The Sweetheart Rules

by Shirley Jump

  “Seems I still have a lot to learn,” he said, his gaze locked on her mesmerizing green eyes. “Maybe there’s a class I could take.”

  She laughed. “You’d be the one sent to the principal’s office for causing a ruckus.”

  “I’d much prefer to be the teacher’s pet.”

  She opened her mouth, then shut it again. Diana’s cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink, a blush that Mike knew also cascaded down the valley between her breasts and came with that shy little smile of hers that both tempted and teased him. What he wouldn’t give to see that sight again, to see her in his bed, beneath his body, not just here, sitting across a picnic table in his best friend’s yard.

  Luke and Olivia returned to the table, and relief flooded Diana’s features. The blush faded, the simmering tension dissipated, and they all went back to being a bunch of friends at a barbecue. Mike told himself he was glad. Hell, relieved even. He already knew where flirting with Diana led. To the bedroom—and hot damn, he wanted that again, but he knew as well as he knew his own name that before the sheets cooled, something else would invade the space between them.

  Expectations.

  Diana was a woman who didn’t want a fling. She wanted permanence; a man to grow old with. And Mike wasn’t the kind to sit on a porch and sip lemonade for the next fifty years. In the end, Mike was going back to Alaska, just like he had before. Better to do that without regrets this time, and without memories that haunted his nights and ached in his gut.

  I love you.

  She’d whispered those words in his ear when she’d been curled up in his arms, still caught in the warm afterglow of amazing sex. The words had surprised him, and he had lain there, not sure of what to say. An awkward silence passed, and Mike took the coward’s path, feigning sleep until Diana nodded off and he could slip out of her bed, leave that note and head back to Alaska.

  Which was what he’d do again at the end of this month. Better to remember that than to get caught up in a woman with mysterious green eyes and an easy way with kids.

  After a while, conversation began to flow over beers and barbecue. When Luke mentioned the word “work,” Jenny and Ellie both exclaimed, then laughed hard when Luke said, “What’d I say? I just asked Mike how work was going.”

  That sent the girls into even more fits of laughter. It was a merry sound, filling the air like church bells, and for a moment, Mike wondered why he’d been in such a hurry to leave.

  Six

  Diana did her best to keep her attention focused on everything and everyone but Mike Stark. She’d come to the barbecue, intent on her plan of pretending like he didn’t affect her anymore, that she had forgotten all about that night in January and how he’d made her body sing in ways it never had before. If there was an Oscar for faking disinterest, Diana figured she wasn’t even a runner-up. My God, all the man had to do was look at her and her body started to hum. And when he’d said the words teacher’s pet . . .

  She had nearly melted on the spot. Her brain kept drumming the same he’s all wrong for you song, but apparently the message wasn’t making its way south. The rest of her didn’t care that Mike was married to his job. That he had no desire to settle down again and that he came attached to an undependable past as an ex and a father. That he had dated her and wooed her, and like the clichéd ending to a health class life lesson, run from her bed the second he got what he wanted.

  But then every once in a while she saw these snippets of another Mike, one who loved his kids and was struggling to build a connection with them. The same man who was playing with the dogs in the yard while his daughters watched from the sidelines. Ellie danced and clapped every time Chance caught the ball, then rushed back to capture Miss Sadie in suffocating toddler hugs.

  God, she was a sentimental fool. Just because a guy acted like a grown-up once in a while didn’t mean he was settle-down material. Mike had made it clear six months ago that he wasn’t sticking around. For anything or anyone. Not then, and not now. Tossing a ball to a golden retriever didn’t make him suddenly morph into Ward Cleaver.

  Mike looked over his shoulder, caught her watching him, and sent Diana a grin.

  Damn.

  She told herself she didn’t still have feelings for him. Wasn’t affected at all by seeing him.

  Yeah, and it was a major miracle she didn’t go up in flames right that instant. Maybe if she repeated the lies to herself enough, she’d believe them.

  She scrambled to her feet and grabbed several dishes. “Let me help you clean up,” she said to Olivia. “I figured I’d go check on the animals in the shelter before I go home. I want to go before it gets too dark.”

