Читать книгу Romancing The Wallflower - Michelle Major - Страница 12
ОглавлениеDavid waited outside the community center’s front door, watching groups of people take to the streets of Crimson on this beautiful fall Friday night. The temperature was quickly cooling, typical at altitude once the sun dipped behind the majestic peak of Crimson Mountain to the town’s west.
He imagined the crowds heading toward Elevation for a drink with friends, a reminder that he should be tending bar tonight. He’d been lucky with the brewery, opening just as the picturesque mountain town was hitting a resurgence and having a knack with brewing the ever-popular craft beers.
But he didn’t take his success for granted. After destroying his baseball career thanks to one night of reckless stupidity, he’d learned to work hard for what he wanted. He should be working now. Or checking in with Jenna, who was spending the night with Rhett in his loft before they drove to Denver tomorrow to put her on the plane headed for the rehab center in Arizona.
He should be a dozen places that didn’t involve standing in the shadows waiting for Erin. David was long past the days of making stupid choices when it came to women, and he’d never had any interest in the type who looked as wholesome as a tall glass of milk.
The door opened and Erin walked out, and all the reasons David shouldn’t be waiting for her disappeared under the relentless drumming of need pulsing through his body. He might not understand his reaction to the beautiful schoolteacher, but neither could he ignore it.
“Tell me about the boyfriend,” he said, stepping out to block her path.
She stumbled back a step, pressing her hand to her cheek. “Holy cow! You scared the pants off me.”
David felt his mouth curve at that. If only.
“No one says holy cow in real life,” he muttered, reaching out a hand to steady her.
She shrugged off his touch. “Clearly people do say holy cow,” she countered. “Because I just did.” She crossed her arms over a chest that could benefit from a low-cut blouse. Oh, yes. David would definitely like to see this woman in something far more revealing than the conservative pastel-colored shirts she seemed to favor.
The thought of undoing a few of her buttons made his blood run alarmingly hot.
“Why are you skulking around out here?”
“I’m not skulking,” he told her. “I’m waiting for you. You were just about to explain why you asked me for sex when you have a boyfriend.”
Her delicate brows winged up. “No, I wasn’t.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Keep your voice down. I don’t want anyone to hear...” Even in the waning light he could see color flood her cheeks. When was the last time he’d been around a woman who actually blushed?
“That you propositioned me?” he supplied.
“Stop,” she said on a hiss of breath. “It wasn’t like that.”
“It sure sounded like that to me. But I guess you need to keep me your dirty little secret since there’s a boyfriend in the picture.” He tapped a finger on his chin, as if pondering the concept. “I’ve never been a kept man before. I’ll admit it has a certain appeal.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re teasing me.”
He didn’t bother to hide his grin. “You seem unfamiliar with the concept.”
She stared at him a moment longer, then gave a small sigh. He could almost feel on his skin the puff of breath that left her lips. Damn, but he wanted to feel it. He wanted to taste her to gauge for himself whether she was as sweet as she looked. He eased closer to her, slowly, as if she might spook if he moved too fast.
He’d meant to confront her, demand what the hell she’d been thinking when she’d made that shocking request. But he liked the easy banter they fell into far too much. His life had never been easy, and a bit of innocent flirting with Erin gave him a few minutes’ reprieve from all the things he couldn’t control.
She bit down on her lip but didn’t shy away. He liked that, too. “I don’t have a boyfriend,” she mumbled.
“Really?” he asked, even though he’d guessed as much.
“Olivia was intent on playing matchmaker, and I didn’t want you to be forced into asking me out or anything. That’s a horrible feeling and I’m not...”
“Interested?” He chuckled. “We both know that’s not true.”
A shadow clouded her gaze, and he wasn’t sure what he’d said wrong, but he wanted to kick himself for it.
“I’m not your type,” she said through clenched teeth, coming up on her toes and tipping back her head so that he got his wish and felt her breath tickle his chin. Her scent was a mix of cinnamon and sugar, like he imagined a kitchen might smell with a batch of cookies baking in the oven. Warm, inviting and the exact opposite of the cramped galley kitchen in the apartment where he’d grown up.
He was so caught up in his reaction that he almost missed the words she spoke. As it was, by the time he opened his mouth to correct her, she’d brushed past him and was around the corner of the building.
