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Keeping Up Appearances (A Gass County Novel Book 4)

Page 8

by Isabell Lawless


  “You mean at 10pm?”

  “Sure, yes, that time.”

  “I can see I must have woken you up on this most eventful night of yours.” His eyes wandered up and down her cat decorated flannel pajamas and she suddenly wished she was back in her bedroom, able to pull the comforter around herself.

  “Just because I’m in my pajamas at this time doesn’t mean my life isn’t eventful. I have tons of events I attend on a regular basis. Like tonight.”

  “I’m sure you do.” The bastard bore the bravery of looking completely cool and unraced under pressure, and she was a stray cat walking up the street in need of extra attention. Hissing.

  “Although, we might have a problem, honey.” Bryce grabbed his leather gloves from the seat of the bike and gave her his full attention.

  “I’m not your honey, in fact I’m not anyone’s honey,” her voice fell as she spoke. She hadn’t spoken to him since the ball, when women had flocked around him and she’d done her best to act serene and okay with the fact. In the end, she was the one who gave him the idea she was too boring and fat to date someone like him.

  “I’ll make sure to remember that. But what I was trying to say was we might have a problem with you going to bed at,” he stared at the watch on what looked like a very muscular arm dusted in a few hairs on his wrist, “oh, ten sharp in the evening, on a Saturday, when most of the city is still out partying and eating desserts and may not get home until after midnight. Any chance you can manage to stay awake for, let’s say, another five or ten minutes?”

  “Well— “

  “Or maybe one of your eventful evenings, quoting you, may hold an actual event that you will attend fully, without running out after an excessive water break?”

  She sputtered and suddenly found difficulty in finding the right words.

  “I attend events, in fact all the time. My evenings are usually spent doing all kinds of things that keep me busy.” As she finished her sentence a car rolled into park at the sidewalk. The car door on the driver’s side opened eventually after the person in the driver’s seat fiddle with something in her lap and a little lady featuring silver curls on her head waved and came to stand next to them.

  “Sweetie, you left the discussion about our knitting fiesta early tonight at the gala and I didn’t want you to go to bed without this. Enjoy, my heart, and give my kisses to Humpty.”

  In a few minutes her car turned the corner down the street and left them in silence again. “Knitting fiesta?” he turned and crossed his arms over his chest, a small smile tugging at the corner of his luscious mouth on his handsome face which tonight featured a delicious dark beard, begging to be touched. Kissed. Rubbed with . . . things.

  She sighed deeply and closed her eyes. “We knit with neon colors.”

  “And Humpty?”

  “My cat. You’ve met.”

  “Huh, well that explains your outfit.”

  “This was a gift from before I even had a cat.” The situation was getting sadder by the minute.

  “Still, Humpty?”

  “Humpty once sat on a wall, well, he had a great fall. And,” she coughed and finished the rest in a mumble. “And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again . . . but I did. I healed him, and now he’s mine.”

  “You got more fascinating stories in that little cat clad body than I first expected.”

  “Yeah, well take care, I need to go inside and die of shame knowing that silver-haired old ladies stay up longer than I do. Have a good night.”

  His hand caught her arm midstep and made her turn. “I promise not to rev the engine when I get home in the evenings, letting both you and Humpty snooze early. Maybe one of these days you can show one of your neon . . . things from the senior knitting group.”

  He let go of her arm and rolled the motorcycle across the street and up his drive way, parking it under the roof of the open carport then with a nod her way entered his front door and went inside.

  She stood for a second thinking before she opened the white box in her hands and felt better when looking at the large slice of blueberry pie filling its space. The note on top read. “A dangerously handsome fella. You should get to know him. Love, Frankie.”

  She never bothered with a plate, a fork would do, and well inside she sat down with a thud on the couch, the TV still playing another repeat of America’s Funniest Home videos and she let the fork do its job scooping delicious dessert into her mouth.

