What The Heart Wants (16 page)

Anna shook her head slightly, “Yeah, fine. I gotta…” she said, waving her hand toward Sam.

Eric looked over at Sam for a second then looked back at her, smirking. “Of course,” he said, handing her his beer and walking away first.

Maude clicked her tongue. “Yeah yeah I know,” Anna sighed, making her way across the field.

As she passed, Devon coughed under his breath, “Peacocks.”

She laughed, looking over her shoulder. “Shut up you.”

Sam had a v-shaped stain of sweat soaking the chest of his t-shirt and his hair was wet and darker than usual. “What’s up, Sam?” she asked, as she got closer.

“Do you know if Mam has any extra tools laying around? I’m sure she has something in the shed.”

Anna’s eyes went wide, feeling stupid. “Wow I’m an idiot,” she admitted. “I should have thought about that.”

Sam smiled, sitting up on the bed of his truck. “No you’re not. Things were kinda crazy this morning. But if she has shovels, spades, level rakes and especially an extra wheelbarrow or wagon for carting the stuff to the truck would be great.”

Anna took a swig of the beer in her hand. Sam’s forehead wrinkled up and Anna realized she was drinking out of something Eric had drank out of. In front of Sam. She really needed to get her stuff together. “Okay. I’ll be right back,” she said, walking so quickly she was almost running to get away from everything.

She took her time in the shed, rummaging around despite quickly finding a wheelbarrow and shovels. As much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t entirely sure what a spade or a level rake was. There were normal leaf-raking rakes in a corner. She shuffled them around finding something with short, strong metal claws and threw it in the wheelbarrow. It certainly looked like something that would be called a level rake.

She rolled the wheelbarrow back toward the crowd, going straight to Sam. “I think I got everything. But no spades,” she shrugged.

Sam smiled, shaking his head and reaching for the handle of something in the wheelbarrow. “This,” he said, holding up a shovel with a flat tip and laughing. “is a spade.”

“Well that’s just stupid,” Anna rolled her eyes. “A spade is a funny round and point shape… like… like a shovel! So shovels should be called spades. And these flat things should be called something less confusing.”

Sam laughed, shaking his head. “I think you’re the only person to be so upset about a spade.” Then he reached out, touching her cheek with his thumb, rubbing. When she looked up at him, her eyes questioning he said, “You have some dirt here.”

For a quick second, everything around them slipped away. The feeling of his skin on her skin sent her memory rushing back to his fingers tickling her thighs, his lips on her breasts, stomach…

His hand dropped down to his side. “Sorry,” he said, looking sheepish. “I didn’t mean to get you all hot and bothered,” he said.

Anna’s breath hissed out of her, feeling embarrassed and more than a little annoyed at being so transparent. “Don’t worry,” she said, sounding haughty. “you didn’t.” She grabbed the perplexing spade and walked over toward where Liam and Hank were working, throwing it into the ground with more force than necessary. As she walked to the wheelbarrow, Aiden caught her eye as she stood up, sending her a knowing look but said nothing. She silently thanked her stars that there were still some of those strong and silent type of men around.

“I think I’ve earned by two years of tea,” Liam declared sometime after noon, walking over to her and handing her his shovel.

Anna straightened, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Definitely,” she agreed, realizing just how much work it was really taking. “Thanks, Liam,” at his shrug, she reached out to touch his arm. “No seriously, Liam. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have even known this was an option.”

Liam hung his head, ever self-deprecating he said, “You would have figured it out.”

“Not that quickly though and it could have rained and I would be screwed. So seriously thank you Liam.”

He looked up at her, his serious face showing a ghost of a smile. “Anytime,” he looked surprised and laughed. “No, strike that. Not anytime but you know… no problem.”

Anna watched Liam walk away and turned back toward the field. Hank was leaning on his shovel’s handle, wiping his face with a rag. He looked as tired as she felt. She walked over to him, reaching for his shovel. “Hank, why don’t you get going too? It’s mostly done here. Let us finish the rest. Thank you so much for coming.”

Hank looked relieved but smiled. “Oh no problem, no problem. I really should get back to check on the store. If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to call me.”

Maude stood up for the first time since she got there as she saw Hank walking away. “The winds are changing,” she said as Anna approached.

