by Sara Whitney
“Jazz? You think I’m a jazz guy?”
He sounded so genuinely offended that she reconsidered her flippant assessment. “It just goes with your fancy suits and super-serious numbers job.”
“Wow,” he said. “Jazz and suits and numbers. You make me sound like a real Renaissance man.”
She flicked her eyes sideways and played with fire. “I’m sure it’s a turn-on for the ladies.” She heard the flirtiness in her tone and couldn’t bring herself to regret it despite it being a clear violation of her rules.
“Mmm, yes,” he said drily. “As we’ve discussed, chicks dig my twelve-hour workdays and single-minded pursuit of a partnership at my firm.”
He didn’t elaborate further, and because her wrist still burned with the memory of his fingers pressing into her skin the day before, she kept pushing when she should be changing the subject. “Okay, but what about high school? I know you don’t date much now, but I bet the prom queen/cheerleader set loved you back then.”
His laugh didn’t hold much humor. “That’s a big no.”
She gave a theatrical gasp and clutched her hands to her chest. “Were the girls at your high school all tragically robbed of the power of sight?”
“Not really their fault.” His eyes didn’t stray from the road. “I didn’t try very hard with any of them, and I was busy with my after-school jobs.” He flicked his gaze over to her. “Also, it took a while for me to grow into my nose.”
Mabel studied it, straight and high-bridged. “It’s a good nose.”
“Well, now,” he said with a faint smile.
“That reminds me so much of Dave.” She looked away from his profile to stare at the road. Time to pull it back in. This was a work outing, and ogling the driver could only lead to trouble. “He was scrawny when we met in college. I swear, I could’ve beaten him up and taken his lunch money when we got paired up on a project in our first radio class.”
That pulled a bigger smile from him. He glanced over at her while they waited at a stoplight, but she only saw her own reflection in the mirrored lenses of his aviators.
After a moment, he asked abruptly, “Have you ever done the radio thing without Dave?”
“You mean like when he’s sick?”
“No, I mean have you ever had a show on your own, full time?”
Mabel settled back in her seat, always glad to chat about her partnership with Dave. “Never. We were lucky and landed a great Florida market shortly after graduation, then moved here after that job… came to an end.”
Please don’t ask why, please don’t ask why, please don’t ask why.
But he merely hmmed in response and dropped the subject, and she forced herself to remember every humiliating detail of her departure from the Florida station. It was getting far too easy to let herself imagine that it could be different with Jake.
When he put the Jeep in park outside the sprawling furniture warehouse, she fished a baseball cap out of her purse, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and settled the hat low on her brow.
“Are we undercover today?” he whispered, exaggeratedly looking left and right.
She laughed, glad that animated Jake had decided to rejoin their conversation.
“I sometimes try to keep a low profile in public,” she confessed.
He peered over the rim of his sunglasses. “Right, because you’re kind of a big deal.”
“No!” Mabel felt her cheeks warm. “It’s just that occasionally a fan notices me and posts about it on social media. I’ve had bad experiences with rumors when I’m with a guy, so—”
“Say no more, rock star. We’ll go incognito,” Jake said easily. “Let’s do this.”
But he didn’t make a move to leave the Jeep, and neither did she. The late summer heat intensified as Jake’s smell, that good, clean male smell, surrounded her. Without meaning to, she leaned toward him, wondering if she’d feel that jolt again if she touched his skin.
She inched closer to the hand resting on his gearshift, imagining what would happen if she slid her pinky against his. But at the last moment, he cleared his throat and popped his door open.
“So are we going to spend some money that doesn’t belong to us or what?”
The intimate mood broken, she swallowed and said brightly, “Absolutely. Lead the way.”
Thank God one of them was remembering to keep it professional.
Inside the store, Jake headed straight for the couches. “I’m thinking leather, something you filthy deejays with your long hippie hair and your disgusting coffee can’t ruin.”
