by Jillian Neal
Cashier, with as much gruff in his voice as grey in his beard, climbed off the stool where he was seated, eyeing Austin and his purchases. “Usually have to card everyone who buys this shit. You look a little old for Boone’s Farm. You ain’t buying this for kids, are ya?”
“No sir, I promise. Just doing a little reminiscing with my girl.”
“She old enough to drink, son?”
Scowling at that insinuation, Austin huffed. “Plenty old enough. Do I look like a pervert to you?”
“Well, you show up with this sweetened paint thinner, and she might not be your girl too much longer.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Old man shrugged and rang up the order.
“Can I get a Styrofoam cooler and a bag of ice as well?”
An hour later, he listened to Summer list out a thousand contingencies for every conceivable possibility for J.J. to his parents.
“And there’s infant Tylenol in the diaper bag. Here, I’ll set it on the counter.”
Austin halted her progress. “Babe, Earth will not end tonight. Baby boy will be fine. They have put kids to bed before. Almost all of us are completely normal. And Holly’s smart; she’s just weird, probably from that time I dropped her on her head.”
“Hilarious.” Holly rolled her eyes. “We’re gonna have fun tonight, aren’t we J.J.?” She held him up over her face, swaying him back and forth until he laughed and then promptly drooled in her eye.
“Yeah, he’s cutting teeth.” Summer cringed.
“He’ll be fine, honey. You go have a good time.” Austin’s mother mopped up Holly’s face with a cloth diaper and rescued her from J.J. “I promise we will call if we have any questions.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just …”
“You’re being a great mom.” His mother squeezed her arm reassuringly. “Go on. I promise you have nothing to worry about.”
Summer kissed J.J.’s face a dozen times and finally let Austin lead her out to the truck. She settled in as they made their way towards town. “So, where are we going on this date?”
“We’re going back to our roots, sugar. Gonna start with something to eat. Since we’re going old school, I figured we’d get hot dogs at the A&W. Then we’re going to the midway. You have to ride The Zipper. Then, I thought if I played all my cards right, you might let me take you parking see if we can’t steam the windows up a little.”
Laughing at him, she beamed. “Did you get Luke to buy us some Boone’s Farm, too?”
“Nah, I don’t need him to buy it for me anymore, but it’s in the cooler in the back.”
“Are you serious?” She spun in her seat and lifted the lid of the cooler situated beside J.J.’s car seat. “Oh my gosh, you are serious. I can’t believe you did all of this.”
“Told you I haven’t done this since I would’ve thought this was a great date. I’m rusty, but I want you to let all the shit with Brant and life go for a little while tonight. Just hang out with me. Let’s have some fun.”
Heat bloomed in her cheeks, and her beautiful smile expanded further. “This is perfect. You’re amazing, but you might not have liked me so much when I was sixteen. I didn’t let anybody get too far back then.”
Chuckling at that, he tried to envision a younger version of Summer Sanchez, without a daddy screwing her life up and without an ex hell-bent on destroying her. Happy, loved, and free, just the way she was meant to exist. “Oh yeah? I’ll bet you were one hell of a cock-tease though.”
“Ha!” She dissolved in a fit of laughter that said he was right.
“I knew it. Rubbing up on some poor dude, grinding in his lap, kissing with tongue, letting him play with those titties, thinking he’s getting somewhere, making him ache, then leaving him high and dry.” He feigned insult. “How many guys still nursing the case of blue balls you left him with?”
“You sound like it might’ve happened to you a time or two there, cowboy.” She stuck her tongue between her teeth, still giggling.
“God, more than a few times. Came in my jeans more times than I care to admit.”
“Aww, you want me to see if I can recreate that for you tonight?”
He arched his left eyebrow. That sassy mouth of hers was going to be his undoing one day. “Hell no, honey. I’m getting lucky tonight. I mean, I went all out; hot dogs, shit wine, PBR, getting you sick on a roller coaster. Hell, I’ll even win you a pink teddy bear at the carnival. What more do you want?”
