Chapter Five
“Oh, Colt. This is perfect.” The awed whisper fell from Holly’s lips as she stared up at the vibrant glass plates on the dark walls, spotlights making them glow. “It’s so beautiful.”
“It is.” Something raw in his voice had her swinging about to look at him, finding his gaze on her face. Her cheeks heated.
She fumbled for his hand, threading their fingers. “Thank you for this.”
“It’s a pool hall chili dog and some photos.” With an easy grin, he shrugged.
Pinning him with a look, she turned back to the glass in front of them, part of a tryptic showcasing the Gulf. “It’s more and you know it.”
He squeezed her hand, palm hot against hers. “I’m glad you like it.”
“What’s not to like?” She wandered to the next set of photos, loving the simplicity of their linked hands, of his long, lean body next to hers.
Earlier, she hadn’t been sure about this Thomasville evening out when, after parking, he’d hustled her toward the pool hall and ordered chili dogs and glass-bottled Cokes at the window.
Sitting tucked under his arm on a bench to eat and watch passersby hadn’t been awful at all, though, and this art display? Amazing.
As far as dates went, no one had ever tailored a night for her like this.
She stared at a plate of a full moon rising over the bay at St. Simon’s, creating a path of silver and gold on the water. Lamps created pools of illumination for each glass, bathing the photos in sheer gorgeousness. The entire showing captivated her.
Honestly, he captivated her.
She played her fingertips over his knuckles, studying a shot of a fern frond, crystal drops of dew on the lacy edges.
His thumb made a foray over her palm, and an ephemeral flicker of desire flashed through her lower belly.
A quick glance at him revealed a hot, hooded gaze studying her instead of the art.
The air shrunk around them, the muted conversation surrounding them falling away under the pulse of blood in her ears.
The left corner of his lips quirked upward, but he didn’t speak, didn’t drop his attention from her face.
No one had looked at her like that before either, like she was some precious piece of art worthy of being studied and desired.
“Your stuff can be printed like this, right?” His low voice didn’t break the spell. He gestured with their joined hands at a photo of the pines of a local hunting plantation.
“Yes.” Was that breathy voice hers?
The corner of his mouth lifted higher. “I’ve got that empty spot over the mantelpiece. Might commission you to snap some shots of the blue hole.”
She lifted her nose to a snooty level. “Personal commissions are very pricey.”
He leaned in, mouth close to her ear. “I’m good for it.”
The impact of that velvet-over-gravel voice shimmered all the way to pulse between her thighs.
Her gaze jerked to his. Slow, the man said, then talked to her like that.
Her brain short-circuited so she couldn’t retrieve a smartass reply, and he knew it, damn him, lazy humor and desire glimmering in his dark eyes.
She spun her attention to the next shot, blind to whatever it portrayed, her entire body burning up, breath short in her throat.
He laughed, smooth chuckle sliding over her skin.
“Colton.”
Another laugh, and he closed his hands on her shoulders, rubbing up and down her arms. She leaned into him, back against his chest, and he pressed a soft kiss to her temple. “Come on, let's check out the rest.”
Casting a glance over her shoulder, she let him steer her to the next piece. They passed another hour, talking about the art, the creative part of her brain already planning shots of the blue hole.
When they stepped outside, a chilly breeze flirted with her hair, and she curved into his side, the steady strength of his arm about her making her feel sheltered, secure. She really liked—
“Mama said Andrea Yates is helping your buddy Barlow with his holiday party.” He flexed his hand on her upper arm. “I thought that was your domain.”
Pain shafted through her chest, stealing her breath, shutting down her ability to think. She stumbled on the cobblestone sidewalk, and his arm tightened.
“Holly?” He stopped, voice rough with concern.
Tears scalded the back of her eyes, and she shook her head, blinking hard. Lord, this had been perfect, and now Scott was tangled up in this night, ruining it.
Wasn’t that par for the course.
“Hey.” He turned her in his arms, shifting them to one side of the sidewalk. Gentle hands cupped her face, thumbs brushing wetness from underneath her lashes. “What’s wrong? You and Barlow have a fight or something?”
