by J. S. Scott
The words were hoarse and genuine, which confused Kristin enough to look away from his hypnotic gaze. It was about the only plain speaking he’d ever done in her company, and she shuddered, knowing that those two words were meant as so much more than just a denial. He was trying to tell her something.
“So what are you doing here?” she asked in a rush, eager to change the subject.
“The movie just wrapped. I was looking for Micah. His employees said he was here.”
Moving a short distance away from Julian, Kristin put her elbows on the bar. Her feet were killing her, and she knew she looked disheveled. Her hair was starting to come loose from the hurried French braid she’d done earlier that morning, and the white apron she was wearing had splatters of food decorating the front from lunch service. “I haven’t seen him. I didn’t even know he was here.”
“He’s here. He’s staying on the Peninsula in Jared’s guesthouse. But I checked. He’s not there. Jared said to try Randi’s old place. I guess Micah bought some land out there, along with Randi’s old house.”
Kristin was surprised, and very little shocked her. “He bought an old house outside town? Why?”
“He bought a bunch of property. Some of it’s on the coastline. He told Jared it’s an investment.”
“Why here?” Kristin was still baffled about why some guy with almost unlimited amounts of money would want to buy property in Amesport.
Julian shrugged his broad shoulders. “Why not? He could build up the land, expand the economy in town. I guess I get his plan. But he’s not usually a real-estate investor. I think he might have other motives.”
Kristin didn’t like Julian’s evil grin one bit, and she hated the thought of Amesport becoming a completely commercial town. The area had built up over the years, but Amesport still had a small-town feel, and she liked it that way. “What kind of motives?”
Julian pushed his empty plate away and polished off his milk. “Just a hunch. I’ll find out if I’m right eventually.”
Kristin glared at him. “So you’re not sharing?”
“Red, if I’d known you wanted to share, I’d have saved you some of that pie.”
He was deliberately misunderstanding her, goading her now. He obviously wasn’t going to spill any information. “If you think he’s out at Randi’s old place, why did you stop here?”
Julian stood up and pulled out a wad of money from the pocket of his jeans and dropped it beside his empty pie plate. “I thought I wanted a beer,” he said vaguely.
“Do you still want it?” Kristin tried to ask politely. After all, he was a paying customer.
“Nope.” He moved lightning fast and grasped her braid before she could back away from the bar. “I think you gave me what I really needed, Red.” He’d moved in quickly, his warm breath tickling her ear. “I only want one more thing.”
Kristin felt her body react to his nearness, and it made her almost speechless. “What?” She hated herself because the word came out sounding breathless.
“More dessert,” he whispered huskily, tilting her head with her braid as his lips covered hers.
Kristin was startled for a fraction of a second before her entire body began to ignite. She wrapped her arms around Julian’s muscular shoulders, trying to tug him closer, desperate for body contact.
The embrace only lasted for a short time, but it was enough to shake Kristin to her core. Julian wasn’t shy, and he openly devoured her as the couple in the corner watched curiously.
As he raised his mouth, Kristin opened her eyes, not sure when she’d closed them to savor the moment.
He tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, then ran the back of his hand down her cheek. “I won’t say I’m satisfied,” he rasped. “But I got what I came for.”
She came out of her daze as he released her.
What? What had he come for? For a beer? To kiss me senseless? To fill his empty stomach? What?
Kristin never got to ask. Julian departed as quickly as he’d entered, leaving her with only a glimpse of his completely edible body as he walked out the door.
Julian finally got his beer as he sat in the living room of Dante’s house, shooting the breeze with his male cousins and his oldest brother, Micah. Evan was the only one missing, still off on his delayed honeymoon with Randi.
“You look like hell,” Micah mentioned casually from his seat in the chair next to him.
“Thanks, bro. Nice to see you, too.” It wasn’t like Julian didn’t know he’d lost some weight while he was in the Australian outback filming, but he was sick as hell of being reminded he had a few bruises and scrapes. They’d heal, and he wasn’t as worried as his agent that his perfect face would have a scar. Jesus! He was tired of everybody worrying about how he looked.
“I’m glad to see you, but it looks like it was a rough job,” Micah answered frankly.
“It was.” He didn’t want to dwell on his latest project. It was a high-profile movie, hyped and anticipated, but for Julian, it hadn’t been that much of a challenge other than performing some of the stunts. Honestly, he missed the much rawer film that had won him the Oscar. The current movie he’d just wrapped would be a blockbuster because of the special effects, but it didn’t have a whole lot of substance.
“What made you stop here before heading back to California?” Micah asked curiously.
“I’m not sure. I guess I wanted to see what you were up to. When I found out you were here, I thought I’d take a break. It’s peaceful.” He was bullshitting himself and Micah. Amesport was fairly quiet once the tourists were gone, but it was far from relaxing with Red living here.
“I thought maybe you wanted a ride,” Micah said wryly.
“Got my own jet now,” Julian shot back at his older brother with humor in his voice after a few chugs from his beer.
“About time,” Micah grumbled, taking a pull from his own bottle.
“So what are you doing with the property you bought, Micah?” Grady asked from his seat on the couch. “Hopefully not a subdivision.”
