Holm is small—less than four hundred people, and even that number has probably shrunk some since the last census—and our Main Street is only four blocks long. My bar is at the end of it, in an old brick building that’s been around since the town’s founding. It used to be the general store before they opened a Walmart off the interstate exchange, and the old salt who opened the bar in the 1980s called it General’s to honor the building’s past. I kept the name when I bought the place, and it’s a strange relief to see it in faded paint still on the side of the building.
But everything else about the bar is wrong.
The windows are blown out. The door is gone. The brick structure survived, but the bricks themselves are blasted and chipped all to shit. And the inside looks like a ruin of glass, furniture, and ceiling tiles.
I crunch my way inside, squinting up into the shadows to make sure the ceiling isn’t about to fall on my head, and call out, “Hello?” There’s nothing but the sound of dripping water and voices from outside.
I step back out onto the street, looking for any sign of police or paramedics, wondering if the bar has been searched for people—and the other buildings on Main Street and houses too. It’s been about thirty minutes since we left the basement on the farm. Surely that’s enough time for first responders to arrive?
Caleb joins me after a minute, trailed by a shell-shocked Ireland and a nervous Greta. “Just talked to Harley from the gas station,” he says. “They’ve been through all the buildings on this side.”
“They find anyone?”
Caleb looks down the street in that My Antonia way of his, all stoic and solemn while the prairie wind tugs gently at his shirt and hair. “Three bodies. They’ve laid them out in the park, near the water tower. Called a funeral home over in Emporia already.” Caleb names who they found, two of whom were Sunday school teachers of mine and one of whom we went to high school with, and I stagger—actually stagger—against the now-bruised wall of my bar. I lean my head back against the brick, close my eyes, and try to breathe, try to remain present, try all the tricks my therapist has given me, but it’s no good. I feel jagged and angry and emptier than ever. I feel like the building I’m leaning against, like something that’s been broken and tossed away and left to crumble in its own desperate mess.
And that’s when Ireland steps past me to walk inside the bar. I open my eyes to see her curvy frame disappear into the gloom, and for a single, shining second, I recognize everything is going to be okay. That there might be a future with this sexy woman and her penetrating gaze and her secret bravery.
I take in a deep breath.
And then the ceiling falls in on top of her.
Chapter Eleven
Ireland
“I’m fine!” I shout. “I’m fine! I’m fine!”
Okay, maybe fine is a little bit of a lie, given there’s God only knows how many pounds of wood and metal pipe making a very unsteady tent above my head, but I’m not dead and I don’t think I’m injured, at least not seriously so. Something hit my shoulder fairly hard on the way down, and I think I’ll have an almighty scrape on my leg, but nothing’s broken and nothing’s bleeding in any alarming kind of way. Mostly I’m just covered in sheetrock dust.
“Jesus Christ,” I hear Caleb swear viciously, and I see something in front of me shift, letting a little bit more light into the unsteady tent of mine. “You’re really okay?”
“Help me,” Ben’s voice comes through. “Move that there—not that beam; it’ll send everything else crashing down. Yes, there, that one. One, two, three—”
Ben’s voice is knowledgeable, authoritative. Despite everything—the pain and the ruin around us and the very real danger I’m in of this stuff falling on me—I shiver a little at the reminder of how commanding he can be. How he commanded Caleb and me last night.
And in less than ten minutes, they’ve got the remains of the ceiling moved enough for me to wriggle free. There’s an awkward moment where I don’t quite fit and they have to shift more pieces around, and I have the sudden, familiar rush of longing for a different body—which is patently ridiculous, as this body was nearly just crushed by a building and I should only feel gratitude for being alive, so I shove that longing where it belongs and work my way free of the debris pile.
The minute I have my torso mostly out, I’m abruptly yanked into two sets of strong arms and crushed between two chests.
“I thought you were dead,” Ben says roughly. I can barely breathe for how tightly I’m held between them, and I feel lips—his and Caleb’s—all over my hair, and I feel their hearts drumming against my body in a frantic tattoo.
