“Cole!”
He reluctantly raised his gaze to meet hers. “What? I can’t even look?”
She chewed her lower lip. “I guess I’m just not used to being looked at that way.”
He found that hard to believe when he’d been having exactly these kinds of fantasies about her practically every moment since he’d seen her sitting on that park bench right after she got back into town. “Come on. I know you had boyfriends in college.”
Josie shook her head. “Too busy studying.” She wiped her hands on a napkin then handed him a sandwich from the basket.
“Surely you didn’t study twenty-four/seven.”
“Pretty much.”
“Man. What about dates?”
“A few in graduate school. All very proper, usually formal outings. You know, dinner, a museum, the opera. Nothing like this.”
He unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite. “Sounds exciting,” he lied. Did she consider this a step down?
“What about you?”
Cole shrugged.
“No girlfriends, fiancées, wives?”
“I dated a few people. Nothing serious.”
“Why not?”
She offered him a bottle of cold water. He uncapped it and took a long drink. Could he say that in the back of his mind, he’d been waiting for her to come home? Naw. That’d freak her out for sure. “Just waitin’ on the right girl, I guess.”
She fingered the chain around her neck, but didn’t comment. Instead, she shifted her focus to his dog. “Rick looks hungry. Did you bring anything for him to eat?”
“He had a huge dish of food before we left this morning. He only gets to eat twice a day. As lazy as he is, if he ate more, he’d be too fat to walk.”
Josie and the dog both gave him pitiful looks.
“Can he have a bite of my sandwich? Please?”
Under any other circumstances, he wouldn’t be able to refuse her anything, but he said, “Not a good idea.”
“Just one bite?”
Let’s see. How could he put this delicately? There was no way. He’d just say it and hope she wasn’t offended. “Table food gives him gas.”
Josie giggled.
“You won’t think it’s funny when he lets one rip.”
She laughed harder. She looked happy, relaxed, and incredibly sexy. Did he dare believe she was finally his? He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. For her to suddenly realize this was a huge mistake just before she ran hard in the opposite direction.
Rick, as if sensing the meaning of their conversation, looked crest-fallen. Josie scratched his ears. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie.”
“You know, he can’t understand what we’re saying,” Cole pointed out. “He’s a dog.”
“But he’s sensitive, aren’t you? Yes.” She stroked his ears with both hands as she spoke. The dog loved every ounce of attention she showered on him.
His dog had horned in on about enough of his date. He pulled a tennis ball out of a pocket in his cargo shorts and said, “Here, boy. Go get it.” He tossed the ball. It rolled to the edge of the lake.
Rick looked at him as if to say, “You must be joking.”
“Go get it, Rick,” he repeated.
The dog just swung his head back to Josie and thumped his tail.
She laughed. Not just a giggle, but a grab the stomach, tears rolling down the face laugh.
“You’re not helping.”
“Oh—oh, I’m sorry.”
But she barely got the words out before she lost it again. Cole stood to go retrieve the ball. To the dog, he said, “Next time you come along with me on a date, you’re bringin’ your own girl.”
Josie’s laughter followed him as he went after the ball. When he stood next to it, he turned to look back at Rick and Josie sitting all snug on the blanket. “Here boy.” He slapped his thigh and pointed to the ball. “Come and get it.”
The dog just thumped his tail.
“Stupid mutt.”
“Cole!” Josie held her hands over Rick’s ears. “He can hear you,” she said in a loud whisper.
“Good grief.”
Cole grabbed the ball and walked back up the slight incline to the blanket. He dropped the dog’s toy next to Rick, then sat and ate his sandwich. As he chewed, he figured now was as good a time as any for him and Josie to have the talk he’d been avoiding. He needed to be totally upfront with her. About everything.
Taking a drink from his bottle of water, he watched her. She nibbled at her sandwich and petted Rick. She seemed so happy. How would she react to what he had to say? No sense pondering the matter. He should just jump in, get it over, and deal with the fallout. Maybe he’d get lucky and she wouldn’t be too upset.
