Cal recalled that shy and quiet had also been on her former fiancé’s list of flaws. But that seemed like so much bunk to Cal, too. She wasn’t shy and quiet once a person got to know her. What had she said that guy had been drawn to? Loud, flashy, brash and brassy?
Cal couldn’t fathom the appeal in that. To him those seemed like just the flaws he’d had his fill of. He was glad none of them showed up in Abby. Just as glad as he was that she had pride. And dignity. And self-possession. That she had that substance and respectability that had drawn him to her in the first place. If those things made her seem shy or quiet, then okay. Fine. There wasn’t anything about them to find fault in.
What else had Snodgrass called her? Steady. Provincial. Predictable.
Cal thought about all of that, too.
To him steady meant he could trust her. After knowing too many women he couldn’t trust as far as he could see them, that was another thing he considered only an attribute.
And what about provincial?
So she was a country girl. Great! To Cal that was like swimming in a clear pond rather than in a murky pool. He couldn’t think of anything that was wrong with that. Not a damn thing.
And predictable?
Sure, she lived an ordinary life in a small town where she’d grown up. And yeah, she kept a schedule to work by. Dressed pretty conservatively...on the outside anyway. But predictable?
How predictable had she been when they’d met in that bar? Or when she’d indulged in that fantasy in the tub in the hardware store? Or when she’d sneaked out with him to watch the sunrise? Or on the football field?
Nah, he wouldn’t call her predictable. Not when she could surprise him with things like the sexiest, laciest, sheerest underwear in the world hidden beneath a denim dress.
But apparently that other guy hadn’t looked beyond the surface. He hadn’t bothered to pull back the curtain a little and peek behind it. Because when Cal did, he was never too sure if he was going to find the good girl or a simmering spice of a woman.
For my money I think you just missed out, pal, he thought. You should have pulled back the curtain a little and taken that peek behind it.
But Cal didn’t want to miss out on anything. Not on a single minute with Abby. He wanted to be able to keep on peeking behind that curtain for as long as he lived.
That thought gave him pause.
Something was going on with him that he didn’t quite understand. Something that flooded through him at that moment and left him trying to analyze what it was.
It wasn’t mere infatuation. He’d felt infatuation with other women, and this was more than that. He’d experienced schoolboy crushes, and this was definitely more than that. He’d gone through plenty of lust. And lots of like—because he truly did like women. But none of it compared to what he felt for Abby.
This was a deep, all-consuming passion that seemed to saturate every inch of him. That made him hungry for her again within minutes of being satisfied. That made him incapable of thinking about anything but her every time they were apart. That made him so driven to be with her that he couldn’t concentrate on anything but plans for how to accomplish it. That made him wonder how he could ever again sleep without her here in his bed, in his arms...
So what the hell did it all mean? he asked himself.
He looked down at Abby’s head resting on his chest. The rich mahogany curls of her hair spread out against his skin. Her long, thick eyelashes shadowing high cheekbones. Her pale, pale lips parted just slightly. And he was filled with a rush of something rich and warm. Something he’d never felt before.
Was it love? he asked himself, bowled over by the feeling and by what it might mean.
Was it possible that he’d fallen in love with Abby?
He took a deep breath and watched her beautiful face ride up and down with the rise and fall of his chest.
Hell, a person would think he was a greenhorn when it came to women—that was how het up he felt at that moment.
Het up and confused.
And none too sure what he was going to do about any of it.
CERTAINLY ABBY WAS no stranger to early-morning hours and could ordinarily face them rested and ready to take on the day. But today was no ordinary day. Not when strong male arms tightened around her, when warm lips kissed the top of her head, when Cal’s deep voice softly called her name to nudge her out of sleep. Not when she’d spent a long, incredible night of lovemaking with him. She was not ready to wake up.
She groaned her complaint, snuggled against the exquisite comfort of his big body and drifted back under the wonderfully heavy weight of sex-induced exhaustion.
“Abby... It’s mornin’....” Cal called softly into her hair, running a smooth palm up and down her bare arm.
That was all it took to remind her—and her body—of the delights the man could bestow. And sleep suddenly lost its allure.
This time her wiggling against him had nothing to do with getting comfortable to nod off again. She raised the leg she had slung over his thighs to a slightly higher level and rubbed a small circle around his nipple with her cheek, sneaking a kiss to the ridge of rib just below.
“I’ll take that as a sign that you’re awake,” he said with a rumble of a chuckle.
“What time is it?” she asked between more kisses of his broad chest.
“A quarter to seven.”
“Mmm. I don’t have to be at the bakery for an hour yet.”
“I know. It gives us a little time to—”
She’d kissed her way up to his mouth by then and ended his sentence prematurely by meeting his lips with hers to let him know that no more need be said. She was willing. After all, during the night he’d awakened her to joys of lovemaking that she’d never known before, and she had no qualms about having just one more taste of it before leaving him this morning.
“You’re not making this easy,” he said when she abandoned his mouth to trace his stubbly chin with the tip of her tongue.
