Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Delilah
It rains every day for a week straight, which is not unusual for summertime in the South. But it does mean the grass is up to mid-shin come the following Monday morning, so I roll out of bed just as the sky is turning a pale shade of peach, and slip into a pair of jeans and a loose T-shirt. I’m going to prove Truett wrong.
I’m just going to do it before he has a chance to wake up and watch me.
My skin flushes. As I walk over to the shed behind the house, I force myself not to check the fields for his presence. Still, the memory of his threat has me feeling his eyes all over me. A sensation I’m ashamed to admit leaves me aching.
The right door is hanging slanted on its hinges. It’s held in place by an open padlock that’s looped through the two door handles. When I slip the lock off, the right door swings open and slaps against the siding of the shed, startling a few birds in the tree to my right. They scatter, blotting out little pieces of sky in their escape. I open the other side carefully, guiding it all the way till it rests against the opposite side.
Dad’s push mower sits in the same place it has for twenty years. Beside it, stacks of discarded bags of gardening soil and a few cracked plastic pots lie gathering dust. There’s a gas can with questionably aged liquid inside on the shelf above it. On first examination, the lawn mower itself doesn’t seem too difficult to operate. My lack of green thumb shouldn’t stop me from pulling a chain to start an engine. Pushing it around is just a matter of exercise. Two whole acres worth.
I drag the mower down the ramp of the shed and park it in the grass, then return to the shed to retrieve the gas can. I uncap it and sniff. My nose wrinkles. The fuel smells like, well, fuel. Not that I know what it’d smell like if it had gone off. It’s probably fine, right? I pour it into the tank and hope for the best.
My hands find my hips as I survey the lawn. Besides dodging the live oaks and a smattering of bushes around the perimeter of the house, there’s not much to maneuver. Truett was just trying to psych me out. Surely it can’t be that hard.
I grab the handle of the pull starter and yank hard like I’ve seen my dad do a thousand times, but nothing happens. I yank a second time, but still no dice. Then a third and fourth. My breath comes in abbreviated huffs. Sweat beads at my hairline. Even this early, the air is thick with humidity. It clings to my skin like a damp sheet. I stand, fist my hands against my hips, and blow out a breath. “This can’t be that fucking difficult.”
The sound of an engine reaches my ears. I narrow my gaze on the mower, wondering if it’s spontaneously decided to get with the program. Then the realization hits me. I pivot on my heel as Truett tops the last hill that separates our properties, looking smug as ever on his riding lawn mower. Suddenly I regret not having given the farm a once-over this morning. Maybe if I’d known he was definitely watching, I could’ve been a little more stealthy. Or, at the very least, prepared.
He comes to a stop in front of me. Leaving the engine idling, he pulls apart the handles and jumps off the mower. He’s wearing a brown T-shirt and stained jeans that cover his equally dirty boots. Even with a tan cowboy hat casting a shadow over his features, the spark of amusement in his eyes is visible. “You’re determined; I’ll give you that.”
I tear my gaze off the swell of his biceps as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Why are you up this early?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” He winks. “I had an idea you might try to mow this morning, and the anticipation kept me up all night.”
This time it’s me who crosses my arms. “I’m perfectly capable.”
“Never said you weren’t. Just that I wanted to watch.”
A thousand needle points prick my skin at once, followed by a hot flash of self-admonishment. Truett Parker may be a flirt, but that doesn’t mean he’s flirting with me. Nor should I want him to be.
A tiny, indulgent part of me revels in it anyway.
I drop my arms and sweep one hand in the direction of the mower. “It won’t start.”
“I saw that.” He scans me from head to toe, the brim of his hat shielding his face from my view for a long, merciful moment that helps me get my bearings. “And you were planning to mow in flip-flops? Do you know how dangerous that is?”
I glance down at my feet, where his gaze has settled, and wiggle my exposed toes. “They’re all I have. Kinda ruined my other ones last week, remember?”
We look up at the same time, our gazes meeting in the middle.
“You only brought two pairs of shoes?”
“One. Roberta got these for me afterward.” I shrug. “I’ve got a few more coming in the mail from home, though.”
He removes his hat and runs a hand through his dirty blond hair, then over his face, before dropping his hand. “You’re never gonna get that mower to start. It doesn’t work.”
I kick the tire, frowning. “Why not? ”
He goes on as though he didn’t hear me. “And besides, it’d take you forever to mow this lawn with that thing. Do you remember how long your dad would be out here?”
“A few hours.”
“Exactly.” He replaces his hat and points to his riding mower. “I’ll teach you to use the zero-turn if you want. It’ll make your life a lot easier.”
I quirk a brow. “You’d do that?”
“Sure I would. I said I wanted to watch, not that I had all day to do it.” He turns and climbs onto the mower. Once seated, he pats his lap. “Come on. I’ll take you for a spin.”
An uncomfortable feeling settles in my gut. Gratitude alongside wariness. The knowledge that I need to keep him at a distance, as well as the desire to get closer. Remnants of an old crush, I reason. I’m an adult now. I can be around him—can even be attracted to him—without mistakenly believing it’s more than that.
Right?
“Unless you wanna cut it by hand?” He narrows his gaze. “In which case, I’m sure Henry’s got a pair of scissors that should work.”
