As his daughter watched him shove most of an apple flavored muffin into his mouth, she waited.
Gill swallowed the muffin and smiled appreciatively at the sustenance. “That was good. You should start a baking…”
He stopped, when gaining another icy glare.
“Okay! Okay!” He flared his nostrils in defeat. His daughter was tapping her bare foot on the thickly-piled carpeting, rather impatiently. He smiled at that, too, then shrugged his shoulders, as if it mattered not at all he was getting her goat.
“Brittany asked me to check up on you. Make sure things are going as they, um, should. I told her you’ll be fine, but you know how my darling significant other can get. She won’t give up until she knows for certain all is well. It must be the pregnancy hormones talking.”
“Cut the crap, Dad!” Her foot tapping stalled.
This time it was his turn to openly glare. “Crap? Damnit, Julia! A father has a God-given right to worry.”
“Then don’t blame an extremely pregnant Brittany for you being here, just to check up on me. Besides, there is nothing to worry about. Everything is fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Her defiance stance, if ever there was one, for all those times he simply spoke his mind. Sadly, this was about once a week and compounding interest on an hourly basis.
He’d not been this overbearing and overprotective during her teenage years. Why now? Surely he wasn’t feeling pity for her now? Julia would never stand for anyone pitying her… especially now.
So what if she was a little different these days? So what if it was a bit more than his daughter could handle? She was a big girl. She was taking life one day at a time. It was all that could ever be asked of her.
“Maybe everything’s fine now, but what about next week?” Gill arched his brow until it just about touched his hairline.
His daughter threw her hands into the air and turned her back on him. “I’ll make you a deal, Pops. When next week comes, only then will I give you a bit of fatherly slack and allow you to start worrying about me. How’s that sound? Fair enough?”
“Next week? Julia, I won’t be here next week! I have to leave for Ohio this afternoon.” His words were loud because she’d already turned on her heels and was heading toward the kitchen, trying her best to ignore him. He’d needed to shout to get her to pay any mind to him. “I will be gone for eight full days. Will you be fine then?”
Eight days would be the longest he’d been away from her ever since…
With her back to him and her feet moving forward she muttered, “Oh! Yeah. I forgot. You’re buying a cow or something.”
She returned from the kitchen with a pair of running shoes dangling from one hand.
“A bull,” he corrected. “And I can’t leave town until I know for certain you can protect yourself against four hundred, slightly desperate men heading toward Preacher’s Bend. Looking, I might add, for more than a good time. Staying a full eight seconds on the back of a bucking bronco might not be all they’re after once they set foot here. I don’t want what is looking to be a very long trip ending with my coming back to heap full of trouble standing at the back door.”
“A heap full of trouble, Gill? Good grief! I’m twenty-eight-years old. I can certainly look after myself. I’ve not gotten into a heap full of trouble in ten years.”
Oh, yeah? There was that one year slipped in that had taken a few years off the duration of his life. Surely she hadn’t forgotten about that? His daughter had a slight thing for men with tattoos. But so did Liddy. Christ! The two women, best friends since Kindergarten, shared the same fetish, the same ideals, and they’ve remained friends; even though, at times, those ideals and men coincided. Gill had made certain any man who’d gotten within ten feet of his daughter and ha a tattoo was run out of town.
Four hundred men about to converge on Preacher’s Bend early next week might have him an early start on an ulcer, and worrying a bit more than he should be, but Julia should be able to take care of herself. She’d enough practice at it while under her mother’s nurturing care—tongue in cheek. His ex-wife’s main goal had been about status, the money, and little else during their daughter’s formative years. She sure as hell hadn’t cared about him.
Gill remained standing inside the living room, caught up in indecision, placing his hat in his other hand, again. “Can I at least expect you to come home for dinner tomorrow night? Six o’clock sharp?”
Julia slipped on her running shoes. She tied the laces. “As always, down to the seconds, not a minute more.”
“And you don’t need a thing while I’m gone?” He paused in thought.
