by Meg Benjamin
Docia shook her head. “He’ll calm down when he finds Daisy and Jack.”
Darcy tried not to look confused. She probably should know who Daisy and Jack were anyway.
“Lars’s kids,” Docia explained. “His cousins.”
Cousins. Was this Texas or Appalachia?
“Tell him to listen for the dog. The last I saw he was chasing a couple of kids.”
Cal and his son turned toward noises that sounded like Porky’s yips. Darcy figured they’d have a burned-out puppy on their hands by late afternoon.
“Anyway…” Docia turned back to Harris. “How’s Aunt Mel?”
His face seemed to close. The grin stayed in place, but his eyes were suddenly opaque. “I wouldn’t know. Haven’t talked to her in a year or so. Ask Gray the next time you see him.”
Docia frowned, but someone called her name from across the meadow, one of the gorgeous wives of the gorgeous Toleffsons.
“I better go see Janie.” Docia turned back to Harris, briefly. “We’ll talk.”
He nodded. “Sure we will.” Darcy couldn’t tell how happy he was about that possibility.
Docia turned and then paused as Chico and Andy came down from the lean-to.
Chico rubbed his hands with a paper towel. “I need to get Andy’s beans up onto the smoker to warm. Looks like your brisket’s about ready to come off.”
Andy smiled up at him. “I tried using Modelo Negro in the beans this time,” she explained. “It’s a little smokier. See what you think.”
“Are you entering beans and slaw too?” Docia raised an eyebrow at Darcy’s plastic container on the picnic table.
Darcy shook her head. “The contest is just for meat, but people visit the team booths during the day and buy plates. We’re going to have slaw, potato salad and beans.”
“And dessert,” Andy added.
Darcy narrowed her eyes. As a former pastry chef, she found this a touchy subject.
Andy grinned. “It doesn’t have to be sublime, Darce. Cobbler is fine.”
“Not yet it isn’t. I’m still perfecting it. I brought some along for y’all to try.”
Andy sighed. “I’m going to put on ten pounds by the time this contest is over. At least we’re not doing bread.”
Darcy rolled her eyes. “We are doing bread. It’s just not what I call bread.”
“Sandwich bread is a tradition, Darcy.” Chico placed a hotel pan full of Andy’s potato salad on the table. “It’s not worth the hassle of baking anything special. People won’t eat it.”
“Some traditions are meant to be done away with,” Darcy muttered.
All of them ignored her.
More people arrived as the afternoon wore on. Harris and Chico pulled the meat off the fire around two, observed closely by three small children and two large fathers. The platters of beef and pork were placed on the serving table next to Darcy’s slaw and Andy’s beans and potato salad. Darcy knew she should be grateful for that potato salad since it was one less thing to worry about, but she found herself regarding it critically, trying to come up with things about it that weren’t as good as hers. Unfortunately, there weren’t many.
Andy grinned. “You can do the potato salad if you want. I’ve got no ego involvement here, believe me.”
Darcy sighed. “It really makes more sense for you to do it if I’m doing cobbler. That way we’ll break it down into two sides each.”
“Which we should probably figure out a schedule for making. We’ve only got two more weeks until the Fourth.”
Darcy gritted her teeth. “Well, crap. How much should we make?”
Andy frowned, thinking. “I’d say a minimum of two hundred servings, and that’s conservative. My guess is they’ll get a couple thousand paying customers at this thing. But they’ve got over a hundred entries—the crowds can go get food from the other people after we run out. And running out might make us look popular.”
“Please god.” Darcy rubbed her tight shoulders. “Can you handle serving all this while I grab some food?”
“Sure. I’ll eat with Chico later.”
Darcy glanced toward where Chico and Harris were dissecting their latest efforts with Joe and Clem. She figured they’d spend at least another ten or fifteen minutes on the rubs alone. One of the Toleffsons stood at the side, his arms folded across his chest, ready to add his opinion. When it came to barbecue, everybody got their say.
