Stubborn as a Mule

by Sawyer Bennett

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” Lowe says. The condescension in his voice makes me feel murderous.

  “Get out,” I say as I point toward the door and glare at him.

  “Not until you hear what I have to say,” Lowe returns as he takes a step toward me.

  I recognize this tactic because he pulled it on me this morning in the kitchen. He’s using his massive size to try to intimidate me.

  But Lowe Mancinkus underestimates me. He’s never had to deal with a spunky New Yorker.

  I don’t back up. Instead, I take a step right up to him, and I have to tip my head way back to maintain eye contact. And damn, he smells so darned good. I force myself to breathe through my mouth, so I don’t get distracted.

  “I will listen to what you have to say when you show up at my house at a reasonable hour,” I bite out with a tiny poke of my finger into his chest for effect. “Until then, you are trespassing.”

  To my surprise, this seems to amuse Lowe. His lips curl into a nefarious grin and his voice rumbles low when he asks me, “You going to run and tattle on me to the judge?”

  “Maybe I will,” I say breathlessly.

  Oh, dear Lord.

  Breathlessly!

  Am I really breathless over this man who is threatening me?

  With a taunting chuckle, Lowe shakes his head and takes half a step until we are toe to toe. “I don’t think you will.”

  “Don’t underestimate me,” I warn him. “I know Judge Bowe was not happy with me, but I’m quite confident I have done nothing at this point to land me in jail. You, on the other hand, wouldn’t be so lucky.”

  “You think?” he asks in a soft voice, which sort of throws me off.

  I shore up my resolve and tell him the way it is. “I know so. Now you need to leave.”

  “You know, I came over here with a proposal that we just agree to go our separate ways and Judge Bowe would be none the wiser.”

  I’m not sure what it says about me, but I experience a weird pitching sensation over his words. It makes me feel off balance. Before I can even analyze this feeling, Lowe reaches a hand up and takes a lock of my hair between his thumb and forefinger. He slides his gaze over to watch as he rubs my hair in a thoughtful manner. When he looks back to me, my breath hitches over the heated look in his eyes.

  What in the hell is going on here?

  “But I’m thinking,” Lowe continues as his hand drops away for my hair. “It’s not a hardship watching you strut around in your little pajama shorts with that blue gunk all over your face. Maybe I’ll stick around.”

  My jaw drops as I realize the husky tone of his voice makes it clear that Lowe Mancinkus may not actually despise me all that much. Now, I’m not a fool as I know he’s doing this to screw with my head, but I can also see it in his eyes… he’s actually coming on to me.

  I absolutely hate that this knowledge causes my heart to beat a little faster and my breath to go a little more shallow.

  Still, I refuse to let him know that he affects me. I stand my ground as I shake my head in denial. “I think you and I both know your behavior is unacceptable. If Judge Bowe knew you were in my home after I asked you repeatedly to leave, I am quite sure you’d be the one sitting in jail and I’d be the one visiting you. And I wouldn’t bring you a nail file either.”

  Lowe must find that a satisfying response and I know this because he smiles like the cat that just caught the mouse. “You wouldn’t really turn me in, would you?”

  “In a New-York minute.”

  “Huh. Let’s test that theory out,” he says and before I can even formulate a good retort, his mouth comes down and presses against mine. I want to kick myself one hundred different ways when the tiny little moan of surprise and pleasure flutters out across my lips because the only thing that accomplishes is to give Lowe permission to take the kiss further.

  His head tilts to the right, his lips press mine open, and his tongue touches lightly against my own. I’m beyond mortified when an unholy sounding groan wrenches free from me.

  Lowe lifts his head, breaking the kiss, and then he looks down at me expectantly.

  “Dare you to call Judge Bowe,” he murmurs, taunting me. Then, for special effect, he adds on, “Mely.”

  I want to grit my teeth in frustration over the fact he just kissed me, I totally liked it, and I really liked the way my nickname sounded coming from him. I want to slap myself silly as I realize I am most definitely not going to let the judge know this happened.

