But I was still freaking hard; Visions of Bette kept flashing in my head.
Chapter 39
Hope
I was nervous about seeing Eric tomorrow. Nothing like nerves to get you caught up on the house cleaning you’ve been putting off.
I started with washing the dishes, then moved on to starting a load of laundry, and then vacuuming, mopping the kitchen and bathrooms, scrubbing the toilets, cleaning the inside of the stove…
I was just about to open my tax filing cabinet and start sifting through the receipts I hadn’t intended to even look at until late April—I’m a file-an-extension kind of girl—when there was a knock at my front door.
Thank god.
I’d pulled my hair up into a ponytail. Somehow I’d avoided getting covered in stains as I cleaned, so I slipped on a pair of sandals and made my way to answer the door. I had the front door open, letting the summer afternoon wind blow in through the screen door.
Jake stood on my porch, dressed in his Wal-Mart work shirt—just like when I’d met him a few weeks ago—and holding a brown paper bag.
I sighed, and tried not to smile.
I was instantly starving, and whether I should or not, Jake was the person I most wanted to share a meal with at the moment.
But there was a question in the air—why was he here again? Hadn’t he had enough of me already?
I’d like to say that I would never do anything stupid again, that I would never lose him out of sheer stupidity… but I was a realist, and I’d been doing the stupid thing ever since I could remember.
If I’d been smart I would have gone to Texas State or Baylor University, gotten an accounting or nursing degree and gotten married right after.
I might have had a growing family by now. There were plenty in my graduating class who already had families growing.
I pushed these thoughts out of my head. I didn’t have a future with Jake. But I did have right now, and right now had a gorgeous man standing on my front porch with a bag of food.
And it smelled pretty good too.
I didn’t recognize the bag, so I was pretty sure whatever it was in Jake’s hand was a new experience for me.
I opened the screen door and Jake’s handsome got that much stronger.
He had smudges of grease on his work shirt, on his arms, and a smudge on his right temple.
How could anyone be so dirty yet so goddamn sexy?
“What’cha got in the bag?” I asked.
He smiled. “Come out on the porch, little girl, and I’ll show you.”
I got a full body shiver when he said little girl.
Damn…
I took a surreptitious glance to the left, and then to the right, and then squinted at him meaningfully. “I don’t know. Things start getting dangerous when we start talking on my porch.”
He rolled his eyes at me!
I was about to reach out and steal the paper sack of food out of his hands when he shot me clean through with a red hot stare.
Double damn…
“I’ll make it worth the risk.”
I gulped but tried to look aloof.
“And how would you go about doing that?” Oh my god… I really just said that, didn’t I?
He hadn’t moved, but it seemed that he was suddenly closer.
I glanced down at my feet and found out they had walked themselves across the threshold and out onto the porch.
Jake’s smile went from naughty to downright wicked in nothing flat.
“I promise,” he said as he walked over to the railing across from the porch swing, “We won’t be talking.”
Oh… “We won’t?”
It was suddenly really hard to pull in a lungful of air, and I could swear the temperature had just spiked twenty degrees.
He shook the brown paper bag at me, tauntingly. “We’ll be too busy eating.” He gave me a questioning look and then his eyes gleamed mischievously. “Why? What did you think I meant?”
“Cute,” I said dismissively, but I could feel my cheeks turning red.
“Cute’s a good start.” He stared at me like I was his favorite desert, his favorite car, and Christmas put together. “We can work our way up from there.”
I stiffened. Up from where?
His smile said, “Or down, your choice.”
I was giving smiles dialogue…
Dear Lord,
Please help me through this. I don’t know why I’m being tested like this, or what the point is, but please help me not make a complete fool of myself.
Jake handed me a foil wrapped sandwich.
Thank you Lord! Now at least I could stuff my face instead of saying more stupid words.
I sat down on the railing on the other side of the paper sack. When I pulled open the foil I found a Philly steak sandwich with all the trimmings.
It smelled divine.
My stomach growled like a ravening beast.
The first bite was heavenly, juicy, and had a delicious tang to the meat. The Sub length roll it was on was corn floured and lightly toasted.
“Mheeerre id ooooo ettt isss?” I asked through a mouthful of Philly steak goodness.
He chewed his sandwich, and then swallowed. “There’s a place about a block away from Wal-Mart, Peppi’s, and they make the greatest sandwiches.”
I was mentally writing all this down. No matter how things went from here, I so wanted another of these sandwiches.
I gave myself a mental head-slap. He’d come over with lunch… well, sandwiches without drinks.
As if he was reading my mind he pulled two bottles of Arizona peach tea from the paper bag. It was funny… the bag really didn’t look all that big.
I opened my iced tea, took a gulp and then sank into the lovely summer breeze that was blowing through the neighborhood. The wind-chimes on Bette’s porch tinkled, and I felt the weight of the world slide off my shoulders.
Just for this moment, having Jake here, a great sandwich in my hands and the wind at my back, the world was good.
I took another bite, and then nervously peeked at Jake.
