Incidental Contact (Those Devilish De Marco Men) (24 page)

She did as he wanted, cursing her short, stubby fingers, but looking at his cock let her pretend he was inside her. Just the thought made her back arch. Suddenly, he moved. Leaning over her, he rested one arm along the back of the seat. The head of his cock slid across her stomach and his scent surrounded her like a blanket.

“God, so soft,” he groaned, thrusting his hips.

Torn between watching his eyes and watching his hand, she realized she could feel his knuckles raking her, so she fastened her gaze on his face. Then he lowered his head and took her mouth in a kiss. He gripped the back of her neck and something inside her went squishy at the demanding touch.

His cock was a hot brand sliding along her stomach. The hair on his chest tickled her nipples. The Eric experiment always seemed to generate more force than her body could contain.

“Come with me, Amy.”

When she pulled away from the kiss to cry out her climax, he reached for her hand. Lifting her palm to his mouth, he dragged his tongue along the length, then brought it down to his cock. Her fingers wouldn’t meet, no matter how hard she squeezed. 

“Hold still.”

He fucked her fist, bending to look between their bodies. She heard his harsh groan a moment before she felt the hot splash across her tummy. He pulled out of her fist and shifted until his still-rigid length pressed against her clit. Rocking his hips, he lowered his mouth to hers. His kisses were sweet and gentle while he eased her back to Earth. 

“Now that was fucking sexy,” he panted.

She hoped she’d never be tested on what she’d be willing to do for that look. 

He took her hand and held her gaze, sliding her wet fingers into his mouth. Something inside her kicked like a mule, and some stupid voice inside her head whispered that she’d do whatever it took to keep this from ending. He didn’t do anything to discourage the thought. Oh, no, he kissed his way down her body, finishing by letting his lips linger against her mound. She didn’t dare look at him while they dressed, afraid he’d see too much, but she knew she’d never win this game. How could she, when he held all the cards?

They passed under the statue’s wing, and her heart went haywire when he reached for her hand.

Amy looked around, curious to see the camp. Wind had blown snow into drifts as high as her hips along the side of a few of the sheds, but the copse of evergreens sheltering the migrant housing was so thick, there was hardly any snow on the ground in a few places.

Before they went to the cabin they’d been sent to check out, he showed her the interior of one of the buildings he called bunkhouses. Though shuttered windows made the interior dim, she studied the compartments his Grandfather Chapman had fashioned.

She could see where he’d gotten the inspiration for the nook in the cabin’s loft. Six rows of similar cozy cubbies, each about two feet deeper than a standard twin mattress and exactly as long, ran the length of the building, in back to back rows. Narrow cupboards for the occupant’s clothing and belongings were built into the end of each compartment. Drawers lined the risers below the mattresses. A light fixture was mounted above each bed. Stairs at the ends of each row allowed access to the overhead bunks and a long, railed walkway—much like a fire escape—ran the length. The fronts were open now, he explained, but the compartments had once sported heavy curtains to give the occupant some privacy. Showers circled the outside walls on the east and west ends, screened by shoulder-high concrete block.

“Someone was quite the architect,” she said admiringly.

“Nance Chapman was a lot of things. He created new varieties of peaches. We had a longer season than most of the farmers around here because all the varieties ripen at different times, so the migrants stayed here longer than they did at a lot of the local farms. My grandmother, Livia—Nance’s wife—read to them, translating stories into Spanish, and she taught them to read and write English.”

Amy nodded. “I know a little about her. My mom used to be a librarian, but Livia Chapman inspired her to go back to school to be certified to teach Adult Ed. She holds her classes at the library downtown. A lot of Mom’s students are immigrants.”

He leaned against the door frame. “She wasn’t a typical grandmother. If she knew we were into a subject, she’d find us two books about it, one fiction and one non-fiction. If we asked for toys, she’d tell us the only toy we needed was an imagination.”

“I love that idea,” Amy declared.

He shrugged. “She gave me a book by John Steinbeck for my birthday when I was eleven,
The Grapes of Wrath
. She got me to read it by telling me the book had been banned. She wanted us to understand that all a migrant had to sacrifice to provide for their families was what the rest of us call a home.”

