The Hog-Tied Groom (The Brides of Grazer's Corners #3)

by Charlotte Maclay

  “WAY COOL, MOM.” Grinning, Donnie was flat on his back, spread-eagled on the big bed he’d chosen for his own. He waved his outstretched arms up and down as if he were making a snow angel on the elegant handmade quilt. “Wait till Shaun hears about this.”

  “You aren’t going to get lost in there, are you?” Charity asked.

  “Uh-uh. There’s even lots of room for—” Tensing, he shot a troubled glance at Garrett.

  Realizing what her son was thinking, Charity said, “Donnie has a special friend named Bob-Bob, who nobody else can see. Bob-Bob sometimes gets into mischief and tries to blame Donnie, but usually he’s well behaved. As long as he doesn’t get too wild, we kind of like to have him around. If you don’t mind.” She gave Garrett an imploring look.

  The corners of Garrett’s lips kicked up. He shrugged. “Hey, I had a friend like that. I called him—” a thoughtful frown lowered his brows “—Arnold? No, Arnie! I remember. Man, that guy used to get me into so much trouble. Donnie, you tell your buddy if he’s square with us he can stick around as long as he likes.”

  Donnie visibly relaxed, hopping up off the bed to explore the rest of the room. “It’s okay,” he said, peering into the walk-in closet. “I’ve almost outgrown Bob-Bob anyways.”

  Charity could have kissed Garrett. Her son’s imaginary friend had been a bone of contention with Bud, who’d never had a need for anything except tools and tractors and engines to take apart. In contrast, Charity had expressed her creativity with a paintbrush—until reality had set in and she’d had to find a way to support her child.

  “Come on, you guys,” Garrett said. His hand brushed across the back of Charity’s shoulders in an invitation. “I got us Chinese takeout for dinner. It’s keeping warm in the oven. We mess around much longer, and the cardboard cartons are gonna be charcoal.”

  IN THE KITCHEN, Garrett used a couple of old hot pads to haul the cartons of chow mein and sweet-and-sour pork out of the oven and placed them on the table with the other containers. His nerves were jumping and knotting in his gut. They always did that before a big game. An important game. He’d hang out in the locker room, sweating, trying to look confident, plays running through his head. Strategies.

  The game plan he needed now wasn’t in any playbook. At least not any he had read.

  Damn, he wasn’t even sure what would constitute a win in this case. Simply getting Charity into his bed would seem like a shallow victory—though he wanted that more than he’d wanted a woman since that first time they’d made love at the lake. The only time.

  He eyed Donnie, who was kneeling on his chair at the table peering into the food cartons. The timing of that lake picnic was just about perfect....

  “Where are the plates?” Charity asked.

  He jumped. “To the right of the sink,” he answered. She’d never returned his calls eight years ago. Why the hell not?

  “Can we use chopsticks, Mom?”

  “If Garrett doesn’t mind if half your dinner ends up on the floor.” She shot Garrett a smile that made his knees go weak.

  She’s here now.

  “No problem,” he said. “If the mess gets too deep, we’ll shovel it out like the pig parlor.”

  “Yeah, Mom. Or we can squirt a hose in here ‘n’ wash the glop out the back door.”

  “Wonderful.” Laughing, she rolled her eyes. “I can see I’m outnumbered when it comes to domestic talents. Next thing I know, you’ll want me to stand you both in a checkers game.”

  “You’d lose, Mom. Garrett’s almost as good as me.”

  As she placed the plates on the table, she met his gaze. Warm brown eyes a man could happily drown in. Eyes that offered love to a man who could find the key to her heart.

  He suddenly, desperately wanted to be that man.

  “Not an ounce of modesty there,” she said softly. “Must run in his genes.”

  Charity’s genes? Or his own? Garrett wondered.

  “You’ve always seemed pretty modest about your accomplisbments.” He scooped out a spoonful of chicken chow mein for Donnie, then served Charity as she sat down opposite him, next to her son. The kitchen table might be oak but it was so scarred from years of use, it was nothing to write home about. But sitting here with Charity and her son, it felt like home.

