by Susan Meier
“I’ll be putty in her hands.”
“Yeah, you will.”
He laughed and ran his hand down her back, confusing her again. When was he going to make a smart remark, bite her, or do anything silly to get rid of all this emotion?
They talked for another minute, until her drowsy limbs relaxed and her eyelids began to droop. She felt sleep claiming her but couldn’t muster the strength to remind him he should leave, and she drifted off in his arms.
When she woke, sunlight poured into the guestroom window and he was gone. She snuggled into his pillow. It was still warm. His whole side of the bed was still warm.
He’d slept with her again.
And this time she sensed it was because he’d wanted to.
He might have left early enough that he could sneak through the bushes to his SUV so no one would see him, but he’d wanted to sleep with her.
Without warning, her heart tumbled over the edge. He was sweet and kind, and such a good person that it would take a woman of a lot more conviction than hers not to fall in love.
So she fell. She felt the tremble in her heart and the smile that came to her soul. And she let herself. Not because she was a fool. But because the night before he’d been so different. She might not be the most experienced woman in the world, but Devon hadn’t just proved he could love without reserve, but he’d also shown he was falling in love with her, too.
The only question was, when, if ever, would he admit it?
Chapter Fifteen
Devon didn’t even bother sneaking into the house. He knew his mother wasn’t there. She’d be at Bob’s for the rest of her life now. For some reason or another, this morning, he totally understood.
He hit the codes for the alarm by the front door, carrying his tie and jacket. But when the door opened, there stood Finn in the hall-ish place beside the kitchen but not quite in the sterile living room.
“I came by to get Mom to come down with me to see the baby, and look who I run into doing a second walk of shame.”
“Shut up, Finn.”
“Seriously, dude. Just admit you have someone. Bring her around to see the baby. Take her to Mom’s wedding.”
The thought stopped him cold. Here he was finally experiencing the freedom of not being the family protector, and his brother wanted him to bring a date to his mother’s wedding? In a sense, that would be like jumping from one frying pan into another. After years and years of taking care of his family, even considering the responsibilities of really dating Isabelle—the responsibilities of a real relationship—had his head reeling and sent his stomach plummeting.
He couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t do it. He’d never done it, because for a man whose life had been nothing but responsibility, it was just one thing too much.
“You want me to bring a date so you can tease the living hell out of her?”
“Why? Is she ugly? Is there a wart on her nose?”
“No. But you’d have a field day with her. Rub it in that I don’t do relationships.”
Finn slid his fingers across his chin. “Hum… Who in Harmony Hills would have dirty, crazy monkey sex with you with no strings attached? Who’s that desperate?”
Righteous indignation for Isabelle shot through Devon, but he gave Finn a pass because he knew he was a jumble of emotion with the baby arriving a week early. God only knew if he’d slept the night before.
“She’s not desperate. And I’m not bringing her around for you to harass. Go see your baby.”
Finn headed for the door. “All right. But this isn’t over. Teasing you is too much fun. And you’ve got to realize that. One of these days somebody’s bound to see your car in the wrong place and it’s going to be all over but the crying.”
Devon’s blood ran cold. He hated that Isabelle would be teased because she had the bad fortune of getting involved with him. He couldn’t imagine putting her through the shame of that.
He ran upstairs, showered, and put on clean clothes, trying not to think about the day somebody would discover he and Isabelle were having an affair.
Jogging down the back stairs, the quiet, echoing house gave him that strange sense of being alone again, and that was just plain crazy. He was finally free to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. He should be making the best of it. Not worrying about stupid things like an echoing house.
When Isabelle didn’t come to work, the thought crept into his head that she’d stayed away because someone had figured out they were sleeping together and had confronted her. He about went nuts from anger.
But when he called her at noon, she said, “It’s Saturday. We didn’t change my schedule, did we?”
“No. No.” Finn had really rattled him. So he said, “Are we on for tonight?”
He could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “I’m cooking.”
He leaned back in his chair. This was what being free was all about. He had a woman he liked, who liked him, and all he had to do was make sure their relationship never went public so she would be safe from teasing. His life finally had become good.
“Oh, yeah? What are you making?”
“What do you like?”
“Cheese. Anything with cheese.”
“Oh, so I could order a pizza and you’d be happy.”
“I’m not that fussy about food.”
“Lucky for me, then, that I’m not a world-class chef.”
“You’re world-class at other things.”
She laughed.
He glanced out the window at the empty pool, and the desire to just relax seeped into his bones. He suddenly, desperately, felt like running free. Doing crazy things. “So that’s what you’re doing tonight. What are you doing today?”
“Laundry.”
“Want to come to my house and swim?”
“Aren’t you worried about your family popping by?”
“I have a feeling everyone will be busy with the baby today. Besides, we can always say I invited you to use the pool anytime you wanted, since you work for us.”
“It is going to be a hot day.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice to swim and relax in the sun?”
“Yeah, it would.”
“So throw your bikini in a little bag and come over.”
