by White, J. L.
It works on the man who just came in the door—he hurries to it and picks it up to examine it—but Brett’s eyes are examining me. Our eyes meet for the first time since I fell and dammit if that’s not like a jolt of fucking lightning, too.
Holy hell.
“Seems okay,” the man says, turning the heavy saw in his hands, but I don’t have room in my brain to worry about the saw. I break eye contact with Brett and hustle toward the door, my hip protesting. “I have to go,” I say firmly, holding up my hand as if to force him to stay and not follow me.
I make a quick exit and manage to do it without limping, but as soon as I’m around the corner and out of everyone’s sight, my hand goes back to my hip. Quick as I can, I hobble down the stairs and toward the front door.
Shit. Between attacking myself with the damn ladder, and Brett freaking Carmichael kissing me like that... A flood of heat washes through me at the memory.
Hell, with me kissing him!
I honestly don’t know if I’m in a fit state to drive.
I grab my keys with fumbling hands anyway, and hurry out to my car. My hip feels like it wants to fall clean off, but I start the car and back away. I don’t look to see if he’s coming after me. I just have to get the hell out of here.
Chapter 7
Brett
What in the hell did I just do? I kissed Elizabeth Rivers. Kissed. Her. It wasn’t any timid kiss either. Once I got past the initial shock of it all, I kissed that woman like a man taking a long, tall drink after a lifetime of dying of thirst. That’s just what it felt like, too. I don’t know where in the hell it all came from, but once I got going, I didn’t want to stop.
I don’t blame her for running away. Once we finally broke that kiss, I kind of wanted to run too.
Because I just kissed Elizabeth fucking Rivers.
And because with everything else that’s going on in my life, kissing Elizabeth Rivers, or anyone, is the last thing I need.
I stay at the scene of the crime long enough to confirm the saw isn’t broken, then leave cottage nine with my head feeling like it’s caught in a whirlwind. My thoughts dart from one thing to the next, alternately worrying about how hurt she is, wondering if that kiss affected her the way it seemed to (meaning, the way it affected me), and trying not to relive the whole thing so I’m not walking around the work site with a massive hard on.
Between cottage fifteen and sixteen, I stop dead in my tracks, having finally thought about the thing that should have been my first thought. She’s my client.
I pinch my eyes shut and mutter “Fuck me.” I turn and head straight to my truck so I can make the call in private.
Chapter 8
Lizzy
If it weren’t for the meeting I have this afternoon, I would have just gone straight home. I pull into my spot in the parking garage, turn off the car, and sit there for a moment clutching my hip again. The pain is lessening, thank god, but it’s still pulsing angrily. I pull my skirt down just enough to confirm I’m not bleeding. I’m not, but my hip is red and scratched. There’s already a dark bruise developing. “Fuck.”
God, I still can’t believe that just happened. Why does Corrine have to be at Hartman when I need her? Why, why, why?
I send her a text with still-trembling fingers: Brett Carmichael just kissed me.
I drop my phone on my lap and press my hands to my temples, pinching my eyes shut. Within seconds my phone starts playing Corrine’s ringtone.
I grab it. “Hi.”
“He did what?”
“He kissed me,” I say. “He just.... kissed me.”
“Did you kick him in the balls?”
Good lord. “No.” Now that I’m thinking about his balls, I’m getting a mental image of what I could do to them. Clutching the phone to one ear and pressing my hand against the other, I pinch my eyes shut and shake my head. Stop it, stop it, stop it.
“Well what did you do to him?” Corrine asks gleefully. “I want all the gory details.”
“Uh…” I drop my hand and lean my head back against the seat with my eyes closed. “Well...”
Actually, maybe it’s good Corrine’s not here because I can feel my cheeks burning the fuck up. I don’t want her, or anyone, to see me blushing over Brett freaking Carmichael.
“Wait,” she says after I continue to stall. I know just by the tone of her voice that she’s onto me. “Don’t tell me. Did you kiss him back?”
“Weeeell,” I say weakly.
Her laughter dances through the phone line and I groan.
“Holy shit,” she says. “Are you serious?”
Now that she knows, I really have to come out with it. I sit up straighter and say, “It was so amazing.”
“Oh my god. Really?”
“God, yes. It was so fucking amazing. I don’t think my heart’s started beating again yet.”
“Okay, you have to tell me how this happened.”
So I do. When I get to the end of my story, she breathes out a simple, “Wow.”
“I just kissed Marcia Carmichael’s son,” I say desperately.
“Well... yeah. But is that really the worst thing? I mean, he’s not a drug dealer or anything.”
“Gee, I didn’t realize the standard by which I should measure guys is ‘not a drug dealer’.”
Corrine laughs.
“You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“Sorry,” she says, not sounding sorry at all. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” I say pitifully. “That’s why I texted you.”
I wait as Corrine apparently thinks about it. “I’m sorry, but if a guy kisses that good, you should definitely try to kiss him again. I don’t care who he is.”
“God, I can’t do that,” I say automatically, but my entire body heats up at the thought of kissing him again. Putting my hands on him and letting him put his hands on me.
