She choked on a laugh. “I think you made that last part up.”
“But did I honor the code?”
“You know you honored the code.”
“Good.” He lifted his head to brush his lips over hers. “Because you totally rocked my world, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah,” he confirmed.
She smiled at that. “I’m glad I walked over to the community center tonight.”
He kissed her again, softly, sweetly. “I’m glad you invited me up for cocoa and cookies.”
“We never had the cocoa and cookies.”
“I know.” Another kiss, longer, lingering. “And I’m thinking we should not have cocoa and cookies again.”
“Right now?”
“Right now,” he agreed.
* * *
Bailey had known that sex with Serena would be good, and he hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told her that she’d rocked his world. Of course, she was the first woman he’d been with since he’d ended his marriage, so he suspected that the extended period of celibacy had something to do with the intensity of the experience.
Except that the second time with Serena had been even better than the first. And the third had exceeded all his expectations yet again. And even after three rounds of lovemaking, his desire for her had not abated in the least.
It was that realization that caused the first hint of panic to set in. His subconscious reference to their physical joining as lovemaking only exacerbated it.
He wasn’t in love with Serena.
He wasn’t foolish enough to go down that path again, especially not with someone he’d only known a few weeks.
Sure, she was an amazing woman. Beautiful. Smart. Sexy. Passionate. Compassionate. Resilient. Caring. He could go on and on enumerating her many wonderful qualities—qualities that proved she was too good for him.
And yet, by some stroke of luck, she’d chosen to be with him. And he was selfish enough to take whatever she was willing to give, for as long as she was willing to give it.
He fell asleep with her head nestled against his shoulder—and woke up with what felt like a ten-pound weight on his chest.
Turned out it was a ten-pound cat.
“I thought you said the animals don’t sleep in your bed,” he remarked, when Serena returned to the bedroom from the adjoining en suite bath.
“They don’t,” she confirmed.
“Well, don’t look now, but there’s a cat on my chest.”
“A wide-awake cat who wants her breakfast.”
“She’s not the only one,” he said. Then he looked at Molly and, utilizing the same command that Serena had used so effectively with Marvin the night before, said, “Off.”
The cat just stared at him, those pale green eyes unblinking.
He pointed to the floor and tried again. “Off.”
Molly continued to stare at him.
“Your cat doesn’t listen very well.”
“She’s a cat,” Serena said, sounding amused.
“I can practically hear the thoughts going through her head.” Then he changed the tone and pitch of his voice to recite those imagined thoughts. “I’ll move my tail when I feel like moving my tail.”
Serena laughed as she tied the belt of her robe around her waist. “I admit that I talk to my animals, but I don’t pretend they talk back.”
“Look at her and tell me that’s not what she’s thinking,” he demanded.
She tilted her head to look at the cat. “That’s not what she’s thinking.”
“Then what’s she thinking?” he wanted to know.
“She’s hoping that Santa will leave a little catnip in her stocking this year.”
“Catnip, huh?”
Serena headed toward the door. “Come on, Molly.”
And the damn cat followed her.
Shaking his head, Bailey pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed.
“Do I smell coffee?” he asked, when he joined her in the kitchen after he’d showered and dressed again in last night’s clothes.
She handed him a mug filled with the hot fragrant brew. “What would you like for breakfast?”
“You don’t have to cook for me,” he said. “Or is this about balancing those scales you’re so worried about?”
She laughed softly. “It’s about the fact that I’m hungry and I thought you might be, too.”
“I am,” he confirmed.
“Eggs okay?”
“Eggs are always okay.”
“Bacon?”
He nodded emphatically. “The only thing I like more than eggs.”
* * *
They cooked breakfast together and ate breakfast together, and it was all very nice and domestic. And maybe it did make Serena wish she had someone with whom to share not just a single morning but the rest of her life. And maybe, if she let herself, she could imagine Bailey being that someone.
But she didn’t let herself because she knew that one night did not a relationship make. She was hopeful, however, that one night might lead to two, and maybe more.
She’d just gotten up from the table for a coffee refill when the landline phone rang. A glance at the display made her pause.
“Are you going to answer that?” Bailey asked when the phone rang again and she only continued to stare at it.
“I don’t know who it is,” she confessed, carrying the coffeepot to the table to top up his mug. “The area code is Arizona, which is where my grandmother lives, but the number isn’t familiar.”
So she let the machine answer. And because she had an old-fashioned answering machine hooked up to her landline, the message transmitted clearly through the speaker.
“Hi, Rena, it’s Grams. I know you said you’d call next week when I talked to you last week, but, well, I’m not actually home right now.” Then her voice dropped to a loud whisper. “I’m at George’s place.”
