Gage, Ronna - The Search is Over (Siren Publishing Classic) (3 page)

Jack’s understanding gave Rafe the opportunity to vocalize his thoughts. “Yes, but where does that leave me now?”

The two sat in the stillness of their thoughts and nursed their beers. “I have an idea,” Jack said suddenly, almost excited by the thought. “Why don’t you come out to my place for awhile? It’s not much, but I have an extra room, and you’re more than welcome to it.”

Rafe’s spirits lifted at the idea. “I could have a new set of friends, new place to live, and maybe a new party scene.” He looked around the bar. “Not that I’d ever give up my new hangout here at the titty bar.”

Jack laughed. “Good, come by and check it out, see what you think, and make your decision after.”

“Sounds good.” Rafe felt the weight of the world lift from his shoulders. “I can definitely use a new start.”

“Could I get you boys another beer?” the bartendress asked, leaning against the bar, flashing her ample breasts which she stuffed in her black leotard.

Cherry, the lead bartender during the day shift, showed a warm spot for Rafe, and he liked her. She gave him free beers and shots of bourbon for his services with the rowdy customers who groped her as she passed. Her auburn hair hung down her back in a ponytail. Her small waist flared to full hips, and a gold chain encircled the flat tummy, emphasizing her tiny hourglass figure.

“And they are?” Rafe asked, pointing from one breast to the other.

Cherry fingered her plunging neckline. “These girls are top-of-the-line and very expensive. Any introductions will cost you more than you make in a week.”

“Nice purchases,” Jack complimented.

Rafe looked at Jack. “Cherry, give us a pitcher please. We’re going to celebrate.”

Her bright smile flashed them with another high-maintenance expense. “What are you celebrating?”

Rafe lifted his beer. “I propose a toast. Here’s to changes.” Rafe and Jack clanked mugs.

In the last hour of quiet, Rafe’s mind wondered to the potential benefits of having Jack as a roommate. Hanging out with Jack would be nothing but fun.

Chapter Three

Candi held the buzzing phone in her hand and stared off into space. The sound of footsteps down the hall penetrated her stupor. She clicked off the phone. “I sensed something different about Jesse before he left on his trip to his mother’s.” She thought back. “He seemed preoccupied and distant, which centered around a mysterious phone call he’d received prior to making the arrangements.”

“What you doing, kiddo?” Minerva, her roommate, asked from the coffeemaker.

“I just tried to call Jesse, but he doesn’t answer at this mother’s.” Minerva hung her head and averted looking at her eye to eye. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, honey.” She walked to the table and sat down. “Come sit with me. I don’t know how to say this, so I’m going straight on with it. I think I should let you in on a family secret.”

Candi sat down at the table. She set the phone next to her. “What?”

“Jesse’s old high school flame, Stephanie, contacted him two months ago, and they’ve been talking while you’re at work.”

Candi felt the bottom come out of her world. “Before he left on this so-called visit to his mother?”

Minerva nodded. “I think Stephanie’s the reason for the visit in the first place. And I think he will be going back up north for good after this trip is over.”

Candi shook her head in frustration. “I need this living arrangement to go to school. I don’t have the job security necessary to move out on my own, or the time needed to find either an apartment or better job.”

“Well, like I said. I believe he will come here long enough to pack his shit and get. So you don’t have to leave.”

Candi shook her head, hoping to clear her mind of this nightmare. “It was only a short three months ago when he and I met.” She narrowed her eyes. “Didn’t he move here to
San Antonio
on a supposed brief visit to his dad?

“Yeah, come to think of it.”

“Hmm, seems to be a pattern here.” The two of them giggled.

“Yeah, I think it’s typical of him.”

“We seemed to hit it off and even had some good times together.”

“What made you get involved in the first place?”

“Jesse’s handsome, rugged good looks.”

“Yes, I can see that. He’s always been a pretty boy.”

“He’s tall, conditioned, and every bit the former Marine.
And as an added bonus,
he made me laugh. I guess from the start I knew our relationship wouldn’t last, but I also hoped that the closeness that built between us would last a little longer.”

