Chapter Sixteen
Trace finished work early, took a long hot shower, and made his little home as close to perfect as a furnished studio apartment with no real kitchen could be. For some reason, he felt like Meatball’s homecoming was a test he had to pass.
A brand-new comfy dog bed and a fleece blanket rested in the corner of the living room, with two shiny new bowls for food and water, a few chew toys, and yes, a leash.
Now all he had to do was go get his boy. Molly had told him to come to her office around six for a formal patient checkout, so in the few minutes he had left, he washed up, brushed his teeth, and pulled on clean jeans.
But before he put on a T-shirt, he heard a knock at the door and hoped to God it wasn’t one of the new trainees who had arrived and checked in for a month of dog training certification. Shane had told them that if they needed anything, Trace was living in student housing to offer assistance.
The mini-promotion had felt great at the time, but right now he didn’t want to help out a newbie. He wanted to go get Meatball. And see Molly. Both held equally strong appeal.
He went to the door, not bothering with a shirt or the top button of his jeans, hoping the nonattire would send the message that he didn’t really want to shoot the shit about day one of “basic training” with anyone right now.
But he yanked the door open to see Molly and Meatball. Instantly, his dog barked and lifted his two front legs at the sight of Trace as if he might jump. Molly just stared. After a split second, her brows rose and her gaze dropped over his torso, a flush deepening in her cheeks as she checked him out for a few seconds past a casual glance.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” he said.
“Yeah, I see that.” She laughed, a little breathless. “I wanted to surprise you, but I guess”—she swallowed noisily—“the surprise is on me.”
There was enough admiration in the comment that he shot her a quick smile as he crouched down to greet Meatball.
“Welcome home, Meatman.” He snuggled the dog’s neck and fur and looked up at Molly, who was still staring down at him. Well, at his back and ass. “I thought you wanted me to come over to the office.”
“I did. I do. I want you, I mean, I wanted you to fill out…jeans.” She laughed, shaking her head in apology. “Sorry. You, uh…wow.”
He stood slowly, seeing the heat in her expression. That look in her eyes was starting to get familiar to him, one he’d seen frequently after a long, intimate kiss. Or six. “Should I put a shirt on?”
“Not on my account,” she joked, poking his bare chest to back him into the apartment with Meatball, who nosed his way in, barking and sniffing. “Meatball might be a little distracted, though.”
“Meatball, huh?” He let her in and closed the door, that low-grade rumble of anticipation and tension he always felt around her settling down in his belly. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to it, or if he wanted to.
“This looks homey,” she said, glancing around and sliding off her jacket and tossing it on the sofa armrest.
“It looks like the other ten studios in this building, not that I’m complaining.”
The room was six times the size of a cell, with a double bed, a sitting area with a TV, and a coffee bar and mini-fridge for sodas and snacks. The walls were painted a comforting blue-gray, with carefully chosen art and a gorgeous view of the Blue Ridge Mountains through a picture window. Plus, the building had a fully equipped kitchen and a gathering room for trainees to socialize, eat, or hold meetings. It was luxury living, even if he hadn’t spent the last fourteen years at Huttonsville, which, for once, he wasn’t even going to remind her. “It was really smart to build this as part of the facility,” he said.
“My dad had such a vision. He and my mother had talked about a canine training and rescue business for years, and he was following the plan of a hundred hours they shared on the porch imagining how it would be. Having a housing facility really encourages the longer class sessions, so trainees don’t have to find a hotel.”
“A group started that’ll be here for four weeks,” he said. “That’s a commitment.”
“But they’re certified dog trainers at the end of that four weeks, and they’ll all start businesses. Look at him.” She pointed to Meatball, who was trotting between his bed and the sofa, like Goldilocks trying to make the right sleep decision. “Go to the bed, Meatball,” she said, walking to guide him back. “I don’t love the idea of him jumping up and down from a sofa yet.”
“Oh, sure.” He snapped his fingers and pointed to the bed. “Sleep, Meatball.”
He trotted right back and gingerly stepped into the fleece and then started rooting around the blanket, making them both laugh at his enthusiasm.
“You want something to drink, Molly?” he asked, heading toward the wet bar.
When she didn’t reply, he looked over his shoulder and saw her staring at him again, a funny smile on her face. “What is it?”
