“Gran,” she said, “you’re all dressed up.”
“Why, of course I am,” she said, handing Meg a heavy box. “It’s a special occasion. Little Prince George’s birthday was just a few weeks ago. I brought the Royal Doulton to celebrate!”
Effie, who sported a hot pink running suit and white tennies, winked. “We heard Alex was a little blue, so we wanted an excuse to have a little party with book club tonight.”
“I can hear you,” Alex said darkly.
Meg helped her grandmother take off her bright blue suit jacket and matching hat with a blue chrysanthemum that covered her red hair. When Meg took them to the closet, Ted was still looking out the window. He nudged her and whispered, “Mmm-hmm, those Rushford brothers are fine. Too bad they don’t ever cross the street to play on the other side.”
“Sorry, Teddy,” Meg said, giving him a sympathetic squeeze. As a gay man who dressed like Usher and sounded like Chris Rock, Ted sympathized more than anyone with her love life. He once told her it was harder to find eligible gay guys in a small town than it was for people to believe he owned the bakery and was not a kindly middle-aged woman with flour all over her apron named Mona.
“Hey, girls,” Ted said, moving into the family room to hug Olivia and Alex. “How’re the preggies doing? Oh my God, Alex, baby, you’ve expanded exponentially since you’ve stopped working.”
Alex made a face as she lifted her cheek for his kiss, then playfully smacked his well-muscled arm. “You say another word about my size and I’ll start nasty rumors about your cinnamon buns.”
“My buns are just as fine as ever, thank you. Right, Grannies?”
“Everyone knows your buns are sweet, Theodore, just like you,” Effie said.
Grandma Gloria approached. “You do look very handsome tonight, Ted. I especially like your diamond earrings. I think Princess Kate has a pair like that.” She pulled her glasses down to peer better through her bifocals. “I read that if a man has his right earlobe pierced, it means he’s gay. If he has both, does that mean he’s bi?”
“Gran!” Meg said.
Ted chuckled. “Granny, the one-earring thing was from the nineties. Now guys can do whatever they want. I wear two because I’m double special. And just for the books, I only like guys.”
“This dessert I brought is guaranteed to work on your love life regardless of who you like,” Grandma Gloria said, taking the lid off a rectangular Pyrex container. “It was the only thing I could stomach during those first few months when I was pregnant.”
“What’s in it, Gran?” Meg asked.
“Well, there’s a crust. Then there’s a cream cheese layer, a layer of chocolate pudding, and Cool Whip. It’s divine.”
“Oh, I love that dessert!” Meg exclaimed.
“Is that the dessert with the weird name?” Olivia asked.
“Better Than Sex Cake,” Gloria said proudly. “I’ll let you all be the judge.”
“I prefer to call it pudding dessert, Gloria,” Effie said.
“Let’s have some right now,” Teddy said, then whispered to Meg, “Is it an aphrodisiac?”
Meg suppressed a giggle. “I heard that, young man,” Gloria said. “And the answer is yes. People who partake of it have seen that particular effect.”
“Gran, you are so full of it.” Meg helped pass out the pieces of dessert her grandmother cut.
“Sometimes the unexpected does happen, dear,” Gloria said, waving a knife. “If you let loose a little, life might just surprise you.”
She wished she could let loose a little, but at her age, what could surprise her? So far she’d learned that sex was good but not great, men were mostly immature, and she wasn’t getting any younger. At least the cake could take her mind off her man problems. “Gran, what are you doing?” Meg asked.
“I’m cutting a piece for Ben.”
“Ben who?” Meg asked, her eyes narrowing.
“Why, Rushford, of course,” Gran said. “I invited him in for dessert just now.”
As if on cue, the door opened. Ben stood there all lean and tanned and—wait, was his chest glistening?
Meg did a double take. Normally she wasn’t into sweaty sheens but his was—spectacular. Oh, holy hills and valleys! And hard muscles with just the right amount of hair and six-pack lines so deep a woman could trace them. With her tongue.
“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I was looking for Tom and I thought book club was meeting out back on the deck.”
