Wild Kisses (Wildwood)

by Skye Jordan

  Avery recognized this chatter; she’d heard it a lot over the last couple of years. First from fellow army wives when initial rumblings of the divorce surfaced. Then again once it became a reality. And it started all over when she’d come home.

  Everyone wanted some magical insight into their own relationship by way of her failure. Some kernel of knowledge that would give them a sense of security, assuring them that what happened to Avery wouldn’t happen to them.

  “I knew things weren’t right between us,” she said, “but I never saw any signs that he’d checked out completely and had found someone else. And, yes, their engagement was fast, but feelings can sometimes happen between two people quickly when the situation is right.”

  Her feelings for Trace had been instant and ramped up out of control within weeks of working with him. And look at her now.

  “David and I were at odds for a long time. I prefer to think he had a friendship that turned into something more once we were divorced. Whether it’s true or not really doesn’t matter. David went through a lot overseas. We didn’t fit the same as we did when we were kids. It’s over, and people here might want to hold on to something they see as a scandal, but it’s really nothing more than two people realizing they were poorly matched and moving on. I’ve already let it go.”

  That was a ridiculous oversimplification of something even Avery still didn’t fully understand. Not to mention a ludicrous understatement, glossing over all the loneliness and pain those long years caused her. But her answer made the worry clear from Belle’s eyes, and that made Avery happy.

  “How’s the renovation going?” she asked. “Are you on target for your opening? Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Avery’s mind turned to Trace first, and it lingered there when she should have been thinking about her business. “Trace is doing a great job on the café. It’s really beautiful. More than I ever expected, you know? I feel lucky that Delaney snagged him for the job. I could never have afforded anyone else. And so far, so good on the opening.”

  “I’m so relieved. When I heard Trace was doing the work . . .” She grimaced. “I’m not gonna lie—I was worried.”

  After Betty’s slight, this one nudged her protectiveness up another notch. Avery forced her frustration to the background. “Why?”

  “He’s got such a playboy reputation. There are a couple of girls in the office who can’t stop talking about him since he got to town. And God forbid they actually run into him when they’re out at lunch or after work.” She rolled her eyes. “I guess from what I’ve heard I expected him to be out partying half the night, fucking someone the other half, and be spotty at work.”

  Avery’s gut squeezed until it ached. It took real effort to work up the lousy grin she put on. She just hoped it looked bored, not pained. “Well, you know this town and their rumors. I can’t tell you exactly what Trace is doing with all his nights, but I can tell you the man works twelve to fourteen hours every damn day, seven days a week, and he’s taking care of his dad, who’s suffering from the early stages of dementia.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I think I heard that.”

  “And if you want to see quality, come into the café. It speaks for itself. If the man can find enough energy to do anything else after all that, he probably deserves some TLC.”

  Belle grinned. “I love this new, tough Avery.”

  She huffed a laugh. “This new, tough Avery will get you some flyers. If you wouldn’t mind passing them out, that would be great.”

  “You bet.” She stood and slung her arm around Avery’s shoulders. “I’ll drop by the café and return your plate. That way I can pick up any leftovers hanging around.”

  Avery curved one arm around Belle’s waist. “Better than turning them into compost.”

  Belle left Avery at the office’s front door, and Avery returned to her car alone. Her mind wasn’t on her business or the café. All she kept hearing was Belle’s “I guess you really never know someone, right?”

  After everything Avery had been through, she’d have to agree.

  Trace hiked a load of old asphalt roof tiles onto his aching shoulder, stood, and climbed the steep pitch of the roof toward the dump truck parked on the opposite side. When he reached the peak, his gaze searched the drive, then the road for Avery’s Jeep, the way he had for the second day in a row now.

  Still no sign of her. Though she had found someone to work on the piano. Henry Baxter was down there tapping away at keys, and the sound reminded Trace of his younger years, when his mother was well and his dad was clean and his family was happy.

