by Jillian Neal
Ryan sighed. “Brock would never do that. 1485 would be about 15 squares wouldn’t it? He was nervous. This is his first time ordering supplies. He just transposed the numbers and wrote down 51. I’ll meet him down there and go over everything. He’ll want tar paper, but don’t pull anything yet. I’ll call you back with the order. Can you deliver it tomorrow?”
“Sure enough. Guess that’s true with him switching the numbers. Hell, I’ve done shit like that, and I’ve been working here since I was in diapers. Don’t worry about it. Just let me know what to send out in the morning.”
“Thanks, Thad.” Ryan ended the call. He rubbed his eyes and willed himself to get up and head to Bandana Books. Brock would be there early. Ryan wondered if the kid ever slept. He worked his ass off, and he would be devastated that he’d made a simple mistake that anyone could have easily done. Ryan wanted to be there to cushion the blow. He tried to think of something else Brock could work on that day, but truthfully, he’d planned to spend the day with Sienna and Evie, his fiancée and his baby girl. Deciding that he’d come up with something, he tiptoed to the bathroom and got ready to meet Brock.
*******
“So sleepy,” Hope whimpered as Brock continued to chuckle at her. She was laying with her head in his lap as he drove his truck towards the bookstore.
“You didn’t have to come, darlin’, but if you want your roof redone this week, I have to get it torn off today. Besides, the crew will be here at eight to load up the bookshelves.
“I wanted to come, but now I want to be back in my bed with you.” She poked her lip out in a luscious pout.
Brock waggled his eyebrows. “That is one hell of a tempting offer. How about I get this roof stripped today, and tonight I take you back to bed and give you several tempting offers?”
“I guess that will be okay, assuming I don’t fall asleep in my dinner.”
“You’re just tired now because you were insatiable last night.” He continued to tease her. Barring that ridiculous lunch with her aunt they’d endured the day before, the past twenty-four hours had been perfection. He knew at some point this portion of their relationship had to end, but he intended to make the most of it before that happened. She was perfect, and he was woefully unworthy to be the guy keeping her bed warm, but hell would freeze before he would be the one to end this. Something about the combination of their time before and being around her aunt had brought out Hope’s wilder side, and damn if he didn’t want to see a whole lot more of that. He’d ramped up his demands, turned her around up on her knees, told her to shake that ass for him, and taken her hard. Every time he was inside of her, their connection strengthened. It was incredible and unfathomable. He still didn’t understand what it meant. Those ridiculous Gypsy legends about love being on the beach turned in his head again. Even if it was love, it didn’t matter, so why worry about it?
“I was not.” She tried to argue, but she blushed violently. He could feel the heat of her left cheek against his thigh.
“I’m sure as hell not complaining, sweet thang. You drive me wild, Hope. I’m serious. This is amazing.”
That beautiful grin formed on her features as she sat up. “I think so, too.” Her bottom lip slipped through her teeth. Brock wondered what was coming next. “Maybe it doesn’t have to end.”
He offered her what he hoped was a sexy grin. “Doesn’t have to end any time soon. Relax, and lay off that lip. If you make it bleed, I’ll have to kiss it and make it better.”
Still smiling up at him, she sank her teeth into her lip with more force turning it white under her bite. He threw the truck into park in the tiny lot, turned, and guided her grin to his own. “Come here to me.” Gently, he brushed his lips over hers, turned his head, and leaned in to extend the craving kiss. She wound her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. There was nothing better in this world or any other than Hope Hendrix wanting more of him.
“Brock,” Hope murmured a few minutes later when his lips traveled down the delicate column of her neck.
“Hmm,” he grunted and helped himself to handfuls of her ass.
“We should stop kissing,” she urged in a breathy whisper.
“Why, sugar? It’s quickly becoming one of my favorite activities.”
“Because Ryan McNamara just pulled in, and he’s heading this way.”
Brock straightened and opened the truck door.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Ryan laughed. He looked very pleased with the scene he’d stumbled upon.
