He shuffled the fact sheets, reviewing each one as he placed them in his briefcase. Soft, creamy and sensual…should be savored, not rushed…sweet on the outside, fiery on the inside…desirable, but out of reach. It didn’t take a psychology degree to see where his mind had been during the sampling session. Shaking his head, he glanced up to find Piper watching him, her mouth set in a straight line, her eyes rueful. Beautiful, funny, sexy. And some other man held her affection. The thought made his gut clench.
“Tell me, Piper,” he said slowly, “is your assistant, Mr. Enderling, from Mudville?”
She shook her head. “No, Ohio.”
“Long way from home,” he observed.
“Rich and I met in college at MSU.”
“Ah,” he murmured, pressing down the brass tabs on his briefcase. “And may I ask who followed whom to Mudville?”
She shrugged and began clearing the table. “Edmund offered me the job and said I could hire my own assistant. Rich and I had stayed in touch, and when I mentioned the job to him, he jumped at it.”
Jumped at the chance to be with Piper, Ian thought. Well, he couldn’t argue with the man’s taste. And from what he’d seen of the local offering of eligible bachelors, Piper had made a wise move in bringing her companion to town. “There, um, don’t seem to be a lot of men in town like Mr. Enderling,” he offered, thinking the mild compliment was the least he owed her after last night.
At the sound of the tray clattering against the table, he glanced up to find her eyes blazing. “Mr. Bentley,” she said evenly, “I certainly don’t intend to discuss Rich Enderling with you of all people.”
He’d hit a nerve. Apparently their romance was on the rocks, which explained her participation in the kiss he’d initiated last night.
Piper stalked toward the door, then turned back and threw him a smirk. “By the way, Mr. Bentley, I do hope you sleep better tonight.”
Ian suspected she might have slammed the door had it not been hydraulic. After replaying his idiotic words in his mind, he decided his briefcase would suffice, and banged it shut with both hands.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Forget about his stomach—jealousy is the quickest way to a man’s heart.
“I’M JUST NOT SURE what to do.” Granny Falkner smiled sadly.
“You still have time to think about the offer,” Piper assured her, fighting to keep the disappointment out of her voice. She ran a dust mop along the baseboard of “her” room, the guest room where she’d slept since childhood. The white iron bed sat naked, devoid of sheets, the mattress piled high with boxes of linens and whatnot.
“Maybe I’ll be less sentimental after I’m tucked away at Greenbay Ridge.”
“Probably,” Piper agreed.
“I asked the real-estate agent to contact this Mr. Warner and find out exactly what he has in mind, although once he buys the house I suppose he can do anything he chooses with it, no matter what he tells me.”
“Perhaps we’re jumping to conclusions, Gran. Maybe the man is rich and simply wants a country getaway.”
“Perhaps.” Suddenly her grandmother stopped and leaned on her broom. “Addy Purdue told me you were in the pharmacy last night talking to a strange man.”
Piper tossed a wry smile over her shoulder. “Are you sure she wasn’t referring to her son Gary?”
Gran laughed. “I don’t think so. Fess up.”
Determined to keep her mixed emotions about Ian a safely guarded secret, she forced a casual note into her voice. “There’s nothing to confess—his name is Ian Bentley. He’s from Chicago and he’s an important customer. I’m trying to come up with a new dessert for a line of coffeehouses he owns.”
“Oooh.” Her grandmother’s voice dripped with suggestion. “Have you known him long?”
Piper hid her warm cheeks by reaching for an elusive cobweb. “We nearly rammed each other in the parking lot yesterday morning, then I made a complete fool out of myself by spraining my ankle. He carried me into the building—”
“Carried you?”
She nodded, her stomach lurching at the memory. “Only then did I discover he was the infamous restaurateur I was supposed to wow with an irresistible dessert.”
“Oh my.” Gran’s shoulders shook with mirth, and she hid her mouth behind her hand. “Forgive me, my dear. And have you been able to impress him with your banana-cream trifle?”
