Feeding the Fire (11 page)

They opted to get their dessert—a slab of Death by Chocolate cake for two—to go, to eat back at her house. Once the bill was paid and the last of the wine consumed, they scooped up the to-go box and rushed home.

“It’s amazing how different your place looks,” Grant said when they stepped inside.

It was true. Once the back bedrooms were painted and the furniture could be moved in, things really started falling into place. She’d spent half of today putting things away in closets and hanging pictures, and the other half trying to decide what she was going to wear tonight. Judging by Grant’s appreciative gaze as it roamed over her body, and over the house, he approved of all her handiwork.

“It certainly seems bigger when I’m not living in the livbedoset.”

“The what?”

Pepper smiled. “That’s what I called the living room, because it was combined with my bedroom and closet. Now that it’s back to being just a living room, I should stop calling it that.”

The bedroom furniture and all her clothes were in one bedroom. The boxes and items she had stored in the dining room were in the extra bedroom for now. She wasn’t sure what she would do with the other space, but she had time to figure it out now that she had an actual dining room and living room to sit in and think.

Pepper set her purse down on the coffee table and slipped out of her jacket. “Dinner was great, Grant. Thank you for taking me.”

Grant approached her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I assure you the pleasure was all mine. I think we both deserved a night like tonight after all our hard work.”

She ran her hands over the soft fabric of his suit coat and pushed it over his shoulders. It slipped down to his hands and he laid it gently across the arm of the couch. “You’ve done so much for me this week, Grant. I’ve been racking my brain all day trying to figure out how to make it up to you.”

Grant’s blue eyes focused on hers. He swallowed hard, the muscles of his throat working up and down. “You paid a lot of money for my company.”

Pepper reached for his tie and loosened it, tugging it off. Her fingers moved nimbly down the front of his shirt, undoing each button until she reached his belt. “I didn’t pay you. I paid the Tornado Fund. You didn’t see a penny of it.”

“It was for a good cause,” he said, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath as her fingers unfastened his belt.

“It was,” Pepper agreed. “And you’re a good man for volunteering. I think you deserve a reward for that, don’t you?”

Pepper slipped her hand into his pants and stroked the bulge straining against his briefs. Grant didn’t agree or disagree, he just groaned. With her other hand, she unzipped the fly of his pants to give herself better access. His suit pants slipped down his thighs, revealing the black briefs he had on underneath.

Kicking out of her heels, she slipped to the floor in front of him. She tugged down his underwear, exposing the hard length of Grant’s desire. Her fingers immediately closed around him, sending a shudder through Grant’s whole body. “So I thought and thought about what you might like,” she said, slowly stroking him as she spoke. “Finally, I came up with an idea I think you’ll appreciate.”

“I’m sure I will,” Grant managed between tightly gritted teeth.

Pepper didn’t respond. Instead, she flicked her tongue over the tip of him. Grant hissed, encouraging her to do it again. She moved to the base, running her tongue along the underside before slipping him into her mouth.

“Pepper,” he groaned.

She worked over him with her mouth until the muscles of his thighs were so tense, she thought he might rip his pants. Then she stopped and reached for the dessert box. “Why don’t you slip out of the rest of that and meet me in the bedroom?”

Climbing to her feet, Pepper winked at him seductively and disappeared down the hall. A completely naked Grant arrived in her bedroom a few moments later.

“Lie down,” she said, pointing to the bed.

Grant enthusiastically hopped onto her mattress. He crossed his arms behind his head and smiled wide at her. “Whatever you say.”

While he watched, she unfastened the belt of her dress and then tugged the zipper down her spine. The dress slipped to the floor and she stepped out of it wearing nothing but a strapless red lace bra and matching panties.

“Red is my favorite color,” Grant noticed with appreciation in his eyes.

“Oh yeah? I’ll leave this on a little while longer, then.” Pepper crawled onto the foot of the bed, spreading his legs wide to nestle between them. Then she reached for the to-go box and opened it.

