Chapter 3 #2
Pony lived on the outskirts of town next to the fairgrounds. He had converted his backyard shop to a man cave and then opened it up for all of them to use. The building had water and electricity, and they all pitched in to keep it stocked with chips and liquor.
And the wooden bar tucked along the back wall kept taking Lance back to the night that he should’ve gotten married. To the sassy, intriguing blonde who’d been frank about wanting to use him to make her ex jealous.
To that moment he’d given in to weakness and thought he could be the kind of guy who made out with a woman without knowing her name.
She was more than a nameless woman, he’d discovered today.
In full daylight, she’d been undeniably gorgeous. Those blue eyes sparking, those pink lips pouty, and she’d known all the right ways to show off her assets.
She’d also been batshit crazy.
He shook his head and blinked at the flame glowing in the darkness.
Pony touched it to the crumpled newspaper beneath the logs in the fire pit, and an old, familiar crackle joined the song of the night insects.
A few of the guys had brought out one of Pony’s homebrew kegs, and most of them were kicked back around the circle, taking in the stars overhead.
Allison hadn’t hated camping, but she’d always preferred doing it from the comfort of a hotel room. Nothing stopping Lance from sleeping under the stars tonight if he wanted to.
He didn’t regret that they hadn’t gotten married.
He regretted that they hadn’t parted ways sooner.
An odd thump sounded somewhere in the darkness.
“That you, Thumper?” Pony said.
Juice Box snickered and thumped his leg like that danged cartoon rabbit. “Feel better if you get some, old man. Already told you I’ll let you have that blonde from today, but if you don’t want her…”
“Life lesson number seventeen,” Lance said to Juice Box. “Don’t go for chicks who call you cheaters.”
Which was advice he needed to take for himself.
The fire was growing, flames licking at the wood, popping and fizzing. Pony lifted his glass. “How ’bout that trophy?”
They all lifted their own cups and agreed their catapult had been a thing of beauty.
Damn good to be number one.
At something, anyway.
The bonfire was picking up steam, crackling and glowing merrily in the moonlight.
He inhaled a deep lungful of night air and campfire smoke. Would be a beautiful night to fly. Get up there in the sky with the stars, forget about life and love and women for a while.
Juice Box straightened beside him. “Whoa, did you see—”
Another thump landed, along with a tink just beyond the fire. The reverberations shook the air, and they dove for cover.
Lance went on full alert, peering into the darkness. Rain misted down around them, stars still sparkling in the clear sky.
“What the hell?” Juice Box shrieked.
Fuck.
Not rain.
Beer.
Lance shot to his feet, Pony at his heels, darting for the keg, watching for more incoming—incoming what?
Beer spewed out the broken connector on top of the keg, the whole thing coated in stringy orange gunk.
Pumpkin guts.
“That’s my keg,” Pony yelped. “That’s my homebrew.”
“How do we stop it?” Lance said.
Beer coated his shirt and stuck to his hair and misted through the air. Someone popped up with a flashlight. Pony grabbed the pumpkin-slimed connector on the hose and yanked.
It didn’t budge.
“That’s fucking disgusting.” He grunted and yanked again, and the connector popped off.
A spray of beer shot straight in the air, then bubbled down to a slow runoff and stopped.
“Are we under attack?” Juice Box said.
“Where’d it come from?” Lance said. “Juicy! What did you see? Where did it come from?”
“Ah, that way.” He pointed west. “I think.”
Lance took off at a jog, senses alert for pumpkins or other flying objects. He could make out a glow in the distance—a flashlight? Car lights?—but in the dark, he couldn’t judge how far off it was. Yelling might make them stop.
Or it might tell the enemy where he was.
Probably stupid rednecks out joy-flinging. “Hey!” he yelled. “Who’s there?”
Pumpkins didn’t just fall from the sky.
Well, they could. But usually it would’ve been his crew dropping them off the ramp of his C-130, and much as the guys would’ve loved that, they still only dropped cargo, official or unofficial, when approved by the proper figures, and only under controlled circumstances.
There weren’t any missions flying on base tonight. Aero Club wasn’t running either. And they weren’t under any of the normal patterns for the closest local airport.
“Put the pumpkins down,” Lance called into the darkness while he continued to jog toward the dim light. “There are kids back here.”
“Oh, no. Y’all got kids over there? They’re not hurt, are they? We didn’t mean to hurt ’em. I just got really bad aim, and I swear I thought I was facing the other direction, and—”
His heart slammed to a stop and his groin twitched. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
He knew that voice.
