“I didn’t know he was coming this morning, he’s a friend of Daddy’s,” she says.
“The preacher,” I groan, reminding myself.
Her face twists and drops, suddenly pale as she turns away from me.
I’ve hurt her without meaning to. I’ve said the wrong thing at the wrong time.
She’s taking slow steps towards the stairs, Fitz calling down asking her if she tried plugging it in before he gives a loud, piggish snort of laughter.
“Faith,” I call, grateful when she turns around, her lip trembling.
“I don’t mind whose daughter you are. Just tell me you don’t have a boyfriend, nobody like hog-boy up there for me to have to deal with?”
Her sudden smile tells me everything in an instant.
There’s nobody, she’s worried I won’t want her if her Dad’s a preacher.
And I’m worried I’ll have to sacrifice anyone who gets between me and what I know is already mine, just waiting to be plucked from the tree.
The tree.
“It was you last night, wasn’t it?” she asks, making me blush now, looking down at my boots. An impish grin forms on my lips, as my hands trying to cover my bulge.
A permanent thing, I figure. This effect she has on me.
“I think you might’ve tripped a fuse,” Fitz says loudly, interrupting us and walking through with an assortment of tools he’s sorting through.
“Humph!” he mutters to himself as he passes closest to me, making sure I can hear him.
But I’m not worried anymore.
“What if it was?” I ask her, looking up now I know we’re alone. Fitz has made his way down to the basement and I have Faith all to myself for a few minutes.
And from the look in her eyes, a whole lot longer after that.
I have a lot I want to tell her, but at the same time, I feel nervous suddenly.
She knows I’ve been watching her and now she’s embarrassed for real, I can tell.
I want her to know I liked what I saw, but with doughboy sniffing around, I figure it’s best to wait until he’s gone.
“Your Dad’s not the only one who wanted to make sure you had an eye kept on you,” is all I tell her for now, grinning like a maniac as she keeps blushing and shifting on her feet until Fitz announces he’s saved the day.
Her air conditioner is working again.
I figured it was a fuse though.
I could’ve fixed it in a second.
As quick as she was to apologize and get him upstairs, Faith wastes no time in finding the check her Dad left for him and bundles him straight back out of the house.
“I’ll be sure and tell your Dad I met your friend, as well,” he says quietly to her before she closes the door in his face.
She gives a smile before she starts to gnaw at her lip again.
She’s as anxious as I am, I’m sure of it.
Anxious about the fact we might not have as much time in this house alone as we’d both like.Chapter FiveFaithNobody’s ever seen me naked.
I don’t even like seeing myself naked,
The thought of a man like Noah, spending not just a second but a whole night, watching me shower and then sleep on top of my sheets without a stitch on.
It terrifies me on one hand, but on the other, it makes me so wet that I almost want to show him everything all over again, right here in the hallway.
Judging by the size of that tent pole he has stuffed down the front of his jeans, I’m guessing he likes what he saw.
I mean, he has to have, right?
My damned lip. I’m gonna chew right through the whole thing if I don’t watch it.
There’ll be nothing left for Noah to kiss. Nothing left for me to wrap around his huge, fat-
“Faith?” Noah asks, his brows raised, motioning his head towards the sound of the phone ringing.
Snapped from my fantasies yet again, I stumble to the kitchen, grabbing the phone as I try to even begin to consider my next move with Noah.
If there was ever a real-life, cartoon puff of smoke with a ‘poof’ sound, it’s right over my head when I answer that damned phone.
“Faith? What’s going on? I just had Fitz call me, he’s all worked up, saying you have a strange man in the house. Do I need to send Sheriff Brodie over, and why didn’t you call me? I was trying your cell half of last night and all this morning...”
If Dad does one thing, beyond anything else exceptionally well, it’s preaching.
Whether to his flock or to his daughter, to the guy pumping gas, or to the folks trying to win an argument, he can ask a million questions in one go and always leave you feeling guilty.
No matter what you’ve been doing, and so far. As far as I can tell. I haven’t done anything with Noah.