“What position you want?”
“Quarterback.”
“Nice.”
I sat next to Deacon on Milagros and Manuel’s couch, watching this exchange between him and Esteban, thinking he actually was the Supreme Leader of the Badasses. This was mostly because, when we arrived fifteen minutes ago, Esteban started his inquisition and hadn’t let up and Deacon had answered every question, but half of them he answered without answering.
“Cállate, Estito, with you asking so many questions, Señor Priest hasn’t even been able to take a sip from his beer,” Silvia remonstrated.
She wasn’t wrong.
“Be nice, mija,” Manuel gently rebuked.
Her cheeks got pink, her eyes skittered to Deacon, they got pinker, and she looked to her lap.
Silvia had a crush on my man.
Not surprising.
“John,” Deacon’s deep voice filled the room and Silvia looked back to him. “Your parents are okay with it, girl, you can call me John.”
Silvia’s eyes went to her dad. So did mine. Manuel smiled and dipped his chin down.
Silvia looked back to Deacon and said timidly, “Okay, John.”
Deacon smiled at her.
Her eyes got huge and then dropped back to her lap.
I swallowed a giggle.
“Cassidy,” Milagros said like she was about to make an announcement. Pushing up from the couch across from us that she and Manuel were sitting on, she ended on an order. “Help me in the kitchen.”
She needed no help in the kitchen. She needed to give her friend/employer a talking to about this boyfriend-out-of-the-blue business, seeing as all the time she’d spent at the cabins since Deacon returned was time I was with Deacon so she didn’t have time to do it before.
I gave big eyes to Deacon, his lit with humor, and I let his hand go (a hand I took; he was back to no PDA, though he did sit close to me on the couch, but this could have been because Esteban wedged himself beside Deacon). I squeezed his thigh then got up and followed Milagros, who was already heading to their tiny kitchen.
Milagros cleaned my cabins and she had two other houses in town she also cleaned. She’d had a business that was going pretty well, it allowed her to work and bring in needed money while the kids were at school, be at home when they got out. Then the recession hit and she lost five clients. That was when she went looking for work and I took her on.
Even though I gave her work and it was work she was good at that she liked because she could do it on her schedule, they were far from rolling in it as their lovely, but small (and especially small for seven people) house attested. Manuel worked as maintenance for some office buildings in Chantelle about thirty miles away. The pay was decent but the commute was a bitch, on time and gas.
But pay had to be freaking awesome to take care of a house and five kids.
Decent meant every penny had to stretch.
They didn’t complain. They just worked, did their best with what they had, loved their kids and each other, and were good friends to me.
In other words, they were the bomb and I was fortunate Milagros drove down my lane looking for work, and not because her doing it gave me free time.
What I didn’t know was at that moment, in her kitchen, she was going to prove that thought absolutely correct.
She stopped well away from the door and I came to a stop a couple feet in front of her.
I opened my mouth to speak but she got there before me.
“He stays with you.” This was an accusation.
“Uh…yeah.”
“Querida, you’re not married.”
I pulled up all my thirty years in the face of a woman who was only a few years older than me but reminded me of my mother on more than one occasion, except scarier.
“No, we’re not,” I replied firmly.
She held my eyes and nodded sharply, letting that go, and saying, “You’re very beautiful and he’s staying with you. Which means he doesn’t have to pay for a cabin.”
I fought back a smile. “You think he’s taking advantage of me.”
“He doesn’t touch you.”
Sheesh, she noticed everything.
“He’s not into PDA,” I explained.
“PDA?”
“Public displays of affection.”
Her head cocked to the side as she noted, “This is odd for a man like him.”
“Just saying, Manuel isn’t into that with you either,” I pointed out.
“Of course not, I’m the mother of his children,” she said and I was surprised she did that without gasping in shock that I’d suggest such a thing out loud.
Again, I fought back a smile. “Was he into PDA when you met?”
She leaned in to me, holding my eyes, “John Priest is not Manuel Cabrera.”
She could say that again. Not that Manuel wasn’t attractive and sweet, he just wasn’t a huge, hot guy, badass.
She looked to the door then to me and I didn’t like the expression on her face when I regained her eyes.
“I have a bad feeling about this, Cassidy.”
I didn’t like that either.
“Milagros—” I started but she shook her head.
“He’s very handsome. He’s good with the children. He’s respectful. But there’s just something…” she paused, took a breath, and finished, “off about him.”
At that moment I vowed that my next best friend was going to be blind, deaf, and learning disabled.
I got closer to her. “Honey, he’s a good guy.”
“You seem certain.” This was said in a way that shared she was not.
“I am.”
“How?” she demanded to know.
“Because he fixed my gutters.”
She leaned back. She got that. I’d been going it alone for a long time, but more, she knew there weren’t many men who would fix their new girlfriend’s gutters.
“And he thinks I’m the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, and he’s told me that,” I continued. “Often,” I stressed. “He likes my cooking. When he was away the last time, he didn’t eat or sleep on his way back and it took two days to get to me.”
