All I Have

Buoyed, yes. But, and she hated this but, Dell saying she was hot kept playing itself over and over in her mind, and her stomach felt all jittery and nervous and not at all interested in food.

She did not want to care that Dell said she had nice...assets. Why would she care? Why would that please her? It shouldn’t. It was all very unstrong, unfeminist, unbusinesswoman of her.

But she was pleased. She couldn’t help it. A guy thought she was hot. That had never happened before. At least not that she knew of. The fact it was Dell?

You are an idiot.

“Earth to Mia.”

Jostled out of her annoying, embarrassing thoughts, Mia looked up at Cara.

“Ready to go?” She nodded toward the door, the international Cara symbol for “get me away from Mom before I lose it.”

“Yup.” Separation was definitely best when Cara got that squirrelly look about her. Mia didn’t feel like playing peacemaker tonight. She wasn’t sure what she felt like doing, but it wasn’t that.

They got up from the table, offering Anna hugs and Dad goodbyes while Mom followed, the typical anxiety waving off her.

“Why don’t you girls stay the night?” Mom engulfed Mia in a cinnamon-scented hug. She lowered her voice. “Sweetie, next time maybe you should wear one of those—what are they called?—camisole things under that shirt. It’s a little low cut. You wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.”

“Maybe that’s exactly what she wants,” Cara whispered, earning herself a jab in the side.

“What, dear?”

“Nothing.” Mia pushed Cara toward the door. “Ignore her. Do you want us to take the leftover brownies?”

“Oh, yes. Your father will inhale them before the night’s over if you don’t. Maybe next time you try my trick of making them with applesauce? Adding a little zucchini? It cuts back on the fat and—”

“It’s Grandma’s rec—”

Mia discreetly moved in between Mom and Cara. “Yes, Mom. Applesauce. Will do.”

“Oh, I hate you two girls living on your own.” Their mother wrung her hands, fretting next to the door as Mia and Cara shrugged on their coats. For two years Mia and Cara had shared an apartment. Still, every time they left the Pruitt farmhouse, Mom worried over the two young women living alone.

Cara rolled her eyes and groaned. “We’re only ten minutes away, Mom. Two years, and a serial killer hasn’t gotten us yet.”

Mia pushed Cara again. “You’re not helping.”

Mom clucked her tongue. “Stay the night. Silly to drive all the way home when it’s dark out.”

“We’re only ten minutes away,” Mia repeated gently.

Mom took a deep breath and let it out, offering a pained smile. “All right. All right. We’ll see you in the morning.” Cara and Mia waved as they stepped out the door.

“Don’t forget to get one of those camisoles, Mia!” Mom called after them. “And make sure to lock both locks on your door. Oh, and lock your car doors, even when you’re driving.”

Cara groaned into the evening quiet. “Seriously, how did we turn out normal? How did they even manage to produce three children? Never mind—I don’t want to know the answer to that.”

Mia climbed into the driver’s seat of her truck. Cara and Anna were on that normal spectrum, but she wasn’t always sure she was. How long had Mom’s outer monologue been Mia’s inner dialogue? She’d learned to manage the anxiety, push away the worry about what other people might think or do, but it wasn’t as if the voice had disappeared.

Cara turned in her seat, smiling weirdly as Mia pulled out onto the highway.

“Okay, so hear me out before you totally shoot me down, ’kay?” Cara practically bounced in her seat.

“Oh, God.”

“It’s Saturday night. We rocked it at the market today. You look like someone I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen with. I don’t have to work at the salon tomorrow.” Cara clutched Mia’s arm. “Let’s go to a bar.”

Mia laughed, shaking off Cara’s grip so she could have both hands on the steering wheel. “Right.”

“I’m serious! It’ll be fun. A few drinks. We find a few cute guys to chat up. Maybe you give a guy your number.”

Mia’s shoulders involuntarily hunched before she told herself to relax them. She was twenty-six, for heaven’s sake. This was what she should be doing on a Saturday night. Not sitting at home with her seed catalogs. Maybe this was the something different she was wanting.

Still, the idea left her vaguely nauseous.

“We’ll have fun! I promise! We can leave whenever you want. Please, please, please, please—”

“All right!”

Cara’s squeal was ear piercing. “Let’s go to Juniors. Way hotter guys there.”

“Super.” Mia tried to talk herself into some enthusiasm. She wasn’t going to meet a guy holed up in her apartment, and she probably wasn’t going to meet a guy working at the farm or even at the farmers’ market. If she wanted to drop the virginity, she was going to have to put herself out there.

