Storming the Castle (Dale Series)

by Arianna Hart

  But they definitely weren’t heading that way tonight.

  Faith stood by the door with a laundry basket of neatly folded clothes and a grocery bag.

  “Here you go.” He ripped off the sheet of paper and left it on the table. “Thanks for dinner and the clean clothes.”

  “Anytime.”

  As he took the basket and bag from her, their hands met and she sucked in her breath. She was just as affected by the energy that sparked between them as he was. Seizing the moment, he leaned down and captured her mouth with his.

  For an agonizing few heartbeats, she froze. Just about the time he’d decided he’d made a huge mistake and she was going to boot him out on his ass, she groaned and melted into the kiss.

  Her lips softened, and he sucked the lower one into his mouth, nibbling lightly. Finally, he was tasting her, and it was better than he’d imagined. Heat slammed into him and his pulse throbbed in his veins. Their hands were trapped on the laundry basket between them, so he couldn’t touch her, bring her closer, or even feel her body against his. Their only contact was lips to lips and still, it was hot enough to singe the air around them.

  He shifted, trying to maneuver around the basket and pull her close, but she had a death grip on the blue plastic barrier.

  “Why don’t you just put that down,” he murmured against her lips, trying to pry it away.

  “What? Oh. Oh.” Faith shoved the basket at him and scurried out of his range. “I, um, I, oh. Um, good night. I’ll let you know when I’ve got your groceries.”

  Somehow, he found himself on the other side of the door, standing aroused and alone on the porch.

  Well, shit. There was nothing else to do now but go back to his cottage. He wasn’t going to pound on her door like some lovesick teenager. Hell, he’d never been lovesick even when he was a teenager. The taste of her lingered on his tongue, like the sweetness of summer berries. He wanted more of her than just a taste. He wanted all of her, again and again. Not just her body, but her laughter and her sighs, too. And those thoughts were not helping him calm down at all.

  Sexual frustration was just one more sensation he’d forgotten about over the past five years.

  It was also one he could do without.

  The sun had sunk low in the sky while they were having dinner, and in the twilight, he could hear the sounds of the nocturnal animals getting more active. He was in no way ready for bed. Maybe he’d take his guitar down to the clearing he’d spotted on one of his rambles.

  When he got back to the cottage, he put the chili in the almost empty fridge and his clothes in the equally empty dresser. Just as he was reaching for his guitar, his phone rang. It was Dave.

  A wave of dread washed over him, and his finger hovered over the voicemail option. It wasn’t the first time Dave had called, or even the second or third. He knew Dave would keep calling until he finally answered. Might as well get it over with.

  “Hey, Dave, how’s it going?”

  “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for days. Where you been?”

  “Around. The cell service isn’t the best out here in the sticks.” Liar. There was a cell tower he could see from one of the trails.

  “I’m sure. You must be dying of boredom out there. Are you ready to head back to Cali yet?”

  “Not quite. What’s up?”

  “Nothing big, I just wanted to see how you were doing and if you needed anything. See how the album is coming along and how you’re feeling.”

  “It’s coming along. I’m working on a song now, as a matter of fact. I feel good. Better than I’ve felt in a while.” Or at least he had felt better until he answered the phone.

  “Good. Great. So when do you think you’ll be done?”

  What the hell? He’d only been gone two weeks. Did Dave think songs sprung out of thin air? He was creating something, not assembling a bookshelf, for God’s sake. “It’s hard to say. I have the place to myself for another month or so. Why?”

  “No reason. I’ve just been fielding calls from folks who want you to do some promo spots and charity events.”

  He had nothing against charity events. He did close to a dozen a year, but right now, he didn’t want to give up his hard-won peace. “Do me a favor, write them a check for double what I normally give. I need this down time, but I don’t want to screw them over, either.”

  “Sure. The record label’s been asking about your progress, too. They have some studio musicians they’d like you to try out.”

  “Can we talk about this later, when I have something for them to play?”

  “Absolutely. So, there’s one more thing. Bridgette. She’s been asking for you.”

  “You didn’t tell her where I am, did you?” The last time he’d seen her, she’d slapped him across the face, and every tabloid in the world had it on the front page.

  “No, man, of course not. She’s called a few times wanting to see you. There are noises from her camp that she wants to get back together.”

  “Trust me, if I never see her again, it’ll be too soon. Don’t tell her where I am. Don’t even hint. We’re not getting back together. You can tell her that if she keeps bothering you.”

  “Are you trying to get me slapped?”

  “Good point. Tell her over the phone. Preferably from another city.”

  “You got it. I’ll hold down the fort here in L.A. you just keep working on that album.”

  “I will. Thanks for keeping everyone off my back. This break is what I needed.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  He tuned out whatever else Dave had to say and rushed him off the phone as quickly as was reasonably polite.

  Fuck. Why did he answer the damn phone? He’d gone from drifting in a haze of sexual frustration but overall contentedness to keyed-up anxiety. Any urge to create was crushed under the pressure Dave reminded him of.

  A drink would help you relax, whispered a sly voice in the back of his head. His mouth watered at the thought of a shot of Jack. He could almost feel the burn and then the smoky glow.

