“There he is, the worm,” she grumbled to Connie and Laila as she got to her feet. The two glasses of wine she’d consumed on an empty stomach made her a little unsteady.
“Sit back down,” Connie pleaded. “Dillon Brady may adore you, but he will not be happy if you cause a scene in his restaurant. It’s the classiest place in town. He doesn’t condone bar brawls.”
Jess turned her attention to Connie. “Then Will should leave,” she declared. “He’s scum. He’s impossible. He’s annoyingly judgmental. And he’s a coward to boot.”
“Talking about me, I assume,” Will said, pulling out a chair to join them.
Connie gave him a warning look. “This may not be the best time,” she murmured.
“Oh, I’m used to having Jess take potshots at me,” he responded easily. “It’s what she does whenever she thinks I’m getting the best of her in a discussion. Instead of offering rational arguments, she resorts to personal attacks.”
Jess’s temper kicked up another notch at his thoroughly condescending tone. “We don’t argue,” she retorted. “You’re just plain stuffy and pompous. You utter decrees as if they’re the gospel truth and we mere mortals shouldn’t dare to question you.”
Will stared at her incredulously. “When have I ever done that?”
“All the time,” she said.
“Name once,” he challenged.
Jess faltered and took a sip of her wine. Unfortunately, specific instances seemed to be lost in the depths of her faintly inebriated brain. “I don’t have to. You know I’m right,” she said, proud of her evasive maneuver.
Will, blast him, merely smiled in that superior way he had that always set her teeth on edge.
“Oh, go away,” she said irritably.
“Not five minutes ago I thought you had things you wanted to say to me. Now’s your chance. Go for it.”
“I changed my mind. It would be a waste of breath. You never listen to a word I say, or at least you never take anything I say seriously.”
“No, go ahead,” he urged. “Bring it on. I can take it.”
Connie sighed. “I think I’ll go up to the bar and get another drink. Laila, you want anything?”
“Are you kidding?” Laila said, standing up. “I’m coming with you.”
“I’ll have more wine,” Jess said.
“Not a chance,” Connie replied.
Her two friends left her sitting there with Will, who seemed to be waiting patiently for her to say something.
“Well?” he urged. “Does this have anything to do with you seeing me at Panini Bistro with a woman last week? You seemed upset.”
“I was not upset,” she said. “Why would I be upset? You mean nothing to me. Less than nothing.”
He didn’t look as if he bought her denial. “Then what’s going on in that head of yours? You’re obviously ticked off at me about something. More than usual, in fact. Just get it out in the open, so we can deal with it.”
“That’s your solution for everything, isn’t it? Talk it to death.”
“I find communication to be helpful, yes,” he said, fighting a smile. “Try it, why don’t you?”
She wanted really badly to wipe the smug expression from his face. “Okay, fine,” she said. “Why haven’t you matched me up with anyone on that stupid computer system of yours? I have half a mind to charge you with fraud or something.”
He lifted a brow. “Fraud?”
“You promise to find dates for people. I paid my money, and I haven’t had a single date! You haven’t even had the gumption just to tell me you’re never going to match me with anyone.”
“Right now there’s no one in the system who’d be a good match,” he said. “I’m adding new clients every day, though. The perfect guy could come along tomorrow.”
“Nice spin,” she said. “We both know it’s because you don’t think I’m good enough. You think I’m a messed-up scatterbrain, and you’re not willing to put your precious reputation on the line to recommend me to one single client.”
To his credit, Will looked genuinely stunned by the accusation. “That’s what you think?”
“It’s what I know,” she said stubbornly, unable to keep a hurt note out of her voice. “You’re supposed to be my friend, even though you know about the ADD. That doesn’t make me a bad person, Will Lincoln. You, of all people, should get that. It doesn’t mean I can’t have a decent relationship. Maybe I haven’t had one up to now, but if this system of yours were any good, you could find the right man for me.”
Will shook his head as her tirade wound down. “You are without a doubt the most exasperating, infuriating, mixed-up woman I have ever known.”
“See?” she said, seizing on his words. “That’s exactly what I mean. You have a very low opinion of me.”
“Hush,” he said, sliding his chair closer.
“Why?”
“Just hush,” he repeated, reaching out a hand to cup the back of her neck.
Jess was so startled, she simply stared at him. “Will?”
He gave her an exasperated look. “Do you not know how to be quiet for just ten seconds?”
He leaned forward and sealed his mouth over hers. The kiss did what nothing else had done. It silenced her. In fact, it pretty much knocked her senseless. Will’s mouth was firm, persuasive, tender.
When he released her, she blinked. “Will?” This time when she murmured his name, she sounded breathless. She was breathless. Talk about an unexpected turn of events! Who knew the man could kiss like that, with barely leashed passion simmering just below the surface?
Dazed, she asked, “What just happened here?”
“There you go again, talking,” he said, once again covering her mouth.
This kiss went on and on until her heart was pounding and she was just about two seconds from ripping the man’s clothes off right where they were. Will’s clothes! That thought had her breaking free and regarding him with shock.
