. . . she always said that what happened almost at that moment was Magic.
Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
AFTER SO very long, it was a jolt to her body to be entered that way—and tears nearly sprang to her eyes. But they weren’t tears of pain—because a split-second past that initial discomfort came the soul-searing satisfaction of being filled by him.
The tears she held back were because this was how men and women were supposed to come together, what their bodies were made to do, and she was—at last—experiencing that. And to think she’d tried to push away her need for it, her natural desire. Attempting to deny it seemed so pointless now.
Of course, until now no one had come along to help her have this. And so she knew it was all unfolding as it was supposed to. She didn’t know what would happen between her and Jeremy after this, but she knew in her soul that he was the man meant to unlock her desires, the man meant to make her open herself to romance again.
Jeremy peered down into the eyes of the woman beneath him. They were glassy, wet, but her lips were parted in passion.
And shit—she was so, so tight inside that he was afraid he’d hurt her at first. But now, as he began to move in her in slow, firm, deep thrusts, small whimpers of pleasure left her, fueling his desire.
God. Yes. Damn, was it possible he’d actually forgotten how good this felt?
Tamra wasn’t his usual kind of woman. The truth was, she was right—in the past, he’d gone for the more typically pretty girls, the ones who’d once been cheerleaders and homecoming queens. Those girls usually knew how to be outgoing, how to flirt, how to be with a guy—and that made it easy.
But the further truth was—none of that had ever crossed his mind until she’d started pointing it out to him, telling him everything she thought was wrong with her. And he’d instantly realized that maybe he wanted her because she was different. He was finding his way in life to a whole new normal, and maybe wanting a different kind of woman than he ever had before was just one more part of it.
And she was a funny little thing in ways—in, out; up, down; stop, go. But all that mattered right now, in this moment, was that she hadn’t stopped this time.
Not having a condom was a blessing in disguise. She was so wet, clearly so ready, and now he moved in and out of her snug warmth with smooth precision, each stroke echoing outward from his cock through the rest of his body.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Tamra,” he breathed. He’d told her that before, but he needed her to know it now. Needed her to feel that. One hand still gripped her hip, the other he’d lifted to brush the hair from her cheek, helping the moonlight illuminate her face.
And he’d nearly called her Mary—a nickname that had somehow stuck in his head because it fit her so well, because she was so contrary. But in this moment, none of that mattered. In this moment, she was Tamra.
She expelled a rough breath, and brought her hands to his face as well. She ran them over his cheeks, jaw, beard, like a blind person seeing someone through the use of their touch. “And you’re a beautiful man,” she whispered. “I’m so glad you let me . . . see you.”
And he was, too. It had gotten too easy to hide behind overgrown hair, too easy to just quit taking care of himself. Seeing how he looked after his haircut had reminded him . . . of who he could be. He wasn’t the old Jeremy Sheridan—clean-cut war hero—but he was . . . a better guy than the one who’d been hiding up at Whisper Falls. And now Tamra could see that, as well. “Me too, honey,” he told her. “Me too.”
Soon, though, there was no more room for words between them—there was only thrusting, driving deep within her, making her cry out, knowing the distinct pleasure of making her feel exactly how connected their bodies were right now.
Soon, there was only the wetness and the heat. There were only his fingers digging into her ass as hers clutched at his shoulders. There was only the garden, surrounding them, cocooning them in the lushness of the trees and flowers and big, waxy leaves of tropical foliage.
Soon there wasn’t even room for thought, only sensation. His body pulsed with every hard plunge into her. Her hot whimpers echoed in his ears. Blood drained from his face, rushing south, gathering between his legs as the fever she inspired in him mounted, nearing that point of no return.
And then, he reached it. And a few ragged words spilled from his mouth. “Aw. God. Now, honey.”
And his eyes fell shut, brilliant flashes of color exploding behind them as he came, like what you saw when you looked directly into the sun. He erupted inside her, driving hard, hard, hard, loving the way it made her cry out even as the climax threatened to consume him.
FLETCHER drove toward his cottage on Sea Shell Lane, same as any other time. Same as any other time except that a glance toward the passenger seat revealed that Kim was sitting beside him. It was like riding with a ghost, a ghost of happiness past. He kept looking to make sure, to confirm he wasn’t imagining the whole thing.
