“Oh, I’ll be sure to let Kay Greer know,” Mrs. Butler said as Jake walked up behind her without her notice. He stood with his feet braced apart and arms crossed, listening. “Between Two Moons’ big party and this thing you’re cooking up, she’s sure to have a chance at snagging one of those guys. It would be such a lift in her spirit, being as her divorce just finalized and all. A sweaty night with a young, hot Bachelor would be just the thing to cheer her up.”
Heat flooded Apple’s cheeks. No doubt she looked as red as her name implied.
“Now, that sounds like quite the invitation,” Jake said. Then he grinned full out with wicked humor. Apple was still blushing when he raised one thick, well-shaped brow and winked right at her.
The audacity.
“Oh my God, you heard that?” Mrs. Butler looked mortified. Just mortified.
“Mmm-hmm,” he drawled, clearly enjoying himself.
Apple clasped her hands together and cleared her throat, flustered but trying to get beyond the embarrassing moment and keep the conversation moving. “Well, I can only imagine what that would be like,” she began absently until what she was actually saying registered and her gaze flew to Jake, her eyes huge. Hello, awkward.
He was giving her that same dark, intense look—the one that made her squirm. Her stomach dropped, and her heart made a distinctive thud inside her chest.
It had changed some over the years though and grown hotter, darker—edgier. But she knew that expression. It was the same look he used to give her when they were teenagers and in the same space together for more than a few minutes. Apparently her response to it hadn’t changed either. She was instantly sixteen and keyed up all over again.
She suddenly had the strongest urge to strip and cool the steam rising from her like a hot spring. Right there in the Fortune Public Library. With a mother and her daughter in attendance, waiting patiently to check out a book.
Good Lord, what was wrong with her?
“What I meant to say was that I can imagine Kay could use a morale booster after that messy divorce.” Big, wide-eyed smile. “Now, why don’t we get that book checked out for you?”
Phew. Disaster avoided. Dumb mouth.
Apple swooped past Mrs. Butler and Jake. She had just made it to the archway when she heard the woman say from the other room in a voice that had a decidedly flirtatious vibe, “Can’t wait to hear more about this little adventure of yours, Jake. Apple told me all about it. So looking forward to it.” Clearly her mortification could be soothed away much more quickly than Apple’s.
Had she actually thought she’d escaped the calamity caused by her mouth?
Yeah, well, she’d been wrong. “Just this way!” she called behind her. Though what she really wanted to do was wave her hands and make everybody freeze until she could figure out a way to keep her secret agreement with Jake, well, secret. Not that she was a prude or anything. She just didn’t think it would do well for everyone to believe that the town librarian took it all off for cheap.
Just when she’d been beginning to hope that he might not respond to Mrs. Butler, Jake inquired, “What adventure?”
Apple squeezed her eyes tight and grimaced. Here it came.
“Oh, the one you and Apple are cooking up.”
“She told you about that?” Surprise colored his deep, rough voice.
Where was a hole to crawl into when she needed it?
“That’s right. She said you were just getting started.”
Because she was almost sure that Jake was staring after her through the archway, she swallowed hard and tried to respond lightly, “That’s right!”
Sounding clearly puzzled, Jake added, “Tonight, as a matter of fact.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful to hear!” Mrs. Butler clapped. “I’m sure you’ll do good work together and we’ll all have something to look forward to soon.”
And the day had started off so well. “We will, Mrs. Butler. It will be great, I promise.” Apple lightly rapped her knuckles on the circulation desk, making a faint sound. “Now, if you and your daughter just want to come in here, we’ll get that book checked right out.”
Jake walked into the front room, his expression one of both confusion and curiosity as he looked over his shoulder back toward the children’s section. “You told Greg’s wife about our arrangement?”
Mortified at the idea of telling anyone about her agreement with Jake, Apple glanced around him to make sure the coast was clear before hissing back, “God, not that! I said something else.” She spotted the mother/daughter duo coming and finished whispering quickly, “Just play along, okay?”
