by Leslie Kelly
Eventually, word would spread about what Emma had done at the reunion. The porn star stories would die down, but they’d soon be replaced with ones about Emma’s rant. Meaning that while her classmates seemed to suddenly like her again, her job prospects probably still wouldn’t be too great.
If it took a pie to get a job, darn it, she’d bake a pie.
So she did. She followed her grandmother’s recipe to the tiniest detail, remembering not to overroll the crust, as her grandmother used to caution when Emma watched her bake.
By the time she was done in the kitchen, she had three pecan pies cooling on racks, and she was covered with sticky syrup and sugar. But it was worth it. Because the smell in the house had done something to her. Calmed her. Soothed her. Reminded her of so many days in this kitchen, of the happiest parts of her childhood. She began to feel better than she had in weeks.
About to go upstairs to shower, she paused when she heard someone ringing the doorbell. She certainly wasn’t dressed for company, but it was such a nice change to have some, she didn’t bother grabbing a brush for her hair or a towel for her hands.
When she opened the door and saw the man standing there with his back to her, his thick brown hair made her believe it was Johnny. Reaching for her hair, she immediately began to breathe faster. Darn the man for catching her off guard, looking so awful again!
Then he turned around.
“Nick,” she said, her brow shooting up in surprise.
“Hey, Emma Jean.”
“Hello. Wow, this is unexpected.” Glancing at her watch, she added, “You’re, uh, ten years late.”
He winced. “I deserved that. But can I come in, anyway?”
She nodded, stepping out of the way and ushering him inside.
The years had been kind to Nick—as kind as they’d been to his brother. He was tall and thick-chested, and he stood straight, with a rigidity illustrating his military background. His thick hair was the same shade as Johnny’s, but his eyes were brown, like their mother’s. And they didn’t twinkle the way Johnny’s blue ones did. Still, he’d turned into quite a handsome man, though a much more serious-looking one than she’d have expected.
“You sure surprised everyone Saturday night,” she murmured, gesturing for him to sit on a chair near the window. She sat opposite him, on the couch.
“You’re one to talk. That was quite a speech.”
Feeling her cheeks pinken, she defended herself. “You don’t know what this town has put me through this past week.”
“Someone filled me in.”
Emma frowned. “Johnny? He knew all along. Knew and didn’t tell me until Saturday. I could kill him.”
Nick leaned back in his chair. Lifting a booted foot, he crossed it over his jean-clad leg and stared at her. “No, it wasn’t Johnny.” Then he added, “And I suspect you don’t want to kill him. You and he got awful friendly, didn’t you?”
She met his even stare. “Yeah. We did.” She didn’t add not that it’s any of your business. It was implied.
He apparently got the message, because he finally smiled a bit. “You sure have changed.”
“Have you?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’m not the good-for-nothing Walker kid anymore. You’re not the only one who got out and got a real life. I just made detective on the Savannah P.D.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, meaning what she said. Staying here would have been the worst thing he could have done. It was, however, hard to picture Nick a cop, though she bet the women of Savannah didn’t mind having him on the beat.
“Anyway, I figured the time had come to straighten things out with some people here in Joyful. I didn’t know you were gonna be one of them until I saw you Saturday night.” Shrugging, he added, “I’m glad you are. Because I came over here to apologize.”
“For?”
“For not showing up that night.”
He was apologizing for standing her up at the prom. Not for cheating on her with Daneen. Then again, that might be asking too much, considering he had to have heard her confession about who she’d slept with on prom night.
“It’s all right.” She curled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, looking at him over her knees. “I went anyway.”
“I heard.”
They fell silent for a long moment, during which the only sound was the ticking of the mantel clock and the flick of the ceiling fan above them. Then he finally said, “It was always Johnny you wanted, wasn’t it? Even when we were dating?”
Emma had no idea how he could have known such a thing. But he was right. It’d always been Johnny. Since before she’d even met Nick Walker.
She slowly nodded.
“I figured. So are you two…”
Emma ran a weary hand through her messy, curly hair, probably smearing Karo syrup into it. “I don’t know what we are. Your brother is one confusing man.”
“Yeah, he is.”
Nick rose to his feet. Emma stood also, sensing he’d done what he came to do and was ready to check her off his list. She didn’t think the rest of his meetings with the people he’d be talking to here in Joyful were going to be quite as easy.
“Well, it was good seeing you, Emma Jean. I hope things work out for you, however you want them to.”
However she wanted them to? That was anyone’s guess.
Walking him to the door, she wondered whether to hug him, or shake his hand, or kiss his cheek. This was the boy who’d asked her to marry him many years ago. She never would have. But it’d been nice to be asked.
“Take care of yourself, Nick,” she said, settling on a friendly smile.
When she opened the door to let him out, she found herself very thankful she hadn’t given him the hug, or the kiss.
Because Johnny stood right outside.
JOHNNY HAD WAITED until Monday to go see Emma because he knew Claire would be around all day Sunday. And because he’d figured he’d be dealing with his brother.
To his surprise, though, Nick hadn’t come knocking on his door. Johnny finally figured if he was going to end this thing between them, he was going to have to track his hardheaded sibling down out at their mother’s place.
