Chapter 2
Delilah
“As nervous as a fly in a glue pot.”
~ Grant Turner
“Yes,” I somehow miraculously managed to whisper even though the only word I could process was no. No. No.
How was this happening?!
Wishing Well, Texas was a small town. A very small town. But how was it possible that after a decade of failed attempts to accidentally run into Sawyer Briggs the one time that I absolutely did not want to see him, or more accurately have him see me, that is exactly what happened. It was my own fault. I was a notorious klutz who’d never been able to rub my belly and pat my head at the same time, and I’d been checking myself out in the reflection of the glass storefront I’d been walking past while I was talking on the phone.
My dad!
“Dad, let me call you back.” My words were airy and breathless as I spoke into the phone.
I could hear him talking as I lowered my phone and knew that, like Lucy, I was going to have some splaining to do the next time I saw him. Grant Turner wasn’t a man that was hung up on, especially when it was one of his daughters. But I would deal with that later. Right now I had another fire to put out, namely the inferno that Sawyer Briggs had just ignited in me.
Flames of heat spread through me as I stared into the eyes of the man that I’d spent the better part of my twenty-five years pining over, and the entirety of the past year plotting for. There were so many competing emotions and thoughts fighting inside me. I felt like I was entrenched in a civil war as I contemplated what my next move should be. My head was screaming that I should run away. My hormones were screaming that I should lean into the wall of muscle that I’d fantasized over since I knew what fantasies were. And my heart was on the fence.
So I used logic as the tie-breaker. The damage was already done. I’d just left The Best Little Hairhouse in Texas where Bella had done my hair and makeup to resemble an Old Hollywood starlet and had run smack dab into the person that she’d created the look for. I’d already lost the wow factor edge that I’d hoped to gain when Sawyer saw me tonight at the fundraiser, might as well melt—just a little—into his strength.
Closing my eyes as my lips parted, I did just that. My entire body liquefied into heated arousal, my muscles and bones dissolved into the erotic bliss that was Sawyer Briggs’ power. My escape was short-lived, interrupted by a loud whistle beside me.
Snapping back to reality, I opened my eyes and pulled out of Sawyer’s hold. Inhaling a shaky breath, I looked beside him and saw Harmony Briggs with her fingers in her mouth. When she lowered them she shook out her hand.
“Damn, sexy mama…you look hawt! And beautiful, truly stunning, but mostly hot.” Harmony swatted her brother’s arm. “Right, Sawyer?”
My cheeks burst with heat as a sudden bout of embarrassment hit me. As much as I wanted to find the nearest hole, crawl in it, and hide, I knew that if I was going to go through with the plan that had taken me a solid year to put into place, I would have to get over my shyness.
Bold. Brazen. Blunt.
That’s what I would need to be if I wanted this to work. Subtle seduction was getting me nowhere. Now was the time for action. I felt like Rabbit in 8 Mile with his mom’s spaghetti on his shirt. I had one shot. One opportunity. Was I going to capture it?
Instead of shying away from the bashfulness that was currently flooding through me, I pushed through it and tilted my head back so that I was looking straight at Sawyer, refusing to give into the awkwardness of the situation.
As always, seeing him straight on hit me like a ton of bricks. Sawyer Briggs was not an average man in any way. Most people focused on his size, which was massive, but I’d always been struck by his eyes. He was known, not just in Wishing Well, but in all of Clover County, as showing no emotion and having no feelings. People talked about how unreadable he was. They called him a mountain as much for his size as for his stone cold personality.
That’s not what I saw when I looked at him. When I looked into his whiskey-tinted gaze, I saw a man that felt things and felt them completely. I saw intensity. I saw sadness. I saw joy. I saw desire. I saw passion. Those last two might be the result of personal projection. Either way, I saw a deep pool of emotion that always stole my breath like a thief in the night.
