by Melinda Metz
He grabbed her hand, stood up fast, and tugged her out the side door into the hall. He must have been feeling as impatient as she had, because the instant they were alone he pressed her against the wall, the length of his body tight against hers. She wrapped her fingers in his hair, pulling his head down to hers for a kiss. Her breathing started coming hard and fast. But this was nothing like a panic attack. It was the opposite. A lust attack.
Briony gave herself over to the sensations Nate was creating in her body, glad she had the wall to support her, because her knees didn’t feel like they could. She’d gone all warm-honey again.
“Where did you get that?”
The voice was loud. Nate jerked away from her. Briony looked up and down the hall, buttoning her blouse as fast as she could. It was empty. They hadn’t been seen.
“I asked, where did you get that?” The voice came from the screening room.
“I need to see what’s going on in there.” Nate buckled his belt and started for the door.
“Zipper!” Briony hissed, smoothing her hair with her fingers.
He zipped. “Thanks.” He reached for the doorknob.
“Lipstick.” She hurried to him and wiped her lipstick off the side of his mouth.
He grabbed her and gave her a fast, hard kiss. “Lipstick again?” he asked. When she shook her head, he opened the door. The lights were on. Briony wasn’t sure how long they’d been gone, but the movie was over.
“That necklace is mine,” Eliza told Peggy. “Did you take it from my grandpa’s?”
Briony and Nate hurried toward the group where the argument had broken out. “Have you been over to his place?” a short woman with crimson hair demanded, eyes narrowed at Peggy. She was the one sitting behind Regina who’d offered to bring Archie meals.
“No. I found this. In my bedroom,” Peggy answered as Briony and Nate reached them.
“Has Archie been in your bedroom?” Regina exclaimed.
“None of your business,” Peggy shot back, one hand clasping the sparkling silver heart locket she wore.
“That’s a yes, then,” Gib muttered.
Peggy turned on him. “I thought you left.”
“I wanted to check on the cat. Looks like he’s gone again,” Gib commented.
“Oh no.” Briony sighed. “I admit defeat. He’ll probably be back home when I get there.”
“I thought maybe the locket was left by a previous tenant. The cleaning lady came in yesterday. I assumed she’d found it under my dresser or something like that,” Peggy told Eliza. “I can’t imagine how something of yours would have gotten inside my home, but if you say it’s yours, here.” She yanked the necklace over her head, the catch on its side nicking her lip.
“You’re bleeding.” Gib pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and started to bring it up to Peggy’s mouth, then handed it to her instead.
Peggy stared at it, fingering a rose embroidered on the corner. “This is mine. How did you get it?”
“The cat brought it to me,” Gib answered.
“MacGyver?” Briony asked. What was that wicked kitty up to?
CHAPTER 11
Briony couldn’t help laughing when she went inside the house with Nate. Mac was curled up in the center of a gigantic pillow on one side of the living room, while Diogee was scrunched up on a small pillow that didn’t come close to supporting his whole body.
“Look who’s back,” she said. Diogee leapt up and rushed over. He planted both paws on Nate’s chest. “I think he’s asking for protection from Mac.”
“I don’t know if I can help you there, buddy,” Nate said to the big dog. “That cat is too crafty for me.” Mac opened one golden eye for a moment, looked at Nate, then closed it and returned to his nap.
“You want to go outside?” Briony swung the door open wider, and Diogee galloped out into the fenced-in front yard. He immediately began dousing the trees and bushes with pee. Briony left the door open for him. There was no point in keeping it shut. Mac got out whenever he wanted to.
“Want a drink?” she asked Nate. “I have some wine.” And after that you can take me to bed, she silently added. After the hall, there was no question that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
He gave a huge stretch. “Sure.”
