I Do!

by Rachel Gibson

  She set the broom next to the trashcan and reached behind her to untie her black salon apron. The problem she had getting new clients was that she had to work within the contract she’d signed with Lily Belle’s Salon and Day Spa. Becca understood why Lily Matthews had strict procedures and rules regarding everything from employee conduct to advertising. The salon attracted clientele who expected a certain level of service. New clients without a stylist preference were booked according to which stylist was available. Sometimes that meant Becca was crazy-busy. Other times, like today, she was done by two.

  Several keys on a Hello Kitty ring sat on top of her salon cart next to her iPad. She tapped the touch screen and brought up her calendar. Tuesdays and Sundays were her days off and she swiped the screen until her Wednesday appointments appeared. A cut and color in the morning, root touchup, man’s cut, and a stacked A-line. Men who came into the salon usually tipped well. Especially if she laughed at their jokes and wore something short. Like the military-inspired shirtdress she wore today. Navy blue with gold buttons down the front, the sleeveless dress hit Becca about mid-thigh and made her feel downright patriotic.

  She planted her palms on the cart next to her iPad and read her week’s appointments. Her hair fell over one shoulder and, as she scanned her packing list for Sadie and Vince’s wedding, a weird little zap tickled the back of her ankle just above the heels of her navy pumps. For a split second, she thought her shoes might be too tight and cutting off her circulation, but then the little zap got hotter and slid up the backs of her calves and knees and thighs. It tingled her spine and raised the baby hair on the back of her neck. She wasn’t holding a hair dryer with wet hands. Not like the time in beauty school when she’d given herself quite a shock and blown the breaker switches. No one had been able to figure out exactly how or why or—

  “I found this mixed in with my mail.” A familiar voice interrupted her scattered thoughts and a white folio plopped next to her iPad.

  Becca looked over her shoulder and her breath caught in her throat. Nate Parrish’s starling blue eyes stared back at her from beneath his dark brows. His cheeks were a little red, like he’d been in the sun, and his hair disheveled as if he combed it with his fingers.

  “My mother actually did leave your photos in the mailbox before she left town Friday.” He shrugged and gave half a smile. A curve of one corner of his lips that was filled with enough charm to stop her heart like she’d been zapped with a lightning bolt. “They got stuck between my Motor Trends and Muscle Car magazines.”

  She turned and faced him, totally immune to guys with heart-zapping charm. “Thanks.” She glanced past him to several other stylists and an esthetician who openly stared. She didn’t blame them and returned her attention to Nate.

  “You’re welcome. It was kind of my fault you didn’t have them for your meeting with Sadie Hollowell yesterday.”

  Yeah, she was immune to guys like that, but Lord love a duck, Nate Parrish was smoking hot. The kind that was effortless in the way he wore a navy T-shirt beneath a blue plaid shirt. They way he’d left it unbuttoned and loose and had rolled the sleeves up his forearms. He didn’t have to try. He just was. “Did you drive all the way from Lovett to give them to me?”

  “I had to test drive Sadie’s Cadillac today and check for leaks.” He lifted his gaze to her forehead and hair and said absently, “I had a few things in to do in Amarillo. You were on my list.”

  Yep. Totally immune. “Your to-do list?” But that didn’t mean she couldn’t flirt.

  His gaze dropped to hers. “Do you want to be on my to-do list, Becca Ramsey?”

  Flirting was harmless. She was a Southerner. A Texan. It was practically in her DNA. Flirting was just a conversation. “I’m sorry. I’ve got an appointment coming in about five minutes,” she lied.

  “Perfect. I only need four and a half.” He raised his left wrist and checked his watch. “I’ve done some of my best work under pressure. In a broom closet, on the trunk of my car.” He dropped his hand to his side. “Behind that big sign on top of the Beaver Den Buffet.”

  “The Beaver Den Buffet?” Surely she hadn’t heard him right. “The neon ‘All You Can Eat Y’all’ sign?”

  He grinned. “I took it as a challenge.”