Inside was an enormous slab of cake. It was multiple layers of cake, chocolate mousse, fudge, and cheesecake. She ran her index finger through the chocolate icing, then dragged her fingertip down from the tip to the base. Bringing the finger to her mouth, she sucked the remaining icing away, making sure Grant watched every move she made. Then, after making him wait an excruciating amount of time, she leaned in and licked his skin clean.

She was about to go for another dollop of fudge when Grant’s hand shot out to grasp her wrist. He sat up in bed and shook his head. “No more. If you don’t stop . . .” He trailed off with a cleansing breath. “Besides, I like chocolate, too.”

Surging forward, he knocked Pepper onto her back and covered her body with his own. With the flick of his wrist, he unsnapped her bra and threw it to the side. Once her breasts were exposed, he was able to finger-paint across her skin in chocolate like she had. The fudge encircled her nipples and left a trail down her stomach to the lacy edge of her panties.

His tongue was cool as it glided along her skin, but the trail he left in his wake was red-hot. Her nipples hardened to painfully aching peaks under his attentions. When he slid down her belly and encircled her navel, Pepper wasn’t sure how much more she could take. He tugged her panties down her legs and placed one more carefully applied drop of chocolate between her thighs.

The moment he touched her there, she nearly lost it. Her back arched up off the bed, her hands grasping at the sheets beside her. By the time the chocolate was gone, she was on the edge. “Grant, please,” she whispered, tugging at his arms. She wanted him inside her. Now.

Fortunately, Grant complied. With only a momentary hesitation to acquire protection, he crawled back onto the bed. In one long, slow movement, he hovered over her body, surging forward until he was buried deep inside her. They rocked together on her bed, tasting and clawing at each other as their desperation grew.

Pepper’s face was buried in Grant’s neck when her release hit her. She locked her ankles around his waist, taking him with her as she rode out the waves of pleasure. Grant followed on her heels, surging into her with a satisfied cry that mingled with her own.

When at last they both lay there silent and still except for their chorus of labored breaths, Grant rolled to his side. Pepper backed up against him until he was curled up behind her with his arm draped over her waist.

Exhausted and satiated, she closed her eyes and started drifting off to sleep. She was teetering on the edge of unconsciousness when she heard the low rumble of Grant’s voice at her ear.

“Pepper?”

Her eyes fluttered open, searching the dark room for a moment, then relaxing back into the pillows. “Yes?”

“This week together has been . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Yeah,” she agreed. He didn’t have to say the words. She understood. It had been better than she’d ever imagined. More than she had expected. She wasn’t certain what that meant, but couldn’t regret a moment she’d spent with him.

“I’m not ready for it to end. I want to keep seeing you. Publicly,” he added.

With her back to him and her brain slightly foggy with sleep, it was easier to be honest. “Won’t that put a damper on your sex life?”

“That depends on how often you’re willing to put out,” he said with a chuckle. He quickly tightened his grip on her and leaned his mouth closer to her ear. “I’m being serious. I’ve never done this before. I’m not sure how it’s going to go, but I want to date you, Pepper.
Just
you. This feels like high school to me, but . . . will you be my girlfriend?”

She didn’t know what to say. This was a serious offer from Grant; one not easily dismissed. He’d been honest when he said he hadn’t done this before. She’d never known him to see any woman more than casually. That, of course, just fed the fears in her brain that her mother had planted there. But he was offering more and she wanted to accept it. She felt the anxiety of facing her family and what they would say, but perhaps if they got to know him like she did, they would understand. Was it worth the potential strife to be with him? She thought so.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s give it a try. Yes, I will be your girlfriend.”

Grant sat up, allowing Pepper to roll onto her back and look at him. “Really?” he asked.

“Really.”

Grant broke into a wide grin and met her lips with his own. Pepper wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer. Despite their prior lovemaking, she could feel her desire for him stirring again. She melted into him and felt herself get swept up in it.

