“How many times I told you, stop being a jock. Your willy doesn’t give you car knowledge. The girl needs help, she’ll ask for it. Ain’t that right, ma’am?”
I nodded, trying not to laugh. I found the plugs I was looking for and went to get an oil filter. I got a gallon of motor oil, while I was at it. When I put it all on the counter, the older man rang it through while Hank disappeared into the back of the store.
“Don’t you mind Hank. You’d think he was raised in a pigsty, his manners, but he means well. He’s just a bit green, and too mutton-headed to see that anyone with a mind to it can fix a vehicle. It’ll come with time, though.”
“If I ever get stuck, I’ll ask him for advice,” I said with a wink. The poor boy had been emasculated enough for one day.
“That would be pretty big of you. I’m Keith, by the way.” He held his hand out and I shook it. Then I saw how much all this stuff was going to cost, lit up in green at the top of the cash register, and my eyes bugged. I counted out the dollars and asked for a receipt, hoping Barrett would give me the money back later.
“Can I carry that to your car?” Hank was back, and reminded me of a puppy.
On the tip of my tongue was a sharp reply that I could carry a gallon of oil and a plastic bag of auto parts by myself. Instead, I nodded.
“Thanks, that would be very thoughtful.” I handed him the oil and showed him back to Barrett’s truck. From across the lot, I saw Barrett was tying knots in some rope, then untying them. When he saw me walking over with Hank, he sat bolt upright and leapt out of the door, taking the oil off Hank.
“I got it, thanks,” Barrett told the young man pointedly. Hank nodded.
“You ever need any car advice...” he told me before leaving.
I smiled but mostly I wanted him to go away.
“He wanted to feel useful,” I explained, nodding at the oil.
“Most men do,” Barrett said gruffly, and I knew straight away, he was jealous. Of a shop assistant I’d just met. “Got the receipt?”
“Here.” I pulled it out to show him. He counted out the money and handed it to me. That was one less thing to worry about.
Back in the truck, the awkwardness had changed its tone. I glanced back and saw the rope, discarded, no longer knotted, in the space between seats. It looked thinner and smoother than the rope I’d seen being used around the ranch. He wasn’t a sailor or a boy scout, so I suspected he liked bondage. The idea he had hidden depths sent a shock of warmth through my body.
Now, Barrett’s aftershave swirled through the air. I was too aware of the roughness of his stubble. I wanted to feel it scratching against me as he kissed me.
Instead I stared straight ahead through the windshield and hoped we could get back to the ranch before I jumped him and inadvertently caused a crash. Barrett apparently had other ideas.
“You like tacos?” he asked. “Or burgers?”
I had nothing against tacos, but I’d always been more of a Wendy’s fan.
“Burgers.”
“Then let’s go get some before we go back.”
I looked down at the clock. It was way too early for burgers.
“Why don’t we get some at lunchtime? Or after the breakfast rush is over, at the very least?” Some places didn’t even serve burgers until after 10:30am.
Barrett just caught my gaze and grinned. “I know a place.”
He drove us back to Snake Eye, the tiny town near the ranch, and parked by a food truck. I eyed it doubtfully. In a usual day, I didn’t eat anywhere whose only seating was some plastic tables and chairs outside it.
“C’mon. It’s safe.” Barrett seemed to read my hesitation easily. I followed him out of the truck and saw the menu was about as simple as an In-N-Out, which I’d tried for the first time when I’d eaten lunch in Phoenix the day before.
I had a burger—no cheese—with ketchup and onions. He went for a double cheeseburger with all the condiments a man could fit under a bun.
We sat on the plastic chairs while we ate.
“Okay, so you didn’t want to tell me where you’re headed. How’s about sharing somewhere you’ve been?”
“Like where?” The morning sunshine bit at my skin. The day was already warm and I knew it would peak in an hour or two.
“What’s your favorite?”
“Too hard.” I shook my head dismissively.
“All right, where would you have stayed longer, if you’d had the opportunity?”