“You kissed me!” she announced, as if he might not be aware of what he’d done.
“I did,” he said calmly, looking disgustingly unruffled by the encounter.
Her gaze narrowed. “Are you going to do it again?”
He smiled, most likely at the disgustingly wistful note in her voice. “I might.”
“When?”
“That remains to be seen.” He stood up.
She stared at him in shock. “You’re leaving? Now?”
“I think it’s best.”
“Why?”
“I’ll let you figure that out on your own. See you, Jess.”
She stared after him as he walked out of Brady’s, then blinked when Connie and Laila sat back down beside her.
“That was interesting,” Connie said, looking amused.
“That was hot!” Laila declared, fanning herself.
When Jess remained silent, Connie gave her arm a tug. “Hey, are you okay?”
“I’m not sure,” she said, shaking off the stupor she’d been in since the kiss. She couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice when she told them, “Will kissed me. I mean, he really kissed me.”
Laila laughed. “We noticed. Everyone in here noticed. Kate even ran and dragged Dillon out of the kitchen to watch. I’m surprised there weren’t cheers. It was quite the show. If Chesapeake Shores had a TV station, that kiss would be on the eleven o’clock news.”
Still dazed, Jess said, “He said it might happen again.”
“Well, hallelujah!” Laila responded with enthusiasm.
Jess wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened here tonight, but she was pretty sure a few choruses of hallelujahs were definitely in order.
What she didn’t know was what on earth could possibly happen next. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be any more surprising than that kiss.
5
Kissing Jess had been everything Will had expected it to be and then some. Not even in his very vivid imagination had he expected such an immediate and total sensation of som
ething being right, something finally, at long last, being exactly as it should be. And that scared him to death.
He was smart enough to know that he’d caught Jess completely off guard. Her emotions had been running high. She’d been a little drunk as well, and he’d taken advantage of the situation. It was a simple matter to turn one kind of passion into another. Any psychology textbook could have told him that. It didn’t mean Jess’s opinion of him had suddenly shifted. It certainly didn’t guarantee she’d turn her back on years of dismissing him and suddenly see him as boyfriend material.
But despite his very stern reminders to remain cautious, he couldn’t help thinking that just maybe the dazed look in her eyes had told another story. He hoped it meant she’d suddenly seen him in a new light. Maybe the kiss had been the start of something, after all.
Or not. As he waffled back and forth, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know which way things were truly leaning. Not just yet, anyway.
Stop with the analyzing, he told himself. Right now he wanted to bask in the sensations that kiss had aroused in him. He didn’t want to do what was instinctive to him and analyze it to death, or to risk running into Jess and having her shatter his fragile hope that their relationship might be on a whole new footing.
In a move clearly designed to avoid any chance encounters, he hunkered down in his office during the day and in his condo at night. Despite the obvious reasons for his behavior, he managed to convince himself that he was behind on his case notes, that he needed to catch up on the business of running Lunch by the Bay. Deep in denial, he even made a case for telling himself that he wasn’t hiding out, not from his own emotions and certainly not from Jess.
Still, after several days of not following his usual routine or answering phone calls from his friends, he wasn’t all that surprised to answer his door one night and find Mack on his doorstep.
“You’ve skipped lunch for three days running,” Mack said, looking him up and down. “You haven’t called me or Jake back.”
“You can’t have been too worried, given how long it took you to come and check on me,” Will noted.
Mack merely frowned at the comment. “You don’t look sick, so what’s going on?”
“I got behind on my paperwork,” Will told him.
Mack didn’t look as if he believed him, but he was already wandering around the apartment with a distracted expression that told Will something else entirely had brought him over here tonight.
“Is something on your mind?” Will asked him.
“Not really,” Mack said. “You have any beer in this place?”
“Always,” Will responded, barely concealing his amusement. Since they’d been of legal age and he’d had his own place, he’d always kept beer on hand for Jake and Mack. “Help yourself.”
“You want one?”
Will shook his head. “I’m good.”
Mack returned with his beer, but he still didn’t sit. He continued to pace, pausing only to stare out the window at the sliver of a view Will had of the bay. When he sighed heavily, Will couldn’t stand it any longer.
“How’s Susie?” Will asked, feeling his way.
Mack shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”
“What do you mean, you guess? Haven’t you seen her?”
“Yesterday,” Mack said. “She was fine, then. I haven’t spoken to her today.”
Will knew all about being patient when one of his clients was dancing around a tough issue, but in his personal life he tended to be more direct. He hated watching Mack working so hard not to say whatever was on his mind.
“You know,” he began, “we could play twenty questions for a while and eventually I’d hit on whatever’s bugging you, but it would be easier if you’d just tell me.”
Mack stood across the room, his back to Will, still staring out the window. “Susie asked me something yesterday that I haven’t been able to get out of my head.”
“Something about your relationship?”
“No, we were talking about newspapers, you know, the way they’re struggling, that kind of thing.”
“Okay,” Will said slowly, still not following. “And?”
