Harlequin Superromance November 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2

by Mary Brady

  “I wish I could fix your world, Mia.”

  “The Parkers. Experts in creating messy lives.”

  “Listen, you can’t take on your parents’ troubles.”

  Mia knew her friend was right. She had so much on her plate and now she had taken on a cocktail party.

  “I know, but I’m still concerned.”

  “Of course you are.”

  Mia laughed. “You want me to drop you at home, or do you want to help me try on the dress?”

  “The dress, of course, and we can also try to do something with all of this.” Monique picked up a lock of Mia’s hair.

  “Do you suppose weddings and baptisms, and movies with cocktail parties, have been enough to prepare me for facing university-patron types?”

  “You will break hearts and open even the most secure wallet.”

  * * *

  MIA SAT IN her car in a parking spot outside Daniel’s condo, fifteen minutes early. The little black dress on its hanger in the bag draped over the backseat. On the floor behind her seat sat a bag with everything else, including a few condoms. Heaven help her, just in case.

  She had spent the entire two-hour drive wondering how she was going to look Daniel in the eyes, those gloriously rich, dark diamond eyes, and kiss him on the cheek and then...

  But that was her problem. Daniel wanted to be friends.

  She could do that. Soon. She could do it soon. She got out of the car and hurried up the sidewalk and then up the stairs to the second floor.

  Calm and relaxed, yeah, right, she rang Daniel’s doorbell.

  Breathe, just breathe. Everything is under control. If he looked too tempting, she’d remember she was his friend. She’d come to get her construction project underway and chat with a friend.

  He opened the door. What he was dressed in hardly mattered. All jeans and sweaters looked the same on him. Devastating.

  Oh, wow, if she had to be a good friend to this she was dead.

  She shoved the dress bag at him and then her small suitcase.

  He took everything and smiled. Dead. She was so dead. No one would ever want to be her friend again.

  “Daniel.”

  He dropped everything and reached for her. His mouth descended over hers, stopping any breath, any thought except to have him.

  She broke away and kicked the door closed. “I’m a bad friend.”

  “I love having a bad friend.” With his hands at her waist, he rained kisses on her face, her neck, her mouth, and when he lifted her sweater and tossed it aside, rained more kisses on her chest, over her new bra. “Lace.”

  She pushed him backward out of the foyer.

  He wrapped his arms around her, turned her back to front, kissing her neck, her ear and her hair. Nearly overcome with pleasure, she dropped her head back against his shoulder and panted for air. Then he swept her off her feet and carried her, through the living room and down a hallway, kissing the hollow at the base of her neck, then her lips again.

  In his bedroom, long desperate seconds passed as they stripped off their clothing. “Wait,” she said as he was about to toss her jeans aside. “Pocket.”

  He opened the package and she snatched the condom and looked up into his face as she rolled the soft latex down onto him. Then she pulled him on top of her and into her where she needed him to be.

  She luxuriated in his kisses, unwilling to give them up until she let herself go, let the waves of pleasure crash over her and over her...

  Wrung, sated and gloriously happy she stroked his brow and laughed. “Hello.”

  “Welcome to my home,” he said as he ran his fingers through her hair.

  “I am so happy to be here.” And I love you, Daniel MacCarey, my dear friend. Someday I hope you want to know it.

  After their breathing returned to normal, he shifted onto his side and flipped the bedspread over both of them.

  “Well, I practiced for hours and hours, so that I could be in your presence and not jump you,” she said, smiling.

  “How’d it go?”

  “Not well, but I’d be willing to go back out and try it again.” But she didn’t move, other than to sigh and touch his face to assure herself she wasn’t still sitting in her car having a daydream. “And if that doesn’t work, I’ll go back out...”

  “You make me crazy. I can’t look at you and not want you.” He hugged her as though he cherished her.

  Yet, she knew there was desperation in those words. She felt the same when she thought of how much she wanted him and how much he needed to maintain his distance.

  She lay beside him measuring each breath, wondering which one of them would flinch first. It was as if they stood nose to nose on a tightrope, each needing to get to the other side but neither willing nor able to pass the other. She breathed in the warm musky scent of him, felt his steady heartbeat under her hand.

  Eventually, pride and responsibility won out. She patted his chest. “I need to go hang up the dress.”

  He kissed her and she slid out from under the spread, taking his robe from the chair and wrapping it around herself.

  When she came back into the bedroom with the dress and her bag, he was coming out of the bathroom with boxers on.

  They hid nothing. He couldn’t make the wanting go away any more than she could make wanting him go away.

  He took the dress and hung it in his closet beside another garment bag, his tux she’d wager. Daniel in a tux.

  “You can put the rest of your things in there,” he said, indicating the bathroom.

  When she came back out empty-handed she said, “You may think I eat all the time...”

  He flicked his eyebrows.

  “Well, I’m hungry. Did you have a place picked out for lunch or should I go forage?”

  “We can eat here if you don’t mind.”

