by Hope Ramsay
Her heart started pounding again. Was this that important to him? Until this moment, she hadn’t considered that him being a Methodist and her being an Episcopalian would create problems. This was a second marriage for both of them. They weren’t going to be bringing any new children into the world.
Thank goodness. They already had too many kids to deal with.
She took a big breath, but her heart wouldn’t stop rocking in her chest. “Do you want me to direct the choir?”
“No. I’m only saying that it might be more challenging for you.”
Ah, yes. Because she was a perfectionist—the very thing Rev. St. Pierre had been suggesting that she give up to become her best self.
She smiled. “No. I’m happy where I am. I gave the people at Heavenly Rest my word. I started that choir, and it might be small and amateurish. And those people know nothing about reading music. But we make a joyful noise every Sunday. And the congregation is so happy about it. I can’t walk away from that.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
He didn’t sound sure.
“I’m sure. But the thing is, are you sure? Is this about me worshipping at one church and you at another? Because if it is, then I need to make something clear. I love you. I want to be with you. But if you think I’m leaving Heavenly Rest, where my momma has worshipped her entire life, then you need to think again.”
He chuckled. “No, it’s not about that. I honestly thought you’d jump at the chance to take over the choir at Grace Church.”
She could even understand why. “No. I’m happy where I am.”
“Good. Because I’m not. Next Sunday, I’m coming to church with you. I want to hear this extraordinary choir.”
“Jim, you don’t have to—”
“No, I think I do. I think I need to send a message to everyone in this town that my fiancée has made up her mind.”
“I love you, Jim.”
“I love you more.”
“Oh, wait…” Her heart refused to stop pounding.
“What?”
“What about Dylan?” she asked. “You can’t abandon him. He’s been going to Grace Church all his life.”
“Uh, well, maybe. I’ll talk to him.”
“No. We need to keep things the way they are, okay?”
“Honey, are you sure that’s wise?”
No, she wasn’t. But taking this stand seemed necessary. If Jim changed churches, she could almost hear what the Methodists would say about her. And even worse, every instinct told her that Dylan would be hurt.
Creating a new family where there hadn’t been one before was turning into a difficult problem.
Chapter Fifteen
When the last dish was dried and put away, Ella knocked on Granny’s door to check up on her. She’d gotten into her pajamas and was settled down into her bed reading a book.
“We cleaned up the kitchen.”
Granny looked up from the page. “Together?”
Ella nodded and tried not to blush. “He’s surprisingly helpful in unexpected ways.”
Granny’s lips twitched in a tiny smile. “I’m sure he is. His father probably trained him well. Jim is handy to have around the house.” She gestured at her new curtains and blinds. “It would have cost me a fortune to hire a handyman to install those.”
“Yeah, I think Jim is terrific.”
Granny nodded.
“Um, about the party. Dylan and I were talking while we did the dishes, and I’m going to try to convince him that a beach party is the way to go.”
“Good for you.”
“I’m going to pack a picnic and show him how beautiful the beach is at sunset.”
“Oh, really?” Granny looked over the rims of her glasses. Her stare was surprisingly acute.
Ella blushed. “Yeah, I know. I’m not exactly a cook, but…”
“You’re planning to cook the food for this picnic?” Granny’s focus sharpened further.
“Well, yeah. I mean, I have the use of Ashley’s kitchen. Why not?”
“Oh, well, that’s true. But you know, Ella, if you want to convince Dylan that this is a good idea, the food is going to be important.”
She nodded. “I know. I’ve been surfing wedding sites on the internet, and I saw this idea on Martha Stewart of a fried chicken and champagne party. And it seemed so…I don’t know, Southern or something. I’m not a Southerner, but…what do you think?”
“I think you need my fried chicken recipe. I’ll email it to you tomorrow morning.”
“Granny, your fried chicken is the best.”
Granny beamed a smile. “I know. It’s the secret ingredient. And for Brenda’s sake, I will share this recipe with you. But you have to promise never to tell Ashley Scott about it.”
“I promise.”
Granny settled back on the pillows and adjusted her glasses. “Sugar, is Dylan driving you home? It’s late.”
Ella nodded. “He insisted.”
“Of course he did.” Granny smiled again. “Turn the alarm on when you leave. And call me if you have any questions about the recipe.”
Five minutes later, Ella found herself ensconced in the soft leather seat of Dylan’s fully loaded Honda Accord—the quintessential millennial-mobile. Boy, this was a far cry from Cody’s fifteen-year-old pickup truck. She didn’t want to compare Cody to Dylan, but she found herself doing it anyway.
Cody was attractive in that dangerous, bad-boy way. He was also adept at delivering lines that turned females into mush, and he was pretty damn hot in bed. He’d lured Ella away from home with his sweet-talking ways and extracted endless second chances from her despite his peccadilloes. Until tonight, she’d never met a man who was better at apologizing.
But maybe Cody had met his match, although Dylan’s approach was inventive. He hadn’t said much more than “I’m sorry.” He hadn’t made big promises he couldn’t keep. He’d just whipped out a dish towel and helped her dry the casserole dishes.
