by Knupp, Amy
After Devin changed into jeans and a gray, long-sleeved T-shirt, loaning Carey a sweatshirt for when the sun got low and the temperature dropped, they went out to the garage. With Carey’s guidance, Devin backed the SUV up to the boat trailer, which took up half of his garage. On the way out of town, they picked up subs.
He pulled into the parking lot at the marina twenty minutes later. There were only a few vehicles, most of them gas-guzzlers attached to empty trailers. Beyond the lot, the calm water glistened in the late-afternoon sun.
After a few minutes, the boat was in the water tied to the dock, and Devin parked the SUV and the trailer. His tension from the day began melting away.
The air smelled of spring and humidity, which in his mind meant fishing.
While he was getting the cooler of drinks from the back, Carey eased down from the passenger seat, mumbling something about how impractical his new vehicle was. Devin led the way onto the dock, calmed by the gentle sound of water lapping against the boats. It never failed—whenever he set foot on the docks, the rest of the world faded away. It’d been far too long since his last visit.
He set the cooler on the deck of his boat and climbed in over the driver’s seat. Once he’d helped Carey in, their eyes met, and he dropped her hand, squeezing by her to the driver’s seat. But he was unable to avoid brushing against her in the limited floor space of the two-seater.
She cleared her throat and stuck her hands in her back pockets. “What do you want me to do?”
“Take a load off, pregnant lady. I’ll handle everything.”
She set her purse on the floor and sat on the only other seat, which was still noticeably close to him. He intended to park himself on the lone pedestal seat at the front as soon as they got settled.
Her eyes focused on him as he unlocked the storage compartment where he stowed his tackle box. He wished he’d had time to stop and get some live bait, but the sun still set earlier than he liked. He wanted as much time as he could get on the water. Fishing jaunts would be rare this summer as he busted his butt to get CMT off the ground.
“You know, for someone who complains about my little car so much, you could really use some extra leg room in this thing,” Carey said, trying to prop her feet up on the panel in front of her. Her legs were too long, and her knees were rammed up her nose. “So tell me about the marketing stuff. What do you need me to do?”
He listed several ideas he’d had. He wanted two or three different brochures, each targeting a different segment of the local market. Carey said it would be easy, which didn’t surprise him. He had no problem trusting her artistic abilities.
“Think you can get the brochures done in two weeks or so?”
He started the motor, and Carey leaned closer so they could talk above the noise.
“Should be able to. You’ll supply the text you want?”
“Yep.”
“Then yes. Shouldn’t be a problem. So can I drive?” She gestured toward the controls.
“Do I look crazy?”
She made a show of looking him over. “Crazy enough to contract me. Please?”
“Have you ever driven a boat?”
“Whose boat would I have driven?”
“No, Carey, you can’t drive.”
“Come on, it’s easy. It can’t be much different from a car.”
“I wouldn’t let you drive my car either,” he said, laughing.
She crossed her arms and pretended to pout, her lower lip catching Devin’s attention. The wrong kind of attention. He turned his focus back to the controls.
They were out of the cove now, away from the marina, and he opened it up. He stood so that the wind whipped through his hair as they tore around the lake. Carey shrieked and laughed, and he could tell she loved it as much as he did.
There were few other boats around to get in their way, so they spent a good fifteen minutes at full throttle, skimming over the surface. Carey knelt on her seat in order to get the full effect of the wind.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, loving to see her happy. Her blond hair flew behind her. She was totally into the moment.
Devin slowed when he neared his favorite spot, a quiet cove surrounded by tall trees on the shore opposite the marina. Several dead trunks jutted out of the water close to the edge. When he killed the engine, the chatter of birds in the woods drifted out to them. He leaned into the seat for a moment, taking in the peace, breathing in the fresh air.
Standing, he leaned forward to get his gear out of the rod box. “Want a rod?”
“Devin. I don’t fish.”
He grinned. “Someday I’ll get you to try it.” He climbed onto the deck and set up the pedestal seat, then sat and started tying on a lure.
“Yeah, sure you will.”
He cast the line out the front of the boat.
As silence descended over them, Carey turned sideways in her seat and stretched her legs out to the driver’s side. She wished he’d spent his money on a speedboat with room for about six people. Propping her elbow on the back cushion, she leaned on her hand and watched Devin work his supposed magic with the slimy creatures of the lake.
She was itching to ask him what he’d meant when he said Jerod pushed his buttons with her, but staring at his back as he fished, this didn’t seem the most opportune time. Instead, she decided to tackle the easier of two conversations. “I had an idea over the weekend. I wanted to see what you think of it.”
Devin swiveled his chair. “What kind of idea?” he asked warily.
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing that involves you. Well, not too much.”
Leaning forward, she propped her elbows on her knees. If he laughed, she’d either feel like a fool or throw him overboard. Or both. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my future. You know, after the baby’s born. As I said before, I won’t be able to travel much for work anymore.”
“Probably not.”
