Chapter 6
After Dr. Powell’s last visit to our home, something changed in my father.
He finally came home from the cruise where my mother died—albeit five years after they were supposed to return from their final destination.
He sought out grief counseling for himself and family counseling for all of us, “But only if you want to.” I encouraged Ellie, Abe, and Jordan to go, to repair as much of their relationship with my father as they could.
It wasn’t until Ellie asked me, “What about you, Bethany?” I reluctantly gave in.
It floored me to find the family therapist my father had us seeing was Dr. Powell. My shock was palpable as I shook his hand. “Well, this is quite the surprise.”
My father awkwardly explained, “I didn’t trust anyone other than Bern with our private family matters, Bethany.”
My heart softened at that, knowing Dr. Powell didn’t use a single bit of what he’d overheard that day on my father’s porch during the Sea Force anniversary special.
Now, standing on the deck of the balcony of the hotel suite my friends rented for Crash My Playa—a honey of an all-inclusive concert hosted by Luke Bryan in Playa del Carmen, Mexico that features not only country’s favorite hottie, but Small Town Nights, Brendan Blake, and a load of others—a breeze cools off the sweltering air.
Bodies shake along to the pumping music in the swimming pools three floors below, singing along to a Garth Brooks song amping up the crowd in between acts as the crew changes up the stage.
I have a clear shot from my balcony of all the action, including keeping an eye on my girlfriends, whom I met a few months ago when I transferred into Rice—girls who encouraged me to come to Mexico during our winter break.
Rice, one of my top three schools. A school I transferred into in September at both my father’s and Dr. Powell’s urging.
Something I agreed to, providing I continued to work at McCallister Construction on long weekends and all breaks.
That and, “You have to continue with therapy, Dad. Not for me, but for Ellie, Abe, and Jordan.”
His eyes were bleak as he took hold of my hand. “Bethany, I don’t plan on stopping it. And it’s as much for you as for your brothers and sister.”
“Dad...” My voice trailed off. I knew I wasn’t the important one in this equation any longer.
My father spoke with a certainty that assured me he’d been thinking about his words for a long while.
“Your mother would be ashamed of me, Bethany.” That and what he said next shattered both my heart and my reservations.
“I know a part of me died on that cruise, honey, but the part of your mother that lived didn’t.
That’s you kids. I forgot that her heart lived on. ”
“I don’t think you forgot,” I whispered.
“What?” my father and Dr. Powell exclaimed.
That’s when I admitted the most painful secret I’d been keeping back during therapy to that point, “Every time you look at me, I think you wish I wasn’t here.” I lifted my head and met my father’s tormented eyes. “You wish Mama was.”
“Bethany, is that how you really feel?” Dr. Powell questioned.
My eyes cut to his. “It’s what I’ve lived.”
My father broke down at the certainty in my words. Was it that moment we began to heal? I can’t be certain. I just know that in the last twenty-four months, I finally felt comfortable leaving my family behind and being just a twenty-year-old woman.
Consequences, be damned.
Leaning against the balcony, I take a sip of the rum cocktail I mixed earlier and eagerly await Brendan Blake to take the stage. In the meanwhile, my hair lifts in the breeze as I stare out over the blue-green waters crashing against the sugar sand beach.
The first peace I’ve had in seven years is ruined when a voice barks at me, “Christ, no one up here is interested in you posing. Why don’t you go join your little friends waving at you from the pool?”
I whip my head to the left and meet steel gray eyes boring into mine.
The man, clad only in board shorts, has his back to the setting sun, giving me a perfect view of enormous muscles that are darkly tanned from the Mexican sun.
I admire the breadth of his shoulders—a build I normally only find on the guys I work with on my father’s construction sites.
Unfortunately, his attitude needs to be adjusted and it’s too bad I left my tool kit back at home.
I find my eyes drifting up and down his form until they rest on his chiseled lips—lips set in a deep frown that just ruined my perfect beach oasis.
My eyes narrow before I demand angrily, “What did you say?” I tip my head back and swallow another glug of my fruity drink, fortifying myself for his next words.
He lifts the bottle I didn’t notice at his side before sneering, “Meow, meow, meow.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“No. It’s what you girls sound like when you’re all talking. Do any of you ever shut up?”
I shrug before answering him honestly. “I wouldn’t know.”
He rakes his eyes up and down over me before he slugs back another swallow. “Are you just like your friends?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I grind out.
“Too busy fucking your latest toy to understand what the pounding on the other side of the wall means at four a.m.?”
I sneer at the bottle—catching sight of the rum label. I’m remembering the months of my father’s drinking I endured, the insults hurled at me. I didn’t survive being my mother’s doppelg?nger to deal with this stranger’s abuse. “No.”
“Just no?”
I expound upon my answer. “No is a full sentence.”
“Yes.”
“Also a full sentence. I’m impressed,” I taunt.
He rolls his ridiculously attractive eyes, causing a tiny flutter in my stomach. I elucidate on my earlier dismissal. “Not that it’s any of your business, but—”
“Honey, your friends made it my business when they screeched down my hotel room after they kicked their living vibrators out. That’s before they held the world’s longest monologue about what bikinis they planned on wearing today.” He lifts the bottle to his lips again.
“It wasn’t me.”
“And I’d believe that because…”
“I missed the plane.” I gesture my arm out to encompass the concertgoers. “You know the plane from Houston to here so I could be here on time?”
“Oh.” He turns his back on me. Dismissing me because, why? I’m not some hapless being willing to indulge in his tantrum?
I think not.
A powerful kick of fury leaps into my veins. At least that’s what I tell myself it is. I snap, “I missed the plane. They told me it would be okay and that they would pick me up at the airport. Do you see anyone else here?”
