part0043

Lee closed the door softly to the master bedroom. Maggie had taken Willa’s old room. Willa was sitting up in bed, left leg propped on a mound of pillows. She was frowning severely at her computer, pushing up her glasses that had slipped to the end of her nose.

Lee smiled and leaned against the door. Willa’s expressions changed with whatever she was writing, her fingers dancing across the keyboard of her laptop and her mouth moving silently around the words.

“Looks serious,” Lee said.

“Hmm.” Willa nodded but didn’t look up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get distracted, but Lou and Caitlin are having a fight and I’m not happy with the dialogue.”

“Maybe you need a teenage consult?”

“That’s a good idea.” Willa looked up over the rim of her glasses. “Think Maggie would do that?”

“Are you kidding?” Lee sat next to her on the bed. “But I was thinking Nicole. If it was your work that pulled you two apart maybe it can also bring you back together.”

“That’s a good idea. I could use an angsty, teenage perspective.” Willa closed her laptop. “I’m not getting anywhere right now.”

“I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

“Not all the time.” Willa slipped them off and let Lee take them and move her laptop out of the way. “The light isn’t very good in here.”

Lee reached for her hands, threading their fingers together. “We have a lot to learn about each other.”

Willa smiled, meeting Lee’s gaze from beneath hooded eyes. “Where would you like to start?”

“Right here.” Lee leaned in, ducking her head to brush her lips against Willa’s. She kissed her again with more urgency, a soft moan escaping her lips when Willa parted her lips to invite Lee to deepen the contact.

Lee took her time, enjoying the feel of Willa’s mouth against her skin. She slid her hands around Willa’s back, threading her fingers through her hair while Willa’s hands explored beneath her shirt.

Lee sucked in a breath, her skin on fire under Willa’s caress. “I need to see more of you.” She tugged against Willa’s nightshirt, and Willa raised her arms, allowing Lee to lift it over her head. She raised her arms and Willa did the same for her.

Willa traced her fingers across the tops of her full breasts, down between them and around her navel, sending Lee’s pulse pounding in her chest and throbbing between her legs. “I always knew you would be such a beautiful woman,” Willa whispered.

Lee couldn’t take her eyes from Willa, naked, flushed with heat and eyes bright with desire—for her. She traced her fingertips around her small breasts, delighting in Willa’s quickening breaths and hardening nipples. “You are breathtaking, Will.”

Willa shivered at Lee’s touch. “If you’re going to stop us again, please do it now…”

“I’m not.” Lee cupped a breast in each hand, caressing them with her thumbs.

Willa groaned and covered Lee’s hands with her own as Lee teased her breasts. “You’re trembling.”

Lee smiled shyly. “I’m a little nervous. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted—”

Willa’s hand slipped between Lee’s legs, stopping her words on a sharp gasp of pleasure. Willa’s lips found the sensitive skin of her neck while she whispered, “I know exactly how long.”

Lee shuddered with need at Willa’s slow strokes. “Will, stop. Stop.”

Lee’s hand came over hers, holding her in place. “No, it’s okay. I didn’t mean it like that,” she whispered with a laugh. “It’s just after twenty-five years of waiting it was all gonna be over in twenty-five seconds if you’d kept that up.”

Willa smiled and slid her hand to Lee’s thigh. “Sorry not sorry. Want to slow down?”

Lee hovered over her, pressing her back to the bed with kisses and nips along her collarbone and neck. Willa’s skin tasted of salt and sunshine. “I want this to last a little longer.”

Willa stretched her arms above her head, and with hooded eyes and lazy smile, invited Lee to explore her body. “Take your time.”

Lee ached with a desire she was both desperate to end and hoped would go on forever.

She lowered herself along Willa’s body and groaned softly at the feel of Willa beneath her. She slipped her thigh between Will’s legs. “Too much?”

Willa sighed in answer and threaded her fingers through Lee’s hair, pulling their mouths together in a searing kiss.

Their bodies moved together like they’d done this a thousand times before. Their hands smoothed along every dip and curve, and lips tasted every peak and valley. The heat simmering between them slickened their skin and their desire ignited every nerve ending.

“I think we’ve waited long enough,” Willa whispered. Her right hand teased down the side of Lee’s body and slipped between them. “Touch me, please.”

“God, yes,” Lee groaned and slicked her fingers through Willa’s wetness just as Willa’s fingers slid inside her. At last, there were no more secrets between them.

Her daughter’s voice cut through her heavy slumber like a gunshot. Lee’s eyes flew open, coming instantly awake at Maggie calling to her from the doorway. “What’s wrong?” She was already swinging out of bed and groping on the floor for her clothes.

“I don’t know. It’s Nicole. I think she’s having a seizure or…I can’t wake her…and…and she’s freezing.”

