Small Town Girl (34 page)

"Dance with me," she said, utterly astonished as the words fell off her tongue. She'd been thinking of Flint and music and sex so hard, they'd all run together.

He looked startled, then glee lit the darkness that had shadowed his eyes earlier. "That'll work."

In one athletic movement he was on his feet and padding across the floor to her stereo. Without checking the contents of the CD player, he hit the power button, and a Barn Boys tune roared from the speakers.

"Your favorite song," he remembered.

Jo scrambled up from the couch before he could touch the switch. "You wrote it," she said. "I checked the label." She stepped in front of him, not shy of her nakedness, despite the spotlight of his appreciative gaze.

"I had too many words in my head and no other way to say them," he admitted. "Let's dance." He pulled her into his arms rather than say more.

It was the most erotic dance of Jo's life, and she figured she'd remember it to the grave and beyond. Flint wasn't afraid to use his body to woo and seduce. He swung her to the beat of the song, then pulled her back against his chest, rubbing his muscled arm across her breasts while he pushed his arousal against her backside. He made her feel as if the body she'd been given was a gift made just for him, and not an asset to be exploited.

He swung her away on the next verse, and Jo raised her hands to display all her assets the way he liked. She loved the way his delight lifted every crease in his face and sparkled his eyes with pure male pleasure. He caught her shoulders and moved her across the floor in time to the music, swaying hip and waist in a seductive call more potent than foreplay.

By the time the song ended and the next began, Flint had literally danced her into a corner. Jo bumped into the piano keys, and bass notes rang in tune to their bare-assed dance. She held his neck tighter to keep from imprinting the G chord on her backside, and he leaned into her in a tongue-taming kiss that melted all her synapses.

Flint lowered his head to lap at her breasts, and Jo propped her hands behind her to keep from tumbling over. The keys crashed in discordant counterpoint to her ecstasy.

Between them, they played a tune that old piano had never known.

Flint lifted her to snap the lid closed over the keys. Jo jumped, then squealed when he raised her from the floor. He slid the cushion from the piano bench beneath her and set her on it in a single movement.

"Perfect," he murmured, returning to their kiss now that she was seated at a height equal to his.

The ancient upright piano was perfect in other ways, Jo soon discovered when Flint stepped between her legs.

"Flint, you can't—"

But he could. Holding her by the waist so she couldn't fall off, spreading her thighs with his hips, watching her expression as he did so, he slowly slid inside her.

Jo couldn't tear her gaze from Flint as he claimed her. Dark fires burned behind his eyes, and his skin stretched taut with self-control while she adjusted to his intrusion.

The cushion shielded her bottom and thighs. The hard edges of the upright branded her spine. And Flint burned a passage straight to her core. The pressure that had been building for weeks reached the point of explosion and strained for release. Whimpering, Jo pushed for more.

"Now," he murmured, thumbing her breast in time to the thundering rhythm of the CD player. Lifting her, he brought her down on him, until she clung to his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his back and his front was plastered to hers.

He pumped inside her once, twice, hitting sensitive nerve endings in a grinding rhythm until the heat and pressure exploded in a tumult of song and waves of release. She screamed into his ear and dug her fingers into his skin and fell apart in his arms.

"My turn," he whispered relentlessly.

Throwing the cushion to the floor, he lifted her from the piano and laid her down, propped up her hips, and kneeled over her. Jo clung to his arms as he gave in to the bass beat, thrusting and pounding until she climaxed again. Shedding his control, Flint threw back his head and roared his release.

She wanted to say
Wow
, but her tongue wasn't connected to her head. The only connection she recognized was the one between them, and not just the hot and heavy one between her legs. A fine bond wrapped around them, invisible and unbreakable, a thread of bone-deep understanding that they'd forged together in this moment, more durable than any the mill had ever produced.

Still holding his weight off her so he didn't crush her into the floor, Flint pressed his forehead to hers. He didn't say a word. Jo heard him anyway. This had to be love. She'd had sex with other men, and they'd used her and walked away. Flint asked for nothing except what she wanted to give. Whatever had happened here was large and scary, and she didn't know how to handle it.

