Mowed Over (Sonoma Book 2) Page 10

  "I'm basically rubber, Ben. You fucked the bones out of me." He laughs and gives me a cocky smile as he pulls up his jeans and slips his glasses back on.

  I eye him in the dark frames and I'm suddenly less boneless than I was a minute ago. "Wait! I changed my mind!"

  "The glasses?" He asks with amusement. Both of his dimples pop as he grins at me and takes them off, pretending to set them aside. "Should I leave these off so you can control yourself around me?"

  I throw a pillow at him and hit him square in the chest.

  "Oh, you're going to get it now," he says as he leaps on the bed tickling my ribs. I shriek as I roll over and try to wiggle out from under him, but he straddles my hips and holds both of my hands in one of his, tickling me with the other. I'm cackling, laughing too hard to make a real effort to escape.

  "Stop! Please, stop!" I wheeze through shrieks of laughter. "Mercy!" Ben stops tickling me, but he doesn't let me up. Instead, he kisses my ticklish ribs, giving me love bites.

  "Can I feed you breakfast yet?" His smile is huge.

  "If you must, but if you get clothes, I need clothes too," I tell him as I run my hands through his hair.

  "Fine," he sighs. "But for the record, I object."

  I throw on some pajama shorts and a tank top and we head to the kitchen. Ben peeks in my fridge, still shirtless, giving me an eyeful of his muscular back and shoulders. I'm hit with a wave of disbelief that this, any of this, is really happening. I can't remember the last time I spent the night with someone, let alone had breakfast together the next morning.

  "Where is all of your breakfast food?" Ben asks with a laugh.

  "Oh... yeah. I don't really eat breakfast here. I either eat at the bakery or skip breakfast. Sorry," I tell him awkwardly.

  "Well, this won't do," he tells me, grinning as he shuts the refrigerator door. He holds his hand out to me. "Come on."

  His fingers intertwine with mine as he grabs his sweater and leads me out the front door. We cross my lawn, then his, barefoot and half-dressed. It's insane enough to make a giggle bubble up in my throat, even as the cool spring air pricks little goosebumps all over my bare arms and legs.

  Ben tosses his sweater on the back of his couch and parks me at the little dining table in his kitchen with a smiling "Sit."

  He starts the coffee maker and pulls an armload of ingredients out of the fridge. The cold air hits my already chilly legs and I shiver, something Ben doesn't miss. It seems he doesn't miss a single thing about me.

  "Are you cold?" he asks, eyeing my bare legs with marked interest.

  "I'm fine," I say. "I'll warm up in a minute."

  Ben gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe me. "It's ok to admit you're cold." He swipes his sweater back up and puts it on over my head, kissing me on my hair as I push my arms through the sleeves.

  I grudgingly have to admit I already feel better. Normally I'd be salty about being treated like a fragile little flower, but the grin on Ben's face and the look in his eyes makes it obvious that he's enjoying taking care of me.

  "Thank you," I tell him.

  "Happy to," he replies, and I believe him.

  He pours me a cup of coffee and brings it to me with cream and sugar. I add a teaspoon of sugar and dump a ton of half and half into my cup. He watches me and smiles a little half smile before making his cup light on the creamer and a little sugar.

  "Are you memorizing how I like my coffee?" I ask him. I cross my legs and lean back, huffing the coffee fumes and loving the way they mix with the smell of Ben's shirt.

  "Maybe. How do you like your eggs?"

  "Scrambled."

  "Bacon or sausage?"

  "Do I have to choose?"

  "I knew I liked you for a reason." Ben moves easily in the kitchen, happy to cook.

  "I've never had a man make me breakfast. Do you do this a lot?" I joke awkwardly. The words just pop out of nowhere. Why did I say that? Why can't I just have one day with Ben where I don't say something stupid?

  "Make a woman breakfast? No ma'am. I've never cooked for a woman before. Unless you count my mother or sister." He grins, locking eyes with me until the bacon pops and he has to jump back.

  "I'm sorry, I have to ask because I just don't understand. How the hell are you still single?"

