Behind the Pines (The Gass County Series Book 3) Read online

  “You don’t think I can unload these bags?” she asked with an irritated puff from her nose, sounding like nothing less than a bull in stampede. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I haven’t said any such thing,” Brody answered, and then enjoyed another juicy bite of his sugary treat, watching her hands firmly on her hips.

  He swallowed hard and didn’t seem too pleased with his own thoughts: maybe liking what he saw, and not being able to stop another comment coming from his mouth to see what her response would sound like? Hopefully he was thinking of dainty Sunshine, naked, pushed up against a wall. He could do that. He could do her. Oh, gosh, where did that come from?

  “Anything else?” she asked, her thoughts so hot she was scared he could guess what was on her mind.

  He studied her once more and she debated if his mind bore any other thoughts he needed to share with her, and he answered, “Not really. Don’t hurt your back lifting, though. Those bags are bigger than your entire upper body.”

  “What?” she asked, and shook her head before letting her eyes land on her chest, onto her breasts. Not even a deep V-neck could accent her cleavage. It was nearly non-existent, and had been since high school.

  “Oh, no! It came out wrong,” Brody gasped, and pushed the last piece of treat down his throat before waving a hand in the air between them. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “So what do you mean??”

  Brody sighed deeply and scratched his cheek, possibly feeling the day’s stubble scratch back at his fingertips. “I meant, I didn’t. . . you know, those.” He nodded at her chest.

  “These? You mean as in my breasts?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess.”

  “I’m quite fond of the size with which I’m equipped, thank you very much.” She breathed heatedly, pulling her jacket together across her chest before deciding to ignore him and continue with the reason she’d come here, to deliver the farm’s flour. Then she could go home.

  “I am too.”

  They both stopped and when Sunshine poked her face above the side of the truck, she was met by Brody’s rosy face and wide eyes.

  “Pardon me, ma’am. You have a good day.”

  Brody’s sunglasses quickly found their way back on his nose, and in just a few seconds she watched him sit down in his cruiser and drive away as if a high-speed chase was taking place and he had to have first place.

  Sunshine shook her head and snorted a laugh before she slid the first flour bag off the bed and to the ground. “Men.”

  Chapter Five

  Not since childhood had Sunshine spent more than a few weeks in one place. The trailer, as shabby and old as it was, had been more of a home these last few months than any of her previous places had ever been. Sunshine’s mother, who’d practiced green living by moving Sunshine around the country in their old, well-used Volkswagen bus, had met her father at a festival the last year of the seventies and shared her abundance of love with not only him but another man in the back of the vehicle. Sunshine was born nine months later in a birth center in Vermont. She never knew her father and when asked who he was, her mother would take her out into the forest and show her the abundance of love surrounding them in nature and say that nature made man, thus Sunshine’s father was the earth. Sunshine had swallowed it then, shaken her head at her mother’s irrational explanation, but found no reason to pursue the issue. She’d never cared to follow the trail further and instead found her own way of dealing with the absence of a father. The commune had been a great consumption of time, and she’d craved the attention of others, as her mother spent most of the time meditating outside at different places around the country while Sunshine waited in the bus or collected rocks and pinecones for imaginary friends, making sure not to disturb her mother’s peace.

  “Brutus, car. Let’s go into town.” Sunshine’s car rolled down the lonely highway, passed the main house of Gert’s farm estate on the right, and continued a few miles down the hill, seeing the brown brick side of the town’s middle school rising above the rolling hills. Something caught her eye and she let off the gas pedal and looked at the quiet forest swishing by outside the window. She stopped the car and placed it in park, knowing there wouldn’t be any traffic to consider. For a few long moments she sat there, hands on the steering wheel, eyes out the window. The forest cradled yet another field of crops, this one smaller, but remained still. The cool breeze hit her face as she rolled down the window. It smelled of nature: damp and earthy. She took a deep breath and continued her way into town, found a parking spot on the street next to Hayley’s salon and took Brutus out of the car.

