Chapter 6 #2
Josie couldn’t breathe. Somehow, they’d migrated from the back of the couch and were lying cuddled together on it, covered with a chenille blanket that was a decidedly feminine touch in his otherwise masculine abode.
It was best not to think about where that blanket had come from.
It would only piss her off. Being jealous over him was a waste of time and energy.
Every woman in town had either wanted him, had him, or planned to try.
Carter had pulled her tighter, pressing her face against his chest until she couldn’t even draw breath. Managing to turn her head, Josie pushed against him until he mumbled in his sleep. Even then, barely conscious, his hand cupped her breast and squeezed gently.
She rolled her eyes. “Carter, wake up!”
He grumbled again, but made no move to let her up. Finally, out of desperation, Josie reached over and grabbed his chest hair, giving it a hard tug.
“Ow!” he shouted, eyes flying open. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“Because I need to pee, and you sleep like the damn dead. Let me up!”
Carter murmured under his breath, something that was undoubtedly a string of curse words. But he did manage to roll to a sitting position, allowing her to climb over top of him and off the couch.
After attending to nature’s call, Josie stood there in front of the sink, washing her hands and taking in her reflection.
She looked like a wild woman. Her hair was a mess, her makeup smeared.
She had beard burn on her cheeks and chin.
But she looked alive , like something had finally just lit up inside her.
For the longest time, she’d just been going through the motions.
Clean the house. Go to work. Come home. Go to church.
Do, as always, what everyone says because it would appear ungrateful not to.
Somehow or other, her life had become nothing more than an expression of gratitude to her parents.
The realization weighed heavily on her. But for now, it appeared things were changing dramatically.
She didn’t know if it was Carter. Maybe it was just rebellion, maybe it was the thrill of having a secret that no one knew for sure, even if a few did suspect.
Or maybe it was just hot, amazing sex that left her knees weak.
Whatever it was, it felt good. She felt good. And she didn’t want to give that up.
Leaving the bathroom, she saw that he’d moved from the couch to the bed.
“I should go,” she said lamely. It wasn’t what she wanted. If she were to do what she wanted, she’d crawl into that bed with him, snuggle against his chest while he held her and rubbed her back until they both fell asleep. And of course, in the morning, they’d have more amazing, mind-blowing sex.
“You can stay,” he said.
He didn’t tell her he wanted her to. He didn’t ask her to. Instead, he left it totally in her court. She wanted him to demand it, she realized. Some perverse part of her wanted him to be the one putting his pride on the line instead of hers.
“We both have to work tomorrow,” she protested. “And if anyone saw me—yeah. That’s not a good idea.”
Grabbing her discarded clothes in the living room, Josie dressed quickly.
Her panties were a lost cause. Between the pair he’d stolen from her and the pair he’d destroyed, the man was playing hell on her lingerie budget.
As Josie slipped her sneakers back on, he emerged from the bedroom wearing just a pair of jeans, only partially fastened.
He wore nothing beneath them. Her eyes followed the line of hair that bisected his perfectly defined abs only to disappear behind denim that looked so damn good on him it made her want to cry.
“I’ll see you this weekend,” he said. “At your house.”
“That is not a good idea,” she said.
“Relax. I’ve got it all worked out,” he offered with a wink.
“That is the least reassuring thing I have ever heard anyone say.” Josie didn’t want him working things out. She wanted things like they were. Sneaking around like two grounded teenagers was working for her. Some inner kinky bitch that she’d never known about was actually kind of enjoying it.
“Your privacy fence is falling apart. It won’t make it through the winter,” he explained. “Naturally, you’re not going to be out there fixing it yourself. Hiring a handyman, Josie, is your only option…and after I repair the fence, then we can discuss payment.”
“Payment?” she asked. “Really? Now I’m supposed to pimp myself for home repair?”
“It’s really good home repair,” he promised. “It’ll be mutually beneficial. In fact, I’ll guarantee that and the fence.”
She felt herself caving. All of her protests collapsing under the weight of his wicked grin and the knowledge that he was absolutely right.
“You do realize we’re crazy, right? That there’s no way whatever we’re doing is going to end well?” she asked.
His expression grew shuttered, the teasing light leaving his eyes.
For a moment, just for a split second, she thought maybe she’d hurt him.
But then she dismissed the thought. She was a diversion for him, heretofore unconquered territory.
Women were disposable to Carter. They always had been and always would.
If she let herself think any differently, she’d wind up brokenhearted for sure.
“Why are you borrowing trouble, Josie?” he asked softly.
“Just stating the obvious. You’ll get tired of me. Or I’ll get tired of you. The odds of us getting tired of each other at exactly the same time and walking away on good terms? Yeah, those are pretty damn slim.”
He shook his head. “You can’t control everything, Josie. I don’t know where this is going, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend every minute of the time we have together anticipating the end.”
