7. Bridget
7
brIDGET
C hase Brannan was the most infuriating man I’d ever met.
He had sent me a text early this morning, letting me know that he’d be working in the yard before he went on duty. He was going to be out late, wrapping up a multi-department operation.
I wanted to ask if it had anything to do with Kyle, but I held my tongue.
I was free—for now, at least. Still, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that he wasn’t as far away as I wanted him to be.
But my ex wasn’t the man on my mind at the moment.
Nope.
It was the aforementioned infuriating best friend who was push-mowing his lawn.
Shirtless.
He had a pair of gym shorts hanging off his narrow hips, showing off those delicious lines of muscle that swooped down his lower back. Two dimples dotted his tan skin just above his glutes. The gray mesh shorts were doing holy—or un holy—work, clinging to his well-toned ass.
It was a damn good thing his back was to me because I hadn’t stopped staring out the window above the sink for quite some time.
It wasn’t even seven in the morning when I heard him create quite the ruckus in the tool shed. I decided that I could skip my pain pill if that was the view I had today. The painkillers made me loopy as hell. If I had a front-row seat to that hunk of man-candy doing manual labor, I wanted to be totally lucid.
Dammit. For the love of cheese and crackers, I had to stop thinking about Chase like that.
But my body didn’t get the message. Somewhere along my brain stem, the memo got attacked by the notion that nearly two years had passed since my last orgasm. My bout of mental horniness was expedited straight to my lady cave. I squeezed my thighs together and enjoyed the delicious pressure, choosing to ignore the sharp stab of pain in my hip.
Chase finished the last swath of grass and parked the mower beside the tool shed. He grabbed his phone off the work table in the shed. A few seconds later, my phone vibrated.
Chase
I need to take the truck into town. I won’t be gone long. Need me to pick up anything?
Did they sell vibrators at the Piggly Wiggly? I had two broken fingers on my right hand and a fractured wrist. Self-service pleasure without an aid was out of the question. Could someone die from a lack of orgasms? I’d have to ask Mel.
Bridget
I’m good. Thanks.
Chase
You wanna come with me?
Yes.
Bridget
No. Thanks, though.
Chase
Figured I’d offer.
He looked toward the cottage as he crossed the yard and headed inside his house.
My stomach twisted in knots as I fought the urge to run over to him. Well, hobble over to him. I chewed on my lip, debating if he would look at me the way he did in the hospital. Pained.
I turned away from the window, ready to take a terrifying step forward. I was almost to the door when I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror that hung over the rustic entryway table.
My knees buckled at the sight. I slumped against the door, feeling about as strong as a deflated balloon.
If you leave this house looking like that, they’ll see you for what you really are. Pathetic. You are worthless without me, you ungrateful bitch.
I could almost feel the way he would grip my chin with an unbreakable grasp as he spat horrid, demeaning things at me. Reminding me that I was nothing. That he had given me everything. That he’d never let me forget it.
Tears streamed down my face as I cowered on the floor and hugged my knees.
He would put me on a pedestal just so he could be the one to tear me down. He would give me everything just to derive the smallest bit of pleasure when he got to take it away.
“Bee?” The knock on the other side of the door startled me.
I scrambled away, hiding behind my pile of boxes just in case he peeked in one of the windows. I should have drawn the shades. Stupid girl.
“Darlin’, I’m heading out,” he called from the other side of the door. “You mind letting Luna crash with you? I don’t wanna have to put her in the crate this early since I’ll be out late tonight.”
I wiped my cheeks and hurried to the door as best I could. I was careful to stay behind it when I opened it just a crack. “Yeah, of course,” I said softly.
Luna trotted in. She had Quackers, her stuffed duck, trapped gingerly between her teeth. Not needing an invitation, Luna jumped up onto my bed, dropped the duck between her paws, and nibbled away.
Chase’s fingers wrapped around the edge of the door. He didn’t open it any further, but he blocked it from closing.
“I’ll take care of her,” I blurted out, wrapping my hand around the doorknob. “Don’t worry.”
He chuckled. “I know, darlin’.” The tip of his sneakers came into view. He had wedged his body between the door and the frame. I shrank further down the wall, turning so that if he looked, he’d see my back.
