by Tara Rose
“You believe me?” He sounded genuinely surprised by what Luke had said.
He shrugged. “Vivian does, so I do, too. She always knows when someone is lying to her.”
Preston cut his gaze toward her. “Is that true?”
“It is. My mama and grandmother are the same way. We couldn’t get away with anything when we were little. They always knew.”
He nodded slowly as he’d done earlier. “That’s a useful skill. Maybe you can teach it to me?”
She laughed. “You can’t teach it to anyone. You’re either born with it or you’re not.”
She asked Preston about his family back home, and learned he was an only child and both his parents were in medicine. “My father is a top cardiovascular surgeon in Baltimore, and my mother does research on stem cells.”
“Is that where you’re from?” asked Luke.
“Baltimore? The area, yes. I was raised in Glenwood, Maryland.”
“Preston went to Johns Hopkins,” she said. “Graduated in the top ten of his class, which is pretty darn impressive in that school.”
He smiled slightly. “That’s because all I did in school was study.”
Luke took a long sip of his beer. “Ever been married?”
Preston shook his head. “No. Have you?”
Vivian cut her gaze toward Luke, but he didn’t look upset. Preston couldn’t have known and it was a legitimate question, after all. Luke placed his bottle carefully on the table and then traced his finger through the water ring it had left in a different spot. “I was married for two years. My wife and our infant son were killed by a drunk driver three years ago.”
Preston looked like he wished he hadn’t asked. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks.” Luke finally looked Preston in the eyes. “Sounds like we all have shit in our past we’d rather hide from.”
Vivian raised her beer bottle. “To hiding from shit in our past.”
“Hear! Hear!” Preston clinked her bottle, and then waited for Luke to speak before clinking bottles with him.
“I’ll drink to that,” said Luke. After he drained the bottle, he rose. “Vivian, thank you for inviting me over. I’m going to turn in early. Dad needs some help with stocking at the store before we open tomorrow.”
“Where do you work?” asked Preston.
“My family owns the Henderson Weed & Feed out by the highway. So if you need weed killer, or decide to buy farm animals and need food for them, stop by and see us.”
Preston nodded. “I’ll do that.”
Vivian followed Luke out onto the front porch. “You don’t have to leave.”
“I know that. And thank you for saying so. But I’m not going home because he’s here. I really am tired.”
She felt she should say something about the kiss earlier, and was about to when he shocked her by pulling her close and kissing her again. Even knowing that Preston might very well be watching them from inside her house didn’t make the second kiss any less hot. If anything, that possibility excited her more than it should.
When he released it, she started to speak but he laid a finger against her lips. “Don’t,” he whispered. “I want to take the memory of this to bed with me tonight. If you have to say something about it, say it tomorrow. Please?”
She nodded, and he removed his finger.
“Good night, Vivian. Sweet dreams.”
She watched him walk across the front yard and into his house, but stood staring at his front door for a long time before going back inside.
Chapter Five
Preston drank the rest of his beer, and then once Vivian was back inside, he rose. “I think it’s time I get home as well. Thank you again for dinner. I mean supper.”
She smiled, but her face had a faraway look as though she’d been deep in thought. “We say ‘dinner’ as well.”
“None of my business, and feel free to tell me to get lost, but are you and Luke seeing each other?”
“No.” Her response was too immediate to be a lie. “We’re exactly what he said. Longtime friends and neighbors.”
“Was there something between you two at one time?”
She plopped down in her chair and rested her hands in her chin. “God almighty. Does it show that much? Wait. Let me back up. There was never anything between us, meaning we didn’t date. We shared a few tender moments as young teens, nothing more. Cletus was in the same grade as me in school, and Luke is two years older. When he went away to college in Knoxville, I started seeing Cletus. By the time Luke came home, I was married and Cletus was in the Whiteville Correctional Facility, serving his sentence.”
He took his seat again because she looked like she needed to talk, and he needed his questions answered. “Would you have married him if Cletus hadn’t asked you first?”
“I don’t know and that’s the Lord’s truth. Susan was always sweet on him, and she was one of my best friends. It didn’t seem right, you know?”
He nodded. “I get that. But what about now? You’re both free.”
“And he’s still grieving. He might always be grieving. Luke isn’t the kind of guy who moves on easily.”
Preston placed his hand over hers. When she didn’t pull away or flinch at his touch, he gave it a tiny squeeze. She turned her gaze on him and he melted at the way she watched his face carefully, as if looking for answers.
“And what about you? Are you the kind of woman who moves on easily?”
“Cletus and I were married for twelve years but I don’t feel as if I ever knew him. I knew he wasn’t exactly the church-going type, but never did I think he’d shoot someone over cigarettes and beer at a convenience store. I mean I just never saw him doing that. And I never saw it coming when he told me about Ina, or said he wanted a divorce. I always assumed we’d pick up where we left off. I was a fool.”
“No. No, you weren’t. You’re a trusting person, and he betrayed that trust.”