  A few minutes later she exited the salon’s double glass door, her lungs filled with perfume and hair spray. She turned at the sound of a low rumbling voice at the end of the block and decided to follow.

  “Next time, don’t park in front of a fire hydrant, no matter how quick you decided to do your business in the store. A law is a law and it’s supposed to be followed.”

  She watched Officer Smarty-pants tip his hat at the agitated driver seated in a blue pickup truck screeching out of a red zone in front of the post office. The driver then gave him the finger as he hightailed down the highway.

  “Someone else thinking you’re a jackass?”

  Brody turned slightly and pulled off his glasses, then clipped them onto the top of his shirt. “Thanks for sharing your true feelings, Sunny.” Brody folded his ticket slip and, through the rolled down window, placed it in the passenger seat of the cruiser. “Did you want something, or just did you just feel this was a perfect time for telling me I’m an ass?” he asked, taking off his hat to run his large hand through his short dark hair.

  “Every time I see you, that hand is going through your hair. You better watch it, or you’ll be bald before you’re forty.”

  “Already there.”

  “Oh, you’re middle age? Must be tough.”

  He gave her a glare and placed his hands on his hips, making his wide chest and his strong arms even more noticeable. His hands strong, long fingers. Hands she guessed would feel good on her skin. Suddenly something stirred between her thighs and made everything warm. Her eyes caressed his entire body until she realized he was watching her and staring right back.

  “Are you just going to stand here looking at me like that or is there a reason that you are here?” Brody asked, chewing hard on the inside of his cheek.

  Sunshine coughed and tried to swallow a nervous itch stuck in her throat. “Thanks for not giving me more than a warning about Brutus that day you visited. I understand now how much that would have cost me should I have received that ticket.”

  Brody looked down on the sidewalk. “I’m not sure I heard you right?” The fabric of his shirt brushed the front of her sweater. She wasn’t sure he knew what he was doing, but if he was, he was doing it right: she found it hard to breath and her nipples beaded against the fabric of her bra. She tilted her head and looked up at his face.

  “Just saying thank you, that’s all. Now, I need to be going.”

  She began to walk away, happy she’d made her point, as hard as it had been, for not giving her that ticket that could have risked both her job and current living situation, not wanting to even think how much worse a person could actually live unless it was as a homeless person setting up base under a large bush with the help of faulty plastic sheets and cardboard boxes. She’d dug her heels into the ground the morning she’d had to walk up to the main house of the farm and received a scolding from Mr. Gert himself. She’d apologized desperately to hold her current yet meager employment.

  He’d walked closer to her then, placed his large, warm hands on her shoulders and smiled. “You’re good at what you’re doing, Sunshine, and we’d like to keep you. Just stay away from the law because it would be with sadness I’d have to let you go just because of Brutus.”

  It was one thing to be tough, she’d learned, and one thing to be strong. The two were quite the opposite. “Sunny?” Brody cal
led.

  She stopped. “Yes?”

  “Did you talk to Gert?”

  Her lips curved and she walked back to him, making him take away the steaming coffee mug from his mouth. “I hope this doesn’t give me a ticket.” She rose to her toes and grabbed his brown shirt with both hands and kissed him—not hard, not forceful, but sweet enough to hear his breathing stop for a second.

  Sunshine stood back on her feet. “Almost worth a ticket, letting me kiss you like that.”

  Chapter Six

  “I am too.” Brody’s image spoke back to him in the bathroom mirror. “I am too . . . fuck. What an extremely dumb thing to say . . . out loud.” He spit out the rest of his toothpaste in the sink and smirked at himself in the mirror, remembering Sunshine’s stunned look as the words had left his mouth. He liked what he saw on Sunshine, had since the first day he gave her a warning about her stupid dog running loose. Beneath his touch, those nipples poking hard against the fabric of her shirt would ache for the warmth of his mouth. A hot flush spread up from his core into his belly.

