The Party Girl

by Tamara Morgan

  “I meant the hunting part. I’m a vegetarian.”

  Now it was his turn to stare at her. “You don’t eat any meat? Ever?”

  “That’s usually what being a vegetarian means. You and I aren’t so very different—I’m a big proponent of farm-fresh food. Assuming, of course, it never had a face.”

  Wrong. They were more different than she realized. He glanced down at his fingers, dirty from where he’d dug up worms to use as bait, stained with fish innards from where he’d cleaned his catch and tossed the guts in as a lure. Later, these same fingers would scale the fish and fry them over an open fire in his wood stove.

  Then, aware that he’d just spent a horrifyingly long time admiring his own hands, he set them to work gathering his things. “We should probably head back. Lincoln won’t like it if he finds out we’ve been cavorting in the woods while he’s stuck at the house.”

  “Noah.” Her voice was firm. “This isn’t cavorting.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Two people having a conversation in the woods over fish carcasses isn’t the least bit scandalous. Not unless we’ve been transported back to the eighteenth century and my pa is worried about your intentions.”

  His blood pounded a dual warning—one in his temple, the other in his groin. “I don’t have any intentions.”

  It was a good thing Kendra already had firsthand knowledge of this man’s interest in her, because she’d been here all of ten minutes and he’d done everything he could to puncture her self-confidence. He was like an adept fencer, parrying back and forth, thrusting at her in the least sexy way possible.

  “I’m aware of your lack of intentions. In fact, that’s why I hauled my ass all the way out here instead of waiting for you in the house like a normal human being.”

  “You’re yelling at me because of my lack of intentions? That seems dramatic.”

  “I’m about to kick you because of them.” She pointed at the rock. “Sit back down. We need to sort a few things out if you and I intend to get through this whole let’s-heal-Lincoln thing alive.”

  “No one dies from sexual desire,” he said, but he arranged his limbs on the rock anyway, looking casually rugged and as though he’d emerged from the wilderness to see to her every last desire. Large men should have to be clean shaven and models of decorum at all times. It wasn’t fair otherwise.

  “Sure they do. What about the Trojan War? The face that launched a thousand ships? Call me crazy, but I don’t think Paris was after Helen’s witty conversation.”

  “Maybe she made really tasty sandwiches.”

  Kendra laughed softly and perched on a flat rock next to Noah, trying her best not to imagine what kind of insects might be preparing to board her.

  “Now.” Despite the horrors of the forest and the overriding sense that they’d have been much better off cavorting after all, she spoke in her best professional tone, the one she pulled out when Whitney, Jared and John were arguing over something and needed to focus. “If you want me to keep coming out to help with Lincoln, we need to set a few no-dalliance rules. I respect your boundaries, but this whole brooding-at-me-from-a-distance thing isn’t going to work. I’m a naturally hot-blooded woman. Unless you want me to combust on the spot, you have to turn down the heat a little.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  Kendra showed him. Schooling her features to give nothing away, she concentrated every last bit of her desire in her eyes instead. It wasn’t an easy thing to do—especially since she’d never made it a goal before to hide what she wanted—but she played various scenes of Noah enacting barbaric roles in her head. In a loincloth, swinging down from the trees to press her roughly up against a tree. With an axe over his shoulder, tossing it aside and hefting her in its place. Clad in his work clothes, fierce as he brought his mouth to hers, tongue delving deep, one of his big man-hands shackling her around the waist as she struggled to get free.

  “Ahem.” Noah made a lengthy throat-clearing noise. “You can stop now. Point taken.”

  She shook herself off, her heart fluttering in her throat, the rest of her fluttering in other vital places. Perhaps she hadn’t needed to go into quite so much detail.

  “It’s hard to ignore, isn’t it?” she said. “You were wrong last night when you said this is my fault for touching you too much. It’s not my hand on your arm creating the problem. It’s that.”

