bad thoughts go.” He leaned into her and said, “And riding with you makes it that much better.”
“I love riding. I never thought I’d enjoy giving up control like that, but it’s freeing, and I know I’m safe with you. Maybe scrapbooking is my cut-loose thing, because I’m not a partier.”
“As much as I like hearing that you love riding and letting me take control—we’ll explore that more in the bedroom—”
“Oh, you think you can just drop that there and get away with it?”
“There’s no getting away with anything, darlin’.” He squeezed her thigh and said, “Want to talk about it? Hit the bedroom and see how much control you’d like to relinquish?”
She laughed.
“You did taunt me with your naughty mouth.” He leaned in for a kiss and said, “You’re blushing.”
“No kidding, you wicked thing. Stop. We’re having a serious talk here.”
“Oh, right. Okay, back to that.” He tried to push those delicious ideas aside and said, “As much as you enjoy scrapbooking, that’s not how you cut loose. You don’t have to be a partier to let all your worries go and enjoy the moment. I know how much you love to dance, sweet cheeks, and you know how much I love watching, or dancing, with you. That’s where you cut loose. We can go out and burn up the dance floor.”
She fanned her face and said, “We need a private dance floor when we get started.”
He brushed his lips over hers and said, “That can be arranged.”
THEY RETURNED THE scrapbooks to the shelves, and as they got comfortable on the blankets again, settling in with their backs against the couch and their legs outstretched in front of the fire, Chloe said, “I wish you had more pictures and things from before you went to live with the Wickeds so we could make you a keepsake of the good memories.”
“My good memories are so few and far between, they wouldn’t fill the smallest of albums.”
She laced their hands together and said, “You mentioned that your mom used to sing to you. Do you remember what she sang?”
His eyes softened, and he said, “She loved the Beatles. She couldn’t sing when my father was around because it irritated him, but when he wasn’t there, she’d sing ‘Blackbird,’ ‘All You Need Is Love,’ ‘Penny Lane,’ ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,’ ‘With a Little Help from My Friends.’ There were so many songs, and always the Beatles, but when she put me to bed every night, she’d sing ‘Blackbird’ and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’ After I grew up, I realized that there were probably messages in those songs. When she sang ‘Blackbird,’ I think she was telling me to take all of my broken parts and fly away, but she could have been saying she was going to take her broken parts and fly away.”
She ran her thumb over the back of their joined hands and said, “Maybe she was saying both.”
“Maybe. When she sang ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ she changed ‘be your man’ to ‘be your mom,’ and I think she was telling me that I was the thing that made her the happiest.” He moved his left arm in front of them and touched his leather bracelet with the fingers on his other hand without letting go of her hand. “This was her necklace. She never took it off. She’d lie next to me at bedtime, and I’d play with her necklace. When she sang ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ she’d snag my hand and wiggle it, and I’d laugh. I remember the rush of anticipation of waiting for her to do it because when I laughed, she laughed, and that was a beautiful thing. Back then it was everything. I’d tug my hand free and play with the necklace again, only to have her recapture it. The image in my head of my father is of a miserable bastard, but I can still see my mom wiggling my hand and smiling…” His voice trailed off, and he gazed into the fire with a thoughtful expression, as if he were lost in the memory.
“I wish I’d known her.” She wished she and Justin had known each other when they were younger. Maybe they could have made sense of their awful situations and found a way out.
“She was timid as a baby bird, but I never doubted her love in the same way I never thought my father had an ounce of love for either