Читать книгу About That Kiss - Jayne Addison - Страница 8

Joy Mackey squared her slim shoulders and brought her hand up to knock on Nick Tremain’s apartment door. But she didn’t knock. Instead she fanned herself with her hand. She felt very warm, though it wasn’t particularly hot for Long Island in July, no more than eighty degrees and not at all humid yet at nine o’clock in the morning. The heat she was feeling had nothing to do with the temperature. She was about to do something she knew she probably shouldn’t be doing. Not that it was going to stop her from doing it.

Joy drew in a deep breath, then turned on her heels in a complete about-face. She walked four straight steps away from the door. Then two more steps right to the outdoor railing of his third-story, motel-style unit. She’d carefully planned what she was going to say on the drive over from Greenport. Now she couldn’t remember her great opening line.

“Hi, Nick…” Joy practiced, going for a breezy tone.

“Hi, Joy,” Nick replied, as he opened his front door.

Surprised, Joy spun around to face him. “Hi, Nick,” Joy repeated, still startled.

“Hi, again.” Nick closed the door behind him and stood with her in the covered walkway that was open to the elements.

Joy had recovered her composure sufficiently to deliver what she considered her friendliest smile. “Are you going somewhere?” She took note of his white T-shirt lauding the New York Jets, blue jean cutoffs with white strings dangling onto his rugged thighs. His bare feet were in well-worn sneakers and set wide apart at the moment.

“A walk on the beach.” His blue eyes made a quick trip over her own casual attire. But they lingered on her bare legs, she noticed.

“Okay,” Joy said brightly, matching his stride as he headed for the stairs.

“I suppose that means you’re coming with me,” Nick stated.

“Yes.” Joy stuck her chin out stubbornly.

“Did Diana send you?”

“No. My sister did not send me.”

“Does she know you’re here?”

“No.” Joy shook her head emphatically, gesturing flamboyantly with both her hands. “I’m here on my own.”

Frowning, Nick said, “Let me tell you right now, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Joy gritted her teeth. “I’ll talk. You just have to listen.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to give me any choice.”

Since he obviously knew what she was here for, Joy launched right in. “I can’t believe how ridiculous the two of you are being. You and Diana love each other. There has to be a way for you to work this out. No one decides to get married and then breaks up in the same day.”

Joy looked at his face to see what reaction she’d garnered. The glance he returned was totally impassive. She’d been told she was stubborn a number of times in her life. She was even willing to admit to it. But in this instance, Nick took the prize.

Without commenting, Nick led the way to the street and held the door for her. Squinting her gray-green eyes against the more direct sunlight, Joy walked out, Nick right behind her.

He took a short path up a dune and then down to the beach. There were very few people around—joggers mostly. That’s the way it usually was on a Thursday morning. The New York City crowd hit the beach only on weekends.

“You’re not saying anything,” Joy pointed out, having to raise her voice. He’d gotten ahead of her. The sand was getting into her open sandals, slowing her steps.

Nick stopped and turned. “I already told you that I don’t want to talk about it.” He watched her trying to shake the sand from her shoes. The hint of an easy smile came across his mouth. “Why don’t you just take them off?”

“Will you wait for me?” Joy studied him measuringly, wondering if he’d jog off and deliberately leave her behind.

This time when Nick smiled it was a full-fledged grin. “I’ll wait for you.”

Joy bent over to undo the ties of her sandals. It was the first time she’d worn them. The single bow hadn’t held when she’d put them on so she’d doubled it. Now she was having a hard time getting the knot open. Joy straightened up and ran her moist palms and fingers down the sides of her shorts. Then she bent over to tackle the knot again.

Nick walked over and stood directly in front of her. He drew his key chain out from the pocket of his shorts and squatted. “Put your foot up here.” He tapped his right thigh. “Let me see what I can do.”

Joy saw the silver flash of a small pocketknife as he released it from his key chain. “I don’t want you to cut them off.” She met his upward glance with a horrific look. “I just bought them yesterday. They’re not as comfortable as I thought they’d be, but I still like how they look.”

“I like how they look, too,” Nick quipped, his tone sexy. “Give me your foot. I’m just going to use the tip of the knife to loosen the knot.”

Joy knew he was only being teasingly flirtatious, but her face was flushed as she placed her foot on his thigh and gripped his hard shoulder to balance herself. Inadvertently her fingertips touched his thick, dark hair, which was a little long at the back of his neck. The combination of its soft silkiness and the strength of his muscles made her shiver. His gaze met hers just then, and Joy was suddenly extremely embarrassed that he’d somehow guessed she’d just experienced an unquestionably sexual reaction. She wasn’t supposed to have that kind of a reaction to Nick.

Joy turned her head aside and tried to appear blasé. She gathered up her rust-colored hair from the back of her neck, holding the wavy mass up for a few seconds before letting it drop down to her shoulders again. She was overly conscious of Nick’s hand around her ankle. And though she could feel the direct warmth of the sun, she was still shivering inside. She had the sudden urge to hum a tune—something bouncy and distracting.

“Give me your other foot,” Nick said, having freed her of one sandal without Joy even realizing it.

Joy made the switch after letting the opened sandal slide off her foot and onto the sand. She pictured Diana and Nick as a couple. They were like a matched set of bookends. They both had almost pitch-black hair and blue eyes. He was unequivocally good-looking. Diana was unbelievably beautiful. They were so right for each other.

Nick made faster work out of the second knot. Joy let go of his firm shoulder as she shook off her other sandal. Holding her shoes together by their strings, she curled her bare toes into the sand beneath her feet.

