by Shirley Jump
Take turns feeding each other... but watch out for the toothpicks. If you get too distracted, you could end your evening in the emergency room.
Trust me, that's no way to get a second date.
Chapter Nine
Travis had never noticed how small the interior of his convertible was—until Meredith Shordon sat in the passenger's seat. It felt as if the walls of the car were closing in, bringing them nearer together, edging her fragrance, her skin, her very presence closer to him.
Tempting him.
The word "virgin" danced around his head with images of sexual positions heretofore untried by most of mankind. Damn his hormones. Damn the testosterone that coursed through his body, hot as lava, inflamed by Meredith's innocence and gimme-gimme-gimme mouth.
He shouldn't. He was sure he'd go to hell, or at least purgatory, for defiling someone so pretty and nice and well... Midwestern. She had none of those hard city edges about her, just a calm purity that seemed a lot like a daisy in a field of nettles.
"Do you remember how to get back to my cousin's house off of Mass. Ave.?" Meredith said, breaking the silence. Since they'd gotten into the car, he hadn't exchanged much more than small talk with her, because every time she opened her mouth, he started watching her lips move and watching her lips move led to thoughts of other parts of her body moving...
That path to hell seemed awfully short right now.
"Yeah. I even know a shortcut." He banged a quick left and pushed on the gas. The rev of the six cylinders beneath the hood was a weak echo of the horsepower itching to be let out beneath his own hood.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
What had been his plan again? It went beyond sex, that he knew. But damned if his brain would picture anything other than a firm mattress and clean sheets.
Oh yeah. Work. The job he hated but needed because the phone company—and Kenny's ex—liked to be paid on time. He needed Meredith's input on No-Moo Milk and then he'd be able to save Kenny's butt and his own at Belly-Licious Beverages, maybe even with the added bonus of displacing Larry Herman from his blood-borne pedestal.
"You're awfully quiet," she said. "Is it something I did?"
"No." He paused. "Yes."
"I'm sorry. I'm just not used to being in a city and sometimes I—"
"There, like that," he said, waving at her. "You're apologizing, for God's sake. No one around here apologizes."
"They don't?"
"Hell no. They cut you off in traffic, then flip you the bird like it was your fault for being on the road in the first place. They sell you shoddy merchandise and give you crap about returning it because then maybe you'll back down and they won't have to eat the loss. They connive to get your promotion then screw you on your review so you'll be stuck in the mail room until you're sixty-five."
"That's what it's like here?"
He let out a gust. Now he'd done it—taken out years of annoyances and irritations on her for no reason other than the fact that she was here and he was caught up in some stupid denial plan. "Not really. I'm just... frustrated right now."
"Oh." She paused a second, then noticed the death grip he had on the steering wheel and the rigid set of his chest. "Oh."
"Yeah. It's that kind of 'Oh.'"
"We could—"
"No, we could not. Not now. And I'd appreciate it if you would never mention the word sex again because my hold on my hormones is ... Well, let's just say you don't make it easy for a guy." The numerous lights on Massachusetts Avenue slowed his progress and kept them together in the car.
Kept her closer. Kept reminding him that all he had to do was take a left or a right and he could avoid taking her home altogether and instead take Meredith off to the closest hotel.
Travis tightened his grip on the steering wheel and shut down his peripheral vision. Hell, if a good workhorse could do that, so could he.
"But that's exactly what I'm trying to do," Meredith said. "Make it easy for you. No strings, no expectations."
"Well, that's not right." He didn't know where on planet Earth it wasn't, but it wasn't.
"Are you sure there's nothing wrong with you? I mean, I have read The Sun Also Rises. I know men can have issues with their ... manhood and not want to tell the truth."
Travis bit back a laugh. "Trust me, I have no issues with my manhood."
"Would you rather be plowing a different kind of field?"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"I was trying to be tactful and ask you if you ..." She arched a brow. "If you were more of a guy-guy than a girl-guy."
