Chapter 4
chapter
four
Payton
It’s twelve-thirty in the morning, and I’m eating carne asada with the hottest woman I’ve ever seen in my life.
She keeps calling me kid, like somehow that’s going to make me stop wanting her.
It’s not working.
She picks up her taco and tilts her head sideways before taking a bite, and I watch her mouth, which I have no business doing. There’s a streak of green salsa on the side of her thumb, and I want to grab her wrist, pull her hand to my mouth, and lick it off.
I take a drink of my Coke instead, giving my hands something to do besides reach across the table. The ice has mostly melted, so the drink is a little watered down.
“So exactly what do you do?” Jules asks.
“Right now?”
“No, Payton. In the eighteenth century.”
I grin, feel it stretch all the way across my face.
She stares at me; the pendant light over our booth catches gold somewhere in the brown of her irises before her eyes roll shut.
I really like it when she does that—rolls her eyes with exaggerated exasperation—which is fortunate because she does it a lot.
“I work at the ranch.”
“The family ranch.”
“That’s the one.”
“What do you do there?”
I shrug. “Whatever needs doing.”
She frowns. “That’s not a job description.”
“Sure it is.”
“No.” She points a tortilla chip at me. “That’s what men say when they want women to think they’re mysterious.”
“Is it working?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Damn it.
I like her.
I knew I was attracted to her the second I saw her threatening a vending machine. But that part’s just easy.
Jules is gorgeous. Thickly curved in a way that makes it hard not to stare at her boobs and ass. The oversized hoodie helps with the former, and sitting across from her is taking care of the latter. Still, she makes it hard for me to concentrate on anything but how much I want to kiss her.
But her appeal does not end with her voluptuous body. No, she’s got all of the qualities I like. She’s funny. Smart. And even a little mean.
Maybe it’s the youngest child in me, but I like that part too.
I like it more than I probably should, sitting here with taco wrappers going soft and greasy on the tray between us.
“So you just cowboy?”
I smile at her verbing the noun. “I cowboy. Or ranch, if you prefer.”
“For money.”
“Sometimes.”
“Fascinating.”
“You’re mocking my profession.”
“I’m trying to understand your profession.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No,” she admits, and something in her mouth curls at the corner. “I’m not.”
I laugh, loud enough that the guy behind the counter glances over.
She smiles.
Not the tiny one I managed to drag out of her at the hospital. A real one this time.
It takes over her whole face, crinkles the skin at the corners of her eyes. One dimple pops in her left cheek.
Fuck me, I’m in real trouble here.
There should be some kind of warning before she does that. A blinking light or a siren. Something to warn a guy that her smile is a weapon of mass destruction waiting to infiltrate my heart.
I pick up another taco, mostly so my hands have somewhere to be that isn’t on her. Because I’m about ready to just pull her into my lap just to feel the weight of her against my body. I shift in my seat, noting that my cock is just as interested in her as the rest of me.
“What about you?”
“I don’t cowboy. Or ranch.”
“I figured.”
“I teach art.”
“You teach?”
“Elementary school.”
I stare at her.
I can’t help it.
It’s unexpected. Still, I can readily admit that maybe, on the surface, Jules and young kids don’t make sense.
But then I think about everything I learned in my classes and my own experiences in the classroom, limited though they are.
Her in-your-face attitude and no-holds-barred straightforwardness are exactly what most kids love.
She immediately points a finger at me, taco still in her other hand. “Whatever you’re about to say, don’t.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You have a face.”
“I’ve been told.”
“By who?”
“You, mostly.”
She gives me the finger, actually flips it at me across the table, and it makes me laugh out loud.
“I can totally picture you teaching elementary school.”
She snorts. “Doubtful. You’ve known me for an hour.”
“Closer to two.”
“Stop counting.”
“I’m not the one counting.” I take a deep breath. “I can picture it because you’ve made a strong impression.”
Her gaze catches mine, and for a second neither of us moves.
The taco place noise goes soft and far away, like someone turned the volume down on the whole world except for in our tiny booth.
“What do you teach them?”
“Art.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I got that part.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“I mean, what kind of art?”
“All kinds. Painting, drawing, clay when I’m feeling particularly masochistic.”
“Why is clay masochistic?”
“You’ve obviously never given twenty-three seven-year-olds wet clay.”
“Fair.”
“There’s also cutting—with age-appropriate scissors, of course, then gluing, sometimes glitter. Although glitter, ugh. The herpes of the art world. So I avoid it whenever possible.”
I choke on my Coke. Actually choke. I’m thankful the carbonated drink doesn’t come out of my nose.
She looks pleased with herself, sits back a little, arms crossing loosely over her chest.
“You cannot say herpes to seven-year-olds.”
“Of course I don’t say that to the children.”
“Good.”
“I tell them glitter is Satan’s dandruff.”
She holds my gaze for approximately two seconds before cracking, the corners of her mouth twitching, and then losing. Her laugh is husky and warm. It comes from somewhere low in her chest, rough at the edges. And it spreads through my body like warmed honey.
I don’t even care that she’s messing with me. “You’re terrible,” I say.
“Yet here you are.”
Yeah.
Here I am, sitting in a plastic booth at half past midnight, a taco going cold in my hand, feeling more alive than I have in weeks.
And I don’t particularly want to be anywhere else.
The taco place starts stacking chairs around us before Jules finally notices we’re the only customers left. The metal legs scrape against tile, one after another, a sound that should probably have clued us in for a while.
“Oh shit.” She looks around, taking in the empty booths. “I guess they’re closing?”
“Pretty sure they closed twenty minutes ago.”
Her head whips toward me. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“You were telling me about your job.”
The guy behind the counter gives us a pointed look, mop handle propped against his hip.
I stand, my knees cracking from being folded into the booth for too long.
“Come on, before they call the cops.”
She eyes the man with the mop. “I’m pretty sure I could take him.”
“Of course you are.” I grab our trash and then steer her away from our booth. “Come on, Bossy, let’s get out of here before I have to bail you out of jail.”
I throw away our trash, and we step outside.
The parking lot is almost empty, just a smattering of cars. My truck sits beneath one of the streetlights.
I should probably be embarrassed by how happy it makes me that I get to drive her home. Which means another twenty minutes in her presence. But I’m not.
“Where do you live?” I ask.
She gives me a suspicious look, head tilting, one eyebrow arching.
“So forward,” she says.
“So I can drive you home.”
“Sure, that’s what you meant.”
I stop walking. Just stop, boots planted on the asphalt.
She takes two steps before she realizes I’m not beside her anymore. Her stride falters. Then she turns.
“What?”
“Are you flirting with me?”
Her eyebrows lift, and something flickers across her face, too fast for me to name.
“Did you just now notice? Do they not teach you perception skills in cowboy school?”
Her playful, acerbic banter clicks something into place somewhere deep in my head. Someday, I’m going to marry this woman.