The doorbell jingled again and Annie gave Kate a quick hug. “You’re going to be wonderful parents. I’ll be back soon.”
She opened the kitchen door and stared at the man standing at the counter.
“Hi, Annie.” Dylan had one of his expensive business suits on. The kind that fit him like a glove, contoured and sleek, and oh so sexy.
She kept her gaze on his deep gray tie until she felt brave enough to look him in the eyes. She wondered if she’d ever be brave enough to do anything spontaneous with Dylan again. Kissing him on Saturday night had been a disaster. A total, drop dead, over-the-top disaster that would take a long time to forget.
He cleared his throat and Annie felt the heat of a blush on her face. She sent him a quick smile, then reached inside the food cabinet, rearranging the sandwiches and scones to give herself something to do. “Hi, Dylan. What can I get you today?”
He didn’t say anything, so she looked up and froze. His eyes weren’t smiling. He looked serious, too serious for a lunchtime order of lasagna and salad, or whatever he wanted.
She pulled the tongs out of the cabinet and cleared her throat. “Tess is making her famous beef burgers if you want something more filling than sandwiches? The pasta’s pretty good, too. Or if you want something a bit different we’ve got bacon and bean soup that…”
“I didn’t come here for lunch.”
“Oh.” Annie stuck her hands in the pockets of her apron in case she started flapping like a demented chicken.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
Annie opened her mouth, then closed it. There was no point denying it. She’d purposely ignored the last two texts he’d sent and the message he’d left on her phone. She needed space, time to rebuild her immunity to a man that made her wish for things that could never be.
Annie sighed. “I know. I should have told you why.”
Dylan looked over his shoulder. No one was standing behind him, or waiting at a table for a refill of their coffee. He looked uncomfortable and worried, everything she didn’t want him to feel.
“Have you had lunch?” he asked.
Annie blinked. “Um…no. But I have to be at Osborne and Sons soon. I don’t know if I’ll have enough time…”
He checked his watch. “Has Kate arrived?”
“Yes, but she…”
Dylan didn’t wait for her to finish what she was saying. He shot behind the counter and opened the kitchen door. “Tess, do you mind if I…oops, sorry.”
He stepped out of the doorway, blushing something fierce. He ran his hand through his hair and stared at Annie as if he’d just dropped into the café from another planet. “I guess it’s not a good time to have lunch together.”
“Kate’s okay, she’s just…” Annie didn’t know what to tell Dylan. There was no way she’d tell him Kate was pregnant. That was up to Kate and Dan to share the news when they were ready. And there was no way Annie would have lunch with him. She wasn’t ready to deal with the want and need swirling inside of her every time she stood close to him. Like now, when he looked so unsure of what to do next.
She walked around the counter and cleared a table of dirty dishes. She didn’t care if it made her look like a scaredy-cat. She needed to be cautious, keep out of Dylan’s way, and run for cover if that didn’t work.
He snuck up behind her and took the dishes out of her hands. “I got the hint that you don’t want to talk to me. I understand why. I’ll ask Sally to look after the kittens. Thanks for everything.”
He disappeared into the kitchen and Annie stood silently in the middle of the café. Her heart pounded in her chest. This was so not the person she was. She wasn’t mean and rude. She tried to be kind, but she’d been anything but kind to Dylan. He hadn’t seemed upset, but she knew how easily he could hide the deepest hurt.
She’d forgotten about the kittens. In her mixed up, crazy mind she thought Dylan had come to the café because he wanted to see her. She felt like an idiot. He’d come because she’d promised to look after his kittens while he was away.
If she was going to apologize, she had to do it now. If he left before she said sorry, it would be much harder to make up for her bad behavior. With one last glance at the café, she walked into the kitchen.
“He went that way.” Tess pointed to the back door. “I don’t know what you said to him, but he didn’t look happy.”
Annie felt the weight of what she hadn’t said land on her shoulders.
“Don’t just stand there,” Kate said. “Go after him. I’m okay to start work.”
Annie didn’t need to be told twice. She flew out the back door, skidding on the loose gravel as she rounded the bend out of the parking area. Dylan was walking fast. He turned right into Main Street and she tore down the driveway after him.
“Dylan…wait…”
He slowed down and Annie came to a screeching stop behind him. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to be rude.”
He turned slowly around. His eyes were like blocks of ice, cold and intimidating. He was shutting her out of his life, protecting himself from her thoughtlessness.
She reached out and touched the sleeve of his jacket. “I really am sorry. I forgot about the kittens. I’m happy to look after them.”
Dylan stuck his hands in his pockets. Her hand fell away from his arm. He’d retreated so far from their conversation that she might as well have been standing on the other side of the street.
“I don’t understand you.”
Annie almost missed his softly spoken words. “I don’t understand myself sometimes.” She looked down at the sidewalk, trying to put into words what she’d never shared with anyone. “I like you, Dylan. You make my toes curls and my hands itch to touch you. I’ve never been so attracted to another man, and it’s scaring me so bad that I don’t…”
Dylan’s mouth landed on hers. It was soft and sweet, hard and demanding, something of everything that she wanted in her life. Her hands curled around his shoulders, pulled him close until she didn’t know where his body ended and hers began.