Gran strode over to Ben with singular purpose and snagged him by the elbow. There would be no quiet sneaking away with her in charge. “We were just serving dessert. You must join us. In fact, you’re welcome to stay for our book discussion, too.”
“Thanks, Gloria, but I was just helping Tom with his lawn and I’ve got to—”
“Why, dear, is that lemonade you’re drinking?”
Ben looked at the tall glass in his hand. “Some nice neighbor handed it to me because she thought I was hot.”
“I’m sure she did,” Meg said, giving him the eyeball.
“Before Alex and Tom moved in, I lived here for thirty years and no one ever brought me lemonade,” Effie said.
“That must be from our neighbor, Helene,” Alex said. “She hits on any Rushford brother in sight.”
Gloria pushed a piece of dessert into Meg’s hands. “Will you hand this to Ben, dear?”
Ben took the plate Meg offered, flashing her a wide smile that shot straight down south of the equator. “It’s delicious, thank you,” he said, taking a bite.
“It’s called Better Than Sex Cake,” Gloria said.
Meg suppressed a choke, but Ben just grinned. “Well, they sure named this right.”
Meg rolled her eyes. She couldn’t believe what a kiss-up he was.
“Well, Benjamin,” Gloria said, “I don’t know what kind of girls you’ve been dating, but maybe you should try a girl from Mirror Lake.”
“Grandma!” Meg said.
“Well, it is, after all, only dessert,” Gloria said. “But it can help move things along, if you know what I mean.” Gran winked at Ben. Meg fought the urge to hand her grandmother back her Queen Elizabeth hat and send her royal behind back on her way.
“Gosh, I hope not,” said Alex. “I just ate a whole piece. Don’t tell Tom.” She set her plate down on the coffee table. “By the way, Ben, Meg tells us you need someone to go with you to diabetes camp this weekend.”
Meg tossed her friend a look that shot daggers. The members of this book club, composed of her closest family and friends, were throwing her to the wolves.
“I think she’d be great with the kids,” Ben said. “It would be fun.”
“Oh, Meg would never go,” Gran said. “She hates getting all mucky and mosquito-bitten.”
“That’s not true, Gran.” Meg had to stand up for herself if no one else was going to. “I love the outdoors.” Not, but there was no way she was going to sound like a wuss.
“Why, remember that time your parents took you camping when you were ten? You went potty in the woods and accidentally sat on a wasps’ nest.”
“That was a freak accident,” Meg said. “Hardly enough for me to say I hate camping.”
“So that’s why every time we’d go for a hike in Girl Scouts you brought a can of Raid,” Olivia said.
“And Amazon-jungle-strength bug spray,” Olivia said.
“Fine, you all have a good laugh,” Meg said. “So I’m not a risk taker.”
“I don’t know about that,” Ben said, displaying that mega-watt grin again. “She dances a mean cha-cha.”
“What did you say?” Olivia asked.
“Meg does not dance,” Alex said.
“Oh, yes, she does,” Ben said. “She’s recently taken it up. And she has great potential, I’d say, to be a rip-roaring good dancer.”
Meg frowned and tried to summon outrage, but when she looked at Ben, he was chuckling at his own joke, and his eyes were dancing with laughter. Her heart gave a littl
e involuntary squeeze because when he smiled, he was hands-down the most handsome man she’d ever met. And the fact that he’d stood up for her in front of her friends made her tingle all over.
“So why don’t you want to go to camp?” Ted asked.
“Because—” Why didn’t she want to go to camp? Ben’s questioning look accosted her. Because you’ll be there, she thought to herself. Because it’s an entire weekend in your presence.
Wait a minute. Weren’t those reasons to go?
“I—um—the shop is super busy. We’ve got appointments booked all day Saturday.” When she glanced at Ben again, he was innocently drinking his lemonade. She noticed something stuck on the bottom of the glass—a sticky note—and plucked it off. “It’s a phone number.”
“Let me see that.” Ben grabbed for it but she held it out of his reach.
“That little hussy stuck her number on the bottom of your lemonade,” Meg said.
“Got to admire a woman with skills,” Ben said.
