MICAH (A California Dreamy Novel Book 3)

by Rian Kelley

  RIAN KELLEY

  MICAH

  California Dreamy Series

  The California Dreamy Series

  Jake

  Ethan

  Micah

  And next up: Jake and Ivy return in Firestarter. They burned up the sheets in book one of the California Dreamy Series. Do they have what it takes to find forever?

  Chapter One

  Emme pulled the bandana off her neck and used it to wipe the sweat streaming from her hairline. She had thick hair the color of banana taffy and had pulled it into a long ponytail in preparation for her run—her first ever as a willing adult. But right now she was eight feet off the ground on a ladder that had come with the house and had seen better days. She’d earned several splinters already and had just made eye-level with the eaves. She’d known the cheap rent would become an issue, not to trust online photos, and had felt an obvious wiggle of warning when on the phone with the smarmy realtor, but Emme hadn’t wanted to ask her brother for help. She was in the foothills of the Sierras to absorb the colors of fall and put down some serious work on making a dream come true. And she knew enough about dreams—especially how quickly they crashed and burned—to believe they could only be attained through a solo effort and a lot of it. If her brother made it easy for her, and he could with his quantum successes at the box office, it would weaken her hard-won confidence. She’d handed that over too quickly once before. No, she was going to make it on her own. And that meant she would pay her own way. So she’d leased the older house with the cheery red paint and the questionable roofing. Her bad. And she’d deal with that, too.

  Her foot slipped on the next rung, the wood crumbling under the toe of her Air Nikes. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip and she clung to the rails as her legs flailed.

  She wasn’t the athletic one in the family. Definitely not. That would be her brother, Ethan. Her sister Eva was a butterfly, beautiful, colorful, and fluttering through life. Emme was the writer. She’d always seen in pictures and had spent four good years applying that gift in the gaming world. Emme had crafted stories, written them into software, and they’d become vibrant, complex games that challenged mature participants. But you had to sit at a desk to do that. It was a job that exercised only the mind and the fingertips as they flew over the keyboard. There had been no time for things like gyms and bike rides and Zumba classes.

  Something else she was determined to change. Emme wanted to be strong. She wanted muscles that showed up when she needed them, and that included mental toughness and emotional fortitude as well as a toned body.

  She had a lot of work to do.

  She wanted to believe in herself again. One hundred percent. She remembered a time when that had come easy. She wanted to take care of pesky problems without relying on others—lately her brother and before him her very lame fiancée—and she wanted to put big dreams at the top of her to-do list.

  She was a closet fan of Agatha Christie and Jillian Michaels. Emme wanted to write a mystery that stumped the world’s best criminalists and she wanted to look like Lara Croft when she accepted the Edgar Award in New York City.

  Two big dreams right there and she was on day six of the three-hundred sixty-five she’d given herself to get it done. So far, not so good—she was experiencing writer’s block and was about to break an arm or two.

  Emme managed to regain her footing despite her lack of physical ability and knew her instinct to survive had kicked in. She cursed softly and wondered again if scaling the roof was the best way to take care of her critter trouble in the attic. An open vent, the realtor had guessed when Emme called him about the shenanigans that had woken her up the past three nights. He’d offered to send a workman over but had warned that it could take several days. Maybe even a week. After all, the Sierras weren’t a bustling Metropolis.

  They’d compromised. The realtor brought the metal screening and a screw driver and Emme would carry out the repair.

  She wished she had a tool belt. Leather, with a hook for her hammer and a pouch for her retractable measuring tape and nails. She didn’t know a lot about construction but had spent the summer of her fourteenth year making it her business to learn everything she could about the remodel her parents had paid for. Summer in San Diego and young, ripped men roaming through her house, often without a shirt, had been the highlight of her adolescence.

  “What are you doing?”

  The voice was male, deep, and made her muscles cramp.

  The tone was anything but pleased.

  She hated her instantaneous female response to his overt masculinity. In fact, everything about the man left her disgruntled. Micah Espinoza. Her neighbor, though she didn’t know his name because he’d come knocking with apple pie and coffee. Or because he’d returned one of her morning greetings from across their yards. She knew it because the ladies at the organic farmer’s market in town had watched him fill his basket with greens and tomatoes, corn ears and late season cherries while they’d commented among themselves on his superior anatomy and peppered him with questions.

  She’d listened to the ladies talk him up as he picked through the romaine. She’d learned his name, the fact that he was on an extended fishing trip, and that he grew up with a father who taught him all about gardening and organics.

  And maybe his body was superior. Emme had noticed—she was a woman after all—and she knew when she was looking at a work of art.

  Too bad the man lacked manners and personality.

  “Hello?” he called for her attention and Emme realized she’d spent a good minute thinking about him again. She felt color sweep up her cheeks. He was too good looking and too sexy—in that steamy, confident way that curled through a woman’s blood, attacked her common sense, and made her feminine parts ache.

  Damn. He rattled her. Her awareness of him sent shivers up her spine and melted her bones. And that was too much power to hand over to a man who was clearly not up to the responsibility. She had a special radar for that now.

