Oh, and there was the issue of Wes being a politician. Almost immaterial on top of everything else, but definitely a contributing factor to Blythe’s ignoring how he was looking at her right now. Because she knew all too well what life was like for politicians, having worked with plenty of clients in the trenches. Or close to those who were. Their work was their life, the hours often horrendously long when they were in Washington, their time at “home” still eaten up with travel and meetings and glad-handing the people who’d voted them into office. That is, if one was the conscientious sort, which, from everything she could tell, Wes was. For that, she had to give the man props—
Mel looked around. “No entourage?”
Wes chuckled. “Not today. Sometimes I just get in the car and drive, stopping where the mood strikes, see if anyone’s up for chatting.” Dimples flashed. “Someone usually is.” His expression softening, he smiled for his son. “Gives Jack and me a chance to hang out. Catch up.”
But it was that very conscientiousness that caused, she had no doubt, the look she’d seen all too often in his son’s eyes—the son still smarting over his mother’s loss. It sometimes made her want to smack Wes Phillips upside the head.
True, it was none of her business. Nor was the kid neglected—Wes’s parents lived with Wes and Jack, and seemed to be the most doting grandparents ever. But still. It was obvious how much the kid needed, wanted, his dad. And how much he resented having to share him with the entire Eastern Shore. And, having endured similar crappage from her own parents while growing up, Blythe’s heart broke for the boy.
Meaning there was no way she’d ever let his father anywhere near it.
Dimples be damned.
* * *
Happened every damn time he saw her, that kick to the gut that made Wes wonder if he was losing it. Because it was insane, the way Blythe Broussard got his juices flowing. Insane, and inexplicable, and highly inconvenient, what with his barely having time to figure out the why behind the insane, inexplicable attraction, let alone pursue it. Even if he wanted to, which he didn’t. He didn’t think.
But there she stood, holding his gaze hostage even from several feet away. Man, she looked at him like she wanted to do a feng shui number on his brain, her eyes huge, somehow accusing, a weird shade of deep blue in a pale, sharp-boned face. Her hair was almost as short as his and nearly a white-blond, her mouth a dark red few women could pull off and not look macabre.
She wasn’t even pretty, not in a conventional sense. And so unlike Kym, who had been. Still. Juices. Flowing.
Like the flippin’ Potomac.
He deliberately turned to Mel, as short and curvy as Blythe was tall and...not. “So are you headed back to St. Mary’s?”
The brunette snorted. “In this?” She gestured toward the snow, now coming down as if intent on beating all previous records. “No way.”
Wes liked Mel, was more grateful than he could say that her daughter, Quinn, and Jack had become close friends. Losing his mom and then, ipso facto, Wes as well, had been rough on the kid. And he was glad, he really was, that Ryder had been able to move on after Deanna’s death. But then, he hadn’t known her—loved her—for twenty years, as Wes had Kym.
“We decided to camp out at HoJo for the night,” Mel said. “And you?”
“Now that you mention it...I’m not wild about driving in this, either. Hey, Jack!” He called over to the two kids, standing in the parking lot, trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues. “You okay with hanging out here tonight?”
The kid turned. “At the Food Lion?”
“No, goof—at the hotel over there.” Then his eyes grazed Blythe’s, and the punch to his chest knocked his breath sideways. Not that he’d doubted the attraction was largely sexual, but after all those months of feeling like he’d mainlined Lidocaine...holy hell.
Must be the weather. Or the buzz left over from the afternoon’s schmoozings, reminding him of the reason he tossed his hat in the ring to begin with. That he’d left it there even after...
Wes jerked his gaze, and his thoughts, back to Mel. “If there’s a room...?”
“I’ll see if April can book a third room,” she said, pulling out her phone as Blythe walked away, dodging a family coming out of the store, their three kids jumping around like snowsuited fleas. And he saw her smile, watching them, before their eyes met again and she flicked the smile off like a switch and turned away. Right. Because maybe all that gut-kicking and chest-punching had less to do with sex than it did aversion. On her part, that is.
