by Zoe Chant
Her lips were impossibly warm and soft, tasting like vanilla and the sweetness of summer grass. Tea, he thought, with what little of him was capable of rational thought at that moment; she tastes like tea.
And she kissed like a woman who hadn't been kissed in a long time, tentative at first, then eager and wanting. She gasped against him, and he couldn't even think when he'd released his grip on her hands to instead take her face between his palms and curl his fingers around the smoothness of her pinned and braided hair.
The kiss broke at last, and she rested the side of her face against his for a moment, her cheek impossibly smooth against his stubble. One of her hands rested tentatively against his side; the other had come to curve around his back. She was breathing hard, as if she'd run a race. "I think," she began. "I think—"
The bell on the door tinkled. Maddox looked up quickly to see the door starting to open, a shadow falling across the floor.
Verity jerked back, composing herself. As her face pulled away from his, Maddox heard her whisper a string of profanity that would've made a sailor blush. By the time the door opened all the way to admit an elderly woman with a shopping bag, she was back on her feet and fussing with the tea things, nervously picking them up and putting them down.
"Verity, dear? It's Flo Kendall. I'm here for the green tea and more of that lovely herbal blend."
"Yes," Verity said, somewhat breathlessly, patting at her hair. "Yes, of course."
She went to help her customer, but her fingertips brushed past Maddox's shoulder as she moved by him—merely orienting herself in space, perhaps, or perhaps a promise of more to come.
By the time she was finished with her customer, Maddox had managed to get a measure of calm back. You're sure she's not our mate? he thought at his bull. Completely and totally sure?
I told you, I can't tell, his bull retorted. She smells very nice, though.
She certainly did. And she felt nice. And she was nice. And she deserved much better than a guy who hadn't led a very nice life at all.
Or so he was telling himself when Verity came back over with a swish of skirts. He found himself leaning toward her, but she didn't sit down with him again. Instead she seemed almost angry—at him? At herself? "Are you still determined to do this?" she asked him.
"Yes, ma'am." At the very least, he could help this town deal with its corrupt sheriff problem before he left.
Verity let out a sigh and reached for the tea things. She seemed to be intentionally holding herself away from him. Had he upset her?
She's just worried, his bull said.
"If you're determined to do this," Verity said, "I suppose I can't let you do it alone either. Unless you know exactly how to go about running for sheriff ..."
"Not a clue," he admitted.
"You're going to need to file paperwork." She tapped her finger thoughtfully against her lip. "You could go down to the courthouse, but I expect you can probably do it online. Everything is online these days. You can use my computer."
"You have a computer?" he asked, surprised. Then, realizing how that sounded, "I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to imply you couldn't."
"Oh, I know," she said with a smile. "Most people are curious. Come around here."
She had a laptop on the counter, tucked behind a display of insulated tea mugs. It was a perfectly normal-looking laptop except it had what he at first glance took to be a second keyboard plugged into it, until he noticed the second keyboard had no keys except a few unlabeled ones at the top; most of it consisted of a wide strip with a bunch of tiny little dots.
"This is a Braille display," Verity explained, moving it to the side. "You won't need that." She tapped a key to wake up the computer. "Go on the internet," she told the computer, speaking clearly and loudly, and a web browser popped up. "I use voice commands along with the keyboard, and the computer reads things aloud to me. You can turn off the text-to-speech with this key." She brushed her fingers along the row of function keys -- all of them, he noticed, had additional labels pasted over the top -- and tapped one. "There, now you can use the internet without having it talk to you. Just put it to sleep when you're done."
She was as quick and sure with the computer as she was with everything else; it dizzied him. With that kind of energy and assuredness, what couldn't she do? "You ever think about running for office yourself?" he asked as she moved out of the way to let him access the laptop.
"Me?" Verity laughed. "What, run for sheriff?"
