by Toni Blake
With her arms still around his neck, she drew back slightly into the pillows, lowering her chin and narrowing her gaze critically. “Is that your way of asking me on a date?”
He shrugged. Since he hadn’t thought this through, he didn’t know the answer. “Guess you can call it that if you want.”
At this, Rachel released him from her grasp entirely and crossed her arms. “I don’t want. And…I don’t think so.” She shook her head, as if making the decision final.
He made a face. “Damn, Farris, am I that bad?” Because, despite all the negative stuff between them, her refusal surprised him. Since they’d discovered there were some ways in which they got along very well.
“Well, you certainly know how to take a girl’s mind off her troubles, but…” She shook her head against the pillows. “We really can’t keep going like this. And it would be too weird to be a Farris at a Romo family event. They might throw food at me or something.”
Mike laughed at her theatrics. “Not likely. It’s my grandmother’s birthday. And don’t worry—I’ll protect you.”
Their eyes met—and for a second, he thought she was considering it. Until she said, “Still…no. I know we’ve managed to put our differences aside long enough to fool around, but other than that, we can barely tolerate each other. And besides, I still don’t like you trying to steal the orchard from Edna.”
Huh. Fine then. Who cared anyway? And it was probably for the best. He simply shrugged once more and said, “Your loss.”
The words made her eyebrows shoot up. “How so?”
Wasn’t it obvious? He let a slow grin unfurl. “I might have shown you some more outrageous again.”
Rachel’s face first registered contempt, then took on an expression that told him maybe that didn’t sound like such a bad idea—when they both heard a soft stirring elsewhere in the little house. “Edna!” she whispered.
“We’re good,” Mike said softly, trying to calm her back down. “You’re all zipped up.”
Which made her bite her lip and look all dreamy again, like maybe he’d reminded her how recently she’d been unzipped and why. And damn, that didn’t help the strain behind his zipper one bit—but he still liked knowing the mere memory could re-excite her that fast.
As he pushed to his feet, he hoped his erection didn’t show—hell, that was what had started this whole thing and sent him into the orchard, so it seemed ironic that he found himself in exactly the same position he’d been trying to avoid: facing Rachel’s grandma while sporting a stiffy. He simply shook his head. What was the world coming to when he couldn’t rein in his lust any better than this?
Just then, a door opened somewhere nearby and seconds later, Edna came toddling into the room. “Oh—Mike. Ya damn near scared the wits outta me.” Then she reached up to touch her hair. “I just woke up, so I probably look like Halloween came early.”
“Sorry, Edna,” he said.
That’s when her gaze dropped to Rachel, stretched out on the couch with her foot propped up under the bag of peas. “Uh-oh. What happened to you?”
“Fell,” she said. Then she hiked a thumb in his direction. “His fault.”
Edna’s brow knit, first as she walked over and lifted the peas to study Rachel’s ankle, then as she peered toward Mike.
It seemed to Mike like a good time to remind Edna she liked him better than most Romos, so he said, “I just stopped by to check in on you. I know it’s harvest season and you’ve got a couple helpers, but if there’s anything else you need, let me know.”
Mike watched the wrinkles on Edna’s face shift slightly as a small smile unfolded there. “You’re sly, Mike,” she said, shaking a finger at him. “If I were to take your help, it might just obligate me to you.”
He lifted his hands as if in surrender. “No such thing, Edna. I’m just trying to be neighborly and put the feud in the past.”
Which caused a loud harrumph to rise from the couch. When he glanced down, Rachel’s arms were crossed again. “You sure haven’t put it in the past with me.”
He couldn’t help giving her a pointed look—part disbelief, part amusement. “Come on now—you and I have been getting along a little better lately, haven’t we?”
She met his gaze and he knew they were both back to the concession stand again.
“Even just a little while ago,” he reminded her. “I thought I was very nice to you.”
Her eyes narrowed into thin slits as if to say Shut up. But he saw heat in that blue gaze, too. “I…guess,” she finally said.
So he turned back to Edna. “Like I was saying—before I was so rudely interrupted—let me know if you need anything. It’s an honest offer, Edna—no strings attached, okay?”
