With that reminder, she put her guard up and stuffed those feelings right back into the box they’d been in for the past ten years.
Slowly, he smiled, his gaze now sweet and sentimental as it roamed over her face—a complete one-eighty from the hot alpha man she’d been with last night. It made her feel shy and a bit uncomfortable.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked, not sure what had caused that look of his.
He strolled toward her, closing the few feet of distance that had been separating them. Very gently, he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped her head up toward his. “I’m staring because you look beautiful without any makeup on, like the girl you were back in high school.”
For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. Longing unfurled inside of her, and somehow, someway, she managed to block the sentiment and pulled her chin away. “We aren’t those kids anymore, Kyle.” Her words were meant to give them both the reality check they seemed to need. They could never go back to what they once were.
“No, definitely not,” he agreed with a sigh, then let it go. “I put a mug by the coffeemaker just in case you want a cup with breakfast.”
“Yes, please.” She headed toward the counter, grateful for the distraction.
“Sugar is in the cupboard right above you, and creamer is in the refrigerator.”
While she made her coffee, he took their plates to the table, and she sat across from him. She ate a couple of bites of her eggs before inquiring about the reason she’d ended up at his condo in the first place.
“Did you hear back from your friend about my car?” she asked.
“Yeah, he called a little while ago,” he replied, making Ella wonder how long Kyle had been up before she’d joined him. “It’s definitely a failed fuel pump. He sent one of his guys to a nearby auto parts store to pick up a new one while he started dropping the gas tank so all they’ll have to do is make the switch, then put things back together. He said he’ll have it installed and your car ready to go in about two hours.”
“That’s great,” she said, relieved. “Thank you.”
They went back to eating, and once again she could feel Kyle watching her, and the few times she glanced his way, she caught the slight furrowing of his brow that told her he definitely had something on his mind. The quiet between them started to make her feel anxious, and her apprehension only increased when he finally spoke in a very determined tone.
“Ella . . . about last night . . . ”
She knew what was coming, and she cut him off before he could finish. “Having morning-after regrets?” she teased, praying that her attempt at humor deflected the serious conversation she suspected he wanted to have.
He didn’t even crack a smile. “Not a single one,” he said with certainty. “In fact, I’d really like to see you again.”
She swallowed hard, hating that Kyle was trying to change the rules they’d agreed on after the fact. “See me again?” She tried to play dumb, but already, her insides were in a twist and her emotions were conflicted.
He nodded and set his fork across his empty plate. “Yeah, like a real date.”
He made it sound so simple, so easy, when the two of them dating was problematic for half a dozen reasons. Clearly, it was up to her to keep a level head about the situation. “Kyle,” she said, softening her voice, as if that would take the sting out of her next words. “Let’s not make what happened last night into something more than it really was.”
Beneath his trimmed beard, she saw his jaw flex and his eyes flash with a challenge. “Which was?”
Was he really forcing her to say the obvious? Apparently, he was. “Last night was sex between two adults who wanted it and agreed that it would be just one night.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Yes, it does.” She put her hands in her lap, feeling sad and strangely lost. “You and I both know that things are complicated between us. And as for dating? Well, there isn’t a whole lot to do in Woodmont, and you already know I won’t be coming back into the city anytime soon. It doesn’t make sense for us to get involved as anything more than friends.”
His expression conveyed his frustration. “Sunshine, friends don’t fuck like we did last night.”
The man didn’t play fair. He was calling her out, and as much as she agreed that last night had been more than just getting laid, she also knew, without a doubt, that dating him would just end in heartbreak. Again. Which meant she had to issue an ultimatum.
“It’s friends . . . or nothing.”
* * *
Ella pulled into the driveway to her father’s house, parked her car next to Betsy’s, and turned off the engine. It was almost two in the afternoon, but with her new fuel pump installed, her car had gotten her home without any issues, thank God. She was glad to be out of the city and back in the quiet, safe community of Woodmont, where wide-open spaces abounded and she didn’t have to worry about panic attacks and feeling claustrophobic.
The small town was where she belonged, and always would. So why had it been so difficult to leave Kyle behind?
With a sigh that did nothing to ease the discord of emotions she’d been struggling with since their tough conversation at breakfast this morning, she got out of her vehicle and headed toward the back door to the house. Issuing Kyle an ultimatum hadn’t been easy, but it definitely had been necessary in order for them to coexist for the next few months while he renovated the building next door to the market. He’d given her a sexy, erotic night to remember, and that’s all it ever could be. A memory she’d cherish and relive when she was in bed at night—by herself.
Begrudgingly, Kyle had finally agreed to her “friends only” rule, but the intense, purposeful way he’d looked at her while he’d acceded to her request didn’t fully convince her. She had a feeling it was going to be up to her to reinforce that rule while he was around on the weekends working on his mother’s new venture.
