Silence reverberated between them for a moment before she said, “It’s okay. I’m okay.” She laughed a little. “And I’m sure Quinn’s more than okay. Although your dad’s brain cells might be slightly crispy around the edges by now.”
“Can’t imagine who she gets the chatty gene from,” Ryder said, grinning, feeling almost...okay. Normal. Even when Mel squawked.
Especially when Mel squawked.
A few minutes later he pulled up in front of the smallish, gabled concoction he and Deanna had bought two years ago, wondering when—if—the time would ever come that he could look at the house and not feel the pang of unrealized dreams. Mel angled her head to study the place for several seconds before slowly nodding.
“I like it,” she said. “It’s very ‘you.’”
Us. It was supposed to have been very us.
He pushed open his car door. “I’ll only be a sec, you can stay here—”
“Like hell,” she said, getting out and starting up the flagstone path toward the hundred-year-old, beige-and-white two-story house, the soft denim of her jeans perfectly molding to her shapely bottom, and lust flared. Whoosh.
Embrace the horniness, the voice said inside him, and he literally bit his cheek to staunch the thought. Except...
What was, was.
“It’s a work in progress,” Ryder said, catching up. “I’m doing a lot of the renovation myself and I only have nights and weekends.”
“Then I’m even more impressed,” Mel said as he reached around her to unlock the front door, catching another whiff of the scent that had been driving him crazy for hours, and his gut cramped again, from longing, from grief, from the guilt slicing him to shreds.
But instead of moving out of his way Mel looked up at him, her eyes soft with understanding, her mouth tilted. A full mouth. Some might even call it luscious, all dewy with the pink lipgloss she’d smeared on in the car after they’d left Moses.
Kill. Him. Now.
“As I recall,” she said, “you barely passed woodshop in middle school.”
He pushed the door open. “You remember that?”
“It’s downright scary, the vast assortment of useless crap stuffed in my brain,” she said, stepping inside. “It’s worse than my grandmother’s house in there...ohhh, nice.” She unzipped her fleece hoodie, making herself—and her breasts, and her shiny mouth—right at home. Hips swaying, she crossed to the brick fireplace over freshly varnished oak floors, skimming her fingers over the matching, refinished wood mantel. “Wow. This is gorgeous. You stripped it yourself?”
“All twelve coats. And yes, it was hell, thanks for asking.”
She chuckled, then slid her hands into her back pockets, lifting her eyes to take in the dove-gray walls, the trio of white-paned windows along the back overlooking a serene, duck-infested tidewater marsh in the distance—the house’s main selling point, according to Deanna, Ryder thought on another pang.
“You bought this for her, didn’t you?” Mel said, and Ryder’s pulse tripped.
“We bought it together, yes.”
“And yet, you kept it.”
“Yeah,” he breathed out. “Although I can’t tell you how many times I came this close—” he lifted his hand, thumb and forefinger pinched together “—to listing it. How long it took before I could even set foot in the place without....” He shook his head, his throat closing up.
“I’m sure,” Mel said, so much tenderness in her voice, and Ryder thought he would expire from wanting to press close all that warmth and generosity. “And you used the reno as therapy, right?”
“Something like that. Figured I should have something more to show for it than a pile of canceled checks.”
She gave him a thumbs-up, then inspected the white wainscoting it’d taken him hours to get right. “After my father died, my mother launched herself into I don’t know how many ‘projects,’ anything and everything to keep her distracted. And when we moved to Baltimore it only got worse, when she finally had a place of her own to decorate however she chose. How much of the house is done?”
“Just downstairs. And...the master bedroom.”
She turned, giving him that inscrutable look. “It still hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Dammit—how do you do that? Read my mind?”
“Read your face, you mean? Seriously, Ry, it’s a fabulous house, but...if it’s causing you this much anguish maybe you should ditch it. Not that this has anything to do with me—”
“More than you might think,” he said, releasing another breath when her eyebrows lifted. “When the sheriff came to my door that night...it was like something broke inside me. Yes, I’m mending, but a lot more slowly than I’d ever imagined. But at least I’d actually gotten to the point where I could walk through the front door and not hear Deanna’s voice, or imagine her looking out the window, or sitting on the floor with a bunch of paint samples spread out in front of her. But then, today, being with Quinn...”
He finally grabbed his canvas coat off the rack by the front door. “All those conversations Dee and I had, about having kids...the plans we had... Crap, I hate sounding like this.” A short, sharp laugh escaped from his throat. “Feeling like this.”
Mel took a couple of steps closer. “And who’s to say you won’t fall in love again? Get married, have those kids—”
“Mel, stop. Please.”
“Sorry,” she muttered, rezipping her own jacket, jerking when his hand closed around her arm.
“No, you don’t understand...” But then, how could she, when he didn’t, either?
Ryder sank onto the Shaker bench by the front door, the one they’d found at some flea market or other, his head in his hands. Where it still was when he sensed Mel kneel in front of him, just as she had with Moses. After a moment she reached up and tugged his hands away from his face, her earnest, perplexed expression threatening to rip him in two.