“I thought I was making it hard,” she joked in return, raising her leg higher still to rest over the object of her intentions.
Cal reached a hand to her thigh to hold it more firmly against himself as he flexed that long, steely thickness and took his turn at groaning.
Abby’s nipples turned instantly into two tiny, sensitive knots, straining for the touch they’d come to know so well and making her arch her back so they could press more insistently into his side.
But rather than doing any of the things she thought he might do from there—any of the things he’d done before, the things she wanted him to do—he let go of her leg, jammed his hand through his hair and said, “We need to talk.”
There was an ominous undertone to his voice, and she stopped short, dropped her knee, quit kissing his shoulder and opened her eyes to the light of day. In more ways than one.
Cal Ketchum was not a one-woman man—that thought flashed through her mind like a neon road sign. They’d just had a terrific—an incredibly terrific—night of lovemaking. But she’d gone into it knowing it wasn’t likely to be more than that. Knowing that she was only indulging in a moment’s rapture—and that that moment’s rapture was probably going to be all she was ever going to have with him.
And this, she thought, is where he lets me know the score.
She ignored the cold, clammy fist of dread that tightened around her stomach, summoned every ounce of courage she had and swore to herself that she was not going to let him see how really provincial she was by waiting around to be told their night of lovemaking, their few days of seeing each other, had come to its inevitable end.
“You know what?” she said in a hurry. “I just remembered that I have another special order due out to-day and I should have been at the bakery an hour ago.”
“A few more minutes won’t hurt—”
“Oh, but it will.” In fact it would hurt her a lot to hear him tell her he’d had fun but that was all it had been for him.
Abby bolted o
ut of his arms, out of bed, saying, “No kidding. I need you to take me home right now!” And off she went at a jog down the stairs to snatch up her discarded clothing to take with her into the bathroom.
She was only halfway dressed when the sound of Cal’s voice came from just outside the door. “I had something important to talk to you about.”
“Not as important as this order. It could make or break the Ladies’ League luncheon, and I gave my word I wouldn’t let them down.” She pulled on her dress and buttoned it as quickly as shaking fingers could manage, slipping her feet into her shoes at the same time. Then she threw open the door, finding him leaning one shoulder against the jamb, his arms crossed over his bare chest, a pair of jeans pulled on, zipped but not fastened at the waistband.
“Honest. I’m in a terrible hurry,” she said. “Can we just go?”
He frowned down at her, his brows drawn so close together that they met over the bridge of his nose. “When can we talk?”
“Oh, you know, there’ll be time,” she said as breezily as if she were well accustomed to leaving a man’s bed without a backward glance or a single expectation. Then she made a beeline out the front door and got into his car.
Cal didn’t follow her immediately. In fact he kept her waiting there for what seemed like an eternity to Abby. Long enough, at least, for him to put on a shirt and the cowboy boots he’d worn the night before.
And when he finally got into the car behind the wheel, his chiseled features were marred by deep lines that made him look troubled.
She didn’t explore it, though. She was too busy keeping up a ridiculous monologue to expand her lie about why she had to rush home, trying at the same time to hide what was really going through her mind—that deep down she was as provincial as she could possibly be and that, after a night like the one they’d spent together, a night during which she’d lost her heart to him, it was killing her not to have any hope for the future.
And then her house came into sight, and he pulled up to the curb in front of it and stopped the car.
“Thanks,” she said like a ponytailed high-school girl being dropped off from a sock hop.
And before Cal could so much as answer with a You’re welcome, she opened the door, got out and nearly ran for the house.
All the while trying not to notice the part of her that was imagining him following her inside to tell her he’d turned over a new leaf and was ready to be a one-woman man after all.
8
IT WASN’T UNTIL almost midnight Sunday night that Emily and Bree got fed up with Abby.
She hadn’t been able to sleep. Again. In fact she hadn’t been able to sleep since Cal had dropped her off Thursday morning. She knew her nocturnal wandering around the house had bothered her sisters, so tonight she was sitting quietly drinking hot milk in hopes that would eventually help her sleep and not disturb Emily or Bree.
Apparently it didn’t matter because there they were, padding into the kitchen in their nightgowns, scowling at her anyway.
“I thought you guys were in bed,” she said as each of them slid into a different side of the breakfast nook’s bench seat, blocking her with her back against the wall and the only possible escape to crawl under the table.
“We’re sick of worrying about you and not knowing what it is that has you upset,” Bree said without preamble.
“You aren’t eating. You aren’t sleeping,” Emily added.
“And you aren’t talking. Except to bite off our heads whenever we ask what’s wrong.”
“Or tell you Cal Ketchum called or came looking for you—again.”
“So bite our heads off if you want to, but we’re not leaving until you fill us in.”
Abby briefly considered denying for the hundredth time that anything was wrong. But only briefly. She was miserable and maybe it would help to talk about it.
With that in mind, she told her sisters about the night she’d spent with Cal and how she’d been avoiding him so as not to have to be told it was nothing more than fun and games for him.
