by Hinze, Vicki
More matchmaking. The kids and now Miss Hattie. At least Cally could answer honestly. “Positively adorable. All of them.” She put the bag of ice on the table, knocking the cracking cubes together, then picked up the sling.
Miss Hattie paused at the mud room door. “I suggest you get out of that wet shirt, Bryce, before putting that sling on. We’re having a warm spell, but you could catch cold. Especially once you’re away from the fire.” Then she went out and softly closed the door.
“Need some help with your buttons?” Cally’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Or are you going to go macho on me and insist on struggling with them yourself?”
“I’m too weary to struggle.” He looked from the fire blazing gold and blue in the grate up at her, his eyes serious.
“Ouch. You’re fighting the I’m-a-rotten-parent demon again.” The fire popped, crackled, and hissed. Moisture seeping from the logs. “Ease up on you, Counselor.” Cally reached for his shirt placket, her heart in her throat. Her hands were shaking. Why were her damn hands shaking? It wasn’t as if she’d never touched a man before.
But she’d never touched or undressed this man. She forced a little strength into her voice, feeling as weak as water. “The kids are fine. You got a little banged up, but everything worked out okay. And the battleaxe didn’t resign again.”
“There is that.”
“Right.” Cally chided herself. She wasn’t undressing him, just helping him out of his shirt. Big difference. The first button worked loose from the hole and the front of his shirt gaped at his throat, revealing a strip of dark, springy hair that looked too enticing to touch for her comfort. Now, not only were her hands shaking, she was shaking all over. And her blasted legs were about as stable as wilting flower stems.
“Thanks for helping me out with the kids, and for taking care of me.” He sat back, giving her easier access to his buttons. “I’m about maxed out, Cally, and I’m sick of screwing up with them.”
“I know. But you do more right than wrong, Bryce. Really.” She opened the second button, then the third. Heaven help her, his chest was even more gorgeous than she’d thought. “Um, can you stand up?”
“What?”
Their gazes locked. The breath flew out of her. “I, um, can’t pull the tail of your shirt free from your slacks with you sitting down.” God, but the man smelled good. And looked good, even with a hint of a bruise peeking out from the top of his beard.
He rose to his feet, his chest brushing against her breasts, then stared down at her. No way could she look into his eyes. Not now. Not when she was feeling so attracted to him and so overwhelmed by him. She looked down at his chest, found that expanse of hair-sprinkled skin only marginally less enticing than his eyes, tugged his shirt free of his slacks, then finished undoing his buttons. By the time she was done, her heart felt ready to burst right out of her chest. Being this close to this much man had her hormones on full alert, and every instinct in her woman’s soul wanting to caress and hold.
Clinical, she warned herself. Think clinical. She eased the shirt off his left shoulder, then his right. And failed getting even close to a clinical thought. The hormone alert grew to a riot. She skimmed the fabric down his arms. Her hands grazing over his warm skin tingled and, breathless, she brushed along his hard muscles, past his elbows, to his corded forearms, dusted with a sprinkling of fine, soft hair. The fabric bunched at his wrists, refused to slide over his hands and off his fingertips. “It’s, um, stuck.”
“The cuffs,” he whispered thickly.
She glanced up, into his eyes.
Desire glazed them. “You’ve got to unbutton the cuffs.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t look away. She wanted to, tried to, but stood transfixed, mesmerized. Could the desire burning so deeply in them be real? For her?
His lowered his lids, turned his hot gaze to her lips. His own parted, and he let out a little puff of breath that smelled of mint and warmed her face. “Cally?”
She couldn’t talk past the knot in her throat. She moved her. hands furiously, but they only became tangled in the folds of his shirt.
“Cally.”
She ceased moving, again heard Suzie’s haunting words ramble through her mind. Words about courage and believing and miracles. Digging deep, so very deep inside her, she willed her gaze to lift and meet his, damning herself as forty kinds of fool for letting herself get into this position. For wanting to be in this position.
He touched his fingertips to her cheek, rubbed soft circles under her chin with the pad of his thumb. “Look at me, honey,” he whispered. “Please.”
