Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(146)

Luci was sitting in the sand, knees cocked, elbows to knees, jaw in hands, eyes to the water, the waves rolling toward the shore licking her ankles.

I kept going flat out.

I was across the beach and five feet away from her when her head jerked to me as her body jumped, she looked up and her mouth dropped open.

Then she asked, “Kia, cara mia, what on earth are you doing here?” Her gazed moved down to my middle then back up and she finished, “In your robe?”

I stopped abruptly, sucked in breath and told her, “You’ve been gone for three hours. Everyone is worried sick.”

She blinked up at me and queried, “Has it been three hours?”

“Yes, Luci!” I cried. “Celeste is freaking out. We all are.”

Her eyes moved beyond me and her brows drew together. “Is that Skip?”

“Yes, it’s Skip. He was at the house being cantankerous when Celeste showed freaking out.”

“Woman! What the hell!” Skip yelled when he arrived.

She gracefully stood saying, “I’m so sorry, I lost track of time.”

“For three hours?” I asked and she looked back at me.

“I…” she looked to the ocean then her eyes came again to me. “Yes,” she whispered. “For three hours.”

I studied her face, I did not at all like what I saw so I said, “Skip, give us a minute.”

“Hell with that, I –”

My eyes sliced to him and I ordered firmly, “Skip, give us a minute.”

Skip scowled at me. Then he scowled at Luci. Then he turned and stomped down the beach toward the trail Hap was running down with Celeste following him some distance behind.

I turned back to Luci and got closer. “Are you okay?”

Her head tilted to the side, her mouth curled into a small smile but her face suffused with sorrow. The jig was up, the shutters thrown open. No hiding. All of it there for me to see.

And it hurt to witness.

She whispered her answer, “No.”

“Luci,” I whispered back, moving even closer, my hand reaching out and taking hers.

Her fingers curled tight on mine but she looked to the sea and kept whispering. “I remember. I remember what it was like to fall in love.”

I kept silent but my heart squeezed because there it was. Watching Sam and I was torture for our Luci.

“Like it was yesterday,” she went on softly. “Funny how you can fall so hard but it doesn’t hurt. You’d do it again. You’d do it again and again and again. You’d do it forever.”

I held her hand and held my peace.

“I thought we had forever,” she whispered to the sea.

I swallowed back tears and kept my focus on Luci.

She kept talking quietly. “We used to make love here. In the sand.”

Oh God.

God, God, God.

“At night, Travis would wake me up and we’d walk in the moonlight holding hands. No words. Just holding hands. He’d bring me here and make love to me in the sand, under the stars. Then he’d hold me and we’d whisper to each other about nothing. Then we’d walk back, silent, holding hands. I never slept so well. Those times, after we got home, I slept so well, Kia, safe in the arms of the man who loved me like that. Loved me so much he wanted nothing more than to walk holding hands in the moonlight to beauty, create beauty with me, then take me home and hold me while I slept.”

I squeezed her hand, inched closer and whispered, “Honey.”

Her eyes came to me and her sultry, gorgeous voice was dead when she said, “I’m never going to have that again.”

“Oh, Luci, sweetie, you don’t know.”

“Not with Travis.”

Well, she was right about that.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered because, honestly, there was nothing else to say and seriously, I was.

“I am too,” she whispered back, her eyes locked on mine and I watched them get bright as I watched her lip start to quiver, mine reciprocated and she kept whispering. “I am too. I am very, very sorry, Kia.”

I saw it and moved right into it when it happened. The sob tearing out of her throat, I wrapped my arms around her and she shoved her face in my neck, her body jerking against mine, wracked with tears.

I held her close, stroked her hair and said not a word as her tears wet my skin, so many of them they started to slide down my chest and wet my robe. Hearing them, feeling them, I struggled holding back my own. But she needed strength and understanding and I needed to give it to her.

Still, I couldn’t stop it, one escaped to slide down my cheek.

“I want that back,” she whispered against my neck.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, you can’t have it back,” I told her gently.

“I know. I know I can’t have it back with Travis. But I want it back.”

I wasn’t following.

She explained, pushing closer, shoving her face deeper in my neck, she said so quietly I barely heard her over the rushing waves, “I have to let Travis go so I can find it again.”

I closed my eyes and held her tighter.

There it was. Thank you, God, there it was.

She got there herself.

Thank. You. God.

“Yes, Luci, honey, that’s what you need to do,” I whispered.