Bailey’s brows lifted.
“We had the best time last night,” Grams continued, and then she giggled. “And this morning.”
Serena buried her face in her hands.
“Honestly, the therapeutic effects of orgasm cannot be overrated, and I know you’re under a lot of stress, which is why you need to grab hold of that Stockton boy and—”
She leaped from her chair and snatched up the receiver, cutting off the recording.
“Grams, hi.” She turned her back to Bailey, so that he wouldn’t see that her cheeks were flaming. “I, uh, just got out of the shower.”
Which wasn’t technically the truth, since she’d showered when she woke up, but it wasn’t exactly a lie, either.
“Do you have one of those massaging shower heads?” her grandmother asked. “I’m not saying they can replace a man’s touch, but desperate times and all that.”
Serena groaned inwardly. “So...tell me what’s going on in your life,” she said, desperate to change the subject.
For the next several minutes, her grandmother proceeded to do precisely that—in great and unnecessary detail—while Serena silently prayed that the ground would open up and swallow her. But of course that didn’t happen.
“Just remember your own last rule,” Serena said, when Grams paused to take a breath.
“I remember all my rules,” her grandmother assured her.
“But do you follow them?”
“Oh, I’ve gotta run,” Grams said. “George is signaling that breakfast is ready.”
And before Serena could reply, she’d disconnected.
“That was your grandmother, huh?” Bailey said, amusement evident in his tone.
“That was my grandmother,” she confirmed.
“And ‘that Stockton boy’...that would be me?”
“So much for hoping you might pretend you h
adn’t heard that part,” she muttered.
“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “But now I’m wondering what you told your grandmother about me.”
“Nothing,” she immediately and emphatically replied.
“And yet, she apparently wants you to grab hold of me and... What exactly was it she suggested you should do?”
“You’re enjoying this a little too much.”
“Not as much as I enjoyed last night,” he assured her. “But that phone call certainly added something to the morning after.”
“Can you please just forget about the phone call?”
“Okay,” he agreed. “But tell me about your grandmother.”
“What do you want to know?” she asked warily.
“It’s obvious the two of you are close.”
“I lived with her growing up,” Serena reminded him.
“And has she always offered such interesting advice?”
She nodded. “Grams has often been exasperating and opinionated, but she loves wholeheartedly and unconditionally. She also had some pretty strict rules for anyone living under her roof.”
“Like what?”
She ticked them off on her fingers as she recited: “Tell where I’m going and who I’m going with. Call when I get there. Be home by midnight. Never leave a drink unattended. Never drink and drive. Never share naked pictures. And never have sex without a condom.”
“Those sound like some pretty smart and savvy rules,” he remarked.
“Grams is a pretty smart and savvy lady.”
“So is her granddaughter,” he said.
“You think so?”
“Well, she gave me some pretty good advice.”
“What advice was that?” she wondered aloud.
“About talking to Emily,” he confided.
“You called her?”
He nodded. “I did.”
“Was she surprised to hear from you?”
“Yeah, she was surprised to hear from me. And then she shared some surprising news.”
“What was that?”
“She got married again. Six months ago.”
“That’s big news,” Serena noted.
“And the even bigger news—she’s pregnant.”
“Wow.”
He nodded again.
“How do you feel about that?” she asked him.
“It has nothing to do with me.”
“Your ex-wife is expecting a baby with her new husband—you have to feel something.”
“I’m happy for her,” he said. “Really. And...relieved.”
“Why relieved?” she asked, curious.
“Because there was part of me that wondered if I’d ruined her life.”
“Because you divorced her?”
He shook his head. “Because I married her.”
“You loved her,” she reminded him.
“Or thought I did, anyway,” he acknowledged. “But in retrospect, I think my decision to marry Emily was also an attempt—and not a very successful one—to take back control of my life.”
“What do you mean?”
“The night my parents were killed...in addition to the grief and the guilt, I felt such an overwhelming sense of helplessness. They were gone, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to change what had happened, to fill the empty space in all of our lives.
“And then our grandparents told us there was no way that they could take in seven kids, so my two brothers and I were essentially on our own. We had no choice about that, but we chose to leave Rust Creek Falls and make our own lives. Yeah, it was a hollow victory, but we needed to feel like we had control over something.
“Everywhere I went after that, every job I took, every decision I made, was an effort to prove to myself that I was in charge of my own destiny. Then I met Emily, and I decided that I wanted to get married. But was I motivated by my feelings for her or a desperate desire to be part of a family again?”
He shrugged, as if he still wasn’t certain of the answer to that question. “And does it really matter? Because I never managed to fit in with her family. I never got what I wanted. My fault, I know. Because I never really tried. Because it didn’t take me long to realize that I didn’t want to be part of a family again, I wanted my family back. And that was never going to happen.”
