Page 55 of Gotta Dig Deep
“And what does your gut tell you about me?” Horse’s head cocked to one side as he smiled down at her.
“That you’re important. I’m not going to mess that up.” She smiled and rose on her toes to steal a final kiss. The feel of his erection rubbing against her was erotic to the extreme, and she shivered lightly as hot want curled low in her belly. “And one day soon, we’ll make a deliberate excursion to the bedroom.”
“Gonna hold you to that,” he whispered, following her down to capture another sweet kiss.
“Hope you do more than hold me,” she returned, grinning up at him. “But like you said, we got a little bit of something going on right now. Let me make this call and see if Cooter learned anything of importance, then we can regroup and decide what to do next.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He stepped away, leaning back against the counter. Glenna hated the sudden loss of his heat against her body.
This man could twist me up. He could twist me up and I’d like it.
She gently touched her lips with her fingertips, noting how his muscles tightened as she ran her thumb over her bottom lip.
I bet I could twist him up just as much.
She shook herself mentally and went to the phone, lifting the receiver and dialing Cooter’s number from memory. Turning around, she hooked a leg of a chair with one foot and dragged it close, then plopped down into the seat.
“Glenna, is everything okay?” Cooter sounded out of breath when he answered the phone, as if he’d rushed to pick up the call.
“Just checking in to find out what you’ve learned.” She sorted her statement to give a little and hold back a lot. “Tell me what you know, and I’ll do the same.”
“Not a lot.” He sounded funny and Glenna tried to pinpoint what was different about his voice. “Just that the investor is from out east. I found out they’ve really only approached a few of the other owners, so they’re not interested in a big spread. Bob at the feed store said no one was raising a red flag yet, anyway.”
“Nothing specific? Just that general knowledge stuff? No names, no company information?” She closed her eyes to concentrate on Cooter. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I just said it, didn’t I?” Anger filled his voice at her tiny challenge, which was entirely out of character. “What did you learn? Oh, I mean, what did Nass learn, since he’s the one with the contacts?” More anger and an edge of something else.Pain.
“We.” She paused and started again, emphasizing the plural designator. “Wefound out the threat starts in New Jersey, and that these aren’t savory characters. Nothing we want in our county, much less as neighbors. It doesn’t surprise me that they’re not going whole hog to acquire dozens of places, but I think adding mine to Snyder’s makes sense, in a twisted kind of way. They’d have right-of-way access from three different highways then, with the easement already established along a couple of fence lines. If they wanted discrete entrances, they’d have ’em in spades.”
Silence greeted her and she pressed the receiver harder against the side of her head, trying to hear anything from Cooter’s end. Finally, she caught the sound of quick breathing, shallow, and distressed.
“You fuck him yet?” Cooter’s question caught her unawares and she jerked the handset from her ear, staring at it for a moment while it buzzed with more words. She returned it to her ear to catch a fragment of a sentence, “—do so much better, Glenna.”
“Not a single bit of that is your business, Cooter.” She fought to keep her voice even. “And I’d expect that kind of crudeness from Jackson, not you.”
“You want him though, don’t you? I could see it in the way you looked at him. And how he looked at you. If you haven’t done it yet, you will. I just don’t understand. Why him? Why not me?” That pain she’d caught earlier bled through his tone now, a broad river of anguish that made it hard to be mad at him. “Why?”
“It was never going to be you, Cooter. We’ve been friends forever, and I trust you to the horizon and back, but I can’t feel for you that way. We work best as friends.”
“Friends.” He scoffed. “Right. First there was Penn, and it was fast for you. He was from away, and exciting, and you couldn’t see me through the spotlight you had on him.”
Glenna pulled in an unsteady breath.
Back that far?
“I had no idea, Cooter. I’m sorry.”
“No idea, right. Who’s always there for you? Look at that instead of some exotic outsider, would ya? Remember when you were twelve and got bucked off down by the river? Who let you ride his horse home? Who wrapped your bleeding leg? Who’s been there for you through the years?” His words came in a rush. “Well, that shit stops now. You don’t pick me? Okay, I’m done being your leanin’ post, then. Hope this new guy Nass can hold you up, because otherwise you’ll be the one picking your own ass outta the dirt this time.” His voice quavered. “And stop calling me Cooter. I’m Reggie from here on out.”
The line buzzed as the call disconnected and Glenna stared down at the top of the table.
Heat at her back was all the warning she had before the receiver was plucked from her suddenly nerveless fingers. A hand wrapped around the back of her neck, thumb and fingers rubbing firmly as she sagged in her chair.
“He hates me.” The concept pained her, because she’d had no idea he’d carried a torch for her. “I never meant to hurt him.” Eyes closed, she could see various interactions with Cooter—Reggie—play out on the backs of her eyelids. His expression when she turned down dinner, the way he’d stand close when he saw her in the feed store, how his face would lighten when they’d joke around. “I never knew what he felt for me.”
“His attraction to you was not something he tried to hide, but if you’ve been friends forever, it would be easy to not recognize it for what it was.”
Her chair slid on the floor, turning, then Horse’s arms wrapped around her, lifting her to her feet. She flung her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his chest.
