Changing His Plans

by Jo McNally

  “Mom told me to bring you guys some coffee. And she said I could help as long as I stayed with you. Is that okay?” Zach handed them both tall travel mugs steaming with hot coffee.

  Blake chuckled. “In other words, you wore her down over the past—” he looked at his watch “—three hours and now she’s making you my problem so she can get some sleep?”

  In typical teen fashion, Zach fought the smile that played at the corners of his mouth. “Something like that. But she’s not sleeping. She’s headed to the resort to help in the kitchen. They’re making breakfast for all the volunteers.”

  Blake’s forehead furrowed in concern. Then he shrugged. “It’s not like she needs my permission. She wouldn’t listen anyway. What about Maddy?”

  “Sleeping. Sue came up from the resort to stay with her.”

  “Okay, then. I guess you’re with us. Where to next, Nate?”

  Before he could answer, Zach jumped in. “Have you been to your store? Is Hank okay?”

  “He’s good. Salty as ever.” Police chief Dan Adams told Nate the downtown area had fared well through the storm, but he’d stopped to check on Hank anyway, just to be sure. The hardware store was secure and dry. Hank was agitated, but otherwise seemed fine. Nate had been so relieved that he’d allowed the bird to run through his curse word repertoire three times.

  “Nice, Zach,” Blake said. “Ask about a bird before asking about people.”

  “Uh...sorry.” The boy’s cheeks flushed. “Is your house okay? Anyone hurt?”

  “My place is fine, thanks.” Nate took another deep drink of the coffee, eager for the caffeine to kick in. “Lots of damage in that area, though, especially down Long Point Road. No one injured that I know of.”

  Walking back to the house in the dark after the storm earlier, with Brittany holding his hand tightly, had been...interesting. She was carrying Joey cradled in her other arm. So many trees and limbs were down, scattered everywhere. They’d had to zigzag a few times to avoid contacting any power wires, which could have still been live and deadly. As they’d neared his end of the road, a few houses had lights shining in the windows, including his. Several of his neighbors had bought generators the same year he did.

  Brittany had been silent until they got inside. Even then, she was quiet, but her mouth dropped open when she saw his house. There were a lot of antiques in there, but also a lot of open space. He liked room to breathe. Joey had dashed at Pepper the minute she set him down, but the cat held her place, hissing and batting the dog in the face. After a tense standoff, Pepper walked away without any interference from Joey. Brittany was almost swaying on her feet from exhaustion. He’d sent her to bed in one of the spare rooms, refusing to debate the matter. She needed sleep, and he needed to get out and help clean up his town. She hadn’t put up much of a fight.

  “Should we head to Long Point next?” Blake asked.

  Nate nodded, squinting at the horizon as a sliver of sun began sliding into view. He wanted to help his neighbors. And check on his houseguest.

  He spotted Brittany before they even got to his place. She was working under a blue plastic canopy at the closest intersection, where folding tables were set up and stacked with bottled water, doughnuts and three tall thermal coffee carafes. She wasn’t alone. Nora Peyton and her cousin, Mel Brannigan—infant carrier wrapped across her chest—were serving coffee to volunteers and residents who weren’t lucky enough to have generators to make their morning coffee. Nate waved out the window to Blake’s SUV, sending him and Zach on down the road. But he stopped his van in front of the tent and hopped out.

  “I thought I told you to get some sleep.”

  Her smile didn’t falter. Neither did her wit. “I thought I told you I don’t take orders well.”

  He declined the coffee she offered and took a water instead. He dropped his voice so no one else could hear. “Are you feeling okay?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “I’m tired, but so is everyone else. Other than that I’m good. How about you? At least I caught a couple hours’ sleep before the chain saws woke me up. I saw the ladies setting up here and came to help.”

  Nate couldn’t resist needling her. “That’s pretty small-town of you, Britt. Are we starting to rub off on you?”

  Her golden-brown eyes sharpened, but before she could answer, Mel interrupted. She had one arm cupped under her wee baby, even though he was securely swaddled and sound asleep.