I scowl but step forward, taking his offered hand to climb on board.
He grabs my hips to situate me farther back on his lap. When my gaze darts to his, he raises his eyebrows. “I have to have space for the handlebars to close.” He grabs the bars and pulls them together in front of us, demonstrating his point. “Is this okay?”
I nod because I don’t trust myself to speak.
“Great. I’m just gonna take you for a quick tutorial today, because I can’t in good conscience let you mow in open-toed shoes. But this way you’ll know how to do it, and next week I can drop the mower off for you to use whenever you want it. Deal?”
It takes more effort than I’d like to admit to say, “Deal. ”
“Great.” He flashes a wide smile. “So you have to have the handlebars closed to go anywhere. They’re currently in a neutral position, which is why we’re standing still. To move, you push them forward.” He retrieves my hands from my lap and places them in the right position, then covers them with his own. “Like this.”
We lurch forward, which throws me against him. I can already feel his strong thighs beneath my own, the firm plane of his abdomen against my lower back. But now I’m flush against his chest. My hands are covered by his. Every nerve ending in my body is standing at attention, desperate for the sensation of Truett’s touch.
It was hard enough to remain focused when we were two innocent teenagers and my greatest fantasy was running my fingers through his hair. Turns out, with a little more knowledge under my belt, I’m having a very hard time watching his hands flex over mine without picturing them slipping beneath my waistband, down, down until they are buried inside me…
“Did you hear me, Delilah?”
I jerk my head around. “Hm?”
He lets the handlebars come back to a neutral position, bringing us to a stop. One eyebrow lifts. “If you’re going to operate the thing safely, you’ve got to pay attention.” Releasing one of my hands, he delicately taps my temple. “Where is your head at?”
I’m hoping he writes my resulting blush off as a symptom of the early morning heat.
I clear my throat. “What did I miss?”
“I said ”—he places his hand back on mine and pushes us forward—“you want to run at full throttle for the best cut. It’s easier on the engine and keeps it consistent.”
I nod like I understand, but I’m still struggling to pull my mind out of the gutter. I’m dizzy from the pendulum of my thoughts. One second I’m reminding myself how badly he hurt me all those years ago. The next I’m thinking about the fact that his dick is pressed against my ass.
And either his cell phone is in his front pocket, or he’s at least a little happy to have me on his lap. Though the thick ridge pressing into me feels anything but little.
I cough abruptly, choking on my own inappropriate thoughts.
We’re approaching one of the live oaks dead-on. The engine rumbles loudly, drowning out the next words out of his mouth.
“What?” I say loudly, my voice hoarse.
He leans forward till his lips brush the shell of my ear. “To turn, you have to pull the handlebar toward you for the direction you want to go. So to turn right”—he tugs at my right hand and, subsequently, the handlebar—“you pull on the right. And the same with the left.”
We carve a wide arc around the tree. I suspect we could cut closer, but he’s erring on the side of caution with me on board. Or he doesn’t trust me not to crash what is likely a very expensive piece of equipment into the tree. Unclear.
He guides me through a few passes of the front yard. We leave clean lines in the grass, far nicer than any I could’ve done on my own. Not that I’ll ever admit it.
I find my heart squeezing tight in my chest despite myself. If he wanted, he could’ve come over here and commandeered the whole thing. But he knew I wanted to do it myself. So instead he’s giving me the tools to do so. Once I get the proper footwear.
I glance at my feet where they rest between his much larger ones as we come to a stop back where we started.
“And that”—he opens the handlebars—“is lawn mowing 101.”
The fact that I don’t want to get up is exactly why I have to. And fast.
I put a healthy three feet between us before turning back to him, one hand cupping my other elbow. “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to.”
His smile is genuine, and genuinely confusing.
I close my eyes and breathe deep, willing my nerves to settle. And my hormones. The more I try to figure Truett out, the less I understand anything between us. Why help me now, if he hated me enough to abandon me back then? Why abandon me back then, when the look in his eyes betrays thoughts that feel like anything but disinterest?
Why help my dad, if not for his mom?
I could sit here and let my thoughts run in circles all day, or I could go inside and get some actual work done. After a long, cold shower. And a few blueberry pancakes.
When I open my eyes again, Truett’s watching me. And I can tell that he’s not just looking but really seeing. And that, more than anything else, gets my butt into gear.
“Dad’ll be up soon, so I better go.” I grab the handlebar of the push mower and start rolling it back into the shed. “Thanks again.”
“Anytime, Delilah.”
I lock the shed back and turn to leave, giving the mower—and Truett—a wide berth. He reaches out for me as I pass, though, and with his long, muscular arms, makes purchase. I glance at his hand where it encircles my forearm. Even after he releases me, I feel it there, warm as the sunshine on my skin.
“I wasn’t kidding about spending time with you, by the way.” He bites his bottom lip, releasing it slowly. “There’s so much I don’t know, so much that’s happened…” His gaze levels with mine. “There’s just so much. But I’d like to make it less.”
I shake my head. With some space between us, I’m coming back to my senses, albeit slowly. And my senses remind me of all the reasons spending time with Truett is a very bad idea .
“Thanks for the lesson, Tru.” I take a step away from him, letting my gaze drop to avoid the disappointment there. “See you later.”
Before he can protest, I disappear around the corner of the house.