Читать книгу Tall, Dark And Temporary - Susan Connell - Страница 9

One

“You married who?!‘”

Nick Buchanan’s casual glance down Main Street careened back to his old friend. The pretty brunette gave him her trademark smile, a mischievous lopsided grin, and the sultry August night was suddenly buzzing.

Rebecca was teasing.

She had to be.

He shook his head. “Reb, you really had me going there for a second. But you always could pull off a good practical joke when anyone least—” He broke off as she lifted her left hand and wriggled her fingers. Her diamond engagement ring and studded wedding band glittered under the street lamp.

“I married Raleigh Hanlon.”

Since arriving in the small New Jersey town that afternoon, Nick had been happily connecting present-day reality with scattered memories. Even after a ten-year absence most of the images were dovetailing easily. This one was decidedly more challenging.

“You married your senior-class history teacher?” He blinked twice. “You married Show-No-Mercy Hanlon?”

She nodded.

“How? When?”

“Earlier this year. I came back for the high-school reunion, and well, things started happening.” A faraway look came into her eyes, accompanied by a smile of satisfaction he could only wonder about.

“Well, congratulations,” he said with a sincere nod. “You look happy, Reb. That must have been one hell of a reunion.”

She laughed softly. “Oh, it was. Remember Jade Macleod? She showed up with a stranger she met on her way there. They’re getting married next month. And come to think of it, someone even brought up your name that night.” Shaking her finger at him and laughing, Reb leaned closer. “You’d better watch yourself, Nick Buchanan. Coming back to Follett River after all these years could change your life, too.”

He gave a playful shudder. “Warning taken.”

“Good,” she said, glancing at her watch then backing away. “Look, I have to see a man about installing a pool heater, but I’ll call you soon. You’re staying at the Hotel Maxwell. Right?”

“Yes,” he said, before lifting his chin and stilling her steps. “Hold on a second. Whatever happened to that pretty blond friend of yours? You know. The one who’d planned out her whole life. She was dating Andy Sloan, I think.” He scratched at the side of his head. “What was her name? Maggie?” he asked, knowing it wasn’t.

“Meggie? You mean Megan?”

He nodded. “That’s it.”

Rebecca studied him for a few seconds, then beamed him a smile. “Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s over at Bailey’s. Except it’s not Bailey’s anymore. It’s the Chocolate Chip Café now.”

Rebecca Hanlon stepped into the street and around to her car door. “Meggie bought the business and turned it into a kind of coffee bar.”

Nick felt his eyebrows lift in surprise. The night he left Follett River Megan had told him a lot of things, but planning to own a coffee bar wasn’t one of them.

“Did she ever—?”

“Gotta run, Nick,” Reb said, cutting him off as she got into her car. “Oh. Ignore the Closed sign on the door. This time of night Meggie’s in the back baking. Just go on in and surprise her. I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

Love to see me? He waved as Rebecca drove off. I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Besides, he really didn’t have time for personal visits tonight. Running into Rebecca had been a fluke, and the minutes he’d taken reminiscing with her were already cutting into the hour he’d set aside to study zoning ordinances. Then he thought about the promotion he was being considered for. What he ought to be doing was cutting across the town square to the hotel, instead of thinking about looking up a pretty blonde he hadn’t seen in a decade.

Running his tongue along the inside of his cheek, he couldn’t help but smile at the memory of the last time he saw Megan. She was standing beside his motorcycle, glaring at him while turning down his offer to relieve her of her virginity.

“I want a life, Nick. Not just one wild moment I’m sure I’ll regret. And, please,” she said primly, “don’t tell me again what I’ll be missing. It’s what you’ll be missing that should concern you. A safe, secure and respectable life right here in Follett River.”

She took a step closer and wrapped her fingers around the bike’s handlebar. “Nick, I want it to be someone who cares enough to offer me his last name. Not a forwarding address.”