“He’s allergic to bananas.”
“Oh.”
“But he loves chocolate.”
“So that explains why you’ve been scratching all evening.”
“Except he’s difficult to please—I haven’t been able to come up with a winner yet.”
Her grandmother’s blue eyes twinkled. “You will.”
Piper glanced around the empty, beloved room, keeping her deeper worries to herself. “I hope so.”
“So it was pure chance that you ran into him at the pharmacy?”
Piper stretched to run the mop over the top of a window frame. “I was buying allergy medicine, he was buying toothpaste. Mr. Purdue gave me a painkiller for my ankle, but Gary failed to tell me until I’d taken it that I shouldn’t drive.”
“And let me guess—Gary offered you a ride home?”
“Yep.”
Gran pursed her lips. “That boy might be smarter than I thought.”
Piper laughed. “Well, at any rate, since Gary wasn’t quite ready to leave, Mr. Bentley offered to drop me off.”
“And is this Mr. Bentley single?”
Piper took a deep breath. “Sort of.”
Her grandmother’s pale eyebrows rose. “Separated?”
“No. He’s considering a marriage proposal.”
“Oh. Well, this is the nineties, after all.” Granny Falkner cocked her head to one side. “It sounds like the two of you are rather well acquainted if he’s discussing his love life.”
The dust mop slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor. “It just came up in conversation.”
“Before or after he made a pass at you?”
Piper jerked her head up and laughed nervously. “Gran, I really don’t think—”
“Piper.”
She sighed and bent to retrieve the mop. “Okay…after.”
“And are you involved with him?”
“No.”
“But you’d like to be?”
Piper hesitated too long to fool her grandmother. Suddenly exhausted, she sat heavily on the floor and sagged against the wall. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Hey, hey,” her grandmother chided, joining her on the floor. “I’ve never seen you shed tears over any man, much less a man you just met.”
“That’s just it, Gran,” she mumbled miserably. “We’re attracted to each other, I think, but he’s completely wrong for me—even if he wasn’t almost engaged. He’s, he’s too…charming and sexy and arrogant.”
“Henry Walden is arrogant, too.”
Piper frowned, lolling her head to the side. “Addy Purdue caught you up on all the gossip, didn’t she?”
The other woman nodded. “And that Walden man doesn’t even have anything to back up his arrogance.”
“Henry’s not so bad.”
“Piper, you shouldn’t settle for ‘not so bad.’”
“At least Henry lives in Mudville.”
Her grandmother propped up her chin with her palm. “I’ve heard Chicago is nice.”
“Mudville is my home. I want to be near you, Gran.”
Gran slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I’m glad you want to be close to me, dear, but you have to think about your future.”
Piper scoffed. “I am, but my future is not with Ian Bentley.”
“Never say never.”
“He’s getting married, Gran.”
“He doesn’t love the woman, Piper. He just hasn’t admitted it to himself yet.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because if two people are really in love
, they can’t contemplate a future without each other. He’s stalling.”
Piper refused to be mollified. “He’s still all wrong for me.”
“If that’s so,” her grandmother said, reaching forward to wipe her thumb over Piper’s cheek, “then why the tears?”
Her eyes welled again, but she didn’t want to burden her grandmother with all the muddled thoughts in her head. Things were not turning out the way she’d planned. She’d embarked on a manhunt to marry a nice country fellow. She’d live in her grandmother’s house, raise two well-adjusted children and eventually retire from Blythe Industries. It was a sensible plan, solid, dependable, safe—all the things she’d sworn her life would be someday.
“I’ll make you a deal,” her grandmother offered, squeezing her shoulders. “I won’t worry if you won’t worry.”
Piper sniffed mightily and faked a smile. “Deal.”
“Good. Now, let’s get these boxes out to your van. I’ve got three days to get everything in order.”
