by Carter Ashby
"Okay," Arden said, pulling at Nick's arm. "I think that's enough social interaction for us today. It was good seeing you all," she said to the group. She breathed a sigh of relief as Nick allowed himself to be led away.
"I could have had you if I really wanted, Princess," Travis said.
She stopped and turned around, her expression registering disbelief and amusement. He was wearing that cocky half-grin. "How do you figure?" she asked, not sure why she was letting herself be drawn in like this.
He shrugged. "I've never been told no. Not when I really turn on the charm."
"You hit on me within minutes of getting stranded. You tried to convince me to sleep with you at least a dozen times." She'd taken a few steps toward him and he'd closed the distance even more so that she had to lean her head back to look at him.
"Not because I was trying. That's just what I do when I'm around women. If I'd really wanted to, you'd be wearing my ring right now."
"Your ring?"
"That's right."
"And my finger would be green, too, wouldn't it."
He laughed. "Yeah. But you wouldn't care."
"I think I probably would," she said, holding her hand up so the diamond caught the sunlight.
He grabbed her hand and shoved it down to her side, keeping ahold of it for longer than he should have. He lowered his voice, leaned down and whispered in her ear, "Give me one night and I'll make you forget there ever was a Nick Wheeler."
She felt herself turn red, but she boldly met his eyes. "I'm not impressed, Travis."
He assessed her for a few moments and then stepped back. "You're wasting your time and mine with that prick," he said, nodding at Nick who stood only five paces back, seething with hatred.
Arden glanced over her shoulder at Nick. She'd never seen the veins in his neck stick out like that before. She looked back at Travis. "I like the ring I have just fine. Have a good life, Travis." She turned and walked away, taking Nick with her. She didn't look back and was very proud of herself for it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dustin had started going to church three years ago. Mainly he'd done it to support Travis who had all of a sudden decided he needed God in his life. So he'd gone with him and kept going. But then the preacher's daughter came home from college one day looking nothing like the gangly teenager he remembered and a lot more like the kind of woman he'd like to take to dinner. So his motives for going had changed, which was why even though Travis had slept in, he was still attending this morning.
When he walked in, Emma was standing in the foyer talking to Shannon and Alice. There were always other women around her. If there weren't he may have made a move by now. Probably not...but maybe. After glancing her way he headed to his usual seat. He propped his elbows on the back of the pew and bounced his knees, waiting for service to start.
Emma suddenly appeared at his side. He froze, staring at her. She smiled brightly at him. "Where's Travis?" she asked.
"At home," he answered automatically.
"Oh. Is he okay?"
"Yeah." Dustin knew he was acting like a victim of shell-shock, he just couldn't seem to snap out of it. And then the piano started playing and service started.
Emma leaned up and whispered, "You don't mind if I sit here, do you?"
He couldn't even verbalize an answer to this. He just shook his head. And here she was sitting next to him, sorting through some papers she'd pulled from her Bible. With his elbow propped as it was, her face was too close to his hand. He thought about scooting over and pulling his elbow down from the back of the pew. But he didn't want her to think he was purposely inching away from her. So he stretched his arm out over the back of the pew, resting his hand on the cool, oak backing. Then he just hoped she wouldn't take his gesture the wrong way.
He glanced at her throughout the service, amazed that she was sitting here next to him; wondering what it would be like to have her here at his side still, fifty years from now; thinking more and more that this was how it was supposed to be.
Still, she didn't seem nearly as impressed as he was by the situation. She sang when it was time to sing. Bowed her head during prayer. Never once smiled up at him. And then service was over and she packed up her Bible and lifted her purse onto her shoulder. Then she looked up at him. "So...I couldn't help noticing that Arden wasn't here either. Do you think they're together?"
It took him a moment to realize she was picking back up where she'd left of in her inquiries about Travis. This annoyed him a little. "Why would they be together?" he asked.
Emma shrugged. "They had a little scene, yesterday. It's obvious he has feelings for her...but I can't get a good read on her."
Dustin hated this topic. "He'll get over her. She's not worth it."
Emma's eyes widened in shock. "You're talking about my best friend." She lifted her chin in a most adorable gesture of stubbornness.
"If she's your best friend, then you know first hand what a bitch she is."
Emma gasped. And then laughed. "You've got to be kidding. Do you even know her?"
"I know I haven't seen Travis this depressed since Tonya left."
"And that's Arden's fault."
"Yep." He folded his arms over his chest and stared down at her, mentally daring her to keep fighting.
She shook her head, an incredulous grin on her face. "Well I guess it's admirable, you being loyal to your big brother. But it's not her fault he fell in love with her and she didn't fall in love back."
Dustin shrugged. She had a point. But he didn't care. The last thing Travis needed right now was heartache. He had enough to deal with with Duane. Besides that, Travis had battled back depression and alcoholism and was finally at a place in his life where he could relax a bit and just be happy.
"Is Travis okay?" Emma asked again, this time real concern in her eyes.
Dustin looked at her. "He's fine. If you're so concerned, why don't you go see him."
"What's your problem?"
"I don't have a problem. I just think if Travis is so damned important to you, you should be talking to him and not me."
