by Jen Talty
Charlie flicked on the back porch light, and they entered through the kitchen. It was as big as she remembered, furnished with new appliances, but the big butcher-block kitchen table was as exactly as she remembered.
“Six bedrooms,” Charlie said. “Three stories, at a total of four thousand square feet.”
“This is what we talked about.” Reese handed Charlie an envelope. “They have until tomorrow at five to counter. The construction company will be filing the plans in the morning. I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”
What agreement, Patty thought, but didn’t ask because she was too busy remembering her favorite Barbie doll and how she and LuAnn would talk about what it would be like to be grown up, married, with a family…
“Excellent. Which company, so I can make sure everything is in order?”
“Sutten & Tanner.”
“Excellent choice,” Charlie said.
“Now, do you mind if we check the place out alone?”
Charlie nodded. “I’ll be waiting in the car. Take your time.”
Patty was so caught up in remembering that she ignored the two men talking, though she made a mental note to ask Reese about Sutten & Tanner. “LuAnn and I used to sit under this table with our Barbie dolls on rainy days when we were in grade school.” Patty lost herself in the moment, gliding her fingers across the uneven wood. “When my parents would fight, I came here. LuAnn and her parents were like a second family to me.”
“So, you have fond memories of this place?”
“Oh, yes,” Patty said. “Why did you bring me here?”
“I just put in an offer.”
“Huh…what? Offer? As in ‘buy?’” Her heart beat so fast it hurt. Reese’s conversation with the realtor pulled together. “You want to buy a hotel?”
“I do.”
“How? The asking price on this place is like, what, over six million? How on earth can you afford that on your current salary? How can you run a hotel and be a trooper?”
“Let’s just say we need to talk. About a lot of things.”
“I have no idea what to say.” Her mind raced with a million questions, but she couldn’t bring a single one to her mouth. She blinked a few times, wondering if she was having a bizarre dream, because no way was Reese McGinn planning on buying a hotel. “I think I need to sit down.”
“Why don’t we just go back to your place? You can sit down, put your feet up. You’re still limping. And we can talk about this and my plans to buy the hotel.”
She pulled her coat tight around her middle and adjusted her purse strap. “This is all so sudden. I can’t… I can’t even process the idea that you would… could buy this place.” The very idea that Reese would buy a house was unnerving. This was over the top.
“I know it’s sudden, but it feels so right,” he said.
She wanted to trust his intentions. His big school-boy grin. The excitement laced in his voice. His blue eyes danced with something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, and it made her want to leap into his arms. Instead, she held on to what she didn’t know about Reese and the fact he could rip her heart into tiny little pieces “I’ve got a lot of questions.” But first, she’d have to sort them all out in her head. “I expect honest answers. You can’t dodge a single one or redirect me, like you always did when I asked you about your family, the military, where you lived...”
“I can do that,” he said. “You good to drive? You look a little…a little—”
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’ll see you at my place in a few.”
Patty drove the half-mile up the hill from the parking lot of the Heritage Inn, then right on Route 9, and another half-mile to the turn on Harmon Hill. All the while, Reese followed close behind. Reality started to sink in: he was going to stick around. She was just getting used to the idea that maybe they could nail this co-parenting thing. She held her breath on any thought of a relationship, unsure that the Reese she knew was capable of a totally honest, fully committed, relationship.
How could she process this new Reese?
The cool evening air hit her face as she opened her car door. It had dropped to below freezing, and the weatherman was calling for flurries. She let Reese take her hand as they walked in silence up to her apartment. “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat something,” he said. “Why don’t I open a bottle of wine and get some cheese and crackers? You do have cheese and crackers?”
“I do,” she said, “but no wine for me.”
“Oh, yeah. Pregnant women probably shouldn’t drink. So, what do you want instead?”
“There is some sparkling water in the fridge. I’ll take a bottle of that. Any flavor is fine.”
She sat in the family room, next to the window, trying to picture Reese running a hotel and being a Trooper. No way could he manage that. Even if he could, there would be no room for quality time with his child, much less any time with her. God, she wished she could read minds. He’d been giving her mixed signals since they broke up. Then again, she’d probably been doing the same thing.
Reese put a tray of goodies on the coffee table then set her drink on a coaster. He left the room, but returned with a bottle of red wine and one glass. He poured himself what most would consider two glasses.
“Seriously, how are you going to find the money to buy the Heritage Inn, much less run it?”
“There are a few things you don’t know…that no one knows about me.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“My family is rich.”
She sipped her flavored water, contemplating his words. Rich. And family. He’d never been cheap on their dates, always picking up the tab, but he lived like a poor man. At least, like someone who didn’t have a whole lot of extra cash sitting around.
“How rich?”
