Misadventures Of A Single Mom (Big Sky Boyfriends #1)

Chapter 5

5

Ty looked over his shoulder at the new addition to his truck. The avocado green side-by-side fridge was lodged in the front windshield and roof at a forty-five-degree angle. One door was wide open and frozen foods spilled out. He shook his head and swore. I only heard a few cuss words as he’d done it so quietly and the neighbor’s car alarm was going off. It could have been the ringing in my ears. It was hard to tell the difference.

A small fire sent black smoke up into the air where the back of the garage had been, but was minor enough not to set the whole house ablaze. The smell of cooked house blew on the breeze. As I couldn’t smell gas anymore, I had to assume it was all used up in the explosion when it launched the fridge through the air twenty feet.

Ty’s body was rigid, strung tight like a bow, but he didn’t shout or rant his anger like I would have if my car had been smooshed. When he turned to face me, he’d bottled it up tightly.

“Are you hurt?” He took my shoulders in his big hands and looked me up and down, probably checking for any broken bones, bowel evisceration or hangnails. Exposed nipples. His voice had a rough edge, his grip strong. I’d never seen such intensity in his eyes before. This must’ve been the look he had in battle in the Middle East. No doubt he’d seen worse in war.

My sunglasses were no longer on my face. I’d scraped my knees and hands where I’d skidded in the dirt. It stung, but I felt lucky with just that. He pulled a weed from my hair. Dirt covered my shirt and I noticed there was a small rip at the shoulder.

I shook my head. Stunned. “The house just blew up.” Duh.

Ty pulled me into his arms in a fierce hug, my face pressed against his chest. His rock-hard chest. He smelled like soap, dirt and fire. I could feel his heartbeat pound against his ribs. At least the explosion affected him on a cardiovascular level.

God, it felt good to be held, to be comforted by a man. A man who was actually worried about me, that the reason for his tight grip was because he was reassuring himself I was whole.

One of the black shutters fell from the second floor and landed in a juniper.

“I know you’ve seen lots of crazy things with the fire department and stuff I can’t even imagine with the army, but in my little world houses don’t just blow up,” I said into his shirt.

“In everybody’s world houses don’t just blow up,” he said, his lips at my temple. “Not from a propane tank. This house had help.”

An hour later, I sat in a vintage lawn chair—the kind with the colored woven plastic from 1974—supplied by the elderly couple who lived across the street. I positioned myself in their driveway, a mug of coffee in hand—I told you Montanans were friendly—and watched the action across the street. The sun was warm and my shirt stuck to my body, damp with perspiration. The scalding hot coffee wasn’t very refreshing, but no one could see my hands still shaking while I held the cup. Mr. and Mrs. Huffman sat on either side of me, running a constant chatter about their suspicions.

“Those propane tanks are such a danger. I lay in bed thinking we’ll be blown up any minute,” Mrs. Huffman said. She had long white hair pulled up into a bun at the back of her head in a style reminiscent of Little House on the Prairie . She had a sweet disposition and was a Nervous Nelly.

Mr. Huffman was the complete opposite. Short and round, he’d be a great Santa Claus at the mall. Except for his carrot red hair and lack of beard. Even somewhere in his seventies, his hair was still red. “For Pete’s sake, Helen. You snore through this ridiculous worry of yours every night. Propane tanks don’t just blow up. There has to be some kind of ignition, a spark. I think we’re safer with our propane tank than on the city’s natural gas lines.” Mr. Huffman harrumphed and settled into his lawn chair, arms folded across his ample belly.

I actually couldn’t blame Mrs. Huffman her worries, or Mr. Huffman his grievance with public works. The whole town had been on edge about gas explosions since 2009 when one morning, a block of Main Street blew up. No warnings, just boom. Sadly, a woman was killed and an entire city block blown to smithereens when, by accounts, she’d done nothing more than flip a light switch. The gas lines that ran to the downtown buildings were ancient, 1930s old and cracked. Gas had seeped into the ground and up into the building. I’d been just down the street at the time when it happened. I had been a bit too close for comfort on Main that morning, and now once again.

I never really thought about how I got my furnace to work before the downtown explosion and realized I took quite a bit for granted. I lived in the city linked up to the public gas lines where, by all accounts, I shouldn’t be concerned. As my house was built in the fifties, my gas lines couldn’t be more than fifty-some years old. No problems. Or so I made myself believe.