I also saw the man that had saved my life twice. The first time when I was six, and I tripped on my shoelaces when I was crossing the street on my way to school. I have a vivid memory of seeing a car coming straight at me and then being lifted in the air. When I looked up, I saw a huge shadowy figure with the sun shining behind him. It was Sawyer Briggs. He asked me if I was okay and bent down and retied my shoes.
The next time was when I was on my senior ditch day down at the river. Everyone was having fun, diving off the bridge, listening to music and partying. I was hanging out on the opposite side of the bridge from my class, reading, when I dropped my book, reached for it and fell over the railing. When I landed in the water, I knocked my head on a rock and the next thing I knew I was lying on my back with a shadowy figure hovering over me. It was Sawyer. He’d seen me fall, jumped in and pulled me to the shore.
When I looked at Sawyer Briggs, I saw my angel. My dark angel.
I was so lost in my own thoughts, I almost missed Sawyer’s nearly imperceptible dip of his chin.
“See!” Harmony pointed up at her brother. “He nodded. That’s practically gushing for Sawyer.”
I knew my already ruddy cheeks just grew a deeper shade of crimson.
“I’m serious!” Harmony enthused. “You better not walk by any dry brush because you’re so hot it’ll go up in flames.”
Harmony’s descriptive flattery caused my throat to tighten. Something might burst into flames, but I feared it would be my cheeks from spontaneous humiliation.
Compliments about my appearance and I went together like oil and water. Not if they were about my work, my personality, or my house. I couldn’t be prouder of my floral artwork. I loved creating beautiful and unique pieces that brought people happiness and joy. I prided myself on being a great daughter, sister, and friend. I was loyal, dependable, and trustworthy. And I’d worked hard renovating my home. I’d DIYed the repairs by following YouTube tutorials, and I couldn’t be prouder.
But my person, that was a different story.
My older sisters “the Turner triplets” took after my mother’s side of the family. They were petite, thin, and stunning. I took after my dad’s side of the family. They were tall and husky. At five-eight I towered over my five-foot-two mother and even my five-foot-four sisters. I was constantly trying to lose the extra thirty pounds I carried around, but never managed to do it.
I knew that my self-esteem had played a large part in what had held me back from pursuing what I wanted in life and what I wanted with Sawyer. But last year everything changed. On my twenty-fifth birthday, my grandma passed away. On her death bed, she told me that I was now a quarter of a century old and not to waste any more of my life worrying about what other people thought. I hadn’t even known that she knew that’s what I’d been doing.
After that, I started reading self-improvement books to help me overcome my issues and thanks to the sizeable inheritance she’d left me I was able to buy my own house and half of the shop so that I was now a co-owner with my parents instead of just their employee. I’d used five thousand of it to move things along in my personal life, which I knew she would approve of. And I’d stopped trying to blend into the background, I was being braver with my clothing and style.
I was done sitting on the sidelines of my life because I had thick thighs and cellulite, but that didn’t mean I could handle this kind of blatant attention. Hoping to take the glaring spotlight off of me, I attempted to shift the focus on the person responsible for my glam make-over. “I barely recognized myself when she spun me around in the chair. Bella is magic. Seriously, she’s a miracle worker—”
“No, she’s not,” Sawyer growled.
At his unexpected and out-of-character contribution to the conversation, both mine and Harmony’s mouths fell open as our eyes shot up towards him. I was trying to figure out why he’d felt the need to interject. Everyone loved Bella. I sliced a look at Harmony to see her reaction to his statement. She appeared to be just as dumbfounded as I was.
It must’ve been obvious that both his sister and I were in shock as we all stood there silently, and still Sawyer offered no explanation for his odd interruption. Maybe someone else would’ve felt a responsibility to clear the air from the awkward cloud the three of us were standing in, but not him. He remained stoic and silent in a way only he could.
“All righty, then. That was…weird,” Harmony observed, easing the tension as she shook her head indicating she didn’t know what to do about him, then she pointed her thumb his direction. “Can you believe that this one is auctioning off an apprenticeship?”
