Paradise County (38 page)

“Where’s Jenny?” Alex asked, glancing around before her gaze returned with some fascination to Neely’s hair.

“She went home.”

“What are you doing?” Alex’s tone as she addressed the question to Neely was carefully neutral. If she implied any disapproval, Neely was liable to dye her whole head pink.

“Putting streaks in my hair.” Neely rubbed Hannibal’s ears, ratcheting up the cat’s purr until it sounded like a 747.

“They’re pink.” Alex said it as if she thought Neely might not have noticed.

Neely grinned at her. “Pink’s hot. You know you’re giving us a ride to the pep rally, don’t you?”

“Fine by me. What’s this thing for, anyway?”

“The basketball team. There’s a big game on Saturday,” Samantha said, twisting and spraying. “The whole town goes, practically.”

“You should come too,” Neely said, adding slyly, “Joe will be there. Eli said he always goes. And Jenny’s going to sing.”

“I wouldn’t miss seeing Jenny in her dress for the world,” Alex said with perfect sincerity. And didn’t add the corollary out loud: She wouldn’t miss the chance to see Joe for the world, either.

By the time Alex, Neely, and Samantha got to the pep rally, it was full dark. They were late, and the high-school parking lot was packed, Alex saw as she drove in. She drove the girls up to the gym entrance, where they got out with their sleeping bags. Then she went to park the car. It was a fine night, she saw as she got out, clear and not particularly cold, with a slight fall-scented wind that stirred her hair, which she had left loose. She was comfortably warm in a camel cashmere blazer and sweater over black pants with her black boots. Overhead the sky was a silky midnight blue sprinkled with stars that shone like tiny silver sequins. Riding low in the sky, the moon was a shy white sickle. The yells of the crowd and musical flourishes from the band could be heard clear through the brick walls of the high school all the way down to where Alex and a few other stragglers walked, and beyond.

All of a sudden the gym doors opened, and waves of people, students and adults alike, came rushing out. Within seconds Alex found herself engulfed in a flood tide of people who all seemed to be running toward the playing fields at the far end of the parking lot.

Eyes widening, Alex pressed herself close against a car bumper to keep from being swept along.

“Alex! Alex! Come on!” Galloping at the very end of a crack-the-whip-style chain of teenagers, Neely grabbed Alex’s hand as the group thundered by. Forced willy-nilly into a near run by her sister’s death grip on her fingers, Alex, laughing, found herself being pulled through the crowd.

“What on earth … ?” she gasped at Neely, struggling not to stumble. Her boots were not made for running, definitely. But she liked the length they added to her legs when she wore pants.

“We want to get on the first wagon with the team!”

“What?” This made no sense to Alex until she saw them, a lineup of big, hay-filled flatbed farm wagons at the far end of the parking lot very
near to where she had parked the car. There must have been a dozen of them, all hitched to various sizes and colors of farm tractors. Several seemed to be half-filled already, and people were scrambling onto them as they reached them.

“That way! That way!”

Propelled by running teens, Alex’s group broke ahead of the pack, heading toward the first wagon in line.

“It’s full!” somebody farther up the line groaned as they reached it.

“Pile on! Pile on!” someone else shouted, and the kids began heaving themselves onto the wagon regardless of how full it was, clambering over earlier arrivals and flopping down in the straw.

“Neely! Here!”

Alex’s hand was released as Neely was yanked up into the wagon, and for a moment she stood there, not knowing quite what to do. The wagon bed really did look full… .

“My sister! My sister!” Neely was reaching for Alex, and then other hands were too. Not sure what she was getting herself into, Alex nevertheless grabbed the hands that were reaching for hers, put a foot on the edge of the wagon bed, and let herself be hauled on board.

The wagon really was full, she saw as soon as she got up there. Balancing carefully, stepping over cross-legged bodies jammed together shoulder to shoulder, Alex reached the middle of the hay-filled wagon bed and looked around for someplace to sit. Neely was snuggled down between Samantha and a boy—was it Eli? It was too dark to be certain.

