“Wouldn’t that be nice, Mac, honey?” He lightened his voice to a teasing tone. “We can formalize our sex buddies agreement over a pair of good steaks.”
“No,” she said. “I was wrong about suggesting we start that up. It wasn’t a smart idea.”
Fine, he thought, telling himself he did not feel disappointment. Calling it a sex buddies thing was stupid anyway and hadn’t sat well with him from the start. He just wanted a meal with her, damn it. “Steaks, Mac. That’s all.”
“No.”
He remembered now, how she could be as obstinate as a jackass. One time, when she was about eleven years old, she’d climbed a tree and gotten stuck, then refused his help to get her down. For hours, she’d stayed up there, her cheeks tear-streaked but her will inflexible.
She was wearing the I’m-staying-on-this-branch-forever face.
He sighed. “I just don’t see why we can’t—”
“Think, Zan.” She seemed impatient.
“Think what?”
“You wouldn’t want me to get too attached, would you?”
It was his turn to freeze. Her blue-crystal eyes were on him and under their cool power, there was no way he could bluff.
Yeah, she had him there. He didn’t want her to get too attached.
He didn’t want either one of them to get too attached. That was exactly why he’d left ten years before. He hadn’t wanted to risk losing something he wanted so very much.
* * *
TILDA AGREED WHEN Mac wanted to catch a bite to eat after their workday was done. While the wedding had been a success, the Monday after apparently hadn’t gone so well for her boss and friend. When five o’clock rolled around, Mac suggested the two of them try the new café in town, thinking it might not be too busy so early in the evening.
There was no reason for Tilda to refuse, not even because she didn’t have the money. Mac offered to buy as payback for Tilda driving out in her car—Ash had fixed it the morning after their night together—and bringing her clothes, then later picking her up at the Elliott place that morning. Providing company over a slice of quiche or some crepes and cups of hot tea was what friends were for.
Not to mention it also gave her a reason not to go home right away. Tilda had a bad feeling that Ash might try to track her down there if she continued to leave his calls and texts unanswered. Yes, she was avoiding him, despite her big talk to Mac about good things coming. Her good thing with Ash hadn’t survived twenty-four hours.
The café was a far cry from the dark, paneled Mr. Frank’s, where you could get bar food half-off every night between four and seven, making nachos or wings a cheap meal. It wasn’t a large space, but it felt big with the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake. In the summer, the outdoor deck would be a beautiful place to dine. In winter, it was still pretty and cozy with a fire crackling in a stone corner fireplace. It wasn’t yet crowded, but looking around at the other patrons and what they were wearing, Tilda could see it had already caught on with the affluent part-timers to the community. She crossed the sole of one sneaker over the hole on the toe of the other and was glad the pair of jeans she wore were in good condition and that she’d borrowed a nice sweater that Mac had in her car.
Fragrant tea was in delicate cups and an almost-full pot sat on their table. Salads with vinaigrette and candied pecans and crumbled blue cheese over field greens had been served. Tilda didn’t often have an opportunity to eat like this—as in never, unless at the end of a catering gig—but her appetite wasn’t as keen as it should be, and Mac, too, appeared to be only toying with the torn leaves on her plate.
Yep. The boss was definitely not having a great day.
Tilda cleared her throat. “The wedding was really beautiful. Jace had the smuggest expression on his face when he and Shay were pronounced man and wife.”
“Yeah,” Mac said absently. “He’s a goner when it comes to my sister.”
Tilda treaded cautiously next. “I don’t know if you were aware, but at the reception I was seated beside Zan Elliott.”
Mac’s fork froze. “Yeah?”
“He’s nice. Very handsome.” And very into Mac, that was clear. Tilda wasn’t sure she should have spilled about those postcards in the bottom drawer, but champagne had been her downfall before. And the fact was, the other woman had gone to him at the end of the reception, Tilda knew, since she’d been standing right there when the arrangements were made. “Um...did you two have a nice night after Poppy and Ryan dropped you off?”
Mac looked up. “I owed Zan some packing time. That’s why I went over there.”
Tilda widened her eyes. “You were in a bridesmaid dress.”
“And tipsy,” Mac added.
“Tipsy, in a bridesmaid dress, you went to do some packing.”
“That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.” A smile flickered over her mouth, but it didn’t appear a happy one.
Tilda sucked in a breath, thinking she should give her friend another opportunity to share, in case that’s what she needed. “Everybody knows about you two, and you’ve told me—”
“What we had was ages ago. And then he left. He’s leaving again.”
What was there to say to that?
Mac stabbed a piece of lettuce. “We know to be careful of short-timers, right?”
“Right.” Smart girls figured that out early, when you lived in a vacation destination. There was a local mantra about it, even. “Never trust your heart to a guy who shows up in town with a suitcase.”
Lifting her head, Mac eyed Tilda. “I wasn’t going to pry, but since that just came out of your mouth...what’s up with you and Ash Robbins? I’ve heard things myself—”
“Nothing’s up with us,” Tilda said quickly, then couldn’t hold on to the lie. “We slept together.”
Mac blinked. “Okay.”