“Why?”
“Because we were overheard at the bar last week, and I don’t want everyone knowing what we’re up to. Now just hush and play along.”
His rich brown gaze dropped to her chest briefly, and he smirked. “What’s it worth to you, juicy fruit?”
Apple fought the urge to roll her eyes. She had a reputation to consider, even if he didn’t. “I’m already coming over tonight. What more do you want?” she demanded in the fiercest whisper she could use without drawing attention.
He seemed to think about it. “Tonight, I get to pick which items of clothing you have to remove.”
What?
Apple forgot about the Butlers and exclaimed, “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“What’s he joking about?” Sarah asked from behind Jake, her little round face full of innocent curiosity.
Jake just cocked a brow at Apple and grinned as she stammered, “Oh, oh, he’s just being silly. You know how boys are.” She pulled a face, making the girl laugh, and it helped calm her nerves a little.
Until Jake said, “You know, I saw the funniest text message today on your cousin’s cell. . . ” And she realized what he was talking about. “You seem awfully interested in my personal life. Why’s that?”
Warning bells went off in her head, and she knew he was up to no good, especially since he was bringing up her message to Aidan in front of other people. Glancing around the circulation desk, Apple took a deep breath and considered her options while she checked out the girl’s book, making small talk about the weather. Bringing up her text now was just a tactic meant to press her. “You weren’t supposed to see that. It was a joke for Aidan.”
“But I did, and I’m awfully curious why you care so much about my sex life.”
“Shhh! They’ll overhear.” Apple could feel her face flaming again, tossing a worried glance at the duo who were thankfully preoccupied putting books in a cloth carry bag and didn’t seem to be listening.
He laughed. “That’s the point.”
“So it’s my agreement or my embarrassment?”
“Yep.” The jerk just grinned like the dickens, obviously having the best time. Neither choice was great, but the bottom line was that she’d really prefer to not have the entire town know the lengths (or rather how low) she was willing to go for her story.
“Whatever I take off, you have to as well. Equal treatment,” she quietly reminded.
“That might be hard. I don’t typically wear a bra.”
“Typically?” She eyed him with question.
“Ever.” His gaze waffled and then slid away. “Okay, there was that one time in college when I dressed up as Marilyn Monroe for a Halloween party, but that’s it. I swear.”
“How’d it feel?” Apple couldn’t help asking through a sudden grin.
“Uncomfortable as hell, actually. I feel for all you ladies who have to endure that bra shit every day.”
She laughed. “Well, that’s gallant of you.”
“That’s the kind of guy I am, sweetheart. Gallant to the core.”
“If that were true, then we wouldn’t be here right now having this dumb conversation.”
“But what fun would that be?”
“I’m not having fun.” She glared at him to prove her point.
He grinned. “How about I agree that we take off the same clothes? More fun now?”
>
Actually, yes, that did sound kind of fun.
“Yep.” Shit.
Jake laughed out loud at that, earning them a curious glance from Mrs. Butler.
She slid Jake a resigned glance, her decision made, and said under her breath, “Fine, it’s agreed. Tonight, you get to pick what we take off.”
And now she was going to go find that hole.
“Oh my God, there’s a naked man in the river!” Mrs. Butler suddenly exclaimed from in front of the large picture window overlooking the water.
“What?” Apple looked at Jake before they both dashed over to see. “Who is it?”
Jake got there first, and his quiet swearing and sudden scowl answered her question. There was only one person Apple had ever known who had the ability to kill Jake’s mood instantly.
His dad.
She glanced down the rocky bank just as Verle Stone stuck his head under the mill’s still-working water wheel and let it splash over him, a bar of soap in his hands. The man was naked as the day he was born, his clothes laid out nice and tidy on a wide, flat rock farther up the bank. A filthy, ratty camping backpack was tossed haphazardly next to them. And there, sitting on top of the heap, was an empty liquor bottle.