Those sassy tones had been haunting him for hours.
“Oh, no,” she said again.
For the second time in less than twelve hours, Lance assumed battle stance while he stared down at the pint-sized blonde and her fantastic tits, ignoring the tingling in his chest and the hum of adrenaline spicing his blood.
“Oh, no, you got caught?” he suggested.
In a wink, she put the sass back in sassy. “Hush your tongue. Does your momma know you talk like that?”
Any other place, any other time, with any other woman, he might’ve offered an I’m sorry. For running away that night. For kissing her in the first place.
But this woman?
This woman made him crazy. He’d talked to her for a grand total of ten minutes in his entire life, but it was enough to make his skin twitch and his muscles clench.
And to think he’d considered apologizing when he’d first recognized her this afternoon. “Does your momma know you’re operating a pumpkin chucker without a license? In the dark? And aiming at a fucking fire?”
“Lordy goodness, you’re fixin’ to get your tongue washed down with a bar of Ivory, aren’t you? And there’s no such thing as a pumpkin-chucker license. Though if there were, I’d get one long before you and your ragamuffin crew.”
Her eyes were large and dark tonight, and her chest rose and fell rapidly. Because she was afraid she’d gotten caught? Because she was afraid someone was hurt? Because she’d been running?
This woman running—dear God. His groin tightened.
That’d be a sight.
“Of the two of us,” Lance said, “I’m not the one with a second-place trophy. Nor am I the one flinging pumpkins in the dark.”
He couldn’t be sure, but it almost looked like she was blushing.
“Well, so long as no one was hurt—”
“Someone got hurt.”
That blush he’d thought he saw receded until her skin glowed paler than the moonlight. “S-someone’s hurt?”
“Mildred.” Lance couldn’t help himself. Baiting her was too much fun. “She’s dead.”
“I killed someone’s grandmother?” She punctuated her sentence with a squeak, and she swayed on her feet.
“Have you tried CPR? Called 911? Are the cops on their way? The fire trucks? An ambulance? What are we doing just standing here? My momma was right. I should’ve given this all up after the pig incident, but I—why are you smiling? ”
Was he smiling?
Well, damn.
He was.
He switched it to a scowl. “I’m gonna need to hear more about this pig incident.”
“Who’s Mildred?”
“Criminals first.”
“Excuse you, Lieutenant Bossypants, I am not a criminal. Who in the Sam Hill is Mildred?”
“Captain,” Lance said.
“Mildred is a captain?”
“No, I’m a captain. Captain Wheeler. And you are?”
“I’m standing here having some light dawn on me, that’s who I am. Mildred ain’t anybody’s granny. She’s probably your damn mascot, isn’t she?”
“No, that’s Gertrude. Mildred’s on private property, though. And you blew her to bits. Pony’s about to have a cow.”
She thrust her fingers through her hair and turned in a slow circle, muttering something to herself about arrogant flyers and military clubs.
“Hope you’ve got an after-school job to pay for the damage,” he added.
He was certain she wasn’t a college kid, but if she wanted to call him an LT and suggest Juice Box was the boss, he’d happily question her maturity too.
Huh. Maybe meeting her wasn’t about getting laid and getting over Allison. Maybe it was about finding some fun in life again.
“What is that god-awful smell?” She paused and stepped closer to him, sniffing. “It’s you. You’re drunk as a skunk. Raise my hand to sweet baby Jesus, if you’re this obnoxious drunk, I’m glad I never got to know you sober.”
“You killed a keg, a good keg, with good beer in it, and you think I’m the one not worth knowing tonight?”
“Mildred is a keg? Who names a keg? No, wait. Never mind. Suppose every man wants his girlfriend to have a name.”
“Want ’em to be sane too. You must be lonely.”
“You keep talking, I’m gonna start thinking you must be lookin’ to have a pumpkin aimed up somewhere the sun don’t shine.”
Had Allison ever been this hot over anything? He couldn’t remember. But he knew one thing—he was having a damn hard time stifling a grin. “Lady, you’ve got problems.”
“Sure do. And most of ’em are penis-carrying members of the military. Tell you what, Captain Wheeler, you go on and send me a bill for that keg of beer. Dr. Kaci Boudreaux, James Robert College, Physics Department. And leave the pumpkin-chucking to us professionals.”
She was a piece of work. A pompous, overeducated piece of work with the ripest breasts and the hottest mouth this side of the Mason-Dixon Line. “Where I come from, the rednecks are more qualified to chuck pumpkins than the professors.”