Hey, it happened. He was a politician, after all, even if the term still didn’t feel right, like a pair of new shoes he couldn’t seem to break in. Plenty of people disliked him, simply because their vision didn’t mesh with his. Just came with the territory. And God knew nothing to get his boxers in a bunch over, even if his time in office—not to mention his campaign manager and half his staff—would try to convince him he was too nice for his own good.
Well, tough, he thought, as Mel gave him a thumbs-up—about the room, he presumed, before ducking into the store with the kids—because while sacrifice also came with the territory, he wasn’t about to slap his integrity on the altar. For anyone. Or anything. He’d thrown his hat in the ring for his own reasons, reasons many might consider idealistic, even naive. But at the end of the day none of it meant diddly if he lost his self-respect. Not to mention his son’s.
“You’re not going in with them?” he called to Blythe.
She glanced over, then shrugged. “Nah, I’m good with whatever Mel gets.”
Wes nodded, feeling oddly out of his depth. Closing arguments, no problem. Ditto giving speeches, or discussing issues with constituents. Although he wasn’t an attention seeker for its own sake, neither was he an introvert. Words, ideas, usually came easily to him, and one of his “gifts” was his ability to work a crowd. And yet, he hadn’t felt this tongue-tied around a woman since those agonizing months in the ninth grade working up to asking Kym out.
Not that this was anything like that, of course.
He closed the space between them, wondering what she was looking at so hard out in the parking lot. Boldly, Wes regarded her profile, the harsh, storefront lighting emphasizing the almost grim set to her mouth.
“Flurries, the weatherman said,” she said.
Wes faced the lot, his hands in his pockets. “Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“Do they ever get it right?”
“Not a whole lot, no.” He cleared his throat. “So did your cousins find their dresses?”
“What? Oh. Yes. They did.”
“Weddings,” he said, shaking his head, remembering.
After a long pause, she said, “Was yours large?”
He shoved out a breath through his nose. “Yeah.” He laughed. “I barely remember it, though.”
“Too drunk?”
Surprised at the tease—if that’s what it was—he laughed. “No. Too scared. Not that I didn’t want it—I would’ve married Kym at eighteen, if I could have—but when the day came, I panicked. You know—what am I doing? What if it doesn’t work out? That sort of thing. Then she started down the aisle, and all I saw was her smile...” He shook his head. “And for the rest of the night I blotted out everything but that smile. Only thing that got me through.”
A long pause preceded, “I’m sorry. Not about your wedding, about—”
“I know what you meant. Thanks.”
Blythe nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. “So. Guess we’re all stuck with each other tonight.”
“I wouldn’t worry too hard about it,” Wes said, ridiculously irked. “After all, we probably won’t even be on the same floor. So we wouldn’t, you know, have to see each other.”
Beside him, he heard her mighty sigh. “So much for hoping that didn’t sound as bitchy as it did in
my head—”
Mel and the children burst out of the store, all carting bulging plastic bags. “Let’s hear it for self-checkout lanes!” Mel said, then started across the lot, her yakking charges in tow.
“We should probably follow,” Wes said, moving to take Blythe’s elbow; not surprisingly, she avoided him. Whatever. Still hugging herself, she cautiously stepped into the rapidly accumulating slush, completely at the mercy of her high-heeled boots. Ahead of them, Mel—in far more sensible flats—was deliberately skidding in the snow as much as the kids. Laughing as much, too.
No wonder Blythe’s cousin been able to help Ryder move past his grief—even if they hadn’t already been childhood friends, Mel was exactly what Ryder had needed. With a pang, Wes realized he was envious, that Ryder was getting a second chance at something Wes doubted he ever would. Because despite everyone—his parents, his campaign manager, even his dentist, for God’s sake—pushing him to remarry, there’d never be anybody like Kym, ever.
The screech, not to mention the dramatic flailing, made him jerk his head around, then down, to see Blythe on her butt in the snow, swearing like a sergeant.
