CHOCOLATE KISSES
Judith Arnold
Kindle Edition
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Copyright 1993 by Barbara Keiler
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Chapter One
8:58 a.m.
“YOU BROKE MY HEARTS!”
Ned Wyatt dusted the snow off his black denim dungarees and glanced toward the road. He’d been accused of breaking a few hearts in his day, but what did that have to do with anything? She’d been the one driving the minivan, after all; he’d been riding a bicycle. If anything had broken it would have been his bones, not her heart.
Then again, she’d said hearts. If she had more than one heart, anything was possible.
He heaved himself to his feet and looked around. His eighteen-speed bike lay on its side several yards down the road, apparently undamaged. He recalled the way it had lurched under him like a wild bronco, spitting pebbles and slush in all directions until he’d deliberately jumped clear of it.
Closing his eyes, he replayed the near-collision in his mind: the van cruising down the road toward him as he coasted out through the wrought-iron gates in the stone wall surrounding Wyatt Hall. The whine of the van’s tires losing traction on the slippery road as the driver slammed on the breaks. The violent spin. The van’s rear bumper bouncing off the stone wall, sending the vehicle teetering on two tires, tilting precariously for the longest, ghastliest split-second Ned had ever endured before it finally dropped back onto all four tires with a jarring thump.
As he pulled himself out of the snow bank, he heard the driver’s high-pitched cry: “My hearts! You broke my hearts!”
“Now, wait a minute,” he said with what he considered admirable poise. He stalked down the slope to the van. “I didn’t break anything. I’m not at fault here.”
“Of course you are! What kind of maniac rides a bicycle in the middle of February?”
The kind of maniac who’d grown restless from too many days of slate skies and frozen precipitation, he almost retorted. When he’d awakened that morning to a clear, sunny day, he’d decided to treat himself to some fresh air and exercise. He’d bundled up and gone out for a morning jaunt in the brisk, biting cold. He’d balanced a huge red valentine-shaped box of candy across the handlebars of his bike, figuring he’d ride north along the winding rural lanes he’d known as a child and then circle back to town and deliver his gift.
He wasn’t sure what impulse had compelled him to detour through Wyatt Hall’s austere iron gates. He hadn’t thought of the estate as home in twelve years, and he’d felt like a visitor as he pedaled around the circular driveway to the stately pillared entrance of the mansion. It was a grand house, three stories of Georgian brick with a slate hip roof and four towering stone chimneys. It would make a majestic setting for Melanie’s silly shindig.
He didn’t think much of the pretentious party his sister had organized for that night at the family estate. Debutante cotillions were absurd, even when they were scheduled in honor of Valentine’s Day and even when his niece was one of the debutantes. He would attend because Melanie had begged him to. But he still found the entire notion of a society debut laughable.
“It’s a disaster,” the van driver was moaning. “Everything is ruined. My hearts, my buns—oh, God, my kisses!”
Ned paused. From where he stood, her buns looked terrific, packed tightly into a pair of snug blue jeans. She stood on tiptoe with her back to him, leaning into the rear of the van. Her shoulder-length brown hair caught the early morning sunlight and shimmered with red highlights. Her puffy down vest hid her torso, but her legs were long and slim and enticing.
Her hearts, her buns and, oh, God, her kisses. What an intriguing combination.
He sternly reminded himself that she was talking about food. The side of her van featured the painting of a huge gold cornucopia, along with the words, “Fantasy Feasts—Let Us Cater to You.”
“You’re catering the cotillion?” he guessed, approaching the rear of the van.
The driver groaned and turned to him. She had wide blue eyes, sweet pink lips and a surprisingly angular chin. Ned would definitely like to pursue the subject of her kisses with her. And her buns and her hearts, too—however many she had.
Her beauty couldn’t disguise the sheer panic illuminating those crystalline blue eyes and darkening the natural blush along her cheekbones. “This is an absolute disaster!” she wailed. “Why didn’t you watch where you were going?”
