by Maisey Yates
When they got back, he picked up the forms he had intended to give her at the start. “Did you want to take a look at these?”
“Oh,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Sure.”
“If you don’t want to...”
“I do,” she said. “I do. Let’s go inside.”
Well, he hadn’t really anticipated that. “Come on, Joe,” he said, calling the old dog from where he was lying in front of the chicken coop, keeping vigil. He would use the old guy as a chaperone, if he needed to.
“Thank you for doing this,” she said, ushering him inside, and then moving hurriedly into the kitchen. “Do you want some tea?”
“No. I don’t want tea.”
“I don’t have beer,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“That doesn’t really surprise me. I didn’t take you for a beer drinker.”
“I do drink,” she said, as if that made her edgy or dangerous.
“You little rebel,” he said, doing his best to lighten the mood between them, which had twisted into something decidedly strange.
She fumbled around, putting a teakettle on the stove, her delicate hands turning the burner on, taking a teacup and a tea bag from her cupboard. Again, someone might think from her movements that Bea herself was haphazard, but there was purpose in everything, and he knew there was purpose in this too.
Knew that she was probably fighting against that same current that he was so aware of right now too.
He’d wanted women and not had them before, hell, that had happened plenty of times. Because the timing was wrong or any number of reasons. He’d also wanted and had plenty of women, so this shouldn’t feel new or difficult to battle at all.
Maybe it was the celibacy. That was the one wild card in this mix.
He could wonder what was wrong with him, but really it wasn’t too mystifying.
Bea was a woman, after all. He might have spent a hell of a long time ignoring it, but he’d had it...kind of thrust at him and now it was all he could see.
That part of his body was not injured, thank you very much, and he felt the ability to desire a woman plenty. But the idea of taking his clothes off with someone, of testing out his prowess with an injured back and leg and scars all over his body... Well, that was another thing entirely.
He wasn’t anything now. He had no fame, no glory and no hope of getting it back any time soon. Nothing to make him important at all.
If he hooked up, he’d be bringing the woman back to his sister’s house.
Taking a risk of being some kind of pity lay. Well, that he hadn’t been willing to do.
The idea of being Bea’s pity lay was even worse.
But watching the way she was reacting now, he didn’t think it was that.
Because if she had been trying to offer comfort and he had indicated that he didn’t want that kind of comfort, she would have been normal now. Relaxed, now that the issue was resolved. But she wasn’t.
No, she was caught up in the same electricity he was. And she was avoiding it the same as he was too.
After she got the water on, he held the papers out to her, and she took them, looking over them. “It looks good to me.”
“I need to know what your official business name is going to be. We need to get it registered and submit our information to the state to get certified as a nonprofit.”
She nodded once. “Got it.”
“I can conduct the meetings for you, but you’re going to have to sign the final papers. I don’t mind doing some of the initial dropping off.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding.
She passed the papers back to him and their fingers brushed. Dane gritted his teeth, taking a step back. “On second thought, I will have something. A glass of water.”
“Sure,” Beatrix said, overly bright as she bounded toward the cabinet and opened it, taking hold of a glass and fumbling with it. It slipped through her fingers and crashed onto the floor, spraying shards everywhere.
She cursed mildly, and Dane added a harsh one over the top of it. He set the papers down on her little dining table and lunged forward at the same time she did, both of them reaching for the small broom that was leaned up against the counter. They wrapped their hands around it at the same time, and the motion brought their faces close enough that they were sharing the same air.
“I’ve got it,” she said softly.
“I’ll get it,” he said, his voice barely rising above a whisper.
“No,” she said. “You should sit. You should sit, and you can just ask me... Ask me what you need to know for the form, and I’ll tell you... And...”
Her words died, and he realized she had moved closer to him. Just a fraction.
The air seemed to stretch between them, tighten, get closer. She lifted a hand, the one that wasn’t wrapped around the broom, her fingertips trembling as she reached forward and brushed the tips of them against the base of his throat, where he knew his pulse was pounding heavy. She rested them there, didn’t move them away.
And he didn’t step back.
Because right then it felt inevitable. Right then it felt like he had been on a path toward this moment ever since he had decided to walk out his front door and head down to her cabin.
He didn’t move away.
Instead, he moved closer.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide, her pale pink lips parting before she licked them. Slowly. Her pink tongue leaving them wet and irresistible.
His groin felt thick and heavy, his stomach tense. A whole mess of animals had upended his life and landed him right in this moment, but of all the things that had happened to him in the last few months, this one felt good. It felt necessary.
He didn’t feel like a victim standing here right now. Didn’t feel like a rag doll being tossed around on the back of an angry animal. No. He felt like a man.
He reached out, gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and held her face steady. She moved in, slowly. Slowly.
