Where It All Began

by Lucy Score

  His fingers stroked her upper arm.

  She blew out a breath. “Bet you’re sorry you asked,” she joked.

  “Why didn’t you say all that when you got here?”

  “It’s not the kind of shit you dump on a complete stranger, John.”

  “It is in Blue Moon,” he argued and looked down at her, and she felt that familiar warmth filling up her belly. He slipped his arm off her shoulder as if he’d just now realized where it was.

  “I’m not a Mooner,” she reminded him. “Where we come from, your problems are your own, not fodder for a town meeting.”

  John sighed wistfully. “That sounds nice.”

  Phoebe laughed. “From the outside, your ‘commune-ism’ is pretty attractive.” She raised her beer to her lips and drank. “It’s been a rough patch for my family, but I know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Once I have a job, my only goal in life is taking care of $20,000 in medical debt.”

  “Then what?” John asked. “After you take care of that?”

  Phoebe blinked. “Oh, the usual. Make a difference, lead a meaningful life, have statues erected to me for my research in the farming industry. You?”

  “Make a go of this,” he said, jutting his chin toward the barn.

  “Yeah? Maybe they’ll erect scarecrows to you for being outstanding in your field?” She waited a beat, wondering if the joke would go over his head.

  “You’re hilarious,” he said dryly.

  “You know, most people laugh at my humor.”

  “I’m laughing on the inside. Do you ever think about having a family?” he asked, swiftly changing the subject.

  “Sure. If I meet the right guy.” She looked down the dirt drive, pastures flowing off to the west in a million shades of green, fields of wheat to the east. “I think I’ll have all girls and raise them to believe they can do anything they damn well please.”

  His grin was quick and warm and made her heart stumble. “If anyone can, it’d be you.”

  “What about you? Family or the solitude you so love so dearly?”

  He squinted out across the low rolling hills. “Definitely family. Someday.”

  “Boys to help you build the Pierce family farming empire?” Phoebe fished.

  “Who says girls wouldn’t do just as good a job empire-building?” John teased.

  “Why, Mr. Pierce,” Phoebe fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Be careful, your tolerance is showing.”

  He gave her a long, searching look. One that had goosebumps cropping up on her arms despite the warmth of the sun. “How much time do we have before dinner?” he asked. She took the arm he had looped around her shoulder and looked at his watch. “Another half an hour.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  She took his hand. “Can I take my beer?”

  Chapter Twelve

  They stopped by the house for fresh beers and a peek in the oven. Satisfied that dinner would be perfection, Phoebe followed John out the door again and hoped that he’d put his arm around her again.

  He didn’t. But he walked close enough that the back of his hand brushed hers in a repeated reminder of his presence and the giddy effect he had on her hormones. They crested the hill behind the house and followed a worn, grassy path that divided pasture and field. To the east, an old stone barn stood dark and tall, dominating the landscape of golds and greens.

  “Is that yours, too?” she asked.

  John looked up at the barn, squinted. “Yeah. It’s got good bones. Someday it’ll be something.”

  He led her to the edge of the cornfield.

  “Mind getting a little dirtier?” John asked her.

  Phoebe looked down at the jeans she’d worn all day, which had a new hole and a thick layer of dirt and dust. “I think I can handle it.”

  He gestured toward the fresh turned dirt at the corner of the field. Stalks of sweet corn poked out of the ground in tidy rows. “Sit.”

  She sat cross-legged in the dirt and stared at him expectantly. “Now what?”

  He sat next to her, their knees touching. “Be quiet. Just be.”

  She arched an eyebrow at him, but he ignored her and closed his eyes. Skeptical and wondering if this was an elaborate set up for him to smash a clod of dirt in her face, Phoebe closed an eye. It took a minute or two of peeking at him to make sure she wasn’t in danger of a dirt strike.

  Deciding that whatever he wanted to show her must be important, Phoebe reluctantly let her defenses slip. She willed her mind to quiet, wiping away thoughts like words on a chalkboard, and sat. The sun felt warm on her skin, and she heard the whisper of wind rustling through leaves and the buzz of cicadas and bees. It sounded like a never-ending conversation. The smell of the turned dirt under her was fresh, metallic.

  And there it was, that buzz beneath her skin. A vibration of sameness. She felt part of it, part of the earth beneath her that she’d spent her day tending, part of the air that caressed her skin and filled her lungs. She felt John next to her, too. Her senses were keenly aware of his presence as if, somehow, he were the anchor of it all. Rooted and reaching at the same time, Phoebe felt like they were like the green stalks that stretched on beyond them in an organic patchwork.

  Their efforts here would never be wasted. What was put into the land would come back. That was the promise.

  She let her eyes flutter open and found John watching her, a softness on his face she hadn’t seen before. The blue of the sky, the gray of his eyes, the green of the grass. In the silence of her mind, everything was so much more vibrant.

  “Find it?” he asked.

  She nodded without speaking.

  He laughed softly. “This is the first time I’ve seen you without words,” he teased.

  “They’ll come back, and when they do, you’ll regret it,” she warned him. But he was still smiling when he opened the cooler. He handed her a fresh beer.