“No wonder my mom admired her, if she could get you to read that book. I didn’t read it till high school. Kicking and screaming the whole way, I might add.”

“Took me all summer, but those characters were real to me. I hear people talk a lot of shit about migrants and immigrants, legal and illegal, but the truth is, everything you eat is touched by a migrant worker’s hands. Been that way all my life and since long before I was born. I don’t get why there’s such a big debate all of a sudden about those workers. If they quit work tomorrow—just all went home and never came back like some folks seem to think they should—this country would starve to death inside a year. Who do you know who wants to spend every waking hour for four months, with their arms held over their head, picking peaches? So who the hell is it they’re supposedly taking jobs from? And how are they any different from Dante?”

The ferocity in his voice made her ache. “I don’t know the answer, Eric.” Her heart kept doing that stupid thing, seeming like it added a beat just for him. The last thing she’d have expected from this man was compassion for a much-maligned group of people. Shame swept through her at how badly she’d underestimated him.

He reached for her hand again. “Come on, let’s get to the crew chief’s shack.”

The wind whipped the trees while they walked the road between the buildings, causing ice to fall in glittering shards. He talked, taking her mind off the cold. “Most buildings were built with reclaimed materials. The rocks used for the foundations were cleared from the orchards. The wood siding was made from the cedars growing all over the place. There’s a sawmill behind the supply shed.”

When they stepped onto the porch of the supervisor’s cottage, Amy asked, “Why are the doors so wide?”

“Emilio, my other grandfather, bought a truckload of doors from a cotton mill when it was being remodeled. Ever been inside a cotton mill?” She shook her head. “They use rolling carts about four feet wide to move the spindles. Doors had to accommodate those.”

* * * *

E
ric couldn’t take his eyes off Amy. She kept to the task at hand, opening the few boxes stacked in the foreman’s cabin. “This stuff looks like my things Mom shoved in storage when they moved. High school stuff no one uses, but can’t seem to throw away.”

“I lived here a while.” He didn’t bother with the boxes. He’d known when he started up the mountain, those ledgers weren’t here. He agreed to make the trip because he wanted Amy to see the camp.

“Why?” she asked. Before he could decide how to respond, she laughed. “Any teenager would kill for a spot like this, what am I saying? I guess this was like running away, only you could go home for dinner.”

He hadn’t gone home for dinner. If he’d tried at that point in his life, his father might’ve shot him.

“Dee said you were accepted to Georgia Tech. Why didn’t you go?”

Through the bare front window, Eric studied the heavy clouds.
Goddammit, Dee. Is there anything you won’t repeat?
Why did it feel like his most infamous moment was looming at his back like the coming blizzard?

“My old man wouldn’t take money from the government, so student loans were out. I sure as hell didn’t qualify for an academic scholarship. I would’ve been an out-of-state student, so double what you’re paying, plus housing.”

She nodded, prying open another box. “I wouldn’t be in college if not for the state lottery scholarship money and my student loans. What were you going to major in?”

“I wanted an engineering degree, to build race cars.” Unable to bear her scrutiny, Eric stepped into the bathroom, eying the meager fixtures. “Dan’s a decent all-around mechanic and Colton’s a whiz-kid with electrical systems. But back then, the shop made the most income from building street rods. That was where I excelled.  I could’ve gone to Tech, worked my way through, but I was needed here.”

He heard his father’s voice in his mind. The day he’d shown his father the acceptance letter, Rafe had laughed. Rafe was laughing at him now for lying to Amy.
I already know how sending you to college will end, don’t I? Good goddamn, Eric. Why would I pay to watch you fuck your way to failure?
He resisted the urge to drive a fist through the thin plywood cabinets in the small kitchen.

“But you got a job working for a NASCAR team, right?”

Goddammit.
Any lingering affection Eric felt for Dee evaporated. He wanted to go slap duct tape over her big mouth. “Cotton Gowens asked my auto shop teacher for a recommendation. He recommended me.”

He stepped back into the main room. Amy looked up from the box she was poking through. Her eyes went wide. “That’s right. You said you worked for Cotton Gowens. I bet a hundred people wanted that job.”