“You look so different to me,” she said musingly, head tilted as she peered over at him. “When did you shave your beard off and cut your hair?”
“A few hours ago,” he answered stiffly. He didn’t mean to be stiff—it just came out that way. He felt stiff. She was the woman he’d loved his whole adult life, and yet at the same time she was a stranger to him.
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Really? Just a few hours? If I’d arrived yesterday, it still would have been there?”
His short nod came out equally as stiff.
“Timing is everything in life, isn’t it?” she observed.
He swallowed back the urge to reply, but thought she’d just said a mouthful.
“You look really good, Fletch. Really good.” Then her voice went lower, her tone changing. “How are you? Are you doing okay?”
Funny, he’d been waiting four years to pour his heart out to this woman, four years waiting for her to care, but now he found himself wanting to keep his thoughts private, even from her. “I’m fine,” he said.
As he made the left turn onto Sea Shell Lane, he felt Kim looking at him, perhaps sensing the gravity in his words. But then she took in their surroundings. “Wow, you live here? It’s like . . . a storybook. Or some old-fashioned postcard.”
I was hoping you’d like it. It had been more than a place to wait for her, after all. He’d made a home here, all with the idea of it belonging to both of them one day. But that was one more thing he found himself not especially eager to reveal at the moment. So he said, “It’s nice.”
“Right by the ocean, too,” she noticed aloud as they pulled in his driveway.
“Yeah.” He turned off the engine.
“So . . . you’ve been performing on the beach all this time? In this one spot? Waiting for me?”
Somehow, now, he was embarrassed to confirm that. The waiting part. So, still sitting in the car, he turned and looked at her. “Where have you been, Kim?”
Her eyes grew wider again, but her voice stayed calm. “Can we go inside to talk? Or maybe sit on your porch?” She pointed.
Yet suddenly Fletcher didn’t want to share any of that with her, any of his home. His home. That he’d made here. He’d always planned on sharing it with her—he’d longed to share it with her—but somehow, now, it wasn’t that easy. Nothing was as easy as he’d expected it to be. “Here is fine for now,” he said.
She looked appropriately cowed as she softly replied, “Okay.” Then she paused, thought. “I’ve been . . . a lot of places. I spent some time on the California coast. And a few months on Cape Cod after that. I was in the Chesapeake area for a while. And for the last few months I’ve been at my mother’s house in Iowa. Thinking about what I really want. And figuring out that it’s still you.”
This next question was harder to ask. “Wh-why did you go?”
She bit her lip, looked nervous. Yeah, this was definitely the hard part, for both of them. “I . . . I need to be honest here, Fletcher, so I’ll just tell you. I met someone. Here, on the beach, a few days before I left. I know it’ll hurt to hear this, but . . . he made me feel new things, exciting things, and he made me question everything about where I was, what my life was about, what I wanted. He was leaving for L.A. and asked me to come. There was no time to think carefully. I wasn’t completely sure about any of it—but I made the decision to go. And I hated hurting you—I hated it. But I believed we would both ultimately be better for it in the end.
“After all, if I wanted to leave, that meant it was best for you, too, right? How could we be happy if I stayed where I wasn’t fulfilled?” She stopped, shook her head. “I’m not explaining this very well, but my feelings then were complicated.”
“And now?” he asked.
She met his gaze fully. “Now they’re much simpler. I’ve gone on that journey. And the journey has ultimately led me . . . back to you. But now I want to be here. Now I want to be your wife. Now I want our life together, just as it was—I want to see the world with you and meet new people with you and make what we had together even better. I’d reached a place of taking you for granted, Fletcher. But I won’t do that again.”
Fletcher could barely wrap his mind around all she was saying. It answered some questions, but created so many more. Was he happier now, now that she’d come waltzing back into his world? He was happy to know she was alive and well—but beyond that, he wasn’t sure.
“The L.A. guy.” He swallowed back the lump in his throat. He’d known that she was probably with someone, but having it verified still stung. “What happened to him?”