“Ah. You must be from Alabama.”
“If by from Alabama, you mean where smart, sane people come from, then yes, I’m from Alabama. Proudly.”
“Nothing sane about rednecks, but I got both redneck, smart, and sane covered, sugar. If no human beings were injured, then excuse me. My apologies to your sweet Mildred. And have no fear—I’m picking a different cornfield next time.”
She turned and swung those sweet hips, marching away in her shitkickers, and he had a crazy urge to follow her and kiss the priss right out of her.
But unlike her, he still had his sanity, so he turned his back on her and jogged back to the guys.
The keg had stopped bubbling over. His friends were squatting around the pumpkin slop.
But instead of mourning, they looked downright intrigued.
“That’s the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen,” one of the guys said.
“Not the weirdest, but up there,” Pony agreed.
“What?” Lance asked.
They all burst out laughing.
Juice Box pointed to the slimy mess and shone a flashlight into the middle of it.
A cracked and bent pair of BCGs were nestled in the center.
Lance glanced back toward where Dr. Kaci Boudreaux had marched off.
That girl truly did have issues.
And he had a masochistic desire to dig into them.
That blonde was a bad idea.
But he’d spent most of his life chasing good ideas. Maybe a bad idea was exactly what he needed.
Kaci pushed into her apartment with Tara at close to midnight. She had an emotional hangover battling with a raging case of hormones.
That man needed a warning label.
He was so—so—
Sinfully delicious.
Ugh.
Irritating. He was irritating and pompous and a fricking flyer.
And surprisingly intellectually stimulating.
Probably because it had been too long since she’d had a good argument with anyone other than herself.
And she’d not only failed to apologize for calling him a cheater, she owed him an apology for killing his keg with a pumpkin.
She could’ve seriously hurt him or one of his friends too. And that, more than anything, had her heart in her throat still.
Tara paused outside her room. “It’ll be okay, Kaci. Don’t let him get to you. He’s just a man.”
Just a man.
Just a man with a voice she could still feel in her bones and a way of looking at her as though he could show her how to get to the moon.
Tara disappeared into her bedroom and shut the door with a click.
“Mmmrrraaaa?” Miss Higgs said. Kaci’s ancient white Persian cat blended in with the chenille lap blanket tossed all cockamamie over the couch.
She dumped her bag, then plopped down and gingerly pulled the elderly cat onto her lap. “Miss Higgs, I had a man try to convince me I killed his grandmomma tonight. And then he had the nerve to laugh at me. And he probably wouldn’t even believe me if I did tell him I was sorry.”
The cat lolled her head back and peered up through milky blue eyes as though she knew the real issue was that the man was sexier than basic physics principles, and he probably wouldn’t be interested in kissing her again.
Which she shouldn’t have been interested in either, but her basic biological instincts were obviously working double time to betray her tonight.
“Don’t you give me that look,” she said to the cat. “He didn’t even have the decency to appreciate how far Ichabod must’ve flung that last pumpkin tonight. And I swear I was another mile down the road when we pulled over with that catapult.”
Miss Higgs flicked her tail, which at her age meant the tip moved a centimeter.
Probably the cat was right. Kaci had a horrible sense of direction. She shouldn’t be left unsupervised.
Or perhaps she needed to get back to concentrating on what was truly important—her job, her girls, and the conference in Germany.
She shivered. “I screw up everything I touch, Miss Higgs.”
Apparently her story was boring, because the cat struggled to her feet and gave her the pitiful look of please don’t make me jump. Kaci gingerly set her on the tan-and-white Pottery Barn rug Momma had sent. Miss Higgs paused on the rug before continuing her stiff-gaited walk to the bedroom.
She’d been a prissy, nose-in-the-air doubting Thomasina for nearly eighteen years, but she’d been there.
Through high school and college, grad school, marriage, divorce.
Across the country and back. Every night, she curled up next to Kaci’s head and purred herself to sleep, though Kaci had to lift her onto the bed these days, and she kept a towel on the pillow to compensate for Miss Higgs’s increasingly frequent accidents.
One day soon, probably too soon, she would miss that cat.
Miss Higgs flicked a look back at her, as if to say you coming?
“Go on, you pretty little hairball.” She stood and shooed the cat toward the bedroom. “I’m coming.”
She probably wouldn’t sleep—not when she couldn’t shake the sound of a certain captain’s voice out of her head—but she’d try.