Somebody to Love

by Ann Christopher

  She blushed prettily, waging another impromptu battle to keep her smile under control. Which gave him a modicum of hope and made him all the more determined to warm her all the way up, like some sort of emotional microwave capable of working on her from the inside out.

  “Anyway,” she said pointedly, “I’m assuming you work in the city?”

  Sean paused, this basic cocktail party question throwing him squarely on the horns of a dilemma. What the hell should he tell this woman who could bat her pretty eyes and land the Rolex-wearing and G-Wagon-driving peacock across the way? That he currently owned neither job nor car and possessed a roof over his head only courtesy of the kindness of his buddy Daniel Harper’s parents, who’d been letting him crash at their carriage house for the past few months? While he was at it, why not confess that he’d flunked out of law school, too? Why not get his loser-dom out there for her to see up front?

  Cursing his essentially honest nature, he decided to tell her the truth in as upbeat a manner as possible.

  “I’m interviewing in the city. Executive chef,” he added before she could ask.

  “Really?” Her eyes widened. “I love to bake!”

  He’d always had the impression that models didn’t eat much and/or had complicated relationships with food, so this was a nice surprise. It wasn’t hard to imagine them in the kitchen together one mellow Friday night or drowsy Sunday morning, with some jazz playing in the background and delicious scents wafting through the air.

  Still, he hesitated. In his painful experience, it never paid to get your hopes up too much about a woman. Too bad he couldn’t seem to help himself where this one was concerned.

  “For real?”

  “I would never lie about sweet treats,” she said solemnly. “Are you switching restaurants, or…?”

  “Ah, no,” he said, taking heart in her unmistakable interest. “I was a sous chef out in Napa for several years, until the owners retired to Phoenix. A buddy of mine was moving back here at the same time, so I decided to tag along.”

  “Oh. So you’re a Californian?”

  “Native Cincinnatian.” Sean’s ears burned at this additional mark on his record. Baldwin family relations were complex, to say the least. His father? Long dead. He and his brother Mike had always been oil and water, the final nail in their relationship coffin pounded into place when Mike hooked up with and ultimately married one of Sean’s law school classmates, a woman Sean had been wild about. Their mother, a long-time breast cancer thriver, was wonderful. Most of the time, Sean saw her when she came out to Napa for vacation visits. The rest of the time, he gave Cincinnati a wide berth. “I’d like to land down in the city or up here in Journey’s End. Wherever I can find a gig first. And that’s enough about me.”

  “I beg to differ. I still don’t know where you did your training or what you like to cook.”

  “Let’s save something for the next train ride.” He hesitated, his simmering nerves making his voice hoarse. “Or drinks tonight.”

  “Drinks?”

  “You’re right. Dinner would be better. We seem to have a lot to say to each other.”

  She went very still and gave him a discreet once-over filled with enough subtle feminine appreciation to get his hopes up despite all his self-protective efforts. She felt it too, this chemistry between them. He wasn’t in it alone. His only job? Not to blow it.

  “And why would I want to have drinks with a complete stranger I just met on a train?” she asked softly.

  It was a fair point. She could clearly do much better than him. But she didn’t know that.

  “Because I’m a great guy,” he said, a statement that was at least 51percent true. He had a lot of friends who really were great people. They’d no doubt vouch for him in abstentia. He was also a great chef, his current circumstances notwithstanding. That all had to count for something, right? “We seem to like each other. Let’s see what happens. Assuming you check out.”

  The bright burst of her laughter damn near made him dizzy.

  “Assuming I check out?”

  He shrugged, holding on to his nonchalant routine for all he was worth.

  “You’re a complete stranger. I don’t know anything about you. Except that you once went to Java Nectar and are a suspected model.”

  More laughter. “I am a model. Catalogues mostly.”

  “Yeah? Discovered in Paris, were you?”

  “I wish. I was at ’Bama—”

  “’Bama?” He made a face. “As a proud Buckeye from The Ohio State University, I don’t want to hear any ‘Roll Tide’ nonsense around here. We clear?”