“Is there something else you need?” I blurted out. “I can keep her in tonight here since you’ll be out late. That way, you don’t have to worry about her when you get in.”
Chase paused like he was rethinking whatever was on his tongue. “Nah. I, uh… I guess I’m good. I should get going. I’ve just gotta run up to the hardware store.”
I started to close the door but, before the latch clicked, Chase pressed his hand against it. “I love you, darlin’.”
I rested my forehead on the door. My heart clenched in agony. After a long silence, I softly said, “I know.”
“Okay.” Chase backed away from the door. “As long as you know. Don’t ever doubt it. ”
I closed the door, locking it and flipping the deadbolt for good measure.
The sharp pain in my hip had turned into a repetitive throb. Apparently it was going to be a pain pill kind of day after all.
I forced myself to choke down enough lunch so I could swallow the medicine, then retired to bed. It always made me dizzy, and I wasn’t ready to have to call someone and say, “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
I’d already had most of my dignity stripped from me, but the poster child for elderly alert buttons, I was not.
Then again… A yard full of hot firemen was never a bad idea.
I stripped down to a loose tank top and my underwear. No sense in wearing a damn bra when I wasn’t going to be seeing anyone. I pulled the covers up to my shoulders and felt the gentle weight of Luna curling up beside me.
Chase was right. She was quite the snuggler.
I woke to the sound of paws padding against the door. Luna let out a desperate whine as she danced around. I fumbled around in the darkness, looking for my phone. How long had I been asleep?
I found it wedged between the pillows and tapped the screen. There was a boatload of missed text messages and two calls from Jason. I’d answer them later.
The growl of my stomach and Luna’s desperation to go outside confirmed that it was, in fact, half-past eight. I’d slept straight through dinner.
“You need to go out, Lu?” I asked as I pulled on the shorts I’d been wearing earlier.
She let out a short yip.
“Alright, alright,” I said as I shuffled through the dark cottage. I slid my feet into a pair of flip-flops and opened the door. Luna bolted into the yard to do her business, and I made a mental note to set an alarm the next time I took a drug-induced nap.
The August heat had gone down with the sun, leaving a mild breeze floating through the night air.
The other night when Chase went to poker, I had laid out a blanket and read a little more from the book I’d started in the hospital.
The aftermath of my concussion meant I got headaches whenever I looked at my phone for more than a few minutes. Paperbacks were safer.
The fresh air felt like heaven, and I felt okay slipping out of the cottage and hiding under cover of darkness. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been able to sit outside just for the heck of it.
I grabbed a blanket and my book before closing the door behind me. My feet hit the grass, and I stumbled.
“What the…” I looked around, certain that I was hallucinating.
I closed my eyes and then opened them again. Nope. Not hallucinating .
What had been an empty yard just a few hours ago, now had a cedar-stained pergola. String lights had been woven through the crosshatched beams. A very presumptuous cop must have plugged them in before he went to work.
Beneath the pergola sat a white wicker loveseat and side table that Luna was currently sniffing out. Tulips, in sunset colors, had been planted and framed in fresh mulch. Weatherproof pillows were perched in the corner of the loveseat in a cheery yellow.
There was a fire pit a little way out from under the pergola. When Mother Nature’s hot flashes left for the season, it would be the perfect place to sit and warm up at night.
Luna weaved figure-eights between my ankles until I stopped in my tracks. I shifted my book and blanket into one arm and knelt down to give her a scratch.
“Your daddy is something else,” I cooed. “You know that, girl?”
Luna’s response was to trot to the loveseat and curl up beneath it.
“Well,” I said, looking around. “We can’t let this go to waste, now, can we?”
I was just getting to the part in my book where the heroine finally admitted that she was in love with the hero when I heard an engine rumbling down the street.
Luna perked up, but decided she was too wiped out from running around the new landscaping to get up from her spot beneath the loveseat.
I had slipped back into the cottage and fixed a late dinner from the poker club provided provisions. The weather was too perfect to be inside, so I threw on a ball cap and a zip-up jacket to hide the cuts and contusions.
It wasn’t just because of Chase, though. I didn’t like seeing them myself. It was a constant reminder of what I had fallen into.
I had been too blinded by promises of what could be, rather than maintaining awareness of the direction I was actually going.