This is not how you treat someone you never see again.
Maybe they want to keep me.
But within seconds, Ben tramples the fledgling hope inside me. He pulls away from me so fast I almost stumble forward. And when I see his face, it’s not even the cold expression I’ve grown used to from him. It’s something wild and furious.
“You should go,” he harshes out. “Go home.”
Stupid me, I think home means the farm, and I say, “I’m not going home until you two are.”
He shakes his head, almost violently, sending his too-long hair flicking into his face. “Go to your home, Ireland,” he says, his eyes turbulent with something I don’t understand. “You can’t be here anymore!”
Oh.
Oh.
My heart sinks, even as I cling to any reason I can stay. “I still have work to do here,” I protest faintly. “Pictures to take.”
Ben makes a dangerous noise. “Look around you, sweetheart. You think this is the kind of picture your boss wants?”
I glance around the storm-wrecked bar and outside the door to Main Street, which looks just as broken, just as bad.
Caleb lets go of me, although I can feel the reluctance in him, and that gives me the courage to try one last time.
“I could stay…?” I offer. “And help?”
There’s that cold curl to Ben’s mouth now, something almost like a sneer, and I wonder how can this be the man who just crushed me against his chest, the man who just frantically kissed my hair as if to reassure himself I was alive? How?
How can he just change? Close off like this?
“Just get out of here, Ireland,” Ben says, and his entire body is tensed with something that’s either panic or fury. “Don’t make this awkward.”
And those are the words.
Those are the words that slap me across the face—more than go home, more than it’s time for you to leave.
Don’t make this awkward.
Don’t be that fat girl. Don’t be the girl so desperate for affection that she abandons all pretense of dignity and begs for it. Don’t be eager, and don’t be clingy.
Don’t draw attention to yourself.
Don’t ask for more than what people want to give you, because they won’t want to give you much.
I know these don’ts. They’ve been my rulebook since high school, my guiding principles, and every decision I’ve made since turning down that photography scholarship has been because of the don’ts. How could I have fooled myself into thinking last night was something special? I know better—I know better—and I still let myself hope the adventure could last.
“Ireland,” Caleb says, something pained in his voice. But I’m already turning away, I’m already leaving. Crunching over the bricks and glass outside to…to where, exactly?
To the farm, I decide. I’ll walk to the farm. It’s only a couple of miles, and there are only two turns. I can find my way, get my things. Then I’ll walk to my car and leave for home.
They want me to go? Fine. I know the don’ts inside and out. I have them tattooed on the beating flesh of my heart. I know them even better than they do.
I won’t make anything awkward.
I’ll go.
“Ireland, wait!” Caleb calls, jogging up next to me. I’m already to the edge of town, past the place where he’d parked his truck
. I’m guessing he stayed behind to talk to Ben, and I’m also guessing that whatever that conversation consisted of would piss me off, so I’m not going to ask about it. Instead, I turn and say, “Yes?” like he’s a complete stranger to me.
Hurt flickers through those green eyes, and for a moment, I feel bad. Then I remember Ben’s cruel words, and I regret nothing.
“Please, Ireland, I—” He squints down at the ground and scratches at his head, as if he’s so lost for words he can’t even remember how to speak them aloud. “I’m—I’m sorry, I guess. I mean, I don’t guess that I’m sorry, I know I am, but sorry isn’t all I want to say. I just don’t know how to say the rest.”
Just go. Just keep walking.
But it’s like I unbottled part of myself last night, and I can’t remember how to bottle it again. “Sorry isn’t an even exchange for being treated like that,” I say, hoping my voice flays him open. Hoping each word is a penknife under his fingernails. And he does flinch and opens his mouth to say something, but I stop him. “If you and Ben don’t want to fuck me again, that’s fine, but I don’t deserve to be shooed away like a dog.”
Caleb slumps his broad shoulders at this. “You’re right. Of course not.”
