After a quick glance around, I snatched her hand and pulled her around the corner of the building and behind a massive pine tree. The wide trunk blocked us from any cars that might have parked on the far edge of the lot, and I pressed her against the bark, taking her mouth in a deep, winding kiss that had her melting against me. She smelled like sunshine and apples and other things that made me feel insane and edgy with want.
Her fingers curled into the back of my neck, and her spine arched like a cat at the touch of my hand. Deep in her chest, I felt the vibration of her moan, a contented purring sound that had me pressing harder, clutching her tighter, like I could allow her to seep into my skin to see if that helped ease the ache that I had for her.
Around the corner, Francine coughed in a way that was obnoxiously obvious.
I pulled back and set my forehead on hers. "You should probably go in with her. Give me a minute to, you know, calm down."
"You seem to have had this affliction a lot recently." Grace grinned, and I dipped down to kiss the dimple that popped in her cheek to the right of her lips. I moved down to her jaw and throat. It seemed impossible that I'd ever get enough of her.
"All day. All night. Every minute since I walked out that door," I growled into the skin of her neck. "Go out on a date with me tonight, Pretty Girl?"
She ducked her head, the first truly bashful display I'd seen from her, and it was so incongruous with the Grace I was getting to know, that I had to stem a laugh.
"I'd love that."
"Anywhere in particular you want to try?"
Her hands smoothed down my neck and over my chest while she thought, and I realized that I was so used to letting someone else plan the things we do, that I probably could have handled that a bit better for our first date.
Grace shook her head. "I eat all the food. And all the desserts."
"That's what I like to hear."
"I don’t really know what restaurants you have in town," she paused and rubbed her lips together before she met my gaze, "so where do you want to go?"
Somewhere far, far away.
It was the very first thought that sprang into my head, and I hated myself for it. But I also couldn’t see a way around it. Grace’s experience at the Piggly Wiggly was a tiny preview of what would happen if I took her out on a date the day after I broke up with Magnolia.
The last thing I could even think about doing, so early into whatever this was, was tell her that my father’s business was hanging by an unsteady thread, simply because of my relationship choices. It wasn’t a weight that I wanted her to carry. If it meant adding a few more rocks onto my back, into a few slivers of space between my shoulders, I would do it.
“Maybe,” I said slowly, “maybe we should try somewhere in Maryville. Or Knoxville. Less eyes watching every move we make.”
Grace nodded. “I like less eyes.”
The relief must have shown on my face, because she exhaled a laugh. I kissed her again because I couldn't not kiss her. "Just to let things settle a little bit before we start making out on the corner of Main Street."
A smile spread over her face like the sunrise, slow and sweet and bright at the edges. "Okay." She lifted on the balls of her feet and kissed the side of my mouth. "Grady told me about a sushi place in Knoxville. Do you like sushi?"
For a split second, I was ready to tell her that anywhere she wanted to go was fine. It's what I would've always done. Instead, I cupped the side of her face and said, with as much feeling as I could muster, "I hate sushi."
She laughed. "Okay then. No raw fish for you, big boy."
"Grace Bailey," Fran said, her voice just around the corner from the tree, "my covert skills only go so far, young lady."
Grace sighed and pecked me on the lips again. "See you in there, champ."
She snuck out underneath my arm, where I had it braced on the tree. I counted to twenty, then recited multiplication tables in my head until I could walk without an obvious limp.
When I entered the gym, I stopped short. In my stolen minutes with Grace, I'd missed a few arrivals. Namely, J.T. MacIntyre, who was sitting right next to a scowling Maxine Barton.
They saw me at the same time, Maxine exhaling in relief, J.T. scowling in my direction.
"Where've you been?" he asked. "Your truck was parked when I got here."
I kept my eyes firmly on J.T. as I sat in one of the too-small metal chairs. Grace and Francine were opposite of me, which probably wasn't a smart idea, as I struggled to keep my gaze from her.
"Client phone call came in right as I got out of my truck," I said easily. "Can't have confidential conversations within earshot of this fine group, now can I?"
J.T. grimaced, because he knew he couldn't argue.
"What, exactly, are you doing here, Mr. President?" Maxine asked, her tone as tart as a fresh lemon. "You've never deigned to grace us with your presence before."
He sat back in the chair and folded his arms over his chest. "The chamber of commerce is the single largest sponsor of the Headless Chicken Festival, isn't it? Thought I'd make sure my investment is being taken care of."
Oh, it was so pointed. And juvenile.
This man would need a lobotomy to get over his anger with me.
"Lord," Maxine grumbled. "Might as well piss on the table and get it over with, J.T."
"Excuse me?"
She waved a gnarled hand in my direction. "You. Him. We all know what happened. The problem is that you're bringing it somewhere it doesn't need to be, and that gets my panties in a wad, because this is my meeting, my committee, and not a lick of it has to do with your daughter's broken heart."
J.T. sputtered, and I probably would've thought the whole thing humorous, if Grace wasn't witnessing it.
