Covet the Curves: a Romance Collections Anthology

by Morgan, Nicole

  “The girlfriend? No. Lots of screaming and then she started dragging her stuff out and throwing it in the back of her truck.”

  “This sounds like a country song. Is there a dog someplace?”

  “No dog.” Thunder rumbled. “It’s going to rain here.”

  “Was that the girlfriend who ran around like she was auditioning for the porno reboot of The Dukes Of Hazard all the time?”

  “Yeah, that’s her.” Vicky chewed her lip. Why did she keep doing this to herself. “Speaking of trashy whores, is SHE there?”

  “Always. Ugh. Boss alert.”

  Vicky stared at the screen for a minute waiting for Terri to come back. A flash of lightning caught her eye a moment before more thunder rattled the windows. Terri must have gotten busy, so Vicky closed her laptop and wandered over to the window. Her landlord was still outside digging a trench along the driveway from the garage presumably to the road about four hundred feet away. Dark circles appeared on the dusty driveway.

  Poor guy. She went out and down the stairs. “Mr. Lowery, it’s raining.”

  “Yeah, I know.” His voice sounded thick so he might have been more on the crying side than the sweating side.

  “Shouldn’t you go in?”

  “I’m going to pour a concrete drive here soon.”

  Okay, but what did that have to do with rain and trench digging? “You’re getting all wet.”

  “I’ve been wet before.” He sniffled. “I need to put in some drainage from the garage to the ditch.”

  Yeah, she now lived in a place where they had ditches and got into fights that ended up with people tearing out of dirt driveways in pick up trucks. All she’d done when she caught Derek with the Whore of Babylon was step back through the door and pull it closed. “Okay, but don’t you need to do that after it rains?”

  “Is it going to be a problem if the driveway is blocked off for about a week?”

  The rain started coming down in silver sheets. Her landlord was still standing at the end of his trench with the shovel in his hand like it was a perfectly sunny day. His hair plastered to his forehead and his shirt formed to his muscular chest.

  “Mr. Lowery, you should go inside and dry off.”

  “I’ve been meaning to do it, but I haven’t gotten around to it.” The very last dry spot in his jeans, right below his knee, darkened. Water swirled into the trench at his feel coming up over the tops of his work boots.

  “It’s not a problem. Do you want to come up for a cup of tea?”

  “No, thank you. I should go in and dry off.” He hefted the shovel onto his shoulder like one of the seven dwarves and carried it to the truck where he stowed in in a dedicated bracket. Then he walked up the steps to his porch and into the house trailing water behind him.

  Vicky watched the house for a minute trying to decide if she should go after him. Poor guy. If only she had some excuse to look in on him, but she had specifically not purchased any baking supplies so the old faithful excuse of I baked too many cookies wouldn’t fly. Besides, there was no such thing as too many cookies. The very reason she was in the shape she was now.

  * * *

  The knock came at the door just as Ryan finished hooking up the wires on the television again. It had taken a little rewiring and a new vacuum cleaner bag, but the living room was now empty and his downstairs man cave was shaping up. TV facing the sleeper sofa. Pool table behind the sofa had enough clearance on all sides to play. Space marked out on the floor for a bar. He could get around to building that this winter. Had to get a minifridge, too. Until then the beer was going to be warm. And he needed to drywall the studs and put down carpet. Probably shouldn’t hang the TV until after the walls were finished. The old sleeper sofa really needed hauled away and replaced too. It was stuffy from being in the basement for so long, but getting the living room sofa down here required help and he didn’t feel much like facing any of his friends right now so he’d just dragged it to the front room.

  Okay, the man cave wasn’t as shaped up as he’d like, but the living room was empty.

  He went upstairs and opened the door. The rain had let up to a hazy drizzle and it was still hot as hell outside. Ms. Anderson stood outside with a little blue covered pot in her hands.

  “Hi. I made some soup for dinner and thought you might be hungry.”

  Soup? It was five hundred degrees out. “Thanks.”