“Virginia beach. It’s the most beautiful stretch of coastline.”
“I thought all the best beaches on the East Coast were in Florida?”
“Screw Florida. Too many hurricanes, too crowded, and too many angry old people yelling about the end of days.” I hadn’t had a great time in Florida.
He raised his brows in surprise. “But they got the best Disney. My parents took me when I was a boy.”
I shrugged. “Never been to Disney. It’s way outside my budget. Anyway, those old movies are for saps. There’s no prince waiting to swoop in and save me. I make my own way in life.”
“How d’you know there’re no princes, when you leave everywhere and push everyone away?” His words were blunt and they made me gasp in surprise. Unfortunately, I’d just taken a big mouthful of burger and it lodged in my throat. I tried to cough it up, but I couldn’t. Thumping my chest didn’t work, either. All I could do was sit there making stupid noises like I was a wine bottle with a squeaky cork.
Barrett got up, hoisting me to my feet with his hands under my arms. He lifted and squeezed, lifted and squeezed, until the chunk of food flew free and I began coughing. He turned me around and held me to him, hitting my back with his hand as I coughed until my lungs calmed down. When I was catching my breath, eyes still streaming, I leaned on him gratefully.
“Thank you,” I rasped. “I think you just saved my life.”
“And now you get to be quiet until things have settled down in your throat.”
He sat me on the chair and bought me a soda, which he opened and held out to me. I hated Fanta, but right then, I’d drink anything.
“So, what was that you were saying?” he prompted. “No princes to rescue you?”
I laughed, which made me cough again.
Chapter 4
“And everything under the sun is in tune; but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.” — Pink Floyd, Eclipse.
Harper
It was almost two o’clock when I finished changing the spark plugs and oil. The motor purred, now, and I should have felt a sense of satisfaction. Usually, getting my van to work inflated my chest with the elation of knowing I was free again to travel wherever my four wheels took me. Instead, my legs felt like lead and I was suddenly swarmed with the insidious sense that I was just so tired of running.
I wanted stillness. To just lay down on the sand amongst the desert grass and listen to the breeze making the plants whisper. Peace.
Before I stopped myself, I got down on the ground just outside of the old wooden shed where I’d been working on the truck. A lightness tingled up and down my spine as my body relaxed into the warm ground. I knew if I stayed here too long, the sun that warmed me would burn and I wouldn’t even notice until hours later, when my skin was red and sore.
Above me, I saw a single cloud slowly ambling across the high blue dome of sky. Maybe when I was done with driving, I might get one of those microlights and travel across the country in short air hops. Or maybe I’d explore Canada. But later.
Right now, the only thing I wanted was to rest. It wasn’t my aching muscles and oil-splattered skin that needed reprieve. It was my soul. I’d thought traveling would fill it with everything life had sucked away until the day I bought that van, but I was wrong. I’d seen and done a lot, sure, but the emptiness ate at me with more ferocity now than ever before.
Perhaps it was something to do with PMS but honestly, the void had been eating at the back of my mind for a while. A stagnation of sorts.
The dis
tant hiss or chirp of some local wildlife—I wasn’t an expert, so I had no idea what it was—seemed to whisper to me. I could always stop traveling. The idea pulled me in, tantalizing me with hope of a perfect life, but then I cut off that line of thought. It was just a myth. There was no possible chance I could be happy if I put down roots.
I wanted every day to be sunshine and iced tea. And I knew, from my own empty childhood, that wasn’t what real life was like. While I was in my van, I was in control. I didn’t have to put up with shitty neighbors, or watch the soul get sucked out of a town when the local factory went out of business and everyone lost their jobs. I didn’t have to stand by and watch kids I’d gone to school with get their dreams stomped on by bankers refusing them loans or lawyers suing them.
I knew what made people become drifters—real drifters, not drug zombies—and the only difference between me and the stereotypical drifter was I regularly visited the laundromat and I was young and pretty enough to easily get short-term jobs in diners when I needed cash. I didn’t send anyone a card at Christmas, and I didn’t care to. And I never stayed anywhere for more than a few weeks unless I got snowed in. So why was I considering it, all of a sudden?
