by Hope Ramsay
He scratched absently. “I’m being eaten for supper.”
Her gaze dropped to his exposed feet, and sure enough little red welts encircled both of his ankles.
“Oh my god. You are being eaten.” She gave her exposed arms and legs a quick exam. No sign of bites. “I guess they like the way you taste?” The words made her blush, but she continued. “You do taste good, you know.”
He ignored the flirtatious remark and strode past her, opening the unlocked sliding door that led to Mom’s living room. “I need to take a shower. Now. Which way is the bathroom?”
She pointed.
He ran, and a moment later, the sound of water running in the bathroom reached her ears. A little part of her wanted to tiptoe into the bathroom with him. But she couldn’t do a thing like that. Not in Mom’s house. Even if Mom and Jim had gone out for dinner and probably wouldn’t be home for a while yet.
She jettisoned her evil thoughts and went in search of some calamine lotion or hydrocortisone cream, but she couldn’t find any in the linen closet. The best she could manage was a big container of aloe gel.
She returned to the living room, aloe in hand, just as Dylan came out of the hall bathroom with Mom’s fuchsia and yellow beach towel around his middle, the words HELLO SUNSHINE strategically centered on his butt.
She tried mightily but she couldn’t keep the laugh from bubbling up out of her. He looked more delicious than Granny’s fried chicken. Last night, the lights had been turned down low, and she hadn’t gotten a good look at his chest. Now it made the spit dry in her mouth.
But the welts along his neck, which continued in a line down toward his left armpit, brought out her inner Florence Nightingale. “Oh my. You’ve been eaten.”
“You should go shower too. Now. Just to be on the safe side. And don’t put your clothes back on.” He said this like a doctor issuing orders, not a lover giving her a direction. It was kind of disappointing.
“I’m fine,” she said. Her chance to get naked with him had come and gone. She wasn’t going to shower alone. Besides, she didn’t have any bites that she could see or feel.
“I’ve got aloe.” She held up the bottle of green goo. “It should tide you over until you get some hydrocortisone.”
He snatched the bottle, a grumpy frown on his face as he went to work smearing the gel on his chest and ankles, giving her an exceptionally entertaining show that made the palms of her hands itch.
So when he turned around and said, “Do I have bites on my back? I’m itchy down my back,” she stepped closer to him and investigated. He did have bites all down his back, across the bumps in his spine, and over one hip.
“Oh my word, it’s like one of those chiggers got stuck in your shirt and went on a march over your skin.”
“And all because I unbuttoned my top button,” he said in a somewhat savage tone.
“Hand me the gel,” she directed.
He handed it over, and she pumped out a generous dollop that cooled her palm. She rubbed the gel into the welts along his warm back, her fingers tingling, not from the aloe but from system overload. His back was just as sexy as his front.
She put heart and soul and libido into rubbing the gel into his skin. And she might have worked harder than was absolutely necessary because touching him was such a turn-on.
But when she let go of a small, inarticulate sound, he turned. His eyes dark, wide, and unreadable as he began to lean in. She braced herself, ready to receive the kiss that was coming, her heart thumping in anticipation.
But right before he made his move, the sliding-glass door opened, and Mom and Jim walked into the house.
Dylan jumped back as if someone had goosed him.
Mom gasped.
Jim said, “What the hell?”
Ella turned, and without so much as a blush said, “The chiggers came to our picnic. I think we need to find another spot for the party.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Mom said, pressing her hand to her chest.
Jim gave her a weird look, then strode over to Dylan, who had the presence of mind to say, “I took a shower.”
“Right. Good move,” Jim said. “You need more than aloe on those bites.” He turned on his heel and found the hydrocortisone cream in the linen closet, which someone (probably Jim) had moved to the upper shelf, where Ella hadn’t seen it.
She stepped back and let Jim take over the doctoring, while Mom gave her a strange, assessing look out of a suddenly pale face.