“S’ok.” Brock’s brow furrowed. Why was his boss out there? The hair on the back of his neck stood and the outstanding batch of chocolate chip pancakes Hope had made for their breakfast churned ominously in his gut. He’d screwed something up. That was the only explanation. “What’s up?”
“There was some mix up with the order for the shingles. They’re not gonna deliver until tomorrow. Do you remember how many squares you needed?”
“I’ve never really calculated all of that before. I probably screwed it up.”
“Hey, you’ll never learn if no one gives you a chance to try. From what Whaley said, it sounded like you needed 15 squares. That sound about right to you?”
“Yeah, I thought that’s what I ordered.”
“Numbers got switched around. Don’t worry about it. I’ll redo the order, and I called the crew and told them not to come. They’re gonna do a little more on the hotel. They’ll want a full day’s pay, and it won’t take long to move the shelves out of the store. Why don’t you two find something to do, or go back to what I so rudely interrupted. Sienna will be thrilled, by the way. She’s wanted you two together for a while now.”
“She has?” Hope seemed delighted.
Brock was too busy lambasting himself for screwing up the order to pay much attention to her. I shouldn’t be surprised. I knew I couldn’t do it. You can only pretend you’re not a total loser for so long. He’d managed to pull it off all through high school. He was already living on borrowed time. His ego scoffed. As long as Hope never figures it out, who gives a shit? Ryan can make his own damn orders. He’s the one getting the big paychecks. I never wanted to do anything but put on roofs.
“Oh yeah, and she has a sense about stuff like this. You two enjoy your day together. You can get started early tomorrow, Brock. Don’t beat yourself up over this. Believe me, it’s not a big deal.”
Irked that his self-flagellation was evident to Ryan, Brock managed a half nod. “I’m sorry I screwed it up. I told you I really wasn’t made to be a foreman.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. First house I worked on was for these friends of my parents that hired me because they felt sorry for me. I’d just dropped out of school and found out I was gonna be a daddy in a few month’s time. They wanted me to redo the master bath. I remembered on the last day of construction that I’d forgotten to run insulation in the walls during the first week. Their pipes were going to freeze every single time the weather dipped. So, my dad’s golfing buddy starts to hand me a big check, and I have to inform him that I have to tear out everything I’d done and start over. It was a disaster, but it happens to everyone. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“What’d you say to him?” Brock had no idea why he wanted that answer, but suddenly he did.
Ryan chuckled. “What could I say? I fessed up, apologized, fixed it at cost, lost money on the project, but learned. The truth will rarely fail you even if getting it out of your mouth feels like the hardest thing in the world to do.”
Sighing inwardly, Brock assumed he’d say something like that. Ryan McNamara was the most honest man he’d ever encountered. He’d had a few troubles. Brock couldn’t deny him that. He’d struggled with alcoholism during college, and still refused to drink more than a single glass of wine, but he’d built the life he wanted for himself.
Okay, so he screwed up one job, he didn’t have anything to hide from. He was nothing like Brock. It seemed to him that a guy could tell people he was an alcoholic, and they would b
e supportive and proud to help you fight your demons. That’s how he would react to that information, after all, but the reactions to confessing that you couldn’t read would be nothing like that. He’d be qualified as stupid. What other conclusions could there possibly be? The truth sucked. He had no intentions of ever speaking it. He’d never even said the word illiterate out loud, but it didn’t take much imagination to figure out how people would take that.
Before he could call himself a royal prick for discounting issues of someone suffering from alcoholism, he turned to Hope, desperate to do some damage control. He’d just proven via his boss that he was a complete screw up. In that moment, all that really mattered was making her look at him like she didn’t believe he was an idiot. To his shock, she was grinning at him like nothing in the world was wrong. She looked oddly pleased.
“See ya later, and really, Brock, go have some fun today. You work your ass off.” Ryan waved as he headed back to his Suburban and drove away.
