Southern Seduction

by Alcorn, N. A.

  But family leans on one another, even when it called for a reversal of roles. I really hoped I’d be able to honor him one day by being just like him and following his excellent example.

  “Want me to heat up some dinner for us?” I offered, leaning my shoulder into the jamb of the door and crossing my legs at the ankle. “Mrs. Jakowski dropped off some of her cornflake crumb chicken and broccoli casserole.”

  The town knew that when you put two busy men together in the same house, and then physically impaired one, they were probably going to need some help with feeding themselves. Luckily, Mrs. Jakowski could actually cook, something that wasn’t always a given when people dropped off their charity.

  “Sure,” he responded, his head turned to the window instead of focusing on me.

  He seemed to be deep in thought, and I couldn’t help but ask him why.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Did you know I used to be a different man, Miller?” he asked seriously, his eyes moving effortlessly from the window to mine, locking on and holding them forcefully.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant. For as long as I’d been alive, my dad had been my dad. Strong, dependable, hardworking, and somewhat quiet. He only spoke when he had something to say that was worth listening to.

  I knew this would be no different, despite my initial confusion.

  I didn’t answer him, at least not verbally, but I suppose my face was all the response he needed.

  “For the last twenty-five years, I haven’t worried about anybody other than you and me. Before that, I had friends. I had a best friend.” He took a minute to breathe, letting his eyes drop infinitesimally before reflecting to himself, “The best.” His eyes came back to mine as he continued, “But when your mom died, instead of leaning on him like he wanted, I cut him out.” The fingers of each of his hands weaved their way between each other, the tips of his thumbs tapping each other in quiet contemplation. “Your mom would have been so ashamed of me,” he murmured, his chin hanging low enough that it almost rested on the bulk of his chest.

  He had never been this open with me. Not in any moment during the twenty-five years I had been alive. Sure, he showed me affection, but that was where his transparency stopped. So, I just listened. That was all I could do.

  Of course, I wanted to tell him that there was no way my mom would have been ashamed of him.

  But I didn’t know that.

  I had never known her. And he wouldn’t want my unsubstantiated condolences.

  “I’m not really sure why I did it, other than just not being able to face the future I planned with your mother, without her.”

  “You were there for me,” I argued, hoping to reassure him that he hadn’t completely shut out the memory of my mother.

  “When it came to you, I did what I had to. And you made it impossible not to enjoy it.”

  He shrugged helplessly, strangely reminiscent of a child. I wanted to go to him, envelop him in physical comfort, but the idea was too foreign. Maybe one day, if this new version of him hung around, we would get there. But not yet.

  “What’s brought this on, Pops? Why is this bothering you now?” I asked, even though I had a pretty good idea that I already knew the answer.

  “It’s always bothered me,” he corrected. “But it’s amazing how many important parts of your life you just don’t see until you’re confronted with the end of it,” he clarified earnestly. All these years, he’d been struggling with this.

  He’d done a good job of concealing it.

  “You thought you were moving on, but you really just lost everything and everyone,” I extrapolated, lifting my weight off of my shoulder, moving into the room, and settling onto the far side of the bed, my legs situated over the side, my back facing my old man.

  He grunted his assertion, and I gave the only advice I had to give.

  “It’s never too late to start a new friendship or resurrect an old one. Reach out. All he can do is turn you away, and well, then you won’t be any worse off than you are right now, right?”

  Funny thing was, I had learned this lesson from him.

  “You’re just like your mom, Miller. You do her name proud.”

  I turned to face him, meeting his emotion-filled eyes with a shimmery set of my own. “I appreciate that. But she isn’t the one who raised me,” I said with purpose, a tiny, heartfelt smirk turning my face into a younger image of his.

  Everyone always said we had the same smile.

  Shock overwhelmed his features, but I didn’t stick around to keep him under the gun.

  “I’ll go heat up dinner. See you down there,” I murmured as I lifted my weight off of the bed, a burn engaging in my thighs as my muscles worked.

  My boots whispered across the carpet, carrying me to the door of the bedroom easily and with haste. Pausing briefly, my body still on its exit path, I called back to him, “Love you, Pops,” before finding the doorknob with my palm, pulling it toward myself, and heading downstairs to heat up some food.

  I was gone before I heard him say it back, but I could feel it. I could feel it every day, and I knew I would until the day I died. Rob Laughlin may have regrets, but when it came to him, I didn’t have a single one.

  With the way my schedule went these days, I never got out to feed the cows until after dinner with dad. In fact, as I also fed them super early in the mornings, it was becoming the normal for them to eat in dark. They had shifted to my schedule and were getting used to eating all meals without the aid of natural light. And heading into the summer, days were long, so that was really saying something about how stretched out my schedule had become.

  I parked my Kawasaki Mule in the aisle of the barn, opened the latch to the feed room, and then stepped inside.

  Time to get down to business.

  The initial shock of the fifty pound feed bag settling onto my shoulder was the worst of it, and then my body acclimated, adjusting in all the right ways to make it easier to carry.