  Suddenly a knock on the front door caught her reaction and she jumped. Placing the dessert box on the couch next to her she stood.

  “Who is it?” she called, hoping it wouldn’t be a murderer. At the same time, knowing such person wouldn’t respond with an honest answer anyway so why bother asking.

  “It’s me.”

  She thought for a second. To be sure. “Me, who?”

  Silence occurred on the opposite side of the door. “Bryce, you know the guy across the street, the guy you slept with in the shower and while working in Brazil. You know that guy—“

  The hinges on the door seemed to be smoking with speed as she opened the door and threw her hand on his mouth, cutting his sentence short.

  “You need to shush,” she whispered, looking up and down the street for possible lurkers. She felt his lips move against her palm and she released her grip.

  “What did you say?”

  Bryce licked his lips, making everything tingle from her toes to her feet and she wished she could excuse herself and vanish inside as quickly as she had just exited the door behind her.

  “I said, the two of us, plus Mr. Nelson’s widow are the only ones within earshot and I can promise you Ruth Nelson won’t hear anything unless it’s broadcasted on Fox News.”

  “Still, there could be people lurking around.”

  “Doing what? Seeing what color yarn might fall out of your bag or if Humpty has caught anything interesting?”

  He had her there.

  “Why does it seem like we’ve changed personas?”

  Valerie knew what he meant but didn’t want to confess he was right. “What do you mean exactly?”

  He tucked the bike helmet under his arm and leaned in, a little too close for comfort giving her a whiff of the same aftershave she’d smelled in the shower that day in Brazil and gulped loudly. Unfortunately it did nothing to slow her raging hormones.

  “What happened to that confident woman, almost to the point of being a bitch, pardon my words, which I grew to know in Brazil? Here that same person is part of a senior knitting group, complains about revving engines, and rather stays inside with her cat, Humpty, than visiting any of the local hangouts. You’re new here, shouldn’t you want to at least get to know the town and its people?”

  “First of all, I’ve never been called a bitch in my entire life, and if we were back in Brazil I would have put my knee in your groin just for saying that.”

  “So, why don’t you do that now?”

  “You want me to put my knee between your legs?”

  Bryce dropped his gaze and trailed it down her flannel clad body making her feel like she wore absolutely nothing. “I’d rather have my body between your legs.”

  Valerie gasped, stunned.

  “Good night, Bryce.”

  “Don’t make me go,” he followed her steps to the door where he placed his hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to be rude, but you should know,” he lowered his voice and came close. “There isn’t one second of you in Brazil that isn’t engraved in my brain.”

  “I’m not sure I remember much of that anyway, and I think it’s best if you did the same.”

  He stepped even closer and with her back now against the veranda post his mouth descended to her ear until nothing but a whisper escaped his lips.

  “I keep thinking of how I sank to my knees, letting my lips trail down your smooth belly. My tongue was warm and slick and I licked and teased along the outside of your thong. I remember how your skin f
elt under my hands as I slid them up the back of your legs, grasped your behind and loving what I had found, with my teeth I pulled your thong down and brought you to my mouth. You made me feel as hungry, like I had been starving for an entire lifetime. I pressed my lips to the apex of your thighs, kissed you softly and let my tongue express what I felt for you then, and still feel for you now.”

  He leaned back slightly and looked in her eyes. “Come on over to my place. For the love of God, I’m still starving, Valerie.”

  ~ Chapter Seventeen ~

  She didn’t come over. He’d positively, absolutely thought she would. How much more could someone tell a person that . . . love, as silly as it seemed, was blooming. Could she not hear him? Had she gone deaf? The idea that she wasn’t interested was excluded in his brain, or he made it so. The way she acted when they were close, how she kissed him and let him touch her . . . All night he’d thought if it and he was yet to find an answer.

  All night long, then wind howled and rain poured down. Bryce woke up to the sound of thunder rumbling. He looked out the window seeing big raindrops splashing on the ground.

