love in the backseat of his car.
He still considered it the highlight of his life. Despite every nightmare he’d ever heard about virgins and first times for girls being painful, Haley’s experience had apparently been just the opposite. If she had suffered, she’d never said a word.
What she had done was laugh when it was over and ask to do it again. That was the moment that had sealed it for him. How could a guy go wrong with a girl that amazing? Everything he’d done since revolved around how to make their lives better.
Now, here he was, two years of college behind him and within weeks leaving for a bigger college on the other side of the country. Living in California would put him in virtual isolation from Haley for two long years. All this time he’d been waiting for her to grow up and catch up, and now they were about to be divided by time and space. It was hard to be elated about his college prospects without her at his side.
Oddly enough, it had been Haley who’d urged him to go. The joy in her voice had been evident the day they’d picnicked at Willow Lake. As he waited for the coast to clear so he could sneak into the gym, he thought of it again, as he had every day since it happened.
Willow Lake, just outside Stars Crossing, was a hot spot in the summer. But Mack and Haley had their special place that no one knew about: a tiny inlet between two heavily wooded areas that no one ever went to. And so he’d taken her there by boat, wanting everything to be perfect when he gave her the news about his scholarship….
“Today is gorgeous,” Haley said, as Mack ran the boat aground and then helped her out.
“Just like you,” Mack said, eyeing her long tan legs and slender body beneath the jean shorts and T-shirt she was wearing.
Haley grinned. “Are you angling for something besides a fish?”
Mack chuckled. He loved her sense of humor almost as much as he loved her.
“I wouldn’t angle. I’d just come right out and say it, and you know it.”
“Okay, okay. I was just teasing, anyway,” Haley said. “Bring the food. I’ve got the blanket. I’m starving. Are you?”
“Always,” he said softly, watching the sway of her hips as she walked ahead of him.
A few moments later they had the blanket spread out in “their spot”—a large open space beneath the overhanging limbs of a giant weeping willow. Haley sat cross-legged on the blanket, poking through the picnic basket as Mack dug through the small ice chest for cold drinks to go with their food.
Soon they were eating their way through subs and chips, and washing it all down with cold lemonade, but it didn’t take long for her to realize he had something on his mind. And Haley, being Haley, didn’t mince words.
“What’s up, and don’t say ‘nothing,’ because I know better than that.”
Mack sighed, then wiped his hands on his jeans and put his leftover stuff backinto the picnic basket. She knew him well enough to know that if he wasn’t eating, it couldn’t be good. She dumped her own leftovers back in the basket, as well, and then leaned forward.
“Talk to me,” she said.
Mack took a deep breath, then almost smiled. “Part of it is good news. I’ve accepted an offer to play quarterback at UCLA for my last two years of college. It’s a full-ride scholarship, so Mom and Dad are off the hook. I couldn’t turn it down.”
She surprised him then, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him with all her might.
“Oh, Mack! That’s fantastic! Why were you nervous to tell me?”
“Because it means two years away from you,” he said.
“It’ll be okay, Mack. You’ll graduate from UCLA, probably get drafted into the NFL, which is something you’ve always wanted. And two years down the road, if you still want me, I’ll be here.”
“Want you? Are you crazy?” Mack muttered.
That was when he’d laid her down in the grass and, in the bright light of day, stripped them both naked and slid between her legs.
Mack paused only once to look down at the girl beneath him—at the spill of her long dark hair, her Angelina Jolie lips and the green fire in her eyes—and then he started moving.
Haley sighed as he filled her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him deeper without taking her gaze from his face. He knew she liked to watch his changing expressions as they made love, though what she saw in his square face, straight nose and wide-set blue eyes, he didn’t know. Once, she had called him beautiful. His pleasure had been an instant turn-on for them both—just like the passion he could see on her face now.
The sun was warm on their bodies, even though they were shaded by the sweep of willow branches brushing the ground. Birds were chirping in nearby trees, as if spreading the word of their union. A turtle slid off a rock and into the water only yards away, but neither one of them heard or cared. Right now, it was all about the moment and the feeling, the rhythm of making love.
Moments turned into a minute, and then another, and another, when all of a sudden he sensed Haley’s focus begin to shift and he knew she was about to lose control. That was all it took.
Suddenly he stiffened, then groaned.
Haley gasped, then closed her eyes as his thrusts became harder and faster, and arched upward to meet him as a gut-deep moan slipped out from between her lips.
It was all Mack had been waiting for. With one last heroic thrust, he came … showering his seed into her womb in a powerful and continuous burst, then collapsing on top of her, a sweating, quivering mass of muscle. He couldn’t have moved at that moment if he’d tried.
“Haley, Haley … I love you, so much. So much. How am I going to live without this … without you … for the next two years?” Then he began to rain kisses all over her face.
It was then he heard the catch in her breath and knew she was crying.
“Haley, baby … please don’t cry,” he whispered.
Haley laughed, though he thought it didn’t sound entirely convincing.
“I’m not crying,” she said. “I’m just trying to breathe.”
“Oh. Sorry,” he said, and rolled so that his weight was no longer on top of her.
Haley hid her face against his chest and—
Suddenly a horn honked. Mack jumped, his daydreaming brought to an abrupt end. When he realized the Shores were no longer in sight, he got out of his car and started inside. Within seconds, people were stopping him and congratulating him on his news.
“Hey, hey, hey … look who’s here! It’s Mack! Heard your news, son. We’re wishing you all the best in L.A. Don’t let all those pretty movie starlets turn your head now, you hear?”
Mack grinned. Milt and Patty House owned the local newspaper, and Mack’s first job had been delivering papers for them.
“I’ll sure try,” Mack said,