He wasn't any more certain than she was. They danced some more after they recovered. They shared drinks. They talked of the mill and the concert and his sons. Flint even helped her write down the notes to the song they'd created together.

They didn't talk of the insurmountable objects between them or make love again. The aura of their connection held them in its glow, and Jo feared tarnishing its shine.

Tomorrow, she would return to the real world, the one where Flint was losing everything he owned, and she had the power to build her future on the ruin of his.

A tear slid down Jo's cheek as he dressed, and she wrapped in a robe to say good-bye. Flint pressed a kiss to her brow and ignored the moisture in her eye.

"One day at a time," he murmured. "That's all there is."

She nodded and watched him go. Holding the terry cloth around her, she broke into a torrent of tears when she heard him talking below to one of the guys in the band.

She knew better than to love another music man. She really did. But her soul cried out for the rhythm of Flint's, and she couldn't stop herself. Even though he made no promises, he carried what little remained of her heart.

Chapter Twenty-six

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"I'm storing the pillows in the family room for now." Amy led Jo and Flint through her house to the slate-floored room currently buried in stacks of mill products. "I've wrapped them with tarps to keep the kids from bouncing on them. I don't know how we'll get all of them down to the tent at the mill."

"There are enough pickup trucks around here to haul them if you've got tarps," Flint suggested. "What are those things?" He nodded at a stack of colorful fabrics covering the early-American settle she'd refinished in its original maple color.

"Ina is trying her hand at making slipcovers," Jo replied for her. "The elastic is kind of expensive though." Jo opened one up for Flint to see, draping it provocatively over her shoulder as if it were a lacy gown.

Anyone with half a mind could see that Jo had fallen for her charismatic boss. And Amy suspected behind the neutral mask he wore so well that Flint was having a tough time dealing with his place in Jo's life. But she wasn't taking care of her baby sister anymore. She had her own life to hold together.

"I think the quilts will sell better, but they take forever to make. We just don't have enough time between now and next week." Amy lifted a blue plastic tarp to distract Flint from Jo's performance and show him the items the former millworkers were frantically putting together as their contribution to the town's coffers. She was proud of the miracles wreaked from the damaged fabrics, but the future still looked bleak from her perspective. Her rose-colored glasses had been smashed and ground into dirt.

Flint whistled in appreciation, and Amy smiled politely for the benefit of her guests. Before either of them could comment, the front door slammed open.

"Uh-oh, I didn't lock it behind me." Amy clenched the tarp until she feared her fingernails would shred it. She'd had the locks changed after her last meeting with Elise so Evan couldn't walk in on her anytime he liked. She'd never seen him pitch such a fit as he had the day he'd discovered the locks and had to come looking for her when he'd thought he'd sneak in and pack his suitcase. She had wanted to feel triumphant at winning a battle, but she hadn't. Since then, he'd only communicated with her through his lawyer.

She knew what this invasion was about though. The bank had called yesterday to tell her the account didn't have funds to cover a large check Evan had written.

"Amaranth!" he roared furiously from the foyer. "Where are you?"

Flint stepped protectively in front of her. Jo caught her arm and tried to get her to leave through the back. Amy dug in her heels. "No, I have to talk to him. Both of you, go outside and help Mama keep the kids from coming in."

Flint looked reluctant. Evan's footsteps over the hall's wood floor echoed with anger. Amy prayed she knew her husband better than anyone else. She pointed at the kitchen and set her mouth as firmly as she could to hide the way it trembled.

Giving Amy a hug, Jo dragged Flint out the back.

"I'm in here," Amy called. "You could have phoned, you know." She was trying to be more assertive, but that sounded just plain whiny.

Evan burst in looking one volt short of blowing a fuse. Amy wondered if she could pop his circuits the way Jo accused her of doing to the cafe's. He still looked gorgeous, even if his blond hair needed a trim, and he was wearing a golf shirt instead of a suit. Since when did Evan play golf?

