Jamison glanced down at his new suit a little self-consciously. “New suit? Shave?”
Faith narrowed her eyes. “No. It’s something more than that. You look different.”
Jamison shrugged. “Maybe you’re finally realizing how damned sexy I am.”
Faith snorted. “Gross. You’re like my brother. I’d rather kiss a goat.”
“I’d rather be kissed by a goat.” Jamison grinned as he slung an arm around Faith’s shoulders and gave her a good, hard hug. “How was work?”
“Good, but that weird guy called for you again and still wouldn’t leave his name. Did you ever figure out who he might be?”
Jamison shook his head. “Guess it could be one of Dad’s old buddies from the department. Sometimes they call looking for me or Jake.”
“Or maybe whatever hoochie you’re dating has an angry ex,” Faith said, making Jamison laugh at the thought of Maddie’s gay ex-husband suddenly developing a jealous streak.
“Not a chance,” he said. “And she’s not a hoochie.”
Faith perked up, blonde brows lifting. “Oh, yeah? Well who is she? When are we going to meet this mystery woman who makes your voice sound all smooshy?”
“Soon,” Jamison said vaguely, grinning despite himself. “Where’s your better half?”
“Mick’s already inside,” Faith said, falling in beside him as he started toward the front of the church. “He came early to help Naomi hang ribbons or something while Maddie closed up the bakery.”
Just the mention of Maddie’s name made Jamison’s chest warmer and his smile take up more real estate on his face.
“So what did you get them?” Faith asked, starting up the stairs leading to the massive wooden doors. “I got bedding to go with the crib Mick made, but now I’m worried that’s lame.”
Jamison pulled a face. “It’s not lame. Besides, Jake and Naomi don’t care about the gifts. They already have everything they ever wanted.”
Faith shot him a strange look.
“What?” he asked, holding the door open for her.
“Nothing, you just sound so happy for them.”
“I am happy for them. And for you,” Jamison said, punching her lightly on the arm as they entered the dim front hall of the church, a place that always smelled like a mix between a library and his aunt’s moldy drawing room, but in a comforting kind of way. “I’m glad you found someone who loves you so much.”
Faith grinned a smile that definitely had a hint of goofy, love-buzz in it, though she was better at hiding it than Jake. “Yeah. He’s so great. I love the shit out of him.”
Jamison laughed. “Cursing in church. Nice.”
Faith shrugged as they made their way past a group of older women clustered around the entrance and into the left side of the nave. “It’s a Catholic Church. All you have to do is confess your sins if you’re Catholic, right? And then everything is all good?”
“Something like that,” Jamison said, pausing to dip his fingertips into the font of holy water near the door and cross himself. “But I haven’t been to confession much since my aunt stopped forcing me and Jake to come to mass every Saturday night in high school.”
Faith clucked her tongue as they moved deeper into the church, past stained glass windows that painted the wood floor in rainbow colors as the sun streamed through them. “That’s a shame. Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.”
“Then maybe you should convert,” Jamison said, lowering his voice as they moved toward the front of the church where most of the family was already gathered in the small pews near the ceremonial baptismal font.
Jamison scanned the assembled company, but Maddie wasn’t there. He would have spotted her instantly. She stood out in a crowd. When Maddie was in a room, he couldn’t seem to look anywhere but directly at her.
“I am converting,” Faith said, surprising him. “I mean, I was raised Assembly of God, but it wasn’t really my jam, and Mick’s Catholic so…”
“So, what?” He glanced down at her profile, wondering why she sounded so cagey all of a sudden.
She rolled her eyes. “Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s going to be a surprise for, you know…later.”
“How much later?” he asked.
“After the wedding later,” Faith said. “So keep your lips zipped.”
“I don’t know anything, so how can I—”
“Exactly.” She nudged him in the side with an elbow before hurrying ahead of him to slide into the second pew back from the font, beside Mick, who immediately turned and put his arm around her, drawing her close.