  He looked properly chastened at her words. Good. Kendra wasn’t completely shameless when it came to this kind of stuff—it took two to create the level of desire that flared between them. The sooner he accepted that, the better for all of them.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize I was being so obvious. But you’re incredibly captivating—you must know that.”

  Unfair. The fluttering in her throat picked up again, ready to take flight. She was pretty sure a man had never said anything like that to her before—at least not without an end goal in sight. It was a cruel, calculating world that would throw a man like this in her path and then greedily snatch him back again.

  She pointed at him sternly. “And you can’t say things like captivating.”

  “I have to say it just this once, get it out of my system. Kendra Khuso, you captivate me.”

  She groaned. “From here on out, I think you better stick to monosyllables. Girl. Wood. Fire. Meat. The essentials.”

  He grinned up at her—which, if you asked her, was worse than the broody look. Broody was something she could withstand. “You think those are the four essentials in my life?”

  “Ticks. Deer. Dirt. Sleep.” She counted off on her fingers. “Whatever gets you through the day.”

  Noah grunted his agreement. It seemed preferable to the alternate one-word options flashing through his brain right now, which revolved primarily around things like lips and tongues. Breasts and thighs. Cunt. Cock. Balls.

  Well, shit. There were an awful lot of one-syllable body parts.

  “You’re doing it again,” she warned.

  He blinked and licked his lips, but there was no moisture left in his mouth to provide relief. This was going to be harder than he thought. “Sorry,” he managed. “Maybe we need a code word.”

  “Good idea. Something we can talk about without Lincoln wanting to hijack the conversation. Quick—what’s the one thing that repulses him more than anything else in the world?”

  “Feminine hygiene products.”

  Laughter spilled from Kendra’s lips as she settled more firmly on her rock. “There’s no way I can slip a tampon reference in every time you start to shoot sex lasers from your eyes. He’ll think I’m deranged.”

  “You asked.”

  “Okay. What’s his second least favorite thing?”

  “Books.”

  She nodded. “That one I can work with. I’m guessing the classics are probably neutral territory?”

  “Or female authors. I’m pretty sure he only reads Tom Clancy, and even then, he skims.”

  “How long have you known Lincoln?” She leaned over, the distance between them shortened enough to provide a good view down the front of her top.

  “Since we were kids.” Twenty-two years? Twenty-three, maybe? All he remembered was that Lincoln had been tiny, well-groomed and way more fun than his chores. He paused just long enough to change the subject. “Turtlenecks.”

  She sat up. “What?”

  He pointed at where the wispy sleeve of her shirt had slipped down one shoulder. Her bra strap bisected the slope of her skin, showcasing a line of bright lacy green he’d follow into infinity. “If I can’t shoot sex lasers, you can’t wear anything revealing. You’re killing me with that cleavage.”

  She preened, adjusting her bra so that the perfect mounds of her breasts lifted even higher. God, what he wouldn’t give to fe
el the weight of one of them in his teeth.

  “Maybe you should move your eyes up about a foot instead, my friend. I don’t think I own a turtleneck.”

  “I get to make rules too. If I can tell what color bra you have on, it’s too revealing. Cover it up.”

  “How very barbaric of you. My pa would be proud.”

  “Would he?” For some reason, it was strange to think of Kendra as having a father. Probably because if Noah had a daughter who was that much trouble, he’d lock her up in a golden tower somewhere with a dragon guarding the door. “What’s your dad like?”

  She eyes widened in surprise, but Noah didn’t take the question back. They really should be getting back to the house, but he found himself growing intrigued by more than just Kendra’s sexual energy. The rest of her energy was just as attractive.

  “He doesn’t make me wear turtlenecks, if that’s what you’re asking. My mom’s the conservative one. My dad just wants his children to be safe and happy.”

  “You’re close?” he prodded.

