Read All I Want Is You (A Chester Farms Novella) Online

Authors: Keri Ford

Tags: #Contemporary, #romance, #holiday

All I Want Is You (A Chester Farms Novella)

BOOK: All I Want Is You (A Chester Farms Novella)
7.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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Contents

Acknowledgments

She could still leave, right now, if she wanted...

All I Want Is You

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Never Stopped Loving You Sneak Peek

About The Author

Copyright

Acknowledgments

 

 

Many thanks once again to my husband. This time for the welding terms.

 

Cynthia D’Alba for your…hm. I’ll just say thanks for your doctor input because I don’t want to spoil the story by being specific. Readers will figure out what I mean when they get to that part. There’s only one doctor in this book.

 

My sister, Sandy Smith, deserves a ton of credit for reading this to correct my horrible grammar! I’m looking to you! Kidding…at. I’m looking
at
you. We’ll see how well I remember that in the future.

 

Finally, to my family. Y’all are the best and make the Holidays what they are. I had no trouble I envisioning a Chester Thanksgiving because ours fit the bill so perfectly!

 

 

 

She could still leave, right now, if she wanted to. Put a stop to this, keep her good, well-behaved, wait-a-month-into-the-relationship panties on and leave. Dear God, the very idea of walking out of here was downright laughable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All I Want Is You

 

Tasha Parks dropped out of college, cashed in her savings and opened an ice cream store. All her energy should be going into that store. There’s just one problem. Patrick Abington. Handsome, sweet and oh so shy, all Tasha wants for Christmas is him.

 

Patrick has had his eye on Tasha since she moved to town and opened the only ice cream store for miles. Being flat broke has kept him from asking her out. When a friend gets them in the same room, he can’t back away. Desperate not to let her go, it’s time to think out of the box for ways he can win her heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

Patrick Abington checked his email and text messages for an update every other second and got nothing. Again. Sit in a parking lot looking like a creeper? That could be checked off the bucket list that never existed. It was either that, or go inside the ice cream shop and wait.

Where he'd have to talk…to her.

His throat tightened at just the idea of carrying on actual conversation beyond asking for two scoops of ice cream. Nerves chewed up his gut and spit it out like a chump. He readjusted in his truck seat and refreshed his phone because going inside alone—not happening. If he just tended to his phone and sent messages to his friend who was late, he wouldn't look as crazy. Every time he stared at the bright screen stating no new messages though, his head was all but pulled against his will to lift so he could look through the store front windows to see her again.

Her hair was as dark as the waffle cone she held in her hand and lips matched the cherries decorating the walls. While he didn't know for sure, he was positive her skin was sweet like the chocolate chip cookie dough he occasionally ordered. It just had to be. Creamy, white skin with a light dusting of freckles over her nose seemed like the perfect fit. Then there was her voice. Sweet and so soft. Just wrapped a hug around a man and sucked him in. Forget the cherry topping off his order, when she handed his ice cream across the counter with that smile beaming from her eyes, he turned into a stumbling idiot trying to walk out of there.

A shiver went through him and he returned to refreshing his texts once again to see where in the hell Whitney had gotten off to. She was supposed to meet him here half an hour ago and the ice cream shop was closing in five minutes. Knowing Whitney, she could be distracted by a marathon of trashy TV or playing games on the computer.

He leaned back in his seat for a look down the road to see if there were any headlights, but he got nothing. He shot off another text to her, and her brother this time, and waited.

Time ticked over for another five minutes.

Nothing. Unable to help himself, he glanced back to those store windows to see Tasha by the front wiping down a table and putting chairs on top of the white, shiny surfaces. There had to be a dozen tables in there with four or more chairs at each one. She was in there all by herself, doing that all alone.

While he sat out here. Doing nothing but staring. Hell. He shut off his truck and stepped out.

As often as a fool this one woman made him feel, he couldn't just sit in his truck while she was doing all that heavy lifting. All those chairs. Not that she couldn’t handle them, but if he sat in his truck, then he became a creeper
and
a lazy son of a gun. The latter just wasn’t going to happen.

The metal bar of the front door was blessedly cold against his sweaty palms as he pushed it open. The bell dinged a familiar welcome as he stepped into the much needed air conditioning.

Not that it was hot outside. It was November and in the sixties. Problem was, it heated about a thousand degrees under his skin at the sight of her polka-dotted apron strings dangling over the sweet curves of her ass. He made a point to clear his throat so not to have a repeat of that one time his voice cracked when he tried talking to her. "Hi, Tasha."

She glanced over her shoulder and that beautiful smile lifted her lips, puffed her cheeks and squinted the corners of her eyes. "Hey Patrick. You're just in time, I was about to lock down."

Somehow that one grin spun his brain around like a dropped jar of screws. "Yeah, I was—”

Sitting in his truck watching her? Good answer. He cleared his throat. "Whitney is supposed to meet me here."

Tasha frowned. "Me too. She told me she might be a little late."

"Oh, she didn't mention that." Because he wouldn't have gotten here until late if so. Then he could have avoided the miserable last half hour of look but don't touch.

