No More Secrets: A Small Town Love Story (The Pierce Brothers Book 1) (17 page)

“Can I get you something to drink, Anthony?” Ed asked, swiping a towel over the bar.

“I’ll take a diet soda, please. Now back to the questions. What do you think are the highlights of visiting Blue Moon?”

“I’d have to say it’s the unique people that live here that has been the biggest surprise,” she said diplomatically.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” Anthony scribbled furiously. “Have you had the chance to patronize many of our small businesses?”

“I’ve enjoyed Peace of Pizza and Blue Moon Boots. Shorty’s is also turning out to be an interesting experience.”

Ed dropped off Anthony’s soda and winked at Summer.

“What kind of qualities are important to you in a man?”

“Excuse me?”

Anthony was frowning intently at his notepad. “You know like, smart, kind, good with animals, broad shouldered, chiseled jaw ...”

“I guess all of those.”

“Great. And how many kids do you plan to have?”

Summer choked on her wine.

“Gee, isn’t that funny? We were just talking about that, Anthony,” Joey said. “I think Summer settled on an even half dozen.”

Summer’s eyes widened as Anthony continued to scrawl notes. “Half dozen,” he mumbled. “Got it. Now according to your blog you state that ‘Farm life is a very large leap from Manhattan.’ Is that a leap you’d be willing to make for love?”

“You know what? I think I have to go to the bathroom. Excuse me.” Summer shoved away from the bar.

“No problem. I’ll just squeeze in Joey’s interview while you’re gone. So Joey, now that Jackson Pierce is back in town, are you off the market?”

It was Summer’s turn to laugh.

“Ed, we’re going to need that food to go. Now,” Joey called.

“Rumor has it that Jackson is back for good. What does that mean for you?”

“Ed!”

––––––––

“P
eople don’t really read this
The Monthly Moon,
do they?” Summer asked, watching the cornfields fly by her window. Their untouched, hastily packaged dinners were sitting in the bag on her lap.

“What do you think?”

Summer groaned.

“How do you think I feel? You get to go back to the safety of eight million strangers who don’t give a shit what you do day in and day out. I
live
here,” Joey grumbled. She passed the farmhouse lane and continued on, turning down the lane to the stables.

“Can Anthony be bought?”

“Not only is Anthony the editor-in-chief of
The Monthly Moon
, his parents are Rainbow and Gordon Berkowicz. He’s second-generation BMBC.”

“Crap.”

Joey stopped the truck in front of a stone and timber cabin.

“Where are we?” Summer asked.

“My place.”

Joey led the way up the porch to the front door where she fiddled with her keys. “Welcome to Casa Awesome,” she said, pushing open the door.

The whole first floor was wide open. A seating area was arranged around the stone fireplace and behind it was a wide plank table surrounded by charmingly mismatched chairs. The kitchen was compact but had all the essentials. Slate blue cabinets and white countertops broke up the wood tones of the walls and ceiling. The kitchen island was flanked by four backless metal stools and held a neat stack of magazines and books, all on horse topics.

“Two bedrooms up there,” Joey said pointing to the loft that overlooked the living area. “Powder room is over there. There’s beer in the fridge. I figured we could eat on the back porch.”

“Fine with me,” Summer agreed. “We aren’t going to get ambushed by paparazzi out there, are we?”

“If that happens, I’m getting my shotgun.”

After a pit stop in the kitchen for utensils and beer, Joey led the way out onto the back porch. “We’ll eat in the screened in porch. I don’t want to share my food with mosquitos.”

She flicked a light switch and an overhead ceiling fan and light came on.

“This place suits you,” Summer said, taking in the vista. Beyond the deck, a brick patio ran the length of the back of the house and pastures rolled on as far as the eye could see. “You have a bathtub on your patio.”

Joey grinned. “It runs, too.”

“You take baths outside?” Summer asked incredulously.

“Who’s going to see me? The horses?”

Summer imagined it. A warm summer night, a fire in the fire pit, and a good long soak under the stars.

“Okay. You may be onto something here.”

Joey opened her container and dug into her lukewarm roast beef sandwich.

She pointed at Summer’s salad. “No meat on that. Did Carter get to you, too?”