“Are you all right?” he asked, recalling once more the horrid sight of her van spinning like a top on the icy road.
“How can I be all right?” she glanced over her shoulder at the van and shuddered. “I’m about to lose the biggest job of my life, thanks to you and your idiotic bicycle tricks. And you want to know if I’m all right?”
“I wasn’t doing tricks,” he protested. “I was just riding.”
“In the middle of snow and ice.”
“I didn’t know I had to get permission from the weatherman to take a ride.”
“And you had to ride here, of all places. This is private property. It isn’t a bike trail. How the hell was I supposed to know some maniac on a bike would come speeding out from this private driveway—”
“This is my driveway,” he told her, growing tired of her ranting, even though he couldn’t imagine ever tiring of her stunning blue eyes.
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s Wyatt Hall.”
“I’m Ned Wyatt.”
She stopped in mid-tirade. “You’re who?” she asked in a tiny voice.
“Ned Wyatt.” He extended his right hand. “And you’re…?”
“Claudia Mulcahey,” she said in an even smaller voice. She lowered her gaze and slipped her hand into his. Her fingers were pale and slim; he detected a slight tremor in them. “I guess—I mean—you must be related to Mrs. Steele.”
“Melanie is my sister,” Ned said. He clasped Claudia Mulcahey’s hand without bothering to shake it. It felt delicate in his, graceful and cool and feminine. The trembling indicated how much her driving mishap must have frightened her.
He didn’t want to let go, but she withdrew her hand before he could think of an excuse to keep holding her. “Well,” she said with a tortured sigh, “not only is this job completely ruined, but I’ve just called my customer’s brother a maniac. I may as well crawl in a hole and die.”
Ned nudged her aside so he could survey the interior of her van. “You may as well assess the damage and see what can be salvaged. Melanie has her heart set on this stupid cotillion. She’s not going to take it well if her caterer crawls into a hole and dies.”
Claudia grimaced. “What can I do? Everything’s ruined. My cakes…” She pulled two overturned metal trays toward her. They held large chunks and smaller crumbs of golden and devil’s food cake, along with dislodged sheets of plastic wrap. “The layers for two triple-tiered heart-shaped cakes. I was going to assemble them here at Wyatt Hall, but they’re all broken. And my kisses…” Her voice threatened to crack and she swallowed. Lifting an overturned bowl, she shook her head. “Homemade chocolate kisses. Not the candy-store kind. There they are, under the seat with the strawberries. And the cheese biscuits and the date-nut buns and the braided loaves. Oh, no—did the yogurt dip spill? This is a disaster!”
Ned s
crutinized the mess. A puddle of viscous white—the yogurt dip, he presumed—stained the floor near the sliding side door. Strawberries lay scattered about. Trays leaned at dire angles, spilling food items across every surface.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s a disaster.”
“What am I going to do? I can’t possibly make everything all over again. I have so much prep work, and without the cakes…” Tears welled in her eyes.
“Hey,” he said in a soothing voice. He wanted to envelop her in a hug and comfort her—and then, if she responded at all positively, he wanted to discuss her kisses and her buns. She was a fine-looking woman, and it had been six long months since he’d left Manhattan and the lively social life he’d enjoyed there. He wondered if Claudia had a date for Valentine’s Day.
Of course she had a date: Glenwood, Connecticut’s first annual Valentine’s Day cotillion, masterminded by Melanie Wyatt Steele. If Ned knew what was good for him, he would send the charming Ms. Mulcahey on her way so she could bake some more heart-shaped chocolate and vanilla layers before sundown.
“Surely you and your partners can whip up another cake.”
“What partners?”
He leaned around the open door to view the side of the van. “It says, ‘Let us cater to you.’”
“I’m ‘us’,” Claudia admitted. “I’m all there is to Fantasy Feasts. ‘Let me cater to you sounded obscene, so I told the guy to paint us instead.”
