She didn’t sound fine, even Maisy knew that. She sounded panicked or quite possibly deranged. The words had come out in a rush as if she might not choke on the fear attached to them if she said them fast enough. Now that her rant was over, her chest was heaving and she thought she might pass out.
Ryder nodded. “Okay.”
Maisy stared at him. “That’s it?”
“I think that’s all very realistic fear. Frankly, I’m terrified now, too,” he said.
She gaped at him. “What? You’re supposed to be talking me off the ledge not giving me a push!”
“How can I?” he asked. “You are insisting on a frigging turret. Man, I had no idea you had so much riding on this. You really want to stick it to the old boyfriend, don’t you?”
“Of course I’m insisting on a turret. The turret is critical,” she said. “Besides, I gave you the original plans for the house. How hard can it be to add something that was supposed to be there all along? And, for your information, this shop isn’t just a plot to stick it to dingleberry. That’s a part of it, but it’s a very small part. Mostly, I want to own the shop, so that I can be free. Free to make my own decisions about how I spend my time and my money. Free to do something I believe in, which is connecting readers to books they will love and promoting happy endings in a world that, quite frankly, tends to give women the short end of the stick, pun intended, on a daily basis by pushing us down and keeping their feet on our necks.
“I want to be free of that patriarchal garbage and read books about women who are empowered, who determine their own existence, who make their own decisions, in business and in relationships, and demand respect and love from a partner who values them and does an equal share of the heavy lifting and not just some jackass who sucks the emotional life out of them by expecting them to be his mommy and his wife and his whore.”
Ryder blinked at her and Maisy sat, or more accurately fell, onto the wooden chest at the end of her bed. She was out of breath and a little dizzy from the lack of oxygen during her tirade.
“That!” he said. “That’s what I was looking for.” He pushed off the door and took four long strides until he was standing right in front of her. He reached down and cupped her face, tilting her chin, so that she was gazing up at him. His blue eyes were fierce and he said, “If you show that much purpose and passion while working toward your dream, you will not fail. I know it.”
Then he kissed her. His fingers dug into her curls, holding her head in place and his mouth came down on hers in a kiss that felt like a celebration of all that she was and all that she could be. It was amazing.
If she’d thought their first kiss had been electric, this one was like a lightning strike. His mouth against hers was like a sparkler going off inside of her as a cascade of tingles and shivers rocketed around her insides. She arched her back and looped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer while she kissed him with all of the leftover worry and fear and angst still inside of her. But in the meeting of their mouths, all of the negative energy twisted in on itself, reemerging as something new, something hot, something wicked, and something unstoppable.
Ryder kissed her with a single-minded intensity that left her breathless. When she would have stood up to press herself against him, he released her and Maisy’s arms slid from his shoulders as he took a quick step back.
Maisy sucked in a breath and had to force her spine to stay straight, so she didn’t slide down the furniture and land in a heap at his feet.
“Um, sorry about that,” he said. “In my head, I was supposed to kiss your forehead in comfort or something, but yours lips . . . I got distracted.”
Maisy nodded. “I could see where that could happen. No problem.”
“I told myself I wouldn’t do that again, but you, we, this . . . er . . . I’m going to go before this gets awkward or weird,” he said.
Too late.
He turned and opened the door. He stepped through it, but then glanced back at her over his shoulder. “Remember your purpose, Maisy. You’ve got this.”
He shut the door after him, and Maisy sat there for a moment, feeling as if she were sitting in the aftermath of a small tornado. What the hell was that?
She’d kissed her share of men. None, not one, of those kisses had ever made her feel as cherished and desired as Ryder’s kisses had. What did that mean? Was she just an overtired emotional wreck? Or was there something special happening here? She grinned. Of course, something special was happening here. After years of searching for her Mr. Right, she was pretty sure she’d found him.
She climbed up onto her bed, not even bothering to take off her robe, and rolled herself under her covers. She was certain that with the imprint of Ryder’s mouth on her lips and the fact that he had just fractured every idea she’d ever had about what she should feel when she was being kissed that she’d never sleep. She was wrong. With a surge of optimism about the business and her love life, she fell asleep as if she’d taken a one-two punch to the noggin.
* * *
• • •
THE sound of voices woke her, and Maisy blinked at her ceiling. Her first thought was that it was awfully early for Savannah to have the television on. Her second thought was that the man’s voice she heard sounded familiar. Ryder.
In a flash, she remembered their kiss. She remembered him in her room, making her share her fears even when she didn’t want to and his absolute belief in her ability to make this bookstore happen. And the kiss. She was pretty sure she was never going to forget that moment. Not ever.
She rose from the bed, anxious to see Ryder. Had his dreams been punctuated by memories of their kisses? Had he thought about her like she’d thought about him all night long? She was sure he must have. What they’d shared, well, it was the stuff of romance novels, wasn’t it?
