“Everyone has an off day,” he replied to Savannah.
“Umm hmm.” It was a noncommittal response murmured as she quickly drew out a design in her always present sketchbook.
Bennett shook his head. She’d been all set to poke into his business and then got distracted by her own designs. It was typical Savannah.
“I’m taking off early,” he said, packing up his tools.
“Drop off those two ladder-back chairs to Ruby Thompson? She wants them for her Christmas display this year.”
Bennett nodded his agreement as he headed out the door. With his tools stowed in the front, he put the chairs in the back and secured them with bungee cords. Just as he was tightening the last one, he felt a prickle of unease. Glancing across the street, it was impossible to miss the black SUV with the deer guard.
Casually, Bennett started across the street, ready to confront them. Before he’d even crossed the first lane of the street, the engine roared to life and the SUV peeled out. Horns blared as it merged onto Main Street in front of oncoming traffic.
“Goddammit!” Heading back to his truck, Bennett considered the implications of what had just happened. If they were watching him, it wasn’t random. Whoever was after Mia knew about her life, about her past. He needed to see her, to warn her.
It would be another exercise in self-inflicted torment. Being in her presence was just too damned hard. Of course, the other option, of not passing the information on and the having something happen to her—yeah, that wasn’t really an option. Climbing into his truck, Bennett headed west, towards Fire Creek and the distillery.
*~*~*
Mia emerged from the distillery, keys in hand. She was exhausted. Between the caregiver interviews, the full day’s work she’d put in, and being torn up inside by the temptation of Bennett Hayes she felt completely drained. But, she reminded herself, the last interview had panned out. She’d hired the former nurse who would start the following day.
As she approached her rental car, she felt the first stirring of awareness. With one sweeping glance of the parking lot, she easily identified the source of her disquiet. He stood on the other side of the street, leaning against his truck. Arms folded over his broad chest, the leather of his jacket stretched taut over heavily muscled arms and his long legs crossed at the ankle, that one look at him was enough to make her heart pound and the blood race in her veins.
There were other concerns though. He wouldn’t be there without a reason. For him to come to the distillery, to risk running into her father, there was a damn good reason. Opening her car door, she tossed her laptop bag and coat inside before locking it back up and crossing the street to him.
“We need to talk,” he said.
There was nothing that couldn’t be said right there, but that wouldn’t get her what she really wanted. A few precious, stolen moments wouldn’t hurt anyone, she reasoned.
“So take me somewhere that we can,” she replied.
He opened the passenger door for her. She climbed in without hesitation and he closed the door behind her. In climbing into that truck, going with him without question, Mia knew that the battle that had waged within her had been decided. Whatever came, whatever chance she had, it would always be him.
*~*~*
They drove west, heading out of town. It was a familiar route, one they had taken dozens of times when she’d been a teenager. Sneaking out of her house in the middle of the night, meeting him at the road and riding off into the night in the old Buick that his father had given him had been the greatest thrill of her life. Every time, she’d been breathless and giddy. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be that happy, to have that sense of anticipation.
They drove for several miles, neither of them saying a word, even as he hit the turn signal and turned off the highway. The road to the abandoned spring house was rutted from neglect and had become, over the years, more mud than gravel. The truck slowed as they rounded the bend and finally stopped altogether.
By rights, the building should have been falling in on itself. Looking at it, she saw that pieces of wood had been replaced here and there, the roof patched. Someone, and she had a sneaking suspicion who, had maintained it carefully. It was a bittersweet thought. “I missed this place,” she said softly.
“I come here when I need to think,” he said. There was a defensiveness in his tone that told her it was much more than that.
“We all need a place for that,” she replied. “Why did you come, Bennett?”
“I needed to talk to you. I can’t call you. Can’t go to your house. Ambushing you at work is the only thing I could think of,” he said simply.
Mia glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Her gaze was drawn to his large hands, draped casually on the steering wheel. They were callused and scarred and she wanted to feel them on her skin more than she wanted her next breath.
“Generally speaking, when people say that, it’s bad,” she replied. Her voice was thin, breathless.
Bennett turned toward her then, his face drawn, expression fierce. “I saw them— the driver of the SUV.”
That effectively doused her insta-lust. “What? When did this happen? Where?”
“They were parked across the street from Revision today. When I spotted them, made a move toward them, they took off.” He climbed out of the truck.
Mia waited as he walked around to open the door for her. It was a familiar ritual.
“Why did you approach them?” she demanded. “That could have been dangerous!”
“I was hoping to get a look at them. Confront them. They’re not the only ones who are dangerous,” he replied.
She left that alone. The cold fury in his tone was not something she’d ever heard from him. It didn’t mesh with the boy she’d once known. While that boy was still very much a part of who he was, there were new layers to him that she didn’t know, didn’t quite understand. “Did you see them?”
“No. The windows were tinted well beyond legal and the tags were so covered in mud they were impossible to read. Oddly enough, the rest of the vehicle was spotless.”
