Something Sweeter

by Candis Terry

  “Obviously, you’re an outsider who knows nothing about me, so I’ll let that slide.”

  “Obviously, you’re quick to cover, so I’m going to maintain you have something to hide.”

  He leaned in and stretched his arm along the back of her chair. “I’m willing to prove you wrong.”

  She didn’t immediately reject the idea, and that sparked curiosity.

  She took another forkful of pasta and chewed thoughtfully, meeting his eyes as if to show he didn’t scare her one little bit.

  “Is it going to be like this every time we’re in the same room?” she asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Like a fuse has been lit, and we’re just waiting for an explosion.”

  “God, I hope so.”

  “I didn’t mean that in a sexual way.”

  He searched her face and found it even more appealing than the moment he’d first seen her at Seven Devils. Denial looked really good on her. “Didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s too bad.” He dropped a spoonful of pasta on his own plate, then reached for the basket of biscuits. “So what brings you here?”

  “Lunch.” Sarcasm dripped from those pretty lips as she pointed to her plate.

  “Eating aside . . .” Although she had plenty of soft places he wouldn’t mind nibbling. “What brings you here to Sweet? And why did you keep it such a big secret when we met at the bar?”

  “I didn’t keep anything a secret. I didn’t know you, so why would I give you any personal information?”

  “You shared your best pickup lines.”

  “I hate to burst your bubble, but I’ve never used a pickup line in my life.”

  “Oh. That’s right. You just grab strange men in bars and make them dance with you.”

  “I didn’t know your brother was engaged.”

  “Which raises the question, what were you looking for in the bar that night?”

  “Wasn’t that obvious?” She leaned closer and gave him a flirtatious smile. Batted her eyelashes.

  “Ummm . . .”

  “Obviously, I had concerns about my father’s sudden engagement to a woman neither my sister nor I had ever heard of,” she said, bursting any hot-­and-­steamy fantasy he had brewing inside his head. “I wanted to check out the area, the ­people who live here, and try to figure out why my dad would sell off his business, move to someplace he’d never been before, and promptly ask a strange woman to marry him.”

  “My mother’s not strange. She’s a good person. I can validate her overwhelming generosity and helpful nature.”

  “Yes, but who’s going to vouch for you?”

  “Are you against your father’s marrying my mother? Or just marriage in general?”

  “I’m not necessarily against my father’s marrying your mother. I just want to make sure it’s the right thing for him.”

  “Understandable.”

  “As for marriage in general . . .” She shrugged. “The jury’s still out.”

  “That’s pretty pessimistic.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I think most ­people love the idea of the whole being-­together-­forever thing. They love the attention, the celebration, the lavish gifts. What comes after the honeymoon is when they seem to lose interest.”

  “So basically, it’s safe to say you’re against marriage,” he said. Most ­people could hide their true feelings behind a mask of indifference. Allison’s face was far too expressive to have that gift.

  “Just not a real big believer that two specific ­people are destined to be together for the rest of their lives.”

  “Excuse me?” He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “Aren’t you a wedding planner?”

  “I’m an event planner.”

  “Who plans weddings.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “And yet you don’t believe in marriage.”

  “Half end in divorce. So you can’t say that it’s me who doesn’t believe when it appears that most of those who say ‘I do’ don’t believe. Or maybe they just don’t have what it takes to make it for the long haul. I think it’s more about the longevity of a relationship that’s questionable than a legal document.”

  “So what you’re saying is you don’t believe in true love,” he said.

  “I’m highly suspicious that it exists.”

  “Wow.” He leaned back in his chair. “It must be awful to walk around with so much cynicism.”

  “I’m not by nature a negative person.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No. I’m a realist.”

  “Darlin’, you’re something. I just haven’t figured out what.”

  “You know,” she said on a long sigh, “I came over here to get to know your mother. I didn’t come to get in an argument with you about my beliefs or disbeliefs.” She tossed her napkin on the table and pushed her chair back for a quick getaway.

  He’d seen her run enough. And while he might enjoy a backside view, it didn’t mean he wanted it—­or her—­to disappear. Not to mention if he chased her away, his mother would have his hide.

  He curled his fingers around the soft skin of her wrist. “Sit down and stop being so prickly.”

  “Prickly?”

  “Yes, like those cacti outside that stab you every time you brush up against them. In this family, we yell. We argue. We get to the bottom of things with a whole lot of emotion.”

  “Since my parents’ divorce, we don’t yell in our family.”

  “Ever?” he asked.

  “Ever.”

  “Wow. That would just be . . . weird.” He stretched his arm along the back of her chair. “So how do things get resolved?”

  She remained silent for a minute, but he could see her wheels spinning. “I guess they don’t. It’s become unspoken knowledge that you don’t discuss volatile issues.”

  “Like your parents’ divorce?”

  “Yes. Like that.”

  “You didn’t see it coming, did you?”

  “Oh I saw it coming. I prayed for it.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Yes. It was.”

  “So what does your mother do now? Is she remarried?”

