Getting Lucky (21 page)

All of them had brought new things to town. Money, for one. The Spencer brothers had invested in several projects and initiatives in town. But there were other changes as well. There was tofu at the grocery store now. The bakery sold green tea. The local bar, the Come Again, now had several imported beers and a much wider wine selection. There was a group of senior citizens who got together weekly to learn French. The book club at the library had branched out beyond Nicholas Sparks. And the summer Movies-In-the-Square series included films by Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles along with the usual animated movies and, well, Nicholas Sparks.

The town was changing. All of it for good.

And it hit him that Hope could bring some good changes, some new things to think about as well.

Fuck.

She wasn’t staying. She was here for a single purpose—a single purpose that would take only a few days, truly—and then she would be gone again. She was a free spirit. Clearly. In every way. She wasn’t the type to settle, especially in a little farming town in Nebraska.

They used herbs for
cooking
here. For cooking
meat
, as a matter of fact.

Sapphire Falls was not for Hope.

He shoved his hands into his front pockets and took a few more slow steps. “I’m going to make some calls and set up a barbecue for everyone. Dan will be there. Do you want to go ahead with the girlfriend story or do you want me to tell him who you are?”

Hope dropped her pose and then knelt to gather the silky material pooled around her feet. She drew it up over her body and TJ was equally grateful and disappointed.

As she reached behind her neck to tie the two strings together at the top, he realized it was a loose sundress. It left her shoulders and arms bare and a good portion of her back, but it covered everything else, falling to mid-calf.

Of course, he’d seen everything else now. And knew she had nothing on under the dress. The silky multicolored garment was so loose that it seemed to not even touch her body as it draped over her. Except her breasts. Those glorious curves filled the bodice and he itched with the urge to run his hand over the warm silk and feel the firm mounds under the smooth material.

“I thought we’d already talked about this,” she said.

Now that she was covered, TJ expected his brain to start working again. But he realized it wasn’t when he said, “Naked yoga?”

She grinned. “There is nothing that opens your body, mind and soul like yoga first thing in the morning outside completely naked. The fresh air and sunshine can touch every part of you—”

“Yep, got it.” Sunshine and fresh air on every part. Every part that he would very much like to touch himself. He wasn’t going to be getting
that
image out of his mind anytime soon.

TJ shoved a hand through his hair. She was going to kill him. She’d been here less than twenty-four hours and he really thought she might kill him.

“Hey, you’re using your left arm,” she said, clearly pleased.

He rotated the shoulder and nodded. “It feels really good. Best morning I’ve had in a while.”

And his shoulder was a small part of that. He was sleep deprived, but he’d gotten a spectacular view from his kitchen window, so he couldn’t be too upset.

Horny and achingly hard behind his zipper, but not upset.

“I’m so glad.”

Hope reached out as if to touch him and TJ jerked away instinctively. Certainly not because having her touch him was unpleasant or painful—exactly—but because those grass stains were still a definite threat.

Her eyebrows went up at his strange reaction and he quickly covered with conversation. “So you’re sure you don’t want Dan to know who you are when you first meet?”

Not that conversation was something he was especially good at.

“I’m sure. It takes all the pressure off everyone. Let’s just see how it goes.” She paused. “Will your dad be okay with that? Like we said about Delaney and Tucker last night, now he has to lie to people he cares about.”

TJ had thought of that. He sighed. “I think he’ll consider it the lesser of two evils.”

“Dan’s wife is really that unstable?”

TJ hated to admit it. But… “Yeah.”

“How hasn’t she gotten any help? How has Dan not insisted she get help?” Hope asked. “I understand love and devotion, and I guess I admire that he hasn’t left her, but if he loves her, don’t you think he should be getting her the help she needs?”

TJ frowned down at her. Did she understand love and devotion? “You
guess
you admire that he hasn’t left her?”

Hope took a tiny step closer. Not the reaction most people had when he frowned.

“Everyone deserves to be happy, TJ. Does JoEllen make Dan happy?”

This woman. She turned him inside out. They’d gone from naked yoga to questioning what it meant to be devoted to someone in a matter of minutes.

“What if he didn’t stay with her and she got worse, or drank herself to death, or ran off and he never heard from her again and didn’t know if she was alive or dead?” TJ asked.

“Would that be worse than her dying?” Hope asked, studying his eyes in that
way
she had.

“Not knowing what happened or if she was okay?” TJ asked. “Yes.”

“Because you would assume the worst.”

He didn’t hear a question mark at the end of that sentence but he answered anyway. “What’s that mean?”

“I mean, it would be possible that she would run off and end up in exactly the right place and find exactly what she needed and would live happily ever after.”

TJ’s frown deepened.

He also wanted to kiss her.

She was pissing him off. The way she studied him, the things she said, the way she got so fucking close to truths he hadn’t even admitted to himself…and he still wanted to kiss her. And untie those little ties behind her neck and let that dress fall back to the ground.

“It’s also possible she would get hurt or in trouble.”

“And that’s the first assumption you would make,” Hope said. “Why is that?”

“Because that’s more likely than her going off and finding some happily ever after like some damned fairytale,” he said, letting his exasperation show.

“You think that being unhappy and hurt is more likely than being happy?”

She was psychoanalyzing him or something. Did the fucking perfume she wore have truth serum in it or some other hypnotic property? Because he didn’t
talk
to people like this. TJ didn’t like it. “Not in Sapphire Falls,” he said with conviction.

“No one is unhappy or hurt here?” she asked.

TJ folded his arms. “In Sapphire Falls, people take care of each other. People are safe and happy here.”

