He had on a pair of canvas turn-out fireman pants and red suspenders. That was it. In between was an expanse of gorgeously perfect pecs and six-pack abs, framed by big, broad shoulders and arms with that nice pump of bicep and hard, curving triceps. It was honestly just . . . what the hell had he been eating for the past nine years?
“Wow. Will,” she finally managed. “Uh, long time.” Brilliant opener, Clara. And here she thought nothing could be more mortifying than Pete dumping her in front of God and everyone while standing on line at Joe’s Grocery two days ago. Not true, as it turned out. Because it immediately became quite clear that the recognition did not go both ways. Of course, what with the family tragedy, he’d probably forgotten her five minutes after leaving campus. And that had been almost a full decade ago.
Then his handsome smile faltered as his gaze focused and he really looked at her. Instantly, his face split wide in a sexy smile that made her insides go a little flippy. Okay, a lot flippy.
“Parker? Is that really you?”
Clara couldn’t stem the flush of embarrassment that had already flooded her cheeks, and likely turned her neck into a lovely, splotchy mess as well. Only one person had ever called her Parker. It was silly, because he’d probably meant it in a buddy kind of way, but . . . well, it had always made her feel special. She tried to ignore the splotchy neck and did her best to channel her inner Lauren Bacall as she pasted on a smile and went for the throaty voice. “How many ever-so-graceful, redheaded bombshells do you know?” Her smile twisted wryly. “Emphasis, of course, on the bomb part.”
He laughed, and those dimples flickered to life. The tiny cleft made an appearance, too . . . which brought back so many memories, all of them so very good, that she found herself laughing as well. Which helped her to ignore the utterly adult reaction that other certain tingly parts of her body were having. “Nice save, by the way,” she added. “I owe you.”
Brown eyes twinkled. “Well, how about I collect the debt with a cup of coffee later. When this . . .” He gestured vaguely to the line behind her. “ . . . is over. It might be a little bit,” he added, looking sheepish. “It’s for charity.”
Yes, Will, she wanted to say, that was why all those women had crowded into narrow aisles, in an overheated bookstore, in the middle of an impending snowstorm. For charity.
And how on earth he managed to look all adorably humble, much less naïve, when he was sitting behind a table in a public bookstore in all of his half-naked, chiseled glory, signing calendars that featured . . . Her gaze drifted downward and her eyebrows climbed as she looked back at him. “You’re on the cover.”
“Yeah. No accounting for taste, right?”
She could have sworn his cheeks darkened, just a fraction.
“Hey, you gonna stand there all day?” came a disgruntled voice behind her. “Because we waited in line.”
Clara didn’t miss the emphasis on the last part, and she quickly straightened away from the table.
“I meant it, about the coffee. Would you wait around a bit?” he asked, looking and sounding quite sincere.
Clara reminded herself that she’d thought Pete Mancuso had sounded sweetly sincere, too. But she knew Will. And he’d never been anything but honest and open. His entire outward appearance might have undergone an almost unbelievable transformation, but those eyes, that voice . . . the way he looked at her . . . all of that made her want to believe that underneath his now Adonis-like frame, he was still the same tall, skinny, geeky kid who’d carried her book bag for her.
Acutely aware now of a multitude of gazes drilling her in the back, Clara clutched her purse and the cookbook she just now realized she was also carrying to her chest. “Yeah. I mean yes, sure. I’d—I’d like that.”
Two ladies behind her more or less bodily shoved her to the side. Will kept his hand on her arm until she’d moved around the side of the table, then sent her an apologetic look before turning back to his adoring fans. Clara was certain it was just her imagination, but his smile didn’t seem quite as sincere when he asked the pushy woman how she wanted her calendar signed. No dimples.
Bumping and wedging her way around another spinning display rack, she finally reached the edge of the store, intending to head to the cashier. Good thing she looked down at the cookbook in her hand. “Red Hot Meat.” She tried to suppress the laughter, but couldn’t, or the loud snort that followed, either. Her gaze shifted immediately to the back of the room, and somehow—because her karma was like that—the seas parted and Will looked right at her. And grinned.
