Too Hot to Handle

“Oh, no big deal. I think I was better off than my friends who had asshole fathers, you know? I was scared of dads when I was young. They always seemed to be yelling about something.”

Shane considered her theory. His dad had been pretty decent, though obviously flawed, but maybe he and Alex would’ve been better off if their father had never even been around. Maybe it would’ve been better than thinking your dad loved you until you woke up one day to realize he didn’t give a shit after all. At least Merry could tell herself her dad’s disappearance had nothing to do with her. But Shane had been left to wonder.

“So your mom was a hippie. That’s how you got the name Merry?”

“Of course. When I was born, she looked into my eyes and said she could tell I was a happy soul.”

“You are.”

“I suppose I am,” she said so cheerfully that Shane chuckled. “It would’ve been so awkward if I wasn’t.”

Shane thought of Grace and the way she fought hard against her moniker, but he didn’t point that out to Merry. “So you had a happy life.”

“Oh, you know. You make the best of things.”

“What things?”

She waved her beer dismissively. “Tough times. Bad neighborhoods. But you learn to make friends with everyone, and any place can be a home. My mom is great, though. She worked so hard to make our life better.”

Suddenly Shane had a completely different take on this girl. She seemed carefree and goofy and sheltered. But now he couldn’t help but read between the lines. No dad around. A single mom who probably had to work one or two jobs at a time to put food on the table. And Merry trying to find her way.

“I’ve never lived anywhere but here,” he said. “I can’t imagine.”

“It’s different, living in a big city. I can’t deny that. But people are all the same, really. There’s good and bad everywhere. But considering that people are all the same, I have to say that the scenery is pretty damn awesome here. There’s really no reason for you to go anywhere else.”

“That’s a relief. I can’t say I’m inclined to.”

“How did you become a carpenter? Was your dad a carpenter?”

“No, my uncle was. I started working with him when I was twelve.” His dad had been a horse trainer and rancher, but Shane left that off.

“Hey, I got my first job at twelve, too! A taco joint.”

“You can work in a restaurant at twelve?”

“You can if you’ve just hit a growth spurt and they pay you cash under the table. I was so excited to have spending money, I don’t even think I kept track of how much they paid me. Three dollars an hour, probably. One of the perks of hiring child laborers.”

“Well, you were smarter than I was. My uncle figured I was earning an education. I didn’t get paid anything. But that’s typical for rural kids. You work the farm or ranch for the privilege of learning the life.”

“That’s so cool.”

Shane smiled. “It’s pretty damn boring, actually. Hanging around leathery old men all day. It can be torturous when you’re a teenager and there are never any girls around. The ones that are nearby are all mooning for the guys on the junior rodeo circuit.”

Merry gasped. “You did that, didn’t you?”

“Did what?”

She pointed a finger at his chest. “You did rodeo stuff. You saw all the girls paying attention to those boys and you joined the rodeo, didn’t you?”

Shane laughed. Hard. “First off, you don’t join the rodeo like you join the circus. But…yes, I may have tried a little calf roping in my day.”

“See, you are a cowboy!” She poked him, then her gaze drifted down to his chest, and she poked him one more time as if she were testing his give. She drew her hand back slowly.

“You wouldn’t say that if you saw how badly I lost to the real cowhands. And I discovered that it wasn’t just being a rodeo cowboy that got you attention from girls, but actually doing well at it. Rodeo losers are no different than other losers. Although…if you get injured, there are some girls who like playing nurse.”

“Oh, my God! Dirty!”

Something about her saying the word dirty was sexy as all hell. It didn’t help that his brain had flashed through a quick and happy dance down memory lane of his first kisses and teenage groping. Now he imagined making out with her, right here on her uncomfortable couch. Daring to move closer. Hoping she wouldn’t stop him.

He was staring at her, tempted as all hell to taste her, when he heard the faint trill of his phone ringing across the hall. He knew immediately who it was: his mother. Only one person called there. Everyone else called on his cell, but Shane had refused to give her that number. When she got a bug up her ass, she’d call incessantly, and she must have one now, because this was the third call since this afternoon.

Merry was watching him. He liked her eyes, always slightly turned up at the edges in a smile. And her mouth, wide and pink and tempting even when he shouldn’t be tempted.

He leaned back into the sofa and finished his beer.

He didn’t want to go home. He didn’t want to leave. But he shouldn’t want to kiss her, regardless. Merry was a nice girl. And he was a man no one needed to be around. Not for longer than a night. He’d learned that lesson. He knew who he was.

Merry Kade was not the kind of girl he could sleep with and then make a polite and permanent exit from her life. First of all, because she very obviously wasn’t the one-night-stand type. In fact, she seemed inclined to make friends with anyone who came within earshot, as far as he could tell. Second, because Grace would likely castrate him if he used her friend for sex, and Cole might happily hold him down to help his girlfriend out. Third, and perhaps most important, was the fact that she lived next door. Not exactly a comfortable situation even with the most open-minded of women. He’d had long-term “friends” who were happy with nothing more than casual sex, but neither he nor they had ever flaunted other lovers in each other’s faces. Not cool.

Close proximity had never come up as a problem in the past, since no women had lived in the building. He was going to have to add it to his off-limit list.

“So are you saying you never did anything stupid to get attention from boys?” he finally asked.

Merry yelped with laughter. “Me? Boys never noticed me! I was tall and awkward and into Star Wars and video games.”

“But boys love Star Wars.”

“Strangely, that love isn’t transferrable. Unless you’re the kind of girl who likes to dress up as the Jabba the Hut slave version of Princess Leia.”

Oh, yeah. He’d never been that into Star Wars, but he sure remembered that scene.

“So…just to be clear…you never dressed up like that?”

“Shane!”

“Maybe just once? For a Halloween party when you were eighteen? Work with me here.”

“Good God, it even infected cowboys in the wilds of Wyoming.”

“Hey, we had satellite dishes and VCRs. And active fantasy lives.”

Merry groaned. “No, I only dressed up as Princess Leia once, and that was the kick-ass rebel fighter Leia.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Figures,” she sighed, then shook her head in disgust. “Wait a minute. Have you ever seen Firefly?”

“No. Is that a Star Trek thing?”