  She seemed delighted by the question. “Very. I think the hardest part about living in Pleasant Park is the distance between me and my family. All three of my siblings are scattered around the East Coast, so we don’t get together as much as we used to, though we talk on the phone a lot. I definitely couldn’t do this whole off-the-grid thing you have going on. If my mom doesn’t hear my voice at least once a week, she begins to self-destruct. It’s not pretty.” She studied him—not with sex laser eyes, but with the interest of a genuine friend. “No one worries about you?”

  He stretched his arms out with a nonchalance he was far from feeling and propped them behind his head. “It’s just me.”

  “And Lincoln.”

  He sat up. “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s obvious he means something to you. I don’t think I’ve ever spent this much time with a man highlighting all the ways we won’t have sex.”

  He couldn’t help himself. “But you have spent this much time with a man highlighting all the ways you will?”

  “I like to make my intentions very clear, right from the start.” There was no mistaking the note of tension in her voice. “I always have. Including with the man currently recovering under your roof.”

  Fair enough. No one said this was going to be easy. “Okay. So we’ll start talking about the Brontës when I get, um, carried away. And you’ll swathe yourself in blankets.”

  Her lips lifted in a smile. “Oh, is that what we decided?”

  “Yes. My flesh is very weak. I appreciate your restraint.”

  “Your flesh is incredibly strong, Noah. Trust me. That’s part of the problem. Maybe you should be swathed in blankets too.”

  He glanced over himself curiously. There was nothing about him calculated to appeal to a member of the opposite sex. He hadn’t shaved in weeks. His work-faded shirt smelled of fish and woodchips. His jeans were so worn they’d become almost an extension of his skin.

  When he looked up, Kendra had captured her lower lip in her teeth and seemed to be on the verge of launching herself at him. Whatever she saw met with her approval—a fact he felt tug insistently at his gut.

  He cleared his throat. “So, I heard they made another movie version of Jane Eyre.”

  “How could you possibly know that? You don’t have a television.” Understanding flashed in her eyes, and she laughed. “I see what you’re doing there. Yes, they did make a new version. I didn’t care for it, though I fully approve of casting Fassbender as Rochester. Have you really read Jane Eyre?”

  “Save it.” He got to his feet, extending a hand to help her up. Small touch, quick release. The jolt was carefully controlled that time, like electricity stored in a jar. “We need to head back, and I get the feeling we’re going to need all the Brontë topics we can come up with.”

  Chapter Five

  “I’m not touching it. Lincoln, you do it. He’s your friend.” Kendra backed away from the fenced pen, her heels sinking farther into the mud with each step—and she didn’t even care. Distance between her and the goat yard was more important than the state of her shoes.

  “No way.” Next to her, Lincoln took similar precautions, though his footwear was more serviceable than hers by virtue of being flat. “I’m injured. That thing could bite me. I might relapse.”

  “Only if it went for your stomach, and how could it possibly know to do that? Goats aren’t sentient beings.” She cast a worried look over her shoulder at Noah. “Are they?”

  Even from a distance of several yards, she could see the smirk lifting one corner of Noah’s mouth. “If by sentient, you mean eats garbage and her own tail, the answer is yes.”

  Beside her, Lincoln chortled.

  “And stop being so dramatic,” Noah said. “You’re the ones who asked what you could do to help with the extra work Lincoln’s stay here causes. Well, Goat is the answer. She needs to be milked. Your other option is to muck out the chicken coop.”

  Kendra wasn’t fooled for a second—one thing she’d picked up on over the past few days was that Noah’s small farm was as freakishly neat as his house, well-tended, and a large contributing factor to the manliness of his hands. In addition to the goat yard and chicken coop, she could see tidy rows of leafy greens extending far enough in the distance to feed what looked like a small army.

  Clearly, he was a man who needed no help managing his solitary lifestyle, who’d looked the world firmly in the eye and told it to fuck off. He wasn’t counting on them to help with his workload. He was mocking them—and doing a good job of it too.

  She didn’t feel as irritated about that fact as she might have a few days ago. At least this was a change from the constant desire she felt in his presence. It was impossible to feel sexy when staring into the rheumy eyes of a goat.