Suddenly she didn’t feel so awkward, or dorky. Okay, so that wasn’t at all true. Her neck splotches now reached all the way down the front of her chest and probably across her entire torso. But she found that it didn’t matter as much.
Old friends, she reminded herself as she fumbled the cookbook back on the shelf. That’s all they were. She was giving up on romance. At least through the holidays. And, after that, she was just going to date men for sex. The sex part she could manage. She had needs, after all. It was just the relationship part she sucked at. And it had been her experience that men didn’t really want a relationship with her anyway. She should have figured out the sex solution earlier. Could have saved herself a lot of trouble, not to mention public humiliation.
Right now, however, there would be no sex, either. She had cookies to bake. Columns to write. A career to save.
Her gaze drifted to the back of the store again. “And that’s one fireman who won’t—can’t—be on your speed dial.”
Chapter 2
Will pushed open the door of the twenty-four hour coffee shop conveniently located two doors down from the bookstore, and gestured for Parker—Clara—to go in ahead of him. “You know, if you’d given me a head’s up that you were coming, I’d have made sure you got a calendar.” His smile deepened when she glanced at him. “No need for the grand entrance.”
“Yes, well, embarrassing myself in local retail establishments seems to be a trend with me this week,” she said, brushing the snow off her sleeves as she turned to look at him. Which had the unfortunate effect of fluffing a frosty pile of flakes right into his eyes. “Oh! Sorry.”
He laughed and wiped his hand down his face. “That’s okay. The bookstore was pretty warm with all those people. I could use a little cooling off. So, what other events have you been crashing this week?”
He’d forgotten how easily she blushed . . . and how cute she was when she tried to brazen it out.
“Actually, I didn’t know about the signing. I came to pick up a cookbook.” She lifted the bag in her hands, then tried to pull it away when he reached for it.
He just laughed and slipped it from her fingers before she clobbered an unsuspecting patron with it. “So, you’ve learned to cook then?”
She was even cuter when the blush crept down to her neck, making her all flustered and nervous. The Parker he remembered wasn’t at all shy or self-conscious, at least she hadn’t been with him. He’d noticed it often enough when they were in groups of people, though. Something about the way she’d so readily opened up to him, laughed with him, shared her thoughts, had always made him feel good, confident, strong. Things he hadn’t been so sure of back then. And, perhaps, not always these days, either. He knew how much he’d missed that—missed her—nine years ago, when life had forced a new path on him. Seeing her hazel-green eyes light up and her lips twist in that self-deprecating way she had made him realize how much he still missed it now.
“What do you know about my cooking prowess or lack thereof?” she asked, still trying to bluff her way out.
He stepped behind her and helped slide off her coat. He’d forgotten how nice it could be, standing close to a woman near his own height. He recalled the countless times he’d wanted to step in closer, lean in, kiss the side of her neck, wondering what it would taste like, and if she’d drop her head back on his shoulder, and invite him to discover even more.
In your dreams, maybe. Back then, he’d
had less than no game with the opposite sex. He was too tall, too skinny, too quiet, without a single sports uniform hanging in his locker. The lack of which had also been a deep disappointment to his basketball-playing father, who’d looked forward to sharing that bonding experience with his only son. But it just hadn’t been Will’s thing. And his father hadn’t been all that excited to talk with him about things like science or technology, either. His mom had been too busy dealing with her own issues, as well as his four younger sisters, to really be there for him, though he knew she would have if she’d been able.
So, lacking that home-based foundation of confidence, he’d always felt a bit out of step with his peer group. Not that the opposite sex hadn’t come on to him anyway from time to time. He just never expected it, always got so tongue-tied, always blew it. But not with Parker. Never with Parker. Which was why he’d never risked pushing it. She’d become too important to him to blow it by making some dork move.
