“Don’t you go and get a flappy mouth with me, Luke McDavid. I’m old enough to be your grandma, and I sure ain’t takin’ kindly to your form of jokin’. It’s disrespectful.”
“Lucy can’t make it tonight,” Rex informed her, changing the subject before Mrs. Carpenter threatened to beat them both with a small switch, something she’d been promising to do since they were children.
Mrs. Carpenter stuck her hand in her apron and retrieved her cell. “She’ll be here. I figured she’d shoot the messengers, so I called and invited her myself. I still had her sweet grandpa’s phone number saved in contacts. After I tempted the little thing with my broccoli casserole and mashed potatoes, she couldn’t say no. She’ll be here at seven. You two owe me a few days vacation after this. I’m fixing your dinner and then taking the weekend off.”
“This weekend?” Rex croaked.
“That’s right. If you don’t behave yourselves with Miss Lucy, I may not come back. Then what will you do?”
“Celebrate?” Luke suggested.
“Don’t sass me, Luke.”
“Why not? I sure have a good time devilin’ you.”
“Yes, but you’d better be brushing up on your charm rather than tarnishing your manners. Now you and Rex get on out of here. I got a mess of cookin’ to do before Lucy gets here. If you wanna make yourselves useful, set the table.”
Rex and Luke started for the dining room.
Mrs. Carpenter cleared her throat.
“What now?” Rex asked.
“If I were you, I’d plan on entertaining in the sunroom. After what Lucy watched in that dining room all those years ago, she might lose her appetite if you make her pull up a chair in there.”
“Nah,” Rex said. “If anything, by the time she picks up her fork, she’ll be famished. And I just love an insatiable woman.”
Chapter Three
“Why do you insist on getting Mrs. Carpenter’s blood pressure elevated?” Luke asked, strolling ahead of Rex as they headed out to the barn.
“Do what?”
“Mrs. Carpenter. Why do you like upsetting her?” Luke asked again, grabbing a halter and lead rope someone left on a nearby bench.
“She’s an old bitty with too much information about our personal lives.”
“And she gets her ears full how?” Luke accused, thinking Rex didn’t necessarily say too much but rather chose the wrong things to share when he spoke in the first place.
“She eavesdrops and she makes nice with the women we’ve had in our beds. Marilyn told her anything she ever asked, or have you forgotten that?”
“Marilyn is impossible to forget.”
“Says who?” Rex argued.
“Come on now. Marilyn wasn’t that bad.”
“She wasn’t that good, either,” Rex said, chuckling.
“Marilyn was all right on a rainy day.”
“Thank God she only stayed around during the drought. Can you imagine waking up to her mouth every morning?” A beat later, Rex added, “We had to keep our pants down so we could keep her busy. I hate to think about the trouble that woman would stir if the men in this town didn’t keep her jaws working for the right reasons.”
Luke headed for the far end of the barn and started sorting grain buckets and grumbling about the prices of horse feed. “Why did you turn on her?” Luke asked.
Rex frowned. “Marilyn was a diversion. She kept our minds off Lucy, at least for a second. In the beginning she never expected anything more than what we were willing to give. In the end, she left bitter. She knew what she was to us, and we were good to her while it lasted, but it wasn’t enough. I don’t feel anything for Marilyn. Tell me why I should.”
“We spent the better part of four years with her,” Luke reminded him.
“The relationship was on and off again. She was here one day and gone the next. She was no good, and you know it. She’s the reason Lucy doesn’t belong to us now.”
“You can’t blame Marilyn for what we did. Our timing sucked. We’d just been with Lucy the week before.”
“And after I was with Lucy, I never felt the same again. I had no business taking Marilyn to bed,” Rex admitted.
“Technically? We didn’t lay her down and love her. Anyone watching us would’ve known from the get-go. We were drunk, and she was a mistake, a party that got out of hand. We had her on the dining room table because we couldn’t find the bedrooms in our own damn house. Plus, we weren’t married. We never discussed commitment. We didn’t do anything wrong. Most women would’ve forgiven us.”
