“This,” I said, throwing out an arm to my side.

His heavy brows shot together. “You tryin’ to tell me you were a virgin?”

“Of course not,” I answered fast.

“Then what?” he pressed.

“Hooked up,” I told him.

“You’ve never hooked up,” he stated, making it clear he didn’t believe me.

“Well, I’ve hooked up but not hooked up hooked up. Like, you know, what we did. Meet a guy, and then, you know, leave with him and then, well . . . what came next.”

He glowered down at me.

“I don’t know the protocol,” I blurted.

The glower wavered as he asked, “The protocol?”

“I don’t know how to act. What to do. I mean, what do you do when a hookup is obviously coming to an end?”

“Jesus,” he whispered, now staring at me like he’d never seen a woman in his life.

“I . . . in there . . . you were . . . you’ve been . . .” I stuttered then changed courses, “This isn’t like a get-to-know-you date. I know how to do those. This, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You want some insight?” he inquired.

By the look on his face, what I knew was I did not.

Even though I didn’t, I tentatively nodded, such was the only response I could give due to that look on his face.

I was wrong, that hooded brow with those thick eyebrows could be ominous.

“When the man you’ve outstandingly fucked four times opens up enough to tell you he’s havin’ a rough time because his dad died three years earlier, on this day, this being the reason he went out to get a few drinks the night before, you don’t immediately set about scraping him off so you can get on with your day.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he shot back.

“I didn’t know,” I pointed out gently (and it must be said, since that look was still on his face, carefully).

“And that makes it okay?” he asked.

“Well, um . . . no. But, in my defense—”

“You’ve never hooked up and don’t know the protocol,” he finished for me.

Right then, that totally sounded weak.

I pressed my lips together.

He studied me a few seconds before he asked, “Honest to Christ, you’ve never picked a guy up and fucked him before?”

I shook my head slowly.

“You’re a prude,” he stated.

“Well, not recently, but, um . . . yes,” I confirmed. “My mom wasn’t and my sister really wasn’t, so someone had to be around, you know, to feed the dogs and get in the car and pick them up when they got in situations and, uh . . . other stuff. Though, that said, it really just comes naturally, until, like I said but you already know since you were there, recently.”

“Why am I pissed at you and still wanna laugh my ass off?” he asked curiously.

“Because I’m being an idiot?” I asked back in answer.

“Yeah, that’s why,” he agreed.

I fell silent.

Johnny didn’t break the silence.

I couldn’t take the silence so I surged ahead.

“I can cook, like I told you, but, I don’t want to brag, I’m actually really good at it. So, to make up for being an idiot, if you want, you can take me to my car and I’ll get stuff sorted to make you dinner and you can come over later. Meet the babies. I’ll feed you and then maybe do some other, you know, stuff, to um . . . make up for being an idiot when you’re having a rough day.”

“So what you’re saying is you’ll feed me, introduce me to your pets and then fuck my brains out.”

I got a becoming-familiar trill down my spine, looked to his throat and muttered, “Something like that.”

“Iz.”

I looked into his eyes.

“I got a tradition for tonight that I do by myself. But tomorrow, I’ll be over.”

My heart skipped a beat and my lips formed the word, “Really?”

He hooked me at the waist again, pulled me from his truck, opened the door, and after I climbed inside, he tossed his phone at me.

I bobbled it but caught hold of it while he said, “Code, eight, nine, one, two. Program you in. Call yourself. Program me in. I’ll call you later.”

Then he slammed the door and started around the hood.

I didn’t know what he did for a living.

But I did know the code to his phone.

I bent my head to it making the herculean effort not to do it smiling so big, I broke my own face.

He climbed in beside me, roared the truck to life and I looked up from programming myself in his phone in order to catch him put an arm around my seat so he could twist to see where we were going as he reversed in a big arc in the huge space beside his house.

Johnny Gamble then set us on our way to my car.

We were well down the dirt road, I was done with all my programming, when I said softly into the cab, “I’m sorry I messed up so big over eggs.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied.

“I lost my mom so I know—”

His fingers curled tight around my knee and he cut me off. “Put it out of your head. Only things I want in your head are you getting inspired about what you’re gonna feed me tomorrow night and what you’re gonna give me after.”

“Do you like chicken enchiladas?”

“Yup.”

“Do you like olives?”

“Yup.”

“Do you like sour cream?”

“Yup.”

“On a scale of a little bit of cheese goes a long way to cheese fanatic, where do you sit?”

“Fanatic.”

We had something in common.

“Do you want beer or wine or something else?”

“Beer.”

“Well, that’s dinner sorted,” I muttered.

He burst out laughing, slid his hand up my thigh and kept it resting there.

I let out a relieved breath.

Johnny stopped, checked, then pulled out of the dirt road onto the paved road.

And he took me to my car.

Be

Izzy

WHEN I GOT in my front door, my dogs attacked me.

This wasn’t surprising. Except for me going to work and out to an occasional social engagement, they usually had me all to themselves.

After I gave them rubdowns, I let them out and went in search of my cats.

They were far less excited to see me.

I still gave them scratches.

I looked in on my birds and then went to the back porch. I took off the cute sandals I’d worn to the bar last night, dropped them on wood and pulled on my Wellington boots that were black and had big pink roses, blue leaves and tiny yellow flowers on them.

I headed to my stable with my dogs at my heels and my phone in hand.

I now had three things I had to do that day. Call Deanna. Change the sheets on my bed. And go back into town if I needed anything to make dinner for Johnny tomorrow night.

My schedule was this free, my time just my own, because I’d lived a disorderly life with a hard-working, hard-playing, hard-loving, hard-knock mother who, through choice and situation, taught me that stability was people, not places and things.

The way my mind worked, it violently rejected that idea. So when I left my mother’s home, I sought order and stability in almost every aspect of my life to the point I planned times when I’d allow the former of those two things not to be available.

Along the line, I’d hit on the perfect model in which to order my life when I read an article somewhere about how to use useless time in order to free up useful time, make it non-stressful, but most of all, free.