How To Tame Beasts And Other Wild Things (3 page)

              “Oh, wow,” I mutter.
He answered me and ate the food I made.
                           

              Beasts like good food and riddles. Okay, then! A smile. Yes, beastly, that was the answer. And I do just that. Again.
 

Balthazar

An iron horse with a flaxen tail.
The faster the horse runs,
the shorter his tail becomes.
What is it?
 

A needle and thread.

Matilda is hanging laundry on the line out front. Knickers? Fuck. She’s hanging her lacy knickers on the line? What am I going to do with her? No doubt, she’s one of those girls who can take what she wants from life. She’s genuine and raw. Her unfinished qualities make her curiously unique. She could strip you down, rob a bank, steal anything with that wonder-filled smile. Is it that I haven’t been around a woman in a few years, or is it her?

The sun is blazing as the boys and I head to the feed mill. After ordering our supplies, we walk from the mill to Grandma Nell’s kitchen for breakfast. Nell’s is one of those comfort-food diners that fills me and my boys up well and for cheap. The boys slide off their cherry-red stools at the counter every ten seconds or so until Nell spots us.

“I hear you have company out at the farm,” she says, wiping her hands on her apron.

That makes me think about how Matilda had an apron on when she ran into me while trying to get to the oven dinger yesterday. Her full breasts pushed against my chest as I scolded her. I haven’t had a woman pressed against my body in over two years. Matilda, Lord help me. I’d held her there as long as I could, looking down into her abundant cleavage. Then I forced myself to walk the other way so she wouldn’t see my raging hard-on.

“Yup. Matilda Pearl.” Why is it I sense a silver lining around her?

“Honey, we know.” She smirks. “All of us know.”

“Oh, right.” I chuckle. Of course they know. I’m a widower, and that makes me fodder for this town and its gossipy women.

“The sister.” She purses her lips and nods. “Known that family forever. She was always the shy one. The ugly duckling that blossomed, as I recall, into a swan. Not that her folks ever took note. They were too busy hobnobbing with all of those jet-setter-weekend types from Chicago. I’ll bet you see her though. Her eyes were some pretty color that seems impossible for anyone to be lucky enough to get, what was it again?”

“Don’t get any ideas, Nell.”
Violet.

“I don’t need ideas, hon. You, on the other hand, ought to be getting lots of ideas,” she says as she fusses about, filling sugar jars.

“Don’t need a woman,” I mutter as I glance at the menu, already knowing exactly what I’ll order. “Bloody hell, these two are enough for me to manage.” I nod over to the boys. “Along with my crops and the rest of the farm. My writing. Got plenty to deal with. Definitely don’t need a woman to complicate my life.”

I believe in keeping things simple. All I need are my boys. For them, I’d do anything. I figured that, while I could have stayed on in New York once Lavinia was gone, it wouldn’t have been the sort of life I wanted. Instead, I saw rambling hills and fishing holes, toad and firefly catching with my twins. Small-town living. Lavinia and I visited the farm when we were first dating. I fell in love with it—and her. She was a sparkler of a girl. Explosive in every form imaginable. I soon learned she was not to be tamed, though I never did think she’d leave the three of us. I will never forgive her.

Women are not simple. They are troublesome, puzzling riddles. Mazes of cryptic DNA and knots of undecipherable thought and emotion. Now, one of
them
is barging in on my life. All I see is a distraction of epic proportions in that girl. That and something else I will, under no circumstance, indulge in. Because indulgences that come in the female form are complicated…and then some.

As bells on the door chime, Nell looks past my shoulder with a smile. I twist for a look, wondering what’s making her so Christmas-morning happy. I nod wordlessly at Matilda then roll my eyes at Nell.

“Grandma Nell!” Matilda singsongs. “You haven’t changed one stitch!”

“These cold winters keep my skin out of the sun, honey,” she cheers, patting her wrinkled cheeks.

Two bites into my breakfast, I take a gander at Matilda, who’s taken a seat on the other side of the boys. “Thanks for the dinner, it was very good.” I nod then lift a fork full of hash browns to my mouth.

She leans one elbow on the countertop then drops her head onto her palm. “You’re welcome. Thanks for the smiles,” she says, steering her head to me.

