Doris clutched her heart. “True love prevails! Oh, I knew it. You two were meant to be. Destiny.”
Her marshmallows burst into brilliant orange flame, and Doris blew and sputtered and waved them in the air.
The strange spell that had been cast burst as well. In their real story, there was no hope, no destiny. No expectations that love could conquer all the bad stuff in life. There was just Nick’s bitter desire for revenge against the company that he felt sold his grandfather down the river.
Maddie pulled a smoking marshmallow off Doris’s stick and popped it into her mouth. It was charred and burned and crispy on the outside. Just like her heart.
Real life didn’t turn out like a fairy tale, no matter how badly she wanted it to. It wouldn’t bring her true love, or get her father’s health back, or stop this sexy, irresistible man from ruining her family. And the reality of knowing that really sucked.
…
After helping Doris clean up, Nick followed Maddie to the tiny Airstream and locked the door behind them. Walking through its shiny aluminum door was like entering a flying saucer from an old sci-fi movie.
He was expecting retro décor, not circa-1970s-time-warp, from the orange vinyl banquette to the green shaggy rug, to the brown and gold curtains at the windows. The smell of this morning’s coffee lingered in the air. Their two duffle bags squatted in the aisle, compliments of Doris’s son.
When he turned from double-checking the door, he found Maddie staring at him. Finally, he caved. “What is it?” He hoped she wasn’t going to interrogate him about that crazy story he’d told around the fire.
“I never realized you were so OCD.”
“I like order and safety. What’s wrong with that?” Truthfully, he was sort of OCD, especially when the safety of people he cared for was at stake. But sometimes he craved dangerous and out of control. Like he knew it would be with her.
“That surprises me,” she said. “Don’t you skydive?”
He shrugged, noting with a shot of dread there really was only one bed. “I have, a time or two.”
“And you fly your own plane.”
“Just for pleasure.”
Other things he’d like to do for pleasure swirled around his head uninvited. Like dragging his hands through that luscious, crazy-curly hair of hers, inhaling its usual lemony essence, letting the silky locks run like water through his fingers. How the hell was he going to sleep in this tiny sardine can so near to her and not lose it?
He should never have touched her by the fire. He’d pulled her up to be funny and dramatic and to entertain Doris. But Maddie’s T-shirt had slid up and the soft, forbidden skin of her waist slid under his hands, pliant and velvety. He’d been one heartbeat away from pulling her close and devouring her plush pink lips.
Whew. All that from one whopper of a tall tale. Why had he done it? To be honest, it wasn’t just to entertain their host. Telling the story had pleased him in some primordial way, navigated their family complexities in such a way that made it actually seem possible for them to be together.
This was all his fault for telling Doris’s son they were married. Feeling protective of Maddie had gotten him nowhere but trapped in this tiny trailer with all his erotic fantasies charging full force forward like the bulls in Pamplona.
Since when was he such a sucker for fairy tale endings?
No such thing in real life. He’d already all but bought out that stupid company. His granddad was seventy-two, and this would be his last shot to chase and capture the dream that had always been just out of his reach.
When all was said and done, Maddie would never forgive him for booting her dad and his longtime staff. Taking over Kingston Shoes would be the final string that would unravel and cut them off from one another for good.
Maddie looked around at the tiny sink, opened the bathroom door. “This might not be a luxury accommodation like you’re used to, but it’s clean and cute, in a retro way.”
He gave a nonchalant shrug. “It’s adequate.” He hated pretending to be a snob. The Filberts were good, kind people. But how else was he going to keep up the wall between them?
“Whatever. I like it.” Maddie placed her duffle bag on the table and began digging through it. “I’m going to take a shower.”
The bathroom door closed, and the water turned on. Nick looked down at the carpet. A scrap of bright pink lace lay there forgotten. He bent down and scooped it up—Maddie’s panties.
His brain instantly flashed back to their night together, where nothing was enough, not the deep wet kisses or the frantic crazed touches. He’d never wanted another woman more. Yet there’d been something else between them, something over and above the lust that boiled in his blood for her, but he had no words for those more dangerous feelings. He’d learned from the tragedy in his past to keep his heart close, to put all his drive into succeeding at business where the risks were far less. His response was to lower his mouth to hers and devour her instead.
He sat at the orange vinyl banquette, fingering the panties. She had lace ones that night too, just a filmy strip of black. He’d slipped his fingers under that lace, dipped into a dream that had haunted him for years and years.
“What the hell are you doing with my underwear?”
Startled, he jumped up and dropped it, feeling worse than a kid caught sneaking Halloween candy.
Maddie stood before him, dripping and wrapped in a faded Budweiser beach towel that left a long expanse of toned legs and pretty feet exposed for his perusal.
Nick didn’t ever blush, but now blood whooshed into his face. But he kept his response flippant. “I don’t have this color in my collection.” He set the underwear on the back of the couch and dug through his own duffle. “I’ll go next.”
He strategized his next move. He could admit he was turned on and horny and wanted her. Bad. They could share the bed; forget all about blown out tires, and road trips, and pissed off grandpas, and companies going down the tubes. He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off at the pass.
