by Sosie Frost
I frowned. Hated to think that it was true, but Butterpond had seen marriages break up for far less than a loveless bedroom.
“That’s depressing,” I said.
“What’s worse is when they think they can fix it themselves. A man will try to tear down those walls himself, but, once that home is stripped bare, he sees what he’s been living with for so many years. It’s too far gone for him to repair. A happy home for twenty years, just destroyed by good intentions.” She sighed. “Sometimes, for a man’s health and sanity, the only option is to call in the expert.”
“And that’s you.”
“I get it. I’m young, but, believe me. I know what I’m doing.” She eyed me with a wry smile. “All men are alike. Can’t ask for help until it’s too late. Then they come to be, promising the moon and begging for more time.”
I chuckled. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting less time with you.”
“Oh, most of these men can’t get anything done on a set schedule.”
“Sure they’re not done too early?”
She giggled. “If only. Believe me, I’d love to crack my whip, but then they complain to my boss. If he’s not happy, I’m not happy.”
“Oh. You still have a boss? Thought you’d be more self-directed.”
She rolled her eyes. “No. I have a direct superior, then five more over him.”
“Six bosses?” How many pimps did a girl need?
“And with the county fair coming up?” She puffed her breath in an unhappy sigh. “I’m gonna be bent over backwards trying to make everyone happy.”
God, have mercy, the woman had no idea the images she put in my head. “That’ll be a popular booth.”
“You have no idea. The fair is going to be make-or-break for me around here. The mayor’s already busting my hump.”
“Even the mayor, huh?”
“He’s the worst of them all.”
“Wouldn’t think that he’d need…your services.”
“Well, everything’s falling into my lap all of a sudden.”
Even newlywed Mayor Desmond was apparently sneaking a bit on the side. Christ. I thought Ironfield was sleezy. I had no idea Butterpond had such a seedy underbelly. No wonder my brother Varius had quit preaching at the church.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “I’m surprised the mayor would rely on your services.”
Her voice sharpened. A familiar, harsh edge shadowed her words. I almost recognized it.
“Why?” She straightened. “Because I’m a woman?”
“Well, that’s a prerequisite for most of the men around here…” I frowned. “Though I’m not so sure about Bobby Delaney…”
“Is it because I’m young?”
“I’m not judging. You’re in the prime of your life for this sort of career. I mean…Hell, you can’t do this forever, can you?”
Pride wrapped her up tighter than the slinky dress caressing her thighs. “I have a very defined life plan, thank you very much. And every facet of my life right now is focused on my work and growing my personal network of professional contacts. For the next five years, I am concentrating on my career.”
“Right.”
She didn’t believe me. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys.”
“What kind of guy?”
“The kind who thinks I’ll inevitably find some fantastic man, fall madly in love, and quit my job to pop out a couple kids.” She recrossed those perfect dark legs and folded her manicured fingers on her knees. “Believe me; I’m not looking for that.”
Christ, the woman was pure sex. “Yeah, don’t blame ya. It’d cut into profits.”
“Profits?”
“Would you get short-term disability for that?”
“For what?”
“Getting pregnant?” I caught her gaze as she frowned. “Oh, no, I get it. I bet some guys would pay you more. They’d get a thrill out of a niche experience.” I shifted, wishing I could adjust my jeans. “But that sort of request is probably made more in Ironfield than Butterpond.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. The girl even made looking confused sexy. “What are you talking about?”
I smirked. “Sorry. Probably asking too many questions. Just…never met a woman like you before.”
“A woman with limited patience?”
“No…” I lowered my voice. “An escort.”
“Excuse me?”
She stiffened, but I calmed her with a wave of my hand and a request for a second beer. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Unless you need to drum up business or something.” I glanced her over with a sigh. “But I don’t think you need much beyond that short skirt and a little dance around the bar in those heels.”
Al placed the beer in front of me, but she was quicker. With an insulted grunt, she tipped the bottle over my head and kicked away from the bar. Her stool crashed to the ground.
“You think I’m a hooker?”
Her shriek silenced the bar. The three gentleman playing darts muted the football pre-game to listen.
“I…” I shrugged at Al. He stared at me, mouth gaping. Not shocked, but mortified. Like I’d made the mistake of a lifetime without realizing what I’d done. “You’re not?”
“I can’t believe you, Julian Payne!”
She knew my name?
The woman stormed away from the bar, tossing a chair from her path as she raced to the door.
“Micah?” Al called after her. “Are you okay?”
Mother…
Fucking…
Micah?
“Oh, I’m fine.” Micah hissed as she struggled to free her purse from the corner of the pinball table. “Just fed up with the local wildlife.”
And now I recognized her haughty walk and the sharp puff of indignation between her words.
Holy shit…I’d called the only woman who could save my farm a goddamned prostitute.
To her face.
“Jesus…wait.” I rushed after her. “You’re Micah?”
I sprinted after her, tripping over a pile of spilled napkins. The table caught my fall, but not before the damage was done. My back awkwardly twisted, and a slice of pain jolted from the middle of my spine down the sciatic nerve.
