The Road to Bayou Bridge

Renny shook her head as something much heavier replaced the desire brewing inside her. It felt like she’d reached the zenith of the world’s highest roller coaster and the track tilted south. “Oh, God, we got married.”

CHAPTER FOUR

DARBY WATCHED THE EMOTIONS dance across Renny’s face—dawning, incredulity, anger, and then confusion. All the same things he felt nearly two weeks ago when he’d found the marriage certificate among his old papers.

“How? It wasn’t legal.”

Her question was the simplest of questions, but he didn’t have a good answer. “I don’t know. Somehow the license was filed. I’m checking into that, but hold on a sec—”

He went back to where he’d laid the boxes, picked up a manila envelope she hadn’t seen earlier and gave it to her.

Renny pulled the document from its sheath and studied it with a little crinkle in her forehead. He sank back into the chair he’d abandoned and waited.

“This is official? Not a joke?”

“Who would have forged a marriage certificate and mailed it to me at Winston Prep?”

She shrugged. “I don’t understand. That boat captain was drunk and there wasn’t really anything official about it. I don’t even remember signing this.”

“But it’s my signature, and if I’m remembering correctly, that’s yours. Whatever may have happened, somehow we ended up married.”

Renny slumped back in her chair, fork abandoned in the half-eaten pasta, and rubbed her face. “This is crazy.”

“Yeah. More than a little.”

She sat up straight. “Oh, my God! What if one of us had gotten married...had kids?”

“That would have been...awkward. Guess that’s a silver lining in all this. We both stayed single...or rather secretly married.”

The sound of the chair scraping against the floor jarred him. Renny launched herself from the table, whipping up his empty container along with her empty wineglass, and headed toward the kitchen. “I can’t deal with this right now. This is nuts.”

He didn’t move, because he knew she needed time to process. Likely she was in the kitchen trying not to hyperventilate. Maybe he should go check on her, but that didn’t feel like the thing to do. She needed space—from him. Her cat curled in and out through his outstretched legs and purred. Any other time, he’d have reached down and given it a pat, but he didn’t feel friendly toward any creature at the moment, so he jerked his legs away and shooed the long-haired cat away.

The sound of glass breaking in the kitchen made him leap to his feet.

“Damn it.” Her words sounded tinged in tears. Or hysteria. He wasn’t sure which but neither was good.

He nearly tripped over the cat as he hurried to the kitchen. A yowl later, he found Renny standing at the sink with a broken wineglass in one hand, her other under the faucet.

“You okay?”

“No.” She held up a hand and studied the blood streaming down her finger and dropping into the ceramic sink. “I cut my finger.”

“Here,” he said, taking her wrist in his hand and studying the gash on her pointer finger. No slivers of glass and no need for stitches. “Don’t think we’ll have to go to the hospital. Let’s put pressure on it.”

He grabbed a clean white towel from the half-open drawer next to the sink and wrapped her finger in it, holding it firmly to stop the bleeding. Renny studied his hand curled around hers, reverting to careful observation like any good scientist. He followed her gaze and noticed their two left hands were linked together and wondered about her thoughts.

“Better?” he asked, dropping his voice to a lower, softer register.

Renny shrugged and lifted her brown eyes to meet his gaze. The emotions pooling within the depths socked him hard in the solar plexus and sucked him back in time. How many times had he looked into those eyes? How many times had he smelled that scent that was hers alone? How many times had he bent his head to hers? Too many to name. Déjà vu blanketed him, covering him in memories, forcing him to remember how much he’d once loved this woman.

“Renny,” he breathed, exhaling her name like a prayer. He didn’t want to want her with such intensity. But he did.

“Don’t,” she whispered, stepping back.

But he couldn’t help himself.

Old feelings had tumbled down, slamming into them both. He could see the same in her eyes—the want, the confusion, the desire.

He lowered his head and caught her lips as he’d done so many times before. Her slight intake of breath only invited him further.

Ah, sweet, sweet Renny.

“Darby,” she whispered, before closing her eyes and surrendering. He needed no further invitation. He slid his free arm around her waist, trapping her between him and the sink, and deepened the kiss.

Something slammed him for a second time. Raw desire. The kind with hooks that latched tight and refused any rational thought. Damn. She tasted so good. Like Louisiana spice. Like all things good, sweet and bitter. She tasted like home and he couldn’t get enough of her.

“Mmm,” he groaned as he slid his free hand up to cup her jaw, angling her head so he could draw in more of her essence, more of some elixir he couldn’t name but was so good it made him forget the man he’d become.

Renny’s hand fisted in his shirt and she gave as good as she got. He felt her hand relax and then the brush of her fingertips on his jaw and something more ignited in him. He wanted her beneath him, naked, open to him. He wanted—

She broke the kiss. “Stop. This is—”

Her eyes closed and she shook her head, sliding to the side, tugging her injured hand from his grasp. Her shallow breaths accompanied his as he inwardly shook himself.

What had he done?

Never should have gone down that path. Her taste had struck a match in him, undoing what years of repression had given him—some kind of closure or peace with how they’d left things.

All that had been destroyed with one little kiss.

Her eyes opened and her gaze met his. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, we shouldn’t have,” he said, moving away from her, resting his backside against her oven range. “Guess old feelings came back and I got carried away. Won’t happen again.”

Something flickered in her eyes, but he didn’t want to acknowledge exactly what that was. He wasn’t living in the past. He was very much in the future with a new path set out before him. A path that included a prestigious law firm, rain-soaked Saturdays in out-of-the-way cafés, and a teacher with soft blond hair and a weakness for chocolate.

Not a golden-skinned biologist with hair the color of café au lait and kisses addictive as caramel candy. Not Louisiana with its curling bayous, graceful oaks and soulful vibrations wrapping around him like the roots hidden beneath the fertile soils. He was done with Renny and Louisiana.

Something he needed to remember before he went planting his lips where they didn’t belong.

“Good,” she said, dragging her wrist across her lips as if she could wipe the taste of him away. He didn’t fail to notice her hands trembled. She’d been more affected than she wanted to admit.

But so had he.

“So what do we do now?” Her words were cold water down his back.

“About the kiss?”