American Honey

by Heidi McLaughlin

  My specialty? Macaroni and cheese.

  Mom helps me out that morning because she loves to cook as well. She’s taught me all her favorites and every recipe handed down through generations of her family. It’s what we’ve bonded over throughout the years and what I will miss when I leave. My mother is a good-hearted woman making this place a home for us. I’ve never heard her raise her voice but she also doesn’t have to. She’s the ruler of this roost regardless of how much of an asshole my dad is.

  “Are you making enough for Callan?” Mom asks when she notices how much cheese I’m grating.

  I stop mid-grate. “Yeah,” I’m afraid to look at her. “Is that okay?”

  She smiles. “I was hoping you would. He’s had a rough few months. He needs a good home cooked meal.”

  It takes me another fifteen minutes and I ask, “Mom, do you remember why the James’ brothers left town?”

  She frowns and wipes her wet hands on the front of her apron. “I do. And I never believed those rumors. I can’t believe that Thomas girl lied about it to protect Jet’s son.”

  “Jet? As in the Sheriff Henley?”

  Mom nods.

  “So the Sheriff’s son rapes the Mayor’s daughter and blames it on the troubled James’ boys?”

  Mom nods again, her eyes sad. “To think about how she ruined their lives makes me sick. All over protecting someone else.”

  “You never believed her?”

  “No. I’ve seen those boys around since they were in diapers. Yeah they’re wild and love to cause trouble but they’re boys. They’d never do something like that, they were raised better than that.”

  Mom was right. You can be bad and you can be evil. If you ask me, from what I’ve seen, Callan is neither. He’s good and pure. I see it in his eyes.

  When mom and I finish the macaroni and cheese, add creamed spinach, garlic bread and peach cobbler. We sit down to eat when I begin to wonder if Callan is going to show up today, especially after last night and the fight with Kasey.

  I’m in my room around ten that night and see his headlights come around the bend and the dust cloud that kicks up. It’s late, probably too late for him to be working out there but dad more than likely doesn’t care. He just wants the work done.

  When I see Callan go inside the barn, I scurry down to the kitchen, careful not to wake my parents and heat up a plate for him. I put the peach cobbler in a bowl with two scoops of ice cream.

  When I step outside, I notice it’s raining. Rain pelts my face and I hear the distant thud of a hammer in the barn.

  I’m wearing my night shirt, all part of my plan and holding his plate of food with the dessert and hoping he has me for dessert instead. One can hope.

  I look around when I open the barn door and then close it behind me, locking it. There’s music playing from a small stereo on the floor, hay and feed bags scattered amongst tools.

  That’s when I see Callan to my left. His shirt is gone, he’s got his cowboy hat on singing George Jones and stumbling around with a hammer.

  When he sees me standing in the barn barefoot in my night shirt, his whiskey induced smile catches mine and he drops the hammer on the ground.

  His eyes rake over my body like they did that first night, and then he sees the food. “What’s that?”

  “Food. For you.”

  “Smells good.” He’s looking at my body again and I’m hoping that statement has more meaning than it intends. I think it does, well, at least I hope it does.

  Taking two steps toward him, he’s sitting on a crate now as I hand him the plate and bowl. “You made this for me?” He looks up at me through long lashes, tipping up his hat.

  “Yes. There’s more than one thing I’m good at, ya know.”

  He smirked in a drunken sort of way, I wasn’t sure if he knew what I was referencing but I think he did. He didn’t comment as he stared at the food in front of him. It appeared he hadn’t eaten much, if at all, today the way he stared, not at me but at the food.

  He was hungry. He ate it all in about two minutes and then finished his beer. He set the beer down on the floor and stands coming toward me.

  “Girl, what’s up?” his sweet southern drawl is way more apparent when he’s drunk. And it’s sexy. So freaking sexy that I can’t help but stare at him and his bare chest. Boys round here don’t look like this. Sure they’re muscular, but it’s clear Callan honed his body to perfection and perfection is exactly what it is. “You here to torture me some more?”

