Unravel Me

by Christie Ridgway

  Until Dean Long had looked at her. Especially after Dean Long had touched her.

  There had to be an explanation, she thought, rubbing her knee and surprised to find he hadn’t burned a hole clear through the fragile mesh. So far, she was betting on that mystery factor. He’d gone out of his way to be all he-man inscrutability. Getting to the bottom of him would surely end her overblown interest.

  She propped an elbow on the breakfast bar and sent him her most winning smile. “So why don’t you tell me every little thing about you?”

  “I’m the strong and silent type.”

  Okay, so she wasn’t all that practiced at winning smiles, but did he have to be so uncooperative? Curbing her normal impatience, she only jiggled one foot while trying to look sweet—even with her teeth clenched. “Well, let’s start with your birth date. Or gee, if you find that’s just too personal, how about your astrological sign?”

  “Who’s trying to pick up whom now?”

  She snorted. Whoops, there went sweet. “Just give me the info, damn it.”

  Leaning into the back of the stool, he crossed his arms over his chest and grinned at her. “Now that’s more like it. No point in faking the sugar when vinegar looks so good on you, angel.”

  “Why won’t you just answer my questions?”

  “Because you look so cute when you fume.”

  Beyond annoyed, she launched out of her stool. Maybe he thought she was going to get violent, because suddenly he stood, too, and his big hands curled around her wrists. “Don’t hurt me,” he said, grinning again.

  His fingers were bands of heat and that warmth was shooting up her bare arms, leaving prickly goose bumps in their wake. Instead of struggling to be free, she went still. “Maybe,” she heard herself say, her voice quiet, “that should be my line.”

  Alarm bells sounded in her head. No, no! The words sounded female and weak and it was as if he’d already managed to rub away her sharp edges and evaporate the acid from her tongue. With a yank of her hands, she tried pulling free of him, but he ignored her struggles and jerked her closer.

  White satin bodice met white cotton T-shirt. She was aware of the little silver teardrop she carried with her always, now tucked between her breasts, but she was even more aware of Dean’s heartbeat. It thumped, steady and strong, against the double-time that was her own.

  He smelled like laundry soap and then, as his mouth descended, she caught the scent of cinnamon. And then she tasted the red-hot flavor as his breath brushed against her lips. “Shall we try this, Marlys?”

  No!

  Yes.

  Certainly not.

  Please now.

  Never in a million years would she admit it, but she didn’t have the voice to utter a single one of her conflicting responses. So she threw each to the wind and answered in the only way left to her. Marlys-the-Brash went on tiptoe to close the gap between them.

  His kiss burned, too. She opened her mouth to cool the flames and his tongue took up the invitation. He stroked inside her mouth, strong and sure. Oh. Oh, wow.

  To bolster her sagging knees, she pressed against his chest even as her head dropped on her neck, letting him take what he wanted.

  He didn’t take enough. With a small groan, he lifted his head to press a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth, her nose, her chin. “I’m thirty years old. Aries. April second.”

  “Stubborn,” she said.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” He dove in for another wet, deep kiss that had her clutching at his shirt. His hands slid over her back and then down, to tilt her hips into his. She went on tiptoe again to make the fit more gratifying. “I wasn’t planning on telling you anything,” he said.

  She managed a laugh, even though with every unsteady breath, her breasts rubbed against his shirt. “I meant your astrological sign. The goat.”

  “It’s not a goat.” He looked offended. “It’s a ram.”

  “That’s a kind of truck. Your sign’s a goat. As in old goat. Or Billy Goat Gruff or—”

  “Ram,” he said again, with heat, and then caught on. With another groan, he shook his head and then snatched the halo from her hair and sailed it toward the living room couch. “Brat, not angel. I was right the first time we met.”

  It gave her a moment to rearrange her sagging armor. She mentally pulled it up around herself, and then scooted back so that her butt met stool again. Dean’s arms dropped, and she discovered she didn’t like the chill that distance afforded.

