Straddling the Line

Ten

Josey stood next to the table, leaning against her stick and swaying to the John Legend music Ben had put on. The way her hips were moving was enough to distract him from the game. Too bad she didn’t seem to notice she was doing it.

“You play a lot of pool?”

“When I have someone to play with. Stick used to come up after practice, but he’s got a girlfriend now. Bobby likes to play for money, but he’s kind of a jerk about it.” Ben sank the striped fourteen. He didn’t have to ask if she played a lot. She’d gotten two balls in. He had one to go. “Billy will play, if I can get him out of the shop. But that’s a big if.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

He lined up the shot. “You don’t need my permission. Ask away.”

“Why do you live in the old shop? And why is it so much bigger than the new one?”

He took an extra second to make the shot. On to the eight ball. “I grew up here. It just felt like home.”

“Really?” She didn’t seem to mind in the least that he was about to beat her.

“Yeah. Back when Crazy Horse was Dad’s business, he didn’t do custom stuff. He had models, and he had guys who built them assembly-style. He made more bikes, so he had to store more bikes. Mom handled the books then. We’d all get up early and come here, then Mom would take us to school and bring us back here afterward. Some nights we’d be here until late, but Mom liked to keep the family together, she always said.”

Keep the family together. That had been what he’d promised her.

“That must have been hard.”

“It wasn’t so bad. As long as we didn’t break anything, we pretty much got to roam free. We built forts out of boxes and had gear wars—like ninja stars, but with gears.”

She gave him a look of amused disbelief. “You threw gears at each other?”

“Hey, I only chipped Bobby’s tooth that one time.”

His innocent look didn’t work—of course, it hadn’t worked on Mom, either. Josey’s mouth dropped open in shock, which gave him all sorts of ideas. Instead, he sank the eight ball and began to rerack the balls. Now that he thought about it, it had been a long time since he’d played pool with anyone. Even if she wasn’t very good at it, it was still nice to play with her and have a real conversation.

“Okay.” The way she said it made it clear that it wasn’t, really, but she didn’t harp on it. “So the new factory…”

“Billy didn’t—doesn’t—like mass-produced anything. He convinced Dad he could make more money doing one custom bike at a time than doing one hundred cookie cutters. He got Bobby to back him up, and I ran the numbers. Dad will argue with one or two of us, but he figured all three Boltons agreeing on something was as close to a sure thing as he was going to get. So we switched. Two years later, we had made enough to build the shop. That was almost six years ago.”

“I see.” She looked around. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“I’m sure Gina told you she did most of it.”

“Maybe.” She let out a soft giggle and bent over to break. It would be poor sportsmanship to run his hands over the swell of her bottom while she was shooting. He settled for staring.

“You think it’s pretentious to have resident artist-maids.”

This shot was better. Two stripes actually went in as the balls careened around the table. She almost looked like she knew what she was doing. “Don’t forget chef.”

“How could I?”

Still bent almost double, she looked back over her shoulder. “Any other surprises? You’re not hiding mimes in the basement or anything?”

“No mimes.” Sweet merciful heavens, she was still swaying. Her bottom was in serious danger of hypnotizing him. “You?”

“Nothing like Gina. Hang on.”

In six consecutive shots, she cleared the table. He stood gaping at her as the eight ball went down without a whimper. “You let me win?”

“Of course not.” Her innocent look was much more effective than his would ever be. “I was getting a feel for how you play the game.”

She’d let him win to make sure he’d lose. She could give as good as she got. Man, what a woman.

She set down her cue. “I’m about done playing for tonight.” She put her hands on his cheeks and pulled him into her until her lips scorched his. The idling erection he’d been trying to ignore went full throttle in a heartbeat. When she pulled away from him, she licked her lips and breathed, “You?”

“Finished.” His cue clattered to the ground and he actually swept her off her feet. There was a first for everything.

For the first time, the size of his place bugged him. Between dancing around the furniture and kissing Josey, it took forever to get back to the bed. She was wearing a red bra with a matching pair of panties that sat low on her hips and begged a man to peel them off. He was willing—more than willing—to put the time and energy into a right and proper seduction, but when he had her nude before him, her body already wet for him, he barely got the condom on before he took what she so willingly gave him.

