The Corner of Forever and Always

by Lia Riley

  “You probably think I’m crazy,” she muttered.

  “Let’s be clear.” He removed his helmet. “I definitely think you’re crazy. But here’s the important thing. I think I like it.”

  “Wait.” She lifted a hand, her voice veering toward shrill. “Hear me out before you say another word.”

  He slid off the seat and stood, hands digging into his pockets.

  “Do you mind stepping under the streetlight?” she asked.

  He complied, freezing at her drawn-out groan.

  “In that tux you’ve got such a James Bond look going on. Let me stand here a moment and soak up the view.” At last she heaved a sigh. “Thanks. Now, where was I?”

  “I’m not supposed to be saying a word.”

  “Right.” She stepped forward, close enough to reveal the small furrow between her brows. “Okay, so here’s the deal. You are bewitched.”

  “I agree.” He reached and took her hand, resting his thumb on her wrist. Her accelerated pulse hammered his skin.

  “For real.” She tried to pull back from his inexorable grasp. “I’m dead serious.”

  “Me too.” Instead, he wrapped his other hand around her waist with gentle force. She was close, but not nearly close enough. He wanted her skin to skin, to slide into her secrets, to know her inside and out.

  “Don’t dismiss me.” Her hands splayed on his chest, not exactly pushing him off, but not inviting him closer.

  “I wouldn’t dare.” A dark rumble rolled through his chest.

  “I’m trying to tell you the truth. There’s a small but real chance that you aren’t of sound mind.” She fisted the ornate necklace and dangled it under his nose. “You’re probably under a magical spell. I’m sorry. Madam Magna said it would make me irresistible, and I wanted to talk to you about the park. That’s the whole reason why I came tonight. But then you had to go and be nice. And you had to go and look like…” She dropped the necklace and tweaked his bow tie. “All of that. But I don’t want to enchant you into anything more. There. I know I sound silly, but my conscience is clear.”

  “Let me get this straight.” He pulled her the last inch closer, the speed to the motion making her gasp. “That necklace you’re wearing is magical and it’s the reason I’m standing here?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Oh, I don’t know!” she cried. “Go on. Tell me this is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard and ride off back to your life.”

  His jaw tensed. “Can’t do that.”

  A pause. “So you think it is magic?”

  “Fuck the necklace. You’re the magic.”

  Her mouth parted in surprise, and he used it to his advantage. Her lips were cool and slightly sweet, hints of plum and juniper. He groaned, dipping back ever so slightly to settle her weight on his. Her breasts strained against his chest, and her hands laced at the base of his neck. He moved with slow intent to her cheek. Her neck. Her ear. Their breath grew more and more ragged. Never did he ever want to be anywhere but here, on the corner of Forever and Always. Here the future was bright. Here the best days of his life still waited.

  “Someone will see us,” she gasped.

  “Don’t care.” Let Janice make a video and send the file “reply all” to every city department. Let the Back Fence put a snapshot on a ten-foot billboard on the Everland outskirts.

  “There’s got to be statute about public decency, and I’d hate to break it with the mayor in the middle of the historic district.”

  She had a point. Because at the rate they were going, he was going to have her naked and up against the stop sign.

  “Come home with me,” he rumbled.

  “Is that wise?”

  “Sounds genius.” He grazed the sides of her dress, teasing her soft breasts. No bra. Fuck. The satin feel to her skin killed him without even trying.

  She shivered. “But what about the necklace? What I said…”

  He took her face between his hands. “Do you wear that necklace every hour of every day?”

  “Madam M loaned it for tonight. Who knows where she got it? It’s some heirloom—”

  “Stop.” He nipped her lower lip. “Take a breath. If you haven’t been wearing that necklace since you arrived in town, then there’s no magic. Because since the first moment I saw you, it’s been impossible to think of anything else.”

  Her lids fluttered as she absorbed the impact of his words. “If we go, we won’t stop at kissing.”

