The Night that Changed Everything

by Anne McAllister

  “Because loving Ben is no excuse to turn your back on life,” Mona went on as if Edie hadn’t spoken. “I loved your father with all my heart.” She stopped abruptly, and Edie was surprised to hear a break in her mother’s voice that had nothing to do with Mona’s legendary acting ability. “I loved him,” she said again, more quietly, but no less fervently.

  “I know that, Mom,” Edie said. “I’ve always known it.”

  But she was grateful for the words all the same. Mona so rarely stopped to look back that it was good to hear that reaffirmation. “But,” she said again, “this isn’t about Ben. Or Dad.”

  “Then what’s it about?” Except in her layered acting performances, Mona wasn’t one for subtlety.

  “It’s about Nick.”

  “What about Nick?”

  Indeed, what about Nick? “That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’ll call you back in the morning. My morning or your morning or something,” Edie qualified. “I’m tired now. I’ve got to sleep. And I’ve got to think.”

  “Try not to do both at the same time,” Mona said dryly.

  But she didn’t make any more comments—and she let the myriad work questions slide. All she said was, “If you need to talk, Edie …”

  “Thanks,” Edie said absently, already thinking. It wasn’t Mona she needed to talk to. Still. “Thanks, Mom,” she said now because for once the term seemed right.

  They called it a paradigm shift.

  When phenomena could not be explained by the laws of the world as one knew it, one had to rethink.

  That night Edie rethought.

  She lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and looked at the events of the past week through a lens created by a new piece of information: Nick was the one who had called her mother, not the other way around.

  Nick was the one who had proposed coming to see the house, to evaluate it, to see if it was worth renovating it.

  Why?

  Mona admitted having told him it existed. Edie knew that already. When they came back, she had handed Edie a piece of paper Nick had given here with the names of a couple of possible architects she might want to call to see if they’d be interested in the project.

  But instead he came himself.

  Why?

  Because he desperately wanted to renovate an old adobe ranch house?

  Hardly. Mona was right in scorning that notion. Owners of significant old buildings worldwide regularly attempted to hire Nick Savas. When she’d come home from Mont Chamion, despite her better judgment, which told her to forget him, Edie had looked him up on the internet instead. Nick Savas was a recognized, sought-after authority in architectural reconstruction and renovation. He could—and did—have his pick of projects.

  So why had he picked this one?

  If Mona had asked him, he might have considered it. There was, Edie knew, no discounting the pull of her mother’s star power. But since Mona hadn’t asked—and Edie trusted that she hadn’t—it made no sense.

  Unless Nick had another reason for coming.

  Her.

  The thought felt odd—daring—and came with the expectation of being slapped down for even venturing to voice it. After all, that was the unspoken hope she’d felt when he showed up at the door.

  And he’d shot it down with very nearly his first words.

  Why?

  Because she’d shown that hope. She’d indicated that she cared and could care even more, and Nick hadn’t wanted that. He wanted a physical relationship, and nothing else.

  But when she said no to that, he could have left. He could have said the adobe wasn’t worth saving. He could have said he didn’t have time. But he didn’t say that.

  He stayed. Which meant …

  Edie felt a renewed shiver of hope as she pushed that idea to its conclusion: whether he wanted to or not, Nick Savas cared—about her.

  He hadn’t stayed for the joy of working on a project he could easily have passed over. He hadn’t stayed for the red-hot sex they were having—because they weren’t having any.

  He’d stayed for her.

  It was about that point—at 3:12 in the morning, according to the bedside clock—that Edie realized she was grinning madly at the ceiling. She stopped grinning. Now was not the time to grin.

  Now was the time to think some more, to figure out what to do next—because if Nick really cared, it changed everything.

  Nick’s stomach was not happy.

  Neither was Nick, but that was beside the point.

  What was the point was that he was starving. He’d grabbed a bagel and some coffee at seven after a not particularly restful night spent wondering what the hell was going on between Edie and the man who’d brought her home, and it was now going on two in the afternoon, and he’d left his lunch at Mona’s.

