by Penny Reid
My eyes greedily traveled over every inch of him, dressed in blue Dickie coveralls that had been pulled off his sculpted torso, the long sleeves now tied around his waist to keep the pants portion from falling down; they were dotted with grease stains and dirt at the knee and thigh. He also wore a bright white T-shirt and black work boots. His thick red hair was longish and askew, like he’d just run his fingers through it…or someone else had just run their fingers through it.
Beau Winston.
I knew it was Beau and not his twin Duane for three reasons. He was smiling at the little girl. Beau always smiled. Duane never smiled.
Also, he appeared to be helping the little girl in some way. Beau was friendly and outgoing. Duane was moody, quiet, and sullen.
And lastly, my body knew the difference. I’d always been reduced to a blubbering mess of teenage hormones at the sight of Beau. Duane, though identical in looks, did absolutely nothing to my insides but raise my blood pressure in irritation.
My adolescent crush—nay, my adolescent obsession—was walking toward us, his attention focused solely on the child next to him. He looked like a ginger-bearded James Dean, only taller, broader, and a hell of a lot sexier. I think I forgot how to breathe.
“Jess,” I felt Claire nudge me with a sharp elbow, “Jessica, what’s wrong?”
I couldn’t pull my eyes away from Beau, from watching how he walked, how his hips moved, the way his T-shirt pulled over his pectoral muscles and was tight where the short sleeves ended at his biceps. I was all kinds of abruptly aroused, and this was disconcerting because my body’s reaction felt much more heady and adult than it ever had before.
Goodness gracious, I thought I might incinerate on the spot.
How some pre-teens lose their minds for Boy Bands, rock stars, and hot celebrities, I always lost my marbles for Beau. It all started when he climbed a tree to save my cat. I was seven. He was ten. He kissed me on the cheek. He wiped my tears. He held my hand. He hugged me close.
He was my hero.
My infatuation with him was like being offered calorie-free fried pie every time I laid eyes on him. I wondered for a flash whether there was something truly wrong with me, whether there were other twenty-one year old women out there who still experienced a paralyzing avalanche of awareness at the sight of their first crush. Really, he was my only crush.
Shouldn’t I have outgrown this by now?
My voice was a weak whisper, and my mouth was dry when I finally answered Claire’s question, tipping my head just slightly toward the pair. “That’s Beau Winston.”
There was a little pause, and I knew Claire was looking past me to where I’d indicated.
“No.” She squeezed my arm with hers. “No, that’s Duane Winston.”
I shook my head, forcing myself to look away from all his manly deliciousness, even though my heart protested wildly, and met Claire’s eyes. “No, that’s Beau.”
Claire’s mouth hooked to the side as she studied my features; I’m sure my face had gone mostly pink, a byproduct of being blessed with freckles and an insane, persistent crush on the nicest, sweetest, funniest guy in the world. I wasn’t embarrassed, but I was impressively flushed. Growing up, whenever I was in the same room with Beau, he had that effect on me. Full-on butterflies in the stomach and music only I could hear between my ears.
As a teenager, every time I saw him I’d spend the next hour or day lost in an adolescent love fog; duration depended on the length of time I’d spent in his presence, whether we’d spoken, and if he’d inadvertently touched me. I once went two days without washing my hand because he’d accidentally brushed it as he walked by.
“I’m telling you, that’s Duane. Beau’s hair is shorter.”
“Nope.” I shook my head again, more resolutely this time as I tried to regulate my breathing and body temperature. “I don’t go haywire around Duane. That must be Beau.”
In fact, I didn’t much like Duane. During the same episode that initiated and solidified my life-long adoration of Beau, my aversion for Duane had also been established. While Beau was climbing the tree to save my cat, Duane was throwing rocks at the branch. While Beau had been kissing my cheek, Duane had been mocking his brother.
I could tell Claire was trying not to laugh as she added, “Cripes, you weren’t kidding when you told me you had a crush on that boy. Is this the first time you’ve seen either of them since high school?”
