The French doors opened behind us and my mother popped her head out. “Garrett, honey, can you move your truck? I need to run up to the Piggly Wiggly and you’re blocking the garage.”
“Sure thing.” I couldn’t get up fast enough. I raced around the house to the side gate to the driveway, smiling when I saw Molly at her VW. “You’re leaving without saying goodbye?” I teased as I hopped inside. “Wait for me. I have to move my truck real quick,” I said through the open window.
“Oh, okay. I sent you a text. We’ll set up dinner tomorrow.”
My mother stepped onto the porch. “Oh! Am I interrupting you two? Don’t stop making plans together on my account!” She giggled. Molly quickly opened her car door to toss her purse inside as my mother crossed over the lawn to hug her and probably ask her a few intrusive questions while she was at it.
“Don’t worry,” I mouthed behind my mother’s back as Molly glared at me. I twisted the key and to my dismay, the engine wouldn’t turn over. My truck was an old 1972 Chevy Cheyenne I’d bought in high school I couldn’t bring myself to replace with something new, no matter how much trouble it sometimes gave me.
My mother opened my door and shooed me out of the cab. “It’s time for a new truck. This one is too unreliable and not safe for you to be running around town in. What if you ended up stranded on the highway? The cell signals are spotty way out there. You could get eaten by a bear! I won’t have it. Molly will drive you home and I’ll get your daddy to take care of this. We’ll have it towed to the Winston Brothers’ garage first thing in the morning. Everett or Barrett will pick you up for work if we don’t go truck shopping before it gets fixed. Go on, get in her car. Scoot!”
“What’s happening?” Molly asked, her face full of alarm. I knew she didn’t hear. Mom was facing me and talking so fast that I barely understood her.
“Can you give Garrett a ride home, sweetie? His truck won’t start,” she shouted from the porch.
“Oh, uh, sure. I can do that.”
“Yay! Goodnight, y’all!” With a wave goodbye, my mother turned to go back inside the house.
“I’d appreciate it,” I told her after my mother went inside the house. I didn’t want to take advantage of her, but I really wanted to get away from her brothers and the family gossip that we’d been drowning in.
Chapter 7
Molly
How did this happen? Yeah, I know, truck breakdown, I can’t hear for shit, yada yada yada. But in terms of fate, kismet, stars aligning in the universe and crap like that—how? I was already having trouble resisting his sexy self and now here he was, too tall, too broad, too hot for my own dang good, slouched over in my tiny Beetle while I drove him home to his secluded and most likely romantic cabin in the woods. It was probably adorable and charming, and if it was even one tiny bit whimsical, I would be in unimaginable amounts of trouble.
Damn it! I was so screwed. I stupidly thought that dinner with our families would get us back to normal and put an end to this swirly-whirly crap happening between us. Turns out: not so much. I wanted to jump every bone in his body.
“Turn off on that road. Do you see it?”
I squinted in the glare of an oncoming car. “You mean that tiny gap in the trees? That one by the mailbox?” I pointed as I slowed down and turned my signal on, just in case.
“Yup, turn there.” He pointed too, causing our fingertips to brush together. Ugh! Damn zing-tingles. No more touching. I pulled my hand back like I had touched something hot. Huh, I kinda did. I smiled to myself as I turned the wheel. My tires crunched over gravel as we passed a sign that read “Private” to travel down a narrow tree-lined road straight into the forest.
I switched my brights on because yikes. It was as spooky as it was beautiful. I mean, I watched the X-Files. Serious shit went down in forests and one could never be too careful. “You live in a serial killer’s paradise, Garrett. No wonder you can’t sleep at night.”
He chuckled next to me, low and rumbly. “It’s peaceful out here,” was all he said.
“Yeah, I’m sure it is . . .” The thought of driving out of here alone after I dropped him off freaked me the eff out. Maybe my car would die halfway out of the woods and an ax-murdering yokel would hack me to death in my VW. And if not, there were always aliens to worry about. I could almost hear the whistling of the X-Files theme song in my head. I so did not want to believe.
“We’re almost there. See the light up ahead?” He pointed again.
“Yeah.” I followed the road toward the light. But there was really no other direction to go in unless I wanted to drive up a dang tree.
“Just pull in front of the cabin when you get there. I never use the garage.”
“Okay.” The tree line widened on either side of the road as the light in the distance grew brighter.
Then I saw it: the most adorable place ever. It was like driving into Hansel and Gretel—a totally adorable house surrounded by spooky-as-heck woods, where you just knew a whacked-out cannibal witch was waiting to shove you in her oven to cook you and eat your foot with a bottle of merlot or whatever.
If I kept my eyes out of the murder forest, Garrett’s cabin was beautiful and serene. It was made up of stacked, rounded logs and topped by a gently sloped green corrugated roof. A wraparound porch held big wooden planter boxes stuffed full of red roses, while forest brush, ferns, and even wildflowers were dotted about in haphazard, patternless beauty to surround the small front lawn. It was simple and charming with one door in the middle and one window on either side. The cabin’s covered porch glowed from a strand of fat-bulbed lights that were strung from one side to the other. This entire property was whimsical AF. All that was missing was smoke coming out of the stone chimney and maybe a few cute Disney-style animals prancing about. Dammit.
“It’s adorable! You even have a porch swing!” I accused. Flinging out a hand, I smacked him lightly on his impressively hard chest. “Ow, that hurt.”
“Well, hitting isn’t nice now, is it?” he teased.
“Whatever. This place is the cutest. Did you build it?”
“Of course I did.” I glanced over at him as I pulled to a stop in front of a lighted post set halfway between the house and the small garage. He had shifted to sit against the door with one hand on the dash and the other arm across the back of his seat to watch my reaction. There was just too much of him to look at; he overwhelmed this small space. He overwhelmed me. I huffed out a sigh and exited my Beetle to get away from him and gather my rapidly escaping thoughts about why I couldn’t just take what I wanted and attack him.
My sandals crunched through the gravel toward his porch as I shivered against the chill in the brisk evening air. “It’s cold.” I jumped at the sound of his door slamming behind me.
“Let’s get you inside, then. I’ll start a fire.” A fire, right. Get even more romantic, why don’t you?
“Ugh! Okay,” I yelled, quite unsure of where my attitude was coming from. “Start a fire. Offer me some freakin’ tea while you’re at it.”