All I Have

Then he grinned and unfurled from his seat like some kind of seedling in fast-forward time. Now he was this big, tall thing standing in front of her instead of safely seated with the table between them.

“Sure thing, sweetheart.”

Damn it. Talk about backfire. Not only could she not dance, but she’d never danced with a guy before. Now she was going to dance with Dell in a bar blaring poppy country music?

What bizarro world had she tumbled into? He was supposed to say no and disappear, not tower over her with that smug smile on his face. Not put his hand on the small of her back and guide her to the dance floor on the opposite side of the bar.

Dell’s hand was on the small of her back. Dell’s very big, very warm hand. Dell Wainwright. If her mind repeated the information enough times maybe she’d process it enough to react appropriately, or at least stop the squealing in her mind.

What was she supposed to do? Where was she supposed to put her hands? Where was he going to put his hands?

Dell stopped her on the dance floor, and before any more questions could circle in her brain, paralyzing all rational thought or function, Dell grabbed her hand and twirled her around.

On a breathless laugh, she ended up too close to the faded red cotton of his T-shirt, but he put his hand on her hip and guided her enough to the medium-tempo beat that she surprisingly didn’t feel like an idiot.

He laughed with her, eyes meeting hers briefly. A weird humming second of—what? Attraction? Awareness? Mia frowned at their feet. This was a bad idea.

He cleared his throat. “So what prompted this new leaf?”

Mia shrugged, trying to ignore the reaction of her body to his fingertips on the curve of her hip. As if every one of her muscles was contracting, trying to stop time and soak up this moment. Sure, it was weird it was Dell, but a cute guy was dancing with her in a bar. She wanted to soak up that experience and remember it. The chances of it repeating were slim. “Well, lots of things, I guess.”

“Name one.”

She glared up at him. “No.” Her...things were none of his business, and she didn’t want him thinking he could boss her around. He was not her friend. He was more like her enemy. Why would she pour out her weaknesses to him?

He chuckled. “Prickly suits you, Mia.”

She didn’t know how to respond. Dell was about the only one who brought out the prickly. Usually being mean or snarky made her felt guilty, and every once in a while that cropped up, but mainly he deserved it. The only other person who goaded her was Cara. Mia peeked over her shoulder to see Cara still cozied up to Kevin.

“Don’t know why he bothered to invite me if he was going to spend the whole night chatting up your sister.”

“You’re telling me. Coming here wasn’t exactly my idea.”

Dell laughed. “And here I had you pegged as a Juniors regular.” When she glared at him, he only laughed harder.

“I imagine you’ve spent plenty of time here.”

“Surely you can imagine me doing more interesting things than that.” His grin was so pretty and wide, if she wasn’t so embarrassed by what she could imagine, she might have smiled back.

Dell passed a glance over Kevin and Cara again. “Eh, probably for the best he’s occupied. Shouldn’t stay out too late anyway.”

“Got a curfew?” Mia fake smiled up at him, mentally patting herself on the back for the flippant tone.

This time when he laughed it was completely void of humor. “No, just a business I have to go above and beyond proving I can run if I ever want it.”

The information was so strange, Mia forgot all about the awkwardness of having one hand in Dell’s and her other hand very, very lightly on his hip. “Your dad’s not giving you the farm?”

“I’m working on it.” His jaw set, twitched. Obviously a sore subject. How...weird. “Your dad giving the farm to you?”

Mia nodded. “Anna can take over the dairy part if she wants, but I started buying five percent of the cropland last year from my market profits. As long as everything goes according to plan, I’ll own my share of the farm outright in twenty and Dad can retire.”

“Must be nice.” Dell stared at some point beyond her.

Well, who knew? The Naked Farmer wasn’t quite as frivolous as she’d made him out to be. She’d always figured Dell the type to take over his dad’s farm because he didn’t want to work at anything else, but farming was hard. Generally not something you did only because you fell into it. If he was fighting to convince his dad he could take over, maybe he had a bit more at stake with the farmers’ market stuff than she’d given him credit for.

