by Tawna Fenske
Anna completed her circle and met his eyes again. “Wow, this place is adorable. You own it?”
He nodded. “I had three back-to-back tours in Iraq. Took my combat pay and bought this place a couple years ago when the recession made property a little more affordable in Kauai.”
“Don’t you worry about someone breaking in when you’re overseas?”
“Nah, my brother does private security. He set me up with a system that would stop a Viking invasion.”
The second the words left his mouth, he knew what was coming. He watched her face register surprise and knew the question she’d ask before those gorgeous lips formed the words. “Mac does private security?”
“Not Mac. Schwartz. Another brother. He’s…not around very much.”
Her gaze held his a few beats longer than comfortable, and Grant fought not to look away. Instead, he held eye contact and took a step closer, moving deliberately into her personal space. “You live in Portland, right?”
She blinked, then nodded. “That’s right. Moved there from San Francisco for college and never went back. My sister—you met Janelle—she stayed in the city.”
He gave her his best Boy Scout smile and nodded, putting his active listening skills to use. “You like it in Portland?”
“Very much. That’s where I met Mac’s wife, Kelli. We roomed together for a while.”
“But your sister likes it better in San Francisco?”
Anna nodded, not moving back, but clearly affected by his nearness. Was it the normal result of Grant’s subtle interrogation tactics, or something more?
“She’s a city girl at heart,” Anna said, her voice a little faint. Grant watched her throat move as she swallowed, and he wondered what it would feel like to plant a trail of kisses from under her chin all the way to her collarbone. “Even Portland’s too small for her.”
“The two of you are close?”
“Very.” She smiled, an expression that lit up her whole face and almost swayed Grant from what he was aiming for, which was to keep her talking so she wouldn’t feel the need to ask him too many questions. She smoothed her hand over the back of his overstuffed easy chair and shrugged. “I’m sure Janelle would tell you I’m a bit smothery and overbearing, but that’s what older siblings are for, right?”
Grant thought about Mac and nodded, but didn’t add anything. He waited for her to fill the silence, to keep talking so he wouldn’t have to.
She shrugged again and kept going, which gave Grant a chance to study the side of her face. She had beautiful cheekbones, and the coppery hue of her hair made her green eyes flash with color.
“Our parents divorced when I was eight and Janelle was six, and I guess that bonded us in a weird way,” she continued, stepping away from him just a little. “I sort of felt responsible for her, you know?”
Grant nodded, holding her gaze with his. “That must have been hard.”
“It is. Was.” She gave a funny little laugh and swallowed hard—a telltale sign the subject made her nervous—and looked down at her hands on the back of the chair. “Geez, listen to me. I’m almost thirty and I’m prattling on about my parents’ divorce like some sort of heartbroken adolescent. I don’t usually do this.”
He felt a small pang of guilt then, but what the hell else was he supposed to do? He needed to control the situation. He needed to be the one asking questions. If she kept sharing, he didn’t have to. It was as simple as that.
“Would you like to see the rest of the house?” he asked. “It’s pretty small, but I did most of the renovations myself.”
“I’d love to.”
“You sure I can’t get you a glass of wine?”
She seemed to hesitate, then shrugged. “Sure, why not.”
“Red or white?”
“White.”
“Assuming you don’t really want to drink from the bottle, do you want a stemless wineglass or one with a stem?”
“Doesn’t matter. God, you really are the perfect host.”
He shook his head. “Not really. My sister gave me the glasses because she was tired of drinking out of mason jars when she visited. You brought the white; Mac brought the red. All I’m doing is uncorking it.”
“Honest, too. And you cook. What else are you perfect at?”
Her cheeks went pink the instant she spoke the words, and Grant had to stop himself from lunging for her mouth. He should be a gentleman here.
“Stick around and find out.”
Okay, he wasn’t that much of a gentleman. Anna blinked in response, then smiled. “You plan to show me something besides your photos?”
“I’ll show you anything you ask to see.” He cleared his throat and gestured toward the next room. “But first, let’s start with the house.” He set the wine bottle on the counter and pulled out a corkscrew. Yanking the cork out with a firm tug, he grabbed a glass from the rack beside the sink and splashed a little wine into it.
Handing her the glass, he moved past her down the hall. He felt her fall into step behind him, and he continued down the narrow hallway until he reached the center. He turned a bit too abruptly, and she collided with his chest.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“Not a problem.” She touched her hand to his chest, and he watched in pleasured fascination as she stroked her fingertips over the space between his pecs. He wondered if she could feel how hard his heart was pounding. She dropped her hand and took a step back.
“Sorry, I splashed a little wine on you. Just getting it off.”
“Getting it off. Good.” Grant cleared his throat. “Right here is the office, which doubles as a guest room when I have company. There’s the guest bath, which I added on just after I bought the place. Master bedroom is down there.” He waved faintly in that direction, not wanting to seem too lecherous or threatening by stalking her through his bedroom just minutes after she’d arrived. She stepped past him, walking into the room by herself. Grant trailed behind, trying not to get too close.
