by Anna Durand
I growled my frustration. "We. Are. Not. Dating."
"What are we doing, then?"
"Hanging out."
Shrugging one shoulder, he swallowed another mouthful of water. "Call it whatever you like, if it makes you feel better."
"Thank you. I will." Did I sound like a person desperately denying the truth? Maybe I did. Hardly mattered, though, because I could not go down that road. A change of topic was in order. I wrapped my hand around my glass of fizzing pop, the cold firming up my resolve. Sort of. "You've mentioned having five siblings, brothers and sisters. How many of each?"
Aidan leaned back, eying me with curious amusement. "Are you sure you want me to answer? This sort of question might lead to accidental dating — or sex."
"Very funny." I gulped a mouthful of pop and set my glass down a little too hard. It thunked on the tabletop, splashing the fizzy liquid inside. "I'll risk it. Hearing about your family won't make me wild with desire for you."
"In that case, I have two brothers and three sisters."
"Wow, big family. Do you get along with them?"
"Aye," he said. "Lachlan used to be the most uptight person you'd ever meet, until Erica softened him up. He's annoyingly happy these days. My brother Rory has always been serious, but he hasn't found a woman to loosen him up yet. My sister Catriona is the most American of us, because she went to university here and came back to take a job at a museum. Fiona's a spitfire and Jamie doesn't know what she wants yet."
The affection in his tone told me he loved his family.
A pang pierced my heart, triggered by memories of events I'd tried not to think about for years, memories of my own family. I swallowed against the thickness in my throat.
"My parents," he went on, sitting forward to brace his elbows on the table, "they're embarrassingly in love after forty-five years together."
The start of tears burned in my eyes. I cleared my throat, sucked down a third of my glass of pop, and coughed at the sudden onslaught of carbonation.
Aidan stretched a hand across the table to clasp mine. "What's wrong? You look unwell."
"I'm fine." I took a slower sip of my drink, allowing his hand to warm mine despite the unsettling intimacy of it. "I drank too fast, that's all."
His fingers caressed my skin, more comforting than any words. The memories faded into the background of my hand, supplanted by the presence of this man.
"I blethered on and on about my family," he said. "Should we talk about something else?"
"Actually," I said, my stomach fluttering at the sensation of his fingers on my hand, "I'd like to know more. Like who's the oldest and where you fit into the hierarchy."
"Make us sound like a royal family." He sat back, withdrawing his hand and the lovely warmth it imbued into me. He rested an arm on the table. "Lachlan is the oldest. He's forty-two. Rory's next and he acts eighty even though he's thirty-eight. Then there's Fiona who's thirty-five, followed by Catriona who's thirty-one. I'm the youngest son, but Jamie's the baby of the family at twenty-six."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-eight." He tapped one finger on the tablecloth. "Tell me about your family."
I shifted in my seat, suddenly feeling like I'd sat on a rock. "I have one brother, Gavin. He's eight years older and very overbearing at times."
"You don't get along?"
"Oh no, we do. He's bossy because he loves me and all we've got is — " I clutched my glass in both hands, but the cold no longer calmed me. It chilled me to the core. Unable to look up at Aidan, I stared at the bubbles in the liquid. "All we've got is each other. Our parents died in a car accident five years ago."
Aidan wrapped his hand around both of mine, still clamped around the cold glass. "I'm sorry. Cannae imagine how awful that must be for you."
"Not like it happened yesterday."
He peeled my hands away from the glass, enveloping them with his own. "But it still hurts, I can see it in your eyes."
"Sure, it hurts once in a while. But it was a long time ago and I'm okay with it." I'd recovered from the body-slam shock of their sudden deaths, but the secrets exposed afterward still haunted me. Then there was Rade and his role in the aftermath.
"Is there more?" Aidan asked gently.
"Yes, but I'd rather not talk about it." I slid my hands out from between his. "I hardly know you. Need a little more time before I share all my secrets."
He nodded, seeming not the least bit irritated. "Maybe one day you will tell me. When you feel comfortable enough with me."
