Unbreak My Heart (Valentine Bay Book 5) Page 2

  Keeping his voice steady, he said, “Sorry to hear about your granddad.”

  Her lip trembled and she looked down at the table.

  Fuck!

  Even after all this time everything in him screamed to gather her up in his arms, hold her tight to him. Not let go until she stopped trembling. He wanted to be the one that protected her from the hurts of the world and made all her fears go away.

  Too bad she’d made it crystal clear ten years ago that he wasn’t the man for the job. The reason for that decision, though, was about as clear as mud.

  He couldn’t take it anymore. It was all just too intense. He stood up from the kitchen table, the suddenness of his movement sending the chair screeching back along the linoleum. “I’ll be in the shed, Gavin. See you out there.”

  He marched straight out the door without looking back. With his eyes, anyway. He had a feeling that when it came to his brain, “looking back” would be pretty much all he’d be doing that day.

  Chapter 3

  Luna

  “Shit, Gen. I didn’t know he was going to be here. I mean, I knew he might be in town. Just not in your kitchen.”

  Luna took a sip of the tea Gen had made for her. She was having a hard time processing Connor’s abrupt departure. His ass had flown up out of the chair so fast it’d practically seemed spring-loaded. Not only that, but he’d all but knocked over Gen’s kitchen chair in his haste to get away from her.

  She wasn’t surprised. She’d figured he’d be ambivalent, at best, about seeing her. And she never would’ve chosen to dramatically surprise him in Gen’s kitchen.

  Still, it was a little painful to watch him exit the room so fast that he’d practically bust through a wall like a cartoon superhero, leaving a Connor-shaped hole in his wake.

  “I know, girl. But you’ve got to understand. You knew there was a good chance you’d see him around town when you came back here. You had time to wrap your mind around it. It wasn’t the same for him. Seeing you here was a complete shock.”

  Luna nodded and took another drink of the warm, comforting tea. It was the only thing settling her swirling stomach. Gen ran a comforting hand up and down Luna’s arm, and she looked up to meet her eyes. “Thanks for being such a great friend, Gen. I’ve really missed you.”

  “Aw, mamacita! I’ve missed you, too. But I had a feeling you’d find your way back to Valentine Bay someday.”

  Luna let out a wry chuckle. “That’s funny. I never had that feeling. In fact, I had the opposite one. But as it turns out, you were the one that was right.”

  Gen gave her a playful nudge. “No big surprise there. You’d be surprised how often I’m right since you’ve left. My skills have gotten out of control. Especially since I married Gavin. I’ve been right pretty much all the time since then! Or at least that’s what I tell him.”

  Luna laughed. That was the special thing about Gen. One of them, anyway. It didn’t matter how down in the dumps she was, with just a few silly sentences, Gen could have her laughing.

  They sat together for a moment, both quiet, until Gen said, “Luna, why have you stayed away so long? You never came back for college breaks. Then, even after graduation, you never came back to visit at all.”

  Luna started to answer but Gen put up a hand to stop her and continued, “Before you insult us both by pulling the old ‘busy’ excuse out of your ass, think of something better. I know you’re busy. I’m busy, too. So is damn near everybody except Old Man MacArthur, who doesn’t do much all day but drink beer and yell at Judge Judy on the TV. So come on, dude. What’s the real reason?”

  The urge to deflect with a sassy comment was strong, but she held back, sensing that this was a time for sincerity, not sarcasm. Even though they hadn’t seen each other in person for a few years, that didn’t change the fact that Gen was her best friend.

  With real friends, you could go for long stretches and not see them. When you did meet up again, it was like no time had passed at all. That was how it was between them.

  Luna sighed, pulling air deep into her lungs and letting it out slowly. Even though she still wasn’t entirely sure of the answer, the clarifying breath helped her form the words to explain what parts she did understand. “I don’t know, Gen. Not completely. All I do know is that, at the beginning, I stayed away because I wasn’t sure I’d have the strength to leave again if I did come home, even for a weekend. The pull of this place would just be too strong.

