He’d also saved her bacon tonight, showing up when he did. If he hadn’t, she’d have sat on that old porch swing for hours, waiting for Cain, finally dissolving into pitiful tears when she realized she’d been stood up. She would have missed the dance, her new dress would be ashes, and she’d be huddled under the covers now, feeling beyond worthless. Instead she was at the dance with the uncrowned king—and instead of being Cain’s princess, she was Woodman’s queen.
She thought back to her twelfth birthday as he grinned at her, taking her hands for another rock-and-roll song. Although Woodman had held her hand and hugged her a million times since that afternoon on the driveway when he gave her the charm bracelet, that was the first and last time that her feelings for him had edged, just a touch, into the realm of more. Until now.
For years, she’d been pining for Cain, when right smack in front of her was the whole package: Woodman, in all his golden-boy goodness, was hers for the taking.
Placing her hands on his warm face, she pulled him to her until her lips grazed his ear. “It’s so hot in here. Can we go outside?”
When she drew back, his eyes were darker and less playful, his glance flicking to her lips before he nodded. “Sure.”
Still holding her hand, he pulled her through the crowd of dancing students, stopping whenever a girl wanted to kiss his cheek or a boy wanted to shake his hand. She wondered if he’d taken her right hand by design so that he wouldn’t have to drop it, and gradually she realized that his thumb was rubbing slow, soothing circles on her skin. She concentrated on his hypnotic touch, getting lost in it, even as the music thumped and Woodman’s cheerful voice thanked every other student for his or her good wishes. Surrounded by a hundred or more moving bodies, she was aware only of him—the soft touch of callused skin, rubbing, lulling her into a simultaneous state of bonelessness and hyperawareness.
Finally he pulled her through the double doors at the back of the gym, and as they slammed solidly behind them, the cool air hit her damp skin, making her tremble. Tilting her head back, Ginger looked up at Woodman, her heart pounding, her breathing shallow and ragged.
His eyes were dark but soft—the same eyes that had annoyingly tracked her for years were now trained on her with total devotion, and she found she didn’t mind at all.
“Gin.”
“Yes,” she murmured—an answer not a question.
“Yes . . . what?” he asked, his eyes both dazed and uncertain as his arms encircled her.
She flattened her hands against his chest, which jerked under her palms with the same breathlessness she felt.
“Yes . . . Woodman.”
She heard his slight gasp of breath, saw the way his eyes slid down her cheeks to rest on her lips, felt the pressure of his arms flexing, and finally, as she closed her eyes, the featherlike touch of his lips brushing hers.
He groaned softly, pulling her closer and deepening the kiss, his lips moving insistently across hers. His tongue licked the seam of her lips, and she opened for him, letting his tongue tangle with hers as he hardened between them, his erection swelling against her belly.
And then . . .
It was over.
His lips broke away from hers, skimming her cheek as he held her tightly—almost too tightly—and buried his face in her hair. “Gin, Gin, Gin . . . oh God, baby, I knew it would be like this . . . I knew it would happen for us.”
His voice was breathless with emotion, with wonder, low and drugged, full of manly emotion that made her shiver even as she opened her eyes wide and rested her cheek on his shoulder.
“You’ll write to me while I’m gone?” he asked.
“Of course,” she whispered.
He exhaled, kissing her temple and sighing with relief. She could feel his happiness. It was profound and alive—a living, breathing thing wrapped in gratitude that surrounded them.
“Can I hold you for a while?” he asked.
“Mm-hm” was all she could manage, grateful for the silence that descended between them as he pulled her close, leaning up against the brick wall of their high school gym, with his cheek resting against her hair, just behind her princess tiara.
Woodman was grateful for Ginger.
But Ginger was grateful for the external silence because inside, her heart was in chaos.
The kiss they’d just shared? It was a good kiss. A really, really good kiss. And if it had been her first kiss, she might have even believed that it was the best kiss that life had to offer.
But it wasn’t.
She had kissed Cain.
She had kissed Cain and she knew—the way a little girl crosses the threshold to adulthood and truly begins to understand womanly things—that as much as her mind wanted to love one man, her heart would not be so easily swayed.
PART THREE
Three years later
Chapter 7
Cain