He shrugged. “Like Richie Rich, rich.” His eyes twinkled, but she could see he was serious. “My Nana—”
“You have a Nana? As in, a grandmother?”
He cracked a smile as he sat in the chair across from the window. That had always been his favorite spot. He said he liked looking at her profile while watching the sunset or sunrise. “I had a mother, too.”
“Must you be so sarcastic? I feel like I don’t know you at all.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s weird for me to talk about it, especially the money part. People think you have money, they treat you differently. I’ve never liked that.”
She could understand that. Jared was rich, but he’s always lived relatively modestly. People whispered and wondered, but no one knew. She supposed a few people did treat Jared differently, and a few people knew about his first wife. She was a gold-digger, according to the gossip mills.
“Okay, so having a hard time grasping the idea that you actually have the funds to purchase the Heritage Inn, but it concerns me that the only reason you are doing it is because of the baby. I don’t want you to feel trapped or tied down, or obligated to do anything.”
“Lots of things are going to be because of the baby. I’m okay with that. You gave me an out. I didn’t take it.”
He had a point. “Tell me about your nana. Are you close? Do you see her often?”
“She basically raised me. I see her three or four times a year. Call her once or twice a week. I’d say we’re close.”
“You’ve lived here for a couple of years. We’ve been sleeping together for months, and not once did you mention anything about a nana,” Patty said. “Does she know about me?”
The way Reese dipped his gaze spoke volumes on where she stood in Reese’s life, baby or no baby. “I’ve never talked to her about any woman I’ve dated.”
“Why not?”
“She’s a bit overprotective of me,” Reese said, then sipped more wine. “I’m not being flip or mean, but until now, I haven’t seen any point in telling anyone about her. But I’d like you to meet her.”
Oy. That would be a lot to take, Patty thought. “Do you have siblings?”<
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“I’m an only child. My mother died when I was seventeen, but left my grandparents to raise me when I was seven. My father is in prison. He’s not my biological father, but that’s a long story.”
“Prison?”
He nodded. “I didn’t know until my mother was dying. Thought he ran out on me and my mom when I was seven, so it was a shocker to find out: dad in prison, but not your dad.”
“That sucks.” So much of Reese made sense now that it was impossible for her to ignore the longing in her heart.
“It did, for about five minutes. Living with Nana and Grandpa was great.”
“Where is your grandpa now?”
“He passed away two years ago. Heart gave out. He was a real hardass sometimes, but a great man.” The way Reese talked of his family, the slight tremble in his voice, was something she’d never heard, a deep, emotional connection filled with love and admiration.
Her heart ached for the little boy who’d been through so much, and for the man who carried that burden through his adult life. She wanted to ask him to join her on the sofa. To hold him. Feel his warm embrace. This couldn’t be any easier for him to tell, than it was for her to listen. “I can’t believe I didn’t know any of this.”
“Well, we did have that rule,” he said. “Nothing personal.”
“Does anyone know about any of this?”
“Jared knows a little.”
“So, it wasn’t just me you kept all this from?”
“It’s not that I kept it from you, or anyone, but I didn’t want to put it out there and make connections...because I tend to, as you know, not stay around very long.”
“I’m still worried about that.”
“I’m buying a hotel,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She studied his face, which had softened, his eyes less deep and secretive. Even the way he sat said he was open to the world.
But it was hard to trust. “I’m having a really hard time with that one.”
“None of this changes who I am,” he said. “I’m still the same person you’ve known the last few years.”
“But it does.” She shifted to face him. “Your secrets kept you from ever really being close to anyone. Even me, and we shared a bed for more than half a year. If it doesn’t change who you are, then you’re still the man who can’t be in a long-term relationship.”
“I see your point.” He refilled his glass, took a healthy sip, then moved to the sofa, and sat next her, which only added fuel to a fire that burned too hot. He smelled like a combination of brute masculinity and salt from the cool ocean air rolling in. He had a way of melting down all her defenses with a touch. When he looked at her, he focused on her every word. Her every move. Yet he’d never revealed himself. He’d managed to keep her just far enough away that sex was her only means of knowing him. He wasn’t a talker, but he could listen. And he listened so well that before she was even finished talking, they were usually in bed.
“I don’t know who you are at all, and you’re telling me all this as if it’s no big deal. What will happen in few years when you get bored with being a trooper or running a hotel? Then what? What will happen to me? To your child? Are we just no big deal?”
“You’re being melodramatic.”
“You’re being patronizing.”
“Look.” He put his arm around her and drew her close. “We need to spend some time getting to know one another again. Or rather, you, getting to know my history. I’m open to trying it out. Are you?”
Every instinct told her to push him away, but her heart told her to pull him closer and never let him go. She’d never experienced making love the way she had with him. With other men, it had been an act of affection, neither good nor bad. With Reese? Sex was empowering. Satisfying. Sometimes downright blushworthy dirty.
