Ask Me Why (21 page)

MAGGIE HAD LIED.

When Nick stole her book and read those lines aloud, his deep voice whispering those things about kisses and nipples and hands and, oh my God, everything else, it had sent heat coiling through her belly. He'd ruined the book for her, she realized, when they switched seats a couple hours later and she tried to read while he took the wheel. When she'd read the same pages again, she heard them in Nick's voice, imagined Nick doing the things to her that the hero was doing to the heroine.

That whole train of thought had made the love scene as uncomfortable as hell, especially with Nick sitting about six inches away. She'd had to put the book away and concentrate on the dull, boring facts in her contractor's book instead, just so she wouldn't hyperventilate in her own car.

The rest of the drive, she'd done her best to keep the conversation on work, but she was acutely aware of Nick's arm, brushing against hers from time to time, of his legs, strong and muscled beneath his shorts, of the scent of soap and man and temptation. So close, so very, very close. Every time they touched, a little tremor of electricity zipped through her veins.

It was just the afterburn from the love scene from the book, nothing more. As soon as they were out of the close quarters of the car, this . . . effect would wear off. This was Nick, after all, and he was far from a hero in a romance novel. He was her friend, albeit a cover-model sexy friend, especially when he was wearing a pale blue golf shirt and khaki shorts. The wind had mussed his hair, and she ached to run her fingers through the sandy brown locks, set them to rights again.

Good Lord. What was wrong with her?

Five hours after they'd set out, they started winding their way through the hills of Georgia toward Chatham Ridge. The whole state was greener, lusher, richer than Florida with its flat landscape and endless parade of palm trees. She put down her window and inhaled the fresh, clean air of Chatham Ridge. “I love this place,” she said.

“Then why'd you move?”

“Long story.” One she didn't want to revisit. Not now, not later, not ever.

“We have time.”

“We'll be there soon. Only another twenty minutes or so.”

“Enough time to tell me your life story.” He grinned. “Or at least the abbreviated version.”

She let out a sigh. “Why? And since when do you care about anything other than what's her bra size?”

Nick winced. “Ouch. I'm not that bad.”

She glanced over and saw genuine hurt on his face. That surprised her. The Nick she knew would rather talk about sex than personal history, would rather build a 10,000-square-foot house than a relationship. “Sorry.”

“Don't you think people will expect me to know about your past, if we're madly in love?”

Damn it. He was right. She hated that. “Okay. But if you nod off, I won't blame you.”

“I won't nod off. I want to know about you, M.J.” He noted her dubious look. “Really.”

She slowed the car as they entered downtown Chatham Ridge. The quaint shops attracted their fair share of locals and tourists, who lingered on the brick sidewalks and wooden benches. “I grew up in this town. My parents were Ph.D.s who worked at the University of Georgia, in the physics department. Every meal was a lesson, assuming we ate together at all, because both of them worked so much. I became a master at making frozen pizza. They hated that I didn't follow in the family business of smarts and groundbreaking discoveries.”

“But you're damned good at your job and pretty damned smart, to boot. If I were your parents, I'd be proud as hell.”

Nick's words warmed her. “Thanks.”

“Everyone has their own kind of awesomeness, M.J. Yours happens to be with wood and spackle.”

She laughed, then took a left, leaving downtown Chatham Ridge in her rearview. “When I was sixteen, my parents were offered jobs at Berkeley. In California. I didn't want to move, so I stayed here, with Rachel, at her grandparents' house.”

“Wait. They left you behind?”

She shrugged, like it didn't matter. “We're not close. We never really were.” She still remembered the silence of her childhood, with both parents immersed in books, and her sitting on the sidelines, feeling weirdly like an interloper. Only at Rachel's had Maggie found anything like a family.

“Still, that sucks,” Nick said. “How'd you end up in Florida?”

“I followed a guy. Thought I was in love. Turned out it was just lust.” She shrugged again, and slowed as she neared the turn for the house.

“And you worked for a few years with Joplin Homes before you came to work for Mike. Been living in Rescue Bay for seven years now.”

