Now Toby felt befuddled. “I’m only wearing these because Kate bought them for me.”
Melanie blinked so hard one of her false eyelashes stuck. Peering at him with one eye, she exclaimed, “Bought them for you?” Her eye popped open. “Kath-e-rine Corr-i-gan, we must talk.”
Kate, who’d been reading the recipe book, looked up. “Huh? About what?”
Melanie took such a deep breath, Toby swore some of the flour in the room shifted. “I realize you’re a grown woman with your own business, making your own money, but we must talk about your paying for certain…services.” On that, Melanie pivoted on her pastel pink heels and strode out of the room.
Kate frowned. “What services? The cleaning staff comes in, but otherwise Verna and I run the rest of the errands around here.” Kate turned back to her recipe book. “I’ve never understood Melanie, although I must confess I’m extremely impressed with that suppressed personality that’s finally emerging.”
“OKAY,” TOBY SAID, dusting some flour off his jeans. After Melanie had left, he’d quickly gone upstairs and changed into the clothes Verna had brought. “Tell Verna she can be late for a week because we have enough biscuits for days!”
We? Kate liked the sound of that as she looked at the piles of half-inch-high dough rounds wrapped with waxed paper. We. We have enough biscuits. She pressed the wax paper around a bunch of biscuits. We had fun baking together. An unexpected sadness pooled in her stomach. Be honest with yourself, Kate. A lifetime of “we” for you and Toby is about as realistic as one of your pirate fantasies.
She set the mounds of biscuits in the refrigerator while Toby filled the dishwasher with the forks, spoons and other cooking utensils. “Tomorrow, we bake these at eight minutes, four-fifty degrees, right?” she asked. “Then we take them out, we put them on plates, and we take them up to The Wild One.” She smiled to herself, thinking of that elderly couple. Had to be the Riddicks, that sweet husband and wife in their seventies, who liked to spend an occasional romantic night away in the city. Mrs. Riddick had once confessed to packing a few risqué nighties for these getaways. “The Wild Ones,” Kate corrected under her breath. Raising her voice, she added, “Then we’ll take more biscuits out onto the veranda where we’ll eat breakfast together.” Oh dear, she was back to “we.” But wrong or right, she liked how it felt. “We” was slipping off her tongue as sweetly and easily as the butter they would put on their biscuits tomorrow morning.
“Sure, whatever you like.”
So much for “we.” Jolted back to reality, Kate straightened and looked around. In the past few hours, they’d sifted ingredients, rolled dough and cleaned the kitchen. It had been like tuning an engine with her dad—everything went smoothly, efficiently, like clockwork. She and Toby were like a well-oiled team. A we-team if there ever was one.
If there ever could be.
“Did you and Free cook together?” she asked, trying to sound innocently interested. “You know, cook as in food.” She scrunched her face, wishing she hadn’t said that last part. It was obvious they’d both witnessed Free’s cooking with Tiger.
Toby cocked a knowing eyebrow. “The only cooking Free ever did was you-know-where and let’s not go there.” He wiped his hands roughly on a hand towel embroidered with frolicking cats. “Felt good to cook again,” he said a bit too cheerfully. “Now I have to figure how to get back into my house to cook tomorrow’s dinner.”
“Do you have to be in your house? What about here?”
Toby hung the dish towel on the oven handle. “I met my potential employer at a business get-together at my place last summer. Free was out of town visiting family. Or so she said.” Toby grew quiet for a moment. “Anyway, I think he’d find it odd if I was suddenly cooking in the bed-and-breakfast next door.”
“Good point.” As Kate finished wiping the counter, a thump was heard on the kitchen windowsill.
“Beau!” Straightening, Kate headed toward her cat. He sat on the ledge, eyeing the kitchen, the king of this terrain. Kate scratched a spot behind his nicked ear. “Your food bowl’s on the back porch as usual, Beau. Are you checking the kitchen to see if you’re missing anything tasty?” When he craned his neck to look past her at Toby, she said, “Beau, meet Toby.”
“Hello, Beau,” Toby said, walking over. He chucked the cat under the chin. Beau emitted a raspy meow. “Whoa, sounds like you’ve had quite a night.”