Not that it mattered. The shirtless routine was stupid, and she certainly wasn’t going to let her guard down just because he had a few daddy issues or made her insides feel like melted Jell-O. Those were wholly secondary to beating him at the market.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met your dad. How is that possible in New Benton?” He smiled down at her, but the way his lips curved was tight and uncomfortable, as if it was a very forced smile. A forced conversation.

Well, darn it. Dell wasn’t supposed to have hidden depths or be nice enough to force conversation. Mia looked at the faded logo on his chest. “Probably because he’s a hermit.”

Dell laughed, and she absolutely got no secret thrill from that. “No, seriously, outside of my family there are only three people he talks to. The priest at Saint Mary’s, Rick at Orscheln and the guy who buys our milk.”

The song ended, but Dell didn’t let go of her hand. Mia’s stomach did a weird flipping drop when he squeezed it instead.

“Wanna keep going until those two stop going at it?”

He gestured to Cara and Kevin making out in the dark corner. Mia grimaced. “Yeah. Sure.”

“You know, you’re pretty good at letting the guy lead in a dance. I thought you’d be trying to boss me around. It’s a little shocking. You’re not half-bad.”

Mia smirked. “Coming from the guy who coined ‘Mia, Queen of the Geeks,’ that’s quite a compliment.”

His head snapped back. “I didn’t make that up.”

“Well, you’re the first person I remember calling me it to my face,” Mia returned. When his face fell into surprise and discomfort, and then guilt, Mia shifted uncomfortably in his grip. “I remember it quite clearly. Nothing like the homecoming king and queen laughing at you in the cafeteria when you’re a lowly sophomore.”

“Hey, listen, I’m sorry.” When he moved to the music this time, the distance between them shrunk. He lowered his mouth closer to her ear, and Mia had to focus on the high school memory to keep her heart from escaping her chest and galloping out the door.

He made her stomach tie in knots, but it wasn’t the kind she was used to. These weren’t so much painful as they were...uncomfortable. Laced with a jittery excitement, a bizarre impulse to lean closer.

Oh, no, she could not do that. “Long time ago,” she managed to croak. She moved to get a fraction of the distance between their bodies back. “Might have hurt my feelings at the time, but I got over it.” Eventually. There were really only a few people she still harbored any bitterness toward, and Dell wasn’t one of them. He’d been careless, but never malicious.

“Well, I’m still sorry. I wasn’t big on thinking much beyond my own feelings at the time. Overhearing that nickname would be bad enough. Imagine it’s worse having someone say it to your face.”

Mia shrugged, more to hide the shiver as his breath danced along her neck. “High school. Most of us weren’t thinking. I’m not worried about it. I was a geek. Either trying too hard to fit in or too hard to be invisible. Neither ever worked. In a town this size, you don’t get to disappear.” Why was she talking about this? Oh, yeah, because she never could shut her yap when she was uncomfortable.

When Dell didn’t say anything, Mia bit her lip to keep the words from pouring out. She made it about five seconds before she couldn’t stand it. “I’m pretty sure there’s a statute of limitations on name-calling in high school. It ended a few years ago. Forget it.”

Since she couldn’t bring herself to look into his eyes, considering her face was probably red from the roots of her hair to the V of her shirt, she watched the underside of his stubbled chin move back and forth.

For the briefest flash she wondered what it might feel like, the whiskers against her palm. Against her face. But, oh, my God, so not the time. So not okay. This was Dell. Not some random guy.

“I’m not sure there’s a statute of limitations on anything,” he said grimly. “Mia, that was a really shitty thing for me to do. I know it probably doesn’t make much difference now, but I am truly sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.” It didn’t. She wanted to forget about it. Forget about him and him suddenly being all nice and repentant, and, no, she didn’t want any of this. She wanted to hate him. He was making it impossible.

His mouth turned grim. “Right. Because you don’t like me anyway. I’m just the dumb guy taking off his shirt. You can say it. Heard it plenty.”