“You have an office across the way?” Could things get any better?
A smile flickered. “I suppose part is office—if you could call it that. Mostly it’s my home.”
She lived next door? His body tightened. He’d see her daily. If he wanted to. And, God help him, but he did. Very much.
She turned in a small circle, viewing the hollow rooms. “Are you planning to be the village’s first lawyer?”
His mouth twitched. “Is that better than being the village’s first idiot?”
She chortled. “Hey, if the shoe fits.” A rosy hue touched her cheeks. “Sorry, scratch that. Sometimes I run off at the mouth.”
He tucked his hands into his pockets. “I like pilots who run off at the mouth.” Especially pretty ones like yours.
“You wouldn’t be referring to my rambling during our time in the air the other day, would you? Because all I wanted was to keep you from jumping out the door at five thousand feet.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “And you did a fine job, Captain Tait. I arrived home in one piece, which made my son immensely happy.”
Those keen eyes sobered. She looked away.
“What?” he asked, sensing a subtle change in her demeanor.
She shook her head, glanced at the window. “I should be going.”
“You were thinking about what I told you. About my family.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. He knew the information was in her mind. And she pitied him.
“I don’t need your emotional charity, Lee,” he said. “Or anyone else’s. That’s not why I moved here.”
“Why did you move?” she asked softly.
“To make a new life.” And then he understood. “Ah. You think I came to escape.”
“What I think is moot. We all have our reasons and means for escaping the ugliness of life. Is yours better or worse than mine?” A shrug. “Look, I have to get some paperwork done.” With a small smile, she held up a clipboard he had missed. “See you around.”
She was out the door before he could move.
“Wait.”
Key in her door, she shoved it open. “You don’t need to explain, Mr. Matteo. Your life is your business and I have a habit of intruding.”
He shook his head. They were on the tiniest stairwell landing in existence. Emanating from her hair was a blend of sea, sunshine and strawberry shampoo. And those golden freckles on her cheeks…His fingers flexed at his sides, craving a simple touch.
“First,” he rasped, voice alien to his ears. “It’s Rogan. Second…You’re right. About everything.”
Her gaze hung on his. Her lips parted with a soft breath.
He wanted to kiss her, more than he’d wanted to kiss a woman in a long, long while. His head bowed, moved in the direction of her mouth. He could hear the hitch of her breath, feel it strike his chin. A current arced between them, hot and searing and electrifying.
“Rogan,” she murmured. “No.” The word came as softly as the hand she laid against the pocket of his shirt, where his heart thrummed. “This is wrong.”
“Wrong?” The heat of her singed his lips.
With a slow headshake, she edged back. “We’ve barely met and…I’m not looking for someone right now.”
Right now. Did that mean she’d be receptive later? The question whirled in his mind as he studied her features. She had the most beautiful eyes. Wide and dark-lashed, which seemed incongruous to her fair coloring. Upon closer examination, he realized black rings circled her irises, tiny barricades defending green gems.
Lifting a hand, he touched a nest of freckles on her cheek.
Her throat worked. “I need to prepare for my next flight,” she said hoarsely. And then she was gone, inside her apartment, and he was staring at the peephole in her door.
Chapter Four
L ee leaned against the door and worked to measure her breathing.
He’d nearly kissed her. She nearly let him.
What was she thinking? She was pregnant, for God’s sake! With another man’s child, a man she honored and loved as a friend. Okay, on that last night the friendship had transferred into a “with benefits” situation, but they’d also talked about marriage. Afterward.
Oliver had asked if she would ever consider tying the knot again and she’d told him only with the right man.
Not that Stuart hadn’t been the man. He had—until her inability to conceive or bear a child erected a barrier between them. Until the misery in Stuart’s eyes caught the attention of another woman, a woman he’d married immediately after his divorce from Lee, and who had given him a child seven months later.
So much for true love.
And then there was Oliver.
How could she have even considered kissing Rogan?
Yet, her imagination bloomed with his taste, texture, heat and an involuntary tingle ran up her thighs.
