Indelible Laurie Buchanan (sad books to read TXT) 📖

is as easy as putting two characters in a room and seeing what happens.”

—JIM TOOMEY

With a firm hold on Hemingway’s leather collar and smiling goodbyes complete, Niall and Libby close the heavy door of the main house as the last of their guests leave. The brass knocker seems to wink in collusion as a flash of lightning illuminates the rain-slicked circular drive.

Mick gazes into Emma’s rain-glistened, upturned face. “After dinner, you mentioned that you and your family dance in the rain.” Looking up at the sky with his hands held out, palms up to catch the rain, Mick bows at the waist and asks, “May I have this dance?”

“Yes.” Emma’s face beams up at him. She begins to bob her head and tap a rhythm on the now-wet tops of her thighs. “Do you remember the Billy Joel song, ‘For the Longest Time?’”

He looks into her eyes. “Yes. But there’s something you need to know about me.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

“That’s okay,” she says, laughing. “I can.” And with that, she begins a cappella.

Mick stares at Emma’s upturned face bathed in rain. Eyes closed, her clear, low voice is rich. It almost has a smoky texture to it, he thinks.

His heart accelerates when she takes his work-worn hands in her soft ones and swings them back and forth in time to the upbeat tempo. Mick’s eyes are held captive by Emma. Even on this stormy night, dimly lit by the subtle walk lights along the path, her expressive eyes remind him of the deep blue Bahamian pools he’s scuba dived in. Her hair, darkened by the rain, is slicked to her head and shoulders; twin pearl earrings peek from the deep red, wet curtain.

Lightning jags across the sky, tearing it open to let the rain pour. Mick starts counting out loud. “One thousand one. One thousand two. One thousand three. One thousand—” thunder cracks. “The lightning’s about three miles away,” he says. He grasps the handles on Emma’s wheelchair and moves them along the path at a rapid pace.

Head tipped back, Emma continues to belt.

As they whir past, the garden has a wild look about it. Its wind-whipped floral heads are ducking and bobbing as if in time to the water-slapped rhythm of Mick’s fast-moving feet.

After Mick presses the exterior button, they enter Austen cottage with dripping clothes, wet faces, and rain glistened hair. Mick toes off his wet shoes, peels off his socks, then bends and removes Emma’s shoes, giving her feet a quick rub while secretly admiring her sexy bare feet with toes sporting bright red toenail polish.

“You’ve got quite a set of pipes,” he says.

“Back in the day, I was in a quartet. We called ourselves The Pastel Lollipops.” She laughs.

“The Pastel Lollipops?” Mick asks with an arched eyebrow. “That has a British ring to it.”

“It was our answer to The Beatles,” Emma laughs. “Enough about that. I’m soaked to the skin,” she says, looking down at herself.

“Me, too. Wait here just a minute,” Mick says.

In the bathroom, Mick strips out of his sopping clothes and wrings them out in the shower. Grabbing a deep-lavender bath towel, he runs it over his hair then slings it around his hips and grabs another towel.

After checking her closet, he finds Emma’s nightgown. Burying his face in the folds of the soft fabric, he inhales. Fresh and citrusy, like lime, with a hint of vanilla, he thinks. But there’s something more. After inhaling again, There’s an earthy and exotic scent like sandalwood, he decides.

The rain is pouring down now. Mick hears it lashing the roof and pelting the windows. Then a slash of lightning illuminates the interior of the cottage and is followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder.

When he returns to the living room, he hands Emma her nightgown. Holding a towel that matches the one he’s wearing, he offers, “I can dry your hair.” He waggles his eyebrows.

“I’ll just bet you can,” she says, with a smile. “I’ll be right back.” After snatching the towel, she wheels herself beyond his line of sight to the bedroom.

A few moments later, an ear-splitting boom and simultaneous flash are followed by inky darkness.

Mick opens the refrigerator door to verify that it’s an all-power outage.

“Stay put,” he calls out. “I’ll light a candle and be there in a minute.” Familiar with the cottage, he rummages in a kitchen drawer and finds the supplies.

With a lit candle in hand, he turns around. The air leaves his chest as if he’d been hit in the back with a two-by-four. Illuminated by the single flame, there sits Emma, a vision in lavender, with the towel wrapped around her torso, ending at her thighs.

Their gazes meet and lock.

Oh, my God, he’s handsome, Emma thinks. Glowing in the candlelight, his face seems to be carved from stone, except his nostrils are slightly flared. She looks down. He’s aroused. She brings her gaze back up and looks into his intense eyes. She feels a sense of untamed suppressed just below the surface.

Mick walks toward her.

Emma’s stomach knots in anticipation.

What the heck? Emma’s eyes widen as Mick continues right past her, leaving in his wake a faint mixture of lime and healthy male that tickles her senses.

While throwing the deadbolt, he says, “That’ll keep Hemingway from letting himself in and shaking out his rain-sodden coat in your cottage.”

When he turns back, exhilaration shoots through her. She has an idea of what he’s thinking, what he plans to do, but she’s afraid he’ll come to his senses and not do any of it.

She tries to swallow, but he’s so close she can’t even think.

After setting the candle on the end table, Mick bends down, picks her up in his arms, and carries her into the bedroom that’s lit by intermittent flashes of lightning.

She hears roaring in her ears but can’t tell if it’s thunder or her heart galloping in her chest.

With care, he positions her legs on the comforter then