He’d planned to do exactly that Monday afternoon. First, however, he’d wanted to check on Emma, to see how she was doing after her big meltdown Saturday night.
Man, what a meltdown. She’d been a sight to see. All fiery and indignant, yet still vulnerable and far too good for the crowd who’d been belittling her.
He’d been so incredibly proud of her. Yet, at the same time, sad, because she’d had to stoop to a level so far beneath her. He wanted to tell her so, face-to-face.
And maybe tell her a lot more. Like how sorry he was for ever imagining she’d used him out of self-pity or weakness. Because, damn, one thing the woman had not been Saturday night was self-pitying or weak!
He was still smiling over it when he reached her house and walked to her front door. Before he could even lift his hand to knock, the door swung open from the inside.
His kid brother stood there. Right beside a smiling Emma Jean.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he snapped, before he thought better of it.
“Well, hello to you, too, big brother,” Nick said as he stepped out onto the porch. “I just came to say hello, and goodbye, which I have, and now I’m leavin’.” Nick’s easy tone didn’t hide the hard look in his eyes.
“Where are you going?” Johnny asked, trying not to wonder why, and for how long, Nick had been here.
“Back out to Mama’s.” Nick nodded to Emma, stepped out onto the porch, and stood nose to nose with Johnny. Their stares met and held. Finally Nick added, “When you’re finished here, come out and find me. We have some talkin’ to do.”
Johnny answered with one short nod, then watched his brother walk down the front steps.
Once Nick’s truck had roared away down the street, Johnny turned to Emma. She stood in the doorway, looking like anythin
g but a woman who’d just had any kind of romantic tryst, thank the lord. Her hair was a mess—which, he’d decided, really did suit her. And she wore a simple sleeveless T-shirt and shorts, both of which showed evidence of something sticky. Not to mention what looked like white flour fingerprints on her hip.
“Lemme guess,” he finally said, trying to hide a smile, “you found your grandma’s recipes.”
She grinned, looking relieved that he hadn’t launched into a million questions about Nick. “Yes, I did.”
He had questions, all right. He sure wanted to know why his brother had been here…had he apologized? Had he gone on the attack because of what Emma and Johnny had done on prom night? Had he tried to get her back? But he wasn’t about to ask Emma to explain a thing while they stood out here in the eagle-eye view of all the busybodies on the street.
“Pecan?” he asked instead.
“Yep. Want some?”
“You did promise me a piece.”
She turned and let him in, shutting the front door behind him. He followed her down the hall, watching the gentle sway of her hips and the supple movement of her long, smooth legs. He had to swallow hard, suddenly hungry for a lot more than pie. But before he could do anything about his crazy, instant hunger—and even he didn’t know what that might have been—she started to babble a mile a minute.
“You can’t imagine how hard it was to read the writing. Grandma must have written the recipe down fifty years ago and never rewrote it. Plus I had to go get pecans, only can you believe it I had to get them at the grocery store because I couldn’t find a single roadside stand?”
“Shut up, Em,” he murmured when they reached the kitchen.
She swung around to face him, her eyes wide. “What?”
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” he added, knowing why she was so nervous and chatty. The realization made his jealous imagination kick into overdrive as he wondered what the explanation really was.
“About the pie?”
“About Nick.”
She fisted a hand and put it on her hip. “Oh, I don’t, huh? Thanks for being so magnanimous.”
“I meant, it’s none of my business what Nick was doing here.”
Her eyes narrowed as she stared at him from a few feet away. Her lips pulled into a tight line before she nodded once. “You’re right. It’s none of your business.”
None of his business. That’s exactly what he’d just said. Only, he didn’t mean it. It was his business, because he was crazy about Emma Jean Frasier and had been for eleven years. Damned if he wanted her taking up with his brother again. Not when he was the one she really wanted.
And he knew he was.
Instead of saying any of that, however, he simply crossed his arms and leaned against the counter to watch her.
“Because, you know, it’s not as if we’re involved or anything,” she said as she grabbed a knife and thrust it into the middle of a pecan pie. “I mean, just because we have sex when we feel the need to get off, that doesn’t mean we mean anything to each other.”
Christ, that hurt. Hurt badly. His jaw tightened and he bit out, “Yeah, right. Exactly.”
She looked up, focusing her full attention on his face. Her eyes were stormy, her lips trembling, as if a world of turmoil was going on in her head and she didn’t know what to say.
So she didn’t say anything. She acted instead.
Before he realized what she was going to do, she’d scooped up a big handful of gooey pecan pie filling and lobbed it right at him. It hit him on the chin and jaw, a little of it landing on his lips.
Johnny stood there, shocked, feeling the oozy brown mess drip down his neck and onto his crisp white dress shirt.
“There, you have your pie,” she snapped, her whole body shaking with emotion. “You can enjoy it after you get the hell out.”
She’d doused him with pie. And she was absolutely furious. All because he’d said exactly what he thought she wanted to hear.
But maybe she hadn’t wanted to hear it.