  I made my way back over to my farm utility vehicle, letting the bag and the pellets inside slip and slide, moving and conforming to find their way off of my shoulder, before popping it with a hit of force at the end so that it landed neatly in the bed. Returning to the feed room, I grabbed a second bag, as it took a lot to keep our hungry girls happy, and then rinsed and repeated until the two bags formed a neat stack on top of one another.

  I flipped out the light to the aisle, and then settled myself onto the bench seat of the Mule. I had my right hand outstretched to the ignition, milliseconds away from starting her up when something in the distance caught my attention.

  The moon was out, but my angle in the barn made it hard to properly distinguish anything. Lifting myself back off of the seat, the ignition untouched, I quietly padded my way to the front of the barn, leaning on the open doors, crossing my arms over my chest, and resting the heal of my boot on the end of the concrete pad in order to get a better look.

  My eyes squinted unconsciously, trying to make out the dark figure headed my way.

  It was a person. Definitely a person.

  Focusing harder, willing my eyes to cooperate, I finally caught a glimpse of a long, slim limb being flung over the top rung of my fence, a cute wavy chunk of hair cutting through the shadows and giving off a reflection in the sliver of moonlight.

  Clearly, I was witnessing a girl, climbing my fence with purpose and making her way onto my property.

  I watched the way she held herself, comfortable and, the staunch opposite all at the same time.

  A young, female trespasser.

  Interesting. Not exactly a regular occurrence.

  I wracked my brain for a reason, and surprisingly, I actually came up with one. Usually I could think all I wanted, but no answers would come. But tonight, for some reason, the stars were aligned.

  It must have been somebody out of One Last Night. I had forgotten about it, focused on my daily routine, but the timing was just about right, and we did happen to have a
huge population of heavy, smelly mammals.

  Pranks always included some sort of big animal, like there was some law of attraction that connected the two.

  A chuckle came out of my throat unsuppressed as I watched from my secure position, a good distance away. She moved with measured movements, still managing to look sloppy and unpracticed, but truly thinking she was being sneaky. Realistically, I had spotted her before she was even officially on my property.

  Funny.

  “Who are you, and what do you think you’re up to?” I whispered to myself, abandoning my responsibility to my cows and focusing on sneaking up on my cute visitor.

  Well, my potentially cute visitor. She moved like she was cute, anyway.

  Apparently, she wasn’t an expert in covert ops. The shape of her hair swung back and forth with her effort to keep her eyes alert and ahead of detection, but she failed to look in the direction of the barn even once.

  Her face frequently oriented toward my house, and I figured Pops was already asleep or getting pretty close. But I was free to watch undisturbed and inconspicuous.

  Conveniently, this was going to make my approach just that much easier.

  Giving my boot a soft shove against the concrete lip, I propelled myself forward, tucked my legs under my body, and headed in her direction, ready to have some fun.

  Zoey

  Jogging through the field on my tip toes, I tried to imitate a ninja, using fluid, silent motions as I approached my behemoth of a victim.

  Brown and white and chubby all over, I could see the next clue taped to the side of his neck, and it wasn’t long before I was bearing down on him, ready to strike.

  Now, how the hell was I going to tip this thing all on my own? And then get a picture of it.

  Crap.

  Maybe if I got a running start and, kind of, threw my body into him it would be enough.

  I acted it out, marking my movements, and thought about the physics involved with the kind of force it would take to tip a cow.

  Nah, the running, wild man approach wasn’t going to work. I’d end up laid flat out on the ground, possibly unconscious, and the cow would be like, “Was that a fly?”

  I was only five feet, two inches tall for Christ sakes.

  Yeah, no thanks.

  Leverage, I needed leverage. Walking over to Sir-Moos-and-Chews-A-Lot, I put both of my hands at the top of his shoulder and leaned my weight into him, trying to gauge how much of an effect I had.

  Barely anything.

  Okay, I was kidding myself.

  Not barely anything. Nothing. I had no effect whatsoever.

  Hmm. This was going to take some real creativity. Stepping back, I crossed my arms over my sizable chest, the thumb and forefinger of my right hand clasping my chin in thought.

  “Step away from the cow,” a deep, masculine voice bellowed from behind me.

  Ironically, I could have tipped the cow with the force of my jerk, gangly limbs flying every which way in any and all directions, my body reacting so violently to getting caught that I seriously thought I would hurt myself.

  Shit. This is why you’re supposed to have a group. Tip the cow fast, and then get the hell out of there. Standing around and debating science took too long.

  The town supports “One Last Night”. For the most part. Usually the people who you actually bother don’t like it all too much.

  Obviously, Mr. Laughlin was one of them.

  “I was just going for a walk,” I tried lamely without turning around.

  A short bark of laughter sounded through the warm, humid air, and I took off like shot.

  Sprinting as fast as I could, avoiding as many cow pies as possible, I headed for the property line. Only one fence stood between me and freedom, and I had a feeling I was faster than old Mr. Laughlin.

  Lightning bugs seemed to fly passed my face with the speed of their name, even though they were sitting still. The wind cut effortlessly around my body, and I pumped my arms and legs as hard as I could.

