It Takes Two

by Judith Arnold

  And why had Will come here to tell her? The address of North Shore Design was easy enough to locate, whether on the firm’s website or on her PowerPoint slides at the library, which included North Shore Design’s contact information at the bottom of each slide. Along with the address, the website and the slides included the firm’s phone number. Why hadn’t he just called?

  Had he felt that something, too?

  She reminded herself again that he would soon be leaving the area for his dream job in Seattle. Whatever that something was, she saw no point in pursuing it. Sure, he was attractive—ridiculously so. But she’d never been inclined toward short-term, casual hook-ups, no matter how attractive the man was. And if Will was planning to leave Brogan’s Point in the near future, he and she could never share anything more than a casual hook-up.

  That she was even thinking in terms of hooking up with Will irritated her. She wished his eyes weren’t so piercing, his jaw so sharply chiseled, his tall, lean body so perfectly proportioned. She wished he didn’t keep flashing his endearingly crooked smile at her, and his sexy dimples.

  She wished the damned song would stop playing inside her brain.

  “I thought maybe you ought to drive over to the library and do your own campaigning,” he suggested now.

  Brianna recalled how awkward she’d felt sitting next to Rollie in the front of that meeting room. To sit next to him in the Brogan’s Point library, collaring people who’d just wandered in to drop off a borrowed book or browse the shelves, would be ten times as awkward.

  That said, she couldn’t stand the thought that Rollie would win the commission simply because he’d been pushy and she’d been reticent.

  “I can’t believe he’ll sit there all day,” she said. “Maybe I’ll go over in the afternoon.” From the corner of her eye, she saw Michael nod. Evidently, he approved of that plan.

  Will nodded, too. “So… Can I talk to you privately for a minute?” he asked, angling his head toward the door.

  She shot Michael a look. He shrugged and swiveled his chair back to his desk. “Okay,” she said cautiously, following Will to the door and outside.

  They stood in the empty corridor. Across the hall from the North Shore Design office, a lawyer ran a one-man operation, handling wills and real estate transactions. To their left, a much larger office housed an accounting firm; Brianna had gotten to know a few of the firm’s employees in the ladies’ room they all shared at the end of the hallway. Across from the entrance to the accounting firm, a broad stairway descended to the ground floor and a door leading out to the parking lot, the food shop, and the salon.

  If Brianna had designed this hallway, she would have added some color to it. The walls were beige, the carpet an industrial-strength gray. At the very least, she would hang some bright prints on the walls. But the landlord hadn’t asked her opinion.

  Right now, Will Naukonen was all the scenery the hall needed. He stood before her, his hair slightly windblown, a fisherman’s sweater hugging his torso and faded blue jeans emphasizing the length of his legs. His unflinching gaze remained on her.

  She should have felt at least as awkward standing here with him, the fluorescent ceiling light humming above them, as she’d felt last night seated beside Rollie. Will had come here, he’d said he wanted to talk to her, but he wasn’t talking. He was just watching her, as if he expected her to bolt.

  And yet she didn’t feel awkward at all.

  “You could have phoned me,” she said.

  “I didn’t have your number.”

  “You have the number of North Shore Design. Or you could have found it easily enough.”

  He smiled. “If I phoned you, I wouldn’t…” He trailed off, his gaze intensifying, his hand reaching out to cup her cheek. “I didn’t have the guts to do this last night,” he said. “I’m feeling gutsier today.” With that, he dipped his head and pressed his mouth to hers.

  This really should have felt awkward.

  But it didn’t.

  She sank into his kiss, fell into it, submerged herself in it. She shouldn’t have expected it, but somehow, she did. She shouldn’t have wanted it, but…she did.

  His fingers wound through her hair, sifting it, caressing it. His breath merged with hers. His lips molded hers, his tongue stroked hers, and she reveled in every sensation, every moment. Her ability to think evaporated. He was leaving when? He was going where? She knew him how long, how little? None of it mattered. All that mattered was this kiss.

