“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A waitress came over and set a cold longneck in front of me. “Compliments of the lady you rescued,” she said and winked.
“She sent you a drink. Go over there!” Noah said.
“No. If she wanted to talk to me, she’d come over here. Besides she’s had enough pushy men to deal with for one night. Like I said, I don’t have time for a social life, and I’m not—comfortable bringing someone into my home with my daughter.”
“I didn’t say you should move her in. I said you should ask her out. It’s not a huge commitment. Although I haven’t seen you date anyone in the, what, three or four years you’ve been here. So maybe it is a big deal to you.”
“I have baggage. Everybody has a history, I know, but my kid is too important to me and my life is too good as-is to mess it up just to go on a couple dates with a woman who’s gonna want more than I’m willing to give her.”
“You’re overthinking this for sure. But whatever,” Noah said, and went to get another drink.
About that time, I got a text from Denise that Sadie swore she wasn’t tired, but she kept yawning. I told her I’d be there in ten minutes. I left a tip on the table and met Noah at the bar, clapped him on the back and said I was leaving.
“It’s eight-thirty!”
“I know. My kid’s tired and I’ve got a story to read and a song to sing.”
“You’re hopeless,” he called after me.
I wondered on the way home if he was right. Not about being hopeless, but about asking Rachel out. Spending an evening with an adult, a woman I liked and wanted to know better—it sounded strange and alluring. I hadn’t been interested in anyone in so long. The first couple of years raising Sadie, she’d needed me so much and it had been so consuming. My love for her, my fear of screwing up, of not being enough because I was a single parent—all of it had been intense. I hadn’t felt like I had time to pause for five minutes, much less make friends, have a social life. It was all parenting and setting up my lumber business and working to sustain it.
Something about a pie-baking, smart-mouthed waitress was making me wonder if it was time to make a change. Make room in my life for the possibility of more. I didn’t have to hustle like a madman to make money. I had more than enough before I ever started this business. Working, being industrious, filling my days had become a habit. If it was time to reevaluate and think about stepping back, hiring help to manage part of the business and take on some of that load, I would consider that in the fall. Spring and summer were prime time for housing starts and remodels in the area, and I wasn’t ready to train someone on top of all that work. It would need to be the off-season. Maybe in the autumn I could get things running smoothly enough to work a four-day week or shorten my hours at least.
Resolving on a timeline to hire and train some more employees and adjust my schedule didn’t seem to resolve the restlessness that crawled over my skin though. I got home, tucked in the little night owl and sat down to go over my upcoming orders for the week. In the quiet house, with nothing but a soft breeze coming in the open window and the distant cry of an owl, I could tune in and recognize what was bothering me.
Not loneliness. Not exhaustion.
Lust, pure and simple.
To say she wasn’t my usual type—if I could be said to have a type after years as a bachelor—would be an understatement. I had been attracted to the sort of women my social-climbing parents approved of. Wasp-waisted girls with expensive highlights in their long hair, fresh, south-of-France tans and a modeling contract or at least a friend who was royal-family-adjacent.
Now what tortured me was no designer-clad runway model with a
practiced pout. It was the heat and energy of a blonde waitress with a ponytail. Thinking of her was like sinking into warm honey—sweet and spicy and clinging. Wanting her was as elemental as breathing. I had fought it all I could. I’d let myself think of her, let myself fantasize, one time. Just once to get it out of my system so I could behave normally around her from now on. Then I could forget the look on her face when I’d made the guy in the bar back off—the mix of heat and vulnerability in her expression that had made me want to crush her in my arms.
That’s what I wanted. A second chance at that moment. Instead of dealing with the asshole, I’d make a different choice.
“Come with me,” I’d say to her, my hand on the curve of her back, reassuring and protective, not presumptuous or crude like the other guy had been. She’d let me lead her out of the bar to get some fresh air, to breathe in the quiet starlit darkness. She’d lean against me a little, sagging with relief, knowing that she could trust me.
“I’ve got you,” I’d tell her.” I’m sorry he did that.”