  He didn’t look happy either. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

  The skinny satin strap of her costume dropped, but before she could draw it back, he ran his forefinger along the newly naked spot of her skin. “Are you, Marlys?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Uh-huh.” He shook his head again. “You big on denial, angel? Because we’ve got some crazy-ass chemistry going on here, and I, for one, am all for exploring it.”

  Well, Marlys wanted to explain it. “I don’t . . . I’m not . . .” While no fainting virgin, she didn’t know how to deliver the message that Marlys Weston didn’t fall into strangers’ arms. She didn’t casually sleep around or even have a congenial fuck buddy on speed dial.

  She didn’t like men that much.

  Or women, either, for that matter.

  Marlys Weston took no prisoners and not lovers very often. Her last best friend had been lost to her in seventh grade, and there hadn’t been anyone to fill the gap since. So how could this man so quickly get under her skin? There had to be a logical answer.

  “Let’s start over again, Mr. Aries. So you have an April second birth date. Where exactly are you from?”

  He hesitated, sliding back into his own stool. Was he playing obstinate man of mystery again? But no, he didn’t look cagey, he looked . . . confused?

  Or unable to answer.

  With new eyes, she took in his muscled physique and the close haircut, and then remembered that moment when he’d gone from asleep to alert. Like her father. Like a soldier.

  “You grew up military, too,” she said. Military kids couldn’t name a hometown because they’d never had one. Two years here, three years there, they moved from place to place, base to base. “Army then, army now?” she hazarded a guess, and then thought, duh, he was a friend of Noah’s. That crazy-ass chemistry had scrambled her normal deductive skills.

  He nodded, a little smile quirking his lips.

  Yeah. That crazy-ass chemistry all made sense now, she decided. It must be because Dean was part of her tribe, the one and only group she’d ever belonged to. The one and only group that she’d felt completely comfortable in her skin around—until she’d been yanked from base life and had gone from soldier’s daughter to misfit civilian in one fell swoop.

  As another who’d grown up military, he was one of her own. Almost like family—she found she was staring at his mouth, so, okay, not like family. But that was all right. Because he was military that meant he knew the score, too. An organization of the brats had assigned themselves a flower, like governments did. The U.S. national flower was the rose. The state of California had the poppy.

  The military brats had adopted the dandelion.

  Like them, it was resilient. Like them, it knew how to move on.

  Which meant that she and Dean were alike and in their sameness they were safe. When—no, if—she decided to do something about this crazy-ass chemistry, they could go ahead and enjoy the experiment until the inevitable wind blew off its blossom . . . or blew out its flames.

  Nikki bumped her elbow into Juliet’s ribs and gestured toward the costumed crowd gathered on the restaurant’s glass-screened deck overlooking the ocean. “What do you think it says about men when a disproportionate number of them came dressed for Halloween as kings?”

  “It could be a superiority complex, I suppose,” Juliet said, pitching her voice over the sound of the crashing surf and the rendition of “Monster Mash” from the band in t
he corner. “But my guess is a big basket of fake crowns right next to the checkout at the Rite Aid.”

  “Okay,” Nikki said, nodding. “Laziness over a supremacy wish. And it explains why Jay is here telling everyone he’s Don Ho when he’s really just dressed in his own pair of cargo shorts, flip-flops, and one of his collection of vintage Hawaiian shirts.”

  Juliet smiled as she spotted the man in question threading through the crowd and carrying drinks for the three of them. The deck was lit by the lights on the small patio tables and the tiki torches ringing it. “The ukulele is a cute touch. And the costume does kind of go with your most outstanding mermaid getup.”

  Nikki reached for the lemon drop martini Jay handed to her and ran her gaze over Juliet. “You’re looking good, too. I like the Shakespearean slant.”

  “Credit Cassandra’s creativity once again,” she said, running her hand down the long blue velvet robe the other woman had pulled out of her own closet. Underneath the half-open garment they’d paired a white peasant-style blouse and a long cotton petticoat. “It took her fifteen minutes and a glue gun to make the ‘Juliet’ cap.” In a darker shade of velvet, it hugged the crown of her head and was edged with colored “gems” as big as her thumbnail.

