“Hi, yourself.” He started to shrug out of the jacket. He had a tall, lean body, defined in all the right places. His muscles rippled under the pressed cotton of his shirt, and she wondered what he’d look like bare-chested. She’d seen him in a T-shirt and shorts and that had been a delicious sight that had lingered in her mind. What would he look like, wet from the shower? Fresh out of bed in the morning? In the dark of night, slipping under the sheets?
Damn. Why did this man affect her so?
“Uh, you might want to keep that on,” she said, putting up a hand to stop him. “I have another delivery tonight. I forgot to tell you earlier. If you don’t mind helping me, there’ll be a free dinner in it for you.”
“A free dinner? One that doesn’t come out of a microwave or a drive-through? Who can turn down that offer?” He grinned, then entered the kitchen.
Her stomach flipped, her heart tripped, and she knew why her thoughts lingered on him whenever they were apart. That smile. And those eyes. And everything else about him. In that second, she decided she’d take the risk, open her heart.
“Hello, Mrs. Spencer,” he said to Kate’s grandmother.
“Why hello, Dr. McKenna. So nice to see you again.”
“You, too, ma’am.”
“Why, would you look at the time?” Nora said. She took off her apron, and laid it beside the piping bag. “I completely forgot I promised your grandfather I’d go out with him for the early birds dinner special tonight. I better go.” She shrugged into her coat. “You two can handle this alone, can’t you?”
She laid a slight emphasis on the word “alone” and gave her granddaughter a knowing smile. Behind Brody’s back, she drew a heart in the air and pointed at Kate. “Oh, and, Brody,” Nora said, “I’d love to have you over for Wednesday night dinner at our house next week.”
“I’d be honored, Mrs. Spencer. Thank you.”
“Good. I’ll see you at six. Kate knows the address.” She gave her granddaughter a smile. “Maybe she’ll even drive you.”
Kate had no doubt her grandmother would drive over and pick up Brody herself if her granddaughter didn’t. Matchmaker Nora at work again. Andrew had had some of those tendencies himself, always telling Kate he’d keep an eye out for the perfect man for his amazing sister.
“Do you need me to bring anything?” Brody asked.
“Aren’t you sweet? No, nothing at all. Just bring yourself.” Nora shot Kate another smile of approval for Brody. He’d racked up several brownie points and had clearly moved to the top of Nora’s list. “That’ll be enough.”
Nora headed out the door. Kate wished the floor would open up and swallow her but it didn’t. Or a customer would come in and save her from the awkward silence. None did. Or the sky would fall and create a distraction—
None of that happened. Instead, the room became a warm, tight space of just her. And Brody. Her gaze roamed over him. Desire pulsed in her veins. He wore a half smile, and in an odd way, that turned her on more than a full smile. She wanted to feel his hard chest beneath her palms, but most of all, she wanted to kiss him.
Why had he yet to make a move in that direction? Brody didn’t strike her as the shy type. She had read attraction between them, she was sure of it. What was holding him back from pushing this further?
She watched him loading the finished cupcakes into boxes, and read tension in his shoulders, a distance in his words, his smile. She kept on talking, filling the room with endless chatter, if only to keep from asking the obvious question—
What’s wrong?
They worked together for several minutes, exchanging small talk about their days. The whole thing seemed so ordinary, smacking of a domestic life with Brody. She could imagine a future like this—her coming home from the shop, sitting across the dinner table from him, and talking about everything, and nothing at all. Like ordinary couples with ordinary lives.
Already, that told her that her heart had connected with him. A lot. She was falling for him. But the falling felt nice, like tumbling into a warm pool.
As much as she wanted to linger in that pool, she held back, because she sensed a reservation in Brody. Maybe he didn’t feel the same way. Maybe he did, as though it was moving too fast. Or maybe she had read him wrong. And she could be making the mistake of a lifetime.
“There, that’s the last one,” she said, sandwiching the last cupcake in the container. She closed the lid and handed it to Brody. He stacked them together, then gave her a grin.
“Another job done.”
“Yep.” Joanne would be back Saturday, and then her afternoons of working with Brody would come to an end. Already, she could see that finish line, and it saddened her. She’d gotten used to having him here.
“I’m sorry about my grandmother earlier,” Kate said, “but you don’t have to go to dinner if you don’t want.” Her roundabout way of saying if you aren’t interested in me, here’s your out.
“I’d love to go. Your grandmother didn’t bother me at all by asking me over. I think there’s something in a grandmother’s DNA that makes them bound and determined to matchmake,” Brody said. “When I saw mine a few days ago, she said the same thing. That I should bring you to the next family dinner, which in case I get in trouble for not inviting you, is at Mary McKenna’s house in Newton, on Sunday at two. She’s just a few blocks north of here.”
Kate laughed. “Seems like our grandmothers are determined to bring us together.”
“Mine heard glowing reports from Riley about how nice you were. And that got her wheels turning, thinking that you and I…” His voice trailed off.