Stop it! He’s a road to nowhere. One she was determined to avoid. Never mind that he had issues, linking her to her ex-husband in the worst possible way: pilot error. A fact she’d suspected for years, suspected deep in her core.
On a slow inhalation, she let another truth seep in, let herself adapt to the realization that he would be her neighbor. The man across the hall.
Fourteen days ago the renter had been a woman, a reclusive environmental artist. Two years and Lee could not remember hearing a sound next door.
Intuitively, Lee knew Rogan would make himself very accessible in the office two steps from her threshold.
Palms to her burning cheeks, she walked across the diminutive apartment, her shoes quiet on hardwood that undulated with the season’s temperatures. She would make some tea. Peppermint, to ease her stomach.
A knock sounded on her door. Rogan?
Looking through her peephole Lee saw the distorted face of Lucien Duvall, Oliver’s father.
Surprise had her blinking. What did he want? The man rarely spoke to her. Even during childhood when she’d played with Oliver, Lily and their friends, he had avoided her.
She didn’t need a rocket scientist to explain the senior Duvall’s feelings toward her, and figuring out why had long since grown wearisome. She didn’t understand his reasons, she didn’t understand him. Still, she had no intention of opening herself up to ridicule. Growing up, she had heard enough ridicule about her mother.
Straightening her shoulders, she swung the door open.
Large and bulky in a navy storm coat, Lucien glared at her with pale blue eyes from the stairwell’s muted light. Like ice, she thought.
“Lucien.”
His hand jerked up and she took a backward step. “I found this,” he said. “I think it’s yours.”
Lee dropped her gaze to his broad, work-hardened fist. A fist strangling a pink silk scarf. She had looked everywhere for the dainty accessory. Between Lucien’s thick fingers the fabric looked wispy as smoke.
“Thank you.” She took the wrinkled scarf. “Where—”
“In my son’s truck. The glove compartment.”
“Oh.” Then she remembered. Remembered the night Oliver had taken her for a drive to the other side of the island. The night before he had gone back to Iraq. She had worn a belted green shirtdress and arranged the scarf above her collar. When talking transferred to kissing, Oliver had removed the scarf, inhaled its scent, her scent, and stored it in the glove compartment. I want to take it with me, he’d told her. I want something of you there.
That he’d forgotten the scarf sent a fierce pang through Lee.
“Only one reason your clothes were in his car,” Lucien growled.
“What?” Lee blinked.
“You heard me. You’ve wanted to get your hooks into my son since you was a kid.”
“Lucien—”
“Don’t think I was blind to what you were up to, Missy.”
Lee squared her shoulders. “We were adults.” She glanced at the door behind him, Rogan’s door—which her neighbor had yet to close completely. Was he listening on the ot
her side?
The old man’s eyes grew frigid. “Don’t know what Oliver ever saw in you.”
She tried to laugh. “To be honest, neither do I. But he was a wonderful friend. I’ll always miss him.”
He jerked as if slapped. “You’re not good enough to miss him.”
Before she could acknowledge the cruel remark, her neighbor’s door swung wider and Rogan stepped to the threshold. “Trouble?” he asked mildly.
Lucien gave Lee a slit-eyed look, then thundered down the stairs and slammed out the ground-level door.
Lee whistled a breath. “Welcome to Burnt Bend.” Vying for a lightheartedness she didn’t feel, she asked, “Sure you still want to live and work in our community?”
Rogan set a gentle hand against her cheek. “Wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else.”
“Then you’re braver than most.” She turned into her apartment, turned from his touch, the one that had her wanting to press herself into the protection of his big, sturdy chest.
He followed her across the landing and into her doorway. “Lee, who is he to you?”
“Nobody.” Just the grandfather of my baby. A man who would likely hate her forever when she gave him the news. She tossed the scarf carelessly beside the telephone.
“I don’t like his attitude.”
She walked to the teapot that continued to steam on the counter. “He has a right to an attitude. He lost a son two months ago in Iraq.”
