“Here you go,” Brandy said, showing the sheriff into her grandfather’s room. “It’s all just the way it was the last time you were here.” She still hadn’t made the decision between Goodwill and the church. “Take your time.”
He nodded. “Thanks.” And then he walked into the room and started moving around boxes, peering inside.
Jez yapped at Brandy’s feet and she spent the next fifteen minutes feeding the small dog as well as the handful of strays around the house. She’d just finished scooping some rabbit food when she heard the deep male voice behind her.
“I hate to bother you, but is Jenna home?”
Brandy turned to see blond-haired, blue-eyed Jase standing in the kitchen doorway, a Tupperware container in his hands, a worried look on his face. “I don’t mean to barge in, but I just had to see for myself that she’s feeling better. We were supposed to go to the annual dry-cleaner awards banquet tonight. I’m getting the award for best creases in the county.”
“That’s great.”
“It was, until Jenna got sick. Now it just doesn’t seem like such a big deal. I know she can’t get out of bed yet and I don’t want to disturb her, but I thought I could drop off this soup. I made it myself.”
“You made soup? For Jenna?” Who’d left that morning for a two-day equine clinic in nearby Blue County. Not that she’d told Jase as much. Not after faking an allergic reaction. “I, that is, how sweet. I’m sure she’ll love it.”
A smile touched his lips. “It’s the least I can do considering it’s my fault she’s out of commission. I knew I should have gone with chocolate chips and whipped cream to garnish the pancakes instead of the chocolate-dipped strawberries. But the guy on the YouTube video—Romeo Ron is his name—said that women love fruit and, well, talk about a disaster.” He glanced behind him down the hallway. “I’ll just take this up to her—”
“No,” Brandy cut in. “That is, she’s finally sound asleep and I’d hate to wake her. She really needs her rest.” So much for brutal honesty. “Just leave it with me and I’ll see that she gets it.”
He didn’t look as if he wanted to, but then he seemed to think. “I guess that would be okay. Just make sure you tell her how sorry I am. And that I love her. And that this is just a bump in the road leading to a long and bright future—”
“Go,” Brandy heard herself say. “Get your award. You deserve it.”
“It just won’t feel right without Jenna.”
“About that…” Just tell him.
That’s what she thought about doing, but Jenna had to do her own dirty work. That, and Brandy didn’t have the heart to disappoint the young man.
For the first time, she could understand how Jenna constantly found herself in such dilemmas when it came to men. Jase looked so smitten, and there was something sweet and wonderful about that.
Brandy found herself wondering what it would be like to have a man so hopelessly in love with her.
To have Tyler so hopelessly in love with her that he would give up everything just to bring her chicken soup.
Not that she had anything to worry about. He’d said himself that he was just here a little while longer. There would be no hanging around. No moving back home. No chicken soup. No being in love. No giving up anything.
Thankfully.
If he had felt that way, then she would find it hard to deny her own feelings and bam, she would find herself marching the same path as her mother.
No, she wasn’t going there.
Still, it didn’t hurt to at least think about it.
She took the soup from Jase, shooed him out the door, and headed down the hall to check on the sheriff. She found him neck-deep in a box of old shoes. He held up a battered black tennis shoe.
“Was this James Harlin’s?”
“I’m assuming so since it’s in his box. Why?”
“Because we found one just like it at Big Jimmy’s place.”
“Which proves James Harlin went out there to threaten Big Jimmy.”
“Not necessarily. It proves he was there, but it doesn’t prove why. What if he went out there for another reason?”
“Which is?”
“That’s what I’m not sure about, but I’ve got a few ideas. Mind if I take the shoe?”
“Be my guest.” She pushed aside the endless questions swirling through her brain and showed the sheriff to the door. A few seconds later, she headed back to her room to change clothes.
She’d just unhooked her bra when her hand grazed her nipple and a strange tingle of awareness shot through her.
Because she couldn’t stop thinking about tonight.
About him.
About how much she wanted him.
Too much, a voice whispered, and while she wanted to think that was a good thing, suddenly the fact bothered her. To the point that she ditched the rest of her clothes, stretched out on the bed, and did her damndest to curb that want herself.
* * *
She was almost there.
Brandy clutched the edge of the sheet, her knuckles white, as she stared at her bedroom ceiling. Dusk crept past the edge of the curtains and filled the room with shadows. Her nerves buzzed. Her legs trembled. Her heart beat a frantic rhythm.
Almost, but for some reason she couldn’t quite get there.
She let the images from those few nights with Tyler replay in her head. The impression his fingertips had made against her heated skin. The rasp of his jaw against the tenderness of her breasts. The warm press of his lips against the side of her neck. The soft feel of his arms wrapped around her. The press of his fingers …
The thing was, she didn’t feel Tyler. She was all by her lonesome. Lonely.
The notion struck, but she pushed it aside. She wasn’t lonely. She was horny.
That was it. One quick orgasm and she would stop thinking about him so much, wanting him.
And so she did what any healthy, red-blooded female would do. She trailed her fingers down to Funland for a quick visit.
Oddly enough, it didn’t feel quite as good. Her hands weren’t callused, her skin raspy, or her touch quite as purposeful as that of the man who lived and breathed in her thoughts.
She frowned and stepped up the action, moving lower to the tender flesh between her legs. She closed her eyes and tried to picture her favorite singer, Luke Bryan, particularly in his “Country Girl” video. The man certainly could shake his ass.
Instead, it was Tyler who was shaking it in a pair of skintight jeans, a wicked smile on his face, a gleam in his eyes. Tyler looming over her, driving into her …
She came quickly, clamping down on her bottom lip to contain the scream and the screech and … Ahhh.
Delicious sensation gripped her for a few blessed moments and she slumped back, welcoming the satisfaction sure to follow. The rush of warmth she’d felt their last time together. The punch of oomph that had drained the tension from her body and left her limp and lifeless and completely sated.
If only.
Instead, she still felt edgy. Nervous. Needy.
She ignored the strange emptiness and focused on the positive: the clenching and unclenching between her legs, the trembling of her body, the numbness in her toes, and the all-important fact that while she might still want him, it wasn’t the all-consuming, rip-off-your-clothes-right-here-and-now want she’d felt five minutes ago.
This she could handle.
That’s what she told herself, but she still felt a rush of excitement when she opened her door half an hour later to find him standing on her doorstep.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him. “I thought we were meeting at the bakery.”
“I thought I’d save you a drive back and just pick you up here.” He noted the flush to her face. “What’s going on? Are you sick?”
If only. “I’m fine,” she said, turning to draw a deep breath and pull herself together while she snatched up her purse.
“What’s this?” he added, when she handed him the chicken soup and motioned him out the door.
“Dinner.”
The grin on his face was enough to make her wish she’d made the soup herself. “Thanks.”
“It’s nothing. Jase made it for Jenna. She’s not here but he doesn’t know that. No sense in letting it go to waste.”
“True enough.” But the explanation didn’t kill the smile on his face, or the sudden longing that stirred deep inside of her. “Where to?”
“To find Gator Hallsey and get my mash back.”