Reaching the screen door, she pulled it open and stepped inside of the kitchen, preparing herself to deal with her father’s confrontation. Undoubtedly, as soon as he’d gotten up this morning, Betsy had told him she’d gotten stranded in the city, and while Ella would have liked to have kept yesterday’s meeting with Kyle private, there was no easy explanation for the fact that she hadn’t come home last night—except for the truth.
The kitchen was clean, thanks to Betsy, as was the rest of the house, which was something Ella appreciated considering the hours she worked at the market. As soon as she placed the strap of her purse on the hook by the door, she heard her father’s voice drifting to her from the other room.
“Ella, is that you?” her father asked, his tone deep and gruff, which was his normal inflection. Any softness his voice had once had seemed to have disappeared the night of his stroke. Since then, his normal, everyday attitude was brusque and grumpy.
Ella rolled her eyes to herself. Of course, her father knew it was her. Who else would it be? Certainly not Gwen, who’d been gone for a few months now without even a phone call to check on their father. No, her sister had never taken any responsibility for her only parent, and it annoyed Ella that her father was constantly hoping that Gwen would walk through that door, when it was his younger daughter who had always been there for him—taking care of him, the house, the store, and anything else he needed. It hurt that her father took her for granted, but she’d come to terms with the situation years ago.
“Yes, it’s me, Dad,” she said cheerfully as she walked into small dining room, where Betsy and her father were sitting at the table playing gin rummy, which they did almost every day. He’d always loved the card game, and it helped to keep her father’s mind sharp and active and encouraged his coordination and dexterity.
His lips pressed together as he slowly set his cards down with a fine tremor in his hand, another aftereffect of his stroke, and gave her a once-over. “What were you doing
in the city?” he asked straightaway.
“Yes, I’m fine, Dad,” she said wryly, as she placed a quick kiss on his cheek. “Thanks for asking.”
“I can see that you’re fine,” he responded, stating the obvious.
Clearly, he was more interested in why she’d been in Chicago in the first place, and without telling him ahead of time. At twenty-seven, she hated that her father still expected to know everything she did, where she was, and with whom. It was a result of living in his house, she supposed, which made him treat her as the young girl she’d been, instead of the adult woman she was now.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll head home now that you’re here and so the two of you can talk,” Betsy said knowingly as she scooted back her chair and stood. “There’s a casserole in the refrigerator that you can heat up for dinner.”
“Thank you.” Ella followed Betsy through the kitchen to the back door. “I appreciate you staying the night with my father, and I apologize if he was extra grouchy today because of my absence.”
“Don’t you worry about me,” Betsy said, her pale blue eyes filled with amusement. “You should know by now that I can handle your father just fine.”
That was true. Betsy was about five years younger than Ella’s dad, but she didn’t take any crap from Charles. In fact, more than a few times, Ella had caught them bickering like an old married couple, and more often than not, Betsy came out on top. Having been a widow for the past twelve years, she was sassy and independent and had no issues speaking her mind. She was also still very pretty, with light streaks of gray in her soft auburn hair and rounded curves that attested to what a great cook she was.
“And just for the record, he was worried about you,” Betsy said, taking Ella’s hand and giving it a gentle pat, her gaze kind and almost motherly. “But I think your father was also concerned that you were in the city getting taken advantage of, because as soon as I told him you were stuck in Chicago because of your car, he was pretty certain you were there to talk to Kyle after what happened at the auction for the building the other day.”
Ella shook her head at her father’s way of thinking, that even after all these years, he thought the very worst of Kyle, when in reality he’d done nothing wrong compared to what his brother, Todd, had done to Gwen. “Do I look like I’ve been taken advantage of?” She meant to sound facetious but too late realized she’d just invited the other woman’s scrutiny.
“Taken advantage of, no,” Betsy said with a slight, knowing smile. “But woman-to-woman, I’m guessing things didn’t go too horribly with Kyle.”
Startled by Betsy’s observant comment, there was nothing Ella could do to stop the mortified blush that seared across her cheeks. There was no possible way that Betsy knew how she’d spent last night, but clearly she’d assumed, and Ella had just confirmed the other woman’s hunch by her physical reaction alone.
“Ahhh, that’s what I thought,” Betsy said without judgment. “But don’t worry, my lips are sealed.”
So were Ella’s, because what had happened in Chicago was going to stay in Chicago.
Once Betsy was gone, Ella kicked off her heels by the back door and returned to the dining room to get this conversation over with, because it was unavoidable and inevitable. She took the seat across from her father, and it didn’t take him long to say what was on his mind.
“Why did you go to see him?” he asked, his tone just shy of being surly.
“For the reasons you’d think,” Ella replied, keeping her answers succinct. Her father didn’t need to know anything more than what she absolutely needed to tell him. “I wanted to see if he’d sell me the building, but he declined my offer.”
Charles grumbled beneath his breath, and Ella figured that was for the best because it was probably something quite rude.
“That building should have been yours,” he said, poking a finger at her to emphasize his point. “I don’t understand why he’d just come along after all this time and snatch it right out from under you.”
