Hometown Series Box Set

by Kirsten Fullmer

  He grabbed her arm and yanked her back onto the porch. “Don’t go in there!”

  Tara regained her balance and met Justin’s eye. He was panicked, that was obvious. She regarded him for a long moment. “So… are we going to let the bat have the whole house, or what?”

  He shot her a dirty look. “I don’t know, shouldn’t we call animal control or something? What if it has rabies?”

  Her head yanked back a notch. “Was it flopping around or foaming or something?”

  He scratched his head. “Well, no…”

  “Let me see this thing.” She marched back into the house before Justin could grab her again. “Where was it?” Her voice echoed back to him.

  He peered through the open door. “In the kitchen, on the rooster curtains.”

  He heard her footsteps echo and clatter through the house.

  Pulled by the need to save her, he peeked around the door into the living room. “Tara…?” No reply. “Tara!” He hurried to the kitchen to find her standing near the window.

  “This little guy?” she asked, pointing toward the bat hanging from the drapes. “It’s just a baby.” She said, humor lighting her eyes.

  He crammed his hands into his pockets, then yanked them out again. “Well, it was flying, I didn’t know.” He folded his arms and his chin jutted out.

  She reached past the bat to open the window. “There’s a rusty screen hanging out here, but the poor little thing should be able to get out.” The window groaned and lurched open, startling the bat. It flew back across the kitchen and Justin turned and ran, his arm covering his head.

  Tara followed him, laughter bubbling up from her stomach as she planted her hands on his hips to watch him.

  He shuddered, his gaze whipping from corner to corner. Taking a deep breath, he wiped his hands down his thighs. “Now what?”

  She motioned toward the front window, then headed across the room and stood on her tiptoes to pull down the drapes. Spotting the bat in the far corner, she flapped the curtains, scaring the creature back into the kitchen.

  Justin waved at the dust cloud filling the room and followed. Tara shooed the bat out the window and reached up to pull it closed. The window slammed down but instead of being relieved, she cried out and lugged the window open again.

  “Oh no! Oh no!” She dropped to her knees by the window.

  “What happened? Did you smash your hand?” He hurried to her side.

  “No, no, no.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  He looked over her shoulder to see the little bat, its wing smashed and crumpled from the window. The little thing fluttered its other wing and squeaked helplessly.

  “I thought he was out, and I smashed him!” Tara cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Justin glanced back and forth between Tara and the bat. Her tears tore at his stomach and the smashed bat was sickening. Desperately, he glanced out the window, then toward the living room, and finally back down at Tara. He had no experience with injured animals, and crying women derailed him.

  He couldn’t leave her sobbing by the window, nor did he want to, but he had no idea what to do and she didn’t appear to have a solution. Someone had to act. Placing one hand under her arm, he pulled her up to his chest. She clung to the front of his shirt, sobbing as if her heart were broken. Her tears mixed with the dust on his polo, smudging her face and arms.

  “Tara, please don’t cry. It’ll be okay.” He stroked her back, looking toward the ceiling for inspiration. With every squeak from the bat, she cried harder.

  “I’ve never hurt an animal before in my life. Oh…”

  He cleared his throat, desperate to make her stop crying. “Is there somewhere we can take it? A vet or something?”

  Tara looked up, her red eyes brimming with tears, her nose running. Shock registered as she realized she was in Justin’s arms.

  He expected her to lurch away, but her gaze lowered to stare at her hands splayed on his chest -- her fingers spread and clutching at his shirt. Her gaze flickered up to his and her eyes searched his. She cleared her throat and took a step back, swiping her sleeve across her nose and searching for composure. “Maybe we could do that.”

  He steadied her with one hand, watching as she snuffled and swiped at her tears. With one eye still on her, he bent, picked up the curtain and shook it, filling the room with flying dirt. They both coughed and waved at the cloud of dust.

  He took a deep breath, approached the bat, and carefully scooped it into the curtain. “Come on sweetheart, I’ll drive, and you hold the bat.”