Grinning, he held out his hand. And prayed the woman wouldn’t bite it off.
Chapter Two
Her head now pounding, Blythe stared at Wes’s outstretched hand, momentarily considering refusing to let him help her up. Except grace had never been her strong suit in the best of circumstances; in four inches of slippery slop she’d probably look like a drunken giraffe.
“You okay?” Wes said, as he hauled her to her feet.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she grumbled, swatting her backside to dislodge the worst of the snow clumps. “Although my dignity will never live this down.”
“Hey. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of my dignity in years. I’ve learned to live without it.”
Still swatting, Blythe slid her gaze to his, clearly amused behind the curtain of falling snow, and damn if her insides didn’t do a tiny ba-dump. Then she sighed. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.” He lifted his elbow. And one eyebrow. Reluctantly—oh so reluctantly—she accepted. Despite the very likely possibility she’d go down again and take him with her. And, of course, the instant the thought zipped through, she slipped again. Man didn’t even falter. In fact, he easily gripped her waist, effectively bonding her to his ribs. Steady as a rock, this one.
“So I’m guessing you don’t hate me that much,” he said.
Not to mention perceptive.
She wobbled again. And swore again. And, yes, Wes chuckled again. As he caught her.
“Swear to God,” she gritted out, her head now feeling like the Riverdance people were practicing inside it, “I am not doing this on purpose.”
“Didn’t think you were. Since not even you could order this particular confluence of events.” When she frowned up at him, he shrugged. And gave off a very nice man-scent that might have rendered a lesser woman addle-brained. “The snow. Those boots. My being here to keep you from breaking your neck.”
“Or my ass,” she muttered, and he grinned.
“That, too.” As they came to a less snowy spot, he relaxed his hold. “Are you okay?”
Truth be told, her bum was smarting a bit. Not a whole lot of padding back there. Or anywhere else. At least that diverted her attention from her head. Sort of. “I’ll live,” she said as they reached the hotel’s portico-covered driveway, where she wriggled out of his grasp. “I don’t dislike you, Wes. Really. I just... I’m just tired and hungry and have a wicked headache. That’s all.”
The glass doors parted at their approach, but he touched her arm, holding her back. The dimples had taken a hike, praise be. But those eyes...
Oh, dear Lord, as April would say.
Ever since her divorce, Blythe had eschewed messing around. By choice. A choice she’d found, to both her surprise and immense relief, to be incredibly freeing to a woman who’d always thought of her libido as a pet to be cosseted and indulged. Within reason, anyway. But she’d come far closer than she’d realized to being a slave to that pet, resulting in some extremely poor choices along the way. So the “cleansing” period had finally allowed Blythe to begin to see who she really was, what she really needed.
And Wes Phillips’s intense green gaze was not on that list.
“I’m sorry your head hurts—” he said gently.
Or his mouth.
“—but something tells me that look on your face is about more than your aching head. Unless I’m the one making your head hurt?”
Now that you mention it...
Even though her skull wasn’t happy about it, Blythe laughed, ignoring the ping-ping-ping of neglected hormones perking up assorted places that hadn’t been perky in quite a while.
“Only partly,” she said, and he crossed his arms.
“Partly? Oh. Meaning you don’t like my policies, I take it.”
Blythe blew out a breath. “This isn’t my district. I have no idea what your policies are.” Liar, liar... “And I really don’t feel up to talking, if you don’t mind. At least not until I get some food in my stomach.”
“Of course, I... Never mind. Come on.”
Wes let her go through the automatic doors ahead of him, and the dry, warm air in the lobby enveloped her like a grandmother’s hug—not her grandmother, but somebody’s—as she joined Mel, April and the kids, clustered in front of the registration desk. Which was littered with every Valentine’s tchotchke ever invented. Great.
“See you later?” Wes said shortly afterward, key card in hand. “In the restaurant?” When she frowned, that eyebrow lifted again. As well as the corners of that mouth. “You said you needed to eat?”
