Page 51 of Butterflies and Hazel Eyes
Honey hugged me one last time. “It was great spending time with you again, Charity. I feel bad about tonight, but I’ll make it up to you.”
I waved her words away. “Don’t even worry about it. I’d rather be sure this formula doesn’t end up in the wrong hands too.” I rubbed my temple absently. “I’m invested now.”
Mathias nodded grimly, his hand going to the back of his head. “I agree.”
They grabbed the box of food and took off for the car while I tugged Mojo away from the now completely clean corncob. “Man, you must have enjoyed it, big dog,” I teased, tossing it in the garbage before I caught up to Gulliver.
“What a beautiful summer evening,” I sighed, strolling down the sidewalk. “I had a ton of fun today. Are you upset about the fireworks?”
He gave me a lip tilt. “Not even a little bit. Mathias is right, and I just didn’t think about it. I’m happy being wherever you are, so I don’t care where we watch them from. I usually don’t come down to the festival on the Fourth, but I’m glad we came today.”
I tipped my head in question. “Why don’t you go to the festival?”
He shrugged, which wasn’t easy when he was using crutches. “I guess because I didn’t like going alone. There’s nothing worse than tagging along with another couple or walking through town alone while watching all the families having fun. I stopped being able to handle it by the time I was thirty.” He was about to say more when his phone rang. He stopped and answered it, listening for a moment before assuring them he’d be there in three minutes.
His fast crutch up the street made it hard for me to keep pace with my little legs, so I jogged alongside him, Mojo at my side. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. All I know is, they need me back at the building.”
Butterfly Junction came into view, and a fire truck, ambulance, and police car were waiting in the parking lot, their lights flashing.
This didn’t look good.
♥
The cold water lappedagainst my knees, and the pebbles were rough under my feet. Lake Superior was calmer than I’d ever seen her, and I was standing on her shore, wrapped in the arms of a man who would do anything for me. He had me snuggled up against his chest, his arms around my waist to steady me, and his chin resting on the top of my head. We might only be a few steps from the business, but we still stood on the shores of the most beautiful lady in the world. As far as I was concerned, that was all that mattered. We arrived at the beach as dusk drifted to night and the fireworks were ready to fly into the sky. He had rolled my shorts up my thighs, took my hand, and pulled me into the shallows of the water. He insisted standing in the water was the only way to watch the fireworks.
I wasn’t sure we’d be watching them once we’d arrived back at the building earlier this evening. We’d feared the worst, and it turned out we had every right to feel that way. While we were out, someone tried to start a fire. That someone wore a Bill Clinton mask according to Simon, the one security team member who got a look at him.Billhad timed it out perfectly, waiting for the team to be at the front of the building before he darted in, poured gasoline along the garage, and lit it up. Simon came around the back to do his rounds and found the fire blazing dangerously close to the garage bay. Mathias had noticed the situation on his way out of town and stopped immediately, but once they talked to Chief Flats, we insisted he follow through with his plans for the night. These guys weren’t coming back around tonight, and we’d be here with the security team anyway. Somehow, after all of that, we still made it to the lake for the big show.
The Lady of the Lake was calm, but I wasn’t. Neither was he. I could sense it. We both had questions we didn’t have answers to and desires we couldn’t put into words. For now, I tried to put my questions from my mind. My face was aimed at the summer sky where rockets of red, blue, white, green, and gold were forming starbursts, smiley faces, and tendrils of fire. As soon as the sun had disappeared, he’d pointed up above the small ridge on the shoreline. Sure enough, within seconds the bursts of color began, and they were breathtaking. I’d seen fireworks dozens of times, but this was a glorious display of man-made beauty reflected in Mother Nature’s beauty. It was stunning the way the colors reflected in the lake, offering you a second show if you opened your eyes to the hidden images.
We’d been standing there long enough I was starting to shiver in the cold water. Gulliver’s lips connected with my ear, and he kissed it before he spoke. “Grand finale is coming up. Do you want to get out of the water?”
I shook my head in a daze. “When it’s over, I’ll build a fire to warm us.” While this wasn’t a super-secret beach, it also wasn’t for public use, so we were alone other than our security team at the back of the building.
When the show ended, the smell of the powder filled the air, and the haze of the explosions were momentarily burned into the night sky, the same way the memory of tonight was burned into my mind. “All I can think about is the simplicity of the complicated,” I whispered.
“Simplicity of the complicated?” Gulliver asked, his lips tucked into my chilled neck.
I motioned out to the view before us and the waves shimmering in the moonlight. “A fireworks show is complicated to execute, but to those of us watching, the simplicity is all we see. The massive formation of this lake and everything working in harmony to create its ecosystem is complicated, but all we see is the simple beauty it offers every day.”
He grasped my shoulders and turned me, then lowered his lips close to mine. “The power and depth of my feelings for you are complicated, but all I see is the beauty you offer me every day, and the simplicity of kissing you on a summer night,” he whispered, his lips closing the distance to mine. He was warm, heating me from the outside in as his tongue teased and taunted me. I leaned into him, my moan bouncing off the water in an echo of need. This man had me, and he understood how completely.
The kiss slowed, and I whimpered when he lifted his lips from mine. “You’re shivering. We need to warm you up. Let’s start a fire,” he encouraged, helping me out of the water. He grabbed his crutches that were lying in the sand and followed me to a small spot that offered us privacy from the security team.
I arranged the kindling quickly and lit it, waiting for a moment until it caught. I fanned it, encouraging the flames until I could rest bigger logs in a tepee fashion. Once it was blazing high into the sky, we sat on an old piece of driftwood up against the sand berm. Gulliver handed me a wine cooler, and we tapped bottles, both taking a long swallow of the cold liquid.
“I feel like I should be drinking coffee instead. I’m cold.” I chuckled, stretching my feet out to the fire.
“You’re the fire goddess, and you’ll be warm right quick,” he promised even as he wrapped a sweatshirt around my shoulders to ward off the chill. He rubbed my back up and down while he stretched his legs out toward the fire to dry.
I held the sweatshirt around me and leaned into him. “Fire goddess, huh? I don’t think so, but I pride myself in knowing the basic skills of survival. You never know what situation you might find yourself in when driving around the country in a motor home that’s twice as old as you are. It’s good to know how to get yourself out of any situation safely.”
“You’re right, but I still think you’re better than most at it. Did you have fun today?” he asked, kissing my forehead when I leaned into him.
I gazed up at him, noticing the gold flecks in his eyes dancing in the firelight. “Today has been the best Fourth of July in the twenty-seven years I’ve been alive. The festival, the fireworks, the fire, and you. It’s been surreal and yet...” I paused, searching for the word I couldn’t find.
“Complicated but simplistic?” he asked.
