Stirred: A Love Story (17 page)

“Sage,” Logan called out from the barn.

She started to pull away, but he held her for one more beat and then without a word, let her go. Sage ran to the barn, not even trying to disguise the feeling washing over her. It was impossible to contain so she didn’t bother.

Garrett stood where she left him for a few minutes, running his hand over his face because he couldn’t seem to get his fill. Rejoining Logan and Kenna, he sat at the table and ate roasted chicken breast with baby turnips that he had thought too small when George pulled them last week, but they were perfect once Logan and Travis added carrots and some sauce with rosemary. The meal, although small because it was a sample, was delicious. Garrett was by no means a food snob, but when he ate his brother’s food, it was like not quite realizing how great the rain was and then being reminded.

Eager to try the drink Sage had boldly called The Rye, Garrett pulled the glass she’d poured toward him. He grinned, but her eyes were on the drink, dead serious as if she were figuring out a puzzle. The first sip slid down his throat, and Garrett immediately recognized the rye from the first drink she’d ever made him and then he tasted a hint of spice, like wood, followed by the grand finale of the sip. His mouth was flooded with moist earth and plants. Grass maybe, because he was immediately thrown into a memory of sitting in the fields as a kid and blowing on blades of grass to make that high-pitched sound. Kenna was always pissed because she could never do it. She’d hum with the blade up to her mouth and try to convince him and Logan she was legit. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven, and he’d told her the skills would come with practice. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d tried to play music on the grass. He looked at Logan, who had finished his taste of the drink.

“How the hell does she do that?” he asked Logan. It was as if she knew them, what it meant to live on this land. Like she’d dropped a private part of his family right there in the glass.

Logan’s smile broadened in acknowledgment. “Incredible, right?”

Garrett took the last sip of the sample, relived it one more time, and glanced at Sage, who was beaming with pride.

“I’m not sure how you know that much about us, let alone how you put that into a glass, but however you do it, that’s a talent. I could taste the earth. Shit, I sound like one of those foodie assholes Logan used to watch on television.”

They all laughed. He caught her eyes and something in his chest reached for her. It was probably his heart, but he wasn’t ready to go there. Behind her blue nail polish and snail earrings, she was kind, genuine, and indescribable—like her drinks. She was the best kind of person—the kind who cared about her job, her customers, her friends, and. . . him. He’d tried to be a decent guy most of his life, but he didn’t deserve her.

Helping clear the table, Garrett wondered if that level of caring came from being loved. If it had come from a good family, maybe he was capable of giving her something in return.

Chapter Fifteen

A
fter everyone had gone, Sage found herself in the barn with Garrett. What had started as a good-bye kiss escalated quickly until they were both grabbing at each other’s clothes. Garrett closed the barn door, and when he dropped to his knees in front of her, she was certain her heart stopped right there on the spot. Eyes on her, he was hotter than any fantasy she could conjure up. This wasn’t a joke; the man was on his knees. He wasn’t holding a ring, but from the looks of him as his fingers played with the hem of her shirt, teasing the skin beneath, Sage realized there were many versions of the man-down-on-one-knee fantasy. She should try to define this before it went any further. Kenna’s sensible voice whispered in her ear that if she had sex with Garrett, she would do so with her whole heart. The only sex advice her mother had offered growing up was next. “A man is not going to buy the farm if you give the milk away for free.” Sage understood the irony that she was now going to give far more than the milk away on an actual farm.

She tried to clear all the voices of reason and instead remember the book. This was a good idea, a very good idea, she decided right as Garrett slid both of his hands under her shirt. She closed her eyes. He was barely touching her and when the warmth of his breath spread across her stomach, she was gone. Gone, completely somewhere else—no book, no voices. Oh, if she could simply let go and fall into the glory of a moment without needing to know how it worked.

“Sage.”

“Uh huh.” Her eyes remained closed.

“Are you okay?”

Her eyes peeked opened. “Yes, why?”

“Well, your eyes are squeezed closed, sort of like you’re at the doctor’s office.”

She let out a shuddering breath. “Are they?”

Garrett stood.

“Oh no, don’t do that,” Sage said, trying to save a moment she felt certain she wanted.
Didn’t she?

His face eased from lust to tender, and he ran the back of his hand along the curve of her neck. It was so gentle it felt like a good-bye.

“I’m fine, I mean that was”—she blew her bangs out of her face—“definitely fantasy material. You on your knees and you were surely going to, what like, take my panties off with your teeth and then—”

Stop talking. In the name of all things holy, shut up!

“I. . . okay, is that something you want?” Garrett asked with a curling grin that proved he had no idea she was about to collapse.

“Why are we talking? Let’s. . .” She’d never felt more lost in her life, including the first time she’d had sex. Was it possible to regress back to that level of awkward?

“Sage?”

“What?”

“Do you want me to take your clothes off with my teeth?”

“I, sure. How does that work? You know, in a practical sense. I’ve always wondered how that is even possible.”

You’re babbling again, Sage. The man was on his knees for Christ’s sake, and you blew it.

Garrett laughed and Sage put her hands to her face. He gently pulled them back down.

“I have no idea what I’m doing. I guess I’ve fantasized about you but more like. . . the essence of you. I’m still at holding your hand, kissing you stupid. This might kill me. I’m a sham, right?”