  The way he said it, as if it was no big deal, was horrifying . . . and fascinating. In a morally deranged sort of way. “Wait.” She held up a finger and lowered her voice to a scandalized whisper. “The sign with the cute beaver family rubbing their bellies? That sign?”

  “Are there two neon beaver signs in Lovett?”

  “You are so disturbed.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Folks eat there after Sunday church.” She knew because her daddy had taken her to the Beaver Den on his every other Sunday. Until she’d been about thirteen and he’d moved to Houston to work the oil refineries. She’d hardly seen him after that.

  “Folks eat there before Sunday church, too.” He chuckled and rocked back on the heels of his Vans. “Best to get all the really good sins in before you have to repent.”

  “I don’t think that’s how repentance works.” She was pretty sure, anyway, but she couldn’t think straight. Not with Nate’s talk of sin and buffet and not when the memory of his bare chest and tan stomach were still so freshly vivid in her head. “I fear for your immortal soul.”

  “That’s real sweet of you.”

  The skin on his belly so hard and tight, thoughts of love bites along his happy trail popped into her head. “Thank you. I try to be sweet to everyone. I was raised on it.” There was nothing wrong with sexual thoughts. They were normal and natural, but she never acted on them until she fell in love. Which was usually after five dates. That was kind of her rule for herself. Love and a five-date minimum.

  “Now I feel bad.”

  “Now? Now you feel bad but didn’t when you were . . . were . . .” She lifted a hand and gestured toward him. “When you were desecrating the Beaver Den?”

  “You’re funny.” He chuckled and shook his head. “I never had sex with anyone behind the beaver family at the all-you-can-eat buffet. I just always thought someone should.”

  “What?” Her brows lowered. “I’m confused.”

  “I wasn’t serious. I was just joking with you.”

  Becca didn’t always get boy humor. “Oh.”

  “You look disappointed.”

  Was she? Maybe.

  “If you’re disappointed, we could always make it true.” He leaned forward and said next to the side of her head, “No one else has to know. Just you and me and cute beavers.” The warmth of his breath was still caught in her hair when he leaned back and smiled, all smooth charm and effortless good looks. “Think of it as camping above a restaurant.”

  “As romantic as that sounds,” she said past the sudden hitch in her chest, “I’ll have to pass.”

  He raised a hand to his chest like she’d broken his heart. He opened his mouth to say something but his aunt Lily called out to him and he turned to her.

  “Has hell frozen over?” Lily asked as she walked toward them wearing a tight yellow tank dress that hugged her slight baby bump. “I don’t think you’ve been in my salon since my grand opening. You or your dad.”

  “It stinks in here.” He opened his arms and embraced his aunt. “It smells like face cream and nail polish and toxic hair spray.” He was taller than Lily by several inches. “The fumes will probably shrink my balls.”

  Lily laughed and pulled back to look up into his face. “Your balls are safe, Nathan. Tucker comes in all the time and there is nothing wrong with that man’s balls,” she said, referring to her husband, Deputy Tucker Matthews.

  “Obviously.” He dropped his arms. “How are you feeling?”

  “Still sick as a dog every morning.”

  “You’re like my mom. She was sick with Rosie.” While Lily and Nathan swapped morning sickness stories, Becca let her gaze surreptitiously slide down the back of his plaid shirt. His pants weren’t necessar
ily baggy, but they were by no means tight. In Lovett, some men wore their Wranglers extremely tight to show off a bulge. And sometimes, not a very impressive bulge, either. Normally, Becca didn’t care for tight pants on a man, but at the moment, she wouldn’t mind if Nate’s jeans were a little more butt hugging, truth be told.

  “At the risk of breathing toxic fumes and shrinking your balls, what brings you in today?” Lily asked. “Finally going to let me wax that uni-brow?”

  Becca bit her lip and raised her gaze. She wasn’t the only one who’d noticed that Nate could benefit from attention to his brows.

  As if he read her mind, Nate glanced behind him and frowned. “I brought some photos Mom took for Becca.”

  Lily looked past her nephew. “I didn’t know you knew Nathan.”

  “We just met when I went searching for my new photos to show Sadie,” Becca told her boss.

