Fire and Love

by Erin Wright

  She kept that thought to herself.

  “Well, I thought I’d up the difficulty level today, since you did such a great job yesterday. I’ve never had anyone take to welding like you did, honestly. Like watching a duck take to water.”

  She blushed and shrugged. She was used to compliments (“Your hair is so beautiful!” “Your eyes are such an unusual aquamarine color.” “You play the piano beautifully!”) but Levi’s compliments? They meant something to her. She knew how to make herself more beautiful with the use of makeup, sure, but the basic bone structure and features weren’t something she got to choose when she was born. She didn’t work hard in order to deserve them. They were just given to her, part of her DNA coding.

  And piano…piano was a guilt-ridden anxiety-inducing disaster zone. She was good, sure, but she’d never be great and what was more, she didn’t really want to be great. It certainly didn’t register on her list of things to do that’d get her out of bed with a smile on her face, that was for damn sure.

  But welding? It was all hers – it was her secret. Her parents didn’t control it; didn’t even know about it.

  Some kids did drugs in order to rebel against their parents. Tennessee welded.

  Her mother probably would prefer the drugs if given the choice.

  “What are you smiling about?” Levi rumbled, looking up from getting the welder ready to go.

  “That my first act of rebellion in my whole life is to weld metal together behind my parent’s backs,” she answered truthfully.

  Which, the fact that she’d actually told him what she was thinking? That was its own form of rebellion. It’d been drilled into her since birth – no one cared what she thought. When asked questions, give blasé answers, and immediately change the subject back so it focused on the other person again. Women were to listen to men, not complain to them.

  Sometimes, Tennessee had a hard time remembering which century she lived in.

  “I do have to say that it is an…unusual form of rebellion,” Levi said with a laugh. “Tattoos, drugs, alcohol…that’s the normal way to rebel. Not welding. Okay, are you ready to give this a go?”

  She nodded, pulling her helmet (the extra one he let her borrow) into place and pulled his leather gloves onto her hands. She had long fingers for a girl (something every piano teacher she’d ever had remarked upon) but they weren’t wide, so the gloves were obnoxiously oversized. She needed to buy a small pair as soon as possible. Not being able to easily and fully control her fingers wasn’t the ideal way to weld, for sure.

  He stepped behind her so he could guide her arms, wrapping his long arms around her, easily embracing her smaller form. Their helmeted heads knocked together, which wasn’t exactly the most romantic thing in the world, but the rest of his body…she could feel every square inch of him.

  Speaking of the rest of him, she brushed against his hardened dick accidentally with her ass, and instantly sucked in a quick breath. Yeah, she could feel every square inch of him.

  He backed away, yanking off his helmet and flipping off the welder.

  “Tennessee,” he began, but she pulled off her helmet and cut him off at the pass. Leaning up on her tiptoes, she pressed her mouth to his. He froze for a moment and then with a groan, he pulled her tight against his chest, crushing her against him, their hearts pounding together as his tongue swirled and dipped inside of her mouth.

  She was kissing him. After years of lusting after him, the forbidden fruit that she wasn’t allowed to touch because she was marrying Moose…he was right here. And he wanted her.

  Breathing, thinking, analyzing…it was all swept away. It was just him and her and the desire to tear his clothes off with her teeth.

  But finally, she forced herself to pull away. She was completely out of breath, like she’d just run one of those godawful marathons with Georgia, but this one was a fun marathon.

  They were staring at each other, not blinking, trying to read each other’s thoughts, when she broke the silence. “If you still think I’m nothing but a spoiled brat,” she said softly, “then it’s time to leave me alone and let me get on with my life. Neither of us are the kind of people to play games, so right now? The ball is in your court.”

  She spun on her heel, hurrying back through the house and out the front, back to her hot pink convertible VW Bug. She’d finally worked up the guts to tell Levi what she was really thinking – a guy, even – but after that…well, it was up to Levi if their relationship would move forward or not.

