by Cindy Miles
“Yeah, whatever, Mattinski,” she teased. “I saw.” She put the chair back and he watched as she inspected all of the other milk-glass fixtures. “I can’t believe they all have mer-scenes etched into the glass,” she said, mostly to herself. She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled so big her teeth showed. “It’s so stinkin’ perfect.”
Matt didn’t know what to say to that. He supposed if she liked mermaids and such carved into her light fixtures, then yeah, it probably was perfect. He had remembered their pretending to be merfolk as kids. Definitely remembered his faithful seahorse steed, Jack. At the time he’d thought nothing of it. It was a game. Fun stuff. Now it seemed corny as hell. If his brothers—or God forbid, Jep—ever found out about it, well, the jabbing would be slow, merciless, beyond painful. Torturous.
So he just didn’t fess up to remembering.
“I ordered all the lumber from your list last night.” Emily finished going over the last fixture and came to stand before him. “And new appliances, for the café and the house.”
With eyes that never missed a thing, she looked over the dining area, and when her head moved, that big, messy braid dragged over her shoulder. “Big washbasin and faucet, dishwasher, fridge and chest freezer. And an industrial-sized upright mixer. Everything will be delivered next week, with the café lumber being delivered here, of course.”
Matt studied her, the determination of her set jaw, the spark of excitement and challenge in her eyes. He’d always liked that about Emily. “Next week’s good. I’ll be here.”
“I also ordered some appliances for the house,” she added. “That stove is priceless in my heart, but the temperature is way off and two of the burners are broken.”
Matt nodded. He absently wondered what it’d take—besides being an old stove—to be priceless in Emily’s heart. She loved old things; old music, old people. Something about days gone by appealed to her. He couldn’t help but wonder why. “So what are you going to do with it?”
She began slowly walking through the dining area, and he couldn’t help but follow her movements with his gaze. “I don’t know yet,” she began. Her long legs moved her around the chairs and tables. “I’ll figure out something great. My mom used it for as long as I can remember.”
“I know.”
She stopped, staring at the rafters, from one corner of the café dining area to the other. “What now?” Matt asked.
“I have a superbly phenomenal idea,” she said. “Come on.” Without hesitation, she headed for the door.
Matt just stood there.
At the front, Emily turned. “Well, come on, Matt. You’re my employee, right? I need your help.” She cocked her head. “Unless you have something else to do today?”
Jep, Owen and Nathan were all out on the trawler. The lumber wouldn’t be available until next week. He could probably find some things to do but what the hell. He had nowhere else to be. “Your Jeep’s finished.”
“Oh! That’s fantastic! Did you drive it here?” she asked.
He gave a nod. What was she up to?
“Okay. We’ll leave it parked out back.” She grasped the door handle and looked over her shoulder at him. “Why aren’t your feet moving? Come on!”
With a reserved sigh, Matt shoved his hands into his pockets and strode from the café. Behind him, Emily locked the doors and all but danced off the veranda. Her excitement did something to him. Something he couldn’t define, really. Probably best if he never did.
“Want me to drive?” he asked. He knew Jep’s truck could be tricky.
“No way,” she said, and hopped excitedly into the driver’s seat. Leaning over, she unlocked his door and patted the bench seat. “This thing is too fun to drive.”
Climbing in, Matt settled into the old leather and simply shook his head. “Where are we going?”
Emily started the truck, grinding the gears as she shifted into First. “Oops,” she gasped, then laughed and looked at him. “Don’t tell Jep I did that.”
Matt hid a smile with his hand and looked out the window. “Where?”
She shifted again and backed out of the café parking lot. “Caper’s Inlet.”
With a quick look he slid his shades on. “That’s halfway to Charleston.”
Shifting once more with only a small grind, she pulled out onto the road and headed off the island. “I know.” She grinned, peering over the sunglasses she’d just put on. “I found this great little quirky antiques store that I’ll hopefully find some supergreat stuff at for the café’s decor.” She wiggled her brows. “I’ll even buy breakfast.”