“He always sounds like that. Has that scratchy seen-it-all-done-it-all meow. Probably telling us about his most recent wild adventures in North Beach.”
“He’s a pirate, too?”
“I like to think so.”
Beau stretched languidly, as though his swashbuckling status was pretty mundane stuff. After tossing a last green-eyed look at Toby, Beau hopped off the ledge and disappeared into the darkness.
“He does that,” Kate confessed, watching his exit. “Loves me then leaves me. But he always returns for breakfast in the morning.”
“Is that what Henry did?” As soon as Toby asked, he wished he hadn’t. First, it was an admission he’d been listening in on Kate’s conversation with her dad. Second, it was none of his business. And third, well, he was jealous. He shouldn’t be, had no right to be.
Kate watched the emotions play across Toby’s face. What was going on in his mind? “Henry didn’t jump off windowsills, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I meant, did he…”
“Love me and leave me?”
“Yes.”
As she nodded yes, pink stained her cheeks. From embarrassment? Hurt?
Toby paused, pushing down the anger that flared to life within him. If this man Henry—hell, if any man—loved and left a woman like Kate, he didn’t deserve to walk the planet Earth.
Kate flashed Toby an odd look. “Are you okay?”
It took every ounce of will to keep his voice steady. “What about Henry?”
She stared at Toby for a moment. “He loved and left me and three others from what I can figure out, but then I didn’t keep a scoreboard.”
“Four?”
“Yes.” Kate brushed a stray hair off her forehead. “Some men—and women—two-time. But Henry was a four-timer.”
“How did you know?”
“That there were four of us?” When Toby managed a surprised half nod, Kate continued, “Let’s see…number one caught Henry with number two at that place on Grant Street, the Lost and Found Saloon—aptly named in this case. Seems numbers one and two dragged Henry out onto the sidewalk where they accidentally stumbled into number three, who was exiting the Grant and Green Blues Club with some guy, which adds an interesting twist to the story because it appears number three was two-timing the four-timer.” Kate counted on her fingers as though to keep everyone straight. “Okay, then number three ditched her date and joined numbers one and two. All three then proceeded to rough up Henry a little. From what I heard, it was like a Charlie’s Angels gone bad sort of scene.”
“How did you find out about all this?”
“Well, in the midst of the Charlie’s Angels thing, spineless Henry spilled that there was yet another woman. Me! Imagine my surprise when three women—looking a little scuffed up, but smugly happy—showed up on my doorstep late that night. They explained that we’d all been dating Henry, so I let them in. We stayed up until the wee hours, swapping tales, comparing Henry’s lies, and that’s how I discovered Henry had been one busy four-timing fellow. Last I heard, he settled down and married a librarian. I think his cheating days are long gone.”
“He missed out on a good woman.”
“You mean four good women.”
“No, I mean you.”
She cast her eyes downward. “Thanks, but I’m a better matchmaker than a matchmake-ee.” She looked up. “I lack skills in both the homemaking and love departments, it seems.”
Usually Toby had a keen sense of what to say. But facing Kate’s innermost insecurities left him speechless, unable to conjure up the right words t
o boost her confidence. Instead, he opted to play it light. “Bet you were close to showing Henry the door anyway, even if he hadn’t been—”
“Four-timing me?” Kate’s eyes turned a deeper blue, as though a cloud had passed over her thoughts.
“He couldn’t have been much of a pirate, Kate.”
“No, he wasn’t.” Struck again by Toby’s incredible insights, she admitted, “As silly as it might sound, I’ve always imagined a pirate swooping into my life and sweeping me away.” Her smile was vague, distant. “Just one of those childhood fantasies, I suppose.” She looked sheepish. “But for me, a childhood-turned-adult pirate fantasy. I guess other little girls dreamed of Christopher Atkins or Donny Osmond, but I wanted a pirate to go with my special room at Granny’s. He didn’t even have to look like a famous movie star, just be a swashbuckling, brawny, passionate, sword-in-his-teeth pirate. Crazy, I guess. I mean, who in this day and age imagines being swept away, especially in downtown San Francisco?”