Cotton was a local legend who started his career racing stock cars, then turned to building cars for other drivers. “Yeah.”

Her smile was so wide and the admiration in her eyes...
fuck, just fuck.
“That’s incredible.”  She rocked back on her heels.

He didn’t want to talk about this. He heaved a sigh, watching his breath turn to fog inside the damn room. “Those ledgers aren’t here. They’re not in the schoolhouse, either, but we’ll peek in there, just to humor Cynda so she gives us some of whatever she has in the oven. You wanna drive down the mountain?”

She stood and stepped over the boxes to slide her hand in his. “No, but I wanna drive
after
you get us down the mountain.” Her hand tightened on his. “And I don’t care if it was three weeks or three hours, I’m impressed you worked for a NASCAR team owner.”

“You need gloves.” He pressed her frigid fingers to his lips.

* * * *

I
n Dan’s driveway, Amy put the Dodge’s transmission into neutral and let off the clutch.  She handed Eric his keys. He laughed and leaned across the cab to stick them back in the ignition. “Not bad. You didn’t scare me once.”

“Next time, I’ll try harder,” she vowed, grinning like a little kid. Driving the huge truck had been fun. He never once flinched while she got her bearings about the unaccustomed length and width of the vehicle. “Might help if I’d driven more than two miles.”

“I’ll have you mudslinging by spring.”

Stop it.
She tried to scold her heart for the damn leap it made, but when he talked like that, she couldn’t help but wonder whether he might be interested in her as more than a fuck buddy.

Hell-oo, this is Honey Bee.
He knew she wouldn’t graduate until May. Which was spring. His sweet talk didn’t mean a thing, other than acknowledging she’d still be underfoot when the trees began to put out leaves.

The kitchen was empty when they stepped into the farmhouse. “I guess they’re upstairs.” Eric turned off when they passed through the arched doorway leading into a wide hallway. “I’m gonna duck into the bathroom. Meet you up there.”

No walls impeded Amy’s view, allowing her to see the gleaming dining room table, already set with sparkling china and silver. The formal living room looked like something out of a museum, but none of the furniture looked comfortable. She wouldn’t want to have to dust all the knick knacks in this place, but every surface gleamed.

When she reached the top of the stairs, the doors lining the wide hall were closed, except for one at the far end, on the left. Her passage was blocked by myriad stacks of boxes and small pieces of furniture. She started working her way through the obstacles, grateful for the warm air circulating in the home.

“They all wore it.” Amy identified Cynda’s voice. “Grams, what do you think?”

Rising on her toes to peer over the boxes, she spied Cynda’s grandmother. Coralinne lifted a white dress so tiny, Amy thought it might be doll clothing. When Grams held the dress as high as she could, Amy still couldn’t see the bottom of the skirt, though she peered through the crack between two stacks of boxes. Yellow stains splotched and streaked the fabric. “I think we can clean this up and mend the lace.” Coralinne said.

“I’d really love to have a picture of Fred wearing it.” Lila’s voice, but Amy still couldn’t see her friend. “I’d hang it beside this one of Colton. I have to get this picture enlarged and framed.”

“Here’s a picture of Daniel wearing it. Can you believe he was ever that small? Such a shame we don’t have one of Jonah, but here’s the one of Sarah in it. See how much Rafe has aged?” Cynda again.

Have they found the damn records, or not?
Amy kept working her way toward the open door.

Lila spoke. “Oh, my God. It’s just dawned on me. I don’t know why I never thought of it before now, but Sarah had to be fourteen when she got pregnant with Jonah. Is that right?”

Job security.
Lila was a great example of why she’d chosen to teach math.

Amy rolled her eyes and spoke up. “How do you balance your checkbook, Lila? You had to know Sarah was younger than Colton. Even I know that.” She waved when Cynda, Lila, and Grams’ heads appeared in the doorway at the sound of her voice.

Lila waved back, but she seemed to be looking at someone else. “But I saw her. At the garage. And she was older—”

“You saw what you expected to see. Dark-haired gal working the counter, had to be family, right?” Colton stepped into view behind Lila, and he began massaging her shoulders.

“Daniel, you straight-up told me Sarah was eighteen when she got pregnant.” Cynda cut Dan a hard look.