  “I’ve never had much of anything to brag about,” she said, serving herself from the carton of sweet and sour. “Except for Donnie.” She sent her son a loving look, watching as he struggled to master even one bite of food with his chopsticks. “I never even graduated from high school.”

  “You didn’t?” That shocked the hell out of Garrett.

  Donnie piped up. “I’m gonna go to college on a soccer scholarship and then I’m gonna be an astronaut.” His efforts with his chopsticks suggested his small-muscle coordination wasn’t yet fully developed.

  “I missed most of my senior year,” Charity said. “I got my GED instead.”

  Now, why had she done that? Garrett wondered. She was smart. He recalled she’d been thinking of going to an art college. No reason why she should have dropped out of school.

  Slowly, his chopsticks in mid-flight, his gaze slid to Donnie. Except to have a baby.

  “My grandfather had a stroke at the beginning of my senior year,” she continued, distracting him from the thought. “Grandma was having an awful time trying to take care of him and keep up with the farmwork, too. Plus pay the bills.” She expertly snared a piece of pork with her chopsticks. “So I stayed home.”

  “Bud couldn’t help out?”

  “He was at Cal Poly. We didn’t want him to miss out on his education.”

  “But it was okay for you to quit school?” he asked, astonished at such a sexist attitude that had a woman dropping out of high school while her brother kept working toward his college degree.

  “It was the right thing to do. Bud had to drop out later anyway. At least he finished three years, and that helped him get the job at the factory.”

  Oh, man, there was something going on here she wasn’t telling him. And what she had told him was gnawing away at him. Her sacrifices. The burdens she’d carried.

  God, had it been his fault? Guilt burrowed into his gut.

  The overhead lights cast provocative shadows across Charity’s face, highlighting the sculpted shape of her cheeks, her straight nose, the strong shape of her jaw. She had her hair pulled back and braided, as though she was determined to control the flyaway curls...and had failed. They feathered her cheeks, softening her features and making her look ever more feminine. Appealing.

  She was wearing a short T-top that edged up from her jeans when she moved, revealing a line of tanned flesh at her midriff. Her skin looked as soft and inviting as satin sheets, and that’s exactly where she ought to be. On his satin sheets—if he had any.

  Garrett could hardly keep his eyes off of her.

  And with a fair amount of masculine satisfaction, he noted her glances toward him. Interested glances, sometimes beneath her golden brown, lowered lashes. Looks that set his libido on edge. On fire. Strictly business, hell!

  Never in his life had he been so far from thinking about business. The roof could cave in and he wouldn’t notice. He only had eyes for Charity.

  His pulse moved restlessly at his temple—and throbbed painfully far lower in his body. He was alternately hot and cold, an adolescent on the make. Sweat formed on the ridge of his back. Swallowing became an act of sheer willpower.

  “What are these things?” Donnie asked, holding up a bean sprout between his chopsticks.

  “White worms,” Garrett answered. “They make your muscles grow.”

  “Hey, neat,” the boy said. He plopped one into his mouth.

  Charity’s smile brought a sparkle to her eyes that was as bright as the floodlights in the old Jack Murphy Stadium. And all that candlepower was meant for him.

  Little wonder he had trouble getting through dinner and the cleanup that followed. Or that he lost two checkers games to Donnie in r
ecord time. He had a lot of other things on his mind. Strictly business wasn’t one of them.

  CHARITY RETURNED from upstairs after putting Donnie to bed. She found Garrett pacing the living room, looking like a caged animal. Tension radiated from him with each long-legged stride, mirroring the anticipation that hummed through her like electricity through high-voltage power lines. Barefoot, he was wearing running shorts and a 49ers T-shirt. His muscular legs, covered with a thatch of blond hair, flexed with each step he took; a curved purple scar on his left knee marked his recent surgery. She ached with sympathy that the small flaw could spell the end of the career he’d worked so hard to achieve.