  A wave of anger suffuses my entire being over being manipulated by this man, and I straighten my spine in preparation of giving him the biggest butt chewing he’s ever received in his life.

  Instead, I yip with fright at the sound of a booming noise coming from the backyard.

  “What the hell?” Lowe growls as he spins toward the hallway that leads to the kitchen, sprinting from there to the door that leads to the backyard.

  I scurry after him, my heart beating about a million miles an hour. Lowe stomps across the kitchen and reaches for the back door, preparing to open it.

  “Wait,” I yell, and he looks over his shoulder at me. “That sounded like a gun. You can’t go out there.”

  Lowe’s face morphs from put-out curiosity to amusement. “You worried about me, Mely?”

  I fling my arms dramatically toward the door. “Go. Get yourself killed. It will certainly make my life easier.”

  Lowe just chuckles and turns away from me to open the door. When he steps through and closes it behind him, I have a moment of panic that he’s going to get himself killed. I really don’t want that.

  I fly across the worn linoleum floor—which I have confirmed was laid down over beautiful hardwood about three decades ago and is a flooring issue that will soon be rectified—and fling the door open. I come to a screeching halt when I see Lowe talking to a hulking bear of a man who holds a shotgun cradled in his arms.

  He’s huge.

  Standing almost as tall as Lowe but three times as wide, he has long, frizzy gray hair and a wiry beard that hangs down over his chest.

  Both men turn to look at me, their eyebrows raised in question… as if I had interrupted a private conversation they were having.

  My eyes flick back and forth between the gun and Lowe before I wet my lips and ask, “Is everything okay?”

  “Coyote,” Lowe says. “Floyd was scaring him off.”

  “Floyd?”

  Lowe just jerks his head toward the man. Glancing over, I give a polite nod. “Hello.”

  Floyd just grunts at me in greeting.

  “Floyd owns the hardware store,” Lowe explains further. “It’s where I bought the pink paint.”

  I just nod again, taking in this very strange conversation. Ironically, I’m not bothered to know that’s where Lowe purchased his criminal implements to paint my house. I’m much more interested in why this man is in my backyard with a shotgun.

  “We have coyotes?” I ask cautiously, forcing myself not to sound too wigged out by a hulking man in my backyard with a loaded gun that he has apparently discharged against wild animals.

  “Scavengers,” Floyd grunts again.

  “And you were in my yard shooting at them because…?” I ask, letting my words trail off in question.

  “Floyd sort of protects the town,” Lowe says by way of explanation.

  So… that’s weird.

  And I feel the need to go in. “Doesn’t Whynot have a police force?”

  “Of course,” Lowe says in a voice that says my question is absolutely ridiculous.

  But what’s really ridiculous is the fact that Lowe does nothing else to explain why there is a large man hunting coyotes in my backyard.

  We engage in another staring war. I refuse to give in, letting my mind wander and my ears soak in the music of night crickets, realizing I probably just don’t want to know the answer as I’m clearly in information overload.

  Finally, Lowe gives a nod toward my back doo
r. “Let’s plan on talking tomorrow.”

  It’s my dismissal.

  And I’m so weirded out by everything that’s happened tonight, which includes Lowe Mancinkus thinking I’m sexy wearing blue gunk on my face, kissing me, and a man hunting coyotes in my backyard, that I decide to take his advice and go back into my house.

  “See you tomorrow,” I mutter.

  The Gossip Mill

  at Central Cafe

  via Floyd Wilkie

  “Order up,” Muriel says as she slides my breakfast in front of me. Two eggs over easy, hash browns, grits, bacon, and biscuits with sausage gravy.

  The usual.

  “Thanks,” I grunt as I pick up the pepper shaker and start to dress my food. Next, I hit it all with some Tabasco while Muriel warms up my coffee.