Edna’s arms were crossed now, as well, as she eyed him warily—and he began to feel a little ganged up on by Farris women…until she finally relaxed her stance to say, “We’re doin’ okay so far, but I’ll keep it in mind. And thanks for stoppin’ in—despite what Rachel here thinks, I reckon you mean well.”
“I do,” he said, then glanced back to the belligerent girl on the couch. “As for you, stay off that ankle. And remember, veggies on, veggies off.”
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes.
“I’m pretty sure you mean, ‘Thanks, Mike, for nearly breaking your back carrying me in from the orchard,’ but that’s okay.” Then he shifted his gaze back to her grandma. “Take care of yourself and Miss Mean Jeans there, Edna. See ya soon.”
Rachel watched as Mike disappeared through the dining room, headed toward the back door. Then she sat up, reached down, and removed her peas—surely fifteen minutes had passed, probably more.
“You two have the hots for each other, don’t ya?” Edna asked.
“What?” Rachel exploded, outraged. Mainly because she had no idea how Edna could tell. Damned old mind-reading woman. “Are you crazy?”
“No, just observant.”
Rachel flashed a look of disbelief, then recrossed her arms. “And just what is it you think you observed?”
“You bein’ ornery to a good lookin’ fella who was tryin’ to take care of ya, for one thing.”
Rachel shrugged. “Like I need somebody to take care of me,” she grumbled. Then blinked, remembering. “Okay, yes, I did need someone to carry me in the house, but I’m here now, and I have you if I need help, so no big deal.”
“Don’t sell short a man who’ll take care of ya—it might be worth more than ya think.”
Rachel didn’t know what Edna meant by that, so she simply rolled her eyes and scooched around on the couch to get more comfortable—and tried to forget she’d let Mike Romo put his hand down her pants a few short minutes ago. How had that happened?
“My other clue,” Edna went on, “was that I don’t believe Mike generally wears his jeans that tight. He must have quite a trouser snake for it to make such a big difference in the fit of his jeans.”
Rachel’s jaw dropped as she stared at her grandmother in utter shock. “Quite a what?”
And Edna just looked at her as if she were thick-headed. “A penis, girl, I’m talkin’ about his penis. He must have a pretty nice one for it to make his jeans so tight when he’s excited. The same was true of his grandpa,” she mused, growing instantly more lighthearted. Then she lifted one finger in the air. “Now that, I gotta say, is one good thing about the Romos.”
A few days later, on a crisp September Saturday, Rachel meandered through Creekside Park with Tessa and Amy. All the girls were casually dressed in jeans and gym shoes. Although Rachel generally reserved such shoes for manual labor or exercise, her friends had convinced her it only made sense.
“We’re going to the park, not a fashion show,” Tessa had pointed out when she and Amy arrived at Edna’s to pick her up.
“And you’re just getting over a twisted ankle,” Amy reminded her.
Yet she topped the outfit with a comfy soft pink zip-up hoody she seldom wore but which suddenly struck her as cheerful. Since she h
ad to like something she was wearing, fashion show or not. She couldn’t help it—she considered her clothing a reflection of herself.
“You’re not even limping,” Amy said with surprise as they crossed the grass, shuffling through the first autumn leaves scattering the ground. Hints of gold and orange tinted the trees billowing above them.
“I’m lucky it healed so quickly,” Rachel replied, nodding. “I stayed off it for a couple of days, and since then it’s been fine. I even got back out in the orchard with Edna yesterday. Which is important.”
“Because the sooner all the apples are picked, the sooner you can leave,” Amy said glumly.
“No, Miss Sad Sack,” Rachel corrected her, stuffing her hands in the pockets on her hoody. “I’m stuck here until the apple festival anyway, so it’s more a matter of…making sure Edna doesn’t push herself too hard.”
“So did you ever figure out if she was faking her ailment?” Tessa asked.
“Not really,” Rachel replied. “But either way, she’s getting older, and as much as I don’t like to see it, she’s not as spry as she used to be.”