  He turned when she entered the room. “Donnie all set?”

  “He’s fine. He’s very excited to be here.” So was she, though she wasn’t all that sure her nerves would hold out. “You didn’t have to arrange dinner for us. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  He shrugged. “I hate to eat alone.”

  “Hmm.” She couldn’t recall the last time she’d eaten alone. There’d always been Bud and Donnie, at one time her grandparents, too.

  Shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she felt at loose ends, not knowing quite what to say or do.

  “You want to sit outside?” he asked. “There’s a swing on the porch.”

  “You don’t have to entertain me, Garrett. I’m a tenant, remember?”

  “I could use the company.” His direct gaze did something wild and hot to her midsection. Something very nearly irresistible.

  Fresh air sounded like a timely idea. Her lungs kept seizing; her heart beat erratically as though she were running uphill in the high Sierras and starved for oxygen. Feeling light-headed, she pressed out through the screen door and drew a deep breath. It did little to settle her nerves. Would he make love to her tonight? Should she be the aggressor? Or wait for him to make a move? Assuming he even wanted to. And her nerve didn’t fail her.

  A warm evening breeze rustled the leaves of a poplar tree in the front yard and carried with it the scent of roses and freshly mowed grass. Crickets were tuning up their instruments in search of romance. In the distance, there was a car heading toward the highway.

  The light from the living room cast Garrett’s shadow across the porch as he followed her outside. Big and tall and larger than life. Dominating the outdoors as he had the space inside the house.

  She sat on the swing and started it moving with a shove of her sandal. Her fingers twisted in her lap.

  “I hope I’m not cramping your style by moving in on you.” In spite of the nervous tightening of her throat, her voice remained calm, not disturbing the silence.

  He leaned his hips against the porch railing, his hand resting on one of the posts. “My style?”

  “You have a reputation with the ladies. If you ever need privacy—”

  “Being a quarterback tends to draw a crowd, including women,” he admitted. “They vanish just as fast when you’re down on your luck.”

  “Do you miss them?”

  In the dim light, she saw the quick flash of his smile. “I prefer my current company, thanks.”

  Her heart took another stuttering beat, and she pushed a little harder with her foot. The chains creaked. Lights were on in the houses up and down the block, but little sound escaped. Several cars were parked along the curb beneath the old oak trees that lined the street.

  Garrett shoved away from the railing and crossed the porch to sit next to Charity. His weight tilted the swing and set it rocking again.

  “After that night at the lake, why didn’t you return my phone calls?”

  Her thoughts slid back to that night so long ago, the way he had held her, kissed her, made love to her, her uninhibited response to everything that had happened between them. “I was embarrassed about what I’d done,” she answered honestly. “You were a big man on campus—a college campus, not even just high school—and I was a kid. I felt like I’d made a fool of myself.”

  “You hadn’t. I wanted you to know that before I went back to school. I wanted to see you again.”

  A band tightened around her chest. “I was afraid you thought I was a tramp. I mean, I hardly knew you and still I let you—”

  “I knew you weren’t easy, Charity. I’d seen you around town.”

  “You had?”

  “That summer you were working at Harmon’s Department Store in the men’s department. I came in looking for a jockstrap and you were the only one who was around. You blushed like crazy when you sold it to me.”

  Chuckling softly, she blushed again and probably even more brightly than she had as a seventeen-year-old. She’d been such a fool, stammering as she’d asked him what size he needed. Later that summer, she’d found out if there’d been a choice, large would have been the answer. “I remember. I think you blushed, too.”

  “Naw. Jocks aren’t allowed. It’s in the contract we sign when we get our first Nerf ball.”

  In spite of herself, she smiled. “You’re more than a jock, you know.”

  His arm slid around the back of the swing, his fingers idly sculpting the curve of her shoulder. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “You graduated from college and were an Academic All-American. That’s nothing to sneeze at.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  She shrugged. “The Grazer Gazette made a big deal about it.”

  “Oh, yeah. Dad sent me the clipping.” He leaned toward her to brush a kiss to her temple.