And then her mouth met his.
* * *
IT WAS HER first kiss. But that didn’t matter.
It was Dane. That was all that mattered. That was all that really mattered.
Dane, the man she’d fantasized about a hundred times—maybe a thousand times—doing this very thing. But this was so much brighter and more vivid than a fantasy could ever be. Color and texture and taste. The rough whiskers on his face, the heat of his breath, the way those big, sure hands cupped her face as his lips moved slowly over hers.
She took a step and the shattered glass crunched beneath her feet, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care at all. She wanted to breathe in this moment for as long as she could, broken glass be damned. To exist just like this, with his lips against hers, for as long as she possibly could.
She leaned forward, wrapped her fingers around the fabric of his T-shirt and clung to him, holding them both steady, because she was afraid she might fall if she didn’t.
Her knees were weak. Like in a book or a movie.
She hadn’t known that kissing could really, literally, make your knees weak. Or that touching a man you wanted could make you feel like you were burning up, like you had a fever. Could make you feel hollow and restless and desperate for what came next...
Even if what came next scared her a little.
It was Dane.
She trusted Dane.
With her secrets. With her body.
Dane.
She breathed his name on a whispered sigh as she moved to take their kiss deeper, and found herself being set back, glass crunching beneath her feet yet again.
“I should go,” he said, his voice rough.
“No!” The denial burst out of her, and she found herself reaching forward to grab his shirt again. “No,” she said again, this time a little less craz
y and desperate.
She didn’t feel any less crazy and desperate.
“I have to go, Bea.”
“You don’t. You could stay.”
The look he gave her burned her down to the soles of her feet. “I can’t.”
“If you’re worried about... I didn’t misunderstand. I mean I know that if you stayed we would...”
“Dammit, Bea,” he bit out. “We can’t. You know that.”
“Why? I’m not stupid. I know you don’t want... I don’t want...” She stumbled over her words because it all seemed stupid. To say something as inane as she knew they wouldn’t get married. Even saying it made her feel like a silly virgin.
She was a virgin, there wasn’t really any glossing over that. But she didn’t have to seem silly.
She did know though. For all that everyone saw her as soft and naive, she wasn’t. She’d carried a torch for Dane for a long time but she’d also realistically seen how marriage worked. Her brother was a cheater. Her mother was a cheater.
Her father was...she didn’t even know.
That was the legacy of love and marriage in her family.
Truly, she didn’t want any part of it.
Some companionship though. Sex. She wanted that. With him. Why couldn’t she have that? McKenna made it sound simple, and possible. And Bea wanted it.
“I’m going to leave again,” he said. “Get back out on the road and get back to my life. I know it won’t be this year, but I will. Next year, I bet you. And then what, Bea?”
“I...” His words hurt. Not just because he was rejecting her, but because in that moment she saw what he couldn’t. That he was a man lying to himself.
That for all that Lindy and everyone protected her, they’d been protecting Dane even more. She among them. In that moment she wasn’t sure it had been a kindness but there was no way to tell the truth now without it just sounding like she was using it to get her way.
“You mean a lot to me. You’ve helped me a lot. I appreciate that. But it can’t change. We can’t change.”
“You kissed me back,” she said. She didn’t know what else to say.
“I also stopped,” he said. “You’re important to me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You think you can hurt me because you think I’m a child, is that it?”
“Hell...no, Bea, that’s not it. But we’ve been spending a lot of time together, and...you like to take care of what you see as wounded. It makes you feel good. But I’m not here to be a pity fuck, do you understand me? Not for you or anyone.”
That Dane could possibly be wounded by her motivations shocked her into total silence. A pity...pity. As if she hadn’t wanted him for most of her life. But she didn’t know how to say that either. It got all tangled inside of her head and before she could speak he took a step away from her and headed toward the door. Then he let out a hard breath, and walked out, leaving her standing there, numb.
She grabbed hold of the broom and started to sweep up the broken glass, feeling like she was looking at a strange metaphor glittering down in her dustpan.
She’d taken a chance on a fantasy, and it had shattered right in front of her. But not for the reasons she’d imagined it might. She’d imagined it wouldn’t work if Dane didn’t want her, but she’d never thought that he might want her and say no anyway.
That he’d think she pitied him.
She heard scratching at the door, and she knew it wasn’t Dane returning to apologize. She opened it and Evan ran in, shuffling between her legs and heading straight for his food bowl.
She sighed and shut the door firmly behind him. Evan was watching her intently, his glittering shoe-button eyes appraising her every movement.
Evan, she decided, could wait. Evan was the cause of some of her current troubles.
She fed Tara, and then made a show of moving slowly toward the fridge. Evan quickly raised and lowered his front feet, his nails clicking on the linoleum, his face hopeful.