Back then, Nick had recognized the budding signs of Megan’s sensual nature even if she hadn’t, but at age twenty the last thing he wanted was a white picket fence defining the parameters of his young life. Playing his bad-boy image to the hilt, he’d pulled her into his arms, closed his mouth over hers and begun the hottest, deepest, wettest kiss of his life. When he felt her beginning to respond, he eased away, gave her a “whatever” shrug, then rode off.

He thought about how cavalier, if not downright insensitive he’d acted that night. She was barely eighteen then, and as innocent as they came. He rubbed at his chin, surprised, after all this time, by the trace of guilt still niggling at him. Letting his breath out slowly, he looked toward her café. Hesitation resonated within him.

“Get over it,” he murmured, heading up the street. He was thirty years old, not thirteen. She had most likely forgotten the incident. Besides, he thought as he stared at the doorknob, they were bound to run into each other anyway, since he would be in town for the next several months. What would it hurt to stop by and say hello?

The first thing that struck him as he walked inside the shadowed interior was the aroma of coffee and spice and the sense of orderliness about the place. But what had he expected? The lingering smell of greasy French fries? Cola syrup sticking to the bottoms of his shoes? Those No Loitering signs thumbtacked to the walls? Not likely, with Megan in charge.

As he headed for the rectangle of light at the back of the place, he took in the brass-framed posters of European cafés adorning the walls, the ornate cappuccino machine behind the counter and the lavishly decorated desserts in the display case.

This definitely wasn’t Bailey’s hangout anymore. He stopped at the open door, looked into the brightly lit kitchen and smiled. Not Bailey’s by a mile.

A long-legged blonde, leaning over the work surface, was sprinkling powdered sugar across a tray of pastries. Salsa music blared at top volume from a radio just inside the door. Each shake of the sugar can coincided with the beat of the music, while her hips kept time with the rhythm. Firm, curvy, shorts-covered hips. Short shorts. When the music suddenly broke into a conga, she reached to lift her sun-streaked blond hair off her neck. Flexing her knees, she managed an enticing series of bumps and grinds while shimmying her shoulders.

Nick repositioned the pager attached to his belt, then leaned against the doorjamb as the woman continued to do amazing things to his libido. He pictured himself curving his hands around her hips to feel them moving. Or to hold them still. He cleared his throat noisily.

“Can I cut in? Or don’t you need a partner for that?”

The instant he spoke, the spirited show ended in an arcing cloud of powdered sugar as she whipped around to face him. She lost her grip on the can, sending it flying across the room. He momentarily lost her in the white swirl.

When the air began to clear, Nick barely noticed the white powder on his shoes; he was too busy admiring the way it was settling on her. From those high cheekbones, all the way to her lightly tanned thighs, she looked as if she’d been hit with a miniature blizzard. Her grape-colored cropped top had moved upward with her jerky movements, revealing a sugar-filled belly button surrounded by flawless porcelain skin.

She squinted under the bright lights, then turned to snatch a cream puff from the tray.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, raising the pastry high as if it were a hand grenade. More powdered sugar drifted through the air, but she waved it away.

“I’ll give you a hint,” he said, taking a step inside the kitchen. He turned down the volume on the radio, then raised his hands in mock surrender. “It’s not Elvis.”

Her green eyes widened. And those full, soft and lusciously kissable lips parted. The last time he saw her, she had the same expression on her face. He smiled with purely masculine satisfaction, knowing that he could still elicit the same response. And this time, he hadn’t even stolen a kiss from her.

“Remember me, Megan?”

“Nick?” she whispered, lowering the cream puff. “Nick Buchanan?” Her disbelieving stare continued for several more enjoyable seconds. Then she laughed.

He remembered her laugh. Flustered and hesitant, the breathy exhalation sounded the same as it had a decade ago when he’d held her in his arms and danced with her at her prom. And right or wrong, for better or worse, he knew why she was the first person he’d asked about on his return. He knew it from the way her laughter still echoed through him.

She shifted her backside against the edge of the table, then nervously licked at the corner of her mouth. A rosy blush continued creeping over her cheeks.

