Falling For A Redneck (15 page)

“Come
on, I want to show you other stuff,” Dirk said with the eagerness of a child showing off his playthings.

They climbed back down into the orchard, the boys whooping
as they raced ahead once again. Holding her by the hand, Dirk dragged her around the farm, showing her everything that he thought special, from rocks to trees to a cow called Betsy.

Her redneck was a true farm boy at heart
, and during that afternoon of discovery, Marissa found herself laughing more than once, more at ease on the farm than she would have imagined. There was a peaceful serenity to the landscape, a refreshing taste to the air, and a nice reprieve from the noise inherent to towns and cities.
I think I’m starting to understand the appeal.

A bell ringing in the distance
saw the boys racing back to the house.

“Dinnertime,” Dirk explained. Entering the house through a different door that led to a mudroom, they washed up for dinner because
, as the boys pointedly told their father, “It’s good manners.”

Marissa secretly smiled. They’d remembered!

Dinner smelled heavenly, and with all the fresh air and exercise, Marissa found herself digging into the hearty meal consisting of a still-pink-in-the-middle roast beef, golden oven-baked potatoes, thick brown gravy—sinful but yummy—a medley of vegetables, and an even greater sinful delight, Yorkshires.

Marissa devoured this feast and told her healthy conscience to take a backseat
. After all, she didn’t want to offend Dirk’s mother, who’d obviously spent some time creating this culinary delight. Her conscience smirked at her.
Okay, so I’m eating it because it tastes so good.

D
uring the course of the meal, she met Dirk’s father, a giant of a man with only wispy tufts of hair on top but a full gray and white beard with mustache. A hearty fellow, he joked often with his grandsons and teased Dirk with dry comments. With Marissa, he was polite, but she could see the curiosity in his eyes, and she had to wonder what Dirk had told them about her.

Dirk’s mother bustled around beaming, her hair wisping around a face flushed from the heat in the kitchen. Marissa lost count of the number of times she popped up and down from her seat and wondered how Ana ever managed to eat.

After a dessert of fresh apple pie smothered in whipped cream, which Ana just placed in front of her—meaning she had to eat it for politeness sake—Marissa felt like unbuttoning her slacks and sighing. How long since she’d felt so full?

Dirk felt no shame
, and he leaned back in his seat, let out a big sigh and rubbed his belly. “That was fantastic, Ma.”

Ana just laughed and cleared dishes away. Marissa jumped up and began carting dirty dishes to the kitchen where
—gasp—Dirk’s mother washed them by hand in the big double sink. Marissa loved her dishwasher and would eat off paper plates before she’d even think of parting with it. But as a guest… Marissa held back a sigh and grabbed a towel to dry.

“So where did you meet my
son?” asked the matron, scrubbing with brisk efficiency.

“We’re neighbors,” Marissa answered
, not sure how much Dirk had told his mother.

“Aah, that neighbor,” replied his mother with a chuckle.

Marissa flushed.
Looks like Dirk has talked about me
. “Yes, well, if he told you about the mishap where we met, I guess you could say we initially got off on the wrong foot.”

“Sometimes my
son can be big and brash. And loud. Very loud. But at heart he is a good boy.”

“Yes
, he is a good man.”

“You like my son?” asked Ana
, not looking at Marissa as she rinsed the big pot.

Marissa paused
, unsure how to answer this blunt question, and finally settled on honesty. “I like him, but I don’t think I’m right for him.”

“When I met my Frederick, I didn’t think he was right for me
, so I treated him very aloofly. I didn’t trust him because he was too handsome and the ladies loved him. But my dear Freddy, he did not let my barbs sting him. He courted me until I finally realized he was the one.”

“But how did you know?” Marissa asked. “I thought I found it once, but I was very wrong.”

“Sometimes you have to trust,” said Ana sagely. “It is worse, I think, to be too afraid to try than to believe and perhaps find what your heart and soul need.”

Marissa was saved from replying by Dirk sticking his head in
, announcing Marissa was needed to tuck the boys in.

After
she’d read the boys a story about pirates—apparently she’d become their new favorite story-time person—Dirk cornered her.

“I want to show you something,” he said with a seductive smile.

For one naughty, thrilling moment, Marissa thought he meant to show her the inside of his pants, but instead he brought her out to the front porch to a two-seater rocker that creaked alarmingly when sat on.

He draped an arm across her shoulders
, making her stiffen for a second, and then she relaxed into his embrace.
Why fight it when I want him to touch me?

