by Shirley Jump
He chuckled. “I’d say more like a mermaid. You are beautiful, no matter what you wear.”
She blushed, a burst of crimson that filled her cheeks and trailed down the V-neck of her dress. He decided he should make her blush more often. “Thank you again. You look great, too.”
“Oh, these are for you.” He thrust a bouquet of flowers at her.
White and yellow daisies, pink stargazer lilies, long stalks of purple lavender peppered with stems of baby’s breath, all wrapped in a thick paper cone. It was a sweet bouquet, one that went beyond the cliché of roses. She wondered what sort of meaning he attached to their date as she caught the heady scent of the lilies.
He seemed nervous, which made her smile. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been on a date in a while. She brought the flowers to her nose and inhaled. “They’re gorgeous. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He gestured toward his car. “Should we go?”
“Let me put these in water first.” She glanced back at him. “Do you want to come in for a minute?”
As soon as he entered her apartment, the space felt too small, too confined. He was six feet two inches of brawny man, with his smile and his big blue eyes that reminded her of the ocean on a sunny day. Nerves fluttered in her gut, which was crazy. She never got nervous, never got flustered around guys. Or at least she never had—
Until she’d met Colton Barlow.
Now the man had her thoughts running in twelve different directions, half of which led straight to her bedroom. The nine hundred square feet she lived in made that bed seem awfully close. Too close. Too tempting.
She reached for a vase above the fridge, and her silly nervous hands nearly dropped it. Colton was there, right behind her, his body so close to hers, all she’d have to do was inhale and she’d be pressed against him.
“Let me get that,” he said, his voice deep beside her ear.
“Thanks.” She knew she should step away, but she stayed where she was, in the few inches of space between Colton’s chest and her refrigerator. He grasped the vase and brought it down to her in one slow, liquid movement. She took it with one hand then turned to look up at him.
Her heart beat. Her breath flowed in, out. And her gaze locked on his, on the ocean depths that seemed to darken as one second passed, then another, another. “Thank...thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
The word pleasure sent heat spiraling through her. How far away was her bedroom? Twenty feet? Thirty?
God, what was wrong with her? She couldn’t haul the man off to her room before they even had a date. She started to step to the side, but Colton moved at the same time, and they collided, chest to chest. Heat erupted inside her, a deep, yawning want that nearly took her breath away. She looked up at him, the vase forgotten, the flowers a distant memory.
And held her breath.
Slowly, oh, so slowly, Colton brought his face down to hers. His eyes never wavered from her gaze, and she thought a girl could get lost in that sea. His fingers danced along her cheek, trailed down to her jaw, skipped over her lips. She opened her mouth—to protest, to agree, she wasn’t sure—and then his lips were on hers, and she was lost.
His kiss started slow, sweet and easy, like sliding into a warm pool on a cool day. He shifted against her, and she reached up, gliding her hands along the cotton of his shirt, inching over the ridged muscles of his back.
He deepened the kiss, the two of them moving in concert now, her mouth opening to his, his tongue darting in. She let out a little mew and arched into him, wanting, needing, seeking more.
His fingers tangled in her hair, and she swore he whispered her name against her lips before his tongue swept in and urged hers to dance. He was hard against her, and she pressed into him, wanting more, wanting...everything. He felt so good, so right.
He brought his hand down to her cheek again, a tender, sweet touch, then he shifted back, away from her. The kiss ended, but he hovered there, just inches from her face. “This is going to go...somewhere it shouldn’t, very fast. We should go to dinner before...”
Before they ended up in her bedroom. A part of her wanted to say, But I want it to go there. I want it to go twenty feet down the hall, to that queen-size mattress and those crisp white sheets.
Then her sanity returned, and she nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go.” She started to reach for her purse on the counter.
He touched her hand, drew her back. “The flowers?”
“Flowers?” she repeated, confused.
A grin quirked up one side of his face. “Remember? The vase that started all this?”
Her face heated. “Oh, yes. I just...forgot.”
Got totally distracted by he-of-the-blue-eyes-and-incredible-kissing-ability, was more like it. She spun away, grabbed the vase and busied herself with filling it then trimming the stems and dropping the bouquet into the glass container. She set it on the window ledge over her sink then left the light on above them. Not that the flowers would know or care, but when she came home tonight, it would be nice to see the flowers there.
Nice because they would remind her of the way this night had started. And if that was any indication of what lay ahead, she was already happy she’d agreed to go out with Colton Barlow.
Chapter Five
His dinner at the Sea Shanty could have been cardboard, for all Colton noticed.
All of his attention was focused on the intriguing, beautiful woman across from him. A woman he had kissed—and who had made something as simple as that seem like the most incredible experience he’d had in a long, long time.
In her elegant black dress and heels, she was as feminine as a debutante, but then she got talking about baseball, and she could have been one of the guys. Except he never looked at the chest of one of the guys and fantasized about trailing kisses down the valley between their breasts.
