12. Simmered
TWELVE
Simmered
CARTER
The Forest Grove grocery store had exactly three checkout lanes and a cart with a wheel that screamed for mercy. I laughed about it to myself, after the day I’d had assisting with the birth of Flurry.
In fact, I was in a pretty damn good mood. The best I’d been in since arriving I Montana.
Might have everything to do with seeing Sage tonight.
Back at the bunkhouse, I’d showered twice. Scrubbed under my nails until the last of the birth fluid and straw dust and anything else gave up and went down the drain, and still I felt half-wild walking these aisles.
The guys had been all chatter about the day, slapping me on the back as I dressed. Even Trig. Jake, too, wished me well on my dinner date tonight.
I assured him it was not a date. Just hanging out. I even invited him along, but he refused, tossing me the keys to his truck. Took some doing, but I tried not to feel bad that he was letting me keep Sage for myself. For now.
I also failed to mention that I didn’t have a license to drive right now with my wallet missing. But these were Montana back roads. Safe for me to drive. Probably wouldn’t see a cop car ever.
I stopped at the onions, putting way too much thought into this recipe for dinner.
Bolognese was a specialty of mine. Was I desperate to impress her or something?
I’d gone to greater lengths in the past to do so for other women, including cars, diamonds, designer shoes and bags…
There was something so satisfying just hoping she’d be impressed with me, without the money getting in the way.
I rounded the end-cap into the next aisle and stopped cold.
Red Amos stood not ten feet away, examining a bag of chips, his brother nowhere in sight.
My stomach plummeted somewhere around my boots. I swiveled on my heel and rushed around the corner, but almost slammed into a woman in a wheelchair.
“Oh, young man, would you be so kind as to hand me that box of pasta shells on the top shelf?” Her voice came across soft-spoken, dressed in a cardigan the color of a robin’s egg. She smiled at me as if I were the nicest stranger she’d met all week.
“Yes, ma’am. Here you go.” I placed it in her cart.
“Thank you. Truly.” She paused and stuck out her hand with the social reflex of someone who’d been taught proper introductions. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you around town before. I’m Beverly. Beverly Amos.”
My mouth dropped open.
“There you are, sweetheart. Are you okay?” A male voice I knew all too well came up behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
I stepped aside, coming face to face with the dark eyes of a man I’d hoped never to see again. Ever.
“Oh, this nice young man was so helpful. Er, what’s your name?” She asked.
I cleared my throat. “Carter.”
Red shifted uneasily, eyeing me, shaking his head slightly as if there was some message in it. I took a gamble that he wouldn’t hurt me with her around. “Wasn’t a problem at all. You folks have a nice day.” I tipped my hat to them and rushed off.
“Thanks again, Carter,” she called after me.
I made it two aisles over before my hands shook on the cart handle. Not out of fear, more like rage with nowhere to put it.
I immediately abandoned my cart and left. No way would I linger a moment longer in the store. I’d find somewhere to buy a pizza for dinner with Sage or something. Not as impressive. But arriving with my head still intact was better.
Only as I approached Jake’s truck, heavy footsteps pounded the pavement behind me.
“What the fuck are you still doing in town?” Red’s eyes shot daggers at me when I turned.
I checked all around us. Plenty of people were parking, entering, and exiting the store. And with his wife inside? Surely he wouldn’t touch me. His scowling face was enough to deal with.
“I don’t answer to you,” I shot back.
“Thought I told you to leave.”
“Don’t worry. I will be gone soon.” I scoffed. “Where’s your wife? She seemed to rather like having me around.”
“You leave her out of this.” He stepped into my space.
“She doesn’t have any idea about your illegal gambling activities, does she?” My hands formed fists at my sides, ready to protect myself if needed. “Does she even know the real you?”
His jaw clicked. She probably thought he spent his Friday nights bowling with his buddies.
A woman unlocked the vehicle next to us with a loud beep. Her whining kids cried for some treat she’d bought as she started to load up her car.
Red lowered his voice. “If you say one word about that night. I’ll hunt you down. You’ll be sorry you did.” His threat landed, and he ran back toward the store.