Ned contemplated the pleasure of letting her cater to him. “I’ll help you bake a cake.”
“You?”
“Why not?”
“You’re…a Wyatt.”
“Damn, you’re right,” he agreed, smacking his forehead with mock dismay. “Forget it, then. Wyatts never help. It goes against everything we stand for.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She sighed, evidently struggling to compose herself. “Your sister hired me to cater her Valentine’s Day cotillion. She’s paying me a lot of money. I can’t let you do any of the work.”
“Why not? Two minutes ago you were blaming this whole fiasco on me.”
“But you’re…” She glanced away, her cheeks growing apple red. “I mean, you’re a Wyatt.”
“What exactly is the problem? Should I change my name?”
Squaring her shoulders, she confronted him. “You are a Wyatt. I am an employee of a Wyatt. Okay?”
“You,” he argued, “are a snob. You think just because I grew up in Wyatt Hall I don’t know how to peel carrots?”
“I’m sure you know how to peel whatever you want,” she snapped. Her eyes grew flinty as she stared up at him. “Wyatts can do anything, can’t they? They can stage debutante balls and write out humongous checks and go bicycle riding in the middle of February. I have no doubt they can peel carrots, too.” She took a deep breath and reined in her temper. “I’m sorry,” she said in a muted voice. “I’m just upset. If you’ll excuse me, I have a job to do.” She slammed the rear doors shut.
“Wait a minute.” He chased after her as she marched to the driver’s door. “Do you think I’m not good enough to help you?”
“I don’t want your charity, Mr. Wyatt.”
“This isn’t charity.” Far from it. He wasn’t offering his assistance out of the goodness of his heart. He was offering it because he wanted to practice his peeling technique on her vest, for starters. He wanted to find out if her skin felt as soft as it looked, and if her hair revealed its fiery highlights in indoor lighting. He wanted to get friendly with her.
He also wanted to make sure the cotillion proceeded without a hitch. He knew his sister. He knew how much work she’d put into organizing the party. If the food wasn’t perfect, she would throw a tantrum powerful enough to hit seven on the Richter scale.
He gripped Claudia’s arm and turned her to face him. “Listen to me. If being a Wyatt makes me so special, I’m going to exercise my high-and-mighty prerogative. Either you can be reasonable and accept my help or I’ll call my sister and tell her you’re about to ruin her party.”
Claudia gazed up into his eyes, no doubt trying to decide how serious his threat was. To his surprise, a smile spread slowly across her luscious lips and her eyes sparkled with a blend of amusement and audacity. So much for intimidating her.
Of course, if she were all that easy to intimidate, he wouldn’t be anywhere near as interested in her.
“You want to help me, Mr. Wyatt?” she asked, challenging him with her gaze. “you can start by cleaning my van.”
***
CLAUDIA WAS QUESTIONING the wisdom of accepting his offer of help when she noticed the red satin candy box crushed under her right front tire. By the time he’d returned to the van after stashing his bicycle on the other side of the massive stone wall surrounding Wyatt Hall she was overcome with remorse.
“I’ve destroyed your candy.”
He stared down at the flattened box and shrugged. “I can buy another box.”
The sight of the flattened box made her shudder. Bad enough she’d almost killed Ned Wyatt. But even worse, she’d destroyed some woman’s Valentine’s Day present.
Lucky woman, she added as she shot him a quick, surreptitious glance. Not only was Ned Wyatt rich but he was gorgeous.
Now that her heart had stopped pounding and her brain had stopped reeling, Claudia made a careful study of the bike rider she’d nearly run over. She absorbed his athletic legs, his rugged chest, his broad shoulders and finally his face: long, straight nose, thin lips, hazel eyes outlined by short black lashes, golden complexion. His hair was thick, dark and unfashionably long. The wind had tossed and tangled it into the kind of adorably unruly mess that made a woman’s fingers itch to fix it.
