Dogwood Hill (9781460345795)

by Woods, Sherryl

  Liz had eaten several bites before she noticed that he’d had none. “Hey, you promised to eat your share.”

  “It’s more fun watching you savor every spoonful,” he admitted candidly, though he did pick up his spoon and take a tiny bite. The dark chocolate burst on his tongue in all its promised decadence. He could see why it had sent her into raptures. “Not bad.”

  She laughed at the understatement. “I defy you not to take another bite. It’s addictive. Admit it.”

  Aidan put down his spoon to prove a point, but Liz waved hers under his nose. The aroma alone was enough to have his mouth watering. He snagged it from her hand. “Okay, you win. It’s addictive.”

  She sat back, seemingly satisfied with his response. “How on earth will I ever work off all those calories?”

  “Not that you need to worry about that,” he said, “but how about a walk on the deck out back? It looks as if it runs along the waterfront far enough to give us a little bit of a workout.”

  “Perfect,” she said at once.

  “I’ll get the waiter.”

  Aidan paid the bill and held out his hand. After a faint hesitation, Liz slipped hers into his, then followed him outside. She paused long enough to remove her shoes, leaving her barefoot as they strolled side by side.

  “It is so beautiful,” she whispered, pausing to stand by the railing.

  A full moon glistened in a silvery path across the bay. As Aidan stood beside her, he couldn’t seem to keep his gaze off her face. She looked especially soft and radiant in the moonlight. Her pale pink lips were more tempting than any of the decadent desserts on the menu had been, and that was saying something. Even that chocolate lava cake couldn’t compare when it came to pure temptation.

  Before he could resist, he touched her cheek, then leaned down, brushing his mouth across hers. Unsure of his welcome, it began as a gentle, tentative touch. In less time than it took for their breath to mingle, though, it changed into something more, something hot and demanding, as darkly delicious as that chocolate. The air seemed charged with electricity. His blood hadn’t pumped this hard after his five-mile run first thing this morning.

  Reluctantly, he pulled away and looked into her dazed eyes.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “A little stunned,” she admitted. “It wasn’t supposed to be like that.”

  He smiled at her unexpected candor. “So, Miss Liz, you’ve been imagining our first kiss? What was it supposed to be like?”

  “No, of course not,” she claimed, clearly flustered. “I meant it wasn’t supposed to happen at all.” A frown settled on her face. “We can’t do that again, Aidan.” She said it with as much starch as a librarian trying to quiet an unruly patron.

  “Oh, I think we will,” he corrected, convinced that the barriers they’d been putting up had just come crashing down around both of them. Knowing how quickly a fire had flared between them wasn’t something either of them was likely to forget or ignore, no matter how hard they tried.

  She backed up a step, shaking her head. “No. I mean it, Aidan. This just can’t happen.”

  It suddenly registered that she wasn’t just being coy. “Why not? You’re single, right? I thought I heard you were a widow, in fact.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m fair game,” she said with surprising ferocity.

  Aidan was startled by her angry reaction. “Of course not.” He regarded her with worry, fearing he’d crossed some line he’d never even imagined was there. “Liz, what’s going on? If you’re genuinely not interested in anything more than being friends, just say so.”

  “Haven’t I said that more than once?” she asked with real frustration.

  “I’d like to know why, if you’re willing to explain.”

  “Can’t you just accept that’s the way it has to be?” she asked plaintively.

  “If that’s the way it has to be, then of course I can,” he conceded. “But that kiss said something else. I think it would be a shame not to share a few more of those to see where this might lead.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Is this about that one-year deal I signed? You don’t think I’m capable of commitment?”

  “Maybe a little,” she said. “But it’s more than just that.”

  “Please explain. I might be able to put your mind at ease.” A sudden thought struck him. “Is it the tabloids? I know they made me out to be a playboy when I first played professionally, but that was so far from the truth it was laughable.”

  “I don’t follow the tabloids,” she assured him. “This is just for the best, Aidan. Let’s leave it at that.”

  He bit back a sigh at her stubborn refusal to explain. He could sense a real fear of some kind behind her reaction, but he was at a loss to interpret it. In the end, though, it was her decision. He had to respect that.

  “Okay, then,” he said quietly. “If you don’t want to pursue this—”

  “I don’t want to pursue it,” she said emphatically, though her voice was shaking. She couldn’t seem to meet his gaze, which suggested she might be lying to him, maybe even to herself.

  Still, Aidan wasn’t about to force the issue. Sometimes people just didn’t click. Given everything else in his life, devoting time to figuring out Liz was probably a lousy idea anyway.

  He dared to touch her cheek again. “Liz, sweetheart, don’t look so miserable. No broken hearts here, okay? We’ll stick to being friends.”

  Her eyes were surprisingly bright as she directed her gaze everywhere but toward him. He realized with a sense of shock that she was close to tears.

  “Thanks for understanding,” she said, still not meeting his gaze as those tears tracked down her cheeks.

  “Sure,” he said. But the truth was, he didn’t understand at all. And he had a hunch he wasn’t going to forget that kiss half as easily as he’d claimed.