  “Are you drunk, Callan?” I watch him come closer, taking the two steps to press his sweaty bare chest against me. As soon as he touches me, I’m done. My hands are trembling at the thought of being with him. And when he touches me, it’s all electricity and needles, the tingling feeling that you feel deep in your bones knowing this is the touch you’ve been waiting for your entire life. I ache for this feeling, his heated touches, like the bright burning wood of a bonfire, lit and longing for a breeze to ignite me.

  “So?” He tips his hat up and takes my face in his palms, sharing my breath and making me taste his words. “Why do you care… farmer’s daughter?”

  “I’m pretty sure in your current state that I could just take advantage of you right now.”

  “Go ahead.” He grins letting his eyes drift south and bunching the fabric of my night shirt. “If you’re up for the challenge.” He pushes me up against the side of the barn, so very different from our last encounter in here. His hands are at my hips, guiding me back until I stop, my back meeting worn wood that’s captured thousands of memories in this barn. He hunches over just enough and picks me up. My legs wrap around his waist, my hands on his shoulders. The thin fabric of my panties leaves nothing to my imagination when I came in contact with the ridges in his belt buckle pressed against me.

  He knows I feel it and smiles, shifting his weight forward again.

  Looking at him right now, he will mind. He most certainly will. There’s parts of him holding back and he won’t let go that easily.

  The moonlight filters into the barn and I feel its relief for once, in his arms.

  And then he’s kissing me, giving me what I need as his mouth moves over mine, what he wants but knows he shouldn’t have. I knew looking at him that Callan would be an amazing kisser. His kiss is alive, sweet and savoring, like sweet tea on a hot day, never quite enough, but just enough to satisfy to the tongue. It’s not enough because I want so much more right then. I never want it to end.

  He continues kissing up and down my neck, sending shivers through my entire body.

  It’s slow and it’s meant to be as he kisses over my sun-kissed and salty skin, heating it to degrees the sun could never reach. Holding me against the side of the barn, Callan’s already in control here, more in control than I am at the moment. There’s a sense of strength only he knows but it’s also that bottle, a motivation only it can provide. It’s the only way he’s forgetting the age difference.

  “I feel bad for you.”

  “Why?” his eyes find mine, and they seem honest, pure to the heart.

  “Because in the morning, when you’re not drunk, you’re not going to remember any of this.”

  “No. I’ll remember this, tonight.” He touches my cheek with calloused finger tips. “I can’t forget this.”

  I’m not sure what that means because it’s clear, come morning, I’m untouchable again.

  His mouth inches toward mine, lips give me what I want that his body won’t. I can settle for this, for now, because it’s him and I can’t get enough of this cowboy and the pleasure he’s given me tonight.

  He pulls back and looks at me. “I’m not good for a girl like you.”

  “Why?” I reach out and touch the fire, his lips, with my fingertips. They part and give me his breath that scorches my skin.

  “I’m just as troubled as you.” I doubt that’s true. If only he knew the things I’ve done, and seen, he wouldn’t believe that. “I can’t bring my problems on anyone else. I
just won’t do that to someone.”

  Chapter Seven

  Trouble

  I’m in my room on Monday afternoon, when I see dad out in the arena standing over the bullpens. I also see Callan approaching wearing chaps and a glove on his right hand. He climbs over the chute when Hammer, our mean as fuck bull enters the chute. When he’s in position, Callan climbs over the side of the gate and gets a rope tied around him right behind his front legs. Before I know it, the gate opens and Hammer starts bucking and rearing. What gets me is Callan’s confidence. There’s never a question of whether he can do it. He can. And he does. My eyes are riveted to him and the motion of his body as he does what he’s damn good at.

  The sight has me grabbing at clothes to get down there and be able to see this in person.

  I’m not quite fast enough so when I get down there, he’s off the bull and dusting off his jeans. He takes his hat off and does the same. I’m learning that hat is his favorite, he’s worn it every day I’ve seen him so far.

