by Emily March
He didn’t speak as he drove her to her mother’s restaurant. He badly wanted to walk her up to the front door and claim her with a public kiss, but better sense prevailed. He pulled up to the curb in a shadowed spot around the corner from the Yellow Kitchen. “Will you come back to my place afterward?”
“Probably not. I don’t know what time we’ll be done, and I’m sure either Chase or my dad will offer to drop me off at home.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe you could take me up to Stardance River Camp and we could do some cross-country skiing? I haven’t been yet this season, and I know after eating my mother’s lasagna, I’ll be ready for exercise.”
“Sure. Whatever.”
He pulled away from the curb and turned the corner before she did. He drove past the Yellow Kitchen, and upon seeing Caitlin’s parents and Boone McBride approaching from the opposite direction, he turned into the church parking lot down the street and positioned his truck so he could watch the front door.
Parents and daughter greeted each other with a hug. McBride shook Caitlin’s hand. But as they started toward the restaurant’s entrance, he saw one of Caitlin’s shoes slip and for a moment, she teetered on those high heels. McBride reached out to steady her, setting both hands on her waist.
Josh gripped the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles went white.
McBride kept one hand at the small of Caitlin’s back as he escorted her into the restaurant. Josh sat in his truck, not moving, for at least ten minutes.
He wasn’t so clueless that he didn’t recognize the emotion burning in his gut like a bad burrito. He was jealous. Pea-green, hard-breathing, jaw-clenching, ready-to-hit-something jealous.
He took his foot off the brake, pulled out of the parking lot, and onto the street. He drove the parameter of the eighteen-block rectangle of Eternity Springs proper. Twice. Then two more times. After making the fifth full circuit, he stopped in front of a house on Aspen between Third and Fourth. He walked up to the front door and knocked. Loudly.
Moments later, he heard footsteps approaching the door. It swung open. “Tarkington?”
“Hello, Mr. Whitfield. I’m sorry to bother you this time of night, but I need a favor.”
“A favor? Well, all right. I’m happy to help any way I can. I told you that when you discovered the brake fluid leak in my wife’s car last summer.”
“Yes sir. You did. That’s why I’m here. I need you to let me into the bank, into my safety deposit box.”
“All right,” the bank manager said. “I can do that. When…?”
“Tonight, sir. I’d like to go right now.”
* * *
Caitlin eyed the tiramisu on the dessert plate before her and wondered if she dared take one more bite. While her mother had turned over much of the everyday operation of the Yellow Kitchen to trusted management, she’d been hands-on preparing tonight’s celebration meal. The food had been divine, and Caitlin’s seams were feeling a little too tight at the moment.
She’d enjoyed the evening. She would have enjoyed it more if Josh had been sitting beside her, but the company had been good, the conversation lively and interesting, and her parents had seemed happier and more relaxed than she’d seen them in some time. Dad was almost giddy to have Boone McBride joining his firm.
She glanced across the table to see him joking with Lori’s dad, Cam, and her mother, Sarah. Perhaps he sensed her gaze, because he glanced her way and upon meeting her gaze, smiled. It was an easy smile. An honest one. Seeing it made Caitlin’s heart do a little squiggly dance. Things had been tense between her and her father since she moved home. He invariably seemed to be pushing her—shoving her—toward settling down and getting married and having 2.3 children. It drove her crazy.
Maybe he had a bigger issue with his youngest child turning thirty than she did. Whatever. Though she liked seeing him without a frown line marring his face for a change. Maybe he had been working too hard. He was the most responsible man she’d ever met. Maybe trying to balance the travel and his work really was too much for him. Maybe he really did need to retire, but he felt like he needed all his chicks settled first. He was old-fashioned that way. Sadly.
It was something she’d file away and think about. Later. Boone McBride was speaking to her.
“I think this meal ranks in the top five I’ve had in my entire life,” he said.
“Just the top five?”
