Dropping the questionable main dish on the center of the table directly in front of the chair at the head of the table where she knew Jethro would sit, she groaned when she heard a faint knock at the front door. “Who in the devil could that be?” she whined plaintively, praying it wasn’t a nosy neighbor that had gotten wind of what happened at the diner earlier. All she needed was a Bertha Busybody elbowing in and wrecking her first night with Jethro. Not only that, but how in heaven’s name would she explain being here alone with him? She needed to be respected in this new place, didn’t she?
Reaching the door, she took a second to take a deep breath and wipe the back of her fingers against her sweaty cheeks. She knew she must look a fright, but there was no help for it now since whoever was out there would have seen Jethro’s truck parked in front of the house. Pasting what she hoped would pass for a smile on her face, she pulled open the heavy front door with one hand. “Hello?” she said to the sandy haired tall, lean man standing outside, leaning lazily against one of the white pillars.
“Well, hello to you, too, Pretty Lady,” the man drawled, greeting her with a lascivious smile as his dark blue eyes trailed lewdly up and down her body.
Automatically crossing her arms over her chest when she noticed how the man was looking at her, Orla swallowed hard. “Can I help you?”
“Nah, sweet. I saw you get out of the truck earlier with Ro, and wanted to come introduce myself. I’m Hank Stafford. I’ve been working moving some of the cattle up here to the north pasture today,” he said, jerking his head to where twenty head of cattle now grazed across the road. “Saw you crawl out of the truck and wanted to come say hey to ya. You the new housekeeper or cook or somethin’?” he asked, taking a step toward the door like he’d enter.
“Or something,” she agreed, stepping quickly outside before the man could step across the threshold. Bumping Hank’s chest when she reached back to close the door, Orla flinched when she felt the man’s hands settle on her hips. Brushing off his hands, she offered him a hard frown.
“Just tryin’ to offer a helpful hand to steady you. Relax, sweetness,” Hank grinned, one hand contracting painfully on her hip when she moved to push him away.
“She’s plenty steady, Stafford. Step the hell back from her or walk away with a stump for an arm,” a familiar deep, roughened voice barked from their right as Orla heard heavy boots hitting the wooden floor of the wraparound porch.
Watching as Hank lifted his hands in surrender and turned to look toward where Jethro stomped toward them, Orla watched him unwisely offer his employer a careless grin. Turning her head toward her future husband, she was never so relieved to see someone in her life and she relaxed as he neared, followed closely by an older, grizzled man.
“No harm done here, Boss. I finished moving those cows for ya and wanted to come up here and see who the new addition was to the staff,” Hank shared with a shrug of his shoulders. “I thought maybe I could find out who she was and…”
“She’s mine, that’s what she is,” Jethro growled, glaring at the younger man as he finally came to a stop in front of him. “And I thought I told you to take a step back from her,” he bit out, slamming a hand to the man’s chest and sending him stumbling backward a foot.
“Huh?” Hank grunted, catching himself against the railing.
Ignoring him, Jethro turned concerned eyes to Orla. “You alright, Tidbit?” he asked in a low voice.
“I’m fine,” she replied huskily, reaching a hand out to touch his tense arm. She could see he was enraged at finding another man touching her, and while part of her thrilled at the knowledge, the saner part of her wanted to stop him from doing something he might regret later. Smiling, she edged closer to his big body. “Honestly, I’m fine.”
Nodding once, he growled, “Bones!”
Looking past Jethro, Orla saw the old man standing behind Jethro’s shoulder. She assumed by his age and proximity to Jethro, he must be some kind of foreman. She watched as the man straightened and replied, “Yeah, Boss!”
Though he spoke to the old man called Bones, Jethro kept his still pissed off gaze pinned on Hank (who’d wisely taken several steps in the opposite direction of Jethro). “Spread the word to every man that works this farm. Tell ‘em that as of now, I’ve got a wife – or will have as of Wednesday. Her name’s Orla, and any jackass that’s bold enough to touch her will not only lose his job, but I personally promise he’ll lose a limb. Or two. Got me?” he spat.