  I thought I had it, freedom so close I could feel it firing the taste buds on my tongue, and a smile started to sneak its way onto my face.

  Only, a good hundred yards short of the fence, steel bands wrapped around my waist and brought me to an abrupt but cushioned stop. I struggled, trying to fight my way free, but my prison wouldn’t budge.

  Damnit!

  How in the hell had old Mr. Laughlin caught me?

  The steel bands began to move, caressing their way into position and turning me to face my captor.

  Tingles shot across my skin, goosebumps breaking out and chasing the chill from my toes straight up my spine.

  Not old Mr. Laughlin.

  Young, supremely attractive, pure-green-eyed Miller Laughlin. He was just a few years my senior, and apparently, he was in fucking phenomenal shape.

  “Hey, Miller,” I said casually, forcing my eyes to mimic those of an innocent doe and completely ignoring my crimes and the fact that my body was plastered to his in the most delicious of ways.

  “Hey, Zoey,” he said easily, a smile just barely twitching at the corner of his mouth and not appearing the least bit winded.

  Holy shit. Miller knew my name? And recognized me?

  I decided to let him talk first. You know, avoid incriminating myself, that kind of thing.

  I expected his arms to loosen, release me, something, but they didn’t. If anything, they got even tighter.

  The moonlight glimmered off of his brown hair, even though it was no more than an inch in length, and the peach of his lips slid back languidly to reveal bright white teeth.

  The silence seemed even more deafening in the loneliness of a country night, tucked close in the circle of Miller’s arms.

  There was no rush to move, but it wasn’t because of some extraordinarily right feeling. It was because it was comfortable, unassuming, and completely lacking pressure. It should have made me feel like he wanted something from me, or at the very least bathed me in a thin coating of awkwardness, especially since his reason for imprisoning me included some allegedly unhelpful activity on my part, but there was none.

  Only the sound of the crickets and the glow of stars I was using to study his face occupied my thoughts. His green eyes were open and honest and rimmed in the most luscious set of lashes. And the color of his irises was as crystal clear as I had ever seen it. Pure medium green, completely unmarred by flecks of other colors or accents.

  Having no idea what his life here in Winslow was like since returning from college, I wanted to ask. But the other part of me didn’t want to break the spell. Insecurity was also heavy in my heart, which may be surprising since I portrayed someone who didn’t care with such practiced ease. But I cared. I cared what he thought.

  I had always admired Miller, hearing the lore of his story filter through town year after year since the day I formed the skill of cognition. His mom had died during childbirth, the town sweetheart tragically lost on the day that should have been filled with endless joy. His dad never recovered, naming Miller with the maiden name of his lost bride.

  But none of that brought Miller down, his positivity almost as big of a talking point as the tragedy, and with humanity’s innate focus usually resting heavily on the negative, that was really saying something.

  His smiles were quick, his pleases and thank yous never lacking.

  He was the All-American boy with an edge, and even I, Pessimistic Penny, couldn’t find anything to dislike about him.

  And he was holding me, freaking Zoey Kapernack, in his arms, at that very moment.

  Surreal.

  “How, exactly, did you think you were going to tip a cow all on your own, anyway?” he asked, breaking me out of my reverie but keeping my happiness secure in his grasp.

  Taking a minute to think on my answer, I finally did so as vaguely as possible. “If I were, allegedly, theoretically, hypothetically, commissioned to tip one of your cows, I would have figured it out.”

  His lips closed ove
r his teeth, but his smile didn’t disappear as he shook his head slowly back and forth. His fingertips started to explore my ribs, whispering softly over anything and everything that was within their reach.

  “Where the hell is your group? I thought this was a group thing,” he queried, his eyes moving away from me for the first time since my capture in order to survey our surroundings.

  He wouldn’t find anything. I was alone.

  And he just had to point it out.

  “If you must know, I’m somewhat of an orphan. I don’t play well with others, steal their toys, throw sand in their faces, things like that. Everyone involved decided it would be better if I did my own thing.”

  He smirked at that, a sly essence of mischief wrapping around his features.

  “Alight. I’ll be your partner. I might like it if you steal my toys,” he told me with a wink. Damn, that was a sexy fucking wink.

  “But you’re old,” I argued unwisely. Who the hell argued when Miller Laughlin offered to spend time with you?

  An idiot, that’s who.

  “Gee, thanks,” he said with mock affront, his warm arms still locked firmly around me.

  I was thinking about asking if we could spend the whole night like this. We could still get things done.

  Maybe.

  Knowing it was becoming necessary, I focused sharply on speaking. “You know what I mean,” I placated. “You graduated three years ago. You already had one last night. You’re supposed to be an adult now. Helping the elderly cross the street, working your nine to five, and under no circumstances, tipping cows and pulling pranks. What would the townspeople think of their golden boy if they found out?”

  His shoulders moved gently into a shrug, and his eyes locked fiercely onto my amber ones. “Sometimes it’s worth it to break the rules.”

  Somehow, his simple statement seemed larger than the words contained within it. Larger than life, even.