Take the Long Way Home Read online

  Chapter Eleven

  The first thing she noticed, through the blur of her tears, was that he’d grown a scruff of beard. Nothing thick and furry, just a dark bristle that emphasized the sharp lines of his jaw and made his eyes look even bluer.

  The second thing she noticed was that he was just as startlingly handsome with facial hair as he was clean-shaven.

  He must have noticed her staring. He rubbed his hand over his chin and shrugged. “It’s been a busy couple of days. I worked extra hours so I could get the weekend off. I’ll shave tomorrow for the big show.” He reached out and brushed a tear from the outer corner of her eye. Cookie eyed him suspiciously, then decided he posed no threat. She stretched her head beneath his palm, inviting him to stroke her while he was stroking Maeve’s face. “If you don’t want to go out for a drink, that’s okay,” he said. “I gather your dinner was even worse than mine.”

  That forced a smile out of her. “Yours was bad, too?”

  “Boring. Irritating.” He shrugged. “How about we just take a walk on the beach? It’s a nice night.”

  A walk on the beach sounded wonderful. Quinn’s sensitivity to her ragged mood soothed her like a balm.

  “Let me grab a jacket,” she said, lowering Cookie to the hardwood floor of the hallway. The cat objected with a whine, but the fact was, Quinn’s presence seemed like better therapy than cuddling Cookie right now. She pulled her jacket from the chair where she’d tossed it when she’d gotten home from her father’s house and slid her arms through the sleeves. Patting her pocket to make sure she had her key, she followed Quinn outside.

  The night was cool and dark, dry despite the humid breeze rising up off the ocean. Quinn took her hand as they crossed Atlantic Avenue, and he helped her over the sea wall that separated the sidewalk from the beach. Then he climbed over it himself, and took her hand once more.

  Her sneakers sank into the pliant sand. The ocean side of the street was noticeably cooler than the house side. She shrugged her jacket more snugly over her shoulders, and he released her hand and slid an arm around her, sharing the warmth of his sturdy body with her. “You want to talk about it?”

  She sighed. She wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it with anyone else. But Quinn was easy to open up to. She couldn’t imagine why. He was so far out of her league, his life so different from hers. Yet she felt she could tell him anything.

  Not that she had much to tell. “It was my first time back in my father’s house since my mother died,” she explained. “I kept telling myself it wasn’t my house anymore—but when I saw my old childhood bedroom, I realized it was my house. And I felt…hurt. All over again.”

  “How was your dad?” he asked. “Still the scary cop?”

  “He’s not scary,” she argued.

  “When we were in high school, he was. Everyone knew your father was a cop. We figured he’d bust us if he ever got wind of the shit we were pulling.”

  She laughed. “You could have been breaking every law in the book. He wouldn’t have noticed. He was as much of a wreck as I was.” Her smile faded. “My mother was the rock in our family. She held everything together. And then suddenly she was sick. The thing about ovarian cancer is, by the time you’ve got symptoms, it’s usually too late. I guess I don’t have to tell you that. You’re a doctor.”

  He nodded. He’d done a rotation in oncology in medical school, and he held oncologists in awe. They fought much harder battles than he did. As an orthopedist, he helped people heal. Too often, all oncologists could do was help people die. Like Maeve’s mother, he imagined.

  “She was diagnosed in April. They did surgery. They did chemo. Then they did palliative care. By September, she was dead. It was all so sudden, and those last months were so awful for her. It’s a miracle my father wasn’t fired. I guess he was getting his job done more or less. He wasn’t doing anything else, though. He drank a lot. He cried a lot. He disappeared a lot.”

  “Disappeared?”

  “I have no idea where he went. Down into some deep, dark hole of depression, I guess. I’d come home from school and he’d be out. I’d fix something to eat. I’d go out myself. I’d come home. I’d shut myself in my room and drink, or listen to death-metal, or cry myself to sleep. I’d go for days without seeing him.”

  Quinn tightened his arm around her, as if he could protect her from the memories.

