But she’d never meant for her words to be cruel.
The back door swung open with a creak of the hinges.
Concentrating on her sandwich-making task—or pretending to—she didn’t look up. “I’ll have lunch ready in a minute. Hope you don’t mind ham-salad sandwiches. The pantry shelves are getting a little bare.”
After a pause while her heart seized with emotions she wasn’t about to admit, he said, “No problem. I’ll just wash up.”
He walked away and she exhaled. She should have apologized. Right then. But she couldn’t get the words past the lump in her throat.
“Charity!” he called from the bathroom. “I think we’ve got a little problem in here.”
“What now?” she muttered, grabbing a towel to wipe her hands. The plumbing had probably backed up and—
She came to an abrupt halt at the doorway.
“Oh, Rambo,” she groaned. “You silly goose! How’d you get in here?”
“Does he take baths often?” Garrett asked mildly.
He quirked an eyebrow toward Rambo, whose snout rested on one end of the claw-foot tub, his tail curling at the other end, a decided smirk of pleasure on his face. Water had spilled over the sides of the tub and puddled on the linoleum floor.
She sighed. “Only on hot summer days when someone forgets to lock a gate.”
“Looks like he’s waiting for somebody to scrub his back.” Garrett’s lips twitched with the threat of a smile.
Charity struggled to squelch a giggle. The damn pig thought he was a lapdog. “Not a chance. When it comes to baths around here, it’s strictly do-it-yourself.”
“What a shame. And here I’d been hoping you’d consider—”
“Come on, help me get this big lummox out of the tub.” The image of her scrubbing Garrett’s muscular, bare back had popped instantly to mind, flushing her face and making her heart kick in with an extra beat. Not a good image to harbor.
She took Rambo by the ears and tugged; Garrett shoved from the rear end.
The hog grunted a series of wheenks in objection. Apparently he wasn’t through with this bath quite yet.
“Get out, Rambo. This is a people tub.”
“How did he get the water turned on?” Garrett asked mildly.
“He’s got a very talented snout.” She pulled again; Garrett hefted the back end. Her feet slipped on the wet floor, and she came close to going down on her butt. Rambo didn’t budge.
“How ’bout trying a sharp stick at my end of the beast?” Garrett suggested. “That might get his attention.”
She eyed the hog. He could be stubborn when he wanted to. Like now. “Only as a last resort. His hide’s pretty thick.”
“If he were mine, he’d be bacon by now.”
As if he understood the threat, Rambo gave a cry like wet hands wrenching a balloon.
“He’s sired a half-dozen blue-ribbon winners. Best porkers in a three-county area.”
Garrett changed his position and tried to wrap his arms around Rambo’s middle. “All I see is a big mess of pork chops,” he said between clenched teeth. “Southern fried.”
Wheeeiii. Loudly making his objections known, Rambo scrambled with all four feet against the slippery porcelain tub.
“Ham steak is sounding better and better.”
Garrett hoisted the middle; Charity pulled.
“Pickled pigs feet,” Garrett grunted threateningly.
That did it.
In a panic, Rambo lumbered out of the tub, knocking Charity down and hauling Garrett halfway across the bathroom before he could let go. Squealing, the hog ran through the house and out the screen door onto the back porch without bothering to open the door.
Stunned, Charity lay on the floor trying to catch her breath. She was soaked top to bottom, and her hip stung where she’d landed on it with a whack. “Pigs feet?” she gasped, laughing. “I’ll have to... remember that.”
“Dried pigs ears for dogs to chew on was gonna be my next threat.”
Sprawled next to her, Garrett raised himself up on his elbows. The golden flecks in his hazel eyes were dancing with amusement. A shock of his hair had slipped across his forehead and made a wet curl that clung to his skin. “It’s called intimidation. I learned the technique from a couple of really good pass rushers.”
She sobered instantly. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier. There’s nothing wrong with being a football player.”
“Except it doesn’t count as a steady job?”
“I didn’t mean that. It’s just that when I used to see them...all those big guys making a beeline for you. And then you’d go down...”
