[City Limits 01.0] Roots and Wings

by M. Mabie

  He walked behind me as we climbed the five or six steps on his back deck. Then he said, “Really, really good.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Vaughn

  O’Fallon didn’t look different, exactly, but there were small alterations, and she had a new glow about her I hadn’t seen before. There was a sway in the way she walked—and Christ, those jeans.

  Those damn jeans.

  That ass.

  Holy God.

  “Jennifer? Chelsea? Samantha?” I guessed as she walked ahead through the back door into my kitchen.

  “Keep trying.”

  I wasn’t going to be defeated. I was going to get her name that night. Or I’d be waving the white flag of surrender, and praying she didn’t hold it against me. Unless she wanted to literally hold it against me, then I’d have to reconsider.

  “Still don’t want a hint?” she asked, leaning on my island.

  Then she saw the candy bar, and subtly picked it up in recognition and aimed it at me before setting it back down. I winked at her, acknowledging that she was pleased I’d remembered the kind she liked.

  Tell me your name and I’ll share it with you.

  “Not yet, but I have to be getting close. Want some wine or a beer?”

  “I’ll take a beer. Need me to do anything?”

  I opened the back door and pulled two beers from my cooler, placing them both on the counter, and I reached behind her for the magnetic bottle opener stuck to my refrigerator.

  “I don’t think so. I just need to warm up the grill. Everything else is ready to go.”

  “What are we having?”

  “Steak and grilled vegetables.” Her smile was all the approval I needed.

  I could hardly keep my eyes off of her. Her hair looked so soft, her lips so kissable. Her eyes were sucking the willpower right out of me.

  “Nicole?”

  “I think you’ve already guessed that one.” She laughed. “You can give up whenever you want.”

  As she spoke, she leaned forward a little and looked down at the counter. How could a woman who was competent in so many interesting ways be so insecure in these situations?

  It didn’t matter. I liked that she was independent, and I totally dug the fact that she let me see her look vulnerable, too.

  “Carry my beer out and I’ll bring the rest?”

  She did what I asked and I grabbed the two dishes out of the fridge that had all of my prepped food, ready for the flames.

  Again, my eyes found her ass and I realized whether I got to kiss her or not was irrelevant. I could just look at her and be satisfied.

  For now.

  ⟡⟡⟡

  “I broke my right arm, too,” she admitted as we ate, sharing stories of old battle wounds. “Pins?”

  “No. Clean break.” I took a long swallow of my beer, and decided it was my last.

  “Two here, and two up here,” she explained as she pulled at the shoulder of the white jacket she was wearing. Her bare shoulder showed off a patch of copper freckles and a collarbone that made my pants tight. There was something so sensual about it, but I wasn’t sure why.

  I adjusted myself quickly and started packing up our dinner dishes.

  “No, let me.” She stood and smacked my hand away. “You cooked. I’ll clean this up.”

  “It wasn’t really cooking, it was the grill.”

  “Good, then even less for me to wash.”

  She put our napkins and silverware on the plates, and I noticed she hadn’t eaten any of the zucchini in the vegetables. I didn’t say anything. She didn’t show any mercy on her steak, though, but neither had I.

  Some of my best grilling to date.

  “But you can come in and talk to me,” she offered as she stacked the plates on top of each other.

  I followed like a puppy.

  She ran water in the sink and rinsed off the dishes, while I cleaned up the counter and noticed how much I liked having her there with me. And how already I didn’t have very many memories in that house without her in them.

  When she stopped by that first day, when I was unpacking and trying to get my things situated, it was nice having someone else there. Having her advice on paint and telling me where the furniture would look best was welcome help.

  It was changing. I was feeling things much stronger than I had in those first few days. I wasn’t just curious about her, I was starting to learn some things. We were getting to know each other, and in some ways it seemed like I was the only one she’d ever been able to relax around. On more than one occasion she’d said that she’d never told anyone this or that. She didn’t have to put up a front with me. She was just herself.

  I hated the thought that she’d been kind of alone in the past, but I reveled in the idea it was me she’d chosen to take a chance on.

  That fact alone made me realize this wasn’t just a slow build to sex, it was the beginning of the kind of relationship I’d always wanted. One created from friendship. One that would hold stronger because of a solid foundation. I wanted to protect that.

  It wasn’t the help or the input she provided anymore. It was the her she added to my space when she was in it. Because if the past week proved anything, it was different there when she was gone.

  “I hope you have plenty of gas. No pretending to run out with me. I’m smarter than that,” she warned as she loaded the dishwasher.

  “Full tank.”

  “Good.”

  She bent over again and my mouth went dry.

  “Leslie?” I started throwing names out again. “Deanna? Gloria? Elizabeth? Katherine?”

  “Sorry, Charlie ... but Elizabeth was my grandma’s name.” She tugged on her bottom lip with her teeth, like she was debating with herself if that was close enough.

  “But you weren’t named after her, huh?”

  “It’s my middle name,” she admitted, her eyebrows rising hopefully. I liked knowing she wanted me to get it right as much as I did—or at least it felt that way. Still, Elizabeth wasn’t her first name and that’s what I was after.