She’d shake her head, thank me, say it wasn’t a big deal. Then I’d argue and say he had no right to put his hands on her, that no one did unless she wanted it.
“I want it now,” she’d say. “It gave me chills in there, I was scared. Make me warm again, Max.”
That would be all she had to say. I would take her in my arms right there and hold her, tenderly at first, gauging her comfort level and making sure she felt protected. I’d stroke her hair, maybe say something about her ponytail, toying with it in my fingers. She’d look up at me, waiting to be kissed. I’d snuggle her against my chest and lower my face to hers, first our lips brushing together and clinging for an instant, the fiery reaction ripping through me like a tornado. Then I’d gather her face in my hands and slip my tongue in her mouth. Her body would come to life, desire flaring, and she’d kiss me back, eager and vulnerable and so sweet. I’d stroke her face and brush the pad of my thumb over the hammering pulse in her throat and smile against her lips. She would rise on tiptoe to be able to kiss me better. The wild energy of our kiss would grow more passionate, a back and forth of tongues and lips and teeth until it was necessary to get her someplace private.
She’d tell me where she lived, that it was closer than my place. We’d drive there, with her pressed to my side, my hand on her knee, rubbing suggestively, just savoring the lines and curves of her and looking forward to having those legs wrapped around me. Rachel would grab my hand and pull me toward her little house, unlock the door.
I’d slide my hand beneath her ponytail, cupping the nape of her neck. I’d kiss her then, and I’d feel her melt in my arms, consumed y the breathless chemistry between us, the attraction neither one of us bothered to deny any longer. Her fingers would find the hem of my shirt and push it up, running her hands over my abs and chest, making me feel a trail of tingling sparks across my flesh wherever she touched me. I’d help her pull off my shirt and then I’d pull hers off, too, then throw it aside, gliding my big hands up her bare back, unfastening her bra so her full breasts spilled out, bigger and rounder even than I’d imagined. Overcome, I’d bury my face in them, caress her with my hands, kiss and lick her, rolling those responsive, rosy nipples in my fingers. When I caught a nipple in my mouth, sucking it hard, taking as much of her breast as I could, she’d moan and push her fingers through my hair, gripping me to keep me in place where she was enjoying the pleasure. I could feel the flex of her stomach as a shudder ran through her. My hand would roll over her belly and dive into her jeans, sliding right down the front, cupping her sex, her folds slippery and hot already. I’d groan at the proof of her arousal and drop to my knees. In moments I’d have her jeans off and my mouth between those lush, fleshy thighs, lapping at her clit, tracing her sex with the tip of my tongue and then fingering her, working her over with the teasing pet of my knuckles and the backs of my fingers stroking over her opening and then just one finger breaching her. I’d make her cant her hips and grind into me, begging for more sensation, more pressure, more invasion from my touch.
Then I’d guide her to the bed and stretch her out before me, stripped and aching for me. I’d take my time, kissing her behind the knee, up the inner thigh where she was sensitive. I’d watch the perfect flush of
her sex as she gleamed with more wetness. Her hands would move restlessly on her own belly. I’d catch one hand and kiss her fingers, suck one into my mouth, and watch her head go back at the sensation, the eroticism of it. Because I was seducing Rachel, inch by inch, with no rush, no goal but to savor every moment of having her in every way I possibly could until morning.
Rachel would not lie there, passive. She’d reach for me, grapple with me, sit up and wrap her arms around my neck and plead with me to take her, to fill her, to stop driving her crazy. “That’s half the fun,” I’d say slyly and bite the place where her shoulder met her neck and feel the pleasure roll through her at that. Her nails would score my back then, and it would nearly make me spend myself on the sheets because the force of her need matched my own. I’d taste her mouth, kiss her chin and neck, and work my hands between her legs again, priming her, fingering her until she was pulsing around my two fingers, buried in her up to the last knuckle, tight and milking me and crying out. She’d come so hard, drenching my hand, that I’d groan in sympathy and feel my stomach muscles tighten, my body going hard all over, tense and ready.
I’d flip her over on her stomach, lift her hips and rock them back toward me. She’d still be trembling from ecstasy, and she’d look back over her shoulder at me in question.