  “I forgive him. It took me a while, but I really do forgive him. Just because you forgive a person doesn’t mean all the scars miraculously vanish.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry you went through that. It sucks.”

  Amazingly, his words prompted another laugh from her. A sad laugh, but a genuine one. She appreciated his sympathy. It wasn’t pity. It just was.

  “Enough about me,” she said. “Tell me why your dinner was so irritating.”

  It was his turn to laugh. “My dinner was the opposite of yours. You came back to a place of sorrow. I’m coming back to a place of glory. But I’m not that guy anymore. It’s like another life. All these people are making such a big deal about the person I used to be, but I’m a different person now.” He paused in their stroll, gazing out at the iridescent foam edging the waves as they crashed against the sand. “I’d much rather spend tomorrow at your store, eating your cookies, than attending some ridiculous ceremony at the football field.”

  “I’ll save you some cookies,” she said.

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll get to your store,” he promised. “As soon as the game is over, I’ll be there, pigging out on cookies and telling everyone you’re a witch.”

  “A witch?” She shot him a bemused look.

  “All right—a magician. Those cookies are magic, Maeve. They cast a spell.”

  She snorted a laugh. The only spell her cookies cast was to make people forget their diets and indulge their sweet teeth.

  He turned from the water and eased her around to face him. “I feel so much more comfortable with you than I do with those people from my past,” he admitted, his voice low and halting. “I don’t know why that is, but I feel like myself when I’m with you. With them, I’m supposed to be that person I used to be. With you…maybe you are a magician. When I’m with you, I feel like I’m home.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers. She hadn’t quite expected this kiss, yet it seemed inevitable, and she felt ready for it. The caress of his lips against hers, the gently possessive sweep of his tongue filling her mouth, the strength of his hands resting on her shoulders—it warmed her, freed her, chased the bitterness away. It made her feel as if she was home, too.

  They kissed. And kissed. He angled his head slightly. She leaned in. He moved one of his hands to her waist and drew her tighter against him. Her breasts pressed into the solid wall of his muscular torso. Around them the wind blew. Beside them the surf whooshed and whispered. Above them the sky stretched black, speckled with stars and that shimmering half-moon.

  This was home. Not the house where she’d eaten dinner, where her childhood bedroom existed intact and undisturbed, a museum of her grief. Not the apartment she’d lived in only a few weeks, more Cookie’s domain than her own. Not even her store, where Joyce still slipped up occasionally and answered the phone, “Torelli’s, may I help you?”

  This—Quinn’s arms, his body, his mouth hard and hungry against hers—this was home.

  She wasn’t sure how long they’d stood on the beach, devouring each other with kisses. But eventually, as if they’d both received the same cue, they separated and drew in deep, shaky breaths. Maeve’s whole body seemed to be on fire, her nipples tingling, her legs trembling, her womb aching, her belly heavy with a hunger that had nothing to do with food. She dared to look into his eyes, and she saw the same hunger there.

  Without a word, without having to ask or answer, she took his hand and led him back across the street to her apartment.

  Cookie greeted them at the door. She wove between Quinn’s legs, rubbing up against his shins. He graceful
ly avoided tripping over her. Maeve didn’t know much about football, but she imagined he must have been agile on the field, dodging other players with the same grace.

  After a moment, he bent over and scooped Cookie up. His hands were large enough that he could cradle her in one palm. He lifted her to eye level, as if introducing himself to her. “I’m not a cat person,” he said.

  He looked very much like a cat person at that moment. “She’s in love with you,” Maeve said. “I can tell. She doesn’t usually warm up to people.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, kitty,” he said, even as he rubbed his thumb along her ribs, earning a happy purr from her. “The feeling’s not mutual.”

  “She doesn’t believe you,” Maeve warned.

  He laughed and lowered Cookie back to the floor. She trailed him into the living room like a lovesick girl, a feline version of all the girls back in high school who’d had crushes on him.

  He ignored Cookie, his attention riveted to Maeve. Did she look like a lovesick girl, too? One of those helplessly infatuated girls from their school days?

