“It was ruled inconclusive. The investigation found evidence of candles in their bedroom and a diffuser in an electrical outlet. I can’t comprehend how either small item could have started such a blaze. A fire from such a thing should have been detected.” I recall the investigator on the scene telling me it happens. Poor building materials. Perhaps a blaze burning hot and fast. People can easily be trapped. “They’d been sleeping when it happened. How do you not wake up from the scent of smoke?”
I sniff the air. The smell of the bonfire reaches my nostrils from yards away and the scent burns. I suddenly feel nauseous. “It woke a seven-year-old kid, but not Davis and his wife? I’ll never understand.” My voice lowers, my head shaking. To this day, I still don’t believe it.
“Why didn’t Hugh call 911?”
“He was only seven. He didn’t have a cell phone.”
“What about neighbors?” she softly prods.
“The boys’ home was in the woods, and they were separated from others by quite a distance. Eventually, one night-owl neighbor noticed the flames.” Davis’s house comes to mind. He was so proud of his home.
“My first real home,” he said, bringing to mind for both of us that we’d grown up in other people’s houses and then shit trailers and apartments. I’d built a house for someone, but I’ve never lived in it.
“It wasn’t at Harper House?” she questions, noticing my mention of a separate home.
“No, that house is mine. Theirs was burned beyond repair.”
Scotia’s breath hitches. “Those poor babies,” she whispers, her gaze shifting to the wobbling flames of the bonfire. “Your poor friends.”
Seven years later, and I’m still questioning how a simple candle, or a small diffuser, could burn down a house and kill two adults sleeping in bed, but I’ll never have answers. Harper didn’t have an enemy in the world, but Davis did. We both did. When they met at The Fugitive, he was concerned his dirt would find her, but she convinced him it would never matter. She loved him. And Davis loved her, and those boys.
“So Harper House . . .” Scotia pauses, and I close my eyes for a second. I don’t look at her when my lids open again. My vision aims at the flaming pyramid, but it blurs before me.
“I named the house after their mother, so they’d never forget her.”
“You gave them your house. That’s why you live in a bus.” Her tone drops. The wheels are spinning in her head. Not the damn bus again. “You’re a hero.”
“Hugh’s a hero. I’ll never measure up to that kid.” I’ll never measure up to any of them. Not my best friend, who took me under his protection at the last foster home I lived in. Not his beautiful wife, who loved him no matter what his past held. Their son, who fights for a good cause. Their other son, who’s so smart I can’t keep up, or the infant child Hugh saved, who has the biggest heart. I’m not worthy of any of them.
I toss my beer bottle in the recycling bin near the cooler, listening to the crash of glass on glass and stalk off into the darkness, needing to pull myself away from the nasty memories.
Chapter 13
Something Hotter than Flames
[Scotia]
I give Chester a five-second head start before I follow him. My heart bleeds for him after hearing the story he’s told me. This big, beautiful man—his heartbreak is so huge.
We move away from the crackle and snap of the fire and into silent darkness. The loud crunch of my wellies on gravel echoes in the night. My sister’s farm has been restored now that she owns it outright and shares the land with Jedd. He’s built a horse barn on the property, and Chester stalks in the direction of the structure.
I want him to talk to me, but he continues to walk faster without looking back. With his long legs, he’s put quite a distance between us. He detours into the barn as I’d suspected. Once I enter, he seems to have disappeared inside the dark building. Despite a dim light illuminating the passageway, I’ve lost him.
“I know you’re in here,” I call out as if we’re children playing a game of hide-and-seek. Perhaps we are, as it seems we share bits and pieces of ourselves with one another, hiding truths, and then seeking full disclosure. We’re . . . curious . . . about each other, or at least, I am about him. I want to know more about him. And I’m not letting him walk away after the bomb he just dropped.
I pause before a horse stall. The heavy breath of Lucky One steams into the cold passageway. Jedd breeds and trains horses for the rodeo. It’s a process I don’t pretend to understand, not being much of an animal lover myself, but it makes him happy. Jedd’s happiness makes Beverly ecstatic, which is something she rightfully deserves after all she’s been through.
