“Which is likely why I’m still single,” Lola said. “It’ll take a man made of hardy stock to put up with all the truths I have to share.”
“He’ll be a man worth having then,” Carly said. They clinked glasses and polished off their wine.
“I hope you’re talking about me,” James said as he entered the room.
Carly almost choked on her wine—another good reason for always wearing red—as she got an eyeball full of the man who from this day forward would be known in her mind as Sex in a Tux.
Lola turned to her with a grin and Carly cringed. “Did I say that out loud?”
“Yeah, you did.”
“Do you think he heard me?”
“Let’s see. Hey, big brother, did you hear Carly just call you Sex in a Tux?”
“Oh, jeez . . .” Carly felt her face get hot and she gave Lola a dark look. This blushing thing was out of control. She used a hand to fan her face, trying to make it go away.
A wicked smile, just a little higher on the right side, slowly bloomed across James’s lips.
“I did not,” he said. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“My work here is done,” Lola said. She set her glass down and rose to her feet. “See you out there, kids.”
She headed for the door with an air kiss and a wave. Carly waited until the door closed behind her before she stood and turned to face James.
He looked like he was about to say something and then his jaw went slack. His gaze took her all in and then swept over her, lingering on each part in turn, from the cleavage that showed in the V of her dress, to her nipped-in waist, and lastly her legs, now five inches longer thanks to the high heels she’d strapped on.
Carly supposed it was cheating to make herself taller and thinner than she actually was, but it wasn’t like they were permanent alterations—they were more like temporary tattoos. Besides, the cleavage, which was where James’s gaze had landed again and again, was real and it was spectacular.
“You are beautiful,” he said. “No, wait, that’s not the right word. Gorgeous, no, stunning, no, oh, I know . . . incandescent.”
“Like a light bulb?” she asked.
“Well, you’re turning me on,” he said.
Carly giggled. Carly never giggled. She clapped a hand over her mouth as if she could stop the ridiculous noise coming out of her face hole. She couldn’t. She giggled again.
James took advantage of her fit to swoop in so that he was mere inches away from her. As if afraid to touch her, he held her by the shoulders as he lowered his mouth to hers in the gentlest kiss Carly had ever received.
When he leaned back, she could feel the buzz from his mouth on hers and she tapped her lower lip with her finger. She looked at him in question.
“I’m afraid I’ll mess up your hair or makeup if I do what I really want to do to you,” he said. His voice was thick with desire.
Carly shrugged. “It’d be worth it.”
James closed his eyes and hissed out a breath. “Nope, no, nuh uh, I’m going to be a good boy and bring you to Pops’s birthday bash like I’m supposed to and not haul you upstairs to my room and make love to you until we’re both crippled.”
“Eightieth birthday party versus losing all feeling in my legs. Hmm.” Carly held her hands out as if they were a scale. “Yeah, okay, birthday party it is until the moment it’s socially acceptable for us to ghost out of there.”
“So sassy, I like it,” James said. He swatted her behind as Carly sashayed by him and she yelped.
“Hey, now,” she said. “We’ve never discussed spankings, which for the record I’ve never tried but would be totally willing to give a go with you.”
James froze. He blinked repeatedly and swallowed as if trying to ease a sudden constriction in his throat.
“Okay, I just need a minute,” he said. Then he shuddered from his head to his feet and held out one arm to her. “All right, I’m good.”
Carly tucked her hand around his elbow, which brought his arm up against her cleavage. He glanced down at where her boob pressed into his arm.
“Eyes up here, big guy,” Carly teased him. When his gaze met hers, she leaned close and said, “By the way, Lydia Husser from Penmans called and offered me the job, and I accepted.”
James blinked at her once. “You’re staying.”
It wasn’t a question, but Carly nodded anyway.
The next thing Carly knew James had her pinned to the wall and he was kissing her with a single-minded intensity that made her ears ring.
Carly put her hands on his shoulders to hang on during the erotic plundering but when his hands cupped her behind and brought her in close, she responded by twining her arms about his neck and pulling him in even closer.
“You’re staying.” He said it again as if he had to repeat it to fully grasp the fact that she wasn’t leaving.
“I take it that’s okay,” she said, hissing out a breath as his lips slid up her neck.
“More than okay,” he said. He kissed her again and against her lips, he growled, “It’s perfect.”
As his tongue slid against hers, his busy hands pulled up her skirt until his hands met the bare skin of her thighs. He groaned and it was the most erotic sound Carly had ever heard. When his questing fingers found the edge of her comfy cotton undies, she felt him grin against her lips.
“That’s my girl,” he said. “You wore those for me, didn’t you?”
“Well, you did say last night that I should always wear them,” she said. She batted her lashes at him.
“Just knowing that you’re wearing those is going to drive me crazy all night.”
He began to edge them down to gain access to her wet heat when there was a knock, causing them both to start.
“James, Carly, are you coming?” Emily, his mother, called through the door.
James met Carly’s gaze and gave her a wicked toe-curling grin.
