Had to be a Tucker, she thought, as he turned to her, grinning. His dusty blonde curls swung into his face. She resisted the urge to yank one.
“Well? You gonna drive this thing or sit pretty the whole night?”
“Aw, hush,” she laughed, and turned the keys.
Aja did know the basics of driving- but it had been, admittedly, a very long time.
They pulled onto a back road, at her request. She wanted to take her time with this. Who knew when Steel would be able to take her driving again? She started off at a slow crawl, but a few minutes later, picked up speed.
“Now, you wanna go slow,” Steel warned. “If your friend is out lurking again.”
“No one goes down these roads,” Aja said. She rolled down the window and pressed on the gas pedal. Oh, it felt so good to drive. The wind beat against her brown cheeks and sent Steel’s hair tumbling backward.
“Can I go faster?” she begged.
Steel raised his eyebrows, though he was tempted to let her. “You’re too green for that. I’ve cheated death enough times.”
Aja quickly realized she had no idea where she was going- the last time she’d used these roads was with Grampa Buck, several years ago. She voiced this to Steel, who said he didn’t mind. They could always turn back, and he had a pretty good sense of direction.
“So how old are you?” Aja asked.
“Forty-two.”
She almost choked. “You look young. For your age.”
“Forty’s young,” he protested.
“Forty-two,” she emphasized, laughing.
He smiled. “And you’re not yet thirty.”
Aja shook her head. “I feel eighty sometimes.”
“Don’t waste your youth,” Steel said, suddenly serious. “It’s all we have. And once it’s gone…it’s gone.”
Aja nodded. “Sometimes we don’t have a choice. I feel like I never had a childhood. I’ve always been caring for other people. I love my brothers to death. And old Grandpa. Don’t get me wrong. I’d do anything for them. But you know…I wonder sometimes. What it would be like.”
She shook her head. The drive was easy now, though she’d picked up a bit of speed. “Does that make me a bad person?”
Steel thought about it. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Tell me about yourself,” she said finally. “You know enough about me.”
Steel didn’t quite enjoy sharing details about his private life. But Aja seemed as honest as they came, and, well, he liked her.
“Well, I grew up in Texas,” he began. “Moved to New York when I was a teen. Joined the army pretty young, and was in and out of it. Divorced a couple times.”
“ ‘A couple times’? ” Aja said, stunned. Then jokingly, “What’s wrong with you?”
Steel laughed. It was a raspy, deep laugh, and she liked it very much. “We’ve all been fools in love.”
Aja nodded. Well, that was definitely true, she thought bitterly.
“What else?” she probed. “Why did you leave?”
Steel shrugged uncomfortably. “Issues with management.”
“What does that mean?” Aja wanted to kick herself as soon as the words left her mouth. Typical country girl, she chided. Asking too many questions.
“It’s classified,” he said easily. “All I know, is that sucker had what was coming to him. He was a Major. I challenged his orders. We had a…disagreement, that turned physical. That’s what the paperwork says, anyway.”
“Hmmm,” Aja responded. She changed the subject. “You got any kids?”
“Nope.”
“Do you want any?”
She caught herself trying to picture what their babies would look like. Get it together, girl. You only just met him.
Steel touched her thigh lightly. “You’re veering to the other side.”
“Whoops.” Aja corrected herself.
Steel didn’t answer the question, and he didn’t take his hand from her thigh. He made small circles with the rough tips of his fingers. He thought how nice it would be to have both plump thighs wrapped around his face; he wondered what she would taste like.
“Let’s turn back,” Steel suggested. “I think we’re pretty lost.”
“You drive,” Aja said.
They switched places. As they drove he reached across the seat and put a hand on her knee. Her skin was warm through her jeans.
“I might want kids someday,” Steel said, several minutes later. “But first I want the right woman.”
Aja looked at the twinkling lights of Boyd below. They’d driven all the way up to the mountains.
CHAPTER 2
Fatal Attraction
Up came the sun. Aja woke up the next morning in a daze. She could hardly remember the night before; it came to her in a series of pictures and images. She'd talked so long with the handsome stranger from Texas. Sheriff Joe had taken the boys, but Steel Gray made him leave them alone, made him disappear in his car. And then she'd actually driven, for longer than she'd intended, all the way up the Shenandoah Road into the mountains until the twinkling lights of Boyd looked like stars in the valley below.
Aja hugged her pillow. She'd been so excited, and dizzy, that she'd fallen asleep without her silk bonnet. She eyed the line of hair products on her armoire. The half-open closet door. The pile of clothes on the floor. She took in everything she saw, and then tuned her ears to listen to the voices below. The house the Robinsons lived in was old, like every house in Boyd, but it carried sound as easily as a church. By listening she could tell that Daniel was home, and so was Travis, and Drew. Grandpa Buck was laughing at something.
