Unfinished Dreams (6 page)

“Nice shirt.” Her fingers itched to trace the letters that spelled D-u-s-t-y. She blinked, then returned to his gaze, and swore the earth moved beneath her feet.

He gave her a boyish grin. “It was the only size Dusty had left. Does it really look that bad?”

His grimace caused her to smile. She wanted to tell him how much she appreciated the fact that the shirt was probably a size smaller than he should have.

“You know, it’s dark, no one will notice the fit.” 
Except for me
. “So, what’s the deal? You a big fan of Dusty’s or something?”  Tess felt a little giddy, flirting was not a normal behavior for her, but there was something about being around Gabe Russell that rattled her otherwise “set” ways.

He teased her easily right back with a gleam in his eye. “Aw, you know how clumsy cowboys can be.”

She narrowed her gaze and smiled at his gallant gesture.

“We want to slow things down a bit for all you sweethearts out there,” the female lead singer announced as the chords to the acoustic guitar matched the tingles playing up Tess’s spine.

“You get that melon eaten?” She glanced to the floor, then smiled at him, tipping her head. Having no idea what to do with her hands, she tucked them in the back pockets of her jeans.

At first, he frowned as though he wasn’t connecting to what she asked, then a heart-melting grin broke out on his handsome face. Tess locked her knees so they wouldn’t buckle.

“Took a bit of doing, but yeah, we managed. Surprised you’d remember it was me in the store.” His curiosity held a bit of a veiled challenge. There was little doubt that she’d felt sparks between them. Maybe she wasn’t the only one testing the waters tonight. Her heart pounded like thunder in her chest.

“It was the hat.” She reached up playfully tapping its edge. He reached up, catching her hand and her heart stopped as he held her gaze.

“Uh huh. So, it seems you’ll dance with Vince, but you’re not interested in my offer of a drink, yet you remember me from a store full of customers.” His voice was smooth as Kentucky’s finest and nearly as intoxicating. “What am I going to have to do, Tess, to prove I’m a nice guy?” His arm slid around her waist carefully and she felt the heat of his body closing the gap between them.

“I didn’t say you weren’t a nice guy.” Her words were barely above a whisper.

He looked down at her and his expression turned cloudy. “Hey, this isn’t about my behavior earlier, is it? Because, I don’t generally let my temper get away like that.”

“Gabe, would I have asked for your help on the farm, if I thought you weren’t someone I could trust?” She held his gaze and relaxed when he offered his smile, only then realizing how gently he had already begun to sway with her to the music.

“
When a man loves a woman—”
the singer soulfully belted out in a bluesy voice. The blue spotlight darkened the dance floor and with the addition of several more couples, they were soon cocooned in the crowd. Her skin tingled where his palm touched her ribcage, her other hand was tucked snug within his palm. She shut off everything but sensation, and let her body absorb the music, his body heat, and the spicy scent of cologne.

She was aware too, that he’d not taken his eyes off her and that realization caused the back of her knees to weaken. Something powerful was happening and she considered it could be purely physical on her part, as well as his. The confusing part of it was that no man had ever looked at her the way Gabe looked at her at this moment. She simply wasn’t the type men salivated over. Whatever was going on between them, Tess thought, was most likely a mixture of heat and alcohol with maybe a touch of loneliness mixed in. Not exactly the kind of thing relationships are based on.
“Keep your head on straight,”
she quietly reprimanded herself.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.” He leaned close enough to her that with a slight turn her lips would graze his jaw.

Tess closed her eyes to the temptation, trying to refocus her thoughts. Suddenly, she’d lost her voice and wondered if she was losing her mind. Good lord, she’d only just met this hunk of cowboy and according to his friends, he supposedly had a reputation that went along with that dimpled smile. Why was she allowing her insides to turn gooey? A direction of topic was needed. Tess forged ahead hoping to quell her lustful thoughts.

“Uh…I wondered what day next week you wanted to get started on the barn?” She hoped her smile was bright enough to cover the fact that she really just wanted to jump his bones.