Oh, God. Her mouth desert-dry, she swallowed hard, let her gaze drift past the bunch of wadded shirt between them, up his middle, following the dark vee of hair on his chest between his male nipples to his throat. His pulse there throbbed against his skin, beating as fiercely as her own. With the aid of sheer grit, she managed to look higher, to his beard, up the slope of his patrician nose, then finally—dear God, finally—to his eyes.
They were solemn, serious, and intent. The thick air between them grew solid, dense. As thick as that morning’s fog, blocking out sights and sounds and smells of everything except the two of them. Fabric rustled, then his shirt fell onto the floor, atop their feet. Neither of them looked down, nor reached to move it. He eased a hand to her shoulder, let it glide over her clavicle, down to her shoulder blade to circle her back, then lured her closer. Nose to nose, he whispered on a soft sigh. “Kiss me, Cally.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Don’t think about it. Don’t weigh the right or wrong, or the good or bad in it. Forget that one-kiss rule—”
“We’ve already broken it.”
“I broke it. I kissed you. But I’m asking you to break it now, Cally. I’m asking you to kiss me, because you want to kiss me. Because you ache to kiss me as much as I ache to kiss you. Please.”
Lonely. Cally understood all he was feeling because she felt it, too. The togetherness with the kids, the intimacy of her icing his sore jaw. Their teaming up to stifle the battleaxe. Talking softly through the nights on the hallway floor. All of those things they’d faced together vividly reminded him of the many times he’d faced similar situations alone. And those memories had him realizing just how lonely he’d become. How much he missed having a partner. Cally’s heartstrings suffered a mighty tug. Her beautiful Atlas was cracking under the weight of his world.
She tiptoed, tilted her face, then touched her lips to his, prepared for the avalanche of lust and desire and yearning to make love with him that would rip through her on contact.
The feelings didn’t come. This kiss was unlike their others. This kiss was gentle and tender, less lusty and more loving. A gentle fusing of mouths and sweet caresses that rocked through to her core in ways the others only hinted at and promised. Where the others planted the seeds of desire and tilled it, this one was the harvest. It gathered the physical longing and the emotional yearning and churned them together, concocting a unique, vintage bliss she’d never before known. A whimper rushed out from the back of her throat. She untangled her sleeve from his belt buckle, lifted her hand and let her fingers search, then splay across his bare skin; slide up his forearm, his biceps, to his shoulder, his skin arousing images in her mind of sun-warmed satin over granite. God help her, he felt as wonderful as he looked. Even more wonderful than he smelled, and tenfold more wonderful than she’d imagined him.
He bent his knees, backed down into the chair, pulling her with him. Hooking the back of her thigh with his good arm, he spread her legs and nudged her until she straddled his thighs, urging her closer, then closer still. She sat astride him, her arms curled around his neck, her fingers threaded through his hair, breasts to chest, thighs to thighs, lips to lips, and settled into the kiss.
He separated their mouths, leaving her wanting more, and cupped her face in his trembling hands. His face tensed, a beautiful study of sharp angles and planes, and his words tumbled out on breaths
as ragged as her own. “I want you, Cally.”
Her hungry ears rejoiced. He wanted her. Her. Cally Tate. Lousy wife. Ugly, undesirable woman. Her. Unlovable her.
Or did he?
A thin film of sweat sheened his skin. Genuine desire glazed his eyes. His chest swelled and hollowed arhythmically, and the hard bulk of him pressed against placket and skirt, firmly nestled against her thighs. “What exactly do you want from me?”
“Everything you’re willing to give.” He opened his mouth to tell her more, but no words came out. He pressed a chaste kiss to her eyelid, to her cheek, her chin. “I’ll give you everything I have to give, Cally. I want—”
“Shh, don’t.” She pressed a fingertip against his lips, unable to bear seeing him struggle. She never wanted to put him in the position of feeling he had to lie to her. “Something special happens when we touch. It’s wonderful, magical. But I think it’s all we’ve got to give each other. We’ve been through too much, you know? And we’re fighting too many demons. Loneliness is just one of them.” She hugged him close, buried her face at the cay in his neck, let her fingers fork through the silky hair at his nape. “I want you, too,” she confessed in a whisper, her nose brushing the shell of his ear. “But I don’t want to want you, or to need you, or to—” What had been about to come out of her mouth stunned her silent.
