Gnome On The Range (25 page)

Confused
. Sure.

“Where are you headed tonight?” Kelly asked.  Bless her heart for redirecting Goldie.

“Zelda Dinkleman’s soon-to-be daughter-in-law’s wedding shower. I can’t wait to see Zelda’s face when Arlene opens my present.”

Goldie had that sinister look.

“What has that woman ever done to you?”

“She circled around Paul like a bee to honey before we married.”

“That was forty years ago!”

“A woman scorned and all that.” Goldie sniffed.

Kelly laughed. “Remind me to never cross you.”

“So what did you get the poor girl?” I could only imagine the gift.

Goldie lit up like a Christmas tree. “His and hers slutty lingerie. Crotchless panties for Arlene and those new-fangled pouchless briefs for Zelda’s son. Ha! She’s going to think about her son, her
baby
, wearing pouchless briefs for the rest of her life. Can’t wait to see her face. Gotta run!”

Kelly shook her head when the front door closed. “You know, that woman is nuts.”

We watched a made-for-TV chick flick in companionable silence. I don’t have any idea what the movie was about. My mind was completely distracted with thoughts of Ty. I was relieved he wasn’t hurt, hurt that he didn’t want me, and I wanted him more than I ever thought possible.  

There was a knock on the door. Kelly got up to answer it for me. From my seat on the couch I couldn’t see who it was. Kelly spoke to the visitor for about a minute, quietly so I couldn’t hear. Then Ty came into the living room. He looked the same as at the hospital. Dirty fire gear, sooty face. Angry look. I had no idea where he’d been, but it hadn’t been near water or soap.

Zing! Damn. I hated feeling the zing for a man who didn’t want me.

“Hi,” I said weakly.

“I need a shower.” He walked off and into my bathroom, shutting the door with a slam.

Kelly came in, gave me a quick careful hug. I held my tea out away from her arms. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah, right.” I laughed. “How can you say that? You weren’t in the ER to see how angry he was.”

“I saw the look on his face just now. He’s hurting, too. Give him a chance.”

“Give him a chance? He’s the one who walked out on me!”

Kelly was unruffled by my anger. With seven kids it was easy to stay calm. “I’m going to go.”

“Fine, walk out on me, too,” I moped.

Kelly laughed. “How about some cheese with that whine?”

I frowned. “Not funny.”

“Like I said before, it’s going to be okay. I’ll call you later.” She grabbed her keys and left.

I stared at the movie fuming and waited for Ty.

“You need more shampoo,” he said when he came out of the bathroom.  He wore a pair of gray cargo shorts and a ratty, but clean, farmer’s market T-shirt. I hadn’t noticed a bag of clothes when he came in, but he must have had one. His hair was damp from the shower, his face clean shaven.

I gave him the evil eye. “You’ve probably got plenty at your house!”

“I got so mad thinking about Dexter I squeezed the hell out of the bottle and shampoo shot everywhere.” Obviously he ignored my barb. “I want to kill him so bad I’m going to need anger management classes to get over it. But the fucker’s already dead.”

He moved to the far end of the couch where Kelly had been, lifted my feet, sat down and dropped my feet in his lap. Closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m so fucking tired.”

This, I had not expected.

“What are you
doing
here?” Had he been wandering the streets looking like Smokey the Bear’s sidekick?

He opened his eyes and looked at me. “What do you mean?” He looked completely confused by my anger. And that made me even angrier.

“You walked out on me!” I yelled.

“I didn’t walk out on
you
.” He gave my feet a squeeze. His hands warmed my skin. “I walked out of the
hospital
. I had to get the hell out of there. This day has been insane.”

Duh.

“One minute I’m fighting a forest fire, the next minute a lunatic comes barreling out of the woods with a gas can in his hand. When he told us who paid him to start the fire, because clearly he couldn’t come up with the idea on his own, I had a bad feeling. Got any beer?”

I nodded, completely baffled by Ty’s disappearance, reappearance, shower. Everything.

He got up, got the beer from the fridge and returned to his spot.

After a few swallows he continued, “I play poker with one of the 911 dispatchers. He recognized your name from your call and thought I might want to know. I was tracked down on the fire and patched through the details. Driving back to town was the longest two hours of my life. He said you were fine but I had to see for myself.”

