“More coffee?” Delilah asked. “I can bring over ice cubes to cool it down so you can drink it from the straw. Chessie said I should serve you kombucha, but I think you’d probably puke. Not a way for me to keep my customers.”
He laughed. “Coffee and ice cubes would be good. Say hi to Sadie.” He motioned with his chin to the propped-up phone.
Excited, Delilah leaned forward and chatted with his sister for a few minutes, telling her to stay well, to keep the bun in the oven for a while longer, and to hurry back to Meadowview for her new recipe: bacon and maple muffins.
After Delilah moved on, Sadie reached a finger out and traced the screen, as if stroking her brother’s cheek. “Wish I could get a big hug from you, big bro. How’s the healing coming along? Chessie still taking good care of you?”
He waved the two big casts in the air. “So far, so good. These should come off soon. And when they do, Chessie can get back to her own life. She needs a break.”
For a moment, Sadie’s brow furrowed. “I didn’t cause too much of an imposition on her when I asked her to take care of you, did I?”
He hurriedly reassured her, as did Ethan, on the other side of the Skype call.
“She’s fine, then?” Sadie asked.
Nodding, he added, “She’s busy with her national campaign for Sweet Meadow Scents, and she had some trouble with a local kid, egging her place, but that seems to have settled down. Overall, she’s doing great. She’s Chessie, you know? Nothing fazes her.”
“Except you.”
He pulled back, frowning. “Oh, you mean because I always tease her? But she likes that. She’s used to it.”
“You’re the only person whose ever been able to get under her skin. But I figured she was the only person who I trusted to take care of you, too, so I hope I made the right decision forcing her to take care of you.” His sister’s face wore worry.
Not good.
He smiled widely. “Chessie and I are getting along great,” he lied.
Although it wasn’t really a lie any more, was it? They’d eased into a fairly decent rhythm, living together. And yeah, he still bugged her by asking her to do stuff for him, but he did try to make it up to her every night and morning with amazing, attentive sex.
“I figured as much,” Sadie said, relief evident in her tone and her now bright smile. “Just wanted to check. Because Chessie’s a little bit like you…hides who she really is under the surface.”
He knew he did that—hid who he was behind a playboy façade—but Chessie? She was always so real. So honest. His sister had to be wrong. But he wasn’t about to challenge that fact. Nope, he wouldn’t so much as argue with Sadie, pre-term labor or not.
And he definitely wouldn’t tell his sister he was having a six week sex-fest with her best friend.
Chessie wasn’t sure she could get more grateful—an hour earlier, she’d been happily surprised when Lia showed up unexpectedly. Back a day early from her trip with her fiancé Jack, Chessie’s brother, Lia had insisted on coming straight over to see Chessie and Theo. Chessie had been found on her knees in the back garden, adding flats of green moss to the walkways. After hugging and squealing and talking about Lia and Jack’s trip, Chessie found herself eaten up inside with a buzzing anxiety, struggling to keep from telling Lia what was going on between her and Theo.
“I’m sleeping with Theo,” Chessie blurted out to Lia. Oh, god. She’d promised Theo she wouldn’t tell anyone. But Lia was her friend—and soon-to-be sister-in-law. The secret had just popped out.
She peeked at Lia, wondering what expression she’d see. Surprise? Shock? She grew confused. Instead of looking surprised, Lia seemed placid.
“I know, honey,” Lia said, rather nonplussed.
“What?” How could Lia know she was sleeping with Theo? “Did he tell Jack? Because he promised he wouldn’t tell anyone.” She didn’t much like the idea of Theo talking to her brother about having sex with her. “Damn him, anyway.” Chessie kicked a clod of dirt, only to discover that what she’d thought was a soft hummock of earth in her garden actually covered up a rock.
She gritted her teeth against the ensuing pain of a stubbed toe. That’s what she got for wandering around barefoot in the garden. But the crisp autumn air had disappeared for a few days, warmed by the now-rare appearance of the sun, and had made the earth so warm and inviting. She loved the feel of the moss-lined paths beneath her bare feet. Too bad she’d left the path to show Lia a row of sage seedlings.
