Jane Austen Girl - A Timbell Creek Contemporary Romance

by Inglath Cooper

  Darryl Lee looked at them both for one long second and then pinned his gaze on Bobby Jack before saying, “It’s sure true that I don’t have any right, Grier, but it’s also true that I deserve some respect from my brother.”

  Bobby Jack opened his mouth to throw something back at Darryl Lee. But something inside him snapped with softness for the little brother who’d followed him around, copying everything he did from the day he was born. On some level, Darryl Lee was right. He was a chicken-ass traitor. Hadn’t he been the one telling Darryl Lee that Grier McAllister was a bad idea? And here he was dancing with her like – Darryl Lee’s words came back to him – he had the motel key in his pocket.

  The itch to hit his brother leaked from his clenched fists like water through a flyswatter. He backed up, holding his palms in the air. “Darryl Lee, man, let’s just take some time to cool off. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “Shit!” Darryl Lee said, slapping his palms against his blue-jeaned thighs. “You’ll be lucky if I ever talk to you again, brother.” He stormed off, slammed his way into his pickup, threw it in reverse, and spit gravel all the way out of the parking lot.

  Bobby Jack and Grier stood there, silent, for a long string of moments. He finally looked at her and said, “Well, this is awkward.”

  She shook her head and ran her hands through her hair, shaking it loose, and then lifting it off the back of her neck. “I don’t even really have any idea what to say,” she said.

  He could hear that the former state of inebriation had all but evaporated. The crowd pretty much turned in unison and filed back inside now that the show was over, a man in the front calling out, “Sure wouldn’t wanna be you tomorrow, Bobby Jack.”

  “I’m sorry,” Grier said, looking at him.

  “It’s not your fault,” Bobby Jack said.

  “Well, actually, it is.”

  He dusted off his jeans, knowing he was going to regret the question even as he asked it. “What are you doing out here anyway?”

  Grier blew out a breath, didn’t answer for a few moments, and then, “I went to see my mother out at the Sunset Retirement Home this afternoon.”

  Bobby Jack heard the thread of pain in her voice. “I knew she was out there.”

  Grier laughed a short laugh. “Yeah, well, I didn’t.”

  He shook his head, confused. “What do you mean you didn’t?”

  “Before I came back to Timbell Creek, I had no idea she was in a nursing home.”

  He waited, unsure what to say.

  She was quiet for a few moments, and then said, “Can we ride around for a bit? I don’t think I should drive quite yet.”

  Bobby Jack knew this would be another bad idea. Still, he nodded and said, “Come on.” He opened the passenger door of his truck, and she climbed in while he went around to the driver’s side and got behind the wheel.

  “Where’s your dog?” he said.

  “I took him back to the Inn earlier. He was ready for a nap.”

  Bobby Jack nodded, silent then, as he drove away from the Beer Boot. “Anywhere in particular you wanna go?”

  “No,” she said.

  He thought then that she sounded like someone lost. Maybe someone who’d been lost for a while.

  He took one of the small roads that led out to the lake. It was quiet out here. Most of the land was still used for cow pastures, a few houses scattered here and there. He’d bought a piece of land before the prices rocketed up. He turned onto a gravel road and they bumped along until they came to the end where the lake began just a few yards away. They had the windows rolled down and Grier said, “Did somebody just cut hay?”

  Bobby Jack said, “Yesterday.”

  “I love that smell.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  “Can we get out?” she asked.

  “Sure.” He opened the door, a little surprised when she scooted across the seat and slipped out behind him. His pulse drummed the base notes even as his brain reminded him of what had just happened with Darryl Lee. And the absolutely crazy fact that he was out here with this woman. He stepped away from her, thinking distance might be his only saving grace. He walked down to the edge of the water, and she followed.

  The night air was cool now, stars decorating the ink black sky like white lights on a Christmas tree. The moon hung high, a beacon of light illuminating the water’s surface.

  Grier slipped off her sandals and sat down at the edge of the bank, dipping her feet into the water. “Ahh, that feels so good,” she said.

  He sat down as well, careful to keep space between them. She glanced at him, clearly aware of the effort he was making to avoid her.

  “I’m really sorry about everything that happened tonight,” Grier said.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yeah, it kinda was. I all but bullied you into dancing.”

  He’d like to agree with her, certainly could if it would save face by doing so. But it would’ve been a lie. He’d wanted to be out there on that dance floor with her, wanted her close against him. He wanted it even now.

  “How long will he be mad at you?” Grier asked.

  “Ohh, maybe a little longer than usual, but he’ll get over it.”

  Grier sighed. “You know he doesn’t really still have a thing for me. It’s just. . .a pride thing, I guess.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do.”

  Bobby Jack let that hang for a moment. “So what happened with your mama today?”

  She reached down and trailed her fingers through the water.

  “That was the first time I’ve talked to her since I left over nineteen years ago.”

  “Whoa,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  He waited, aware that poking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted or needed would be another ill-advised move.

  “We have a pretty complicated history,” she said. “She used to drink.”