“What time will the movers be here on Saturday?”
“Around noon.”
“I’ll be here.”
Her grandmother gave her a kiss on the temple. “Maybe by then some of our problems will be solved.”
Piper smiled for the other woman’s sake. For herself, she’d settle for things not getting any worse.
Later, as Piper pulled out of her grandmother’s driveway in her loaded-down van, she adjusted the side mirror and glanced at the house that symbolized everything good in her life. It wasn’t lost to her yet, but she needed that bonus in her red, itchy little hands.
After Ian had left the office, she’d spent the rest of the day experimenting with chocolate, drafting Rich to be her taster when she began to feel worse. And despite her effort, she still wasn’t satisfied. Her creative juices had dried up—what hadn’t been done with chocolate?
“Not your best,” Rich had agreed, but helped her narrow down the selection to three choices: cocoa raspberry mousse, transparent chocolate tart and an uninspired chocolate cake.
A seemingly all-over itch shivered across her skin and she scratched as hard as she dared across her chest, stomach and as much of her back as she could reach while wearing a seat belt. She hoped she’d at least be back to normal before her date tomorrow night, but since she didn’t plan on allowing Henry to examine her torso, she wasn’t overly concerned. If and when she did decide to become intimate with anybody, Ian Bentley and her rash would be long gone.
With that disquieting thought, she channeled her concentration toward coming up with a dessert Ian Bentley couldn’t resist. Early dusk had begun to settle when Piper arrived at her rented house. The phone was ringing insistently as she reached the back door. She dropped a small box of kitchen supplies onto the counter and grabbed the phone.
“Hello?”
“Piper, I need your measurements,” Justine declared in her typical, no small-talk intro.
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now. My seamstress is on the other line, holding for them.”
Piper rolled her eyes. “Can you give me a minute to find a tape measure?”
“Hurry, would you? All this long distance is costing me a fortune.”
“And the wedding isn’t,” Piper muttered to herself as she laid the old handset on the counter.
She trotted to the hall closet and grabbed a tape measure from her dust-covered sewing basket, then hurried back to snatch up the phone. With a swipe at the wall beside the back door, she flipped on the tiny kitchen light. “Are you ready?” she asked, smoothing out the wrinkled tape.
“Yeah, I’m ready already.”
Piper twisted and wrapped the tape around her back until it met over her breasts on top of her thin tank. Since she wasn’t wearing a bra, it would be close enough, she decided. “Thirty-four.”
After yanking up her shirt, she lowered the tape to her calamine lotion-covered waist. “Twenty-six.”
“That’s disgusting,” Justine declared.
Fumbling, she unbuttoned her faded cutoffs and wiggled them down to her knees, holding the phone in the crook of her neck. With a lot of twisting and arching, she moved the tape lower over her skimpy cotton panties. “Thirty-five.”
“I hate you,” Justine insisted.
“Will that be all?” Piper asked, dropping the tape and tugging at her shorts.
“Just a reminder that you’ll have to come early the day of the rehearsal dinner for a last-minute fitting.”
“No problem. Did the salmon thing work out?”
“Yeah, the bridesmaids’ gowns are adorable—yards and yards of fabric, and matching hair bows.
“Wow, no kidding—hair bows.” Piper picked up a steak knife and pretended to plunge it into her heart. What was it about weddings that sent otherwise tasteful women back to their childhood costume fantasies?
“Well, I have to run. Oh, by the way, have you met your hero yet?”
Juggling the phone, Piper dropped the knife, turned to refasten her shorts and froze. Ian Bentley stood at her front screen door in the fading daylight, holding a box he’d taken from her van. His gray eyes were riveted on her, his lips parted. Instantly she knew he had witnessed her entire performance, perfectly outlined by the kitchen light. The blood drained from her face so quickly, she felt faint.