  He wasn’t going back after it, either. If he did, Edie would doubtless think he’d done it on purpose so he could come back to check up on her. Or maybe she wasn’t even there. It was Saturday, after all. She probably took weekends off.

  She’d certainly taken Friday night off!

  Then he reminded himself for the hundredth time that what she did was her own business, damn it. Just like he’d told her mother. But he didn’t like Mr. Proprietary’s “I’m a friend of hers—and her husband’s.” As if that meant he had rights Nick didn’t have.

  Nick wished he were doing something more physical and demanding than setting tiles on the roof. Tearing out a wall sounded like a far more satisfying occupation.

  He pulled a bandanna from his pocket and wiped the sweat off his face, and was just putting another tile in place when a voice called out, “Hungry?”

  His head whipped around. For a moment he thought he was hearing things. His stomach growled as if in reply. And then he heard footsteps as well and looking around, he saw Edie and Roy coming down the hill through the eucalyptus.

  She was wearing canvas knee-length shorts and a bright green T-shirt, not the sort of casual, but professional, attire she wore during the workweek, so she must in fact have the day off. Her hair was pulled back and banded at the nape of her neck. She wore a floppy red straw sunhat on her head, and she was carrying a basket over her arm. When she reached the front yard she squinted up at him on the roof. “You forgot your lunch.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So I brought it.” She shrugged, smiling. “And mine, too.”

  Hers? Nick’s brows lifted, then his eyes narrowed.

  Edie didn’t move, just kept smiling, kept looking up at him. He didn’t move, either. There was something wrong with the picture. His brain was scrambling to figure out what it was. Last night she’d been spitting nails at him. And today she was …

  “Or maybe you’re not hungry,” she said when he stayed where he was. “Oh, well. You don’t mind if I eat here, do you?”

  And with that, she carried the basket up the plank he’d laid over the broken steps and disappeared into the house.

  If he’d been a weather vane on this roof, Nick figured he’d have been blown around about 180 degrees. He rubbed his head. It was hot and the sun was beating down. Maybe he had sunstroke. He gave his head a little shake, then picked up a tile again.

  His stomach growled.

  “Oh, hell,” he muttered. “All right.”

  It was all right, too. He expected either an apology for snarling and spitting at him last night or more snarling and spitting today. But he didn’t get either. He got little Miss Mary Sunshine.

  Cheerful, bright, tart, funny—not to mention as appealing as ever, Edie was once again the woman he’d spent that unforgettable night with in Mont Chamion.

  She’d brought his sandwiches and his apple. But she’d added a thermos of iced tea, a couple of bottles of cold beer and some potato salad. “I wasn’t sure what you brought to drink at lunch,” she said. “So I brought both. And I was feeling domestic this morning, so I made some salad.”

  She’d cleared off the kitchen table, where he’d laid hammers and rasps and a
crowbar, and had wiped it down with a damp cloth. She set it with paper plates and forks for the salad, and sat down as he came in, then gestured at the place opposite for him to take a seat.

  Somewhere amid wary, perplexed, bemused and intrigued, Nick sat.

  She told him she had talked to her mother. That was as close as she came to acknowledging their encounter last night.

  “She’s very enthusiastic about the renovation,” she told him brightly, and her own eyes were shining. “But since you talked to her, you obviously know that.”

  He and Mona hadn’t talked about the adobe at all, in fact. The only reason Mona had called had been to demand to know where Edie was. But that would have meant talking about how he’d come to be here in the first place, and Nick didn’t want to get into that again. So he simply nodded and washed a bite of his sandwich down with a long swallow of beer. He didn’t bring beer to work, but it was Saturday—and if Edie was going to bring it, well, he wouldn’t say no.

  “Are you working all day?” she asked.

  “You got a better idea?” He grinned, expecting her to get flustered.

