by Cindy Gerard
Lazy and content, they sat at either end of the sofa, their feet propped on the low pine table, an empty popcorn bowl sitting between them on the cushion.
The reminiscing had started about an hour ago. The grins had been mellow and frequent. The debates heated.
"The one that really, really did it," she was saying after an hour of comparing pranks and get-even schemes they'd pulled on each other over the years, "was that announcement you made over the school PA system. I thought I was going to die of humiliation. Attention student body—" she made a megaphone of her hands and mimicked his words "—it has come to our attention that someone has stolen Maddie Brannigan's box of Kleenex. Whoever is responsible, please return them to her immediately so she can put the bumps back in her sweater."
"I was inspired," he said with a lofty sigh and a self-satisfied grin.
"And I was mortified. Do you have any idea the teasing I suffered? Being fourteen and flat-chested was tough enough, yet you managed to make it unbearable."
"I did my best." Pride tinged each word. "Besides, it wasn't like you didn't have it coming."
"Oh, yeah." She snuggled deeper into the sofa, her scowl replaced by a smile of unbridled accomplishment. "I guess I did get you pretty good the week before, didn't I?"
"Pretty good?" He lowered a dark brow and glared at her. "Pretty good?"
She sighed in satisfaction for a job well done as she crossed her ankles, laced her hands over her abdomen and chuckled. "You were a sight when I got through with you."
"And all on the pretense of making nice," he sputtered, remembering how she'd invited him over to try out their new hot tub. He'd been happily soaking up the bubbles, eyes closed in decadent bliss when she'd slipped out of the tub and dumped a whole package of purple dye into the water.
"I was lavender from head to toe for a month."
"Yeah, you were. It was great. Watching you suffer through that was worth the month Mom and Dad grounded me."
"If I remember right, you missed the homecoming dance because of it."
She shrugged. "I didn't have a date, anyway. Unlike you. Rat that you were, you were busy juggling Amy Coogen, Candy Jones, and—let's see—"
"Rachael Gordon," he supplied helpfully and drummed an open hand over his chest to pantomime heartthrobs.
"Right. Good ol' Rachael. Big heart. Big chest. Big easy. Whatever happened to her, anyway?"
"After I dumped her and broke her heart, you mean?"
She snorted indelicately. "Yeah. After that."
"I think I heard that she married a gynecologist from Landers and had her fifth kid a year or so ago."
She angled a look his way. "Lots of the old gang are settled with families. Some of them on their second marriages already."
"Yeah," he said, thoughtful suddenly. He rose, opened the fire screen and eased another wedge of wood on the embers. When the flames caught hold, he settled back on the sofa and propped his feet next to hers again on the table.
For long moments they watched in a companionable silence while the fire crackled and spit. He smiled at the "Home Sweet Home" sampler hanging on the stone above the mantel. His mother had cross-stitched the sentiment when he was just a little boy.
"Why is it that you've never gotten married, Maddie?" he asked, giving her toes a gentle nudge with his. "And don't tell me it's because no one's ever been interested. I happen to know better."
Uncomfortable with the question but unaccountably pleased that he was interested, she just shrugged. "Mr. Right has yet to come a-knockin'."
"And this Mr. Right, what would he be like?"
She eyed him to see if he was baiting her. Deciding he was genuinely interested, she shrugged again and gave his question some serious thought. Unsettled when she realized that all the qualities that came to mind started and ended with a description of him, she made herself do a reality check and a little hedging. "I figure I'll know him when I see him."
He shifted his hip until he was facing her, his elbow buried in the sofa back, his jaw propped in his palm. "Come on. You can do better than that. Tell me. What's a guy have to do to win Mad Dog Brannigan's heart?"
She didn't quite have it in her to bristle but she did give back as good as she got. "Well, for starters, Banana Boy—"
"That's Banana Man, to you," be interrupted with a grin she couldn't help but return.