If she could control her blushing, quiet the anxiety, keep her mouth under control, there was no reason this couldn’t be a fun evening.

And Cara wondered why she wasn’t more proactive in the dating scene.

Mia pulled into the crowded lot of Juniors. New Benton boasted only two bars, and Mia had never spent time at either, unless occasionally picking up a drunk Cara counted. Still, the whole town knew Juniors was where the young people went and The Shack was the old, townie bar.

Cara rummaged around in her purse as Mia parked in the back. She flipped down the visor mirror and began applying mascara, holding out a tube of something in her free hand. “Here.”

“Oh, I—”

“Just put on some lipstick. Oh, and some mascara.” Cara finished with the mascara, shoved both tubes of makeup at Mia. “Cara tip number one. Make sure to always wear lipstick. It makes a guy notice your mouth.” Cara waggled her eyebrows.

Oh, this was so not a good idea. She did not belong here. Of course, there hadn’t been any places she’d belonged growing up, outside the farm. Slowly, she was changing that. So maybe she needed to suck it up and try something different. Sometimes jumping into the deep end was the only way to learn.

Mia took a deep breath and flipped down her own visor mirror. In the truck’s pale dome light, she applied the lipstick and the mascara. She didn’t wear makeup often, but Cara had given her enough lessons that she didn’t look like a clown.

Hopefully.

“Ready?” Cara already had her door open. This really was her element.

She managed a weak smile. “Just give me a sec.”

“Oh, God, not the Stuart Smalley routine.”

“Just a second.”

Cara shook her head in disgust as she hopped out of the truck and slammed the door. Mia looked at her expression in the mirror. Stupid or not, a little positive self-talk always helped calm her nerves and bolster her confidence.

“I can do this,” she said to her reflection. “I am a confident, capable adult. Talking to a guy will not kill me. In fact, it’ll probably be fun.” It was time. Past time to fight anxiety and really go after this. Did she want to be alone forever without even kissing a guy? No. So she needed to make this work.

With one final “I can do this,” Mia hopped out of the truck and met Cara at the door to the bar. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“Because, gosh, darn it, people like you.”

“Shut up and move.”

Cara led her into the crowded bar. A few people greeted Cara and she waved. Even though Mia recognized a lot of the faces, no one called out to her. Her social circle was slim. Oh, sure, she talked to a few of the ladies at the market, had something passing as a friendship with some of the women there her age, but mostly her tried-and-true friends and confidants had the last name Pruitt. And did not hang out at Juniors.

Cara found a little table in a back corner. “You sit. I’ll go order us some drinks.”

“Just get me a soda.”

Cara shook her head. “Yeah, right. An alcoholic beverage is exactly what you need.”

Mia sat and looked around the room while Cara went up to the bar to order their drinks. People talked and chatted and yelled and laughed. In the corner, she felt somewhat separate from it all. Nobody looked at her. It was as if she wasn’t even there.

Depressing thought. Funny how she’d spent so many years wishing to be invisible but always somehow ended up the butt of the joke, then finally getting the invisibility thing down and now she was wishing for attention.

Cara sauntered back over, two guys following her. Mia recognized one as C. J. Pinkerton, who’d been in her class. The other guy looked familiar, but she didn’t remember his name. He unabashedly stared at Cara’s ass as he walked behind her.

C.J., though, smiled and took a seat next to her. Mia froze a little. He was smiling at her. “Hey, I’m C.J.”

Mia smiled, biting her tongue in time so she didn’t say something stupid like, Duh, we went to high school together. “Mia.”

He squinted, leaning in closer. “No shit. Mia Pruitt.” He didn’t say the rest of it, but she knew what he was thinking. Queen of the Geeks. “You look a lot different than you did in high school, huh?” Then he smiled, pretty and white, a little crooked. He was definitely cute, if a little skinny.

“I guess I do.” Mia took a sip of the drink Cara had put in front of her. She gave herself a mental high five. She sounded like a normal human being.

C.J. laughed. She’d made a guy laugh. Holy moly. For the next twenty minutes she managed to hold an entire conversation with a kind-of-cute guy without once hyperventilating. She might have blushed a few times, but maybe he didn’t notice in the dim light of the bar.

She talked about the farm. He talked about working at the Ford plant in Millertown. It was going well. Hell, it was going perfectly. He even scooted his chair closer to hers.

