“That’s weird,” I said. “I’m not gagging.”
“I should hope not.” Her eyebrows arched up. “You’re surprised my kisses aren’t making you gag?”
“No. Not your kisses.” I slid her cup toward her. “The coffee. I can taste it on you.”
A light seemed to go off in her head. She took another sip of her coffee and kissed me. This time the flavor of it was hot and strong in her mouth—sweet as hell because of all the sugar she’d dumped into it, but smooth and full-bodied, with a slightly nutty overtone.
“Kona coffee,” I murmured against her lips. “From Hawaii.”
“Very good.” She stepped back and looked at me. It didn’t matter where the hell it came from. What mattered was that it hadn’t made me sick or nauseated. “Would you like some?” She poured me a cup and watched as I inhaled the aroma of it.
I took a tentative sip and waited for the awful gagging that had plagued me ever since the mall attack.
Nothing.
In fact, my taste buds cried for more.
Coffee. My weakness, my livelihood, my passion. I’d processed close to a year’s worth of harvest without a single cup. Tasting it on Rodel, mingled with her sweet breath, had cured me. Or maybe she’d cured me with that first kiss. Or the time she told me she loved me. I would never know. All I knew was that she filled all the aching, gaping holes in my heart.
“Are you okay?” she asked, as I held my coffee and stared at the way the sun picked up the honeyed flecks in her eyes.
“I’m fine,” I lied.Have you ever sat across from someone, fully clothed, and felt them slowly unbutton your heart?I reached for her hand and squeezed. “I’ve missed you. So much that my heart still hurts.”
“Good.” She stuffed a pastry in her mouth. “ImphgladImphnottheomphnlyone.”
I chuckled and had some more coffee. “What are we doing today?” I knew what I wanted to do. Absolutely nothing. Except, possibly, to get a bigger bed.
She dropped her pastry and went quiet. “How long are you staying, Jack?”
I didn’t know how to say the next part because I knew she’d fight me. “How long would you like me to stay?”
“Ha.” She threw me a small smile and went about clearing the counter.
“Hey.” I hugged her from behind as she put the dishes in the sink. “Tell me. Talk to me.”
“What if I said I want you here, always and forever?” She held her head high, eyes on the windowsill.
I swallowed. She had the guts to ask of me what I had not been able to ask of her. “What if I said okay? What if I said I’d stay? Always and forever.”
She stiffened in my arms. The tap dripped little droplets of water into the bowl.
“That’s not funny.”
“Does it look like I’m trying to be funny?” I nudged her around.
She searched my face with her coffee-bean eyes. “You can’t . . . you can’t just walk away from the farm. It’s your home, your legacy. And then there’s Goma.”
“Yes, and she kicked my ass for not coming sooner. She said if she caught me moping around the farm one more day, she’d get her rifle and put me out of my misery herself. She threatened to sell her share of the farm and be done with it, if that’s what was keeping me from you. She said she wants to go on endless cruises for the rest of her life, see the world, take Zumba classes, and dance on the decks all night, from the money she’d make off it.”
A small chuckle escaped Rodel before she sobered up. “She’s lying. That farm is everything to her. And so are you.”
“I know.” I stroked her cheek, wanting to wipe away the look in her eyes, the one that said we could never be. “Sometimes we have to let go of the people we lovebecausewe love them—because their hopes and dreams lie elsewhere. It’s the reason I let you go, the reason I never asked you to stay. And it’s why Goma is letting me go, because my heart is already with you, all day, every day. So if you want me, always and forever, here I am.”
I’d pictured her eyes lighting up when I told her. I thought she’d go a little giddy. My rainbow-haloed, all-or-nothing girl. But she just stared at me, her eyes sheening over, and it just about did me in. Bloody hell.
“No.” I kissed the tip of her nose. “Stop it, Rodel. I didn’t come all this way for a crabapple.”
She laughed, a little splutter, and wiped her eyes. “I thought you loved all my faces.”