She rose to meet him again and again. She dug her nails into his back—not enough to draw blood, but enough that the sensation spurred him on. She felt so damn good. Everything about her was good. His name sounded just right coming out of her mouth as a moan. Her legs fit just so around his waist. He tried to go slow, but he couldn’t hold back. Not with her. Something about her…

After she’d gotten cleaned up and they’d wrapped themselves around each other in bed, Ben said, “I like this.”

“Just ‘like’? I’ll try harder next time,” she said with a sleepy yawn. Underneath the covers, she stretched out her legs and stroked his ankle with her toes.

“Not just that—all of this. Dinner, pool—and that. I like it all. I like you.”

She got very still before taking a careful breath. “I like you, too.”

There it was again—that strange feeling. This happiness thing was getting out of hand.

Ben was getting used to it.

*

“Well, well, well.” Jenny launched a paint roller at Josey’s head. “Look who’s back.”

Josey threw the roller back. “It’s been, what? Three days? I don’t consider that ‘gone.’”

Jenny was like a bulldog. Once she latched onto an idea, she wouldn’t let go of it until it was good and dead. “So, how is he?”

Josey did a quick check, but the two women were alone in the seventh-and eighth-grade room. Everyone else was outside using as many power tools as the generators could support. She could hear Don bellowing instructions through the walls.

The second time in two days someone had asked her that question. And, once again, she had no intention of answering. Instead, she made a play for Jenny’s outsize maternal instincts. “Have you talked to Jared recently? He was feeling a little picked on at the powwow.”

Jenny let out a short laugh. “Nice try, but you didn’t think that would work, did you? You show up at a powwow with Mr. Super Hunk, disappear for three days and expect nobody to put one and one together?”

Oh, heavens, people were talking. Guessing. And, by all estimations, getting close to the truth. The churning anxiety made Josey’s stomach turn worse than drinking sour milk. Was it better or worse that she’d run into Jenny first? When she went out to talk to Don later, would he meet her eyes, or would he barely acknowledge her existence?

No. She would not let other people define her. She knew what she wanted, and right now, what she wanted was not to talk about her love life. What she wanted was for everything to be normal. And the one way she knew how to ensure that was to act as normal as she could.

Josey pulled herself up to her full height and looked down her nose at her cousin. “I expect certain people to mind their own business.”

Like she could intimidate Jenny. The woman was a force to be reckoned with. She bounced on the balls of her feet and clapped her hands. “Ooh. Either really bad or really, really good. Does he live in a garage or a palace?”

“If I tell you, can we get to work?” Jenny nodded and made a big show of mixing the paint. “Can you keep it to yourself?” Jenny nodded even more enthusiastically. Luckily, Josey knew her cousin would keep that promise—especially if she ever wanted any more tidbits. “Both. He remodeled the top floor of an old factory and parks his bike in it. How are things coming out there on the shop?”

“Wow, you must like him.”

It was a lot to ask for people not to put one and one together. Josey knew this. That didn’t make dealing with it any easier. She pushed her anxiety further down, desperately trying to ignore it entirely. She’d worked too hard to make her place in this tribe to let something like a casual relationship with Ben Bolton derail her plans.

Normal, she reminded herself, keeping her tone light. “He’s nice. Did you get my message about the certification?”

Jenny whistled and poured the paint. “Three subject changes. I amend my previous statement to ‘really like.’”

“Okay, I really like him. Happy?”

Jenny stuck her hands on her hips, tilted her head sideways and stared at her. “You look happy.” Josey rolled her eyes, but Jenny didn’t let it drop. “You do! I mean, I’d kill for your bone structure, but you always look like you’re having to work at a smile. It’s like you’ve got to prove to people that you’re thrilled to be here in the middle of nowhere. But today?” Jenny gave her a wistful smile. “Happy.”

