by Lucy Score
Her email had been succinct.
Reading it. I’ll be in touch.
He was nervous about the script. Even fictionalized, it was still deeply personal. It was his story. Their story. And until he’d taken in a Lakers game with a studio exec and blurted out the story over too many beers, he hadn’t thought of it as anything but his history.
And until last night he wasn’t sure how he wanted the story to end.
The draft was rough and needed a few weeks of polishing, but he knew in his gut it was a guaranteed green light. What he didn’t know was how Joey would react to it.
Jax stumbled into the kitchen and spotted the note taped to the coffee maker.
Push this button.
He did as instructed and was rewarded with the smell of brewing coffee. The woman was a goddess. There was another note on the island next to a plate of cookies.
Breakfast of champions. I have rug burn on my ass.
It was as close to a love note as Joey Greer would ever write. Jax folded the note neatly and tucked it into his wallet.
The perfect souvenir of their first night back together.
18
Jax found her in the stables standing in the doorway of the feed room arguing with the feed rep.
“I understand your dilemma, Chuck. And yet, I still don’t care,” Joey said, crossing her arms over her chest. “We’re not eating a ten percent increase just because you say transportation costs have gone up.”
They bickered back and forth until she spotted Jax leaning against Lolly’s stall, watching and grinning. She promptly lost her train of thought as every thrust, every orgasm from the night before ran through her brain in vivid detail.
One look at his sexy smirk and heated gray gaze and she knew he was thinking the same thing. Her resolve to stay cool was already wavering and Jax hadn’t even said a word to her yet. All he was doing was standing there looking gorgeous and smoldery and she was turning into a puddle.
“So we’re agreed on five then?” Chuck clarified. “We’ll split the difference?”
“Huh? Sure. Five,” Joey said, ignoring the look of blatant relief on the man’s face.
“I’ll just go call my supervisor and get that approved.” Chuck practically skipped out of the stables.
“Yeah, you do that,” Joey said.
“You could have got him at three,” Jax told her.
“I was going for two when I got distracted.”
He gave her a sexy, crooked grin. “Hi,” he said softly.
“Hi, yourself. Did you sleep well?” Joey asked.
“Great. At least until a certain beautiful cowgirl snuck out of bed this morning.”
“Horses need fed. Everyday,” she shrugged. “It’s not a hobby for me.” For some reason she was itching for a fight. Or maybe she was looking for a different release of energy.
Jax’s fingers snaked into the waistband of her breeches, pulling her against him.
Stay cool. Don’t think about all those orgasms, Joey ordered herself.
“Didn’t Carter tell you to hire more help?” Jax asked, already knowing the answer.
“I’m in charge no matter how many hands we have. It’s my responsibility to make sure things get done and get done right.” She felt defensive and off kilter.
“I find your work ethic very sexy,” Jax told her.
“That’s because you have the libido of an entire high school lacrosse team,” Joey shot back. “Speaking of work ethics, you were up late.”
“Finished the draft and sent it off to the powers that be,” he told her, his fingers tightening on her pants.
“Must have been quite the inspiration that struck last night,” Joey teased, running her hands up his chest and completely ignoring her decision to maintain a little emotional, if not physical, distance from Jax.
“I could go for another round of inspiration,” he murmured, lowering his lips to hers.
The kiss went from playful to possessive in the span of a breath. Any thought of not getting swept away disappeared from her mind as her lips parted, welcoming him in.
His fingers dug into her hips and he pushed her back against the wall.
“God, I want you so much.” Jax mouthed the words against her lips. “Why do you do this to me?”
“I’m not doing anything,” she growled, nipping at his lower lip.
“Don’t even tell me that’s nothing,” he groaned.
“Hey, Joey? Do you know where—”
Joey shoved Jax back a step and leaned against Lolly’s stall door in what she hoped was a casual position.
Colby came around the corner carrying a broken feed scoop. “Oh, hey, Jax. I didn’t know you were…” he trailed off, looking back and forth between them.
“You were looking for me?” Joey asked a little too sharply, ruining the nonchalance she was going for.
Lolly chose that moment to stick her gray spotted head out of the stall and nibble at Joey’s hair.
Joey jumped out of her skin and into Jax’s arms. Lolly tossed her head, enjoying the game.
“Everyone okay?” Colby asked, concern weighed on his tone.
“We had sex.” Joey blurted out the words. “Jax and I. Last night. Had sex.”
Colby and Jax’s faces wore twin expressions of shock.
“Jesus, Jojo.” Jax covered his eyes with his hand.
“Um. Okay then. Congratulations?” Colby looked more embarrassed than Jax.
“Yeah. Thanks. Okay, now we can all get back to work.” She nodded.
“Do you know where the other feed scoop is?” Colby asked holding up the mangled scoop. “Apollo got bored and decided to eat this one.”
“Feed room, second shelf on the left,” she said, jerking a thumb toward the open door behind them.
Colby nodded. “Okay then. I’ll just go get it.”
Jax was intently studying the toes of his work boots. Joey cleared her throat. “So… that happened,” she drawled.
