“Excuse me.” Without looking, I feel the loss of him as he walks away. Then I take a deep breath as though I hadn’t been able to breathe in his presence, and the scent of something crisp and fresh fills my nostrils.
Warm. Grassy. Lemony. Neat.
My heart gallops faster. My breathing grows shallow.
“What did you say his name was?” I shakily address Naomi, whose eyes narrow.
“Big Poppy. It’s a little strange to call him that, but I don’t know his real name. Everyone refers to him as Big Poppy. Are you okay?”
Spinning in my seat, I grip the back of the wooden chair. My gaze follows the movement of the large man as his body circles behind the bar, and he slaps Todd Ryder on the back. I can’t pull my eyes away from him.
Something’s familiar about him.
But it can’t be who I think it is.
Something’s recognizable in his size.
But he would never be here.
Something’s intoxicating about his scent.
My eyes squint, tugging at my memory.
The pleasant scent. The size of him. The beard and hair are the confusing part. The man in my memory didn’t have such fullness to either, but the way he saunters more than strolls triggers me. He pauses at the entrance to the pool hall and turns back to the bar, his stature resting in profile. With his hands cupping the edge of the wall, marking the entry to the pool room, he glances over his shoulder at me, and the unfamiliar registers as all too familiar. His position reminds me of a hotel wall and a man ready to leave my room. In under a minute, this man disappears, just like the man from that night.
Or rather, early morning.
“Sweet Jesus,” I mutter in disbelief. “It can’t be.”
I stand without thinking. My hand grips the back of the chair to steady me at first, willing me to still, but my heart thunders, propelling my legs forward.
“Scotia?” Beverly calls out, her voice sounding far away. Ignoring my sister, I take a step forward, my eyes catching on an image of blackbirds on the wall.
“Three crows, I see. Good luck to me.”
“You want to be three crows?” Naomi questions, and I wonder if my sister’s hocus-pocus beliefs include reading minds.
I want good luck. I want someone to belong to me, I recall telling him. Memories of tangled sheets, deep kisses, and racing hearts flood me as I cross the bar, enter the pool hall, and note an emergency door in the back corner. The loud crash of it closing vibrates around the room.
Tell me three things, he said.
You. Me. A bed. I’d never been so bold.
Well, he replied, good things happen in threes.
Chapter 5
Bus rules
[Chet]
“Chester?”
I ignore the soft call of my formal name in the darkness of the night. The tone is that of a woman I recall in fantasy but who doesn’t exist in reality. This voice is the woman who settled under me, giving in to me and pleading with me not to stop what I’d started with her body.
This is not the tone of a woman standing on a sidewalk tearing others down.
I round my home located behind The Fugitive and stand against the side, catching my breath for a second. My heart thumps because Scotia is in my bar—my bar, my space—and she was mouthing off to Herbie, of all people. Harmless as a hedgehog, he’s still a biker and a man with friends in the wrong places.
Jesus, she has no boundaries.
Waiting out the silence in the woods, I determine she’s returned inside the bar, unwilling to venture into the dark around it. She shouldn’t wander around my place.
No longer hearing sounds other than those familiar in the night, I enter my home.
Ten seconds later, a knock comes to the door.
My heart races again as I swing open the door and find Scotia standing at the base of the steps. There isn’t much space on the narrow stairs inside the door, and I tower over her as she looks up at me with questioning gray eyes. Without thinking, I step back, and she takes the three steep steps upward. I walk farther into my home, keeping several feet of distance between us.
She called out a name I rarely hear. Maybe I misheard it echoing in the night air. Maybe I’ve been wishing someone had said it again in a voice soft with yearning.
Does she remember Chester Chesterfield? Does she think about last March?
Her gaze wanders around the tight space, taking in the dinette table with booth seats and the kitchenette area complete with miniature appliances. My large body blocks her vision of the back, which includes a bathroom and a bed.
