Then He Kissed Me: A Cottonbloom Novel (16 page)

The truth was he would be happy sitting on the end of a dock with their feet in the water doing nothing as long as he was with her. The acknowledgment of how far gone he was settled his restlessness. It wasn’t that the knowledge didn’t scare him. It did. But it also felt inevitable. The feeling was something he’d carried with him since before he could remember. He was meant to love Tallulah Fournette.

*   *   *

The next morning he backed his truck up to the blackened ground surrounding the charred remains of the last gazebo and the frame of the new one. His truck bed was full of two-by-fours and assorted tools. Studying a copy of the design, he figured he could finish the bottom and the bench seats on his own, but would need an extra set of hands with the roof.

The humidity made it difficult to take deep breaths. A solid two hours of work yielded a half-complete octagonal floor. He took a glance around. A Sunday morning meant the shops were closed and most people were at church. Grabbing the hem of his T-shirt, he pulled it over his head and tossed it aside. Sweat dried in the slight breeze, cooling him. He got back to work, kneeling on the flooring with a nail gun.

A knocking sound had him looking up. Tally leaned against one of the support posts, holding two cans of Coke. She was in workout gear, a tank top, shorts, and tennis shoes, her hair in a sweeping, high ponytail.

“Need a break?”

He put down the nail gun, pushed safety glasses to the top of his head, and stood, his back popping. “You must be psychic.”

He took a sweating can and held it to his forehead before popping the tab. Half was gone before he came up for air, the cold burn like heaven.

“Here, take this one too. You need it more than I do.” She held out the second can. He took it and sat on part of the finished flooring in the shadow cast by his truck, his feet over the edge. She joined him, drawing circles in the dirt with the toe of her shoe.

“I thought the gym didn’t open until this afternoon?” He squinted up at the sky where the sun was almost directly overhead.

“It’s almost noon, and I needed to work up costs for this thing Sawyer wants me to do for the festival.” She sounded strange, and he tried to catch her expression, but all her concentration seemed focused on the movement of her foot in the dirt. Maybe their kiss had changed things—and not for the better.

“Are you okay?” He touched her arm.

“I’m totally and completely fine. Seriously. No problem.” She drew out the word ‘no,’ popped up, and backed away from him. “I saw you and you looked … hot.” Her gaze dropped to his chest and stuck there.

She was checking him out—again. Relief and a stab of arousal quickened his heart. Maybe he
should
move straight to skinny-dipping. “Listen, how about we—”

“Nash! Oh, Nash, where are you?” His aunt Leora’s singsong voice wavered over the clearing. Could he hide and pretend he hadn’t heard her? He wasn’t a kid anymore.

He stepped from behind the shadow of his truck. “Over here.”

His aunt approached in the same low-heeled pumps she always wore. He wondered if she’d bought them in bulk in the 1980s. Her flowery cotton dress was also a leftover from a bygone era, but nothing beyond burning all her clothes to cinders would get her to shop at one of the trendy boutiques springing up in Cottonbloom. She was holding onto a woman with blonde hair and a red dress, pulling her along by the arm. “Nash, you remember Bailey, don’t you? She was in your class at school.”

His stomach tightened and performed a series of backflips. It was the same feeling he’d battled every morning before school. He pulled his glasses out of a side pocket of his cargo pants and slipped them on, the two women coming into sharp focus.

Bailey was still pretty in a Miss Mississippi–pageant kind of way, although her excessive makeup seemed to be sliding south in the heat and her skin had an unnatural orangey glow. How could he forget her when she’d haunted his nightmares for months?

“Of course. How have you been, Bailey?” He forced an unaffected smile.

“Just wonderful. Miss Leora has been talking up a storm about you. A professor at the college she said, and working on a book.” Her smile never broke form, making her look like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

“The church is having their annual summer picnic Saturday.” His aunt stared at him. He knew exactly what she was up to. In addition to waving the real estate section in his face, she had taken to introducing him to eligible women from her church at every opportunity.

“That sounds hot, but fun, I’m sure.”

“Bailey is known for her potato salad,” his aunt said.

Everyone stood in silent anticipation while another cryptic look was aimed at him from his aunt as if “potato salad” was code for something else entirely. Nash wasn’t interested in her potato salad or anything else she had to offer.