“Marcus in his Moroccan-California caftan?” Toby grinned, then turned serious. “I have a problem.”
“Did Marcus ask for your phone number?”
Tony flashed her a black look. “Hardly. I have to get back into my house by tomorrow night.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
“Meaning, I have to make amends with Free.” Not that he wanted to but he couldn’t admit his plan to Kate. He glanced up at the Captain Hook clock. “Eleven o’clock. I heard barking a few minutes ago. Maybe I should go over, knock on the door and, when she answers, get on my knees and beg her forgiveness. That is, if the Dobermans don’t get me first.”
Fury swirled through Kate. “Over my dead body!” When he looked surprised, she blurted, “There’s no way you’re asking forgiveness after what she’s done!”
“It’s only for my job interview.”
“I don’t care!” Kate gestured wildly although she wasn’t sure why. Clasping her hands together, she took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Okay,” she said, trying to sound more grounded and together than she really felt, “I care about your wanting that job, but there’s no reason for you to ask forgiveness when you did nothing wrong.” When Toby started to speak, Kate held up her hands in a stopping motion. “I refuse to watch a wonderful, generous, kind, intelligent and extremely sexy man like yourself get down on his knees and ask that…that bead-strewn trumpet for forgiveness.” She crossed her flailing arms and flashed him her best defiant look.
After a long pause, Toby breathed, “You think I’m sexy?”
Kate’s cheeks burned. Hell, her entire body was burning. She had no doubt every inch of her skin matched her red outfit. Damn it. Trying to pretend she didn’t care—okay, lust—for this man was like trying not to breathe in and out.
When in doubt, best to speak the truth.
“Yes,” she whispered, “Way sexy.” The last word sounded like more a release of steamy breath than actual speaking. She cleared her throat. And while she was on this truthful trip, best to clear the air on another topic. “I’m sorry I called Free a trumpet.”
“Strumpet.”
“That, too.”
They both burst into grins. But Kate didn’t stop there. She started giggling. Toby started laughing. The next thing she knew, they were doubled over, clutching their stomachs, laughing so hard she thought for sure she’d bust a gut.
“Trumpet,” she managed to sputter between waves of laughter. “At least I didn’t say horn.”
“Or flute!”
“If I’d tried that,” Kate said, trying to catch her breath, “I might’ve said ‘fruit’ by mistake!”
“A bead-strewn fruit!” Toby doubled over with laughter. Kate staggered toward him, holding her sides as she giggled loudly. “Or, in your vernacular,” Toby said, barely managing to get the words out, “a bead-strewn sassafras.”
“I told you sassafras was a fruit!”
They fell, laughing, into each other’s arms. Every time one of them started to calm down, the other would say “sassafras,” and they’d convulse with laughter all over again. After several minutes, they began to recover from their laugh-fest, their arms still draped around each other. They looked deeply into each other’s eyes, reading the shift in emotions that had now silently taken place.
Reluctantly Toby pulled away, knowing if he didn’t distance himself, he’d do something he’d regret, like kiss Kate.
He moved away from her to the butcher-block table and sat on one of the stools. “Okay,” he said, keeping his voice level, calm, all the things he didn’t feel inside. “I’m not going to beg forgiveness from Free, but I need to work things through with her, give it a second chance.”
A twinge of hurt twisted Kate’s insides. It was his life, his girlfriend, his choice. Kate was an outsider, always would be, no matter what had transpired these past twenty-four hours. Like falling head over heels for Toby. She tried to smile, to act as though this was still part of their good-natured exchange, but she felt gutted.
“Okay, you need to get back into Free’s good graces and into your house by tomorrow night.” She tried to sound upbeat even as her heart twisted itself into a small, tight, painful knot. “Come look at my postcards. Evidence of my matchmaking expertise.” It would get them out of the kitchen, away from the bright overhead light where he might see the pain on her face, if he hadn’t already heard it in her voice.