Emma's brows furrowed in frustration. "Are you jealous?"
"What the fuck would I be jealous about?"
"Do you think you could ease up on the language at least until you're out of the church building?"
Dustin dropped his hands to his sides in frustration. He was getting nowhere. Of course, he wasn't sure where it was he'd wanted to get to in the first place, so that was part of his problem. "Why did you come sit with me?"
"I thought I'd try to flirt with you."
Dustin burst out laughing. "You're really bad at it."
She drew herself up to her full height, which was only slightly above average. "I haven't flirted yet. You haven't stopped being a jerk long enough for me to try. Besides, I shouldn't have to. You should just be a man and ask me out. And you'd better do it quick, because I've already got three offers for dates to Shannon's Christmas party Friday night."
Dustin froze, then. He swallowed. "You...you want me to ask you out?"
Emma exhaled loudly, hefted her purse over her shoulder and stormed out of the church building.
Dustin looked around and realized they were the last ones there. Everyone else had cleared out. So he followed her out into the parking lot and caught up with her. "Hey," he said. "Can I drive you home?"
"It's just four blocks away," she said. But she'd stopped. So he crossed in front of her.
"Yeah, but it's freezing. Let me drive you home." He gently took her elbow and led her to his '67 Camaro Z28. He opened the door for her and then walked around to the driver's side, wondering why he wasn't more nervous.
He drove through a few residential streets toward her house. "Since I've got you in here, you wanna go for a ride?" he asked.
"Sure," she said.
He smiled at her. He drove with his wrist resting on the top of the steering wheel, his other hand operating the gear shift. They drove back toward town, ma
de a left on main street and headed toward the river. Before they got there, though, Dustin took a left on a back road that turned into gravel just five miles out of town. There was good scenery, this way, and he liked the curves and dips in the road.
He noticed Emma's hands fidgeting in her lap. He smiled again, glad to see a chink in her armor.
"Do you do this a lot?" she asked. "I mean...just drive?"
"Oh yeah," he said. "I love driving."
She shrugged. "I guess you would in a car like this."
He glanced at her. "I've won a few drag races in this baby," he said.
She looked at him, then. "You used to race?"
"What used to? I race all the time. Didn't you know that?"
Emma shook her head. She muttered something and he thought he caught a reference to James Dean. He grinned. The hills grew steeper. For a while, the road followed the river, but then it veered east and began climbing. It came to an intersection where they made a right onto a paved highway. Dustin stepped on the gas and shifted up several times, enjoying the sound of the engine and the rhythm of the curves. The slow-building adrenaline giving him that feeling of invincibility.
It took him a few minutes before he realized that Emma was clutching her seat in a death grip.
"You want me to slow down?" he asked.
"No," she squeaked, "I trust you."
He slowed down a bit anyway. They were getting to some of the good scenery, now. Off to the right he could see through the trees the rolling Ozark Hills. They drove another couple of minutes, the elevation increasing, and then he turned abruptly onto a gravel parking area. There were no trees here and the parking area dropped off a cliff edge. In front of them was a blanket of hills with the river winding off into the distance below them.
Dustin kept the engine running for warmth. But he leaned back and slid his arm along the back of Emma's seat. She was leaning forward admiring the view.
"You've been up here before, haven't you?" Dustin asked.
"No. I've seen some lovely spots. But not this one." Then she turned and smiled up at him.
She was so beautiful. It occurred to him, then, just how young she was, both in years and in experience. Anyone looking at her could tell she was different from other women her age. She'd been sheltered and spent most of her life running around this little town helping other people. She was like a young, rural-Missouri Mother Theresa. He admired these things about her, but he also couldn't wait to dig past that and find out who she was when no one was looking.
"I'd sure like to kiss you, Emma," he said.
She turned red and looked down at her hands. His chest constricted with that rush of excitement that happened in the beginning stages of love. He dropped his arm from the seat to her shoulders and reached for her chin with his other hand, taking it in his fingers and turning her face toward him. Her lips were plump and red and begging him to taste them. And since she didn't object, he leaned down to kiss her.
The first kiss was soft and lightly lingering. He wanted to make sure she approved. But it wasn't enough. He shoved his hand into her hair and pulled her hard against him, inhaling the sweet scent of her skin, his tongue forcing her lips apart. Her arms went around his neck. He closed his eyes and deepened the kiss as all of his blood rushed out of his brain and headed due south. He reached back and grabbed one of her hands in his, bringing it down to his chest. He squeezed her hand, her soft, sweet little hand. Then he broke off the kiss and opened her hand, palm up and kissed it, burying his face in it. He licked her palm and kissed the soft, transparent skin of her wrist.
She gasped and he looked at her. He'd messed up her hair and it hung in disheveled strands in her face. Her cheeks were pink and her lips swollen from his kiss. He'd never seen anything so erotic in his life. He lunged at her and kissed her again, this time straying to her jaw and her neck. He opened his mouth wide and licked the place just beneath her jaw that smelled so good, so much like Emma. He moaned in pleasure. She was supple in his arms. He had one arm wrapped around her waist, the other hand was in her hair. He let that hand wander down her neck and to her throat. He felt her tilt her head back. Listened to her breathing short and shallow.