She pulled her hand away and stood so fast her chair nearly toppled over. “Listen to me, going on like this. What you must think of me right now.”
“What I think is that you need someone to talk to.”
“I’m the HR director at your brand-new place of employment.”
“Not right now you aren’t.”
A shadow of indecision passed across her face. “Preston, in this town, I will always be that. No one will see it differently. Trust me on this one.”
His heart raced. “Does that mean you won’t go out with me to see a movie or have dinner? I mean dinner in a restaurant, not here in your kitchen.”
She let out a sound halfway between a laugh and gasp, but he didn’t sense ridicule in her voice or in her body language. Quite the opposite. If this woman wasn’t genuinely interested in him, he’d eat the container the wings had come in. “Is that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?”
“It’s a not possible.”
“Why not? You’re not my supervisor at work. There’s no impropriety.”
“There’s the impression of impropriety.”
He sighed. “Because of the lawsuit?”
“That, and because people would gossip like crazy.”
He rose and sauntered toward her, smiling. “I didn’t grow up here, but it’s been my experience that people are people everywhere you go. They gossip just as much up north as they do here, even when there isn’t much to gossip about.”
“That’s true, I suppose.”
They were inches apart. He watched the rise and fall of her shoulders, and the way her eyes looked even darker now than they had earlier. “Then say you’ll go out with me Friday night. We’ll go far, far away where no one will recognize you.”
He could see her working through it in her mind. Every thought showed on her face.
“Dinner and a movie. Or just dinner. Or just the movie. I don’t care, as long as I get to spend time with you away from work. Away from here.”
She’d noticed the emphasis. She was too sharp not to.
“By ‘here’ do you mean away from Luke?” Her question was quiet, but he caught the undertones. The weight of her words was almost palpable.
“I mean away from your hometown for one night.” Liar.
She let out a big sigh before answering him. “All right. Let’s go out and see where it leads us.”
“Thank you.” He kissed her cheek because he knew if he landed one on her mouth, he wouldn’t be able to leave tonight, and that was the last thing either of them needed. Too much had been confessed today, and she’d regret it in the morning. He didn’t want that for her. “And thank you for supper.”
“Oh. Wait a minute. Here.” She turned away and picked up several Tupperware containers. “Take this home. That way you’ll have something in the house to eat.”
“Are you sure?” She’d handed him enough food for at least five meals.
“Absolutely.”
“Thank you again.” Preston forced himself to leave the house and get into his car. As he backed out of the driveway, he waved at her while she stood on the front porch. Movement next door caught his eye, and he glanced toward Luke’s house in time to see someone peering through a slat in the blinds.
Preston shook his head as he made his way home. Just neighbors and longtime friends. That might be true, but there was now no doubt in Preston’s mind that Luke wanted back in Vivian’s life, and into her pants.
Not that he could blame the man.
* * * *
Vivian found it almost impossible to concentrate at work all week. Sin Hospital wasn’t the smallest place around, but it wasn’t exactly as large as Vandy or UT, either. She ran into Preston more times than she ever would have imagined doing. Whether that was purposeful on his part or a coincidence, she didn’t know.
But she did know one thing. The closer they got to Friday, the more nervous she became. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go out with him. It was the fact that she’d found her daydreams wandering to what would happen after the date, and whether he looked as yummy naked as he did in his long white lab coat and dress shirt with tie. Each time she found her thoughts going down that road she tried to rein them in, but she might as well have tried to control the weather for all the good it did.
And to complicate matters even more, Luke came over every evening after work to check on her repair progress and help her, even if he only stayed for an hour or two. Just having him that close so often made her acutely aware of how much she’d once fantasized about them being together. He hadn’t kissed her again, but she still felt guilty about her fantasies.
On Thursday evening, she finally decided to bring up how she was feeling, just to see where his head was.
“I feel guilty at times, too,” he said. “But I think we’ve danced around this long enough, don’t you?”
“What do you want to do?”
He chuckled softly. “God, Vivian. A better question is what do I not want to do. I want to throw you down to the ground and make love to you until we can’t breathe. And then I want to move in here with you so I can do that every day. I want to take you out and walk through the town square with you, and not have anyone say, ‘There goes Luke Henderson with Vivian Tremaine,’ and have them judge us for being together.”
Her mind was still reeling with images of them fucking like dogs in heat on her living room floor. “Do you really think they would judge us?”
“Yes and no. But I’m not so worried about me as I am about you.”
“What do you mean?”
He ran his hand through his hair, coating it with drywall dust, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. “Haven’t you heard the talk all week? All I hear is Dr. Preston Benson’s name, and then yours as the woman who hired him.”
Shit. “What are they saying about the lawsuit?” There had been no way to keep it secret.
“Not that much. They’re more intrigued because of his credentials, and the fact that it’s all over town now that you drove him into Murfreesboro on Saturday.”