She pulled in a soft breath at that, but I wasn’t done.
“Because he likes sitting on my porch with me. Because he listens to me when I babble and when I say that, I mean he listens to me. Because, when I talk to him about the cabins, he gives good advice. Because, when I have a situation at Glacier Lily—which he was there during what happened a couple of months ago, honey—he’s present but he doesn’t take over. He lets me run my business and defers to me. Because he knows I can take care of myself but he’s made it clear I need to budge on that because the man he is, he can’t not take care of me. Because he’s beautiful. And because I feel like I conquered the world just when I make him smile, but when I make him laugh, I feel like I could do anything.”
“You’re falling in love,” she said softly.
“Yes,” I replied softly.
She held my eyes then did the sign of the cross, put her fingers to her lips, looked to the ceiling, and started talking to God in Spanish.
Since God was multi-lingual, I let her deliver her message, standing there quiet while she did.
Finally, she stopped talking to God and looked back to me.
“If he travels, how can he be there to take care of you at the cabins?”
Suffice it to say I wasn’t falling in love with Milagros. I’d fallen, head over heels. Her concern that was based in love and affection was one of the many reasons why.
I got closer, took her hand, and pulled it up between us.
“He does what he does and I have to let him do it. I can take care of myself when he’s away and I know you worry, but I can. I have been for six years. But it’s nice to know that he’ll be back to help me with the gutters. I haven’t had that, Milagros, ever. And I really, really like it now that I know just how good it feels.”
“And this is okay with him?” she
asked. “Leaving you to take care of yourself?”
“No, that’s why he bought me pepper spray—four cans —a Taser, a stun gun, and a dog.”
Her eyes widened at that. “He bought you the dog?”
She knew about the dog. I just hadn’t told her that Deacon got it for me.
“He paid a fortune for a pure breed, wouldn’t let me pay him back because he says, if it’s something he has to do to feel better about me being safe when he leaves me, I gotta let him do it.”
Her gaze drifted to the door again. “Maybe I’m mistaken about him.”
I hoped she was.
“He makes me happy,” I told her on a hand squeeze and she looked back to me. “He makes me happy in a way I didn’t know you could be happy and we’re just starting. Now all I’m left with is wondering how much better it can get, and trust me, Milagros, that’s what I’m wondering because he’s given me absolutely no indication it’ll go the other way.”
She held my hand fast. “I hope you find out, Cassidy.”
I hoped I did too.
I grinned at her and gently shut it down.
“You don’t need any help in the kitchen, do you?”
Her brows snapped together in affront. “Of course not. Everything was ready thirty minutes before you knocked on the door.”
“Can I set the table?” I requested.
“Done,” she denied.
“Fill water glasses?”
“Silvia and Esteban will do that.”
“Mop your kitchen floor?” I teased.
“What do you think I did in that thirty minutes before you knocked on the door?” she asked.
I stared at her in shock. “Seriously?”
“You don’t have guests with a dirty kitchen floor.”
That was when I smiled at her. “You so rock, I wanna be you when I grow up.”
“I think you’re growing up just fine, being you.”
Yep.
I’d fallen for Milagros.
Head over heels.
“Okay, now you’re gonna make me cry and that’d be all right normally, but I’m wearing mascara.”
Her gaze moved over my face. “I’m uncertain how God feels about painted ladies. I’ll ask Padre at mass on Sunday.”
“Keep me in that loop.”
She rolled her eyes.
I again squeezed her hand. “You need to feed me or I’m gonna pass out.”
Her eyes rolled back only to roll again on her “So dramatic.”
“No, seriously,” I lied.
She let my hand go and declared, “You can do something for me. Go. Tell them to get to the table. Dinner is being served.”
“You got it,” I muttered and moved toward the door.
I got two strides in before I heard, “Cassidy?”
I looked to my friend.
“Whatever happens, Manuel and I are always here.”
I felt my face go soft as my lips tipped up.
“Have I said you rock?” I asked.
“You have,” she answered.
“Well, you do,” I whispered.
That was when her face got soft.
Then she bustled to the oven.
I strolled out the door.
* * * * *
When we arrived back from dinner at Milagros and Manuel’s, I was experiencing such intense conflicting emotions I was surprised I didn’t split in half.
On the one hand, I was delighted to know that Deacon was right. Outside my conversation with Milagros in the kitchen, the rest of the evening had gone great. Manuel seemed to warm to Deacon, probably because Deacon had all the time in the world to give attention to the kids who all seemed fascinated with him. After our talk, Milagros either decided to give Deacon the benefit of the doubt or she got better at hiding those doubts. The kids just thought Deacon was the bomb. Since the food was great and conversation flowed, the night was a success.
On the other hand, before we left for dinner, I’d been outed as someone who wanted to try bondage and Deacon had said straight up he was into it, intimated he was good at it, and this meant sex was going to get even more interesting.
I couldn’t believe that was even possible.
He’d also said he was going to tie me to the bed that night.
