Love Me Sweet (A Bell Harbor Novel)

by Brogan, Tracy

  Au contraire. From where she sat, the view was just fine. This short-haired, smooth-faced version of Grant Connelly sitting in the firelight was sexy as hell, even if he was huddled under an old fuzzy blanket. Warmth coiled at the very center of her and she recognized it for what it was. Judgment-impairing lust.

  She’d had a boyfriend or two over the last few years, but none worth giving her heart to, so it had been a while since Delaney had felt this, the quickening of her breath, the flutter in her chest. The longing. It could just be her general loneliness talking. Running away from all the comforts of home had left her vulnerable, and needy. Maybe Grant wasn’t that fine. Maybe his voice didn’t have that melty-chocolate quality after all. Maybe that big hand wrapped around his beer bottle didn’t mean anything other than he had big hands. Although she’d seen enough of him to know that wasn’t the case.

  “So tomorrow is the wedding, huh?” she asked. No melty quality to her voice just then. More like a rusty hinge. She cleared her throat. “Doesn’t that mean you should be at a rehearsal dinner right now?”

  He straightened his legs, his feet moving closer to hers, and picked at the label on the bottle again. “They had the rehearsal last week because of Tyler’s work schedule. It was the only time they could arrange it. So, yep, the wedding is tomorrow. I get to face all my relatives together in one big room and find out if the rest of them are as annoyed with me as my mother is.”

  “Well, she seemed to get over it pretty quickly. I’m sure the rest of them will too.”

  “Maybe. Want to go with me?” His eyes were back on her, dark but flickering in the romancey firelight. That dastardly, misleading romancey firelight.

  Her hiccups started right on cue. “Go with you?” Hiccup.

  His smile seemed unexpectedly shy, and that bud of lust deep inside her unfurled.

  “Well, you don’t know anybody here,” he said. “And I thought, you know, you might like to meet some people. I’ve got two sisters who are about your age, which is . . . how old?”

  “Twenty-five,” she blurted out. That lie was an easy one and probably not even necessary, but duplicity was becoming a habit.

  “My sisters are close to that. Wendy is twenty-two and Aimee is nineteen.”

  Twenty-two and nineteen. The target demographic for her show, and for every tabloid magazine. His sisters might recognize her, and that wedding reception could be chock-full of another cluster of people who might recognize her too.

  “Wouldn’t your family think it’s kind of strange if I came with you? I mean, I’m just the tenant.”

  Grant chuckled. “Strange is relative, and my relatives are pretty strange, so I think it would be fine. Actually I know it would be fine because my brother said so.”

  “You and your brother talked about me?” Hiccup. The idea tingled through her limbs in a most pleasant fashion, which was ironic considering her whole purpose in being in Bell Harbor was so that people would stop talking about her. But this was different. Grant wasn’t talking about her and The Scandal. She was sure of that because she was certain that at the moment he had no idea who she was.

  He had no idea who she was.

  That reminder smacked her in the forehead in a most unpleasant fashion. He was flirting with her because he knew nothing about her, and if he did, he probably wouldn’t have suggested she go mix and mingle with his family.

  This is my date. Maybe you’ve seen her in action? Show them the top of your head, baby. Then they’ll recognize you.

  Goddamn Boyd and his goddamn video. The whole thing left her heart stinging and sent her fledgling attraction to Grant right back into a tight knot. This is where the lying became even more complicated. She didn’t like doing it. She liked Grant too much to lead him astray with more lies, but not enough that she could risk trusting him. She’d liked Boyd all right too, and she’d be an idiot to let two beers, some firelight, and a fuzzy blanket turn into her next sexual misstep.

  “Um . . . I don’t—” Hiccup. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She turned to stare at the fire, but not before watching Grant’s expression cool.

  He set his empty beer bottle on the coffee table next to the couch. “OK. No big deal if you’d rather not go. I just figured you might want to get out of this house.”

  “That’s nice of you, but . . .” What could she say to explain it?