  “Okay, I definitely felt it. But you’re going to have to explain it to me.”

  “That’s my ‘why.’ That’s why instead of selling insurance like my dad or teaching like my mom, I wanted this.” He sifted dirt through his fingers.

  “You’re like Thoreau, and this is your Walden Pond.”

  “‘Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails,’” John quoted.

  Phoebe applauded, her heart giving a little pitter pat at the gorgeous man quoting poetry to her. “My, my. A literary farmer.”

  He threw a bottle cap at her. “Not everyone needs to have a master’s degree to be a nerd. I saw your face the first time you plugged in your typewriter.”

  “Oh really? And exactly what did my face tell you?”

  “That you were having a nerdgasm over a typewriter.”

  “I feel the way about my thesis the way you feel about these fields,” she pointed out. “Also, points for excellent wordplay. You keep surprising me, John.”

  --------

  After the best pot roast he’d ever had—not that he’d be stupid enough to ever mention that fact to his mother—John buckled down to a different task at the kitchen table. His pen scratched quietly across the expanse of loose leaf paper in a satisfying production much different from how he spent his days.

  Phoebe padded barefoot into the kitchen and opened the fridge to retrieve the bottle of wine she had stashed there the day before. He didn’t have any wine glasses, but she made do with a water glass.

  John noticed that she’d changed into shorts—very short shorts—and a t-shirt in royal blue with a V-neck. A deep one. She’d pulled all that long, sleek hair back into a ponytail high on top of her head. But it was the red framed glasses that grabbed at him. They were nerdy and sexy, rendering him desperate for a beer and a second shower. Both cold.

  John shook his head a
t himself. His plan to get to know her better to become less attracted to her had essentially blown up in his face… or crotch. And now he liked her even more. A woman who was willing to put her own life on hold just to help out her family? That was Blue Moon through and through. He hadn’t expected that from the ambitious Phoebe.

  But that didn’t mean he was going to change his mind about the rest of it.

  Phoebe skipped over to her typewriter with her wine and the little notebook she carried with her. “Thanks for talking to me today,” she said, sliding a leg over the chair and flopping down with a sigh. “I actually have some material I can work with.”

  He picked up the papers he’d stacked on the table and held them out over the typewriter. “About that. I think I have an idea.”

  Frowning, she pushed her glasses up her nose and began to read. Her gaze flew back to his, eyes sparkling.

  “These are answers to some of the millions of questions I’ve thrown at you.”

  He scratched absently at the back of his head. “Yeah, I, uh, tend to communicate better in writing. I hope you don’t mind.”

  She was out of her seat and hugging him before he could even put down his beer. He tensed against her, unprepared to have her lithe, soft body pressed against his. Dear God, she hadn’t put a bra back on after her shower, and her breasts were in his face.

  He gave her a little nudge backwards before she could find out what kind of effect she was having on him. He was only human.

  “John, this is incredible,” she said, smashing the papers against his chest, bouncing on her toes. “This is perfect!”

  For the love of God, he needed her to stop bouncing. The shorts he’d changed into for the night were not hiding the hard-on that was currently throbbing for release.

  Phoebe leaned down and placed a light kiss at the corner of his mouth. John didn’t know what he was doing. One second he was trying to hold her off, convincing himself that they could remain platonic associates, and the next he was standing up so fast his chair tipped over backwards. The purely biological impulse took over and had him gathering her in to him.

  Her eyes widened when he pulled her hips against him, and she felt him hard. Neither of them moved. John prayed that she would step away from him, make the decision for him. But God was not listening to the prayers of a terrified farmer. Still clutching the papers, Phoebe wound her arms around his neck. Her breasts, soft and warm, pressed against his chest and John’s fingers flexed on her hips.

  Phoebe felt better than he ever thought possible. She belonged here in his arms, his body decided, even as his mind argued. And if she moved again, John feared he wouldn’t be able to be held responsible for his actions.

  Oh, shit.

  She rose on tip-toe. Her full lips parted slightly, her breath uneven. Those emerald eyes were bright and curious. He held his breath as she tilted her head to the side. Those perfect lips slowly, slowly began to close the distance between them.

  His blood was on fire in his veins. He hadn’t known he’d wanted this moment this badly until it was here. But now he knew. And he wouldn’t forget again, wouldn’t be able to bury the want, the thirst so easily.

  Phoebe’s lips grazed his, a delicate, hollowing touch. He prayed his knees wouldn’t go weak and embarrass him.

  He watched himself do it. Watched himself ignore the calculated, logical path he’d chosen and snaked a hand up to grip her ponytail. John tugged her head back so she was staring up at him, starry-eyed and trembling. A low growl, unlike anything he’d ever heard before, escaped his throat and sent Murdock scurrying down the hallway and up the stairs.

  He was going to stake his claim, his blood pounding through his veins. The sharp tongues of anticipation, excitement, and need urged him on.

  He was a millimeter from her mouth, those lush lips, those dark promises, when they both heard the pounding at the front door.

  “Yoo-hoo?”

  They broke apart like shattering glass. Phoebe sagged against the wall while John tried to will away the evidence of his desire and get his vision back from black.

