Love Overdue

by Pamela Morsi

  As soon as the words were out, Amos obviously recognized the unwitting double entendre. He opened his mouth to try to pull the comment back, but was struck speechless.

  A full half minute of embarrassed silence dropped down on the group like a heavy blanket. Amos looked like a deer in the headlights. D.J. couldn’t even sneak a glance at Scott.

  Suddenly Jeannie broke the spell with a big guffaw. “That’s the truth, Amos. Us gals are always game for a big machine. Right, D.J.?”

  She could feel the flame in her cheeks, but she pushed through it.

  “Right,” she said. “You know how we women think, size matters.”

  Everybody ended up laughing. D.J. counted it a plus that Jeannie had been so quick to jump in for Amos. He needed somebody to be in his corner. And a woman who could do that in little things, might be handy to have around in more rugged occasions.

  The foursome continued to chat and eat for several minutes. Scott mentioned D.J.’s plans for rearranging the library and responding to their interest, relayed far more about the project than probably anybody but her would ever want to know.

  “It makes me kind of eager to get back,” Amos said.

  “Anything that would make the place seem less like a dungeon has to be an improvement,” Jeannie agreed. “It’s so bleak inside, tearing it down would have been my first option.”

  “Oh, but I love that building,” D.J. said. “It has the potential to be very special. You’ll see. It’s going to be wonderful.”

  “Well, if you’re excited, we’re excited,” Amos said.

  D.J. watched the blush blossom in Jeannie’s cheeks again. She clearly liked being fifty percent of Amos’s “we.”

  When the semi Amos was driving was ready to be loaded, he reluctantly begged off. Jeannie’s tractor returned, as well. And then it was D.J. and Scott, standing alone, together.

  He exchanged pleasantries with other people that passed and introduced D.J. to a few folks, including Jeannie’s dad. But when the food was all gone and the work proceeding at its typical breakneck pace, it was time to go.

  They gathered up the trash and stowed it in the back of the van before climbing in their seats.

  “Thanks for bringing me out here,” D.J. told him. “It’s pretty cool.”

  He smiled that wonderful, hot guy smile at her. “If you’re planning to be a part of this community,” he said, “this has to be the place that you start. Wheat is the heart of who we are. At least for now.”

  “For now?”

  Scott nodded. “Even out on the prairies, the world changes,” he said. “We’ve got more natural gas drilling every day. And even the driest of dryland cultivation requires water. With the droughts of the last few years and the prospect of climate change, lots of farmers have been looking at their hold card. Half of this topsoil blew away in the dustbowl. We know what the weather can do. There are no guarantees.”

  D.J. thought about that as she surveyed the landscape outside the vehicle.

  “It’s hard to imagine the countryside without the wheat.”

  Scott agreed. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember that much of it had never seen a plow until a hundred and fifty years ago. Things change. We have to, too. We can’t cling to the past, even if we wanted to.”

  That was true. But it was hard.

  “I guess it’s like the stacks in the library,” she said. “I’m sure that rearranging is going to be the best thing that’s ever happened to the place, but the mere upheaval of it is so upsetting to James.”

  “Yeah,” Scott said. “I sometimes think of James as like the magnified version of the rest of us. We fault him for freaking about relocating shelves. But when the normal routines of our own lives get disrupted, we feel totally justified in flipping out.”

  D.J. lowered her chin to frown at him. “I can’t imagine you flipping out. You seem so cool. So in control of everything.”

  He laughed. “Me?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “You’re like George Clooney walking around Vegas getting ready to rob the casino.”

  His jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding, right?”

  “You have that confidence,” she answered. “Like you’ve got everything under control.”

  “I’m in control of nothing,” he said. “You’re the one with the professional demeanor. You’ve got everything marked and cataloged. No errors allowed.”

  “I wish!”

  “Do you?” he asked. “My dad used to tell me that my mistakes were more important than my successes. The longer things go right, the less you learn. It’s the screw-ups that teach and mold character.”

  “He sounds like he might be right.”

  “I think he was,” Scott said and then added with a grin. “And he lived long enough to get to watch me screw up a number of times.”

  D.J. found herself laughing with him. She wondered how she could feel so relaxed. He was the hot guy and he was sitting mere inches away from her.

  The afternoon sun was pouring in through the passenger window, so she was forced to turn her head in his direction. She watched his facial expressions as he talked to her. Noted the self-assured movement of his body as he drove.

  Those perfect teeth between generous lips. Masculine shoulders. Lean, muscled arms. She sneaked a glance at his jean-covered thighs.

  Don’t look at his crotch! she warned herself.

  She didn’t need to look, she remembered it all too well.

  Her insides were beset with butterflies. And little flashes of unexpected recall of that night long ago when he put his hands there or he put his lips where.

  D.J. sat up straighter and hung an elbow out the passenger window. It was a comfortable position that offered the extra advantage of pouring cool outside air onto her flushed face.

  She thought about their shared snack and imagined that the taste of it had been, in part, the taste of him. D.J. tried to keep her eyes forward as she was swamped with unwelcome sexual longing.

