“Oh, she is…” Naomi’s words faded away. A second later, Mick heard the bell above the bakery door tinkle again and cursed beneath his breath.
He strode to the window overlooking the street in time to see Maddie and Naomi descending upon Faith, cozying up to the driver’s side window like overeager puppies begging for a treat.
“Great,” Mick mumbled beneath his breath before spinning back into the apartment and gathering up a change of clothes, his laptop, and his sketch materials as quickly as possible.
He loved his sisters and was grateful to Naomi for the wonderful weekend she’d helped make possible, but the Sister Scare-Off Factor wasn’t something to be taken lightly. And if they scared Faith off he was going to be ticked. He needed to have a serious discussion with them about keeping their distance until he and Faith were one hundred percent solid.
He didn’t want to risk messing up what he and Faith had started in New Orleans. He had never felt this way about anyone before. Being with Faith made coffee smell better, sweets taste sweeter, and an afternoon walk feel like a trip to Disney World and a European vacation all wrapped into one. When he was with her, the whole world sparkled, even when they weren’t kissing, and when they were…
God, when they were…
He wanted her so badly that sleeping beside her was a sweet misery. Kissing her, touching her, having her touch him was amazing, but nowhere close to enough. He was dying to be inside her, to be intimately connected to the girl who had shattered his defenses and left his heart wide open and ripe for the taking.
Faith had him in the palm of her hand, and there was nowhere else he wanted to be. He wasn’t ready to put his future with her at risk for anything, even to spare the feelings of two people he loved the most.
Mick grabbed the last of his things and pounded down the stairs, through the bakery, and out onto the street, not breathing easier until he saw Faith leaning out the driver’s side window with a grin on her face, saying something that made Maddie giggle.
“What’s so funny?” he asked with mock severity, secretly pleased that all the women in his life were getting along and the Sister Scare-Off Factor seemed to be having no effect on Faith.
“Nothing,” Maddie said, fighting a smile. “You’re just cute.”
“I am not.” Mick glared at Faith, whose grin widened in response. “What lies have you been telling, woman?” he asked, walking around to the passenger’s side.
“No lies,” Faith said as he slipped inside the truck and closed the door. “Maddie just asked where I got my necklace.” She rolled the silver charm—a firefighter’s hat—between two fingers before letting it rest on her chest. “I told her you bought it for me yesterday as a ‘remember our first vacation’ gift.”
Mick’s gaze slipped from Faith to where his two sisters stood on the sidewalk outside. He glared at them, fighting to keep a straight face as Naomi gave him two enthusiastic thumbs up and Maddie clapped silently, grinning like a madwoman.
Faith turned back to the driver’s side window, nearly catching Naomi and Maddie as they dropped their hands nonchalantly to their sides.
Mick snorted in amusement. “We should probably get going. We haven’t eaten anything since this morning.”
“Okay, get going,” Naomi said, eyes twinkling. She was obviously pleased to see them so mutually smitten. “We’ll catch up on all your news tomorrow.”
“Thanks again for everything.” Faith turned the key in the ignition, sending the truck rumbling back to life. “I appreciate it so much. I’ll be bringing Jake a ‘thank you for picking my crazy mama up at the airport’ gift to work tomorrow.”
Naomi waved a dismissive hand in the air as she backed away from the curb. “Don’t worry about it. He didn’t mind, even though your mom did talk his ear off on the way home. Seems she couldn’t shut up about my wonderful little brother.”
Mick scowled at Naomi and made a “cut it out” gesture behind Faith’s back, worried that talk of her mom would put Faith back into the same low mood she’d been in after dropping Pressie at the airport, but Faith only laughed.
“She’s definitely a fan.” Faith shifted the truck into drive. “See y’all tomorrow.”
Naomi and Maddie waved as Faith pulled out onto Main Street—after checking to make sure the road was clear, of course. In addition to being sweet, funny, sexy as all get out, and militantly opposed to emoticons, social media sites, and selfies, Faith was an excellent driver.