"A guy ..."It took a second before the synapses in his brain started firing and he made the connection. "Trust me. I'm a hundred percent American male. And I only put my tractor in female ... ah, fields."
She smiled, then reached across the car to lay her hand on top of his. Her touch ratcheted up his temperature what felt like ten degrees and sent the peripheral vision plan down the tubes. He'd have never made a good workhorse, that was for sure.
"Good," Meredith said, her voice as tempting as a warm blanket. "Then you can fulfill your end of the bargain, right?"
At that moment, he pulled up in front of her cousin's house. He stopped the car, parked it and turned off the engine.
She was his for the asking. Heck, he didn't have to ask—she was doing all the asking. And yet, some leftover morality, probably instilled in him by the nuns that had taught him how to read at Sacred Heart Elementary School, kept him from saying a word.
Meredith was too sweet, too vulnerable and too nice for the likes of him. The best thing he could do was convince her that her plan was crazy and that the smart plan for her was to get back on a plane, head back to farm country and settle down with a man who'd treat her right.
If she'd just cooperate, it would be a whole lot easier for him to do that.
"Well?" she prompted.
"You're asking too much of me, Meredith."
"I don't understand. Don't you like me?"
"I know I'm some kind of idiot for turning you down, but—"
And then, the need to kiss her—to do much more than that—reached its boiling point again and Travis opened the door, scrambling out of the car before he could break his own promise and his vow to keep Meredith from the depravity she was asking for. Both conveniently available in the car's backseat.
Meredith didn't let him escape. She got out and came around to his side of the car, her skirt swishing against her legs, the volume of that sound seeming a hundred decibels higher than the hum of traffic a block away.
"I am going to kiss you, Travis Campbell, and when I'm done, then you can tell me if you're still confused."
And then she did just that, leaning in and first brushing her lips against his, then pressing harder and firmer. He threw his objections out the window and came right back at her, his lips meeting hers and his tongue dipping in to taste the sweet inside of her mouth. She let out a little mew and melted into his arms.
Desire roared in his head and he forgot everything he'd intended earlier. Meredith fit perfectly against his body, her lithe curves pressing against the hard planes of him like they'd been carved from the same piece of wood.
His hands cupped her chin, thumbs tracing along her jaw, asking her to open wider, to allow him more of her. She obliged and then wrapped her arms around his back, drifting her hands down to trace along his waist, teasing along the line where his shirt disappeared inside his pants.
Travis nearly groaned. His hands dropped down her throat, along her shoulders, and then finally to the one place he'd seen all night and not touched— the soft twin peaks covered by the silky pink shirt. His thumbs rolled over the tips, noting the sensation of lace beneath the satin fabric, then returned to cup her perfect breasts in his palms. She mewed again and pressed her pelvis to his, stoking a fire that was already raging.
"Get your friggin' hands off her or we'll do it for you."
Travis jerked away from Meredith and wheeled around. Two men stood beh
ind him, their faces set in angry masks that seemed to glow beneath the street lights. No, not men, mountains of male hormones with bulging Popeye arms beneath white tank tops and open, battered denim jackets. Their faces were shaded by John Deere ball caps, giving them a menacing look.
Travis kept Meredith behind him with one arm, then stepped forward, putting himself squarely between the twin Mr. Everests. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
"We're your ride to the preacher," the bigger one said, pointing a finger at Travis's chest, "because if you're doing that to our baby sister, you better have a ring in your pocket, buster."
"A preacher? Are you nuts?" Travis said. Then the words sank in. Baby sister. These two hulking giants were Meredith's brothers? What the hell did they feed men in Indiana?
"These two very rude individuals," Meredith said, stepping around Travis and inserting herself between the three men, "are my brothers, Ray Jr. and Vernon." She gestured from one to the other. "And they're leaving."
"Nope. No can do," said the smaller of the two, smaller being a misnomer since Travis suspected the six-foot-three man weighed in around two-fifty. "We're here to keep an eye on you." He gave Travis a glare. "Seems a good idea, considering you got a deer tick on you."