Mia walked toward the spring house, her steps slow and even a little timid. She was walking straight into her past, but she wasn’t certain yet if it was wise. Regardless, it was inevitable. “Is it safe inside?”
“Safer than it was when we used to come here,” he answered.
She smiled at that as she reached for the padlock on the door. “Is this your doing?”
She heard his footsteps behind her, felt the weight of his presence. His arm brushed against her as he reached past her and unlocked the door. A shiver moved through her.
“Yes,” he admitted. Grudgingly, he added, “I don’t like sharing this place with other people.”
“Even me?” she asked.
“You’re the reason I don’t want to share it. Coming here,” he paused for a second, his gaze sweeping over the building, “it’s like church. Sacred.”
The little bit of hardness that had remained inside her, the shell she’d cultivated to protect that wounded part of her, shattered like glass. “I’m so sorry, Bennett.”
“For what?”
She turned to him, her eyes filled with tears. “For hurting you. For not being brave enough to fight for what I wanted. For letting every day of the last ten years pass without reaching out for you.”
*~*~*
Bennett sucked in a breath. Those words cut into him, slicing right to the bone. They hurt, but it was a release at the same time. For years, he’d wondered if she had regrets, if she ever questioned the fateful decision she’d made that night. There were other answers he needed from her, but for the moment, that was enough.
“And now? Are you willing to fight now?”
“I can’t,” she answered. “I have reasons for the choice I made, Bennett. Those reasons still stand.”
His fists clenched at his sides. It was either that or punch the damn wall. “So why climb into my truck? Why come out here with
me? I could have told you everything I needed to standing right there in front of the distillery.”
She stepped through the door and into the darkened interior of the spring house. Her words floated back to him with a slight echo. “Because I’m selfish. I wanted to be alone with you… away from prying eyes, away from all the reminders of why this is a terrible idea. Because I wanted to give myself an opportunity to give in to temptation.”
Bennett walked in behind her and closed the door. The spring still flowed through, the sound of the water moving over the rocks and boards was strangely peaceful. The mountain of obstacles separating them was still there, an elephant in the room that, for the moment at least, he would happily ignore. Instead, he focused on one part of her confession alone. “I tempt you?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, her dark hair falling into her face. He reached out and tucked it behind her ear. It was a gesture he’d made hundreds of times, muscle memory. But it was Mia, and nothing was ever simple. Even that relatively innocent touch was like a match to tinder.
He reached for her, pulling her close. She didn’t fight, didn’t resist, she just melted into him. The softness of her body settled against the hardness of his own
Bennett closed his eyes and let the heat and spark of that sink into him. Her arms wrapped around him and he buried his hands in the thick fall of her hair. A gentle tug and she tipped her head back until their eyes met.
“I can’t promise you tomorrow, Bennett.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” he said, his voice tinged with desire and anger. She frustrated him. She infuriated him. And for better or worse, she had put her mark on him a long time ago.
*~*~*
Mia’s gaze was focused on his face. The light coming through the windows was harsh, casting him half in shadow. Every plane and angle of his chiseled face was highlighted. Bennett wasn’t handsome. He was beautiful.
“Damn you, Mia,” he said, his voice rough and deep. “You’ve been a fire in my blood for half my life.”
Those words burrowed into her, sneaking into the place deep inside her where the last bit of hope and innocence was sheltered. She wanted him as much as she ever had. “What are you going to do about it?” she challenged.
The fist buried in her hair tightened, bordering on roughness. She craved that from him. Her body pressed against his and she could feel the hardness of him. This wasn’t the boy she’d once known. There were pieces of him still, but this man was rough, dangerous and there was an edge to him that made her yearn for something she couldn’t quite name.
“Enjoy the burn,” he whispered.
There was no chance to answer. His lips descended on hers. The kiss they’d shared in his kitchen had been gentle, tender. This wasn’t. It burned just as he’d promised. His mouth moved overs roughly, commandingly. He didn’t simply kiss her, he consumed her, and she reveled in it.
Hindered by her cast, Mia wanted nothing more than to strip his clothes away, to feel the wicked burn of his skin hot against hers. Instead, she explored with her uninjured hand, delving beneath his jacket and the cotton of his t-shirt until she encountered firm muscle and warm skin. Without conscious thought, her hand clenched, her nails digging into his flesh, marking him.
Bennett broke the kiss, his breathing ragged. “You drive me crazy.”
“I’ve missed this,” she said.
“Just this? Or me?”
“No, not just this,” she admitted reluctantly. “Everything. Hot, drugging kisses. The way it feels when you wrap your arms around me. All the little things you always did to make me feel special… I haven’t felt special in a very long time.”
His arms tightened about her, squeezing gently, infusing his heat and strength into her. “You should. Every day you should.”
“Make love to me, Bennett.”
He sighed, his breath ruffling her hair and warming her skin. “I want that so badly,” he admitted. “But not here. At least, not now. It’s too cold. The ground is too hard.”
“I don’t care about any of that,” she replied. “As long as I’m with you. We’ve waited long enough don’t you think?”