He looked relaxed, leaning his fine, tight butt against my porch railing, biting into his sandwich.
Suddenly his eyes met mine and I felt a jolt of electricity and heat run through me, setting my flesh on fire, and making my heart thud and thump. My mind became a vortex of glimmering, confusing thoughts, and my knees started to shake.
Thank god I was sitting on the railing… but what if I fell off backward into my azaleas?
I took another bite and tried not to over think things.
Sure, Jake had been here on my porch three times in the last twelve to sixteen hours. He’d even been talking about missing me last night… that was before Raphael had come out of the house all tousled from our impromptu making out session.
That had all happened, hadn’t it?
And now he was standing next to me, eating lunch.
My spine straightened as it started to sink in.
Jake was still interested in me: even though I’d betrayed him, even though I’d been making out with my hunky next-door neighbor—who now seemed smitten with my other next-door neighbor, Bette.
I shook my head and swallowed the last bite of my sandwich. Was it me or was my life simply crazy?
“Jake?”
Jake had already finished his sandwich and was now vigorously using his napkin to clean off his hands, doing that thing with his hands that turns the napkin into a long thin roll.
“I have to get back to work,” he said, tossing his napkin, empty tea bottle and wrapper into the paper sack, and then holding it open for me to deposit mine in too.
“You’re leaving already?”
He smiled that smile that made my world seem brighter. It was still the best smile I’d ever seen.
“I only get an hour for lunch, and there was a line a Peppi’s.”
“Oh.”
His smile turned roguish. “Plus I was already late for work once today.”
Oh�
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He walked past me and headed for the front steps. I followed him, right on his heels.
“Jake?” I said, my voice sounding on the verge of pleading.
He was halfway down my steps when he turned around and came back up them, stopping when he was one step from the top, and almost perfectly eye level with me.
He stared into my eyes, his green eyes intense and electrified. He reached out and cupped my cheek with his warm, rough hand, and then, ever so slowly, he leaned in and kissed me.
I felt the world fall away, and the cyclone of thoughts in my head just faded away. There was only Jake and I, and the gentle Texas breeze.
I melted as his free arm pulled me against his body, and his tongue slid into my mouth, licking into me as if I were dessert. I was trembling and then a heat started to build inside me, and as it built the trembling stopped.
When he slowly pulled his lips from mine, it had seemed like we’d been kissing for hours, though the sun was still high in the sky.
I struggled to stay on my feet as he let go of me, and then he turned and walked down the porch stairs and down my walk to where his old blue truck waited.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing would come out.
I think I was in shock.
He opened the door to his truck, but instead of getting in he jumped up on the quarter panel and stared at me with that dazzling, sexy-as-all-hell smile on his face.
“So, I’m going to pick you up tomorrow around six.”
I gulped and forced out a juvenile sounding, “Okay,”
He licked his lips as if savoring the taste of me… or was he savoring the Philly steak?
“Wear jeans.”
I felt my brow furrow.
“Why jeans?”
He shrugged. “If you wear a skirt, it might get blown off.”
And with that he dropped into his old pickup truck, turned over the well tuned engine and drove away with a wave of his hand.
My skirt might get blown off?
Oh… my… goodness…
Chapter 40
I stood there on my front porch, a goofy smile on my face, and my lips tingling. The back of my neck suddenly felt very hot, so I pulled my hair up in back and held my half full, still cold iced tea bottle against the skin on the back of my neck.
And I sighed… might’ve been because of the cool bottle, or replaying the kiss that had just transpired over in my head again.
“That was hot.”
I whirled around and Bette was peeking at me through my screen door.
I really was going to have to change my locks… someday.
I stalked over, pulled open the screen door and pushed past Bette. “It was just lunch.”
“I saw,” Bette drawled like a true southern belle. “And you were dessert.”
I flinched for a second but kept walking back toward my kitchen. It was as if Bette had bugged the inside of my skull as well as my house.
“Did you at least start a fresh pot of coffee?” I asked sarcastically.
“Better,” Bette said as she moved across my kitchen to where she’d left a canvas shopping bag with assorted wildflowers covering it. She pulled out a metal thermos and a Tupperware container that held what looked like one of Raphael’s heavenly loafs of breakfast bread.
I stopped in my tracks at the sight of the bread.
“He’s giving you the bread now?”
Bette got an abrupt uncomfortable look on her face, and her shoulders stiffened. But that only lasted a moment, and then she was back to her sardonic, quick witted self.
“Well, he probably got the memo… or read the writing on the wall.”
I gave a questioning scowl.
She rolled her beautiful eyes, her generous bosom heaving as she took a put upon breath. “Oh, come on! It’s obvious you and yummy, simply scrumptious Mr. Troy are about to get all hot and heavy again.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but seeing as I’d just been lip to lip with the man on my front porch, I couldn’t feign ignorance or discretion.
That kiss had been all kinds of hot and heavy.
Instead, I turned the subject back to her.
“So, now Raphael has his dark, sexy eyes on you, huh?”
