by Beth Ciotta
She blushed. “Thank you. But that’s not … I’m just not comfortable.”
Casey turned the conversation away from her shy friend. “That list of yours,” she said to Tasha. “That’s pretty involved.”
“Sounds more like a memoir than a recipe book,” Monica said. “Who’s going to convert all that information into interesting prose?”
“If we get the company on board, Brett said they’d hire a ghostwriter.”
“I don’t like the idea of putting our story in a stranger’s hands,” Daisy said.
“Maybe Chloe could do it,” Rocky said. “She was a professional writer and reviewer.”
Chloe tensed as all eyes turned to her. Not exactly what she’d had in mind when she’d come here this evening. She’d never written a book—fiction or nonfiction. Plus it was a lengthy process and who knew if she’d be in Sugar Creek beyond her three-month trial period with Daisy?
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Tasha said, saving Chloe from answering.
“Ten recipes to start,” Sam said. “Forty if we land the contract.” He raised a brow. “As of tonight only eight have made the cut.”
“I know,” Tasha said, “and on reflection I think I may have been a bit harsh in my judgment.” She shrugged and gave an apologetic laugh. “I was so concerned about collecting the most unique and incredible recipes, thinking that’s what would set us apart, but now, thanks to Brett, I know we’re about so much more than the cupcake itself.”
Devlin subtly bumped his knee to Chloe’s as if to say, There it is. The bullshit. Chloe wasn’t falling for Tasha’s sudden “we” mentality either, but clearly some of the others were. She didn’t blame them. Tasha talked a good game and, truth told, this was an exciting project. The only reason Chloe refrained from jumping into the conversation was because she wasn’t a member. She’d come prepared to defend Daisy’s baking, but Tasha had pulled that rug from beneath her by applauding Daisy’s secret special recipe and by reversing her decision regarding another recent submission. Instead of an avenger, Chloe felt like a rebel without a cause.
Her cell phone chimed with an incoming text just as the club started debating who was going to take what responsibility as far as preparing materials for the proposal went. “Sorry.”
She nabbed the phone from her purse, intending to shut it off, but then saw the text was from Ryan. Blindsided, she pushed off the couch, cheeks burning. “I need to take this.”
She walked out of the room without making eye contact with anyone, especially Devlin. Up until two weeks ago, she’d been living with another man, a man she’d assumed she’d marry, and now the only man she ached to make love with was a veritable stranger. Her emotions spun as she sought privacy. Over the past few days, she’d managed to push Ryan and the hurt he’d inflicted further and further from her mind. She’d been on the mend, on the move. Her new life came to a screeching halt with this intrusion of the old. She ended up in the kitchen, of all places, which reignited memories of that awful moment when Ryan had stomped all over her heart and pride. Legs shaky, she slumped onto a kitchen bar stool and triggered the “messaging” app on her smartphone.
Delayed overseas. Talked to the condo super. Said u moved out. Where r u? U ok?
She stared at the backlit text, heart pounding. She thumbed in: Fine.
Find a job?
What the hell? She thought, but typed: Personal Chef.
That’s great.
I know.
She took deep breaths. In and out. In and out.
I only wanted what was best 4 u.
F U. F U. F U, she ached to type. How’s France?
Dont b bitter.
F U. F U. F U, she thought. Not bitter. Grateful.
She shut off her phone before he could respond. She realized then that her leg was bouncing. Damn. She willed it to stop, willed herself to relax.
She couldn’t.
I only wanted what was best 4 u? What did that mean? And why had he texted instead of called? It felt so impersonal. So detached. Was his Parisian tart in the same room? Was he texting because he didn’t want her to overhear? And why text her now, three weeks after leaving her, ruining an otherwise perfect evening? Once again his timing couldn’t have been worse. All the anger Chloe had shoved down welled and brewed. She hugged herself, suppressing murderous impulses.
“You all right?”
She wanted to puke. She glanced up at Devlin, torn between crying on his shoulder and spewing her venom. “Considering there are dangerous utensils within my reach, you may want to leave.”
He raised a brow.