“The pie was the best part, not that the mac and cheese was shabby.” I scratch my overgrown whiskers as I wince. “I didn’t mean it that way, they were both good.”

Matilda blushes. “I’m glad. I’ll make more pies. You like trifle and cake, too?” She focuses on the cup of tea in front of her.

I can’t help the smirk that forms on my face as I study her, licking her lips and squirming on her stool. “I like anything sweet.”

“Good to know.” She twirls a chunk of her hair and rewards me with a crooked smile.

“Nice pussy, too.”

“What?” Her mouth drops open as her eyes glitter. “Oh Jesus. You’re filthy.”

“What?” I figured since she likes riddles she must have a solid sense of humor. Maybe I caught her a little too off guard. But damn is that shy confusion on her scarlet face along with her breathless giggle sexy.

“You mean the cat?”

“Yeah, the pussy,” I shrug with a laugh.

After we finish our meal, Nell comes back for more chatter. I’m sure she’s looking for gossip. Hopefully Matilda remembers what small-town living is like and clamps it.

“Miss Matilda, I’m so damn glad to hear that you’re shacking up with my boyfriend here. Isn’t he something!” She waggles her eyebrows at me as she circles her lips with a sweep of her tongue.

“Nell, please.” I wiggle a finger at the boys.

“Oh, relax! For once, you have a pretty girl out at that farm. You want that member of yours to fall off?” She leans over the counter and, in a hush-hush tone, says, “Those big, rough hands must need a rest.”

I close my eye to avoid her cleavage as she sets the bill in front of me. Tossing a twenty on the counter, I thank Nell for the enlightening breakfast.

“You headed home?” Matilda asks as we walk out the door.

I nod while scooping Jax up as she sweeps Jinx onto her hip. It astonishes me how easygoing she is with the kids. “Yeah. Got some work to do in the fields.” I look past her as a car flies by, and catcalls come from its open windows.
No wonder
, is all I think as they whistle and yell.

“I can watch the boys, I’m there, after all.” She glances at my lips then chest. Finally, her eyes meet mine.

“Alfie’s there for that.”

The bright violet in her eyes grays. “I’ll text him, I mean, is it okay if I do that? I’d like to help you out.”

“Sure, thank you.”

“Deese do?” Jinx giggles as he reaches into Matilda’s tank top. I freeze as her pink nipples and plump, snow-white breasts rise out of her shirt. Jinx’s fingers ooze with tit as he squeezes them—just as he does our cows’ teats.

Matilda squeals, so I grab Jinx from her arms. Naturally, he’s still attached to her naked breasts. Not saying I blame the kid.

“You’re hurtin’ her, mate. Let her go!” I peel one hand off her nipple while she pries the other away.
Soft. Christ, so soft,
I think as my hand brushes against her skin. “I’m sorry,” I say as she stuffs her breasts back into her top.

Words seem to catch in her throat as a blush hurries up her neck. “It’s okay, it’s… Don’t worry about it.”

“I guess they do need some toys,” I chuckle, hoping the scarlet color of her skin will go away with my stupid joke.

“Yes, toys.” We meet in a stare as she pins her lips between her teeth, trying to diffuse her smile.

But her violet eyes are saying everything.

Back at the farm, I fasten the large, brass cowbell I bought at the feed mill onto Aesop’s red leather halter. I attach the hook of the small, brass container I bought as well. As I shove my handwritten riddle inside the tube, I smile. Am I flirting with her? Shit. I think I am.

Say my name and I disappear. What am I?

As I drive past the house on my tractor, I look over to the yard. The twins are squealing and laughing as they run through a sprinkler. Matilda is running with them. I’d call it a run, skip, limp—and it’s cute as fuck. She’s chasing, tickling, and being as silly as they are. I brake for a minute to watch them.

Her blond hair is piled on her head in soft waves, some of which falls and lands on her neck. Her voluptuous body is nestled into a tiny, red bikini, and I consider what it must look like off her. There’s nothing ordinary about Matilda Pearl, and the girl I thought I met at the feed mill yesterday seems to be transforming right before my eyes. Or maybe she was always this girl. What did Lavinia call her besides a black sheep? Oh yeah, the wild heart.

