Chapter 2 #2
His lips twitched. Barely a fraction of an inch up, but it was enough to make her ovaries sit up and notice. Something hot pulsed between her thighs, and her brain train stuttered to an emergency stop.
Traitorous body.
“Aren’t you with the Jim Bob team?” His accent was subtle—Southern in a Momma’s-in-the-Junior-League way, rather than thick country hold-my-beer-and-watch-this—and his eyes had game. Take-no-prisoners, accept-no-bullshit, jump-right-in-and-play-along game.
Just as they had the night she’d first met him. The only night she’d thought she’d ever see him.
“Second place by a landslide?” he prompted.
The man needed to quit talking before her feminine parts overruled her brain.
He’d been a damn fine kisser. Until he ran away. Which was probably best for both of them, but she’d had a bad day. She should’ve been the one leaving him. “Oh, sugar, a man like you surely understands there’s no glory in second place.”
“Sure isn’t. But you get a monstrosity like yours to fling a gourd that far, don’t think you need any help from us.”
“My momma always taught me it was proper to be sociable with your competitors.”
His gaze dropped to her chest. And he didn’t have to say a thing, but she heard the message anyway. Your momma teach you to always use your boobs to get your way?
It wasn’t often that Kaci blushed—at least, unintentionally—but this man calling her out on using her feminine wiles spiked the temperature in her face.
As if he were innocent in the wiles department. “I’m doing my darnedest to deal with all y’all politely, but there ain’t no way in hell that last pumpkin was normal.”
“Because we busted the first two?”
“Because that eyesore of a catapult isn’t physically capable of not busting a pumpkin on takeoff unless that pumpkin was juiced.”
His lips finally spread into a full smile, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “It’s not an eyesore. It’s mine. And it’s physically capable of anything in the right conditions.”
“Aha! You admit you greased your gourd.”
He took one large step toward her, let his hands drop to his sides, spread his shoulders wide, and aimed a don’t-insult-my-pumpkin-chuckin’ warning glare at her. “I admit I made a better pumpkin chucker than you did, and that’s it.”
“By cheating.” She clenched her thighs together and told herself the excitement building in her chest was from the thrill of a challenge.
Not from an irrational, sexually-charged memory about what those large, long-fingered hands had felt like on her body, or how his smoldering brown eyes had looked in the dim bar.
She should’ve known he was a flyer. Wild, unpredictable, and dangerous to that little organ pumping erratically in her chest.
His gaze stayed steady on her. If he recognized her, he was doing a dang good job of hiding it. “Only thing we rubbed on our pumpkin was luck. What are you? Senior in college? Grad student?”
Not anytime in the past decade. “Didn’t your momma teach you it’s not polite to ask a lady’s age?”
“Word of advice, Pixie-lou. You want to build a machine like this, gotta get out of your momma’s house and live a little outside the books.”
Pixie-lou? The man was asking to have a firecracker aimed up his nether regions. “You have no idea—”
“I have no idea, but it’s okay for you to come over here, flash your boobs at my friends, and accuse us of cheating?”
She refused to flush again. He’d liked her boobs just fine a few weeks ago.
Until he up and left in the middle of kissing her like she was his oxygen.
Lordy, she was about to have a hot flash.
She gritted her teeth. “The laws of physics don’t lie, and the laws of physics say it’s impossible for you to stay within the rules of this contest and still launch an intact pumpkin that far.
Your takeoff speed was too high for the surface tension of a normal pumpkin. ”
“Or maybe it was just right. We didn’t grease our gourd. And even if we had, it’s still within the rules.”
She sucked in a breath.
Was it within the rules?
“Can’t help that you didn’t win,” the fresh-faced one said, “but I’d be happy to comfort you tonight.”
Oooh, these flyers were so stinking arrogant.
Her dark-haired, sinful-eyed nemesis smirked at her. “We’re gonna go get our prize. Load her up, boys. Time to celebrate.”