He turned toward Tally hoping her inclusion might divert the direction of the conversation when his aunt said, “I thought you and Bailey could go to the picnic together.”

He turned back, his mouth opening but nothing coming out. As soon as he got his aunt alone, they were having a serious talk. Bailey’s smile gained a few more watts.

He sidled backward, put his arm around Tally, and hauled her into his side. “Sorry, Aunt Leora, but Tally and I were just now making plans for Saturday. Bailey, are you and Tally acquainted?”

The woman’s smile faded slightly, but stayed in place as if it was something she practiced on a regular basis. Smiling in the face of disappointment. A burst of satisfaction at turning her down in front of witnesses shocked him.

Tally put on a strained smile. “I’m not sure our paths have ever crossed.”

“You teach aerobics at a gym?” Bailey gestured toward her outfit.

“Tally
owns
the gym across the river,” Nash said before Tally could answer.

Bailey made a small sound of acknowledgment, as if she were suitably impressed but surprised. Nash had the feeling Bailey knew all about Tally and was playing dumb to gain the advantage.

“You asked me to the prom. Do you recall?” Bailey took a step closer and tilted her head, her manner openly flirtatious.

The humiliating incident had replayed in his head close to a thousand times. He’d obviously been delusional.

“Did I? Times change, don’t they?” His dig didn’t go unnoticed. The look that flashed over her face made him wonder if this was how the male praying mantis felt right before being devoured.

“You could bring Miss Tallulah to the picnic since you’ve already made plans together,” his aunt said with obvious reluctance.

“Actually, we’re doing something else.”

“What?” his aunt asked.

“Yes, what?” Tally turned toward him, still under his arm.

“I’m taking Tally dancing up in Jackson.”

“You are?” His aunt and Tally spoke on top of each other in almost identical shock.

His aunt patted Bailey’s hand. “Well, perhaps you could take Bailey out tomorrow night. She’s already said how much she’d like to get to know you now that you’re both grown.”

In reality, Bailey looked like she wanted to retreat to lick her wounds. He’d torched that bridge. Malicious laughter threatened to erupt. “Sorry, but Tally and I are getting a drink together after she finishes up at the gym tomorrow.”

Tally’s fingernails dug with a little too much fervor into his skin. Nash and his aunt stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment. His aunt surrendered, transferring her attention to Bailey. “Well, perhaps another time then. Could you walk me back up to the Quilting Bee, darling?”

“Of course, Ms. Leora.”

His aunt wrapped a hand around Bailey’s elbow, and they walked away together, their heads close. His aunt would continue to plant eligible women from her church in his path like landmines. She wasn’t one to give up so easily, especially as they had both drawn battle lines.

As soon as the women were out of earshot, Tally moved away from him, running her hands over the back of her shorts.

“Sorry I got you all sweaty,” he said. “And sorry I pulled you into that.”

“I didn’t mind. Turnaround is fair play, considering I told Heath and Wayne we were dating.” The corner of her mouth lifted. “I can’t believe you asked Bailey out in high school. I used to see her picture in the paper. Homecoming queen, Miss Cottonbloom. You really aimed for the stars there, stud.”

“You don’t even know. I pumped myself up for weeks. The result of reading too many comics where the nerdy kid ends up getting the girl at the end. And hormones. And maybe simple stupidity.” He ran a hand through his hair, his chuckle rueful. “I did more than crash and burn. I exploded. Definitely a top-five most humiliating moment for me.”

“Ugh. Why did high school have to be so hard?” Tally leaned against one of the columns in the shade.

He joined her, propping a hand above her head and moving in close to share the shade. “Was it hard because of your grades or the crowd you ran with?”

“Both.” She kicked at the dirt, her eyes downcast. “Everyone expected a female version of Sawyer and were highly disappointed when they got me.”

“I doubt that’s true.”

“It’s hard to misinterpret things like ‘Your brother’s so smart, what happened to you?’ or ‘Why can’t you be more like your brother?’ Sawyer was good at everything, straight A’s, captain of the baseball team. I might have seriously hated him if he wasn’t the coolest brother ever.” A smile snuck through the childhood pain.