“Want to dance?”

Hopefully the involuntary squeak she made was inaudible over the hum of the crowd and music. Who knew a little lipstick and some cleavage could make such a difference? Mia smiled, hoped her laugh didn’t sound like some kind of nervous hyena. What if—? Nope. No what-ifs. “Give me a sec to run to the bathroom?”

C.J. leaned back in his seat and smiled. “Sure.”

Mia stood, walked calmly to the bathroom. Where she would normally go into the stall and hyperventilate, she walked over to a sink instead. She washed her hands slowly, deliberately. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. She could totally do this. If she ever hoped of getting even remotely close to having sex, she had to do this.

Her stomach pitched, but she wasn’t going to let that thought derail her. This wasn’t about sex. This was about a dance. One dance. A step. Just like all the other steps she’d made to get here.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked put together and cute, and no one had to know all the anxiety in her mind if she didn’t show it to them.

With a determined nod, Mia pushed out of the bathroom. Shaking her hair back, she put a little bounce in her step and walked back to the table. She faltered for a second when she realized C.J. was no longer at their table. Two new men had joined Cara.

Never should have given him a chance to realize what a colossal mistake he’d made by asking her to dance or the time to remember all her embarrassing moments. Well, that was fine. Mia swallowed down the hard dip of disappointment. Two new guys were sitting with Cara. From the back, they were pretty cute.

If step one had been talking to a guy without acting like a goof, then doing it again didn’t need to be a deal or a problem.

Mia stopped in her tracks when the first man’s profile came into view. It wasn’t some cute guy in her seat. It was Dell.

He lounged in the chair as if he owned it, the lip of a Budweiser bottle perched at his mouth. He must have seen her out of the corner of his eye because he turned and grinned.

“Well, well, well, this is a surprise,” he drawled, setting the bottle back down on the table. He made no effort to move, instead hooked his arm over the back of the chair. “Come here often?” he asked with a wink.

Mia clenched her hands into fists. She wasn’t sure whom she wanted to kill more. Cara, C.J. or Dell.

* * *

THEEXPRESSIONON Mia’s face was enough to keep Dell from being uncomfortable with her appearance. It was the “if I could shoot lasers you’d be dead” look, and it amused him to no end.

Although, now that he noticed, he was about eye level with her breasts while she stood in front of him, and that took care of amusement. Dell cleared his throat, took another swig of beer. “Gonna join us?”

She mumbled something incomprehensible. With Kevin sidled up to Cara, Mia had no choice but to take the chair next to Dell.

She wasn’t at all happy about that, and she made no bones about showing it.

“Buy you a drink?”

“I have a drink.”

Dell raised an eyebrow at the fruity mixed drink and its floating cherry. “Want me to buy you a real drink?”

She smirked. “No.” As if to prove a point, she took a dainty sip. She looked all around the bar, pretty much everywhere but at him.

Dell took another sip from his bottle, his eyes never leaving her. “C.J. said to let you know he was sorry, but he had to go.” Not that Dell had realized he’d been talking about Mia. Not that C.J. had said it to him. His “let her know I had to go” had been said to Cara.

Her being Mia. Something about that made him clench his hand even harder on his bottle of beer.

Mia frowned. “Why’d he tell you that?”

Dell shrugged. Better not to say anything at all than lie or admit that C.J. hadn’t told him at all.

She leaned forward, and Dell’s gaze was drawn to the V in her T-shirt. He’d seen women show off a lot more cleavage than that before, but because he’d pretty much never seen Mia’s cleavage, it was a little difficult to be a gentleman and return his gaze to her face.

She was blushing when he did. And scowling. “Why are you here?”

Dell nodded over to Kevin, who already had Cara practically in his lap. “Kev asked me to meet him at Juniors. So I did.”

“I mean, why are you at my table?”

“Kev was talking to Cara, so I came over. Then your boyfriend got a little peeved at that since he and I never have seen eye to eye on just about anything.” Because C. J. Pinkerton was a grade-A asshole. Dell couldn’t believe Mia would see anything in the guy. Surely she had better taste than that. “And since he’s a big old coward, he moseyed on out of here.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Mia looked down at her drink, and Dell was certainly not thrilled to hear it. What did he care? “And don’t say mosey. This is Missouri, not Texas.” She tacked on a “moron” under her breath.

