by Robin Kaye
Her stomach dipped like it was going down the big drop on Space Mountain. “Just like that?”
“Sure. We’ll have to call and see what they want for the building and look into financing, but hey, we both have experience in the business and I have money saved. It should be enough for a down payment, and you have to admit we work really well together.” His smile lost some of its brilliance. Maybe it had something to do with the way she backed out of his arms—or tried to. He held on, moving forward for each step back she took. “Think about it, Skye. We can build our own place and have a loft on the third floor—you, me, and Nicki. We’ll be close to Pop’s but not too close. I’ll have my microbrewery, you’ll have total control of the kitchen, and together we’ll run the restaurant and bar. It’s what we’re doing now, but this will be ours. What do you think?”
She thought he was nuts, but she’d already told him that more than once. “Logan, you can’t just say ‘let’s go into business’ and expect it to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t have a business plan or anything. We’ve only known each other a few weeks. This is huge. This is a big deal.”
“So? This is just the first step, Skye. You want your own kitchen, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
“Do you think we work well together?”
“Yes.”
“Has our relationship gotten in the way of our work?”
“No, but we haven’t been together long enough to know if it will.”
“Do you think it will?”
“No.” She really didn’t think they’d have a problem working together. She liked working with him and Lord knew she liked sleeping with him. The question was, if they stopped seeing each other, could they still work together? Would they want to?
“Are you willing to at least think about it?”
She shrugged and stared at the building. It was gorgeous—it would make an awesome restaurant with high ceilings, great light, exposed brick.…“I guess it couldn’t hurt to look into what it would take. We’d have to build it out—that’s expensive, and we’d need to get a liquor license.”
“We’ll talk to Pop. He knows how to get things done in Red Hook. And Bree is on the Revitalization Committee. Maybe she knows about some low-interest loans for rehabbing a building like this. They’ll know all the people we’ll need to talk to.”
She tugged on Logan’s arm to get him moving again. The pizza was getting cold. “Okay, but how are they going to feel when they find out you’re planning to steal away their chef?”
By the look on Pete’s face when Logan mentioned it to him, Skye didn’t think Logan stealing Pete’s chef would be a problem. She sat back, picked at her pizza, and listened to Pete, Nicki, and Logan tossing around ideas while shoving pizza down their throats at alarming rates. Logan never stopped touching her and kissing her—even in front of Nicki. She spent the entire time red-faced. After they ate and cleaned up the kitchen, she went to the door to grab her jacket. “Pepperoni, come on, girl. It’s time for bed.”
Logan came up behind her. “Why don’t you wait until Nicki goes to bed and we can go together?”
“No, that’s okay.”
Nicki stepped beside her. “You’re not going to tuck me into bed, Skye? You have to. How will you know what to do when Logan goes away and you’re watchin’ me and Pop?”
She looked from Logan to Nicki and knew she was doomed. They went through the entire bedtime routine including a tickle fight, which was two against one, and Skye and the mascara she’d brushed on before she left that evening came out the loser. She found herself sitting on the edge of Nicki’s bed with Pepperoni and D.O.G. while Nicki and Logan put her backpack together for the next day, said her prayers, and then the entire crew exchanged hugs and good-night kisses. Skye even got talked into kissing D.O.G., who did his best to stick his big tongue in her mouth.
Logan gave the mutt a look and told him he didn’t kiss boys, which sent Nicki into a fit of giggles. It took a while to get Nicki and D.O.G. settled. Finally, they snuck out of Nicki’s room. Skye thought the worst was over until she and Logan found Pete waiting for them in the living room. She didn’t think there was anything worse than getting caught at the bar with chocolate and whipped cream by her boss until she had to stand there while Logan told him he’d be home in time to wake Nicki for school the next day.
“You don’t have to walk me home.”