  And then it ended. He eased back, his hands still trapped in her hair, his breath nearly as uneven as hers. His gaze locked with hers and he gave her that smile again, wistful, enigmatic, so adorable yet so hard to read. A long minute passed, and he said, “That was nice.”

  Nice? It was shocking, soul-shaking, earth-quaking. Nice hardly came close to describing it.

  “Say something,” he cued her.

  Maybe that was what his smile meant: that she was supposed to speak, to come up with an assessment of what they’d just done.

  If she said what she was thinking—“You’re about to move to the other end of the continent”—it would imply that she believed this kiss signified something deeper than just a meeting of lips. It would suggest that she was looking for a relationship, or an emotional connection, or—God help her—a commitment. Which she wasn’t, because he was still practically a stranger to her. All they had in common was a friendly meal at the Lobster Shack, and this kiss.

  Which, for some reason, felt like an awful lot to have in common.

  “We probably shouldn’t have done that,” she said, sounding appallingly prissy to herself.

  “Probably.” He laughed. “Who cares about probably?”

  She half agreed with him, and half resented his gentle mocking. “This discussion is over,” she said, breaking from him and turning toward the door to North Shore Design.

  “Okay, but I think you should make an appearance at the library if you don’t want Davenport outshining you. I’ll be at the tavern from about two o’clock on. Stop by.”

  That he sounded so casual, so cavalier, shifted the agreement-resentment ratio to mostly resentment. “Good-bye, Will,” she said, yanking the door open and storming back into her office.

  She shut the door with a bit more force than necessary, prompting Michael to shoot her a look. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” she snapped, settling at her desk and lifting her mug. She took a sip. Her coffee was cold.

  She, unfortunately, wasn’t. In spite of her anger, she felt overheated. Feverish. Just plain hot.

  Chapter Six

  Will had never been a smooth operator.

  His friend and erstwhile apartment-mate, Craig, had been a master of the moves. He’d known how to cajole, how to seduce, how to make women throw themselves at him. Will had met some of the women Craig had scored with, and he wasn’t sure he’d have wanted any of them throwing themselves at him. But he’d admired Craig’s technique.

  He’d never tried to emulate Craig, though, never attempted to master that technique himself. It wouldn’t have felt right. It wouldn’t have felt like him. He was who he was—straightforward, no games, no bullshit. If he wanted something, he asked for it. If he was turned down, he shrugged and moved on.

  Admittedly, he hadn’t asked for Brianna’s kiss. And if she’d turned him down—which she sort of did, after the fact—he couldn’t imagine shrugging and moving on.

  He wasn’t sure why. Once again, he reminded himself that she wasn’t his type. She seemed kind of uptight, kind of prim—although there had been nothing the least bit uptight or prim about the way she’d kissed him. She looked so freaking professional in her tailored outfits, with her proper posture and her neat pink fingernails. He was usually drawn to women more like him: denim-and-flannel girls, spur-of-the-moment lobster-roll girls. Brainy girls.

  He was pretty sure Brianna was smart. Was she smart enough to go toe-to-t
oe with Davenport at the library, though? Was she brave enough?

  He drove back to his mother’s house, his body still buzzing with hormones, his mind humming with a blend of satisfaction and anxiety. Why hadn’t he asked Brianna for her personal phone number? Had he been afraid she would say no? He could always phone her at North Shore Design, but would she take his call if he did?

  He hadn’t phoned to tell her about Davenport’s aggressive performance at the library because he’d wanted to see her. He’d wanted to see for himself if he had somehow exaggerated her in his mind, if his memory of those moments in her car last night, when it had taken all his willpower not to lean from his seat to hers and plant a kiss on her sweet, rosy mouth, bore any resemblance to reality.

  The moment he’d seen her today, he had known. No exaggeration. Something about her convinced him that he would be a better person with her in his life than without her.

