“Do you come here a lot?”
He nodded. “It’s owned by a couple of retired air force pilots. Kind of a gathering place for those on leave, grounded between assignments.”
The whole thing reminded her of the temporary nature of this date. One date. She hadn’t forgotten that. “So...about your dad. I used to see him here and there at the diner and around town. I didn’t know him well.”
Stone smiled, something he should do a lot more often, and Emily went a little limp. “My dad was like my best friend. The flight school was his dream. And before he died, he just asked me to stick around until I could sell it to someone who would keep it going. He wanted me to keep it open so his employees wouldn’t be out of a job. What can I say, he was a good guy.”
“You were close.”
“He raised me. My parents divorced when my sister and I were young, about ten, and their custody arrangement was I would live with my father and my sister with my mother.”
“How do you break up a family like that?” Of all the crazy child custody arrangements she’d ever heard, this one was the craziest.
“Look, it’s not like they each picked a favorite kid. Sometimes I think that’s what Sarah believes. It’s just not true. Our father used to take her fishing every summer until she was about thirteen. She stopped visiting after that. Her choice.” Stone shrugged. “It worked for us.”
Until now, she wanted to say. No wonder they hated each other. They had no real connection. “So—did you ever see your mom and sister?”
“Saw my mother on the occasional holiday, and summers. But as we became teenagers, neither one of us was much interested in wasting a summer away from our friends. They couldn’t force it at that point. Honestly, it felt a little disloyal to ask to spend time with my mother. My dad was always there for me. It was enough.”
“Have you tried talking to your sister?”
“I would talk, if I had anything to say. So far all she wants to bring up are lies.”
“Lies?”
“Emily, I’d really rather not talk about this,” Stone said.
“Sorry. I can’t imagine not having my sister, even if she is a spoiled brat sometimes.”
They ordered hamburgers and fries when their waitress arrived, and then Stone turned the tables on Emily. “What about your parents? You talk about Molly, your dad and your grandmother. Not your mom.”
Jessica Lynn. Everyone had called her Jessie. Every time Dad said her name, his entire body seemed to cave in on itself. He still carried both the hurt and hate in about equal measures, even after seventeen years. Blamed the doctors. Blamed the hospital. “She died when Molly was three and I was about eleven.”
Stone met her eyes and took her hand. “That’s rough.”
There weren’t many photos of Mama left, because one day Grammy had put them all away after she’d found Dad crying. “It was hardest on Molly. She cried every night for three months. Now she doesn’t even remember her.”
Stone wasn’t letting go of her hand right now.
“Do you play pool?”
Emily looked in the direction of the pool table a few feet away. There seemed to be a bunch of sweaty men over there. “Maybe I’ve played once or twice. Why?”
“Let’s play a game after we eat.”
After Stone had paid for their meal, resisting her attempts to go dutch, she was rethinking the pool idea. She hadn’t played in a while, and what she remembered about it was suddenly coming back to her in waves. A klutz and a pool table? Surely Stone hadn’t thought this all the way through. The last time she’d nearly impaled a man when he’d come too close during her attempts at a shot.
But he talked the men into letting them have a turn. This was worse because now they had an audience.
“Yeah, I got hustled, too. He doesn’t look like he plays pool,” the guy they called NFG said.
“Why don’t you just shut up and watch. Maybe you’ll learn something,” Crash said.
“Hey, genius. Stop your damned cussing, a lady is present.” This from a woman who had sidled up to watch. She was beautiful in a hard way, hair pulled back so tight it made her eyebrows arch.
“Excuse me for living,” Matt said.
“You’re excused,” she said, putting her arm around Matt.
Emily’s hands shook by then. She had to come up with a way out of this. Maybe she could feign illness. She could say she was allergic to chalk. “I’m having second thoughts.”
Stone was chalking up and turned to the small crowd. “Would you all just leave now? You’re cramping my style.”
“Ah, man,” Crash said.
“Let’s all play darts,” the woman said. “I don’t know how. Would you teach me, Matt?”
“Oh, hell yeah,” Matt said, leading the way.
The woman walked away but not before throwing a smile in Stone’s direction.
“Something tells me Matt is about to get hustled,” Stone said.
“And that’s probably the least of his problems,” Emily answered.
Stone laughed. A hearty deep sound she’d never heard out of him before. “This game is more fun if there’s a wager on it.”
“I don’t gamble, though. Sir.” She started to relax now it was just the two of them.
“Not money. Something more interesting.” He eyed her with a wickedly seductive glint in his eyes, and she nearly felt her womb leap in anticipation.
“Fine. If I win, you’ll dance with me right here in front of your buddies. A country song.” She waved in the direction of the jukebox. He’d already demonstrated he could dance, but something told her these boys didn’t know it.
Stone scowled. “Agreed. And if I win, you’ll—I should probably think this over. Carefully.”
“Why don’t we just call it a game now? You and I both know you’re going to win. And as for me, we’ll be lucky if I don’t accidentally injure you.”
