Pops' Diner, an Anthology [A Pops' Girls Anthology]

by Laura Hamby, Meg Allison, Shara Jones

  He almost couldn't wait to get to the newspaper office. And to think that when the attorney hit him with this bombshell, he'd felt like his world had just imploded.

  Now the idea didn't seem quite as fraught with such distaste as it had, and the added benefit of having Tamryn Miller to clash with put the whole situation into a new perspective.

  But first, a private detour to renew acquaintances seemed to be in order.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Tamryn Denise Miller, I'm about to give you what you've wanted and needed for some time,” Kendall flashed a quick grin and reached across the gearshift console to give her knee a gentle squeeze.

  Her back went ramrod stiff, her mouth dropped open, and shock put her mouth into gear. “Okay, so I know it's been awhile since I've had a serious relationship. Actually, it's been at least a year since Mark and I broke off our engagement, but you couldn't know that just being in town such a short while and all in all, I've been too busy to—,"

  "I wasn't referring to your love life, Tam. I meant I'd give you what you wanted regarding the newspaper,” Kendall chided. The sad look he sent her way didn't disguise the quiver of his lips. No doubt caused by amusement he didn't suppress very well.

  "Oh."

  Her backbone lost its stiffness as she tried to melt into the leather of his luxurious car seat. She wondered glumly if this expensive car came equipped with an ejection seat la super spy hero. Her fingers traced over the console searching for such a button of their own accord.

  "However, I'm not opposed to rectifying your lack of a love life either, but sadly, business first.” Kendall lightly tapped the steering wheel before he commented, almost too casually, “This is the first I'd heard of your engagement. Mark?"

  "Mark Wells, the attorney,” she replied. That had nearly been a huge mistake on both their parts, and fortunately, both she and Mark had realized it before any lasting damage had been done. Theirs was a friendship never destined to bloom into the deep, enduring love that Tamryn craved.

  "Why did he break it off?” Kendall's jaw hardened and a muscle twitched.

  She froze at the harsh growl in his voice. A hopeful quiver started way down low in the center of her body. Be still, foolish heart. He was just venting in the indignant posture of a friend. Not that he cared as a potential suitor might.

  "I broke it off. It wouldn't have worked between us,” she replied lightly. While Kendall's concern was flattering, she needed to change the subject from one she'd put long behind her. “You drive well. I hadn't realized just how well."

  Kendall's hands and feet shifted with the agility of a racecar driver as he gave his attention to the winding country road. The fluidity of his motions caused Tamryn to imagine those same hands moving with purpose and sureness over her naked body. It was nearly orgasmic to imagine the subtle flex of his fingers as he coaxed a response from her as easily as he made his expensive road monster purr.

  "Hands, Tamryn. These are called ‘hands',” Kendall said in a bland voice. He lifted one well manicure hand from the steering wheel and wiggled the digits under her nose.

  Heat blazed across her cheekbones with an intensity she could feel. “I know what hands are, Kendall,” she replied in what she hoped sounded repressive. Unfortunately, it sounded more on the breathless side. Damn it.

  "Well, you were staring at them like they were a new invention."

  "Shut up.” Nice one, Tam. Vintage elementary school retort.

  For protection against her sudden lunacy, Tamryn sat up and glanced around at the scenery passing outside her car window.

  "I've lived here all my life and this only seems vaguely familiar. Where are we?” Tamryn angled around in her seat to see the view from Kendall's side. As realization grew, a memory rose and solidified and her breath caught in her throat.

  Kendall glanced at her from under hooded lids. “I thought you might actually remember the swimming hole. Of course, it has been years."

  "Oh, I remember the swimming hole just fine. A girl doesn't forget her first kiss. I'm afraid the stars I had in my eyes at that time hid the actual route we took to get here."

  Kendall's gaze sharpened. “First kiss? Tamryn, I was seventeen at the time and you were all of eleven."

  "You kissed me, you cradle-robber. I remember it distinctly. Right smack dab on my forehead.” Tamryn pointed to a spot above her eyebrows before she gave a dramatic sniff and sigh.

