Home at Chestnut Creek

by Laura Drake

  “She will be able to visit with my first wrecked vehicle that looked a whole lot like her. Only I was eighteen and probably drunker than you were last night. Shooter and I thought we were experiencing our very first earthquake.”

  “What happened that you got so drunk? And did it really shake the house that hard?”

  “Second question first.” He led her back to the sofa, sat down, and pulled her into his lap. “Yes, it did, and I figure from the way that front end is caved in that you hit the gas instead of the brake. If you’d been sober, you would have stiffened up and come out of it with a whiplash at the least, but you were limber as a wet noodle. I did find a couple of bruises up under your arms where you must’ve hit the steering wheel but that’s all.”

  She pushed up the sleeves of his robe and sure enough there were two long, skinny strips of purple under each arm as if she’d hugged that steering wheel at time of impact.

  He kissed each bruise and pulled the sleeves back down for her. “Other question. My folks called a lawyer and he took care of things. I knew they were right. Hell, I knew I was making a mistake when I was standing there drunk and saying my vows to love, honor, and respect Scarlett.” He wrapped his arms around her even tighter. “But it didn’t make it sting any less for them to treat me like a child so I went out that night and got drunk again. I spent three days in the hospital with a concussion. When I saw my truck after they’d pulled it from around the big pecan tree, I decided I’d never drink that much again.”

  “Did you keep that promise to yourself?” she asked.

  “Almost all the time. Nowadays, three beers is my limit. If I have a shot of Jack, then two beers is my limit.”

  She readjusted her position until she was sitting in his lap, tilted her chin up, moistened her lips, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Me, too. I’m making that promise to myself and sealing it with a kiss from you right here and now.”

  Lips met lips in a fiery kiss that erased the argument. Tongues did a mating dance that included forgetting and forgiving, leaving Allie and Blake in a wonderful vacuum with room for only two beating hearts. The heat between them burned away the bad feelings and nothing mattered but the future.

  “Wow! Just wow,” he said.

  “Was it as good for you as it was for me?” she asked.

  He traced the outline of her lips with his forefinger. “Better. So we’ve made our pact that we aren’t getting drunk off our asses ever again. Does that mean we’re going to watch each other’s backs to be sure we keep our word?”

  She stood up and moved to the other end of the sofa. There was no way she could keep her mind on a conversation with his warm breath on her body and his arms wrapped securely around her waist.

  “I like you, Blake Dawson.” She settled down with her back against the arm and sitting Indian-style, the robe covering her legs. Her heart said that she loved him, but she wasn’t totally sure that there weren’t a few drops of whiskey and tequila left in her blood that might be influencing the major organ in her body.

  “I like you, too, Allie Logan,” he said, and smiled.

  “Why?”

  “You said it first so you have to tell me why you like me first. And I’m leaving my glasses on so I can see you, because your face does not lie.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He stared into her eyes. “Just how far does this ‘like’ business go?”

  She inhaled and let it out slowly. “It’s real hard for me to trust anyone, and I have commitment issues after two years with a husband who left me for another woman. He was a lot like Mitch. He manipulated me into giving him what he wanted and made me feel guilty when I didn’t cave in. The only thing I refused to do was quit working, and that was a big thorn in our marriage.”

  “Riley abused you?” Blake asked.

  “Yes, but I was young, naïve, and very stupid. I didn’t know that it was abuse. He’d sigh and say that he wished my job at least let me dress like a lady instead of a homeless person. But he had good qualities and we had good times. It wasn’t all bad. I guess that’s why I didn’t see the infidelity when it was right before my face.”

  “That’s just wrong,” Blake whispered coldly.

  She could feel the last of the ice chipping away from her heart. Was this what it was like to have a best friend, someone that a person could tell anything? “I don’t think my heart was broken but more relieved that I didn’t have to keep having the fight over my working situation. But my pride was in shambles. It was two years before I went out on a date and I figured out real quick that I didn’t believe a nice word the man said. It wasn’t him but me. I didn’t trust men.”

  “And now?”

  “I like you and I trust you, but I want to know why you introduced me to your brother as the woman who was fixing this house instead of your friend or since we’d been to bed, as your girlfriend,” she said.

  He moved down the sofa and took her hands in his. “It was an awkward situation, Allie. Those women from the bar were in the kitchen. Your granny showed up looking like a half-drowned old madam. Don’t look at me like that. You know I’m tellin’ the truth. And then your mother came to get her. I wanted to tell you that I hadn’t slept with you and then turned around and slept with one of those women, but I couldn’t with all of them standing so close. And I didn’t think you’d want them to know that we’d had sex, and I didn’t know how to introduce you. And I’m battling this idea of us when you live so close.”

  “What does my living close have to do with anything?” she asked.

  “If things didn’t work out between us and there were hard feelings, well, we are neighbors. It’s complicated.”

  Sitting there with her small hands tucked into his big ones felt right as if that’s the way life should be. “I don’t want you to leave the Lucky Penny, so please make it work. I’ve opened my heart to you. That’s why I like you, Blake. I can talk to you. I can argue with you. I can be drunk and shake the hell out of your house and you don’t judge me. You don’t talk down to me or make me feel like less of a woman because of what I do.”

