Page 43 of Loving You Always

“Mama Jess, I’m out back picking greens and tomatoes.”

Kerris let the screen door slam behind her, stomping toward the garden. She’d spent a lot of time out there in the week since she’d sent off the divorce papers. Seemed like this garden was a form of therapy all its own.

Kerris grabbed the bucket they always left at the garden gate, and slipped on her hot-pink Hunter rain boots. She rolled up the sleeves of the men’s shirt she’d snatched up from the Salvation Army thrift store last week, the tail of the oversize shirt flowing to mid-thigh. With the shirt completely covering her tiny cutoff denim shorts, and the hot-pink rain boots covering her calves up to her knees, she didn’t want to think about the picture she made. She looped her hair up into a knot on top of her head, secured with a wooden spoon.

She started down a row of tomatoes, bucket in hand, squatting to inspect the first bushel, not turning when she heard Mama Jess come up behind her.

“I think you were right about these tomatoes, Mama Jess.” She tossed the words over her shoulder, moving onto the next bushel. “Still a lot of green. We do have a few in the house, though, right? I was gonna make a salad tonight for myself since you’ll be off playing bingo.”

Kerris stepped across a couple of rows, careful to avoid the still-growing vegetation. She reached down to caress a collard green leaf.

“These are ready, though,” she said to the still-quiet Mama Jess. “I’ll pull some of these and we can have them for dinner tomorrow night. How’s that sound?”

The woman wasn’t this quiet even when she was asleep.

“Did you hear—”

Kerris turned, and the words froze in her throat and then melted under the heat of Walsh’s gaze. He was still on the tomato row, a few feet behind her, incongruous with his tailored slacks and his expensive shoes planted in the dirt of her garden.

“Walsh.” She dropped her bucket.

“Kerris.” The brewing storm in his eyes said the evenness of his tone was a lie.

“Why are you here?” One hand flew up to her messy hair and the other tugged the tail of her Salvation Army shirt.

“Somehow I thought that would be obvious.” Walsh took the steps necessary to bring him to her row.

“I’m not— My divorce isn’t final yet.” She took a step back and over into a row of peas. “Cam and I have lived apart for a year, but we still have a few months before things are final.”

Walsh followed her, stepping over a row of collard greens. He reached out to capture her hand. She tried to free herself, but he held firm.

“Stop running from me.” His soft words were an entreaty, a command, and a caress all bundled up in one unavoidable knot.

“I’m not running.” She knew it was a lie, but she couldn’t help it. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here…yet.”

“And I’m tired of waiting,” he whispered, taking another step forward, using his index finger to tilt up her chin. “Don’t send me away again. I’ve missed you.”

She nodded, closing her eyes in the sweetest torture. His mouth brushed hers lightly, once and then again.

“Don’t do this,” she said, his breath hot against her parted lips.

His traced his tongue across her bottom lip.

“Do what?”

“That.”

She shook her head, helpless, sure that he was going to kiss her and certain that she would not be able to send him away.

Walsh dipped his head, hovering over her open mouth for a few seconds, and she breathed him in before he possessed her mouth completely. He nudged her lips open wider, dipping his tongue into her mouth. He groaned at the shy brush of her tongue against his. He slid his hands down to her waist, pulling her close until her body’s soft curves melted into the harder lines of his own. Desire simmered between them, a slow burn that steadily licked away at their control until there was nothing left but an open flame.

Kerris leaned into him, her hands plowing their way up his chest and around his neck. Lips, tongue, teeth, famished and feverish. She was lost in him, oblivious to the world, pulled into the vortex of a kiss deeper and hotter than any she’d had before. His large, warm hand slipped under her shirt, stroking the naked skin of her back. He left her mouth long enough to scatter kisses down her neck and into the open collar of her shirt, whispering across the bones.

“A year. You’ve made me wait a year.”

“Walsh, we—”

“And I’d wait another year, if I had to.” He firm lips curved against her mouth. “But don’t make me.”

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