“You finished with the truck?” Barrett’s voice carried across the farmyard. I sat up quickly, feeling a shock of embarrassment at having been caught thinking and staring at clouds.
“I think so. Want to take it for a spin?”
A flicker of something passed across Barrett’s face, but it was gone far too quickly for me to identify it.
“Sure.” He got into the driver’s seat and I sat beside him, watching him start the motor and rev it up until he drove off down the dirt driveway until he reached the entry to the fields. The narrower, older vehicle squeezed past the back of my beached van as it entered the desert grassland, and we headed out onto the range.
“Handling’s a bit loose,” he remarked.
“Given more time, I can probably figure out how to adjust that.” I had no idea, but I liked the idea of staying here longer on the pretext of fixing the truck. While I had a job to do, I didn’t need to trouble myself with difficult questions about why I really wanted to stay here. More than anything, I wanted time to think about why I suddenly had the urge to stand still and grow mossy.
The idea was terrifying, but it was the kind of terrifying like running into a big wave with a surfboard, rather than the type that made me want to hide under the bed as a kid.
The truck stopped at one end of the property. Barrett cut the engine and got out. He walked around and opened my door, holding out a hand to help me down. I took it, even though I didn’t need to.
“I want to show you something,” he told me. Curious, I let him lead me by the hand as he climbed over a barbed wire fence into an area that looked like more desert. It ended abruptly where the land sloped away, and when we reached the crest, I saw a river, with more greenery either side of it than I’d seen the whole time I’d driven through Arizona.
“Gila River.” His voice was soft. I watched the liquid ambling to its destination. Like everything else, the river took things slow, not in a hurry to get to the sea when it could spend more time here, instead. I understood that feeling intimately.
We sat down on the riverbank, shaded by spindly, thin-trunked trees. I didn’t know enough about nature to tell if they were natural or planted by someone.
“Careful of snakes,” Barrett cautioned. I stiffened and scrutinized the land we sat on. “There ain’t many of them, though, and they usually go away from noises.”
I wasn’t completely reassured, until Barrett pulled me close. Real close. Every other thought left my head because there was a static between us, something so powerful the rest of the world stopped existing. I couldn’t take my eyes off his lips; full, not dry, and parted slightly. I didn’t know where he was looking but I felt his full attention was on me.
“Harper...” he began.
Oh, boy, this had changed fast. One minute, I was wondering if the spark plugs were installed correctly and the next, we were here, and magnetically moving closer, as though we both possessed some special draw that pulled us together.
I’d had sex plenty of times, but it had never started out feeling so intense. This was completely new to me.
When our lips connected, a tingle of... something jolted through me. I felt it in my heart. He roughly grabbed my hair and wound it around his fist until he was tugging sharply on the back of my head, and I knew he’d felt it, too. We were drawn together, our lips pushing closer and closer until we were crushing each other. Our mouths opened at the same time, and I let him consume me as he pulled my heart to the surface and tasted it with little flicks of his tongue against mine.
I moaned, and the sound came through my nose, wistful because I knew this would have to stop at some point.
Oh, it stopped all right; when he pulled away, looking as conflicted as I felt.
“Barrett?” I reached out a hand and touched his arm.
“I’m not like other guys...” he began, seeming unable to finish his sentence.
I nodded. “I know.”
He turned to look at me, his face a mosaic of emotion. “What do you know?”
“You like rope. When I was at the auto parts store you were playing with a length of rope, practicing tying your knots. You swatted my butt this morning when you were pissed with me, but you stopped yourself going any further. I saw it in your eyes, though. You wanted to. Jake didn’t seem too surprised, so my guess is he either knows and doesn’t care, or he’s into it himself.”
He looked at me in a stunned silence and I sighed. “This is why people don’t like me being around. I see too much about people and they get upset.”
“Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?” His voice had a new strain to it.