  “Has Sadie chosen an updo for herself and her bridesmaids?”

  Lily was Sadie’s hairstylist. She was talented with scissors and color, but she didn’t enjoy occasion hair. Not like Becca. “Sadie wants loose, sexy curls tucked into a waterfall and the girls are each going to have a fishtail braid.”

  “That should be fairly easy for you.” Lily gave her a confident smile. “Marilee and I will be there if something comes up.”

  Lily and Marilee were doing the makeup and anything else the bridal party might need or want.

  “Are you finished for the day?” Lily asked.

  Becca looked up at Nate through the corners of her eyes. “Yes.”

  “You little liar,” Nate said through a smile.

  If Lily heard her nephew, she didn’t ask questions. “And you’re off tomorrow. Right?”

  “Yes.” Becca couldn’t help the smile she returned to Nate. “Tuesdays and Sundays are my days off.”

  “Then let’s get together Wednesday when you’re free. We should trade notes and make sure we have everything we’ll need for Sadie’s big day.”

  Becca nodded. “Okay.”

  Lily turned to her nephew. “Do you have time for some iced tea?”

  “I never have time for that sweet crap you drink, but I’ll take you for a spin in Sadie’s wedding present.”

  “The Coupe Deville?”

  “Finished putting in the water hose yesterday.”

  “Let me get my purse and a scarf so my hair doesn’t get messed.” Nate watched Lily move toward her office, then turned back to Becca. She expected him to comment on her little white lie. Instead he asked, “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Not camping out at the Beaver Den, that’s for sure.”

  Humor pinched the corners of his blue eyes. “Drive out to the lake with me.”

  “Lake Meredith?” With Nate Parrish. Or any guy really. She was busy. She had a lot to do. Like planning how to promote herself and do laundry. “I don’t know.”

  He smiled like he was harmless. “No camping or beavers involved. I promise I can keep my hands to myself if you can.”

  Just a drive? It sounded innocent enough. Did she trust him to keep his hands to himself? Did she trust herself? What would she wear?

  When she didn’t answer right away, he took a step back and put his hands in his front pockets. “You don’t work tomorrow. I have the day off, so I just thought . . .” He shrugged and his brows knitted together over his blue eyes as if he was confused about something. “Maybe some other time.”

  “Yes,” she said before she could talk herself out of it.

  He took another step back. “I’ll text you next week, then.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’ll go with you to the lake tomorrow.” A drive. A simple drive. She’d be gone a couple of hours, then back home. There was no harm in a simple drive.

  A smile of pleasure curved his mouth and cleared his brow. “Good.” He lifted his gaze as Lily walked toward them with her scarf and purse in hand. “Bring your swimsuit in case we want to get wet.”

  Now, that didn’t sound so innocent, and the warm rush spreading up her chest from the pit of her stomach was anything but harmless.

  HE’D TOLD HER he’d keep his hands to himself. He was a guy who could keep his word, but, God, he wanted to touch her. From the minute she’d jumped into his truck wearing a bright yellow bikini under a pair of jean shorts and tight white tank top, he wanted to run his hands all over Becca Ramsey. During the hour-long drive to the lake, he wanted to reach across the bench seat and slide his palm to the side of her bare knee and up the inside of her thigh. If he hadn’t promised . . . if he didn’t have a girlfriend down in Dallas . . . if it didn’t feel strangely important, somehow, that he not pressure her or risk pushing her away, he would have touched more than her hand when he’d helped her onto the boat his parents kept docked during the summer.

  “I haven’t been up here for a long time.” Becca stood in the center of the twenty-three-foot Malibu Wakesetter with her back to him and her hands inching her shirt up her bare waist. She pulled the tank top over her head, and her ponytail brushed her shoulders. The hot afternoon sun bounced off the water and metal board racks, and behind his mirrored sunglasses, Nate watched her shorts slide down her long legs to her bare feet. God, sitting there in the captain’s seat, in the Texas heat, was better than drinking cold beer in a strip bar. Nothing fake about her, and he didn’t have to worry about breaking a twenty. Then it got even better when she bent over and picked up her shorts. He about popped a blood vessel in his eyeballs but the pain was worth the view. One side of her bikini bottoms slid over the curve of her smooth butt and he got a nice view of under boob. God, he loved under boob. He should feel bad for staring, but he didn’t. Then she rose and slid the tip of her index finger beneath the elastic leg of her bottoms. She snapped it back in place and he felt it between his legs. Beneath his sternum, too. “Your family must come here a lot,” she said.

