Read Online Out of the Blues by Mercy Celeste - Free Book Online

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    “Harper. But it was Mother’s family home. She didn’t want it so Harper and I took some of the money Cody had left us and bought it from her. Harper never…” he sighed again and shook his head. I could feel the sorrow rolling off him in waves.
    “Does she still own the place?” I needed to know in case someone came out of that house with a double barrel or a pit bull.
    “She better. I told her to give me the right of first refusal if she ever thought about selling.” He looked over at me and cocked his head. “You want to go inside?”
    “Better than sitting out here freezing our asses off.” I wasn’t cold but he didn’t need to know that.
    “Close your window jackass and you won’t freeze.”
    He was out of the car before I could close my window. I followed him. My boots crunched on the dried leaves and broken shells that made up the dirt drive. “The moon is bright tonight,” he said when I joined him at the bottom step.
    “It is,” I agreed, casting a glance at him. I had to catch my breath. Mason Foxworth might be a spoiled brat of a man, but he was fucking beautiful. Too beautiful. Especially standing there with the moonlight caressing him. “Beautiful.”
    He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I waited for him to make some smart ass comment about being compared to the moon. He didn’t. “I don’t have a key. I don’t know if Harper left the spare on the back porch.”
    Was he that oblivious to how he affected me? Earlier this evening wasn’t a clue? I had to wonder if maybe I was seeing something that I shouldn’t be seeing…like his ass in those jeans that looked like they cost a fortune. I shivered. Maybe it was just me. Maybe I’d been single and alone too fucking long that I was letting some straight overgrown twink dredge up my past to the point that I was sitting on the ground trying not to freak the hell out.
    I could hear him even now. He’d call me at night when we were stationed in the states. ‘ Come over. I need to see you. Come over. ’
    That fucking song had come out the year after he died and I couldn’t listen to it. And this puppy of a man was nothing like Jonathon. He was ten years younger than Jon would be now. He was tall and slim and graceful. His hands were soft. His smile reached his eyes.
    I couldn’t remember the last time Jon had smiled. Years before he killed himself, maybe.
    I should have seen it. I should have known he wouldn’t let me see him past what he wanted me to see.
    Four years later and I was still fucked up over how he did it. He left the note to me. ‘ I’m sorry. I loved you. ’
    Loved.
    I always wondered if the period had been an afterthought. If he’d meant to leave it out. ‘ I’m sorry I loved you. ’
    The letter was just vague enough to cost me everything.
    “Are you coming?” Mason shouted from a dozen yards away. I was still standing in the driveway watching him with sightless eyes.
    “Yeah,” I said, ashamed to be caught twice with my mind gone back there.
    I shouldn’t have come here. I should pack up and go home. I’d make it by morning if I left now.
    “Come on, Kilby, I know you fucking Marines don’t have sense enough to get in out of the rain, but fuck man, it’s really starting to rain and it’s getting colder.” His voice carried through the jungle of landscape left to fend for itself.
    I looked at the sky, the moon was not yet covered by the storm cloud moving in. Somehow that felt ominous. Maybe Mason was the moon and I was the storm cloud.
    Why not? I tainted everything I touched. Why not…him.
    I wanted him. I wanted him like a starving man wanted a cheeseburger. I wanted to consume him.
    Rain splashed my face. I felt the tiny pinpricks of icy chill run down my spine and I followed him down the broken brick path between the dead primrose beds.
    * * * * *
    Mason revisits his awkward phase.
    The key wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Not that I expected it to be where I’d left it more than