  She peered around him into the front room, which had become the graveyard for anything too heavy for him to carry from the living room to the basement by himself. It was packed with a couch, two armchairs, and a coffee table on its side.

  But the living room was empty.

  “I don’t want to pry—”

  “She was a bimbo. I should have known she’d do something like this.” He shrugged. Lissa was hot and sexy and she didn’t do a half bad job keeping his schedule.

  Ms. Anderson nodded like that made sense. “I just wanted to let you know that I was here if you wanted to talk. My husband cheated on me. Repeatedly. So I understand.”

  Ryan frowned. Her husband cheated on her? What a dick. “I’m sorry to hear that, Ms. Anderson.”

  “I’m getting past it.” She smiled like the Mona Lisa. “And please call me Vicky.”

  “Vicky. You can call me Ryan.” His mom would want him to do the polite thing. “You want to come in and have some soup?”

  “I really just wanted to check on you to make sure you were okay. You had a difficult afternoon.”

  Difficult? He had had to do a lot of physical stuff so she might think that was hard work. Unless she meant Lissa and Frankie. She might mean that. “Yeah, I guess so. Thank you for stopping by.”

  She handed him the dish. “It’s gazpacho.”

  “Oh, okay.” The pot was cold and heavier than he expected. “Thanks. I’ll wash this and bring it back to you when I’m done.”

  “You can just leave it on the stairs when you go to work. Will you be going to work tomorrow?”

  “As long as it doesn’t rain, but I better hand this right to you. Leave it on the porch and you might get critters in it.”

  “Critters?”

  “Insects, field mice. I don’t think you want a mouse in the house.”

  She wrinkled her lips in a very cute way. “Not really. I lived with a rat for twenty years and that wasn’t a good experience.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “I’ll let you get to your dinner and your furniture moving.” She looked over his shoulder again. The front room did look like a thrift store at the moment. “You know where to find me if you’d like to talk.”

  He watched her walk down the steps and pick her way across the muddy mire of the driveway. He should have gotten that concrete poured a long time ago. Once she was safely on the way up to her place, he closed the door and went to the kitchen to heat up the soup she’d brought. Nice lady.

  * * *

  Vicky stared at the computer screen. Terri was halfway through detailing to horror of the company picnic when it died. Derek had no idea how to plan a gathering like that. Neither did the Whore of Babylon apparently. Not enough food, too much alcohol, no designated drivers.

  Then bloop.

  Darkness.

  Much darker than it should have been for midafternoon, too. It looked a lot like the day of the storm last week.

  Lightning lit up the room. Vicky jumped. She was way out in the middle of nowhere all by herself. Ryan was off working and had been getting back late every day. Whether that was because he had a lot of work to do now that he had lost his only employee or because he was avoiding her, she didn’t know. The last time she’d seen him was the day he’d returned her Creuset stoneware cocotte. Lightning flashed again.

  She walked around the apartment unplugging everything. Then she went out to sit on the steps. It wasn’t raining yet and the sky was a fascinating shade of electric green. Should write candles on the grocery list. If this was going to happen often she’d need light.

/>   Ping.

  Ping, ping.

  Things were hitting the driveway and bouncing up in the long grass. Little white things. She ventured down to the driveway to get a closer look. Ice balls. Hail. The garage door started going up behind her just as Ryan’s truck turned into the driveway. He pulled inside and came running out.

  “We got to get inside,” he yelled.

  “Why?” A ball of hail hit her shoulder, answering her question.

  “Tornado watch.” Ryan grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward his house.

  Why was he yelling? “What does that mean?”

  “Might be a tornado. We need to get inside.” He pulled her through his door. All his living room furniture was still piled in this room while the room next to it was empty. He pulled her through the maze of furniture to the kitchen and down a flight of stairs. The basement had a slightly moldy scent.

  “Why can’t I just stay inside my apartment?”

  “If a tornado comes your apartment isn’t safe. I heard the warning on the radio.”

