In bed under me. Over me.
Between Ben and me…
I manage to stop that train of thought before my erection becomes fully visible, and I realize I’ve been flexing my hands unconsciously at my sides, as if anticipating the feel of her soft curves against them. As if I’m already itching to hike up her tight skirt and mold my hand to the shape of her cunt.
I could make her wet…
I could make her come…
And Ben—
“So then I thought maybe the gas station, because even if they didn’t have a signal, they’d probably have a phone, and I could get it sorted from there,” Ireland’s saying. Greta, my dog, is still barking at her, and Ireland talks over her. “Do you think the car is truly stuck? Should I call a tow truck?”
Before I can answer, Greta decides barking isn’t enough and starts trying to jump onto Ireland. “Greta!” I scold, but Greta is determined to smear mud all over Ireland’s perfect black skirt.
I expect fear or disgust or at least uncertainty, but Ireland bends down and scratches Greta’s ears. “It’s okay, puppy,” she croons. “We’re best friends. You just don’t know it yet.”
Greta licks her face in agreement, and I’m going to marry this woman.
“No tow truck,” I say firmly. “I’ll take care of you from here on out.”
Chapter Three
Ireland
Caleb comes forward, takes my bag, and tosses it easily into the cab of the truck, and then he walks back to me. I have to tilt my head to look into his face, and his eyes burn down at me with something that makes my nipples firm up into little pebbles.
“We may just beat the storm if we get a move on,” he says in a voice that is all gritty, practical male. I want to wrap myself up in it and live inside it forever. “But I hope you don’t mind if we make a quick pit stop first?”
“I—” I’m still trying to absorb the fact that Caleb has eyes like summer itself and they’re currently looking at me like I’m the most interesting thing in the world.
He’s probably just being polite and attentive, good manners and all that, I tell myself and my fast-beating heart.
I force myself to run through a flowchart of my options, and by far, going with this man I was supposed to meet with anyway is the best choice. If my phone doesn’t work at his house, he’ll definitely have a landline. And worst-case scenario, I could ask him to ferry me to the interstate motel thirty miles back. I brought a few days’ worth of clothes in the event I didn’t get all the pictures I’d need for the campaign in one go—and honestly, it might be nice to take a break from the hustle of Typeset and the endless judgmental nagging of my sister back home.
And who am I kidding? I want to be in a truck with the most ruggedly handsome man I’ve ever seen. I want to go to his house.
“Pit stop’s fine,” I say, flashing him a smile he doesn’t return. If anything, his lingering smile from earlier slowly fades. His hands do the flexing thing by his sides again, and he stares like he’s never seen anything like me before. Or, more specifically, he stares at my mouth like he’s never seen anything like it before.
With a burst of self-consciousness, I wonder if he hasn’t. Chubby girls in lavender lipstick probably don’t pop into his life very often, and maybe he thinks I’m ridiculous or trying too hard or something like that, with the big smile and the crazy lipstick and the clothes that suddenly feel a million times tighter than they did a few minutes ago.
Oh God. Of course, it’s so like me to meet the best-looking man I’ve ever seen and then he sees me as some kind of awkward sausage. I know I’m not an awkward sausage, but does he know that?
You don’t care, remember? It’s better to be alone than with someone who doesn’t like you with the body you have.
Firmed with resolve, I renew my smile at Caleb. “Should I?” I gesture toward the truck. He starts, as if I’ve yanked him out of some deep and important reverie.
“Yes, of course.” He walks over to the passenger side with me—Greta following us with her hopping three-legged gait—and opens the door. “Careful of the step. It’s a big one.”
Wanting to seem capable and strong, I ignore his offered hand and make to climb into the truck. Except he was right—the step is big—and I forget how tight the pencil skirt is. When I lift my foot to pull myself up into the cab, the skirt manages to hike itself up to my thighs and hamper my balance, and I’m falling backward. For a horrible, humiliating half second, I’m falling with my skirt up to my ass, I’m going to land in the mud, and it’s going to be so fucking embarrassing, especially after I made such a show of not needing his help. And then he’ll think I’m a clumsy awkward sausage on top of it all…
I brace myself for the fall and the ensuing humiliation, but neither comes. The moment I actually totter backward, Caleb catches me with a quick arm around my waist and a big hand on my—oh holy fuck.