“No. I saw Beau once at the Piggly Wiggly during my sophomore year of college when I was home for winter break. He was buying bacon and green beans, and I stood behind him in line.”
She stopped trying to hide her smile and grinned. “This is fascinating to watch.”
“What is?”
“You, struck stupid by a man. I mean, you’re Jessica James. You have this plan that ensures life-long freedom from commitment. You’re home just long enough to pay off loans and gain experience for your résumé. All you talk about is seeing the world, leaving this place in the dust, and here you are harboring a treasured memory of an encounter in the Green Valley Piggly Wiggly with Beau Winston. I bet you can recall that conversation word-for-word.”
I stared at her, wanting to deny it, but also not wanting to lie. She was right. I could recall the conversation word-for-word, action-for-action. He’d turned to me and asked if I’d mind passing him a gum package that was just out of his reach. I tried to shrug, but I’m sure it looked more like a minor seizure. Then I fumbled for the gum, accidentally knocking an array of breath mints to the floor.
He’d knelt and helped me pick up the felled mints, our hands touched, I almost fainted, and I was certainly bright red. Then he smiled at me. I almost fainted again. Then he helped me stand, and I almost had a heart attack.
He asked, “Hey, Jess… are you okay?” dipping his head close to mine, his amazing blue eyes all sparkly and lovely and concerned.
I nodded, not able to speak because his hands were still on my forearms, and gazed up at him. Butterflies and music only I could hear—that time it was Eternal Flame by the Bangles—drowned out the sound of his voice and the next words from his mouth. I did see that his lips curved in a barely-there smile as he studied me.
Then my brother Jackson appeared and ruined everything by telling Beau to mind his own business. Beau shrugged—an actual shrug, not a semi-seizure—and turned back to the cashier. He paid for his bacon and green beans and left.
The thing was, I was not a shy person. Not at all. I considered myself confident and levelheaded. I had a brother, boys were not a mystery to me. But Beau Winston had always rendered me beyond completely tongue tied. He rendered me stupid.
Now, nearly three years since the last time I’d seen him, my hands were balled into fists, and I couldn’t quite force my fingers to relax. I could feel and hear the whooshing of blood through my heart and between my ears. It appeared some things never changed. And now, instead of outgrowing my crush, apparently I was now unwillingly compounding my adoration by adding new, very adult feelings of hot, raging lust.
I was, in a word, completely ridiculous.
Okay, that was two words. I was so ridiculous, I’d lost the ability to count.
“Jess, seriously…are you all right? Your face is turning bright red.” Claire squeezed my arm, drawing my attention away from the sound of my blood pressure.
“Yeah.” I knew I sounded weak. “Just let me know when he’s gone.”
“You’re not going to talk to him?”
I shook my head quickly.
Her nose wrinkled; her eyes flicking over my shoulder briefly, presumably to his approaching form; she squeezed my arm again. “I’ve never seen you like this. This is not the Jessica James I know.”
“I can’t help it.”
Claire tsked. “Two weeks ago, when we were in Nashville, you walked up to that sexy stranger outside the club and kissed him.”
“You bet me ten dollars to do it. Plus he was totally hot. Plus I like kissing.”
“You’ll kiss a random guy on the street with nothing but sass, yet you can’t even look at Beau Winston?”
I nodded.
“Honey, most of those Winston boys are nice boys. Why don’t you talk to him?”
“Because I can’t.” My whisper was harsh, urgent.
“Yes, you can.”
“No. Really. I can’t.” I felt my eyes widen to their maximum diameter. “I’ve never successfully carried on a conversation with Beau Winston. Every time I try to speak it’s like my brain forgets English, and I start slurring Swahili or Swedish or Swiss.”
“People of Switzerland don’t speak Swiss. They speak German, French, Italian, and Romansh.”
“See? I’m becoming dumber with each second.”
I sucked in a breath because I could hear his voice now; he was speaking to the little girl, and the sound was so fantastically charming and sexy it caused my stomach to pitch then lurch like I was in a small boat in the middle of the ocean. I placed my hand over my belly and braced my feet apart.