  “I had to keep my eye on the prize—making something of myself, making my grandparents proud. Staying here and letting myself get wrapped up in Connor…it would’ve been like a slap in the face to them, you know?”

  She stopped and let the silence hang between them. The topic was one of those that was so complicated and multi-faceted that she could probably have kept rambling on about it for hours and not have covered everything. Still, she thought what she’d said was as good a basic explanation as she could manage.

  “I know that was important to you. You’ve always talked about it. To me, it seemed like they wanted you to come back. They missed you.”

  Luna nodded. “Yeah, of course they missed me. I know they wished I could visit. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to come back here and then have to leave it again. Leave him again.”

  After a moment, Gen nodded. “I suppose I can see that. And I know your grandparents went to visit you. So it’s not like you never saw them.”

  “Right.”

  “And I went to visit you a few times, too. So it wasn’t like you were totally cut off from home.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And if I hadn’t ever come to visit you, I’m sure you would’ve made it up here to visit me eventually.”

  Luna nodded, and Gen narrowed her eyes before continuing, “Okay, that was a much less enthusiastic agreement than I would’ve expected, but fine, I’ll take it.”

  They smiled and sipped their tea in silence for a moment.

  Gen’s voice was gentle when she finally spoke again. “You know,” she said, slow and careful. “I’m not really the one you should be telling all of this to.”

  Luna took in a deep breath as her stomach did a wobbly somersault. If that maneuver had been part of a dive, she was sure it would’ve ended in a belly flop. “I know. Believe me, I’ve thought about it a thousand times. But, Gen…he doesn’t want to talk to me. I mean, come on. Look at how he high-tailed it out of here. He couldn’t have been more clear about wanting to escape if he’d lit himself on fire as an alternative to talking to me.”

  “Well, that certainly would’ve been more entertaining, for starters.”

  Silence descended as they sipped their tea again. Another thing she’d always loved about Gen when they were younger was that she wasn’t uncomfortable with silence. When they were together, there was no pressure to rush and fill the conversational gaps with meaningless chatter. They could wait until one of them had something worth saying before they spoke. She was happy that dynamic had followed them into adulthood.

  “There’s only one problem with your little theory, though,” Gen finally said.

  Luna had to smile at her absolute sureness. “What’s that?”

  “Why didn’t he leave?”

  “He did.”

  She shook her head. “Nah. He went out to the shed to work on the car. He didn’t drive off and go home, or even head out of town. He could have. Easily. But he didn’t. He went out to the shed. And more than that, he made a point of saying he was going out to the shed. So, yeah, girl. Whether he knows it consciously or not, he wants to talk to you.”

  Luna thought about that for a moment, but before she could come to a definitive conclusion, Gen continued, “And guess what else?”

  “I don’t see the point of wasting energy on formulating a guess when you’re obviously about to tell me.”

  Gen barreled on without even pausing to acknowledge her smart ass comment. “You wanted to see him, too.”

/>   “I don’t know how you came to that conclusion, Dr. Phil.”

  Again, Gen sailed right on past the sick burn to continue making her point. “You knew that you weren’t just coming to my house. You were coming to Gavin’s. You knew that Gavin is Connor’s friend. You must’ve known there’d be a good chance you’d run into him here if you popped over unannounced. If you’d truly wanted to avoid him, you would’ve called before you came over. But you didn’t. You just dropped by.”

  All Luna could do was nod. Her throat closed around whatever words she might’ve tried to form.

  Damn.

  Gen had her number. She hadn’t consciously thought that whole thing through. It wasn’t like she’d planned it like this. In fact, she’d just made a point of assuring herself that she hadn’t planned it. But the minute she heard her friend lay it all out, it rang every bell in her brain, leaving no doubt that it was true.

  Gen stood and held out her hand. “Come on.”