  He leaned forward and cupped her face in his hands. “You’ve had Deke as a best friend, but I’ve never had a best friend who was a woman, so this is all new territory for me. Why do I like you? Let me count the ways.”

  She pulled a hand free. “You don’t have to be complimentary. Just knowing that you consider me a best friend is enough reason to like me.”

  He captured her hand midair and kissed the knuckles. “What I feel for you goes far above ‘like,’ Allie Logan. I don’t know if it’s love because I’ve never really been in love before. But believe me when I tell you that I admire you for what you do. I think it’s downright sexy the way you can crawl up on a roof or fix a ceiling and honey, those cargo pants turn me on.”

  “Kind of like that song ‘She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy’?” she said. “Only in reverse? He thinks my cargos are sexy?”

  “You got it. You can do all those things and then when we are in bed, you make me feel like I’m the greatest lover on earth.”

  Allie’s smile grew wider. “That’s because you are. And speaking of that, since we’re best friends, does that mean we can’t see if you’re still that great in bed? Like right now?”

  “Allie, I want more from you than booty calls. If we weren’t both close to thirty, I’d say this is where I’d ask you to go out with me.” He chuckled.

  She pulled both her hands free and cupped his cheeks in her hands. “We haven’t even been dating. You know that commercial that says like comes before love?”

  His hands covered hers. “I’ve seen it on television a couple of times.”

  Allie leaned forward and kissed him on the tip of the chin. “I’m not so sure I believe that. I think maybe they get mixed up sometimes and sometimes they arrive at the same time, but right now I don’t want to think about any of it. I want to go to bed with you.”

  He was a blur as he stood up an
d then suddenly she was in his arms and they were headed down the hallway. He kicked the bedroom door shut with his bare foot and laid her gently on the mattress.

  “I think that can be arranged.” He tugged the belt of the robe and laid the sides back. She shivered, not because of the cold wind howling outside or the rain pouring down on the new roof, but in anticipation of what was to come.

  When he removed his pajama pants her eyes went to the rock-hard erection and then upward as the shirt came off. They locked gazes and he started to stretch out beside her but she shook her head.

  “You’re saying no?” he asked.

  “I’m saying that we’ve had foreplay. I want you.” She pulled him down and wrapped her legs around his waist, wiggling just right so that a good firm thrust took him inside her.

  He braced himself on his elbows and started a steady rhythm complete with hot and heavy kisses that had her panting and rocking with him after the first few seconds. It didn’t surprise her one bit that this time was every bit as good as the last, but she didn’t dwell on anything but satisfying the deep need inside her body as she finally let go of all the past and trusted her heart and soul to the bad boy on the Lucky Penny.

  The last time they’d had sex she felt as if she were in a vacuum where no one else was allowed but her and Blake. This time it went beyond that into a place where nothing, not a single thought or a worry of any kind, entered her mind. She and Blake were on a sexual journey. She could see the strength in his strong arms when he rose up above her. The intensity in his eyes when she looked deep into them kept nothing back and gave her free access to delve all the way to his soul. His weight felt right when he eased down on top of her and then they were rocking together in a world where past and future didn’t matter. Only the present was allowed and it was glorious.

  Time stood still. Wandering thoughts didn’t exist. Nothing was more important than satisfying that deep need driving them to the top of a climax. Then with a groan and a final thrust they dived over the edge together, her fingers tangled in his hair, his lips on that soft spot on her neck. Before either of them could stop panting, the soft afterglow folded around them like a warm blanket.

  He rolled to one side and pulled her against him until her head rested on his chest. “When I can breathe,” he panted, “I will tell you how wonderful that was.”

  “When you can breathe…” she panted between words, “you can kiss me and we’ll start all over again.”

  “You are amazing, Allie,” he whispered softly.

  Getting enough of Blake Dawson might be a lifetime job. She was up for the challenge if it meant winding up in bed like this several times a week…or a day!

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Blake and Deke had already gone when Allie let herself into the house and went right to work that Tuesday morning. At noon the ceiling was painted, the walls were finished, and she was working her way around the floor doing the woodwork. The door into the bedroom and the one that hung on the closet had been removed and were resting on sawhorses in the third bedroom. Now that some of the Sheetrock had been cleared out, she used that room to sand and then paint one side of the doors before she had started the ceiling that morning. Her goal was to turn them over and paint the other side before she left that evening. Then the next day she would hang them before she started texturing the hallway and living room ceiling.

  She’d really dodged a bullet the day before with the gossip hounds in Dry Creek. The big news in town right then was the grand opening tonight of Nadine’s new café. It had only taken a lot of elbow grease and a big trip to the grocery wholesale store to get the place up and running. Katy had helped her cut through a ton of red tape to get a license and rumor had it that Sharlene and Mary Jo were taking vacation time from their jobs to help out the first week as waitresses and dishwashers.

  Of course Nadine’s business venture was only part of what was keeping all the phone lines heated up that week. Sharlene was still thinking about cleaning up the old clothing store for a day care center because she was tired of the banking business and Mary Jo was continuing with plans for putting in a beauty and barbershop combination in the building between the café and the feed store.

