But I knew there was no point trying to call it off now. Ash and Reid would just sling insults my way until they’d goaded me into it. Not that it mattered. I was way more interested in the blonde girl than any bragging rights—but they didn’t have to know that. Especially not Reid, who I figured this bet was really for. At least, that was what I hoped. Ash didn’t actually think of me in the same vein as that prideful fuck, did he?
“Whatever,” Reid said, which was code for I accept. “I call dibs on the one with the freckles.”
“The tall one,” Ash said, “in normal chick clothes.” Then he looked at me. “What about you, Wyatt? You in?”
I kept my eyes on the blue-eyed girl. “Deck seems kinda stacked, doesn’t it? I mean, we get the nuns, you get the bartender. The fuck’s up with that?”
“I have it on good authority she’s a tough nut to crack,” Ash replied, “and I’ll tone down my game to give you two a better chance. How’s that?”
“Bullshit,” Reid answered. “Bullshit, is what it is.”
“Does that mean you don’t want in, then?” Ash asked him. “’Cause if you don’t, a two-for-one special would suit me just fine.”
“I said the one with the freckles,” Reid answered quickly, and Ash turned to me, clapping me on the shoulder.
“Well, guess that leaves you with blondie,” he said. I nodded and took a gulp of my beer, way more preoccupied with how to approach her than I was with Ash’s bullshit.
“Now that it’s all settled,” he continued. “I’d say all that’s left to do is for us to meet our marks. You two sure you’re ready for this? I’d hate to throw you to the wolves…”
Reid shook his head, picking his beer up from the table. “Those aren’t wolves, Ash. They’re sheep. Lost little lambs come in from the cold. And I’m going in for the kill.” He stepped away and began swaggering on over to the girls. “Whenever you two ladies wanna join me…”
I shook my head in disbelief. What had promised to be a completely obnoxious and unnecessary evening out with my brothers had taken a sharp turn, and I wasn’t sure it was for the better.
But then… I was about to meet the girl I couldn’t keep my eyes off of, wasn’t I?
As Ash followed Reid in close pursuit, I had to admit that even this gray cloud seemed to have a silver lining. The closer I got to the blue-eyed girl, the deeper the resonance of whatever was between us became. It was like chasing a heartbeat; the closer I got, the louder and quicker it sounded, until I realized that the sound was my own pulse drumming in my ears.
Shit. I hadn’t even properly met her yet, and already she made my heart pound. I surreptitiously wiped my hands on my jeans. My palms had gotten just a little clammy. This wasn’t what I’d expected to feel. I hadn’t been nervous about talking to a chick since middle school. Then again, I’d never strayed far from my “type”—the girls who knew what I was about and got off on it just as much as I did. This was clearly going to be different. I doubted this girl would care one iota about my bad boy reputation or my loose affiliation with the current incarnation of the Bright Falls Beasts. She probably wanted to know what church I belonged to. I hoped she wasn’t gonna open with that, because if so, I was gonna disappoint her right off the bat.
It wasn’t the bet that made me worry about making a good first impression. I couldn’t make myself give one good goddamn about any of that. Ever since I’d met this girl’s gaze, I’d wanted more. I’d wanted to know her, discover her, explore the parts of her no one else ever had. And not just in a sexual way, although there was that—I was curious about her. Deeply curious. I knew just by looking at her that I’d never met anyone like her before. I had to know more.
And that meant I had to not screw this up as soon as I opened my mouth.
I thought I’d have more time to come up with a line, but as soon as I got close to her, she turned around and looked up at me with those big, baby blues. My breath caught in my throat, and my suave introduction turned into a cough. One side of her pink lips quirked and her eyebrows lifted, and I felt my cheeks burn. Dammit. Even appraising me like she was, she was awfully cute.
“Uh. Hi,” I said. Not my finest moment. I ran my fingers through my hair and her gaze rose to watch me, a twinkle in her eyes. So, she liked my hair. Most women did. I pushed it away from my face and smiled, holding out my other hand to her. “My name’s Wyatt. Wyatt Brody. I saw you from across the room, and I thought I’d… y’know… come over and introduce myself.”
