by Lori Wilde
Her cell phone rang. She snagged it off the counter of the reception desk. “Bluebird Inn,” she said in her cheeriest voice.
“Um, yes, my name is Carly Brown. I need to cancel my wedding reservation. . . .”
Felicity closed her eyes, took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m very sorry to hear that. Is it a personal situation or is there a problem with the venue?”
“Well—” The young woman’s voice rose. “Word around town is that the Bluebird Inn is jinxed. If you hold your wedding at the Bluebird, your marriage is destined to fail.”
“Seriously?” Felicity said, feeling a waspish tone fly into her voice. “Do you really believe saying ‘I do’ at the Bluebird is an accurate predictor of how likely you are to get divorced?”
“Mmm, not really,” Carly Brown admitted. “But I figure better safe than sorry, right? So if you could just PayPal my deposit back to me, that’d be great.”
“The deposit is nonrefundable,” Felicity said, wishing she’d been stricter with the other four brides-to-be that she’d allowed to talk her into a refund. “It’s in the contract you signed.”
“Hmph! I know you gave a refund to Diamond Causby. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.” Carly Brown hung up.
Felicity sighed. She wasn’t worried about the lawyer threat, but it was only fair to give Carly her money back since Felicity had caved on the other refunds.
Sap.
Footsteps squeaked. A pair of Nike sneakers appeared on the steps in her line of vision, followed by a pair of muscular, masculine calves, cute knees, lean thighs, then the whole package.
Tom Loving.
Wearing navy-blue running shorts and a white T-shirt, looking like a shipshape athlete straight off a Wheaties box. He had a smooth way of moving, easy and unrushed, a man comfortable in his own skin.
He cleared the last step, turned toward her, raked a casual hand over his close-clipped hair.
Their eyes met.
“Hi,” she said, and raised a hand.
“Hey,” he answered back.
She arched an eyebrow at his clothing. “Going for a run?”
“That’s the general idea.” His grin was soft and sexy.
Her heart thumped. “You’re staying?”
His shoulders went up, an unhurried shrug. “I’m paid up through Monday.”
“I thought . . .” She bit down on her bottom lip. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about the wedding snafu. His brother, Joe, had raked him over the coals pretty harshly in front of everyone.
Tom came closer.
She could smell his scent, a compelling fresh-laundry and sage aroma.
“Yes?” he said.
It was her turn to shrug, but her gesture was terse and quick. Tread lightly here. “I didn’t think you would want to stick around.”
“Couldn’t leave if I wanted to.” His grin was a rueful apology. “I gave Savannah the keys to my Ducati.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Felicity murmured.
“Feels like it was.”
“It wasn’t. Your niece already had running on her mind. You just gave her the means of escape.”
“That’s what my brother is holding against me.”
“Joe will come around.” She didn’t want to get in the middle of his family argument, although she was suffering the backlash. “He’s blustery, but a reasonable fellow.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not banking on that.”
“You two aren’t close.” She said it as a statement. She might not know the Lovings well, but Serendipity wasn’t a big town. If Joe and his brother had been close, surely she would have come across Tom at one time or another over the years.
“We’re half-brothers. When our dad got divorced from Joe’s mom, she took Joe away with her.”
“You weren’t raised together at all?”
Tom shook his head. “I only saw Joe on holidays and in the summers. He’s five years older, and we didn’t have a lot in common. Plus, I just retired from the Army after twenty years of service. I’ve lived all over the world. It’s hard staying in touch when you’re always on the move.”
“I’m surprised you came to the wedding,” Felicity said.
“I’m surprised I was invited.”
“You’re not married?” she asked, and immediately regretted it. The question made it sound like she was interested. Okay, yes, she was interested, but only out of curiosity. She wasn’t in the market for a man.
He came closer, rested his elbows on the desk. Because the floor behind the reception desk was raised, they were eye-to-eye. Her pulse took off, zipping through her veins.
“Divorced,” he said, his smooth voice thick as clotted cream.
“What happened?”
“Old story. Heidi cheated on me with my best friend while I was deployed in the Middle East. Yes, I am a walking cliché.”
“Ouch.” Felicity winced. “How long were you married?”
“Seven years.”
“How long since the divorce?” Was he on the rebound?
“Five years.”
“You ever think about remarrying?” Shut up! She should stop asking him personal questions.
“Do you?” He spun it back on her.
“Steve was the love of my life,” she said. “Lightning doesn’t strike twice.”
“Sometimes it does. When we lived in Germany there was this tall old tree in our backyard that took a lightning strike twice.”
“It happens very rarely.”
“Given enough time, it’s actually inevitable that lightning will strike again.”
“So you’re a weather expert?”
He stepped closer, and Felicity forgot to breathe. “You’re lucky,” he said, his mouth pulled up in a wistful pinch. It looked funny because he wasn’t the wistful type. “Some people never get hit by that kind of glorious lightning.”
“I know,” she said softly.
“I’ve never been hit.”
“No lightning with your wife?”
He shook his head.
“Why did you marry her?”