“Maybe a little,” she confessed. “He and Dixie make a pretty compelling case.” She reached for a fork. “When I write pieces like this, I try to live as close to the lifestyle of the subject as possible just to get a better feel for it.”

“Method,” Joey mumbled through a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

“What?”

Joey swallowed. “It’s like method acting, only for writing.”

“Exactly.” Summer speared a cherry tomato. “So, think we gave Anthony enough to write his articles?”

“More than. He’s very ‘creative’ with his facts. In a week, all of Blue Moon will be reading about how you’ve fallen for a farmer and plan to kiss Manhattan good-bye. And how I’m ready to have another Pierce brother’s babies.”

They both drank deeply.

“So how was the sex?” Joey asked as casually as if she was talking about shoes or recipes.

Summer choked on her beer. “Excuse me?”

“Those Pierce brothers know how to treat a woman right.”

“Brother
s
?” Summer demanded.

Joey smirked. “After Jackson left, Beckett and I may have made out one night.”

“No. Way. Does Jax know?”

“Probably not. And it was nothing,” Joey shrugged. “Beckett was worried about me. I was in a tizzy over his brother leaving. It just happened. And then we came to our senses, decided we were better off as friends, and never spoke of it again.”

“I’ve never made out with two brothers before,” Summer said, wistfully.

“It was a lot more than making out with Jackson,” Joey said matter-of-factly. “Even at seventeen that boy knew what he was doing.”

Summer watched her straighten her shoulders and dig back into her meal.

“Why don’t you call him Jax like everyone else?”

“I used to. I don’t anymore.” Joey kept her attention on her dinner.

“Too familiar?”

“Yeah, something like that. So back to sex with Carter.”

“What’s my scale?”

“One being ‘I should have saved myself the self-loathing by staying home and watching Netflix’ and ten being ‘I heard angels sing.’”

“Oh angels. Definitely. A choir of them.”

“Nice.”

“With some fireworks, too.”

“Now you’re just showing off.”

––––––––

J
oey dropped Summer off in front of Carter’s house after nine.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come in?” Summer offered, sliding out of the truck cab.

Joey’s eyes flicked to the house. “Nah. I’m good.”

“I had fun tonight,” Summer said.

“Me, too,” Joey nodded. “I’ll call you if we need to go burn Anthony’s house down or something.”

“I’m in.”

Summer climbed the porch steps and went inside. She followed the sound of male laughter through the kitchen — which looked like it had been destroyed in a tornado of testosterone — and into the great room.

Carter spotted her first and got to his feet.

“Lady in the house, gentlemen,” Beckett said, dealing cards. “Let’s clean up the language and tone down the farting and scratching.”

“Oh, I don’t want to interrupt any manly fun. I’m just going to grab my laptop and work upstairs.”

“First, come meet the guys,” Carter insisted. He pointed to the man with scraggly hair and Birkenstocks. “Summer, this is Bill Fitzsimmons. Fitz, this is Summer Lentz.”

Fitz peered over his glasses at her and waved. “Hello. The brownies are safe.”

“Thanks for tip,” Summer nodded.

“Fitz is the prime example of the evils of excessive pot smoking, but he’s a lucky bastard when it comes to cards. This,” Carter said slapping the shoulder of a large blond man wearing a backwards ball cap, “is Donovan Cardona. Don’t let the idiotic look on his face fool you. He’s sheriff here and a lousy card player.”

Donovan unfolded his six-foot-four-inch frame from the table and stood up to greet her. “Nice to meet you, Summer. I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said with a wink, shaking her hand.

“You must be on Facebook,” she sighed.

“The department’s been able to stop a few crimes before they happened thanks to that gossip group. I can see they weren’t exaggerating how pretty you are.”

Carter took Donovan’s hat off and smacked him with it. “Don’t even start,” he said.

“That’s assaulting an officer,” Donovan said.

“Carter already called dibs,” Jax said, breezing past on his way to the fridge.

“You called dibs?” Summer asked.

“You know, how about you just go on upstairs while I stay down here and kick everyone’s ass?” And since everyone already knew, he gave her a hard kiss on the mouth before handing over her laptop and pushing her down the hall.