  “Yeah.” He’d come to the lake for the first time with his mother and father at the age of fifteen. “I don’t get up here that much anymore.”

  She turned and tossed her clothes on the empty seat. The snap to his chest and nuts turned to a hard thump, and he had to remember his promise before he jumped to his feet and jumped on Becca. A thin bow tied her top together between her cleavage, and two perfectly centered nipples poked at the yellow triangles of her bikini top. Nate had spent many years in the study of breasts. He’d done his homework. He’d used the Internet in his parents’ house for more than school book reports. Even before his first sexual experience, he’d known pretty much all there was to know about the female body. If he had a question that he couldn’t find the answer to through his research, he asked his father. He could talk to his dad about anything. Sex. Cars. Fishing.

  “I thought you didn’t like iced tea,” she said as she reached for the solo cup in the holder.

  “I don’t.” At the moment, he couldn’t recall ever having a conversation about tea with Becca. He must have, and she’d remembered. “But you’re a Texan so I figured you did.”

  “Don’t tell me you made this.” She took a drink, and her blue gaze met his over the bottom of her red plastic cup.

  “My grandmother. I stopped by her house before I picked you up.” Even if he knew nothing about women, he’d know that Becca was perfect. Perfect butt and perfect breasts. Round and tight in all the right places. Smooth and flat in others. Beautiful face and hair and skin. Perfect little mound beneath her bikini bottom. He wanted to touch her. To slide his hand between her soft legs and kiss her breasts, but as much as he wanted to touch her, he wanted to know her, too .

  As much as possible, he pushed aside thoughts of sex and listened to her talk about her life and her plans for the future. She moved to the front of the boat and sat her perfect butt on the right bench seat. She stretched her legs out in front of her and one arm along the side. With her face tilted toward the sun, she told him about her past and a series of bad boyfriends.

  “I’m a magnet for guys who cheat on me,�
�� she said, her voice all lazy and relaxed.

  Guys like him. Guys who had a girlfriend but couldn’t seem to remember that when she wasn’t around. Nate sat on the seat across the narrow bow, and as much as he tried not to think about putting his mouth on her body, waves conspired against him. Each time another boat passed, the waves grew bigger. Each dip and bob tortured him with the firm bounce of her breasts, and even if he could tear his gaze away, she constantly lifted her hand to make sure she was still tucked safely behind those two yellow triangles.

  “My mom attracts cheaters, too. It must be genetic.”

  If he’d meant to keep his hands to himself like he’d promised, why in the fuck had he thought getting her alone in the middle of a lake was a good idea? In a bikini?

  “My daddy was the worst.”

  When he’d entered his aunt’s salon yesterday, he hadn’t meant to stick around and talk to Becca. He’d certainly never meant to ask her to take a drive with him, but she’d looked so beautiful and sexy and he’d had an overwhelming desire to see her again.

  Nate rose and ripped his T-shirt over his head. He had a raging hard-on beneath his board shorts. The shorts were baggy, but if she dropped her gaze to his lap, she couldn’t help but notice. He had a girlfriend down in Dallas and a girl on his boat he wanted dive down on. Instead he jumped to his feet, climbed onto the seat, and dived deep into the water. He resurfaced with a loud “Whaaaaa,” as the cold water shrank his balls, and the thought of doing Becca receded enough that he began to relax.

  “How cold is it?” she asked as she peered over the side at him.

  “Freezing,” he answered so she wouldn’t dive in with him.

  “Good!” She climbed onto the seat and jumped in. “Whaaaaa,” she shouted as she surfaced and swam toward him. “This feels good.” Beads of water slid into the crease of her lips, and her long legs kicked behind her.