One Night Charmer

by Maisey Yates

  “News flash, jackass. You’re not close. Physically, sure, you’re close. But join the club. That’s what people do. It’s what lonely people do. It doesn’t mean we’re connected. It just means we were both alone and we didn’t want to be.”

  “No. That’s not it. Not for me. I’ve been alone for six months and didn’t need to find anyone else. Not until you. So it can’t just be that.”

  “Maybe it is for me.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, her heart sinking because she felt bad saying that to him when it wasn’t true.

  It wasn’t true. She didn’t like the truth any more than she liked the lie. She wished that what she felt for him—the attraction, the other stuff—was about loneliness. Was about wanting to keep warm. But it wasn’t. There was something else with him, something deeper. Stupid.

  She’d known him for a couple of days. She had known guys for months and felt nothing beyond vague annoyance and shallow desire. So why did she feel like there was something wrapping around her throat every time she looked at him? Binding her to him in the most uncomfortable, dangerous way she could think of.

  “Okay, then. Say I’m not special. And that this isn’t different. Why not tell me anyway? You’re leaving. You’re leaving, so none of this really matters. It’s kind of a time-out, right? From the real world and consequences.”

  His words were even more upsetting than her thoughts. And that was stupid. What he was saying was true. It was necessary. She was never going to stay with him. She didn’t do permanent. Not with locations, not with men. She just didn’t. Someday, perhaps. But until then, she was not in the market for actual relationships. Actual friends or companions.

  But talking to somebody...

  She was struck then by the realization that she had never had an honest conversation with another person. The closest thing she could think of was that moment her mother had told her there was simply no place for Casey in her life. When Casey had walked away from that home she had spent years yo-yoing back and forth from for the final time without looking back.

  But she had never shared her feelings. Never shared her story. Had never sat down and talked to someone with honesty. She kept a wall up. It was necessary. It was the thing that had helped her survive. The thing that had kept her from crumbling into a puddle of misery when everything around her was just too damn hard.

  Maybe this was part of it. Part of heading toward finding a place to put down roots. Maybe she had to cast off some of the burden here in Copper Ridge, so that when she traveled on the load would be lighter.

  “I was in foster care almost from the time I was born. My mom was an addict. Is an addict, in all likelihood. But we’re not in touch. She failed a drug test and I was taken from her. Put in foster homes. And maybe it would be six months, maybe even a year, but then I would go back to her. And she would try for a while, but inevitably she would fail another test, or the social worker would come and find she had been neglecting me, and I would get sent to a different home. That was how I learned to pack light and be ready to pick up and move when I had to.” She leaned back against the seat, resting her head against the metal behind her.

  It was almost funny that she was sitting here spilling her guts out in the middle of this beautiful scenery, sitting on a tractor with a farmer. Almost funny because for once she couldn’t dredge up a fake laugh to help put distance between herself and the feelings that were clawing at her chest.

  “Everything in my life was temporary. All of it. And I... I don’t even think it’s weird, because it’s the only thing I know,” she continued.

  “Did you ever settle anywhere?”

  “No. I stayed in one foster home for two years, and that was the longest I was ever anywhere. If you don’t count my mother’s house, which I was in and out of over the years. You just kind of pack everything up in a trash bag,” she said, not really sure why she was telling him any of this, or why she was thinking of those big black bags filled with all of her earthly possessions. Garbage bags. Because that’s what those few possessions she owned, those few things that rooted her to those years, might as well have been to everyone involved in shuffling her around. “And you go to the next place.” She swallowed hard, not really wanting to think about the next piece of the story. The next thing she was going to tell him. “The place I was at for the longest time... I got sent away from there. Because I ended up getting involved with their son. I was fifteen, and he was seventeen. I didn’t feel like I could say no. I didn’t really want to, because I did like him. He was nice to me.”

  Aiden swore, but she didn’t stop. But the more words that spilled out, the dirtier she felt. Like she was getting it all over herself. All over him. What did he know about things like this? Why should he have to know about it? Why was she telling him this? He would never look at her right again. He would know exactly what she was.

  But still, she couldn’t stop. Like the stitches had been ripped open on a wound and all the blood and everything else was just pouring out.

  “Anyway, we got caught.” Tears stung her eyes, and she hated herself for it. She wasn’t fifteen anymore. She knew that she and Dylan hadn’t been Romeo and Juliet. She doubted he had even really cared for her at all. But he had kept her warm. And he’d made her feel safe. And his mother had called her a whore. “And I got sent to a new place. Someplace that didn’t have teenage boys. But I was just pissed then. So I found teenage boys at school. It’s kind of nice to have somebody to protect you, you know?”

  “I bet,” he said, his voice blank. There was nothing. No pity. No judgment.

  “And when I ended up on my own, I just kind of kept going the same way. I don’t like being alone.”

