Chapter Five
Breakfast was coffee and pancakes at the diner half a block down the road from the hotel. Aubrey ate every bite, sitting on a hot butt and flying high on endorphins. Those endorphins carried her all the way through the series of phone calls which took up her morning. The first went to her folks, letting them know when they might expect her. Then she called her insurance company, who required an accident report from the police who wanted to know why they’d removed themselves from the scene of the accident (because I didn’t want to freeze to death) and then from the state (I was on my way to my parents’ house, and I’m still with the guy who hit me; he didn’t “flee”, either), and then when she got all that explained, back once more to the insurance company, who was even now likely crawling over the report in search of some way to get out of paying.
“I’m not going to leave you without a car,” Branch told her at the conclusion of all the phone calls. “No matter what, you will have a decent, working vehicle.”
And, of course, she would. Because that’s what Daddies did—everything in their power to make things right again.
It was 150 miles from the small country town of Concordia to her parents’ home in Lincoln, Nebraska. On any other day, she could have made the trip in less than three hours, including stopping for gas and coffee and sometimes, stopping again for a bathroom break. Today, however, it took almost seven. The snowplows had been through, both scraping and salting the interstate, bridges and on- and off-ramps. The temperature had warmed up to a balmy 20-degrees, turning the sanded, salted, packed ice and snow into an icy-slushy-dangerous mess. Slow as he was going, Branch almost slid off the road twice, but he was a good driver. He recovered both times and got her safely home, a day late, but still in time for her birthday.
The whole way home she was happy. They played games like Truth or Dare (“Did you really shave your grandmother’s cat?” “And dyed the mean little bitch purple.” “Did you really think you conjured me?”) They chatted about past relationships (“She left me for a dog groomer. I still say it’s because she liked the collar he wore better than the one I gave her. His had studs and smelled like wet poodle.” “What about your last romance?” ‘He was vanilla, and I accidentally let out a Harder, Daddy, Harder during sex. He kinda freaked.” “You like a little rough Daddy play during sex, huh?”). They even talked about sex, which she usually never did before the third date although, technically, she had no idea how to split up the last twenty-four hours. They were the best of her life. She couldn’t remember ever having had a better date or day for that matter. Not even when she was twelve and her dad took her to the zoo for a ride on the camel. The camels were all on breaks by the time she got there; she got to ride the elephant instead.
Best. Day. Ever.
Until the moment they pulled up to the curb in front of her folks’ house, when it hit her. This wasn’t real. None of it. He was only here because her parents tried to set her up on yet another blind date and called in a favor to an old friend, Branch’s Gram. Who wrangled a favor out of Branch, who hit her car door in the middle of a snowstorm while she’d been freaking out over the Build-A-Bear and desperate to pee. Now she was home, one full day before her birthday party. Was he still going to come? She felt like an idiot for wanting to ask. Would he come because he was obliged to or because now, he might want to? She hoped he’d do it because he wanted to, but really, they were two strangers in a truck who had a lot of similarities, shared the same kinds of kinks (“I really like anal.” “Christ on a cracker, sweetie. Who conjured who again?”), with tons and tons of chemistry burning up the air between them. Even without asking, she was pretty sure—maybe 99.6% sure—he intended to show up tomorrow, even though her party was only going to be about a dozen local aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered around some pushed together tables at the local all-you-can-eat. Tomorrow was Sunday, surf and turf. Yum.
On the other hand, that 0.4% was really kind of frightening. It was as if in these last twenty-four hours, she had learned how to breathe for the very first time in her life, and now if she lost him, she might never be able to breathe like this again. How, after so brief a time in someone’s company, did one even go about explaining that kind of feeling? Without sounding all Fatal Attraction, she didn’t think it was possible.
Parking, Branch shut off the engine, and they sat, side-by-side on that mile-long bench seat, both reeling from their own realizations of what reaching this destination meant and neither one of them saying a word about it.
“Do you want to come inside?” she asked, picking at the sleeves of her sweater.
“I should probably see if I can get a hotel room while it’s still early enough to bounce from place to place. The roads are better tonight than they were yesterday, but I still might have problems finding a room.”
