by Jillian Neal
Ford had never considered himself any kind of chauvinist but sitting there wishing he could explain that he really needed to be the hero, right then and maybe always, he began to doubt his original assessment of himself. Before he could apologize for a statement he hadn't yet made, another symptom of living with Meritt for years, Callie saved him once again. "Last night you rescued me from a really awful night, let me stay at your house, and took care of me. You even slept on the sofa and gave me your bed. I don't know anyone else who would've done that. Dancing with you definitely isn't a hardship. So, as far as hero territory goes, you're still way ahead of me."
Something in her lengthy list of praises made him worry. He didn't like the idea that she didn't know anyone else who would've taken care of her when she was having a bad night. It didn't sound to him like she knew people worth knowing. Suddenly, he was determined to let her know him, for however long whatever this was lasted. He wanted her to know there were guys out in the world who weren't only after one thing. He wanted to be someone she was proud to have known when this all came to an end. Because it inevitably would. Everything did. Besides, no one would really want to hang around to watch him try to put himself back together.
That uncomfortable realization churned in his stomach. He had an ugly gaping hole to try to climb out of. She shouldn't want to have anything to do with him right then, should she?
Callie would've given any willing deity all of her worldly possessions to have known what Ford Holder was thinking just then. Determination had set in his rugged features. That look in his crystal-blue eyes did things to her. Crazy, spinning, twirling things in her belly. The very same feeling she always experienced at the top of the Ferris wheel, when the wild Oklahoma winds whipped through her hair and the whole world was within her view. Potential, raw and delicious, existed somewhere between them. She wondered if he felt it, too. She wished she could take his picture right then, so she could memorize the way that expression made her feel, but she was sure he would think her even more weird if she pulled out her phone.
He threw the truck into park and was standing at her door before she processed that they were parked under the old water tower. She couldn't recall anyone in her entire life ever being on board with her mostly random, occasionally illogical ideas. Her grandmother constantly willed her to be more practical. Being practical had gotten her a life with Derrick. That thought propelled her out of the pickup truck and had her clutching Ford’s offered hand.
He guided her to the metal service ladder and gestured for her to go first. "Be careful now," he cautioned sweetly.
Most of the time when people told her to be cautious or not to do something, she found it highly annoying. But Ford's concern was so thoroughly genuine, she grinned. Some small place deep in her chest warmed and the sensation spread outward to her limbs. "I will."
When she was four rungs up the ladder, he climbed behind her. A dozen flirty comments about him effectively staring up at her ass flitted through her mind, but he seemed so concerned over the kiss she managed to keep them locked behind her lips. It was no small feat.
She was two rungs away from the top when the heel of her boot caught, and she slipped. A quick gasp burst from her lungs. Before her other foot could slip backwards off the ladder, leaving her hanging by her hands, Ford had her. His solid right arm locked around her waist and cemented her back against his firm chest. She was surrounded in his warmth. He was holding them both to the ladder with one hand, but he never faltered. "I've got you."
She managed a quick nod. "I'm sorry," squeaked from her.
"You've got to stop being sorry for things that aren't your fault. I'll never let you fall. Can you put your right foot back on the rung?"
Until that moment she hadn't realized that she still didn't hadn’t righted her feet on the rung. Everything around her felt solid. Her heart, which was attempting to slither back down out of her throat to its rightful location, pounded out an appreciative beat. She hung there in his arms for much too long given that their goal was to get to the top, but he didn't seem to mind just holding her there halfway between the ground and the sky.
They eventually resumed their climb, and she made it to the top without further incident. She let him help her to a seated position, and then paused long enough to appreciate the endless starlit view as he settled beside her.
"I haven't been up here in ages," he admitted like that was some kind of flaw on his part. "But, uh, if you look out that way," he pointed to their left, "you can see the Maxwell Stadium. Team's pretty good this year. Your grandparents’ farm is out that way, just beyond the Baptist church steeple." He pointed the other way.
She turned her gaze back to those silver-blue eyes. They were even prettier than the stars. "I'm guessing since you haven't been up here in ages, that means you don't follow clumsy girls on their crazy ideas too often."
With a soft chuckle he shook his head. "It doesn't look crazy from where I'm sitting."
Callie had no idea if he was referring to her or to the view of the tiny town and endless pastures surrounding them. "Where's your ranch?" she whispered. There seemed to be some kind of broken compass in her chest. It continued to spin like it couldn't quite find North until she knew where Holder Ranch was.
His smile slowed the spinning dial. "It's behind us. We can walk around to the other side of the tower if you want." He helped her up and guided her to the other side where they took seats with much the same view, but her shoulders eased.
Her pulse still danced much too quickly, though, and her shallow breaths were uneven. All of those sensations combined with the delicious scent of him that was filling her lungs. It made her a little dizzy. That wasn't really ideal given their current location, but somehow she knew if she slipped again he'd be right there to catch her before she fell. It was such an odd sensation. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had someone to rely on. "My grandmother put me on restriction for two weeks the last time I did this. I only got to be here for the summer so that sucked." She tried and failed to explain what this meant to her.