  If she did, he didn’t seem to mind. He gathered her to himself and kissed her again, digging his fingers deep into her hair. “Where’s your bed?” he whispered.

  Yes, she was lovesick. She was helpless.

  Or maybe she was home. “This way,” she said.

  ***

  He hadn’t expected her to have a cat, but now that he’d met the animal, it made sense. Maeve was a loner. A sorceress. She’d bewitched him with her cookies. Why shouldn’t she have a cat, too?

  He wondered how she felt about dogs. He couldn’t have one now, since he shared his apartment and put in crazy hours, but once he was settled, working in a practice, living in a house with a yard, he hoped to have a dog. Would she like that?

  Why was he even thinking of her in the context of a house with a yard? He wasn’t feeling at all domestic toward her right now. Mostly he was feeling horny as hell. Maeve Nolan was bewitching him in a way that had nothing to do with cookies.

  Her apartment was modest, not much in the way of fancy furniture or decoration. The same could be said of his place down near Mass General, although the shared apartment had a certain décor theme going for it: busy bachelor modern, complete with empty pizza boxes stacked by the sink, shift schedules inked onto a wall calendar from a pharmaceutical company, dirty sneakers and dust balls lurking under the sofa. He and his roommates had a big flat-screen TV fastened to the wall across from the sofa. If they were lucky enough not to have a Sunday shift, they needed televised football games to go with all those take-out pizzas.

  No TV for Maeve, not even a small one in her bedroom. She had a laptop there, hooked up to an external monitor. If she watched TV, she must be streaming it over the internet.

  There was only one show he wanted to watch tonight, and it was the Maeve and Quinn show. He wanted to watch it and live it, immerse himself in it. He wanted to sink so deep into it, his life beyond that show no longer existed.

  Other than her computer, her bedroom held an old dresser too scuffed and dinged to qualify as an antique, a closet, a single bed and a night table with a shabby lamp on it. He had a double bed back in Boston—he would have preferred a queen, but the double took up most of his bedroom. He wasn’t sure her narrow bed would hold them both. She was slim but tall, and he was a big guy.

  The thought of taking her on that tiny bed turned him on even more. No room for acrobatics. No room for fancy choreography. Just sex, hot and hard and basic. Just the essentials.

  He pulled her to him. Kissing her was almost as exciting as the sex would be. Everything about her was so honest. Nothing frilly or phony. Nothing he had to interpret. No games, no pretense, no bullshit. Satisfying her was essential, because if he didn’t, she was not the sort of woman who’d know how to fake it.

  He glanced at the bed once more, measuring it with his eyes. One of them would have to be on top—him or her, she could choose. There was no room for rolling around once they got started.

  She shed her jacket and let it drop to the floor. A sharp yearning sliced through him. Dropping her jacket like that, instead of hanging it neatly in a closet, was one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen a woman do.

  Or maybe it was sexy because Maeve had done it, and right now Maeve had him spellbound. She didn’t need cookies to seduce him, he acknowledged. She just needed herself. Herself and that jacket on the floor.

  He went to work stripping off her clothing and his. She offered some token assistance, but he did most of it, as if the act of removing her jacket had exhausted her supply of energy. Fine with him—he liked taking off her clothes, viewing her bit by bit. Her narrow shoulders. Her delicate collarbones, their hollows creating scoop-shaped shadows across her skin. Her breasts, small but firm and round and so sweet, looking at them made him groan. Her narrow waist. Her jutting hip bones. The small tuft of hair between her legs. So many women shaved down there, but he liked a woman who looked like a woman, not a little girl. He slid his hand over that erotic fluff of hair. When he felt the wetness of her arousal, he groaned again.

  God, yeah. A woman.

  His own clothes joined hers on the floor. He was already rock-hard before she laid a hand on him, but then she laid both her hands on him and he got harder. She kissed his chest. She kissed his throat. She curled her fingers around him, those magical fingers that could make cookies designed to reduce a man to quivering lust, and with a few steady strokes she turned him into her willing slave.