Mick leaned back in his seat as she guided the truck the short distance to her apartment, watching her with a smile. “I’m glad my sisters don’t freak you out.”
She shot him a sideways glance. “Why would they freak me out? They’re both so sweet, and one of them is marrying a guy who might as well be my brother.”
Mick shrugged. “I don’t know. Naomi and Maddie scare off a lot of girls.”
“Oh, I see.” Faith nodded, pushing his hand playfully from her thigh. “You’re talking about all those girls you were dating before me, right?”
“I wasn’t dating anyone,” Mick said. “I went on one or two dates with a few different people. That’s it. It wasn’t serious like this.”
Faith clicked her tongue, the way she did when she was thinking. “This is serious, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Mick confirmed. “So, can I put my hand back on your leg? I like to be touching you as much as possible at all times.”
Faith smiled, but it faded as she pulled up in front of her apartment building. By the time she shut off the truck and turned to face him, her expression was chillingly serious.
“What’s wrong?” Mick asked, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Reconsidering having me over to spend the night?”
Faith shook her head. “No, but…there is something that’s been on my mind.”
“And what’s that?” Mick took her hand, his anxiety fading when she held tight.
“My mama had me when she was twenty-eight,” she said, her gaze falling to the seat between them. “I wasn’t planned and… Well, I know she loves me, but there were times when I could tell she felt burdened by having a kid she wasn’t prepared for, with a man who didn’t stick around long enough to see me out of diapers.”
“Okay.” Mick nodded, not understanding where this was going, only knowing he hated seeing Faith upset and wanted to do whatever it took to put her at ease.
“What I’m saying is…I’m not ready to be a mom right now,” Faith said, lifting troubled brown eyes to his. “Not that anything is going to happen tonight, but when it does, I want us to be careful, because the thought of being responsible for raising a kid to be a functioning grown-up scares me to death.”
“I get it.” Mick smiled, marveling that he could keep falling deeper in whatever-this-was with Faith every hour of every day. “But that probably means you’re more ready to be a mom than most people. I think it’s supposed to be scary, you know. People who aren’t scared by that kind of responsibility are idiots.”
Faith pulled her hand from his. “No, seriously, Mick. I’m not even thinking about kids right now. Not even a little bit.”
“Okay,” Mick said. “I’m not either. We’re on the same page.”
“But what if…” She trailed off as she glanced through the truck’s cloudy rear window. “I mean, what if there’s an accident? I know condoms don’t always work, and the women in my family are crazy fertile and there’s no way I could be a firefighter and a single mom. Even if I could convince my mom to help out, which I’m not sure I could, or would even want to since she’s a hot mess and I know from experience that she doesn’t—”
“Hold on a second,” Mick said, frowning as he cut in. “Who says you’d be a single mom? If there were an unexpected baby, I’d be as responsible for that as you were. And I’d be there to do my share to take care of things, whether you and I were together or not.”
Faith glanced back at him, a doubtful expression wrinkling her forehead. “Are you serious? I mean, have you
thought about what it would be like to have a kid? How much your life would change?”
Mick shrugged. “No, I haven’t spent a lot time thinking about it,” he said, hurrying on when Faith started to speak again. “But I know right from wrong, and I know I would do the right thing. When I have kids, I’m going to love them and help take care of them. No matter what.”
“And…I have some pretty strong feelings for you,” he said, heart beating faster as Faith’s eyes met his and that spark of something so-much-more than lust leapt between them. “I would never hurt you, Faith. I care about you. A lot.”
“I care about you, too.” She laid her cool hand against his cheek with an affection that made Mick’s chest feel tight and something deep inside of him vow not to let her down. He never wanted to betray her affection, or give her any reason to doubt that he was the kind of person who kept his promises.
“And I want to be with you so much it’s killing me,” she continued, “but there’s this voice in my head that keeps saying it isn’t smart to jump into that too fast. There can be real consequences, and I’m not ready for them.”
