Montana Fire_A Small Town Romance

by Vanessa Vale

  He leaned in and almost whispered in my ear. “A crop can be used for pleasure, too. If you’re interested.” His aftershave was stronger, almost cloying, once I processed his words.

  I turned to Goldie and gave her a look. I darted my eyes from her to Dex and told her via female telepathy that I needed rescuing.

  “Interested?”

  I feigned ignorance once I turned back to face Dex. He smiled, his teeth super white against his tanned skin.

  “If a woman is unsure of what she wants, a little redirection can help.” He slapped the crop gently into his palm.

  “You mean what you want.”

  He gave a quiet laugh, his breath warm against my face.

  “A man knows what’s best and it’s important for a woman to remember that.”

  “So you beat her into submission?”

  Dex tsked me. “Submission, yes. Beating? No. Punishment for forgetting her place.”

  And there you had it.

  “Hello,” Goldie said. Finally. She took her sweet ass time to get over here. She held out her hand daintily.

  Dex smiled at Goldie and shook hands. “Drake Dexter.”

  “This is Goldie, my mother-in-law,” I said in way of introduction. We weren’t lingering, so I didn’t think last names were necessary.

  “Pleasure,” Dex replied, his voice deep and rich, eyes penetrating on Goldie. It was obvious to me he could suck a woman in with his gazer beam. Hopefully, Goldie had her force fields up.

  “That’s a lovely horse you rode.”

  “Thank you.”

  I wanted this conversation over so I moved things along. “Dex was telling me the various uses for a riding crop.”

  Goldie lifted an eyebrow. “Oh?” She looked to Dex and the crop in his hand.

  “Sometimes a mare needs a little help remembering where I want to go.”

  I gave Goldie a pointed look, hoping she’d read between the lines. She was always quick on the pick-up.

  “You’re absolutely right. It’s important to keep your horse in line. If they get out of hand, they’ll nip you in the butt.”

  My mouth dropped open in surprise. It amazed me both could speak double entendre. Or were they? I couldn’t keep up. I obviously wasn’t as skilled.

  “A woman after my own heart. You’ve experienced this yourself?”

  Goldie patted Dex’s hand with her manicured one. “Honey, I’m old enough to have experienced everything. Oh look, Paul’s ready with the boys to go to the derby. It was nice meeting you.”

  “Bye,” I said to Dex, past ready to flee.

  I turned to follow Goldie but Dex grabbed my wrist, kept me in place. His hand was warm against my skin and I felt the roughness of callouses. Goose bumps popped out on my arms. I looked up into his dark eyes. Deep and intense. Yup, gazer beams. “You know where to find me when you’re ready.” He let go of my wrist and slapped the crop against his palm again.

  Thwack. That broke the stare. I mumbled something unintelligible and scooted off.

  Once outside, Goldie stopped me, letting the boys go on ahead. “That is one handsome piece of man. Mmm, mmm.”

  “Uh, yeah.” He was handsome, but that was as far as it went.

  “And he’s very interested in you. Should I send him a care package, too?”

  “Only if it includes whips and chains,” I grumbled.

  Goldie nodded. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so glad you’re willing to try new things, but isn’t that a little out of your element?”

  “If I threw a fit about anal beads, do you think I’d go for bondage and sadism?” I asked.

  “Good point. That man screams Dom. But, you might be able to tell him your limits up front. You know, no painful punishment but you’d be interested in being a sub. Following his commands. It can be quite liberating.”

  How the hell did she know that? I had split second visions of Paul wielding a riding crop and Goldie submitting and I shuddered, forcing my thoughts elsewhere. I didn’t want to go there. Ever. Besides, I wasn’t going to submit to anyone. As if I hadn’t given enough control of my life over to Nate to have it yanked out from under me when he’d cheated. Happy place, go to a happy place!

  “No way.”

  Goldie nodded her head. “You’re right. You need sex, honey, badly. But not that badly. I’ll get you the fanciest vibrator out there to use until you find the right man.”

  “Great. Thanks.” It was better to go along than to argue. Maybe she’d forget. Doubtful.