  “You can go find a seat somewhere else if you keep up with that mess,” she said sternly, waving at one of the empty seats.

  “Yeah, no,” he said, smothering his laughter. “Continue.”

  “As I was saying, I was at ’Bama—”

  “Hang on. What was your degree in?”

  She ducked her head, looking embarrassed.

  “I barely scraped by with a BS in marketing and a minor in sales. I had an eye on fashion retail, but modeling sidetracked me. Let’s just say school never came easy to me and leave it at that.”

  He froze, a shiver of excitement racing up his nape and across his scalp. If he’d ever experienced the feeling with another woman before, he couldn’t remember it now. She’d also found school difficult. He and the lovely Amber Garvey discovered more and more in common with every passing minute, didn’t they?

  “I get that,” he said. “Probably why I was cordially invited not to return to law school after my first semester.”

  She seemed startled.

  All this information took a moment to digest on both sides. They gave each other a prolonged stare, searching for God knew what. And when the moment became too powerful for two strangers talking on a train, he rubbed that tingly spot on his nape, wishing he knew what the hell was going on here.

  “Stop trying to sidetrack me,” he said gruffly. “I want to know how you got started modeling.”

  She blinked and came out of it.

  “One day a casting notice appeared on the bulletin board. I went because I was a struggling and impoverished college student. Turned out I was tall enough and figured out which angles the camera liked best. The end.”

  He thought of videos he’d seen of Victoria’s Secret and Sports Illustrated models posing on glorious white sand beaches while photographers and assistants fawned over them.

  “You enjoy it?”

  “I see that look in your eye,” she said, swirling her hand at his face. “You’re thinking of glitz and glamour and travel, aren’t you? Well, forget all that. Think hard work, exercise, diet and tedium. Now you’re getting the picture.”

  “But you make a living with it?” he said, laughing.

  Her smile wobbled, but she managed to hang on to it. “We shall see. I’ve got a big meeting with my agent today. We’re discussing next steps. Fingers crossed that she’s getting me some great bookings.”

  “And you live…?”

  Her smile wobbled a second time, whetting his appetite to a) see the full thing again; and b) discover what painful past experiences generated all these shadows across her face.

  “I’m, ah, in the process of leaving the city. Relocating to Journey’s End.”

  Now wasn’t the time to get too personal with the chitchat, but, on the other hand, his driving curiosity about her demanded it.

  “Journey’s End is a great little town. How do you feel about your move?”

  Her eyes slid out of focus while she thought it over.

  “Well, you know. There’s a lot of flux right now. With the move and my career and, ah, other things.” She looked him in the face again and squared her shoulders. Nodded crisply. “But I think it’ll be good. I’m going to make it work.”

  “I don’t doubt it. We have a lot in common. You’ve noticed that, haven’t you?”

  She tried a shrug that wasn’t as offhand as she probably would have li
ked.

  “Is that significant?”

  “I’m trying not to come on like a ton of bricks, but it feels significant from where I’m sitting, yeah. Feel free to correct me.”

  She held his gaze, the air crackling with both their simmering attraction and her unmistakable wariness. Until her expression turned bemused.

  “Let’s just say that I don’t hate you. Yet—”

  He choked back a laugh. “I’ll take that.”

  “—and that it pays to be cautious with the people you let into your life. And the people you let stay there. People who make too big a deal about my looks or my career are automatically on the suspicious list. So you might want to bear that in mind.”

  “Noted. But you can’t blame men for being attracted to you at first sight. You’re gorgeous. Men have eyes. Maybe the key is seeing who sticks around.”

  “Ah. Well, while you’re mansplaining this to me, O Wise One, maybe you could tell me what to do about the ones who stick around for a long time and then bail.”

  Whoa. There was a story there. A fresh and painful story, judging by the sudden hard edge in her voice. And Sean wanted to hear about it in due time.