But he wasn’t an inexperienced college freshman now. And she smelled sweet and inviting. Her hair, damp from the snow, clung to her neck, and he had an almost overwhelming urge to lean in, nudge it aside, and finally find out the answer to that burning question. She was no college freshman now, either. Would she move back against him? Invite him in? Turn into his arms and offer up more than a taste of her slim neck? He wasn’t sure if it was the close proximity, the bombardment of unexpected memories, or the fact that he hadn’t eaten anything since the bagel he’d had for breakfast . . . but his body surged to life. And he didn’t do a damn thing to stop it from happening.
“Well,” he said, still standing close behind her, neither of them taking their seats. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten that little incident with the microwave and exploding popcorn bag.”
“As I recall, I explained how we didn’t have a microwave in my house growing up. How was I supposed to know you couldn’t put that aluminum popcorn shaker thing in there?” She turned around, but rather than step back to give her space, he stayed where he was, which crowded her between the edge of the table . . . and him. Her pupils expanded as she held his gaze. His smile grew as his gaze drifted down to her mouth.
He’d also forgotten her habit of biting the corner of her bottom lip when she was nervous. Mostly because he’d never been the one to make her nervous. He wished he’d known back then that making a girl a little nervous wasn’t always a bad thing.
Without taking his gaze from hers, he hung her coat on the peg by the booth next to them, and let his gear bag slide from his shoulder to the bench seat. He was a heartbeat away from tossing the bag with the cookbook in it to the table too, and pulling her into his arms, but something in the way her gaze flickered away from his held him in place at the last second. It was insane, anyway, to think they could not only just pick up where they’d left off, but that they’d move immediately forward into something they’d never been to each other. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to, from wanting her.
He slid the book out of the store bag instead, and broke eye contact to look at the title. “Cookie Baking for Children,” he read aloud, then immediately took a respectful step back. It had been almost ten years. And he was an idiot. “A mommy-daughter project?” he asked, surprised by the thick note in his voice, and even more by just how disappointing it was to realize she was married, with kids. Of course she is, dumbass! “Or son,” he quickly added, then forged a smile. “If my mom had taught me how to bake as a kid, maybe I would have a menu that included more than grilled cheese sandwiches and spaghetti.”
“Didn’t your sisters teach you? I figured with the size of your family, you’d have learned by osmosis.”
It didn’t escape him that she hadn’t answered the question. “Five women in our tiny kitchen? I did my best to be just about anywhere else when that was going on.”
She smiled at that, and quickly snatched the book back. “It’s a gift,” she said, only she looked away as she said it.
Clearly not the truth, then. But why hedge? “So, not for you and your kids.”
“I don’t have any kids.”
He tried not to be obvious with his sigh of relief. Especially when he wasn’t even sure why it mattered in the first place. Sure, she’d been important to him once, very much so, but that had been a long, long time ago.
“How about you?” she asked, and he noticed her gaze had dropped to his hands.
“No kids. Not yet, anyway.” He couldn’t help it, he glanced at her hands, too. No ring. Which was when he quickly added, “Not married, either.”
She laughed. “Not for lack of offers, I’m guessing.”
He frowned, raised one eyebrow. “Why would you say that?”
“What, you don’t have any mirrors where you live?” She laughed as he felt his own face and neck warm up a little. “I mean, come on, you were just sitting next door, half naked, signing hundreds of photos of yourself. You’ve really, uh . . . blossomed since I last saw you. Not that you weren’t good-looking back in college,” she hurried to add, looking suddenly embarrassed. “I mean, we were just friends, I know, but, I noticed. Then. And now. It was kind of hard not to, what with your shirt off and all those muscles, I mean . . . look at you. And . . . oh boy.” She started to turn away, but he put his hand on her arm.
“I noticed you, too.” The words were out before he’d had a chance to figure out what he should be saying, or not saying. But, now that they were, he had to admit, he was curious about her response. “Then . . . and now.”