And that’s why Josey loved her cousin. Despite the fact that Jenny was full-blooded Lakota, she was one of the few people on this reservation who never held her mixed heritage against Josey. She always understood.

For the first time since Josey had driven back onto the rez this morning, she felt herself breathe. Not everyone would approve. Not everyone had to. If Jenny and Mom still treated her like the same old Josey-from-the-block, then it didn’t much matter what the whole tribe thought. “He gave me the keys—well, the key codes—to his place.”

Jenny whistled. “How many nights?”

“Two.”

“And he’s coming out here tomorrow?”

“Dinner at Mom’s. Just as soon as I tell Mom.” That part made her a little nervous. Okay, a lot nervous. Although she didn’t talk about it too much, Josey was pretty sure that Mom had had her heart broken by a white man back in the day, which was why she’d come back to the rez and married Dad. Josey’s last heartbreak had been hard on both of them. She didn’t know if Mom would react well to Josey giving another white man a chance to break her heart again.

They fell into an easy silence as they painted the classroom. Jenny did the cutting in while Josey started on the ceiling. The work went much faster than it did when the tasks were divided between ten helpful girls. The whole thing was done in less than an hour.

Jenny dropped her brush on the drop cloth and clenched her hands a few times. “Is he perfect?”

Josey thought about his overwhelming need to be in charge, the conflicted feelings he had about his family and—if left to his own devices—his penchant for gray as a go-to color. She giggled. “No. Not even close.”

“But he’s rich?”

“Yes.”

“Handsome?”

“Very.”

“And he’s footing the bill for more tools?”

“That’s the plan.” A plan that would take another month or so to come to fruition. Something about that time frame felt cozily long-term.

Jenny sighed, a mix of concern and pity. Then she shot Josey a sneaky grin. “Does he have a brother?”

*

Not surprisingly, Billy was in the shop at ten on a Saturday morning. He grunted when Ben got within acknowledgment range. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here. How’s the trike coming?”

Billy glared at him from underneath bushy eyebrows. “Same woman, or different?”

Ben chose not to answer that. He made a slow circle around the trike. Billy had the engine on the frame. “Looks good.”

Billy grunted again. So much for conversation. Just to bug the big man, Ben pulled up a stool and watched him. He was promptly ignored.

As Billy worked, Ben’s mind drifted. It started on Josey—more specifically, the way she looked when she woke up, half asleep and half turned on. Man, she’d been all sorts of turned on by that high-speed ride down the highway after dark. He wondered if she’d want to learn to ride. Years had passed since he’d last built a bike from the ground up—if he made one for her, would she ride it? Would she even like it?

He shifted on the stool. Being as he wouldn’t get to see her either sleepy or turned on for another couple of days, he forced his mind to move on to less painful thoughts. He saw Billy had some brochures for new—and expensive—equipment on his workbench.

Snatches of conversations from the past few days jumbled together in his head. Grandfathers—white and Indian—lifelong friends—fundraisers. Those concepts didn’t mix with that kid—what was his name? The one with the bad hair? Jared? Or the way people kept a buffer zone around Josey’s mom. But those other kids—the tough ones—those kids had lost almost all of their attitudes when it came to his bike.

Ben started out of his daze. That was it.

“Billy.”

His big brother jumped, dropping a wrench on his boot. “Dammit, what?”

“Would you teach kids how to build a bike?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“At Josey’s school—the boys want to build a bike. They could sell it for a fundraiser.”

“So she has a name.”

Ben bristled. He didn’t bug Billy about his lady friends and he expected the same courtesy. “You’re the one going on and on about Mr. Horton. You’re the one who talks about giving respect, instead of having to earn it the hard way.”

That was what Horton had done for Billy. He’d never held him to an unattainable standard and then punished him for not reaching it. Maybe Ben could do that for those kids. He might never get his father’s respect—but that didn’t mean he had to treat everyone else the same way. He could break the cycle. He could make things better.

“I’m talking about paying it forward. But, hey—you don’t want to help out kids everyone else has given up on? That’s your business.” He jumped to his feet and stomped toward the door.