“Nope.” She stood, stretched her calf muscles, twisting her frame first to the right then to the left. “Don’t need a thing while you’re gone.”
Gill stared at her as she went through the paces of warming up. He groaned. “Whatever happened to that little girl I used to know in bright red pigtails, who hounded me at all hours of the day for a pony she would never ride? What happened to that freckle-face kid who was too afraid of things bigger than she?”
Julia stopped what she was doing. Her gaze turned thoughtful and misty-eyed. “She’s still here, Dad, still afraid of anything bigger than she. But she’s not hounding you for any more ponies. She has a boarding house to take care of for the summer, four grumpy old men to deal with, and come fall, Preacher’s Bend’s finest to educate; whether they want to be taught the basics of calculus or not.” She grimaced at the lack of ambition of the younger generation and just how difficult it was to get any one of them interested in anything other than cars, clothes, and loud music.
Gill straightened his shoulders, taking a moment to consider the passage of time, hard knocks and all. God, he felt old.
When the hell had he gotten old?
“No. I guess she’s not here anymore.” He turned to go. “But Goddamnit Julia Margaret Hillard! She is driving me absolutely crazy in my old age. And for the record, all this gray hair on top my head is because of you.” He ran his hand over most of it, thankful he still had hair.
His daughter escorted him to the door. “Maybe so. But not all of it is my fault, you know. A good dose of a spoiled rotten brat named Cody produced a few of those gray locks. And you said Brittany thinks the distinguished look very sexy on a man. So quit complaining about the color of your hair. If anyone has the right to bitch, it’s me.”
Gill widened his eyes, surprised. “I actually said that to you?”
Julia placed her headphones around her neck, then stood up on tiptoes and planted a kiss on his clean shaven cheek. “Isn’t that what a really good daughter is supposed to do for her old man? Remind him of his memory loss during his advanced years?”
“No. She’s not. She’s supposed to be giving her somewhat forgetful father a whole bunch of grandkids, and pushing his wheelchair around town when he’s too feeble to do it on his own.”
“But you’re making your own kids right now,” she offered, winking at his startled gaze. “No wheelchair in sight. Besides, I wouldn’t want to willfully spoil the fun you’re having with your wife by hauling over a bunch of snot-nosed kids for you to take care of. And I am quite sure that an ever-darling half-brother of mine would hate me even more, if I dared try.”
“Among Cody’s many other reasons for hating me these days,” she added.
“You let me worry about Cody’s attitude, and …um, any of my fun being spoilt.” Gill cleared his throat, stating more once he could compose himself of the fact she was talking about his sex-life and not that of hers. “And you just worry about finding someone who needs you.”
In other words, a man to marry, babies to nurture, and a home that did not involve grumpy old men who called themselves paying customers; as well, someone to take of the duty of protecting his only daughter whenever he could not.
She punched him hard on the shoulder. “Gee, Pops. With four hundred hard-bodied, incredibly sweaty men coming to town, bright and early next week, while you’re s
tuck in Ohio buying another bull, I should be able to latch onto at least one suitable man, and faun all over him. If lucky, I might even get into a heap full of trouble. Perhaps there might be two cute guys I can sink my teeth into.”
She dared her smile to remain devilish while pulling open the front door to push him out of the house.
“That is exactly what I am afraid of,” he conceded. Gill groaned loudly while he stood on the front porch of his recently deceased grandmother’s house, waiting until Julia locked the door with the old silver key.
“What?”
He watched as she put the key into a pot of purple and white petunias located next to Petty’s old rocker.
“While I’m gone you may find one actually considered suitable—and I’ll not be around to kill the bastard.”
They shared a quick laugh over this.
If he actually followed through with this threat the local cemetery would be full. Yet, genetically speaking, she wouldn’t have to be dealing with what she was, if not for being his daughter. And that hurt him the most.
