CountryCore Series: Sweet Lavender (WLW)

There's Something I Have To Tell You

This chapter contains themes of violence.

Aster sat down on the couch in her parents' living room and watched as Cricket dried out her damp hair with a kitchen towel. With the awning in need of desperate repairs, she'd caught the first dregs of rain along her head and shoulders as she stood confessing her heart for her from the other side of the front door. Now, she looked even more gorgeous than Aster's memories as beads of water danced along her tanned skin. They disappeared down her cleavage and out of sight just past her snap buttoned flannel. Aster swallowed down her immediate hunger as Cricket dropped to her knees in front of her.

She rested her arms along the couch cushions beneath her until her hands locked at her backside and dropped her face into her lap. "There's so much I need to tell you that I've kept to myself for years, but I can't anymore. Not if it means you don't understand just how much you mean to me, Aster."

"I know, but--"

Cricket sat up and placed a finger on her lips. "Hold on. If I don't say all of this while I still have the momentum, I may lose this confidence. And you know that's never been particularly easy for me to keep when being so..."

Aster lowered her hand and held it along her chest. "Vulnerable."

"Exactly." Cricket held onto her hand and ran her eyes over her face with a gulp. "Back when I first realized I had feelings for you, it wasn't just that you were Lyle's little sister. You were younger than me. True, it wasn't even a full two years difference, but I always worried it may mean more than it did. Then Claire got into my head and I let her. I shouldn't have.

"When you turned fourteen, do you recall the dance class we took?" Aster nodded as she brought her hand down into her lap and began drawing soothing circles along the back with her thumbs. "Well, that was when Claire realized the way I look at you. According to your brother, as stern as I tried to appear toward you, there was always something else lingering in my eyes." Cricket released a wry chuckle and shook her head. "He's entirely too perceptive, you know that?"

"I lived with him, so what do you think?" They both giggled and Aster loosed one of her hands from hers, rubbing the backs of her knuckles along her glowing cheek.

As Cricket leaned into the caress, she closed her eyes and it appeared as if her innermost thoughts were coming to life. "Either way, both he and Claire noticed the way I looked at you as we danced. That evening, Claire gave me a mouthful while we walked through the lavender fields and for the first time in my life, they felt joyless. That happened again when you left after your graduation pool party.

"I'd walk the fields, but they never held the same significance as in the past. Not until you came home." Cricket looked right into her eyes and arched her brow. "To my home. It was a place that I knew by heart, but honestly felt like someone else's home entirely. I'd never felt so out of touch with those lavender fields, then you walked onto them and it was like all the life they held was amplified. You worked your way into every corner of my life all over again and the damn promise I should have never made became less and less important the longer time went on.

"I don't regret making love to you, though I do wish I could have made our first time more special." Cricket sat back and pulled her arm from around Aster, then reached into her pocket. "I thought, if you wanted to leave and needed that space, that security, then maybe I could give it to you if I cleaned out the guest house like you originally suggested."

"I thought that would be too hard for you, Cricket?" Aster bounced her hand in her lap and she sent her a crooked grin.

"Not anymore. I walked in and just started cleaning things off of the shelf without even really thinking about it. But then I found this." Cricket pulled a piece of folded paper from her pocket that was pretty well drenched and grumbled something inaudible under her breath. "Well, I was goin' to read it, but I guess that ain't possible now."