“The preliminary hearing is next week,” Lisa said. “I’m not looking forward to testifying.”
“You’ll do fine,” I said. I was so relieved when the DA said she didn’t need me for the prelim, though I’d probably have to testify at the trial. “We’ll be back in time to give moral support.”
“I don’t know why Nicole doesn’t offer a plea bargain,” Lisa said.
“The DA won’t take one. She wants the death penalty,” I said. “She’s running for governor next year.”
“Good. I want to see Nicole fry,” Lisa said.
“Promise me you won’t put your life on hold waiting for it, Leese,” I said. The tattooed man was still years away from his dead man walk for murdering my family. Nicole hadn’t even been convicted yet.
“I won’t,” Lisa said. “Gotta go, hon. Brad’s on the other line.”
“Say hi to him for us.”
Us. I smiled as I logged off. J.D. and I were “us.”
The past felt like a completely different life now. Someone else’s life. These last weeks, the change of scene had worked on me like medicine. I’d let so much go. J.D. had taken me to Butchart Gardens, a place I’d wanted to see all my life. Other than that, we’d stayed here on the island. We walked in the maze, had root beer floats at the marina, attended an art gallery opening, and went whale watching.
We made love. A lot. I’d started my birth control pills again, and J.D. had himself checked for STDs. He told me he’d always been fanatical about using condoms, but he wanted me to feel secure. So what could I do but have myself checked out too? It was all so clinical and grownup of us, but the worry-free lovemaking made it worth it.
J.D. emerged from the maze carrying a basket loaded with blooms. Except for not knowing an American Beauty was a red rose, he was pretty knowledgeable about flowers. He waved and disappeared as he reached the lanai. I left the deck to go down to meet him but stopped in the bedroom. I had a better idea. Let him come to me.
I stripped off my clothes and lay down and waited. The windows were open, and I listened to the surf and the seagulls. I hadn’t realized how tired I was. We didn’t get much sleep the night before. I pulled up the sheet and closed my eyes for a few minutes.
I must have fallen asleep. I felt the warm breeze on my bare skin…and something else. Soft little somethings all over me. I opened my eyes. J.D. had covered me in rose petals.
“Well, hello there, Mr. Reider,” I said in what I hoped was a Mae West kind of voice.
He bent down and kissed me. His lips were warm, strong and soft at the same time. He set the basket aside and straddled me. He bent over me and kissed my neck and moved down to my shoulders and to the graze wound, already turning to scar tissue.
“Is it ugly?” I said.
“Never,” he murmured. “It’s a love scar. When I see it my heart contracts, and I think of how much I love you.”
“Oh, J.D. I love you too.”
He gripped my wrists and spread my arms wide and moved down to my breasts. He licked and teased a nipple and reached down between my legs. I was becoming so attuned to him that I was instantly on fire, wet and swollen with desire and need. I didn’t want to wait. I took hold of him and guided him into me, squirming with the pleasure of our bodies’ perfect fit. He drove into me, and I received him and quivered with heat and letting go.
J.D. shuddered and released himself to me. I squeezed my muscles around him and buried my face against his chest. “Oh, Nora.” He collapsed on me. I wrapped my arms around him. We lay there in silence, and I played with his hair as he fondled my breast. I was happy.
“Marry me, Nora,” he said. I wasn’t sure I heard him right, but he said it again. “Marry me now.”
“Now, this minute?” I started to make a joke—but J.D. wasn’t kidding.
“I thought you wouldn’t want a big wedding, not so soon after…..”
“You thought right.”
“We just need to be married. We can do it in Nevada. Tahoe. South Shore.” The more he talked, the more excited he got. He jumped up from the bed. “I’ll call Jennings. We can be in the air in an hour. Brad and Lisa can drive up I-50 with Stacey and meet us.”
“Why, Mr. Reider, this is so sudden.”
“I need you, Nora. I need you to be mine, and I need to be yours. I don’t want to live another day and not be your husband.”
I propped my head on an elbow while he hopped around, pulling on his pants. He stopped mid hop. “You said yes, right?”
“On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“When we get up in the air, you make me a member of the Mile High Club.”
He stood there with one foot in his pants and a big grin on his face. “Deal.”
Brad and Lisa and Stacey came up to Lake Tahoe to be our witnesses. Lisa was still on bereavement leave, and with the money from the house Stacey had quit work to get ready for school.
After we were married, J.D. and I stayed in Tahoe another week. One night I lost three thousand dollars at the blackjack tables, and J.D. didn’t blink.
“You’re Mrs. J.D. Reider, my love.” He motioned the pit boss over for another marker. “You could lose three hundred thousand, and it wouldn’t make a dent.”
