"I didn't--"
"Yes." He cut off her protest with a kiss. "You did." And it was amazing how much lighter he felt, how simply giving voice to his nightmares could erase at least a little of the junk that had been eroding his soul for so long.
And then she leaned in and kissed him softly, with a slow sweep of her tongue against his. This kiss was different from her other kisses. Even sweeter...and steeped in pure emotion.
He slid her down to her feet, and she stepped back from him, holding his gaze all the while, her eyes full of heat--and something he desperately wanted to believe was love--as she slipped his robe off her shoulders.
He drank in her naked body in the stream of moonlight. Her beautiful face suddenly looked different too--softer, more vulnerable.
She took the hem of his long-sleeved T-shirt into her hands, pulled it up his torso, off his arms, over his head. He forgot how to breathe, could only focus on the light scratch of her fingertips against his skin as her hands found the button of his jeans, deftly undoing it and then the zipper.
She was stripping off his clothes, but it felt like so much more. As though she was stripping away the layers, the defenses he'd built up around him so many years ago.
And then before he realized it, she was on her knees.
"You don't have to do this," he managed in a voice so low he wasn't sure she would hear him.
But she was already wrapping her hands around his erection, already sweeping her tongue over him, already taking him into her mouth. And he couldn't do anything but thread his hands into her hair, couldn't hold back a groan of deep pleasure.
He knew what she was doing--that she was trying to replace his nightmares, trying to destroy his demons with the feel of her hands, her mouth. If he were a better man, he would make her stop, tell her that he could deal just fine on his own. If he were a stronger man, he'd pull himself away from her sweet lips and take care of her pleasure first.
But Sarah had always been his weakness.
And then he lost the thread of his thoughts, everything except the "I love you" that came a heartbeat before he could no longer form words. The muscles in his arms and legs were still shaking when he reached down and pulled Sarah up from her knees, dragging her tightly against him.
Her lips were tilted up into a wicked little smile. "That was fun."
He couldn't believe he was grinning, couldn't believe he was actually feeling playful on a night when the nightmares had come. He picked her up and plopped her back on the bed, her laughter choking off as she realized what he was planning. "You didn't think you could get away with that only going one way, did you?"
Her eyes were big. Aroused. He didn't wait for her answer before putting each of her legs over his shoulders and dipping his head down between her thighs. Her breath came out in gasps as he took her where she'd just taken him. As he used his tongue, his fingers, the sheer force of his desire, the depth of his craving for her, to bring her up and up and up, and then higher still, until she was rocking into his mouth and crying out his name.
But it wasn't enough. He needed all of her. Beneath him. Wrapped all around him.
He knew she needed it too by the way she reached for him, her arms coming around his neck, her legs around his waist, her mouth pressed against his. And as their kiss began at the same moment that he slid into her as every touch, every kiss, every slow slide of his body against hers felt like pure, sweet love--Calvin told himself he was doing the right thing by having faith in her.
Sarah would keep his heart safe this time. She had to.
Because even though he'd somehow managed to live without her for ten long years, Calvin could no longer remember how he'd done it. He simply couldn't imagine any other world--couldn't even think of his life, his sister's life, her mother's life, her grandmother's life--without Sarah in it.
Somehow, some way, he had to believe they'd find a way to make it work.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The following day, Sarah was sitting behind the register, diligently plugging away on the Fair Isle sweater, when Dorothy walked into the store.
"How's Olive doing?"
"Lots better. The doctor said he expects her to make a full recovery."
"I'm glad to hear it," Dorothy said. "I'll give her a call when I get back home to let her know how well you're doing on the sweater." Dorothy picked up the sleeve Sarah was obsessively working on, running her fingers over the surprisingly even stitches. "My mother made me try Fair Isle when I was a little girl. In retrospect, I can see that I was far too young for the challenge."
Sarah felt strangely possessive about the pain-in-the-rear sweater. She wanted to take it out of Dorothy's hands when she didn't let go of it.