Her expression didn’t change, but Bette’s shoulders tightened again.
Bette’s tell.
Ha! Someone’s trying to hide something…
But that so wasn’t like Bette.
My neighbor was an open book.
She flagrantly paraded her burgeoning harem of men in and out of her house like prize horses at the state fair.
But just mentioning that Raphael was interested in her was making her nervous.
It didn’t make sense.
“So what’s wrong?” I asked.
Bette had already opened the container of homemade bread. From the smell of it, it was cinnamon apple, and just divine.
“Why do you think something’s wrong?” she replied, unscrewing the top of the thermos and pouring two mugs of what looked like hot chocolate.
“Every time I say his name your shoulders tighten.”
“Who’s name?” she said, acting innocent.
“You know damn… what is that?” I pointed down at the mug of hot chocolate. If it were even possible, the aroma of that hot chocolate was better than Raphael’s bread.
Bette smiled and took a dainty sip from her mug. “Just my own recipe.”
I brought the amazing smelling liquid up to my lips and took a tentative sip.
Oh sweet baby Jesus…
It tasted like Christmas, and the kind of chocolate you only hear of in rumors. Mind altering, life changing chocolate, mixed with decadent caramel… or was it toffee?
I took another, far bigger gulp.
After another few drinks I looked up at her and asked, “What were we talking about?”
Bette smiled and pushed the container of bread toward me. “Can I top you off?”
I pushed my mug toward her and she refilled it from her thermos. I plucked a piece of bread from the container and took a bite. Real butter, cinnamon so rich it almost burned the tongue, and a hint of granny smith apple.
“You two should totally open a coffee shop,” I said, pointing the bread in my hand at Bette. “You’d have people lined up around the block.”
Bette closed her eyes and shook her head, a wan smile on her ruby-red-lipsticked lips.
“I think we both have better things to do with our time.”
Chapter 41
Jake
I didn’t keep the old Chevy in the garage. The garage was part storage and part work space—just in case I needed to fix something indoors. I was shit for carpentry, and only passable with plumbing. But if it had an engine, then I was your man.
One of the things I had stored in the garage was something I hadn’t even thought twice about in about four years. Something I hadn’t had the time for back when I took my father’s garage over, and just hadn’t thought about since selling the old shop and starting work at Wal-Mart.
It sat under a tarp in the far corner of the garage, and to my sudden horror, there were some boxes stacked neatly in front of it.
The younger me would have kicked my ass for ever doing such a thing. But I was the only one here, so it was most certainly me that had put them there.
There were five boxes in all, and one, I believe, had the Christmas lights I’d neglected to hang on the outside of the house last year.
Another thing I hadn’t even thought about.
How long had this been going on, not caring about things?
It’s not like I’d gone all pack-rat, or let the house go all pig-sty, but I hadn’t really done anything special.
Not that fixing things that broke was special, but to not even hang Christmas lights on the house… there had to be something wrong that I hadn’t seen.
And now there I was standing in the garage, staring at the shrouded figure I’d abandoned in the corner of the
garage.
Not that I didn’t remember every curve, every inch of her, but still, four years…
I reached out and gently pulled the soft, white flannel sheet from over her and stared for a few beats.
Bonnie was dusty, needed a wash and a waxing, and a long rub down with a soft cloth, and I really should look her over to make sure she’s ready to get her engine turned over…
But she looked like she was hungry to eat up the open road.
She looked like she was itching to lay on the speed and take me far away from all my problems.
I ran my fingers over the deep midnight blue of her gas tank, leaving tracks in the thin layer of dust.
Maybe she wouldn’t mind if I brought a friend along… maybe someone who was more than a friend.
“I think Hope is going to love you.”
Chapter 42
Hope
I sat on my porch swing, the early afternoon light and gentle breeze a balm to my nerves. My coffee had gone cold, untouched, and I hadn’t been able to eat anything. All I could do was sit there and rock, breathing in deeply, trying to keep my panic at bay—but I was clutching my scar with a death grip.
This was a terrible idea.
This was the worst idea ever.
The phone I had sitting beside me on the porch swing rang. I didn’t even have to look at the caller ID to know who it was.
“Hi neighbor,” I said, my voice tight.
“You aren’t still going to meet with that scum-bucket, are you?”
I smiled a little.
“Yes, I am.”
Raphael growled. “You don’t sound like you’re in any shape to deal with him.”
He was right about that. “Yeah, but I still need to talk to him.”
“I don’t like it.” More growling.
I desperately wanted to change the subject.
“So why aren’t you over at Bette’s trying to get her into bed?”
I think he choked on the other end of the line.
“W-w-what?”
I smiled wider. “You’re so not fooling anyone. Bette, you know—the sexy redhead who lives on the other side of me.” I let my voice turn softer and deeper, like an old time movie starlet. “The dish you couldn’t pry your eyes off of yesterday, you know… in my kitchen.”
Love Him: A Love Him, Hate Him, Want Him Novel Page 28