“So I’m thinking about starting my own business.” The words came out of her mouth in a rush.
Devin’s eyes widened as he turned fully toward her, dragging the fishing pole with him. “What kind of business?”
“The kind I know. Photography.” She wove her fingers together to stop from picking at the seam of her pants.
“What kind? Studio? Weddings?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “Both. I’d probably start with weddings since I can’t afford a studio yet. I’d also want to keep freelancing whenever I could get local gigs. I don’t want to lose my contacts.”
He reeled in in silence for several seconds until his lure finally came to the water’s surface. He brought it the rest of the way in. She waited for him to say it was crazy, that she could never handle it along with a newborn baby or even a pregnancy.
“I think it’s a hell of an idea.”
Her heart sped up. “You do? You don’t think I’ll bomb?” She hopped up, had nowhere to pace, and tucked herself back on the seat, kneeling. Unable to contain her nervous energy.
“Carey, you’re damn good at what you do.”
“Yeah, but what I do is take pictures. Numbers are not my friend.”
“You can learn that stuff.”
“I, um, actually was hoping you’d help me get started.”
Devin laughed and her hope crumbled momentarily.
“Do away with the meek, timid act, and hell, yes, I’ll help you.”
“Yes!” She jumped up again and threw a fist into the air.
His approval and agreement to help locked everything into place. With Devin behind her, she felt a lot better about her chances. She knew without a doubt she could handle the photography, but the technical details of running a business scared her. She didn’t want to screw anything up.
She climbed onto the deck and threw her arms around Devin from behind.
“What are you doing?” he asked, holding his pole away from her.
She laughed. Leaning close, she kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Dev.” Before she pulled away, sh
e got a whiff of him—masculine, with hints of spice and soap. The alluring scent caught her off guard. She took in a close-up view of his stubble-roughened cheek, then his lips.
Backing off, she felt a bit dazed. She shook her head and grinned as she made her way back to her seat.
Her reaction meant nothing. She was just excited about the prospect of going into business. And touched that he believed in her enough to stand behind her.
Out of nowhere, tears filled her eyes. Feeling like an overemotional idiot, she tried to wipe them away, but Devin didn’t miss them.
“You’re crying?” He smirked. “You’re a head case.”
“Hormones,” was all she could spit out around the sudden lump in her throat.
Unfortunately, those very hormones that were raging out of control not only made her cry at inappropriate times, they also seemed to give her inappropriate thoughts about Devin.
They spent the next couple of hours on the water mostly without speaking, which suited Carey fine. She loved the peace, the gentle rocking of the boat and the chance to covertly watch Devin. At one point, she dragged out a small notepad she carried in her purse and jotted down ideas for names of her new business-to-be.
As the sun dropped toward the horizon, Devin finally packed it in. She’d watched him reel in two good-sized fish plus a small one he’d thrown back. The keepers were stowed away in the place one stowed fish—whatever he’d called it—so Monica could fry them. Neither he nor Carey could do them justice in the kitchen. Monica could, and she usually froze the catch until she had enough to cook for all of them.
After placing his fishing rod in the storage panel with more care than he’d probably give a newborn baby, Devin stepped down to the floor. Grinning wickedly, Carey jumped over to the driver’s seat before he could sit.
“What are you doing?” He looked at her in confusion.
“Driving.”
“Oh, no, you aren’t.”
“Why not?”
“Do you know how much this thing cost me?” He pretended to sound outraged, but the grin on his face told a different story.
“This old thing?”
He closed the foot of space between them, hovering over her.
“How could I wreck your boat, Dev? Come on, show a little faith.” She laughed as he grabbed her wrists to try to steer her back to the other seat.
“I don’t want to know the answer to that question. I’m sure you could wreck it somehow.”
He pulled gently by the arms. Carey let out a howl of surprise as he lifted her right out of the seat until she stood.
“Bully.”
They were both laughing now, and Devin put his hands on her hips to switch places with her in the small floor space. As their bodies touched, they froze and their laughter died. Carey’s heart raced like a jack-rabbit on speed.
Devin’s eyes darted to her lips for an instant, almost too fast to see, but she’d noticed. Her breath felt as though it was hung up on something in her throat and she swallowed. The whole of her focus became his face. She imagined running her fingers over the stubble, along his jaw, to the back of his neck to pull him closer….
Clearly, she was losing it.
“Devin,” she said in a husky near whisper. “What did you mean when you said Jerod pushes your buttons with me?”
He held her gaze for a beat, then snapped to attention as her words sank in. He adopted a business-as-usual distance that quashed the heat pounding through her.
“Nothing. Let’s not go there.”
“I want to go there. I want to know what you meant.”
He turned and lowered himself to the driver’s seat in a single movement. She still stood, ready to do battle, her hand on her hip. Devin shook his head but didn’t meet her eyes.
“I shouldn’t have said it,” he said. “It’s…irrelevant.”