“Do you live here?” she questions without the formality of a greeting or re-introduction. Her tone returns to the haughty woman on the street, and instantly, my hackles rise. I shouldn’t have opened the door, and I damn well should not have let her into my home.
You should have never slept with her.
But she’s so pretty despite the sneer of her mouth. Those dark locks with that distinguishing white strip, those silvery eyes like polished metal, and those kissable red lips that were all over my body once.
“You shouldn’t be wandering around in the dark,” I snap, noting the blackness outside the windows.
“You were,” she reminds me. This is my land, though, and I’m familiar with it, which reminds me . . .
“You shouldn’t enter the home of a stranger.”
Her head tips at my warning, chin held higher.
“But we aren’t strangers. You’re Chester Chesterfield.” For some reason, I don’t confirm her statement. We stare at one another. Her eyes soften and the hesitation I recall from that morning appears in them. I give her a long moment to assess me—taking in my eyes, looking at my beard, roaming down my belly, and stopping at my zipper. If nothing triggers her memory that she’s familiar with this body, I don’t need to remind her who I am, especially as I shy away from being recognized, identified, or publicized as Chester Chesterfield.
“Name’s Big Poppy,” I say. Chester Chesterfield feels like another lifetime and the persona of a man I don’t really know how to be. At first, I’d strived for all I have as him. Riches. Wealth. Property. I had one reason for that drive, and then that reason didn’t want Chester Chesterfield. So I dumped him. Unfortunately, my legal name is on my assets, and on rare occasions, Chester Chesterfield returns.
“Big. Poppy,” she repeats slowly, feeling out the name on her tongue. Davis gave me the name once we stole our first motorcycles. Riding my bike is the one thing that hasn’t changed, even when I’ve tried to eradicate everything else from my past. My bike is a part of my soul, and my buddies are like family, so the name stuck.
Her head shakes in either disbelief or confusion. “And you live here?” Censure rests in her tone, and I recall her voice from a few weeks back.
“Are you judging me?”
“It’s a bus,” she states, gazing over everything once again as if she still can’t believe it.
“You’re observant,” I snark, pride pinching as she recognizes the vehicle but not me. She didn’t see me under the thick beard and reckless hair. I’m the same guy who looked into her vulnerable eyes and gave her what she asked of me. Yet she stands before me, not seeing me.
It’s definitely for the best, I decide.
She is bitter and briny.
So why does her opinion bother me?
“No, I mean, it’s a school bus.”
“Brilliant again,” I mutter. Her genius declaration states the obvious. My home is a school bus—a bus converted into a tiny house. With floors that look like hardwood and vertical pine boards on the walls, the space includes a built-in loveseat, booth seating, and modern conveniences for a micro-kitchen. The entire width of the back is one giant bed. The irony in this tiny house is I’m a big man. The other irony is, I learned my lesson. I don’t need large material assets to be the man I want to be.
Her eyes narrow on me, and she shakes her head as if she’s come to some sort of understanding with
herself. “Yes, of course. You couldn’t be who I thought you were.”
“You thought I was this Chester dude?” I question, wondering why I’m egging her on and not kicking her ass out. Or telling her the truth.
Because you kind of liked her ass when you had it in your hands, holding her in place to dive deeper into her.
Because deep down, you don’t want her to be a judgmental Judy. You want the woman who was sweet on you for one morning.
And you want her to want you as you are.
“Yes, Chester Chesterfield.” Her voice turns dreamy on the name.
“And you know him how?”
“Are you kidding me?” She pauses, glaring at me before turning to stare out the side windows. Then her demeanor shifts. She stands taller, glancing around the space once again. Her nose wrinkles as though she smells something rotten. “So that’s how you want to play it?”
“What do you really know about him?” I question next, not letting it go that she claims to know him—me—when she clearly doesn’t.