Or something.
“I should tell you.” She swallowed, her throat clogged by a lump of fear. Now she was about to ruin everything, and they had been so good, held so much promise. She’d dared to let herself hope. “I mean, I need to be honest with you.”
“Honest with me?” His fingers flexed against her cheeks, a quizzical twist to his brows.
“So, the not-dating.” Twisting her fingers together, she fidgeted, scraping her boot over the sidewalk. “And the hookups.”
He cast a glance around them, at the people hustling between Jonah’s and the gallery, a few giving them curious looks. “Come on. Let’s sit a minute while you talk to me.”
She let him pull her to a bench closer to the Burg, only barely stopping herself from clinging to his hand. He folded onto the bench and tugged her down beside him, an arm stretched behind her.
“Now.” With a gentle finger, he stroked her hair from her cheek. The wind blew cold on the tear stains there. “What’s going on?”
Eyes closed, she fought down a wave of humiliation. Breaking down in front of him like this and having to admit how weak she’d been? How did she even begin? “After high school, Tick and Mackey and Scott went off to UGA, and I stayed here.”
Silence pulsed, broken by the laughter and chatter of people up the block, waiting outside for a table at Jonah’s. Moistening her lips, she lifted her lashes to find him watching her, without condemnation or judgment, simply listening.
“And one weekend, they came home together and everything was different.” An infinitesimal stiffening of his arm told her where his thoughts had gone, and she shook her head. “It wasn’t Tick. It was Scott.”
The air felt like he held his breath, then the quiet sound of his exhale rushed over her ears. “Barlow.”
“We danced around it for a long time, you know, seeing other people but flirting.” Edgy, she dragged a hand through her hair.
“And then you stopped dancing.” His quiet voice was even.
“Yes.” She closed her eyes again, memories flickering through her brain.
Scott leaning over in a dim bedroom, intense desire in his blue eyes.
Eager hands on her body, the weight of him between her thighs, a pinch of pain disappearing into passion as her body stretched around his, her name on his lips in a rough sigh against her ear.
She’d been so happy, had thought the future was opening up before them.
Steeling herself, she straightened. “For a very short time.”
“You didn’t want the same things.”
“No.” She rang a fingernail along the seam of her jeans. She supposed that was one way to explain the way they’d collapsed.
“But you wanted him.”
Blinking against a wave of tears, she glanced up at the night sky, then met his gaze with fierce defiance. “I loved him.”
“Past tense?”
How to articulate the unhealthy tangle of friendship and love and antipathy that had developed between them? They cared, deeply, and wanted, but the resentment and the rigidity of clinging to what each of them wanted poisoned everything. “It’s hard to love someone when you’re not enough for them.”
“I get that.” A hint of humor lightened his tone. “On a very personal level.”
She released a shuddering breath, thankful for the warm shelter of his arm, this private bubble with him. “Anyway, we’ve been dancing around each other for years, and then he decided he was going to marry Andrea because she could be what he wanted.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” She held that dark gaze, gentle with concern. “I’ve wasted enough time. I’m never going to be enough for him.”
And now she felt damaged in Colt’s eyes. She didn’t want to keep looking at him, to watch the way he looked at her change, but she didn’t hide. She wasn’t starting now.
“You’re enough. The relationship y’all had wasn’t.” He touched her arm with a single finger, a brief pressure that lingered a moment like a tentative question then flitted away. “You still have feelings for him?”
She grimaced. “It’s complicated.”
“I get that, too.”
Spreading shaking fingers over her knees, she sucked in a deep breath. Up the sidewalk, a young woman called after her group of friends, laughing and carefree in the cool evening. “I understand if you don’t want this with me anymore. I know it’s messy.”
“Messy.” Lips twisted with irony, he shook his head.
“Gene says that’s the way life is. The way I see it, he and Louise had a bit of a messy start, her coming out of a bad marriage where she didn’t think she was enough either.
Took her a while to come around to him, to them. Worked out all right in the end.”
“It did.” Her voice emerged small and choked, her chest tight with regret and a pained hope.
