Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
HARLAN
The rain slams down against my body. It feels like I’m being pummeled with a paintball gun. Spirit is nestled in his stall, no worse for wear. He doesn’t twitch when I walk into the barn and look around.
I’ve had horses spook during thunderstorms before, which is a really risky attribute to have here in Hill Country, considering there seems to be a thunderstorm at least once a month. Spirit is always calm. Nothing seems to rattle his cage.
Walking over to my quad, I start the engine. I need to check on the cattle. I’m not sure why, but it feels really goddamn necessary. I can’t remember the last time I felt like this in a storm, but I do tonight.
Maybe it’s just because I’m uneasy about Lola-Mae and me. Not only is it really goddamn new, but I’m really fucking bad at this kind of shit. The last time I had a girlfriend, I was in high school. I just don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here.
Riding out to the field, I see my cattle. They’re all huddled together beneath the cluster of large oak trees. All seem to be safe and accounted for. I shouldn’t do it, but I decide to drive the fence line to check for damage.
Another crack vibrates throughout my entire body, a rumble, a roar, and then light fills the sky. I don’t know how long I’m gone, but I stay out until the storm passes, ensuring that every single part of my fence is secure.
I’m probably going to end up sick from this shit, from being out in this, but I need to stay busy, and this is the way to do it. And while I meticulously check it all, I think about Lola-Mae.
I think about being inside her. About how I’ve fallen for her, and I don’t know much about her, but what I do know, I want to keep to myself… forever.
When the storm passes, I head back toward the house. It’s dawn. I don’t know if Lola-Mae is awake yet, but being lost inside my own head for hours is enough to annoy the absolute shit out of myself. So I decide that I need to get out of my head—and inside her.
Parking the quad next to the house, I walk through the mudroom, stripping off all my wet clothes until I’m down to my boxer briefs. I step into the house but stop the moment the scent of bacon and eggs assaults my senses.
“I made breakfast,” Lola-Mae calls out. “And since I’m not wearing pants, you don’t have to, either. Let’s eat standing up.”
Swinging my gaze over to the kitchen, I smile at the sight that greets me. There could be a bowl of cold cereal, and I would be smiling just as big as I am right now. Lola-Mae stands in front of me with a plate in her hand.
As much as I want to place the plate on the counter and fuck her, I am cold to the bone and exhausted.
I need food. Taking the plate from her, I carry it over to the counter and place it down, leaning my hip against it as I watch her make her own plate and do the same. Standing in front of me, her plate in hand, she tilts her head back slightly as she smiles up at me.
“Is everything good?” she asks.
My gaze searches hers in silence for a moment. “Fucking great,” I state.
LOLA-MAE
“Let’s stay in bed all day,” Harlan suggests.
I couldn’t stop smiling right now if someone paid me to. I don’t know what he was doing out there all night, and I don’t know what I expected him to act like when he got back, but I’m pleasantly surprised.
He seems happy, at peace, maybe even hopeful, which makes me feel the same way. Whatever uneasiness I felt when I looked out at the darkness of the storm, it’s gone. I’m filled with hope and anxious excitement.
“I have work to do. I’m still catching up,” I say.
Harlan snorts. “I don’t think that office has ever been completely caught up for a single day in over a hundred years.”
Biting the corner of my lip, I reach for a piece of bacon on my plate and bring it to my mouth, then release my teeth from my lip and take a bite. My eyes are still focused on Harlan’s. His lips twitch into a smirk as he watches me.
“Then I’ll be the first to do it,” I state. “It’s why you hired me.”
He hums while moving closer to me, closing the distance between us. I want him to pick me up and place me on the counter. I want him to bury himself inside me. He doesn’t do any of that.
Instead, he kisses me.
Harlan leans forward, and his mouth touches mine in a chaste kiss. When he lifts his head slightly, his eyes focus on mine again before he speaks. “How was the fence?” I ask.
He shifts back slightly. “How’d you know?”
Laughing softly, I shake my head a couple of times before I clear my throat. “I knew because you’ve spent a lot of time running along those fence lines, and during accounting, I’ve found a lot of fencing materials.”
“It keeps me busy,” he murmurs. “And now that I’ve done that for the day, we can spend some time in bed while the ground dries out.”
I start to tell him no, but then decide, why the hell not? “It’s crazy,” I whisper.
He snorts, and his lips touch mine again. No more words are said. Our breakfasts are abandoned along with the pans I dirtied to prepare them. They don’t matter. The moment his mouth is on mine, when his tongue slides inside me and tastes me, that is all that matters.
He picks me up, and I expect him to set my ass down on the counter, but he doesn’t. Instead, his feet move through the house. He carries me up the stairs, then lowers my feet onto the floor once we’re in the bedroom.
“Harlan,” I exhale once my feet are on the warm wooden floor.
“I don’t want to beat around the bush for another moment. I like this. I like you. I like us.”
“I like you too, Harlan.”
He smiles as he leans forward, and then his mouth is on mine again. “I more than like you, darlin’. I’m falling for you. Head over goddamn heels.”