All I Want Is You (A Chester Farms Novella) (6 page)

He looked to the dinner table. There was still a meal for at least forty-five laid out. "Sorry to hear that. I've been thinking they were just running late. Hope she's doing better."

"She is. Just a little puny. I'll get to see her at Christmas when we go down."

"When are y'all leaving out?"

The smile was back. "Two weeks."

"Isn't that later than usual?"

“We're delaying a week this year just to make sure all the stomach stuff has passed before we go down there."

"Don't blame you." He pushed away from the chair he'd been leaning on and crossed through the doorway into the kitchen to help Tasha with the glasses. He grabbed a breath before seeing her since she was good at taking what little air he could manage. Hell, he wasn't sure he'd even recovered from Tuesday night when he'd almost kissed her.

The way her lids had lowered halfway and her chin turned up to him haunted all over his mind. He'd wanted to take a step back. Save up a little money, at least have a week's paycheck before getting too involved. He shook his head as his heart kicked it up another notch. Can't say he didn't try. He just had to hope Whitney was right and Tasha wouldn’t care that he couldn’t take her anywhere.

He slipped around the island as the crunch of ice sounded and another cup landed on the bar in the line already there. As much as he tried to prepare before seeing her, there just wasn’t anything he could do to tone down his reaction.

She was squatted by an ice chest, scooping ice into another glass. Hair she kept shoving behind an ear kept blessedly falling back to curl around her eyes. The jeans she wore were extra snug on her thighs with her bent down, but it was the heels that were killing him.

At the ice cream shop, all she wore were tennis shoes. Those red pointed shoes were about to have the best of him and the idea of trying to hold back until he had an extra twenty bucks in his wallet was downright laughable at this point.

Especially since the Chesters were leaving in two weeks. He didn't know who all she hung around with in town, but best he could tell, it was just Whitney. And now him. When the Chesters left, it was going to be just the two of them for nearly a month. "Need some help?"

She glanced up when he spoke. Her brows had been deepened and instantly released. "Please."

"You need twelve."

"Two unsweet, eight sweet, one Coke and one Dr. Pepper." She winced and her eyebrows did this sexy thing where they dipped, but the centers lifted. "I think."

"I'll get the two unsweets. One is going to be Mrs. Jana's. Coke goes to Tate. Wade, Whitney, Sam and me get the sweets."

She blinked at him. "I don't know how you remember that."

"I've been doing this a lot of years." He eased around next to her and couldn't help but notice the scoop of her jeans at her lower back. More specifically, the shadow over her naked, pale skin hovering at the top of her ass.

"My family gets together with some turkey and a box of potatoes and that's it."

Family
. The idea of tracing that sway of her jeans smashed head first to the floor. He cleared his throat as he adjusted his belt. "If you're going to live here, you’d better get used to it. This is just the tip of what this family does together."

No more messing around. Last thing he needed was to walk around his friends’ dining room table sporting a stiff dick. He placed the drinks down, returned for two more and Tasha grabbed the last two. Seats were going fast and two were left next to Whitney. Tasha slid on the white padded seat and he eased on a chair next to her.

Sam cleared his throat. "I'm starved. Looks good, honey."

Mrs. Jana beamed from the other end. "Say the blessing so we can eat."

Patrick reached across the corner of the table and took Mrs. Jana's hand and then turned his hand up for Tasha. She looked around the room as Whitney grabbed her other hand and then she finally placed her palm to his.

Her fingers slipped between his and he was stuck to the spot watching the tips of her short, trimmed nails turn against his hand and hold him tight.

Sam started grace and gave thanks, but Patrick just couldn't look away from her hand finally in his. He pulled their grasp close and rested them on his thigh. Her breath caught and movement of her shoulder against his had him lifting his gaze and found hers on his.

Her blue eyes were a sparkling pool and red tinted across her checks. She glanced away and he dropped his gaze and focused on his plate as Sam continued on.

"Bless us and our families and friends. Amen."

"Amen," he repeated. Mrs. Jana's hand came away from his in an instant.

Tasha's didn't.

It wasn't that he was holding her too tight or that she was holding him too tight. At any moment, it would be easy to just slip his hand out. Or she could take hers out.

"Patrick, can you pass me the corn?"

He glanced to Tate across from him and he was left without a choice but to release her. "Sure."

It was the meal of the year to look forward to, but there wasn't much he tasted in it. Bowls were passed around, plates at some point too. Laughter surrounded the table as stories he'd heard a hundred times were retold. When people asked how his holidays went, this was the sort of thing he talked about.

Wade acted like he molded play-dough into a ball in his hands. "And Dad just rolled it up and hummed it out the back door like a bowling ball."

Tasha's mouth dropped. "No."

Whitney nodded. "Yep. And I never saw it again, may he rest in peace."

Sam chuckled from the end of the table and pointed toward Tasha. "Don't believe everything they say about me."

Whitney shook her head. "Just most of it."

"Well, that's probably true." Sam pushed his plate forward. "Where's the dessert table?"

The signal it was time to get up. Patrick pushed his chair back and gave a tip of his head as Tasha glanced to him. She followed him out of her chair and as he reached for his plate and picked it up, she grabbed for hers. He took it from her and stacked it over his. "Follow Sam if you want the good stuff."

She put a hand over her stomach. "I am so full."

Whitney walked around her, pausing only for a second. "Eat pie. It's the only way to delay all the dishes."

Tasha smiled at her. "I don't mind helping. I enjoyed it."

Whitney stopped and faced her. "If you rope me into dishes before I get a chance to let all that turkey sit, I may have to end our friendship."

