by Alison Kent
She couldn’t blame him, even while finding it impossible to believe she’d never heard any gossip floating through the hallways at school, or in the parking lot of the Dairy Barn after. Especially the way everyone in Crow Hill loved knowing the business of everyone else.
His revelation about his mother had Faith wondering the same thing Arwen had the other day at lunch—why hadn’t he arranged to unload that house? There couldn’t be anything there for him anymore—if there had ever been anything there for him at all. So why the obsession? Why not let it go? And why was she letting the things he’d told her get to her this way?
That one, out of all the questions swirling in her head, was easy to answer. Thinking about Casper’s high school years kept her from dwelling on what they’d done. His body, her body, their hands and mouths and tangled limbs.
She’d had sex, not a lot, and not often for a while, but enough to know what she liked, and she had no problem reaching that place on her own. But sex with Casper…
He’d caught her off guard, unprepared. She had no idea sex could be like that in the real world, without actors playing the parts, or authors creating the words, without fantasies.
She hadn’t thought herself naive. She and Arwen and Everly didn’t pull punches when talking about sex, or getting what they wanted from a clueless man. But what Casper had shown her…what he’d done with her, to her…
How was she supposed to process something so far removed from her experience? She was out of her league in such a huge way. Even in college, with Jeremy, and Jon—
No. She wasn’t going to go there. She cut off the thought, reaching for the distraction of the dust cloud coming toward her, and recognizing Casper’s big black dualie as the one causing the stir.
Her thoughts of the past keeping her heart in her throat, she slowed, pulled from the center of the road to the side to let him pass. But he didn’t pass, obviously recognizing her car, too, and braking a lot faster than she did. His wheels locked up and his truck slid dangerously close to her front door before he straightened to come alongside her.
They both waited for the air to clear before rolling down their windows. Casper was the first to speak. “If I’d known you were going to come back for more, I would’ve made sure to be here.”
She stuck out her tongue. “I was dropping off some price lists for Boone. For the party.”
“Boone doesn’t have any more money than I do. Just buy the cheapest booze and be done with it.”
“You are such a man.”
“And you like me that way.”
She did, but he didn’t have to know it. Or to know how conflicted she was about this thing they’d started. It couldn’t go anywhere. They were completely wrong for each other. She knew that. Surely he knew that, too. “If you say so.”
He stared at her for a minute, his mouth finally quirking before he glanced down the road, his profile beneath the brim of his hat all hard lines and stern focus. Or maybe avoidance. Or maybe he was trying to think of a way to talk to her now that there was more than money between them, now that the tension had become knowing and tightened because of it.
“Why don’t you come back to the house?” he finally asked, still looking straight ahead.
No. Not to the house. “I’ve just been there. I don’t have a reason to go back.”
“Right.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Don’t want to make the brother all suspicious and shit.”
She closed her eyes, opened them. “Casper—”
“It’s okay. I got it. Top secret. Lips sealed.”
Wait. Was he pouting? Had she hurt his feelings? “We could compromise.”
At that, he looked over. “How so?”
“Rather than me going back to the ranch, or you coming all the way back to town, we could both go to Fever Tree for supper. The Rainsong Cafe has an amazing—”
“—chicken fried steak. Yeah. I know.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Is that all we’re going to do? Eat?”
“We’re going to a restaurant. So, yes. We’re going to eat.”
He gave a nod as if thinking, then said, “Last I was through Fever Tree, I saw a sign for a bed-and-breakfast. We could get a room.”
Lots of Fever Tree residents banked in Crow Hill. She couldn’t take that chance. “Let’s start with supper,” she said, clenching her thighs as she thought about that bed-and-breakfast, about clean sheets on a big soft mattress. About the hair on Casper’s bare thighs. “We’ll see about dessert later.”
He was shaking his head, muttering beneath his breath, before saying, “You go on. I’ll get turned around here and be right behind you.”
Nodding, she pulled onto the road, watching in her rearview as he maneuvered his truck in a tricky three-point turn to follow. He bore down on her a lot faster than she’d expected, until the only thing she could see when she glanced into any of her mirrors was his truck, the big headlights, the row of amber fog lamps on top, the grill that seemed to be grinning like a devil. Or a fool.
She shivered, her blood racing beneath the surface of her skin, raising the tiny hairs at her nape and bringing her nipples to points. She pictured his mouth, the smirk there before he lowered his head to catch her between his teeth, to use his tongue to tease her, torture her. Arouse her unbearably.
Longing pulled at her with a sharp visceral tug, coiling in her belly and sending tendrils deeper to stir her lust until she was damp and ready. She told herself she wasn’t being stupid. Her eyes were wide open. But her nipples were hard, and her pussy was tingling, and all she could think of was his cock full and jutting and pushing into her mouth.
Still shivering, she parked, got out of her car, watched as he pulled in beside her, as he walked to the front of both vehicles and waited for her. They made their way to the door side by side, no hand holding, no arms around waists, no accidentally brushing against each other, no touching at all. Inside, Faith took the lead, requesting a quiet table for two from the hostess.
