Slim To None (Cedar Tree #1) (7 page)

"Coming in, folks? Or am I gonna sell tickets?"

"Fuck off, Seb." Emma said, turning all shades of embarrassed. She could barely look Gus in the eye, but the level she was looking at now wasn't much better... holy cow! Lifting her eyes to his face, he was standing there looking all smug down at her.

"Not gonna apologize, darlin'. Although, I came close to throwing you back in the truck and taking you here."

"Seriously? You have no filter! Do you say everything?"

Gus just smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "Pretty much. Don't see the point in beating around the bush, do you? We had an orgasm together, Emma, it's not like we're complete strangers. And that kiss was fucking hot. I look forward to more."

She just shook her head and laughed it off because seriously, what else do you do with a declaration like that? Emma grabbed his arm and started moving for the back door where Seb had disappeared inside.

*****

"S
o what were you and the hunk doing out in the back? Seb said something about walking out and interrupting you? Interrupting what? Dish, bitch." Arlene had followed Emma into the bathroom, of course wanting to hear all the latest.

"Not much of anything. Just parking the car and he helped me out, and instead of taking the walker, he walked me in ‘cause it's too busy. Why?"

"Well, let's see. You came in the kitchen all pink and flustered with big swollen lips, looking like you just ate the biggest slice of chocolate cake. Then there was Mr. Hunk, walking beside you, looking like he was feeling mighty good about himself.”

"Fine. A kiss, Arlene. Just a little peck."

"HA. A peck, my ass! Tonsil hockey is more like it. That I'll buy, given the way you two looked. Just be careful, okay? Don't want my bestie hurt, even if I do want her to get laid good!"

"Christ, would you drop it already? I'm not twelve years old, Mom. I just want to eat some dinner and, whatever. I don't wanna talk about it anymore. This is freaking me out... All of it."

Washing her hands at the sink and looking up at the mirror, Emma scanned her face, suddenly seeing her reality reflected back at her. Not bad looking, but definitely aging. There were wrinkles around her eyes and a bit around her mouth, with ugly lines in her neck. Oh no, is that a double chin? Fuck!

Turning to Arlene, who was standing there quietly observing for once, she said, "I'm not made for this. I'm too old and too broken... unappealing. I won't be able to think of anything but that!"

"You're an idiot." That's all Arlene said before turning on her heels and walking out of the bathroom.

Sucking in a deep breath, she pushed her way out the door and saw Gus already getting up to meet her halfway. Damn. He's not gonna make it easy on her.

*****

W
ith the food already on the table, they settled in for a relatively easy conversation. Gus asked her about Boston and Kara, and she told him how proud she was of her girl graduating and finding her way into a great job. She talked about how she struggled a while with the decision to come out here and leave her in Boston, but that Kara had urged her to follow her heart, and so she did.

He told her about his office in Grand Junction and the people that worked for him, but it wasn't until she found out that he was forty-five that she instantly lost that relaxed feeling that had started to settle over her.

"You're younger than I am?" She looked at him with abject horror on her face, making him chuckle.

"Two years, so what?"

"Well, that's just great." Shaking her head, her shoulders sagged a little. "Something else to add to the list," she mumbled.

"What was that?" Gus demanded. 

"Nothing. Forget it, it's silly."

"I don't think so, Emma. Answer me. Add to what list?" The angry tone in his voice had her looking up at him tentatively.

"Well, don't get pissed at me! It's just..." She let out a big sigh, not quite able to formulate what she was feeling, "I just always... I feel so damn inadequate already! And you! You're like Mr. Perfect or something. You come along and make like some fucking knight in shining armor; all hard, good looking and fit, and... and now you're only forty-five!" Her volume went up towards the end of her little tirade, and Emma was noticing how quiet the diner suddenly was. Looking around, she could see eyes quickly turning away from her, where they were obviously focused.

Shoot me, please, someone shoot me.