She clutched at the front of his shirt. He grabbed one of her hands and lowered it down...down to where he was so hard he couldn't breathe for the intensity of it. "Oh, God, Emma," he moaned. He was kissing her throat, now, and then her chest, knowing her breasts were just a thin layer of fabric away from his lips. He pressed her hand against him and then reached up to cup her right breast. He squeezed it and gasped as another surge of desire shot through him. He pressed forward, burying his face in her breasts. She was backed all the way against the door of the car. He felt her trace the outline of his erection between her fingers and he groaned against her chest.
He wanted her to feel it too. He wanted to hear her cry out his name. So he let go of her breast and slid his hand up her skirt between her legs. He had barely touched her when she suddenly jerked beneath him and started shoving him away.
"Stop!" she gasped. "Stop. We have to stop!"
He stopped immediately despite every impulse in his body that told him to keep going. He was breathing like he'd run a marathon. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Did I hurt you?"
She shook her head and then lowered it. Her shoulders started shaking.
Up until then, he'd been frantically thinking of ways to get back to the moment they'd been in just then. But now he stopped and put his hand kindly on her back, rubbing it gently. "What's wrong, Emma?" he asked.
She sniffed and shook her head again. She put her face in her hands and then sobbed all out.
"Jesus, Emma," he said. "Please tell me what's wrong. If I hurt you, I'm so sorry."
She shook her head again and waved him away. But she was still crying too hard to answer him.
He kept his hand on her back and watched, worried out of his mind that he'd just forced her into something she didn't want. He'd been too aggressive, that was it. He'd missed her signals and gone on ahead with his own selfish desires. "I'm sorry, Emma. I wouldn't hurt you for anything in the world. Please calm down."
She seemed to start settling down. After a few more minutes, she pressed her palms into her eyes to dash away the last of the tears. She sat back and stared out the window. Her breath shook when she inhaled. He kept his arm along the back of her seat and watched her intently.
"I'm sorry, Dustin," she said. "It was just a kiss and then all of a sudden it was so much more." She turned and smiled at him, her eyes sparkling from the tears. "That was my first kiss," she said.
He lifted his brows in surprise. "Oh." He thought about it for a moment. If that was her first kiss...,"Then you've never...with anyone else, you've never..." he looked at her.
She shook her head. "Never." Then she turned back to the view. "And I want to wait until I'm married."
Dustin felt his heart sink. It was the dreaded announcement he'd hoped she would never make.
"This, just now...it all happened so fast," she said. "And the feelings were overwhelming. I've never been swept away like that. I'm really sorry, Dustin."
He nodded, still absorbing the fact that he wouldn't be having sex with Emma anytime soon.
"If this is the end of things for us, I'll understand. I just need you to know up front...this won't happen again. I wish I'd had the foresight to keep it from happening this time."
Dustin stared at her. She was so beautiful and pure. Like her tears had just baptized away the sins of moments ago. He didn't care about the purity part, though. He cared about the way she made him feel...the way he knew in that moment that he would wait as long as it took if it meant getting to have her in his life. "Okay," he said.
She looked at him. "Okay, what?"
"Okay. If you want to wait, I'll wait."
She stared at him for a long time. "Really? You'd do that for me?"
He nodded. "I might occasionally beg you to have mercy and change your mind. Because that, jus
t now, was pretty damn amazing. For me, anyway."
She nodded. "For me, too."
He smiled. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Good." He took her hand and kissed it. Then he sighed and leaned back in his seat. "Okay, then. I guess we just hold hands and talk."
She giggled. "Yep."
He smiled at her. "Will you be my date to the party Friday night?"
She sat up straight and smiled brightly, clearly excited. "Yes! I'd love to be your date Friday night." She practically squealed in delight.
He held her hand a while longer and they enjoyed the view in a companionable silence. Then he drove her to her house and headed home, elated at his new relationship and somewhat down about the prospect of an indefinite term of sexual frustration to come. By the time he got back to his street the reality of it sank in.
"How am I going to do this?" he murmured to himself.
Travis had bought an old car for Duane for Christmas. It required a lot of fixing up, but Travis hoped working on it together would bring them closer. Duane had a true gift for working on cars. He seemed to enjoy it too. It was the only thing the two of them seemed to have in common. Even more than Dustin who was better at driving the cars than at fixing them.
For the moment, Travis was leaning against the workbench in the garage smoking a cigarette while Duane put the hood up on the car and started changing out the spark plugs. "Where's Dustin?" Duane asked.
"Church," Travis replied.
"Why?"
"I reckon he wanted to gaze at Emma Harris from afar."
Duane laughed and shook his head. "Wuss," he mumbled.
"I guess he'll ask her out eventually."
"You guys sure can pick 'em," Duane said.
Travis didn't respond. He'd seen the kind of women Duane chose and he figured he had much better taste than his little brother.
"You've been looking kind of rough, lately," Duane said. "Guess that little rich bitch doesn't like you quite as much as you like her, right?" He was working away, not looking at Travis.
Again, Travis didn't respond. It was his only defense whenever Duane was grasping for something to bait him with.