I couldn’t let him shake me, no matter how threatening his words. “Hey! Where’s my car and wallet, asshole?” I shouted, and sheepishly apologized to the mother and her kids for cursing.
Red held up the middle finger in reply.
Someday, in about two weeks to be exact, when I had all the money in the world, I’d make Red Amos regret ever meeting me.
Not tonight, though.
Tonight I had a woman waiting on me and for a dinner I promised to provide. With any luck, I’d have a chance to feel like a decent man again instead of an easy mark some local crook had robbed blind on his first night in town.
“Excuse me.” I caught the mother’s attention. “Do you know where a guy could get a pizza around here?”
“Grove Town Pizza, just a block over. Can’t miss it.” She pointed in the general direction.
“Thanks.” I moved the truck to the end of the parking lot, but I waited behind a clump of trees until Red and his wife exited the store. They approached a van in the handicapped spot, light blue, a newer model. I didn’t know what I’d do with that information, but it didn’t hurt to have insurance.
I rushed over to the pizza place, and picked up a bottle of cheap wine at the state liquor store, too, which curiously stood next door to the First Church of Forest Grove. Didn’t hurt to send a little prayer up that tonight with Sage would be something special.
Sage opened the door after one knock, as I leaned against the doorframe, trying to look cool as fuck, cowboy hat and all.
“You’re late. I started to worry where you were.”
“Does this make up for it?” I held up dinner with my best smoldering smile, not about to admit why I was late. “Hope you like pepperoni and wine?”
“Cook this yourself?” She raised an eyebrow, taking the box and bottle from me, and headed into the kitchen.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the ingredients I wanted at your local store.” I followed her in after hanging her father’s coat on the rack by the door.
The apartment smelled like her the second I entered, maybe with a little vanilla mixed in this time. Still totally her, floral and unforgettable. The sight of her in soft leggings and an ivory off-shoulder sweater did more to settle my nerves than the entire drive over had.
“What were you originally planning to cook?” She asked.
“Doesn’t matter now. Besides, I’d have slaved away for an hour, and I’m pretty tired from today as it is. Figured you’d be, too. I’d rather spend the time with you instead of over a stove.”
“What a shame? I was really looking forward to a man cooking for me for once.”
“Someday I will,” I blurted, not thinking clearly. She paused, reaching for the plates, and our eyes met. The words hung between us—a promise I had no right to make.
“Right. Well, Eldon does put on quite the Thanksgiving spread. You could help him out next week with that, and we’ll call it even.”
Fuck. Thanksgiving? I’d completely forgotten about the holiday.
Every year at this time, Mom turned sentimental.
She expected all of us to congregate in Nashville for the weekend, having her chef cook up the most elaborate meal.
She could forgive if we missed Christmas, but Thanksgiving was her holiday, strangely.
This year, hopefully my brothers, Mick and Jimmy, would explain my absence to her.
At this point, with almost half of my challenge already done, there was no going back now.
I took the lid off the pizza. She reached over and stole a piece of pepperoni straight off a slice before I could stop her, popping it into her mouth. Her luscious, soft-lipped mouth.
“Starving?” I popped one into mine, too.
“Very much. Thanks for the wine. I’m not much of a drinker, though, but for you I’ll make an exception. Although the best wine in the area, in my opinion, is the strawberry kind Eldon makes from berries grown right on the ranch.”
“Noted. Will that be served at the Thanksgiving meal?”
“Should be.” She reached into a cupboard. I adjusted my focus to uncorking the bottle instead of the press of her hip against mine in a kitchen built for one person at a time. “And my sisters and I always bring the apple pies, made with apples from our orchard.”
“Yum. Apple is my favorite. Bake an entire one just for me and you’d have me at your mercy.”
“Right where I want you.” She batted her eyes. Mm. I liked this side of her.
I put a slice of the pizza on each plate, and she carried them to the dining table in the quaint little apartment. I brought over the stemware, wine, and corkscrew, and noticed then, she’d set up candlesticks.