Eyes sliding over to Gus in front of her, she saw his head focused down, his shoulders shaking, but as his eyes slowly came up, he was obviously steeling his resolve not to laugh out loud. All she could do now was close her eyes and pretend she was on a beach in the Caribbean. Then she felt his hand grabbing hers. The rough pad of his thumb was rubbing the skin between her thumb and index finger, almost making her groan. She'd just pretend he's a cabana boy.

"Emma."

A cabana boy with a very deep, rumbly voice, making her all tingly.

"Darlin', open your eyes."

Hmmm, cabana boys in the Caribbean give good massages. His thumb was doing amazing work...  "Ouch! You pinched me!" She pulled back her hand, rubbing the tender skin.

"I had to. You weren't listening."

"I didn't want to listen. I had a cabana boy, and I was perfectly happy!"

"I'm not even gonna pretend I understand that, but I have something you need to hear."

"Last time we did this, last time I listened to something you had to tell me, you completely freaked me out. I think I have had enough freak outs over the last twenty-four hours to last me a lifetime, thank you very much!"

"Emma, I think there are some things you still aren't clear on that we need to talk about, or perhaps I should say, things that I need to make clear to you somehow. Trust me. I will find a way to make myself very, very clear to you."

Each word he uttered, he moved closer into her space, so that by the end of his speech, she could feel the vibrations on the air. He moved his mouth only slightly to touch her lips, and even that hint of a touch turned her on. She was so screwed.

"But I think we need less of an audience for what I have to say..." Gus leaned in even closer, his lips touching her ear, "and do to you." He promptly moved back into his seat, leaving her blushing, wet, and damn-near panting in a booth in the middle of a damn diner.

Getting up, he held out his hand and said, "Let's head out, darlin'."

––––––––

T
he drive home was silent; each lost in their own thoughts, but Gus never lost the connection with the woman beside him. Having his hand firmly on her thigh, he rubbed his thumb back and forth, trying to soothe the tense muscles he could feel underneath his hand. He got her apprehension. He got it, but he was not going to let her run with it.

Figuring it must have been a while since she put herself out there and not liking how vulnerable it made her feel, she was doing a good job talking herself out of something they obviously both wanted to explore. He had no time for that kind of nonsense, not that he had any idea what he was doing. All he knew was that he wanted inside of her badly. Ever since finding out it was her on the phone, he started recognizing the vibrations in her voice that he now automatically associated with sex, which obviously meant a constant hard on.

"Why don't you wait in the car while I check the house." He said to her as he unbuckled the seatbelt and got out of the car. "I'll just be a minute, then I'll be back to get you, okay?"

Just nodding, Emma kept her hands clasped in her lap. She still hadn't said a word since leaving the diner.

Quickly checking each room and flicking on the lights, he made sure doors and windows were still secure before going back out to get Emma.

"I don't get why I couldn't have brought home my own car. Now it's at the diner for another night." Emma grumbled as he let her pass into the house before him.

"Don't pout, darlin'," he chuckled, "We'll end up at the diner tomorrow at some point anyway, and I don't really want to let you out of my sight. Besides, for tonight, I want to pull my truck into the treeline so it's not visible from the road, or the drive."

"I just don't like not having my wheels. I feel out of control in this situation as it is. We haven't even had a chance to go through all of the files on the server yet like you suggested."

"We will, but first priority was to get fed and get ourselves secure for the night. I'll bring in my laptop so you can sign onto the server and we can make a start. That is, if you're not too tired."

Emma slumped down on the large grey sectional in the living room, kicking her shoes off and putting her feet on the chaise.

"Exhausted really, but I don't think I could sleep; too much is going through my mind, so I think doing something productive will make me feel better."

Walking over to where Emma is was leaning back, he bent over and put his hands beside her head on the back of the couch, and then leaned in close.

"And don't think I’ve let you off the hook, darlin'. I'm giving you a breather, that's all, get you used to having me in your space ‘cause I aim to be there a bit." He closed the distance, folding his mouth over her lips and slowly licked them from one side to the other before pulling back. Standing up, he gave a final look from his dark eyes that were now burning with intensity. He turned, walked out of the room, and left Emma sitting in stunned silence.

