Then he stopped altogether and just pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her and held her with her cheek to his chest while her own arms somehow went around him, too.
“Yeah, no doubt about it—there has to be a wild streak hidden in you somewhere calling to me...” he murmured then, into her hair.
But there wasn’t a wild streak in her, and Gia knew it. She just didn’t tell him because it felt so fantastic to be held like that by him and she couldn’t ruin that one moment with the truth.
Instead, she let herself have a few minutes in his arms, against him, before she gently unnestled herself from the cocoon and said, “I have to go....”
Like with the kiss, he didn’t accept that instantly, tightening his grip for a moment before giving in. But when he gave in, Gia stood without hesitation because she knew if she didn’t she was too likely to kiss him again.
Derek got to his feet, too, cupping one of those big hands of his around the back of her neck to walk her through the house.
“There won’t be dirt on the menu, but what would you say to going to Sunday dinner at my grandmother’s house with me tomorrow night?” he asked just as they reached his front door.
A big Camden family dinner.
Like a big Grant family dinner.
Where she’d be an outsider....
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said, her voice a bit gravelly from the kissing.
“My grandmother wants to talk to you about the Bronsons’ health needs,” he said. “And it just occurred to me that tomorrow would be the perfect time. She has connections with the best hospitals, the best doctors, the best care and management for geriatrics. But it’s GiGi who has the inside line on all that stuff, not me, and you know the Bronsons’ conditions, so it’s really something that’s better talked about without me as a go-between.”
As much as Gia wanted to see him, she didn’t want it to be at dinner with another big, close-knit family. She knew all too well what that was like and she wanted no part of it.
But she could hardly refuse when he put it in terms of helping Larry and Marion.
Still, she had to try....
“Couldn’t we meet and talk about it some other time? It doesn’t seem like a family dinner is—”
“There’s always a ton of people around—not just family, never just family. And everybody mingles and talks—you and I and GiGi can just take a few minutes to chat as part of that, and then we can have a nice meal and I’ll take you home.... Come on, you’ll like GiGi—she’s not too different from Marion—and you’ll still have your whole Sunday before that free because hors d’oeuvres and drinks are at five, dinner is at six.”
And she’d be with him again.
And she wanted to be.
And she knew she shouldn’t want it or give in to it.
But she also wanted Larry and Marion to have the best care they could get.
Then, still standing at his front door, his hand still cupping her nape, he pulled her toward him as he leaned down and kissed her again.
As if that would help her decide!
And yet it did. Because when he stopped kissing her she said, “Okay. I guess...”
“Not enthusiastic, but I’ll take it.”
He kissed her again—the play of his tongue reminding her of their kisses on the patio—before he finally ended it and took his hand away.
“I’ll pick you up a little before five. Comfortable, casual, but no jeans,” he warned.
Gia nodded, trying to recover from the effects of that last kiss.
“Thanks for dinner,” she said, remembering her manners belatedly as he walked her out to her car and she opened the driver’s door, looking up at him again then.
His handsome face slid into a slow grin and he kissed her one more time before he said, “Drive safe.”
“I will,” she assured him, getting behind the wheel.
But that assurance was false, because as she put the key in the ignition and started the engine she realized that while she might have been careful about the wine, she hadn’t realized that the kissing was even more heady, and she could only hope to focus enough to get herself home.
Where she didn’t have a doubt that she’d relive the feel of him holding her, kissing her, right up until the minute she fell asleep.
Chapter Eight
“I can’t believe I have to do this tonight,” Gia said to Tyson on Sunday morning.
Tyson and Minna had broken up and he’d invited Gia upstairs for pancakes to tell her the news. The relationship had burned hot and fast, then fizzled, and he was taking it in stride. He’d just wanted Gia to know since she’d introduced them and there was the potential of her running into Minna at work. He’d also wanted her to be aware that there were no hard feelings on either his or Minna’s part.
“It was just, you know, a good time,” he’d concluded before asking what he’d missed while he was preoccupied. That was when Gia had told him that she’d agreed to go to the Camden Sunday dinner this evening with Derek.
“I’m kicking myself because I know it’s bound to be just like the Grants’ family dinners,” she went on. “I’ll walk in and get the squint-eye like I’m a geek who’s wandered into cool-kid territory. Most of them won’t bother to talk to me. The ones who do will be rude or nasty or will grill me like a captured spy. No matter what, I won’t be good enough for them and I’ll just want to be anywhere but there.”
Tyson didn’t refute any of that. Instead, he said, “At least you know going in that there’s one thing different—you won’t be trying to fit in or be accepted. You are an outsider with them. The Grants still treated you that way even after you’d been one of them for seven years.”
“Still, I’m dreading it....” Except for the fact that she’d be with Derek, and she was worried about that for other reasons.
“Sharon went to a couple of the Camden Sunday dinners,” Tyson told her. “She loved them—”
“I thought she complained about them.”