“We should flip for the bed,” she said.
“No. You have it. I’m good on—that.” That was a breakfast banquette, half his size at most. He gathered up his toothbrush and dental floss, but she blocked his entrance to the bathroom.
“Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?” He hoped she wasn’t going to ask him if he had a panty fetish.
“You know—make up that ending for Doris at the campfire.”
Water dripped off spiral curls and onto her smooth, sleek shoulders. He wanted to pull one out straight with his fingers just to watch it spring back. The scent of shampoo caught in his nostrils—evergreen fresh.
She held a death grip on the towel, but what would happen if he moved forward, just a little? What if he placed his hand over hers, drew her close, and let the towel slip silently to the floor?
He swallowed hard, forced his brain to answer the question. “She needed a happy ending. But I don’t believe in fairy tales like you do.”
Her voice was so low he could barely hear. “Don’t you ever wonder what would have happened if things with our families were different?”
All the time. “There’s no use reimagining the past. Too many people have been hurt already.”
“But what about a year ago—between us?”
“Are you saying you want to sleep with me?”
Shit, what had he just said? He’d just blurted that out with zero charm or tact. He could have rephrased it a thousand better ways. Better, he should have used his lips and hands to ask instead of his big mouth.
“Absolutely not. Of course not. NO.” She paused, groping for words. “But we used to be friends. Best friends. And what you said by the fire—”
He couldn’t remember what he’d said by the fire. All he could think of was how turned on he was, how being in her presence for any length of time drove his hormones bat-shit crazy. Making love with her had been fantastic, the best night of his life. How much
of these close quarters could a red-blooded man take anyway? He was certain she was feeling the pull too. Why not indulge for one more night?
“I’ll take my underwear back now.”
Nick heard her but some perverse part of his brain refused to comply. As she reached for them, he scooped them up, dangling them before her face. “No.”
Her eyes flew open wide. “Give. Me. Back. My. Underwear.”
He laughed, a deep, hearty laugh that loosened everything inside, including what remained of his common sense. “Guess you’ll just have to come get them.”
She snatched at the panties on tiptoe, but he yanked them just out of her reach, her soft breasts pushing against him as she frantically attempted to grasp the tiny slip of material. The scent of generic white soap clung to her soft skin, and it smelled better than the exotic, expensive Italian fragrance next to his bathroom sink. They had nearly backed up against the bed when she tackled him, tumbling both of them backwards and straddling him until she finally grabbed hold of her prize.
She was panting, her wild curly hair dripping wet and tumbling around her shoulders. Her breasts, barely contained by the towel, fell soft and lush before his eyes. Her focus was solely on her goal, until their eyes met and gazes locked. He saw the exact moment when their situation dawned on her. In the second before she could scramble off him, he reached up and planted his lips over hers. She gasped raggedly, but he snaked a hand behind her neck and pulled her closer, slipping his tongue in her mouth and kissing her deep and hard.
She collapsed into the kiss, giving him back as much as he took. Something snapped inside him. In one quick motion, he rolled them over and pinned her to the mattress. Their bodies melted together, separated only by the thin towel and the length of his raging erection.
His mouth possessed her. Her lips parted on a sigh, and he took full advantage, thrusting his tongue into the hot recesses of her mouth, capturing and devouring hers with his. Instinctively, he reached for her breast, rubbing his fingers over a taut nipple until she moaned deep in her throat and pushed against him.
The towel clung between their bodies, a thin fragment of cloth. Now was the time to think, be sensible, back off. Nick fisted the fabric. A second passed like an eternity. Then he tugged until it pulled free.
Maddie lay naked before him, her wet wild hair tumbled around her face, beautiful curves displayed before him like a statue of a goddess, her triumphant expression on claiming her underwear replaced by a haze of desire.
She was so beautiful. Too beautiful for him, because she was beautiful on the inside as well as out, and he was just a damaged shell who had no idea how to love a woman for keeps. Before he could think any further, Nick yanked off his shirt, tossed it on the floor with the towel, and gathered her up against him.
His body ached for her, and judging from the way she was responding, she felt the same. Maybe this long road fiasco wasn’t so bad after all, if it allowed them to be together for one night, to steal the pleasure they both wanted so badly.
Just as she tugged at his shorts, a rap sounded on the door. Nick tore his lips from Maddie’s lush breast and moved to the door as she dove to retrieve the towel.
Nick inhaled a few deep breaths and combed his fingers through his hair, trying to look presentable before he yanked open the door. Doris stood there, holding his cell phone. “Thought you might be needing this.”
He’d been so distracted by Maddie at the campfire that he’d forgotten his link to civilization. Nick thanked Doris and took a minute to walk her to her door across the way. He needed the time to calm down and start thinking with something other than his dick.
What the hell was he doing? He’d forgotten his mission, which was to take over her family’s business and put his grandfather in charge. If he slept with Maddie, emotions would get tangled, and he’d be obligated to back down on the business. The injustice done to his grandfather would never be righted. He could not choose another one-nighter with her—no matter how mind-blowingly sensational—over his honor, his family.
