Chaste (McCullough Mountain) (13 page)

“That
was really sweet of him. Are you happy with it?”

Kelly’s
attention snagged on her smile, his ears anxious for her next words. “I love
it. It handles like a dream.”

Kelly
gathered they were talking about her new truck. “Can I get you guys anything
else?”

“No,
we’re good. Thanks, man,” Josh said then turned back to his date. “So did you
figure out where the rabbits are coming from?”

What
rabbits?
Kelly
glowered, his presence forgotten. When had he become so needy? This wasn’t him.
None of it was. He didn’t care about idle chitchat. Yet he wanted to know more
about her. The truth was, Ashlynn was work and he wasn’t sure if there was a
way to know her better without hurting her in the long run. Temptation to
selfishly entertain himself battled with propriety and the urge to do right by
her.

Shaking
his head, he returned to the bar. Josh knew stuff about Ashlynn that he didn’t.
It made sense. Josh was dating her after all, but it still irritated him. He
wanted to talk to her about rabbits and find out what that meant. Maybe he
could broach the subject with her and wind up kissing her again.

She’s
on a date, dipshit.

Josh
would likely be kissing her soon. The thought of the other man’s mouth being
where his had been only days ago made him twitchy and irritable. Kelly had
never been the possessive sort, so why should he care? But he did.

Kelly
wasn’t a territorial person. He didn’t have a jealous bone in his body. He was
more a “share the love
”
kind of guy, but he wanted to be the only one
privy to Ashlynn’s sweet kisses and her oh, so sweet—

Jesus,
Mary, and Joseph. He
liked
her.

There
had only ever been one girl in his past that consumed his attention the way
Ashlynn did and his obsession with Ashlynn surpassed those childhood fantasies
days ago. What the fuck? How did this happen?

He
couldn’t
like her. He could like any
woman in this bar, but
not her.
Used
to being the kind of guy who scratched whenever he had an itch, he wasn’t sure
what to do about these sudden desires. He should have never kissed her.

She
wasn’t like other girls. Other girls caught his eye and he fucked them, got
over his lust, and moved on. Everyone was happy. He couldn’t do that with
Ashlynn.

Damn
it!

Thrown
by the trajectory of his thoughts, he spent the next hour busying himself with
the other customers and only glancing in Ashlynn’s direction every few seconds.
When he looked up and found the booth empty, he turned to the door.

Josh’s
hand rested low on Ashlynn’s back as he escorted her out the front of the bar.

Kelly
grabbed the half full bag of trash and knotted the ties. “Taking out the trash,”
he announced as he left through the back.

The
door slammed behind him as he quickly approached the dumpster. Bloody Christ,
he was turning into a stalker.

Ashlynn’s
throaty laugh traveled to his ears and crept all over his skin like secret
promises whispered in the dark. Josh was closing in.

Do
something!

Playing
on Ashlynn’s shy nature and propriety, he lifted the lid of the dumpster and
let it slam after loudly dropping the bag inside. She immediately stepped back
from Josh.

You’re
such a cock blocker.

Ashlynn
turned and Josh settled for a kiss on the cheek. He held her door as she
climbed into her truck and said goodnight. When both cars started, Josh was the
first to pull out.

Kelly
wiped his palms down his jeans and approached her truck. He tapped on the
window. “License and registration.”

She
jumped and met his gaze through the glass. “What?” The window rolled down. The
truck still had that new car smell.

“It’s
a joke, love.”

“Oh.”

He
shifted and placed his hands in his pockets. “How’s it going?”

“Okay.”

“Have
a nice date?”

Her
mouth opened and shut then opened again. “It was fine.” The nervous set of her
shoulders only underscored how inconsistent their personalities were.

He
met her whisky brown stare. “He didn’t kiss you goodnight.”

Her
cheeks flushed a soft shade of pink. “Yes, he did, just not like…”

“Like
I kissed you.”

She
glanced away. Yes! There it was, that sharp tug at his gut he got whenever she
turned bashful.

Maybe
if he just spent a little time with her he could stifle some of the urges he
was having, take the edge off. “Can we talk for a little?”

She
glanced back to him, big eyes full of questions. “Talk about what?”

He
shrugged. “Things. Life. Your rabbits.”

“I—I
guess.”

He
rounded the truck and climbed into the passenger seat. Her soft, natural scent
reminded him of how close they’d been days before. It went right to his cock
and he shifted.

“How
did you know about my rabbits?”

“I
overheard you and Josh talking.”

She
grimaced. “Those furry little buggers keep getting my lettuce patch. I need to
build the beds up higher.”

His
mouth pinched back a smirk. Who said things like
furry little buggers
? “I’d like to see your gardens.”

“You
would?” she sounded shocked.

His
mind drifted to one drunken night not too long ago when his father told him
about falling for his mother. He’d slurred,
“Kelly,
she wasn’t always so loud. Once she was but a wallflower. I was the lucky lad
who plucked her up and made her bloom.”

Ashlynn
was a bit of a wallflower and one day some lucky bastard would pluck her up and
she would bloom into everything stunning and graceful.

He
smiled to hide his envy of whoever that man would be, certain it wouldn’t be
him. He openly rejected marriage, but the truth was, he lacked the honorability
to qualify for the job—with
any
woman—and
that ultimately disqualified him from the list of men who had the right to look
at Ashlynn as more than a friend.

But
he could be her friend. “Yeah. Your gardens must be huge if you had all that
stuff the other day.”

“I
have six acres of property on the farm. My personal space takes up one. The
rest are for crops.”

“Quite
the little farmer.”