"Okay, for starters, Banana Man, he'd have to be someone who doesn't call me Mad Dog."
Without remorse and without missing a beat, he pressed for more. "And for enders?"
She didn't like where this conversation was going. It was too personal. Too private and too close to her heart. "There is no such word as enders."
"We're not playing Scrabble. Just answer the question. What's important to you in a man? Money? Power? No family history of male-pattern baldness?"
"Unlike some people who will remain nameless—" she sent a meaningful glance his way "—money, power and looks aren't important to me."
He snorted. "And the sky isn't blue."
"I mean it," she insisted. "Integrity is important. And loyalty. He'd have to be someone I could trust and depend on."
"Like a Boy Scout?" he suggested gamely. "Or a basset hound?"
"Like a decent person. And he'd have to love me," she added, still surprised that it hurt a little to know that loving her was something Clay could never do. "He'd have to respect me," she went on. "Treat me like an individual and allow me to be one. In any relationship, I'd need to be my own person and be given the room to grow both emotionally and creatively."
He seemed to think about that before surprising her with yet another question. "And what would it take for a guy to completely blow you out of the water? Send you roses? Give you diamonds? A Beemer?"
He really didn't know her, she realized, and hurt a little more that be thought she was so shallow. "I'm not a roses kind of girl. Now if a guy came carrying wildflowers—ones he'd picked himself—that might score a few points. Diamonds?" She shook her head. "I'd rather have bronze or copper, sometimes maybe some gold—all for my glazes," she clarified. "Those are big expenses for my business. And as for the Beemer, I've always had this little fantasy that instead of a fancy sports car, he'd come for me on a big black horse and we'd ride off into the sunset."
And you've also got a big mouth, Brannigan. Just keep talking and you'll eventually supply him with enough ammunition to take potshots at you until you start drawing social security.
"What about you?" she asked before she got really stupid and revealed more of her secret fantasies. "You've been close to tying the knot on a couple of different occasions—Veronica the most recent case in point. Yet you never quite get the deed done. What's it going to take to finally get Clay James to the altar?"
He answered without hesitation. "Money, power and no family history of female-pattern baldness."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm serious. I leveled with you. Return the favor."
"Okay." He settled back again, considered. "For one thing, she'd have to be a nice person. No shrew. She'd have to be … focused … committed … attentive. To me, to our marriage. And she'd have to be content to accept me the way I am. I work hard, I play hard. I'd want her to respect that. It wouldn't hurt if she could cook, either."
All qualities, she suspected, that he felt she was sadly lacking. Oh, well. "Which leads me back to What happened with Veronica? Seems to me she fits that bill and then some."
He laced his fingers together on top of his head. "You know," he began, then let out a deep breath and stared thoughtfully at the fire, "I'm not really sure. I thought she was the one. Only … I don't know. Something just wasn't clicking."
Like it clicked two nights ago between us? she wondered, unable to squelch the thought before it formed.
This was someplace she definitely did not want to go. She'd been fighting that memory all day. Battling it back all evening. And now it was here again. Simmering and sensual. Uncommonly vivid. And Clay, sitting beside her, s
melling wonderfully of male and musk and looking as gorgeous by the wood fire as he did by daylight, didn't help one bit.
She had to be strong. If she couldn't erase the memory, neither could she erase the facts. That night had changed nothing between them. What happened in that bed had been based on exactly what she'd tried to convince him it had been: Need. Biology. Chemistry. And it couldn't happen again.
This … this new, semi-easy truce they'd tentatively settled into—was a transition, a temporary cease fire until they returned to Jackson and got back to business as usual. Unfortunately it was almost more difficult to deal with his easy company than his sullen silence. Not as painful, but still difficult.
It was just another phase of the game, she decided as they both fell quiet and let the crackle of the fire replace conversation. First they'd tried to ignore that night, then they'd tried to ignore each other, and then they'd just flat-out pretended it had never happened by reminiscing about old times and revealing fantasies.
