by Edie Ramer
He headed toward the house, and she realized she was probably covered in dog hair. She had a frantic high school moment, wondering if she had time to do something to her face and hair, and knowing she didn’t. She pushed her hands through her hair and then realized what she was doing, and stopped.
She didn’t need to impress anyone. Certainly not any man. She was living in her sister’s guest room, her brother-in-law’s office, really. She wasn’t ready for a puppy, much less a new man.
The doorbell rang. She headed toward the front entrance while Goldie barked madly and the golden puppies squeaked and the black one barked. Opening the front door, she put on a smile the way another woman would put on makeup – not as a decoration but as a weapon.
“Hello, Trey,” she said. His face was wide, and so were his shoulders. On him both looked good. His nose was broad, too, his jaw square and his eyes wide. Everything fit nicely and with his olive complexion, he looked foreign, exotic. It was his quarter native Indian blood that gave him the always-tanned color, while she was the foreign one with the paleness she’d inherited from German ancestors on both sides of the family.
He didn’t seem to mind her pale complexion as he looked her up and down.
Her body temperature went up a few degrees. One thing hadn’t changed. He reeked of sex.
And one thing had. His appeal no longer scared the crap out of her.
He smiled with appreciation. “High school,” he said, his eyes glowing with appreciation. “Becky Hoffman. It’s been a while. I would’ve bet money you didn’t marry a picker.”
“You would’ve won that bet. The lucky woman who lives here is my younger sister, Sarah.”
“That’s right, you married the golden boy.” He still smiled but the warmth in his eyes cooled. “The future preacher.”
“He is a preacher and I married him, but we’re...” Her tongue stumbled. It felt odd explaining anything. In Miracle, everyone knew already. Gossip sped faster than dandelion fluff. “We’re not together now.”
His eyes flashed to her bare ring finger then up to her eyes. “Recent?”
Her fingers twitched and she fought an urge to put her hands behind her back. She suddenly felt naked without the ring. Probably just nerves.
In all honesty, she was attracted to him, and the way he looked at her, his brown eyes warm and openly admiring, she sensed the feeling was mutual.
She couldn’t remember the last time a man looked at her like she was his favorite ice cream sundae and he wanted to lick every inch.
“I saw my lawyer today.”
“No kidding.” He didn’t say anything for a moment and she took the moment to study him. He didn’t look like a bad boy anymore. Now he was just a big guy with a great body and eyes that were...kind.
As if he read her thoughts, his eyes gleamed. No longer kind but predatory. A hunter’s eyes. And she was the prey.
Excitement sizzled through her body, even as she told it to calm down.
It didn’t listen to her.
“Have you celebrated?” he asked.
Chapter Ten
Becky shook her head, and her heart thundered. This wasn’t happening to her. This was like the opening scene of a porn movie. Or an erotic book.
Not that she watched any porn or read erotica. But if she did watch or read them, she knew a scene like this would be there – just before things really got hot.
He stepped back. “I have something in the truck that’s just the thing for a celebration.”
Wine? Champagne? Ribbed condoms?
No, her mind shouted as she watched him stride to the truck. But she remained silent.
She swallowed, wetting her throat so there would be no excuse for her not to decline with a firm ‘no.’ The kind of Nooooo! that three-year-old Keelie Woods screamed every Sunday when her mother left her at the church nursery.
“No,” Becky whispered as she watched him leave. Heat and ice then more heat rushed through her.
She was pathetic. But after eighteen years of lukewarm sex, didn’t she deserve at least one searing encounter?
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
He opened the passenger door of his cab and his head ducked inside. A moment later, he walked toward the house, holding a medium-sized paper bag.
Booze, she guessed. But as he neared the house, she saw it wasn’t tall enough to be wine or champagne.
Candles? Thongs?
Her brain froze.
She wanted these ridiculous thoughts to stop.
She put her hand over her left breast. Beneath her palm, her heart thumped strong and healthy.
At least her thoughts weren’t about Jim.
At least they weren’t about what other people thought about her.
They were the same thoughts other women had every day.
It didn’t mean she was going to act on them. It just meant that right now she was alive and there was nothing wrong with her body’s heightened sexuality. Good to know it worked. Maybe all it needed was a new man.
She hurried to open the front door and saw Jan Brougham on the sidewalk. As Jan’s gaze skittered to Sarah’s house then to Trey’s back, her white Chihuahua began to do his business on Sarah’s lawn.
Putting on a big smile, Becky stepped onto the front porch and waved vigorously. “Hi, Jan! Great day, isn’t it?”
Jan nodded, gave a smile that looked sick and tugged Clyde forward, though Clyde, not finished, barked his complaints in a voice that belonged to a bigger dog.
That’s what I am, Becky thought. By smiling and waving at my detractors instead of shrinking and whimpering, I’m showing them I’m a bigger dog.
“Nosy neighbor?” Trey asked, nearing her. “Tell her I’m the big bad wolf and I’m about to blow the town down.” Then he laughed.
Becky laughed, too, but hers was breathless. A Marilyn Monroe laugh.
The big bad wolf wasn’t so far off from her own thoughts about Trey. But now she realized he was carrying a grocery bag.