With Reese, making love came with no strings. It was unabated and raw, and that gave her the ability to let her hair down and do things she’d only fantasized about. They never had to carry on real emotional or mentally challenging conversations, and she’d felt no sense of having to tell him anything, though she told him everything.
“I’ve already been open with you,” she said. “There isn’t much you don’t know about me or my family.”
“There is a lot I don’t know about you.” He inched closer. The warmth from his body flowed over to hers. “I don’t know how you feel about a lot of things. The only thing I know for sure was that I was only meant to be a fling for you. You wanted nothing from me but a good time. You made that clear.”
“So did you.”
“We also said that when summer ended, we ended. We most certainly didn’t end, and I’m not the one who ended it.”
“You didn’t do anything to keep it going.”
They grew quiet for a long moment as Reese drained his glass, and then poured the rest of the wine. He swirled it, and as she watched him, she realized that should have been a clue: his taste and knowledge of fine wines. The way he swirled it. Smelled it. Even once sent a bottle back.
She realized other things, too. Reese had always been the perfect gentleman. He never pushed. He was always respectful. She thought it had been some aspect of being a player, because he was smooth, and women flocked to him.
But was it only that he was smooth, or just the way he grew up? Had his grandparents taught him manners? How to treat a lady?
She sank into the arm he’d wrapped around her shoulder. It felt safe. Comfortable. It felt normal to be here, like this, with him.
“We’re having a baby,” he whispered.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” She meant it rhetorically, so she was surprised but happy when he responded.
“My Nana lives in White Plains. She’s the only family I have, outside of you and this baby. If all goes as planned with The Heritage Inn, I want on bringing her here, and I want us all to get along with whatever scenario we put forth, preferably one where you and I are more than what we are now.”
“I don’t know about that,” she managed. She hadn’t known what to expect when she told Reese about the baby, but this was not in even her wildest fantasies. “This is a lot to process.”
“I understand,” Reese said. “To be honest, the night you told me about the baby, I was thinking about asking if we could pick things up again. I missed you. Then I had to go and act like some jerk.”
“That you did.” She let him pull her closer as he rubbed her shoulder with one hand and rested the other on her thigh. It felt natural and real. As though they fit together. She wondered if she should tell him about Keith Holland and his quiet inquiry into the property, but Reese had already made the offer. He was staying. For his child. She could live with that. “I missed you, too.”
Her body, however, demanded so much more than comfortable, and right now, she just wanted him. Needed him. Not the closed-off Reese she’d been messing around with, but this Reese. The one who was going to be a father. She knew it was a bad idea.
Just one more time, she thought.
She cupped his face and kissed him on the lips, first slowly, gauging his response, then more passionately as he began to respond. Everything about their so-called relationship had been simple, yet so complicated for her. Once again, she found herself in the arms of a man who knew every single physical button to push.
Then he pulled away.
“Just for tonight,” she said.
“I don’t want it to be that way between us. I want to do this right this time.”
“It’s the way I need it to be right now.”
His lips brushed against hers, teasingly.
She took his wine glass from his hand, placed it on the table, and then straddled him, holding his face, and looked deep into his eyes. She could see the passion, but she felt his trepidation. “We start over tomorrow,” she said. “But tonight, I need this.”
It didn’t take long before they were naked in her bed, but there was no sense of urgency. He caressed every inch of her bod
y. He kissed her shoulder. Licked her neck. Brushed his fingers across her breast as if she were a beautiful rose garden he tended to.
Desperate to have him inside her, she coaxed, but he resisted, taking his sweet time making sure every erogenous zone she had, and few she hadn’t known she had, were fully engaged.
“Now,” she begged.
“No,” he whispered in her ear. “We start over tonight.”
Her body and mind were wild with passion. She cared about nothing except the physical pleasure only he could give, that one last, non-committal encounter. A way to end the physical and begin a friendship, but the way he touched her felt so different from anything she’d ever felt before. “Please,” she begged again. “I need you.”
Finally, he relented, entering her slowly, but she couldn’t take it any longer. She needed release. She lifted her hips over and over until he gave up and matched her pace. “This is the beginning,” he whispered.
After they were both fully satisfied, he rolled to his side, turning her, and held her close. He said nothing, just held her, wrapping both the blankets and his arms protectively around her. He’d always been one to enjoy a good cuddle after love-making, but she’d always kiss him, then push him away. Being held in his arms all night was against one of her rules during their so-called fling. A way to protect herself from falling too hard and too deep for a man who wasn’t emotionally available.
The man who currently held her body close, his breath slowing to a rhythmic sound of sleep was someone completely different. She relaxed in his arms, letting sleep come. Dreams of what could be tickled her brain while she slept in the protective presence of the man she loved.
5
