Sally: Autumn Storms (F&L Story #4)

Sally: Part 6

Part 6

In the kitchen, Wilson sat in a Windsor chair at her breakfast nook and studied the deer antlers over her refrigerator with confusion and interest.  She smiled at her trophy.  She shot that buck when she’d been sixteen and was damn proud of it.  It wasn’t everyday a girl took down a twelve-point buck with nothing more than a twenty-pound-draw compound bow. 

            “You done?” she asked, settling down across the table from him.  His gaze drifted over to her, and he nodded once.  She tapped a finger on the papers in front of him and slid them across to look them over.  She tried to suppress the grin when she saw he failed to put down a last name and raised an eyebrow at him.  She took the pen and filled it in for him.  He clamped down on his back teeth and shifted in his seat.

            Definitely a story there.

            “Well, I talked to Mr. Barker, and there's something that's been bothering me...”  When he made no obvious attempt to inquire after her curiosity, she sighed and went on with a pouty smile.  “Does he always hum like that?  It can get a little annoying.”

Wilson's eyes flickered with tiny motif of humor.  She rolled hers.  “Anyway, he’ll be sending me a list of requirements and restrictions for you.  In the meantime, we can go out and get that camper moved, then get cleaned up and have some supper. Your truck got a ball mount?”  He stared at her for the longest time.  She kept the eye contact, not letting him see how he got under her skin.  At least, he knew to remove his hat when he entered her house, and she was able to get a good look at his face. 

            His hair was cut long, brushing his collar, and was the color of blackstrap molasses, a deep, rich brown with red undertones.  And his eyes matched.  Framed by the thickest of eyelashes and crowned with copious eyebrows, he had a stare that made her feminine parts perk up and take notice.  Just what she needed, another one of his body parts reminding her of her lack of sexual escapades in her life.  Sally pushed her next thought right out of her mind.  Wilson may fill out a pair of jeans to perfection, but she was his boss now, and he was far too young for her.  He was one piece of eye candy her sweet tooth couldn’t have.

Peter had been that...handsome to a turn and charming to boot.  But ten years ago, the jack-hole abandoned her in the middle of their wedding, speechless and pissed-off in a white gown, surrounded by both their family members and forced to deal with consolations and explanations.  Never again.  Since that day, she'd not exactly been free with her love-life, but this current dry spell was her longest.  And she'd never been so desperate as to seduce younger men or employees.  Nor was she about to start now. 

When things got that bad, she invented a surefire cure for the antsies.  A quick trip to the hen houses.  No woman – no matter how hot, bothered and deprived she was – could get in the mood with the stench of three hundred fowls imbedded in her nostrils and gooey chicken poop covering her boots from the ankles down.  Try thinking sexy thoughts with funky-smelling feathers stuck in your hair and the deafening sound of clucking rattling your eardrums.

Not possible.

Wilson kept his expression banked while she surveyed him.  That'll do it, too, she thought.  Imagining him in the throes of sex with that uninterested face hovering over her was like a bucket of ice water on a flickering flame.  Who could get worked up when the object of arousal didn't care a lick one way or the other?

            “Well, you gonna sit there all night?” she asked him, standing up.  “That camper won’t move itself.”

*****

            Okay, he was pissed off, and damn if he knew why.  For three weeks, he’d been trying to carve out a life and a job for himself.  His first endeavor landed him in at a goat farm south of Kansas City.  That lasted barely ten days.  The police refused to believe him when he tried to report animal abuse by the owner, so to keep his nose clean, he up and left.  Josh, worrying about the fact that Wilson needed to keep steady employment, suggested that he travel down here to Arkansas and inquire about a position at Josh’s uncle’s rodeo auction barn, but the place filed for bankruptcy two days before he arrived.

            Shit out of luck and no place to go, Wilson spent a few days holed up in a crappy motel, scanning the want ads.  Flat broke, he couldn’t go back to Missouri.  That was when he heard about Sally Sanborn.  He’d been checking out of the motel when a gnarly old mailman entered to deliver a package.  Three hours later, he had a job.

            Now, angry as all get out that the woman hired him, he followed her out to his GMC pickup.  As she crawled into the passenger side and directed him to the chicken houses, he finally narrowed down the reason for his temperament to two things.  Number one:  She knowingly hired him, a man who’d been to prison for killing someone.  So that meant she was either stupid or had one those convict fetishes; neither explanation made him any happier to be around her.  Number two:  She lived alone on this farm…and now so did he.

            Sally Sanborn was one foolish woman, and he really wished he could set her straight on how the world worked.  Women shouldn’t hire murderers.  Women shouldn’t let strange men live on their property.  Women shouldn’t trust anyone so easily as Sally claimed to trust him.

            And women definitely should not swing their hips that way when a horny, strange, convicted killer was close by.

            Yeah, he was mad.  Mad at her for allowing all this.  Mad at himself for agreeing to all this.  Mad at both of them because they were too stubborn for their own good.  Mad as hell because this was what he’d been sunk to – a desperate, stubborn man employed by a pretty, tomboyish, gullible female.

            “Smile, Wilson,” she murmured as he backed up to a ragged, once-white camper only large enough to turn around in.  “The world isn’t going to end tonight.”

            Maybe not for her…but his universe was destroyed two years ago.  Today was about survival, breathing one lungful of air at a time until his heart finally caught up with his life and stopped.

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(I just wanted to point out that Wilson's POV wasn't originally in this part.  I included it because someone wanted to know why the hell he was pissed that Sally hired him.  Now, you know.  :)