How To Tame Beasts And Other Wild Things (5 page)

Matilda

I go around in circles,
But always straight ahead.
Never complain,
No matter where I am led.
 

A Wheel

We pick three flats of strawberries and exit the fields with red-stained tongues and hands. I send Balthazar out to mom’s old abandoned herb garden to cut rhubarb stalks as I wash berries. Knowing how consumed I’ll be while making dinner, I set the boys up with a long runway of drawing paper. They crawl around with fists full of crayons traversing the floor from the kitchen to the den, scribbling and chattering.

While standing at the table, I roll out pie dough, Balthazar sits across from me cutting berries. He chops the brilliant green tops and tosses them into a bowl I designated earlier to give to the chickens for treats.

“Where’d you learn to bake and cook?” he asks, a smile at the edge of his mouth.

I scatter flour, then dust it across the thick dough circle in front of me. “I guess I taught myself mostly. It’s not hard, my mom always said if you can read you can cook. I tend to read cookbooks like most people read novels. I really love the older ones.” I point to my mom’s shelf of books. “Like some of those.”

“You’re very comfortable in a kitchen, you make it look so simple, but I’m guessing it’s not.”

“It’s not hard. Good ingredients make a difference.”

Balthazar rubs his forefinger across his cheek, leaving a red smudge. I stroll to his side of the table and wipe his face with a corner of my apron. “I really loved that about Paris, those wonderful open air markets. I used to spend hours looking for interesting ingredients, and man, you can find pretty much anything you want.”

“I would imagine you could,” he says as I wet my apron against my tongue and rub his face a second time.

“Sorry.” I snicker. “Was that gross that I just wiped your face with my spit?”

“No,” he answers, grabbing my wrist. “Lest you forget, I have toddlers. My capacity for gross is fairly far reaching.” He moves his eye from my lips to my chest, then drops his head and runs his free hand through his messy hair. He continues to hang on to my wrist, and I’m undecided if it did bug him or kind of turned him on.

After dropping my wrist, he sinks his face onto his hands and laughs. “Sorry, I uh. Fuck, never mind.” I stay put as he parts his lips, his tongue peeking out to lick one corner of his mouth. His eyes sparkle with a secret sort of flicker.

“What? You have an odd look on your face. What were you going to say?”

“Hey,” he replies, as he strokes his palms along his thighs. “Thanks for dropping your entire life and coming here.” I cross two fingers then cover them with my other hand, until his fingertips scoot inside my hiding place and finds them. “Maybe it won’t be as bad as you were thinking it would be.” Our grins nearly collide. I bounce up on my toes then sink my hands in my apron pockets.

“I think we’ll do just fine.” I admit as I spin on the ball of my foot and saunter around to my side of the table thinking about all the ways we’ll be fine together. Or naughty.

“Can I get you a beer?” My hands are shaking and needing to be busy, but I don’t want him to spot my nervous exhilaration as I tear the pie crust to shreds.

“Sure, yeah, thanks. You having one?” he asks, then pops a strawberry in his mouth. He rolls it over his tongue like I would imagine he would roll a nipple. Oh damn, I need a drink. I grab a beer for him and a bottle of champagne for me.

“Have you checked out my bookmobile? You might find some old cookbooks. Alfie and Duke hit the monthly library sale and keep us stocked with a nice range of subjects.”

After popping his beer top, I let the cork soar out of my champagne bottle and pour a glass. He tosses a strawberry into my flute when we clink glasses. “I have been out there. It’s so renaissance man of you, how’d you come up with that idea?”

“I had about fifteen boxes of books when I moved here and not enough shelves. Found the camper behind the barn, figured I couldn’t be the only bookworm around.”

“Oh, I’m sure people love it.” I finish assembling the pies, then slide them in the oven and begin preparing the chicken.

“They do.” He cocks an eyebrow. “I get lots of nice notes, date offers, and the occasional box of brownies.”

“I’ve got you covered in that department now.” I choke down a sip of champagne realizing I’ve combined all of his thoughts into one embarrassing little knot. “I meant the sweets part, you know, not th
e—
”

He interrupts, “You keep saying that.”

Tipping his beer back, he throws the other hand behind his head and spreads his legs. Trying to ignore the crackle of energy passing between us, I rub olive oil and a mix of herbs and spices over the chicken. But I do glance up at him. Then away. Then up again. The bulge in his arm hypnotizes me. Damn that arm, and the tattoos wrapped around that muscle. And the belted bulk of it, and the sweat mark in his pit that I want to sniff. I realize I’m massaging the chicken like it’s an erect penis when he points to my hands and smirks.

“You’re really giving him a rub, eh?”

My whole body blushes. Well, his sparkling eye along with my heated skin tell me that anyway. “You’re funny,” I chide.

“How am I funny?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re sort of a flirt, but like a flirt in denial.”

“I’m not in denial that I’m flirting with a pretty girl.”

              I chop a few veggies, oil them, then slide the roasting pan in the second oven. I applaud myself for not manhandling the thick carrot chunks. I did stroke them a little, and yes, he watched.

“I’m not in denial that you’re pretty or that I’m flirting.” He reiterates, as I work to undo the knot on the backside of my apron. I give up after a futile attempt. Balthazar crooks a finger, summoning me over to him.

I swoop up my champagne and walk around the table as my pulse races. I like being close to him. I’d like to be closer. I’m trying not to be too obvious, but things are happening. Smirks and bedroom eyes that are dancing all over my body and stopping for long pauses in obvious areas. I like that we’re flirting while baking and cooking. And yes, I’d like to rub him with oil, then slide him in.