“It’s
all I know how to do. Well, that and fix cars and tractors,” she said quietly.

He
touched her knee. “Hey, I wasn’t making fun.”

Her
lips twitched into a half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Tension spiked and
his gut tightened. Energy definitely shifted in the air of the cab. Her knee
moved slightly to the right and his hand slid away—clearly unwelcome—as his
mind analyzed the pull she seemed to have over him. Her breath was shallow and
each little puff lifted her chest and filled the truck with more of the
intoxicating fragrance that was Ashlynn.

Looking
away, she whispered, “I don’t understand you, Kelly.”

“I’m…not
that complicated.” His voice was low and gravely, as though he was making
confession.

“You
are to me.”

“How
so?” He wanted to touch her again, wished he’d never let his hand slip away.

“You
never said two words to me until a week ago. Why?”

He
shrugged. Two patrons found their way to their car in the shadows. The glass
was getting fogged. “I don’t know. You always seemed a bit off limits.”

“Because
I’m not like other girls,” she said frowning at her lap.

“Yeah,
but not for the negative reasons you’re probably thinking. I know a lot of
women. You’re different, interesting. You don’t cover yourself with fancy crap
and pretend to be someone you’re not. You’re honest and unguarded.”

She
snorted. “We’re all guarded.”

He
shook his head. “I see you, Ashlynn. I see you and I think, my God, she’s
pretty.”

She
turned and her eyes shimmered.
 
“I’m
not pretty.”

“Why,
because you’re not disguised in fancy shoes and jewelry? You have natural
beauty. It’s refreshing.”

She
groaned and pressed her face into her hands. “Why are you saying that?”

“I
don’t know.” He honestly didn’t know. This was nothing like his usual approach.

“See…complicated.”
She shook her head. “You make me feel like I’m on display when for the past
decade I’ve felt nothing but invisible in your presence.”

“Invisible?
No.”

“I
don’t get you. I know the kind of man you are and every time you talk to me I
feel like I’m the butt of some joke.”

He
frowned. “I’m not a mean person, Ashlynn.”

“I
didn’t mean you were. I just meant things like this don’t happen to me. We
aren’t friends.”

“We
could be.”

Her
eyes went from sad to stern. She met his gaze with a hard glint. “I have no
interest in helping you put on a show.”

He
jerked back. “What the hell does that mean?”

Shaking
her head, she whispered, “That’s you, Kelly. You perform. You’re like the main
event everyone comes out to see. You don’t need another girl in the already
eager audience.”

Is
that how she saw him? Looking away, in a low voice he admitted, “It would be
nice to ditch the act for a while. Maybe that’s why I can’t shake you out of my
head. It’s like you expect more than what I am. You don’t buy all the bullshit.”

“You’re
wrong. I expect the
real
you. Anyone
can have Kelly the bartender or Kelly the flirt. I don’t drink and I don’t
sleep around, so what exactly do I have to gain if you aren’t being genuine?”

Exactly.
He didn’t have an answer for her. Did he have a genuine side when all the other
crap disappeared? “Do you think that’s all there is to me, sex and booze?” His
breath held as he waited for her answer, knowing if she confirmed what everyone
else thought about him his ego would be crushed. He wasn’t shallow. He had
depth, but no one cared to stick around long enough to actually see those parts
of him and he’d sort of lost all the other sides to himself over the years.

The
longer she took to answer, the more he realized how ridiculous this was. His
hand went to the door—

“No,”
she whispered, so low he could barely make out the word, but it was enough to
still his escape. “I think there’s so much more to you and you’re like everyone
else in this world, afraid to let down your guard and show who you really are,
because rejection hurts no matter who you are. I think, deep down, you’re
scared that if you stopped being what everyone expects no one would want you.”

His
lungs froze as his lashes suspended above his wide eyes. His instinct was to
deny her theory, but panic that he might be that transparent had him speechless
and paralyzed.

She
offered a sad smile. “I used to envy your popularity, but over the years it
occurred to me how utterly exhausting it must be.” She laughed without humor.
“My world’s nothing like yours. I’ve been thinking about getting a cat just so
I have someone to talk to at night.”

That
made him smile. “Nah. Dogs have better personalities.”

Her
lips pursed in a tight smile and she nodded, but he saw the hopeless set of her
shoulders. He touched her chin—so soft and delicate—slowly turning her face
toward him.
 
She flinched, resisting
for a beat, then yielding to the urging of his fingers. Kelly licked his lips
as his attention was drawn to her mouth. A soft, pink, perfect little cupid’s
bow.

“Maybe
it doesn’t matter who we have to talk to. It’s all just fluff if there’s no
real depth. Believe it or not, sometimes I get lonely too. Maybe we should both
get dogs.”

She
laughed and carefully pulled her face out of reach. “A dog would probably chase
my rabbits away.”

“Furry
little buggers.”

She
smiled bashfully and glanced down. “Kelly…” Her mouth was mesmerizing.

“Yes,
love?”

“I
don’t want to be some conquest. I’m not a toy and I’m not sure I can handle
whatever game this is.”

“I
don’t know what this is, but it doesn’t feel like a game.”

“Then
what is it?”

“I
don’t know, but I think about you and I want to get to know you better.”

“To
what end?”

He
could have said something clever like ‘both ends’, but that didn’t seem right,
not when they were both being honest. “I like you and I shouldn’t.”

“Why
not?”

God,
her lips were fascinating.

She
was pretty and this—whatever
this
was—was turning into a very dangerous situation.
He cleared his throat, but his voice remained tight and hoarse. “Because I’m
not the guy for you.”