A little numbness and excruciating pain might have ended a lucrative career in professional football before it even began, but it wouldn’t stop me from chasing this woman.
“Micah…” I raced out the door and caught her on the sidewalk, even with my limp. Those four-inch heels looked good, but they didn’t offer a quick getaway. “Wait! I didn’t know it was you!”
Micah spun, a ballerina’s grace with an assassin’s glare. “Who the hell did you think you were talking to?”
“Not…you.” I gestured over a woman with curves and secrets practically molded for sex. “You…cleaned up.”
“Apparently not. You think I’m a hooker.”
“A classy one!”
“I’ve never been so embarrassed…” She groaned. “Not since the last time you berated me.”
“You said you were solving the sheriff’s bedroom problem!”
“Yeah, his addition.” Her voice rose. “I’m consulting on his plans.”
“What?”
“His building construction! My family has worked construction for generations, and I’ve studied zoning law and building inspection. I know the sort of mistakes he’s going to make if he installs the footer himself!”
“But…the construction guys…banging at all hours?”
“I enacted an ordinance to restrict construction hours so it wouldn’t disturb people in the morning or late at night!”
“Six bosses?”
“The mayor and the elected council,” she yelled.
Shit. “And…and the fair?”
“I’m head of the Sawyer County Fair Committee!” Micah covered her eyes. “Oh my God. You are such a pig! You don’t need a barn, cowboy. You need some fences and a trough!”
If I wasn’t getting laid,
at least I could laugh. A riotous, full-throttled laugh. Pissed her right the hell off. The pretty little thing glowered, body tense and braced for war. Goddamn was she sexy, tapping those designer heels and tucking her perfect nails into tightly clenched fists.
“So, princess…” I smiled. She didn’t. “You’re not a whore then?”
“Oh, I am a lot of things right now, cowboy, and you’re gonna wish I was a hooker after I grab you by the balls and squeeze.”
“As long as it’s free.”
“Get out of my sight!”
I didn’t let her stomp away. “I’m sorry. Look, honest mistake.”
She didn’t believe me. “You thought I was a whore and didn’t bother to clarify?”
“I’m discreet.”
“You’re an asshole.”
I cleared my throat. “I’m also an optimist.”
“In your dreams.”
“You were one glass of wine away from a night with me.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Jules,” she said. “You’re a gentleman. You’re taking care of your family. You’re some big, hotshot athlete come home for retirement. But no one said you had such a sense of humor.”
“Go order another white. You can giggle all the way to the bedroom.”
Micah glared at me. “Well, you got one thing right, cowboy. I am going to fuck you. Hard.”
“Don’t get my hopes up, sweetheart. You’re already doing favors for Samson and everyone else in town. Spread some love my way.”
“You’re not serious.” She crossed her arms. “Forget it. As long as I’m in this town, you are never getting that barn.”
“You don’t mean that…” I followed her as she marched to her car. “Look, we got off on the wrong foot. Hell, we didn’t even get off at all—yet.”
“In your dreams.”
Oh, she’d be stuck in my head all night. “Come on. It was just a mistake. I’m sorry. I bet we can still be friends.”
She frowned. “You think?”
“I think we could be even more.”
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” Micah’s words were the slap across the cheek she wished she could give me. “Believe me, Julian Payne. We will never be anything more.”
“Never say never, princess.”
“Never.” She dared me with that single, slow word. Fuck, she was adorable when she was pissed. “Never.”
“You’re breaking my heart, Micah.”
“You’re lucky that’s all I’m breaking. I never want to see you again.”
Wasn’t going to work for me. “I’m going to get my barn, princess.”
“You’re going to make an enemy for life,” she said. “Your application is denied.”
The little tart sauntered away, heels clicking against the sidewalk. She signed my hypothetical application with a flash of her middle finger and never looked back.
That was fine. She wanted to play rough? We’d play rough.
I was getting my barn. No skin-tight dress, perky tits, or perfect hips would stop me. If she wanted to go to war, then we’d be getting down and dirty in the trenches.
And she’d love every minute of it.
Chapter Three
Micah
I’d brewed a cup of tea, taken all the children’s aspirin from the office first-aid cabinet, and wolfed down a quick salad that was anything but the requisite last meal a prisoner deserved before facing the execution squad.
Tonight, they’d announce my death with three simple words.
Butterpond Monthly Meeting.
Tonight was a special night for the residents of Butterpond. A time when they’d stand me before a squad of township busybodies who thought the municipality shared the same executive duties as the White House.
Once a month, the floor opened to the disheartened and irritable citizens who felt taunting, jeering, and generally mocking their elected and appointed representatives would more readily fill potholes and mow easements. Meetings were three-hour extravaganzas of grievances between neighbors and a public venue for the more outspoken to speak about the causes which troubled them—mostly issues of dog residue, a petition to limit one birdfeeder per household, and a yearlong property dispute aggravated by the placement of a neighbor’s garbage cans.
The agenda should have read Small-Town Schizophrenia—A One-Act Play, but no one in Butterpond ever paid attention to the scheduled order of events anyway. Meetings had become a blood-thirsty, survival of the fittest, comedy of errors, beginning not with a gavel against the podium but after Widow Barlow cracked Councilman David’s knuckles with her cane.