I studied him for a moment, my nosiness rearing up again. "May I ask you a personal question?"
"Ask anything you like."
"Why are you really here? In America, I mean. You say you're looking for a wife, the way your brother found his, but my intuition tells me there's more to it than that."
His gaze drifted to the windows and the view beyond them. The smile faded into a somber expression. "I need to change my life."
"Fleeing to another country seems a bit excessive. You could've changed your life in Scotland."
"Had to be somewhere else." He sank into his chair, still staring out the windows. "I've been selfish and that has to change. I have to change."
I had no idea what to say. He'd confided more than I'd expected, so much that I wasn't sure I should respond. My insatiable curiosity pushed me to ask how he'd been selfish, but I couldn't pry into his secrets when I refused to let him pry into mine.
He looked straight at me. "I took a hard look at myself and realized what I really want. It's what my parents have. Love, commitment, family — children, I mean. I'm looking for the right woman and the moment I saw you I knew you might be the one I need."
Stunned, I couldn't move or blink. When my eyes began to sting from dryness, I finally blinked again. "Aidan — "
"We're virtually strangers, I know." He fiddled with his napkin, gaze downcast, then raised his eyes to look straight into mine. "I trust my instincts. And they tell me you could be the one I've wanted. I'm only asking for a chance to find out if you are."
This conversation had gotten way too serious.
I straightened, stretching my fingers out on my lap. "So, what do you do for a living?"
He picked up his fork and twirled it around his fingers like a gunfighter practicing his quick draw. "I have a company. General contracting. I like the work and I like being in control of my own destiny."
"What's your company called?"
"MacTaggart Construction. Afraid I'm not very imaginative."
I leaned back against my chair. "Oh, I suspect you have plenty of imagination when it counts."
He smiled, setting down the fork. "With you, I'll harness every bit of my creativity."
An inventive man with a roguish streak? I might be in deep trouble here.
"Are the boss in the office," I said, "or a hands-on type of guy?"
"Hands on," he said, steepling his fingers. "Always."
I'd guessed as much from his hands — the strong, callused hands of man unafraid of hard labor. Skilled hands, capable of much more than hammering nails.
"What about you?" he asked. "What do you do?"
"Nothing exciting. I'm a librarian, got a master's degree and everything." A useless scrap of paper, my degree.
"Librarian?" He bent forward, moistening his lips. "A bonnie, sexy one for sure. Where are you working? I saw a library a few streets over."
"Haven't started my next job yet." Because I didn't have one. Maybe I should've confessed, but I didn't know him very well. Besides, I'd been trying to steer the conversation to lighter topics.
"You haven't told me," he said, "if you'll give me a chance to find out if you're the woman I've been looking for."
Elbows on the table, I dropped my face into my raised hands. "Aidan, please, stop wasting your time here. I'm way too damaged to give you any of the things you want. Go back to Chicago or Scotland or wherever and find a girl who's right for you. I am not."
I hea
rd rustling and the scrape of his chair as he moved around. When I lowered my hands, he was beside me, having realigned his chair to sit next to me.
He laid a hand on my forearm. "Let me decide if I'm wasting my time."
"You are so pigheaded."
He smiled, his hand lingering on my bare skin. "Lachlan told me the same thing when I said I wanted to come to America. He tried to talk me out of it, but I'd set my mind to it." He bent closer, eyes twinkling in the sunlight. "I've decided this too. I want to spend time with you. Give me four weeks, it's all I ask."
"I agreed to one week, with the potential for extensions."
"Make it four weeks. Please. You can always boot me out after the first week."
I gazed into his blue eyes for a long moment, the intensity of his attention and the feel of his hand on my arm tempting me to surrender. "You win, I give up. But let's not assign a time limit to this, forget one week or four. Stay as long as you like, and if I get sick of you, I'll say so."
"Thank you, Calli."
"Don't thank me. None of what you're hoping for is going to happen."
He stroked his fingers over my skin, light and tempting. "At the very least, I'll have gotten to know a sweet lass and gotten to see a new place."
