The Last One(46)

I wanted to think about baseball and the tomato plants bursting with robust red fruit and the next Guild meeting. But even though I kept forcing my mind in those directions, it seemed determined to wander back to this morning, and the undeniable softness of Meghan’s lips. The silk of her hair. The scent of her, fresh from sleep, sweet and warm. The heaviness in her eyes when she lifted them to look at me after I’d stepped back, as though I could lay her out on that rock and do whatever I wanted with her full approval.

I should’ve laughed it off and gone in to have breakfast with her. But instead I’d run away and been the first one at the farm stand, putting up with the girls who worked for us when they commented on my snappishness as I took out my frustration on them. All morning, whether I was on the tractor or on the ground, I thought of her. That told me one thing: this was a mistake. Touching her had been crazy.

I don’t know when I decided to go into town, but there I was, in the truck, heading to the school. I knew what time her classes ended, roughly, but there were still kids and moms trickling out of the building when I pulled into the parking lot. I watched, parked in the shade of a tree, until I figured the last of them was gone.

The school office was open, but although I heard voices from within, I couldn’t see the secretary or the principal. I strode down the hall, wondering which classroom was Meghan’s, when the sound of singing reached my ears. It wasn’t necessarily the best I’d ever heard, but I knew it was her; the song was one I’d heard her playing on her iPod around the house. I followed the sound around the corner and spotted the open door.

She was straightening up her desk, packing her bag, and I didn’t think she even realized she was singing. Her lips moved, but it was absent-minded, almost without thought. I took a minute to watch her unawares. She walked around the room with grace and purpose, smoothing back her hair from her eyes. She’d put it up in a ponytail today, and it looked cute, swinging in time with her steps. Her jeans hugged that tempting little ass, but her green shirt looked professional and grown-up. I guessed it was a compromise, with the jeans as her casual, artistic side, and the top her concession to being a teacher.

I knew it was a matter of time before she glanced over and I scared her out of her mind, so I raised my fist and knocked.

She jerked her head up, startled, and then her eyes went soft again and those lips curved into a smile. She circled the desk and came around front to lean against it, crossing her arms, which only served to put her boobs on display. Shit. I couldn’t think like that.

It was true that I’d expected her to argue with me when I told her the kiss had been a mistake. But instead, she only smiled and agreed. She wasn’t mad or upset, at least not so I could tell. She didn’t try to change my mind. And then the next thing I knew, she was practically pushing me out the door and into my truck.

It was annoying when she didn’t act like I thought she should. Or at least like I thought she would. I’d driven back to the farm in a worse state than I’d left it, dropped my pickup behind the barn and switched it for the farm truck, moving fast to avoid running into Ali and having to explain to her why I’d left in the middle of the day to drive all the way into town.

I knew Meghan would be home by the time I ran out of things that could be done away from the house, and I weighed the mixed anticipation and dread of seeing her against Ali’s temper if I missed dinner without a good excuse. Ali won. Besides, why the hell should I let this little redhead keep me from my own house and my own supper? I hadn’t done anything wrong. Or if I had, I’d fixed it by our conversation this afternoon. Now I needed to just get on with it, forget how she’d felt beneath my hands and my lips, bull through the next two months. I could do it.

When Ali brought up dancing, it was easy to say no. I never went to bars, not anymore. Not in years. The men I hung out with were a generation older than me, and we drank coffee instead of beer. Besides, there was no way I was taking Meghan dancing. I knew where that would end. I’d made up my mind that nothing would happen between us, but if I had to hold her close on the dance floor ... or worse, watch while someone else did ... there was no way I’d be able to keep from kissing her again. Better to just stay away from any situations that were fraught with temptation.

I was shocked when Ali announced that she was going out with Meghan instead. And by the time I’d thought of all the reasons she shouldn’t, they were gone, Meghan dressed in some tiny skirt that barely covered her ass, a shirt that made her tits shout, “Grab me!” and fuck-me heels my sister had loaned her. I was left with a sleepy kid, a sink full of dishes and a growing frustration. Sitting out here on the porch might have been cooling off my body, but it wasn’t cooling off the frustration I’d been fighting all day.