  “Nobody does,” he said. “I mean, sure, some people like being by themselves but there’s usually someone behind them that anchors them, right? Even if that person isn’t there they have a connection. Someone that exists out there in the world that they care about. That makes you feel like you aren’t really alone.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Except, I don’t. So, there’s nothing, even in my memory, that makes me feel connected to anything. Sometimes I think that if I wandered off into the wilderness I might just disappear. I mean, if no one could see me... If there was nothing tying me here, I might just float away.” She smiled, trying to feel it inside as well as out, because all of this intense feeling business was starting to get old. “But then, I guess that’s kind of what I already do. Like a feather. A drifter.”

  “I bet more people think of you than you realize.”

  She looked at him, at his earnest expression radiating with more sincerity than she possessed in her entire body. She had no idea what she’d done to deserve this little moment out of time, with this man who was so unlike anyone she had ever known. But she’d had very little beyond survival for the past too many years to count to deny herself this. “I’m not sure they think of me favorably.”

  She thought of her foster families. Of the way Dylan’s mom had looked when she’d found them together.

  Whore. Slut. Ruined.

  Damage done. Irrevocable changes made. Complete with a new identity. One that she had worn when it suited.

  But Aiden didn’t see that. He knew the whole story, and still he didn’t see her as some filthy, wrecked thing.

  “I suppose there’s a lot I could say here,” he said, his words coming slowly. “But they would be the right things to say, not the true things. Because the fact of the matter is I don’t know anything about the other people who have been in your life. I can’t tell you for sure what they think of you, because I don’t know what kind of people they are. All I can tell you is that you have to live the life you want. Don’t let other people tell you what you can have. Don’t let them decide which pieces of your past define you and which don’t.”

  His words hit her hard in the chest, resonated. They were painful, because th
ey came with a stark, harsh realization. “I haven’t talked to any of those people in seven years. I’m the one who decided that they were right. I’m the one who decided to go ahead and make it true. I’m not just talking about what I’ve done, but how I felt about it.” She blinked, staring up toward the sun, closing her eyes, seeing red spots behind her lids. “Why am I letting them decide? Why did I decide they were right?”

  “That stuff... You don’t decide what to keep. There are certain words that get under your skin and stay, and words that you can’t even remember the next day. Hell if I know what separates one from the other.”

  “Great, so what do I do about it?”

  “I don’t have any answers for you. Have you seen my life?”

  “Well, you have the coolest tractor I’ve ever ridden on. Not a euphemism. You have a nice cabin. You have a family. You have a hell of a lot of things that I don’t have, Aiden.”

  “I guess those things are like the words, then. Some of it feels heavy, some of it you really feel. And some of it you just take for granted. But you’re right. There are good things here.”

  “Okay, we did show-and-tell with me. But why do you stay? Give me an answer this time.”

  “It’s all I have. If I leave now, then what did any of it mean?”

  She could sense the helplessness, the frustration in his words. And she was struck then by the strange dichotomy of their lives. She went from place to place, and invested in nothing, and she always felt like the void was just one step behind her. As if everything would be revealed for the vapor that it was if she quit moving. He had invested everything into one thing, and if he lost it, he would be staring into the exact same void.

  The realization took her breath away. Made it feel like both of them were parked right against the edge of a precipice. And dammit all, if Aiden wasn’t secure, who could be? Maybe there was nothing but emptiness beneath everything.

  She didn’t want to think about it anymore. And he knew everything about her and still looked at her like she mattered. She would think about that.

  She leaned in, pressing her palm to his face and kissing him slowly, much more tentatively than she would ever normally kiss anyone. He reached up, wrapping his fingers around her wrist, holding her hand to his cheek as he returned the kiss. He parted his lips, sliding his tongue against hers, but didn’t make a move to touch her body. Didn’t try to take it anywhere past this. There was something intensely erotic about it, something achingly sweet and sexy that she’d never imagined she might find in a kiss.

  Honest words followed by the kind of touching that was meant to forge a connection, not just find pleasure. The kind of touching she had very little experience with.

  She was no virgin. She was no innocent. But this felt new.

  They parted, and she was breathing heavily, and she wanted more. She swore. “I have to go to work.”

  “You sound like you don’t want to.”

  “No guesses for what I would rather do. But Ace has been really nice to me and I don’t want to take advantage of that. So, I guess I have to show up for shift on time.”

  “I’ll drive you. Because I want to,” he added quickly.

  “And I believe you.”

  As she said it, she felt it. And along with that, she felt a kind of happiness that was foreign to her. She wouldn’t have long with this. Wouldn’t have long with him. But she would take it for as long as it lasted. And maybe, when it was over, she would feel like there was something tying her to the earth. A connection back in Copper Ridge with a farm boy that she knew she would never forget.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CASEY HAD BEEN staying at the farm for one week. If his mother had noticed the sleeping arrangements, she had said nothing. More likely than not she hadn’t noticed. Josie Crawford had a way of ignoring all manner of things she didn’t want to see. Like the state of the farmhouse she lived in, the financial state of the farm they operated, and the state of her marriage. As far as Aiden’s mother was concerned, her husband was not a cheating alcoholic. He drank a little bit too much and sometimes he stayed out all night, but that was what men did.