He raised his eyebrow and she wanted to smack him when he took it a step further and followed it up with a cocky-ass grin before pulling her into his arms. Sometimes it sucked that he was so much bigger than her. He had no problem moving her wherever he wanted her to go.
She smacked him. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all. I love it when you play hard to get. But you have to admit it would be ridiculous for us to walk to your place separately, since I’m spending the night with you.”
“You weren’t invited.”
“Then it’s a damn good thing I don’t need an invitation. You’re mine, I’m yours, and we’re together.”
“I’m going home.”
“I’m right behind you.”
“Great. Good night, Pete.” She didn’t wait for a response and just headed out the door, dragging Pepperoni with her.
Logan blasted down the stairs behind her and caught up. “What’s the matter?”
“I can’t believe you just told my boss you’re coming home with me.”
“He’s my dad. And Skye, it’s not like he doesn’t know what we’re doing. We’re together and he seems fine with it. What’s the problem?”
The problem was she wasn’t used to having a sex life, much less one everyone knew about. “Look, I’ve never been anyone’s anything before. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. I’m not comfortable with the entire world knowing about our sex life. You, on the other hand, seem to have no problem with it.”
“I’m a guy. You’re incredible. Why would I have a problem with everyone knowing we’re together? I just don’t get why you do.”
She took off across the alley. “I don’t know how to do this—whatever this is.”
“It’s a relationship, and it’s not difficult, Skye. Just do what you’ve been doing. Love me. Let me love you. That seems to be working out just fine so far.”
“Yeah, but until now, it’s just been you and me. Now it’s you, me, Pete, Nicki, Francis and Patrice…oh, and Rocki—we can’t forget her. And now you’re going back to California, and I’m here.…”
“What does my trip have to do with us?”
She didn’t know. She just couldn’t let go of the feeling that something terrible would happen. “It’s just that the world has a way of taking a wrecking ball to relationships, Logan. We just got together and now you’re going back to your old life.” Shit, she sounded pathetic.
“No, I’m not. I’m going back to finalize things, pack my stuff, and then go to the competition. I’ll be home before you know it. I didn’t have much of a life back there, Skye. I was just going through the motions—”
“You might have been, but you’re going to have to deal with the fallout. Things happen, Logan. I know how Payton is.”
“You’re jealous?”
Was that what this was? She couldn’t imagine it, but maybe she’d never had anything to be jealous of before. “I’m realistic.” She let herself into the building and climbed the stairs, wishing they could just stop the conversation she’d never wanted to have in the first place. She shoved the key into the lock, opened it, and he caught the door behind her.
“Either you think I can’t handle Payton or you don’t trust me. Which is it?”
“Neither, both…I don’t know.” She turned to face him, expecting to find him pissed, but instead he looked almost pleased, which just made her angry. Then he wrapped his arms around her and all the anger seemed to go up in smoke. What was wrong with her? “It’s as if right here, right now, we’re in a perfect little b
ubble. Everything is wonderful because we’re both away from our real lives—our real world. Now you’re going back to yours. Don’t you see that whatever you and Payton had together was just as real as what you and I have?”
“What I had with Payton was far from perfect and it wasn’t even real—”
Skye put her fingers over his lips. “Listen to me. I’m just saying that when you go back, you might see things differently.”
“The only difference is going to be that I’m going to miss you like crazy. I love you, Skye. When are you going to believe me? It doesn’t matter what world I’m in—hell, if I were on Mars, I would still be in love with you. I’ve never loved Payton or anyone else, so you can just stop trying to get rid of me.”
She let out a breath and looked up at him. Maybe she was being as crazy as he seemed to think she was. “Getting rid of you is the last thing I want to do. If it were up to me, I’d keep you here in our little bubble forever, but it isn’t up to me. Reality is going to creep into our perfect little world eventually. All I’m saying is when you go back, if things change…if your feelings change—”
He unzipped her new coat and slid it off her shoulders. “It’s not going to happen.” He kissed her and walked her backward toward the bedroom. “If you went back to San Francisco, do you even for a minute believe you’d forget what we have together?”
