Loves Me, Loves Me Knot

by Heidi Betts

  A giggle escaped her, and she covered her mouth before her laughter could get out of hand.

  Imagine that-Jenna Langan, a real, live Bad Girl. No one, she knew, would ever have expected it of her.

  Funny how that made it all the more thrilling.

  She liked being bad… within a certain structure and with a man she knew she was safe with. But still, considering her usual personality and past actions, she was being downright scandalous.

  And right now, she felt like being the one to initiate a bit of scandalous behavior.

  With heat unfurling low in her belly, she turned for the back kitchen door and slowly made her way to the barn.

  A soft, upbeat tune met her ears and she started, realizing the sound was coming from her own lips. She was humming. Humming, for God’s sake. And her feet weren’t so much moving one in front of the other as sort of… skipping along, almost as though she were floating on air.

  None of these were good signs, and she would have to be very careful not to make too much of this time with Gage. Not to let any of it mean too much.

  It was just sex. Really fantastic, scream-like-a-banshee sex, but just sex, and as long as she kept that firmly in mind, she would be fine.

  Knit 13

  Jenna sauntered into the barn, her eyes automatically adjusting to the building’s dim interior. She tipped her head, listening for sounds of Gage and where he might be. A scraping noise from the rear of the barn drew her in that direction, and she realized he was doing a quick cleanup of the stalls before the alpacas were brought in for the night.

  Tipping her head around the corner, she saw him working. His broad back. His strong, bare forearms and wide upper arms covered by snug black cotton. His long, denim-clad legs leading down to a pair of black leather boots.

  She thought about making her presence known, knew she should offer to help… but it was such an attractive sight, she wanted to just sit back and watch. He was better than television.

  Wandering over to a stack of hay bales in the center of the open barn floor, she sat down and waited for him to finish. A couple of her aunt’s cats-all rescued, and all spayed or neutered because Charlotte didn’t believe in adding to the animal overpopulation problem-came over to beg for attention, and Jenna happily stroked their bellies and behind their ears, sending them into choruses of loud, ecstatic purrs.

  Several minutes later, Gage appeared in the doorway of the stall he’d been cleaning, leaning his shovel against the wall and his shoulder against the doorjamb.

  “Looks like I’m not the only one who enjoys spending time in your lap,” he drawled, a devilish grin tipping up the corner of his mouth.

  Her cheeks flared with color, but she continued to meet his gaze. “What can I say? I’m a popular gal.”

  His smile slipped a degree, and in a low voice, he muttered, “So I’ve heard.”

  His response surprised her, and her eyes widened a fraction. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He shrugged his free shoulder, glancing past her rather than at her. “You’ve done a lot of dating since we broke up, that’s all.”

  Ah, so that’s what his sudden sullenness was about. “I am single now,” she told him. “And who I date is my business, not yours.”

  “True,” he reluctantly agreed, “I just didn’t expect you to make the rounds quite so soon after the papers were signed.”

  “ ‘Make the rounds?’ ” she repeated, a slight edge seeping into her voice.

  “Yeah. You went out with another cop, a firefighter, a doctor, a Marine… What were you trying to do, give a one-woman salute to America ’s heroes?”

  Anger simmered just below the surface… and then disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. She should take his head off for that last remark, but darned if she didn’t find him adorable instead.

  “You’re jealous,” she said with a touch of humor.

  His eyes narrowed. His lips thinned. “I don’t think so.”

  “I do. Why else would you care who I dated, let alone keep track of them all?” A smile itched to spread across her face and amusement bubbled in her chest.

  In contrast, Gage’s scowl deepened. “I was concerned about you, that’s all.”

  “Uh-huh.” Setting aside the tabby who had been resting on her thigh, she stood up and wiped the seat of her lime-green Capri pants. She stepped forward until they nearly touched and tipped her head back to gaze directly into his brown eyes, gone even darker with displeasure.

