by Kira Blakely
“Why, dad?”
“Why did I hire someone? Because I’m not as young as I used to be and my foot hurts sometimes.”
I’m well aware of that. “What happened to John and Huey?”
“John got married. I fired Huey after he got one of my sheep killed.”
I tap my fingers on the checkered tablecloth. “Where did you find him?”
He pulls the toothpick out from between his lips and starts picking his teeth. “He came here, said he needed a job.”
I raise an eyebrow. “He appeared out of nowhere?”
He tosses the used toothpick on his plate. “No, darling, people don’t form out of the soil. He walked down the front road and knocked right on the screen door. He said he’s lost his wife.”
Chase was married?
That doesn’t explain his injuries, though – that patchwork of bruises, some green-tinged or yellowing.
I stand up and pick up my father’s empty dish, then put it on top of mine. “He doesn’t seem like he’s in mourning.”
“Why? What did he say to you?” Dad asks, and his tone whips through the kitchen.
“Nothing,” I answer, bring the dishes and utensils to the sink.
“He said he felt like he lost everything after losing his wife and needed a fresh start. So I gave him one. Nothing wrong with that. We all need some help at one point or another. Plus, he’s cheap.”
“Cheap?”
“I only pay him the minimum hourly wage for seventy hours a week and he doesn’t mind cash. He insisted on it, in fact.”
“Well, I don’t trust him.”
“Why not? Did he do something to you?” The protective tone of my father’s voice is too familiar.
The memory of Chase holding me against him, how his wet body felt against my sweaty one rushes back.
I blush, bow my head and focus on the dishes in the sink. As much as I don’t trust Chase, I don’t want him to lose his job, especially if what my father said about his past is true.
“Nothing,” I answer, picking up a fork to wash. “I …Well, I don’t know him.”
“I’ve told him to stay away from you, so you won’t be seeing much of him.”
Really? I’ve already seen plenty. And I’m not shocked by dad’s reaction.
Out of nowhere, the image of his cock comes back to haunt me and the fork I’m washing slips from my fingers and clatters on the sink.
“Shit.”
“You all right?” Dad asks.
“Yes,” I pick up the fork and wash it again. “I’m surprised, that’s all. You didn’t tell me about him.”
“I forgot. Like I said, I’m getting old. Anyway, don’t worry about Chase. He’s a good man to have around.”
He sure showed up in the barn quick, and boy, did he know how to fight. How to handle a woman. Ugh, stop.
“And if he causes the least bit of trouble, I’ll get rid of him without thinking twice.”
“I know you will, dad.”
Count on Dad to get rid of anything that’s a threat to me, be it a buzzing mosquito or a sexy farmhand.
Sexy.
The sexiest man I’ve ever met, not that I’ve met many men. In fact, he’s probably the most exciting thing to happen on this farm.
Chapter 2
Chase
I wake up shivering. A strong gust of wind blows over my bare legs.
I sit up on the creaky cot, rub my eyes and squint through the darkness. Shit, the window has blown open – again – and my blanket is on the floor.
I pick it up, and the door to the barn opens. Isaac stands there in his blue robe, holding an electric lantern.
“Get up,” he says, lined face folding, wrinkled in an expression of concern. “There’s a tornado coming.”
And he’s gone.
I scramble to put on my sweater and shoes, then follow him, running toward the light gleaming in the darkness.
Another squall hits me and slaps a leaf against my cheek. I stop to brush it off, staring at the horizon. The skies, clear when I went to bed, are blanketed in thick clouds now, the moon and stars obscured. The bank rumbles restlessly. A bolt of lightning splits the sky.
A tornado is coming, all right. And fast.
I tug up the hood of my sweater and sprint to catch up to Isaac, listening to his barked instructions. He secures the sheep shed and the cattle barn. I secure the stables, hammering down every loose piece of wood and ensuring the door to each stall is locked so that the horses don’t bolt.