His arms tightened around her. “What?”
She shook her head, refused to answer, too amazed to believe herself what she’d been about to say to even think it, much less repeat it. Sliding off his lap, she eased the sling onto his arm then positioned his elbow and forearm inside it. When she was done, she looked at him, pain flashing through her chest like an SOS beacon.
He clasped her arm, curled his fingers around her and gave her a gentle squeeze. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, honey. If I said anything wrong, I’m sorry.”
Wrong? He’d said everything right. But she didn’t trust right. Couldn’t afford to trust right. “You didn’t.” She looked away, took the bag of melting ice from the table and pressed it to his cheek. He was frowning, and so was she.
“You care about me, Cally. You don’t want to, you know you shouldn’t, and yet you do.” He twisted the bag away from his face then looked up at her. “That’s it, isn’t it? You care. That’s what you had been about to say, wasn’t it?”
“No.” She lied with a good heart and a clean conscience. Bryce still loved Meriam. He didn’t need Cally’s care anymore than she needed to give it.
“Liar.” He stared at her.
She stared back, and said nothing.
“You’ll never love me, Cally. And I’ll never love you. We’ve had our shot at that. But we can care. We already trust each other, and I don’t think caring would break any friendship rules.”
Her heart warbled in her chest. How could he make the illogical, the unreasonable, the impossible, sound so damn feasible? Their hormones were in overdrive. They kissed as if half-starved. And yet they called themselves friends? “I’ll think about it.”
Jeremy and Suzie came into the kitchen. Frankie walked straight through to the mud room door.
“Wait,” Cally called out, grateful for the reprieve. She needed to get her emotions under control. To bury some of this lust and caring and get back into some semblance of emotional balance. “Miss Hattie gave me some cleaner for your shirt.”
“Blouse,” Suzie corrected her.
“Right.” Cally grinned.
Frankie’s eyes lit up from the bottom. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s this all about?” Bryce asked.
Cally winked at him. “We’re trying to keep Frankie’s mom from skinning her alive.”
“I don’t want to get busted—that means put on restriction, Suzie. Not really busted,” Frankie chimed in. “The festival is tomorrow, and I wanna go.”
“Tomorrow?” Suzie spun toward Bryce, happy and excited. “Daddy, can we go?”
Seeing Suzie excited ranked about as rare as seeing her smile. She looked like a . . . a little girl, Cally thought. Joy bubbled in her heart. God, but was it good to see that.
“Maybe.” Bryce’s voice sounded thick, as if he’d noticed the change in Suzie, too. “If Cally will come with us. I’m wounded, and I can’t keep up with all three of you.” He dropped his voice so only Cally could hear. “Zero survival odds.”
“Will you come, Cally?” Suzie asked. “Please. We’ll be good and stay out of trouble. Even Jeremy.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” She whispered to Bryce. “I’ll bail you out, for Suzie. Just because she looks so happy. But this isn’t a date, Counselor. Hold that thought.”
“Of course it’s not.” His eyes glittered, contradicting him, of course.
Not that Cally had expected they wouldn’t. “I mean it.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” She couldn’t resist hassling the stuffed shirt and bringing him down a peg or two. He looked altogether too pleased with himself. “One rule.”
Bryce lifted a brow in her direction. “Why do I have the feeling I’m in serious trouble here?”
“No trouble,” Cally assured him. “The rule is, no neckties are allowed.”
Suzie beamed.
“If you insist.” Bryce grimaced—but he didn’t disagree.
“I do.”
He squinted up at her. “I don’t suppose it’d do me any good to appeal.”
“None whatsoever.”
“Okay, then.” He sighed. “No tie.”
Cally turned to Frankie to cover her smile. “Let’s get that shirt cleaned up.”