Out here, the garage sale house—the entire neighborhood—used propane. Propane heat, the stove and water heater. There weren’t any old underground pipes, just a separate tank behind each house. So, what caused this explosion?

A county sheriff patrol car and one fire truck remained. It, of course, was from the volunteer fire department that had hosted the lovely pancake breakfast the weekend before. Outside of city boundaries, the home was serviced by the volunteers, not the paid city fire department.

Once they remembered me from Zach’s horn incident, they quickly looked me over and I was deemed unharmed by the paramedics, then kindly removed to the Huffman’s yard across the street. Ample distance away from the fire truck and its horn. Obviously, they didn’t want a repeat performance from a member of the West family. As if.

Ty remained with them, recapping what had happened. As he wasn’t a member of the department and the city hadn’t been called in for support, he only acted as witness to the incident. The sheriff took notes while the firemen poked with their tools through the rubble to make sure there were no hot spots. Often Ty would point to different parts of what remained of the house or his maimed truck. I was either too far away to hear what he said or my ears hadn’t recovered full function yet. On occasion, he pointed at me and they all had a good chuckle. Who knew what they were talking about, but I could only guess. They seemed to be enjoying themselves at my expense. I grumbled from my spectator seat as I imagined their words.

“Do you know the people who live in that house?” I asked. Mrs. Huffman took my coffee cup and refilled it from a Thermos.

“Cookie, dear?” she asked, holding out a plate.

Of course, I took one. I never turned down a cookie from an old lady. And I was in shock. Sugar was good for shock. I contemplated adopting her as my grandma as I sipped my coffee.

“The Moores live there. Alma and Ted.”

I had a terrible thought and tried to swallow the bit of homemade chocolate chip cookie past the lump in my throat. “You don’t think they were home, do you?”

Firefighters had been in and out of the house. If they’d discovered someone—dead or alive—they’d have been brought out by now. Hopefully.

“They moved to Arizona last fall. Had enough of the winters. Ted retired last year from the post office, Alma the year before,” Mr. Huffman told me. He too, ate a cookie. A few crumbs landed on his tummy that jiggled like a bowlful of jelly.

“Alma was a school teacher. High school English,” added Mrs. Huffman, taking a sip of coffee.

“Then who lives there? I came to a garage sale over the weekend, so someone has to be taking care of the place.” Although not that well. Unmowed grass, gas explosions.

“Right, that was a good sale. Got myself one of those new-fangled quesadilla makers,” Mrs. Huffman said. She’d murdered the word quesadilla so the end sounded a lot like armadillo. “They have a son who stays there. Morty. Works at the Rocking Double D ranch.”

“That boy’s always been a little…odd,” said Mr. Huffman.

I wasn’t sure what odd meant to him. Even at the forty-fifth parallel this was still the Bible belt and so it could mean anything.

“Odd?” I wondered, hoping he’d clarify.

“He’s twenty-four and lives in his parents’ house. Never had a lot of motivation in life. Even as a little kid. Watched TV. Played those shoot-em-up video games all the time.”

Did this Morty Moore have enough motivation as a grown up to steal a vial of semen off my stoop? Was he in over his head with something? Someone? Did he have enough smarts to take the semen from where he worked? If he did, why did he put it in a garden gnome? The gnome part really was odd. Maybe he did do it, after all.

I’d had enough of being pampered by the Huffmans. I thanked them for the refreshments and headed back across the street.

My phone rang from my pocket and I stopped in the middle of the blocked-off road. I read the display.

“Hi, Mom,” I said brightly.

“I just came from a sale at the mall. I was fixin’ to get some new lipstick at the makeup counter but picked up some jammies for the boys and some sun hats instead.” My mom sounded as pleased with a sale at the mall as I did by a good find at a garage sale. I’d learned it from her. Her malls were just better—and cooler. No sense sweating outside at garage sales in the summer in Savannah. No find was worth heat stroke.

I caught Ty’s eye and he headed my way.

His shorts had a pocket ripped at the seam. Dirt smeared his T-shirt on one broad shoulder. He still looked pretty grim and yet hot as hell. His biceps bulged, his forearms were corded. His legs were dusted with sandy-colored hair, but I ogled the well-defined calves. He worked out. A lot.