“I hate that,” I said. “It’s wrong to have too much when so many don’t have enough.”
“Maybe you’ve discovered what you want to do with your life,” he said. “Use our money to make the world a better place.”
I loved him for saying our money, but I didn’t want to gamble anymore. It suddenly seemed stupid. “I want to go home, J.D.”
“As you wish.”
We planned to stay at his house until we found another place. I was glad he wanted to move. His house was huge and gorgeous, and I hated it. It had no soul. The first morning we were there, he brought me coffee in bed.
“No breakfast,” he said. “I know I promised we’d stay in for the rest of our honeymoon.”
“But?”
“But I want to take one short trip, just this morning, to give you your wedding present.”
“J.D., you’ve already given me more than enough.”
“This is the last one, I promise. It’s kind of a wedding breakfast.”
“You promise to not give me any more presents,” I said. “Why do I not believe you?”
“No more wedding presents,” he said. “In the future, they’ll be marriage presents.”
“You’re a romantic.”
“Get dressed. We’re going.”
When I got into his Range Rover, he held up a scarf and started toward my face. I backed away. “What the what?”
“It’s a surprise,” he said. “The present. I need to cover your eyes. Do you trust me?”
“With my life,” I said. And it was true.
We only drove a few minutes before he stopped. “Leave it on.” He came around to my side to help me out. He held my arm and guided me along a gravel path. I heard music playing, Say Ahh! by the Merchants of Venus. People were laughing, and could swear I smelled barbecue.
We went through a gate, and then J.D. kissed me and removed the scarf.
“Surprise!” Stacey yelled, along with Mason Brewer and Brad and Lisa and Cindy and a bunch of other people.
“Welcome home!” Lisa came down the deck stairs and gave me a hug.
We were at my house. A big hand-painted sign on the back wall said: TO THE HAPPY COUPLE! <3
“For you, Nora,” J.D. said. “I’ll always have you covered.” He handed me a deed to the house—my house—with my name on it: Nora Deven Reider, a married woman.
The next morning, I woke up in my own bed, in my own house, alone. Outside the birdies were going cheep cheep cheep, and I could hear my husband puttering in the kitchen.
My husband. I stretched and smiled and reached over the edge of the bed, looking for my piranha pajamas that had gone missing sometime in the night.
Sheila Grenmore, the woman who bought my house, had bee
n fronting for J.D. She was his mother. With all his wealth, J.D. could live anywhere, but he wanted to live here with me. He had a great idea for a wall of windows along the back deck, like in his room on the island.
I went out to get some coffee and a kiss from J.D. Jaxom Draco Reider. My husband, the dragonrider, chopper of green onions. “What are you going to do today?” he said.
“Be lazy,” I said. “Enjoy my life.” I took The White Dragon down from the bookshelf and hugged it to my chest and went outside.
On the deck I sat in the swinging chair J.D. had put up just for me. Through the kitchen window, I watched him go about the business of making omelets for our breakfast, smiling to himself with his plans for the day.
The book fell open at the place I’d marked years ago, the upper corner blasphemously turned down. I paged back to the beginning and started again, eager to get on with it.
Epilogue
J.D. finished writing his song. He played it for Nora the day they brought home their first child from the hospital:
In this sometimes impossible world
You come to meet me
Your thoughts are gentle, your heart is clear
And in this sometimes impossible world,
I do not greet you
My heart is bitter, I live in fear
I have forgotten the moon
I do not sing to the stars
I see shadows where you’ve created firelight
Showing my love scars
In this almost unbearable world,
you sing a new song
You come to free me, if I could hear.
And in this almost unbearable world
I seek a reason
To sing the old song. I cannot see
The light you bring me. I live in fear
I have forgotten the moon
I do not sing to the stars
I see shadows where you’ve created firelight
Risking more love scars
I always thought that I was left in love
Because I wasn’t
Good enough.
I don’t know what to make of
All your kind
Consistent
Affection.
Now the thought occurs that I was
Left in love
Because I wasn’t
Loved.
O! the wasted years
Pursuing heartless perfection.
In the best of all possible worlds,
You come to meet me
Your arms are open, your heart is clear
And in the best of all possible worlds,
I rise to greet you
My thoughts are loving, my heart is clear
And I will call out the moon
And you will call out the stars
And we’ll make funny little shadows in the firelight
Wearing nothing but our love scars.
Love Scars by Jaxom Draco Reider
-oOo-
Love Scars
-oOo-
I hope you enjoyed reading Nora and J.D.’s story. I’d love to know what you think! You can leave a review at Amazon or a comment on my fledgling blog. Find out immediately when the next Lark Lane story is available by signing up for email notification through the newsletter.
Love Scars – a new adult romance
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
epilogue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue