Chapter 14
CARTER
Ireached for Shelby in the inky dark but she was already somewhere across the room.
“The grid out here sucks,” she said. “But they’re pretty good about getting things reconnected and running again. That being said, I have lots of flashlights.”
“Candles would be more romantic,” I said.
“Until the house burns down.”
“Are you always so practical?” I caught glimpses of her shape when the lightning flashed through the windows. I had suspected she was hiding a killer body under her bulky work clothing, and she didn’t disappoint.
The moment I had noticed her panties, I forgot who I was and why I had rushed into the rain. I forgot my name, my birthday, and my social security number. My mind could only think of one thing right then, and it was burying my face between her legs to taste her. It was almost worth risking my life.
Mother Nature had intervened, which was probably for the best. My control had been slipping.
Shelby made me feel things I hadn’t felt before.
I viewed women like casual entertainment.
They were fun for a while and then I moved on.
More importantly, I never went out of my way to change my behavior to impress them.
Hell, I never tried to impress them at all. It just happened naturally. Women chased me, not the other way around. But for Shelby, I was fighting savage ducks and building sheds like I was raised Amish. All to show the cute as hell farmgirl I was serious about making amends.
Sure, I wanted her to be a part of my social media campaign, but that was no longer my main priority with Shelby. The more I learned about what she had gone through—because of my father—the more I wanted to help her. To protect her. To save her.
I couldn’t admit that to her without Shelby biting my head off. Just coming over today to check on her in the rain had pissed her off. If I told her I wanted to protect her, she’d probably whack me in the head with a frying pan and feed me to the ducks.
I couldn’t really blame her, either. Shelby could clearly handle herself. She was tougher than me when it came to farm work, and she lived all alone out here, running a one-woman show. Even I had a whole company of people helping me. I couldn’t imagine doing it all by myself.
A harsh beam of light cut through the darkness, blinding me. I raised a hand to shield my eyes, squinting. “I guess you found a flashlight.”
“Here,” she said, thrusting another flashlight into my chest.
I let out a surprised breath and took it. I clicked it on, and the first thing I noticed was that Shelby had put on pajama pants. They also had bunnies on them, but mostly I was noticing how they hung on her hips, leaving a pale strip of stomach visible.
She shone her light in my eyes again. “Look, I appreciate that you were worried about me, but you shouldn’t have come out here.”
“There’s a tornado warning, and no one had heard from you,” I said, feeling defensive and a little self-conscious. “And for the record, it wasn’t me who was worried about you. It was Mrs. Presley and Lila.”
“But they didn’t show up here,” she said. “You did.”
“That’s right, and I would do it again.”
Shelby went quiet, like she didn’t know how to respond to my kindness. The last few years had been rough for her. She still had friends in Ferris, but she also had plenty of judgmental assholes who wanted to make her feel bad for something she had nothing to do with.
People like that wanted an easy answer to their problems. They wanted someone to blame.
They didn’t want to hear that Whitaker Farms had been struggling.
That the Whitakers would have never sold the farm if it had been profitable.
No one cared that Allory had also been losing money once they took over.
I had done some checking into that matter, since I hadn’t been involved with the agricultural acquisitions Allory had started making a few years back.
From what I could tell from the file, it might have been possible for my father to turn things around, and he didn’t have to close the farm outright, but it wasn’t like he’d murdered the town’s golden goose.
It had been dying long before Allory got involved.
But small-minded people couldn’t wrap their heads around the complex interplay between fate and circumstance.
They didn’t want to hear about market forces, economic fluctuation, and the razor-thin margins most farms operated with.
And if you did tell them about those things, their eyes would just glaze over, their brain going into sleep mode.
It was easier to just blame the Whitakers. And when the parents left, they just blamed it all on Shelby.
It wasn’t fair but life rarely was. All any of us could do was keep going, no matter what situations we found ourselves in. Be it a struggling farmgirl or the man trying to earn her forgiveness, all we could do was our best.
A loud bang came from outside, but it wasn’t thunder.
I wasn’t sure what had just happened. Shelby didn’t hesitate like I did.
She ran to the window and looked out. I came up behind her to look over her shoulder.
With the power out, the rain, and the dark clouds above, it was difficult to see anything.