  “We’ll go as fast or as slow as you want. And I’ve got to say, I hope you pick slow.” His circled that silky skin with his thumbs, grinning at her muffled moan. He wanted to take his time. Use every hour of the night. Then he got an idea. “Tell you what. I do want you to come home. But on a date.”

  “Date?”

  “I’m baking you the world’s best chocolate soufflé.”

  “At midnight?” She arched a brow.

  “That crazy enough for you?”

  Her grin stretched ear to ear. “You know what? I think it just might be.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Beau helped Tuesday off his bike. Her dress was held up by two straps, each tied together with a tight knot. His Eagle Scout training could serve a purpose tonight. It would take short work to peel off that scrap of silk. No alchemy of starlight was responsible for the soft glow across her face, but his carriage house security lights. Still, the effect wasn’t rendered any less magical.

  She held on to his hand, her fingers grazing his tux jacket. “What tricks do you have up your sleeve, Mr. Mayor?”

  He spun her in a twirl, and instead of feeling like an idiot, he found himself laughing. Christ, he was drunk on the balmy night air and his proximity to this beguiling woman. They danced a moment to invisible music before he whispered, “I’m not one for tricks or secrets.”

  She paused, resting her face on his cheek with a sage expression. “Oh, come on. I’m sure you have a few skeletons in that impeccably ordered closet of yours. I’ll show you one or two of mine if you show me yours.”

  Her strap slipped a fraction down her shoulder, and he bit the inside of his bottom lip. He could think of plenty he wanted her to show him.

  “I’ll go first.” She scrunched up her face, concentrating intently.

  He took advantage of her closed eyes, drinking in every detail of her beautiful face. Normally, he spent so much time trying not to look that this unexpected opportunity was like staring at the sun. Afterward her face would be imprinted on everything.

  “Okay! Oh my God, I’ve got a real doozy. Ready?”

  He chuckled, smoothing an errant hair from her cheek. “I’m braced for anything from highway robbery to the fact you are an actual princess from a lost realm.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. When the fuck was the last time he had been whimsical? Maybe never.

  She took a deep breath and let it out through her nose. “When I was six I tried to kill a man.”

  Beau choked. “Beg your pardon?” This woman would keep him on his toes forever.

  “Don’t run.” She gripped him tighter. “I’m exaggerating.”

  “Good. I was starting to worry. Especially after our run-in at the Roxy.”

  “He wasn’t a man; he was a kid from a nearby property. Ernest Bloom.” She spoke his name like a true nemesis.

  He arched a brow. “That’s another joke, right?”

  “Oh no.” She shook her head with mock gravitas. “He used to try to kiss my sister on the school bus. She hated it and the grown-ups just shook it off like ‘boys will be boys.’ Anyway, Ernest followed her everywhere, and one day I had had enough and found a rock on the playground, a big fat stone, and balanced it up on the monkey bars. Then I taunted him to chase me. I decided that I would swing up and push it onto his dumb head. He took the bait and I did. Except it missed.”

  “Jesus Christ. Remind me not to get on your bad side.”

  “Just don’t mess with the people I love.” She drifted off, looking thoughtful. “I didn’t really understand what it
meant. ‘Killing a man’ was an expression that I heard about from the country-western movies my father watched. Glad I didn’t succeed though. Black and white stripes would not be a good look on me.”

  “Did he ever mess with Pepper again?”

  She grinned. “Last I heard he was at the seminary training to be a priest.”

  He whistled. “Impressive.”

  “Scared him straight.” She dusted her hands. “Okay, your turn.”

  “This might be hard to believe, but I was a wound-up kid.”

  “Shocking.” She giggled.

  “One summer we spent in Bermuda, at my gran’s place in Hamilton. I used to not be able to walk down the sidewalk without stopping and tracing my finger over every crack. Got so bad Gran didn’t want to take me anywhere. And if she did, she kept her handbag ready to give me a smack.”

  “That’s terrible!” She pursed her lips in sympathy, all humor eclipsed. “How old were you?”

  “Probably the same age you were when trying to send Ernest Bloom into an untimely grave. I think it was the change. This might come as a shock to you, but I’m not so good with change.”