“Why? Were you falling for him?”

“No, but I don’t want to have juggle schedules so he and I can live in some kind of harmony.” Her stomach felt tight and ill.

“I wouldn’t. And he damn sure isn’t going to do it for you,” Minerva pointed out. “Now, go ahead and get ready for work. We’ll leave in about an hour.”

Candi poured herself another cup of coffee and headed to her bedroom with some sense of peace that Minerva was on her side. What could be gained by spending time on a relationship that had moved on—without her? Pain and anger didn’t overcome her of the break-up. Annoyance was a better description. This news put her in a possible financial bind with no immediate way out.

* * * *

The May Texas heat hit a record high, and the humidity in the air choked the quiet in the trailer, stifling his breath. But Rafe didn’t dare move an inch to monitor her across the yard. The sticky sweat on his torso trickled down his back and collected just beyond the waistband of his cutoff shorts.
“
It’s a shame to waste all this heat
,”
he said with a chuckle, rubbing the sweat off his forehead. He continued to watch her hang out the basket of wet clothes on the makeshift clothesline.

Her red, thin-strapped tank top showed off the darkening skin, while her tight, faded, denim cutoff shorts bared her ass cheeks when she bent over.
Come on over
they seemed to invite every time she retrieved another article of clothing from the laundry basket.

“This is definitely my favorite outfit,” he surmised. He reached over and marked the spot off of the next level of darkness on the Coors Light Tan-o-meter poster he swiped from Cherry two nights before. He liked comparing
her
to the darkness of the model on the picture.

The rough fabric cut into the lips of the flesh he desired, opening her for his viewing pleasure, and he immediately felt the semi-hard reaction in his pants. It throbbed at the sight of her tight ass. Her glistening blonde hair reminded him of a pot of honey with rays of sunlight streaked through. Mentally, his hands sifting through the wet, loose mass that hung around her shoulders.
She must have just showered.
Good God, if I keep this up, I’m gonna need a cold shower.
Even that thought didn’t stop him from gawking at her. In fact, he loved to watch at her. It’d become his favorite pastime, one he looked forward to every day.

For two weeks, he took the position on the chair, drank coffee, ate breakfast, and waited for her to come out. When his curiosity got the better of him, he decided to take some action and started making inquiries about her. The amateur investigation skills paid off, and the small trailer community did have a lot of information. On the two drunken nights he spent with the park’s landlord, he’d learned her name was Candice Patterson, but she called herself Candi. Not Candy with a
Y
but with an
I
.

“Pour some sugar on me,” he mimicked, as the words of the song blared from the stereo. Twenty-two years old, a high school graduate from a small town in west
Texas
, she attended medical assistant classes at the community college during the day. She worked nights as a bartender and waitress at a small bar on the south side of
San Antonio
to earn money before she went to the university for her Physician’s Assistant accreditation.

Unfortunately, there was a boyfriend—a Marine.
Lucky bastard!
They lived in the trailer next to his with another couple, who, as it turned out, was the Marine’s father and girlfriend. He gained all this knowledge and for some unknown reason he’d never approached her. Why?

Why indeed?
She wasn’t anything like the women he had dated before—blonde bombshells, exotic brunettes, and that one stacked redhead. Candi was average. Her tanned legs ran all the way up to a pert, heart-shaped ass that he longed to fondle. Her hips tapered up to a small waist, and her breasts appealed to him. She wasn’t flat by any means. She had small breasts.
Well, experience tells me that anything over a mouthful is a waste.
He liked to fit the whole of a woman’s breast in his hands and taste her salty flesh on his tongue. His throbbing erection strained against the fly of his denim shorts. He realized that concentrating on her face was less painful than on her assets.

She is definitely easy on the eyes, but as the song went, would she be hard on the heart?
Candi, you are definitely cute
, no
doubt about it. You have an angelic smile, and after overhearing you last night, a voice of one, too.
Her soulful
song
immediately caught his attention
.
It sounded as lonely as he felt, and it struck a chord. The lyrics were packed with her emotions. The slow and bluesy song whispered to his soul, telling him she did have something special. He’d fallen in love with her singing voice almost instantly.