“Look up,” Dirk said quietly
, pointing to the night sky.

Following his finger with her eyes,
Marissa looked up and gaped at the spectral view. Thousands of stars glittered overhead, a diamond masterpiece she’d never seen in the city.

“Wow,” she breathed. “There’s so many.” As soon as she said it
, she wanted to kick herself for sounding so cliché.

A
chuckle made him shake. “Yes, there are. I love this view. Sometimes if you’re lucky you even get to see a shooting star.”

“Did you ever wish on them?”

“All the time. When I was young, for stupid things like more money and girls. But recently I’ve asked for more important things.”

“Like?”
Marissa asked.

“Health for my boys.
Staying on the side of right and away from stupid.”

“Stupid how?” she prompted.
Who is this man who seems so rough around the edges but has a heart of gold?

“I guess it’s only fair I give you the full, unedited version of my sordid past. I warn you
, though, some of it is not pretty.”

“Hey
, you didn’t run when you found out about my second job. And I already know you did time, so shock away.”

Marissa listened intently as Dirk began his tale.

Dirk wondered where to start. About to paint himself in a bad light, he dreaded her possible reaction—rejection—but if she was going to be involved with him, he needed to be honest with her.

“I was the youngest and the most trouble for my parents. A know
-it-all, slacker, you name it, I did it.”

Oh yes he had. Sixteen and determined not
to end up as a farmer like his Pa—too much work—he got in with the wrong crowd. At the time, though, he’d thought he was hot shit. Leather jacket, babes, smokes, and booze. He and his pals were the cool kids in high school. The bad boys who made girls cream their panties.

Then he turned eighteen and graduated high school. His dad quickly lost patience with his late nights of partying and tried to put him to work. He still vividly remembered the fight that got him thrown out.

“What you going to do with your life, son? You can’t party all the time.”

“Why not?
Beats working my ass off on a farm, for what?” Dirk had said in his youthful ignorance. “This crappy old house?”

His red
-faced father had replied in a low voice, “This crappy old house has been good enough for this family for three generations now. You think you’re too good for it, then get out.”

H
ot-headed and stupid, Dirk had left, despite his mother’s tears. He knew better—or so he’d thought. He and a bunch of the guys rented an old garage and made it their hangout. But a bunch of guys who couldn’t keep a job still needed cash.

And that’s when he got really stupid. Some of the boys started growing weed out in some abandoned fields. Dirk became a go
-between, taking the finished product to suppliers. Easy work that left him plenty of time to party and to screw his new girlfriend, who thought his bad-boy act was the hottest thing since maple syrup on pancakes.

During this time
, he barely saw his parents, and when he did, he was usually drunk or high, such a model son. The kids came along in this messed-up time of his life. Avery’s early years were a blur for Dirk, and as for Mason, by the time he was born, Dirk had gone to the big house. Caught in a sting operation, he confessed enough to get his sentence reduced, but he kept a lot back. Snitches had a tendency to have unpleasant accidents.

W
hen the bars slammed shut behind him, he finally woke up and cringed at the mess he’d made of his life. He’d begged his mother not to bring the boys to visit, because of course, with him gone, Clara had decided the family life wasn’t for her and dumped them. But his mother ignored his pleas and showed up faithfully each Sunday for visiting.

Mason
, still a baby in swaddling, didn’t understand, but wise-beyond-his-years Avery had looked at him, and Dirk had felt such shame. He’d let his boys down. He’d failed at everything, most of all, at fatherhood. That needed to change.

Determined to give them a better life,
Dirk set out to change himself. Being in jail forced him to quit cold turkey, and with much shaking and sweating, the drugs and alcohol that he’d let rule his life, lost their hold on his body and mind. He took courses offered in the slammer, automotive repair ones as he’d always had a knack for that, and, with the warden’s help, got his credits.

His sentence was thankfully light, two years minus one day, and he counted those days as he worked on bettering himself
in anticipation of his release. He was determined to give his boys the life they deserved.

During his rehabilitation, two people remained conspicuously absent
—his father and his common-law wife, Clara.

His father, understandably enough
, was mad, and Dirk couldn’t blame him. He’d been the worst of sons. He had a lot of apologizing to do once he got out. As for Clara. Well, she’d found greener pastures. She’d run off with one of his biker buddies who hadn’t gotten caught in the raid, dumping the boys onto his poor mother without a look back.