Mrs. Butler coughed and darted a look at Jake. “We’ll just be going now. Thanks again for the books, Apple.”
Sympathy for Jake flooded Apple. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to have that kind of prejudice to deal with on a regular basis. God, she couldn’t stand small-mindedness. It was bad enough he had an alcoholic father to deal with. He didn’t need people judging him for it.
“Would you like me to call someone?” She touched his arm for comfort.
His large, hard hand covered hers briefly in return, squeezing tight before letting go. “Nah, I’ve got it. Just give me a few minutes to get him bundled up and out of here, okay? Don’t call anyone.”
She looked up into his dark eyes and smiled easily, hoping to lessen some of his tension. “You got it. Is there anything I can do to help?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face wearily and blew out a long, slow breath. “No, but thanks.” Then he smiled at her, only it looked a lot more like a snarl than a grin, especially with that one slightly crooked incisor of his. Still, she had to give him points for trying. “I’ll have him gone in ten minutes.”
Maybe more like fifteen, Apple thought, after glancing down again against her better judgment and discovering Verle soaping his armpits and singing a unique version of “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain” at the top of his lungs like he was the happiest, freest man on earth. Which in a way he kind of was, if free-balling counted for anything.
Promptly reeling back, Apple closed her eyes tight. “Jesus, I didn’t need to see that.”
Jake looked out the window, mumbled something under his breath, and made a beeline for the door, stopping long enough at the entrance to say, “My place tonight. Seven o’clock. You know the way.” Two footsteps more and he cleared his throat. “Also, thanks for being cool about my old man.”
Then he was gone. Apple blew out a breath. Looked like she had four hours to get her questions in order. Just a mere 240 short minutes to become more clever and succinct with words than she’d ever been in her life.
Otherwise she was going to be sporting the same damn outfit as Verle.
Chapter Six
JAKE POPPED THE top off a beer and tossed the cap into the trash before stepping out onto his back porch to watch the sun dip low behind Jasper’s Peak. It was almost time for Apple to arrive, and his stomach was a tangle of knots. He told himself it was because of the subject they were going to discuss, that it was sensitive material for him.
Which it was, that was true enough. He never talked about his family. There wasn’t anything good to share anyway.
Just a pot full of losers sprinkled with crazy sauce.
His dad’s behavior that morning was simply one good example why he kept his personal business personal. That hadn’t even been the first time in the past week he’d had to rescue his dad from doing something illegal or stupid. It was also not the drunkest he’d seen him.
Jake shook his head and took a drink of the cold, crisp brew, glad as shit that he didn’t have the alcoholic gene that ran in his family. As if skinny-dipping at the public library wasn’t bad enough. One of these times his old man was going to land himself in jail, get hurt—or worse.
And, well, there wasn’t a damn thing Jake could do about it.
Because alcoholism was only a symptom of the real problem Verle faced: the Stone family genetic defect, otherwise known in medical terms as familial glioma. An inheritable disease that caused one or more tumors to grow in mostly untreatable areas of the brain, it affected different nervous systems based on the individual. In his pop’s case, MRIs showed that his tumor grew on his amygdala—the emotion center of the brain. Untreatable and inoperable, as it grew larger, Verle’s behavior became more and more erratic. All Jake could do was sit back with a heavy heart and watch his dad slowly unravel.
It was hard.
Knowing that it was a sex-linked trait that appeared only in the males in his family didn’t make it any easier. Nor did knowing that it could randomly appear not to affect a generation like it had with Harvey, and like it had since his ancestors—the first founders of Fortune—had arrived. Most especially, it didn’t help knowing that the disease often lay latent in an affected male until his early to midthirties. Then the tumor started to grow, and life as that guy knew it was over.
