by HK Carlton
She stuck her tongue out at him. Then pointed to the sandwiches and at the cooler, indicating that he should put them inside.
“I was hoping I’d catch you. I figured you’d be back from church by now. Did you go this morning?”
“Yes, I did go to church this morning and you’ll never guess who I saw there.”
Jason hesitated before placing the grapes into the cooler and looked over, surprised, she guessed, that she would tell Jill about him, possibly smoothing the way to make it easier for her to accept him being around.
“Who?”
“Mr Westlake.”
“What? Really? He doesn’t seem like the church-going kind.”
“What does that mean? The church-going kind? He seems nice to me.”
“He’s nice and all, I just…I don’t know.” She paused. “You’ve been running into him a lot lately, huh? You had coffee with him and now he shows up at church?”
“I ran into him at the coffee shop, Jilly. It wasn’t a planned meeting. How’d you know about that?”
“Everyone at school saw you with him and couldn’t wait to tell me all about it.”
“Why didn’t you mention it then, if it was bothering you?”
“It wasn’t, until now that he keeps popping up wherever you are.”
“Would that be so bad? You suggested it yourself.”
Jason’s eyes widened slightly at that little statement.
“Yeah, I know. It’s just weird. I’ve never seen you with anyone else. And he’s my teacher.”
“You see your dad with other people all the time. And Mr Westlake won’t be your teacher forever. We talked about this.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’ll just be different to see you with someone else. I just never pictured you with anyone but Dad.”
“I never pictured it either, Jilly.” Until now.
“And who knows, he might not be around forever either.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. I just mean Dad changes girlfriends so often that I can’t keep track.”
“But I won’t be like that, Jilly. You know that.”
“I didn’t mean you. Westlake might be just like Dad, you don’t know. The way he looks, you know he’s gotta be a player.”
“No. You’re right. I don’t know.”
“Everything okay there, Jilly?” Lainey asked. She didn’t want to hear that right now. She had enough of her own doubts hounding her.
“Yeah, things are good, I just wanted to let you know that my flight has been delayed so Dad’s ‘flava du jour’ is going to drive me back this afternoon.”
Having Jason around was doing wonders for her, Lainey thought. It didn’t even hurt for a change that Thad was with yet another woman. She didn’t care. This was a good day.
“Okay. Why isn’t Dad bringing you back?”
“He has a game today, Mom.”
“Oh, right, duh, it’s Sunday.”
“Well, one good thing while you’re crushing on Jay-son…” She said his name as if she were teasing one of her girlfriends. “You’re forgetting all about old what’s-his-name.”
“What was his name?” Lainey laughed. Forgetting felt good.
Jill giggled too. “I better go. We’ll talk when I get back. I’ll see you later, Mama. Love you.”
“See you later, baby, I love you too. Bye.”
Jason sealed the lid on the cooler. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, Jill’s flight was delayed so she’s getting a ride back.”
“Oh, does that mean you need to stay close to home?”
“No, we can go.” Lainey saw the disappointment register on his face that they were not going to finish what he’d started. But she was going to try to get to know him before she jumped right in with both feet. “She won’t be home until later. Unless you don’t want to be seen riding around in my car after ‘going fast’ in your Veyron.”
“Who said we were taking your car?”
“Oh? What’d you bring this time? An RV?”
“Not quite,” he said, picking up the cooler.
Lainey slipped on a pair of canvas shoes, then followed him out. Soon after she locked the door behind them, as he placed the cooler in the back of a black Hummer H3.
“What, gold-plated too flashy for you?” she asked.
“I will have you know just as I am easy without being cheap. I am flashy without being ostentatious.”
“Or gaudy,” she added, as he helped her up into the H3.
After hopping into the driver’s seat, he started the engine. Lainey looked around. She’d never been in a Hummer. She noted a beat-up old guitar case in the back. “I’m beginning to think that this ‘little’ band you were in was a little more prolific than you are leading me to believe.”
“We did all right,” he answered. “So, where are we headed? You have a spot that you like to hike?”
“I like Marsh Stone Park.”
“I know where that is. ‘Bout, what, twenty minutes’ drive?”
She nodded and sat back to watch the scenery go by.
“I was surprised that you told Jill about me.”
“I just kinda wanted to feel her out, I guess.”
“Does that mean you might keep me around for a while?”
“I might. She seemed to think it was kinda strange that you keep showing up where I am.”
He reached over and flipped on the radio.
“The coffee shop wasn’t just a coincidence,” he confessed.
“It wasn’t? You said Mr Valentine suggested it.”
“He didn’t. I overhead Jill tell her friends that you stop there every morning before you go to work. So I thought maybe I’d accidentally bump into you.”
“Why?”
“I told you, because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Didn’t you think about me too? Maybe just a little?”
“I thought you were very handsome,” she allowed.
“That’s not what I asked. I know what I look like and I know what other people think of me…”
“Humility, again,” she quipped.
