~~~~~~~
Tracey could hear the purr of the BMW’s engine even before it appeared around the pine-shaded bend down the road. Antonio had answered his cell on the third ring, and he had even remembered who she was right away. Right away!
He had thanked her profusely for deciding to provide him with this critical information necessary to complete in his investigation, and he wanted to discuss it further, but not over the phone. So here she was, standing along Route 6 feeling a bit silly as she waited nervously for Antonio’s arrival like a teenage girl expecting the car horn of her date to sound at any moment.
A few minutes earlier, she had decided to leave a cryptic message on Jamie’s voicemail, since THAT shithead didn’t answer her call. She wanted to make him sweat a little about his new girlfriend, and where her path just might be headed. Tracey couldn’t wait to find out the details from Antonio. Revenge would be so sweet.
The sleek black vehicle appeared, and slowed as it approached where she stood. Tracey’s nerves weren’t the greatest at the moment, but the beers had helped to put a little swag in her step. Hopefully, the breath mints covered up the scent. She cocked her hip and smiled. Thank God she was dressed adequately, and she had repaired her hair and makeup in the bathroom. She knew her curves were kickin’.
The car windows were blacked out, but the driver’s side slid down with a hum and Antonio was smiling up at her. God, she forgot how hot that cat was. Instinctively, she knew he would never go for someone like her – for real - but it was fun to pretend. She grinned back in a feline way.
“You hopping in?” Antonio asked, gesturing over his shoulder to the passenger seat. “Let’s go somewhere… nicer.” He rolled his eyes at the line of Harley’s in the left side parking lot.
“Awesome, this place is not always the greatest,” she admitted with a laugh. She walked around his car, making sure her bottom swung just so. The lock clicked open and she slid into the cool leather seat, adjusting her skirt while making sure the correct amount of thigh was showing, but without being too obvious. “I know a nicer little place a few miles north of here in Roulette.”
“Sounds perfect,” Tony smiled over at her. “I was actually very glad it was you who called me. There’s nothing like mixing pleasure with business.”
Tracey’s heart accelerated in time with the car as they drove away into the afternoon sun.
~~~~~~~
Aaron turned his baseball cap around backwards, planting it firmly on his head, and gritted his teeth as he began the trek up the cracked and decayed remains of what once had been a stone walkway through a neatly trimmed yard. The trailer in the distance seemed to be listing to one side, and a piece of the roof had blown off during the last good thunderstorm. Had to be leaking somewhere inside.
It was obvious that Stan hadn’t mowed the grass yet this season, as the lush green tips licked against the hairs on his legs as he strode through the yard.
As he contemplated seeing Tracey’s father yet again, he could hardly keep the snarl from his face. What a waste of a human being. He surely brought the trash to the trailer, and gave country folk a bad name. Alexandra Winters would have peed her little, lacy panties in yuppie disgust, just looking at the man Tracey had to live with every day.
Yet Tracey had been through it all and survived. Barely, but she did. She was beautiful, brave, and sorely injured. It tore at Aaron’s heart. All he wanted was to save her, and be there for her, but she never really looked his way.
In truth, he put too much of the blame on his older brother. Aaron knew that he had over-reacted today. Even Alex wasn’t that bad of a person... she was just different from anyone he knew. It was the whole, shitty situation causing the root problem. Aaron had blown up like a kid, and had embarrassed himself again in front of Tracey. The one thing he didn’t want to do.
Aaron rapped on the back screen door twice and waited. There were holes in it, large enough to grant any decent-sized mosquito an easy entrance. He sighed and stuck his thumbs in the belt loops of his shorts. A plane flew overhead and he blew a breath of air out audibly until, at last, he heard a grunt and a shuffle.
“What you want?”
“Where’s Tracey? She went missing.”
“Who knows? Who the hell are you?”
“It’s Aaron Sheldon.”
“Eh. She’s at some bar I ‘pose.”
“I checked The Northern.”