“When Henderson stole third in that Yankees game back in ’85, he was incredible to watch, though I didn’t see it live, just on a replay of old games I watched with my dad. Every Saturday we watched those classic games, and Henderson was his favorite player,” she said. “No one mastered the art of the stolen base like Henderson did.”
“He had, what, eighty steals that season?” Colton said. “He was like David Copperfield out there.”
She took a sip of her wine. “In ’83, he stole one hundred bases in one season. No one’s done that, before or since. Amazing stuff.”
Colton buttered a slice of ciabatta and set it on the edge of his plate. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman who knows as much about baseball as you do.”
She shrugged. “Only child syndrome. My dad wasn’t into playing with dolls, so we bonded over baseball. He taught me how to play, and we watched tons of games together. One year we even took a trip to Louisville to visit the slugger museum. I still have the bat he bought me and had engraved with my name.” A sad smile stole over her face. “I miss those days with my dad. Ever since my mom died, he hasn’t wanted to go to a game, or sit through one on TV. Never mind do anything else he used to do. It’s like he just stopped living.”
“That’s got to be hard for you.”
She shrugged again, but he could see the stress in her face, the burden on her shoulders. “He’s my dad. I’m going to support him however I can.”
“But you have a right to a life, too.”
She waved that off. “It can wait. He needs me now.”
Yet another reason to like Rachel. She was the kind of woman who did the right thing, who stuck by her family when they needed her. He’d known far too many women—which probably went back to his bad choosing skills—who were more interested in the label on their back than the people in their life. Rachel’s lack of self-centeredness certainly made her stand out.
Colton thought about his
sister and his mother. For nearly all his life, he had been the one taking care of them. Making sure his little sister got up for school and took a lunch with her. Making sure the house doors were locked tight for the night after his mother got home from work. Making sure there was gas in the car, the trash put out on the curb, a little more money in the bank. Katie was an adult now, living on her own and highly successful at the accounting firm where she worked, while his mother was still flitting from job to job, living arrangement to living arrangement. He’d only been gone for a few days, but he still worried about them.
“I understand putting family first,” he said. “I guess I always felt it was my responsibility to take care of my mom and sister. I was the only man in the house, know what I mean?”
“Even when you were little? Because you didn’t have your dad then?”
Colton wondered how his life would have been different if his father had been involved from the start. Uncle Tank had been great, a regular presence at the house, but it hadn’t been the same as having a full-time dad. His brothers had turned into great men, as far as Colton could tell, which meant their father must have had a good influence.
“It just seemed like the right thing to do. To take care of them, to protect them,” Colton said. “I don’t know, maybe it’s an instinct for men.”
“Not all men.” She shook her head, and a smile filled her face. “You’re pretty incredible, you know that? Helping to take care of your mother and sister, then becoming a firefighter, where you rescue people from burning buildings for a living? You’re like a hero.”
He cut his gaze away. The cozy restaurant suddenly seemed ten times smaller. In his head he could hear Willis and Foster, hear their shouts grow in pitch and volume as concern turned to worry, turned to panic. And Colton, trying so hard to get past the wall of burning timbers, trying to climb in there and grab a hand, a foot, anything. But then the ceiling came down in a shower of sparks and wood, and then the screams stopped—
“Colton?”
Rachel’s soft voice drew him back. He shifted in his seat and picked up the bread, swirling it in the sauce. “Sorry. My mind...wandered.”
“Okay.” She fiddled with her wineglass, and he could tell she knew he was keeping something from her.
But how could he tell her that he had watched two of his friends die? That the man she thought was a hero was still paying the price for what had happened, was still carrying the weight of his own guilt?
What he needed to do was change the subject, swing them back around to the fun conversation they’d been having earlier tonight. Because as much as he told himself he shouldn’t get any more involved with a woman he was probably never going to see again, Colton craved more of her smile, more of her voice, more of everything. More of her.
Tomorrow would take care of itself. For now he had tonight, and an intriguing, beautiful woman sitting across from him.
“You know, you still owe me the twenty-five-cent tour of Stone Gap,” he said as the waitress took their empty plates away. “And I think we should start at the Good Eatin’ Café, because I hear they have the best apple pie in the county, and all the Sea Shanty is offering tonight is cheesecake. I don’t know about you, but I’m a pie guy.”
She laughed. “They do, indeed. And the best pecan pie in the world. I’d eat it every day, if I could.”
That had him suddenly craving pie in the worst way. “Then let’s get out of here and go get some pie.”
She nodded. “I think that sounds like a great idea. Though I have to warn you, after that, there’s not a lot to see.”
His gaze raked over the woman before him, with her dancing green eyes and warm, welcoming smile. “I think there’s a lot worth seeing in this town.”
* * *
Rachel was trying really hard not to like Colton Barlow.
She had her life all mapped out, her days planned to the last minute, and falling for a guy like Colton made her want to ditch those plans. Even tonight she was ignoring the books for the store, and the orders she should be placing, to run around town in his rental car with the windows down and the breeze in her hair.