Too bad she hadn’t kept her mouth shut about sleeping with Theo.
“Theo didn’t tell Jack anything,” Lia said, “so you don’t need to worry about him sharing your deepest secrets.”
“Then how did you know we’re sleeping together?”
Lia tipped her head back and laughed, her long, black hair dancing in the bright spring sunlight, her dark eyes sparkling. “Put a woman with an insatiable appetite for sex in the same house as a man who only thinks about sex and they’ll end up sleeping together. It’s a foregone conclusion.”
“Oh,” Chessie mumbled. “So you didn’t know for sure.”
“No,” Lia said. She bent and gathered a handful of rich loam. “I made an assumption. One I’m apparently right about. Does this mean you’re dating Sadie’s brother now?” She stood upright, her petite frame backlight in the morning light, and cocked a fist on her hip, clearly waiting for Chessie to spill.
Chessie bit her lip. Oh, what the heck. Might as well confess. “We—Theo and me, that is—we decided that for the six weeks we’re living together we’ll use each other. It’s a Friends With Benefits situation. Then, when he gets his casts off, he’ll leave, and that will be that.”
“All the sex you want, with none of the commitment.”
“Right.”
“How’s that working for you?” Lia asked. She left Chessie and hopped over a large pumpkin, round and ripe and ready for harvesting . At a row of mint, she broke off a few leaves, crushed them under her fingers, then breathed in the scent. “Heavenly,” she said, almost to herself.
“Heavenly.” Chessie used Lia’s word to answer the question. “It’s working out heavenly.”
Lia gave her a knowing smile. “How heavenly is it, then? Tell me, I’m curious.”
“Oh god, it’s so good,” Chessie gushed, only to realize she was gushing. No gushing over Theo. No gushing at all, she chided herself.
“Backward, forward, and upside down?” Lia winked at her.
Chessie was pleased to see the openness in which Lia could now speak about sex. Having been sexually abused by her former husband, Lia had been repressed for years. It wasn’t until recently, after she fell in love with Jack, Chessie’s brother, that she’d been able to discuss sex openly.
Good thing, too, because Chessie had been dying to tell someone her secret, and Sadie was out. No way would she share sex tales with Sadie about Sadie’s own brother. No, during the various phone calls she’d had over the last few weeks with Sadie, she’d regaled her friend with stories of how insatiably demanding her brother could be, not with stories of how insatiable Chessie’s sexual appetite was for Theo’s hellishly sexy body.
“It’s amazing how many ways that man can have sex when three of his appendages are immobilized. He’s pushing even my limits.” Chessie plucked a late-blooming peach rose and stuck her nose in it, pleased by the crisp, floral scent.
“Chessie!” A shout from inside the house had them both laughing.
“Sounds like Theo wants something,” Lia said.
Chessie rolled her eyes. “Theo always wants something. I can’t believe how many times a day that man yells my name. He’ll just have to wait. I want to rinse the dust off my feet.” She motioned to Lia to follow her and began striding toward to the potting shed and the outdoor shower.
Before she reached it, however, her attention was caught by the sound of laughter coming from the front of her house. Then came the sound of breaking glass, and a low, “Shit!”
She turned to Lia and said in a low voice, “I think the kids who egged my place are out front.”
Lia started. “You got egged?”
“A couple of times. It’s fine—just a local teenager acting out. I’m going to go check it out. Talk to her if I can.” Without waiting to see if Lia would follow, she headed up the pea gravel path that led to her front yard.
On the lane that led past her place, she could see three teenage girls, hoodies over their heads, headed past her place and in the direction of Meadowview. “Hey!” she called out. When they stopped and turned around, she smiled widely. “Hold on, I wanted to ask you something.”
The girl in the middle, who Chessie recognized as her neighbor, stopped and stuffed her hands in her hoodie pockets, cocked a hip to the side, and with insolence lacing her tone, said, “Whaddya want?”
“I just wanted to say hi,” Chessie said. “Introduce myself. I'm Chessie Gibson. I met your mother and your little sister when you guys moved in last month, but I didn’t have a chance to meet you yet. What’s your name?”