I start walking again, and he follows me.
I sigh and stop again. “Is this your way of offering me a ride to the farm?” I ask. And even as I ask it, there’s a part of me that hopes he’ll say no, that he’s coming after me to tell me to stay, to tell me that Ben didn’t mean it.
To tell me they both want me to stay.
But he doesn’t tell me that.
“Yes,” he replies. “I’m not letting you walk all the way back to the farm. Or to your car. And I’ve already talked to them on the phone, but I’d like to check on Mrs. Parry and Mrs. Harthcock, so I’m headed that direction anyway.”
Ah, how gentlemanly, I think bitterly. A real gentleman should always give last night’s trollop a ride back to her car, especially if it’s on his way to do other things.
Caleb trots off to fetch his truck, and within a few minutes, I’m inside the cab as the ancient air conditioning roars hot air in our faces and as I try to wipe as much of the sheetrock dust off my face as I can. My hair is a lost cause—I look like I took a shower with grit instead of water—but I still pick out the bigger pieces of gypsum and flick them out the window. I’m examining the scrape on my thigh as we pull onto the gravel driveway of the farm.
Caleb parks the truck and then looks over at me for a minute.
“Get on the porch,” he says gruffly. “I’ll get something for that scrape.”
“I don’t need—”
He cuts me a glance that brooks no argument. “On the porch, Ireland. Before I haul you there myself.” And then he slides out of the truck and slams the door behind him, stalking toward the house.
Sitting on the hot vinyl seat for a moment longer, I consider my options…and then decide it would be stupid to refuse a bandage just because my feelings are hurt. I’ll get the scrape taken care of, and then I’ll get my things, and then I’ll go. Back to my empty apartment and my stable, safe job and my fridge full of whatever new diet shake my sister wants me to try.
And maybe I’m going to take a break from adventures.
Turns out they hurt a lot when they end.
I finally get out of the truck and sit on one of the old chairs clustered into a corner of the porch. Caleb emerges from the house with a first aid kit in hand. He drops to his knees in front of me, and he’s so tall that even when he kneels, he’s eye-level with me in the chair.
He clicks open the kit, reaches for my leg, and then hesitates. “May I?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say. Grumpily.
The scrape starts near the outside of my knee and angles inward to the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. Caleb gently parts my legs in order to reach it, and my entire body lights up like a Christmas tree.
I suck in a breath.
So does he.
There’s no denying the charge between us, despite what just happened, despite the fact that I’m going to leave. Despite the fact that he and Ben want me to leave.
No, feeling the warm brush of his torso and arms as he settles between my legs still affects me. Still makes my belly tighten low around the lingering soreness he left inside me last night.
And I can tell he feels it too. His hands shake the slightest bit as he grabs the antiseptic spray and a gauze pad, and when he looks back up at me before he sprays the scrape, I can see his pulse hammering in his neck.
“This may sting,” he whispers.
“It can’t hurt more than anything else that’s happened today,” I tell him, initially meaning the ceiling collapse but then realizing he may think I mean Ben’s ugly words instead.
Well. Maybe I do.
His eyes look sad, and there’s no trace of that amazing dimple under his beard. With an acknowledging nod, he bends low over my leg and sprays the scrape.
“Ouch!” I hiss, but my hiss turns into a moan as he leans close to my thigh and blows over the parts that sting. “Oh. Oh. Caleb.”
He shudders at the sound of his name on my lips, blowing a little harder and then kissing all around the scrape, careful not to touch it, not to hurt me more. And then his mouth is moving up and up and up, right to the hem of my shorts, with licks and nibbles that have me squirming.
“Let me taste you,” he begs. “Please. Let me taste you again.”
And all of my hurt irritation vanishes in a puff of pure lust at the thought of Caleb’s mouth on my pussy, at the promise of even more beard-burn, and suddenly I’m wriggling out of my shorts, half standing, half hopping, reaching over to the porch railing for balance.