  Heated goose bumps sped down her spine. “Garrett...”

  “Yes, cinnamon girl.” The raspy thickness in his voice sent a coil of desire right to her midsection. “Tell me what you want.” His lips brushed her temple again, his fingers stroked the column of her neck.

  She wanted him—Garrett—the man she’d loved for as long as she could remember. But after all these years of denying her feelings, did she have the nerve to grab the golden ring, particularly when she doubted she’d be able to hold on to it for long? Not if he got picked up by another football team. Not if someone as beautiful and sexy as Hailey came along. Not if Douglas Keeley found out.

  A bright light and feminine laughter from the neighbor’s house across the street saved her from answering those questions. And drove every ounce of courage from her soul. Apparently a meeting of the Grazer’s Corners Reading Club was just breaking up, and Agatha Flintstone and a number of other notable ladies of the community were leaving for home.

  Charity shot to her feet like a spring in the old swing had goosed her. She and Garrett might as well have taken out an ad in the Gazette; the whole town would know by morning that she’d been spotted at his house.

  “I’d better turn in. Donnie’s an early riser.” The words spilled out breathlessly. “He’s got a soccer game tomorrow, and I’m supposed to bring the oranges for the halftime snack.”

  “Really? I’d like to see him play. Mind if I come along?”

  “No, that’d be fine.” She backed toward the door. Dear Lord, it was getting harder and harder not to blurt out the truth, that Garrett was Donnie’s father. A truth Charity could never dare admit. “He’d like that, I’m sure.”

  Like a coward, she fled into the house and up the stairs to her room. What on earth had she been thinking? She wasn’t the kind of woman who simply moved in with a man—slept with him. Bud had been right. She didn’t want to be the talk of the town. She’d gone through that once, when she’d been pregnant and unmarried.

  Now she had her son to worry about.

  But how could she go home and endure the passionate duet that went on in the very next room?

  How could she deny herself the chance to be in Garrett’s arms again, if only for a little while?

  GARRETT STOOD on the front porch, listening to the women departing across the street, and wondering what the hell had gone wrong. Something about his sex appeal must be sorely lacking these days. His bride had walked out on him, and Charity, who he knew damn well was attracted to hi
m, had given him another brush-off.

  He’d heard her quick intake of air when he’d kissed her. She’d been affected, dammit! Though not nearly as much as he’d been by what had only been a hint of a kiss. He still wouldn’t want to go anywhere where the lights were bright, not while his jogging shorts were stretched out in proof of how much she affected him.

  No woman had ever confused him as much as Charity did, either. She’d slept with him once—a long time ago; now she’d moved in with him, albeit as a boarder. But she backpedaled whenever he pressed too hard. Which ought to give him a clue.

  Patience had never been Garrett’s long suit. Clenching his teeth, he decided he’d have to give her some space and a little time. Not much, he thought grimly. He couldn’t stay on this erotic roller coaster too long or he’d explode.

  CHARITY WALKED across the school grounds toward the grassy field that had been marked off for soccer, goals placed at either end. Donnie, as usual, had run on ahead to join his teammates. Sauntering beside her, wearing walking shorts and a T-shirt that showed off his well-defined physique, Garrett looked for all the world like a proud father who’d come to see his son play.

  Except he was still in the dark that Donnie actually was his son.

  Lord, Charity hated that she’d been forced to lie—not only to Garrett but to her son, as well. So far Donnie hadn’t asked too many questions about his father. But some day he would.

  The sun was already warm, and Charity began to sweat. What tangled webs we mortals weave, she thought bleakly.

  “Why don’t you find a spot for us over there on the sideline?” she suggested to Garrett, who was carrying folding lawn chairs for them both. “I’ll take the oranges to the team mother.”

  “You got it.” With an easy stride, he veered in that direction.

  She headed for the group of mothers who had gathered off to the side of the midfield line where the ice chest and equipment bag had been left. The ladies were chatting with a good deal of animation, and their laughter filled the air.