Chapter Seventeen
Dad lent Dylan a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt for the drive back to town and seemed perfectly happy to accept the explanation that Ella was rubbing aloe onto his back when they were caught.
Dylan never thought he’d regard a hundred chigger bites as a silver lining, but the welts were there as evidence that nothing untoward, or even salacious, had happened.
Good thing Ella hadn’t followed his orders and taken a shower. Otherwise she might have been caught naked too. And that might have been a lot harder to explain, since she seemed to have escaped the no-see-ums.
Now she sat in the passenger’s seat as he guided the Honda along the beach road that would eventually connect with Harbor Drive. She hadn’t said a word in five minutes, and the tension between them had grown as thick as the humid night outside.
“We’re okay,” he finally said, hoping to put her at ease. “I have a hundred bug bites to prove it.”
She let out a little puff of air. “I’m so sorry. Are you really itchy?”
“Yes.” He fought the urge to scratch his chest, but if he was going to be completely honest, his itches weren’t limited to the bug bites. He had a powerful itch for Ella McMillan. And she had almost scratched it right before their parents had caught them in the act.
Was this itch wrong? He thought about it as he gripped the steering wheel in an attempt to keep his hands away from the bites throbbing all over his torso.
No. He could honestly say that having a little crush on Ella McMillan wasn’t wrong at all even if she was his father’s fiancée’s daughter. They weren’t siblings. Not really.
But pursuing this would undoubtedly become awkward for everyone.
“I’m sorry you got bitten,” she said in a tiny voice that reminded him of her grandmother.
“It’s not your fault. Why do you do that all the time? Apologize for things beyond your control.”
She didn’t answer for a long time. He didn’t expect her to. But he wanted to stop the car, take her by the shoulders, give her a good shake, and then kiss the daylights out of her. That might not be the right approach though.
Damned if he knew what the right approach might be.
“You know,” she finally said a few moments later, “I think I just got in the habit of saying I’m sorry.”
“Why? Because your mother was so difficult?”
She settled back into her seat with a short laugh. “You have the wrong idea about Mom. I never really apologized to her. I went out of my way to make her feel crappy. I was horrible to her when I was a teenager. We had some serious control issues. No, I didn’t apologize to Mom, or even tiptoe around her the way you think I did. I resented the hell out of her and let her know at every turn just how much. And you know what? She kept coming back. Loving me in spite of my terrible behavior.”
“Oh.” A weird emotion seized him. She may not have apologized to her mother as a teenager, but she was sure doing it now. All the time.
“I got in the habit when I was living with Cody,” she said after a moment.
“Oh?” He wanted to press, but he knew better than to start asking detailed questions about her ex. She would resent it the same way he would resent questions about Lauren.
“Cody made me feel responsible for his moods,” she said, “and I took the easy way out. I got tired of arguing with him. It was such a waste of time.
“So okay, I’m not responsible for your bug bites, but I do feel sorry for you.” Her voice warmed. “You must be a lot
sweeter than I am, because I don’t have a single bite anywhere. That seems a bit unfair.”
“Actually, the bugs aren’t attracted to sweetness. It’s because of the amount of carbon dioxide and heat my skin gives off. More heat, more bug bites.”
She turned in her seat, just as he turned onto Harbor Drive. In a moment he’d have to choose whether to turn left toward Howland House or right toward home. He wanted to take her home. He wanted to finish the kiss.
“You do give off a lot of heat,” she said, her voice an invitation.
“I want to take you home,” he said.
She exhaled sharply. “And I wouldn’t mind going home with you, but surely you can see how that would be a huge mistake.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
“We’d have to hide what we’re doing. My god, we were almost caught tonight. I can’t even imagine the crap storm that would happen if Mom and Jim found out we were sleeping together.”
“Why would there be a crap storm?”
“Uh, well, because there would be.”
“I’m not so sure. I mean, they want us to be friends.”
“Friends, not lovers.”