  She drove off with the top down, pressing her fingers to her bruised lips the whole way home.

  Chapter 15

  Levi

  He was standing on the imposing front steps of the Rowland home, yellow roses in one hand, his knuckles of the other hand posed over the door. He just needed to knock.

  His hand hung there in mid-air.

  Any minute now…

  He wondered if he’d throw up on their peonies, and if he did, what he’d do after that. He could run off to Mexico and never talk to the Rowlands again. That was totally an option. He could pretend Idaho didn’t exist, and just be a surfer bum on the beach and wear his hair in dreadlocks and learn Spanish.

  In that moment, this plan seemed absolutely like a logical one, even if he didn’t throw up on their peonies first. Maybe he should just leave for Mexico that night. Screw it – right now. Make a run for the border.

  Then his hand was knocking, almost without his knowledge or control, and after two raps on the door, he yanked it down, strangling the bouquet of roses with both hands for lack of something else to do. He couldn’t make a run for it now – they would spot his truck driving off and know it was him.

  He was stuck.

  His breath was coming in short gasps.

  He hadn’t been this nervous since he had to give a history report in 4th grade on Lewis and Clark. Not exactly a comforting idea, considering that report ended prematurely with him puking into the teacher’s trashcan.

  “Hello?” Roberta Rowland said, opening the front door and peering out into the evening light. “Can I help you?” Her eyes flicked up and down him, bluntly assessing him. He’d worn his best pair of Wranglers – new, without a single hole in them – and a button-up shirt that he usually reserved for weddings. No tie because he didn’t own one, and a beat-up pair of cowboy boots, but at least they weren’t his work boots, right?

  She didn’t seem to appreciate his efforts, not if that look on her face was anything to go by.

  “I’m here to see Tennessee,” he said, his normally deep voice registering in the mid-range instead. For him, this was positively squeaky. He cleared his throat. “Is she home?”

  She just stood there, openly studying him, clearly deciding whether to lie to him or not when they both heard Tennessee’s voice behind her. “Levi! What a pleasant surprise,” she said formally, ducking out past her mother’s stiff body, which was when she spotted the roses in his hands. “Oh, beautiful!” she gasped, and this time, her voice didn’t have that fake, Stepford Wives quality to it.

  He realized in that moment that there were two Tennessees – the front that she showed the world, especially when her mother was there to witness the performance, and then the real Tennessee, the one he saw when it was just the two of them together.

  He tucked that bit of information away along with her fluttering-hands tell for later contemplation.

  “I heard that you loved yellow roses,” he said, holding them out for her to take. She buried her face in them, breathing in deeply, and looked up at him, her blue-green eyes sparkling.

  “Was it a certain Deere Garrett who told you that?” she asked a little breathlessly. It took him a moment – he so rarely heard Moose being called by his real name that he almost blurted out, “Who?” – and then it registered.

  Your best friend, you dumbass.

  “Well, he may have given me a hint or two,” Levi said with a wink.

  Mrs. Rowland cleared her throat loudly. Tennessee tur
ned back to her, roses still tightly grasped in her hands. “Momma, this is Levi Scranton. He works for Rocky Garrett as the dealership’s head welder. Levi, this is my momma, Roberta Rowland.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said cooly, holding out her hand to shake his, her fingers as limp and dead as three-day-old fish.

  Levi was back to considering that run for the Mexican border. She looked about as pleased to meet him as she would be to find a dead horse’s head on her front doorstep, Mafia-style.

  Tennessee was undeterred. “Let’s come inside and sit in the drawing room,” she murmured to Levi, her Stepford-Wives persona firmly in place. Her mother, realizing that it would be much too rude to physically block his way into her house, finally moved off to the side, allowing them to enter.

  Levi followed Tenny over the threshold and then all breathing stopped.

  Dear Lord above, what had he gotten himself into?

