Chapter 10 #2
“All ages. I’d be . . .” I swallow hard and my cheek twitches. I take the smallest of sips. The action calms my racing thoughts more than the drink. “Dirty. Our clothes, our bodies, and when puberty hit, a kid with no deodorant? It was brutal. Other kids aren’t nice.”
“Oh, Cruz. That had to be hard.”
“I sharpened my fighting skills.” I’m not joking.
Emotions play through her eyes—sympathy, anger for that young boy, and curiosity. Her lips quirk up. “How often did you lose?”
I appreciate that she’s trying to keep the topic light. “A few times at first. I was a seventh grader, and I cocked off to some sophomore on the street. Lane had to save my stupid ass. But the time my mom’s boyfriend went after Lane, I paid him back.”
She frowns and a cute little divot forms between her brows. “Adult men tried to hit you?”
“More than once. She didn’t have good taste in guys. Except for Myles’s dad.”
Her compassion is magnified. “She didn’t think she deserved better.”
She says it so plainly that I’m ashamed I ever blamed Mom for the way she was treated, but I was young and I blamed everyone. “I know it’s not all her fault, but it was hard to see her make bad decision after bad decision.”
“Being under the influence doesn’t help.”
“No.” I take a drink of her cold beer and she playfully scowls at me, lifting my glass of whiskey to her mouth.
We each take a drink. Someday, I’ll get her back on my deck, having a cold drink, and telling me about her day.
“I just try not to repeat her mistakes, and I refuse to be anything like my dad.”
She rests her hand on mine. “I can already tell you’re not, but was he that bad?”
I tangle my fingers with hers. “He was not good. He was in and out of jail for various reasons, and then he went away for a long time. Four counts of vehicular manslaughter.”
Her eyes go wide. “Oh, wow. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“It’s because I don’t talk about it much.
He wasn’t a huge part of our life, and now that he wants to be, I don’t have time for him.
” I’ve never spent this long on the subject of my dad.
It’s a relief to talk about him. She doesn’t have expectations or judgment like Lane, just questions.
Lane would argue he’s not the same, but the vibe is there.
He understands why I cut our dad off, but he’s disappointed I’m sticking to it.
“You don’t talk to him?”
I drink enough whiskey to coat my tongue. “Lane does, but he’s old enough to remember some of the good times between our parents. I just recall”—yelling, pain, and fear—“the bad.”
She rests her hand on my forearm. “It’s okay if you don’t have anything to do with him. You get to be the guy who protects that little boy.”
A lump forms in my throat. “Goddamn, Elodie. You can really punch the dough down and get to the heart of it.”
“It’s a hazard of the job,” she says softly. “But you’ve come so much farther than both of your parents, and I know you’ll give credit to Lane or Mae or even Myles, but you did the work on yourself. That’s pretty amazing.”
I’m not used to someone gushing about the real me. She’s pretty amazing. “I don’t enjoy talking about the way I grew up, but thanks for listening.”
“It helps me to get to know you, and to trust what you say.” She says it with such sincerity, I wish I had more baggage to bring up. “But I think it’s time we move on to something you do like?”
That’s an easy answer. “A sexy baker who has the sweetest little gasps when she comes.” There’s that blush again. Before I get hard in public, I grasp for another topic. “Tell me about you. What was culinary school like?”
Shadows drift across her eyes. “Lonely. I went to Austin and did a two-year program. I was way too young when I graduated to be off on my own, making decisions away from other adults who cared about me.”
She’s taking all the blame. “We all make questionable decisions when we’re twenty.”
“Sometimes the worst one a girl can make at that age is who she’s going to date.”
“Damn. You’re right.” When she nods, I stroke my thumb across the back of her hand. “I’m assuming that since you went to culinary school, there was a time you liked to cook.”
The corner of her mouth lifts, but sadness fills her eyes.
Suddenly I want to return to my fighting ways.
“I used to love the rush of a kitchen. I’d go home exhausted and thrilled to do it again.
Then . . . it became an obligation. I don’t like to have to cook.
