Calm & Storm (The Night Horde SoCal Book 6) Read online

  “Because I didn’t know what I was leaving. Not until it was too late. I was young and stupid, and I didn’t know. And then I was scared. I told you, Roe. I can’t give you an answer that will make it better. It doesn’t exist. I can’t apologize, because you won’t let me.” She laid her hand on his chest, hooking her thumb in the placket of his shirt, where the top two buttons were undone, and moving it gently over his skin. “I’ve told you how I feel. Do you still love me? Or could you, again?”

  Ronin stared down at her hand, its pearly white nails, the long silver ring, etched with a pattern that seemed Native American—he smiled as he thought that, a memory of Lakota flashing into his head. Lakota hadn’t liked that term, even though it was considered politically correct. It lumped all the various tribes together as if they were one culture, he’d said, and furthermore, he’d said, not one of them was American anything—the word ‘America’ was itself a colonial construct. Lakota had identified as a member of the Oglala Lakota nation. He had conceded to the term ‘Sioux,’ giving up that fight, but he’d had a riff on that word, too.

  Thinking of his fallen friend, a lonely ache rolled over in his heart.

  He’d taken too long to answer Rainy’s question, and she started to move her hand away. He caught it and held it where it was. “I love you.”

  They stood and stared at each other as his words hung in the air. Then Rainy whispered, “Oh, my God.”

  Ronin cradled her face in his hands and kissed her.

  As he’d known it would, touching Rainy, especially like this, pulled at his control. He felt it break loose almost with an audible snap. Maybe because he was so tired, or because the night had been too full of powerful, conflicting emotions. Or maybe simply because he loved her.

  As his mouth moved voraciously with hers, he stepped forward, pushing her into the glass wall behind her, and dropped his hands to her dress, hooking into the neckline, trying to find a way to open it, to take it off of her. Just enough control remained that he tried not to ruin the lovely thing, but he couldn’t find a zipper or button anywhere, and he could feel that last thread of his patience slipping.

  She leaned back out of the kiss and smiled up at him, and in her eyes he found another ration of calm. He took a breath and let her do it. She slid her fingers under her neckline and pulled on something, and the dress loosened and fell off her shoulders. With a sultry shimmy, she worked it the rest of the way down, until it was a satin pool at their feet. She’d been nude under the dress, and now she stood before him that way.

  So beautiful. And not the least bit shy. She never had been.

  Her body was different from the way it had been when they were young—fuller in some ways, less firm in others, but still slender and smooth. A few faint lines marked her belly, and her breasts were softer and fuller. Evidence that she had given birth. To his son.

  When he clasped her waist and bent down again, meaning to claim her mouth and then claim the rest of her body, right there against the glass, she put her hands on his chest and held him off.

  “I want to see you, too.”

  Smiling, he took a step back and bent down to pull off his boots and socks. Then he opened and discarded his shirt, and then his belt and jeans. The whole time, she watched him, standing perfectly still, her eyes hot and avid.

  When he was as naked as she was, she stepped up to him and hooked her hands over his shoulders, then smoothed them down his arms, over his ink—the dragon and tiger piece that she knew, the koi piece on his other arm, which covered up his old scorpion, then up and over the Horde ink on his chest. She traced her fingers over all the scars on his front and side. She hadn’t seen the scars on his back yet.

  Her hands moved down, over his belly, sliding through the light covering of hair—still mostly dark, but going grey, just like the hair on his head and face. He watched, fascinated by her graceful, freckled hands moving over his body again after so many years.

  “You are so much the same.” He could hear the wonder in her words.

  “No. But you are.”

  She smiled up at him. “No, I’m not. But I love that we’re familiar to each other still. I think that means something. Like karma.”

  “Still my little hippie chick.” He smoothed his thumb over her cheek. As she wrapped his cock in her hands, he grunted and pushed his hand around her neck, knotting his fingers into her long red hair.

  Her soft, strong hands worked him, pulling and sliding over his steely flesh, feeling so much like his fondest memories that he couldn’t stand it. He groaned sharply and took her hands away, then pushed her back against the glass.

  She gasped at the impact and then smiled. “Fuck me wild, Roe. Like we used to.”

  Her green eyes flickered with fire, with youth, and he remembered everything about why he loved her, how deeply that love had been embedded in his heart, mind, soul. She was everything. Their differences, the betrayals, the hurts and fights—none of it mattered. Now as then, he loved her. Stripped bare of everything, at his core, he loved her.

  Ronin let go of calm and slammed his mouth down on hers. She arched against him, clutching at him, and her whole body was pressed to his, skin to skin, nothing between them, for the first time in forever.

  “Rainy,” he growled against her mouth. Pushing a hand between her legs, over the soft, short ginger bush he still knew so well, he found her hot and wet, and she gasped and threw her head back as his finger slid into her. Dropping his head to her breast, his sucked her sweet nipple into his mouth, drawing it over his teeth in the way he remembered she liked.

