Brian snapped the top on another beer and held it far away from Aidan’s reach. Taking a drink, he glanced from Connor to Liam and winked. “Hey, looks like you’ve got another brother about to topple.”
Connor straightened up and scowled at him. “No way. I can make it. Unlike some people.”
Brian just laughed. “Hey, I don’t get the money, but I do get laid. Often.”
“Bastard,” Aidan muttered, then added, “can’t understand why a woman as great as Tina would put up with you.”
“She wanted the best,” Brian assured him.
“Yeah, yeah.” Aidan threw the ball at him, Brian caught it and sent it toward the hoop.
As they moved off, Liam stepped up to Connor and slapped him on the back. “So, anything you’d like to share with your friendly neighborhood brother slash priest?”
Connor shook his head. “You’re in no position to give advice on women, Liam. I may be out of the game for two more months, but you’re in it for life.”
Liam shrugged, reached down into the open cooler beside him and pulled out two cans of beer. Tossing one to Connor, he opened one for himself and said, “I wasn’t born into the priesthood, you know.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“So? Feel like talking?”
“No.” Connor took a long gulp of the beer and felt the icy froth race down his throat and send a welcome chill throughout his body. But it wouldn’t help for long, he knew. Ever since seeing Emma at the Off Duty, he’d been hot and hadn’t been able to cool off. Thoughts of her plagued him. Memories of the way she moved, the way she smiled, the way she smelled, were becoming a part of him.
Which was exactly why he’d stayed away from her garage the past couple of days. He needed space. Time. He needed to figure out just what the hell had happened to him the other night. And until he did, it wasn’t safe for him to be around Emma.
Going into his second month of forced celibacy, Connor was balancing precariously on a razor’s edge of control. One little push either way, and he was a goner.
And the way Emma had looked the other night, she was just the one to give him that push.
“That’s it?” Liam asked. “Just no?”
“Liam, the day I need a priest’s advice on women, is the day you can shave my head and send me to Okinawa.”
“You’re a Marine, moron,” Liam reminded him, setting down his beer and moving back to the top of the basketball court, where Aidan and Brian were dueling it out. “Your head’s already shaved and you’ve been to Okinawa.”
Connor scowled at him.
Hell, maybe he did need advice from a priest.
Five
“H e hasn’t been back, Mary Alice.” Emma leaned back in the office chair that had once belonged to her father and was now all hers.
“You expected him to come running right over?”
“Well, yeah.” She twirled the coiled telephone cord around her index finger so tightly her skin turned bluish purple. Quickly she unwound it again. “If you could have seen him drooling all over me, you would have thought so, too.”
“Uh-huh,” Mary Alice said, “and what were you doing while he was drooling?”
“You mean besides falling out of my top?”
“Yeah. Were you drooling back?”
“A little maybe.” Okay, a lot. But she couldn’t very well admit that to Mary Alice, could she? Not when her friend had warned her going in that this was a bad idea? Oh, maybe it had been a bad idea.
For two days now Emma’d been doing little else but think about Connor. Which was weird. He’d been a part of her life for two years, but until this week, she’d never once imagined him naked in bed with her. And, oh, boy, her imagination was really good.
“I knew it,” the voice on the phone said, disgusted. “I knew you’d be setting yourself up again. Honestly, Em…”
“This is different,” Emma protested, not sure if she was trying to reassure her friend or herself. Memories of three years ago and a broken engagement darted through her mind and were just as quickly extinguished. “I’m not looking for forever,” she said. “Just a little right now.”
“Uh-huh.”
Emma scowled at the phone. “You don’t have to sound so unconvinced.”
“Please, Em. You are so not the one-night-stand kind of woman.”
She stiffened. “I could be.”
“Yeah, and I could be a runway model, if not for the extra twenty pounds.”
“Funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny,” Mary Alice said. “I’m trying to make you come to your senses before you get in so deep with this guy that your heart gets broken again.”
“Wow. First Father Liam warns me about the dangers of seduction turning into love and now you.” Emma blew out a breath. “My heart is perfectly safe. It’s my hormones that are getting the work out.”
Well, that set Mary Alice off. A floodgate of warnings poured from her, and she barely paused for breath.
While she listened to her friend’s worries pouring through the receiver, Emma glanced around the tiny Jacobsen “empire.”
The office was filled with potted plants, and flowering vines fell from baskets hanging in the corners of the room. The wide glass windows gleamed in the sunlight and gave Emma a bird’s-eye view of the flower beds lining the front of the shop. Zinnias and petunias added color and scent to the shop and welcomed customers with unexpected beauty.
Her father had started the business more than thirty years ago and had never really concerned himself with making the place “pretty.” He’d built a reputation based on honesty and fair prices and when he passed away five years before, he’d left that business in Emma’s capable hands.
She knew her way around an engine—hard to grow up the only child of a mechanic and not learn—but as she’d helped the business grow, Emma had found herself spending more time lately on paperwork than on actual engines. Though there was still nothing she loved better than restoring classic cars.
