Ginger felt a shocked little thrill run through her. She should stop reading right now, especially given that she knew she was invading her friend's privacy. But her hands and eyes seemed to have a will of their own.
Andrew , Last night I had a dream that we were already on our boat, that were were halfway around the world. Drinking out of coconuts, the warm salty breeze on our skin . It was heaven . Sometimes I think we should just pack a couple of bags and leave now. Forget about college. Forget about everything but going out there and living our dream. Together . I love you , Isabel Ginger didn't know how many letters she'd read by the time she got to,
Andrew , I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you . Isabel She heard Connor's voice behind her. "It's getting dark. And I heard in town there's been a lot of bear sightings this summer in these woods. I didn't want you walking back alone."
She looked up from where she'd been sitting cross-legged, the letters on the floor all around her.
Uh oh. She hadn't thought about getting caught reading them. Hadn't been able to think about anything other than Isabel's love affair with Connor's father.
"What are those?"
"They fell out of the back of the dresser." Quickly picking up the pages, stacking them on top of each other, she held out the bundle. "I didn't mean to read them, but one fell open and ... I couldn't help myself. They're so beautiful that I lost all track of time. No wonder your father kept them."
"My father?"
He grabbed the letters from her, started scanning the one on top that said I love you over and over, his posture, his face, growing harder with every passing second.
"I knew he and Isabel had dated for a while," she said, "that it was pretty serious, but--"
His eyes lifted from the letters. "What are you talking about?"
"You didn't know about your father and Isabel?"
"Hell no."
"They met as teenagers. It was love at first sight. These must be letters she wrote him when she was a teenager."
She suddenly realized what she'd said, that she'd made a huge deal out of Connor's father loving a woman his son hadn't known anything about. It had to sting.
"My ex always said I had a bad habit of blurting out every thought that passed through my head," she said by way of an apology. "It must be weird to read love letters written to your father by someone other than your mother. Almost like a betrayal."
The man of cold, hard stone she'd seen in his bedroom that first night was back.
"Whatever he did before he married my mom is none of my business."
But she didn't buy that. Not for a single second. If it were true, he wouldn't be acting like this.
"I can understand why the letters would bother you."
"Didn't you hear what I just said? I don't care."
She took a step toward him. She'd let him keep his hands to himself, but she wouldn't let him lie to her.
"You sure look angry for a man who doesn't care."
He came toward her, then, closing the rest of the space between them, his lips so close to hers that she could almost taste them.
"What the hell makes you think you know me so well?"
He was right. It shouldn't make any sense. They'd only just met, not even a week ago, and yet ...
"I'm right, aren't I?"
His eyes were on her mouth again, his eyes dark and intense, and she felt it coming, another kiss like the one in his bedroom, violent, all-consuming. And in that moment as his heat seeped into her pores, she wanted nothing else.
But instead of kissing her, he turned away and walked over to the half-built boat. She found herself fighting back another strong wave of disappointment as he said, "I've never met anyone like you, Ginger."
It didn't sound like a compliment, but she quickly decided that was okay. Because she knew she'd just stumbled over a really important chapter of Connor's story. And she couldn't have stopped turning the pages if her life depended on it.
"What's your father like?"
Running a hand over a golden red board, Connor said, "Uptight. I can't imagine anyone writing a letter like that to him."
She remembered how smooth Andrew had seemed over the phone. She searched for the right occupation.
"Surgeon? Professor?"
"Lawyer."
"How'd he feel about you becoming a hotshot?"
He laughed, but it was a hollow sound. "I can honestly say he didn't give a damn."
"Impossible. He's your father. He had to care."
"When I was five, my mother had to go away to help her sister with a new baby. He was supposed to pick me and Sam up from school. Every single day that week, he forgot. When I was ten the soccer league called to see if he could fill in for the regular coach for a practice. He asked if they had any idea how much two hours of his afternoon were worth. By the time he missed my high school graduation, I'd already learned to accept who he was. And who he was never going to be."
"But surely after your accident, he must have tried harder."
"Sure. A few phone calls. Couple of beers."
That reminded her. "You got the message that he called, right? I put in on your pillow."
"Couldn't miss it."
He didn't say anything more about it and the crazy thing was, Ginger got the sense he was even more shut down about his father than he had been about the wildfire that had burned his hands.
"What are you going to do with the letters?"
"I'm sure someone's going to need kindling tonight for a Fourth of July bonfire."
The thought of the love letters going up in flames horrified her. She pounced on the old papers, safely cradling them against her chest.
"You can't do that! What if your father wants them back?"
"He left them here for over thirty years. What does he care?"
"The fact that he kept them in the first place shows how much he cared."
"Yeah, he cared all right. About Isabel."
Okay, so he had a point. Still, Ginger couldn't reconcile the man from the letters, the man Isabel had loved so deeply, so passionately, with the father Connor spoke of. His father must have had--at least in his youth--some redeeming qualities.