“C’mon, Ro… I was only just foolin’ up here with her,” Hank said, shooting pleading eyes toward Orla.
Unfortunately for Hank, Orla wasn’t feeling forgiving since her hip ached where his hand had pinched her. Besides, she’d never interfere when Jethro was commanding his men. This was his farm, and he had the right to make any rules he wanted – as long as he thought long and hard before he tried to rule her, that was.
“Boy, you best shut your trap before you’re lookin’ for a job,” Bones retorted, quickly sliding in front of Jethro before their boss decided to take a swing. “I’ll deal with it, Boss. Ev’ry man will know you’ve taken a woman by sundown. Promise you that,” the white-haired man assured with a friendly nod to Orla. “And congratulations to both you and your Miss Orla. I hope y’all will be as blessed as me and my Mary Ann have been for pert near forty years now.”
Orla smiled at the wizened looking man. “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “I hope we will be, too.”
The foreman nodded before shoving Hank’s shoulder. “C’mon, troublemaker, I think you’ve stirred up enough shit today.”
Jethro watched with a clenched jaw as the two men walked away. “I should have kicked the shit out of that jackass,” he muttered with a shake of his head. “He ever touches you again, and he’s a dead man.”
Orla’s heart warmed at his possessiveness. “I really am fine, Jethro,” she said, patting his chest to get his attention.
“You shouldn’t have had to deal with that kind of thing on your first night here, Orla,” he grumbled, looking down at her. “First, I act like an asshole when I meet you. Then, you’re forced to deal with one of my handsy employees. Hank pulls this shit again and he’s out of here. Probably in a coffin. I don’t care how good he is with the cattle.”
“You made your point, Jethro. I’m sure it’ll never happen again. Believe me, if you hadn’t have showed up when you did, my knee was about to get real acquainted with his man bits. I promise you that. I learned with the older boys at the orphanage that if I was going to protect my chastity, I needed to protect myself. One of the older nuns took us girls aside and shared how we could protect ourselves if we ever needed it. More than once, I needed to relocate a boy’s lower region to his throat. My knee is a dangerous weapon when I want it to be.”
Jethro scowled. “Orla, honey, that doesn’t make me feel any better. Now, I wanna go find every little shit that ever thought he could put his hands on you and knock the hell out of them. But,” he said with a slow grin, “I’ll have a mind to that knee the next time you and I get in a skirmish,” he added, bending to steal a sweet kiss from her upturned lips. Pulling back a second later, he sniffed. “Is that smoke I smell?” he asked, looking over her shoulder at the front door.
Eyes growing huge, Orla screamed. “Oh, no! The grease!!!” she screeched, turning to shove open the door and barrel into the house. Running as fast as her legs would carry her to the kitchen, she found the room filled with smoke and flames licking the sides of the cast iron skillet she’d used to fry the pork chops. “No, no, no!” she shouted, snatching a towel off the counter and reaching for the handle of the pan.
She hissed as the heat burned her hand even through the thick towel and turned to throw the pan in the deep sink as Jethro jumped into action behind her to switch off the burner and smother the fire on the stove with a pot lid. She moved so fast that she never noticed that the flame had touched her borrowed apron, setting the cotton on fire. So, of course, when Jethro turned and began to smac
k her thighs, she hauled off and hit him back.
“Shit!” Jethro groaned, rubbing his jaw where Orla cold cocked him with one hand while he continued to slap his other hand against her apron. “Tidbit, settle down. You’re on fire!”
Freezing when she would have given him another mean right hook, Orla’s eyes widened as she looked down her body at where her apron now smoldered at the ends. “I’m on fire!” she yelled, jerking her head up to stare at Jethro with wild eyes.
“No kidding,” he returned sarcastically, smacking at the last of the burning embers. “Woman,” he growled, still rubbing his sore jaw, “You are a hazard to your health and mine!”
“Sorry,” she murmured, suddenly embarrassed that she’d hit him. “I thought maybe you’d snapped over what happened with that farmhand. Somehow decided to blame me or that you were mad I’d set the stove on fire,” she mumbled, dropping her gaze to the linoleum floor.