“High school for me was purgatory.”

“Yeah, but you got out. Away. You’ve seen the world.” An odd thread of jealousy strung her words together.

“If you hated Cottonbloom so much, why didn’t you leave?”

*   *   *

A shiver passed through her in spite of the glaring sun. An excellent question. One she’d asked herself time and again. Sometimes she did resent Cottonbloom. She felt trapped and stuck. Yet, Cottonbloom made her feel safe. It wasn’t a feeling she took lightly, not when devastating things could happen in an instant.

“I don’t hate Cottonbloom.” Her words were defensive but true.

She loved her job, her family, her friends. She loved walking down to Rufus’s place and not even having to order because he knew what she wanted. As much as it sometimes hurt, she loved hearing stories about her mama or daddy and how they were good people. If she left, who would she be?

She checked her watch and took a step to the side, thankful she had an excuse to escape. “My class starts in fifteen. I’ll see you around, I guess.”

“Hold up. I wasn’t blowing smoke back there. Let’s grab a drink tomorrow night.”

“You think your aunt is going to check up on you?”

The sound of his laugh grounded her, eased the unwelcome self-examination he’d instigated. “I wouldn’t put it past her, but that’s not why. I want to hang out with you. Is that a problem?”

He grabbed his shirt, but instead of pulling it on, he rubbed it all over his torso. She followed the motion with her eyes wishing she could take it away from him and finish the job herself.

The problem was the man was turning her brain into a mash of inappropriate sexual desires. She’d already had to refrain herself from licking him when he hauled her into his bare side. What would Bailey and his aunt have thought about that?

“Nope. No problem.”

“Good. And, Saturday, let’s drive up to Jackson. What do you say to that?”

Hanging out during happy hour was one thing. Driving to Jackson for dinner smacked of a real, live date. “Is this about the list? Because I can assure you skipping prom has not kept me up at night filled with regrets.”

“I’ll have you know, I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since Bailey rejected me.” He winked.

A shot of excitement had her shifting on her feet, even though he hadn’t answered her question about the list. “You’ll take me somewhere nice? Not Church’s Chicken?”

He tossed his head back with a full-bellied laugh, and she couldn’t take her eyes off the tendons of his throat. Still wearing a grin, he said, “I think I can spring for something a little nicer. Although as I recall, their chicken rocks.”

Her lips curled up in a Pavlovian response to his smile. She scuffed the toe of her shoe against the beginnings of a dandelion that had sprung up from the charred grass and glanced up at him through her lashes. “So you’re using me to avoid any more matchmaking from your aunt?”

“You wouldn’t condemn me to standing around in ninety-degree-plus heat, eating rancid potato salad, and making small talk with every eligible woman in Cottonbloom, would you?” His voice dropped to a husky tease. “Come on now, I thought we were friends.”

Were they friends? Certainly, they used to be friends, but the aggression that flooded her at the thought of a bevy of desperate women stalking Nash at the church social was decidedly
unfriendly
. Nash was the Bachelor of Cottonbloom, and she wasn’t letting one of those other women win. Not after their kiss.

She nodded, and he rubbed his hands together. “Excellent. We’ll have fun.”

Fun.
If he wanted to take things slow and just have a good time, she could go along with that. In fact, maybe it was better that way. If things never got serious between them, there would be no reason to tell him about her dyslexia.

She attempted a light, flirty tone to match his. “You think it will take the rest of the summer to finish your list?”

“Longer, I hope.” The sudden switch from laid-back humor to smoldering intensity made her wonder what he’d added after their kiss. Her stomach squirmed in a not unpleasant way.

“What time are you closing up tomorrow?” he asked.

“Actually, Reed closes up on Mondays. I can be ready by six.” She checked her watch. “Good grief, I need to get back. My class starts in five minutes.”

“I’ll pick you up around six tomorrow night.” He lifted her hand and brushed a kiss over the back.

Who did that sort of thing anymore? It should be ridiculous. Somehow Nash pulled it off with charm. Perhaps it was because he was a world traveller while she had barely left the parish limits. When he let go of her hand, she touched the spot still cool from the touch of his lips as if his kiss was a tangible thing.