Keeping Up Appearances (A Gass County Novel Book 4) Read online

  He swung open the door and the morning breeze hit him in the face creating goose bumps across his bare arms and he regretted not having put on a sweater before heading out, but he was too excited to see and know who was moving in just a mere sixty feet from his front door. A new playmate for him and his group of friends, hopefully.

  The moving truck stood tall but short and as he rounded it he found the space inside almost empty except for a white kitchen table turned upside down at the back of the truck and four white chairs with soft wooden curves as a set.

  “Thank you for your help. You can just place it in the living room!” The voice caught his attention and with coffee still in hand he rounded the next corner of the truck eager to greet the new owner of the house.

  “No shit.” His cup of coffee shook and a few hot drops of brown liquid made it down his thigh and through the fabric of his sweatpants. In pain he patted his thigh and looked back up at the woman staring at him in the same way. In frustration.

  He took a deep breath and swallowed a few times before he began once more. “Sorry about the outburst, it seems like we need to work on our greetings a bit more. Don’t you think?” he smiled and crossed over bags of clothing items, pots and pans. “Welcome to the neighborhood, Valerie. You just so happen to be my neighbor. And to answer the shock in your face, yeah it is true.”

  With that he smiled, took a sip of his coffee, and headed back around the truck and into his house. As the door closed behind him he wasn’t sure if he wanted to scream in anger or dance in happiness.

  “Valerie,” he muttered and turned to stare out the narrow side window by the front door. The truck was gone on the other side of the street and there she stood, still in her front yard, lifting bags and this and that from outside and in. “If my life wasn’t hard enough trying to forget you and here you are ruining all future plans. Playmate for sure, not just something I’d share with the rest of my friends.”

  ***

  Oh no! Her mind screamed. This cannot be happening. Yet, as she took in the dark two-day stubble on his jaw, fine lines around his eyes and that typical smile of his she weakened. Damn him for doing that. Meeting him here, it couldn’t have gone worse.

  “What?” he’d asked, sipping his coffee, his eyes meeting hers over the mug in his hand. They were smirking. Smirking eyes, if there ever were any. He most certainly knew what he did to her, the bastard.

  She’d studied him, all tall, hard, and absolutely gorgeous. His coffee cup had lowered and the smile she’d seen in his eyes spread to his lips, slow and sure.

  “What?” Valerie had asked, feeling both annoyed and . . . well, damn hot and . . . turned on.

  Bryce had looked at her for a beat, and then stepped into her space, her personal space she rarely let anyone cross into. Much too close for comfort, crowding her up against the cool wall of the moving truck. She’d prayed the movers would come out and intervene, yet begged them to stay the hell away a little bit longer. This was embarrassing, she’d thought fighting to keep her control, yet wonderfully hot.

  “You know, you truly do, I can give those thoughts in there a break.” His thumb had slid slowly across her forehead. There was no doubt in her mind. He knew she was getting weaker by the second and pressed his mouth close enough to her ear for his warm breath to tickle her skin. “Just say the word, Valerie. I haven’t forgotten about Brazil. You know where to find me.”

  As if life didn’t give her enough adrenaline kicks already, Valerie closed the front door behind her. New job, new house. Definitely new neighbors. New, yet . . . broken in. The top of her ears heated at the thought of Bryce and Brazil and she clasped her hands over them, willing the heat and her thoughts to go away. Neither did, so she plugged in the coffee maker in the kitchen wall and brew herself a cup of coffee, third cup of the day. Anxiety flared when it hit her stomach.

  “It’s needed, Humpty.” The cat purred at her hands on the counter top, swishing his tail at the sound of his name. “You’re a handsome guy, you know that right?” His fur felt smooth as silk under her hand and sitting where he was, on the charcoal counter stone, he seemed as if emerged from its depths. A sharp claw dove into the skin below her thumb and she retracted. “Gotcha, too much love can kill you, right?”