Stan’s stubble-lined face appeared at the door, mottled grayish by the screen. “What the hell you need her for, boy? A screw?”
“I told you, she went missing. She was upset about the baby again,” muttered Aaron.
Booze wafted through the holes in the screen. “Who the fuck cares,” croaked Stan.
Aaron’s hand shot hard and straight into the feeble netting, palm up, squarely into Stan’s red and bulbous nose. The man went backwards like a stone, spurting blood in an arc along the way.
“I do,” returned Aaron, and walked away down the shattered pathway. The only place left to try that he could think of was the Cherryville pub.
Waiting for Eden
~*~*~*~*~*~
Chapter 19
It was a hot, dry afternoon, and his red Nikes were now pink with a shroud of yellowed dust. The particles had stirred, whirling in lazy plumes about his bare ankles, as he strode determinedly along the dirt lane.
Mouse waved a palm at the fat and lazy flies that buzzed by his ears every ten seconds. He had counted their fly-bys many times, and it was always ten seconds exactly. He marveled at the precision. Could insects tell time? Mouse didn’t know, but he sure didn’t want to swat those special lazy flies hard and squish them, ‘cause they weren’t really biters.
Jamie had told him the fat hairy ones that buzzed so loud didn’t actually hurt, didn’t bite at all, and even ate the greedy gypsy moths that killed the trees in the forest. Mouse loved the trees, just like Jamie did. Mouse loved Jamie too.
And now… well he kind of loved Alex as well. She just felt like family, like Jamie’s family. He felt very warm inside today from all these special feelings.
Mouse bit his lower lip in consternation as he made his way along Stoney Run, torn by his decision to go back to the ranch without real work to do, and without asking Alex first. But it had been so long. And he used to visit almost every day, before Alex came, and it was always okay then. Now that Alex liked him, Mouse figured it would be okay again. He loved his visits to that place, they gave him special feelings too.
Every time Mouse would climb onto the old rickety back porch, he would find a flower from the grey-haired lady in the window. She never gave him lemonade, like Alex did now, but she smiled so nice. So warm, it was just like hugging.
And the flowers she picked him from the Garden of her Eden… the flowers were always so lovely. Each time was a different color and shape, but they always smelled the same. Like a perfect mixture of rose, peony, and lilac, all blended together and delicious each and every time he took in a deep breath. The petals were soft and velvety and they smelled so very good for hours.
Mouse would cherish those flowers like treasure; he hid them in his room and sniffed and sniffed as long as he could. They reminded him of his Mum. Mouse couldn’t actually remember his Mum like a picture in his mind, but her smell was that of the flowers. He sure remembered her smell, and it was more vivid than a picture ever could be. He dried each flower carefully, and placed them in a fancy album he got at the Dollar General.
Today, when Mouse opened his eyes to the morning, he felt the pull strong in his stomach. He wanted to visit again. He wondered if Alex knew about the grey-haired lady in the window, with her long pretty braids, but somehow he didn’t think so. He wanted to ask Jamie and Alex about her but he was just plain too scared.
Mouse knew he was different and….odd even. Weird. His Dad told him that every day, and his Dad never kidded around. But boy, he really missed the smell of his Mum.
Mouse was determined to get an Eden flower to
day. The fat flies buzzed, Mouse sweated, and he continued his stoic, yet hopeful, journey down the Stoney Run Road.
~~~~~~~
Tracey was dizzy, and Jesus Christ it was an awe-inspiring kind of buzz. Several glasses of Finger Lakes Chardonnay paired with aged smoked cheddar and piled next to sweet piles of Catawba grapes had left an incredible taste on the tip of her tongue. It made her giggle, and lean in to lightly lick the warm skin of Marcus’s neck. He tasted of sweat and influential man, mixed with the slightly acrid tingle of fine cologne.
He dipped his head to her ear as she touched her cheek against his impossibly hard shoulder. “I booked us a room at the Bed and Breakfast next door, Tracey,” Marcus murmured quietly. Oh yes, she thought wickedly, she had turned him on.
