Accounting For Lovel (Long Valley Book 1)

by Erin Wright

  Tripping over her own tongue. It was a thing.

  What she’d stopped herself from actually saying out loud was that it was way too early in their relationship – if you could call one night of heavenly sex to even be a relationship – to deal with this kind of drama. So. Not. Cool. He probably thought this happened every weekend.

  Dammit!

  This was the sort of thing that you confessed to your new boyfriend after a year of dating and two bottles of wine.

  Not like this.

  “Sometime, you’ll have to tell me what you saw in this Paul,” he said, looking down at her with a huge grin on his face. It took her brain a few seconds to realize that he was mimicking her comment that she’d made, right before Paul showed up.

  She buried her face in her hands, feeling her face turn a pulsating red from the sly repartee. “Truce,” she mumbled. “Truce!” she said again, pulling her hands away and looking up, up, up into Stetson’s face. “I won’t make fun of Michelle if you don’t make fun of Paul.”

  “Damn,” Stetson said, pulling her up against him to bury his face in her hair and draw in a deep breath. “But I had so many things to make fun of about my choice to date Michelle for so long. Why, we’d just barely gotten started!”

  Jennifer laughed against his chest. “It does seem to defy logic, doesn’t it?” she asked rhetorically. “I never saw Paul again after I found him and Lizzie in bed together. I made damn sure of it. I’d often wondered – some small part of me – what it’d be like if I did see him again. I never thought I’d be astounded by the question, ‘What on earth did I see in you?’ I always thought I’d struggle with standing up to him or feeling hurt all over again by his betrayal. But astonishment? Yeah, totally didn’t guess that.” She shrugged, keeping her face firmly buried against Stetson. It was less embarrassing that way. “I also never thought I’d be able to stand up to him like I did. It was the best feeling in the world, honestly! No wonder guys like to get into fights and just duke things out.”

  “You thought that was a fight?” Stetson asked. She could feel his chest vibrate with silent laughter against her cheek. “The next time Wyatt and I have a ‘discussion,’ remind me to invite you to watch. What just happened with Paul is practically a tea party in comparison.”

  “I don’t like fighting. Or arguing,” she said, still firmly nestled against him. She wasn’t quite ready to pull away and meet his gaze yet. “Why do you think I worked so hard to avoid Paul after I found him cheating on me? I just wanted to walk away and pretend it never happened. It’s not healthy.”

  “Hey, I’ve been tempted to avoid confrontation,” Stetson said, nestling her further against his body and swaying lightly as they talked. “The other day, when I saw Declan and Wyatt’s trucks were here, all I wanted to do was turn around and run back to town. I knew it wasn’t going to go well. Any time Wyatt and I breathe the same air, it doesn’t go well.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t actually run away,” she pointed out logically. “I always have. Before today, that is. And the only reason I didn’t today is because I couldn’t. I don’t have a car to drive away in, and I don’t have a house to hide in. I was stuck.”

  “And the only reason I didn’t run away the other day is because I knew it would only make things worse between Wyatt and I. Harvest is coming. I can’t stop the change of the seasons. So I was forced to go in and talk to him, despite me wanting to do almost anything else but.”

  He was running his fingers through her hair methodically, scalp to ends, as they swayed in the warm summer air. “Don’t be so tough on yourself,” he said, just above a whisper. “You have a lot more backbone than you give yourself credit for. Despite my lecture on which meals you can eat and what Carmelita can make for you, you didn’t drive back to Boise and tell your boss that he can foreclose on the property, even though I know now that’s what he wanted to hear. Why didn’t you?”

  “Recommend foreclosure right off the bat and just walk away, you mean?”

  “Yeah. Knowing what I know now…on one side, you had a jackass of a farmer who made you feel like shit for being here, and on the other side, you had a boss who was pushing you to just recommend foreclosure. In your shoes, I think it would be hard to still do your job, especially since you had no real incentive to do so.”

