Heart Song Anthology

by Carolyn Faulkner

  They saw each other almost every day for the first month since they’d met, mostly at his insistence. Tess never got much of a chance to take the lead – which was fine with her, since that wasn’t her bent anyway. It always seemed as if he were several steps ahead of her, and had everything planned down to a T. He even invited her down to his shop to eat lunch with him in the tiny break room – really more of a closet. The close quarters further fostered the blossoming intimacy between them. When not engaging in the occasional burst of conversation, they ate in a companionable silence, neither feeling the need to fill the air with inane chatter. She was practically in his lap, their legs and feet touching under the table as they ate.

  Not that his crew allowed them much privacy; just the opposite. They were a loud and rowdy bunch, most of whom he had grown up with, who saw him first as their friend, and then as their boss, although he never allowed that attitude to get in the way of everyone’s – including his – getting their work done. They were a curious bunch, wanting to know who had finally grabbed Sean’s attention away from the shop after a very long – if understandable – dry spell.

  “Boss, I hate to drag you away from your lady friend, there,” Matt, his assistant manager began, his expression and tone letting everyone know that he meant the exact opposite of what he was saying, “but I have something you need to come look at.”

  Sean was up and out the door in a second with no apologies to Tess. She knew what running a small business was like, and had no problem being left behind until his other employee, Red, entered the room and slid into the chair that Sean had left, saying, “Hey, do you mind if I talk to you for a moment?”

  After moving her chair a bit away from him, Tess answered a bit warily, “No.”

  Red, who was so named because of his naturally-rusty hair color, smiled, chuckling a bit. “No, I’m not going to hit on you, believe me.” At her raised eyebrow, he stammered to recover himself, not realizing at first just how that statement might be received by her. “Not that I wouldn’t want to, you understand, but Sean would take me apart piece by piece.” He felt like he was only digging himself deeper with every word, and if her broad grin was anything to go on, Tess was enjoying every minute of him trying to tap dance out. Suddenly he stopped and just looked at her. “You’re not going to let me off the hook on this, are you?”

  Tess wore a broad smile. “Not on a bet!”

  “Well, I really didn’t come here to insult you. I just wanted to say that I’ve known Sean since we were kids playing in our backyards together.”

  “I bet you got into a ton of trouble.”

  “You have no idea.” Red’s genuine smile faded quickly as he said what he had come to say. “But I wanted to tell you something. Did you know Sean was married?”

  Tess stood up so quickly her chair nearly tipped over onto the floor. “He’s married?” She wanted to shriek the question, but couldn’t quite seem get enough breath to do it. It came out like a shattered whisper.

  “No, no, not now. He was married – in the past. He’s not married now.” Red knew he was making a mess of this, but he’d known Sean long enough – knew how close to the vest he played things – and he wanted to make sure that Tess knew the score.

  But Tess wasn’t sitting down. She continued to regard him suspiciously, as if she thought he was going tell her something else horribly alarming about Sean. “What happened to his wife?”

  The big man tugged her back down into the chair she’d vacated so violently a few minutes ago. “She died quite a while ago, more than nine years. They were childhood sweethearts, went together all through high school. He never once looked at another woman, and he really hasn’t since, either.”

  Tess’s heart clenched for Sean, who’d lost the woman he loved much too quickly. “What are you saying?”

  Red sighed. “Look, you’re the first woman – hell, the first thing besides this damned shop – that Sean’s had any interest in for a very long time. I just wanted you to know how special you must be. He’s no Romeo. He’s a one-woman man. If he’s after you, it’s because he wants you, wants a future with you, whether or not he’s told you that.”

  “He hasn’t.”

  “Yet.”

  Tess looked up at Red as if she doubted his confidence in what his friend was likely to do.

  “I’m not kidding, Tess. He’s been like a monk forever, and for the first time in a long time he seems happy.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Red put his hand on her arm. “I just don’t want to see him hurt, but after meeting you I don’t think he’s going to be–”

  Of course, Sean came back at just that moment, but he said absolutely nothing, just stared at the other man’s hand where it lay on Tess’s arm, a muscle in his jaw saying everything he didn’t.

  Red snatched his hand back as if it had been scalded and quickly exited the room, not meeting Sean’s eyes as he did so, as if Sean was a rabid dog he was trying to avoid getting bitten by.

  “What was he in here for?” Sean asked, reclaiming the chair that Red had vacated.

  Tess looked him straight in the eye. “He came in here to molest me right under his best friend’s nose.”

  Sean’s head snapped up from his plate. “He what!”

  Tess rolled her eyes at him. “Well, when you came in here you looked at him as if you thought that’s what he – what we – were doing.”

  Sean scowled. “Of course not!”

  “Well, then why did he run out of here like a frightened rabbit?”

  He waited a long beat before answering her, meeting her inquisitive gaze head on. “Because he knew I wanted to rip his arm off for touching you.”

  Tess’s eyebrow rose. “Caveman much?”

