The Good Ones

by Jenn McKinlay

  A teenage girl was stationed by the front door. She greeted them with a smile and asked, “Two?”

  “Please,” Ryder said.

  She grabbed menus and gestured for them to follow her. She put them at a small table tucked into the corner of the massive room, far away from the band that was plucking a lively number in the corner of the big barn. Ryder was glad. The privacy would give him a chance to feel her out and try to figure out what was going on in that pretty head of hers, because suddenly he was consumed with the need to know what Maisy was thinking.

  A daisy sat in a Coke bottle on their table, along with a wire basket full of barbeque sauces and wet wipes. Okay, it was going to be a messy interrogation, but he could live with that.

  He held out Maisy’s seat for her and was about to take his own when two arms grabbed him from behind and lifted him off his feet in a hug that felt like being mauled by a bear. He was dropped to his feet and hammered into the ground with a pat on his back that almost sent him reeling into the table. Okay, maybe Adam’s place had not been his best plan. Not unless he wanted Maisy to see him being manhandled by the goliath that was Adam. The first time Adam had hugged him, Ryder had said he wasn’t a hugger and Adam had put him in a headlock until he cried for mercy. From then on, if Adam hugged him, Ryder let him.

  “Ryder Copeland, my man, where have you been?”

  Ryder pushed himself up off the table and turned to face his friend. “Adam, how are you?”

  “Good, but y’all wouldn’t have to ask if you’d been around the last week or so,” Adam said. He crossed his arms over his massive chest and frowned.

  Ryder leaned in, and out of the corner of his mouth said, “Dude, I’m on a date here, can you not toss me around like a head of cabbage?”

  “Date?” Adam leaned back and then peered around Ryder at Maisy. “Well, hello, Maisy Kelly, and aren’t you looking—wait, I thought you said this was a date.”

  “Hi, Adam,” Maisy said.

  She hopped out of her chair and lifted her arms up for a hug. Ryder almost jumped in to keep Adam from squashing her, but he needn’t have worried. Adam hunkered his six-foot-eight, three-hundred-pound frame down and very gently hugged Maisy as if she were made out of paper.

  When Adam stepped back, he raised one eyebrow higher than the other and looked Maisy over from head to toe. “You know, you’re as cute as a bug’s ear but, sister, those are not date clothes.”

  “They are for me,” Maisy insisted. “Besides, it’s not a date date. As I recall, I was invited for dinner and a ‘conversation,’ not romance, so it’s a non-date date.”

  “I’m confused,” Adam said. He looked Ryder up and down and then Maisy, taking in their different attire as if it was evidence of their different intentions. “Looks like I’m not the only one. You better be careful, cowboy, this little lady will break your heart.”

  Ryder smiled but it was a tad forced as he had a feeling he was halfway there already. Maisy had known. Somehow, she’d known that in his world “dinner and conversation” meant him avoiding entanglement. She “got” him. He didn’t need to spend the meal spelling out to her why they wouldn’t work. He felt as if the floor shifted beneath his feet and he didn’t know how to get his equilibrium back.

  “Two Fairdale Ales coming up,” Adam said. He picked up their menus. “And I’ll put your order in for you. I know just what to serve.” He gave them a huge grin that was actually rather terrifying. “Turning non-dates into dates is my specialty.”

  Maisy and Ryder sat back down. She propped her chin on her hand and studied him. “So, you’re friends with Adam.”

  “We bonded over a love of barbeque and beer,” Ryder said. “Are you okay with beer? He didn’t really give us much say there.”

  “I like beer,” she said. “It goes well with barbeque. Plus, I like to support the Fairdale Brewery.”

  She liked beer. One more thing to like about Maisy Kelly. Ryder tried to remember if there was anything on the negative side. At the moment he couldn’t think of a one except maybe the fact that she saw him more clearly than he liked to be seen. He wasn’t used to that.

  “Non-date, huh?” he asked.