"You know, now that I think about it," Dorothy mused, "there's something to be said for a challenge, isn't there? Perhaps I should try again--and refuse to give up before I get it right this time."
It was the same thing Sarah had said to Jordan, reinforced from one generation to the next and then the next again. "It isn't nearly as difficult as it looks. Believe me, I panicked big-time when I first read the pattern."
"It always surprises me how much life is like knitting," Dorothy said. "Things always seem so much more complicated than they really are once you finally sit down to work them out."
After Dorothy bought a bagful of yarn, leaving Sarah to sit behind the register in the strangely silent and empty store, she couldn't help but feel unsettled by the woman's words. Two weeks ago, she'd been in an office building, wearing a suit, crunching numbers. Not helping women select knitting projects. Not ordering new yarn off the Internet because she couldn't resist the colors and recommendations from other knitters. Not obsessively working on her grandmother's Fair Isle sweater whenever she had a free minute to herself.
And definitely not reliving every moment in Calvin's arms.
Sarah had always known what success meant to her--a big, important job with a big, important company. But being with Calvin again, feeling like her heart was beating only for him every time he said I love you, had her rethinking her definition of success. Not only with regard to her career, but also to her entire life.
She didn't like even considering the idea that the way she'd lived her life for so long could possibly have been wrong. Because then it wouldn't just mean she'd been failing during the last couple of weeks.
It would mean she had always been failing.
The threads of thoughts inside her head all tangled up, Sarah bent her head over her grandmother's sweater. A welcome feeling of relief came by the end of the row. And by the time she'd done half a dozen, everything fell away but a picture inside her head of Calvin wearing this sweater.
*
"Did you guys used to date when you were kids?"
Sitting in the passenger seat of Calvin's truck as they headed off to the hospital that evening, Sarah jumped at Jordan's question.
Calvin's hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel, but he was smiling as he looked back at his sister in the rearview mirror. "We sure did."
"So why did you break up for so long?"
Sarah's heart all but stopped at the implication that they were no longer broken up, even though she'd had breakfast with his sister at their house twice now. Jordan wasn't so young that she didn't know what that meant.
Sarah's gut clenched tight. She was afraid enough of breaking Calvin's heart again when she left. It horrified her to think she might break Jordan's too.
"Well," Calvin said slowly, "sometimes it takes two people a long time to see things clearly."
Sarah's breath caught in her throat. What did he mean by that? Did he think she was going to stay? Heck, at this point, given the way her conflicted thoughts had been spinning around and around inside her head while knitting earlier that day, did she think there was a chance that she would stay?
She was still reeling from these big questions when Jordan said, "Everyone is wondering why you want to get rid of the carousel, Sarah."
So this was
what being kicked in the stomach felt like. Sarah tried to give a calm response that belied the way she was currently freaking out over pretty much everything. "I don't want to get rid of it."
Calvin's sister frowned in confusion. "But aren't you trying to build something over it?"
Even when Calvin had been yelling at her in the boathouse, even when that guy had cornered her after her father's commemoration, Sarah hadn't felt this bad about the condos. As though she were dirt on the bottom of a boot for even suggesting bringing these buildings to Summer Lake.
Clearly, guilt was much more effective when it was created completely unintentionally.
"I thought it was just some old eyesore that no one cared about anymore," Sarah finally admitted.
"You're kidding, right?" Jordan couldn't seem to wrap her head around Sarah's statement.
"Unfortunately, I'm not. When I decided on the building site, I honestly didn't realize how important the carousel was to people."
"Me and my friends love it," Jordan told her. "That was always our special rainy day place when I was little."
Calvin had remained silent throughout their exchange. Now his lips moved up in a smile at the memory as he said, "Rainy days with a four-year-old." He mock-shuddered. "That carousel was a lifesaver."
"We always stayed dry on the merry-go-round because of the awning," Jordan explained to Sarah. "We would pretend we were in the circus, that we were stunt riders on the horses." Then she said, "Hey, Calvin, if Sarah gets rid of the merry-go-round, can we put it in our backyard?"