The animals whinny and stomp restlessly in their stalls. I pause to stroke the mane of Alexander, Isaac’s black stallion.
“Shh. Everything will be all right.”
The horse calms down but only for a moment. Animals are like that – they have a sixth sense for this type of thing. It’s the reason I never trust a man who can’t soothe a horse.
By the time I come out of the stables, the wind has picked up, and howls. Another gust blows my hood off.
I don’t bother putting it back. I run to check the locks on all the tool sheds, then I circle back to the house.
Lauren is outside it in her rose-colored pajamas, perched on a ladder while she puts the shutters on the upstairs windows. She’s clearly struggling, the wind sweeping her hair over her face. The ladder wobbles too.
“I’ll do it,” I shout.
She comes down the ladder and I take her place, securing the windows while she keeps the ladder steady, a task which Isaac helps her do on his return.
The wind is even more furious now. A branch snaps from a tree and sails toward me. I duck, grip the ladder.
With the upstairs windows secure, Lauren, Isaac and I make quick work of the ones downstairs. Then we all make a run for the storage barn.
I hold Lauren’s hand as the wind threatens to sweep us away along with everything else. She holds her father’s hand, the sash of his robe undone.
The wind roars, deafens us. I dig my heels in with every step.
“Smoke!” Isaac shouts, over his shoulder.
The Border collie darts ahead.
We reach the storage barn, rush inside, and then head into the storm cellar hidden there. Isaac closes the hatch above us and I set the lantern on a table in the middle of the room, and sigh.
Finally, we’re safe.
It’s a small room, maybe eight square feet. The cement walls and floors make it cold. I grab the pile of blankets on the table and hand one to Lauren who’s already huddled in a corner, shivering.
“Are you all right?” I ask her.
She nods even though her hands are shaking. “Thanks.”
She wraps the blanket tightly around her shoulders and I hand Isaac his, then wrap up myself.
“Do you get tornadoes often?” I ask my new boss.
“No,” he answers from another corner, Smoke curled up beside him. “But when they come, they come.”
“They don’t usually come at night,” Lauren adds. “The last one that came at night was when…” She cuts off, looks at the floor. “When Mom was still alive.”
The strain in her voice makes my chest a little tight. Isaac told me his wife died ten years ago but Lauren makes it sound like it was just yesterday.
She coughs and I go to the crate of supplies under the table and find a bottle of water there. I hand it to her, sit beside her. Isaac looks over at us and I shift a couple inches away.
Her dad’s already warned me off, but I’ve been unable to get her out of my mind since yesterday. The noise she made in that shed, fuck, it made me want to bend her over the workbench, claim her as mine.
But I can’t afford to do that. I can’t afford to lose this opportunity. Isaac’s farm is my hiding place. My spot to regroup, to work everything out before I make my move.
Lauren opens her bottle and takes a sip.
“Thanks,” she mutters again as she closes the bottle, then coughs again.
“You’re welcome,” I tell her. “And I, I – uh, I’m sorry about your moth
er. Your dad mentioned that he lost her a while ago.”
Lauren rests her head on the wall, focuses on the ceiling. “She was – special. Different. I guess you could say she kept the whole house running right. The whole farm even. Don’t let my dad hear me say that,” she whispers, then the corner of her mouth quirks upward. “She was always smiling, even during a tornado. And she was the best cook. That’s why I love it so much.”
“Cooking?”
“Heck yeah,” she whispers, leans in, her eyes twinkling. “In fact, I could go for a plate of pancakes right about now.”
“With extra syrup?”
“And bacon.”
“Eh,” I say, “not a big fan of bacon.”
“Sacrilege,” she replies. “Well, it’s clear that you have no clue when it comes to food. Tragic. Sad. How will you survive?”
I love the tease. The thickness of mirth in her tone. “Burger King?”
“Burger King,” she says and tuts her tongue. I picture sucking on that bottom lip and quieting her. “That’s not healthy.”
