by Lori Garrett
“Fine, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Harlow, look.” Daisy tosses down the newspaper she’s reading—something my dad told her to start doing, because all respectful, responsible members of society read the paper every day. What a crock. Dad isn’t exactly the keeper of all the morals. “I know Gunner is hot. I know you guys have mad, crazy, hot sex. I know you even think you loved him—”
“I do. Love him.”
Daisy shakes her head. “You don’t even know him anymore. I don’t want to see you torturing yourself over some guy who is in your past for a reason.”
“I’m not torturing myself. I’m perfectly happy. Besides, I just saw him for the first time in years; just give it a rest while we both sort things out.”
“Sort out what, though? Is he with someone?”
“I don’t know.” I honestly didn’t even think to ask him that. I didn’t really care in the moment.
“It’s just that I remember that summer really well, Harlow. I was fine getting ditched so you could roll in the hay with your man, but I really thought it would be a summer fling. I never thought I’d be making ice cream runs and watching Lifetime movies for hours on end for your entire first semester.” Daisy screws her mouth to the side.
“I know I leaned on you hard.” I put my hand out and grab my best friend’s. “How bout I promise here and now that if I get my heart broken a second time, I will lose your number till I come out of it?”
Daisy bucks back, her eyes wide. “Tell me I just heard you wrong, Harlow Mills. Because you better not be implying that you wouldn’t come right to me if your heart broke. It’s my job as your best friend to defend you and take care of you. Do you not remember all the times you held me when I cried over a guy?”
I smile, my heart warm because I have the world’s best partner in crime. “And I’d do it again happily. Always.”
“Well, same with me,” Daisy huffs. “Don’t you dare take my ‘I hate to see you broken hearted’ lecture and make it a ‘I hate to help my sister from another mister’ sham, okay?”
That makes me full on laugh. “I promise. And I’m sorry. It’s just that when everyone in this town sees Gunner Hunt, they see a no-good, lazy player who’ll never amount to anything. And I think he likes to prove people right just to be an ass. But I know better. I know how he can’t drive past anyone with a flat without pulling over to help. I know he’ll stand forever to hold the door for an elderly lady. That he used to do Mr. Daniels’s chores for him extra early because Gunner knew his arthritis made it hard for him to handle it all. That when I told him I always wanted a pony, he broke me into a horse farm he worked at and we rode the trails all night.”
I remember that night, the moon, the horses nickering softly on the trail, the pasture we galloped through, the cabin he had set up. That was the night we made love for the first time, the night I’d lost my virginity and my heart to Gunner Hunt.
“He could have gotten your dumb asses arrested for horse thievery,” Daisy gripes. “And that’s all sweet, hon, but your future won’t be stolen horses and helping stranded motorists. No matter how romantic it sounds.”
“What do you mean?” My mind flutters back from those sweet memories to face Daisy’s harsh reality.
“I mean, other than sweeping you off your feet three years ago—before he shattered your heart into a billion pieces—what does Gunner have going for him? What’s he doing, just working at that bar? Does he even have an apartment?”
“He’s living at the Daniels’ place. Tending to it, I guess.”
“Legally?” Daisy asks.
I swat at her arm. “Yes, legally. And last night was...it was a good night. Really.”
“I just hope this isn’t some phase, and you don’t end up doing something you’ll regret. You do know that going after the bad boy isn’t going to get you out from under your father’s thumb, right, Har? You’re going to have to talk to him about your plans sooner or later. Preferably before you piss him off by running off with a Hunt boy. You know how much he hates that family.”
“Don’t worry so much.”
“If you say so,” Daisy says. “I hope you know what you’re doing. Seems to me if he wanted to be with you as desperately as you like to think he does…well, he just would be, you know?”
“I’ve got a plan, don’t worry. But right now, I just need a shower,” I say. I know Daisy means well, and from anyone else the words would sting like fire ants. It sounds crazy to have tracked him down only to be told he doesn’t want to be with me, and still be wanting to go back for more. But I also know Gunner, and I know he still loves me. He’s hiding something that he thinks should keep us apart and I plan on figuring out exactly what it is.
