“Accident.”
She waits on more explanation, but that’s all she’s getting from me today.
“So, as I was saying, Vernon Grady mentioned your land.” I pause, choking on the words. Your land. “Is that better?” I point at my lips, implying the volume, and her eyes fixate on them. As I continue to speak, she isn’t taking her gaze from the movement of my mouth, and it’s doing funny things to my chest. My heart’s skittering. My breath’s quickening. “I understand you own all this property, and I’m looking for land.”
She blinks up at me. “We aren’t for sale,” she brusquely barks, defensive as a wild dog.
“I’m not looking to buy. I’m looking to lease. I’m a horse breeder, and this looks like as good a place as any to raise them. You have space, and—”
“Vernon sent you. Are you an investor? A gambler?”
My mouth pops open, but I’m not ready for full disclosure. “No, ma’am,” I state instead.
“I’ve told him time and again we aren’t selling. We don’t need his help.”
Vernon warned me against using his name as a lead into my proposal, but I needed to start somewhere, and I can’t start with the truth. Being as he’s one of my oldest friends and one of only a few contacts in the area, I name dropped.
I’m distracted for a moment by her flaring eyes, which break from my mouth to roam up and down my body. Those steely gray beauties stroke down my center like a thick paintbrush coating a fence, or maybe that’s her way of sizing me up before she cuts me open and dissects me—which is more so how she’s glaring at me. There’s an edge to her, and I sense it in both her body language and the sharpness of her tongue. Either way, a shiver slithers over my sternum. There’s a juxtaposition between the cutting bite of her tone and the hungry gleam in her eye, and it makes me wonder what her mouth tastes like. Acidic? Bitter? Sweet?
Focus.
“I’m not looking to buy. As I said, I want to rent.”
Beverly sighs. She’s holding the lip of the door like a life preserver. Her arm trembles as if it takes all her strength to grip the barrier. Or maybe she’s just holding back from punching me.
Wonder what her knuckles would feel like…dragging down my chest?
I shake away the thought.
“You okay, honey?” I saw her approach the door and then lower behind it. I should ask her about it, but I don’t.
Her brows raise, and then her eyes narrow. “Don’t you ‘honey’ me. Just spit out what you want so I can tell you to get lost. Tripper’s waiting on me.”
Tripper? Has she moved on since Howard left? Does she have a second husband? Vernon didn’t mention anything.
Her sharp speech surprises me. With her hair pulled back into a tight knot near the nape of her neck, her face looks severe, stern even, and too serious for someone still relatively young. She’s angles and edges from what I can see of her body as the sweatshirt she wears slips from her shoulder. The devious spark in those eyes doesn’t match the rest of her.
“I’m looking for an exchange—”
“Exchange?” She bristles at the word, attempting to stand taller, but her elbow collapses, and she sags forward. She’s tall, if I remember correctly, but she’s slumping to one side so it’s hard to gauge her height. “I’m not selling my body like Hank’s girls.”
Whoa, filly, settle down. I freeze. Funny she should mention Hank—Hank Weller—as he’s next on my list of people to visit, but I forget him for a second. My eyes are the only part of me moving as I scan the parts of her body I can see. The slope of her neck. The edge of her collarbone. The tip of her shoulder. She’s slight in build, but it’s hard to tell what kind of rack she has from her oversized shirt. I’d bet her tits are smallish because she’s so thin, but none of that matters since I’m not here for her body like she suggests.
You sure about that, cowboy?
I’m adamant. I need the land, not the lady.
“Hank doesn’t sell women,” I defend, supporting his efforts as a strip club owner instead of arguing my case.
“His women sell their bodies for show,” she retorts.
“They aren’t prostitutes,” I huff, not interested in defending the merits of Hank’s business. “They strip.”
“People see their nakedness,” she admonishes.
And that’s a bad thing? Is she one of those religious types, prejudiced against everyone?
Focus, Flemming.
“Look, I’m not here to argue the machinations of the stripping industry. I’d like to discuss an exchange. I work this land, raise horses, and you allow me a place to live.” This woman’s property is my aim. Pissing her off isn’t about to win me any favors and I need a favor from her, but her head snaps back like one of those bobblehead toys.
“This isn’t a hotel.”
“That’s not what—”
“And there’s nothing in that list for me.” Her head twists like a curious owl as if it took a second to calculate what I said, and now that she’s processed it, she’s hooting her opinion. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Tripper is—”
“I’d like to make myself a room in the barn,” I interject, not caring to hear about her Tripper. Is he her roommate? Her lover? Do they live together? I’ve placed my hooked hand on the upper half of the door before she slams it in my face, and she startles at the movement, staring at my claw. I ignore the expression on her face. With my arm reaching into the house and her body leaning against the lower half of the door, we stand in close proximity. Her face is near my own, eyes searching eyes as her chest depresses with her exhale. The air brushes my lips. My hand reaches out for a wayward hair of hers, and I brush it back, not thinking before I act.
“What that…?” Her hand slaps at the back of mine, and I freeze, a statue positioned to touch something I’ll never touch.
“You can’t just…” She swats again, like a mosquito annoys her, pushing at my wrist which begins to retract.
What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have touched her like that, but now that I have, I can’t erase the sensation. My arm tingles—both of them—which is just…strange.
“This is the hashtag-me-too era, buddy.” She smacks the back of my hand as it lowers for the door between us as if she’s killing a pesky bug. “You can’t just reach out and touch someone.”
I stare at her moving mouth, but I’m not making out all the words. I want to trace those lips despite the rejection spewing out of them.
“I wasn’t suggesting we rip off our clothes,” I retort. I just wanted to know if her skin is as soft as it looks up close.
“You need permission first.” Did she mean touching her or ripping off her clothes?
I clear my throat, remembering the directive at hand.
“I apologize. That was…I don’t know where that came from. I just want the use of the land. I can offer to fix up whatever you need around here, free of charge. It won’t cost you a thing to have me living here.”
“Except my barn and the fields.” Her voice cracks as though she’s admonishing me, both of us still struck that I touched her. She narrows those flaming steel eyes. “And how will you work with that thing?” She nods at my arm. My, she’s unpleasant and fiery. I pause, taking a deep breath to remind myself some people are just ignorant. Others are plain mean. Beverly again falls in between. She’s guarded, very guarded, and I don’t really fault her. I usually get a quick read on people, but I’m struggling with Beverly.