  He’d agreed both he and Avery needed some space, some time to think, to cool off. But he didn’t like it. In fact, yesterday had been the first twenty-four hours in two months he hadn’t seen her, and he’d been miserable. Today was shaping up to be another wretched day. She had to return eventually, but that didn’t mean she’d ever want him to touch her again.

  He didn’t blame her. He’d been a petty idiot. Then turned into a callous bastard, pounding her against a wall after she’d admitted wanting him.

  Who did that? Worse, who got hard just thinking about how hot it had been? How it had been the most passion he’d felt in years?

  A serious loser, that’s who.

  “I’m done over there,” Cody said, indicating his corner of the roof. “I’m gonna move to the other side.”

  He met Cody near the gutter and hefted the tile into the dump truck. “I’ll restake your safety bracket.”

  “Nah, I got it.”

  Trace nodded and started back to the other side of the roof, his own safety line trailing behind him. He knelt, grabbed his crowbar, wedged it under a tile, and pried it from the roof trusses.

  The work helped him exhaust his frustration over Avery, but it didn’t keep him from thinking about her. About them. He should take the decision out of her hands and call an end to their affair. If he could even call it an affair. Screwing twice hardly made it more than a hookup. But he knew better. There was something between them beyond physical sex. They’d already been friends for months. Good friends. They shared similar life hardships. Had similar values, work ethic, goals. They’d liked each other to start with. That was the problem. Or one of the problems. There were so many, he couldn’t keep track of them all.

  He tossed another old tile into the pile, shoved the crowbar under the next, and put his back into prying the nails loose.

  “I hate these brackets,” Cody complained. “They’re so goddamned hard to move.”

  Trace didn’t reply. He didn’t feel like bitching about the work. Yeah, it sucked to be up here doing the menial manual labor he used to do as a teenager. Especially after he’d worked for years to get his contractor’s license so he could have other guys doing this shit. But prison had a way of stripping a guy down to the nuts. He had to pay his dues all the fuck over again.

  Which included staying away from Avery.

  “I wanted you. I’ve wanted you from the moment I met you. That’s why I haven’t gone on a second date with anyone else. Because I want you.”

  He tossed another tile into the pile and wiped sweat from his forehead with his shoulder. God, he wanted her the same way. Wanted what he hadn’t wanted since he’d been screwed over by Corina.

  He wanted to take Avery to dinner and stay three hours over drinks, talking. He wanted to sleep in with her cuddled close, eat breakfast in bed, make love all afternoon, and fall asleep together again. He wanted inside jokes. He wanted conversations through a look across a room.

  Trace drove the crowbar under the next tile, and the old nails screeched loose.

  “This fucker . . . ,” Cody muttered.

  Trace glanced up and found Cody straddling the roofline, putting all his weight into the crowbar to loosen the stake holding the brace into a two-by-four. Alarm rocketed up Trace’s spine. Consequences flashed through his mind in split-second screenshots.

  “Hey, don’t lean into it.” He barked the inst
ruction he’d already given Cody three times that day. “I told you to knock it loose.”

  Cody looked up but continued to lean into the bar, shoving it with all his strength and placing three-quarters of his weight to one side of the roof.

  “Cody, stop.” Trace dropped his tool and scuttled toward Cody. “This roof is too old—”

  The nail snapped, the rotted two-by-four beneath cracked and pulled through the particleboard. And Cody tumbled head over ass down the slope.

  “Fuck!” Trace pushed off with both feet, throwing himself over the bracket and the tearing roof.

  Cody hit the gutter, reaching the end of the safety rope. The roof beneath Trace lifted, punching him in the chest. He grunted and lost all his air. Pain crushed his ribs, and for long, excruciating moments, he couldn’t breathe. His vision blurred and went dark before his throat finally opened and his lungs greedily sucked in oxygen.

  “Ah, God . . . ,” he groaned.

  He turned his head and found Cody with one leg slung over the gutter as he clung to the roof edge.