Jamison smiled. Apparently he and Maddie weren’t the only ones keeping secrets until after Jake and Naomi’s wedding. He had an idea what Faith and Mick’s surprise might be—there were only so many things in life that dictated a change of religious affiliation—and an engagement would certainly help take the heat off of him and Maddie. The announcement that they were dating would pale in comparison to the twenty-somethings deciding to get married after dating for a mere five months.
Pleasantly uplifted by the thought of sliding in under the radar, Jamison circled around to the front pew. Jake stood up to give him a quick hug, while Naomi smiled up at him from where she sat with Noelle sleeping in her arms next to the aging Father Seamus, who looked perilously close to sleep himself.
The baby was wearing an antique christening gown that hung far past her curled toes and a tiny crocheted cap, her blue eyes closed and her tiny fists thrown up on either side of her head as she slept. With her brown curls and wide, cupid-bow mouth, Noelle was already a beauty, and looked like she could be Naomi’s biological daughter.
Or Maddie’s.
The thought of Maddie holding a baby with her blue eyes and dark curls drifted through Jamison’s mind unbidden, stirring up a strange feeling somewhere behind his ribs. Before he could sort out what the feeling was, Maddie’s perfume drifted to his nose, smelling like wildflowers and springtime and a dozen other wonderful things all rolled into one light, floral scent.
“Oh, she looks so beautiful,” Maddie whispered from behind him.
Jamison turned to see her standing a few feet away, happy tears shining in her eyes, looking so stunning in a royal blue dress with ruffles above the knee that it was all he could do not to reach out and pull her into his arms. His chest went tight with the need to hold her, to say how glad he was to see her after a long day apart. He’d gotten off work yesterday at noon, but he’d had errands to run and then she’d had to go into the bakery at four this morning. He hadn’t gotten a full twenty-four hour Maddie fix, and he felt it.
“Hi,” she said as she came to stand beside him, shooting him a quick smile that warmed him all over.
He could see how glad she was to see him—she was a bad actress, and hopeless when it came to concealing her feelings—but Jake and Naomi would likely be too wrapped up in the christening to pay attention to the fact that Maddie and Jamison couldn’t keep their eyes off of each other.
And if they weren’t…well who really cared? Jamison was ready to claim Maddie as his, to shout her name from the church rafters and let everyone know he was completely gone on the woman standing beside him.
“So who’s going to hold the baby?” Jake asked as Father Seamus stood with Bible in hand, clearly ready to get things started before he fell asleep.
“I don’t know,” Maddie said, glancing up at him. “We hadn’t talked about it.”
“I think you should,” Jamison said. “You’ll feel more like her mama, so if she wakes up, hopefully she won’t get scared.”
“Okay.” Maddie smiled, a beautiful smile that broke his heart into pieces.
Until Maddie, he’d never known that happiness could shatter you the same way sadness could, or that he would come to crave that sweet, pleasure-pain like nothing else. He didn’t want to stay whole when he was with Maddie, he wanted her to come in swinging and break him apart just for the bliss of being put back together with her touch, her
kiss, the way she said his name when there was no one else around to hear.
He was in love with her, hopelessly in love, but he hadn’t let himself say the words again yet. Things had been good since their talk in the alley behind the bakery—better than good—and he didn’t want to rock the boat.
They’d had a night to remember camping out on his aunt’s property with the blindfold and a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs Maddie had laughed at until she found out how much fun they could be, and spent every night Jamison wasn’t working together since. They’d watched old action movies, made caramel popcorn, and drizzled the leftover caramel all over each other before licking it off. They’d crept up to the roof of the bakery with their sleeping bags and slept out under the stars, waking to make love as the sky was turning a rosy pink the same color as Maddie’s lips. They’d even donned hats and glasses as disguises and caught a movie at the newly reopened drive-in, making out in the back seat during a midnight showing of Grease like they were in high school.