  Tara took the bat from him as they hurried through the living room so Justin could fumble in his pocket for the keys. Soon they were flying down the driveway, bat in tow.

  * * *

  Two and a half hours later, Justin pulled his truck to a halt back in front of the old house. He rubbed his hands down his face, then leaned back in the seat, lacing his fingers across the top of his head.

  Tara slumped in the passenger seat. Tearstains tracked down both dirty cheeks, her eyes red and swollen.

  They stared through the windshield. Neither said a word.

  Finally, Justin brushed at the grunge covering his polo shirt and turned toward her. “So then, that was the first bat the vet has ever put to sleep?”

  She flashed him a glare and climbed out of the truck.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tara slammed open the back door, causing Winnie to drop her spoon into the pot. As the handle slipped into the boiling broth, the old woman sighed and threw her hands in the air. Taking one last glance at the pot, she turned down the burner then hurried around the kitchen island, wiping her hands on her apron. “What on earth happened to you?” she demanded, her hands on her hips.

  Tara closed the door with a bang and kicked off her sneakers. “I’m fine.”

  “I can see that.” Winnie frowned, following Tara as she marched up the back stairs. “I thought you were meeting with Justin to plan the resort. What happened?”

  Tara pulled the rubber band from the end of her braid as she stomped down the upstairs hall. “Nothing happened.”

  “Obviously.”

  Tara brushed at her shirt and pulled her fingers through her braid, flinching at tangles, while dirt and dust fell around her.

  Winnie glanced at the mess gathering on the pristine, hardwood floor and pursed her lips. “You’ve been crying.”

  Surprise registered across the younger woman’s face, and she clamored past Winnie to get into the bathroom and flip on the light. “Oh, don’t I look great!”

  The old woman smiled at Tara’s annoyance with her appearance. This was new. Winnie cleared her throat and laced her fingers over her stomach.

  Tara knew that stance. Tugging her hair over her shoulder, she leaned against the bathroom wall, working at snarls in the length of matted curls. The story of the bat poured out.

  Winnie did an admirable job of hiding a smile, nodding with understanding and sympathy. But once she was back in the kitchen, with the sound of water surging through pipes to the shower above, she hooted with laughter as she fished her spoon from the pot.

  * * *

  Justin stood on a stepladder, nailing lengths of clear plastic over the doorway to his kitchen. Turning to survey the room, he ticked off a mental checklist. “Breakers off, plastic up, safety glasses on.”

  When he was satisfied that he was ready, his muscles rippled under his polo shirt as he lifted the sledgehammer and took a swing at the back wall of the kitchen. Plaster dust blasted into the room as the hammer sunk into the wall. He moved forward and peered into the hole, then stepped back and took another swing. This time, the hole was large enough for sunlight to peek through from the back porch. Justin dropped the hammer and grasped the edge of sheetrock hanging from the gash in the wall. Tossing chunks of plasterboard on the floor, he strode through the back door to survey the hole from the other side. Back into the kitchen, he lifted the hammer but this time, he choked up on the handle, tapping a
t the wall around the hole. He knew there could be water pipes or wiring in the wall, and he didn’t want to unexpectedly hit either.

  Within 30 minutes, he had the wall stripped down to the vertical studs. This time he’d been lucky, and no utilities within the wall had hampered his plan to tear it down.

  He’d need to engineer and install a support beam to hold up the roof along the kitchen, and frame in the screened porch before he could remove the remainder of the wall, but he was satisfied with the afternoon’s effort. He’d worked out a little frustration and could now get an idea of how large his new kitchen would be so he could take more accurate measurements for cabinet and appliance layout.