  For now?

  “Good riddance to those losers,” he told her.

  Her brows shot up. “And it’s that easy?”

  “I feel duty bound to caution you that, as a guy who’s made his fair share of mistakes on the way to getting his life together, I have zero answers. But as an outsider looking into your life? A smart, beautiful, funny woman with an interesting career?” He shrugged, wondering where the puzzle was. “It’s plain as the nose on your face. Good. Riddance.”

  She looked thunderstruck.

  “What?” he said, beginning to feel a little hot under the collar. “It’s common sense.”

  Sardonic smile as she blinked and came out of it.

  “You’re starting to grow on me. If only you’d shown up with a criminal background report or a signed letter of introduction from friends of mine. Or if we knew people in common.”

  “Sorry about that,” he said easily. “I’ll try to do better next time. So what did we decide about dinner?”

  She made a show of rubbing the ear closest to him before cocking her head in his direction. “Didn’t you just say something about not wanting to be a ton of bricks?”

  “Was that me?”

  “It was definitely you.”

  “Oops.”

  “Why not finish out the train ride before you go making snap decisions about tonight? There’s plenty of time for us to turn each other off. Maybe I have an obnoxious laugh. Maybe you smack your gum. Why not hedge your bets?”

  “Nah. I’m good, thanks. But your boy over there looks like he’s still scheming.” He subtly tipped his head at the peacock, who was ostensibly doing something on the phone in between shooting them daggered and speculative looks. “I was going to run to the restroom, but I don’t want to come back and find him sitting in my place talking about his private jet.”

  “Please,” she said, scoffing. “Mr. Rolex over there? I’ve seen enough of his type in the last few months to last me a lifetime. He just wants another trophy. Like his watch, his suit, his shoes and probably his car. What do you think he drives? Ferrari?”

  “G-wagon,” Sean said, eyeing her with a healthy new respect. He was generally a good judge of character and it looked like she was, too. “I’ve seen him in the parking lot before. So you don’t regret your choice?”

  “I wasn’t aware I’d chosen you so much as rejected him.”

  “If that’s what you want to tell yourself.”

  “A guy like that is all about appearances and image,” she said with an exasperated eye roll and banked laughter at Sean’s assessment. “He’s all about trading up.”

  “Agreed.” Sean hesitated, then decided to go ahead and share another of his assessments with her. “You’re already so far out of my league that I’d never dream of trading up.”

  She gave him a narrowed sidelong look as that icy edge crept back into her voice. “If and when I take up with some new guy, I am not going to be replaced like someone switching out their fall clothes for their winter clothes.”

  Sean stared at her, his thoughts spinning.

  He’d heard the unspoken again when she said she wasn’t going to be replaced. He saw the bright patches of anger in her cheeks and the sudden flare of her delicate nostrils. He recognized hurt and betrayal when he saw them, and he really didn’t like seeing them here. Not with her. He felt an unexpected and primal flare of protectiveness toward her that was far too troubling to examine now. So he focused instead on the one true thing that she needed to hear at this moment.

  “You’re irreplaceable.”

  “Evidently not,” she said tightly.

  He opened up his mouth and, with no prior warning, spouted some truly weird shit he’d had no idea he planned to say.

  “Correction: you’re irreplaceable to the right man.” Wait, the right man? What the actual fuck are you talking about, Baldwin? Do you even know? “So make sure you pay attention when he turns up.”

  Another one of those sizzling pauses passed between them, where time seemed to slow and the rest of the world could fall off the nearest cliff as far as he was concerned.

  He told himself to remember this moment because it felt unprecedented.

  So he noted the look on her face, which was ambivalent and vulnerable, as though she hoped he had more answers she needed to hear. He noted the sparks of gold and orange in her brown eyes. He damn sure noted the sudden hitch in her breath and the way her gaze dropped to his lips and lingered there.

  “You’re married or otherwise in a committed relationship, aren’t you?” she finally said. “Because I don’t deal with bullshit. Let’s get that straight right now.”

