29

It was three days after the fire. Three days since they’d seen each other. Three days, and Luc was likely gone forever. She’d thought he’d come and pick up his dog. Or at the very least, say good-bye, but she hadn’t heard a peep. With everything else that had happened, she’d hardly found time to sort things out, much less worry about the man.

Oh, what a lie. Worry was all she’d done. Aside from waiting tables, setting up doctor’s appointments, and finding people to help with Sammy, all she’d done was dwell.

While her life had been turned upside down in more ways than she could possibly imagine, all she could do was think about that man.

She still didn’t understand what had happened last night, with the biggest surprise coming in the form of a lawyer—Hamish’s lawyer, to be exact. He’d shown up out of the blue during last night’s shift at the Nook, to tell her that she, Abigail Merkley, was the sole owner of the Church of the Apocalyptic Faith. Well, of the land and its buildings, because she had absolutely no use for the Church itself.

It’s my mountain.

She got dizzy at the mere idea.

According to the lawyer, the land had belonged to Hamish all along. He’d started the Church in the eighties, and though Isaiah had tried to usurp the older man, he’d never gotten him to sign over the deed.

It was hers.

And then had come the realization that Isaiah probably wanted her for that reason alone. A puzzle solved.

Standing at the east-facing window, she looked out at the mountain. Her mountain.

She should feel triumph. Not this soul-deep sadness. She had saved Sammy and gotten the kids out, broken up the Church that had taken on a life of its own. What was next? Maybe she’d go to college or travel. She’d had this idea, after talking with the Child Protective Services workers, of starting a nonprofit to help people like her, who wanted to start a new life and didn’t know how.

None of it felt right, though. Not right or whole. Not the planning or the future or the mountain.

Because she didn’t, it turned out, want the mountain without the man.

When the knock came, she imagined more lawyers or police or Rory telling her to get Sammy out of his kitchen, where he’d happily set to work washing dishes the night before. She should have known when Le Dog ran to the door with a very rare woof of excitement.

What she hadn’t pictured as she opened the door was Luc, holding a small, brown suitcase in one hand and a stack of skinny, wide books in the other.

“Oh” was all she managed to say.

“Can I come in?”

Abby didn’t move, at least not on the outside. Inside, though, her body was fizzing and bubbling, full of hope and excitement.

“What’s that?” she asked, indicating the suitcase.

“Record player. And records,” he answered. “Music.”

“Seems rather old-fashioned.”

“That’s funny, coming from you.”

Unable to stop herself, she smiled, feeling her eyebrows rise. “You think we didn’t have CDs over there?”

“You did?”

“In the Center. We listened to music. I told you Isaiah always loved music.”

“But not dancing.” After a pause: “Can I come in, Abby?”

Not quite trusting him—or maybe herself—she backed up one step and then another until he could brush past her. He put down the records and got the player set up while she looked at them. Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf—words she could barely make out, much less understand. “These all in French?”

“Bien sûr. But of course.” He pulled one from the pile, opened it up, and slid out the wide, shiny black disk. “This is how people listened to music once upon a time.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “When you were a kid?”

“No. Before that. These were my grandfather’s.” Judging by the way he handled the object, he cared about it. “I’ve bought a few since then, but they’re mostly his.” He glanced at her. “I never took them out of their box. Left them in the barn. They’re the only thing I have left.” He paused. “That and a quilt made by an incredible woman.”

Oh, why did those words constrict her chest like that? Maybe it was the image of Luc as a little boy, lost and alone with nothing but his grandfather’s music to comfort him. Nothing to do with him cherishing her gift.

“I will be back,” he said and went outside. A few minutes later, he returned with more electronics, all of which took him some time to set up and turn on before he pushed every stick of furniture away from the center of the room. “First of all, there are things I want, but if you don’t want them, then you don’t have to say yes.”

“What kind of things?”

“I want you in my tasting room, selling the wine.”

She suppressed the wave of hope that worked its giddy way out of her heart.

“But first…” When he dropped the needle onto one of the disks, it let out a funny tearing sound, which made her jump slightly, before the notes emerged from two speakers he’d put on the counter.

The music started. Violins swelled, and a man’s voice, melodic and crackly, started singing.

Luc looked her in the eye. “May I please have this dance, Abby?”

“What are you—”

“May I have your first dance?”

Letting out a hot whoosh of air, she nodded. One of his arms circled her, while his other hand grasped hers—warm and firm—and he twirled her into the center of the room.

It was an entirely different sensation from what she’d experienced with those men encroaching on her downstairs. That had been sexual, sweaty and frenzied in a way she hadn’t been comfortable with. This, while still sensual, was…beautiful.

As he led her around the room with nothing but the palm of one hand and the length of his body, Abby felt herself getting more than swept away.

“I danced once before.”

“Oh?”

“Downstairs, one night, with George and another friend.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“It was freeing, I suppose.”

He smiled.