“That’s great, Mom!” I replied, all of sudden very dry mouthed. “I…um…can’t really talk now. I’ll call you later.” Before she could get in a goodbye, I ended the call. Didn’t want her to learn anything about the little mishap with the house. There was a time and place to tell your mother you were almost exploded and it wasn’t now.

“Thankfully no one was inside, no one was hurt.” Ty’s eyes grazed over every part of me that he could see. New nerves fluttered up and rattled me.

“Sorry about your truck,” I said as I watched a small clump of firemen stand around it, probably contemplating how to get the fridge detached. A few bags of frozen vegetables were strewn on the ground by a front tire.

He grimaced, rubbed his thumb over my forehead. I must’ve had some dirt smeared there. “It’s just a truck.”

Why was he so nonchalant about it? I’d be super upset if my car just got leveled by a fridge. It reminded me a little of the Wicked Witch of the West. “I did offer to drive.”

Ty glared at me and his jaw clenched tight. I realized I might have just poked a bear with a stick. He looked left and right, grabbed my upper arm, gently this time. “Come with me.”

I followed him around to the back side of the fire truck, away from all the action, the people. He leaned in close so his eyes were level with mine.

“It’s just a fucking car. I can get another one.” His blue eyes dropped to my mouth and back up again. “But you, you’re irreplaceable.”

Oh. Heat and something else flared to life. Something…good.

“Shit.” He shook his head. “I’m having thoughts about kissing you.”

My breath lodged in my throat and I felt my blood pressure soar.

“But it’s the wrong thing to do,” he continued. While he stared at my mouth, he looked as if he had heartburn, that kissing me was what he wanted, but excruciating at the same time. “Hell, I don’t kiss women who are demented.”

Huh? Now I gave him a funny look. That wasn’t what I’d imagined coming next.

“Demented?” I asked. I was stuck on the word kiss which made my brain slow.

He ran his hand over the back of his neck, his frustration obvious. “If you’d come out here by yourself like you’d wanted the men would be picking up pieces of you along with the house.”

I jabbed my finger into his chest. “If I’d come by myself I would have parked in the street!” What a lame comeback. I wasn’t very good at confrontation. I’d hated when Nate had gotten in my face, told me how everything wrong in his life had been my fault. Maybe I was demented.

He frowned, blue eyes blazing. “What the hell does that mean?” He had the look of a man who was talking to a woman who really was demented. I couldn’t blame him.

I felt tears burn the back of my eyes, knew that while he wanted to kiss me, he didn’t want me . “I have no idea!” I swallowed the lump of frustration and old fear trying to escape. “Nate used to yell at me and I don’t like it.”

I looked down at the ground. Anywhere but at Ty.

“I bet he never yelled at you about a house exploding.”

I shook my head. “No. Just sex,” I replied, nonchalantly. I looked up at him, surprised. Crap, I hadn’t meant to let that slip out. Too much information and no one wanted to hear about the guy who came before, even if he was dead.

Ty pulled his head back a bit and looked at me strangely. “Sweetheart, I can guarantee I’ll never yell at you about sex.” He leaned back in, this time so close he whispered in my ear. I felt his breath hot on my neck and I shivered. His knuckles ran up and down my bare arm, goose bumps rising. My body responded to him so well. Too well. “You, however, can yell all you want. Hell, I bet I can make you scream.”

He was right. I was demented. Demented enough to turn my face into his and kiss him. Not just a little peck on the cheek, but the kind where you grab the hair at the back of his neck and settle in for a while.

After a second of stunned stillness, he took over. Gentleness was now over. His kiss was a little rough, his tongue moved quickly to find mine. Heat flared and I moaned, which only spurred him to take it deeper. His hand cupped my nape and held me in place, tilted me as he wanted.

God, he was a good kisser! Amazing. Deep licks, soft pecks, dominant possessiveness.

I was equally desperate to lose myself in the kiss, holding him close, even hooking my leg around his. I could feel every hard inch of him.

What an insane morning! The adrenaline was bleeding into the kiss, into the need to take him right here on the street. I went hot all over, and weak. I felt alive, and after the death-defying experience, it was wonderful. I was walked backward and my back pressed up against something hard and cold. The fire truck. Ty’s chest was equally hard against my breasts and he could no doubt feel my hard nipples. His knee nudged my legs apart and he was even closer, his hard cock settling right at my pussy, our clothes the only barrier. Like a total hussy, I rolled my hips, rubbing against him. We groaned together.