She filled a plate of food for herself and headed off for the bench under the cypress tree. It was only when she got close that she realized Docia Toleffson was sitting there with her sleeping son propped on her shoulder.
“Sorry,” Darcy murmured. “I’ll go somewhere else.”
Docia shook her head. “It’s okay. He’s like Cal—once he’s out, he’s out.” She scooted over slightly on the bench. “Sit down and have your lunch. You’ve been on your feet since I got here.”
Darcy sank down on the bench, grateful to be sedentary for a while. She dug her fork into Andy’s potato salad, which really was an excellent version even if she hated to admit it.
“So how long have you and Harris been together?” Docia gave her a bland smile.
Darcy thought about saying they weren’t together, but that wasn’t exactly the truth and she didn’t feel like dancing around. “About a month. A little more maybe.”
Docia smiled again, staring down at the river as she shifted her baby slightly. “I didn’t even know he was here until I saw him at one of those chuck wagon things at the Rose. I don’t think he told anybody in the family what he was doing.”
Darcy took another bite, wondering just how far she could go in questioning Docia without violating Harris’s privacy. “I get the impression that there are some…sore points between him and his folks. About him being the Barbecue King instead of the Lawyer King.” She gave Docia a quick smile. Yeah, I know about him. Sort of.
Docia nodded slowly. “His family’s full of lawyers—good ones. His brother Gray is Cal’s and my family lawyer now that he’s working in the Hill Country. Having a firm like that is really great if you need a lawyer you can count on. Not so great if you don’t particularly want to be a lawyer yourself.”
“Yeah, that’s sort of what I figured.” Darcy cut off a corner of brisket. Harris had outdone himself. “He’s really good at this, though. I’ve been working in kitchens for almost ten years, and I’ve seen my share of dilettantes. Harris is the real deal.”
“I believe you.” Docia grinned. “I’m a Texas girl—I know what good ’cue tastes like. This is great.”
“It is.” She paused for a moment, trying to decide how he’d feel about her going any further. Screw it. “So is it just that his family thinks cooking is low class?”
Docia shrugged. “That’s some of it. We’re not what you’d call Old Texas. My mama is, but my daddy’s family are pretty much shirt-sleeve types. They’re just a generation or so away from hardscrabble. I think people like that are really tough on what they expect from their kids. They don’t want anybody to think they’re backsliding.”
“Yeah. I can see that.” Actually, she couldn’t. Her folks might give her grief about her tats and her hair and the fact that she’d moved around the country so much, but she knew they were proud of her.
“Have you met any of them?”
Darcy chewed carefully. “His brother was here once.”
“Gray’s all right,” Docia said slowly. “He’s a little uptight, but he’s not an asshole. Aunt Mel, on the other hand, is hell on wheels.”
Darcy blinked. “That’s his mom?”
Docia nodded. “My dad’s one tough guy, but his sister Melanie’s got him beat all to hell. She scared the crap out of me when I was a kid.”
Darcy didn’t know exactly what to say to that. “I think Harris is okay with the way his family’s been reacting. I mean, he doesn’t seem too broken up about the whole thing.”
“Well, that’s Harris.” Docia shook her head, smiling. “He’s one of t
he most easy-going guys I know, and one of the funniest. That may be part of why he didn’t make it as a lawyer.”
“It’s kind of hard to think of him as one.” Actually, it was hard to think of Harris as anything but what he was. The Barbecue King. She finished scraping up her potato salad. “I’ve got to go back and relieve Andy so she can get some food. Nice talking to you.”
“Yeah.” Docia’s smile widened. “It has been. I’m in as a sponsor by the way. Assuming y’all don’t object to having a bookstore on your list.”
Darcy grinned. “Okay by me. Should give us some class.”
But as she walked away, she wondered just how relaxed Harris was about being the family outcast. And how much he’d learned about camouflaging what he was feeling while he was being a lawyer.
People started to trail away from the barbecue around seven. Harris watched Andy wash out her plastic containers in his kitchen, then helped Chico pack up what was left of the pork. There wasn’t much—he’d offered to sell it on the truck the next day and Chico agreed. They’d both had enough pulled pork sandwiches for the time being.