Drawing in a breathy attempt at fortitude, Brock’s jaw flexed. “Why are you smiling?” He couldn’t keep the question pinned behind his lips. Her face fell, making him feel even worse.
“I know you’re freaking out because you always think everything is your fault, but I was excited we get to spend the day together.”
“Well, this is definitely my fault, Hope. There’s no getting around it. I completely screwed up the order. I don’t know what Ryan was thinking anyway. I can’t be a foreman. All I know how to do is throw a ball and nail some shingles.”
“Brock, that isn’t even remotely true.” Hope shook her head. She’d heard his self-deprecating thoughts all through school. Why couldn’t he just believe in himself? The way he was working his molars to keep from correcting her said that arguing with him would be futile.
“I don’t get why you’re not pissed at me. I just cost you another day of the store being open,” he finally huffed. Hope rolled her eyes. He could give her a run in the stubborn department when he wanted to.
“Oh yeah, the one customer that comes in, sits down, thumbs through a magazine and then puts it back on the shelf will completely wreck my non-existent paycheck in the off season. If I get to spend the day with you, I get to put off a day of starting at the library. I’m ecstatic.”
He appeared somewhat mollified, but Hope knew he’d beat himself up about this endlessly. An idea sprung to her mind. She’d been best friends with Brock Camden for years; she certainly knew what he did when something didn’t go his way. The fear that seemed to permanently reside in her being always eased away when he was nearby. She could do this. She would do this, because he would be with her.
“Hey, I know. Let’s go to that farm ranch thing where you always go riding. You said you wanted me to try it.”
“Really?” The amber flecks in those devastatingly sexy hazel eyes flickered.
“Yeah, I mean, as long as you promise to teach me, and speaking of that, there are several other things you promised to teach me, but that will have to wait until after I’ve had a shower if we’re going horseback riding.” She giggled and watched those flickers of heat in his eyes turn to an all-out blaze.
“You’re incredible. You know that, right?”
Hope beamed at him as his sexy smirk returned to his features. When his dimple appeared on his left cheek, she was delighted. “I’m not incredible, but I am kind of excited. You promise the horse won’t like throw me off into a tree or down a gorge or something, right?”
He cracked up and shook his head at her. “How about if I ride with you, just to make sure? Beck’s horses are about as bombproof as they come, but I like the idea of you being up against me while we ride.”
“Bombproof?”
“Bombproof is a term for a horse that’s been broke so well you could set off a bomb nearby, and they’ll just stare up at’cha and wait on you to tell ‘um what to do. They’d never think of throwing anyone, but I’ll be right there the whole time. I’d never let you fall, Hope.”
“I know, so, do we need to take anything with us?”
“Slow down there, sugar.” His sexy chuckle filled the cab of the truck again. “We need to get some jeans on you and maybe pick up something for lunch. I want to take you out on one of my favorite trails, but it’ll take a few hours.”
Hope glanced down at the long sundress she’d put on that morning. Riding a horse in a dress would be problematic. She should have thought of that. Her nerves and her anxiousness to get Brock to stop beating himself up about a simple misunderstanding on a complicated order had her working several steps ahead of her brain.
“Okay, well, let’s go before I lose my nerve.”
Brock gave her another one of those devastatingly sexy grins. “Hey,” he lifted her hand to his mouth and brushed a tender kiss over her knuckles. The sensation sent spirals of shivery delight all over her body. “Thank you for doing this. I know you’re only going because you don’t want me to be an ass all day about the order. You’re an amazing friend, Hope. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“I really am excited to go. I’m tired of being scared of everything all the time, and you never have to find out … what you’d do without me, I mean.” Oh, my gosh, Hope, shut up! That is the second time in the past five minutes you’ve sounded like a sappy, clingy, idiot. He’s obviously aware you like him. Stop blurting it out at every available opportunity. No amount of your pleading is going to keep this going forever. Get over that, and enjoy it while it lasts.
Only adding to her anxious discomfort, Brock cranked the truck without a response to her idiotic plea. She slumped in the seat and ordered her lips to keep themselves shut.
