Authors: Bethany Kane
Four days later, Katie sat on a stack of floor mats in the Prairie
Lakes Hospital physical therapy gym. Errol’s physical therapist was hot. Katie knew this, but recognized his attractiveness like she might a dreary work duty. She knew she should have some sort of reaction to his warm glances and sexy smiles. Instead, she was consumed with what it’d been like to have Rill Pierce’s cock convulse in orgasm in her mouth . . . what it’d been like to have him give himself to her.
Even if he
had
given himself in half measure. Even if he
obviously
hadn’t really wanted to surrender. Even if they’d hardly spoken since then.
Katie had joined league with Rill in his avoidance efforts. It was amazing how two people could coexist inside a house and never catch as much of a glimpse of each other, if they had their minds set to it.
At least he was eating the meals she made him. Not
with
her. But she’d noticed that the meals she prepared for him and covered with plastic wrap were disappearing from the refrigerator for the past few days. Small comfort, to know he wasn’t starving himself to death like he had been. In addition, Katie didn’t think he’d been drinking, either. Drunk people weren’t as quiet and elusive as Rill had been lately.
She forced herself to focus on Errol’s blond, svelte therapist—Dave Portland—when he approached her.
“I did an assessment on him. He’s strong as a horse, so that’ll really help him recuperate,” Dave was saying. He stood in front of her, his slim hips outlined in dark blue cotton surgical pants, his broad shoulders encased in a sky-blue hue. Had he winked when he finished speaking? Katie’s brain was too preoccupied to fully interpret flirtation.
What did flirtation matter to her?
Rill wouldn’t know the meaning of flirtation if it socked him in his gorgeous, scowling mouth.
Forget about how he’d interpret a woman going down on her knees for him and sucking for her life. She’d never done anything like that before, never been so hungry for a man. It’d been like some kind of void had opened inside her, a hole she hadn’t known existed until she’d tasted Rill on her tongue.
Now this thing had happened between them. Sure, it’d happened on that night she arrived as well, when he’d bent her over that bed and worked his cock into her until she’d screamed in pleasure. But Rill had been drunk that night. He didn’t have the memory searing his consciousness like Katie did. Knowing that he didn’t recall it had made it easier for her to look him in the eye. Well,
somewhat
easier. Not that she’d had much of an opportunity to look into Rill’s eyes much since coming to Vulture’s Canyon.
But four days ago—that’d been different. Rill hadn’t been drunk. Somehow she knew Rill had been stone-cold sober when he’d traced her lower lip deliberately with the tip of his cock and anointed her mouth with his semen. If he’d been drunk, she wouldn’t have felt his ambivalence so acutely.
“So . . . are you related to Errol?” Dave the physical therapist asked.
“Hmmm?” Katie asked as she licked her lower lip distractedly. When she realized Dave’s expression had gone rigid as he followed the movement of her tongue, she straightened and stood, donning her professional manner.
“No. No, we’re not related at all.”
“She ran me over,” Errol stated bluntly as he hobbled up to them in his crutches, still wearing the baseball cap that made his ears seem to poke out even farther from his head than nature had. Katie had been able to make out the letters beneath the dirt today: us AIR FORCE. The hat must have belonged to Errol’s dad. She wondered if he ever took it off. She grimaced apologetically at Errol’s bald statement, but Errol didn’t seem upset. He hadn’t seemed angry, in fact, ever since she’d hit him with her car. His lack of vengefulness, his bland acceptance of his incapacity, only increased Katie’s guilt.
“Her uncle is Howard Hughes. He flew planes, like my dad,” Errol told Dave.
“Not an uncle. Just a distant relative. You ready to go, Errol?” Katie asked.
“Yeah.”
“Will you be here for Errol’s first rehab appointment?” Dave asked Katie eagerly.
“Er . . . sure. I’m bringing Errol to all his appointments.”
“You hungry, Errol?” Katie asked him fifteen minutes later just
before she hit the turnoff that would lead either to town or to Errol’s riverside shack.
“Yeah.”
“How about if I buy you a burger from the diner to take home with you?”
“Yeah,” Errol repeated. When he wasn’t talking about airplanes or his dad, Errol was pretty laconic, but not in a dull way. In fact, his placidity and comfort with himself, no matter where he was, was something Katie had begun to admire about Errol. If only
she
could be so comfortable in her own skin.