  “Holy hell,” she breathed, her chest heaving with each gasping breath.

  “I’m gonna need a minute here,” he muttered.

  “I can see that,” she said, eyes wide.

  The knock sounded again.

  “I’ll, um, go see who that is,” she said, dazedly staring at his crotch and backing out of the room. She smacked into the doorframe and swore.

  As soon as she was gone, John hustled across the room and shoved his head in the freezer. “What the fuck was I thinking?” he groaned to the ice cubes in the tray.

  Phoebe Allen was a damn witch. There was no other explanation. She’d taken his understandable and logical reluctance to begin a relationship and seconds later had him mauling her in his own kitchen.

  He was bewitched. And if he continued to think about her, the lust sparkling in her eyes, the breathy catch in her throat, he’d never be fit for company. Murdock was yapping at the front door now, and he heard a woman’s voice. Maybe he’d just slip out the side door and gather his… thoughts.

  --------

  On autopilot, a scarlet-cheeked Phoebe yanked open the door.

  “Hello, hello!” Elvira announced cheerfully as she bustled her way past Phoebe and into the house. “Hey, there little guy,” she said, leaning down to scratch Murdock’s head. The dog cowered for a second at this stranger’s greeting before his little stub began to wag in a blur of ecstasy.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” Elvira said, straightening. “If I am, feel free to shove me right back out the door,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper.

  Phoebe finally found her voice. “Uh, no. Of course not. Not at all. You’re not interrupting. We were just… talking… about the party.” And now she sounded like a teenager lying to her parents.

  “Perfect timing on my part then,” Elvira congratulated herself and hefted the gigantic tote bag on her shoulder. “Thought I’d come over and help you plan for the party Sunday.”

  She headed down the hall in the direction of the kitchen. “Got any wine?”

  “Sure.” Phoebe hustled along behind her and blew out a breath when she realized John and his impressive wood had escaped. She watched Elvira open and close cabinets in a quest for a glass. She found one and the wine and poured herself a healthy portion.

  Phoebe mentally shook herself. Get it together, dummy.

  She plastered a smile on her face. “Exactly how many people are coming Sunday?” Phoebe asked brightly.

  Elvira made a humming noise. “About forty I think. Depends on if the Karlinskis are around or not.

  “How many of them are there?” Phoebe asked.

  “Twelve or thirteen,” Elvira said, righting the chair that John had knocked over without comment. She sat and pulled a notebook out of her hemp tote.

  “Twelve or thirteen?” Phoebe gasped, officially distracted from the revving engine her body had become at John’s touch.

  “Big family,” Elvira shrugged. “The oldest two don’t live at home anymore though. Cumulus joined the Peace Corps, and Raindrop works on Wall Street.”

  Phoebe decided it would just be easier not to comment on the “uniqueness” of the names. “Hmmm,” she said instead.

  All business, Elvira swiped the tip of her pencil over her tongue. “Now, I’m thinking burgers and hot dogs for the main course. That won’t break the bank, and I know John has a grill. We’ll spread the word and have everyone else bring a side dish or a dessert so the only other thing you two will need to worry about are beverages.”

  “Beverages,” Phoebe repeated.

  The side door to the kitchen swung open, sending Murdock into another frenzy until he recognized John. Satisfied there was no threat, the dog plopped down on the floor and promptly began licking his own ass.

  Phoebe’s gaze tracked to John’s shorts, and she was relieved and maybe the tiniest bit d
isappointed that all evidence of their near combustion was gone.

  Well, not all evidence. There was nothing cool about those gray eyes now, she noted. There was a silent inferno burning between the two of them that Elvira seemed blissfully oblivious to. Their gazes held, and her breath caught. There was tension, thick and solid between them. The pull of a secret.

  He didn’t look angry, more annoyed. And Phoebe bet money that he was more annoyed with her than Elvira’s poorly timed entrance. There’d be no going back, she decided. Not after how that almost-kiss felt. She would find a way into John Pierce’s bed before the end of the summer whether he deemed it a good idea or not.

  “There you are!” Elvira chirped. “Phoebe and I are working on the menu for Sunday. You’re probably going to need to stock up on a few non-food related items,” she warned him.

  John dragged his eyes away from Phoebe and gave his attention to Elvira. “Like what?”

  “Toilet paper. Don’t pull an antisocial bachelor move and not have enough toilet paper for forty guests.”

  “Forty?” John sputtered. “What did you do? Invite the whole town? I only have one bathroom.”

  “We’ll make do,” Elvira said, waving away his concerns. “No one knows how to party like Blue Moon.”

  John stomped out of the kitchen muttering under his breath. “I hope it fucking rains.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The damn woman kept sending him smoldering looks, which John only picked up on because he couldn’t stop looking at her. Even now as they mucked Melanie’s stall, he couldn’t stop himself from looking at her.

  He’d come within a heartbeat of making a mistake and had been rescued by Elvira’s fortuitous arrival. And with all his resolve and his internal pep talks, John was no longer confident that he wouldn’t be pushed into that mistake eventually.

  All Phoebe had to do was walk out of the bathroom in a towel and it would be over. Or forget a bra again. Or lean too close to him when she asked him to pass the salt.