Chapter 5 #2
Brodie folded his arms over his chest and didn’t take his eyes off the mud wrestling in front of him. “The blond is loud and bossy, but the brunette is meaner than a crocogator, so I’ll put my money on her.”
“What is a crocogator?” Pete asked.
“That’s an animal with a crocodile head on one end and an alligator head on the other,” Brodie answered.
Pete scratched his head for a couple of seconds. “How does a critter like that go to the bathroom?”
“It don’t,” Brodie said with a chuckle. “That’s what makes it so mean.”
Pete laughed out loud. “That’s funny, but if that brunette is that mean, I’ll just go back to work.”
“Thanks for the offer,” Brodie said. “They’ll get tired after a while.”
“Hope the brunette wins,” Pete said. “I think she likes you.”
Brodie didn’t even try to explain the situation but watched the two women rolling around in the mud like a couple of puppies.
Linda’s blond hair was now brown. The slippery mud had caused both her high-heeled shoes to come off.
Her skirt tail had flown up over her head and made a cape around her shoulders.
The only thing left that wasn’t covered in mud was a tiny, lacy swatch at the top of her red bikini underpants.
The whole fight seemed to be playing in slow motion, and then it went right into warp speed when Audrey put Linda face down to the ground, slapped the ground three times, and stood up with her hands over her head.
“And the winner is Audrey Tucker.” She picked up Linda’s high-heeled shoes and hurled them toward her car. One bounced off the hood, and another landed on the trunk with a loud pop. Then she fished Linda’s blinged-out pink phone from the mud and tossed it in the same direction.
Linda sat up and shook a fist at Audrey. “Those were my most expensive high heels, and my phone is probably ruined.” She turned her glare toward Brodie. “I’m calling Bernie, and I hate both of you.”
“Feeling is mutual from this area, and let that be a lesson to you to never cross me again,” Audrey said, and stomped across the distance to Brodie.
She wrapped him up in a bear hug and whispered.
“I’ll take strawberries instead of a winner’s trophy for saving your sorry ass. ” Then she kissed him again.
“Why did you do that?” He panted when she took a step back, leaving mud all over his shirt and his face.
“I told you before, in case you don’t sell to me, I don’t want her for a neighbor,” Audrey answered, and turned around and walked away. “You can leave the strawberries on my front porch. Until you sign a bill of sale, you aren’t welcome inside.”
***
“What in the hell happened to you?” Walter said from the back porch.
“It’s a long story that I’ll tell you later when I get cleaned up,” she answered, and left her manager/supervisor/surrogate uncle shaking his head as he walked away.
“You better not track mud onto Hettie’s clean kitchen floor,” Walter said.
“I told her not to mop,” Audrey snapped. “She’s going to fall and break a hip one of these days.”
“Been tellin’ her that for a long time, but she’s even more stubborn now than she was back when she was younger,” Walter waved over his shoulder as he walked away.
Hettie gasped when Audrey came in the back door and stripped out of dirty jeans and T-shirt right there.
“What happened to you, and where have you been? Walter came looking for you to say that he was back from his trip. Did you roll in the mud? You get in the shower out there in the mudroom before you come on inside the house. I just cleaned the floor.”
“Yep, I did roll in the mud, and I haven’t had so much fun in years,” Audrey answered. “We’ll talk after I get cleaned up.”
“Be sure the drain cleaner is handy because half of the dirt in Texas is stuck in your hair right now,” Hettie scolded.
“Then we’re going to have cookies and hot chocolate, and you’re goin’ to tell me what happened.
Me and Amos tried a lot of things, but we never had sex in the mud, so if that’s what happened, I want the details. ”
Audrey dropped her bra and panties on the floor, turned on the water, and stepped into the shower. “For the first time, I understand why they call this a mudroom,” she said.
After washing and rinsing three times, the water from Audrey’s hair still ran in a dirty streak, so she went through the process twice more.
Then she noticed the mud between her toes and groaned.
She slapped the side of the shower and moaned, “If the mud got all the way to my feet, then my boots are messed up beyond repair, and it’s all your fault, Linda Massey. ”
“Are you all right in there?” Hettie hollered.
“I’m fine. I’m just mad as a wet hen,” Audrey said as she turned off the water and stepped out onto the bathroom mat in front of the shower. “My boots are ruined.”
“Well, you are as wet as an old settin’ hen right now.
