15. Jessica
August, Present Day
Maple Ridge
I hitSend on the email to Theresa with the link to her wedding photos. I finished editing the last of them a few minutes ago, the entire time itching to put the photos aside and resume reading Angelique’s journals.
From my book bag on the kitchen table, I pull out the journal I’m currently transcribing. Excitement vibrates through my body. Excitement to return to her story. Excitement to find out the answers to so many questions.
My doorbell rings, the noise barely heard over the intense wind and my house creaking in protest at the storm. Rain hammers my windows, and for the tenth time since the storm started, I’m thankful I’m cozy in my secure little house and not outside.
Thunder booms overhead. Bailey barks, pressing her warm body against me, either because she’s scared or thinks I am.
“So much for finding out what happened to Angelique next,” I say to no one in particular, the excitement waning to a slight disappointment. But given the storm outside, the doorbell can only mean one thing. It’s probably not Delores. It’s Troy.
A different kind of excitement sparks to life, and my heart does a fluttering little happy dance.
I stuff the journal back into the bag. Looks like I won’t be able to give Anne the transcription when I visit her tomorrow as I had hoped. I still need a little longer. But soon. Soon I’ll find out how Angelique escaped the war.
Bailey walks alongside me to the front door.
I open it. Troy’s standing on the stoop, his wet T-shirt molding quite spectacularly to his chest and ab muscles, outlining their ridges and valleys. Water drips from his hair and down his face. In his arms is a bundle covered in a towel that resembles…
“Is that Eeyore?” I point to the blue-gray towel with the Winnie-the-Pooh character’s head for the hood. Amelia had one like it, but hers was Pooh. An ache grips my heart, squeezes the air from my lungs.
I don’t even know what happened to her towel. Lincoln probably threw it out—along with anything else that linked her to my past. My husband had willed the house and all its contents to him. He’d left me nothing. And I hadn’t been in the position to protest the will from prison.
Troy steps inside my house, and I shut the door. Bailey barks at the bundle in Troy’s arms. The bundle barks a reply.
I lift the hood, revealing the cute golden cavapoo. “Love the new jacket, Butterscotch.” Compared to Troy, he’s relatively dry. The rain had only started to soak through the towel in a few places.
Troy puts Butterscotch on the floor and pulls me to him. Water seeps through my shorts and T-shirt where we’re pressed together and plasters them to my skin. His clothes might be cold and wet, but the heat of his body causes mine to sizzle.
“We should probably get you out of these wet clothes. I wouldn’t want you to get a chill.” I take half a step back and scoot the hem of his T-shirt up his defined abs.
He grins wickedly at me, and I know without a doubt, dinner is going to be delayed.
He pulls the fabric over his head.
“Maybe we should go to my bedroom so I can warm you up.” The pitch of my voice drops.
“Good plan.” He takes my hand. “Sorry I’m so late,” he says on the way upstairs. “Nova was covered in sand, and I stayed to help give her a bath.”
Something cold twists inside me. I shove it aside. He stayed to help Olivia give her daughter a bath, but I’m the one he’s with now.
A sweet domestic image of a family flashes in my mind. A mother and a father and a child. The loving family I never really had with my late husband. The family Troy wants to have one day.
A family I’m not sure I can give him.
I push that all aside. Troy is here with me now, and I plan to make the most of it.
We go into my bedroom and kiss in the way that wasn’t possible at the lake. Our tongues glide and dance and taste. I slip my hand past the waistband of his shorts. His length is hard and ready for me, the skin warm and velvety.
I run my hand along it. Troy moans into my mouth. I swallow the delightful sound. I’m the one he’ll be making love to. That much I do know. I have no doubt that for now he loves me. Like I…
I push the rest of that thought from my mind and help him rid us of our clothes. We climb onto the bed.
He lightly strokes my body, sending need quivering through me. I stroke the ridges and valleys of his chest, playing with the splattering of dark hair there.
We don’t rush things. Our kisses and touches and moans are the orchestra, the emotional music scoring a movie. He plays my body like a well-tuned violin. Tears cloud my vision from the beauty of it.
His fingers trail down the front of my body, down, down, down. I watch them slip between us, slip between my bent legs. His gaze drops to his hand.
His fingers slide across the building wetness, spreading it over my mound and parted lips. He lowers his head to my breast, and his tongue toys with my nipple. Heat and blood and everythingness rush to my core, and I’m sent soaring skyward to the heavens and the stars.
“Oh, Gooooooood,” I cry out. Oh, God Almighty.
It takes a second or two to gather my senses, and I smile, the movement languid and easy. “I want to ride you,” I murmur, Troy’s breath kissing my lips. “Long and slow.” I tenderly press my mouth to his, a seductive dance, an unspoken promise.