Walking along the split-rail fence that lined this stretch of Sugar Creek, Rachel could hear the water cascading over the rocks below, and it reminded her of Edna’s sexual encounter with Giovanni Romo—somewhere just across the creek, in the orchard. It probably seemed to Edna like it had happened just yesterday, and yet look how many years had passed. And though Rachel still didn’t know the whole story, it made her a little sad to realize that whatever had happened, later in life Edna had ended up by herself. She’d never thought much about that until lately, because her grandmother had always seemed so capable and independent—but who really wanted to end up alone?
Apparently, me. Or that’s what her plan in life called for anyway, now that she thought about it. She’d just never seriously looked that far down the path, to old age and what it might be like. The strange insight made her chest tighten slightly.
“So how’d you fall off the ladder anyway?” Amy asked.
Oh. She hadn’t told them that part yet. “It was Officer Romeo’s fault,” she explained as they continued following a paved, twisting path along the creek bank. Then she proceeded to share the whole story, from the embarrassing start to the painful middle to the orgasmic conclusion.
The last of which left poor Amy blushing madly.
“Yeah, I was shocked, too,” Rachel said. “That I let it happen. I certainly had no intention of it, and I tried to stop, I really did.” Then she bit her lip. “The thing that shocked me even more, though, was that he was so…selfless. Sexually, I mean.”
But next to her, Tessa shook her head. “It wasn’t selfless,” she insisted. “He just got off on…you know, getting you excited. That makes some guys feel all hot and powerful.”
Rachel simply lifted her gaze. “I still say I got the better deal.”
And they all laughed. And Rachel couldn’t deny how nice it was just spending a lazy, breezy Saturday afternoon with her best friends. She’d felt bad leaving Edna with the day-trippers, but she had Brian Cahill with her, and she’d insisted, afraid Rachel would end up rushing around on her ankle.
As for Mike, even if Tessa was right and it was just another power trip for him, it still caught her off guard. He’d struck her as a man who would be all about his own satisfaction when it came to something like sex—yet in the concession stand, and again at Edna’s, he’d surprised her. And if he was a guy who took pleasure in her pleasure—well, she could only see that as a win/ win situation.
A few minutes later, the girls had wandered to an empty playground, settling onto a row of wooden swings. As Rachel gently scraped the toes of her shoes through the sandy dirt beneath her, she remembered: “I didn’t tell you guys the rest of the story, about when I fell.”
Tessa shoved a windblown lock of brown hair behind one ear. “Good God, there’s more?”
“Not about Romo—about Edna,” Rachel explained. Then she told them what Edna had said after Mike had left. It was one thing to have Edna regale her with the story of losing her virginity, but…“When did she start thinking it’s okay to talk about penises with me?” she asked as they departed the play area, strolling through more swirling leaves toward the pretty white gazebo in the center of the park.
Amy pointed out, “You talk about penises with us. Sometimes.” Then she added, “Sometimes more than we’d prefer.”
As they settled on the gazebo steps, Rachel shot her a look. “Are you saying you don’t want to hear about Mike Romo’s penis? Fine—I can cease and desist with all details right now.”
But Tessa held up her hands in a stopping motion. “Wait a minute. I, for one, am interested in penises. I haven’t seen one in quite a while, after all.” Soon after Rachel’s return, Tessa had confided that she hadn’t had sex in a few years.
“It’s this town,” Rachel told her, happy to blame Tessa’s lack of a love life on Destiny. “You came back here and haven’t had sex since then, am I right?”
“True,” Tessa conceded. “But you, on the other hand, came back here and had sex in record time.”
Hmm. Oh. “Good point.” Which firmly negated the Destiny-is-death-to-your-sex-life theory. “But I definitely didn’t plan it that way.”
Tessa let out a teasing, long-suffering sigh. “Sure, the girl who needs some fun and romance in her life can’t get any, while the girl who always has lots of fun is getting still more. Figures.”
Although Rachel only scrunched her nose in reply. “I’m not sure Mike Romo qualifies as fun. Exactly. I’m not sure what he qualifies as.”
“Sounds pretty fun to me,” Tessa replied. “Although…what happened to it being a one-time thing?”