“Okay, maybe top three. I can’t rank your mom above my own mother’s Thanksgiving dinner. That would be just wrong.”
“So whose is the third out of the three?”
He named a famous restaurant in Napa that was the holy grail for foodies.
“Name-dropper,” Caitlin accused.
“You asked.” He shrugged, a grin fluttering on his lips.
Caitlin asked him a question about the food and wine pairings at the renowned restaurant. That led to a discussion about California wineries that Caitlin enjoyed until she caught sight of her father’s satisfied expression. She wanted to roll her eyes. Really, Dad? Could you be a little more obvious?
She did like her father’s new partner. He was intelligent and witty and genuinely interesting. Under other circumstances, she might have been attracted to him. But these weren’t other circumstances. Josh was in her life. In the past couple of months, he’d become her life. She was head over heels in love with him.
And to him, I’m just the friend he’s sleeping with.
On that depressing note, Caitlin gave into temptation and speared the last bite of tiramisu.
The mood stayed with her as the party broke up. Beneath her father’s encouraging stare, Boone asked if he could see her home. Caitlin accepted the ride, deciding this was as good a time as any to apologize for her father’s obvious attempt at matchmaking and let Boone know she was otherwise involved so he need not feel pressured.
The Texan drove a small, sleek BMW sports car—not exactly the ride one needed in a Colorado mountain town—and he mentioned his intention to get something more appropriate. “Lots to do with a move like this. I didn’t realize just how much going into it.”
“Having second thoughts?”
“No. I needed to get away from Fort Worth.”
His tone didn’t invite questions, which of course, made her want to ask them. Instead, due to the brevity of the ride home, after she gave him directions to her place, she got to the point. “Boone, this is a little embarrassing—actually, it’s a lot embarrassing—but a person would have to be blind to miss the fact that my dad is trying to set the two of us up. I don’t know why he’s decided to play matchmaker, but I hope you’ll ignore him. I certainly plan to do so. First at the wedding and again tonight.”
“Don’t be embarrassed, Caitlin. You’re a beautiful woman and under other circumstances, I’d definitely be interested. But I’m not in the market for a relationship right now.”
Relief washed through her. “Oh. Oh, good. That’s exactly what I was going to say—well, except for the woman part. Nothing womanly about you. You’re a hot guy. But I’m already with a hot guy. Please, don’t tell anyone I said so. Especially not Dad. And I’m babbling.”
He laughed. “I’m glad we’re on the same page. I don’t need a girlfriend in Eternity Springs, but I can use a friend.” After a second’s pause, he repeated, “I need a friend.”
He sounds like he really means it. Adding a bit of perk to her voice, Caitlin said, “Hey, I can do that. I’m a good friend.” Ask Josh.
On second thought, don’t ask Josh.
As Boone pulled to a stop in front of her house, Caitlin added, “I’m glad we’re simpatico too. So let me say with total sincerity, welcome to Eternity Springs. I’m happy you’re here.”
The dome light came on as she opened the passenger side door to exit the car. Boone leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thank you, friend. I’m glad to be here.”
The December night was bitter and Caitlin hurried toward her front door. She’d
neglected to leave a light on when she’d gone to Josh’s house earlier, so the room was pitch-black when she stepped inside. She was hanging up her coat when his voice came out of the shadows.
“You let him kiss you.”
Journal Entry
Rage.
As long as I can remember, it’s been a beast living inside me. It mostly sleeps, though sometimes it slithers around, restless, stirred. That last visit with my dad before he died … after that last backhanded slap … I named him Sherman. Sherman has red eyes that glow in the dark. He has big pointed yellow teeth.
He’s hairy and he stinks and when I was a kid, he frightened me. As I grew older, he made me feel strong.
Feel. “How do you feel?” “How does that make you feel?”
The rapist.
But when Sherman escapes … when he is free … he looks just like my father.
Sherman scares me.