This wasn’t the moment to reiterate that I had a pretty good idea, so instead I replied, “Tell me.”
“I want to tie you down, rope you between those two mesquite trees, flog you until you scream and fuck you, feeling your burning flesh against my body as I slam into you. If this goes any further, I’m not going to be satisfied until you’re dripping wet and begging for my cock.”
I breathed in very slowly, and blew it back out again with care.
“But I ain’t going to do anything without your agreement. That swat to the butt earlier? That was wrong of me and I apologize.”
“I want to try it.” What was the worst that could happen?
He eyed me with one brow raised. “Really?” He didn’t sound hopeful.
“What have you got to lose? I’m moving on soon, and you’ll never have to see me again.” I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince, because I didn’t entirely believe my own words.
He looked at me for the longest time with that same hard-to-read expression.
“Stay there.” He got into the truck and drove off. At first I thought he was going to the ranch to fetch something, but the longer I waited, the longer I doubted he was coming back.
Was he walking away before I could? Or was this one of those tests I read about in stories about BDSM? My rational mind popped up to interrupt my over-thinking with a better suggestion. Maybe he’d just lost the thing he’d gone to fetch, and was tearing his house apart trying to find it.
I sat by the river, throwing bits of plant and small pebbles into the water to hear them splash. Overhead, the trees rustled with the occasional breath of air, but generally, it was getting too warm. I didn’t want to move or do anything. Getting into that cold water seemed like the best idea in the universe.
Barrett
I’d only meant to be gone for a couple of minutes but it was so long since I’d last used my flogger, I couldn’t seem to find it anywhere. I was going through a box of old things from before I’d come to Lemon Tree Ranch when I found the photograph pinned to the letter I never wanted to read again. Somehow my eyes picked out detached sentences. My chest tightened and so did my throat. I tossed it i
n the box and shoved it back into the closet. Her words were venomous snakes that burned long after she’d bitten me.
Why had I kept it all this time? I guess I wanted to preserve the weapon that had ripped my heart apart, to remember what we had and why it was gone. Time made people forget how things ended, and this had gone so badly part of me needed to be sure I never forgot.
The day she’d done it, I’d packed up my things, gotten into my truck and left. Lost myself in a kaleidoscope of bars as time seemed to run together. Found myself washed up and flat broke at Lemon Tree Ranch.
I didn’t want a woman who wanted a cowboy. At least Harper was being honest with me, that she had no intention to stay. But even knowing how this was going to end, could I let her in enough to do what my body yearned to do with her? I didn’t want to get caught up on a girl just to have to watch her leave.
But sex was sex, right? And play was play.
Having settled that in my mind, I searched around the place for the flogger, but it seemed to be lost to time. Then a fractured, long-forgotten memory came back to me. I’d thrown it in a river to let her go.
I picked up the rope I’d been planning to take out with me and looped it over my shoulder. I could use the riding crop I kept near the front door. Maybe one day I’d buy another flogger, but not right now. The buried memory that had just gotten dragged up was too raw and I wanted to use something different.
Before I went out, I went to the fridge and pulled out a few bottles of ice-cold water and a bag of ice, stuffing it all into my cooler. It was warm out there.
I drove back to the place by the river where I’d left Harper, and hoped she wouldn’t mind that I’d been gone a little longer than I’d expected.
She was laying on the ground, staring at the sky through the thin bush of a tree, and looking half-asleep.
“Harper?”
“I waited.”
“I’m sorry. Couldn’t find the flogger.” As I regarded her pink cheeks and languid limbs, I settled on a better plan. I got everything out of the truck and opened the cooler, taking out one of the bottles of icy water. I unfastened the cap, intending to hand it to her, but somehow between my brain and my hand, mischief intervened and I poured the water over her pert breasts, moving my arm quickly down her body so even though she shrieked and tried to move, the water went all over her tummy and soaked her t-shirt. I snickered to myself as she sat up and glared at me.
Make Me Stay (Arizona Heat Book 2) Page 3