Her father made it all sound so nefarious, and while Ella had thought initially that his reasons had been out of spite, Kyle had quickly diffused that notion. “He bought the building for his mother.”
Charles frowned at her. “What the hell is Patricia going to do with a big old building like that?”
“He’s renovating part of it into an event center and another section into a bakery, which is something she’s always wanted,” she said, keeping her voice neutral, because the last thing she wanted was her dad thinking she was defending Kyle’s actions. “Patricia will manage both.”
Her father scoffed at that idea. “Well, I don’t trust Kyle, and you shouldn’t, either.”
Too late for that, Ella thought. She might not like that he’d bought the building when she’d desperately wanted it for her own, but she knew, and honestly believed, that he hadn’t purchased the property to hurt her in any way. It was just one of those things that hadn’t worked out as she’d hoped and planned. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time she’d lost something she’d so desperately wanted.
“We both need to face the fact that the building is being renovated into something else,” she said, because she really needed to hear the words out loud. Like a pep talk to herself.
On the drive back from the city, she’d bounced ideas around in her head, trying to think of ways she could still bring in some of the artisans without jeopardizing the grocery store’s main surplus of goods. This week, she was going to do a strict inventory check and figure out what were absolute necessities and what items had been around for years and were just sitting on the shelf gathering dust and taking up marketable space. In other words, out with the old and in with the new.
She’d come up with some ideas about restructuring the store, moving shelving around, and giving the place a much-needed facelift to modernize the inside. She might not have the extra square footage that the building would have provided, but she wasn’t giving up on her plans. It would just have to be on a much smaller scale, and she’d have to be more selective about whose products she decided to carry.
“So where did you stay last night?”
Her father’s question demanded her attention, and like a kid caught in a cookie jar, her heart started to pound in her chest and echoed in her ears. Especially when she saw the speculative way he was looking at her. She couldn’t tell if he was just curious or if he already suspected that she’d spent the night with Kyle. Or maybe that was just her guilty conscience that was making her imagine things.
“I stayed at a hotel near the auto shop that fixed my car,” she said, hating that she had to lie.
But she knew her father couldn’t handle the truth. It would never matter to her dad that Kyle was a good guy, because he would always see the bad.
Chapter Eight
Kyle picked up his fork and dug into the breakfast that his mother set in front of him. The plate was loaded with scrambled eggs, a few of her homemade biscuits, and chicken-fried steak smothered in country gravy that she’d made from scratch that morning. Kyle wasn’t shy about inhaling the savory feast, because his mother was a freaking amazing cook and he certainly didn’t eat like this all the time in the city.
He’d long ago realized that his mother equated good, delicious food with making people feel loved and cared for—and that’s exactly how he felt when he ate her cooking. Whether it was feeding the customers at the diner or preparing special meals for the family they’d once been, it made Patricia Coleman happy to fill their bellies with down-home country recipes and baked goods.
Now that Kyle’s dad was gone and Todd was in prison, he knew that his mother looked forward to spending time in the kitchen when he came to visit—which was evidenced not only by his gigantic breakfast but by the peach cobbler she’d made yesterday afternoon so he could have a bowlful of the dessert with vanilla ice cream when he’d arrived from the city last night.
Thank God today was all about physical labor so he could work off t
he calories consumed during this delicious meal. Hauling trash out of the Piedmont building and gutting the place would undoubtedly burn the extra calories he’d consumed in just a twelve-hour period. He was meeting the guys at the property in an hour—Wes, Max, Connor, and half a dozen laborers who worked for the company were giving up their Saturday to lend a hand with the cleanup and heavy lifting, and he was grateful for their help since he only had his weekends free to work on the renovations, and he wanted the place cleared out as much as possible today.
He felt his belly get fuller with every bite he took. “You really didn’t have to make such a huge breakfast for me, Mom,” he said, even knowing she’d enjoyed doing so. “I would have been fine with a bowl of cereal.”
She scoffed at him from where she stood at the counter, though she was smiling as she piled shaved ham and cheese onto the fresh-sliced sourdough bread she’d made first thing this morning. “You’re a grown man and you need to start the day with a full stomach. You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you, and I don’t want you getting hungry in a few hours.”
There was no chance of that, especially since she was also providing a hearty lunch for everyone. “And you also didn’t have to make sandwiches and potato salad for all my guys. We could have gone to the diner or had something delivered.”
“It’s already done, honey,” she said, happy as a clam as she packed the meals into a cooler, along with a container of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies. “This way you all can eat when you want. It’s all right here.”
With his plate emptied—how in the world had he eaten everything?—he leaned back in his chair to let the food digest for a few minutes. “Thank you. I really do appreciate it.”
“I know you do.” With a gentle, motherly smile, she picked up his plate and took it to the sink to rinse it off. “It’s the very least I can do considering everything you’ve done for me.”
The Book Boyfriend Series Box Set Page 43
