The day Rory had put the chain on her wrist, the one she was still wearing for school nights and keeping in her pocket or by her bed other times, her mind had shot right to those discussions. Apparently, the seeds Julie had planted had been doing some serious growing since then.

  “Some. Julie has talked about it,” she said. “I really don’t know much about it except what I’ve heard from her.” And felt.

  “This is a private party of that sort.” He ran a hand up and down her back. “Daralyn, what you and I have been doing…exploring. A lot of it has to do with that. I don’t know if you realize that. I didn’t really, until I did, if that makes sense. And then Marcus…”

  He bit that off, but she nodded. “That makes sense, talking to Marcus. Since he and Thomas are that way.”

  He tipped up her chin, his eyes on hers. “You knew that? How did you know that?”

  She colored a little, but was glad he was aware. She wasn’t forced to choose between Thomas and Marcus’s privacy and answering his question. “I clean their house, share meals with them. I’m around them…a lot, and I’ve noticed things.”

  Things that had clicked into place when she heard Julie discuss the structure of a Dom/sub relationship.

  “They don’t do things in front of you.” He shot her an ominous look, which she was hasty to answer.

  “No, of course not. It’s just…it’s there. Like finding something because you know where to look.”

  His eyes flickered, and he slid his fingers along her cheek, then down to her throat, her collarbone. As he stroked, the pressure of his fingers had her chin lifting, her breath shortening. He watched every reaction passing over her face, and his lips curved in a sensual way that sent butterflies through her lower belly. “Yeah. I can see that. You’re always surprising me, you know that?”

  Before she could answer, he kissed her again, in his wonderfully lingering way, his mouth playing over hers, stroking, caressing. She leaned into it, her own breath feathering out. He’d never kissed her with his hand still around her throat. As he increased the grip, a tiny noise came from her. He drew back, their eyes still so close. “You like that. I can tell. When I collar you with my hand. Hold you still in my palm.”

  She didn’t have to speak, because he saw the answer. “We’ll go to that party,” he said. “It might give us other good ideas to explore.”

  He released her with a playful smile the right side of dangerous, but brought her back close to his side, letting her rest her head on his chest again. He slid his touch down to the curve of her hip, fingers stroking her buttock.

  “Will it be lots of people?” she asked after another pause.

  “Marcus said it’d be a few dozen couples, spread out on the grounds of this big plantation house.” He squeezed her. “We’re not going to do anything you don’t want to do. If you’re worried about how to tell me that, don’t. I’ll be paying attention, so I’ll know what those things are, even if you don’t tell me. I expect we’ll mostly be watching. I’m learning about this stuff, too.”

  But images kept swirling in her head, strong ones. The chain around her wrist, the way Rory took her over…the bite of the hammock ropes against her legs. She wanted to go. She opened her mouth to say it, but nothing came out.

  That was okay. He’d said they were going.

  “So,” he said, after another few minutes of gently rocking in the hammock, listening to the breeze and the birds. “That book you brought. How about you read it to me? Does it have pictures?”

  She smiled. “It doesn’t. But the words create some pretty powerful ones.”

  “Words will do that.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  His diligent care of the wound had done its job. The threat of a fever vanished, and by the time the day to leave for Florida came, the possibility that they’d have to cancel their trip had passed. The stitches had only recently been removed, meaning he’d still have to take extra care with the area, but he could handle that.

  So here they were, Daralyn in the passenger seat of his van, on a sunny day perfect for traveling and adventure.

  She’d brought books she could read to him, and snacks. They’d made a stop at the roadside stand of a Gullah basket weaver outside Charleston, because his mother had asked them to buy her a couple baskets. Then on to Georgia, where he pulled off at Huerta’s, a produce place Mrs. Beatrice had recommended from her frequent trips to Florida to see her daughter.

  The proprietors also operated the landscaping business next door, which included retail plant sales and a veritable field of lawn ornamentation. As Rory talked to Huerta, a fellow family businessman whose employees were his wife and adult kids, he watched Daralyn move through concrete statues of whimsical pigs and naked Grecian figures. When she discovered the fairy garden Huerta’s wife had created among an arrangement of potted ferns, she squatted on her heels and studied it, a delighted smile on her face.

  Her excitement about the trip, her pleasure now, had eased a concern inside him, raised by his mother and Thomas. They’d reminded him this was the first time Daralyn had traveled this far from home, since she’d come to live with them.

  During the first couple hours on the road, he’d asked her about it. “Are you okay? You don’t seem nervous.”

  “No.” She smiled at him. “I’m with you.”

  When he saw Huerta watching him with a knowing grin on his face, he offered a wry smile and paid for the peaches he’d picked out.

  “She’s a pretty girl,” Huerta said. “You’re a fortunate man.”

  “In every way,” Rory responded.

  He guessed some men might get embarrassed about being so caught up in a woman, but he wouldn’t be one of them. He’d be far more of an idiot for denying himself the pleasure of getting lost in her, the expressiveness of her face, the messages her body language sent. He was conscious of everything around her, too, from a crack in the pavement that could cause her to stumble, to each person who crossed her path. Dr. Taylor was right. He was protective, but he was conscious enough of it not to get carried away. Mostly.

