicked tongue in a mad drive toward the ultimate pleasure of the flesh.

“Gideon,” she cried, and tightened her fingers in his hair.

He chuckled, breaking the headlong rush.

She made a noise of irritation.

He laughed again, then picked up where he’d left off, pushing her up, up, up. A riot of sensation attacked her, buzzing through her bloodstream, pulling her tight and hard into utter rapture.

L
ove was indeed lovelier the second time around, Gideon decided as he moved his body inside Caitlyn’s.

She lay on her back in the middle of his bed, looking up at him with wide, shining eyes. He loved the way she felt surrounding him, flexing her internal muscles, giving him a feminine squeeze like no other. Even through the rubber of his condom, it was the most amazing sensation.

“More,” she whispered. “Deeper.”

This was different. Her telling him what she needed. When they were teenagers, she’d followed his lead, going wherever he took her. It had been fine back then, but now he appreciated her giving him instructions, telling him what pleased her.

He cradled his right arm around her head, peered into her eyes, felt her soul touch his. Caitlyn. He’d missed her so much. He’d told her his darkest secret and she hadn’t turned away from him.

Slowly, he slid deeper into her.

Caitlyn moaned. “I’d forgotten how big you were.”

“I hadn’t forgotten how good you felt,” he cooed, and continued stroking.

She wriggled her hips, and her movement fueled the fire burning inside him.

“Wicked minx.”

“Slowpoke, I want more friction.”

“You’ve gotten bossy.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Not at all. Your wish is my command.” Gideon picked up the tempo, watched her eyes widen in pleasure.

“Ooh, yes, that feels nice.”

“Just nice?” He stroked deeper, harder, faster.

“More than nice.”

“How about this?” He pumped into her hard, shaking the mattress, rocking the headboard into the wall.
Bam, bam, bam.
Back in the day, he’d never taken her like this. So fast and hard and animalistic.

But the harder he pounded, the more she groaned. “Yes, yes, yes.”

He gave her his all, sinking into her soft flesh all the way to the hilt.

She inhaled sharply, raised her hips, pushed against him. “Gideon, Gideon, I’m coming undone.”

He pulled back. “Not yet, too soon.”

She balled her hands into fists, rapped them against his shoulders. “Bastard.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“I didn’t mean it like that—”

“I know,” he said. “It’s okay.”

She panted. “You’re torturing me.”

“I know baby, but it’s for your own good. You’ll be thanking me in a few minutes.”

“Prove it.”

“Look at the mouth on you.” He dipped his head and kissed her while he started his slow stroking again, giving her another leisurely buildup. “You are so wet, woman. So sweet.”

“C’mon,” she begged. “Let me have it.”

“You want more of this?” He increased his speed again and the headboard went back to slamming.

“Give it to me,” she begged.

Then she said a word he’d never heard her say, and the shocking sound of it made him throw back his head and laugh at the same time he did exactly as she commanded. Giving her everything he had in him, working her over until she let out a guttural cry and reached up to wrap both arms around his waist, pulling him impossibly deep within.

His cock throbbed. His brain hummed like a swarming beehive. His balls pulled up tight and hard. He felt his seed spill from him at the same moment he experienced the rhythmic undulations of her orgasm clamp down on him hard and tight.

“Caitlyn,” he cried, and the same moment she whispered, “Gideon.”

They shuddered together in a simultaneous climax so powerful it robbed them of their breath. They clung to each, his mouth pressed against the top of her head, her head nestled against his chest, their bodies fused in the most intimate act a man and woman could share.