“Long day for you, huh?” Briony led the way into the kitchen and got a bottle of fumé blanc out of the fridge. She’d bought it that afternoon, hoping Nate would be over again. Then she’d spent a couple hours deciding what to wear—without asking anyone’s advice. Nate seemed to approve of the cute little short-sleeved wrap dress. The one she’d bought for her honeymoon because it was reversible and she’d wanted to pack light. She shoved the thought away. Her honeymoon was the last thing she wanted to think about when she was with Nate.
“Long, good, bad, hard, strange,” Nate said, leaning against the counter. When she grabbed a corkscrew from a drawer, he took it from her and opened the bottle. She found two glasses, and he poured.
“I get the long part, because I know what time you went to work. And the bad part, with Archie’s accident. What about the rest?”
“I think you can figure out the good part, too.” Nate ran his eyes up and down her body, and her skin flushed everywhere his gaze touched.
She swallowed. “Watching Hairspray? It’s definitely a feelgood movie.”
“No, not that part.” He put his wine down, cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her, soft and sweet. “That part.”
“Was that the hard part, too?” she teased, something she’d never say to Caleb. He didn’t like anything crude, even just a little innuendo.
Nate laughed, swatted her lightly on the butt, then kissed her again, not so soft and sweet.
“The other hard part was dealing with the Archie situation,” he said when he pulled away.
“Eliza is definitely unhappy. But he doesn’t seem to blame you for his accident. He said he wants to stay.”
“He settled in fast. No problems,” Nate answered. “The family has to be happy, too, though. That’s one of the first things I learned.”
“You’ll bring her around. You have a gift,” Briony reassured him. “So, we’ve covered the good, the bad, and the hard. What about the strange?”
Nate took a swallow of his wine, then sat down at the table. Briony sat down next to him. “The strange has to do with my mom. A little of the bad, too, I guess. I went over there to check up on her before Family Night. I told you how there’s been somebody hanging around her place.” Briony nodded. He hadn’t told her much, just mentioned it when he was filling her in on the sabotage. “She wasn’t even dressed, which isn’t like her, and she seemed distracted, almost vague,” Nate continued. “She said she’d been smelling my dad’s cologne in the house, even though she’d put the only bottle of the stuff in the crawl space back when he left.”
He shoved one hand through his hair. “I didn’t know that until today. I thought she’d thrown out everything a few weeks after he left. We’d been desperate to figure out what happened to him, calling everyone we could think of, checking hospitals. It never occurred to us that he just . . . left us. Then we got the postcard.”
“The postcard,” Briony prompted when he seemed to have become caught by memories of the past.
“I only read it once. But it’s not like I’ll ever forget it,” he answered. “It said, ‘I’m fine. I needed to get away. I was smothering. I’ll send money.’ Which he did. Not often, and not enough to support my mom, but something. Anyway, the next day I came home and everything of his was gone. Everything, including the postcard. Even the barbecue. Barbecuing was his thing. I didn’t know she’d kept anything. Then yesterday, she tells me she couldn’t let everything go.”
“You haven’t really had time to process this, have you?”
Nate shook his head. “I guess not. I had to go straight from her place to Family Night. It was important to make things normal. To get out there and make contact with everyone, reassure anyone who
was upset about Archie’s accident, especially coming so close after the ventilation system issue.”
“You were great. Wonderful, actually. Watching you, it felt like you were friends with every person you came into contact with. You showed everyone you were interested in them, that you cared about them. You even knew Rich’s grandson’s favorite food.”
“It’s part of the job,” Nate told her.
“Come on. It’s not just part of the job. You weren’t going through the motions. I could see that. That lady said you made The Gardens a home. You, Nate.”
“Regina,” Nate told her.
“Right, Regina. And the poet, Rich. He thought so, too. I could tell everyone feels the same way. When I saw you with LeeAnne and Hope the other day, it was obvious they adore you.”
“You don’t have to—” Nate began. “I wasn’t asking for a pep talk.”
“It’s not a pep talk. It’s just my observations. You should be proud of yourself, of what you’ve created.”