  He thought about what Will had said, about working on himself first, making sure he was someone worth being in a relationship with. Today he had even more reasons to be glad he had taken the steps that led to his comfort with this trip, being able to watch over Daralyn, help reinforce that she could count on him while she was with him.

  On his first trip with the adaptive challenge group, Bud, a quadriplegic, had been driving the ten-passenger van. When he pulled up in front of the store, all the passengers had been carrying on like his football team going to an away game. They hung out the windows and hollered at him, as if Rory coming with them was the highlight of the trip.

  Everyone on the bus had some kind of SCI. Not one of them had been scared or soaked with sweat over it, though, while he’d been both, enough he couldn’t hide it.

  But it had been okay. Instead of making a big deal of it, once they got him settled, they started talking to each other, recounting their first forays into independence, the missteps, embarrassments, the stuff that could happen. They joked about it the way he might have when he was way younger and doing the craziest shit on his dirt bike with his buddies, all of them trying to outdo one another on wipeouts and stunts.

  Somewhere during that trip, he’d started to relax. Even more importantly, he’d started looking beyond merely coping to actually living again.

  Being around the others had told him he didn’t have to plow that road by himself, or even plow the road at all. Others, including the members of that group, had plowed, surfaced and paved it. They’d made the journey way smoother for him—and a lot less frightening and lonely. He loved his family more than anything, but they couldn’t give him that. Which finally had him understanding why all those people in his court—family, friends, medical team— had pushed so hard for him to get involved with the disabled community.

  Before he’d taken that step, he’d resisted, accused them of terrible stuff like not wanting him around, wanting to unload the burden that he’d become. The shame he often felt about his behavior back then made him wish he could think of some way to make it up to his family, even as he knew that him finally getting past that bullshit had been the best way to do it.

  Eventually, he’d been confident enough to make a trip on his own. The group had been headed to West Virginia for a weekend of paddle boarding. He hadn’t been able to get away from the store on the day they departed, but he could join them a day later. So with the van he’d acquired only a few months before, he’d driven himself up there on his own.

  Yeah, he’d been scared, but with every mile that passed beneath the van’s wheels, fear slipped away, replaced by sheer fucking joy. It was the first time since the accident he’d been away from home, on his own, without anyone to watch over him. The freedom of that was indescribable.

  He loved being home, at the store, but since then, he took his travel times as a vital reaffirmation. He could be on his own and be okay.

  He hoped this trip was giving Daralyn some of the same gifts. As he watched her pick up a tiny figurine, two hedgehogs on a seesaw, placed under a garden of colorful ceramic mushrooms, he wondered if she felt some of the same ebullience. She wasn’t on her own, but she was traveling, seeing new things, and absolutely safe to spread her wings as far as she wanted. He’d make sure of it.

  He asked Huerta how much the hedgehog and a half dozen of the mushrooms were, and paid for them. When she came back to him empty-handed and he told her to go back and get them, she’d bounded away like a deer.

  “These will go over so well in the store,” she said as they returned to the van, the figurines carefully wrapped and tucked into a store bag. “I bet people will snap them right up.”

  “They probably will,” he agreed. “But those are yours.”

  “Oh, you didn’t have to…I could have bought them with my money.”

  “Yeah, you could have. But I wanted to buy them for you. So hush up about it and get in the van.”

  His mock stern look made her smile and look away. Which meant after he held her door for her, he pushed himself closer, tugged her down by her ponytail to kiss her mouth. Her hazel eyes were bright.

  “I’m having a really good day,” she said impulsively.

  “Me too.” He gave her hair an additional tug and then closed the door.

  Once they were back on the road, his phone rang. Seeing the name on the display, he shot Daralyn a smile and clicked the button on his steering wheel to answer. “Hey, Julie.”

  “Oh my God, I’m so excited.” Her vivacious voice, her fast New York way of talking, filled every available space in the van in a heartbeat. He and Daralyn exchanged another twinkling look. “It’s total fate, you know it is. What are the chances you guys would be in Florida at the same time Des and I are down here? Hey, there’s a street festival tomorrow. Tyler says if we go first thing in the morning, about ten o’clock, it’s not really crowded. We can wander around, then grab lunch. He also says there’s a food truck that sells the best organic stuff you’ve ever tasted. Party’s not until the evening, so there’ll be plenty of time for you to recuperate.”

  She paused. “Are you still there?”

  “Just waiting for you to run out of oxygen,” Rory said. “No wonder Des is such a quiet guy.”

  She laughed. “On the things that matter, he’s very good at making himself heard. I can’t apologize for being excited. I am so jazzed about you two being there. Daralyn, is he behaving himself and being a good travel companion? Allowing bathroom breaks rather than making you hold it for the entire drive?”

  “Yes,” Daralyn responded, sending Rory a smile. “He’s been wonderful. We bought baskets outside Charleston and just left a produce stand. He got me ice cream.”

  “Our Rory? The cranky guy? Are you sure? You must be traveling with someone else.”

  “I’m hanging up on you,” Rory informed the caller. “I don’t have to take this abuse in my own vehicle.”