“Hey. Talk to me.”
“You’ve got to get back—”
“Not immediately. What’s going on?”
“I can’t—”
“Don’t even give me that. If you can’t be honest with me, then who?”
A raw laugh scraped his dry throat before he met her gaze. “It would appear I have the hots for you so badly I can barely think straight.”
* * *
And with that, Mel’s hormones exploded into flight like a bunch of hyper, hungry, woefully confused moths. Then she burst into laughter.
“You brought me here to have your wicked way with me?”
“No! God, no! Why would you even think that? And stop laughing!”
“Ohmigod, Ryder, you’re beet-red!”
“It’s not funny, Mel!”
“Sorry, Mr. I’m-always-in-control. It’s freaking hysterical!”
His gaze bored into hers. “I did not bring you here to have sex with you.”
“But you sure as heck thought about it.”
After a second or two, he groaned again, then collapsed against the wall behind the bench, his fingertips pressed into his eyelids. “Only about five hundred times.”
“Wow.”
His hands dropped to his lap. “You really had no clue?”
“None. Then again, I wasn’t exactly looking for clues, either. I mean, after our conversation in my grandmother’s kitchen, I thought...well. That it was sort of a non-issue?”
“I said I found you appealing.”
“And that you had no intention of acting on it. So, uh, I take it things have changed?”
His mouth clamped shut, Ryder pushed a long, shaky breath through his nose. “I’m so sorry.”
“For being human? Please.” He grunted. “Poor baby. How long has it been?”
“Long enough for me to act stupid, apparently.”<
br />
“Thinking is not acting, Ry.”
“Not much difference in my book.”
Still on her knees, Mel rested her folded arms across his thighs. Thought really, really hard about where to take this. If anywhere. Because either this was an unexpected opportunity she’d kick herself for if she let it go, or a temptation she’d kick herself for if she didn’t. No way of telling.
“So what you’re saying is, the numbness has worn off. And now everything’s...” She fought a smile and lost. “Prickling.”
“Not helping, Mel.”
“But...” What the hell, right? “I...could.”
On what sounded like a tortured laugh, Ryder finally curled forward, capturing her hands in his to tuck against his chest. “Except that would be...” My goodness, such a big sigh. “Beyond wrong.”
“Depends how you define ‘wrong’.”
“Mel, I’m—”
“Still mourning Deanna. Got it. No, I swear. I know exactly what this is. Or, more to the point, it isn’t. And... oh, for crying out loud—”
Without further ado Mel shifted, gripped his shoulders and laid one on him.
Or tried to.
Clearly startled, Ryder reared back. Frowning. “What are you doing?”
“It’s called kissing. Strike a chord, maybe?”
“But—”
“Ryder. One—you know you want to, and two—good news! I’m not sixteen anymore.”
“But...” He frowned even harder. She considered telling him his face was going to freeze like that. “But it’s you.”
“Yeah, it’s me. Who you just admitted to lusting after, oh, ten seconds ago? And more good news!” She flung out her arms. “I’m okay with that. So pucker up, buster. And if it does feel bizarre—because I suppose that’s always a possibility, although frankly I’d be surprised—then we’ll know and you can stop tormenting yourself.” She skootched closer on her knees. “Ready?”
The trembly smile only marginally mitigated the horror in his eyes. “You’re insane.”
“Goes without saying.” She tapped her mouth. “Lips. Here. Now—”
The last word was swallowed up—pretty much literally—when he finally booted those pesky qualms and planted one on her for the history books.
Wow. Pent-up volcanoes had nothing on this guy.
And yes, it was everything she could have wished for. And more. All that fantasizing as a kid, about what his mouth would feel like pressed to hers, didn’t even begin to compare to the mind-blowing reality. Lordamercy, those poor moths didn’t know what to do with themselves.
And yet, Mel mused, shortly after he’d lowered her to the hooked rug in the entry way and their tongues had become intimately acquainted, and despite his pounding heartbeat underneath her palm, we weren’t talking wild and wooly, either. Oh, no, homeboy knew exactly what he was doing. And since Mel did, too...well, this was the most fun she’d had in months.
And all they were doing was making out.
For now, she thought with a mental eyebrow waggle as his hand wandered close enough to the outside of one breast to make her hoo-hah quiver in hope. And it was more than evident that she had his full attention.
Finally Ryder lifted his head and frowned into her eyes. Mel frowned back. “What?”
“It wasn’t bizarre.”
“Damn me with faint praise, why not?”
Finally the frown eased. A little. “Actually...I liked it. A lot.”
“Yeah? Me, too. You kiss good, Caldwell. Real good.”
That merited a slight grin. Along with—still—no small amount of uncertainty around the eyes, but she’d take whatever she could get. “You, too.”
Palming her stomach, Mel propped the back of her head in her other hand. “So you wanna fool around or what?”
He sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, but I think you do.”
“It’s not that easy, Mel.”
“Only because you’re making it complicated. Ryder,” she said when he looked away. “I think it’s pretty obvious we both need an outlet. Desperately, if that smooching session was anything to go by. So that’s all this is. Or will be. Friends helping each other out.”