"What is the meaning of this, Amaranth Jane?" He shook his checkbook at her.

"Let me guess." She tapped her finger against her lips. "Leather, brown, rectangular—a cow died to protect your checks?" Once upon a time she used to tease him like this when he asked obvious questions. He didn't laugh now.

"It's
empty
, Amaranth. I deposited my paycheck in there Friday, and it's
empty.'"
He flung the checkbook at the table and drove his fingers into his hair. "I put a deposit on an apartment, and they called me this morning to say it
bounced
. How is that possible? We have a money market to back up the checking."

"An apartment?" she asked as pleasantly as she was able. She was wilting inside, but she refused to show her spinelessness. "Does this mean you're no longer living with Linda?"

"That's irrelevant! Where is my money?" He paced up and down as if he didn't know what to do any more than she did. For ten years, he'd told her what to do and how to do it. And now he'd lost that right.

His sudden vulnerability raised her foolish hopes. She was almost ready to grant him the right to tell her what to do again—if only the last few weeks would go away.

Just conjuring up the image of Linda kissing that freckle on his neck reduced Amy's shattered heart to dust. She'd honestly thought Evan loved her, that they would get through rough times together. Instead, he was opting for the easy way out. "You really do think that just because I don't argue with you, that I'm dumb, don't you?" she asked, curiosity getting the better of her common sense. For the sake of the kids, she really needed to know that there was no hope left for their marriage.

At her question, he stopped and stared. "Have you been drinking? I know your mother used to tipple…"

"Keep my mother out of this." Suddenly furious at this example of how little he knew about her—and how little he cared—she pointed at the front door. "You can just walk yourself back out of here, Evan Warren. What did you think I would do when I found out you were leaving me? Break down and cry myself stupid? That cash belongs to our kids. If you're going to desert them, then you can damned well take money from Linda to set up your love nest."

"Did I ever say I minded supporting the kids? I deposited my paychecks so you could pay the bills." His gaze swept the family room Amy had so lovingly decorated, his glance taking in her mother's hopes for the future and seeing only disarray. "But I see no reason I have to support a house this size. You don't need the place for entertaining."

"My house?" Amy's bravery stumbled into retreat at this unexpected blow. Elise had warned her, but she had honestly believed the man she'd married cared about his children.
This wasn't the man she'd married
.

"You can't take the house," she protested in horror. "This is where your children
live
." Ice coated her heart at the possibility that he would rob Josh of his beloved play set in the yard, and Louisa of her brightly colored nursery.

"You'll have to move when you get a job anyway," Evan said, shrugging as if he wasn't ripping lives into tatters. "You won't have me to suck dry any longer."

She'd have to move. Away from her mother and Jo and her support system.

Amy shivered and stared incredulously at the man to whom she'd given her heart so many years ago. "Why would you do this to your children? Do you hate me that much?"

Evan looked at her pityingly. "You never had any ambition, Ames. Northfork is a roadblock on the road to success, and you want to stay. I don't. It's that simple."

"You didn't
ask
me to leave with you." She hated that she could even feel hurt after what he'd done, but she needed the pain to cut the ties binding them. "What about all those times you said you couldn't have done it without me? Did you never mean that?"

He glanced impatiently at his Rolex. "Of course I meant it, but you're not the only person in the world who can be useful. I have a meeting later today. Give me a check for half of what you've stolen so I can pay my rent, and I'm outta here."

"Useful?" Anger began to steal across the hurt. "That's all I was,
useful
? I put you through school, helped you get jobs, gave up my own career to build yours, had your kids, and that was being
useful
?"

"Look, we can do this the easy way, or I can call my lawyer, all right? I said I'd pay support. What in hell more do you want? Everything I own?"

"Got it in one, big boy." Her heart had just been hacked out with a hatchet, but for the first time in a long time, Amy smiled—even if it was a malevolent smile. "I invested ten years of my life in you, and that note's come due, with interest. You owe me what little bit you're worth and then some. I'm gonna make sure you pay every dime."