With Casper behind her, she followed the young woman who escorted them to a corner with a window looking onto the patio, where a tiered fountain bubbled and flowed. The sounds of bamboo and brass wind chimes filtered softly through the glass, and as they sat, Casper rolled his eyes.
He filled his chair and his side of the table, and she felt trapped by his size and his presence. The width of his chest and shoulders aside, there was something about the way he ignored the rest of the room, the way he waved off the menus and told the server what they wanted, the way he looked at her while doing it.
As if he saw through her. As if he saw everything.
“Well, you’ve got me here. Now what’re you going to do with me?”
“Eat dinner,” she said after clearing her hunger for him from her throat. “Talk.”
“Like a date, or something?”
“Or like friends. Eating dinner. Talking.”
“Is that what we are? Friends? Because my cock would beg to disagree,” he said, just as their server set her iced tea and Casper’s beer on the table.
Faith waited until the other woman had moved on before leaning toward him, her eyes narrowed. “Thank you. That was amazingly thoughtful.”
He laughed. “I thought you brought me here because no one we know would see us.”
“There’s less of a likelihood, yes. That doesn’t mean you have to be crass.”
“Right. I keep forgetting that’s what you think of me.”
“Good lord, Casper. It’s not like I pulled my opinion out of thin air. Listen to yourself.” She lowered her voice. “Most non-crass people don’t talk about their cocks in public, much less at the dinner table.”
“In your house, maybe.”
That put a stop to her reprimand. Not that he didn’t deserve it; he was a grown man and knew better. But the last thing she wanted to be was a nag. “You’ve got to know your experience growing up was not the norm.”
“Because my father beat me bloody with
whatever he had on hand?” he asked, holding his knife’s blade against the table. “Or because my mother was a whore?”
She swallowed, remembered the scar on his shoulder, wondered now if it wasn’t from a bull like she’d thought. “I didn’t know that about your father.”
He cocked his head, considered her. “First my mother. Now my father. And I’d thought you knew everything, the way you were always staring at me.”
She’d known enough to wonder what it would be like to be so reckless. To walk out of school in the middle of the day while teachers looked on. To drive like a bat out of hell. To pack a longneck for lunch.
She’d known enough to realize he was like no one else in her circle, and that if Boone hadn’t friended him…“I didn’t stare.”
“Oh, you stared. And I imagine when your hands slipped into your panties at night, you were thinking about me.”
Heat rose. “Again with the crass.”
He sat back. “Sorry. I didn’t get a lot of schooling. I barely got fed.”
He hadn’t meant to say it. She could tell by the way he closed up, his gaze going to his plate as their food was served, his mouth a grim line, his pulse a tic in the vein at his temple.
“Is that why the house is so important to you?” she asked once they were alone. “A reminder of how far you’ve come? That you made it out?”
He snorted, scraped his fork through his mashed potatoes. “Did I?”
“You’re here. That’s something.”
“Yeah, well. It’s just a house.”
“One you’re willing to dig yourself even deeper into debt over. Unless you’re hoping to flip it for a profit. Which might not be as impossible as you think,” she said, holding back the surprise of what she’d learned. No need to let him know she’d researched the structure’s history.
He sawed through a bite of his steak, scooped it through the gravy, shoved it into his mouth. “I don’t know what I want to do with it.”
“Except pour it full of money you don’t have,” she said, reaching for her iced tea.
“It doesn’t matter, does it? I don’t have the money, so the house will stand there until it doesn’t.”
“Have you thought about asking your mother why she dumped it on you?”
“Have I thought about my mother at all?” he asked, looking down at his food.
“Surely you have. Since the letter came about the house…”
He glanced up at that, one eyebrow arched. “Boone told you about the letter?”
“Do you know?” she asked, refusing to be distracted. “Why she dumped it on you?”
“Because she’s a stupid whore,” he said, and went back to eating.
She toyed with her squash casserole, then with her potatoes, finally taking a bite when she sensed him staring, though her appetite was long gone. “Seems strange to come out of nowhere like that. Giving it away instead of selling it for whatever she could get.”
“You’re talking about my mother, Faith. She doesn’t deal with anything that inconveniences her.”
“Like you?”
“Yep. Mama’s Big Inconvenience. I should’ve had a T-shirt made.”
Then, because she wanted to know, and because she’d never heard from anyone what happened, she asked, “Do you know where your father is?”
He shook his head. “I don’t even know if he’s alive. Hell, I don’t even know if the man who was around when I was a kid is my father.”
“When did he leave?”
“Not long after we got here. Two of ’em had a big row one night after he came home shit-faced. He threw a wad of papers at her and said, ‘Here’s the house, you bitch. Now get the fuck outta my head.’ Never saw him again.”
“So it was your father, or…whoever he was…who owned the house?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I guess so.”
“Hmm.”
“Faith?”
She looked up.
“Why are you so interested in my house?”
“Just wondering what you might know about it,” she said with a shrug, taking a bite of steak.
“Seems to me you’d know more, being born here and all.” He finished off his potatoes. “Who lived in it before we moved to Crow Hill?”
