“Sure is.”
“Your mother taught you well.”
“She sure did.”
He took her keys out of her hands when they got to the front porch. He unlocked the door and Mel went inside, finding the switch and flipping it.
“Well, Ms. Melanie O’Bryan,” he said, handing her the keys. “As always, I had a lovely evening with you. So I’ll see you at my house tomorrow. Six o’clock sound good?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Good night, Ms. O’Bryan,” he said, pulling away from her.
“’Night, Bennett.” Mel smiled and took a step back into the house.
Chapter Three
A Date? Or Not a Date? That Is the Question
Friends. They were just friends.
It didn’t matter how many times Mel repeated that to herself, she kept coming back to the fact that Bennett had called tonight a date. Those words had most definitely come out of his mouth.
Which was why Mel might’ve started getting ready at around three. She took meticulous time with her hair, and her curls were in an almost complete state of antifrizz. Her makeup was perfect. And she spent a good amount of time picking out her clothes.
Harper and Grace had told her to stay away from safe and flirty. They said she needed to play to her strengths, so she had. She chose a pair of bright blue shorts that showed off her legs, and a sleeveless black blouse that gave just a glimpse of cleavage. She was wearing leopard-print sandals with straps that wrapped around her ankles, and she’d given herself a pedicure, complete with pretty pink toes.
Not that any of this mattered, because it wasn’t a date.
Mel had to stop doing this to herself. Had to stop thinking this was something. She hadn’t even told Grace and Harper about it, because they would’ve just filled her head with ideas. Ideas she desperately didn’t need to think about.
Mel had never been the type of girl to inspire lust in a man. She wasn’t sexy by any stretch of the word. She was a high school math teacher, for goodness’ sake. What was sexy about that?
Nothing.
Mel had only had a handful of boyfriends in high school, and they hadn’t been anything serious. She’d only ever had sex with one man. Justin Abrahams had been her college boyfriend. He’d been a year older than her, and they’d been together during her sophomore and junior years. He’d gotten a job in Birmingham when he’d graduated from the Florida State University Business School, and they’d decided to end things.
Mel had always known she wanted to move back to Mirabelle when she graduated, and Justin wasn’t cut out for small-town life. It hadn’t ended badly, and they were actually still friends. But she wasn’t pining over him by any means. She just hadn’t found someone she wanted to be in a relationship with.
Or she hadn’t until a certain military man had come back to town.
Mel stopped by LauraAnne’s Liquors on her way to Bennett’s. She walked inside and headed straight to the refrigerated section. She looked through the glass doors and tried to figure out which kind of wine to buy. She had no idea what Bennett liked.
“Melanie O’Bryan. Look. At. You.”
Shit, Mel thought as she closed her eyes. She opened them and slowly turned around. Harper was standing there, her arms folded under her ample chest. She looked Mel up and down and shook her head.
“You got plans tonight?” Harper asked.
Mel sucked at lying. She just couldn’t do it. She wore her emotions plain as day on her face. Always had, and most likely always would.
“Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re looking pretty freaking hot. I don’t think I’ve seen those legs make this much of an appearance in, well, I don’t know how long.”
“They’re just shorts,” Mel said, looking down at herself. Crap, was she that obvious?
“Oh stop second-guessing yourself.”
“I’m not second-guessing myself,” Mel said, looking back up.
“Riiight. So what are you doing tonight?” Harper asked with a more-than-knowing smile.
“I’m having dinner with Bennett.”
“A date!” Harper said excitedly, drumming her fingers together.
“It’s not a date,” Mel said seriously.
“If it walks like a date, quacks like a date, and drinks wine like a date, then it’s a date.”
“He’s making me dinner and we’re watching a TV show. That’s it. It’s nothing that we haven’t done before.”
“He’s made you dinner before?” Harper asked, raising her eyebrow.
“Well, no. We just got a pizza or whatever before.”
“Hmmm. I’d say making dinner for you is a pretty serious thing.”
“And I would disagree with you.”
“All right, but expect a big, fat ‘I told you so’ when you’re wrong.”
“Whatever you say, Harper. Now help me pick something out.” Mel turned back to the wine.
* * *
Mel pulled up in front of Bennett’s house just before six. She took a deep breath, grabbed the bottle of Chardonnay that Harper helped her decide on, and got out of the car.
Bennett lived in a town house on the northwest side of Mirabelle. There were about twenty of them in the small neighborhood. Like Mel’s little house, these were far enough away from the water, so they hadn’t been built on stilts. Mirabelle got its fair share of hurricanes. If any of the buildings by the water weren’t built off the ground, they were pretty much guaranteed to flood when one blew through.
Bennett’s slate-gray truck was parked in the driveway. Mel was a Southern girl through and through, and there was just something about a guy in a truck that drove her crazy. And Bennett in a truck? Yeah, there were absolutely no words.
Mel walked up to the front door and knocked. When he opened it a minute later she was struck dumb for just a second. He was wearing a button-up white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and khaki shorts that showed off his toned, tanned calves. His feet were bare.