The only sure thing was that Neely wouldn’t want her big sister sitting next to her.

Anyway, there wasn’t any room. Anywhere.

“Pullin’ out!” the tractor driver sang out. Alex looked wildly around once more. The wagon bed was, literally, packed. There did not appear to be any space left.

The tractor roared and the wagon lurched forward. Alex tottered dangerously in her high heels, lost her balance, toppled sideways—and felt someone on the wagon bed below her catch her by the upper arm and hipbone, anticipating her fall, controlling and guiding it.

She gave a little cry as she went down, then landed with a thud right on top of somebody.

“Oof!” The person’s breath expelled as her bottom landed on something with more cushion than she would have expected—a stomach?

“I’m so sorry,” Alex said, trying to maneuver herself up and off. But the hand that had rested on her hipbone slid around her waist. An arm, heavy, hard, and masculine, prevented her escape.

“You’re sure heavier than you look,” a voice grunted in her ear even as she swung her head around to confront her captor and demand that she be instantly released.

She recognized voice and face at almost the same instant.

“Joe!” Alex said with delight, and abandoned all thought of struggling to get free.

She was exactly where she wanted to be.

Thirty-four

H
ang on for a minute and I’ll get us situated.” Joe’s breath was warm as it feathered past her ear. He’d been eating something that gave it a faint buttery smell: popcorn? He shifted beneath her, scooting an inch or so backward, and Alex found herself sliding downward and a little to the left. When she stopped, she was sitting between Joe’s bent knees on a thick layer of hay that covered the bed of the wagon. Her bottom was fitted snugly against his crotch, his arms were wrapped loosely around her waist, and her back rested against his chest. Her own knees were bent, too; with one kid’s back directly in front of her and more crowding close on all sides, there was no room to stretch out her legs. Considering their company, the posture seemed very intimate, but a quick glance around assured Alex that there was, literally, no other place to sit. The wagon was crammed full. There would have been no room at all for her if Joe had not shared his space.

The wagon lurched again as they turned a corner and headed down the street in front of the school. By the yellowish light of the ornate iron streetlamps at the end of each block, Alex could see the Civil War–era houses and shops that lined the streets of Shelbyville. A glance around told her there were two other adults in the wagon. The rest, perhaps
twenty-five or so in all, were teens. The basketball team appeared to be there in force. In deference to the crisp night air, they wore dark sweats with
Rockets
emblazoned across their chests in white. She saw Eli huddled at the opposite end of the wagon between Neely and Heather and had to smile. Poor boy.

While her position in Joe’s arms had the potential to be embarrassing for both of them, considering that they were in full view of a wagonload of teens including Joe’s son and her own sharp-eyed and big-mouthed little sister, as well as two potentially gossipy adults, a quick glance around reassured her. The kids were talking among themselves, joking and laughing, cutting up. The adults, a couple in perhaps their late forties, were chatting to each other. Nobody seemed to be paying her and Joe any attention whatsoever.

“Comfortable?” Joe asked.

Alex nodded. Actually, she could think of no place else in the world where she would rather be. Relaxing slightly, she allowed her head to rest back against his shoulder. Her cheekbone brushed his jaw as she moved. His skin was warm, and faintly prickly with five-o’clock shadow.

Not sure that he could see her nod, she said, “Yes,” turning her face toward him a little more to be certain that he could hear her over the steady drone of the tractor engine and the rising and falling voices of babbling teens. A faint smell of soap reached her nostrils: Irish Spring? She inhaled the scent, hardly aware that she was doing so, and at her movement her bottom slid down an inch or so on the slippery hay. Joe’s arms tightened around her waist, pulling her back up against him again, repositioning her deep within the cradle of his thighs.