“Oh, she’s skillful, all right,” Meg said. “At getting her hooks in gullible men who go for her type.”
“Maybe she just needs a handyman,” Ben said, holding back laughter.
“The only handyman she’s looking for is a randy handyman,” Gran said.
“Gran!” Meg said. It was a full-time job policing her grandmother, who of course ignored her, especially since everyone else was laughing at her joke.
“You haven’t had a piece of dessert, dear. Here’s an extra-big one.” Gran made the huge mistake of passing it to Ben to give to her.
“Here you go, Meggie.” He dropped his voice low. “Extra big. Just what you need, being as you’re a little on edge.”
“I am not on edge,” Meg said with a glower.
“Do we have to talk about the book?” Ted asked as Gloria took a seat on the couch and Ben and Meg sat on dining room chairs that were pulled up for extra seating. “It was depressing as hell.”
“It was very acclaimed,” Olivia said with just a tad of poorly disguised outrage. She’d spent years as a self-help editor in New York and had just recently hit the bestseller lists with her book for people who unexpectedly found themselves in charge of raising a child. “You didn’t like it?”
“Did you?” Meg asked.
“The writing was crisp and sharp. The insights were deep.” Olivia’s editor brain ticked off the good points.
“And the story sucked,” Alex said. “There was no hope, no chance for happiness.”
“It made me want to gouge my eyes out with a pencil, but I refrained,” Ted said. “Damned dismal, though.”
“What was the book about?” Ben asked, digging into his dessert.
Olivia was happy to recap. “The heroine, Fannie, went through a lot before finding love. But her lover Alfonso deceived her. Then they both died, Alfonso because Fannie killed him and Fannie of a broken heart. On death row.”
“Optimistic,” Ben said.
“You’re missing the point,” Olivia said. “Fannie drove Alfonso away. She let herself imagine the worst before they even got started. She was suspicious and untrusting.”
That got Meg’s wheels churning. Or maybe it was the fact that Ben had casually draped his tanned arm around her chair and all of her insides were tumbling from his nearness, from his summer-grass-and-sun smell to the tiny smile he still wore and hey, was that damn dimple peeking out again? Okay, the book wasn’t ideal, and the weekend ahead wasn’t either. It involved dirt and mosquitoes and other dangers, and Ben certainly wasn’t inviting her for herself, but this was an opportunity—probably the last she’d ever have—to be with him for an entire weekend. That was the kind of fantasy she’d only imagined in her wildest dreams.
Before the elevator, she’d decided to give him up, but now she felt on the verge of something too tantalizing to pass up, likely the last chance she’d ever have to really get to know him again. She was coming to realize that the attractive, fun Ben with the great sense of humor he wielded so easily for a crowd might just be a front for a deeper, more complicated person. Meg might be considered sweet but she wasn’t naïve, and she knew the looks he gave her were the kind a man gave a woman he desired. She wasn’t the type he usually went for but she wasn’t without her charms. Maybe it was time she turned them on him.
She had to stop watching her life unfold from the sidelines. She had to get in the game and muck it up, or she’d be alone and crazy like the heroine of this dumb book.
Poke fear in the arse, Grandma Gloria would say.
“While we have you here, dear,” Gloria asked Ben, “what do you think of books that end badly?”
Everyone waited for his answer, but no one so intently as Meg.
“I’m all for a well-written novel,” Ben said. “If it ends badly, it ends badly. As long as the protagonists tried their hardest.” He paused a minute and let a crooked grin settle on his face. “And if there’re some kick-ass FBI agents, some gratuitous violence and sex, and a couple of explosions, all the better.”
Meg rolled her eyes. “And guys complain about chick flicks.” Suddenly a giant lump, like one of her cats’ hairballs, formed in her throat. Everyone told her she was insane to have liked him for so long. For years, she’d craved his attention, and she’d waited for him to notice her. Well, now he had. So what was she going to do about it?
“Thanks for the cake, Gloria. It’s amazing.” Ben set down his plate. “Now, if you all will excuse me, I’ll get out of your way.”