  Kendall slowed the car and guided to a halt under a shady canopy of large oak trees that grew along the bank of the river.

  Silence reigned inside the car as each sat in contemplation. Tamryn watch the gentle undulation of a leaf as it bobbed on the water's surface before the current carried it from view. Much the same way that life had carried those earlier painful, and sometimes, bittersweet memories away.

  "Your parents had left you the day before at Ma Baxter's for what we'd find out later, would be the final time."

  Tamryn shifted in her seat and gave a small sigh. “I'd been left so many times before as they went off to save this endangered species, or help the homeless, or whatever was the next big cause, and I remember wanting to scream, ‘but what about me?'."

  Tamryn plucked at a loose string on the hem of her cotton shirt. “Then I'd look up at Ma Baxter and know that I had a home when I was with her. No more living in the van, moving from one driveway to another across the state. I lived for the new school year because that would mean that I'd get to live with Ma Baxter for the next nine months."

  "I was just a kid myself, but the stoic way you accepted your parents’ hugs and kisses before they drove off nearly killed me. You stood there, skinny little kid with raveling braids and band-aids on both knees, and you calmly watched them drive away.” Kendall's voice took on a lower timbre as if the memory had happened to him, rather than to her.

  "You brought me out here the day after we found out they'd been killed in the car accident. You kissed me when I cried."

  "I'd never seen you cry before. You were the toughest kid I'd ever known,” Kendall said gruffly.

  "The only other time I can remember crying was when Ma Baxter died.” Tamryn swallowed hard and willed the tears away. She also crossed her fingers against her lie.

  There was another time that she'd cried. She'd been twenty-three when Kendall had left Glen Meadow for the last time. Things had changed between Tamryn and Kendall that year. After he'd railed at her, he then avoided her and broken her heart.

  "Mom actually called me in Beirut to tell me when Ma Baxter passed on. That's probably the one and only international call Mom ever made. She thought a lot of you, Tam. For all her stoic ways, she approved of you."

  "That's nice to hear. Your mother was always good to me. She didn't like many folks, so to hear that she was partial to me is something good to hold on to.” Tamryn gave him a tight smile. “But I don't think you brought me out here to reminisce, did you Kendall?"

  "No, let's sit out here at the picnic table."

  Tamryn watched as he strode around to her side of the car and opened her door. With a hand under her elbow, he assisted her from the passenger seat and steered her towards the picnic area by the water's edge.

  A gentle breeze lifted tendrils of hair from her face, and set her ruffled memories to wing. The call of birds from the trees and the soft lap of the water against the bank lulled her and a peaceful calm settled over her. The close proximity to Kendall and those old memories had made her feel a bit off-center.

  "I need to know what you want to do regarding the newspaper. What it is you think that I can do.” His low-pitched voice carried on the breeze to twine around her.

  Tamryn walked slowly towards the wooden table and perched on the tabletop, rather than on the attached bench. To sit at the table while Kendall towered over her would put her at a further disadvantage.

  "Dwight was all a-fire at one time to sell, then in the last few months, all he'd say was the matter would shake out as it would. Maybe you could talk with him and fin
d out why the mystery. It's hard to make a plan if he won't tell anyone what's going on. This isn't like him. I'd hope that you coming home might loosen his tongue. I'm convinced that he's only been waiting for you to return. Why is that?"

  "I came here to settle mom's estate and recoup at bit. I've come for another reason, but we'll get to that. I understand why Dwight would feel that way, though,” Kendall informed her. Only the sound of the birds chirping and the soft snapping of the dried twigs he broke between his long fingers broke the silence between them.

  "Then tell me so I can understand."

  "I'm not ready to do that."

  "I don't understand, Kendall. You brought me out here to tell me that you aren't going to help after all? I thought you said you were going to give me what I wanted? All I want is to keep the paper from being sold to an outsider or folded altogether. I thought we could brainstorm and come up with a solution. Can you give me that?” The words felt like ashes in her mouth. Lies. Lies always left a burnt, cindery taste in her mouth and in her stomach.