  He shook his head. “No worries. I’m going to get some more wood for the fire.” He stood up and tossed his blanket near her feet. It crumpled up and slowly fell to the floor, and she felt like doing the same.

  Grant pulled on his coat and stepped outside. The wind sliced through him in much the same way Elaine’s spontaneous rejection had. He’d thought they’d been having a nice bit of conversation tonight. She was laughing at his best adventure stories, not moving her feet back when his stretched out on the couch near hers, staring at him like she’d never seen a man before. Then he’d invited her to the wedding, and her face looked like he’d offered to show her his rash. Maybe she hated weddings, or maybe she was remembering that she had a husband waiting back in Miami, one who was wondering where the hell his wife and all his cash had gone. If that was the case, then she’d done Grant a favor.

  Either way, he’d be glad in the morning. Their situation was already awkward enough, and how much more so could it get? How do you say to a woman, hey, I’ll call you if you only live six feet down the hall? She was right to turn him down, and he’d really only asked because he was nervous about facing the rest of Bell Harbor alone. It didn’t have anything to do with the way her skin glowed bronze in the light of the fire, or the way she tapped the edge of her bottle on her lip for a second before drinking her beer. It didn’t have anything to do with the lacy bras she’d left hanging on the towel rod in the bathroom either. None of that had influenced him in the slightest.

  He gathered up an armful of wood and looked around to see if any lights were visible in other nearby houses. Someone must have some power, but there was not a flicker anywhere. He was used to pitch-blackness after living so long in inhospitable places, but something about this darkness seemed . . . darker. Maybe it was the cold.

  He tromped back inside with a plan to stoke up the fire and make himself a bed on the floor. Elaine could sleep on the couch since their rooms would be ridiculously cold. They could handle this. They were both mature adults.

  But he went back to the living room and she was gone.

  Chapter 7

  DELANEY WAS COLD. COLD, COLD, cold. She’d gotten up during the night and laid clothes on top of the blankets, and even felt her way into the bathroom to grab a few bath towels, but the frigid air cut right through the fabric. This polar vortex business was not for sissies. With numb fingers she reached out and snatched her phone from the nightstand to check the time. Seven o’clock in the morning and still dark as midnight outside her windows.

  She heard a muffled thunk and a clunk. Either Grant was putting wood on the fire or a frozen raccoon had just fallen off the roof. A scrape of the fireplace screen told her no raccoons were in danger at the moment, but she might be—in danger of going into the other room and apologizing for leaving the way she had last night. What was with her and running away lately? All he’d done was very politely invite her to go to a wedding, and she’d panicked.

  She slid from under the covers and picked up the red plastic flashlight next to her bed. Flipping it on, she checked her reflection in the mirror on her wall. Not good. She looked like a ghoul in the harsh lighting, with her dark hair hanging down and her breath lingering around her face like she was exhaling poison. One look at her like this and Grant would retract that invitation anyway.

  She pulled the top blanket off her bed, letting all the clothes and towels fall to the floor, and wrapped herself up like a blue fleece mummy. Then she waddled like a penguin into the other room. She was all kinds of gorgeous right now.
/>   Grant was back lying on the couch, taking up the entire length of it, but moved when he saw her.

  “Oh, don’t get up. You’re fine.” She sat down on the brown rug with her back against the old, tweedy couch and her feet reaching out toward the brick fireplace. “How’d you sleep?”

  He stretched back out. “Not bad. This sofa is pretty miserable but I’ve slept on worse. You?”

  “Not great. According to the weather on my phone it’s twelve below zero outside, but it feels like forty below in my room.”

  “You could’ve had the couch.” The implication was in his tone. You could have had the couch if you’d stuck around.

  “Thanks, but since it’s technically your house, I thought you should have the warmest spot to sleep. When do you think the power might come back on?”

  “No telling.”

  They watched the fire for a few minutes, not talking, just listening to the wood hiss and crackle. The smoke was rough and hurt Delaney’s nose, but at least this spot was warm. She reached her hands toward it, trying to thaw out her fingers.