  “You okay?” Trace called.

  “Uh . . .” Cody was breathing hard and fast. “Probably not.”

  Henry rushed outside and looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Should I call the fire department?”

  Wouldn’t that be just perfect?

  “Cody,” Trace called. “Do you need a fireman to save your sorry ass, or can you do it yourself?”

  “I can do it myself, thanks. Think my ego’s bruised enough.”

  “We’ve got this, Henry,” Trace said. “Thank you.”

  The old man didn’t look convinced, but he went back inside.

  Trace banged his forehead to the hot roof. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  If he hadn’t been so goddamned obsessed with Avery, he’d have been paying attention, and this wouldn’t have happened.

  “Let me know when you’re secure,” he told Cody. “Then we can figure out which one of us losers is in better shape to drive to the ER.”

  NINE

  Avery had avoided Trace and the café as long as she could. She’d overstocked her space at Phoebe’s shop, filled and shipped her Internet orders, taken care of her lunch orders for the day, dropped off samples all over town, stocked Finley’s Market, and even held a successful focus-group tasting to help her refine her opening menu.

  Now she needed to spend some time on the small jobs at the café to make sure the opening day happened as planned. And, in truth, as she drove toward the café at 10:00 a.m. after forty-eight full hours away from Trace, her stomach flipped and fluttered with anticipation.

  When she saw the state of the roof, excitement joined those sensations, and a smile lifted her spirits.

  She parked in front of the café and climbed from the Jeep. Shading her eyes from the sun, she looked up. “Trace?”

  Another man peered over the edge, and it wasn’t Cody. This man was older than Trace, with sandy hair and a couple of days’ worth of beard growth. He offered a bright-white grin and a charismatic, “Hey there, beautiful. You must be Avery.”

  “JT.” Trace’s bark startled her. She stepped back and turned to Trace as he came out of the café. He was glaring up at the other man, hands on his hips. “What did we talk about?”

  “Oh, right.” JT sobered, offered a polite, “Hello, ma’am, I’m JT. Good to meet you. Gotta get back to work now.” And he disappeared.

  Delaney’s warnings about Avery’s schedule floated through her head.

  “Did you need to hire another guy?” she asked, returning her gaze to Trace. He didn’t look quite right—a little pale and a little pained with heavy shadows under his eyes. Her concern changed directions and mounted. “Where’s Cody? Are you okay? You don’t look so great.”

  “Let’s go inside.” He glanced up. “Just let me check on him. I’ll be right in.”

  He walked around the side of the building, and there was no doubt his lazy, sexy saunter had been replaced with stiff, slow movement. When he disappeared around the corner, Avery went inside and found all the upper kitchen cabinets installed. All the crown molding in place. The tables and chairs for the center of the seating area had been delivered and stacked along one wall.

  Her thrill returned. A smile brightened her face, and she pressed a hand to her heart, making slow circles to take in how beautiful the space looked with all the finishing touches.

  The screen door closed while she was looking at the pristine white subway tile he’d installed as the backsplash. “Trace, it’s gorgeous. Oh my God, I can’t believe what a difference—”

  His arm slipped around her waist, and he turned her. Wrapping her tight, he pressed his face to her hair and whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what I said and the way I acted.”

  His unexpected, uncharacteristic apology eased her heart open. With her hands on his shoulders, her cheek against his chest, she breathed him in, and the familiar scent of Trace’s musk heated her blood. “I’m sorry, too. I haven’t exactly been an open book.”

  She pulled back and felt around his chest, his abdomen. “What’s under your shirt?”

  “Let’s sit down.”

  Alarm snuck in again. “Where’s Cody?” she asked, sitting on one of the new chairs he brought around for her. “Who’s JT?”

  He sat, too, leaning forward, elbows on knees, and covered her hands with his. “Cody fell off the roof yesterday.”

  She bolted to her feet. “What?”