Gladly.

Chapter Ten

Pepper got a call from her mother early the next morning. Well, early-ish. It was almost ten, but considering she’d been making love with Grant until the sun had nearly risen, it seemed like dawn.

Through her sleepy ears, she deciphered that she was to come over at one for Sunday supper. There was no arguing the point, especially if she wanted to go back to bed anytime soon. Her mother was cooking a roast and Logan was coming, too. Pepper acquiesced and then rolled back over to sleep for another hour and a half. Around noon, she shooed Grant out of her bed, got into the shower, and got ready to drive to her parents’ place.

Their sixties-era brick rancher had once been the main house at a large soybean farm. The owners decided to build a larger, more impressive farmhouse, and sold off a parcel of two acres with the older home on it. By the time her parents moved, Logan had already gone off to college and Pepper had gotten her own apartment. It was a modest home, but it inspired her to save her pennies and one day buy her own place.

When she arrived and pulled open the screen door, the house was quieter than she expected. There should’ve been sports on too loud in the living room with her dad perched in his recliner. Logan should’ve been beside him, shouting his sports commentary over the television.

Instead, she strolled through the dark, quiet living room and into the kitchen. There, she found her mama hard at work cleaning up. “Hey, Mama,” she said.

“Hey, sugar. Glad you could make it. I made your favorite coconut cake for dessert.”

“You didn’t have to go to all that trouble.” She knew her mother’s coconut cake recipe was a major ordeal that involved actual coconuts, not some mix by Betty Crocker. She usually only got that on her birthday.

“That’s okay, I wanted to.”

“Where’s Daddy?” Pepper asked.

Kate Anthony looked up from the dishes in the sink and brushed an errant strand of gray-streaked red hair out of her face. The rest was pulled up in a prim bun the way she’d always worn it. As a child, when her mother worked at the elementary school cafeteria, she’d had to wear it that way beneath her hairnet. It had been years since she’d graced an industrial kitchen, but the hair was the same.

“Logan took him down to the shop,” she said. “He wanted to see how things have been going at the garage without him. He seems to be doing a lot better lately, thank the Lord.”

Pepper sat down at the kitchen table. She had an uneasy feeling in her stomach. Her mother made her favorite cake. She could smell a pot roast cooking in the oven, but dinner was an hour away at least. Something was up. She had a pretty good idea she wouldn’t like whatever it was.

“Why did you invite me over so early?”

“Can’t a mother want to spend time with her busy daughter she never sees?”

Pepper looked at her mother with her lips pressed into a hard line. “Spill it, Mama.”

“Fine,” Kate said. “We’ll skip the pleasantries.” She dried her sudsy hands on a dishtowel and sat down at the table opposite Pepper. “I invited you over early because I wanted to talk to you without your daddy or brother here. What’s going on with you and that Chamberlain boy?”

Pepper sighed, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. As a teenager, that would earn her extra chores. She was a grown woman now, but somehow, she didn’t think the results would be any different. “His name is Grant,” she corrected.

“It doesn’t matter,” her mother said. “One Chamberlain is the same as any other. And they’re all up to no good. What are you doing spending so much time with him?”

Pepper hadn’t told her mother about this, and for good reason. How had she found out? “Did Logan tell you? I’m gonna kill him.”

Kate pursed her lips and then shook her head. “No, he didn’t, although he’ll get a talking-to for hiding this from me. I heard about it at church this morning. I was standing out on the front steps waiting for your daddy to finish talking to Reverend Yates, when Connie Jackson came up to me. Apparently you were spotted having a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner with him last night.”

Pepper crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “And what about that is a surprise? Surely you heard about my unfortunate auction incident. I paid a fortune for that date, why wouldn’t I go on it?”

“You didn’t have to go. And from what I’ve heard, it wasn’t just a dinner. He’s been at your house
all week
.”

“Helping me,” Pepper said with emphasis. “My house is functional for the first time since I bought the place and it’s all because of Grant. He has done nothing but go out of his way to help me.”