Mick pressed a kiss to her palm before taking her hand in both of his and giving it a squeeze. “Then we don’t jump into it. We wait until you’re totally ready.”
“Are you sure?” Faith asked. “I mean, even if I got swept up in the moment and said I wanted to, you wouldn’t?”
Mick winced. “That’s asking a lot, I won’t lie. But if that’s what we agree to, I’ll stick to it. Though I may have to get up in the middle of whatever’s happening and leave the house in order to make good on that kind of promise.”
“I know it’s not a fair thing to ask,” Faith said, cheeks flushing pink in that way that made him want to kiss her so much it was painful. “I just…when you kissed me the way you kissed me last night, I…”
Mick swallowed hard, doing his best not to think about the way he had kissed Faith last night, about his mouth between her legs and her body completely vulnerable to him. About how beautiful she was, the sweet, salty, fresh-rain-and-apple taste of her, or how sexy it had been when she came on his mouth, crying out his name.
“I’m not sure I can be trusted to keep my head on my shoulders in that kind of situation,” she finished, letting out a shaky breath. “You know?”
Mick’s tongue slipped out to dampen his lips as he did his best to ignore the way his body was responding to this practical conversation in very impractical ways. “All right. Maybe we should skip that for a while, then, in the interest of keeping promises.”
Faith nodded. “And I’ll put a call into my doctor, see about getting a prescription for birth control. That way we’ll have an extra line of defense.”
Mick smiled. “Sounds perfect.”
“So you’re not disappointed?” Faith asked, brow furrowing again even as she lifted an accusing finger and pointed it at his chest. “You’d better not say you’re disappointed, or I will turn this truck around and take you right back to your sisters, who you know will pester you for gossip all night long.”
“I’m not disappointed.” Mick chuckled. “I like that you take serious things seriously, and that you want to be responsible. I think it’s sexy.”
Faith rolled her eyes. “You think everything is sexy.”
“Not true,” Mick said. “I only think everything about you is sexy.”
Faith smiled, a smitten smile Mick could feel warming him all over, assuring him she was in as deep as he was. “We’ll see about that. You’ve never seen me eat Big Ike’s pizza. I make a horrible mess, but Big Ike’s is the best and I can’t go back to lesser pizzas after the Animal Style meat and veggie combo.”
“Sounds hot,” Mick said, with a wiggle of his eyebrows that made Faith laugh.
Minutes later, they were slipping into her apartment and kicking off their shoes. Faith coaxed Captain Snugglepants out from under a lounge chair and cooed her apologies to him, while Mick ordered pizza and grabbed plates and napkins.
They spent the rest of the night eating too much, vegging out watching mindless T.V. with the cat purring between them, and holding each other in Faith’s too-small-for-two-grown-people, full-sized bed, talking about the past and the future and secret dreams they’d never told anyone else.
As Mick drifted off, Faith already heavy with sleep in his arms, he dared to dust off an old dream, a dream Bridget had helped dull and shove so far back on a shelf Mick hadn’t taken it out in a long time. But now, with Faith so close and tenderness filling up his chest, Mick brought the dream of a love that lasted forever back into the light.
Chapter Eleven
Five weeks later
Maddie Whitehouse was not the type of person who resented other people’s happiness. She didn’t have a bitter bone in her body.
In junior high, she’d baked cookies for Imogen Cain after the other girl beat her out for vice-president of the student council. In high school, she’d found out her friend, Meg, was secretly dating her boyfriend and had wished them a long and happy future. And while studying the art of French pastry in Paris, she’d never begrudged the teachers’ favoritism toward her best friend, Aria, even though Maddie was the one whose soufflés always puffed and croquembouche crunched just so.
Heck, Maddie was so easy-going she’d even started exchanging emails with Serge, her ex-husband, and had wished him and his boyfriend, Craig, all the luck in the world. Sure, having her husband of six years leave her for another man hadn’t been the highlight of her life thus far, but looking back she could see the signs that Serge hadn’t been fulfilled, no matter how much fun they’d had together or how much he’d loved her.