When he re-entered the camper, Maddie was dressed in boxer briefs and a T-shirt, rummaging intently through her cosmetics bag.
Nick quietly shut the door behind him and leaned against it. She didn’t even look up so he spoke. “That was a…mistake.” He announced it like one of his pronouncements at a business meeting. Cool, rational, and deadly.
“Yes, of course,” she said but he’d seen her cringe, just as surely as if he’d caused her physical pain. She scoured his face for a sign that he was lying, or kidding, or something, but he kept his expression neutral.
He gave his best I-don’t-give-a-flying shrug. “We were just messing around, and I got carried away. Close quarters and all.”
She yanked the blanket off the bed. “You can take the bed,” she said, then threw it down on the hard, short banquette.
He should have let it go, let her go, but his heart compelled him to act, and he flew after her in two barefoot strides. His arm caught her elbow and whirled her toward him.
Her eyes glinted with anger; he saw it even in the dim light. It was hard, even now, not to gather her up and kiss her senseless, drag her down onto the bed and not come up until he’d finished exploring every last curve and valley.
His muscles actually trembled. Why was he always a flash of a second away from losing control with her? Like that one fine night when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Years and years of bound up feelings finally let loose. For that one and only time, he’d felt a glimmer of hope that maybe the past didn’t predict the future, that there really was forgiveness and mending and fresh chances.
But that had only lasted until the phone rang at dawn.
Maddie stood there staring at him. His hand still clung to her arm as though he feared she would bolt like a scared rabbit out of the camper and into the woods. She shrugged it briskly away. “Business is business, right, Nick? From now on, let’s just keep everything else out of it.”
She thought he was unfeeling, some kind of sociopath who pulled family businesses out from under people for pleasure. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
His gaze locked on hers. Raw emotion registered, lust and sadness and torment, and for a raw, brutal instant, Nick felt it all run through his heart like a blade.
He did feel, and she had no idea how much.
He tugged the blanket from her hands. “I’m taking the seat. Good night.”
As soon as this god-awful weekend was done, he’d force himself to forget her. It would be easy, because she’d hate him for real when all was said and done.
Chapter Seven
Two wet, naked cowboys tore around the corner of the blue-shuttered, two story colonial at the end of Morning Glory Lane. Maddie turned off the ignition of the Honda Accord that, thanks to Nick, had magically appeared outside of Doris’s at eight a.m. and had gotten them to Buckleberry Bend by lunchtime. She took a moment to enjoy the look on Nick’s face, which was a cross between please-God-can-I-go-home and no-one-told-me-I-had-to-deal-with-children-this-weekend-too.
She’d slept poorly in the camper, and it had nothing to do with the comfort of the bed. She knew he’d tossed and turned most of the night too. Today during the drive they’d kept the conversation sterile and innocuous. It would be a relief to be with her family and get some libido-killing distance between them. Nothing would happen if she played it safe and didn’t lead them into any untoward situations.
“Maddie, look, about last night…”
She turned and tried not to look into his intense brown eyes, tried not to remember how they’d flamed with desire when he’d fisted that towel and whisked it away like an artist revealing a prized painting. “Close quarters, romantic firelight stories…our hormones just ran away from us.”
“It would be wrong to let our physical attraction for each other get in the way of business,” he said.
“I agree. Besides, my posse’s here to protect me if you try something like that again.”
Nick’s face wore a look of sheer panic. “Your what?”
“Don’t worry…” Maddie said as the little boys ran yelling and screaming up to the car. “They’re only three.” The cowboys smacked their hands on the windows, one on each side. “On second thought, those squirt guns might be loaded.”
Maddie ran out of the car and scooped up the first blond-haired little boy. The straw cowboy hat drifted off as she twirled him in the air, and he shrieked with laughter. “Hi, Alex.” She kissed him on top of his sun-warmed head.
“You’re wet!” she said, putting him down.
“And nekked!” he said.
“Yes, you are at that.”
“Aunt Maddie, Aunt Maddie!” his brother Logan cried as he plowed forward and wrapped his own dripping wet self around Nick’s leg.
“Not Aunt Maddie,” Nick said with relief as he reluctantly patted the mass of blond curls.
Nick stood a little stiffly, looking like he wished he were anywhere else. Precisely how Maddie wanted him to feel. Maybe his conscience hadn’t completely flown the coop.
Alex tugged on Nick’s cargo shorts. Heartbreaker blue eyes looked up and took everything in. “Are you Aunt Maddie’s boyfwend?”
Logan, always discriminating, didn’t wait for an answer. He drew his gun and stared shooting.
The water pelted Nick in the neck. Nick shot Maddie a glance that said, who is this kid? Devil’s spawn?
Maddie shrugged. “They’re not usually this wound up. They must be excited.”
The next round hit her in the middle of her T-shirt.
The perpetrator giggled a madcap laugh, delighted and perverse as any deranged criminal.
“Okay, Squirt. You are so going to get it.” Maddie kicked off her flip-flops and charged toward the little shooter, whooping up her best battle cry. The little boy screamed and dropped his gun, then darted toward the rear of the house with Maddie in full pursuit.
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