“Turn around,” he says. I’d do about anything he would ask right now. He makes me nervous and excited in a rip-my-clothes-off kind of way. I only wish he’d do exactly that. But that’s the funny piece with him. He’s a delicious flirt with zero follow through. No guy that oozes sex the way he does is going to be able to go for long without fulfilling his needs. Unless he was ruined. Lavinia must have done a number on him, that’s all I can assume. He and I have loss in common, no question about that. At some point I’ll tell him about Cort, and how he died the same week Lavinia did.

“You’re nothing like your sister, Matilda.”

He blows out a breath that I wish were landing on my naked lower back, or lower elsewhere. My tongue goes dry and I swig back a long sip, hoping to mask my nerves. I’m the furthest thing from invisible right now. So why do I wish he couldn’t see my emotions? “What am I like?” My voice shakes.

“Like no woman I have ever met,” he says in a hushed tone that causes my shoulders to stiffen as his hand presses against my tailbone. My knees wilt as I feel his other hand slide up my inner thigh and rest quietly there save the soft movement of one finger that skates along the edge of my panties. I can’t recall ever feeling this way, with every nerve and pore ignited as heat and wet settles at my core. I’m cemented in place with sexual tension rocking through me like an earthquake. Even with Cort I never felt this.

“Ever,” he says in a hoarse voice. Then the hand that was melting into my thigh is gone. But it’s replaced with new sensations, because everything else stays. Every tingle, every desire, every way-too-early-to-feel-this-way emotion.

The next day flies by, reminding me how summer seems to do that. The twins and I spend the morning at the animal shelter with Tully. I clean pens as they play with kittens and one new puppy that I may need to take home. My afternoon is all about making strawberry preserves along with a bowl of berry slosh that’ll be spooned over homemade shortcake biscuits. Balthazar might be surprised that we’re having dessert for dinner. He keeps telling me he likes anything sweet, half the time he says it, his eye is sweeping up and down my body making love to me. While I finish tidying up the kitchen a text dings on my phone. My father. Yay.

Dad:
Going well?

There’s no fluff with him. He might have invented texting come to think of it.

Me:
Fine.

No sense going into any detail. I’m sure he’s running a marathon, or lunching with the titans of commerce or recreating the Euro. Something grand. Mr. I Do Everything Big. With exception to showing an ounce of love or interest in me.

Dad:
Good. I’ll call soon.

Peachy. We’ll get to connect on a deeper level. If only I could drain the ocean to see what kind of man he really is. Ocean, ha. Drain the puddle is more like it. He can’t be more than he shows. Shallow and insecure. Not to mention nasty. I wonder if we could even find a relationship while stranded on a deserted island. Not likely.

Post shower, and with the boys down for a nap, I dig a vintage maxi dress out of a closet still stuffed with my mom’s old things. I skip mybra and underwea
r—
needing a break from the stickiness that’s already clinging to my ski
n—
and slip into the floral dress. A soft sweet-scented breeze floats through my bedroom window as I brush my hair, and listen to wind chimes trill on the porch below. The late afternoon sunlight draws me outside; time to hunt for flowers. A handful of daisies later, that are all messily woven into my long braid, I wander the yard barefoot and step on a bee. Another zips up my dress and nails my inner thigh or maybe something else. Shit, it better not have gone there! I trip around in pain howling like a cat in a trap. While crawling across the yard I hear the tractor rumble nearby. A minute later Balthazar comes running.

“You okay?” he asks, kneeling at my side.

“I stepped on a bee, then another went up my skirt. Fucking perv!” I growl and wince as my foot and groin throb. “I need to get the stingers out but my foot is so swollen I can’t walk, I haven’t even looked up my skirt. I’m afraid to.”

“C’mere.” He flips me into his arms and bounds up the steps. After placing me in a chair, then resting my stung foot on the tabletop, he digs through the first aid box and comes up with a pair of tweezers.

“Let me wash my hands,” he says, looking over his shoulder.

With the tweezers in one hand, he encircles my foot with the other, examining it with squinty eyes. “This might hurt a bit, I see it.”

His hand shakes, making me close my eyes and clutch his arm with a death grip waiting for a nip as he holds my foot.

“Breathe, Matilda,” he says in a soothing voice. I do.

              “Got it! Let me see the other one, you okay if I take a look?” He pushes my dress up past my knee in search of the other stinger, and while the prickle in my groin is killing me, I’m conscious of the unique scenario we’re in. It wants to be erotic. Or at least I want it to be, based on the arrow of heat shooting through me. Or is that the stinger? No, definitely not. I stare at his big hands, that are resting at the edge of my dress, brushing my knee, then moving up my leg. I hesitate and bite my thumb to buy time as his hands journey on. “It’s up high.” And I don’t think it’s going to be pretty.

He pats my leg. “You want me to get a mirror so you can do it?”

“No, just hang on. Let me feel up there, it’s swollen in all the wrong places.”

“Like it got intimate with you?” He chuckles.

“Funny guy. Maybe?” I slide my hand up my thigh while clenching my jaw. Great, there’s no question that sucker went for my honey pot. Balthazar’s eye sparkle as I finger my inner thigh and fat as a tenderloin labia. I blush like a virgin that’s going to the Gyno for the first time as I huff out a breath.

He rubs the center of his forehead, then blows his cheeks out. “You want me to take you to the doctor?”