“No, but then I wasn’t engaged to someone like Payton either.”
He actually laughed. “Skye, if you had been engaged to someone like Payton, you wouldn’t be worried. Believe me when I say there’s nothing Payton has or has ever had that could make me want her over you. Not in a million years.”
CHAPTER 15
Logan had forgotten how long it took to fly from New York to San Francisco. It seemed like an eternity. He wished he could have talked Skye into going with him. He might have been more successful if Bree and Storm had suddenly appeared or even Slater, but he couldn’t leave the restaurant without a chef and a manager even if Harrison could have handled the restaurant for a few days—maybe. Hell, he’d have been willing to let him try, but Skye wouldn’t hear of it.
It hadn’t helped that Nicki had been upset by his leaving. When she’d given him a picture she’d drawn so he wouldn’t forget about her, he couldn’t swallow the lump in his throat. He pulled it out of his breast pocket, opened it, and saw a damned good drawing of his girls. She didn’t trust he’d come back, and neither, it seemed, did Skye. When Skye said good-bye to him, she looked as if she was afraid she’d never see him again.
He’d always thought that having someone miss him would feel good, but after seeing their faces through the back window of the cab as he pulled away, he would have given just about anything to ease their minds. It was all he could do not to grab the door handle on the cab and jump out, and he had to cross his arms to keep from doing just that. The farther away he drove, the deeper the cut. He’d felt as if someone had just scooped out his insides with a spoon—he was hollow, empty, and damned uncomfortable. He swallowed back a groan, rubbed the center of his chest, and tried to erase the eerily familiar feeling. One he’d had for as long as he could remember. One that had disappeared the moment Nicki and Skye had danced into his life. He’d never realized what it was before. He hadn’t realized it until it slammed into his chest with the force of a meteor.
He was totally alone, completely solitary, desolate, and miserable. Even though he knew, with a certainty that kept him sane, that he would return to them in four days—ninety-six hours, give or take a few minutes—he’d never felt so scared. It was going to be the longest four days of his life.
The driver pulled up to his house at the vineyard and he got out, grabbed his bags, and waved away the offered help.
He walked up to the dark house wondering how he’d ever thought of this place as home. He took out his keys and watched the taillights of the limo until it disappeared over the hill. Again he tried to shake off the feeling that he should be anywhere but here. He told himself he was letting his imagination run away with him and let himself into the house.
He flipped on the lights and was tempted to reach for his shades—it was so white he was nearly blinded.
He looked around for any color—all he saw were different shades of white. The walls were white, the carpet was white—hell, even the leather furniture was white. It looked as cold as the Arctic and just as inviting. He stifled a shiver and tossed his keys on the chrome and glass table. There wasn’t a speck of dust. Not a thing out of place. Everything looked the same as it had when he left—high ceilings, massive windows looking over the vineyard—although he couldn’t see any part of it at that moment. Still, the vineyard was the only bit of color that came to mind when he thought of the house—not that he’d thought about it at all while he was gone. Looking out onto the vineyard might have helped. Unfortunately, on a moonless night, all he saw, all he felt, was deep, dense darkness. Everything was eerily still and quiet—something he used to find soothing. Now the quiet made him antsy; the hum of the refrigerator, the ticking of the world’s loudest grandfather clock, and the buzz of a lightbulb seemed to echo in the huge, empty, cold house. He felt as if he were the only human on the planet. There were no cars going by, no planes overhead, no surf smashing against the shore a block away, no life, no laughter, no love—just emptiness.
He’d never realized how impersonal the house felt. Nothing there was his—not really. He supposed it was because Payton had decorated it in her taste, not his. But then, he wasn’t sure what kind of taste he had. He’d never had a place of his own. He had a few apartments with roommates, but they were furnished in early Salvation Army. Now that he thought about it, that wasn’t so bad.