  Her nails dug at his back, at his head, and she made the sounds he knew. He still knew her body completely. Sliding another finger into her, suckling even more forcefully at her breast, he fucked her with his hand. When she came, she yelled and flailed away from the window, her body beyond her control. He caught her and spun her, pushing her face-first against the glass. Before she could catch a breath, while her pussy was still swollen and pulsing with the last of her climax, he pushed into her, going balls deep all at once.

  Holding her naked body firmly to the glass, Ronin slammed into her again and again, not trying to make it last, not trying to manage anything at all. He wrapped the red fall of her hair in his fist and flattened his other hand against the glass, and he fucked the love of his life as hard as he knew how.

  “God! God! God! Eddie!” she cried as she came again, her pussy clamping like a vise around him. He didn’t even care that she’d called him the name that was dead to him. It called out to the past in a way that set him on fire; a memory rose up of the first time he’d taken her—outside, in the Myrtlevale woods, surrounded by the sounds and scents of the natural world.

  Ronin opened his eyes and looked through the glass wall at the canyon sunrise. He came with a roar.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lorraine put the blueberry sour cream muffins in the oven and set the timer. Then she went to the sink to wash up and begin prep for the potato, sausage, and kale frittata.

  With the water running over her favorite cutting board, she paused and stared out the window. Ronin stood on the patio, wearing only his jeans—which, she’d seen in the full daylight, were especially soiled and scuffed on the outside of his left leg and hip. She’d noticed a large, purpling bruise on his hip, too. Her memories of similar stains and injuries told her that he’d dropped his bike at some point last night. When she’d asked, he’d merely shrugged.

  He was standing there in near-perfect stillness, his legs slightly spread, holding a mug of coffee and looking out over the canyon below. The muscles over his back, even at ease, were deeply contoured, swelling across his shoulders and neck, rolling to a taper at his waist. He was beautiful. But God, so scarred. The scars on his back were as bad as, if not worse than, those on his belly. They didn’t change his shape, but they were many, and some seemed the remnants of vicious, awful wounds.

  That fucking war.

  He was still proud of his service. He wore h
is pride on his skin—not only the scars, but a tattoo of the Army insignia on his right thigh, with his dates of service, regiment, and location of deployment in ribbon banners above and under it.

  He was still proud, and she was still resentful. She had to let that go. He’d forgiven her for her keeping Cameron from him. She had to forgive the Army for taking Ronin away and making her feel so lost. She didn’t resent him for going off to war; she understood his reasons, and she understood that he hadn’t had a choice, even as she had thrown down arguments and pleas and ultimatums. He wasn’t someone who could stand by, and he wasn’t someone who could simply donate some blood and call it help. He had to fight. She’d known then, even as she fought to keep him home, that he had to fight. That was what he’d always been: a fighter.

  God, if only she’d found a way to make her head stay straight back then. What would their life have been, if she’d been waiting for him, holding his son in her arms, as he came home from war?

  Pointless woolgathering. None of that had happened, and, as Ronin said, the past was the past. Lorraine shook her head and got to chopping.

  Instead of the distant past, she turned her mind to the recent and remembered the hours before—the feel of him inside her, on her, over her. The feeling of falling asleep with her head on his chest and his arms around her, the peace of waking up the same way.

  The euphoria of knowing he could forgive her, could give them a new chance.

  When he’d arrived at the restaurant last night, she’d been excited. When he’d put his hands on her and they’d made love, she’d been ecstatic. When he’d stalked away, she’d been dismayed. When she’d left the restaurant alone, she’d been distraught.

  Then he’d called. He’d forgiven her. He’d stayed with her.

  Everything had been spinning in circles. Now she wanted it all to stop and stay right where it was. Ronin with her, them together, facing forward.

  After a few minutes, as she was cooking the sausage, he opened the door and stepped into the kitchen.

  “It’s beautiful here.” He set his empty mug on the counter and came to stand behind her. When he put his hand on her neck, skimming his thumb up and down the top of her spine, Lorraine had to lock her knees against the urge to swoon. “What are you making?”

  “A frittata. Ever have one?”

  He chuckled. “Don’t think so. Is it eggs?”

  “Yeah. A little bit like an omelet, just fuller. I’ve got blueberry muffins in the oven and strawberries in balsamic vinegar glaze marinating the fridge. And whipped cream.”

  “Damn. You cook different than you did. You did all that this morning?”

  Ronin had been considerably more talkative this morning. Not chatty, he’d never been really chatty, but more willing to utter a complete sentence, at least. He seemed relaxed, too. Less watchful.

  She’d still been mostly a country cook back when they’d been together before. Her years in SoCal restaurant kitchens had widened her experience and tastes dramatically—and increased her skill. “Yeah. None of it is really hard.”

  Transferring the sausage to a plate at the side of the range, she added olive oil to the skillet, then turned and gently set Ronin out of her way so she could reach the cutting board.

  “Can I help?”