Willa sat up, rubbing open her eyes. “Lee? What’s going on?”

“It’s Nicole.” Lee was already dressed and out the bedroom door. “Maggie, help Willa, please.”

Lee banged on the light and stopped dead in the doorway of Nicole’s room. Her heart raced at the sight of Nicole, unnaturally tense on the bed, back and neck arched and mouth open. Her fists were clenched by her head and her gasping breaths condensed in the chilly air. Her whole body shuddered and jerked with every struggling breath.

“Nicole,” Lee said calmly, as she battled back her own panic. She rushed to the side of the bed and pressed her fingers against Nicole’s wrist. Her pulse was rapid and her skin alarmingly cold. “Nicole, honey, can you hear me? It’s Lee.”

Nicole’s eyes rolled, unfocused and wild, her mouth opening and closing around a strangled gasp, sending a plume of frosty breath into the air that sent Lee’s heart into her throat. She tore her gaze from Nicole and quickly scanned the room but saw nothing. Her attention came back to Nicole a moment later when she fell silent, her body going limp against the bed.

Willa cried out from the doorway. “Oh, my god. Lee?”

Lee looked desperately at Maggie and Willa in the doorway, their expressions of terror mirroring her own. She took Nicole’s pulse again—strong and slowing, and her skin seemed warmer. “I don’t know. I don’t know. She seems okay now but—”

Nicole sat bolt upright so fast she crashed into Lee, who gripped her around the shoulders to steady her when she took in a gasping, shuddering breath as if it were her first in minutes.

“Hey. Hey.” Lee held Nicole’s arms gently and brushed hair from her face. “You’re okay.”

“Lee.” Nicole’s eyes focused on her and she smiled, wrapping her arms around Lee’s back in a hard embrace. “I’m going to miss you, Lee.”

Lee pulled away, searching out Nicole’s gaze. “I’m not going anywhere, Nicole.”

Nicole smiled goofily. “The summer is over, dummy.”

She sucked in a sharp breath, unsure if she heard her correctly. She opened her mouth to respond but could only stare for a long moment, swallowing painfully around the tightness in her throat. “I’m going to miss you, too.”

“But you’ll miss Willa more, huh?” Nicole asked, before yawning hugely and lying back down. A moment later she blinked rapidly and rubbed her eyes. “Why is everyone in my room? And who left all the damn windows open? It’s fucking freezing.”

Lee was paralyzed, unable to form a word or a thought in response.

“You were having a nightmare,” Willa replied, placing a hand on Lee’s shoulder causing her to jump.

“Whatever.” Nicole pulled a pillow over her head. “Get out of my room, bitches, and turn off the light. I have a headache.”

“Lee?” Willa reached for her hand, tugging on her arm. “Come on.”

Lee stood abruptly. “Yeah.”

“Is Nicole sick?” Maggie asked hesitantly from the doorway.

“No, no. She’s fine. Just a bad dream,” Willa said reassuringly. “Thank you, Maggie, for coming to get us. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Maggie nodded, looking worriedly at Lee. “Are you okay, Mom?”

Lee nodded, swallowing hard several times, her breathing rapid. “Yeah, yeah.” She pulled Maggie into a hard embrace. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep, Mags.”

Willa hobbled down the hallway and found Lee in the kitchen fumbling the cap off a bottle of wine. She poured it into the first glass she could find on the counter before guzzling the entire glass and filling it again.

“Why don’t you just drink straight from the bottle?” Willa suggested.

Lee didn’t look at her and finished another glass. She moved to fill it again when Willa’s hand came down over hers, stopping her.

“Lee, you’re shaking.” Willa pulled the glass from her hand. “What’s going on? Nicole is okay. It was just a terrible dream.”

“I don’t think so, Will.” Lee gripped the counter with both hands, shaking her head. “What time is it?”

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know.” Willa looked around, finally finding the clock on the microwave. “Almost one.”

“The same time as before.”

Willa stared at her. “Lee, you’re scaring me.”

“Did you hear what Nicole said to me?” Lee asked, wrapping her arms across her chest as if to ward off a chill.

“Something about missing you at the end of the summer, but you missing me more. Just part of her dream nonsense.”

“No,” Lee whispered, a tremor wracking her body and tears spilling down her face.

“God, Lee.” Willa dropped her crutch against the counter so she could slip an arm around Lee’s waist. “Talk to me. What is it?”

“What Nicole just…just said to me were Em…Emily’s last words to me the night she died.”

“What?” Willa pulled away to look at her. “Are you sure?”

Lee could only nod, covering her face with her hand and sobbing a breath.

“Oh, honey.” Willa held her tightly to try and keep her from completely coming apart. “We’re going to figure this out, I promise,” she said, infusing her voice with as much confidence and calmness as she could manage, despite her racing heart and the sudden chill that cut right through to her bones.