"Travis is not a deer tick and for your information, Vernon, I was the one who kissed him."
Vernon scratched his head beneath his cap, the tractor logo riding up and down before settling back into place. "Seems to me he was the one doing all the fence crossing. And when a coyote wanders onto your property—"
"You either shoot him or chase him off with a bigger dog." Ray Jr. gave Travis a look that left no doubt which option he voted for.
Meredith stepped up to her elder brother and poked him in the chest. "Get back, Ray Jr." To Travis's surprise, the huge man took a step back at his little sister's touch. "I do not need babysitting. I'm an adult."
"Right. You're acting like a two-year-old," he said. "Running off like that, leaving everything—and everyone—behind. You need to go home with us. Rebecca can get on without you and you know it."
"I think you should leave Meredith alone," Travis said. "She—"
"And we think you should go away, deer tick," Vernon said, taking a step forward. Ray Jr. moved in unison with him, two soldiers marching to blot out the enemy. "Now."
Travis started to protest, ready to take this to the mat if need be. Then Meredith laid a soft hand on his arm. "Go ahead," she said. "I can handle them. They are, after all, my brothers."
Travis's gaze went from her to the Hulk twins. They hadn't moved any closer, but seemed to have multiplied in size as if the mere act of inhaling made them bigger. He thought he could maybe take down one, but two...?
And besides, they were Meredith's flesh and blood. Getting into a fistfight in front of her, he suspected, wasn't the best way to endear himself to her. "Are you sure?"
"They may seem menacing," she said, "but really, they have my best interests at heart."
Travis didn't comment on what those best interests might be since they seemed to come attached to a preacher and a courthouse, but did as she asked, leaving Meredith outside her cousin's house and in the meaty paws of Tweedle-big and Tweedle-bigger. "I'll call you."
She stood on her tiptoes and pressed a lingering kiss to his lips. "If I don't call you first."
Ray Jr. blanched and started to sputter admonishments but Meredith just put up a finger of warning and started up the stairs to her cousin's house. Her brother backed off, looking like a sulky puppy.
When he was sure she was going to be okay, Travis got into his car and left. Meredith could definitely handle Ray Jr. and Vernon better than he could— and do it without her fists.
For the second time that night, he thought about the contradiction of this woman from Indiana. She said she wanted things to be so simple, and yet she was anything but.
And her kisses ... Well, they were more than he'd expected, too. They led him down a path he'd vowed to avoid, if only long enough to figure out who Travis Campbell was and why he was more often on the receiving end of a pocketbook than a pillow.
He turned right onto the Mass. Ave. connector, heading toward the highway and home, instead of going left, which would take him toward the bar where Kenny undoubtedly was seeing how far he could stretch the limits of his Visa and his charm.
As Travis eased onto I-93, his cell phone jingled. He flipped it open, half expecting Kenny to be on the other end, about to badger him into coming to the bar. "Hello?"
"Whatcha doing on the nineteenth of November?"
"Brad?" His younger brother's voice was nearly drowned out by the festive sounds of a party behind him. Laughing, clinking glasses, a popping champagne cork and several congratulatory shouts.
"I did it," Brad said. "I proposed to Jenny. We're doing it up right, and I need a best man."
"You're getting married? You?"
"Hey, everybody's gotta settle down someday."
"Yeah, but not you. You're ..."
"Not the commitmentphobe I used to be." There was the sound of giggling, then a loud lip smacking as Brad kissed someone. Jenny, Travis presumed. A nice woman, whom he'd met several times in the two years she and Brad had been dating. Still, the news that Brad was getting married came like a Mack truck at his head. "This beauty has got my heart but good," Brad added.
"But we swore—" When they'd been kids, it had been a solemn oath. The kind you never broke. A blood oath, he went to add, but didn't.
"Trav, I was twelve. Who knew how I'd feel at twenty-eight? Besides, there's no guarantee I'll turn out like Dad."
"There's no guarantees either way, Brad. That's why we decided not to take chances."