  “Well, because it is my job.” She shrugged a little. Her eyes were closed and she was just enjoying the heartbeat of Stetson, steady and strong. “If I quit every time someone was rude to me, I would never do my job. I can’t say you exactly made me feel welcome, but I’ve had other irate clients before. In fact, they usually start out that way; it’s rare if they don’t. I’ve learned to just shrug it off for the most part. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I can change their mind. Sometimes, especially when I can’t find a way for the business to be saved, I can’t change their mind. That’s when my parentage gets called into question.”

  He was silent for a moment, and then he began laughing. “No wonder Carmelita likes you,” he said around his laughter. “That was the classiest way I've ever heard of someone being referred to as a bastard.”

  “Well, that and Carmelita just has good taste,” she told him. “Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” Stetson repeated, still laughing. “So, are we gonna go upstairs and canoodle some more, or are we gonna go on a tour of the farm?”

  “Canoodle?!” She let out a snort of laughter. “It is 2016, right? We didn’t jump back to 1816 without me knowing it?”

  “If you grew up with Carmelita standing over you, willing to whack you on the back of the head for the most inconsequential swear word, you quickly find substitutes to use. That tendency spreads to other…delicate topics of discussion.”

  It was her turn to have her shoulders shake with laughter. “Fair enough,” she allowed. That laughter quickly turned to quiet moans of lust when Stetson drew his hands up her sides and across to her chest, across her hardened nipples.

  “If I remember right, I have some strawberry ice cream to lick,” he said softly in her ear.

  It was the damnedest thing, to feel lust and shame battle each other inside of her. Lust, because what he was doing felt so damn good. But shame, because she’d spent years being told she wasn’t enough. The old fears and doubts were still there; one night of him saying nice things couldn’t erase years of programming and negativity.

  She froze in his arms, still as a statue as she tried to reason through everything flashing through her mind.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Stetson asked, pulling back so he could look her in the face.

  “I just realized something,” she breathed, forcing herself to look up and into his bottomless brown eyes. She needed to stop hiding, even if it was just her hiding her face against his chest.

  Stetson stood there, his arms lightly encircling her, waiting ever-so-patiently for her to speak. A light summer breeze had her hair dancing in it, but Stetson pushed it back for her, letting her gather her thoughts.

  “When I left Paul, I spent a long time reading self-help books and books on domestic abuse. He may never have hit me, but he hurt me in ways that can’t be seen. He made me start to doubt my sanity, by questioning if I’d been flirting with an orderly or security guard at work. I hadn’t been, but after a while…it’s amazing how it can start to screw with your mind. Maybe I had been staring at the security guard without realizing it. Maybe I had laughed flirtatiously when a guy told me a joke, and I just hadn’t realized it. Maybe Paul was right, and I was just slowly going nuts – not in control of my own body.

  “But after I left him, I started to realize that this was what the psychologists call ‘gas lighting,’ where a person makes you start to question your own reality. I worked through all of that, and finally came to the realization that Paul is just sick upstairs.”

  She bit her lip as she looked up into his deep brown eyes, worrying it before forcing her to finally say her realization. “But through it all, I never dealt with the emotional abuse of him m
aking me feel ugly. It’s funny because somehow, I was both beautiful enough to tempt men to flirt with me, even though everyone knew I was engaged to Paul, and ugly enough that Paul sometimes had to force himself to sleep with me, because he knew that I crave physical intimacy. But he’d tell me beforehand what a sacrifice he was making, for me. How kind he was being, to me. He even told me one time that my natural odor was a turn-off, so I started wearing heavy perfume, trying to cover me up.

  “I dealt with some of this stuff, but after all this time, I’m realizing – I haven’t dealt with it all. I’m still kind of broken inside, Stetson. Last night was a lot of fun, but we’d both been drinking and…you don’t have to still pretend to want me if you don’t anymore. This…this is who I am. This is the real me. I have issues; I’m not gonna lie. You might not want to deal with all of this baggage, and I…”

  She stopped, and then whispered, “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to walk away.”