A sudden tingle of doubt assailed her, but only for a moment. Why shouldn’t she? Jamie had cheated on her with Alexandra Winters, and Tracey was her own woman. With a rich, gorgeous man at her side, buying her drinks, and one who obviously couldn’t keep his eyes off the swell of her creamy cleavage.
He smelled so damned good, too. Just the dominantly male aroma he exuded made her weak and dewy under her sleek, new skirt. Thank God she was blessed with the tits of Venus. This afternoon, she felt invincible.
With a smile of invitation, Tracey stood up, feeling slightly wobbly in her wedge sandals. Wine and four-inch heels didn’t mix well, but they would soon be off of her feet entirely, judging from the gleaming look in Marcus’s eye. He took her elbow sedately. And like a gentleman, he led her from the wooden deck on which they had been seated, overlooking vineyards surrounded by farmland and rolling mountaintops.
The air was warm and sweet with the scent of summer fields and hemlock in the distance. The slight breeze lifted her long, blond locks, caressing the back of her neck exquisitely. It was a fairytale. One she intended to live every moment of to the fullest.
Her dizziness increased on their stroll next door, but she covered it well. That was one thing she was very accomplished at. Tracey knew the tipsy feeling would pass soon, it always did.
Their room was a little bungalow, detached from the main farmhouse, with whitewashed walls, burgundy shutters, and lovely landscaping about the cottage. A slim brick path lined the way to the door. The air was now scented with the cloying, heady mix of newly blossomed honeysuckle.
Briefly, she glanced upward at the turquoise of the heavens above, dotted only by the feathery wisps of an occasional cloud. The palpable excitement that brimmed in her mind made her pulse escalate.
When the door was opened for her, Tracey entered the room quite willingly.
~~~~~~~
As Alexandra tightened her calves against Bold Venture’s sides, the stallion moved off in a smooth, ground-eating canter. Yet the strength contained within the robust stallion’s frame was much more akin with that of a machine. Riding him was like navigating a kick-ass muscle car that lived, breathed and thought.
It never failed to put her in a good mood. An exalted mood, in fact. Petty little things no longer mattered. The day that rained down upon them was perfection, with low humidity, and ribbons of plentiful sunshine that smattered through the trees to brush warm fingers on her shoulders, and gilded the stallion’s already shimmering coat. Her hair lifted off of her neck with each stride, the animal breathed rhythmically, and all was good.
She was going to talk to Jamie. Her stomach fluttered a bit at the thought, and the importance of the moment, of what he would say, and how she would counter. But that bitter fear that had coiled like a snake in her gut for so long was gone. Vanquished. The guilt that had eaten away at her insides was fading away as well, drifting off into the currents of warm fresh mountain air they left in their wake.
The Sheldon ranch appeared in the distance and she slowed Bold to a walk, in order to allow the stallion some time to cool off before reaching their destination. He arched his neck and insisted on prancing if, indeed, he must walk. He was a stud, and knew there was a mare about. A simple walk would not suffice, no matter what his rider thought. She chuckled at his grandeur.
Keister took up a high-pitched yipping announcement of their approach, and Diana soon appeared on the porch with a wave of hello. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Jamie’s out in the hay field past the pond and up the back lane a bit!”
Alex waved her thanks and directed the stallion toward the back and away from the barn, much to his chagrin. He resisted for a moment, side-stepping with righteous indignation, before her insistent calves applied firmly to his flanks moved him in a forward direction once again. He blew one great snort of disgust through distended nostrils and snapped his tail to announce his extreme irritation with his rider.
As an experienced horsewoman, she knew not to overreact, and that firm persistence with a high-strung stallion was the only way to proceed. He quickly calmed and became a gentleman once again, after giving up hope of visiting his lady friend.
The drone of a John Deere tractor took up its song in the distance, as the glistening irrigation pond came into view. It was small, yet picturesque, with its grass-lined bank and local pair of mallard ducks with six yellow babies bobbing on the blue ripples.