His helpfulness had been novel and unique. It made her burn in an unholy way. She sank down in the luxurious leather and forced herself not to look at his hands on the steering wheel. Like his father, he had incredibly long fingers.
Ooops. She was staring at them, idly wondering how they might feel against her skin. She pulled her gaze away, focusing instead on her fingers intertwined in her lap. The silence became oppressive as raw desire raged through her.
Was she curious about him as a lover because he was forbidden?
Maybe.
For thirteen years, she’d remained loyal and faithful to a man who was unworthy of it. She’d been hit on by all sorts of drunks in countless bars and county fairs and musical venues over the years. Some of those guys had even been attractive. She might even have flirted back a few times when Cody wasn’t paying attention to her.
But she’d never been unfaithful.
She’d never had the nerve. She might be thirty years old, but she’d only ever been with one guy. Unfortunately, that man was still running around her head, messing with her thinking. She needed to branch out. Excise Cody from her brain. She’d already kicked him out of her heart.
But Dylan? He was forbidden. Was that why he seemed so…safe?
Dylan pulled the car into the parking lot at Howland House and turned off the engine. Whoa, why’d he do that? She should get out of the car now. She should run. She should be a good girl and try to meet Mom’s expectations.
She met his gaze, instead. He looked all buttoned up, and she wanted to undo him. She wanted…
A lot.
“So,” she said, swallowing back her desire, “Granny has promised to give me her fried chicken recipe. So you’re in for a treat tomorrow night.”
“Oh? That good, huh?” His deep blue eyes seemed to capture the light from Howland House’s carriage lamps.
“Yup. Wait till you taste it.” She reached for the door handle, but he grabbed her right forearm before she could get to it. His touch was like fire, branding her
skin, melting her all the way to her core.
She didn’t fight him when he pulled her closer. “It’s not fried chicken I want to taste, Ella.” His words were low and deep.
“Oh?”
He shook his head. “I’m going to be honest.”
“I have a feeling you always are,” she muttered.
“I keep thinking about that kiss. On the boardwalk.”
“Oh, yeah. Uh…” She hesitated. Should she tell him the truth? Absolutely. They had been truthful from the start, hadn’t they? “I keep thinking about it too.”
He responded to this by leaning over the console, his mouth coming down on hers, hard and swift and hot and delicious. No sweet talk. Heck, there wasn’t one thing sweet about him. He tasted like the paprika she’d sprinkled over the deviled eggs tempered by the bourbon he’d been drinking. She opened her senses to it, leaning into the console and combing her hand through his too-short curls.
They were soft and silky. So strange and different.
Wow, his kiss was different too. Commanding but soft, gentle but firm, and erotic as hell. And then his hand worked its way under the V of her neckline to capture her breast. The touch was so exquisite she groaned out loud, throwing her head back. He followed the touch with a string of kisses, like red-hot pearls down her throat to the nape of her neck.
Shivers and fire ran through her body. “I want you,” she said, surprising herself.
He lifted his head, his hair tousled and falling over his forehead, his lips kiss-swollen. He would stop her, right? He was a good boy. He wore bow ties. But instead of talking some sense into her, he said, “We could go back to my place. I’m living alone these days.”
She stared at him, and he didn’t press the point. He didn’t try to talk her out of it either. He simply waited for her to decide. Having the power of choosing was new and strange and seductive.
“I’m not looking for a forever kind of thing,” she found herself saying. “And, you know, this is a huge complication.”
“I know. And I’m not looking for anything serious either. Maybe we just need to, you know, get this out of our systems.”
And then what? But she didn’t say those words out loud. If this encounter was a friendly sort of thing, then it didn’t matter, right? Her inner voice sounded suspiciously like Cody. Was she sweet-talking herself into this?
Yeah, probably. But on the other hand, maybe she needed to stop worrying for five seconds and go after what she wanted for once.
“Okay,” she said. She could hardly believe the word when it left her mouth.
And so she went home with Doctor Dreamy. Home to the place he’d lived all his life. Home to the room he’d slept in as a kid because he hadn’t yet moved into the master bedroom. Thank goodness the room didn’t still have a twin bed or posters of superheroes on the wall. His walls were empty and looked freshly painted. But the room had no adjoining bath, and the decor was plain vanilla, with navy curtains and a matching navy bedspread and a bookshelf crammed with books on sailing and fly-fishing.
She took one look at the room and laughed out loud.
“What?” he said.
“You don’t do much entertaining, do you?”
He turned around and pinned her against the doorway. “I’ve been living with my father for the last year.”
“Living with you didn’t stop him,” she said, right before his mouth landed on hers. After that, all talking ceased. Dylan proved surprisingly adept for a guy living in his childhood bedroom. He’d also perfected the one-handed unbuttoning technique. He made surprisingly short work of the buttons up the front of her dress.
“Did you learn that trick in med school?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. And she didn’t press. He was not much of a talker when he got busy. So she got busy herself, undoing his bow tie and undoing the buttons down his shirt. She needed both hands though.
But when she had the garments completely undone and untucked, he finished the job, shucking out of the shirt and then making quick work of his pants.
