Chet wants her out of here.
Big Poppy thinks she has some serious nerve.
Chester remembers a morning spent enraptured with her.
All three parts of me agree that she needs to leave, but I do another sweep of the room. Malik remains hidden while Louie looks horrified. Dewey and Hunter question me with puzzled eyes. Hugh places his hands on his hips, giving me a look, like What is your problem? Campbell just shakes his head.
How am I in the wrong here?
My mouth opens to ask the question and then snaps shut when Scotia moves. She bows her head at Maura, who smiles sympathetically at our intruder. An unreadable expression fills Scotia’s face. Her shoulders straighten. Her head lifts higher. I witness once again her building a wall around herself, and then she walks out of the room with the grace of a queen and without a single word.
When the front door to the house closes with a soft click and not the slam I’m expecting, I return my sight to the playroom floor, taking in a stunned Dewey and quiet Hunter. Campbell has lowered his head, and Hugh folds his arms over his chest, glaring back at me as fiercely as Scotia can. He almost pulls it off but then I remember his age, and I want to laugh until I look at Louie.
Tears fill his soft eyes, and his lower lip trembles.
“She’s not a good woman,” I say in my defense, my voice weakening as I wonder how they don’t see her judgement, ridicule, and spite. Too quickly, I feel the uncertainty of my words. With them, she was the sweet voice of a woman reading beloved characters. With them, she was a tender touch and soft encouragement. With them, she was clearly someone they all adored.
Louie continues to look up at me, broken and questioning.
“But she’s Mrs. Pickle.” His small voice quivers, and I stare back at him, my brows forming a tight crease of concern.
“She’s . . .” What?
Chapter 8
Hold the Pickles
[Chet]
Finding Scotia was easier than I thought. The hardest part was sucking up my own pride to go to her. Days after kicking her out of Harper House, Louie still hadn’t spoken to me. Dewey could hardly look me in the eye, but Hugh did, with a constant glare of disdain.
“They’ll get over it,” Maura said but even her heart wasn’t in the suggestion. She felt schooled that I’d called out her judgment in allowing someone the likes of Scotia Simmons near the boys. And I felt equally bereft that I might have misunderstood the situation.
“You’re missing the fact that I’m raising five boys, now six, without a partner. Savannah is part-time. Scotia has been a welcome addition to give me support with their homework and the personal attention each boy rightfully deserves,” Maura argued, which made me feel as if I haven’t been available enough for the boys.
In A Pickle is located on the edge of the business district in Green Valley. After the ladies’ night at The Fugitive, I learned Todd’s brother is married to Scotia’s sister, and it didn’t take much to discover more about Scotia, at least on a surface level. Widowed years ago, she used her inheritance to start her own small business focused on fried pickles and pickle-related paraphernalia. This was noted when I opened the door to the small store and read a sign that said: A pickle is a cucumber with experience quoted by someone I don’t recognize.
“May I help you?” The young man entering the front was a decent-looking guy, too nice-looking, which made me feel all creepy for noticing, but he was almost pretty. His dark hair was so gelled in place a tsunami wouldn’t move it. In a dress shirt rolled to his elbows, bright green pants, and fancy leather shoes, he looked like a pickle product. It was weird.
“I’m looking for Mrs. . . . Simmons,” I state, stumbling over calling her Mrs. Pickle like the boys.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“I have an apology.” I stare at Pretty Boy, who artfully lifts one brow. He looks like he should be modeling cologne, not working at a pickle place.
“I’ll see if she’s available.” He looks me up and down, and then adds, “On second thought, she’s available.” He shakes his head as if he knows something I don’t and leads me toward the back of the location. He cuts us short at a staircase, and I follow him up.
As we enter her office, I hear her speaking into her phone from where she’s seated in a swivel chair with her back to her desk and the door. “You would not believe the hair on that woman. It’s as big as her mouth some days.”
