We waited until the storm was right overhead before we moved. Until the sound of thunder was so loud, it vibrated the soft earth beneath us.
“I don’t have all of my clothes on yet,” I hissed when he started toward me, him still missing his shirt and shoes.
He didn’t pay attention to what I said, heaving me off the ground and throwing me over his shoulder. “It’s dark. No one will see.” His voice was light, the closest thing to happy Canaan could sound.
“Someone will see. Someone always sees.”
When he shrugged, my body lifted a couple inches. “So what?” He smacked my backside before breaking through the tangle of willow branches and making a run for the house.
So what?
My heart sank when I realized what he thought our roll in the grass was. My heart sank a little more when I realized I was still as confused as I’d been before. Given, I felt amazing—really amazing—but sex with Canaan had always done that. Life could have been falling apart around us and one round of sex would give me a temporary reprieve from it all.
But that didn’t mean it was an answer. Or a compass. Or a glass ball.
Because we were really good at one part of a relationship didn’t mean we’d been any good at the other parts.
As Canaan charged across the yard, drops of rain fell across my back, cooling my heated skin. He snagged my canvas in passing, shielding the painted side against his chest as he skirted through the rest of the yard, laughing like we were playing a game of tag like we used to as kids.
I couldn’t help it. My laugher joined his. This moment was too special not to be happy about. We still had twenty days to do what we wanted without explanation or excuse or reason.
So what?
The phrase chimed in my head again. Exactly. So fucking what?
Canaan’s feet beat up the porch steps right as the storm picked up, dousing the landscape in the freshest rain I’d ever smelled. He set me down once we were on the porch, and he carefully propped my painting against the side of the house. Some water spots had displaced the paint, making it run in a few places, but somehow it added to the overall effect of the piece. Without my knowing what it had been missing, now it was complete.
Tugging at my shirt in an attempt to cover the majority of my underwear, I moved to the edge of the porch to watch the storm. It was more dark than light and the whole world seemed still, save for the storm. We didn’t get storms like this in Chicago. At least not ones a person could enjoy like this—on their front porch, taking in the scents the rain created when it hit thirsty soil and blooming freesia. Where the grey-swirled sky went from horizon to horizon, uninterrupted by endless spires of buildings jutting into it.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed, my arms folded over my chest.
“You—you—are beautiful.” Canaan joined me at the edge of the porch, his arm motioning out. “The storm is . . . nice.”
My mouth moved. “You already got laid. Which means you don’t have to keep dropping lines like that on me.”
Canaan’s chest moved, his head turning toward me. “Yeah, and I’m hoping to get laid again. Real soon. So I’m going to keep tossing lines at you until one of them works.”
Damn it anyway, I couldn’t contain my smile, which only made his get bigger. Glancing away from the storm, I looked at him from the corner of my eyes. I turned so I could get a better angle, double-checking.
“I painted you,” I said, checking my fingers, which were nearly clean.
Canaan looked down at himself, his brow furrowing when he saw streaks of color scratched all along his bare skin. Bursts of color were even popping through in his dark hair, a bunch of streaks concentrating along his neck.
“I’m a masterpiece,” he grunted, turning his arms over to check out the rest of the damage.
“I don’t know. My work looks rushed, sloppy. I could do better.” I felt heat rush through me again when I noticed the concentration of color disappearing into his jeans above his belt.
“Then I’ll look forward to you cleaning me off. Every inch of me from the looks of it.” He stopped checking out the paint streaks to move behind me. “And redoing it all over again. And again. And however many times it takes until you’re satisfied.”
“Such a martyr.”
His chest moved against my back when he chuckled as his arms wove around me. We stood like that for a while, watching the storm pass by. It was the first time I’d felt content, at peace, in such a long time I couldn’t remember the last. I felt safe in Canaan’s arms, but it was more than that. I felt strong in them too. Like the world couldn’t touch me.
I could have stayed like that the rest of the night, but once the thunder had passed and the rain had ceased, Farmington came back to life. We ducked inside the house when the headlights of the first car shone at the end of the road. I guessed Canaan led me inside not because it was what he wanted, but what he guessed I did.
He was right. I wasn’t ready for everyone to know about us, temporary as it might have been.
