“Not romantic. We were just… hanging out,” she said, her eyes on her wineglass. “I need a refill for this discussion.”
Faith obliged her.
“Sounds like you’re in deep, Sofie.” This from Kimber, who probably knew what she was talking about. She’d mentioned how all she’d done was agree to a nanny position with Landon to watch Lyon for a week. After that week, she and Landon agreed to a list of “extracurricular bedroom activities”—her words—that ended with a surprise neither of them had anticipated: love.
“I thought Landon and I were keeping things casual, but I quickly learned sex is anything but casual.” Kimber elbowed Gloria. “I knew I was right.”
Glo held out her palms. “I admit I’m horrible at giving advice to other people. I’m better at giving advice to myself.”
“And the advice you are currently giving yourself?” Charlie fished.
Glo sat up straight in her chair and lifted her glass. “Never bed the bad boy and expect him to change.”
Faith raised her glass. “I can drink to that. Michael wasn’t exactly a bad boy, but a ‘good’ boy doesn’t cheat on his fiancée, now does he?”
They toasted the inarguable fact.
Charlie held up a finger to make her point. “Evan is a bad boy, but in the right ways.”
Kimber smiled. “Mm-hmm. And Landon’s emotions were buried until I unearthed them.” Those two cheersed next. “Just goes to show, sometimes, a bad boy can bring out the best in you.”
While Gloria and Faith scoffed, and Kimber and Charlie playfully argued their point, Sofie sipped her glass, feeling very alone, and a little worried. Looked like this thing with Donovan could go one of two ways for her.
Was Donovan still cut-and-run like Ash, or ready for a fresh future, like Evan?
Was Sofie more like Glo, embittered to the point of giving up, or Charlie, who embraced the second chance and was happier for it?
Time knew. But it’d be a while before it told.
By week’s end, Donovan was making himself at home. Apparently, he thought, having just watched the movers set up the king-size bed in the master bedroom.
With all the junk he’d been hauling out of the basement, and all the bending he’d been doing over the fireplace in the great room, he needed a better place to sleep than a crappy air mattress or a springy couch.
His and Connor’s impromptu wrestling match hadn’t helped, either. Connor was younger than him, so the bastard bounced back instantly. Meanwhile, Donovan iced his shoulder and wondered when the hell the new aches and pains had started.
Al, the head delivery guy for Cozy Home, sliced the plastic off the mattress with an expertise that only came from moving mattresses for a living. He wasn’t a small guy, with a sizable gut and a black brace wrapped around his lower back. Nor was he young. Donovan put him at fifty or fifty-five, and that was being generous.
“All set, Mr. Pate.” Al extended a beefy mitt, and Donovan shook his hand. “I’ll see myself out.”
“Thanks.” Donovan stood over the newly delivered bed dominating the room. The room could hold it—it was the master suite, after all—but he’d also ordered a big-ass bed. At his height he wasn’t risking his feet hanging off the end. And after many restless nights, he was ready for a good night’s sleep. He’d like to fall into it now. But he couldn’t.
A reporter was coming today from The Evergreen Gazette. Sofie called this morning to give him a heads-up. She’d come by on Wednesday as promised, to meet with the caterer, but he’d been out. Got home as she was following the woman to her car. Other than a wave over her shoulder, he hadn’t seen or talked to her for a week.
Until this morning. His heart had hit his gut when his phone rang with a local number. Connor never called—didn’t need to call since he was here all the freaking time—so Donovan figured it was Scampi. He answered, and Sofie told him the paper wanted to do a piece on the mansion for the charity dinner.
He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to it if only to get to see her again. Sighing, he turned and found Connor in the doorway.
“We won’t have everything done today,” Connor said. Ant had come out to help with some last-minute yard cleanup. The indoor greenhouse had been cleaned up, too, by Connor since he conceded the wrestling match. To be fair, Donovan had tried to warn Connor he was scrappier than he looked. “But the yard will be photo ready by the time the paper gets here. No worries.”