He chuckled. She had no idea how something so simple could be so impossibly sexy. "My daddy didn't believe much in restriction. He'd just work you to death." Ford shook his head at the memories. "I never much minded working, so I'm not sure that concept went the way he planned."
"Were you the kind of kid who was always getting in trouble?" She leaned closer to him instinctively, wishing she could remember if she'd ever seen Ford during one of her summers in Holder County.
"I ran fast and hot for a while. Too long, really. But I was also always too busy trying to keep my brothers and cousins out of trouble."
Unable to wrestle her own thoughts into submission, they became words without her explicit permission. "I feel like I was always in trouble with my parents, but I never really understood why. I guess I was just always in the way even though I never meant to be." She shook her head and wished she could erase that admittance from the universe. "That's stupid though. I mean, I wouldn't have gotten in trouble if I hadn't done something wrong. Forget I said that."
"No," Ford's tone fell to a soothing whisper. "Meritt was always mad at me. I swear from the day we got married I had always done something wrong, even if none of it made any sense to me. She used to scream at me because she said I didn't help out around the house more. So, I started doing the laundry and fixing supper. But I never did it the way she wanted it done even when I tried to do exactly what she said. I just never made her happy, no matter how hard I tried. I was always standing in her way. A year or so ago, it finally occurred to me that I was never going to be able to please someone who was determined for me to fail. That's when I finally filed for divorce."
Chapter Thirteen
Ford kept his eyes locked on Callie, wondering what she'd make of his story. Jesus, he really was a sad sap. Poor girl would probably rather be up on that water tower with anyone else. Kids made the climb to do a lot of things, but one of them sure as hell was not
so they could sit up there and whine.
Her long eyelashes made a slow blink before she stared up at him with what he finally recognized as need. His ego had been damaged so badly it took far too long to fully understand that what she required he could provide. That just couldn't possibly be true. Could it?
A harsh swallow drew his eyes to her delicate neck. They roved quickly to the plump swells of feminine flesh just below there and then back to those bee-stung lips of hers that he found so utterly intriguing. "Hey Ford?"
"Yeah?" His voice took on the consistency of gravel. He ordered himself to stop staring at her, but he would've had an easier time throwing himself off of the damned tower.
"How should our first kiss have gone?"
A thousand ugly doubts gripped him by the throat. With an invite like that, he needed this to be good, needed to know what he was doing. He needed to not fuck this up like he had the last one. Kissing her like he'd just been paroled from a life sentence wasn't happening, but Jesus, that's how he felt. Gentleness and self-restraint and everything else he knew he should've been able to summon seemed too far below them for him to reach.
Desperate to make this good for her, he cradled her cheek in his hand and angled her face to his own. Her nervous tongue slipped over her bottom lip and he had her close enough that it caressed his as well. A rumbled grunt tore from his chest before he could swallow it back. Her chest rose and fell against his in rapid pants.
"It shoulda gone something like this," he managed. Threading his fingers through those soft blonde waves, he cradled her head and ordered himself to relish every moment of this because at some point she was going to realize he was a mistake.
But when he caught the flavors on her lips as they melded with his own, some part of the man he'd been before Meritt was restored. She pulled him from the drowning doubts and endless distrust not only in himself but in the world itself.
More. He needed more. Her hands wound around his neck as she pulled him closer. The knowledge that she needed more as well bolstered his ego like nothing ever had. Their tongues met and danced in her mouth, and his own hands took on a mind of their own. Sliding from her back to her thigh, he gripped the skin hidden behind worn denim. His thumb encountered one of the rips in her jeans, and he began to stroke her exposed flesh. He longed to shred the jeans to expose her all for himself.
A quick shiver shook through her. He'd done that. Her body readily reacted to his touch. Her hands skated closer to the firm bulge behind his zipper, hesitantly, deliciously, perfectly.
When Callie's head fell back and she gasped for breath, he took the extended invitation and moved his half-starved kisses to her neck. He inhaled the sweet scent he found in the hollow of her throat and spun his tongue there. That watermelon-candy flavor of her drove his body from desperate restraint to devour in a second flat.
Feeling distinctly sixteen years old again, he let his fingers graze the side of her breast. Her back arched making him yet another undeniable invitation. This time her tender tremble was accompanied by a soft moan. It drove him wild. Those moans, her gasps, he'd done that. They belonged to him.
Refusing to allow the cool air surrounding them to have any part of her sweet sexy sounds, he returned his lips to hers and consumed. Her next groan of pleasure made it no further than his tongue. She traced the outline of his cock with her thumb and index finger, refusing him her touch.
He longed to demand that she grab him, that she ease the suffering she was responsible for, but demands would've required him to stop kissing her. He was just as unable to do that as he was to deny himself the feel of her skin. He shoved his hand back into that rip at the top of her jeans that made him insane with need and squeezed with more force than he'd intended. His throat tightened. He eased his grip. She probably didn't like that. Meritt hated it.
And with his mind's acknowledgment of his ex-wife's name and her preferences, he pulled back and set to apologize.