  “I don’t like other men touching my woman.” He wasn’t going to apologize for his behavior, if his tone was anything to go by.

  “Well, if you’d found his hand in my crotch, then you’d have something to be concerned about. But since I wouldn’t allow him to do that anyway without flattening him myself, then you have nothing to worry about, do you?”

  The mental picture of Tess cold-cocking Red who outweighed her by a good hundred pounds or so was so funny he couldn’t help snickering, even when she smacked him a good one for his impudence.

  Chapter 4

  Although that scene between them had her a bit wary – she didn’t intend to get involved with any man who had violent tendencies, no matter how hot his possessiveness made her – Sean gave her no other cause for concern while they dated. Well, except for the fact that he seemed to take any possible excuse to spank her. He was particularly assiduous about reddening her bottom after having borrowed her car and discovering it was a rolling deathtrap.

  It was the morning of the first time they were going to sleep together – she just didn’t know it yet. The telephone rang at six thirty, just as she was stepping out of the shower.

  “Yeah, what?”

  Sean just laughed. She was usually so cheerful and pleasant – granted, more to her customers than to him, but still, overall, she was pretty laid-back and easy-going. He appreciated that more than he could tell her – not that she hadn’t warned him about what she was like before a civilized hour. “Wow, you really are little Mary Sunshine in the mornings, aren’t you?”

  “Bite me. What do you want, and you’d better make it good, Maddox; I’m standing here dripping onto my carpet.”

  Sean’s entire body clenched. “You mean you just got out of the shower?”

  “Yes,” Tess replied distractedly, trying to simultaneously talk on the phone while contorting herself into an acrobatic position as she attempted to wrap her long hair with a towel.

  “And you’re standing there naked right now?” He didn’t know why he was asking these questions. They were only driving him crazy, and with his truck out of commission he couldn’t do a thing about it.

  “Yes...”

  “Totally naked?”

  Sometimes – especially
first thing in the morning – she could be a little dense. It took her a bit to catch onto why he was dwelling on what was essentially the same question rephrased five different ways. Laughing softly, she let her voice get all throaty and low. “And what might you be wearing at this moment in time, Mr. Maddox?”

  “I’m dressed, dammit, but I can be undressed in a matter of seconds,” he offered eagerly. “Really I can.”

  That sounded about as close to pleading as she’d ever heard from him. “Well, unfortunately neither of us has time to indulge in phone sex, not that I’m opposed to such things as a rule. But I don’t want to be late for work.”

  She heard his frustrated sigh, but was working on one of her own so she had little sympathy for him. After waiting for several long beats, she said, “Did you have a purpose for calling me at such an ungodly hour, or was it just to find out whether or not I was dressed?”

  “Mmm,” he groaned, then forcibly brought himself back to the reason he was calling. “My truck died. Can you give me a ride to work?”

  “Of course. I’ll be there in about a half-hour.”

  “Will you be wearing what you’re wearing now, please?”

  She leaned back a bit to see the thermometer through the sliding glass doors to the deck. “Sean, it’s three below zero out there. Any parts of me that you might have any interest in will have frozen solid and fallen off by then.”

  Tess liked the sound of his laugh, more so for its rarity. It was warm and full and very deep, and it went right to her clit, somehow – like most of what he said or did, she was realizing.

  “I gotta ask you another favor, though.”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I keep the car for the morning? I have to go into Portsmouth to get some special parts for a customer and I need transportation to do that this morning.”

  “Sure – I’m just going to be at the shop all day, as always. You can keep it for as long as you need to, as far as I’m concerned. Just pick me up tonight. We were going out to dinner anyway, right?”

  “Yes. Thank you. You’re an angel.”

  Tess flushed at the compliment. “Just remember that the next time you decide to spank me.”

  Of course, it sounded easier than it worked out to be, especially for her.

  She didn’t hear from him at all during the day, which was a bit unusual. They usually chatted at least once, often more. He called her or she called him, or he stopped by about the time she went to lunch and took her out, or brought her coffee. But that day, nothing. She saw neither hide nor hair of him from the time he dropped her off until he walked through the door just before eight o’clock that night.

  Since there was no one in the store, she had already done all the little things that she usually did once the store had officially closed, and she had been on the way to the front to lock it. Spying Sean, instead she threw herself into his arms and hugged him, and, although he did hug her back, she sensed that he was holding back.

  She really started to worry. Was he going to break up with her?

  Before she could pull away from him, though, that hard arm had snaked around her waist, holding her fixed in place, as he twisted a bit to turn the lock on the door and flip the “Open” sign to “Closed.”

  “Is everything all right?” Tess asked, a bit concerned by the serious look on his face, hoping that it was just a stupid mechanical issue that had put it there. “Was your truck not fixable?”

  Sean maneuvered them so that he was leaning up against a wall, and she, in turn, was leaning up against him because he had so far refused to let her go. “My truck was fixed within an hour of the time I dropped you off.”