She said, “Okay,” and Devon disconnected the call extremely happy. No one would question her using the family pool, since she was an employee. But also, no one would question her car in his driveway. She worked for him. No one would question her being in this house. Her office was in this house.
If he really wanted to protect her, and he did, he had just found their perfect cover.
Stay away from town and use this empty house.
Smiling, Isabelle hung up the phone. It was really, really nice to be invited to swim. But after her thoughts the night before, she struggled to keep herself from believing the invitation meant something more.
She put on her bikini, a black lace cover-up, and a big straw hat to protect her fair skin, then packed clean clothes to come home in. The second she walked into the house, Devon grabbed her arm.
Wearing navy blue swimming trunks and no shirt, he took her breath away. But not wanting to look like a bumpkin, she just smiled at him.
“I scattered papers on both of our desks so it will look like we were working and decided to swim because it’s hot.”
“How are you going to explain the fact that I had a bathing suit here at the office?”
“We’ll say I told you to bring one to swim, since it is Saturday and we’re working.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. “You think of everything.”
“Yeah, I do. But it’s hot and nobody ever goes in that damned pool, so let’s take this outside.”
She tossed her purse into the office and it landed on her desk. “Couldn’t agree more.”
She followed him out the back door. He immediately jumped into the crystal blue water. She had to kick off her flip-flops, slide out of the cover-up, and Frisbee the big
hat to a chaise.
“Wow.”
She faced him. “What?”
“You really do have a bikini.”
“Most women do.” She walked over to the pool, dipped a toe in. “You’ve got to get out more.”
“I was thinking the same thing this morning.”
With one toe comfortable, she lowered herself to the side of the pool and let both feet dangle in the water. “Really?”
“Yeah. I was thinking that maybe instead of you cooking tonight, we could drive to Pittsburgh and get something to eat.”
Her heart stuttered. “We’d go out?”
“I think it would be fun.”
She thought it would be remarkable, and had to work to hide her shock.
“The chances of us running into somebody we know are slim.”
“True.” Though that added thought had come out of left field, she wasn’t insulted. This was a man who believed he didn’t want a relationship, dipping his toe into the relationship pool, so to speak. He wouldn’t jump. His journey would be one toe at a time.
“Are you coming in?”
“My skin has to get—”
Before she could finish her sentence, he grabbed her waist and tossed her into the water. She came up sputtering and spitting.
“Oh, you are toast.”
“Right. You’re five-four and weigh a hundred-twenty pounds on a fat day. What are you going to do?”
She dove beneath the water and wrapped her hand around his ankle and tipped him off balance. Because of the element of surprise, he flailed a bit, but couldn’t keep himself upright. He dunked.
She laughed. But he retaliated. They spent twenty minutes playing like two kids. Then they got out of the pool and fell asleep in the sun.
No one came to the house. LuAnn called once asking if Devon was coming down to see the baby, but he said they were working and he’d be down on Sunday. They went back to sleep and didn’t stir until it was time to dress to go out to dinner.
They showered in his massive master bathroom and dressed in the huge bedroom with a reading area by a bay window and a bed big enough for a refugee camp.
“Your decorator did a great job on this room.”
“Yeah, she did.” He glanced around. “But it’s kind of sterile.”
“What do you want? A bunch of teddy bears and maybe an afghan to make it feel warm and fuzzy?”
“I think I’d like a smaller bed, like that little queen we sleep in at your parents’.”
She smiled, thinking how that bed did inspire a certain closeness that caused them to curl together. But she didn’t make too much of that either. He really was dipping his toe into the pool, and she wasn’t going to risk saying the wrong thing and ruining his progress.
But she also went along with every change he made, as he began to make them.
Instead of going to her parents’ house, they played in his bedroom every night. Even ate pizza on top of the enormous California king bed.
She drove to his house before having breakfast every morning, so they could eat together. A few times Cade and Finn had stopped in. Isabelle served them coffee and joined in the conversations when the discussion turned to the projects she’d been assigned. Neither one of them even blinked at her familiarity with the coffeepot, the refrigerator, and the stove.
Every day at two, she and Devon swam. Everything in their life was just about perfect.
Then two days before his mother’s wedding, LuAnn came home, looking for Isabelle to talk about the wedding. She wasn’t in the slightest surprised or put off to see Isabelle swimming while Devon sat on a chaise taking a conference call.
“It’s too hard to sit in that office all day staring at the pool when the sun is out,” Devon said casually as he hung up the phone.
Wearing sunglasses and capris, LuAnn sat on the chaise beside his. “I think it’s great that this beautiful patio is getting some use.” She leaned forward. “No need to come out of the water on my account, Izzy. I’ll just relax in the sun until you’re done swimming.”
When LuAnn closed her eyes, Devon shot Isabelle a smirk. She shook her head. All right. So the employee thing did work as a cover. He still shouldn’t gloat.
She dove under the water a few more times, then got out to meet with LuAnn.
Drying herself, she said, “So what’s up?”