Face like thunder, Jethro glared at her. “Were you not listening at all out in the truck earlier? I said that I’d never touch you in anger, and I meant it. Real men don’t put their hands on a woman, Orla. By nature, you’re smaller and weaker.”
Raising an eyebrow at his condescension, she lifted her chin defiantly. “Tell that to your bloody nose and the bruise you’re gonna have on your jaw tomorrow.”
“That was a sucker punch if ever I saw one,” Jethro groused, finally throwing the rag in the sink and turning on the water to soak both the pan and the remainder of the towel.
“Yeah… because you were a sucker and ended up getting hit,” Orla teased, leaning against the counter and catching her breath.
Closing his eyes, Jethro shook his head. “I’m gonna go wash up. Supper almost ready?” he asked, looking around the kitchen almost fearfully before walking over to the back door and opening it so the worst of the smoke could begin to clear.
Orla nodded, stepping in front of the stove so that he couldn’t see that the water had boiled off the pot and now the corn on the cob had a slightly browning tint to it. “Absolutely! You go rinse off and I’ll have the food on the table in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
Looking at her warily, he asked, “You sure you don’t need any more help in here?”
“Nope,” Orla denied brightly, forcing a smile. “I’m fine. Hurry along now.”
And as she watched Jethro slowly walk from the room, she wondered how in the world this meal could get any worse.
Chapter Seven
Jethro
She chipped his tooth. Or, more specifically, the pork chop she placed on his plate had chipped his tooth.
Forcing himself to take another bite when her worried eyes kept staring at him, he chewed carefully, making sure this time to fully masticate the overcooked meat prior to swallowing.
Hard.
Clearing his throat as he dropped the blackened chop back to his plate, he raised his eyes to meet Orla’s.
“Do you like it?” she asked anxiously. “It’s an old recipe. French, I think. It’s seared.”
It’s charred, he thought to himself before winking at her. “Is it? It’s definitely different.”
“You hate it, don’t you?” she whispered shakily, staring down at her own plate while her hands gripped the edge of the table tightly.
“It’s fine, darlin’,” Jethro rumbled, reaching for a slice of white bread. He’d already tasted the corn and there was no way he was going back for another bite of that. But bread… nobody – even his future wife – could screw up bread. All she had to do was slice it. Staring at it suspiciously as he noted the soaked red corner of the crust, he looked from it to Orla. “Is this some kind of sauce?” he asked her, showing her the corner of his bread slice.
Biting her lip, Orla shook her head before she hung her head.
“Then what is it?” Jethro asked, bringing the slice of bread closer to inspect the edge.
“It’s my blood!” Orla wailed before bursting into tears and burying her face in her hands.
Dropping the bread to his plate, his eyes shot to her. “What do you mean your blood?” he asked quickly, scanning her for injury.
Holding up her index finger for him to see the shallow cut on the pad of her finger, she heaved out a long, defeated breath. “I cut myself while I was slicing the bread. I guess I dripped,” she confessed, humiliated.
Scooting back his chair, Jethro patted his thigh. “Tidbit, come here.” Watching her give him a long, regretful look, he waited as she slowly stood from her seat. Tugging her arm and pulling her down to sit in his lap, he smiled when she curled against his chest trustingly. Resting his chin on the top of her head, he wrapped his arms around her. “I’m gonna take a wild guess here and say that you don’t know how to cook,” he said quietly, the hum of the icebox in the kitchen and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room the only sounds in the house. “Am I right?”
“I must be such a disappointment, Jethro,” Orla choked out quietly. “All I’ve done is fail since I got here. I wanted to give you a lovely meal, and so far, I’ve nearly burned down the house, given you a bloody nose, broke your tooth….”
“Baby, hush. Do you think I was born knowing how to grow tobacco or raise cattle? Hell, no. Somebody had to teach me. You’ll get better.”
“I promise I can clean house. I just never learned to cook. I always waitressed. I even saved a tidy little nest egg doing it since I started when I was barely 14. But cooking… oh, Jethro! I burn water. What kind of wife burns water?”