She held her laughter until she got to the top of the stairs. “So much for secrets,” she sighed to herself. Summer flipped on the light in her room and was halfway in when she realized none of her things were there. Jax’s tangle of possessions were exploding out of a duffle on the floor.

Curious, she almost called down to Carter, but instead she followed her hunch into his room. He had hung up all of her clothes in his closet and stowed her suitcase. Her toiletries were neatly lined up on the counter in his bathroom next to the open box of condoms.

She caught her grin in the mirror.

When was the last time she had smiled like this? Or felt this light?

She couldn’t remember.

But he wouldn’t really want you if he knew the truth, would he?
The little vile voice in her head whispered its poisonous truth.

Summer turned away from the mirror, from the words that scratched at her.

They weren’t getting married. They were seeing where things went. And it was no reason to let herself get swept up in it. She had work to do, goals to accomplish, a battle to fight.

––––––––

C
arter found her curled in his bed, asleep with her laptop browser open to an article on using an organic, plant-based diet to fight disease. Always working, he smiled, closing the laptop and moving it to the nightstand.

Her phone was still clutched in her hand. He gently pulled it from her grasp and plugged it into the charger.

Carter stripped down and slid into bed beside her. She didn’t even stir when he pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair.

S
ummer woke in the gray dawn to the sound of rain on the metal roof and a soggy Carter crawling back into bed.

“Is it time to get up?” she murmured sleepily.

“No, baby. Go back to sleep.”

Carter pulled her against him and she snuggled in.

When she woke again, the rain still fell and thunder rumbled in the distance. She was curled into Carter’s side, a leg thrown across his. Her hand rested just above the steady thrum of his heartbeat.

He slept peacefully, she noted.

His face was a masterpiece. That perfectly straight blade of a nose. Lips that gave so much pleasure, pressed in a line. Even in his sleep he frowned. That serious look that, when turned on her, made her stomach feel like it was on a roller coaster. Inky lashes hid his steel gray eyes. And that beard. Oh, how she loved that beard.

It was her last full day here. She was going to make the most of it. Summer pulled the sheet down his body, taking her time and reveling in the view. He was built with strength and power from his broad shoulders to his scarred chest to the tapering waist and hips. He was perfection and in this moment, he was hers to explore.

Summer trailed a light line of kisses down his chest, across his taut stomach, and lower still. He was already hard by the time she worked her way down those delicious slashes of muscle that brought her mouth to its destination. She felt him come awake when her lips parted to accept the head of his cock.

It was her name on his lips as his hips came off the bed, forcing him deeper into her mouth.

Summer slanted over him, tasting and licking. She gripped the base of his shaft with her hand and began a slow, torturous rhythm. He groaned and his hips flexed again, driving his cock deeper into her mouth.

The speed built with the need. She wanted to take him over the edge as he did for her again and again.

His fingers dug into her shoulders. “Baby, you have to stop.”

She didn’t listen. Summer wanted him helpless and shuddering.

Carter took matters into his own hands and wrestled her up his body. He flipped them, reaching desperately for the drawer of his nightstand. He returned to her triumphant, condom in hand.

Summer reached for it.

“No, baby. I want this to last, and for that to happen you need to keep your hands to yourself.”

She laughed, as he hastily rolled it on before cuffing her hands overhead with one of his.

He rained kisses down on her, gentle nibbles down her neck, across her chest. His beard tickled the sensitive tips of her breasts.

Settling himself between her legs, he brought his mouth back to hers. Rather than the scorching inferno, his lips brought a slow burn. Summer opened her legs, inviting him in. His tongue teased her lips as the crown of his penis gently pressed against her.

Carter’s free hand found her breast and began to knead. She sighed against his mouth as pleasure and need swamped her.

He plunged into her as his tongue took possession of her mouth. Smooth, slow strokes teased her, carrying her higher and higher.

Thunder rumbled outside the window.

Carter released her hands and carefully lowered his weight to her. She met his measured thrusts with eager hips. Rocking into him, she accepted everything he gave.

“My beautiful girl.” His lips teased one sensitive nipple and then the other.