The two mechanics she had working for her were good at their jobs and didn’t have a problem taking orders from a woman—especially one who could do a tune-up in less than thirty minutes.
“Hello? Earth to Emma.”
“Huh? What?” Emma shook her head, sighed deeply and said, “Sorry. Zoned out there for a minute.”
“I’m giving you all this great advice and you’re not listening?”
“I didn’t say that. I heard you. I just think you’re going a little overboard.”
“No such thing. You’re not experienced enough with guys to know how to protect yourself.”
“Gee, Mom, thanks.”
“You did call me to talk about this, remember?”
“Yeah,” she paused and pushed a long strand of blond hair behind her ear. She’d given in to a weak moment and called her best friend in the world because Emma was getting a little nervous. This wasn’t working out quite the way she’d planned it. She was supposed to be driving Connor insane with desire—not herself. “I remember.”
“So, talk to me.”
“I already told you about the other night at the bar.”
“Yeah,” Mary Alice said with a sigh. “Wish I could have seen you balancing on those heels while playing pool.”
“Hey, I’m better at it than I used to be.” She grinned, though, remembering how many times she’d fallen on her behind when Mary Alice had coached her through actually walking in high heels. That had only been four years ago. When she’d first decided to remake herself in the hopes of falling in love. Back before she realized that love only really mattered if the guy was in love with the real Emma.
“God, I should hope so,” she chuckled, then continued, “so you said Connor was all droolly, right?”
“Like a starving man looking at a steak.”
“This is a good thing.”
“Yes, but I haven’t seen him since.” Damn it. Emma’d thought for sure that Connor would come by the garage the day after their
pool match. The way he’d stared at her breasts and her legs, she’d have bet money on him being completely hooked.
She would have lost.
“Figure he’s avoiding you on purpose?”
“Seems like that’s the case.”
“Then you must have worried him.”
Emma smiled, dropped her feet from the desk and sat up. “Hey…I hadn’t really thought about it like that.”
“If he doesn’t trust himself around you, I’d say you’re close to getting him to lose the bet.”
“Good point.” She’d been so busy being annoyed that Connor was keeping his distance, Emma’d never really asked herself why he was suddenly so determined to avoid her. Maybe he wasn’t thinking of her as a pal anymore, and that had him worried. Maybe her too-tight skirt and too-small shirt had done the deed after all.
But then why didn’t he come over for another look, damn it?
She stood up and walked around the edge of the desk, stretching the coiled phone cord as far as it would go. Outside, the summer sun blasted down on the city streets, heat shimmering in the air, giving Baywater the wavering look of a mirage. On the main street traffic bumped along, and as she watched, a black SUV made the turn into the garage’s driveway.
A chill swept instantly down her spine, and Emma tried to tell herself it was just the icy breeze from the air conditioner affecting her. But she knew better.
She licked suddenly dry lips. “He’s here.”
“What?”
“Connor,” Emma said, her fingers tightening on the receiver. She watched him step out of his car and wince as the heat slapped at him. Oh, he looked way too good. Despite the summer heat, he wore faded jeans that clung to his long legs. His white T-shirt strained across his broad chest, and his jaw was tight and set as he stuffed his keys into his pocket and headed for the office—and her.
A jolt of pure anticipation lit up her insides and made her mouth water.
“What’s he look like?” Mary Alice demanded.
“Dessert,” Emma groaned. “Gotta go.” She hung up while her friend was still talking, then eased one hip against the corner of her desk and tried to look nonchalant. Not at all easy when your stomach is spinning and your heartbeat is crashing in your ears.
Emma couldn’t take her gaze off him, and she wondered just when this little game she’d started had turned on her. He was the one who was supposed to be going all gooey-eyed, not her. But here she stood, watching his long legs move across the parking lot and wishing he’d turn around so she could get a glimpse of his very nice behind.
Her stomach took another nosedive, and she slapped one hand against it as he opened the door and stepped inside. Instantly her small office felt darn near claustrophobic.
Connor ground his back teeth together as he looked at her. Big mistake coming here. After leaving his brothers, he’d gone home to take a shower, but hadn’t been able to sit still. Thoughts of Emma had plagued him as they had been for the past two days, and he’d finally decided there was only one thing to do about it.
If he hoped to keep his friendship with her, then he needed to stay the hell away from her for the duration of this stupid bet.
He wasn’t about to risk his nice, easy relationship with Emma just because he was so damn horny he could hardly see straight. Emma was his friend. The bet was the only reason he was acting like a moron around her now. And damn it, he wouldn’t give in to it. He was no teenager stuck on the first girl to smile at him.
He was a Marine.
He was tough.
He was hard.
And getting harder by the second.
His gaze swept over her quickly, thoroughly. She was wearing a pair of pale-green coverall shorts that displayed miles of smooth, tanned leg. And under the bibbed coverall, was a dark-pink tank top edged with lace. Her blond hair was pulled into a high ponytail and then braided into a thick rope that lay across her right shoulder. And his fingers itched to touch it. He wanted to undo the tight braid and rake his hands through the softness.
Whoa.