“You surprised me,” she said as she tried and failed to maintain eye contact with him. “I—I was just—”

“You certainly were,” he said, referring to the sexy dance he’d caught her performing. “And doing a damn fine job of it, too.”

When she brushed her fingers across her face and under her chin, he looked for a ring and saw none. Good, he thought, pleased beyond measure to know another man’s wife wasn’t having this stirring effect on him.

In the shared and silent stares that followed, the only sounds came from the hum of the refrigerator, punctuated by the occasional crackle from the bug zapper outside in the alley. The moment shimmered with the almost painful pleasure of knowing he hadn’t been wrong all those years ago. Maybe it was revealed at night and only in her kitchen, but Megan’s budding sensuality had definitely blossomed.

“You cut your hair.”

“You let yours grow.”

This time they laughed together and he knew he could easily spend the rest of the night in that kitchen exchanging banalities with her. What did he care about the paperwork waiting for him in his hotel room? Or the dozen or so calls he had to make before his meeting tomorrow night? He’d stumbled on his own welcome-home party and he wasn’t planning to leave anytime soon.

“You look good, Megan.”

“So do you.”

Smiling at her whispered reply, he picked up the can of sugar, took it across the room and set it next to the tray. When he turned to face her, he realized he was close enough to brush the sugar from her forehead... or lick it from her cheek. The thought made his mouth go dry. He leaned his hip against the edge of the table and pointed at the cream puff.

“You have a license to use that, lady?”

“What?” She looked at the pastry in her right hand, then rolled her eyes as she replaced it on the tray.

“So what are you doing here?” he asked, pretending Rebecca hadn’t already told him. “Besides making cream puffs to lob at your old friends.”

“I bought out Bailey’s.” Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, she looked up at him and smiled. “This is all mine,” she said, opening her arms, “as long as I pay the rent.”

He nodded, noting she was finally beginning to relax a little. “From the looks of things when I walked in, I’d say you bring a lot of enthusiasm to your work. But I thought that Andy Sloan would have had you living in one of those big houses out on Red Oak Road by now,” he said, referring to the most exclusive area in Follett River.

She looked away, rubbing her thumb against her lips as his gaze drifted over her. The signs of her sensual nature were still there, peeking through as surely as the white satin strap of her bra peeked out of her grape-colored top. Or in the curvy white-blond tempting-to-touch hair tickling at her collarbone. His gaze wandered to her eyes, then drifted downward again. “So whatever happened to Andy?”

“Nick,” she said, folding her arms across her midriff, effectively cutting off his view of the taut belly softly punctuated by a sugar-filled navel. “Andy did marry me.”

Nick blinked, then looked up, his lighthearted mood disappearing in her news flash. She was another man’s wife; she’d probably removed her wedding band when she’d started to make the pastries. Where was his head? A beautiful, sensual creature like Megan not married?

“Whoa,” he said, taking a step back. “I have been away a long time, haven’t I?” He tubbed at the back of his neck, then gave her an apologetic wink. “How is Andy? Still shaking up everyone over at the country club with his tennis scores? Did he become district attorney, like you predicted?”

Megan stared into the darkened dining room of the café. “Nick, Andy died.”

If hearing she was married had surprised him, this news threatened to take his breath away. “Megan, I am really sorry. I had no idea.”

“That’s okay,” she said, offering him a forgiving smile before her gaze shifted to the floor.

“How did it happen?” he asked, then wished he hadn’t. The last thing he wanted to do was make her feel more uncomfortable by dragging up heavyhearted memories.

“He’d been away on business in the southern part of the state,” she said, staring at her white tennis shoes. She crossed one foot over the other and rested it on its toe. “He was driving back and fell asleep at the wheel.”

Nick gave a sympathetic shake of his head. What he wanted to do was take her in his arms and comfort her, but that was probably the last thing she wanted from him after he’d just been teasing her about Andy.

Shifting uneasily, he studied her profile, hoping to find a clue for what to do or say next. Her eyes were dry. Her chin wasn’t trembling. Her lips weren’t quivering. All in all, she was handling the tragedy remarkably well. Come to think of it, he wasn’t surprised. Even at the untested age of eighteen, she had impressed him with an unusual strength of character. That same strength was now seeing her through the brittle reality of death.