  She didn’t see things clearly, because she didn’t want to. As a result, Aiden had never had the luxury of burying his head in the sand.

  Someone had to look around. Someone had to see things for what they were.

  He closed his eyes, thinking back to last night. To every night spent with Casey since she’d come to stay. He wasn’t sure he was exactly living in reality at the moment. But didn’t he deserve a break? A little bit of release before he went right back to the grind. He had given up everything to save this place. And he was no closer to saving it. Not really.

  Instead he had destroyed a friendship, the only real relationship he’d ever had, and lost the down payment he’d saved to get his own place. No wonder he was a lot happier retreating into the fantasy of Casey every night than he was facing the actual situation.

  She had the day off work, and had told him she was going to spend that time exploring the farmland. Part of him was afraid she was just going to take off.

  She will eventually. You need her to. This is a vacation, but that’s all it is.

  He finished shoveling out the stall he was cleaning and wiped his forearm over his brow. It wasn’t an exceptionally hot day, but it was sunny out and the work was warm. There was more to do, but he had his mind on Casey, and that meant until he got a glimpse of her he wouldn’t think of anything else.

  He did his best not to ponder the implications of that as he leaned his pitchfork up against the wall and headed out of the barn. Casey didn’t have a cell phone or anything like that. No way to text her and say that he wanted to know where she was. No way to let her know that he needed to see her so that he could be sure she wasn’t gone.

  He walked down the dirt road that led back to the cabin, thinking back on the conversation they’d had in the tractor a week ago. The story of her past made him hurt. But not for the reasons she seemed to think. Someone should have been there for her. Not some prick teenage boy who treated her like a convenience when she was in desperate need of someone to care for her. Not the foster mom who had blamed her because it had been easier.

  He couldn’t fathom how she had walked through so many lives, so many homes, without someone feeling connected with her. Without her feeling connected to someone. From the moment he’d first seen her in the bar he had felt something burn into his soul. No, he knew she couldn’t stay. Knew that there was no kind of future between the two of them, two people who were so messed up they didn’t know from functional. But maybe he could just give her something without expecting anything back.

  Superman complex?

  Maybe. But if he wasn’t saving people, then how would he keep from focusing on himself?

  He walked through the front door of the cabin and noticed a small, square piece of white paper sitting on the counter.

  “Went swimming.”

  He frowned, grabbed the note and walked back out the door. A river ran through the property, but he hadn’t taken her down there. But she very often worked evenings so she spent a good portion of the day by herself. She probably knew more about the property than he did. He had a trail worn from his house to his parents’ and the various barns and fields. He didn’t just explore anymore. Not like he’d done when he was a little boy and the farm seemed to run itself, and his dad seemed to be able to do anything.

  The path to the river was overgrown, weeds curving in over the trail that had been so well traversed by him as a child. He could dimly remember them going on picnics as a family. But that was before. His dad had always liked to drink. And they would go down with cases of beer. But it hadn’t stolen who he’d been yet.

  He pushed away the memories—they were as useless as his old man. Casey didn’t have roots, but he did. Deep und
erneath this earth, so enmeshed with the farm that he wondered if he could ever escape. And he wondered if being a drifter might actually be the better option. What did roots matter when the ground they were planted in was poison?

  He pushed through a knot of pine trees at the end of the path and walked across rocks that had been rounded when the river had been higher and the current stronger. The air smelled like wood and water, that cold, fresh smell that was unlike anything else. Not even the ocean.

  The water was still and dark in this section, and in the center of it he could see a bright blond head and pale shoulders sticking up above the surface.

  “Casey?”

  She ducked beneath the water, and he could make out her pale form swimming toward the shore. She resurfaced, extending her legs out in front of her, and rolled to her back. She was naked, a smile on her face. She seemed perfectly at ease in her skin, never ashamed of her body. And yet, she seemed so ashamed of everything inside. He wished that she could see that her beauty radiated from in there. Sure, her skin was beautiful, and he liked it a whole lot, but it was what was underneath that captivated him.

  “You’re lucky I’m the one who came down here looking for you,” he said, shamelessly taking in the scenery. By which he did not mean trees and mountains.

  “Am I?” She readjusted herself so that she was treading water again. “I just would’ve stayed out there. You’re the only one worth swimming ashore for.”

  She wore that flirtatious, sassy persona that came so easily to her. But even though he knew it was kind of a put-on, it affected him. He was never quite sure what he was going to get when it came to Casey. The vulnerable woman who was desperately seeking a connection, or the sassy bar waitress. He honestly liked them both.

  “Well, that’s nice.”

  “Are you going to join me?”

  “I have work to do,” he said.

  “Swim with me,” she said, smiling such a beautiful smile that it wasn’t any trouble to look up at her face rather than down at her body.