"Not sheriff. But maybe like, city council or mayor or something." He could imagine it so easily. She would look stunning behind a podium, wearing one of her pretty shirts and long skirts, her hair pulled back all tidy and professional. He bet she could get this town whipped into shape in no time.
Anyway, his bull put in, we would stomp anyone who tries to argue with her.
"Oh, heavens, no, what an idea. I don't want to run anything except my little tea shop." She started to reach for his shoulder, a casual touch—he got the impression she touched people a lot, but maybe she had to, to be sure where everyone was. As always, he wanted to lean into her touch like a flower toward the sun. But she pulled her hand back before her fingers made contact.
"Did I ... offend you?" he asked hesitantly. "Earlier?"
"What? Oh no, no. I just—I—" She took a breath. It was so odd to see her flustered. "It was very ... nice, and we'll talk about this a bit later," she declared, her cheeks turning pink, and her hand brushed his shoulder lightly in a fluttering kind of gesture before she hurried off to start moving teacups around in a display that had looked perfectly fine when she'd started with it.
Are you sure she's not upset? he thought anxiously at his bull. He had noticed over the years that people didn't usually say things like "I'm not offended" unless they actually were offended, but he was terrible at reading those things. At the same time, she didn't really smell upset.
It's not going to offend her any less if you assume she's lying to you, his bull told him.
Shut up, you're not any better at this stuff than I am. He turned his attention to the computer.
He wasn't that great at either computers or forms, let alone forms on computers, but he found the right part of the website fairly easily. It said the deadline for filing an application to run for sheriff was tomorrow. He hadn't even realized there would be a deadline. Now it almost seemed like this was meant to be, in a way. He didn't really believe in fate—aside from fated mates, of course, like anybody did—but he didn't make a single mistake in filling out the form, at least nothing he was aware of. He hesitated with his finger hovering over the "submit" button. Once he did that, there was no turning back.
Do I really want to do this? Do I want to get involved with these people's problems?
He looked across the store at Verity, who was moving a teacup a fraction of an inch to the left as if her life depended on it.
He couldn't just run off and leave Verity and her town in danger.
He clicked "submit."
The form whisked away into the depths of the computer, and Maddox sat back with a long sigh. Verity heard that, and stopped the teacup Tetris to come back over to the counter.
"All done," he told her. Now that there was no turning back, it felt like a weight had lifted from his shoulders.
"I hope you know what you're doing," she told him.
Maddox couldn't help grinning at her. "Not a clue, ma'am."
Verity shook her head. She touched the insulated-mug display with her fingertips, selected one, and placed it on the counter beside the computer with a tidy, decisive click. "One quarter," she declared. "In the cup. Now."
"What?" Maddox said blankly.
"From now on this is going to be the schoolmarm jar. Every time you call me ma'am, Miss Verity, or anything of that sort, it'll be a quarter in the jar."
She tapped the top of the cup meaningfully.
Meekly, he dug in his pocket and put a slightly grubby quarter in the cup.
Verity hadn't moved away
. She was so close he could feel the warmth of her body and smell her soft, slightly spicy perfume smell over the nose-tickling scents of tea that filled the room. He could still feel the soft touch of her lips on his, the way she'd gasped and opened her mouth and her entire body had felt like it was on the verge of collapsing into his lap—
"Anyway," Verity said, jerking him out of a pleasant daze. "I need to put some orders together. Do you mind if I—since you're here, I mean, and don't take this the wrong way, but if you could use a little hired-man work, and if you're feeling physically up to it—only if you feel up to it, mind—would you mind terribly doing some things around the shop?"
He almost laughed, stopping himself at the last minute. "Like that loose railing on the stairs?"
"Yes," Verity said with a smile. "Exactly like that. There are some tools in the garden shed you can use."
"I was going to offer to do that anyway, ma—uh—"
"Quarter in the cup," Verity said, and her lips quirked, and he knew then that it didn't matter if his bull said she was his mate or not. He was head over heels anyway.