Rex looked outside. “Lucy wasn’t most women. Fucking Marilyn was the biggest mistake of my life.”
“I wouldn’t go as far as saying that, but we did make a mistake. We forgot to shut the curtains.”
* * * *
Lucy approached the McDavid house with a photo album in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other. Walking up the crooked path, she listened to the crushing pebbles under her feet and focused on the beauty surrounding her.
An avid gardener, Mrs. Carpenter had always cared for the McDavid grounds like she might take pride in her own home. In fact, the farm was her home. The McDavids’ housekeeper spent more time there than at her Main Street cottage. Rex and Luke, she’d once confided in Lucy, were the sons she never had.
By the looks of the elaborate concrete statues and an abundance of blooming geraniums, butterfly weed, and multicolored roses, the McDavids and Mrs. Carpenter continued to care for what they’d long since referred to as an angel’s garden, in memory of Mr. and Mrs. McDavid.
Rex and Luke’s parents were killed in a car accident when the boys were still in high school. After they died, their ashes were scattered there, and small marble memorials located under a pair of weeping willows marked their passing.
A trail, about a quarter of a mile long, led straight to a massive gazebo and then split like a fork in the road, the left path leading to the barn and the right circling through another courtyard before looping around the front of the house. Lucy followed the broken trail to the right, strolling along a recently constructed cobblestone walkway.
Halfway there, she stopped and stared at the house. Beyond the trimmed hedges and large, white rockers scattered across an elaborate country porch, a picture window drew her eye.
Swallowing once, she forced herself to put aside the days she’d lost because of bad memories lingering behind that glass. Mrs. Carpenter had invited her to dinner, and she wasn’t going to disappoint her.
“This, too, shall pass,” she said softly.
“I hope not,” Rex said, stepping away from a large oak tree.
“You startled me!”
Reaching for the bottle of wine, Rex smiled easily. “I try to do what I can to keep a woman on her toes.”
“Hmm,” she said. “I thought the McDavid brothers did everything they could to keep a woman on her back.”
“Come on, Lucy. Let’s move past this. What’d you say we pick up where we left off when things were good between us?”
Lucy shook her head, taking in the man before her. Dear God, when had Rex McDavid turned into a walking billboard for country sex? Dressed in a fitted white shirt, white-washed denim jeans, and snakeskin boots, Rex was something else all right.
His eyes followed hers as her gaze settled on the window where everything went to hell and betrayal—along with life lessons—unfolded. “I’m not the same man, Lucy.”
“Mrs. Carpenter invited me for dinner. I brought her a photo album,” she rambled, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I thought she’d like to have some of these pictures of you and Luke. There are dozens, all laminated and dated. I don’t know why I kept so many, but here they are.”
The reason she owned such an assortment of glossies and black-and-white images was pretty clear. She’d grown up with the McDavids, and from the moment she noticed they were boys and she was a stupid girl—something Luke used to call her—she’d been obsessed.
�
�You look beautiful,” Rex remarked, taking a step toward her and apparently uninterested in scrapbooks and bottled alcohol. “I’d forgotten how sexy you are.”
His voice was low, his eyes hooded, and his steps were deliberate as he inched closer, taking a cowboy’s sweet time. Oh yes, Rex McDavid’s notions were clear.
He planned to claim her. He wanted to seduce her. There wasn’t a question in Lucy’s mind. Rex McDavid had every intention of possessing her.
She wasn’t going to stop him. In fact, she might even encourage him.
* * * *
Rex couldn’t imagine what Lucy must’ve been thinking when she dressed for dinner. Wearing a short white skirt and silky red tank, she looked like a seductress dressed deliberately for a hot summer night. Her black hair swept across shapely shoulders, and those enormous chocolate eyes followed him with quiet acceptance. High cheekbones and full lips made her appear just as sweet and tempting as he’d remembered.
“Mrs. Carpenter cooked enough food for a large reunion. Luke and I thought maybe you’d gotten married and had a few dozen kids.”
“Hmm,” she whispered. “I’ve never met a man interesting enough to tie me down.”