His gaze narrowed and she feared he maybe saw straight through her. He glanced over her head and frowned as if deep in thought.

“Tuesday morning? That all right with you?” He gave her a look between business and challenge

“I’ll have the coffee ready.” When his face broke into a million dollar smile, her heart tripped.

“Sounds like a plan.” The reminder of her own words and his sweet smile stayed in her heart long after she returned home that night.

Chapter Six

Gabe stood at the window, staring down at the deserted main street of town. The sun had yet to peek over the rim of the hill and he was already on his second cup of coffee. He considered it was pretty silly to allow his emotions to skitter around haphazardly inside like they were doing now and like they’d done consistently since he placed his arms around Tess on Saturday night.

Monday he’d worked himself to near collapse hoping to dispel those irrational feelings. He’d spent the better part of the day helping Merle rebuild his front porch steps, then worked laying a new cement drive at Travis’s place. However, watching Travis, Becky and their three kids laughing and being a family didn’t serve to appease his thoughts. Even now, when his body should be weary from his hard labor, he felt charged, ready to do something. He had decided his newfound energy had something to do with Saturday night. Something had definitely happened between him and Tess, but he wasn’t sure if it was wise to pursue whatever
that
was. His life at present was not exactly what a man could offer as a secure future for anyone, and Tess deserved more than that.

“Better to leave well enough alone.” He’d said those words enough times lately and yet here he was again repeating them as if they’d become his mantra. The promise he’d made to do the repairs around the farm, he would do, since they served his purpose just fine. He figured somewhere along the line, it evened out. She bought the materials and he provided the labor, though he had yet to decide how much, if any he was going to charge her. One of these days, she would tire of the country life, he was sure, and then she’d head back to her apartment in the city, content that she’d at least given country living a try.

He smiled, considering of how she looked leaning over the porch railing as she stared out to that grove of Christmas trees. No doubt, any person would be infatuated with the open spaces and fresh air—for a while anyway. However, he had doubts Tess had what it took to stick out the tough times on the farm. He raised his brows and guessed maybe that remained to be seen.

He brushed his teeth, pulled on a clean t-shirt, grabbed his keys and hat, and headed out the door. Checking his dash, he pulled into her drive at eight-fifteen. He leaned over the wheel and peered at the house. There didn’t seem to be anyone awake yet. She was probably still snuggled deep underneath the covers, a thought that caused his body to tighten.

He cleared his throat dismissing that image dancing at the edge of his brain. Knowing he was early anyway, he decided to check out repairs on the barn.

As the sun rose into the sky, Gabe measured the areas where replacement boards were needed and a couple of pieces of fence inside the barn that needed repair. He jotted down the measurements on a piece of paper he had wadded in his jeans’ pocket. He wondered what plans she had for the barn. Surely she wasn’t about to attempt raising farm animals. He shook his head, checking his list again and chuckled quietly at the idea.

Stepping from the barn into the sun, he took a moment to put on his sunglasses. His line of vision stayed on the windows of the second story of the house, where the shades were still tightly drawn. She must have really had a good time with her friend the other night he mused. He’d had only the one dance with her all night, which confused him greatly since he thought that—well, no matter what he thought, the point was, as soon as she could, she’d slid away from him, grabbed her friend and didn’t look again in his direction the rest of the night.

“Gabe?” Her voice cut off his thoughts. She stood not more than six feet away, looking at him. He realized, half-embarrassed, that he’d been staring at the house.

“Hey, you’re up. I was…checking…the shingles on the porch roof. You know to see if they needed replacing.” His smile was quick and he hoped it was convincing enough.

“And I see you’re already hard at work.” She stepped forward, tipping her chin towards the list.

It was then he noticed then the two coffee mugs in her hand.

“Here, I did promise you coffee.” She held out a mug.

