Chapter Seventeen
Pete
Saturday
I had the grill going, a stack of burgers sitting on the picnic table ready to go, a cooler full of beers on the ground, and some banana pudding inside resting in the fridge that I’d whipped up this morning using my mama’s old family recipe. I had a moment to check I hadn’t forgotten anything before I heard the car coming up the driveway. A few seconds later, the engine cut off, and a car door slammed.
“I’m around back!” I called.
Emma came around the side of the house a little while later, a sweet smile on her face that kicked me hard in the gut to see. She was so damned pretty, wearing a flowered summer dress and sandals, her soft brown hair left loose to flow over her bare shoulders and down her back.
“Howdy,” she said. She lifted the plastic grocery bag dangling from one wrist. “I brought homemade sides. Macaroni salad and baked beans.”
“That was sweet of you. I was just about to put the burgers on.”
While I got the meat going, she busied herself at the table, pulling her plastic Tupperware containers of sides out and arranging them in a way that made some sense to her. She’d brought plastic serving spoons, too. She moved around the bag of hamburger buns and condiments, putting them in order on top of the red checkered tablecloth while I watched, a wide smile on my face.
She came to stand next to me at the grill, bringing that sweet vanilla smell with her, so strong I could smell it over the aroma of grilling burgers. For weeks, I hadn’t been able to smell vanilla without thinking of her. I wanted to bury my face in her neck and just take in as much of that scent as I could, the burgers be damned.
Emma pointed at a shady spot close to the house where Riley was curled up, nose to tail and dead to the world. “Every time I see that dog, he’s asleep. I can’t recall seeing him on his feet once since I started at the ranch.”
I snorted a laugh at that. “He’s one lazy son of a bitch, that’s for sure. But he’s been that way since he was a pup. He ain’t but eight years old.”
She laughed, too, the color high in her cheeks. “We had a few dogs on the farm growing up. But they never sat still. They’d run around the property from morning ‘til night, chasing each other and sticking close to our heels.”
“Riley sure ain’t that way. He sleeps about twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours!”
She laughed again, much deeper this time.
When the burgers were about medium well, I took them off the grill and handed Emma the steaming plate. She took it to the table while I put the cover on the grill and knocked the vents closed with the wooden end of the long metal spatula. I went to join her at the table, taking a paper plate when she handed it to me. I fixed a burger and scooped a few ample spoonfuls of sides onto my plate while she did the same.
“This looks great, Pete,” she said.
“Let’s hope it tastes good, too,” I replied.
She pushed her thick hair back and off her shoulders before digging in. I caught myself watching her too closely and looked down at my own food. I picked up my burger and took a big bite, juices and ketchup dripping down my chin.
“Was it hard at first?” she asked me, after dabbing some ketchup from the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “Running the farm?”
I nodded. “Oh, sure. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.” It sometimes felt like I still didn’t, but I kept at it anyway, trusting things would turn out the way I needed them to in the end. “I grew up on the farm, so I knew how to do a lot of things. But my daddy handled paying all the bills and worrying over money. He died suddenly and wasn’t that old. I never got the chance to learn from him the way I would’ve liked to.”
“My mother died when I was pretty young,” she said in a soft voice. “I don’t really remember her. I know what she looked like because we have pictures. But I don’t recall the sound of her voice or have any clear memories of the two of us together. My sister swears that she does, but I don’t know how that could be when she’s almost two years younger than I am.”
“Do you miss her?” I asked and cursed myself out for being so thick. Of course, she did. I couldn’t have asked a dumber question. But her answer flat out surprised me.
Emma shrugged, her smile shrinking as her green eyes widened, the sadness making them much darker than usual. “I miss the idea of her. Does that make sense?” She paused, chewing her lip, but more to think, not for me to answer, so I just kept quiet and let her continue in her own time. “Growing up, I was jealous of other kids who had their mothers around. I wanted that so bad, but that’s not really the same thing as missing a person. And, my daddy was there. He made things okay for us.”
I took a bite of her macaroni salad. It was really good. I lifted an eyebrow. A girl who knew her way around a ranch — maybe even better than I did — was pretty as a picture, and could cook? I couldn’t believe how lucky I was all of a sudden.
And, more importantly, she was letting the door to that safe creep open again, a little at a time. I didn’t want to do anything to make it slam shut on me again. That had been terrible. I wanted to know everything about her. And, I wanted to tell her whatever I could about myself before she begged me to shut my mouth already and give her poor ears some rest.
“I miss my daddy every day,” I said. We had a nice rhythm going that I didn’t want to lose. She shared something, then I did. “We did so much together on this farm. I see him every place I look.” I glanced at the barn, expecting, as always, to see Daddy out there, still working in the hazy dark.
“Growing up, all my teachers and adults in town told me I wasn’t living up to how smart I was. I goofed around too much. I wasn’t even using half of the potential I had. But this farm is what my daddy cared about most. It’s where he lived with my mama, where they came home to after my mama had me at the hospital in town, where I learned just about everything I know today. I can’t imagine being anywhere else. This land is all that’s left of my family.”
Emma wasn’t smiling, but she was looking at me with such warmth in her lovely eyes, elbows on the table, her curled hands resting against the side of her head. “I want just what you have,” she whispered, and I leaned closer, putting my own elbows on the table, to keep hearing whatever it was she wanted to tell me. I couldn’t look away from her if I tried. “My own self-sustaining farm. I want to grow things and take care of horses, cows, and chickens. I just need to save the money to buy the land.”
“Can’t you work on your daddy’s farm?”