“She was gorgeous, and I used to be a sucker for damsels in distress.” He got a faraway look in his eyes. “Maybe that’s why I gave Savannah the keys. I could sense she hadn’t felt the lightning either. Everyone deserves lightning.”
“Lightning hits quick and hard and hot.” Her gaze locked with Tom’s, and she couldn’t seem to wrench it away. “It’s fierce and beautiful, but a lightning strike leaves you split wide-open. Raw and vulnerable and . . . when it’s all over . . . ruined.”
“Still, it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” Tom quoted.
She nodded, put a hand to her belly, looked away to study the bluebird sculpture on the top of the filing cabinet.
“No children?”
Felicity shook her head and bit her bottom lip. The topic was too tender to discuss with strangers.
“Me either,” he murmured.
She heard a note in his voice that pulled her gaze back to his face. His eyes were solemn; his mouth sad. As if he’d missed out on something monumental.
“Heidi didn’t want kids,” he explained.
“And you?”
He gave her a faded ghost of a smile. “I’m like you. I wasn’t blessed.” A quick wince, the smile again. “But I’ve made peace with it.”
“You’re a guy; you could still have children if you met the right woman,” she pointed out. He deserved to have children.
“And you’re still young enough to have kids if you met the right man.”
If only it were that easy! He had no idea what it was like to pine for the thing you wanted most deeply, knowing you could never have it. Buying baby clothes and furniture only to have to sell it all when the dream died.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Oh.” He blinked, catching on. “I’m sorry. You and your husband never considered adoption?”
“It’s really none of your concern.” She and
Steve had been looking into adoption when he’d gotten the cancer diagnosis.
“You’re right.” Tom pressed his lips together in a thin line. His eyes were so kind and full of sympathy that it hurt her chest. “I shouldn’t have pried.”
She fiddled with the edge of the appointment book. She kept a calendar of the bookings on her computer, but she liked to keep a hard copy too, just in case something happened. She hadn’t cut her teeth on technology, and her computer had crashed too many times for her to trust it completely.
The corner of a piece of paper slipped from the pages of the appointment book. The sonogram of the baby she’d lost. She’d slipped it into the appointment book when she found it while she’d been clearing out the desk drawer during the renovations, still too attached to discard the last shred of the dream.
“My runaway niece is hurting your business,” Tom said, staring at her hand on the appointment book. “You’ve already had numerous cancellations since Savannah escaped, haven’t you?”
She shoved the sonogram image back inside the book and snapped it closed. Hoped he hadn’t seen it. “Weren’t you going for a run?”
“I’ve upset you?” His expression was contrite. “Forgive me, it was never my intention to upset you.”
“It’s not you.” She met his dark eyes again. “It’s just that, well . . . it’s been a rough day all the way around.”
“That it has,” he agreed. “But don’t worry, I have a good feeling that everything is going to turn out perfect for you in the end.”
A grand statement, but an empty one. She couldn’t help feeling he was simply trying to placate her, but it was nice of him to try.
He turned and jogged out the door, giving her a splendid view of his taut butt. A myriad of unwanted sexual fantasies spilled into her brain. Thank God, he’d be gone by Monday.
Because Tom Loving was an irresistible temptation she could ill afford.
* * *
Tom jogged for over an hour, covering seven miles that took him past the Loving Ranch. He hadn’t been there since he was twelve, when Joe’s mom had taken the two of them to visit their cousins one summer. Later, Tom learned from his father that Joe’s mom had actually gone to hit their grandfather up for money, and to park Joe there for the summer while she took off with some guy.
It occurred to Tom that Joe hadn’t been as lucky as he. Joe’s mother, like Heidi, had hated the roving nature of military life, and she’d bailed out of the marriage to their father not long after Joe was born.
Tom’s mother had been a military brat herself, and she and Dad fit hand in glove. They still traveled around the world together, for the most part living on cruise ships or in their RV. Right now, they were on a cruise around Cape Horn, and they had not been invited to the wedding.
Tom paused outside the majestic iron gates of the Loving Ranch, and thought about how disconnected he was from his only sibling. He considered climbing over that gate and jogging right up to the house.
But he didn’t.
Joe was angry with him. Savannah was on the loose with Tom’s Ducati. Tom wouldn’t be welcomed. Besides, he was sweaty and in jogging shorts. Reasons enough to keep going.
On the way back to the Bluebird Inn, he noticed bluebird houses and nesting boxes in yards, gardens, and fields up and down Bluebird Way, but no sign of a single bluebird. In a town that had named a street after the happy little birds, he expected to see a whole sky full of the creatures.
A shame, because this part of Texas was one of the few places in the country, parts of Colorado being the other, where all three species nested—eastern, mountain, and western bluebirds.
Tom stripped off his T-shirt and used it to mop his brow as he climbed the steps of the Bluebird Inn. There were no cars in the driveway, parking area, or carport, other than Felicity’s Prius. Was he the only guest left at the B&B?
Inside, there was no one at the reception desk. The guest book was open, and he couldn’t resist taking a detour to peer at it and see how much damage his niece had done to Felicity’s business.