“This headboard is incredible,” she said, moving closer to his bed and bending over with her hands planted on the mattress. Grant stared at her ass and felt himself go dizzy. She was just peering at the woodwork, for chrissakes. It wasn’t an invitation, not even when she turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Where did you find it?”
“I built it,” he said, not sure if the clench in his gut was pride or a fervent desire to lift up her dress and take her from behind. “I do a little woodworking as a hobby.”
“A hobby?” She ran her fingers over the intricate carvings in the wood and shook her head. “A hobby is knitting scarves or playing chess. This is masterful. You really made this? It looks like the bench in the lobby at the National Tropical Botanical Gardens. We were there this morning scouting for another wedding.”
“Yeah, I carved that, too,” he said, and watched her jaw drop. “I donated it last spring. Some charity thing they were doing.”
“Okay, now you’re just ridiculous.” She shook her head and took a sip of wine. “Please tell me you’ve got some sort of hideous fault. A huge goiter or a habit of tripping preschoolers in the mall?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Come on. Let’s get going on dinner.”
He led her back down the hallway, through the kitchen, and out to the patio, where he pulled out an Adirondack chair for her and dusted the seat off with his hand. “Have a seat while I get the grill fired up. How do you like your steak?”
“Medium rare. Is there something I can do to help?”
“Nope, already under control. I made my mom’s famous coleslaw a couple hours ago, and the potatoes have been in here for a while. More wine?”
“I’m good for now, thanks.”
Grant gave the coals a few fierce stabs with a poker, then set the meat on the grill, fanning the smoke away from his face. “So how did you get to be a wedding planner?”
“I got my degree in business and started out working for a normal wedding planner. Then I re
alized there was an unfilled need for someone specializing in nontraditional weddings.”
“Nontraditional?”
“Offbeat. Women who want a ceremony where everyone dresses up in steampunk costumes, or guys who’ve always dreamed of a pirate-themed wedding on a ship. I help make their dreams a reality.”
“And what about your dreams?” he asked, shutting the lid of the grill to trap the heat as he turned and looked at her again. “I assume a wedding planner has pretty definite ideas about her own eventual wedding?”
Anna shook her head and took a sip of wine. “Nope.”
“No ideas?”
“No wedding. Not something I want to do.”
“Ever?”
“Never,” she said, nodding a little as she said it, which was an odd gesture. People who nodded while denying something were usually lying, in Grant’s experience. It was a common tell, a body-language slip most people never realized they committed. Grant filed that away in the back of his head as he moved back into the kitchen and grabbed a bowl of potato chips. He returned to the lanai and set it in front of her, pleased by the flash of gratitude on her face as she dug her hand into the bowl.
“Here, I grabbed you a glass of ice water, too. It’s hot out here.”
“Thank you,” she said, lifting the glass to take a sip. “Jeez, I feel like I ought to tip you or something.”
“Simple applause will do,” he said, returning to the grill. “So based on your career choice, I assume your aversion to marriage isn’t because you don’t believe in the institution. What’s your story?”
She shrugged and popped a chip into her mouth. “Like I said earlier, my parents divorced when I was young. The months leading up to it were really tough, with Mom and Dad fighting all the time. One night I heard them arguing and I went to the door of their bedroom and put a glass up to the door like I’d seen in a movie. You know, to eavesdrop?”
“Did you hear anything?”
He watched her fighting to keep her expression neutral, but she wasn’t winning the battle. She took a sip of wine and looked out toward the ocean, her eyes distant. He studied her face, aware this was probably a story she didn’t tell much, if ever. He edged closer, brushing the side of her shoulder with his hand.
“My dad said my mom hadn’t been the same since they’d had kids—had me,” she said. “And Janelle, of course.” She swallowed, though she hadn’t lifted the wineglass to her lips again. “And my mom yelled back that he was the one who’d changed. They started arguing about how their marriage had become nothing but a business arrangement devoted to carpools and bake sales and soccer practice and whose fault it was they never spent time together. I didn’t understand a lot of the conversation, but I got the gist.”
“Jesus,” Grant said, shaking his head. “You can’t think—” He stopped short, knowing it would be a dick move to try and convince her that her parents hadn’t split up because of her. Who the hell was he to rewrite someone else’s story? He reached out and touched her arm. “I’m sure your parents loved you very much.”
“I don’t doubt that. But I also don’t doubt that my very existence destroyed my parents’ marriage.”
“That doesn’t mean it was your fault.”
She shrugged and took another small sip of wine. “Realizing at age eight that you’re responsible for the breakup of a marriage doesn’t leave you feeling enthusiastic about the institution as a whole.”
“So you just gave up on it?” His hand was still resting on her arm, and he wondered if she even noticed it there.
“No. For a while I still thought about it. Figured maybe a marriage without kids could be an option, or maybe just one where I worked really hard to make sure the romance wasn’t dulled by the tedium of picking up someone else’s socks. I fantasized about the fluffy white dress and the big bouquet of sunflowers and the Damascus steel band with one of those splotchy rustic diamonds on it.”
“Wow. That’s pretty specific.”