  “Heard a shotgun going off last night as I was closing up,” Muriel says as she sets the pot down on the counter and then leans her elbows there as well. She’s a country girl born and bred and loves to go hunting, so it’s only natural guns interest her. More like her daddy than her mama, that’s for sure.

  “Damn coyotes,” I mutter as I start to mix my hash browns and eggs together. “Two of them.”

  “Did you get ’em?”

  “You know I don’t shoot to kill,” I admonish her with a stern voice. “Unless it’s miscreants come to our town for nefarious reasons.”

  “Those coyotes killed two of my chickens last week,” Muriel says. “That makes them both miscreant and nefarious so they better not cross my path.”

  I give a grunt of acknowledgment because the coyotes are a problem. Just not mine to stop, although I’ll gladly scare them away from the town proper.

  “Where were they?” Muriel asks.

  “Behind Mainer House. Lowe came running out the back door when he heard the first shot.”

  “He was inside the house?” Muriel asks, leaning in closer. “With her?”

  “Yup,” I say, not really relishing in the gossip because what happens between a man and a woman should be just that, but I do relish having Muriel’s attention. She’s a pretty gal. “She had her night clothes on and blue stuff all over her face. Came running out right behind him, and get this…”

  Muriel leans closer.

  “Lowe had some of that blue stuff on his face, too. Reckon they were kissin’.”

  “I heard they hated each other,” Muriel says softly, her eyes fixed in a distant way on my plate as she contemplates. When she raises her gaze back up, she says, “Earl said they really went at it both times in court.”

  “I’m thinking that’s been resolved,” I say dryly as I cut a bite of buttery biscuit drenched in gravy.

  “Did he stay all night?” she presses, eyes now sparkling with true, gossipy interest. See, this is the part I don’t really like, but I’ve got nothing to report one way or the other.

  “No clue,” I say truthfully.

  “He probably did,” Muriel says confidently. “Lowe’s got a reputation as a wild boy with the ladies, and you know all those northerners are pretty lax with their morals.”

  “That’s not true,” I say after swallowing my food.

  “Sure it is,” she says. “You know Della’s family is from Ohio, and they’re all party animals.”

  Well, that’s kind of true.

  “And that Pap Mancinkus,” Muriel continues. “When I asked him to visit our church, trying to be neighborly and all, he said, and I quote, ‘Muriel… I wouldn’t go see God if he was sitting in the middle of the town square’. Heathens is what they are.”

  Chuckling, I cut another piece of biscuit. No sense in responding to that last bit. Pap is a total heathen, but he’s a good man too.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lowe

  I sit out in my truck, sipping on some coffee and waiting for the clock to turn to seven AM. I had to seriously talk myself out of setting my alarm for oh-dark-thirty just to tick Mely off again by showing up at an ungodly hour. It was my original plan to get her so mad at the way I was disrupting her life that she’d just throw her hands up and tell me to stay away, so I’d be done with her.

  Yeah, that was the original plan.

  Then I thought I’d trying adulting, so showed up to her place last night where I was going to suggest we just part ways amicably. I’m sure she would have been fine with that proposal.

  But that idea never manifested because my lips got in the way of hers, and well, then Floyd started shooting at coyotes, so I decided to retreat and think on things.

  And I needed to really think because when she’d showed up at the door wearing pajamas that left very little to the imagination, with blue crap all over her face and fire in her eyes?

  I was done for.

  At that moment, I realized I didn’t want to walk away from Melinda Rothschild. She may have pulled the carpet out from underneath me by purchasing Mainer House, giving me plenty of reason to despise her, but I found I was very much enjoying this fight. She got my blood raging and not in a bad way.

  And that kiss.

  I shouldn’t have done it, but I don’t regret it at all. It was an amazing kiss made more so by the fact that she was all in. Of course, Floyd had to interrupt by letting loose a warning shot at a coyote. It was probably nothing more than an alley cat, but Floyd does love to shoot that gun.