When he entered my peripheral vision, my attention was drawn to him like a magnet. He was still smiling, but it was smaller, polite. He was handing the little girl off to a lady I recognized as Mrs. Macintyre, the lead librarian at the local branch in town. I knew at once Tinker Bell must be her granddaughter.
She said something about a chicken or a rooster. He said something in response. They laughed. I stared, letting the velvety sound wash over me. Once again I was caught on a big wave in the middle of the ocean—pitch, lurch.
Then it happened. His eyes flickered to the side, likely feeling my stalker stare, and he did a double take, his gaze ensnaring mine. My throat worked without success, and I was a heat wave of cognizance. His stare narrowed just slightly as I continued to meet his gaze.
God, I was such a creeper.
I wanted to look away, but I physically could not. He so rarely looked at me, I felt like I was falling, my surroundings fading away—everything except him and his blue, blue, blue eyes.
Annoyingly, the music only I could hear whenever he was near started playing between my ears—this time it was Dreamweaver by Gary Wright—therefore I missed the sound of his voice when he said, “Hey, Jessica.”
Instead, I surmised what he’d said based on the movement of his lips and subsequently tried my best to turn down the volume in my head. I nodded at him, still not able to look away.
Then, horrified, I watched as he excused himself from Mrs. Macintyre and Tinker Bell, and walked to where I was standing with Claire. I swayed a little, took a step backward as he advanced; Claire slipped her arm through mine and fit herself against my side. She probably thought I was going to either faint or make a run for it.
Unfortunately, I managed neither by the time he made it to where we were standing.
“Hey…Beau.” Claire said, the hesitation in her voice obvious. “You are Beau, right? Or are you Duane?”
He gave us a crooked smile that looked completely delectable and mischievous, his eyes darting between us. “You can’t tell the difference?”
Claire returned his smile with a small one of her own. Beau’s charm was contagious and addictive. I’d once overheard my daddy tell my momma that the six Winston boys had inherited their father’s ability to charm snakes, the IRS, and women.
I was also smiling, although mine probably looked dazed and weird. I was thankful for the long gray beard around my mouth. I hoped it camouflaged my expression of worshipful adoration.
“I’m pretty sure you’re Duane,” Claire said, then indicated me with a tilt of her head. “But Jess thinks you’re Beau.”
His eyes moved back to mine—somehow more intense, interested, piercing than they’d been before—and he swept me up and down again. On the return pass I saw what I thought might be appreciation, and that’s when I remembered I was wearing my ironic sexy Gandalf costume, which basically hid nothing except my face and hair.
The point of the costume was to irritate my daddy and Jackson, and amuse myself with delightful irony while doing so. I might no longer be the bratty teenager who left home four years ago, but I still enjoyed little tokens of rebellion against the overprotective males in my family. It hadn’t occurred to me until that very moment someone who mattered might look at me, my curves in this scrap of fabric, and see more sexy than irony.
“What’s this costume, Jessica? Are you a wizard?” His lips tugged to the side, but his tone deepened when he added, “I like it.”
The tenor of his voice paired with the words sent new a jolt of racing through my body. I gripped Claire tighter to keep from sinking to the floor.
“She’s sexy Gandalf. She was going to be a sexy bee, but the shop sold out of pollinator costumes.”
Beau laughed—a sound that, for reasons unknown, I felt in my uterus—and reached for the beard at my navel. The back of his fingers brushed against my stomach as he plucked the length of synthetic facial hair from my inconsequential sheath of a costume.
“The beard adds a certain something…” He tugged just gently and winked at me.
Of course, my response was to stare at him mutely because my first impulse was to dry hump his leg. Some odd little corner of my brain briefly thought about the logistics of wearing this long white beard always, every day.
“Hey, if you tug her beard, she gets to tug yours,” Claire teased.
His smile growing, the redhead stepped forward and into my space, his eyes at half-mast as they glittered down at me. “Go ahead, Jessica…Touch it.”
His nearness stole my breath.