  “I see what you’re playing at,” she said. “This is what you do for fun, isn’t it? A rousing game of show the fancy city slickers how inept they are?”

  Lincoln cast a sidelong look at her. “It would be pretty entertaining to watch you milk a goat.”

  “Nuh-uh. No way.” She put her hands up and stepped even farther back. It was a mistake, as her heel caught on a rock and the tight fit of her miniskirt caused her to stumble. Before she had time to process the pull of gravity, a pair of strong arms helped her up, rendering physics useless. She didn’t have to look to know they were Noah’s arms. Gripped her tight, foisted her up, hands groping her waist and giving a tight squeeze before letting go—all of it so fast not even Lincoln could legitimately throw a fit over it.

  Still, she could see him frowning at them when she was back on her feet, and an unfamiliar twinge of guilt took over. Goddammit. It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t have to worry about what she said for fear it might give the wrong impression. She shouldn’t have to fall ass-first in the mud to make Lincoln feel better about himself as a man.

  Yet here she was, smelling of barnyard animals, watching her every word.

  She stabbed a finger at him. “If I milk that goat, do you promise to stop whining for the rest of the day?”

  Without missing a beat, Lincoln lifted three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  “And you won’t cheat at Monopoly again?”

  “Technically, I wasn’t cheating. There are no rules that state—”

  Noah cleared his throat.

  “Fine,” Lincoln grumbled. “I won’t creatively move my money around as a totally legitimate method of gameplay.”

  She wondered how far she could push this. She was, after all, about to place her hands on a mammal’s teat for this man’s amusement. Her tone gentled, she added one more caveat. “And you’ll be careful next time? No more of this putting yourself in danger out of stupid machismo? A few inches to the left, and this could have ended a lot worse. For all of us.”


  Noah watched as Lincoln’s eyes darkened from their normal glittering, combative blue to something that was, in his opinion, much more dangerous. Something much softer, much more akin to adoration.

  He could have shaken her. What Kendra was asking of Lincoln—something he definitely needed to hear—was the worst possible thing she could have said right now. Noah was willing to concede that she was in an unenviable position, wanting to be nice but not too nice, trying to show concern for Lincoln without leading him on. But damn. A request like that, uttered in those soft, sultry tones?

  There wasn’t a man alive who could withstand her. He was sure of it.

  “So.” Noah sprang forward and rubbed his hands together, not allowing either one of them to say another word. They needed a distraction, and he couldn’t think of a better one than putting Kendra and Goat within spitting distance of one another. His money was on Goat. “It’s a lot easier than it looks.”

  “Does it also smell better than it looks?”

  “She’s very clean,” Noah replied, trying not to laugh. He’d had much the same reaction the first time he’d tried to milk the damn creature. Of all his life goals, barnyard animal ownership had never featured on the list. As a kid, sure, he’d read Charlotte’s Web as part of the second grade curriculum and dreamed of rescuing his morning bacon. But the closest he’d ever gotten to having pets were the feral pigeons that nested on the fire escape.

  Unfortunately, eggs and milk were too much of a necessity to go without, so he’d had to adapt—as was the case with most of his transition out here. In exchange for an armoire he’d made from a few of the red maples that grew along the pond’s edge, the Nelsons traded him Goat and six chickens—as well as a few lessons in milking. He rather suspected they’d have traded for the privilege of watching him struggle with Goat’s udder alone.

  “And don’t worry,” he added with a wink. “She only bites if you tug too hard.”

  “Oh, geez.” Kendra shot him a look of loathing, tinged on the edges with enough amusement to put his mind at ease. Stumbling along in too-tall shoes might give her an air of ridiculousness out here, but she was clearly a woman who didn’t back down from a challenge, who didn’t always look for the easy way out. He respected that a lot more than she could possibly know. “I can’t believe I’m letting you talk me into this.”