A part of
Dirk wanted to hate her, but all he could feel was sorrow. Clara lacked the ability to fend for herself, to live independently, so she abandoned her children and her lover, unable to cope. And his poor boys, motherless—not that they’d known much of a mother’s love, as Clara had always been more concerned about Clara than anyone else—spent two years with grandparents.

When
Dirk finished his story in a low voice, he finally looked at Marissa, waiting to see the recrimination in her eyes, but to his surprise, her eyes glistened, and she hugged him tightly.

“What’s that for?” he asked
, hugging her back. Any excuse to touch Marissa was a good one.

“Oh
, for telling me and for managing to turn your life around. It must have been hard, but look at you now. Owner of a business with two amazing boys who adore you. Looks like the bad apple turned out all right after all.”

Dirk chuckled. “I guess I did. And they say old dogs can’t learn new tricks. What about you? Any more secrets you’d like to share?”

Marissa stiffened a little against him and drew back, her face a shuttered window.

“I’d say my pro
-domme activities are secret enough.” Her contrived laughter sounded brittle, and she shivered.

Dirk though
t about pressing her. She obviously hid something still. But instead, he decided to give her time.

To his surprise
, though, she spoke, almost in a whisper.

*

Usually Marissa guarded her painful secrets closely, but after his frank unburdening, she felt she owed him something.

“My parents were both lawyers and
, as such, led busy lives. So busy at times they forgot they had me. They weren’t bad parents, really, they just weren’t there.”

Marissa swallowed
the lump that suddenly clogged her throat as she remembered in still painful flashes the special events and moments in her life where both of her parents had failed to show. Sometimes they’d recall later and with apologies and gifts promised it wouldn’t happen again. Until the next time, when they again had a memory lapse. But Marissa learned early on not to rely on them. It made the pain of them forgetting easier to bear.

Marissa met Tom, her ex-husband, through her parents when they invited their newest associate home for a celebratory dinner. Marissa
, in college at the time, had found herself intrigued by the young man who seemed so interested in what she had to say. Not to mention the attention her parents finally gave her as she dated a lawyer they approved of, who, as they said, “was going places”.

Dirk held her in his arms as she spoke, his cheek
resting across the top of her hair. “I loved him, and I thought he loved me too. But I had an”—Marissa swallowed as she skirted the truth—“operation and went into a depression. He told me to take all the time I needed to heal, but he lied. He came home one day and told me it was over. He’d met someone else, and she was pregnant. I didn’t get a second chance. He just left me all alone. And that’s when I got angry.”

“So you turned to pro
-domming?”

“Not immediately. I tried seeing a shrink first
, but that didn’t work out. Nothing did.”

“He hurt you that bad.”

“Yeah,” was her low reply. A pain that no longer hurt so much, not since she’d met a certain redneck.

“You don’t by any chance have this asshole Tom’s address?” Dirk asked tightly.

“Why?” asked Marissa, craning her head.

“Because I want to ram his head into a wall for being such an idiot.”

Marissa laughed. “Yeah, I’ve had similar fantasies involving him and bodily harm. But what’s the point? He didn’t love me,” she finished with a sad whisper.

Dirk hugged her tight then tilted her chin to give her a sweet kiss that made tears
cling to her lashes.

“You are worthy
of being loved,” Dirk said softly against her lips.

A
shudder went through her.
Not if you knew the truth.

Dirk felt the tremor and stood up from the swing, pulling her up along with him. “Come on
. Let’s go in before you catch a chill.”

When they got upstairs, tiptoeing like guilty children
to avoid waking the household, he hugged her in his arms and kissed her breathless.

“I don’t suppose you’ll invite me in?” he whispered in her ear before nibbling it.

Temptation almost made her say the words. She wanted him with a frightening intensity, but her sense of propriety wouldn’t let her say yes. She shook her head softly in answer.

With a tender kiss that made Marissa ache in her heart instead of her groin, he left her at the bedroom door.

Marissa went to bed with thoughts of Dirk, her sweet, reformed redneck, running through her head. His past, instead of making her want to push him away, made her feel…

N
o. Don’t go there.
Marissa wasn’t ready to examine her true feelings for him yet. She’d stick to lust for now, and even respect for what he’d accomplished, but anything more, she couldn’t contemplate—yet. Even his reaction to her partial revelation made her heart beat faster. He seemed so accepting. Marissa wondered what he’d say if she told him the whole truth. About how she was less than a woman.

But what if he pushed her away?
And what if he doesn’t?

God
, I’m so confused.