With that, Piper opened the door and rushed out into the driveway, clearly in a hurry. Whether he could flatter himself that she wanted to be with him, he wasn’t sure. It was just as likely she wanted to get away from her parents as any burning desire for his company.
He kind of wanted to get away from her parents, too. The whole situation was a tad awkward.
She paused next to her truck and held her keys up for him.
“What—you want me to drive?”
“I know enough about men to know they prefer to be the one behind the wheel. My mother hasn’t ever driven my father, to my knowledge. My dad is afraid he will lose a testicle and all his chest hair if he lets her chauffeur him.”
Brady gave Piper a long, assessing look. “My masculinity isn’t threatened by anything. Certainly not by having a woman drive her own car. You’re welcome to drive. Unless you prefer to have a big strong man handle your truck.”
The truth was, he wanted to see her driving that big old four-wheel-drive pickup. It was just one more curious facet of Piper’s personality. She was something of an enigma that he wanted to solve.
“Then I’ll drive.” She didn’t hesitate. Going around the driver’s side, she hopped into her truck in one smooth motion.
Brady climbed in the passenger side, noting that her truck was straight as a pin, no trash anywhere or miscellaneous items lying around. He barely had the door shut when she shot the truck into reverse and peeled around to head down the driveway. Whoa. Piper was a bit of a lead foot. It didn’t fit his idea of her—hesitant and unassuming. But then again, hadn’t he just thought she was multifaceted?
Gravel churned under her tires and Brady shot her a grin of appreciation. “Damn, girl, you know how to handle this truck just fine.”
She was going at least fifty, and the speed had her bouncing around on her seat, her hair flowing over her shoulders. She shot him a quick grin. “I like the power of driving a big vehicle. I think my dad underestimated how much I would enjoy it. But hey, it makes sense for a farmer’s daughter, right? I started out on a tractor and graduated to a pickup.”
Brady hit the button to let down his window and he breathed in the night air. It was clean and sharp, but with the underlying earthy scent of animal and freshly threshed crops. It wasn’t a bad way to grow up. “I’m impressed.”
After a minute or two, Piper took a turnoff and started driving down between two rows of apple trees. The orchard went on as far as Brady could see in the dark, and after a dozen trees or so, Piper put her truck in park and turned it off. “Come on.”
Where they were going he wasn’t sure, but he got out of his side and realized that Piper was climbing into the bed of her truck. Once in, she nimbly jumped onto the top of the cab, reached out her hand, and plucked a ripe apple off the tree closest to her, all in her pretty little skirt.
Brady laughed. “That’s handy.”
She winked and took a bite, a loud crunch reverberating in the still air.
It was like a punch to his gut, that wink. She was by far the sexiest thing he’d ever seen in his entire life. He’d had strippers gyrate in front of him with practiced moves, he’d had gorgeous women drop their cocktail dresses to the floor, leaving them in nothing but heels, and yet not one had ever been as flat-out hot as Piper Tucker winking at him over an apple, perched on the top of her truck, legs a tad apart in her skirt. The sweater she’d grabbed was nowhere to be seen and her hair shifted in the soft breeze, all that bare skin and swagger driving him insane. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he attempted to look up her skirt, but the angle wasn’t right.
“It’s good,” she said. “Juicy.”
He knew another thing or two that was bound to be juicy. “How good is your balance?”
Chewing, she asked, “Why?”
“I’m coming up, so brace yourself.”
Brady put his palms on the side of the truck bed and hauled himself up. The car rocked slightly but not enough to give Piper any trouble, though she had grabbed onto a tree branch for stability. He moved towards her. “Give me a bite.”
“Get your own. There’s a thousand apples.”
“I want a bite of yours.” Brady eliminated the gap between them, standing right in front of her, but enough below her that he was facing the apex of her thighs behind that cotton skirt. He couldn’t have asked for anything more tempting. Her apple dangled just below her waist, so he took her wrist and raised it to his lips. She didn’t stop him when he buried his teeth in the crunchy sweetness. “Thank you,” he said with a full mouth, the juice sliding down his throat. “Now come back down here please, before I lift your skirt.”
She laughed. “Here.” She pressed the apple into his hand, and before he could process what she was about, she was gone. A few well-placed maneuvers and Piper had put herself in a tree, one leg on either side of the branch, her nimble fingers reaching out to pluck another apple for herself.
Brady took her spot on the truck cab, sitting down with his feet dangling over the edge so he could comfortably talk to her. He reached out and stroked her bare leg. “You’re a regular monkey. I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“I used to come out here as a kid to be alone. I found out I’m good at climbing trees, which was a happy discovery because there weren’t a ton of things I was good at.”
She didn’t say it with any malice or bitterness or disappointment. Just a matter of acceptance that seemed to envelope her. About everything but seeing ghosts, that was.
“I was in Boy Scouts for one year in the second grade. I got pissed that we weren’t going camping with army knives in like the first month, so I quit. That was kind of my childhood—searching for instant gratification and never getting good at anything.” He bit her apple and chewed, reflecting. He’d never realized that until now.
“Why did you want to go camping with an army knife?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I thought you were supposed to do in Scouts. And I was hot to have a knife and start fires. It seemed like that would be cool.” By sixth grade he’d been a damn good shot with a BB gun, could start a fire in thirty seconds, and had butchered a rabbit for stew, all self-taught. Because he’d been curious and had taken risks. So maybe he hadn’t stuck with anything for very long, but as a kid he’d been tenacious and spirited. He wondered what the f**k had happened to that attitude.