“She asked me what I’d do if I ever lost my job as a columnist for the paper in Baltimore.”
Will stared at him. “You think your job’s on the line?” he asked, startled. No wonder Mack looked shaken.
Mack’s column was one of the most popular in the paper, as far as Will knew. The guy’s picture was plastered all over bus benches in Baltimore, for heaven’s sake.
Mack had gone from being a celebrated local athlete to writing about sports in a town that loved its teams. He was as much of a celebrity now as he had been on the gridiron during his all-too-brief professional career. It was one of the reasons he was such an eligible bachelor and why Will and Jake both thought it was so astounding that he’d given up all those fawning women in exchange for a relationship with Susie that he refused to define.
“My job’s secure,” Mack said, though he still looked troubled. “At least for now. But I can’t deny that the business is changing.” He turned and faced Will. “What the hell would I do if I lost it?”
“You’d find something else,” Will said confidently. “Remember when you blew out your knee and ended your football career? You were convinced your life was over. Then you wrote a couple of pieces on speculation for the paper, and the next thing you knew, they’d hired you. That’s the way life is. When one door closes, another one opens.”
Mack gave him a disgruntled look. “Could you save the clichés? Besides, it’s not as if there’s another newspaper around I could jump to. They’re all cutting back.”
“There are TV stations,” Will reminded him. “You’re a good-looking guy. You could work on the air. Besides, aren’t you getting way ahead of yourself? There’s nothing to indicate that you’re about to be fired. That is what you said, right?”
Mack nodded but then gave him a bleak look. “But the paper let half a dozen reporters go today. It happened out of the blue. It almost felt as if Susie had been tapped into some sort of ESP gossip mill.”
Will lifted a brow. “Really? You believe that?”
“Well, come on. She’s the one who brought it up yesterday, and then, boom, today things started happening. At the paper we hadn’t even heard any rumors that there was a possibility of cuts. More people were eliminated from the production side, too. They didn’t even offer buyouts. They just fired those with the least seniority. What if this is the start of the belt-tightening?”
“Then you’ll deal with it,” Will assured him. “Baltimore’s not the only city in the country. There are a couple of papers in Washington. That’s not far away.”
“There have been massive buyouts over there, too,” Mack said, still not consoled. “The long-term future for the whole industry is on shaky ground. Everybody’s scrambling to see if they can stem these tides of red ink.”
Will studied him. “What are you really worried about, Mack? Is it your job? You must know you’d have options outside of newspapers or TV. You could come back here and coach, if you really wanted to. I know the high school principal has talked to you about that.”
Mack didn’t look relieved, so Will took another stab at what he thought was really behind his friend’s mood. “Mack, is this really about having to move away at some point and leave Susie behind?”
For a moment, Mack looked startled. Then he grinned, almost looking relieved to have Will cut to the chase. “Damn, you’re good.”
Will laughed. “That’s why they pay me the big bucks. As for Susie, despite your failure to admit that the two of you actually have a relationship, you’re the only ones who don’t seem to know that you do. I’m not saying I want you to lose your job, but maybe it would be the wake-up call you both need to face how much you mean to each other.”
He met Mack’s still-troubled gaze. “Or you could just face it now and get on with having the kind of relationship you both really want. Then if s
omething changes with your career, you’d be facing that together.”
Mack shook his head. “Susie’s made it clear she’d never date a guy like me.”
“A player?” Will assessed.
Mack nodded. “She doesn’t want to get lumped in with all the other women I’ve dated and dumped.”
Will rolled his eyes. “Haven’t either of you noticed that you haven’t been a player for quite a while now? Unless I’ve missed something, you haven’t been on a date with another woman since you and Susie started spending so much time together.”
“I’m pretty sure she thinks it’s a fluke,” Mack said.
“Okay, it’s just you and me right now and I swear I will not repeat this or throw it back in your face later, but for once just say it. Do you love her?”
To Will’s astonishment, Mack looked genuinely startled by the question. “Everybody knows I don’t do love,” he said a little too quickly. “Or commitment.”
“And yet for three years or so, you’ve been not-dating Susie. In my book, that shows an amazing level of commitment, especially since you haven’t even slept together.” His gaze narrowed. “Or have you?”
“How many times do I have to say that we don’t have that kind of relationship?” Mack said in frustration.
“Then if you ask me, it’s all the more remarkable that you haven’t once cheated on her,” Will said. “Not that it would be cheating, if you aren’t actually dating.” He frowned. “Do you know how muddy and ridiculous all of this is, if not for you, then for the rest of us?”
“You’re not my problem,” Mack said testily.
“Okay, here’s how I see it. I know it would be easy enough to look at your past, at all the ways your family was messed up, and figure out exactly why you don’t believe in love and commitment, but the truth is, you’re better at both than you give yourself credit for. I’m not just talking about Susie, either. You’re one of the best friends I have. I think Jake would say the same thing. We count on you. You’ve never once let either of us down.”
Mack looked embarrassed by the praise. “Come on. You guys would do the same for me.”
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