Sunshine and Rain (City Limits Book 2)

by M. Mabie

  I hopped out of my truck, but left it running, and walked around to lean on the front.

  “You said Andy at the bar, right?” I asked, crossing my arms across my chest trying to decipher what was going on. I hadn’t paid her dog much attention the day Dad and I had been there helping her.

  She leaned on the small white iron rail flanking her steps.

  “Yeah,” she said, not really following. “Andy, my dog. I don’t have some guy named Andy held hostage in my house. Why?” She was backlit from the light on in the house as she stood in front of the storm door.

  “How old is Andy these days? He’s looking pretty good.”

  Her head tipped back and she laughed, then pointed at the dog who was making his rounds near my truck and peeing on my tires. “That’s a different Andy. He’s Andy number two. Andy number one got hit by the school bus a few years ago.”

  She patted her thighs, a signal, and the hound took off straight for her, leaping the three stairs in one bound. She scratched him behind the ears and crouched down to kiss him on top of the head. “You be a good boy. I’ll be back in a while.” When she opened the door, he went in.

  Sunny walked down the steps, looking at my truck and then at me, and held a finger up. Around to the passenger side of the truck, she opened the door, and I heard her give the seat a few swift pats.

  “Yep, it’s wet,” she said, but I’d checked it and knew better. She shut the door and walked around to the front where I was still standing against the corner of the hood. “I’ll get in on your side.” Then she walked to the driver’s side door and waited for me.

  Sweet Jesus. Sunny was getting into my jacked up truck.

  I took a deep breath and pinched my arm. Half expecting to wake up, but I didn’t.

  It was real.

  The door creaked as I swung it open for her. The huge tires and lift kit made the step up into my Chevy a stretch for someone her height. First, she tossed her hoodie in, then held onto the seat as she climbed. Her ass bending and heaving into the cab as I stood like a statue trying to keep my hands off of it.

  Having something that tempting right in front of me was a true test of my self-control.

  She scooted over, about as far as she could, sitting just to the right of center, giving me more than enough room.

  I hopped in and put my arm behind her to look behind us as I backed out of her drive. Her leg wasn’t touching mine, but I could covertly fix that with a few poorly timed turns.

  When I got to the end of her driveway, I caught her looking up at me and saw someone I’d never seen before. Almost a stranger. Her blinking lazily in the dashboard lights, mouth parted. I held her gaze, and she snapped out of it.

  “Wait,” she said.

  There it was. She was changing her mind. She wanted to stay home. She’d made a mistake.

  “Don’t move,” she instructed and leaned up to pull something out of her pocket. “We need a picture.”

  “Of what?” I asked.

  “Of us. It’s our first road trip,” she explained, like it was something monumental. Her voice sounded young and like I was out of my mind for not knowing it was such a benchmark moment.

  Before I knew it she had her phone held up in front of us. “No. It’s too dark,” she noted. “Can you turn on the dome light? I hate the flash on my phone. It makes me look like a zombie from The Walking Dead.”

  I laughed because … well, I laughed because of about thirty-seven different things, but mostly because as weird as she’d claimed she felt earlier, now she seemed comfortable. Even relaxed.

  Here I’d been infatuated with this girl my whole life, and I was quickly learning that maybe I’d been focusing on all the wrong parts of her.

  I turned on the light overhead like she asked me to do.

  “That’s better.” She leaned into the crook of my arm, and I inhaled the sweetest lungful of air. A hint of some kind of perfume that reminded me of flowers and honey.

  If she was relaxed, I was the exact opposite. I didn’t know what to do with myself. What the hell was happening?

  Keep your shit together, dude.

  “Hey, you gonna smile?” she teased and my eyes met her eyes reflecting in the reverse view of her camera. “It’s not a mugshot, Rhett.”

  Maybe not. However, I’ll be damned if I wasn’t held prisoner to the moment. When she smiled at me, I gave in to it and gave her my best.

  “There you go,” she praised before she pressed the button.

  I was a gentleman, so I’d never do it, but I wanted to throw that truck in park and kiss the hell right out of her. For the first time in my life, I felt she might want that, too.

  After she reviewed it, apparently satisfied, she turned it off and slid it into the small compartment in my dash. Sunny’s phone was just sitting in my dash. No big deal. Yet, it gave me pause.

  Check yourself. Act like a man, dammit.

  I moved my arm from around her, back to the steering column and shifted the truck from reverse into drive. Then, we tore down the muddy road.

  She turned the radio on and WDKR played a song I’d never heard before. “I like what you play at night,” I said.

  “Thanks. I don’t think many people actually listen to the station after they get home from work, so I don’t feel like I’m trying to please anyone. You know? I just play what I like.”

  I drove with my right arm to keep it from pulling her closer, and I propped my left arm on the rolled down window ledge as the warm night air filled the cab.

  Soon we were pulling into Smiths’.

  They had a farm like us, although theirs was a smaller operation. However, the second you pulled down their lane you could smell the money. Well, you could smell the hogs. The Smiths had a machine shop at the back of their property and I drove straight for it noticing how many vehicles were out there for a Friday night.

