by Ana Lewin
Before Levi had a chance to ask her what was wrong she slipped away from the table, leaving some bills. Way too many bills if the height of the stack was any indication. “You need to take some of that back to her,” the man insisted, counting out a couple of twenties and pushing the rest back over.
He grabbed the stack of bills and started to fold it when he paused. “Sorry, but can I have the robot? I’d love to keep it,” he placed a couple more twenties on the table and the old man grumbled something about overpaying but handed him the little robot that Maeve had made.
Levi wasn’t sure what had possessed him to want to keep it. Sentimental value wasn’t usually something that held much value at all to him. But whenever he looked down at the pieces of metal as he walked, he was reminded of how happy Maeve had looked. The pure joy on her face as she fiddled. The way she bit her lip in concentration. Images of her flashing in front of his eyes, he wasn’t paying attention to where he was walking and stepped right into a much smaller form. Looking down, his eyes widened in horror. He’d run straight into a kid, not older than seven. The kid hadn’t fallen over from the force of a full-grown man walking into him. That was some kind of minor miracle, but his mom was sending a glare in his direction. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbled, stepping a few feet away. “Very sorry. Won’t happen again.”
He didn’t want to give the mom a chance to cuss him out, but when he turned around he ran into someone else. Another person smaller than himself, but this time it wasn’t a kid. It was a short woman with short brown hair who used coconut shampoo. “Where did you even go?” he asked Maeve, slipping an arm around her despite her earlier warning.
“Hey, at least I wasn’t going around steamrolling kids.”
Cheeks heating, he shrugged. “I don’t much like kids.”
Glancing up at him, Maeve cocked an eyebrow in surprise. Her cocky expression was back, prominent enough that he could almost forget the grin she’d been wearing before. The closed-off look she’d had when she’d walked away was gone too. “I thought that most small-town men wanted to reproduce and have twenty replicas of themselves running around.”
Shuddering, he shook his head. “I don’t want kids. Not even one. They’re little demons. I’d opt for still having a sex life over reproducing any day.”
“Have you ever had any scares, considering your playboy ways? Condoms breaking, that kind of thing. That would ruin your little kid-free plan.”
“No scares,” he said, not elaborating further. It was one thing for her to assume he’d never had a condom break. It was another for him to explain that there wasn’t even a remote possibility of him getting someone pregnant.
“I’ve had a few, but I think it was more paranoia on my part,” it was strange to hear Maeve admit that she could be paranoid. The woman exuded confidence and always seemed more than sure of herself.
They lapsed into silence as they walked around downtown, wandering into open shops and past tables with every manner of activities and wares. His arms around her kept other people at arm’s length, and he heard a few whispers from people who knew him. The town playboy, actually on some semblance of a date with a woman. That was what they saw. But it wasn’t a date. They happened to have lost everyone else from the ranch in the crowd. Together they stood in line for a food truck, shuffling forward a few feet every minute or so. When they got up to order Levi insisted on paying, not mentioning that he was technically paying with Maeve’s money anyways. He would give the rest back.
“What upset you back at the electronics booth?” he waited until they were both settled at a folding table to ask, hoping that meant she wouldn’t get up and leave.
Leveling him with a glare, she was considering leaving, but the tempting scent of the fries in front of her made her stay. “Nothing. I wasn’t upset.”
“That’s a load of bullshit and we both know it.”
She stared down at her food, putting a few fries in her mouth. “I used to love stuff like that,” she finally admitted. “I wanted to do it for my job and everything.”
“Why didn’t you? Accounting strikes me as a lot more boring than robotics.”
“My father. He said that going into robotics would be playing with toys all day. That wasn’t the kind of thing that the Marsh family did for work. So I read a couple of articles on what to go into to get a good job and settled on accounting. My father was OK with that one.”