She had hurt him, she realized, stunned that she even possessed the power to do so. At the very least, she’d nicked his pride. “I don’t mean to be difficult…But I have to protect myself, Carter. I don’t want to get my heart broken.”
“I’m not an asshole, Josie! I don’t make promises and then bail on them,” he said defensively. “I’ve never been anything but honest with any of the women I’ve dated.”
She shook her head sadly. He didn’t understand, but then he wouldn’t.
“For all that, for all the women that just fall at your feet, you don’t understand us at all.
You don’t have to lie to us, Carter. We lie to ourselves.
We build these elaborate fantasies in our heads of how things will work out.
We plan weddings and houses and babies…There’s a whole universe of expectation tied up in nothing more than a first date.
So when I say this is going to end, I’m not saying it because of you, Carter.
I’m just reminding myself to stay focused on what’s here and now, and not what I want it to be down the road. ”
He didn’t respond, just stared at her like she’d started speaking in tongues, and he didn’t have an interpreter present. Josie grabbed her keys and marched toward the door. She wasn’t mad at him, but she was more than a little mad at herself.
It was all well and good to talk about keeping her distance, of reminding herself that theirs was a finite arrangement, but it didn’t stop the flare of hope in her.
It certainly didn’t do anything to lessen the fact that all she wanted, more than anything else in the world at that moment, was to be curled up in his arms. If ever there was a reason to turn tail and run, that was it.
She needed space, she needed perspective, and she needed to find some way to armor herself against the hurt that was going to come crashing down sooner or later.
After Josie left, Carter stared at the door for the longest time.
She tied him up in fucking knots, he thought bitterly as he walked into the kitchen to grab a beer.
It was perverse to want her, an exercise in misery since she was clearly the most prickly, contrary, and difficult woman who’d ever walked the face of the earth.
Using the antique bottle opener mounted to the wall, he popped the lid off the beer. He didn’t actually want to drink it. He didn’t want to sit around in his apartment and mope about her. Putting the bottle in the sink, he grabbed his discarded shirt from earlier, then put on his boots.
Heading out into the night, his aimless drive wound up taking him to the farm. The lights were on in the barn, so he knew Emmitt would be up. Letting himself in, he drove right up the open doors of the barn and then climbed out of the truck.
There was no telling what he would find inside. As the local vet, Emmitt tended to keep a lot of sick or injured animals in the barn if they couldn’t be treated at their home or fit in the exam rooms of the attached clinic.
But it wasn’t an animal emergency that had Emmitt out there so late. He was putting down fresh straw in the stalls.
“You do realize that it’s almost midnight,” Carter pointed out.
“You do realize that if you want to talk, you better be willing to work,” Emmitt said and tossed the pitchfork toward him.
Carter caught it by the handle and sighed. He should have stayed home. Still, he walked over and started spreading the straw. It was hard work, burning the muscles, but soothing the mind.
“So why are you out cruising around in the middle of the night?” Emmitt finally asked.
“My evening didn’t go as planned.”
“Her husband came home early?” Emmitt shot back.
“You’re not funny,” Carter said. “I don’t mess with married women…that I know of.”
“If it’s midnight, and you’re in my barn instead of someone’s bed, there’s a problem.” Emmitt shot back.
Carter finished spreading the straw in the stall and went for another bale. Hoisting it onto his shoulder, he carried it over and set it down, using a pocket knife to snap the twine that bound it. “Let’s just say we move in different circles…There’s some conflict there.”
“Church lady?”
Carter frowned. “How do you figure?”
Emmitt laughed, a rusty sound that was rarely ever heard. “That’s the only circle you don’t run in. Either step up or step off, Carter. If you want her, you have to meet her where she is…and if you’re not willing to do that, let her go.”
Yeah. He wasn’t going to church with Josie. He wasn’t going to sit there in the front row under the disapproving eye of her daddy. That shit was not happening.
“You give shitty advice, Emmitt.”
“I give good advice that you don’t like. Now shut up and spread that straw. I’d like to get to bed sometime before daylight.”
“Why the hell are you up doing this right now, anyway?”
Emmitt lifted another bale and carried it back to the larger of the stalls.
“Had an emergency earlier today. Horse broke its leg. Had to put it down. Old man Jeffers…Between his bad hips and his dementia, I couldn’t leave him to handle it.
So I borrowed a backhoe and got one of the neighbors to help me with it. Took all damn day.”
Emmitt Hayes, the Surly Saint, Carter thought with a bitter laugh. “Half the town thinks you’re a hateful bastard, and the other half thinks the pope should be knocking on your door.”
“He’s a hundred damn years old. He could break a hip looking at that damn backhoe. What was I supposed to do?” Emmitt demanded.
Carter didn’t say anything else. Just spread straw in the various stalls. Emmitt was just as locked down by what people in Fontaine thought as the rest of them were. That didn’t make his current situation any clearer, though.
Feeling his muscles burning from slinging the pitchfork around and feeling the bite of the handle in his hands, he realized he probably should have just stayed home and drunk the beer.