  He’s walking toward the barn when I catch up to him, waiting until my dad’s disappeared in the house, hoping maybe he might be a little nicer after kissing me in the barn last night. “You definitely know how to stay on the full eight seconds, don’t you?” There’s a sexiness to my tone that has his attention. He turns around and walks backwards a few steps, then turns back around.

  His voice is harsher than before, full of a bitterness I’m beginning to get used to. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I follow him, just like I have the last two days. “Are you always such a jerk when a girl sucks your dick the first night you’re in town?”

  He snorts picking up the pitch fork to throw hay into Layla’s stall. “What’s that say about you, farmer’s daughter?”

  “Callan—” I’m just about to tell him off for being such an asshole when he beats me to it.

  “You’re seventeen. You got no business actin’ this way.” He throws down the pitch fork and begins to walk away, his shoulders tense. “I saw you with Kasey the other night. Is that just your thing?”

  It hurt. It hurt really bad to hear him say that.

  “Well, I remember last night and you kissing me. Age doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.” I’m ignoring his remarks about Kasey.

  He turns on his heel and faces me again, anger lighting his face again. “It should. It fucking should matter.” He takes both my hands forcing me to look at him.

  “Why’d you kiss me last night then?”

  “What are you doing?” He ignores my question. “You’re letting these guys treat you like you’re some kind of slut. That’s not you. I see it. You don’t. You think you can’t do better but you can!”

  “Really, because it certainly doesn’t appear that way. The good guy I want treats me the same way, just won’t fuck me.” It’s a pretty low blow, but I say it anyway.

  His face and the way his eyes are stone cold and bleeding with an invisible pain when we make eye contact give him away. “You don’t know anything.” He’s so angry that his confidence and pride are wavering, he’s breaking a little and I see it. He wants to show me I don’t know what I’m talking about but his stubbornness gets him too. “You think you know, don’t you? You think you’re so fucking smart, yes?”

  “Callan.” I sigh, his name on my lips in something he wants to hear because I see his face twist when I say it. “Don’t do that.”

  “Don’t what?” His eyes search mine, the cobalt blue depths of his meeting sea green. They collide like waves crashing against a rocky shore.

  “Be this way.” My eyes dip to his chest, so tense his muscles seem tight and rigid.

  “What way? This is me.” He backs away about a step. “You’re the one fooling yourself.”

  I blink at his harshness. “You’re being an asshole.”

  “Oh, Alanna.” He’s mocking me. “It’s not a way. It’s me. I’m an asshole. Took you long enough to figure it out. Most woman figure it out the first night.” He knows I’m pissed with the words he’s saying but he doesn’t stop, he’s going for the full eight seconds, the entire ride of destroying me. “I can’t be anything you’re hoping I will be. It’d be a goddamn disaster.”

  “I’m not looking for anything from you but your dick.” I say, acting the way he thinks I am.

  “You had that, remember?” He laughs, brushing past me without another word.

  “I do remember.” I grab onto his crotch as he walks by and he stops, he wants my hand there, I feel it.

  He throws a handful of hay at me as he grabs my hand, the one stroking his dick through his Wranglers, and pulls it away. “Stop that.”

  “Stop being a jerk to me then.”

  He rolls his eyes, annoyance flashes in them as he walks away. I watch his back as he walks away, my eyes drifting lower.

  He’s got the best ass. I’m jealous of every bull or girl he’s ever ridden. So jealous.

  “Jesus!” Callan throws the bag of feed down on the floor. “What do you want from me, Alanna? Am I just another way to piss off your daddy?”

  “No.”

  “Then what it is? You fuck this entire town and suddenly want me?”

  He’s trying to hurt me. He wants me to leave him alone but it doesn’t hurt me. Well maybe a little but he doesn’t know the truth and I know he wants to. He does. I see it in his eyes that he wants to know why I am the way I am.