“And syrup soaked pancakes with bacon are?”
“I didn’t say that. I can make other things too, you know,” she says.
Outside, the tornado whips the sides of the barn, growls and shakes everything above our heads.
Down here, it’s cozy. “Guess you’ll have to teach me how to make ‘em,” I say.
Lauren shifts and the yellow light from the lantern strikes her amber eyes. They glow beneath long lashes.
It’s the first time I’ve seen the corners of her full lips turn up and dimples forming. It lends her an almost ethereal radiance and I can’t help but stare, captivated.
“I can do that,” she whispers, a blush creeping up her neck.
I take a peek at Isaac. His eyes are closed, and I shift closer to Lauren. Smoke, however, still has his eyes open, both watching me on behalf of his master.
“Your wife never taught you how to cook?” Lauren asks. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. It’s just – uh, I heard what happened.”
So, Isaac told her about that, did he?
“If it’s not too much to ask, how did she die?”
“Illness,” I say the first thing that comes to my mind.
Lauren nods. “And how long were you married before she passed away?”
“Just a few months but we knew each other for years,” I lie.
“I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “Sometimes, the people you care about don’t stay around as long as you want them to.”
She opens her mouth as if to ask something but decides against it, falling silent.
The wind groans and something clatters above us. Lauren straightens, gaze darting toward the hatch. Smoke whines, snuggling against Isaac, who snores on, oblivious.
“It’s okay,” I tell Lauren. “We should be safe here.”
Isaac gives another snore.
Lauren chuckles. “Count on him to sleep through a tornado. I don’t think there’s anything he can’t sleep through.”
“Lucky him.”
She yawns and covers her mouth.
“You should sleep,” I tell her. “Who knows how long this tornado will last.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll wake you up if we’re not in Montana anymore.”
“Very funny.”
She falls silent and a few minutes later, her soft breathing whispers between us. Her eyes are closed, ebony hair forming a veil over the side of her face.
I take the chance to stare at her.
Asleep, she’s far from the feisty woman I met in the tool shed, but she’s beautiful, her skin smooth, her cheekbones high, her nose like a button, her upper lip shaped like a bow.
She’s a mess, hair in all directions, her pajamas wrinkled. Strangely, that only makes her more attractive to me and my cock twitches.
Her grip on her blanket loosens, and it slips off her shoulders. The front of her pajamas are loose, and those firm, supple breasts press against the fabric.
Unfortunately, she’s wearing a bra, the black lace plain through a gap between two of her pajama buttons, but that doesn’t stop me from imagining how perfectly round they are, how soft they feel.
It doesn’t stop me from wanting to touch them, to feel those curves in the palms of my hands.
I don’t, though.
Lauren shifts and snuggles closer to the wall. Her lips part and she murmurs wordlessly.
I draw a deep breath, seized with the urge to have her trembling beneath me, to hear her moans.
To make her moan. Christ, to make her come and clench tight.
The desire is so strong it knocks the breath from my lungs. My dick strains against my pants.
I must be crazy, getting an erection in the middle of a tornado, in a tiny storm cellar locked up with the father of the object of my desire and his dog, who’s already eaten me with his glare.
I wrap my blanket tight around my waist in an effort to conceal my situation.
It’s no use. I haven’t had a woman in an age and my senses are caught up in their own storm, my skin burning in spite of the cold.
I move away from Lauren, to the opposite corner. I squeeze my eyes shut.
It’s gonna be a long, hard night.
Chapter 3
Lauren
God, I’m hungry. The tornado blew away and left the farm mostly upright. Now, a few nights later, I hunt through the refrigerator sometime around midnight, wearing nothing but a thinning gray nightshirt and white panties. You can kind of see my nipples through this thing, but it’s okay because everyone’s asleep.