Almost every night, the “L” word had threatened to escape Jamison’s lips again, but never so much as when Naomi shifted the sleeping Noelle into Maddie’s arms and he and Maddie went to stand together beside the priest, next to the font of water sparkling in the late afternoon light. Now, he felt a rush of feeling unlike anything he’d felt before, almost as if God himself were looking down and giving him a kick in the ass, telling him to grab onto the woman beside him and never let her go.
And maybe He was. Jamison had had his ups and downs with his spiritual journey, but Maddie was teaching him to believe in miracles, and he knew nothing had ever felt more holy than holding her in his arms.
“If you’ll put your right hand on the baby, Jamison, we’ll begin,” Father Seamus said with a smile before turning to face the small group of family and friends who had gathered for the ceremony.
Jamison moved closer to Maddie, slipping his hand around her to rest gently on the baby’s head, surprised to find his throat tightening with emotion. He had been honored when Jake asked him to be his daughter’s godfather, but he’d never dreamt he’d be fighting the urge to start sniffling right along with Maddie.
Father Seamus began the ceremony by asking Jake and Naomi for an official pronouncement of the baby’s name and then offering blessings, giving Jamison the chance to pull himself together. By the time the priest finished reading a few scripture passages he’d prepared and turned back to Jamison and Maddie, Jamison was able to promise to help Noelle on her spiritual journey with a steady voice.
Maddie promised the same, and Noelle’s head was sprinkled with holy water and her forehead traced with the sign of the cross—causing the baby to open sleepy blue eyes and snuffle with disapproval before shoving her fist into her mouth and falling back asleep—and the deed was done.
“Sleepy girl,” Maddie cooed as she delivered Noelle back into Naomi’s arms.
“She is,” Naomi agreed, beaming down at her daughter. “She missed second nap today while we were over at Mom and Dad’s.”
“But we’ll make sure she gets her naps in when she’s staying with us,” Naomi’s mother said, appearing at her daughter’s elbow to smile down at her granddaughter.
Mrs. Whitehouse was a solid woman a little shorter than Maddie, with graying brown hair tamed into tight curls close to her head and blue eyes framed with bursts of smile lines. She was a soft-spoken woman and not the most demonstrative, but she’d had a soft spot for the Hansen brothers when they were growing up. She’d always made them cakes on their birthdays, and checked in with them at church picnics, and hadn’t scolded Jamison too harshly when he slipped a slug down her daughter’s dress or broke one of her beach umbrellas using it as a makeshift jousting pole.
As he’d grown older and more focused on his career, Jamison had fallen out of touch with both Mr. and Mrs. Whitehouse—except for a hello now and then when they ran into each other at mass—but he held out hope that they would think he was good enough for their daughter. He wanted to make a good second impression on Maddie’s parents. He knew he and Maddie had only been dating a short time, but in his unguarded moments, he hoped he and the Whitehouses might end up being even closer than they used to be.
“Want to drop my car off at the bakery and drive to my parents’ together?” Maddie asked as Naomi and her mother moved toward the rear of the church, following the rest of the family and friends already making their way toward the parking lot.
Jamison’s eyebrows lifted. “Does that mean we’re coming out of the closet?”
“Ha ha.” Maddie grinned. “No. It means Mick is making whiskey sours before dinner and I would like to have a few and not drive. Is that acceptable?”
“Of course.” Jamison hummed happily as he started up the aisle beside her, fighting the urge to put his arm around her waist. “Anything that involves you and whiskey is on my list of favorite things.”
Maddie laughed. “Yeah, well, I’ll do my best to behave. My parents get nervous when there are non-family-members around to observe my shenanigans. They don’t want me to let my hair down too much.”
“I love it when you let your hair down,” Jamison said softly. “Especially when you take all your clothes off and run into the ocean, first.”
Maddie spun around, walking backwards as she widened her eyes at him in a silent warning to cool it before they caught up with everyone else. He chuckled and nodded, forcing himself to keep his eyes on anything but Maddie as they crossed themselves and stepped outside, waving to friends and family as they started down the stairs. He knew his feelings for her must be showing on his face. He didn’t usually consider himself a transparent person, but he’d never loved anyone the way he loved Maddie.
