“You get seasick,” said Jake.
She visibly paled. “Crap.”
Good. That was good. Aidan stuck his hands in his pockets. “That’s settled.”
“But do you mind doing me one favor, Aidan?” Jake’s voice was a little more strained now, as if pain was setting in.
“Anything.”
“Can you drive Tuesday back to the Cat’s Claw? We walked from Caprese to the bar. I can pick up my car tomorrow.”
“I can walk.” Tuesday’s words were rushed. “Not a problem. I don’t mind. It’s not far.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“Night air would clear my head.”
Aidan shook his truck keys. “Don’t be dumb.”
She glared at him, but only reached for Jake’s free hand. Once she had it in hers, she didn’t seem to know what to do with it. She patted it twice, and then set it back on top of the blanket.
Seemed like Tuesday was as confused as Aidan was.
And he was right—there didn’t appear to be any connection between her and his brother. That was clear.
Relief was sweet, like cold well water on a parched throat. “If I take you back to the B&B now, I can be back here right when they spring Jake.”
She didn’t look at him, but she nodded. “Okay.”
“Can I have a word with my brother?”
She raised her eyes. “You want to tell him I’m the devil?”
“Something like that.” But he softened it with a smile. “I’m right behind you.”
Tuesday pressed a quick, careful kiss against Jake’s cheek and left through the curtain.
Aidan waited for a few slow ticks of the clock on the wall. An oxygen machine hooked to Jake’s finger gave a soft whine until he readjusted his hand.
“Hey. Jake.” Aidan bit the inside of his cheek.
“Go for it.”
“Huh?” His heart thumped in his chest.
“You guys are ridiculous. It’s fine.”
“But she chose you.”
“She was wrong.”
“What if she doesn’t agree?”
Jake arched an eyebrow in just the same way Liam did when he couldn’t get the business checkbook to balance. “Come on, Aidan. You think we’re both imagining it? You’re throwing off sparks. So is she.”
“Maybe she’s just a spark-thrower.”
“I held her hand earlier. It felt like holding a small loaf of bread or something. She took it back as soon as possible.”
Aidan had held her hand, too, when they’d shook after the game. It had felt like his skin had finally come to life. “Thanks.”
“That’s kind of a dumb thing to say. It’s not like I’m giving her to you. She’s a human being. A woman.”
Jesus, how he knew that. “I know.”
“A woman who happens to be living in your dream house.”
“Huh?” A jolt coursed through him.
“Just think about that. Coincidence?”
Later. Aidan would take all of this out later and look at it, think about it, figure out what the hell he was doing. Right now, she waited at his truck for him.
“She and I honestly don’t have it.” Jake gave a half-smile but kept his eyes closed. “Hurry up and take her home. Don’t forget you have to take care of me tonight, though. I expect bagels in the morning, too. And coffee. And your share of the plum muffins. For a week.”
Chapter 14
T
uesday waited next to Aidan’s truck. She leaned against the door, trying and failing to take deep breaths of the cold night air. It was chilly enough that she saw her breath when she exhaled. She shivered.
She was overreacting.
That was all.
It had been a very strange night, and now she was taking this too seriously. People probably got brained by pool balls every day all across the nation. Tuesday could remember at least two or three guys who’d been hit by a pool ball, back when she was playing a lot. They usually complained bitterly, especially Matt, who’d been hit in the groin.
But they weren’t permanently maimed. She had to let it go, she knew that. Just one more case of her being too concerned with the possibility of hurting someone.
Aidan approached. She took another deep breath of the cold night air and immediately coughed.
“You okay?”
“Choked on my own spit.” It was true, but lord, the minute the words were out of her mouth she wanted to reel them back in. Sexy.
He gave a half-grin, though. “Hop in.”
Aidan opened the truck door for her. It groaned open, and she clambered in without taking the hand he offered.
She needed not to touch him.
That wouldn’t be so hard, would it?
“He’ll be okay, you know.” Aidan’s hands stayed firmly at two and ten on the wheel.
Tuesday nodded. In her head, she knew it. It didn’t stop her heart from worrying, her spirit from deflating.
Aidan took a turn carefully, slowly, as if he were concerned about her being jostled. “I’m more worried about you, honestly.”
Startled, Tuesday looked at him. “What?”
His face was lit a low orange from the dashboard, and it should have made him look like a movie monster. Instead, the color just accented the rough stubble on his jaw, the sharp plane of his cheekbone. “No offense, but you’re acting like you’re the one who got hit.”
“I am not.” Offense, totally taken.
“You’re so upset you’re practically shaking.”
Practically? She folded her hands more tightly in her lap. Her fingers ached with the tension packed into them. “I’m fine.”
“Okay. If you say so.”
She wasn’t fine, course. Apparently that was obvious to him, which was incredibly annoying.
But she wasn’t going to tell him why. She didn’t owe him that. Did she?
You flirted with him.
She’d been staring at Aidan when she made the shot. Yes, it had been meant to be a jump shot, something she used to be good at. The ball was not supposed to jump itself all the way to where Jake stood, though. She hadn’t been paying attention—again—and someone had gotten hurt.
