Someone to Love (7 page)

Magnolia could not hear Cooper when he called her name over the loud bossa nova music coming from the speakers. She didn’t notice him as she continued to roll white paint on a beam. She danced barefoot to the music, rolling her hips and moving her feet as she sambaed her way over to the tray to get more paint. Cooper leaned against the door jam and admired the way she moved.

Magnolia was thin, but she wasn’t a stick. There were subtle curves that beckoned him as she moved. A few pounds would turn her into a voluptuous Aphrodite, but even thin she was still a siren. She began to sing along with the music in Spanish. Or was that Portuguese. Bossa nova was Brazilian so that must be Portuguese.

“Is this how you learned Portuguese?” he shouted to be heard over the rhythmic drum beat.

She jumped and swiveled around at the sound of his voice, instinctively pulling the paint roller towards her chest. “You scared me.”

She pointed the roller towards him in a flicking motion. Paint flew off the roller and landed just shy of his boots. He stepped back to avoid getting paint on himself if she were to punctuate her words with roller in hand again. She looked down at the roller still dripping paint.

“Oh, don’t tell me Paul Bunyan’s afraid of a little paint.” She took a step closer and he took a larger one back.

“I’m not afraid of paint, I’m afraid of the little woman holding the paint. I see revenge in her eyes.”

“What do you think I’ll do? This,” she said and jerked forward but stopping before any paint flew. He flinched at her movement certain she’d go through with it. “Just for flinching you’re going to get it now.” She whipped the roller forward sending paint hurdling in his direction. He pivoted out the way like a quarterback evading a sack at the hands of a linebacker.

“Do you want to deal with the consequences of your actions? I bet you won’t try something like that again.” He felt cocky after the success of his evasive maneuver.

Slowly she took a step sideways, then another. “That would be yet another bet you’d lose.”

Suddenly she turned and sprinted towards the paint tray on the floor to reload her weapon. He took two leaping strides in the same direction and beat her there. She came to an abrupt halt. He picked up another roller and dipped it into the tray until globs of paint were flowing off it.

“Don’t you dare!” she exclaimed.

“Or what? You’re out of ammo and I’m fully loaded. You think I’m afraid of you little lady.”

“No, I don’t think you’re afraid of me. And that’s the first reason you’re wrong.”

“What’s the second reason?”

“The second reason you’re very, very wrong is that I’m not out of ammo.”

She darted in the other direction towards the half full open paint bucket, dipping the roller into it in one swift motion. Before he could complete the backwards motion of a swing, she’d whipped her roller at him. Paint streaked across the bridge of his nose, splattered his jeans, and coated his red and black plaid shirt.

Her victory was short lived because his paint found its target right above the self-inflicted paint stain on her shirt. It was a free for all with both sending paint hurling through the air in the other’s direction while they tried to maneuver their way out of getting anymore on themselves. When they were done, Noli was just slightly more covered than Cooper.

“Looks like I’ve won,” he said as he dropped his roller to the floor.

“Once again, you find yourself in the unfortunate situation of having underestimated me.” She charged forward with the roller extended forward like a bayonet.

She’d managed to roll it half way up his shirt before he grabbed her by the wrist and extended the roller away from them. He locked his other arm around her back and pulled her to him. He gazed down in her brown eyes.

“Drop your weapon or else,” he said.

“Or else what?”

“Or else this.” He closed the distance between their lips. The first feel of her lips was like coming home. Her full lips were soft and yielding with the taste of the fruity gloss she wore. She dropped the roller and wrapped her arms around him. He did feel like a giant with her small frame in his arms. He pulled her as close to him as he could. Her fingers laced into his hair and pulled him closer. His embrace tightened around her and he lifted her off the floor until he was standing straight.

Since the moment he’d seen her sitting at the table as he carried one of her numerous bags, he’d imagined how kissing her lips would feel. His imagination fell short of the reality. This was the most exhilarating kiss he’d ever felt. He could feel her chest moving against his as her breaths became more rapid. He began to lower her down, their lips slowly parting, her eyes still closed.