“How did you get that small scar under your chin?” Nick asked, getting to his feet.

“I fell out of a tree when I was eight years old.”

“A tomboy, huh?”

“I guess,” Joy conceded. “My mother told me that when I left the house she always worried about me coming back in one piece. Diana always complained about having to watch me even when we were in our teens.”

“My brother, Kevin, always got stuck baby-sitting me, too. I was glad I wasn’t the older one.”

Joy nodded her head in agreement. “I know you’re thirty-one. How much older is Kevin?” She’d met his brother once. Kevin was a lawyer with a successful practice here in East Hampton. The two men didn’t look any more alike than she looked like Diana. Joy did remember Kevin Tremain being nice-looking in his own right, but minus his brother’s lawless charisma.

“He’s four years older. Diana is three years older than you, right?”

“Yes,” Joy answered. “I used to feel so bad when Diana would get punished along with me for all the scrapes I’d get into.” Joy thought about the small scar high up on her left thigh. She had mastered skateboarding—eventually.

Nick wiggled his eyebrows and gave her a wide grin. “How about we match scrapes? You show me yours. I’ll show you mine.”

Joy shook her head impatiently. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to get me off track. I want to talk about you and Diana and the way you both are right now…which is miserable.”

“How about telling me what idea you’ve come up with for your next column?”

They’d talked about the column she wrote for her town’s local paper quite a few times. It was the flip side of his photojournalism career.

She exhaled with great exasperation. “Please, Nick…This is Diana’s and your future. You’ve got to work it out.”

“That’s not fair,” Nick told her.

“What’s not fair?” Joy eyed him, baffled.

“The way you say please is hard on a guy.”

“Come on, Nick. Ple-e-eze.” Joy admonished his playful ploy with an aggravated look.

Nick sighed. “Do you want to walk?”

“No. I want to stand here and have this out with you.” Joy peered up at him adamantly. “I know there’s a compromise the two of you can reach. I don’t think Diana is right to expect you to change your career from a photojournalist to a commercial photographer, and I don’t think Diana is right not to be willing to meet you partway and curtail all the buying trips she’s always running off on for her clients. I know the two of you can find a way to have quality time together. You can’t break up over this!”

“Maybe Diana and I only thought we had a future together.” He’d had three days now to examine his feelings, and he’d come up with some serious second thoughts that had nothing to do with either one of their careers.

“You and Diana do have a future together,” Joy continued assertively. “I know Diana will compromise on her end if the two of you just talk it out.”

Nick folded his arms across his chest. “You know what I realized a little while ago?”

“What?”

“I’ve had longer conversations with you than I’ve ever had with Diana.”

It took Joy a second to respond. “When two people are in love they don’t need to do that much talking.”

“Joy, I really would like you to drop this.”

But she would not be deterred. “This is your quandary. You and Diana didn’t talk enough before. Now you have to talk.”

Nick unwound his arms and reached out to place a hand lightly on Joy’s mouth. But she turned her head just then and his fingers got caught in her hair.

Joy’s eyes flew to his face while he untangled his fingers. She gazed at him askance for a second, then went right on. “The way I see it…”

The rest of her speech was cut off as Nick captured her face between his hands and out of aggravation covered her mouth with his. He had no thought of doing what he did next, but he’d caught her with her lips parted, and his tongue went where it wanted to go. Spontaneously his hands left her face to bring her up flush against his chest, locking them together in a full-length embrace.

He felt Joy’s tongue arch in uncertainty. Then her arms found their way around his neck and she made the fit even better by rising up on her toes. The sandals dropped from her fingers, and she was kissing him back.

Nick fought a desire to touch more of her with his hands, but that didn’t stop his enjoyment of her mouth. He had no sense at all of wanting to stop, though he did try for a millisecond to clear his head.

A couple of teenage boys walking by whistled their approval. It was only then that Joy and Nick put an abrupt end to what they were doing.

Joy’s arms dropped flaggingly from his neck. Nick let her body slide back down until her heels met the sand before he let go of her. He stared at her.

Joy stared back. Oh, my! Oh, my! she thought.

“Whoo!” Nick breathed. “Where did that come from?”

Joy eyed him incredulously. Where did that come from?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what got into me.”

“Well…ah.” Joy floundered inanely. “What I mean is…well…It’s the heat…the sun…The sun can make people do crazy things.”

“Right. The sun.” Nick stuck his hands in his pockets. “I thought it was a full moon that did that.”

“Right. That, too. And the sun.” Joy trained her eyes down at the sand. God! She’d been falling in love with Nick while he and Diana had been falling in love with each other. All it had taken was that kiss—that earth-shattering kiss—to make her face the truth.

Joy raised her eyes from the sand, but she didn’t meet his gaze head-on. She kept her focus on one neatly trimmed sideburn. “I should be going now. We’ve talked…and all.”

Was her face as red as she thought it was?

“We’ve talked,” Nicked agreed, suddenly subdued.

Joy started to leave. She got four large steps away, when Nick called her.

“Your sandals,” he said.

Joy came back. They both bent down at the same time to pick up her shoes. Their fingers accidentally touched and their eyes met briefly. With the speed of lightning Joy jerked her hand away. Nick gathered together her sandals and he extended them to her as they both straightened up.

Joy felt she should make one last comment on Diana’s behalf. “I know you’re letting your male ego get in your way. Will you stop being so obstinate and marry my sister!”

With that parting remark she walked away. When she looked back over her shoulder she saw Nick standing at the water’s edge, watching her retreat.