And Serge had loved her. He still loved her. In his last email he had assured Maddie that she was a gorgeous, sweet, wonderful, talented woman who would soon find the partner she’d always deserved. Serge was certain that soon Maddie would be as excited about her future as he was about his new life in San Francisco with the man of his dreams.
Maddie, however, wasn’t so sure, and as she watched Mick and Faith amble down the stairs from Mick’s apartment with their arms around each other and their heads close together, lost in their own little world, she couldn’t keep her nose from wrinkling.
They’re practically babies, she thought as she unloaded chocolate croissants into the display case. And neither one of them was even looking for love, but it fell into their laps, easy as you please.
Meanwhile, Maddie was gazing down the barrel of her thirtieth birthday without a single prospect on the horizon. She’d been on a dozen dates since moving back to Summerville, but none of the men she’d met were relationship material, a fact that bummed Maddie out more than she liked to admit.
She was all for standing strong on her own two feet, but she was a relationship girl. She didn’t like being single. The last time she’d gone this long without a boyfriend was when she was too young to date. She craved companionship and conversation. Life seemed lacking without someone to share it with, and since Mick had moved into his apartment and Naomi had all but moved in with Jake, Maddie was often alone at her parents’ house.
She felt like a ghost haunting the halls where she’d grown up, drifting along all by her lonesome, missing the love and laughter and good-natured bickering that had once echoed through the house. She missed life as part of a large, nuclear family.
She’d started pressuring Serge to start a family of their own only a few years after they were married, but he had always found a reason to put off having a baby. First, he said they were too poor—which was true. Then he’d bemoaned the lack of good medical care on the Caribbean island where they’d both worked—which had been sub-standard. Then, only months before he’d confessed he was having an affair with a lifeguard at the resort, he’d told Maddie he wanted to wait until they were in their thirties, like his friends on the west coast.
Now, Maddie was facing thirty alone, adrift and uncertain what the future held. Her parents would return from their winter in Florida i
n a month or so, and she would need to find an apartment—she loved Mom and Pop, but they had their own rhythm now that they were retired, and she didn’t want to cramp their style—but aside from that…
“Maddie, you want to come?” Mick asked, jarring Maddie from her thoughts.
“What?” She startled back into motion, sliding chocolate croissants onto the tray on the top shelf of the display case.
“I asked if you wanted to come to breakfast with us,” Mick said, his arms around Faith, cuddling her close like she was a treasure chest he couldn’t let go of for fear some treasure-hungry pirate would snatch her away. “Isn’t Naomi coming in at eight?”
Maddie nodded, ignoring the pang of envy that flashed through her chest at the sight of the two lovebirds.
Serge used to hold her like that. He’d always made her feel adorable, though not always desirable. Still, for years it had been enough. Deep down, Maddie knew she wanted more from a marriage than half-hearted sex every few weeks, but there were times when she longed for her old life, for Serge’s arms around her and his voice whispering he loved her in lightly-accented English as they watched the waves roll onto the shore outside their island home.
“Yes, Naomi’s coming in.” Maddie pushed the sad thoughts away as she shut the display case, knowing no good came from dwelling on a past that was dead and buried. “But I’m going to stay and help out. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, we’re expecting a lot of special orders. I want to get started on them right away.”
“Are you sure you don’t need a break?” Faith asked. “You got here even earlier than usual this morning, didn’t you? I thought I heard cookie sheets banging at three-thirty.”
“I’m sorry, I dropped one,” Maddie said, setting the empty pan onto the counter behind her. “Did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet.”
Faith shook her head. “You were fine. I’m just a light sleeper. Comes with the job. I went back to sleep, no problem.”
“And I never woke up,” Mick said. “I’m getting great at sleeping through banging pans, cats jumping on my face in the middle of the night, people kicking me in the spine when they have soccer championship dreams…”
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