She was supposedly an adult. When she’d been a kid, she thought she would have had it together by thirty-three.
It was so far from the truth, it hurt.
The radio was set on low, and Aidan was whistling tunelessly along with an old Dixie Chicks song. He wasn’t very good at whistling.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Nothing to be sorry for.”
So much to be sorry for.
The front window fogged. That was her, she knew it. She could feel herself sweating, and she was breathing shallowly. Aidan cracked his window without comment.
“I appreciate the ride.”
“No problem.” He glanced at her, and something in the set of his jaw made Tuesday tremble, deep and low inside.
He made her feel reckless. On her side of the truck, they passed a sign that pointed down to the beach.
Danger. Strong current.
Yeah. That was it. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
To Aidan’s credit, he didn’t ask her why she was asking. She didn’t know, anyway. “Give me a sec. Let me think about that.”
Tuesday uncurled her fingers, shaking them out. Then she sat on her hands and waited.
He signaled his left turn and drove carefully up the street the bed and breakfast was on. He pulled over, switching off his lights. Then he turned off the truck altogether. He stared up toward the street light, which blinked down at them as if unconvinced of the darkness.
Another breath.
Nerves threatened to choke her. Maybe she could choke on her own spit again. That would be amazing. “Never mind. Forget I asked.” She reached for the door handle.
“Hang on. It’s a good question. I’m still thinking about it. I’ve done lots of things I regret. Hasn’t everyone?”
“Like w
hat?”
“I stole from communion.”
“Minor.”
“Is it more major if I admit I’m not Catholic?”
Tuesday kept her fingers on the handle. “It’s more interesting, anyway.”
“And that I picked the lock of the rectory and stole the money right out of Father Josiah’s desk? It was already tucked in the bank envelope and everything.”
“How much?”
“Seventy-two dollars.”
“That’s all? From Sunday service?”
“The Catholics are all pretty old around here.”
“What did you do with the money?”
Looking straight ahead, Aidan smiled. “Bought a pipe for my step-dad Bill. He loved smoking cherry-flavored tobacco.”
“No, way. That doesn’t count. You robbed from the rich to give to someone you loved. If that’s the worst thing you ever did, you should probably apply for sainthood now. Get ready to dry up dead and boring.”
“Hey, now. I’ve done lots of other inappropriate things.” He continued to look straight ahead. Thank God. If he looked at her…
“Like?”
Aidan turned it around on her. “What about you? What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“I’ll never tell.” She tried to make her voice light but failed.
“Intriguing.”
“Nah. Long, boring story.” It wasn’t—it was short and horrific.
“I broke a girl’s heart,” he said.
Tuesday frowned. “That’s just a thing that happens. We’ve all broken hearts.”
“This one was different.”
“I’m sure she recovered.”
“She died.”
Tuesday let go of the door handle and stared at him. “What?”
“Not from that. It was just really bad timing. I broke up with Willa because she was going away to college. I had to stay here—I could only afford community college then. I didn’t want to get in her way of having fun while she was gone.” His voice was low and tight. “So I broke up with her even though we were totally in love. I thought it was the high-minded thing to do.”
“Plus you wanted to get laid while she was gone,” Tuesday guessed.
He shook his head. “I honestly thought we’d get married someday. I thought she was the one. But I was a year older. I thought she should have time to make sure I was the right one for her.”
This was more interesting. “Go on.”
“I broke up with her, and a day later, she got on the plane to head to New York. From the plane, she left me a voice mail, telling me that she wished we’d never met. That she would rather have never known me than to feel the pain of leaving me.”
Did she kill herself? How did a person go on, knowing they might be the cause of that? “What happened to her?”
“The plane crashed. It was that commuter flight, the one from Boston to New York. Sixteen years ago, remember?”
Tuesday did. “That’s awful.”
“She’d changed her flight to get out of town a day earlier, because she was so broken-hearted.”
“That’s awful.”
“It destroyed me.” The words were simple. The emotion in his voice was not—it was a tangled snarl of regret and pain that Tuesday recognized well.
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged and finally looked at her. His eyes were so dark they looked black. “Tell me what you did.”
Tuesday opened her mouth, but something the size of a golf ball lodged itself right under her tonsils. She managed, “Sorry. I’m exhausted.” She pushed the door open and hurled herself out of the car. She tripped on the sidewalk. She felt drunk even though she knew she hadn’t had enough alcohol to affect her this way.
Aidan was out of the truck and around to her side before she could even reach the three low steps that led to the Cat’s Claw porch. “Wait. I scared you.”
Him? He hadn’t scared her. She was too busy scaring herself. “It’s fine. I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry I asked—”
Aidan caught her hands in his. He was suddenly so close that she felt the air get thin in her lungs, as if he’d hauled her to a mountaintop without her looking. “I’m glad you did.”
“Aidan—” She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t flirt with him anymore. It wasn’t fair to anyone.
“Pick me.”
She blinked. No appropriate words formed in her brain—she only found a vast blankness where words used to live.
“Tuesday, pick me instead. You don’t feel this with Jake. I know you don’t.”
Of course she didn’t.
Jake was vanilla. Jake was a space heater.
