The light glinted off his brown hair. He looked positively edible in an ancient, worn-out Portland Pintos sweatshirt , and worn denim jeans that lovingly caressed the parts of him Heather would most like to lovingly caress herself
He walked until he was directly across from her; then leaned his very fine backside against the porch railing, with his arms crossed. “I wanted to get some paperwork done. I keep getting interrupted during the day, and I thought I’d be the only one here tonight.”
He looked pointedly from the laptop to Heather, and asked with a raised brow, “Are you working on a Saturday night too? I’d have figured you’d be dancing the night away in some club in D.C. with that bartender.”
Heather furrowed her brow. “Bartender? What bartender?”
“The kid from the party last weekend.”
She shook her head. “Kyle? I told you, he’s just a school friend.”
He jerked his head to her sweatshirt, which she’d thrown on over her T-shirt and leggings, when she’d made the now fateful decision to come and sit on the porch. “George Mason University. Is that where you’re going to school?”
“Yep. I’ve been commuting there for years, but I’m finally going to graduate this spring—if I can concentrate enough to finish my paper.”
“The Heather I knew wouldn’t have been doing a paper on Saturday night.”
She felt a flash of anger at his words. “The Heather you knew was seventeen years old, for God’s sake! You’ve changed since then, why do you seem to think it’s so impossible I have too?” She ignored the little voice in her head reminding her she had just been wishing she were out burning up a dance floor tonight.
Heat flashed in his eyes, and it didn’t have anything to do with anger. A smile curled up his beautifully formed lips. “Believe me, Heather, I have been noticing all week how you’ve grown up. I didn’t mean it as an insult. I always liked how full of life you are.” A smile played at the corner of his lips. “You might not have noticed, but I tend to be a little on the serious side, and you brought a lot of fun into my life back then.”
Flummoxed by his words, and the honesty in his eyes, she was speechless—a rare occurrence for her. She took a sip of her tea and tore her searching gaze from his face.
Perhaps realizing he wasn’t going to get any kind of response from her, Mick said, “Think that swing will hold up if I get on too?”
“Sure, Jeff sits on here all the time and you’re about the same size as him.” She wanted to smack her forehead as he eased onto the seat beside her. Why didn’t she tell him no? His mighty weight would surely pull the swing down. But, no, her innate honesty did her in again, and now Mick was pressed against her in the cozy confines of a swing built with romantic trysts in mind. He felt good beside her too—all hard, masculine heat.
They rocked for a little while; the only sound was the creaking of the swing.
Mick was the first to break the silence. “Why are you studying here? You don’t live here do you?”
“No. I live in an apartment over my sister Deidre’s café, you know, the Nosh Pit?”
“I didn’t know your sister owned it. I had lunch there this week.”
“With Gloria Peterson. I know.”
He frowned. “I forgot how fast news travels in a small town.”
Heather wanted to warn Mick about Gloria, the woman was a gold-digging man-eater, but she didn’t want to appear jealous. Instead, she answered his earlier question. “I’m babysitting Sam tonight. She’s up in her room on the phone, probably talking to Gloria’s kid, they’re BFFs. I thought I’d come out here to work on my paper, but it was so peaceful I decided to just have a cup of tea and enjoy the quiet.”
“And then I showed up.”
“And then you showed up.” Heather took the final sip of her tea and stopped the swing with her foot to put the mug on the porch. Before she could get up, Mick pushed off, and with the squeak of his giant sneaker on the wood porch they were swinging again.
“It’s been good working with you this week, Heather. You’re really great at your job. Jeff wasn’t kidding when he said you’re the person who keeps the Retreat rolling.”
She turned her head to him and blinked in surprise. If her brother felt like her work was so crucial to the Retreat, why was Mick the one being offered the chance to become a partner? She knew she should be angrier with her brother and Cisco—and they did get a fair share of the blame—but the man in front of her was the one taking what she’d earned, and she was surprised he was complimenting her. Was her playing her in some way? Her voice was equal parts shocked and cold when she said, “Thanks.”