She’d taken the last bite of her burger. Smiling, she covered her mouth and finished chewing before she answered. “He sold off a bunch of land after my mama passed, to put me and Kasey through college and give us some seed money after. He still grows his own vegetables and stables our horses on the property, but I want more animals and land than that. I want to sell what I grow and stable other people’s horses, too. I want a full-service ranch.”
“Well, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like,” I said, stopping well short of blurting out that I was willing to share whatever I had with her. But it was the truth. My heart was wide open for her to take or leave. “You fit in just fine. Lacey and I were worried about hiring someone new. We had our own rhythm going that took us years to settle into. But you picked it up without even trying. I can’t imagine the ranch without you on it.”
A pretty blush colored her cheeks, and she put her eyes on her empty plate, but she was grinning. “I really like it here. I was worried about finding a place back in Round Rock after being in Austin for so long. Most farms don’t need the kind of help I wanted to give.”
I took the last few bites of beans and macaroni salad, not wanting to waste a bite. The sun had set over our heads as we were talking and eating. Most of the light had just about drained out of the sky. Once my plate was almost licked clean, I looked up at her, my own cheeks turning red at finding her staring at me.
“I have something to show you,” I said. “It’s not part of the official tour.” I rose from the picnic table and managed to pull my long legs free of the bench without ending up on my ass.
“What is it?” she asked. She stood up and got free of the picnic table much more gracefully than I had. Riley was still asleep next to the house. No amount of movement would wake him. He’d follow me into the house later, but only after I called him four or five times. I’d swear he was going deaf, except he’d never listened to a damned thing I had to say when he was a puppy, either.
“It’s a surprise.” We walked past the stables, the horses silent inside — I saw Emma cock her head to listen to what was going on in there — and to the large equipment barn where I kept my tractor and stored the hay I baled for my horses.
I opened the doors and led her inside. It was dark in here, but I knew the place back to front and could find my way around with my eyes closed. I reached back for her hand. She curled her fingers around my own, and a thrill moved through me.
“This way,” I said and plunged into the dark, going straight to the back of the barn, moving in between the tractor and the baler. It smelled like oil and sweet fresh hay in here. I’d left the hatch open, so some of the light was drifting down onto our upturned faces once we reached the ladder. “Can you climb in those shoes?”
She giggled a little, and that warmth spread from our joined hands to the rest of my body. I didn’t think I could ever get tired of the sound of her laughing.
“I could do just about anything in these sandals,” she replied.
“I’d say ladies first, but seeing how you’re in a dress, I’ll go up and you can follow me.” I let go of her hand and started up the ladder, moving slowly but steadily. The ladder shook some when she started up after me. I got to the top and climbed out onto the slightly angled roof of the barn. I’d spent many a night up here, watching the stars, planning my best schemes, or licking my wounds.
It was my secret place. Always had been. I’d never even invited Lacey up here. It was where I’d come to cry in private after Mama died and where I came to get so drunk I passed out after I lost Daddy. I was lucky I hadn’t fallen right off the roof that night and broken my damned neck.
When Emma reached the top, I helped her climb out onto the roof. She looked around, her lips parted, to take in the view. I couldn’t help myself, not after holding back all week. I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers. I hadn’t been able to get the taste of her out of my mouth since last Friday night and had spent the entire week suffering at the loss of that soft sweetness.
I brought her closer, not kissing hard, just enough to taste how sweet she was as that heat built in my body, that burning need for her. She responded by tilting her head back and parting her lips even more, her tongue venturing into my mouth as mine ventured into hers.
I pulled away, nearly breathless already and grinning. “Surprise,” I whispered.
I’d come up here earlier and set out a few blankets and a small cooler with a few beers in it. I sat down on the blanket, and she joined me, so close I could feel the heat rising off her skin.
“I used to come up here as a kid. On a good night, you can see all the stars in the sky from this barn. I’ve never brought anyone else up here. It was my secret place.”
Emma leaned back on her hands and gazed up at the sky. There was still some light at the edges of the clouds close to the horizon, but, over our heads, the clouds were scarce, leaving the stars to twinkle and shine, giving us the best private show nature had to offer. Between the soft breeze and the clear, deep blue sky, I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d had the power to try.
“It’s gorgeous,” she said.
I agreed. But I wasn’t looking at the stars. I was looking at her, that need expanding at my core, my insides dropping into a bottomless well of yearning that was driving me steadily insane the longer I went without the feeling of my hands on her. Without the feeling of her lips on mine. Without the feeling of my fingers sliding over the warm wetness between her legs as I watched her eyes widen with how much she wanted me.
I lay back flat, trying to keep from just grabbing hold of her like a man possessed. My feelings were welling up inside me — all that hot need boiling in the blood racing furiously through my veins — and fit to burst. But the last thing I wanted was to scare her off again. I thanked my lucky stars for the darkness that hid the growing bulge in my pants. I wanted her so bad, I could barely think straight.
“I’m glad you came to dinner tonight,” I whispered.
She looked down at me, her eyes so wide and dark. “I’m glad, too.” Her voice had changed. She scooted closer, her bare knee touching my leg. “I almost didn’t.”
I scrunched my eyebrows together, never breaking eye contact. “Why not?”
She shrugged her tiny shoulders. “I don’t really remember.” Without another word, she slid her leg over my body, sitting down on my lap, the hard shape of my cock nestling right into the heat between her legs. I was too stunned to move. Too stunned to even speak. But she didn’t wait for me. She leaned down and kissed me, her lips on mine better than the whole sky full of stars over our heads.