"There was nothing to say about it, then."
"Oh I'm sure that's not true, but even if there wasn't, there is now. If I don't bug you to talk to me, you'll work it out in your own head, and I won't ever know shit. Besides," Rosie said around another bite of pie and pointing her fork in Blue's direction, "you always make me spill everything."
Blue looked up from the pie plate. Rosie was so full of piss and vinegar. In her own way, she was a caretaker, and the look on her face--part pout, part irritation--made Blue laugh. "I never
make
you do anything. I just wait until you're ready. There's only one person in this world who can
make
you, and I'm not him."
"He has no control over me."
"Yeah, okay. Who are you kidding?"
"Just shut up and eat your pie."
Blue did. Three more bites exactly. "He didn't wake me. Obviously, huh? Or I'd have known he was off with the others. He did what I did and…"
"I'm sorry, B. I'm sure he had his reasons and it's not like he left the city or the state. He's still here and you'll see him again."
"I guess." Blue shrugged and took another bite. Some people turned to chocolate when they needed comfort or cheering, but not Blue. She turned to fruit, syrup, and flaky crust. Rosie, on the other hand, turned to cleaning. And though she didn't have an issue with her body, Blue sometimes wished she dealt with stuff like this by resorting to something rather than pie.
Then again, she did love pie.
"When I saw him the other day, I thought it was a second chance at something." She gave Rosie a rueful smile. "Fanciful, I know."
"But you've always been a little fanciful. You've always been eccentric, taking chances, going after what you want. You wouldn't be you if you didn't go after him, full steam ahead."
"I guess. That's what Neil said too. Cort's different though. I'm different about him than I have been with anyone else."
"B, you know I love you and I've never questioned the choices you've made because they always seem to work out for you, but are you sure he's the right one? Are you sure he's the one to give your all for? I mean, you did have just a one-night stand...I guess maybe more than that now, but still... Are you really sure about him?"
"Yes." Blue gave her answer without having to think about it for any length of time. She knew how she felt. She ran once. She wasn't running again. Her head might have issues with it, but her heart didn't. Some people just know and she was one of those people.
"Okay, then. You know you have my support and whatever else you may need. Can I ask why, though? Why him? What makes him so special?"
"If I told you that just being with him makes me smile, would you understand that?"
"I would."
"It's more than that, I know. It
has
to be more than that, doesn't it?" Blue shrugged. "I just know he's got something I need, and I think he needs me, too. There's a certain quality in a woman that he's looking for, and I've got it."
"Which is?"
"Someone to choose him over everything, over everyone else."
"I guess there's some history there, huh?"
"There is."
"Well, we all want that to some extent. We all want to be loved and cared for, and when it matters most, to be chosen. But we also want to keep who we are, and I don't want to see you lose that because of a man."
"I never have before."
"It's never been like this for you before."
"True. Not to mention the sex. God, Rosie, the sex is amazing. Hot. Up until last night it had been angry sex, the best sex of my life, well, except for the sex in that hotel room. He makes me want to get naked all the time when he's near."
Rosie grinned. "Well, I can't say I don't know what that's like because I do. Decker drives me crazy, but when I'm with him, I just want to get down to business. I don't want preliminaries.
I just want him."
Blue finished off the pie and looked down into the empty pie pan, then back up to Rosie with a sheepish grin. They were both a little different, always had been. Blue loved naked; Rosie loved lingerie. Blue wanted love and her tattoos and to be that little bit of exhibitionist; Rosie wanted love and spankings. It was the differences between them that had seen them through rough times growing up.
She started to say something else, but Rosie's attention was drawn elsewhere over Blue's shoulder.
"We've got company."
Blue turned her head. Decker and Cort were getting out of Decker's beat-up work truck and heading up to the diner. "Get rid of the pan. He doesn't need to know I ate the entire thing."
"Right. I'm on it." Rosie snatched up the plate just as Cort opened the door and walked inside behind Decker.
Blue took a sip of her now lukewarm coffee and pretended she hadn't heard the little jingle of the bell over the door. She pretended she didn't hear the footsteps crossing toward her. She pretended she didn't feel the hairs stand up on the back of her neck when Cort came near. She pretended she was the indifferent one, like she hadn't spent the last couple of days having almost nonstop sex with the man.
She pretended, but she was awful at it. She didn't lie well; she didn't fake well. She didn't hide her feelings well. She looked up from the table to find Cort staring down at her, a half smile on his handsome face.
"Hey you."
"Hi."
He was dressed almost the same as he had been on Friday. Work pants, dark blue this time with a white cotton button-down shirt, and his work boots. With as hot and humid as it was outside, most men would be sweating bullets by now but not Cort. As he had every time she saw him, he was calm, looked cool, not a hair out of place, and not even breaking a sweat.
What the hell was it about him? He was normal or seemed to be. He wanted a normal life with a normal woman except, that really wasn't true, was it? He wanted her, and she had no doubts about that. But she wasn't normal, at least she didn't think she was. Given the way she'd been raised, the things she wanted weren't normal. Or maybe they were. She wanted him and a life with a home, kids, dogs. She wanted the plantation, the bed and breakfast, more tattoos, and a lot of hot monkey sex with the man standing beside her table. Could she have that?
"May I?" He indicated the seat across from her that Rosie had just vacated.
"Of course."
His brow furrowed. "You have a little uh..." He lifted his hand and reached out with his finger, touching the tip to the corner of her lips. When he pulled it away, he showed it to her.
"Blackberry pie."
"I've never had it. Maybe I should try some." He licked at his finger, never taking his eyes off her. "Pretty good."
He was very cruel to tease her like that, and she had the sudden urge to kick him in the shin.
A little childish perhaps, but it would make her feel better. Instead, she simply said, "I ate it all."