“But you don’t know for sure that that’s what he wants to talk about,” Bree said when Abby had finished.
“What else could it be? He told me himself that he’s not a one-woman man. And I’m certainly not the person who’s going to change that.”
“Why not?” Emily asked.
Abby rolled her eyes but before she could say anything, Bree answered the question.
“Because Bill Snot-grass trounced on her confidence so completely that she can’t believe she can attract—let alone keep—a man. Any man, but especially one who’s as big a hunk as Cal Ketchum.”
“She’s right, isn’t she?” Emily said to Abby. “Your self-image, or self-esteem or whatever you want to call it, has just bottomed out. Even worse than we realized before.”
“Yeah, and why?” Bree continued. “Because Bill Snot-grass laid all the blame for nixing your wedding on you rather than owning up to his own character flaws and the affair he was having. You weren’t at fault. He was. But he was so spineless he attacked you.”
“And you believed it all,” Emily went on. “Hook, line and sinker. That’s the worst part of it. And now, instead of Cal’s attentions boosting you back up where you belong, here you are, letting Bill’s criticisms lock you in a closet rather than even chance hearing what Cal has to say.”
“Just forget all the garbage Bill unloaded on you and hear Cal out,” Bree advised. “Besides, even the worst would be better than what you’ve been doing—hiding from him. If all he wants to do is let you know where he stands, well, then at least you’ll end up knowing where he stands.”
Apparently her sisters were satisfied that they’d solved her problems because they both slid out of the breakfast nook the way they’d slid into it.
“And if I were you,” Bree said as they headed out of the kitchen, “I’d go over to his place and see what he has to say before missing another night’s sleep.”
Abby watched them go, thinking about all they’d said. She didn’t know what Cal wanted to talk about. She’d just assumed he intended to make it clear that what they’d shared was nothing more than a good time that had reached its conclusion.
But if that was the case, why did he keep calling and coming around to say it? Why hadn’t he just accepted that she was dodging him and taken it for granted that that meant she’d had her fill, too?
Her sisters were right; she’d never know unless she heard him out. She just didn’t know if she could take another rejection, this one from someone who had touched her more deeply even than Bill Snodgrass had.
But what if Cal wasn’t going to reject her? a little voice in the back of her mind asked.
She was afraid to even entertain that thought. Afraid to get her hopes up.
On the other hand, just the thought of getting to see him again, getting to hear his voice, was almost enough to risk being rejected....
Should she go to him, give him the chance to say whatever it was he wanted to say? she asked herself.
Maybe her sisters were right, too, that even if the worst happened, at least she could get it over with. At least once she knew what he had on his mind, she could stop jumping at every ring of the phone or doorbell or bell above the bakery door and running for cover.
So do it. Get it over and done with, she silently advised herself.
And the sooner the better.
She was still dressed in the blue jeans and plain pink polo shirt she’d had on all day, so she didn’t even bother to go upstairs. She just grabbed her keys and went out to her car.
But standing with the driver’s door open, she got cold feet.
What if he rejected her as harshly as Bill had?
“Go for it, Ab,” Emily called from an upstairs window, like an encouraging guardian angel.
It gave Abby enough impetus to get her into the car, to start the engine, to back out of the driveway and hit the gas.
“It’ll be okay. You can do this. It’ll be okay.
You can do this,” she chanted the whole way out of town.
But when she pulled up the driveway to Cal’s house, she almost lost her nerve.
There were lights on in nearly every window on the lower level and so many cars and trucks out front that it looked as if he was having a party.
Then she remembered that he’d said his brothers and sister were all due in to see the place, and that helped. But only a little.
Even if his company was his family, they were still strangers to her. Did she really want to do this in front of them?
She didn’t.
But she also didn’t want to turn back now. She wanted the air cleared. To get the burden of wondering, of worrying, off her back.
And she also wanted to see him just one more time, even if it was to hear that their night together hadn’t meant the same thing to him that it had to her. Maybe then she could put it behind her once and for all....
That was when it occurred to her that if the light was on in Cal’s room, he might be up there. And if she could get to the window the way he’d gotten to hers before dawn Tuesday morning, then maybe she could see him without having to go through the house or his family to do it.
Or even if he wasn’t in his room now, maybe she could wait for him there....
She parked her car behind the others, got out and tiptoed around the side of the house—although she didn’t know why she was tiptoeing because no one was likely to hear her footsteps anyway.
Still, she felt inclined to furtiveness and kept to her toes, all the while training her eyes on the house.
And it was a full house. She counted four big, burly, good-looking men in three different windows—one of them shirtless and apparently headed for bed if the yawn he stretched through was any indication. Two of them were playing cards, and another was talking to a woman who hit him playfully with a magazine, apparently over something he’d said.
The Ketchums.
Even if she hadn’t known in advance that that’s who they were, she would have guessed because they all shared some feature or another. And each one was as terrific looking as the next. Four gorgeous men and their sister, who would make male jaws drop—wouldn’t the singles of Clangton be glad if Cal could get them all to stay?
Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch Page 15