  And it had taken less than fifteen for Cassandra to convince Juliet to attend the Halloween event. After a few days of stewing over Noah, she’d realized she needed the distraction. A little fun.

  Nikki sipped at her drink and leaned closer so she didn’t have to yell over the music. “The only thing missing is Romeo.”

  Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou, Romeo?

  Juliet sighed. Recently, she’d only caught glimpses of her across-the-pool-neighbor—always accompanied by Dean. He’d nodded. She’d fluttered her fingers.

  They’d both looked away.

  After that last interlude in her kitchen—she was beginning to wonder if the location was bewitched—she’d gone to bed flustered. Okay, frustrated. Not to mention hurt. How could he touch her so intimately and then retreat with such speed and without so much as a word?

  But after a few hours of flopping back and forth on her mattress, she’d started to look at it from his point of view. Why would a man—handsome, intelligent, and used to a variety of women—want to get involved with a widow who carried enough baggage to weigh down both of them?

  Not to mention that she hadn’t spoken a word to him either. Before that kiss, after those touches, neither time had she assured him she was only contemplating a brief affair. Maybe if she’d been up-front: I just want your skin, your heat, your manness, no more—

  But thinking about that wasn’t distracting or fun, so she turned away from it all by turning to her sister’s fiancé. His gaze was trained on Nikki.

  “So,” she said. “How are things with you, Jay?”

  He started. “Huh?”

  “How are you?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, I was just congratulating myself on my choice of future wife.”

  Nikki rolled her eyes. “Right. You were congratulating yourself on my cleavage, Hef.”

  He grinned. “If you say you didn’t wear those starfish with just that in mind, then you lie, cookie.”

  Without bothering to hide her own shameless grin, Nikki shot a look at Juliet. “Can’t get much by him, I tell ya.”

  “Which reminds me,” Jay said. “I’ve been meaning to follow up on that conversation I started about your husband’s book.”

  “Jay . . .” Nikki groaned. “We’re at a party.”

  “Exactly. So if you try to murder me again, this time there’ll be plenty of witnesses.”

  Wayne’s book, Juliet thought. She’d yet to come up with any concrete plan to promote its success. “What do you want to know about it?”

  “I’m thinking of featuring the autobiography in NYFM’s online edition.”

  “NYFM?” Juliet’s interest sparked. Now she recalled that Jay was a magazine editor, but she hadn’t known it was that magazine. For men, mostly about men, the publication could bring to the book the kind of attention it deserved. “You work for NYFM?”

  “Yep,” he said. “So what do you think about your husband’s book? Does it capture the essence of the man?”

  She closed her eyes and breathed in, for a moment almost conjuring up the essence she remembered so well. She almost, almost, had it, the smell of starch on Wayne’s shirt mixed with the slightly caustic scent of his dry-cleaned dress uniform. Then it was gone, and she looked at Jay again, with a pang realizing how alone she still could feel, even at a party attended by more than a hundred people.

  “Juliet?” Jay prodded. “I wouldn’t take up much of your time.”

  Time wasn’t the issue at all. All she had now was time, unending, empty stretches of it, and she had to force that thought away as another sharp ache pierced her chest. “But why would you need me?” She must have missed something.

  “I said I want to do an interview with you.”

  “No,” Juliet said, her answer automatic. “Not a good idea.”

  “Have you read the book? Are you worried about what it reveals?”

  “I’ve read it. And I’m not worried about what it reveals at all.” She’d pored over every printed page. What Wayne had said about their romance—She was everything fresh and fine this jaded soldier had forgotten about the world—had torn new holes in her heart, but in the end it was only a very small part of Wayne’s story. The rest of the book had been devoted to his experiences in the Army and at war.

  “So why not?” Jay pressed.

  A knot of tension tightened at the back of her skull. Was she having fun yet? “General Matters is everything I want people to know about my husband, but I don’t think it’s wise to remind them of my connection to him.”