“I don’t see the problem.” He came to the stoplight where he’d have to decide—right or left.
“What if they break up?” she asked.
“Then there’s no problem at all.”
“Oh my god. You are such a guy. Of course there would be problems. Emotions all over the place. And we’d never be able to get together as a family. I mean, what about Christmas and Easter?”
“Like Easter was so great this year.”
“You know what I’m talking about. And what if we—” She abruptly stopped speaking.
“What if we what?”
“Never mind. Us being together is a terrible idea, Dylan. We need to cool it.”
“Do you think we can?” he asked, just as the light turned green.
The car behind him honked. He ignored it as he stared into her big, expressive eyes.
“I don’t know. But we need to. We can’t rock the boat.”
“Rocking the boat is exactly what I want to do.”
The driver in the car behind them laid on the horn.
“Dylan, please.”
He gave up and turned left toward the inn.
When he reached the parking lot, he killed the engine and helped her carry the cooler and the picnic hamper into the kitchen. Once he’d left it on the countertop, she walked him back to the front door. A group of B&B guests were hanging out in the library, so he couldn’t grab her by the shoulders and kiss her the way he wanted.
Ironically, though, he still had a reason to spend time with her. He gave her a smile. “So, I guess we’re back to the drawing board on the engagement party, huh?”
She met his stare. He wasn’t stupid. He saw the desire in those big eyes of hers. When she’d spread that aloe gel on his back, it had turned them both on. One bucket of cold water—in the form of parents with bad timing—was not sufficient to end this thing.
He would live to fight another day.
“Yeah, but I’m completely out of ideas. You tell me. What’s the most romantic place in town, and do they have a party room?”
He stood there slightly thunderstruck. “Jude St. Pierre’s schooner.”
“What?”
“It’s the most romantic place in town. Everyone pops the question during his sunset cruises. But I don’t think we could have a party with a hundred guests there.”
“Good. Because a hundred guests has always been ridiculous. Tell me more about this boat.”
She leaned into the doorframe, giving him a momentary reprieve. So he gave her the whole rundown on Synchronicity Too, the new schooner Jude had purchased last year. “Dad and Brenda cruised on the boat during the Festival of Lights last Christmas. Now that I think about it, that was sort of their first date.”
She rolled her adorable eyes. “Now you tell me this. We need to check this boat out.”
“Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He should probably go, but he didn’t want to, and the guests in the library showed no interest in leaving. Dammit, he was not leaving without some small token of his affection.
So he leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek that hardly satisfied. When he pulled away, she stood there, wide eyed and breathing hard. He’d much prefer to take her home, but leaving her like that wasn’t a bad second option.
* * *
“Brenda said Dylan was wearing her favorite beach towel and not another stitch of clothing when they walked into the living room,” Nancy Jacobs said, looking up from her plate of blackberry jam cake. As always, her voice was pitched low and quiet, which was probably a good thing, seeing as Ella was upstairs giving Jackie tin whistle lessons.
Which Ashley devoutly wished the young woman hadn’t chosen to do. Her son had been practicing the dang thing since he got home from school, trying to play the “Sailor’s Hornpipe” but missing every other note. Jackie had informed Ashley that he wanted to learn the whistle so he could entertain pirate ghosts all on his own.
Maybe the boy would make so much noise—and Nancy would speak so quietly—that Ella wouldn’t discover that she’d become topic number one among the Piece Makers.
“You don’t say,” Donna Cuthbert said, placing her empty plate on the kitchen counter and helping herself to a second slice of cake.
“But Jim said the boy had chigger bites all over him. Ella didn’t have a one.”
“That’s odd. You don’t think she set him up, do you?” Karen asked.
“Ella wouldn’t do something like that. She was putting lotion on his back when Jim and Brenda walked into the room.”
“That sounds very suspicious,” Patsy said.
“Why? He had bites all over his back,” Nancy countered.