  She met his gaze. Her brown gaze was bright, honest, and warm. They were the sort of eyes a man could lose his way inside of and not mind in the least.

  “Isn’t it?” she asked. Her voice was soft.

  “No,” he said. “It isn’t.” As soon as the words left his lips he knew it was true. Quino had been right. He was pathetic. He wanted Maisy. He wanted her in his arms, he wanted her in his life, and he wanted, with a desperation that he had never felt before, to be hers, to belong to her. God help him.

  At that moment, the band kicked into a country-western song that made conversation nearly impossible. People crowded the dance floor and Maisy settled back to watch them while Ryder watched her.

  With her dark curls and upturned nose, she had a look of innocence about her that he was willing to bet had gotten her out of trouble more than once in her life. She was whip smart and had a musical laugh that made him smile when he heard her laughing somewhere in the house while he was working. Usually, he found an excuse to seek her out after hearing her laugh, just to see her happy. He’d found that the sight of her lifted him up in ways he hadn’t felt in a very long time. It occurred to him that he was completely infatuated with her and he had no clue as to what to do about it. Check that. He knew what he wanted to do about it, he just didn’t know if he should.

  The band broke into a slow song, and Ryder found himself up on his feet and holding out his hand to her before he’d really thought it through. Maisy gave him side eye and he smiled.

  “Come on, it’s a slow song,” he said. “I promise I won’t step on your toes.”

  “You forget,” Maisy said. “I’ve seen you dance.” But she stood and put her hand in his and allowed him to lead her to the dance floor, making Ryder think that maybe she was as desperate for an excuse to be close as he was. No, there was no way she could be that desperate.

  He put his right hand on her hip and held her hand loosely in his left. As the band kicked it into a slow two-step, he led her around the floor, trying not to count out loud. He really couldn’t dance for beans, but if this was the only way he could get her in his arms, he was willing to risk public humiliation just to have her there for a few minutes.

  Maisy was graceful and light on her feet. In a matter of steps, she’d figured him out and matched her pace to his. They circled the floor in little more than a small well-metered shuffle. There was no flash, no twirls, no dips, no breathtaking moments, except he could smell her hair and it had that amazing scent of sun-warmed sweet peas that always wafted around her, as if she’d been plucked from a vine herself. And the softness of her skin beneath his callused fingers made him want to see if she was just as soft at the bend in her elbow or at the back of her neck or other more personal spaces.

  His gaze met hers and he wondered if she knew the direction his thoughts were taking, because a faint pink flush was coloring her face. She opened her mouth to speak but then glanced away. Ryder waited, holding his breath—would she tell him what she was thinking? Should he ask, insist, cajole her into sharing? He didn’t. He waited some more, wanting her to share with him because she wanted to.

  The band stopped playing. Maisy stepped back but Ryder didn’t let go of her hand. He had the feeling that if he let her go, he’d never get to hold her again. He waited, hoping she’d say something. Anything.

  But the moment slipped by and he sensed he had missed something important. He kept her hand in his and turned to walk back to their table, but Maisy didn’t move. As couples streamed around them, she pulled him back around to face her.

  “Are you really leaving after you finish the bookstore restoration?” she asked. Her voice was soft and vulnerable and he had to lean in close to hear her. “Are you
leaving Fairdale? Are you leaving me?”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  HER eyes looked enormous behind her glasses. And in their depths, Ryder saw a fragility he hadn’t expected. It rocked him back on his heels, forcing him to admit that there was more happening between them than just attraction. They had a genuine connection, the real deal. If things moved forward between them, his potential for hurt was great, but even worse, Maisy stood to get hurt, too. He couldn’t live with that.

  And yet, unlike him, she was strong enough to be vulnerable. That wasn’t him. That could never be him. Emotionally, he was in so far over his head, he felt like he was drowning.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ve taken a job in Charleston, and I’ll be leaving right after I get Perry settled at her new school in Connecticut.” There, he said it. It had to be as clear to her as it was to him that anything between them was doomed.