  She gave me a hard look. “You weren’t seriously considering that man to scratch your itch, were you?”

  “Only if I up my insurance premium first.”

  Goldie kissed my cheek. “All right then. What about Ty? I thought there was something there.”

  I briefly told her about how he’d reacted at the convenience store and whatever spark there’d been was gone now.

  “Ty Strickland cares about you. It’s obvious. He wouldn’t have walked away otherwise.”

  My thoughts exactly.

  “He just needs a little nudge.”

  “Not another box,” I groaned.

  Engines started to rev. Applause carried out of the arena.

  “Competition,” Goldie replied. “His testosterone level is through the roof. It’s okay for him to walk away from you, but I can guarantee he’s not going to be happy about some other guy filling his spot.”

  “You mean make him jealous?”

  She pointed her finger at me like a gun and fired. “I knew you were the smart one.”

  We handed our tickets over for the derby and looked for the boys. “And Little Missy, you need to tell me how you got to calling Drake Dexter by his nickname, Dex, if you aren’t performing sexual services for him.”

  Shoot. Nothing got by that woman. “If I was performing sexual services for Dex I’d be calling him Master.”

  “Don’t distract me from the original point by making sense.”

  9

  “Wow! Look at that upside down car!” shouted Zach.

  We were all into the crash and burn portion of the derby. Cars were mangled on the mud track, some with steam coming out of their radiators, two cars stuck together in a T-bone gunning their engines, wheels spinning in the mud with the hope of separating. The latest excitement was a car pushed up a berm and flipped onto its top. It slowly came to a standstill after spinning around in circles twice.

  “Cool!” Bobby added.

  Goldie, Paul and I sat with little yellow foam earplugs sticking out of our ears, the boys with the large earmuff style to muffle the unbelievably loud engine noise.

  The arena was an outdoor venue, rectangular shaped and open to the elements. No roof. Similar to a high school football stadium. It was used for everything from rodeos to demolition derbies. No restrooms, no food vendors. That was all outside the arena, part of the fairgrounds. Running down the long sides of the event area were the stands, all concrete steps and wood bench-style seats. Room enough for about three hundred. We sat most of the way up the stands so the boys had a good view. Couldn’t miss any action. I could see the sun setting on the Gallatin Mountains from our seats.

  Zach and Bobby held red and white striped bags of popcorn. I had the super-sized soda to wash it all down, which was now only half full. The smells of animal, mud and buttered popcorn mingled in the evening air.

  I was mentally betting how long it would take for the boys to need the bathroom. I swear they had bladders the size of walnuts and it was a haul to get there. You had to leave the stands, go outside the arena and over to the small, squat buildings that served as restrooms. They’d miss all the demolishing. So would I.

  Goldie caught my attention by giving me a little finger wave, and then tilted her head to the right and down a few rows. I followed her gaze and saw Ty and the Colonel. Both wore white shirts—the Colonel’s had a collar—and the similar close-cut hair. Based on the smiles on their faces they, too, were enjoying the smash-up. Even from my side view of Ty, I f
elt that excitement, that zing, course through my blood and travel to all the important sexual places on my body.

  Damn small-town life. If the man wanted to avoid me, why would he show up exactly where I was? The state was six hundred miles wide. Couldn’t he be somewhere, anywhere else? It wasn’t fair for me to have the zing if he didn’t have it, too. Equal opportunity zing.

  Goldie did a couple weird gestures with her head and eyes which I translated to be: Here’s your opportunity. Make the man jealous!

  But how? Where I sat—high up in the stands—no man was going to turn around and look my way, let alone flirt with me while cars rammed each other in the mud. It was a demolition derby! Hell, I could walk around stark naked and all a guy would see is big tires flinging mud. There was no separating men from their machines.

  Fine, I’d trek to the ladies’ room while I contemplated my first move in Operation Make-Him-Jealous. Goldie would think I had a plan. It would give me at least ten minutes to come up with one. If there was no line, otherwise it might be longer.