  The green towel at his face felt smooth against his new-shaven skin and he turned back to take a last look at his bare body in the mirror, for the first time in a long time considering what a woman’s opinion may be if he was seen without clothes on. His eyes trailed from his face down his hard chest, down his flat stomach, landing at the bulge on the front of his white boxer shorts. It had been years since anyone had seen him naked, and just as long since a woman’s hand had caressed his skin. With a deep sigh he closed his eyes and let his large hand trace the back of his spine and slide behind the elastic of his boxer to land on his cheek. His fingers traced the long scar cutting through the skin, and he felt every indent the needle had made putting him back together. Why there? A question he often pondered. A place he always used: upon which he sat, to stretch when he moved, a place he liked to have touched when making love. Nothing erotic existed about his naked bottom any longer. The rest of his body might look that of an athlete’s so long as he wasn’t asked to pull down his pants. Last he checked, that cheek looked like something Jaws would had devoured, just to spit it back out and sew it back in place with a dull needle.

  His large hand grabbed the cheek and massaged it deeply, pushing in his fingers until pain pushed back and told him to back off. With the other hand, he braced against the wall and a groan escaped his lungs. Tonight would be the same as any other night when he knew tomorrow didn’t have to be a workday and he’d found a substitute to take his job: two Vicodin and chamomile tea. On that dose he’d be able to get in a good night’s sleep without interruptions of walking through the house, trying to get away from the tenderness of his bottom or sweating through stabbing pain that left him breathless and grabbing hold of his pillow.

  The last thing he remembered as his head fell heavily onto the pillow, the empty teacup resting on the nightstand, was the fierce woman with the long blonde hair that kept interrupting his days and his thoughts. “Damn you, Sunshine. I wish you were behind the clouds and not right in my face.” Fantasizing of her face and what may hide beneath her clothes put a smile on his face. He’d couldn’t believe he’d been fortunate enough to catch her on a day when she wasn’t wearing a bra. He thought fondly of that. Had the jacket just been a bit more open he’d have been able to see the contour of her hard nipples through the fabric of her shirt. He bet they were perfect: perky yet soft, though hardening if his hand were to caress her skin. Unfortunately, the dose of medicine put an end to his hand traveling down his stomach, grabbing his cock inside his boxers, when all pleasurable thoughts vanished, as did the rest of his world.

  * * *

  Something loud came into his dream, as if Thor’s hammer were dropping repeatedly in anger onto dark clouds. Louder and longer the hammer worked. Worked him away from his sleep, from his bed, until he noticed himself sitting up at its side, looking with drowsy eyes down at his feet that used to be two, but now resembled the amount on a caterpillar. Inside his brain, his mind cursed. Cursed the banging that had woken him, though he unable to place its location. On shaky legs he stood up, envisioning the room rotating less, and before taking another step, turned to the hamper along the wall and chucked a nasty vomit into it. His hand kept him from falling headfirst into the bedroom wall while the other searched the immediate area for fabric with which he could wipe his mouth.

  His eyes focused on the bedroom door until his hand reached its handle and pulled it open. The hallway seemed narrower than he remembered and with the use of both hands he bobbed like a buoy down the middle until he reached the foyer: dark and empty, the only light helping him see how to place his feet, one in front of the other, was his grandmother’s metal porch lamp outside the front door.

  He’d found Asgaard; it was here Thor threw his hammer. The sound alone made him watch the door as it moved in sync with every punch to its guts.

  In an attempt to find the door knob, he missed and flicked on the switch to the dim light in the ceiling of the foyer. The second try was a success and he watched as his hand grabbed ahold of the door handle and pulled it in.

  “Wow, so you are home? Gosh, you’d think a stamping herd of cattle would have been needed to get your attention. What took you so long, Smarty-pants?”

  She was only one but looked more like two or three sharing synchronized mouths, speaking excessively inside a bubble. His eyes caressed the length of her body, witnessing the movement of her plump lips, but not knowing what words they spoke.