"No, Jords," he said, his love for his sister rounding out every short word. "We cannot put it in the backyard."
But Jordan's idea got Sarah thinking. What if they moved the carousel? She couldn't foresee having the money to actually rehab it--not yet, anyway--but maybe they could find a good home for it, at least. Somewhere kids could still play on it and pretend that they were in the circus, just like Jordan had.
Stuck at a surprisingly long light in Lake George, Jordan's eyes got big as she looked out the window at a huge entertainment complex. "Look, they have an arcade!"
The blinking lights blinding her, Sarah said, "I'll bet they can see that neon sign from space."
"Can we stop here on the way home from the hospital?"
Calvin snorted. "No way. You still have homework to do."
Jordan's mouth went flat and her arms crossed over her chest. "I wish we had an arcade at home. It's so boring sometimes." She shoved her earbuds into her ears and cranked the music up loud enough that everyone in the car could hear it.
Feeling Calvin tense beside her, Sarah tried to comfort him by saying, "It's perfectly natural for any kid to want what they don't have. You know, the grass is greener and all that." When he didn't respond, she added, "You're doing the right thing, raising her at the lake where everyone knows and loves her."
"I know. But one day she's going to be old enough to make her own decision about where she wants to live. And it breaks my heart to think it might not be here with me."
Sarah wanted so badly to make him feel better by saying, She'll choose the lake. She'll want to stay with all of her friends, with you. But she couldn't. Not when she hadn't chosen that path herself.
And not when she knew that Calvin couldn't possibly control his sister's desires and dreams. Those would have to be all her own, even if Jordan's choices sometimes hurt the man who had given up so much to raise her.
*
The three of them knocked before walking into Olive's room, and when they didn't hear a response, Sarah's heartbeat kicked into overdrive as she automatically assumed something must be wrong.
But when she flung open the door, her grandmother was sitting up in bed with a finger over her lips. "Your mother is sleeping," she whispered.
Sarah would have swapped places with her exhausted mother in a heartbeat. But she knew how important it was to Denise that she stay close to Olive. It was better for Sarah to run the store.
Still, there was one big reason to celebrate: Her grandmother's fingers were flying with her needles again, which had to mean she was feeling better.
After they had all given her a kiss, Jordan immediately focused on her knitting. "What are you making, Mrs. Hewitt?"
"Something very special."
Sarah had never seen a pattern like this one--a long oval that almost looked like fabric, it had been so painstakingly created. It wasn't a scarf or a sock or the front or back of a sweater. Sarah supposed it could be a strangely shaped shawl, but even that didn't seem quite right.
Jordan moved closer and Olive put the intricately knitted white silk yarn into her small hands. "Wow, it's like a spider's web. How did you ever figure out how to do this?"
"It isn't nearly as difficult as it looks. However, it does take a great deal of focus." She shifted her gaze to look at Sarah. "You can't give up on it when the going gets rough."
Sarah gulped in air at the pointed comment. Just one more thing to fill her already conflicted, confused head--and heart.
Needing to get back on steady ground, Sarah filled her grandmother in on the comings and goings at the store and asked for advice on various issues that had crept up in the past couple of days. When the nurse poked her head in to tell them that visiting hours were over for the night, she went to kiss her grandmother good night.
Calvin was next, whispering something that had Olive's eyes widening, her cheeks crinkling into a wide smile.
A few minutes later, when they were back in the truck and Jordan had her earbuds in, Sarah said, "It was so good to see Grandma smile. What did you say to her?"
"I'll tell you later." He smiled at her, one filled with both love and heat. "I promise."
She drank in the gorgeous lines of his face, the shadows of stubble across his chin that had darkened throughout the evening. She couldn't remember a time she hadn't wanted to be with Calvin. Five or fifteen or nearly thirty, she had always been drawn to this man sitting beside her.
"Tell me what you said," she insisted. "Tell me why she smiled like that."