“You’re welcome to stay inside until she gets here.” She leaned on her broom. Her fingers wrapped around the handle, face pressed to the long rod and she looked like a pretty, blue-eyed, brown-haired Cinderella waiting to be rescued.

Not that he was a prince or could do anything besides apparently stare back. Was it getting hot in here? He pointed at the room as a drop of sweat eased down the back of his neck. "Do you need any help?"

Her brows lifted as if in surprise. "Only if you know how to sweep."

"I can do that," he nodded. He'd done it a couple times. Sweeping metal scrapings around the shop couldn't be that different from a little dust on the floor. Not that it mattered, she could ask him to paint her fingernails and he’d dumbly nod along with a mumble.

The corner of her lips turned up all over again and he could just fall into that smile. She handed him the broom. "You don’t mind sweeping? How do I get you in here every night?"

A chuckle moved up his throat that sounded a lot like his little sister's giggles over a puppy when she was six. Awesome. Any cool points he might have gained by sheer luck just crashed and burned.

"I'd rather do anything besides sweep." She pointed at the corner across the room. "I usually start over there and move all the dirt this way. Puts me closer to the trash can. I'll lift the chairs out of the way for you."

Her bending and lifting and moving all around him? No thanks. He’d like to keep the most amount of blood in his head that was possible. "I’ll get them."

She stopped and blinked at him. "Well, all right. I'll let you."

Too fast. He responded too fast and sounded eager. Nobody was eager to clean. He bit off a curse. "Just if you have something else you need to do."

"Sure, I can get everything else wiped down and be finished earlier."

He nodded, grateful that didn't require a vocal response. He moved along the windows, stacking chairs first and going back with the broom. Words moved in his voice box, but lodged there like a beaver dam had taken up residence.

"Do you like music?"

Drawn to her voice like the sap he was, he looked up and her apron was gone. And his mouth dried. Her perfect curves the polka-dotted thing usually hid were outlined by her tight shirt and jeans. Her breasts were there. Just right there, lifted and cupped in her shirt and looked about right for his hands.

The broom slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. He shot off the ground by the noise, nearly coming out of his skin. Son of a bitch. He fumbled for the handle and straightened, but decided against looking at her so as not to do something stupid. Again. "Sure."

Some irritating pop music stuff hummed out and then she was back. So close to him again with a definite sway in her hips that matched the beat of the music. He didn’t know what this song was, but he loved it.

She sprayed a window. "Do you know what Whitney wanted?"

"No idea." His breath was short and his heart pounded to the beat she subtly rocked her hips to. Between the movement of her hips and the vanilla that seemed to come off her skin, it wouldn’t be the broom hitting floor, but him.

Whitney
. He cleared his throat. Right. "I didn't get her text until I got off work."

"Work, huh? I've never seen you in quite so much...dirt." She tucked hair behind her ear and no, no.

Hair shouldn't be shoved behind the ear like that. It was bad enough it was crammed back in that knot on her head. There were only a few little hairs touching her cheek like he wanted his fingers to. She kept staring at him and he was sure he must have missed a question. Panic swelled into a tight knot in his gut and he knew the only answer he could ever give her. "Yes."

"Where do you work?"

He looked down and noticed how filthy his jeans and boots were. Shit. He should have thought. He was probably making a bigger mess just being in the room and there was no way chocolate and vanilla smells could overpower the funky shit he'd been in today. "Harmon Lyons Construction. Sorry. I should have realized I was filthy before coming in."

"You're fine. You're always so clean when I see you. I thought you worked in an office or something." Again, she stuffed those few pieces of hair behind her ear.

He gripped the broom stick to prevent him from crossing the room and freeing them. "I wouldn't survive in an office."

"I would die behind a desk." She sprayed the front glass curves of the coolers and wiped them over with a little rag, erasing a day’s worth of kid-sized hand prints. "I know I would."

Work. That was a good topic. The grip on his chest eased up a bit. He worked his whole life. He could talk about that. "I never had to find out what that would be like. Always worked outside."

"I did find out what it was like.” She tipped her head. “Well, sort of. At school. It’s the same principle. I hate being pinned to a corner in an uncomfortable chair when all I want to do is get up. I can’t even imagine the nightmare of one of those little cubicles." A shake wiggled through her shoulders and all the way down to her knees.

He looked away with an image of her chest moving with that shiver plastered on his brain. "Guess this ice cream store works for you then. No sitting."

"I hope so," she whispered. "Winter’s coming and it’s slowed down since Fall."

He lifted a shoulder and swept across the center of the room. "You opened at the end of summer, but it doesn't get cold here for long. It'll be hot again before you know it. And people eat ice cream all year."

She nodded. "True."

"It's cool that you have this. Owning your own business seems..." he shook his head, "crazy to think about. I wouldn't know where to start."

"College taught me a little."

"Managed to pick up a few things while pinned to that hard chair?"

She smiled. Yes. Smooth, finally.

BOOK: All I Want Is You (A Chester Farms Novella)
7.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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