Wrecked

by Shiloh Walker

  Zach blinked. What?

  Zane didn’t invite women to family things. Period. Ever.

  She turned around and glared at him. “Don’t worry. I’m not going. I know I’m not going to fit in or anything so—”

  “Keelie . . . shut up.”

  She sneered at him. “Bite me, Barnes.”

  He might have fired something back at her if she hadn’t looked so damned sad under the anger he thought he saw. What the hell . . . ? Swearing under his breath, he stood up and came around his desk. “Keelie, I don’t know what this shit is about fitting in with my family, but you need to drop it, okay? If Zane invited you and you want to come, then come.”

  She glared at him. “Yeah, like your folks will just love having me there. I’ve heard you all talking about your family things, Zach. And you’re probably asking Abby . . . I’ll really fit in well with that crowd.”

  “Abby and my family aren’t a crowd.” Screw this. Turning around, he said over his shoulder, “If you’re that much of a coward, Keelie, then fine. Be a coward. But the problem is you. It’s not my family. Not a damn one of them has ever given you a reason to think you wouldn’t be welcome around them so don’t act otherwise.”

  “Screw you, Zach,” she snapped.

  He ignored her and settled down to work.

  He didn’t need this.

  Not at all.

  Asking Abby . . .

  As Keelie stormed out of his office, he shifted his attention to one of the few pictures he had on his desk. All but one were of his family, his mom and dad holding their one and only grandchild . . . his brother Trey and his wife Cara. She’d died only a day after their baby had been born, something that had left all of them reeling from the shock. A picture of their son, an imp in kid’s clothing if such a thing existed.

  The only other picture was of him and Abby and it had been taken by Zane. Zane, when he wasn’t standing behind a bar and charming women out of their panties, liked to hide behind a camera. He could make it in a big way with photography if he’d ever put his mind to it. He had a way of pulling emotions out of people, but he also had a thing about not really investing in anything. Zach didn’t know why, didn’t care.

  But his brother had a gift and the proof of it was right in front of him, in the image of him with Abby, this picture that had captured every damned thing he felt for Abby and put it out there for all the world to see.

  Of course, Abby never seemed to see it.

  Reaching for the picture, he thought about the upcoming weekend. She’d be there.

  Abby always handled the catering for anything his mom put together and it didn’t matter that she had to either fly or drive out there. He’d once told her that she didn’t have to keep doing it, and she’d looked at him like he’d grown another head.

  She’d be there, handling all the food, talking to his brothers, flirting with his dad, and joking with his mom about whether or not she’d ever get any more grandkids. He stroked his finger down the frame, staring at Abby’s laughing face.

  She was watching him with a smile in the picture, her arms thrown around him and her eyes glowing. It had been taken last summer . . . his mom had decided to surprise Abby with a birthday party and she’d roped Zach and the rest of them into helping with it.

  Near the end, Abby had come up to him to thank him and he’d brushed it off. It hadn’t been his idea, so why thank him?

  And she’d hugged him.

  It had been so hard, not to kiss her. When she lifted that smiling face to his and he looked down into her dark brown eyes, lost in them . . .

  Abby hadn’t seemed to notice, but he had. Everybody around them had. An odd, tense silence had fallen. Not awkward. But like everybody had been waiting. Then she’d just brushed her lips against his cheek and gave him a tight squeeze before she pulled away and headed back over to that fuckhead, Roger.

  A week later, this picture had been waiting on the desk for him, along with a note from Zane.

  You need to quit waiting, man.

  Yeah. He had to quit waiting.

  So what did he do? Ask her if she felt like making this weekend at his family’s a date sort of thing?

  * * *

  “I can’t exactly do a date sort of thing,” Abigale said. Nerves jangled inside her belly and if she wasn’t making the batch of cookies for an event that evening, she would have been tempted to just start eating some of the dough to calm those nerves.