“That tattoo on your shoulder. Is that a shamrock? I didn’t know you were…” Her voice trailed off as she finished with a whisper. “Irish.”
“I’m not,” he said, confirming what he knew she was thinking. He turned back to get them both cold waters from the fridge, waiting for her response, but she was silent. “They all mean something,” he finally said softly. “I tried to use the ink to commemorate good moments in my life.”
“Oh.”
He could hear the wonder, maybe a little shock, in the single syllable. “Yes, you were one of the good moments, Irish.”
“And you didn’t even know about Pru.”
He turned slowly. “It was a good moment even without knowing the unexpected outcome.”
She stood stone-still, her arms wrapped around herself. “I’m flattered. And a little sad.”
“Sad?” He nodded to the sofa in invitation. “That I remembered you with a tattoo?”
“That you remembered me. That I…” On a sigh, she sat and he did, too, giving her some space and time to gather her thoughts. “I didn’t have any fond memories of that night,” she said softly. “I remember you and the maroon Plymouth Voyager and the…”
Sex. Hot, wild, incredibly satisfying sex.
“The dog crate,” he supplied for her, opening her bottle and handing it to her. “Noisy as it was.”
She laughed but her smile disappeared quickly. “I so misjudged you.”
“I don’t know about that. You thought I was a bad guy, a loser, a troublemaker, and that I died in a bar fight, which, you could argue, I did for fourteen years. No misjudgment at all.”
She stared at him for a long time. “My dad knew.”
“What? About us? Pru?” He jerked back with each question as the possibility hit him.
“No, no, he knew about you. Your character. Right away, after meeting you in town a few weeks ago. He told me, ‘There’s more to him than meets the eye.’” She lifted her brows and wiggled her finger in the direction of his torso. “And he hadn’t even seen this.”
He smiled at the compliment, thinking about the conversation he’d had with Daniel Kilcannon in the Bitter Bark Bakery. “It was Meatball that got us talking, of course. And your dad was so engaging and honest, I came right out and told him my story.”
“Have you told anyone else in town?”
“No.” He picked up his bottle of water, running his thumb over the condensation that dampened the label. “I mean, your brothers know, obviously. But no one else in Bitter Bark.” He looked at her. “There are some people I’d like to talk to. Bart McQueen, for one, but he moved away.”
“I guess you blame him, in a roundabout way.”
“I don’t blame anyone.” That was something Wally had drummed out of him. “My hands pushed Paul Mosfort to his death.” He stared at his hands, dredging up that old hate for his deadly weapons.
“You paid the price,” she said quietly. “You’re…reformed.”
He gave a sharp laugh at the word. “That’s what they call it.”
She closed her hand around his wrist, her fingers landing on the edge of the image of a metal pipe that twisted around most of his forearm.
“Another good moment?” she asked.
“Yes. I enjoyed the welding trade and would have been good at it. I actually got really good at metal sculpting in prison. I made little animals, dogs mostly, and some more esoteric art.”
“You can sculpt little metal dogs? We could sell those at Waterford.”
“I’d make them for you.”
She smiled at the offer and gently twisted his arm to see the underside, trailing her fingers along his skin lightly enough to make him crazy. “What’s this?” She tapped on a red flower that spiraled up his bicep.
“My mom went through a gardening phase,” he said. “I helped her plant all these bushes in the backyard one summer when I was about twelve or thirteen. They’re still there, all overgrown and messy. I liked gardening, I’m not ashamed to say. That’s not a prison tattoo, obviously.”
“Why is that obvious?”
“Prison tats are blue ink only. That’s why my shamrock isn’t green. Prison ink isn’t like the sweet tattoos you get at the mall. There’s an element of danger involved.”
“How so?”
He made a face, not wanting to tell her too much about the dark, ugly, dangerous side of prison. About making tattoo guns out of the motors of CD players or running a needle through a ballpoint pen. Didn’t want to tell her about seeing gang members get teardrops for each kill or burn Bible pages to get ink from the soot. The ugly words and ruined men and vile things that happened behind bars. He’d never put a single one of those images in her head.
“Let’s just say the guards frown upon it,” he finally said, the understatement damn near laughable.
“How many of these did you get in prison? I know you had some when you were in high school.”
“Anything blue came from Huttonsville Correctional Center.”
“Mmm.” She worked up to his pec, each air-light touch of her fingertips sending pulses from his arm through his gut and lower. “Who’s this handsome bull terrier?”
