A Date with the Other Side (Cuttersville #1)(38)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Let the damn cow have it.” He stopped and grinned at her. “Here, I’ll get that.”

Gentle fingers worked the straps into a loop. “Is this too tight?” A soft kiss fell onto her neck.

“No, it’s fine.” And Shelby shivered, because Boston was many things that she’d never expected. He was funny and kind, and he was responsible for her feeling that maybe there wasn’t all that much wrong with her sexually.

Maybe she’d been too young when she’d married Danny. Maybe she’d worried too much about having an orgasm, thought about it all the time, and once she’d relaxed with Boston, things had happened naturally.

Or maybe she was falling for him in a big, big way.

She couldn’t go home with him tonight, she realized as they walked down the dusty road, the orange sun sinking in the western sky. Not when she was raw and excited and all too willing to tumble herself into something she couldn’t get out of. She had no barriers from him right now and she knew she needed some.

“Hey, Boston, I just remembered I’m supposed to pick up Gran’s car tonight at the garage.”

“Okay. I can drive you there, then we can go pick up those condoms.” His eyebrows rose up and down and she was sorely tempted.

“Not tonight . . . I wasn’t thinking . . . I can’t.” She didn’t want to lie, so she didn’t offer any more than that.

He looked like he knew exactly what she was doing, given the serious way he studied her. But he just asked, “What about tomorrow? I’m going to a picnic at a coworker’s, can you come with me?”

“I have a family picnic I have to go to, at my mom’s and her boyfriend of the month.”

There was a long awkward pause during which Shelby brushed at the seat of her shorts self-consciously as they walked.

“How about tomorrow night, then? We can just get a movie, hang out together.”

She should say no. But she couldn’t. She wanted to be with him and that was the whole darn problem. So she just said, “Sure. Sounds good.”

Then because he was silent and the awkwardness was her own fault, she tried to lighten the mood as they turned onto Gran’s street and strolled toward the Yellow House. “See, I told you things happen when we’re together.”

It was meant to be a joke, but Boston took her hand and dragged her to a stop before Gran’s front porch. “Oh, I never doubted it for a minute. There’s all kinds of things happening between us.”

Before she could think to even think, he took her mouth in a soft but passionate kiss that left her lips trembling and her heart quaking. It was over before she could catch her breath, and he was tapping her rump and urging her toward the house.

“Go in the house, Shelby Tucker, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Since she couldn’t think of a damned thing to say, her mind a jumbled mass of confusion, she just nodded and did as he suggested.

When the front door closed behind her and she leaned against it, breathing in the lemony pine of Gran’s wood cleaner, she closed her eyes and folded her hands across her br**sts. “Damn. I think that ant-size attraction I felt for him has grown to about as big as an elephant behind.”

“You say something, Shelby?” Gran called from the kitchen.

“Just thinking.” That she was totally and completely screwed.

Jessie sat in the kitchen wondering if she was suffering from the onset of Alzheimer’s. What the hell had she been thinking to rent one of her houses to a woman who was very likely her granddaughter’s stiffest competition?

Boston knew it wasn’t Shelby knocking on his door at the crack of dawn. Shelby would never bother to knock. She’d stroll her sexy little self into his house using that key he’d had visions of wresting from her on several occasions.

But when he woke up on the Fourth of July to pounding downstairs, he was thinking how nice it would have been if Shelby had used that key, slipped into his room and into his bed . . . complete with a box of Trojans and some slutty black underwear.

He’d tried to hold on to the fantasy, but the pounding persisted. Stumbling out of bed, Boston pulled on the wrinkled jeans from the night before and headed down the stairs. He didn’t bother with a shirt, and thought of how much money he was saving in dry-cleaning bills. Half his time in Cuttersville had been spent without a shirt on, thanks to Shelby and the lack of air-conditioning.

Boston tripped over the fringe on the deep blue rug in the foyer, but recovered before he clipped the wall. The bell pealed again.

“What?” he said in annoyance, yanking open the door, fully expecting to see Brady Stritmeyer blowing smoke in his face.

It wasn’t Brady.

It was a tall, lean blonde, wearing a denim skirt that was about the width of a stick of gum, along with spiky sandals and a pink skintight shirt that said SO JUICY across her br**sts. Enormous sunglasses tinted pink were shoved up on her thick blond hair and she smiled brightly.

“Amanda?” Boston said in astonishment. Even a dead cow licking his hand wasn’t quite as unbelievable as seeing his boss’s daughter standing on his front porch in Cuttersville, Ohio.

“Hi, Boston. Long time no see.” Amanda Delmar leaned forward and kissed his cheek with a light airy movement, then slipped her skinny body around him and into his house.

“What a . . . surprise.” Boston turned around, his mind not quite wrapping around the concept of Amanda, a spoiled, albeit intelligent, socialite popping into Podunk. “Is Brett with you?” He peeked out to the driveway, almost expecting to see his boss.

Amanda laughed, spinning on her toothpick heels. “Of course not! And my father’s just going to freak when he finds out I’m here.”

Without waiting for an invitation, Amanda went into the parlor, touching tables and peering at the lace curtains. “This place is sort of cool in a stodgy esoteric kind of way. If you’re into the antique-y thing.”

Her voice left no doubt that she wasn’t one of them. But Boston had no comment, still feeling slightly poleaxed.

“So, are you visiting?” Cuttersville? That was about as likely as someone swinging by a nuclear power plant just for kicks.

“Yes.” Amanda smiled again at him, a calculating practiced smile that made him want to edge back out the door. “I came to visit you. If I’d have known you were staying in this big old house by yourself, I would have just stayed here and saved myself some cash.”

“Where are you staying?” he asked, heart suddenly pounding. Something was wrong here. Someone was not making sense. There was no logical reason for Amanda, who spent her days shopping and her nights partying, to travel four hundred miles to see him.