Thank God. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She returned to her work as heat rose up her neck and face. “All I did was carry him to get a new tire.”
“But his car was spotted here that same night.”
She hadn’t known that. “But you were here, too.”
“They don’t know that. Half the town thinks you hired him because you knew him already, and the other half thinks he’s a horndog and is after you next.”
“And what do you think?”
“I don’t know. It’s not really my concern, is it?”
She faced him again. Enough was enough. “Luke, you said it and you’re right. We’ve danced around this long enough.” Her pulse raced and she wiped her damp palms on her jeans.
He took her hands, and she was surprised to find his were damp, too. “Yes, we have. It’s time for me to be blunt. I’ve always liked you as way more than a friend. You know that. If things had worked out differently for us… well…we might be married right now. But then Susan and I wouldn’t have had our time together and Jacob wouldn’t have been born. And you might still be wondering what if about Cletus.”
“I wouldn’t be wondering about Cletus because he’d have still robbed that store and shot that woman.”
“Okay. True. But we wouldn’t have had the experiences we’ve had. They’ve made us who we are today. Vivian, I want to see where this leads us. I’m ready to move on. But I might have waited too long.”
“You mean because of Preston.”
Luke nodded, and she wished the earth would open up and swallow her. Talk about lousy timing. Why couldn’t they have had this conversation two weeks ago? Then again, it had taken Preston’s presence in town to light this fire under Luke’s ass in the first place.
“I don’t know what there is between me and Preston, and that’s the truth. He asked me out for tomorrow night and I said yes, so I guess I’ll know soon enough.”
Luke’s mouth became set in a thin line and he yanked his hands away. “Looks like I’m a day late and a dollar short yet again.”
“No, you’re not. It’s one date, nothing more. And in fact…” She dug out her cell phone. “I’m going to call him right now and cancel it.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you wouldn’t have agreed to go out with him if you didn’t really want to. You’re not like that.”
She put her phone back in her pocket. He was right. He knew her better than she knew herself most days. “So where does that leave us?”
“It leaves us nowhere, I guess.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Luke, do you want to see me or not? Because I really can’t figure that out here. You kiss me like we’re already lovers, and then you back off, and then you kiss me again, and now you’re ready to walk away because I’m going on a date with someone for the first time since my divorce became final? What do you want from me? Seriously? What do you want?”
Vivian had raised her voice exactly three times in her entire life. It simply wasn’t something a lady did, at least according to her mama, that is. The first time had been in third grade when Jimmy Jenkins took her favorite doll and tried to throw it in the creek behind the school. They’d just had a powerful storm, and the creek was swollen and rolling. She’d have lost the doll, for sure. Luke had come to her rescue.
The second time had been when Cletus told her about Ina and asked for a divorce.
The third was right now, standing in front of Luke, asking him just what the hell he wanted from her.
Luke’s face was full of determination, and his hazel eyes were full of lust. She’d seen that look before plenty of times, but he’d never acted on it. The air in the house felt charged suddenly, as if there was a storm brewing outside. But it was a clear night. The only storm brewing was inside.
“Damn it all to hell and back,” he muttered. “I want you, Vivian. Only you.”
Chapter Six
Before Vivian had time to do much more than take a b
reath, Luke backed her up against the wall with the hole in it, and planted a kiss on her mouth that would melt Texas in the middle of August.
Vivian moaned loudly in the back of her throat as his tongue worked its magic inside her mouth. She started to wrap her arms around his shoulders, but he caught her wrists and pulled her arms overheard, pinning them there. Her pussy was soaked and her clit throbbed. Where had this dominance come from? She didn’t know, and right now she didn’t care. She only knew she wanted more of it.
He ground his erection against her, and she moaned louder. She had to have him. Right now. Her need for this man had never been this intense or overpowering. Vivian didn’t stop to think about it, and she didn’t try to analyze it. The hell with what might or might not happen tomorrow. Luke was here now, and that’s all that mattered.
When he released the kiss, he held onto her wrists but trailed a line of liquid fire with his tongue over her neck and then down into the valley between her breasts. He let go of her arms to grasp her breasts through the fabric of her shirt, and Vivian moaned again. “Luke…”
He didn’t say anything, but the look he gave her made words unnecessary. She’d never seen such an expression of desperation and desire on anyone’s face. Vivian grasped the hem of her shirt, and he moved his hands off her long enough for her to pull it over her head. He watched as she unhooked her bra and removed that, too, and then he spent long, luscious moments licking and sucking each nipple in turn, until she was sure she’d go out of her mind with need.
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve dreamed of doing this?” he asked.
“As many times as I’ve imagined you doing so.”
He looked at her with nothing less than love in his beautiful eyes. “Really?”
“Really. Please don’t stop, Luke. Don’t stop now.”
She watched him swallow hard, and then he eased her down to the floor and took off her jeans, panties, socks, and shoes before she could catch her breath. “Oh my God, Vivian. You’re more beautiful than I ever pictured.”