I manage to kick them off, but before I can sit back down, I’m pushed against the railing and my panties are yanked to the side, and then Caleb’s hot mouth is on me, sowing sweet fire everywhere he touches.
“God, you’re already so wet,” he mumbles against me, giving my pussy another openmouthed kiss, followed by a long lick with the flat of his tongue. “Always so wet for us.”
Us.
Ben’s absence is like a hole in the air, sucking all the oxygen away from us, and I hate that I want him here even after he kicked me to the curb. I hate that I miss his touch on me so much it hurts.
I hate it.
Even as I can’t deny it.
“Fuck, you taste good,” Caleb murmurs. His strong fingers dig into the soft rounds of my ass, keeping my pussy angled the way he likes, and the feeling of those almost-bruising fingertips along with the chafe of his beard drives me perilously close to orgasm. His tongue seems to be everywhere, until he gently takes my clit between his teeth and suckles at it.
My head falls back as I give a long moan. “God, Caleb, oh my God.”
But I don’t keep my head back, because he’s too delicious right now, and I never want to forget how he looks like this. On his knees in front of me, those big shoulders tucked in, his dark head below the curve of my still-clothed stomach, tilting and working…
It’s so much to feel, so much to see, even as awful questions filter through my mind.
Are you doing this out of pity?
Why doesn’t Ben want me?
How am I supposed to walk away from this?
But even the questions disappear into smoky nothing as my impending orgasm winds closer and closer and closer, and I arch against the railing, trying to push myself harder against Caleb’s wicked tongue.
He responds with a hungry, eager groan, sucking and licking like his life depends on it, and then I’m done for. I pant out his name right as my climax bursts, and then I don’t know what else I’m saying. Curses, blessings, maybe even Ben’s name leaves my mouth, but it doesn’t matter, because it feels so fucking good. Waves and waves starting in my clit and radiating out through my stomach and thighs and all the way to the tips of my fingers. It feels like it goes on for hours as I ride it out against his mouth, with one hand braced on the rail
ing and the other hand in his hair, clutching him tight.
And then, gradually, as all good things do, it subsides. It goes away, leaving only weak knees and a full-body flush in its wake.
Caleb seems reluctant to stop eating me, but he does, tilting his head up with half-lidded eyes and wet lips. He looks intoxicated—intoxicated from me, my body—which is a heady feeling. Heady as fuck. And when I look all the way down his body, I know for certain pity had nothing to do with what just happened.
He’s hard.
Hard enough to seriously tent his jeans.
For a moment, we linger like this, my hand still twined in his hair and him on his knees with his face canted up toward mine, like a sinner before God. His eyes blaze earnestly across my face, and my stomach twists as I recognize what he’s doing.
He’s committing me to memory.
I let go of his hair.
“Ireland,” he says as I bend over to grab my shorts. “Please.”
I don’t know what to make of him, this honest, passionate man who can make honest, passionate love to me and still say goodbye afterward. I don’t know what to make of Ben either, and the thought that I’ll never have the opportunity to figure them out is sharp enough to make me pull my shorts on with haste. I need to leave. Before I do something truly awkward, like cry.
Caleb stands, licking his lips like he’s licking the last of my taste off them, and renewed lust hits me low below the belly button. I ignore it and fasten my shorts.
“I’ll just go get my things,” I announce, pointlessly, and he follows me into the house and up the stairs like a puppy. A big farmer puppy with big farmer muscles and pleading green eyes.
Ugh. Why do the two of them have to be so unfairly handsome? What chance do I stand against that?
I go into the guest room and pull together my things to pack, and from behind me, Caleb says, “Ben was in the army.”
“Okay,” I say, keeping my back to him as I fold up my clothes and stuff them into my bag. “Thanks for telling me.”
“No, I—” Caleb makes that frustrated noise that tells me he’s frustrated with himself, with the way he can’t explain things the way he wants. “Ben was in Afghanistan. Four tours.”
Misadventures of a Curvy Girl Page 9