Any interest in crying was gone, replaced by the happiness I’d felt early in the morning when Ty leaned over me and said he’d fallen for me. This day
had
been insane.

“I…I thought you walked away from me. From us.”

Ty’s eyes flared in understanding. He shook his head. “No. Never.”

“What about my dinner with Dex?”

Ty lifted an eyebrow. “I told you that night, I know you’re not a cheater.”

I was still confused. “Then why were you so angry?”

He squeezed my foot again. “You just looked so fragile, so breakable lying there. While you cried in my arms I thought about what he could have done to you. What he had done to you. I was so angry I had to get out of there. I was afraid in my anger I might hurt you, more than what Dexter had done. I’m sorry you didn’t understand that.”

As apologies go, it was a darn good one. I picked up George, cracks and all, his ceramic body cool beneath my fingers. “Who would have imagined my entire life would be turned upside down by two garden gnomes?”

“Never in a million years,” Ty grumbled. He took George from me and put him back on the coffee table along with his beer. He lifted my feet off his lap and worked his way across the couch, lying on top of me, up on one elbow. I could feel every hard inch of him, some places much harder than others. His body heat seeped into me. He smelled like my soap and beer.

“Am I too heavy?” he asked, worried. He started to pull away, but I yanked him back on top of me.

“No, just right.” I ran my fingers over the letters on his T-shirt, afraid to look him in the eye. “So, um, about what you said to me this morning in bed.”

“Oh, you
were
awake.” One tip of his mouth curved up.

“Only for the good parts.”

“Good parts?” He tucked a curl behind my ear.

I pretended to think about it. “You said something about sex.”

“Sex is definitely a good part.”

I pushed against him and laughed. “I also heard something about falling?”

Ty’s eyes met mine. I could see so much in them. The fear from the day, the playful lust, the love. “Oh, I’ve definitely fallen.”

He lowered his head for a kiss. Not just
an it’s-just-sex
kiss. This was a
love
kiss and that made it all the better. Lots of tongue didn’t hurt either.

“I love you, Ty,” I said, when we surfaced.

Ty smiled and exhaled. His expression was crowded with a mingling of relief and love. “I didn’t think it was possible to care that much again after all the shit I saw in the Gulf. The first time I saw you,
bam
, I felt something.”

I was reminded of the zing I felt when I first saw him at the pancake breakfast. The day we got the gnomes at the garage sale. “You felt a bam? I felt a zing.”

He ran his hand over my hair. “A zing, huh? When I started feeling too much, I thought it was best just to walk away. But somehow you slipped in there. Just like those gnomes, in one day, you just changed my life.”

“Now what?” I asked.

“I guess we just see what happens,” Ty replied. “Without anyone trying to kill you.”

“Probably a good idea.” My heart lurched, forgetting the most important thing. “The boys. What about the boys?” What if he didn’t want to take on someone else’s kids? It’s one thing to be in love with a woman, it’s another to take on all her baggage, too.

Ty grinned. “You have to know how much they mean to me. The question is, what do you think they’ll say?”

Good question. I turned my head and saw George the Gnome and his friend staring at us again. Now their evil grins looked like smiles. Happy smiles. Maybe they weren’t so bad after all.

“If you bring the gnomes to the airport when we pick them up, you’ll probably be set for life.”

“Done. Oh, Goldie called your mom to tell her what happened.”

I nodded. “She told me. I’m glad because I don’t want to go over all that again with my mom. At least right now.”

“What you don’t know is that your mom called me.”

“Huh?”

“I guess she believed Goldie but wanted confirmation from someone else. Don’t worry, I eased her mind and told her you’d call her later.” He ran his fingers across my cheek. “I spoke with the boys, too. They’re fine. Zach asked me a funny question though.”

Ty smiled.

I melted. “Oh?”

“He wanted to know if I was giving you field hockey lessons.” He eyed me suspiciously. “Do you have any idea why he said that?”

I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks. Looked at the gnomes again before looking into Ty’s eyes. Smiled. “Maybe I have to give you lessons instead.” My hand slid down his body to grab hold of his
stick
. “Starting now.”

