Something flickered in Will’s gaze. Something that told her he knew more than indicated by his noncommittal, “Things go wrong all the time.”
“Will,” Jessie asked, “how would you like a cup of coffee?”
His mouth twitched at the corners as he cocked his head to the side. “You plan on bribing me for information?”
“Is there a chance it will work?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“You got any of those doughnuts left over from breakfast?”
“Yup.”
“Then I’d say there’s a fair to middlin’ chance of success.” With a flip of his wrist, he tossed his hat onto a hook in the wall.
The feat never ceased to amaze Jessie. “You know, one of these days, you’re going to let me in on the secret of how you do that.”
The smile in his eyes deepened as he strolled to the counter. “It’s a gift.”
“Uh-huh.”
He poured two cups of coffee and sat down at the table. Taking a sip, he raised an eyebrow at her as she stood. It was a purely masculine move and she was struck anew just how attractive a man Will was. And that aura of competence he radiated just added to his appeal, backing his rugged good looks with an invite to trust.
“Just give me a second to clean up here, and I’ll be right with you.”
She put the chicken wings in the refrigerator. Slipping on some rubber gloves, she washed up the few utensils she’d used, and the cutting board. The gloves came off with a decisive snap as she grabbed the container of doughnuts from the cupboard. At last, she was going to get some answers. Will snatched a doughnut as soon as she put the container on the table.
“So why has Mac decided I’m suddenly incompetent?”
She had to wait until he finished the first bite for his response, and then it was an annoying evasion.
“What makes you think he feels that?”
“The fact that he won’t talk to me about anything.”
Will’s eyebrows rose again. “Like what?”
“Like what killed that cow two days ago.”
Will demolished the rest of his doughnut and took a sip of coffee. “Any one of a number of things could have killed that cow, none of them anything to get upset about.”
She resisted the urge to kick his shins under the table. She added cream and sugar to her coffee in an effort to make it palatable. “But there’s something about how this one died that has Mac upset.”
Will’s eyelids flickered, and his smile took on a tight edge as he reached for another doughnut.
“And you too, apparently,” she added.
He paused and then grabbed the doughnut. “Mac said you were observant.”
“So why do you all continue to treat me as if I were dumb?”
“Probably an effort not to worry you.”
“What if I like to be worried?”
“Then I’d say you were the perverse sort.”
She shrugged and stirred her coffee. “Or maybe just concerned?”
“Maybe.”
“So what’s killing the cows?”
Will shrugged. “Don’t know yet.”
“What does Mac think is killing the cows?”
“Why don’t you ask him that?”
“Because he won’t tell me.”
“Why not?”
“Because he has this strange idea in his head that it isn’t something I should be concerned with.” The bottom of her cup hit the table with a clunk.
“And you don’t agree with him?”
“No. I don’t. Since he expects me to share everything with him, the reverse should hold true.”
“Have you told him that?”
“Yes.”
Will chuckled. “Didn’t get anywhere, did you?”
“No. He keeps distracting me.”
“Now, that doesn’t surprise me.”
It had surprised Jessie. She’d never thought she’d be the type who could be seduced off course, but apparently, she was. And the smile in Will’s eyes let her know he guessed the reason behind her red cheeks.
“Well,” she huffed on the defensive where before she’d been prepared to attack, “It’s not my fault the man’s so determined to get what he wants.”
“Seems to me you could match him for stubborn. Maybe even teach him a few new inflections to put to the word.”
Jessie slouched back in her chair. “It’s disgusting, isn’t it? Here I am, a modern woman. Intelligent, capable, and all that man has to do is whisper sweet nothings in my ear, and I put off a perfectly reasonable discussion in favor of…other things.” She blew a hair off her hot face. “Single-handedly, I’ve probably put the woman’s movement back fifty years.”
“Now, that might be an exaggeration.”
“Only might?”
“Well, you have been remarkably docile of late.”
Jessie shuddered and reached for her cup. “Perish the thought.”
Will grabbed a doughnut hole and popped it into his mouth. He chewed slowly, making Jessie wait for the advice she knew was coming. “So, you about ready to come out of your haze?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Oh.”
She grimaced as Will went back to his munching. “That ‘I’m not sure’ was rhetorical.”
Will grinned. A slow, masculine “someone’s in trouble” grin. Getting information out of these men was like pulling teeth. Jessie flopped back in her chair. “So, are you going to tell me what’s up with these cows, or what?”
“Or what.”