  Tuesday slapped her cheeks, eyes wide with feigned astonishment.

  He turned to take in the vast home. “Mama had talked about selling this place. Moving us to the island forever. I missed Georgia, I guess. Home. Everland. Rhett was like a brother to me.”

  “No brothers and sisters?”

  “Mama had three miscarriages. I stuck. I’m tenacious like that.”

  “You love her a lot.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I do. But…” He threaded his fingers together. They had been still so long the security light switched off. The darkness made talking easier. “Guess this is a secret too. I’m not sure how much room there was in her and Dad’s relationship for me, if that makes sense? I know they love me. Hell, they even like me, and not because they’re supposed to. Except they’re a tight unit and there’s not always room for another person. It’s weird, being the third wheel in your own family.” He shook his head, walking again. The light flicked back on. “Nah. Don’t listen to me. I’m being stupid.”

  “No!” Tuesday stamped her heel on the path. “Stop it right there, mister! There is no apologizing during secret sharing. That’s the first rule.”

  “And here I thought you weren’t big on rules.”

  “Ha! Look at you perking up,” Tuesday said in a teasing tone. “My life’s not total anarchy. Of course there’re rules. And here’s one more. You don’t share what you learn in secret sharing. No sharing and no apologizing. Look. I have two rules.”

  “I’m impressed. Plus I’m still scared of you and that rock.”

  “Just don’t kiss my sister and you will be safe.”

  “No way will I piss off you and Rhett.” An idea occurred to him and he took off his bow tie. “I want to blindfold you before we get inside.”

  She chewed her top lip. “Do secrets bring out your kinky side?”

  Good thing the night hid the heat staining his ears. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a date with a woman that I’m interested in. I want to do it right. Be romantic.”

  She allowed him to cover her eyes. Her mouth quirked. “Just saying, kinky can be romantic.”

  And when he stepped back, taking in her curls, that dress, the curve to her shoulders, the dip to her waist, his fantasies whorled through his mind in one disorienting kaleidoscope. And he knew she was right.

  * * *

  “Okay. You can remove the bow tie.”

  Tuesday blinked at the kitchen counter. The stainless-steel mixer gleamed in the glow of the hanging barn light. A bag of flour. Bittersweet chocolate. Eggs. Sugar. Whole milk. “You weren’t kidding.”

  Beau shook his head gravely, turning the oven to 375 degrees. “I never kid about my chocolate soufflé.”

  “Lesson learned.” Clearly he didn’t know she and kitchens tended not to mix. She eyed his fine ass as he bent to retrieve a pot from the cabinet. It took all her willpower not to bite her knuckles.

  He grinned, a sudden smile that hit her like an unexpected rainstorm. “As much as I’d like to sit back and take in the moment that Miss Tuesday Knight admits she was incorrect on something, in this case, I want to work together.”

  “Baking a soufflé? Isn’t that like taking a beginner skier down a double black diamond?”

  He shrugged. “Wouldn’t know. Not a snow fan.”

  “Stop the presses! I think we found something we have in common. Wait, two things.” She picked up the bar of bittersweet chocolate. “I do love middle-of-the-night desserts.”

  “Maybe we should quit while we’re ahead.”

  “Wait! There is a third. Kissing. We both like kissing.”

  His left eyebrow rose slightly higher than his right. That was the tell. He kept his face such a careful study. Except that eyebrow always went a few millimeters up when he was uncertain. The fact warmed her head to toe.

  “Yeah. You heard me.” It was easier to tease than be serious. Admit something real and heavy flowed beneath the light undercurrent of banter. “We’re good at this.”

  “We are.” His voice was husky. “Experts even.”

  The space between them charged. It would take three steps, four max, to close the difference. See if they could kiss well here, too. And they were alone. It wouldn’t have to stop there.

  “I’m nervous.” The tightness in his tone backed up the muscles bunching near the hinge in his jaw. And the simple, honest admission did something to her that no amount of flirtatious back-and-forth ever would.

  “So am I.” She began buttering the dish. “Who taught you how to cook?”