With her head held upright and her neck elongated, I expect another voice shift, and I’m not disappointed when she goes into haughty-heiress mode. “He’s a respected and esteemed citizen of Tennessee worth millions of dollars, which he generously donates to causes all over the state.”
He sounds like a tool, I want to retort. It also sounds as though she’s reading a LinkedIn profile, and I almost laugh.
What causes? How many millions? What do you mean respected and esteemed?
Could you see past all that and still want to be with me?
My guess is she knows all the answers to my first line of questions, and it’s all the more reason not to bother with the second. I don’t need some greedy woman after my millions nor do I need her finding out my biggest cause. She probably eats children for breakfast. She’d definitely hate the ones I help. The underprivileged. The forgotten. The left behind. She’s the type who considers those kids beneath her. Not salt of the earth, just salty.
They represent who I once was.
So screw her.
“He sounds like an asshole,” I say, arms still crossed over my chest as I narrow my gaze at her.
“He isn’t,” she defends, sounding like Louie when he argues with Hunter. Her arms fall to her sides, fingers fisting. Her brows pinch, puzzled. “Or at least, I didn’t think he was. He was tender and sweet. Noble. . . and generous.”
Somehow, I don’t think we’re talking about donations anymore but something else. Consummation. The Chester in her head gave her orgasms—generously—and he tried to be kind and delicate, sensing that was what she needed.
“I’m going to be so deep inside you, you’ll feel me for weeks.”
Did she? Did what we did haunt her like it haunted me?
She can’t see past the Chester in her head, though, to realize I’m actually standing before her.
Her head tilts as she takes in my attire and my appearance once again. “I liked him.” She wrinkles her nose as if to say, You, not so much.
My dick recognizes the softening of her tone, but it will not be allowed out to play with her. Her sidewalk show and her school bus disdain are reminders that she is not the same person I had passionate sex with months ago. Her true colors are showing, and they aren’t as pretty as her face.
“Sounds like a putz,” I say because that’s what I am, or he is, or we are . . . whatever . . . by letting this woman get to me.
“He’s not a putz.”
“Right, because he’s a millionaire who’s kind and generous,” I mock. Because who would give away most of his millions to support others in need? Don’t know a guy like that. Nope. Not at all.
Her eyes roam my body once more, tripping down my chest and landing on my thick thighs, which I flex in my jeans. She flinches. Does she remember those legs between her own? Does she recall the power in them to move her at will? Does she want to tangle her legs with them again?
Her stuck-up attitude tells me probably not.
“You didn’t call.” Her gaze lowers to the floor and her voice drops so quiet I’m not certain I’ve heard her correctly.
“You mean that Chester fella didn’t call.” Hurt instantly crosses her face and then a mask falls into place. She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t know me. She wants a part of him, but he isn’t going down that path again.
Any woman I allow close to me will know all of me and accept every slice and sliver or she wouldn’t get near my heart. And as this woman isn’t going to get that close, I don’t have to worry.
“I see I’ve made a grave mistake,” she says, stiffening her shoulders and her voice as she lifts her head. “I apologize.” If shutters could slam shut on her expression, they just did. Her apology carries not one drop of sincerity, and without further words, she turns and walks to the door I left open. Her feet stomp down the bus steps, and then I hear the thud of them on the earth outside.
Because I’m not a total ass, I quietly follow her, making certain she re-enters the bar. She shouldn’t be wandering around in the dark, even if only a hundred feet rests from my door to the building. Scotia Simmons could be a cold fish, and even a bear wouldn’t mess with her, but I still want her to be safe.
I want to take care of her which is the most asinine thought I’ve ever had.
Chapter 6
Men-struation is Women’s Frustration
[Scotia]
A few days later, I’m still reeling from my encounter with one Big Poppy, who looked like Chester Chesterfield. They just could not be the same person.
Chester was cleanly trimmed with slicked-back hair and wore a tuxedo.