She struggled to grasp a point of normalcy, wanting to recapture their earlier ease.
She knuckled under one eye, grimacing at the smear of mascara on her skin.
“Hard to believe it took her a while. I’ve seen that photo of young Gene in his uniform. ”
“Yeah, he was pretty spiffy—”
“Pretty hot, you mean.” The handsome man in front of her came by those genes honest.
He pinched her arm. “She was afraid of being hurt again.”
“I don’t think you’re going to hurt me.” She brushed her fringe to one side. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”
“Eh, I’m a big boy.” He waffled a hand. “If you hadn’t told me and it had come out somehow, that would’ve pinched and pissed me off. You being honest about this is good.”
“Your.” She sniffled, throat hot and congested. “You need the possessive with that gerund.”
He reached into the inside pocket of the tweed blazer she suspected he’d filched from Mr. Gene’s closet, although the classic looked good on him over a black sweater and jeans. He passed her a starched handkerchief. “You have mascara under both eyes.”
“Thank you.” Smartass. She swiped the smooth cotton under each eye, then blinked at him. “Better?”
Mouth pursed, he took the square and dabbed under her left eye. “There you go.”
“This was a beautiful night.” Her stomach shaky, she twined her fingers together in her lap. “And I feel like I ruined it–”
“Yeah, hush that up.” He shifted his arm to cup her chin. “It’s been a great night, and we should have lots of nights in front of us. You’re kind of a marshmallow as well as high maintenance, aren’t you?”
Her damp lashes fell. “Oh, my Lord, Colt, I’m going to kill you.”
His dark chuckle feathered over her cheek before he kissed her, a light brush of his mouth against hers. “You even talk to me like Louise talks to Gene.”
“Not like D and Sue?” With another sniffle, she leaned back an inch or so and swiped at her nose with his handkerchief.
“No.” She sensed rather than saw the slight stiffening of his long body. “Don’t get me wrong, they love each other. He dotes on her and they’re sweet to each other, but there’s a lot . . . I don’t know how to explain it. They’ve had a hard time of it.”
She nodded. She wouldn’t know much about living in that. Daddy had left when she was four or five, and she’d seen him every other weekend until she was eighteen. When he’d been able to stop paying child support, his desire to visit with her had evaporated as well.
Brushing his thumb over her chin, he tilted his head toward the Burg. “We should get a cookie and split it.”
She nodded, clean cedar and ocean salt tickling her nose as he rose and held out a hand. She laid her fingers in his without hesitation, and he tugged her to her feet, then under the curve of his arm.
He rubbed her biceps. “Your nose gets blotchy when you cry.”
Elbowing his ribs, hard, she bumped her hip against his. “You’re not supposed to say that out loud.”
“It’s nice to know.” He eased them around an older couple doddering toward Jonah’s. “I’ll be able to see when you’ve been upset. You cry a lot?”
“No.” Somehow, breaking down in front of him had lost its sting. A shuddering sigh worked up from her chest, leaving her lighter and less stressed, and he hugged her into his side.
“Oatmeal raisin, right?”
“No.” She shot him a horrified look. “Raisins are an abomination. We’re getting the kitchen-sink one.”
“No, we are not.” He released a light scoff. “Those have peanuts in them.”
“You don’t eat peanuts?”
“In a Coke, sure? In a cookie? Hell, no.”
Oh, Lord, did he do that thing with the peanuts poured in a Coke, too, like Tick? This time her shudder was one of disgust. “Peanut butter chocolate chip, then.”
“How about plain ol’ chocolate chip?” He reached for the door as they reached the shop and its long, narrow layout. “Kind of a purist when it comes to my baked goods.”
“Snickerdoodle.” She inhaled the wave of sweet, buttery goodness that washed over them.
“Now you’re talking. Maybe a cup of coffee to go with that.” He nudged her ahead of him, palming the left cheek of her ass. She glared over her shoulder, and he chuckled, warm and rich as the cookies waiting for them. “Come on, little girl, and let’s enjoy the rest of this night.”