The house is dimly lit as I walk toward it from the barn. Once I’ve kicked my boots off on the porch, I drift inside. On the old wood farm table that’s center stage in the kitchen is a lone place setting. In front of it is a glass-canning jar with a droopy-headed sunflower that has a small piece of paper resting on its pollen-covered middle
.
Silence
,
the note reads.

Good girl, Matilda. Silence.

Beyond the flower is another note that says, Dinner’s in the ove
n
. Maybe this will work between us.

After washing my hands, I open the oven to see my dinner and receive a comforting waft of smells. Upon hungrily peeling the tin foil back on the plate, I’m rewarded with a giant helping of mashed potatoes and gravy, a man-sized pork chop, and a side of green beans. Bloody hell, she’s something else. I open the fridge for a beer with a grin on my face.

After I’ve finished my meal and cleaned up, I head to the den to write. The floor is dotted with toys—must be twenty or so plastic things littering the space. All of them used-looking. I bag them up and walk the garbage cans filled with the plastic crap to the end of the driveway. They’ll be picked up in the morning by the trash removal service.

Balthazar

What happens when you throw a yellow rock into a purple stream?
 

It makes a splash.

Matilda avoids me the next two days and sleeps out on the farm’s lake studio. Can’t say I like it. But I have no interest in explaining to her what I do around my house. I guess she didn’t like that I threw those secondhand toys out. She doesn’t know how I grew up. She and I have very different stories. I’ve been leaving the front door unlocked and the porch light on, in case she changes her mind. I’m assuming she won’t.

In the morning, I unexpectedly find her in the kitchen, making pancakes dotted with plump blueberries. She has on a short, red skirt and an American flag tank top. Her apron is tied loosely over everything, those long strings wrapped around her waist, dangling over her ass, making me think all sorts of things I shouldn’t.

“Happy Fourth of July!” Maybe she’s forgiven me.

“I don’t do the Fourth.”

“Come on, there’s a parade!” she blurts, turning back to me with one hand planted on her hip, a spatula in the other hand.

“Oh goodie.” I pour a cup of coffee. It’s already ninety degrees and muggy, so if she thinks I’m standing in the sun, sweating my balls off, to watch cheerleaders and tissue paper floats for an hour, she’s cracked. Ruck repeats, “Oh goodie,” three times, which makes a laugh spill out of her.

The twins slide down the steps—both of them naked except for their diapers. They run past me and over to her. I run my hands through my hair while doing a double take. She kneels, giving both of them cheery hugs as they squeal, “Mamama!” which makes me cringe.

“Tell ’em you’re not their mother.” I swat a fly on the kitchen table then flick it onto the floor.

“Excuse me?” Her eyes light with revolt.

I wonder which thing is disgusting her: my statement or the fly.

“You heard me. Tell ’em.”

Her hate-filled gaze nails my gut. I pick the newspaper up from the table and sip my coffee. From the corner of my eye, I watch her.

“Guys, can you say Matilda? Ma-til-da,” she says softly.

“Mamama!” the boys chant.

“Ma-til-da,” she repeats over and over until I get up and walk out of the house. The startling slam of the screen door speaks for me. I can’t take it, them calling her Mamama. I don’t want or need a wife or a mother for my boys. I’m enough. We have each other. Lavinia may have single-handedly ruined me for any woman again.

So, why is Matilda affecting me the way she is?

I refuse her request to take the boys to the parade. When she’s gone, I yank down the holiday crap she wrapped the house in. She must have done all of that at dawn. “We are not a parade float,” I mutter, shoving things into the garbage.

Car lights shine into the windows of the kitchen at ten, just as I’m getting another beer. Matilda heads toward the house, singing a tune as she struts a limpy hopscotch toward the porch. She’s wearing a Fourth of July–looking costume, right down to her crown and sash, which has the word
queen
across it in gold letters.

I press my face against the screen door, watching mosquitoes swarm the porch lights. Her toe catches the last piece of fieldstone before the first step, and she gracelessly nose-dives onto the stairs. Her face smacks the top step.

“That’s going to leave a mark,” I say, meandering out onto the porch as she yelps.

She shrugs me off with a grunt as I slip my hands under her arms. I sit next to her on the step, then with no thought, I smack a group of three plump mosquitoes on her leg, and brother, does she scream. And jump.