And he was wrong. I didn’t care then and I didn’t much care now what others knew or thought.
“Do you want some coffee?” I asked as I headed toward the kitchen. For the first time since arriving in Farmington, I felt cool.
“That depends.”
“Depends on what?” I said when he added nothing more.
“How late you have in mind for keeping me up.” He was leaning into the doorway, all freshly sexed and grinning like an idiot at me moving around the kitchen in my shirt and underwear.
“I think we should take things easy.”
“Kind of late for that.” Canaan glanced out the window at the willow. I could just make out one of his boots half sticking out from the branches.
“Fine. Then we should pace ourselves.” I filled the coffee pot with water, trying to distract myself from what I really wanted—him. Again. Already.
Not good. Especially for the woman who’d shown up with divorce papers in hand for said him less than two weeks ago.
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because why?” he pushed, rubbing at some of the paint on his forearms.
I paused before replying, actually considering why. “Because it seems like the prudent thing to do, how about that?”
Canaan gave an overdone frown. “How about not that? And since when have you ever been the prudent type?”
I muttered under my breath, pouring some coffee grounds into the filter. “I just think, given our situation, we shouldn’t rush into stuff. We should take things slow.”
“And having crazed sex in the front yard just now was taking things slow?”
Leveling him with a look, I waved the tablespoon I was measuring coffee grounds with at him. “It was dark. We were hidden from view. And I didn’t plan on that happening.”
“It was dusk, not dark. You were starting to undress me before I had the levelheadedness to duck into some shelter, and who plans for sex?” Canaan’s mouth twisted. “You carpe diem the hell out of that.”
My hand went to my hip after I turned on the coffee pot. “Kind of like you’ve been carpe diem’ing the hell out of all of those women who’ve been sending out their fuck-me-Canaan-Ford spotlights?”
His head tipped, but he never looked away. “I’m not looking for sex with just anyone. I’m looking for sex with the one.”
“Me? I’m ‘the one’?” I motioned at myself, all paint smudged and disheveled.
“You’ve always been the one. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you the past ten days. What I was too big of a fool to tell you my whole life.”
The sound of the coffee percolating filled the kitchen as I leaned into the counter to study this man I thought I knew everything about, yet could still be so confused over. “You really haven’t been with anyone since I left?”
He swallowed, his eyes cutting away. When he nodded once, my stomach gave a sharp twist. Then his finger pointed out the window at the willow. “I was just with this crazy fox, fucked me so good I forgot my damn name.”
“I’m being serious.”
His eyes sparked. “So am I.”
“No one else?” I said after a minute.
He didn’t pause. He didn’t blink. “No one.”
“You waited five years?”
He gave me a funny look, like he doubted my question. “I’d wait forever.”
I could hear my breaths echoing in my head. This, him, us—it felt right. But experience, and the past, wouldn’t cease reminding me how wrong we were together.
“Why?” I whispered, the sum total of all my confusion in one word. Why me? Why now? Why try again? Why go back?
Why not?
“You know why, Maggie.”
“I need to hear you say it.”
Canaan shifted his weight in the doorway. “Because I couldn’t love anyone else but you.” His throat moved as the corners of his eyes creased. “I know there’re more romantic ways to say it, but that’s the truth. I might have made a vow on our wedding day to love you forever, but I’d known that years before saying those words to you. I will love you forever. There’s no changing that for me. You have to decide if you feel the same.”
I didn’t realize at first I was staring at my left hand. The ring had circled my finger for such a short time, but years later, I still found myself missing it. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to answer that. I’d like to, but I want to be honest with you. We didn’t work once. In fact, we were a goddamn chaotic mess. Why should we even think we might have a chance at getting it right the second time around?”
When he saw me reach for the sugar bowl, he went to the fridge to pull out the creamer for me. He knew how I liked my coffee. He knew just about everything one person could know about another.
“Because you can’t write a great love story without a tragedy to overcome. Because that’s when love’s proved. Not when life’s easy, but when it’s so damn hard you can barely breathe.”
“I didn’t prove it though. I didn’t overcome our tragedy.” I looked at him, feeling Canaan everywhere though he wasn’t touching me. “I walked away.”
His fingers laced around my left hand. “You’re standing right in front of me.”