“What are we celebrating with?” she asked.
“You like peanut butter fudge?”
She was suddenly ravenous. “Does Santa like cookies?”
“So I’ve heard. And chocolate. Do you like chocolate?”
“Do puppies pee?”
He chuckled, and dimples creased in his cheeks. How could she have forgotten them?
“You have puppies?” he asked.
“We have puppies.” She claimed temporary ownership of the squirming, squeaking, peeing, pooping bunch. She felt happier on this one day in her sister’s messy house that smelled like eau de puppy than she’d been for years in her own immaculate house.
Stepping back, she swept the door open. “Come in and meet them.”
They went to the kitchen first, where she set down the bag on the table. Then on to the puppy room.
He stooped down with his hands out so the puppies could sniff and lick and nibble. When a golden puppy gnawed the toe of his right leather boot, he laughed and gently removed it, his hands big on the small body.
Petting the puppies, Trey didn’t seem like the bad boy she’d remembered. Of course not. She should know better than to believe gossip. Especially since life as an adult in a small town was a lot like it was in high school.
Then he looked at her. Her body heated again and she told herself it was too warm in this room with the sun shining through the dining room’s long rectangular window.
Goldie barked and Becky let her outside. Ignoring the puppies’ whines, Becky and Trey went into the kitchen and ate peanut butter-chocolate fudge. “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate my divorce,” she said, and then thought of the dinner tonight. But whatever she had for dinner would have to be very good to beat the fudge...and spending a few minutes with Trey.
He gave her a crooked smile. “I can. But don’t think it’s what you want.”
Her face flushed. “I was right about you.”
“What’s that?”
“You
were the bad boy at school.”
He leaned back in the chair and shouted with laughter; the two front chair legs lifted a couple of inches and his face glowed with life.
Deep inside her, something stirred.
This man, it said. This man.
He tipped the chair forward. “You know what I think?”
She shook her head, beyond thinking.
“I think Goldie wants to come in.”
Flustered and hot. Embarrassed because he probably read her mind and knew just what she was feeling and thinking, she stood too fast. Her chair tumbled back, crashed into the stove, and the puppies in the dining room squealed and barked. While she righted the chair, her face flamed, and she heard his boot steps on the laminated floor.
“I’ll get Goldie,” he said.
She got water for Goldie and the pups, giving her heated cheeks time to cool. That taken care of, she stood in the hall between the kitchen and the dining room and watched him and Goldie head toward her.
Trey was having a strange effect on her, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. She let Goldie into the room with the puppies, replaced the barrier then turned to him. “Why are you here? Do you need Marsh? I can give you his cell number.”
“I heard he had some old Indian parts.”
She frowned and he laughed. “The motorcycle,” he said, and she recalled that Indian was an old Wisconsin motorcycle manufacturer.
“I’ll call him.” She went back into the kitchen for her cell. There were two pieces of fudge left and he offered one to her while she pressed the speed dial number she’d added yesterday evening. She shook her head and told him he was evil.
His face lit in a smile again, and sparkles deep within her did a little dance. A dirty dance.
By the time Marsh answered on the third ring, her skin was hot again. She wondered if it could be a lingering condition brought on by the flu. This had never happened to her with Jim.
She told Marsh about Trey and what he wanted, then handed the cell to Trey. In the other room, Goldie barked and the puppies started their squealing again. Who needed an alarm system with dogs?
She headed to the front window to see who was coming now, and spotted the back of Patty, the mail lady, hurrying across the street. She’d already delivered Sarah’s mail.
Becky went to collect the mail and brought in a few sales flyers and bills. On the bottom was a sticky note on a Change of Address form, with a message from Patty telling her she needed to fill it out and either stop by the post office or leave it in the mailbox. If she left it in the mailbox, Patty would pick it up the next day.
On the bottom of the note, Patty had scrawled: I knew what Jim was doing.
Chapter Eleven
Becky leaned against the hallway wall, dizzy for a second. She closed her eyes. How many other people had known?
She felt like a fool. A stupid fool.
Fingers touched her shoulder and she jumped around to look straight into Trey’s concerned eyes. “You okay?” he asked.
She nodded, not sure how her voice would sound.
His eyebrows contracted, not buying it. She tried a smile, but felt it wobble.
“I’m fine,” she said, hearing the throatiness in her voice and hoping he’d think it was sexy. Wasn’t sex what all men were supposed to think about? She’d read they thought about it once every seven waking seconds.
No wonder the world was in trouble.
He nodded at the mail. “Bad news?”
She looked down and saw that the yellow sticky note was crumpled in her fist, and the other mail clamped against her chest. “Nope, not a thing.” She glanced up. “What did Marsh have to say?”
Trey handed her the cell. “He can tell you himself.”
Marsh asked her to take Trey to the third storage building where he kept the motorcycle parts and call him back with any offers. By the time she clicked off, she was breathing evenly again.
So what if someone else knew that her husband was an asshole? Her soon-to-be ex-husband. After all, she’d behaved honorably. She had no reason to be ashamed. In fact, the note was Patty’s odd way of being supportive, letting Becky know that someone else knew and believed in her.