  Evidently, everyone who lived in or around Wynne was there. I went past the spot I wanted, then backed in to avoid making her get out in a huge puddle.

  I turned off the ignition and turned the key back to the auxiliary so that the radio didn’t turn off yet. Her head was swaying off time to a song she obviously liked.

  Leaning against the door, I watched her.

  She smiled and then started singing quietly, grinning the whole time. She was not good. Not even through my rose tinted glasses could I ever trick myself into thinking she was a singer.

  “You like singing?” I asked when the song wrapped up.

  “Oh, yeah, but I suck so bad.” It caught me off guard and I laughed out loud. “I can’t dance either. I’m sure you noticed.” Her expression was one part humility and one part confidence.

  “So why do you do it then?”

  She leaned back and her ass shifted down into the seat as she propped her leg up on the hump in the middle of the floorboard.

  “Well, I love music. It’s what I know.” She thumbed through her phone looking at a playlist. “You know what they say about teachers?” She glanced over at me and waited for me to answer, but I wanted her to keep going so I just nodded. “How those who can’t do, teach?” She shrugged and a whisper of a laugh left her before she added, “Well, musicians who can’t play, deejay.”

  I huffed, feeling a laugh grow in my chest, but I didn’t want her to think I was laughing at her so I let it stay inside. It was quite the opposite, she was funny.

  From the way she looked, she was laughing inside, too. The way she didn’t take herself too seriously was refreshing.

  “Makes sense,” I said.

  “What’s something you suck at but do anyway?” she asked.

  Chasing her was at the top of the list, but I was sure I didn’t want to admit it. Especially, since I was sitting next to her in my truck in the middle of the night. Then again, her sitting there had nothing to do with me chasing her to get her there.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to think on it. I’m sure there are plenty of things I’m not that great at.”


  She leaned up and scanned the parking lot, the pole light giving off a brilliant amber cast to the area. Then she sat back with a huff and a growl.

  “There are a lot of people here,” she muttered and turned my way, her blond hair falling off of her shoulder. “You know if we walk in there, we’ll never hear the end of it.”

  She didn’t need to elaborate.

  I wasn’t worried about what they’d say to me. I’d been used to it damn near all my life, but tonight she was in my truck and smiling and talking to me like I was a man … not a boy. I didn’t want them to make her uncomfortable, or change the way she was looking at me for the first time.

  It was surreal, and I didn’t want it to end.

  I suggested, “We don’t have to go in. It’s getting late anyway. I’ll take you home.”

  “Okay, we can go,” I said, and just that quick he flipped the lights on and cranked the truck to life. About that time I saw Dean walking to his Cherokee—past Mike’s Bronco—and he waved at us. Dean wasn’t even staying.

  I didn’t really give a shit about what anyone said. Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. Everyone was no doubt drunk, and I didn’t want Rhett to get teased for being with me. Especially, not when he’d just started talking. Well, kind of.

  Besides that, I didn’t feel like being there.

  He pulled down the lane and turned back on the gravel country road heading back the way we came. I was disappointed.

  “Rhett?” I asked, hoping to get some clue as to whether he really wanted to hang out with me or not. Hell, for all I knew he wanted to drop me off and go find a girl that he wouldn’t have to take any guff for being with.

  He was lost in his thoughts and didn’t hear me, or we were back to where we’d been last week—me talking and him being short.

  “Rhett?” I repeated more persistently.

  “Yeah,” he answered, not taking his eyes off the road, which drove me a little nuts.

  “Slow down. Will you look at me, please?”

  He was pitched forward hovering over the wheel, but turned his head my direction, slightly.

  “Just because I didn’t want to stay at Smiths’ doesn’t mean I want to go home yet.”

  It was worth the mild embarrassment of letting him know—again—that I was at least kind of interested in spending time with him. I wasn’t sure if he was getting my hints, though.

  I said, “I don’t care if we go somewhere else or just ride around, but I want to talk to you more.”

  Rhett looked at me out of the corner of his eye, but I couldn’t read his face. He’d be amazing at poker. He’d probably even beat my mom, and she was the best poker player I knew.

  We were all but creeping down the road, then headlights appeared a ways off. When he turned down a different lane, I knew we weren’t going back to my place.

  Small victory, but I’d take it.

  “You still want a few more beers?” he asked about the time I realized we were on his property, down the back road that led to his cabin. A way I hadn’t been in a long time.

  “Do you?” Answering with a question was a cheap move, but I needed to know what he was thinking. Even if it was something trivial, like if he wanted another beer. He didn’t give anything away, and it was severing me from my sanity. It was both nerve-wracking and exciting.

  He slowed before his C-shaped drive just off the road.

  “Before I pull in here, will you feel comfortable if we stop?” he asked.

  I gave him a look like are you serious? Of course I felt comfortable.

  “Rhett, I’ve known you since we were kids. I’m fine.”

  His voice was strong and low as he countered. “You’re wrong. We knew each other—marginally—when we were kids. Not since. We don’t know each other now.” It was the longest amount of words he’d said all strung together to me since I saw him at the truck stop almost a week earlier.

  “Oh,” I said. No guy had ever talked to me like that. Like that was what he was truly thinking—but he wasn’t entirely wrong.