“I mean, we slept together.” Her face went hot. “I told you I met him last May. What I didn’t tell you was that night we had sex. Then he came back to town recently and we kept running into each other and then the other night we slept.”
Cuddled together under heaps of blankets with their clothes still on. At first, they’d whispered in the dark about everything and nothing: books they’d read as kids, first crushes, his upcoming job in London, her determination to get her degree in biology. Finally, they’d fallen asleep, tangled in each other.
“The next morning, he helped me fix my car again...something about the rotor this time. I don’t know.”
“Handy guy.”
Scary guy. Because she’d felt so close to him after those hours cozied up in the dark. He’d seen her terrible apartment and not run away screaming. He’d heard her voice her dream about obtaining a college degree and hadn’t expressed a single doubt that she’d achieve it—even if she’d ultimately have to find a way to put in hours at a lab as well as at her computer. You want that, he’d said, you’ll get it.
With his arms around her, his warm voice in her ear, it had seemed totally reachable. Actually doable, for the first time.
“And then?” Mac prompted. “Since fixing your car again?”
“Since then I’ve been avoiding him.”
“Uh...why?” Mac studied her face. “Because you should never trust your heart to a guy who shows up in town with a suitcase?”
Remembering that wasn’t what had put her gears into reverse. It happened when they were standing by her car in the cold morning air. Smiling, he’d told her the tip of her nose was pink, and then he’d kissed her there, his warm breath bathing her cool skin.
Following that, his expression had sobered. Tilda, he’d said, his gaze intent on hers, this feels so fucking real.
Flushing hot all over, she’d looked everywhere but at him and mumbled her response. How would you know what real is like?
&
nbsp; My parents, he’d replied. I see what they have. It looks like this feels.
She’d gone from hot to frozen over in an instant. But if she was honest with herself, that last sentence wasn’t what had put her into full retreat, either. What had made her withdraw was her own certain sense—that she had, for no good reason she could name—that what was going on between her and Ash Robbins was very real, too.
Mac was staring off into the distance now, a strange expression on her face. Then her eyes cut to Tilda. “You probably made the right decision.”
Tilda frowned as something small but ugly skittered down her spine. A premonition. A bad omen. “Why?” she whispered.
Her friend’s gaze flicked over Tilda’s shoulder again. “John and Veronica Robbins just came in. Ash is with them, and with him...”
This time, the feeling crawled up her spine. Tilda shuddered and slid down in her chair. Then she glanced over her shoulder. At the opposite side of the café, Ash’s mother waited while her husband pulled out her chair. He was tall and straight, a good-looking middle-aged man whose face could sell stocks and bonds, political deals, pretty lies. He didn’t look like a cheater, but did any of them?
Ash had his back to Tilda, and she could only see the profile of the blonde, glossy-haired young woman who stood beside him. From the side she was perfect, and perfect for him. Tilda’s soul let out a raw cry as she watched him solicitously help slide off Perfect Girl’s gorgeous, fitted wool coat that was a striking and deep sunny yellow with big black buttons running down the back.
To get completely free of it, the young woman had to transfer the big leather purse in her left hand to her right. A designer purse, Tilda was certain, the kind that cost two times more than her car. For all she knew, it cost four times more than her car. Five.
Then Ash pulled out her chair and the girl gracefully folded her slim self, dressed in a form-fitting black dress, black tights and high-heeled black boots, onto the seat. She turned her head toward Ash, looking up as he drew out his own chair, and this side of her face was just as flawless as the other.
Perfect Girl would have an impeccable manicure, unmarred by cleansers and unchipped by hauling a cumbersome vacuum around. Not one pair of holey shoes. And the perfume she wore wouldn’t be something that had been given to her mother by her mother’s married lover.
Tilda couldn’t sit in the same room with them. “Mac,” she said, agonized.
Her friend covered her cold hand with a warm one. “If you have to go, go.” There was sympathy in her eyes.
For the stupid girl who had almost fallen for the rich short-timer who came to town with a suitcase.
Tilda nodded. “Thanks.” She just had to make it to the exit without Ash being any the wiser.
Slipping her own cheap pleather bag over her shoulder, she scanned her surroundings, trying to figure out how best to get out unseen. Instead of the direct route, she’d skirt around a couple of tables behind where they sat, pass the kitchen door, then hug the front wall and duck outside.
Best laid plans and all that...
Because as she walked past the kitchen access, a man came barreling out with a tray of plates held at shoulder level. Tilda tried avoiding the collision, but she’d been hurrying herself. So woman met waiter and the dishes flew, only to land in a spectacular crash of noise.
The heads of the nearest patrons in the place swiveled their way.
Tilda went deer-in-headlights when she saw Ash glance around, too. His father, thank God, hadn’t turned toward the sound, but she saw the instant his son decided to move. Mac was there already, however, murmuring, “I’ve got this,” and Tilda woke from her spooked trance and escaped.
Back at home, she barricaded herself in her apartment—that was to say, she turned the little round lock in the middle of the knob, the kind of lock that was usually on bedroom or bathroom doors. She wasn’t too worried about its flimsiness. Ash had to know his gig now was up.
The girl he’d had fun slumming with knew he had one of his own kind on his arm.