  He lifted her off her feet, carried her to the bed, and dropped her onto the mattress. Then he climbed on top of her. She could be on top later. Right now, when he felt his control slipping dangerously, he needed to cling to what little control he still possessed. He needed to take her—and bring her with him. He needed to bewitch her as much as she bewitched him, even though he doubted that was possible.

  He kissed her throat. He kneaded her breasts, cupped them, pressed his mouth to each nipple in turn and sucked until she moaned. Her hands scrambled up and down his back, then settled on his butt, her fingers probing the muscles, pressing him to her. He accepted the invitation, nudging her legs apart with his knees, sinking between her thighs. Taking her.

  She gasped and hooked her heels around his calves. Her fingers dug deeper, guiding him. He was on top, yet she still seemed to be the dominant one. All he could do was thrust, rock her, fill her, complete this dance of mutual need.

  He was burning inside, aching, reaching. Shifting so he could rub up against her more effectively. Sensing the rhythm of her hands, her body, her hunger. Making that rhythm his own.

  One final moan from her as her body arched up against him, her eyes closed, her head falling back to expose her throat. Her thighs tensed and then she shuddered. He felt the spasms of her climax surround him, draw him into the darkness of her, wrench the harsh heat of release from him.

  For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then he slowly, cautiously eased onto his side, careful not to fall off the bed, holding her tightly so she wouldn’t fall off, either. He closed his arms around her and she snuggled close, melting against him like butter on warm toast, soaking into him.

  He wasn’t sure what to say. As the haze cleared from his brain, he thought about not just what had happened but what hadn’t happened. They hadn’t talked about love. They hadn’t talked about a relationship. They hadn’t talked about commitment, or even about tomorrow. They hadn’t talked about protection.

  Shit. Here he was, always judging his fellow residents who ate unhealthy meals and sneaked outside to smoke during their breaks. But he was as careless with his health—and Maeve’s—as they were.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  Had she read his mind? Damn, but she was a witch.

  “I was thinking about the condom I didn’t use.”

  “It’s okay,” she said again. “I’m safe.”

  One thing she wasn’t was safe. Maybe in the context of avoiding a pregnancy she was, b
ut he was convinced Maeve Nolan—modest, reticent, self-contained Maeve Nolan—was anything but safe. She’d stolen his mind, hadn’t she? Stolen his will. Stolen his heart.

  His arms relaxed around her only enough to allow his fingers to wander through her hair. It brushed against his shoulder, cool and soft. A faint silver sheen from the moon beyond the window spilled into the room.

  So you think you’re a Romeo… The song filtered through his head, not as blaring and bouncy as it had sounded coming from the jukebox the first time he’d heard it, when he and Maeve had stared at each other across the dance floor of the Faulk Street Tavern, but muted and muffled, as if someone had wrapped the jukebox in layers of wool. The song couldn’t be true, could it? He wasn’t a player, some stud who wooed and seduced women, and believed he was God’s gift to females.

  “I don’t think I’m a Romeo,” he said.

  Once again, Maeve seemed to read his mind. She didn’t question the non sequitur. “Romeo was a teenage boy,” she reminded him. “He fell in love and killed himself over it. You’re a lot older. I hope you wouldn’t kill yourself over love.”

  She sounded more sensible that he felt. At that moment, he believed the passion he’d just experienced could kill him.

  “The song haunts me,” he said.

  She trailed her fingers lightly across his chest, scraping against his nipples, making his pecs twitch. Making his dick twitch. “It haunts me, too.”

  “What do you think it was trying to tell us?”

  “That we should go home,” she said, her fingers still meandering across his skin, turning him on so much he could hear his pulse inside his skull, fierce and pounding. “What haunts me,” she added, “is trying to figure out where home is. Or maybe what it is.”

  “Brogan’s Point?” After he’d left town and his parents had moved to Maine—and especially after Ashley had dumped him—he’d stopped thinking of this quiet seaside town as home. But now, at this moment, in this bed, with this woman, it felt like home to him.