“Yup. There you have it, my life story in a nutshell.” She flicked on a directional and waited at the stop sign to turn onto Huckleberry Lane. “Not as interesting as yours.”

“I haven't even told you mine yet.”

“I already know it. You grew up in Rescue Bay, went to private school in a nearby town. Your best friend is Colt Harper, the town doctor, and you have a grandfather who you take out for lunch every Sunday afternoon. You love the beach and big dogs, and you've never driven anything other than a pickup truck.”

He leaned back in his seat and gave her an appraising glance. “How do you know that much about me?”

“I listen, Nick. That's all.” She shrugged it off, but realized it made her sound like she was interested in him. Which she wasn't. Except he did look amazing in that light blue shirt, and when he'd read that passage from her book, he'd sent a whole line of fantasies roaring through her brain. Okay, so maybe she was a little interested, but not insane enough to get involved with him for real. It was all pretend, nothing more. “Anyway, Chatham Ridge doesn't have any kind of a decent hotel, so we're staying at Rachel's grandparents' house. Rachel is meeting us over there.”

“And expecting me to be googly-eyed for you?”

She gave him a sarcastic look. “When have you ever been googly-eyed for anyone?”

He thought a second. “Elizabeth Anne Whitford, seventh grade.”

Maggie laughed. That was a story Nick had never told her, in all those days of conversations while they worked. Of course, she'd never asked him about his relationship past, either. It intrigued her to think of Nick falling in love with anyone. “Really?”

“Yup. She sat beside me in Mrs. Glaser's class, and I thought she was the most beautiful creature to ever walk God's earth. She wore dresses almost every day and always had this pink ribbon in her hair, like a . . . what do you call it? Headband.”

“Oh, the sweet and innocent type, huh?” And why did a crush from middle school send a little flicker of jealousy through Maggie's gut?

Nick chuckled. “Turns out it was all a ruse. She broke my heart when I caught her kissing Davey Knoxville behind the Dumpster.”

“And you've been a jaded, confirmed bachelor ever since?” She pulled into the driveway of Rachel's grandparents' house and turned off the engine. The car clicked a few times, then fell silent.

“Oh, I wouldn't say I'm jaded. Just . . . wiser.”

“Wiser . . . how?”

“I'm only dating women who don't wear pink headbands.” Nick grinned, then followed her out of the car and grabbed their bags from the trunk before she could. “I've learned my lesson, too.”

“And what lesson is that?”

“Never give your heart to a woman who can break it.”

“That's almost every woman in the world.”

“Exactly.” He slung his bag over his shoulder, and hefted her suitcase in his hand.

They headed up the brick walkway, between flanks of pretty pink and white annuals. The house looked the same as she remembered, and there was something comforting about that, Maggie thought. “So you're going to go through life, never falling in love, never getting married, never having a spontaneous fall-in-love relationship?”

“Is the pot calling the kettle black?”

She rolled her eyes and took her suitcase from him. “I'm just cautious.”

He snorted. “Cautious? You don't date at all. That's called cloister-ous.”

“That's not even a word.”

“It is to the nuns who never have sex.”

“Who says I never have sex?”

He arched a brow.

No way was she going to admit that he was right, and that she got her oil changed more frequently than she got laid. It wasn't for lack of wanting—more for lack of dating. “My sex life is none of your business.”

“It is now,” he said, leaning in close to her and stealing her bag again, “because I'm your one true love. Remember?”

Damn, she wished he would quit getting so close. Every time he did, it sent this little thrill through her veins. She was about to push him away when Rachel came bursting out of the house, her arms outstretched. “Maggie! Thank God, you're finally here. My mother and her wedding insanity are half the reason I'm staying here. I told her I had to be at Grandma's to supervise the setup, but really I needed to get away from my mother.” Rachel grabbed Maggie in a tight hug, one that erased the years they'd spent mostly apart in an instant. “I swear, Mama is going to drive me to elope in the back of J.W.'s Chevy half-ton.”