I think about Chester. His best friend, Davis, and his wife, Harper, lost their lives in a house fire, leaving behind three beautiful boys. Chester is now their guardian and an excellent provider for them. For a moment, I wonder why he doesn’t live with them. Why does he live in a bus just over the border instead of the valley? I suppose the locale might have something to do with his ownership of The Fugitive, but then again, his Chesterfield Oil offices are said to be in Knoxville. There’s a hefty distance between the locations with Green Valley in the middle.
I’d reach up to pet the horse, but I’m afraid he’ll bite me. Jedd likes to call him a mean sonofabitch, yet surprisingly, the animal has a soft spot for Beverly. While Beverly loves animals, Naomi loves the woods, which reminds me of her Samhain ritual later tonight. I’m doing my part to keep up the sisterhood rejuvenation plan, and after what I’ve learned about Chester’s friends, I take a moment to recognize I’m blessed that my sisters are still with me. I’ve missed them. We’re very different people as adults, and in many ways, it should make us more incompatible than ever, but there’s something about blood I can’t deny. My sisters are the truest people I have in my life next to my daughter, who I haven’t spoken to in a week.
After a few minutes, I decide I’m not going to find Chester in the dimly lit barn and give up on the hope of him speaking further to me. I turn toward the entrance and pause when I see him blocking my exit.
“Why did you follow me?” His low, gruff tone startles me, and we stare at one another for a minute.
“Because I don’t want you hurting. That was a lot you shared, and I just want to be sure you’re—”
I’m cut off from more words as he closes the distance between us in three broad steps and crushes his mouth to mine. His hands firmly cup my face. He kisses me as though he can’t get close enough. Our mouths nip and suck, devouring one another, reminding me how I’ve never been thoroughly kissed. Never like this.
While his beard is scratching my chin and his mustache brushes my lips, his mouth is heaven, and then his tongue seeks mine. I’m lost in the flutters racing up my middle and the pressure of his tongue swirling with my own. His fingers slip downward, clutching at the edges of my jacket, and my hands lift for his biceps, curling as best as they can over his firm muscle. We’re wearing too much clothing as far as I’m concerned, but it’s cold in this barn.
“I need to touch your skin.” His hand works its way under my hair and into the scarf around my neck. His fingers wiggle to get under my sweater, but the contact isn’t enough.
“I want to have you right here,” he mutters against my mouth. The desperation in his powerful kiss tells me everything. He wants to forget. I recognize the feeling. It’s what I wanted with him on that first morning. Then again, what I wanted was to make a new memory. I gently push at him until he steps back, breathing as heavy as the horse in the stall behind me. Then I reach for his arm and tug him by his jacket into an empty stall across the passageway.
Once inside, Chester slams the sliding door shut, and I’m pressed face-first to the wall. At shoulder height, my hands catch the metal bars on the upper portion of the wooden wall to prevent my cheeks from slamming into the grid.
“I want you like this,” he says. His fingers tug at the scarf around my neck, freeing my skin so his lips can m
eet my nape.
“Like this?” I squeak as open-mouth kisses suck at my flesh and move toward my ear.
“Ever done it like this before?”
It’s not like I never faced away from Karl. There were times he didn’t want to look me in the eye when we consummated our marital duties, but I’d never done it like this—in the heat of passion, pressed into a wall, outside in a barn. It’s as close to animalistic as I imagine one can get.
“Not exactly,” I mutter, closing my eyes at the half-truth. Hands fumble at my jeans and the button is undone. The zipper comes next as I clutch the bars near my face. Thick fingers slip under my panties and find the place where I love his touch. I melt into him as his finger dives into me.
“Sweet Jesus, you’re already wet.”
I don’t think I’ll ever dry up when it comes to this man. Just the thought of him makes me damp, and it’s darn embarrassing to consider how often I think of him.