  A date . . . They couldn’t do a date, not around his family. Denise would get the worst idea. Not that it would be bad, Denise thinking about her and Zach—

  What? Her mind skittered to a halt as she realized just what she was thinking. There was no way she could go around Zach’s mom and dad and let them think they were dating. As much as she loved to tease Denise and Ron about their unending quest to see their boys settled down, she knew what would happen if she showed up there as Zach’s date.

  Denise would get that look in her eyes.

  That hopeful, starry-eyed look.

  And then when it ended . . . It was a thought that made an ache settle right square in her heart. When it ended . . .

  Strong, warm arms folded around her. “What are you thinking so hard about, sugar?”

  Abigale tried not to let herself react as he rubbed his lips over her neck but it was damned hard. They’d been having their . . . torrid affair for less than two weeks. They’d spent the week together and had sex more times than she could—well, that was wrong. Seven times over the weekend. They’d had sex seven glorious times over the weekend. Less than two weeks and one weekend together and her body was already responding to him like she’d been made to do just that.

  “I’m thinking I need to get the cookies done so I can start prepping for everything else . . . this is something I’m doing for a friend and I’ve got a lot of work to get done,” she hedged.

  “Why do you try to lie to me?” He nuzzled her neck. “You never were any good at it. You can pull it off with everybody else, but you can’t ever lie to me worth a damn and we both know it.”

  She sniffed and slammed the bowl down on the counter with a thunk. Wiggling around in the circle of his arms, she glared up at him. “I can, too. And I’ll have you know I do have a lot of work to get done.”

  A grin tugged up the corner of his mouth and he said, “The hell you can.”

  He reached behind her and she smacked his hand. “Damn it, Zach. That’s for a PTO thing tonight. You can’t have any.”

  “A PTO thing?” His brows came together over his eyes. “Somebody is paying you to cater a PTO thing? Parents are supposed to bake the cookies and cakes and pies themselves.”

  She sighed. “It’s some kind of meeting with the school board. The lady who contacted me is a friend and she told me, and I quote . . . ‘I want them in a good mood and if I don’t provide the desserts, they’ll be coming for my blood.’ So I’m doing the desserts. We worked out a trade, though. Her husband handles my landscaping and I need some more work done so she said she’d talk him into cutting me a deal if I’d help her out.”

  “Pushover.” He dipped his head and nipped her lower lip. “Now . . . what were you thinking about? It sure as hell wasn’t cookies. You can do cookies and just about everything else blindfolded.” Then he flexed his hand and grimaced. “Although I don’t recommend it. Kitchen accidents are hazardous to your health.”

  She squirmed and tried to wiggle away from him but he just leaned his hips against hers.

  Oh . . . her lids dropped and a sigh shuddered out of her. That just felt so very right. Like almost nothing else ever had. “You did hear the part about me having a lot of work to do, right?” she asked. She pretended not to hear the way her breath hitched in her throat.

  “Yes . . . and if you want to get to it, you should answer.” He slid a hand down her hip and toyed with the hem of the skirt she wore. “Otherwise, I’m going to think of something else to distract myself with. Hey . . . I know.”

  S
he jabbed him in the ribs. “You’re such a juvenile.”

  “Hmmm . . .” He cupped his hands over her hips and rocked against her. “And you’re so female. So do I start looking for distractions?”

  From under her lashes, she stared at him and then sighed. “Zach . . . you know how your mom is. If we go there on a date sort of thing, as you call it, she’s going to get her hopes all worked up. And when this thing ends . . .”

  He stroked a hand up her side, along her collarbone, and up her neck until he could rest his fingertip on her lips. “Why are you in such a rush to talk about everything ending, Abby? We just got started.”

  “Ah . . .” She had an answer for that.

  Really.

  But even as she tried to figure out what it was, his mouth replaced his finger and she couldn’t possibly think when Zach Barnes was kissing her.