  Exposed studs lined the walls. He must be finishing the basement. A big screen television perched on two milk crates in front of an open sofa bed covered in wrinkled sheets. Behind the bed was a pool table with a pool cue rack laying on it. In the corner there were chalk marks on the floor. Unless she wanted to sit on the open sofa bed, there was nowhere to go.

  “Shit, sorry about this.” He mashed the mattress back into the sofa and arranged the cushions. “I’ve been working on this room and it’s just easier to sleep down here most nights. Have a seat.”

  Yes, like it had been easier for her to sleep in the guest room after she found out that Derek hadn’t ended his relationship with the Whore like he’d promised.

  Ryan flicked a wall switch but nothing happened. “Power’s out.”

  “It went out a little bit ago.” Vicky settled on the musty couch. The only light came from the windows high on the wall on the side of the house.

  “Shit. Wait a minute.” He opened a louvered closet door that revealed a tidy laundry area. From a shelf above the washer, dryer and sink, he took down two lanterns. Setting them on the floor by the TV, he lit them with a fireplace lighter brightening up the room considerably. Then he pulled out a small radio and a bag with batteries in it. “I end up down here at least once a year. The radio said there was a watch until six o’clock. We’ll have to stay down here until then.”

  “Because a tornado could just drop out of the sky like in The Wizard Of Oz?” From country song to disaster movie in one week. Terri was going to be so jealous.

  “Yeah. When I heard it on the radio I realized you didn’t have anyplace to go.” He turned on the radio in the middle of Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain.’ “I was afraid I wouldn’t get home in time. You want something to drink?”

  A Cosmo perhaps? Maybe a Manhattan? What was the appropriate drink for a tornado watch?

  “I’ve got some beers and some pop in the fridge upstairs. And water. Or I could make you some coffee if you wanted.”

  “I thought we couldn’t go upstairs.”

  “We should stay down here, but it won’t hurt to run up and grab something. Unless they lift that watch early we’re going to be down here for dinner. I’m getting myself a beer. It’s no trouble.”

  Beer it was. “I would like one. Thank you.”

  Ryan ran up the stairs. ‘You’re So Vain’ ended, replaced by ‘Eye Of the Tiger,’ which was cut off by a horrible squealing noise. Ryan thundered back down the stairs with two Buds in one hand and a bag of Ruffles in the other. Vicky opened her mouth to speak, but Ryan held up the Ruffles in a warding off gesture.

  “This is a warning from the weather service. A tornado warning is in effect for Ashtabula, Lake, Geauga, Trumbull, Portage, Summit, Stark, Mahoning and Columbiana counties until seven o’clock. Repeat this is a tornado warning. Listeners are advised to get to a safe location. Funnel clouds have been spotted in Mercer County, Pennsylvania and Mahoning and Columbiana counties.” The awful noise started again. Then the song came back as if it had never been gone.

  Ryan was frowning.

  “What’s the difference between a watch and a warning?” Vicky asked. His nervousness was rubbing off on her and he wasn’t stuck in her basement.

  “A watch means they’re watching the skies for funnels.” He opened one of the beers and handed it to her. “A warning means funnel clouds have been spotted and it’s a lot more likely that there will be a tornado.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We sit here and we wait for the all clear.” He sat down on the opposite arm of the couch and tossed the chips on to the seat between them.

  Her mouth started to water. She hadn’t had any form of potato in months. “Dieting sucks.”

  “What?”

  “I’m on a diet. I haven’t had chips in ages.”

  He leaned over and flicked the bag toward her. “Why are you on a diet?”

  “Because I’m fat.”

  He shrugged and took a swig from his beer. “I don’t think you’re fat.”

  Vicky stared at him. Was he joking? She’d seen his girlfriend, lots of his girlfriend. Her bones were clearly visible through her skin.

  Ryan seemed to be more interested in the sliver of green sky out the basement window. “Who said you were fat?”