“We split up after a few months. He . . . wasn’t a very good guy, it turned out.” She looked sad, like that wound hadn’t yet healed. And that stung, too. Because he sensed all her wounds were about someone other than him.
“There were other guys?”
She gave a short nod. “But in the end, they meant nothing.”
“You mean in the end, they let you down.”
She confirmed it with another nod.
And he explained, “When someone lets you down, it means something—they meant something. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been let down.”
“Oh . . .” she said, clearly seeing his logic. “But . . . well, they meant nothing compared to you, Fletch.”
He pulled in his breath. Pretty words. He wanted to believe them. “This is a lot to take in,” he told her.
“I know.” She reached to cover his hand with hers where it rested near the gearshift between them.
Instinctively, he pulled it away. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just . . . awfully soon for touching.” Even though he couldn’t have imagined, even a few days ago, ever pulling away from her.
After a long, awkward moment of silence, the only sound that of crashing waves in the distance, she asked softly, “Who was that girl?”
Fletcher sighed and answered honestly. “She was the first woman to start making me think about someone other than you. But like you said, timing is everything.”
“Meaning . . . I came back in time?”
He didn’t know how to answer.
And before he concocted a reply, she asked, “Do you still love me, Fletch? Do you still have a place in your heart for me? Can we start over? Let me make things right. Let me make it all better. I know I can, if you’ll just let me.”
Fletcher could have said many things. He could have weighed many things. His heart hurt right now—far more than he’d have thought possible. When he’d envisioned Kim coming home, he’d expected only elation, pure bliss—and this was a far cry from that.
And yet . . . didn’t he owe it to himself to keep believing?
He’d believed in this for so long, so long that he’d finally gotten what he wanted—so what sense would it make to turn his back on it now?
So he gave his wife one more simple reply. “Yes, Kim. The answer to all your questions is yes.”
“SO what exactly is up with you, Mary?”
Tamra lay wrapped in Jeremy’s arms in the hammock. They still wore most of their clothes, albeit in a disheveled fashion, but now curled up in a blanket she’d grabbed on her way back from a trip to the bathroom.
Her head rested on his chest, but the question made her lift it slightly and peer down at him. “Up with me?”
He was grinning. “What makes you so contrary?” he asked, adding a wink.
She relaxed against that muscular chest again, thinking through her reply. She could have denied it again, but she knew it was true—at least with him. And yesterday, she wouldn’t have dreamed of getting into something so personal with him—but given how much she’d opened up to him already, somehow it felt safer now. And maybe she even wanted to. So he’d know she actually had a reason for being a little contrary.
“I told you once before that I was raised on a commune.”
“Yeah,” he said, clearly ready to listen.
“Until I was ten, I led a pretty normal life. I lived with my parents and big brother in a suburb of Peoria, Illinois in a three-bedroom ranch house in a typical subdivision where all the kids rode bikes up and down the street and the dads took pride in their lawns while the moms baked cookies and hosted Mary Kay makeup parties. And I had no idea how good I had it until that life was taken away from me.”
“What happened?”
She felt him looking at her but kept her eyes down, taking in the hair that sprinkled his chest, and her fingers, resting there, touching him. And she swallowed back the small lump that had risen to her throat. Funny she still couldn’t talk about this with ease—it was so long ago—but her feelings about it never really got easier; they only got pushed aside and replaced by better things. To talk about it was to go back there in a way, to relive it.
“My parents started going to church—but kind of a left-of-center church. My dad was really into it, and then Mom got into it, too. And at first it seemed . . . nice. That first Christmas after they started going, they asked my brother and I to give up a few of the gifts we would have normally received to donate to a needy family. And that was good, you know? It taught me not to be selfish, and made me aware that there were people who weren’t as comfortable as us.
“Only then it got more radical. They spent more and more time with their church friends. And the next thing I knew, they were selling our house, packing up our things, and driving us in a caravan with five other families to a commune in Arizona.”
She paused for a second, remembering the hardest parts. “I had to say goodbye to everything I knew—and then, after that, we suddenly weren’t a family anymore. My parents became Don and Debbie, just two more adults in a place where I was suddenly told they were all my parents. I no longer lived with them or my brother—I was put in a bunkhouse with seven other girls near my age and a woman who supervised us. The whole commune ate in a big dining hall. We cooked together, we ate together, we planted a garden together, we attended daily worship ceremonies together. All as one, everything shared, the equity from our house and other assets going into the communal bank account.