His eyes were on the dark road, lit only by his headlights, and yet she could feel his entire focus on her as he said, "I told her I knew exactly what she was knitting. And who she was knitting it for."
Within seconds, Sarah felt her throat close up, her breath catching inside her chest. Because suddenly, she knew exactly what her grandmother was knitting in her hospital bed out of the finest white lace.
Grandma Olive was knitting a wedding veil.
For Sarah and Calvin's wedding.
Clearing her throat, trying to focus on something else--anything but that white lace that she swore she could almost feel floating down over her head--Sarah said, "The town hall meeting is tomorrow night. Everyone's going to get a chance to give their opinion about my project. Including you. Why don't we talk about it now while we have the time?"
"The town hall meeting can wait until tomorrow night."
"But we haven't discussed the project since--" She swallowed hard. "Since Loon Lake." Since that night in the boathouse when they'd kissed...and then torn each other's hearts out.
"You're not going to back down, Sarah. I know that. I have never underestimated you. I'm not starting now. I know you're going to give a hell of a presentation to the town. And I know you're going to wow a good number of people too."
How could she find any space to put between them when he wouldn't even let her cut the ties that bound them together with an issue where they stood on opposite sides?
And that was what finally had her saying what she should have said all along. "I need you to take me to my house tonight." She had to end this.
Even though it was already too late to protect her heart.
Calvin didn't argue with her; he just took her home. Jordan was already asleep in the backseat, and she didn't know what to do, what to say when they pulled up in front of her mother's house. "Calvin, I--"
"You need time." His eyes were dark as he undid his seat be
lt. "Take it."
He came around the car, a gentleman as always, and opened the door for her. Knowing she shouldn't feel as if he were kicking her out of his truck--not when she'd been the one to insist on coming back to this big house she'd grown up in--she climbed out on shaky legs.
But even though the smart thing would be to walk up the brick pathway to her mother's front door and close herself off inside, Sarah hated the thought of being a coward and running from him.
She'd been a coward before, she saw that now.
She couldn't stand it if she repeated history.
"Calvin," she began, not knowing what to say or how to say it. "You're my best friend. You've always been my best friend. And making lo--" She faltered, not used to talking about sex. Taking a shaky breath, she tried again. "Making love with you is wonderful." No, that wasn't good enough. Not even close. "Beyond wonderful. Better than I remembered. So much better. But I can't do this. I can't be what you need me to be." And she couldn't say the three words he needed to hear, couldn't possibly admit to loving him again. "I shouldn't have stayed with you that first night. I should have been strong enough to sleep alone."
"Sarah, sweetheart, I wouldn't have let you sleep all alone in that big empty house that first night. You needed me. And I needed to be there for you. It's as simple as that."
She took a breath to try to corral her thoughts so that she could make sense of them. But he was so close. Too close. And his words were soft in the fall chill, wrapping around her like a warm blanket, the warmth she'd been craving for so long.
"I can't control myself around you anymore," she said. "It's not fair for me to keep pushing you away every morning just because I'm not strong enough to resist sleeping with you every night."
"Do you really think this is just about how much we want each other? Do you really think this is just about sex?"
She tried to breathe. "Calvin, please--"
"I love touching you. I could kiss you for hours and never, ever want to stop. The sounds you make when I'm loving you are the most beautiful I've ever heard. But this thing between you and me isn't even close to being just sex."
She worked to suck in any oxygen she could. No one else had ever talked to her like this. Because no one else had ever wanted--or loved her--this much.
He closed the small distance between them, brushing her hair away from her eyes. "Don't you know that I can see how you feel whenever you look at me?" He laid his hand over her heart, and she felt it race beneath his large palm. "Don't you know I can feel it in the way your pulse races whenever I'm around?" His mouth was a breath away from closing in on hers as he whispered, "Don't you know you give away your true feelings with every one of your kisses?" And then his lips were grazing hers, just enough to make them tingle, before he drew back slightly. "All day long I've thought about what you said to me last night. I grieved when my mother died, but when my dad shot himself--"