“Yeah, my grandmother, too.” Kate let out a nervous laugh. She brushed at her hair. Damn. She was acting like a schoolgirl. Her face heated under Brody’s lingering gaze. She turned away to grab a spoon and moved too fast, unnerved by the tension, by the unanswered questions. Did he like her? Or not?
As she pivoted, her arm bumped the bowl, and sent it tumbling onto the floor. When it hit the concrete, the violet frosting in the bowl splattered upward, and outward, spreading in a burst of color on Brody’s shirt and his suit jacket. “Oh no! I’m sorry.”
“No problem. I’ve had worse on my shirt. Especially during flu season.” He slipped off the jacket, then, just like in her fantasy, he began to undo the buttons. Her heart skipped a beat, and nearly stopped when he peeled apart the panels of his shirt and revealed, a lean, muscled chest.
Oh. My. God. Kate opened her mouth. Closed it again. “Uh…I can get you a T-shirt. If you don’t mind one that says Nora’s Sweet Shop.”
“Better to wear the words than the actual sweets.” Brody grinned.
Kate spun away before she reached out and ran a hand down his chest. Or worse. Like threw him onto the stainless steel counter and ravaged his body. She grabbed a T-shirt from the glass case out front and brought it back with her. “At least this is brown, instead of pink like the aprons.”
“It’s almost manly. Thanks.”
“Anytime.” And anytime he wanted to take his shirt off in her presence, he could. But she didn’t say that, either.
He moved closer, standing inches away now, that broad chest so close she could feel the heat against her own skin. “Do you, uh, want to give it to me?”
Way to go, Kate, hold the man’s shirt hostage.
“Oh. Oh, yes. I’m sorry. I…got distracted.” She inhaled, and caught the woodsy scent of his cologne. Dark, mysterious, like wandering a forest in the middle of the
night.
“Distracted by what?”
“You.” There. The truth hung there, in plain sight. “You distract me, Brody McKenna.”
“I don’t mean to.” He reached up a hand and cupped her jaw. His hand was big, strong, yet gentle against her skin. “I keep telling myself not to do this, not to take things further, but then every time I leave here, all I do is think about you. And when I’m near you, all I can do is think about kissing you.”
“Really?” She swallowed. “But…”
“But what?”
“But…you haven’t.”
A smile curved across his face. Slow, sexy. “No, I haven’t. And maybe it’s time I remedied that.”
“Maybe it is.”
“Do you want me to kiss you, Kate?”
“Yes.” She exhaled. “Yes, I do.”
“Good.” He leaned in, winnowing the gap between them until a fraction of space separated them. Her pulse rumbled like thunder and a craving for Brody grew inside her until the world disappeared.
She watched the gold flecks dance in his eyes. Her heart stuttered, stopped, stuttered again.
“Ah, Kate…” he said, her name a harsh whisper, then he closed the space and kissed her.
His lips were hard against hers at first, a strong, wild kiss, like a sudden summer storm. His hands tangled in her hair, and he pulled her to him, tight against his chest. She curved into Brody, heat racing through her body, charging up her spine. Her hands worked against his back, feeling the ripple of the muscles she had fantasized about. The warm expanse of his skin, the hard places of his body. He plundered her mouth, his tongue dancing hot and furious with hers.
She couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Desire pounded a hard rhythm in her body, and for a long, long second she forgot where she was. She only knew Brody was kissing her and it was the sexiest, most exquisite experience of her life. She shifted against him, pressing her pelvis to his erection, wanting more, wanting—
Brody broke away. He cursed and spun toward the window. “I’m sorry, Kate. I shouldn’t have done that. I wasn’t thinking. I…”
She laid a hand on his bare shoulder and waited until he’d pivoted back to face her. “It’s okay, Brody. I wanted that as much as you did.”
“I know, but… I need to talk to you before we take this any further.”
The clock chimed the half hour. She cursed the timing. “Can it wait? We have to get going before we’re late. Already, with the traffic and set up time, we’re likely to barely make it there before the event starts.”
“Yeah, it can wait.” He drew the T-shirt over his head, and she bit back a sigh of disappointment. “A little while, but not too long, okay?”
“Sounds serious.” She grinned. “You’re not giving me a fatal diagnosis, Doctor, are you?”
“No, no.” He fiddled with the stack of orders on the counter beside him. “Just something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“Okay.” She lifted the boxes of cupcakes, then placed them in his arms. Curiosity piqued inside her but she had to concentrate on work for now. Like he said, they’d talk later. “We’d better head out now or we’ll be late.”
“If you don’t mind, we can stop by my office. I keep an extra shirt and tie there, for accidents just like this.”
“Sure.” He helped her load the cupcakes into the van, repeating what they had done two nights before, with her driving, him sitting in the passenger’s seat. They drove the few blocks to his office, and Kate waited in the van while he went inside and traded the T-shirt for a clean shirt and suit jacket. When he returned, she put the van in gear.