Pretty Boy clears his throat, and she spins, eyes narrowing at him for the interruption until she sees me.
“Hazel, I’ve got to go.” Without additional commentary, she hangs up and drops her phone on the desk before her. It’s a large piece of furniture, almost too big for the frame of the woman behind it, but not so large as to cover her sneer at her assistant before speaking to me.
“Mr. Chesterfield, to what do I owe this visit?” She side-eyes Pretty Guy and addresses him. “Make yourself useful and find something to do.” She flicks her hand at him as though she’s shooing away a bug, and I shake my head, wondering if being here is a huge mistake.
Louie’s sad eyes come to mind.
Dammit.
Once her lap boy leaves, she directs me to take a seat on the other side of that big desk. I feel like I’m in the principal’s office or at the bank asking for a loan, the first of which I did many times, and the second of which I only did once. I don’t sit, and she stares up at me over the imposing furniture, crossing her arms on top of it. Like a hawk narrowing in on prey, she’s waiting me out.
“I apologize. The boys would like you to return.”
Still squinting at me, she says, “That’s it?”
“Not sure what else to say?”
“From the moment we’ve met, it’s been one lie after another with you, and this is all you have to say to me?”
“Lie to you?” I chortle. “How did I lie?”
“You are Chester Chesterfield, the renowned Chester Chesterfield with a fortune in oil and a multitude of philanthropy behind your name.”
“That’s not a lie. I am him.”
“But you’re claiming to be Big Poppy, biker bar/motel owner, and living in a school bus.”
“Those things are also true.” I lean forward, bracing my hands on the back of the chair where she suggested I sit.
“Then which one is it? Mr. Chesterfield or Big Poppy?”
“I’m both. And people closest to me call me Chet.” The name is reserved for those I consider most important, like Maura and the boys.
“You cannot be two people, Mr. Chesterfield. Or three.”
“Why not? You are.” A short huff comes from her, and her shoulders visibly flinch. Her fingers tighten together.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she states. I take her in for a minute. Her midnight hair looks a little closer to charcoal ash with that white strip near the right side of her face. Her exotic gray eyes border on black when she’s hell-bent and sparkle silver when she’s not. Her seated position is a pose. She looks regal once again, haughty actually, and I almost laugh. She’s uptight and taking herself too seriously, but damn, is she pretty.
“I know exactly what I’m talking about, Mrs. Pickle. See, I met this woman more than six months ago, and she begged me to have sex with her—”
“I did no such thing,” she interjects.
“Never said it was you,” I say, pausing to let the possibility sink in. “But let me rephrase. The exact words were ‘Doesn’t anyone want to have sex with me?’ And here’s the thing, I did. See, there was this moment when she looked at me with caution but also desire, and my insides got all mixed up. She was sweet, unbuttoned, and eager for my touch. She wanted me, responded to me, and man, she just felt good.” Scotia’s cheeks pinken, but I continue. “She told me she had three desires—her, me, and a bed—and I wanted to give her anything she asked for. Or rather, begged.” I huff, reminding her of how we started. “I couldn’t resist trying to please her for some damn reason, and then
I found it strange when she pleased me.”
“I pleased you?” Her head snaps upward. Her voice is a whisper, swallowing around the words. A faint smile curls her lips, but she rolls them together to fight it.
“But then I see this woman on the street a few months back, and she is ripping apart other women, tearing them down for their lack of pole dancing skills.”
“I did not—”
Funny, I didn’t say it was her. “And then I find her in my bar, and she’s cussing out one of my biker patrons.”
“He started—”
“But the real kicker is when she attacked me in my home.”
“I did not attack you!” she shrieks.
“You insulted my house.”
“It’s a bus!” she bellows.
“We’ve established that, but I live there. It’s my home, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let a woman full of piss and vinegar come into my house and patronize the place where I live, even if she is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Scotia blinks up at me. “You think I’m pretty?” Her voice cracks as her knuckles turn white.
