The high school women are supportive in the nosiest way possible.“Girl, Isawthe photo.”
The 2011 date sends:Heard you’re seeing someone. Happy for you. If it doesn’t work out, dinner sometime?
I delete that one with my whole thumb.
Beau carries the feed bags to the barn. I watch him from the porch with my arms crossed and a glass of lemonade I’m not drinking. He walks back and forth in the sun, hat tipped low, shirt clinging to the sweat on his back. The muscles in his shoulders bunch and release with every bag. His jeans sit low on his hips. His boots kick up dust with every stride.
And I just… watch him. Like I can’t stop. Like my eyes are magnetized to this man’s body and I’ve given up fighting it. I watch the way he moves …efficient, powerful, unhurried. The way he pauses to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand. The way he glances at me across the yard and holds my gaze for a beat too long. Even from here I can feel the heat of his golden eyes. It tightens something low in my belly. Makes my nipples peek through my shirt.
Here’s the thing …I expected the stares to bother me. Expected the whispers to crawl under my skin and find every insecurity I’ve been nursing since my divorce. The age gap, the too-fast timeline, the fact I’m a thirty-eight-year-old divorced mother of two and he’s the finest man in the county. Possibly the state.
But watching Beau walk back from the barn, hat tipped against the sun, shirt damp, looking at me like I’m the only reason he’s walking in this direction?
The whispers don’t mean shit; the stares don’t matter, the gossip, the judgment, the Pattys and Marthas…none of it touches what I feel when this man looks at me. My body knows. Has known since that very first handshake. My skin hums when he’s near; my pulse picks up when he enters a room. My pussy clenches when he says my name. Every part of me is tuned to Beau Redding, like he’s the only frequency that matters.
And that’s what scares me. Not the talk. The talk will die. Small towns move on. But what this man does to me …to my body, my chest, my stupid, guarded, terrified heart …that’s not going anywhere.
He reaches the porch. Tips his hat back. Squints up at me. Sweat on his brow. Dirt on his hands. Looking like sin and salvation, all wrapped up in one big, beautiful package.
“You done overthinking?” he asks.
“How do you know I was overthinking?”
“Baby, I can hear your brain from the barn.” He steps up onto the porch. Pulls me into his chest. I go easily …press my face against his damp shirt and breathe him in. He smells of sweat and hay and cedar and the warm, masculine scent that’s become my favorite thing in the world. His arms wrap around me. Big. Heavy. Sure. His heartbeat thuds steadily against my cheek.
“Let ‘em talk, Ina,” he murmurs into my hair. His hand slides down my spine, slow, settling at the base of my back. His thumb strokes. “The only opinion that matters is yours.”
I pull back and look up at him. “And if my opinion is that this is crazy?”
He brushes a braid off my face. His calloused fingers graze my cheek, and I feel it everywhere. My skin, my chest, that low pulse between my legs that never fully goes away when he’s touching me.
“Then it’s crazy,” he says. “But it’s ours.”
I exhale. Long and slow. And something loosens in my chest. Not all the way. But enough.
“You want some lemonade?” I ask.
“I want you.” His eyes drop to my mouth. Then lower. Then back up. Slow and shameless. “But I’ll take the lemonade.”
I shove his shoulder. He laughs in that low, full rumble that vibrates through my whole body and settles between my legs like a promise.
Thirteen
Ina
Lilah shows up the next day with two suitcases, a bag of dirty laundry, and an attitude.
“So,” she says, dropping everything in the hallway and planting her hands on her hips. She’s got my face and her father’s height and zero patience for small talk. “Where’s the bull man?”
“His name is Beau.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s coming for dinner.”
Her whole face lights up. “I’m meeting the bull man. Mom. I need to shower.”
“You look fine.”