  “It’s gonna be another damn rainy day,” he groaned and wished he could go back to bed and hide beneath the covers for as long as the sky felt teary eyed. “Will I ever be able to catch a break?”

  Bryce did what his clock said he didn’t have time for and crawled under the comforter on the bed to pass time. After a while he decided to stop feeling sorry for himself and he could no longer hear the thunder and rain of the storm and contemplated getting himself out of the bed.

  When he poked his head out from beneath the covers he felt the warm sun on his face. “Finally,” he mumbled and sighed in relief. How people could wish for the rain, its dark skies and depressing clouds, he had yet to understand. If anyone felt blue a rainy day was sure to make it worse.

  The doorbell rang and he held his breath.

  “Come one, Bryce-boy,” Brody yelled in the booming voice he usually held special for giving fugitives their last command before he took proper action. “The sunshine is back and you can come out from under your blankets, ‘cause I know you too well to know you’re under there.”

  “Fuck,” Bryce sighed and knew if he didn’t answer the door soon Brody would walk around the property looking in every window until he found him. He was a good friend that way, not.

  “I can even see my own shadow, Bryce-boy,” Brody’s voice boomed again.

  Bryce sat up in bed and watched the sun do just that, cast a shadow of tree branches outside onto his bedroom wall. He was pleased to see his own moving shadow on the floor as he stood and stretched then walked out of the bedroom to meet reality, and Brody. Quite nice if he thought about it. Sunshine was highly underrated.

  Brody made himself at home in one of the kitchen chairs in Bryce’s kitchen. Brody took space wherever he went.

  “What’s on your mind, Bryce? I can practically hear your brain working.” Brody flipped through a car magazine left open on the table.

  “Just . . . you take space, Brody. That’s all.”

  Brody turned his head and crunched his eyebrows. “The one and only time I spoke feelings with you was the time I found you in deep mental shit and jobless with a beard that would’ve made Sasquatch jealous. Leave it.”

  For a while they stayed silent. Brody flipped the pages of the magazine and Bryce made them both pancakes with a stack of bacon on the side: a feast for two who carried injured people or chased meth-high crack-heads on the run.

  They chewed and Bryce fell in tune with Brody: silent, content, and stoic. “You should take space too,” Brody said as a random thought around bites of pancakes. He didn’t look across the table. Just continued to eat.

  “Huh?”

  “Take space. Demand it.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s not where, it’s with whom.”

  Bryce chewed on that for moment until Brody cleaned his plate with the last pancake and pushed in his chair at the table.

  “You know exactly who I’m talking about, don’t be an idiot.”

  He placed his hat back on his head and tipped the front as he started walking out of the kitchen. Then he stopped, and turned.”

  “If you want something, you take it. Now, not against the law mind you. Thanks for breakfast.”

  The front door closed and Bryce was left in the silence of his own thoughts and the sound of the crunching of crispy, perfectly fried bacon in his mouth.

  He needed to get out, drive somewhere, clear his thoughts, and feel something else under him than the woman on his mind. He saddled his bike and with a last look at the empty driveway across the street he headed into town for a useless errand.

  Without thinking his bike turned down Main Street and found the parking lot to the vet clinic almost deserted. It hadn’t quite opened yet, the town was to wake up in about thirty minutes or so. There she was, beige scrubs for the day, leaning against the back wall of the clinic lapping up the rays of sunshine that had come through what otherwise used to be dirty gray clouds.

  ***

  Valerie decided there was nothing that could cure whatever she was feeling inside today than sugar. And tons of it. If the bakery wasn’t open she’d suck on sugar cubes from the stash she kept at the office for her coffee. Something had to give and this time it was her pancreas that had to suffer.

