Bedded Then Wed (3 page)

“Good, good,” her father said. “Thanks for helping out my girl, Ramsey.”

Emma’s cheeks heated, but she hoped neither her father nor Mitch would notice in the dark.

“My pleasure, sir,” Mitch answered, rocking back on the heels of his well-worn boots, hands still in his pockets. “Anything else I can do for you tonight before I get going?”

“No, no, you go on.” Her father started toward the house, slipping out of Emma’s hold and looking more steady on his feet now that he’d had the chance to stand for a few minutes. “Have a good night. We’ll see you soon.”

“Yes, sir. Good night, sir.”

“Emma, I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“All right. ’Night, Pop. I love you.”

“Love you, too, sweetheart.”

The screen door slammed closed behind him and she waited several long seconds before speaking. Once she was sure he was out of earshot, she turned to face Mitch.

“Went a little overboard with the ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, sir,’ ‘have a good night, sirs,’ didn’t you?”

She thought she saw him wince and bit back a chuckle of amusement.

“Maybe,” he answered shortly, his face a mask of inexpression. “But it sure beats the alternative.”

“What’s that?”

“Letting him know I spent the last half hour rolling around in the loft with his daughter.”

It was Emma’s turn to wince, and she cast a quick glance over her shoulder, afraid her father might have been close enough to overhear Mitch’s declaration.

She was a grown woman, so what she did with her body and with whom was no one’s business but her own. But talking about sex in front of her father—or worse, having him know she’d just finished having hot, extremely satisfying sex in his barn—was still something that made her keenly uncomfortable.

“Point taken.”

Gravel crunched beneath her feet as she crossed to him, then followed as he stalked to his truck.

“Thanks for your help with the horses and cattle,” she said.

He nodded, opening the door and climbing inside.

Watching him get ready to leave made her stomach clench. But what had she expected? That he would ask to stay the night or suggest they sneak back into the barn for seconds? That he would declare his undying love and fall to one knee, asking her to marry him?

She might harbor fantasies of happily-ever-after with him, but she wasn’t delusional. She was realistic enough to accept that sex was just sex, even if it had been with the one man she’d always secretly had a crush on.

“So I guess I’ll see you around,” she offered. The perfect opening for him to ask her out on a date, tell her he’d call, anything to imply that what had passed between them would be more than a one-night stand.

“Yeah,” he replied, and nothing more.

A beat passed before he started the engine, then turned his head to meet her gaze. “’Night.”

Forcing a smile to her lips, she swallowed back the bubble of disappointment swelling in her belly. “Right. Good night.”

He put the truck in gear, turned around and rolled slowly down the drive. She stood watching until his taillights disappeared, rubbing her arms to stave off a chill that centered in her chest and had nothing to do with the still night air surrounding her.

Turning down the baking aisle, she scanned the shelves for the brand and type she wanted, groaning when she spotted it on the uppermost shelf. The store had apparently rearranged items since the last time she’d purchased bread flour. And at five foot three, that left it just a couple of inches out of her range.

Pushing her cart to the side, she used the toe of her shoe to nudge cans of pie filling on the lowest shelf out of the way, then grabbed hold of a shelf at waist level and hoisted herself up. Her fingertips brushed the front of the bag, but she still couldn’t get a good enough grip to lift it down.

“Need some help?”

With a yelp, her hold on the shelf slipped and she fell backward. Strong hands and an even stronger chest caught and steadied her.

She turned, looking up into Mitch’s hard, gray eyes. Not that she’d needed to see him to know who’d spoken to her. She would know his voice anywhere.

“Hey,” she greeted him, feeling slightly out of breath, and not because of her graceless pirouette from the grocery store shelves.

It had been two weeks since the Fourth of July picnic, since that night in the barn. Two weeks without seeing or even hearing from him again.

She hadn’t been surprised. She would have been more surprised if he’d called or shown up on the doorstep, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t disappointed.

Disappointed that he could walk away without a backward glance after what they’d shared but also that their sleeping together might have ruined a perfectly good, lifelong friendship.

And now here he stood, staring at her from beneath the rim of his black Stetson. He didn’t seem particularly pleased to see her, but then Mitch hadn’t looked happy since Suzanne had left. A thin layer of stubble shadowed his square jaw, and lines bracketed his flat mouth.

“Hey, yourself. Is this what you were after?” He reached up with one hand and plucked a bag of bread flour from the top shelf with ease, holding it out to her.

She took it, cradling the five-pound weight to her chest while she swallowed and tried to think of something witty to say to break the tension and attempt to return them to the easy camaraderie they’d shared before sex had muddied the waters.