  Placing her palms flat on the hard wall of his chest, she said, “Well, I think it’s sweet, whatever you want to call it. And for the record, I might have gone out with a lot of men these past few months, but I didn’t sleep with any of them.”

  A tiny muscle at the corner of one eye twitched. “You didn’t?”

  She shook her head. “Not a one. The last man I slept with-not counting this weekend-was my husband.”

  A flash of heat flickered in his eyes and across his face. Bringing a hand to her chin, he cupped her jaw, stroking slowly back and forth with the pad of his thumb. A second later, he lowered his mouth and kissed her.

  His lips were soft, but firm. Light but possessive. She leaned into him, accepting what he offered and giving back everything she had in return.

  “I haven’t been with any other women, either,” he murmured when they came up for air. “Just so you know.”

  His words made her gut hitch in a wave of unexpected happiness and relief, and she wrapped her arms around him even tighter, going in for another heartfelt kiss.

  An hour later, after scaring off the cats and making a bit of a mess in the pile of hay bales, Jenna straightened her brightly colored peasant blouse and rewrapped the matching green boa around her neck while Gage tucked his T-shirt into his pants and buttoned the fly.

  “I’m going into town tonight for my knitting group,” she told him when he took her hand and tugged her to her feet. “Do you want to come with me?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m not riding on the back of your bike, so we’ll have to take my little clown car,” she said with a hint of humor in her voice.

  He pulled a face, letting her know just how much he loved that idea.

  “And I think Zack and Dylan may still be out of town, so you won’t have anybody to hang out with at The Penalty Box. I’ll understand if you’d rather stay here.”

  “Nah. I don’t mind drinking alone. Besides, there’s nothing here but cats, alpacas, and stacks of old craft magazines.”

  With a chuckle, Jenna said, “I think Daisy has a crush on you,” referring to an adorable brown and white alpaca female who’d taken to following Gage around like a puppy whenever he was in the pasture or trying to herd them into their stalls for the night.

  Rather than deny it, he grinned. “She was making eyes at me. If you’re not careful, you might have some serious competition.”

  A jolt of something she didn’t want to think too hard about struck her low in the belly. She also didn’t want to think too long on his words, because-however lightly delivered-they implied there was more between them than truly existed.

  “So when do you want to leave?” he asked.

  She checked her watch, surprised to find it still on her wrist after the half-naked wrestling match they’d participated in earlier. “Soon,” she said. “Maybe twenty minutes.”

  “That gives us enough time for another quickie,” he replied.

  Her eyes went wide and she turned a stunned expression in his direction. He wanted to do it again? So soon? She was lucky she could even walk after that last round.

  He let out a bark of laughter. “Kidding,” he said. “Just kidding. I can wait until we get back from town.”

  At that, she gave him the stink eye, and he laughed again.

  “God, your face is so telling. I could yank your chain all day just to see what kinds of looks you’d give me.”

  Shaking his head-in amusement, she presumed-he cupped her chin with one hand and told
her, “You go on in the house and get ready to leave. I’ll get the mangy beasts bedded down for the night.”

  And then he kissed her. A quick, hard peck on the lips before he let his arm drop and headed back for the barn.

  Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” blasted from Grace Fisher’s car stereo. For the past week-actually four days, eight hours, and forty-seven minutes to be exact, but who was counting?-she’d played the song over and over and over again, until the words seeped into her bones.

  She could completely relate to the woman in the song who was taking revenge against her boyfriend by destroying his truck in the parking lot of a local watering hole while the jerk was inside cheating on her with some bleach-blond tramp. Especially since she’d done something poetically similar to Zack’s beloved cherry-red Hummer after discovering another woman in his hotel room.

  Grace wasn’t exactly proud of some of the things she’d done that night. Oh, she was totally in the right, totally justified in her anger, her grief, her desire to punish the man who had hurt and betrayed her. No doubt about that.