“If you did, it would save us all from having to wear dresses and heels,” Maggie said.

Rachel drew back and cocked a grin at Maggie. “You aren't getting out of that, honey. I have paid good money to see you in heels, and by God, you're going to wear them for at least one day. It's all part of my evil plan to bring out your inner debutante.”

“I've told ya, Rachel, it doesn't exist. It's like a unicorn. Mythological only.”

Rachel laughed. “We will see about that come Saturday at two.” She turned to Nick and gave him a warm smile. “Nice to see you again, Nick.”

“Same to you, Rachel.” He doffed an imaginary hat. “Congrats on the upcoming nuptials.”

“Why, thank you, kind sir.” She giggled, clearly caught in the Nick spell, like half the female population of the world. “I'm glad to see you're Maggie's plus one.” Rachel winked at Maggie, as if she hadn't forced the whole thing with that silly dare.

“Plus one?” Nick wrapped an arm around Maggie's waist and stared down at her. “Honey, don't you want to tell everyone that we're dating?”

Honey? And . . . dating?!

Rachel let out a shriek. “For real? I mean, I never thought—”

“We're not . . . uh . . . It's not . . .” She sent Nick a quick glare, but he ignored it.

“We've been keeping it quiet, but, yeah, I'm wild about this girl.” Nick lifted Maggie's left hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss against her fingers. His eyes took on this soft, almost dreamy look, then his face morphed into the familiar lopsided grin that told her he was kidding. “Who knows? Maybe this wedding fever will catch us both.”

“Now that would be an outcome I didn't see coming,” Rachel said. “Well, ya'll come on in and have some lemonade. My grandma's gonna wanna meet Nick, after I've been raving about him all week.” Rachel draped an arm over Maggie's shoulders and started walking her up the brick walkway and into the house. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Golly. Maggie, when someone says I dare you, you take it all the way.”

“It's just for the wedding, Rachel. Nick's not following directions. I told him just to be my date, nothing more.”

“So, you gonna rein him in or let this play out? I always liked that guy, you know. And maybe this could turn into something—”

“It's not going anywhere. Trust me. I feel nothing for him. I'm just doing this to keep the well-meaning aunts from fixing me up.”

Rachel laughed. “Cousin Wilbur was quite the catch. My aunt Edna still thinks you two should give it another go.”

“If this thing with Nick goes south,” Maggie said, sending a second glare in Nick's direction. He just kept on wearing that smug smirk, clearly not one bit sorry. “Dear old Wilbur might be a better choice.”

NICK WAS IN
hell.

A quintet of chatty women surrounded him, in a devil's den of tulle and silk and flowers and all kinds of womanly whatnots. They sprayed questions at him like machine guns—
Where'd you meet? What was your first date? Are you in love?
—and Nick fumbled his way through the first answer while M.J. looked horrified.

This was what he got for being spontaneous. When M.J. had accused him of never being spontaneous, it had struck a nerve somewhere inside him, and the next thing he knew, he'd been spouting, “We're dating.”

It was kind of assumed, wasn't it? A girl brought a man to a wedding, dating was one of those presupposed notions. But Maggie had reacted like he'd sprayed her with weed killer.

“We, uh, met at work,” he said.

“Oooh,”
said one of the women, a blonde named Susie who was tying ribbons around silk flowers. Katie Ann was sitting behind M.J., doing something with pins to M.J.'s hair, after spending the first twenty minutes putting makeup on his reluctant coworker.
She looked amazing either way,
he thought, but the makeup and hair added a little extra something. Before his eyes, M.J.'s long, dark brown locks were tumbled into a pile on top of her head, leaving little tempting whispers along her neck. It was the first time he'd seen her in something other than a ponytail, and he found himself wondering what it would be like to remove those pins one at a time, and watch those sexy waves tumble to her shoulders.

“Does that mean you get to see him in nothing but a pair of shorts and a hammer, Maggie?” Susie asked.

