Sidewalk Flower (8 page)

* * * *

Lucky had caught Trista checking him out
through her peripheral vision—a few times.
 
Which turned him on like one of the glaring flood lights he’d installed
over his garage back home to alert him of the more menacing nighttime critters.
 
Each look coming from her sexy eyes and thick
lashes drove him absolutely out of his mind and closer to giving up on the idea
of not rushing things.
 
She seemed to
really like it when he touched her face.
 

God, she was beautiful.
 

He exhaled, fighting not to pop a glaring
erection right there in front of her.
 
But, the stirring in his body he hadn’t felt in years until Friday night
at Slangers, started again on cue, as he thought about kissing Trista’s soft
skin.
 
The crotch of his jeans became a
lot less comfortable the more aroused he got.
 
Ah, hell.
 
He took another breath and let it
out,
afraid she’d choose that second to check him out again.
He tugged on the end of his shirt to make sure it covered his chub.
  

Looking away out his passenger side window,
he allowed himself to enjoy the deep, swirling sensation of the beginnings of
his cock bulging, just for a few seconds.
 
He couldn’t act on it, but what harm was there in just thinking about
it?
 
Yeah, he knew the answer to that
one.

Her short dress had left him fantasizing
about her shapely legs.
 
His favorite
fantasy of the last thirty minutes had been the one where he’d laid his head
back in her lap, cradled between her knees, her fingers in his hair, massaging
his scalp, while he ran his hands up and down her calves, and then higher.
 
For all his talk about being respectful, he’d
never wanted to be with a woman more than he wanted Trista, now.

He didn’t know how long he could keep
being the ultimate southern gentleman.
 
The truth was, he was way more red-blooded, American, country boy than
he’d let on.
 
But only where she was
concerned and he did want to do right by her.
 
He had promised.
 
She meant
something to him already.

He reached his hand over and laid it
carefully on her upper thigh, slipping his upturned palm under the wrist she
had just been working in a pacing pattern, up and down her leg.
 
Her thigh muscle flexed
under the soft, peach-colored fabric of her dress.
  
His control slipped and he squeezed her
wrist so hard, he worried he’d pinched her. “Sorry about that,” he said, but
she just nodded.

Feeling her tense up like that made him
think about their time in the dressing room and how he’d done the same when she
and her little yellow measuring tape had tortured him with their touching.
   
He’d snuck in enough pats to her hands and
strokes to her cheeks and jaw that even after only a couple days, he could tell
she’d gotten used to him.
 
But when she’d
laid her warm, moist hands so suddenly on his bare skin, alone in that cold
dressing room, God, he’d become so sexually aroused he’d nearly chucked her
little tape measure over the thin door and stripped her naked.
 
The cockiness she’d shot at him a couple
times gave him the idea she might have even satisfied a spontaneous fantasy
that had just popped into mind of her kisses slowly making their way down his
torso until she took him into her mouth.
 
She’d probably missed it, but he’d pretended to catch his balance once
just for the excuse of steadying himself against her curvy hips.
 
If she didn’t know, the material of her dress
was awfully thin; her body heat teased him without mercy.

Lord only knew how he’d been able to
stand there with her surprisingly strong hands secured around his waist for
what had felt like an eternity of the best sort of pain, her short nails
digging dangerously into the skin above his hips.
 
And Trista, she’d gone in to that dressing
room seeming as confident as a peacock, another turn on for him.
 
But somewhere between measuring his chest and
his waist, she’d been affected too.
 
Instead of firing off one of her plucky responses for him to hold still,
she’d grown quiet.
 
It had sucked, but
he’d resorted to thinking about his dad and uncle bickering with each other at
the shop until his erection had gone down enough to where he wouldn’t have an
accident in his pants right there, inches away from her.
 
But that gave way to questions he had about
what the night to come might bring.
 
And
he would be lying to himself if he tried to ignore the annoying thoughts that
came to him where she and Jaxon were concerned.
  

What if he had already overstepped some
unknown boundaries?
 
Jaxon had only
referred to her as his assistant over the phone the week before.
 
And she had had plenty of opportunities to
declare any claim his cousin might have on her. She hadn’t done that.
 
But he could see that there was a connection
between the two.
 

He thought about why he was even on this
trip.
 
His older cousin was doing him a
favor, fulfilling a promise he had made a couple years earlier to get him in
touch with some west coast contacts who might be interested in helping him
expand his family’s woodworking business.
 
While his dad and uncle were happy to keep things local, Lucky wanted
more.
 
He was thirty-two years old and
had begun to have thoughts of branching out.
 
He had no way of knowing that Trista would be part of the deal.
 

She slid their joined hands down a few
inches to just above her knee, so his touch no longer rested so high on her
thigh.
 
The action seemed to have come
just as he’d thought about hers and Jaxon’s status.
 
He sat up straighter, wondering if it was
just a coincidence.

As if on cue, she asked, “So, I was
wondering, how exactly are you and Jaxon related?
 
I mean, I know you’re cousins.”
 

So she wanted to include Jaxon in their
conversation.
 
He answered her but found
it difficult to explain.
 
He could guess
why Jaxon hadn’t told her before.
 
“Our
fathers are brothers.”

“That’s right, you said that.
 
And that Jaxon uses his stepdad’s last
name.
 
Hmm, I always just figured Cole
was his father.
 
