Southern Player Page 18

  “I hate that guy,” I say, blood pressure rising. “Her ex. I ain’t never one to wish ill on another. But I can’t say I’ve never imagined feedin’ him to my brush hog. Machine would chew him up and spit him right back out in a hundred tiny, bloody pieces.”

  Eli pulls his lips into an exaggerated frown and nods. Very Silvio-from-the-Sopranos.

  “Farm would be a great place to hide a body. Just sayin’.”

  I grin. “Just sayin’.”

  “Really though. Gracie came into this thing with some pretty big trust issues. But here she is, trusting you. And that’s something, Luke. Enough to make me think y’all got a real shot at this.”

  “At what?”

  He reaches out. Lands a soft jab on my shoulder—the good one.

  “The real thing, dummy.”

  I scoff. The shadow retreats.

  Still too early to tell how things will shake out. But I do want the real thing with Gracie. I wanted it before I touched her.

  Now that I’ve touched her—now that I’ve spent real time with her, now that we’ve had real conversations that went beyond the usual small talk at bars and barbecues—I want her so bad I ache with it.

  Common ground.

  Open minds.

  Trust.

  We can do that.

  I can do that. If Gracie wants to see more of my world, I’ll give her the best I got. Have a little fun with it while I’m at it, too. She’ll appreciate that.

  I’ll show her a good time. Show her who I am and where I plan to go.

  And if I get lucky, maybe—just maybe—she’ll wanna go there with me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Gracie

  Jane woke the morning after the ball with a headache and a heavy heart.

  It was a grey day, cold and blustery. But she needed to walk. Lick her wounds in solitude. So she put on a heavy coat and sturdy boots and made her way outside.

  Jane only looked up when it began to drizzle. And that’s when she saw him.

  Max. Wearing naught but a pair of muddy riding boots and a coat.

  He was coming toward her from across an empty field. Gaze steely. His long, powerful stride determined.

  Her body began to shake. Max drew up before her. The set of his broad shoulders imperious. But his eyes—they were soft.

  “You did not come to my chambers last night,” he said. “I have come to fetch you, as I apparently can’t go more than a day without touching you. Come.”

  He held out his hand.

  A sharp pain lanced her breast as she looked at his fingers, making her draw a breath. Their arrangement could not go on. She was in love with him. And that love would only hold him back. He meant to take Parliament by storm. He meant to change the world.

  And he couldn’t do that with someone so plain and frankly so strange at his side.

  “I will no longer be visiting you,” she managed, throat welling with emotion. “I am afraid I must end our arrangement. I do not belong in your world.”

  His eyes went wide. “But I don’t understand. Have I not made you feel welcome? Do you not feel like you belong in my bed, having been invited there night after night?”

  Jane tried to swallow. She couldn’t.

  “Let me go, Max,” she whispered. “I’m begging you. I cannot help you make your dreams come true. You deserve more than—”

  “Than what?” he snapped.

  She searched his eyes, her vision blurring. “Than me.”

  I hit the volume knob on my stereo with the flat of my palm, killing the audio.

  As deliciously angsty as that scene was, the scene I’m currently looking at through my windshield is just plain delicious.

  A big green tractor is crossing the gravel driveway in front of me.

  Driving that tractor is a hairy, hot, shirtless farmer.

  Luke raises his hand. A simple, stationary wave. Like this is a regular Saturday night occurrence here at Rodgers’ Farms.

  He’s wearing those jeans I love. A pair of dusty boots. A backwards baseball cap and aviator sunglasses.

  No shirt. Just pecs and biceps and a deep, even tan that tells me he rides around half-naked on this tractor more often than not.

  I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. Happy tingles running up and down my sides like fingertips.

  A hit of heaviness settling between my thighs.

  Rolling down my window, I lean my head out. The smell of diesel tints the air.

  “How’s the throb?” I shout.

  Luke motions to his lap. “Why don’t you come find out?”

  Pompous ass.

  I’m smiling so hard my face is gonna break.

  “Follow me back to the house,” he shouts back. “We’ll go for a ride.”

  He turns the tractor around, movements easy, lanky almost. Muscles in his arms bunching as he turns the wheel and drives the tractor up to the house.

  I follow a little bit behind, my view partially obscured by the dust the tractor’s enormous tires kick up.

  Luke pulls up in front of his house. I park where I did last time, beside his truck on the other side of the house.

  The tractor engine idles, a deep throb throb throb, as I climb out of my car and look up at him.

  Wrist draped casually over the steering wheel. Those thighs straddling the seat. Hair curling out from underneath his hat.

  I have witnessed sexy baseball player Luke.

  Sexy manwhore Luke.

  Sexy older brother’s best friend Luke.

  None of those Lukes hold a candle, however, to sexy shirtless farmer Luke.

  I’m smiling because he’s hot and he’s having fun. But also because he’s so clearly in his element. The guy is beaming down at me. Scruffy and happy.

  He holds a hand out to me. “Climb on up.”

  I take his hand—warm, dry, calloused—and step onto the little footrest thing beside the back tire. Still smiling, Luke puts his hands on my hips and guides me onto his lap. I awkwardly swing my leg over the other side.