Chapter Six: Verity
Verity spend the afternoon filling orders to the background sounds of sanding and hammering and occasional tromping footsteps upstairs. She hadn't realized it would be so nice to listen to someone else around the place. It had been that way when Bailey was smaller, but now Bailey was a teenager on the edge of womanhood, and had her own life and friends; she wasn't home much anymore.
Verity found that she loved being able to pause in her work and listen, and pinpoint exactly where Maddox was and what he was doing by the sounds he made. There was hammering from the back steps: he was working on the railing. A sudden flush from upstairs: he must be dealing with that leaky pipe that had been driving her crazy with its drip, drip, drip for the last few months.
The only thing spoiling the pleasant afternoon was an intrusive, nagging worry. Sheriff Hawkins really wasn't going to like this.
But of all the people she'd met in this town, she thought Maddox might actually be able to take him on.
And she kept flashing back on the delightful memory of his beard scruff against her lips, the strength of his hands on hers ...
You're not alone anymore.
What was she doing? She was no starry-eyed girl to be swept away by a pair of strong hands and a chiseled, muscular chest.
(Such a very nice chest, though.)
You don't want to get too wrapped up in this one, Verity, she told herself, tilting her head to listen to his footsteps moving around upstairs as her hands went through the familiar routine of sorting and tying and packaging. It might be harmless fun, but that's ALL it is. He's going to leave again. You know the type. You've spent your whole life with guys like this drifting through town. They come, they work on the ranches or the railroad for awhile, and they leave.
But it didn't feel like that. It felt like a missing piece of herself, clicking into place.
And anyway, he wasn't like those other drifters. He was brave. There was no reason why he had to try to solve their town's problems; he didn't owe them anything. But he wanted to.
Some people were born heroes, Verity thought, and this town had had precious few heroes lately.
Bailey called around the time school let out to ask if she could go over to Luke's.
"Well, that depends," Verity said, cocking an ear for the sound of Maddox's footsteps moving around upstairs. "Are you actually going to be at Luke's, as opposed to running around town like a hoodlum?"
"Cross my heart, I swear. Luke's grandma invited me to dinner, and she also wanted some help sorting old baby clothes for donating to charity. I promised last week and then I forgot."
Verity laughed. "You're a good girl, Bailey."
Bailey gave a very teenager-ish snort, and then asked anxiously, "Will you be okay, Aunt Verity? Is Maddox still there?"
"He's still here." As she spoke, she heard the tromp of feet crossing the floor in the other direction, and then hammering from the upstairs balcony. He was fixing everything up there, from the sound of things.
"It makes me feel better, having him there," Bailey said. "I know we just met him, but he saved me and Luke. I trust him. And I like knowing that you aren't alone there."
"Me too," Verity said quietly. Bailey giggled, and a sudden suspicion occurred. "Bailey, are you going over to Luke's grandma's house to give me some time alone with Maddox this evening?"
"No, of course not," Bailey said quickly. "Oops, there's my ride, gotta go, bye!"
"Call me when you get there!" Verity said on the tail end of this, though she wasn't sure if Bailey heard her.
She hung up with a shake of her head. It seemed just yesterday Bailey had been a little girl, a patter of feet tagging after her in the shop and a small, sticky hand in hers. Now her little niece was growing up, figuring out her own path in the world.
And apparently matchmaking her aunt with her new favorite person.
Verity realized that she'd raised her hand to her head and was touching her hair to make sure the coiled braid was smooth, and then she had to grin at herself.
But why on Earth shouldn't she have some fun? She was barely even middle-aged; she certainly wasn't dead. Maddox hadn't seemed to object to their kiss earlier, and he was going out of his way to help with the town's corrupt-sheriff problem and with all the little issues around the shop that she'd just been dealing with rather than getting fixed.
Decisively, she got up, marched over to the door, and flipped the sign to CLOSED. She locked the door and went out the back.