  “My ex-husband and my scale. I gained twenty pounds when I suspected my husband was cheating, another ten when he admitted it and said he’d broken it off with her and twenty more during the divorce.”

  “You must have been really skinny before.”

  Vicky glanced at her thighs. He must need glasses.

  “You seem like you’re in good shape. That’s what’s important, right?”

  “I’m in good shape?”

  “I see you exercising all the time.” He turned to look at her, still perched on the arm of the couch. “So what if your ex-husband thinks you’re fat? He cheated on you so he can’t be very smart. Have a chip.”

  Yeah, so what if Derek said she was so fat he couldn’t stand to have sex with her. He wasn’t going to anyway. She ripped open the bag. The smell was more intoxicating than the beer she hadn’t even sipped yet. She placed on chip between her lips, savoring the pinch of the salt on her flesh and the crackle of the potato across her tongue.

  Ryan laughed. “So that’s what lust looks like. I forgot.”

  Chapter Two

  “You forgot?” Vicky licked her fingers trying to stretch out the pleasure of the first chip. “How could Lissa not lust for you?”

  Ryan shrugged. “I guess the grass was greener on Frankie’s side of the hill. No loss.”

  “You can admit to being upset, you know.”

  “I know, but I’m not.”

  “Which is why you’re sleeping in the basement.” Vicky pursed her lips. She had to be down here for three more hours with him and she was psychoanalyzing him. Bad guest. For shame. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay.” Ryan slid down from the arm of the couch. “I told you, I’ve been working on finishing the basement. I’ve been wanting to do it for a while and never got around to it.”

  Just like he’d decided to pour a concrete driveway right after he threw his girlfriend out. A project he still hadn’t finished. Vicky selected another chip. She studied the edges trying to choose the very best angle of attack.

  “I have never seen a woman look so hot eating.” Ryan stared at her with the beer bottle resting on his knee, forgotten.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you’re just so into it. Completely single minded.” He licked his lips.

  Tornados could suck the air out of a room, right? That had to be why she couldn’t breathe. He was having trouble breathing too. The rise and fall of his chest was shallow and magnificent. He shifted attracting her attention to the bulge in his jeans.

  And they had to be down here for hours.

  Vicky forced herself to put aside the chips before things spiraled out o
f control. Further out of control. Ryan’s gaze followed her motion and then snapped back up to her face.

  “That was pushy, wasn’t it?” he asked. “I don’t want to freak you out.”

  “I’m not freaked out.” Yes, very freaked out, but not for the reasons she thought she should be. She should be upset that this too young man had her trapped in his basement and was making crude comments. Instead she was getting warm and slippery because she had this very young man turned on watching her eat potato chips.

  He stood up and went to the window, keeping his back to her and tugging his jeans. “Still looks ugly out. Really windy.”

  Vicky rolled the top of the Ruffles bag closed and shifted it closer to the TV, out of reach. Chips were dangerous. Good thing he hadn’t had any dip. Too bad he was out of reach. It had been so long since a man wanted her. She couldn’t let the chance pass by. She stood and stretched. He glanced over his shoulder and then pivoted back to the window. Wandering over to the window, she kept plenty of daylight between them so he wouldn’t feel pressured and leaned on the poll table to stare at the sky with him. The two panes were regular width, but half the height of regular windows. She left him an entire pane to himself.

  The sky was still green and flashing in the distance. Faint rumbling made the house shake. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” He took a drink from his beer. “So are you, you know.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. Your ex-husband was a dick if he’d tell you you were fat. You keep yourself in good shape and you’re a good cook.”

  That’s the kind of thing people said to old ladies. She keeps herself in such good shape for a fossil. She’d misinterpreted. Thank heavens she hadn’t pressured. “Thank you.”

  “I mean it. All week I’ve been trying to get out of the house before you start doing yoga or it messes up my concentration all day.”

  “You’re just trying to be nice.” First thing in the morning, red faced and sweaty, wearing baggy clothes. The same baggy clothes she was wearing right now. Not attractive. “You watch me doing yoga?”