by JoAnn Ross
She’d never dated in high school, never had a boyfriend, never attended a prom. So, although she couldn’t personally relate to the YA stories filled with teeming emotion and angst, she definitely saw herself in the ones about teens growing up in dysfunctional families where dying siblings, alcoholic parents and divorce were common threads. Along with never fitting in. Those hit too close to home today.
Not being in the mood for reading about real lives, all of which would undoubtedly make hers seem excruciatingly boring by comparison, she clicked on the TV and resumed her binge watching of Grey’s Anatomy.
Four hours and half a box of tissues later, she’d gotten to the episode where, after a difficult heart transplant, after finally asking Izzie to marry him, while all alone in his hospital room (except for all the viewers, including her, who had fallen in love with the sweet, smart, hot, handsome patient for weeks), Denny succumbed to a stroke and quietly breathed his last.
As Izzie threw herself on the bed next to him, crying her eyes out, refusing to leave the room, Chelsea sobbed right along with her. Even knowing the story, there was some part of her that believed that it was somehow all a mistake, and that he’d come back to life.
The phone rang as she reached for the last tissue. Between the cold and Denny’s death, she’d gone through an entire box.
“Hey,” the familiar voice said. “I had an idea I wanted to talk over with you, but when I called the library, I found out it’s not open today.”
“We’re closed on Mondays and Thursdays.” A tear trailed down her cheek. She swiped it away with the back of her hand.
“Yeah, I got that from the recorded message. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She blew her nose with a loud honking sound that would put the wild geese that summered on the peninsula to shame. “I just have a cold.” And was currently heartbroken.
“I’m sorry.”
“It sounds worse than it is.” No way was she going to admit that a fictional character on a repeat of a TV show had turned her into a basket case. “There’s an incubation period. I may have given it to you.”
“I live in Manhattan,” he reminded her. “There’s probably not a virus I haven’t been exposed to after all these years. I’m pretty sure that I’m safe.”
“But they change. Mutate. The incubation period is three to five days, so you won’t know until then.”
“If I do catch it, I promise not to hold it against you.”
“I think it’s better if I just spend the day in bed.” Izzie was now being lifted off Denny’s bed and carried out of the room, which triggered a whole new stream of waterworks.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked after she couldn’t cover her mouth fast enough to stop the sob from escaping. Which, in turn, set off another bout of coughing.
“It’s just a code.” Huh. Apparently she’d lost the ability to say the letter l. “No biggie.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll see you later.”
“Okay. We can set up the meeting. Thanks for calling.” She quickly ended the call before she started wailing like a baby.
This is what happened when you give your heart to someone, she warned herself as Izzie had a total meltdown. It ends up being broken. It could be your sister. Your dad. Your mother. Or a wonderful fictional transplant patient who’d already been through so much that he deserved to live and have his much deserved happily-ever-after with the woman he loved.
Not that Chelsea believed Izzie to be the right woman for him, but Denny had been convinced, so she gave him reluctant credit for knowing best.
“He’s not real,” she reminded herself. “He’s merely a character out of Shonda Rhimes’s imagination.”
Yeah. Try telling that to her heart, shattered pieces of which were scattered all over the top sheet along with a blizzard of crumpled tissues.
Twenty minutes later, after turning off the TV because she just couldn’t take any more of the aftermath episode of Denny’s death in the fragile state that sadistic television writer had left her, Chelsea had just gone into the small kitchen to see if she had any honey and lemon for her sore throat when the doorbell rang.
Not expecting any deliveries, and certainly not wanting anyone to see her looking like this, she ignored it and kept digging around in the cupboard, where she was certain she had a jar of local honey from one of the hives on Blue House Farm. This particular hive was set in a field of lavender, which gave it a faintly floral taste with hints of mint and rosemary, herbs Jim Olson had told her lavender was related to.
The bell rang again. Seconds later, she heard her cell chiming from the bedroom. And ignored it. “I know I bought honey the day I was with Lily at the market.” She pushed aside a bag of flour, thinking that perhaps it was hiding behind that. No luck.
Apparently giving up on the bell, whoever it was began knocking. Didn’t they get that she wasn’t going to answer? Her annoyance rising, she was pulling the bag down when it slipped from her hands onto the counter, split apart and sent flour flying everywhere. At the same time her landline, which she kept because cell signals were iffy in this part of the country, began ringing.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FRUSTRATED, AND COVERED in flour, she snatched the receiver from its base on the counter, not recognizing the number. “Who is this?”
“It’s me.”
Just that. No name. Not that she needed one. She’d dreamed of that voice crooning sweet nothings to her while they made love in a Viking faering anchored in Serenity Cove.
“I’m sorry, but I’m a bit busy here.” She sneezed, creating a new cloud of flour.
“Can you take time to open the door?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m outside.”
“No. I can’t let you in. I already told you, I’m contagious.” She was also wearing pajamas printed with ice cream sundaes. Not to mention the flour all over the front of them, in her hair and undoubtedly all over her face.
“I’ll take my chances. I come bearing soup.”
“Soup?”
“Chicken noodle from Luca’s. It’s his nonna’s recipe.”