They walked through the foyer to Kate’s pine desk nestled in an alcove next to the front door. She switched on a desk lamp that fanned a pale pool of light onto the desk, enough light to see the postcards mounted on a cork bulletin board on the back wall. Pictures of beaches, cathedrals, even one with a camel, on which two people waved at the camera.
“Different customers sent these to me…some from people I matched up while they were visiting the inn. Like this card—” She pulled the pushpin holding a picture of a metal piece of art. “This is a sculpture by Picasso.”
“Looks like a horse. Or a guitar.”
“Supposedly, it’s the head of a woman. It’s in downtown Chicago, the home of two people I matched but I pretended they did most of the work themselves. Two lawyers, Tyler and Emily, although I thought of them as The Wild One and Pollyanna while they were here. And talk about wild! Verna and I still chuckle about finding them rolling around on that leather bedspread minutes after they met!” Kate pinned the card back onto the board.
“What does the Picasso have to do with getting back into my house?”
Kate looked up at him. The reflection of the desk lamp imbued the air with a shadowy, sensual light. His eyes, normally brown, burnished with an inner flame, giving them an almost tawny glow. His heated gaze upset her, threw her off. “Just like I helped match up Emily and Tyler,” she said haltingly, “I’ll match up you and Free.”
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned and looked at the postcards, as though journeying to all those places in his mind. He reached out and touched one of the cards, a picture of a ship surrounded by pristine cobalt skies and lagoon-green seas.
Kate joined him, her gaze landing on the same picture. “I could plan a cruise for two,” she said softly. “The tang of salt air, the warmth of the breezes. Miles and miles of bathwater-temperature water teeming with colorful, exotic fish.”
She closed her eyes, imagining the beauty, the adventure. The Caribbean had always been one of her favorite pirate fantasy settings. Opening her eyes, she said matter-of-factly, “I’ll plan this cruise for the winter, when the heat and allure of the Caribbean will be all the more welcome. I’ll have my travel agent write it up as a romantic invitation that will be delivered to Free tomorrow. She’ll be overwhelmed, thrilled, all that good stuff—and, whammo, you’re back home in time to fix dinner.” Playfully Kate clapped twice. Toby chuckled, sort of, but the moment didn’t feel as fun and lighthearted as she’d hoped.
“Sounds like a plan,” he agreed, although his tone was unduly somber.
“Trust
my matchmaking instincts. It’ll work great!”
“I’ve never been to the Caribbean.”
“Neither have I. But I have some artifacts in The Pirate room that might give you a sense of that part of the world. No one’s checked in there tonight. Come on, I’ll show you.” Kate bounded ahead, not wanting Toby to see the emotion in her eyes. Darn him, anyway. Why couldn’t he have stayed the nerdy guy in her imagination? When exactly had he become a pirate, stealing into her home, and stealing her heart?
8
“WELCOME TO MY CHILDHOOD,” Kate said, opening the door with the miniature saber on it. She flicked a light switch and a magical realm came to life. The fabric on the walls shimmered green with metallic glints, as though one were spying hidden treasures under the sea. There were several pictures of ships, the most impressive being a framed painting of a sloop, its sails billowing against stormy skies. On the deck, several rough-looking pirates raised a black flag with a skull and crossbones. The ships tied in with the view from the window that looked out on San Francisco Bay.
“I’ve always loved this room,” Kate murmured. “Some pieces, like the pictures, were from my room at Granny’s.”
She followed Toby’s gaze to the king-size four-poster bed in the corner. Netting cascaded from the ceiling and fell to envelope the bed, creating a private world to be shared by lovers.
“That’s some bed for a small-town Miss Magnolia,” Toby said under his breath.
“I bought that bed especially for this room,” she said, shooting him a look. “At Granny’s, I had a very normal twin bed.”
He cocked one eyebrow.
“Okay,” she admitted, “with just a little netting.” She grinned. “And I had a saber on my door, the same miniature that’s on the door of this room. Granny said she’d bought it from a suspicious-looking man with an eye patch, but I knew she’d really found it at a garage sale.” Kate looked around with a dreamy gaze, pleased at the reality her fantasies had shaped.
In Bed with the Wild One & In Bed with the Pirate Page 26
