Uncommon Passion (11 page)

calling her like this was a date or something.

11 a.m. my place if you want something to do on Sunday morning.

He sent his address in a second text, then got to his feet. “I can’t make it tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve got

plans.”

“Sure,” Sam said, a bite under his easy drawl. “Another time.”

“Another time,” Ben repeated, stepping back before Sam could hug him. He headed for the door,

remembering how they’d slept in the same bed until they were ten, curled around each other like puppies in

a box. Their father had destroyed more than Sam’s childhood.

“Later, my brother,” Sam said.

Ben strode out to the truck and found Sam framed in his rearview mirror when he pulled out into the

street. Sam was his mirror, but the mirror was cracked.

Chapter Seven

“Not already,” Jess muttered when the alarm went off at five thirty Sunday morning. She rolled

over, the thin cotton sheet tangled in her bare legs, and buried her head under her pillow. Tangled white-

blond hair barely showed against the white pillowcase.

Flat on her back in the opposite bottom bunk, Rachel murmured in agreement. They’d spent Saturday

evening in the Strand, a shopping and nightlife district of Victorian-era buildings in Galveston, at a Carrie

Newcomer concert in a coffee shop/bookstore called Artistary. Glowing with the sheer emotion of the

music and laughter she’d shared with Jess and the A&M boys, she’d taken a flyer listing future open-mike

nights and concerts. Between dinner, the concert, the discussion, and coffee and dessert afterward, none of

the Silent Circle Farm apprentices had gotten home until after midnight.

The late night ensured she’d be tired enough to nap part of Sunday away.

Getting up at dawn every day of the week was the only life Rachel had ever known, but Jess grew up in

a wealthy suburb of Austin and wasn’t accustomed to the daily routine of chores that never ended. Leaving

Jess to untangle her sheets, Rachel pulled on yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt, made a quick stop in the

bathroom, then headed down the dirt path through the wildflowers to the goat shed. The simple tune for “I

Believe” played in her mind as she walked. Katrina, Irene, and the rest of the does were waiting for her in a

cluster of warm bodies by the gate. She gently used the gate to create enough space for her to slip into the

pen, then greeted each doe according to her rank in the hierarchy. She fed them, changed their bedding,

swept up the floor, then milked the does who gave birth in the fall and had weaned their kids. By the time

she finished the sun skimmed the tops of the cottonwoods, and she could see Jess outside the chicken

enclosure. They met at the end of the path leading back to the bunkhouse. The boys from A&M joined

them where the path took a sharp left to the main barn.

“Waffles? Pancakes?” Toby asked as he transferred dirt from his palms to his jeans.

“Pancakes,” Jess said decisively. “Buckwheat pancakes.”

“With blueberries,” Brian added.

“And eggs,” Toby said, and held the bunkhouse door open for the women. “And cottage cheese and

fresh peaches.”

Smiling, Rachel picked up her phone and purse from the farmhouse table, where she’d untidily left

them the night before. Intending to put them away in her room, she stopped when she saw a text from Ben.

11 a.m. my place if you want something to do on Sunday morning.

She brushed her thumb over the screen to keep it from going dark. Three twenty a.m. He was up late.

“Sounds great,” Rachel answered absently.

Inside the bunkhouse she opened all the windows and switched on the ceiling fans to circulate the

cooler morning air. The bunkhouse was a simple plan, with four bedrooms separated into twos for men

and women. A single room served as the common area, with the kitchen along the back wall, and a big

farmhouse dining table separating the kitchen from the mismatched sofa and chairs and bookshelves

comprising the living room. She hurried into the bathroom to wash the smell of goats from her hair and

skin, then changed into a cotton skirt and white eyelet blouse. Her hair would take twenty minutes to dry

with the hair dryer, or hours without, so she towel dried it as much as she could, then parted it on the side

and loosely braided it. When she emerged Jess was cracking eggs into an ancient Pyrex bowl while Toby

poured pancake batter onto a cast-iron griddle.

“Where are you off to?” Jess asked as she added a hefty dollop of milk to the bowl and began to whisk

the eggs.

“Just doing some visiting later this afternoon.”

A clomp of boots against the porch floorboards drew her attention. She opened the door to find Rob

drying his hands on the towels hanging over the sink at the far end of the porch, George waiting beside

him, already panting in the day’s heat. “Just the woman I wanted to see,” Rob said with a smile. “Good

morning.”

“Good morning,” she said. “Everything looked fine this morning.”

“Thanks,” Rob said. He leaned against the porch railing. “Are you interested in staying past the kidding

season? The Truck Garden’s taking more of my time than I thought it would. I didn’t anticipate raising

enough money this year to get the outreach program off the ground, and I’m short an apprentice.”

What she
should
do and what she
wanted
to do were two different things. “I can do that,” Rachel said

reluctantly, “but I can’t commit past the summer.”

“Sent in the vet tech school application?”

“No,” she said, not willing to lie about it. But she knew how things like this went. She’d promise to stay

one more season, or through one more winter, and the next thing she knew she’d be three years older but

no more herself than she was when she left Elysian Fields. She wouldn’t give Rob reason to depend on her.

“Not yet. But I will.”

“That’s fair,” he said. “If you take summer classes we can work around that. I’ll make the time when

kidding starts, too.”

“Good,” Rachel said firmly.

The screen door swung open and Jess peered around the weather-beaten frame. “You coming in for

breakfast?” she asked.

“Smelled Toby’s pancakes all the way up at the barn,” he said easily, “so I hope I get an invitation.”

Jess opened the door even wider. “Come on in,” she said.