“Two more minutes and we could have been,” he growled in Carly’s ear and she snorted. He leaned back and yelled at the door. “We’ll be right there.”
“Your father is waiting, meet us out front,” she said.
James pressed his forehead against Carly’s and took a deep breath as if he was inhaling her.
“Is it wrong that I wish they’d all go away?”
“Not wrong, exactly,” she said.
She reached up to straighten his tie and smooth his hair while he fixed her dress. There was an intimacy found here, in this tender caring for each other that felt more vulnerable than when they bared their bodies to each other. It made Carly’s heart melt.
When they were respectable again, James offered her his arm, and they left Lola’s room to go join the others. As Carly glanced around the great room, she felt pleased with how it had all turned out. Circular tables were set up all along the perimeter of the room with a temporary square dance floor laid out at the far end.
Large white paper lanterns were strung across the high ceiling, bathing the room in an ambient glow, while the tables were decked out in royal blue cloths and silver runners.
The band was already warming up on the riser beside the dance floor and the room was filling up with guests. The party stager that she’d hired had placed large bare branches the size of small trees in big pots and decked them in blue and white lights and stationed them all around the room and outside on the large deck beyond.
“Carly, darling, you did an amazing job,” Emily said. She hugged her close.
“Truly, it’s fantastic,” Jimmy agreed, also giving her a quick hug.
“Thank you,” she said. She didn’t say it out loud, because she didn’t want to be braggy, but she totally agreed with them. This felt like it was her finest hour and not just because the party looked awesome and she had a new job and some hot man candy on her arm either.
&nbs
p; “It’s beautiful,” James said. Then he leaned close and whispered, “But not nearly as spectacular as you.”
That right there. That’s what he did to her, making her heart stutter and her face get hot. She was pretty sure a girl could get addicted to that sort of singular attention.
“You know, it would be a lovely place to hold a wedding,” Emily said. James gave his mother a look and she shrugged. “What? It is.”
“And your mother is always right about these things,” Jimmy said. He leaned in to kiss his wife.
“Uh-oh, here they go again,” James said, but he was smiling when he said it.
Carly smiled at the couple. Emily was in a purple velvet wraparound gown that hugged every line of her curvy figure, while Jimmy was in a tuxedo, much like James. Carly could see Emily in James’s eyes and chin, but he definitely had Jimmy’s broad shoulders and lopsided smile.
“Come on, let’s go check out the sunset,” James said. He ushered Carly outside.
Carly shivered in her dress and regretted that she hadn’t thought to bring a wrap. James put his arm around her waist and pulled her close to his side as they stepped through the open French doors to enjoy the view. His warmth pushed away the evening’s chill and Carly realized that this was another perk of a boyfriend. They were always there to keep a gal warm.
The deck overlooked the ocean, and they watched as the fiery orange globe that was the sun slipped behind the horizon line, sending the last of its rays up into the clouds, painting them in luscious shades of pink and orange. It was a breathtaking sunset, the sort that felt like a gift.
“It’s stunning, isn’t it?” Carly asked.
“Yes,” James said.
She turned to find his gaze on her face and she smiled.
“I was talking about the sunset.”
“Oh, I was talking about you.”
Then he kissed her.
“And they’re at it again,” Tom said to Lola as they joined them. “I swear they’re as bad as your parents.”
“That’s nothing. You should have heard them last night,” Lola said. “They were above me in the lighthouse and still all I heard all night was—”
“Lorelei.” James’s voice held a note of warning.
“Yes, brother dearest?” she asked, arching her diamond-studded eyebrow.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
Lola’s eyes widened in surprise. She turned to Tom as if to see if he’d heard James, too, and then Carly.
“I don’t think Jamie has ever complimented me before. You are a wonderful influence on him,” she said to Carly.
“Love will do that for a guy,” Tom said.
Carly felt her heart pound triple time in her chest. The “L” word! Now? She was barely used to having a boyfriend, never mind having the “L” word tossed about as casually as a Frisbee. She was afraid to look at James for fear she’d see the same discomfort on his face that she was feeling.
Instead, he shocked her by saying, “You must be right, Tom. Now excuse us while I go trot my girl around the dance floor. I want to show her off.”
“If you weren’t so disgustingly perfect together, I swear I’d throw up,” Lola said. “Now go away but look for me at dinner. We’re sitting together.”
“Shouldn’t we be mingling, wishing Pops a happy birthday, or at least pretending to socialize?” Carly asked.
“We will,” he said. “But first, I just need you in my arms for a minute.”
They slipped onto the dance floor amidst a few other couples. James held one of her hands in his and put the other on her hip. While they stepped carefully around the floor, he studied her face. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her. Did he see a woman who was falling in love with him? Is that why he didn’t say anything about what Tom said? Was she that obvious?
Because, yeah, she could pretend it was just infatuation, but the truth was she’d never had anyone make her feel like James did, like she was something lovely and precious, a person worthy of being cherished. It was intoxicating and she realized she never wanted to sober up.