  Panic fluttered in Luna’s chest, threatening to erupt. “No, Gen, I–”

  “Just stop.” Gen’s voice carried authority, and it was what Luna needed to bring her burgeoning spiral to a quick end. “Now stand up. We’re gonna go outside and you’re gonna have an adult conversation with Connor. One that’s long overdue.”

  She has me there. I can’t argue with that because there is no argument. She’s right.

  Ignoring the horde of butterflies threatening to bust out of her gut with their overactive wings, she stood up and followed Gen out her back door.

  Shit. Sometimes being a grown-up was hard.

  Chapter 4

  Connor

  Fuck.

  Connor couldn’t believe that Luna was really back here. Not only in Valentine Bay, but sitting in Gavin’s kitchen.

  Sure. Gen had been her best friend when they were kids. So it had crossed his mind more than once since Gen and Gavin had gotten together that if Luna ever came back here, she’d most likely end up at Gavin’s place at some point. It was just that the thought had always seemed more like a crazy dream than something that was actually likely.

  Still. Here they were.

  He didn’t know how to feel about Luna being back so he did what he usually did in that kind of situation: shoved it down. Pretended it wasn’t happening.

  That was a good system, overall. It had worked for him his entire adult life, give or take an ulcer or two. He didn’t see any reason to change it now.

  “Hey, Connor. Can we talk?”

  Well, okay. He guessed he could see one reason to change it now – that voice floating in from the door to the shed. And the woman it belonged to.

  “I’m outta here,” Gavin said, dropped the wrench he’d been holding, and walked out of the shed. Connor didn’t blame him. He didn’t know how this encounter was about to go, and he was halfway tempted to walk out himself.

  Shoving down that impulse, though, felt natural. Just one more step in the long line of shoving things down.

  He turned slowly, finally facing Luna straight on. His heart melted as soon as he did. Seeing her right here, really taking her in, was like stepping through the door of a time machine and coming out ten years before. He was suddenly young, and in love, and his future stretched in front of him, full of nothing but possibility. He felt like he could fly.

  Then, as suddenly as he’d been transported to that simpler and happier time, all of the intervening years of pain crashed back on him like a tsunami, sweeping him up in their power.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said, his voice tight. It wasn’t a lie. Technically. It was just only half of the truth.

  “It’s good to see you, too,” she popped in before he’d even completely finished, her voice tumbling over his like a stream rippling over rocks in its path.

  “How is your grandfather doing?” As soon as he said the words, his heart softened. That was the thing he had to remember – this wasn’t about him. It wasn’t about her. It was about her grandfather, someone that Connor looked up to and cared about.

  All of the things he was feeling, he could process later. After her grandfather was – God willing – out of the woods.

  Her eyes filled, and none of the tears spilled over. They just hung there, sparkling like little jewels of sadness. Just like that, he was undone. All of the pain, all of the years of absence and aching longing – they were washed away in an instant by those two tiny drops of sorrow.

  Sure, all of that would probably be back. But that wasn’t what he thought about in the moment. Right then, all he could do was take two decisive steps toward her, closing the distance between them, and wrap his arms around her, holding her tightly to his chest as she trembled.

  “I’m just so worried,” she breathed against the flannel of his shirt. “I’m scared.”

  He stroked her hair. “I know, Luna,” he whispered into the top of her head, and then gave it a small and gentle kiss. “I know you are, baby.”

  The word “baby” caught in his throat. He hadn’t said it in so long. It felt right, damn it.

  She tilted her head up a little. Just enough so that he could feel her hot breath on his neck. His dick strained in his pants. He didn’t want it to – he closed his eyes and struggled against his body’s natural response.

  Now wasn’t the time, and the shed certainly wasn’t the place. Not even thirty seconds ago he’d had the realization that this situation wasn’t about him. He didn’t want to go back on that by making a move on her at her most vulnerable moment. That would be a dick move, in the truest sense of the word.