About the Author

Jennifer Zane has lived all over the country including an exciting five years in Montana. She is the contemporary blog diva for RomCon. She currently lives with her family in Colorado. This is her first novel.

Connect with Jennifer:

On the Web:
http://www.jenniferzane.com

On
Facebook

Twitter: @JenniferZane

Enjoy the following excerpt for Karen Docter's SATIN PLEASURES…

Chapter One

"Colby, if I'd had that brunette in my bass boat instead of you Aunt Mary would never have talked me off the lake."  Dan McDonald tore his gaze away from the view in the truck windshield to grin at his dog, affectionately named Colby, after the cheese the German shepherd loved so much.  "Bet she doesn't kiss like you...the brunette, I mean, not Aunt Mary."

The dog whined, then attempted to wriggle his massive bulk into his master's lap.  Dan pushed his muzzle away.  "Phew!  Chances are she doesn't smell like you, either."

Colby bared his teeth.

Dan laughed.  "You won't think it's so funny when we reach San Francisco and you get a bath."  He considered the stalled traffic.  "That's assuming we get across the bay."

A fully loaded semi had jackknifed across both lanes of the westbound bridge and wedged in tighter than a cork in a genie's bottle.  The truck was to be dismantled for removal, the freight unloaded, and there appeared to be a debate as to which part of the process should be completed first.

He smiled at the speed the shock wave of information ran down the line of commuters.  Many spilled from their cars to chat.  A few lounged on their hoods, faces raised to the warm March afternoon sun.  A pair of students in Stanford jerseys zipped a fluorescent orange Frisbee between the cars with all the ferocity of Kamikaze pilots.

Dan shook his head when he realized he'd pushed his old life behind him far enough to find amusement in the scene.  He'd come a long way in the past year.  Was it far enough?  He'd been happy – well, content enough – with his solitary lifestyle...until his aunt tracked him down in Florida a couple of weeks ago.

She'd convinced him she and his mother needed him in California through June.  However, he'd had three thousand miles to wonder if his temporary return to the rat race might prove to be the biggest mistake of his life.  His impulse to turn the truck around had grown with each passing mile and he wondered if this traffic snarl was his last chance to save himself. 

He certainly couldn't complain about his first glimpse of San FranciscoBay.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky.  The sun stirred bright color into the murky waves and streaked light across mirrored office buildings on the opposite shoreline.  A light, salty breeze gave wing to a variety of raucous sea birds over his head and teased long tendrils of toffee-rich hair out of his brunette's French twist.

His brunette.

Desire coiled deep in his belly as he watched her lean against the front fender of her car.  She talked briskly into her phone, her expression hidden behind sunglasses.  The straight lemon skirt and fitted jacket she wore accentuated her rich, dark hair, full breasts, and slender waist.  Spiked heels showcased legs long enough to fuel a man's fantasies for months.  Her hand waving in emphasis to whatever point she was making spoke to Dan of urgent caresses and wild passion.

The blend of cool professionalism and hot sensuality fostered the illusion a man only had to peel one layer to expose the passionate woman beneath.  He'd never seen a woman who made him feel so needy, so primitive, with barely one look...which is why he hadn't bothered to pursue a woman since Charlotte Betham opted for her career over him last year.  If Charlotte had turned his crank this way, he might have made an effort to change her mind!

Only a caveman would dream of ripping the phone from his lady's hand.  Only a cretin would throw it into the bay before he dragged her away to his cave for a year or two.  Only a sex-starved man would allow such idiotic impulses to get out of hand.

"Maybe Aunt Mary dragged us back to civilization just in time."  Dan scratched his dog's ears.  "Remind me to go out on a date or two while we’re here, will you? Just to take the edge off."

Colby barked, and then rested his muzzle on the dashboard, pointing the way.

"No, it won't be with my sexy brunette."

The last thing Dan needed in his life was an career-focused woman to tempt him back to the competitive edge like the one he’d been riding in Chicago.  He'd leaped off that fast track without a backward glance – nearly dying did have a way of adjusting a man’s perspective, after all – but he could still spot a workaholic when he saw one.  He'd lived with one all his life.  First, his father.  More recently, himself.  And since he didn't know yet if he'd beaten that particular inclination, once and for all, he wasn't taking any chances.