Dry heat met her, although the back porch was in shadow at this time of day. It wasn't the blistering heat of summer, but they were still having a warm fall. She hoped one of the things Maddox had fixed was the window-mounted air conditioning unit; being an upstairs apartment, their place trapped all the heat of the day. She didn't hear hammering at the moment. "Maddox?" she called. "Okay to come up?"
"Of course, ma—" and then he broke off and she heard him curse.
Verity smiled to herself as she climbed the stairs. "Another quarter for the jar, then."
"Next time I go downstairs," he said, resigned. "Oh, stop there!" She froze in the act of lifting her foot to the next step. "Where you are there, that's where I fixed the railing. How's it feel?"
Verity ran her hand up and down. The wood was smooth, without a single splinter or wobble. "You did a wonderful job. What else did you do?"
"Everything you told me about." As he spoke, he came down the stairs to meet her halfway. "Got the railing, got the leaky pipe and the air conditioner—" Which now that he mentioned it, she could hear humming away upstairs. "Smoothed down the place where the door used to stick, fixed a couple of loose boards on the deck—oh, and I fixed a little bit of a wobble in your kitchen table."
"You are a wonder," she told him. "I didn't even have to tell you about half those things."
"I'm pretty good at fixing stuff." His voice sounded strange when he said it, almost ashamed.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, it's just ..." Maddox hesitated. "I haven't been doing things like that much lately. I think I'd like to do it more. Fixing things, I mean, and not ..."
He stopped. Verity didn't push. You could tell when people didn't want to talk about things, and she'd been around the block too many times to force it.
Instead she said, "You'll be staying for dinner, won't you?"
"If you'll have me," he said, suddenly shy again.
She had reached out and touched him before she'd realized she was going to, a light brush of fingertips across his arm. "Of course."
There was a lingering moment before he pulled away abruptly. "So—it looks like one corner of your shed roof is sagging pretty bad. I was just gonna go fix that for you, if you want me to—?"
"Yes, you can do that while I start dinner," she said, and his footsteps receded down the stairs, with a hitch every time he took a step that hurt him. She thought about calling
after to tell him not to overdo it, but decided not to; his pride probably wouldn't appreciate it.
But still, she waited and listened to him go down the stairs before she began to slowly climb, alert with her toes for any tools that had been left behind. He seemed like the sort of person who would be tidy about his tools, but she'd spent much too long drumming into Bailey to pick up things off the floor not to worry that a stranger might not remember that she couldn't see objects before she tripped over them.
A wave of cool air greeted her when she opened the door to the kitchen. The air conditioner was humming away, much more quietly than it used to. Verity disliked having it running because its white noise covered up the smaller sounds she relied on, but it was better than sweltering in late-summer heat.
She ran her fingertips over the labeled packages of frozen meat in the freezer, most of it obtained from local farmers. Thaw the chicken? No ... perhaps she'd make a pot roast. There would be time for it, if they didn't mind eating a little late, and it seemed like a nice thing to splurge on, and something he might enjoy. The oven would heat up the apartment, but with the AC running, it would be cool again by bedtime.
Once she had that in the oven, she moved around the apartment, tidying. Not that it was a mess to begin with. She'd built a lifelong habit of meticulous housekeeping; it was the only way she could always know where to look for the things she needed.
Despite all his banging around up here, Maddox had left everything exactly as he'd found it, right down to the position of the salt shaker on the table and the morning coffee cups that he'd left in the sink while doing his dishes. A point in his favor, she thought, smiling. She wasn't sure if he understood why everything needed to be left where it was, but he respected her things. She liked that.
She liked him.
Thinking about that, she went into her bedroom. Would it be ridiculous to—oh, why not? She changed the sheets on the bed and bundled the used sheets into the laundry hamper. Why not be prepared? She found herself feeling slightly self-conscious and hoping the sheets didn't have, say, cartoon kittens on them or something like that. (Bailey had bought them. Verity had never actually asked what they looked like.)