Rogan closed the door and walked into her kitchen. “I can empathize,” he said quietly. “Still doesn’t give him the right to intimidate you.”
“He didn’t intimidate me.” From the curio, she selected the ten-inch-tall Limoges teapot, her favorite in her heritage collection. “Would you like a cup of peppermint tea?”
“Sure.” He moved closer. “This is serious business, Lee. Don’t make light of it. I defend victims against people like him.”
“I’m not a victim, Rogan. You know nothing about me. I was born and raised here. I know these people, know where they’ve come from, where they’ve gone. I know their grandmothers and great grandmothers. I know who stole from whom, who screwed whom figuratively and literally, who went to jail, who hates broccoli and who made the Fire High cheerleaders because she had the longest legs and knew how to display them.” She took a breath. “It’s a small island. I know Lucien Duvall.”
“Then why are you shaking?”
“I’m not.” Rather than admit he was right, that Lucien had gotten to her, she forced her hands to steady and held out a teacup and saucer. “Look, if I need a lawyer I know where to get one.” She attempted a grin and failed. “Would you like a snack? I made a banana-nut loaf yesterday.”
His fingers grazed hers as he took the teacup. The familiar gentleness entered his eyes. “Couldn’t pass up anything homemade.”
She busied herself preparing two slices, cutting him a thicker portion, aware he stood five steps away, aware how much his height and size shrunk her common space.
“Who’s Oliver?” Rogan asked.
Lee paused. So he had heard the exchange on the landing. “Do you always eavesdrop on people’s conversations?” she replied irritably.
“I didn’t eavesdrop. At least not until he raised his voice.”
Lee relaxed. Only in the last few seconds, as he spoke Oliver’s name, had Lucien nearly vibrated with anger. Her heart softened. She, too, had raged when Oliver died.
Rogan set his teacup on the counter and she handed over the plate, and watched him bite into the banana bread with an “mmm” of pleasure at the taste.
“Oliver was a close friend,” she said. Her throat squeezed at the void his death left, not just in her life, but in Lucien’s who lost his only child.
“How close?”
Her eyes shot to his. “Close, okay?”
“Sorry.” He looked at the scarf, its gossamer fabric partially concealing the telephone. “Don’t know why I asked. The past isn’t…Look, forget it.”
She wished she could. “Apology accepted.”
With a nod, he set the empty plate on the counter beside his untouched tea. “Thanks for the snack, Lee. It was delicious.”
“Would you like some for your son?” she asked before she could think through how her offer would appear to a man who had almost kissed her thirty minutes ago. Who, fifteen minutes ago, had touched her cheek and left a brand she felt still. Whose presence ate the air in the room.
For the first time since he entered her apartment, his mouth curved. “That’d be great. Danny loves bananas.”
Moments later, she saw him to the door, the remainder of the loaf wrapped in foil and stored in a plastic container.
“I’ll get this back to you tomorrow,” he said, nodding to the container.
“Keep it. I have a drawer full.”
He paused on the threshold. “Lee, if there’s anything you need—”
“I know where you’ll be.” She pushed him gently onto the landing, the muscles under his shirt strong and warm and inviting. Her hand jerked away. “Let me know if Danny likes the treat.” And then she closed the door and flipped the lock.
What was she thinking? If Danny did like the treat, would she bake him another?
Yes, of course, she would.
Staring at the chinaware Rogan had used, she placed a hand against the tiny mound of her stomach. How could she not bake for a child if he asked? Wasn’t that part of motherhood?
Except at this stage she wasn’t really a mother. Was she? She didn’t feel motherly. She felt…tired.
And irritable. Because, God forbid, anything could happen in the next seven months. Well, standing here whining about it wasn’t getting her anywhere.
In the kitchen she began rinsing the dishes. No stress, Lily had said. Right, Lee thought. Maybe she ought to call the good doctor, tell her about the baby’s grandfather inferring Lee was a slut, and the man across the hall looking at her as if he wanted to get in her pants.
Heck, in comparison, fitting Sky Dash into her life—and her expanding midriff—between now and her due date in October would be a cakewalk.