  “I’m not mad,” she lied to Hayley at the bakery counter when she was asked why her brows were furrowed. But there was no way she’d explain that the anger was really self-directed and came from wanting him but not disappointing her parents, again. Being an only child left in these circumstances did that to your psyche. And not just a silly crush either, but much, much more. Making babies, pillow talk until the end of days, a marriage kind of want. Would her mother allow a tattooed guy who drove a motorcycle in his spare time and had previously been engaged be the father of her babies, to show up in her church? No! Crazy.

  Hayley stared at her over the counter of bakery, stacking the shelves with today’s baked goods. “Have you decided what you’d like,” she asked and smiled and she watched Valerie return to planet earth.

  “I’ve heard there are some phenomenal lemon cookies from this bakery and I’ve needed to taste them again ever since— “she bit her lower lip and stopped herself from saying the name, Bryce’s.

  “So, Bryce-boy has served you his special stash of cookies,” she smiled and grabbed a glass plate from behind her and placed it on the counter between the two of them.

  “How did you—“ Valerie began but was cut off short when Hayley laughed happily and emptied the entire plate of lemon cookies into a pink paper box and closed it off by tying a red ribbon around it. “I make these for Bryce, only.”

  “Why?”

  “Simply because they’re a bitch to make and also because he once let me crash at his place for three weeks when my mom kicked me out for being—“

  “Gay,” Valerie finished the sentence.

  “Yes,” Hayley replied, her smile a little more solemn but just as warm. Her whole personality was warm and friendly.

  “He deserves his cookies, and if he decides to share them with you, you must be something very special. He’d kill any of the boys should they touch these fluffy desserts when he stores them at the fire station during his shifts as a paramedic.

  “You know,” Hayley continued and started to wipe down the counter, turning of the lights as she went. “If you’re going to love someone of the boys in this town, Bryce is a stellar guy.”

  Valerie blinked and held the box harder in her hands. “Who said I was in love with Bryce?”

  “It’s all over your face and it’s okay, Val. He is worth it. He is worth every second of this wonderful, crazy ride called life.”

  The light at the door turned on and Val got the memo, time to go back to work. “Thanks for the cookies,” she said and headed for the exit.

  “You’re welcome, Val, and if you’ve got nothing to do, ther
e is a guy who has an addiction for those cookies down at the station. Heard he even had a little incident with an animal this morning, could maybe use a little support.”

  Valerie watched Hayley wink and she walked outside in a daze. “Better check what happened,” she mumbled to herself and found her car then placed the box of cookies on the passenger seat. She really shouldn’t but she couldn’t help it, if anything she could be visiting as a professional, maybe he needed stitches, and she was good at that. She could be good at other things too, like kissing and making things better. She blew out a steady breath.

  “Damn men and their magnificent bodies and magnetic fields, how the hell is a woman supposed to stay away.”

  ***

  In a perfect world, cats didn’t have claws sharp as nail and in continuous need for scratching. In Bryce’s world, he had the never-ending task of explaining that cats should be kept away from newborn babies or those sharp things would end up in a soft face. Or worse, an eye, or like in this case, a soft baby lip.

  Bryce sighed and attempted another antiseptic cleanse of his arm. He was used to doing this to other people, a lot, it was his job god damn it to fix people up, not so much fixing up himself. Brody had left his station for the evening, Wayne was out on a call with his crew, and currently he was left alone at the station until they all came back from that call.

  He sighed and sat himself down on top of the toilet seat, washing his arm under the lukewarm water. This was it. He was heading home for the day. No more insane animals or people. Rescuing lives had to take a setback for today, he desperately needed a break. He walked down the stairs and out into the parking lot. His bike was waiting and looking around the lot, so was also another woman. Another fiery engine he wouldn’t mind getting a ride from.

  ***

  Valerie turned from the wall and squinted into the sunlight to get her eyes adjusted to see the man parking in front of her on the parking lot. Not that she had to question it too hard. She knew. Her whole body knew. Her nipples knew. Her pulse knew. Damn it, her body should just stop it and take a lesson from her very rational part of her brain . . . pretty please.

 

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