After a long silence, the girl grudgingly answered, saying, “Madison.”
“It’s so nice to meet you, Madison.” Yeah, Chessie thought when the girl rolled her eyes, she sounded like a grown-up dork. But still. She tried again. “You’re originally from San Francisco, right?”
“Yeah? What of it?”
“Meadowview must be such a contrast.” Chessie smiled brightly at the other two girls who flanked her new neighbor. “It’s nice to see you’ve already made friends.”
One of the girls snorted, leaned closer to Madison, and whispered something in her ear. Madison grinned, but the smile look fake. Tense.
“Yeah, it’s amazing what you can find in detention,” Madison said, sarcasm obvious in her voice.
Chessie wasn’t sure what to say to that. Was Madison mocking Chessie or insulting her own friends? God, she wished she could speak Teen. The girl obviously had a chip on her shoulder, but what Chessie could have done to cause that chip was beyond her. Except for the fact that apparently every word that came out of her mouth was considered lame. “Did I hear glass breaking a minute ago?” she asked, switching the subject. Maybe if they accidentally broke something, she could help fix it.
Madison shrugged. “How should I know?”
Huh. Chessie was getting nowhere. She noticed one of the girls bend down and pick a lavender bud from the hedgerow bordering Chessie’s front yard. “That’s lavender. And the plant’s name is Gabby. Here,” she said, fishing around in the pocket of her long blue and green tie-dyed skirt and pulling out a pair of pruning shears. “I’ll harvest some for you. You can all take a little lavender home. And Madison? You can give some to your mom. Tell her to come visit me sometime.”
“You name your plants?” Madison asked, practically snorting the words.
“Sure! It’s a tradition given to me by my great-grandmother. All of these plants were originally hers, before she came from England in 1915.”
“Dude,” one of the other girls said, “I didn’t realize plants lived that long. That’s like, ancient.”
Chessie gave a light laugh. “These actual plants are only five years old. I meant to say I have seeds I keep in the potting shed out back that came from the original plants. Gabby, Dottie, and Matilda here are descended from those plants.” She leaned forward and snipped until she had about two dozen lavender buds on crisp stocks in her grip. She created three bundles and handed a bundle to each of the girls. At first she wasn’t sure the girls would take them, but one of the girls reached out and grabbed a bundle, then the other. Finally Madison followed suit.
“Here,” Chessie added, “let me make another bouquet for your mom, Madison.”
“Nah, don’t bother. I’ll just give her mine,” the girl said.
“It’s fine, I have plenty, I’ll just—”
But Madison had already turned her back on Chessie and was walking away. Her two friends shrugged, turned, and followed. Chessie stood, watching as the girls walked down the path, bumping into each other and giggling, their heads together as they whispered who knew what.
Lia appeared next to her, and the two of the watched in silence as all three girls flung their bouquets of lavender to the side of the road. Madison jumped on the pile, grinding the buds into the mud as the other two girls burst out laughing.
“Oh, no…” Chessie whispered, almost to herself.
Lia wrapped her arm around Chessie’s waist and pulled her tight. “I’m so sorry.”
Chessie just shook her head. “I was just being nice,” she said, perplexed. “Those were almost all the blooms I got from Gabby this year. And those girls trampled them. What were they thinking?”
“They wanted you to see that. See?” Lia pointed. “Madison is looking back, making sure you’re watching her destroy the gift you gave them. Just smile and wave and pretend like it doesn’t matter.”
But it did matter. It mattered a lot. “Think if I given them a Macy’s gift card they would’ve reacted the same way?” Chessie asked bitterly.
Lia sighed. “They would’ve taken the gift card. Pretended to be your new best friend, hoping you would give them another one.”
Well, that sucked. Straight-up sucked.
“Chessieeeeeee!” In the distance, she could hear Theo calling her name again.
Chessie ignored him. She wasn’t ready to deal with Theo’s needs. Not after getting her heart hurt a little by Madison’s obvious dismissal and rejection of her friendly overtures. Yeah, she got it. She’d acted like a lame adult, trying too hard. But still.