“To get you in bed,” she replied with a bitter tone tainting her words.

“Mama, he’d already had me in bed long before all that, so you can throw that logic out the window.”

Her mother gasped and brought a hand to her bosom in melodramatic southern fashion. “Pepper, no!”

“I’m twenty-six years old, Mama. You can’t be surprised I’m not a virgin.”

“I don’t expect you to be a virgin, Pepper. But I did expect you to keep away from the Chamberlains. Have I taught you nothing? Did all my words of wisdom fall on deaf ears? They’re just out to use you for sex.”

“And what if I’m out to use him for sex? What then, Mama? I’m not entertaining any fantasies about falling in love and getting married.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re still going to get hurt. You just need to stay away from the whole lot. Break it off with him. I insist.”

Pepper frowned, leaning back in her chair. “What happened, Mama? I’m not a child anymore, tell me the truth. Your words are those of a woman scorned. If they’re so awful, why don’t you tell me exactly how dangerous they are from your personal experience? Did you date Norman Chamberlain?”

Kate sighed and waited awhile before she answered. “Yes, I suppose you could call it that. It wasn’t exactly what you would consider dating, or the norm at the time, but we were together in secret for a few months.”

“Why in secret?”

Her mother snorted in contempt. “Because I wasn’t good enough for him. I was poor, my family was uneducated. He told me his mother wouldn’t approve of us, so he saw me quietly while he dated Helen to make Adelia happy.”

This story didn’t ring true to Pepper. Not long ago, Ivy had told her about the discussion she and Adelia Chamberlain had at tea last summer. Adelia had been in the same shoes, the unsuitable girl. Why would she be prejudiced against a woman from the same background? She pressed her mother for the rest of the story. “What happened?”

“I fell for him. I was a fool, I know that now, but I got swept up in the forbidden aspect of the romance. And then one day, he told me that he’d proposed to Helen.”

“So he broke up with you?”

“No. He said he wanted to keep seeing me. That he loved me, but he had to marry Helen. I couldn’t agree to that, of course, so I broke it off with him.”

Pepper had a hard time connecting the dots. How had a short-lived love affair poisoned her mother against the entire family? “You guys broke up, he married another woman. I can see how that could be hard on you, but I don’t understand all the animosity. All these years later, you hate the entire family like they betrayed you somehow. What else happened?”

“Isn’t that enough? He took my innocence, Pepper. He told me he loved me, then tried to relegate me to a mistress he kept in the shadows.”

Pepper sat quietly. There was more to the story. If there was one thing she knew, it was that her mother was uncomfortable with silence. If Pepper sat quiet long enough, she would spill.

Her mother watched Pepper, waiting for a reaction that wouldn’t come. After a full minute, she sighed and slumped in her chair. A sadness drew down the corners of her mouth and a distance in her eyes made her look as though she’d slipped fully into the past. “I’m just trying to protect you from making the same mistakes I made. Do you think this Chamberlain boy would do the right thing if you got pregnant?”

Pepper’s heart stuttered in her chest, not beating for two whole seconds until she sucked in a panicked breath. “Pregnant? Who’s talking about being pregnant?”

“
I’m
talking about being pregnant. Because that’s what happened to me.” Kate let the words hang in the air for a moment for Pepper to absorb them. “I didn’t find out until after Norman and I had broken up. The wedding plans were in full swing, the invitations had gone out, and I finally worked up the nerve to drive to Birmingham and buy a pregnancy test where no one could see me do it. It was positive. I sat in my car and cried for an hour at the gas station.”

“What happened?” Pepper said, now on the edge of her seat. How had she never known about this?