  His arms hooked over her shoulders, his body caging her in, the kiss should have been greedy and demanding . . . and she could have met that, could have handled that. Hell, a quickie in the kitchen sounded like it would go hand in hand with a torrid affair, right?

  Although she should really move it out of there while she worked . . .

  But it wasn’t a greedy, demanding kiss.

  His lips, light as an angel’s touch, brushed over hers and even when she opened for him, he didn’t take it deeper. Instead, he skimmed his lips up along her cheekbone to brush along her temple, then he rubbed his cheek against hers. “You thinking to call it quits already, Abs?”

  “Call . . .” She had to force the word out through a tight throat. It had just been a kiss. Just a simple kiss. “Call it . . .”

  Her brain processed what he’d said and it was like somebody had sucked the air out of the room, the light out of the world. “Call it quits?”

  Jerking her head back, she stared at up at him. Was he—

  He skimmed a hand through her hair and said softly, “I was barely getting warmed up and it seems like you’re already planning my good-bye party.”

  “No, I’m not.” Okay . . . he’d been talking about something else. She wasn’t exactly sure what, but there you go. That was Zach for you. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “I ask you for a date and you’re over there talking about things ending and my mom being heartbroken.” He slid his hands down her arms and caught hers, twining their fingers together. “I’m kind of happy with how things are going, but it seems like you’re already looking at the finish line. Is that what you’re doing?”

  The finish line . . .

  Blowing out a sigh, she shifted her attention to a point past his shoulder. The silvery reflection of her refrigerator was nowhere as appealing to look at as he was, but when she looked at him, her brain had developed this annoying habit of just not functioning the right way. “Well . . . I’m not exactly looking at a finish line, but we never really did set out for this to be . . . be . . .” The word lodged in her throat. Shit. Shit, she couldn’t say that to Zach. They were having an affair. It was amazing, and wonderful, and she loved it, but that was all it was. That’s not all you want anymore, though . . .

  “A relationship,” he finished.

  Jerking her gaze back to his, she swallowed. Damn it, that knot was choking her now. Hesitantly, she nodded. “It was just supposed to be . . .”

  The dark fan of his lashes swept down, shielding his eyes from her as he blew out a sigh. He dipped his head and pressed his brow to hers while one hand came around her waist, tangling in the gauzy material of the shirt she’d pulled on over a camisole-styled tank that morning. “You planned on a torrid affair, Abby. That doesn’t mean it can’t be something more.”

  Her heart jumped into her throat and a hope she hadn’t even realized she’d been harboring started to rise inside her, growing so fast, so strong . . .

  Zach’s lids lifted and she found herself caught in the intense blue of his eyes. “If you want more . . . if I want more, who says we can’t have more?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Something flashed in his eyes. There, then gone.

  That look, whatever it was, left her head reeling, spinning . . .

  Sucking in a breath, she almost couldn’t hear his words over the roar of blood in her ears. Almost. “Abby . . . you have no idea just how much more I want from you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “So . . . you’re here with Zach . . .”

  Pulling the lasagna out of the oven, Abigale braced herself for the next inquisition. She recognized the low, smooth sound of Sebastian’s voice without even turning around and she already knew how to handle this one.

  Over the past few hours, she’d handled the curious questions from the twins, seen the odd gleam in Ron’s eyes, and almost went head-to-head with Keelie, although she really didn’t know why Keelie despised her so much.

  The easiest person, by far, had been Denise and that had been a shock. Denise, Zach’s mom, was the one person Abigale had been sort of dreading to face over this and she hated that, because she adored Denise. Because she adored Denise, because she knew and loved the woman, she knew what Denise wanted most was to see her kids all happy.

  Denise didn’t necessarily equate happy with married, but more than a few late-night conversations had cemented one certainty in Abigale’s head.

  Denise suspected her second-oldest son was lonely.

  Not crying-in-his-beer lonely, Denise had told her once. But he was looking for something.