  “You leave her alone, Nate Thomas. She’s fitting in just fine. She’ll be one of us before you know it.”

  He saw a flicker of emotion cross Brittany’s face. Was it possible she was liking it here? The way her eyes refused to meet his made the emotion look more like guilt. Before he could analyze it any further, Nora called out over her shoulder as she accepted more boxes of doughnuts from a woman who’d made it out of town and to a doughnut shop somewhere.

  “Quit harassing the help, Nate! She has work to do, and so do you. I heard the Halls had a big tree down that hit their shed, right next door to your place.” She walked over and patted Brittany’s arm before taking Nate’s elbow and leading him toward his van, her voice dropping and her latent Southern accent popping up. “Look, you two are adorable and all, but I need Brittany to help me deliver coffee and doughnuts to the power company crews working down on Lakeside Road. I promise I’ll bring her back.” They stopped by his van door. “She told me you came to get her after the storm. That was nice of you.” He figured Brittany probably didn’t embarrass herself by telling the whole story. He slid into the van, but Nora wasn’t done with him. “Even if you did scare her so bad she passed out, you knucklehead.” She winked. “Why don’t you save us all a lot of stress and kiss the girl already?”

  It must have been his exhaustion that lowered his filters.

  “I tried that. Didn’t go so well.”

  Nora’s mouth dropped open. “With all the vibes between you two? I can’t believe there was no chemistry if you kissed her.”

  Oh, there’d been plenty of chemistry. There’d been a whole laboratory full of chemistry. But she’d made her position very clear.

  “She’s only here on business, Nora. There’s no point in starting something.”

  Nora grinned. “Ah...so there was chemistry. You just don’t know what to do about it.” She looked around, making sure no one was close enough to overhear. “You’ve been alone a long time, sweetie. There’s nothing wrong with temporary, as long as you both understand what you’re doing. You’re both clearly jonesing for each other. My advice is just do it already.” She stepped back, raising her hands in an exaggerated shrug. “But hey, what do I know?”

  He left the coffee tent and joined Blake and Zach at the Halls’ house, cutting up the tree and trying to salvage what was left of the shed and its contents by covering it with a large blue tarp. He’d tossed a stack of the tarps in his van when he’d stopped at the store. Not to sell, of course, but simply because people needed them.

  As the sun rose and the amount of damage became more visible, Nate knew they were in for a long day on no sleep. But the work had to be done, tired or not. That was what neighbors did for neighbors. Utility crews were out, too, cutting power to lines for safety and replacing broken poles and connections. The Powells’ house had the power lines ripped right off the house, but Eddie Trent, a local electrician, was already on a ladder working on repairs. Three houses over, the Blakefields were standing in front of their house, watching volunteers remove the big pine tree that was resting on their garage. From the looks of it, the cars inside were okay, but there was no way to get them out until the tree was out of the way.

  He didn’t get home until late afternoon, dead on his feet. He’d been on autopilot for hours, and that was no way to operate a chain saw. When he’d reached the point where he could barely lift the thing after refilling the gas tank for the third time, he knew he had to get some rest bef
ore he hurt himself or someone else. He made a quick drive to town, where power had already been restored, to make sure Hank had food. Then he returned home. The gas generator was still humming away, telling him power had not been restored on Long Point. With the number of utility crews he’d seen working, he figured it would be tomorrow before it came back.

  The house was silent when he walked in, and for a moment he thought Brittany and Joey were gone. Then the dog lifted his head from his perch on the back of the sofa, his tail thumping on the cushion before he dropped his head and closed his eyes again. The dog was too tired to bark. To his surprise, Pepper was there on the sofa, too. She’d taken a position on the upholstered arm, probably because it offered a fast escape route. But she didn’t seem too concerned, her face planted in her curled-up paws. Knowing that mutt Brittany refused to claim wouldn’t be far from her side, he headed to the sofa and peeked over the back.