“Erin, wait,” he called, but instead of slowing she moved faster. It only took a few strides to catch up to her.
“I need to go,” she said, keeping her gaze on the ground in front of her when he blocked her path.
“Why do you think you’re not my type?” He was curious to know whether her reasons matched his.
She gave a little shake of her head.
“Erin.”
“Am I your type?” she asked suddenly, her honey-colored gaze slamming into his.
He opened his mouth, shut it again. How was he supposed to answer that? When she made to move around him again, he settled for the truth.
“You’re way too good for me.”
The comment earned him an eye roll. “If you say the words it’s me, not you, I’m going to punch you.”
“I’m guessing you don’t go around punching people.”
“You make me want to start.”
He laughed again. “How is it that I’m the bad guy right now?”
“You’re not,” she whispered. “I should never have made the request. I was tired, and it was stupid and embarrassing. Can we just forget about it?”
He wished he could. Getting involved with this woman—in any capacity other than as his nephew’s teacher—was sure to be trouble for both of them. Why couldn’t he make himself walk away?
“No one,” he said softly, unable to resist stepping into her space again, “would have to force a man to ask you out.”
It was her turn to laugh, but there was no humor in it. All the light was gone from her golden eyes, and he wanted nothing more in life at that moment than to reignite it. “I know who I am, David.”
He lifted his hands to cup her cheeks and felt a slight shiver pass through her. It drove him crazy with need. “Take another look,” he said, and touched his lips to hers.
* * *
Erin’s eyes drifted closed even as her body opened like the petals of a flower unfurling in the warm sunshine. Take another look? She’d planned to hold on to this moment like a priceless piece of art. If she could she’d frame it and hang it on her wall so she could always remember.
David McCay was kissing her, and quite thoroughly at that. His lips were soft but firm as they glided over hers and she couldn’t resist darting her tongue into his mouth. He rewarded that bit of bravery with a small groan, which made sparks dance across her skin. She leaned into him, her breath hitching when his fingers laced through her hair and tugged gently.
A whistle from a passing car made her wrest away from his embrace. She squeezed her hands into fists and pressed them to her sides when all she wanted was to wrap herself around him and hang on for dear life.
“Women like you don’t do PDAs on the sidewalk,” he said, his voice rougher than normal.
She bit down on the inside of her cheek and looked up at him through her lashes. “I don’t make it a habit,” she admitted. The truth was she’d never before had the opportunity. But it was Friday night and it wouldn’t be good for one of her students or another teacher to catch her in a full-blown make-out session on a public sidewalk.
“Too good for me,” David repeated, and Erin realized he’d actually meant the words when he’d said them earlier.
Her ex had said something similar when he’d broken up with her, but the insinuation behind the comment had been quite different. Good had been another way of saying boring. But if the heat in David’s gaze was any indication, he didn’t find her the least bit boring.
Erin’s long-suffering ego broke out into a little happy dance, but she quickly pulled the plug on the music. “That isn’t true,” she said, pressing a hand to lips still tingling from his kiss.
“You asked me for an affair, sweetheart.” He smoothed a loose strand of hair away from her face. “Not a date. We both know what that means.”
“Would you have gone out on a date if I’d asked?”
He shook his head, and she tried to ignore the pang of disappointment that snaked through her.
“You’re a white-picket-fence girl. America and apple pie. What you saw at my sister’s apartment pretty much sums up how I was raised. I come from that world. It’s what I know.”
Right now that didn’t matter. This man had flirted with her, then kissed her senseless. Twenty minutes with David had been more exciting than the sum total of the rest of her life. Heck no, she couldn’t have an affair with him, even if he was willing. She was liable to spontaneously combust. It was time to get the subject back to safer ground.
“How’s Rhett doing?” she asked, reaching into her purse for her keys. She moved to the edge of the sidewalk where her Subaru hatchback was parked at the curb.
“He’s with his mom tonight. They’re staying at my loft.”
“Is your sister okay with going into treatment?”
He nodded. “Deep in her heart she doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes our mother made. I have to believe last night was a wake-up call for her.”
“Then maybe it was a blessing in disguise. I hope she gets the help she needs.” She hit the remote start on her key fob.