There was a long moment of silence, punctuated only by the ongoing celebration on the other end. "Never expected you, of all people, to rain on my parade, Trav."
"Brad, it's not that. It's just—" What? How could he explain? That he felt betrayed because his brother had broken an adolescent promise? That he couldn't celebrate something that filled him with a sense of dread as surely as the opening of a Stephen King movie? That he'd give Britney Spears better odds on her next love match than he would any of the Campbell boys? "I'm happy for you, Brad. Really I am." He worked up a little enthusiasm into his voice.
"Yeah. Sure. I'll send you an invite. If you have time, maybe you can make it." Then Brad clicked off, returning to his party and leaving Travis in a convertible filled with regrets and words he couldn't take back.
Ray Jr.'s Keep-Your-Claws-to-Yourself Crab Salad
1 pound fresh cooked crab meat
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons sour cream
Salt and pepper
Cayenne pepper to taste
Want to work out a little frustration? Well, this ain't the dish to do it. For that, you gotta get yourself a punching bag or a bale of hay and have at it. This is for protein, which gives you muscles and energy so you can kill the next man who comes within ten feet of your baby sister.
Pick through the crab meat and make sure there aren't any shells. The last thing you want to do is end up needing the Heimlich, just when you're about to pulverize someone. Kind of ruins your credibility as a menacing threat.
Mix the other ingredients in a separate bowl, then add the crabmeat. Make it as spicy as you want with the cayenne. Hell, I don't care if you add so much you're howling at the moon. It's your damned tongue.
Eat it plain, on bread, don't matter to me. Just eat it fast so you can get to back to dragging that city boy away from your sister. 'Cause he definitely spells trouble.
Chapter Ten
"You can just get right back on the Mass Pike and drive back home because I don't need watchdogs." Meredith said, turning around when her brothers followed her up onto Rebecca's porch. She parked her fists on her hips and tipped her head up, eyeing them.
"Sorry, Mer, no can do. This is direct orders from Momma and you know how she
gets if we don't do what she says. Besides, we have a standing invite to stay at Aunt Gloria's, for as long as we need to."
Meredith let out a muttered curse. "I don't need, or want, a keeper."
"Seems someone needs a leash at least," Vernon muttered, cocking his head in the direction Travis had gone.
"Do I ever interfere in your lives?"
"Well..." The two brothers looked from one to the other.
"I didn't think so. I would appreciate it if you would kindly stay out of mine." She turned on her heel, intent on heading into Rebecca's house. With her brothers staying next door, her plan had been shot with more holes than an archery target.
"Caleb is real broken up, Mer," Ray Jr. said. Meredith paused midstep. "He ain't been the same since you dumped him."
"He'll get over it."
Ray Jr. laid a big palm on her shoulder, the width and breadth of his grip nearly encompassing her entire clavicle. "You used to be softhearted, sis. You changed that much since you got here?"
Something sharp ricocheted around her chest. "I want something different from what I've always had, that's all."
"I can understand that," Vernon piped up from the sidewalk. "The boys at Petey's damn near banned me from the bar when I started drinking Coors Light instead of Bud. Said I wasn't a real man anymore. I gotta tell you, though, that mountain stream stuff they say ain't no bull—"
"This isn't about a beer commercial," Ray Jr. growled.
"Hell, I know that." Vernon ran a hand through his mop of brown curls. "Just making a point."
"You don't understand. Neither of you do." Meredith pivoted toward her eldest brother. "I don't want to work in Petey's the rest of my life and be married to Caleb and go to church every Sunday and make a Jell-O cake every July fourth for the Heaven-dale town picnic. I want more than that."
Ray Jr. shrugged. "Then get another job. Marry another guy. Buy a different cake mix. What's the problem?"
Meredith let out a gust. "Don't you see? I don't want any of that! The farm life. The Sunday picnics, the boy-next-door romance. I want..." She swept her arm out in an arc, gesturing toward the rush of traffic passing by on the distant highways, the bright lights of the bustling city that twinkled so bright, they blotted out most of the night sky. "This."