At seven the next morning she headed for the shoreline trail for her regular Saturday walk with her sisters. With the advance of Addie’s pregnancy, their pace had changed from running to brisk walks. Still, she loved these exercise sessions with her sisters. After returning to Firewood Island, she felt closer to Kat and Addie than she ever had in their childhood.
Today, fog whispered over the trees and across the tiny cove, bringing with it dew drops that clung to every surface in sight: budding leaves, blades of grass, stones, pylons and the pier.
Dressed in black yoga pants and a rose-colored sweatshirt, Lee headed for the mouth of the shore trail near her plane. Ahead, the fuzzy gray shapes of her sisters stood waiting.
After hanging her head over the toilet bowl thirty minutes before—she’d forgotten to take her meds—she hoped the cool morning air and the ginger ale in her water bottle would settle her stomach.
“Sorry, I’m late,” she said, starting up the path at a steady pace. “How are you feeling this morning, sis?” she asked Addie.
Her younger sister grunted. “Like I’ve been pregnant forever.”
“Not forever.” Kat fell in step on Addie’s other side. “Just nine more weeks.”
“Well,” Addie grumbled. “Feels like eternity. All I have to do is look at Skip and I get pregnant.”
Lee chuckled. “You’re just a highly fertile woman around him.”
“And so damned horny it’s not even funny.”
Kat burst out laughing. “Oh, honey. That was so me when I carried Blake.”
“It was?” Lee asked, surprised.
“Really?” Addie chimed in.
“Oh, yeah. I was climbing into Shaun’s lap every chance I got. Poor man was exhausted by the time Blake arrived on the scene.”
“I would’ve never guessed,” Lee said. “If I recall, you were such a demure little homemaker bac
k then.”
Kat snickered. “Well, you know what they say? What goes on behind closed doors and all.”
A pensive lull fell as they walked on, the trail spongy with pine needles beneath their feet.
Finally Addie said, “When I was pregnant with Becky I’d cry myself to sleep sometimes because I wanted Skip so bad.”
“Oh, Ads.” Lee set an arm around her sister’s shoulder and hugged her close. Kat wrapped an arm around Addie’s waist and, for a short distance there was only the hush of the forest and their soft tread on the trail. Lee imagined they were all remembering Addie in high school—pregnant—and Skip off playing in the NFL. Little did anyone know it was Addie’s father and Skip’s who’d worked to break the bond between the teenagers, who had their daughter Becky adopted. To this day, the memory still put Lee’s pulse rate in an uproar.
It was pure luck, she thought now, that Skip found Becky, and now he and Addie have the life they’ve always wanted.
“Well, then,” Kat said finally. “So much for our sex lives—what’s new on the Rogan Matteo scene, Lee?”
“Who’s Rogan Matteo?” Addie wanted to know.
Lee scowled at Kat. “Just a guy I’m flying to the mainland for a few days,” she said, feigning indifference.
“Oh, the one Skip met last Monday at the Renton seaplane dock?” Addie asked.
“Lee has the hots for him.”
“Kat,” Lee exclaimed. “Will you stop? Next you’ll have me marrying the guy.”
Her sister’s eyebrows bounced. “Now there’s an idea.”
“Oh, for crying out loud.”
“Hey, the man’s educated, he’s got a solid career and a son, who—you have to admit—gives Rogan Matteo a huge edge on responsibility. On top of that, he’s pretty darn easy on the eyes.”
“Whoa,” Lee protested. “If he’s so great, why aren’t you trying to catch him? He is renting a cabin fifty steps from your back door.”
“Because he’s not my type. If you recall, I like the brawny blue-collar type. Besides, he’s moving into the old Riley place today. And you found him first.”
Lee felt her heart kick. In twenty minutes the trail would wind past the ocean side of the Riley property. “You’re talking as if I found some hidden treasure,” Lee grumbled. “And have you forgotten? Your husband was hardly blue-collar. He had a degree in marine biology.”
And Baby Makes Four Page 5