people she loves.
Closing my eyes, I remember her touch, her fingers wrapping around me. I remember her hot little mouth sucking on my lips, my neck, my cock.
Her amber eyes are so round when she looks up at me from her knees. She flickers her tongue along my shaft, pulling me deep into her throat, tracing her fingernails up the insides of my thighs.
It only takes a few tugs to relieve the ache of missing my girl. My ass tightens, and I come long and hard, groaning her name as the water rushes over my back and shoulders. Bracing my hand against the wall, I breathe slowly, coming down, missing the warmth of her body next to mine.
I pull on the hotel robe and order room service. I’ll have a cocktail then dinner. In the morning I’ll stop by the nursing home on my way out of town, and I’ll be in Texas by the end of the day, ready to find some answers and be with my girl.
“Deacon, my goodness!” Miss Jessica pats my cheek when I lean down to give her a hug.
She’s sitting on a green couch in the activity room of the Pine Hills nursing home where she lives. It’s a small place, matching the small town, and the residents range from needing light assistance to hospice care.
“I haven’t seen you in ages. Where have you been?”
“How does he look?” Ms. Irene, her blind best friend who also lives in the home is beside her on the couch.
Ms. Irene’s straight white hair is styled in a long braid down her back, and her blue eyes gaze in the vicinity of my face. Both old ladies are dressed in flowered smocks, soft pants, and slippers. They appear harmless, but I’ve learned not to underestimate them.
Miss Jessica leans to her. “He looks like a young Gary Cooper. Tan suit with a white shirt and navy striped tie that makes his blue eyes glow.”
She nods up at me, and they ladies shake their heads.
“Stop it, you’ll make him blush.” Mindy Ray, Noel’s best friend and my former college buddy walks up, pulling me into a hug.
Mindy’s in jeans and a red sweater, and her long brown hair is in a low ponytail over one shoulder. She started her own marketing business and only works part-time here now, but she still pretty much runs the place.
Stepping back, she inspects me with her arms crossed and her eyebrow raised. “Gary Cooper… hmm… I can see it. You’re a little too cocky for Mr. Cooper.”
“I’m not cocky.”
She makes a pfft sound. “You most certainly are.”
“I miss all the good stuff now,” Ms. Irene sighs.
“Did you come to see Mindy?” Miss Jessica waggles her eyebrows at the two of us, and I take a seat beside her.
“I came to see you.”
“Oh, my land, I’ve waited for this.” She puts a hand on her chest. “Cowboy, take me away!”
Shaking my head, I take the letters out of my bag. “Noel found these in an old box at the feed shed. I asked her if I could bring them to you… I think one of them might be from my grandmother.”
Her thin brow wrinkles. “Who is your grandmother?”
“Well, she was Kimberly Allen.”
The old lady’s eyebrows shoot up, and she leans back. “Oh.”
Ms. Irene scoots closer. “Kim was your grandmother?”
I’m not sure what to make of this response. “Did you know her? This letter is addressed to Winona… something.” I hold out the missive. “The rest is worn away.”
Miss Jessica takes the envelopes, sliding her fingers over them as if they’re precious relics. “I didn’t know Kim very well. She was friends with my sister Winnie. She died… oh, about twenty years ago.”
“Winnie?” I had been leaning forward, resting my forearms on my knees, but that name draws me up straight. Winona… Winnie… Was my aunt named for this lady?
“It was just a nickname. Winona Fieldstone was her married name.”
I slowly lean forward once more, nodding at the letter. “We found that, and I thought you might want it.”
She turns it over in her hands. “I don’t know why I’d want an old letter. If it’s important to you, you can have it.” She gives it to me, and I pause, thinking.
“Miss Jessica, did something happen to my grandmother? Something I might not know about?”
Her weathered hand flutters to the neck of her smock. “I have no idea what you know. Anyway, I didn’t know her very well. Like I said.”
Mindy sits on the arm of