The Thunderbolt - Lori Wilde Page 0,35

expecting something from him that he simply couldn’t give. Not at this point in his life. He refused to fall in love or to get married before he was ready.

His parents had made that tactical error, and it had almost ruined them.

Those childhood memories were unpleasant. Spending Christmas holidays with his mother one year, his father the next. Never a real family, always split between two warring factions. He recalled his parents bickering over who was going to pay for his dental work or buy the Little League uniforms. He remembered long lonely nights spent hugging his pillow and wondering how he could make his folks like each other.

Finally, he’d realized he wasn’t to blame. What had caused the problem was red hot physical attraction. If his parents had taken their time getting to know each other, they would have realized they were completely incompatible and that a union between them would never have worked out and they could have saved so much agony.

Then again, if they’d done that, Bennett wouldn’t be here.

“Grandmother Nony,” Lacy said, “if we’re stuck here until Dylan can look at my car, you might as well go to the expo with everyone else. Bennett and I can check on Great-Gramma.”

“Are you sure?” Grandmother Nony perked up. “I was really hoping my apple preserves might win first prize.”

“Go,” Bennett said, then realized suddenly that he and Lacy would be alone on the farm except for Great-Gramma tucked away in bed. Was that what he wanted? To be alone with Lacy?

Yes, he decided. They needed to talk and clear the air between them, and he needed to find out if she really believed in this thunderbolt thing her great-grandmother had been talking about. Absentmindedly, he patted the pocket with the cuff links.

A knock sounded at the back door.

Lacy’s mother waved at a tall, gangly man standing on the stoop. “Lester, come in.”

Work hat in his callused fingers, Lester pushed open the screen door and stepped inside, leaving it slightly ajar behind him.

“I heard about Granny Kahonachek, and I just stopped by to see if she was okay before I headed on over to the expo...” Lester’s gaze settled on Lacy, and his words trailed off. “Lacy, you’re home.”

Bennett didn’t like the look in the other man’s eyes. Not one bit. It didn’t take a rocket scientist, or a heart surgeon for that matter, to figure out the guy had a major crush on her.

Jealousy wrapped around him and squeezed tight.

“Hi, Lester,” Lacy said cheerfully, but she didn’t meet the man’s goo-goo eyes. Obviously, she didn’t return his affection.

Bennett felt a spike of triumph, and he had the urge to shout, “Yeah!” Then he immediately wondered why. He had no claim on Lacy Calder. None whatsoever. She was free to date anyone she wanted.

The screen door flapped in the early morning breeze. Lester stayed posed in the doorway, visually gobbling up Lacy.

Bennett imagined plowing a fist in Lester’s face for no good reason other than it pleased him and that was scary business.

“Bennett,” Lacy’s grandmother Nony said, “try some of my red-eye gravy.” She hovered at his elbow, gravy boat in hand.

From the corner of his eye, Bennett saw something streak through the back door and into the kitchen. Several people shouted at once, “Lester, get Frank Sinatra out of here!”

Frank Sinatra?

Bennett frowned at the same moment an evil-eyed goat dashed between Grandmother Nony’s legs, heading straight for the breakfast table.

Grandmother Nony lost her balance. Her hands flew into the air.

The gravy boat went up.

And then came down.

Smack-dab in Bennett’s lap.

10

“I’M so sorry about your pants,” Lacy apologized. “And about the clothes dryer being broken.”

Bennett glanced at her. Everyone had gone to the farm expo, leaving them alone save for Great-Gramma snoozing upstairs. Lacy was leaning on her crutches, watching him hang his Levi’s and white long-sleeved shirt on the clothesline.

Being too tall to borrow a pair of pants from anyone in her family, Bennett wore nothing but boxer shorts, his loafers, and a bathrobe that belonged to Lacy’s father belted at his waist.

“No harm done.” He smiled at her. “My jeans should be dry by the time we wake up from our nap.”

It was after ten o’clock, and the moderate weather of early morning had given way to eighty-five-degree temperatures. As a Bostonian, he wasn’t accustomed to such a warm spring climate.

“Come on,” Lacy said. “I’ll show you to the guest quarters above the barn, but don’t expect anything fancy. It’s where the extra farmhands stay during