With a hard sigh that he had to have felt through her chest, she said, “But this, this is better.”

“Good.” After a few more turns, he asked against her ear, “Do you know what else I want, Abby?”

She shook her head.

“I want to be your first again. From now on, I want to be the one you do new things with. Forever. Always.”

She was breathless. “That’s…that’s sweet, but—”

“I also want to be the last. The last one to touch you and make love to you. I want to be the first and the last. The only one for you. Will you let me? Will you let me be that?”

Abby looked away, her eyes alighting on that mountain through the window before he turned them and it disappeared from view. Goodness, she wanted him. Only him.

A smile lit her face, and she whispered, “Yes.”

* * *

They danced for another three songs before the heat between them got to be too much. A different heat than what they’d had before. All the shame, the fear, and the doubt was gone, and in its place was a hot, hot tenderness.

Abby felt it in the touch of his lips when he kissed her, in the stroke of his fingers. It was in the brush of his face against hers, his mouth at the crook of her neck, his eyes scorching nerve endings she’d never even realized existed.

“I’m not innocent,” she said.

She felt his smile against her skin. “No?”

“I’m a sinner, Luc. I’m a sinner at heart. Isaiah knew it. God’s in on it. And now that I’ve come to terms with it, I want to enjoy it. Can you help me do that?”

“Oh, ma belle,” he muttered close to the side of her face, his hands moving all the while, stroking, pressing. Good Lord, the man’s hands were amazing. Rough and hard, but gentle. Somehow, her shirt was twisted up and away, a bra cup shoved to the side as one of his blunt fingers rasped against her tight nipple. “Je vais te baiser.” He smirked. “I want you so badly.” His other hand was in her hair, wrapped in it, tugging so she could watch him do these things to her.

No, not to her—with her.

She leaned back to shove up his sweater and got lost while admiring the muscles and hair and glorious skin of his chest. This was freedom, wasn’t it? It wasn’t touching yourself with soap, wrapped in decades of shame, accepting the bad that came crashing in right behind the good.

This was none of the things she’d left behind. This—in this place, with Luc against her—was her choice.

My choice.

The thought sent her forward, pulling down his chin to bite his lip. And he liked that. She could tell he liked it by the grunt that puffed out. Another bite, lower, before drifting to the side, where his skin was soft but smelled so male. How did I not know what a real man smelled like before Luc? And why does this one smell so damned good?

Freedom had taken on its own smell: woodsmoke and man. Bittersweet until just this minute. It smelled like the mountain, which she’d never expected. No, in her mind, freedom had smelled like sea salt and the unknown of the world’s teeming cities. Boat exhaust and city buses. Not this. Not home right here, with him.

“You’re my freedom,” she said, meaning it.

“And you mine, mon amour.”

Another bite as his rough fingers caressed her flesh, left marks she’d have to examine in depth later—marks that would eventually fade and disappear. Nothing like the marks God had left her with.

Isaiah, whispered the voice in her head. Not God.

She tugged at his sweater.

“I can’t… This keeps sliding down. Can you take it off?” she asked, and he complied. Immediately, gratifyingly.

“You, too. Come on.” Oh, his impatience did things to her. To be wanted. Was that what this was? No. No, because the men she’d danced with, the ones who’d touched her, they’d wanted her, too. But she hadn’t wanted them this way.

He struggled with his sweater, and she watched him for a moment, enjoyed the way he stepped back, unabashed, ready. He’s undressing for me. Again, without a doubt, this was what she wanted. And to undress for him, to give herself.

“What’s that mean?”

“What?”

“Mon amour. What you said a second ago.”

He stopped moving, his eyes meeting hers, so sweet and blue. So different from the day they’d met. “It means my love,” he whispered, drawing close once his sweater fell to the floor. He spoke against her ear. “I love you, Abby. More than the vines or the grapes or the dirt or wine. You’re my everything. My raison d’être.” He swallowed, the sound dry. “You are home. My home.”

She hiccupped at those words and the pressure they built in her chest—in her heart, where she’d never expected to feel so full. “And you’re mine, Luc.”

His lips curved against her ear, smiling what she knew was a handsome, warm smile. Tilting back, she took him in. Happy. He looked happy.

I did that, she thought, with the most powerful thrill of her life. I made this broken man whole.

And goodness, that did things to her body. She dipped to work at the laces of her boots and the buttons of her shirt, and the thoughts in her head turned to sensations in her body. Heavy and warm, the need settled between her legs. She brimmed with energy. Like syrup or fire or…or wine. Like a bright, thick, strong red wine.

Feeling more blessed than she had ever been, Abby sank into the arms of the man she’d had the pleasure of making whole again and gave thanks.

She must have made a noise as she watched him undress, because he stopped to look at her. She drank him in, knowing with absolute certainty, for the first time since she’d left the Church—maybe the first time in her life—that there was, indeed, something divine smiling down upon her.