  In high school, on their numerous double dates, the four of them (Moose, Levi, Tennessee, and Georgia) had always ended up at Moose’s house afterwards. It wasn’t really a choice they contemplated but rather was just what happened. Rocky and Linda were like a second set of parents to Levi; they were Moose’s parents; and they had a large basement where they let all of them hang out without much hovering, thus making it a damn ideal place to spend their Saturday nights.

  Levi sure as hell didn’t take anyone back to his house to just hang out. Even if his father had somehow started the evening being okay with the idea, it still would’ve ended with beer cans being thrown at their heads – empties or full ones – and being told to stop bothering him.

  But because they’d always ended up back at the Garrett’s house to hang out and watch movies, Levi had somehow never been inside of Tennessee’s house. He’d seen the outside hundreds of times, waiting out in the car as Moose went in to fetch Tenny, or to drop her off afterwards, but inside?

  It was even worse than he’d imagined.

  Marble columns and fancy chairs that’d probably break just by him looking at them sideways and a giant-ass staircase that led up to the second floor that was so grand, it seemed like he could drive a team of horses up it, oh and don’t forget the chandelier hanging from the ceiling that was quite literally dripping with gold and crystals and…

  “C’mon, in here,” Tenny said, grabbing his arm and pulling him into what must be the drawing room. She closed the double doors behind her quietly, and then spun around to look up at him, the formality gone, the happy Tennessee in its place. “You came for me!” she said with a huge grin, burying her face in the roses again. “It’s been a couple of days. I thought maybe you’d decided…well, not to come for me.”

  It had been five days. Not that he’d been counting; he just happened to know that.

  It’d taken him five days to screw up the courage to actually show up at the Rowland home.

  Well, and to get a dozen yellow roses from Happy Petals. After quizzing Moose on what Tenny loved, he’d gone down and talked to Carla, enlisting her help in getting the most gorgeous, the most fragrant yellow roses in that she could get her hands on.

  God bless Carla. Despite his obvious nerves, she’d walked him through the whole process without talking down to him once. There was a reason everyone in town loved Carla.

  “It took me a while to get the roses,” he finally settled on saying, leaving the rest out. She didn’t need to know what a mess he’d turned into. Or the fact this house wasn’t helping, not one bit.

  “So does this mean that you see me as more than a spoiled rich brat?” she asked softly, staring up at him through the blooms she was still holding up to her face, almost like she was using them as a shield against the world…? He tucked that observation away for future contemplation also.

  He hesitated before he answered, looking around the room they were in. There was a baby grand piano in the corner, and although he didn’t exactly consider himself to be a connoisseur of pianos, grand or otherwise, it wasn’t hard to make the educated guess that this piano probably cost more than his whole house did.

  And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the rugs on the hardwood floors – probably handwoven, imported from Persia or some such insanity – and another chandelier here in the drawing room, just slightly smaller than the one in the foyer…

  She lowered the flowers until they were hanging listlessly by her side. “Thank you for the roses,” she said formally. “I find that I am quite busy this evening, though, so if I could see you out now…?”

  She began to open the double doors back out into the foyer.

  “No!” he said urgently, stopping her by putting his hand over hers. They both froze, the electricity arcing between them so violently, it was almost painful. “Please…your house is just…it’s a lot to take in.”

  “I am not my parent’s house,” she said. No emotion. Her eyes were flat. She was hiding herself from him.

  “I know.” He drew in a deep breath. “I know. And I’m sorry. I know that for you, this is all normal…I just need you to give me a minute.” He didn’t know how to say, “Your family’s money is smothering me alive” because what if she got angry about that? It seemed like the only time they saw eye to eye was when they weren’t discussing money. “You’re so much more than this house, or your parents,” he said softly.

  Her shoulders relaxed. Just a smidge. “Are you just saying what you think I want to hear?” The heartbreak in her voice hurt his heart. And he hated that. He hated having her be this serious and this worried.

  “Well, yeah,” he drawled ever-so-casually.