But it felt so good to be doing something so...relaxing. No bills to worry about paying, no sales to worry about increasing, nothing but just being in the car with a sexy man who was interested in her. She’d worry about tomorrow later. For now there was only Colton.
They stopped in at the Good Eatin’ Café first, where Viv rushed right over and seated them in a booth. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you, Rachel, and out with a handsome gentleman, too.”
Rachel flushed and decided the best course of action was to ignore Viv’s comment. “What kind of pies do you have tonight?”
“Apple, pecan and a strawberry rhubarb.”
Rachel glanced at Colton. He nodded. “How about a slice of each?” she said.
“Coming right up. Extra whipped cream?” Viv asked.
“Definitely,” Colton said.
When Viv was gone, Rachel crossed her hands on the table and smiled at Colton. “We had the same exact thought.”
“We both know a good pie, or rather pies, when we hear it.” He grinned.
Viv brought the pies a second later, along with two cups of decaf and a pair of forks. “Enjoy, kids.”
“Thank you, Viv.” Rachel picked up her fork, then cut off a piece of the pecan. “Here, taste this first, because it’s a pie to measure all others against, believe me.”
“If I was a gentleman, I’d insist you take the first bite, but...” He leaned forward and took the bite.
Rachel could hardly concentrate. There was a dollop of whipped cream on Colton’s lip, and she was dying to lean across the table and kiss it off. “You...you have a little...” She rose in her seat, closed the distance between them and instead of kissing it or licking it, she swiped the whipped cream off his lip with her finger.
Before she could sit down again, he grabbed her hand and gently licked the little bit of whipped cream off her finger. Her hormones sent up a loud cheer, and her gut tightened. “Thank you,” Colton said.
“You’re...welcome.” She could barely eat her slice of pie, because every time she glanced at the dessert, she thought about the whipped cream on Colton’s lip, and the sexy way he’d...
Stop, Rachel. Just don’t go there.
Too soon—or maybe not soon enough—they had finished the pie and were heading back out to his car.
She was going to concentrate on showing him around Stone Gap. Not the thought of climbing in her backseat with a canister of whipped cream—
No. That wasn’t a productive thought. At all.
“Now this isn’t going to be your ordinary tour,” she said. “We’re going to start with the haunted house. And if you’re still hungry later on, we can move on to some cookies from Betty’s Bakery and then possibly some beach time. There’s nothing like walking on the beach when it’s dark and all you have for light is the moon.”
“So, what’s the theme of the twenty-five-cent tour?”
“All you can see for twenty-five cents worth of gas.”
“That’s not going to get us far.”
“It’s a small town.” She grinned and pointed to the street ahead of them. “Take a left here then your first right.”
He did as she instructed, and a moment later they pulled in front of a dilapidated mansion. Once, it had been amazing—Rachel had seen photos of it in a book in the library—but those days were long past. The front of the house stood tall and erect, as if it was putting on a brave front against the powers of the ocean winds at the back. The white paint had grayed and peeled, the expansive wraparound porch leaned into the back of the house, collapsed onto itself. Most of the windows were broken, the shutters hanging askew, and the landscaping was so overgrown it almost blocked the first floor from view. �
�Rumor has it that Gareth Richardson killed his family in this house,” Rachel said, “and he still walks the floors at night, moaning his regrets.”
“Should we go inside?” Colton asked. “Go pay Gareth a visit?”
She laughed. “I don’t think it’s safe, but...”
Colton was already out of the car and coming around to her side. He opened her door and put out a hand. “You’re with me, remember? I’ll keep you safe.”
She slid her hand into his warm, firm grip. She wanted to ask if he would keep her heart safe, too, but it was way too early to ask or even think that. But as she looked up into his grin and felt the warmth of his touch on hers, Rachel realized she was already falling hard for the firefighter from Atlanta.
They picked their way through the overgrown yard, using the light from Colton’s phone as a guide, then he led her up the three stairs of the porch and nudged at the front door. It opened with a lonely creak, into a dark, yawning cavern of a house. A few dots of moonlight speckled the old wood floors.
“Already looks spooky,” Colton whispered.
“It does. Really spooky.” She gripped his arm. “Maybe I should hold on. In case, you know...the ghost comes out.”
“Definitely a good idea,” he said and drew her tight against his body.
The scent of his cologne—warm, spicy, dark—filled the space between them. She could feel his heart beneath her palm, imagine the ripples of his muscles under his shirt. She barely noticed the dark or the house or the spooky rooms they explored. She noticed only him, the feel of him and how that made her want Colton more with each passing second.
Her mind kept going back to his kiss. The way he had touched her cheek, made her feel inordinately special. It was exciting and heady and tempting. Maybe too tempting.
They stopped in the kitchen. A shaft of moonlight poured in through the broken kitchen window, illuminating scarred wooden floors and floral wallpaper hanging in sheets. The center of the ceiling bulged above them, as if it were about to open up at any moment.