  He entered his mother’s house. His mother wasn’t there, of course. She’d spent the night with Ed Nolan, and in another hour or so, she would be heading over to the bar to take deliveries and do set-ups. She worked too hard. Too many long days. When was the last time she’d given herself a vacation?

  One reason Will had wanted to spend this time with her before heading off to Seattle was that he doubted she would ever visit him there. Not because she didn’t love him—he knew she did. Not because she didn’t want to see him, but because she needed to hire someone to run the place in her absence, and she seemed averse to that.

  Manny Lopez could probably do it. He’d been with her for several years and understood the ins and outs of the business better than anyone except Will’s mother herself. But he didn’t want the responsibility. He stepped up if she had to miss a day here and there, but he insisted he lacked the proper business mentality—not true, but that was what he claimed—and he preferred toiling behind the scenes, filling in, supporting, performing any task that required brawn.

  Sunlight slanted through the kitchen window as Will filled a cup of cold coffee from the brewer’s decanter and slid it into the microwave to heat. He stared at the window, a modest rectangle directly above the sink. The kitchen was clean and tidy, but it needed updating. The appliances dated back to his childhood. The pine cabinets had lost a bit of their polyurethane veneer, and the floor, a checkerboard of black and white tiles, looked dated. Will supposed his mother didn’t want to invest money in renovating the kitchen because she spent so little time in it, hanging out at Ed Nolan’s house as often as she did. But sprucing up the room wouldn’t hurt. Will had money to spare. Maybe she would let him pay for it.

  A bigger window would be nice, for starters. Maybe one of those greenhouse windows, with shelves for plants. She could grow some pots of herbs there. The window faced east, and plenty of sunlight would bathe the plants.

  A new floor, for sure. A gas stove top would be nicer than the current electric one, but Will had read recently that environmentalists were discouraging the use of gas for cooking. Maybe he could buy her one of those smooth electric cooktops. They looked cool and cleaned up easily.

  The room was too small. It would look bigger if the wall separating it from the dining room was cut down, turned into a half-wall with a pass-through…

  Why was he thinking like an architect? What was wrong with him?

  Brianna. She was what was wrong with him.

  He drank his reheated coffee, wondering if the caffeine would make him feel even more restless than he already was. Through the window, he viewed the backyard that had been his childhood universe—the crabapple tree that had blanketed the ground with hard, red mini-apples every autumn, the maple he had climbed higher than his big brother and gloated about for years, the dense hedge of lilacs and arborvitae that had served a multitude of make-believe functions: a prisoner-of-war camp, a space ship, a fort, a jungle filled with imaginary lions and snakes. The yard was spacious, more than half an acre in size. Maybe the kitchen could be expanded outward a few square feet, and the small back patio turned into a deck.

  He ordered himself to stop thinking about what he would do if the house belonged to him and he was willing to hire North Shore Design to update it. Slugging down the last of his coffee, he turned from the window. After he’d rinsed his cup, he headed back outside, figuring he might as well drive over to the Faulk Street Tavern to help his mother with the set-up. That would be a lot more useful to her than fantasizing about how to fix up her house.

  He decided to take a quick detour to the library on his way. Not that he expected to see Brianna there, but he hoped she would take his advice and push as hard for her Town Hall proposal as Davenport was pushing.

  His drive took him past the lot where Davenport would erect his dramatic building if he won the vote. Will hated to admit that Davenport’s design was more exciting than Brianna’s, but it was. Less practical, maybe, but more daring. More forward-thinking. More next-generation. If Will had to cast a vote right this minute, he would likely vote for Davenport’s design, even though he wanted Brianna to win the commission.

  Fortunately, he wouldn’t face that dilemma. He hadn’t registered to vote in Brogan’s Point when he’d moved out of his Boston apartment. Until he moved to Seattle, Boston remained his legal address.