Anna looked up at the blue sky. “Is it going to rain?”

Maude laughed, a deep throaty laugh. “No girl. Different kind of winds. And I would love to stay to see it, but I have a date.”

“Thanks for bringing the drinks, Maude. I promise to get the coolers back to you tomorrow.”

Maude waved a hand. “No rush girl. You have a good afternoon. Keep an eye on those boys, you hear?”

Anna looked back at the men. Devon had unbuttoned three of his buttons and was looking like he was losing steam. Sam, Eric, and Aiden were working just as steadily as ever but she knew they must be fading.

“I’m gonna run back to the house and throw us something together to eat,” she announced.

Everyone thanked her except Sam who called out, “Preferably not pasta with yogurt sauce,” he called out.

“Shut up you,” she yelled back, walking away.

Anna silently prayed that she actually did have something other than pasta and yogurt in the house.

–

Sam wasn’t sure what happened. Between the heat and the hard work and having to try to ignore Eric with his hands all over Anna, he was beyond irritable. And as soon as Anna was out of sight, he and Eric kept finding reasons to push each others buttons.

“Why don’t you just leave, O’reilly?” he asked, having reached his limit of patience.

“Why don’t you make me, Flynn?” Eric countered, stepping closer.

Seeing that sly, condescending smile on his face was the tipping point. He stepped forward, shoving his hands against Eric’s chest and taking a sick satisfaction in seeing him stumble back a step. “There,” he said. “now go.”

Eric stood there a second, contemplating what he was going to do before saying, “Oh, fuck it,” and charging Sam.

Eric landed two blows before they both went plummeting to the ground.

Devon cleared his throat, looking over toward Aiden. “Gonna do anything, Sheriff?”

Aiden watched Sam’s fist land in Eric’s side before Eric wrestled away. “In a minute. They have to get it out of their systems somehow.”

“It wont stop still she chooses one,” Devon said, cringing at them.

Aiden walked over toward the coolers, grabbing two beers and tucking them into his pockets. “Think she’s worth all of this?” he asked Devon.

Devon glanced toward where Anna had walked away. “I think she might be,” he mused. “If I were a couple years older…” Devon trailed off.

“Hell,” Aiden laughed. “if I were a couple years younger too. We’d all be in a brawl.” Aiden walked over to them where Eric was leaning over Sam. He reached out and dragged Eric by the arm a few feet backward. “Alright. That’s enough.” He shoved a hand against Sam’s chest as he got up to go after Eric again. “Enough,” he repeated, reaching into his pockets and handing them each a beer. “You’ve fought it out like boys. Now talk it out like men,” he demanded before stepping away.

Sam recovered first, his chest still heaving from the fight. “She deserves better,” he said vaguely.

Eric opened his beer but didn’t drink. “Better than what?”

“You,” Sam said. “Me.”

Eric took a sip. “I know,” he said, looking down at the ground. “But I still want her.”

Sam snorted. “For what? To use and throw aside like every other girl in town?”

Eric looked over at him, a strange depth in his eyes he had never seen before. “No. It’s different. I don’t know. It’s different.”

Then it occurred to him that maybe, just maybe Eric genuinely had feelings for Anna. “Yeah. She’s different,” Sam agreed, a part of him going out to Eric. They were both in the same boat.

Eric sighed. “She likes me you know,” he said in a way that wasn’t bragging in tone. “We have a lot in common. She comes out of her shell around me.”

Sam nodded. He heard about how easily they talked while together in town. “She likes me too,” he countered. “I guess she just needs some time to figure out which one of us she likes more.”

“She’s going to need to see both of us to do that,” Eric mused.

Sam shook his head. “How about we agree to not get in each others way? Just let her lead the way and I dunno… let the best man win?”

Eric nodded, extending his beer to Sam to clink. “To the best man.”

Anna came walking up a few minutes later, a tray between her hands. She hadn’t found a whole lot of things appropriate to eat outdoors on a hot day. She found pita pockets that she stuffed with sliced tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and balsamic dressing. She put together a big salad and a tray of various fruits.

As she walked up, Aiden was walking up as well, two huge buckets in each hand. “Hey, Sheriff,” she called, eyebrows furrowed.

