by Cheri Allan
Ruth waved her hand. “Just set that on the counter. They’re photos of Carter, my grandson.” She leaned forward. “I’m working up my nerve to look at them. I’m afraid they might be a little spicy.”
“Spicy?”
“He can be that way, you know, but it may work to our advantage.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s for one of our fundraisers. The Gifts for the Greater Good committee is raising money to fix up the food pantry and emergency shelter here in town. Oh, the roof had ice dams and there was all sorts of water damage. Anyway, James gave us an estimate on the work and when I brought it to the committee… Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed how handsome my grandsons are, but, I said to myself, ‘Ruth, who wouldn’t want to look on their handsome faces all year long?’”
Nonplussed, Kate felt heat rise up her throat. Was that a rhetorical question?
“So we decided to put together a calendar, and we’re calling it ‘Sweets of Sugar Falls!’ At least, that’s what Lydia wants to call it. I’m still not sure it sends the right message, though I admit it has a nice ring to it.
“Every month will be a new photo, see? One of our very own boys. Carter sent his photos over a couple days ago.” Ruth motioned at Kate. “Open it. It’ll be good to get a young lady’s opinion.”
Kate undid the envelope’s clasp and pulled out a glossy eight-by-ten. A bare-chested man in faded jeans leaned on a shovel, one muscular forearm swiping the sweat from his brow as he smiled cockily at the camera. Self-confident, good-looking and dripping with sexuality—a boy he was not. “Wow.”
“Well? Do you think it’ll sell calendars?”
Kate slid the photo back into the envelope and suppressed a smile. “Most definitely.”
Ruth beamed and nearly clapped her hands. “I’m so glad. I was a little nervous, to tell the truth. Carter can be a bit of a wild card sometimes.” Kate gathered her supplies. “Of course I’m not sure what we’ll do if we have more than twelve good entries. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. We’re still working out the kinks, I’m afraid.”
“You could always have people vote for their favorites.” At Ruth’s puzzled look, Kate continued. “If you had a website or social networking fan page, you could post the photos on-line for people to vote on. I did that for Spirit Week last year at the school I work for. The kids made school pride banners and then voted on their favorites. It really brought the kids together. Who knows, if you involve the community, it could build interest in the calendar.”
“And boost sales! Oh, that’s brilliant! We could announce the winners at the auction we’re holding over Labor Day weekend, too. That may be just what we need to bring us over the top of our fundraising goals.” Ruth grinned, the twinkle in her eyes taking decades off her face. “But who would do it? I wouldn’t know the first thing about setting something like that up.”
“I suppose I—”
“Oh, bless you! If you were willing to organize the entries and keep things respectable, it’d be such a help.”
Kate licked her lips. “You want me to make your beefcake calendar web page respectable?”
Ruth nodded vigorously. “We wouldn’t want it to appear unseemly.”
“Of course not.”
“It is for a worthy cause,” she added.
“Absolutely.”
Ruth rested a wrinkled hand on Kate’s arm, her voice soft and comforting. “Normally, I wouldn’t dream of imposing on you, what with your recent loss and all, but June was talking the other day about how worried she is about you. Maybe a little project like this will help take your mind off your troubles.”
Kate’s eyebrows shot up. Coordinating with dozens of local bachelors would take her mind off her troubles? Okay, well perhaps momentarily, but that’s probably what Pandora thought as she approached the box. How lovely! I wonder what I’ll find in here to amuse me?
“Um. I appreciate your thinking of my, um, troubles, but I don’t know. What if someone got the wrong idea? I’m not ready…”
“Oh, honey, they don’t have to know it’s you! In fact, now that I think about it, it’s probably best they don’t. They might try to sway you otherwise. Nothing worse than a contest that seems rigged. We want it all on the up and up, don’t we?”
“Of course. But—”
“We’ll worry about the details later.” Ruth patted her hand. “Will you at least think about it? Oh, it feels like fate that we had this talk today, doesn’t it?”