  “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot last night,” he finally said quietly. “I only invited you because I thought you might want a break from whatever it is you’re doing with those knitting needles. And honestly, I thought you might provide a nice buffer between me and my family.”

  She looked back at him. “A buffer?”

  He nodded and scratched at his chin where new whiskers had created a shadow. His eyes were dark in this dim light. “Yeah, a buffer since everyone is mad at me for doing such a crappy job at keeping in touch. I should have known they’d miss me because I’m pretty awesome, but I figured if you were there, maybe they’d go easier on me.” He lifted his brows optimistically, silently asking again.

  Delaney felt a smile rise from down deep. This kind of emotional manipulation was familiar. Her mother would like him. Not that she’d ever meet him. “So you were planning to use me as a human shield?” Delaney asked.

  His own smile was sheepish, and adorable. “Sort of. I could have explained that better to you last night but you pulled a Houdini act and disappeared.”

  So maybe she’d been imagining his romantic interest last night, or maybe, like her, things felt a little different in the light of day—even when the light of day was still dark out. Either way, she’d had some time to think about things while lying in her meat locker of a bedroom listening to the shower drip. Whatever his intent, she couldn’t stay holed up in this house for six months. She’d go cuckoo and end up scribbling frantic little notes to herself and muttering at imaginary lint balls in the corners. She did need to get out, and getting out meant seeing people, conversing with them, and establishing her cover. This wedding could be the perfect venue. If she could convince his family that she was Elaine Masters from Miami, pretty soon she’d have everyone else convinced too, and that would make her life in Bell Harbor much, much simpler.

  “So, let me get this straight,” she said. “You’re not afraid to scale Mount McKinley or swim in shark-infested waters, but you’re scared of getting another scolding from your mother?”

  “Maybe. I know that sounds kind of . . .”

  “Pathetic? Childish? Cowardly? Sad?”

  “Wow, I was going to say . . . sensitive, but OK, I get your point.” His smile warmed her up faster and hotter than the fireplace could.

  Delaney Masterson had made a series of questionable judgment calls in her life, and this one might land right at the top, but . . . what the hell? “All right,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  Although much of Bell Harbor had changed with the times, St. Aloysius Church of the Immaculate Conception hadn’t. The fragrance of candle wax, varnish, and incense filled Grant’s nose, triggering memory upon memory as he walked into the church vestibule with Elaine. He’d gone to school here, been an altar boy with Tyler, snuck sips of communion wine, and confessed to Father Lawrence all the unholy, impure, wonderful thoughts he’d had about Mary Elizabeth Boyer every time she wore her gym uniform.

  In his defense, Mary Elizabeth had been the most voluptuous girl in the ninth grade, and he suspected she knew very well what happened to the boys every time she bent over to pick up a badminton birdie. His body reacted to the memory in much the same way it had when he was fifteen.

  Damn. He needed to get laid, and soon, if walking into a church made him this horny.

  He could just hear Father Lawrence’s required penance. “Say three Our Fathers, two Hail Marys, and keep your hands off yourself.”

  Yeah. He was doomed.

  “About time you got here,” Tyler called out from a doorway to the left. “Come on in here.”

  “Brother of the groom. Oh, I love it! This has got to be the other brother of the groom,” said a singsongy voice from the left, and Grant turned to see a dark-haired man with a sharp-edged goatee bearing down on them. He wore a navy-blue suit with a pink rose in the lapel.

  Grant halted in his steps and Elaine bumped into the back of him.

  Tyler chuckled. “Yes, Fontaine, this is my older brother, Grant. He’s just arrived from the jungle.”

  “Wooooooo, the jungle?” Fontaine tapped his fingertips together. “Hello, Tarzan. How delightfully primitive.”

  “Grant, this is Fontaine, our wedding planner.”

  “Wedding planner?” His brother had a wedding planner?

  The dark-haired man preened. “Why, yes. I’m an interior designer by trade, and a professional organizer, but I love a good party too.” He gazed up at Grant. “I guess you could say I’m a Jacques of all trades.” And then he giggled.

