Julia Spencer-Fleming - One Was a Soldier

Reverend Clare elbowed him. “We’re keeping our names just as they are.”

“Good idea,” Dr. Anne said, sipping a drink. “Professional identity and all that. How about you, Hadley? Is Knox your maiden name?”

Hadley shook her head. “No. It was Potts.”

Reverend Clare frowned. “Didn’t your grandfather tell me you changed your first name from Honey to Hadley?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Honey Potts,” the chief said.

“My God, that sounds like a porn star name.” Dr. Anne patted her shoulder. “You poor thing. What were your parents thinking of?”

“I suspect they were stoned when they came up with it,” Hadley said. “When do we get to do the Chicken Dance?”

“Shortly after my mother is dead and buried in the family plot,” Reverend Clare said.

Instead the guests twisted and jived and even swung to some country songs the chief had managed to sneak in past his mother-in-law. Eventually, steaming hot and out of breath, Hadley snuck out for some fresh air.

The open spaces between the inn and the tents were strung with small clear lights, giving a deceptively summerlike look to the autumn landscape. The near-freezing temperature was shocking on her bare skin, but it felt good. She tipped her head back and looked at the bright cold stars, like God’s wedding decorations. A man came out of the dance tent. Long and lean, and for a moment she couldn’t see him clearly. Then he walked toward her, and the soft light fell on his thick red hair, and she said, “Oh. Here you are.”

Here you are. As if she’d been looking for him, not avoiding him.

Flynn held out a glass. “I thought you might like something cold.”

“I’m driving, so I’m not-”

“It’s ginger ale.”

“Oh.” She took the drink. “Thanks.”

Here you are.

She was parched, she discovered. She drained the glass dry and handed it back to him.

“We haven’t danced yet.” His jacket was gone. He had loosened his tie and rolled his shirtsleeves up.

“No,” she agreed. No? Real swift. She must have left her brains inside the tent.

“I figured it was because of the work thing.” He took a step closer to her. “We’re both young, we’re both single, you don’t want people to misinterpret what’s going on.”

That sounded reasonable to her. “That’s right. Nobody ever believes you when you say you’re just friends.”

From the speaker near the tent flap, Bonnie Raitt sang, “People are talking…”

“So let’s dance out here.” He rested the empty glass against the canvas.

“Here?”

He held out his hand. “Okay. A little further away.” Some force not under her conscious control lifted her hand and placed it in his. He walked backward, away from the door, away from the lights, until they were at the edge of the field, outlined in starlight and the glow from the inn.

“Could you be falling for me?” Bonnie sang.

Flynn put his hand at the small of her back and somehow her arms went around his neck and they were swaying together in time to the whisky voice and blues guitar. Dancing with Nathan Bougeron or the cute priest hadn’t felt like this. She tried keeping younger and work and bad idea in the front of her mind, but he was so warm, and he smelled so good, and he was touching her, and all she could think of was the night they had spent together, the way his eyes had closed and he had cried out, turning his face into her shoulder.

Her body was tightening and loosening and she knew at any moment she was going to tip her face up and slide her fingers through his hair and pull him toward her-

Here you are.

– and then they were kissing, his lips soft and dry, sweet and tender, moving lightly over her cupid’s bow, the swell of her lower lip, the corners of her mouth.

“Flynn,” she gasped.

He pulled away slightly. “What?”

“Do you remember when we slept together?”

“Hadley.” He let out a huff that was almost a laugh. “I’d have to be dead to forget that.”

“Let’s do it again.”

He breathed in. He bent to her, kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her temples. “Why?”

Her eyes flew open. “Why?” She stared at him. She knew what she looked like. She wasn’t vain, she was realistic. When she invited men into her bed, they said Yes or I thought you’d never ask or Thank you Jesus. Not Why? “Because we were good together, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had sex, and here we both are.”

“Because it’s convenient, you mean?”

She could tell from his voice she had hurt his feelings. “Not just that. I like you. I’m not dating anybody else-I don’t want to date, I don’t do it anymore-” A thought stopped her. “Are you seeing someone?”

“No.” He slid his hands along her jaw and tilted her face toward him. He kissed her again, and this time there was nothing sweet about it. It was hot and hard and deep and wet. Hadley swayed against him, moaning, her knees buckling, her hands digging into his thick hair. If his arm hadn’t been braced across her back, she would have fallen open on the ground right then and there, wedding party be damned.

When he pulled away, they were both heaving for breath. “See?” she said, when she found her voice. “Good. Together.”

“I’m not seeing anyone-” He sucked in air. “Because I want to be with you.”

“You can be with me.” She deliberately misunderstood him. “Take me back to your place.” She ran her hand up his chest. His shirt was damp with sweat.

He turned her around until her back was pressed against his chest. “I want to make love to you,” he said in her ear. She shivered. “I want to go to the movies with you.” He stroked her neck, her collarbone, her shoulders. “I want to take you and your kids skiing.” He pushed her dress and strapless bra out of the way, exposing her to the cold night air. She breathed in sharply. “I want to have you over to meet my parents.” His hands were doing unbearably erotic things to her breasts. “I vant to be,” he said in an exaggerated German accent, “your boyfriend!”

She laughed, one sharp laugh that speared painfully through her. No one had ever tried to seduce her with Young Frankenstein before. Kevin Flynn was a dangerous, dangerous man. She stepped away from him, tugging her bodice back into place. She wiped beneath her eyes with her fingertips. Took a deep breath. Turned around. “I’m sorry, Flynn. This is a onetime offer.”

He was very still. Finally, he said, “We are good together, Hadley. As partners. As friends. When we’re with your children. When we’re alone.” He opened his hands. “Why won’t you give us a chance?”

“You’re too young.”

“I’m twenty-six. My dad was married with two kids when he was my age.”

“We work together.”

“So we tell the chief. Get it out in the open.”

“And when we break up? Then what happens? I have to leave the best job in town and what? Waitress? Commute an hour away from my kids every day?” The heat he had roused in her leached away. She twitched with cold.

Flynn bent down and retrieved her shawl from where it had fallen in the frost-touched grass. “Do you start every relationship with an exit plan? Or is it just me?”

She took the shawl and wrapped it around herself. “When I didn’t have an escape plan, I wound up regretting it.”

“Okay, then. If we break up, I’ll resign. I could get a job with the staties or in the Albany force, no problem.”

She laughed shortly. “You’re crazy.”

He took a step toward her. “No, I’m not. I’m just not going to assume it won’t work out between us. Hadley-” He reached out, as if he were going to take her in his arms again, then curled his hands into fists instead. “I’m sick of trying to stuff my feelings for you into an acceptable box. I like you. I respect you. I admire you. But I also love you, and it’s killing me to see you every day and not be able to be honest about that.”