Matt stiffened. “I have money, Emily. I don’t need handouts.”
Emily’s gaze shifted to the road in front of her and she blew out a sigh. “‘Thanks, Emily. Hey, you buy breakfast, I’ll buy you lunch sometime.’” She kept her eyes dead ahead. “See how it works?” A fast slip of a gaze, then back to the road. “So crotchety these days.”
Matt let out a slow breath and rolled the window down. Another inhale, another exhale. Maybe he was being too defensive. And too aware of her. Beside him. Cramped in the truck. Smelling like vanilla and flowers. “Thanks, Emily. I’ll pick up lunch sometime.”
“Great!” she said. “I love lunch!”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m going antiquing,” Matt muttered. “I’ll never live this down.”
“For a small fee I won’t tell.”
Another smile pulled at his mouth, and this time, he didn’t hide it. He was powerless to fight it, anyway.
Emily Quinn was definitely a thorn that burrowed fast and deep, and had sharp, serrated teeth.
As they drove along the coastal road, Emily proved to be like a kid in a candy store. Everything she saw, she loved: the towering oaks that overhung the road, their long, jagged limbs draped in Spanish moss. The palms, the old wooden churches and other structures that more likely than not at one time belonged to old homesteaders in the area. The moment she saw a produce stand on the side of the road, she whipped Jep’s truck into it and purchased several jars of homemade blueberry jam and onion relish.
Not five miles down the road, another stand, and this one was an old Gullah woman, selling baskets woven out of saw grass. Emily all but skidded the truck to a stop in a cloud of dust and pebbles, and leaped from the truck.
Matt could do nothing but watch in fascination.
And climb out after her.
Emily Quinn was hands down the most spontaneous person he’d ever met.
Each time they stopped, Matt got out and helped her juggle her purchases, then load them into the truck.
“Oh, my Lord, would you just look at this?” Emily gasped as she climbed behind the wheel clutching a big hand-woven basket. “This will look so great by the hearth.”
Matt closed the door, looked at her and lifted one brow. “You conned me into going girly shopping with you.” Christ, if any of the guys in his unit found out...
The dimple in her cheek sunk in as her lips parted. “Right? God, I’m good.”
Then, she reached over and grasped his hand in her small, soft one. “Thank you,” she said breathily. “I sincerely mean it.”
Matt stared; he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He swallowed. Swallowed again. Cleared his throat. “No problem, Em.”
That made her eyes sparkle, and she beamed.
He forced himself to breathe as she dropped his hand and took off down the road.
What in the hell had gotten into him? It was just a hand. A pair of eyes.
No, you idiot. They’re Em’s hands. Em’s eyes. He stared out the window, baffled.
The midmorning sun filtered through the trees and landed in spots on the hood of Jep’s truck, and when Matt braved a look over, Emily’s skin was dappled in the same way. She bounced along as they drove, humming one of her old vintage tunes, full of excitement, anticipation of finding the perfect things at the store for the café. He had to confess, even if to only himself, that some of her enthusiasm ru
bbed off on him.
Just a little bit. And he wouldn’t tell a damn soul, either.
Before long Emily veered off the main road and started down the narrow single lane that cut through a maritime forest, toward Caper’s Inlet.
“Isn’t it so cool the way the trees arch over the road?” she commented, and pointed. “The sun can barely squeak through the canopy.” Her eyes drifted toward him. “All the moss hanging down kind of looks like ratty old witch’s hair, like we’re driving through a secret magical forest to Narnia, or Terabithia.” She wiggled her brows. “Or the magical time tunnel. Don’t you think?”
Matt took a long, sideways look at Emily. “You’re even weirder than you were when we were kids.” And it’s sexy as hell.
Emily beamed and kept her gaze on the road. “Why, thank you. Takes one to know one.”
Matt just shook his head and stared out the window.
