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by Mia Carson


  Ella, I read aloud. These letters are for you when the miles between us are great and the days many. I’ve written them so I can, in some small way, still be there for you if you need me. Know that you are always in my heart and in my thoughts. My love, always, Levi.

  It was all I could do not to cry as I thumbed through the letters. Each sealed envelope had a different message on the front, printed in a font that looked like elegant handwriting. Open When You’re Feeling Lonely. Open When You’re Feeling Stressed Out. Open When You Need to Know How Much I Love You. Open When You’re Doubting Yourself, and twenty-five more unopened letters. I handed them to Mom so she could see them. Mom flipped through them, passing them to Grandma as she did. He couldn’t have given me a better gift, and he’d proven once again he was all the man I’d ever want.

  Levi McCormick, the youngest of three and only son of William and Judy McCormick, was, in my mind, perfect in every way. I liked his steel-like resolve and soft-spoken nature. I liked that he treated my parents, as well as his own, with respect and was always willing to lend a hand. He might not be attending college, but he was far from stupid. He’d made good grades in school and seemed to have an intuitive grasp of, or solution to, any problem presented to him. Most of all, I liked how he treated me.

  Levi was panty-dropping handsome. He didn’t play sports because he was too busy helping on his dad’s farm for that, but he’d still been one of the most popular boys in school. Girls flocked to him with his tall, muscular build and the dark hair and eyes that gave him a slightly brooding, dangerous, appearance…until he smiled. His smile, quick and easy, lit his entire face and banished the darkness like it had never been. He could have any girl in school he wanted, but he only had eyes for me.

  Best of all, he was just Levi. He never let his popularity go to his head. In his senior year, I knew at least two girls offered themselves to him, but he had gently turned them down. I was the envy of every girl in school, but he hadn’t made a single unwanted demand on me for the privilege. On the night we graduated high school, we’d had a serious talk about our relationship becoming physical. He was already eighteen, and I would have willingly, even gladly, given myself to him when I was eighteen and legal, but we’d decided to wait. Not for piety, but because we could sense we were still too young and didn’t want to ruin the good thing we had.

  “Thank you,” I said as I rose from the table.

  He rose as well, and I pulled him into a hug. I closed my eyes as his big, strong arms surrounded me and drew me in tight. My grandparents and parents faded away and we were alone. I tipped my head into his, savoring the closeness of his body and soul.

  “Thank you,” I whispered softly so only he could hear me. “Those were the best gift anyone could give me.”

  “I’m going to miss you,” he murmured.

  “I’m going to miss you, too.” I pulled back and kissed him again. I didn’t want him to release me, but we were being watched, so he let me go.

  “You big softy,” Dad said with a smile before giving Levi a firm push on the shoulder.

  “I think they’re lovely,” Mom said, her eyes shiny as she looked at the envelopes again. She looked at Dad. “Why don’t you ever write me letters like these?” she asked as she waved a couple for effect.

  “Because I’m right here.”

  “So?”

  “Now look at what you’ve done, boy,” Dad said, his grin teasing. “You’re making the rest of us menfolk look bad.”

  I grinned as Levi reddened and looked down. “You hush, Dad,” I chimed in, leaping to his defense. “You could learn a thing or two from him.”

  I happened to see Grandma catch Levi’s eyes as she nodded in approval and looked at me. “That’s a fine young man you have there. You better hold onto him tight. I remember when your grandpa used to say things like that to me.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I intend to,” I replied.

  I couldn’t help but smile when Grandpa rolled his eyes. He was the kind of man who would give you the shirt off his back, but he was well known for his taciturn way of speaking. He once described a twister that took the roof off our barn as ‘we had a little wind,’ and if you got him to say more than a dozen words at a time, he would consider that bending your ear.

  We spent another half-hour eating cake while talking about my future at college and how the gifts would be useful when I was away. I looked at Levi, who was smiling and chatting with Mom, but I caught him looking at me several times. She doted on him like he was her own, and he was far too polite to take me away from my family on my birthday, but that was exactly what I wanted him to do. The time remaining to us was growing short, and each minute we were alone together was precious.

  “Want to get out of here?” I asked when Mom and Grandma were distracted.

  “It’s okay.”

  I smiled. I could read him like a book, but as I suspected, he wouldn’t try to take me from my family today. I took matters into my own hands. “What if I said I wanted to get out of here?”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “Mom, Dad, Levi and I are going for a ride. We’ll be back in a while.”

  “Okay. Be careful,” Mom called from the kitchen.

  He took my hand and led me outside.

  My house was centered on a large lot set well back from the highway, surrounded by sorghum fields with equipment sheds and silos behind. We farmed just under 2,300 acres to the northeast of town, while Levi’s family did about the same with almost 2,400 acres to the northwest. Over the years, our parents and grandparents had bought out farmers and leased acreage until our lands met in places. It was possible, if impractical, to walk from my front door to his without ever stepping off one of our two farms. The third largest farmer in Hamlinton were the Calhouns, who farmed about 1,800 acres south of town. The rest of the farm land around Hamlinton was divvied up among a dozen or so smaller farmers whose spreads ranged from around five hundred to a thousand acres.