  “Just keep me company.” She pushed chopped potatoes from the board into the skillet. “This is the last thing I’m making, but I have to stay on it.” Smirking over her shoulder, she added, “So don’t try to distract me.”

  With a low, sexy laugh, Ronin came back close behind her and pulled her robe aside to kiss her shoulder. When she felt his tongue on her skin, his mouth sucking lightly, she moaned. “Roe, please.”

  In reply, his hands slid over her hips and came together to rest low on her belly.

  “Roe.”

  “He’s not going to be here until later, right? You don’t need to make all this food for me,” he mumbled against her skin.

  “Not until noon or so.” Shortly after they’d woken, she’d called Cameron, and she’d asked their son if he wanted to meet his father. She hadn’t told him until that moment that she’d reconnected with Ronin. His answer had been unequivocally positive.

  She turned and hooked her arms over Ronin’s shoulders. “But I want to cook for you. I want to feed you.” With a kiss and a push, she said, “You can set the table. The chest next to the refrigerator has everything you need. We can eat on the patio, if you’d like.”

  ~oOo~

  He still ate like a lumberjack—both hands, leaning over his plate, shoveling food into his mouth as if somebody were threatening to take it from him. Lorraine watched, amused, as he inhaled most of the frittata and three muffins.

  They’d been such a mismatched pair. Eddie Drago had been a conservative, macho logger, who spent his free time racing and fighting and drinking. He’d always been filthy, covered in dirt and dust, or sawdust and sap, or blood. And sweat, always sweat. Her favorite part of every day had been the late evening, when he’d come out of the shower, a towel wrapped low around his waist, smelling like Irish Spring soap. He’d find her and drop the towel, and they’d get busy wherever he’d found her. To this day, the smell of that soap made her wet.

  Lorraine, on the other hand, had been a politically and socially active liberal, involved with Greenpeace and Earth First, against the logging industry, against the war, when it reared its head, against most of the things Eddie had been for. He’d wanted nothing but the life they’d already had. She’d wanted to be a famous chef. She’d wanted to study in Europe and travel and be fabulous.

  And yet, somehow, none of that had mattered. Until he’d enlisted, they hadn’t fought about their different views. She’d wanted to, but he simply wouldn’t. For all the fighting he did out in the world, with her he’d simply smile and listen, call her his little hippie chick, and pull her close. He’d never taken offense, but he’d never changed his view. And that had, incredibly, been fine with her.

  They’d been okay in their differences because their points of connection were so deep and real. They’d been good. Happy.

  He’d made everything okay. She’d come to Myrtlevale to reconnect with her father, with whom she’d had almost no contact from the time she was three, when her mother had packed her up and moved to Eureka. Though he’d been open to the idea of her coming to stay with him, and he’d been welcoming at first, she’d soon learned that her mother had been right about him. Her mother had been wrong, maybe, to be so vocal about her feelings to Lorraine, but she hadn’t been wrong about the man her father was. He was bitter and cold, and he was a mean drunk. He drank a lot, so he was usually mean.

  But she hadn’t regretted moving, because by the time she’d realized that Brian Milligan was a drunk and a jerk, she’d fallen in love with Eddie Drago, and Eddie had made everything okay. They’d rented a little apartment in town, and they’d started a life. They’d been happy—for years, they’d had a good life.

  Until he decided he had to fight the terrorists. They’d started to really fight then; for the first time, he’d fought back, giving as good as he got. The day he’d come home from the recruitment center and told her that it was a done deal, that he was going, remained, all these years later, one of the worst days in Lorraine’s life.

  With Eddie, she’d been happy to narrow her goals, to set aside dreams of world travel and feature articles in Bon Appetit and instead imagine opening up a diner on Redwood Street in ‘downtown’ Myrtlevale. With Eddie, she could see a future: Eddie and Rainy and their redheaded babies, living their lives in that small town, where everybody knew everybody.

  Without Eddie, Lorraine had been lost Myrtlevale. She’d discovered that all of his friends, his family, almost everyone she’d known there had no idea how to know her without him at her side. Even his parents weren’t quite sure what to do with her, once he wasn’t around. She didn’t fit in. She never had, but standing in Eddie’s shadow, she hadn’t seen that truth.

  Once she�
�d seen it, everything else, all the years before, had seemed untrue. So she’d run, burning the trail behind her.

  And then, just a couple of weeks after she’d ended her life with Eddie, taking a page from her father’s playbook and going for the worst hurt she could, she’d realized that she was missing her second period. She’d been in such a state that she hadn’t even noticed missing the first one. If she had, she would have known earlier, before she’d broken his heart. That would have changed everything.

  But that was all the distant past. In the present, Ronin, the man Eddie Drago had become, sat next to her on her patio, eating up the brunch she’d made him.

  When his plate was clear, he sat back and took a long drink of his coffee. “It’s good.”

  Expecting effusive praise from him would have been folly, but those two words were said with sincere appreciation. “Thank you. Would you like some strawberries?”