“Why are you all dancing around this?”
Will swallowed. “Well, for my part, since I’m not the one you should be asking, I don’t think I’m the one who should be answering.”
Since she didn’t think a “been there, done that” comment would impress Will, she settled for the truth.
“I’m asking you because as of yet, I haven’t convinced Mac that a relationship means sharing the good as well as the bad.”
Will brushed off his hands. “But word is you’re planning on marrying the man.”
“He says he’s keeping me.” She ran her finger around the rim of her stoneware mug. “Not quite sure that’s the same thing.”
Will’s grin was a quick flash of white. “Oh yeah. That’s the same.”
She met his gaze squarely. “Then I guess I’m going to have to change his mind about how relationships work.”
“You think you can do that?”
“I have every confidence in Mac’s ability to see reason.”
He put his cup carefully on the table, all trace of amusement gone. “That might take a lot of convincing.”
Jessie shot him a startled glance. “And here I thought I was imagining his being overprotective.”
“Nope. He’s all set to wrap you in a nice warm place where nothing bad can ever hurt you.”
She shuddered. “God forbid!”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Not your style?”
“No way.” She’d spent too many years losing her life doing the right thing. She didn’t begrudge one moment of the time she’d spent caring for her mother, but she wasn’t going to lose anymore of her life for any reason. All she said to Will, however, was, “Too boring.”
“But safe,” Will elaborated. “And to Mac, keeping his loved ones safe is everything.”
“Well…” Jessie took a sip of her coffee, grimacing at the taste. No matter how much she diluted the stuff, it still tasted like mud. “Playing it safe isn’t particularly my strong suit.”
“No, it isn’t.” Will shrugged. “And therein lies the problem because you scare the pants off Mac.”
“Because I like to have fun?”
“Because you are willing to take chances in pursuit of fun, and it’s going to drive that boy crazy if he doesn’t get a handle on how he feels about that.”
“I’m not mindless about it.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Jessie ran her finge
r around the rim of her cup, noticed her nail polish was chipped and pointed out, “I’d bake a cheesecake for the man who can tell me why ‘safe’ is so all-important to him.”
“With sour cream icing?”
“With sour cream icing.”
“I suppose I can reveal a few secrets for that kind of bribe.”
Jessie shook her head and smiled ruefully. “Especially as you were planning on it anyway?”
Will smiled back. “Does make it a lot easier.”
She didn’t take offense. She’d bake five cheesecakes to get the kind of answers she needed.
“Mac’s childhood wasn’t easy. It was pretty tough, as a matter of fact. His mom was always drifting in and out of reality on him and his dad blamed it all on the fact that she came from the city.”
“From the bits Mac has revealed, it sounds like she might have suffered from depression.”
“Well, nobody called it that, but I would say so. She would swing from crazy happy to soul deep sad. Never knew which way the wind was going to blow in that house.” He took a drink from his cup. “Mac’s father tried to stay home more, but times were tough, cattle prices were down, and he had to take on a second job just to make ends meet.”
“Did she go to a doctor?”
Will snorted. “Sure she did. Jake, Mac’s father insisted she go, but the damn fool quack told her to focus on her family and gave her a prescription that made sure she couldn’t focus on anything.”
“What happened?”
“Well, Mac was always the responsible sort. Since his brother was already off to college, he tried to step in.”
Jessie could imagine that. Mac had a tendency to think he could organize the world. “It didn’t help?”
Will sighed. “Nope. His helping just made it worse. Seemed like every responsibility he took over freed up more of his mother’s time to either brood or celebrate.”
The finality in Will’s tone sent a shiver down Jessie’s spine. “How did it end?”
“Mac came home from school one day and found his mom hanging from a rafter in the barn.”
“Oh my God!”
Will caught her cup before it dropped from her nerveless fingers.
“That was about the reaction of the town.”
Jessie took the cup from his hand. “Thank you.”
In her mind, she pictured the scene. She’d lost a parent of her own under traumatic circumstances. It wasn’t something a person forgot. And her mother’s death had been from disease. She couldn’t imagine coming home to find her mother dead by her own hand. She placed the cup on the table. It rattled with the shakiness of her grip.
“There’s a reason for my telling you this,” Will interrupted her thoughts.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the reason was. “You want me to go easy on him.”
“Hell no!” Will’s cup thumped down on the table. She jumped, her gaze bouncing from his cup to his face. “I want you to come down on that boy like flies on—” He cleared his throat. “I want you to come down on that boy. It’s time he understands that the past isn’t the only way things can go.”