She quickly changed into jeans and a T-shirt and ran a brush through her curls. Donning her glasses, she gave herself a quick check in the mirror. She looked casual but cleaned up. She debated putting on lipstick but she didn’t want to appear too eager. She left her room and stepped into the living room to find everyone was up and gathered around Hannah Phillips, who was holding the kitten in one hand and covering a yawn with the other.
“Maisy, hi,” she said when she caught sight of her in her doorway.
Maisy felt all eyes turn toward her, including Ryder’s, but she kept her gaze on Hannah and turned her lips up in a smile. Be cool. Just be cool. Nothing to see here.
“Hannah, this is so great of you to come over and check on the kitten,” she said. “You must be exhausted. What happened with the calf?”
“She got him out,” Savy said. “Mama and baby are doing fine.”
“Can I get you some coffee?” Maisy asked.
“No thanks,” Hannah said. “I plan to go home and sleep all day.” She looked at Perry. “Can I assume you are the in-case-of-emergency contact for this little one?”
Perry pushed her glasses up on her nose and glanced at her father as if in question. He nodded and she said, “Yes.”
“All right, do we have a name?” Hannah asked.
“I was thinking Georgette,” Perry said. “You know, after Georgette Heyer.”
“The Regency novelist?” Hannah nodded in approval and her thick braid of blond hair, which had a few stray bits of hay in it, swung across her back. She was petite like Maisy, but the similarity ended there. When she wasn’t tending sick animals, Hannah was a CrossFit junkie. Even her muscles had muscles, which only amped up her generous curves all the more.
“She looks like a Georgette, doesn’t she?” Perry asked.
“Let’s see.” Hannah lifted up the kitten and checked its underside. “Well, you might want to shorten the name to George.”
“The kitten’s a dude?” Ryder asked. Maisy gave him a quick glance. He was in his T-shirt and jeans but his hair was mussed an
d he was barefoot. Why was that attractive? She’d never found a man’s feet attractive before. They were feet. Feet were ugly. Except his. Oh, boy, she was totally besotted with this man.
“Yep,” Hannah said. “He looks to be a little less than two weeks old. He’s on the small side. His eyes are open, but they aren’t dilating yet and his ears are folded. The next two weeks will be critical but if he thrives during those two, he should make it.”
“Two weeks?” Savannah asked. “Of feeding him every two hours and helping him pee and poop?”
Hannah smiled. “You’ll be able to start going longer between feedings soon and he’ll take to the litter box pretty quickly. One thing to keep in mind. He’s going to be sleeping about twenty hours a day. You’ll want to keep him in a safe place where the light isn’t too bright, since his eyes aren’t fully developed yet.”
She handed the kitten off to Perry, who held him close to her heart and whispered into his fur, “Hi, George, do you like the name George? It’s very dignified. There’s a prince named George and there was a character in the book I just read named George Wickham.”
“I think he’s more of a regal George than a rogue George,” Ryder said. “Since he is the king of the castle, we should call him King George.”
“Oh, I like that,” Perry said. “King George, it is.”
Savannah leaned over the back of the couch and rubbed George’s head with her thumb. “I like it, too, so long as I don’t have to curtsy every time he comes into the room.”
“What about you, Maisy?” Ryder turned to her. She felt her heart thump hard in her chest as she forced her gaze to meet his and not move to his lips. Ack! Too late. She forced her eyes back up, met his gaze, and held it.
“I think King George is a perfect name,” she said.
“All hail King George,” Hannah said. “Great, now I have to go before I pass out on my feet. Call me if you need me, but barring anything unexpected, I’d say you’ve got this. If you plan to offer him up for adoption, you’ll want to get him neutered and litter box trained first.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Maisy volunteered.
“Thanks,” Hannah said.
“I’ll come, too,” Ryder said. “I have some questions.”
Maisy glanced at him. Was he using this as a ploy to get her alone? She went a little dizzy at the thought. Why hadn’t she taken the time to shower or brush her teeth? Dang it.
As they made their way downstairs, Ryder asked Hannah all sorts of questions about feeding the kitten and what things they should look for in case he took a turn for the worse.
Hannah answered him with the calm patience of a woman who has had this conversation a million times before. “I can’t give you a guarantee that he’ll make it, but if you’ve got him eating and relieving himself, it’s looking very promising. I’ll come back and check on him in a few days.”
“Thanks, Hannah,” Maisy said. A yawn slipped out. She tried to stop it, but it was too powerful.
“Don’t mention—” Hannah began but then she yawned, too. “Stop that.”
With a wave, she strode down the steps and turned left, heading to her home at the end of the street for a long sleep.
Maisy turned back into the house. There. She and Ryder were alone. Would he make another move? Her pulse kicked up into high gear in anticipation. She glanced at him, trying to get a read on what he was thinking, but the man had his feelings on lockdown. She had her foot on the first step of the staircase, ready to jog back up, when she felt his fingers grasp hers, halting her progress.
“Hey,” he said. “Before we’re back in the thick of things, I think we should talk.”
Talk? Was that code for “make out”? She certainly hoped so. Maisy forced herself not to overreact and instead politely asked, “Really? About what?”