  Today, I’m going to try something different. I’m going to show Mely—and yes, I am going to call her Mely because I like that name—that I can be somewhat reasonable. Doesn’t mean I’m going to roll over and bare my throat to her, but I’m not going to intentionally provoke her to the point where she might want to part ways. Truth of the matter is, she’s now got me intrigued. I can’t quite remember a woman doing that to me for a very long time.

  My eyes cut down to my smart phone sitting on my lap, and I note it’s 6:55 AM. Close enough to seven to suit my purposes.

  Getting out of my truck, I pocket my keys and trot up the front porch steps, cursing under my breath as some of my coffee sloshes over the top and onto my hand. I give a solid knock to the door, which is far less intrusive than the banging I had previously done but not so soft she’ll be able to ignore it. Stepping back as I wipe my hand on my jeans, I brace for her to throw the door open and snarl at me.

  Instead, I hear her taking measured steps with shoes that make a clacking noise on the hardwoods, and then the door is swung gracefully open and Mely Rothschild stands there looking like an angel. I may be a country boy, but I’m not without culture. I spent four years in Chapel Hill attending the University of North Carolina, and I know money when I see it. Mely’s subtle perfume smells extremely expensive and her clothes are tailored to perfection. She’s got on a pair of cream-colored pants with wide legs that hang so low I can only see the pointed tips of her shoes underneath. I’m guessing there’s a spiky heel under there as she seems a few inches taller than normal. The pale lavender blouse she’s wearing gives a light purple tint to her blue eyes and as usual, her hair hangs in a straight, glossy sheet to just above her shoulders. I really, really would love to see that hair all messed up at some point.

  “Good morning,” she says with a half-smile. The words are polite and genuine, but her tone is not overly effusive with any happiness to see me. It tells me she’s quite unsure of herself. I find this fascinating because she’s proven to be an overly confident woman in almost every way.

  But if she woke up this morning thinking about that kiss the way I was, I’m going to take a guess and say she’s a little off balance right now. I know I sure as hell am.

  “Good morning,” I say cordially.

  “I’m not sure what to make of it… you coming at a reasonable hour,” she says lightly.

  Inclining my head in acknowledgment, I merely admit, “I decided to be an adult.”

  “Well, that’s refreshing,” she says with a tinkling laugh, and damn… I’d like to hear that again.

  Would like to kiss her again too, but that would be awkward right now.

  In
stead, I shove my free hand down in my pocket so it’s not tempted to grab her. I take a sip of my coffee to reorient myself. She watches me carefully, not saying a word, and I wonder if she’s trying to figure out if I was affected by that kiss last night.

  But that’s a conversation better served for never, so I ask her, “May I come in?”

  Shaking her head in amusement, Mely opens the door further and motions me to come in.

  I step past her, but then wait for her to lead the way. I figure the first way I can act like an adult is to respect this as her home. While that chafes a bit, I have to remember that she did not purchase this house in any malicious way to me. This may seem like a drastic turnabout, but it’s me being true to my nature. I may have been acting on pure emotion when I foolishly boarded up the house and waved a shotgun around, and yes, I may have been acting on a little bit of stupidity when I painted stuff pink, but I’m generally not an idiot.

  I’m also generally not a jerk.

  What this simply means is I realize there is no way for me to win. There is no way for me to have Mainer House. So I need to cut my losses, lick my wounds, pay my debts, and I need to move the hell on. This is my grand plan, and I’m not deviating.

  “I’d offer for us to go sit in the living room,” Mely says with a smile. “But alas, no furniture. I’d also say let’s go sit at the kitchen table so we can talk, but you’ve been in there and you’ve seen there’s no furniture as well.”

  “And I’m not crass enough to suggest we go sit on your bed,” I quip, then I internally wince that she may not have found that as funny as I did when I tested it out using my inside voice.

  Thankfully, Mely gives a charming laugh and shrugs. “That would be even more uncomfortable than standing since I only have a mattress on the floor.”

  One of my eyebrows rises. “You don’t have a bed?”

  “I have a mattress,” she deadpans. “It’s a bed.”