  The boys were mesmerized by the carnage before them. Zach had forgotten the popcorn that was halfway to his mouth. After I gestured to the ladies’ room and Goldie nodded in understanding, I handed her the soda and maneuvered down the stands and out of the arena.

  I took the east exit, away from the fair. The ground was packed dirt, the air cool as the stands blocked the sun. Not many people milled around. All were either at the fair or at the derby.

  “Jane!”

  I turned.

  Ty.

  “Hi,” I said, nervous. He looked really good up close. As usual. I could see some dark blond stubble on his chin and I wondered what it would feel like against my skin. The underside of my breasts, my stomach, the inside of my…stop! I felt my face flush.

  “Yeah, hi.” Ty stared at me. Looked at my mouth. Looked at the ground. Looked at me. He leaned in.

  He was going to kiss me!

  He lifted his hands to hold my head. To pull my hair from the ponytail and run his fingers through the silky tresses. Yes!

  But, instead, he lifted his hands to pull the little ear plugs from my ears. Crap. I held out my hand and stuffed them embarrassingly in my jeans pockets. “Thanks,” I grumbled.

  “So, that guy from the auction.”

  Holy crap. Goldie was right. Replace First Guy with Second Guy and First Guy would be jealous. Regardless of the fact that Second Guy was way too kinky/creepy for me to be cool. That didn’t matter. The fact that he had a penis was enough to make Ty strut around like a rooster.

  “What about him?” I tried to sound nonchalant. I wasn’t very good at it, so hopefully I seemed way more confident in my feminine wiles than I felt.

  “He looked at you like you were a piece of meat.” Ty didn’t need glasses, that was for sure. To Dex, I was nothing more than an object. “I swear I saw him wipe drool.”

  “And?”

  Ty ran a hand through his hair. “And? Jesus, Jane.”

  I wouldn’t put the man out of his misery. He had to come to me. “What are you doing here?” I lifted my hand in an all-encompassing gesture. “You walked away from me the other day at the convenience store. Said I’m a…what was it? Oh, right, a ‘magnet for disaster’. You have no say in who I see or what I do.”

  Ty didn’t like being told off. His jaw clenched tight and his face reddened. Clearly, he was angry, although I wasn’t sure if it was directed at me or himself for being such a dumbass.

  “Look, Goldie came over to say hello to me and the Colonel in the stands and asked how we were enjoying the derby. She said you were leaving and told me to give you a ride.”

  Ah, Goldie-the-Meddler. She obviously didn’t say why I was leaving. The old omit-the-important-parts trick.

  “Why didn’t you just tell her no?”

  Ty lifted an eyebrow. “Have you ever told that woman no?”

  He had a point.

  “Besides, she gave us the tickets to the derby so it was the least I could do.”

  “So you’re going to give me a ride because Goldie is making you, not because you want to?”

  Ty opened his mouth to say something, and then shut it, smart enough to recognize he couldn’t answer that question without stepping in a pile of horse poop.

  “It was nice of Goldie to give you the tickets,” I commented.

  That woman. I swear I’d strangle her one of these days. Or kiss her. I wasn’t sure which at the moment. She’d planned the whole thing! First, she probably bought extra derby tickets so Ty could be in the same place as me. That was even before Ty walked away and at that point, she just wanted us to be around each other as much as possible.

  Only an hour ago, she’d put the bee in my bonnet about making Ty jealous. She must have seen him at the horse auction watching me with Dex. With Ty at the derby, it would have been child’s play for her to have him follow me. Goldie had a twisted, devious mind when it came to matchmaking, even more so at making men suffer. The least I could do was to keep the pain going for the man. All of Goldie’s hard work demanded it.

  “So who was that guy?” Ty asked, venturing back into Jealousy Territory.

  I shrugged. “Just a guy I met the other day.”

  “I didn’t think you went for cowboys.”

  “You never know who you’re going to be attracted to.”

  “Yeah.” Ty looked at my mouth with longing, as if he couldn’t help himself. I almost succumbed to making the first move. I remembered his taste, how his was a mixture of gentle and demanding all at the same time.

