All I Want Is You (A Chester Farms Novella) (18 page)

But she pulled away. His touch fell from the warmth of her skin. He fisted his empty hand against his side and found himself in the same place with her: wanting, but never having. He couldn’t do this either. “You’re right. We shouldn’t have even started. I shouldn’t have ever touched you then.”
Or now
.

She stared at the ground and, damn it, all he wanted to do was touch her more. Get her to look at him so he could stare in her eyes and search for answers.

If he could somehow cup her face and turn her up to him. If he kissed her again, today, would she feel differently? Could he make her feel how he did? Make her hands tremble, cause her breath to catch and have her believing her heart couldn’t be contained in her chest? God, it was tempting to try. He stuffed both hands in his pockets instead. All this time, he’d thought he’dgotten over her. “After we went out a couple times, I realized that. I let it go too far before breaking it off. Maybe if I had stopped us sooner, none of this would have happened.”

That got her attention. Clearly, he’d already walked into saying the wrong thing by the way her gaze snapped and met his. That wasn’t the look he’d wanted to see. Her eyes were narrowed. Lips tight. “Right. Maybe so. I have things to do.”

“Kara.”

She continued walking away. That maddening sway of her hips in cargo shorts fired up his blood with equal parts frustration, anger and sexual need. That was something he’d seen before too. Often her walking away had ended with her in John’s arms and that chaffed.

Even knowing better, he opened his mouth. “Kara, I have to know why.”

She looked over her shoulder. “Why what?”

The questions that burned in his mind for so many years stopped in his throat. She didn’t know? Didn’t have a clue how she affected him, made his insides twist with want until he was aching and always unfulfilled.

He forced out the words. “Why did you change after we broke up? You were a sweet girl and then...and then...” He couldn’t say what over half the community had said. “And then you weren’t. You changed. You turned your back on Whitney. There was John. Then you just left.”

Tears welled in her eyes. Her lower lip trembled.

Hell
. “Kara.”

She ran and he let her go like he should have done the first time. He groaned and sat against the tree trunk. That probably wasn’t the way Whitney had wanted that conversation to happen. At the slamming of what could only be Kara’s car door, he pushed off the tree and headed for his sister who was now at the top of his shit list for dragging all this out.

He stalked through the house, turned into her office and found her. It could be like any other day. She sat studying a sheet of paper and then typing on a computer. This was no normal day. “What in God’s name were you thinking?”

Whitney looked up. “What?”

What?
No, she could run that innocent act past other people, not him. She knew exactly what. “How dare you bring her here without asking me first?” “Don’t be so self-centered. I can’t imagine what it took for her to have called me in the first place. Of course I couldn’t say no.”

“Yeah, you could have. We don’t owe her anything.”

She stacked several sheets together. The tight curls of hair surrounding her face bounced with her jerky movements. “We’ve been friends with Kara since we were all in diapers. I’m surprised you have your panties twisted this much because I offered my old friend some work.”

No. He hadn’t been friends with Kara since he gently told her they weren’t working out. Neither had Whitney. “This is never going to work.”

“It’ll work fine when you get over yourself and realize you’re not The Awesomist.”

A groan rumbled through him and he dropped in a chair. “I don’t think I’m
The Awesomist
, whatever that is. Kara is the one with the problem.” Because it sure as hell wasn’t him. Was he the one who changed everything after they broke up? No.

He raked his hands through his hair. He wasn’t going to explain to his sister he’d been hard as hell on every date with Kara but she didn’t feel the same. That when he’d pulled her in close she’d go stiffer than a brick. That if he kissed her, she quickly laughed with unmistakable nerves while pulling out of his arms. It was like being whipped every damn time and he couldn’t stomach it anymore. “You should have ran this by me first.”

Her hands fisted. “I didn’t think you’d agree.”

She was right about that. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to be here.”

“Too bad. Contracts are signed. It’s been a long time. I know she changed back then, but I’m confident she’s different now.”

His jaw hardened. “She changed” put it lightly. Sweet little Kara Duncan became the joke of the town with John. There wasn’t one place he could recall that she didn’t hook up with John. Not one party she didn’t attend with him. Not one piece of clothing that could be considered decent. Each time, seeing her flushed, her eyes heavy as she stared into another man’s face with another man’s hands on her ass, ripped his insides apart. Indigestion ripped through his gut over the memories. “I’m glad we’re staking our business reputation on your confidence.”

Whitney only shook her head. “Did y’all find a way to work it out today?”

He crossed his ankle over his knee trying to get comfortable. Saying these words would never be comfortable. “She wants to forget and move on.” “And you?”

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Not that he ever did. Not when it came to Kara. He was always left wanting more. “So we’re going to forget and move on. Since when is the business not doing well?”

One of Wade’s ancestors was considered the Henry Ford of the tractor world. A few generations down the road and they sold the business for a pretty penny, but Wade, like his dad, invented new accessories to make farming more efficient. All those ideas were tested at Chester Farms before being sent out to their commercial farms in different parts of the country. Then sold to the highest bidder out of the company. Right now he had a radiator-water cleaning system coming down the line that would only pad what he’d thought were considerably thick bank accounts. When it was a hundred-plus and dry as a skeleton’s ass, a farmer would be in love with this product.