  “Oh.” Maisy nodded but she didn’t back away and she didn’t leave him standing on the dance floor like a fool.

  Instead, she dropped his hand. He wanted to snatch it back and hold on tight, but he didn’t. Rather, he shoved his hands in his pockets while she crossed her arms over her chest. They were now a living example of a date gone wrong and even though he knew it was probably for the best, he hated it. Together they left the dance floor.

  He glanced up and saw Adam and their waitress standing by their table. Adam looked decidedly pleased with himself. It was easy to see why. Their small table was groaning with food. Barbeque ribs, a half-smoked chicken, sweet potato fries, baked beans, potato salad, buttered corn, green beans with bacon, and fresh-baked biscuits. Have mercy.

  “This is your idea of date food?” Ryder asked Adam.

  “Yep.”

  “If I eat all of this, I’m going to be incapacitated,” Ryder protested. “How is that a date?”

  Adam’s grin was as wide as the horizon. Then he winked at Maisy and said, “This should keep him from getting fresh.”

  With that, Adam tossed a red-and-white-checked dish towel over his shoulder and left them to their meal.

  “Call me if you need anything,” the waitress said before she skipped after him.

  Ryder pulled Maisy’s chair back for her. “A forklift—do you think they have one of those in back? Because we’re going to need one to get us out of our chairs if we eat all of this.”

  To his relief, Maisy laughed and the awkwardness between them dissipated like rain on hot pavement.

  “Adam does believe in generous helpings,” she said.

  With a pragmatism he found admirable, she grabbed a fistful of paper towels that sat in a spool in the center of the food and tucked them into the top of her overalls. They draped over the denim, protecting them from dripping sauce. She used her fork to grab up a rack of ribs and set to work.

  Ryder loved her enthusiasm for her food and wanted to high-five her for having the wherewithal to dive right in. This was no lettuce-eating, slave-to-the-bathroom-scale woman in his midst. Maisy went after the food hard-core and ate with gusto. In fact, if he didn’t get a move on, she was going to plow through the food without him.

  Ryder tucked in. They ate without speaking. Ryder figured now that she knew he was leaving, there wasn’t anything left for them to say. She’d told him before that she would never date long-distance again, and having met dingleberry, he couldn’t blame her. Still, he didn’t like the distance he felt between them now. He wanted to reinvent this night, maybe forge it into something new by talking about their common interest in the bookstore.

  “There are so many interesting features to your house,” he said, breaking the silence. “Like, on the first floor, the cast-iron tub with the claw feet. We can paint the ceramic and restore it, but do you want it on the first floor? We could shore up the third floor and put it in the bathroom up there.”

  Maisy considered him for a moment as if she knew what he was doing and wasn’t sure if she was on board or not. Finally, she answered him.

  “I like that idea,” she said. “If I’m going to be an old spinster lady with a bookstore and cats, I think soaks in a vintage bathtub will be required.”

  This, unfortunately, brought an image of Maisy up to her neck in bubbles to the front of Ryder’s brain. He took a long sip of his beer, willing the image away. With each second that ticked by, he knew this whole stupid plan of his had been ill advised. He never should have taken her out without the others. He needed the hustle and bustle of the bookstore and his crew, and even King George, around them to keep him from getting too caught up in her.

  Maisy wasn’t a fling, she wasn’t a for-now, or a for-the-moment type of girl. She was a forever sort of woman. She was the kind of gal a man spent his whole life looking for, because she was as true as the tall trees on her property. She dug her roots in deep and withstood all the storms and droughts and bitter cold winters that life threw at her. If they got involved, Ryder couldn’t live with himself if he was the lightning strike that split her spirit and left her burned and damaged.

  “What are you thinking about?” Maisy asked. “Your frown line looks like it’s been chiseled into your forehead.”

  Ryder blinked. “Sorry.”

  “Was it something about the house?” she asked. “Is there a problem, something you aren’t telling me?”