“Not worried.” Donovan knew things would come together. Plus, Charlie was taking the photos and he trusted her to shoot the place in its best light.
His friend’s eyes cut past him. “Giant mattress.”
“Huge.”
Connor gave him a shit-eating grin. “You bought her a bed.”
“Piss off. I bought a bed.”
“To sleep with her in.”
More than sleep… if I can get her to stay. Laying Sofie on the table in the great room, boosting her up on the washer—both fun. But Donovan was sick of fighting one structural impediment or another. He wanted to lay her down and take the time to do the things he wanted to do to her.
And there were a lot of things.
“Lotta room to groove,” Connor put in.
“Don’t you have something to mulch?” Donovan grumbled.
“Yeah, yeah.” He turned to leave.
Donovan followed, but before he flipped off the lights, he studied that big, spacious bed again. And thought of Sofie on it.
Acres of room to groove.
With a smile of his own, he closed the door.
Sofie arrived an hour before the reporter was due to show. She wore her best navy blue pencil skirt and a tight, but not too tight, white shirt with beaded navy blue, silver, and white jewelry around her neck, wrists, and dangling from her ears. Her hair was up, her heels were tall, and she was ready to kick some reporter butt.
Theoretically. Robin from the Gazette loved the idea of the mansion pairing with Open Arms. He wanted nothing more than for the dinner to be a success. Charlie, who often took pictures for the paper, had the idea to call them, and Ruby had given her wholehearted approval. The last link in the chain had been Donovan, who had agreed with nary an arm twist.
Sofie stepped out of her car and took a deep breath as she scanned the grounds. She was pleased with what she saw. And not only because Anthony Renaldo was back there buzzing through a tree trunk with a chainsaw, sawdust stuck to the sweat on his arms, hands, and dotting his longish hair sticking out from beneath his ever-present Fedora.
The passenger side door opened and closed. “Who the heck is that?” Faith asked, awe prevalent in her voice. “Oh, wait. You told me about him. He has a bug name or something.”
“Ant,” Sofie said with a laugh.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Don’t even pretend you’re not looking for your landscaper. He’s here, don’t worry.”
Charlie pulled her car into the driveway and parked, waving as she did.
Faith tugged her sunglasses from her face and rested them on her head. “I’m here to support you,” she told Sofie. “Not look at the eye candy…” Her voice trailed off as her gaze flitted to the backyard where Connor walked into view.
Uh-huh. Sure she was. Sofie clucked her tongue. “He is not a fan of wearing a shirt, is he?”
“No, he is not,” Faith murmured.
Charlie, camera in hand, stood next to Faith. “Would it be wrong for me to snap a few candids of these guys? You know, for practice.”
“Only if you promise to blow one up poster size for my bedroom,” Faith quipped.
Sofie shook her head at her friends, but couldn’t blame them. When did the Cove suddenly fill to overflowing with man candy?
Delicious as these two were, her thoughts went to her own sweet piece—dark, salty, sweet Donovan.
She headed for the mansion’s front door, waving to Faith and Charlie to follow.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Longest. Interview
. Ever.
Four hours later, Sofie had just about enough of smiling. She was a cheerful person, but the pressure of representing Open Arms and the stress of making sure she smiled enough for both her and Donovan had taken a lot of face muscles.
Robin Derringer, reporter for the Gazette, finally showed signs of slowing. Around her height, he was short for a man, with dusty blond hair gone half-gray. His nose was large but regal, his teeth white but not too white. He was a powder keg of energy. About a half an hour ago, Sofie wondered if the interview might last until dark.
They’d covered most of the thirteen-thousand-square-foot mansion, Charlie alongside them snapping photo after photo. Several rooms weren’t camera ready, but there was no shortage of rooms that were. After traipsing through the inside, their group—Donny included—walked the entirety of the grounds.
High heels, she had concluded, were not the best choice in footwear.
Donovan wore the smarter outfit of baggy cargo shorts, boots better suited for the long grass, and a comfy-looking V-neck shirt. Dog looked equally smashing, wearing a red bandanna around her neck, her hair brushed and fluffed courtesy of Faith’s talented hand.