Soon the coastal town of Caper’s Inlet rose from the moss, scrub palms and live oak trees, and Emily pulled into an old-fashioned diner called The Shoehorn. Small mom-and-pop place that Matt immediately felt at home in. They seated themselves into a booth facing the marsh and a young woman greeted them with menus. She wore jeans, a white T-shirt and a black apron that read The Shoehorn across the front.
She promised to bring them coffee and then hurried off.
Emily leaned forward, her fingers tented together, her eyes dancing. “You have like, I don’t know, seven words in your entire vocabulary. Did you know that?”
Matt pinched his lips together. “What are you talking about?”
With her fingertips she pushed around a packet of sugar. “‘Yep. Nope. Uh-huh’—which is technically one word and not two—‘sure, okay.’” She shrugged. “You used to be a lot...wordier, Matt Malone.”
His gaze met hers. Noticed the flecks of green in her strangely shaped hazel eyes. “And you’ve not changed one little bit, Emily Quinn.”
Leaning back, she cocked her head. “Yeah? And what’s that supposed to mean?”
Matt shrugged. “Opinionated. Unfiltered.”
“Honest?” she added.
“Annoyingly so,” he said.
She gave a little nod, briefly closing her eyes like some monastery monk slash Yoda slash Samurai elder. “Ahh. My work is done, then.”
The waitress returned with a carafe of coffee, two cups and a pitcher of cream. She took their orders, and to Matt’s surprise Emily’s was the exact same order. Apple pancakes with a side of sausage, extra syrup. When their food arrived, they both dug in.
“No way you’re eatin’ all that,” he said, pointing to her stack of pancakes with his fork. “No way.”
“Wanna bet?” she offered. “Twenty bucks says I do.”
By the size of Emily’s willowy build, he’d thought he’d pocketed an easy twenty. But to his complete surprise, she finished it all.
And before he did.
Matt leaned back in the booth and inclined his head to her plate. “That’s just...unnatural, Quinn. Plain and simple.”
“Jesus don’t like envy, Malone,” she warned with a sigh. “He just don’t.”
Matt couldn’t help it. He laughed. Out loud.
And Emily just sort of...glowed after that. He was sort of getting used to it, and pretty fast. Looked forward to seeing that glow even. When she smiled, it made him want to...
Better lose that train of thought, Malone. Lose it fast.
After breakfast they drove to the riverfront, parked in front of this crazy-looking old blue fishing shack and got out. A big metal mermaid sat above the entry, and two of Titan’s pitchforks, or whatever they were called, were jammed into the ground flanking the double-hung red doors.
With her hand on the brass door handle, she looked over her shoulder at him. “Okay. Be prepared.” She lowered her voice to a raspy whisper. “I’m about to get really excited in here.”
Matt kept his face stone-solid as he fought a smile. “I’m always prepared.”
One of her strawberry-blond brows lifted. But she didn’t say anything as she pushed into the strange shop ahead of him. And that had him a little nervous.
The moment Matt stepped inside music drifted from somewhere in the back. It was an old blues singer, with that perfect mournful melody. Then a gritty old voice called out from somewhere in the shop. “Help yourselves, call if you need me.”
“Thanks!” Emily replied, and she turned a wide-eyed expression of mischievousness toward him. “Is that music fantastic or what?” she whispered. She wiggled her brows, as if trying to convey some sort of secret message, and Matt got lost in them once again. She was getting under his skin, and he wasn’t too sure he liked it.
Then the store’s hazy interior and cavernous shadows swallowed Emily up as she took off to the left. For a moment he just stood there, still contemplating the stealth and skill it’d taken Emily Quinn to lure him into shopping.
Antiquing, for Christ’s sake.
Not much stealth at all, he supposed. The first thought on his mind when he’d woken up that morning was of Emily.
Taking the opposite direction, he hugged the far wall on the right and turned down the first aisle. They were narrow paths of, well, stuff, and he barely fit through it. He had to turn slightly sideways to keep from knocking things off the crammed shelves.
After a few minutes of skimming over things—most of which he had no idea what they even were—he was halfway down the cramped aisle when Emily’s voice rose over the music.