“Guess I won’t waste the beeswax on just pizza,” she muttered, shifting them out of the way.
“Why not? We can romance pizza. Can’t we?
” I tossed my hat on the table and then reached for the lighter, winking at her as I lit the candles.
My ex-girlfriend would have had a fit if I’d brought home a pizza and just wanted to chill.
She needed to be out, visible in public, making a scene at all times.
Not Sage. She beamed at me, her smile warm and inviting. She turned off the lights, setting the table and the creamy skin of her shoulder softly aglow by candlelight.
Between mouthfuls, she asked, “So, who was that woman with the man today on tour with Ash in the barn? She thought she knew you?”
My hand froze halfway to my lips
She watched me carefully, no malice in it, just a question sitting plain on her face, waiting to see what I’d do with it.
“You heard that in the barn?”
“Seemed like a strange interaction.” She shrugged, handing me an out I hadn’t earned.
In truth, I did know the woman, Miriam Buchanan-Astor, a long-time society friend of my mother’s. I never had met her sons before, but the fact she recognized me could have been a huge problem here.
“To her, I looked like someone she knew.” I chuckled, quickly deflecting. “Or, maybe, she was a horny old woman, taking any opportunity to have a longer look at me?”
She joined in the joke. “Yeah. We’ll go with that, because every woman wants a hot cowboy.” She pressed her lips together.
“Hot, huh? Is that what you think of me?”
“You have your moments.”
I licked my lips. Every plan I’d had for a calm, civilized dinner slipped sideways.
“Tell me something about you I don’t know yet.” She sipped her wine and flirted with her eyes above the rim.
I thought about lying, but there’d been too much of that to keep track of. Then I thought about her on her knees earlier, beside me in the straw, petting the newborn foal today, and decided she deserved better.
The honest truth. “I don’t know who I am sometimes.”
“You’re Carter James.”
“It’s not the name that’s the problem.”
“Then what is?”
“Guess I’m just the cowboy wondering what would have happened in that room at the Sapphire Saloon if the door hadn’t opened.
” I reached over and pressed a lock of hair behind her ear.
My fingertips traced down her cheek, my thumb landing on her lower lip.
“I’ve been thinking about you all week. Mostly at three in the morning, in my bunk when the guys are snoring too loud, keeping me awake.
Which is a very inconvenient time to be thinking about a woman. ”
“What were you thinking?”
“About your cowboy rule, and how you don’t make things easy.”
“I usually don’t. But I might make an exception for you.” Her hand found the front of my shirt, not pulling, just resting there above my heart. I covered it against my chest, my blood pumping overtime to keep up. “In fact, maybe we should kiss again and find out what happens next.”
She leaned forward, cutting the distance between us, tilting her head.
My heart jumped; I met her the rest of the way.
Our mouths connected in the middle, sweet and soft, mere brushes, hinting of wine and garlic.
Then she opened for me, taking as much a I was giving, our tongues teasing.
The kiss we’d left back in that room finally landed exactly as I’d imagined it would.
“Mm, Carter.” She broke away just far enough to breathe my name against my mouth. Her fingers tugged at my shirt, and the entire point of the evening—the meal—became a moot point.
I kissed along her jaw, found the spot below her ear that pulled a sharp gasp out of her, and every rational thought about my life left my body.
Her fingers felt for the buttons of my shirt, undoing each one by one. I pulled her sweater further down one shoulder, baring a breast, creamy and pink nippled. I suckled at it, her tiny moans my undoing.
I shoved our plates aside and pulled her between my legs so she leaned against the table. My hands skimmed up her thighs, thumbs brushing the waistband of her leggings.
I looked up at her, voice rough. “Going to stop me?”
“No,” she purred.
“But you said you don’t let cowboys get into your pants that easily.”
“I did say that.” Her hands covered mine in encouragement. “But you leave soon, so time is wasting, isn’t it?”
My last hold on sanity faltered. “Sage, if you’d rather wait, no pressure.”
“Are we going to argue about this, Carter James,” she whispered, eyes dark with want, “or are you going to take me right here, right now?”
Fuck. That wasn’t even a choice.