“Sure you could. Who knows? You could end up marrying him and then you’d be Lizzy Carmichael, and Marcia Carmichael would be your mother-in-law.”
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” I say sitting up straight. “Hell to the no.”
She sighs. “All right. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, but if you feel that strongly about it, you should probably stop things right here.”
I nod mutely. Yes, that’s right. Stop it right here. No need to take things any further. “Okay. Right.”
“Just, you know, make sure you don’t go around kissing him again.”
“I didn’t… he kissed me!”
“Right, I know. I meant, you know, try to keep your distance.”
Hell. I don’t know if I can do that either. Plus, he’s my freaking contractor. I’m going to see him. A lot. For months. My body starts humming.
No, no, no, no, no.
Okay, the effects of that kiss are bound to wear off eventually. Surely. Then I’ll just have to make sure we’re never alone and keep it really professional. Super, duper professional. With a capital “P.”
“Right,” I tell Corrine, firmly, more for my own benefit than hers. “I’ll just keep my distance.”
We wrap things up and as soon as we get off the phone, I get another call. This one from Brett freaking Carmichael.
I freeze, staring at the screen, not knowing if I should swipe to answer or swipe to reject. Eventually my paralysis makes the decision for me and it goes to voicemail. I let out a shaky breath and my heart starts pounding like I just ran a sprint.
My phone dings with a voicemail notification, and after a few seconds’ hesitation, I play the message:
“Hi, Elizabeth,” he begins.
I wonder why it suddenly feels strange for him to call me Elizabeth instead of Lizzy, which is what the people who know me best call me. Maybe it feels strange because last time I saw him he kissed me like the damned devil.
“I, uh, just wanted to apologize for… earlier. It wasn’t appropriate and I’m sorry if I made you…”
Ho
t? Bothered? Out of my fucking mind?
“…uncomfortable.”
In spite of our history of goading one another, I don’t doubt that this apology is sincere. But the way he said ‘uncomfortable’ makes the heat rise to my cheeks again. It’s almost like he knows ‘uncomfortable’ is not the right word to describe how he made me feel.
There’s a long pause, where all I hear is the beating of my heart. I’m lost in the memories of lips and hands and the tip of his tongue.
“All right, then,” he says thickly, and I wonder if he got as lost in the memory of our kiss as I did. “Goodbye.”
And that’s it.
I never call back, and I take to avoiding the job site. It’s not like me to avoid things. I’ve handled all sorts of tough situations, especially over the last year, but with just one kiss (one hell of a damned kiss) Brett Carmichael has rendered me completely unarmed and I’m nowhere near ready to see him again.
So I stick to email communication with Rod, even when I otherwise would’ve gone down there, and focus on other aspects of the project. Over the next many months, there’ll be plenty to do with our various managers to work out the logistics of room service, housekeeping, maintenance and grounds upkeep, and activities. It’ll likely dominate the monthly meeting my brothers and I hold as well, as we work together to make sure everything’s on track and the bigger vision is coming together properly. Even though I’m managing the budget for this myself, Rayce will keep an eye on the financials. He has a gift for numbers and we all willingly lean on his insights.
Then there’s the marketing campaign to think about, which has served as my primary distraction from Kisses That Shall Not Be Named. I’ve been working closely with our Marketing Director and have enjoyed drawing up some initial ideas. We’ll need three campaigns: preopening to build anticipation, another for the Grand Reopening event, and another for the first full year of taking active bookings. The Cottages will also need their own logo branding that’s complimentary to, but different from, the resort’s branding.
I’m handling that myself. The resort has used The Adelman Group for many years, and we have our preferred designer there, but the portfolio of one of their relatively new designers, Samantha Lawson, has caught my eye. I’m breaking with tradition, trusting my gut, and going with her instead. We have our first meeting in a couple weeks.
Engaging as the project has been—which has all been on top of my regular work load—that hasn’t been enough. His kiss still haunts me. It’ll come out of nowhere, too. Before I know what’s happening, I’m overwhelmed by the memory of it and my heart is pounding thickly and my cheeks are getting warm. Other parts of me get pretty damned warm, too.
There’s just so much avoiding I can realistically do, though. Five days after The Kiss, I’m heading down the hill to meet Rod at cottage thirteen. Apparently there’s something he needs to show me, and it doesn’t sound like good news.
I wonder if Brett’s going to be there too. Gripping the wheel of my car, my skin tingles in anticipation.
Chapter 9
Brett
Elizabeth Rivers hasn’t cancelled my contract, so I guess that’s a good thing, but she never called back either, which is not good. She hasn’t been on site for the past five days, as far as I can tell. I don’t think that’s a good thing either.
What’s really not a good thing is the fact that I can’t stop thinking about her. Inspecting the restoration work on the octagon window in cottage two? Thinking about Elizabeth Rivers. Signing purchase orders in my office? Thinking about Elizabeth Rivers. Sitting in a fucking courtroom waiting for the judge to come out so the hearing can get started?
Yep. Even then. The feel of her lips on mine, the smell of vanilla on her skin, the sound of her breathing. It was all right there with me.