  He stirred the chocolate in the double boiler, hands clenching the spoon. “Mama used to say that a man needed to know three things: how to fix a dessert, iron his own shirt, and sew a button. That someday future women would thank her.”

  “Smart lady.” Tuesday laughed, grateful for a moment to recalibrate, to slow her racing heart. “I suck at ironing, by the way.”

  Beau gave her a resolute stare. “I make my own starch.”

  “Stop.” She nearly dropped the dish towel. “No, you don’t.”

  “One tablespoon of cornstarch in two cups of water.”

  Her gaze fixed on the rare smile tugging the corner of his mouth. The revelation was oddly endearing. “I’m not sure whether to be impressed or terrified.”

  “Your mama didn’t teach you these things?”

  Tuesday thought. “We grew up in small-town Maine.”

  “Sounds cold.”

  “So, so cold. So much snow. So much cold. Beautiful though.”

  “I’d like to check it out, in summer.”

  “Yeah, good idea. My dad ran a maple sugar bush farm, made homemade maple syrup. Mom was his opposite. He loved being outdoors. She liked being inside. I guess they were opposites. They must have attracted at some point, but over time they repelled each other, pushed each other further and further away. She left when I was in high school. Moved down to New Hampshire, where she was from, and met a banker. They live in the suburbs. She has a housekeeper now.”

  “She abandoned your family?”

  “I…you know, I don’t know. My sister thinks so. I was the baby. My mom used to love to style my hair. She could do so many intricate braids. We didn’t have much money, but she’d shop at thrift stores and garage sales and find me cute dresses. Sometimes I’d find her sad and I’d try to cheer her up. I’d ask her to brush my hair and she would, even though sometimes I could hear her sniffling and I knew if I turned around I’d see her crying.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes and she ground her fists into them. “Wow. Hello! Where’d these come from?” God, way to keep things light. Her inconvenient emotions would probably sink the night.

  “I’m sorry that happened.”

  “Me too.” She took a breath. Then another. “Can we return to the regularly scheduled programming? Chocolate is always
the cure.”

  Beau looked like he might press forward but changed his mind at the last moment. “My mama taught me how to separate yolks from whites. Can I show you?”

  “I won’t pretend that I have skills. Instruct away.”

  “Okay, pick an egg, any egg.”

  She selected a brown one and he stepped behind her, her back heating against his chest. His arms slid over hers. “Now, what you do is give it a tap to open the shell. No! Not so big, just a little one.” His hand engulfed hers, guiding the movement. “Good. That’s real good. Now let the yolk settle in one side. That’s it. Now you start to transfer the egg back and forth and back and forth, let the white run out like that until voilà! All you have left is the yolk.”

  Tuesday gawked at the golden yolk in the shell. “Martha Stewart, eat your heart out.”

  He checked the chocolate and milk; it had melted down into a decadent pool.

  “Can we eat that as is? I’m sure the soufflé is amazing and all, but hey, a bowl of melted warm chocolate is going to do me fine.”

  His laugh was just as decadently rich. “Haven’t you ever heard that good things come to those who wait?”

  “Sure, by people waiting,” she quipped. “They need something to tell themselves.”

  That really got him going, his deep laugh rich as sun-warmed molasses. “Let me make you a deal.”

  “I’m not agreeing until I hear the terms.”

  “Smart woman. When you have this dessert, you are going to say it’s better than the best sex you’ve ever had.”

  She set her hands on her hips. “You have a low opinion of my sex life.”

  “Nah.” He winked. “Just a very high opinion of my soufflé.”

  She arched a brow. “You’re on.”

  Standing behind her he continued to help guide her effortlessly through measurements and pouring, mixing and stirring. He didn’t grind on her or get perverted, not that she’d have minded. Chocolate was meant to be an aphrodisiac, and she’d never experienced anything so sexily mundane as chatting over nothings in the kitchen with a man who didn’t try to cop a feel. He appreciated and even savored her for who she was and what she offered, which right now was fully dressed, fairly polite company.