I was excited and I was totally terrified.
So by the time we walked up the steps to my house together, holding hands (this time with Deacon taking my hand), dinner with my friends was not on my mind.
Deacon making me immobile and seeing how hard he could make me come was.
My thoughts consumed with this, I was taken off guard when I let us in and Deacon closed the door, grabbed my purse and keys, tossed them on the registration book, and backed me right into the wall.
Then, in the dim light we left glowing in the foyer, he dipped his face to mine.
“Vanilla.”
“Sorry?”
“Woman, you’re wound up so tight, it’s a wonder you don’t snap and ricochet around the room.”
I stared at him.
“Do you vanilla,” he stated. “You’re ready to play, you either say it or find a way to communicate it, then we play. But I’ll say this now, when that happens, you might be the one who’s takin’ what I got to give, but you’ll also be the one leadin’ it. You get me?”
I got him.
And what he said made me a lot less terrified.
Then again, that was Deacon’s way.
“Yes.”
“So tonight, vanilla. You sleep on what I said. Find your time. Call it. Or don’t. I got what I get from you naked, I’m happy either way.”
I was thinking he got better every day too and was about to tell him that when he spoke again.
“You good with that?”
I nodded.
“Right,” he muttered. “Time to see if that bra has matching panties. Then take them off.”
Before I could utter a noise (or, more aptly, fully experience the quiver in my nether regions), he pulled away but dipped low, hit me in the belly with his shoulder, hefted me up, and carried me up the stairs.
An hour and a half and three orgasms later, I had further proof “vanilla” with Deacon was magnificent.
I still was looking forward to “play.”
Chapter Twelve
Life Was Sweet
The next day, late afternoon, after gutter work at the cabins all day (thankfully, the previous owners took better care of their cabins than their house, meaning the gutters had been cleaned sometime in the last decade; regretfully, some of them were in a sorry state and needed replacing), I was standing in the cereal aisle of the grocery store with Deacon.
I had grabbed my oatmeal and was perusing the other selections, bored with oatmeal and wanting to give some excitement to my mornings, not to mention giving Deacon time to pick whatever he wanted, when I asked, “Why is cereal so freaking expensive?”
I received no answer.
Then again, this had no answer since Deacon probably didn’t know.
I still looked his way, or what I thought was his way, except when I looked that way he was not there.
I turned my head the other way to see if he’d gone back down the aisle.
No go. He wasn’t in the aisle with me.
Damn the man!
Teeth clenched, I put my hands to the cart, pushed, rounded the aisle, and found him four feet into the next one.
I shoved the cart in, stopped, planted my hands on my hips, and as his head turned my way, I declared, “Fruit stand.”
He smiled, big and white, the grooves around his mouth deep, the crinkles at his eyes fanning out.
“Do not give me that hot guy smile I’m thrilled beyond belief I’m able to give you, Deacon Deacon,” I snapped. “We had a badass/ornery chick understanding.”
“I was an aisle away, woman,” he pointed out.
“Fruit stand,” I returned.
“You want me to make the only meal I know how to make that’s any good???
? he asked.
“A break from cooking would be welcome,” I said by way of answer.
“Then I need to be in this aisle to get the shit.”
“Is your recipe a secret that you’ll have to kill me if I discover the ingredients therefore I cannot be with you when you get them?”
He didn’t reply, but he did smile again.
I kept going.
“Don’t take this as me being a clingy, psycho girlfriend. I’m not a clingy, psycho girlfriend. I’m a talker. I talk. A lot. And it makes me feel stupid when I say something and find out I’m saying it to no one.”
His smile faded and he said quietly, “Point taken, Cassie.”
“Good. Now, is there any cereal you want in the house?”
He shook his head.
“Right,” I continued. “Carry on with your selections.”
I pushed the cart around him but didn’t get past him when an arm hooked around my belly and I was stopped.
I could feel Deacon’s heat at my back and his lips at my ear where he asked, “You my girlfriend?”
“Yes, just not the clingy, psycho variety, though I am the ornery, stubborn variety,” I replied and just got it out when his arm gave me a tight squeeze.
He liked that (well, the part about me being his girlfriend, he liked, though I had a feeling he liked the ornery and stubborn bits too).
He didn’t say it out loud, but he said it.
He let me go and turned back to the shelves.
But I liked what he said but didn’t say.
So I headed to where I needed to be, five feet away, where the canned diced chiles were located, and I did it smiling.
* * * * *
I sat with beer in hand resting on the arm of my Adirondack chair, Deacon beside me, our bare feet up on the railing and tangled, the only sounds in the gathering dusk those of the river rushing by.
In other words, life was sweet.
“Seriously, I’ve never had tacos that delicious,” I remarked to the trees.
“Told you it was good,” he replied.
“You did say that, but you didn’t say it was great.” I turned my head his way to see he was looking at the trees too. “How did you get the tortillas to do that?”
He looked my way. “Woman, you saw me fry ’em.”
I did indeed.