It was feeling a wee bit like manipulation, actually, but it’d be selfish to say no. She was staying in this woman’s cottage for free the entire summer! And, honestly, how much trouble would it be? Who knows, if she did a good job, it could be a resume builder. “Sure. I’ll think about it. It might be fun.”
Ruth beamed. “Good! Well, it looks like we’re done in here for a bit. Do you need help with the tables?”
“I’m all set.” Kate picked up her decorations and escaped through the patio door before she rashly committed to anything else. She had to do something about this impulsive streak she was developing.
Coordinating a beefcake calendar? Good grief.
Twenty minutes later, satisfied with her table decorations, Kate stepped off the deck. She bent to retie her shoe at the same moment someone rounded the corner of the house.
Kate peered through the daylilies. Jim. She watched as he stopped, kicked off his sneakers and closed his eyes for a moment, his bare feet sinking into the grass.
Kate’s pulse kicked up a notch. There was something about watching Jim enjoy one of life’s small pleasures that tugged at her.
She could feel it knotting in her stomach—a stab of jealousy or regret, she wasn’t sure which. When had she last given in to the temptation to curl her bare toes in cool summer grass? When had she lost touch with the tactile, sensual side of herself? She glanced down at her practical Keds, neatly if not stylishly encasing her feet. Oh God, maybe Randy was right. Maybe motherhood had made her less of a woman.
Kate turned to slink away at the same time Jim stepped forward and spotted her.
His eyes registered surprise. “I didn’t know you were out here.”
She stood up and turned awkwardly. So much for slinking. “I came to check on Liam.” She looked away, but her eyes were drawn to Jim’s toes again. There was something strangely intimate about seeing his bare feet in the grass.
Jim flashed a charming, lop-sided grin and wiggled his toes. “Feels good after being in my boots all week. You should try it.”
“Oh, I don’t think—”
“Why not?”
Good question. By Connecticut standards, the lawn needed mowing and some weed killer. But it was tempting to sink her toes into the slightly long blades of grass. Besides, it wasn’t a health violation. She was on a lake in rural New Hampshire, for cryin’ out loud.
And Jim was waiting. She sat on the deck steps and pulled off her sneakers, neatly tucking her white Peds into each. She stood up.
“You’ve got to close your eyes, or you can’t really feel it.”
She half-laughed, enormously self-conscious now. “I think I can feel it just f—”
“Close your eyes,” he insisted. As if he didn’t believe she would comply, he reached up and brushed a feather-light thumb over each of her lids.
Kate closed her eyes, trying to tell herself that the sudden, tingling awareness that had her skin humming and her ears tuning into the soft rasp of his breathing and the faint hum of a nearby bee were because her world had gone black, not because it had sprung to riotous life at his touch.
“Feels good doesn’t it,” he whispered somewhere near her left ear.
Kate’s body swayed involuntarily toward his voice. Good? Good didn’t begin to describe what she felt. Cool, slightly damp, blades of grass tickled her toes, but it was a distant sensation to the heat curling its way through her body in a way that grass had never before affected her.
“Mmm,” she said.
“Good.”
“I like your nail polish by the way.”
Kate’s eyes flew open. She looked at her feet. Purple glitter. Randy would’ve been horrified. “You don’t have to say that,” she said.
“I mean it. You’re a colorful woman.”
She flushed with pleasure. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time.”
“You hang around with a tough crowd then.”
“I’m trying to change that.”
“You should.” His hazel eyes swirled with the colors of the landscape, intense and mesmerizing. Kate swayed slightly toward them. Oh, my. Did he just move closer? She found herself staring into his eyes, lost in them, taking an unconscious step forward.
Shooting pain stabbed the ball of her foot, and she yelped and stumbled.
Jim’s hand snaked out to grab her arm, steadying her. “You okay?”
“My foot— I think I got stung!” She spun around, hopping on her right foot, pulling her left one up to look at it.
“Whoa. Steady.” Jim’s hands clasped each of her arms from behind, his grip firm but soothing. “Let me take a—Oof!”