Julian looked at Grady’s unhappy face, knowing he was possessive about two things: his wife, Emily, and the town of Amesport. Grady had been living here much longer than his brothers, and he liked the seclusion of the Peninsula and the town of Amesport in general.
Micah held up a hand defensively. “I’m not building it up. I’m building a house for myself on the coast, and vacation homes for Julian and Xander. I want to open the old skating rink, too, since I have the property.”
“What for?” Dante asked curiously. “It didn’t do much when it was open, from what I understand.”
Julian looked at his brother and smirked. It was kind of fun to watch Micah squirm.
Micah shrugged. “It’s still viable, and it gives the locals something else to do.”
Julian wanted to call bullshit on his brother, but he didn’t.
“You’re building for yourself?” Jared asked, sounding astonished. “Damn. It would be great to see you guys around, even if it was only for a vacation.”
Jared had always been the fixer among the Sinclairs, the one who valued family. He’d done much the same thing as Micah was doing now in order to get him and his family all together again.
And he’d finally succeeded. Jared and all his siblings now resided full-time on the Amesport Peninsula.
Julian eyed Micah suspiciously, wondering if he was hoping for the same result. If so, he was going to be disappointed. Julian and Xander belonged in California, and Micah had his entire company based out of New York. Besides, none of them were exactly lonely. They all had scores of women vying for their attention.
Just not the right one.
The nagging thought crossed through his mind involuntarily, but Julian ignored it. He’d worked his entire life to get where he was in Hollywood, and there was no way he was leaving. He didn’t need a vacation house in some small town in Maine. Hell, the winters were frigid, and the temperature wasn’t exactly scorching even in th
e summer, most of the time. Okay, yeah, maybe it would be nice to see his brothers and cousins more, and maybe he’d do a vacation here once in a while. But that was it.
Sometimes he missed his family, but he had a damn cell phone.
Julian continued to listen as Dante, Jared, and Grady all talked about houses, sounding plenty enthusiastic about the prospect of having their cousins owning homes in Amesport.
He downed the rest of his beer, trying not to think about his earlier encounter with Red. If he gave it much thought, he’d end up sporting the same boner he’d had the second he’d seen her again.
She’d surprised him today by quietly giving him dinner and a glass of milk instead of the beer he’d ordered. Strangely, she’d seemed to sense he’d been hungry, tired, and restless, even if she was contrary almost all of the time.
I’m not exactly nice to her.
Nope. He wasn’t, and he generally wasn’t an asshole. Not really. But something about her made him want to antagonize her.
Because I like her.
Shit! He wasn’t in grade school anymore, but damned if he didn’t want to tug on her braid because he liked her. He also wanted to see her flushed, her sultry, dark-green eyes flashing fire at him.
Problem was, he wasn’t about to bang one of the women here. If his cousins or Micah found out, they’d beat the crap out of him. Kristin was friends with every Sinclair wife, and Hope, his only female cousin. She worked for Dante’s physician wife as a medical assistant in her office. Kristin was trouble, and he needed to stay as far away from her as he could get.
The difficulty was, he wanted to seek her out.
He tried not to groan as he thought about how passionately she’d returned his kiss today. He hadn’t meant for that to happen, but now that it had, the memory wouldn’t leave his brain.
“You ready?” Micah asked as he stood.
Julian looked up at his brother questioningly, wondering what he’d missed while he’d been reliving his heated encounter with Kristin. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.” He stood up, handing Dante his empty bottle as his cousin collected trash. Once a Los Angeles detective, his cousin looked so domesticated; Dante was still a detective, but now he worked for the police department in Amesport.
He looks happy. Everyone looks so damn happy.
Julian felt a twinge in his chest as he looked at all of his cousins, every one of them appearing like they had everything they wanted in life. Maybe he wasn’t the type of man to settle down, his life too mobile and crazy to ever consider a relationship, but at that moment, he almost envied them. Most of the time, he was secretly happy for all his cousins. They’d lived through a fucked-up childhood. They deserved to be content as adults.
Another sharp pang stabbed him in the chest as the backslapping and jokes started again as he and Micah went to leave, making him remember the times when all of the Sinclair men had spent summers together when they were younger. There was something to be said about always knowing another Sinclair had your back. In California, Julian could rarely tell enemy from friend in his superficial world.
As he followed Micah out the door, Julian wondered if he’d forgotten what it was like to have anybody he trusted in his life. Sadly, as he walked away from the comfortable atmosphere of family, he couldn’t think of a single person in California who would be at his back if he wasn’t a billionaire or his career wasn’t going as well as it was right now.
CHAPTER 8
The next afternoon found Tessa rolling her shoulders to release some tension as she skated through her warm-up, trying not to regret her words to Micah the day before. Oh, not that he’d treated her poorly, but he had backed off, asking her a few polite questions about the bleakest time in her life before getting up and taking her hand as they made their way back to Randi’s house.
He’d left soon after they’d arrived.
Now, she could feel him watching her as she skated, and he’d been unusually quiet since he’d picked her up this morning.