The resulting jolt of electricity made Alex catch her breath. His thighs tightened around her, presumably, she thought, to help hold her in place.

“Can’t have you slip-sliding away,” he said in a perfectly normal voice in her ear.

Was it possible that he wasn’t feeling what she was feeling?

Alex realized that he was wearing his favorite blue Michelin-man coat. It was unzipped and she was inside it now, so that the parted sides enfolded her, curving around her like his arms—and legs. Under the
coat, he wore a black or perhaps navy sweatshirt over a white T-shirt, and it was against this that her back rested. In the sideways glimpses she got of it, she could not be sure of its color. The changing light as they rolled past one streetlight after another, as well as through the relative darkness in the middle of each block, made details such as that uncertain. His bent knees, which cradled her on either side, made his legs easy to see: he was wearing jeans, with tan lace-up work boots on his feet.

“What
is
this, anyway? Part of the pep rally?” She had to talk, so she said the first thing that came into her head. She could not just sit there dumbly, absorbing the effects of his proximity on her body like a sponge in a puddle.

“Haven’t you ever done anything like this before?” He shifted again so that his mouth was close to her ear. She could feel the brush of his lips as he spoke. Exquisitely sensitive to even such a slight touch from his mouth, the delicate outer curve of her ear seemed to tingle and burn.

Alex shook her head. “No.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t guess tractors and farm wagons are real big with the boarding-school crowd,” he said. A husky note crept into his voice. “This is a hayride, Princess. It’s taking everybody to a bonfire. We’ll burn the opposing team in effigy and sing the school fight song and roast hot dogs and marshmallows and in general have a hell of a good time. And then tomorrow night, we’ll play basketball.”

His thigh muscles were taut and powerful. She remembered how they had looked naked, long and well defined and roughened with dark hair, as he shifted position a little and she was squeezed between them. They ended up pressing against her blazer-clad arms, which she had wrapped around her knees in a posture that sought to make the most of limited space. The effect this casual contact had on her was instant and electric: the tingling and burning spread, and burst along the way into a full-blown flame of desire.

“What is it about men and basketball, anyway?” Alex asked in a commendably lighthearted tone. “I have to admit I don’t see the attraction.”

Joe chuckled. The sound shook his chest and the breath that accompanied it was warm on her ear. He moved again, changing position, and
the flame gained strength, shooting out fiery tendrils that crawled like an army of red ants over every inch of her skin. “Sort of like women and shopping, I imagine. By the way, thanks for taking Jenny.”

“You’re welcome.”

“She was thrilled with that dress. She tried it on for me. I have to admit, it sure was hot.” There was a teasing note in his voice now, as though he sought to deliberately lighten the atmosphere that had sprung up between them. But his arms around her waist remained firmly in place, hard and strong, holding her against him a shade more tightly, she thought, than he needed to. The heat of his body curled around her, quickening her heartbeat.

“Jenny’s a sweetheart,” Alex said sincerely.

“You know, I think so too.”

“We all had fun: Jenny, Samantha, Neely, and me.”

“Speaking of Neely,” he said. “I have a bone to pick with your sister.”

“Oh?” They had passed beyond the outskirts of town now, and the sky opened before them in an endless, starry expanse. On either side the fields were dark and still. The other occupants of the wagon could still be clearly heard—they were laughing and shrieking and calling back and forth to one another—but they could be seen now only as shadowy shapes, with much of the detail lost. The wagon rolled on, rocking slightly from side to side. Alex lay back in Joe’s arms, inhaling the scent of hay and gasoline and man, and luxuriating in her position. She could feel the heat of his body, the steely strength of his muscles, all along her body. “What did she do?”

“She painted pink stripes in my daughter’s hair.”

Remembering Neely’s and Samantha’s occupation in the kitchen earlier, Alex was surprised out of her contemplation of her body’s various responses to Joe’s closeness into a giggle. She was surprised she hadn’t guessed. “Oh, dear.”