Suddenly, they were on the ground, Jim sprawled on the grass beneath her, the soft rasp of denim abrading the backs of her thighs. Dear Lord, she was sitting in the man’s lap! “Ohmigod! I’m so sorry! I was—” She struggled to right herself and knocked them over again.
Jim’s arm clamped around her. “Jesus! Hold still. Watch your elbow.”
Kate stilled and choked out an embarrassed laugh. “I’m trying to sit up so I can look...”
Jim pushed them upright again, shifting Kate to his left thigh. He grabbed her foot before she could scurry away. “Let me look.”
“It’s okay, I can…”
He glanced up. “Handle it yourself? If you handle it any more, we’ll both end up in the ER. Just let me look.” His fingers closed over her foot, warm and firm, as he bent his head to look more closely. Kate’s face flamed. Not only was she sitting on his lap, leg twisted toward him, intertwined like they were testing some sort of Kama Sutra pose, she was thinking the words Kama Sutra.
“You’re not allergic, are you?” He was rubbing the pad of his thumb lightly over the bottom of her foot. Kate shook her head. “Aha! Yup. I found the stinger. Don’t move. I’ll get it.” He twisted, thrusting his hips toward her as he held her foot with one hand and fished for his wallet in a back pocket with the other. He flipped the wallet open and pulled a credit card out with his teeth.
Oh, Momma.
Kate caught her breath as he bent his head again to remove the stinger. She inhaled, the scents of sun and man making the world tilt and blood rush to parts of her body that had no business getting excited. She closed her eyes and concentrated on steady, consciousness-inducing breaths.
He let go of her foot. “All set.”
“Thanks,” she murmured.
She swallowed. The adrenaline was receding, replaced by the awkward knowledge that there was no graceful way to climb off the man’s lap—especially when she’d rather stay right where she was.
“Do you think you can stand now?” he finally asked.
No. “Yes! Yes. I think so. Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
He spoke the words softly, but their effect was electric. Awareness sizzled through her, trapping the breath in her lungs as his gaze fell heavy and warm on her lips. She fought the urge to wet them with the tip of her tongue.
He wouldn’t kiss her. She wasn’t reading him right. She must be mistaking the signs—if she could even remember them after all this time.
But then her eyes flew to his, because there was no mistaking the sensation of a man pulsing against her thigh.
Kate swallowed again and flattened her palm against his chest.
Oh God, she wanted to kiss him. Here. Now. In the damp grass, in the late afternoon shadows, she wanted to sink her fingers into his hair and taste this man’s lips. She wanted to be colorful inside and out. She wanted...
“...no hamburgers on the vegetarian side of the grill!”
A screen door slammed, and Kate shoved at Jim’s chest, falling gracelessly off his lap, as a group of his relatives rounded the corner of the house.
She was down on all fours, one leg pinned under Jim’s thigh, when Grace came to an abrupt halt, five others nearly plowing into her. Kate shimmied out and pushed herself upright off Jim’s shoulder. “He was just… I was…”
“No need to explain,” Grace said. “Women fall at Jim’s feet all the time.” She leaned closer. “We’ve told him to stop tripping them.”
Kate pushed the hair out of her face. “Yes, well, I think I took him down this time.”
“That would be something new.” This from a tall, dark-haired man Kate guessed was the eldest brother.
“Is no one hungry around here?” Another man pushed through the pack of gawkers and extended his hand, flashing a devilishly charming smile. “Hi. I’m Carter. You must be Kate. Sorry about my klutzy cousin knocking you down—”
“I didn’t knock anybody down.” Jim said as he stood up.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to cover for him.” Carter leaned closer to Kate to stage whisper, “He’s always been a little awkward around pretty women.”
“Shut up.” Jim said, swiping at the grass and dirt that clung to his jeans.
Carter laughed. “While Jimmy here regains his dignity, Kate, why don’t you and I head down to the grill. Grams said we should start dinner—”
“She’s not grilling with you.”
Carter cocked an eyebrow at Jim. “Maybe she wants to.”
“She doesn’t.”
