Page 13 of A Little More

“Great!” Her optimism didn’t make sense. “I’m sure Nash will be happy to see you.”

“Wait—”

“I’ll try you again next time. Bye!” She hung up before Lexi had a chance to ask her what that meant. Had Nash said something about her? Granted, sometimes the man found strange excuses to touch her, and she’d caught him watching her a few times, but other than that, he’d been professional.

Mostly.

4

Nothing was salvageable. The fire had raced through the Jensen’s barn like a lit match in dry pine straw. A group of men, other volunteer firemen, stood a step away from the burnt wood, pointing and discussing the cause of the fire. Nash surveyed the area. They’d cleared everything back to prevent, or try to avoid, embers from starting any secondary fires. With his mom’s house a good half-mile down the road, he wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

“We look like two burnt marshmallows.” Dewey drummed his fingers on the hood of his truck. “Longest fire we’ve ever fought. That old wood just didn’t know when to quit. It might have been the hottest fire we’ve ever worked.”

“It was hot, that’s for sure,” Nash replied. A few other volunteer firemen passed by probably headed home for a shower and some food. Nash glanced at his watch. “It took six hours. Damn.” Lexi was due any minute. “I gotta get cleaned up.”

“That wouldn’t have anything to do with the rumor that the architect is headed down today.” Dewey grinned, his teeth extra white against the soot covering his already tanned skin. “Mr. Simmons said she sounded pretty on the phone.”

Nash laughed. “You know Mr. Simmons thinks any woman is pretty. He doesn’t get out much sitting behind his desk at the water department.”

“I hope I’m the same way when I turn seventy-five.”

“You’ll be worse. I’m going to grab a shower.”

“Don’t think your pretty architect lady can handle you wearing a little dirt?”

“Her name is Lexi, and a little dirt implies there’s a part of me that’s a little clean.” Nash ran his tongue over his teeth. “I can even feel the smoke in my mouth. I need a big glass of tea and a cold shower. When do you head into work?”

“Cameron asked me to fill in at five tonight until the morning. Some big date planned with Addie.” Dewey watched the cars pass by, running too fast on the highway in front of what was left of the Jensen’s barn. To anyone who didn’t know him, Dewey looked like a laid-back man that moved at his own pace, the typical country guy without much ambition or education. They’d be dead wrong.

Dewey continued drumming his fingers on the hood of the truck. “The last time you started dressing nice for a woman she wrapped that ball and chain around your neck so tight, you didn’t have a choice but to stumble down to Florida behind her when she yanked on it.”

“Catherine didn’t wrap anything around my neck. She got that job at the hospital as a nurse—”

“The county hospital is always complaining of needing nurses,” Dewey snapped back. “Could’ve stayed right here. Helped the people that helped raise her. She wanted out from the time she turned eighteen. You knew that.”

“I tried to support my wife. I’m not getting into this. That’s done and over with. Catherine is God knows where, and I’m back home where I plan to stay.” He’d lived his whole life wanting to run the family farm. Now, Nash had the chance to do that and more. Getting married only to risk the same situation in the future wasn’t a choice he planned to make.

“If you start looking for another reason to jet out of town,” Dewey said, squinting one eye in the bright sunlight. “Just make it through cotton season this time. Your daddy had a hell of a time the year you left, even with Cameron and me picking up the slack. Damn, Becky even drove the tractor at one point.”

Nash didn’t want to discuss his dad or the fact that working himself into the ground had accelerated his cancer. No one had bothered to tell him that until it was too late. That guilt never left. With a hug and a wave, his dad had sworn that he had the farm covered and sent him on his way to Jacksonville.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay, fix up Nana’s old house, and make the store a success for the whole county.” Nothing short of the end of the world could convince him to move back to a big city again. He had a college degree in agriculture and all his experience out in the fields managing a farm. That combination didn’t give him more than entry-level positions in factories in big cities.

“Who’s that?” Dewey asked. Lexi’s car pulled into the driveway. Nash straightened, taking a step away from Dewey’s truck. “You know them?”

“That’s the pretty architect lady.” Nash had never considered Lexi “pretty.” Gorgeous fit her better.

“I figured she’d drive a Mercedes or something.”

Nash glanced at Dewey, but his focus quickly returned to Lexi. She was here. The exhaustion from the fire snapped into excitement when she waved. “Why’s that?”

“Mr. Simmons said she was prettyandrich sounding.”

Lexi’s shiny, fuel-efficient car looked out of place next to the array of trucks, most of them covered with a layer of smoke, that were parked around the Jensen’s front yard. She pulled to a stop right beside Nash’s work truck. Funny. Her shiny and clean car next to his damaged and dirty truck reminded him of how he and Lexi probably looked side-by-side.

She opened her door, one pink boot stepping onto the sandy driveway. As if she could get any sexier, she wore a bright, white shirt with a tight pair of jeans and pink work boots. He smiled, resting his arm on the hood of Dewey’s truck. She was something else. Brains and beauty. Untouchable. A class above any woman he’d ever encountered before.

“Good morning,” he called, soaking in the way she smiled as she headed his way. This feeling was short-lived. She’d be gone in a few months, tops. It wasn’t as though he could find another reason to hire her to build him something else. That would turn into a rather expensive, one-sided infatuation.

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