  “No, that’s not it,” he said. He shoved a biscuit into his mouth to keep himself from saying something he shouldn’t, like how much he wanted to see her in those bubbles in that tub. Instead, he figured he’d better redirect their non-date, or what he was beginning to think of as an exercise in masochism. Since Maisy was a forever girl and he was a for-now boy, he had to stay the course and rebrand their outing into something innocuous.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m really glad we decided to have this business dinner together.”

  Maisy tipped her head to the side. She was working on a sparerib, and the barbeque sauce was on her fingers and a small blob was on her upper lip, drawing his gaze to her mouth. Damn it.

  “Business dinner?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he bluffed. He wondered if she could hear the pounding of his heart in his chest. Even now, lying made his heart race just like it had when he was a kid and he’d hid his father’s booze. He always knew there would be hell to pay, but he did it anyway just to have his dad sober for a little while. “You know, so we could talk without everyone around. I figured we needed to discuss what you want for the second floor, besides the turret, and how about the hidden room—are you wanting to block it off or keep it open?”

  He took a bite of rib. Adam’s sauce was the nectar of the gods, but it might as well have been made out of sewage and sludge, because Ryder couldn’t taste anything but his own desperation.

  “That’s it,” Maisy said. She dropped the rib onto her plate. “I can’t do this anymore.” She picked up a wet wipe and began to scrub her hands. Her gaze ran over the table. “As amazing as this spread is, there isn’t enough food here for me to eat my feelings. Damn it.”

  Sensing she was getting ready to leave, Ryder dropped his rib and began to clean his fingers, too. It was for the best, really. This whole evening had been ill advised, as Quino had tried to warn him.

  Maisy rose from her chair, but instead of storming out, she moved to stand beside him. She ran one hand up her bare arm, pausing at the strap of her overalls. With the flick of a thumb, she unclasped the suspender and let it fall down behind her back. She arched her back and her petite curves were thrust into his face. She dug one hand into her hair and tipped her head back, exposing her throat. Then she made a move that he was sure would replay in his brain for the rest of his life. She lowered her glasses and looked over the tops at him.

  “The truth is, you want me as much as I want you, Ryder. Now, what are you going to do about it?” she asked.

  Ryder didn’t remember moving. In fact, he didn’t remember dropping
a wad of bills on the table or tossing his napkin onto his seat. He did remember sliding his arm around Maisy and hauling her up to his side while he strode out of the barn.

  “Told you,” Adam said as they passed him on their way out the sliding doors. “Date food.”

  Maisy’s shorter legs could barely keep up with him, so Ryder hauled her half up in his arms as he strode toward his truck. They were only halfway there when Maisy put her head on his shoulder and pressed her lips against the rapid pulse at the base of his throat.

  Ryder lost his footing at the feel of the soft butterfly kiss. He was a big, muscly man. How did such an achingly tender touch render him incoherent? He stopped right where he was and shifted her so his hands were full of her. Maisy obliged by sliding her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. This time when she kissed him, she took no prisoners. It was a thorough plundering of his mouth beneath hers and it left him seeing stars and quite possibly a few planets.

  When she pulled away, her lips were swollen and red and parted in a smile that felt like a blast of sunshine.

  “Tell me again how this was a business dinner,” she said. She had a teasing gleam in her eye. “That’s so hot.”

  Ryder gripped her tighter and let loose something that sounded like a growl. How did this tiny little woman bring out the alpha in him? It was an embarrassment he refused to dwell on right now. Instead, he continued walking until he reached his truck. Then he leaned her up against it, so that she was wedged between him and the cab, and he kissed her.

  It was the kiss he’d wanted to plant on her for days. It was a full-on, getting to know each other in a most intimate way sort of kiss. Ryder liked the feel of her soft mouth beneath his and how she gripped his shoulders as if she was hanging on while her mouth moved beneath his, inviting him in and savoring the taste of him.