Men like Ned Wyatt never brought her two-pound boxes of chocolates on Valentine’s Day, she thought glumly. In Claudia’s life February 14th had always been a day for hard work, not romantic frivolity. Ever since she’d been old enough to help out at her parents’ diner, she’d spent Valentine’s Day serving meals to loving couples, smearing pink frosting on cupcakes, twisting caps off cheap bottles of domestic wine and smiling politely as lovers toasted each other. To Claudia, the day had traditionally meant generous tips, nothing more.
Now she was independent, running her own company. She had no time or energy for falling in love. When Jimmy McNeill broke up with her last fall, he’d said it was because she was more devoted to Fantasy Feasts than to him—and she hadn’t bothered to refute the accusation. Not that she regretted her hard work and dedication. In truth, she didn’t regret losing Jimmy McNeill, either. Last year on Valentine’s Day he’d been tasteless enough to give her a card on which he’d scrawled, “Happy V.D.”
Even if she hadn’t noticed the elegant candy box, she would have assumed that Ned Wyatt was a romantic man. His sister was certainly romantic enough, scheduling the town’s first debutante cotillion in a generation on this most romantic of days and personally designing the menu to reflect the rich, sweet sentiments of the holiday. “On one special day a year, the heart isn’t just a muscular pump in our circulatory system,” Melanie had declared. “It’s the symbol of love and romance.”
And Claudia had planned a rich, sweet menu: Champagne-boiled shrimp, mushrooms stuffed with bacon and herbs, veal marsala, chicken kiev, creamed asparagus. Crudités and yogurt dip for health-conscious guests. The pièce de résistance was a dessert table laden with heart-shaped cookies and twin heart-shaped cakes, one golden and one devil’s food, both slathered in peppermint pink Valentine’s Day frosting.
A menu that had looked divine on paper looked positively nauseating spilled and strewn across the interior of her van. Yet when she glimpsed Ned Wyatt on the seat next to her, she lost track of the chaos behind her. She smelled not the rich aroma of chocolate but his wintry, minty male fragrance. His hands rested on his knees, his fingers too blunt to be patrician, his knuckles thicker than a blue-blooded man’s were supposed to be. His chin was shaded by a trace of beard. His eyes were clear, blessed with
so many colors she couldn’t begin to name them.
“You really don’t have to do this,” she said.
“I really want to.”
She eyed him speculatively, then ignited the engine and accelerated down the road. Ned Wyatt was nobody’s fool. He must have some underlying reason for accompanying her back to her house on the south side of town. He’d called the cotillion stupid; maybe he wanted to sabotage his sister’s party by adding chili peppers to the cake batter.
“I should warn you,” she said.” It’s not going to be fun.”
Even with his eyes forward she felt the power of his gaze, the allure of his smile. “Fun is where you find it,” he said in a low, dark voice.
A shiver of dread—or was it expectation?—rippled down her spine. He has a girlfriend, she reminded herself. He’d been on his way to see her that morning, armed with that great big box of chocolates.
“I’m sorry I ran over your candy,” she said. “I’ll replace it with a basket of homemade cookies.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“No, really, It’s the least I can do after almost killing you. Who was the candy for, anyway?” It was a nosy question, but she figured that if Ned could make her food problems his business, she could make his love life her business.
“My mother.”
“Your mother?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
Did that mean he didn’t have a girlfriend? “I thought your mother lived in Wyatt Hall.”
“If she lived there, I wouldn’t have had her candy with me. I would have given it to her.”
“Then who lives there?”
“At the moment, no one.”
“That great big house is empty?”
“We’re still debating what to do with it. My mother decided she was sick of rattling around all alone in the house. Ever since my father died, she’s been saying she wanted to move out. Six months ago, she finally bought herself a condo.”
“Is she going to sell the place?” Claudia didn’t think there would be many people who could afford to buy it. A movie star, maybe. A hedge-fund billionaire. An exiled dictator.
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