  No!

  He didn’t need to rely on alcohol to relieve the pressure. Before he could change his mind and reach for the car keys, he changed into shorts and sneakers and headed out into the woods.

  After a hike uphill in the dark, he wouldn’t want anything to drink but water.

  …

  Faith finally gave up trying to sleep at five in the morning. She’d tossed and turned all night, reliving the kiss and imagining what she could have done differently. The pull of attraction had been there through the whole meal, but she’d thought she’d done a good job of ignoring it. Then, wham. He laid one on her, and she melted into a puddle of lust.

  She’d be lying to herself if she said she hadn’t imagined kissing him a hundred times over the last two weeks. He was sexy, had a wry sense of humor, and smelled fantastic. Any woman with a heartbeat would want to kiss him, and she didn’t even put up a token protest. It would have been only that, a token, but at least she wouldn’t have fallen at his feet like ripe fruit. Where was her pride? God, he must have thought she was easy pickings. She wasn’t stupid. She knew he was a musician of some sort, and he had to be successful if he had a manager and a crap ton of money. He was probably used to women taking one look at him and dropping their panties.

  And boy had she considered it. It wasn’t like she didn’t know him, really. Women had sex with guys they met at bars, and she’d known Sam for two weeks.

  Two whole weeks. Yeah, sleeping with a guy you’ve known less than a month is so virtuous. I’m sure Momma would be proud. And really, what do you actually know about Sam besides he’s hot, knows how to do laundry, and can kiss the brains right out of your head? That’s not exactly something to build a relationship on.

  Whoa, hold on. Who said anything about building a relationship? He was a renter who was going to leave in six weeks. A renter who was probably used to gorgeous women throwing themselves at him. They had nothing in common, and there was no
future in even daydreaming about him. So he’d kissed her, big deal. That’s all it had been, a kiss.

  But what a kiss.

  Instead of crawling into bed with him, she broke out the vacuum cleaner and got to work. The store wouldn’t open for a while yet, but that didn’t mean she had to sit and stew. There was nothing like scrubbing toilets to kill a libido.

  By seven, the house was sparkling, and she’d had to take a shower and change her clothes. Lists in hand, she let Sadie inside the house and climbed into her truck. All was quiet in the direction of the blue cottage, and she refused to let her gaze linger on the path to it.

  He’d be gone in six weeks, that wasn’t so long to resist this crazy sexual pull.

  Sure.

  She started the truck, sending up a quick thank-you to God when the engine turned over without a hitch, and headed out to the main road. She’d hit the store in Canton and swing by the post office on the way back. She’d been avoiding the post office ever since she’d gotten the letter from the Prentices. It was ridiculous to avoid a place in the hopes of avoiding bad news, but she just couldn’t seem to get over it. Piper was Matthew’s child, and the tests would prove it. Faith couldn’t understand why his parents were suddenly so interested in her. It didn’t make sense. What could they possibly want? Every time she thought about it, her gut churned and she started to panic. It was fine if they wanted to see Pip and get to know her. But if they thought they had any say in how Faith was raising her daughter, they were in for a big surprise.

  Nadya had told her not to worry, that she would handle things, but Nadya wasn’t a family lawyer.

  “Stop getting worked up over things you can’t control. Just take it one day at a time.” She had to repeat the pep talk all the way to Canton. It was so much better to be busy. Driving by herself left her too much time to worry. When Piper was in the truck with her, she talked so much there was no way Faith could think, forget worry.

  The warehouse club was almost deserted this early on a weekday, which was just fine with her. Faith wheeled her enormous cart through the doors and pulled out her lists. For little things, she could go to Mary Ellen’s store, but with the amount of food and paper products she went through during the busy season, she needed the warehouse club to stay stocked up.

  Unfortunately, there was always something not on her list that caught her eye. It was hard sticking to the budget when there were so many things going cheap.

  Like that ceiling fan.

  Faith knew she shouldn’t, but the carriage almost wheeled itself over to the display. The lights of the ceiling fan were shaped like pink, blue, and purple flowers, and the paddles were shaped like green leaves. It would be perfect in Piper’s room. She’d been rehabbing a chandelier she’d found at the flea market, but this would be something completely new. She could always put the chandelier in the reading nook.

  It wasn’t too expensive, if she stretched her budget a little she could fit it in. Without another qualm, she wrestled the box into the cart. Luckily, she had a cushion with Sam’s hermit money. She could afford to spoil her baby just a little. It was only a ceiling fan, not a pony.

  And not that perfect white day bed with matching trundle bed. Oh man, she could picture exactly where it would go in the room, too. And the slide out trundle would be great for when Emily slept over. Pip’s current bed was another hand-me-down from her parents’ hay loft. Faith had cleaned it up, but it was still pretty old and worn. The white daybed would look fantastic against the pale green she’d picked for the walls.

  It absolutely wasn’t in her budget. Not even if she bought nothing else but Ramen Noodles. Yet, somehow, as she loaded her purchases onto the belt at the checkout, she found herself asking the clerk, “I was interested in the daybed you have displayed. How do I go about getting that?”