Annie’s mouth opened and Dylan groaned. Heat shot between them, spinning Annie into somewhere she never thought she’d go. She wanted to undress him, inch by glorious inch. She wanted to make him squirm as much as she was squirming now. She wanted everything she couldn’t get on the main street of Bozeman.
She pulled her mouth off his and took a step backward. “Oh, boy.”
Dylan didn’t say anything. He was breathing as hard as she was, sucking great lungfuls of air into his chest.
She thought about lunch, about what she’d like to be doing for the next half hour.
“We haven’t got time.”
The blush that hit Annie’s face would have fried an egg in the middle of winter. She risked a quick glance at Dylan. His eyes had turned the deepest, darkest blue she’d ever seen.
He stepped forward and ran his hand along her jaw. “I want you, Annie O’Leary. You’re the first person I think of each morning and the last person I think of at night.”
“It wouldn’t work.”
Dylan smiled. “You think I don’t know that?”
Annie sighed and dropped her head to his shoulder. Dylan tensed, then slowly relaxed. He pulled her against him, protecting her from the rest of the world.
When Annie’s heartbeat had settled down to almost normal, she raised her head. “What are we going to do?”
Dylan shook his head. “I don’t know. We could run away together?”
Annie smiled. “Tess would find us and drag us home. She needs me to help unpack the bridesmaids’ dresses.”
“I need you, too.”
Annie swallowed. “The bridesmaids’ dresses are safer.”
Dylan chuckled. “Haven’t you ever wanted to live dangerously?”
“I did once and it nearly killed me.”
The smile fell off Dylan’s face. “I guess that leaves us with three kittens and a lot of questions we’ll never answer.”
Annie took
a step back. “It’s for the best.”
“You think?”
She nodded. It had to be. “You’re doing really well with the touching thing…” The heat of another blush worked its way over her face. “You could date someone else…lots of someone else’s if you wanted to…”
Dylan shook his head. “Not going to happen.”
“Why not? Women would fall at your feet if you let them know you’re interested.”
“How would I do that?” Dylan’s lips tilted into a lopsided smile.
Annie threw her hands in the air. “I don’t know…I guess smiling at them would work. And you usually have a twinkle in your eyes, like you’re laughing on the inside. That works too…”
Dylan took a step forward and rubbed his nose against Annie’s. “What about this…” His lips brushed her mouth and she nearly sighed.
Heat gathered in Annie’s body as he left a trail of kisses across her cheek and down her jaw. “You’re teasing me.” She meant to sound offended, she really did. But she was having a hard enough time standing upright without worrying about her voice.
“Are you interested?”
“You know I am, but it still wouldn’t work.”
“So dating is out of the question?”
Annie frowned. “Yes.”
“What if you cook me dinner when I bring the kittens around to your apartment? It wouldn’t be a date. You’d be taking pity on me, saving me from another burned steak off the barbecue.”
“I don’t believe for one moment that you burn your steak.” Annie thought about the implications of making dinner for a single male. It bordered on date material. But friends had dinner together all the time. And as long as they went their separate ways afterward, it couldn’t do any harm. Could it?
Dylan was waiting for her answer. She took a deep breath and decided to readjust her friend boundaries. “It’s getting close to a date, but I can be flexible.”
His eyebrows shot upward. “That answers one of my questions.”
Annie ignored the grin on his face. She didn’t want to ask him what the other questions were. She had a feeling they’d cause more problems than they were worth. “When do you want to bring the kittens around?”
“How about tomorrow night? I’m flying to Colorado on Thursday morning.”
Annie took another step backward and put her hands in her apron pockets. “Okay. Tomorrow’s good. I’ll have dinner ready for six o’clock.”
“Do you want me to bring anything?”
“Just the kittens, their litter box and their food.”
Dylan smiled at her. She’d been right. If he smiled at the single women of Bozeman like that, he’d be one happy bachelor.
“Is that all you want?” he asked.
Annie refused to be drawn into his x-rated mind. She had enough happening in her own head. “It’ll do for now.”
Dylan leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “That’s three kisses in ten minutes. We’re breaking all records.”
“Keep that in mind when you’re competing at the weekend.” Annie grinned at the frown on his face. “Not the kisses…the record breaking. How long do you think it will take to finish the race?”
“If I can cross the finish line in under six hours I’ll be happy.”
Annie’s mouth dropped open. “Six hours? That’s a long time. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
Dylan gently pushed her jaw up with his finger. “Apart from a few blisters and sore muscles I should be fine.”
Annie had thought the race would only take a couple of hours. But six hours was so extreme that she wasn’t sure anyone could swim, cycle and run for that long. Dylan was looking at her with a determined frown on his face.
“I’ll be all right, Annie. Six hours is pretty standard for most Half Ironman Triathlons.”
She stepped back and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “If you beat six hours I’ll make you dinner when you get home.”
“I’ll be getting love handles,” Dylan muttered. He didn’t look too worried, though. The satisfied smile on his face worried her.
“I’ll make you a salad, and it’s not a date. It’s dinner.”