“I bet,” she laughs. “I’ve got to get going to work anyway.”
“Say hi to my dad,” I yell as I make my way down the narrow hallway.
CHAPTER 4
GUNNER
“Hey, man, sorry for not making it back last night. Something...came up,” I say.
“No worries, man. That something was hot as fuck, I don’t blame you. And I hope you don’t blame me for helping myself to the entire tip out,” Jared says, scooping ice into the bin.
I laugh, trying to keep it light even though him talking about Harlow like that makes me want to pummel him. “Nah, man. You deserved the tips. Thanks again for keeping an eye on the place.”
“So, what’s the story on that one? You know her before last night?”
I nod. I like Jared. But I don’t want to talk about Harlow with him. Or anyone, really. I just want her to fade away again. And maybe if I tell myself that enough, it’ll be true.
“Are you guys together-together?” Jared asks.
“Dude,” I slam the case of beer down onto the counter harder than I intend. “What’s with all the questions?”
“Sorry, man, I was just wondering, cause late last night after you left some other girl came by asking for you.”
Fuck.
“Rebecca...Rhonda...fuck, what was her name? Petite little brunette. Small tits, but the ass on her was—”
“Rochelle?” I ask.
Jared snaps his fingers. “Yeah, that’s it. Rochelle. Jesus, Gunner, you know how to pick em. Both of them, sexy as hell and—”
“Jared?” He looks up from the ice. “We best girlfriends now? Gonna chat about our love lives? You know why I hired you, man? I’ve been surrounded by loudmouth assholes my whole life. You were real quiet during the interview.”
“Got it,” he says, and grins down at the tray of glasses on the floor before he picks them up. “But, damn, son. You got fine taste in females, and I respect your diversity.”
I grunt my response and he whistles all the way out the back door.
Rochelle. Fuck.
We’ve been on and off since the night we met up at a car show. She was the girl in a tight leather skirt and tiny tank top draped over the hood of an old model Corvette. She was one of a dozen I slept with in an attempt to erase Harlow from my memory.
It didn’t work any better with Rochelle than it had with any other girl, but there was something cold and detached about her that was strangely comforting. Maybe because her lack of feeling mirrored the blankness I felt inside. Maybe because I was happy to finally be around a girl whose feelings I couldn’t hurt, and who didn’t make me feel anything more than fairly comfortable and occasionally horny.
We never made anything official, but the longer we hooked up, the more determined she was to make our situation legal.
I always planned to get married, I guess. I come from a big family, and want one of my own someday, hopefully before I’m old and decrepit. It’s not marriage that has my feet cold necessarily. Maybe it’s the idea of Rochelle as the mother of my children.
Because I’d settle for a stone-cold bitch for a wife, but when I think about having kids, I want them to have a sweet mother, like my own had been before she died. And maybe I’m the world’s biggest sap be
cause I picture the mother of my children with curly blonde hair and big blue eyes.
But that girl isn’t going to be my wife, so I need to face the facts: Rochelle will wear me down sooner or later. I should just stop stalling and take the plunge. She’s as good as I’m gonna get, and I like that she gets who I am. Low expectations work for me.
I know Rochelle will be here before I finish my bookkeeping, and she’s gonna be on me about getting engaged. That girl is a pain in my dick, but I gotta admire how persistent she is. One thing the two of us have got in common is that we go after what we want without giving a damn who we’ve got to mow down on the way.
Or, that’s how it pans out for everyone in my life except Harlow. That girl twisted her way into my cold heart that summer, and I realized quickly I wouldn’t be able to use her and throw her away like I had with every girl before and after. Which is why I set her free.
Wish the damn fool would keep her fine ass away.
Because, holy hell, her ass is finer than I remembered. I would have liked to get her in the shower with me and soap up those sweet tits, feel her skin wet and warm under my hands. But I had business to take care of in private.