“I hope Rhett and I survive the next month together.” He ran a hand over his jaw and the scratching sound made her want to whimper. She was truly pathetic.
“He’s welcome at Crimson Kidzone in the afternoon. It starts Monday at four. Sign him up if you need a break.”
When he stared at her, she held out a hand. “No strings attached or indecent proposals from me. Promise.”
He took her hand but instead of shaking it, pressed a lingering kiss on her knuckles. “That would be a huge disappointment.”
Erin sighed. Cue the weak knees. “You don’t mean that,” she whispered.
“I might have enough willpower to leave you alone, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be thinking about how good we could be together.”
He released her hand and she clutched it against her stomach, feeling ridiculously like a teenage girl who wanted to hold on to the imprint of that kiss. “Good to know,” she told him.
He winked at her. “Night, Erin. Sweet dreams.”
* * *
“Seriously, McCay? Your nephew’s kindergarten teacher?”
David blew out a breath at the annoyance in the feminine voice behind him.
He hoisted a bushel of hops over his shoulder and turned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tracie, but I promised Rhett I’d take him fishing after thirty minutes of screen time so I need to make the most of my electronic babysitter.”
It was early Sunday morning—too early considering David hadn’t gotten to sleep until after 3:00 a.m. He’d paid one of the waitresses to babysit his nephew last night, which had left him short-staffed since his best—if mouthiest—bartender Tracie Sheldon had taken the evening off for a date with the local orthopedic surgeon who’d been asking her out for months.
Tracie stood behind him now, wearing running shorts and a long-sleeved athletic shirt. Her short blond hair stuck out from under a bright pink headband and he guessed she’d stopped into the bar in the middle of her daily five-mile run.
“Besides, shouldn’t you be busy basking in post-date glow or doing the walk of shame or something?”
“I’m not that kind of girl,” she shot back, then added softly, “anymore. Besides, it wasn’t a good match.”
With a quiet sigh, David dropped the heavy bag to the floor. “Why not? Your doctor has bellied up to the bar several nights a week for the past month, even when he’s on call and drinking root beer. We might serve up a helluva plate of chicken wings and some crazy good nachos, but there’s only so much bar food a man can take.”
He leaned in closer. “Unless he has another compelling reason for becoming a regular.”
“Compelling.” Tracie snorted. “Right. He’s a surgeon, Davey, my boy. I’m a high-school dropout bartender. We have nothing in common.”
“I’ve spent some time talking to Luke Baylor. He’s a decent guy, Tracie. Worked his way through med school. You work hard, and you’re not a high-school dropout anymore. It won’t be long until you graduate nursing school. You should hold your head high.”
“So tell me about the schoolteacher,” she countered, placing her hands on her hips.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but there’s nothing to tell.”
“Do you like her?”
“Do you like Doc Luke?”
She arched a brow. “We had dinner at Carlo’s Bistro last night. Remember Lance who washed dishes here for a while?”
“Yeah.” David nodded. “Punk kid.”
“That’s the one. He’s a busboy at Carlo’s and was all too happy to stop me on the way to the restroom and report he saw you and a dark-haired librarian type sucking face on the street.”
David felt a headache begin to pulse behind one temple. “No one was sucking face.”
“I figured it was the teacher after seeing the way she looked at you Thursday night. Like she was a kid in a candy store and you were her favorite flavor.”
He didn’t want to admit how much he liked the idea of that. “You’re changing the subject.”
“You started it.”
“We’re quite a pair.” He wrapped an arm around the tiny blonde’s shoulders—she barely came to his chest—and pulled her in for a hug. “I’m not going to stop trying to make you believe you deserve some happiness.”
“Goes both ways,” she said, and gently elbowed him in the ribs.
He grunted and squeezed her shoulders. “Rhett’s happiness is what matters to me now.”
At that moment, Rhett gave a small shout. “Ms. MacDonald,” he yelled, and scrambled out of the booth, his iPad forgotten on the table.
Tracie took a step away from him as David turned to see Erin, backlit in the doorway of the bar by the morning sunlight. Her dark jeans hugged her curves and a cranberry-colored sweater with a scooped neckline made her skin look even more luminous. It was difficult to read her expression, but her gaze was bouncing between him and Tracie in a way David didn’t like one bit.