“Dinner sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Dylan turned and walked further along the street. Annie watched him fold his long frame into his truck and pull away from the curb.
She was in trouble. Big, in-your-face trouble that involved three cheeky kittens and a man who was far too easy to be around.
The next few days would be interesting.
***
Dylan pulled the box of kittens out of his truck. They’d meowed all the way over to Annie’s apartment, letting him know they weren’t impressed with being moved again. After looking after them for three days, he knew that once they had full tummies they wouldn’t care where they were.
Annie opened her front door and smiled at the box. “They sound like they’re ready for my garage. Do you want me to bring anything in?”
“There’s a whole pile of things on the back seat. If you want to take the kittens, I’ll get everything out of the truck.”
Annie smiled as she lifted the box out of his hands. She rubbed the top of one of the kitten’s paws when it appeared through an air hole in the top of the box. “This is going to be fun. I’ve never looked after kittens before.”
“What about when you were a kid?” Dylan didn’t think there’d be many people who hadn’t had a kitten in their home.
The smile on Annie’s face disappeared. “My parents weren’t very good at looking after anything. I’ll put the kittens in the garage, then give you a hand with the other stuff.”
Dylan watched her walk down the hallway. “Make sure you close the garage door. They’re good at escaping.”
Annie looked over her shoulder and smiled. “Does that mean they escaped from you?”
“Maybe,” Dylan muttered. “I’ll be back soon.” He left Annie’s front door open and headed across to his truck. It didn’t sound as though Annie’s childhood had been all that great. She was such a kind person that he couldn’t imagine how she’d lived with parents who didn’t seem to care about much in life except themselves.
He grabbed the bag of kitty litter, a tray, a soft blanket and a bag of cat toys. The kittens wouldn’t be bored. Hopefully they wouldn’t play hide and seek in the depths of Annie’s garage.
“Wow. You’ve come prepared.” Annie stared at the pile of things in his hands.
“There’s still the cat food on the seat with their food bowls and some bottled water.”
“Bottled water?”
Dylan didn’t think there was anything wrong with giving the kittens pure spring water. “They’re only little.”
“They’re cats,” Annie said. “Cats drink water out of puddles and buckets. Tap water is fine.”
“I thought you’d never had a pet cat?”
“I haven’t.” Annie lifted the bag of kitten food out of his truck. “I used to feed the stray cats around our house. They weren’t too fussy about what they ate and drank. I’ll show you where the door to the garage is.”
Dylan followed Annie inside. As they passed the kitchen, he sniffed the air and smiled. “What have you made?”
“I didn’t know what you’d be eating this close to the Half Ironman, so I looked online at different recipes. The website I found said to make a high-carb meal with a little bit of protein. I hope you like spaghetti with turkey meatballs and broccoli.”
“I’m impressed.”
Annie slowly opened the garage door and pulled him inside. “Don’t be. I did it for totally selfish reasons. I didn’t want to be the person who fed you the wrong food before your competition.” She looked across the room and smiled. “They’re making themselves at home already.”
Dylan watched Boxer swipe a ball hanging from a long cord attached to the rafters. Boots and Blinky were watching their brother, ready to pounce when the ball came close. Annie had put a box on the side of the room and filled it
with a pink blanket. She took the kitten’s food bowl out of his hands and left it beside the box.
Before Annie had torn the bag of kitten food completely open, Boxer tumbled toward her. His plaintive meow bought his sisters scurrying across the room. All three kittens waited patiently beside the food bowl, their pink mouths open and wailing their impatience.
“It must be noisy at meal times in your house?” Annie patted each of the kittens as they dived into the bowl of food.
“You can say that again. I thought they meowed a lot because my house was new to them, but I don’t think so. They just like talking to each other.” He unscrewed the cap on the bottle of water and poured some into another bowl. “I brought some of their toys.”
Annie grinned. “I can see that. Why don’t you scatter them on the floor? I won’t be using the garage while the kittens are here.”
Dylan had seen Annie’s car parked outside when he’d arrived. “Where’s your bike?”
“In my office. I didn’t want to risk letting the kittens outside when I take it to work each morning.”
“Wise move.” He stared at the kittens. “Thanks for looking after them.”
Annie walked toward the door leading into the hallway. “I’m happy to help. Now come and have dinner before everything burns.”
Dylan knew the chances of that happening were slim to nothing. The closer they got to her kitchen, the hungrier he felt. Meatballs and broccoli had never smelled so good.
“What are you eating for the next two nights?” Annie took a colander out of a cupboard and poured the spaghetti into it.
“Rice and chicken.” He smiled at her nod. “We must have read the same book.”
“Will you be okay during the race on your own?”
Dylan stood a little taller. “What do you mean?”
Annie glanced at him quickly as she stirred the meatballs in the tomato sauce. “Don’t be prickly. I meant as far as energy drinks and getting changed after each part of the race.”
Dylan sat on a kitchen stool. It had to be better than putting his foot in his mouth. “The officials have drink stations set up along the route. Changing isn’t too hard. I’ll pull my wetsuit off after the swim and throw my bike shorts on.”
Loving You (The Bridesmaids Club Book 2) Page 18