To his surprise, she laughed, making her eyes spark more green than brown, even as her fair skin stayed delightfully pink. “What, that I was an ungainly, awkward giraffe? Hard not to, I know.” Her smile turned wry. “Only in my case, given my ever-so-graceful entrance, clearly I didn’t grow out of it.”
He reached up and pushed a damp, dark red curl from her forehead. He’d also forgotten how nice it was to look into a woman’s eyes when they were almost level with his own. “That’s not what I remember. To me, you were like this wonderful, exotic creature. So tall, with hair the most brilliant color, a laugh that could light up a room—or me, anyway—and the most amazing ability to just come out and say whatever was on your mind. I was both intimidated by you and inspired.”
Her mouth dropped open, stunned surprise clear in her eyes . . . but his gaze had drifted to, and stayed on her mouth. “I used to wonder,” he said, hearing the husky note in his own voice. “God, you have no idea how much time I spent wondering what it would be like to kiss you.”
He saw her throat work, watched as her lips parted again, heard the soft intake of breath. “Why . . . uh . . . why didn’t you?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
He stroked a finger along the side of her face and felt an almost palpable sizzle of awareness that leapt from his fingertip straight to his pulse. “You were the best friend I’d ever had . . . the only girl I’d ever known that way. I had buddies back home, good ones, but you were . . . we were really friends. True friends. I didn’t want to mess that up. And I probably would have. I wasn’t all that confident back then. I was the awkward one.”
“I never saw that.”
“Because I wasn’t when I was with you. I was just . . . myself.”
“Me, too,” she said, sounding in utter awe that he might have felt the same. “I never felt stupid or dorky with you. I mean, I was anyway, but somehow, when I was with you, well, okay, it was still embarrassing, but it didn’t cripple me socially like it usually did. It was funny and just . . . well, me. And that was okay.”
“It was totally okay.” His lips curved. “You made me feel all manly and capable. I mean, if you’d been a total Amazon warrior, I’d have never been able to string two words together around you. I liked that you were both goddess and dork. It made you more real.”
“Dork, for sure. But goddess?” Her lips quirked. “Now I know you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
He shook his head. “There’s only one Parker.”
He
r smile warmed, as did her eyes. “I forgot how much I liked it that you called me Parker. Why did you?”
“To keep the boundaries established, so you’d know I just wanted to be friends, buddies. Give me a shot, anyway.” Now his grin turned self-deprecating. “Epic failure, just so you know. You were a friend, a buddy even, but I was never, not for one second, anything but completely and fully aware that you were all girl.” He let his hand drop away. “Probably a good thing I had to leave school the end of our first year. I’m sure I’d have eventually screwed it all up anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her gaze deepening as she looked at him. “About your dad. I—I asked, after you left.”
“I should have told you, should have contacted you, said good-bye at least,” he said. “They didn’t tell me—I didn’t know, until I got home. And then it was . . . well, it was overwhelming, really. In more ways than I’d ever had to deal with before. I knew immediately that college wasn’t going to be in the cards for me after all and so I just, well, I shut it all out. It was the only way I could deal with everything. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shut you out along with everything else.”
“No, no. Don’t be. I mean, I was worried, and I felt so bad. About all of it. But I completely understood. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for you.”
“You didn’t have a father, either. Or a mother.”
“But I don’t remember my parents. I was too young when they died. You can’t mourn what you never had. I thought about you losing your dad, and tried to imagine what it would be like to suddenly lose my grandmother. And I didn’t have siblings and everything else you had to deal with.”
“Is your grandmother—”
“She passed three years ago, but it wasn’t sudden, and, in the end, it was a blessing for her. Hard, and sad, but still, nothing like what you went through. My life wasn’t utterly changed because of it. Anyway, I didn’t mean to bring up a painful subject. I was just, well, I’m sorry, that’s all.”
The Sugar Cookie Sweetheart Swap Page 4