I’ll never forget what she said to me then. The very first words out of her mouth.
With a tilt of her head, she smiled and replied, “Kannscht du deitsch schwetze?”
My heart sank. So did my jaw. “Uh…”
But then I caught that glint in her eye again, and she laughed. Mischief—this girl was made of it.
“Don’t worry. We Amish speak English too.”
I let out a breath of relief. “Thank God. What was that, like… German, or something?”
She shrugged with just the one shoulder. “Close. It’s Deitsch, what we speak in the village.” Then she extended her hand to me in a way that struck me as comically formal. “I’m Beth Miller. That’s my sister, Sarah.” She gestured to the girl with the strawberry-blond hair, the one Reid was chatting up. “And our eldest sister, Hannah.” Here she indicated the bartender, Ash’s mark. “It’s nice to meet you.”
The way her eyes lit up and smile broadened as she said that seemed so sincere, like she actually was happy to meet me. It wasn’t a nicety, something that might slip from a girl’s lips as a result of social conditioning. It was genuine. Earnest. It took me aback a little. I wasn’t used to this level of openness. Or honesty.
It made me feel worse about the pretense under which me and my brothers were here. Then again, the stupid bet meant nothing to me, which left me free from blame. Right?
Taking note of her innocence, I used one of the cheesiest lines in the book. “So, Beth, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
She tucked a lock of hair behind one of her delicate ears. “It’s Rumspringa,” she said, “a kind of… pilgrimage, in a way, for Amish people. We’re granted leave from the community to explore the English world on our own and decide whether or not the simple life is for us.”
I raised a brow. “English world?” I asked her.
Beth nodded. “Anything outside of the Amish community is English, mostly because of the language differences. Our forefathers spoke German exclusively, but now since we trade with outsiders more often, we learn English too.”
Huh. Seemed like the Amish were more insular than I’d thought. I’d had no idea there was a language barrier. Then again, I’d never really noticed the village or paid much attention to the scant few Amish I’d seen in Bright Falls. That wasn’t really my scene.
“This is your first time out of the village, then?” I asked her. She shook her head, which surprised me.
“No. Just my first time alone.” She regarded her sisters. “Well, mostly alone. Unchaperoned, anyway. Sometimes my family would make a trip into town, but we’d never stray far from our parents or from the buggy. And we definitely didn’t come to places like this.” I watched as Beth’s gaze trailed over the TVs, the patrons, the billiard table, and then back to me. “Everything is so… different here. New.”
It was hard for me to see what about Trick Shots could possibly be fascinating. It was a dive, something you could find in any city or town in North America. But then, I only knew that from seeing it portrayed in the background of TV shows, or advertisements, and from visiting this place so many times myself—and so many others like it. Beth didn’t have that kind of perspective. I wondered what she found most interesting about the place and silently, selfishly, hoped it was me.
I narrowed my eyes at her and said, “I bet you haven’t even had a beer, have you?”
Beth grinned and shook her head. “No. But I kinda want to.”
I laughed. “Jeez. Yo
u really are innocent.” I’d only been talking with her a few minutes, but already I knew I was right earlier—I’d never met a girl like her before. Maybe never would again.
She cocked her head and wrinkled her nose at me, an expression that made her all the cuter, like a rabbit puzzling out a trap. “Is that a bad thing?” she asked me.
The Pabst in my hand suddenly felt like it weighed ten pounds. I lifted it to my lips, taking a long pull, eliminating some of the weight. The warmth that spread through me wasn’t from the beer, though. It was proximity to Beth that made my face feel warm and my lips pull into a smile—not a roguish grin, or a smirk, but a soft, natural smile. One I probably hadn’t worn since I was a kid. And that was what her energy reminded me of: childhood summers, tinted with the kind of rose-gold glow only the wistful nostalgia of adulthood can provide.