“And so . . . if I’m a little weird in ways, that’s why. I was raised weird.” She tried to give a little laugh, but thought it came out sounding as cynical as it felt.
“I can’t imagine what that was like,” he said. “To suddenly have your family not be . . . your family anymore.”
“Yeah,” she said on a sigh. “It was pretty awful. To suddenly have the people you love and depend on, the people who are supposed to love you back, just seem to . . . stop. They talked a good game about there being even more love for all of us there, but I never felt that.”
“Seems like . . . a decision you shouldn’t inflict on your kids,” he said.
And she felt grateful that he understood. As much as anyone could understand without having lived it. “Exactly. And I’ve always resented them for that. It was a very strange existence. People there talked about love and caring all the time—they talked about how we all loved one another equally. And yet, when your family gives up their ties to you, it doesn’t feel much like love. And even relationships formed with other people came without . . .” She stopped, trying to find the right words.
“Without?” he prodded.
“Reverence. Or accountability.” And that made her tell him the rest. A short version anyway. “When I got older—sixteen, seventeen—more than one man there acted . . . well, as if he loved me. But all the talk about how much we all loved each other just painted a pretty face on sex—you know, they claimed it was all just them wanting to express their love and wanting me to express it back, but . . .” She stopped because it was difficult to share this. Even though she’d been young at the time, it still embarrassed her how easily she’d been taken advantage of.
“But they were only using me. And I guess I was pretty hungry for love of any kind by then. Real love, I mean. What my parents had taken from me. I had no one in my life that I could claim a meaningful relationship with. And each time a guy came along telling me I was pretty, and special, I bought into it, thinking they were going to love me in a real way.
“They never did,” she added, even though she knew that was pretty obvious by this point. “And I just kept getting hurt over and over. And the odd thing was . . . most of the other people there had been so brainwashed that they didn’t feel the emptiness of it like I did. Don and Debbie never regretted the move. They were still there when I left, and I haven’t talked to them since, other than an occasional postcard. My brother learned to be happy there, too—but he found someone there to love who loved him back, and I suppose that could make a big difference.”
“What made you leave?” Jeremy asked.
“The last man who let me down. He told me how much he loved me—at the same time he was telling three other girls the same thing and hopping from bed to bed and, as far as I could tell, believing this was entirely okay and that I was crazy for misunderstanding. I was twenty-one—he was thirty.” She shook her head. “I was so vulnerable. And that’s why . . . why I don’t like to be vulnerable now. I like to be in control of my life and my feelings.”
“Where did you go when you left?” he asked.
“I was given a little money—to be exact I was given one one-hundred-and-forty-seventh of what was in the communal bank account because there were a hundred and forty-seven people there at the time. It was enough to buy a used a car and rent a crappy apartment outside Tempe for a few months. I worked as a waitress at a truck stop and didn’t like the clientele much. And so I saved just enough to keep myself afloat as I moved from place to place, selling as much of my art as I could, but it’s a hard thing to get started in—clay costs money, glaze costs money, firing costs money.
“The whole time, though, I just had this idea that if I could get to Florida, I’d be happy. Crazy, I know,” she said, shaking her head lightly against his chest as a slightly self-deprecating smile took her, “but I always idealized Florida. We’d taken one family vacation there when I was eight. I met Mickey Mouse and walked through Cinderella’s castle and got to feel sand on my toes—and it all felt magical. Like a dreamland.
“And the really amazing thing is . . . I eventually found this place. Coral Cove. Six years after I left Arizona. And it doesn’t sparkle like Cinderella’s castle, but in its own way, for me, it’s just as magical. Because it feels like home. Because my friends feel like family. Because it’s safe, and a little old-fashioned, and no one in this town would ever stop loving their kid for no good reason.
“I’ve spent the time since then sort of . . . rebuilding my understanding of life, and reinventing my own. And mostly, I’ve done pretty well, I think.”