  You’re boring Dorothy. Be boring Dorothy, she admonished herself for the second time that day. But even boring Dorothy couldn’t quite forget the things they had done and how it had felt.

  She sneaked one more quick, guilty glance at him. This time their eyes met. And for an instant, there was something... something totally familiar that she would have sworn she’d never seen.

  Suddenly he slammed down on the brake and the van skidded slightly in the ruts of the dirt road. The momentum thrust D.J. forward and then back into her seat. Scott unhooked his seat belt and leaned toward her.

  “I have to do this,” he said, one instant before his lips came down upon her own.

  His mouth was firm but tender and the kiss fit to her perfectly, exactly as she remembered. How did he do that? That slight, slight tug that seemed to pull away all her inhibitions. She moaned against him. And that response allowed him to deepen the kiss. The sensuousness spread like hot molasses down her throat, across her breasts, along her ribs and between her thighs. It was the desire of the love-starved. Eight long years she had needed this touch, this man. He was here in her arms now. She wanted him. She wanted all of him and she wanted it desperately. She didn’t remember wrapping her arms around his neck, but became vaguely aware of her fingers buried in his hair. The texture and feel so familiar, yet so long withheld from her.

  I need you! I want you! her brain was screaming at him. But she was not about to deter her tongue from its current pursuit to something as mundane as speech. She ran her hand up his jean-clad thigh to ask the question she didn’t put into words. She found her answer, thick and hard and undisguisable even in thick denim.

  She tried to press forward, to move against him.

  She was restrained by her seat belt. The van must know, even if she didn’t, that she was headed into a possible destruction.

  Their lips parted.

  “Wow,” he whispered against her cheek. “That was good.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed.

  “That d
idn’t feel like a first kiss.”

  Danger alerts finally sounded in D.J.’s brain.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I feel like I’ve kissed you a million times and it was always like that.”

  The click as he released her seat belt drowned out the noise of warning in her head. He pulled her into his arms and onto his lap. D.J. made no effort to resist. In truth, she allowed herself to revel in the taste of him, the feel of his skin, the trail of his hands upon her. From deep in his throat sounds of pleasure roiled up and boiled over. It heightened her urgency, but he was not in any rush. He took his time, as if kissing was not a signpost on the path to pleasure, but a pleasure all of its own.

  He was just so good at it. And when she held her mouth against his, she was good at it, too.

  His lips left hers and began a journey along her jawline to her ear and then down the length of her throat. At first, he gave her only hot little pecks, but then he began to offer tiny nips of her skin that sizzled through her. That long-ago night of passion suddenly seemed like yesterday and the vivid memories of what he could do with his tongue and his teeth. She wanted his mouth on her ankles. She wanted his mouth on her spine. She wanted his mouth on her breasts. She wanted his mouth between her thighs.

  She moaned aloud with the desire of it and tugged up her T-shirt to try to get his attention. She would have torn off her bra, but he didn’t give her time. He slid a hand between her legs from the back and raised her up. Allowing him both a close encounter with some steaming denim and her nipples at lip level. He bit her through her bra. Her cry had nothing to do with pain. She was desperate, desperate to have him. He seemed determined to take his time. She both loved it and could hardly bear it.

  “I want you. I want you,” she pleaded.

  She didn’t know if he heard. At that moment the loud trumpet of a semi truck’s air horn blared at them.

  He cursed, glancing into the rearview mirror.

  He practically tossed her into the passenger seat, before slipping the gearshift into low and moving the van to the edge of the road.

  D.J. was pulling her shirt down over the damp cups of her bra as the truck passed, Amos at the wheel.

  “He didn’t see anything,” Scott assured her. He kept his eyes forward, apparently concentrating on the dust left in the truck’s wake. “Nothing to worry about. He didn’t see a thing.”

  D.J. could hardly get her mind around worrying if they’d been seen. Sexual need still sizzled through her body like electricity. And the aching emptiness inside her was almost painful. It took a couple of moments before the inappropriateness of her situation became clear. She had been practically humping a man in the middle of a farm road. So much for the well-behaved, professional librarian.

  She realized that Scott was attempting to regain his composure. She determined to do the same.

  “He didn’t see anything,” Scott repeated. “I’m sure he didn’t see anything.”

  “No,” D.J. agreed. “There was nothing really to see. It was a kiss, nothing more.”

  “Right.”

  A buzzing sound erupted in Scott’s pocket. He dug out his cell phone.

  “It’s a text from Amos.”

  D.J. met his eyes before he held it out for her to read.

  Get a room!

  D.J. stared at the words on the phone for one long moment, her brain racing with a million things to say or to do. Finally, unexpectedly, a small giggle bubbled up from inside her and she laughed.

  After a few shocked seconds, Scott did, too.

  Thirty-Eight

  657.4 Accounting

  Kissing D.J. had been pretty spectacular. After the untimely interruption of the semi, Scott had been torn between pulling her back into his arms or offering a sincere apology. Ultimately, he chose neither path. She was so embarrassed she couldn’t meet his eyes. But she hadn’t slapped his face or burst into tears. Both of which might be possible reactions. She had laughed. The uptight librarian had laughed.