“Sorry.” She blew out a breath. “It’s not you. It’s…”
“Him?”
Either Devlin was very astute or she was extremely transparent. Probably both.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Even if I did”—she inclined her head toward the living room and the ongoing meeting—“now’s not the time.” Her anger receded as she noted the genuine concern in his eyes. He stepped closer and obliterated all thoughts of Ryan-the-cheating-bastard. Devlin’s presence soothed and excited, a heady mix. “I’m sorry I rushed out like that.”
“I’m sorry he upset you.” Devlin reached out and tucked a hank of hair behind her ear, a tender, intimate gesture that caused her to stomach to flutter. “Do you love him?”
The question took her by surprise, but not as much as her gut answer. “No.” She pressed her palm to her forehead. When had that happened? Had she fallen out of love a little at a time or had his betrayal squashed her feelings in one swift stomp? Had she ever been truly in love with Ryan?
One thing for certain: He’d never ignited her senses the way Devlin did with the simplest touch. What would it be like if he touched her intimately? The possibilities caused her to shiver. She met his gaze and her pulse raced. He wanted to kiss her. She willed him to. Needed him to. Make me burn.
Arguing voices cut through the sensual haze, reminding Chloe they weren’t alone.
Devlin eased back, frustration sparking in his eyes. “When I get back from Florida—”
“We’ll talk.” She pocketed her phone and eased past him. She wanted to do a whole lot more than talk. She wanted to fall into bed with him, to explore whatever burned between them. One night with him would surely trump a thousand with Ryan. She wouldn’t allow herself to think beyond succumbing to temptation. She wanted to move on, to rediscover passion in all its forms. Holding back is for sissies, she could hear Daisy saying.
“Wait.” She turned to Devlin before they crossed the kitchen threshold. “I need to ask you something about Daisy. About all the medication she takes.”
His expression hardened. “What medication?”
TWENTY-THREE
Rocky wrenched open her groaning fridge’s door, nabbed a bottle of water, and downed a Tylenol PM. She’d been tossing and turning for the past three hours. Two in the morning and Jayce still hadn’t returned to the Red Clover. When he’d dropped her off at Dev’s, he’d told her he had plans for the evening and wouldn’t be back until late, to which she’d answered, Whatever.
She hated that he’d seen her drunk two nights before and even more that he’d held her hair back from her face and massaged her shoulders as she puked her guts up in the toilet that next morning. The worst was the fact that she couldn’t remember that night clearly. Everything that transpired between Adam driving her home and her waking up the next morning with a monstrous sick headache was a blur. She knew Jayce had tucked her into bed because he’d told her so, and she knew she’d blabbed and told him she was sleeping with Adam because he’d made a not-so-subtle reference. Other than that, they hadn’t spoken about that night. They’d barely spoken in two days. He’d spent most of his time at his parents’ house consulting with a contractor about renovations. She’d wasted an entire day recovering from a hangover, then committed a good chunk of today to meeting with Adam to coordinate their plans to merge. Since her Jeep was in the shop, she�
��d been counting on Adam for a ride to Cupcake Lovers, but then he’d been called away by a client.
That left Jayce. Considering they were at odds, she should’ve shown a little gratitude when he’d offered to drop her at Dev’s. Instead, she’d been resentful and flip. Guilt rippled through her blood as she imagined that exchange being their last. Ever.
Thunder rumbled and rattled the kitchen panes, intensifying her already-ominous thoughts. Two days of scattered, severe storms. There was talk of potential flooding. Roads were slick with rain and mud. What if Jayce had spun out and slammed into a tree? Or what if an oncoming car had lost control and hit him head-on?
She heard the front door open and close and, in spite of herself, nearly tripped over her feet hurrying from the kitchen to the outer sitting room. “Where have you been?” She cringed at her slightly hysterical tone, smoothed her clammy hands over her baggy striped boxers.
“I told you I’d be late.”
“It’s two in the fricking morning!” She was torn between hugging and slapping him. Flicking on a table lamp, she looked him over for scrapes or broken bones, but all she saw was a superfit, superfine man who made her blood boil and burn.