Yes. I could believe it. Especially since I’d been the one that had gone to Sawyer’s office manager with a plate of brownies and a bouquet of flowers and suggested it. Thankfully, she’d been receptive to the change and I don’t think she’d suspected that my motivation was anything other than raising money for a good cause.
“It’s not a true apprenticeship.”
Sawyer’s voice did what it always did and made my knees go weak.
He continued, “It’s just for the weekend.”
A weekend is all I need. Hopefully.
“Whatever.” Harmony waved off her brother’s clarification. “It says that he will answer any and all questions that the apprentice has. How crazy is that?”
Not crazy at all considering that I’d been the one to add that very specific verbiage.
“You’re going to have to practice using your words or whoever the highest bidder is, is going to feel gipped. Right, Delilah?” She winked at me.
“Yep,” I agreed reluctantly.
I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the direction this conversation had taken. It felt like Harmony was driving it towards a destination I didn’t want to go to. Did she know that I’d been the one to suggest the apprenticeship? That I’d convinced Mrs. Higgins that it would bring in a large contribution to the cause? That I’d been systematically plotting to seduce her brother since my birthday last year?
This entire run-in was starting to make me feel like everything that I’d planned so carefully was beginning to unravel. I was regretting the fact that I’d just confessed to not only Bella but also Kelsi, her new esthetician, my intentions to seduce Sawyer. I’d done it so I couldn’t back out of my plan, but now I wished there wouldn’t be two witnesses to the demise of my romantic life, should this go down in flames like I was starting to believe it would. Or if I didn’t go through with it, I wasn’t thrilled that there would be two people that would know I chickened out.
I couldn’t think straight with Sawyer so close to me, his gaze directed solely at me. I’d wanted his undivided attention for as long as I could remember, but not like this. I needed to make a graceful exit and regroup.
“I’ll see y’all tonight!” I exclaimed much too loudly as I skirted around the Briggs siblings and rushed to my shop three doors down.
I heard Harmony call out a goodbye, while, not surprisingly, Sawyer remained quiet.
Thanks to nerves, adrenaline was coursing through my veins causing my hands to shake as I pulled my keys from my bag and unlocked the shop. It took several tries, but I was finally able to get the door open. As I stepped inside the safe haven of The Flower Pot, I closed the door and leaned my back against it.
I knew there were plenty of platitudes and self-talk that would be useful right now, but for the life of me, I couldn’t draw any to memory. My borderline obsession with self-help books was failing me when I needed it the most. Since repeating a mantra or inspirational phrase wasn’t an option, I tried to sift through the mess of my emotions. I tried to center myself and regain clarity.
This morning I’d woken up feeling more determined than ever to see this through. Everything had fallen into place. I’d spent so much time crafting and executing this plan, and it was finally coming to fruition. But all of that plotting had been abstract. Telling Bella and Kelsi and then seeing Sawyer had made it real.
Real was scaring the livin’ daylights out of me.
Part of me wanted to cut my losses and bail. That part was rationalizing that if Sawyer wanted to be with me, he would’ve pursued me. It was saying that I was crazy for devoting so much time and effort into a man that barely gave me the time of day. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had ample opportunity. I’d been single nearly all of my adult life and he’d never asked me out, never shown any significant interest.
That was the same voice that liked to remind me that my sisters were thinner and prettier than me. It was the one that reminded me that I would always live in my sisters’ very large, very cold shadow. It was the voice that piped up when I saw couples walking down the street and holding hands, it would tell me that I would never have that and would be alone for the rest of my life. It was the voice that pointed out every “problem” area on my body when I went shopping for new clothes.
I was tired of listening to that voice, even if it was telling the truth, because so what. So what if my sisters were thinner and prettier than me. So what if I was going to be alone right now. So what if I had a hard time finding jeans that fit my wide hips, or if I had cottage cheese at the top of my thighs, or if my stomach had a pouch and wasn’t flat as a board.
I still deserved love…or at least a shot at it.