“Uh, well, no. I mean, if he didn't wear a shirt, he could get cut or hurt.” M.J. dipped her gaze to fashion another bow out of the pink ribbon in her lap. He couldn't tell if she was glad he rarely went without a shirt or disappointed.

The women were all sitting around Rachel's grandparents' dining room table, assembling wedding favors. Nick had tried to help, but found out pretty fast that he was all thumbs when it came to tying skinny ribbons into blooming bows and attaching them to silvery bags of mints. Nick stifled a laugh when he saw M.J. mutter a curse after her second attempt at a bow failed. Seemed he wasn't the only one flunking Wedding Favors 101.

“But Maggie would be there to bandage you right up, wouldn't she?” Susie curved an arm around M.J.'s shoulders and gave her a wink.

M.J. shifted in her seat. “Uh, well . . .”

He'd never seen M.J. so discomfited or at a loss for words. She had a sharp retort for everything, and a sharper tongue that could spar with him any day of the week.

A tongue he'd wanted so badly to brush against when he'd almost kissed her. A tongue that enticed and tempted him. A tongue he wanted to feel on him right now.

Whoa. That wasn't the right train of thought. As far as M.J. was concerned, this was all an act. If he came on too strong, she'd shut the whole thing down, and he'd lose his best opportunity to show her how he felt.

Uh-huh. And saying they might get caught up in the wedding fever wasn't coming on too strong?

“So you didn't answer us.” Katie Ann, finished now with M.J.'s hair, turned toward Nick and propped her chin in her hands. “Where'd you go on your first date? Was it super-romantic? I hope so, because the men I've been dating think romance is saying ‘Excuse me' after they fart.” She sighed.

“Our first date?” He glanced at M.J., who looked like she wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole. “It's going to sound silly. Probably not romantic, either.”

“Oh, tell us,” Katie Ann said. “It's got to be better than the ‘Hey, baby, let's get some BK and hit the sheets' proposition I got last week.”

Nick caught M.J.'s gaze. She started shaking her head no, but he barreled forward anyway. “You girls know M.J. She's not exactly a hearts-and-flowers girl. So I thought our first date should be the kind that would suit her. She told me once she'd never been in a convertible, so I borrowed one from a friend of mine. One of those old sixties-style convertibles, big as a boat. I packed us a picnic, then showed up on her doorstep just before sunset.”

M.J. had stopped shaking her head. She was watching him, her gaze cautious, and maybe, if he was reading her right, interested.

“Then what?” Susie asked.

“Yeah, then what?” Katie echoed.

“Should I tell them?” he asked M.J. “Or would you rather?”

M.J. hesitated, and for a second he thought it would all fall apart, then a smirk curved across her face. “Then he took me to the beach, and we set up the picnic on the sand and watched the sun set.”

“Oh, that's so romantic.” Katie Ann sighed.

“Until I got food poisoning the next morning from Nick's cooking.” M.J.'s grin widened, as if saying,
Top that.

“Nothing says romance like a day spent on the bathroom floor,” M.J. added.

“Ah, but I was there the next day with crackers and ginger ale,” he said. “And when you felt better that night, we took the convertible back to the beach and counted the stars.”

That elicited more shrieks from the women in the group, who all insisted that it was the most romantic thing they'd ever heard. “Tell us more,” Susie said. “What else have you two done?”

M.J. got to her feet and put up her hands to stop them. “This week is Rachel's week, not mine. And like Nick said, I'm not the hearts-and-flowers kind. All this talk of romance is making me a little nauseous.”

“Then you have to at least promise to be a girlie girl this week,” Rachel said. “Because nothing turns you into Miss-Next-to-the-Altar like a little bridesmaid-immersion therapy.”

Promise to be a girlie girl this week? What did that mean? The M.J. that Nick knew had never worn a single thing that couldn't be ripped or torn or painted on. Had never been in impractical shoes or painted her nails or worn more than a little lip gloss. Even today, she was wearing shorts and a V-neck T-shirt in a pale green that made her eyes seem even more emerald than usual.