“We have a futon,” Aubrey offered. She didn’t even need to ask her parents first. All she had to do was gloss over the whole killed the car part of the How Branch Rescued Aubrey from the Blizzard of the Century, and they’d fall all over one another to either adopt him or, as they’d done with her last two boyfriends, make a dowry offer. Her family wasn’t even from a culture that supported that. As far as she knew, both her maternal and paternal ancestors were Norwegians, and her parents were both born in Wisconsin. And yet, with each successive boyfriend, she seemed to go up half a cow in value. And Branch said his family was crazy.
She probably shouldn’t have said anything; Branch was already shaking his head. “Sweetheart…” He caught his breath a moment, staring out the window at the light which had just popped on behind the closed living room drapes. She could already hear his impending refusal when he said, “Can I be honest?”
“It would probably be less painful in the long run if you were.” Her stomach was already sinking.
“I wouldn’t sleep on your futon. I might start there, but I can almost guarantee I’ll end the night in your bed.” The smile he gave her was as crooked as the devil and maybe just a little chagrined because of it. “Never ask a Daddy-Dom to sleep beside his babygirl without touching her; he can’t do it. I barely survived last night. I’ll never be able to do that again. I don’t think I want to.”
“I can already tell you, my parents are totally fine with that.” Stomach frozen mid-sink, she stared at him.
“It’s not your parents I want to sleep with.” That crooked smile became a grin. “But you ever give me permission like that again, and I will either spank you or fuck you, possibly both, I honestly don’t know which will come first.” It was hard to take that as a threat, especially when he followed it by adding, “I like you, Aubrey. I mean, I really like you. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed being set up on a blind date more.”
Beyond Branch, from the periphery of her eyes, Aubrey knew her parents had stepped out onto the porch, but she really didn’t care how long they waited or what they might see.
“Branch?” Her voice trembled though probably not enough for him to notice. “I really, really like you too. So, now I am formally asking, would you please pretend to sleep on the futon long enough for my parents to go to sleep? If I don’t get the chance to say so later, my bedroom is at the top of the stairs, second door on the right.”
His hesitation did not hide the glittering temptation she could see dancing in his eyes.
“I have handcuffs,” she sang, sweetening the deal. “And little froggy pigtails.”
“Frog pigtails?” he asked, arching both eyebrows.
“They’re tiny little frogs,” she held up her finger a scant distance apart, “on green hair ties. I put them in my hair, and they’re my froggy pigtails.”
“Do I get to pull your pigtails while I’m sexing you from behind?”
“Only if we’re doing anal.”
“Christ on a cracker.” He softly laughed and added, “You really did conjure me.”
* * *
From the moment the man behind the wheel of the truck caught her daughter’s chin and leaned over to catch Aubrey’s smiling lips with his own, Amelia forgot all the concerns she had harbored since receiving her daughter’s phone call that morning.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed, grabbing her husband’s arm, excitement exploding through her. “Oh, my God! It’s happening! At last, it’s happening!” She jumped in place, her old, arthritic knees protesting each shallow hop. “We’re going to be grandparents, and I’m not the last in my sewing circle to get there! Oh, thank God! Quick! I’ll make some sandwiches, you put sheets on the futon. Oh, wait!” Having just hurried back inside, Amelia made a sudden about-face and dashed back out onto the porch again. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she called across the lawn, “Take your time! Don’t worry about us, dear! We’re going to bed early!” Feigning a yawn and a stretch for believability, she then rushed to the kitchen.
“Subtle,” her husband John drawled, following in her wake. “Tell me again why I should make up the futon when everyone knows it’s not going to get used.” From two rooms away, he swore he heard his wife of forty-three years roll her eyes. =
“If we don’t make it up, they might suspect we know they don’t intend to use it. For heaven’s sake, John, the only thing more embarrassing than knowing your parents know you’re doing it, is knowing your parents are doing it. I swear, sometimes you live to make things awkward.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he deadpanned. “You going to phone ol’ Madgie and let her know the scheme you two hatched seems to have worked?”
“Pssh!” Pulling bread down out of the cupboard, Amelia tossed it onto the counter. “Are you kidding? As if she doesn’t already know the exact date our first grandbaby will be born. That woman knows everything.”
THE END