  Bobby Jack remembered seeing her out in public places after she’d clearly had a few. It hadn’t been pretty.

  “When I left at eighteen, I guess I was so full of anger, I never wanted to see her again. She. . .let some pretty awful things happen. But the woman I saw today wasn’t that woman.”

  Bobby Jack could almost feel her pain. He wanted to reach out, pull her to him and absorb it. At least a piece of it, so it wasn’t so heavy. But he forced himself not to. Waiting instead until she went on.

  “I wanted her to be. . . I wanted to have a reason to still hate her.” Tears choked her voice then and she dropped her head back, staring up at the sky, something in between a laugh and a sob breaking free from her throat. “Like you need to hear any of this.”

  “I’d like to hear,” he said quietly.

  “I don’t know why I went. I shouldn’t have. It’s too late for anything to change. And now she’s sick.” Her voice broke on the word, and she started to cry now. Huge, gulping sobs that seemed to wash over her like angry ocean waves.

  Bobby Jack reached for her then, unable to stop himself. He pulled her up tight into the curve of his arm, forming a barrier around her like sandbags against a flood. He would let her cry as long as she needed to.

  And she did for a good long while. It felt as if she released an entire lifetime’s worth of grief there in the circle of his arms. He didn’t know what else to do except hold her until it loosened its grip.

  When her sobs finally quieted, she leaned limp against him as if she didn’t have the energy to move away.

  An owl hooed from a nearby tree. A fishing boat started up a cove or so away and idled off into the distance. They sat there, silent, while he felt the shift of something inside him.

  It left him with the certainty that this night would change his life, and there wasn’t a thing he could do to stop it.

  A first kiss can be an utter disappointment.

  Or a life-changing, forever-not-to-be-lived-up-to revelation. Or so I’ve been told.

  Grier McAllister – Blog at Jane Austen Girl<
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  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Grier never wanted to move. It made absolutely no sense, but not once in her life had she ever found herself in a place that felt like it was the only place she’d ever been meant to be. Here in the circle of Bobby Jack Randall’s arms.

  Her hand lay pressed to the center of his chest even though she had no memory of putting it there. She only knew she didn’t want to move it. He rubbed his thumb across the top of her shoulder. Something about the simplicity of his gesture broke down the wall of need inside her, and she lifted her face to his. “Would you please kiss me, Bobby Jack?”

  “Grier. We both know this isn’t a good idea.” His voice was rough at the edges, as if it wasn’t easy to say what he’d just said.

  “Would you do it anyway?”

  He hesitated for a second during which she thought he would simply say no. But then he made a low sound of defeat and sank his mouth onto hers.

  The kiss was unlike any she had ever known. Grier thought maybe this was what the princess in all those fairy tales felt like when the prince finally kissed her and brought her back to life.

  Because that’s what Bobby Jack’s kiss did for her. Filled her with helium-like happiness so that she turned into him and looped her arms around the back of his neck, seeking any way at all to get closer to him.

  He made another sound of defeat and slipped his hands under her arms, lifting her quickly, deliberately, onto his lap. They kissed like that for minutes on end. Two people who hadn’t realized their thirst for one another until now. There simply wasn’t enough for either’s quenching.

  He rolled her then onto her back, flat onto the grass, following her, his body heavy and pleasantly hard, one leg in between hers. He slipped a hand under her thin T-shirt, anchoring his palm to her waist.

  The kissing went on until Grier felt all but drugged by it, her response to him one over which she had no desire to control.

  “Grier,” he said, “one of us has to stop this.”

  She wanted to ask him why, but at the same time, knew she could recite at least a dozen immediate reasons for the fact that he was right.

  He rolled off her, lay flat on his back looking up at the sky, dragging in deep, leveling breaths, and then clamoring to his feet as if someone had just taken a bullwhip to his back.

  He walked straight to the truck where he opened the door and braced himself against the frame with two hands. Grier waited for her breathing to even, stood, picked up her sandals, and walked back to the truck, getting in on the passenger side and putting herself as close to the door as she could.

  After a couple of minutes, Bobby Jack got inside, leaned both elbows on the steering wheel, still not letting himself look at her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You don’t need to be sorry. I asked you to kiss me.”

  “I wanted to kiss you.”

  “Are you apologizing for giving in or for wanting to?”

  “Both.”

  “It’s okay, Bobby Jack.”

  They sat quiet for a stretch of minutes, during which reason got a foothold.

  “Tell me about you,” he said, his voice low and interested.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Right now, everything.”

  A spark of surprise fluttered through her. “I doubt you’d really want to know everything.”

  “You’d be wrong.”

  “Ask me a question.”

  “Favorite way to spend a Saturday morning?”

  “Getting in a long run. Yours?”

  “A hike with Flo up on the Blue Ridge Parkway.” He hesitated and then, “Best book you’ve ever read?”

  “Pride and Prejudice. Yours?”

  “Swiss Family Robinson. Taught me how to be enterprising.”

  Grier smiled and nodded.

  “I read your blog,” Bobby Jack said, turning his head to look at her.

  Surprised, she said, “Oh?”