“You’ve met a couple that could tie you up,” Rex reminded her, thinking that’s probably what Lucy needed right now anyway. He wondered if she’d smack him if he told her so.
“That was a long time ago, Rex.”
“It was yesterday to me.”
“Not for me,” she stated flatly, walking ahead of him.
Her hips caught his attention, and he looked, but he didn’t gawk, at least not at her ass. He was more interested in following those long, tan legs. Noting shapely calves, before he thought, he asked, “Have you been working out with a trainer or something?”
“I run,” she replied, adding quickly, “I’m surprised you don’t remember. You never could catch me.” A moment later she added, “And yes, I work out. Staying in the gym helps pass the time.”
“Whenever you ran from me, I caught you,” Rex reminded her, a guttural edge in his tone. “Do I need to refresh your memory?”
Lucy stopped short of the front door. She faced him and said, “Actually, no. I prefer to live forward. Besides Rex, I’ve always been a firm believer in out of sight, out of mind. It’s the easiest way to overcome all addictions—candy, chips, ice cream, McDonald’s, and McDavids. Let me put this in terms you can understand.
“I’ve had my share of temptations and bad habits. I’ve found the best way to get along in life is by rotating stock. You know, replace the old with something—someone—new. You of all people should understand how that works. I find it keeps things fresh and interesting, particularly where it counts.”
Rex felt like someone laid a crop to his balls. He grabbed her before he thought about consequences. Lowering his mouth to hers, he hissed, “Kiss me. If you’re so sure I was easily forgotten, kiss me. I dare ya.”
Lucy tossed her head back. Coal black curls bounced across her trembling arms. Tilting her chin toward his, she said, “I’m tired of challenges, Rex.”
“That’s good to hear, because I’m a sure thing, baby. I’ve waited a long time for you to bring your sweet ass home. I’m not about to fuck this up a second time around.”
Chapter Four
His lips claimed hers like they were ripe for taking. Maybe they were. It had been a long time since a man’s mouth pressed against hers, longer still since a McDavid man held her in his arms.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, Lucy responded just as she might have years earlier, sipping and tasting, indulging and savoring. In those few passing seconds, she realized. She never wanted to let this moment, or this man, go.
“God, I’ve missed you,” Rex crooned, licking the seam of her mouth and tantalizing her further with minty breath and a slow-moving tongue. That mouth was her undoing. She remembered the skilled tongue of an intuitive lover, a cowboy she’d missed more than she’d ever wanted to admit.
Rex wasn’t pitching a happy ending, but he sure made her stop and think about white picket fences, several kids, and a minivan while delivering a short-lived, but quite intense kiss.
His mouth skimmed across hers, and he teased her, lightly kissing her here or there, taking his own sweet time provoking her lust. And desire was certainly stirred there in one simple smooch.
Lucy’s knees knocked together. Her vision blurred. She was so out of it by the time he released her that she walked into the house feeling like a teenager who’d just played her very first round of spin the bottle. Judging by the satisfied look on Mrs. Carpenter’s face and Luke’s raised brow, they’d had an audience.
Rex kept a spring in his step as he paced the glossy turquoise-colored ceramic tile flooring. “Lucy brought you something, Mrs. Carpenter.”
After rushing through the kitchen, Mrs. Carpenter took the wine and large album and placed the items on a nearby counter. She gave Lucy a hearty hug. “Look at you, child!”
Luke cleared his throat and shot Rex a sideways glance. “Don’t. It’s not worth the fight.”
Lucy studied Rex and Luke, unsure of the meaning behind Luke’s warning.
Mrs. Carpenter took Lucy’s small hands in hers and shook them. “Let me look at you, pretty girl. Why, you haven’t changed a bit. You don’t age. Why, you look as young as you were when you ran away from this place.”
Rex grumbled something under his breath and took Lucy by the elbow, steering her toward the sunroom. Luke followed on their heels. “We’re glad you decided to join us,” Luke remarked, a grin tilting his lips.
“We should be honored,” Rex said. “According to sports commentators, we have one of the racing world’s most well-respected women in our presence. I’m surprised she had the time for us countryfolk.”