He turned too, and their faces were just a breath apart. Heather’s heart stuttered in her chest.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised I paid you a compliment.”
She turned away to face forward and stared into the night. “I don’t know what to think about you, Mick. I thought maybe you were being sarcastic.”
“No. I’m serious; you’re really great at your job.”
She was close enough to see the muscles in his jaw working overtime.
“While I’m being serious, Heather, I wanted to apologize to you.”
Ha! He knew she deserved the partnership more than he did, and felt guilty about it, if the haunted look in his eyes, and the tight lines bracketing his mouth were any guideline. Heather frowned as she realized he looked too anguished to be talking just about work. Maybe he was talking about something else.
“Apologize for what?” Heather asked.
“For what went down between us eleven years ago.”
She took a deep breath. “You mean the way you shunned me like we were Amish, and you’d caught me using a light bulb?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”
Huh. It wasn’t about work after all. She frowned, unsure she wanted to discuss the more emotional issues of their past, rather than their current situation, of which he appeared to be as oblivious as her brother and Cisco. Men! They could be so frustrating in their cluelessness.
She peered at him through narrowed eyes. It looked like he was clenching his jaw again, which made his cheekbones look even sharper than usual. Damn the man for looking so sincere. And handsome. But it was the sincerity making her say, “Okay, thanks.”
He rolled his neck, and she heard an audible crack. “I’ve always been really ashamed of my behavior.”
“You should be. If you didn’t want to see me anymore, why couldn’t you have told me in person? Why the shunning?”
He paused before speaking, and when he did, his voice was rough. “I didn’t trust myself to be alone with you and not keep my hands off you.”
“Not generally a concern when you’re dumping someone, so why were you drop-kicking me, if you still felt so attracted to me you couldn’t even be alone with me long enough to break up with me?”
“It was because I still felt attracted to you.” He gripped the arm of the swing so hard his knuckles were white and Heather feared he’d snap it off. “Jesus, Heather, why didn’t you tell me you were only seventeen fucking years old?”
Her jaw dropped as she gaped at him. “You knew I was seventeen. I didn’t feel the need to tell you.”
“See, that’s the thing. I didn’t know.”
“You knew I’d just graduated from high school. How old did you think I was?”
“Eighteen—about to turn nineteen.”
She shrugged. “I was seventeen about to turn eighteen, what’s the big difference?”
He laughed once, but without a trace of humor. “About twenty years.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You were underage. If we had done the wild thing, I could’ve been arrested. Not to mention what it would’ve meant for my career.”
She shook her head sadly. “Wow. All those years of wondering why, what I might have done wrong, and it was something so stupid?”
“Stupid?”
She punched his arm, a
nd the wall of muscle she found there made it feel as if she’d hit a stone wall. “Yes, stupid. We weren’t having sex. There’s no law against a twenty-two year old and a seventeen year old hanging out with each other.”
“You know it’s where we were headed. Our attraction was like a runaway train; there was no stopping it.”
“When did you realize I was seventeen?”
“I was at practice; you’d brought Sam by to see Jeff.”
“I remember,” she whispered. Hearing him describe the day when he’d broken her teenaged heart, tore at her guts, but she didn’t stop him. She’d waited a long time to hear why he acted like such an ass, and as much as reliving one of the worst moments of her life hurt, she prompted, “What happened on that particular day? Everything was fine up until then.”
“I know. I was so psyched to see you there I was staring at you like the lovestruck horn dog I was, and the guys starting busting my balls about it—saying Jeff was going to kick my ass, and the ever popular ‘once a hillbilly, always a hillbilly’ taunt, because I was hot for such a young girl. Then one of them said ‘seventeen will get you twenty,’ meaning twenty years in jail.”