“You watched me play?”
“On TV sometimes.”
“I’m flattered.”
“I didn’t watch often. I was so afraid you’d be hurt and I didn’t want to see—” She stopped before she said entirely too much, before she gave herself away.
He touched her cheek with his fingertips, gently brushing back a strand of wet hair that had been plastered there. “Sometimes it feels like the crowd is waiting for somebody to get creamed. Screaming for it. They’re bloodthirsty, like at a bullfight, especially when they sense a weakness.”
“I never felt that way.”
“No, I don’t imagine you would.”
She wanted to move. She couldn’t. She was mesmerized by the intensity of his gaze, the shape of his lips, the tiny scar near his right eyebrow that she hadn’t noticed before. The slight bump on the bridge of his nose that suggested it had been broken, perhaps more than once.
Everything about Garrett spoke of masculinity and power, determination to play even when in pain, yet underlying it all was a tenderness she wasn’t sure he even knew existed. A tenderness that drew her like a feeding bin drew a hungry pig. Except, unlike the animals she raised, Charity might well overindulge herself in the sweet taste of temptation. She had succumbed years ago. Based on her feelings now, there was no reason to suspect she’d learned her lesson.
That would be the height of foolishness.
He touched her again, his fingertips blazing a path across her lips. “I’m going to have to leave, cinnamon girl.”
No! Dear heaven, in spite of every vow she’d ever made to herself, Charity didn’t want him to go. “You can’t. You don’t have a car. Bud did something to mine—”
“The tractor’s working. Bud left the key in it. I won’t chew up too much asphalt driving it into town.”
The sense of imminent loss pressed down on her chest so heavily she could hardly breathe. “Can you stay for lunch?” she asked almost desperately.
One side of his lips quirked into a half smile. “Ham salad is my all-time favorite sandwich. I wouldn’t miss yours for the world.” He lifted himself up to his knees and winced. “Assuming I can still stand, that is.”
Chapter Five
It felt like one of the summer hay rides Charity remembered from her childhood.
The old tractor chuffed and clattered along the side of the road heading into town. Of course, this time it wasn’t pulling a hay wagon and Gramps wasn’t behind the wheel.
Garrett was.
After lunch he’d convinced Charity to come along for the ride so she could have the cuff removed from her ankle. Assuming they could find the key in the sheriff’s office.
Donnie was in seventh heaven, sitting in Garrett’s lap, driving the tractor; Charity was standing next to them holding on for dear life. To any strangers passing by, they surely would have looked like a family on an afternoon outing.
That wasn’t the case.
Garrett was going back to his own life. Charity told herself that it was for the best. If he hung around too long, he’d surely do a little mental math and come up with an answer she would have to vehemently deny. If she admitted the truth, she and Bud would lose the farm, her grandfather’s dreams and the legacy passed down from the first Arden settler here in the valley.
“Hey, Mom, there’s Shaun Ritters.” Excited, Don
nie waved to his school friend, who was whizzing along the sidewalk on his skateboard being pulled by his big mixed-breed lab.
“Pay attention to the road, son,” Garrett said. “We don’t want to have an accident, do we?”
Donnie quickly went back to the serious task of keeping the tractor from driving right up onto the sidewalk with Shaun and his dog.
As they lurched along, Charity’s heart constricted. Garrett had called Donnie son.
THE TOWN SQUARE only had one traffic light, which appeared programmed for maximum red time in all four directions, allowing motorists and pedestrians alike to view the display windows of Harmon’s Department Store for as long as possible. Amazingly the tractor chuffed through on the green.
In the heat of the day, the flag hanging from the pole in the center of City Hall Square drooped limply, and only two youngsters were in the park, tossing a ball back and forth with little enthusiasm. The scent of hamburgers and cooking grease that always seemed to emanate from the Good Eats Diner hovered thickly in the air. Razz Fiddle, who had inherited the diner from his mother, must have had a big lunchtime crowd.
