Runaway Groom (6 page)

“Faster,” she whispered. He rolled her, rising above her like a conqueror, and obeyed.

When it was done, she lay, panting, next to him. One of his hands was in her hair, cradling her head, the other at her hip, clutching her close. “Abs?”

“Yeah?”

“I still like playing with fancy balloons with you.”

She told Carnie most of it—from the silly, to the sweet, to the sex that took her breath away—and then looked at the memories all packaged up in a fancy rubber balloon bouquet. “So, that’s why he sent me a bouquet of condoms.”

Carnie looked a little misty. “That is kind of a sweet story.”

One shoulder shrugging, Abigail poked at a balloon, watching it flop, trying to remember she wasn’t that girl anymore. “Kind of. But we aren’t kids anymore. That was a long time ago.”

Carnie chuckled. “Apparently not so long ago that either of you forgot.”

Chapter Eight

June 4, 2012

Abigail,

Last night I dreamed of you. It was our wedding day and you were wearing this white dress that reminded me of whipped cake icing. It was all frothy and you looked sweet enough to lick. Seemed wrong, somehow, to think about licking you with all that wholesome white on, but that was what I was thinking.

You came down the aisle, we said “I do” and it was done. We were married.

Then the dream skipped and I was sitting on a couch, watching a game. This little kid came over to me and handed me a toy. I took it, scooped up the kid. She was so cute. She had my curls and your eyes and it felt so natural to hold her. I knew her name, in the dream. She was Autumn because she was born in the fall.

She was ours.

You came walking in the room, picked the kid up, kissed me and left. I went back to watching the game. It was very comfortable. After a while, you came back down. Guess you put Autumn to bed, and you curled into my lap.

We argued over the remote and settled on one of those romantic comedies—you know, the ones I always gave you hell about and then ended up enjoying? And I held you, watched the movie and it was great. I felt at peace and more content than I’ve felt since I left home.

I woke up, rolled over and you weren’t there.

I wonder if that is what our life would’ve been like. It seemed so scary when I thought about it at twenty but now…

It didn’t seem half bad.

Do you ever wonder, Abs? About what might have been?

Love you,

Brax

He considered it a military campaign. An assault on her senses.

She might be able to ignore the letters, fine. But he wouldn’t allow her to ignore him.

He remembered how to push her buttons. Back when they were randy teenagers, they did it to each other for shits and giggles. She tripped his trigger with her short skirts, even did the panties thing when he’d asked… Oh, that movie was
hell
. Her lack of panties was all he could think about.

Now the two of them were in a complicated dance for control. She knew his flashpoints and he knew hers. It started with the interviews. From the shortest covered bridge to the longest, he thought up a long list of people. It took him hours searching online, but Bob okayed all that he came up with so Abigail was stuck with him.

Meeting him at the town hall, he could tell she planned to keep everything extremely business-like. She’d agreed to his casual offer to drive since they were headed out to the middle of nowhere to talk to Pauline Sabatina, one of the oldest residents in the county and former student and teacher to one of the first schools in the area. He didn’t turn on the radio, instead rolling the windows down on his truck, content with silence. Abigail turned her face into the wind, ignoring the grit his wheels churned up off the gravel road, her hair flying around her face. With her in the passenger side of his truck, memories of her hand in his tripped through his mind, and he couldn’t quite wipe the smile from his face.

Her presence was like a strobe—impossible to tune out since his every nerve ending seemed aware of her. Navigating the overgrown weeds and pits in the driveway, Braxton parked once he reached the tiny, rundown shack of a house. He made it to her side of the vehicle before she’d managed to get out, rummaging around for her tablet and cell phone before she turned to see him. He opened the door and offered her a hand, which she ignored and alighted of her own steam.

Her foot landed in the muck and sank to midcalf. Her gasp got drowned out by his chuckle. “I was going to help you…” He covered his smile with his hand and turned away from her, but she punched his arm and he glanced back. “Hey, if the shoe was on the other foot, you’d laugh.”

“Shut up,” she grumbled, but her lips twitched, and a bit of the uncomfortable tension she wore like a cloak vanished.

“Braxton Dean? That you?” The voice from the porch was as battered as the faded wood of the house.
 

Reaching back, Braxton helped Abigail step free of the mud while he answered. “Yes, Mrs. Sabatina, it’s me. I’ve got Abigail with me and we’ll be up in a second.”

“I made some tea. Come on in.”
 

Testing the steps a little cautiously, Braxton was pleased to find they held his weight, even if they groaned in protest. Following the path the wiry old woman used, he opened the door only to pause when Abigail groaned.

“I can’t go in.” She gestured to her foot. “Mrs. Sabatina! I stepped in the mud and if I come in, I’m going to track dirt in with me.”

“I said come on in, children.” The woman called the words from somewhere in the house.

“I’m not sure she can hear so good.” Nudging Abby’s arm, Braxton motioned inside with his head. “I’ll go let her know. Maybe she’ll talk to us out here.”

Abby nodded, so he found Mrs. Sabatina and passed on the information. Within moments of talking to her, Braxton realized she couldn’t hear half of what he said, which made sense when she explained, “Lost my hearing aide. You’ll have to speak up, boy.”

Running his tongue across his teeth, he pondered the opportunity and decided to have a little fun with it. “Yes, ma’am,” he yelled.

Once the tea jug, frosted glasses and old woman were transferred safely back out to the porch, Braxton reclined back on his elbows from his perch too close to Abby on the steps. “Mrs. Sabatina, tell us a bit what it was like back in the early days of the school.”

