Can't Get Enough (Skyland, #3)(114)

“Good.” I fold my arms and inspect their work. “Doctor said you’re recovering very well, Mama, but we don’t want you to end up back in the hospital.”

“I’m fine.” Mama waves a dismissive hand. “I’ve let this go too long. You know that Mrs. Mayer so nosy. Always poking her head over my fence in my business. Trying to see what I’m doing. Next time she looks over here, she gon’ see my ranunculus coming back.”

“Your mom said she might even enter them into the floral contest next year,” Maverick says, walking over to me and wrapping one strong arm around my waist. He drops a kiss to my forehead and searches my face. “You good, Gorgeous?”

Heart check.

Do I regret choosing him? Hell, no.

I lean into his arm and let a new peace and fresh acceptance settle over me.

“Never better.”





Later that night, Mama’s upstairs in her room. I’m not sure if she’s asleep because her insomnia is always so bad. Sometimes she walks for hours, but I don’t hear her tonight and I hope she’s at peace. Aunt Geneva ate and praised Mama’s leftovers. Now she’s catching up on Love & Marriage: Huntsville.

Once the house is quiet and night falls, Maverick and I take what’s left of Mama’s sweet potato pecan pie out to the porch and sit on the front step. Our legs are flush together and the pan rests on the curve of our knees.

“I never would have guessed you grew up in a place like this,” Maverick says, scooping out a hunk of pie.

“Like what?” I turn my spoon around on my tongue and tap my head to his. “Country?”

“Charming. Quiet. Small.” He shrugs. “You’re so bold and boisterous and sophisticated.”

“Grounded,” I add. “I always think that I can fly high because I know where I came from. My family are good people, and I may not be all up in church twice a week the way Mama and Aunt G are, but they taught me humility as much as they did confidence. They taught me how to fight and how to find peace.”

“Your mom is pretty fantastic. Your aunt Geneva, too.”

“I wish you could have met my father, and I wish I could have met your mom.”

“I’ve been thinking about that all day, actually.” He balances the pie pan on our knees more securely and links our hands between us. “I also wish I didn’t have to leave tomorrow.”

“It’s only Japan.” I bump his shoulder and smile. “Hop, skip, jump.”

He cups my face and lowers my head to his shoulder, kissing my hair.

“I’ll miss you, Hen.”

His words water my dry places.

“I’ll miss you, too.” I turn my head to catch and hold his gaze. “I talked to Zere today.”

He stiffens, but then relaxes against me, pulling our linked hands up to his lips. “What’d she say?”

“She doesn’t want to work with me.”

A muscle flexes along the line of his jaw and he draws a sharp breath. “I was really hoping she wouldn’t say that.”

“Yeah, so was I, but I think I’m okay with it.”

He studies my face closely. “You are? You resenting me or regretting doing this? Us?”

“If I said yes, would you let me go?”

A smile brackets lines in his lean cheeks. “Hell, no.”

I lean forward to kiss him, hoping the depth, the hunger of it tells him all the things I’m not ready to say. That I’d choose him again and again. That I feel safer with him than any man I’ve ever been with. That when I’m in his arms, even though it’s soon and fast, choosing him feels like choosing me because sometimes I’m not sure where he ends and I begin. I never knew I could be completely my own person and completely someone else’s, but that’s the beautiful dichotomy of being with Maverick.

Are these the things other women thought before they gave too much away? Before they sidelined their ambitions and dreams for a skipped heartbeat? I’ve always guarded against this level of vulnerability, but Maverick makes me want to give him so much because it’s clear how much he wants to give to me. There is a reciprocity to us that’s been missing before.

Maybe when this man says let’s be good to each other, he really means it.





CHAPTER 44





HENDRIX


Let’s hear it for the girls!” Soledad sings in the tune of the classic Deniece Williams hit, brandishing her fist-mic in Mama’s driveway.

From the front porch, watching Soledad, Lupe, Yasmen, and Deja unload Yasmen’s SUV, I could cry. I’m so glad they’re here, even if it’s only for a few hours. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed them until my eyes started prickling with tears as soon as they pulled up.

“Isn’t it supposed to be ‘let’s hear it for the boy’?” I laugh, discreetly wiping under my eye.

“Ewwww, boys,” Lupe says. “We’re off boys for now, Aunt Hen.”

“Speak for yourself,” Yasmen says, locking the car and walking up the driveway. “I’m very much still on your daddy, Deja.”

“You see the level of cringe we’ve been dealing with this whole trip?” Deja scrunches her face into teenage disgust. “They’ve been like this ever since they picked us up from campus.”