“Ben—” he snapped, as if the boy had already done something and Ben flinched away from him.
Goddammit, he thought, always wrong. Always so damn wrong.
“Come on in, Ben. Mom’s going to put you to work,” Lucy said, ushering the boy inside, but not before he sent one poisonous look at Jeremiah over his shoulder.
Finally, standing alone outside the house where the sounds of the boys spilled out the front door, he realized, to his great shame, that the person who might ruin it all was him.
As soon as Ben and Lucy cleared the hallway, Ben shrugged her arm off.
“Ben,” she sighed.
“What?”
Holy shit, did the kid ever give it a rest? “My mom is going to work very hard to feed you,” she said. “And it will be good, and if you’re rude to her, or make her feel bad, you won’t ever get fed by her again.”
He looked at her a long time, trying, she could see, to hold onto his anger, but in the end his stomach won out and he just nodded. “Good, now go see how you can help.” Ben walked off into the kitchen and then Jeremiah stepped into the hallway just behind her. The skin along her neck, the back of her arms, all shook at his proximity. Too aware, all too aware of the dangerous cowboy.
What would be so wrong? a little voice in the back of her head whispered. What would be so wrong with a little comfort? Some release on the pressure that was building her chest. What would be wrong with a little fun? God. Fun. It seemed like such a foreign concept and she knew, despite the burden that rode Jeremiah so hard, he would be fun. In bed he would be a carnival of delights.
And she wasn’t one for casual, didn’t really know how to do it, but perhaps now was her moment to try. Maybe not every relationship had to be some dramatic melding of souls. Maybe she could have one that was just about the occasional melding of bodies.
She had no idea how to do that, but she had the feeling Jeremiah was well versed.
What are you thinking? You made a deal—no more kissing.
Luckily, she had plenty of practice breaking deals.
“You want a drink?” she asked, flashing him her brightest, emptiest smile. “We’ve got some beer.”
“That would be great.”
The boys were shucking a giant bag of corn down by the garden, and after grabbing their beers, Lucy led Jeremiah out to the back porch so they could keep an eye on them.
Sandra was in the kitchen, pulling Tupperware containers out of the fridge with gleeful abandon.
“Thanks again,” Jeremiah said, gesturing with his beer at the knot of boys sitting on the ground, corn silk floating around them. “For Ben.”
“No problem.”
The silence pounded and shook between them, and Lucy wondered if it would be better or worse if they just stripped naked and did the deed on the splintered porch boards. Worse probably.
Jeremiah took exquisite care in tearing a strip off the beer label. She watched his wide, blunt fingers with a weird fixated breathlessness. “I’m...I’m too hard on him. I don’t even give him a chance anymore.”
“I can understand the inclination,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “He makes it hard.”
“He used to be so sweet,” Jeremiah said with a quick grin that sent pinpricks right through her heart. “Funny, like really goofy.” He laughed a little. “He used to do this thing for Casey when he was a baby—a whole comedy routine. Ben would hit himself in the head and pretend to stagger around and then fall down, and Casey would howl. I mean, he’d pee he was laughing so hard. Ben would do it for hours.”
Lucy smiled because Jeremiah was smiling, his face split into craggy lines by his bright white teeth. So different from that charming grin he used.
“But…” Jeremiah shook his head. “That kid is gone.”
“Not gone.” She touched his hand and yep, as expected, a spark traveled from the dark, hair-roughened skin of his arm right to the core of her, where she went wet in a wild rush.
She jerked her hand away and he glanced over at her.
“Sorry,” he muttered, waving his hand as if clearing the air. “I’m preoccupied. How are things going for you in Los Angeles?”
“Oh.” She shot him a sceptical look. “You don’t want to talk about that.”
“I do.”
“Jeremiah.” She laughed. “The other day in the garden you wanted to run away so bad I could see it.”
His smile was lopsided, rueful and utterly self-aware. A heartbroken cowboy who was self-aware? Good lord, he was a country song brought to life. “I’m...I’m not good with the deep stuff,” he said. “I’m totally shallow.”
“Come on,” she cried.
“It’s true. I’m the king of small talk. Of one-night stands. Try to talk to me about your feelings, or anything deeper than the color of your underwear, and I panic.”