He stiffened slightly, instinctively shifting into a braced for battle position. Feet wide apart, arms crossed over his chest. Ordering himself to stand down, he knew, more than ever, that he’d done the right thing in coming here. He had to explain to her that he wouldn’t be seeing her for the next couple of months. Had to tell her—what?
That he didn’t trust himself around her?
That he all of a sudden was spending way too much time thinking about her trim little body?
That he wanted to sink his teeth into her shoulders and then lick his way down the length of her?
Oh, yeah. That’d be real smart.
“Emma, we have to talk.” The words came out a little harder than he’d planned, but then, his jaw was clenched so tight every word was an effort of will.
“Really?” She smiled and edged off the corner of the desk.
Her sandals were white with little daisies on the top strap. Her toenails were painted the same dark shade of pink as her tank top, and she wore a gold toe ring that winked and sparkled in the sunlight. Damn it. Mechanics don’t wear jewelry on their feet.
He frowned. “Since when do you wear a toe ring?”
She looked down, then up at him. “Since three years ago.”
“Oh.” He scraped one hand across his face. Something else he’d never noticed. Or if he had, it had been ignored, because Emma was his friend. His buddy. But that was then, and this was now. “Look, Emma, about the other night—”
“What about it?” She moved a little closer and he got a whiff of her perfume.
The soft, haunting scent reached for his throat and squeezed. This was risky. Being this close to her. He should have called her. Should have kept his distance. But he hadn’t wanted to, and at least he could admit that much to himself.
Hell, he couldn’t figure out why this was happening to him at all. He’d never spent much time fantasizing about one particular woman. To Connor, women were like candy. You never wanted to stick with one too long, because you’d just get tired of it. He was a big believer in the “variety is the spice of life” theory on romance.
But since seeing Emma at the bar the other night, she’d been right up at the forefront of his mind. He hadn’t been able to shake her. Hell, he hadn’t been able to make himself try.
“You surprised me,” he said.
She stepped closer, and her scent moved in for the kill. Damn it, she was wrapped around him now and he couldn’t breathe without taking a piece of her inside him.
“Yeah, you said that already.”
“Right.” He had said it. Outside in the parking lot. When he’d tried to convince her and himself that he’d been surprised by her pool-playing abilities. He frowned, shook his head and looked down at her. Her summer-sky eyes were wide and incredibly blue. A man could lose himself just staring into those depths. And he didn’t want to be lost.
“Look,” he blurted, taking a hasty step back, hopefully out of range of her force field. “You want to go get some lunch or something?”
Her blond eyebrows lifted high on her forehead. “You’re asking me to lunch?”
“Something wrong with that?” he demanded, as he silently cursed himself. For God’s sake, you don’t get over a woman by asking her out to eat. “Can’t two friends share a meal together without making a big deal out of it?”
Her lips twitched, then her mouth slowly curved and he felt a tug of reaction deep inside him.
“Who’s making a big deal about anything?”
“Nobody,” he said, nodding as if trying to convince himself. “Not a big deal. Just lunch.” He frowned. “So? You interested?”
“Sure. Just let me tell the guys I’m leaving.”
She walked through the connecting door to the garage bay and God help him, Connor watched her go. Man. Short coveralls had never looked so good. There was nothing “friendly” in the way his gaze locked onto her—and he knew he was digging himself an e
ven deeper hole.
Delilah’s Diner was relaxed and casual.
Tourists and locals mingled together and the low hum of activity echoed throughout the place. Booths lined one wall by the window overlooking Pine Avenue. A dozen or more round tables were dotted around the rest of the room, with a long lunch counter sweeping around the back. Waitresses moved through the crowd with dazzling speed and the “order ready” bell rang out with regularity.
Emma leaned back against the white Naugahyde booth seat and folded her arms on the scrubbed red vinyl tabletop. Connor hadn’t spoken to her at all since leaving the shop, and now he looked as if he’d rather be anywhere but here.
How was a girl supposed to take that?
While they waited for their order, she reached for her glass of water and took a long sip before asking, “So are you going to be silent all through lunch?”
“Huh?”
“You said you wanted to talk, but you haven’t even opened your mouth since we left the garage.”
“Miss the sound of my voice?”
He grinned, and the quick smile jolted something deep inside her. Emma took a long drink of water in an attempt to drown it.
“What’s going on, Connor?”
“Nothing, it’s just that—”
Their waitress chose just that moment to arrive with their meals. She slid Emma’s chef salad across the table then carefully placed Connor’s hamburger and fries directly in front of him. Emma rolled her eyes and watched, half amused, half irritated as the woman did everything but coo and stroke Connor’s chest.
“Thanks,” he said, smiling up at the redhead.
“You bet,” the woman said on a sigh, barely sparing a glance for Emma. “If there’s anything else you need—” she paused meaningfully “—anything at all, you just call me. I’m Rebecca.”
“Thanks, Rebecca,” Emma spoke up, startling the waitress out of her flirtatious mood. “We’ll call if we need you.”
The woman flashed her a frown, then shot Connor another smile before reluctantly wandering off.
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