  11

  Liz avoided Sally’s the morning after her dinner with Aidan, even though Sunday-morning breakfast there was her favorite. Sally made outstanding waffles with real Vermont maple syrup and served them with bacon that was perfectly crisped. There were usually a few other people there whom she knew, not as many as there might be on a weekday, but enough that she usually had company. The comfort of those waffles and her friends was probably what she needed most. What she didn’t need, though, was a chance encounter with Aidan after that ground-shaking kiss and the downhill evening that had followed.

  Liz kept right on avoiding the café during the next week and the following weekend, even though Shanna, Bree and Heather had all called her on it. They clearly recognized there was something more behind this change in her routine than the flimsy excuses she kept offering. Liz, however, was determinedly not talking. Satisfying their curiosity was not her top priority. Getting her equilibrium back was.

  She’d been doing just fine building a new life. The attraction to Aidan had been an unanticipated distraction from her goal of becoming the independent woman she wanted to be. And, no matter how hot those kisses had been, two people with secrets they were intent on keeping could hardly have any sort of future, not when trust and honesty had to be at the core of any relationship.

  So, instead of the routine she’d come to love, she ate a bowl of cereal standing up at her kitchen counter, then took the dogs for a walk, hoping the exercise would wipe out the memory of that amazingly romantic moment on the deck at Brady’s with moonlight spilling over them. Unfortunately, it seemed it would take more than a daily walk to accomplish that. That kiss had been every bit as magical as Aidan had believed, no question about it.

  Maybe, she thought with a hint of wry humor, it could be excised from her brain with some sort of Gamma Knife procedure. Until then, though, she had to keep moving and trying to dodge all the questions that kept coming her way from her friends.
/>   On the second Sunday of her self-imposed exile, she was almost home when Archie started straining at his leash, then broke free and bounded toward the house. She understood why when she spotted Aidan sitting on the front porch. Her traitorous heart leaped with almost as much joy as Archie was expressing. She closed her eyes for an instant and prayed for guidance.

  “Good morning,” Aidan said quietly, then held out a large take-out cup of coffee from Sally’s. “You weren’t at breakfast. It’s not the first time you’ve missed it. Since the absences started the day after we kissed, I’ve gotten the feeling you’re avoiding me.”

  “Why would I do that?” she said, as if the thought had never crossed her mind. “I just changed up my routine. I like taking the dogs for a walk instead. They need the exercise before being cooped up in the house all day.”

  Hoping to divert his attention from whatever his mission might be, she said, “By the way, isn’t school out this week?”

  “Tuesday’s the last day,” he confirmed.

  “Then you’ll be getting Archie on Wednesday,” she said flatly, not allowing any room for argument. “I’ll have all his things ready by eight, so you can pick him up.”

  Aidan’s gaze locked on hers. “I didn’t come to discuss the arrangements for Archie.”

  A flash of panic washed over her. She’d been hoping that he’d gotten the message, that the words she’d spoken that night at Brady’s and her subsequent actions had finally gotten through to him that she wasn’t interested. Or, to be more precise, wasn’t going to allow herself to act on any wayward interest she might feel.

  If only they’d never shared that blasted kiss, she thought, remembering it in exquisite detail—the softness of his lips, the mingling of their breath, the heat that had tracked right through her bloodstream. Good thing she wasn’t like most men, she concluded wryly, since they thought with their hormones. A dynamite kiss was all it took to wipe reason straight out of their heads. Fortunately, she was less susceptible. Well, not to the kiss, but to the urge to follow up on it with more.

  She accepted the coffee Aidan held out to her, but made herself frown at him. “I thought we weren’t going to pursue this, whatever this might be. Didn’t we decide that just the other night? I thought I’d made myself clear. Have you forgotten that conversation and your promise already?”

  Aidan didn’t seem impressed by the reminder or the snippy tone in which she delivered it. “I brought coffee, Liz. Friends do that sort of thing, especially when they sense they might have upset a friend and that the friend might be deliberately avoiding them because of it.”

  The way he delivered the word friend made a mockery of it. Still, he allowed the words to hang in the air until she finally sighed, pretty much acknowledging that he’d gotten it right. Darn the man for being so intuitive. Under other circumstances, it was a trait she’d appreciate.

  “Do you want me to go?” he asked.

  “I suppose not, especially since you’ve brought coffee,” she said, sounding more like a petulant child than a grateful woman. And truthfully, she was grateful. She’d been caffeine deprived for days now. The weak, if convenient, coffee she’d been begging from Shanna just didn’t compare to Sally’s strong brew.

  Filled with reluctance, she sat next to him. All three dogs flopped down in the sunshine, though Archie’s spot was once again as close as possible to Aidan. Liz got it. Despite her very strong resolve, she wanted to throw herself straight into his arms. She had a feeling all that solid muscle and masculine heat would prove irresistibly comforting, and right this second, she was in desperate need of reassurance. Unfortunately, though, he was the last man she ought to be getting that from.