What he’d felt for Wendy had been a pale imitation; he could see that now. It had been a crush on a friend that never should have gone as far as it did. A part of him wished he and Wendy were still friends, so he could call and apologize, but they hadn’t spoken since the day she told him she was going to make it work with Art and walked out of his apartment in Atlanta.
Now, it seemed ridiculous that he’d been so depressed about losing Wendy. Wendy was a beautiful, sexy, intelligent woman, but she was no Maddie.
“So I’ll see you at Icing in a few minutes?” Maddie asked when they reached his car.
“Yes ma’am,” Jamison said. “But park behind the bakery if you can find a spot.”
“Why?” Maddie asked, pausing to lift a hand to Naomi and Jake as they crossed the parking lot before turning back to him.
“Because I’m going to need to kiss you before we get to your parents’ house,” he said, voice rough, “or there’s no way I’m going to be able to keep my hands off you all night.”
Maddie arched one brow, a naughty smile curving one side of her lips. “As if one kiss is ever enough. I know what you want, Jamison Hansen. You want a quickie.”
Jamison smiled, feeling guilty, though that wasn’t what he’d been thinking. “Not true. I said a kiss and I meant a kiss.”
Maddie hummed in a way that made it clear she wasn’t buying anything he was selling. “I think you’re full of it, but I did tell Naomi I was planning to change out of my church clothes, so I don’t suppose anyone will be suspicious if I arrive slightly rumpled in jeans and a Tee shirt.”
“No,” Jamison said, suddenly wanting to prove to Maddie that he was more than a one trick pony. He loved getting naked with her, but he was also happy to spend a night enjoying her company, without any sex involved. “I’ll take my kiss, and wait in the car while you change.”
Maddie frowned, an uncertain look creeping into her eyes. “Why? Is something wrong?”
Jamison shook his head. “Just trying to be on my best behavior, and make a good second impression on your parents. I’m sure they’d rather have you at the party sooner rather than later.”
Maddie cocked her head to one side, regarding him thoughtfully for a moment before she nodded. “Okay. Then I’ll see you in a few, and I’ll stay
in my dress and just grab more comfortable shoes.”
“Good,” he said, opening the door to the Mustang. “Because you look beautiful in that dress.”
He got in and started the car, glancing into his rearview mirror in time to catch Maddie smiling a private smile before she turned and hurried to her car. It was a sweet, hopeful smile that made Jamison’s heart feel lighter. She was in love with him, and if his gut wasn’t telling lies, she’d be coming out of the relationship closet with him the day after her sister said her “I do’s.”
Chapter Eleven
Halfway through her first whiskey sour, Maddie snuck into her parents’ kitchen and poured the rest of the drink down the drain.
Even with only a few sips in her, it was becoming obvious she wasn’t going to be able to keep from outing herself and Jamison if she allowed any more whiskey to enter her bloodstream. He looked too good, smelled too good, oozed too much raw, sensual, smolder-liciousness as he leaned against the railing on her parents’ back porch, a beer held lightly between his fingers and the setting sun catching the golden streaks in his hair.
He was like something straight out of a manly diet soda ad, or maybe a magazine advertisement for feminine lubricant or ribbed condoms or something naughty, but fun. He had taken sexy to an entirely new level tonight, and Maddie’s blood pressure was suffering as a result.
Jamison was smoking hot in a tee shirt and jeans, but in that black suit with the fitted waist and a muted silver tie, he looked good enough to devour whole.
Maddie couldn’t keep her eyes off of him, couldn’t keep from imagining all the trouble they could be getting up to with that silver tie if they were back in her apartment getting naked instead of hanging out at her parents’ house, waiting for the roast beef her mother put in the oven an hour too late to finally reach a temperature that wouldn’t give them all E. coli.
She’d teased Jamison about wanting a quickie, but now she was the one feeling itchy and unsettled, and wishing she’d worked harder to convince him that showing up ten minutes late to her parents’ house was no big deal.
Sweet To You (Fire and Icing) Page 9