“Hey, we all get our mandatory hose-downs once a week, whether we need it or not,” she said, matching his nonserious tone.
He laughed, then pointed at a plush blue sofa. “Sit. I want to make sure this one won’t leave a mark on your otherwise flawless skin.”
The breath whooshed from her lungs, and she plopped gracelessly on the cushions. The one-two punch of Jake’s commanding tone and the implication that he thought her skin was flawless—that he’d thought about her skin at all—was doing things to her insides.
“Nah, it’s too cushiony. Let’s try the next one,” he said, reaching down and hauling her up. He didn’t even grunt as he did it, which she took as a compliment, and the touch of his hand set off the jangle of nerves she was coming to expect when they made skin-to-skin contact. It made focusing on anything but him a chore.
Good thing he was apparently unruffled by it all and there to herd her through the store inventory. After a few tries, they decided on a black leather couch with just the right amount of firmness, and then they moved on to recliners because, as Jake explained, “Every room needs one.”
She snorted. “You’re such a guy.”
He extended his arms to his sides in an invitation for her to examine his decidedly masculine figure. “Thank you for noticing.”
Good God, had she. All afternoon, the only thing she could think about were those broad shoulders in that slim-cut button-down. She blinked a few times and pivoted sharply toward the recliner section. “Then you definitely need to make this decision.” She pushed him toward the row of identical-looking chairs and ignored her sudden desire to suck on his bottom lip.
This attraction was a problem. He was a problem. But she was in no hurry to cut their shopping trip short, especially when, with each model he tried, he shed a bit of the reserve he carried with him. By the time he made his final recliner selection, he was grinning like a kid.
“On to desks,” he said. “That one in the greenroom is a menace.”
When they reached the office section, he made her sit at each one and pretend to type so he could “assess the aesthetics.”
“Happy?” she asked when they’d settled on a finalist.
“Not quite. Hop up.”
She looked at him in confusion, so he put his hands on her waist and swung her up onto the desktop, then seated himself next to her.
“Seriously?” Her voice was breathy, and her heart thundered at the proprietary way he’d put his hands on her body.
“What?” He looked at her with wide-eyed innocence, his shoulder pressing against hers. “It might need to support two people on occasion.”
She was so close—so close—to asking if he was implying what she thought he was implying, but he’d already stood up to arrange delivery details with the saleswoman.
“They guaranteed delivery within two weeks,” he said as they walked back to his Jeep. “And the delivery guys promised they’d take the old couch straight to the dump so no other deejays will be harmed by the biohazards living between the cushions.”
“Funny, funny guy,” Mabel replied, her mind spinning with excuses to extend this shopping trip a bit longer. Her own rules didn’t allow her to date Jake, but at the same time, she wasn’t ready to end this outside-the-office contact. If she could just prolong the afternoon, she’d get to spend a little more stolen time with him without making her question whether those no-dating rules were helping her or
holding her back. Because right now all she wanted to do was take those rules and set them the hell on fire.
She bit her lip and took the plunge. “Hey, you wanna use Brandon’s card to buy us some lunch?”
He didn’t answer right away, and Mabel started to worry that she was having a better time than he was until he looked over at her with a slow smile. “Brandon absolutely needs to buy us lunch.” He fired up the car. “Point me to your favorite spot.”
“Rule breaker!” she exclaimed, heart beating faster. “I was wrong. The Jeep might suit you after all.”
Eight
“You’ve been holding out on me.”
Mabel grinned up at him. “What, that human beings occasionally eat outside during the work week?”
“Yep. Exactly.”
They shuffled forward a step as the line inched closer to the kabob vendor.
“Frankly, it’s inexcusable. All this time I’ve been in Beaucoeur, and you’ve never once dragged me here.” He gestured to the lines snaking across the sidewalks outside the county courthouse where a half dozen food carts offered various culinary delights to be devoured alfresco on the public square.