As he looked around the house he’d spent the last several years living in, the only bit of him he saw was a few pictures of him and Payton together. He picked one off the shelf and hardly recognized the man staring back at him—a stranger. That guy wasn’t him. He looked like a wax sculpture from Madame Tussauds. Everything was perfect, his clothes, his pose, hell, even his smile—perfectly fake. This wasn’t the same man who tried to cook his girlfriend breakfast, or kissed Nicki good night. It wasn’t the guy who held Skye’s head over the toilet when she puked her guts up or went shopping for women’s coats to make sure she didn’t freeze to death. The guy in the picture never missed his girlfriend or anyone the way Logan missed Skye and Nicki, and he certainly never spent a sleepless night in a lonely bed after waking up reaching for the woman he loved and missing the way she curled up against him in her sleep. He’d never wanted a woman the way he wanted Skye—not only for sex, although, damn, the sex was great, but no, he wanted to be with her even when she was PMSing and spitting fire, or looking at him like if she blinked, he might disappear. The guy in the picture might have his arm around Payton, but he was alone. He didn’t know how to love or be loved, but since he’d met Skye and Nicki, he knew how to do both in spades.
He checked his watch. It was too late to call Nicki—she was already asleep—but he could call Skye. He smiled for the first time that day, pulled his phone off his belt, and speed-dialed her.
“Hey, you called.” She sounded sleepy and surprised—he heard a half smile in her voice, the sheets rustle as she stretched, and Pepperoni’s piglike snore.
He pictured her in bed with her hair all messed up, warm and cozy, curled around the puppy instead of him. “I just wanted to tell you I got in safe. How’d it go tonight?”
“Okay. Nicki was a little down, but I made her favorite dinner and she perked up.”
Logan groaned. “You let her eat peanut butter and bacon sandwiches for dinner?”
“With fries and gravy.”
“That bad, huh?”
“She was pretty pathetic. You’d better FaceTime her tomorrow after school or her cholesterol level is going to go through the roof and I won’t be held responsible.”
He took a deep breath and felt something inside him uncoil and expand. “How are you doing?”
“Me?” She sounded surprised that he asked. When was she going to realize that he loved her more than he knew was possible? “I left the restaurant in Harrison’s capable hands when Nicki came down the third time.”
Shit, he knew leaving was a mistake. “I’m sorry, sugar.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. I wasn’t having a great day either, so leaving wasn’t a problem. I helped Nicki with her homework, I signed her agenda book, and we packed up her backpack, and then we popped popcorn and watched Aladdin. She says Aladdin reminds her of you. You’re just missing the magic carpet. She loves you, you know.”
“The feeling’s mutual.” He was surprised to feel his lips curl in a smile. He was no Aladdin, but hell, if Aladdin was who he reminded Nicki of, he’d start buying up Turkish carpets—they’d beat the shit out of the white wool he was walking around on.
“How was the flight?”
“Long. I’d forgotten how damn far away California is from Red Hook. Too far.” He went into the kitchen, pulled Nicki’s picture from his breast pocket, and rooted around the junk drawer until he found the magnets he’d bought a few years ago. Payton kept taking them off the damn refrigerator. When he’d asked her why, she’d said they were too pedestrian. He liked pedestrian. He smoothed out the crease in the middle of the picture and smiled at the drawing of Nicki and Skye holding a sign saying, “Come Home Soon. We Love You, Logan.” He rubbed his chest and wondered if he was just hungry. Maybe that was what was bothering him. There hadn’t been much to eat on the plane. He opened up the fridge and was surprised to see it filled with the foods that made up Payton’s usual diet—celery, carrots, lettuce, and Greek yogurt. Until he’d met Skye, he’d never realized how nice it was to be with a woman who ate real food and cooked. There was nothing in the fridge he wanted, so he opened a bottle of water and took a sip. “Is Pop behaving himself?”