  It wasn’t too much to ask to know the name of the woman you were starting to fantasize about on a regular basis.

  “My middle name is Conrad.”

  “Vaughn Conrad Renfro. Sounds regal.” The way she repeated it was like she was announcing a king. Her hand did this little flourish thing out to her side before she curtsied.

  “You do know that I’m a billionaire, right?”

  She straightened, her eyes as wide as saucers.

  “Are you fucking serious?” She was so fun to play with.

  “No, but if I was I bet you’d tell me your name.”

  I leaned on the island counter, facing her as she leaned against the sink.

  “That’s not true. It has nothing to do with money.” She looked down, like I’d seen her do many times before when she was about to say something that made her a little uncomfortable. “And I’ll tell you my name whenever you want.” Her eyes lifted to mine, and inside of them swam curiosity and temptation and something else that I couldn’t put my finger on.

  Before the moment got too heavy, and I broke down, we needed to keep moving. Otherwise, I’d kiss her. First names be damned, and I would be breaking my word.

  “How about you hop that knockout body up in my passenger seat and introduce me to Wynne? That way I don’t have to ask gas station Donnie how to get to you.”

  The seriousness in her face was replaced by a jovial smile.

  Have I mentioned how nice her teeth were?

  If I haven’t, I’ll let you know that her smile was almost flawless. Pretty white teeth, the perfect bite. To anyone else, it might just be a nice smile, but to me—a dentist—it was like mouth porn.

  Well, mouth porn is something else, but you know what I mean.

  ⟡⟡⟡

  “Okay, so here’s the school, if you go to the right it’ll take us out to a bunch of gravel roads and farms, if you go left we can either go out to the river or
it’ll take us a different way out to the lake.”

  I stopped at the sign and since I didn’t have a preference, I said, “You’re the co-pilot.”

  “Okay, let’s go right and I can show you how it loops around back by my house.”

  I loved hearing stories about the places we passed. There was O’Fallon family history everywhere. The area was beautiful, but it was the overwhelming sense of community I’d been craving all my life. Where everyone fit, and people helped one another. Where everyone belonged.

  As she talked about one place or another, it was obvious I’d made the right decision about moving there. For a second, as I looked at her flipping through songs, I realized how lucky I’d been to meet her, too.

  We listened to the music I had on my phone, and it was crazy how she hadn’t heard most of the songs I had. She seemed to like them. I saw her looking at the titles and the bands, and then saving some in her phone.

  The Escalade handled the terrain well as she showed me where the creek sometimes washed out the road, mentioning for me to be careful if it’s raining—if I was ever out that way.

  Most of the farms were squared off and it made a sort of grid that all led back to a road headed to her house, past mine, and back into town.

  When we got near her house, and the wye it sat on, she said, “Turn left. This is how you get to the bluffs.” As she pointed, my hand instinctively reached out for hers and I laced our fingers together, placing them on the console between our seats.

  “I like it when you do that.”

  “Do what?” I asked, hoping it was the hand thing. I always wanted to touch her, and since this was all so new to both of us, I had been taking every opportunity that night to hold her hand when the occasion presented itself.

  Something caught her eye, distracting her away from her train of thought. “Look over there. See the deer?” I followed her gaze, and although the sun was setting, I could see the silhouettes of two deer running through a pasture.

  “Have you ever been hunting, Vaughn?”

  I hadn’t.

  “No,” I answered weakly. I didn’t mind the idea of others doing it, and I knew that in rural communities it was a big part of life, but it wasn’t for me. I didn’t think.

  “That’s okay. I go, but I don’t really like the killing part. I usually only use one tag. That’s all I need. Most of the time I let my dad or Dean use my other tags. And, don’t tell, but I don’t care for deer meat.” She sounded like she was confessing to something way worse than an opinion on wild game.

  “I won’t tell.”

  “It’s funny. I don’t mind cleaning fish. I could eat them every day.” She sat proudly next to me, head high. “I can fish circles around just about anyone, too. That’s my thing.”

  “Yeah, those fishhooks looked pretty cool.”

  “Lures. They’re lures, or flies, depending on what you’re using.” I didn’t know what she was talking about. Most of it sounded like Greek, but the way she talked candidly about something she loved sounded like a song, and I turned the music down a little so I wouldn’t miss a single word. She rambled and chirped on and on about what worked best for which fish and what season you could find them. It was easy to tell she was passionate about it.

  “So what do you do? What’s your Vaughn thing?”

  I had to think about it. I didn’t really have a thing. At one time I liked golf, and I still did, but it wasn’t something I got ramped up about. Not like she had about fishing anyway.

  “I don’t know. I think I need to find something.”

  “If you turn this way it’ll take you up to Johnston’s Chute. You came from town on this highway.”

  Was that a hint? Did she want to go down to the Chute? To her cabin?

  “Um, which way?”

  Her phone buzzed and she looked at it, then answered. “Hey, Sally, what’s up?”

  With no cars in sight, I put it in park at the four-way stop and waited for her. I messed with my phone so it didn’t seem like I was eavesdropping, but she was sitting right there so it was kind of hard not to.