I could smell him, and it just made me want to…want to…want to touch every inch of him. Tie him up and grab and squeeze and feel and bite and lick and suck and listen as he moaned my name. I’d had boyfriends before, guys I liked, but the sudden depth a breadth of my dirty, sordid thoughts took me by surprise.
Beau’s eyes seemed to flicker then flare as though he could read my thoughts; they dropped to my lips.
Yeah. I was definitely going to dry hump his leg. That was going to happen in 3, 2…
“I am so sorry about your momma, son.” A voice to my right and his left pulled our attention away from each other. We both turned our heads to find Mr. McClure, our local fire chief and Claire’s father-in-law, standing there with his hand outstretched. Beau looked down at it and then, taking a step away from me, accepted the offered hand as the man continued. “She was a good woman, and she’ll be missed.”
I shook myself a little, a spark of sobriety cutting its way through Dreamweaver. The Winstons had just lost their mother not more than four weeks ago. Bethany Winston was only forty-six. It was very sad and had been quite sudden. I hadn’t gone to the funeral as I was sick with flu, but apparently everyone else in town had shown to pay their respects to Mrs. Winston, her six sons, and her daughter.
“Thank you, sir.” Beau nodded once. The heat of his earlier expression was now extinguished, replaced with a tight-lipped smile and a shuttered gaze.
Mr. McClure nodded at Beau, then turned to Claire and me. He greeted us warmly, stepping forward to give Claire a kiss on the cheek. During this intermission, I felt Beau’s eyes follow my movements. I gave myself a mental high five for keeping my attention on Claire’s father-in-law, even though I really, really wanted to just stare at Beau.
After hellos were exchanged, Mr. McClure narrowed his eyes at Claire, “Claire, did you lock your car?”
I thought it was cute how Mr. McClure looked after Claire like she was his daughter, it warmed my heart.
She nodded, her lips curved in a warm and patient smile, “Yes, sir. I locked my car.”
To my surprise, Mr. McClure swung his blue eyes to me, “Jessica, did you lock your car?”
I blinked at him, caught off guard, and glanced at Claire.
“There’s been some thefts,” Claire explained, “and not just tourists, like usual. Jennifer Sylvester’s new BMW went missing last week.”
“Her momma told me she had a bana
na cake in the front seat, too.” Mr. McClure tsked, like the real crime was the loss of the banana cake, then he turned his attention back to Beau. “Are your brothers here?”
“Yes, sir. Everyone but, uh…” his eyes flickered to mine then back to Mr. McClure. “Everyone but my twin.”
“I see…” He nodded, glancing down the hallway toward the sound of music. “I need to talk to Cletus about the transmission work he did.”
Beau stood a little taller. “Is there something wrong?”
Beau, Duane, and their older brother Cletus owned the Winston Brothers Auto Shop in town, hence the blue, grease-stained coveralls he currently donned. Cletus, son number three in the Winston family, was four years older than the twins but had always been a little…odd. Sweet, but odd.
As an example, he’d started attending my first period advanced placement calculus class two months ago. Apparently, he’d talked to my principal and had been cleared to sit in for the rest of the year.
The fire chief shook his head. “No, no. It’s not for my truck, son. It’s Red, the fire engine. He’s helping me get the old girl running again for the Christmas parade.”
“Ah. I see. Yeah, Cletus is playing his banjo.” Beau tossed his thumb over his shoulder. “Only one room is jamming so far tonight; I think everyone else is waiting until the trick-or-treating is over.”
Mr. McClure glanced in the direction Beau had indicated. “I’ll go sit in then and wait for a break.” He then turned a friendly smile to Claire and me. “Girls, I’d be honored to be your escort.”
Claire nodded for both of us; but before she could verbally accept the offer, Beau reached out and grabbed my arm lightning fast.
“Claire, you go on.” Beau pulled me away from my friend in a smooth motion. “I’d like to catch up with Jess. See y’all later.”
He didn’t wait for Claire or me to react.
Before I knew what was happening, he’d slipped his rough palm into mine, grasped my fingers, and turned toward the converted cafeteria, tugging me after him. I was so shocked by the sensation of his skin and electric current running up my arm, I could only follow mutely.