“Hey, Matt,” she half whispered, half squeaked. When he looked he could barely make out her head, poking around the corner, her braid swinging over her shoulder. She waved frantically at him. “Come here! Hurry!”
There’d be no hurrying, not if Matt didn’t want to bring down the shelves and all their contents with him. But he turned sideways a little more and eased down the aisle as best he could. When he got to the end, he didn’t see Emily. Then she poked her head back out of another aisle and waved to him.
“Come on,” she insisted, then disappeared again.
Matt shifted his gaze, saw no one who’d recognize him inching through an antiques store and headed down the aisle. He found Emily, squatted down and digging through a pretty big box. Her gaze rose to meet his.
“Check it out,” she said.
Excitement made her face flushed, almost glowing in the dim interior of the shop. Matt squatted beside her and looked inside the box. “Do you know what they are?” he asked.
“I don’t,” she confessed, and held one up for closer inspection.
“Old glass insulators, probably from the twenties or thirties,” Matt offered. “Used to aid in the transfer of current for telegraph, telephone and electrical lines.”
“Well, that’s just cool!” she whispered.
Matt lifted one out. An aqua color. Even he admitted, they were pretty cool. “What do you want with them?”
“I’m going to hang these in the rafters of the Windchimer,” she said excitedly. “With twinkly lights. Inside and out, if I have enough.” Her wide eyes caught a light somewhere behind them, and her mouth pulled into that fast smile. “So it can always look like a clear, starry Cassabaw night overhead.”
That’s really when it hit him. A sucker punch that caught him off guard, and yet deep down, he wasn’t all that surprised. It was Em, after all. Fifteen years apart and a career in the marines, and it was still there.
He liked her. The young girl he’d adored still had those same qualities that had drawn him to her, way back when. She was still Em, only...better, if that was even possible. Beautiful. Impossible. Spontaneous.
Emily Quinn was all of that. But what was he? Who was he? He didn’t know anymore. It consumed him, not knowing.
It scared him enough to catch himself. What did he really have to offer anyone? Including himself? To be some local handyman, picking up odd jobs best he could?
Hell, no. Hell, no.
Sooner or later, he’d have to make a call. H
e felt it coming on just as sure as he knew he’d have to keep Emily Quinn out of his life.
For both their sakes.
CHAPTER TEN
IT HAD BEEN a productive morning in more ways than one. Emily scored big-time at the obscure, zany little antiques store in Caper’s Inlet, acquiring four boxes of the old glass insulators that equaled to nearly a thousand of the aged domes—at a mere ten cents apiece, no less—two large vintage prints of jellyfish, four colorful tin serving trays with sea turtles painted on them and a stack of Gatsby-era table numbers, adorned with whimsical merfolk. Every bit of it was absolutely, perfectly wonderful.
But the best thing? She’d broken through to Matt. At least, a little. He was still quiet. Still somewhat reserved and used as few words as possible. But his mannerisms had shifted a little. He wasn’t quite so uptight around her. She sensed he was beginning to trust her. And she really liked that.
She really liked him. Whenever they were close, her insides shivered. When he looked at her? She thought she’d melt into a pool of goo. Despite his gruffness, she still saw some of the old Matt, buried deep inside. And she aimed to drag it out of him.
The ride home was quiet but not uncomfortable. By the time they hit the island road leading to Cassabaw, clouds had moved overhead and turned dark and threatening. A complete shift from the sun-dappled morning they’d just spent at Caper’s Inlet. Thunder boomed over the marsh, the flags hanging from flagpoles on the floating docks whipping madly in the wind. As soon as they loaded the antique finds into the Windchimer it began splattering rain.
Matt handed Emily the keys to her Jeep. “She’s ready to go.”
“Thanks so much, Matt,” she said. “And thanks for coming with me today. It was totally fun.” She hugged him then, wrapped her arms around his neck, and as his arms encircled her, she shuddered. Felt the heat from his body, the muscles tighten around her.