Whitney smiled. “We’re fine. If Kara’s jams and such take off, that’ll boost the home-values look of Chester Farms that Momma always liked. I said what I needed to get Kara back home. She was hedging on the phone when we talked. I told her we could use the extra marketing and that got her to agree. Just a little white lie.” Her smile slipped and she looked down at her paperwork. A heavy breath eased out of her and her shoulders fell. “I know you don’t want her here, but I lost my best friend when the two of you broke up. I’d do anything to have her back.”

Guilt weighed heavy. “I still don’t get why she quit talking to you.”

Whitney picked up a wad of mail and turned back to her computer. “Because when a girl wants to bitch about the man in her life, she doesn’t want to do it with his sister.”

What would Kara have bitched about? Hell, there’d been nothing to complain about. Except maybe that she was bored out of her mind every time they went out. Still didn’t seem like that was enough. Kara had moved on the next day anyway. If anything, she’d want to talk about John.

He pushed out of the chair and headed out front to put the tractor under the shed. There were a couple days left before opening weekend and he had to get this place cleaned up. His older brother was tied up at his jewelry store, leaving Wade to pick up the slack. Not that Tate often helped on the farm, but he was usually around for preparations to openings. Before today, Wade would have said it sucked to have to do all the work alone. Now that Kara arrived? Bring it. Just him, hard work breaking his back and music to shut out the rest of the world. It would be good hard labor, something he was going to need with Kara under his nose. He stepped outside and, speak of the devil, there she was, walking up the steps. Ten minutes and she was already back. Worst idea ever and Whitney would see eventually that this was never going to work.

If Kara had shed any of those tears that had filled her eyes in the orchard, the evidence of it was gone. She shifted her stance and stared somewhere off over his shoulder. “I forgot my portfolio.”

“Okay.”

She rubbed her hands over her hips and tapped her fingers on her thighs. “I left it on Whitney’s desk and wanted to flip through it tonight now that I know what produce you have.”

He stepped aside, and the wind picked up the sweet scent off her and surrounded him with it. She started by, but he stopped her. The sight of her again was too raw against his skin. Too sudden back in his life. The touch of her arm against his palm too fresh and her perfume intoxicated him and swam through his veins.

Her gaze finally lifted to his and a small ball of hope filled him that perhaps something had changed. Maybe now her skin tingled and bunched because of his touch like that one elusive time when he’d put his mouth to her shoulder. That when she looked at him with her eyes searching him like they were, all she could think of was getting her hands on him. That maybe he was wrong all those years ago.

Not wasting time, he pulled her to him and dropped his mouth over hers as her eyes widened. Maybe, just maybe, he could kiss the passion into her. Kiss her until she felt the same so she would know how his heart pounded when she glanced at him. Know what it was like to want someone as badly as he did. It didn’t work all those years ago, but he was desperate. He would never make it day in and day out having her at this reachable, but untouchable, distance.

She stiffened. A squeak mumbled past her lips even as he pressed more firmly across her mouth. It wasn’t enough. He had to show her more. He pulled out the band holding her hair back. The brown strands were softer than he remembered. Silky between his fingers and so very easy to imagine fanned across his chest and shoulders. The picture of her against him didn’t distract him enough to notice that she wasn’t responding. Wanting so much and not getting it, he pressed more one last time, swiped his tongue over the seal of her lips. But she didn’t open for him. Didn’t soften, moan or wrap her arms around his neck. Every last inch of his body came alive when she stood so near. It didn’t matter what he did, she didn’t have a similar reaction. How it was possible to want someone so much when she didn’t want him back, he’d never be able to explain. Would pay someone to explain it to him. He could damn well say what it felt like. Sharpened razors twisting in his chest, leaving him bleeding and hurting as he straightened and pulled away.

She stood there. Her eyes wide as she stared.

He mumbled apologies and got the hell away. So long as she was in town, he feared he’d never be able to get away far enough. He needed to figure out something, anything to find a way to work around her when she didn’t want anything to do with him. His track record was shit.

In the past half hour he’d pissed her off, made her cry and now manhandled her. Or was that sexual assault? His head spun. Around the side of the house and out of her view, he stopped and rested in a squat with his hand flat to the ground as his world finished turning.

The last time he’d drunk himself out of his mind was the night Kara had flipped him the bird and left town. He’d stayed that way for days on his brother’s couch. He swore he’d never do that again.

The idea was suddenly appealing.

Never Stopped Loving You
will be available December 2, 2013.
Pre-order it now
because forgetting you wanted to read it is just sad.

About The Author

Keri Ford was raised in South Arkansas on a farm surrounded by family, horses, cows, donkeys, ostriches, emus, chickens, ducks, Canadian Geese, and enough dogs one would think they were a pound…and then she bought a
Cosmopolitan
when she was twenty-two. All it took was one excerpt of a sexy romantic suspense and her life would never be the same. Well, parts of it. She still lives on that farm.

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