Why did she find his lack of shoes so freaking sexy? Why?
“Hi,” she said, giving him a nervous smile.
“Hey.” He beamed at her.
He was beaming? Right?
He pulled the door open wider and stepped back so she could come inside. The smell of garlic and oregano hit her nose, and she inhaled deeply.
“Something smells good,” she said, turning to him.
“That would be baked cheese ravioli and chicken parmesan.”
“That would’ve probably paired better with a red wine, but red wine gives me migraines, so I brought Chardonnay,” she rambled.
“Chardonnay will work great.” He took the bottle from her, then put his hand at the small of her back and led her through the hallway.
God, she loved it when he had his hands on her.
There was no clutter in the living room, and the walls were all painted white. The curtains on the windows were a simple green, and the carpet was a light brown. He had a huge black leather couch and a coffee table that looked like a steamer trunk. His TV was mounted to the wall, and a stereo system sat underneath it. That was pretty much it.
“You hungry?” he asked, dropping his hand from her back and going into the kitchen.
“Starving,” she said, nodding.
Mel hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she’d smelled what he was cooking. She hadn’t really eaten that much all day; she’d been too nervous. Not that any of that nervousness had gone away. Nope. It was still all right there, fluttering around in her stomach.
The dining room was just an alcove off of the kitchen, with a table that sat four. It just about fit into the small space. The table was set with plates, silverware, and two folded cloth napkins. A bowl of salad and another of garlic bread were in the center.
So he knew how to set a table. One more thing to add to the list of his domesticatedness.
“Do you need any help?” she asked, standing in the kitchen doorway. The kitchen was
small, with barely any counter space around the appliances.
How did such a big man live in such a tiny space?
“Nope. It’s all ready.” He pulled two casserole dishes out of the oven and set them on the table. “So,” he said as he opened a drawer and grabbed a corkscrew. “What did you do today?”
Besides obsess about tonight? Not much. “Got ready for school on Monday, ran a few errands, cleaned. It was a thrilling day.”
“Sounds it.” He poured them each a glass of wine and put the bottle in the fridge.
“You?”
He handed her one of the wineglasses. “A lot of the same. I had to go to the store to get what I needed for tonight. And I cleaned up a little.”
“So you can clean, too?”
“Yes, I clean. You keeping a tally or something?”
“Maybe,” she said as she walked over to the table.
“Well, you can add this to it as well.” He put down his wineglass before he pulled out her chair.
“I guess I can,” she said.
He helped her sit, and when her bottom was firmly in the chair he leaned over and put his mouth very close to her ear.
“So what number am I at?” he whispered.
“Umm,” she said as her mind promptly went blank. “Five?”
He just laughed, his breath tickling her skin. He straightened, moved to his side of the table, and sat down. Mel was still trying to find her tongue as Bennett proceeded to load her plate with food.
Find something to say. Find something to say. Anything. Say. Anything.
“I thought you said you read a lot of books,” Mel said, looking at his living room.
“I do.”
“Where are they? You don’t have any bookcases.” She unfolded her napkin and put it across her lap.
“I haven’t made the ones I want for myself yet. Right now my books are in boxes in a closet.”
“You hide your books?” Mel asked in a mock-horrified tone, putting her hand to her heart. “That’s an offense.” She grabbed her silverware and started to cut into her chicken.
“I know, I know,” he laughed. “This place is only temporary, though, so I haven’t really settled in.”
Mel took a bite of her chicken. It was moist and cheesy and just perfect. “Oh my gosh,” she said after she swallowed. “This is amazing.”
“Thank you.” He looked pleased as he took a bite of ravioli. “Is that number six?”
“No.” She shook her head as she reached for her wine. “Cooking was number one. That was the first thing you said you could do. You just proved you could do it.”
Something flashed in his eyes, and if Mel wasn’t mistaken—and she was sure she was—it looked like he wanted to prove some of his other skills to her. But she had a feeling that those skills wouldn’t prove he was domesticated. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“So this place is temporary?” she asked, taking another healthy sip of wine. “Haven’t you lived here for two years?”
“Yeah, I have. But it’s not where I’m staying. It’s too small. I want to buy a house soon. I just haven’t found the perfect one yet. But it works for now. The garage is convenient, and I’m able to use it to work on pieces here as opposed to having to find some other space.”
“I saw everything you made for Jax and Grace. It’s all incredible.” She took a bite of the ravioli. It had sundried tomatoes and basil in the sauce, and it was pretty freaking amazing.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Did you make anything here?”
“That steamer trunk in the living room.”
Mel looked over at it. Even from twenty feet away she could see his attention to detail. The hardware was antique, and the dark mahogany wood had been treated. It looked as if it had survived generations but at the same time it had been cared for.
“Wow,” she said, turning back to him. “Did you restore it or build it?”
“I built it.”