Whitney walked off and Tasha turned her face up to his. "I guess we're eating pie then."

Everyone went toward the kitchen to the breakfast table that was loaded in pie, cake, fudge and a number of other things. “They'll be distracted with that for a little bit. Unless you want to lose an arm, you don't get between a Chester and the dessert table.” He lowered the dirty plates back to the table and grabbed her hand again. "I have an idea. Come on."

"Where are we going?" her whisper chased after him as he pulled her to the other exit of the dining room, into the hall and tugged her to the front door and slipped outside. Cool, fall air circled through the leaves on the ground and Tasha stepped out and took a breath.

She turned on the porch and pushed her fingers in her pockets. "Thanks."

"Good job surviving your first Chester function. I came to them as a kid and grew up with it, but I've seen some newbies taken back."

"It was great."

"They are great."

She walked to the edge of the porch and pointed at the fields. "Whitney told me they grow fruits and vegetables and to get my rubber boots ready for spring."

He chuckled. "Yeah. Planting season. It's hard work, but fun. You'll want to be here for that. Lot of the community comes out."

"Sounds cool." She shook her head and sighed. "I grew up in the middle of Little Rock until I was a teenager. Apartments and traffic. Then it was the suburbs. It's different here."

He looked across the fields. It all looked like home to him. Not just because he spent a lot of time here, but the air and the land. He hunted, he fished, he did it all and this was just another place in his heart like he was used to. It wasn't the land that was different here, it was the people.

He loved his mom and his dad and all that, but it wasn't the same as with the Chesters. He wasn't close to his sister like the way Wade could trap Whitney in his elbow and dig her face in his arm pits even with them both in their twenties.

He leaned against the railing and found a sigh slipping out too. "Are your parents still in Little Rock?"

She nodded. "North. I went to Magnolia instead of there or Fayetteville because that's where they went. It's what I was always supposed to do."

"Are you going home for Christmas?" He found himself leaning toward her, hoping for a no, as selfish as that was. If she maintained that she was still in school, then that meant she'd leave in about two weeks. He had friends still in college. Two weeks out before Christmas. Two weeks after.

She bit her lip and looked down. "I...I don't know. I don't want to be away from the ice cream shop for a long time and I don't like the idea of seeing them either. I need to tell them. I just wish I knew if the business was going to make it first."

He leaned a hip against the railing and rubbed the length of her arm. "It'll be okay. The store will be fine and they'll understand."

She winced. "I don't think they will. Everything is about the plan and the way things are supposed to happen." She cupped the back of her neck with her hands. "This was not part of the plan."

"They'll probably be pissed off for a while. You're their only daughter?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Then they'll come around."

“I don’t know. I knew I could never talk to them about it, even though I have been planning a business of my own for years.”

“I’m sorry. That’s just not right.”

She shrugged it off. "Maybe I need to tell them at the start of Christmas break. They can be mad and it won't be a problem to stay here and work."

It took all he had to give her one last pat and pull his hand away. He wanted to do so much more than just lightly pat her arm. Like pull her in for a hug. "It is the holidays, too. Be sure to have some fun and don't work through all of it."

A big smile crossed her face and she shook her head. "I love Christmas. It's my favorite time of year. I'm the one on the roof hanging lights and dragging the tree out." She lifted a shoulder. "I won't have that this year."

"Do it to the shop. Lots of people decorate businesses for that."

She laughed. "I'll have to see what I can do. I didn't exactly pack boxes of Christmas decorations with me when I 'went off to college' in August. I can string some popcorn together."

"I bet we can figure something out." As in the boxes and boxes of Christmas stuff in the attic right here at Chester Farms. Years ago they'd decorated this place to the nines for the kids. Now that they were older, they all headed to south Texas to be closer to Mrs. Jana's family over the holidays. Those old decorations were just sitting. He'd bet anything he could chop a tree down out of the woods.

He stared down at her a moment longer. All this time he was thinking he needed money to do something for her, but maybe that wasn't what he needed at all.

You go out, you eat. That's just what happened. Tasha was no normal girl though and maybe he needed to start thinking about that. There was a lot he could do with her that wouldn't cost him anything but a little time. Time that would be well spent.

She pushed hair behind her ear again and that was the last of that. He reached up and freed it. "I wish you wouldn't do that."

Red tinted over her cheeks. "Habit."

"It's pretty and you wad it up." He pulled his hand away, letting his fingers ease through the silky-smooth strands. He wanted to cup the back of her neck, get his fingers tangled in her hair and bring her in against him. He didn't.

"Thank you." She reached up and touched that same bit of hair he just freed. She paused and her shaky hand lowered and crossed under her chest. "Do you think they noticed us missing inside?"

Probably so, but he grinned. "Probably not. You've never seen the Chesters over the dessert table, have you?"

She shook her head. "No."

"We have at least five minutes before anyone notices." Or at least Sam. Whitney no doubt noticed within seconds. Mrs. Jana next. Wade and then Tate. Unless Tate had already found some paper to draw on. In that case, Tate wouldn’t notice if Whitney put a bow in his hair. He faced the fields and braced his hands on the porch rail.

She turned around on the railing and leaned back against it. Making the turn brought her a step closer to him so that her arm brushed along his. She glanced up through her lashes with a look that jacked up his body temperature. The uptick turn of her lips was what really sent his blood rushing through his veins. Her head tipped toward him. "I think you're lying a little."

"It's possible."

"Normally I wouldn't be okay with that."

"Good to know. What other things can I get away with that normally wouldn't be okay?"