An irrational disappointment flooded her chest. “You’re robbing eight hardworking ladies of a prize they deserve.”
“Happy to introduce you to someone who can teach y’all how to be gracious losers. Good life skill.”
Several of the men snickered while they broke away from her and headed toward the makeshift stage.
Her daddy never would’ve acted like that. And she was horrified that she’d actually considered taking that man home.
Thank goodness he’d up and left her panting at the bar.
“Hope that trophy keeps you warm at night,” she muttered. “Because there’s not a woman in town who’ll take the job.”
Except the judge, apparently. And half the women out here today.
And Kaci herself.
Lordy. She had issues.
The fresh-faced kid slapped the pompous, dark-haired loser-proclaimer on the back. “Thumper here ain’t ever had a problem with that, miss. None of us do. But we appreciate your concern all the same.”
The lot of them laughed at that.
Thumper didn’t spare her another glance.
“They really built that themselves, Dr. Boudreaux?” Zada said when she returned to their group.
“So they say,” Kaci said.
“And their pumpkin wasn’t rigged?”
“Seems not. I’m still super proud of all y’all,” Kaci replied. Were they right? Was it within the rules to pad the pumpkins? She hadn’t looked—she’d simply assumed they used the standard Punkin Chunkin rules, even if this wasn’t an official national contest.
But if they were right, then the only one acting like an ass out here today was her.
Her cheeks flamed up again. “We’ll get ’em next year. Ice cream on me once we’ve got Ichabod put away.”
“Rather have a beer,” Jess muttered.
“And I’d rather not hear about it until you’re twenty-one,” Kaci chirped. “C’mon, y’all. Time for the awards. Let’s get up there and smile like we mean it.”
What else could they do?
But later…later, she would fix this. Somehow, she’d make it right for her girls.
Lance should have been furious. Or at least irritated.
He’d almost made himself forget the blonde from the bar, but there she was, stomping back to her team.
“Chick’s batshit crazy, but damn,” Juice Box said. The kid, real name Devon Grant, was fresh out of training and equal parts annoying and helpful. He was lanky and his light hair made him seem younger than he actually was. “I’d hit that.”
Lance’s hand curled into a fist. “Shut up and get to work.”
Juicy slapped him on the back. “I’ll give you first dibs, man. Telling you, get laid, you’ll feel better.” He sauntered off to help pack up the catapult.
The kid was so much like himself four years ago, it hurt.
Worst part, though, was knowing that he was reverting to who he’d been when he was fresh out of pilot training too.
Wanting to kick his own ass for tucking tail and running away from a willing woman. Wondering if he could get her name from the pumpkin-chucking organizers.
If she still needed to make her ex jealous.
Getting mildly and inexplicably ragey at the idea that he’d missed his chance.
Because if the woman had done anything else—besides accuse him of cheating—she’d reinforced his opinion of her from the night they met.
She was the utter, complete opposite of Allison.
And that was the one thing he hadn’t found anywhere else in the past month.
Pony, the dark-haired, pirate-ish senior pilot in the squadron, shoved a tarp at him. The guy had a swagger that he’d earned and he didn’t mince his words. “Chick’s got balls.”
“You sleep with the judge last night?”
“Nah.” Pony flashed his signature crooked grin. “That was six months ago.”
“We didn’t cheat, did we?”
“Fuck no. Random pumpkin draw, same as everyone else. She was complimenting our wood.”
Pony kept everyone honest and in line in the squadron, so Lance didn’t have any reason to doubt him. Though rather new to Gellings himself, he got the impression Pony was as honorable in his personal life.
“Glad your modifications worked so well,” Pony added. “Would’ve hated to lose to a bunch of girls.”
Lance’s shoulders bunched. “Say that in front of my sister, and she’ll fly her fighter up your ass.”
Pony laughed and went back to loading up the catapult.
Lance stole another glance at the blonde and her crew.
The night they’d met, he would’ve pegged her for being just out of college, maybe a couple years older.