“I’d say you’ve done amazing,” Jeremy told her, and he meant it. Because damn, he couldn’t have imagined everything hiding inside her. But now that he knew . . . well, it took everything murky about her and made it crystal clear. She wasn’t so contrary, after all—she was just . . . surviving, the only way she knew how. Kind of like he’d been doing—except he thought Tamra had done a much more respectable job of it.
He was surprised when she lifted her gaze briefly to his, but then pulled her eyes back down, looking uncharacteristically sheepish as she said, “I wouldn’t go so far as amazing.”
“I would. Most people don’t have what it takes to go after the life they want when it’s that far out of reach.”
She shrugged. “I suppose, but . . . it’s not as if I don’t have my issues.”
He raised his eyebrows and teased her, saying, “Issues? What issues?”
“Like I said, sex and relationships were cheap where I grew up. Turned me off of it for a while.”
“But I turned you back on?” he asked, casting a flirtatious grin. Damn, she drew that out of him so easy.
“Don’t be smug,” she kidded.
He just laughed. Something about her made him want to flirt and play. And given how long it had been since he’d felt that way, he kept wanting to indulge it. “Just wondering why me,” he told her.
“Good question,” she said with a smile—and he laughed out loud.
Though then it hit him. She’d just told him she hadn’t had sex since she was twenty-one. And damn, that was . . . big. But rather than point that out, he decided to just be thankful he was the man who’d broken her long drought.
“There aren’t a lot of single guys in Coral Cove,” she pointed out. “And so I guess I’m just lucky you didn’t get put off by my . . . being contrary.”
“Who said I didn’t get put off by it?” He flashed another grin, an additional wink.
And she smiled back at him. “Well, you’ve been willing to put up with it. More or less.”
At this, Jeremy shrugged. “Musta thought you were worth it.”
“You can be pretty contrary yourself, you know.”
The accusation drew another chuckle from him. “Fair enough. Maybe we’re birds of a feather.”
Another contented expression reshaped her face, and he could tell she liked that idea. “Maybe that’s why you.”
Still, it made him laugh a little more. “Because we’re both so hard to put up with that nobody else will?”
She laughed, too, and he squeezed her to him a little tighter, using one hand to grab playfully onto the feminine fingers resting against his chest.
She was right—they were rougher than most women’s. And yet he liked something about that—the realness, the lack of affectation. Because that was how he was. Not how he’d always been—but how he was now.
“So what makes you so contrary, Mr. Bird of a Feather?” she asked.
He answered bluntly. “War. Post-traumatic stress syndrome, to be more exact.”
“What kind of stuff . . . happened to you over there?”
He just looked at her. He hadn’t expected her to ask so directly. Most people didn’t. Most people knew that a guy with PTSD didn’t want to talk about his PTSD.
And he suspected she could read that in his expression right now, but instead of backing away from the topic, she said, “I told you mine. Tell me yours.”
Shit. She was right.
He still wanted to cop out, though. Because her stuff was a long time ago. And yeah, it was worse than he’d expected. But his stuff . . . his stuff couldn’t be said. He’d only ever said it once, to Lucky. A drunken confession. But he wasn’t drunk now. And felt suddenly thankful that he’d only had one of those little green mojitos they’d been handing out at the party—since he wasn’t ready to tell her or anyone else his darkest secret.
Fortunately, however, there was plenty else he could fill in the blank with. Stuff that had scarred him, just not as bad as the part he didn’t talk about. So he constructed another honest answer—just made it one he could handle. “I lost friends. Saw a lot of other death, too. Not sure what was worse—civilian casualties or seeing my buddies die. Fucking hated how out of control it all felt.” His chest contracted—everything inside him had tensed, in fact. He wondered if she could feel it, too.
“Did you have to kill people?”
His eyes flew to hers. Damn, talk about direct. And she had no idea what a big question she was asking. “Yes,” he said. Just that, nothing more.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Thank you,” he answered tightly. “Can we change the subject?”
She bit her lip, looking thoughtful, pretty. He liked how messy her hair appeared in the moonlight. “Maybe I should just . . . give you something better to think about.”
“Like what?” he asked, eyes narrowing on her.
“Like this,” she said.
And then she eased her hand down between his legs, directly into his still-open shorts.