  The light breeze carried her words off, floating on the current, swirling over the farm and away into the world, dissipating, dissolving into nothing at all.

  Maybe they could just forget everything. Maybe she could go back to the office and add up numbers and force logic into the world, one Excel column at a time, and he could go back to wrestling calves and driving tractor and they could pretend that nothing had happened. “What, that banker? Yeah, she came and looked over the books for a while, but she’s gone back to Boise now.”

  He lifted her chin gently but inexorably, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Baby, I have a glued-together left eyebrow, an eye turning beautiful colors, and a hand bandaged up from accidentally punching the front of my grandfather’s tractor. I have so much baggage, I’m gonna start ordering matching sets, complete with little wheels on the bottom so I can more easily tow them along behind me. How do you think I got such rock-hard muscles?” He flexed and pointed to his sizable bicep. “That’s from carrying my baggage everywhere I’ve gone since I was a small child.”

  He scooped her up into his arms effortlessly, carrying her back inside the house, pushing the front door closed behind him with the heel of his boot. “Sometime, I ought to tell you how I spent years thinking that I killed my mother. Hey Carmelita,” he shouted, looking up from Jennifer’s gaping mouth, “Jennifer and I are gonna go study some spreadsheets. In detail. No need to come help us figure things out – I think we’ve got this one.”

  “Spreadsheets…your mother…” Jennifer sputtered as Stetson took the stairs two at a time, carrying her in his arms like she weighed no more than a newborn babe. “You’re gonna hurt your back, carrying me around like this,” she informed him, trying to glare seriously up at him.

  “Well then, it’ll be worth every twinge of pain I suffer,” he said, closing the door to the master bedroom behind him. “And anyway, you’re as light as a feather. I could carry you around all day long.” He dropped her on the bed and then crawled in after her. “But right now, I have other things on my mind…”

  Chapter 38

  Stetson

  Dropping Jennifer onto the bed and watching all the right parts of her bounce was definitely the highlight of his day.

  Well, throwing Paul into that puddle was a close second. But that was more satisfying, whereas watching Jennifer smile up at him, visibly pushing the doubt away and choosing to focus on the here and now…that was just damn sexy.

  He quickly skimmed her (his?) shorts off her hips, and the ratty t-shirt off her body, leaving – just as he’d expected – a completely naked Jennifer underneath. “You always come down to breakfast only half clothed?” he growled, nibbling his way up the sexiest pair of legs he ever did see. There was this cord of muscle that ran up the back side of her calf that he wanted to follow wherever it led. Preferably up north, but he’d follow it almost anywhere at this point.

  “When you’re as small as I am up top,” she said with a shrug and a hitch in her voice as he began sucking on the calf muscle, “bras are more of a fashion statement, rather than a necessi-ty.” Her voice broke on the last word as she groaned with lust. “Oh, oh, oh, that feels…”

  And then she was tossing her head back and forth on the bed, moaning and mumbling to herself. He permitted himself a self-satisfied smirk. Seeing what his lips did to her definitely did something to him.

  “I’ll have to remember this for future reference,” he murmured as he worked his way up her thighs. The calf muscle had disappeared, but her thighs were even more enticing, if that was even possible, and he hadn’t even gotten to the grand finale yet.

  He nosed her swatch of curls, breathing in the unique scent that was pure Jennifer Kendall, and sighing with pure lust. He’d never met a woman who smelled so amazing.

  Which reminded him…

  “Babe?”

  “Ye…yeah?” she finally got out, legs spasming with pleasure.

  “Paul is an idiot. And he needs to have his nose fixed.”

  And with that, he finally gave her what she wanted as he licked his way up her delicious pink pussy.

  Pink pussy, pink tits…

  “My favorite color is pink,” he announced as he blew cold air over her clit.