He raked his damp, longish hair from his face and angled his head. “Worried or jealous?”
She realized then that he smelled of perfume. While she’d fretted about him being dead in a ditch, he’d been boinking some woman. She hadn’t expected that. Throat thick with resentment, she turned on her bare feet and returned to the kitchen for her water. Unfortunately, he followed. “How was your date?” she gritted out.
“Great. How was your meeting?”
“Interesting.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“The meeting or your date?”
“About why you can’t let it go.”
He was referring to their blowout thirteen, going on fourteen, years ago. That night exploded in her mind as if clearly as it were yesterday. Anger and hurt merged and intensified, causing her stomach to turn and her hands to tremble. She balled them at her sides.
“Hating me for doing the right thing is warped, Dash.”
The right thing had shattered her heart. “Don’t call me that.”
Thunder and lightning boomed and flashed as they faced off in the kitchen, an ancient storm brewing between them. “You’re just as stubborn and unreasonable now as you were then. Maybe more so. God help Adam if he actually falls for you.”
Before she could rally, a crack of lightning blinded and a loud crash shook the house. Acting on instinct, Rocky rushed toward the sound, bursting out the back door onto the rickety back porch. The motion detector light flicked on, flooding the grounds and tripping her panic button. “Oh no!”
“Hold on,” Jayce ordered, but she was already bolting toward her damaged shed.
Her bare feet slipped on the sodden grass and she went down hard on her knees. Pain shot up her thigh, but she ignored it and scrambled upright.
Jayce snagged her arm and hauled her back. “What the fuck?”
Lightning had struck a huge sugar maple near the base of its trunk, splitting it through. The bulk of the huge tree had toppled and crashed into the roof of the shed that housed the recreational gear she rented to guests. Bikes, snow skis, croquet sets, lawn tennis equipment, two motorized scooters, the Arctic Cat snowmobile … The entire shed was listing. “I have to get my things out of there!” she shouted over the thunder and driving rain.
“Are you insane? The roof and walls could give any minute!”
“That’s why I need to get my gear out. At least the big-ticket items. I can’t afford to replace everything!”
She tried to tug free, but he held firm. “It’s not worth risking your safety, Rocky.”
“Yes, it is!” He didn’t get it. No one aside from Adam did. This wasn’t just her home, business, and livelihood. This was her dream. She heard an ominous creak of wood. Heart pounding, she swung hard and clipped Jayce’s jaw.
“Son of a—”
Another wild swing connected with his eye. She yanked free and bolted forward, screaming when he lunged and tackled her to the ground. At the same time, the roof buckled and the walls gave way under the mighty sugar maple—her recreational equipment crushed under the weight and ruin of timber, metal, mass foliage, and thick branches.
Tears she’d been damming up for weeks burst free, coupled with rage—old and new. She twisted under Jayce’s body, and when he eased off she knocked him flat on his back in the slick grass and pummeled him with her fists. She blamed him for stealing and shattering her heart and innocence. For her warped views on love and her wrecked shed and gear. She hated him for doing “the right thing” then and now.
If she’d thought for one second Jayce was going to lie there and withstand her fury, she’d been sorely mistaken. In a swift move that made her head spin, he deflected her blows, sprang upright, and whisked her into his arms. The storm raged around and inside them as he carried her into the house and dumped her soaked, aching body into a kitchen chair.
“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” he warned in a dangerously low voice. His gaze flicked over her, his breathing shallow. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he thumbed a tear from her cheek. He opened his mouth, closed it. Pushed off and swung away. “Fuck!”
Her chest ached, his anger crashing over her in suffocating waves. Was he pissed because she’d acted recklessly or because she’d punched him? She was too heartsick to care. She gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering, aware that her boxers and tank top were soaked and plastered to her body. The last thing she needed was pneumonia. The last thing she wanted was for Jayce to notice she was chilled and do the right thing by trying to warm her. She couldn’t bear it if he wrapped her in his arms or, worse, placed her in a hot bath. It had been torture enough when he’d pinned her under his hard body. Even in her anxious state, she hadn’t been numb to his sexual pull. Physically aching for a man who’d resigned himself to marriage on principle made her want to bash her head against the wall.