His hand is on my ass. My almost bare ass, and because the skirt has worked its way up so high, the ends of his fingers are touching the exposed lower curve of my bottom. The arm banded around my waist is pure strength, and behind me he feels as solid and unmoving as a wall. A firm, warm wall made of swells and grooves of muscle and man.
I can feel every callus on his hand as he lets me find my balance, and then I feel the infinitely long second where it seems deliberately still, as if he’s forcing himself not to squeeze my flesh, and that just makes my nipples hard all over again.
“Oh,” I breathe out. “Oh—”
I can’t remember being this turned on ever, and my body arches against his in unconscious feminine instinct. I want him to grind into me. I want him to bend me over the seat and fuck me until I see stars.
“Easy there,” he finally rumbles, and with my back to his chest, I can feel the words moving through him and into me. And then like it’s nothing, he lifts me up into the truck, handing me up into the seat, making sure I’m settled before his hands leave my body.
My heart is beating so hard I think it might leave my chest.
I have a brief flash of the time Brian and I went horseback riding on a date. I held out a hand to him, hoping he’d help me dismount, and he laughed at me. Laughed.
I’d flushed bright red. I didn’t expect him to twirl me off the horse like a cartoon prince or anything, but surely it wasn’t too much to ask for help? Surely even big girls deserve a steadying arm?
But Caleb—Caleb easily caught all two-hundred-odd pounds of me without so much as a grunt of complaint and then placed me as carefully in the seat as he would a stack of china teacups.
I turn to him to give him my thanks—thanks laden with possibly too much emotion from this dumb Brian baggage I have—but the words die in my throat when I see Caleb’s face. His sensuous mouth looks tense and grim, and there are new lines around his eyes, as if he’s experiencing some kind of strain. His hands are restless at his sides again, and he won’t meet my gaze.
Immediately I panic that it was the effort of getting me in the truck, and I have to swallow back a dumb apology. But for what? For having a body? For being silly enough to try to climb into a truck in a pencil skirt?
No. New Ireland.
Instead, I just give him a “Thank you!” and he nods curtly, shutting the door after making sure my feet are safely inside, and then he walks around to the driver’s door.
Greta hops in first, settling herself in a heap between us, and Caleb grates out a “Buckle in, please,” not looking at me the entire time.
Clumsy awkward sausage. I knew it.
But I don’t need his approval, even if he is only the second man in my life to touch my ass. Even if he is some kind of wholesome, all-American sex god. I lift my chin and stare out the windshield, which is smeared slightly with mud, and try to adjust my feet around all the stuff he has in the passenger-side floorboard.
Caleb starts the truck and then sees me trying to move my feet. A faint blush appears above the line of his beard, on his model-like cheekbones. �
��Uh, sorry about all this stuff,” he mumbles, reaching over to move a brown paper bag that’s full of…mason jars?
I peer inside. “Starting a pickle collection?”
The flush grows deeper. “It’s a gift. From a friend.”
A friend…like a lady friend? Maybe out in these parts, jars of pickles are some kind of flirtatious overture? Or maybe they’re way past flirtation, and this lady friend likes to send him home after a long, sweaty night with plenty of sustenance. Because nights with him would be long and sweaty, I can tell just from looking at him.
“Is this an old laptop?” I ask, trying to shift a second brown paper bag with an old Dell inside, along with more mason jars of pickles and jams. The bag’s got a logo printed on the side from a chain grocery store that’s been closed for at least a decade—at least in the city. Maybe out here there’s still a franchise open.
“The laptop is something my roommate repaired, and I’m returning it to a friend,” Caleb says. “She’s terrible with tech stuff.”