The waitress arrived with our food order, ending the discussion. Aidan moved his chair back to where it belonged. While we ate, we talked about innocuous things like tourist attractions and the weather. But I knew, in a visceral way, something very bad had just happened. We'd gotten… intimate. Discussing our families. Sharing deeply personal things.
Shit. We were dating.
Not that I would ever admit that to him.
Across the table, Aidan smiled that sweetly sexy smile, as if he'd heard my thoughts and knew I'd slipped a little closer to the line I'd sworn never to cross.
I shoved a huge chunk of broccoli into my mouth and chomped on it.
Slippery slope, here I come.
Chapter Nine
The morning after my dinner with Aidan, I sat at my desk in the corner of the living room scouring job sites. I'd had no luck for the past three months, but I kept trying, kept hoping. Somewhere in the middle of scrolling through the listings, my mind had locked up and I'd begun to stare blankly at the screen, the words and images on it blurring.
Misty and Mandy played in front of the sofa, rolling around and barking, but their antics weren't the reason for my mental freeze-up. My thoughts kept wandering back to my second kiss with Aidan, after the wedding, and the way his deft tongue whipped me into a frenzy of need. His heated gaze. His sexy smile. The way he kept touching me in innocent ways that stoked my desire as if he'd cupped my naked breast in his rough palm.
I couldn't concentrate on anything while perpetually aroused.
Slumping back in my chair, I rubbed my hands over my face in an attempt to clear my thoughts. No such luck. Aidan's darkly sexy voice rumbled in my mind. If I can tempt you to break your first rule, the rest will follow. Oh, how the idea of surrendering to the lust appealed to me. I might've done it already, if not for his insistence I would fall for him.
Never. Ever. Happen.
But maybe… Uh-uh-uh. No sex either, dummy, remember? I sprang forward in my chair, slapping my fingers on the keyboard. If I didn't get back to work, back to hunting for work, I'd soon be penniless and crawling to my brother for help. My savings wouldn't last much longer.
On the screen, a message popped up from my email program, alerting me to a new message. I clicked to open the program, and the list of emails appeared. When I saw the sender's name, I double-clicked to open the email. Tanner Pierson, the process server I'd hired, had contacted me — but not with the news I'd hoped to hear.
"No dice," he said. "Try again later?"
I threw my hands in the air. "Dammit, Rade. You promised."
Why did I keep believing Rade every time he vowed to be present to accept the papers? I had no choice but to request a second summons and keep trying. If he still evaded Tanner, I'd have to request permission for an alternate delivery method. More delays. I wanted to be free, not hanging in limbo for who knew how long.
The puppies raced around the backside of the sofa, and Misty vaulted over its back to land inches from the coffee table. Little Mandy barked, then zoomed around the furniture to leap on her sister.
I watched them rolling around for a minute, wishing I could bottle up some puppy energy and guzzle it by the gallon. I had to make do with human resources, and mine were running low these days.
Except when I was with Aidan. Something about him reinvigorated me.
Turning back to my computer, I typed out a reply to Tanner. Afraid I can't afford you anymore. Thank you for all your help, but I'll have to find another way.
After I hit send, a new email popped up. A message from Rade.
I shouldn't have read the message. I didn't want to read it. Whatever he said would only irritate me further. My finger hovered over the mouse button, wavering side to side as my resolve to delete the email unread wavered too. Morbid curiosity won out and I clicked to open the message.
"Did I miss your server?" he wrote. "Something came up and I had to go out for a time."
Bullshit. The man didn't work, didn't need to, so he had no urgent need to leave the house.
I clacked my teeth in staccato beat as I read the rest of the email.
"Move in with me just for a time. I will sleep on the sofa like before, you have my word." He'd signed it, "Your husband, Rade."
He could keep delaying things because, of ourse, I had no signed agreement with him. People didn't have lawyers draw up contracts for illegal marriages of convenience. That meant I had nothing but his word and he'd reneged on it. But why? I didn't understand any of this. After five years of not giving a hoot, five years of living separate lives, he'd suddenly decided he wanted me in his life.