She marveled at all the changes in her world over the past several months. All the things she had come to experience and to learn about, and to take part in. It was a new world, and she was fully immersed in it now. The city was gone - all the traffic, the asphalt, the stress, the constant throng of bodies and noise. Gone.
Alex was doing what she loved, among people she loved, and in such beautiful surroundings. How could she have had such luck? She pitied all her insipid fake “girlfriends” of the past who did not have an inkling of all that was right here.
Jamie came into view on the tractor. From what she had learned about the hay-making process, he was running the “tedder” today. A day after being mowed, the tedder machine was driven through the rows, lifting and spreading the individual stalks all across the field with whirling tines, so that the sun could reach every strand and dry it consistently.
Tomorrow, weather provided, Jamie would return and rake it all again into long even piles before baling it into small squares fit for the hayloft, or for sale at auction. Hay could only be baled if it had reached a certain moisture percentage, or it would go moldy and worthless in storage.
It was a much more complicated process than she ever realized. Hay-making required constant analysis consisting of weather maps, touching, sniffing, lifting, the snapping of stems, and a moisture reader in the baler itself. And if it got too dry – well, that was bad too, for all the little green and nutrition-laden leaflets would shatter and fall away from the stem.
Alex realized she had been sighted when the tractor engine slowed, then quit completely. Jamie hopped down from the equipment and turned his cap around backwards to watch her approach atop the stallion. His expression was a bit guarded; cautious at first, but then a slow smile curved his mouth as he saw the light in her eyes.
By the time she had dismounted and pulled the reins over Bold’s head, he was behind her, and lifted her completely off her feet in a bearhug. “Where you been, stranger girl,” he murmured directly in her ear. “I missed you, Lovey.”
Alex turned in his arms and the feel and scent of him, even all sweaty like he was, thrilled her, making her heart trip along rapidly. Before she could even utter her hello, his lips were on hers, and his insistent tongue invaded her senses. It wasn’t a bad feeling at all. In fact, it was really, really good.
When his left hand cupped her ass and his right slid between her thighs to rub against the warm little vee her jeans were covering, she gasped against his mouth.
“I can’t wait to get you alone for a bit,” he answered her surprise by mumbling against her lips. “Oh, the things I have planned for you.”
“Now Jamie,” she answered primly, though her body was responding otherwise, wiggling against his unrelenting fingers, and wishing the denim was gone completely. Her body wanted
those “things” of which he spoke. Badly. “We should talk, really.”
He grunted in purely male annoyance, and lifted the front of her tee shirt, sliding a hand up and under to cup the firmness of her left breast. When his finger brushed a nipple, she was startled to realize it was already hard, and wanting the feel of that hot mouth on the turgid peak.
“See, what we have to say to each other should simply be demonstrated instead,” he chuckled in a low voice. It was almost menacing, and gave her a delicious little shiver. “Like fine art, Alex. It should be felt… experienced visually… and physically. Not merely talked about.”
“But… Bold--”
“Is perfectly content,” Jamie answered, gesturing to the stallion, who had already dropped his head and was rhythmically snipping the long grass as quickly as his sharp equine teeth would allow, ignoring them completely.
In a flash, she was on her back staring up at the vividly blue sky, and the cool grass cushioned the naked skin of her back. The slight breeze caressed her flesh, sending a series of goosebumps off in rapid-fire succession all over her body.
Her nipples were as hard as rose diamonds, jutting straight up at the heavens, and the core of her was tingling and wet. His fingers were brushing back and forth over the little bud of her clitoris, spreading the warmth that he discovered there.
“What do you know about fine art, James Sheldon?” she managed to murmur between her shuddering gasps.
“Let me show you.” When his tongue delved into the place his fingers had been to begin a rhythmic, dancing exploration, her back arched like a bowstring in automatic response. The azure sky swirled above her like the flowing strokes of a brilliant watercolor.
Waiting for Eden
~*~*~*~*~*~
Chapter 20
Waiting For Eden (Eden Series) Page 24