” She lets out a small laugh. “I met my ex at my first job, and when you get him, you get his brother, Damon. But not like that,” she rushes to tack on. “Damon used his own women.”
“I can’t imagine sharing you.” If I had her—if she gave herself to me—I’d make sure she never doubted that she was mine and mine alone, or that she could trust me.
“There’s the right thing to say again.” She takes a long swig of her beer.
After she swallows, she glances at me, then chugs the rest. “I was a good country girl with big plans, but my ex was so cultured, so worldly—or so I thought.” There’s the melancholy smile again.
“For a Montana girl whose dad only took vacations where the fly-fishing was excellent? I was a sucker.”
“Don’t blame—”
She puts her finger on my lips. “I know.”
I lick my tongue out. A light tang of salt hits my tongue, but the hint of sweetness is there from her day of baking. I want her alone and all to myself, but I won’t interrupt her when she’s actually talking to me.
She traces my lips before dropping her hand.
“He took me to London, then Paris. He acted like he’d been there before, and it was to buff up his ego, you know.
I had no money for him to scam. I fell further under his spell.
Soon, he had this big idea to start his own restaurant, but he needed time to research and raise capital.
I didn’t know what that involved, so I was charged with paying our rent.
Utilities. Food. That was the last two years of our relationship.
Before that, he used me in other ways to save money. ”
“What other ways?” I ask with a growl. A beat pounds in my temples. It’s lucky that fucker’s in jail or I’d risk being my dad’s roommate in prison.
“Not like that.” Her gaze jumps around the bar.
It’s not crowded tonight. There are a few people from around town, and the seasonal workers are easy to tell apart from the tourists, mostly because the tourists don’t visit the local dive bar.
Bootleg Tavern isn’t recommended by the locals, but it’s the biggest bar in the area.
When she brings her attention back to me, her jaw is tight. “There was a time I could get us free drinks all night long.”
Her bold statement comes out of nowhere. “How?”
“Flirting. Showing my tits. Giggling.”
“That usually works on a guy, but why?”
She drapes her long locks over a shoulder and gives me a sexy pout that goes right to my dick. “I could show you.”
The lilt in her voice tickles my eardrums and makes me think of an old bombshell cartoon character.
A modern dark-haired Marilyn Monroe. But it’s not right.
It’s not Elodie. She’s holding tension in her shoulders and the stiff way she’s sitting.
She does not want to show me. “No, sugar. I’m buying all your drinks tonight anyway. ”
Her eyes shine, but there’s more shame in those hazel irises. “I would order huge meals on dates. I only nibbled at it and took it all to go.”
Dates? Wasn’t she with that bastard? The con dawns on me. “And Dwayne got a free meal?”
Wetness shone in her eyes. “I would go on three dates in a night so we’d all have a free meal.”
Anger pushes at my temples. That’s a lot of pressure for a young girl dating her superior. “Did you want to do that?”
She gives me a tiny shake of her head. “I did it anyway. I told you that we worked as chefs together, but his brother also served at the same restaurant. So we ran the con in our workplace. Damon would act like he didn’t know me and the rest of the staff thought it was funny.”
Ran the con? Something about the way she said it tells a whole other story. “Did you do stuff like that a lot?”
“Yes.” She casts her gaze down. “It was just . . .”
I cup her chin and lift her face up. “It’s okay, sugar. You can talk to me.” We’re an oasis in the middle of Bootleg. Even Silas is chatting across the room with some ranchers.
“I’ve never told anyone about this,” she whispers. Her brow furrows and she looks around. “I shouldn’t be talking about this in public.”
I dig out my wallet and toss down well more than what our drinks cost. “Have a good night,” I call to Silas.
He nods goodbye to Elodie, but his attention is on the money.
“Where are we going?” Elodie asks as I help her off the stool.
“We’ll drive around. So you feel comfortable talking.”
She stops, her hands on my arms. “This is a date. I don’t want—I want to have fun.”
I asked her to dredge up some of her worst memories, and she did. When the subject of my past got too heavy, she changed it. “I think you have fun when you dance.”