  Moving around the piles of splintered plaster and sheetrock covering the floor, he reached for the roll of plastic and began nailing it around the inside windows of the screen porch. Sweat ran down his back as he wiped his forehead on his shoulder. When the plastic was up, he tossed the largest pieces of broken sheetrock into a pile in the back yard, collected his tools into one corner of the kitchen, and swept the small pieces of plaster with one side of his loafer-clad foot to the other corner. He turned and smiled, envisioning his new kitchen. Grabbing the hem of his shirt, he pulled it over his head and wiped his face with it.

  A loud knock on the front door interrupted his contemplation. Swiping his armpits with the balled-up shirt, he parted the long sheets of plastic hanging between the dining room and kitchen to head for the front door.

  * * *

  As she waited for Justin to answer the door, Tara fidgeted with the hem of her skirt and hiked her oversized bag higher onto her shoulder. Holding open the rusty screen and situating her face into a confident smile, she rehearsed in her mind what she would say. However, when the door swung open and Justin stood in front of her, his naked chest glistening with sweat and white dots of plaster, all the blood drained from her face and her smile melted.

  “Hi Tara. Come in.”

  She stood frozen in place for a fraction of a second, then willed herself forward. Cool air and the smell of construction dust greeted her as she stepped into his living room. Taking in the plastic flapping over the door into the kitchen, she nodded. “I see you got the air conditioner set up.” Her forehead wrinkled in thought. That hadn’t been the smooth, confident greeting she had planned.

  “Yup. Makes a huge difference doesn’t it?”

  Her eyes surveyed the room and came back to his face, but instead her gaze settled on his chest. Her stomach fluttered and her throat went dry. A frown tugged at her mouth, and her eyebrows tugged together in the center.

  Justin glanced down at his chest then back to her face. “Sorry. I’m all sweaty and gross. I was knocking down the back wall in the kitchen.”

  Her gaze locked on a drop of perspiration as it dripped down his sternum, catching and wriggling around the curls leading to his stomach.

  His words didn’t register. Hazily, she wondered at her reaction. She’d certainly been around sweaty men without shirts. She’d even touched a man’s chest back in college. She wasn’t a virgin – she knew what happened between a man and woman; or so she thought.

  “Tara?” Justin bent his head to meet her eye.

  Blushing furiously, she shook her head to clear rampant thoughts. “Sorry, I— I tried to call but you didn’t answer.” Blinking and forcing her head to lift with a jut of her chin, she met his eye. A spark glittered there that sent a shiver down her spine. She knew that look … and it meant sex. Men had looked at her that way sometimes, but when they did, a feeling of disgust and repulsion usually twisted in her stomach. She didn’t understand why she was so backward. She wanted a family someday but in the picture in her mind, the husband figure was hazy – a blank outline with a question mark for a face.

  Her brief experience with men had not been pleasant, not horrific, but definitely the opposite of this sensation. Once she had been brave enough to try getting close to a man. She had felt physical interest but an even stronger desire to get away. No matter how hard she had tried to respond the way she felt a woman should, she hadn’t been able to shake that loathing feeling.

  She had fumbled all the way through sex once, but the experience had left her feeling inadequate and awkward. That night, the boy, whom she’d thought was nice enough beforehand, had repeatedly told her she needed to lighten up and relax. He hadn’t been pleased with her stiffness, her lack of comment, or her responses in general.

  But today she was way past relaxed – she was bordering on giddy. Even though the familiar negative sensation trembled in the periphery, her bones had turned soft and a new flutter of warmth tickled in her lower stomach. Her heart thumped out of rhythm and her brain could only process Justin’s skin.

  His voice interrupted her thoughts. “What do you think?”

  She blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

  He tilted his head slightly, a wrinkle appearing on his forehead. “I said, I like this place much better now that it’s not 200 degrees in here.”

  “Oh, right.” A crooked grin tilted her mouth.

  A truck rattled past outside, and the plastic in the kitchen door ruffled in the breeze from the air unit. She couldn’t force her eyes from the white flecks of plaster dust that had collected in the creases around his eyes.

  He cleared his throat and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Maybe I should get in a shower.”