My new friend makes me forget about him. I call my new friend Charlie.
How do I feel? How does Charlie make you feel?
Good. Great. Invincible.
Chapter Thirteen
Josh switched on a lamp and a part of him relished the startled look on her face. From his position beside the window where he’d watched for her to come home, he said, “Good thing it was only a kiss on the cheek. I’d hate to have to track him down and whip his ass.”
“Excuse me?” Caitlin folded her arms. “Did I invite you here?”
“No. I don’t get invited to Timberlake family events.”
“I invited you tonight,” she muttered.
He ignored that. “Even better you didn’t ask him in for a nightcap. The mood I’m in, I might have killed him.”
“Josh—”
He crossed the room to her in a few long strides and cut off her words with a kiss filled with fire. He backed her against the wall, knocking down a small framed picture of her family. It clattered to the floor with a satisfying crash.
He was rough with her and she was rough with him right back. He yanked up her dress. She tugged his jeans open. Their tongues battled like swords.
He took her there against the wall, jealousy and lust and some other emotion he was afraid to name pulsing through his blood. When it was over, when he could breathe again, he picked her up and carried her to her bed. He stripped her naked but for her pearls, and for a long moment, he stared down at her.
She gazed up at him, her heart in her eyes. A lump of emotion choked his throat, but he couldn’t say the words. He just couldn’t.
Slowly, Josh removed his own clothes, pulling the necklace from his pocket as he did so. He knelt over her, slipped her pearls from around her neck and replaced them with his grandmother’s necklace. It nestled between her full breasts. The Sokolov emerald pendant, a gift to a great-something-grandmother from a Grand Duke of Russia a century ago.
“There,” he murmured. “I’ve pictured this. Pictured you like this.” Lovely and lush, wantonly mussed, the scent of him clinging to her glistening skin and his gift nestled between her breasts. “You are my dream.”
Then Josh lowered his head and kissed her, gently this time, sweetly. Reverently. He made love to her in a depth and manner he’d never shared with any other woman. Afterward, when they lay silent and spent and satisfied, Caitlin lifted the pendant and studied it.
The rectangular emerald was as big as his thumb, set into an intricate and uniquely styled pendant of white gold, surrounded by diamonds, and hanging from a heavy chain.
“This is beautiful, Josh.”
“It suits you.” A fierce rush of possessive pleasure washed through him.
“I’m surprised you have something like this lying around.” She arched her brow and spoke with a hint of starch in her tone. “An old girlfriend’s?”
He grinned. He liked that she wasn’t immune to jealousy, either. “No. Not an old girlfriend’s.” He picked up the pendant and thumbed the jewel named Heart of Spring. His voice husky with renewed desire, he said, “I do believe it was made just for you.”
She smiled sweetly at him, then sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. She studied the pendant closely. “I love antique jewelry. You’ve probably noticed. A lot of what I have came to me from my grandmother’s sister. She had a ton of costume jewelry. My mom isn’t into it, so she gave it all to me. She didn’t have anything as spectacular as this, though. Where did you find it?”
He paused a moment, then spoke the truth. “I inherited it from my grandmother. She left it to me so my father wouldn’t get his hands on it.”
And sell it for pennies on the dollar on one of his lows or give it away during one of his highs.
“This is the first time you’ve mentioned your birth family to me.”
He regretted it already. “It will be the last. They have nothing to do with who I am.”
She looked like she might pursue it, but at his sharp glance she took the hint. She tugged the necklace over her head and attempted to hand it back. “Thanks for showing it to me. It’s—”
“A gift. My gift to you.”
“Oh. Well. Thank you, Josh, but I can’t accept this. It’s a family heirloom.”
He took it from her and returned it to where it belonged. “I don’t have a lot to give you, but this I can do. Accept it graciously, Caitlin. Wear it for me when you’re naked. It will give me immeasurable pleasure.”