“You headed somewhere after this?” he asked without preliminaries.

“Just home to put groceries away,” she answered.

“Got time for a cup of coffee? Maybe a bite to eat?”

She glanced over her shoulder into the basket of her cart. Nothing cold. Nothing that would go bad if she didn’t go straight home.

Her stomach gave a little lurch at the possibilities of what he might want to talk about, but she nodded. “I guess that would be all right.”

“Good. Need anything else?”

She checked her list one last time, then shook her head. “No, I’m ready.”

They moved down the aisle together, Emma pushing the cart as Mitch followed a step behind. The heels of his boots clicked rhythmically on the hard, tiled floor, matching the nervous beat of her heart.

He stayed with her while she went through the checkout line, then helped to carry the bags to her car.

“Where are we going?” she asked, standing in the open driver’s side door.

“Rosie’s Café.” He tipped his hat down a fraction to shield his eyes from the midday sun. “I’ll meet you over there.”

Ten minutes later, they were seated across from one another in a red vinyl booth near the back of the café. Located in the center of town, Rosie’s was Gabriel’s Crossing’s most popular restaurant. A greasy spoon where folks came for home cooking and the latest gossip.

The lunch crowd had cleared out already, and dinner customers wouldn’t begin to trickle in for a few more hours. When the waitress came, they asked for pie and coffee, then sat in uncomfortable silence while the young woman went to fill their order.

Emma folded and refolded her napkin until the paper edges began to flake and fall away. Finally, she took a deep breath, laid her palms flat on the Formica tabletop, and faced Mitch head-on.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” she blurted out, deciding it was better to simply come to the point than sit here imagining worst case scenarios. Like tearing off a Band-Aid in one quick swipe rather than toying and tugging and prolonging the agony.

“Us.”

As much as she’d braced herself for his answer, she hadn’t expected that.

She waited until the waitress set slices of pie and steaming cups of black coffee in front of them before responding, using the much-needed time to calm her erratic pulse and get her scattered thoughts in order. He took a sip of black coffee while she stirred a sugar packet and dollop of cream into hers.

Once they were alone, she took a deep breath and kept her tone low so no one would overhear. “What about us?”

“I think there should be one.”

She knit her eyebrows. Mitch had never been the easiest man to talk to, but at the moment he was giving new meaning to the word confusing. “One what?”

“Us. I think there should be an us.”

Picking up his fork, he dug into his slice of blueberry pie as though they were talking about the weather instead of…them.

Before she could reply, he swallowed and went on. “You know what happened between us, Emma. It shouldn’t have. It shouldn’t have happened the way it did, and for that I’m sorry.”

The flush of embarrassment she’d felt at his mention of the night they’d made love flared into sudden anger and more than a little hurt.

How dare he apologize to her for what she considered one of the most special nights of her life? If he was sorry, if he regretted what they’d done, then he should have kept it to himself instead of cornering her like this.

“That’s what you brought me here to tell me?” she demanded, her knuckles turning white as she clutched the edge of the table. “You’re sorry we slept together? I hate to break it to you, Mitch, but you’re not the first man I’ve had sex with. You didn’t seduce me, you didn’t take my virginity, you didn’t do anything that requires an apology. I’m a big girl. I can make my own decisions and sleep with whomever I want. I don’t need your permission or your approval.”

A beat passed while he held her gaze, then he nodded. “You’re right. You can make your own decisions.”

He took another bite of pie and washed it down with a gulp of coffee. “The thing is, I’m not the type to have a one-night stand with a neighbor and childhood friend. It feels…sleazy.”

Her eyes narrowed in warning. He wasn’t calling her sleazy or even what had passed between them, she knew that. But it was a close thing, and in her current mood she wasn’t sure she was willing to split hairs.

“My point is,” he continued, “I think maybe we should keep seeing each other. See where it leads.”

Of all the things he might have said, that shocked her the most. It also made her heartbeat—which had slowed to a crawl at the direction the conversation was taking—speed up and thump against her rib cage.

She swallowed hard, praying she wasn’t hearing things. “Excuse me?”

“I think we should…date. Go out a couple of times and see what happens.”

It was half-true, anyway. But the suggestion wasn’t driven by interest as much as nobility. And, he admitted, guilt.

In the two weeks since the Fourth of July picnic…since they’d made love in the loft of her father’s barn…he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her.

Partly because the sex had been incredible and every fiber of his being wanted to be with her again. And partly because she was his neighbor, a friend since childhood. They’d gone through school together. Climbed trees and ridden horses together. Survived the prom and graduation and the death of a parent—her mother, who had been a second mother to him as well—together.