She doubled over laughing. He beamed. If he got to listen to her do that for the rest of his life and he got to be the guy holding her in his arms every night while she fell asleep, he’d die a happy man.
“Wow, a teddy bear. That might get you all the way to third base, cowboy.”
“Damn straight, it will. I’ll use my rugged good looks, my smooth moves, and my ‘I’m a professional bull rider, darlin’’ line to get me the rest of the way.”
“Oh, is that what you think?”
“’Spose if that doesn’t work I could always tie you up in my bed again.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“You know, I think it’d do you good not to get your way, occasionally.”
“I like gettin’ my way.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Plus, I’m damned good at it.” He winked at her.
Her dramatic eye roll made him laugh. “You’re also full of shit.”
“I really wish people would stop telling me that. It’s gettin’ insulting.” He parked near the A&W and leapt out of the truck. Opening her door for her, he offered her his hand as she climbed down.
“Being a gentleman doesn’t always get you in a girl’s panties, you know.”
“Oh, I know. Tried that gig a dozen times. But you’re worth it, even if I don’t get lucky tonight. How’s that, Miss Sanchez?”
“Don’t I feel special.”
“You should, ‘cause I put a lot of thought into this. I should at least get a hand job or something.”
Shaking her head at him, she let him guide her inside the burger joint.
After they’d ordered, he picked up the tray of their food and brought it to the table that she’d selected outside in the glow of the full moon and the neon lights of Cheyenne. When he slid onto the metal bench seat beside her, she plucked one of his chili cheese fries from the paper dish and popped it in her mouth.
He huffed, “Only girls that put out get to eat my fries.”
She cracked up again. This date was already perfect by his estimations. Staring at him in challenge, her beautiful grin lighting the flecks of gold in her eyes, she lifted another fry, slathered in liquid cheese, and brought it to her lips. “The things I’ll do for chili-cheese fries.”
He let a low rumbled growl sound in her ear as he leaned over and brushed a kiss on her cheek, then took a nibble of her ear lobe, making her shiver.
While she slurped up the last of her half-vanilla half-chocolate milkshake, he threw away the trash from their hot dogs and fries. “You ready, sugar?” He offered her his arm and a sly grin.
Standing, she looped her arm through his. “You know, a week ago, give or take, you took me out to that steakhouse in Cody, smiled at me like that, and all I could think was, “Oh shit, I’ll never make it out of this alive.”
Chuckling at that allowance, he draped his arm over her shoulders, pulling her closer as they headed towards the midway. “Oh yeah? Well, I wrapped my arms over you to keep you from committing murder in the first with witnesses, and all I could think was that I’d finally caught the thing I’d been searching for half my life. I swear, Summer, I knew then and there I’d never want anything else.”
“Really? You really knew right then?” She nuzzled her head against his shoulder and the hazy summer night settled in peacefully around them.
“I knew right then.” Home, to Austin, had always been the squeaky hinge on the rusty Camden Ranch sign at the south entrance to the ranch, the slap of the screen door in the spring on his mama and daddy’s hous
e, the expanse of grassland dotted with grazing cattle in the noonday heat, and the stacked lightning in the clouds of the summer storms that swept through Lincoln county while the sun set beyond the fields. At that moment, he understood home would forever be wherever she was. All he needed was her in his arms. He’d be her home as well. He’d construct her a protective harbor with the might of his body. He’d keep her safe. He’d make her his, and the sooner the better.
“Hey, you never told me exactly what made you go after Brant that particular night. Was he just being his usual douchey self, or was there something in particular that got my girl so ornery that night?”
Her cheeks flushed a thousand shades of pink evident in a sunset, and she rolled her eyes. Damn, but she was beautiful.
