by Diane Saxon
Insulted, Flynn gasped.
“It wasn’t my fault.”
Liberty dropped the hat into the garbage, brushed her hands off, and smiled at Carl.
“It was his fault. This is the second hat he’s been responsible for the destruction of.”
“I can see he got the horse to defecate on this one, but what happened to the other?”
It was worth being blamed just to see the wild blush steal over her delicate skin.
“He umm…crushed it. With his foot.”
Carl nodded sagely, met Flynn’s stare, and pursed his lips.
“You need to treat delicate things with a little more respect, son.”
Vibrant red reached her hairline and her eyes held an unnatural glow.
“Yessir.”
If he laughed now, she’d probably crucify him. She raised her chin and looked him dead in the eye.
“You owe me a hat.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She turned on her heel, strutted toward the open side door to the stables, and paused while the wind whisked through and almost knocked her back a step, plastering her white shirt flat against her skin, to show every curve and hollow to its best advantage.
A low growl rumbled in his chest, and his mouth watered until he felt the jab of Carl’s sharp elbow in his ribs.
“It goes for women too.”
“Huh?” He’d lost his train of thought and greeted Carl with a blank stare.
“Trouble with you kids today, too much about what’s in your pants, nothing in your head and not enough in here.” The old man gingerly tapped Flynn’s chest with a firm finger to a shit-free spot where his heart still tripped over itself, almost making him step back with the force of the poke. He rubbed the spot while he looked down into nutmeg eyes and remembered what they had been discussing.
“She ain’t delicate.” he grumbled and turned his back to lead the stallion into his stall with Carl’s rejoinder echoing in his ears.
“Every woman has a delicate heart, no matter how tough their skin.”
Chapter Eight
Flynn took a few moments to consider the cute little convertible in dirt ugly yellow with some kind of black fairy shit splashed over the hood and down the side. It couldn’t be considered parked, more…abandoned outside the supply store, and he decided the hitch in his heart rate couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the likely driver of the vehicle. There wasn’t a person in Harrison County either small enough to fit or brave enough to be seen driving the god awful vehicle, except one little woman.
He stepped through the doorway of Frankie’s Supply Store and gave a small smile as the bell chimed, just like it had for the past twenty years or so. Certainly for as long as he could ever remember.
And the woman he’d been thinking about stood at the far end of the aisle holding an atrocity against everything he had ever known in her hand.
He crossed his arms over his chest as he let the door rattle shut behind him.
“You know fairies will die if you buy that hat.”
She glanced up from her contemplation of the foul item and gave him a grin wide enough to set his pulse racing, although he couldn’t help but wonder the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes like it normally did.
“I’m sure that’s not right.” Her mellow voice soothed over his fraught nerves and made him think it might just be his imagination. “After all, they probably created it.”
“Nope.”
He strode down the aisle toward her, gaining a little satisfaction from the widening of her lilac eyes. “No fairy was involved in the making of that hat. It is an abomination against everything natural.” He waggled his finger at the Stetson splattered in a variety of colors as though someone had paintballed it. He thought her fingers shook slightly as she held it aloft for him to inspect.
“It’s supposed to represent a rainbow.”
“It represents a shitload of spilt paint.”
This time her grin was genuine and infectious, and he almost grabbed his chest and staggered backward as the full impact of her smile hit him dead center. He had the desperate urge to seize her with both hands and kiss her succulent mouth until she was weak and begging. And as the thought of placing his lips against her perfect ones registered, he froze. The smile dropped from Liberty’s face in response.
“Hey, Uncle Flynn, what do you think of Miss Liberty’s hat?”
Flynn turned his head to watch Jacob striding, long-legged and gangly, down the aisle toward them, his arms filled with boxes of boots, and Flynn could only pray there weren’t any matching ones to the hat.
“It’s shit.”
“Flynn.” Liberty’s gentle rebuke had him pulling his attention back to her, despite Jacob’s appreciative chuckle.
