And in time... (8 page)

“This is a lot for one person,” Cory commented with raised eyebrows, looking around her place. “I love it out here, but it does seem like a lot for a single woman to take care of. Tell me the story, how did you end up with a farm?”

“I will tell you how I got my farm if you tell me how you
found
my farm,” she negotiated.

“I followed you home a few times.”

“I hope you’re joking.”

“I am. I ran into Bernie Thursday morning at the bakery. She gives magnificent directions. I think she would have personally driven me here herself.”

“You don’t know how right you are. Thursday, huh? That’s very unlike Bernie. She’s one of those people who tells you what she bought you for Christmas. It’s not like her to keep a secret for that long. I can’t believe she didn’t tell me.” Alexis stood to check on breakfast. Really? Bernie knew? Wow. That needed to go on the calendar. Bernie kept a secret.

“I asked her not to.”

“I give her about ten more minutes before she is calling.”

Alexis topped off Cory’s coffee, feeling that unfamiliar sensation again when their eyes met. Why her? He was so good looking. What would a handsome doctor like Cory Baker be chasing her for? It didn’t make sense. She was just plain Alexis, born and raised on a farm. He was way out of her league.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Eggs okay?”

“Sure, and you were about to tell me how you ended up with this place.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

“Sure you do.” She smiled with her flirty eyes, cracking eggs.

“Come on. You’re stalling.”

“It’s a very boring story.”

“I’m a boring guy.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Alexis retorted, doubting that to be true. “Fine. The man that owned this house went to our church. I’ve known him since I was born. He was a very private person and never talked much. He was known around town as Grouch-Ass-Tate. When I was about six or so, I snuck off from home because I wanted to go fishing. My dad said he would take me, but then one of the farm tractors broke and he couldn’t. I snuck out with my fishing pole and a handful of worms. I walked the river for a long time, looking for the fishing hole that my dad claimed was the best.”

Alexis talked while preparing their breakfast and then sat, placing his plate of bacon and eggs in front of him.

“Looks good. Go on,” he coaxed with food in his mouth, circling his fork for her to continue.

Alexis took an exasperated breath and continued. “Well, while I was walking, I saw this big oak tree with branches made just for me. I climbed as high as I could go, and when I started back down, I was so high I was too scared to move. I was stuck in that tree for three hours before Mr. Tate found me. The whole town and my entire family had been looking for me. I heard them calling my name in the woods once and I yelled back as loud as I could, but they were heading in the wrong direction and didn’t hear me. Mr. Tate found me and talked me down. Mind you, he was already an old man at that time. There was no way he was going to climb up after me. He wrapped me in his arms and told me that my dad was worried sick. We walked back to his house and he phoned my dad.”

“I don’t get it,” Cory questioned confused.

“What?”

“What does you being a juvenile delinquent have to do with your house?”

“I was not a juvenile delinquent. I was six, and I have to tell you the whole story.”

Cory chuckled. “I’m sorry. Please continue with the
whole
story.”

“I’m not going to tell you if you’re going to laugh at me.”

“I am not laughing at you. I’m laughing with you.”

“I’m not laughing,” she chided. “Now shut up and listen.”

Cory pretended to zip his mouth from one corner of his lips to the other. Of course, that brought Alexis’s attention to his lips.

She shifted her eyes quickly back to her plate. Dammit. “So, anyway, I was sitting on the porch with Mr. Tate while I waited for my dad. He gave me a glass of lemonade and I sat on the steps, the exact same steps that are there now,” she added with a nod toward the porch she should have already been painting. “I started asking him a bunch of questions.”

“Where are your kids?”

“I don’t have any kids, drink your lemonade.”

“Where is your wife?”

“I don’t have one of those, either, stop asking me questions.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want no kids or no wife, now stop asking questions or I’m going to put you back in that tree.”

Cory sucked his lips between his teeth and bit down to keep from laughing at the grouchy old man imitation.

“You’re asking for it,” Alexis warned with a pointed fork, straight between his eyes.

“I didn’t say a word. I love it. Keep going.”

“I had never seen my dad so mad in all my life. He was furious.”

“You’re whole six years?”

A look was all that was needed that time. Of course, it was followed by a smile. She couldn’t help it. He was just that kind of guy, and his personality forced smiles from her. Alexis stood to clear the table and Cory followed. The feelings she felt when he was that close to her returned and it took her a moment to regain her composure.

“Keep going,” he quietly spoke in some sort of wicked, soft, sexy—oh man. She was falling for this guy. She was falling fast and hard at an alarming speed. One that was going to leave her splattered all over the pavement. She could feel it and everything in her screamed “Run!”

“My dad stomped up to the porch. I just knew I was in for a good old-country ass beating.” Cory smiled at her choice of words but refrained from interrupting. He heated the warm coffee with fresh, hot coffee and they sat.

“I started crying, hoping to soften his heart before he reached me. It didn’t work. He grabbed my little arm to keep me from getting away from him and spanked me eight times.”

“You sure it was eight?”

“Yes, I counted, now stop making fun of me.”

Cory placed his hands up in the air, surrendering, and pushed his chair out from the table a little. He crossed an ankle over his knee and apologized. “I’m terribly sorry. Continue.”

Alexis was taken aback briefly, “Hike for a Cure” in brown lettering scrolled across his broad chest, and for the first time in a very long time, she wondered how it would feel to touch him there. The watering mouth was another new one. What the hell was that?

“Lex?”

“Huh?”

Really? Oh my God!
She’d become a blubbering mess around this guy. Thank God for ringing telephone, more than likely her meddling best friend.

