Wild Man Creek
Page 14

Jillian was amazing, all that she dared to do on a whim. He didn’t see her anywhere, but he was curious about what she might have inside that greenhouse. The door was standing open and he looked inside. She was laying there, on the ground, flat on her back, looking up. Her hands were crossed over her stomach and her eyes were open.
He went in and stood over her. “Do you feel as ridiculous as you look?” he asked her.
She didn’t even glance at him. “I want to see and feel what the seedlings will see and feel. My nana used to taste the soil.”
“But you wouldn’t go that far,” he said.
She sat up and smiled at him, teasing him. “It tastes just fine,” she said.
He crouched to get eye level with her. “You didn’t really put dirt in your mouth. You’re just leading me on.”
“Think what you like,” she said. “Why are you here? Looking for deer?”
“I wanted to see what you’d accomplished. You’ve been a busy little girl.” He stood up and looked down at her. “Why is the other greenhouse only framed?”
She put out a hand for a lift up off the ground. “Denny, my associate, had a job interview and we couldn’t get it finished yet. Those were our terms, remember—he’s hunting for more permanent work and I knew that going in.” She brushed off the butt of her jeans with her hands. “I hope he doesn’t take it—he’s working out real well for me. On the other hand, if he stays on much longer I’m going to have to make adjustments, pay social security, provide some benefits, maybe bribe him with better pay and then find things for him to do.”
“I’m pretty impressed by the way you’re just going for it. You got this idea, and that’s all it was. I saw it happen— I was there. When Dan told you how to find your special seeds and how they grow pot around here, I saw your eyes light up and next thing I know, the property is full of equipment and you are just taking off! That’s incredible. Brave and impressive. You’re a gutsy little broad. I admire that in a woman.”
She felt her whole body get warm; she looked at him in a whole new way. Jillian was a sucker for a man who admired her. She already found him attractive, but that was easy since he truly was. Suddenly he was also desirable. After having so many people, including the sister she admired so much, think she was out of her mind to go this far, Colin said he was impressed. She saw him through new eyes. She wanted to run her fingers through his neatly trimmed beard and the curly hair pulled into a short ponytail. She noted some subtle scarring on the right side of his neck that disappeared into his shirt collar, but it didn’t strike her as unsightly. His brown eyes were kind of sultry and sexy; his arms looked so strong and capable, his hands so big. And, he either had a sock in his drawers or possessed an admirable package. She jerked her eyes back to his face only to find him grinning.
“Why, thank you,” he said, acknowledging that he’d caught her. “But why don’t you let me take you out to lunch first.”
She ran a hand through her hair. “First?” Best to just play dumb.
“Before a lot of dirty, mindless sex.”
“All right, I’m just going to have to ask you to leave now.”
“Aw, get over it. How about I take you somewhere for food, no obligation. I’m hungry and it’s lunchtime.”
She sighed. “I’m a mess. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Jill, even when you’re a mess, you’re just pretty as hell.”
“Hmm. Pretty as hell,” she mimicked. “I bet the women just faint when you say that.”
He laughed at her and she noticed the most beautiful white, straight teeth.
“I thawed some stuff for lunch,” she said. “If you can behave yourself, you can have Denny’s half since he’s a no-show.”
“And then—”
“Don’t push it.” She started walking, headed for the new road that would lead her to the house.
“Let’s ride,” he said. He couldn’t help laughing at her. “Then I can park the Jeep by the back porch.”
She stopped walking and shot him a damning look. “I’m crazy to even let you near my back porch,” she told him.
He went around to the driver’s side. “I figured you for a better sense of humor. Come on, lighten up. Get in.”
There was probably good reason she was a little squeamish when teased like that, given her sexual harassment experience. But she reminded herself that Colin couldn’t sue her and she couldn’t sue him, so why was she getting all excited….
And excited was what she was getting, though she tried hard to pretend otherwise, and to keep her eyes off his body. He was a big, beautiful man and when he grinned and played and teased, she felt a little weak in the knees. She felt like a girl, and it wasn’t a bad feeling.
She got in the Jeep and said, “I could teach you gardening….”
“And I could teach you painting, but at the end of the day I wouldn’t be a gardener and you wouldn’t be a painter.”
“I think you’re right about that.” She relented. “I really wish I could do what you do, however. That eagle was brilliant.”
He cast her a glance as he drove through the trees. “Really? Then maybe if you’re very good I’ll show you the bear, fox, mountain lion and deer. And also the ones I made up without photo models.” He pulled right up alongside the house and threw the Jeep into Park.
She got out and on her way up the porch steps she said, “Why do I have to earn it by being good? Don’t you feel like bragging?”
“It’s better when you beg,” he said, his voice low. “It’s always better when you beg.”
She knew there was some kind of sexual innuendo in that, but she didn’t let him see that she noticed it. She went across the porch and into the kitchen, washed her hands and headed to the refrigerator. She started pulling things out—a plate of Italian sausages, a plastic bowl of onions and peppers, a bag of sandwich rolls. “Sausage and peppers?” she asked.