  Sure enough, she was sound asleep there, curled up on one end of the sofa, both end pillows under her head. Her chestnut hair, usually tamed into a knot or a ponytail, was free. It covered her face in damp waves, and he realized she must have showered when she got back from volunteering. Thinking that was a really good idea, he did the same, coming back out after his shower to coax her into her bed. Her bed. Not his. Wipe that thought clean away.

  She hadn’t moved while he’d been gone. She was wearing dark capri leggings and an oversize white Gallant Lake T-shirt. Was that his shirt? The idea sent a jolt of energy to a place on his body that had no business being energized. He took a deep breath and tried to think of something else...anything else. Chain saws. Doing inventory. Paying bills. Yeah, that one did it. His ill-timed arousal faded.

  She’d have a crick in her neck for sure if he left her sleeping in this position. He walked around the sofa and sat next to her, resting his hand on her shoulder. She muttered something and swatted at him in slow motion.

  “Come on, Britt.” He kept his voice low so as not to jolt her awake. “You should go stretch out in a real bed.”

  Stop thinking about beds. Stop thinking about beds.

  She mumbled again, sitting up with her eyes still closed, then slumping against him with all her weight. He wasn’t prepared and fell back on the sofa, with Brittany warm and sleepy against him.

  “Britt, this isn’t gonna work...”

  She let out a soft snore, proving that it worked just fine for her. Truth be told, it was working pretty well for him, too. A cozy Brittany blanket might have been what he’d needed more than anything else. Feeling his eyes getting heavy, he stopped fighting it. He scooched back on the sofa, bringing her with him, until they were both stretched out together. The pillows were stuck on the other end, by their feet, but he didn’t care. He was able to reach the blanket his mother had crocheted for him years ago, and he wadded it up as a pillow for them. Britt cooed something and burrowed into his arms.

  It was a good thing he was so weary, or there’d have been something very different happening here. But that enticing thought barely flickered in the back of his mind as he closed his eyes and rested his head on hers. His body didn’t need passion right now. It needed sleep.

  * * *

  Brittany tried to move and couldn’t. She didn’t really want to wake up, but she had to figure out why it felt like she was wedged in a warm, cushioned vise of some sort. Her eyes blinked open, and she struggled to focus in the dim light. She was facing the back cushions of Nate’s leather sofa. Oh, yes—she remembered curling up there after her shower. The view of the lake had been so pretty through the wall of windows that she figured she’d enjoy it while her hair dried, and then she’d go to bed in his guest room and get some sleep. Obviously, from the gray light of evening setting in, she’d fallen asleep on the sofa. But...what was this warmth pressing against the length of her back? Or the weight she felt at her waist?

  She turned her head and froze. Nate Thomas was sound asleep next to her. And his arm was around her waist, gripping tight even in slumber. How had that happened? She had a vague memory of his voice in her ear...of them stretching out together, his head resting on hers with a sigh. It had felt like a dream, but she was definitely awake now, and they were definitely spooning on his sofa.

  Her forehead furrowed. She should be sitting up and shoving him to the floor. She should be telling him off for getting cozy with her while she was sleeping and defenseless. She should be stomping off to her own little cabin and leaving him in her dust. But she didn’t do any of those things. Why wasn’t she doing at least one of those things? Her eyes closed, as if that would keep her from seeing the truth.

  She didn’t want to give this up just yet. The feeling of being wrapped up in Nate Thomas. The scent of him, like fresh air mixed with soap. The brush of his breath on her ear. The weight of him along her body.

  He took in a deeper breath behind her, rubbing his nose on her neck.

  “You awake?” His voice was as rough as the rocks along the lake, as deep as the water itself.

  “Yes.” She barely breathed the word out loud, reluctant to have him wake up completely. He might leave her there alone if he woke, and she didn’t want that. She wanted to hold on to this moment a little longer.

  He stretched, pressing himself even closer, his arm tightening. A quiver of arousal shot through her. That was a bad idea, of course. But then again...