Closing his hand over her shoulder, he managed, in the process, to tangle his fingers in her silky blond vanilla-scented hair. Those strands of hair might as well be made of steel cables and her shoulder a magnet holding him fast. He swallowed hard. Until that moment, he had no idea how strong his desire was to touch her. “Megan, is there anything I can do?”

Keeping her head bowed, she smoothed the toe of her shoe along an imaginary line on the floor. “It happened a long time ago.”

“I see,” he said, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze while he tried and failed to ignore what her nearness was doing to him.

Looking up at him, she let her gaze wander over his face, as if she were seeing it for the first time. Or memorizing it for the last time. Whatever the case, that glimmer of heated awareness he saw in her eyes was undeniable. So was that tugging sensation low in his belly. “How long ago, Megan?”

She was staring at his mouth now. “This September will be six years.”

“Six years,” he repeated as vague feelings of guilt scattered to make way for the relief rushing through him. Six years? The tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in his shoulders began to uncoil. He wasn’t certain about the protocol on such things, but six years sounded like a long enough grieving period to him. By the look in Megan’s eyes, he thought it safe to assume that she did, too.

He lifted a lock of her hair and moved it behind her shoulder. “Six years is a long time to be alone,” he said, one breath away from a kiss.

Megan Sloan froze on his last words. That Nick Buchanan had walked in on her while she was in the middle of a wildly sexy fantasy about him was astonishing. That she hadn’t screamed, passed out, or worse, tried to start a conga line with him was a miracle. But he’d just sent her crashing to earth with his last remark. She stepped away from the table.

She’d always known what to do with him in her fantasies, but dealing with him in real life wasn’t the same. And with everything else going on in her life right now, she did not need more impossible visions of Nick Buchanan crowding her thoughts. He’d taken a piece of her heart when he left town ten years ago. She wasn’t about to let that happen again.

Pulling at the hem of her shirt, she made several unsuccessful attempts at covering her navel before she gave up and crossed her arms over it. “I haven’t exactly been alone for the last six years.”

He leaned an elbow on the worktable and smiled. She remembered that smile so well. Part tease, part challenge, all bad boy and designed to make any woman who saw it melt. That damn smile. He could make curved lips and a riveting stare say more than mere spoken words ever could.

“So what are you saying? Is there someone special?”

“Very special.” The sooner Nick knew, the sooner he’d take the next predictable step...like every other man she’d met since Andy died. He’d leave. And she could start to forget that the gap between fantasy and reality had been bridged tonight. “Nick, I was pregnant when Andy died. I have a little girl.”

“A little girl?” He blinked as he pushed up from the table. “And you’re raising her all by yourself?”

“Aunt Sandra, my mother’s sister, watches her during the day, and for that matter, most anytime I need her to.”

Megan walked over to the framed corkboard next to the refrigerator. “Her photo’s over here,” she said, pushing aside several colorful crayon drawings to reveal a department-store photo. The plastic puppy barrettes and infectious grin only added to the charm of her child’s button-nosed beauty.

Nick walked up behind her, curved his hand over her shoulder and leaned to get a good look at the photo.

My God, she thought, I wasn’t imagining it before. He’s wearing the same aftershave he used ten years ago. A peppery lime scent that smelled like citrus punch on other men and a private party waiting to happen on him.

Megan held her breath as he reached past her. “What’s her name?” he asked as he worked out the plastic pushpin and lifted the photo.

“Paige. She’ll be starting kindergarten soon.”

“I have to get a better look,” he said, taking the photo from the shadowed corner of the kitchen to the bright light over the worktable.

Megan watched him study the picture for a few strangely heart-thumping seconds.

“She’s got your hair and that one dimple of yours,” he said, nodding as he touched his own cheek. “And she tilts her head like you do.”

“Does she? Let me see.” She joined him by the table. “You’re right,” she said, looking up to find him staring at her and not the photo. “I never noticed that before.”