  In fact, he was right.

  Rhett didn’t know anything about me, and he was damn near a mystery, but I wasn’t afraid of him. Honestly, the thing earlier with Mike and his drunk buddies made me feel unnerved, but being alone with Rhett didn’t.

  I was still wrapping my head around it when he added, his voice gentler than before, “I’m not a kid, Sunny, and you’re not just the smoking hot cheerleader anymore. So, when I ask you something, I need to know. I might not say—out loud—every single thought I’m having, but I always speak my mind when I do. Not only that, but I’m a lot bigger than you, and from our history, you know I at least have the ability to come on a little strong—innocent as I was back then. You’re at my place in the middle of the night, after you’ve been drinking, and your cell phone keeps beeping because it’s about to die. I need to know if you feel okay being here. The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable.”

  The truck idled on the road near his cabin. I looked over to it and, just as it had been the other night, the porch light was on and there was a cat sleeping on the step.

  I glanced back at Rhett.

  He was bigger than me. I had drunk plenty, and unfortunately, there had been times when I’d drunk more and put myself in similar situations, but my mind didn’t usually think like that. If somebody gave me the creeps, I just wouldn’t go out with them.

  “If you made me uncomfortable I wouldn’t have brought you that thank you just so I could give you my phone number. I wouldn’t have asked you to go to the bar and then want to hang out after. Rhett, your passenger seat isn’t even wet.” I shifted farther away, sitting on the part I’d claimed was damp. Moving away from him got his attention and he watched me closely. “No. I’m not uncomfortable.” Then I thought, just to be safe, I’d ask. “Should I be?”

  “No,” he deadpanned and took his foot off the brake, pulling the truck up to the cabin.

  Pickup off. Music off. Lights off.

  He opened the door and it squeaked as he pushed it to its limits, before hopping out. He took a step back and held out his hand to me. I inched to the edge of the seat, and with the door out of my reach, he steered my palm into his.

  I thought about tripping or falling, so he’d catch me. It was wrong, but I blamed it on the damn panther.

  All in all, it was a painfully uneventful exit, until then he stepped forward.

  “Why did you do all of those things?” he asked.

  There were many reasons that I’d done them, but when it boiled right down to it there was just one answer.

  “Because I wanted to.”

  The light from the porch highlighted the wrinkle in the corner of his hazel eyes as he cocked his head to the side. He didn’t say anything, but his face relaxed as he looked at me.

  He let my hand fall, since I didn’t need the help anymore on my own two feet. At that point, I probably could have faked an ankle injury, but, like those other thoughts, I let it pass. My hand felt lonely and cooler, free from his big grip.

  I anxiously waited for him to say something. I’d never been a patient woman. I talk on the radio for crying out loud. I’m like, get it out. Time’s wasting.

  “Well…” I said after what felt like minutes.

  “Sorry. That was just a good answer.” He nodded playfully and licked his lips before walking to the back of his truck, then added, “Really good.” He lifted the cooler out of the truck bed with little effort and waved his hand at me as he passed. “Come on.”

  I followed close behind as he opened the unlocked front door, flipped on a lamp, and then crossed the room into the kitchen.

  I looked around, and although I’d always just thought of the place as a hunting cabin, I quickly realized it was a lot nicer than I’d ever guessed. It was decorated with primitives, but not so many that it would be a full-time job keeping them dust free and tidy. I followed him through the back kitchen door onto a screened-in porch.

  He pointed at two c
hairs, but I pointed to the swing on the end. The chairs were separate. The swing was something we could share. I liked the idea of that more.

  He set the cooler off to one side of the wooden bench seat and sat, holding it still for me to get on nearest the screened-in outside wall.

  No quicker than the time it took me to sit, I knew. I’d sat in karma. A wet cushion—and I mean saturated enough to squeeze water out of the bottom as it splashed my sandaled feet.

  “Oh my god, I’m so wet,” I stated while even more water dripped from the cushion to the floor.

  I heard a rush of air leave the guy at the other end of the swing, then I realized what I’d said and I fell into a fit of embarrassed laughter.

  “I meant the swing is wet.”

  The stupid thing I’d said, combined with how I’d lied about the truck seat so I could sit near him was all too much. I was such an idiot, but I got what I deserved.

  He leaned over, pulled two bottles from the icy water beside him, twisted off the caps, and held them in his hand.

  “Well, I’d say scoot over, but it’s just as wet down here,” he admitted playfully and passed me a beer. His long legs started swinging us.

  I laughed more and he joined me. I liked the sound our laughs made in unison. It was a song I’d like to hear on loop.

  It might have been the beer. That late, it could have been delirium. It was probably nerves and excitement. The old and new of it all. But, whatever it was, it felt wonderful and I surrendered to the outrageousness of the moment.

  Then something he’d said earlier popped into my head, the line finally floating to the surface of my mind. “So I’m not the smoking hot cheerleader anymore?”

  He stopped rocking, and after a beat he let his knees hinge and move us forward again.

  “No, but I’m not a smoking hot high school cheerleader either. As devastating as it is, you’ll get used to it.”

  Was that a joke?