Which makes no sense, since we fucked three times over the course of the night and, even though I’d taken care of things not more than fifteen minutes before, when she wiggled out from under the sheets, that fine body so warm and soft in the morning light, I let her have her way with me.
That girl can ride a dick until a guy sees stars. I’m gonna miss that.
“Holy hell, please tell me you’re naked underneath that get up?” I begged. It was Fourth of July, her father was at some clubhouse gala, and she’d come down to the dock to fish and drink with me. She came wearing a tight, tiny, American flag shirt that raised a lot of...patriotic feelings in me and the tiniest shorts hugging her sweet little heart-shaped ass.
Her giggle knocked me out. She pulled the shirt over her head and tugged very gently on one of the strings knotted behind her neck and under all that hair. “I have my bikini on. For swimming.”
“Hell, baby girl, who was stupid enough to tell you that you needed a bikini to swim in? The water feels so good when you’re naked.” I put my hand over hers and tugged harder on the ties that held the suit on, liking the gasp that came out of her mouth, and liking even better the way the tiny scrap of nothing fell to the side.
I leaned my head down and sucked the nipple of one soft, sweet tit, then the other, into my mouth, rolling them over my tongue until they went pebble hard. I sucked and she fisted her hands in my hair.
“Holy...oh my...” She gasped, pulling at my hair. “Gunner. Please. What if someone sees?”
“Let em watch,” I whispered, but she shook her head. “You wanna get in the boat?”
It was old as hell, but it had a little cuddy cabin, just enough room to lay a hot ass girl on her back and fuck with a little privacy. I always wanted to keep it romantic for her. From the first time we had sex to the time, a week later, when we’d locked ourselves in her family beach house and screwed until we were sore all over just so I could prove to her how damn sexy I found her...every time was always so much more than sex with any other girl had ever been before. It was real with Harlow.
“Please, Gunner.” She kept her shirt hugged to her chest, looking back and forth like she was waiting for someone to pop out of the woods.
She didn’t realize how in the middle of nowhere we were. I’d make sure to remind her of that fact when my dick was deep in her and she wanted to scream my name. Damn that girl had a set of lungs when she was about to come, hot and slick, on my dick.
I helped her onto the boat and led her to the small, musty space. She may have been nervous about letting me suck her titties on the dock, but once we were in the little room, she tossed the bikini top to the side and slid out of her tiny shorts. When she let her legs fall open, my mouth went dry.
I ran the backs of my fingers over the skin, silky smooth and drenched already.
“I...got waxed,” she whispered.
“Well, this is a cause for celebration, I think.” I knelt down on the floor and spread her thighs wider, taking a long, deep breath and loving the smell of her. “Damn, I love this pussy.” I licked it, long and slow, letting my hands run up her body and squeeze her tits hard when I did.
“Mmm,” she moaned.
I licked again and shook my head. “Not good enough, sweetheart. Tell me what you want.”
She shook her head, and I pulled back, keeping one finger moving in a light circle over her clit. “Say what you want,” I ordered.
When she shook her head again, I pressed her legs open with a sharp jerk and stopped a half an inch away, my breath hot on her. “Say it, Harlow. Say it or you don’t get any dick.”
“Lick it,” she begged, finally. “Lick my pussy, Gunner. And after you make me come? Fuck it and make me come again.”
Voice of an angel, demands of a devil, and I couldn’t have been happier. I spread her legs again and said the only thing my mama would expect me to say to a lady who made a request.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I’m not remotely surprised when Rochelle stomps in, interrupting my mental playback of Harlow’s throaty little whimpers and perfectly tight pussy.
“What’s this I hear about you taking some rich Daddy’s girl home with you last night?” she demands. She throws some new purse that probably cost more than Daniels’ farmhouse on the bar. I wonder how she hustled that one. It very well might be bought and paid for with my credit card. She knows the best time to ask for a little shopping spree is after an amazing blowjob. Rochelle won’t hesitate to get on her knees for a new purse or a run to the hair salon.