“Yeah, I was wondering that, too.” Rachel bit her lip. “But it’s definitely over now. He kind of…asked me out, and I said no.”
And they both glared at her, as if she’d done something heinous.
“What?” she asked, taken aback. “Look, it’s bad enough I’m in Destiny, period—no way am I getting involved in some small town affair. It’s just…not me. And besides, the date was to a family thing, a Romo family thing. And it was hardly a romantic invitation. So I turned him down. I mean, I didn’t want him to think I actually…like him or anything.”
Tessa rolled her eyes. “How very sixth grade of you.”
“Well, since when do we like him?” Rachel argued. “He was mean to your Aunt Alice, remember?”
“Whatever,” Tessa said. “So he’s mean when he pulls people over. Some things are more important.”
“Like sex?”
Tessa just widened her eyes as if to say a resounding yes.
Just then, someone yelled, “Hey Freckles—heads up!” And Rachel raised her eyes in time to see Amy leap from where she sat on the steps to catch a football—which sent Rachel and Tessa ducking for cover.
When she decided the danger was over, Rachel looked up to see Logan Whitaker walking toward them in an orange Cincinnati Bengals jersey, complete with tiger stripes on the sleeves. More importantly, behind him came Mike Romo, wearing a Steelers jersey, along with another guy in a red hooded sweatshirt sporting an Ohio State emblem.
As usual, just seeing Mike sent a chill fluttering through her, but she tried to tell herself it was the brisk fall air. As he approached, she sort of found herself wishing she hadn’t just finished telling Amy and Tessa about what had happened on the couch—she felt like they were thinking about it now. She knew she certainly was. The only question remaining: Was Mike thinking about it, too?
“What’s up, ladies?” Logan asked with a sexy grin that might actually have made Rachel a little hot for him if she wasn’t already struggling with so many bizarre emotions for his best friend.
“Just hanging out,” Amy replied. Then she pointed toward the guy in red. “Rachel, you remember Adam Becker, right? From high school?”
Oh, wow, that was Adam? She hadn’t realized at first—too busy obsessing over Mik
e—but the one-time prom king and Bulldogs quarterback looked as handsome now as he had then, even if a little more rugged. “Of course,” she said, still seated on the steps with Tessa. “It’s nice to see you, Adam.”
“You, too, Rachel,” he replied with a winning smile. “Welcome back to Destiny—the place has been quiet without you.”
She returned the smile, appreciating the comment.
And was she imagining things, or did Romo actually look…a little jealous? Hmm…Despite herself, she liked the idea of that. And couldn’t stop herself from doing something to egg it on a little. “I hear from Amy that you’re in landscaping—all that outdoor work must be good for you, since you look great.”
Adam grinned, and she thought she saw Mike’s chest heave, like he was trying to keep himself in check. “Thanks,” Adam said. “You’re looking fine yourself.”
“How’s that ankle, Farris?” Officer Romeo cut in, stern as ever.
She casually shifted her gaze to him. “Fine now, thanks.”
“Good. I didn’t want to hear you complain about it.”
Okay, whatever. Maybe he wasn’t thinking about the couch. But she still thought he was jealous. Not that she knew why she cared. She’d turned down his stupid invitation, after all, committed to keeping this what it was: a weird sexual thing. But wait, that didn’t sound very nice. Okay, a hot sexual thing. Which, like she’d told her friends, was over now anyway. Because hot didn’t override the fact that he was still a Romo who wanted the Farris Family Apple Orchard. And sex with him, no matter how good, still felt like a strange betrayal of some kind. Not a Romo/Farris kind of betrayal, though, she realized suddenly—but more a betrayal to…herself.
Because this wasn’t her—this small town life, this small town guy. It just didn’t fit with who she’d become. And even if she loved Edna and her friends here, she’d worked hard to leave everything small town about herself behind.
Whoa. It was startling to suddenly realize her reasons for stopping things with him had to do with something much deeper inside her than a family feud or all the things she didn’t like about him—that it actually had to do with her. And it even made her feel a little…guilty, for maybe being arrogant, or “too good” for Destiny. But it wasn’t arrogance, she realized. It was just…not wanting to go backward in life.