His embrace remained firmly in place holding her near to him as another person could be. “Was that my reward for winning?” he asked.

“Nope. It was my reward for winning.”

“But you didn’t win.”

“Or did I?” she said raising an eyebrow. “I got you to pull me against you so that you’d have as much paint on you as I did on me.”

“That sounds like a tie.”

“But some of the paint that’s on me was done by me, so that doesn’t count against me. In fact, it only counts against you.”

“We’re at a crossroads then. I know I won, but you think you won. You’ve gotten your reward, now it’s time for me to get mine.”

His mouth covered hers again, this time with less tenderness than the first. He pulled her lip between his teeth before dipping his tongue into the sweetness of her mouth. She moaned and leaned into him. The sound she made stirred his blood. He wanted to hear that sound and more from her over and over again.

Her hands began to explore his body, running from across his wide shoulders, down his chest to his waistband then back up. He wanted to feel her hands on his bare chest. He moaned at the thought and stopped her hands before he gave into temptation and lowered her to the floor then stripped them both out of their paint stained clothes.

***

She jerked back, severing the kiss. His arms prevented her from stepping away, keeping her inches from him. She touched her hands to her tingling lips. Her lips were now white too because she’d remembered too late that paint was on her hand. She was still reeling from the kissed. She looked up into his eyes to see if the kisses had affected him the same way.

The first kiss had been soft and sweet and made her feel as tender as her heart was. She’d felt safe in his arms and his kiss held promise of tenderness and caring. The second kiss held a different kind of promise, the promise of passion that would explode like a night’s sky on the fourth of July once the fuse was lit. Desire was evident in his eyes. There was something else there too. His eyes seemed to reflect the fear she had about the fledgling emotions that accompanied the physical attraction.

She looked at the space around them. “This place is a mess,” she said. She looked down at herself then at him. “We’re a mess. We can’t go shopping looking like this. I can’t believe I just wasted my time having a paint fight.”

“I wouldn’t call it a waste of time. It was an excellent use of time because the reward was more than worth it.”

“Are you going to let me go?” She needed to get some space between them because she couldn’t think clearly with him that close to her.

“Do I have to?”

“If you don’t, the paint will act as an adhesive and we’ll be stuck together forever.”

“We’d just need to take our clothes off to unstick ourselves.” He looked at her as if he was already picturing her nude.

She pushed against him and he released her. The thought of them naked together was too appealing. “Help me clean this mess up. Then I need to clean up before we head to the store.”

“I don’t think the little sink here will clean you up.” He reached up and touched a drying glob of paint in her hair. “You need a shower.” He ran his index finger from her hair, down her cheek and throat, then traced the V neckline before caressing a path down the narrow space between her breasts and tugging her t-shirt. “You need a change of clothes too.”

His touch made her want to strip her clothes off right then and there, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that his touch had the desired effect. It took all the control she had to keep her breathing calm and even. She looked at his hand playing with the hem of her shirt as if it were nothing then looked straight at him as though she were bored.

“Where am I getting this shower and change of clothes? I don’t want Diane to see me like this. I don’t want her to worry about the progress of her wedding.” And her disheveled appearance would lead to too many probing questions.

“My place. I have a shower you can use. You can change into one of my shirts while our clothes wash.”

“That’s the only way you’ll ever get me into one of your shirts.”

“You want to bet?”

She rubbed his thick, wild, paint streaked beard. “Nope because I reserve the right to change my mind once you stop looking like you’re auditioning for the roll of Bigfoot in a B rated sci-fi movie.” She winked, pivoted, and sashayed away. “I just need to get my shoes,” she called over her shoulder.

She walked to where her MP3 player was docked, but her shoes weren’t there. She kept her cool and picked up the player and put it into her bag as if that’s what she’d intended to do. She turned to see Cooper dangling her wedge heeled cowgirl boots in his hand.

“Looking for these?”

She walked over to him, but as soon as she reached for her boots, he raised his hands over his head and out of her reach. Her attempts to leap and grab them were futile.