Aha, so there is a she.
I don’t know why this rankles so much, but it does. I frown as I finish moving the bag, which reveals a scuffed center console, and I give out an involuntary yelp.
Caleb startles at my noise and flings his arm across me, as if to stop me from going through the windshield—even though we aren’t moving yet. “What is it?” he asks, alarmed.
“Th-There’s bullets!” I manage to point to the center console, which has bullets just rolling around in there with a pack of gum and a small flashlight. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen bullets in real life, not even once. Who even needs bullets in their truck? Serial rapists? Serial killers? What if my first instinct was right, and Caleb is actually going to kill me here in the middle of nowhere?
My squeamishness seems to confuse him. “Yes,” he says slowly, “those are bullets.” He says it in a voice like what else would they be?
“But why are they in your car?” I ask a little wildly.
Caleb tilts his head, his confusion growing into distinct amusement. “For the rifle mounted under your seat.”
I nearly jump out of the seat. “There’s a gun underneath me right now?”
“Relax,” he says, barely keeping the laughter out of his voice. “It’s not loaded.”
“But…why? Do you use it”—I drop my voice into what I hope is my best serial-killer-soothing voice—“on people?”
He laughs, the rich sound filling the cab as he puts the truck into drive. “It’s my varmint rifle, peach.”
Peach?
Is he calling me peach?
“Varmint rifle?” I probe, deciding to leave peach where it is until I decide how I feel about it.
“For coyotes and foxes,” he says a bit more seriously, his eyes casting around the surrounding fields as the truck works its way over the bridge and up to the distant county road. “They come after the chickens. Sometimes the coyotes will even give the cows trouble. Or they hassle Greta.” He scowls as he says it, and I get the feeling he’d never forgive an animal for coming after his Greta-dog.
“Oh,” I say. “But can’t you just chase them off?”
Another laugh, and he’s so handsome when he laughs that I have to look away. “No. They’ll just keep coming back. And I’m not going to lose any of my animals because those pests are hungry.”
The proprietary bent in his tone is so natural, so easy, and I can’t decide why that turns me on. Is it the certainty? The strength?
Is it the sound of a male determined to protect what’s his?
“There’s a .410 shotgun under your seat too,” he says all casual-like. “But that’s for snakes.”
“Snakes?” I ask, going pale because he’s said the one word that can scare me more than gun. Oh God, if I’d known there would be snakes out here, I would have been way more terrified to be stranded!
“Okay, maybe the guns are okay,” I grudgingly admit, because I don’t like the idea of sitting on lethal weapons, but I like snakes even less.
Caleb chuckles, turning the truck onto a gravel road, and everything leaves my mind save for the way his hands look on the steering wheel. Big and rough and capable.
The turn points us right at the encroaching line of the storm, and I see lightning flickering in the distance. Caleb gives a sigh.
“Fucking storm,” he says under his breath. Then, “Here’s our pit stop. It’ll just take a minute.”
We’re pulling into a long driveway—although “driveway” feels like an almost luxurious term, given that it’s a dirt track with weeds growing up the middle and plenty of long grass along the sides. A low-slung white bungalow comes into view, all the windows covered with old-fashioned aluminum awnings. Several wooden outbuildings surround the house, gray and tired looking, and a gleaming twenty-year-old Cadillac nestles close to the house. A windmill spins in brisk, dizzy circles, and a couple of acres away, I see the slow nodding head of an oil drill.
“Is this your friend’s house?” I ask, wondering if this is pickle lady.
“Yep,” Caleb answers, throwing the truck into park and opening the door. Greta hops over his lap and is off like a shot, racing around the house like she’s being chased. “Mrs. Parry sometimes has ducks wandering up from her pond,” he says by way of explanation for Greta’s bolt for freedom, but I stop at Mrs. Parry.
Mrs. Parry?