  “If you at least have peanut butter and bread, I’m good with here.”

  He invaded her space, leaned down and dropped a kiss on her lips, and when she was ready for more, he stepped back and said, “I think we can do better than peanut butter.”

  Her stomach growled loudly.

  He unfastened the belt of his robe from around her waist, bent over and put his lips to her stomach. “Right away. Right away,” he said to her belly and planted a sloppy kiss.

  She laughed and pulled his face into her. He nipped softly and sidestepped her hold.

  “We need to feed you.”

  She retied the robe as he led her out of the bedroom.

  “Sex and food. Can I come and visit you often? This feels like a vacation.”

  His smile held a touch of longing.

  “My balcony gets full sun and it’s very warm on a day like this.” He led the way to his dark blue tile and white kitchen with wood trim and accessories.

  “Wait.” She put out her hands to stop him. He did stop and she continued. “You did not pick out this kitchen scheme.”

  “I did not. It was available when I needed something.”

  In a hurry she bet. More of his secret, more of where his pain came from.

  She smiled at him when she wanted to hug him. “Lunch outside would be wonderful. Do you mind if I wear your robe on the balcony, or will it stir up your neighbors?”

  “The neighbors will be pleased for the lovely distraction.”

  “Hey, I’ve got some scoop to tell you about while we dine.”

  “As luck would have it, I have some for you.”

  “Can we eat now?”

  “Grab those.” He pointed to a stack of table linens and dishes.

  “I love dinner plates. Yum, they have so much fiber.”

  He laughed and pulled out a tray of delectables from the refrigerator.

  When she returned fro
m putting the place settings on the balcony table, he had slipped on a T-shirt and plaid flannel lounging pants. Barefoot and tousle-haired he looked sexy and relaxed. She liked to think she had something to do with that.

  She grabbed the glasses from the counter and the carafe of chilled water and headed back through the living room with dark gray and blue furniture with wooden trim. She was starting to see the theme in this place.

  * * *

  ON DANIEL’S WARM and sunny balcony, they set up a feast of gourmet food he had ordered from the deli down the street and large glasses of orange juice. Mia was right, it did feel like a vacation.

  “Tell me your scoop and I’ll tell you mine,” she said, bliss written all over her face as she made it halfway through a turkey sandwich on a petit bun, with the domed part of the bun hollowed out and filled with lettuce and some kind of herbed mustard-mayonnaise.

  “My great-aunt Margaret’s secret involves the ring. Apparently, it was destined to belong to Princess Charlotte of Wales, who died in 1817.” He told her about tea at Eleanor Wahl’s home. “Charlotte was the daughter and only child of the man who became George the IV.”

  “How did your great-aunt Margaret get the ring?”

  “Mrs. Wahl and several of her friends, experts in the era, are trying to find out, but there’s more.”

  Mia rubbed her hands together in anticipation and he put his fingers on her cheek and let them wander lower.

  She gasped when his fingertip brushed the side of her breast. Clearing her throat, she said, “I love a good mystery.”

  He gently caressed the warm, giving flesh of her breast and wondered if the neighbors would call the cops or just keep watching.

  She pressed his hand and then sat back and closed her eyes. “Hey, you’d better keep talking or we’ll get arrested and it’ll be worth it. Sex in the sunshine. Glorious.”

  When he pulled his hand away, she grabbed hold and brought his knuckles to her lips before she gave the hand back to him.

  He shook his head and grinned at her. “And the coat of arms stamped on the inside does not belong to Charlotte’s family nor her husband’s. Mrs. Wahl and her friends are working on finding out whose it is, feverishly, I’d wager.”

  “There’s something, I’d wager.” She gave him a suspicious look. “You didn’t go to the post office and pick up that package from your aunt’s attorney, did you?”

  “You’re wrong. It’s sitting on the desk in my office here.”

  “Unopened. And yet you seem so manly and brave. Open the package already.”

  “I thought you might like to help me, since you were nice enough to come and be arm bling for a fund-raiser.”

  “That’s what I am?”

  “It’s what my boss believes. He also believes you are two people. I told him I was inviting the builder. Your other persona has a dirty pair of coveralls and probably a comb-over.” He put his fingers in her hair and brushed it all over the top of her head.

  She burst out laughing and looked so lovely with the sun glinting off the golden highlights in her hair. He wanted her now and always. He wasn’t even going to ask himself what he thought he was doing. He was just going to sit there and take it.

  Mia smiled and put her hand over his. Her expression seemed wistful. They sat like that for a while, feeling the sun, letting the passion fade to manageable.

  “Mia,” he said when he thought some of his sanity had returned. “How prepared are you for this to be the remains of a town founder?”

  “Worse, I think I’m finally prepared for this to be the remains of Liam Bailey, the long-lost pirate with a relative living in Bailey’s Cove.”

  He wasn’t sure why, but those words caused a kind of relief in him. “What do you know?”