  “Ohhhhhh…” Jennifer exclaimed, but somehow, he wasn’t thinking that it was in excitement over his color preferences. The arch of her back, her clasping at the bedspread…

  She might like pink, but probably not that much.

  He smiled with self-satisfaction again. Teaching Jennifer how much fun it was in bed?

  Priceless.

  Chapter 39

  Jennifer

  Jenn woke up with a mumbled sigh. Something amazing had happened, or maybe that was just a dream she’d had, but her thighs were sticky with cum and so just a dream didn’t seem right but—

  And then she felt hard muscle, lying next to her. Her eyes popped open and she stared at her bedmate. She was in Stetson’s bed – again – but this time she was waking up next to him instead of him being gone and then she remembered, remembered everything she’d told him on the front porch – why the hell had she told him all of that??? – and she wasn’t breathing right and then his eyes fluttered open and he grinned lazily, a grin that quickly transformed into panic.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, reaching out for her and pulling her against him. “Did you have a bad dream?”

  “I just…why did I say…why did I tell you all of…”

  She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying to calm her racing heart.

  “Why did you tell me all of that stuff while we were out on the front porch together?” he asked softly.

  She had her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she nodded. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Now he can really hurt you.

  “Maybe because you know I’d never use something like that against you.”

  Her eyes popped open, swimming with tears and disbelief as she stared at him. But she didn’t know that. He could!

  “I don’t trust easily,” he said softly. “I actually had that thought just the other day. About you. That I had to be careful about what I told you and how much I let you in. I think that honestly, though, I’ve already let you in more than any other woman I’ve ever dated, including Michelle. It’s not easy to bare your soul to someone else. All I can do is give you my word not to abuse that trust.”

  She bit on her lower lip, contemplating what he said. Could she trust him? The last time she’d believed that a male had good intentions, she’d ended up in an emotionally abusive relationship for years.

  But mostly, she just felt overwhelmed. Wrung out. Waking up twice in one day in a panic, yelling at Paul, finally telling him everything she’d wanted to tell him but never had, opening her wounds up to Stetson’s gaze…

  It was exhausting.

  As if he knew what she was thinking, he pushed her hair out of her face and said softly, “I think we’ve had enough serious, life-altering discussions for one day, don’t you? I think it’s about time we have that farm tour I’
ve been promising you for two days straight.”

  She nodded, pushing her worries to the back of her mind. He was right – she really didn’t have much choice except to trust him. It was too late to take her words back now. She could freak out later, after the farm tour was over; maybe tonight, as she laid in bed – by herself – and tried to process everything.

  No sleeping with Stetson again until you’ve thought through all of this. By yourself.

  She would be a good girl…later. For now, she wanted a break from it all.

  “Deal,” she said, and swung her legs off his four-poster bed. After hurrying into the guest bathroom to clean up and get ready for the tour, she peeked back into the master bedroom and found it empty. She headed downstairs instead, where she found Stetson and Carmelita talking in hushed tones.

  Carmelita looked up with a warm smile on her face. “Stetson says he is finally going to show you the Miller Farm. You two go have fun. It is important to relax after such a man dares to come here and says what he did.” She made shooing motions, pushing them through the door. “Go, go. I will make a pie. You can have dessert when you come back.”

  She closed the door behind them.

  Jennifer looked up at Stetson and laughed. “Is she always this bossy?” she asked dryly.

  “You have no idea,” he muttered, grabbing her hand and pulling it through the crook of his elbow. “I think Carmelita was a mother hen in a past life.”

  They wandered down a large, sloping hill that ended in an even larger clearing ringed with forest. “I keep the four-wheeler in here,” he said, pulling her towards a small shed off to the side. “We can ride double.”

  After he pulled the machine out and had her securely in place, scooted up tight against his broad back, her arms wrapped around him, he took off slowly, skirting around the base of the hill and towards a cluster of buildings.