Rob held the door open for Rachel. They settled down to stacks of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and

platters of the farm’s sausage, cottage cheese, and honey spread on thick slices of the bread Rachel had

made earlier in the week. She left most of the conversation to Jess, who had much to say about raising food

humanely and seasonally. When Rachel rose to stack plates, Rob got up as well and ran water and dish soap

into the sink. “I’ll help you with those.”

The A&M boys disappeared as if they’d been vaporized. Rachel tied an apron over her blouse and skirt

and washed all the dishes. Rob dried and put away. Jess hung around, wiping down the table, straightening

the living area as she burbled on about their evening at the Artistary.

“What did you think of the concert last night?” Rob asked in a quiet moment. The look in his eyes

reminded her of the look on his face at the auction. Had he been looking at Jess, or her?

“She has such a beautiful voice,” Rachel said.

“You should have come with us,” Jess added.

“I heard her in concert last year,” Rob said and accepted a platter to dry. “She’s the perfect blend of

message and medium. You look pretty nice for a lazy Sunday lying around this place. Where are you off to

today?”

She refused to blush. “I’m going into Galveston to visit . . . someone. Do you need me to pick up

anything while I’m there?”

He shook his head and gave her a warm smile. “Drive safely.”

More than willing to make way for Jess, Rachel decided to leave early. She settled into the Focus and

rolled the windows down to clear out a week’s worth of stale air as she headed down the dirt road for the

highway leading southeast, crossing the causeway to the island an hour early. She spent the time at

Artistary, drinking tea and reading a book she’d picked up the night before, then drove to Ben’s apartment.

The clock in her dashboard read 10:55 when Rachel pulled into Ben’s parking lot and braked to a halt in

a spot marked Visitors. She cut the engine and got out of the car to look around. Three three-story

apartment buildings all faced a parking lot, and the doors opened to common stairwells. Some balconies

had plants, deck furniture, and wind chimes or cute little flags on them. The one she identified as Ben’s

held a single plastic chair, and the blinds were drawn across the sliding glass door to block sunlight and

prying eyes. There was no personality visible from the parking lot, no hint of life inside. Maybe he was still

asleep.

She checked her watch—10:57—then checked her gut. The indifferent text didn’t seem to require a

response. Show up or don’t show up. No roses or sweet talking. Just sex. Take it or leave it. Her heart

thudded in her chest, an unfamiliar anticipation shimmering in her pulse points, an unfamiliar heaviness in

her breasts and between her legs.

She wanted. She now knew what it meant to want, what it meant to choose to satisfy that want. She

would walk up to Ben’s door, walk inside his apartment, lie down with him.

Spring sunshine and heat cascaded down to pool on the asphalt as she smoothed the pleats of her skirt

across her abdomen, then closed the car door and clicked the locks. She checked her watch again—10:59—

then crossed the lot, climbed the concrete stairs to Ben’s door, and knocked. Long moments passed, then

she knocked more sharply.

Finally the door opened to reveal Ben, wearing a pair of black cotton shorts riding low on his hips and a

hooded, sleepy gaze, and nothing else. He blinked at her like he had no idea who she was or why she was

there.

“Hi,” she said, struggling not to stare at the broad expanse of his chest and abdomen. “You texted me.

Remember?”

Another slow blink, then without a word he stepped to the side and let her into the apartment. He hadn’t

bothered to turn on the lights that night after dinner, so she’d seen only moonlight draped over shapes.

Now sunlight filtered through the blinds, illuminating the space. The door opened into an eating area with a

dinette set, mail stacked at one end, his utility belt slung over the chair nearest the hall closet. His gun sat

beside the belt, and a key ring laden with keys lay beside it. Through the large pass-through window Rachel

could see a kitchen. To her left was the living room, occupied by a brown leather sofa, glass coffee and end

tables, and an enormous flat-screen television on a stand. The space was tidy and clean but lacked feminine

touches like area rugs or artwork on the walls.

Beside her Ben rubbed his palm over his face and jaw. The sound of hard skin rasping against stubble

sent heat trickling along her nerves. She remembered how that stubble felt against her lips, her breasts, a

visible sign of his male to her female, harsh and rough to her softness.

“Why did you text me? I didn’t think I’d hear from you again after you dropped me off.”

“Why are you here?” he replied.

She tilted her head and let her purse drop to the floor at her feet. “You know,” she said simply.

“I don’t think I know anything about you.”

“You know how inexperienced I am.”

“That’s why you’re here?”

“I want more experience,” she admitted.

His smile flashed, startling her. “Give me a couple of minutes.”

He walked back down the short hallway leading to the bedroom on the left and the bathroom on the

right. Rachel waited until the bathroom door closed, then stepped hesitantly off the square of linoleum

doing duty as the foyer, into the living and dining area, then far enough down the hall to see into the galley-

style kitchen. A white stove and fridge lined the wall, with a stainless steel sink and counter space under the

pass-through to the eating area. The space lacked more than a woman’s touch. It lacked personality. He

lived here, ate occasionally based on the cardboard frozen meal containers neatly folded against the side of

the recycling bin, slept based on the unmade bed visible through the bedroom door, stowed his stuff based

on the dinette table dumping ground.

The water running in the bathroom ceased, and the absence of sound startled Rachel. She turned away

from the kitchen and crossed into the bedroom to sit on the edge of the king-sized bed that dominated the

room. No point in pretending she’d come here for anything else, like coffee or breakfast or conversation.

Ben opened the bathroom door, saw Rachel sitting on his bed, and paused for a second. Then he turned

away from her. She heard the fridge door open, the sound of a bottle top twisting off, then he reappeared