He accepted it with a slight nod and removing his sunglasses took a sip of the steaming fresh liquid and checked out her morning attire. “You’ve been up awhile.” He grinned hoping she would take his ribbing good-naturedly. Her jeans looked like they’d seen better days and her oversized men’s denim shirt hung nearly to her knees. His gaze lowered to her feet and clenched his teeth to stifle the laugh. Black rubberized wading boots encased her legs far above her knees. It reminded him of two big old stovepipes.

Using a cough to conceal a laugh, Gabe turned his head and pretended that his coffee went down the wrong way.

“It’s the boots isn’t it?” She placed a hand to her hip and eyed him warily.

Gabe opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it and clamped it shut again. He’d try an alternative route around the subject. “What are you up to this morning anyway?”

“I went out to check on those Christmas trees. The dew was very heavy this morning. I didn’t want to get my tennis shoes muddy.” She sipped her coffee and rolled those blue eyes in his direction.

Gabe stared at her eyes lost yet again in trying to determine what shade of blue they were. She gave him a grin, or maybe she was squinting from the sun, either way, it broke him from his reverie. “Listen, I’ve got to go into town and get the lumber I need to make these repairs, I can just open up an account at Olsen’s Lumber under your name, if you’d like.”

She rubbed the back of her neck and looked toward the barn. “That would be fine I guess. Can you do that without me giving the okay or leaving a deposit or something?”

“Around here, we do it all the time. Folks here generally trust each other that way, have for years.” He shrugged.

“Oh, well okay.” She paused, searching his gaze, then shrugged, “Well, you can just store the materials inside the barn then. Oh, and here’s that list you asked for.” She pulled a stapled stack of papers from her hip pocket.

His curiosity piqued as he took the list she offered. She had outlined a weekly schedule of repairs, listing the pros and cons of each project and the property value it would give to the farm. He wasn’t sure what she did for a living, but whatever it was, the woman left no stone unturned.

He studied the list and glanced up. “I’ll go get what I can collected. Looks like I might get a little work in before it rains.” Gabe spied the dark ominous clouds coming in from the southwest.

She raised her chin, squinting as stared at the sky. “I hadn’t even noticed.” She turned to him with a wide smile. “I could put a fire in the fireplace, couldn’t I? I mean, its early autumn and the rain might be cold, right?”

He shrugged; the woman could do whatever she wished. Seemed she got all excited about little things. Typical, he supposed, for a city gal. “You might want to check out the chimney first. There might be remnants of a birds nest from spring still in there.”

She looked startled at first, then turning her focus to the house.
Good lord, she’s
thinking of climbing up there herself
.
The fool woman
, he thought as he gazed at the back of unkempt hair.

He smiled and inadvertently his gaze dropped to where her hand was wedged into the back pocket of her jeans. An elongated slash just below the back pocket caught Gabe’s attention. Just a hint of pink cloth peeked through the shredded opening. His eyebrow rose, wondering if she’d forgotten the shirt was to cover the hole, but something kept him from mentioning it to her.

Tipping his head, he found himself appreciating what he saw, a bit too much so for his own comfort. “I’m going to go to town.”

He turned abruptly, then stopped and looked back. The look on her face, made him feel like she’d been waiting for him to turn around. Or maybe she’d been checking out his backside? W
hat a ridiculous thought.

She held his gaze steady, her hand still tucked where he had already envisioned his own hand would like to be, but couldn’t be—at the very least, shouldn’t be—which is why he had to leave. Pronto.

“Tess?” He blurted out before thinking, mesmerized as she raked her fingers through her short hair sending it into tiny spikes. “Why don’t I take a look at that chimney when I get back, alright?” It wasn’t really an offer, more an order, which he was sure this woman did not take very often. He held out his coffee cup to her, the liquid spilled over the side with the jerky movement of his unsteady hand.

“You don’t think I can do it, do you?” Her smile warned him he was wading into that dangerous territory a man sometimes finds himself with a stubborn woman. She gingerly plucked the cup from his hand, only briefly acknowledging the coffee that’d sloshed over the side.