"Maxine," J.T. said when he'd recovered, trying a different tactic than muscle. His voice was as slick and silky as a snake. "You know you're the best thing that ever happened to this festival. I just wanted to see how you do it is all. Nobody has ever been able to come close."
A few ladies at the table rolled their eyes, too old to be fooled by this side of him. Maxine's facial expression never even came close to wavering. She was iron and steel, voice dry when she spoke.
"If I wanted flattery, I'd have a man come to my house in the middle of the night." She laid her hands flat on the table and leaned in his direction. "If you wouldn't mind terribly, I'd prefer you get the hell out of my meeting and let me spend all your important money in peace, okay? You've never looked over my shoulder before, and I don't plan on allowing you to start today."
J.T. caught my eye and the stubborn set of his jaw made me shift in my seat. But given that he was outmaneuvered by Maxine, he had no choice but to leave. After a long glance around the table, his eyes only stopping once—on Grace—he left. Allowing myself one look, I glanced in her direction, and she was staring directly at the surface of the table.
Suddenly, Knoxville didn't seem far enough away for our first date.
Chapter 44
Grace
For first dates, the boots stayed home. And the look in Tucker's eyes at the red heels capping my feet made it worth every single step on those wobbly-ass stilts currently endangering my ankles.
"As much as I love those boots, Angry Girl," he murmured, taking my hand and twirling me so he could get a full look, "I don't think I'll ever complain about you switching it up to something like that."
"The bonus to the heels is this," I said when I was facing him again, my black dress still swirling a little around my thighs. All I had to do was lift my chin, and my mouth touched his with ease.
He hummed into the kiss, sliding his big hands along my back and ending just above the curve of my butt. "Definitely never argue with that."
We managed to leave the greeting at that one kiss, but our fingers stayed intertwined as he drove us to Knoxville.
Tucker kept the music low in the truck, but enough that I could hear it as we talked.
"I love this song," I told him.
His smile was small as he took his eyes off the road and let them roam over my face. He looked so handsome, wide shoulders and chest covered in a light blue dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to show the rolling muscles and crinkly golden hairs on his forearm.
"What's that smile?" I asked. It was so much better now that I could drink in every single detail of him in exactly the way I wanted. My hands lifted to touch his freshly trimmed beard and he rubbed his jaw against my palm when I did. I could do that now. Stare at his face, watch how he formed words, memorize the texture of his facial hair and imagine how it would feel against the skin of my thighs.
"I heard this song for the first time a couple of days ago." He turned the smile toward me when he stopped at a red light. "It reminds me of you."
It was about a free spirit, a plaintive, sweeping melody that made me want to curl up in his arms and kiss him until we both fell asleep.
"Really?"
He nodded, hooking a wrist over the steering wheel when the light turned green.
I shifted closer to him on the truck bench and laid my head on his shoulder. His fingers tightened around mine and the contentment curling around my heart was almost too big for my body to contain.
Was this what it was like for everyone else in my family? This sudden, bright burst of happiness, of peace;, just being near that person was heady and strange. Hypnotizing in a way that I'd never experienced.
As we drove in comfortable silence, I thought about what Levi had said about his relationship with Joss. He'd crafted the patience of a saint over those five years, because he knew that she was it for him. Pressing my nose into Tucker's shoulder, I knew that, despite how difficult it had been to hide the way I felt about him those first couple days, I'd be able to do it too. I'd learn how to wait, if it meant that he'd be mine someday. Mine in the way that I was his.
Levi said something else, about his oldest brother Hunter. About his relationship woes, and how they related to the curse, and his wife that he definitely did not meet in Green Valley. Driving toward Knoxville, I thought about the fact that Hunter rarely ever came home to visit, and if that was the reason why.
If Tucker was with someone else, the thought of staying in the front row and watching for years was incredibly painful.
But being away seemed even worse.
"Whatcha thinking about?" he asked.
I sat up and smiled at him. "My cousin Hunter, actually."
Tucker's eyebrows popped up. "I don't really know him. What made you think about that?"
Another thing that I couldn't say. Not really. I swallowed it down, along with every other mention of this strange family quirk that seemed impossible to explain.
"He's never home," I said. "And I know I haven't been in Green Valley long, but I feel like you'd have to hate this place to avoid it the way he seems to. It takes some getting used to, I think all small towns would, but I haven't seen anything about it that would chase someone away from his family for that long."
"Other than the rampant gossip and the fact that no one can mind their own business if their life depended on it?" he asked ruefully.
I exhaled a laugh. "Other than that."
"Small towns are a strange creature, and if the rhythm of the way they move doesn't fit you exactly right, it's hard to ever feel like it's your home."
I thought about that as he pulled into the parking lot of a fancy looking steak restaurant, a dark, low slung building with clean lines and tasteful landscaping.
"I don't know if I've figured out that rhythm yet," I told him. "Considering we had to drive almost an hour to feel safe enough to enjoy our first date."
Tucker tilted my chin up with his thumb and placed a feather-light kiss on my lips. "We'll be able to date all over that damn town soon enough. As soon as someone else makes bigger waves than I just did."
While it may not have helped me feel like it was my home, it was enough for me. Or at least it was for one night.