“That’s all you got out of what I said?” I’m flabbergasted. What is with this woman? Does she not hear herself? Does she not know what she says about others? Is everything always about her?
“I’m sorry.”
I stand straighter, surprised by her words. “What are you sorry for?”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have misjudged your bus. It’s a lovely bus.”
“It’s my home,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Yes, fine. Your tiny house is pleasing.”
We stare at one another for a long minute.
“Explain to me how you got to the boys.” I need to know she didn’t dig into Chester Chesterfield’s private affairs. That her being there isn’t about him but to truly help the boys.
“My sister Naomi works at the Green Valley Public Library. She knew I was looking for volunteer work, and Maura had inquired about assistance with homework and activities, like reading to the boys.”
I continue to stare at her. It’s a simple enough explanation, but something still feels off. Then other thoughts occur. She’s a desirable woman in bed. She’s a salty socialite. She’s a foster home volunteer. “You’re just as complicated as I am, Mrs. Pickle.”
Silence falls between us again, and her eyes turn hungry just as they did that morning. I need to learn all her signs. Is she turned on?
“But what I really can’t figure out is why such a powerful woman . . .”—I pause and look around the office—“ . . . needs to ask a man to fuck her?”
I take another glance around the room noting something that looks strangely like a pickle on a stick. It looks like a golden dick. What the hell? “Then again, is that why you have Pretty Boy around?” Maybe she’s into younger men. He’s polished and shiny and perhaps more her type.
“Pretty Boy?” she questions, and I nod toward the door. Her mouth gapes wide before she speaks. “Why I never . . . Gideon is my assistant.”
“He assist you in all means?” I tip up a brow, questioning his purpose. And wondering myself why I’d care if he dipped his dill into her.
She glares at me. The silence that falls between us is thicker than a pickle and just as crisp.
Shoulders back, she states, “I’m a widow. I don’t date.”
“Don’t need to date to have sex,” I tell her.
“I’m not like that,” she says.
“You were with me,” I remind her.
“You were different.”
“Why?” Herein lies the million-dollar question. Why me? “And don’t tell me it was some girly-gossip, peer pressure thing. Why did you really approach me at the bar?”
“You have sorrowful, soulful eyes, and I wanted them to look at me, like maybe you might see me differently, see me for who I am.”
I . . . what? This softens my tense stance but not my retort.
“Lady, I have no idea who you are.” I mean, she’s playing two sides of a fence herself, but I don’t really know who she is or why she’s like this. Why was she sweet inside a hotel room with me, but salt and sass on a sidewalk?
Her shoulders stiffen, and somehow, I recognize this signal. She’s going into mean-girl mode, and I clutch harder at the chairback I’m gripping. I’m not going to like whatever she says next.
“I’m the Fried Pickle Princess. In A Pickle is my wedge of heaven, and it’s time for me to get back to business.” Her hands unclasp, and she lays them flat on the desktop. Slowly, she stands. Something in her demeanor has shifted. She looks at me, but her eyes are different. “I accept your weak apology because I miss the boys and I’d like to see them again.”
“Weak apology,” I mumble under my breath. She has no idea the strength it took to come here and grovel on behalf of those kids, yet it’s still not good enough for her. I know her type. Nothing will ever be good enough for Scotia. And she owes me.
“Where’s my apology?” I question as I pace around the chair before me and stand in front of her desk, pressing the tips of my fingers on the surface. I mirror her position, raising my own barbed wire fence against her.
“For wh—” She stops herself short, hopefully recalling the other day when she brushed me aside despite trying to help her at the auto shop. Her gaze lowers for the surface of her desk, and I’d like to think she’s chagrined, but a live fish has a better chance against a hungry grizzly bear than I do of getting her to admit she was ungrateful.
Taking a deep breath, I move onto another topic. “Funny that the pickle princess is so desperate for dick. That why you surround yourself with a phallic-looking vegetable?”