“The door to the chicken house is open,” she said, panic in her voice. “I have to go close it.”
She spun around, and instinctively, I caught her arms. “Hey, slow down. It’s the end of the world out there. Can’t it wait?”
“No,” she said, shrugging off my hands. “I’m not losing any ladies tonight.”
“Ladies?”
“My hens.”
“Right, well, let me do it. I’m still in my raincoat.”
“I know,” she said. “You’re dripping on my credenza.”
“I’m not sure which part of you that is, but I’m sorry.”
A smile cracked through Shelby’s worried expression and she pointed at the long cabinet behind me. “That’s a credenza.” Then her face fell again. “Anyway, I have to go out there. You don’t know how to close the door.”
I chuckled and shook my head. “I know how to close a door. I mean, I think. Is it really complicated?”
“No,” she said, brow furrowed. “You just have to latch it. I’m sure it just came loose.”
“Then let me go. That way you don’t have to get wet again and I’ll feel like I helped by driving all the way out here.” I looked into her eyes, hard to read in the dim light. “Let me do this for you.”
“It’s dangerous out there,” she said.
It’s dangerous in here. “All the more reason for me to do it.”
“Okay, fine,” Shelby said. “Just wait a sec.”
She pushed past me and went into another room. When she came back, she shoved her rain hat on my head and cinched the drawstring tightly. “There.”
“I seriously should have brought a hat like this with me.” I adjusted it on my head. “I had no idea it rained this much in Kentucky.”
“Just keep an eye out for any tornados.”
I glanced out the window at the trees whipping in the wind, the tall grass flat like an invisible giant was stepping on it. “What do I do if I see one?”
“Oh, just crouch down, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.” She patted me on the butt like she was punctuating her statement. “Now hop to it, bad bunny.”
I laughed. “Once I close that door, can we agree I’ll graduate to good bunny? Or just regular bunny at least.”
“Nope,” she said with a smile I would face a hundred tornados to see.
“Fine.”
Then I was out the door. Wind tore at me, rain hit my exposed skin like needles, and the ground was a muddy swamp. It wasn’t the most glamorous way to play the hero, but I wasn’t about to turn back now. Shelby would never let me hear the end of it, and someone had to close the door.
The birds needed to be kept safe too. I didn’t have the same attachment to them as Shelby, but I wasn’t a serial killer. I didn’t want any hens getting hurt. The ducks, on the other hand… No, even they deserved to be safe.
A stray thought sprang up. If girl chickens are hens, what are girl ducks?
I would have to ask Shelby. She would call me an idiot and I would want to kiss her again. I smiled, even though I was getting pelted in the face with rain.
I got to the big chicken house, which was what Shelby referred to it as. The wide door swung like a drunk picking fights at a bar, wildly and unpredictably. I got my hands on it and then it dragged me along with it, almost taking me out of my boots.
With a heave, I got the rebellious door under control and wrestled it closed. The latch fell into place with a solid clunk that made me think it was good to go. I gave it a few tugs in different directions, and it didn’t budge at all.
Perfect. And Shelby doubted me.
A flying branch hit me in the face, reminding me to get back inside instead of standing out here gloating over shutting a door successfully. I could pat myself on the back once I was back in the safety of the house.
I trudged through the mud, which slurped at my boots greedily, trying to suck them off my feet. Every step took effort and more leaves and branches were zooming around me. I was no expert, but it felt like the storm was getting worse.
When I got back inside, I shut the front door behind me and slumped against it, taking a deep breath. “It is rough out there.”
Shelby stood up from the couch, hands clasped around her flashlight, which was pointing down instead of right in my face. “Are you okay?”
I appreciated she had asked about me first and not the birds. “All good, and the chickens and ducks are all locked up tight.”
Shelby came over and squeezed my hand. “Thank you for doing that.”
When she touched me, the control I’d been hanging onto earlier finally shattered. Not thinking about the consequences, I leaned down and kissed her.
Her lips were like heaven. Shelby tensed up at first, not sure what to do. Then she met my lips just as fiercely. I cupped her face with my hands, parting her lips with my tongue. She moaned into my mouth and I thought I might explode.
With great effort, I pulled back and ended the kiss. “I shouldn’t have done that.”