I open the refrigerator door, its light spilling into the dark kitchen. I bend over, rubbing the back of my leg with my foot as I look at what ingredients I can work with.
Milk. Butter. A jar of sun-dried tomatoes. Cottage cheese. Berries.
I’ll make crepes.
I reach for the gallon of milk, but just as I’ve wrapped my fingers around the handle, the light in the kitchen turns on and I jump back, closing the door so quickly the bottles inside the door rattle.
Chase stops a few feet away from me, azure eyes wide and eyebrows raised.
I let out a sigh of relief, placing a hand on my chest to still my chaotic heart. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Yup, me.”
He tucks his hands into the waistband of his jeans, and his chest and abdominal muscles push against the cotton of his black shirt.
Of course, he looks like he’s stepped out of the pages of GQ, while I’m a complete mess with a wrinkled shirt and uncombed hair. Not to mention I’m… underdressed.
I tug at the hem of my nightshirt, pulling it down my thighs as far as it can go so that he doesn’t catch a glimpse of my panties. Unless he already did when I was looking inside the refrigerator.
Shit. Why does that turn me on?
That sexy half-smile appears. “Nice shirt.”
I cross my arms. I don’t know what’s worse – the fact that I’m not wearing pants, or that I’ve already taken off my bra and he can probably see the tips of my nipples poking the cotton.
My only consolation is that my nightshirt is gray and a little thick so it isn’t see-through, at least not compared to the white one I own. Even so, that does little to ease my mind or body.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Chase.
He steps forward and grabs the door of the fridge. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you’re ruining your unnecessary diet by snacking on leftovers.”
“I’m not–” I roll my eyes as I step aside. “Never mind.”
“I’m here to get a beer,” he says, pulling a bottle of ice-cold Bud Light out of the fridge. “Your dad said I could get one whenever I felt like it, as long as it wasn’t more than twice a week.”
I snort a laugh, block it with the back of my hand. Don’t make a fool of yourself, for god’s sake.
He holds the door open. “Sure you don’t want to get anything?”<
br />
I purse my lips and tap my arm.
“Going once…”
I take the door from him, open it wider, and grab the gallon of milk, the bar of butter, the carton of eggs and the bowl of berries from inside the fridge.
This time, I bend my knees so that I don’t reveal too much of what I am and what I’m not wearing. Even still, he’s taking a peek – I catch it in my peripherals.
I balance all the ingredients in my arms and transport them to the table.
“Whoa.” He closes the door and then grabs the bottle opener hanging from one of the cupboard doors to open his bottle. “That’s more than leftovers.”
“Shut up.” I set the ingredients down. “I’m going to make crepes.”
“Oh.”
I look at him. “You know what crepes are, don’t you?”
Chase takes a sip of her beer. “Of course. I’ve eaten a few.”
“Know how to make them?”
“No.” He walks toward me, then sets the bottle down on the table. “Want to teach me? I do believe you owe me a cooking lesson.”
Now? I lift my eyebrows at him.
Yes, I did say I’d give him a cooking lesson. But now? In the middle of the night, with me in this nightshirt?
I sigh. Oh, well. I might as well teach him since he’s already here. Besides, he’s always busy during the day.
Yeah, and the fact that he’s looking extra sexy with his hair tousled makes no a bit harder to say.
“Fine,” I say.
I snatch my frilly red apron off its hook and slip it over my head, then tie it around my waist. It isn’t a pair of pants, but at least it’s an inch longer than my nightshirt and can cover my breasts so that I don’t have to.
“Nice apron,” Chase says, nodding in approval as he looks at it from top to hem.
I try not to blush. “I’d lend you one, but my dad doesn’t have any. So unless you want something with hearts or flowers…”
The image of him wearing an apron with pink hearts –an apron like one of those calendar guys – pops into my mind and my breath catches.
Heat explodes in my chest and between my legs.
“I’ll do without the apron,” Chase says.
I look away and take a deep breath. “Good.”