Lines had been drawn through name after name on the booking calendar. Reservations canceled. Not just for upcoming weddings, but for stays at the inn itself as well. There were still names scattered here and there, but nothing for the upcoming two weeks, and Tom could see she’d lost more than half her bookings.
His gut nosedived. Felicity had gotten caught up in the downside of catering to the wealthy and well-known. When you fell out of favor with them, you fell out of favor with their followers. He ran his hand over his head. Damn, he felt bad for her.
The clock struck five, chiming loudly and startling him. He jumped and hit the reservation book with his elbow, knocking it to the floor. A piece of paper fluttered from the pages as the book fell.
Tom bent to scoop it up. It was a baby’s sonogram. He studied the grainy image. Saw it was dated over four years ago, and written across the bottom was Felicity’s name.
She’d told him she didn’t have any children.
But there’d been a sonogram.
At one point, she’d had a baby. He could only assume she’d lost it.
Gently, Tom tucked the picture into the back of the book and returned the book to the desk, a heavy feeling settling in the pit of his stomach.
He glanced around the inn for Felicity, but didn’t see her. Felt a sudden urge to find her. Maybe she was outside in the gardens. His instinct was to go to her and tell her how sorry he was for her loss, but he realized how inappropriate that would be.
Besides, he was rumpled and sweaty and bare-chested. First, he needed a shower.
And then what?
He had nothing to offer her but a weak apology. He was leaving on Monday. That was, unless he could think of a good reason to stay.
Tom wanted to stay. To get to know her better. What excuse could he give her for lingering?
He had no ride? Easily solvable.
To make amends with his brother? But that would mean he’d actually have to do something about his relationship with Joe. Tom wasn’t sure he was prepared to do that.
His gaze landed on the bluebird sculpture perched atop the filing cabinet, and Tom came up with the best excuse of all.
Chapter Four
On Sunday morning Felicity came up the back steps with a basketful of laundry in her arms. She liked to hang the sheets on the clotheslines to dry. Sure it was old-fashioned and extra work, but the healthy smell of fresh, sun-dried linens couldn’t be beat, and guests complimented her on it often.
Besides, there was something Zen about hanging out clothes that calmed the mind.
Granted, it was a dumb time to be hanging out laundry when her future was in shambles, but she’d needed something to do beside sit around, field reservation cancellations, and feel sorry for herself. She washed sheets and towels, hung them on the line, mixed a batch of cookies, and put them in the oven for her only guest. She retrieved the dry laundry and came into the house just in time to hear Tom Loving go upstairs.
Suddenly, it felt weird being alone with him in the big rambling Victorian. She’d never felt this way before with a guest, and she had no idea why she was feeling it now.
Really, Felicity? No idea at all? How about the fact that the man turned her on, and it had been over two long years since anyone did that for her?
Okay. So she was attracted to him. Big deal. Yes, he was very easy on the eyes, but that probably just meant he had tons of women chasing after him.
She went to the kitchen, took out the batch of cookies from the oven, and set them on the sideboard to cool before popping in a second pan. She didn’t know why she was making so many cookies when she only had one guest to eat them. She’d freeze the rest of the dough.
Ruefully shaking her head, she took the laundry upstairs to make up the empty guest rooms. She passed by Tom’s door, heard the shower come on. He’d gone for another run.
Immediately, the image of a starkly naked Tom Loving popped into her head. She
stopped in the middle of the hallway, frozen stiff by the visions she could not shake.
“Stop it,” she hissed under her breath, but oh, her treacherous mind was in full-on revolt, picturing all manner of sexy things. It bewildered her, this instant attraction. Even with Steve, she hadn’t felt such intense physical longing.
That’s what bothered her. Right there. Disloyalty to her husband.
But Steve was gone. He would want her to be happy. He’d told her to marry again.
Marry? Good grief. Where was that coming from?
Determined to snap out of her odd mood, Felicity marched into her bedroom, which was next door to the room Tom Loving was staying in. She’d make the beds tomorrow. She dropped the laundry basket at the foot of her bed.
Heard him singing in the shower: “Bluebird.” He didn’t sound the least bit like Paul McCartney, but he was belting it out as if he were the superstar ex-Beatle.
She swayed in time to his music, swept up, dancing along with the song and the sound of the shower, waltzing around her room like a middle-aged Cinderella. The stress and strain of the previous morning drifted away.
His voice rose and fell, sometimes in tune, sometimes not, and her crazy heart swooned. Downstairs, she heard the kitchen oven timer ding, startling her out of her dreaminess.
The shower went off abruptly, and so did his song.
A fresh batch of naked Tom imagery tempted her. In her mind’s eye, she saw him stepping from the shower, toweling off those sexy muscles....
Stop it!
She raced down the stairs, not really knowing why she was running; her heart was an out-of-control pump, shooting spurts of blood through her veins. Once she reached the kitchen, she had to stop and take a deep breath.
Her hands trembled, and her knees were none too steady. She turned off the oven and searched for a potholder. What had she done with the thing?
She searched high and low, her head cocked, ears attuned for footsteps on the stairs. Finally, she spotted the oven mitt dangling from the magnet she used to fix it to the refrigerator.