  Farming was in our blood, in our family’s blood. We’d be back, someday, but unlike so many, neither Levi nor I wanted to be born, grow up, and grow old within fifty miles. We wanted to spread our wings a little and see something more than Hamlin County, Texas.

  We had our future completely planned out. In four years, I would join Levi as he served his country. As a nurse, I would be employable almost anywhere. We would get married, and after twenty years of service, he would retire from the Air Force and we would return to Hamlinton. We would barely be forty, but our fathers would be in their mid-sixties and early seventies and ready to retire.

  As the only child, I would take over our farm, and Levi would likely take over McCormick Farms from his dad. He had two older sisters, both married with families of their own, but they weren’t interested in farming. With almost five-thousand acres under tillage, Levi and I couldn’t tend both our farms as a family run business, so we’d incorporate and operate our combined farms as a small corporation. We’d either have to buy out his sisters or pay them a stipend from JMF—Johnson & McCormick Farms—but we had plenty of time to work out the details. I’d continue to work as a nurse, probably in Hamlinton, to provide a buffer for the bad times, but it was our dream to combine our legacies and pass our combined farm down to our kids. We’d talked endlessly about it, but first we had to get through the next four years.

  That was the future I was thinking about tonight. I wanted to bank as many memories of our last few days together as possible before he left.

  We were fortunate that his call had been set for now. It was the middle of growing season when the crops didn’t need extensive tending. Having the slight lull in the work allowed me to spend more time with Levi before he shipped out. Dad had taken the afternoon off so we could go to Abilene, and Will McCormick had given Levi the afternoon so he could attend as well. Had it been in the spring when we were planting or in the fall when we were harvesting, none of us would have been able to go.

  Levi’s birthday was in the middle of planting
, so unless the weather was bad, his birthday was always a subdued affair of a cake served to a weary family after a long day in the fields. I hadn’t missed his birthday in years, but I felt sorry for him because his dad was always too busy to do anything special for him, but that was farm life, and we all understood it. Farming wasn’t for everyone, but if it got in your blood, you were hooked. Levi and I were spreading our wings, but we both knew this was home, and this is where we would return.

  Levi led me to his truck, a sad looking thing that had belonged to his grandfather, but we’d had some great times in it, and I had plans to add to the good memories this evening.

  Levi

  I led Ella to my truck. The faded, dented 1969 Chevy C/10 was my pride and joy. It had belonged to my grandfather, who had given it to my dad for his first truck. Dad had parked it in the barn sometime in the early nineties with the idea of giving it to me. Even before I got my learner’s permit, I’d started working on the truck to bring it back to life. Over the following year, I’d rebuilt the motor before I winched it onto a trailer and hauled it to Abilene to have the transmission rebuilt. Brakes, tires, and suspension work followed, with other minor repairs, such as replacing cracked glass and repairing sagging doors being completed as I had the time and finances. It still looked like hell, with its dents and the blue paint missing or faded flat, but it was reliable, everything worked, and it got me where I wanted to go. The best part was all the work, save the transmission, was done by my hand, with a little help from Dad. It wasn’t only my truck legally; it was mine in spirit because I’d brought the old girl back from the dead with tender loving care. Someday I hoped to hand the truck down to my own son.

  I opened the passenger door for Ella and she hopped inside. She had her own vehicle, a new Ford Escape, but when we went somewhere, we went in my truck. We’d cruise down the road, the windows down, the wind whipping our hair as we laughed and talked.

  Ella was so beautiful. She was tall like her father, nearly 5’10”, only three inches shorter than me. She was blonde, sun-kissed, and strong from helping on the farm. Her eyes were large, the color of the Texas sky, and she had her mother’s tiny nose, quick smile, and full figure. Dressed in her tight blue jeans, boots, and cowboy hat, she could stop a man’s heart with a glance and a smile. She was perfect in every way. When I pulled her into me, her lips were the perfect height for kissing, and the feel of her body against mine made me ache for her. The memories of Ella pushing the hair out of her eyes as she smiled at me from the passenger seat would keep me warm at night during my eight weeks of BMT.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Stamford Lake?” she answered, and I grinned.

  Stamford Lake was a large body of water about forty-five minutes away and one of our favorite places because large lakes were scarce in this part of Texas. Years ago, during our exploring after I got my driver’s license, we’d found a little used dirt road that ran alongside some farmer’s field to the edge of the lake. We’d returned often, parked the truck at the end, and wandered into the trees surrounding the water to sit in the shade. We thought of it as our place, and we’d sometimes sit for hours talking or making out.

  We hadn’t actually made love yet, but I’d fingered Ella to her first orgasm that wasn’t self-induced there, and it was the same place where two months ago she’d ground herself on my lap until I came in my pants. When one of us said ‘Stamford Lake,’ we meant our secret place unless it was clarified that we meant somewhere else.

  I started the truck, and we rumbled along in companionable silence as my hand caressed her leg. We didn’t have much to say. Our lives were about to take very different paths. I spoke with confidence that we’d be back together in four years, but I secretly worried once she got to college she’d realize a guy in the Air Force wasn’t what she wanted after all.