Damn. The man didn’t fight fair.
“I also have cold medicine. And the 50th Anniversary DVD of Charade.”
“Where did you find that?” Blockbuster had closed years ago, there was only a single rack of rentals at Marshall’s Market and she sincerely doubted he’d brought the romantic suspense comedy with him from New York.
“After Brianna told me it was your favorite movie, I called my mom. She always made us watch old movies when it was her night to choose. I figured she’d have this. Because it’s a classic.”
“Wasn’t that handy? Did you ever think your sister’s trying to set us up?”
“It occurred to me.” She could hear the shrug in his voice.
“And you’re not bothered by that?”
“Not particularly. I’m only bringing soup, cold medicine and an old movie. I’m not asking you to wear my class ring.”
It wasn’t a letterman’s sweater, but it was close enough to have her uneasy that they were thinking along the same lines. He’d be so much easier to resist if he were more like horrid Greed-Is-Good Gordon Gekko.
She heard voices, a brief conversation, on the other side of the door. “That was your neighbor,” he said. “Wanting to make sure I wasn’t harassing you. If you don’t let me in, we’ll start drawing a crowd.”
“Or you could leave.”
“But then you wouldn’t have the chicken soup. Which is supposedly not only good for your soul, but also for colds.”
“I’m beginning to understand why you’re so successful.”
“Because I’m always right?”
“No.” She sneezed again. A second time. Then a third. “Because you won’t take no for an answer.”
“Tha
t’s because I’m always right.”
Before she could answer, she heard another voice, this one a female’s. Then his baritone response, followed by a girlish giggle.
“That was your landlady,” he informed her of what she’d already figured out. “She thinks I’m very sweet. And a hottie. Her words, not mine.”
“Mrs. Moore is in her eighties. And I don’t want to burst your bubble, but while you may be good-looking, in a Black Irish way, she also hits on the UPS guy when he’s wearing his brown summer shorts. Along with the college kid delivering pizzas to earn college money. She’s an equal opportunity flirt.”
“I imagine it helps keep her young. My grandparents have been married for decades, but I dropped by the house one morning and noticed that my grandmother had put on fire-engine red lipstick before going out to Luca’s pasta making class at the senior center. But I’ll take your compliment.”
“It wasn’t a—oh, damn.” Realizing that he wasn’t going to go away and they were definitely going to soon be drawing a crowd, she marched over to the door and flung it open. And felt that same skip of her rebellious heart and those butterflies start fluttering their wings again. But since last night, they’d turned into great blue herons like the ones that nested at Herons Landing. “You might as well come in.”
“Thanks.” Her already-tiny foyer seemed to shrink even more when he entered. He also took the air out of the room, making it difficult to breathe. Even dressed in jeans, a black Mannion’s Brewery T-shirt and work boots, the man radiated a masculine charisma that probably drew women to him like a magnet.
Don’t think of that! Blaming her stuffed-up head for that uninspired simile, as those gray eyes swept over her, she remembered what she must look like. “I had a flour bag mishap while searching in the cabinet for honey.” She combed her fingers through her bed head in an attempt to somewhat tame it, which only succeeded in sending up another cloud of flour.
“I could go to Marshall’s and get a jar.”
“No. It’s in the cupboard somewhere. I bought it at the farmer’s market with Lily. She’s a friend and library volunteer who’s in charge of marketing at the college. But you don’t need to know that.”
Some women would undoubtedly be struck speechless by such male beauty. And yes, Gabriel Mannion somehow managed to be beautiful and manly at the same time, which really wasn’t fair. But for some reason, he had the exact opposite effect on her because her mouth kept getting ahead of her brain whenever she was around him.
“Are you laughing at me?” His lips were doing that quirking thing again.
“Did you hear me laughing?”
“No. But you could be doing it on the inside.”
“I could be. But I’m not. I was thinking you look cute.”
“I’m not certain I believe that. But even if I did, do you happen to recall me mentioning that cute is not my favorite description?”
“Sorry.” His gaze skimmed over her flour-dusted pajamas. “How about sweet? And tasty.”
She suspected none of the women he’d been with in New York wore ice cream sundae pajamas. Which made her wonder, yet again, if she merely represented a summer novelty to him. Which was even worse than being cute.
“I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Neither was I last night. Yet there you were at my dock. And here I am at your door.” His eyes drifted to her lips. Then darkened as if she wasn’t the only one who remembered him kissing her senseless. “Why don’t you go back to bed,” he suggested. “I’ll bring you the soup, some tea, and clean up the kitchen.”
Wanting, needing to maintain equal power in whatever this relationship they seemed to be developing turned out to be, Chelsea was about to inform him that she’d been doing just fine by herself, thank you very much. But the aroma of Luca Salvadori’s nonna’s chicken soup, and the idea of having someone else clean up that dreadful mess she’d made proved unreasonably tempting.
“Thank you. Though, if you catch this cold, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’ll take my chances. And if I do catch it, maybe you could bring me soup.”
“I suppose I could do that. But only if you give me the gate code. Because I’m not rowing across that lake again.”
