The Nerd Who Loved Me (3 page)

“Yeah, I do.”

She gave him a wobbly smile. “I heard you were back.”

He didn’t respond. Just watched as she shot a glance toward Cecil Cormier, who stood behind the counter, square, silent and maybe sympathetic, but the man didn’t help her keep up the inane conversation.

“Well, I should be getting home. Got to water the azaleas before I lose them to this heat.” Reva moved toward the counter, looking like a convict in a room full of police officers.

“That’s all you have to say? Azaleas?”

Reva laughed nervously, causing her store-bought breasts to jiggle. She dressed too young for a woman nearing sixty, but she’d always been flashy, driving the most expensive car in town, wearing designer clothes, taking what she wanted. But there had been one thing she couldn’t have—Howard Long, M.D. So she and her asshole husband had crucified Tripp’s father with false allegations and driven his family from town in disgrace.

“Water under the bridge,” she said, with another uneasy twitter. She handed the hose to Cecil, who looked as if he was enjoying the showdown.

“Not to me. Your husband destroyed a man who loved his community, his family and his church. All because you wanted my father and couldn’t have him.”

“No, you don’t understand.”

“No? Then help me understand why you would frame him as some pervert who would molest you on his exam table.”

All color left Reva’s face. “I sent him a letter.”

“Not good enough. Your accusations ruined his health and nearly ruined his marriage. He couldn’t even stay in the town he loved. It’s time you told everyone the truth. You owe my family that much.”

Reva shook her head and hurried toward the door, leaving the scent of an expensive perfume behind. The clack of her high heels echoed the blood pulsing in his ears.

Cecil stared at him, not moving a muscle as the door closed with a jingle, leaving no sound but the rattle of the window A/C unit and Tripp’s heavy breathing in the small hardware store.

Tripp inhaled deeply, exhaled and handed his list to Cecil. The older man took it, looking embarrassed and at a loss.

“Have these things delivered to Long House, please. Here’s my card. Keep the number on file because I’ll be phoning in orders over the next couple of months.”

Cecil nodded like an old porch hound and withdrew toward the back shelves, leaving Tripp to contemplate what had gone down on aisle three of Cormier Hardware.

He hadn’t been ready to face any of the Rodrigues.

Or Mary Belle.

But the ghosts of his past breathed down his neck.

Chapter Nine

The creek wasn’t even lukewarm, it was plain ol’ hot. Definitely not the refreshing splash Mary Belle had convinced herself it would be.

But she knew she hadn’t gone down to the creek to cool off.

She’d gone because it gave her a nice vista to contemplate—Tripp without his shirt on.

Yeah, he rode the bulldozer shirtless, his mouth a determined line as he knocked down the old greenhouse and scooped the debris into the metal waste container sitting near the tree line.

Mary Belle kicked a small stone into the stream as she balanced on the flat rocks, flip-flops hooked on her fingers. Every now and then she snuck a peek at Tripp, who seemed unaware she watched him from the shallow water that flowed behind their properties. She knew she shouldn’t be dragging her finger through the frosting again, but she
so
wanted a taste of Tripp. Just a little, and then surely the intrigue would wear off.

The hum of the dozer stopped and Mary Belle looked up.

She didn’t see Tripp for a moment, and then there he was, striding toward her, still shirtless, wearing a pair of cutoff scrubs and Wolverine boots. Somehow the combo was deadly sexy.

“Hey,” she said, not bothering to smile. In fact, she was a little embarrassed to have been caught watching—uh, splashing—in the creek.

“What’re you doing out here?”

She stared down at her toes embedded in the mud. “I’m cooling off.”

“Really?” He cocked an eyebrow as a smile flickered at his lips. “Cooling off?”

Mary Belle shrugged. “Well, it’s not like I have a pool or anything.”

“Thought you were afraid of mosquitoes.” He sat down on a fallen stump and tugged his boots off, then his socks.

“I’m wearing bug repellant. What’re you doing?”

He smiled. That smile. The one that made her toes wriggle. The one that made her belly flop. The one that said, “I’m not that boy you remember. I’m a man. A sexy, self-assured, successful man.”

She swallowed hard as he rose and waded toward her, clad only in those hacked-off scrubs, tied at his lean waist.