“I’m sure he’s heard worse.”
“I’m sure. But he doesn’t need to hear it from a role model.”
He glanced at Jacob, who was preoccupied opening several boxes and lining boots up ready for Liberty to try on, and considered it a serious misjudgment if Liberty thought he was good enough to be anyone’s role model.
The boy’s dark hair and angelic features held a close resemblance to the other side of the family, the strong genetic make-up of the Native American resurfacing. In fact, when the boy met Mac and Zoe’s son, they were probably going to be hard-pressed to know which one was which.
Flynn considered the boy for a moment longer. No, the kid was older. Had to be. He’d started to fill out across the chest, and his legs and arms were beginning to take on muscle tone.
“How old are you now, boy?”
“Fourteen.” Jacob’s voice gave an embarrassing squeak at the end of the word, and Flynn felt for him as the kid shot Liberty a quick glance from under his lashes, ducking his head as his cheeks flushed a deep pink hue.
Ignorant of her effect upon the two males, Liberty treated Jacob to one of her beatific smiles as she accepted a pair of boots he held out for her and seated herself on the small bench, ready to try them on. Flynn thought the child was about to hyperventilate and wondered if Liberty had any idea what she’d just done. Another tender heart flopped on the floor at her feet. One genuine smile from her and men seemed to make complete fools of themselves—and it appeared young boys did too.
Liberty extended one short, but very shapely leg, and tugged a boot on while Jacob gulped in great mouthfuls of air. Oblivious, she glanced up to give another smile and held out her hand for the second boot. Her generous bosom quivered as she reached forward, and her deep purple shirt stretched taut to give Jacob and Flynn a perfect view of her deep cleavage. A pained groan emitted from Jacob’s lips, and he stood immobile with the boot dangling from his limp fingers.
At Liberty’s puzzled look, Flynn snatched the boot and almost threw it at her, and then gave Jacob a quick turn and a firm shove in the opposite direction.
“I need boots too. Go, Jacob. Size eleven.”
He almost shouted “save yourself.” But the kid had already staggered off down the aisle, blind and deaf to everything except his own first crush. Flynn wasn’t entirely sure Liberty would understand; she seemed completely unaware of the undercurrents of the exchange.
“What do you think?”
His mind emptied as she stretched her leg out again and her little black skirt rode an inch further up her thigh. His tongue refused to peel itself off the roof of his mouth until the message from his eyes burned through to his brain, and the sheer horror of what he saw kick-started it back into motion.
“Jesus Christ, Liberty. What kind of foul mind designed boots like that?” He stared at the perfectly made black leather boots someone had ripped the sides out of and replaced the beautiful leather material with a white insert and some kind of stitching in pinks and purples depicting butterflies and insects all the way up the calf.
“I love them.” She seemed genuinely delighted.
“You’re not going to wear them with the hat?”
She chuckled and her breast
s jiggled, grabbing his undivided attention until her silence drew his gaze back up to her face. Raging desire consumed him as he recognized the reflection of it in her eyes.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to…?”
She whipped the boots off her feet, shaking her head furiously as she stood.
“No, Flynn, I would not like to…” She slapped the boots back into their box, shoved her own boots under her arm, grabbed the hat, and whirled around in the direction of the checkout desk, pausing briefly, and her voice, when it came, was barely audible.
“I think I made it clear. To you it’s sex. To me it’s rejection.”
Guilt almost smothered his lust as he witnessed her raise her head, straighten her shoulders, and strut away from him. His eyes didn’t seem to grasp the emotional message and carried on staring at the vision of her pert rump giving a swift wiggle as she hot-footed down the aisle away from him.
“She’s one special lady you have there.”
Flynn turned his head to scowl at Frankie, who was leaning against the end of the aisle fixtures, his head tilted to one side as he treated himself to the very same vision Flynn had just been observing.