Callie was panting deliciously. She stared him down with heavy-lidded eyes and kiss-swollen lips. "Ford, please." Her eyes closed, and her body rocked beside his. "I'm so wet," she admitted in a half-choked whisper. "I need..." her plea drowned into a frustrated whimper.
Holy fuck. Shock fractured the pieces of his past that still clung to his current reality. Like she'd torn his doubts apart at the seams, and he emerged in full form. He drew her head to his shoulder, kissing and tending her cheek as he let his hand explore all of those beautiful curves. "I've got everything you need, baby," he assured her in a rasping growl. "I'm gonna take good care of you."
But when he heard those words, as they left his lips, the reality of what the hell he was offering her settled on his chest and robbed him of breath. He'd tried to take care of...fuck...no. He had to stop thinking about Meritt.
Something in his pause shattered a little of the craving between them. She lifted her head and stared him down. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he answered much too quickly. He shut his eyes and ordered himself to be the man he wanted to be for her. "Callie, honey, what are we doing here?"
He blinked his eyes open in time to catch her timid grin. "I thought you were going to take me back to your house, but now that I think about that, I need to not do that tonight. But that doesn't mean that I don't want to do that ever," she added quickly.
Ford threaded their fingers together. "Listen, the ink is barely dry on my divorce papers, so I need to not go there tonight as well. But even more important than that, I need to do right by you. It's important to me."
"What does that mean exactly?"
"It means that I don't want to do the one-night stand thing. Honest to god, I think I've forgotten how. I'm old," he admitted.
She laughed at that, and he fought the desire to lean and drink the echo of her laughter with another drugging kiss. "You're not old. Maybe you're just old-fashioned. I really like that."
"I'm pretty sure I'm both, but I need to call and ask you out on dates and take you places. I want to bring you flowers and kiss you good night on your front porch. I need to impress your grandparents, really let you get to know me before I take you to bed. I need to take this slowly. That's what you deserve."
He needed to do everything differently with her than he'd done it with Meritt.
Chapter Fourteen
Callie swore she fell just a little bit in love with Ford Holder at that moment.
Derrick. She fought not to scowl at the thought of his name. Still, she needed some kind of confirmation from him that they were over. Didn't she? Wasn't there some rule that said that before she could let Ford bring her flowers and kiss her on the porch and impress her grandparents and all the things he'd said he wanted to do she had to...? To what? Have Derrick's approval? Fuck that. But there was still a part of her that was sure she could make him listen somehow.
New York. She knew she had no business getting involved with anyone right then. But Nina Morales wasn't due to announce her next protégé for weeks yet so maybe there was nothing wrong with her and Ford getting to know each other, especially if they were going to take it slowly.
"Is that okay with you?" Fear scraped through his question.
"Yes," she assured him. "As long as you promise to really call me and do all those other things."
Concern tensed in his brow. "What made you say that?"
"Say what?"
"Why don't you think I'd do what I said?"
Her cheeks flushed like he'd just turned a hot spotlight on her face. She tried to shrug off a little of the attention. "I don't know. Most guys don't...do what they say."
With that, he leaned, scooped his arms under her legs, and set her in his lap. Her breath tangled in her throat. For a quick moment, she'd felt like she was free falling. But then his strength surrounded her again, and the only time she'd ever felt so thoroughly safe was when she stepped inside her grandparents’ home.
"Listen to me," he soothed. "I just got out of a relationship that was way more lies than it ever was
the truth. I see no point in lying about anything. If I tell you I'm going to do something, I'm sure as hell going to do it. I am not most men."
No, he definitely wasn't. "Good," she whispered.
"Let me take you back to your car. But first, put your number in my phone," he handed her his cell. "I'm taking you out tomorrow night."
At one time in her life, Derrick's laid-back, dispassionate approach to life had been somehow appealing. But Ford's commanding presence and his determination stirred something awake inside of her. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with calm, cool, or collected ever again. Beaming up at him, she nodded. "Yes, sir."
Another one of those eager grunts lodged in his throat. She swore the noise had already taken up residence in the marrow of her bones. She wanted to spend the next few weeks doing and saying things that made him make noises like that.
He shook his head at her with an adoring grin. "You're not going to make this taking things slowly thing easy on me, are you?"
Not quite certain what had elicited that remark, she giggled. "Challenge accepted."
* * *
An hour later, Callie paced in her bedroom with her phone to her ear. On the eighth ring of her fourth call she finally accepted that Derrick wasn't going to answer. He's probably out trying to find ketchup at the grocery store. She rolled her eyes. She needed to get this over with so she could fill her mind with thoughts of Ford and feel no guilt. Not that Derrick had ever felt any guilt when he was jacking off to all of those women in those chatrooms he frequented. She gagged. God, how had she stayed with him for so long? Disgust crawled over her skin. Deciding she needed a shower, she checked the time. It was two hours earlier in California. She'd try Derrick later.
When she emerged from a long, hot shower there was a message on her phone but not from a number she recognized. Grinning at that, she flopped on her bed. The damp towel she'd wrapped around herself fell open leaving her completely naked. She didn't care. She wanted to listen to the message.