“It’s a deal. I don’t suppose you happen to have one of those white nurse’s outfits with the lacy white stockings handy? Just in case.”
She rolled her eyes. “That is so outdatedly sexist.”
“Ouch. I think you just called me old.”
“The word I used was outdated.”
“That’s even worse. It makes me sound as if I’ve passed my sell date. So I take it that’s a no?”
“A definite no.”
He sighed. Dramatically, the hand that wasn’t holding the bag covered his heart. “I’m crushed.”
Despite her stuffed-up sinuses, her burning eyes and sandpaper throat, Chelsea was almost enjoying herself. “I’ll tell you what.” She patted his scruffy cheek. “If we’re ever in Paris and you rescue me from a would-be metal-handed assassin, like Grant does Hepburn, I may, just possibly, consider the nurse outfit. Meanwhile, what you see is what you’ve got.”
Changing the teasing mood on a dime, his gaze moved slowly from the top of her white-dusted hair, down to her fuzzy black-and-white whale slippers. Then back up to her face. “I like what I see just fine. Including the slippers.”
Oh, damn. She would have to be wearing those. “We had a slumber party for preschoolers at the library last month. I bought these on a whim because I love our orcas and they fit the theme of the day.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, making her wonder if he found them as silly as, despite his compliment, her pajamas. Why, oh why wasn’t she wearing something lacy and sexy from The Dancing Deer’s lingerie department? Oh. Maybe because she didn’t own any lacy, sexy underwear. If she was going to indulge in a summer fling, she’d definitely have to do some shopping. But as much as she believed in supporting local business, she’d have to buy online, rather than risk the news that she’d bought a barely there lace thong and push-up bra showing up on the town’s Facebook page.
“Do you have a TV in your bedroom?”
“I do, despite the fact that they’re supposedly bad for sleep.”
“Good.” He handed her the DVD. “Get into bed. I’ll bring in the soup and medicine.”
His tone had turned almost tender. Like when she’d told him about her dad’s call, and all the backstory behind it. Heaven help her, he was getting to her. And not merely because after last night’s caveman sex, even on the brink of possible death from a cold virus that could be mutating into pneumonia at this very minute, she had an urge to jump his bones.
The undeniable truth was that he’d touched something inside her. And wasn’t that far more dangerous than his ability to hand out orgasms as if they were dark chocolate truffles and he was the candy man?
“Damn. I just realized that I forgot to buy tea,” he said. “Mom and Brianna always drank it when they got sick. I imagine they still do.”
“I have tea.” She pointed toward the set of tea tins formed to look like old books she’d received from Mrs. Henderson as a graduation gift upon receiving her MLS.
“Super. What kind do you want?”
Despite a head filled with cotton batting, Chelsea felt reckless, as she too often did around him. “Surprise me.”
That challenge hanging in the air, she raced back to her bedroom and began madly gathering up the blizzard of Kleenex. Deciding she didn’t have time for a shower, she stepped into the stall just long enough to brush the flour from her hair and pajamas onto the tile floor and decided that she could wash it down later. Hopefully the mix of flour and water wouldn’t turn to library paste and clog up the pipes. Her heart sank as she looked in the mirror and saw that she looked even worse than she’d feared. After brushing
her teeth for the second time that morning, she washed the flour off her face, then tugged a brush through her tangled hair, which was sticking out as if she were auditioning for the role of Doc in a Back to the Future sequel.
“Well, at least you’re not going to have to fight him off,” she told her reflection. “Even a cave-dwelling Neanderthal probably wouldn’t be turned on by you right now.” She considered putting on lipstick, but decided she didn’t want him thinking she’d gone to extra trouble just for him. But a little pink-tinted ChapStick wouldn’t hurt, right?
After smoothing out the sheets that had tangled during her erotic dream, she stuck the DVD into the player and managed to climb into bed seconds before he arrived in the doorway.
“Okay if I come in?”
“Could I stop you?”
He shook his head. “It always surprises me that women don’t know how much power they have over us lesser, mortal men. Which, in turn, leads me to wonder why you haven’t taken over the world yet.”
“Yet being the operative word. How do you know that we’re not planning the ovarian uprising as I speak?”
“You sure as hell couldn’t do worse.”
As he entered, carrying a tray, Chelsea couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a man in her bedroom. Oh, wait. It had been after last year’s public employees’ Christmas party in the Friendship Hall when, not wanting to be totally alone for the holidays, she’d allowed a cute rookie fireman to talk her into letting him come over afterward. Not that it had taken that much talking. He’d been fun, ridiculously fit and energetic, and she’d enjoyed herself enough to go out with him two more times. Then, when he’d shown warning signs of getting serious, she’d broken it off. Fortunately, he’d bounced back quickly. A week later, she’d seen him playing darts at Mannion’s with the owner of Rain or Shine Books.
Chelsea knew from therapy that her unwillingness to commit stemmed from having lost the three most important people in her life during such formative years. But the head and heart weren’t always the same and although she understood, intellectually, that the odds of everyone she might ever love leaving or, worse, dying on her were slim, the protective stone walls she’d built around her heart were tall and thick.