“Don’t you have something you should be doing?” The snap in his voice should have had Frankie running down the aisle begging for mercy, but the guy gave a wry smile and tugged at his earlobe.
“I think Jacob can manage to ring her up.” He tilted his head to the other side, and Flynn wondered if the guy was getting a neck ache, trying to get a better angle to view Liberty as she stood at the checkout desk. The desire to help him out of his predicament by poking him in the eye so he could no longer see her seemed to be the best solution.
The words about to emerge from his mouth stuck mid-way as Liberty suddenly bent at the waist to pull her boots back onto her feet, and the hem of her little stretchy black skirt shot from mid-thigh to just under the cheeks of her ass in one smooth move.
As she straightened, Flynn glanced at Frankie and noted he seemed to be having a similar issue with his breathing. The color on the guy’s cheeks had turned a blotchy purple, and Flynn hoped he wasn’t going to have to perform CPR. Perhaps he just needed to distract him from the sight of Liberty’s luscious butt.
“He was supposed to be getting some boots for me.”
Frankie chuckled, rubbing his chest with one hand as he turned his attention back to Flynn. Liberty disappeared from view, and the jangling of the door heralded her departure from the store.
“He’ll get them now.” Frankie smiled again, showing an uneven stack of yellowing teeth.
Flynn sat heavily on the bench and blew out a breath. The woman seemed to have exhausted him again, and this time he hadn’t even had the pleasure of mind-blowing sex with her.
“As I was saying. You’re a lucky man.”
He pulled his attention back to Frankie.
“I am?”
“Sure. Liberty thinks you’re ‘magnificent.’”
Irritation shimmered through him.
“If I hear that word one more time…”
“Oh, you’re going to hear it a lot more.”
Simple curiosity got the better of him, and although he knew the last person he should ask was Frankie, he could no longer resist.
“Why?”
Frankie took it as an invitation and shuffled his wide backside onto the bench, moving Flynn along.
“Because Jack heard Liberty tell Kate sex with you was ‘magnificent.’”
“No shit.”
“None.”
“Does everyone know?”
Frankie glanced along the aisle to see where Jacob had disappeared to.
“Everyone over the age of eighteen.”
The cheerful warmth in his belly rolled up and over his chest and tempted a wide grin from him.
“When did she say this?”
“After you walked her home from Jack and Kate’s party.”
“Oh!”
He chewed the side of his cheek. She may not have changed her view about how good sex with him was, but she certainly had applied the brakes on any further development in that respect.
Sex with Liberty was magnificent for him, too, but what she needed he couldn’t give her. He acknowledged it wasn’t as though she was asking him for a ring on her finger or even any kind of commitment. She simply wanted him to kiss her and he was unable to.
“Uncle Flynn, you never said what color you wanted.”
Jacob staggered under the weight of a stack of boxes, and Frankie leaped to his feet to assist.
“Brown.”
“Oh.” Jacob sighed dramatically, stacked all the boxes on the floor except two, which he offered to Flynn.
“Those.” Flynn pointed. He slid the boots onto his feet and grunted as they fit to perfection. He’d never managed to get a pair of boots anywhere in the world to fit as well as the ones he could get from Frankie’s.
“Good. I’ll have them.”
“You don’t want some patterned ones to go to line dancing, like Liberty’s?”
Frankie snorted as Flynn growled at his nephew.
“No, I do not. Whoever made them should be shot. Come to think of it, so should the person who made those goddamned hats.”
“Liberty likes them,” Jacob defended, drawing a smile from both men.
“Yeah, well Liberty has peculiar taste.”
“I don’t think so. Besides, I think she would really prefer this one.” Jacob nodded at the men’s section of hats. Serious Stetsons. Idle curiosity made Flynn wonder.
“Which one?”
Jacob wandered over, picked a hat from one of the stands, and handed it to Flynn. “Here.”
Surprised, Flynn stared at the soft silver grey of the Stetson, ran his finger across the velvety rim, and understood why the woman would want such a hat. Where it lacked vibrancy and color, it made up for it in quality and texture.