He left the truck and opened the door for me, holding my hand as we walked into the dimly lit restaurant. He'd reserved us a private booth, and even if it made me look like the cliché of all clichés, I forced him to sit on the same side of the booth as me.
"I don't want that table in between us," I told him when the hostess walked away. He curled a hand around my thigh and dropped a kiss at my temple, breathing me in before he pulled back.
"Pretty Girl, you're going to make me lose my mind, I can already tell."
The smile on my face at his answer stayed there almost the entire night.
We ate slowly, his hands staying firmly on that one stretch of skin along my thigh, even if it meant he had to eat one-handed. And we talked for hours. No one rushed us, simply refilled waters, brought a couple glasses of red wine for me, a whiskey for him, and I spent those hours getting to know Tucker Haywood, letting him get to know me.
My fingers itched for my camera as he spoke and as he listened, because I could have taken picture upon picture of him for my hypothetical book. A veritable study in focus and attention, from the set of his eyes to the smile hovering over his lips.
But if I’d been taking pictures, I wouldn’t have been able to talk with him like I was. And that would’ve been a sin.
For each thing we had in common, there was something about us that was completely different.
He didn't like chocolate, which was a sin in my eyes, but we agreed that pineapple on pizza was perfection.
He loved watching golf, which was my favorite way to trigger a nap, but we both preferred college football over professional.
His voting patterns leaned toward the right of the middle, and mine leaned to the left.
He told me about his job, how long the law firm had been in his family, the expectations that came with it. I listened without judgment of how unhappy it made him, just like he didn't chide me for up and moving across the country without a single lead on a job.
With each topic we covered, it was like unrolling a smooth sheet of pristine white paper. There was no flaw to it, to this conversation, just unending possibilities of what it could be turned into, and that's when I realized that the curse didn't mean that you found someone who was exactly like you.
Tucker was explaining what he loved about going to church, and even though I couldn't remember the last time my head had been covered by the roof of a place of worship, I found myself interested in knowing why it was important to him, to explore the truth of a God that dwelled in a single space.
I preferred the outdoors, climbing a mountain or following a trail to a sunset that would show some holy space of creation. Our differences didn't deter me, it simply heightened my fascination until I felt like I'd never look at him without stars in my eyes.
As he didn't like chocolate, he didn't join me in savoring the dessert that I'd picked, even though I was stuffed to the brim and in serious danger of a food coma. He simply watched with amusement as I licked the spoon clean, that warm, big hand parked right on my thigh, his fingers curled around a place that was about four inches south of where I wanted them to be curled.
"Should I make a token argument to pay the bill?" I asked when he scanned the paper tucked discreetly into a black folder.
With a lazy lift of one eyebrow, he acted like he was going to hand it to me, and we both laughed when I hesitated.
"Thank you for dinner," I told him after the server whisked the bill away with his heavy black credit card. "I would've paid but …"
"But you don't have a job," he supplied.
I sighed, leaning into his warmth. "I don't have a job. Too bad the city of Green Valley isn't in the market for a freelance photographer."
"I think you could make a job like that, if you wanted to." His hands swept gently back and forth. "All the sides of this small town would be pretty fascinating, captured from your viewpoint. I saw you snapping Maxine today when she wasn't looking."
“You sound like my Aunt Fran,” I told him. My nose crinkled. "I’m just playing
around. Sometimes it feels like I don't see things correctly if I'm not trying to capture them on film."
I said the words flippantly, but deep down, I knew that Aunt Fran’s suggestion had taken root, found a foothold in my imagination, until all I could imagine was a hardcover book with glossy pages, filled with my photographs. Mountains and trees, plastic diner booths filled with lifelong friends, freshly made doughnuts on simple plates, wrinkled hands picking them up. Smiles and laughter, a simplified way of life that I’d never be able to capture outside of a small town.
Black and white, framed against stark pages. Maybe a short title for each one, but that was it.
Images that could speak for themselves, the way all good art did.
If the artist captured something powerful, something tangible, you shouldn’t have to explain it to the viewer. That thing should be able to stand on its own. And I wanted that for my art.
"Did you do anything with those shots you took of me last night?"
I hummed. The look on his face in those shots was more delicious than a single ounce of the chocolate confection I'd just inhaled. "They're locked away for my own personal use, if you want the truth."
My admission ratcheted the heat in his face. "Yeah?" His voice was rough, and his fingers tightened. A reflex.
I shifted closer.
I nodded, lifting my chin so I could speak against his mouth and breathe his air into my lungs. "Can we take more? Just for me. And some just for you."
The server returned just as Tucker sank his lips against mine, and we broke apart.
The drive home was interminably long, his hands roaming my leg and my fingers tightening painfully around his when he tried to move them up my thigh.
By the time he pulled into Aunt Fran and Uncle Robert's driveway, I was practically panting.
He shoved the gear shift into park and tugged me into his lap. My mouth devoured his, tongues licking, teeth hitting against each other, lips bruising in their force, and it wasn't enough. Not even close.
The Love at First Sight Box Set Page 38