“Give me my boots.”

“You don’t need them.”

“I do. My feet would freeze out there bare on the ground.”

“You’re right.” Instead of lowering his arm and returning her shoes he swiftly bent down and swept her over his shoulder

“Aahh! What are you doing?”

“I don’t want those pretty little toes of yours to get cold.”

She didn’t try to fight him because she knew it was useless. She just hoped he couldn’t feel her heart pounding out of her chest. “We need to clean up before we go.”

“No we don’t. The paint will dry on the tarp and the rollers are trash.”

“But— aahh,” she screamed when he smack her backside.

“Yes, you have a very nice butt.” He carried her to his truck and sat her in the passenger seat then placed her boots at her feet.

“That was totally unnecessary,” she said once he was seated in the driver seat.

“It was, but I enjoyed it.” He looked at her seated next to him with her best game face on. “So did you.”

“Shut up and drive.”

He was right. She’d never thought she was one for the whole “me Tarzan, you Jane” thing, but it was something about how easily he picked her up and carried her away that stirred a primal desire. Her saving grace was the fact that part of her couldn’t get past the hair. She felt too much desire for this man that looked like hygiene was a foreign word. Had he been groomed (not well groomed, just groomed) she would’ve been rolling on the paint covered floor with him right now.

She bent down to put on the socks stuffed into her boots then the boots themselves, concentrating on the task like it was brain surgery so she could avoid the thoughts running around her mind.

“You know those boots aren’t practical work boots, not with that funky heel. Why do you have cowgirl boots anyway? You’re not a cowgirl”

She looked down at the tall boots made from full grain brown leather with a turquoise underlay design, contrast stitching and a pointed toe. “One, they are cute. Two, I’m planning a chic country wedding and these are my muse. Three, you don’t have to be a cowgirl to wear cowgirl boots. I mean, you’re not a lumberjack and you’re dressed like that. Unless….”

“Unless what?” he prompted her to finish.

“I can keep a secret. Are you the reincarnation of Paul Bunyan?” she whispered.

“If I’m Paul, where’s Babe? Paul didn’t travel anywhere without Babe.”

“How do you know that? Only Paul would know that. ”

“There are stories about them.”

“What color did the stories say Babe was?”

“Babe was a blue ox.”

“What color is your truck?”

“Blue,” he laughed.

“See, I’ve figured it out. Some weird magic brought you back as Cooper,” she said making air quotes when she said his name. “But you couldn’t just walk around with a blue ox, so Babe became a blue colored behemoth of a gas guzzler.”

He slowed the truck to a crawl and looked around as if to make sure no one or nothing else was around. “Now that you’ve figured it out, what am I going to do with you?” he said in a deep, menacing voice before laughing in an exaggerated evil laugh. “I think you’ve inhaled too many paint fumes,” he laughed and began to accelerate again.

“I know what you want to do with me, but you’d need more of the magic that brought you and Babe back to life to get that.”

“When the time comes that I get to do that with you, and I’m confident that time will come, it won’t take magic, it’ll just feel that way.”

She had little doubt that they’d end up doing the horizontal samba, and that it would feel magical. It frustrated her that he could get her so heated and remain so cool.

He pointed out the window. “That’s my mom’s house.” Within a couple of minutes of passing his mother’s house he began to slow down.

“I thought we were headed to your place.”

He nodded. “We’re here.”

“This isn’t the bar,” Noli said. A chuckle was his response. “I just see a couple of silos.”

He just kept slowly driving. She looked again, there were pine trees evenly planted circling the silo. Just inside of the trees the ground around them did seem to be compacted from vehicles driving over it frequently. There was also a well-manicured lawn between the dirt road and grain houses.

As he circled around the silos she saw this was not a run of the mill grain silo. On the side of the structure opposite the dirt road there were two rows of very large windows. A balcony ran along the top row of windows. There was a large wooden door painted black with a silver kick plate, lock and handle. He pulled to a stop just shy of a large natural cut limestone patio with grass growing between the cracks.