“Now wait just a goddamn minute,” Billy roared behind him.

Ben pulled up short, making sure to wipe the victory smile off his face before he turned around. “Yeah?”

Nothing with Billy was easy. He let Ben hang for another ten minutes while he fiddled around on the trike. “Can’t have kids running around the shop.”

“They’re building a shop at the school. Josey loved the tools you kicked in.”

Another long stretch of silence. Finally, Billy said, “Can’t build a bike with circ saws.”

Grinning his fool head off would make Billy cagey, so Ben picked up the brochure. Whether his big brother knew it or not, he was easy to play.

“Yeah, you’re right. I wouldn’t be able to find the equipment. That stuff isn’t easy to come by.”

He sat back down and flipped through the slick marketing copy. The latest in top-of-the-line metal lathes had computerized balancing, accurate to 0.00001 millimeters.

Billy was muttering to himself while Ben moved on to a flyer for a new additive technology printer, which was a machine that could print a part for small businesses. So Ben didn’t build like Billy did. Even he could see the immediate value of a machine that could print out a prototype.

A plan was crystallizing in his mind. If there was one thing Billy loved, it was new and improved. On more than one occasion, he had complained about having to use the same heavy equipment that Dad had been using since the Reagan era. Crazy Horse could order some new-and-improved machinery, and then they’d donate the old-and-unimproved stuff to the school—thereby earning hefty tax deductions and the devoted love of Josey White Plume. And everyone else on the rez, but mostly Josey.

The plans took a turn away from modern technology. A vision of her on a small, sleek machine—red, like her hair—speeding down a sunlit highway next to him popped into his mind. He’d never been a flowers-and-chocolates kind of guy, anyway.

Billy cleared his throat and scratched at his beard, bringing Ben back to the here and now. “I was telling Jimbo the other day, this lathe won’t stay centered for more than three, maybe four rounds. Still got a lot of life in it, but all the extra recalibrating is a lot of downtime.”

No doubt about it, Ben had his big brother right where he wanted him. “Time is money.”

Billy trotted out his fierce look. “Don’t know about teaching a bunch of kids about building a bike, though.”

“Don’t worry about that right now. If you need some new stuff, you should have some new stuff. Top of the line, like your bikes.”

“Yeah.” Billy sounded more enthusiastic. “Been wanting to try out a few things, but on this old stuff…too risky, you know?”

“Gonna take some time,” Ben added. “Gotta move some money around, lay down some financing.” Figure out how to work around Dad. He didn’t say it out loud, but Billy met Ben’s eyes. Going around Dad instead of through him was the only way, because the old man would never sign off on something as radical as a printer that printed parts.

It would take some serious planning to pull it off, but once the equipment was here and Billy was boosting his productivity, Dad would have to agree that Ben was fully capable of making smart business decisions. Once he got over being left in the dark, that was. It was risky, but it was a risk Ben was willing to take.

“I got time.” Billy looked around, a sense of weariness sitting on him like an ill-fitting crown. “All the time in the world.” He shook it off and shot Ben an actual smile. “All this talk of building bikes—and you haven’t built one in years.”

“Actually,” Ben said, feeling the truth of it, “I was thinking about starting one.”

Billy shook his head, like he just couldn’t believe his own eyes. “This Josey must be a piece of work.”

Ben didn’t bristle this time. He was going to take his victory and run with it.

He had a lot of work to do.

*

After a weekend of frenzied housekeeping, Josey’s mom was ready. Ben showed up Sunday night with a box of chocolates and a small African violet. He said nothing about the shabby double-wide trailer that was home. Instead, he complimented Mom on how much he liked the comfortable couch and how cozy everything was. He studied the picture of Josey’s dad, Virgil, and listened intently as Mom talked about his military service.

Over a dinner of fried chicken and baked potatoes, he told them how he’d arranged to donate heavy shop equipment when they bought new computer-based tools, and how he thought it would be a good idea if his older brother, Billy, came out with him after Don got the shop finished and helped the kids build a bike they could auction off for charity.