Brody glanced over at her. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She smoothed a hand over the black jersey fabric of the sweetheart neckline dress she’d chosen. “This is a special event.”
“Big one for Nora’s Sweet Shop?”
“You could say that.” She paused. “Really, it’s a big one for me.”
“Sounds important.”
“It is. It’s a way of thanking the people who have been there for me when I needed them.” She glanced over at him. “It’s a thank you for the troops.”
He tensed beside her. Whatever he’d been holding back seemed to be bubbling under the surface. Why?
“Is something bothering you?” she asked.
He glanced out the window, as they headed out of Newton and into the city, against the flow of outgoing traffic. Horns honked. Lights flashed. But Kate’s attention stayed on Brody.
“Yes and no,” he said after a while.
“You want to talk about it?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, so long she thought he hadn’t heard the question. Finally, he let out a breath. “I’ve been wrestling with something for some time now and I know I need to talk about it, but…” he shook his head, “doing so is a lot harder than I expected.” He paused again, and she waited for him to continue. “The last medical mission trip I took was really difficult. I lost a patient, and it’s been haunting me.”
“Oh, Brody, I’m sorry.”
“I made a promise to the patient, one I’m not so sure I can keep anymore. He didn’t want me to say what happened to him. He just wanted me to encourage someone very close to him to focus on the future, not on what happened in the past, and I just don’t know if that’s the right thing to do.” Brody hesitated again and then looked at her. “If it were you, what would you want?”
She thought about her answer. “I don’t know. A part of me feels like I’ve just started moving forward, and knowing more, or going back there would be like the day I found out. I just…don’t want to go there again. I’m just getting out of that cement, you know?”
“So you’re saying it would be better not to know?”
“For me, for now…that’s what I’d want. Maybe down the road, it would be easier.”
“Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep that in mind.” He turned to the window, and watched the world go by, a clear sign the subject was closed.
The sun had started to set, casting a golden lake over the rippling green waters of Boston Harbor, and twinkling halos over every skyscraper.
“The city is amazing, isn’t it?” Kate said. “Every winter, I say I want to move and open up a location in Florida or Hawaii, or any place that doesn’t get snow. But there’s just something about Boston, something…magical, that I love. No matter where I go, my heart will always be here.”
“I feel the same way. I’ve traveled all over the country, seen a lot of the world, and there’s still nothing like Boston. I love it here, for all its faults…and traffic.”
Kate laughed. “Yeah, the traffic is one thing I can do without. My grandparents don’t mind it. They say it gives them extra alone time in the car. They’re old romantics that way.”
“They sound it.” Brody glanced out the window, watching the city go by in a blur of buildings. “I guess everyone hopes to find a true love like that, the kind that can last a lifetime. I know my grandparents were like that. My parents, not so much. They fought all the time. Then they’d make up, and it’d be fiery in a different way. I think they were two opposite souls, who just couldn’t let go of each other.”
“Sometimes the fireworks are good.” Though for her parents, attraction hadn’t been enough to sustain their marriage. They’d been too different to make it work, too infatuated to slow down and think before they tied the knot.
Still, fireworks
summed up what had been going on inside her ever since she’d met Brody. And every time he smiled at her. Or touched her. And, oh, yes, when he kissed her.
Fireworks. Bottle rockets—no, Roman candles—of desire, launching in her chest. Fireworks alone didn’t create a relationship, and she needed to remember that.
Brody had turned his attention on her, and it took all her effort to keep her eyes on the road and not on him. “Is that what you’re looking for? The fireworks and happiness, even in a traffic jam?”
She sighed. “I gave up on that a long time ago. My parents were like yours. All fireworks, no substance. I guess watching their marriage disintegrate made me lose faith in ever finding Mr. Right.”
“And who is your Mr. Right?”
“Why, are you applying for the job?” She cast him a grin, pretending the question was a joke. But after that kiss, a part of her hoped like hell the answer was yes.
“Can’t do that if I don’t know the qualifications.” He grinned. “I could be all wrong for you.”
“Could be.” Or he could be all right. She didn’t know yet, but a part of her really wanted to find out. “I guess my brother is the one I hold up as the ideal for all the men I meet. Andrew was smart, and funny, and driven, and above all, a hero. The kind of man who was true to those he loved, loyal to everyone he knew, and braver than anyone in the world. You could count on him to be honest, to be the one you depended on, rather than him depending on you.”
“He sounds like the perfect guy.”
She laughed. “Oh, he was far from perfect, believe me. There was a time when we were little, like nine and seven. He and I were fighting over a toy, and he slugged me, hard. My eye swelled up, my cheek turned purple, and he felt so bad, he carried me to my grandmother, and stood over me for hours, changing out the ice pack and worrying like a new mother. He got in a lot of trouble that day, and for years, would tell me how bad he felt about it. I, of course, being the evil older sister, milked that injury for all I could.”
Return of the Last McKenna (Harlequin Romance) Page 13