“Honestly, I was worried you’d burst into flames if I exposed you to direct sunlight.” She looked at him over the rim of her sunglasses, and their eye contact threatened to stretch past an acceptable length of time until she blinked and looked forward with a playful toss of her hair. “You know, like a gremlin.”
“It’s a risk you take with accountants.” In truth, he did feel a little like he might burst into flames, but it wasn’t from the late-September sun beating down on his head and roasting him inside his suit. It was from the nearness of her body to his as they crept closer to the front of the line. With Brandon’s plans weighing on him, he’d tried to keep a wall between them when they’d set off that morning, but the sheer enjoyment of time spent with her pushed those concerns to a corner of his mind almost immediately, leaving his keen physical awareness of her front and center.
He already knew she was smart. He already knew she was funny. And now he knew just how much he wanted her. And that was a hell of a thing to grapple with in the midst of scores of hungry Beaucoeurians. So naturally he looked for an opportunity to touch her.
“You’re missing part of your disguise,” he said. She’d ditched her hat, and he tugged a lock of her hair. As an excuse for physical contact went, it was flimsy, but it was all he had. And damn, her hair was soft between his fingers.
She straightened her Rolling Stones tank top and pointed one gold-sandal-clad foot with a grin. “The hat didn’t match the ensemble.” She took a step forward, leaving him free to glare at the dude walking past who couldn’t keep his eyes off her bare legs under her denim skirt.
“People might recognize you and get the wrong idea about us,” he said when he caught up with her in line.
“Please, have you seen you?” Her teeth flashed white against her tan skin as she smiled wolfishly. “I wish somebody would think we’re dating.”
The smell of spicy meat faded into the background, and he forgot to be annoyed with the fidgety guy behind him as her words ping-ponged around his brain. She’d made it clear weeks ago that she didn’t date—some kind of bad experience, and a public one at that. So she had to be joking around. But God, imagine if she wasn’t. Imagine if he could return the compliment, tell her that her hair was sunshine and her eyes were robin’s eggs and her lips were the softest temptations he’d ever seen. Imagine if he kissed her.
Oh fuck, imagine if he kissed her.
The line shifted again, and he swallowed back the need pounding through him to give the stout, mustachioed man behind the cart his order. Once his hands were full of kabob and soda, it was easier to be his usual friendly self again. Mabel guided them to an unoccupied bench at one corner of the grassy square, where they proceeded to devour their food and discuss whether the original cast of Barbarian Time Brigands was superior or if that honor belonged to the cast of the reboot. As their debate escalated, pressure built in Jake’s chest and expanded until breathing almost became painful.
Happiness. It was happiness swelling under his rib cage and putting pressure on his lungs. He was many things in his life: reliable employee, devoted son, overprotective brother, loyal friend. But happy? That wasn’t part of his résumé. Yet here he was on a weekday afternoon, sitting in an outdoor plaza that offered a glimpse of the Illinois River. He’d ditched his coat and loosened his tie, and Mabel was pressed against his side, beaming up at him as she spoke. He couldn’t think of a time when he’d felt more pure contentment with exactly where he was in life.
He crumpled up his wrapper and wiped his greasy fingers on a too-small napkin, determined to chase this unusual feeling. “So tell me, local citizen. Why is your town called Beaucoeur?”
The twitch of her lips gave him pause.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh my God, your accent!” she laughed. “Somebody took French…”
He tipped his head in acknowledgment. “I thought it would impress girls.” A pause. “It didn’t.”
Mabel shook her head. “Well, we’ve already established that the girls in your high school didn’t know what they were missing. But to answer your question, we actually pronounce it ‘Boe Core’ around here. It’s named for the French fort-slash-trading post established along the river here in the 1600s.”
“‘Beautiful heart,’” he translated. “That’s nice.” His accountant’s brain wasn’t often seized by the poetry of words.