“I want you this way. It’s going to feel so good for you, I swear,” I said. “Trust me. I’ll make it good.”
“I trust you, baby,” she’d say, her voice breathy, eyes still glazed with pleasure.
I’d unzip my jeans, my cock springing forward, released from the painful restriction of my pants. I’d notch the head of my cock at the opening of her sex, my hands groping her sweet, round ass. I ran my hands up her spine, kissed the small of her back, just ready to glut myself on her body, greed and gratification running hot in my blood. I’d thrust forward, just a little, and find that she was so wet from before, so turned on for me that I could penetrate her easily. I’d slide my full length into her body, watching my cock go in, seeing her flushed pussy consume me. The sight so erotic that it made my mouth go dry. I’d work into her, tunnel into her clenching, weeping core. She’d push back, wanton and needy, grunting with a primal gratification at how deep I went, how thick I was. Her fists would clench in the sheets. She’d bite the pillow trying to hold off against the powerful waves of pleasure building again in her body so soon. I’d feel the tremor in her thighs. I’d reach between us and finger her clit, setting her off in a wild, screaming orgasm that clamped down her inner muscles, gripping me until I pounded into her and thrust frantically, wild and abandoned as I emptied into her, lashing streams of hot cum inside her pulsing core.
I worked my cock with my fist and bowed up off the bed as I came hard and silently. It was a poor imitation of the tight, pink pussy I imagined, a poor imitation of Rachel coming around my erection. I was left tired but unsatisfied. Because I didn’t want to jerk off to thoughts of Rachel. I wanted to bury myself between her legs and spend myself inside her sweet, curvy body. My hands itched to be filled with her hips, her breasts, that ass. It had taken nothing more than the sight of another man grabbing her to make me want to possess her, protect her as my own. To take years of latent attraction and ignite a wildfire.
I needed to get control of myself before I went and did something stupid.
5
Rachel
I set the cherry cheesecake in the cooler in the back and went and added that to the list of daily pies. I finished writing it with a flourish of bright yellow chalk when Hugh, my boss, approached me.
“You got a minute, Rach?” he asked.
Hugh had been my employer since I was sixteen years old. He did not chat. He did not converse. He did not talk to me unless there was an absolute necessity. He made a schedule and posted it in the back and if you had a problem, you let him know. His somewhat conversational tone, had me on edge.
“What’s up, chief?” I asked, trying to hold on to the light, cheerful, cherry cheesecake feeling I’d had.
“The thing is, I know I talked to you a couple years ago about selling the place when I’m ready to retire.”
“Yes,” I replied. He’s changed his mind and wants to work until he dies and then leave the diner to some shiftless nephew. I know it. I was leaving cherry cheesecake happiness and sliding down the hill into despair, but I kept a fake smile on just in case it wasn’t a catastrophe.
“Plans have changed,” he cleared his throat. “I haven’t been feeling too great lately, and Joan talked me in to going to the doctor. He says I’ve got to slow down, cut down on stress and salt and all that. So instead of waiting four or five more years, it looks like I’m going to retire very soon.”
“Soon? Like, soon-soon?” I asked, eyebrows shooting up. Too soon too soon, I don’t have the money! No one I know has the money either. Shit.
“I take it from the look on your face that you don’t have your ducks in a row to buy me out,” he said.
“I have my ducks in a row. I just don’t have enough ducks,” I said glumly. “I don’t have the down payment together yet. Another year would do it. I’ve been saving aggressively for a long time, but, well—” I felt lame and inadequate to say the least. Like all those years of sacrifice, of never eating out or buying anything just because I liked it or God forbid taking a vacation, were all for nothing.
“I started a blood pressure medicine and some kind of heart pill. I’m going to be cutting back around here, spending less time at the diner. Try and cut out some of the stress,” he said, his voice grim.
What did Hugh have to stress about? I ran his profitable food service business six days a week. He only really had to work Saturday afternoon and Sunday, for fuck’s sake! Sure, he sat back in his office and went over receipts and, took naps, but what kind of stress was he even talking about? Because right now, I felt like my head was exploding.