Slowly, his eyes swung back to hers. “This from the woman who a week ago wasn’t even sure if she wanted to have dinner with me.”
“What can I tell you, things change.”
Again with the intense gaze. “You could really put all the other stuff aside?”
“You mean, the family issues? First off, none of that is between us. It never was. Second, it’s not often I get to do something just for myself. And I’m guessing you don’t, either. So this is for us, okay? Has nothing to do with anyone else. And so help me, if you even think of saying you’re afraid of hurting me, I will smack you. You don’t have to protect me anymore, capice?”
Then she reached up to skim a fingertip down that lovely, scratchy, oh-so-male cheek, and his eyes darkened, making her shiver so hard she nearly fell apart right there and then. Pitiful. “S-so. You good to go?”
Blowing a soft laugh through his nose, Ryder grabbed her hand to press a kiss into her palm—uh, yeah, more shivering—then arched one eyebrow. “In fifteen minutes?”
“Right now, sweetcheeks? I’d be good with five.”
Laughing softly, Ryder got to his feet and hauled her to his.
And did not lead her upstairs.
“You are so dead,” she muttered, only then he took her face in his hands and kissed her again—a nice, long, deep one, too—confusing the hell out of her.
“What—?”
“I need to think about this, for one thing. And for another, I can’t do that to you.”
“Oh, honey, you can do anything you like—”
“No, I mean...” Somehow he managed to chuckle and sigh at the same time. Talented. “Do you cut corners when you’re making one of your fancy dishes?”
“Depends on how much of a hurry I’m in. Because sometimes good enough is, well, good enough.”
So what does the turkey do? Wrap her up all nice and close against that warm, solid, soapy-scented chest. Honestly. “You’re not making this any easier.”
“Neither are you, buster.”
He let her go to scoop his coat off the floor where it had landed somewhere along the way, then hunched into it. “And maybe I think you deserve more than ‘good enough.’ Even though...” He shook his head, then opened the door for her. Frowning.
With an award-worthy eyeroll, Mel plopped her wrists on his shoulders. “Even though this would only be about stress relief. Well, lemme tell you something, bub—if you make love half as well as you kiss, I will count myself one of the luckiest women on the planet. Get it?”
Then—hallelujah!—the doofus smiled. “I think this is what’s called a paradigm shift.”
“Heck, yeah,” Mel said, and kissed him again, and moths went wild.
* * *
Normally Quinn was okay with helping Mom make dinner. But after two rainy days where there’d been nothing to do except school stuff and help Mom clean out stinky closets, when the sun finally did appear she was so antsy Mom told her to go outside, for heaven’s sake, before she drove her and April—who’d gotten back from Richmond that morning—nuts. Now, sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of the still wet dock behind the house, Quinn squinted against the bright orange rays of the setting sun as the wind gripped her neck, making her shiver.
There he was again.
He was standing on the shore, with the dog, close enough to get a halfway decent look. She’d seen him maybe twice more after that first time, but always from the window or back porch, too far away to talk to. Now she could see he was older than she’d first thought. Taller, too.
He was
also looking straight at her, the sun turning his light hair a weird pumpkin color.
“You live here now?” he called out.
“No, just visiting,” Quinn yelled back, although she wished that weren’t true. The little town with all the really old houses and shops and stuff, and being able to see so much sky, and the way the water changed colors...she felt like she belonged here. And she didn’t care what was or wasn’t going on between her mom and Ryder’s parents; she really liked Ryder’s dad, too. Then she remembered the boy. “You can come out here and talk to me, if you want. So we don’t have to keep yelling at each other.”
So he did, to sit cross-legged on the dock with the dog between them—who was big and black and smelly and kept trying to lick Quinn’s face, making her laugh.
“Bear! No! Sit!” The boy grabbed the dog’s collar, shoving his butt down to the wood. “Sit!” He sat, sorta, but like he had electricity going through him, his tiny yellow eyes fixed on Quinn as he about wiggled out of his glossy black fur.
Finally the dog calmed down, at least enough for them to introduce themselves. The boy’s name was Jack, he said, he was eleven and went to the Friends’ school in town, and he lived five houses away—he pointed to a big, blue house with a smaller boat than Ryder’s dad’s, docked at its own marina—but his father was in congress, so he lived part-time in Washington.
“What about your mom?”
A couple seconds passed before Jack said as he petted the dog, “She died. A year ago. So it’s just me and Dad. Well, and my grandparents. What happened to your hand?”
“What? Oh.” Quinn glanced at the stitches, which itched something awful but Ryder said they had to stay in for two weeks. “I cut myself on a nail. It doesn’t hurt or anything.”
“Can I see?”
“Sure.”
She stuck out her hand; Jack stared at the wound for a couple of seconds, then nodded. “So are you here with your parents?”
“My mom, yeah. I don’t have a dad. In fact, I don’t even know who he is.”
“Really?” His hand went still in the dog’s fur. “You mean, like your mother went to a sperm bank or something?”
Quinn frowned. “What’s that?”
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