“Don’t just stand there staring,” Tracie muttered. “Go to her. I’m going to slip out through the kitchen.”
“Tracie, you don’t need to...” David started, but he was talking to her back.
“Ms. MacDonald, I live in a bar now.” David cringed as Rhett’s voice carried across the empty space.
“We don’t live in the bar,” David corrected as he moved forward. Go to her, Tracie had said. What he wanted to do was swing her into his arms and bury his nose against the crook of her neck. Her thick hair was pulled back into another ponytail.
Did she ever wear it down? Right now he would give just about anything to see it falling in waves over her shoulders. He’d been too long without a woman if he was now obsessing over Erin’s hair.
“I know,” she answered. “You have a loft upstairs. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Her gaze traveled past him to where Tracie had disappeared. “I was heading to the bakery and your door was open...”
“You’re not interrupting,” he said quickly, coming to stand behind his nephew. “Tracie works here, and she stopped by after her run. She had a date last night.” She bit down on her lip and he quickly added, “With someone else. Not me. We’re not...” He raked a hand through his hair. “She’s a friend. The guy she went out with is a doctor. A surgeon. He—”
“Uncle David, why are you talking so fast?” He glanced down to find Rhett staring up at him, then raised his gaze to Erin’s. He was babbling. He’d never babbled in his entire life.
She flashed a shy smile. “I’m going to grab breakfast at Life Is Sweet, then head over to the community center to set up a few things for tomorrow. I thought Rhett might like to help me if it’s okay with you.”
He felt Rhett fidget against his legs. “What do you think, buddy? We can head to the river a little later if you want to help Ms. MacDonald.”
“I might mess things up,” Rhett said, kicking the toe of one ratty sneaker against the scuffed wood floor. “I have to stay out of the way around here.”
David sighed. He’d said those words this morning—pre-coffee—when he’d set up Rhett with the iPad.
“You won’t mess up anything.” Erin crouched down in front of the boy. “In fact, some of the supplies I’m using are way back in a closet and I need someone small enough to crawl in and push them out to me.”
Rhett nodded. “I can do that.”
“Then we’ve got a deal.” She straightened, and David expected to see censure in her big eyes, but instead they were gentle in a way that made his heart hammer in his chest.
“Can I go in my pj’s?” Rhett asked.
Erin smiled. “This might be a good time to get dressed for the day. Can you do that?”
“Me and Ruffie have a bedroom upstairs.” He pointed to the raggedy blue dog sitting on the booth where he’d been playing a video game. “He gets nervous when we’re not together.”
“He’s welcome to come with us,” Erin offered.
“Yeah,” Rhett agreed. “He’d like that.”
He ran to the table, grabbed the dog and then headed for the hallway leading to the staircase that accessed the upper floor. There was also an entrance off the street, but David used the one that led directly into his office in the back of the bar when things weren’t busy.
“I suck at this,” he mumbled when Rhett was out of sight. “Jenna hasn’t even been gone twenty-four hours and Rhett feels like he’s in the way.”
“It’s a big change for both of you. How did it go yesterday?”
“Jenna cried. Rhett cried. He was sullen all day yesterday, and the first thing he asked this morning is when she’s coming home. I felt like a total ass for arranging her stay in rehab. Maybe she could get clean and still be here, you know?”
“It’s not long in the grand scheme of things and could make a real difference. That would make everything worth it. A kid deserves to grow up feeling safe. Your sister is lucky to have you to step in and help her. You’re giving both of them another chance.”
He blew out a breath. “How did you know exactly what I needed to hear this morning?”
Color rose to her cheeks. “It’s the truth.”
It wasn’t just the words she spoke that made him feel better. It was the fact that she’d come to check on him. Okay, maybe she’d come to check on Rhett, but David still reaped the benefit. She was exactly what he needed. “Thank you.”
They stared at each other for several long moments, and the spark of awareness that connected them seemed to shimmer and thrum in the air. It made him want to pull her in and kiss her again, but then he thought of Tracie and the kid who’d reported him Friday night. Normally, David didn’t care who saw him doing what, but Erin was different. She was too good to be dragged through any sort of gossip mill, especially when she was starting her new program at the community center.