  Julie laughed, then her tone became more serious. “Really, I’m tickled you two will be at the party. Will you be staying at one of Tyler’s guesthouses?”

  “He offered, but Brick has a fishing cottage down that way. Thought I’d do some fishing while I was there.”

  “Brick,” Julie mused. “Isn’t that your old high school teammate? The seriously built guy who helped you with the Christmas tree shipment last year, when he was visiting his mom? Ooh, the fireman?”

  “He did help. I wouldn’t call him built. Those muscles are all show.” He glanced over to see Daralyn’s smile. “What? You got something to say?”

  The smile vanished, but the sparkle in her eyes remained. “No, Rory,” she said solemnly.

  “Yeah, right.”

  Julie laughed. “Don’t let him bully you, Daralyn. Des is giving me the stink eye right now. The Powers That Be gave women eyes to notice these things. Not men, though. Our men are only supposed to have eyes for us. Oh, gotta go. My stage manager is calling, and I better see what the crisis is about. I’ll shoot you the deets on the street fair and you can text me if you want to go. Love you both. Drive safe.”

  She clicked off, leaving Rory chuckling. “How many words did we get in there?”

  Daralyn’s smile returned, but her eyes were thoughtful.

  “What?” he asked.

  “She said ‘our men.’ It made me think of Amanda.”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s been a good friend to you. I didn’t really realize that, until recently.”

  He wasn’t sure where she was headed with the comment, but that appeared to be it. She subsided, returned to watching the passing scenery. At the next stop light, he re-captured her hand and rubbed a thumb over her palm, drawing her attention. “Daralyn?”

  “Yes?”

  “I am your man. A hundred percent.”

  Her hand tightened over his and she nodded, gazing down at it. He didn’t say any more. Even though it was sometimes difficult to tell with her, she looked okay with that declaration, not troubled.

  He’d learned to wait her out. Watching and listening often told him what she needed. Time. It was usually all that was needed to prove to her the words meant something real.

  Brick had assured him the place was a cottage, not a stinky fishing shack only suitable for male friends wanting a weekend of beer swilling, fishing and peeing off the back porch.

  “I have a property manager,” he’d told Rory. “Preps it before I have guests or am coming myself. No ramps though, bro. I’ll look into fixing that before your next visit.”

  “How many girls have you brought there? Do I need to hose the place down?”

  “Naw. Property manager handles that, too. Probably has to wear a haz-mat suit, but…”

  “Ass wipe.”

  The conversation had satisfied him that Daralyn would be comfortable there. As for the ramp, all he’d needed was a heads up. Rory had brought a portable aluminum one Brick had said would be long enough to ascend the three short steps to the porch. He’d told Rory not to hesitate to screw it to the boards if he wanted to do so.

  The cottage was as Brick had described it, a smallish place with neat blue wood siding, a tin roof and wraparound porch. There were a couple flower boxes in front. Sago palms and a scattering of begonias populated the natural areas clustered around the base of mature palm trees. The place looked welcoming to a woman, but not too fussy for a man with Brick’s tastes.

  The marsh area out back was at high tide, the sun starting to set, creating a mellow gold and silver sky, reflected in the water. After he and Daralyn put their few items inside, they sat on the back screened porch and watched the sun crack on the horizon. She moved her chair closer to him so he could put an arm around her. With her leaning against him, he couldn’t help but think what it would be like to have this experience forever, the two of them in their own home. Being a family.

  The only shadow on that thought came from his recollection of the brief call he’d made to Dr. Taylor, after the hammock afternoon. He’d learned the truth about Daralyn’s statement about children.

  “Childhood stress and trauma, particularly chronic sexual abuse, can have a very strong impact on fertility,” the doctor had told him. “And as we discussed, there were times her uncle wasn’t as restrained as her father was. Daralyn has some physical damage to the reproductive system that may have been from that.”

  She’d paused. “As far as adoption, until she demonstrates a far higher degree of socialization than she currently does, she wouldn’t be approved as a prospective parent, even with my recommendation, which I would certainly give when I feel she’s ready for that step. Now, if she marries someone who meets their requirements, that could help things. But…”

  He’d smoothly filled in the blank. “I’m paralyzed, and whether or not they’ll admit it, the two sets of factors added together wouldn’t put us at the top of the list.”

  Even a healthy paraplegic who took care of himself knew the biases, which unfortunately were fed by the facts associated with the passage of time. He’d likely need a power chair at some point, because he’d have degeneration in his shoulder joints. He could also develop complications related to the simple fact the internal organs and systems were not designed for a human to spend his life sitting on his ass.

  All of which were potential risks, not certain ones, and even if they happened, they could be managed. He was just as capable of being a parent as anyone else. He'd just have to educate the right people and agencies when and if the time came.

  “It’s a surmountable obstacle,” he said. “And it’s not anything we’re looking at right this minute.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I just want you to be prepared, if it comes to that. But Rory, when and if it happens, you can count on me to be in your corner and Daralyn’s.”

  That was good to know. Because he loved what his parents had, what they’d built. He wanted it, too. And it was more on his radar than he’d admit to anyone except himself.