Mabel hummed an agreement, then tipped her face up to the sun. “I love being outside this time of year, even when it’s hot. It’s the end of September, which is practically October, which is basically the dead of winter, so I need to soak up as much warmth as I can before Illinois becomes a frozen tundra.”
She slipped off her sunglasses, closed her eyes, and reclined her body toward the sky, which meant Jake could stare as much as he wanted at the dip of her collarbone, the curve of her cheek, the swell of her lips. He didn’t even care that he was uncomfortably warm in his suit.
Then her eyes opened and she smiled that bold smile of hers—not the plastic, for-the-public one he’d watched her take on and off like a scarf or a pair of earrings all day, but a big, generous, eye-crinkling smile that he’d only seen her give Dave. He’d bake under the September sun in a wool overcoat and long johns if it meant spending more time with Mabel like this.
Then she sighed. “We should probably head back. I’ve got a couple of things to wrap up today before my obnoxiously early bedtime.”
The mention of her schedule jostled the new schedule to the front of his mind, and he fished for more information about just how badly she’d take a possible work upheaval. “Those hours must suck.” Be more obvious, idiot.
“Yeah, the four-thirty alarm’s the low point of my day, and I miss out on lots of things. Primetime TV, moonlight strolls, going to the movies after the sun goes down. You know, traditional adult human activities.” She smiled and took a final sip of her iced tea.
“You don’t ever wish for a different shift?” He held his breath as she shrugged, hoping she’d be interested in a change.
“Sure, I occasionally think about what a normal schedule would be like. It’d be nice to live like the rest of the world, but right now it’s so, so, so worth it to do what I do with Dave.”
And there it was. The pinprick to the happiness balloon in his chest. This lively, lovely woman would be crushed when Brandon upended her work life, and he wasn’t allowed to breathe a word to her.
Before he could fully spin out into full-blown career guilt, they were interrupted by a twentysomething guy who stopped short when he walked by their bench.
“Holy shit, you’re Mae Bell.”
Jake felt Mabel’s body go stiff before she relaxed into a self-consciously casual pose.
“In the flesh!” she chirped.
The kid’s eyes widened, and Jake didn’t blame him on
e bit for looking like he was staring directly into an event horizon after suddenly coming face-to-face with Mabel. He felt a little like that himself most days.
“Oh cool! Is Dave here too?” His eyes traveled over Mabel’s shoulder to land on Jake.
She instantly leaped to her feet and put her back to him, facing the newcomer. “Nope. We aren’t actually attached at the hip. It just seems like it sometimes. Wanna grab a selfie?”
As the kid juggled the foil-wrapped burrito and soda in his hands to reach for his phone, Mabel guided them a few steps away, and Jake shoved his clenched fists into his pockets. She hadn’t been joking, of course. Here she was going out of her way to keep from giving anybody the wrong idea about her private life. Then again, the privilege of actually being part of her private life wasn’t all bad.
The thought pulled his eyes back to her. She was goofing off for the camera while the kid grinned broadly and slung his arm around her shoulder and Jake quietly marinated in jealousy.
Before Mabel and the kid parted ways, he said, “See you at the bar on Saturday?”
“Wouldn’t miss it!” she called as he strolled off.
Once he and Mabel were alone again, they deposited their trash in the nearest garbage bin, then turned toward the side street where he’d parked his Jeep.
“Bar on Saturday?”
“Yeah. Dave plays in a band, and they’ve got a show on Saturday.” She nudged him with her hip. “We’ve been promoting it on air all week, if you’d bother to listen.”
He hip-checked her right back, heart bumping hard at the contact. “Oh, I heard it. I was just waiting for you to ask me to show up.”
When he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and saw her smile, he couldn’t help it. He turned to face her, and she leaned in to create a pocket of stillness in the middle of the busy lunchtime crowd.
“Would you meet me there on Saturday?” she asked. “It could be fun to do something outside work.”
Her expression was nervous and hopeful, and it was all he could do not to kiss her right there. Instead, he reached for her hand.