“Why do you hate me so much?” she yells as she slides away from me.

Glancing at her crooked crown, I chuckle. Then I notice her bloody fingers as they scratch mosquitoes off her face. Taking a swig of my beer, I answer, “What do you care what anyone thinks of you? Shit, you and your sister must have had plenty in common.”

“Lavinia and I had one thing in common. Our parents.” She snarls. “What’s your problem with me? Is it that I’m her sister?”

“You’re my problem, because you’re here.”

She shoots me a defiant stare. “God, you’re a prick.”

“You’re drunk,” I answer as nerves ripple in my gut when Matilda leans back on the steps. Her shirt pops open, revealing the ample globes of her breasts. I imagine myself telling her I’ve got a little devil inside me that would like to play with the devil in her. Then I hear her telling me that hers isn’t little, and I adjust my groin. Fuck. I cannot let her get to me, cannot let her in. A man can only be stripped down so many times in his life before he closes up shop. One ruin was enough for me to recover from. If I can call myself recovered.

“I deserve to be drunk today,” she slurs. While glaring at me, she rips the sash off and throws it to the ground.

“Celebrating, are you? Then I suppose you deserve that clumsy fall that’s bought you this.” I turn her chin toward me to examine a bloody slash across her forehead. “New prize. Might need a butterfly or two on that bad boy. Why don’t you come in, let me take care of it.” I run my finger above the cut. What I want to do is glide my finger along her cheekbone, then the curve of her neck, and elsewhere farther down.

She sits up and slumps over her knees, facing away from me. “You’re actually going to do something nice?”

“Not if you keep talking.”

I’m about to stand when she frowns at me, about to say something else. “I think I’m going to…” And vomit flies. “Oh crap. I mean sugar lumps,” she says softly.

“You calling me sugar lumps after you just barfed all over me?”

“No, I swear too much,” she says as she wipes the back of her hand across her mouth. “Trying to curb it for the boys. That’s one of my creative swear words.”

“Tinker Bell,” I mutter, looking down at my soggy jeans. “How did I get you?”

She grabs the front of my T-shirt. “Me? You ought to be thanking me. Screw you! I don’t need your help. I don’t need… ” She barfs again.

“Do I look like a toilet to you?” Now, I’m chuckling. How can a girl be so damn cute while barfing?

She tries to punch me, and I laugh as I catch her twiggy wrist in my hand.

“You look like an ass. A beastly, grouchy ass. And the way you keep—oh, forget it,” she says, staring crossly as she scrambles to stand. “I’m going to be...” She vomits again.

“Three times.” I shake my head. “You have vomited on me three godforsaken times.”

She struggles to stand only to slip then land on my lap in an impressive collapse. One would wonder how sex-starved a guy must be to get turned on when he’s covered in vomit with a drunk Tinker Bell in his lap. Then I hear her soft whimpers. Even for a beastly brit like me, a pretty girl with violet eyes, lying face down in my lap, crying…

Well, it pulls at my heartstrings.

“Hey, Matilda. Please don’t cry.” I flip her over and stand with her in my arms.

“Put me down.” She snivels against my chest as her legs flail.

I wonder if she weighs as much as a bale of hay. I wonder how I’m going to clean her up without taking her clothes off. I wonder how I’m going to be able to live with her…in this house…on this farm…for a year.

“I will. Gonna help you get cleaned up. Now, stop crying.”

I carry her upstairs. “What are you doing, taking off my clothes?” she asks, wobbling around as I unzip her skirt. “I thought you hated me?”

“I don’t hate you.” I pull her tank top over her head. “Just don’t need you,” I lie as my eye move across her breasts. I leave her knickers, her bra, and my briefs on. Talk about temptation.

“Liar.” She giggles and falls against me.

Christ, this is going to be a challenge
, is all I think as I back one step away while holding her unsteady, barely clad body up. I turn the shower on to hot and get her to step in with me.

“You need me. Your boys need me,” she says. And she’s right. I don’t want to admit I need anyone after what Lavinia did to me.

“Don’t need a woman,” I lie again, needing time to understand what the hell I’m feeling, and why.

“When’s the last time you saw a—oh, never mind.”