“I’m joining you. Figure you’ve been waiting down here for me.”

“I was not,” she said, drawing her eyebrows together, trying to look affronted.

“You’re a liar, Mary B.”

“No, I’m not.”

He stopped in front of her. Damn, he really was glorious. Lean muscles. Flat stomach. Dark hair that made a shadow in the center of his chest and tapered down his stomach, making her want to trace the path with her finger, down to that drawstring.

She jerked her eyes up.

“Yeah, you are,” he said, his voice as soft as the sunlight falling through the still branches above them.

At that moment, Mary Belle knew she couldn’t resist him any longer. She dropped her flip-flops and reached for him.

Chapter Ten

The touch of Mary Belle’s lips on his ignited a firestorm of desire that unwound in his belly, then rose and blanketed him in bone-shaking need. Maybe it was the confrontation with Reva making him act rashly, or maybe it was the fact he’d been dreaming of kissing Mary Belle again. Not a peck like last time, but a hot, possessive kiss.

So Tripp hauled her against him, one hand sliding over the back of the white tank she wore, the other tangling in those silky dark locks.

Like a very good girl, Mary B. opened her mouth, allowing him to taste the sweetness he’d only imagined in his adolescent dreams.

Damn, it was better than he’d fantasized.

Her hands wound around his neck, tilting her head, deepening the kiss. Her breasts brushed against his naked chest, inflaming him, burning his control.

He lifted her into his arms and her legs twined around his waist. Not breaking their kiss, he walked toward the bank, feeling the crackling leaves and twigs beneath his feet but not caring enough to stop.

Her slight intake of breath and the way her body slammed against his told him they’d run into something—Mary Belle’s back had hit an oak tree. He didn’t stop kissing her.

She clung to him as he ran his hands up and down her sides, flirting with the side of a breast, brushing the backs of her thighs.

Wrenching his lips free, he lowered his head to her throat. She tasted salty and sweet, like caramel and peanuts. Like heaven. Like Mary Belle.

“Tripp,” she groaned, dropping her head against the trunk of the tree.

“What, baby?” he murmured, sliding his lips toward the shell of her ear.

“Oh, Tripp.” She arched against him, sliding her body against his hardness, making him lose his own breath for a moment. He dropped his hand toward the hem of her shirt, ready to tug it up and then move his hand down to the lushness hidden beneath those cut-off shorts. Until the reality of the situation sunk in.

“Call me Howard,” he said, nipping her ear.

And that made her laugh. “Howard?”

He grinned at her. “What? Howard isn’t sexy?”

She shook her head, her blue eyes still dilated with desire, her legs and arms still hooked around him. “No. That’s your daddy’s name. You did that on purpose.”

He set her down with a little kiss on her nose. “What? Kill the mood?”

Nodding, she contemplated him. “Why? Revenge?”

Was that why he’d stopped making love to Mary Belle? Had he set out to make her want him only to take that desire and toss it back at her? Was he punishing her for choosing to chase that ass Bear Rodrigue rather than bestow a lowly date on him?

“No. But that went a little too fast, even for me.”

Mary Belle crossed her arms. “So I’m the—”

“No, it was honest and sincere. Don’t make this what it isn’t, Mary B.”

She wouldn’t look at him. Maybe because his scrubs were tented. Or maybe because he’d been the one to stop, making her feel dirty.

“Hey, look at me.” She lifted her gaze. In her eyes he saw vulnerability. Brazen, sassy Mary Belle wasn’t accustomed to being so uncertain. “I don’t want to rush into something with you.”

Her chin jerked. “Jeez, Tripp, don’t flatter yourself. It was just a kiss.”

He smiled. “No, this was way more than that.”

She studied him. “You make me feel like something I’m not.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.” He tucked a curl behind her ear. “Oh, and Mary B. I do want you. Don’t doubt that.”

Her eyes widened.

“But with you, it’s not just sex.”

And then Tripp turned, walked back across the creek, scooped up his boots and socks and headed up to the yard to finish the job with the greenhouse. Because over the years, he’d learned a hard and fast rule when pursuing a woman—always leave her wanting more.