  “He is? Shit. Yeah, I can be right there.” Then she listened for a little bit and rested her head back on the seat and looked at the top of the cab. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right there. Don’t let him leave.”

  O’Fallon hung up and dropped her phone between her legs, then ran her fingers over her temples like she was irritated.

  “I’m sorry to cut this short, but do you mind taking me back to my house?” All of the fun, carefree excitement from earlier was gone from her voice.

  “Sure, that’s no problem. Is everything okay?”

  She looked straight ahead and began to talk. “That was Sally. She owns a bar in town. She said my dad was drunk and didn’t want him driving home. She called to let me know it was probably a good idea if I came and got him.”

  I didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t my business to pry, but she’d never mentioned her dad had a drinking problem or anything like that, and I hoped it wasn’t something that happened on a regular basis.

  She didn’t return her hand to mine and it sucked. She leaned over against her door and looked out the window as I pulled out in the direction of town.

  “Hey, I have room in here. I’ll go with you. We can pick him up. It’s actually quicker than going all the way out to your house first.” It was a long shot, but maybe it would mean it wasn’t the end of our night.

  “No, I don’t want you to have to deal with all of that.”

  “It’s no trouble. We’ll just go pick him up.” My hand crept over to her leg and I found myself gently rubbing it. “I don’t want to take you home yet.”

  She turned to look at me—finally—as we topped the hill and the town’s lights came into view.

  “Really? You don’t mind? He doesn’t usually drink that much. I’m not sure what his deal is.”

  “No. Not in the least. It won’t take that long. He probably just had a few too many. It happens.”

  Then she picked up my hand and pressed a sweet kiss to the top of it and said, “Thank you.”

  I knew where Sally’s was because I’d driven past it every day on the way to the office. It sat on the square, and when I saw how many cars were outside, I turned down the alley to see if there was a place to park.

  She looked embarrassed and thanked me three more times before we ever got to the front of the building. As we rounded the brick wall, we saw Dean helping her dad out.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” O’Fallon shouted as she ran over to them. I followed, but I didn’t want to interrupt.

  “I just got here,” Dean said to her. “Sally said you were on your way to get him, but I figured I could drop him off. I was going to see if you were home anyway.” Then his eyes landed on me.

  “No, I was out,” she said and turned to me. “Vaughn and I were riding around.”

  “Hey, kid,” her dad said, lifting his head, obviously wasted.

  “Dad, what happened?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine,” he spoke slowly.

  “You’re not fine. Look at you. Dean is helping you stand up.”

  “I’ll take him home,” Dean offered as he looked at me.

  I would almost bet money he had a thing for O’Fallon. From the way she’d spoken about him, I knew they were close. And, as I watched him look her up and down, noticing that she looked different than usual, I was territorial.

  Funny, she never seemed to pick up on it. Or at least she never acted like she did.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  Dean shook his head. “Nah, I’ll get him in the house. He’s done it for me I don’t know how many times.”

  O’Fallon looked like she wasn’t sure what to do, but since Dean really was holding her dad up and her dad was a big guy, it actually was better if Dean took him. She would have been hard pressed to get him home alone. Selfishly, I was glad that maybe we still had more time.

  “All right. There’s ibuprofen in the
cabinet in the downstairs bathroom. Can you give him a few and a Sprite or something? He’s going to feel like shit tomorrow.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “Thanks, Dean. Dad, go home and go to bed.”

  “I’m going to bed,” he slurred. “All by myself. Night, Astro.”

  “Goodnight, Mr. O’Fallon,” I replied.

  Dean walked him across the street to his truck, and we watched until they were both in and he was pulling out.

  “Well, we’re here. Want to get a beer?” I asked. Might as well take advantage.

  She rolled her eyes, embarrassed at the situation, then said, “Yeah. Maybe two.” Some of that spark she had was back.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mutt

  What a weird night.

  It all seemed like a dream. One of those really strange dreams you wake up from thinking what the hell?

  From what I was wearing.

  To who I was with.

  Sitting passenger.

  My dad drunk at the bar.

  Dean showing up.

  It was one peculiar night.

  And to top it off, he still hadn’t guessed my name. Even with all of those other things to think about, him kissing me was at the front of my mind, overshadowing everything.

  I was happy he didn’t dress up a lot. He wore nice jeans and a heather grey, V-neck T-shirt. He sure did like those kinds of shirts, and I wasn’t complaining about them either. I liked that I could see more of his chest. He wasn’t a muscle-bound hunk of a man, but the way the sleeves of his shirt fit snugly against his arms ... it was almost torture riding with him.

  We walked into the bar and I saw Sally first.

  “Hey, Mutt. Did you see Dean outside? He’s taking your dad home. I didn’t see him come in until after we hung up.”

  “Yeah, I saw them. What was my dad drinking?”

  “I think he was just having beer. I didn’t realize he’d been here that long. I got here about eight.”

  I walked up to the bar and Vaughn followed. He did that thing with his hand on my back that made me feel like I was short of breath.

  It was uncanny how my body responded to him.

  “Who’s your friend?” she asked.