There was no way to tell if it was going to happen. Genetic testing wasn’t available to the public yet that could code for the mutated gene that caused the glioma. He’d been keeping tabs, hoping. But no such luck.
There weren’t even any early warning signs he could rely on to help him know. The men in his family carried the gene and it either crippled them or didn’t. Jake had no idea where he stood. He could be one of the few whom the mutated gene affected only mildly like Harvey. Or the glioma could affect his nervous system and he could wake up one day with his left arm feeling numb—and end up paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life. It could also grow near his amygdala and he could become emotionally unstable like his pop.
He just didn’t know.
It killed him.
And it made a future for him to plan—a real future—all but impossible. How could he ask a woman to accept that kind of instability, sharing a future with him? He couldn’t. There was no way he could leave a woman or a family devastated while he lost the fight to glioma. What if he went insane? He just couldn’t do that to someone.
Not only that, he couldn’t risk the disease passing on. Not through him. That’s why he’d taken action to prevent it from happening the day he’d turned twenty-one. After he’d explained his medical condition to a urologist over in Archer, the doctor had agreed to give him a vasectomy, even though it wasn’t typically done at such a young age. With his genes, they’d both felt the responsible choice was to make certain there was no risk of impregnation.
The one consideration he’d overlooked in his eagerness to stop the spread of the disease was someone else’s feelings. Say like a potential partner’s. He’d never stopped to consider that someday a woman might want to have kids with him. Or vice versa.
Apple leapt into his mind, and he sighed. Yeah, that right there. She was human perfection personified in one soft, gentle, beautiful package. Everything he’d wanted his whole life and could never have because of his goddamn family disease.
Sometimes biology could be a real bitch.
That thought made him wonder if his dad had gotten the brochures for the retirement community that he’d left for him last week. If he was going to develop a glioma that debilitated him, he needed to make sure Verle was going to be taken care of. Before it was too late. With so much of his future uncertain, Jake needed to cover all the bases. That thought hovered over him like a black cloud, and he wanted it gone. He could carry on
ly around so much.
A snorting sound turned his attention, and Jake reached down to scratch the ears of Dregs, his late grandpop’s bulldog. “Hey, buddy. Are you missing him?” It had been only a few months since Harvey Stone had dropped dead of a heart attack while working outside at his homemade distillery, and sometimes Jake could swear the dog still got sad about it. He knew he did. Spending time up the side of Jasper’s Peak with his grandpop in that old miner’s shack he’d called home had been some of the best times of his life. Having Harvey had helped make up for having a drunk dad and no real mom—only an occasional birthday card that showed up postmarked from various places throughout the Midwest.
The old dog snuffled and groaned as he leaned heavily into Jake, making him grin. For a few minutes, they enjoyed each other’s company, until the sound of tires crunching gravel turned his attention. Apple.
His gut tightened almost painfully at the thought of her. Taking another drink as his pulse began to race, Jake surveyed his backyard and listened for the sound of footsteps. It was amazing how acutely he was tuned into Apple’s movements, how very aware he was of her presence even though she was clear on the other side of the cabin. He frowned. How was that even possible?
But he knew the moment she rounded the corner of his cabin. He felt it.
“All right, Jake. I’m here. Let’s do this,” Apple said as she started up the stairs, looking tense and determined with her notebook clamped in her fists.
And so it began.
Excitement and nerves jolted him and had him pushing away from the railing. “What? No warm-up, no verbal foreplay? What’s the rush, Apple?”
Color flooded her sweet cheeks, turning her face red. “Considering our relationship, I don’t think foreplay is necessary. I don’t need it. Really, I’m good. You’ve got me ready and raring to go. So let’s just get right to it, okay?”
Jake laughed. He couldn’t help it. God, he loved the way stuff came out of her mouth. Her phraseology. Guaranteed she had no idea what she’d just said. “Oh, honey, it’s necessary all right. And if you don’t think so, then you’ve had some shit partners.”
Talking Dirty Page 7