  “Don’t leave.”

  The two words came out in a rush, sounding more desperate than intended. His half-awake laughter rumbled against her.

  “I’m pretty sure this is my house, so...”

  There was no sense trying to be the levelheaded executive and arguing over semantics right now. This wasn’t about their brain power. It was about the heat that had been growing between them for weeks. She wiggled against him, lightly pressing her butt against his... Oh, yeah, there he was, growing hard in response. Her belly turned to liquid lava. He growled, then sucked in a sharp breath when she did it again.

  “Damn it, Brittany...” He gasped the words against her neck and followed them with his lips, kissing his way up to her earlobe and nipping at it with his teeth. He didn’t move away. If anything, he was moving against her, sliding up and down ever so slightly. As if he didn’t want to, but couldn’t stop. Hard as steel. “You feel so good...”

  He paused, then pulled away enough to send a chill through her.

  “Stay...” she murmured, trying again to connect her body to his.

  “Wait.” The sleepiness was gone from his voice. He raised his head, looking down at her with eyes dark and intense. Who knew Nate Thomas could be so intense? His voice was far steadier than she could have managed right then, his tone serious. “I need you to tell me what you think is happening here. ’Cause this feels like the best freakin’ dream I’ve ever had, but if it’s not gonna continue... If you’re not... I don’t think my heart could handle going much further and then not...” He dropped his forehead to hers. “Jesus, Britt, I want you so bad right now.”

  She wanted to reach up to him, but both her arms were restricted. One held down by Nate and one pinned between her body and the sofa. So she tried to hold him with her eyes. He’d come to save her after the storm. He’d brought her to his home for safety. She’d seen pride and approval in his eyes when he saw her working with Nora and Mel. And last week he’d kissed her socks off in a dusty old barn.

  “If you want me that bad, then take me, Nate.”

  He shook his head. “So many reasons not to, kitten.”

  Kitten.

  “Why kitten?”

  “Because you’re cute and clever, but you also have very dangerous claws.” His shoulder lifted. “And it sounds good with Britt. Britt-Kitt.”

  She paused, thinking of her sister’s teasing Britt-Britt nickname for her. The two people she’d never managed to intimidate or fool.

  “I mean it, Nate. I want this.” She twisted, fr
eeing one arm and cupping his cheek above her. “I want you.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, searching her face.

  “I want you, too, Brittany. I swear to God I do. But... I don’t know.” He raked his fingers through his hair, which was already standing on end. He’d showered before lying with her. He took her hand and kissed her palm, holding it against his lips with his eyes closed, lost in thought. This was big, and she understood his conflict. But still...it wasn’t that complicated.

  “Look, I’m not asking you to marry me.” Her voice sharpened. “I’m just saying let’s have sex. Tonight. Not forever.”

  His eyes snapped open, confusion and a glint of humor in his gaze.

  “So you’re saying you just want a one-night stand?”

  Did she really think one night would ever be enough with Nate? Maybe. Maybe all this chemistry with them was a fluke. An illusion. Once they got it out of their systems, that would be that.

  “I don’t know if we have to limit ourselves right off the start.” She rubbed against him, making him groan again. “But sure. If it makes you feel better, a one-night stand works for me. I mean, we’re both responsible adults. We’re both single. No collateral damage. No commitment. It should be easy, right?”

  His mouth slanted into a grin. “Just two adults having sex, huh?” His brows lowered as his smile faded. “As tempting as it might be, that’s not really my thing, Britt. I’m not a one-night-stand kind of guy. Maybe we should...”

  He was going to say no, and the sting of rejection hit her hard. It had taken a lot for her to put herself out there, and she’d clearly misread what was happening. The idea that she could be that wrong...or that he could be so obtuse as to turn her down when their bodies were ready to go. Frustration rose hot and quick. She shoved his shoulder hard with the heel of her hand, almost sending him off the edge of the sofa. Breaking some of that body connection made it easier to think.