A lazy smile full of heat curves across Troy’s face, and he sits up, pillows propped behind him. I position myself so his swollen tip is pressed against my entrance and slide down him, taking him all in.
I move my hips in slow, deliberate circles, my eyes locked on Troy’s. This moment—the achingly sweet communication between us without words—takes me further into uncharted territory.
And that…that thrills me and scares me.
* * *
Troy restshis hand on my bare hip and softly taps out ILU. We’re on our sides, facing each other on the bed. “I forgot to tell you I have search-and-rescue training tomorrow night after PT with Lucas. So I’ll be late coming here.”
“That’s okay. I’m meeting with Anne Carstairs tomorrow after work.”
“She’s coming to Maple Ridge?”
“No, I’m taking the bus to Ash Falls. I want to learn more about her great-aunt, and I’m curious what Anne remembers of her.” I’m interested to find out more about the woman who had a secret life during the war. Even if that means I have to take the bus there at the risk of people recognizing me due to Cora’s damn article.
I’m really hoping, though, I blend in—just another person on a bus, heading into town.
“How come you want to learn more about Iris?” Troy’s finger stops tapping on my hip, and a series of emotions flicker on his face. They land mostly on surprised and confused, a small divot forming between his eyebrows. Then his lips sink into a sexy one-sided smile. “You planning on turning this place into a museum?”
I laugh. “Hardly. I’m just curious about her, especially after all the work I did clearing out her place and going through all those magazines.”
“Did you find her diaries about all her long-lost loves? Men no one else knew about?” Troy chuckles, not realizing how close he is to the truth. I have to bite my lip to keep from blurting everything I know so far.
“Definitely no diaries about long-lost loves.” Only the one…and I don’t know what happened to Johann after the Gestapo captured Angelique. Hell, I don’t even know yet how she escaped them. I can’t get back to the journals soon enough to keep reading and find out. “I’m just curious about her. If not for this house and Anne, I don’t know where I would be.” And that’s the truth.
“You can use my truck. Garrett can give me a ride to the training. He’ll be there too.”
“You trust me to drive it after what happened last time?” I quirk the corner of my mouth, trying to infuse a little humor to soften the reality of those words.
Troy’s thumb caresses my hip. “That accident could’ve happened to anyone. Maybe if the road hadn’t been slick from the rain, you could’ve stopped and not gone through the guardrail.”
“In that case, maybe I should take the bus. Then I won’t have to worry about another Bambi jumping in front of me.”
Troy’s brow creases into a frown. “Or you can postpone seeing Anne until I can drive you to Ash Falls.”
I run my fingers through his hair, attempting to erase his frown. “I can’t rely on you to drive me everywhere, Troy. You’re not my chauffeur. And I’ve waited so long to finally regain my independence.”
He nods, still looking no happier than he did before. “What time’s the bus scheduled to leave for Ash Falls?”
“I’m taking the four-oh-five bus after work and returning home on the nine thirty-one.” Which will see me in Maple Ridge around eleven, and then I’ll need to bike home. That’s the only return bus scheduled after five.
“I guess you can’t take Bailey with you.”
“That’s right.” The unease I feel when she’s not with me turns my skin itchy. “She’s not a certified PSD, so she can’t come on the bus.” It’s not enough she’s training to be one.
Troy’s thumb strokes along the curve of my hip and down to my outer thigh. “Take my truck, Jess. I’d rather you take it than be without Bailey. You’ll be tense the entire time she isn’t with you.”
I hate that he’s right. I’ll be constantly glancing over my shoulder, checking if the boogie man is watching me. That much hasn’t changed since I moved to Maple Ridge. I’m still a work in progress. Bailey helps to ease some of that tension. Stroking her eases some of that tension.
“You borrowing my truck doesn’t make you any less independent, Jess.” Troy leans in and kisses my forehead. The tip of my nose. “And maybe I like the idea you’ll be here when I return from the training session.” His mouth brushes mine. “Otherwise, I’ll have to wait until Thursday to see you. And then I’m away for the weekend again.”
I laugh a soft rumble deep in my throat. “Are you going to pine for me if you don’t see me tomorrow night?”
His eyes flash a devilish gleam, and he has me flat on my back, his hot body pressed against mine. “I’m absolutely going to pine for you. So much so that I’ll get in trouble with the trainer, because I’m not paying attention to what she’s saying.”
I grin. “Well, then. I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble.”
But despite my amusement, the tightly wound fear that I’m making a mistake borrowing Troy’s truck doesn’t loosen.
Not because I’m worried I’ll drive it off the road like I did with his old one.
It’s a gut reaction—an unease in my bones—I can’t explain.