“Well, of course she would!” Mrs. Carpenter exclaimed. “Lucy has always known where she could find a home-cooked meal. Haven’t you, child?”
“That’s it,” Rex said, stopping short of reaching for the high-back chair pushed under a round tabletop. “Mrs. Carpenter, we’ve discussed this. Lucy is not a little girl anymore. If you want me to make my point clear, I’ll go retrieve the toys she played with the last time she stayed here. Then you’ll have a better idea of why I don’t look at Lucy as anything more than the woman she is.”
“Rex!” Lucy shouted, absolutely embarrassed by his confession. “Is nothing private in this house?”
“Not really,” Luke replied for his brother, shooting Rex a glare. “I told you to let it go.”
“She wouldn’t,” Rex grumbled, nodding toward Mrs. Carpenter as he pulled out Lucy’s chair and waited until she took a seat. “Maybe now, she will.”
“I don’t pay attention to you, Rex. Never have.” Mrs. Carpenter hurried around the small area ready to serve helpings of potatoes and other veggies, not to mention the best homemade dinner rolls Lucy had ever tasted. Lucy had dreamt of Mrs. Carpenter’s mouthwatering meals. “Honey, you’ll have to overlook these two. Why, they’ve been so excited about your homecoming that they’ve been watching the calendar, marking off the days.”
“Really?” Lucy asked, arching a brow and enjoying the way the McDavid housekeeper successfully embarrassed Rex and Luke.
Age had begun to make its mark on Mrs. Carpenter, and Lucy was saddened by the fact. The housekeeper’s small frame supported about one hundred and eighty solid pounds. She wasn’t necessarily fat, but she was certainly round and pudgy in places, particularly the girth. Once a brunette, Mrs. Carpenter sported numerous strands of platinum, but showing outward signs of the years mounting didn’t seem to bother her. She positively lit up the room with her big smile and sparkling hazel-blue eyes.
“God’s truth, Lucy. They’ve missed you,” Mrs. Carpenter promised, sticking serving spoons in the various dishes covering the tabletop. “I was afraid if you didn’t get home soon, these two would take up racing for sport. Luke here even started shopping for stock cars. The man was determined to get yo
ur attention. I reckon he had every idea in the world about how he’d go about doin’ that.”
“Smart man,” Lucy said softly, lifting her plate so Mrs. Carpenter could pile on the food. “You really don’t have to wait on me, Mrs. Carpenter. I’m used to making myself at home here.”
“I’d say,” Rex grumbled.
“Hush now, sweetie,” Mrs. Carpenter said. “I enjoy waiting on you.”
“I wasn’t gonna buy a race car,” Luke said, settling in his chair and refusing to drop the subject.
Mrs. Carpenter hurried over to the corner rolltop desk, opened one of the side drawers, retrieved an envelope, and waved it high in the air. “Want me to show her these?”
Rex shook his head, filled his plate and stared at Lucy. “We could save her a lot of trouble by telling you what’s been on our minds. If we don’t, the old bitty will stick around for dinner and dessert.”
“I heard that, Rex McDavid,” Mrs. Carpenter chirped. “And Lucy, in this sealed package here I have season tickets to the Bristol race. What do you think about that?”
Lucy picked up her fork. Dragging the utensil through her green beans, she said, “Well I hope not. I could’ve gotten them into any track in the country with VIP badges.”
“See there,” Mrs. Carpenter said. “I told you. The two of you need to see Lucy before you take up stock car racing.” She nodded toward the stairs. “They’ve got hours of footage from the races upstairs. You ought to get them to show you everything they’ve collected.”
“Why don’t you?” Lucy asked, turning in her chair and facing the older lady.
Mrs. Carpenter shook her head. “Not a chance. These two fine and upstanding men promised me a week’s paid vacation. I’ve gotta hurry now and get this place cleaned up so I can take off.”
“When did we do that?” Rex asked, looking at Luke. “Last I heard she wanted the weekend off.”
“Got to thinkin’ about it,” she clucked, acting a little too giddy. “Might as well take a week, maybe two.”
Acres, Natalie - Sex Drive [Country Roads 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 3