Chapter 30
Carly had just found her rhythm with James, who did not like to step out of his comfortable box step, when they were interrupted by Pops.
“Birthday boy privilege,” he said. He held up his hand to stop James’s protest.
James shrugged at Carly and handed her over to Pops.
“I have my eye on you,” James said. He used two fingers to point to his eyes and then at Pops. “Do not try to steal my girl.”
Pops laughed. “If I manage to steal her then she wasn’t really yours to begin with, now was she?”
With that, he waltzed Carly away from James in a snappy swing step that brought them out to the middle of the floor. Pops kept his hand in the middle of her back, very proper, while Carly kept hers on his shoulder. Although he was a bit stooped now with age, Carly could tell that in his heyday, Pops had had the same broad shoulders as his son and grandson.
When he glanced down at her, he smiled and like most of the Sinclair men, his smile was just a bit higher on one side, giving them all a rakish charm.
“Will you promise me something?”
“Sure,” she agreed without hesitation.
“Make him chase you,” Pops said.
“Okaaaay.”
“You haven’t been, have you?” He gave her a friendly scolding look.
Carly smiled. “Probably not as much as I should.”
“That’s what I figured,” he said. He grinned at her. “That’s why I cut in. Don’t want the boy to get too comfortable.”
“Is that what your wife did to you?” she asked. “Make you chase her so you wouldn’t get too comfortable?”
Pops nodded. “We were married for fifty-six years, and I spent fifty-five of those chasing that woman. The only time she gave me a break was the last year when she was too sick to run.”
There was a sheen in his eyes and Carly felt a lump form in her throat and she squeezed his hand in a show of empathy. Pops squeezed her hand back and they exchanged a look of complete understanding.
“I love all of my grandkids,” Pops said. “But James, well, he’s something special. He always was. He never let another kid be without a friend, he always had some scraggly critter or another he was trying to save, and when my Ginny was dying, he never went a day without checking on her. He’d spend hours reading her favorite books to her, which was pretty funny because she did love the steamy romances. He even read the racy parts, twice if she asked him to.”
A tear leaked out of Pops’s eye, and Carly felt her own eyes water up.
“Now don’t cry,” Pops said. “I don’t want him to think I’m saying mean things to you.”
Carly snorted as she tried to push back the tears, which made Pops laugh.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now I’m going to spin you, so he can see how slick my dance moves are. We need to make him worry that he’s got some competition so he doesn’t get lazy.”
Carly glanced over to the edge of the dance floor where James was standing beside his cousin Tom. Tom was talking and James was nodding, but his eyes were trained on Carly and Pops.
“He’s not looking lazy now,” she said.
“And he won’t be for the remainder of the evening,” Pops said. He waggled his bushy gray eyebrows at her and Carly narrowed her eyes at him.
“What are you up to?” she asked.
“Me?” Pops blinked at her. He was the very picture of innocence. “Not a thing.”
He spun her right into Jimmy’s arms, who shared a grin and a look of understanding with his father before he whisked Carly away.
And so it continued for the next several songs, as Carly was passed from father to uncle to cousin to cousin to uncle to friend of the family and lastly to cousin Tom, until dinner wa
s announced.
During the course of the dances, Carly learned that James had been a champion skier until he fractured his leg, he was a straight-A student and graduated top of his class—except for art, apparently he couldn’t draw to save his life—his favorite dessert was brownies, he once backpacked from Maine to Florida all by himself, he loved motorcycles, and when he was a little boy, he had a plush golden retriever stuffie that he took everywhere with him and it was named Woof.
When Tom spun Carly into James’s waiting arms, she was numb from the knee down but felt as if she now knew the man standing before her better than she knew even her closest male friends.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi back,” he said. “I missed you, sunshine.”
She grinned. “I think that was Pops’s plan.”
James cast his grandfather a mock dark look but Pops was busy checking out his four-tier whoopie pie cake, which Carly had spent most of the afternoon putting together, and wasn’t paying them any attention. Carly laughed when Pops tried to stick his finger into the thick white filling of one of the pies but Emily snatched his hand away before he could connect.
“I like your family,” Carly said. She smiled up at James and he hugged her close.
“I’m glad,” he said. He put his arm around her waist and led her to the table where Lola was waiting with Tom and the other cousins who Carly suspected were favorites.
Dinner was all of Pops’s favorite dishes, which meant lobster and steak with hardly a vegetable in sight. One of the cousins who was vegan looked grumpily at her salad as she eyed the lobster tail on the plate next to her.
“I swear Pops is trying to crack my resolve,” she said.
“Mine, too,” James whispered in Carly’s ear.
She glanced at him and smiled.
“He loves you very much,” she said. “He told me so.”
“I love him, too,” James said. “Both he and Gram were always in my corner, you know? When I couldn’t talk to my parents about what was happening in my life, I could always talk to them.”
“Pops told me how good you were to your Gram when she was ill,” Carly said. She put her hand on his arm. “He said you were very kind, especially about reading her favorite books to her.”
Barking Up the Wrong Tree Page 28