  Her common sense scolded her the entire ride home, but that didn’t keep the smile off her face. Maybe it was time she lived a little instead of worrying about every nickel and dime she spent. So the fridge would have to wait a little longer. Her baby was getting the room of her dreams.

  Her head was buzzing with ideas right up until she backed the truck up to the porch and realized she had no way of getting the box into the house.

  Idiot.

  The workers at the store had loaded it into the back of the truck, but now what? She could probably call Bill or J.T., but they couldn’t drop everything because she was a fool.

  Faith kicked at a stone in the driveway, trying to figure a way out of the fix she’d gotten herself into.

  “Need a hand?” Sam asked from behind her.

  Heat shot straight through her, and her knees went weak. She’d done her best to keep him out of her head all day, and now he was right here and she had to face him.

  You play, you pay.

  “That would be great. I have your groceries in the passenger’s seat, but if you could help me get the big box into the house, I’d really appreciate it.”

  “I thought you were going grocery shopping?”

  “I was. I did. It’s just, I saw this bed for Piper’s room, and I had to have it. It’s way out of my budget, but I just wanted her to have something new for once.” She was babbling, but she couldn’t stop herself. It wasn’t like he gave a crap that she blew her budget, she didn’t have to justify herself to him.

  “I get it. You love your kid and want to do something for her. That’s not a bad thing.”

  “I know. But money’s been tight for so long, splurging like this feels wrong. If I can get the red cabin fixed up in time, I’ll be able to have more guests, and what I spent on the bed will be nothing.”

  “See, it’ll all work out.”

  “It will. I’m going to have to wait on that mural I wanted to order, though.”

  Sam didn’t say anything as he grabbed one end of the box containing the bed frame. Faith scrambled around the bed of the truck to grab the other. It wasn’t terribly heavy, but it was really awkward. It didn’t help when Sadie barked and ran in front of them.

  “Outside! Sadie, outside,” Faith shouted as the big dog almost knocked her over.

  “Where do you want this?” he asked.

  “Up the stairs, on the family side of the house. Piper’s room is the first room on the left. It’ll be easier if I put it together in the bedroom so I won’t have to move it later.”

  They wrestled the box through the kitchen and up the stairs to the family area of the house. By the time they got into Piper’s room, both of them were sweating.

  “Just put it there against the wall. I’ll take care of it after I finish painting the room. No sense assembling it if I’m going to have to cover it up anyway.”

  He didn’t answer, just grunted as they placed the box on the floor. “Is this where you’re going to put the shower curtain?” he asked, pointing to the corner by the window.

  “Reading nook, and, yes. I have a chandelier I rehabbed to hang there, too. Although I was originally going to use it as the overhead light. It doesn’t have a cord. Crud. I didn’t think of that.” Faith’s spirits sunk just a tiny bit.

  “If you buy the parts, I can add a cord, no problem.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. I went to a technical high school and could have been an electrician if the music thing didn’t work out.”

  “That would be awesome. I don’t know how to thank you. I can fix a lot of things, but I’ve never been great with electrical work.”

  “I’ll take a look at it later and see what parts I need.”

  “Thank you so much. I don’t know how I can repay you.”

  “Tell you what, if you keep inviting me over for dinner, we’ll call it even. That was the best damn chili I’ve ever had.”

  “Deal. I don’t like eating alone anyway.”

  He took a step toward her, and Faith’s pulse skyrocketed. His eyes held a glint of mischief that sent heat arrowing between her legs. Her mouth went dry and other parts of her went wet. If he kissed her again,
she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop him this time around. The pep talk she’d given herself that morning flew out the window as her body reacted to his nearness. Her hormones were still raging from last night, and every female part of her was screaming for her to move closer instead of standing there frozen.

  “The groceries. They’re sitting in the sun. We should get them before they go bad.” She bolted past him and down the stairs as fast as Piper usually did.

  Coward.

  Sam’s heavier tread followed more slowly behind her. “I separated your things into a bag, but I think it’s buried in with the other stuff. If you give me a few minutes, I should be able to find it.” Faith grabbed the handles of the reusable grocery bags she used for her shopping runs and bustled by him into the house.

  “I can help.”

  “No, I’ve got it, really.” Didn’t he realize he made her as jumpy as a cat? She dropped the bags on the counter and almost ran into Sam as he came in with a stack of paper towel rolls and two more bags.

  “Where do you want these?”

  “Just put everything on the counter, I’ll sort it all out later.” She went back out to the truck, giving him a wide berth. Her hands shook as she hauled out the ceiling fan box.

  “Here, let me get that. You can get the rest of the bags.” Sam’s fingers brushed hers as he took the box from her hands.

  “S-sure.” Such a simple touch, and it had her heart beating double time. This was insane. How could he turn her into puddle of need just by taking a box from her? Had she ever felt this much want?

  Even after everything that happened, she felt disloyal realizing no, she hadn’t felt this level of desire before.

  “Will you put that in Piper’s room, too?”

  “Got it,” he answered and headed up the stairs.

  Faith tried to get her scattered thoughts in order while he and his testosterone-oozing presence were away. He was helping her unload groceries for heaven’s sake, not doing a striptease. She shouldn’t be feeling this churned up.