At least, she'd thought that's what they were doing, until the next words out of Clay's mouth blew her theory right out of the water.
"Is there any chance you could have gotten pregnant, Maddie?"
His soft question stunned her heart into beating so hard it almost cracked her ribs.
Assuring herself that if he could discuss it so matter-of-factly, she could, too, she willed her heart to steady.
"No. No chance." At least, she was relatively certain there wasn't. She wasn't on the pill nor did she rely on any other birth control devices. As a rule she didn't have to. Her bedroom didn't exactly have swinging doors, so protection wasn't a top priority. She was always aware of her cycles, however, and this was a safe time for her.
He nodded, seemingly content not to pursue that line of questioning. He wasn't, however, completely finished.
"I wasn't exactly prepared for what happened," he went on, "but I want you to know, you don't have to worry about me leaving you with anything else you don't want. I'm careful and I'm healthy." He lifted a shoulder, let it fall. "I thought maybe you'd want to know that. Set your mind at ease."
"I wasn't concerned," she said quickly.
The truth was she hadn't even thought about that aspect of their—for lack of a better word—encounter. With anyone but Clay she would have been cautious to a fault. Even though he'd been her nemesis for years, there was an innate integrity about him that she would never question. Just like she would never question that he would place her in any jeopardy.
"You don't have to worry, either," she added belatedly when it occurred to her that he may not have the same faith in her.
His soft, but sincere, "I wasn't," both warmed and relieved her.
She chanced a look at him then—just as he glanced over at her. His lopsided smile was endearing. His blue eyes bold and inviting.
Oh, my, she thought and looked quickly away. She hugged a sofa pillow to her breast. Oh, my, could she get lost in those eyes again. Just like she could get lost in the dreamy idea of making love with him again. In wistful thoughts of what a beautiful baby she and Clay could make together. A baby like the one she wanted to have, to make her life complete.
Well, she couldn't afford to think about any of that. Not if they were going to salvage this tentative, fighting friendship that had taken such effort to rebuild. Not if she was going to make it through the next several days without begging him to take her back to bed.
This time when her instincts shouted "Run", she paid attention. When he touched a hand softly to her shoulder, she shot off the sofa like a bottle rocket on the Fourth of July.
"It's late," she announced abruptly and tugged her sweater down over her hips. "I'm tired. See you tomorrow."
Before he could so much as say good-night, she limped to the stairs and hightailed it up to the loft.
Clay scowled as he watched her go. He understood, of course. When their eyes had met and held for that brief moment, she'd felt the spark flare between them. She'd felt the sizzle and then left him here to deal with the burn.
It was, he admitted philosophically, the damnedest thing. She was everything he didn't want in a woman. Flighty, shrewish, unpredictable. And from the tone of her voice when she was reeling off her prerequisites for a husband, she didn't figure he fit any of her requirements, either.
He tugged on his lower lip and stared broodingly into the fire. He could be considerate. He was a decent person. He was respectful. He treated people like individuals and allowed them to be who they wanted to be. Apparently she didn't think so, though. But then, when had he ever shown her that side of himself?
Wildflowers. What kind of a woman preferred wildflowers to roses? Glazes to diamonds? And a horse? She'd rather be carried away on a horse than in a fancy foreign car?
Strange woman. But then, he'd always known that. Strange and stubborn and sassy and … sexy as ever-loving sin.
But she was not for him. No sir. He didn't care how hot she made his blood run. He didn't care that the night he'd spent with her in his arms was above and beyond any physical experience he'd ever shared with a woman.
You couldn't base a relationship on sex… Stability. Accountability. Self-control. That's what built a solid relationship.
That fool woman was definitely not for him.
But then he'd always known that, too.
What he hadn't known … what he couldn't have ever guessed … was that she'd have the ability to make him sit there until three in the morning drilling himself on all of the reasons he shouldn't just climb on up those loft stairs and join her in that big old feather bed.