She sighed heavily and bent down, scratching him behind the ears. She opened up the fridge and got his dinner and deposited it into his bowl. At which point he lost interest in her completely.
She patted Evan one more time and was rewarded with no response beyond the cursory twitch of his tail.
She thought about what Dane had said. About the way she wanted to care for things.
It was true. She had been caring for him like she did her animals. It was what she did. It was how she connected with people. She took care of them. It had certainly worked with McKenna. She had bought McKenna a coat and they had become friends.
She had been taking care of Dane, and it was how they had gotten closer.
But it was more than that. It was. And no matter what he said to try to make it seem different, she wasn’t going to let him. It wasn’t just circumstances or her feeling sorry for him.
Something had changed.
She had kissed Dane Parker. Even if it was only once. And she...well, she wasn’t going to just accept what he’d said.
He could turn it around any way he wanted but it didn’t change the reality of the situation. It didn’t change the fact that he was doing what everyone else did to her all the time. He was putting her in her place. Assuming he knew what was best for her.
But this was different. He was doing it because he was afraid.
Of her.
“Evan, if you destroy my house I will throw all your food away,” she said, rushing back to the bedroom and opening up—fittingly—her underwear drawer.
If Dane didn’t want her, that was fine. She was a big girl, and she could handle herself.
But that was the thing.
She could handle herself. And she would be damned if she let this idiotic cowboy protect her from what she wanted.
From what they both wanted.
She was a woman. And she knew her mind, her body and her heart.
And no, she wasn’t Dane’s first choice. Being here wasn’t his first choice.
But this was where he was now. And maybe...maybe they could have this now.
Whether or not he actually wanted it she didn’t know. But she would have some respect. And it was going to start with him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DANE HAD FELT like Joseph running from temptation by the time he had left Beatrix’s cabin that night. He’d had a neighbor who had taken him to church sometimes when he was a kid, and he remembered a story about another man’s wife coming after Joseph, and Joseph running from temptation so quickly he’d left his coat behind.
If Bea had grabbed on to him, he would have left his damn coat behind.
He didn’t know why it was like this all of a sudden. All he knew was that moment down by the river had shifted things, and he couldn’t seem to shift them back. He couldn’t unsee something that he had seen. And it was like his eyes had been opened for the first time. Now all he could see was how much she’d changed in the past few years. How beautiful she was.
He had already begun to change the way that he saw her as a person. Not as sunlight, as a fairy creature. Not a sexless wood nymph flitting around the forest. But as a flesh and blood woman who would probably open her own vein to save even the smallest of creatures. She had passion. She had heart and determination, and it didn’t come from her parents, who didn’t seem to care about anything more than themselves.
Her mother had been reckless, had betrayed her marriage often, a fact everyone in both the towns of Copper Ridge and Gold Valley had known about, though everyone had been circumspect about the rumors out of deference to Jamison Leighton, Beatrix’s father. He had always been concerned with image. Above all else.
Beatrix cared. Not about her own circumstances, not about what people thought. About living things. About people and animals and the world around her.
She was shot through with steel,
and not because anyone had put a screw in her kneecap. No, she was strong and defiant in soundless ways that all these loud people around her seemed to miss. He thought back to the other day when Lindy had made those comments about Beatrix letting animals roam free in the winery. And how much it had annoyed him. How clearly he had seen then the way people misunderstood her.
The way everyone treated her like she was out of step, or needed advice, when he wondered if they would all be better off walking in her footsteps and taking advice from her.
Bea was unconventional, but that was a mistake to think it was an accident. She was what she was because she fought for it. Even if she did it with quiet stubbornness.
No one in his life had ever cared what he did. That made rebellion pretty easy. There was no risk in it. Lindy had just brought up the drinking he had done in high school. Yeah, he’d gone out and gotten hammered after football games with friends.
Had fooled around with whatever cheerleader was in the mood to play, and he’d continued living his life that way. For himself. A life that no one had ever opposed, because no one had cared enough.
Bea had lived in this house at the winery that seemed to him to be a giant box of a mansion that they’d tried to confine her in, and she wouldn’t allow it.
But it seemed to him that few people appreciated quiet strength. Or the intelligence of a woman who had found a way to end up living the life she wanted when there had been no one around her to push her toward that goal.
Yeah, all that had changed first.
And then there was her body.
That was a hell of a worry.
Damn, that kiss.
It had made him feel alive.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do it.
Because though she was strong, and though she was stubborn, she was still sweet. And a hell of a lot more innocent than he was. At least in that way. He would bet money on it. He hadn’t been around all the time, and during the years when he had been traveling on the circuit, it had been intermittent enough that it was possible Beatrix had dated off and on, though never anyone long-term or he would have at least known about that.