“The kind that never got taught how to boil water,” Jethro returned gently, sliding his hand up and down the fragile line of her spine. “Orla, look at me,” he demanded, waiting until she’d lifted her face toward him. “I don’t expect you to know how to do everything on the first day you arrive here. So, you can’t cook. Mother McKinnon is a great cook and a great teacher. She’ll be able to guide you. And if worst came to worst, I know my way around putting together a couple of meals. Don’t beat yourself up, baby.”
Staring at him, Orla lifted a hand to brush her fingers over the soft bristles of his beard. “I never expected you to be so nice. It’s confusing.”
“The first impression I gave you of the man I was wasn’t all that I was, Orla,” Jethro explained, moving his hand up her back and into her hair, gently massaging her scalp. “Come here to me,” he ordered, urging her with a hand on the back of her head. Sliding his tongue into the sweetness of her mouth, he groaned. Goddamn, but he loved this woman’s taste. Leisurely tangling his tongue with hers, he explored her slowly, mapping her body with his hands as he learned what made her gasp… what made her purr… and what made her arch her back and moan.
Reaching the underside of one breast, he curved his hand around it, weighing it in his hand as she pressed her body closer, grinding her ass against his dick and pushing more of her tit into his hand. “You like that, Tidbit?” he asked between wet kisses while he moved his thumb back and forth over her swollen nipple.
“Oh, Lord, yes, Jethro,” Orla panted, squirming against him. “It’s so good,” she confided huskily when he plucked at the aching peak with his thumb and forefinger, pinching gently.
Grinning when she bucked like she’d been hit by lightning, Jethro cursed the thin dress she wore. The damn thing was hiding tits that he desperately wanted to see and taste. His hand hovered over the buttons that kept him from her. “Tell me I can unfasten these,” he growled, his finger pulling at one faux pearl button. “Let me see you, Tidbit. Just a little of you.”
“Just a little?” she repeated, her eyes wide as she drew back and licked her kiss-swollen lips.
“Yeah, sweetheart. Just a little for now,” Jethro returned, his deep voice gravelly with passion. Her nod was all he needed to spur his fingers into moving, flying down her chest and eliminating the buttons hampering his view. Spreading the sides of her dress a second later, he groaned as he got the first view of her luscious tits. Barely contained by the white satin cups of the slip she wore, t
hat rosy flesh beckoned him, begging for his mouth. Tugging down the slick material enough to free one succulent breast, he dove forward, latching on to her pinkish brown nipple with hungry lips, her low cry of pleasure echoing in his ears.
“Oh, God! Jethro!” Orla breathed, her head falling back on her shoulders as his beard erotically scratched flesh that had never known a man’s touch. Burying her fingers in his dark, wavy hair, she sank her top teeth into her lower lip as his lips tugged at her nipple.
“Fuck, you’re sweet, Tidbit. Even here, you taste like goddamn cherries,” he whispered, swirling his tongue around her throbbing nipple, lapping at it with his tongue while he freed her other breast from her slip.
For endless minutes, his head moved between her tits. Tasting. Biting. Suckling. Learning every single thing that made her make those plaintive little whimpers deep in her throat. “I love these tits,” he praised, cupping one in his hand as he slowly tugged at her nipple with his teeth, earning himself one of her delicious low moans. “Fucking gorgeous, Orla,” he murmured as she wiggled in his lap, pressing and rubbing her thighs together.
Lifting his head, he captured her mouth in another heated kiss while he kept stimulating her nipples with his fingers. “You ache, don’t you, Baby Girl?” he whispered into her mouth. “Way down deep… your body craves mine, doesn’t it?”
“Jethro,” Orla breathed against his lips, her fingers stroking his whiskered jaw.
“Yeah, I know you do, Tidbit,” he murmured, kissing a path down her neck to suck at the curve of her neck. He heard her moan again, shivering against him. This time, however, he knew she wasn’t cold. No. That was white hot need causing her body to quake against his.
And he needed to call a stop to things between them before they got too far out of hand and he took her for the first time right there on the dining room table.
Wed by Wednesday (Passion in Paradise #4.5) Page 8