Chapter Eleven

Mary Belle stared at the ceiling fan and twisted to her side, punching the goose-down pillow into shape before dropping her head on it. No good. Throwing off the covers, she flipped to her stomach.

Damn it.

Who did Tripp Long think he was?

He’d turned her on and then turned her down.

Okay, well, not down completely. It had been really kind of sweet. Caring. A decent guy treating her like she was more than some backroom floozy.

Treating her the opposite way Bear Rodrigue had treated her.

Bear Rodrigue—her eternal crush. Handsome, charming, rich and self-absorbed. Bear had treated her like crap, but she’d always gone back to him. He’d smile, buy her some flowers, talk about forever, and she’d dive into the cab of his truck, giving him all of who she was. And why?

Because everyone had always said they’d end up together.

That she grounded Bear.

That she was good for him.

That one day she’d be his bride, his wife, the mother of his children. And she’d believed them.

So she’d circled around his tree, waiting on Bear to grow up and realize what a treasure she was. But he never had, and now she felt stupid for believing Bear had ever cared about her. She was a piece of ass to him, someone to take to ball games, bake him lemon custard and help him pick out designer shirts.

But Bear was history now…history she would not repeat.

A sound at the window had her bolting upright.

Tap. Tap
.

Cautiously, she swung her legs over the bed, grabbing an oversize T-shirt because she usually slept in a thong, and crept toward the old-fashioned gingham curtains she should have tossed years ago.

Tripp stood in the moonlight.

Holding a box.

Mary Belle slid the window up and the heat of the night blasted in. “Are you crazy?”

“Look what I found.” He held up a small box.

“What’s that?”

He hooked the handle of the box around a few fingers and climbed the faded lattice skirting the raised house—something he’d done many times when they were kids.

She moved back as his forearms rose over the windowsill, followed by a pair of eyes that took in her bared thighs. She tugged the T-shirt down, feeling damned defenseless in the lace thong.

“Look,” he said, holding the box by the handle, jamming it into the room and wiggling it. A few dirt clumps hit the wood floor, and the moon lit the room enough that she could see exactly what he held.

Her
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
lunch box, aka their time capsule.

He hoisted himself through the window and dropped fairly gracefully onto her pink rug, rolling so he came up on his knees. “When I dug up those scraggly flower bushes, I found it.”

She backed toward the bed and pulled a pillow into her lap so her panties didn’t show. “You could have waited until tomorrow to show me.”

She squinted at the digital clock. It was nine forty-three.

Tripp’s eyebrows dipped. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d be in bed already. And I remembered how I used to climb in here and we’d read your dad’s smutty Westerns with a flashlight, and the idea of you in a nightie wouldn’t go away.”

Mary Belle couldn’t believe it, but she blushed. She seriously felt heat in her cheeks, and she prayed Tripp couldn’t see the evidence in the faint light illuminating her bedroom.

“You want to open the box or just make out?” he asked.

Mary Belle swallowed and thought about pulling Tripp from his knees and pushing him into her bed so she could touch that tempting chest, run her fingers over the ridges of his taut belly, dip lower and see how much he’d grown into a man. “Uh, open the box.”

His laugh did those shivery things to her belly and made her pull the T-shirt even lower over her thighs. “Okay, Mary B. I’ll ignore the fact you look like every fantasy I could have imagined as a fourteen-year-old, and see what we put in here all those years ago.”

Mary Belle pressed her lips and legs together, nodding at the sexy man holding a lunch box in the middle of her room on a Tuesday night. “Okay.”

Tripp sunk to his bottom and patted the space next to him. “Come on.”

“I’m not dressed.”

“And that’s why I want you down here.”

Chapter Twelve

Tripp had gotten a good look at Mary Belle when he climbed into the room, and was fairly certain she wore an itty-bitty thong. That thought alone was enough to make his venture over to her house worth the jagged scratch he was certain graced his calf from a random protruding nail on the lattice. Probably wouldn’t hurt to scout around her house and check for any repairs that were necessary.

“My lack of clothing’s the main reason why I’d better stay up here.” She licked her lips, making them glisten in the faint moonlight.

“Chicken.”

She tossed the pillow toward the head of the bed and rose, giving him a nice view of sweet thighs and one butt cheek as she walked toward him. “No one calls me a chicken.”