Page 69 of Tempting as Sin
“No,” he said. “Real.” And kissed her again.
“No grizzlies,” Jo said. “Works for me. If you’re all done kissing, maybe you could help me take care of these horses.”
He was dusty. He was hot. He was sore. And he was purely happy. Taking Thunderbolt’s saddle off his back like he’d been born doing it, brushing him down, patting his neck. In sync with his company, the place, the day, in a way he hadn’t been in a long time. Not since Australia.
He felt at home.
Could a heart, Lily wondered, actually melt? Could a person truly be as right for you as this, and could you know it as deep-down as this felt? Thissoon?
Surely it was better to be cautious. Then why was caution the last thing she was feeling?
She had time to ask herself, because it was a twenty-five-minute drive back to Sinful. She didn’t spend it asking, though. Rafe turned up the radio, and as soon as he got off the gravel road, he rolled the windows down. He stuck an elbow out the window, she did the same, and they sang along, Rafe’s hand beating on the window frame, like the rhythm and the music went all the way to his bones.
She said, “How do you know all the words?” and he answered, “Come to Aussie again and turn on the car radio, and you’ll see how. We’re all about the country music. It’s not all Sydney. Sheep stations, cattle stations. If you think Montana’s big sky country, you’ve never been in the Outback.” He smiled at her, slow and sweet, and said, “Someday, I’ll show you.”
When they got into town, she pulled herself together enough to say, “Park at the shop. The downside of my surprise is, you’ll have to dress in your dirty clothes again afterwards. The upside is, you probably won’t care.”
He didn’t argue. He just parked the car. It was nearly two. Perfect. She said, “I’m going to be a princess, though. Just give me one second.” Inside the shop, she grabbed her working dress and a pair of slides, chose a couple items off the rack, put them all into a tote, and ran outside again, where she locked the shop door and took Rafe’s hand, feeling a little breathless. “Hailey’s right,” she told him. “You do stand out.” He was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, but they could only do so much. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Notice how I’m not even asking where we’re going?” he said, as she pulled him around the corner and down the street. “That’s because I’m flexible.”
“Really?” she asked, then stopped in front of a storefront flanked by huge log pillars, a sign hanging from chains above it.The Sinful Float.“Personally, the last thing I feel at this moment is flexible. Hence my surprise.”
“Well, that too.” He looked at the sign. “What is this?”
“A hippie thing,” she said, then smiled, because she wanted to laugh. Because she wanted to sing. “A sinful thing. Agreatthing. You’ll see.”
Bailey started out by eating some of Lily’s cereal. There was a container of strawberries and raspberries in the fridge, and she put those on it. Berries didn’t last, Lily had told her, and neither did goat milk, so it was good to use it all up. Anyway, she could pick some more berries for Lily today. There were tons of raspberries, all against the fence, more than anybody could ever eat. Lily had said they could make jam next Monday, on her day off. That would be cool. That had been before Clay had been her boyfriend, though, so maybe they wouldn’t.
After breakfast, she left Chuck inside, even though he barked, and went out to the garden. She picked raspberries first. That was the hardest, because of the stickers, and because the vines were in the sun. Then she scratched the goats for a while before she got the little cultivator from the shed and started weeding around the peas and beans the way Lily had shown her.
She ate as many peas as she wanted. Ever since she’d started coming to Lily’s, she’d been full, because Lily had so many things to eat, and it seemed like they never ran out. Lily had said she’d take some pots and dirt down the mountain to Bailey’s grandma’s, though, and they could plant a miniature garden right in front of the trailer. They could transplant from Lily’s garden. Easy things like carrots and spinach, and some peas, too. All you had to do was put a stick in the pot so the peas had something for their vines to curl around, and Bailey could grow her own.
It wouldn’t matter if her grandma couldn’t take her to Walmart very much for grocery shopping if they had vegetables, especially if Lily still gave her eggs and cheese and goat milk. Lily had even given her a loaf of bread the other day from her machine, and she’d said she’d teach Bailey how to make that, too, so she could take it home with her.
Should she ask Lily today if they could start doing the planting thing? She’d probably forgotten about it, because of Clay and riding horses and everything. Lily never got mad when you asked things, so maybe she wouldn’t care if Bailey asked about it.
She thought about it for a while, about which things would grow the best in pots, and when she went inside for lunch, she pulled her garden book out of her backpack and looked it up. They could try tomatoes, even, she saw, if the pot was big enough. That would be cool. She sat on the floor so Chuck could put his head in her lap, and he fell asleep. He was probably tired from barking so much.
It was warm in Lily’s house, and really quiet. Chuck was snoring, and Bailey leaned back against the couch and kept her hand on him. Her eyes opened, and she read some more, and then she closed her eyes again. Just for a second.
“WOOF!”The noise was right in her ear, and when Chuck jumped to his feet and banged his cone against her face, she almost fell over. It took her a second to figure out what was going on. Chuck had run to the door and was barking some more, and somebody was knocking hard on the door. Bailey shook her head, tried to wake up, and scooched on her bottom over to the window to look out.
It looked like a social worker. A lady wearing a red jacket and a skirt. She was blonde, and Bailey had never seen her before, so she was probably from the county. There was a guy there, too. With a camera. Like for evidence.
She could hear her own breath, even though Chuck was still barking. The lady was knocking on the door again, and there was another car pulling up. An SUV. Like a sheriff’s car.
Social workers. And cops. Bailey crawled into the kitchen so they wouldn’t see her, going as fast as she could. Chuck was still barking back at the front door, and she didn’t want to leave him alone, but she couldn’t help it. She snuck to the back door, crouching down low, then stood up fast and peeked out the window. Nobody back here, not yet. Cops always came to both doors, though, so they’d be coming soon. She took a few breaths, and then she did it really fast. She shoved the door open, pushed the button to make it lock behind her, jumped off the back porch, and ran.
There were more people in the driveway, and she didn’t want to go there, but that was where her bike was. She ran as fast as she could, right up to all the people, grabbed her bike, and tried to jump on it. Her feet got tangled in the pedals, and she fell over and skinned her knee.
A lady grabbed hold of her. She was saying something. Bailey ducked down, and the lady let go. She jumped on the bike again, and this time, she stayed up.
She rode down the hill as fast as she could go. Maybe forty miles an hour. And nobody chased her.
Rafe had no idea what to expect. He hadn’t exactly thought that Lily would be taking him to a sex club, but when the dreadlocked bloke came out from behind the desk and led him into a little room containing a shower, a bench, and a giant white egg, he balked.
“Uh…” he said, eying the handle that opened the egg and hoping there was one on the inside. “What’s it for?”