Eleven
An hour later, Hope watched Brock move methodically around his kitchen. He packed water bottles, several apples, and decided that they’d pick up some fried chicken for lunch and add it to the soft-sided cooler he would wear while they rode.
She offered to help, but he informed her that he liked taking care of her. He was apparently making them dinner that evening as well. He was preparing something called a Runza, which, according to Brock, was a kind of Nebraskan delicacy.
She knew he was trying to rectify confusing the shingle order. She just didn’t know how tell him that he owed her nothing. There were so many things that she’d never experienced before that he was showing her, in the bed and out. How could he be so patient with her and not give himself the same respect? Besides, she was delighted to get to spend the day with him instead of spying to watch him up on the roof of her store; not that she’d ever minded watching his muscles flex as he worked expertly without a shirt on. She would get to do that for the rest of the week when she wasn’t working at the library. Being pressed up against those muscles was always better than watching them from afar.
“Okay,” he turned from the cooler he was packing and eyed her. “Almost ready.” With that, he knelt in front of her. Her body was immediately aware of his heat and that intoxicating musk that was all Brock. He lifted the cuffs of her jeans up over the boots he’d instructed her to wear. If he was planning on undressing her, she was more than okay with it, but this was an odd way to start.
He shimmied her jeans upward and then began shoving the cuffs down into her boots.
“What are you doing?”
“You want your ankles and feet completely protected. I’m taking care of you.” He winked up at her and a broad beaming grin formed rapidly on her features. Yeah, if I could just somehow keep her smiling at me like that my life would be damn near perfect. After inwardly calling himself a sappy-ass pussy, he stood, grabbed her hand and the cooler, and led her back out to his truck. This was going to be great. By the end of the day she’d forget all about him being a complete idiot incapable of placing one fucking order for shingles. He’d make sure of it.
“Have you ever been to the winery?” she asked wistfully an hour later as he headed north on 40 towards the stables. They were passing the Duplin winery. Brock usually enjoyed the
quiet scenic drive towards Beck and the trails, but damn if he didn’t like having her to talk to so much better.
“Yeah, once or twice. I wined and dined a few girls at the restaurant there. I’m not much of a wine drinker, but I can stomach their muscadine. It’s pretty good. You wanna go sometime?” Good job, idiot. Bring up other women while you’re with her. It was difficult not to slip back into their friendship. He had to learn this new dimension of their relationship, and he needed to stop making moronic mistakes.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve never even been this far off of the beach,” she confessed sheepishly. Bless her heart. Her aunt did a real number on her. Brock shook his head minutely. There were so many things Hope needed to experience, and they were just getting started.
“It’s nice there. They have a few stomping festivals throughout the year. We could go make a day of it. It’ll be fun.”
“I’m not stomping grapes, Brock. I’d look like an idiot.”
He shook his head. “Sometimes it’s okay to have fun even if you think you look ridiculous doing it. Life doesn’t always have to be so serious.”
“I know. I know.” She seemed to sense they were close to the stables as the road narrowed and the hills grew higher. Her nerves placed some kind of vice grip on her vocal cords, and she gnawed her lip constantly, so he didn’t say much more about grape stomping.
“I’ve got you, darlin’. I’d never let anything happen to you. As long as you know what the hell you’re doing and you listen to the horse, they’re one of the gentlest animals.”
“It’s just that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” She tripped over the word hell, and he stifled a chuckle. Her aunt would probably birth live ducks if she heard the word slip from Hope’s tongue.
“But I do.” He squeezed her hand and then guided the truck slowly along the dirt road that led to the gates of Beckman’s Stables.
He parked the truck in his usual spot and felt his entire body relax. “Come on. This’ll be fun. I swear.” Hopping out of the truck, he made it to the passenger side in record time. Mildly concerned he was going to have to actually lift her from the seat and carry her to the horses, he offered her his hand. She begrudgingly accepted it and slid her booted feet to the dusty dirt below them.