Wrapped up in the drama of having an ex-boyfriend, or maybe in pretending she had one so she could use a jealous ex as an excuse to make out with strangers in bars.
But she was definitely older than the rest of her team.
The diverse group of girls all had one thing in common—they seemed to be looking to the blonde for guidance and reassurance.
She’d pat one on the back. Get nods from two others. Make half of them laugh. All in the span of four heartbeats.
Her group kept their distance during the awards.
Probably best.
He didn’t take well to being called a cheater.
An hour later, he was home. The place still smelled like sawdust and fresh concrete.
The weekend his wedding hadn’t happened, his mom and sister had quietly taken care of the boxes of wedding presents piled in the guest bedroom.
They’d plastered the living room walls with photos of planes, some with Lance in them, some those inspirational crap posters.
Cheri, his twin, had brought in University of Alabama throw pillows, fleece blankets, and bobbleheads to cover up the bare spots where Allison’s knickknacks and her grandmother’s crocheted afghans had been.
But within three days, he had known it wouldn’t be enough.
He needed to get the hell out of Gellings, out of Georgia, out of the South.
He’d only asked to come here because he’d known Allison wanted to be close to home.
Left to his own devices, he’d have gone anywhere west of the Mississippi. Overseas. New England, even.
Would’ve been nice if Allison could’ve decided she was done with him six months earlier. Out-of-cycle orders were hard to come by. Deployments aside, he was stuck here for at least two years.
So he’d made the worst-best decision of his life.
“Pony’s pulling the old man card,” Juice Box announced when Lance walked into the kitchen.
Where Allison would’ve been waiting with fresh cookies on the counter and a chicken in the oven, Juicy was digging through the liquor cabinet over the fridge.
“Says we’re doing a bonfire at his place instead of hitting the bars tonight. ”
Lance tossed his keys on the granite countertop separating the kitchen from the living room. “Good. Had enough of women for one day.”
“We’ll find you one who doesn’t talk,” Juicy said.
Lance grunted.
“Not like that blonde. Holy shit, she was a hot mess. You think she gives good head?”
“Shut up, Juicy.”
“You got marshmallows?”
The things he had to teach this kid. “You take marshmallows to a bonfire with the squadron, they’ll change your call sign from Juice Box to Breast Milk.”
“Can’t say breast in a call sign. New Air Force, dude.”
Taking a roommate had seemed like a good idea at the time.
Lance didn’t want to come home to an empty house while he waited for his deployment rotation to come up, and Juice Box had been living in an apartment with a leaky roof, questionable plumbing, and two hundred more a month in rent than Lance charged.
Having Juice Box here was like having a horny puppy that talked. He left shit everywhere, loved chasing sticks, had the attention span of a gnat, and tried to hump anything with legs and a pulse.
“Running low on beer again,” Juicy said. “Hey, can we bring dates to the squadron picnic next weekend? Got a buddy whose sister goes to school over at the college here, and he asked if I’d watch out for her.”
Lance’s sister had never had any issues taking care of herself, but that didn’t mean his big-brother instincts didn’t spike when Juicy was talking about anybody’s sister.
“On behalf of your buddy, if you touch her, kiss her, say anything suggestive, or so much as imagine her naked, I will personally twist you into a human pretzel, light your hair on fire, and kick you off the ramp of my Herc without a parachute next time I’m in the air. Got it?”
Juicy grinned. “Lightning doesn’t let you threaten her boyfriends, does she? Hey, when’s she coming back to town?”
Four months.
Lance deployed in four months. He could tolerate this for four more months.
God only knew what Juice Box would do in the house while he was gone, but on some level, he knew having the kid here was better than living with a wife who didn’t want him.
Plus, if the deployment went well and he played his cards right, he’d have networked his way into a by-name request from another squadron, and he’d be putting the house up for sale and getting out to see the world.
But in the meantime, Juicy was a good distraction.
Not as good a distraction as the blonde would’ve been, but life was never perfect.