I was so totally lost, so in over my head. So…forgetful. This couldn’t go anywhere, not here, not against a fire truck—although I was sure Goldie had an adult film of it in her collection at the store. But the actress wasn’t me. This wasn’t me.

I pulled back as best I could, remembering where we were.

“We…um…need to stop.” I breathed as if I’d run a mile.

Ty grinned, his eyes dark with lust. His lips were red and a little shiny. He pressed his cock into me once, then stepped back. “I’ve got that box of condoms if you want to start back up someplace a little more private.”

He kissed the tip of my nose and walked away, leaving me leaning against the fire truck, the only thing keeping me up.

Around lunchtime, I got a ride home with a sheriff. Ty’d had to stay behind and wait for the insurance adjuster and complete the paperwork about his flattened truck. Kelly had been kind enough to drive Bobby and Zach into town in her epic van that held all her kids, and mine. The decibel level in the back had to be close to rock concert proportions.

I met them at Bogert Pool. Everyone piled out, pool noodles, goggles and towels flying every which way, ready for an afternoon of swimming. Bogert was the city’s outdoor pool which had swim lessons in the morning—which Zach and Bobby went to—and open pool hours all afternoon. It was noisy and chock full of kids, but usually the boys ran into someone they knew and played the afternoon away in the shallow pool. I was content with the sun and cool water.

Kelly and I sat on the edge of the shallow end and watched the younger ones splash and swim. I wore the green bikini I’d gotten two years before from mail order. It wasn’t super revealing, although my larger chest size provided ample cleavage no matter what I wore and made me feel a little self-conscious. Kelly wore a typical mom-kini. A brightly patterned, mostly pink tank and swim skirt. It, of course, looked cute on her. If I wore her suit, I’d be spilling out the top and the little ruffles on the skirt would look like bloomers on me.

“I don’t know if I should laugh at you or hug you. I’m so glad you’re all right, but I can’t believe it. The house blew up and Ty’s truck….” Kelly shook her head. There really wasn’t much else to say. The rest—the why, the who and how—were still mysteries. I had hoped to go to the garage sale house and get answers. Instead, I only had more questions. More problems.

And that was just the gnome mystery. That didn’t even include Ty and the mystery of the kiss. The Kiss. It deserved capital letters because it was monumental. Memorable. Unforgettable. At the same time, it really wasn’t that complicated. It was just a kiss. An extremely hot, steamy, frantic kiss. My bones had practically melted, my brain had seeped out my ears. My nipples got rock hard just thinking about it. And lower, I was achy and eager for that thick cock I’d felt.

“Explain to me again your problem with Ty?” Kelly asked. “It was a kiss.”

When I’d told her about the incident behind the fire truck, and she’d fanned herself with her hand. I felt like I was in high school, talking through a make-out session, analyzing it in minute detail.

Hell, yeah. It was a Kiss .

My cell rang from my bag and I dashed over to it, leaving wet footprints behind me. Goldie.

“What the holy hell happened?” She didn’t waste time on hello.

I knew what she was asking about and I refused to enlighten her before I yelled at her first. “What the hell is right! Why on earth did you give Ty that box?”

“I didn’t think you’d do anything about the lack of sex in your life. Thought I might give him a little push.”

“A push?” I turned away from the other pool patrons and covered a hand over the phone. “Anal beads are not a push! Do you have any idea what he thinks of me now? I certainly don’t!”

“He’ll think you’re sexually adventurous and open to trying new things.”

“I’m not into trying anal beads on the first date!” I whispered. More kisses would be okay though.

“Fine, fine,” she grumbled. “I’ll come up with something a little tamer. Just save them for date three.” Chuckling came across the line loud and clear.

I tried counting to ten but made it to six. “You will not send him another box.” My voice was two steps below a shout and one I used for the boys when they stuffed their toys down the toilet. “If you do…I won’t tell you about the explosion.” A threat was all I had. And it was a weak one as she’d find out all about it from someone else anyway.

“All right. I won’t send him another box.” She sounded contrite, which meant she had something up her sleeve. Her fingers were probably crossed.