I wasn’t an optimistic person, but I still hoped this meeting would end early, before Mayor Desmond had an opportunity to settle matters like men with Sheriff Samson in the parking lot.
Only one thing could make the night more of a pain in the ass.
And he didn’t even knock outside my office. Just barged right in.
Julian Payne slammed the door behind him and glared at me with those dire green eyes. As if I were the asshole intruding on the precious few minutes I had left before I’d get clobbered by Roberts Rules of Order.
“Cowboy.”
“Princess.”
I crossed my arms. Great. Now I’d wrinkle the lovely red dressed I’d ordered from Ironfield. I’d paid a premium for the down-homey yet professionally approachable outfit. Ruffling the material would not soften public sentiment for me. Though a roll of twenties stuffed down my bra would have done more to bribe my way to job security.
“How’s it going?” Julian smirked.
“And here I thought this bad day couldn’t get worse.”
Julian’s teasing smile wasn’t meant to be inviting. He patted his hands against his jeans. Dusty, but not dirty. A streak of grease swept from his mid-thigh towards his temptingly tight ass. The white t-shirt was clean, stretched over his muscles. The thin material outlined his tanned abs and pecs.
It wasn’t fair that this loathsome creature was also the sexiest man I’d ever seen.
“You wanna talk a bad day?” He pulled out the seat opposite my desk.
“Not particularly.”
He ignored me, scratching the dark scruff on his hardened jaw. “Got a call today from the property tax collector.”
“Oh?”
“Seems they’re interested in my deceased father’s past tax filings. Just want to ensure accuracy.” He leaned in, tapping my desk. “So I spent the morning buried in paperwork, wondering to myself…there’s no way some little pain in the ass from the zoning office called the tax collector in retaliation for a simple misunderstanding, is there?”
He’d called me a whore. That wasn’t a misunderstanding, it was a declaration of war.
“The county always strives for accuracy,” I said.
“You had me audited?”
“All accounting issues are the prerogative of the tax collector.”
“Oh, princess, you just made a big mistake.”
I didn’t have time for this. I shooed his hands away from the seven different multi-paged reports I had neatly arranged on my desk—reports I had to print ten different times from a copier that jammed every three sheets of paper because the council had yet to learn how to open an email attachment.
“Just send Janice a proof of payment,” I said. “She’s harmless.”
“Well, I’m not.”
Twenty minutes till the meeting was not a time to start with me. “We have nothing to discuss here.”
“You haven’t heard the best part of my day yet.”
“I’m not interested.”
Julian leaned back, kicking his muddy shoes onto my desk. “My day started when my sister guilted me into visiting my Navy SEAL brother in the hospital. Neither of us were happy to see the other. He kicked me out of his room with his one remaining leg after threatening to club me with his prosthetic. It’s a really advanced prosthetic, but I don’t think that new leg can walk his ass back to the Middle East. Fortunate
ly, I made peace with the nurses before we were both thrown out of the hospital.”
I pretended to ignore him as I shuffled papers. “Sounds like a fun time.”
“Then I came home to news of an audit, which I should thank you for—I was looking for some bullshit to help fertilize my fields. I’ll just rip that letter up and scatter it over the corn.”
“Hope you have a bountiful harvest.”
“Hard to do that without a barn.”
Poor thing. “Yes, I’d imagine so.”
He flipped through the folders cluttering my desk then glanced to the overflowing cabinets bordering both walls. Plans, maps, and large-scale drawings littered every available space and ledge, including the once-organized bankers’ boxes that held old surveys and property lines I’d committed to scanning into a digital database. Unfortunately, the papers had crept beyond their temporary holding cells and now crowded the legal books and resource manuals I’d meant to organize.
“You know I have three other brothers?” he asked.
“Word spreads around the town.”
Julian frowned. “None of them want this farm. Not like me.”
He’d settled in, patting the arms of the chair. I gave up on my papers and sighed.
“Tidus…” He shook his head. “He’s the type who isn’t happy unless he’s in trouble. Know anyone like that?”
I stared at him. “Yeah. I’m getting quite familiar with that sort of man.”
“He’s never liked the farm—had problems with our dad for years. Just wants to sell, get the money, and leave town on some self-destructive binge.” He frowned. “And my brother, Varius. He used to be the minister.”
Hadn’t expected that, but I only nodded.
“Times got tough,” he said. “And Varius turned hard. Now, nothing’s worth saving to him—not his soul, not the farm. And Quint, my youngest brother. He’d tear the whole farmhouse down, plank by plank, if I hadn’t hidden the sledgehammer. Thinks the farm is the cause of all the bad blood.”
I shrugged. “What do they realize that you don’t?”
“Nothing. We’re all jackasses. No one knows what to do.” Julian smirked. “Well, except my little sister. She’s the type who thinks all we need is a little elbow grease and a song in our hearts, and the farm will get rebuilt with the help of all the little woodland critter assholes who keep trying to eat my only goddamned chicken.”