She parked her Maserati across the street from the Legion Diner. In the distance, she saw Derek Legion and a couple of his friends crossing the street. Their adolescent laughter and deep voices bounced off the brick walls of a desolate Main Street. Katie waved. Derek returned her wave, but halfheartedly. He didn’t look too happy for some reason.
As she and Errol crossed the street, a sarcastic voice started cracking off in her head.
Coward. You’re just going to the diner in order to avoid Rill for another hour. Did you come here to help him, or to make an art out of avoiding him? You’re scared to face him.
And why shouldn’t she be humiliated to look him in the eye? What in God’s name had possessed her to get down on her knees like that when she had guessed what he’d been doing in that pantry. There weren’t many men who would have refused such a baldfaced offer in the midst of a vulnerable moment.
She’d taken advantage of him. That was what she’d done.
“Hey, boy,” Katie crooned to the mournful-looking hound dog that sat outside the diner door. He looked hopeful when Katie leaned down and put out a hand to pet him. She halted abruptly when Errol uttered one word.
“Fleas.”
They entered, and Katie immediately saw Rill. She paused in surprise. He sat on a chair in the middle of the diner’s open floor. A white sheet had been placed beneath his chair and clippings of dark brown hair lay on top of it. Sherona Legion froze in the process of making a snip with some scissors, Rill’s hair between her forefinger and second finger. Her legs straddled one of Rill’s long, bent legs.
Her huge breasts were just an inch away from Rill’s face.
The sound of bells jangling as the door shut brought Katie out of her shock.
“What are you
doing
?” Katie asked incredulously.
Snip, snip
, went Sherona’s scissors. “Giving a haircut,” she stated blandly.
Rill still hadn’t turned his head to look at her as Sherona continued to trim his hair. Katie glanced from the whiteboard menu above the grill and back to Sherona and Rill. The
Cut $6.00
had meant a
hair
cut?
“You can’t do that,” Katie exclaimed. “That’s . . . that’s unsanitary!”
“Katie,” Rill growled menacingly. He gave her a sideways glare without turning his head. Her humiliation mounted at his tone. He’d sounded like an older brother, exasperated by the antics of his annoying little sister in front of a girlfriend. What was more, she’d come to learn recently that his accent got stronger not only when he was drinking, but also when he was angry.
Rill’s Irishness was largely in evidence at the moment.
“I clean up every single hair,” Sherona said. “My place always passes inspections with high marks for cleanliness.”
“Katie’s going to buy me a hamburger to take home, Sherona,” Errol said, all the tension in the air and visual daggers being hurled around utterly lost on him.
“Just give me a few seconds, and I’ll get you two set up,” Sherona said. She lifted one long leg and swung it over Rill’s knee. When she took a step and straddled his other knee, practically putting Rill’s eye out with a nipple, Katie thought she’d seen enough.
“Come on, Errol. We’ll get dinner somewhere else.”
“Ain’t nowhere else to go but the diner,” Errol said matter-of-factly. He set his crutches against the counter and sat on a stool. He removed a model of a B-52 bomber from his pocket, examining it closely while Katie continued to stare at Sherona shoving her breasts in Rill’s face. Her blood pressure must have shot up because her heart began to pound uncomfortably loud in her ears.
In a bid for self-preservation, she tossed her red Chanel cocoon bag on a barstool and sat down next to Errol, blocking the incendiary view from her eyes.
“What are you getting?” she asked Errol.
“A hamburger. That’s what you said.”
“You don’t have to get a hamburger, Errol. That was just an example. You can get whatever you want.”
Just not the haircut,
Katie thought irritably as she examined the menu. Whoever heard of doing haircuts inside of a diner? Vulture’s Canyon was a loony bin without walls. She noticed Errol looking at her, clearly confused by her statement. She sighed.
“Yeah, a hamburger sounds good,” she agreed.
“Can we get a hamburger patty for Barnyard?”
“Bernard?”
“No,” Errol corrected. “
Barnyard
. The dog.”
Katie recalled the resigned-looking dog that seemed to be a permanent fixture in front of the diner. “Sure, we can get Barnyard a burger, too. Doesn’t he have an owner?”
