by Jean Oram
She stood, getting a cup for him. She was wearing a loose sweatshirt and a pair of shorts.
“You have nice legs.”
“That’s true,” she said, placing the cup in front of him with a soft smile, then filling it.
The mug had a stick man being chased by a bear, and said “Running Wild in Blueberry Springs.”
He chuckled and inhaled the tea’s aroma. Chamomile. That brought back memories of Maggie drinking the same brew while waiting up for him when he was a teenager. It made him think of nights on the town and pushing boundaries. And then feeling bad afterward for making his aunt worry. That phase hadn’t lasted very long.
“Want to watch a movie?” Jill asked.
“I don’t want to watch a romantic comedy.”
She snorted in disgust. “This isn’t a date. I watch those on my own, when I won’t have a man scoffing at me, thank you very much.”
He laughed. “What did you have in mind?”
“Die Hard.”
Burke had taken a sip of the awful tea and laughed again, spraying warm liquid over the table. Underneath it, the dog sighed.
“What?” Jill protested, handing him a damp dishrag. “I happen to be a Bruce Willis fan.”
“Have I ever mentioned that I like you, Ms. Tough Girl?” He wiped the splatters of tea and went to the sink to rinse out the rag, then hang it to dry.
“No, not specifically,” she said, her back to him as she sipped her beverage, both elbows on the table. “However, you did marry me, which implies a certain level of like.”
“Well played.” He went to sit again, but a part of him felt anxious. If he sat he’d have nothing to focus on other than Jill. “Where’s your TV?” He glanced around the small room before spotting the flat screen on the wall. In front of it wasn’t a couch, just a love seat. No additional furniture such as an armchair.
It looked as though they might be cuddling.
He could handle cuddling.
Maybe.
Yeah, probably not.
“A love seat so you can snuggle with your dates?” he asked, setting their cups on the coffee table.
“I think we’ve already established this isn’t a date,” she said, slightly breathless as she took her spot on the love seat.
He sat down beside her, letting his thigh rest against hers. She looked as unsettled as he felt, and it pleased him to have her off guard.
She cleared her throat, that unaffected-tough-girl attitude coming out once again.
“You can hold my hand during the scary parts if you want to.” She smirked, cranking the heat that was building inside him. “Since you thought I was going to choose a romantic comedy.”
She was much more interesting than any movie Hollywood ever produced.
Jill couldn’t concentrate on the movie. Burke kept pressing his thigh, warm and strong, against hers, and there was no way for her to shift away on the small love seat. She should have just read in bed. Or chosen a horror so she could play-act at being the frightened female and hide her face behind his shoulder.
She could practically hear her sister scolding her for missing the opportunity.
No, what was she even thinking? She didn’t want to get involved with Burke. And she didn’t want to pretend to be someone she wasn’t, either. She’d tried that. The relationships failed and she felt stupid.
They had businesses to run and she needed, more than ever, to concentrate and ensure things didn’t suddenly go off the rails. He was just so…easy to be with. She liked the way he made her feel—despite messing with her plans all the time. Somehow, it didn’t seem to matter as much when he did, and she wasn’t sure why.
She should probably be worried about that, shouldn’t she? And yet she couldn’t quite seem to summon the power to get there.
Sure, they kissed with a heat and energy that kept building between them, but she was fooling herself if she believed that energy was going to become a real marriage and a happily ever after. She might as well break her own heart now and save herself the trouble later.
Jill’s cell phone rang on the coffee table and she ignored it.
“Are you going to get that?” Burke asked.
She shook her head. She was fairly confident there’d be nobody at the other end of the line, like earlier. Caller ID came up with nothing and a part of her had a feeling it was Autumn Martinez harassing her. Jill was one step away from asking Ginger’s husband, Logan Stone, a man who ran his own personal security business, for advice on how to block someone whose number didn’t even come up on her screen.
Burke was watching her curiously, but she didn’t want to talk about Autumn. Instead she wanted to enjoy the way he had shifted so he was angled toward her, his arm slung over the back of the love seat, his body warm and wonderful.
The movie ended a while later and Jill realized she had zoned out for almost the entire last half, stuck in her own thoughts. She turned to Burke on the tight little love seat just as he turned to her. He was so close. If she shifted her shoulder and leaned in a little she could kiss him. Or maybe he could kiss her.
“Feeling tired yet?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“So… We’re married?” Burke asked, his focus locked directly on her bottom lip.
“That’s what vital records keep telling us.”
“We’re going to stick it out until this financial business is all settled, right?”
“What are you suggesting?” She was leaning in, a slow tipping motion. She straightened suddenly, catching herself.
Burke didn’t reply, but his focus softened from that intense one he often had when discussing business, to something more intimate. He took a strand of her hair, tucking it back, pausing to run his thumb down her ear.
She shivered and he sank his lips onto hers, his hand gently guiding her head to the perfect angle so they could kiss more deeply. As always with him, she found herself losing control.
He wanted her.
Her. Jill Armstrong. Too pointed. Too direct. Overbearing with detailed plans. Sharpshooter.