LuAnn sighed. “Just bridal nerves I guess. The wedding’s on Saturday and I keep thinking we forgot something.”
Isabelle slid into her cover-up. “Lucky for you, I kept lists.”
“You did?”
“That’s what wedding planners are for. Give me two minutes to get them out of the drawer in my office.”
She walked into the freezing cold central air of the big house, grabbed her wedding folders, and went outside to go over every detail of LuAnn’s big day with her.
When she was done, LuAnn sighed with relief. “Everything’s covered.”
“I left no M&M’s dish unturned.”
“Bob loves M&M’s.”
“I know. You told me. That’s why I decided there should be a bowl on every table.”
Laughing, LuAnn rose. “What would we do without you, Izzy?”
“You still would have had a beautiful wedding. You just would have had more headaches.”
LuAnn turned in the direction of the side of the house with the driveway, but stopped suddenly. “You know, Devon, whatever we’re paying Izzy, it’s not enough. We need to give her a raise.”
Devon said, “Couldn’t agree more,” before he dove into the pool, clearly not bothered by what his mother had said.
But as LuAnn walked away and Devon swam like a dolphin in the huge blue pool, Isabelle looked from one to the other, feeling strange. Though she’d believed all these new rules of Devon’s, as well as the meetings and breakfasts with his family, were drawing her into his family as more than an employee—basically being steps for him to at some point put his arm around her and say, “This is the woman I’ve been seeing,”—today’s little episode with his mom had solidly put her in the employee-only category again.
She batted her hand, telling herself it was her imagination. Or maybe nerves. Every time his family was around, she anticipated Devon making “the move.” Yet Devon never made it.
She reminded herself he was still in the toe-dipping process.
Plus, the wedding was Saturday.
That was the more appropriate time for him to ask her to dance or hold her hand…
Actually, LuAnn’s wedding was the perfect time for him to subtly or not-so-subtly announce they were a couple. Any gesture he made at the ceremony or reception would simply blend into the romance of the event. People would see it, but no one would make a big deal out of it. Everything would just slide into place.
She had to be patient.
Chapter Sixteen
Standing in the back of the church at five o’clock on Saturday afternoon, Devon yanked the collar of his white shirt away from his throat, wondering where the hell Isabelle was.
“We’re paying for central air for this church.”
Finn and Cade simultaneously said, “Agreed.”
All three of them wore black tuxes, white shirts, and pink ascots, similar to Bob’s. Devon knew his mom’s dress was pink. Piper and Ellie’s dresses were ivory. Sadly, he’d overheard that in the jibber jabber in the office right outside his door. What he didn’t know was where everybody was.
He looked at his watch. “What time is the limo picking Mom and the girls up at the house?”
“Ten minutes ago.” Finn winced. “Ellie had everything under control with breast feeding and pumping and”—he shook his head—“don’t even ask about the other things. But she’s on schedule. So they’re not late. For all we know they’re already in the front of the church.”
“Waiting for you,” Cade said and gave Devon a shove toward the door. “You’re not a groomsman. You’re the one walking Mom down the aisle. Go check things out.”
He didn’t want to be in the front of the church with a whole gaggle of chatting Harmony Hills residents if his mom wasn’t there. But given that the front of the church really was where he was supposed to be, he couldn’t hide out in the back forever.
He walked down the short aisle of the small, non-denominational church his mom and Bob had been attending. When he got to the vestibule, the limo carrying his two sisters-in-law and mom pulled up.
Ellie and Piper got out, then his mother, looking young and beautiful in her pink dress. When she stepped into the vestibule, he took her hands. “You look beautiful.”
“I feel beautiful.”
She smiled, reminding him of Isabelle, the night he’d told her she was gorgeous.
Thinking of her reminded him of flowers, and he glanced around. “Where are the boutonnieres?”
“Right here!”
The frazzled fifty-something woman Piper had hired to manage Buds and Blossoms raced into the church with the huge box. Her brown hair had been tied into some sort of knot thing on her head. The dress she wore was a size too small. But the bouquets and boutonnieres were perfect.
She handed the smaller bouquets to his sisters-in-law who thanked her and gave the big bouquet of multi-colored flowers to his mom. But when she went to pin on his boutonniere, she stabbed him.
“Ouch!”
“Let me.” Isabelle’s voice came from behind Buds and Blossoms’ new manager.
The manager said, “Sure,” and stepped out of the way.
And there stood Isabelle in an icy blue dress that slid over her curves like cool water and dipped low enough in the front to showcase her perfect cleavage. Her hair had been pushed to one side and adorned with a flower. Sparkling silver earrings set everything off.
“You look amazing.”
She smiled. “Thanks, boss.”
The reminder that he was her boss should have made him choke with stupidity. But he couldn’t stop staring at her. Not just because she was gorgeous but because the last time she’d pinned his boutonniere for Cade’s wedding, she’d been so different. Now she was a sleek, sophisticated woman who helped him manage his family’s fortune. She kept his secrets. She made him happy.