  “She’s currently seeking out husband number six.”

  “No shit?” No wonder she’d lost her faith.

  “No. And I don’t know why I’m letting you pull all this personal information out of me.”

  Jesse had some troubling thoughts dart through his head. He really hated to see anyone have such a strong disbelief in what he believed to be the ultimate highlight of a person’s life. To find that one person you were meant to spend your life with. To share the joyous moments and support each other through the bad. It’s the one thing he’d always looked forward to. After all, he’d had the best role models. Someday, he hoped to be lucky enough to find the same enduring kind of love his parents had shared. But it was not his time yet.

  While Allison might truly be here just as she said—­to get to know the woman to whom her father had proposed—­she might also have other objectives that could put a damper on his mother’s happiness. He couldn’t let that happen. Best to dig a little deeper and see what she really had on her mind. And if that meant he had to stick to her like glue, well, that was a burden he’d be willing to bear.

  “Don’t get offended, darlin’,” he said. “But I’m not pulling out the info. You’re offering.”

  Her mouth opened to argue, and at that moment, his mother reappeared, unwittingly rescuing him.

  “Everything okay?” he asked her, ignoring the daggers Allison shot him from behind her smoky eyes.

  “Oh.” His mom looked up. “Yes. That was Izzy. She wanted to sing me a new song she learned. I’m so sorry for the interruption. But it looks like y’all are e
njoying the meal and . . . getting along?”

  “Depends on who you ask,” he said around a bite of homemade biscuit. “I’m sure Allison might have a different opinion than me.”

  “Everything’s fine,” Allison said, her tone defying the pleasantry of her words. “Please. Join us. You worked so hard to make everything just right. Besides, you must be hungry.”

  “I am that. It’s been a busy ­couple of days.” His mother sat down and dropped a few items onto her plate. “So what have y’all been discussing?”

  Allison opened her mouth to respond.

  Jesse beat her to the punch.

  “Oh, just some little things. Like Allison’s not believing in happily-­ever-­afters.”

  “What?” His mother’s brows lifted.

  Allison’s brows pulled together.

  “But don’t worry,” he said, stabbing his fork into the moist chicken. “I have just the plan to change her mind.”

  Chapter 5

  How had she let herself get talked into this?

  Allison stood in the guest bedroom of her father’s house, trying to decide if jeans were the appropriate attire to murder someone, or if she should go all out and wear a dress.

  Earlier that day, all she’d been trying to do was get to know Jana to find out if this engagement was a good thing or if something seemed haywire. She hadn’t expected to be blindsided by a six-­foot-­three hunky pain in the ass.

  During her brief conversation with Jana, she’d found out a little but not nearly as much as she’d planned thanks to the party crasher named Jesse. True, he could be irresistible when he turned on that good old Southern boy charm, but mostly he was a complete distraction to her goal. Now here she was, waiting for him to pick her up so he could try to prove to her that true love was more than just a cliché.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t actually believe it existed, she just believed it was rare. And for someone like her, a person who inherited her mother’s screwed-­up DNA, the possibility of finding a lasting relationship would be like expecting to win the lottery the first time you played the game. Her sister had found it, which almost guaranteed she wouldn’t. Lightning never struck twice in the same place.

  She thought of Jesse, a playboy who obviously couldn’t commit, and she couldn’t imagine what he had up his sleeve, or why he cared what she felt or how she thought.

  Oddly, she was intrigued enough to play along.

  Beyond the closed bedroom door, she heard the doorbell ring and the low murmur of masculine voices.

  A thought struck her, and panic set in.

  Dear God, she hoped he didn’t see this as some kind of date. Because it wasn’t. She hadn’t come to Texas for a date. She’d come to protect her dad and his best interest.

  End of story.

  She held up the yellow cotton dress again, one of the limited items of clothes she had packed for this brief trip. Because she didn’t know what Jesse had planned, she decided something a little dressier might be in order.

  As she slipped it over her head and smoothed out the wrinkles, her dad called out from the living room to ask if she was almost ready.

  Tempted to take her time just to ruffle Jesse’s feathers, she finally relented with a “Just a minute” response. With a few more fluffs of her hair, she grabbed her purse and stuffed in her lipstick and phone. At the last second, she tossed in a safety measure in the form of a can of hair spray.

  A girl could never be too cautious.

  Hating melodramatic appearances, she tried to join the two men chatting in the living room with as little fanfare as possible. Jesse made that impossible with the heated look he skimmed down her body when she entered the room.

  Hopefully, no one noticed when her face flushed. And thankfully, the tingles that hot-­blooded appraisal delivered straight to her girl parts were invisible.

  “You look beautiful,” her dad said.

  Wee Man obviously thought so too as he leaped into the air, trying to steal a slurp. Knowing her dad would say the same thing even if she were dressed in her cat pajamas and frog slippers, she smiled.

  “Thank you, Daddy. We shouldn’t be long . . .” She turned toward Jesse. “Right?”

  “Hard to say.” His broad shoulders lifted. “Could prove to be a lively evening.”