  I ran my tongue over my lower lip, wetting it. Right then, I wanted him to kiss me so badly I couldn’t stand it. I felt heat flare beneath my skin. Who could blame me? Any single woman would shoot me dead for not giving in to the obvious want I saw in his gorgeous, blue eyes. I was a piece of meat and he wanted to eat me up. That was the look on his face, not Dex’s. That was A-OK with me.

  I didn’t mind if Ty wanted to eat me. He can eat me all he wants. Oh God! Did I just think that? That meant I’d feel his stubble on my thighs, his face buried…No! Stop! Don’t think about him nibbling there!

  “You never know who you’ll be attracted to,” he repeated, eyes now on my breasts. My nipples hardened involuntarily.

  The man was ridiculously attracted to my breasts. I was attracted to his attraction to my breasts. The man wanted me. Me!

  Yes!

  Kiss him!

  No! No. Be strong. Make him suffer. Only then would he come back.

  Goldie didn’t mention how much I would suffer, too. How my panties would be ruined and I ached for him to discover that. I might take her up on the offer for the top-of-the-line dildo to ease my need. And boy, did I need!

  I gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder instead of yanking him into my arms and kissing him. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. What kind of crazy woman turned down a guy who wanted her? Especially when you wanted him right back. I could be in bed with him, hell, pressed up against some hidden wall at the fairgrounds with my legs wrapped around his waist in minutes. But noooo, I had to do the right thing, the stupid thing—push him away. “I’m…I’m glad you’re my neighbor. I’ll definitely knock on your door if my snow blower breaks.”

  I walked off, headed to the ladies’ room. I swear I could feel Ty’s eyes boring into my back. I looked forward, focused on the women’s restroom, a gray squat building. I whispered to myself, “Do not turn around. Do not turn around.” I missed the smashed-up derby car barreling down on me until the last moment. I turned and saw one broken headlight and cracked grill. For a split second, I felt like a deer ready to be run over, literally, before strong arms pushed me out of the way. I fell to the ground with a thunk, felt a heavy weight land on top of me—not heavy enough to be a car—before the world went black.

  * * *

  I came to with Ty’s face looming over me. Not a bad image when returning to consciousness. But the concern I saw there was something I w
ouldn’t soon forget. He was so close I could feel his warm breath on my skin. I noticed the scent of peppermint.

  I blinked.

  “Jesus,” Ty whispered before closing his eyes briefly.

  I started processing other things besides Ty. I saw the small crowd that had formed around us, heard the engine noise from the derby, smelled sausage and peppers from the fair’s midway. “I remember a derby car trying to run me over.”

  Ty nodded his head. “I remember that, too.” His voice was grim and angry, his jaw clenched tight.

  I sat up.

  “Don’t. Just lie there until the paramedics come.”

  “I’m fine. No little birdies flying around my head.” I carefully stood up but Ty kept a firm grip on my arm. I brushed dirt off my jeans hoping to hide my wobbly knees. “I don’t need—or want—the paramedics. Besides, aren’t you one?” At Ty’s nod, I added, “You know I’m fine.”

  Ty contemplated my words for a moment as he looked me over. Not the same heated look as only a minute before, but now in a clinical, assessing way. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Two,” I grumbled. “Four. Stop switching it!”

  Ty rolled his eyes. “Show’s over, folks,” he told the few still concerned. Once we were alone again, Ty pulled me tightly into his arms.

  “I can’t breathe,” I gasped.

  “Sorry.” Ty loosened his grip but still held me close.

  “Mmm, you feel good.” His body heat seeped into me through his rock hard, muscled chest. He smelled like…Ty. Rugged male, soap and something else I was learning was just his own scent. I heard his heartbeat beneath my ear and it raced like a thoroughbred. Clearly, he wasn’t as calm as he appeared.

  “Was that a crazy driver or was he trying to run me over?” I asked.

  Ty gave me a quick squeeze then loosened his hold, although he kept his hands on my upper arms. Either he didn’t want to let me go, which was a very romantic thought, but more likely he wanted to make sure I didn’t fall over on my face. “It looked to me like the bastard was trying to run you over.”