“Well . . . yeah, and made him the man who’d quit it to serve his country.”
“You serve your country,” she returned.
Hap clenched his teeth again.
Luci tipped her head to the side. “Am I great because God made me beautiful and people would pay me large sums of money to take photos of me?”
He definitely thought she was great, and he had to admit that was one of the reasons why.
But the way she said that made it sound absurd.
Because it was.
He decided to stop talking.
“Now, your father is a felon, your mother is . . . I don’t know, except she’s an awful mother so,” she fluttered her hand in the hair, “whatever. You lost your farm. You could have held up liquor stores. You could be angry at the world and take it out on other people. You could drink yourself to an early death. But no.” She tossed her hand his way “You became you. With those circumstances, are you not great?”
“You’ve made your point, honey,” he said quietly.
She hadn’t, though she made sense, he just didn’t feel like talking about it any longer.
But he hoped saying that would shut her up.
She lifted her chin. “Good.”
“Can we go to bed now?” he prompted. “I’m wiped.”
“You think I’m too good for you,” she accused.
God dammit.
Hap pushed away from the jamb. “Luce—”
She lifted both hands and pressed her palms his way.
“Fine. Fine. We’ll take up this conversation after you haven’t been driving for hours,” she declared.
“Not somethin’ to look forward to,” he muttered.
“Travis thought the world of you,” she snapped, and his attention sharpened on her as his gut got tight. “Sam does. Kia does. When he’s not being cantankerous, Skip does. Celeste. Thomas. Maris. I do. The only one who doesn’t is you.”
“Babe, can we talk about this later?” he growled.
She drew an audible breath through her nose.
When she let it out, her tone had changed. “Don’t push me away, Hap.”
“I’m not gonna push you away. In about ten minutes, I’d like to be as close as I can get to you, so let’s move on to that.”
“And don’t be funny and tempting when I’m being serious.”
He sighed.
Then he asked, “Tempting?”
“All right,” she retorted. “Hot.”
Her not being cute would help a lot.
It really would.
He had no hope of that, though.
“It’s you I’d like to get hot,” he returned. “So is it okay with you I get on with that?”
“It’s rather annoying you’re such a good lover because I’m angry at you and frustrated with you, and I still want you to fuck me.”
For a second, he was thrown.
Then he busted out laughing.
Through it, she ordered, “Bring my bag. I assume your room is up there?”
And then he watched, still laughing, as she didn’t wait for him to confirm. She flounced toward his stairs.
When Hap lost sight of her, he went to the garage door, locked it, then nabbed her bag, shut out the lights and headed to the stairs.
That Tim McGraw song could gut a man who knew the pain of loving a woman he could not have.
It was just Luci who made that shit tougher than he could ever imagine.
As well as . . .
Fuck him running . . .
Fun.
My Happy
Hap
HAP WOKE TO the sound of the alarm the next morning feeling great, smelling Luci on his sheets and . . .
Bacon.
He opened his eyes to a dark room.
He was the only one in the bed.
She was downstairs cooking.
Luci, in his kitchen, making him breakfast.
“Fuck,” he muttered, rolling and reaching to turn off the alarm.
He lay on his back, lifted his hands and rubbed his face, feeling the stubble that had grown since yesterday morning.
He didn’t want to shave.
He did not believe he was even thinking this, but he also didn’t want to eat bacon.
His cock was hard and he wanted to bury it in Luci, feeling her skin against his, his face in her hair, her body wrapped around him.
He tossed off the covers, prowled to the bathroom, used the toilet, washed his hands, splashed his face with water, brushed his teeth and stabbed the floss wrapped around his fingers through his grill.
Rinse.
Pull on a pair of sweats.
Head to the kitchen.
And there she was in her sweater robe that was soft as kitten fur, his tee on under it (fuck him), hair gorgeous even if it was still a bedhead, eyes bright and happy and aimed at him.
“Buongiorno, caro,” she greeted.
He didn’t hesitate in the stalk he had going on while replying, “What’d I say about leaving me in bed?”
Her smile grew wicked.
Yeah.
Fuck.
Him.
He grabbed her. Kissed her. He did the first rough. He did the last deep.
She tasted fresh and sunny and minty and happy.
Yeah.
Happy.
He’d never tasted that in his life.
It was beautiful.
Cosmopolitan, jet-setting, international supermodel in a nothing-special house, frying bacon for some guy who grew up on a farm, nearly fucked up his whole life, got his shit together simply to be a normal, average dude, and she was happy.
He broke the kiss, lifting his head.
“You don’t have to make breakfast for me, babe.”
Her eyes were a little fuzzy from the kiss, something he liked, and her body was relaxed into his, something he liked maybe more, though that was a tossup. “I like cooking breakfast for you.”
“Did you cook breakfast for Gordo?”
It just came right out without thought, but Hap knew why it did.
Even giving her what she thought she wanted, he’d do everything he could to put anything at his disposal between them so she’d wake up and see she was destined for better, for more, for happier.
She felt Gordo slide right between them (or more to the point, Hap shoving the memory of him there) and he knew it because she was no longer leaning into him, giving him some of her weight. She’d tightened, even if she didn’t pull away.
“Yes,” she answered quietly. “But I’m not cooking breakfast for Travis. Travis is dead. I’m cooking for you because I’m with you.”
He let her go, stepped away and lifted his hand to rub the hair on top of his head while he studied the bacon in his skillet wondering now that he’d pull that shit, what was next.
He should apologize. That was a dick thing to say.
He stood staring at the sizzling bacon and did not apologize.
“That will break us, Hap,” she declared, her voice stronger.
He dropped his hand and looked to her.
“You were avoiding speaking of him,” she noted when she got his attention. “Now that you’ve seen I won’t easily be pushed away, you’re bringing him up to use as a tool to tear us apart, and I’ll warn you, there is little I can imagine that would work in your efforts to accomplish that. But using my dead husband will.”
“You’ve got to know that shit is gonna be on my mind,” he pointed out, and there wasn’t much to be said for him doing that except it was the truth.
“Then perhaps we can discuss it when we have time, this not being when you have to get ready to go to work,” she returned.
She was now stabbing at the bacon with a fork, her chin tipped down, the line of her jaw strained.