  And she wasn’t sorry that she’d trashed Zack’s apartment, either. Or flushed the two-carat diamond-and-platinum engagement ring he’d given her. Or stolen his dog. On the contrary, she only wished he had a second apartment she could have destroyed, had given her a second ring she could hammer and melt down to a pile of junk, and had a second dog she could abduct.

  But she did sort of wish she hadn’t made her abject misery and the details of her broken engagement such a public affair.

  She’d always been open and honest on the air, which was what made her show such a hit. If she was having a good day, she shared her happiness with her audience, both in the studio and on the other side of the camera. If she was having a bad day, she used them to talk through it, and nine times out of ten found them more than willing to commiserate.

  After all, everyone suffered from bad hair, chipped nails, lost contact lenses, and cramps, right? Letting her fans know she was as normal as the next person made her more human in their eyes, more like someone they would be friends with than an untouchable local celebrity.

  This time, however, she suspected she’d gone slightly overboard. Not a lot, just a tad.

  For instance, she probably shouldn’t have gone on the air Monday morning with puffy eyes, a red nose, and streaked mascara because no matter how hard the makeup artist tried, she couldn’t stem Grace’s constant flow of tears or stop the makeup from running down her cheeks with them.

  She also probably shouldn’t have spent the whole hour ranting and raving and voicing her heartfelt desire for certain parts of Zack’s anatomy to shrivel up and fall off. Or for him to contract a wasting disease. Or for the tramp he’d been with to break out in crusty, oozing sores so the world would know her for the whore she was.

  That had been-perhaps, just a smidgen-over the top.

  She wouldn’t take it back, though. Nor would she take back the order for her program director to find guests and set up a series of men-are-scum shows for the very near future. She wanted to out the lying, scheming bastards who couldn’t keep their dicks in their pants, and help other women like herself who had been lied to and betrayed by said bastards.

  She also wanted to hang Zack upside down by his testicles and use his penis as a voodoo doll, but since he had a good eighty pounds on her and she hadn’t yet figured out a way to hoist him up all on her own, she was willing to settle-for the time being, at least-for knowing that she’d done a good bit of damage to a handful of personal belongings that were near and dear to his heart.

  Nosing her silver Lexus into a parking spot between two other cars, she folded down the visor and checked her appearance in the small mirror hidden there. She was at least trying to give a shit about her appearance again, but it had been a rough, ugly week.

  Except for lipstick, her makeup was fine, so she applied another quick coat of high-gloss Ruby Slippers-a freebie from one of the major cosmetics companies in hopes that she would wear it on her show and possibly thank them publicly by name.

  Her hair could use a little help, but running her fingers through a couple of spiky strands then scrunching in an attempt to curl a few others seemed to work.

  What she needed was a spa day. Or at the very least, a trip to the salon. Her roots, which were a slightly darker shade of blond than the rest, were beginning to show.

  Being an on-air personality, she didn’t have the luxury of letting herself go. She was expected to have perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect nails, the perfect figure, and the perfect attitude to go with her perfect smile.

  And ninety-eight-point-six percent of the time, she succeeded.

  This week just happened to be one of the remaining one-point-four percent.

  Her attitude ever since walking in on a half-naked Zack with a half-naked puck bunny had pretty much been “Fuck Zack, fuck her appearance, fuck the show, fuck the world.”

  Zack’s constant attempts to contact her weren’t helping, either. He’d called her cell and home phones-to grovel and beg for forgiveness, she was sure-so many times, she’d finally blocked his numbers. And everyone at work-hell, everyone she knew-had strict instructions not to let him anywhere near her, whether it was in person or through telephone calls, text messages, or candy-grams.

  He was persona non grata, as far as she was concerned, and could go fuck himself, right along with his trail of willing bimbettes.

  But because her attitude these days was somewhat less than perky and she had more important things on her mind-like how to torture and kill a man without leaving a trace-her hair and nails had pretty much fallen to the very bottom of her list of concerns.