She shrugged. “That’s the nature of being a wedding planner. You learn what you love and what you don’t. I suppose I became a wedding planner so I could start foisting all those fantasies on other people’s weddings. Including my sister’s.”
He stood up and turned back to the grill, not wanting to miss a word of her story, but needing to flip the steaks. “Janelle’s married?”
“Was married. To a guy who turned out to be a raging jerk. But I was too wrapped up in planning her big, fat, ridiculous wedding to notice.”
“When was this?”
“The wedding was three years ago. The divorce is pretty recent. Still a lot of baggage there. The whole thing has really taken a toll on her.”
“You can’t seriously blame yourself for that.”
“Why not? I pushed her into it.”
“You can’t make someone get married.”
Anna shrugged and trailed a finger around the rim of her glass. “I’m pretty persuasive when I want something.”
“I can only imagine.” Grant turned and pulled the foil-wrapped potatoes out of the coals. He checked the steaks, making sure they were cooked to perfection. Satisfied, he returned to the kitchen and grabbed a bowl of baby carrots and some dip he’d bought at the store earlier. He nudged the fridge door shut and walked back to the patio, setting both items in front of Anna. She gave him a grateful smile and reached for a carrot.
“Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself?” He turned and pulled the meat off the grill, sliding it onto a clean plate. “I’m guessing this wasn’t an arranged marriage. Janelle had some responsibility for picking the guy, right?”
Anna shrugged. “It’s a long story, and it looks like dinner’s just about ready. Can we eat out here?”
Grant studied her for a moment, wondering if he should apologize for pressing her. She’d volunteered everything willingly enough, but maybe he’d been too pushy. She didn’t look rattled, and she smiled at him as she stood up and smoothed out the front of her dress. Still, something had shifted between them.
“Sure,” he said. “Eating outside is a great idea. Would you mind dusting off the table with that cloth there? I’ll go grab everything.”
He moved back into the kitchen and gathered silverware, napkins, coleslaw, and everything else he thought they might need. He considered grabbing the big citronella candle in the corner to help keep bugs away, but decided against it. No sense making her think he was trying to get romantic.
When he returned to the balcony, he saw she’d cleared off the table and laid out two bright orange plastic place mats his sister must’ve left behind when she last visited with the twins. They gave the table a festive look, and he set up the food feeling oddly jovial.
He sat down and began unwrapping his potato, glancing at Anna as she picked up her knife and fork.
“So,” she said, slicing into the meat with a clean, even stroke. “So what’s your secret?”
“Well, I usually pan sear the meat first to give it a nice even crust on the outside.”
“Not the steak.” Her eyes fixed on his, unblinking. “What you just did there.”
He cocked his head to the side, studying her with renewed interest. “What did I just do?”
“The conversational equivalent of stripping off my clothes and having me on my back in the first thirty minutes of a date.” She took a bite of steak and chewed, eyes never leaving his. Grant felt his mouth fall open, but no words came out.
Anna finished her bite and kept talking, her voice bright and calm and surprisingly cheerful. “Not that I didn’t enjoy it,” she continued, “and not that I didn’t willingly spread my legs—metaphorically speaking, of course. But level with me here, Grant Patton—what the fuck was that about?”
Chapter Four
Anna waited politely while Grant choked on his wine. She should probably help him, but given how goddamn perfect he was at everything else, she figured he knew how to perform the Heimlich on himself.
“Are you always this
blunt?” he asked when he finally got some air.
“Pretty much.” She took a bite of steak and chewed. “Seriously, how did you do it? How’d you have me confessing my life story in less time than it normally takes me to remove my jacket?”
“You weren’t wearing a jacket.”
“You no doubt would have removed it if I were,” she said. “Metaphorically speaking. Come on, Marine man. What the hell did you just pull to get me to tell you everything but the color of my underwear?”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Fill in that last detail and I’ll confess.”
“Blue. To match the dress.”
“And the streak in your hair.” He took a long drink of water, then set the glass down and met her eyes. “Fair enough. What do you want to know?”
“What was that all about? Why did I just tell you my whole life story before I even knew your full name?”
“Grant Ulysses Patton. Our parents named us all after military generals. MacArthur, Grant, Sheridan, Schwartz—short for Schwarzkopf, as in Stormin’ Norman.”
“Your family isn’t messing around with this military stuff.”
“No doubt. Which might have something to do with my use of elicitation techniques in inappropriate settings like dates and job interviews. I apologize.”
She blinked at him. “You used military-counterintelligence skills to get into my pants?”
“Are we still speaking metaphorically?”
“Yes. Why did you interrogate me?”
“It would only be an interrogation if I’d detained you, and I’d be using coercion tactics instead of evoking trust and comfort. Technically, this was more elicitation—a skill by which you acquire information without the subject realizing you’re doing it.”
Anna tried not to grin. “The subject? And here I’ve been dating guys who called me honey and baby.”
“I didn’t call you pet names, but I did ply you with a steady flow of refreshments. I also touched your arm and expressed sympathy for your misfortunes. That was genuine, by the way.”