*****

"D
o you want something? I think I may have a beer or two left in the fridge."

They'd been at it for a couple of hours and had singled out most of the files related to Encorb, the company Ernst Corbin apparently used to shuffle money. It was the same company that she was supposed to have received a paycheck from a while ago; guess she could kiss that money goodbye. She had minor administrative tasks that had seemed innocuous at the time, as well as maintained a rather complicated ledger that included some sort of coding instead of creditors or debtors, something she remembered finding rather odd at the time, but she had assumed it had been done for security reasons. The thing that worried her the most was that she had stepped outside of her normal scope of responsibilities when she had agreed to perform those small projects. Most weren't more than placing certain files in a dropbox and sending a message to a certain email account. When she checked the dropbox, it was completely empty, but since she wanted to make sure everything she did could be repeated if something went wrong, she had copied each file in her own dropbox as well. Only problem was, the files made no sense whatsoever.

With her eyes getting gritty from staring at the screen, she got up for a drink. Gus was making sure that all of what they found was immediately transferred to his IT guy, Neil, in Grand Junction.

“Would you like a drink?”

"Beer would be nice." Came the response. "I think we'll put this to rest for now. We've gotten a bit done, so let's see what Neil can come up with tomorrow. We'll also take a drive into Cortez, check the post office and pay my friend Joe a visit while we're there." Gus closed the laptop and walked over to the kitchen where she had just pulled a beer out of the fridge and was pouring some ice tea for herself. Grabbing both drinks, Gus returned to the couch, while she followed tentatively behind; a bit of anxiety starting to form in the pit of her stomach. Wanting to give herself a little space, she tried sitting down in the big lazy chair across from the sectional, but Gus was on to her, grabbing her hand and tugging her over to the couch where he plopped down beside her.

"Done avoiding me now, darlin'. I wasn't going to let those remarks you made at the diner go, but wanted to give you some time to collect yourself."

Busted
, she thought to herself. Squirming in her seat, she was angry that she was allowing this man to make her feel so damn discombobulated. She, who had always been the strong one, always aware of exactly who she was and where she was going, was at a total loss after 10 years of pre-occupation. She raised her daughter, along with dealing with her own health issues, and now she was faced with this self-assured, strong and capable man. Oh how she hated being such a waffling, insecure, typical female.

Turning to Gus, she found his steady gaze on her, patiently waiting.

"This is not like me." She began, "That person on the phone is not like me. I don't do stuff like that. I mean, I never have...I never would have... before."

"Before what?"

"Before my life started getting out of control, no matter how hard I tried to reign it in. I already did the hardest part, which was packing up all I had and moving here to live a dream just for me. For once, I did something without any thought for anyone else. It still feels self-indulgent and unfamiliar, but it feels good, as well. I guess I figured, why not? I was on a roll when we had our little telephone thing, whatever that was. I had been doing so much “living in the moment” in the past few months and feeling so good about it, that I didn't think, I just jumped"

"And what is wrong with that?"

"Nothing, I guess, except it was surreal and I was outside of myself, feeling wanted for the first time in a fucking long time." The expletive made Gus chuckle.

"Don't laugh, I'm serious!" She glared at him. "For too many years now, I've been naked and poked and prodded more than I care to remember, but nothing about that was sexual. All it made me feel was like a specimen in a petri-dish. Ten years I've been a mother, a friend, and most of all, a patient. Not once - not once has anyone made me feel like a woman until I answered that call, and I just went with it because it was an amazing feeling. I was greedy and wanted that for myself. I never thought that there was going to be a moment where the “woman” who had that amazingly unexpected experience on the phone would have to be matched up with the person who detached from her body so long ago. That person doesn't really care anymore."

She could feel hot tears trickling down her face, and bending her head, she tried to find a way to undo the past twenty-four odd hours, where she was happily baking pies and had a nice memory to dream of, but then she found herself being lifted on to Gus's lap. His big hand tangled in her curls, pressing her head against his chest as he leaned them back against the couch.