  Still, no matter how pure his emotional motivation was, his body had ideas of its own. And not just the one part of his body he would’ve expected to betray him at a time like this, either. It was everything – his heart, with the way it was racing. His blood, with the way it was rushing through his veins like a river. His skin, with the way it was heating up under the influence of his internal furnace.

  And, soon, his brain would be boarding that train, too. He could already feel the first steps. His thinking was becoming foggy and he was having a harder time remembering why this would be a bad idea in the first place.

  Oh, yeah. He was a damn goner.

  She slid her hands up his chest and slipped her arms around his neck. A low groan escaped from his throat, and before he had a chance to think it through, he breathed, “Fuck.”

  The word didn’t leave his mouth as one hard, syncopated syllable, though. Not like it did when he used it to curse. Instead, it was a long, low, drawn out breath. More like, “Fuuuuuuuuuck,” than the harsher alternative.

  Shit, even hearing the word come out of his own mouth like that turned him on more. He was really past the point of no return, now. A mildly stiff breeze probably could’ve turned him on in that state.

  She drew back a little and he prepared himself for the anger she was certainly going to – rightfully – throw his way for letting himself get aroused while she cried on his shoulder.

  But that wasn’t what happened. Instead, she lifted her head and pressed her lips to his.

  It only took him a millisecond to get over the shock and kiss her back. The feeling was familiar and new all at the same time, and so mind-bogglingly amazing that he could barely stay on his feet. It shook through him like an earthquake, rocking him to the very core.

  He slid his hands up and down her body, taking in those delicate curves, retracing lines on the map that had been his first guide to what a woman was.

  He did manage to pull back just long enough to ask, “Are you sure, Luna? Are you really sure this is what you want right now?”

  She lifted her hand to his face and drew her fingertips down along his jawline. Her breath was coming hard and fast. Her cheeks were flushed, and the way her fingers shook as she touched him made him think that the earthquake rocking her had to be just as powerful in magnitude as the one sending shocks through him.

  She tilted her head a little to the side and squinted just the tiniest bit as
she studied his face.

  Fuck! He’d forgotten about that adorable habit of hers. It made her look like a cartoon rabbit trying to figure out the solution to a problem, and his heart melted all over again, for the hundredth time that morning.

  She gave him a sardonic little smile then, and nodded. “God, yes, Connor. It’s not just what I want. I think it’s what I need.”

  As soon as she uttered those words, all bets were off. He gave in to the roaring monster of lust, stopped trying to cage it and simply let it run wild.

  Wrapping up the fabric of her shirt in his fist, he ripped it off over her head. Her eyes widened and she bit her lower lip as her hair fluttered back into place. Oh, God. Another adorable mannerism of hers that he’d completely forgotten about – that cute-as-hell lip-biting thing she did.

  His eyes fixated on those lips and he had to kiss them. He couldn’t wait another second.

  Leaning his head down, he crushed his lips to hers, moving them passionately. She responded the same way, her lips pressed to his with the same fervor, moving to the same rhythm. Their tongues dance and played. He couldn’t remember the last time a kiss had knocked him on his ass like this one was. Hell, it was probably the last time he’d kissed Luna, if he was honest.

  He moved his hands over the bare skin of her torso, drinking in the soft and smooth surface. His rough hands were such a distinct contrast. It brought their differences into stark relief: her, the lovely, sweet flower and him the rough but solid rock.

  He wrapped his hands firmly around her waist and lifted her up off her feet, the movement both swift and sudden. She drew in a sharp breath, which he felt because their lips were still pressed together. It sent a rocket of sensation running all the way down his spine.

  He turned and set Luna down on the hood of the car and then stepped immediately in between her knees so that their bodies were pressed together again.

  Even those few seconds that they’d been separated while he lifted her up on the car had been torture for him. Now that he’d felt her against him again after all this time, he wasn’t going to give that up easily.