Surely that can’t be the name of a lover—
The screen door of the house goes whirr-BANG as it opens and then slams shut behind an old woman in buttercup-yellow polyester pants and a white top with matching yellow flowers. Caleb gets out of the car and walks over to hug the woman—presumably Mrs. Parry—and gives her a kiss on the cheek. He’s so much taller than her shrunken frame that he has to bend down considerably to do it.
“Now, what’s this?” she asks, pulling away from him and eyeing me with some amusement as I climb carefully out of the truck and join them. “Caleb, have you found yourself a sweetheart?”
“Well, I—”
To my surprise, Caleb is stammering a little.
Mrs. Parry is already turning toward me and extending her hand. I take it and sense her approval of my firm grip. She makes no secret of how she appraises me, looking from my muddy flats all the way up to my lavender lipstick and windblown hair. She may be wearing a matching polyester set, but her eyes are still sharp, and I get the feeling not much gets past her.
I open my mouth to explain I’m just here to take pictures, but she interrupts me.
“She’s a good, sturdy one,” the woman says with a nod. “You and Ben did well.”
Sturdy? I want to give a huff at that, but then my brain catches on the name Ben. Who’s Ben? Why would she mention a Ben when she’s sizing me up for suitability as Caleb’s woman?
Also why am I even wondering this? Why am I even letting her talk about this when I am absolutely not Caleb’s woman, or this mysterious Ben’s?
“I’m Ireland Mills,” I say as our hands finally part. “I came out to take some pictures of Caleb’s farm for a client.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Parry says, and there’s a real look of disappointment on her face. Real enough that I forgive her for calling me sturdy. “Well, then. I guess you’ll still need some food, Caleb.”
“No, ma’am,” Caleb insists. “This morning, Mrs. Harthcock sent home more food than I know what to do with, and I—”
“Nonsense.” Mrs. Parry is already bustling back toward the house. “You and Ben are growing boys still.”
“—don’t even like pickles,” Caleb finishes his sentence in mumbled defeat as we watch Mrs. Parry disappear back inside. “You should see our pantry,” he says, looking over at me. “It’s filled with mason jars.”
“‘Our’ pantry?” I ask. “Is this the Ben she was talking about?”
“Yes. My roommate.” He looks like he wants to say more but doesn’t know what he should say. He looks…uncomfortable.
A thought clicks into place.
Oh.
I guess I’m too used to how things are back home in Kansas City, because I should have picked up on the clues earlier. Roommate might very well be what a hunky farmer calls his boyfriend out in the Kansas countryside.
I feel a retroactive rush of embarrassment at how much I’ve been privately lusting after him. And embarrassment on his behalf that Mrs. Parry thought I was his girlfriend.
“And the pickles and the computer,” I ask, looking for something to move me past this awkward realization. “That’s from another lady like Mrs. Parry?”
He seems relieved at the change of subject. So am I.
“That’s right. Mrs. Harthcock and Mrs. Parry got left all sorts of land when their husbands died. Some of it they sold, but the rest they rent out—to me.”
“So you farm their land?”
Caleb does this very attractive squint thing where he looks out over the Parry fields. It’s so unstudied and honest, and despite the roommate situation, something about it makes my toes curl in my flats, makes my belly clench low. There’s so much strength in it, so little fear of hard work and dirt, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s potent as hell.
“It’s a touch more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of it, yeah. I rent the land from them and farm it, since their kids aren’t interested in the business.”
“Is that what you’re here for right now?” I ask, nodding toward the house where we can see Mrs. Parry moving behind the windows. “Farm business?”
More squinting—this time at the storm. “I like to check on them before the big storms roll in. There’s a siren down in Holm,” he says, naming the nearest town about four miles off. “And another at the intersection of the county road and Highway 50. But they can be hard to hear if the wind really gets up, so I like to make sure they have their weather radios and flashlights and fresh batteries. Mrs. Parry has a basement, but Mrs. Harthcock only has a cellar, and she has trouble lifting the door sometimes, so I come by and open it for her. Just in case the storm gets serious.”
Misadventures of a Curvy Girl Page 2