“Technically, pickles are a fruit because of the seeds on the inside of the meat, but your reasoning for my interest is offensive.”
Her eyes dilate as though she’s taken a hit of something sweet, something strong, something sending her into an abyss, and I wonder again if she’s getting turned on because, for some reason, I am.
“Shocker. Scotia is offended by something.” My heart hammers. My blood pumps faster. My dick rises, matching the phallic symbols around us. She leans against her desk, mimicking my stance, and I notice the hint of cleavage in the opening of her blouse. I’ve had those breasts in my mouth. I’ve nipped those nipples. I’ve had her begging me for more.
“I’ll have you know my interest in pickles is because my late husband hated them.”
“He hated pickles?” My eyes leap up to hers, tugging away from those tempting tits.
“He hated phallic symbols.”
He . . . “What?”
“He . . . Never you mind. Just leave. You said your piece. Now get out and let me return to work.”
There is no way I’m leaving yet. I have got to know more here. Besides, my own phallus is ripe and ready for peppering.
“To work with penis imposters.”
“Yes. No. With the pickles—”
“Which you like to coat in special sauce?” I make a motion with my hand, jerking up and down an imaginary cylinder object, and man, that is a bad move because I want her hands on my cylinder, working me up.
“Well, no, not exactly . . .” Her chest heaves, and that blouse opens a bit, spreading the material to give me a better view of her breasts.
“Because you like to play with dick,” I tease.
“I beg your pardon,” she retorts, turning bright red and leaning further toward me.
“Remember, you don’t have to beg with me, darlin’.” I pause to let the words sink in until her widened eyes display her recollection of our first meeting. “If I offered to let you work with mine again, would you deny me?”
“I . . .” Her breath catches. That swell of breast appears. I’m so hard I’m ready to burst, and I need a taste of those lips, hanging open and softly panting.
“Desk sex?” I say, lowering my voice in suggestion.
“I never . . .”
I lean across t
he desk, curl my fingers into her silky blouse, and gently drag her to me. My mouth crashes against hers, lashing her with my tongue. She quickly responds, matching the eagerness of this kiss until she’s on the move, climbing up on the desk to her knees and scooting over the surface to press up against me. Her arms circle my neck, and I tug her to my chest with my fingers hooked in her blouse.
“You’re a vile man,” she says against my lips, but her bark has lost all its bite.
“But you want me,” I counter, assured by the eagerness of her mouth on mine.
“God yes,” she whimpers. She wants me badly—phallus parts and all. Her fingers delve into my hair as mine scrunch up the material of her shirt. A button pops off her blouse, exposing those luscious breasts to my hands, and I flatten my palm over her racing heart. I like laying my skin against hers. She feels real to me when I touch her.
My other hand slips around to her ass, cupping a firm globe and tugging her tighter to me. She’s still on her knees, leaning over to kiss me. Continuing to kiss her, I step back, so she can swing her legs over the edge of the desk. Something falls to the floor, scattering over the carpet.
“Really want to do this here?” I say to her, slipping my hand to her knee, and then working it under her skirt. More skin. More touch. The hand on her chest slips to the back of her neck, bringing her mouth back to mine while my fingers massage up her thigh. I can’t get enough of her.
“Yes,” she whimpers again, without removing her lips from mine. Her fingers fist in the front of my shirt, holding me to her while her other hand is buried in my hair, cupping my head.
I tug at the scrap of fabric under her skirt, discovering the material flimsy like the pair I found in her glove compartment. This woman likes pretty, lacy underthings. I easily brush the soaked strip aside to get my fingers where I want them to go. My thick fingertip circles her briefly before I thrust my index finger inside her.
Her mouth breaks from mine as her head tips back, and her fingers loosen on my shirt. She’s still holding me, but she’s falling into me, loving my touch.
Love in a Pickle: A Silver Fox Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 9) Page 7