  Unsure what that implied, she kissed her dad’s cheek and followed Jesse to his enormous black truck, a vehicle far too flashy for a veterinarian yet completely apropos for an obvious player like him.

  With a large masculine hand extended toward her, he held the truck door open. At her hesitation, one dark, sexy brow lifted.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “Did I laugh?”

  “It was more like a snicker.”

  “Oh.” She settled her hand in his, placed her foot on the step bar, and hiked up onto the seat. “Well . . . I guess I just thought you’d be driving an animal ambulance. You know, something like the Ghostbusters drove? Maybe even with a big bobblehead dog on top.”

  He kept hold of her hand, and a slow grin spread across his handsome face. “Good one.”

  “I aim to please.”

  “Do you now?”

  “Of course,” she said. Before he let go, the grip on her hand changed from strictly accommodating to something that sent a tingle up her spine. “It’s the biggest part of my job.”

  The grin never left his face as he stepped closer and moved between her and the door.

  “Nice sidestep. You’re pretty good at that, I’ve noticed.” He reached across her lap, took hold of the seat belt, and clicked it in place. His big hands lingered at her side, and more tingles ensued. “But I’m not buying that that’s what you meant.”

  “I’m not even going to ask what you think I meant because you’d be wrong.”

  “Uh-­huh.”

  “I’m serious.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts, and his eyes tracked the movement.

  His grin flashed again. Sadly, instead of wanting to wipe it off his face, she’d prefer to kiss it off. Which raised the question: Why was she so attracted to this man who probably had women falling in his lap and following him home like good little cowgirl boot-­wearing sheep?

  If she’d been wearing blinders, she couldn’t have stopped the pleasurable ride her gaze took up and down his lean, muscular body.

  The answer to her question came in a woolly-­sounding Baaaaaaa.

  Although she didn’t wear cowgirl boots and broke into hives at the sight of wool, apparently she wasn’t immune.

  So what did that say about her other than the fact that she hadn’t gotten laid in a really, really, really long time?

  “Darlin’ . . .” His Texas drawl came out deep, smooth, and sexy as he propped his arm on the seat behind her and leaned in. “You can deny it till the cows come home, but you are as hot for me as I am for you.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, then clamped it shut because she’d never been a liar.

  “But let’s get one thing straight between us besides the obvious,” he continued. “It’s not going to happen.”

  “I know,” she said, leaning away just so she wasn’t tempted to close her eyes and play a game of Pin the Lips on the Hot Guy.

  “Do you?” His head tilted just a smidge, and a silky strand of hair slipped from that loose ponytail. His gaze never left hers as he tucked it behind his ear. “Because, darlin’, you aren’t just sending signals, you are skyrocketing them.”

  “I’m tempted to laugh at your audacity to believe I’d just jump into bed with you. I’m not a jumper. Although that’s what I’m sure you’re used to with these small-­town girls.”

  “Small-­town girls are no different than big-­city girls. They all want the same thing; just some of them go about it differently. Some are more open. And some are just . . . uptight.”

&
nbsp; Before she could snap out a comeback, he closed the truck door.

  When he reappeared in the driver’s seat, she planned to keep her lips zipped, get the evening over with, and refuse to rise further to any bait he might dangle. She tightened the lock on her folded arms and gave an imaginary so there nod.

  “I’m not uptight,” she said. Geez. What was with the mouth not listening to the brain?

  “Uh-­huh,” was all he said as he turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from her father’s house. Two seconds later, he broke the mental breather she’d been allowed and said, “But you are hot for me.”

  She glanced across the cab of the truck and considered his handsome face. The broad shoulders beneath that plaid shirt. The strength in the forearms bared by sleeves rolled to his elbows. The obviously nice package pressed between the legs of those jeans. Her gaze came back up and caught the smile playing across those masculine lips.

  Hot for him?

  Yeah.

  Damn it.

  She was muy el fuego.

  A ten-­minute drive had never taken so long.

  As Jesse parked his truck at the curb in front of Arlene Potter’s little rock bungalow, he knew staying on track and getting through the evening unscathed would be a challenge. He couldn’t name what it was about Allison that drew him in. He only knew he was a damned moth to her sweet-­smelling flame.

  And she was on fire.

  Around her, every common sense thing he had in his head froze. And every stupid thing he thought flew from his mouth as if he were a dopey sixteen-­year-­old.

  He’d meant it when he’d told her nothing between them could or would ever happen. He had a job to do. He’d helped out Reno in his time of need. Supported Jackson. Now it was time to take care of his mother. Jake’s time would come too. Which meant that no matter how interesting, hot, funny, or promising Allison seemed, it was not time for him.

  “Isn’t that your brother’s truck parked next door?” she asked.

  “Good eye. That’s Abby’s house. Or at least the one she grew up in. Her parents moved to Florida, and she planned to put it up for sale for them. But now Annie and her baby will need a place to live. Abby and Jackson are staying there while they build their own house and to help Annie until after she delivers the baby.”