“Let me in, darlin’.” He means my pants, but I long for him to mean my heart. It wouldn’t take much to enter that beating organ, but we aren’t talking about emotions right now. This is purely physical, and I’d like to get lost in him as much as he wants to be lost in me.
I lower one hand to my jeans, leaving the other hand wrapped tightly around the metal bars near my face. I’m afraid if I let go, I’ll fall over. Sensing my one-handed struggle to push down my pants, Chester is there with a sharp tug on each side. The denim falls to my knees, baring my backside to him. I can’t spread as well as I’d like, the jeans being a barrier, but Chester doesn’t seem to mind. Within seconds, his belt is undone. His jeans are at his hips, and the warm tip of his hard shaft presses through damp folds eager to welcome him into me.
“Condom,” I strain, and I hear the grunt along with a pause as he fumbles behind me. Apparently, he’s not too old to carry one in his pocket tonight, and I briefly wonder if he was hoping we’d get to this point this evening.
“There’s more to this condom thing,” he grumbles behind me. “And you’re going to tell me, but another time.” I close my eyes, hoping to never tell him the truth of my conditioning. When he’s sheathed and returned to my entrance, all other thoughts are dismissed.
“Hang on, darlin’,” he warns, slamming into me before he’s even finished his caution. I rise on my toes and squeak at the rapid intrusion. His hands grip my hips, tugging me back down over him, and he stills, allowing me a minute to get comfortable with this position. Everything with him is so different, like the perfect blend of crispy coating and slivered pickle in my fried delicacy. Chester is prize-winning and delicious.
He slips to my entrance, teasing me with an exit from my body. Then he rams upward once more. My breath hitches again, but I’m better prepared, using the bars clutched in my palms as leverage. He taps me some place special inside and I groan. I press back, drawing him into me, keeping him deep. He pulls away and then returns. Sweet Jesus. Back and forth, we move as he fills me. We rock, and my hips buck forward, nearing the stall wall. Just when I think I’ll collide with the wood, he tugs me back to him, tapping me in that spot I’ve never felt before. I love the sensation. I love the fullness, but I need a little more.
“Get there, darlin’,” he commands, straining with the command, but I’m not there yet. It’s a familiar position I don’t want to recall. Karl hardly satisfied me.
“I can’t,” I whimper, and Chester grunts behind me.
“You can.” His hand slips forward across my lower belly until his fingers fumble with a bundle of nerves certain to break me.
It’s never felt . . . I’ve never . . . This is too much.
“Chester,” I groan. Moving on my own—faster, harder—I draw him deeper. I’m going to break, and his responding movements demand I do. With hands on the bars, I press myself backward, forcing my backside against him as I bite my cheek, holding in the scream I want to release. Small pinpricks of light dance before my eyes as I explode around him.
“Atta girl,” he mutters, as if I’m one of the horses in these stalls and I’m as wild as they are. He surges forward, and my hips hit the wood wall covering my lower half. He stills, and instantly, I feel him jolting inside me, pulsating with pleasure. His head rests against the back of mine, his warm breath coating my nape. We breathe in tandem with heavy puffs and sharp huffs.
Too quickly, he pulls out of me and stands to his full height, but his arms encircle my waist, and I’m glad for the support because I’m worried if I release the bars from my grip, I’ll fall. As he holds my back to his front and presses his lips to the back of my head, I realize it might be too late. Metal posts in my grasp or not, I’m definitely falling for him.
“Call me Chet,” he whispers, and a smile breaks out on my face.
Chapter 14
She Who Dances with Fire
[Scotia]
“Call me Chet.” I can’t seem to help the tingles rushing through my body at what this means.
He considers me someone close to him.
Unfortunately, we don’t return to the bonfire holding hands or gushing over one another after our animalistic mating. He tells me to exit the barn first, and I’m left with a sinking sensation that what we’ve done didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me.
I realize I’ve just had sex with Big Poppy despite what he says I can call him. I’ve slept with two out of three of his sides. I have no idea what it would take to complete the triangle of him or if my heart even could take more from this complex man.