  “Good stuff.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Why ‘Jane Austen Girl’?”

  She considered the question for a moment and then, “I think she tried to be truthful about life as she saw it. I guess as a reminder to myself to do the same.”

  “Even when the view’s less than perfect?”

  “Even when.”

  Outside the truck, cricket frogs chirped in unison. The sound reminded Grier of summer nights as a child when she’d slept with her window open. And she felt something for this place where she had grown up, something deep and connected. The feeling surprised her, in light of everything that had happened that afternoon and her mixed emotions about her mother.

  “I like you, Grier.”

  “I like you, too, Bobby Jack.”

  “But this probably isn’t going to work, is it?”

  “Probably not,” she said, honesty forcing itself out.

  “We’d be crazy to act on lust alone, right?”

  “Right.”

  He reached across and twined his fingers with hers, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. “Wanna be stupid?”

  “I really do,” she said, tracing his palm with one finger.

  He leaned over and kissed her, hard and deep. Her response felt like she’d been ignited from inside. She kissed him back, just as hard and just as deep.

  When they were both breathing as if they couldn’t get in enough air, he ran both his hands through her hair and stared down into her face. “I’m taking you back. And tomorrow, I know I’m going to kick myself.”

  “I should feel lucky, right?”

  “And I should feel respectful, right?”

  She smiled and dropped her head back. “That’s us. Lucky and respectful.”

  “Dang, woman, you’re not making this easy,” he said, a half-laugh accompanying the words. He cranked the truck, swung it around in the grass field, and headed down the narrow gravel road.

  Grier lowered her window and stuck her head out in the night air, letting the wind cement her resolve.

  By the time they arrived back at the Beer Boot, she was as sober as she had ever been in her life.

  Bobby Jack pulled in next to her BMW. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

  “Perfect,” Grier said.

  “Grier—”

  “Don’t,” she said, raising a hand. “I know exactly how much I’m going to regret all this in the morning.”

  “I’ll follow you back to the Inn,” he said.

  “No, really, I’m good.” She got out of the truck, found her keys and got in the car, all without looking at him again.

  She pulled out of the lot and headed back toward town. It didn’t surprise her in the least that Bobby Jack’s headlights stayed in her rear view mirror until she made the turn into the Inn’s parking lot.

  “I think inconsistency is the main weapon women use to keep us guessing. The only thing I don’t guess about anymore is that whatever assumption I make where a woman is concerned will end up being wrong. That’s consistent.”

  Darryl Lee to Bobby Jack two beers short of a six-pack after a college girlfriend broke his heart

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The downstairs lights were all on when Bobby Jack let himself in the front door to the house.

  “Andy?” he called out, walking through the foyer to the kitchen. His daughter sat on a bar stool, her gaze on a book, a glass of milk in her right hand. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she said, without looking up. “Where’ve you been?”

  Bobby Jack blinked at the sharpness of the question. “Out,” he said, opening the refrigerator and pulling out a half-gallon jug of orange juice.

  “Who with?”

  Uncomfortable with the answer, he started to say no one, but he never lied to Andy. He wasn’t going to start now. “Grier.”

  Andy looked up then, surprise widening her eyes. “I thought you didn’t like her.”

  “I never said I didn’t like her.”

  “Didn’t want anythin
g to do with her then.”

  “She was out at the Beer Boot. She went to see her mom this afternoon at the retirement home. She’d had a little too much to drink.”

  “Oh,” Andy said. “So you took her home?”

  “We drove around for a bit, and I followed her back to the Inn.” He left out the part about Darryl Lee acting like an ass, figuring they didn’t need to go there tonight.

  “So you do like her?”

  Bobby Jack took a long swig of his orange juice and avoided answering. “I just helped her out, Andy.”

  “Then why’s your hair all messed up? And is that lipstick at the corner of your mouth?”

  He ran one hand across the top of his head and scrubbed the other across his lips. “Long day,” he said.

  “Does that explain the hair or the lipstick?”

  “Okay, smarty pants. Time for bed.”

  Andy got down from the bar stool and closed her book. “You like her.”

  Bobby Jack didn’t think she sounded too happy about the conclusion. “You better head up to bed,” he said. “What are you still doing up, anyway?”

  “Waiting on you,” she said and brushed past him, leaving the kitchen without saying goodnight.

  Bobby Jack stood still, listening to her footsteps on the stairs. What the heck? Would the day ever come when he could even begin to understand women?

  He started to go to her room and ask for an explanation, but it was late, and he wasn’t sure he had the energy.

  Instead, he went outside and sat on the patio, stretching his legs in front of him and staring up at the star-speckled sky.

  Grier’s face came taunting, and with it instant memory of what it felt like to kiss her beautiful mouth. Sweet, soft, insistent.

  Bobby Jack was no stranger to kissing. He’d dated his share of girls before Priscilla. And Priscilla herself had taught him a thing or two.

  But he didn’t remember it once ever feeling the way it felt tonight with Grier. Like the lock had never really fully clicked into place until he kissed her. Felt her melt into him. Wrap her arms around him as if she never wanted him to let her go.