The Mane Attraction (10 page)

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Authors: Shelly Laurenston

BOOK: The Mane Attraction
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“Thanks.”
He waited for her to leave, but she just stood there.
“Yes?”
“Don’t you need help getting dressed?”
“No.” He made shooing motions with his left hand. He knew it was ridiculous, but he didn’t want Sissy to see him as weak and needy.
“Can you move your right arm yet?”
“I’ll make do. Go away.”
“Fine. Suffer.” She moved toward the door. “Let me know when you’re ready to come downstairs. I’ll help you.”
“I can manage.”
“Fine,” she said again. “But if you fall, I’m leaving you there until you learn a lesson.”
“Very nice.”
“I’ll get food started. It’ll take a bit, so don’t rush.”
He didn’t think he could even if he wanted to.
 
 
By the time Mitch made it downstairs, Sissy was pulling the mac and cheese she’d mixed the night before out of the oven. She’d made quite a few meals over the last three days in between checking on Mitch. She couldn’t sleep well anyway, and she was afraid to sleep for long periods of time, should something happen. So Sissy did what she always did when she was stressing out—she cooked. She found it soothing, and she was pretty good at it. In the time it took Mitch to really wake up, she’d completely filled both freezers with potential dinners. Whatever remained when she and Mitch left would feed her parents for a couple of months.
His long time getting ready gave her time to bake up the food and get her uncontrollable nipples in order. What exactly were they thinking anyway? Getting all hard and needy just because Mitch Shaw, of all people, had his face between her tits? She blamed them. Not herself. Damn nipples.
“That smells good.”
Sissy jumped a bit before turning around and helping Mitch into one of the table chairs. She felt his forehead as she’d been doing over and over again for three damn days.
“Am I okay, Mom?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass.”
“Yup. You even sound like my mother.” Mitch let out a sigh. “I’m worried about her. My mother.”
“She’s fine. And she knows you’re fine.”
“She does?”
“Yeah. I called my Aunt Janette, and she called my other aunt, one of Daddy’s sisters—he has six—in Alabama; she called my uncle—one of my momma’s brothers—in North Carolina who called—”
“Stop it. Please. I’m begging you.”
“I was only trying to—”
“I know. And I appreciate it. I
adore
you for it. But ... stop talking.”
“Fine. Be that way.” Sissy walked to the stove. “What do you want to drink? Milk, juice, or sweet tea?”
“Tea.”
Sissy nodded while she put some of the mac and cheese on a plate and put it in front of Mitch. From the refrigerator, she pulled out the salad she’d made and a pitcher of sweet tea. When she turned around, Mitch was still staring at the plate of food she’d put in front of him. He didn’t seem worried about his mother anymore as much as simply disgusted.
“Is there a problem?”
“There’s ham in it.”
“Yeah. So?”
“I hate ham in my mac and cheese.”
“You haven’t even tried it.”
“I don’t need to try it to know I don’t like it.”
Sissy rolled her eyes. “Do you like ham?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you like mac and cheese?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t like them mixed together.” He stared down at his plate like a five-year-old looking at a vat of broccoli.
Sissy walked to the table and slammed the bowl and pitcher down on it.
“Take a bite.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Mitchell Shaw, you take a bite right now. If you don’t like it, then fine. But you’ll goddamn try it first.”
Clearly disgruntled, Mitch picked up his fork and poked at his food for a bit.
“Mitchell. Shaw.”
“Okay. Okay.” His mouth twisted in disgust, Mitch put a forkful of her mac and cheese into his mouth. He started to chew, and she watched him. She waited for it. And like with most things, she wasn’t disappointed.
“Wow,” he said after he swallowed. “That’s ... that’s ...”
“Really good?”
“Amazing.”
She grinned. “I know. That’s the best mac and cheese—with or without ham—that you’ll ever have. So enjoy it since I don’t cook very often. Now eat.”
He did, too.
While Sissy watched, Mitch went through the mac and cheese—even what she’d left on the stove—the salad, and the pitcher of sweet tea like he hadn’t eaten in years.
Glancing around at the empty bowls and dishes in front of him, Mitch frowned. “Got anything else?”
Sissy blinked. “Anything else?”
“I’m still a little hungry.”
“Is this normal for you?”
“No, no.” Mitch peeled melted cheddar cheese off the near-empty baking dish and tossed it in his mouth. “I usually eat a lot more until the stress started getting to me. But you’ll see. When I get my hunger back.”
Sissy calculated the money everyone had handed her before she’d left and the few dollars she had in her wallet.
Depending on how long they stayed, she may have to start getting their food the old-fashioned way ... running it down and ripping it open herself.
 