She narrowed her eyes, puzzled. Irrelevant? Either he’d said more than he wanted to Friday and was embarrassed about it, or…he hadn’t meant a damn thing by it.
“We need to go before it gets too dark. The lighting by the marina sucks.”
In other words, she was dismissed. Deflated, she sat down, her mind spinning. Damn him.
He started the engine. Then he looked at her and smiled, as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened.
Fine. If he didn’t want to think about it, then neither would she. It meant nothing. It was just an offhand comment. Unfortunately, there was nothing offhand—or imagined—about the sparks that had passed between them just minutes before.
ON THE DRIVE home, the silence between them was suffocating. It’d taken longer than Devin had hoped to get the boat on the trailer and out of the water, and he and Carey had snapped at each other a couple of times.
He stole a glance at her across the darkness in the front seat. Her head was angled more toward the passenger window than the windshield. He couldn’t see her expression, but she snapped at a stick of gum in a telling agitated rhythm.
How had it turned into this? He’d tried to avoid thinking about how he felt because loving Carey was a dead end. Now there was tension between them when the comfortable banter failed, like out on the boat. They’d gotten carried away in some damn hypnotic moment and now they weren’t even speaking. He’d been a split second from kissing her when she’d opened her mouth about his half-cocked slipup Friday. Just in time.
Admitting how he felt about her would be pointless. What good would saying the words do when he couldn’t act on them? His feelings were strong—and growing, dammit—but they couldn’t stand up to the harsh truth that she was pregnant with his cousin’s baby. Her reality was something Devin absolutely could not live with.
CHAPTER NINE
A FEW DAYS later, Carey let herself into Devin’s house as he’d told her to do and went downstairs to the office. They’d arranged to shoot Devin’s picture for the brochure today so she could get to work on the rest of it.
She was apprehensive about seeing him. Just enough to make her palms sweat.
After the scene on the boat, she wasn’t sure how to act. Normal would be best, but that seemed impossible.
“Hello,” she called at the bottom of the stairs. Monica wasn’t at her desk, but Carey could see Devin at his.
When she got to the doorway, she saw that Monica sat across from him. “Am I interrupting?”
“Hey, there you are,” Monica said, smiling as she stood. “We’re done.”
Carey finally looked at Devin for a brief, telling moment. He felt awkward, too.
Monica paused next to her in the doorway, glancing between the two, her brow furrowed.
“Hi,” Carey said unnecessarily. “Photos today.”
“Yeah,” Monica said. “I knew there had to be a good reason for the tie.”
“I figure we’re billing me as CEO on the brochure so I might as well try to look like one,” Devin said, tightening the tie and standing to put on a sports jacket. “Or at least not like some geeky computer guy who’s shut in the basement all the time.”
Carey smiled. He’d shaved, and of course she couldn’t take in that detail without thinking about more intimate things than shooting his picture. Like running her fingers over his skin, kissing him.
She lowered her camera bag and set it on the chair Monica had vacated. “We’re doing a shot of you first, right?”
He nodded.
“I also want to do a couple others…some abstract shots of computers just to use in the design.”
“Sounds good to me. Where do you want me?”
In the bedroom.
She turned away from him under the guise of searching out a good location, unable to completely stifle a grin. “We’ll do a few different shots. One at your desk. One over there against that wall; maybe we’ll move the plant closer. Let’s start with those. But first I need to grab a drink of water, if you don’t mind.”
“Help yourself.”
Devin watched her walk away, appreciating the view more than he
should but not giving a damn at this moment. When she disappeared up the stairs, he crossed to his desk and made notes to himself on something Monica and he had discussed before Carey came in. He started straightening his office since she’d suggested a picture at his desk. Not that it was terribly cluttered, but he wanted it to look respectable.
An old Go-Go’s song burst out from nowhere, surprising him, until he remembered that was Carey’s cell phone ring. He glanced out to see if she’d returned yet but saw no sign of her. He followed the sound to her bag and unzipped the side pocket. Lucky guess, he thought, as he pulled out the phone and hit the talk button.
“Hello?”
“Uh, I was trying to get hold of Carey Langford?” The male voice struck a familiar chord.
“Jerod? What the hell are you doing calling her?”
“What the hell are you doing answering her phone?”
At that moment, the phone was whisked away from his hand from behind. He turned to see Carey glaring at him.
She took the call and walked out of his office, shutting his door as she went. But he kept an eye on her out the window.
Scowling, he collapsed into his chair. Was she still in regular contact with the bastard? What the hell did they have to discuss?
Carey hung up and knocked on the door.
“Come in.” Devin sounded grumpy.
“Don’t start,” she said as she entered.
“I didn’t.”
“Yet.”
“How often do you talk to him?”
“Why does it matter?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and ignored the question.
“Devin, why does it matter?” She was sick to death of tiptoeing around whatever it was they were tiptoeing around.
“What are you going to do if that baby comes along and three months later, oh, suddenly Jerod decides he likes the child and deserves to split custody with you?”