There’s a major difference in a plain old hen who doesn’t want to be wet and one that is trying to keep her baby chicks safe.
I’m waiting to see what you are protecting, so hurry up in there,” Hettie giggled from the kitchen.
“I’ve cleaned up a lot of Amos’s messy boots, both inside and out a few times, so I’ll take care of yours.
Get dried off and dressed, and don’t keep me waiting.
I’m an old woman who might not live long enough to hear the story. ”
Audrey wrapped a towel around her head and one around her body. She grabbed a snickerdoodle cookie from the middle of the kitchen table as she passed by on the way to her bedroom.
“Those are for storytelling,” Hettie growled.
“I need one for enough energy to get dressed. Fighting over a man I don’t even want takes a lot of energy,” Audrey yelled before she closed her door.
“Sounds like a very good story unless that man was Brodie Callahan. You better not have been fighting with or for him,” Hettie got in the last word.
Audrey pulled on a pair of underwear and a T-shirt with a faded picture of Chris Stapleton on the front.
She padded back to the kitchen with the towel turban still wrapped tightly around her head.
Her hands trembled, and her knees felt like rubber.
She wasn’t sure if it was a drop after the adrenaline rush from the fight or if the kisses had set off a flood of desire.
Hettie set two cups of hot chocolate on the table and motioned for her to sit down. “You’ve had one cookie. You can have another one when you start talking. Sex?”
“Lord, no!” Audrey took a sip of the chocolate and sputtered. “This is…”
“It has a little nip of Irish whiskey to give it some kick. The way your whole body is humming you need it, so drink it and don’t fuss. Besides, it goes well with the snickerdoodles,” Hettie said. “I’ll be disappointed if the story is too bland for it.”
“It’s not,” Audrey promised, and told her about taking a walk out to the fence to see if the harvesters would sell her a basket of strawberries.
Then she picked up a cookie and took a bite.
“Then I saw Linda Massey’s car coming down the road, and Lord help me, but I hate that woman, and I don’t want her for a neighbor.
As pushy as she is, she could have had Brodie dragged to the church and married before he can blink. ”
“That’s a good beginning,” Hettie said. “But what’s it got to do with all that mud? Please don’t tell me that he threw you down and had his way with you right there in front of Ira’s harvest crew? The only thing worse than having him live next door to us is if he got you pregnant.”
“He did not!” Audrey’s whole body tingled at the idea of a romp anywhere with Brodie.
“Whew!” Hettie wiped her brow. “Now that I know I don’t have to load my sawed-off shotgun and go after Brodie, I want to hear the rest of the story.”
By the time she finished, Hettie was laughing so hard that she could hardly breathe. “The only way that could have been better is if it had been me and Bernie. I know I could whip her skinny ass, and rolling her in the mud would be icing on the cake.”
Audrey didn’t tell Hettie that kissing Brodie made her feel like stripping off his clothes and dragging him down into the ground to have wild, passionate sex. A hard knock on the front door erased the visual from her mind.
“It’s probably something from the post office that’s too big to put in the mailbox out by the road,” Audrey said.
“You be sure about that before you open the door. No one needs to see you in that garb you are wearing,” Hettie told her.
“Yes, ma’am,” Audrey snapped.
She left the kitchen, walked down the short foyer, and cracked the door open.
She peeked outside and saw Brodie walking toward the road where his poor old, beat-up truck was parked.
She felt sorrier for the vehicle than she did the man.
When she remembered the way those kisses and the hardness of his body pressed against hers had made her feel, another delicious little shiver of desire danced through her body.
She watched him slide in behind the steering wheel and drive away before she opened the door and found a paper sack sitting on the porch.
“Who is it?” Hettie yelled.
“Brodie Callahan, paying his bill,” she answered as she picked up the bag of strawberries and carried it to the kitchen.
***
Brodie groaned and slapped the steering wheel when he parked in front of the Paradise that afternoon.
Tripp and Knox waved from the porch steps and held up their beers.
He had hoped to sneak in and get cleaned up before anyone could see the mess he was in—dried mud covered the front of his shirt and pants.
His boots were in a frightful mess from all that wading through the wet ground to get to the strawberry beds.
He let out a heavy sigh, picked up a bag of berries, and opened the truck door.
“What do you have there?” Tripp asked.
“Strawberries for Mary Jane,” Brodie answered.
“Did you roll around in the garden?” Knox asked.