So much for him not needing to know.
He quirked a brow. "All of it?"
"Yep. A whole pie. Every. Last. Crumb."
"I see. Any particular reason why?"
Blue didn't have a chance to answer.
"So, where have y'all been?" Rosie asked, sauntering up to the table with Decker trying, and failing, to catch her.
Decker leaned his hip against the booth seat Cort had taken. "Buck and I took Cort to a couple of outlooks just over the Tennessee border that look back in this direction. We wanted to get a view of some of the areas we are thinking of buying land on for a few cabins."
"Cabins?" It was the first Blue had heard about this.
"Yeah. Aside from the set-up of us, Buck and Decker lured me down here with a business proposition."
"Set-up? What?" Decker asked, confusion lacing his voice.
"What kind of cabins?" Blue asked at the same time. Did it mean Cort would be staying?
"Green vacation cabins, basically." No one paid Decker's question any mind.
"Green as in eco?" Blue was completely interested and found the idea fascinating. She could see that being a very lucrative business. Cabins like that could potentially bring in money from wealthy vacationers which would boost the local tourist economy. Of course, it was kind of going in the opposite direction of a bed and breakfast, which also would need to thrive on tourism. There was room a plenty for both kinds of accommodations.
She'd lived there all her life, as had Rosie. They knew drawing more people from outside could help the older businesses and more solidly establish the new ones. It would bring more attention to the mountains. Even though there would always be those who'd want to destroy the beauty with their money, there'd be others who'd want to preserve it, just as she did. "I wonder why no one has thought of that before. You're talking for rentals?"
"Yeah."
"And for buying," Decker added, grabbing Rosie and holding her against the front his body.
"We want to build a couple of cabins first and put them up for sale. Use a couple as demos and test cabins, but overall, we want to build to suit owners and if they want to rent them, so be it."
Blue zeroed in on Cort. "So that really is why you left this morning? The only reason?" She didn't try to hide her questions or ask it softly so no one else would hear.
And there it was, a guilty flush. He looked away but those dark blue eyes quickly met hers again quickly. There was heat there and vulnerability too.
He didn't squirm or fidget or try to look away. He held her stare as he answered. "Yes."
"It could have been handled better."
"It could have," he admitted. "But, in my defense, I did kiss you before I left. You just didn't wake up."
"You should have tried harder." It seemed as though she were grasping for straws, but she needed him to know how she'd felt. He'd let her know how it had hurt him to be left. They didn't handle it the same way. He did with openly hurt feelings and anger. She did it with pointed questions, and sarcasm. Life in their house wouldn't be boring.
"I knew I'd see you again, so I let you sleep."
"That's exactly what I told her," Rosie interjected. Blue shot her a look but all she received in return was a grin.
"A note, maybe?"
He let out a sigh through thinned lips as he clenched his jaw. "Look, I handled it wrong. I get that. So wrong it seems that I drove you to eat a whole pie. Next time I will shake you until you rattle, or roll you onto the floor to wake you before I leave. I was trying to be nice in letting you sleep since we were up half the night fucking."
Blue snickered. Cort's voice had gone from soft to loud, to louder, to almost yelling with each word. "For someone who doesn't like to make a scene, you sure are making one."
He looked stunned for a moment but quickly recovered. "Yes, I am." He scrubbed a hand through his hair and glared at her without any real anger. "Are you going to tell me what you were thinking had happened and why you felt the need to eat pie or shall I take a guess?"
Blue shrugged. "I just felt like it." She couldn't help the defiant tone in her voice anymore than she could help the happiness she felt deep down inside at his appearance and his obvious irritation at her wayward thoughts. She knew that he knew what had crossed her mind. She didn't have to admit it out loud.
"Right," he said, not bothering to hide his skepticism. "And you can't make pie?"
She shook her head. "Not like Rosie can."
"Then I'll definitely have to try some." He studied her for a moment. "Let me see. You weren't perhaps thinking that I left with no intention of coming back, were you?"
"Of course not." There was no way she would tell him the truth. No. Way. Her shame at having left him followed her, but she wouldn't let him know that she feared he would do the same to her. Especially after their time together throughout the weekend.
"Pretty little liar. That's exactly what you thought."
Blue shook her head but kept the eye contact.
He smiled. "Yes, you did." But then he sobered. "Friday night, I might have. I might have taken you to bed and left as you did, pay you back with that same empty, panicked feeling in your chest that the best fucking thing to ever happen to you was gone, but you were drunk, and I couldn't take advantage of you like that."
Well, at least he didn't make how he'd felt a subtle thing and the fact that he'd aimed her exact thoughts at her… "But at Rosie's, you said we should fuck like rabbits to get it out of our systems."
"Yes, I did. And we have fucked enough to make the rabbits proud, I think, but I wasn't trying to get you out of my system, Blue. Shit, you've been with me every day for the last five years. I knew there was no way taking you to bed was going to do anything more than work you deeper inside me. I said that that night just because I was… Hell, pissed? I don't know. Seeing you was the last thing I'd expected and the one thing I needed."
She knew that feeling well. "So, where does that leave us?" Okay, so that question totally disregarded her resolve last night to live in the moment, but that was then and this was now, a few hours and one pie later. She sighed. "No, never mind. Don't answer that."
"Why not?"
"It's an unfair question. Spending one night together doesn't make a relationship that has a future. It means one night of great sex and...God, Cort, I don't know. I don't know how to do this."
"Do what? Have a relationship?"
"Yeah. Or this." She waved her hand in the air between them. "I've never been good with the interpersonal stuff, with the emotional stuff. I don't know how to handle it. I want it. I want it so desperately with you, but I don't know how to do it. I've never really had a relationship. Lovers.