  Ironically, it was Zack’s big, slobbery, pain-in-the-ass dog that had kept her sane and was starting to help her climb out of her deep, dark pit of despair.

  Oh, Zack was still very much at risk of having an armed mercenary cut off the protruding parts of his body. She’d actually gone so far as picking up a copy of one of those magazines-Mercenary Monthly or some such-at a newsstand on her way home from work in hopes of finding a classified ad that read, Will kill your cheating ex for cash.

  But before she’d had a chance to thumb through it, dumb old Bruiser had ambled up to the side of the bed, nudged her in the thigh, then hefted his way up to sleep next to her, his giant head and floppy, drool-covered lips resting in her lap. For the first ten seconds, she’d scowled and tried to push him away. Tried to figure out how to roll him off the bed and out of her room so she could lock the door.

  She didn’t even like the stupid Saint Bernard. She’d only brought him home with her because she knew it would kill Zack to find him missing. Even now, she imagined Mr. Hump-Anything-That-Moves pacing, tearing at his hair, bemoaning the fact that his beloved behemoth had been taken by his furious, and very possibly homicidal, ex-girlfriend.

  It had taken only one glance from Bruiser’s wide brown eyes to win her over, though. Well, that, and a deep, contented sigh and a long swipe of his wet tongue along her cheek. He’d done that, and she’d melted into a puddle of doggy-loving goo right along with the pint of Chunky Monkey resting on her bedside table.

  She’d spent the rest of the evening cuddling with the big bag of fur under her favorite comforter while they’d both finished the ice cream and watched Fatal Attraction twice in a row. Of course, she’d had the presence of mind to cover Bruiser’s eyes during the boiling bunny scene. Being a dog, he would probably eat a rabbit if given half a chance-heck, he ate socks, sneakers, and tennis balls on a regular basis-but she didn’t want him to think she endorsed animal abuse of any kind.

  The next morning, when she’d awakened with Bruiser still snuggled beside her, filling one side of the bed the way Zack used to, she’d suffered a brief moment of sadness. Most women, she supposed, would prefer to share their beds with a six-foot-six blond Adonis of a professional hockey player rather than a two-hundred-pound brown and white Saint Bernard with a drool stain the size of J
enna’s Volkswagen under his right jowl.

  Despite the damage to her fifteen-hundred thread count Egyptian-cotton sheets, there was something extremely comforting about having Bruiser there. His steady breathing, his soft fur, his radiating warmth. She’d wrapped her arms around him, given him a hard hug, and decided that life couldn’t be all that bad if the sight of Zack’s dumb dog could bring a smile to her face.

  That name, though-Bruiser-would have to go. It reminded her too much of Zack, in a way that the Saint Bernard himself didn’t. And she suspected a trip to the veterinarian was in their very near future. Breath that noxious simply could not be healthy.

  So she would make an appointment to have her hair done. Maybe even her nails. And she would find a place that could do the same for Jethro.

  Or Roscoe.

  Or Chompers.

  Well, she’d come up with something.

  Grabbing her purse and knitting tote, she opened the driver’s side door of her silver Lexus and headed for the front of The Yarn Barn. At the back of the store, she greeted her Wednesday-night knitting group and plopped down in the empty seat Jenna and Ronnie had saved for her.

  Everyone else already had their projects out, needles clicking away as they knit and chatted and sipped lemonade from the small sidebar the store had provided for gatherings just like this.

  Jenna was knitting yet another of her trademark boas. The feathery purple yarn ran through her fingers like water as she worked the set of large, plastic needles almost faster than the eye could see. She probably had two hundred boas in her own collection by now, but because she loved making them so much, she often gave bunches of them to her aunt Charlotte to sell at her craft booth-and this week, on the road. And they apparently went well, because Jenna was forever knitting them, and Charlotte was forever asking for more.

  Ronnie, however, was using much smaller needles and a much sturdier yarn for the sleeve of a dark, smoky-blue sweater she was knitting for Dylan to wear during the coming winter.