Disgusted with herself and knowing there was nothing to be done about the shed and its contents until the morning, she swiped away tears, dug for control and headed for her bedroom. “I want you out of this house,” she said in a quiet voice, not caring if she was being irrational or unfair. Life was fricking unfair. “The sooner, the better.”
* * *
Devlin gave up on sleep around 2:00 a.m. He was too damned revved, his brain racing with multiple issues, possible solutions and outcomes. For the most part his hands were tied until tomorrow. Some things, like the possible employee crisis at J.T.’s, couldn’t be broached until Monday at the earliest.
Tomorrow, he’d get a personal handle on his dad’s state of health. Tomorrow, he’d contact Daisy’s second doctor, the one he knew nothing about, in order to learn if she had health issues he knew nothing about. He’d researched the few prescriptions Chloe remembered and was relieved to find most had to do with common ailments like high blood pressure and arthritis. Still, the fact that Daisy was seeing a mystery doctor was troubling. Also troubling, the fact that Devlin had unspoken business with Chloe. He’d thought it could wait until he returned from Florida, but it was actually the one thing within his control tonight. He fought a knee-jerk impulse for close to twenty minutes.
“This is insane.”
Caving, he rolled out of bed and pulled on jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt.
Ten minutes later he’d crossed Sugar Creek and pulled into Daisy’s driveway. Using a spare key, he let himself inside and, without turning on any lights, quietly moved into the kitchen at the opposite end of the house, away from the stairway that led to the upstairs bedrooms. He felt like he was back in high school, sneaking in late and trying to filch a beer from the fridge on top of it all. Only he wasn’t here for the beer.
Slaking his wet hair from his face, he rolled back tense shoulders, then palmed his phone and pulled up his newest contact.
“Hello?”
Her voice was hushed and husky and tripped every sensual wire in his body. “Sorry to wake you, Chloe.”
“I wasn’t sleeping. Too much on my mind.”
“I know the feeling.”
“What’s wrong? Is it Daisy?” she asked in a worried whisper. “The medications?”
“No. It’s me.” I’m crazy about you. “I need to speak with you.”
“Okay.”
“In person. Come downstairs. Meet me in the kitchen.”
“Daisy’s kitchen?”
“Try not to wake her.” He signed off, thumbed the phone to vibrate, then slipped it in his pocket. Whatever reservations he’d had about Chloe had muddied and waned over the last few days. Desire trumped suspicion and apparently rational thinking. Otherwise he would’ve tempered this incessant yearning with a cold shower or a stiff drink instead of driving across town in the middle of the night like an obsessed lunatic.
Before he could second-guess his actions, Chloe sailed into the moonlit kitchen, a vision of innocent beauty in her short pink robe and silky pink bottoms, her dark hair pulled back from her sweet face in a loose, lopsided ponytail.
Oh yeah. Instant hard-on.
“What is it?” she whispered, looking him up and down as if she expected broken bones or a bloody wound. “What’s wrong?”
“It can’t wait until I get back from Florida.”
“What can’t wait?”
He grasped her wrist and pulled her against his body. Their gazes locked and a split second later they launched into a frenzied kiss. A tangle of limbs as they each shifted, vying for control. A jolt of sensations as they touched and claimed. Sampling, savoring.
She matched his fervor, her hands moving up and under his damp tee, smoothing over his abs, then around to his back.
He pushed open her robe, palmed her ass through her silky pajamas. He lifted and her legs instantly wrapped around him, her pelvis grinding against his arousal as they kissed each other senseless.
A kiss. He’d come for a kiss. A scorching kiss that would brand his senses, staying with him over the next two days, satisfying him enough until he could return and seduce her properly. Except in the midst of this white-hot kiss he couldn’t think beyond his dick. He knew she’d fried his good senses when he laid her back on the kitchen table, his fingers loosening the drawstring at her waist.