“Bogie.” He grinned. “My first dog. Got that ink when I was seventeen and he died. I loved the hell out of that dog. He was a total badass who hated everyone but me.”
“Terriers definitely have their favorites,” she said, walking her fingers over his shoulder. To the shamrock tattoo. It was very simple, just three leaves and a curved line for the stem, deep blue. It wasn’t the best of shamrocks, no shape or nuance. In fact, each leaf wasn’t much more than, well, three hearts. Three very exaggerated hearts.
“Trace, have you ever really looked at this?”
Turning his head and lifting his arm a bit, he could see it well enough, even though Fat Eddie had put it a little off-center and more toward his back. “Yeah, why?”
“You’re looking at it upside down.”
“Not in the mirror.” Not that he spent a lot of time looking at his reflection, but he occasionally did an ink inventory as a little trip down memory lane.
“The leaves are three perfect hearts.”
“Fat Eddie wasn’t exactly Michelangelo,” he joked. But maybe Fat Eddie had known what he was doing after all. “That’s…interesting.”
She leaned forward and pressed the softest kiss on the tattoo, burning him.
He put his hand on her head, holding her lips against the shamrock, closing his eyes to enjoy the moment of woman and warmth. She stayed there, not moving, letting him tangle his fingers into her waves so the strands slid over his skin like silk.
Need started to build. Not just sexual need, which burned like a welding torch constantly around her. This was a different kind of need. The need for touch. The need for connection. The hot, achy, miserable need to fill a hole in his heart.
But mostly, it was a need for Molly.
When she lifted her head to look at him, he saw the same need in her burnished green-gold eyes that he felt in his chest. And that possibility stole his ability to get through the next breath.
Her lips parted as she inhaled with the same ragged effort. She dragged her hand from his shoulder, back over Bogie on his chest, and splayed her fingers right over his hammering heart.
“You know what I think those three hearts are?”
“Bad art?” He tried for a light note and failed.
“Symbolic.” She tapped on his chest, matching the rhythm of his pulse. “Two hearts connected by the one they made together.”
“Are you sure you aren’t a greeting card writer on the side?” he teased.
She smiled. “You know I’m right.”
“I know you’re…” Beautiful. Perfect. Sweet. And still so far out of his league, it hurt. But looking at her, holding her, and being this close to her only made him want to forget that and take what it appeared she was offering.
“I’m what?”
“Killing me,” he whispered, coming closer. “You’re making me lose my mind, Irish. All I want to do is…”
She leaned into him and finished his thought for him. Her lips were soft and still parted, kissing him with that same pent-up passion she’d had that very night he’d commemorated with a shamrock tattoo.
“Always, always, I have to kiss first,” she joked as he tipped her head back and pressed his lips on her jaw and throat. “Why is that?”
Slowly, he pulled back to look at her. “You don’t know?”
“You’re a gentleman? You’re cautious? You like to be pursued?”
“I’m not good enough to kiss you,” he admitted gruffly.
She eased farther back, narrowing her eyes. “You were good enough for me to have sex with in a minivan. You were good enough to give me the greatest gift I’ve ever known. You are good enough to work in this place, to own up to your fatherhood, and to kiss me.”
Pulling her closer, he clung to her words as much as her body, feeling her soften as he grew harder, hearing her breath matching his, and kissing her like he actually believed all that she said. He felt the moment she completely relaxed, melting under him, drawing him closer and closer, until there was nowhere to go but horizontal.
Blood thrummed as he lost the fight not to touch more of her, caressing her hair, her back, and up and down her waist. She did the same, her fingers exploring every inch of his exposed skin, adding pressure on his muscles, moaning in sweet appreciation.
“Irish.” He murmured the nickname as he lowered her onto the tiny leather sofa, way too undersized for what their bodies wanted to do.
She didn’t seem to care, wrapping her hands around his neck, dropping back enough so that he could cover her whole body with his. She rocked under him, sucking in a breath at the first moment their bodies met and fire licked through both of them.
When she arched her back, he took the invitation, slowly sliding his hand up her side to close over her ribs and thumb the rise of her breast. She hissed in a breath and whispered his name, which sounded like poetry on her lips.
She clung to his back, her hands coasting over his painted skin like the art was Braille and she wanted to read it. His head throbbed, every nerve burning and screaming and aching for more.