Blythe’s eyes cut to the others, who were too busy yakking among themselves to witness the little exchange, thank God. “Depends on what Mel got at the store,” she said. “Truthfully, all I want is to stretch out in a dark, quiet room until this blasted headache goes away.”
His eyes twinkled. “Quiet? With that group?”
“If the gods are kind, they’ll all congregate in the other room and leave me in peace.”
“Well, if you change your mind—”
“Not likely,” Blythe said as an infant’s wail pierced her cousins’ chatter, and Wes gave her something like a little bow.
“Have a good night, then,” he and his dimples said. Then he ushered his son away, her gaze trailing after them like a confused, dumb puppy.
The puppy hauled back by the scruff of its neck, Blythe was about to break up the jabberfest when she noticed the bedraggled young father clutching the counter in front of the frowning clerk madly clicking her computer keys. Beside him, two young children clung like possums to his even more bedraggled wife, who was jiggling a wailing infant in her arms. Poor things.
“You guys ready to go up to the rooms?” Blythe said. “Don’t know about you, but I’m about to crash.”
“We figured we may as well hit the restaurant first,” Mel said. “Since it’s not as if we have luggage or anything.”
“But...” Blythe frowned at the grocery bags, still in Mel’s hands. “Didn’t you buy food?”
“Munchies, mainly. Although there is a rotisserie chicken in there—”
“Close enough,” Blythe said, grabbing the bags. “Give me a card, I’ll see you guys later—”
“I’m so sorry,” the clerk said to the little family, her words carrying across the lobby like she was wearing a mike, “but we just booked our last available rooms...”
April and Mel exchanged a blink-and-you’d-miss-it glance—which Blythe didn’t—before April marched back to the clerk. “Give ’em one of our rooms. We gals can all bunk together. Right?”
So close. And yet, so far, Blythe thought, even as her hurting head threw a hissy fit. Then sh
e looked again at the woman and her kids, and her heart kicked her throbbing head to the curb.
“Of course!” she said brightly. “Not like we all haven’t shared a room before.” If many, many years ago.
“Are you sure?” the wife said, shifting the bawling babe in her arms and managing to look miserable and grateful at the same time. “We wouldn’t want to put you out.”
“You’re not. At all.” Blythe smiled. “I swear.”
Tears in her eyes, the young mother shifted the baby to hug all three of them in turn, and her cousins trooped to the restaurant and Blythe up to their room, where, for the next hour, she consoled herself with rotisserie chicken, potato salad and the eye-roll-worthy shenanigans of a bunch of surgically enhanced TV housewives whose lives were far more drama-ridden than hers.
Now, in any case. And considering what she’d gone through to get to this point, her hormones could just go hang themselves.
* * *
The next morning, Blythe wrenched open her eyes to total darkness, save for the pale gray chink in the closed draperies. As the others slept, she cautiously eased out of bed, cracking open the drapes enough to see the snow already melting, even in the weak winter sun. Hallelujah.
Then she caught her reflection in the mirror over the dresser and grimaced. Fortunately her sweater and jeans were wear-again-worthy, even if she had to fend off the ickies of not being able to change her undies before facing the public again. But her hair...eesh. She could, however, wash up and brush her teeth—bless her hide, Mel had bought them all toothbrushes and a few essential toiletries—even if the only makeup she had in her purse was lipgloss.
Meaning, even cleaned up and redressed she looked like a vampire who hadn’t had a good feed in a while. Or access to any decent hair care products, she mused as she doused her head with water from the spigot, then yanked a comb through her cropped hair until it looked...not horrible. With any luck, though—she clicked the door shut behind her and headed down the carpeted hall—she’d be the first one in the restaurant, and nobody would see her. Because the way her stomach was growling, Pringles and grapes weren’t going to cut it. Especially when the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, and the scents of bacon and coffee and pancakes hauled her toward the restaurant’s entrance like those little aliens did to Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters.
The Marriage Campaign Page 2