“You’re taking all the fun out of this. I need to earn it.”
“All right, Mr. Show-Off. Earn it.”
“If I win, I get one more date.”
Emily swallowed. One more date with him wouldn’t feel like losing, but she kept her mouth shut and watched as he made the next of several shots easily and effortlessly.
But then he missed a shot Emily thought he should have easily made and handed her the pool stick. “Your turn. And don’t hurt me with that stick.”
“Then watch yourself.” Emily leaned down and began her halfhearted attempt at a shot. Major joke. She hadn’t had nearly enough alcohol to pull this off.
But suddenly Stone’s hard body was behind her, adjusting her shot. Oh my, she liked his assistance very much. It was by far the best part of the game. He leaned in close over her shoulder, one arm on her waist adjusting her stance and the other aligning the direction of the shot.
“Don’t shoot until I move. I might want to have children one day,” Stone whispered in her ear.
She laughed, waited and took the shot. Made it. Didn’t even kill anyone in the process.
A few more shots and they were nearly tied. Not that she could have made any of the shots without him, which was strange. Maybe he didn’t care about that second date after all. She tried not to think of that as she enjoyed the feel of his body against hers every time he lined up her shot. She took another shot and was suddenly ahead, but when it was his turn, he caught up handily and tied the game. “We could call it, or we can keep going.”
“I say neither one of us wins.”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll dance with you.”
This she did not expect. “You will? Right here?”
“But to my song choice. It’s only fair. You get what you want, but I get to pick the song. Compromise.”
“Whatever.” So she wouldn’t
be dancing the two-step tonight. He’d probably play some kind of hard rock song, something neither one of them could dance to. She followed him to the jukebox, where she stood on tiptoes and tried to look over his shoulder.
“No peeking.”
“You know, country music is sexy.”
He grunted. “Yeah, right. I’ll show you sexy.”
She waited for the pulsing guitar riffs but instead, a familiar song wafted through the speakers. Not country, not at all. But “Let’s Get it On,” Marvin Gaye.
The man had nerve, she’d give him that. Yep, nerves of steel, and she was Play-Doh.
Yet it was impossible to resist when he grinned and spread his arms apart, an invitation. “Let’s dance, baby.”
She went into his arms, the new familiarity between them making it a whole lot easier than the first time they’d slow-danced when she was caught somewhere between shock and arousal.
“Tell me why you like country music.” Stone grinned, and something pinged deep in her belly. Did he realize what that smile did to women? What it did to her?
“It tells a story, and I love stories.”
“Even sad ones, when a man loses his cow and his woman the same day?”
She smacked his shoulder. “If you must know, I had a short-lived country music career.”
“No kidding.”
“But that didn’t work out because I have terrible stage fright. So I tried to write a book instead.”
“Didn’t work out?” He sounded genuinely interested, and she wasn’t quite used to that.
“Well, no. But maybe I wasn’t meant to be a writer. I’m a people person. So then I went into real estate.”
“Everyone needs to live somewhere.”
“But it’s hard to sell a house because buying a house is a life-changing decision. That’s such a major commitment. I always had these men call me and tell me they wanted to buy a house. I’d take them around for weeks, even go out to dinner with them, but they all said eventually that buying a house was too big of a decision and they bailed.” She figured soon enough that she was no salesperson because she couldn’t seem to close the deal, as her boss used to say.
Stone narrowed his eyes. “Yeah. So—any women clients?”
She had to think about it for a minute. Her advertising had generated mostly calls from male clients. “None that I can think of. I put up a large billboard by the freeway and I had plenty of calls.”
Stone cocked his head at her, again like he was studying some kind of specimen he couldn’t figure out.
“You’re looking at me like that again.”
“Sorry.” One finger of his hand caressed her arm from her wrist up to her elbow, and she shivered a little.
“Now I have a question. You said I’m an average student. Do you mean that?”
“For now, but I’m not done with you. Not even close.” The sexy timbre of his voice matched with the passion in his eyes almost undid her. He was definitely not talking about her lessons right now.
“You gave me a C plus. Why the plus?”
“I couldn’t keep my feelings out of it.” He leaned down even closer, till only a single breath seemed to separate them, a smile in those blue eyes.
Emily swallowed. What am I doing? This is one date. There should be no kissing involved, but that was all a little too late now, wasn’t it? All these thoughts were running through her head as she stared into his eyes, right before he lowered his mouth to claim hers. He had a way of kissing that made her want to give up breathing so she could kiss longer, harder. Oxygen was overrated anyway.
A ping rushed through her like an electrical shock, and she broke from the kiss to stare into eyes that didn’t flinch from hers. “Tell me. When are you reenlisting?”
“It’s that obvious?”
She glanced around the room. “You miss this. You’re going back, aren’t you? Just as soon as you sell the school.”
His hands lowered to her hips, and he held her there, pulling her up against him. “I did tell you I’m a short-timer around here. I had to separate from the air force, but as soon as I get everything settled here, I’ll reapply. If they need pilots, they’ll take me back. If not, there are other things I can do.”