  Ben's dimple goes so deep that I swear you could use it for a rock-climbing grip.

  "That's an easy one. I don't go out much. I dated around a bit, but nothing serious. There was nobody I really wanted before you."

  "So you don't go around fingering random women on kitchen counters?" I ask with an arched brow.

  Ben chokes on a sip of coffee and coughs, thumping a fist against his chest before answering. "God, no! Just you."

  That shouldn't make me as happy as it does, but my chest constricts, my heart thumping, so pleased at being the only one he wants.

  If he was anyone else, I'd struggle to believe him. I think about the way he bandaged my head so carefully and the way he consistently puts me first, both in bed and out of it. He's made a real and visible effort to take care of me, and that lights a tiny spark of hope in a part of me that has been dark for a long fucking time. I know I don't trust easily, but for the first time in my life, I truly feel like I can put my faith in someone besides my siblings and my grandmother.

  Jesus, this is a lot to process before coffee.

  "Where did you get your photos?" I ask him, gesturing at the prints that cover his walls.

  Ben grins at one of the photos as he plates our breakfast on two plain white plates. "My sister, Ella, is a photographer. She sends me a print from each assignment. You'll like her. She's a free spirit and much like your grandmother, she has the mouth of a drunken sailor."

  Ben puts a plate piled with fluffy scrambled eggs, sausage and crispy bacon in front of me before leaning down to kiss me sweetly.

  I may not know where this is going, but I want more of it.

  Chapter 23: Ben

  We finish breakfast and Lilah insists on helping me with the dishes. Something has shifted between us and it’s more than just sex. Lilah opened up a chink in her armor last night and I get the impression that was really big for her. I grew up in a stable home, unless you count my antics, so it’s hard for me to imagine what it would be like to lose one parent only to be willfully abandoned by the other.

  Knowing what I know now, I’m not surprised that trust is a difficult thing for her. I meant it when I said she could trust me. She opened herself up and even if it’s just a little crack, I’ll keep showing her, day after day, that this is something special.

  When we finish putting the dishes away, I don’t want to let Lilah go but she insists that she has to get ready for work at the bakery. And since I can’t exactly kidnap her and keep her as my sexual hostage, I walk her back home and kiss her at the front door.

  "See you tonight," I tell her.

  "Are you asking or telling?" she replies.

  "Telling," I say with a wink.

  "Ok," she says smiling up at me as she stands on her tiptoes to kiss me.

  I nearly let her go before noticing something amiss behind her.

  "Is the door open?" I ask her.

  She turns and presses a hand against the panel, and it swings open freely. I'm positive I heard her shut it behind us when we went to my house this morning. As my mind races with (mostly) rational explanations, an ominous chill creeps up my spine. And even though I know it's probably nothing, I can't let her go inside alone.

  I move Lilah behind me and step inside, looking carefully for anything out of the ordinary.

  "Wait out here," I say. "I just want to check everything out."

  "No way," she says as she follows me inside. "You'll probably just raid my panty drawer."

  I can't help myself. I turn and blink at her, completely caught off guard.

  I know she's just trying to tease me, but I'm half frustrated at her for making light of a potentially dangerous situation and half in awe of her smart mou
th. Her face is pale. She looks scared, but she pushes past me and reaches into the coat closet, producing a wooden baseball bat. She hands it to me and I'm about to thank her before she dives back into the closet, coming out with a metal one. Holy shit, she’s awesome.

  "Nice," I tell her appreciatively.

  She shrugs but gives me a smug little smile as she waves her finger back and forth between the bats. "Asher and Lukas. There's pepper spray in my purse from Julia."

  We walk from room to room, looking behind every door, checking every closet, under the bed and even the attic. Infuriatingly, Lilah refuses to stay behind me, ignoring the fact that I have a foot and a half and 120 pounds of muscle on her.

  Like everything else about her, I find her stubbornness adorable. I'm pretty sure she'd take a swing at anyone that threatened me right now, and I would straight up love it.