  Though she’d give anything for the book to be a sensation, giving an interview surely wasn’t the right way to make that happen. She made a face. “We’re both aware I’m not the public’s favorite person.”

  Jay frowned. “Yes, but I think—”

  “I think you need to take off your press pass.” Nikki placed her hand on her fiancé’s forearm and sent Juliet a look of exasperated sympathy. “Jay, now is not the time to discuss business-type things.”

  “But—”

  “No.” Nikki’s voice was firm. “Now is the time for entertaining things. Things like ogling guys. Juliet, behind you and to your left. Check out that dude dressed like Tom Cruise in Risky Business.”

  Grateful to drop the subject of the interview, Juliet glanced over her shoulder. “Oh,” she said. “Um.”

  “I know,” Nikki answered. “Kinda cute face, but those caveman legs would do better without tighty whities. Ankle-length boxers, maybe.”

  Jay grabbed Nikki’s empty glass from her hand and then Juliet’s. “We’re all going to need another round if we’re to survive the cookie’s critiques. I’ll be right back.”

  Nikki smiled at his retreating form and sidled closer. “Okay, now it’s just us again. So . . . how’s it going with Noah?”

  “Not.” Juliet admitted, without meeting her youngest sister’s gaze. “Not going.”

  The other woman shrugged. “Oh, well. As we mermaids say, there are plenty of fish in the sea.” She lifted her right hand and using the shield of its palm, pointed her left forefinger at a man standing a few feet away. “That guy over there. The one in the kilt? Jay knows him. Well, Jay knows everybody, but I’m pretty sure he’s single. Look! He’s giving you the eye.”

  Juliet didn’t look. She was still staring at Nikki and her hands, the shield, the pointer. She hadn’t seen anyone do that since high school and a bubble of laughter caught in her throat. More of her tension slipped away. “I’ve always been suspect of men in dresses.”

  “That isn’t a dress, it’s a kilt. A kilt is like a uniform, and you like those.”

  The laugh slipped out. “Nikki . . .” She glanced at the man this time and decided that it wasn’t the skirt, but the knee socks that
really turned her off. “I don’t think he’s for me.”

  “Well, survey the crowd. Jay and I will steer you clear of the sharks.”

  Juliet had to laugh again, even as she followed orders. Maybe there was something to what Nikki said. She’d told herself her reaction to Noah wasn’t personal. Of course she didn’t see herself hopping into bed with some stranger—instruction-adhering, rule-following widow Juliet probably wouldn’t go that far—but what was the harm in looking?

  However, not one of the men milling about the party caught her eye. Not the guy in the kilt, not the hirsute Tom Cruise in his white dress shirt, not the several pirates, or the many fans of plastic crowns. There was an elegant gentleman in a Clooney-worthy tux, but as he was hand-in-hand with a cowboy wearing chaps and a ten-gallon hat, she slid her gaze right over him.

  Then the crowd shifted and she caught a glimpse of a tall male. It was just a flash of his shoulder, in a darkish T-shirt, but something about him caused her to pause. She narrowed her eyes and kept her focus pinpointed there. Another movement of the knot of people and there was that shoulder again, then the flat plane of a masculine back.

  Two people strode off in the direction of the bar leaving a larger gap that revealed Cassandra in a knitted, naughty schoolgirl’s outfit, her wavy hair in two long pigtails bound by more yarn. Next to her was Gabe, wearing his characteristic grim expression and regular street clothes. The both of them appeared to be talking to the man with the shoulder and back that had caught her fancy.

  He was wearing his T-shirt tucked into a pair of camouflage pants. Costumed as a soldier. Maybe that’s what had caught her attention, she thought. Except her attention had been caught by him before tonight. It had been captured the instant she’d seen his naked body swimming in her pool. At that moment, she’d awoken to the world around her.

  As if he could feel her regard, Noah turned. There was thirty feet between them, but neither of them blinked, even as a couple drifted past, and a young woman dressed as a Dallas cheerleader skipped by.