“She did. But it was the fact that there was a mandatory Sunday dinner every week that she didn’t like. She said the dinners themselves were good—fantastic food, booze, a big party. And you know Sharon—a lot of people means an audience, and she goes in like a lounge act and loves that. She just didn’t like the Sunday after Sunday routine.”
“Apparently she wasn’t the only one of Derek’s old girlfriends to use the Sunday dinners as a forum or to make a spectacle,” Gia said, going on to tell him about the head shaving and the food policing.
“So it wasn’t just nutcase Sharon and the two weirdos after her, this guy does go for—”
“He calls them unique, colorful or edgy.” Gia supplied the terminology for her friend. “But your cousin and her friends were not his only venture into—”
“Wackjobs?”
“And bad girls who have led him astray,” Gia added. But she decided suddenly that she wasn’t going to tell Tyson about Derek’s Las Vegas wedding and the subsequent disaster. Which was a little odd, because she’d always told Tyson everything and it made her feel slightly disloyal that she didn’t.
But seeing how the event had affected Derek also made her feel protective of him and of what he’d confided in her, and that feeling won out.
Which only compounded what worried her in regards to Derek....
Tyson passed her the syrup as he said, “I’m betting that it won’t be like the get-togethers with the Grants anyway. When you walked into any social situation involving Elliot’s family, he forgot you were alive the minute he hit the door, but I don’t think that’s going to happen with this guy.”
“Don’t be too sure,” Gia said, because it was actually what she expected.
“I don’t know. Derek doesn’t seem to want you out of his sight n
o matter where you are.”
“What do you mean he doesn’t want me out of his sight?” And why did the mere suggestion please her?
“He keeps an eye on you every minute—don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
She hadn’t. She’d thought she was the one always trying to catch glimpses of him. “I don’t think so,” she said, voicing her doubt again.
“Oh, yeah,” Tyson insisted. “When we painted Larry and Marion’s house, the minute he found out he wouldn’t be working with you, he did some fast maneuvering to make sure he would. And every time you moved two steps away at the barbecue, he looked around till he spotted you again. The same at the yard sale. Plus, he hangs around after we’re done doing whatever we’re doing for Larry and Marion—he’s always the last one to go. Unless I miss my guess, he’s got it bad for you, G. He probably just wants you at this dinner so he can have you there himself.”
“He said it was so I could talk to his grandmother about Larry and Marion’s health care.”
Tyson snickered. “I’m sure he did,” he said knowingly.
“I’m not his type, Ty,” she contended, even more convinced of that after hearing what Derek had said the night before.
“You’re not a wackjob or a nutcase or completely loony tunes, no. And you’re a long way from a bad girl,” he added. “But there’s a lot more to you and it’s all great and unless I’m mistaken, ol’ Derek Camden has taken notice.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gia claimed, emphasizing to herself that it needed not to matter.
“Yeah, he’s probably still more like Elliot than not like Elliot,” Tyson agreed.
“You don’t like him....”
“Nah, I like him fine. But one-on-one I liked Elliot, too. I just didn’t like him as your husband. He was lousy at it and his family treated you like dirt.”
“Plus, Derek isn’t the kind of guy who settles down with someone like me to have a normal life and a couple of normal kids. He goes for the thrill ride, and that’s not me.”
“Wow! Why do you sound so sad about that?”
“I don’t!”
“Yes, you do! You were all perky when I said he keeps his eye on you, but that stuff about how wrong the two of you are for each other? It’s like you just burst your own bubble.”
Maybe she had.
But it was a bubble that needed to be burst.
“You do like him,” Tyson said more carefully, repeating what he’d accused her of the very first time they’d talked about Derek. Only now it wasn’t merely a question; there was some conviction in it.
“I do,” she broke down and confessed. “Maybe I have a thing for bad boys.”
“Maybe you do...” Tyson said ominously, under his breath.
“I know better, though,” she swore. “I’m not going to let it go any further....”
Tyson’s eyebrows shot up. “How far have you let it go?”
Gia made a face. “You know...just some kissing....” An understatement when the kissing was so fabulous that merely recalling it made her toes curl.
“God, be careful, G...” Tyson said with a voice full of concern.
“You’re supposed to say, ‘Sure you know better, Gia, and of course you won’t let it go any further.’”
Tyson nodded, but he didn’t say the lines she’d given him. Instead, he said, “Hey, I know how it is—you meet somebody and things click and even if you know better, that doesn’t make them unclick. Just be careful,” he repeated. “Maybe mess around with him, but don’t get into more than that. A little fun, a little...release.... Just enough to boost your ego and remind you how you are much more than Elliot Grant deserved. But other than that—”
“I know.”
“Can you do just that?” Tyson asked as if he didn’t think she could.
She shrugged. “You can,” she said as if that meant she could, too.