He snickers. “I could probably give you their damn itinerary if you want it.”
At that moment, a screech can be heard as a cooler filled with water is dumped on top of the perfectly coiffed hair of some girls bouncing up and down in the pool. Seeing it happen to Naomi, I point in her direction before giggling. “I’ve got a good view right here. Thanks.”
A reluctant grin crosses his face. He holds out a behemoth hand. “Thorn.”
I take it and shake it firmly. “Bethany.”
He gives me a head to toe perusal. “So, Bethany, what caused you to miss the plane?”
I shake my head. “I can’t tell you.”
“Oh, but, darlin’, you really can. I know lots of secrets.”
Thinking of the secured compartmentalized facility I was helping my father’s crew outfit for a US government contractor for a small mint, I lean on the metal balustrade that separates our balconies and tease my neighbor, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
Something deep flashes in those silver eyes. “Well, well, well. We have something in common after all.”
I hold myself perfectly still as he leans forward. When the alcohol blasts off his breath and almost knocks me off my feet, I gasp, “What’s that?”
“That’s my line.”
It turns out laughter is a good repellent from alcohol fumes. Thorn leans back and winks before saying, “You’re not as annoying as your roommates.”
“Thanks. I think?”
Magnanimously, he offers, “Pull up a chair.”
Still unable to pinpoint what makes me want to spend time with him instead of joining my friends, I accept his offer.
Two hours later, Brendan Blake is wrapping up his set, crooning away his number one song, “Broken Boots,” to the adoration of the crowd while Thorn and I proceed to get progressively more drunk.
Well, at least I have. I’m not certain if Thorn’s body build causes him to process alcohol differently.
Regardless, his smooth as dark chocolate voice hasn’t betrayed him a single time, whereas I hiccup every few seconds.
I’ve also told him all about me to the point he’s cracked a joke, “Mata Hari, you’re not.”
Stifling a burp, I lift my drink to tap it against his bottle. “I still haven’t told you what I do.”
He ticks off, “College student by day. Construction worker by night. I’d ask if you dance in leg warmers in a strip club, but that would check off too many of my fantasies for one woman.”
It takes me a minute, but then I whack him on his biceps for referencing Flashdance. “You think you’re cute, Thorn.”
His lips curl. “So, my mother’s told me.”
There was something about him that felt different.
The way he’d been looking at me, the way his hand brushed mine as we stood close, overlooking the crush of people.
It made my skin tingle with awareness. His silver, intense eyes held mine every time I opened my mouth to speak.
It was like Thorn could see inside me, past every wall I’d built up.
Though I tried to act casual, my heart was racing. The more time we spent together tonight, the more I realized how much I was drawn to him. His confidence, his strength—even though it often came off as brash and overbearing—made me feel both intrigued and safe at the same time.
Something I haven’t felt since long before my mother died.
“You okay?” His voice was low, barely audible over the music, but it sent shivers down my spine. He offers me the bottle, which I note still seems rather full in comparison to the number of drinks I’ve consumed, but I reject it with a violent shake of my head.
“No! I, uh…I don’t eat or drink anything from strangers.”
“Smart girl.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, B. I do.”
“So, we’re on a nickname basis?”
There’s a pregnant pause before, “Why not?”
“Then what do I call you?”
His lips twist. “Thorn is my nickname.”
Unusual but fitting. He’s as prickly as the thorns on Mama’s roses. The next thing I know, Thorn’s head is tossed back with laughter. “Thank you, B. That’s probably the nicest compliment I’ve ever received.”
“I guess…you’re welcome?”
He leans forward, a tiny smirk lingering on his lips. I lean forward and moisten mine. Because he’s so close, the tip of my tongue grazes against his skin. It’s salty due to sweat, masculine, and delicious.
Our breathing increases.
His eyes flick between my eyes and my mouth. Mine drift to half-mast as his paw of a hand slides up and around the nape of my neck. His other grips the balcony between us. Holding me in place, he murmurs, “Do you want me to kiss you, pretty little B?”
“Yes,” comes my breathless moan just before Thorn’s lips capture mine.
The second they do, the sun is eclipsed and the pounding music is drowned out by the pounding of my heart.
His tongue strokes over mine as he tangles the fingers of the hand holding my neck into my hair.
When he angles his head, I tip mine for a better fit.
His utter maleness makes me feel more feminine than I ever have before.
Then again, I’ve never met a man like Thorn before—a man who has made kissing a demand of all my senses.
He tugs my lower lip into his mouth and begins a slow slaughtering of my defenses when he holds my eyes as he sucks my lip in and out.
Giving me an idea of other things he’d like to do.
Since I’m on board for whatever he has in mind, I wrap my arm around his neck, causing him to growl deep in his throat.
Releasing the hold he has on my neck, he’s about to haul me over the wrought iron bar when the door behind me flies open.
“Bethany? Bethany McCallister? Where is your pretty little ass? Did you finally make it?” screeches my roommate, Lily.
The descent of Thorn’s lips immediately stops. His eyes search mine before he chokes out, “Bethany…McCallister?” As if knowing my full name is a shock to him.
As if it isn’t torturous to be me, especially when he pulls back and moves away as Lily makes her presence known by squealing. “Come on, babe! We have a perfect spot in the water right next to the stage.”
I cut my eyes to the side, but Thorn’s disappeared.
I touch my lips, feeling the swollen bottom lip that was about to mimic the sex acts I was hoping would follow.
Obviously, I can thank the men who took my mother’s life for one more thing—making an attractive man who knows my story finding me repugnant once he hears my full name.
Asshole.