Young Buck: A Slow Burn Small Town Romance (Green Valley Heroes Book 5)

Chapter 7

“It’s open!” I hollered toward my front door the second I heard the bell. That would be Clarine. She was bringing a gift and a card that all the COOs had signed. I was busy piping filling into my contribution to the “thank you for saving Peggy” gift we’d been preparing for Green Valley Fire. This time, it was whoopie pies.

“My hands are full!” came Clarine’s responding call.

I set my pastry bag on the counter, wiped my hands with a dish towel, traipsed through the dining room, and swung open my front door. Where Clarine’s face should have appeared, I found myself facing an enormous cellophane-wrapped basket.

“Oh, thank God.” Clarine bustled inside. Every part of her was weighed down—the basket filled up both arms, two large camera bags were over one shoulder, and her car keys were in her hand.

“I’ve been running around all day. I had a makeup job in Pigeon Forge. Then, I had to go all the way to Knoxville for the Man Meat.”

“The what-now?” I closed the front door and followed her back toward my kitchen. She walked to the center island and set it all down.

“The Man Meat. That’s the name of the gift basket we got for the EMTs.”

Horror dawned as I read the labels of the items in the basket.

“Shakin’ Bacon? The Sausage Fest Wiener Sampler? An apron that says ‘This guy rubs his meat’?”

I shot Clarine an accusing look. “They don’t need any help thinking we’re perverts after the way the room was decorated.”

Clarine shrugged as she rifled for something in her purse. “I got one of these last year for my brother for Christmas, and he loved it. And aren’t you the one who always said men don’t love anything as much as thinking about their peens?”

Before I could craft an intelligent response, Clarine craned her neck to see through the kitchen window, leftways toward Buck’s house.

“Is he home?”

“I have no idea,” I lied.

My ears had learned his comings and goings. He’d been home since five forty-five.

“His lights are on,” Clarine observed.

I hummed in vague response. There was no need for me to admit that I knew the sound of his truck, and had seen a classic Camaro parked next to it in his garage. I didn’t need to share that his electricity had been turned on last Thursday, or that he liked to go running at night. And I certainly didn’t plan to admit that watering the Jenkinses garden gave me a clear view of his chin-up routine.

“You ought to take the basket,” I suggested, returning to my piping task. “I mean, you did all the work, going all the way to Knoxville to get it.”

Clarine smirked. “After the way he caught you when you fainted, I imagined you’d want to thank Prince Charming yourself.”

I’d been hearing about it all day on the COO group text. How valiantly Buck had swooped in to save Peggy, then helped me—a damsel in distress.

Clarine arched an eyebrow. “You should’ve seen yourself when you came to. When you set your eyes on him, you nearly fainted a second time.”

“I was in shock. Just like he said.”

“In shock at those big blue eyes...” Clarine teased.

“Shock is a legitimate medical condition,” I protested. “People go down all the time. He was just doing his job.”

For a second, Clarine looked like she might drop it. I really wanted her to. Little did she know how not-on-the-table he was. He was twenty years younger than the last three men I’d dated. And none of them knew that I’d tased the poor man. There was no coming back from that.

“Well I’m sure as hell not going over there.” Clarine went around to a barstool and sat. “You’re the leader of our group.”

“Leader of our book club,” I corrected.

Buck’s big blue eyes weren’t the only thing that had me rattled. We’d never had an outsider fully breach our private space. In five years, the wrong person popping in during a meeting had only ever been momentary.

“Book club. Check.” Clarine picked up her phone. “Now you go ahead and get changed. Put on the good bra. Lieutenant Buck is a breast man. I could see as much last night.”

Buck was checking me out?

Clarine didn’t exaggerate such things. But I couldn’t go down that road.

“Clarine. It makes no difference to me what kind of man he is. And I am not changing my bra.”

I tookthe shortest route between our houses by crossing through our lawns. The front yards on Poppy Seed Lane were well-kept. The grass was healthy and thick and cut long enough to make happy feet out of a barefoot walk-through. They were tended to by an enterprising teenager who lived down the street.

Today, I wore metallic leather flip-flops and rang the bell when I reached his door. A duality of shyness and excitement flooded my consciousness when shuffling came from inside.

“Hey, Buck,” I began brightly when he swung open the door. I was determined not to make a fool of myself this time.

“Hey there, Loretta.” He looked surprised.

“I hope I’m not intruding.”

The summer afternoon meant the sky still had light. His eyes were as stunning as ever and the sun lit up his hair with golden fire. Only to myself, could I admit the man was beautiful.

“What’s all this?”

