The Belle and the Beard by Kate Canterbary (carter reed TXT) 📗

No, really, it was actually dangerous. The fire had started when I wandered away from the kitchen to check if he'd arrived home yet. At that point, it was much earlier than he said he'd return but I wanted to see him and couldn't stop looking for him. And then my toaster turned into a fireball because I was daydreaming at the window.

It seemed I couldn't manage Linden and living a safe, fireball-free life at the same time. It was one or the other.

And when he came up beside me, twined his arm around my waist, and flattened me against him, fire seemed like a fine consequence for all the barrel-chested goodness.

"Let's head back. We have about half an hour before we lose the sun."

I dropped my forehead to his chest and let my shoulders sag. "What changed?"

"What do you mean?"

"My note. The one from yesterday, what's changed?"

I kept my face stowed against him as I waited for his response. He took a good, long moment formulating it too, long enough to start me thinking that his notes, his kisses, perhaps they held no meaning. Perhaps this was a bit of fun for him, a game, and—

"I realized I was wrong. Last week. I didn't give you a chance to explain how it was and why you let me kiss you if you were married."

I shook my head but it had the effect of rubbing my face between his solid pecs. "I don't like this new, amenable side of yours. It's confusing."

"Would it help if I threw you over my shoulder right now and carried you back to the truck?"

My belly flipped. I wasn't the kind of woman anyone threw over their shoulder. No one even joked about that sort of thing with me. "You wouldn't."

"I would. I'd smack that ass while I had the chance too." He drew his hand down my spine to settle, once again, on my backside. "You were in my shower. All week. Do you know how many times I turned around? How many times I almost went home? How much I wanted to walk in there and, fuck…just watch?"

The hard shaft nudging my thigh suggested the number was greater than zero. And that wasn't the worst thing in the world. "Why didn't you?" I asked.

"Because we'd established the rules and I wasn't about to break them until I knew you'd want me breaking them. Until you were ready for me to break them."

So precise.

"I never pay much attention to rules. I look for ways to get around them."

He smoothed his hands down my sides and back up. "That's a solid argument for me to respect them even more."

"You might be right."

I hadn't been desired—not in a non-sexually-harassing way—in a dreadfully long time. I'd stopped believing I could be desired like this.

But that was one stop too far on the self-discovery train.

I wanted it, I wanted Linden's interest and attention. And I wanted to be pressed up against trees and kissed silly, to be playfully kidnapped, to be thrown over his shoulder, to be smacked on the ass. Though I couldn't experience any of those wants until my world stopped spinning. I'd just now—this afternoon!—turned clear eyes on my life and I had to understand what I was seeing before I allowed it to get blurry again.

"We're losing the light," Linden said. "And god forbid you get your shoes muddy. We better go."

We untangled ourselves from our embrace and walked side by side back to the main trail, our hands linked. Linden pointed out birds and commented on the trees, which were young or old, healthy or declining, native or non-native. He didn't seem to mind that I was only half listening. He might've been giving this guided tour for that exact reason, considering he rarely spoke more than necessary. With every murmur and nod I offered him, another newly distilled realization sounded in my head.

You only stayed in that job because you didn't know what else to do.

You stayed because Timbrooks let you do whatever you wanted.

You stayed because you didn't want to start over, didn't want to work your way up all over again.

You stayed because you felt important there.

You stayed because you wanted to prove to your family you were better and smarter and more capable than they said you'd ever be.

You stayed because you wanted to prove it to yourself. Because you wanted to believe it.

We returned to Linden's house and there was no debate as to whether I was coming inside with him.

There was stew in the fridge, he'd said by way of explanation.

We'd have stew and we wouldn't talk about any of my confessions, I'd decided. Though I didn't say it, Linden picked up that signal without a problem. From the moment we stepped inside, he chattered on about a golf course on Cape Cod he visited frequently because they insisted on planting trees that didn't belong in this region, the baseball game he recently attended with his siblings, and something about neighborhood Halloween festivities.

I leaned against the countertop while he poured the stew into a cast-iron pot to warm and went on about the baseball season and how it was running long this year. Everything he said hit me about ten seconds after he said it, as if my brain was stretched beyond the point of withstanding regular conversation. I knew it was happening because he'd stare at me expectantly in moments when I was due to react or respond but I'd only blink at him.

"What was that?" I asked. "I'm sorry. I didn't catch the last part."

"No worries," he murmured, setting several muffin-y things on a baking sheet. "I just asked if you like popovers."

I pointed at the sheet. "Those are popovers, I take it?"

"Yeah. My mom bakes them whenever she's cooking stew. She believes it to be a symbiotic relationship." He cocked his head to the side, frowned. "Are popovers not