“Since when is what I do your business?” Rochelle is hot as hell, but she irritates the shit out of me.
“Since you promised that you’d put a ring on my finger after a year. You remember that?” Her face is close to mine, and I really look at it for the first time in a long time.
I guess there’s some people would think Rochelle is more beautiful than Harlow. She’s got those cheekbones like a Russian model, and big blue eyes, almond-shaped. Funny how they’re blue, same as Harlow’s, but Rochelle’s are icy and hard, like diamonds. Harlow’s are soft and dreamy as a summer sky.
“Desperate doesn’t wear well on you,” I say. I flick my eyes over the receipts on the bar again.
“Desperate?” She spits the word. “You agreed.”
“Under fucking duress, Rochelle. Is that how you think engagement works? You find a man you like the look of and nag him until he dies of it or gives you a ring to save his skin?” Funny how a face I couldn’t take my eyes off of eleven months ago bores me now.
Also funny how a face I haven’t seen in three years can be a thousand times more gorgeous than I remembered.
She crosses her arms and her mouth sets like she’s determined. “You and I make sense, Gunner. We do. And you’re gonna settle down with someone someday soon. I want it to be me.”
“I thought girls were supposed to be romantic or some shit,” I say. “Most days we can’t stand each other unless we’re fucking. How’s that gonna work in a marriage, Rochelle?”
She presses her small tits against my arm. “I guess we’ll just have to fuck a whole lot.”
I don’t reply, and she drops the coy act.
“I’m gonna figure out who that little tramp is,” she threatens.
I grab her by the arm, letting her feel the bite of my fingers. She glares at me. “You stay the hell away from her, you hear me?”
“Let go of my arm, you bastard!” She yanks her arm away and rubs it like it hurts.
“Take your drama out of my bar. I don’t have the time or patience to deal with you.” I don’t look up again, don’t say good-bye, don’t kiss her, and she turns on her heel and marches out without looking back.
Harlow used to wrap her arms around my neck and kiss me every time we had to say good-bye, even if it was ju
st for a few hours. Used to make me crazy, especially since I was working as a farmhand that summer. Nothing like having your girl kissing you all over your face while a bunch of guys you’re about to work with all day watch.
I got a fuckton of heat from them that summer, but it was worth all the ragging and the shitty work they threw my way because they were jealous bastards. It was worth it to feel like the sun shined just on me according to Harlow.
Rochelle’s Mustang roars out of the parking lot and I wonder if she’s gonna drop it like I asked. Without realizing it, I ball a receipt up in my fist.
Harlow was an idiot to come back into my life, and this is why. I’m surrounded by shitty people, people Harlow doesn’t deserve to spend a minute with.
“Fuck it all,” I mutter, tossing the receipts aside. “Jared! I’ll be out for awhile. Brittany will be here by four.”
I don’t wait for him to answer before I climb on my bike to go and check on Harlow.
This is the problem with bad ideas. They never stop at just one.
CHAPTER 5
HARLOW
“So, what’s this I hear about you changing majors, sugar?” My daddy asks the question with one white eyebrow raised high up on his forehead. Because he doesn’t approve.
Even though I am a grown woman in college, when my daddy looks at me like that, I feel all of five years old with crooked pigtails and skinned knees.
“Daddy, I told you at winter break that I’d planned to switch. Don’t you remember? I’ll make business my minor. I love dance. I know I can make a career out of it—”
“Career?” Daddy’s laugh cuts my words short.
“Yes, Daddy. Many people have careers in dance.” I notice I’m twisting my hands and drop them. Damn it! Why do I get all riled up around him?
“In Piedmont, Texas, darling? What careers are there for dance? Now, if you got your business degree, I could groom you to be my VP, and I’d have a settled mind, knowing you’d be ready to take over someday. Until you wanted to stay home and care for your children, of course. Did I mention I went golfing with a very sharp young man the other day? Auburn graduate, good looking fella.” He trains his gray eyes on me. They seem to bore right through me, and I squirm like he can see every rotten thing I’ve done.