* * *
Ella didn’t want to compare, but how could she not? She’d always regarded Cody as pretty good, but Dylan was so much better, in spite of his plain vanilla room and his navy blue suits. Not to mention the bow ties.
Who wore bow ties these days?
And even in bed, he was a bow tie kind of guy. His approach wasn’t wild or crazy or even terribly inventive. But oh, he was slow and patient and had an amazing working knowledge of female anatomy.
Yeah, he was an incredible lover. And besides, who said vanilla was boring? She was willing to bet that a Google search on ice cream flavors would prove that vanilla topped the list of favorite flavors. Vanilla was versatile. You could put whipped cream and cherries on top. You could drizzle chocolate or caramel on it. You could slice up a banana and go to town. Vanilla might be plain, but it was spicy if you got the premium stuff with the little bits of vanilla bean in the cream.
Dylan was like that flavor.
And she didn’t want to leave his bed. Snuggling up to him was really nice, but ultimately unwise since this was only a fling. And, damn, he was going to become her stepsibling.
Merely saying the word “sibling” had a certain ick factor even if she wanted another gigantic helping of vanilla, please. And especially because he was so warm and cuddly and the air-conditioning in his house had been turned to subzero. She could get used to warm and cuddly. Cody always had cold feet.
The unwanted comparison crept into her brain like a little blinking caution light. She’d repeated history, hadn’t she?
She’d gone off with some guy, knowing it would make her mother go ballistic. Crap. Mom would murder her if she ever found out.
The digital clock on Dylan’s bedside table said it was after three in the morning. In a couple of hours, she’d need to be up, getting ready for breakfast service at the inn.
The walk back to the inn would take twenty minutes. She should go.
She slipped from the covers, the cold air in the room raising acres of gooseflesh as she scooped up her discarded clothing and tiptoed down the hall to the guest bathroom, where she dressed and tried unsuccessfully to straighten her tangled hair. When she was semi-presentable, she inched the door open, only to find Dylan standing in the hallway wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants with holes in both knees.
Dammit. She hadn’t wanted to wake him up. She’d thought he was sound asleep, judging by the snores. Also, the holey sweats were a revelation that she liked. Too much.
But now she’d have to talk to him. She wasn’t sure exactly what to say. So she started with an apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“You were going to walk back to the inn by yourself.” It wasn’t a question. His blue stare had a probing intensity.
“I need to get back. I have to get up at oh-dark-thirty for the breakfast service. And I’m sure Ashley has noticed that I’m missing. That can’t be good.”
He blinked. “She keeps an eye on you?”
* * *
Dylan crossed his arms over his chest, trying not to forcibly pull Ella back into his arms. When he’d awakened a moment ago and found Ella gone, he’d been ticked off.
What? Had she hated it? Because he was pretty sure that the sex had been good. More than good.
But he hadn’t considered the fact that Ashley Scott might be keeping an eye out for Ella or worried that she hadn’t come back to the inn this evening.
“So you think Ashley will notice?”
“Of course she will. So I’ll just let myself out and—”
“I’ll take you home.”
“You know, it’s not necessary.”
The hell it wasn’t. He was surprised by her attitude and yet not surprised at all. She’d been clear from the start that this wasn’t anything serious. Merely lust or something. A fling to get the attraction out of their systems.
Ha. That was a joke. Or maybe the joke was on him. Maybe she
was simply horny tonight, and he’d been handy. Wasn’t that the way musicians lived? Moving from place to place and lover to lover.
“Well, I’m not letting you walk home in the dark,” he said. Maybe she was used to one-night stands, but he’d been raised a little differently. He wasn’t going to check his manners at the door. Even if the idea of having a relationship with Brenda’s daughter was…
Impossible. It almost didn’t matter if Dad and Brenda got married. Ella was the one woman he should never have touched.
Damn. She was right. He needed to back off fast. Get her home and hope that Ashley Scott didn’t notice and blab her mouth all over town.
“I’m taking you back to the inn. No arguments.” He turned and headed off toward the kitchen, and she followed him into the garage.
“Is that Jim’s Harley?” she asked as he opened the garage bay. His 1995 Harley-Davidson occupied the third bay of the gigantic garage. Dylan had purchased the bike right after Lauren had ditched him. He’d been restoring it for the better part of a year, working through his pain by rebuilding the bike piece by piece.
He turned toward Ella. “No, it’s mine.”
Her anime eyes widened. “Really?”
She obviously thought he was boring or dull or something. He considered the possibility of taking her home on the bike. But that would be stupid. It would make too much noise, and besides, she needed proper riding attire, not that slip of a dress. He’d seen the damage pavement could do to unprotected skin, and it wasn’t pretty. If you wanted to ride a motorcycle, you needed to do it responsibly.
“Yeah, it’s mine,” he said. “But we’re taking the car.” His words may have come out a little hard. He was angry, but he couldn’t decide if he was angry at himself, or her, or Ashley Scott, or the situation, or maybe all of it.
They didn’t say a word during the five-minute drive to Howland House. But when they got to the driveway, he doused the lights and set the brake. “I don’t have any regrets,” he said, turning toward her.
“No regrets here either. But…” She paused, and he braced himself for whatever hard thing she was about to say.