Chapter Three
As Julia ran through the quiet streets of Preacher’s Bend, listening to the sound of hardcore rock music blasting into her eardrums through her headphones, she mulled over what her father had said to her earlier. No. He would not be here to protect her. But damnit! She didn’t need her father’s protection.
Gill’s protection was what had her unmarried, and at the age of twenty-eight temporarily unhappy. No one had ever been good enough for his only daughter. He would look at all the men she’d brought home over the last few years as though they should’ve been placed under a microscope; each put through a battery of medical questions just to date her. Taken apart, piece by piece, until each man had decided enough was enough; that she wasn’t worth the trouble of dealing with an overbearing, uncooperative sire. Or one that dug into their medical history, which was private.
Her father hadn’t been home those two glorious weeks she’d dated Jake Giotti. Hence, the very reason Mr. Giotti still stood upright. And the very reason Jake could still say he was Gill’s best friend.
They were two peas in a pod, Gill and Jake. Both men went after what they wanted in life, taking the bull by the horns. They were men; did whatever they could get away with, whenever they felt the urge. Preacher’s Bend looked the other way when its men wanted a bit of action. It was the women who suffered for desiring the same courtesy.
Sadly, Julia wanted more than just a little action. She wanted what others took for granted. She wanted stagnation to burn away, drift away like a summer mist on a hot morn.
As she ran around a corner that would take her down to the main street, she slowed her pace then checked her watch. There was a lot to be said about having a particular goal to achieve for the day, and well before the sun rose. Her goal had been two miles. She’d done three.
She turned her head, rechecked the traffic (one car, a big red tractor pulling a load of freshly-baled hay of last night, and the newspaper boy riding his ten-speed bike in a zigzag pattern across the pavement), then proceeded onwards toward the house, running at full steam the last half mile.
Winded, surely red in the face to match the color of her hair, she bounded the front steps of the boarding house two at a time, grateful to be back and in one piece.
That’s when she saw him.
His cowboy hat was set on the wrought iron table and he was seated in …Oh, Sweet Jesus! Petty’s sacred rocker!
No one had ever dared since the funeral.
Julia slammed on the brakes, physically backed up, trying to stand taller than she really was, and eyed the man with the utmost dread. Not another boarder? There wasn’t room for another boarder. She’d taken up the last bedroom simply to save time and energy of traveling back and forth from her father’s place. She might have the career and the impending pension, but she’d not endeavored to find an apartment of her own. Life’s complications somehow slowed down that quest.
Sunday’s early morning stranger was no more than thirty-years-old, tops. And he was so damn good looking she could barely take her eyes off him. He was wearing tight fitting faded blue jeans, a clean pale gray T-shirt, and worn cowboy boots. There was a smile as big as the plains of Texas on his perfectly shaped lips, and a dangerous twinkle in his eye as he stared her down.
Although it was on the tip of her tongue to tell this man to take his smile and his absolutely gorgeous body right off her great-grandmother’s front porch post haste, she wasn’t a foolish woman. No one in their right mind could’ve ignored a smile like his for long …and be sane!
“Howdy.”
Her eyes widened. Did they still say that these days? They must. She just heard it. Or she was having dire hallucinations at the worst possible moment.
Her eyes drew to the man’s shirt.
‘Eight seconds is a Whole Lot of Bull to Spread Your Legs Over!’ Honest-to-God. A shirt like his couldn’t be made up.
So caught up in the suggestive words splayed across his wide-berth chest, Julia momentarily forgot to breathe. She pulled in deep, gasping breaths to slow down her rapid heartbeat, trying to focus on the here and now; regrettably, had to prod the rest of her with a red hot poker to stop staring at his toned pecs.
He stood up unexpectedly and completely towered over her height of five-feet-seven, Petty’s rocker eerily moving without a body’s presence. He was at least six-feet-four, if not a few inches more. And his eyes? Oh, dear God! His eyes melted Julia into a deep puddle of pure forgetfulness. Sunshine blue mixed with storm cloud gray. The strangest blue she’d ever seen. In fact, his eyes were a direct definition to his hair coloring—golden surfer blond to a ‘T’, if it not for the boots, the shirt, and the Texan drawl.