  It took her a second to realize what he’d just said but before she could knee him in the nuts in retribution, he laughed. “I’m just kidding, of course,” he said, reaching out and tucking a blonde strand behind her ear. “Believe me, if I could guess what it was that you wanted to hear, we’d be arguing a lot less often.”

  She glared at him for a moment and then shrugged. “Fair enough,” she allowed primly. He laughed. She smirked a little. “Were you always this awful?” she asked him baldly. “Somehow, I don’t remember you teasing Georgia this much in high school.”

  “That’s because you and Moose were always too busy making out,” he volleyed back.

  “We were…we did not!” she contested hotly, her cheeks flaming a bright red.

  A flustered Tennessee. It was almost as sexy as a lip-biting, welding-helmet-wearing Tennessee.

  And that was really saying something.

  “You ran out on me during our last welding lesson,” he reminded her needlessly. He mostly just wanted to see her cheeks flush pink again, as she remembered what they’d been doing right before that lesson ended. “Didn’t even give me the chance to show you the Fillit Weld.”

  “The Fillit Weld?” she repeated.

  “Yeah. You use it to fill between two pieces of metal.”

  She laughed. “Very creative name,” she said dryly.

  “Welders never claimed to be creative,” he reminded her. “All we do is weld giant machines back together when they break out in the field. Creativity isn’t part of the equation.”

  “Oh, that reminds me!” she exclaimed. “Hold these – I’ll be right back.” She thrust the flowers into his hands and slipped out of the drawing room, closing the door behind her quietly.

  While she was gone, Levi decided to wander around a bit, looking over the imposing bookshelves that lined every wall, figurines and ancient books and pictures of Tenny and her younger sister Virginia gracing every shelf. Tennessee had been a looker ever since she’d been born, as far as Levi could tell. He hadn’t really appreciated it as a kid – girls were icky and had germs when they were seven, of course – but now, looking at her childhood pictures, he could see the Tenny she was going to grow up to be. Why didn’t she become a supermodel instead of playing the piano? She was certainly gorgeous enough for it.

  “So,” she said breathlessly, hurrying back into the drawing room and pulling Levi’s at
tention away from the pictures, “I’ve been working on these in the evening. I was trying to think of what I could weld together, and it came to me – what does every farmer out there have about a bajillion of? Old shovels. So I thought it’d be fun to make garden creatures out of them.” She held the drawing notepad out to him.

  He took it and began flipping through, his breath sucking in as he looked.

  “Shit on a stick, Tenny, you’re good,” he murmured. “Bolts for eyeballs; shovels for heads; rebar for legs…it never would’ve occurred to me to do this.” The creatures she’d drawn were quirky and fun and lively, almost jumping off the page. Mixed in were flowers, some monstrously large while others were life-sized.

  “Well, it’s just some sketches,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “But I don’t know if I have the talent to actually create these in real life, you know?”

  “Not just some sketches, Tenny,” he said seriously. “I’m not kidding when I say that I’m not a very creative guy. I am good at fixing things; I’m not good at making things. It takes a different way of looking at the world to see a pile of scrap metal and come up with these creatures. I just see scrap metal that I can use to repair something if needed. Hey, you want to go weld with me?” he asked impulsively. That was not on the agenda for that evening; he’d been planning on wining and dining her. But after looking at these drawings…he had a feeling that she’d enjoy welding more. “But we need to do it out at my shop, not at my house.”

  “You have a shop?” she asked, surprised.

  He nodded. “It’s on the outskirts of town, over by the airport. I do repair jobs on the side for people, so I have a full shop where I can run saws and welders to my heart’s content without pissing any neighbors off. It isn’t much, but I have a whole pile of scrap metal that you could look through—”

  “I’ll be right back!” she broke in, not even waiting for him to finish. Clutching her drawing pad to her chest, she rushed out of the drawing room and up the stairs to where he assumed her bedroom was.