“She does the same thing every time she comes in.” Jacob nodded as Flynn’s fingertips skimmed over the hat.
“Why hasn’t she bought it?”
“It doesn’t fit.”
“She could have one specially made.”
“She said she wouldn’t because it would cost too much and she’d be too tempted to have amethyst Conchos around the hatband to bring out the tint of heather in the hat and then it would cost even more.”
Frankie snorted again and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Not as if Liberty doesn’t have plenty of money.”
“She does?” And Flynn realized just how little he knew about the woman he’d been having sex with and how willing he was to listen to gossip about her.
“Sure.” Jacob’s youthful enthusiasm had him butting in on his employer’s conversation once more. “She buys stuff, sends it to her friends, she says.”
“Friends?”
“Yeah, Liberty has friends all over the world.”
“She sure does attract people easily. She’s a really nice lady, is Liberty, always seems to have the time of day to make polite conversation. Never puts anyone down.” Frankie and Jacob both nodded sagely and Flynn stood, deciding it was time to get out of there before they sainted her.
“I noticed a little too much attraction from Buddy.” Frankie rubbed the end of his nose, gave a quick sideways glance at Jacob, and jiggled his eyebrows at Flynn in a supposedly secret sign. “If you know what I mean.”
“Yeah. I saw.” Oblivious to the secret signage, Jacob nodded in the direction of the store room. “He grabbed her from behind and tried to push her in there, but the door was locked and he saw me coming.” Jacob flushed up. “He had an arm around her waist and his hand was on her…” Jacob did a quick scan up and down the aisles. “Tit. I wanted to hit him, but Liberty said she would rather deal with him herself.”
Frankie exchanged a look with him as Flynn’s temper soared. He was going to kill the bastard himself. It would be a long, slow death. Probably roast him over a pit till his skin crisped and burned.
“Just now, before Flynn came in. You were taking delivery out back.”
“Well then. It’s not the first time, nor is she the first woman he’s caused trouble for. Perhaps I need to have a quiet word with Ethan and Jack.” Frankie glanced at the kid. “You keep quiet about this, you hear. Let the sheriff deal with Buddy. Liberty’s not to hear about it in case it upsets her.”
Flynn handed the boots back to Jacob, barely able to keep a grip on his fury. He needed to find Buddy, kill him quietly.
Frankie studied him. “That goes for you too, Flynn. Let Jack and Ethan deal with Buddy.”
Flynn gave a stiff nod and clapped Frankie on the shoulder.
“Sure. If they find him first, they can have his body. If he touches my woman again, he’s dead meat, pal.”
•●•
He pulled his battered old truck up outside Kate and Jack’s house and decided if Liberty didn’t want to be found, then she should not have rented such a conspicuously ugly little car.
He took a moment to compose himself. He didn’t want to walk in firing on all cylinders and frighten the hell out of the delicate little woman. He rubbed his face and deep-breathed to ensure his temper was completely under control before he made his way to the open door of the kitchen.
At the first sight of Liberty’s ashen face and huge eyes, the leash on his temper snapped.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me what Buddy did? I would have fucking killed him for you.”
“Flynn. Language.”
She raised shaking fingers to her mouth and flicked her gaze toward Kate’s baby lying on a play mat on the floor.
“I don’t think she’ll understand.”
Then he caught the look in Kate’s eye as she gave him a gimlet stare and raised her eyebrows.
“Flynn—do take a seat.”
“I don’t want…”
“Sit.” At Kate’s sharp command, Flynn grabbed a kitchen chair, slapped his ass into the seat, and placed his hands on his knees. Jesus. The woman was scary.
He cast a quick glance around the room and spotted Jack leaning nonchalantly against the counter at the far end of the kitchen, a mug of coffee in his hand. The long, slow smile said Jack knew the whiplash of Kate’s tongue and was thankful he wasn’t on the receiving end of it.