He’d been enjoying her bluster before she tacked on the moron. He’d never much cared for being called that. Silence settled over them, and Dell tried to pretend she wasn’t there, but it was just so weird seeing Mia look...well, hot. It kind of irritated him. God knew why. “So this new look isn’t just for the market?”

She scowled at him, more death lasers shooting from her eyes. “It’s a new leaf. Haven’t you ever wanted to turn over a new leaf?”

Dell sipped his beer. Yeah, he knew that feeling pretty well. Only, didn’t matter how many leaves he turned, the old one still stuck in his family’s mind. “In a town like this, people see who you’ve always been.”

She toyed with the napkin under her glass, eyebrows together. “I don’t care what people see. It matters what I feel.”

Well, that was a nice attitude to have. He wished he could duplicate it. Wished what Dad thought or did didn’t matter, but when the guy telling you you’re irresponsible held the deed to everything you wanted, how could you not care? Even more so when he was blood related. Dell took a deep drink. He didn’t come to Juniors for philosophizing or talking to Mia Pruitt. He came for good company, pretty girls and a few laughs. To take his mind off all this crap.

Dell frowned. When had Mia become a pretty girl? He shook his head. This was all backward. He looked at Kevin, who practically had his tongue down Cara’s throat. Why had Kevin called him at all if he was just going to try to get in Cara Pruitt’s pants?

Dell would make his excuses and leave. He opened his mouth to do just that, but then realized he’d be ditching Mia with the make-out kids, and that didn’t seem very fair. Especially considering how uncomfortable she looked. Besides, they might not get along, but they could always talk about farm stuff. Not exactly the best Saturday night, but he enjoyed it and Mia knew what she was talking about.

“You guys got any cold frames out at your place?”

She gave him a puzzled look, rubbed her tongue back and forth across her bottom lip.

Oh, Jesus, noticing her tongue was worse than noticing her breasts. Breasts could be innocuous if you tried hard enough to make them so. You could pretend they weren’t there. You could pretend you didn’t have any interest in finding out what they looked like. A tongue licking lips...yeah, not so much. It was...there.

Dell cleared his throat, started yammering on about the cold frame he’d built last year. She finally stopped doing the tongue thing and he breathed a sigh of relief as they spent the next fifteen minutes talking about farming.

Damn, she knew her stuff, and she seemed just as into it as he was. Anyone who listened to their conversation would think it nuts two twentysomethings were sitting around talking about fertilizer over a few drinks, but hell, he was actually kind of enjoying himself.

“So how did it start?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“How did what start?”

“The stupid take-off-your-shirt thing. You obviously care about your farm, so what gives? It makes you seem like you don’t take it seriously.”

“I take it plenty seriously.” Oddly enough, it wasn’t as insulting as when Charlie dinged him for it. When she said seem like it was almost as if she was willing to believe he did take it seriously. “Last year I was talking to some lady about how hot it was and she laughed and told me to take off my shirt. Said I’d probably sell a few more tomatoes that way. So I took her advice.” Dell grinned. “She was right.”

“You know it’s totally demeaning, right?”

“Hey, you seem to be using my tactics.” He pointed at the V of her shirt.

“I am fully clothed!”

Outraged was a good look for her. Her cheeks got a little pink and her full lips made a sexy little O.

For chrissake. Sexy and Mia did not belong in the same sentence, even if she was.

“Keep telling yourself that, darlin’.” Dell touched her hand. Just the lightest brush of fingertip to wrist. She jerked it back so quickly her drink shook and barely avoided toppling over.

He’d blame it on the beer, except he’d had all of one. Maybe he’d just blame it on her antagonistic attitude. He had always liked to bother people. Good-naturedly, of course. Besides, if he flirted a little over the top, maybe he’d get her scurrying off and then he could stop feeling conflicted about being attracted to her. About enjoying the weird push and pull they gave each other.

She popped up out of her seat. “I have to go to the bathroom.” Her entire face was beet red as she turned to walk past his chair.

Dell chuckled. “Same old Mia.” The outside appearance might change, but deep down she was still awkward and geeky. Thank God.

She whirled around. “Wanna dance?”

He choked on his drink, sputtered and coughed as it burned down the wrong pipe. “What?” he croaked.

She smiled sweetly. Way too sweetly. “I said, wanna dance?”

Sweet baby Jesus, what on earth was Mia Pruitt up to?

CHAPTER SEVEN

MIAWASPRETTY sure making Dell sputter over his beer meant she was winning at life. Same old Mia, her ass.

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.”