thirty

In Fox Cottage, Nathan leaned his paint roller against the wall and surveyed the bedroom he was about to paint. Exhaustion tugged him toward the bed, where he pulled off the plastic sheeting and wilted onto the mattress. He brushed his hand over the well-washed and softened quilt cover constructed from fabrics left over from a simpler time. A triple Irish chain design, he knew. Susannah had loved vintage quilts. She’d searched everywhere for the perfect baby quilt for Zoe’s crib. Susannah would have appreciated this one.

He kicked off his shoes. Nap for an hour, then paint. His muscles, tendons, and ligaments released with a silent groan as he relaxed. The blissful quietude of this cottage. Nothing but the rain on the roof to lull him into a sense of safety. His head sank deeper into the pillow. He lost track of time for a while, but then the rain returned. Warmth spread through him. He shifted back into it, wanted to burrow into the heat source.

A hand touched his cheek, the press of fingers, and he jerked away with hammering heart. He landed on the floor with a painful thump against his knees.

“Nathan, my God,” Annie said. “It’s only me.”

“Not a bother. I startle when I’m asleep, anyone touching me, you know—”

But she didn’t know; that was evident enough.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said. “You looked peaceful and also chilly.”

Nathan crawled back onto the bed and felt the mattress shift when Annie spooned him. She lay stiff behind him. He grabbed her arm and slung it over his body. “You’re grand. Touch me all the way to Bombay and back.”

“But not when you’re asleep, is that it?”

“I’m a fragile lad.”

“We’re all fragile in our ways.”

He rolled onto his back and she snuggled into him, her head a perfect fit under his chin. His body responded randy as a teenager, but he remained still, resisting yet relishing the urge to press himself all over and into Annie.

“You don’t seem fragile to me,” he said. “The opposite, in fact.”

“Hah,” she snorted. “If you only knew.”

“I could know if you’d tell me.”

She hugged herself against him. “Thank you for saying that. Maybe sometime. It’s been a brutal few days. Today’s an anniversary that’s not the kind you celebrate.”

“I have a few anniversaries like that, myself.”

She petted his arm, playing with the fabric of his shirt, tracing his biceps. He had good arms, he knew that—a byproduct of working with clay—but he didn’t think about them unless someone else noticed them.

Annie poked him. “And,” she said.

“And?”

“And your terse text message yesterday didn’t help. Why did you cancel our outing to the art gallery?”

“Okay, that’s it.” He grabbed her by the waist and swung her on top of him so that she straddled him.

She grinned when she felt him below her. “You. Nice way to avoid answering.”

Every nerve ending in his body aimed itself at his groin, the signals overwhelming everything else, including coherent conversation. Annie quit laughing and struggled with his arms to yank his t-shirt off while he struggled with her belt to pull off her jeans. A haze of limbs. He obliged her by raising his arms, the press of cotton over his face, and then her hands landed on his chest.

“Look at you,” she sighed.

She spread-eagled her fingers and inched them down toward his jeans. He shifted but restrained himself from forcing her to quicken the pace. He enjoyed the exquisite torture. Her hands tensed against his skin and went still.

Oh, shite. He’d kept his t-shirt on the first time they’d met up on this bed, but in his haze he’d forgotten today.

He rolled away from her, his erection forgotten, already disappearing.

“No,” she said. “Let me see.”

She grappled him onto his back again. Her eyes locked on the area between his hip bone and belly button. Her fingers traced the scar to where it disappeared into his jeans. The skin was numb—the nerve endings had never healed—but the pressure of her finger was enough to want to fling her off him.

He held his breath, his heart racing. To his surprise, she didn’t ask him to explain the scar. She relaxed on top of him. Her spiky, short hair tickled under his chin. He inhaled her fragrance. She didn’t have a strong scent, perhaps because she didn’t use perfumed products, and he liked this.

The rain softened, allowing the real world to enter his sanctuary. Down the track near Liam’s house, a car door slammed and Merrit called a greeting. Nathan scrambled out of bed and pulled on his t-shirt as he ran into the living room. The main window provided a perfect view toward Liam’s house, where Zoe hugged Merrit hello and gestured toward Fox Cottage.

Nathan ran back into the bedroom. “You have to leave. Zoe’s here.”

Annie gazed at him in that frank way of hers. “You’re overreacting?”

Perhaps, yes, but that didn’t change the fact that he didn’t want Zoe to find Annie here.

Annie obliged him by pulling on her jeans. “Zoe’s a grown woman. She must know you have a life.”

As gently as he could manage, he placed his hands on Annie’s shoulders and steered her toward the kitchen and back door. “It’s hard to explain.”

She stopped. “I’m not running away and I’m not hiding. We’re not doing anything wrong.”

“Dad?” Zoe knocked on the door. “You there? Need some help?”

“Go. Please.” Nathan’s vision wobbled around the edges. He pushed at Annie. “Please.”

Instead of exiting through the back door, she grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. “What is this really about?”

“It’s more complicated than you know.”

The front door opened. “Dad? A friend dropped me off. Bored out of my mind at home.”

Annie’s gaze remained on his, studying him before stepping away and refastening her belt. “Hi, Zoe,” she called in a jaunty voice. “I’m admiring the color in the kitchen. Cheerful, don’t you think?”

Nathan leaned against the counter with shaking hands behind his bum. Thank Christ they stood in the kitchen rather than the bedroom. He felt faint with the “if”s. If the rain hadn’t stopped so he could hear beyond the cottage. If Annie hadn’t seen his scar and halted them right before having sex. The thought of Zoe interrupting their antics on the bed made his scar ache.

“I love the living room.” Zoe bounced into the kitchen. Her warm smile included Annie in the conversation. “The kitchen looks nice, too. Merrit picked the colors, didn’t she?” She leaned into Nathan to give him a quick kiss on the cheek before hooking her arm around Annie’s in a companionable way. “Did you hear about Liam’s Easter party? Merrit will be matchmaking for the first time. You want to be a guinea pig with me?”

Nathan expelled a long, slow breath.