  Abigale hadn’t ever seen it, and that bothered her because she was his best friend, but Denise had told her that there were some things a mom just knew. Maybe so. It wasn’t like Abigale had the best mom to really judge things by.

  But Denise had been easy.

  Sebastian was the other person she’d been dreading having to face over this. Might as well get it over with, she told herself as she reached for a towel and turned around to look at him.

  They were alone in the kitchen, although that wouldn’t last long, she knew.

  Denise had been bustling in and out of the kitchen for most of the afternoon and in a few minutes, Abigale knew she’d be pulled out there to enjoy the party as well. Pretty little Chinese lanterns strung throughout the back swayed in the breeze and people were laughing, calling out to each other. All in all, everybody seemed to be having a good time, even Trey, although every now and then, he’d get a far-off look in his eyes and Abigale knew he was thinking about his wife. Cara had only been twenty-three when she died. Too young, Abigale thought. Far too young.

  Blowing out a breath, she surveyed everything around her. She was pretty much done. It was a buffet-style meal and she wasn’t feeding an army. A party for thirty people was easy for her. Somebody else was handling the cake and everything so she was almost at the point that she could take a few minutes, but she’d rather take those minutes with Zach. Playing twenty questions with Sebastian wasn’t her idea of fun.

  It was going to happen, though.

  “I’m often at places with Zach,” she pointed out, giving Sebastian an easy smile. They were friends . . . usually, and got along well enough, when Zach wasn’t in the picture.

  But the two of them lived very much in two different worlds.

  “You probably don’t remember a lot of it, but Zach and I have often been in the very same place for more than twenty years.” She winked at him and added, “There were even a few times when I was there while you were there . . . in diapers.”

  Sebastian was twenty-two and the youngest of the crew. He was also the prettiest, prettier even than Zach, and it seemed he was determined to chase after the career Zach had walked away from. He still lived in LA and he was doing pretty well lately . . . a few small parts on a TV show and there was talk that his character was going to become a regular next season.

  He looked up to his older brother with something that was near adulation, she knew. Zach could do no wrong. He was almost fiercely protective of him. But Sebastian had tunnel vision. He was alm
ost certain that Zach’s main issue in life was that he just hadn’t found the right venue back into Hollywood.

  Sometimes she wondered if Sebastian and Roger had been drinking the same Kool-Aid.

  “So I hear your show is going well,” she said, shifting his focus from Zach to his other love in life.

  Or trying to.

  She failed.

  He shrugged and said, “It’s going well. But you know how it goes.” Shrewd eyes, just a shade darker than Zach’s, studied her face. “You know, if Zach ever decides to come back, my agent is there to help him . . . and I know you’re done with it. How are you going to feel if he does it?”

  Instead of pointing out that Zach had said a hundred times that he didn’t want to go back, she reached for the knife and started slicing up the last loaf of bread. “Zach’s life is his own, Seb. I can’t control it.” She shot him a look and then went back to the chore in front of her, hoping he’d take the point. See . . . look at me, I’m busy, busy, busy.

  He laughed a little. “Yeah, that’s what you think.”

  The undercurrent in his voice got to her, rubbing her so very, very wrong. Carefully, she put the knife down. Because she didn’t want to get pissed off here, and pissed off at Sebastian, she took a minute to reach for her wine. It was more to give herself a minute to think through anything she might say, to puzzle through just what that might mean. But she had no stunning revelations in the thirty seconds it took to drink the yummy ratafia that Zach always managed to keep on hand for her. It came from a winery in Albuquerque and she was tempted to toss the entire glass back and then pour another.

  But she doubted it would do a damn thing to lessen her irritation.

  So instead, she lowered the glass back down and lifted her gaze to study Sebastian. “Okay. So you think I can control Zach’s life. Exactly how do I do that?”

  “You got him to move away from LA.” Sebastian’s eyes narrowed on her face and although his voice never once raised, she heard the resentment there.

  And it was strong. Damn it, where in the hell had that come from?