The way she tensed up when she talked about her father told him there was a story there but he didn’t want to push her too far. If she completely shut down on him he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to get her to open back up. “My family didn’t exactly approve of what I wanted to do either,” he cringed at the mention of his family, not sure why he’d even brought it up. “I didn’t care, but obviously you do. I get it.”
Maeve looked at him curiously and he was sure she was about to ask him about his family when he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders. Saved by the bell. Although, saved was debatable once he looked behind him to see who it was. Allison was standing there, smiling but with a hint of fury in her gaze. If looks could kill, Maeve would be dead by now. “Levi, I’ve been looking all over for you!” she exclaimed, rubbing his shoulders as he tried to shift out from under her touch. “Did you hear that there’s a nasty rumor going around the fair that you’re here with your girlfriend?”
He’d been expecting a rumor like that, but he’d forgotten how likely it was that Allison would hear it. Mouth flapping open as he tried to come up with a suitable response, his gaze snapped to Maeve when she spoke. “We’re not anything as official as that,” she laughed, a fake tinkling laugh that made him worried for Allison’s safety. “This is only our first date, after all. Are you one of Levi’s students?”
She knew that wasn’t what Allison was. She was goading her and Allison was falling for it. The woman didn’t remove her hands from his shoulders, her fingers digging in almost hard enough to be painful. “No, Levi and I are seeing each other.”
Maeve snorted. Actually snorted, in a disdainful way that had smoke coming out of Allison’s ears. “Sweetie, I don’t think you are. He hasn’t mentioned you at all. Do Grant and the boys even know you?”
That was it, Allison was over the deep end. Having her little illusion crushed wasn’t going to go over well with her. He stood at the same time as Maeve did, but Allison was already on the other side of the table, getting in Maeve’s face. “Listen here, you metropolitan bitch. Levi is playing you, guaranteed. He’s with me and you’re a whore on the side. You need to leave my man alone.”
It was obvious that Maeve had handled women like this before. Stepping a foot away, she smirked. “No, no. Like I said before, you’re nothing to him. I’m so sorry to be the bearer of bad news but Levi wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole. Not now.”
“You’re not his type you know,” she snapped back, moving into her space again. “He never goes for women with short hair. Or short legs. Or prissy big city skanks. He likes tall, long-haired small-town girls.”
“I guess that’s how you can tell I’m so special to him, huh? Dating outside of him normal type because of my shining personality.”
Before anyone had a chance to see it coming, Allison’s hand had come back and slapped Maeve right across the face. The aftermath happened in slow motion. Everyone’s head turned to look at the sound, the busy food truck pavilion going near silent. Maeve looked shocked as she brought her hand up to cup her red cheek, and then her warm eyes went cold with anger. A couple of security guards in the distance saw the display and started making their way over, taking their time. After all, how likely was it that two women would get into an honest to God fight?
In this case, highly likely. Levi was certain that Maeve was going to start it but Allison was the one who pushed her first. Stumbling back a few steps, Maeve pulled her crossbody purse off and tossed it to the ground beside them. She pushed Allison back but the taller woman was stronger and stood up to the force. The sec
urity guards started jogging over. On Allison’s next push Maeve stumbled over her high heels and fell to the ground on her ass. Her glare could freeze hell.
It looked like Allison was about to jump on Maeve and start beating on her when the security guards finally got over to them, standing between the two women. “Ma’am, are you alright?” one of them held out a hand to help Maeve up.
Levi realized that he’d been standing there the whole time doing absolutely nothing as a woman he’d previously slept with attacked the woman he was currently sleeping with. He felt like an asshole. But then again, if he’d tried to help Maeve would have blown a gasket at him later. She tended to like her independence and winning her own battles, even if this particular battle was only happening because of him. Rushing over to her side as she stood and brushed off her pants, he wrapped an arm around her again. “Hey, are you OK?”
Looking up at him, she cocked an eyebrow. The anger was gone, replaced by a teasing glare. “I’m fine. No thanks to you, of course.”