“Not really,” Errol said. “Everybody in town gives him food. He’s like me. When you take me home, do you want to see my model airplane collection again?”
“Yeah, okay,” Katie replied, feeling a little saddened by Errol’s casual reference to being similar to a dog.
She dared to look over her shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief. Sherona had stepped away from Rill and he was standing up from the chair, brushing clippings off his broad shoulders. He strode toward the counter and sat down next to Errol. His actions surprised her, given his newly ingrained habit of avoid versus approach when it came to her.
Katie resented Sherona for making his dark, glossy hair look so combed and tame. She also envied her for the chance to furrow her fingers through it without restriction.
Exactly how many times a week, Katie wondered, did Sherona Legion furl her fingers through Rill’s hair while the last thing on her mind was a haircut?
“Have you guys been to the hospital?” Rill asked Errol, cutting through Katie’s bitter thoughts.
Errol nodded. “Dave is my physical therapist.”
“How’d it go?”
“Dave said I was as strong as a horse. My knee hurts bad.” Errol held up the plane and showed it to Rill, who inspected it soberly before he nodded.
Katie grimaced. “It does, Errol? You didn’t say it hurt before.”
Errol shrugged and swished his hand, making the model plane zip through the air.
“We need to get you home and get your foot elevated.” She glanced at Rill and noticed he studied her. For some reason, his shorter hair made his eyes look even more electric blue than they usually did.
“Errol’s physical therapy couldn’t have lasted all day. Where else have you been?”
She bristled at his tone. What right did he have to know her schedule when he had barely spoken a word to her in a week plus and didn’t even
want
her in Vulture’s Canyon?
“I drove over to Carbondale this morning and found a health food store so I could stock up the pantry.” She paused when Sherona approached behind the counter, tying an apron around her voluptuous figure.
“You didn’t have to drive to Carbondale to find a health food store, Katie. Vulture’s Canyon has the co-op that provides all the goods for that store. Didn’t anyone tell you?” Sherona asked when she noticed Katie’s bemused expression. “We have a small farm and a co-op run by most of the residents in Vulture’s Canyon. We grow everything from vegetables to nearly every grain under the sun. Errol can show you on the way home. It’s not far from his house, down by the river. Now, what can I get you two?”
“A hamburger and French fries,” Errol replied without looking up from his airplane.
“I’ll have the same. Along with a large chocolate shake and a slice of cherry pie. Make it to go, will you? What’s wrong with you?” she asked Rill when she noticed he shook his head and laughed.
“Health food?”
Rill asked derisively, referring to what she’d said earlier. “Since when does Katie Hughes eat health food?”
“Ever since I came here. We have to do something about your health. I saw what you were surviving on before I came here. You’re malnourished. I’ve been working on getting you healthy again. Don’t tell me you haven’t appreciated it,” she warned with an anxious sideways glance. “I’ve noticed you’ve been eating the meals I’ve made you, even if you haven’t eaten them in my presence.”
“I didn’t say I don’t appreciate it.” He seemed undecided, but then continued gruffly. “I do. I appreciate what you’ve done to the house, too. It looks great. I . . . I haven’t had a chance to tell you.”
Katie stared at him, openmouthed. Where had this come from? She didn’t get a chance to find out, because the bells over the entrance rang loudly and what looked like half of the population of Vulture’s Canyon entered—Katie counted five of them in all. Among the new arrivals was the disapproving, gray-haired Monty holding the hand of none other than Olive Fanatoon.
Olive grinned from ear to ear when she saw Errol, and immediately came over to chat. With Errol’s tendency for being monosyllabic unless he was talking about airplanes, it took Olive about two seconds to determine that Errol was “good” and that his visit to the hospital had been “fine.” This being clarified, Olive turned her attention to Katie. When Katie told her about her trip to Sowing Your Oats, the health food store in Carbondale, Olive had replayed Sherona’s surprise.
“Vulture’s Canyon is the central supply for health food in southern Illinois, southeastern Missouri and western Kentucky,” Olive exclaimed.
“I didn’t know about the co-op until just now. Do you work there, Olive?” Katie asked.
Olive nodded. “Yes, and over at the Trading Company as well. Have you been to the Trading Company yet?”