  And before she got swept up in that grin of Mike Stark’s and began reading things in his smile that didn’t exist.

  Olivia put out a hand. “Luke and I can get those. Don’t worry about it. In fact, let me wrap up some leftovers while you’re over at the shelter. Saves you some cooking.”

  “Thanks, Liv.” Diana smiled. “You know me too well. I’ll take the easiest cooking route possible. Which means the one where someone else does all the work.”

  As Diana turned to go, Olivia laid a hand on her sister’s shoulder. The men were across the yard with the girls and the dogs, leaving Diana and Olivia alone. “Hey, you okay? You seem distracted and distant lately.”

  “I’m fine. Just a lot on my mind.” Diana forced one of those it’s-all-good smiles onto her face. She had learned long ago that it was best to keep her troubles to herself, rather than letting them spill into someone else’s world. That kept her worries contained. Controlled.

  Olivia frowned, clearly not buying it, but she didn’t push the issue. “Well, if you want to talk, I’m here.”

  “I’m good. Really.” She gave her sister a quick hug, then headed across the lawn toward the Rescue Bay Animal Shelter. Work would take her mind off Mike Stark, off Jackson, and off whatever Sean was trying to do with this custody thing. Work kept her from traveling down paths she had last visited more than a decade ago, paths that led to dusty bottles and big mistakes. Work would distract her and exhaust her, and right now, that was what Diana needed more than anything.

  She paused outside the freshly painted white-and-blue building and marveled at the transformation. Six months ago, the shelter had been falling apart, a disaster waiting to happen. Olivia and Diana had pooled their funds and made the necessary repairs to get the main part of the shelter up to snuff. The back half was still waiting for funding to make the rest of the repairs, which would give the shelter some much-needed room to take on more animals. With Diana’s practice newly relocated to the front of the building, it created the perfect combination of services for Rescue Bay’s four-footed friends.

  Diana opened the door to a symphony of barks and meows, a melody that always lifted her heart. She’d gone into veterinary medicine because she loved animals, loved their uncomplicated natures, their forgiving souls and unconditional love. Every time she walked in this building she was grateful that she and her sister had gotten it running again, saving the lives of so many lost and deserted pets.

  Six dogs and ten cats were housed here this week, a lot for the little shelter, already nearing capacity. Diana made a mental note to run some kind of adoption event soon to get the word out and help make some space, plus raise more funds for the ongoing needs of feeding and housing the animals. She headed down the concrete aisles, pausing to give an elderly poodle an ear scratching, and a rub under the chin to a sweet lab mix. She dispensed a little attention to each of the dogs, while also taking the opportunity to give them a quick once-over and update their charts. The stray she’d tended in her office earlier came up to the cage door, tail wagging, one paw pressing against the chain-link to connect with the human who’d showed her a kindness. Diana glanced up at the chart and noticed that Olivia had given the stray a temporary name, something they did for all the shelter animals, to make them seem more like pets than furry strangers in a cage.

  “She n
amed you Cinderella. My sister is such a romantic. Probably hoping a little of that will rub off on me.” Diana laughed, and wriggled her fingers through the holes to show the stray some love. She was healthy, and showed signs of having been well cared for. Surely someone was missing this cute little bugger.

  “You sure have that magic touch. With all creatures, great and small.”

  She froze at the sound of Mike’s deep baritone voice. Even now, even after all these months, the sound sent a delicious shiver down her spine, a pool of heat in her gut. She remembered her vow to pretend she had moved on, past him, past that one night, and staked a mental steel rod in her wobbling intentions. Then she turned to face him.

  He was leaning against the doorway, tall and delicious and already slightly tan, in exactly the same place and in exactly the same way as the first time she’d met him this past winter. She’d been sitting inside this very kennel with her son, her sister and a rambunctious litter of puppies that Jackson had found, wrangling the slippery furballs, who were doing their level best to avoid a bath. One look at Mike, and her heart had stuttered, and to be honest, it had never stopped. The man still had the same effect on her, damn him. She remembered, very, very well, how her body fit against his, how his skin lit hers on fire, how he tasted when she had taken him in her mouth.