Tilda’s roommates had night shifts again and it was still as cold as the dark side of the moon in the place, so Tilda retreated to her room. There, she threw off her clothes, then went to the hall bathroom that had a stall shower. At least the hot water was plentiful and the pressure strong, so she was able to wash away the day, the cold and the tears that persisted in running down her cheeks.
Stupid, too, those tears.
In her pajamas—a pair of old, soft sweatpants and a man’s flannel shirt that had been around forever—Tilda crawled under her thick stack of blankets. With her bedside lamp on, she picked up the tattered copy of Pride and Prejudice that was her first choice in comfort reads. There was homework for one of her courses due soon, but she wanted to lose herself and it would be in Lizzy Bennet’s world, not in the details of cell specialization.
In a different season, it would be a night for a gallon of ice cream and copious tears, followed by a bitch session with her roomies that included plenty of trash talk about a particular guy, then all guys in general. They’d vow to become nuns, or, if not that, to have each other’s backs when they were eighty and needed help recovering from broken hips.
But it was too cold to do that tonight and her roommates were making good tips up at the ski lodge, and in reality, they would not have each other’s backs when they were eighty. Her roommates were sisters, so they would have each other’s backs, and they had boyfriends who were ski instructors whom the two would likely marry.
It was Tilda who would end up alone. So if it was any season but winter, she would have gone to bed with an ice cream headache and another ache in her throat from trying to hold back more tears. Once in her room, she would have let them flow, just as they would tonight after she had her fill of Lizzy and Mr. Darcy.
The book fell open to a favorite spot and she was just settling in when she heard her front door pop open. Bolting upright, she held the covers to her throat. Had one of her roommates gotten off work early? But that popping sound wasn’t of a door being unlocked—it was the sound of a locked door being opened with a shoulder, not a key. And her cell phone was in her purse, which she’d left in the front room.
“Danni?” she called out, clutching her paperback as if she might use it as a weapon. “Cheryl?”
Then Ash Robbins breached her doorway.
Fear morphed into anger. “You scared me!”
He eyed her coolly. “It took me three seconds to get from the front door to this one. You survived.”
Tilda gritted her teeth. “Remember annoyingly arrogant?”
“How about we talk about you instead? Would we say chain yanker? Game player? You run sweet, Tilda, and then you run mean.”
Mean? Her? The back of her eyes went hot. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How many of my messages have you ignored, Tilda? Texts?”
“I don’t see how you had time to send them, considering you have another girl—your type of girl—that requires your attention.” How hadn’t she realized right away that he was a philanderer like his father?
“I don’t have another girl. I wish I could think I had you.”
Her copy of Pride and Prejudice was so soft from being read a million times, it would probably land like a kiss if she threw it in his face. “Go away.”
His jaw tightened. “You misread the situation.”
“Oh, are you going to tell me that...that person is your sister?”
“She’s my cousin.”
Tilda’s eyes flared wide. “What?”
“Okay, I lied about that. Amber’s the daughter of family friends. But she might as well be my cousin.”
“Baloney.”
He stalked closer to the bed. “I’m not interested in Amber, Tilda. I’m interested in you. Tonight, I would
have taken you out if you would have responded to one of my calls, voice messages or texts. Since you didn’t, I got roped into going out with her and my parents.”
It sounded true, she supposed. It could be true.
But regardless, she reminded herself, there could be nothing between them. It would never work for reasons that went beyond the Ambers of the world. Way beyond.
Maybe Ash saw all that on her face, because suddenly he was at her skinny bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress so their faces were close. “Tilda. Damn it.” He slipped the paperback from her grasp, glanced at it, then paused.
“Pride and Prejudice.” He quirked a brow at her. “Sound familiar?”
“You think you’re Darcy?”
“I’ve never looked down at you. But you’ve been prejudiced against me from the start.”
He didn’t know how very right he was. And she could never tell him why.
“What do you want, Ash?” she asked.
Leaning closer, he framed her face with his hands. “You, of course.”
Her heart hurt. Her temples throbbed. She was so tired of fighting to get through every day, worrying about money and school and whether her car would start. Running from Ash took energy she did not have.
Especially when surrendering sounded so much nicer.
Couldn’t a hardworking girl get a break once in a while?
Okay, so they wouldn’t last, no matter how real it might feel to them, but she could have right now. Another night. Maybe another few.
She swallowed. “I mean, what do you want right now?”
“Cuddling with you was the best night I ever had.” His thumbs brushed her cheeks. “I’ll settle for more of that.”
But she didn’t want to settle, not tonight, not when golden-haired Ash Robbins was on her bed and she was allowing herself to have more “amusement.” More “recreation.” Now she let herself acknowledge the way the jolt of adrenaline from his break-in had morphed into an entirely different kind of excitement. She was breathing fast, almost panting, and under all the blankets she was getting very hot.
Tilda pushed her thighs together, trying to address the growing ache there. She was super aware of all things Ash, the subtle, so appealing scent of him, the point where his hip pressed against hers, the tracks his fingertips had made into her hair. He studied her face with his intense blue eyes, his attention solely on her, and it was...heady. Exciting.
Keep On Loving you Page 20