The old woman began to rattle off stories about her first teacher and the skirt her mother sewed her for school, and he occupied himself fiddling with a stray lock of Abby’s hair. Every so often she’d swat his hand away…but he wasn’t deterred. After a few moments of her scribbling on the screen with her stylus, he leaned close to whisper, “You know there’s a duck blind, ‘bout thirty feet into the woods to the left. We could sneak off, you and me, get reacquainted. No one would ever know.”

Flaming red colored Abigail’s cheeks and her mouth gaped open. Her gaze shot from him to the old woman twice before she managed to focus on the interview again and start scribbling notes.

“You know how you like me to nibble that little spot behind your ear? I could start off with that. Then I’d trail kisses down your neck while my hands were full of those beautiful breasts of yours…”

Again, her head popped up. The old woman didn’t pause for a second in her storytelling.

“So back then, there was a patch of woods over on Satin Street, where the housing development is now. Us kids would sneak off…”

“Braxton!” Abigail hissed. “She’s right there.”

“She can’t hear a word I’m saying.” He glanced back, and the woman sipped her tea before continuing to tell them about how the kids would go over to the theater for a movie come the weekend.

“How do you know?” Abby covered her lips with her hand before whispering it.

“Lost her hearing aide.” He grinned at her before reclaiming the fascinating curl of hair he’d been toying with. “So I can say how lovely your breasts look in the moonlight and how much your kisses drive me wild and she can’t hear a word of it.”

“You’re bad,” she whispered, but she didn’t shove his hand away from her hair.

“You like it.” Leaning back, he let the sun warm his skin while Abigail asked a couple other questions and scribbled away. Soon, she tapped his arm and he realized he must have dozed off.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty. Say goodbye to Mrs. Sabatina.”
 

Blinking fast, he stretched and yawned before loping up the two steps to snag the jug and glasses off the old woman. “I’ve got these, ma’am.”

“Pretty manners.” She chuckled and he followed her back into the small, cluttered house. It smelled like a mix of mothballs, dust and cat, and he wrinkled his nose at the combination, but kept his thoughts to himself. When he made it to her kitchen, he washed up the jug and glasses before turning to face Mrs. Sabatina again.

“Thanks so much for having us, ma’am.”

“No problem. Next time you bring a lady to my home though, boy, you watch you keep your language appropriate with her.”

Abby had just entered the kitchen behind Mrs. Sabatina and she quickly stepped back around the corner. Braxton didn’t doubt for a second she stayed though and eavesdropped from there. “Yes, ma’am.” Clearing his throat, he gestured with the dish towel. “You could hear me?”

With a chuckle like wooden wind chimes clunking together, the old woman touched his arm with her very soft and dry hand. “No, boy. I told you, lost the hearing aide. I can read lips though. I was a teacher, you know.”

Nodding, he apologized for his behavior before heading off to find Abigail, who’d already loaded herself into the truck and was laughing hard.

“You think this is funny?” he asked her. “I just talked about your tits in front of a woman who has to be at least a thousand years old.”

His words didn’t slow her laughter and tears snuck out the corners of her eyes. “You’re killing me here. The look on your face when she called you out…priceless.”

The sight of her, so real and full of joy, triggered something and he couldn’t resist leaning closer, until their noses just brushed. “And here I was trying to be sexy…”

He let the sentence dangle off to nothing, enjoying the passion that waked in her gaze and the way she slowly licked her full lips. “Yeah, well—”

She swallowed and he leaned closer yet, capturing those lips with his own. Only once her breath sped and her fingertips clutched at his shirt did he back up enough to grin down at her. “You were saying?”

“I don’t remember,” she confessed and leaned back in her seat.

More interviews followed, and he used every moment to try to make her remember the feelings they’d once shared. It was the little things really. Brushing his arm against hers to watch her shiver while she talked to someone. She still felt something
.
Leaning into her space to glance at what she was writing, to get close enough to smell her and hear her breath catch. Touching her fingers as she reached for her phone.

Standing behind her at the donut counter, he leaned in, as if looking at the pastries.

He let his breath just stir the hair above her ear. When she started to move, he darted out his tongue to touch the sweet spot behind her lobe, the nerve cluster that he knew made her squirm.

Attuned to her, he caught the soft exhale, the way the pulse point at her neck sped up as she turned to him. “Braxton.”

“Abs. Find anything you like?”

He stayed in her personal space. Leaning toward the counter so his hip brushed hers.

“Uh, I…”

“I think you’d like their éclairs.”

“Do you?” Her brows rose and her hand fluttered. It was like she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to push him away or pull him closer.

“Yup. Cream-filled.”

She choked on a laugh, looking at him. “And the creepy comment of the year award goes to…”

He leaned back in. “Chocolate releases the same endorphins in the brain as sex. Since we aren’t having any sex, I’ll order something chocolaty. Don’t worry though. Promise to think of you.”

“That wasn’t less creepy,” she said, but still smiled.

Her fluttering hands decided on a location. She rested one on his chest.

“What will you be having?”

“Two can play this game, you know.” Her fingers curled on his shirt, tips digging into his chest.

“What game, Abs?”

“You’re trying to knock me off balance.”

“No—” Leaning in quick, he dipped her, causing her to squeak and catch hold of him more securely. “This is me throwing you off balance.”

A small gasp and then she tightened her lips. “I’m not going to respond.”

But her fingers slid up to his neck, stroking his hair.

“Is it that you haven’t decided yet or you’re conflicted about that?”

“Conflicted. I’ve told you, we’re not discussing personal matters. Business only.”

Yanking her back to her feet, he grinned and turned to walk away. Over his shoulder he tossed, “Get unconflicted.”