Harris checked the aluminum pans that had held the brisket. Didn’t look like there was much beef left either. Maybe he’d save it for his and Darcy’s meals next week, along with a half chicken and a couple of sausage rings. Overall, the day had been a hit.
He liked these Sunday picnics a lot more than he’d expected to when they’d started the week before. They reminded him of his Grandma’s place in the summer, everybody together in the backyard, eating brisket and sausage and drinking beer. His mother had hated it. He himself had loved it.
And that pretty much summed up their family dynamic.
“You think we need to do any more of these test picnics?” Darcy dropped down on the bench beside him. “The ’cue’s tasting pretty good now.”
He shrugged, pushing his hat back to the back of his head. “Maybe not. We’ll need to put most of our work into getting everything set up for the competition now. We’ve only got a couple of weeks left.”
She frowned slightly. “I guess Andy and I are ready too, although that cobbler’s still not as good as I’d like it to be.”
He grinned, running his fingers across her shoulder, feeling the warm satin skin. “That cobbler’s already better than ninety percent of the cobblers you see at barbecue joints.”
Her chin went up. “I want a hundred percent.”
He threw his head back and laughed, then wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. “Darcy, you are one in a million.”
And that’s the Lord’s honest truth.
He blinked. Where the hell had that come from? This was a temporary relationship, not the long-term commitment kind. Right? And this absolutely was not the time to be thinking about that particular question. He took a breath. “Let’s go inside.”
“Why?” She gazed up at the feathery needles of the cypress tree. “I like it here.”
“I had something a little more intimate in mind.” He nibbled at the edge of her earlobe, letting his tongue graze the sensitive skin along the side of her throat.
He heard her quick inhale. “There’s no one around. And if anyone heads up here, we’ll hear them coming long before they get here.” Her voice sounded a little breathy all of a sudden.
“You want to get close to nature?” He grinned. “You know there’s liable to be splinters in this bench.”
“So spread something across it. There’s still a picnic blanket over on the table.”
He stared down at her, the corners of his mouth inching up. “You’re serious.”
She stared back, blue eyes alight with challenge. Yep, that’s my Darcy. “I’m absolutely serious.”
“Okay.” He pushed himself up, stepping across to the table to grab the picnic throw. This could work out well. Hell, it might be easier to make love on the bench than in his fold-out in the trailer.
He pulled her to her feet, then spread the throw across, turning her to face him. “Are we going discreet or full Monty?”
“Full Monty. Definitely.” She rested her hands on her hips. “Let’s see those pecs, handsome.”
Oh yeah, definitely his Darcy. He didn’t pause to consider why his chest muscles tightened at that his. She was his. At least for the moment.
He grinned as he unbuttoned his denim shirt, dropping it to the picnic table. “How about you?”
“How about me?”
He waggled a finger at her lace-trimmed tank top. “I think you should lose that. Now.”
She gave him another one of those I am not intimidated, not even slightly looks, then reached to the bottom of her tank top, jerking it over her head. She stared back at him defiantly in her zebra-striped bra and denim cut-offs.
He reached forward and unfastened her bra with one hand, stripping it off her shoulders so that it dropped from her arms. “There we go.”
Even her breasts looked faintly defiant, jutting up, the nipples pebbling in the warm evening air. “Now what?”
He shook his head slowly, letting himself slide into an insolent grin. “You’re in charge here, ma’am. I’m just enjoying the view.”
She folded her arms across her breasts. “Then that means you get rid of the jeans. And the boots. Maybe the boots first.”
He dropped down on the bench, yanking off his boots and socks, then stood again. “I’m thinking parity requires that we both strip off what’s left at the same time. So you lose the flip-flops and then we do the lower garments on a count of three.” He was enjoying himself. A mutual strip tease by the riverside. Konigsburg. Gotta love it.
She stepped free of her sandals, then stood watching him, her pink tongue darting across her lips. “Ready.”