It was good. From now on it was all good.
From now on, that was her new motto: It’s all good.
She gave Trey a smile that made his eyebrows sweep up. “I’ll be a moment. I need to change into my sneakers.”
Five minutes later, Trey was happily looking through old rusty motorcycle parts while Becky wished she’d brought a book with her. At first, he told her what he wanted and then she called Marsh. But as the two men got into a heated back-and-forth price war, she finally gave Trey the cell, then stood back and watched his eyes burn bright. She guessed that Marsh’s eyes were doing the same thing. Probably the same as an orchestra leader leading an orchestra or a shopper finding the perfect pair of shoes on sale.
When they agreed on a price that she thought was a lot for a rusty wheel, he handed the phone back to her. The phone-passing thing happened again and again, though she didn’t know how an old license plate cost three hundred dollars. Or an old rear bike fender was worth two hundred. But Trey was smiling like it was a bargain. For all the attention he paid her, she could’ve been walking around naked, letting it all hang out – literally – and he wouldn’t blink.
She told him to keep the phone while he continued to look around. There was an old car seat on the side, and she sat on it, her legs stretched out on the wooden floor. Closing her eyes, she dozed off, fuzzily aware that she trusted Trey and Marsh more than Jim or her father.
Of course, they could turn out to be rats, too. Maybe she just didn’t know them well enough.
But she still let herself fall asleep.
An arm around her shoulder aroused her. Trey. She felt his bicep. Still drowsy, her eyes still closed, she recognized his scent. She murmured and turned her face toward him, the sweatshirt material of his long-sleeved top soft under her cheek. Lethargy tugged at her. Thinking to lean into him a bit more, she raised her face.
He must’ve been leaning down because their lips met.
Instantly awake, she felt his arm stiffen and knew this kiss wasn’t his plan, even though he’d sat beside her. He started to pull back, and inside her rose up a loud, clamoring ‘No!’
She reached up, curved her hands around his neck and drew him to her.
He resisted for one second, then he sighed. A sound of surrender. She kept her eyes closed, because right now she wanted to feel. Not look, not talk, not think. Just feel and smell and taste.
With an almost inaudible moan, he kissed her. His mouth opened, and hers parted under his. His hands on her back drew her against his chest.
The kiss went on and on. And it was good, so good. Their tongues met. And it was better and it was wonderful.
She drew closer to him, her breasts flattening against his chest, as if she wanted to meld with him. Small lightning streaks bolted through her, and she wanted more. Her body heated. Hotter and hotter...
Then he twisted away. His hands slid from her back and he gripped her upper arms.
Caught in a hot daze, she tried to lean forward, but his hands grasped her harder. Holding her away from him.
Her eyelids snapped up. His face looked changed. His color brighter. His eyes hotter. His breathing faster and harder.
Her breath huffed out even as he shook his head. “We can’t do this.”
“Why?” she asked in a breathy voice.
“For one thing, I don’t have a condom on me.”
She opened her mouth to tell him it didn’t matter. That a barren woman probably wouldn’t need it anyway.
That thought brought the old pain knifing back, cooling her faster than if someone threw ice water at her face.
Her body went limp, and for a second only his grip on her arms kept her from sagging. Then she sucked in her breath and drew strength with the long inhale. She gave a twist to her shoulders and his grip eas
ed. Still looking into her eyes, he released her.
She smiled, even as she chided herself for being the same old people pleaser. But what was she supposed to do? Whip off her top and bra? Then say, “This is what you could’ve had, but you blew it.”
Besides, she didn’t need a man’s help to take care of her sexual needs.
“I got a little carried away,” she said.
“A little carried away?” He looked down at his lap then into her eyes. “Nothing little here.”
She laughed and it caught in her throat that was not quite ready for laughter. She put her hand to her forehead and it was warm. “You were right to pull away.”
“I won’t take advantage of you.”
“Don’t talk like that.” She shifted a few inches from him. How odd of him to phrase it that way. So old-fashioned. So…gallant. So not what she would’ve expected from him. “You weren’t the only one in that clinch. There were two of us. I was kissing just as much as you.”
He didn’t reply, but his eyes darkened and his expression became hooded. She could’ve sworn she felt little testosterone pellets land on her face, her throat, stab her through her top. Slip into her partly open mouth, then slide smoothly down into her body that still simmered.
She leaned toward him again. Caught herself and jerked back. Her face heated even more.
Next time he came over, she needed to have a warning. She’d prepare ice shavings to slap on her face when needed.
He stood and stepped away. “You filed for divorce today. You’re fragile right now.” He smiled and she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Back in high school, I noticed you.”
“I know,” she whispered. Of course she’d known, but she’d never admitted it. She’d noticed him back then, too. She’d never told anyone. She hadn’t even written it in her diary.
Now she let herself remember the colliding glances that left her breath stuck in her throat as she looked away. The way she pretended they never happened.
She’d read about opposites attracting, and that’s what those longing looks were.
Simple biology – her hormones on the hunt to find someone who didn’t belong in her pack. Someone different, who didn’t have a similar genetic make up. Someone who would give her a strong, healthy baby.