  Her windows had yet to be adorned with curtains and the house felt bare. There was nothing to hide behind should neighbors look out their windows in her direction. And thinking of the devil, Valerie threw herself away from the window and ended up slammed flat against the wall as she watched Bryce walk outside to work on what looked like the motorcycle she’d seen him driving outside the clinic. A man and his bike, she thought as she sipped more of her hot coffee and with one eye peeked out from the side of the window to watch what he was doing.

  He was still just as magnificent as she’d imagined him all those days since he and his friends had left Brazil and her hut behind. Tall, lean, featuring a broad chest her hands had once discovered held more muscles than his shirt would reveal. In her mind she could still trace the path from his pecs deliciously dusted in dark brown hair down his taught stomach and into the waistband of his pants. Seeing him this casual like nothing had ever happened between them made her rethink if it had been real or one banging hot dream.

  “Oh, no,” Valerie heard herself answering, and she bit her lower lip at the memory. “It was real, for sure.”

  Maybe she should go over, make a better first, or was it maybe third greeting with the man. A man who she didn’t yet know, but still had had inside her pants. Inside her.

  “This is stupid, Humpty. I’m not a teenager anymore, I’m an adult. An adult who has her own clinic, has traveled the world, and sort of has her own house. I can talk to a man.”

  She wrapped her sweater tighter around her torso and walked out the front door determined to speak to Bryce, awkward as it was.

  Valerie was about to cross the road, gathering enough bravery and strength to exchange a few words with the man who had her mind and heart in a twisted tangled web. Funny how being civilized and keeping up conversation suddenly seemed more intimate and intimidating than exploring the very same man’s bare skin in a tight space. Not many words had been exchanged then from what she remembered. Much more action . . . so much more . . . dear god. A drop of sweat seemed to collect at her back and she could swear a glimmer of perspiration coated her face in a nano-second as the thought flew like a jet plane through her synopses. Her ear remembered the echo of Bryce’s exhale as he had entered her in one hard push and her knees felt like goo.

  Her feet hit the curb and she locked eyes with Bryce across the street when a shiny beige Mercedes rolled up to the curb and stopped a few feet away. The driver’s door opened and a woman looking like Nancy Reagan in a soft colored pantsuit, white pearl ear rings and light brown loafers exited the vehicle, fluffing her raspberry blond bob as she waved.

  “Mom?” Valerie asked, watching the younger man more her own age straighten his shirt smiling shyly as he exited the passenger seat and walked up to greet her.

  “Dear, Valerie,” her mom gushed and hugged her awkwardly with a quick embrace. Arms like tree branches, stiff enough to break in the wind.

  “Mom, what are you doing here?”

  “I just had to come visiting now that you are back in the beautiful world that is the United States of America, where everyone has a phone and most are clad in appropriate clothes and doesn’t farm wild animals in the jungle.”

  She turned to the man standing awkwardly behind her. “This here is Larry, from our church, Youth Pastor to be, and I thought what better time than now to introduce you two as I’m not expecting any weekly visits from you. Being a working woman, being all busy and what not.”

  “Mom, I . . . ” Valerie looked over the road. Bryce stood at the side of his bike wiping his grimy hands with a white rag which looked browner with each swipe of his large hands. As he did the white t-shirt hugged his biceps slightly, a large black tattoo representing their local fire brigade on hi
s arm and Valerie sighed in trance. He was obviously not driving to work as she had thought, instead he’d have to witness this.

  “Valerie, my name is Larry Connors, 38 years old, never married.”

  Valerie turned and without thinking mumbled what was on her mind. “Thirty-eight and never married, that’s old. Being religious and all shouldn’t you have married early like most church-goers do?”

  “Valerie!” her mom gasped and Valerie realized she might have spoken out loud what should have been kept inside.

  Across the street a faint laugh was heard and she turned to watch Bryce nod in her agreement while down on the ground next to his bike polishing something at its bottom. That specimen of a man did things to her insides she had little to no control over until her mom interrupted her thoughts of indecency.