  “Nope.”

  “Gay? Questioning?”

  “Negative.”

  “Six kids with six baby mamas? On the FBI’s Most Wanted list? Due to report to prison on Monday?”

  “Huh-uh.”

  “Sociopath?”

  He had to laugh. “Not as far as I know.”

  “Well, you might as well confess,” she said with a baleful glare. “This goes no further until you drop the whole perfect catch routine. I’m not falling for it. I’ve been around the block too many times.”

  His laughter intensified.

  “You are the only person who has ever used the word perfect in reference to anything about me. Take my word for it.”

  She grumbled something indistinct, still looking suspicious.

  His grin tapered off as it occurred to him that the train ride would be over way too soon and he had no idea when or if he’d ever see her again. And he damn sure didn’t want to watch her disappear into the crowd a second time and consign himself to that nasty purgatory of kicking himself for letting her go and endlessly wondering what if.

  “You’re heading back to Journey’s End tonight?” he asked, thinking that they could go to Harper Rose Bistro, the restaurant owned by his buddy Daniel Harper’s family.

  “No. Tonight’s my last night at my apartment in the city. I need to pack the last few things and finish cleaning.”

  “Ah,” he said, changing his plans on the spot and hoping his spiking tension didn’t make his voice squeak. Asking a woman out was always nerve-racking. This right here? Next level shit. “So it’s dinner in the city for us?”

  They stared at each other. He mined her face for clues about his fate and held his breath. Until the outer edges of her eyes crinkled, smiling without smiling and telling him everything he needed to know.

  “Guess so,” she said.

  Chapter Three

  “Here you are. One shot of mezcal.” The female server plunked the glass on the table with a flourish early that evening. “You look like you could use it.”

  Amber snapped her compact shut and put it away, determined to stop the compulsive futzing with her hair and makeup. So she had a mi
nor date with a new guy who might or might not bother to show up. No big deal.

  But try explaining that to her racing pulse and fidgety hands.

  “That obvious, huh?” Amber toasted the server with a rueful smile. “Well, here’s to dating in the twenty-first century. Such as it is. And also to my pending nervous breakdown as I get back in the saddle. I had a bad breakup a few months back. My ex of seven years, give or take, fired me and then immediately found someone else. I’ve never seen him look happier. So my self-esteem is in the gutter, as you can imagine. Not that you care. Ignore me. I’m clearly babbling. Cheers.”

  With that, she downed the shot, generating a smooth and smoky burn in her tight throat, and returned the glass to the server.

  “Need another one?” the server asked, brows raised.

  Amber thought about that long and hard. As someone who’d spent most of the last two years obsessively walking the straight and narrow while she counted every calorie that went into her body, the idea of letting her hair down for once and enjoying another drink or six sounded pretty good. On the other hand:

  “Nope. Better not. I want to make a good impression and keep my wits about me. Assuming my date shows up.”

  “Uh-oh. He’s not about to ghost you, is he?”

  “Let’s hope not,” Amber said, thinking of Sean’s handsome face, easy charm, insane body and irresistible smile. Right on cue, a surge of appreciative feminine adrenaline caused her cheeks to sizzle. “And I’m a little early.” She checked her watch again. Sighed. “Twenty minutes, to be exact. Not that I’m excited or anything.”

  “It’s like that, is it? I can’t wait to see this guy.”

  “You and me both,” Amber muttered, hoping against hope that she could keep some of her wild attraction to Sean under wraps if and when he arrived. “How about a rosé this time? Thanks.”

  The server winked and strode off, leaving Amber alone with her churning thoughts. She blew out a shaky breath, hoping against hope that her luck had finally turned.

  First thing? The meeting with her agent had gone very well, she thought. They’d discussed new directions for her career as she hit that all-important thirtieth birthday milestone. They’d outlined casting calls for which Amber might be a fit. Her agent had promised to make some calls and get back to her ASAP.