“But why didn’t you talk to me about it? I turned eighteen less than two months later; we could have cooled things down until then if you were worried. Why the silent treatment?”
“That’s the part I’m ashamed of, and what I’m apologizing for. I was young, too, and stupid. I would handle you differently now.”
She turned and his face was close enough she could smell his minty breath. “Oh yeah? How would you handle me now?”
“Like this,” he said, before closing the distance between them and pressing his lips to hers.
The heat that had been simmering between them all week erupted into a full-blown inferno, and at her soft moan, Mick groaned and pushed his tongue into her mouth to claim it. He pulled her onto his lap and the thin, black fabric of her leggings provided no barrier to the hardness she felt beneath her bottom. Feeling his reaction to her drove her wild with eleven years of pent-up desire for this man.
She felt said hardness jerk as it grew impossibly harder, and she twined her arms around his neck. She slid her hands up to tangle in his silky hair. And when she felt one of his big, strong hands slip under her sweatshirt to cup her breast over her lace bra, she thought she might explode in a fireball of hot, wet lust.
“Aunt Heather? Where’d you go?” Sam’s voice called from inside the house.
She pulled her kiss-swollen lips away from his and touched her fingertips to them in wonder. She cleared her throat before she answered, “I’m on the front porch, Sam.”
She slid off Mick’s lap and picked up her teacup with an unsteady hand.
“Okay! I’ll be right down,” her niece shouted.
Mick looked pointedly at the bulge in his jeans. “Mind if I borrow your laptop to hide this from your impressionable young niece?”
Heather laughed, but it even sounded shaky to her own ears. “Feel free.”
He picked up her wafer-thin computer and put it on his lap, just before Sam flew out the front door. The screen door slammed shut behind her.
“Hey, Mr. Evans…um…I mean, Mick. I didn’t know you were here.”
“I just came by to get some work done.”
“Oh, okay. Aunt Heather, I’m off the phone, so can we make popcorn and watch the movie now?”
“You bet. Why don’t you go get us a couple of sodas, and I’ll be right in to pop the corn.”
“’Kay!” Sam ran back into the house.
Heather took a deep breath. If Sam hadn’t interrupted them, Mick and she would be seriously rocking this swing right now. What was she thinking? Mick Evans was the only man she’d ever let close enough to touch her heart—to break her heart, and it happened without the two of them having sex. If they were ever to cross that line, she’d be way too vulnerable to the man who’d hurt her so badly in the past. Not to mention all the issues in their present—he was her boss for Pete’s sake.
She smoothed her hair. “I’ve got to go in. Now that the coast is clear, may I have my laptop?” She balanced the mug in one hand, and reached for her computer with the other.
He handed it to her reluctantly. “Heather…”
His deep voice sent tingles to places in her body she didn’t want tingling any more tonight. “Good night, Mick,” she interrupted with finality, before going into the house and using her hip to shut the door firmly between them.
Chapter 6
“To our first dinner guest in our new home.” Francisco tilted his beer bottle at Mick before taking a drink.
“Jeff and Maggie are having Sunday dinner at his mom’s, but they’ll be over for dessert,” Bethanne said with a warm smile.
A baby’s cry sounded through the baby monitor, and she jumped to her feet. “Excuse me, gentlemen, it seems as if someone wants his dinner now.”
Cisco watched her go with a loving grin, and then turned back to Mick. “I noticed you working closely with Heather this past week, and I’ve been wondering. How are you handling it?”
Mick took a hasty swallow of his beer to stall for time. “What do you mean ‘handling it’?”
“Please, meu amigo,” the amiable Brazilian said with a kind smile. “I know about your history with Heather.”
Mick choked on his mouthful of beer and sputtered. “How do you know about my history with Heather?”
“The way you two circled each other back in Portland? C’mon, everybody knew there was something between you.”
“Even Jeff?”
Cisco shook his head. “No, not Jeff. He still thought of Heather as his baby sister and he seemed incapable of realizing she had big-girl feelings for you.”