His gaze settled over Meg for an extra beat before he left the room to seek out Tom.
Was there the tiniest chance he felt what she did—a slow burn of desire spreading through her faster than a storm surge that had absolutely nothing to do with that godforsaken cake?
She must’ve been pretty flustered, because she suddenly felt Teddy shaking her arm and Effie saying, “What did you think about what Benjamin said, dear?”
“I—we all have to do our best, and where the cards fall, they fall. But I still always hope for a happy ending.” She stood, still a little dazed. “I-I’ll be right back.”
Meg walked straight to the back of the house and out to the large deck, where Ben and Tom were sitting in the shade drinking beers. Ben had covered his spectacular pecs with a white shirt that said U Conn in blue letters.
“Hey, Meg,” Tom said. “Any chance I could go snag a piece of that dessert?”
“Sure, but be careful. Gloria told everyone it was an aphrodisiac. So whatever you do, don’t let Alex see you take a piece.”
Tom headed for the house and Meg sat down on one of the cushioned deck chairs. “Listen, Ben, I—”
He held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say. You don’t have to apologize for not going to camp. Look, if those administrators can’t pick the best candidate based on skills, then maybe this job isn’t the one for me. I was wrong to get you involved.”
That was unexpected. “I was going to say thank you for sticking up for me back there. And . . . I want to come.”
His dark brows shot up in genuine surprise. He set his beer down carefully on the deck as if he were buying time to digest her statement. “What changed your mind?”
Some depressing book club book. A damp sticky note on the bottom of a glass of lemonade. “My sister’s coming into town and I can get her to stay with my mom. I’m free to go.” At least, she was ninety-nine percent sure she would be.
He looked relieved. And something else, too, that made her heart skip again.
“Great,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at five on Friday.” He held out his hand. “Can I have your cell? I want to give you my number, just so you have it.”
Wow. He was giving her his number. And she didn’t even have to make him lemonade to get it.
She handed him her phone, and he took it, his long, masculine fingers gliding over hers and lingering just a few seconds longer than necessary. He glanced up and she suddenly got lost in the warm chocolate color of his beautiful eyes
.
“Did you finish your lemonade?” she asked as he punched in her number.
“It was a little too sweet for my taste. Did you finish your dessert?”
Weird question. “Yes, considering my gran is force-feeding it to everyone in the house.”
“It was delicious,” he said. “But definitely not a substitute for the real thing.”
“Well, I guess you never know if you’re going to like something unless you try.”
His gaze wandered over her so slowly she felt a rush of heat flood full force into her face. She tried to look somewhere, anywhere else but in those dark, full-of-mischief eyes, but she was as inexorably drawn to them as the tide was to the beach. She was melting under the heat and fire of his intense perusal that made her feel stripped down to the bone.
Was he flirting with her? Warning her? Or just telling her there might be something better in her future if only she would dare to break free and look for it?
She was done waiting, pining, hoping. She was going to plunge into this headfirst, give it her all, and hang on for the wild, crazy ride.
CHAPTER 9
Ben pulled back the yellow ER curtain, the rings scraping on the metal rod with their familiar tinny sound, and assessed the woman sitting on the gurney. He looked up from his electronic tablet with a frown.
“You’re not Mrs. Anderson. What are you doing here?”
“Surprise¸” his sister Samantha said tentatively, giving him a little wave. She pulled an oxygen sensor she’d obviously been playing with off her index finger, jumped off the gurney and into her big brother’s arms. “I wanted to tell you in person.” She gave him an expectant look that reminded him of when she was three and wanted him to play Barbies with her. Of course he couldn’t refuse his baby sister then or even now that she’d just turned twenty.
“Tell me what in person?” Ben asked, frowning.
“Aren’t you happy to see me?”
Ben set down his tablet on the gurney and wrapped his sister in a bear hug. “I’m always happy to see you. I’m just a little tense. We’ve got an accident on the way.”
“I won’t stay. But I have exciting news. Harris is coming in tonight—a day early. And Olivia told me to bring him over for dinner. Everybody’s coming to meet him. Can you make it?”
This Love of Mine Page 9