“Doesn’t that get annoying?” Lia asked. She leaned against the whitewashed wooden fence that surrounded Chessie’s property and tipped her head upward to catch the autumn sun.
Chessie shoved her pruning shears back into her skirt. “Very,” she answered. “Theo would be unbearable if not for the sex.”
“Maybe you’ll get used to him.”
“Right,” Chessie said. “Like that could ever happen.”
But a part of her had to admit…life would get very boring when Theo finally took off.
* * *
Theo watched Chessie stroke the ivory-handled hairbrush through her long, auburn hair. She sat at the end of the bed, wrapped up in her emerald-green silk bathrobe and chatting with him about her visit with Lia earlier that day. Sitting on the bed and talking while Chessie brushed her hair had become part of their evening ritual. A ritual that, he’d been surprised to realize, he’d come to thoroughly enjoy.
He’d been living at Chessie’s for almost a month now, and already the two of them had developed an easy pattern to their days. In the morning, the fucking rooster would wake them up at the break of dawn, they’d have phenomenal morning sex, and then sit in the bathtub together, surrounded by bubbles, with Theo’s casted arms and injured legs dangling over the sides and Chessie bathing him.
Once they dried off and dressed, Chessie would make them breakfast, then would help Theo to the living room, where he’d sprawl out on the couch, surrounded by all things electronic, and she’d run off to garden, leaving alone him to work for a few hours. She’d return later to share lunch with him, and then would head off to her kitchen for the rest of the afternoon, mixing lotions and soaps and sprays.
It was during the afternoons when he bugged the crap out of her, hollering “Chessie!” at the top of his lungs every half-hour. He always had a valid excuse—wanted more water, dropped a pen, ran out of notepaper, but mostly, he admitted, he wanted her near. She smelled good.
Once she finished making dinner each evening, he’d get her undivided attention over a delicious meal she’d prepared and a bottle of wine. They’d finish the day by sitting on Chessie’s front porch swing, talking until night fell. Then they’d go to bed, where they’d inevitably fuck each other’s brains out.
It was a perfect schedule, Theo decided.
Life couldn’t get much better than this. He had the feeling he’d almost reg
ret the day when his casts came off and he returned to his fast-paced life in San Francisco. He’d grown used to the ease of living and working at Chessie’s.
And he’d grown used to Chessie.
“I saw what happened, you know,” he said, trying to gently segue to a conversation he wanted to have. One he was pretty sure Chessie was doing her best to avoid.
She paused mid-stroke and glanced at him with a puzzled expression. “Um…what did you see?”
“That girl. Madison.”
Her face crumpled. “Oh. Yeah. Guess you were right.” Her tone had turned bitter.
“Right about what?”
“You saw what she did to the flowers I gave her.”
Yep. And he’d seen Chessie’s face fall and a flicker of pain cross her face when the teenager had ground the lavender buds into the mud with her boot heel. What Chessie probably didn’t know, though, was that he’d been close enough to the girls to hear them talk about Chessie under their breath, saying things like, “Did you see what she’s wearing?” and “Fucking loser lady. Bet she has a load of cats for company. No man would ever want an old bag lady like her.”
Somehow those words had hit him harder than when he’d seen the girls break a beer bottle against Chessie’s fence moments before she’d come to the front yard. Chessie dressed different, sure, but she always looked adorable. Sexy. And youthful—no way would anyone ever think of her as an old bag lady.
“Are you going to call Remy Toussaint?” he asked, but knew the answer already.
She shook her head. “The girls didn’t actually harm my property. No need to call the sheriff.”
“Actually, they broke a beer bottle against your fence. When you and Lia were still in the backyard. I think that’s the sound that brought you up front.”
“I don't want to call Remy. Madison is just acting out. She’ll get over it. I just need to keep on being friendly. I’m not going to be her new best friend, but she needs to know I’m her neighbor. That I’m there for her."
Tempting the One (Meadowview Heat 4; The Meadowview 4) Page 10