The more he talked, the wider Mom’s eyes got as her gaze darted between Josey and Ben. Soon all she could say was, “That’s—why, that’s a wonderful idea!”

“They’ll need to be able to operate all the tools first, so it probably won’t happen this school year,” he cautioned, that hidden smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Mom shot Josey another stunned look. “You knew about this?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Ben said with a sheepish smile that was unnecessarily attractive.

He’d wanted to surprise her, something that required forethought and planning. As Mom and Ben discussed the particulars, a warm, taken-care-of feeling spread throughout Josey. This was such a far cry from Matt’s disconnection from anything tribal. That had to make it a good thing, right? After all, Ben was a problem-solver. He was doing what he did best, she realized.

But that didn’t answer the question of what would happen between the two of them when there was no longer a problem to solve. Or when the problem wasn’t something he could solve.

He could donate tools and instruments and even a bike, but he couldn’t make people accept him on anything more than a surface level. He couldn’t be a member of the tribe, no matter how generous he was, just like Grandpa had never truly been accepted by anyone other than Samuel Respects None and his granddaughter, Mary. For all his generosity, for all his goodwill, Grandpa had never been accepted. His granddaughter had never been fully accepted, despite a lifetime of trying. Would Josey ever find her place in the tribe, especially if she was involved with another outsider?

That was the problem Ben Bolton couldn’t fix. No one could.

Again, she was getting way, way ahead of herself. She shut off her brain and forced herself to stay in the here and now, because right now, Ben was the answer to a whole lot of prayers. Josey couldn’t do anything but sit in wonder at this man who had become such an important part of her life in such a short time.

Grandma had always talked about knowing she would marry Grandpa from the first time she saw him. It hadn’t mattered that she’d been six and Grandpa had been ten or that their lives were so different. She’d just known. She’d always known.

Mom had been the same way. The way the story went, she’d come home from college on summer break and had seen the young grass dancer stomping in the middle of the ring. “I believe in love at first sight,” she’d always said.

Josey watched as Ben sketched out the floor space that the donated tools would need. She’d long thought Mom and Grandma had been over-romanticizing the past, glossing over the rough times and willfully choosing to remember only the highlights. She’d certainly never felt anything at first sight.

Until now.

She didn’t know if this was love. How could she? She had no yardstick to measure it by. She’d never been in love, not really. Just that one time…but the way Matt had looked at her when she’d suggested they visit the rez had been enough for her to see that she’d been wrong.

Ben was different. Maybe she was different, too. That didn’t make it love at first sight. But it made it something.

That night, Ben stood on the front step of the trailer and, holding her hands, kissed her. Knowing that Mom was on the other side of the door, listening, had Josey blushing a hot red. She hadn’t felt like this since junior high.

“I had a nice time,” she said in as low a whisper as she could pull off. “Mom loves you.”

“Hmm,” Ben hummed, kissing her again. “When can I see you again?”

“I have to pick up some books tomorrow. But I should be able to get back into the city by Tuesday night.”

“Stay with me.” The way he said it, so serious and yet so hopeful, made her melty. Suddenly, Tuesday was forever away.

“Yes.”

“And Friday night? After practice?”

“School starts in two weeks.” She had a to-do list that was nothing short of daunting. “Will you come to the school this weekend?”

His grin was wolfish as he ran his thumb over her lower lip. “Saturday—after we wake up. I’ll have to leave by four to get to the gig in Sturgis, but we should be able to get the rafters up in the shop.”

She managed not to exhale in relief. For so long, she’d struggled to walk in both worlds. And for way too long, it had felt like a solitary struggle, one that threatened to rip her into two distinct, unrecognizable parts. But right now, she felt almost whole.

So Ben couldn’t guarantee her place in the tribe. So being with him was, in all likelihood, putting her place at risk. The fact that he was willing to work on it instead of bailing made it worth the effort.

“Sounds like a date.”

He touched his lips to hers again as his fingers intertwined with hers. The connection wasn’t sexual—heated, maybe. But there was more to it than just that.

Something more.

Josey wondered if it would be enough.