“And that’s why Dan should do everything he can to keep Jo here?” Hope asked.

“She’s better off here than anywhere else.”

Hope’s eyebrows went up, but after a moment, she simply nodded. “Okay, I’m no expert on Sapphire Falls, so I’ll take your word for it.”

He also got the impression she was simply placating him when she said stuff like that.

“You can definitely take my word for it.”

She paused for just a breath and then said, “But what about Dan’s happiness? Is he getting the same chance to be happy?”

No. Dan’s life revolved around JoEllen. And, no, she wasn’t getting the help she needed other than some mild sedatives she took when she got really over-anxious and the insomnia hit. The doctor hesitated to give her anything more because she wouldn’t stop drinking.

Most of the time everyone just kind of covered for JoEllen. For Dan and Peyton. People made excuses or ignored her crazy behavior or provided help without her realizing it. People in town had gotten really good at finding reasons to bring dinner over for Dan and Peyton when Peyton had been a kid, or taking turns looking after Jo when she was in one of her moods so that Dan didn’t have to miss work, or showing up to take Peyton to school or practice when Jo couldn’t get out of bed.

TJ didn’t know how they always knew Peyton and Dan needed help, but he knew that his own mother and father had done a lot of caretaking in the Wells household.

“
I
have always admired Dan’s devotion to his family,” TJ said.

“Are we really still taking about Dan and
his
family?” Hope asked.

There was that psychoanalyzing thing again. Fuck, he hated it. And she was good at it. It had to be the herbs.

Ignoring her hadn’t been working. Not even slightly. Getting deeper into the conversations with her had only resulted in him sharing far more than he’d wanted to. He needed a new tactic for dealing with Hope.

TJ stepped close, grasped her upper arms and pulled her up onto her tiptoes. He sealed his mouth over hers in an instantly hot, aggressive kiss.

But
he
wasn’t the aggressor.

Hope opened her mouth, licked along his bottom lip and then nipped it lightly.

Heat and want and the need to give as good as he got slammed into him, and TJ yanked her against his body, put both hands on her ass and ground into her. Hope wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing against him and making a soft needy sound that further fired his blood.

Damn the lack of a firm vertical surface. He wanted her up against a wall. Right. Now.

But he wasn’t inclined—or able—to take even one step away from this spot.

He reached behind her and pulled on one end of the ties holding her dress up. The bow came loose and the bodice fell—at least as far as it could go with their chests plastered against one another. TJ shifted back so the silk would shimmer down her body.

It worked like a charm. The slick material slid over her breasts and dropped to the ground.

Hope was bare-assed naked in his arms.

TJ leaned back and looked down the length of her body, then raised his eyes to meet hers. “Say yes.”

He didn’t recognize the gruff voice that came from his throat.

“Yes.”

He knew that she knew what he was referring to, and she said it clearly, without even the slightest waver in her voice, with full eye contact.

Naked woman. Gorgeous breasts. Lots and lots of lust between them. And she’d said yes.

He
wasn’t much of an analyzer. That was everything he needed to know.

He ran his hands from her butt to her shoulders and back down, then skimmed his palms over her waist, running his right hand up and down over the tattoo along her side an extra time. Her skin was every bit as smooth and warm as he’d imagined. Now he had to know if it was as sweet.

He cupped both breasts, running his thumbs over the hard tips, relishing her quick intake of air and the way she arched closer to his touch.

“Harder.”

TJ’s eyes went to her face. Her lids were heavy and she was breathing fast.

She put her hand on the back of one of his and pressed his thumb harder against her nipple.

He followed her lead and rubbed more firmly, then took the tip between his thumb and finger and squeezed.

“God, yes.” Her head fell back, her long hair slipping over her shoulders to spill down almost to her butt.

“Your hair is blue today.” The realization was late in coming and stupid to comment on in the middle of playing with the most gorgeous nipples he’d ever seen, but the words slipped out.

Words did that a lot around Hope.

She lifted her head to look at him with a smile. “I felt like blue today.”

“The streaks were pink yesterday,” he said stupidly.

“It’s all temporary color, all natural, but it’s a fun form of self-expression when I’m in the mood,” she said. “I don’t usually use any color at all, but it’s felt right lately.”

She didn’t usually have pink hair. Or blue hair. Usually it was just blond.

That felt significant, though he wasn’t sure why.

Though it was fair to assume his inability to scrutinize his thought and emotions at the moment might have something to do with the nipples he still had in front of him.

He tugged on her nipple and was rewarded with a hissed, “
Yes
.”

He didn’t give a shit what color her hair was.

TJ leaned in and licked the hardened tip. She tasted even better than he’d imagined.

Hope ran her hand into his hair and gripped his head as he licked and kissed the entire surface of each breast, returning to the first to suck hard on the nipple, making her arch her pelvis closer to him, as if offering him more of her body.

And he knew she was.

Hope was pretty easy to read too, really. She was open and free, all for living in the moment, appreciating every detail of what was going on around her. Sex with her would be…new. He’d never had lazy, slow, take-his-time sex. And he wanted that with Hope.

Oh, he wanted to put her up against the wall and thrust deep right now.

But more, he wanted to appreciate her. Like a fine wine. Or at least, how he understood people treated wine—he was a beer guy.

He was used to hard, sweaty, push-the-envelope-to-keep-it-exciting sex. It seemed like sex needed to have extras to really work. Out-of-the-ordinary places, toys, lingerie, dirty talk and, yes, liquor. Those were the ingredients to his sex life.