His big hand touched hers, steadying her as he told her, “He needs to understand you’re not her.”
Oh yes, Mac definitely needed to understand that, but should she confront him over it or let him come to that knowledge on his own?
She took her cup to the sink. “Mac will probably figure that out for himself.” Will’s snort of disbelief was not encouraging.
She turned around and leaned back against the sink and confronted Will, who was leaning back in his chair looking at her with pity.
“You don’t think he will? You’re saying he’s unreasonable?”
“I’m saying he’s determined to make you happy and keep you safe which means, unless you’re willing to keep stepping aside while he manages your life away to one monotonous day after another…” He paused and raised his brows.
No. She wasn’t willing to do that. She shook her head.
He nodded. “Then you need to do something.”
She braced her hands on the counter. “Maybe all Mac needs is a little time.”
Will pursed his lips, sucked in a breath and let it out slowly before asking her, “How much time do you think you’ve got left to give him?”
“I can give Mac all the time he needs.”
He was shaking his head before she finished the sentence. “You’re fooling yourself, Jessie.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” she squeezed the counter with her hands. “I don’t think so.”
“Then how come you’re standing in this kitchen at ten o’clock in the morning with the sun shining outside, talking to an old man?”
She rolled her eyes. Old man, her ass.On a testosterone scale from one to ten, Will would register an eleven. “Because I happen to like the ‘old’ man?”
“Is that it?” Will got up and headed for the back door. He paused at the threshold, grabbed his hat and settled it on his head. The brim shadowed his eyes, but nothing could hide the foreboding in his question as he looked at her and asked, “Or hasn’t Mac left you any alternative?”
* * * * *
He wasn’t going to leave her an alternative. Jessie could tell the minute Mac came though the bedroom door at eight fifty-nine that evening. There was an aura of unease surrounding the man that she just couldn’t ignore any longer. Unease mixed with determination. Nope. He definitely needed an attitude adjustment. As he paused in the doorway, she shifted on the bed and ran her foot up her leg, causing her silk nightgown to slide up her thighs. She had Mac’s immediate attention.
He held up the small pile of chocolate kisses in his hand. “Were you afraid I’d get lost?”
She smiled, parting her thighs, giving him a glimpse of her shaved pussy and her well-greased anus. An anus that ached for his possession, but though he’d teased her with toys and plugs, he had yet to let her experience his cock. And she was dying for it. As per his instructions, she kept herself ready, but he never took her up on her constant offer.
She chuckled. “Just wanted to be sure that you got here with all possible speed.”
Mac stopped dead, as that chuckle wove its way through his system, tapping into his pulse rate, kicking it up an extra three beats a minute as he moved toward the bed. Her little pussy with its mouthwateringly plump outer lips was pure temptation. Her ass cheeks below glistened with lube. As he watched, Jessie reached down with her good arm and pulled the right cheek away, letting him see the small rosy opening he coveted, shiny and eager, slightly reddened and swollen, letting him know she’d worn the plug as ordered. His cock surged to erection, stretching down his thigh, aching with want.
Oh, how he wanted. He wanted that firm little ass under his hips, hot and tingling from its spanking. He wanted to fuck that ass. Deep and hard. Make it his. He wanted the acceptance that came from a woman offering her man that ultimate trust. He wanted her cries as he took her. All of them. The uncertain ones and the joyous ones that would come as his hard cock won the battle and sank into that dark, tight channel for the first time. He wanted it like Hell on fire and he was about done waiting. He unwrapped a kiss as he reached the bed. Jessie stopped him from popping it into his mouth with a shake of her head.
“What?”
“You can either eat that kiss or trade it in on an original.”
“A Jessie original?”
“Uh-hmm.”
He dropped the kiss on the table. He leaned over her as she lay back and linked her arms around his neck, taking him with her.
“I love the way you smell,” she murmured, burying her nose in his neck. “Pure heaven with a touch of soap.”
“You don’t smell so bad yourself.” He levered his body over hers. “Warm, willing woman, spiced with,” he sniffed and smiled, “cinnamon.”
He worked two fingers into her ass as his mouth came over hers. Her cry of surprise echoed against his lips. D
amn. She was still tight. He only made it to the first knuckle before he had to stop. “Relax, honey girl.”
He sucked her tongue into his mouth, playing with it as she flexed around him. Then with a sigh, she eased.
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