A Date with the Other Side (Cuttersville #1)(46)
Author: Erin McCarthy

It occurred to her that maybe a tiny piece of Boston was just a wee bit jealous of her relationship with Danny. The thought thrilled her more than it should if she were a decent sort.

“Then there had to be something,” he insisted. “Did he leave his dirty underwear lying around? Hang out drinking with his buddies too often?”

“No.” Shelby ran her fingers over the fringe of her denim cutoff shorts. She’d put these on hoping they’d get dirty. “Love between eighteen-years-olds isn’t always enough five years later. That’s all. Nothing mysterious or complicated or worth writing home about.”

She wanted to be swept away, not tussled back into her past.

Boston didn’t say anything, just took a left turn when she pointed in that direction, but she could just about feel him thinking. He wanted a real reason, like infidelity or screaming arguments, or irresponsible spending habits.

Sometimes it was both simpler than that and much more complicated.

She hit the button to send her window purring down, the thick night air rushing in. “So did you and Amanda ever date?” The question had been on her lips all day and she couldn’t contain it any longer.

But his genuine laugh reassured her. “No. I don’t even really know her. She’s been at corporate functions and flits into the office looking for an advance on her allowance occasionally, but that’s the extent of our relationship. I have no idea why she showed up here.” He shrugged. “Just bored, I guess.”

“Turn here and park, and we’ll walk in.” Shelby rolled the window back up. “You know, there does have to be something boring about getting everything you want just handed to you. But I hope Amanda doesn’t mess around with Howie’s head. He’s just a simple kind of guy, you know, nicer than anything, and eager to please. I’d hate to see her take advantage of him.”

Boston opened his door. “She won’t be here long enough to mess around with anyone. I can almost guarantee she’ll be gone in a matter of days.”

She waited for him to come around and open her door, knowing that’s what he would do. When he opened it, she stared at the buttons on his black shirt and asked, “But Amanda is the type of woman you date, right? Has there been anyone serious?”

Strong hands tugged her out of the car and snug up against Boston’s sculpted chest. “I’m a workaholic. Didn’t I mention that?”

“That was sort of the impression I got myself,” she told his chest.

“I always dated casually. Not enough hours in the day to spend on both a serious relationship and my career.”

“Don’t you want to settle down someday, Boston?”

She felt a casual shrug, nothing more, then he moved away from her.

“Let me get something out of the car.”

Running her hands over the goose bumps that were on her arms for no apparent reason given the temperature, Shelby watched him emerge with a bottle of wine and two glasses. They were flutes from the china cabinet in the White House. He also had a big blanket that looked suspiciously like the bedspread from the yellow bedroom.

But she couldn’t find it in her to protest, not when the very thought of snuggling up on that with him was sending a nice warm sensation slithering throughout her body. “We’ll be able to see the fireworks just perfect from here,” she told him, heading to the edge of the cornfield.

Her uncle owned this farm, so she wasn’t worried about trespassing, and there was a little rise between two fields that afforded a perfect view of the night sky over Cuttersville. Dusk was rapidly falling, and the knee-high corn plants swayed in the soft sticky breeze.

“How’s this?” She gestured to the grassy slope, and Boston gave her such a hot look she glanced down to make sure her br**sts hadn’t popped out of her T-shirt when she wasn’t looking.

“This is beautiful.” Though he wasn’t looking at the field, or the sky, but at her. Just her.

Shelby took the blanket that was draped over his arm and spread it down on the ground, then flopped on her stomach with a sigh. Boston dropped down beside her, the glasses in his hand clinking a little.

“Wine?”

“Sure.” She wasn’t much of a drinker, but it seemed to match the mood. Rich, robust, reckless.

Out of curiosity, she looked at the bottle in his hand, then got annoyed when the letters shifted and jumbled in her head, the French phrasing throwing her off. She concentrated a little harder, but still wasn’t quite sure what she was looking at.

“It’s just a Zinfandel,” he told her, and something about the tone of his voice had her looking up at him.

“I’m dyslexic,” she told him. “Did you know that?” She could tell he did—it was written all over his face—but she wanted to see if he would tell her the truth.

There was only a slight hesitation before he nodded. “Yes, Brady told me.”

Little pain-in-the-butt teenager. She felt the urge to snip Brady’s sapphire spikes off next time he was sleeping. “Nice to know my cousin goes around running at the mouth.”

“Does it matter that I know? That you are dyslexic?” he asked her earnestly.

“No, I guess not.” Except she’d never quite been able to shake her shame off, even though intellectually she knew it wasn’t a big deal, and it said nothing about her smarts. Part of her just couldn’t help thinking that she wasn’t quick enough, high-powered enough.

Boston popped the cork on the wine. “Sometimes, Shelby Tucker, I think you and I have more in common than we ever could have imagined.”

Lust maybe, but that’s as far as she saw the resemblance.

Still on her stomach, Shelby picked a milkweed and ran the tip back and forth over her fingers.

He poured the wine, not looking at her. “I never thought I would ever settle down as you called it. I didn’t exactly have good role models for raising a family.” His fingertips brushed hers as he handed her a glass. “Put me in a boardroom and I have unlimited confidence. The thought of anyone depending on me totally strips me of that.”

“That’s why I didn’t go to college. I didn’t want to fail.” She took a sip of the wine, rolled the sweetness around her tongue. “But you know, sometimes I wonder if failing isn’t better than always wondering.”

“But failing out of college isn’t as detrimental as failing as a husband or father. In that case, you’re screwing up another person’s life as opposed to just your own.”