Rade had caught me at my weakest, during the worst time in my life, and talked me into doing him a "small favor" so he could stay in the country. I'd never believed he timed it that way on purpose, to take advantage of my grief over my parents' deaths. He'd kept to our agreement to live separate lives — until I wanted a divorce.
I deleted Rade's email without replying.
Switching back to the jobs website, I took a moment to do some deep breathing exercises and cleanse my mind of the confusion and angst. Rade's voice echoed in my mind, a repetitive loop of all he'd said to me in the past few days. Hell's bells. I had to think about something else, or I'd never make any progress on finding work. I needed something to distract me. Something that would wipe away all other thoughts.
A vision of Aidan materialized in my mind. His smile, rife with sensuality. His mouthwatering body, sculpted into firm lines and taut, bulging muscles. I closed my eyes and gave in to the memories, letting my body relive the excitement of almost succumbing to him. I could still taste his mouth, smell his masculine scent, feel his hands on my buttocks. A delicious tingle sparked to life between my thighs, swelling and spreading as I envisioned Aidan's naked chest — a pure fantasy, since I hadn't yet glimpsed it. My mind filled in all the blanks of his physique with exquisite detail, from his abs down to the erection I'd had pinned to my body last night.
Wet and aching in all the right places, I let my mind wander through thoughts of all the things Aidan and I could do together. Mm, yes. My hand drifted down to the waistband of my sweats, my fingers delved beneath it. I wanted nothing more than to indulge in my every fantasy of Aidan and forget the rest of the world.
My hand slipped inside my sweats. Inside my panties.
Two quick knocks resounded through the front door.
I squeaked like a scared mouse and jumped out of my chair, sending it rolling backward across the wood floor.
The knocker rapped again, three times in rapid succession.
I laid a hand on my chest, my heart pounding beneath it. Gathering the remnants of my wits, and still burning down below from my erotic imaginings, I hurried to the
door and squinted through the peephole. The fish-eye lens revealed the rugged, familiar features of Aidan MacTaggart. I rested my forehead on the wood, exhaling the breath I'd held.
"Calli?" Aidan called through the door. "Are you there?"
I took a cleansing breath and swung the door inward.
Aidan smiled. "Glad you're home. I tried to call first, but you didn't answer."
My phone hadn't rung this morning. I slapped my forehead. "Fudge. I forgot to recharge my phone last night. It's probably out of juice."
"Fudge?" he repeated with laughter in his voice. "Never heard anyone say that as a curse before."
"I admit it's not as colorful as the devil's penis, but it works for me." I waved for him to enter as I trotted to the kitchen bar to dig my phone out of my purse and plug it into the wall socket there.
"That's what I love about you," he said, shutting the door. "You're not like anyone else on earth."
"Yep, that's me. A weirdo."
Mandy and Misty erupted from the other side of the sofa, bounding over its back to crash-land on the floor. They rocketed toward Aidan, who knelt to embrace them and babble nonsense to the duo, who had instantly become his two biggest fans.
Second biggest fans. The top spot belonged to me.
I ambled over to the trio, smiling and shaking my head. Could there be anything more adorable than a full-grown man going gaga over silly puppies? Maybe I was enamored of the Scotsman, but that did not mean anything. It didn't.
Uh-huh. That's why I'd thought of myself as his biggest fan.
Which meant nothing. Zippo. Nada.
"Better watch it," I said, folding my arms over my chest. "They'll decide they want to go home with you."
Aidan straightened, but Misty leaped up to slam her big paws onto his stomach. He scratched behind her ears, then gently pushed her away. The puppies hopped back and forth in front of him, panting and wagging their tails. When Aidan turned to me, and they realized the love fest had ended, Misty and Mandy took off out the dog door again.
"Don't be jealous," Aidan said, moving closer, curving a hand over my elbow. "The puppies are sweet, but I came for you."