  “Okay, then. Did you have a hard time finding what it was that you were looking for in Portsmouth?”

  “No, it was waiting for me when I got there.”

  “Oh.” Tess was at a loss as to what had put him into the strange mood, so she decided she wasn’t going to play any more guessing games. He would tell her when he decided to and not before, and no amount of coaxing was going to get her the answer she wanted, so she stopped trying.

  “What you ought to pay attention to in that phrase was the ‘when I got there’ part.”

  Tess’s expression was as blank as it was before. She had no idea what he could be hinting at.

  “I was late getting the parts, which meant the customer’s car was late getting fixed. Any guesses why I might not have gotten there on time?”

  Somehow, she thought she should have answered another way, but she honestly couldn’t see how, and she frankly wasn’t much a fan of “read my mind” guessing games.

  “Because you drive my car as slowly as you drive your truck?”

  His stormy expression made her immediately regret the sarcastic remark, especially when she heard his next statement.

  “Well, the problem was your car, which you so kindly lent me.”

  She sucked in her breath. “Did it die on you?”

  Sean sighed, shifting her so that she had to lean even further against him. “No, but it damned well should have.”

  Tess just looked even more puzzled at that pronouncement.

  He sighed again, and Tess was beginning to believe that this night might not turn out well. “Let me give you the short list: your car is out of registration, out of inspection, and you’re driving – in the winter snow – on tires that look like Yul Brynner’s head. I haven’t even mentioned that the “check engine” light is on, you need oil, and your brake pads are down to nubs. Needless to say, I borrowed someone else’s car for my trip. Yours – in that condition – shouldn’t even be on the road.”

  “My car’s fine,” she protested weakly, successfully avoiding his eyes until he captured her chin and forced her to up look at him.

  “There is nothing, I repeat, nothing, fine about that deathtrap you call a car. At least not until I get through with it, which is going to take a few days.”

  “Wait, but...” That sounded very expensive. The reason she hadn’t addressed the issues he’d listed was because she couldn’t afford it. She was also slowly beginning to realize that she couldn’t afford what he was going to charge, either, only it wasn’t going to be money.

  “But what? You’re actually going to defend driving that deathtrap on these winding roads? Has it not occurred to you that you could have been killed dozens of times over in that car? Or that you could have killed someone else?”

  “No,” she answered quietly, suddenly feeling guilt at the honesty of his words. “I was going to say that I knew about all of those things, but I didn’t have the money to get them fixed.”

  Seeing that she was deadly serious, Sean couldn’t help himself but to kiss her gently on the lips, not allowing himself anything more than that or he knew he’d become distracted from his intent. “Listen, Tess” he said. “If cost was a problem you should have known you could come to me and I’d have worked something out with you. I’d have been happy to take care of it.”

  Those beautiful, pouty lips began to protrude even more. “No, I don’t want you to take care of it. I can take care of it myself. I don’t want to end up owing you money.”

  Sean levered them away from the wall, grabbing her hand and guiding her out of the store, and once she’d locked the door, into his truck parked directly outside. After situating her in the passenger’s side and taking his place behind the wheel, he began to guide them towards what she thought was going to be dinner tonight. She should have known better.

  “I don’t know what your other lovers have been like,” he began, hating having to refer to anyone else in her past, especially since it seemed like a hurtful subject, “but I don’t keep score. I’ll not let you drive around in a car that I think is unsafe, regardless of how much money you do or do not have at any given moment.”

  “Well,” she huffed, “I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”

  She was stiff as a board, looking embarrassed and wishing she were anywhere but here. Sean reached over and laced his
fingers with hers. “I won’t take any money from you, honey.” His tone said that the topic wasn’t up for discussion. “But make no mistake, you’re going to pay in other ways for being so cavalier about your own safety.”

  That did not sound good to her. Not at all. Her bottom was still stinging from the last time he’d decided she needed a lesson, and that was only two days ago. She had let loose with a string of epithets at another driver who was dawdling a bit in the fast lane – and she wasn’t even driving. Sean had let her know, unequivocally, that such outbursts were far from welcome.

  That was going to be a problem for her – a big problem. She had a potty mouth. A very uncouth potty mouth, and, for some reason, her usual laissez-faire attitude went out the window when she was riding, or worse than that, driving. She could foresee a future for herself that comprised many, many days of sitting very, very uncomfortably.

  Suddenly she realized that they were on a much-too-familiar route. They weren’t heading to dinner; they were headed towards home – either of theirs, since they only lived a couple of streets away from each other.

  “Hey, wait a minute! Aren’t we going out to dinner?” She hadn’t eaten since she’d sent Pam to grab her a big chef’s salad from the diner across the street, and that had been around noon.

  “After we take some time to address your misbehavior.”

  Tess felt her expectations for the evening crumbling before her eyes. So not only did she have to sit on a bottom that was tingling in anticipation of what she knew was coming, but she also had to put up with her stomach grumbling loudly while they got there.