Do you know what
happened to his biological dad?”

He did know.
 
But he was sure Jaxon hadn’t spoken about it
for a reason.
 

Besides, being out on the open road had
him way more in the mood to relive the private nighttime thoughts he’d had
since sleeping in Trista’s bed at her Gramma’s.
 
Lord
forgive
him for being so horny all of a
sudden, but he couldn’t help himself when it came to her.
 
She’d looked so inviting in her short white
nightgown with her knees peeking out from under the hem, standing in the
doorway, telling him to sleep tight.
 
Her
cute curvy ass had been the last thing he’d seen each night and it had left him
aching to follow her and her painted toes out to the couch.
 

Trista had a way of not making him feel
like a pervert for watching her, unlike his last girlfriend.
 
If Trista had any idea of the things he’d
imagined doing with her, she hadn’t let on about it.
 
What he’d give to have her back home in his
own bedroom.
 
They’d slow dance to the
sound of the crickets in the nearby creek while he explored the curves her
loose fitting dresses and jammies hinted at whenever she sat up real straight
and the fabric fell smoothly against one of her perky breasts.
 
If she’d let him, they’d leave the lights on
while he slipped her dress over her head and then made his way down her body,
soothing and taking his time with his fingers, his mouth, and his tongue.
 
He’d stop to hold her firmly in his hands as
he turned her to admire his favorite place on a woman, her full, round bottom and
then he’d…

“Lucky?”
 
Apparently, he’d drifted off to his bedroom for too long because she
took her hand off the wheel to poke him.
 
“Can you tell me about Jaxon’s real father?”

He wished he could change the subject but
then it would be obvious he was dodging her and he had his own
questions
 
about
why
Trista hadn’t mentioned her parents very much.
 
Maybe if he trusted her with his family’s secrets, she would oblige him
in return.
 

“I do know.
 
But I’ve got to say, I’m sure Jaxon would
have told you by now if he wanted you to know.”

Her face crumpled at his answer.
 
Did she really believe Jaxon had no secrets?

Then softly, she said, “Lucky,
it’s
okay.
 
I
understand about—that stuff.”

He had sensed something from her mood
swings Friday night.
 
“What stuff,
Trista?”
 

It would have been nice had she not
needed to keep her eyes on the road, or if he’d been clever enough to hold this
conversation off until they’d arrived at the hotel.
 

She surprised him with an answer; her
hands appeared steady enough on the steering wheel.
 
“Things from our past that we’re afraid will
make us look like less of a person in someone else’s eyes.”

Maybe Jaxon had told her a little.

* * * *

She couldn’t believe the things Jaxon had
never told her.
 
Lucky’s tidbits turned
into a long enough conversation that the sun set ahead of them, reaching and
surpassing the western mountains on the horizon, leaving the sky dark and the
air chilly.
 

“Jaxon wasn’t born in Australia.
 
He only moved there when he was two years
old, after his mother left my uncle.”
 
The first truth Lucky leaked had been done with a bit of caution.

But that one opening statement led to an
exhaustive session that Trista didn’t let end until she’d learned the truth
about her best friend.
  
Apparently, his
mother had been fifteen when she became pregnant by Bear Mason, Lucky’s uncle,
who had been twenty at the time.
 
Lucky
assured her that the two had been in love, although her parents had wanted to
have Uncle Bear thrown in jail for statutory rape.
 
Bear had started working for Lucky’s father
in his spare time, trying to save up some money for when the baby came.
 
But all that time spent away had left holes
in the relationship and Jaxon’s mother met and fell for an Australian businessman
who owned some local mills in the area and who was equally smitten with her.

She had been surprised to hear that
Jaxon’s Aussie stepfather, the man she knew to be Cole James, hadn’t been sore
about his sweetheart being pregnant with another man’s child.

“So what happened?” she asked, not sure
when Lucky would feel he’d said too much and clam up.

“I guess he obviously was serious about
her and was determined to wait.
 
Jaxon
was born and she stuck around with Uncle Bear until she was eighteen.
 
As soon as that happened, Mr. James came over
and married her.
 
Things were legal and
the three of them moved to Australia.”
 

“Damn.
 
Well, didn’t Jaxon’s father fight her for custody?”

“No, Trista, he didn’t.
 
What Uncle Bear knew of Mr. James was that he
had enough money to take care of Jaxon’s mother and the baby.
 
Life with him in Tennessee would have been
hard.
 
He let them go because he thought
it was the best he could do.
 
His pride
was pretty wounded at that point.”

 
“So Jaxon never knew about his father?”
 
He’d always been pretty tight lipped when it
came to talk of family except to say his dad lived in Australia and there were
a few relatives in the States but were pretty distant at that.
 
She’d always just figured he’d been trying to
be sensitive about her own family situation and so she’d never pushed it on
him.
 
It wasn’t like she had anyone
besides Gramma left in her life to talk about, so she understood.
   

“No, he didn’t know.
 
Not until his mother died.
 
He was sixteen and Mr. James finally told him
the truth.
 
I guess he must have felt
guilty for keeping up the lie for so long.”

Lucky went on to tell her that when
Jaxon’s mother passed away, Mr. James paid to fly him back to Tennessee, to his
real family.
 
They were all there waiting
at the airport when he arrived—six year old Lucky, his dad and Uncle Bear, the
Mason men.