Chapter 9 #2
Micah was a handsome guy with light-brown eyes that always seemed to twinkle.
Some women would even consider him sexy with all those ripped abs stretching the knit of his shirt.
But his eyes said he was a player who enjoyed the chase.
Once he caught his prey and spent a night or two with her, he was finished and off on the next hunt.
She had thought at one time she might be wrong about him, but he did not kiss and not tell.
Micah sat down before she did and asked, “How long have you two been dating?”
“How many women have you slept with since I saw you last?” She fired back as she slung a long leg over the bench on the other side of the table, being careful not to let her knees touch his.
“Darlin’, when I’m with a woman, we do not waste time sleeping, which you would know if you would stop breaking my heart,” he answered.
“No, thank you. I will not be a notch on your bedpost,” she assured him.
“When you get tired of Blondie, you come find me, and I’ll show you how a real man treats a woman,” Micah said and lowered his voice. “And I will even throw my knife out the door of the trailer.”
“I’ll pick it up on the way in, and…”
Micah threw up both palms and went pale. “Whoa! Don’t even go there.”
“Then stop flirting with me. I’m with Knox, and I like where we are going. Speaking of which, here he comes.”
“We really do have a lot in common. We both like black olive and mushroom pizza, Reuben dogs with kraut, relish, and mustard, and I see you like pina colada snow cones, too,” she said to Knox.
He set all the cups in the middle of the table and sat down beside Lottie. “Folks say that people who are alike shouldn’t be together.”
Lottie reached for one of the pina colada snow cones and took a bite.
“This is wonderful, and those people who say that are wrong.” She could attest to the fact that being different did not mean a successful relationship.
She and the last three guys she’d had a relationship with were polar opposites from her in every way.
And every one of them was worth more cuss words than tears when everything went south.
“I agree.” Micah picked up his snow cone and stood up. “I’m going to take this to go. I want to get on down to the site and get the lay of the land. Thank you, Knox. Next time, I’ll treat us all.”
“I’ll remember that, and you are welcome,” Knox said.
“You are in big trouble,” Lottie hissed as soon as Micah was gone.
“Can we have makeup sex after the fight?” he teased.
“I don’t sleep with dead men,” she snapped back at him and took a big bite of her snow cone.
“Why are you so mad at me?” Knox asked in his best innocent voice.
“You left me alone with Micah.” Lottie grabbed her head. “Brain freeze!”
“That’s what you get for punishing me when all I did was let you have some time with an old friend to catch up,” he said.
“Men!” she finally got out past her frozen throat.
Knox chuckled and went on. “What does that mean?”
“You did that to prove to him that you’re not worried about him moving in on me. I’m no man’s territory, so you don’t have to do that,” she answered. “Let’s eat these on the way back to the lake. I’m ready to see Prissy.”
“Got to disagree with you. I can’t drive and eat this at the same time.”
“Messy eater sure takes away from your sexy persona,” she told him.
“I’d like to see you eat something with a spoon and drive at the same time,” he shot back at her.
Bantering was first on the list when it came to all the things that she liked about Knox Callahan. She’d never dated a guy in reality who was so exciting, and it was all because he listened to her and always came back with a smart-ass answer.
“This is not about me.” She giggled. “It’s about you having a fault.”
“If you think I’m perfect, then you are the only person in the whole big state of Texas who does,” he said.
“Yeah, right,” she countered.
He wiggled his eyebrows and grinned. “Are we fighting? If so, do we get to make out when we come to an understanding?”
“Only in your dreams,” she told him.
Knox reached across the table and laid a hand on hers. “Will you be my for-real friend? I like spending time with you.”
She was shocked speechless. Was he serious? Was he kidding? Did she even want to be friends with him when, down deep inside her heart, she might want more? Questions upon questions with no answers came floating down from the big, fluffy white clouds in the sky.
“Well?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know where the teasing and banter stops and realism begins,” she answered. “Are you joking?”
“No, ma’am, I know all this romance is fake, but I really do like you. Even though we can’t be anything more, I would love it if we were friends,” he replied.
“Okay then, we can give it a try for the next five weeks at least. Then you’ll go home to your new house and land, and I’ll go out to El Paso. We’ll text a few times and then forget all about each other.”