  And then I am on Luke’s tractor.

  On his dick, too.

  Which thankfully doesn’t appear to be hard, although I can definitely feel it pressing against the back seam of my shorts. Impossible not to feel something that big, I guess.

  No hiding it.

  His hands are curled around my waist now. Thumbs slipping under my shirt and rubbing small, firm circles on my bare back.

  Feels nice. Really nice.

  Luke presses a scruffy kiss to my neck. Right above my tank top.

  “Hey, baby.”

  Despite the heat, I shiver.

  He has a way of making my body feel painfully alive.

  I turn around to look at him. Our faces close. He smells good. That Ivory soap, freshly showered smell of his.

  I’m smiling again.

  “You really had to go shirtless, huh?” I say, flicking my eyes over his bare chest.

  “Yup,” he replies. “What good is a farmer if he don’t ride his tractor without a shirt on?”

  The engine is loud up here. We have to shout over it.

  “Fair point,” I tease.

  He looks at me for a minute. I look back.

  Feeling brims between us. I swim in it. Heart skipping.

  “You look really pretty,” he says.

  My word.

  This boy.

  I lean in. Kiss his lips. “You look like you just climbed out of one of those tractor porns you talked about. Do they really exist, by the way?”

  A deep, rumbling laugh erupts from his chest. “Later, we’ll answer that question together. But right now, you ready for a ride?”

  “Shameless.”

  Luke rolls his pelvis, using the hands on my hips to press me down as he rises up. Hitting me right there.

  Lightning cracks through my middle.

  My breath catches.

  “Baby girl,” he says. “You want me to show you just how shameless I can be?”

  The visio
n appears in my head. Me turning around. Straddling Luke. I unzip his jeans. He’s hard, standing straight up. I guide him up the gap in my shorts. Wiggle my thong aside. Sink down on him. Slow. Hurts a little because I’m sore and he’s big.

  He fills me up.

  Pushes me just when I think there’s no further to go.

  “I see what you’re thinkin’,” he says with a smirk. “But you know if we start, we ain’t stoppin’.”

  “Right,” I reply, eyes on his mouth. “Tour first. Then dinner. Then your stash of tractor porn.”

  “Solid Saturday night. I ain’t mad at it,” he says.

  “Where you taking me first?”

  He reaches down for a knob beside his knee. The engine’s rumble changes.

  “You’ll see.”

  Luke stretches his arms out on either side of me, grasping the wheel. Using his thighs to keep me firmly in place as he eases the tractor into motion. Like he’s done this a thousand times.

  Probably has.

  He hangs a meandering left. We follow a sandy path that runs alongside the edge of a large field. It’s planted with even, neat rows of something small and green.

  I notice there’s not a shriveled plant or weed in sight. Just the soil, pale and sandy looking, and the sturdy little plants themselves.

  I feel that ache again—same as I did the first time I saw Luke’s fields. But this time the ache is sweeter. Doesn’t scare me like it did before.

  Maybe because I’m allowing myself to feel like I belong here. With him.

  Like all this beauty isn’t a precursor to heartache. But to something good instead.

  What a novel idea.

  “Corn,” Luke explains, pointing at the field. “Growin’ a varietal in this field that makes the tastiest grits you ever had.”

  “I know,” I say, turning my head again so he can hear me. “I tried them at Eli’s.”

  “And?”

  I grin. “Tasty.”

  He squeezes my side.

  I squeeze his knee. It’s so impressive. He is impressive. How he pivoted after a shitty situation forced his hand—career-ending injuries will do that—to create something special. Unique.

  Lovely.

  We head through a thicket of trees. Sunlight flickering through the leaves and branches. The earthy smell of water fills the air.

  The trees thin. On our right, a wide, flat river appears. Its surface a mirror that reflects the sharp oranges and pinks of the evening sun. A long wooden dock extends out onto the water, a platform at the end.

  The water sighs softly against the platform, moving it just enough to see. Patches of bright green grass dot either bank. Above it, the sky is enormous. Clear. Lit up with summer and sunset.

  I’m only twenty miles from town. But I feel a world away. I feel…open out here. Like I can breathe deep.

  It is all quiet and pristine and perfect. Carolina low country at its finest.

  The heat of Luke’s skin seeps through my tank. Making me sweat a little. A good kind of sweat.

  Inside my chest the ache sharpens. So much want in this moment. The steady, sure way he wants me—never have to guess or ask. The way I want to be a part of this place and this man and his story.

  I want to choose this. This. The sex and the fantasies and the relationship, too.

  I want to choose Luke.

  Is that all it takes? Is setting fear aside a conscious decision, something we have control over, something we can decide to do and then just…do it?

  I’m starting to think this fear of being hurt, of being rejected for who I am, will linger forever if I let it. Luke’s been nothing but excellent this whole time.

  Patient. Considerate. Communicative.

  If he can’t bring these walls down, no one can.

  No one but me.

  What if I just choose not to be afraid? Even though I am?

  What if I practice it, over and over again? A conscious fearlessness? Choosing that over being afraid?

  In a way, I’ve already been doing that. Telling myself to be brave when I could’ve been careful instead.