 
Travis slammed the hood down on the twenty-year-old Ford truck his cousin had dropped off the night before and looked at the typically freaked-out Jackie. If he wasn’t blood, Travis would slap him around on principle. But he was family, and Travis couldn’t afford for his weakness to make the rest of them look weak. So he kept Jackie close and used him to do things he and Donnie didn’t want to. Like sending him to find out what Sissy was up to. He’d known even before he sent Jackie there what would happen.
Sometimes he was such a bastard.
“So Sissy slapped the shit out of you—again. What do you want me to do about it?”
“She did not.”
That was true. It had been little brother Sammy. Next to Bobby Ray and their daddy, Sammy was the only one who could get a leash on Sissy. Still, Sammy had a thing about calling a spade a spade. Or in Sissy’s case, a whore a whore. It was the one thing that brought out his rarely used temper with Donnie and Jackie. Although he’d never try that shit with Travis. Not if he liked having two working legs.
“I thought you would have gone over there by now,” Jackie whined. “Told her to get out.”
“Is that right?” Travis picked up the team’s playbook from the counter and flipped through the pages. They had practice this afternoon, and he wanted to be prepared. The upcoming game was one of their most important.
“She’s got the cat,” Jackie insisted.
“A sick cat. Throw her out now, and I just look like a son of a bitch. Wait until he’s at least walkin’.”
“If he were real bad, Sissy would have taken him to the hospital over in Waynesburg,” Donnie explained, easily moving out from under the car raised above his head. Travis and Donnie coowned Smithtown’s main repair shop. It was a good living, and Donnie didn’t piss Travis off too much, which he did appreciate.
“Gotta play this smart, boys.” Travis looked between his brothers. “She’s alone. She ain’t got Smitty or Daddy or those She-bitches of hers. And Sammy ain’t no real threat. It’s just little ol’ Sissy and a sickly cat.”
Travis stepped away from his kin and looked out the garage door at the clean, quiet streets of his town. “It’ll be pure pleasure bringing that little bitch down.”
 
 
Mitch opened his eyes, quickly realizing he was sitting on the couch in what he had found out from Sissy was definitely the family room.
As Sissy told him, “Momma doesn’t let anyone but special company use the living room. But my daddy doesn’t like many people, so special company doesn’t ever come. So that room never gets used.”
The strange thing was, he could have sworn that only moments ago, he’d been sitting in the kitchen.
He looked at Sissy, and she gave a small shrug.
“You fell asleep at the kitchen table,” she explained.
“Oh. Uh ... sorry.”
“No need to apologize. I’m glad it was actual sleep this time, and not total unconsciousness. Although it is hard to tell the two apart. With both, you just sort of drop where ya are.” To illustrate, her entire body went lax against the couch, her eyes closed.
“Then you wake up.” She opened her eyes, sat up a bit. “Then you suddenly drop again.” Again she went lax, making Mitch smile. “But this time,” she whispered without opening her eyes, “there was snoring ... and a little drool.”
Mitch laughed and shoved his bare foot against hers. “I do not drool.”
“There’s no shame in the drool,” she said, sitting up.
“I don’t drool.”
“Then you won’t fit in here. Smiths are known for drooling and knuckle dragging.”
“I thought I saw scrapes on your knuckles earlier.”
Sissy stuck her tongue out and crossed her eyes, making Mitch laugh harder.
Smiling, Sissy turned up the sound on the TV. She had on a sports channel so she could catch the latest stock car race results. “You know,” he said after a few moments, “I wanted to thank you for all this, Sissy.”
“That mac and cheese was good, huh?”
“I’m not talking about that.” Although he may have seen God after his first bite of that delicious meal. “I’m talking about this. You bringing me here. Taking care of me. Thank you. For everything. And sorry I was such a prick before.”
“I understand, but thanks for apologizing.”
They fell silent, and it had to be their first awkward silence ever. He hated it.
“Want to watch a DVD or something?” Sissy finally asked, sounding desperate. “My parents have a good selection.”
“Sissy, it’s okay.”
Sissy frowned. “What’s okay?”
“You ... being madly in love with me. It’s okay. I know how enticing it must have been to have me lounging around your house ... naked. And deliciously vulnerable.” Mitch raised his eyebrows. “
Needy
even, while in your bed.”
“Mitchell ...”
“No, no. There’s no need to deny your feelings. Not when we both know the truth.”
“Are you done?”
“For the moment.” He grinned. “Saucy.”
Finally, Sissy laughed, the uncomfortable moment gone. “What is wrong with you?”
“My mother constantly indulged me.”
“Clearly. DVD or not?”
“Whatcha got?”
“Everything probably.” She stood and walked to the bookshelf filled with DVDs and old VHS tapes. There weren’t a lot of books. Mitch sensed the Smiths were not big readers. Sissy went on her toes to see the higher shelves, and Mitch had to bite back a growl.
Christ, the woman had the
best
legs. The kind of legs Mitch could easily imagine wrapped around his neck.
“
Deliverance?
”
“That’s not funny.”
Sissy giggled. “You Yankees. Mention
Deliverance,
and y’all get so freaked out.”
“And with good reason.”
“How about
Die Hard?
”
“Perfect. Lots of shit blowing up and guns.”
“And hot German men for me.” She pulled the DVD box down and went to the good-sized TV across from the couch. It wasn’t as big as Bren’s or even a flat screen, but Mitch felt more comfortable in the modest digs of the Smiths than in the wealth of his father’s.
The movie started, and Sissy sat at the far end of the couch.
Mitch cleared his throat and stared at her.
“What?”
“Get over here.”
“I’m comfortable.”
Mitch sighed. “Do I really have to pat the couch and say, ‘Here, doggie’? Are you really going to make me sink that low?”
“But I’m comfort—”
“I’m sick!”
he howled, forcing Sissy to quickly slide over until she sat next to him. He didn’t stop until she did, either.
“Happy?”
He settled down, resting against her side. “Very.”
The movie had barely started when a knock at the door had Sissy up. What bothered him was that she had one hand on the butt of the .45 she’d taken off him earlier, which was still tucked into the back of her shorts. She even released the safety.
She sniffed at the door and frowned, glancing at him. She opened the door slightly.

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