Page 74 of Breaking All The Rules
He’d been cognizant of her wariness when his mom and Jill had joined them, so overwhelming her with how he was feeling didn’t seem a smart move. Beatrice reminded him of a skittish foal—one wrong step could send her bolting.
“I don’t think ambition needs to be lofty or…hard or constantly changing. Ambition can be small.”
“But not for you?” Austin sent her a gentle smile. “You were a corner office girl all the way, right?”
She gave a harsh half laugh. “Ambition can also be bad for you.”
There was regret and bitterness in her proclamation, which clawed at Austin’s gut. Things had suddenly gone dark, and it had nothing to do with the sun finally sliding below the horizon. Time to lighten things up. “You know what else is bad for you?”
“Sunbathing between ten and three, more than five tequila shots in any given night, and googling yourself?”
Austin laughed at her quick-fire response. “Waffle cones full of chocolate and marshmallow wrapped in foil and shoved in the fire.”
“Oh my God.” She slid her hand over the top of his, where it was resting on the stick shift. “This would be a seriously bad thing for you to joke about and then not follow through.”
“Honey, I never joke about s’mores in a cone.”
She smiled. “If you can produce such decadence, I might even let you put it in unspeakable places.”
“Challenge accepted.”
…
Ten minutes later, Austin pulled up at the spot he’d prepared earlier in the day. He’d come out and set up the fire, ready to light with a box of extra wood, also ready to go, and two large logs sitting at right angles to each other for their seating. The dark shapes of the trees were about thirty feet away in one direction, the gentle trickle of the stream about thirty in the other.
“Boy Scout, huh?” Bea said as she climbed out of the pickup and ambled over to where things were all prepared.
Grinning, Austin said, “Yes, ma’am.”
He lit the fire, the cool of the evening starting to draw in already, and grabbed them both a beer. Then he told her to sit while he pumped up the air mattress with his trusty foot pump in the back of the pickup and got their bedding set up.
“I love a fire,” she said absently, and Austin looked up from what he was doing to watch her drinking beer and staring into the flames.
The truth was, the fire loved her. Orange firelight flickered through the bright coppery strands of her hair, transforming it to a blazing corona around her head. It shimmered over her body, licking golden light over her denim-clad thighs, over her breasts, dancing all the way up her neck. She literally glowed with the fire like some ancient volcano goddess, and Austin’s heart just about stopped in his chest. It felt like everything that was important in life was right there and he was king of the fucking world.
Jumping down from the tray, Austin picked up the beer he’d set on the log next to hers and took several long swallows. She smiled at him and said, “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” he returned as he touched the neck of his bottle to the neck of hers, the clink loud in the utter silence of an Eastern Colorado evening.
And for the next couple of hours, they drank beer and then wine straight from the bottle, because he hadn’t thought to bring glasses, and chatted and laughed. Austin told her some stories about growing up on the ranch, which she seemed to enjoy even if she deflected whenever he tried to get her to share some of her stories.
But conscious as always of his gently, gently approach with her, he didn’t push. She was all mellow and Austin was nicely buzzed as he let the fire burn down enough to put the griddle on and cook their gourmet s’mores.
The night had cooled considerably, but the heat from the fire reached out and wrapped him up in a warm hug that seeped into his bones as deftly as Beatrice’s laughter and company had seeped into his heart and his freaking soul. But he was not going to analyze that—he’d told her they didn’t have to put a name on what was happening, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to follow his own advice.
Austin filled the cones with chocolate chips and mini marshmallows, then wrapped them in the aluminum foil before placing them on top of the griddle resting over the coals.
“You want some of this?” Austin asked as he unscrewed the cap on the bourbon.
She narrowed her eyes playfully at him, the lavalike smolder of the coals turning down the blaze in her hair from flame to glow. “Trying to get me drunk, Officer?”
“I think,” Austin said, smiling around the mouth of the bottle, “I’ve proven I don’t have to.”
She feigned an outraged expression. “Are you calling me easy?”
“No, ma’am.” Austin took a deep swallow of the liquor, feeling and savoring the burn all the way down his esophagus. “I’m calling you insatiable.” The firelight might be low, but Austin could still make out the flare of her nostrils, which he felt all the way to his groin.
“I am, it appears, where you’re concerned.”