  Damn him.

  He stood there, casual as all hell, as if he hadn’t just upset the apple cart of her life again, one shoulder braced on the jamb, his broad, strong frame filling the space so much it seemed to drain all the oxygen from the room. Because she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but stare like a lovesick teenager in algebra class.

  He looked as solid as a tree, as welcoming as a king-sized bed at the end of a long day. She tensed, her fingers curling around the metal chart in her hands, wishing they were curling around him instead. For hours, she’d tried to avoid him, to act like she didn’t care, but now, in the enclosed, intimate space of the kennels, it was clear the jig was up.

  She had to use two hands to rehang the chart on the hook, because for some weird reason, she couldn’t manage to fit the big hole of the clip over the slender metal hanger. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to thank you again. What you did with the girls back there…” He shrugged. “Thanks.”

  “It was no big deal. Really. I remember Jackson going through a difficult phase.” Then she laughed. “Who am I kidding? He’s fifteen. He’s still going through it.”

  Mike rolled his eyes. “Great. Something to look forward to. Between the attitudes and the messes, I’m going to go crazy.”

  “Oh, kids aren’t so bad. Yes, kids are messy, but that forces you to let down your hair once in a while. And I think that’s just as good for us stuffy adults as it is for the kids.” She smiled and thought of all the times when Jackson had driven her crazy. “I remember one time when Jackson was, oh, maybe four or so. It was Easter and we were going to church. I’d bought him a little light blue suit and tie, the whole shebang. Poor kid. He looked like an Easter egg.” She laughed.

  “Light blue? Oh, man. You probably scarred him for life.”

  She grinned. “Ah, he survived. He looked so cute, too. I told him to stay in the house while I finished getting ready, and under no circumstances get one inch of that suit dirty.”

  “Let me guess. He fell into a puddle? Climbed a tree?”

  “Worse. He snuck out and went frog chasing in the creek behind the house. Soon as he saw me come outside, he came running back, but it was too late. He was a mess, head to toe, that blue suit all dirty and torn and wet. Oh, I was so mad. Ready to read him the riot act, maybe ground him for the next five years. And then I stopped mid-lecture.”

  “Why?”

  “My little boy, that rambunctious monkey, was carrying a muddy fistful of dandelions. He looked up at me with those big green eyes of his and said, ‘Here, Momma, for Easter.’” Her smile softened with the memory and her heart warmed. “Who can stay mad at that?”

  Mike pushed off from the doorway and closed the distance between them. The dogs had quieted and the entire space closed in around them. “Maybe I need to pick some wildflowers so you’ll stop being mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad at you.”

  “Liar.” He put a finger under her chin and tipped her face until she was looking at him again.

  She stared up at his steely jaw, his teasing blue eyes, and his cockeyed grin, and her heart did that stutter-step again. He only had one finger pressed against the valley beneath her jaw, but the touch sizzled all the way to her toes. She swallowed hard, and tried to find her willpower, but it had slipped away when she wasn’t looking. “I’m not mad at you,” she repeated.

  “Then we’re still friends?”

  “Uh-huh. Friends.”

  His grin curved a little more. He leaned down closer, and her breath seized in her throat. “I have a lot of friends, you know.”

  “That’s… that’s good.”

  “I don’t think I need any more.”

  “Okay.” Her gaze flickered between his eyes and his lips. She knew how he tasted, how he felt against her, how he moved inside her, and every bit of that knowledge fluttered through her brain, like speed-reading the Mike Stark pages of the encyclopedia.

  “I’d much rather we were something other than friends.”

  “Something…” The meaning dawned, a little slowly because she was still caught up in his eyes and his touch and his lips, and, well, all of him. She shook her head and his finger dropped away. “That’s not a good idea, Mike. We want different things.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Uh-huh.” Except right now she couldn’t remember a single thing she wanted. Heck, she couldn’t remember her own name. But she could remember making love with Mike Stark, hot, furious, curl-your-toes and fry-your-brain sex that had left her satisfied and drained and amazed.