“Not at all,” I finally answered, then shifted away from her to jut my chin in the direction of the far end of the bar. “You wanna come sit with me and talk a little? You can tell me all about the village you’re from, and I’ll let you have a couple sips of my beer. Fair enough?”
As naïve as she was, the expression on Beth’s face told me she had a pretty solid idea of what I was up to. “I guess,” she said in a noncommittal way that reminded me of a city girl almost, but the way it dripped from her mouth was so much sweeter. Like honey. I grinned and led her a bit farther away from her sisters, helping her onto one of the tall stools. Damn, she was short.
“Do we have to talk about the village, though?” she asked me as she leaned across the bar, running her fingers over the polished wood grain. “I mean… we can. But honestly, it’s kind of boring. I’d rather talk about the English world—about your world.” And before I could stop her, she’d swiped my beer away from me and was giving it a sniff. She made a face. “Does it taste as bad as it smells?”
“Worse,” I promised, watching as she put it to her lips anyway. I liked the way they looked wrapped around the mouth of the bottle like that, but I reached for her with a laugh when I realized she hadn’t left any space and the beer had started to foam. “Oh, shit. Don’t do that.”
Beth covered her mouth with a hand and giggled as I set the fizzing bottle down between us, grabbing some napkins from behind the counter to sop up the suds. Her eyes were wide and she was scrunching her face. “That stuff is awful,” she told me, sticking out her tongue. “You weren’t lying.”
“Nah,” I replied, “seems like a bad habit to fall into.” And I immediately felt a pang of guilt that damn near made me wince, but I continued to ignore it. I’d been staring at Beth since long before either of my brothers came up with their harebrained scheme—it really had nothing to do with me. I tried to placate myself with that knowledge as I wiped down my bottle and took a sip, savoring the subtle flavor of where Beth’s lips had just been.
“So what’s the city like, then?” she asked me, leaning forward on her elbows, chin in her hands. “And the people?”
I squinted, thinking. It would have been easy enough to give her some kind of canned response, but since she’d never experienced the city proper before, I wanted to give her something better to go on—something that would whet her appetite for more. Bet or not, my goal was still to lure her out on a date with me. I already knew I wanted more of her, albeit not in a shithole like Trick Shots.
“Loud, on both counts,” I said with a little laugh. “Lots of noise, even at night. I remember when I was a kid, sometimes me and my brothers and our dad would go camping way out in the woods, and I was always surprised by how quiet it was out there. Well, compared to the city, anyway. And there’s a lot of ambient light here—streetlamps, signs, things like that. They’re lit up damn near all the time, so in the city, you can’t see the stars as well as you can out in the country. But that’s kind of nice, in a way, ’cause you don’t gotta worry too much about being caught out on an unfamiliar street without anything nearby to get your bearings from. There’s always something lighting up the night, and that can make you feel better. Comfortable.”
Beth was watching me intently, her brow furrowed just a little, a look of stern concentration etched across her sweet face. She was taking it all in, hanging on my every word. And I hadn’t even told her anything particularly exciting yet. Wetting my lips, I tried to think of something more interesting—and I noticed her gaze darted to my tongue for just a moment before I slipped it back in my mouth. I wondered if she’d ever been kissed.
“There are parks,” I said, “kind of like fields but, uh… more orderly? Maintained. They keep the grass real short, the city hosts events there, and there’s playgrounds and stuff for the kids—that kind of thing. We’ve got a stadium over on the east side of downtown, and sometimes we get some bigger-name bands that come through, but mostly it’s for the indie crowd. Folk music, sorta. You’d like it.” Shit, it sounded like one hell of a date venue.
I could tell by the way Beth’s eyes lit up that she was inclined to agree, and her lips parted with words that went unspoken as Ash interrupted us, sidling up beside me to slap a hand hard down onto my shoulder. I almost spilled my beer. Asshole.
“Hey,” he said, “Reid had an idea.”
I rolled my eyes and muttered as I furtively flexed my shoulder beneath Ash’s palm, “That must have hurt.”
