Page 4 of Silver Brewer

“Mama,” I say exasperated, and she sets a vase of flowers down with more force than necessary.

“Fine, I sent her up the path.” My mother doesn’t look at me. She knows that land means everything to me, and while she understands why, she doesn’t understand how I can spend so much time up there. I don’t want to have to remind her it’s my life. I’m forty-nine. She can stop mother-henning me.

I spin and head for the front door. I have a house closer to town, one I avoid most days since I find solitude up at the cabin. Who cares? I want to scream. I’m alone anyway. Empty nester, that’s the term, although I think I’ve been empty for longer than the absence of my daughters going off to college and moving on with their lives. It’s the way it should be with my girls, yet lately, I feel as if I’ve missed too much.

“Giant,” my mother calls after me, a warning in her voice. “You be here for dinner at six.”

I won’t disappoint her, but I want to. For once, I’d like to do something spontaneous and not show up to a family dinner or a matchmaking setup or a pre-scheduled anything. I’m free to do as I please with my days, yet as I approach fifty, I feel trapped. As if something’s crawling under my skin wanting to be released.

My thoughts rush back to the bug of a woman leaning over her car, trying to appear all tough but instead looking adorable as her wide eyes skim down my body. Wonder what she would have thought if I placed her on her little silver hood and kissed her senseless just because I could and I wanted to?

Whoa. I slow my F-150 truck with the large Giant Brewing Co. logo on the side as I near the gravel lane heading to town. Where did that thought come from? My palms sweat on the steering wheel. It’s been a while since I’ve been with a woman, but still, she’s a stranger. I don’t know her. I don’t even want to know her, I admonish, but something taps at my skull.

Yes, you do, whispers through my thick head. I shake the thought.

Whoever she was, she talked too much. But then there were her eyes—bright and blue as the day—and the way she scanned my body. Hungry—that was the look. It was a nice look.

She also had that fierce attitude as though she wouldn’t accept anything less than what she wanted.

Name your price, Mr. Harrington.

I’ll give her a price: no sale.

Never mind my subtle attraction to her. I’m not going to know her because I’m not parting with my land. That property is special to me in a way no piece of ass will ever be, and besides, I don’t want a piece of ass. If I need to get laid, I can go down to Elton. When was the last time I got laid? I mentally count back as if flipping sheets on a calendar.

Cripes. It has been a bit.

My dick whimpers in my outdoor pants when thoughts of a chirpy brunette with big blue eyes matching the sky come into play. Down boy, I curse, and then decide against the reprimand. The image of her pretty little mouth begging me for my land—begging me for anything—will make my shower-time fodder all the faster this evening.

And I’m going to need a release before another matchmaking session from my mother.

3

Proverbial gauntlets and

other hammering instruments

[Letty]

“It didn’t go well,” I tell Marcus as I stand in the fluffy bathrobe provided by the Conrad Lodge. A thick towel swipes over my hair as I hear Marcus sigh through the speakerphone.

“Letty, you have to secure this place. This is your future we’re talking about.” If Marcus wasn’t forty, like me, I’d swear he was an old man or my dad. Too bad my father is dead, and Uncle Frank is the only father figure I’ve ever had.

“I know.” I exhale as I toss the towel aside and then throw myself on the extra-high mattress in the four-poster bed. Who sleeps on such a thing? Then I consider the giant of a man I saw earlier in the day. Giant. What an interesting name. It certainly suits his stature. “We didn’t get off to a good start.”

“What did you do?” he singsongs, assuming it’s my fault. Then again, most errors in my life are. Hudson was the biggest mistake.

“I almost hit him with my car.”

“What?” Marcus shrieks, releasing the mother in him. He wants to be a parent with his partner, so he understands my struggles. We aren’t getting any younger as my mother likes to remind us.

“It would have been a little love tap. Not even marking him.” Thinking of his long legs, I’m curious about their thickness within those low-slung pants. They’re the size of tree trunks, I surmise, proportionate to the rest of his body.

“Letty, way to make a first impression.”

That’s just it. I botched my first impression—nearly running over a man will do that. But in general, I struggle with sales as my career. I’m not good at introductions. I go in for the kill too quickly because I want the haggle process over. I also don’t make a lasting impression, which is why I’ve failed at life.

Sigh.