  He pulled to the curb next to the empty lot and climbed out of his car, trying to picture arched beams and planes of glass rising from the undeveloped lot. Twenty million dollars was a mighty big price tag. But it would be a magnificent building. People would come from across the region just to view it. The town could sell postcards and calendars with its photograph. Maybe they could recoup some of the cost.

  He laughed out loud at the thought.

  “What’s so funny?” a familiar voice greeted him.

  He turned to see Ed Nolan approaching. As a police detective, Ed didn’t wear a uniform on the job, and he looked just like any other town resident in his polo shirt, khakis, and jacket. The faint spring breeze ruffled through his hair, and his eyes squinted slightly in the bright sunlight.

  “Hey, Ed,” Will greeted him.

  “You’re thinking we should go with the big, modern Town Hall?”

  “With the big, modern price tag?” Will shrugged. “It’s none of my business. I’ll be out of here long before the first shovel hits the dirt.”

  “That price is pretty daunting.” Ed dug his hands into his trouser pockets and turned to stare at the empty lot. “I’ve been hoping for a chance to talk to you.”

  “About what?” Will suffered a brief twinge of conscience, the sort of momentary panic he would have felt as a kid when stopped by a cop for riding his bike without wearing a helmet, or pelting passing cars with snowballs. What had he done wrong, and would he get arrested for it?

  Nothing and no, as it turned out. “I want to marry your mother,” Ed said.

  Relaxing, Will smiled. “You don’t need my permission for that,” he said. “You don’t need my approval, either, but you’ve got it. Just don’t make me have to wear a tuxedo.”

  Ed returned Will’s smile, then grew solemn. “I’ve already asked her a dozen times. She keeps saying no.”

  Will digested that. “She loves you,” he said, pretty sure that was true. His mother wouldn’t be spending every night in the bed of a man she didn’t love. She wouldn’t be watching for him every evening while she tended bar, and lighting up with pleasure when he swung through the tavern’s front door.

  “Maybe so, but she doesn’t want to get married. She said she doesn’t see the point.”

  More for Will to digest. “Do you see the point?” he asked.

  “The point is, a vow. A public acknowledgement. A blessing in the church, if that’s okay with her. And I could put her on my health insurance.”

  Vows and church blessings were all good and well. Health insurance was important. Will knew his mother bought coverage for herself and all the tavern employees, but Ed’s policy through the police department was probably mu
ch more comprehensive.

  He contemplated the older man standing beside him. Will and his brother were well beyond needing a stepfather to fill their father’s place. He was reasonably convinced that Ed’s daughter didn’t need a stepmother, either. What their parents did was up to them.

  Yet Ed was consulting him. “Am I supposed to give you advice?” he asked, shooting Ed another smile.

  “If you have any, I’ll take it. If you don’t have any advice for me, maybe you could give some to your mother. Think you could convince her to change her mind? She may love me, but she loves you more.”

  “It’s a different kind of love,” Will said. “You’re comparing apples and oranges.” If Craig were here, perhaps he could advise Ed on the correct way to woo Will’s mother, to get her to say yes. But Craig was in Washington State with Gaurav, already working for Pacific Dynamic and probably doing his best to seduce half the female population of Seattle.

  Ed held his gaze for a beat. Will’s memories of his father were vague—he’d been only eight years old when his father died—but he imagined Ed would make a decent stepfather, if he needed one. He’d gone plenty far in his life without a father; he’d been blessed with a damned good mother and an older brother who, while unable to climb quite as high in the maple tree as Will could, had offered support and guidance when Will had needed it. But if he had to have a stepfather, he could do a hell of a lot worse than Ed Nolan.

  He supposed, as well, that it couldn’t hurt to have a relative in the police department. Not that Ed would be able to tear up any parking tickets Will might get if Will was living in Seattle.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

  Ed shook his hand and clapped him on the back. “Your mother is so proud of her boys,” he said. “She’s got reason to be.”