“Good. I’m at the pool so I’ll explain it all later. Ten still?” I was supposed to work with her tonight as Veronica, another employee, was on vacation.

“Please.”

“How come you never torture Veronica with a box?” I wondered.

“One lonely vagina at a time.”

Goldie hung up without a goodbye.

My mouth fell open and I stared at the phone. Had she really just said that? Lonely vagina?

I mindlessly waved to Bobby who cannonballed off the side of the pool. Kelly clapped when he popped above the surface. I put the phone away, still stunned by Goldie’s words and rejoined my friend.

“Hello? The kiss?” Kelly prompted.

“Like I said, it wasn’t just a kiss.” I sighed. I couldn’t deny it. “It was way more. Whenever I see Ty I have that sick, nervous feeling in my stomach. There are cute guys out there that haven’t done a thing for me. Like Luke Newsom’s dad from second grade. He’s really attractive, but I feel nothing. But then Ty walks in the room and…zing. There’s a zing I can’t explain.” A zing that went straight to my clit.

Kelly waded through the shallow water to pick up Emmaline who was crying because she’d gotten splashed by a big kid. Appeased by her mom’s attentions, the four-year-old wriggled down out of Kelly’s grasp and went back to her water toys.

“God, I love that zing,” Kelly said, looking dreamily up at the sky as if she remembered her own special zing. “So, what’s the problem?”

Exactly. What was the problem? I was chicken. Too chicken to be interested in someone again, even with all that heat between us. The chemistry was off the charts. Even Ty couldn’t argue with that. But I didn’t want him to find me deficient. Unappealing. Like Nate. Life had been plugging along just fine until…zing. Once you get the zing, you can’t go back.

“I need to figure out what’s going on with this ridiculous vial of semen.” I whispered the last as we were in mixed company. Grown-ups and kids.

She frowned. “What does that have to do with the kiss?”

Crap, I hadn’t distracted her. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I just know what comes after a kiss and I’m not sure if I’m ready for it.”

“The it is the best part! I say go for it.” Kelly pushed her straw hat down further over her eyes. The glare off the water was intense. She put her hand up by her mouth and whispered, “I’d get some of those condom samples at the store, just in case.”

I rolled my eyes. If she only knew about Goldie’s package and the huge box that Ty now had. I went to retrieve the sunscreen from my bag and started spraying. I felt extra heat on the back of my neck. Was it from the sun or from talk about sex with Ty?

“Can we talk about something else now?” She and Goldie seemed to love to gab about my non-existent sex life. Way more than I did.

“Fine, fine. What was the name of that ranch again where the guy, the gnome stealer, worked?”

“Um…Rocking Double D.”

Kelly’s third youngest, Kyle, stopped by for her to adjust his swim goggles, and then was gone. “I’ve heard of that place. It was in the paper last month.”

Montana, the fourth largest state in the US, is huge. With less than a million people living in the entire state, there was a lot of open land. Lots of ranch land. For Montana, I was considered a city dweller and rarely, if ever, became involved with ranch life. The only time I saw ranchers was at the county fair when they brought in their cows, sheep and other animals to promote their ranch, sell or compete for blue ribbons. I didn’t know anything at all about growing crops or raising cattle. I got my food at the farmers market, grocery store or butcher shop.

But Kelly had grown up in Bozeman and knew lots of people, and lots of people knew her—way more than I did. Ranchers, townies, whomever. Her parents knew even more. Add Goldie to the mix and I swear they knew everyone between Butte and Billings. But the fact that the Rocking Double D ranch was in the Chronicle meant city folk like me should know about it, too.

“A cow there had triplets.”

That was the last thing I expected her to say. In fact, it distracted me so much I sprayed sunscreen up my arm and into my hair. I now smelled like coconut and chlorine. I had to imagine triplets, then a cow giving birth to them. How big was a calf at birth? I couldn’t picture the mother cow with three in there. Her belly must have grazed the ground.

“I didn’t even know it was possible. Triplets?”

“I guess it happens on occasion, but not all three usually live. Some kind of mother-rejecting-the-extra-calves-thing. Who knows, but it’s rare enough all three lived that the paper picked up on it.”

“Huh.” What the hell did a vial of bull semen in a gnome have to do with triplet cows?