He was about to apologize when an ear-piercing scream brought all the attention back to them again. “Levi, you fucking asshole!” Allison’s voice could be heard throughout downtown, and he caught sight of parents covering their children’s ears. “Why are you taking her side? She’s the one who started it! I could have been seriously injured with all the shoving she was doing.”
“Sweetie, you slapped me in the face and shoved me first,” Maeve’s voice was dripping with sweetness. “Everyone here saw it. But don’t worry, I forgive you. Emotions can overcome even the best of us sometimes.”
The crowd was on Maeve’s side, shooting looks in Allison’s direction as if she were crazy. Which she was, if her behavior up till now was any indication. Allison fumed but didn’t say anything else, knowing that she’d lost. One of the security guards escorted her away from the food trucks and out of the fair area. The other asked Maeve one more time if she was alright before heading over to the edge of the food truck pavilion, watching to make sure no more fights broke out.
When everyone finally lost interest in them and the debacle, she pulled away from him and looked at their barely touched food. “Shockingly, I’m not very hungry anymore.”
Chapter 5
Maeve
“Are you kidding me?” Olivia’s eyes widened as she shoved fries into her mouth. “She actually slapped you? Out of nowhere?”
“It wasn’t exactly out of nowhere,” she admitted, stealing one fry and putting it into her mouth. Even though the incident was hours ago, she still wasn’t feeling all that hungry. “I was being a bit of an asshole.”
“Still! I knew Levi slept with some crazy women, but that sounds like a whole new level of crazy.”
She tried to fight off the annoyance she felt when Olivia mentioned that Levi had, in fact, slept with that bitch at some point. He’d slept with half the town and the two of them weren’t actually together. She had no right to be jealous. “I think she needs some mental help.”
Unless Levi was leading her on, tugging her around like a puppet on a string. Maeve didn’t want to believe that he would do something like that, but how well did she know the man? They’d known each other for four days and slept together twice. He’d said he only slept with women once, but Allison sounded too attached to have only gotten one quick fuck out of him. Then again, she could just be crazy. There were too many possibilities for her to mull over right now. “Did you and Grant have fun going on the fair rides while you abandoned Levi and I to be attacked by his fans?”
Blushing, Olivia shrugged. “We didn’t abandon you. We just… didn’t wait for you to be done at the electronics booth.”
“You pulled me over there on purpose because you knew I would go nuts about it and stay there forever. And you knew that Levi would stay and watch. It was a setup if I ever saw one and I’m ashamed I fell for it.”
Liv was the only one who knew about her obsession with robotics. She’d been deep into it around the time they met. Her best friend had sat through demo after demo of little robots that she didn’t care about. It was how she’d known from the beginning that Olivia was a great friend. “I will never admit to that,” but from the way she wouldn’t meet her eyes, it was true.
“Levi and I aren’t going to fall in love because you push us together,” she said, glancing over at Levi as he chatted with Grant beside a booth selling cowboy hats. Grant looked a little green and had been about as uninterested in eating as she was. “Neither of us do love and I’m going back to New York. I know sex is a big deal for you, Liv, but it isn’t for me.”
“I think you could be surprised,” at her glare, Olivia shrugged. “But fine, I’ll stop with the setups. Can’t promise Grant will stop though. He wants Levi to stop fooling around. I don’t know the whole story, but apparently his ex-wife ruined him.”
“Ex-wife?” Levi didn’t strike her as the type to have been married in the past. Then again, he was a lot older than her. He’d had plenty of time to spend a couple of years married and then get back to fucking everything with tits.
“They were married for ten years.”
Her gaze snapped back to Liv from where she’d been blatantly checking Levi out. “Ten years? Jesus, no wonder he fools around a lot now. I can’t imagine being married to someone for ten years. And he’s only, what, thirty-two?”
“Thirty-four,” Olivia corrected.
“He must’ve gotten married young.”