  Lilah scoops up a bored looking Frankie as we pass by her cage and when we don't find anything disturbed or any unwelcome visitors, we both relax. Not completely, but enough that Lilah takes the baseball bats and puts them back in the closet. Her brow is still furrowed, and she jumps when she turns the corner and sees me.

  "Are you sure you're ok?" I ask her.

  "Yeah, fine," she replies. It's the least convincing thing I've ever heard her say.

  "I'm going to stay while you get ready."

  "You don't have to do that. I'm ok, really."

  "I'm staying," I tell her again. She shrugs, but the little lines between her eyebrows smooth out. I'll do anything to make her feel safe and hanging out at her house for half an hour is no hardship. She pulls on my arm, making me bend down so she can kiss me on the cheek before going to shower and get changed. I look at her bookshelves while I kill time. For someone who doesn't do relationships, she sure has a shitload of romance books.

  My mom always had a bunch of the old school ones lying around growing up. My sister liked to find the dirty parts and read them aloud to torture me. I don't know how I'd forgotten that. I smile to myself as I run my fingers along some spines with women in fluffy dresses.

  Going down a shelf, I pull out a paperback at random and snicker at the cowboy on the cover. He's shirtless, with a Stetson pulled down low, covering his face. I grab another book and there's a shirtless man wearing glasses in front of a library background. "Stud in the Stacks" is scrawled across the cover. Both books are worn in and I flip to a page that has a scrap of paper sticking out like a bookmark.

  My eyes nearly bug out of my head. God damn, that's dirty. I read three more pages before replacing the scrap of paper and closing the book with some solid ideas for the future.

  Lilah appears to have her books organized by genre, rather than author. There's an entire shelf dedicated to cowboys and another for a bunch of shirtless nerdy guys. I laugh out loud, not because I'm judging but because this is awesome. I fit both stereotypes.

  I'm appreciating the clever titles when Lilah comes around the corner. She's showered, changed into light jeans and a red t-shirt and she's towel drying her long hair with a fluffy gray towel. That denim is doing the lord's work, highlighting every curve from her hips down to her calves.

  "Sorry, that took a min--" she interrupts herself as she looks at the two books in my hand and makes a choked squeaking sound.

  "I think you have a type," I say, laying on my accent extra thick as I hold up the cowboy and hot nerd books up on either side of my face. Now that I know she's got a thing for cowboys, you can sure as shit bet I will use it to my advantage.

  "What are you doing?!" she squeaks, racing over to snatch the books out of my hands.

  I chuckle and hold them out of reach as I bend down to kiss her.

  "I kind of love this about you. These are dirty as hell."

  Lilah's cheeks go from pink to scarlet. "Did you read those?" she asks in a strangled voice as she eyes the copy with the makeshift bookmark.

  "A little. Just the highlights, really." I watch her face as she tries to recall what the scrap of paper marked, and her eyes go even wider.

  "Can I steal this one?" I ask her, holding up the cowboy one. "I might need to bone up."

  She groans at the pun and snatches the books from my hands, placing them back on their shelves.

  "Stop teasing me. It's not nice." Lilah scowls at me and I see from the crinkle in her forehead, I've hurt her feelings. I wrap her up in a hug, resting my chin on top of her head. She stands still, her arms at her side.

  "Hey, don't be upset. I wasn't teasing, Princess. Well, I was teasing a little, but I do want to read it. If you don't want to share, I'll order my own copy."

  Lilah sighs and hugs me back. Her arms sliding around my waist is just about the best feeling ever. Just about.

  "Fine, but don't start with that one. You have to start at the beginning." She untangles herself and grabs another book off the cowboy shelf. She slaps it into my palm and shakes her head, lips pursed as she gives me a wide-eyed, dubious look.

  "I doubt you'll like it."

  I kiss her and tuck the book into my back pocket. "We'll see. Just don't tell anyone about this." I give her a wink as we head to the front door. She grabs her purse and phone from the table by the front door, but not before I see an alert on her screen for four missed calls from an unknown number.

  The worry I felt when we found her front door cracked creeps back in. I don't want to worry her unnecessarily, but something still feels off. I walk Lilah to her Jeep and kiss her goodbye, trying to hide my concern for the phone calls.