That lovely blush dusts her cheeks. “That’s private.”
I lead her to a small clearing by the old jukebox. Silas doesn’t like to have a band, but sometimes people dance. I pull her close to me as I check out the selection. “What should I play?”
“I don’t think Silas and I have the same taste in music,” she says wryly. The swell of her breasts pushes against my arm, and an electrical current runs right to my dick. “Do some country songs.”
“Something with a good beat?” I flip through options.
“No, something slow.” She points to “Cowboy Take Me Away.”
“Are you trying to tell me something, sugar?” I put money in and a few seconds later, the first notes flow through the speakers.
“There aren’t as many about whiskey distillers taking me away.”
I chuckle and pull her into my arms. “Even less about vodka and gin distillers.”
We move together. She twines her arms around my neck and tucks her face into my shoulder. I’m content holding her. I never imagined how she’d open up to me, and in Bootleg of all places. But in a way, it makes sense. There’s no pretense at Bootleg Tavern.
The way her body is pressed to mine makes it hard to concentrate on our slow two-step. Eventually, the song stops and it’s just the two of us by the jukebox.
Silas’s lilting steps sound from behind me. “Play a faster song next time,” he grumbles as he clears empty glasses from a table near us.
Elodie’s chuckle flutters the material of my shirt. “Sorry, Silas. We’ll choose ‘Goodbye Earl’ if we dance again.”
“We can still slow dance to it,” I whisper in her ear.
She tilts her face up to smile at me. “Or we can go back to my place.”
“Say no more, sugar.” She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I tow her out of the bar and into the parking lot. I’d pick her up, but that might seem too desperate.
When I open the passenger door, she flops into her spot and whips the seat belt across her body. As much as I want to get inside her, I can’t have her thinking I’m some sex-starved man and that’s all I want out of her.
Leaning in, I cup her face. “Tonight meant a lot.” I touch my lips to hers. If I go too much further, I’ll drive with the worst erection of my life. “Best date of my life.”
“A dive bar and a nineties song?” Still, she smiles. “Mine too.”
“Yeah?”
She drags my head down to kiss me again. “Yeah.”
I get behind the wheel, throw the pickup into drive, and peel out of the lot.
I need a goddamn award for the restraint I have driving the short distance to her bakery.
When I park at her back door, she’s out before me and is unlocking her door.
I put my hands on her hips and nudge her hair out of the way with my nose to kiss the nape of her neck.
A needy moan leaves her just as she pushes the door open. I nearly trip over her in our rush to get inside. Then she swings the door shut and slams her back against it.
“I finally have you all to myself.” I line myself up with her, both of my hands on either side of her neck and my thumbs tilting her chin up. I’m rock hard, and I should be used to it by now around her, but I keep from pinning her between my erection and the door.
Our lips aren’t even touching, but my tongue is twined with hers. A faint buzzing sound taps at my mind. I forget it in a second when she yanks the bottom of my shirt free. Her fingertips are warm when they land on my stomach. I clench my gut and a groan resonates from me to her.
The buzzing starts again, and her roaming touch stalls. Slowly our kiss breaks and only our breaths mingle.
“Someone’s calling you.” I’m coherent enough to figure that out. I prop my hands on each side of her head.
“No one usually does.”
The bakery phone starts ringing and she jumps, alarm filling her eyes. “Crap. Something’s wrong.”
She ducks under my arm and covers the distance between us and the noisy phone in three steps. “Hello?”
She stiffens. “No. I’ll be right over.” She shakes her head. “No. Call them. We’ll figure it out later.”
When she hangs up, she doesn’t turn around. “Mom fell and hit her head. And of course it’s after the clinics are all closed, so Dad has to take her to the ER. I told him to call the ambulance.”
I tap the fob in my pocket. “Let’s go.”
“You don’t have to—”
“It’s late and you’ve had a couple of beers. I gotchu.”
She nods and her eyes glitter. “I didn’t even think of that. Thank you.”
“Anytime.” I’ll always mean it.