“Bernie,” Alexis announced, relieved for the interruption. She picked up the cordless phone from the wall, happy for the opportunity to turn her rosy red cheeks away from him.

Cory stared with amusement while trying to keep his eyes from those jeans. Jeans suited her much better than khakis—much better.

“Shhh,” Alexis cautioned with a finger over her lips. She smiled to herself when she saw his eyes quickly shift from her ass.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning. Are you painting?” Bernie questioned, unaware of the speaker phone

“Not yet, getting ready to, though, as soon as I finish this cup of coffee.”

“Do you have any help?”

Cory and Alexis smiled at each other while she kept it going.

“No. Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering if you were alone.”

“I’m never alone. I have Mr. Dog.”

“Well, I must go to work before my boss fires me, call me if you get company.”

“Why would I get company?”

“Just call me if you do, gotta go.”

“Okay, I will…goodbye, Bernie.”

“Goodbye, Bernie,” Cory called into the phone.

“Oh my God. I hate you. And you, Dr. Baker. You’re such a brat. Call me when you’re really alone,” Bernie demanded and hung up.

“I have to go paint. I’m burning daylight,” Alexis explained with a sigh. The time on the microwave really did tell her she had wasted too much time. She wasn’t going to get many more nice hot days like this. She needed to be outside, not sitting around being all googly-eyed over some guy that would move on to the next one in a day or two. He may have been sexy as hell, but she wasn’t blind. She knew the type. Smooth, sexy, and coy like a fox. He’d be in and out of her life in the time it took a fox to sneak in and help himself to one of the chickens. Nope. Not her. Alexis wouldn’t fall for it.

“Okay, but I want to hear the rest of your story.”

“I don’t feel right having you help me paint my porch.”

“I want to help you paint your porch. I insist, now move it, we’re burning daylight.”

“Fine, do you want to roll the ceiling or trim around the siding?”

“I better roll. I would hate to get paint on your pretty gray siding.”

“Now you’re scaring me, Doc.”

Alexis got him started with the rolling and poured herself some white paint into a small butter bowl. That was easier than maneuvering the heavy bucket on the ladder.

“I want to hear more of how you ended up with this place,” Cory beckoned as they worked. Alexis audibly sighed at his persistence and continued where she left off.

“My dad thanked Mr. Tate for helping me. He looked at me and told me to thank him, too. I gave him a big hug and he hugged me back. Sort of.  I still remember how uncomfortable he felt when he wrapped his arms around me, like he didn’t know how to hug someone. Long story short—”

“I don’t want the short,” Cory retorted, not stopping from his task.

Alexis tried like hell to keep her eyes on the paint and not his flexing muscles, moving with every stroke. Good lord. “Okay, well in a synopsis, he became my project if you would. I was six and he needed a friend, and I was going to be his friend. He was dead set against it,” Alexis explained with a snicker, laughing at the nostalgic memory and the persistent little girl. She was determined to befriend this sad, old soul whether he wanted her to or not. “I sat with him at church every Sunday from that day on. I made my dad bring me over here almost every night to give him a plate of food. By that time, it was only my mom and dad, so we always had extra. He would grumpily tell me, ‘
stop bringing me food
,’” she said, mimicking his tone again. “But he always took it.” She smiled sadly, remembering her friend.

“Anyway, as I got older and was allowed to visit him by myself, I would sit on this porch and he would tell me stories from when he was a boy. His parents built this house and wanted to fill it full of children; unfortunately, they could never get pregnant and they ended up adopting Mr. Tate. His real mom, who was his mom’s sister, or maybe his dad’s sister,” she explained, stopping for a second to remember the story, “anyway, the mother died during childbirth and the dad couldn’t handle it. He gave him to John and Ella Tate. They are the ones that built this house. Mr. Tate never married, nor did he have any kids. I was the closest thing to family that he had, and if I wasn’t with Bernie, I was over here, helping him with things around the house or just sitting right out here talking for hours and planting all of these flowers.” She demonstrated with a waving paintbrush in a circular motion around the house.

“And when he died, he left you his farm?” Cory asked, intrigued by her story.

“Yup, that pretty much sums it up, except I didn’t get all of the land. He willed thirty-seven acres to my brothers because it butts up to my folks’ land. My brothers had been farming it for him for about five years before he died. He just wasn’t able to do it anymore and they kept it going for him so that he had enough money to pay his taxes and keep food on the table.”

“I love that story,” Cory admitted with the adorable smile that Alexis tried not to love. She smiled down at him, too, happy that he was there. For whatever reason, it felt good to be around a companion that wasn’t Bernie or Paige—a male companion. 

“Do you want to take a break?”

“Sure, my shoulder could use a break.”

Alexis retrieved two glasses of fresh lemonade and leaned against the banner. Cory stood with crossed ankles and eyes pointed up. “I would almost call myself an expert.”

Alexis looked up, too. “Yeah, you’ve done a pretty good job so far.”

“But I’m not an expert?” he questioned with a sad expression and a pouty lip.

Alexis laughed and gave him his way. “Okay. You can be an expert.”

“Thanks.” Cory beamed while moving his glass to the banister beside him. In one quick turn, he spun to face her, pinning her between him and the railing. Her heart stopped beating, and then beat faster when she looked into those gray-green eyes. Good thing he was a doctor.

“Relax,” he said, barely above a whisper in that same, raspy, sexy tone. The one that sent sensations to places she’d forgotten she had. “You do know that I’m about to kiss you, don’t you?”

Alexis barely nodded, unable to speak. How the hell was she supposed to respond to that?

“Relax,” he repeated with warm words to her lips.