  “Valerie, I must say,” her mother gasped and ushered the man in beige back to the car. “When you come to your senses you make sure to apologize to not only me but to Mr. Connors as well. This was . . . ” she stopped and swallowed, “a slight mistake. I expected more from you.”

  “Visiting your daughter is a mistake?”

  “Don’t take it personally, we’re both adults.”

  “Mom?” Valerie called as both doors on the car closed and the shiny vehicle rolled away from the curb and continued down the narrow road until the turn came and Gaston Mills’ yellow Victorian cut off the view of the car.

  The street changed. It was calm and she had forgotten why she had come outside in the first place. That was until she turned her gaze from the street and across to Bryce’s driveway. “Oh, give me a break,” Valerie cursed as the man had taken off his shirt in the cool fall breeze for absolutely no reason. “What motive could there possibly be for that,” she said and shook her head.

  “Did mom leave?” Bryce called, a mischievous smile playing on his lips before he pulled an old stained overall from behind the bike. Valerie thanked the above from the distraction of bare skin, hard man nipples, and a six-pack she had once traced with her tongue. She gulped.

  She took the step across she had planned for but kept being halted. The few steps across and onto his driveway seemed like miles yet she wanted to get over there quickly.

  “My mom is a very nice person, really. She just tries too hard to be nice. To everyone.”

  “Sounds like someone I know . . . she also likes for you to have a nice type of beige boy. Church-goer and never married from what I heard. A pure, virgin type of man.”

  “Yeah . . . I’m not really into that anyway.”

  “What are into then?”

  “Oh, you know, the regular,” she said and felt the heat index on her ears raise to nuclear limits.

  “Like what?” Bryce got up from the ground and yet again wiped the grease of his hand into the white rag. She watched his hands moved with the fabric, how the muscles on his arms worked in sync with what he was doing. Marvelous. “Yes?” he interrupted.”

  “Guys who are the opposite of corduroy pants, church-goers, and virginity. A little bit of . . . not what my mom thinks I need.”

  “A biker who has been engaged, drives a Harley, and prefers to be nude?”

  “Nude, you? I’ve never noticed that?”

  “How I look in the natural state . . . oh, you know that very well.”

  She had memories of him bare ass naked bathing in a tub of fragrant herbs to keep her happy. And really . . . there was true happiness to be had having seen Bryce without a strand of fabric on his 6’2, lean muscled body. Her dreams were maxed out after that view. Something to sigh over, and then get hot over. And then . . . do something about to relieve the itch.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What, what?”

  “You’re looking at me . . . funny.”

  “Am I?” she pushed a strand of lose hair behind her ear. “I was just looking randomly out in the vicinity,” she answered and busied herself with every piece of lose thread or scraps of papers or lint her fingers could find in her pockets.

  “Really?” Bryce looked around the empty road and then back at her. “Whatever you say.”

  Valerie swallowed hard and felt the heat rise up her body and the widening smile on his face told her he liked it.

  ~ Chapter Eleven ~

  Every day Valerie worked herself into exhaustion, hoping patients would notice her work ethics and stay put. Word by mouth was the best way to keep and build her clientele. Some days it was easy to shine. People would drop by with a baked treat, a bunch of flowers, or a nice homemade thank you note signed by a dear feline or canine of the family. Rarest greeting yet: handprint of salamander wishing her luck and giving thanks for help passing a stone. She felt rewarded, just like a good doggie, with lots of yummy treats and praise.

  On other days, however, it would be cloudy. When a storm rolled in no one felt like venturing outside for impromptu check-ups, and she knew when a rainy week was ahead in the forecast she had to place an ad for price reduction on a treatment to get people moving into the clinic. Whatever worked for survival. The show had to go on.