“It just got to me that night. He was out partying with the buckle bunnies, and it was his week with J.J. He never spends any time with him. He just gets him and shoves him off on his mama, the wicked witch of the west. I’d been stewing on it for weeks, plus I was exhausted, and I just wanted my little boy. I overheard his mama on the phone telling whoever she was talking to that she was gonna prove that I was an unfit mother as soon as I ran out of money. Tell the courts how I didn’t even have a home, but I didn’t have a home because of them. I had to let my crappy apartment go because I had to be on the road with Brant because of the custody agreement she got the judge to agree to.” She shrugged. Austin hated that her smile had faded and that look of desperate terror had returned to her eyes.
Stopping outside the entrance to the midway, he turned her and cradled her to his chest. When her hands fisted his t-shirt, he swayed her gently in the setting sunlight. “Listen to me, I’ve racked up close to two-million dollars this season, and I haven’t finished Cheyenne or ridden Vegas yet. That’s on top of the money I’ll make when my cattle’s ready to sell. You ain’t gonna run out of money on my watch. When we get back to Pleasant Glen, I want us to both talk to your lawyers and see what we can do to get J.J. with us permanently. I know his daddy has a right to see him, but it ain’t gonna be this every-other-week shit you’ve got going on now. For tonight, for me, try to let it go, okay? J.J. is perfectly safe. He’s with us and we have him until the end of Cheyenne. Let’s enjoy that and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.”
“That sounds really good.” She squeezed him tighter, and he kissed the top of her head.
“I’ll always take care of you both, baby. You’re mine. I told you, I take good care of what belongs to me.”
Austin made quick work of purchasing them bracelets that allowed them to ride whatever they wanted. He secured Summer’s around her wrist and guided her towards the long line already formed at The Zipper.
After Austin’s vows, Summer’s smile returned to her. She’d been beaming most of the evening. Contentment was a heady sensation to a girl who’d never experienced it before. The colorful lights of the midway danced on the trampled grass underfoot. The air was thick that evening with the scent of corn dogs, funnel cakes, and cotton candy. Country music from a cover band on an outdoor stage at one end of the midway intermixed with the ringing bells and buzzers from the carnival games and enveloped them in the nostalgia of the evening.
She tucked herself tighter against Austin, making him grin as he strengthened his hold of her. He winked at her, making her heart beat disjointedly for a moment. She wondered if his reassuring wink coupled with that sexy-as-sin grin would ever stop turning her inside out. She highly doubted it wouldn’t always affect her. Everything about him both stirred her soul and settled it simultaneously. So, maybe love wasn’t just worrying over someone. Maybe it was this feeling that despite all of the shit going on in her life just then, she was the luckiest girl in the world because he was there.
There were a hundred questions she desperately needed to ask him. What happened if she didn’t get full custody of J.J. even with his money behind her? What would that mean for them? She told herself there was no reason she wouldn’t at least obtain primary custody. Beyond that, the time Brant could see J.J. could be worked out. She knew if it were up to Brant, he’d sign J.J. away and probably never think of him again. It was his mama that wanted J.J. to be raised up in the Preston way of life. Over my dead body. Summer’s jaw tensed. She would fight for her son, and now, she actually had someone willing to fight with her.
Putting those thoughts away for the moment, she stared up at the golden orange glow of the wild carnival ride they were about to embark upon.
“Uh, what are the chances someone might puke on this?” She wrinkled her nose.
Laughing, Austin edged her forward in the line. “You worried all my chili-cheese fries you ate might make a reappearance mid-ride, darlin’?”
“They were good,” she teased.
“I wouldn’t know.”
No one had ever made her laugh the way he did. She broke out in another fit of giggles. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
“Says my little cock-tease.” He lowered his voice so only she could hear him.
“Your cock seemed pretty happy last night, cowboy,” she whispered in his ear.
His shuddered growl hummed from him. “That was fucking incredible. I’m still thinking about it. Hoping for a repeat performance.”
“Thought we were going parking. Hard to do all of that in your truck.”