“My grandfather’s the one who—”
“You’re the one who’s kept the place going for how many years now?” she interrupted.
“Nine years and four months.” He didn’t give her the number of days, although he knew it.
“That’s not just your grandfather. That’s you. Be proud, Nate.”
“I am,” he said, although he hadn’t ever thought of it in terms of an accomplishment. He’d just done what needed to be done. He’d done what he thought his grandfather would do, until he got enough experience that he could make the decisions on his own.
“How involved was your dad when he was running The Gardens?” Briony asked.
Twice in one day he was having a conversation about his father. Definitely strange. After the postcard, it was like his father never existed. All his stuff disappeared, or so he thought. Every picture of him, although maybe there was one or two in the crawl space?
“When my grandfather was seventy-three, he had a stroke. Totally unexpected. He wasn’t even close to thinking about retiring, and it seemed like he never would. He was so vital. But overnight, he went from running the place to being a resident who needed full-time nursing care.”
“Oh, Nate. I’m so sorry.” Her deep blue eyes were full of sympathy. He pressed on, wanting to get through it all. “My dad was never really into The Gardens. Which, fine. Not everyone wants to be in the family business. I get that. He should have hired a manager, but he took over in a half-assed way. I was still in high school, but I knew more about it than he did, just from hanging around with my grandfather.”
“You really loved him. I can tell,” Briony said.
“Yeah. He spent a lot of time with me, me and Nathalie. He really got into the whole grandpa thing. Maybe because my grandma died a few years after we were born,” Nate said. “My dad sometimes made these comments, like that Grandpa was a lot better grandfather than he was a father. I never got the story, not from either of them.”
“Was your mom really upset when you saw her tonight?”
Nate thought about it. “Not the way I thought she’d be if she ever brought up my dad. Right after he left, she’d get completely hysterical if I tried to talk about him, so I stopped trying. Most of the time, we all basically pretend he never existed. Today was the first time I really saw any sadness from her since back then. I’ve seen her cry at movies, even TV commercials. I’ve seen her upset over a billion tiny things, like a bad haircut. Maybe all that was about my dad, at least partially.”
“Hey, a bad haircut is devastating to a woman,” Briony gently teased, then added, “Do you think now that she brought him up, with the cologne, that she’ll keep talking about him?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe it’ll go back to the way it’s always been. I don’t know.” He suddenly felt exhausted. “What about your family? What are they like?” He wanted a break from his own family crap.
“My family. Well, my family is just me and my parents. No brothers or sisters,” Briony answered. “We, my parents and I, spent a lot of time together when I was growing up. Lots of trips—D.C., the Grand Canyon, Disneyland, even Europe a few times.”
“Sounds great.”
“It was,” she said, but he could see there was something more there.
“But?” he prompted.
“But. Hmm. It sounds ungrateful to have any complaints. But I never went to a slumber party. I never went trick-or-treating. Well, no, that’s not true. I went trick-or-treating when I was little enough to go with them and they could take me right up to the door. Then we’d go home and they’d inspect all my candy and dole it out to me a piece a day until it was gone.”
“A piece a day? Mine was gone before the week was up.”
“Which sounds so fun,” she answered. “When other kids started going trick-or-treating by themselves, my parents still wanted to go with me. So, I told them I wasn’t into it anymore. I was embarrassed to be seen walking around the neighborhood with Mom and Dad waiting for me on the sidewalk in front of every house, like I was a toddler.”
“How old are we talking?” Nate asked.
“I think when I got to be twelve I made one last attempt to convince them nothing would happen to me if I went with some friends with no adults,” she answered. “No go.”
“That’s excessive,” Nate said.
“It’s crazy. It made me feel . . .” She didn’t finish.
“What?”
She sighed. “It made me feel like, kind of like, there was something wrong with me. Like they could see I was incapable. That I wasn’t as smart or whatever as other kids.”
“When they just wanted to protect you.”