  “Do you want to go ‘hmmm’ or roll your eyes first?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “All right. I’ve found out the man who owned the half of South Harbor that Liam Bailey did not own, Archibald Fletcher, had a daughter who fought to have the name of the town changed to Bailey’s Cove. Fought hard against her father’s apparently apoplectic objections, and the day after her father died she convinced the town council to make the change.”

  She put her hand over his lips. “That’s not the hmmm part. When she went before the council, her son Rónán McClure was with her. This Rónán was referred to as the ‘dark-haired one,’ which leads me to believe the other children were not.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “So, first of all, and this is just an aside, I don’t think I told you Bailey named his hotel the Sea Rose Inn. He also built that large white home on the hill overlooking town. After he disappeared, Colleen insisted her father acquire it and she lived there with her husband and children.”

  She took a big breath and plunged on.

  “So add all that to this. I went to the church yesterday and looked up marriage and birth records. Shortly after the pirate was supposed to have disappeared, Colleen Rose Fletcher became Colleen Rose McClure. That was in May of 1818. In September of 1818 the McClures had their first child baptized, Rónán Uilliam McClure. Liam is a shorter version of Uilliam. Since a baby that young has only a small chance to survive in today’s world, this was no premature baby.”

  She gave him a quick look, and he wondered if she had seen the distress he suddenly felt because she hurried on. “So much for ‘hmmm.’ Are you ready for eye rolls?”

  “Ready.”

  He struggled to stay with her instead of getting lost in the past, but he did a practice eye roll. “Ah-yuh.”

  She giggled and he’d bet his life she didn’t do that very often.

  “Turns out Heather Loch comes by her fascination genetically. In 1924 the chief of police mentioned— Let me think of how he said it.”

  She looked out over the lawn and the small lake surrounded with side-by-side condominiums and then spoke again. “He said they were obsessed with being descended from a man who had no children and they start looking for treasure as soon as they could hold a shovel. He thought they were cursed because most of them grew up to be, well, less than stellar citizens, and some of them died when they were kids.”

  “Died when they were kids” punched him right smack in the gut. He refused to double over, and he had to force his breathing to be normal.

  “He said the most recent offender against their peaceful town was Bryon Loch. Daniel?”

  He pulled it together and looked at her. “Loch.”

  She scooted her chair over next to his, put her arm around his shoulders and didn’t say a word more. She was a good friend. The best.

  So why was he doing this to her?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MIA GOT UP and kissed him on the forehead. He could see in her face she knew his demons had raised their heads.

  “Sit here,” she said gently. “I’ll clean up. You stay. Take in the sunshine.”

  He leaned back, turned his face up to the warmth and closed his eyes, but after a minute pushed up from the chair and followed her into the condo.

  She put the last glass in the dishwasher and turned to smile at him. Her delicately featured face held the effects of everything going on in her life and he knew he was one of her problems.

  He took hold of her hands and pulled her toe-to-toe with him. “Mia, we can’t keep doing this to you.”

  She bowed her head. “I know. I thought I could deal with it. I thought I could be close to you, have you, and keep my emotions in check.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “My part is my own fault. I thought it didn’t have to matter if we made love, had fun sex and then walked away.” She put her cheek on his chest and broke his heart the rest of the way.

  He held her close and pressed his lips to delicately fragrant hair. “I knew better and I let us ge
t involved.”

  She pushed away and looked at him, at first confused and suspicious. “I’ll get my things together and be gone in a few minutes.”

  “Please don’t do that.” He held her hand when she started to walk away.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to be able to meet these people this evening. I want you to have the chance to let them meet you, see the human consequences of delaying your project.”

  Emotions played across her face and she came to a decision. “I’d like that. Bailey’s Cove deserves that.”

  “Do you think it’s possible we’ve defused the situation between us enough that we can manage to get through the next few hours?” He watched her face for any signs of doubt or fear, signs he should back off. “Especially since we have something to do to distract us.”

  “The package on the desk in your office? I’d better help you or it’ll sit there forever, won’t it?”

  “It might.”

  She looked up at him and smiled, a smile bright enough that it might have held forgiveness.

  Relief he didn’t know he’d been waiting for surprised him. If he had broken her unflagging spirit, destroyed another woman, he might as well bury himself in the vast Maine forests away from civilization, from her.

  “I’ll get the package,” he said as he slowly released her hand.

  She nodded.

  He picked up the package from his desk and hefted it on the palm of his hand. It had turned out to be a postal box with a standard printed label, black and white, bar codes, the works.

  When he returned to the living room, Mia was dressed in her jeans and sweater and sitting on the edge of the sofa. One of his kitchen knives sat on the coffee table.

  “I didn’t know if you had a box opener or a utility knife, so...” She picked up the knife.

  “So that’s for the package?” He trusted her. He trusted her with his life and he knew it.

  Mia looked up toward the ceiling and clasped her hands. “We love you, Great-Aunt Margaret, and I’ll help this sorry nephew of yours through this package of stuff if I have to tie him to the chair and prop his eyes open.”