Until a low, angry growl right in his ear, followed by a loud, sharp bark had them both startling in surprise. Meatball was three inches from their faces, his hot breath coming out faster than theirs, his jade eyes judgmental and jealous.
Under him, Molly laughed. “Meatball doesn’t approve.”
“Go back to bed, Meatman,” Trace ordered. “There’s nothing to see here.”
He barked in response, his dog disagreement loud and clear.
“Meatball!” Trace channeled some of his frustration into the name. “Back to bed.”
That just got a low, under-the-breath growl of aggression. Trace started to sit up so he could point to the bed, a command that dog would never ignore, but Molly reached out a hand to the dog. “Go sit down, baby,” she said.
Meatball licked her hand, then turned to meander back to his bed.
“What the hell?” Trace pushed up, astounded at the exchange. “He never ignores me. He answers only to me, and who calls him baby?”
That made her chuckle. “When are you going to realize that people—and dogs—can change, Trace Bancroft? And, at risk of being called a dog shrink, in my professional opinion, he thought you were hurting me.”
Trace hadn’t even considered that. “Am I?”
“If you stop, you will.”
But he didn’t lay back down. Instead, he rose up some more and brought her with him, looking right into her sweet eyes. “Not on the sofa,” he finally said. “And not on the bed in here, either,” he added before she could drag him there with one little touch.
“Minivan?”
He laughed softly. “You want to do this again, Irish?”
“I’m starting to think so, yeah.”
“Then we’re going to do it right the next time.”
“Right?”
He nodded, pushing them all the way up and gently straightening her T-shirt. His knuckles grazed her skin, and just that touch made him want more. But not so badly that he’d sacrifice what she deserved.
“Then give me a little time,” he said.
She lifted a brow, silent. He couldn’t quite read her question, but it didn’t matter. He knew why he needed time, and he knew that he risked her changing her mind by taking it.
“You will be my first lover in fourteen years. And you also happen to be the mother of my daughter.”
Her eyes shuttered at the last whispered word.
“Everything has to be right.”
She searched his face, reaching to cup his chin and stroke the cheek he’d shaved a few minutes ago. “Don’t you think we should tell Pru first?”
“That we’re going to sleep together?” He choked on the idea.
“The truth. I don’t like duplicity, Trace. It’s weighing me down. In fact, I had a long talk with my father, and he wants me to be honest with her.”
“He knows?”
“He knows we have something going on here. He knows I’m seeing you as more than Meatball’s owner. And he knows that Pru deserves the truth. He means be honest about our relationship, but I am taking that to the next step.”
He stared at her. “That will ruin everything.”
“How?”
“For one thing, her project, which is going so well, will no longer qualify for the competition.”
She rolled her eyes. “In the scheme of things, I don’t think that’s important.”
“It is to her.”
Molly closed her mouth on the next argument, leaning back. “Okay, you have me there. And color me ashamed for putting my needs above hers.”
“You’re not seeing it through her eyes.”
“I’m not seeing it through your eyes,” she replied. “You’re scared she’s going to reject you. You’re terrified you’ll somehow shame her. And I’m scared, too, Trace. Don’t you think I’m petrified that this will change the relationship I’ve spent thirteen years building? She’s my life, my heart, my whole world. But because of that, I owe her the truth, no matter how much it changes everything.”
He blew out a breath, studying her carefully, weighing the pros and cons and everything in between. “You can tell her if you want.”
“Not without you.”
He closed his eyes.
“What? You don’t think that’s right?”
“I think it’s so right that…that…” He bit back a smile, knowing his eyes might be a little damp, but he didn’t care. “That I was right when I said I’m not worthy of you, Molly Kilcannon. You are one of the most exceptional women I’ve ever known.”
“You haven’t known that many,” she reminded him.
He put both hands on her cheeks and held her face. “I don’t need to,” he whispered. “Everyone else is downhill after you.”
“When?” she asked softly.
“She only has to work sixteen more hours this weekend,” he said. “The rest of the time will be spent putting her presentation to the school together, and she’ll have her hours. Can we please wait until after that? This matters to her.”
“You know what, Trace?”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to, but he nodded. “What?”
“I’m afraid everyone else is downhill after you, too.”
He closed his eyes and pulled her closer, unable to find the words to thank her for saying that.