  But she said, “I was thinking of going to the beach.”

  “With lover boy?” Nick bit out before he could stop himself.

  Edie blinked, looking momentarily confused, then said, “You mean Derek?” She shook her head. “No. I was going by myself. Unless you want to come.” She made the invitation offhandedly, then got up and fetched herself a glass of water from the sink.

  Nick hesitated. Then he nodded. “I wouldn’t mind. Got a bit to finish up here first. An hour?”

  “Perfect.” Edie’s smile flashed again as she got up and started gathering up the paper plates and silverware to carry out in the basket.

  Nick finished his apple, drained his bottle of beer, then headed outside to go up the ladder again. But before he got to the door, he turned back. “Thanks for lunch.” He paused, then had to ask, “What’s changed?”

  Edie finished putting the bowl of salad and the other things back into the basket before she looked up. “Changed?” Her tone was just a little too casual.

  So he pressed. “You were avoiding me. Now you’re not.”

  She smiled faintly. Her gaze warmed and under the heat of it, so did he. “No,” she allowed slowly, “I’m not.”

  “Because,” he prompted when she didn’t elaborate.

  Edie ran her tongue over her lips, then shrugged and met his gaze head-on. “Because I only have one life,” she said quietly.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THEY went to Leadbetter’s Beach where Edie used to go to when she was in high school.

  It was a city beach not far from the marina, a picture postcard sort of place with light surf, white sand and blue skies in one direction, and the Spanish architecture and red tile roofs of the city and hills of Santa Barbara in the other. She chose it because it was a place where she had good memories, but wasn’t where she habitually went with Ben.

  Nick enjoyed it, as she’d hoped he would. They swam, they bodysurfed, they walked on the beach. Edie hadn’t known if he was a “beach person” or not. There was so much she still had to learn about him. She was eager to know more.

  And she was glad that she had found the courage to do it. Glad that what Mona told her gave her a promise to build on. She could work with that.

  Thanks to Ben she knew how. He had done the same for her.

  After her painful unrequited love affair with Kyle, Edie had shied away from men, afraid to trust, scared of putting her heart on the line.

  She’d resisted Ben. “I don’t want to go out,” she told him more than once. “I don’t want to get involved.”

  Ben had just looked at her and smiled. Then he’d said, “Let’s go ride some waves,” or “Let’s go fly a kite.”

  Ben had been full of suggestions. But he only suggested. He never demanded. And in the face of such good-natured perseverance, Edie hadn’t been able to resist.

  They had done simple things together. They’d gone to the beach, went for bike rides, raked leaves, cooked meals.

  They were friends first.

  Perhaps that was why it had worked—because they had been friends since grade school. They’d been friends long before they were anything else. And that easy friendship had given Edie a chance to be with Ben in circumstances that, at first, didn’t feel like dates.

  “No expectations,” he had promised her solemnly. But then he’d grinned. “Which doesn’t mean I’m not hoping.”

  Edie understood. And the truth was, she felt something, too, something initially less heated and consuming than the sizzle she’d felt with Kyle, but still real. More real, if possible, because what she and Ben nourished together didn’t flare brightly, then scorch and die.

  The more time they were together, the stronger it grew.

  It was different with Nick, of course. He wasn’t Ben. They hadn’t known each other forever. They hadn’t been friends.

  Before everything else, they had been lovers.

  And from that very moment there had been something between them—a spark, a hum, a hint, a promise.

  She’d tried to ignore that promise, but it hadn’t gone away. And now she was no longer determined to resist it. On the contrary, she was making the choice Nick had told her was hers to make.

  Not whether or not to fall in love with him—that had already happened. But whether to run from it or to try to create a relationship from it—that was her choice. And she chose to stop running, to turn and hold out her arms.

  And Nick?

  Nick was where she’d been before Ben had brought her back to life. He was locked in the past with the pain of his fiancée’s death. He had turned his back on hope, on dreams, on possibilities.