He crossed his arms over his chest to resist the urge to touch her. “Rhett won’t be long.” He made his tone purposefully chilly.
Disappointment flashed in her brown eyes before she cocked her head and studied him, as if she was trying to riddle out secrets. “This place is different during the day,” she said, moving away from him and trailing her long fingers over the polished mahogany of the bar. He could imagine a lot of other places those fingers should be traveling. Namely all over his damn body.
“The architecture is beautiful.” She pointed to the vaulted ceiling, where rough-hewn beams stretched across the open space.
“Logan helped me design it,” David said, following her as she moved through the high tables. Following her like a puppy on a leash. Never had he felt so under a woman’s spell as he did with Erin. The crazy part was she had no idea the power she had over him.
“Did he do the renovations, too? When I was growing up, this place was a grocery store, then it stood vacant for a number of years.”
He’d forgotten that she was a Crimson native. The town was a tight-knit community and everyone seemed to know their neighbors and their neighbors’ business. But before Rhett started school, David had never heard of Erin MacDonald. “The building was bank-owned when I bought it. I got a great deal.”
She smiled at him over her shoulder. “You must have had a clear vision.”
“I went to college on a baseball scholarship, but only lasted a couple of years. It sounds crazy now, but I took a brewing lab sciences class freshman year and got hooked on the process. I was good at it, but baseball came first. When I got drafted, the beer brewing moved to the back burner for a few years. I stopped playing ball, but then Jenna needed me out here. I needed a job and had enough money to make the business work.”
“Why did you give up baseball?”
He gave a harsh laugh. “Not exactly my choice. I screwed things up pretty good. Not worth rehashing the details, but suffice it to say it was totally my fault.”
“You do that too much,” she said, moving toward him until she was directly in front of him. “You take the blame for anything that goes bad.”
David felt his eyes narrow. “Only when I deserve it.”
She poked him in the chest. “It seems like you’re of the opinion that you always deserve it.”
He clamped his mouth shut and stared down at her. There was no right way to respond to that. He didn’t always do the wrong thing, but the times he’d messed up in his life had resulted in grim consequences for the people around him.
“You can’t control everything. Sometimes bad stuff happens no matter what you do to prevent it.”
He wrapped his hand around her finger and lowered it. “Other times it can be prevented, and I’ve often failed at that.”
He expected her to wrench out of his grasp, but she surprised him by gently squeezing his hand. “I wish you saw yourself the way I see you.”
David felt her words like a vise clamping around his heart. The ways this woman could wreck him boggled his mind. Pulling away from her, he took several long steps toward the back hallway. “Rhett, you almost ready?” he called up the stairs.
“Coming,” the boy shouted as his small feet pounded down the steps. He bounded into the hallway, the ever-present blue dog tucked against his side.
“Shoes, buddy,” David said softly. His nephew had a habit of putting his shoes on the wrong feet.
With a sigh, Rhett dropped to the floor and undid the Velcro straps of his superhero sneakers and switched them to the correct feet. David’s heart squeezed even harder as Rhett’s tongue darted out the corner of his mouth. It meant he was concentrating hard and was the same quirk Jenna’d had as a girl.
David ruffled Rhett’s hair as he stood. “Listen to Ms. MacDonald and do what she says,” he told the boy. “No trouble.”
“Okay.”
He turned and looked at Erin, but her attention was focused on Rhett. “I’m glad you’re coming with me this morning,” she said.
Rhett gave a sharp nod and inched forward.
“I need another hour or so to get things settled here,” David told her. “I’ll pick him up after that.”
“No rush,” she answered, but still didn’t look at him. “We’ll stay busy.”
He’d been the one to pull away a few minutes ago, but now the distance separating them seemed wider than simply physical space. It felt like he was losing something that had never belonged to him in the first place. The sensation made him want to throw a tantrum, like a baby whose favorite toy was taken away.
Erin held out her hand to Rhett, and the boy placed his smaller one in it. They walked out the open door and disappeared into the cool autumn morning.
David stood in his empty bar, staring at the dust motes that floated through the rays of sun shining in from the bar’s front windows. He’d never minded being alone before. Why did it feel so damn uncomfortable now?