“I’m impressed. But then again, I normally am when it comes to your creations.”
“Thank you,” he said again. But this time he didn’t look pleased so much as humbled.
God, she liked him more and more. This was going to be a problem. Who the hell was she kidding? It was already a problem. A massive one.
* * *
Eating dinner while sitting across from Mel was so much better than Bennett had imagined. She’d been a little nervous when she’d first gotten to his house, but she was fine now. They kept up the conversation with each other, and there weren’t any of those awkward pauses where neither knew what to say. She told him what it had been like teaching the last two years. How much she loved what she did.
She had a lot of passion for her students, passion for life.
“So what about you?” she asked, as she put her napkin next to her empty plate. “Did those years in the military help train you to be a proper Southern gentlemen? Or was it all your mother?”
Bennett couldn’t help but grin. His stepmother had trained him long before he’d joined the military.
Jocelyn was a short woman, about five foot four, with red hair and bright blue eyes. She’d been taller than Bennett until he was about twelve, and then he shot up right past her. But it didn’t matter that he was bigger than her; he’d always listened to her, not only because she was his mother in every sense of the word and that was what a good Southern boy did, but because what she said went. Always had, always would.
Even Bennett’s father listened to her. But Walker was pretty easygoing, so he and Jocelyn worked well together. She wasn’t overbearing or anything;, she let Walker do his thing, and she did her thing, but nobody was going to take advantage of her. Ever.
Bennett had definitely gotten his temperament from his father. Well, at least he assumed he had. He hadn’t spent enough time with his birth mother to really know what he’d gotten from her. Though she apparently didn’t have any difficulties walking out on her family, so she was just easygoing in a different way.
“It was Jocelyn for the most part.” He smiled at Mel. “You know she’s not my birth mother, right?”
“No,” Mel said, sitting back in her chair. “I had no idea. You always call her Mom.”
“That’s because I’ve considered her my real mother since she married my dad. She raised me. She’s been there for most of my life. I wouldn’t trade her for anything. My dad started seeing her when I was five, and even at that age I had no delusions that Kristi, my birth mother, was coming back. I might’ve been a little bit of a troublemaker when I was little. It had just been my dad and me for over a year, and I liked it that way. I didn’t need another mother who was just going to leave.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Jocelyn worked so hard to win me over, and once she did, I always wanted to prove myself to her.”
“So that she wouldn’t leave, too?” Mel asked softly.
“I guess.” Wow, this conversation had gone in a direction he hadn’t expected. Normally he’d probably be embarrassed about getting a little too sappy, but for some reason he liked sharing with Mel. And he found himself sharing more than he ever had before.
“That’s sweet.”
“Does that go on the list?” he asked with a grin, hoping to change the subject.
“Maybe,” she said, finishing her wine.
“Let me clean up and then we can get started. I can only imagine how anxious you are to finish the series,” he said, pushing his chair back.
“I’m only a little anxious.” She stood. “And I can help you.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
“Let me help, Bennett.” She reached for the bowl of salad and walked into the kitchen. “If you get the stuff for me to put the food in, I can do that while you load the dishwasher.”
“No matter what I say, you’re going to insist on helping, aren’t you?” he asked as he grabbed the dish of chicken.
“Yup.” She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him.
“Then I guess it will have to work,” he said, putting the dish down on the counter next to her.
“I guess so.”
Bennett shook his head as he got some containers down from the cabinet and put them on the counter for Mel. When he stepped back, he couldn’t stop himself from looking at her.
Her curly hair was long, going well past the middle of her back. Her shorts weren’t indecent or anything, but they definitely hugged her tiny little bottom. Bennett pulled his gaze away, not wanting to get caught checking her out, and went back to gather more things in the dining room.
They cleaned the kitchen, and when everything was put away, Bennett led Mel to the living room.
“You ready for this?” he asked as he put the disc into the DVD player.
“As I’ll ever be. I feel so attached to all of these characters, I just don’t even know what I’m going to do when it’s done,” she said, as she settled down on the couch.
“I have a plethora of other series to watch. We can just start something new.”
We?
Yeah, that little word had popped out way too easily.
* * *
Mel couldn’t stop sniffling. Okay, so she got emotional sometimes. So what. But Bennett hadn’t laughed at her tears, or been weirded out by them. On the contrary, he’d gone to get her some tissues.
The final scene ended and the credits began to roll. Mel just stared at the screen, not sure of how she felt.
“How you doing over there?” Bennett asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” Mel said, still staring at the credits. “I think this is going to take some time to sink in.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Do you?” Mel asked, looking at him.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “This show is a total mind fuck. Excuse the language.”
Mel laughed. “You’re excused. It is definitely that. But I’m going to miss it.”
“Then we’ll just have to fill that void. How about Monday night? I’ll make you dinner again. I’m sure you’re going to need a little pick-me-up after your first day of school.”
“I’m sure that I’m going to as well.”
Unstoppable (A Country Roads Novel) Page 4