Knox spread his arms out. “You can forget something this sexy?”
Lottie finished the last bite of her snow cone, stood up, and struck a pose. “Can you forget this?”
“Nope,” Knox answered. “You will haunt my dreams forever.”
Lottie had trouble keeping the giggle at bay. “That’s the worst pickup line I’ve ever heard.”
Knox took the empty cups to a nearby trash can. “How many have you heard? If it’s only five, then it’s not so bad. But if it’s a thousand, then maybe I better work on my game.”
“More than ten, less than five hundred, so you should work on your game.”
“All kidding aside, are you going to be my friend?”
“I said I would, and it seems like the least I can do since you agreed to be my boyfriend for the next few weeks,” she answered and headed across the parking lot. “Are we ready to go home now? Prissy really is probably missing me.”
Knox followed beside her. “That was an abrupt change of subject.”
She opened the truck door before he could even reach for it. “Did you have something else to say about us being friends?”
He walked around the back of the truck and got into the driver’s seat. “Not really, and to answer your question, I’m ready to go home too. This has been a busy weekend. Do friends cuddle up together for a nice nap?”
“Not friends who’ve only known each other a little while,” she answered. “Besides, Prissy gets downright hateful if…” She let the sentence hang.
“If someone puts their head on the pillow beside yours?” he asked and backed the vehicle out of the parking space.
“Something like that, but for your information, no one has ever laid their head on the pillow beside mine, not in my trailer.” A memory of the last failed relationship flashed through her mind. Prissy never did like that guy or any of the others that she brought home to meet her—not until Knox.
Wasn’t it just the berries that the one man Lottie felt comfortable with was just a friend?
* * *
The idea that Bernie planted in his mind about Lottie being attracted to him plagued Knox all the way from Wichita Falls to the building site.
He unloaded her things and then drove past a couple of other trailers, parked in the right spot, and was rounding the front of the truck when he heard a strange mewing sound coming from under his trailer.
For a minute, he figured Prissy had gotten out of Lottie’s place.
He left his things in the back seat and hurried toward the door, only to find a banty rooster sitting on the edge of the porch.
“You did not make that sound,” Knox said. “That was a cat, and the only one I know that lives in this area is Prissy. You’re lucky she hasn’t chased you down and eaten you for supper.”
The brightly colored rooster flew up, lit on his shoulder, and threw back his head to crow. When he finally stopped, a small kitten came out from under the porch and wove around Knox’s legs. The chicken spread his wings and dropped down to rub his neck on the cat’s head.
Knox sat down on the top step and picked up the kitten. “Looks like you two know each other. Where did y’all come from anyway? Did someone throw you out?”
The black-and-white kitten looked up at him and meowed. Then the rooster hopped up on Knox’s knee and tucked his head under his wing.
“I guess if Tripp can have a potbellied pig, I can have a rooster and a cat,” he whispered. “I have a house and a lot of land, so you’ll have a nice place to live. But until then, this trailer is it.”
Lottie came around the corner and stopped in her tracks when she saw Knox. “What is going on here. I thought I heard a rooster, and…”
“And you did.” Knox finished the sentence for her. “If he hadn’t been so happy to see a human being, you might have heard a meow with the crowing. Seems like they are friends, and they’re adopting me. In this case, opposites definitely do attract.”
She took another step and reached down to pet the kitten. “Are you serious about keeping them?”
“Only if you don’t want them,” he answered.
“No, thank you. Prissy would eat the bird and pout for a month if I brought another cat into the house. Besides, you’ve got a house and lots of land. They’ll only have to live in and around this place a few weeks.”
“Some friend you are,” Knox said.
“I will share some kitty litter with you and some food for the cat. The bird can eat dry cat food until you can get to the store and buy chicken feed. That should take care of them for a little while. And that”—she straightened up—“makes me an excellent friend.”
“Yes, ma’am, it does,” he said. “Will you go with me tomorrow evening and help me buy whatever I need?”
“I was on my way back into town to the store for a few things. I can either pick up what you need for you, or you can go with me, but I’m driving. I’ve got an empty boot box you can use for a little bit of litter whether you go or not.”
Knox’s male pride almost got the best of him, but he was out of milk, bread, and sandwich meat, so he nodded. “I appreciate the help, and yes, I would like to go with you.”