“I finally found the courage to tell Norman. In retrospect, I don’t know what I expected him to say. I guess in my childish romantic fantasies, I thought he’d break it off with Helen and marry me because that was the right thing to do. That wasn’t reality, of course. Norman basically told me that it didn’t matter if I was pregnant. He was marrying Helen and didn’t care about me. He gave me a check for a thousand dollars and told me to deal with it. I could have the child, not have the child, it made no difference to him, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with it. And if I told anyone it was his, he’d ruin me. No one would believe that he’d stoop to sleeping with trash like me, he said. I thought he loved me.” Kate shook her head sadly. “I was young and stupid, but my heart was just broken. I was completely devastated.”

Pepper couldn’t imagine such a thing, especially in such a small town. Everyone would find out about it. How did Norman expect her to keep something like that a secret? Someone would believe her. And yet she had kept it quiet—from Pepper at least. “What did you do?”

Kate’s eyes dropped into her lap, tears threatening to rush down her reddened cheeks. “I did what I had to do, Pepper. Until you’re in a position like that, you don’t know what you’re capable of. I just . . . I can’t talk about it and I never have. You can’t tell anyone what I’ve told you. Not even your brother. This is a secret I’ve held for a long time, and I’ve only told you the truth because I need you to understand what that family is capable of. The Chamberlains will chew you up and spit you out. Don’t ever forget that.”

Grant’s first day back to work was a rough one. It was always hard to go back after a stretch of seven days off, but considering he’d done nothing but hard labor the whole time, this past stretch hadn’t felt like much of a break. He was hopeful for a quiet day. That, of course, meant that it would be chaotic at best. At least he was working with Mack today. The fire chief was a pretty mellow guy. It took a lot to get him spun up, and Grant was trying to learn from his example.

He slipped down into a seat at the kitchen table of the small, two-story firehouse. The historic site had always been the Rosewood fire station. The narrow building had originally housed the water wagon and stalls for the horses that pulled it. Updates over the years had allowed them to accommodate the newer, larger fire trucks, and eventually, their ladder truck. The new truck pretty much took up the entire ground floor. Their equipment was along the wall of the garage in lockers, but their desks, common area, kitchen, and bunks were upstairs.

Mack was reading the latest issue of the
Rosewood Times
when Grant sat down. “Morning,” he said, flicking his gaze over Grant. “Have a nice Valentine’s Day with your bidder?”

Grant smiled ear to ear. “Yeah . . .” he said, not wanting to elaborate. It had been a great day, perhaps his best ever. After all the grief the guys had given them at her house, he wasn’t about to speak a peep of that to anyone until he knew what he was going to do about the newly developing relationship. “We were so exhausted from all the work on the house that we just went to Whittaker’s with everyone else in town. How about you? Who bid on you again?”

“Cheryl Buckman.”

“That’s right, the ice-cream lady.” Grant smiled. Cheryl was in her forties, around Mack’s age, and never married. She spent all her time at Scoops, her family’s ice-cream parlor on the square. From Grant’s limited assessment of her, her biggest liability was that she never seemed comfortable in her own skin. That was a guaranteed man-repellant. Mack seemed like just the right kind of guy for her. He liked his women soft and curvy, and he had an unmatched sweet tooth. “So . . . did you get to taste two scoops of her creamy goodness?”

Mack folded the paper and frowned at him. “I’m not a gigolo. It was just a date. A nice date, but just a date.”

“What did you two do on this nice date?”

Mack got up from the table and went into the kitchen. “I had her over to my place and cooked dinner. I did a big Italian spread like my mom used to make. My mom always used to tell me that I shouldn’t trust a woman who didn’t eat well. If a woman picked at her food when faced with an amazing meal, she wasn’t right for her son.”

Grant nodded. “Did Cheryl eat?”

“Every crumb,” Mack said with a sly grin that made Grant think the date went better than he was letting on. “How could she turn down a feast like mine? You’ve had my chicken Parmesan. It’s to die for.”

That was the truth. The fire chief was the cook in the house, usually stepping up to feed the rest of the firemen, who were useless when it came to food. When Mack was on his off week, they ate a lot of pizza and picked up to-go orders from Ellen’s Diner.