The run on antacids at the drugstore would no doubt come later.
In front of city hall, Garrett pulled into a parking slot that was reserved for the mayor.
“You’ll get a ticket if you park here,” Charity warned. “Mayor Harmon is pretty fussy about who parks in his spot.”
“So if he complains, I’ll let Bud pay for the ticket.”
Wonderful! Didn’t Garrett realize the fine would come out of her household budget, too?
“Besides,” he continued, lifting Donnie from his lap, “as far as we know, the sheriff is still off somewhere tracking down those shotgun-toting bad guys. With any luck, she’s got her ticket book with her.”
“I hardly think that’s possible since she was wearing her wedding gown when she left.” That was the first wedding in a series of botched photography jobs Charity had counted on to provide a little cushion for her typically tight finances.
Dismounting from the tractor, they headed for the sheriffs office adjacent to city hall. At almost the same moment, three adolescent boys—bulked-up, long-haired football players—came sauntering out of the nearby bakery, each of them munching on an oversize chocolate-chip cookie.
“Hey, Keeley!” the boy in the middle said, spotting Garrett. “How’s it goin’, man?”
“Yo, man. How’s the knee?” the leanest of the bunch asked.
“You gonna get back to the Niners this season?” the third kid asked. “They’re sure gonna need you.”
Dutifully Garrett gave each youngster a high five. The boys looked like three-quarters of Grazer Unified High School’s front line. Clearly they idolized the school’s most famous football graduate and probably wanted to emulate his success.
“Don’t count me out yet, fellas. I specialize in comebacks, you know.”
“Way to go!” the boys chorused.
Garrett gave one of the youngsters a light punch to his paunchy midsection. “You keep eating those cookies, and Coach Riddler will have you doing situps for the whole season. When you’re not sitting on the bench.”
“Aw, man...” the boy complained.
“I’d start losing some of those extra pounds now, if I were you,” Garrett warned. “Before the preseason practices start. Riddler will run your legs off.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” The young man in question looked around trying to find somewhere to ditch his cookie.
“I’ll take it,” Donnie piped up.
Charity snared her son by his arm. “No, you won’t. You’ll spoil your dinner.”
“Aw, Mom, we just had lunch.”
After a couple more high fives, the adolescent jocks wandered off down the sidewalk, without—thankfully—having contributed to a sugar high for Donnie.
“You appear to have a fan club here in town,” Charity said to Garrett.
His lips curled into a smile. “Wanna join? I’ll let you be president.”
With a haughty toss of her hair, she said, “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.”
He acknowledged her refusal with an unconcerned shrug, as if he had plenty of fans without her. Which he no doubt did. “Those kids don’t know how lucky they are—playing for Coach Riddler, I mean. My years at Grazer High were great.”
Charity hadn’t really known him then, though she’d been aware of him around town and had admired him from afar. By the time she was in high school, he was a college hero, a role model whose footsteps the boys had all wanted to follow. Evidently, even with Garrett’s recent problems, they still did.
“Every couple of years,” she said, “those youngsters you’re so fond of at Grazer High decide to see how drunk they can get our hogs. I think it’s an initiation of some sort. They wait till we’re not home, then the boys show up with a case of beer and everybody gets soused, human and hogs alike.”
“I take it Rambo objects.”
“On the contrary. He drinks until he can’t stand up straight. Then it takes him a week to get over his hangover. Even if we have some sows in estrus and want them serviced, he can’t—”
“Serviced?”
“You know...” Heat flooded Charity’s cheeks. “Get them pregnant.”
“The poor guy!” Garrett burst out laughing. “I’ve never in my life been that drunk!”
With a simple twist of the knob, she opened the door to the sheriffs office, saving herself the embarrassment of having to continue the conversation. Why had she even brought up the subject? Sometimes she forgot city dwellers didn’t discuss the mating habits of farm animals as casually as a breeder did.
Not that she should have brought up the topic of sex—or getting pregnant—with Garrett at all.