  Some folks thought those three women should be hauled out of Dry Creek by the boys in the white jackets. Others cheered for the ladies and whispered over the backyard fences that Blake Dawson might be the luckiest thing that had happened to northern Throckmorton County in several decades. He was the only thing that had changed in town the past several years and look at what all was happening.

  Allie wished all three of them the best of luck in their ventures and could have personally hugged them for taking some of the heat from the rumors away from her that week. She was picturing three stores on Main Street with clean windows and folks fanning in and out of the new businesses when she came to the end of the baseboards and stood up to paint around the door facing.

  She caught a whiff of wood smoke but figured a draft had sent it from the fireplace to her nose. Paintbrush loaded, her hand was headed toward the middle of the door trim when two hands snaked around her waist. It startled her so badly that she squealed, flipped around, and threw up the brush, sending a broad swath of white paint across Blake’s face. White went ear to ear, across his mouth, chin, and below his nose, before she dropped the brush on the toe of his right boot.

  He pulled her tightly against his chest, tipped up her chin and kissed her, smearing wet white paint all over her face. She tasted wood smoke, cold winter air, and a hint of black coffee mixed with paint. Who would have ever thought that that mixture could be an aphrodisiac?

  She rolled up on her toes and then remembered Deke. Sweet Jesus in heaven! She had to get to the bathroom and wash all that paint off her face before he saw it or else he’d have a million questions and at least that many lectures all ready to deliver.

  “Deke?” she whispered.

  “Is on the way. He wanted to finish up the cord of wood he was working on so that Herman could buy it and take it out of the field. Weatherman says it’s going to snow more, starting tonight and going through tomorrow. Never seen winter like this in central Texas before, but when it’s cold outside we have to get warm inside, don’t we?” Blake pulled her back to his chest.

  “You got that right, but first we’ve got to get the paint off before Deke gets here,” she said.

  “Hey! This room is almost finished and it looks great.” He took a step back and looked around at the fresh sandy colored walls and white trim work. “I can move my furniture back in tomorrow evening soon as we pull up this nasty carpet. That means we’ve got a date, right?”

  “Thursday evening?” she asked.

  “I’ll pick you up at seven at your place. Should I wear body armor?” He led her to the bathroom and turned on the water in the wall-hung sink.

  “It might not hurt. Lizzy is a crack shot with a rifle and she’s not budging.” Allie stuck her hands under the warm water.

  Blake applied soap to a wet washcloth and held it up to her face. “Let me.”

  She turned her face up so he could reach it better. “You scared the devil out of me.”

  Blake chuckled. “Then I guess you must be an angel, then.”

  “Oh, darlin’, I got my angel wings the first time we went to bed together.”

  He wiped away most of the paint from her face and rinsed the washcloth under the warm water. “I scared you when we had sex?”

  “No, darlin’, you screwed the hell out of me…that gave me my angel wings and my halo,” she said.

  Behind the white painted-on beard, Blake’s face went crimson red. “Your ancestors’ blood is rising to the top today.”

  “Yep, it is.” She took the washcloth from him and removed the rest of the paint from her face, then started on his.

  “Hey, where are y’all?” Deke called from the living room.

  “Cleaning Blake up,” Allie yelled back.

  “You are what?” Deke wasted no time g
etting down the hall. He stopped at the bathroom door and leaned a shoulder against the jamb. “What happened?”

  “Never scare a woman who’s holding a paintbrush,” Blake said.

  “Good enough for you.” Deke laughed out loud. “Be glad she slapped you with that brush and not her freshly painted wall. For that she might have shot you on the spot.” He left the bathroom and peeked into the bedroom. “Lookin’ good. You’ll have it done by quittin’ time today. It’s amazing what a coat of paint and a new ceiling does for a room, ain’t it? I’m going to wash up in the kitchen sink and then I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Allie picked up the washcloth again and wiped away more paint. Cupping his chin under her hand sent waves of desire through her body. Did angel wings and halos have to be earned every day? If so, she was more than willing for more of that hell removal business anytime that her halo and wings started to fade.

  “I’ve got the bowls on the table. Y’all going to take all day in there?” Deke shouted.

  “Almost done,” Allie yelled back. “Be there in two minutes.”

  “Make that three or four. Get out the cheese, salsa, and chips.” Blake raised his voice and bent his head to kiss her again. Her halo was secure by the time he finished the blistering hot kiss that took her breath away.

  “Wow,” she muttered.

  “It never gets old or dull, does it?” Blake whispered.

  “Hasn’t yet,” she said.

  “It’s on the table and if you ain’t here in thirty seconds, with or without paint all over your face, I am eating alone. You’ve had time to take off the first layer of skin, Allie,” Deke called out.

  When they reached the kitchen, she sat down in her chair. “You must be hungry, Deke.”

  Deke got busy dipping tortilla soup into bowls. “I’m always starving by dinnertime. And, Allie, I know y’all are more than friends so you don’t have to find excuses to stay in the bathroom and make out.”

  “What?” Allie sputtered.