“No kidding? That sounds great. And lookie here,” he said, sitting on a stool at her work island. “Furniture!”
She popped the peppers and sausages into the microwave. “I didn’t want to go overboard,” she said, smiling in spite of herself.
“You’re safe,” he laughed. “No one will accuse you of overdecorating.” He watched her get out plates, slice the rolls the long way, get the warmed sausage and peppers out of the microwave, nuke the sliced rolls and build them sandwiches. His was much larger and meatier than hers. She put a couple of canned colas on the work island and claimed a stool across from him. “What will we do if Denny shows up for lunch?” he asked.
“Not to worry,” she said. “There’s baloney and cheese.” Then she bit into her sandwich.
“So, what gives a young girl like you the ambition to go after something like this?” he asked. “On such a large scale?”
She chewed and swallowed. “First of all, I’m not a young girl anymore. Thirty-two is a very respectable age and not so much younger than you.”
“Ah, I get it. You’re offended by being called a girl?” he asked.
“Not really, as long as you stipulate my being an adult.”
“You’re definitely an adult,” he admitted with a laugh. “Your ambition? The confidence that goes with it?”
“Originally? Probably from my great-grandmother. Nana.” She put down her sandwich. “Nana had one daughter, an only child. My great-grandfather was an older man when they married and died before that daughter was grown. That daughter, my grandmother, had a son out of wedlock, which in the fifties was still a big scandal, a huge embarrassment.” She took another bite, put down her sandwich and chewed. “So,” she said, wiping her mouth. “My grandmother was very young and she left the little baby boy with Nana so she could chase after the man, the baby’s father. Nana said she chased him and never returned. Maybe something happened to her, or maybe she just ran off for good. So my nana raised her grandson alone, and then, like the poor woman was born under an unlucky star, there was an accident that left our father dead and our mother an invalid and Nana took us all in—my crippled mother and me and Kelly, aged five and six. She was already an old woman then,” Jillian said, shaking her head. “I don’t know how she managed. But she was amazing. No matter how tough things got, she was totally positive. And brave? Oh my God, she was so fearless! She might’ve been the smartest woman I’ve ever known but she didn’t consider herself smart. She didn’t have much formal education but she spoke five languages! And she sure as hell had no money, so she pushed us real hard to study and get scholarships and make something of ourselves.” She took another bite, chewed slowly, swallowed and said, “Which we did.”
Colin hadn’t bitten into his sandwich for a while; he was listening raptly. His own upbringing had had its challenges—there wasn’t a lot of money, his mother’s garden was important to the subsistence of the family, they’d gone to Catholic school on partial scholarship and it had been impossible to afford to send five sons to college. But his growing up wasn’t anything like hers!
He tried not to react. He ate some of his sandwich. “Got yourself a scholarship, did you?”
“I did. Kelly was tougher—she wanted to be a chef, to study cooking. Getting financial aid for culinary institutes, especially abroad, was almost hopeless. But, we managed. So, I did pretty well and was barely out of college with a marketing degree and looking for work when I was approached by this guy who was starting a company—a software manufacturing company. He found me in the college Who’s Who—I had a good GPA. But, you could have fit what I knew about software manufacturing between the slices of this bun,” she said, holding up what was left of her sandwich. “He offered me a job. Low pay to start, insane hours, reasonable benefits, but if we could pull it off, stock and bonuses. I told him I didn’t know anything about his business and he said, ‘Research. Learn.’ And I did. He’d successfully started a few companies and before I even accepted the job, I knew everything about him I could ever know. I knew his birth weight! Harry Benedict—I love that guy. He not only gave me a chance, he taught me, let me perform, put me on the ground floor and I helped take that company to one of the most successful public offerings on record. I was with them for ten years when it was time for a change, time to move on.” She smiled at him. “I was taking a leave of absence to relax, to get a little thinking space, but I sank my hands in this dirt, remembered my nana and whoops….” She shrugged. “I’m back in the garden. And relaxation is about the last thing I want.”
“And you’re happy?” he asked.
She laughed. “I didn’t think I was unhappy at BSS with Harry and a growing company, but this is better, surprisingly.”
“Your great-grandmother taught you to garden?”
“Yes,” Jillian said. “The old way. Small garden. Now the internet is teaching me,” she said, swinging an arm wide to indicate her “office” of chair, computer, et cetera. “Things have obviously changed. Who taught you to paint?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “My pictures weren’t smeary like the other kids and the teachers moved me along. They took advantage of me, too—made me do all their art and posters and lettering. By the time I got to high school I was doing murals. They wanted me to study art in college, but I wanted the Army.”
“Really? What was it about the Army?” she asked him.
“Low, fast, scary, dangerous combat choppers. I wanted to fly. I thought I wanted Cobras first, but I started out in the Huey and moved into Black Hawks and found out I loved them. I did twenty in the Army. So, why aren’t you married?” he asked.