“Just like the old days—unlocked doors have gotta say something about the crime rate here in Grazer’s Comers,” Garrett said, shaking his head as they went inside. “Apparently nobody’s worried about vandals.”
“I guess with no sheriff in town, Jeanie decided to take a vacation. Not that her dispatching job ever kept her very busy.”
The office smelled slightly musty. The reception desk was strewed with unopened mail, and there were Wanted posters piled on one corner of the desk.
Garrett marched straight to a ring of keys hanging on the wall next to the single jail cell the town pointed to with pride as its symbol of legal justice. The most the cell had ever confined was a drunk or two—human, not four-legged. Now the barred door stood open.
“Sit down over there.” Garrett gestured toward a straight-back chair, one used for interrogations, Charity suspected. “Let me see if I can find a key that works.”
Curious, Donnie wandered into the cell. “If I did somethin’ really, really bad, would you lock me up in here, Mom.”
“No, dear, I’d make you clean out the pig parlor every day for a year.”
“Oh, yuck.”
She laughed and sat where Garrett had instructed. A moment later, he knelt in front of her, palming her calf to lift her leg. The heat of his hand warmed her skin through the denim jeans she wore as easily as if she’d been wearing nothing at all.
He had particularly large hands with long, tapered fingers, the key to his ability to effortlessly sail a football almost the length of the field. That, combined with innate talent and hard work, had made him so successful, she supposed. He was used to aggression, slamming his way through a line of players determined to tackle him. Yet he could be incredibly gentle, too.
As he juggled the keys, trying to find one to fit the shackle, she remembered how tenderly he had held her after they had made love all those years ago, how he had caressed her. She’d known at the time it had been a mistake to give herself to Garrett. But she couldn’t entirely regret it. Even now.
“Somebody ought to get this place organized,” he muttered in frustration, trying yet another key.
Studying the top of his bent head, Charity marveled at the variegated shades of gold and br
own, and the effect of cowlicks that made his hair look slightly rumpled even after he’d combed it. She wanted to smooth the waves into place but knew it would be a futile gesture. Like her own hair, Garrett’s had a mind of its own.
Little wonder Donnie had curly hair, too. He’d gotten a double dose of that particular gene.
The shackle clicked open. He rubbed her ankle, sending an unexpected wave of pleasure up her leg, and her insides clenched.
“Free at last,” Garrett said. “What a relief, huh?” He sat back on his haunches to unlock the shackle on his own ankle.
No, she wasn’t free. But Garrett was. He’d go on with his life much as he had before.
He tossed the shackles on the desk, and they rounded up Donnie. It wasn’t until they were on the tractor that Charity realized he wasn’t taking them back to the farm.
“You can’t drive this tractor down residential streets,” she warned. “The whole city council will get after you, not just the mayor.”
Old Victorian houses lined the street, the nicest neighborhood in town with large lots and neatly kept yards. Overhanging trees formed a canopy above the street, providing a deep, cooling shade in the summer. Some of the wealthiest people in town lived here, those who made their living by owning or managing local businesses rather than depending upon farm or vineyard income for their livelihoods. The_place reeked of old money and a status Charity had never dreamed of achieving.
The tractor chuffed to a stop in front of the largest house on the block, one that had been meticulously restored a few years ago and Charity had always secretly coveted.
A prickle of suspicion skated down her spine.
“Don’t tell me this is your house,” she said.
Garrett handed Donnie down to her. “Okay, I won’t.”
“Wow, Mom, it looks like somethin’ from a movie.” Donnie raced to the wrought-iron fence that ran across the front of the spacious yard and peered inside like a poor little waif from the country. Which he was.
“This place really belongs to you, Garrett?”
“It does indeed. It was Hailey’s idea that we should have a house here in town.”
“She has wonderful taste,” Charity admitted, simultaneously tamping down a stab of envy and wondering how well Hailey would adjust to living on a pig farm. “Of all the houses on the block, this has always been my favorite. You were lucky it was on the market.”
The Hog-Tied Groom (The Brides of Grazer's Corners #3) Page 6