“Josie?”
“Mmm?” she chewed her sandwich, swallowed, and chased it down with a drink of water.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” He wadded up the waxed paper she’d wrapped his sandwich in and tossed it into the basket.
“Sounds serious.”
He had her full attention. Cole cleared his throat. “I guess it depends on how you look at it.” Right now, he found he couldn’t look at her. “After dad got sick, there was just me and my mom, and she was getting older and wasn’t able to take care of the farm without Dad’s help. So, I had to drop out of school to take over running the farm.”
Josie nodded.
“At nights, I continued to study. Several of the teachers from the high school tutored me so that I could get my GED.”
“That’s wonderful, Cole.”
“Well, what you don’t know is that—”
Rick chose that moment to nose the ball against Cole’s hand. His bark sounded more like a soulful bellow from a bugle.
“In a minute, boy.”
Josie picked up the ball and threw it. Rick loped off after it, but instead of bringing the ball back, he got distracted by the remains of a picnic lying on a vacated blanket.
“Rick, get away from there,” Cole called after the hound. The dog just ignored him.
“You’d better go get him,” Josie said.
“Sorry. I’ll be right back. Rick!” He chased down the dog and grabbed his collar to pull his head out of a bag of chips. “Bad boy.”
Rick looked properly contrite, casting him woeful puppy dog eyes.
“Come on, man. You haven’t acted like this since you were a pup. You interrupted an important conversation.”
Rick just hung his head as they walked toward Josie. Before they made it back, a short, thin man approached her. A black miniature poodle wearing silly pink ribbons accompanied him.
Cole heard the guy say, “Josephine, is that you under there?”
The man bent to peer at Josie under the wide brim of her hat. She put her hand on the cap and looked up at him.
“Martin. Hello.”
“Fancy meeting you here, darling.”
Cole bristled. This guy had no right to call his girl “darling.” Rick ran ahead and resumed his position beside Josie. He obviously thought she could protect him from further scolding.
“I’d no idea you had a dog. He’s rather, um, large.” The tiny poodle standing at the end of a thin, red leash beside him eyed Rick cautiously.
“Oh, this isn’t—I mean, this is Rick.”
“Charming name for a bloodhound. How do you do, Rick? May I present Fifi?”
Introducing dogs to each other? Cole rolled his eyes heavenward. Fifi. What a ridiculous name for a dog. Must be a disease of people who were supposed to be refined and sophisticated. Rick sniffed the poodle and wagged his tail. The poodle pranced. No accounting for taste.
When Cole reached the blanket, he just stood there, waiting for Josie to introduce him to the little man. He’d seen the guy around town, but couldn’t say they’d ever met. Josie shifted her gaze from him to the other man, a look of sheer panic on her face. He decided to help her out.
“Cole Craig,” he held his hand out to the smaller man. Instead of shakin
g it, he looked at Cole’s hand then up at his face.
“Craig? As in a Craig of the back of the ridge Craigs?”
Cole shoved his hand into his pocket. Here we go, he thought. “The same.”
To Josie he said, “Do you know this man?”
“Yes, we went to school together. Cole, this is Martin McKay.”
Ah, the new bank president and Harvard boy. Rich Daddy’s heir apparent who’d gone to exclusive private schools instead of the public institutions he and Josie had attended. “McKay.” Cole nodded to the little man who appeared to be stunned.
“Do you mean to say,” he wagged his bony finger between them, “the two of you are here? To-ge-ther?”
Rick growled at Martin. Cole smiled. He’d get a treat for that later.
Josie patted the dog’s head, and he settled down. “We were just having sandwiches.”
Was it him or was Josie trying to downplay the fact that they were out together?
“In-deed?”