“Aiden,” he corrected. “Hope you don’t mind, I went to fetch some water. We needed to do some cleaning up,” he said, an odd smile on his face.

“No of course not.”

She placed the tray on the cooler and turned to face the remaining men. And stopped cold. Both Eric and Sam were filthy as if they had been rolling around in the dirt. There was dried blood under Eric’s nose and a dark bruise spread across Sam’s cheek. “What’s going on?” she asked, looking between the two of them.

Eric spoke first. “Nothing, just need to do some cleaning up,” he said, pulling his tank top over his head and plunging his arms into one of the water buckets.

Sam sent her a weak, guilty little smile before taking his shirt off too and starting to scrub off the grime. “No worries. So if we eat that,” he cocked his head toward the food. “are we going to survive?”

“Hey, I’m not that bad of a cook!”

Devon grunted behind her, taking a bite out of one of the pita sandwiches. “These are actually pretty decent.”

“Yes,” Anna said turning to Devon. “See? I told you! Thanks Devon.”

Anna watched as Eric and Sam started over toward them, shirtless and dripping. It took everything she had to keep her mouth from falling open. Couldn’t one of them be slightly less appealing than the other?

As Eric got closer, she noticed a split through his lip. He reached for a sandwich and as he passed her, kissed her quickly on the cheek. “Thanks, baby.” He took a bite and she noticed a slight wince as he ate. Devon must have been being nice.

Sam reached out and tugged a piece of her hair. “It was a fair attempt,” he teased, taking another bite. “You’re lucky we’re famished.”

“Hush you,” she called as he walked past them to go talk to Aiden.

“Anna,” Eric said and she almost jumped. It was wrong for his voice to sound so sexual in broad daylight in front of other people. “What do you say to coming over and watching a god-awful action movie and eating pizza?”

Anna could practically feel her mouth water. God, she missed pizza. “Stars Landing doesn’t have pizza,” she objected.

“No, but I know someone who makes pizza. Very New York pizza, thin crust with tons of cheese and grease.”

“Don’t tease me,” Anna said, reaching for a peach.

“Only when you want me to,” he said, winking. “Say sixish?”

“Sounds good,” she agreed, genuinely looking forward to the prospect.

Fifteen
 

Every muscle in her body objected to getting out of bed. They had been out in the field until well after five when she declared they did enough and she wasn’t going to subject them to eating another meal she made.

Sam had hung back, surveying the land carefully after everyone else left.

“So do you think we got it all?” she asked, rubbing the back of her neck.

“I think we did. We made sure we dug deep in case anything fell through when we were digging. Later this week I’ll take you to go pick up some quality soil to put in here. Maybe start you a compost pile to use next spring.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she objected. He had done way too much for her already.

Sam looked up at her from his kneeling position, his hair falling over one of his eyes and smiling that sweet smile. “I want to,” he said, standing up and walking closer to her.

Anna leaned her back against the truck bed. Sam stepped forward, his toes touching hers and his hand coming up to rest on the waistband of her jeans. “Stop,” she objected, swatting at his hand. “I’m all sweaty and gross.”

“I like you sweaty and gross,” he said, his other hand moving up to the back of her neck. He pulled her face toward hers, his teeth sinking into the flesh of her lower lip before his tongue slipped inside her mouth.

A moan escaped her lips, her hand going out and grabbing the waistband of his jeans, pulling him closer. Sam groaned, grabbing her by her hips and hauling her onto the truck bed. He moved in between her open legs, holding her tight to his body. She could feel the hard outline of his cock against her lower belly and she felt herself wrap her legs around his hips, rubbing herself against him.

Sam made a growling sound in his throat, grabbing her hips again and picking her up. He sat down on the bed himself, Anna on top of him. One of her hands went to his shoulder, the other went to his hair, grabbing. She brought her lips down on his, hungry and searching. Her hips shifted, moving until she felt the line of his cock flush against her hot desire. She rocked her hips against him, friction stoking her desire.

She moaned against his lips, both aroused and frustrated. Two layers of jeans between their bodies was driving her almost to the edge but not quite able to get her what she needed most. She sighed, sliding off of his lap, landing her butt on the truck bed. Her face was against his bare chest, breathing in his sweat and soap smell that made her feel all the more frustrated.