  She set her jaw and looked down, but not far. He was tall. The breeze ruffled his thick, coffee-colored hair. Yum. Coffee was her favorite. Coffee anything. The drink in its many variations, ice cream, latte chocolates. . .She had a recipe for coffee marshmallow crispy treats that made her mouth water. Her eyes fell to his shoulders, straining beneath the thin cotton of his gray t-shirt. Every muscle was clearly visible, every sinuous cut, from shoulder to pec and bicep, torso and abdomen. And as she looked his body responded, his chest expanded on a long breath, his stomach clenched. Things below his belt may have stirred a little, too.

  Good. An equal division of power.

  He raised his arm and waved a hand in front of her face.

  This time, with color already full in her cheeks, she simply lifted her gaze and connected with his. Irritation flared in his hazel eyes.

  Another point in her favor. He’d been irritating her for days.

  She wondered if he was angry because she’d ogled him or because she’d ignored him.

  She wondered why she wasn’t mortified. But then reminded herself quickly, because this was the new Emme. The new and improved version. The metamorphosis triggered when she’d stood alone at the altar as the clock ticked with finality.

  “So you know the word?” she challenged. “Hello? I’ve been saying it for a week but never heard it from you even once.”

  He anchored his hands on his hips and regarded her a moment. “I’m not looking to hook up,” he explained.

  OK, so that spun her head around. So fast she was sure she had the best impersonation of Linda Blair any Exorcist enthusiast would applaud.

  “What?” She packed that little word with enough
frost the devil himself would get a chill.

  “I’m here for R & R—rest and relaxation. Not relationship, though—” and Emme felt his eyes travel slowly over every inch of her legs, bared more than usual in her new jog shorts “—you are tempting.” He met her gaze and his mouth curled into a sleek smile that spoke all about the wicked pleasures found in temptation.

  Emme was speechless. For a moment. “You’re an ass.” And she went to work mentally on that, applying the image of a donkey’s rear over the man’s sinfully attractive face so that he was all man up to his neck and then nothing but furry hide. The result was comical and made her laugh.

  Micah’s arms bunched as he crossed them over his chest. His t-shirt fit him better than skin, as did the worn Levi’s that hugged his hips and thighs. The man was strong and she wondered how he got that way. Did he have a personal trainer? Emme had thought of hiring one but they were non-existent in this part of the woods. Maybe he was a personal trainer. Or a professional athlete. Maybe she could ask him for some tips.

  His next words pulled her back from the edge.

  “Is that a blanket opinion on everything male?”

  It could be, but she liked to think she was above that, even if it was only by inches. “You earned it.”

  After a year of mourning her loss, packing away and then selling her wedding dress, facing friends who had witnessed her public embarrassment, and surviving the claustrophobic attentions of a well-meaning family, she’d broken loose. She wasn’t looking for a man. Not one to keep, anyway. As far as she was concerned, they were all defective, even if it wasn’t noticeable in the fabric. But she knew she wasn’t being completely truthful with herself. The man’s oblivious nature had bothered her.

  “Well your pick-up line needs work,” he suggested.

  “I don’t have a pick-up line.” Not yet anyway. She’d never pursued a man before, but had always waited, docile, for men to notice her. Like she was one of the many flowers in a field, waiting to be chosen. Stupid. Very.

  Another major change coming her way and, though she didn’t realize it until just now, she’d been working towards it for the past year. When she was ready, after she’d accomplished the first two biggies on her to-do dream list, she was going to pursue the next man that caught her interest. She would craft a pick-up line, change her wardrobe that didn’t presently reflect anything about the art of seduction, and even make subtle adjustments to her body language—she’d been accused more than once of closing herself off, living inside her head, mingling more with characters than real people.

  “Hello has always worked for me,” she said and almost choked on the words. Hello had gotten her that lame fiancée, and only after he’d tracked her for a few days, held doors open for her, kept an elevator waiting, and even offered her his place in the coffee queue.

  He nodded and for a moment emotion rippled over his face. Maybe regret. Maybe indigestion.

  “You have a problem with a casual greeting?”

  Her neighbor was perfect eye-candy—no flaws at surface level—and a girl should be allowed to appreciate that without being punished for it.

  Men do it all the time.

  “My problem is when it becomes more than that.”

  Emme sighed but went for humor and turned the tables on him. “Why do men always have to complicate things?”

  “Sorry.” And this time his voice was smooth, without a trace of annoyance. In fact, she heard a short but distinct rumble of laughter from somewhere deep in his chest.

  She shrugged. “Forgiven.” She turned back to the roof, but not without first noticing the way the sun spun red highlights into his hair. He hadn’t shaved that morning, either, and the rough growth of beard made her palms itch to touch him.

  So maybe he had a just complaint. Emme did look at him like she wanted to lick the sun off his skin.

  Damn. That image created a flush of awareness that spread from her chest, over her throat, to her cheeks. She hated that her emotions were so obvious, that she betrayed herself so easily and believed so readily. She’d spent the first twenty-six years of her life a sitting duck before the buckshot had hit her between the eyes. You’d think her body would catch up with her bad luck.