“As I said, I don’t know details. Levi doesn’t talk about it and I don’t think Grant was supposed to mention anything about it at all. Which means that this conversation didn’t happen, get it? Levi can be a real grump when you get on his bad side and I don’t want to have to deal with that.”
Maeve couldn’t help but look at Levi again, gaze trailing up his muscular legs to his thick arms to the cowboy hat eternally on his head. “I don’t think that man can be grumpy,” she couldn’t see it, not when he seemed to spend most of his time laughing or teasing.
A fry hit her cheek and she blinked a few times, turning to look at Liv. Her best friend was aiming another fry at her face, eyebrow cocked. “Careful, if you keep saying things like that I’ll think you are falling in love.”
Reaching out to snatch the fry before she could throw it, she tossed it into her mouth. A faint blush rose to her cheeks as she tried to will it away. “As I said, not going to happen. He’s nice to look at, that’s all.”
Olivia didn’t believe her. She wasn’t even sure if she believed herself. She was saved from having to continue the conversation by the men walking back over to them. Oscar and Finn had joined the group again after going off on their own, and they almost didn’t fit around the folding table that they were sitting at. “I hear you got beat up,” Oscar grinned at her and leaned across the table. “Everyone’s talking about it but we didn’t know it was you until we got back here.”
“Glad to know I’m now the talk of the town,” she said dryly, glancing over at Finn.
Their resident veterinarian didn’t usually talk, but right now he looked even more closed off than usual. His gaze was fixed on the table as if he could will himself anywhere but here and his mop of black hair shadowed his features. She opened her mouth to bring him into the conversation but was stopped by a barely discernible shake of Oscar’s head. “Hopefully we don’t run into any more of Levi’s past conquests today,” she said instead. “I would hate to end up with a second bruise on my tailbone.”
“It’s impossible not to run into more of Levi’s past conquests,” Levi shot Oscar a glare and her a sheepish look. “But I think Allison is the craziest, so you’ve faced the worst of them.”
“She’s all but stalking me at this point,” Levi said. “Keeps asking me for favours and things like we’re together.”
“Have you told her that you’re not together?”
“Of course I have,” Levi sounded offended. “What kind of man do you think I am? It’s not like I’m stringing these women along. Ever
yone knows about my one night rule before I sleep with them. It’s not my fault if some of them think they can change me or whatever shit they’re trying to pull.”
Maeve couldn’t get on him about that one — Olivia would call her right out for being a hypocrite. Her one night policy had never been broken. Yet, she still had the occasional man who would call her at every hour of the day, claiming that she was his girlfriend. It was impossible to shake the crazies completely. “And I suppose I’m the only one you’ve broken the one night rule with?” she cocked an eyebrow, curious. She couldn’t deny that if he said no she was going to be a little hurt, not that it meant anything.
Levi looked over at her with a grin, pulling her into his chocolate eyes. “Technically, we haven’t broken the rule.”
“How do you figure that?”
“We’ve never had sex at night.”
Grant snorted from beside Levi and the trance she was in was broken. Somehow, she’d forgotten that they were at a table full of people. “Yeah, you’ve only had sex in my barn at midday. Which can never happen again, by the way.”
“Don’t tell me you and Liv haven’t done that,” Maeve pointed out.
From the way Liv’s cheeks went dark, she’d called it correctly. Even Grant looked a little sheepish. “If we had, we didn’t get caught. And you two did. So no more sex in the barn.”
“Levi and I will make sure not to get caught again,” she reassured him, grinning.
“So you’re planning on breaking the one night rule again then,” Oscar said.
Leaning across the table, Levi placed his hands down. “Like I said, we haven’t broken the rule. We’re still entitled to one night of sex if the lady so chooses.”
She rolled her eyes, getting up from the table. The sun was pounding down on them and her clothes were drenched in sweat. The fair went until much later in the evening, but she’d already seen everything there was to see. “Is anyone else done sweating it out around a bunch of screaming children, or should I grab a cab back to the ranch?”