Faith left earlier. About an hour into the interview, she tracked Sofie down to let her know Skylar had an emergency of sorts—an ex-boyfriend emergency. Even though Faith had rolled her eyes, Sofie could see she was worried about her sister. Without hesitation, Sofie handed over her car keys.
Connor and Anthony had also vanished while they toured the inside. Just as well. Two dirty, sweaty, and yeah, okay, sexy guys traipsing around shirtless would be a fine photo if they were publishing a calendar, but for the newspaper… not so much.
The photos Charlie took now—of Dog, at Robin’s request—were going to be the perfect attention-grabber for the article. Sun shined on glossy fur, Dog perched on her back haunches, pink tongue panting, bandanna bright against her white-and-brown hair. She looked happy. An absolute showstopper with the mansion in the background.
Charlie smiled from behind her camera. “She’s going to win so many hearts!”
Without a doubt. She’d won Sofie’s already.
Donovan stood, arms over his chest, and watched the photography session with mild interest. In what she hoped was a subtle move, Sofie slipped out of her Manolo Blahniks and flexed her toes in the cool, thick grass. Ahh, so much better.
“What’s the pup’s name?” Robin asked, pencil at the ready over the notebook he’d been scribbling in all day. “For the photo caption.”
Donovan exchanged looks with Sofie, who stayed quiet. His black eyebrows lifted slightly.
Not knowing whether she should say “Dog” or “Gertie,” Sofie hedged. “She’s, um, she’s a rescue. Donovan found her out back and nursed her back to health.”
Robin’s pencil moved furiously over the pad. “She was injured?”
“And starving,” she added.
“You have veterinary training, Mr. Pate?” the reporter teased.
Donovan’s face stayed rigid. “Patched myself more times than I can count. Masonry is dangerous business.”
Masonry. Sofie felt her heart pinch. She knew the truth. He’d patched up more than injuries occurring on the job.
“Will the pup be attending the charity dinner?” Robin asked. “Seems friendly.” He watched Donovan, waiting for an answer.
“That’s Sofie’s area of expertise.”
It was?
“Oh, um. No, probably not the formal dinner.” She smiled brightly. The dog was well behaved but the fancy dinner was no place for her. “She will be attending the campout the night before. Some of the kids relate better to animals than they do people,” she said, remembering what one of the counselors told her. Charlie lowered her camera and Sofie stroked Gertie’s head. “People have let those kids down. Open Arms often uses animals in the facility to get the quieter kids to open up.”
“That’s great. Great stuff, Sofie.” Robin wrote in his notebook. He looked up when he was finished. “Article will run in the next week or two. I’ll shoot you an e-mail when we have the slot finalized.”
“Thank you, Robin.” She extended a hand and he took it, his smile revealing an attractive fan of crow’s feet on either side of his eyes.
Charlie flipped through the photos in the camera, head down as she shuffled through the grass to where they were standing. “I think we have everything. I’ll get these organized and e-mailed over to you,” she told Robin. “By Monday?”
“Perfect.” Robin nodded at her and then turned back to Sofie and Donovan. “Oh, the dog’s name?”
There was an unnaturally long pause hovering in the air between them. A pause that shouldn’t be there. The question was simple enough. A rescued dog, clearly at home at the mansion, obviously had a name. Technically, the dog did have a name. But by Donovan’s silence, he must have realized “Dog” wasn’t the best name to give to the newspaper. Naming a dog “Dog” made him seem either really disconnected or really dim.
And he obviously didn’t want to share the name Sofie had given the pup. Because it would bring up the topic of his grandmother. Just when she was about to make something up, she heard an intake of breath over her shoulder.
“Gertie.” His voice was tight, but she doubted anyone noticed.
The reporter’s pencil stopped on the paper. “Gertie as in Gertrude? Like your grandmother?” Robin smiled gently, not knowing the truth about her. But then, no one knew the truth, did they? It hadn’t been public knowledge the woman who should have cared for Donovan had neglected him.