His soft laughter made her ears tickle and her breath catch. “She’s beautiful, Megan. Are those boys in kindergarten ready for her?”

“Well, I don’t know about them,” she said, halfway disarmed by the genuine tone of his comments, “but she’s ready. She’s had her clothes picked out for the first day for over a month. The shoes, she tells me, are another matter completely.”

Resting his hands comfortably on his hips, he shifted his weight to lean against the table. “So what’s that about?” he asked, pretending mild confusion over the child’s whimsical concern.

He appeared in no hurry to rush out the door. If anything, he looked as if he was enjoying their conversation and wanting more of it.

Taking the photo from him, she tapped it lightly against her palm. A ripple of misgiving moved through her. Was she crazy? Nick couldn’t possibly be interested in the domestic details of her ordinary life. Turning away, she headed back to the corkboard.

“She can’t make up her mind between her tap shoes and her new red ones. But enough about that,” she said, firmly securing the photo to the board with the pushpin before turning to face him again. “You’ve been away so long, Nick. What brings you back to Follett River now?”

“Work,” he said, replacing his inquisitive expression with that impossible-to-read smile.

Every time he looked at her or spoke, pangs of pleasure erupted low in her belly, then spiraled out slowly to her breasts and thighs. She attempted to ignore the last and most powerful sensations as she walked back to him, but the closer she got the more intense they became. By the time she reached him, it was all she could do to grab hold of the table and not him.

“I was talking to your cousin at my class reunion last winter,” she said as she concentrated on her white-knuckle grip. “Rory said something about you being on the road a tot. What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m in construction.” He placed his hand on the table next to hers. “I’m here with the Murano Group for the River Walk project. Have you heard about it?”

“Everyone has. It’s the main topic of conversation with us local business owners,” she said, trying not to stare at his well-tanned, hair-roughened hand resting on a layer of powdered sugar beside her fair-skinned one. She closed her eyes. Instantly, images of him stripped to the waist and standing in a layer of sawdust slipped unbidden into her mind’s eye. With one hand firmly gripped around a piece of lumber, he was hammering nails with strong, even strokes. The scene was taking place out at the old warehouse, the sun blazing across his perfectly tanned shoulders. Rivulets of sweat were trickling down his spine and into the waistband of his jeans. She licked nervously at her lips as she opened her eyes. Her gaze darted from his hands to his face and back again. “I always thought of you doing it, I mean, doing something outdoors.”

“I’m indoors a lot, too.” A frown that did nothing to diminish his good looks fell across his face as he snapped his fingers. “The business owners’ association. That reminds me,” he said, checking his watch. “I have a few more things to take care of tonight. Will I see you at the hotel tomorrow night for the meeting the Murano Group is hosting?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Good. I’ll look for you,” he said, turning to go. One step toward the door and he slowed to a stop. “Oh.” Turning around, he raised his index finger and smiled. “Didn’t you forget something?”

He was coming toward her again. Just like before. Ten years hadn’t tarnished his appeal. If anything, she was even more attracted to him now. Dangerously attracted.

“What?” she managed to ask.

As he closed the space between them, she reached back with her other hand to brace herself.

“I guess it slipped your mind once we started talking,” he said, his deep voice vibrating nerve endings she thought long dead. “That’s okay. I’ll just help myself.”

He kept on coming closer until she was bending backward and he was reaching past her, his arm gently brushing hers. Her lips parted in a soft gasp as his chest grazed the tips of her breasts. A second later he was pulling back with a cream puff in his hand.

“Got it.”

“Nick Buchanan,” she said with a breathless laugh meant to hide her disappointment. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Don’t be so sure,” he said, winking at her as he headed for the back door.

The bang of the screen door punctuated his exit as smartly as the flourish of a magician’s wand. Megan stood alone in the kitchen, aware of a sudden and immense silence. For one delusional moment, she wondered if she’d conjured up his surprise visit. Then she glanced down at the tray of cream puffs. Nick Buchanan had been there. One was missing. And so was another piece of her heart.