I pour shampoo into my palms then began to wash her hair. She moans. Maybe I should have tucked her in bed. Vomit covered? No, that would have been cruel.

She leans her head against my chest as I wash her hair, then she tips it into the spray for a rinse. The slippery arch of her neck and bobbing throat yank at my resolve. Bubbles pool between her breasts, then over her curves as her dark nipples scream at me, hard and pressed against her bra. Her knickers stick to her like they’re painted on. What an impossible situation I have put myself in. Wet. Soapy. Moaning. Matilda. I adjust my cock.

She grabs my earlobes then runs her fingers through my hair. “You probably don’t even get hard anymore.”

“Why are you so annoying?” I answer as my throat thickens. I grab the liquid soap, and pour some into her hands, then mine.

She falls onto me, her hands on my chest massaging in circles, then she looks up. “Why are you such a dick?”

I soap my body, then start on hers, circling her neck with my hands, gliding my thumbs down her throat then across her delicate collarbones. “Would a dick try to help a drunk woman who’s puked on him?” I say as I lift her left arm and wash every surface of it. Her small fingers entwine with mine, her fierce grip inspires me to imagine her hand on my cock.

“He would if he couldn’t take his eyes off her tits.” She giggles as I stroke her armpit, wondering if she’s ticklish, and where.

“They’re hard to avoid.” A knot of nerves forms in my gut as I look at them. She rolls her shoulders and arches her back, as my hands fall to the taut plains of her stomach, which tighten as my fingers cross it. I pin my eyes closed as I reach her knickers and kneel. She steps her legs apart as I wash them, her hips curl toward my face when I wreathe her right thigh with my hands. I skip the left leg altogether, knowing what’ll happen if I don’t. My cock is throbbing to get to her. Fucking pulsating like it’s about to be fed the most delicious pussy it can imagine.

Shit, is she sexy.
Her body brushes against mine as I stand and step under the water.

              “Speaking of hard.” She snickers, looking down at my tented briefs. “Wow. I take back my comment. I guess there is a man inside you after all. A very big man.”

I close my eyes, willing my hard-on away. “Matilda.”

She steps close to me—too close. “Don’t,” she whispers.

I grab the back of her neck against my will. “Don’t what?”

Color flames across her cheeks. “Don’t stop looking at me the way you were.”

              “And how was that? How was I looking at you?” I’m inches from her parted lips. Seconds from her tongue.

“Like you might kiss me,” she says without skipping a beat, as her gaze travels between my lips and my eye.

“Not going to kiss you, just going to wash you.” I swallow over what can only be named lust. “Turn around.” I lose all thought as I direct her into the spray to rinse her.

She places her hands on the wall, and my gaze falls down her slick back landing on her ass. Fuck, that full, beautiful bottom with wet knickers pasted between her cheeks. I cage her with my arms, my hands next to hers as I press against her and suck her nape. Our combined sounds and the way she writhes along my erection nearly kills me. I drag a hand down her spine and as I reach her kickers and finger the lacey edge about to yank them down and give us both what we seem to be craving, I stop.
What the hell am I doing?
I let out an abrupt breath and step out of the shower.

Get a hold of it, man. You do not need a woman, you cross the line and you’re done.
Don’t turn it into something it can never be. You want to lose this farm over her? You want to lose your mind again?

“Get out of the shower,” I direct her as I turn the water off. “I can’t have you falling in there.” I take her arm and help her step out. Her wet body shivers with goose bumps. She’s impossible not to look at. Grabbing a towel, I hold it out for her as she stands dripping on the bath mat. My eye moves over her curves, then lands at her face, engaging us in a stare. Something beyond words passes between us, until she casts her eyes down.

She reaches out for the towel and then I wrap one around my waist. “It’s been a while for you, huh?” she says in a shaky voice as her eyes mist with tears. “Or maybe just me,” she whispers as she wanders past me with her shoulders slumped.

“I suppose,” I answer, turning around to get another look at her.

She climbs into her bed and twists an arm behind her back to unfasten her bra. My eye is glued to her full breasts as she grunts and tries to wiggle out of the bra. Unable to remove it, she flops onto her side, facing me.

“Do you want me to unfasten it?”

“Please, I’ll cover up so you don’t have to look at me,” she softly says, her voice emptied of emotion.