“Yeah, I just did with Minna. She just did with me. But you... I don’t know, G.... You haven’t had anybody since Elliot. It could be a rebound thing—and I don’t want to see you just close your eyes and fall....”
“My eyes are open,” she said.
“And how clearly are they seeing?”
“Clearly enough to see that Derek has close ties with a big family that’s done really lousy things to other people. Clearly enough to see that Derek could very well be like Elliot and be more surface than substance. Clearly enough to see that he’s been through a lot of women and the only ones who keep his interest for any amount of time are nothing like me. Clearly enough to see that I’m a babe in the woods when it comes to dating again and am not ready to do anything serious.”
Just not clearly enough to see her way past how terrific looking Derek was. Or how sexy. Or how good it felt to be with him. Or how wonderful it was to have him hold her and kiss her. Or how much she just wanted to be with him again the minute they were apart....
And even though she didn’t say all that, she knew that Tyson could tell, because his expression was concerned and helpless.
“Just be careful,” he said a third time. “Just get in, hook up, get out—can you do that to get it out of your system?”
Gia laughed, thinking about how much more than kissing she’d wanted the night before.
“Maybe,” she said. “I can tell you that it isn’t white dresses and wedding chapels and picket fences and bouncing babies that are on my mind when I’m with him, that’s for sure.”
“Oh, geez, you do want him,” Tyson said somewhat forlornly. “Then go for it, I guess. But if you start picturing white dresses and wedding chapels and picket fences and bouncing babies, run for the hills!”
“I promise.”
* * *
For Gia, the Camden family Sunday dinner was a combination of good and bad.
Derek did stay by her side through the entire thing. That was a vast improvement over how Elliot had treated her at similar gatherings.
But merely being faced with the big, obviously close-knit family was intimidating to her.
She gave the Camdens credit for going out of their way to be friendly and welcoming, because they were. Unfailingly. But there were so many of them. And after being introduced, after chatting warmly, when talk would turn even for brief moments to things between Derek and other members of his family that she couldn’t participate in, Gia flashed back to Grant family gatherings in which she’d been excluded and felt invisible.
She also gave the Camdens credit, because not a single pocket of conversation had stopped when she came within hearing range. There weren’t any withering, disapproving looks cast her way. There was no indication that there was anything secretive going on.
But Gia was still very aware of the fact that she was not a part of things when the family fussed over the pregnant Jani, or everyone teased the newly married matriarch, Georgianna, or focused on the antics of Lang’s three-year-old son, Carter, or bantered about when weddings should be held for the engaged couples among them.
So while the whole affair lacked the ugly overtones that had come with the Grants, still—despite every effort by Derek and the rest of his family to put her at ease—Gia just couldn’t relax or enjoy herself. And she was never as relieved as when it was finally over with and she and Derek were walking to his car.
“Okay, now breathe...” he joked, sounding like a birthing coach.
“Haven’t I been?”
“Have you been?” he challenged. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anybody at Sunday dinner who was more tense. The whole time. And I haven’t seen you like that before. Are we that scary?”
They hadn’t been scary at all. It was just her. And her own baggage. So she said, “No. Did I seem scared?”
He opened the passenger door of his sports car for her to get in, frowning rather than a
nswering her.
Once he went around and got behind the wheel, Gia veered from the topic by saying, “It was really nice of your grandmother to offer to get Larry and Marion in to her primary-care physician even though he isn’t ordinarily accepting new patients. I’d like it if they saw someone new. The doctor they’ve been using acts like she doesn’t want to be bothered with them.”
“Will they switch doctors? Especially to a doctor a Camden arranges for them?”
“I think they’ll be glad for better care no matter how it comes about.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
“And the food was great!” she continued, trying to distract him when he looked at her out of the corner of his eye and she knew he was still thinking about how uncomfortable she’d been. “You’re grandmother’s homemade biscuits were better than any I’ve ever had.”
“She loves it when anyone likes her cooking—”
“It was nice of her to send some home. I was kind of surprised that she cooks, though.”
“She does everything. Farm girl, remember?”
“I just wouldn’t think that someone in her position would—”
“Her position?” he repeated with some humor in his tone. “That would make her laugh—she’d be the first one to say that she isn’t the queen of England.”
When they pulled into her driveway, Gia was relieved that she’d effectively filled the short drive to her house with small talk.
Derek stopped the engine and got out, and so did Gia, not waiting for him to come around to her side.
As they went up to her house, he nodded toward her porch swing. Her porch formed an L around the front and one side of her house, and the swing hung from chains hooked into the porch’s roof. It faced the street at the rear-most portion of the L, between the side of her house and the Bronsons’ garage. It was so far back from street lights and in such deep shadow without her porch light on that it was almost completely hidden in darkness. But he’d been there when it wasn’t dark and seen it.
“It’s a nice night and it’s early yet,” he said. “How about we sit out here for a little while? Or did you have something you needed to get done tonight for work tomorrow?”
To Catch a Camden Page 13