  “He’s okay.” Trace pulled on her hands, and she sat again, but her heart hammered, and any twinkle of excitement she’d arrived with had been snuffed out. “He hurt his shoulder, and he can’t help with the roof, so I hired JT.”

  “Were you on the roof with him? Were you hurt?” Panic hit her from every angle. “How bad is his shoulder? Why didn’t you call me?” She pulled her hands from his and pressed them to her hot face. “Oh my God, I have to call my insurance. Am I covered for this sort of thing?”

  Her mind was jumping from one worry to the next, back to the first, then on to another.

  “Avery, listen to me, and I’ll answer all your questions.” Trace’s smooth, calm voice focused her. “I didn’t call you because I’ve caused enough stress for you lately and because I had it handled. Cody’s covered by my insurance, not yours. And it’s just a sprain. He’ll only be out of work for a few weeks.”

  She pressed a hand to her heart and breathed a little easier. “What about you? What do you have on under your shirt?”

  “I bruised a couple of ribs. It’s a brace that makes it easier to work. It’s no big—”

  She pushed to her feet again, a hand to her stomach. “You’ve been working with bruised ribs?”

  “They aren’t my first. I’m just a little sore. I’m fine with a few Advil.”

  “You should have called me.”

  He sighed. “Okay. Next time I’ll call you. Would that make you feel better?”

  “Next time? No, that doesn’t make me feel better.” She crossed her arms. “Who’s this JT guy? I don’t know him. Is he from here?”

  Trace sat back, hands loose in his lap. He looked exhausted and Avery heard Delaney saying, “He’s got a lot on his plate, trying to manage the café and his dad. You’re both balancing very precariously on high wires right now. If a gust of wind came from the wrong direction . . .”

  “No,” Trace said, “he’s just a guy I know.”

  She worked to hold back her fear and frustration. “I know you’re working really hard to get this done for me on time. And I know you’re under miserable financial constraints. I wish I could do something about that, but I can’t.”

  Her mind was spinning, searching for solutions. But she saw Cody tumbling off the roof, imagined Trace almost following, and her heart skittered. She pressed a hand to her forehead.

  “Does this JT guy know what he’s doing? Is it safe for him to be up on the roof alone? I’m not sure how we could fit it into the budget, but if we need another gu
y with experience to be up there with him, I’ll ask Phoebe for more money, because you’re not getting up there again.”

  She pressed her fingers to her eyes and paced, suddenly overwhelmed again just when she thought she had her emotions under control. “Maybe Ethan can spare a few days. Maybe Delaney knows someone—”

  Trace’s arms closed around her from behind. His arms doubled low on her waist and pulled her back against him. And oh, God, he felt so good. His big body pressed all along her back, her thighs.

  The feel of someone holding her when she was worried. Supporting her when things got tough. It was so foreign. So good.

  “I’ve got it under control,” he whispered at her ear, his voice rich and confident. A voice that shivered over her skin, tightened her chest, and created pressure between her legs—like the sexual version of the Pavlovian dog.

  She grasped his arms with her hands, turned her head, and pressed her cheek to his chest. “Something really bad could have happened to you.” She sounded like a typical shaky female, but she didn’t care. “I couldn’t handle it if something happened to you.” This coming from the woman who’d lived with the threat of losing her husband for eight years. She was beginning to wonder who in the hell she was. “Please don’t cut corners on safety. If you need something to be safe, just do it or get it or buy it. I’ll find the money somewhere.”

  He pressed his face to her neck and sighed. “I’ve missed you like crazy.”

  Her heart softened. Emotion spilled over and tears pushed at her eyes. David hadn’t told her he’d missed her in years, even when he’d been gone for months on end. Being wanted enough to be missed filled Avery with a sense of completeness she’d always craved but had never been able to fill. And even though other men had expressed interest and wanted to continue dating her, only Trace’s desire quelled the longing to be loved.

  “I’ve missed you, too,” she admitted. This was so out of control. So not what either of them had planned. So not what either of them had wanted at the outset.