  They sat in silence for a while, sipping coffee. She had to give him credit. He apparently wasn’t going to push for answers, even if he claimed to have come here to get them. She appreciated that more than she could say.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked eventually.

  She immediately stiffened. So much for not prying. “Talk about what?”

  “Whatever happened that made you so determined to keep men in general, or me in particular, at arm’s length.”

  “Do you really need to dissect the whole thing?” she asked. “I thought most men hated that sort of discussion.”

  “I’m not most men,” he said. “And despite these walls you want to keep up between us, I do care about you.”

  She studied him curiously. “Hasn’t anyone ever turned you down before?”

  The question seemed to amuse him. “More times than you can probably imagine. I can take rejection, Liz. It’s not about that.”

  “Then what is it about?”

  “I made you cry,” he said simply.

  “I did not cry,” she said fiercely.

  “Close enough,” he said. “I saw the tears in your eyes, even as you were saying no to us spending more time together.”

  “You’re imagining things,” she said, a note of desperation in her voice.

  He held her gaze, then said quietly, “I don’t think so.”

  “Why can’t you just take what I said at face value and leave it alone?”

  “Because that kiss was amazing. I don’t know about you, but that kind of chemistry doesn’t come along every day for me. I felt it the first time I saw you. It seems like a shame not to see where it could take us. Believe me, I have a whole slew of reservations about it, too. The timing is lousy for one thing. I have a lot to prove in this town. Still, I can’t help thinking that some things are worth the risk.”

  She gave him a long look. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Aidan. There are plenty of risks not worth taking.”

  He frowned. “What happened to you, Liz? You’re not a cynical person. In fact, you may be the most positive person I’ve ever known. Anyone who knows you would say the same thing.”

  She could tell that he intended to keep pestering her until he got some answer that satisfied him, no matter how much she was hurt by having to reveal things she wanted to leave buried.

  “I got my heart broken, that’s what,” she blurted before she could question the wisdom of responding at all. “Not just broken, shattered. I came here to put it back together, not to risk it being broken all over again.” She leveled a look into his eyes. “I won’t allow that to happen, Aidan. Do you get it now? I will not allow it!”

  And with that, she got up, went into the house with the dogs racing in after her. She slammed the door emphatically behind her, hoping to finally convey the message she’d tried to send all along—that she wanted him to stay away.

  * * *

  Aidan sat where he was after Liz had gone inside, too stunned at first to move. Instinct told him to go after her, to try to get to the bottom of her heartache. That’s what a real friend would do. A true friend wouldn’t leave someone in the sort of pain she was obviously in.

  Unfortunately, he was the source of at least some of that pain. His determined prodding had forced her into revealing something she’d clearly kept private from everyone in Chesapeake Shores. He knew if she’d revealed her secrets to any of her friends, someone would have alerted him, maybe not to the details, but to the fact that he needed to treat her with extra care. Instead, the whole town thought of her the same way he did, as a strong, perpetually cheerful woman who was 100 percent contented with her life.

  Though a part of him thought it cowardly, he forced himself to go back into town in search of someone better suited to help Liz through this crisis. Observation suggested she was closest to Bree, but Aidan couldn’t seem to find her anywhere. Shanna, however, was in the bookstore, the closed sign still on the door. He tapped to get her attention.

  Frowning, she came to the door and unlocked it. “Everything okay?”

  “Not really,” he said. “Do you have a minute before you open?�
�

  “I have an hour. I just came in early to reshelve some books that were scattered around by customers yesterday. Coffee’s on, if you want some.”

  “Thanks.”

  She poured him a cup, then gestured toward one of the comfortable upholstered chairs that had been strategically placed to encourage customers to relax and read. She pulled over a nearby straight chair from one of the tables set up in the tiny coffee area.

  “Shouldn’t you be sitting here?” Aidan asked worriedly. “That chair doesn’t look very comfortable.”

  She grinned. “It’s not, but I can still get up from it. If I sit where you are, I’ll be there till I call in a tow truck. Something to keep in mind if you ever have to deal with a pregnant woman. Straight chairs are our friends.”

  He laughed. “Not in my immediate future,” he said.

  “The time will come,” she said with confidence. “Tuck the advice away till you need it. So, what’s on your mind, or do I need to ask?”

  “It’s about Liz.”

  “Of course it is. You’re worried she’s avoiding you.”

  “I know she’s avoiding me,” he corrected. “And now I have some idea about why.”

  “Were you getting too close?” Shanna asked gently. “We’ve all noticed she seems a little gun-shy about the idea of forming a new relationship.”

  “Has she mentioned why?”

  “Not a word,” Shanna said, then frowned. “Did she tell you?”

  “Not the whole story,” he conceded, “but enough to know that something bad went down in her past.”

  Concern settled on Shanna’s face. “How did you get that much out of her? The only picture she’s ever painted of her past for us was pretty rosy.”

  “I’m not surprised. That’s what she seems to want everyone to think.” He sighed. “But I pressed too hard and she snapped. I don’t think she meant to tell me anything, but the words came out before she could stop them. Then she ran into the house and slammed the door.”