Aja loved her family very much. Her little brothers were her life. Her Grandpa had practically raised her. Aja loved their little house too, which had been in the family for a couple generations.
But secretly, in that innermost part of herself, she knew that she had to leave Boyd-someday. She was a young black woman in an all-white town. What kind of life was that?
But more importantly, she had to face the fact that life in Boyd was harming her brothers. They were constantly being targeted. Just last month, Travis had got in a fight at school over some kid calling him the n-word. And it had been Travis that the school had suspended.
Aja's thoughts then turned to the subject she'd been avoiding: Steel Gray. In one night he'd established himself in her thoughts, and now, try as she might, he wasn't going away. She went over all their interactions in her mind. The way he could turn from serious to joking. The assertive, commanding way he spoke that made you feel like sitting up straight and listening. His easy, playful sense of humor that seemed so out of character for a man of his size.
"Self control," Aja whispered firmly to herself. Of course Steel Gray wasn't the first man she'd developed feelings for over the last ten years. But Aja had to be careful. The men in Boyd only saw her as a prize, an exotic chocolate trophy to put on the shelf and collect dust. Aja wanted someone to shine for. She wanted someone worthy. She wanted a real man.
A knock on her door woke her from her reverie. She sat up in the bed. What day was it? Saturday? Which meant her first shift at the grocers started at nine.
"Come in."
It was Drew. The boy looked sleepy. His cornrows were already fraying- Drew's hair was quite fine, like her father's had been. She reminded herself to touch them up later.
"Morning, Aja," said Drew.
"Hey, honey."
"You mad at me 'bout last night?"
Aja remembered that she was supposed to have scolded them for trespassing on the Tucker property. Shoot.
"We'll talk about it later, okay?"
"Awright." Drew was a sensitive kid, but could be tough as nails. Aja knew she shouldn't play favorites, but...well. Drew was everybody's baby. She couldn't help feeling extra protective of him.
"I'm going to work soon," She said. "Daniel's staying home to watch Gramps."
"Okay."
"You better stay out of trouble, you hear me?" Sh
e said severely. "Stay home with Daniel. Leave Travis alone."
Travis wasn't a bad kid, but they egged each other on. And Travis had a temper and a smart mouth that, undoubtedly, had not helped their interaction with Joe Snell the night before. Better safe than sorry. She'd have to have a word with Travis, too.
"I'm gonna do your hair later, alright?" She told him.
"Awright."
Drew stayed in her bed while she showered and got dressed. She wrapped her long, natural hair in a bun-Aja rarely wore it loose around her shoulders because of the attention it got.
"Drew?" She said softly when she was ready to leave. He'd fallen asleep in her bed. His blue eyes flickered open at her voice.
"See you later, honey."
"Later, Aja."
A small hand reached for hers. She squeezed it.
In the kitchen, Travis was eating Cheerios- taking fistfuls straight from the box and stuffing it right in his mouth. Aja glared. "You and I need to talk later. Tonight."
"Awright," he said innocently.
"Mornin'," called Daniel, from his favorite seat on the porch. Every summer the boys moved an old couch on the porch, but only Daniel ever used it. He liked to sit outside while he studied. Daniel was the tallest of them all. He kept his hair in a tight fade when he could get it cut- which was only if he could make it to the county over.
The last to greet her was Grandpa Buck. He was standing by the bottle tree, as usual, looking at his collection. Bottles were stuck all over the branches of the great dead maple tree, bottles from many years ago all the way up to the present. Grandpa said it was an old slave's tradition. The bottles trapped evil spirits in them at night, and when the sun came up, they were purified and set free. Grandpa Buck tipped his hat to her, then went back to staring at the bottles. The tree was so large its branches scraped the side of the house. Aja reminded herself to have them cut sometime, before the summer was out.
She turned to the little path that led out of the little plot of Robinson land. The walk into Boyd took twenty minutes. Aja got started, thankful that the heat of the day was a few hours away.
She looked back at the house forlornly. She loved being around her family. But lately it was getting harder to find the time.With Daniel applying to college, money was tight. She'd rather he stayed home and study than go to work in Boyd, if she could help it. She did wish she didn't have to work so much. But family came first.
***
Steel was already up, and eager to start the day. In the shower his thoughts turned to Aja. Her beautiful skin. The feeling of her plump thighs, when he had squeezed them in the car last night. He wondered how such a plain town like this could hide a jewel like Aja.
Thoughts of her dusky brown skin, her soft, full figure and plump bottom danced through his head. He felt a growing hardness in his groin at the thought of her. What appealed to him the most was her innocence, how modest she was. He could tell she had only been with a few men. Or perhaps she was a virgin? Steel pictured himself as the first to enter her, the first to sample that sweet cream between her legs, plunge through her virginity and spill his seed all over her brown thighs.