“Goodbye, Justine, I have to kill myself.” Piper slammed down the phone and briefly reconsidered the effectiveness of the steak knife. “Oh God, oh God,” she mumbled, wrestling with the button at her navel. She gave up and simply stretched her pink tank down as far as the fabric would allow. After a few deep breaths, she lifted her gaze, praying he’d disappeared. He hadn’t.
Squaring her shoulders, Piper pasted a smile on her face and walked to the front door. “Hello,” she said through the screen, her tone even, as if nothing had happened.
Ian stared at her and swallowed painfully, unable to erase the image of her standing half-naked in the light at the far end of the house. Since the box was concealing a raging erection, he held on to it as if it were a lifeline. “I can see why your neighbor is always hanging around,” he ventured with a small laugh.
“Did you want something, Ian?” she asked.
With sudden clarity, he decided that yes, he did want something—her. He averted his gaze to the box in his hands. “I was driving by and saw your van. It looked like you could use a hand.”
She crossed her arms. “Driving by?”
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
“You’re used to having things come to you easily, aren’t you, Mr. Bentley?”
“Not always, but perhaps lately,” he admitted honestly. “I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to apologize. My comment this afternoon about Mr. Enderling was out of line. You’re right—it’s none of my business.”
She lifted a corner of her mouth and leaned against the door frame. “Finally we agree on something.”
“If you’d rather I not come in, I can unload the boxes and set them on your porch,” he offered, almost hoping she would keep the door between them, since he was precariously close to ripping through the flimsy screen and crushing her against him.
“No,” she said, unfolding her arms slowly and reaching for the door latch. “Actually, I would appreciate you bringing them inside. I have a space cleared for the boxes in the spare bedroom.”
He stepped back as she pushed open the door and adjusted the spring to hold it wide. Sweat dripped between his shoulder blades as he shifted the weight of the box and stepped inside. He followed her through the small house that reminded him of one he’d lived in as a boy—the same house his parents had mortgaged to give him his start more than fifteen years ago.
Decorated in refreshing blues and white, her tiny living room looked cool and inviting. Two striped couches sat in an L shape, a pale floral rug on the honey-colored wooden floor. Bright botanical prints in simple frames adorned the unpapered walls. A light-hued curio cabinet sat against th
e opposite wall, housing an extensive collection of salt-and-pepper shakers. And it seemed she was quite the movie buff, considering the titles stacked up on a bookcase. In the corner, a quiet fan worked furiously, circulating air in a house obviously devoid of an air conditioner.
Ian picked his way across the room carefully, then turned down a hallway not much wider than his shoulders. She walked past a bedroom bursting with sun-yellow linens, which he guessed was hers, and led him into a nearly empty bedroom in the corner of the house.
“Anywhere against the wall would be fine,” she said, pointing to three other boxes sitting beneath a green-curtained window.
He lowered the box to the floor carefully, then stood and removed a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his neck. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he said as they walked to the front of the house, “what is all this stuff?”
“It belongs to my grandmother.” She smiled and accompanied him to the van. “She’s cleaning out her closets and giving me all the things she can’t bear to throw away.”
He stood back while she rooted through the remaining boxes, trying to discern the contents before dragging them inside. “Gramps carved these,” she said, holding up a pair of sleek wooden candlesticks. “And here’s his favorite bank!” Her eyes shone as she caressed the side of a miniature Model-T. “He used to keep only wheat pennies inside.” She shook it, grinning wide at the chink, chink of coins sliding around.
Ian felt a pang of longing for his own family as he watched her. He’d always been close to his parents while he was at home, but once he moved out on his own, their time together had dwindled more and more as his company had grown larger and larger. He hadn’t seen them in months. They would love Piper, he thought. Suddenly, he stopped and shook the stray notion from his head. Meredith knew him, she understood him, she loved him. He hardly knew the slip of a woman before him.
Yet she was engaging, he had to admit. He bit back a groan as she leaned over a box, pulling the cutoff shorts high and tight across her tanned thighs.
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