Sofie would just tell Robin a white lie—that she’d blurted out the name and it stuck. “Actually—”
“Yes,” Donovan interrupted. “Open Arms was important to Gertrude. And the dog showed up at the mansion the night I came back to town…”
He trailed off, and again she felt the truth of that statement spear her heart. What he told Robin was true, yet there was so much more truth buried beneath it.
“Like a sign,” Robin filled.
“Right,” Donovan said, but Sofie heard the flatness in his voice.
“Nice.” Robin tucked his notebook away. “It’s a lovely tribute.”
Sofie smiled, but her heart wasn’t behind it.
Robin shook Donovan’s hand, then Sofie’s again. Charlie said good-bye before she and Robin walked to the driveway, talking the entire way.
Once they’d climbed in their respective cars and driven down the driveway, Sofie turned to Donovan. “I’m sorry about that.” Lame. But it needed to be said.
Donovan was stalking—yes, stalking—toward her, his jaw set. His eyes fierce. For a second she thought he might go on a tear about Gertie, or about Sofie’s insistence to name the dog Gertie. She held up her palms to speak in her defense, but rather than get a single word out, she ended up with two handfuls of very hard, male chest.
An arm wrapped around her lower back and a hand grasped her backside. He lifted her off the ground, knocking her off balance. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her ankles around his lower back. A fraction of a second later, her mouth was accepting his tongue.
Oh. Oh, his mouth was glorious.
The kiss was slow and deep—so deep, she felt a ping between her legs as he lit her on fire again and again. So hot, she would swear the ends of her hair sizzled.
Well. This confrontation was going much better than she’d expected.
Carrying her, he walked them toward the house, Gertie jogging past them to the side door leading to the kitchen. Probably looking forward to a nap on the stack of blankets in the utility room.
Spotting her shoes still in the grass, Sofie pulled her lips from Donovan’s. “My shoes.”
“Don’t need ’em,” he replied lazily, propelling closer to the house, the hand on her back moving into her hair and pushing her lips down over his again. He worked her mouth while she clung to him like a treed cat.
“I need to get them,” she panted when he gave her a chance to breathe. �
��What if it rains?”
His eyes were not amused. Then they were. Then the corner of his mouth—which was so close she could see the stubble pressing to the surface of his skin—lifted in amusement.
“Seriously,” she whispered.
“I’ll buy you new ones,” he countered.
Before she could argue they were clearance, or the last pair of seven-and-a-halves at Cobbler’s Cove, or tell him the price and cause him to have a seizure, he lit her up again. That same ping and sizzle returned, this time with a vengeance she either didn’t want to want or couldn’t refuse.
He opened the door and carried her into the kitchen. Propping open the door with his hip, he set her on her bare feet, let Gertie pass, then followed behind her.
Fading sunlight filled the kitchen, shining warm orange and yellow on Donovan’s face. His pale eyes held a certain spark, making him look like a heavenly body. He had one of those, too, she thought, eyes tracking down his tattooed arms.
Hadn’t she been about to do something? Oh, right. Her shoes. She took a step to the door. “It’ll only take a second—”
He reached for her and quelled the flow of words yet again, his mouth plundering hers, and more putting her panties in danger of getting wet than her precious shoes.
“Argue with me again,” he dared, his hands sliding around to her butt and cupping it.
“No, thank you.”
His lips lifted again and she had to mentally restrain her heart from doing the same. Gloria’s words from wine night—though slurred—rang in her ears. Had Sofie bedded the bad boy expecting him to change?
Of course she had. Even now she found herself hoping he’d stay in the Cove instead of leave when this charity dinner was over.
Donovan, his hand linked with hers, walked from the kitchen to the dining room and into the foyer. She floated behind him, the promise of what she guessed was more kisses carrying her on the air.
Which… was a very bad idea.
“I should get out of here,” she said in a last feeble attempt to keep her heart intact. “Can you still take me home?”
Rescuing the Bad Boy Page 20