She could barely squeak out, “Is there something I can help you with?” before it became extremely difficult to form any words. Her usually perfect manners slightly misplaced, she couldn’t help but stare at his shirt again.
Great-grandma Tressle had always said—repeatedly—it was kindness that drew the bees to the honey, far better than a dose of bitter vinegar spilling off the tongue. Petty Tressle had been a huge pile of wisdom, the dear old coot. But did she mean this kind of bee? And what kind of honey would he be looking for, precisely?
“Yes Ma’am. I need a place to lay my weary head for the coming week. I was told you take in boarders.” His smile was deep and reassuring; so early on a Sunday morning that it was quite refreshing. She’d dealt with enough grumpy old men for a week. One more would’ve pissed her off.
Of course she took in boarders. It said so right on the sign out front, surrounded by an array of summer flowers and a small American flag she’d found stuck on a shelf in the back of the garage.
But did his voice have to be as sexy as all the rest of him?
Julia willed her body to pay attention and…just get over it!
“I have four boarders already. But come on in. I’m sure at least one of them is awake by now.” A quick roll of the eyes made to say otherwise. She’d be mighty surprised if any of those men rose from their beds before late afternoon.
“And there is supposedly room for five,” she continued.
Although the fire chief said four, and looked the other way when she’d told the man she would be the fifth, she would sleep on the couch if it meant this hottie would be inside her house for an entire week.
First, she had to locate the old silver key within the pot of petunias right in front of him. He seemed not to mind; even gave her the privacy to dig through the blooms to the point she could get her fingers onto it.
Julia pursed her lips, feeling the fool. So what if she was lying about there being room for five and she hid house keys in dirt? A lonely woman did strange things when a man of consequence suddenly falls into her lap.
She shoved the key in the lock, having a bit of trouble with uncooperative fingers trying to hold it still, then turned her head to catch the amusement in his eyes.
“No crime,
” she told him as a way to break the ice, and a way to destroy the thickening tension she felt by his standing so close behind her. The incredibly handsome man was watching her every move.
“I thought as much by its population sign. Were you aware they put a cute little note under the sign saying this town was crime free, nine years and counting?” He crinkled up the corners of his mouth in an all-out grin that produced two gorgeous dimples on either of his cheeks.
Julia smiled. There was no such sign. He was only teasing her. Yet, a willful, independent woman had a damn hard time with lowering her gaze from his face past the lie.
Jesus! Whatever had she done to deserve punishment of this nature? Wasn’t today supposed to be special? She turned the lock to push open the door, hurriedly stepping aside to let him through.
“Um, Please? Come on in. I’ll just go and, ah, change. Get out of these raggedy old clothes.” Oh, Sweet Jesus! What? And get into something comfortable and sexier? She didn’t have anything sexier. This was about it for her summer wardrobe. Running shorts, sweaty T-shirts and worn out shoes.
Julia groaned at her thoughts as his smile grew.
She shouldn’t have said what she did; a rather unwise choice of words for a single woman to announce to a strange man on an early morning. But normal brain function was slowing down to a barely there crawl. In another second or two it was likely to come to a complete standstill.
She shook her head and did her best to recover, moving into her late great-grandmother’s domicile. Ten seconds later, she hightailed it to one of the two bedrooms located on the first floor, slamming the door shut. Lord Have Mercy! He even smelled as good as he looked; leather, musk, rich manly scents had pulled at the very core of her being.
Her nose would never be the same again.
She leaned her back against the wall for a few seconds to catch her breath. There’d been something else besides the leather and musk she’d gotten a good strong whiff of, though not quite able to put her finger on just yet, as she got it together, tugged off the sweaty clothes, then traded them for a clean pair of white cotton shorts and pink T-shirt. At least her chosen shirt had nothing written on it to get the imagination headed in a wrong direction.
Seduction of Saber (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend #3) Page 2