“Blouse,” Frankie corrected her. “Suzie has a fit every time I call a blouse a shirt. Even if it’s a T-shirt. Her mom told her that shirts are for guys. Girls wear blouses.”
Meriam hadn’t said that. Cally had. She glanced at Suzie, who looked beet-red and mortified. Touched that Suzie thought enough of what she’d told her to take it into her heart, Cally’s chest felt full. “Well, she’s positively right about that,” she said, carefully avoiding looking at Suzie. “So let’s get that stain out of your blouse, so you get to keep your skin and not get busted.”
Bryce glanced at the oil smears on Frankie’s shirt. “Sounds like a plan.”
He was a good man. A great dad, and a good man. A shame they hadn’t met earlier. Before Meriam and Gregory and heartache. Back when they’d both had courage.
The strongest urge ever to go to the cemetery and talk with Mary Beth Ladner waylaid Cally. More than to breathe, she needed to pour out her regret that things couldn’t be different with Bryce.
But Mary Beth was a long way away. And the past had been lived, struggled through, and survived. It was done. The changes in them because of it were done, too. They couldn’t go back and start over. Or undo. She could wish it, but the effort would be a waste of energy. Things couldn’t be different for her or Bryce.
For them, no miracles could happen. Not even beside a dreamswept sea.
Chapter 9
For once, the Blue Moon Cafe wasn’t the hub of the village.
The church parking lot filled and overflowed onto Main Street with laughing, smiling people, sipping old-fashioned sarsaparilla and Moxie, that distinctly New England soft drink. Beneath the flapping overhang of a blue and white tent, others ate hot dogs, steamed clams, piping hot chunks of lobster, and funnel cakes dusted with powdered sugar. Near the far corner of the lot, a crowd gathered to watch some serious taste-testing and voting on whose blueberry jam entry in the annual contest rated sweetest. Word on the wind predicted Miss Hattie would win hands down—again.
Cally loved the festive air, the sounds and smells and feelings of being surrounded by people who knew each other well and liked each other anyway.
With Lyssie in his arms, Bryce dipped close and whispered in Cally’s ear. “Lydia Johnson sure has her eye on that blue ribbon.”
She did. Holding her back ramrod straight, her chin high enough to be considered snobbish without
benefit of any other waspy indicator, she discreetly chastised a young man about seventeen for spending too much time with Nolene Baker but, all the while, she held that ribbon steadfast in her gaze.
On sight, Cally disliked the woman. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the tilt of her chin, or the haughty air in her actions. Like a snob, but one who lacked the panache to successfully pull it off. Most likely the reason for the dislike had to do with Lydia’s lecturing a boy who looked enough like her to be her son. That dredged up too many memories of Gregory and his mother’s opposition to his marrying Cally. An opposition that hadn’t weakened one iota during the successive fourteen years of their marriage. Biting into a funnel cake, Cally chewed slowly and wondered if her ex-mother-in-law treated Gregory’s new wife, Joleen, with that same disdain and thinly veiled scorn.
“Poor guy’s getting an earful.” Bryce polished off his fourth funnel cake and looked down at his powdered hand as if not sure what to do with it.
Cally dusted it off with her napkin, and grunted her agreement about the boy. In all their ventures through the village, she’d never before seen the woman, and the only thing she’d heard about her was that Miss Millie, Miss Hattie’s best friend, had refused to welcome Lydia to the Historical Society meetings, which grated at her something awful. “Who exactly is Lydia?”
Bryce dropped his voice. “Lydia Johnson, the mayor’s wife. They own The Store over there. No, honey. There, next door to Jimmy’s garage.” Bryce grabbed Lyssie’s hand just before it clenched closed around a wad of Vic’s cotton candy.
“Nice save.” Cally smiled at him.
Bryce smiled back, then wiggled his brows. “Can you keep a secret?”
Teasing her? Her stomach fluttered. It’d been a long time since she’d been teased, and longer still since she’d liked it. With what Bryce’s teasing was doing to her insides, she just knew she couldn’t like liking it, either. “Depends.”