And this is why I don’t need this. Aside from not knowing what I think about this Rivers girl in general, I don’t have room for this kind of thing in my life. I need to concentrate on taking care of little Max. And that has been an uphill battle the entire way.
Our latest hearing was four days ago and the judge, thank god, finally ordered Jessica to get a drug test. California law isn’t as straightforward in this matter as a person might think, and getting the judge to order testing required much more than me just asking for it. We’d been laying the groundwork for some time, and finally established sufficient cause.
We’re hoping this will ultimately be the nail in her coffin, but it could take a while. The judge gave her a week to get the test done, but even if it comes back positive, my lawyer tells me her lawyer will “almost certainly” contest it. That will mean another test and yet more delays.
I’m not looking forward to any of this, not at all, but I’m to the point where I don’t care how many more legal hoops I have to jump through so long as I have Max safe with me by the time I’m done.
I’m a little concerned she’ll try to clean up long enough to take the test, but I don’t think she can. I really don’t. If she could control it like that, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Things would be so different. Our family might still be together.
But once she got going on that shit, she couldn’t stop it, and the woman she was when I first met her was destroyed. The woman she is now bears almost no resemblance.
Unfortunately, our next hearing isn’t until next week. Which means she picks him up from daycare on Wednesday for her half of the week and has him all the way until Sunday, this being her weekend with him. Unless she cuts it short again. I never know. If she doesn’t, I’ll have four and a half long days of worrying about him.
That’s one thing I can count on. The worry.
Meanwhile, I work. I’m climbing the steps to cottage ten, looking for Isaac. He’s been with my company almost since the beginning, and we’ve become friends over the years. I’m curious how he’s coming along with his current refinishing project. This cottage has some amazing solid oak doors with carved panels. They were in pretty rough shape, and most people probably would’ve considered them too far gone to salvage. But most people don’t have Isaac on their crew. Those doors will be better than new by the time he’s done with them.
He’s set up a work area in one of the bedrooms upstairs, and has several doors stacked on the far wall. One door is flat on a work table, two long clamps compressing it width-wise. A quick glance tells me it’s probably setting after his repairs on a minor, non-structural crack.
At first, I don’t think he’s in here, but when I come farther into the room to inspect his handiwork, I spy him on the floor on the other side, eyes barely open, his skin pale and clammy.
“Isaac!” I say, and rush to his side.
By the time the EMTs arrive, I’ve tracked down a Snickers bar and managed to get Isaac feeling slightly better. Being diabetic, he usually has small candies or something in his pocket in case his blood sugar drops, but for some reason he didn’t today. I’d scold him for it, but honestly, I’m still too worried about him. He hasn’t fully stabilized yet. The paramedics decided to take him to the hospital so they can finish treating him in the ER.
I’ve contacted his wife and am walking alongside the stretcher toward the ambulance parked behind the cottage. They already inserted a saline IV—the clear bag of fluid on the stretcher next to him—and have an oxygen mask on him. One side of the stretcher is raised up so he’s propped in a sitting position, still looking pale and drawn. As we near the rear parking, I do a double take when I see Elizabeth Rivers hurrying up with a concerned expression on her face.
My body reacts immediately. God, even at a time like this, she has the power to distract me.
I had put an end to the other employees gawking over the drama and sent them all back to work, but of course I can’t send her away. Not that I want to all that much.
Shit. I need to stop thinking of her as a possibility.
She hurries over just as we’ve reached the ambulance, those green eyes of her taking in the scene. “What’s going on?�
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Isaac gives her an apologetic look as they start to load him in. “Sorry to trouble you, ma’am.” His voice is muted a bit until he pulls the oxygen mask away.
“You’re no trouble,” I say firmly. Isaac may be in his fifties, but he’s one who never misses a day of work. I know it’s already killing him to be off the job, for however short a time, but to be going through this in front of our big client is probably only making it worse.
“It’s my blood sugar,” he says with that same apologetic tone. The stretcher’s legs fold up with a solid click, first one set, then another, and he’s firmly inside. “It got a little out of hand is all.”
She seems to relax a bit, but still turns to me as one of the EMTs climbs in next to Isaac, puts the mask back on him, and grabs an IV bag. It’s confusing, being so concerned about Isaac and so keenly aware of the woman next to me, all at the same time. “Is he going to be alright?” she asks.
“We just need to get him rehydrated and stabilize his blood sugar,” the other EMT replies, drawing her eyes away from me and to him.
Released from her gaze, I take a determined breath and focus on Isaac. “Sorry for the trouble,” he says again, his voice muffled behind the mask. This is overtaken by the ripping sound of Velcro as the medic next to him unfolds a blood pressure cuff and starts wrapping it around his arm.
“No, not at all,” she says, reaching her hand out to reassure him. “You just focus on getting better.”
As the EMT starts to close the doors, I say, “I’ll be right behind you.”
The doors close with a thud and the medic goes around to climb into the driver’s seat. Then Elizabeth Rivers and I are left alone. My eyes are drawn to hers. There’s that buzzing energy between us again as we look at one another, unsure.
“Will you let me know how he is?” she asks, but she looks like that’s not the only thing on her mind. It’s not the only thing on mine either.