What did I expect? Did I think he was going to understand why I wanted to off myself? Hell, sometimes I don’t even understand it now. But back then, her desperation had been all too real.
After her mother had died, she’d been so alone, feeling so damn worthless that she hadn’t wanted to live anymore. She’d shared with Micah how she’d put together a cocktail of medications that she’d been pretty certain would kill her, mainly from a stock she’d had left of her mother’s pain and sleeping pills. She’d been ready to go to sleep and never wake up, let the dark pit she’d sunk into take her away.
The only thing that had stopped her at the last minute was Liam. She couldn’t leave him all alone, and she knew he’d blame himself for the rest of his life if she ended her own. She had been selfish, ready to ease her own pain at the expense of her only living close relative.
At the last minute, she’d dumped all of the pills in the toilet and flushed them down the pipes, unwilling to end her pain by causing more for Liam.
Tessa had experienced episodes of depression since her hearing loss, but she’d found herself in her darkest days after her parents were both gone, leaving her alone in a hearing world when she had none. Isolated and feeling separated from the rest of the world, she’d had to battle her way out of the darkness and back into the light. She’d finally escaped after Liam had come home and she’d reached out for counseling. Tessa had never talked about her near-death experience to anyone. How she’d gotten to the point of no return she couldn’t fathom now, but she’d been there, ready to take her own life just to escape her anguished existence.
Maybe it had crept up on her a little at a time. Maybe she’d always just gone through the motions after going deaf. The dark cloud had descended when Rick had dumped her, but then she’d had her mom and dad, a reason to stay alive, people who loved her. Too much pain, blow after blow, had rendered her helpless to fight her depression. She was recovered now, for the most part, but she sure as hell knew she couldn’t go back there again.
It isn’t like I didn’t want to give in to Micah, experience the pleasure he could give.
However, she’d grown to like him, and she knew that if she stepped into his fire, she probably wouldn’t come out unscathed. There was no future for them. No billionaire with the whole world at his disposal would ever fall for a small-town deaf woman. She wasn’t feeling sorry for herself. Tessa was done with that. But she did live in reality. Sometimes, for her, the world was much too real.
She didn’t need counseling anymore, having worked through the life issues that had spurred her spiral downward. Rationally, she knew she needed to avoid anything that could trigger her sadness if she could. And thinking of Micah Sinclair as anything other than a friend could bring nothing but heartache.
I have to accept the way things are, the way I am now.
As she started skating faster, building up speed, she felt the cool air wafting over her face, her entire body humming with excitement. If nothing else, she could be grateful to Micah for this, giving her a means to go back to doing something she loved. Skating was a part of her that had been missing for a long time.
Executing a few double jumps to warm up, she gained speed to finally try a triple. She went into the jump a little off, recognizing immediately where she erred, but it was too late.
She ended up with her ass on the ice.
Brushing off her old skirt as she rose, she could almost hear her former coach’s voice in her head, telling her she needed to concentrate.
She gasped as her shoulders were grasped by strong hands, her body suddenly facing Micah.
Her eyes shot to his mouth.
“Christ! I’m sorry. I should have never pushed you into this. Are you hurt?” His face showed nothing but worry for her. He moved his hands up and down her arms.
“I’m fine. If I had a dime for every time I fell on my backside while practicing, I’d be rich,” she told him with a laugh. “I was trying a triple. I knew I’d be rusty after almost a decade.”
His face was stern as he replied, “Let’s go. This is too dangerous. I wish I had never encouraged you to skate again.”
Now he thinks I’m fragile, not able to handle anything because I told him I’d experienced a period of my life that I just couldn’t handle. Is he worried about my sanity, or my physical well-being?
Tessa grabbed one of his hands. “No. I’m glad you did. I needed this, Micah. And I’m used to falling. It’s part of the training.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
It was funny he was saying those words, because her heart ached just from seeing his worried expression. When was the last time any guy cared about whether she was hurt or not? Only her brother, Liam. “It won’t kill me,” she joked. “I have no doubt I’ll fall again and again until I get the routine down.”
“I can’t watch that. Let’s go.” He tugged on her hand.
“I’m not done.”
“You’re done. There’s no way you’re falling again and again just to perform. What if you break bones?”
She smiled at him. “My coach used to say I bounced well.”
He scowled at her. “That’s not funny.”
She yanked her hand from his. “It’s going to happen.” Truly, she was floored by his fierce objections. He meant what he said. He wanted her to walk out of the arena and never come back. “I can’t quit. You know how many attempts it can take to get something right, and you’ve done the same thing plenty of times,” she said desperately. “Please.”
Technically, he could drag her out of the rink. He owned it now.
She needed so much to succeed, not just for the money, but for her psyche.
He hesitated as though he was considering his options. Like Micah Sinclair had any reason to object if she kept falling on her ass? The man did things that would probably make her hair stand on end.
“No. More. Triples.” He said the words slowly, as though it was the last thing he wanted to utter, but was doing it anyway.
“Thank you,” she replied, knowing she’d have to practice them alone. But she had a key to the rink. She could come here when Micah wasn’t around to perfect her more complicated jumps.