She made no comment, instead she raised her all too steady gaze to his, which made him even more uncomfortable. Why couldn’t the woman just accept a solid offer?

“It’s not that…exactly.” He frowned as he glanced to the roof, then returned his gaze to hers. He saw a bit of mischief in her fabulous eyes. “Tess, look. I used to live here. I helped my dad do this every couple of years, that’s all. I just don’t want to see you get—” He held her gaze, now softened in challenge.

“Hurt?” Her warm blue-green eyes sparkled and her voice was as gentle as corn silk.

Gabe’s mouth went dry. He smiled, recovering quickly from the punch to his gut. “Yeah, well then I’d have to haul your skinny behind over to County General.” He took off his hat, pounding it to his thigh, ridding the brim of imaginary dust, then smoothed his hair back and replaced the hat on his head. That explanation seemed platonic enough. Truth was, he didn’t want to see her up on that roof, whatever the reasons were.

“That’s very thoughtful of you.”

He also didn’t want to hear the sultry undertone in her voice. It was enough to stare at the thin denim material covering her well-shaped legs and have to quell his imagination.

Gabe turned on his heel and spoke loud over his shoulder so he wouldn’t have to see her face. “I’ll pick up a long handle brush while I’m there.” Without a second glance, he started his pickup and pulled out of the drive.

* * *

Tess stared after the pickup as it rattled down the lane. There was no mistaking he’d been concerned for her well-being. How adorable was that? Rugged, hardworking, hot as sin
, and
caring? Was this guy too good to be true? What had she been missing all these years by living in the city?

Her boots thwarted her ability to make her planned mad dash to the house and she laughed as she hobbled unsteadily across the yard. With only an hour at best, she had in mind to show him that
city girls
could be just as neighborly.

* * *

Once she got started, instinct took over. It had been a long time since she really made an effort to impress a man, but she had a sense that it would be well worth it.

She glanced at her hair, fluffing it as she pushed the boots off her feet. Padding into the kitchen in her wool socks, she considered whether to change into something nicer or leave on what she was wearing. Maybe it would be better to not to be too obvious. She couldn’t deny the fact she’d felt something tug at her as she danced with him. Serious warmth had transcended the crowded dance floor. A connection something inside of her wanted to make with him, though on what level she was not yet sure.

There was no dispute he was attractive. A woman would be blind not to see that. Still, there was something about him. He kept his distance and that intimidated her. If there was one thing Tess learned from her experience with Richard, it was honesty and openness was essential in a relationship.

Gabe Russell held something back and she could see it behind the confident façade of those passionate eyes.

Pulling a tiny wooden box in front of her, she started flipping quickly through the time worn recipes. She searched through every cabinet looking with desperation for each ingredient. Soon her once tidy kitchen was a disarray of mixing bowls, spices, sugar and utensils, but the aroma of warm chocolate and cookie dough wafted throughout the house. Six dozen of the warm, chewy cookies should appease any man. She smiled as she dipped her finger across the wooden spoon and licked the sweet batter.

She had heard him return, his pickup rumbling up the drive. As much as she’d liked to help unload the supplies, she found herself up to her elbows in creating a sampling of home-cooked splendor. She hoped it would convince him she wanted to be friends as well as business partners if he was going to help on the farm.

Tess flipped back the curtain, seeing heavy, dark storm clouds rolling in over the fields. Something inside her made her feel safe, secure, and content to be experiencing her first thunderstorm in her own house. Was it the influence of the country, or could it be Gabe Russell was the type of man who would appreciate a home-cooked meal?

With a shake of her head for allowing her hormones to race out of control, she focused on the roast simmering gently on the stove. As a young girl, she’d written down the beef recipe as she watched her grandmother cook. Breathing deep of the delicious scent of beef and onion, she smiled. The few times she’d tried cooking for Richard were met with a dissertation of great detail, noting the fat and cholesterol content of everything she served him. He further humiliated her by telling her how bad it was for him and accused her of trying to kill him, after which, he would storm out of the door claiming to be having supper with his friends.