“Nancy. Those kids aren’t…you know.”
Nancy blinked behind her glasses as Patsy turned toward Ashley. “Are they?”
Now, that was a loaded question. On the face of it, Ashley could argue that this was a classic case of bugs ruining a picnic. On the other hand, she had eyes, and she’d seen Dylan watch Ella play. And she had ears, and she heard the way Ella said Dylan’s name.
If she was a gossip like Donna, she could probably turn this episode into something hot and racy. But she wasn’t a gossip, so she shook her head. “As far as I know, it was a picnic. Ella wanted to convince Dylan that an engagement party on the beach would be nice. I helped her fry some chicken, if that matters.”
“Did my granddaughter share my secret recipe with you?” Nancy asked in a hard voice.
“Now, Nancy, I was going to talk to you about that.” She glanced around at the rest of the Piece Makers. “In private. She did share your recipe because she had no clue how to fry a drumstick. And I promised her that I’d reciprocate by giving you my hummingbird cake recipe.”
Nancy folded her arms over her chest. “That’s mighty nice of you, Ashley, but I need you to promise never to divulge the secret ingredient in my fried chicken recipe.”
“I swear on my grandmother’s grave, Nancy.”
“All right, then.”
“I don’t know,” Patsy said. “Him being naked troubles me.”
“He says he took a shower,” Nancy said.
“Good thinking,” Karen commented. “Those no-see-ums are sneaky.”
“So there’s nothing going on between them?”
“No,” Ashley said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. She didn’t know for certain that love was blooming in the most unlikely of places. She did know two things: first, Ella had come in early on Monday morning, and second, Dylan had given Ella a kiss at the door on Monday evening. On the surface, that kiss might have looked like a simple peck on the cheek, but their body language said otherwise.
“Well, just in case there is something going on, I think you should have a word with her,” Patsy said in the dictatorial tone that had worn thin over the last few ye
ars. “And, ladies, we all have to help Nancy out. We can’t let Dylan and Ella ruin Jim and Brenda’s relationship. Donna, you Methodists have been trying to find Doctor Jim a new wife for years. And we Episcopalians are thrilled that he found Brenda and transformed her. Without Jim insisting on her directing the Christmas Chorale last year, I don’t think Brenda would ever have started a choir at Heavenly Rest. We need to make sure Ella and Doctor D behave themselves.”
She turned toward Ashley with a raised eyebrow when she got to the last sentence, as if it was Ashley’s job to keep Ella in line.
Ashley pretended she didn’t understand. “Excuse me, Patsy, but how has Ella not behaved herself? She packed a picnic. It wasn’t her fault that Doctor D ran into a nest of chiggers.”
“You know what we mean, Ashley. Ella is a musician who’s used to who knows what kind of life living on the road. I don’t think any of us expect her to stay here permanently or to ever settle down and get married. So we don’t want her playing with Dylan’s emotions.”
“I don’t think Ella’s playing with anyone’s emotions, Patsy,” Ashley said. She didn’t say that the situation might be the reverse. Besides, what else could she do? Ashley had already given Ella a couple of friendly warnings about getting too close to Dylan. But if Ella and Doctor D were falling in love, well…
She wasn’t going to stand in the way of that even if it rocked a few boats. She’d lost her own true love almost six years ago in Afghanistan. She knew the deep, abiding loneliness of being left behind. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone. But arguing with Patsy was futile, so she nodded and said, “Okay, I’ll talk to her.”
“Good. Now, what’s this I hear about Reverend St. Pierre eating his breakfast at Bread, Butter, and Beans the last few days?”
Ashley went cold. She had no explanations for the sudden chill in her relationship with the minister who lived across the street. She still made oatmeal for him, but he evidently didn’t want it anymore. She didn’t know why, and she couldn’t confess her fears to the Piece Makers because Micah’s sudden coolness had started with their argument over the scratch-made cakes she baked for the quilting group every week.