“So you thought I was good-looking, so what? So does seventy-five percent of the population, but is that all you thought?” She didn’t think he was trying to sound conceited. He knew he was gorgeous. It was just a fact. “You didn’t think anything else? Like I was a jerk? You hated my suit? You thought I was too young to be a teacher? Too old?”
“Well, that first night, after the interview, I did ask Jill why she didn’t warn me that you were tall, dark and smoldering hotness. I was a little thrown. You were not what I expected. But I told you that. I tried not to think of you that night.”
“Why?”
“Because you scare me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been with a very handsome man before. Look how that turned out.”
“So all of mankind has to pay because your ex is a dog?”
She looked out of the window.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” He drove for a few minutes without speaking. “So Jill told you to ask me out for coffee?”
She nodded.
“So she kind of gave you permission. Would you have?”
“I’m not sure. Probably not.”
“Because you’re not ready.”
“Because I thought I wasn’t ready. You are rapidly proving me wrong.”
He grinned, this time with arrogance. “Okay. So did you think about me after we had coffee on Friday morning?”
She bit her lip. “Yes.”
“And when I showed up in your shop, what then?”
“I thought you were aggressive.”
“So then why did you agree to have dinner with me?”
“You are also persuasive. And it doesn’t hurt that I am in the seventy-five percentile of your adoring population.”
“Ditto, baby. And this morning when I kidnapped you for church?”
“That was very well done of you.”
“Scored some points?”
“With me or God?”
“You.”
She shook her head but said, “Yes.”
Jason pulled the Hummer into the recreational area and parked then came around to her side. Jason opened the door and reached for her. Standing on the running board, she was almost as tall as him. She wound her arms around his neck and he encircled her waist.
Lainey pushed his shades up so that she could see his eyes. His erection was already twitching and nudging its way up against her tummy. “You didn’t ask what I thought about what happened right before Jill called.”
His jaw tightened and he swallowed hard, then asked, “What did you think?”
“I think you must be very well-endowed, but I’m just going by feel.” She grinned.
He let out a painful sounding groan. “That’s it, we are getting right back in this truck.”
“Naw-uh.” Lainey attempted to push past him but he held her tightly.
“Well, I can’t walk around like this all day.” He prodded her with his hard-on.
“Then let’s just throw the blanket down and we can eat and talk. We don’t have to hike if you’re not able.” She grinned. “And maybe later we could neck.”
He dove for her mouth but she turned her cheek. “I’m going to kiss you, remember? Your rules.”
“Yeah, I’m a fuckin’ idiot.”
“It’s a good thing you’re not an English teacher.” She smiled, stepping off the running board.
Jason retrieved the cooler from the back and followed as she led them to a fairly secluded spot in a little copse of trees. They spread out the blanket and unpacked the food.
“Are you hungry?” Lainey asked.
“Starving and not for food,” he answered.
“You are a very impatient man, Mr Westlake. We’ve only known each other, what, five days?”
He stretched out on the blanket. “But I’ve wanted you since the minute I laid eyes on you so I’ve been waiting seventy-two hundred minutes and counting. If you think of it that way, I am a very patient man.”
She smiled. “You wanted me to what?” she flirted.
“Do you really want me to answer that? Because I’m very good with detail and I can be quite explicit and raunchy.”
“Mmm, maybe later. But that reminds me. I brought you something.” She stretched to reach for her purse and felt his hand slide up her thigh to cup her bottom.
She gave him a mock look of severity.
“What? I like what you brought me.”
“Not that, huh. This.”
“A book,” he said, less than enthusiastically.
“Not just any book. Historical romance.”
“Oh?” he replied, in the same tone.
“I could read you all the dirty parts.”
“Although at any other time that would be titillating, I honestly couldn’t take sexy words coming from those lips right now. Not unless I was buried between those beautiful thighs while you read.”
“As if I could concentrate enough to read if you were.”
“Are you finished teasing me?”
“Probably not.”
“I’m seriously going to die today.”
“Regardless of what they tell you, you can’t actually die from that. Besides, once we do that, we can’t go back. It’s not like there will ever be that mystery again. Isn’t it exciting all this anticipation?”
“No, anticipation is just downright painful. Wait a minute.” He sat up straighter. “You said once we do that. Not if.”
Choosing to ignore that, she said, “Do you store your guitar in that Hummer or did you put it in there so that you could play it?”
“You’re not going to answer that, are you?” At the negative shake of her head he said, “I thought I might play it.”
“Why don’t you then? Take your mind off your troubles.”
Jason gave a small nod. Lainey watched him walk back to the truck, admiring his fine ass as he did so.
Chapter Seven
Jason didn’t even know if he could play. His cock was in charge of things at the moment. He wanted to fuck Lainey so bad, he hurt. He’d have been better off hiking. At least then all that he’d have had to remember would’ve been one foot in front of the other.