  And yet, he felt something for her. She was sure of it. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have come.

  It was a very slim hope on which to begin to build a future.

  She should be afraid, Edie told herself. Risking your heart wasn’t for sissies. But she knew from loving Ben it was worth the cost.

  And if Nick didn’t know that, well, she’d just have to teach him.

  Nick didn’t know why Edie had changed her mind.

  But he was damned glad she had. Since she’d stopped going out of doors when he came in them, stopped being distantly polite when they talked and started coming around to see how things were going on the adobe restoration and actually stayed to talk about what she remembered about growing up there, the days got a whole lot brighter.

  And the nights? Well, the nights were everything he’d imagined.

  Nick hadn’t known what to expect about the nights—or rather what Edie intended to do about them. It didn’t take him long to find out.

  That very evening after dinner she put the last of the dishes in the dishwasher, then said, “I was thinking I might take a swim.”

  “Swim?” He’d been thinking about how to convince her to stay around, talk a bit longer, hoping her change of heart wouldn’t have her heading off right after dinner. And now she was suggesting a swim?

  She nodded and smiled an even more dazzling smile than the one she’d given him when she’d hooked her arm through his that night in Mont Chamion. “Join me?”

  She didn’t have to ask him twice.

  The night was clear and still warm though the sun still hung like a great orange ball above the city’s rooftops and the sea.

  Edie had gone back to her place to change, but as Nick headed toward the pool, she ran past him down the sloping lawn. “Can’t catch me,” she sang.

  Grinning, Nick watched her run. He had seen the look on her face well enough to recognize the promise. He didn’t hurry. There would be time.

  When he got there she was already churning through the water, doing laps. He settled himself on the side of the pool and dangled his feet over the edge as he watched her lithe form cutting through the cool turquoise water.

  Several laps done, she veered off course and swam over to look
up at him. “That’s not swimming,” she said.

  “I’m watching.” He smiled. “And conserving my energy.”

  She tossed her hair back out of her face, a smile touching her lips. “Think you’re going to need it?”

  “Hoping.”

  Their eyes met. Gazes locked for a brief moment.

  “Me, too,” Edie said quietly, and Nick felt his body go hard in an instant. Then quick as a flash Edie’s body bent. She ducked her head and dived beneath the water. A hand caught his ankle, gave a hard tug and pulled him in!

  By the time he sputtered to the surface, she was half a width of the pool away.

  Grinning, Nick swam after her. Again he didn’t hurry. The anticipation was part of the game.

  It was a game—and more than that, too. She was grinning as he caught her, laughing as he pulled her back against him, then turned her in his arms and set his mouth on hers. He meant to tease, to taste, to tempt. To play her game and raise the stakes a bit.

  But it had been so long since he had held her—really held her. His hands moved up her back, sliding over the wet silk of her skin to press her close. His tongue traced her lips, opened them, delved in. One kiss wasn’t enough. Nor two, nor three. Kisses would never be enough. He groaned.

  “You’re supposed to swim,” she said against his lips.

  He shook his head. “Can’t. I’m drowning.” In desire. In sensation. In need. In her. “Edie.” His hands moved down now to splay across her bottom and press her closer, let her feel how urgently he wanted her.

  Her legs twined around his, bringing him still closer, pressing them together. Her hands clutched his shoulders as her heels bumped the backs of his knees. His thumbs hooked the back of her bikini and began to draw it down, his fingers smoothing over the curve of her buttocks as he did so. Edie pulled back, shifted a little, letting go of him with first one leg and then the other, so he could slide the garment down until she could kick it away.

  Then his hands moved back up her legs, teased her inner thighs, brushed the soft folds at their apex, then stroked her there.

  It was Edie’s turn to groan, to wrap her legs around him and press her mouth to his, to devour him as hungrily as he was kissing her. But still it wasn’t enough. She squirmed against his touch. She pressed harder. His fingers slipped inside her and he felt her clench around them.