Austin feigned confusion. “Sorry, all I heard was hard and in your truck.”
She elbowed him rather hard.
“Dammit, woman, don’t do that. I’ve got a gut full of milk shake and hot dogs.”
“Oh geez, please tell me you’re not gonna puke on me while we ride this thing.”
“My brothers and I rode it at least a dozen times every summer when we came out here. I’ll be fine, but we don’t have to ride it if you’re scared,” he goaded.
“I am not scared, cowboy. I just don’t want to have to clean you up when it’s over.”
“No worries, darlin’. I’ll be ready to go again … just like I always am.” He waggled his eyebrows.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a good thing I wore my shit wadin’ boots, cowboy. It’s gettin’ deep in here.”
“What? I was talking about the ride, sweetheart. Always thinking about my crotch. I’d tell you to get your mind out of it, but I sure as hell love it when your head’s down there.”
Before she could come up with an appropriate comeback, she was laughing again. When he sealed them inside the caged seating for the ride, she gripped his bicep.
“I’ve gotcha.” He laced their fingers together. “But you’re not scared, right?”
“No, it’s just … I’m fine.”
“Uh huh,” he chuckled as the ride lurched forward. Unable to help herself, she cringed into him. He laughed at her outright, but then the ride really took off. She screamed, but she was having a ball. The ride whipped and jerked them through the air. For a split second, she could see the entire midway and the town surrounding them. Austin’s whoops of delight added to her euphoric joy as they flew through the air. Her stomach bottomed out and she squeezed her eyes shut, reveling in the zing of anticipation whirling through her veins.
When they finally jerked to a stop back on the ground, all she wanted to do was ride it again with him. He indulged her through three rides and then insisted they play some games. After the third time around, she was a little unsteady on her feet. Grinning at her, he wrapped her up in his arms letting her re-center and find her balance.
“Better?”
She shook her head and hugged him tighter. He seemed to know that she was lying. She’d regained her balance — she just didn’t want to let go of him just yet. “You wanna go, baby? I love holding you, but I might could do it better in the bed.”
“No, I’m fine. I just want to stand right here.” She buried her face against his t-shirt again, inhaling deeply of his masculine scent, that leather and rosin heat that made her feel safe and loved.
“As long as you want. I’m right here.” He rubbed his hand
s up and down her back, not minding at all that people were having to dodge around them as they raced for more games and rides.
Eventually, he got her a massive bag of cotton candy, and they settled at one of the outdoor picnic tables near the Ferris Wheel. He proceeded to feed her the cotton candy with his fingers and then kiss the sticky sugar from her lips repeatedly. His tongue traced her lips and coaxed her mouth open with every bite she accepted. The taste of spun sugar and him, that perfect heat and pressure he applied with his lips, the possessive demands he made with every kiss, everything about it was perfection. She never wanted it to end. Her nipples puckered painfully against the lace of her bra. Her panties were uncomfortably wet. She wanted him to take them off and lap up the cream her body made so readily for him. She longed to feel him press into her, opening her all for himself.
Scooting closer to him, she trailed her hands down his chest, desperate to get back to the truck so she could run her hands over his zipper-line, make him throb and pant. She loved the way his entire body responded to her touch.
“What’cha thinkin’ about, baby doll? You got that look in your eyes that makes me crazy wantin’ you. You needin’ something more than some sweet kisses? That little snatch gettin’ juicy for me again? Needin’ me to make it feel better?”
Summer shuddered against him. Yes. Please. Now. “You have a filthy mouth, cowboy.”
“I have a filthy mind, darlin’. Hasn’t seemed to bother you yet.”
The heated moment shattered around them when, “Are you Summer Sanchez?!” rang through the air. A young girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen, descended on them with her folks trailing behind her.
“Uh …” Summer jerked away from Austin, blinking away the lust that had certainly formed in her eyes. “Yeah, I’m Summer. Who … are you?” She forced a grin, trying to remember to be polite.