“Do you plan to hire an assistant manager for weekends? And to take on some of, um, your duties?”
“You’re the manager. You’ll take on anything I have to cut out of my schedule,” he said.
The cheapskate wasn’t going to hire anyone to help me. And if I was taking over his work that meant, what? Working some naps into my schedule? Giving up my one day off?
“I love this place, and I’ve put my heart and soul into it since I was old enough to drive. The thing is, Hugh, I can’t afford to buy you out right now. You know it means the world to me to take over when you retire. How long can you give me to scrape up the down payment so I can borrow the rest? Six months?” I asked.
“No. Maybe three, four at the outside, and that’s with cutting back on my work a great deal.”
“Okay, um, that’s—let me see what I can come up with. But I think it’s only fair to tell you that I’m not in a position to work on Saturday afternoon and Sunday.”
“What? You religious all of a sudden?”
“No, Hugh. I’m human. I open and make pies every morning. I wait tables and manage the restaurant, and half the time I close the place down. There’s no way I’m working the weekends too. I’ll be happy to discuss scheduling with you if you have concerns, and we’ll find out who can fill in. Mandy’s usually here on weekends, and I can train her up to close on Saturdays and open on Sundays.”
“We’re not changing the hours of operation. I don’t want to lose money while I’m trying to give you a generous grace period to raise the funds. I don’t know how you don’t have it saved up by now, honestly. Expensive habits?” he chuckled.
I gritted my teeth. “No.” It was all I could do not to say, On what you pay me it’s a damn miracle I can save ten bucks. Instead, I dipped my chin. “I’ll try to determine a course of action this week and I’ll get back to you by Friday evening, let you know if I think this is an opportunity I can pursue or—or not.”
“I’m real sorry it’s worked out like this. You’ve been a good help to me, and I’d like to see you take over here if you can swing it. Let me know as soon as you c
an, Rach. I’ve been talking to Margaret down at the realty office, and she thinks we’d get a real good price listing the place online. Rockford Falls is real quaint and charming. Some rich city slicker would be bound to snap the diner up, and he might even keep you on to manage it.”
Was that supposed to make me feel better? Maybe spend another twenty years in a dead-end job working for some other cheapskate? No way. Either I was buying this place any way possible, or I was quitting. I was sure as hell not going to stay here, tail between my legs, and be a waitress forever. Failure wasn’t an option. I had to come up with the money.
I just nodded and picked up some menus to take to a table of people who’d just come in. As soon as I went to pour their coffee, Max came in, talking intently on his cell phone and leaning on the counter beside the register. I went to wait on him, but he was still on the phone. He was speaking low and I didn’t catch much of it, but he was obviously distressed about something. He didn’t sound mad, just upset. So when he got off the phone, I decided to be nosy.
“You okay?” I asked. “That didn’t seem like good news.”
“My sitter just called to say she’s moving back home to take care of her mom, who happens to live in West Virginia. So, I have no childcare going into summer break from school. Normally I’d just take off and spend time with Sadie, but summer’s my busiest season. It’s—stressful.”
“I hope you find somebody to help out,” I said. “What can I get you?”
“Just coffee to go, thanks.”
He looked distracted, barely said a word when I gave him his coffee, although he left five bucks in the tip jar, which was real nice of him. Now that man wasn’t a cheapskate. He’d always been a good tipper.
My mind ran back over my finances. I didn’t have a rich friend or relative who could go in as a silent partner until I could repay them. I didn’t have anything valuable to sell, and if my parents had any money, I wouldn’t have had to wait tables as soon as I was old enough just to help out with the bills. I’d moved out at eighteen, started working full time and gotten my own place. I’d never lived beyond my means or run up debt or anything, but I didn’t have much credit history either. I’d bought a used Nissan when I was twenty-one and I was still driving it. I didn’t have a credit card, and I didn’t own a house. So banks weren’t exactly beating down my collateral-less door to lend me a large sum to buy a business.
The Lumberjack's Nanny: A Forbidden Romance (Rockford Falls Romance) Page 4