“Yeah. You never had a sandwich, Marty?” Cole abbreviated the name just to annoy him. He’d say it worked, judging from the red splotches staining the man’s cheeks. “I think we have a few more in the basket. Josie does amazing things with peanut butter, if you know what I mean.” He wiggled his brows and smiled.
Josie still wore that expression of panic, and his last statement seemed to have ratcheted that up a notch. Cole felt contrite. The last thing she needed was him starting something with Old Witch McKay’s son, especially after the encounter he’d had with the woman this morning at church. The little weasel was sure to beat a path to his mommy’s door with this tidbit of gossip. Not that he cared, but she was Josie’s boss. Still, Cole couldn’t seem to help himself.
Martin continued to ignore Cole.
“Cole helped me out with a burst pipe a couple of days ago.”
There she went . . . downplaying again. He tried not to feel the sting of hurt at her words.
“Really?”
It was like some demon drove him. “Yeah. And I caulked your windows last week, Marty.”
“I am sure I would not know as our housekeeper deals with such matters.”
“In-deed?” Cole mimicked.
Josie bit her lip to keep from laughing.
“Well, I never!”
“He’s just kidding around, Martin. He wasn’t trying to insult you.”
“In-deed,” Cole confirmed.
A smile tugged at his mouth. He caught Josie’s eye. Her mouth quivered, her eyes danced. When she shifted her attention back to Martin, a light of recognition flashed in his dull, brown eyes. It would be clear to anyone—even Martin—that something was going on between him and Josie.
“Tell me, Josephine, did you work last evening as you said you must?”
Josie looked uncomfortable again.
“I don’t think that’s any of your business, Marty,” Cole supplied.
“Martin!”
The weasel actually stomped his foot!
Rick began growling again. Josie soothed the dog. Cole just smiled, making Martin even more angry.
“That—um—dog of yours looks like it’s anxious to get out of here,” Cole said.
The poodle was pulling at its leash, clearly worried that Rick had directed his growls at her.
“You’re as uncouth as your—your—mutt!”
Rick growled again.
“Careful. That ‘mutt’ has a purer pedigree than you, McKay.”
“Well, I never!”
Cole smacked Martin between the shoulders. “Well, you know what that say. There’s a first time for everything.”
“Josephine, I am shocked that you would deign to consort with an individual who possesses such a singular lack of breeding.”
Cole just kept smiling. “If all people with breeding act like you, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You would.”
The situation transformed from worse to nightmare status when Rick chose that moment to “break wind.” Martin looked at Cole, obviously thinking him the culprit.
“Rick, buddy,” Cole scolded the dog.
“How rude!”
That’s when Josie lost it. Utterly lost it. She laughed so hard, no sound came. She doubled over, holding her hat to keep it from falling off. Rick sniffed her face and licked at the tears streaming down her cheeks. When Cole joined in the merriment, Martin turned on his heel and marched off, his dog in tow.
Cole fell onto the blanket holding his side and his nose. Rick looked particularly pleased with himself. He had, after all, gotten rid of Martin.
When the laughter subsided, Cole touched Josie’s hand and said, “Are you okay?”
“I think I may have bruised a rib.”
“Well, it’s your own fault. I told you Rick here couldn’t tolerate table food, and still, you sneaked him some, didn’t you?”
“He was hungry,” she said, still smiling.
He nodded in the direction of the rapidly departing Martin. “That little weasel always so obnoxious?”
Josie could hardly say “yes” through the laughter that bubbled up again.
Cole got serious. “Is he gonna cause trouble for you?”
“He’ll try, but don’t worry. I can handle Mrs. McKay.”
“Are you sure?”
She leaned over and kissed him . . . a soft gentle caress that seemed to buoy her confidence. “Yeah.”
“I know how much you love your job. Our relationship won’t jeopardize your position, will it?”
“You didn’t finish lunch. I have fruit salad.”
She dug in the basket and pulled out a square, plastic container.
“Josie—”
She removed the lid. “It has grapes, strawberries, melon, cherries, and this wonderful cream cheese sauce—”
“Forget the fruit.”