  The newspaper wasn't all she wanted. She wanted Kendall Reed. She had since he'd brought her here all those years ago and kissed her with all the awkwardness of a seventeen-year old comforting a child.

  But just as it had been all those years ago, the gap between the things she most desired and what she settled for hadn't changed. Back then she wanted to be as important to her parents as their social causes had been. She'd had to settle for being special to Ma Baxter and the townsfolk.

  She could want Kendall until the stars winked out of existence but she'd have to settle for something much, much less.

  She'd save the paper. The town was counting on Kendall to do that, and he'd made it plain he didn't intend to. Tamryn had known all her life Kendall Reed wouldn't be the paper's salvation. Which is why she became a journalist. She'd pay the town back for taking her in and giving her a home when she so desperately needed it. Maybe someday, Kendall would run out of road and realize that all roads eventually lead back home.

  To her.

  "I brought you out here to find out what you really want. Is that all you want, Tamryn? The newspaper? Are you sure?” Kendall moved forward and gently cupped her face between his warm hands.

  Her heart pounded until she could hear her blood singing in her veins. A kiss from Kendall. A real kiss. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Would this make her unrequited love even more painful to bear, or would this provide a tiny bit of a balm to soothe her heart when he left again?

  "I'm sure I want you to kiss me.” She heard her voice say the words that she'd kept locked deep inside her heart for so long. She nearly strangled on her sharp intake of breath.

  "Then I'm going to kiss you. I'm going to kiss you until we both forget why we came here today and discover a new reason. Tamryn Denise Miller, I'm about to take what I've wanted and needed for some time."

  Tamryn wondered for a nano-second before his warm lips settled over hers, whether anyone had ever actually expired from an infusion of too much happiness.

  Kendall's kiss that she'd clung to all these years fled from her memory banks as he imprinted a searing kiss on her lips and in her heart. His long fingers speared through her hair to cradle her head in his hand. So trapped, he slanted the angle of his head and deepened the kiss. His firm, warm mouth covered hers; his tongue entangled with hers. Passion soared between them and her soft sighs mingled with his low-pitched growl.

  She felt bathed in a passion she'd never experienced. Her senses were on overload, but instead of breaking away, Tamryn grabbed a handful Kendall's sun-warmed hair and pulled him closer.

  Yes, yes, yes, the rhythm of her heart pounded.

  Stop. Stop, now, Tamryn, the voice in her head demanded.

  Too many unanswered questions.

  Too much, too soon.

  Kendall must have sensed her wavering, because with one last sweep of his amazing tongue and a quick succession of nipping kisses on her already kiss-swollen lips, he rested his dark head against her forehead.

  They stood without talking until with a huff of resigned breath, Kendall lifted his head to look into her eyes.

  "Tamryn, something happened yesterday that threw me for a loop. It concerns the future of the newspaper.” Kendall gave her a lopsided grin that had more in common with a grimace than an expression of happiness. “I arranged a meeting with the Bugle staff. I wanted to talk with you, first. Mostly, I just wanted to spend time with you. To kiss you the way I've wanted to kiss you since that morning at Pops,” Kendall admitted.

  He ran a gentle fingertip across her cheekbone and trailed it down to touch her lips as his words settled between them. “I hurt you three years ago. I have no excuse. I'd seen too much and I'd hit overload. Then you bounced up—all fresh-faced, innocent, and raring to go. I unleashed all my pain and disillusionment on you. I'm more sorry than I can ever express."

  "I recognize we have something between us that we're both old enough to deal with. Is that what this afternoon is all about? Kendall, are you planning to stay? I'm so confused."

  "I'm confused too, Tamryn. And damn it, when you look at me like that, only one or two things do make sense. Tabling that for the moment, the deal is about the newspaper. As much as I don't want to be involved, you have to understand that whatever I get involved with, I give it my all. To the bitter end. I have a reputation in my field, hard-won, and not something that I'm willing to give up, even under my present unemployed circumstances. Do you still want me wrapped up in the future of the Bugle?"

  "I understand, Kendall, and I do want you as a big part of the newspaper. Oh, Kendall. I don't know what changed your mind, but this will be so great,” Tamryn launched herself off the picnic tabletop to wrap her arms around Kendall's lean waist. She could feel tears start behind her eyes as she tried to assimilate the future.