He looked up, a grin on his face. “I thought it would take me months to talk you into going public.”
“I didn’t go public. I told Colby, who walked in on us mauling each other in the middle of the aisle. Besides, look what happened to Carter and Beckett when they tried to be all sneaky about their relationships.”
“So we’re in a relationship,” Jax said, stepping in closer, a hunter scenting prey.
“No. We’re having sex,” Joey corrected, backing up a step.
Lolly took the opportunity to go for her hair again. “Jesus, Lolly!” Joey shoved a peppermint treat at the horse.
“Are we having sex with other people?” Jax asked.
“No!” The word flew out a little more forcefully than she’d intended. “We’re not having sex with other people,” she corrected more calmly.
“Then we’re in a monogamous…” he took a step toward her. “Committed. Relationship.”
Joey shook her head back and forth so hard she felt her teeth rattle. “No. Uh-uh. We are casually enjoying each other’s…” she waved her hand in front of Jax’s crotch. “Bodies.”
“We’re dating.”
“Absolutely not. Why do we need a label, anyway?”
“Because if we don’t say what it is we’re doing, someone else is going to label it for us and you don’t want the Beautification Committee renting a wedding venue for us, do you?”
The damn Beautification Committee and their damn plan to match Jax with Moon Beam. A shiver of nausea slithered around Joey’s stomach. Whatever black magic they weaved, they always got their couple. Maybe she didn’t want to be in a serious relationship with Jax, but that didn’t mean she wanted to see him in one with someone else. Certainly not with a Moon Beam Parker-type whose sticky sweetness attracted men like flies to a flystrip, sapping them of their free-will and spending money. Once sated, she got bored quickly and moved on to her next victim.
The Beautification Committee be damned. She was saving Jax from a Moon Beam future.
&nb
sp; “We are seeing each other.” She slapped a hand on his chest when he took a joyful step forward, hands slipping around her waist. “Casually.”
“I can live with that,” Jax said, nibbling his way down her throat. “For now.”
She growled low in her throat. “God, you drive me nuts.”
“Right back atcha, baby,” he said. “I need you.”
“Tack room?” Joey suggested, suddenly desperate for more than just stolen kisses.
He half-dragged, half-shoved her across the aisle to the door of the tack room.
“Wait,” Joey said, putting her hands on his shoulders. “What about Chuck?”
“He’ll wait,” Jax said, impatiently pushing her through the open door.
“Shit! What about my parents?”
Jax actually spun around to look behind him. “Are they here?” he hissed, reaching down to adjust what looked like an uncomfortable bulge in his jeans. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“No! They’re not here. But if we’re casually seeing each other I have to tell them or face the consequences.”
“What kind of consequences are we talking here?” Jax reached for her again, but she slapped his hands away.
She shook her head. “Who knows? This could be worse than the Silent Treatment Thanksgiving of ’93 or the baby christening when Mom’s cousin Drew showed up an hour late because of a flat tire. He was shunned from family events for a year.”
“Shunning doesn’t sound so bad.”
“It was bad enough that they heard from someone else about the partnership. I can’t let Blue Moon do the dirty work again.”
“They need to know, Joey. No matter how badly it goes, you need to tell them.”
“Just checking, but should we compare notes on why we both think telling my parents would be horrible?” Joey asked. She knew what her reasons were, but wasn’t clear on Jax’s fears.
“I think it’s best if we leave that one lie,” Jax advised. “Rule No. Two in our relationship, neither can speak ill of the other’s family.”
“That seems fair. We each can still speak ill of our own family, right?”
“Yeah. Definitely a requirement.”
“Is not sleeping with other people while we’re sleeping with each other Rule No. One?”
Jax nodded, the heat returning to his gaze.
“Wipe that look off your face until after I call my mother,” Joey warned him. She began backing away from him down the aisle toward her office. “Just hold that thought. And if you get a chance, go find Colby and feed his phone to Clementine before he can post on Facebook that we had sex.”
“Oh, geez. You guys had sex?” Carter said from behind her.
“Jesus! Did everyone around here start taking ninja classes?” Joey slapped a hand over her thudding heart. “You can handle this one,” she pointed at Jax and hustled into the office for her cellphone before she blabbed to anyone else that she was having sex again.
* * *
“Is everything okay, Joey?” Her mother’s voice was laced with panic on the other end of the phone.
“Everything’s fine, Mom,” Joey said, biting back a sigh. Her parents’ tendency to overreact over anything out of the norm was a constant stressor for the entire family.
“You don’t usually call in the middle of the day.”
“Yeah, well, I had some more news I wanted to share with you.”
“Oh my God, wait until I sit down.”
“Mom, it’s not sit down news.”
“I just don’t want to faint if you say ‘cancer’ or ‘unplanned pregnancy’ or something like that,” April said, her voice a wispy note of anxiety now.
“I’m seeing Jax. Casually.” She emphasized the last word and hoped it would break through her mother’s fear fog.
“And you’re pregnant.”
“No. I’m not.”