Shortly after our reappearance, the party starts to break up. It’s almost midnight, so us sisters remain while the guests depart. Chet says his goodnights, and Nathan and Jedd follow him to the main house. Hazel and Mabel drove me to the party, and I tell them I’ll find a way home later.
The sensation of his roughness as he entered me lingers, but so does the emptiness of his departure from my body. There’s a hollowness in my chest, and I don’t like the feeling. Chet seems even more distant after what we did, and my sudden melancholy mood plays into the ritual Naomi has planned.
“Tonight, we celebrate those who have passed.” As a solitary Wiccan, my sister typically celebrates alone on this night, but in our continued efforts to reconnect our sisterhood, Beverly talked me into being present.
“I don’t want to be invoking any spirits.”
“We aren’t invoking. We’re remembering those who have left this life. Jebediah. Mother and Daddy. You could think of Karl.”
Our brother is dead. He’s been gone almost two decades. In my opinion, we don’t need to bring him back, but let his restless heart rest. Jebediah’s death was an accident, but Naomi took his passing the hardest of all of us and has struggled to let it go.
Karl is another spirit I don’t wish to resurrect. He did what he could as a local pediatrician, caring for the physical and mental health of children for decades. He loved kids, which is surprising when you consider we only had one child. However, our marriage was what it was, and it’s over.
“Don’t you want to talk about him?” Beverly interjects as we stand around the lowering flames.
“Talk about Karl? Never.” Call me callous. But Karl is the last person on my mind most days. It’s been over seven years. I’m grateful for the birth of our child and the finances he left me. I’ve valued his family name. I’m even appreciative of the years of friendship, but when it comes to our marriage, it’s something I don’t wish to discuss.
“Not even a little bit?” Beverly pushes. My sisters both know that Karl was having an affair. It was the only explanation I gave them. He was killed outside a motel, which didn’t make sense to them. What was Karl doing in a motel? He was mistaken for Kip Sylvester. Karl Simmons. Kip Sylvester. The men did not match in stature, but I suppose it was an honest mistake, as honest a mistake as one can make when committing a murder.
“Do you want to talk about Howard?” I snap back at my sister. Her philandering husband made quite a name for himself with his womanizing way
s. It isn’t something we’ve discussed at great length between us sisters, although there has been plenty of gossip over the years.
“If it would help, I can share how I felt about his adultery.” The ease with which Beverly speaks, offering we compare notes on wayward husbands does not settle well with me. Is it really adultery if you and your spouse agree? Is it breaking our vows if discretion was the only request? Is it infidelity if you are only being true to yourself? These were all questions I’d tried to put to rest over the years.
Karl tried to be considerate. While he wasn’t faithful to our marriage vows, he was faithful to me. What do you want to do, Scotia? How do you tell your husband you want him to love you like a man loves a woman? He just couldn’t do it. Not how I wanted, at least.
“No, I do not need to hear about your reaction to Howard’s affairs,” I state, staring at the fire before me until I hear Naomi gasp. I turn to Beverly and see her stricken face. Sighing, I rearrange my words before I next speak.
“Why drudge up all that past, Beverly? You can’t change it. You don’t need to go back. You have Jedd now. Life should be moving forward. One foot in front of the other.”
Beverly holds her head a little higher. My sister struggles to walk due to an accident and needs arm-cuff crutches for balance and support, but I’m not insulting her ability to move. We all need to move on from the past.
“Let’s dance,” I mutter.
“Why are you here if you’re going to be like this?” Beverly interjects, reading my mood.
“Because . . .” Because I want to belong somewhere.
“Sissy?” Beverly calls out my childhood nickname, a name I despise, and pulls me from my thoughts.
“I’m here because you are my sisters, and you asked me to join,” I say, mustering the strength to speak with honesty. I mean what I’ve said. I want to be involved in their lives because, at the end of the day, family is all we have. Karl was my family. Darlene as well, but she’s pulled back, making her own way in the world. I’ve been very lonely for the past few years.
Love in a Pickle: A Silver Fox Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 9) Page 11