  "Before I commit to anything, Tam, I want to talk with the staff. My plan rests on a few factors. Not the least of those factors rests on you."

  "On me? Of course, I'll do whatever needs doing to ensure the paper continues on."

  "I know that, Tamryn, but I'm talking about something more than that. I'm talking about coming home. To Glen Meadow. To something much bigger than the paper. Can you see where I'm going with this?"

  Tamryn's heart pounded in her chest. Too much to assimilate. Surely, he didn't mean ... her? She stood stock-still. “Kendall?"

  "Tamryn,” he breathed, before his hard, warm lips claimed hers again.

  Lost. Found.

  She couldn't discern her emotions anymore. Kendall wanted her. That she did know.

  For how long and in what capacity, she had no clue. She could only cling to him. Return his kisses with all the pent up longing and love she'd kept for him all these years.

  Kendall gently disengaged from the passion of their kiss, leaving nibbles and nips on her lips as a reminder. “We have so much to talk about, Tamryn. But for right now, we need to settle the business of the paper."

  With a wobbling smile, Tamryn spun away and pressed the heels of her hands against her face in an effort to contain her emotions.

  Kendall planned to stay. He planned to help her. He wanted her. What more could she want?

  Kendall Reed, in her bed, naked and sated with his dark head on the pillow next to her.

  That would do.

  For a start.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Breathe in, breathe out. Everything is going to work. Kendall is going to stay. Tamryn clamped her hands around her seat cushion and gritted her teeth. As much as she thought she wanted this, now that it had happened, she felt less sure of herself than she had in years.

  Kendall Reed, in a cooperative and friendly mood had been her goal, so now that the man showed every intention of acquiescing, why did she feel the internal urge to shrink away?

  Liar, Tamryn Denise Miller. Liar.

  She felt the near overwhelming urge—desire—to launch herself from her seat into Kendall's lap and try at leas
t a half a dozen of her imagined seduction scenarios from last night on him. Relentlessly, and to the point of mutual exhaustion, that's what she really felt inside.

  Not to mention a healthy dose of confusion. She stole a surreptitious glance at his profile. Oh. My. God.

  Huge mistake.

  All the erstwhile lusty thoughts that had swirled around in her brain melted to pool between her thighs. It only took a single look at his profile, to cause such a reaction.

  The corner of his eye remained crinkled from his earlier laughter, and traces of his continued humor caused his lips to turn upward and beg for a kiss. A kiss she greatly wanted to plant. Just there. One more time.

  Tamryn's tongue darted out to moisten her dry lips. She tried to slow her breathing before she burst into a full out pant. Before she'd managed to reign in her emotional hunger, Kendall chose to return her stare, a second too quickly for her to rip her gaze from his face. He'd seen the covetous look on her face by his suggestive, heat-inducing chuckle.

  Embarrassment warred with confusion for top honors in her day of emotion upheaval, but only for the space of a few heartbeats. Rather than to slouch down in her seat like some bewildered maiden, Tamryn decided to strap on her proverbial warrior shield instead. Ma Baxter would be cheering.

  "Fine. So now you know. But setting aside that line of thinking—for now, can you clue me in on your plan?” Tamryn swiveled in her seat and settled her shoulders more comfortably as she faced Kendall. She felt a little ting of gratification as the lift of his eyebrow told her that he'd duly noted and accepted her sensual challenge. Accepted it, and filed it away for the time being.

  "You surprise the hell out of me, Tam. But, as you say, time enough for that line of thinking later. As for what this is all about, I'd rather wait until all concerned are gathered. I only want to do this one time.” Kendall's earlier amusement faded as the usual lines of his hard-angled face settled back into place.

  Gone were the crinkled lines of humor from around his eyes. Instead, a grimmer look grew.

  Angled as she was, she leaned her head against the leather seat back and watched the expressions of his face change in tune to his thoughts. Although she knew he was completely aware of her scrutiny, he never did more than give her a single speculative look before he focused on his driving.