“I really did hurt my foot…” Kate said.
“Sorry to hear that.” Carter glanced down then looked up again. He winked. “Nice toes.”
Just then, little Alexis Lamont ran up the path from the lake and tugged at Carter’s shirt. “Where you go? You promised me a piggy ride!”
“So I did! So I did! Well, duty calls.” Carter scooped up the giggling toddler and swung her over his shoulder like a potato sack.
Kate mumbled pleasantries as the rest of the group followed the laughing pair toward the lake.
Jim ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry about that.”
“About…?”
“Carter. He comes on a bit strong sometimes. He’s harmless. Just… annoying.”
Oh. Right. They were going to talk about his cousin, not the strange electric currents that nearly had them lip-locked in a tangled heap on the lawn. Nor, she supposed, were they going to talk about the tell-tale bulge near Jim’s zipper.
No, they were going to stand in the grass in their bare toes and pretend they didn’t want to jump each other’s bones like two horny teenagers.
Correction. Kate would pretend that. She couldn’t say what Jim was pretending, because he was already walking away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
____________________
“I’M WORRIED ABOUT RACHEL.”
Jim fought the urge to roll his eyes as Grace scrutinized the distance between the veggie burgers and hamburgers on the grill. “Rachel is fine,” he asserted, closing the lid so Grace would stop frowning. He didn’t mind grill duty, precisely, as it kept him conveniently away from Kate for a few minutes, but he’d forgotten how Grace hovered. He’d hoped for a few minutes by himself.
Grace sipped her diet cola and pursed her lips. “Haven’t you noticed how quiet she’s been lately?”
“We’ve seen her twice since Christmas. Hardly a statistically meaningful sampling.”
“Maybe they’re still having problems.”
“Rachel and Doug?” Jim choked on the words, the feel of them odd and foreign on his tongue. It was ludicrous, and yet even the thought made him feel edgy and unwell. Rachel and Doug had been in puppy love ever since senior year of high school. They’d married far too young and far too confidently for everyone’s comfort, but ten years later, he couldn’t imagine them as
anything other than together. “Did Rach say they were on the rocks?”
Grace looked as shocked and horrified as Jim felt. “No! Has Doug said that to you?”
“No!”
“Then why would you even suggest it?”
“Me?” Jim flipped open the grill and started poking at the burgers, looking around to be sure they weren’t overheard. “You’re the one that said it.”
“I never said they were having problems in their marriage! I said I think they’re still having problems getting pregnant!”
“What?”
Grace motioned for him to flip her veggie burger with the meat-free spatula then heaved an exasperated sigh. “Like you didn’t know they’ve been trying to get pregnant for ages?”
“In that tiny apartment?”
“I’m surprised Doug didn’t tell you they had him tested last fall.”
Jim closed his eyes. Way too much information. “Guys don’t talk about that stuff.”
“You’re talking about it with me.”
“Not willingly.” Jim looked around the yard. Where the hell were Ian and Alex?
“Anyway, they’ve verified he’s not shooting blanks, so they had Rachel tested and she’s normal, too.”
“If I say, ‘sometimes these things take time,’ can we end this conversation? Please?”
“This is your sister we’re talking about. Aren’t you at all concerned?”
“What am I supposed to do? Stage a fertility dance? We’re only speculating, anyway.”
“She was quiet at Easter, but today, she barely said hello before disappearing into the house. It kills me to see her so sad! Why do bad things have to happen to good people?”
Jim nodded. What was there to say?
“Do you think it’s too soon for them to consider adoption? I have a friend who just adopted a baby girl from Guatemala. I could give them her number—”
“Grace, leave her alone. If she wants our help, she’ll ask.”
“Sure. But just in case she doesn’t open up, see what you can get out of Doug.”
“And how—?”
“Ssh! He’s coming. Pretend we weren’t talking about them!” Grace pasted an unnaturally bright smile on her face as Doug closed the breezeway door. “I was just headed out back to, ah, help. So, I’ll be going now... in case you wanted to talk about anything, you know, guy stuff.”