  But she’d never been moved to lust before. Alan hadn’t inspired such a deep and carnal emotion in her. And that annoyed her. She’d been willing to settle for a pale, apathetic life. Well, no more.

  She climbed another rung on the ladder and because he was still standing there, staring up at her—she could feel his eyes on her skin and the scowl on his face—she threw over her shoulder, “Sky diving.”

  “What?”

  His confusion was genuine and she turned so he could see her delight.

  “You asked me what I was doing,” she prompted and watched the channels click. He was quick.

  “Yeah? Where’s your parachute?”

  “Freestyle,” she told him. “What’s life without a little risk?”

  “The house got to you, huh?” He nodded at the two-story structure, painted an apple red with white trim and surrounded by live oaks and aspen that would turn marvelous shades of autumn in another week or two. He wore a smug smile. “I hope you signed month-to-month.”

  She bet he did, with the way he’d been avoiding her since she’d moved in, and his obvious ire with her now. He wanted her gone.

  “Don’t like neighbors?” she parried and returned his smile, hers equally confident and slightly amused. “You’ll have to get used to me. I’m not up here to jump.”

  “No?”

  “Your disappointment is showing,” she pointed out, then turned her back on him and, gripping the rails of the ladder, climbed another step. She tested it first before putting her full weight on it. Spongy. The damn wood was rotted through.

  “You may not have to,” he said. “Jump, that is. You’re about an inch from a bad fall.”

  “And so you’ve run over to save me?”

  He was silent so long that she looked over her shoulder and down at him.

  He shook his head, but his arms were now hanging loosely at his sides.

  “I’ve stopped saving damsels in distress.”

  “The romance of rescue no longer a lure for you?”

  His mouth thinned into a flat line and his jaw was set, making his response sure and clipped. “No. The reality pales off the pages of the newspaper.”

  That gave her pause. Newspaper. She wondered why he’d chosen that word. She let her gaze fall on his face, the sharp lines of his cheekbones, covered in a day’s growth of beard, his straight nose and that hair peaked above a wide forehead. But no, she didn’t recognize him. That didn’t mean he wasn’t famous for something. Emme rarely got to the newspaper these days and did no more than glance at the covers of magazines when on line at the check-out. She tested the depth of his eyes with her own—intelligent, deep, stirring with an emotion related to anger but not that intense. Irritated. Again.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Here, as in your front yard? Or here, in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Both.”

  “Fishing. And then I noticed you’d pulled out Gunner’s old ladder and was about to become a national statistic for household accidents.”

  She looked beyond him. Several poles were leaning against his truck and a tackle box sat on the tailgate.

  “You need more than one pole?”

  He ignored the sexual innuendo while Emme’s breath thinned on the realization that she’d even said it. “Not usually,” he assured her.

  “Today is different?”

  “Overlapping seasons.”

  She felt his gaze slide from her face, down the slope of her neck, and over her shoulder and she regretted the snug fit of her top. Today she was starting an exercise program. Jogging and yoga. A good balance of cardio and stretching, muscle building and total body strengthening. She’d been reading numerous articles online. Cerebral didn’t have to mean chubby. Both sports were solo activit
ies that didn’t require synchronizing with other people—clearly that was a challenge for her, in athletics as well as in her personal life—and offered less likelihood of injury than, say, kick-boxing or roller blading. She’d bought running shoes and a DVD for beginning yogis who wanted the mind-body-spirit connection.

  “What else do you do?” she asked, because even she knew that fishing wouldn’t give this man that body—sleek, sculpted, beautiful. That took work. Emme wanted muscle. She wanted definition. And she was willing to work for it.

  “What?” She’d caught him off guard again—probably because she’d undressed him with her eyes and hadn’t bothered to hide it or make it a quick study—and laughed openly at his confusion. She liked the way his eyebrows sank over his nose. He was clearly unaccustomed to feeling anything less than confident. His irritation rose as those generous lips flattened. The clash of emotions caused his features to sharpen and that made Emme’s stomach pitch.

  Attraction so thick it could be served.

  “Exercise,” she prompted. “Do you lift weights? Play rugby? Bowl?”

  “Bowl?” He repeated, offended. “Bowling is not a sport.”

  She nodded. “It’s a leisure activity. I agree, though some people wouldn’t. Does that mean you don’t golf, either?”

  “Golfing is a sport,” he asserted and his hands came up to anchor his hips again. “It takes mental and physical acumen.”

  Acumen? So the man was educated. Emme seldom heard the word outside the classroom.

  “Why are we talking about sports?” he asked.

  “I’m not athletic. At all. I was the last one picked in PE class. Everyday. High school was a bitch.” She heard wistfulness enter her voice. “I plan to change that.” She lifted a foot and wiggled it. “I’m going to run today.”

  He stared at her shoe, a neon orange and green mix of colors with a sturdy heel and sole. When he continued to say nothing she felt compelled to fill the gap.

  “Tomorrow I start yoga.”

  “Why are you here?” he turned the question on her.

  Emme shrugged. “I’m working.”