  Grant looked at Tyler.

  “Fontaine is a good friend of Evie’s,” Tyler said by way of explanation. Because a Connelly man having a wedding planner required an explanation.

  “Nice to meet you, Fontaine. This is Elaine.” Grant plucked her out from behind him, tugging on her arm as Goatee Man gave her the once-over. “Oh, honey, delighted, I’m sure.” He turned back to Tyler. “Now you, mister, off with your pants. We need to get you into that tux. Lickety-split.”

  “Wait!” Another voice joined the conversation, and they all turned as a petite redhead rushed forward. She wore jeans and a white sweatshirt that said Bride, and when she smiled, Grant understood. Tyler was right. Now that he’d seen his future sister-in-law, the marriage thing made some sense. She was stunning.

  He snuck a sideways peek at Elaine. She was beautiful too, especially in the firelight or with her hair up in a high ponytail when she did yoga, but at the moment, her dark-framed glasses hid those gorgeous blue eyes and made her look a little bookish, and the bulky sweater she was wearing hid all her wonderful curves. Not that it mattered how she looked. She wasn’t his date. Just his human shield. He needed to remember that.

  In a few hours, he’d see some of his old Bell Harbor pals, and maybe a few old girlfriends too. Surely one of his old flames would be interested in a brief reunion of nudity? If he could release a little tension, he could think about things with Elaine more objectively. A tactical orgasm. That’s what he needed. Then he’d stop fantasizing about all those lacy bras she’d left back in his bathroom. She really needed to dry those someplace else. It had taken him fifteen minutes to take a leak this morning because the damn things were hanging up right where he—and his dick—could see them. It twitched in his slacks. His dick had a great memory.

  The bride moved forward and wrapped an arm around Tyler’s waist.

  “Shoo, shoo, shoo!” Fontaine exclaimed, flicking his hands at her. “The bride and groom are not supposed to see each other before the wedding. Don’t you know anything?”

  Evie laughed. “You realize that incredibly antiquated custom was just so grooms of arranged marriages couldn’t change their minds once they saw the bride, right?” She turned back to Tyler. “Oh, no. You’re not going to change your mind now, are yo
u?”

  He shook his head. “Not a chance.”

  Evie was short, five foot two at the most, but there was nothing small about her energy. Grant reached out his hand to introduce himself and she stepped past it to embrace him instead, bumping into the camera bag he had slung over his shoulder.

  “You must be Grant. We’re so glad you’re here. You win the prize for having traveled the farthest.”

  If she was faking her enthusiasm about meeting him, she did a convincing job. Maybe she’d had lots of practice with his brother. Faking it. Or maybe she was sincere. She didn’t have the same reasons to be mad at Grant like the rest of the family did.

  “I’m glad I could be here too. Thanks for making sure I got an invitation.”

  He tossed a glance at his brother, but Tyler beamed like a man about to marry the girl of his dreams.

  “And you must be Arlene, right?” The bride turned to his housemate and gave her a fast hug too.

  “Um, it’s Elaine,” she answered, pushing her glasses against the bridge of her nose.

  “Oh, yes. Elaine. Forgive me. I’m terrible with names, but thanks so much for coming.”

  “Thanks for letting me crash your wedding. It’s freezing at my house.”

  “That explains the sweater,” Fontaine murmured.

  Evie smiled bigger. “It’s freezing at our house too. We’re incredibly lucky that the church and reception hall have decent generators. Serves us right for getting hitched in January I guess, but this was the only time Scotty was available. Thank goodness that with all this bad weather, his plane still arrived on time. Anyway, I have to go get dressed. Elaine, feel free to come hang out with the ladies if the guys get too obnoxious for you.” She lifted on her tiptoes and kissed Tyler’s cheek.

  “See you at the altar, right?”

  “I’ll be the guy in the tux,” Tyler answered.

  Grant watched his brother’s serene face as she walked away and wished he’d unpacked his camera. It was a moment to capture.