  There’s gotta be power in making that a habit.

  The idea is liberating and arousing and, yes, scary. But I let it wander through my brain anyway. Leaning back against Luke, feeling his solid warmth bump along with mine as evening sets in and we make our way around the farm.

  He shows me streams. Fields. An ancient looking red barn and the ruins of an old plantation house that the Union Army burned down during the Civil War. Oaks that are three hundred years old, and a family of herons that lives nearby.

  We circle back towards the house, coming at it from the opposite side we left. But then Luke makes a little turn into a side drive and parks the tractor. It turns off with a growling wheeze.

  “Where are we?” I ask, peering through the trees.

  “You’ll see. Here, stand up for a sec.”

  I do as Luke tells me. He hops off the tractor—I’m reminded of the way Lady Jane admires how yummy Max looks getting on and off his horse, cheekily named Woody—and reaches his arms up toward me.

  Looking down at him, my heart sputters to a stop inside my chest. This. His skin glistening with sweat. Rounded slopes of his shoulders huge and sinewy and reaching for me.

  I put my hands on his forearms—ah, they feel as good as they look—and he puts his hands on my waist. Sets me down on the sandy grass beside him. Hands lingering on my body a beat too long before he nods his heads towards the woods.

  “C’mon. I wanna show you something.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gracie

  Luke twines his fingers through mine. Pulse jumping—brave—I twine back.

  His grip is firm and dry.

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can be brave with this.

  Now that the engine is off, I inhale a deep lungful of air. The air is different out here. Crisper. Cleaner.

  Luke leads me down a path to a clearing by the river. In the middle of the clearing, there’s a building that hovers on the edge of the bank. It looks like some kind of barn.

  The first thing I notice is how old it is. It’s constructed out of wooden slats that are weathered and warped with age. The glass in the small windows is wavy in the evening light—hand blown from what I can tell. Its sloping roof is a bit lopsided.

  But its age—and the quirks that come with it—give the building an almost storybook quality. It’s two stories, about the size of a house, with a big waterwheel on the outside that’s partly submerged in the river. Gigantic oak trees, branches strewn with hanging moss, crowd the structure on the other three sides.

  The building could definitely use a little TLC. But there’s something special about the whole thing. It’s got patina. A sense of history and place.

  There’s a story here.

  A thought that’s confirmed when I glance at Luke and see the look on his face. He’s taken his sunglasses off, tucking them into the front pocket of his jeans, and his hands are on his bare hips. His eyes rove slowly—lovingly—over the building.

  The pride in them is clear as day.

  “It’s beautiful,” I say. “What is it?”

  Luke turns that pride on me. My stomach dips.

  “It’s a grist mill,” Luke replies. “Place where wheat and corn and the like are ground up into flour, grits…that sort of thing. The actual stone mill inside dates back to about 1930. It’s been operational for close to ninety years. Wanna see it?”

  I grin. “Hell yeah I wanna see it. I eat a lot of grits. Like. A lot. But I have no clue how they’re made. And yours—Luke, your grits were the best I’ve ever had.”

  Luke returns my grin, and for a second I feel like I could fly. “You know how much I love me some grits done right.”

  Cannot.

  Stop.

  Grinning.

  “What?” he says.

  I dig my teeth into my bottom lip. “Are you an overachiever in everything you do?”

  He shrugs. Eye
s lighting up with that cockiness I know so well.

  “It’s not worth doin’ if it’s not done right,” he says.

  He opens the building door and motions me inside.

  “After you, Gracie girl.”

  My heart flutters as I step inside the shadowy interior of the mill. Immediately I’m hit by a smell that’s both sweet and savory. My stomach grumbles in approval.

  “What is that?” I say, inhaling.

  The old wooden floor muffles Luke’s booted steps as he moves to turn on the lights. “That’s the corn. Smells good, don’t it?”

  “It’s delicious.” I put a hand on my belly. “So delicious it’s making me hungry.”

  I look around the building. It’s all one big room with a high, vaulted ceiling and clapboard walls. A complex-looking contraption, made of wood and what appears to be a stone wheel, dominates the space.

  “That’s the mill. It’s where the magic happens.” Luke crosses the room to stand in front of it. “When I was lookin’ at properties, I knew I wanted something old. Whatever grits I was gonna make, I was gonna make ’em the old way—stone ground, between these two big stones here, you see?” He points to the round-shaped stones. “Stone ground grits are way more delicious than any of that processed crap big companies sell. They’re richer. More flavorful. The texture’s heartier and more satisfying. They’re better for you, too. Lots of fiber and protein. The grits I make here are made the same way grits were a hundred years ago.”

  I look up at the mill, totally in awe. “They’re living history.”

  “Exactly,” Luke says. “I wanted ’em to be as natural as possible. No preservatives. No fancy shit. Just good grits done the old way.”

  I meet his eyes. “Grits that tell a story.”

  “Yes!” Luke says. “So much of our history here in South Carolina is divisive and downright awful. But food—you know, food’s brought people together over the centuries. Same way it does today. It tells a story, yes. But it also creates community. It gets people interacting. Talkin’. Sharing. Shit that’s more important than ever right now.”