“About those kisses,” he said.
Chapter Sixteen
“KISSES?” she asked. Her voice went up higher than she would have liked and she cleared her throat, pretending there was something stuck in her larynx besides nerves.
He looked at her with one eyebrow lowered, and Maisy knew even fictional cowboy hero Jake Sinclair couldn’t make a girl blush like Ryder did. He was clearly calling her on her bullshit with that look.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Those kisses.”
“I want to apologize,” he said. “In the thick of all the chaos last night, I overstepped. It was incredibly unprofessional of me and it won’t happen again.”
It won’t? Maisy felt her heart pop inside her chest like a balloon being pricked with a pin. So, he hadn’t felt the same way about their moments together and was, in fact, rejecting her. The realization was a crusher. She wanted to protest. She wanted to insist he rethink his position. She wanted to kiss him senseless.
Praise be to all the stars in the sky that twinkled on high that the words did not actually slip from her lips. Instead, she swallowed her disappointment and tapped into her inner Southern lady with a spine of steel hidden inside a peachy exterior, and said, “Don’t you worry about it. I mean, it’s not like those were real kisses. They were more like kissing-cousin sorts of kisses.”
His right eyebrow lowered again, but Maisy didn’t wait for his reply. She turned quickly and jogged up the stairs, tucking her disappointment way down deep. At the landing, she glanced at him over her shoulder, because she just had to get one more look at his wrinkly clothed, bewhiskered, and bed-headed, gloriously handsome person and caught him staring at her with a look of longing so sharp it cut away her defenses with surgical precision.
And that’s when she knew Ryder Copeland was a big, fat liar. He was trying to pretend that their kisses meant nothing but she knew, absolutely knew, from the look on his face that he was just as drawn to her as she was to him. She paused until he was right behind her. The devil flew into her and she couldn’t resist just one more poke at him.
“We’ll just forget all about it, okay?” she said.
“I don’t think—” he began but she interrupted.
“Oh, and I didn’t get a chance to tell you, but I’m accepting your bid to renovate the house.” She gazed at him through her lashes and lowered her voice in what she hoped sounded like an invitation and said, “I’m really looking forward to working with you.”
Ryder looked like she’d sucker punched him. Maisy turned and strode into the apartment, hiding her smile. What had he said to her last night? “If you show that much purpose and passion while working toward your dream, you will not fail. I know it.” Well, little did he know, Ryder had just become a part of her dream.
Savannah called a meeting about the kitten and they all agreed that the safest place for King George during the day when the house was under construction was in the hidden room, which was safe from all of the debris and dust of the renovation. With Ryder working on the house and Perry in school, it only made sense to keep the kitten here where there was always someone available to tend to him.
Maisy and Savannah agreed to take the nighttime and early-morning feedings. Perry wanted the after-school and evening shifts, and Ryder volunteered to tuck King George in every night because, as he said, he was very good at reading bedtime stories. Maisy tried not to dwell on how ridiculously cute that was.
With a plan in motion, they tucked George into his box and Ryder left to take Perry home so she could get ready for school. Maisy shut the door after them and for the first time all morning she felt herself relax.
“You hired him, didn’t you?” Savannah asked.
“Yes,” Maisy said. “But just so you know I did get e-mails from two other architects and they were both way more expensive than Ryder, and they weren’t local. He’s local and already has a crew of men ready to get started.”
“Listen, I like the guy,” Savy said. “He and Perry seem like great people, but what do you know about him as relationship material?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Maisy said. “He and I talked and he was very clear that he felt he’d overstepped and it wouldn’t happen again.”
“So, how is that a good thing?”
“It’s not, but it gives me the length of the restoration project to change his mind,” Maisy said.
“No, no, no,” Savy said. “This is such a bad idea. If a man tells you he’s not interested, he usually means it. M, you’re setting yourself up for a world of hurt.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
“You’re going to get heartbroken.” Savy shook her head.
“Maybe, but I think it’s worth the risk,” she said. “I mean, I can’t own the Happily Ever After Bookstore if I don’t believe in HEAs for myself, can I? It might only be a summer fling and I’ll be left with nothing but lovely memories, but I think that’s better than nothing.”
“Oh, please, the heart wants what the heart wants, and if you fall for him, you’ll want more than a temporary fling.”
“My heart wants a bookstore.”
Savannah twisted her long red curls into a messy knot on the top of her head. “Well, your heart may want a bookstore, but your lady parts are probably hoping for something else entirely. You know what I’m saying?”
“Don’t say it,” Maisy said.
“Sexy time,” Savannah sang. Then she smiled. “There. I didn’t say it.”
Maisy rolled her eyes. She refused to acknowledge how desperately her lady parts wanted a little sexy time, or a lot of sexy time, or, heck, any sexy time. Even the thought of doing any of that with Ryder practically made her cross-eyed, which was not her best look.
“Come on, we have packing and sorting to do,” she said.
The Good Ones Page 14