  He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Does your daddy know Kasey?” he asks, there’s a little more to his words than he’s leading onto, as if he knows the answer to that. “Does he know about me?”

  I shake my head because my dad doesn’t know shit. And he never will.

  “Does he know you’re lying to him?”

  I won’t give him an answer and it’s pissing him off.

  “That’s what I thought.” He says, laughing.

  No one was going to tell me what to do. Especially my dad. If he pushes, I push and now there’s a wall no one can climb. I didn’t like the fact that Callan seems to think he knows me, but yet won’t give me a chance.

  His eyes are bloodshot, wearing and waiting for me to say something. I saw right through him. He rolls into this town, gets what he wants, maybe fights for my honor but there’s still a part of Callan that will always be that rebel kid. He nods, as if to let me know my assumptions are right. He’s just as fucked and he knows it.

  “What am I to you then?” I challenge. “If you say you don’t want anything to do with me, why are you roughing up Kasey and trying to make me walk the straight and narrow? Why go to that much trouble since you’re a short-timer here?”

  “Maybe you’re someone I can’t fucking resist but I have no right to want.” He says, walking away.

  But he can and he is. I hate what he’s doing to me, making me crave his harsh words and southern drawl, specs of blue diamonds that shine so bright under a Texas night. He’s demanding my attention in ways he doesn’t even know.

  I follow him, I don’t give up and I’m not about to now. He walks into the barn, kicking around dirt and hay.

  “What is it about you?” he throws a saddle to his left out of his way and reaches for the feed at his feet. “You’re looking for trouble, aren’t you?”

  I blink leaning against the stable crossing my boots. “Depends on how you look at it, eight seconds. Or I’m just lookin’ for a good time.”

  Callan rolls his eyes muttering something I can’t hear when I call him eight seconds, and most likely don’t wanna know what he’s saying.

  I feel like there’s never enough. I can give myself to everyone, pieces of myself I shouldn’t give to anyone, but I do in hopes that maybe I get something back in return, a piece of happiness. But then they want just a little more of me. Sometimes I don’t have any more to give.

  I pick up my cell phone once I’m in my room and call who I say I won’t.

  “Kasey, I need your help.”

  “So.” Kasey’s never done anything for anyone unle
ss it was Ashley or Jackson, and even then, it was never from the heart.

  “After everything you’ve done to me these last four years, you at least owe me that much. Get your ass over here now.”

  Chapter Eight

  8 Seconds

  “How’s it feel?” Mom sits down on my bed and hands me an envelope filled with money.

  “What?” Mom smiles brushing her hand over my sun kissed face.

  “Being eighteen.”

  “It feels like freedom.”

  She gives me another smile, this time a little sadder because she knows in her heart it’s only a matter of time now before I leave. I don’t have the heart to tell her I’m leaving soon. I don’t know when but I’m not staying here. I think she knows because why else would she hand me an envelope full of money?

  When I make my way outside that morning, Jessie’s coming down the driveway. We grab a pitcher of sweet tea, two mason jars and the rum from the liquor cabinet when my parents aren’t looking.

  My dad believes in work. He doesn’t believe in fucking around and acting like a kid. It doesn’t matter that today is my birthday. If there’s work to be done, it comes before anything else.

  There’s a part of the fence on the south property and he gestures to it. “That better get fixed today, Alanna.”

  I know why it needs to be fixed. Jessie and I knocked it down last week when we went wheeling out there.

  I groan heading for the barn but with the sweet tea and Jessie following close behind, I know it’s gonna be an okay day.

  Callan’s there already working in the barn but we hadn’t seen him yet. He’s doing his best to ignore me. He’s pretty good at it too. But what he fails to realize is that I’m a woman and so much better at making sure he can’t ignore me.

  I can see him in there when we walk by, of course is shirt is off, I believe to tease me, blue jeans and black hat. He’s swinging a hammer, every muscle in his back and arms flexing with each pass. Lord, what is it about a man flexing his muscles doing manual labor that’s such a huge fucking turn on?