  I head back inside my house, and pause just inside the front door, trying to decide what to look at first. Security cameras win out. I check the footage for the time that Lilah was here for breakfast. Unfortunately, the angle is all wrong and I can't see any of Lilah's front walk, much less her driveway or front door. All I can see are cars driving by.

  "Fuck," I mutter to myself.

  I turn my front camera so that it's pointed at her house. I'm torn. I know I should tell her I'm surveilling her house. The problem is, I don't know how to explain the high-tech cameras hidden in my bushes without telling her the truth about what I do. Normal people don't have military grade cameras with motion sensors in their front yard.

  I need to figure out the best time to tell her about my extracurricular activities while I'm at it. Shit, I thought this would be easy.

  Chapter 24: Lilah

  It’s been three days since we found my front door open, but I can't seem to shake the feeling that someone is watching me. I can't help but wonder if I'm just being paranoid because my brothers think someone tampered with my Jeep. It's been two weeks and I'm starting to wonder if they overreacted. It wouldn't be the first time they got overprotective.

  I skip down the front steps of a French bistro on Main Street. I've been cold calling restaurants all over Sonoma, handing out samples of Olive Branch Coffee beans and sales sheets. I've had three calls and two in-person orders and it's only 11 am. I am in a great mood. My phone buzzes and I'm hoping for another order, but the text message I get is even better.

  Ben: What do you want for dinner? I'm thinking Pad Thai and a movie at my place.

  Ben: P.S. I finished that book and I’m looking for my cowboy boots...

  I can't stop the grin that splits my face. Ben gets me. He keeps joking about taking me out on a real date, but I love staying in with him. I've spent every night with him, bouncing back and forth between his house and mine. Lord. If he finds cowboy boots, it’s all over for me.

  Me: Yes please!

  I've been working long hours every day at the bakery. Between helping Olive with classes, prep work, and getting the coffee business cranked up, I'm bone-tired by the end of the day. Spending the evening curled up on the couch with Ben sounds like heaven. I'm so lost in my thoughts I turn the corner without looking and crash into someone.

  "Oh, hey Lilah."

  Terry. Mother. Fucking. Terry. Of all the people in this town I could bump into, he might be my last choice.

 
"Excuse me," I say coldly before looking back down at my phone and trying to sidestep him. He doesn't take the hint, choosing to follow me down the street.

  "You and your sister are selling coffee now, right?"

  I don't respond to Terry's question. I don't work for him anymore and I don't owe him a goddamn thing. I haven’t seen him since I left the bar, and I haven’t spoken to him since the night I put in my notice. His response at the time was somehow even more disgusting than I had expected. "I’m just glad I won’t have to watch you slut it up with the customers anymore." Dickbag.

  "If you need to make some sales, I could help you. You should come by the bar one night. We might be able to work something out," he says in what I'm sure he thinks is a smooth voice.

  The very thought of working with him again, in any capacity, makes me shudder.

  "No thanks," I say before opening the door at my next stop and shutting it in his face. I'm early, but I'd rather browse the little gift shop for 15 minutes than be anywhere near Terry for another 15 seconds.

  ***

  The rest of my day goes by in a blur. A very successful blur. I've got half of the restaurants in town switching over to our coffee, and most of the gift shops are placing orders to carry it. Tomorrow I think I’ll drive up and down the valley, hitting all the wineries that have gift shops. I hum happily to myself as I drive back toward the bakery. The weather is amazing, so I take the top off of my Jeep. The wind catches my hair, and I breathe deeply. Sometimes it’s good to savor the good.

  "Shut the fuck up!" Olive squeals when I tell her how well the cold calls went today. "Holy crap. We might need to hire some extra help to handle the packaging and roasting."

  My sister is practically vibrating with excitement. We make plans to look at the budget and post a help-wanted ad in the next day or two and then I head out, eager to get home and start my evening with Ben.

  I'm halfway home when I hear a rattling coming from the undercarriage of my Jeep.