"Self control," he told himself. For God's sake, he couldn't be chasing women in a town so small without some caution. He could only guess how sensitive the country folks were about things like that. And he wasn't a wild beast, though Aja Robinson certainly made him feel like one. He'd never felt so strong an urge to pull a woman over his lap and ravish her.
Getting his thoughts under control took effort, but he did it. He turned the water off, toweled, and got dressed. There was a lot of work to be done around the place today, Steel reminded himself.
For starters, that damn staircase in the Eastern wing had to be fixed. There was a lot of brown nasty water coming out of the pipes there, too. Carson had asked him to box up Aunt Fiona's things. But the best, most exciting part of all- Steel wanted to clean up the stables. It was his intention to buy a horse at some point.
He had eggs and toast and cold raspberry jam for breakfast. He sensed it would be a hot day. Nothing that he wasn't used to though. As he was washing up, he noticed movement out the kitchen window.
For a moment Steel thought he saw an old woman with white hair crossing his yard. But it was only the gathering sunlight, soft breeze, and the petals of the wild rosebushes climbing over the wooden fence.
A knock on the front door brought him out of it. It was little Drew Robinson. His hair was half picked-out, the black curls standing out from the remaining cornrows like a frizzy half-halo.
"Hey," said Drew. "G'morning."
"Hey," replied Steel. "You doing your hair?"
"Taking it out for Aja when she gets back," said Drew. He wore a bored, sleepy expression.
"She's not home?" asked Steel.
"Some people have to work for a living."
What a moody kid, Steel thought, amused. Then again, most twelve-year-olds were. "Did you eat?"
"Yeah," said Drew. "She does feed us, you know."
"Alright, smartass," Steel laughed. "What do you want?"
"Nothing. This house is kind of crappy, huh?" He pointed his chin at the fraying screen door, the bug-eaten doorframe. More and more repairs. Steel hadn't noticed half of that.
Steel snorted. "Alright, that's it. Home."
"Hey!" Drew yelped, as Steel cut around him and pushed him towards the path.
"Easy, kid," said Steel. "I'm coming with you."
"You wanna see our house? Why?"
"Well, I'm sick of you brats tumbling all over mine," said Steel lightly. "Besides, it's neighborly."
Steel didn't know what possessed him , but he felt a strong urge to see the Robinson place. Maybe it was better that Aja wasn't home. He could picture her not being very pleased with him surprising her suddenly. Well, call it curiosity. He wasn't the prying kind, but he'd take any avenue to get to know Aja Robinson a little better.
As they crossed a little pasture and started down the hill towards the Robinson house, Carson Tucker's warning rang in his ears.
"Look out for the Robinsons," his cousin had told him.
Why? Wondered Steel. They seemed harmless enough, apart from that crazy old man with the bottle. Maybe kind, friendly, Carson was just a racist. Jesus Christ.
Drew worked on more of his hair as they walked. His brown, quick fingers tugged harshly at the braids, then combed through the loose curls, picking apart the tangled ends.
"I came over to your place 'cus was bored," explained the kid. "Nothing ever happens over here."
"You didn't have enough excitement last night?" Steel wondered.
"Pshaw," said Drew, puffing his chest. "That wasn't nothing."
"Your sister was really worried. Why were you on Tucker property anyway?"
Drew looked defiant. "We been going over there for years. Even when Carson was livin' there."
"So?"
Drew scoffed. "We wasn't doin' nothing. Just walkin around."
Steel opened his mouth to reply, and Drew sighed. "Aw, don't. Already got my ear chewed off by Dan."
The big Texan laughed. "Well, then just remember what I said. Give me some warning, if you're hanging around there."
They came upon the Robinson place. Steel tried to hide his surprise. It was a small house, a little run-down. Wildflowers overran the garden- or what had once been the garden. A huge, dead maple tree stood to the left of the house. It's branches were covered with bottles of all colors and shapes and sizes. Grandpa Buck was sitting under it, smoking a pipe. Steel tensed, remembering their first encounter, but to his surprise the old man only smiled, and gave a friendly wave.
On the porch sat a young black kid who could have only been Daniel, the oldest Robinson brother. He looked very much like Aja, but the softness of her face gave way to harsh, stern angles on his. Daniel had a giant textbook open on his lap, a pile of flashcards sitting at his feet, and an old-fashioned pair of glasses on his nose.
He had wondered if Daniel wo
uld have blue eyes like Drew. He did not. His eyes were very large and very serious. They narrowed as Steel approached, intelligent and assessing over the wire rims of his glasses. Steel took one look at Daniel Robinson and knew this was not a boy to be underestimated.
"Dan, this is Mr. Gray," said Drew.
"Hey there," said Steel, offering his hand.
"Hi," said Daniel. "So you stay at the Tucker place?"
Ride A Cowboy: Romance Novel Page 4