“You’re not sick? Or hurt? There wasn’t a fire.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Mom. I slept with Jax last night. I’m probably going to do it again.” Hopefully today. In the tack room.
There was silence on her mother’s end as April processed the news.
“Well, your father isn’t going to be pleased, but I’m really not surprised.”
“You’re not?” It was Joey who was surprised.
“Sweetie, I’m not an idiot.”
“Okay. Sooo, how do you feel about it?” Joey would have rather bitten off her own arm than ask the question, but it was always better to know where one stood when facing a battle.
Her mother sighed. “I’ve been expecting this call since Jax moved back last year. I’ve had a lot of time to process in anticipation. You held out a lot longer than I would have.”
She was still holding out. Sort of.
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Joey was wary of things that were too easy.
“Your father blames Jax for your accident.”
“Yeah, that came through pretty loud and clear over the years, Mom.”
“I never blamed him for it.”
“But?”
“But what I do blame him for is abandoning my daughter when she was in the hospital and needed him.”
“I blame him for that, too,” Joey confessed.
“Maybe he had a good reason, or maybe he was just a scared young man. But either way, you needed him there and he wasn’t. So I’m just asking you to be careful.”
“I will, Mom. I promise.”
“Good. So, what do we do about your father?”
Joey’s toes curled inside her boots. “I was thinking maybe you could tell him for me?” Her voice had gone up an entire octave.
“You’re lucky he’s not on Facebook,” April sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. He’s usually in a good mood on Tuesdays. It’s dollar draft night at the fire company.”
“He got me a dog, Mom.”
“Oh, boy.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, be careful.” It was her mother’s blanket cautionary demand that covered everything from crossing the street to not slipping in the shower. But this time, Joey knew it meant something more specific.
“I will. Thanks, Mom. And thanks for telling Dad for me. You’re the best.”
“I am pretty great, aren’t I? Say hey to Jax for me.”
“Will do. Thanks, Mom. I mean it.”
With that done, there were two more women who needed to know under penalty of murder.
Joey decided a text would do.
Had sex with Jax last night.
She debated adding a smiley face, but decided that would be too weird. There. Summer and Gia were now in the know. Short of posting a post-coital selfie in the Blue Moon Facebook group, she’d done what needed to be done to share the news, control the spin, and hopefully shove Moon Beam Parker onto some other unsuspecting soul with a dick and a wallet.
* * *
“Now, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but—”
Jax cut Carter off and tossed a bale of straw onto the third tier in the barn. “You don’t want my relationship with Joey to mess things up around here.”
“Yeah,” his brother nodded and hefted a bale onto clean pallets to start a new row. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for you.”
“I can tell,” Jax said sarcastically.
“Don’t be a dick. It’s been so long coming, I think I kind of thought it wouldn’t happen.”
“Don’t underestimate the Pierce charm.” Jax reached for another bale. “Joey did.”
“Total rookie mistake.” Carter shook his head. “So, where do you see this going?”
“Are you seriously giving me the talk?” Jax wasn’t sure if he should be amused or offended.
“It’s like a spin on the talk. A weird spin,” Carter told him. “You know I’ve known Joey her entire life and I love her like a sister so if you fuck with her again I’m going to feed you to Clementine. But, you are my brother and I love you. And I think you’re hoping for marriage and
kids and stuff here, so if she ruins that and sends you packing, I’m going to have to at least force her to babysit the twins every week so Summer and I can have more sex in the kitchen.”
“You’re very creative with your choice of punishments.”
“I started a list for the twins so I don’t have to think of anything on the fly when they steal Summer’s car or set the drapes on fire.”
Jax grimaced. “I forgot about that. Mom wouldn’t let us watch TV for a month after that bit of arson.”
“Yeah, and she made us reenact all of her favorite episodes of The Golden Girls.”
“You made a really great Blanche,” Jax recalled. “Mom was insane.”
“I hope I’m half as insane as she and Dad were raising us. Then at least one kid will turn out okay.”
Jax thumped Carter on the shoulder. “Don’t forget. You’ve got Summer and she’s way more organized and diabolical than Mom and Dad ever were.”
Carter smiled. “Remember all of those bologna sandwich dinners because no one could ever remember who was supposed to cook?”
“Your kids will have memories just as good,” Jax predicted. “Except it will be like disgusting soy tofu sandwiches on organic bread with vegan cheese.”
“Are Golden Girls reruns are still on?” Carter wondered wistfully.
“I don’t know, but did I tell you I walked in on Mom pulling a Blanche this week?”
19
While Jax and Carter finished stacking the straw bales, Joey placed a call to a friend of a friend who happened to be director of a racing stable in New Jersey to see about scheduling a facility visit. Waffles snoozed under her desk.
She was just wrapping up when Gia and Summer’s excited faces plastered against the glass of her office door.
“That works for me, Sheri. I’ll put it on the calendar and email you closer to the date,” she said before ending the call.
Joey debated sitting there and pretending she was still on the phone until the girls got bored and went away. But no one would believe that she would willingly stay on the phone for longer than five minutes at a time.