“Tomorrow,” he told Pete with a warning look.
“But—”
“Will this place fall apart if we don’t discuss this before morning?” Boone inquired impatiently.
Pete glanced at Emily, then grinned. “Nope. Enjoy yourselves.”
“No question about it,” Boone muttered as they walked away.
“Obviously he’s not used to you being on a real date,” Emily said, oddly pleased by the knowledge.
“He’s never seen me with any woman other than Jenny,” Boone confirmed. “It finally dawned on him just then that you must be special and that I had much better things to do tonight than going over one of his lists.”
“He’s good at lists?” Emily asked.
“He’s excellent at lists. Normally I consider that a plus. Tonight, not so much.”
“We’re free now,” Emily reminded him as they reached his car.
“Yes, we are,” Boone said, backing her up against it. “And I’ve been waiting all night for this.” He lowered his mouth to cover hers.
Emily felt his desire in that kiss and in his arousal. She gave him a gentle shove, tempering it with a grin. “Don’t you think it would be better not to start this till we can finish it?”
“My house?” Boone said, sounding dazed. “Definitely. Let’s go.”
He helped her into the car, practically raced around to jump behind the wheel, then peeled out of the parking lot.
“This takes me back,” Emily said.
“To?”
“A time when you couldn’t wait to get your hands on me.”
“Seems that hasn’t changed,” he said with a heated glance in her direction.
“Do you wish it had?” she asked, needing to know if there was regret blended with the anticipation.
He blinked at the question. “Seriously?”
“I really want to know. Are you sorry that these feelings aren’t dead and buried?”
Boone sighed. “Are you going to make me sorry?”
“I’m going to try like crazy not to,” she said, knowing that tonight when she told him her plans would be the first test. She also knew she probably ought to give him that information before they took this next step.
“Boone, wait,” she said as they pulled into his driveway, stopping him before he could exit the car. “There’s something you need to know.”
He regarded her incredulously. “Now?”
She nodded. “I have to go back to Los Angeles sooner than I’d expected.”
The light seemed to drain from his eyes at that. “How soon?”
“Sunday. I have an important meeting Monday.”
“I see.”
“I’ll be back, though,” she said hurriedly. “Probably by the middle of next week. Next weekend at the latest.”
“Okay.”
She reached out and put a hand on the tense muscle in his arm. “Can I explain why this is important? Will you listen?”
“I said I was going to give this a chance, so I suppose I have to,” he said, though he didn’t sound happy about it.
She told him all about Sophia and about this passion of hers for helping women escaping abusive relationships and in need of shelter. “This is the first time she’s asked me to be a part of one of her projects, Boone. I suppose I could have turned her down. I know she wouldn’t have held it against me, at least not for long.”
She met his gaze, willed him to understand. “I got to thinking about those women, about the fear that must haunt them, about the kids who have maybe never known a safe place to live, and I couldn’t say no. I just couldn’t.”
Boone closed his eyes, sighing. “No, you couldn’t,” he agreed. “I think if you were going back for any other reason, it would be different, but how can I object to you agreeing to something like this? It proves what a huge heart you have.”
Tears stung her eyes. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t see it that way, that you’d think I was being selfish and already going back on my word.”
“Oh, believe me, I wish I could think that,” he admitted. “It would make letting you leave a lot easier if I were furious with you.”
She nudged him in the ribs. “But now you’re maybe just a little eager for me to go and get back?”
He smiled at that. “Now I’m eager to get you inside and make the most of the time we do have.”
“I don’t suppose you’d want to meet me in Aspen in a few days?” she suggested lightly. “I’ll have to check in there and make sure things are progressing on schedule for the ski lodge. We could have some time together away from here.”
He smiled at that. “As appealing as that sounds, there’s B.J. to consider. I wouldn’t be comfortable leaving him with anyone here.”
“Not even Cora Jane? You know she’d love having him to herself, and Samantha will be around.”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “Next time, okay? When I’ve had a little more time to plan for a getaway with you. Anticipation’s part of the fun, right?”
“True,” she agreed. “But we’re good?”
“We’re good,” he assured her, then got out of the car.
When he’d opened her door, she stepped out and put her hand on his cheek. “Thank you for being so understanding.”
“Something tells me I’m going to get a lot of practice at that,” he said, a wry note in his voice.
She laughed. “As if you won’t test my patience from time to time.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said. “It ought to keep things interesting.”
She looked deep into his eyes as they stood on the lawn with moonlight streaming through the trees. “I don’t think interesting is ever going to be a problem for us. In fact, we may start to crave dull.”
“Not me,” Boone assured her, his mouth finding hers. When the kiss ended on a sigh, he added, “I’m just starting to realize that this is exactly the sort of excitement that’s been missing from my life.”
She leaned back into him, lifted her lips to his. “Happy to oblige,” she murmured.