The car came to a stop, and Chase got out.
Holy Kevlar, Batman.
Chase was in full gear from the operation he had mentioned. He was in a tight-fitting t-shirt and a pair of jeans that had no business hugging his ass the way they did.
And that thigh strap…
Chase usually had his gun holstered on his hip. Then again, he usually wore button-up shirts and khakis. Tonight, he had his firearm in a thigh strap. The heavy-duty belts and clips that kept his gun snug against the side of his leg accentuated his…
I swallowed.
The bulge in his jeans was definitely not a concealed carry.
He sauntered over slowly, tearing away the Velcro of his bulletproof vest.
Instinctively, I shrank back into the corner of the loveseat, pulling the bill of my ball cap low. My jacket hid most everything else. There were a few stray marks on my legs, but it wasn’t cool enough for long pants, so I had simply draped the blanket over them.
I closed my book and held it against my chest, wielding it like a shield. May Joseph Cannata, in all his cover model glory, give me strength.
Chase was ten paces away. His long, muscular legs ate up the distance like an Olympic sprinter. The corner of his mouth was pulled up into a half-cocked grin.
“Hey,” he said, breathless. His blinding smile was brighter than the string lights above my head. “Didn’t expect to see you out here this late.”
It really wasn’t that late. I lived on a bartender’s schedule. Late for me was when the sun was coming up.
“I took a nap earlier,” I said lamely. “Probably won’t be able to sleep for a while.”
Chase stopped at the far post of the pergola like he was waiting for permission to enter. The crusty callouses around my heart began to fall away. He was so good to me. So patient.
“How was the, um … work?”
“Good. It was good. Everything went as planned, and we wrapped it up.” He chuckled as he peeled off his bulletproof vest. I could see more of his tattoo now. The part that peeked out from beneath his t-shirt sleeve looked like an angel wing. Feathers wrapped around his left bicep, down to his elbow.
Tentatively, he took another step toward me. Fear sprang up like weeds, choking the life out of everything good that was blooming.
Chase must’ve seen the anxiety written across my face because he stopped dead in his tracks. “Can I sit beside you?” he asked.
I was embarrassed at how long it took me to form an answer. It was Chase, for crying out loud! Why the hell was I so fucking scared of him?
“Uh, yeah… I mean, yes. Um. Yes. You can sit. I mean, I know you can sit. But, um. You can sit beside me. It’s your place, though, so you don’t really have to ask permission, you know.”
My babbling didn’t put him off. Instead, he casually wandered over, set his bulletproof vest on the grass, and plopped down on the other end of the loveseat. I both needed and loathed the amount of space between us.
“So,” he said, looking up at the string lights that glowed above us. “What do you think?”
Heat crept up my cheeks, and I blamed the blush on the painkillers that were still lingering in my system. “I think most guys just pick up a bouquet of flowers.”
Way to go, Bee. Why the hell did yousay that instead of just saying it was nice like a normal freaking person?
Instead of making me feel small, Chase laughed.
It wasn’t a mocking laugh either. It was the kind of laugh that meant he appreciated my dry sarcasm.
“Yeah, some guys just do the bouquet thing.” He stretched his arm across the back of the loveseat, his fingers lingering an inch away from my shoulder. “Bouquets die. Gardens bring the promise of something better tomorrow. ”
“Chase—” I had just meant to think it, but his name slipped out of my mouth.
I blamed it on the fact that I could see the flex of his jaw running all the way up to his temple. His short buzzed hair glimmered under the string lights. Warm, brown eyes turned me into human soup. That heart-stopping dimple on his left cheek…
“I’m starving,” he announced, cutting me off. “You gonna be out here for a little while?”
“Um…”
He dropped his hand to rest it on my knee. I flinched and immediately hated the fact that I had.
“Sorry,” he said gently, though he didn’t move his hand. “What I should have asked was if you’d wait out here while I run in and make a sandwich real quick.”
I nodded like a moron. Apparently, his hand on my skin turned my trucker vocabulary into alphabet soup.
Chase gave my knee a gentle squeeze, cocking his head to try to get a peek beneath my ball cap. I turned my chin and looked away.
“I’ll be right back, darlin’,” he said in a low rumble that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. “Don’t disappear on me.”