  “Yeah, me too,” he said, and she couldn’t tell if he meant he was sure, too, or if he was reading her mind and thinking how incredible that one night had been.

  She opened her mouth to tell him that she had to leave, but the words didn’t come. Her lips parted, her breath whispered in and out, and her heart stilled, waiting, anticipating, hoping. Mike’s blue eyes captured hers. Fire flickered in his gaze, and before she could think twice, his arms were around her, she was molded against him, and he was kissing her.

  No, not kissing. They’d never just kissed, like some happy ending to a romantic comedy. Mike commandeered her mouth, and took her on a wild, frenzied, heated ride that sent fire through her veins, pooled liquid in her gut, and had her panting and arching against him, pressing her pelvis to his, begging for release.

  And that was just the first three seconds.

  He pressed one hand against the sensitive dip above her ass, while the other tangled in her hair and drew her closer. His tongue slipped between her lips, claiming another stake. She grabbed at his back, almost clawing at the muscles that flexed beneath the soft cotton of his shirt.

  He snaked a hand between them to cup her breast, and when his thumb rubbed a rough circle against the cotton fabric, she gasped. Oh, God, I want him. Now. Here.

  At the same time: Oh, God, don’t make the same mistake again.

  The word mistake drummed in her head, over and over. She’d been down this road. She knew where it led.

  Smack dab into a dead end.

  Diana jerked out of Mike’s arms. She collided with cold metal, and the kennel fencing protested with a sharp creak. The dogs start barking again, louder this time, as if sensing she was about to flee. “I… I have to go.”

  His hand lighted on her arm. “Don’t. Let’s talk.”

  “About what, Mike? About how we dated for weeks, then had one great night in the sack? A night that didn’t mean anything?”

  His blue eyes studied hers. “Are you saying you forgot all about that night?”

  “I’m saying I’m over it. In the past. Done.�
� That was three protests. Maybe one too many.

  “I shouldn’t have kissed you, then.”

  She raised her chin. “No, you shouldn’t have. And I would prefer you didn’t try anything like that again.”

  “Well, we can at least be… civil, can’t we?” A tease lit his eyes that said they both knew that civil wasn’t how anyone would describe that kiss a moment ago. “Considering we’ll end up running into each other a lot, since your sister is engaged to my best friend.”

  Her gaze locked on his, on the slight crinkles in the corners of his eyes, the laugh lines on his face. They gave his youthful features definition, an edge. She liked that about him. Or she used to, anyway. Before she realized that Mike Stark was another in a long line of men she’d dated who would delay growing up until they were collecting Social Security.

  Mistake. She needed to put that on a sign and hang it around his neck. “Why bother?” she said. “We both know you’re not staying here one day longer than you have to.”

  “I never promised you anything beyond that night, Diana.”

  Her eyes stung, and her throat clogged, and she cursed herself for being a fool who had thought maybe he’d fallen so hard for her that he wouldn’t let her go. But he had, and without a word in all those months since, as if he had erased her from his memory the second he pulled his pants on again. “Exactly. And that’s why I think it’s best if we both move on and quit pretending that night meant anything more than it did.”

  Then she got the hell out of there before her face could betray her words. The barking of the dogs echoed in her head long after she got in her car and pulled out of the driveway, a reminder that her responsibilities lay in her job and her son, and not in trying to fix a six-foot-two mistake.

  Seven

  Jackson Tuttle leaned a hip against the door of the decrepit house and tried to look cool. The puppy he’d found in the shelter and dubbed Mary, the only one his mother had let him keep, sat at his feet, tail swishing against the floor, her big brown eyes watching him. The dog went everywhere with him, something Jackson had discovered girls really liked. Plus, he liked the dog a lot. She looked more like her father, a golden retriever, than her mother, some kind of mutt, and was the most loyal thing in Jackson’s life. The only one he could depend on. He gave Mary a pat on the head, which she returned with a lick of his palm.