  With a discernible shake, Tara pulled herself together. “I’m sorry, no you don’t have to. I mean, I just came by to talk about the resort because we didn’t really talk. Earlier I mean. About the resort…”

  He watched her chew her bottom lip, her pupils dilated, and he reached for her hand. She lurched back a step.

  Frustrated by the mixed signals she was sending, he retracted his hand and rubbed it across his scalp. Staring at the ceiling, he took several deep breaths, then when he felt steady, his eyes leveled with hers. “Talking would be good but I’m filthy. I’ll just jump in a quick shower, then we can iron some things out.”

  She nodded, her expression contrite.

  He disappeared into his bedroom, and Tara could hear him opening and closing drawers. She waited, rooted to the floor.

  He lifted a finger as he passed through the hall, to indicate he’d only be a minute. The bathroom door clicked closed, and a long breath whooshed from her lips.

  The water turned on in the bathroom, and the rings of the shower curtain clanked against the rod. Desperate for something to think about besides Justin naked in the tub, she glanced across the room. The furniture from the shop looked like him, she decided-- smooth and modern.

  Fluttering plastic drew her to peek into the partially demolished kitchen. Bored, she dropped the plastic back into place and turned, her eyes searching the living and dining room. Several bags of groceries and household supplies lined the floor against one wall. She sauntered casually past them, then paused. Craning her neck, she nudged one with her foot to see what they contained.

  Moving on, she spotted Justin’s loafers tossed near the front door, covered in plaster dust. She shook her head.

  Stopping in the center of the room, she dropped her bag near the sofa and bent forward at the hips to peer into his bedroom. Glancing guiltily toward the bathroom, she took a halting step to get a better look. Drawn by a tug of curiosity that only Justin could have inspired, she tossed one more wary glimpse over her shoulder and stepped carefully into his room.

  His bed was unmade; the sheets were tangled, and the pillows tossed at all angles. A blanket had been tacked across the window for privacy, dimming the room to near darkness.

  Her eyes adjusted to the light, darted back to the bed, and then to a pile of clothes tossed in the corner. She recognized the shirt he’d been holding earlier. Tara moved around the bed to analyze the items spread across the top of his dresser -- keys, wallet, loose change, a pocket knife. She picked up the knife, turned it in her hands and opened the blade, testing it across the pad of her thumb.

 
The shower turned off. and she snapped the knife closed. She placed it back on the dresser, tilted her head, then adjusted the knife closer to the wallet, and turned to hurry around the end of the bed. At the door, she ran directly into Justin’s wet chest.

  * * *

  Justin had climbed from the cold shower and upon grabbing his towel, realized he’d forgotten to get a shirt. Remembering Tara’s fascination with his chest, he’d decided to get dressed in his room.

  A towel was slung loosely around his hips and when he slammed into Tara, it nearly dropped to the floor. He grabbed at the towel with one hand and slipped the other around her back, steadying her.

  She stared into his eyes, hers wide. Surprise and embarrassment flashed across her face. His cold shower was forgotten.

  She jumped back. “Oh my gosh! I’m sorry – I was—”

  Heat raged through his groin and he clumsily tugged at the towel, his other hand hovering in the air toward her. If he’d found any other woman in his bedroom when he got out of the shower, he would have understood the clear message – but not Tara. He could never seem to untangle the combination of apprehension and excitement she emitted. Unfortunately, one part of his anatomy hadn’t gotten the memo.

  He reached for her, gripping her upper arm lightly. She appeared to be frozen to the floorboards, so he moved closer, sliding his hand from her arm and around to her back. Her eyes flitted every direction and then finally lit on his. Her lips parted and a tiny sigh slipped out. Slowly he pressed his lips to her forehead, then her cheek.

  She didn’t move or even breathe.

  His other hand forgot the towel and rose to slide his palm tenderly across her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered as his fingers slid below her ear and into her hair. He touched her lips with his, then again, before the tip of his tongue teased her upper lip.