“I’m good. Thanks, babe.”
“Babe?”
I cut her off with a quick kiss, more as a warning for Steadman, rather than affectionate. Except for the occasional peck on the cheek, or the perfunctory brushes of our lips in the middle of the night when we come together in a basic need way, we haven’t kissed since we lost Ethan. Really kissed. But her lips are so soft, so sweet, so heart achingly familiar, I need more than a little taste. Turning in my seat, I cradle her jaw in my hand and pull her closer, covering her mouth with my own. My heart pounds. My pulse races. Electricity arcs between us, connecting us in a burst of white-hot heat. It’s like our first kiss all over again.
“Here you go, sir.” The waitress places the bottle on the table, and I reluctantly pull away, instantly feeling bereft. Natalie draws in a ragged breath and touches her lips as if she is as shocked as me at the intensity of that kiss.
“An eighteen-year-old Macallan?” I inspect the bottle. “You know your scotch.”
Steadman shrugs. “I asked the manager to buy a few cases after I saw what he had in stock.”
I pour a glass and sip the amber liquid. Smooth on the tongue, with barely any burn, and a medium cigar-smoke finish. It’s been a long time since I had the good stuff. Hell, it’s been a long time since I’ve done anything but work.
“Very nice,” I say to Steadman, who still hasn’t taken the hint to leave my wife alone.
He swirls the amber liquid around, his gaze on Natalie. “Why put up with average when you can have perfection?”
Alexis chokes on her drink. Natalie blushes. I pour myself a second glass, and then a third. When I pour a fourth, Natalie touches my hand.
“Maybe you should slow down.”
I toss the fourth glass back because I’ve spent the last ten years in the slow lane to nowhere, and somewhere along the journey I lost my wife. Time for courage, not caution, for speed, not safe driving.
I give Steadman a quick once-over as I pour myself another. He might be taller than me, but he is lean with the kind of muscles you get only by running on the hamster wheel at the gym, or lifting weights for no reason other than to beat the pull of gravity. I easily outweigh him in sheer muscle bulk, and my strength is real, coming from working every day in the fields, hauling equipment and bales, and hammering fences and steel. My hands are callused from hard labor, whereas his are soft, almost elegant. Hard to believe hands so smooth could wield a whip or paddle in his dungeon of doom, but it is clear he should not be underestimated. His dominant nature ripples beneath the surface, informing everything about him; from the way he studies me as he sips his drink, to the spread of his legs beneath the table.
“Natalie says you have a farm just outside of town,” he says, blinding me with the whiteness of his smile.
“Yes. We’ve got wheat, soybeans, canola, barley, and oats to keep us busy in summer, and five hundred head of cattle to keep us busy in the winter.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.” He cocks his head to the side. “No time for fun.”
“No time for anything.” Which is exactly what I wanted after losing both my son and my father in the same year. But somewhere along the way, I lost touch with what really mattered, who I am, and what I want out of life.
“How is the dental business?” I ask. Not because I care, but because I want to understand the man who pulled Natalie out of her shell, put a smile on her face and a flush on her cheeks, and is enough of a threat that her best friend texted me a warning.
“Busier than I expected.” He sips his drink. “I thought things would be slower in a small town, but I’ve got more patients than I did in the city.”
Alexis laughs. “That might have something to do with the fact that the only other dentists in town are in their sixties, married with grandkids, and using the same equipment and techniques they’ve been using for the last forty years. Not that they aren’t nice guys, but your office has more . . . appeal.”
He chuckles. “It does feel like time has stood still in Revival. Maybe the town should join the modern world.”
“The town is fine the way it is,” I snap. Four quick shots of scotch on an empty stomach after years of drinking very little, coupled with the crowds and the music is setting me on edge, not to mention the undercurrent of tension at the table.
“You can’t stop the march of progress.” He pats Natalie’s hand. “Natalie was telling me about her dream of providing online distance education for rural communities. It’s a great idea, and I told her I’ve got spare office space to rent when she gets it going. I bought the entire building my office is in, and I’ve had it all updated and wired with the latest technology.”
He keeps talking. His lips keep moving. But all I can focus on is his hand on Natalie’s hand, the way her ring is there and gone with every pat, like it is slowly winking out of existence.
“Not all progress is good.” I pull her hand away from his, thread my fingers through hers. “People don’t put the same care into the things they make anymore, or they make them too complicated. I’ll take mechanical over computerized any day. New equipment breaks down too easily. Give me a combine without a computer and a GPS, and I can finish a field in half the time using the sun and the horizon to plot my course. The vegetables that are mass-produced don’t taste anything like what Natalie grows in her garden. And if she needs an office, I’ll build it on my land with my own two hands.”
I didn’t know Natalie was thinking about setting up an online education business, but damned if I am going to let him know.
“What’s gotten into you?” Natalie whispers under her breath.
“You.”
Natalie blushes. I like seeing that bloom on her cheeks, knowing that it was me who put it there.
“You talk like a man twice your age,” Steadman says with a laugh.