His heart sped up a bit as he acknowledged what she might be admitting. That there was something between them. Something more than sex, something emotional. On both sides.
Unsure how to react, Johnny started by flicking out his tongue to lick off some of the filling. “Good,” he murmured, meaning it.
Then he slowly approached her. For every step he took forward, she took one back, watching him with wide eyes. She suddenly seemed to have realized what she had done, and how he might react to it. Nibbling on her bottom lip, she whispered, “It was an accident.”
He stepped closer, until she was backed against the counter. “Bullshit.”
Then, because words had never expressed things as well as actions when it came to Emma Jean, he lifted his hand to his chin and wiped off some of the filling. Reaching toward her, he smeared it on her neck, almost laughing at the look of shock on her face. Before she could react, he bent down to sample the sweet flavors of old Emmajean’s famous pecan pie…and her granddaughter.
“Johnny,” she said, moaning as he licked and sucked and tasted his way to the hollow of her throat, “what are you doing?”
“What do you think?” he whispered. “I’m eating my pie. You didn’t really want me to take it to go, did you?”
She shook her head, and tilted her head back to give him better access. “No, I didn’t.”
Finally, when he’d licked her clean, he said, “All gone.”
Emma didn’t say a word. She simply opened her eyes and looked at him. Then, still silent, she reached up to scrape more of the filling off his chin. He held his breath, dying to nip at her fingertips, to suck the sweetness from them, but wanting to see what she’d do.
With a seductive smile, she pressed her fingers—and the filling—to her throat, then slid it down in a straight line to below the neck of her shirt.
“I get seconds?”
“And thirds, if you want them,” she whispered.
That answered a lot of unasked questions and Johnny’s reservations melted completely away. He licked away the sweet goo from her collarbone and her throat. Then lower, pausing only to reach for the bottom of her shirt, and tug it up and off her.
She wore nothing underneath. His breath caught and he just looked at her, feeling hungry for so much more than dessert. Unable to resist, he cupped her, tweaking one tight nipple between his fingers until she gasped.
“Johnny…”
“Shh.” Lifting her up by the waist, he set her down on the kitchen counter and stepped easily between her legs. Her eyes closed as her head fell back. She did nothing but moan as he devoured all of the filling she’d smeared on herself.
When it was gone, he reached for the pie, drew out more of the sweet gooiness and spread it lower. Across the top of one breast, then the other. Then down, smearing all that sticky stuff on her beautiful nipple.
She shivered and sighed, almost shaking as he played with her, toyed with her, not licking away the filling as she so obviously wanted.
“It’s gonna get hard…”
“It already is,” he growled.
She laughed, low in her throat, and he followed the sound, lowering his mouth to lick and taste and kiss her clean. When he reached her breast, he was very thorough, savoring every drop. Until finally he closed his lips over her nipple and sucked deeply, the sweetness of the pie not comparing to the sweetness of her skin.
She jerked and cried out in reaction, pressing harder against him as if begging for more. Then, when he pulled away, she met his stare and whispered, “Please…”
He knew what she wanted, and he wanted it too. Slowly, very slowly, he bent closer, watching her gold eyes grow molten and soft as she anticipated his kiss. Her lips parted, welcoming his and they both breathed a little, sighed a little, dreamed a little.
“Emma…”
“I know.”
Then there were no more whispers, he couldn’t wait and had to devour her, to sip from her tongue and taste
the inside of her mouth. She was sweeter than any dessert and he savored every bit of her.
When they drew apart for a breath, he ran a tender hand through her curly hair. “You didn’t mean what you said.”
She shook her head. “You didn’t mean it when you agreed.”
“No, I didn’t.”
She hesitated for one moment, then added, “Nick just came over to apologize. He was only here for five minutes.”
Relief flooded through him, though he’d suspected as much. He knew Emma Jean too well to believe she had any interest in Nick. Unfortunately, the green-eyed monster in his gut had been the one in charge of his emotions since he’d arrived.
“What does this mean, Johnny?”
He knew what she was asking, but he didn’t know the answer. At least, he didn’t know what kind of answer he could give her without scaring her off. Because the first one that came to his mind was one simple word: everything.
It…she…meant everything to him. She always had, she always would. He supposed some would call it both his blessing and his curse.
“Something,” was the answer he finally settled on. “It means something.”
She smiled, a sweet, lazy kind of smile, and replied, “I need you to kiss me now.”
He paused, meeting her stare. Then he told her exactly what was in his heart. What had been in his heart for ten long years.
“I don’t want you to need me, Emma.” Wondering if she could hear the intensity of emotion coursing through him, he continued. “I want you to want me.”
She lifted a hand and cupped his cheek, her skin cool and soft against his face. Then she really rocked his world. “Don’t you know, Johnny? I’ve wanted you from the minute you stole my ankle bracelet.”
He froze, taking her words in, letting them roll around in his mind as he wondered if he could believe them. If he could allow himself to believe them.
Emma didn’t seem to care whether he did or not. She wasn’t waiting. With a deep sigh, she drew him close again, tilting her head back for another kiss. But just before his lips met hers, she whispered, “Can we please do this in a bed for a change?”