And even happier that they’d weathered this first potential tempest. Since it struck at the very core of their past conflict, the resolution tonight seemed to bode well for the long haul.
* * *
Inside Boone noticed that the message light was blinking on the answering machine. Even though most important calls should have come to his cell phone, he couldn’t ignore it, not with B.J. at a friend’s house.
“Em, let me check this,” he said, already reaching for the play button. He gestured toward his wine rack. “Why don’t you open a bottle of wine?”
“Sure,” she said. “Red or white?”
“You choose,” he said distractedly, listening to a couple of annoying calls before a familiar voice came on in the third message.
“Boone,” his former mother-in-law said, an indignant huff in her voice. “I just got off the phone with Caroline Watson. She was at your restaurant tonight and called me to tell me you were there with that woman.”
Boone muttered a curse under his breath. Behind him, he sensed Emily going perfectly still. He was about to shut off the machine, but Emily stepped up and put her hand on his.
“You might as well listen to all of it,” she said quietly.
“I don’t need to,” he said, cutting off the message. “Jodie’s just in one of her impossible moods. You certainly don’t need to hear what she has to say. I should have known when we stopped to say hello to Caroline that she’d be on the phone to Jodie before we hit the parking lot. There’s not a lot I do that doesn’t make its way to Jodie. Some people seem to enjoy feeding the animosity she feels toward me. I’m used to it.”
“But this is a first for me,” Emily said quietly. “I’ve never thought of myself as
the other woman.”
“Because you’re not,” Boone said, thoroughly frustrated. “And Jodie has no right to make you feel that way. It’s not even about you. It’s about me. She never thought I was good enough for Jenny. She hated that we got married and made no pretense about her belief that I’d wind up hurting her daughter.”
“Why would she feel that way?” Emily asked. “You weren’t exactly some disreputable bum.”
Boone smiled at that. “By her standards, anyone who looked twice at her precious daughter was a disreputable bum.”
“But in your case, it was worse because of me somehow,” Emily guessed.
Boone saw no point in denying it. “Everyone around here knew how I felt about you. It was hardly a secret that I was devastated when you dumped me. Jenny and I had always been friends in a casual kind of way. We started hanging out after you left. I knew she was crazy about me. I probably should have kept her at arm’s length, but she made it almost impossible to do that. And, I’ll admit, I needed someone like her, someone uncomplicated and undemanding.”
“So, Jodie thinks you took advantage of Jenny’s vulnerability?”
He nodded. “And I did. She’s not wrong about that.”
Emily gave him a long look. “Did you ever stop to consider that maybe Jenny took advantage of you?”
Boone frowned. “What? Of course not.”
“Why? Because she was a sweet woman and you’re the devious guy?”
“That sums it up, yeah.”
Emily shook her head. “Boone, women know what they’re doing, too. They can recognize when a man’s in pain, when he needs someone around who’s easy and uncomplicated. I’m not saying Jenny wasn’t a wonderful woman, because she was. At least the girl I remember was. I’m just saying she knew exactly what she was getting into when she came after you. If anyone took advantage of the situation, I’d say she did.”
Though what she said made a crazy kind of sense, Boone wasn’t buying it. “It wasn’t like that.”
“In what way?”
“Jenny was...”
“A woman in love?” Emily suggested. “We’ve been known to do some crazy things in the name of love, probably even crazier than most men would ever consider. Look, I’m just saying that Jodie’s being unfair to lay all this guilt on you. You and Jenny were two consenting adults. Whatever happened was as much Jenny’s responsibility as it was yours.”
She regarded him with a narrowed gaze obviously intended to warn him to give careful thought to his response. “Unless you somehow believe women don’t know their own minds and can’t be held accountable for their own actions?”
Boone saw that for the trap it was. “Okay, point taken.”
She gestured toward the answering machine. “Do you need to call her back?”
“And listen to more of the same?” he asked. “I’ll pass for tonight. Tomorrow will be soon enough. At least now you know firsthand what we’re up against.”
“Duly warned,” she said and took a step closer. “Can we get back to our original plans now, please?”
Boone slid one spaghetti strap of her dress off of her shoulder, then kissed her bare skin. “Looking forward to it,” he murmured.
“Me, too,” she said, swaying into him.
He scooped her into his arms and headed for the master bedroom, hesitating only for a heartbeat in the doorway as a tide of misgivings about the past washed through him. Then he drew in a deep breath and stepped into what he hoped like crazy would be his future.
14
On Sunday morning, Emily made a call to B.J. to say goodbye, knowing that this time he needed to know her plans in advance. Then she sought out her grandmother before leaving for the airport. She found her in the kitchen at Castle’s helping Jerry keep up with the breakfast orders. Cora Jane glanced up from the eggs she was scrambling.
“You about ready to take off?” she asked, her disapproval plain.
“In a few minutes,” Emily said. “Could we talk before I go?”