“We never…you know…”
“Made love? None of my business, meu amigo, but even without sex, things seemed pretty intense before it all crashed and burned. Is it awkward working together now?”
“Awkward? Yeah, you could say that; I thought I was fixing things between us last night, but I think I made things worse.”
“You saw Heather last night?”
Mick nodded. “I stopped by the office to get some work done…”
“On Saturday night?” Cisco interrupted. “Jeff and I are not slave drivers; you don’t have to work on Saturday night.”
“I know. I just want to do the best job I can for the two of you. I really appreciate the opportunity you’ve given me.”
Cisco smiled and shook his head. “Always the hardest worker; always trying to prove yourself. Where does that come from?”
Mick shrugged. He knew Cisco came from humble beginnings too, but he wasn’t about to lie down on the sofa and spill his guts to Dr. Francisco Freud.
When the silence between them made it clear Mick didn’t intend to answer, Cisco said, “Forget about all the other stuff. What did you do to mess things up with Heather last night?”
Mick leaned forward, rested his forearms on his thighs, and dropped his head. “I kissed her.”
Cisco’s dark eyes bugged out of his head. “What were you thinking? Jeff is going to rip you a new asshole! And you’re her boss!”
Mick swung his head back and forth. “I know, man, I know. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
“Are you two dating now?”
“No. I don’t know what’s going on between us.”
“How did you leave things last night?”
“We didn’t talk at all. Heather was babysitting Sam, and she had to go back in the house. She ran off the porch like her hair was on fire.”
“Do you mean you two were making out on the porch like a couple of horny teenagers while Heather was babysitting?”
Mick nodded and groaned.
Cisco shook his head and said with a frown, “Remind me never to ask you two to sit for baby Cisco.”
****
Heather sat in the back seat of her brother’s truck and watched him drive to Cisco’s
house one-handed, while his other hand clasped Magda’s on the center console.
She was happy Jeff finally found love, after many years of loneliness.
She really was. And Maggie was the best—the perfect woman for Jeff—but Heather couldn’t deny the pang of envy she felt when she saw them in an unguarded moment, like this one. Holding hands, because they couldn’t not touch each other, and it wasn’t just passion between them. There was a deep, abiding love and respect Heather wanted to share one day with a man.
Her life was full and happy. She was crazy about her family and friends, and they adored her in return. She was good at her job and, as an added bonus, she enjoyed it; she was about to, at long last, finish her college degree. She had really expected to be offered a partnership in the Retreat after her graduation. She worked so hard on the business from its very inception; to her at least, it seemed like the natural next step. Apparently it was not so obvious to her brother and Cisco, who offered the potential partnership to Mick, of all people. Her natural optimism strained to focus on the positive, and she thought how lucky she was to have a job, lots of her fellow graduates didn’t, let alone a job she liked as much as she enjoyed her job at the Retreat at Rivers Bend.
She looked out the window at the flowering cherry trees in full bloom, which lined the driveway to Cisco and Bethanne’s house, and wondered anew at the beauty of Virginia in the springtime, and felt fortunate about living here, too.
Yep. Her life was pretty darn good. It was probably selfish of her to want someone to share it with, hell, who was she kidding? She didn’t want someone to share it with; she wanted to share it with Mick. Ever since he’d walked into church last Sunday, like a somber storm cloud, her emotions had been in turmoil.
She wished she could just hold on to her old anger at him, but working together this week had reminded her of how smart, funny, and at his core, kind he was. And that kiss last night? Oo la la! The fire between them was just as hot as it was eleven years ago. And while she would accept his apology for her own sake, she couldn’t quite forget the pain, or feel his explanation wasn’t good enough. Not to mention the small fact he was her frickin’ boss now, and soon to have a stake in the business, which by all rights belonged to her. Stop thinking about it. There was no place for negativity on this sunny afternoon.
Love is Lovelier Page 5