To demonstrate the truth of his claim, he made love to her again, drawing it out, indulging himself in the picture she made lying against her crisp white sheets with her long blonde hair fanned around her, in the scent of her arousal, in the sounds she made when he brought her to climax again and again and again.
Long after she’d drifted off to sleep cuddled against him, Josh stared up at the ceiling. He’d done it. He’d thrown sense out of the window. He’d gone and done the one thing he’d sworn he wouldn’t do.
He was in love with her. He’d fallen in love with her.
Stupidly, ridiculously, idiotically in love with her.
Passionately in love with her.
He loved her. So what now? Could Celeste be right? Dare he take a chance? Could it possibly work between them?
The idea hovered at the edge of his dreams like the whisper of an angel’s wings.
Maybe … maybe … maybe.
* * *
Caitlin awoke the following morning toasty warm from lying beneath her down comforter and spooned up against her own personal furnace. The man put off heat like the hot springs at Angel’s Rest.
She liked waking up with Josh Tarkington lying beside her. He slept soundly, his soft, rhythmic breaths blowing softly against her neck. Not wishing to disturb him and enjoying the moment, she remained right where she was. Her thoughts began to whirl.
She adored the necklace, but why had he given it to her last night? Christmas was only weeks away. Why didn’t he wait until then?
Which brought up another concern. Now what in the world was she going to give him for Christmas? Was he one of those people whose love language involved gift giving? She couldn’t tell. This was the first gift he’d given her and it was pretty wonderful.
Would he expect something just as wonderful from her in return? She’d always been one who demonstrated her love through actions. Her gifts were that of time and effort. Baking him cookies yesterday had been a gift to him. Would he recognize that—at least without her having to whack him over the head with it?
What can I get him for Christmas?
The necklace was breathtaking. She loved it, she truly did, though she wasn’t sure where in the world she would wear it. To the Trading Post to buy paper towels and toilet paper?
Why had he given it to her? What was he trying to say to her? Was it simply just a sexual prop? Part of a fantasy of his? Or was he trying to express an emotion he wasn’t quite ready to say?
The answer was something for which she’d dared not hope.
Had her patience paid off? Was it love? Had Josh fallen in love with her
?
She shouldn’t get ahead of herself. It was a piece of costume jewelry, not a diamond ring for her left hand.
Nevertheless, the possibilities sent energy pulsing through her. She needed to move. As she scooted out from beneath his embrace and slipped from bed, she figured what she should do was face the morning’s cold and the overindulgence of last night’s dinner by pulling on her gear and going for a run. Instead, she decided to get up and make waffles for Josh. She’d break out the good maple syrup instead of the cheap stuff she ordinarily used.
Love language. Maybe neither one was to the point where they’d put it into words, but Caitlin was ready to think that maybe, just maybe, they had a future together.
He ate four waffles, three slices of bacon, and used half the bottle of syrup. Caitlin considered the meal a rousing success.
Upon draining his third cup of coffee, he said, “So, you mentioned cross-country skiing. Want to go this afternoon? I can use the exercise.”
“Me too. I’d love to go skiing with you this afternoon.” Adopting a casual tone, although she didn’t feel casual about it at all, she added, “How about you come with me to church, and we go after that?”
In the process of licking syrup off his thumb, Josh gave her a sharp look. “Come again?”
“Come to church with me this morning. Sit with me. Afterward, we can go skiing. I’ll pack a lunch before we go.”
“Caitlin, that’s not a good idea. That’s about as public a place as you get in Eternity Springs. News that we were together will be all over town before the end of the Altar Society’s bake sale.”
“I know. That’s fine by me. I’m over the whole secrecy thing. It’s been fun, but I’m tired of sneaking around. I’m tired of my dad trying to set me up with Boone McBride.”
Josh’s brow furrowed with a scowl. It had not missed Caitlin’s notice that her father’s efforts on the Boone front stuck in Josh’s craw.