But when he woke up and realized she wasn’t the one he’d been waiting for, he’d go running. And she needed him to stay. Just a little longer. Play the game, put on the show.
She couldn’t ruin everything. Not yet.
What was she even thinking? Getting involved would only complicate things.
Oh, but he was such a good kisser… Couldn’t she have it both ways?
She gently pushed him away. “I don’t think this is going to help matters.”
“Don’t use the word complicated,” he said quickly.
“Fine. Tangled. Thorny. Problematic.”
“That sounds worse.”
“I know.” She stood, sorely tempted to stay in the cocoon of his body’s warmth, reveling in the gentle freedom of kissing him. The corner of his lips turned up slightly, even though she was shutting him down.
Somehow, somewhere along the line they had moved past the awkwardness of an early relationship and built some sort of trust between them. And as a result, her not-quite-real marriage had begun to feel like the beginning of something real. Something special.
8
“Wha…” Burke stared at the printout from Andrea. She had to have significant pregnancy-brain going on, the added hormones messing with her math, to come up with these numbers. There was no way they were correct.
“Andrea?” he called out of his office. He could see into hers from his doorway. Vacant.
“She’s walking through a contraction,” Gulliver said, barely looking away from his monitor.
“She’s what?”
“You heard me.”
“Why isn’t she going to the hospital?”
“She’s afraid.”
“It’s safer than having it here.”
“She’s developed an ‘irrational’ fear…” Gulliver made sure he looked up, placing air quotes with his fingers around irrational—a direct dig at the way Burke had suggested he
was behaving for thinking the business was in the midst of dying a slow death. “…that this place will go up in flames as soon as she leaves, and she wants to earn as much at full pay as possible.”
As Burke marched off toward the break room, Gulliver called out, “Autumn came by. She was saddened greatly that you missed the hockey game, and said she’ll organize a meeting with her father about taxes if you come to Saturday’s gala with her.”
Burke waved that away as though it would wave away Autumn’s unwanted attention, too. He had a feeling any contact with her would be perceived as encouragement at this point.
He found Andrea pacing along the counter in the break room, the earthy smell of the small compost bin surely making her nauseated, as it had for the past nine months. Her contractions had to be bad if she was choosing to be near it.
“Hey,” she said, her voice strained. “Nice day out, isn’t it?”
Burke gave her a quick visual assessment. She was freaking out, all right. Time for a decent distraction. Work. He held up her printed projections. “Are these numbers right?”
“Can you check to see how dilated I am?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then no, I made them up, because I’m…eeaah-h-h…having a baby.”
“Has anyone called Luther?” Her husband needed to come and strong-arm her out of here. Immediately.
“He’s on his way.”
Burke rolled the spreadsheet in his hands, at a loss. “Can I do anything? Other than check dilation.” He shuddered involuntarily.
“Leave me…here to…die,” she panted.
“You know the business is okay, right?”
“You saw the spreadsheet. It’s doing great. As long as you don’t mess things up with that woman. Her test stuff is selling hotter than our own add-ons. And purchasing her products boosts our own by 23 percent.” She paused to pant. “It’s symbiotic awesometastic fluffernutter. Oh! Sweet baby hopscotch, give me a hand to squeeze.” She frantically batted at him.
Burke grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl beside him and handed it over instead of his much-needed digits. She squeezed the fruit right out the end of the peel on her next contraction, causing him to wince.
“Don’t let that woman go,” Andrea said, once the pain had lessened its grip. “Don’t be yourself. Don’t lose her. The business needs her.”
“Jill and I are just—” What were they, actually?
Well, he was kind of avoiding her. And he had been for the four long days since he’d grappled with his unwanted desire for her back in Blueberry Springs—and barely won. Spending the day with her had twisted his mind into thinking…well, he wasn’t sure what. Only that it was dangerous and brought all sorts of old warnings from Maggie to mind.
Thank goodness Jill had shot him down or he would have blown everything by listening to his libido.
But he’d promised to talk shop with her in a day or two. In person.
What was he going to do?
“You could get that deal with Tiffer,” Andrea said. “Even without a loan. Just keep this up. Expand on it. This is the ticket.”
“So the numbers are correct?” Burke unfurled the sheets, walking to Andrea so they could look at them together. She grabbed the printout, crumpling it in her hands before dropping it onto the floor.
“Get Luther. Now. And don’t. Don’t take her to bed. You hear?” She clutched her belly. “This baby needs to go to college.”
“Plenty of time to mess up, then,” he joked.
She growled in a way that had him scooting for the door and speed-dialing her husband to tell him to hurry.
Jill gaped at Burke, then at the spreadsheet. She pushed her beer and onion ring double burger away so she wouldn’t stain the pages with Amy and Moe’s Friday special.
“No way,” she said, not believing her eyes. Ethan had set up a test site that diverted a fraction of STH’s online customers toward her products during the checkout process. The number of orders that had come in over the past three days was thrilling. This was exactly what she was looking for.
Burke was grinning as though he wanted to lift her into his arms and swing her around. It was quite distracting. Maybe even more than the figures in her hand.