“I don’t remember anyone ever living there, though I suppose someone could have.”
Casper shrugged. “It was empty when we got here. It needed some work, but it was livable.”
“But the work never got done.”
“Nope. And pretty soon it wasn’t worth living in.”
“But you stayed.”
A grin pulled up one corner of his mouth. “I stayed because Boone and Dax threatened to hunt me down, tie me up, and take an emasculator to my nuts if I left without a diploma.”
Gross. “And here all this time I thought you were the troublemaker. Out of the three of y’all, I mean.”
“I’ve been known to cause a bit.”
“A bit? Is that what you call it?”
“Boone did chase me down with an ax a few weeks back.”
She gasped. “What? Why in the world?”
His forearms against the edge of the table, he leaned toward her. “Because I said something about having a thing for your ass.”
“Oh, my God,” she croaked out, her eyes going wide. “You did not.”
“I don’t remember the particulars,” he said, still grinning. “But close enough.”
“Did he hurt you?” It was a ridiculous question. Boone wouldn’t hurt a fly.
He held his arms out to the side. “Did you find any recent injuries?”
Heat spread from her chest to her neck, and it took every bit of her self-control to keep from lifting a hand to hide her reaction. Especially since her fingers had run across a lot of scars she’d wanted to ask him about. “It was dark—”
“It wasn’t that dark. And the fridge light lit up the kitchen like the sun. And your busy little hands would’ve found anything there was to find.”
“Busy little hands?”
He gave her a wink, then said, “I like ’em,” which had her rolling her eyes. “What?” he asked, feigning insult. “I’m being serious here. I like your hands. And I do have a thing for your ass.”
“Casper—”
“Hey,” he said. “This was before the kitchen mambo. I’m not breathing a word. I’m afraid I’ll never get in your panties again if he knows I was there in the first place.”
Honestly. She was about to give up, but first…“Here’s the thing. It was hard, really hard, on my folks when Boone left after high school.”
“What about on you?” he asked, as if only her hurt mattered.
“Me, too. I missed him. A lot.”
“You saw him, though. He came home. He told me about the family holidays. That they weren’t to be missed.”
“Seeing him two or three times a year is nothing to having him here all the time.”
“Even if you rarely see him now?”
“I’ve seen him twice this week already.” She knew what he was getting at. “But, yes, it’s fine not seeing him. Having him here is what counts.”
He sat back, head shaking, a bit of a sneer drawing at his mouth. “I don’t get that. I’ll never get that. But if it works for you…”
“It does,” she said with a nod, placing her napkin beside her plate, saddened by the truth of what Casper thought family was. “You hung with him in high school. You know what it was like around our house.”
“It was loud. That much I remember. All that yelling going on.”
“Yelling? Are you kidding me?”
“What would you call it? Using your outside voice inside?”
She laughed. “Well, yes. But I get what you’re saying. We put on a good front, but no Mitchell I know would ever claim to be reserved.”
“Is that why you wear those tight-assed suits? Proving you’re reserved and respectable?” he asked. Then he managed to drop his voice to add, “Because it’s not much
of a disguise.”
“Oh, my God. You cannot have a conversation without it turning to sex, can you?”
“Sex is good. I like sex. I know sex.”
But he didn’t know families. Normal relationships. Ones built on trust and loyalty and emotions that weren’t dependent on physical intimacy to work. She gave it to him straight. “If you and I being together hurts Boone in anyway, you and I can’t be together. At all. Ever.”
“That’s kinda harsh.”
“That’s the reality. I don’t think Boone’s that uptight, but I need to put that out there. I can’t have what I’m doing with you cause trouble at the ranch so that he would think of leaving again. I can’t do that to my parents. That’s the bottom line.”
He weighed her terms, his mouth a grim line, his eyes stony beneath his furrowed brow. “Then we don’t say a word to anyone. Either of us. No Arwen. No Everly. No Dax. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said, disbelieving it would ever be that easy.
“Okay. Let’s go,” he said, getting to his feet and tossing a handful of bills on the table.
“There’s a register up front,” she said, nodding that way.
“They’ll figure it out,” he told her, taking her by the arm and guiding her to the door.
The sun was just hovering over the horizon, the heat still stifling, but the sky a gorgeous mix of Kool-Aid orange and red. She’d kept on her suit jacket while eating—the restaurant had their a/c set to arctic—but shrugged out of it now as they crossed the hot asphalt, the sharp, pitchy scent reminding her of family trips to Six Flags and the suffocating steam that rose from the ground.
Before she could find her sunglasses in her purse, Casper pulled her between their vehicles, but instead of reaching for her door, he backed her into it, spread her legs with his knee, and reached between them, leaning to nuzzle his face to her neck. He smelled like beer and like dinner and like dried sweat from a day spent outdoors. And he was intent on having his way.
“What are you doing?” And why wasn’t she making any effort to stop him?
“If I have to explain it, then I’m obviously not doing it right,” he said, his upper body pinning hers to her car door as his hands gathered the fabric of her skirt to her hips. “And what the fuck with the pantyhose?”