“Yeah. Protected me right into being helpless.”
“So that’s why you got so bent when I tried to help with your foot. You said you didn’t want to be helpless. Just so you know, you don’t seem helpless to me.”
She gave a bark of laughter. “You should see inside my head.”
“You’re out here. On vacation, a cat-sitting vacation, by yourself. A lot of people wouldn’t do that. A lot of people can’t even go out to dinner by themselves. My sister, for example.”
Before Briony could reply, the dog barreled in, way too fast. He tried to stop but slid across the floor, only stopping when he bashed into Nate’s legs. He gave one loud woof. “He likes to have a treat when he comes in.”
When she said “treat,” Diogee began to wag his tail so hard he almost lost his balance. Briony stood up and opened a ceramic jar with “Feed Me” written on the side. She pulled out a biscuit, but before she could hand it to the dog, Mac appeared and gave a long yowl.
“Okay, okay, you first.” She opened a smaller jar and flipped a cat treat to Mac, then gave Diogee his biscuit. “You’re forgetting the other strange part of your day; at least I think it was strange.”
“What?” Nate asked.
“The part where Peggy somehow ended up with Eliza’s necklace and Gib somehow ended up with Peggy’s handkerchief.”
“Which he said Mac brought him. And the other night, he said Mac brought him this pair of very skimpy pink panties.” They both looked at the cat.
“My cousin did say he likes to steal things,” Briony replied. “He’s also supposed to be kind of a matchmaker. Supposedly, Mac got my cousin and her husband, David, together. He stole things from David and left them on Jamie’s doorstep.”
“If Mac got Gib and Peggy together, Gib would buy him a case of sardines,” Nate answered.
“It would be so romantic if he’d always had a thing for her and they got together after all these years.” She looked at Mac. “Is that your plan, Mr. Kitty?” His only response was a flick of the tail. “He’s not telling.”
Nate reached out and grabbed Briony by the waist. He pulled her up between his legs and sat her on his lap. “Mac’s how we met. You think he was playing matchmaker then?”
She smiled. “I’m sure he knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me, seeing me in that torn dress, my
hair in knots, and mascara smeared down almost to my chin. Plus, I think I yelled at you.”
“You did. But the next day—”
“The next day, I promised myself I’d be calm, cool, and collected, and show you that I wasn’t really a madwoman. And it worked, because you asked me out for drinks.”
“And then you managed to cut your foot, so I had to take care of you.”
“And then you pounced on me.”
“No, you pounced on me. Like this.”
And they were kissing. Again.
* * *
“Nate. Nate, Nate.”
Nate awoke to find Briony, naked and warm, half lying across his chest, calling his name. He grinned. “Something I can do for you?” He ran his hand down the length of her spine.
“I can think of a couple things. But I woke you up because your phone was ringing.”
Nate muttered a curse. “What song? The ringtone, what song?”
“The eee-ee-eee from Psycho.”
He cursed again, fumbled around the floor for his pants, and took out his cell. “My sister,” he told Briony as he pulled up his voice mail. He didn’t bother listening to the whole thing. “She’s having a breakdown. Again. A guy broke up with her by text. Again. I need to get over there. If I don’t she’ll make Lyla listen to her, and she’s only ten. She doesn’t need that.”
Briony sat up. “Want me to come? I could hang with the kids.”
He was tempted. It would be great to have her there. But Nathalie would be pissed if he brought her, and she was already in a crap mood. “How about this instead? We didn’t even get appetizers last time we attempted to go to dinner. You didn’t even get to try avocado toast. How about if I take you out tonight?”
“I would love, love, love that.”
He smiled at her enthusiasm, then kissed her, quickly. If he kissed her slowly, he’d never get himself out of this bed.
She grabbed his wrist as he started to stand. “I have to keep reminding myself that I’m only here for a few more weeks.”
He met her gaze. “Me too.”
“It’s been kind of fast,” Briony said.
“Too fast?”