The big question was, what happened once he married his wife and became a father?
And then she realized Connor hadn't read enough to know, "That was your father's boat. He and Isabel were building it together."
He pushed away from the sailboat. "Something else for the fire pit."
"Connor!"
He shot her a hard look. "You want to keep the letters, be my guest. I don't care what happens to them."
But everything about the rigid lines of his body, the way he was repeatedly clenching and opening his fists, told her that he did.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CONNOR WAS irritated. Not with Ginger for her usual rounds of endless questions. With himself.
So his father had gotten letters from some girl. So what? Sure, Connor was protective of his mother, but she'd taken control of her own life a couple of years ago when she'd filed for divorce. She was dating a nice guy who wanted her to move with him to Florida. She was fine.
But it grated at him, reading the lovey-dovey words Isabel had written. He couldn't imagine anyone feeling that way about Andrew. Didn't, frankly, know his father well enough to see who he might have been when he was nineteen years old.
Knowing it was long past time to change the subject, he gestured to the dresser. "I'm impressed that you sanded almost all of the drawers already. That's a big job."
Her eyes held his and he could almost see her weighing the pros and cons of keeping after him about his father or backing off.
Finally, she stretched her arms over her head, tilted her head from one side to the other, and it was crazy but he was almost disappointed by her choice t
o let it go.
He'd gotten used to having her dig around, challenge him at every turn.
"I'm tired. A good kind of tired. But you're right, I should probably get back to work at the easel. My first art show is coming up soon. Right before your brother's wedding. I may have to start painting round the clock soon if I don't finish a couple of big ones this week."
They headed out of the workshop and back through the woods, every step he took beside Ginger confirming to Connor that he should be keeping his distance. Staying the hell out of her business.
Only, he couldn't help wanting to know more about what made her tick. He was still reeling from how upfront she'd been about her desire for him. But it was more than that, more than just the way their bodies inevitably responded to each other.
Somehow, she seemed to know when he was lying, not just to her, but to himself too.
"Did you always want to paint?"
"Always."
"But you didn't, not until you moved here?"
"No. Not really."
"Why not?"
"I don't know."
She wouldn't let him lie to her. He wouldn't stand for it either.
"You know."
She stopped beside a tree trunk, wrapped her arms around it, leaned into it. "I was afraid I wasn't good enough. I thought everyone else knew more than I did. I thought I needed to listen to their advice, that I had to believe them when they told me I was doing it all wrong. I let them mold me, even when the voices in the back of my head were screaming no. In the end, I didn't pick up my paintbrushes for three years."
"That's a long time to stay away from something you love." He knew firsthand.
"It wasn't until I arrived here last October, when I unpacked my easel and put it on your grandparents' porch, that I realized I had it in me all along."
Ginger's words dug in right behind his solar plexus. It was just what the Forest Service had been telling him for so long. That he wasn't good enough anymore. That he needed to listen to their advice and train for something else.
"Ginger," he said, unable to keep from closing the gap between them despite his best intentions, "I--"
The rest of his sentence was cut off by a loud explosion from the beach.
"Someone must be lighting off fireworks in front of the cabin."
He ran through the rest of the trees and found the kids just off to the right of Poplar Cove's beach.
Isabel's property. The woman who'd been his father's girlfriend.
"Those fireworks are illegal."
The two teenage boys barely looked up at him. "Dude, it's July Fourth. We're just having a little fun." The girl, however, looked a little worried.
He held out one hand. "Give me the rest. I'll get rid of them for you."
But instead of giving them to him, the dark-haired kid flicked open a lighter and started to light one.
Connor had the back of the kid's neck in a death grip so fast, the kid dropped the almost-lit firework to the sand.
"Anyone ever told you why these are illegal?"
The kid shrugged, still trying to act brave. "Let go of me."
"This one," Connor said, not letting go of the boy as he picked up the charred remains of one of the fireworks, "usually blows off a finger or two." He picked up another wrapping. "But this one." He whistled low. "This one is a real beauty. Has a tendency to pop open from the back and explode in your face. Usually blinds you, although sometimes, after enough surgeries, if you're lucky you don't go completely blind."
"Shit, man," the scared kid said to his friend, "you said these were safe."
Deciding he'd done all he could to scare them, Connor let the bolder kid wriggle away.
"This old dude is just trying to scare us. He's probably making this stuff up."
Connor shrugged and said, "It's up to you if you want to find out for yourself," but the kids were already running up the beach, leaving the fireworks behind.
He picked up the wrappers, then turned around and crashed into Ginger. He had to drop the fireworks to grab her rib cage to keep her from falling. They stood like that for several seconds, both of them breathing hard.
She looked mad as hell. "You scared Josh and his friends half to death, Connor."
"Good."
"They're just kids."
"Doesn't mean they can get away with acting stupid."