He was silent for a minute, no doubt pondering those revelations. “But the point of all of that is that you were right,” he continued. “There were too many things left unsaid, and saying them will, I think, help both of us put that chapter of our lives behind us.”
“I’m glad,” she said sincerely.
He finished his coffee and carried his empty plate and mug to the kitchen. Setting the dishes on the counter, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and sighed. “Four text messages from Luke in the past hour.”
“Is something wrong?” she asked, immediately concerned.
“Nah, he’s just nagging me for not being there for morning chores.”
“My fault,” Serena realized. “Sorry.”
He smiled. “I’m not.” He kissed her then, softly, sweetly. “But I do have to go.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“I had a really good time last night.”
“Me, too.”
And though he’d said he had to go, he didn’t move. “I’m not sure what else to say here,” he confessed.
“You don’t have to say anything else,” she told him.
“I want to say something else.”
“What do you want to say?”
“Well, I’d like to ask if I can see you again tonight, but I don’t want you to think that I’m making any assumptions...or have any expectations...that we’re going to do what we did last night. Again, I mean.”
She took a moment to untangle his words. “So you’re saying that last night was a one-night stand?”
“No,” he immediately replied. “I mean, I hope not.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Because I hope not, too.”
“So...can I see you tonight?”
“I’ll be decorating my Christmas tree tonight.”
“I was surprised that you didn’t have one yet,” he admitted.
“Me and Grams always went to get one on December 16, so I carry on that tradition,” she told him.
“Where do you go?”
“Just over to the tree lot in town.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” he suggested.
“What’s your better idea?” she asked warily.
“Come to Sunshine Farm with me now and we’ll cut one down together and bring it back here.”
“You’re already late for morning chores,” she reminded him.
“They’ll be done before I get back.”
“And you figure that your brother will be less likely to yell at you if I’m there?” she guessed.
“Do you want to hassle me or get a Christmas tree?”
She gave him a cheeky smile. “Both. But I guess I need to put some clothes on for the latter.”
He gave her a playful pat on the butt. “Be quick.”
Chapter Twelve
“Are you still going to pretend that there’s nothing going on between you and Serena Langley?” Dan asked Bailey.
It was Monday afternoon and the brothers had all been recruited to repair a section of downed fence at Sunshine Farm. The repair hadn’t taken as long as they’d anticipated, and they were back at the barn now, attempting to warm their frozen hands with hot coffee.
“Why do you think I’m pretending?” he asked, not really denying the fact so much as wanting to know what his brother knew—or thought he did.
“Because your truck was parked outside her apartment overnight,” Dan noted.
�
�Saturday and Sunday,” Jamie chimed in.
“Only one of the things I forgot that I hate about small towns,” Bailey grumbled.
“So what’s the status of the relationship?” Luke asked.
“I don’t know that I’d call it a relationship,” he hedged.
“You’re spending your nights in her bed,” Dan said again.
“Two nights.” So far. “And even in a small town, I don’t think that’s illegal.”
“In a small town, people talk,” Jamie reminded him. “And Serena’s not that kind of girl.”
Bailey felt a twinge of uneasiness—and not his first—as he silently acknowledged the truth of his brother’s claim. Of course, he hadn’t thought about the potential repercussions for her reputation when he’d accepted the invitation to go up to her apartment after the Presents for Patriots event Saturday night. He hadn’t thought about anything but how much he wanted to be with her.
On the other hand, it’s not as if he had a reputation for bed-hopping in town. In fact, he didn’t have a reputation for much of anything, except being one of those Stockton boys who had returned to Rust Creek Falls after so many years away. And in the twelve months that he’d been back, Serena was the first woman he’d been with. In fact, she was the first woman he’d been with since his ex-wife—not that he had any intention of admitting as much to his brothers.
“I know you probably think this is none of our business,” Luke began.
“Bingo,” Bailey said.
“But it is,” Dan insisted. “Not just because you’re our brother, but because Serena is a friend—a good friend—of Annie’s.”
“I’m aware of that,” he assured his brothers. “I’m also aware that she’s an adult capable of making her own decisions.”
Dan held up his hands in a universal gesture of surrender. “I’m not suggesting otherwise.”
“Then this conversation is over,” Bailey said, looking at each of his brothers in turn.
They exchanged glances, shrugs.
“Just...be careful,” Luke urged.
“I always am,” he said.
But their words and warnings continued to niggle at the back of his mind throughout the rest of the day. And even when he met Serena after work, as they’d planned, to take a reluctant Marvin for a walk, followed by dinner together again.
Bring Me a Maverick for Christmas! Page 14