“Cora Jane, I’ve got it covered,” Jerry said at once. “Go on. Spend a little time with Emily.”
Cora Jane nodded, then led the way to a booth in the back corner that was usually reserved for staff breaks unless the restaurant was mobbed.
“How does Boone feel about you running off again?” Cora Jane asked directly.
“He understands,” Emily said. “And I’ll be back by next weekend at the latest.”
Cora Jane’s eyes lit up at the news. “Nobody mentioned that to me.”
“Maybe because Gabi and Samantha don’t entirely believe it,” Emily said dryly. “Listen, what I really wanted to ask you about is Jodie Farmer.”
Cora Jane’s eyes widened. “What’s she done now?”
“You sound as if nothing she did would surprise you,” Emily said.
“She’s a perfectly nice woman when it comes to everything except Boone,” her grandmother said. “She’s held a grudge against him since the day he married Jenny. And when Jenny died, well, that’s when she made it her business to heap as much guilt on that man’s shoulders as she possibly could. Somebody ought to shake some sense into her, but her husband doesn’t have the gumption.” She regarded Emily curiously. “Why are you asking about her?”
“Apparently one of her friends saw me with Boone the other night and couldn’t wait to fill her in. By the time Boone and I got to his place, Jodie had left a message berating him for being with me. He cut the machine off before she’d finished, but she clearly wasn’t happy about the news.”
“No, I don’t suppose she was,” Cora Jane said. “If it were up to her, he’d have thrown himself straight into Jenny’s grave with her. Or preferably instead of her.”
“Grieving mother talking?” Emily asked.
Cora Jane shrugged. “That’s been my assessment, but sometimes I have to wonder if I’m not being too kind. Maybe she’s just a vindictive woman. My advice to you, stay out of her path if you can. And pay no attention to anything she has to say.”
“But Boone does, doesn’t he? He takes every word to heart?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Her words do have the power to hurt him and make him question himself,” Cora Jane admitted. “I’ve tried to give him some perspective on her behavior, but she feeds right into the guilt he feels about Jenny.”
Emily nodded slowly. “That’s what I thought, too. Any suggestions for what I could do to help?”
“She’s in Florida, thanks be to heaven, so you shouldn’t have to do anything. There’s only so much poison she can spew from down there.”
Emily wondered about that. If there was a pipeline feeding Jodie news from North Carolina, it had to work in reverse, as well. Still, for the moment, there was no point in borrowing trouble. There’d be time enough to figure out a strategy—if one was even needed—when she got back to town.
“One last question. Do you really think she’d sue Boone for custody of B.J.? Am I giving her the perfect excuse to do that?”
Cora Jane looked shocked by the suggestion. “She wouldn’t dare!”
“Boone thinks she might,” Emily said. “Just the thought of it is killing him.”
“She’d lose,” Cora Jane said confidently.
“But it would be ugly while she tried,” Emily assessed.
Though Cora Jane looked suitably shaken, she touched Emily’s cheek. “Don’t let her be the reason the two of you don’t try, okay?”
“I just don’t want to be responsible for her stirring up trouble for Boone,” Emily told her.
“There will be plenty of us in Boone’s corner if she tries,” Cora Jane told her with feeling.
“Thanks,” Emily said to her grandmother, relieved by Cora Jane’s conviction that things would work out. “Now I’d better get on the road.”
When Cora Jane stood up, she gave Emily a fierce hug. “You come back soon,” she ordered. “You have people here who love you.”
Emily smiled at her. “That goes both ways.”
“And is Boone one of those people?” Cora Jane inquired slyly. “Is that what’s really behind this whole conversation? You’re finally ready to admit you still love him?”
“Could be,” Emily admitted.
Her grandmother’s eyes lit up. “Well, praise be. It’s about time the two of you came to your senses.”
“We have a lot to work out,” Emily cautioned.
“That’s the nature of relationships,” her grandmother said. “There are always things that need to be worked out. Life is never static. Or if it is, I guarantee you’ll be bored to tears.”
“I think Boone and I are agreed that boring doesn’t enter into what we have,” Emily said with a chuckle.
“Some details you can keep to yourself, young lady,” Cora Jane scolded.
Emily laughed. “I’m definitely not planning to discuss my sex life with you. You might be inclined to turn around and tell me about yours.”
For an instant her grandmother looked shocked, but then a grin spread across her face. “As if I’d do such a thing,” she muttered indignantly.
But Emily noticed she didn’t deny that there was a sex life to be discussed. Just thinking about that kept a smile on her face all the way to the airport.
* * *
Boone leaned back in the chair in his office, closed his eyes and thought about all the information Pete had just given him about potential locations for new restaurants. Expansion could be a dicey business. If he intended to keep food quality and service consistent, someone had to keep an eye on each location. With Pete primarily responsible for travel, Boone didn’t want his second-in-command to be spread too thin to do the job well.
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