She picked out a fat, juicy strawberry and slowly licked some cream off it. “Umm . . .”
Cole’s gaze locked on her tongue and then her mouth as it closed around the tip of the ripe, red berry.
“So, before Martin and Rick interrupted us, you were about to tell me something,” she was saying.
“You’re changing the subject and trying to distract me with fruit.”
She held the strawberry she’d just bitten to his lips. He couldn’t resist.
“Is it working?”
“Maybe.” He bit into it. “I keep losing my train of thought.”
“You’re avoiding my questions, as well.”
He grasped her hand and made a methodical process of licking the sticky, sweet sauce from her fingers.
“I’m sorry about Martin. I shouldn’t have goaded him,” Cole said.
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
He continued to lick her fingers. “What will he tell Mrs. McKay?”
“I really don’t care.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Josie smiled and leaned over to kiss him. “I’m not surprised, because yesterday, even this morning, I couldn’t have said that. But, it’s true. I really don’t care what he tells his mother. Don’t worry.” She leaned forward. “It’ll be fine,” she said against his lips.
Cole pulled away, but kept her close. “I won’t stand for you losin’ your job because of me, Josie Lee.”
“I won’t lose my job. I’m too valuable.”
If only he had her confidence. Knowing Old Lady McKay, she was sure to have a cow when she found out about him and Josie. And that could mean nothing but trouble.
He hadn’t bargained for this. He’d been so bent on pursuing her, he hadn’t considered the price she’d have to pay for being with him. She needed his protection. He didn’t know how he’d manage it, but he’d do whatever it took to make sure she wasn’t humiliated in front of all of Angel Ridge by the McKays.
Chapter Ten
They finished their lunch and spent the rest of the day exploring the encampment. It was a beautiful day, tailor made for just this sort of event. For
t Loudoun was one of the most beautiful places in the area. Pre-Revolutionary, it had been a British Fort placed in this location to deal with the Cherokee Indian settlement that had been nearby. That worked pretty well until the Cherokees decided they’d had enough of these foreigners in their midst and took control of the Fort. After that, the British pretty much just high-tailed it back over the mountains to Charleston.
All that remained were some buildings that had been replicated by the historians who ran the museum. The most spectacular thing about the Fort was its view—it sat on the banks of what had been the Little Tennessee River, and the mountains of North Carolina rose up behind it in spectacular fashion.
Josie looked out across the expanse of Lake Tellassee that had been formed by the dam the Flood Control Board had built some fifty or more years earlier, flooding the valley and its homes, forcing the residents up onto the ridge. Beautiful.
Cole remained unusually quiet. He didn’t even give her tidbits of information about the architecture of the buildings like she’d expected. He always loved talking about the old buildings around town. Instead, he quietly bought them rock candy made by the ladies dressed in colonial dresses. Later, they’d held their ears when, on the hour, the uniformed British Regulars fired the cannons. Josie’s ears still felt a little numb from all the noise.
Not another person recognized her as they mingled with the crowds of people filling the Fort. Not even Minnie Reed, and she’d been her mother’s best friend for as long as Josie could remember. At this point, however, Josie really didn’t care who saw her on Cole’s arm. After their encounter with Martin, something had changed. She realized that she had feelings for Cole. Deep feelings. And she didn’t care who knew it. She removed the straw hat and carried it as they walked from building to building.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll burn?” Cole asked.
“Not any more.”
She’d spent too many years weighed down by the expectations of this town. She was tired of trying to be someone she wasn’t, if she even knew what that was. She’d like the time to explore just that notion. She refused to let the expectations of narrow-minded people affect her personal life or what she wanted for the future. That included dating the man of her choice. And she chose Cole.
He was everything a woman could want and more. Tall, handsome, dependable, trustworthy, an upstanding member of the community, fun to be around, intelligent, sexy, a great kisser . . . .
Only You Page 13