It was hard to miss the enormous basket in my arms.

“I brought you some Man Meat and whoopie pies.”

Buck laughed openly. “You brought me what?”

So much for not making a fool of yourself, Loretta.

“Sorry—that’s the name of the company that makes the baskets. And it’s not just for you, it’s for all the EMTs. You forbade me from showing up at the firehouse, so...”

“So you brought it here,” he finished, smiling in a tender way that melted me, but probably wasn’t meant to. “That’s sweet.”

My cheeks heated, which was ridiculous, because who blushed over handing off a basket of meat?

“You feeling better?” He relieved me of my platter, took the basket, and set both down.

Now, my blushing was from embarrassment. “Sorry to fall on you like that.”

His disarming smile reminded me of how good he’d been at comforting me. Even his voice was disarming—rich and calm and deep—a lot more manly than his face.

“I’ve had worse.”

He’s not flirting. He’s just got a lot of charm.

“Peggy’s recovering nicely,” I offered. “They released her early this morning. A member of our book club drove to Merryville and picked us up.”

“Book club...” Buck arched an eyebrow. “Is that what I walked in on last night?”

I tried to laugh nonchalantly. “Not a regular meeting. We were helping one of our members celebrate a personal life event.”

Buck nodded. “I got that from the big pink bunting that said Happy Divorce and the balloons that said The End of an Error. Is it a divorce book club?”

“No.”

I shook my head, then immediately regretted it. The easiest way to lie was to confirm a theory that someone already had in their mind. Telling him he’d seen precisely what he thought he’d seen would have brought his questioning to a close.

“One of the witnesses—Darlene—sure made it sound like a support group when I interviewed her for the report.”

Damn. I should have known.

I’d gone to the hospital in the ambulance with Peggy rather than staying at the scene, forgetting that a call report would be filed. My protective instinct kicked in.

“I know you’re new to Green Valley,” I began. “But the book club isn’t new. It’s been meeting for years.”

“I like books.” Buck crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Then I encourage you to sign up for a library card.” I stood a little straighter and lifted my chin.

“Maybe I’d like to join your book club,” he pressed.

“I don’t think you’d like it too much.”

“Because I’m a man?” He pretended to look offended. “I consider myself a feminist.”

“Because it involves an obscure subject that would put most people to sleep. But the library has plenty of mainstream book clubs that meet on the other nights.”

“What’s the subject?” he prodded.

“Well, Wednesday night is literary fiction. A mystery and thriller group meets on Thursdays. Some Fridays, they do author talks?—”

He smiled in a way that showed he saw right through me. “Not the subjects of the other book clubs—the subject of yours.”

“Stamp collecting.”

He smiled like the cat who ate the canary. “Philately. That’s exactly my sort of thing.”

He was obviously bluffing, but that was only half the point. Why was he hellbent on knowing what he’d seen? Why couldn’t he chalk it up to women’s business like any other man would do?

“It’s a serious club for serious enthusiasts,” I insisted.

“I think I’d be an asset to the group. I have a few friends at the National Postal Museum.”

“I don’t even think that’s a thing.”

“The National Postal Museum is very much a thing. It’s a division of the Smithsonian.”

I narrowed my eyes and said nothing.

“Look. I don’t want to join your book club. I just want to make sense of what I saw. The guys at the station have been wondering. It’s not every day we come across a cake in the shape of a phallus or someone wearing a crown that says Divorced AF.”

I didn’t answer right away.

“You called yourself a feminist?”

Something in his features sobered, maybe in response to the gravity in my voice.

“Then you must know how difficult it can be for a woman to get out of a bad relationship. And that some bad relationships involve physical, emotional, and financial abuse. And you must know that eighty-five percent of domestic abuse victims are women and that a lot of them need help leaving. Surely you would never ask a member of a woman’s support system to reveal information that would compromise her confidentiality, nor would you engage in any gossip that compromised the privacy of that system...would you?”

I hated that I’d been reduced to intimidation. Most of all, I hated the idea that firehouse gossip had the potential to take down the house I’d been building for years.

“No, ma’am,” Buck responded with a softness in his eyes and an earnestness I didn’t expect. “I sure wouldn’t want to put anyone in danger.”

He stood a bit straighter. Somewhere along the lines, I’d boxed him in with my much smaller frame.

“And you have other obligations, don’t you?” I went on. “Patient confidentiality and all...”

Buck nodded, still looking repentant.

“Then we have an understanding,” I said with finality he would comprehend.

“You don’t have anything to worry about, Loretta,” he vowed in a way I hoped I could depend on. “I’ll remind the other guys that the same applies to them.”