If
girlie girl
meant more of this hair he wanted to unfetter, and lips he wanted to kiss, hell, yes, he was all for it. If only to tease the hell out of M.J. when they got back to Rescue Bay.

Rachel's grandmother, Hattie, entered the room with a platter of cupcakes and a bottle of wine. She was a short, thin woman with a wide smile and a generous hug for everyone she met. Her gray hair was cut short and curled tight to her head, and accented by bright red cat-eye glasses that gave her a sassy edge, much like her granddaughter, who looked like a younger and blonder version of Hattie. Rachel's grandmother had welcomed him like a long-lost member of the family, and she'd given M.J. the biggest hug he'd ever seen. It was clear to Nick that M.J. adored the woman, and for good reason.

“My Lord, what are you girls doing to this poor boy?” Hattie said. “Stop torturing him.”

“We're just trying to get to know him, Grandma,” Rachel said. “Before we give him our stamp of approval for Maggie.”

“Well, ya'll can do that later. Let the poor boy go downstairs.” Hattie ushered him out of the room and opened the door to the basement. “My husband and J.W. are down there, hiding from all things girl. You go on now and join them.”

Nick thanked her and headed down the stairs, where, thank God and all that was holy, Rachel's grandfather and her fiancé were watching a baseball game. Herbert Wilson—Rachel's grandfather—got to his feet, reached into a small fridge beside his recliner and pulled out a beer, tossing it to Nick. Unlike his wife, Herbert was tall, with a military haircut and a stern jaw, but a friendly face. “You were up there with all those women all this time?”

“Almost got corralled into making wedding favors. Whatever those are.”

“Take it from me,” J.W. said, waving to the seat beside him, “you want to steer clear of them this entire week. I damned near got trampled like a calf at a bullfight for saying, ‘Hey, maybe we don't need three million floral arrangements.'”

“Take it from an old married man,” Herbert said, wagging a finger at his grandson-in-law-to-be, “you let the women pick the wedding stuff. The best marriages are the ones that are based on ‘Yes, dear.'”

J.W. raised his beer. “To ‘Yes, dear.'”

Herbert knocked bottles with him. Nick gave a tiny tap. “I don't know if I'll ever be a ‘Yes, dear' guy.”

J.W. snorted. “I used to say the same thing. But now . . .”

“Now you're marrying the second-best woman in this county. Next to my Hattie, of course.” Herbert grinned.

A long, slow smile curved across J.W.'s face. “There is that.”

Someone scored a home run, the guys let out a cheer, and the conversation about women was dropped in favor of a debate on the latest trade by the Red Sox. This was territory where Nick felt comfortable. Sports. Beer. Grunting among men.

Except his mind kept straying to M.J. To what she was doing, saying, drinking. How she'd looked with her hair pinned up, soft tendrils curling along her neck, as if whispering to him to come closer, to taste that soft skin along her jawline, her nape.

On a commercial break, Herbert tossed him a second beer. “I've known Maggie since she was no taller than a blade of grass. She's a good girl, and one that's almost family.”

Nick shifted in his seat under Herbert's direct gaze. It felt as if the man could see the lie he had told, the fraud he was fabricating. “She's great. I've known her a long time myself. Can't imagine going a day without seeing her.”

“Then you'll know that she's one of a kind, like my Hattie and my Rachel. So if you break her heart, you'll have half of Chatham Ridge comin' after you with pitchforks.”

“And shotguns,” J.W. added. “We take the chivalry thing seriously around here.”

What if Nick told them he was only pretending to love M.J.? That the whole thing was nothing more than a paid gig? He had no doubt he'd be drawn and quartered before the day's end. “I have nothing but the best of intentions.”

Which was true—even if M.J. didn't know it.

“Good to know, considering I didn't see no ring on that girl's finger,” J.W. said. He exchanged a glance with Herbert, who gave a little nod. “By week's end, we'll be expecting you to prove your intentions. We take care of our own 'round here, and you best remember that.”