“One…” He reached down and unbuttoned his jeans, pulling down the zipper with as much deliberation as he could manage. “Two…” He hooked his thumbs in the waistband, watching her. “Three…” He jerked the jeans and underwear down, kicking them away.
Darcy stood frozen, staring at him.
He raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve never seen you naked in daylight before. I mean, in the trailer all I can see are bits and pieces of you. You’re really…impressive.”
His grin widened, then he shook his head slowly. “Flattery will get you nowhere. C’mon, Ms. Darcy. We had a deal. You were supposed to pull those pants down when I did.”
“Right.” She pushed her shorts down quickly and stepped free. Then she stood still, her arms glued to her sides, her expression suddenly anxious.
He stepped toward her, running his hands along the tops of her shoulders. “And now we face the central issue—how do we manage this?”
She shrugged, chewing on her lower lip. “The same way we manage it anywhere, I’d say.”
“Not exactly.” He was fighting down the impulse to do just as she’d said, on the blanket on the bench. Not when they had all this space to maneuver. Not when they could try something they hadn’t tried before. “New idea. Put this on.” He picked up his shirt again, handing it to her.
She frowned. “You want me to get dressed?”
He shook his head. “I want you to protect your back. Put it on but don’t button it.”
She slid her arms into the sleeves slowly, letting the shirt drape over her back. “Now what?”
He put his hands at her waist, lifting her until her feet rested on the bench. For such a tough broad, she was remarkably light. “Lean back.”
She licked her lips again, then leaned back slowly, pressing her shoulders against the gnarled trunk of the cypress.
He paused. “Okay? Not too uncomfortable?”
She shook her head, eyes wide.
Harris leaned forward slowly, moving between her legs, his hands warm against her cool breasts. He reached up to cover her mouth with his, his tongue moving slowly, rubbing against hers.
Her head dropped back, resting against the tree trunk.
His fingers moved between her legs,
testing her heat, her wetness. His pulse thundered in his ears—he could swear he felt hers too.
He pushed her legs farther apart gently, then leaned forward again, running his tongue along the crease at the top of her thighs, then moving lower. He ran his tongue along her outer lips, sucking lightly as she gasped, then moved down to her clit, sucking again as his tongue stabbed lower. His hands moved to her thighs, holding her steady as he tasted.
Her body slumped against the trunk and then jerked convulsively, her inner thighs trembling. “Jesus,” she murmured. “Holy Jesus.”
The word woody suddenly didn’t seem enough. His cock had turned to adamant.
“Wrap around me.” He lifted her thighs, moving her down so that she could slide her legs around his waist.
The head of his erection pressed against her, in slightly and then out again, rubbing against her opening.
He took a deep breath. “Ready?”
She nodded, eyes wide, and he moved in slowly, letting her get used to him, the feel of him in this position. He watched her face as he moved, her forehead furrowed as if she was trying to work out a puzzle. Her breath rasped against his cheek.
He braced his hands on the trunk behind her, feeling the rough surface of the bark, the warmth of her breasts against his chest, the clench of her muscles around his cock. If he hadn’t needed all his breath to keep going, he would have shouted.
As he moved forward, his knees seemed to turn to rubber. He panted with the effort of keeping them both upright, his mouth moving into a strained grin. “Ah Darcy,” he gasped, staring up into her face. “Ah god.”
He felt the thread of heat moving through him, gathering at the base of his spine. She wrapped her legs tighter, pushing him deeper into her body. In, then back, then in farther. The combination of heat and wetness, the slide of skin over skin, intoxicated him. He groaned with the effort of holding himself back, not wanting it to end yet.
He moved his mouth to hers again, his tongue plunging along with his body. And then he was breaking, his body moving convulsively, rhythm gone, control gone, all of it gone to her.
For few more moments they clung together, still wrapped tight, his forehead to hers, her body shuddering against him. With any luck no hikers were currently following the river trail. “Jesus, Darcy,” he whispered. “Sweet Mother of God. What was that?”