  The sun was touching the top of the trees when I turned down the rutted dirt path, my Chevy bouncing along the road until I pulled to a stop and turned the truck around at the end of the track. I killed the engine and we sat for a moment, the only sound the whisper of the breeze in the nearby trees.

  “Did you really write those letters yourself?” Ella asked.

  I half-smiled in the dimming light, slightly embarrassed. I was Levi McCormick, heir apparent to McCormick Farms. Farmers prided themselves on their toughness and resilience, not their letter writing ability or being in touch with their emotions.

  “Yeah.” I hadn’t known what to give her, so I’d reached deep, trying to find something meaningful for her last birthday before I shipped out. I’d spent the previous two months writing and refining the letters, but suddenly they seemed silly and a bad idea.

  She unbuckled her seatbelt and slid across the bench seat to me. “Even if I never open them, I can’t tell you how much they mean to me. Having you write those shows me, more than anything else you could have done, how much you love me.”

  I relaxed as she leaned in close and I kissed her, really kissed her, not like the public smooch I’d given her in front of her family. Ella was the only girl I’d ever kissed and the only girl I wanted to kiss. I had nothing else to compare her to, but for me, she was the greatest kisser in the world. She fired my passions like no one else could. All through high school I had other girls express their interest in me, but there was no one for me but Mary Ella Johnson.

  She pulled away slowly. “I’m going to miss you so much. You’ll come visit me every chance you get, right?”

  “Count on it.”

  “I’m going to hold you to it.”

  My fears of her finding someone else lessened just a bit. “I hope so.”

  We stepped out of the truck and walked hand in hand in the deepening shadows of the trees along the edge of the field, talking about everything and nothing. As it became too dark to easily see, we made our way back to the truck.

  I opened her door for her, but instead of crawling inside, she turned and pulled me into another kiss. I pressed her against the side of the truck as I first caressed her lips with mine, and then kissed along her jaw to under her ear.

  “God, I want you,” she whispered.

  “I want you, too,” I murmured as I continued to nuzzle her neck.

  We knew all about the birds and the bees, but we’d agreed to wait and not make the same mistake some of our high school classmates had. Getting pregnant at eighteen or nineteen might be fine for some, but not us. We had plans, but that didn’t mean we didn’t want each other.

  “Then take me.”

  I looked into her eyes. “What? Are you sure?”

  “I don’t want to go to college a virgin. I want to feel you inside me before you leave.”

  “I thought we agreed to wait.” Those were the six hardest words I’d ever spoken.

  “We did, but now I don’t want to wait anymore. I want us to remember this night while we’re apart.” She paused as she held my gaze. “Unless you don’t want to.”

  I kissed her again, pressing my hardness against her as I pinned her to my truck, her soft moan incandescent with desire.

  “I want you,” I rumbled as I slowly released her lips, “but I don’t have—”

  “I came prepared,” she interrupted, pulling a thin square of plastic with a circular bulge in the center from her back pocket and holding it up.

  I made it a point to never have a condom with me to reduce the temptation, but now there was no stopping. I’d dreamed of this moment, secretly reading everything I could find on how to please a woman and watching videos, desperately hoping I wouldn’t be a chump when the time came. I’d thought our first time would be in a bed, but I improvised. I peeled her off the side of the truck and steered her to the flat, wide, bench seat. There was no switch for the cab light on the passenger door, so the darkness was near complete. We’d see the headlights of an approaching vehicle long before they could see us, giving us plenty of time to make ourselves presentable if we were interrupted, an unlikely possibility.

  We
kissed and caressed as she pulled my shirt over my head, each press of her lips against my flesh a small explosion of pleasure. I removed her shirt and her bra before tasting her breasts. I’d suckled at her breasts before, but tonight was special because I knew it was only the appetizer for what was to come.

  Her soft moan as she pressed my lips harder against her breast thrilled me in a way it never had before. Previously, every time our kissing and touching got heated, we’d held back, gripping our desires tight lest they carry us away, but tonight we could give them free reign for the first time. I moved lower, nervous but anxious to put into practice what I’d read. As I caressed her stomach with my lips and tongue, I worked at her pants, slowly siding them down her legs as I moved ever lower. I delighted in how she thrust at my mouth as I kissed past her womanhood and continued down her leg, chasing her pants with my lips and teasing her with anticipation.

  I could just make out her form in the dim moonlight, the play of light and shadow on her naked body making her more alluring than I would have believed possible. I moved to push her back in the seat, but she resisted as she tugged at my belt. I helped her remove my pants, leaving them wadded in the dry Texas dust.

  I pushed her back onto the seat as I lowered myself to the ground and kissed her, opening her flower with gentle flicks of my tongue and soft tugs with my lips. I had no idea if I was doing it right, but her hands on the back of my head pulling me in tight, and the tug of her heels against my back as her legs draped over my shoulders gave me confidence. I licked and kissed as I softly slid my hands up her body to caress her breasts and tease her nipples, noting what garnered a response so I could return to them again and again as I learned what pleased her.

 

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