Aidan was chili powder. He was a volcano.
“I can’t. I made my choice. It wouldn’t be—” It wouldn’t be right? It wouldn’t be fair? What in life was?
“Just—let me—”
“What? Just let you what?” She should pull back her hands, but she didn’t want to—not quite yet. Another second, and she’d be able to go inside. Another half second. Okay, one more.
He didn’t ask—he just moved.
Aidan’s mouth dropped to hers. Tuesday should have seen it coming, should have read it in his eyes, but she hadn’t, and the feeling of his lips was a surprise. She would have gasped but she lacked the breath, and she might not ever get it back. He’d bent his knees as he moved in to her, swooping an arm around her back, and she sagged against it, grateful that he’d caught her, because in her surprise, she might have sunk all the way to the step.
To make up for being off-balance, she swung an arm around his neck. She could have pushed against his chest to catch herself. She could have pressed him away.
But she didn’t.
Instead, Tuesday kissed him back.
That was where the real trouble began.
He was heat incarnate. Just the feeling of his lips on hers made her tremble, a fine jitter setting up shop inside her bones. His tongue slipped inside her mouth to touch hers, and nothing had ever tasted this way in the history of humanity. He tasted of desire, of fire, of lust, and of something rich and deep and sweet, like chocolate melted over a low flame.
Tuesday wanted more.
She pressed herself against him, her breasts pushing against his hard chest. He took a half step forward, pressing his knee between her legs, and she met him, moving her hips forward. Aidan growled low in his throat and the vibration in her mouth made her suddenly slippery with need. She could kiss him all night—no, for the rest of her life—
The porch light clicked on overhead with a snap.
Tuesday shoved herself away from him, blinking like a mole caught by the sun. In the window to the left of the door, the curtain shook, and she caught the fleeting image of Pearl Hawthorne frowning out at them.
“Busted.” Aidan smiled. His lips shined with wetness.
“Damn it.” Tuesday didn’t know what was a bigger disappointment—the fact that they’d been caught or the fact that she’d kissed him back. “I—”
“Look. Just pick me instead of Jake. We—” he pointed at her and then back at himself “—we have this, this whatever it is.”
“It’s too late.” She wouldn’t do that to Jake. That would just be a crappy thing to do, to anyone.
“Jake said it’s okay.”
Tuesday stared. “Pardon?” It was the voice she used in the classroom when a student had just insulted someone else’s religion. Even fifth graders, as cocky as they often were, couldn’t stand up to Tuesday’s Pardon.
But Aidan could, apparently. “Yeah. We talked about it.”
“You talked about me. About me?”
The corner of his mouth quirked. She wanted to touch it, that place where it dipped. She balled her hands into fists. “When?”
“After you went out to the truck to wait for me.”
“You were like thirty seconds behind me.” Tuesday folded her arms across her chest. “It was that easy.”
He shrugged, that entir
ely inappropriate grin still threatening to show itself. “Sure.”
“He didn’t mind at all.”
“Are your feelings hurt?”
Hell, yes, they were hurt. She shouldn’t have been kissing Aidan—it was the wrong thing to do—and Jake totally should have still wanted to date her. “Not at all.”
“They are. Do you still want to date him for the show?”
She should say yes. Just to show Aidan that she wasn’t a tool in his toolbox that could be swapped out or exchanged at will.
But holy crap, she wanted to kiss the man in front of her some more. A lot. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that.” A light danced in his eyes.
Cheeky, that’s what her mother would call this man. Completely cheeky. “I might not switch.”
“Totally your call. We’re working for the network.”
“And for me.”
He dipped his head and touched his forehead. “At your service.” He raised his eyes and met hers. “And I mean that. I am completely, totally at your service.”
“Oh, my God.” It was a breath. Tuesday reached out to touch the wall, just to prove she was still in charge of her own body.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Aidan said.
At the house. Yes, at the house. “Wait, on a Saturday?”
“Round the clock is how the network likes it. And they pay overtime.”
Tuesday nodded briefly.
The porch light flickered off and then on again.
“I’m going inside.”
“You do that.”
“You don’t have to tell me what to do.”
He grinned wider, and lord, she wanted to reach forward and dig her fingers into his shirt, drawing his mouth to hers again.
No.
Pull it together.
She nodded once, and pushed the door. Thankfully, it opened at her touch, and she didn’t have to find the keys.
She’d wanted it light. She’d wanted to date Jake because he was safe. Easy. She wouldn’t have had to worry about him.
Aidan was an explosion ready to happen.
Tuesday wasn’t sure she had the bravery to light the match.
Chapter 15
A
idan got to the site bright and early.
So bright. And so early.
It was barely five after six when he pulled up to the old Callahan house, and he’d already been awake for two hours. After that little sleep, he should be in a bear of a mood, but he wasn’t. If he were the kind of guy who skipped, he would have done it, all the way up the long driveway. But he wasn’t, so he satisfied himself with whistling loudly as he went up the porch steps, lugging the box of donuts as he went. He slapped the side of door as he entered. Hello, you beautiful thing.
Build it Strong (The Ballard Brothers of Darling Bay Book 2) Page 7