“You don’t like teaching?”
“I like it fine. But I’m here to save Jedd’s job, and Cassie’s, even if she doesn’t want me to. Look, Emily this was just one date and we can stop any time you want to—”
But maybe he was exactly what she needed right now. “I’m good.”
“Yes, you are.” He lowered his head to kiss her again. And again. And again.
A tingle went down her spine and headed south. Her skin felt too tight and the back of her knees were already sweaty. The way this man kissed only confirmed that sex was highly overrated. She much preferred kissing. His kind of kissing, deep and probing kisses that were more than foreplay. Much better than sex.
He stopped and studied her for a minute too long.
“Do that again,” Emily said.
So he did.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THAT’S WHAT I GET for playing with fire.
Stone had wanted to bring Emily here because she was, after all, his student and it sounded like something a good teacher might do. Something Dad might have done, go ahead and introduce her to other pilots. He was still feeling his way around this whole teacher-student relationship, and the kiss this afternoon hadn’t helped. Emily wasn’t making it easy, kissing the way she did.
Probably had been a mistake to pick her up at her place. The last thing he’d needed to see was her bed in the middle of the small room, which smelled so much like her—warm hints of vanilla and honey. It didn’t help that she was dressed casually, because he imagined Emily’s curves couldn’t even be hidden underneath a tent.
She was being a good sport about his song choice to the king of make-out music. While he pulled her in close, he tried to not tease himself. It turned out he was able to mostly ignore the expressions of the idiots that had congregated to watch.
Matt was blowing kisses in his direction and Crash was grinding. NFG stood there with a sad puppy dog expression on his face, and damned if he didn’t look like he was about to cry.
“Do you want to get out of here?” Stone asked when the song ended.
“Yes,” she said. “Let’s go to your place.”
“Are you sure?”
She rolled her eyes. “I want to see where you live. I’m not going to sleep with you.”
“Okay. But, for the record, I don’t think we’d do much sleeping.” He tugged on Emily’s hand, managed to extricate them from his idiot friends without too much effort and drove home.
Home. To his father’s house, basically. Because no matter how he sliced it, he was a tenant there. Not for much longer.
He offered her a hand getting out of his truck. “Watch where you step. There are a couple of stones loose in the walkway. Need to fix that.”
He led the way up the front porch stoop but before he unlocked the door, he turned to Emily. She deserved a warning. “There’s a dog.”
“You have a dog?” Now her eyebrows lifted.
Why were people so amazed by that?
“Used to be Dad’s dog. And it’s more like I have a roommate.” How to explain Dad’s dog had mistakenly assumed he was a human being? He rang the doorbell to scare Winston. It would give Stone a little more time.
“Is your dog going to open the door for us?” Emily said from behind him.
“No, but that would be cool.” He let himself in the front door and turned on the light in the hallway entrance.
“Where’s your dog?” Emily turned to him, eyes narrowed. “Do you really have one?”
“Don’t let the silence fool you. Brace yourse
lf. Stay behind me.” As per the usual, after a slight pause, once Winston realized the doorbell sounds had ended, he came around the corner and launched in guerilla warfare attack mode.
“Down, Winston, down.” Stone stood in front of Emily, taking the worst of it. He was able to fend off Winston’s French kiss attempts and finally wrestled him into a sitting position.
“Wow, you’re a big dog.” Emily emerged from behind to pet Winston’s head.
“See what I mean?” He hoped to gain some sympathy for his plight.
“He’s adorable.”
And Winston was behaving himself for the first time since Stone could remember. Winston managed to sit, albeit on Stone’s foot, and panted, his tongue hanging out. “It’s a trick. I don’t trust him.”
“Oh, c’mon,” Emily laughed. “He’s sweet.”
“Don’t turn your back on him.” Stone walked farther into the house, turning on lights as he went.
“Aw. He just wants a little love.”
But Stone hadn’t been in the kitchen ten seconds when he heard a tiny squeak from Emily. He turned to see her lying flat on her back, Winston on top of her, paws firmly planted on her chest.
“Ooooof,” Emily said, probably due to oxygen deprivation.
He rushed back to pry all ninety pounds of Winston off Emily. Who needed a workout when he had Winston? “Are you all right? Any vital parts missing?”
Emily cracked a smile and regained her footing. “Nothing major. Maybe my pride. I thought dogs liked me.”
“You think this means he doesn’t like you? Hell, this is his mating call.” Holding her hand, he led her into the family room and helped her step over the gate he’d placed to block Winston from the room.
“I admit I didn’t picture you owning a dog.” Emily sat on the couch and scanned the room. He was suddenly hyperaware of the plaid couch, the decor that screamed aviation/fishing/hunting aficionado. Family photos scattered throughout—all of it his father’s touches. Soon he’d have to pack every one of his Dad’s belongings up and do who knew what with them. Maybe Sarah wanted a framed picture of dogs playing cards.
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