Thinking about the incident, he came to one reason for her sudden silence.
She’s probably shy
when it comes to her singing.
I don’t know why.
The moment her roommate told her she had a phone call, Candi stammered to silence, shutting off the melodic and heartfelt words. Kneeling on the bed, he caught a glimpse of her as she walked into the house to answer the phone. Her head lowered when she passed her roommate. To his surprise, she didn’t stay in the house to take her phone call, but came back outside. He enjoyed the carefree way she reclined against the step, dangling her flip-flop from her tiny foot. She burst out into laughter at something the caller said. The sound was so infectious he couldn’t help but smile.

“Asshole. You’ll go prison if you don’t stop watching her.” The criminal act of invading someone’s privacy had reduced him to an eavesdropping Peeping Tom. Yet, he couldn’t stop. When her morning routine was complete and she went back inside, he’d be filled with a superficial satisfaction at best and the longing for her abated for a few hours at least. Then he would long for more all over again.

He scrutinized her body language and found it odd. “Something’s different about her today,” he realized out loud.
She seems tense. Her shoulders are bunched up to her neck. Her back is erect as a rod, and
she’s restless.
Sitting at the table, he silently watched her set the empty basket on the porch, and his heart sank with disappointment. He knew her routine to the letter. She would lie on the lounge chair next, read the newspaper, drink her coffee, and wait for the clothes to dry. He waited anxiously with his eyes glued to her every move as she poured the sun tan lotion into her hands, and then his gaze followed her hands up and down her body as she rubbed a liberal amount onto her skin. The shiny slick surface of her body enraptured him. He reached out to help her and found her skin warm to his touch as he smoothed the oil onto her breasts.

He shook his head, looked down, and realized he rubbed his own chest and arms. “You perverse, sick bastard.” He turned away from the window for a distraction. He stomped across the kitchen to the refrigerator and jerked the door open. Spotting a tall pitcher of cold lemonade, he grasped its handle and brought it out. Turning to the cabinet, he avoided her image just outside the window. He grabbed a glass and filled it with the yellow liquid. Tart on his tongue, the drink quenched the dry spot in his mouth, and his taste buds contracted and burned from the fluids, but his thirst for her wasn’t so easily doused.

Looking out the window once more, she rolled over, giving him a fleshy view of her breasts, not completely exposed, but the shifting position did add a lift to them. An hour and a half later, dread settled heavily in his gut when she sat up from her lounge chair, folded the laundry and packed it in her basket. She turned to the newspaper beside her chair, folded it, and stuffed it in the recycle bin. She drained the last of her coffee cup, and gracefully walked into the house.

Damn! My favorite pastime is over.

He knew one thing, whether to conquer his fear of rejection or feed the longing deep inside him, he had to figure out a way to get close to her. “Be damned with the Marine. It’s all in the timing
.
”

Chapter Four

Candi had gotten up early to do the laundry while Jesse slept. She tiptoed out of the bedroom and shut the door with armfuls of dirty clothes. She had a lot on her mind and wanted time to think and sort things out for her future. She turned on the coffeepot, started the load of clothes in the washer, and then sat and waited for the load to finish. A half hour later, careful of any noise, she slipped out of the house with a large mug of coffee and the basket of cleaned clothes. Her mind bounced around an array of top-priority tasks, what bills to do without, how much money to save for deposits, and of course, the first month’s rents. Finally, the clothes on the line, she sat on the lounger, poured herself a cup of coffee, and made some soft-set plans or ideas in case her and Jesse’s relationship did go bad. Feeling the burden of a headache, she smoothed on some oil and rested. “I’ll take a quick nap before going in tonight.” An hour later, she woke with an ache in her leg. The metal frame of the lounger dug into her skin. “Great!” She checked the clothes and found they were dry. One by one she took them down and folded them neatly into her basket. The task complete, she walked inside the cool trailer. “That feels great!” She headed toward the bedroom, her mind still making mental plans for the near future. She opened the door and froze in the entrance.