And admitting that any guy would be lucky to have her pissed me the hell off. My vision tunneled to black and I wanted to smash every glass within reach.
I wasn’t sure she’d respond, but then she rolled her eyes and took a swig of her drink. “Funny how I date only the guys who disagree.”
“You’ve dated boys, rusty. A real man will know what he has. Just like a real man knows when he’d be a shit husband and an absentee father.”
She studied me. I regretted my choice of words. “Is that why you don’t want kids? You wouldn’t be around for them?”
We’d go with that. “I know what it’s like. I can’t do that to a kid even if you swear you’re okay with not having me in the picture.”
“Because you’d know.”
I nodded. “There’s no way I can be a decent father when I’m in another state working twelve hours a day.”
She tilted her head, the hint of melancholy not leaving her gaze. “You’re a good man, Gideon James.”
My self-consciousness was unexpected. “I’m not.”
“You are,” she said in a singsong voice. “And I should say any woman would be lucky to have you, but I want to stab that bitch with this skewer.”
I laughed and all the tension drained away. “Now that that’s out of the way, tell me about your day.”
She didn’t roll her eyes, but she wrinkled her nose. Did she really think I wouldn’t be interested in her day? That I would think the work she did wasn’t important?
“The biggest drama of the week isn’t actually kid-related,” she said with a smirk. “It’s the mystery of who’s eating the break room yogurt.”
I cleaned up the mess I’d made while she told me about the stolen yogurt, the new playground equipment the school was hoping to buy, the different types of fundraisers they were doing to pay for it, and how she had one little girl in class who’d talked with a posh British accent for an entire day last week.
I loved hearing about all of it. I hung up the rags like I’d seen her do the other nights she closed. She packed up all the clean containers.
“I’ll get the lights and then we can go.” She disappeared into the back room to get her purse and coat. The room went dark, the only glow coming from the security lights in the main entry.
When she came out, I pulled her toward me. “I haven’t gotten a kiss yet.”
She tipped her head back. “I thought Mama’s fried chicken took priority.”
It was good fucking chicken. The best I’d ever had. All week, I’d eaten like a king, but no food was worth going another minute without tasting my wife.
“You thought wrong.” I took her coat and purse and tossed them on the counter so they weren’t between us. “I didn’t kiss you when I first arrived because I would’ve kept going and your sister was here.”
“What about now?”
“I don’t see anyone else.” I wasn’t gentle when I caught her mouth. I also wasn’t planning to stop at a kiss. After the heaviness of our earlier conversation, after the way this whole damn night had burrowed into my mind and whispered questions I couldn’t answer, I needed a release, and I couldn’t wait until I got her to the house.
One of those persistent questions popped into my head.Do you really think you can never have this in your life again?
The jumble of questions that had been daunting me for days poured in.
Isn’t farming and ranching in your bones?
Don’t you miss this? Won’t you miss it again?
Why don’t you want to stay?
Why can’t you be good at marriage?
I had to silence that unknown voice. Where the hell was it coming from?
I pressed her against the counter. She wouldn’t want me to strip her down. This was her family business and she prepped food at the bar. But I needed more.Everything was right with the world when she climaxed with my name on her lips.