He smiled but said nothing so she continued, unable to stop.

“This was fun and that day in the wine cellar, you were so. . . and I was. . . and I thought if that’s what this is then I’m going to go with it.”

“So that day you said you wanted to be naughty?”

“Oh yeah, you heard that? It was barely a whisper.”

He nodded. “You said naughty. That word usually rings pretty clear for me at any volume.”

Sage laughed. “Well, no, I’m not naughty by nature and I don’t have fantasies mapped out. I mean there are images when it comes to you, but they’re not all. . . I guess what I’m trying to say is they don’t all involve. . . Oh, please, let’s forget this.”

“Sex.”

“Pardon?”

“When you think of us together, you’re not always holding the headboard and screaming my name.”

Sage allowed that particular image to race through her mind for a moment, or two or—

“Sage?”

“Oh, sorry. Although that one’s not bad. Maybe you should be in charge of the fantasies. You’re very good at it. I don’t actually have a headboard, so we’ll need to be at your house for that one.”

He laughed again. “So if we’re not naked, what are we doing?”

“Oh, come on, not this again. I don’t know what we’re doing, and you’re not some actor in a play. You’re you. I find that incredibly attractive and that’s that. You don’t need to continue playing this game. It was fun making out with you, and please know that I will store away that image of your headboard for a very long time, but this isn’t me. I’m so tired of trying to be hot and smoldering. It’s exhausting. I’m a fake. You’re free to go now.” She walked toward the door, hoping she had the strength to pull it open before she died of embarrassment. This crap never happened on television or even in the lives of her friends. Why the hell was she always the strange one? It was that damn bottom drawer. If she had more life experience, she wouldn’t be fumbling and acting so stupid.

“Do you want to get a pizza?”

She turned. “What?”

His eyebrows went up and he repeated the question again slowly. “Do you want to get a pizza?”

“Now?”

Garrett looked at his watch. “Well, it is time for dinner. I’m done here and you don’t work tonight, so yeah, now. Or we can get Chinese. There’s a good place about ten minutes from here.”

For a guy that appeared to like routine, he certainly knew how to change gears on her as if it was the most natural thing in the world and expect her to catch up. She still wasn’t sure if this made him the most self-centered man on the planet or a damn Zen master. On the surface, he didn’t appear to have the same apprehension most human beings possessed. It was sexy, confident, and somewhere in the corners of his water-colored eyes, it was calm. She did want to grab on to his headboard, but this—standing outside a barn with the sun setting behind them—she wanted this more.

“I’m surrounded by pizza most of the time, so Chinese.”

Garrett took off his jacket, draping it over her shoulders. “Chinese it is. Let’s do it. Please tell me you like egg rolls.”

Sage put her arms through the offered coat and walked past him toward his truck. “Um, egg rolls are the only reason to have Chinese food, the rest is filler.”

Garrett laughed and opened the passenger door for her. “Do you have a cocktail for Chinese food?”

Sage shook her head. “Even I can’t top the Chinese tea. It’s all about the egg rolls and the tea.”

He closed the door and in the time it took him to walk around to the other side, she felt it. It was simple and overwhelming all at the same time: the click.

“So, how did all of this start?”

“How did what start?” She picked at the edge of her egg roll.

“Naughty Sage.”

She shook her head. “You’ll laugh.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“But you will. It’s kind of funny, so I guess I don’t mind.”

He didn’t say a thing and simply watched her; it had become one of his favorite things to do lately.

“Well, it all starts with my bottom drawer.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t have one.”

Now he was confused.

“Everyone has life experiences, things they did when they were young and stupid. I. . . well, I guess I woke up one morning, or maybe after a few mornings, and realized that I don’t have anything tucked away. I don’t have any cool stories or experiences. I wanted those. I still do.”

“The bottom drawer is a metaphor for your twenties packed full of stupid and crazy experiences?”

Sage nodded and bit into her egg roll.

“But you’re thirty-two, so isn’t that time gone?”

“Yeah, but I still have some stories to get in before I settle down. I want stories.”

“You’re a bartender—I would think you’d have lots of those.”

“I do, about other people. I’m a great listener, but those are other people’s lives.”

Garrett ate and thought about the conversation he’d had with his father a few days earlier. She was sort of quirky and unexpected like his dad, he decided, and then hoped like hell she didn’t watch Oprah.

“Moving here and becoming a bartender was my first big step toward changing things. Before that, my life was safe and nice.”

“Safe and nice are things lots of people strive for.”

“I know, but not me.”

“Okay, so you want stuff for the bottom drawer, like ticket stubs and champagne corks?”

“Could be, but mainly experiences. A person is defined by her stories, her journey. Don’t you think?”

“I. . . guess, but you have experiences. From what Kenna says, you’re always going and doing things. No way you made it into your thirties without things happening to you.”

“Not much happened before I moved here. That’s why my sister bought me the book.”

He dipped another egg roll and noticed she became more and more relaxed. The more she spoke, the more Garrett was starting to understand the puzzle pieces that made up Sage. Almost afraid, he asked, “The book?”

Sage set down her teacup and appeared to brace herself. “Here’s where you’ll laugh.
Nice to Naughty in Ten Easy Steps.
” She closed her eyes as if saying it was almost painful.