What the Heart Wants (What the Heart Wants, #1)(35)

Then came the compliments. “You’re so mature for your age, Jase,” she would purr, running the edge of her fingernail down his arm. “You’ve really got a build on you—I noticed it the first day you walked into my class. I bet half the girls in school are crazy about you. They must keep you busy. I’m surprised you even have the strength left to come to school in the morning.”

Damn, he’d loved it. He’d laughed nervously and been embarrassed and flattered and confused and excited, but he loved it. In reality, the girls avoided him, at least the nice girls. He was too tall, too muscular, too dark. His father always claimed Indian blood, but Jase doubted if he really knew. Ol’ Growler’s parentage had probably been as haphazard as his own.

Marguerite was the perfect seductress. Attentive and available, she praised him for his triumphs and commiserated with him over his disappointments. Growler had never asked him about his classes or even attended one of his football games.

He tried to explain. “Marguerite seemed to care, and there weren’t many adults in my life who gave a damn. Maxie tried to help, but she was working full-time and taking care of her mother too, so that didn’t leave much time for me. Granny hated my dad—and me. Probably because of my mother.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Anyway, she died the year before I was run out of town.”

He paused for a moment before continuing. This was the hard part, and he didn’t know how Laurel would take it.

“Marguerite knew I was pretty much on my own, so she started hiring me to do chores around her house. At first it was just on weekends because football practice was right after school. Coach had waived the fees for me so I didn’t dare skip a practice.” He snorted. “Not many six-foot-two guys around Bosque Bend High School at the time.”

Laurel nodded. Jase had been the tallest boy in the junior class, and he’d had the musculature to go with it.

“Anyway, all that fall, I spent Saturday afternoons at that little stone cottage she’d rented, mowing the lawn or trimming the bushes or cleaning out the gutters, sometimes washing her car. She’d invite me inside afterward and she’d give me a glass of lemonade, which changed to hot chocolate in November. It became a ritual—she called it ‘our time.’” He glanced at Laurel. Would she understand? After all, she’d grown up with real parents.

“She never had much on—short shorts and a tank top or a halter thing, even when it got colder.” He stopped for a moment to consider what he should say next, then stated it straight-out.

“She took me into her bed in December. I didn’t catch on at first.”

The first Saturday of the month, Marguerite told him she was going to take a shower while he raked up the leaves. His imagination had gone into overdrive on that one, and when he came into the kitchen for “our time,” there she was, clothed in a lightweight kimono that clung to her damp, naked body like Saran Wrap.

An erection had started nudging against his fly, and he’d tried to look everywhere else but at her, then downed his drink in one scalding gulp and bolted out the back door, without even waiting to be paid. The rest of the weekend had been misery, and he’d dreaded seeing her again at school on Monday, but she’d been as friendly as ever, paid him for his yard work as if nothing unusual had happened, and he convinced himself he’d overreacted.

The next weekend was really hot, a freak throwback to the dog days of August. After he finished raking the leaves again and giving her grass a needless winter trim, his tee was virtually plastered to his body.

Dressed in shorts, a blouse loosely tied under her breasts, Marguerite had come out on the back step to invite him in. As soon as they were through the door, she swayed toward him and ran her hand down his chest.

“Jase, we must get this shirt off,” she’d said with a throaty laugh, plucking at the shirt and lifting it up. He’d obliged, of course, pulling his tee over his head and draping it on the back of a kitchen chair.

Then she strolled casually over to the back door and locked it, turned to smile at him, and, just as casually, untied the front of her blouse and dropped it on top of his shirt. Her full, tight-nippled breasts lifted with the motion, a mouthwatering feast to his hungry eyes.

He was frozen to the spot as she raised herself onto her toes, ground herself into him, and pulled his head down for a full-tongue kiss.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in her big bed in the attic bedroom. Afterward she’d told him how mature he was, what a terrific lover, what a man, that she had known from the first moment she set eyes on him that it would be like this. But it was “our secret” of course, because “ignorant people with small minds” wouldn’t understand the “sophisticated relationship” they had.

She paid him for the lawn mowing. Overpaid, in fact. He’d protested, embarrassed, and tried to return the money, but she’d insisted he keep it. “Don’t be silly, darling. You’re worth it.” She tapped his bare chest. “You mow a great lawn.”

“I was an easy mark for her,” he admitted to Laurel. “She knew what she was doing. By January, I was in her bed on a regular schedule—Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, to be exact.”

Laurel looked up at him. “She should have been the one who had to leave town, not you.”

His voice grew softer. “I know what the man on the street would say, that I hit it lucky when an older woman, a looker like Marguerite, took me on as her lover.” He shook his head. “Maybe for some other guy, but I was already damaged goods. Growler resented me from day one, and the kids at school had all been warned by their parents to steer clear of me.”