I'll Do Anything

Excerpt:
Sitting beside Cade on the top of a picnic table, Julia looked out over Hardin Lake and smiled. The evening twilight edged the sun farther toward the horizon and set the lake on fire. Cade unwrapped his deli sandwich and took a huge, manly bite before he reached behind him for a bottle of soda.

“When you asked me to dinner I had no idea this is what you had in mind,” Julia said as she unwrapped her sandwich. “I have to admit. It’s a lot better than what I’d imagined.”

“I find the privacy out here far superior to any fine dining establishment in town.” Cade polished off the rest of his sandwich in a matter of minutes while Julia took smaller, slower bites, enjoying the quiet solitude of the lake.

“I haven’t come here in a long time,” Cade murmured. He gazed at the sunset while he fingered the bottle of soda between his hands. Julia watched his thumb absently trace the lip of the bottle before she looked away. She stared at the rippling water as a shiver rippled over her skin.

“My parents and I used to come here for picnics on the Fourth of July,” she said. “My dad would barbeque and my mom would set out bowls of baked beans and potato salad. We didn’t have any other family nearby and so it was always just the three of us.”

“Where were your parents from?”

“We never talked much about their time before they moved to Hardin. Though I think that my mother’s mother lives in Pennsylvania but I haven’t ever seen or heard from her.”

Cade drew a knee up and leaned his elbow against it. The bottle dangled from two fingers in front of his chest. He turned to study Julia’s profile and she sensed his gaze roam over her hair. “She didn’t come to the funerals?”

Julia shook her head and took another bite. He tilted his head back and swallowed long and slow from the bottle. She watched his Adam’s apple slide up and down his throat and licked a bit of mayo from her lip. She was losing her appetite for food.

“Nobody came except the few friends my parents had, including your mom. I think there was bad blood between my maternal grandmother and my father. He was twelve years older than my mother.” Julia stared down at her sandwich, which she was never going to be able to eat with him sitting so near. She wrapped up the remainder of it and set it aside, then reached for her own soda.

“I suppose,” Cade said with a casual shrug, “when you’re in love it doesn’t matter.”

“Love-shmove.” Julia snorted with disgust and leaned back on her forearms. She propped both feet near her rear-end on the tabletop. Cade sent her a glance under half closed lids, his eyes roaming over her body so hotly she felt like he’d burned her. She drew in a deep breath. “More like lust.”

“That grew into love,” he said gently.

“Either way, they are both so overwhelming. Love is just a feeling yet it rules your entire body, takes over your mind and makes you believe—”

She trailed off, unable to resist looking at him anymore. His eyes were hooded as he raised the bottle to his lips. He finished it off in three quick swallows. Julia turned away.

“Lust, I can understand.” She bit her lip. “What’s scary is that they are so alike. A body can’t tell which is which while in the throes of one or the other.”

“Have you ever been in lust?” Cade set his empty bottle on the table and leaned back on one elbow. He was eye to eye with her and they were both reclining on a flat surface. Julia tried to think of the question.

“Not really.” She was terrified he could hear her heart thudding inside her chest. He was so close she saw the golden tips of his long lashes. Did she always know that he had a small cowlick over his right brow?

“Then it’s safe to assume that you’ve never been in love, either?”

She couldn’t tear her eyes from his now. His lazy scrutiny of her face made her breathless.

“You’ve never wanted to touch a man so badly that your soft skin burned hot?” Cade’s voice had dropped to just above a whisper. He was not touching her, but Julia felt him all over her body. She shook her head weakly.

“You’ve never wanted to kiss a man so much that you watched his lips move when he talked, wondering how he would taste?”

Julia exhaled slowly, unaware she had been holding her breath. “No,” she whispered, her eyes dropped to his lips. They were curved into a seductive smile.

“Lust isn’t so bad,” he whispered. He leaned toward her. “It’s damn fun to be in lust.”