  Suddenly he heard the word “sorry” and cleared slightly from his state of a drug high and drowsiness. “What?” he slurred, realizing by watching her facial expression she must have caught on to his state of mind. He noticed her eyes squinting at him and her blonde hair blowing in front of her face, covering most of it. He followed her eye movement down his body until he reached his boxers and met her eyes, noting she was still looking at his crotch.

  “I don’t have pants on,” he stated but did nothing to find a solution.

  “I see.” She smiled and ran her tongue under her upper lip, bulging it slightly, making it easier for him to suck on it, should he want to, that is. Which he realized was something he wouldn’t decline.

  “It feels cold,” he said, brushing his hand over his torso, feeling a hard nipple against the palm of his hand and in a second of confusion thought his hand was resting on Sunshine’s. “You want to come in?”

  Sunshine barely made it over the threshold before he slammed the door shut behind her with a loud clunk.

  “Are you okay, really?” she asked.

  At first he wasn’t sure he’d understood her until he followed the trace of her eyes to his crotch again and to his dismay noticed his hand inside his boxer shorts, scratching his junk. “Fuck,” he cursed and slowly pulled his hand back out. “I’m not dirty . . . you know, as in a dirty old man, even though I’m middle aged . . . like you said.” His hand made its way across his stomach until it grabbed his hardening cock once more outside his boxers, and he regretted his previous comment of being dirty. Having Sunshine in the house made him want to do all sorts of dirty things. In bed.

  Her eyes went wide and she looked away for a second, staring at the rows of pictures hanging on the wall of the hallway.

  “Um, no, sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Look, I took two Vicodin and I’m too drowsy and high to give a shit about what I’m doing. I was sleeping when you banged your fist through the door. I’m happy it’s still on its hinges.”

  She turned and smiled sheepishly at him. “I’m sorry about that. You want to sit down somewhere?”

  Her voice, as smooth and golden as the honey with which Pooh was constantly obsessed, he followed her hand’s gesture toward the living room couch. His feet floated across the hardwood before he slumped his large body down on the fabric of the couch, not caring about the itch it created against his bare skin.

  * * *

  “Why are you here?” he asked, l
eaning back against the couch, his head resting heavily on the thick throw behind him. As quickly as he had started talking, he was asleep again, his head tipped back against the couch, arms folded. And what arms they were. Her lady parts purred as she stared. A black-and-white eagle tattoo sat where his hand pushed at his bicep—101st Airborne Division. So, he had been in the air force. Probably why he hadn’t liked her mentioning political groups in the Second World War as a reason not to sign her papers. His brown hair was messy, old gel not helping its unruly state. She’d noticed it before, but really, holy smokes. Primrose Valley’s chief of police was hot. As in throbbing-between-your-legs hot. Her eyes took advantage of the poor man, ogling every visible part of skin. Brody Jensen had washboard abs. Holy smokes. Her fingers could play a tune should they ever touch them, and since she was already there she figured why not let her eyes go a little lower.

  “As, I said earlier. Why are you here?”

  Busted. “Yes, I should probably start with that, shouldn’t I.” Sunshine pulled her loose hair behind her ears and traced her eyes down his entire length of wonderful manliness that was one of Primrose Valley’s finest. Every part of skin as perfectly sculpted as the next. Across the bulge in his boxers down his bare legs and down to his feet. Although the drug had made him drowsy, it must have been impossible not to notice the change in color in her skin, cheeks burning, probably looking more like that of a red tulip than her pale neck. She noticed the sound of the ticking clock on the wall rock Brody to sleep and as another tick-tock fell, so did his eyelids.

  Chapter Seven

  The short hand on the clock had made a full circle and was pushing another half. The living room bathed solemnly in the light from the corner lamp she had left on, not being too familiar with the home’s surrounding. She curled her toes underneath the soft throw she’d found at the other end of the sofa and as she rested in the rocking chair adjacent the couch where Brody’s large frame had sunk deeper into the couch and now snored loudly, closely resembling her own four-footed friend and companion.