Back on the blanket he crossed his legs, and took the guitar out of the case. Propping it in his lap, he then set his fingers on the neck. He hesitated, his other hand poised over the strings. “I haven’t played in, like, six years. It’s probably gonna be pretty bad.”
Lainey smiled. “I bet it’s like riding a bike. Play for me.”
Jason strummed a few chords. “Is there a pick in there?” he asked, craning to look into the case.
She picked one out and handed it to him.
“My fingers used to be so callused. Sometimes I didn’t even use one. My fingers used to bleed on stage and I didn’t even care.”
Her encouraging smile slipped a little.
Jason decided to play one of his songs for her. It took him a few seconds to remember it all. It had been a long time. He was a little rusty. His fingers moved faster than his brain—like muscle memory, they knew what to do before his mind could catch up. He didn’t sing, just played her the melody. He got so wound up in it that he didn’t even see her reaction. Until he’d finished.
When Jase finally opened his eyes, Lainey sat there staring at him as if she’d never seen him before, tears streaming down her face. “You have such a gift. With that voice and the way that you put your heart into the music how could you just stop? Did it not break your heart to give up something that you so obviously love?”
“Don’t cry,” he said, reaching out to wipe a tear from her cheek.
Facing him, she moved closer. “Then you don’t cry,” she said, swiping a tear from his own cheek.
Mopping at his cheek, Jase was astounded—he hadn’t realized that he’d even become emotional. He never cried. Playing the music used to be such a part of him. They’d done the same material night after night so that it had taken all the pleasure right out of it. He’d forgotten how much he loved it.
“It must have been some epiphany for you to have given this up.” She searched his face.
“I didn’t like all the stuff that came with it. It wasn’t really a difficult choice at the time. I guess subconsciously I must have made the decision long before the rest of me caught up to it. Maybe not the teaching part, but quitting. I’d been thinking about it,” he said, placing his hand back to her cheek. Leisurely he stroked his thumb back and forth along her skin.
Her gaze searched his.
“I mean don’t get me wrong, I was grateful—am grateful for all the things that it provided me. But I didn’t like me. But evidently,” he huffed, “I miss the music.”
“Why did you feel that you had to give one up for the other? The music for the teaching?”
“I guess I didn’t really do it consciously. I was just so busy going to school and—” He had been about to say outrunning the press. “…looking long term that I just forgot how much I love it.”
“So why didn’t you combine the two and become a music teacher?”
“Huh, I never thought of that one.”
“Why history?”
“I’ve just always been fascinated by it. And you know that saying ‘doomed to repeat itself’. But I guess because I’m a storyteller. I write my heart in song.”
“You write your own songs too?”
“That was mine.”
“Ohhh. Play something else.”
“But you don’t even know my stuff.”
“That’s okay. I’ll get to know it.”
“Well, how ‘bout we find something that you know?”
“I’m kind of a country girl,” she said, giving a little shrug of her bare shoulder.
“Mmm, okay, how about…” He started playing Sweet Home Alabama and when he got to the chorus he started to sing.
The pleas
ure on her face made him also remember what an audience had made him feel. To have a hundred and eighty thousand fans singing his own words back to him was an indescribable feeling. There was nothing like it. A high all of its own.
“Join in. Sing with me.”
She shook her head.
He stopped playing. “Come on.”
“No, I can’t sing.”
“I heard you this morning. You can so.”
“That was with a bunch of other people and the organ blaring. I can’t sing in front of someone that sings like you.”
“Why not? I heard you. I think we’d sound good together.”
She shook her head again.
“I won’t play unless you sing with me. Okay, how about this one? He played the first few chords before beginning to sing Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow’s Picture—a duet of sorts and about as country as Jason could get. It wasn’t really his genre. “You know it?” he asked, while continuing to play.
She nodded.
When it was Sheryl’s part, Lainey took his cue, timidly at first, but as he started to smile it must have encouraged her and her voice grew stronger.
They got to the duet part and they sounded great together, just as he’d known they would. He hit the last note, and Lainey’s cheeks reddened.
An abrupt spontaneous burst of applause caught them both off guard. Jason had thought they were in a secluded little patch where they wouldn’t be disturbed or bother anyone else. He hadn’t thought Lainey’s face could get any redder than it already was. He was wrong.
“Thank you, thank you very much,” he called with a little Elvis-style lip curl, waving to the small crowd of onlookers. “We’ll be here all week,” he joked.
“That was awesome, Lainey,” he said, laying the guitar on the blanket. He wrapped his arms around her. “We sounded great.”
“You sound great.”
“No, we did.” She had a natural voice, kind of an alto with a little rasp to it. If she practiced or took lessons she’d be awesome.
Lainey pulled from his embrace as the little crowd moved on. She picked up a sandwich and plunked it in his lap. After opening the grapes, she popped one into her mouth.
“So your parents live nearby then?”
He looked at her as she changed the subject again. “Yeah, they live in Jacksonville.”
“And you go there for Sunday supper?”