She wasn’t some casual acquaintance to be used to slake his lust. Even if it had been four long, lonely years since he’d been with a woman.

So far, this was the best solution he could come up with. His personal code of honor wouldn’t allow him to just walk away and pretend that night had never happened. That might be all right for a stranger he’d met in a bar, but he couldn’t treat Emma that way.

Emma deserved better.

Using her for a one-night stand was unacceptable. But dating her for a while wasn’t.

Nothing would come of it, he knew. Nothing could ever come of it, and he didn’t want it to. But if they dated for a while and then split up, he could justify having slept with her.

And he wouldn’t sleep with her again, that was a promise.

Even if the memory of kissing her, touching her soft skin, heated his blood and tightened his trousers across his groin.

He’d known Emma all his life, but this was the first time he’d been distracted by her as a woman. The first time he’d noticed how sexy and attractive she was.

Physically, she was the opposite of Suzanne in every way. Where Suzanne had an hourglass figure, with full breasts and wide hips, Emma was proportionally well-balanced. Small, but still shapely.

Her hair was more strawberry-blond than peroxide-blond; her look more natural than painted on; her clothes stylish but comfortable, rather than skin-tight and meant to attract attention.

She certainly had succeeded at catching his attention, and not a day went by that he didn’t regret it.

“So?” He took a swig of coffee to wash down the last of his pie, taking note that Emma had yet to touch hers. “What do you say?”

What could she say? What should she say?

This had to be the most bizarre date invitation she’d ever received. And if it were coming from anyone other than Mitch, she’d have probably laughed the poor guy out of the restaurant.

But it was Mitch, which left her torn.

Did she accept because her feminine heart had dreamed of this moment a million times? Or did she turn him down because she suspected the offer stemmed more from guilt than an actual interest in seeing her socially?

Wrapping her fingers around the mug of still-warm coffee in front of her, she lifted it to her mouth and took a sip, buying herself a little more time.

But in the end, she knew what her decision would be. Knew that her heart and her sense of possibility would drive her to at least see where things could lead.

Maybe it would lead only to a couple of dates, dinner or a movie. Or maybe it would lead to more—to Mitch realizing he’d never belonged with Suzanne, but with a woman more like Emma. If she was lucky, with Emma herself.

The sensible side of her brain knew it was too much to hope for, but she was willing to take a chance. It was a small one, after all, and if things did work out, the payoff would be big. Everything she’d ever dreamed of.

And if it didn’t, she was the only person who would ever know her wishes had been for more than a casual relationship. She was the only one who would be hurt.

Taking a deep breath, she returned the cup to its saucer, then lifted her eyes to his. “All right.”

“Good.” He shifted in the booth, digging his wallet out of his hip pocket, peeling off bills and dropping them onto the tabletop. Then he slid out and got to his feet. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

Without a backward glance, he stalked out of the diner, leaving her alone with her coffee and uneaten pie.

If she were smart, she told herself for the fiftieth time, she would have called Mitch up and told him to forget about tonight.

He hadn’t exactly acted like Prince Charming back at Rosie’s when he’d walked out on her. And he hadn’t asked her out tonight, so much as told her when to be ready. For that alone, he almost deserved to be stood up.

Yet here she was, poised in front of her full-length mirror, checking her appearance one last time before he arrived.

She’d already fixed a supper plate for Pop and warned him she would be gone for the evening. She had no idea where Mitch intended to take her, but she assumed dinner would be involved, so she hadn’t bothered eating herself.

Then she’d come upstairs and torn apart her closet in search of something decent to wear. Without a destination in mind, it made dressing difficult, but she’d finally settled on a denim skirt and pale-yellow peasant blouse.

Looking at her reflection now, she adjusted the gold chain at her neck and tucked back a few thin strands of hair that had slipped out of its clip.

Through the open bedroom window, she heard Mitch’s truck pull up to the house and her father’s greeting as Mitch got out, slamming the door behind him.

She took a deep breath, straightened the hem of her top, then slid her feet into the black mules she’d pulled out of her closet earlier. Regardless of the butterflies tap-dancing through her belly, she’d agreed to go out with him. Beneath the layers of nerves that had her all but jumping out of her skin, she was even looking forward to it.

“Emma, honey,” her father shouted up the stairs. “Mitch is here.”

As though she wasn’t already keenly aware of his presence. Her arms had broken out in gooseflesh the minute he’d turned into the drive.

“Coming,” she called, when she found her voice.

He was waiting just inside the kitchen, near the front door. His black Stetson was in his hand rather than on his head, tapping against the side of his denim-clad thigh.