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^ »
On the morning of the fifth day the rain was still falling. The cabin was getting smaller. The nights were getting longer. And both Maddie and Clay were feeling a frustration that stemmed as much from the enforced house arrest as from the sexual tension that built like flood waters behind a dangerously weakening dam.
On one thing, however, they were both determined. There would be no second act. No more searing love scenes. No encore performances.
To ensure that wouldn't happen, they took measures and pains to keep their physical contact to a minimum and their mission in perspective: wait it out, keep the peace, beat Garrett to a pulp after he'd led them back to Jackson and back to their individual lives.
While it helped to pass the time, they could only read so many books, play so many games of gin, checkers and Monopoly. The potential for physical contact was built in. A brush of fingertips as they exchanged dice over the Monopoly board could shift from accidental contact to acute awareness and send their pulse rates skyrocketing. A squabble over a discarded card could trigger a physical tussle that started out with grins and giggles and ended up with long looks and elevated body temps.
The hardest for either of them to deal with, though, were the after-shower encounters. The scent of her shampoo arrested Clay. The sight of him still damp from the spray, barefoot and wearing nothing but his soft, faded jeans and smelling of shaving cream and toothpaste flooded Maddie's cheeks with color and set her nerve endings tingling. And for both of them, graphic memories of the night he'd bathed her and tended to her and held her and taken her to bed, shimmered on the edge of their consciousness like a vivid, erotic dream.
But for all the opportunities to stray into dangerous territory, it was the simple chore of cleaning up after breakfast one morning that brought things between them to a head.
The close quarters of the kitchen area always meant brushes of hip to thigh, shoulder to chest and conjured memories of bare skin and bold caresses. But it was an accident that incited the riot.
"You got my shirt wet," Clay sputtered as he stood by the sink, a dish towel in his big tanned hands.
Maddie glanced over her shoulder, her hands buried in breakfast dishes and soap suds. "Sorry."
Evidently she didn't sound sorry enough to suit him. "You did it on purpose."
She tilted her head an
d angled him a look. "My, we're testy this morning."
"You did it on purpose," he repeated looking surly and a little soggy and sounding a lot like a little boy who'd just had his balloon popped.
"I did not do it on purpose," she insisted feeling a little testy herself. "And I said I was sorry."
She shot him a hard glare, then gathered two handfuls of sudsy water and flung it directly at his chest. "I'm not sorry about that, though. And it was definitely not an accident, so now you have something legitimate to pout about."
Blue eyes darkened to cobalt and narrowed dangerously. He looked from his drenched shirt to her. "I was not pouting." Then he crowded up beside her, reached into the soapy water and very deliberately soaked the front of her T-shirt.
She sucked in a harsh breath, then growled long and low. "You'll pay for that, James."
"Oh, yeah?" Crossing his arms over his chest, he glared, superior and cocky, as she faced off with him. "And just how—"
The contents of a full glass of water hit him squarely in the face.
He clenched his jaw, then eyed her through the water dripping from his hair. "Bad idea." Threat and malice spiked both words.
Worse than bad, he realized as he stared at first her impish little smile, then made the mistake of lowering his gaze to her wet shirt.
The soaking he'd given her made the thin material of her white T-shirt transparent and clingy. A lacy scrap of a bra showed through clearly—as did the full round curves of her breasts and the delicate tips of her tightly puckered nipples. Arousal spiked like a fever as he remembered the taste of her. The velvety feel of her against his tongue.
Bucking a bolting desire to drag her against him and take her into his mouth, wet shirt and all, he made himself stand his ground, match her smile and gear toward retaliation.
"We can do this the easy way," he said, closing the distance between them with one stalking stride, "or we can do it the hard way."
"Oh, by all means," she drawled, daring him with her eyes and her sassy mouth, "give it to me hard."
He clenched his teeth and smothered a groan as a traitorous part of his anatomy rushed to oblige her.