Big Poppy’s beard was obnoxious and his locks unruly. He wore dark jeans with a hole in the knee like a wayward teenager, and his shirt was a size too small for his large stature. On display were thick arms that could wrap around me and tug me upward as he thrust into me, filling me, moving me like a plaything.
Of course, Big Poppy did not do those things with me.
So full, I cried to Chester Chesterfield. He’s the one who made me feel as though I’d never been so complete. He’s the one who kissed me like he needed me to breathe. He’s the one who touched me like I was a tender flower. I felt every part of him inside me, and I wondered even more how I’d put up with Karl all those years.
You know why you did it, I remind myself.
Why had I asked that man about calling me? That had not been the plan. We were one night. Or rather one morning. Still, he’d been on my mind. Had I been on his?
The way he reacted he didn’t want to be recognized by me. He didn’t want to recall what we’d done. He was so different, and I’d misjudged him. As in, he was not who I thought he was.
He was not Chester Chesterfield.
Chester would never live in a converted bus—a school bus!—even under the disguise of pretty, modern, real estate terms like ‘tiny house’. Honestly, who comes up with these names to glorify things?
A pickle is a pickle.
Then again, there is a difference. Genuine dill. Kosher dill. Sweet. Bread and butter. Gherkin.
This all reminds me I need to speak with Gideon and follow up on the delivery mishap from the other day, and I dismiss my aimless thoughts of Big Poppy or Chester. I’m on my way to take my SUV in for an oil change. I’m not feeling so great, though, so this is the last thing I want to do today.
Womanly issues, Karl politely called it.
Some days, it sucks being female and getting older. To put that in pretty terms, I’m menstruating in a peri-menopausal way. Oh, who am I kidding? There’s no fluffy way to state what’s happening to my body as I near fifty. I’m only forty-eight, but still, my female organs can just quit. They’ve already served their purpose, and that objective set sail a long, long time ago. Even though the doctor recently told me I could still conceive, I’m done. I almost fell off the exam table with that news.
Besides you need a man to fill the cruise ship.
“Dear
God,” I mutter as I drive to Winston Auto. I’ve lost my mind, comparing my body to a giant sea vessel. Is this another sign of peri-menopause nonsense? The time before the actual time. I just want this business over, especially as the cramps seem to have grown more painful in the past year and the flow heavier, and there’s just no way to decorate that description.
I’m hit with a whammy of a spasm as I pull up to the auto shop, deciding I need a bathroom stat and something strong enough to rid me of the unnerving pain. I really should have rescheduled.
After I enter the service dock as directed, I park. I turn off the ignition, leave the fob in the cup holder, and open the door. I step out the driver’s side.
And freeze.
Unbearable pain grips me, and my body expels something I don’t even want to consider. I shiver with chills and tremble uncontrollably. Gripping the open door’s edge and reaching for the headrest of the driver’s seat, I bend forward and just know without looking that something is trickling down my leg—something red and obvious.
And I’m mortified.
“What can I do for you today, Mrs. Simmons?”
My eyes close. Please don’t let it be that awful Shelly Sullivan. She’s so strange, and the past few times I’ve been here, we’ve had words.
Then again, she is female, and I don’t want one of those Winston boys assisting me. Swallowing all my pride, knowing I can’t step away from this vehicle without giving away what’s happened to me, I do something I’ve never ever done before.
“Please help me.” My voice cracks as tears I didn’t know existed trickle down my face.
Her quiet pause tells me she’s caught off guard by my distress, or perhaps it’s the awkwardness of my position. Maybe it’s just that she really doesn’t like me, and I’ve never cared so much about another’s opinion as I do at this moment. I shake off my concern and slip my hand to the seat of my SUV.
“Just get me some paper towels,” I snap, ducking my head inside my vehicle. I don’t even want to see the evidence on my own leg, and as I’m wearing a skirt, I’m certain things appear unsightly.
Love in a Pickle: A Silver Fox Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 9) Page 5