"That's what kids do, Connor! They make mistakes and they learn from them."
"Since you already know everything, why don't you tell me what happens if the mistake is too big? If one of these fireworks takes something away from them, something they'd never thought to lose? What then?"
Her hands moved to his face, holding him still, calming him as she would a wild animal.
"I know how bad it must have hurt. How bad it still does. But it's going to be okay, Connor. One day soon. It has to be."
A violent boom of thunder in the dark sky above them was their only warning as rain began to pour down on them.
"At least now you don't have to worry about fireworks anymore."
"Not that kind, anyway," he said, then bent his head down to hers.
Her lips were soft, so damn soft that he wanted to devour her, starting with her mouth and running down to her breasts, but even so, he was working like hell to get hold of himself, to stop before things got really out of control.
And then, her tongue moved against his, and he was a goner.
Sparks of heat worked through him as she threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled his head down closer to kiss him, her tongue moving in time with his, her breasts pressed against his chest. She moaned softly against his mouth and all he could think was that she felt so good in his hands, just the way a woman should feel, soft warmth instead of sharp bones and harsh angles.
As his hands moved over her hips, to her waist, you would have thought four days was four years, he wanted her so bad. She gasped when his fingers found bare skin at the base of her shirt and he wanted to forget his vow to stay away from her, wanted to forget everything but pleasure.
But even as his extreme passion for her threatened to take over everything else, he knew he needed to give her one last chance to walk away.
"We shouldn't do this. I don't have anything to give to you, Ginger. Nothing at all."
Ginger couldn't catch her breath. Connor seemed to know her body better than she did. He knew just where she wanted to be stroked, just how she wanted to be kissed. Four days of pent-up longing overflowed inside of her as she breathed in his scent, earthy from the wood he'd been working with, as clean and fresh as the cold rain on his warm skin.
Somewhere through the fog she'd heard him say they should stop, that he couldn't make her any promises. But she didn't believe him. Not way down deep in her heart.
He needed her. Needed her to wrap her arms around him and show him someone cared. She couldn't run, couldn't turn her back on him.
"Take me back to your room. To your bed."
But instead of doing what she'd asked him to, he simply brushed the pad of his thumb against her lower lip. She realized his hands were shaking--my God, had anyone ever wanted her this much?--and she pressed a kiss onto the scarred skin covering the tip, her tongue swirling as she sucked him in between her lips.
"I promised you I wouldn't do this," he said, his voice hoarse. Rough with desire.
"I don't want your noble vow, Connor. I want this. I want you. I've never felt this way with anyone else. I want to explore it. Please, just for one night, don't be the hero."
He groaned, said, "Only you would ask me to do that," and then he was kissing her again. She threaded her fingers through his to pull him through the driving rain, up the stairs. On the porch, he picked her up, carrying her through the living room, up the stairs and kicking open his bedroom door. He put her down on the floor, making sure there was a slow slide of her body against his the entire way.
He reached for the hem of her sh
irt and with painstaking slowness he raised the thin, wet cotton up over her stomach, then her rib cage, and finally, over her breasts. Her pants came off next, just as slowly, and she relished every single sensation.
The roughness of the fabric against her sensitive skin.
The gentleness of his hands.
The heat from his body, which singed her in the most delicious way.
And then she was standing in front of him in nothing but her bra and panties and even though she'd been practically naked that first night, this felt different. More real, somehow. Real enough that all the insecurities that had been chasing her for thirty-three years decided to take that moment to race into the bedroom and wind themselves around her, whispering vicious things about wrinkles and cellulite.
She thought she'd outrun her past, the years of self-hatred. She was stunned to realize she'd been wrong.
She wanted to push away from him, hide herself behind a thick cover, but then he said, "God, you're beautiful," and the reverence in his words worked like magic to strip away her fears, the conviction in Connor's voice making Ginger believe, for the very first time in her life, that she truly was beautiful.
He swept his thumbs across the upper curve of her breasts, where they swelled over her bra cups. "You're so soft."
Pleasure rippling through her at his gentle touch, Ginger closed her eyes and arched her back slightly into his hands, her own hands finding his hips so that she could hold herself steady on increasingly unsteady ground. He slid one strap off and then the other. With nothing to hold up the lace, her nipples popped over the edge, into his waiting hands.
"So perfect."
His thumbs circled the tight buds, tightening further at his teasing caress. Her entire being was focused on two square inches of skin. She'd never felt pleasure so exquisite, never knew her breasts could be so incredibly sensitive. Connor's erection pressed hard against her belly and she felt an answering warmth between her legs.
"For four days I've had your taste on my tongue. And I've wanted more. So much more."
A thrill shot through her in the same moment his mouth came down over her nipples. Cupping her breasts, he pushed them together so that he could easily move from one to the next, laving them with long, soft strokes of his tongue.
"Connor," she moaned as she arched herself even closer to his incredible mouth.