Jill clamped down on the hope that bubbled inside her. She’d been way too thrilled when his phone number had popped up on her caller ID—as promised—to chat about business. And way too happy to see him pull into town in his fuel-efficient replacement car.
“Ethan’s setting up a system,” Burke said, “where the prior day’s orders will be emailed to you at seven each morning.”
She nodded, performing calculations in her head. If they stayed at this test level for a month it would give her time to settle in, expand, prepare for going wide.
It was doable. She’d have to revamp her system a bit, of course, as this was an uptick in the number of orders she typically had to fill.
She took a sip of her beer, satisfied with the way things were shaping up.
“Hey, congratulations to the newlyweds,” Scott Malone said, coming over and shaking hands with Burke. “Why didn’t you tell me when I was dealing with your fender bender the other day?”
The two of them gave noncommittal shrugs.
“Get a new car?”
Burke nodded.
“Something bigger?”
“Scott,” Jill warned.
“Oh, I heard the news!” Mary Alice Bernfield called. She ditched her coat at the vacant table just behind where Jill and Burke were sitting at the bar. “When’s the baby due?”
“Seriously, Jill,” Scott continued, ignoring the town gossip. “I wouldn’t even fit in that thing.” He gestured to Burke’s similar broad build. “How does this guy?”
“It’s not that bad,” Jill said.
“Your mother must be so delighted to finally have you squared away,” Liz Moss-Brady said, standing beside her sister. She and Mary Alice could spread gossip faster than a pyromaniac could send a house up in smoke. And while Jill felt her back involuntarily stiffen, she continued to ignore the women standing behind her. It wouldn’t be long before they came right up to the bar, likely blocking her in so she couldn’t escape until they’d sufficiently pried everything they wanted to know from her.
Scott winked at Jill. “Rounds on me.” He subtly pointed to the sisters. “Think you’ll need it.”
As soon as he stepped away, they took over the vacant spot, blocking Jill against the bar as she’d predicted.
“When’s the baby due?” Liz asked.
“The baby?” Burke asked, his beer halfway to his mouth.
“They’re having a baby!” Amy called to Moe. He came down the bar, amicably putting an arm around Amy’s shoulder.
“Babies are fun,” he said. “Amy wants a whole herd. Make sure you tell her every gory bit about your birth horror story.”
Amy pretended to punch Moe in the gut and he hammed it up, acting like she’d made contact. “You want kids, too. And you promised you’d give them to me if I marry you.”
“I’m an abused man! She’s forcing me to marry her against my will. Help! She’s going to make me her sex slave.”
Amy tackled him and they wrestled playfully behind the bar. It escalated until Mandy, who’d come in looking hungry and tired, reached over, grabbed the drink dispenser and shot club soda at the two of them.
“Hey!” Amy laughed, water dripping from her curly hair.
“You’re cleaning that up,” Moe said to Mandy.
“Keep the foreplay for after hours,” she retorted, sidling up to the bar. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. Feed me.”
“We don’t serve horse.” Moe crossed his arms. A dribble of club soda dripped from his shaggy hair, landing on his lip. He licked it off. “We also don’t serve patrons who spray us with soda. Besides, you own a whole sandwich shop. Go there to cause your chaos.”
Amy reached over with a bar towel, wiping Moe’s face. She took extra time rubbing his cheeks a
nd being especially annoying. Within seconds he had her wrists pinned, spinning her so she was against the counter, his mouth inches from hers.
For a second Jill thought they were going to kiss. When they broke apart, laughing, she found she’d been holding her breath.
Yeah, those two were totally getting married—but for real. She should place her bet with the gossips. Speaking of which, they were still hovering, distracted by the bartenders’ display.
“If you two are done,” Mandy said, “I’m craving something big and juicy. I don’t care what it is, just make sure it has one of those big homemade pickle wedges Amy makes. No, make it two.”
“Are you pregnant?” Mary Alice asked.
“Two babies?” Liz squealed. She eyed Jill. “Seven months from today for Jill. And about the same for Mandy.”
“I’m not pregnant,” Jill said. “For anyone who wants to concern themselves with reality and save their bet money.”
“And I have a toddler at home. That’s enough,” Mandy said. She’d recently adopted a baby boy after years of secret fertility issues. Well, not so secret, seeing as even though she didn’t talk about them, everyone knew.
“For now it’s enough,” Amy and Moe said in unison. They turned to each other with a grin and a “Jinx!”
The sisters, given plenty to gossip about with Mandy’s order and Moe and Amy’s flirting, drifted away, chattering madly. Jill gave a silent thanks to the powers that be for the diversion.
“When can you start filling orders?” Burke asked. “We aim to have all orders in the mail within forty-eight hours of them being placed.”
Right. That meant she had significantly less than forty-eight hours, since she had to courier her products to his shipping center in the city and the courier left Blueberry Springs at ten each morning.
“Jill?” Burke pressed.
“Yeah, no problem. Mandy and I are sharing a courier.”
“Did you say my name?” Mandy asked, perking up.
“Just telling Burke about our shipping deal.” Her friend nodded and Jill explained to Burke that her orders would be riding with the thousands of brownies Mandy baked and shipped from her distribution center each week.