He smirked. “We’re lucky the smoke coming out of his ears didn’t set off the sprinklers. Anyway, he thought maybe we could all hit the county fair tomorrow night. Might be a good way to introduce the girls to the city without it being so… city.” He looked at Beth. “What do you think?”
“I… I dunno,” she said, her eyes swiftly flicking to me. “What’s there?”
“All kinds of shit,” I told her, counting off on my fingers. “Games. Hayrides. A carousel. Big ol’ Ferris wheel. A petting zoo—”
Beth tittered in a way that struck me as both excited and nervous. “I don’t even know what all those things are!” she said, but as I started to explain, she waved her hand at me. “No, no, don’t tell me. Please. I want to be surprised.”
As Ash ambled away, I grinned at Beth from behind my beer bottle and said, “No problem, sugar. I’ll make sure to keep those surprises coming.”
And if the look on her face—those red cheeks, those big doe eyes—was any indication, that was exactly what Beth had wanted to hear. That was no problem for me. Now that I knew what got her engine running, I had no doubt I could blow her mind.
In fact, I was sure I knew the perfect place to start.
3
Beth
For my first trip in an actual truck, I think I was holding myself together pretty well, although it was hard to remove the smile that had been plastered on my face since leaving Hannah’s place. I was certain my jaw was going to ache later, but I didn’t care. What a feeling!
We had the windows open wide, and the wind was whipping through my hair in a way I’d never experienced from a horse and buggy ride. It was like being out in the fields during a tornado, but without the worry of being swept away.
In all honesty, I probably should have been a bit more concerned about being alone with Wyatt. After all, aside from our long and wonderful conversation at the bar the night before, I barely knew him. And yet… I didn’t feel as threatened by him as I probably should have.
Maybe that was because Hannah seemed to trust the boys, and I trusted Hannah, but I think it was more than that. Wyatt was a big man, with more muscles than anyone from our community back home, and yet for some reason I felt safe with him. Sure, those muscles could probably snap me in half, but everyone once in a while I’d turn and catch him looking at me in a way that made me think there was no way he was capable of anything like that.
Sarah disagreed, of course. When we got back to Hannah’s apartment last night, where all three of us are staying, she was nothing but negativity and worry. It took both Hannah and I to calm her down and convince her to live a little—at least while on Rumspringa. There would be plenty of tim
e to go back to our boring old lives when we returned home.
But even after agreeing to give it a try, she was still holding back to our old ways wherever she could. When Hannah took us shopping for new outfits, Sarah insisted that we not deviate from these simple black dresses that were almost as stifling as the outfits we left home with.
At least I convinced her that we could go without bonnets—although in truth, I think the only reason she agreed to that was over her concern that people would be staring at her all day, like they had done at the bar last night.
Still, I wasn’t about to let the simple issue of a neck to floor black dress ruin the excitement of today. Besides, as soon as the boys came to pick us up this morning, Wyatt told me he thought I looked “awesome”. I might not know much about men, but he certainly seemed sincere about it, and the way he kept sneaking glances at me as we drove… well, it was hard not to blush. If we were back home, some of those looks would be scandalous. Of course, they would have been even worse if I had gotten my way with our choices of dress—then Wyatt would actually be able to see something—so perhaps this was for the best after all.
Or was it? I smiled to myself at the disgraceful thought.
Not for the first time, I snuck a peek of my own at the big man sitting next to me. It was still hard to believe I was here, away from home, unchaperoned, and in a motor vehicle next to an English man. A very good looking English man.
Each time he turned the wheel he used to guide this truck, his grip tightened and the corded muscles that ran along his arm stiffened and bulged beneath his skin. There wasn’t a boy—or man—back home that was built quite like him. Working the fields, mending and raising barns, taking care of livestock—that was all hard work, sure, and it kept the men fit and strong. But muscles like these… well, I couldn’t even imagine what Wyatt must have done to get them. What job was it that made you look like he did? Especially out here in the English world, where we’d always been taught that men weren’t accustomed to hard work and instead let machines do everything for them.
The Brody Bunch Collection: Bad Boy Romance Page 41