He laughed, but it was a pained sound. “A few more hours won’t kills us. I’ll come to your house tonight… sneak into your room the way I used to.”
She shivered at that promise. “It’s been a long time. Think you can still climb a tree?”
“I know what’s waiting for me at the top,” he answered softly. “You’re a hell of an incentive.”
When he stepped back from her, the sense of loss was immediate. She missed the heat of him, the pressure of his body against hers. “I guess this means we head back to town.”
He took her hand, “We’ll come here again when it’s not freezing cold. But for now, you should go home and rest… because I promise you won’t sleep tonight. But first, we talk about what happened earlier.”
“The SUV.”
“Mia, this isn’t some random event. This person knows you, knows your history—our history. Why else would they have been watching me, too?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t fathom any of this.”
“Is there anyone that would have reason to hurt you? Have you fought with someone? Is there a jealous ex out there… well, besides me?”
“No. There’s no exes besides you, at all. I told you, Bennett… I haven’t had time for that. But—.” She stopped, clearly hesitant to finish the thought.
“But what?”
Mia let out a heavy sigh. “Erica. She’s the only person that I’ve argued with lately.”
“Who the hell is Erica and what did you fight about?”
Mia moved toward the door of the spring house and looked outside. It had begun to rain. Fog was coming in off the river and was hovering low to the ground, creating an eerie and haunting landscape. “She’s my father’s latest mistress, and my co-worker. There was this idiotic proposal she had at work to take some of our older reserve barrels which are worth ten times what the newer stuff is and mix them so that we could have more product to sell and to satisfy the waiting list.”
He frowned at that. “There’s a waiting list for Fire Creek now? Y’all have never overproduced, but you’ve never run out of stock either.”
“With the bourbon theft last year,” she said, “prices for most craft and small batch Bourbon went up, ours included, , and we sold more. But we didn’t have the stock because of—Bennett, if I tell you this, you can’t say a word to anybody. Promise me?”
He glared at her. “When have I ever not kept your secrets?”
“You’re right. I’m sorry… I didn’t inherit my share of Fire Creek. I bought it. So did Clayton and Quentin.”
He frowned at her, clearly puzzled by the admission. “Why would you have to do that when it would eventually be yours anyway?”
“Because my dad was driving it into the ground. If we hadn’t stepped in, we would have lost everything,” she said and then paused to take a breath. She’d never admitted that to anyone outside of her immediate family. “We had to sink every penny we had into the company to keep it afloat thanks to his mismanagement. Over spending, borrowing to the hilt for decades— but none of us knew how bad it was until we nearly lost Fire Creek altogether. As it was, most of our back stock, except for these few barrels, had to be sold via private auction in order to avoid foreclosure because of a tax lien.”
“How the hell did you keep that quiet?” he demanded. “People in this town know everything!”
“Clayton worked with an auction house in Japan. Bourbon is very big there, you know? They managed the sales for us and Clayton oversaw the transport and distribution of the barrels.” And in that month, because he’d played everything way too close to the vest, Annalee had filed for divorce. It was another sin to lay at Samuel’s doorstep, she thought bitterly.
“Where does Erica fit into this?”
“We argued about her proposal. The day of the accident, just before I left the off
ice, we had it out,” Mia admitted reluctantly. “I wasn’t especially nice.”
“You could have been the biggest bitch to ever walk the earth and it wouldn’t give her an excuse to try to kill you! Do you honestly think what you argued about is enough of a motive?” he asked.
“No, but I think she feels threatened. She knows I don’t want her at Fire Creek and she knows that if given half the chance, I’d march her off the property myself and see her banned for life,” Mia offered. “So, the argument, no… long standing animosity and my general objection to her having anything to do with my family’s company when it’s her meal ticket? Maybe.”
Bennett nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out about her. Last name?”
“McCoy.”
“Of course it is. Nothing like a Hatfield or McCoy reference to bring it all into perspective,” he said. “I’ll see what I can find… but for now, I need to get you back to your car and you need to get home.”
She didn’t want that. She wanted to stay with him, but it was impossible. Stolen moments were all they’d ever had. “You’ll come to the house tonight?”
He smiled at her, his expression laden with wicked promise. Then he stepped forward and took her hand. “There’s not a power on Earth that could keep me away.”
Mia smiled as he led her back outside to his truck. She had waited years. Waiting a little longer would only make it sweeter.
CHAPTER NINE
Evelyn, the lady who sat with her mother during the night, had already arrived and helped get her ready for bed. By the time it was done, Patricia’s bed changed, a fresh nightgown on her and everyone settled in for the night, Mia was burning with anticipation. Bennett would be there soon.
Mia showered quickly, careful to keep her cast covered. Somehow, she managed to shave her legs with only one hand. She returned to her room, wearing only her robe and her hair still piled up in a ponytail. It seemed a little too obvious to greet him wearing nothing, and lingerie, which would have been even more obvious, had never quite made it onto her shopping list. It was a pointless purchase for her as no one would ever see it.
Bennett (Bourbon & Blood #1) Page 6