  Valerie chewed her fingernails sore and stared at the pile of insurance forms in front of her, certain her already weary eyes would soon pop a vein. Being back in civilization and the American everyday grind were things providing to be similar to what she had once left behind for South America. That and her mother’s religious motives. But instead of thinking of every single paper and every single signature that had to be signed her mind fell onto the subject she tried her hardest to avoid: Bryce - with the very kissable lips and the chest of stone and marvelous skin.

  It was time to leave the office space behind and head home for the day, nothing here would hold her occupied but papers that could wait for tomorrow. Maybe she’d take them home and sign them over a cup of hot lemon tea and some Hersey kisses before her eyes would die down for the evening. She grabbed hold of her steel thermos and swallowed the rest of the now cold coffee knowing the day still had a few hours of sunlight before it vanished behind the rounded green hills.

  Valerie let her shovel rest against the wood siding of the front wall of the house and she wiped her brow clean from sweat and possible soil she’d just arranged in neat piles around each miniature Rosa Sweet Dream along the house. “Curb appeal is buy appeal.” Not that she planned on moving. She didn’t have enough money yet to put down a twenty percent deal on a house so she’d settle for renting and knowing the realtor made things easier when she wanted to spruce up the house into a home.

  “Almost done, Humpty.” Humpty sat as a fat, puffed up statue on the red brick walkway leading guests from the sidewalk up to the front door and gave a big yawn of “I don’t care” before he turned on his spot and curled up into a large black pile of hair.

  ***

  Bryce had never met a woman as outspoken as Valerie. She called it like she saw it. Sometimes spewed advice no one invited. Guess some things hadn’t changed since they met in Brazil. In a way he preferred that to what stood next to him, although utterly perfect in everyone’s eyes, Marlene and Sandy wanted to be treated like a dainty flowers. Valerie crushed flowers under her shoes as she plowed through life. He didn’t want to be the one if her way. He wanted a piece of that.

  He watched from his car window as he pulled into the driveway: a cat napping contently in a tight ball of fur on the bricks on the front lawn. Bryce grabbed his jacket from the passenger seat and walked out for a greeting.

  “Good day!” he said as he walked across the road.

  “Jeez, you scared me!” she gasped and clasped her heart. He would like to grab her in that region, too, he thought, cupping two very soft, large mounds.

  He smiled and pushed his hands down his front pockets and watched her eyes follow the movement to his crotch. He also watched her cheeks turn a nice pink color as she knew she’d been caught. She was damn cute that way. Bossy on the outside, soft on the inside . . . something to unwrap and dig into.

  Her blond stick-straight hair had develo
ped bend to it as though those amazing curls he’d run his fingers through that one amazing night had grown weary of being forced into submission. He wished she didn’t try so hard, he’d grown insatiate with the way her face had looked after they’d both came apart in each others arms. Sweaty, smiling, relaxed.

  Missed her, damn it.

  “Looks like you have things going for you over here,” he said and pivoted at his heels looking around the yard. “Any plans? Seeing the beige bible-boy later?”

  Valerie puffed out in disbelief of his obnoxious questions before she replied. “I’m doing well, thank you, and it’s none of your business who I see.”

  “Well, it kinda is so I know if it’s a good thing to ask you the next question,” he continued.

  She stopped what she was doing with her hands and looked straight at him. Dirt on her face and all. Cute.

  “What?” she shook her head with irritation.

  “You see, I need a side-kick, someone to come with me on a trip. I am not in any way interested in anyone else than you. So, are you available this coming weekend? One night with my group of friends and their significant others. No strings attached, just be my plus one. Hayley at the hair salon is bringing her dog.”

  “It’s very soon. This weekend you said?”

  “Soon? It’s like five days away,” he answered in shock. “That’s plenty of time to plan for a short getaway. It’s only one night. I really don’t want to ask another person, another woman. They might think I’m on to something . . . romantic. And also . . . you've already almost spent a night with me.”

  “Well, that makes me feel special.”