  Scott had wanted to kiss her. He’d wanted to kiss her for a long time. And the sight of her out in the sunlight, looking so approachable and relaxed, had been encouraging enough. But the burger biting, that had been too sexy to be ignored.

  “She couldn’t have meant it that way,” he muttered to himself the next morning as he made his way to work.

  He’d gotten up early thinking he might follow his mother’s example and invite D.J. for breakfast. Even before seven, her car was already gone. Scott reassured himself that she wasn’t hiding from him, she was simply hurrying to get started at the library.

  Still, he worried. What must she think? He did not come on to women like that. Maybe it was his easygoing nature or those teenage years with Stephanie as his girlfriend, but he was never really aggressive. Even in his affair with Eileen, he’d let her make the first move.

  Except for his one-nighter in South Padre, he’d never really chosen to call the shots. That night he’d been completely intent on proving himself by pleasing her. He’d put them both through their paces. He’d snapped his fingers and she’d toed the mark. Roll over. Sit up and beg. Everything but play dead.

  At that memory, Scott let out a long whistle through his lips. That was totally what last night had been about. D.J. reminded him of Sparkle. Holding her, kissing her, it had brought back all those feelings. In fact, D.J. was lucky Amos had come by when he did. A few more minutes and Scott might have had her bent over in the back of the van.

  Now that was a pleasant thought to start his morning.

  Scott unlocked the drugstore and barely got the lights on before Suzy Granfeldt showed up.

  “So, is it true?” she asked, eagerly.

  “Is what true?”

  “The hottest new romance in town,” she said, almost giggling with delight.

  Scott wanted to groan aloud. Amos was supposed to be his best friend. Why on earth would he spread gossip about him? And to Suzy. It would have been more discreet to take out a radio ad.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Scott said firmly.

  “Oh, come on. You’re bound to know something. Earl said the two are practically in each other’s pockets. Every time he’s stuck waiting for his truck to load, she’s jumping off her tractor to whisper something in his ear.”

  “Oh, you mean Amos and Jeannie.”

  “Well, who else could I mean?” Suzy asked. “So come on, give. I need information.”

  “I don’t know anything that you don’t know,” Scott assured her. “They do seem to be friendly. But they’ve known each other forever.”

  “Friendly?” She made a sound of disgust at the word. “They’d better up their game if they’re stuck at that. Honestly, I’d practically given up on Amos. He just seemed like he’d never snap out of it. And Jeannie always seemed to have her sights set on you.”

  “Me?” Scott pretended complete ignorance.

  “Ridiculous, right,” Suzy agreed, too readily he thought. “That could never work.”

  “Still, Amos has suffered a lot,” he told her. “There are losses in life that you just don’t ‘snap out of.’”

  “Of course, there are,” Suzy said. “Look at you, still wounded after all these years. But I was thinking that Amos had no heart left inside him at all. If Jeannie’s found it, everybody in town will want to know.”

  As if making sure that all were informed were a noble quest, Suzy continued to sit drinking coffee at the counter all morning, spreading the word to every person who came in.

  Ultimately, Scott got so worried that he went back into the pharmacy and called Amos to warn him. He’d already heard.

  “It’s not bad, really,” he assured Scott. “I do think Jeannie is interested. But if she’s not, this gives her an opportunity to push back against the rumors without either of us risking a friendship.”

  “I’m not sure stuff works that way,” Scott told him.

  “Yeah, well not all of us can strip down the librari
an at the side of the road.”

  “I... we... Nothing happened.”

  “Well, sorry to hear that. Next time maybe you shouldn’t make your move on a public road.”

  “Look, you manage Jeannie on your own. I was giving you a heads up, that’s all.”

  “A heads up?” he answered. “I guess that’s a good description of you yesterday, huh?”

  “Amos...” There was warning in Scott’s tone.

  His friend laughed. “Hey, you’ll get no grief from me. I’m all for it. And here’s my free advice. Don’t back off. D.J. could be very good for you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, yeah? I know more than you think. I only caught a glimpse inside that steamed-up van but you two weren’t playing Keep Away. I’ve been on dozens of double dates with you and Stephanie where the only game going on in the backseat was Parcheesi. I know the difference.”

  Slowly the drugstore cleared out as workers headed back to the fields. Scott filled a few prescriptions and waited on customers looking for antihistamines and cough suppressants. Grain dust was in the air and even within a closed cab, those who were susceptible were getting the itchy throats and runny noses that were a part of the season.

  By midafternoon, everyone had cleared out and there was almost nothing left to do. Scott found himself pacing back and forth like a caged animal. He knew exactly where he wanted to be, and it was not alone within the premises of Sanderson Drug.

  With the previous day as a template, he transferred the business phone to his cell and left the number on the front door as he locked it. He drove down the street and around the corner toward Verdant Public Library. For all he knew, James could be having another meltdown. And even if he wasn’t, the two of them couldn’t move that library by themselves. D.J. might need him.

  The word had come to mind innocuously, but there was something lusty in the thought of her needs.

  With that thought haunting him, Scott parked the van and made his way from the gleaming sunshine of blue-sky summer into the dark, gloomy gray library. But the darkest, most depressing of buildings could be brightened by the sight of his librarian.