Forbidden Fling (Wildwood Book 1) (12 page)

Delaney shook her head. “My dad’s drinking started after my mom left. I don’t know what started the split, though Phoebe thinks it was the crazy workweeks my dad put in at the bar. Once it opened, Phoebe said we never had any family life.” Delaney shrugged. “I guess my mom just got tired of it all.”

“I was thinking about that tonight,” Ethan confessed. “Wondering why my mom hasn’t left my dad for the same reason.
And
because he’s an asshole.”

She looked up at him, her eyes clear, her expression sincere. “She probably stayed for you. For you and Austin.” Turning her gaze back to the photos, she pushed them all together and straightened them like a deck of cards. “I don’t believe holding on to a bad marriage is healthy for anyone, but at least she cared about you enough to stay.”

“That makes you twice as amazing as any other woman, because you turned out this strong all on your own.”

She relaxed against him, her gaze distant. Ethan let the silence linger and absorbed the details of the moment that somehow seemed all encompassing—the beat of Delaney’s pulse in her slim neck, the length of her lashes, the slope of her adorable little nose, the fall of her hair, the delicious weight of her body against his, her scent, her warmth.

But more than anything, he soaked in the overwhelming, almost tangible comfort between them. They’d had this that night at his house. In between rounds of sex, they’d been instantly comfortable together, talking about nothing, teasing each other, falling asleep together, only for one to wake the other for more.

And, yes, that night had been unforgettable, but this, this was just as amazing in a whole different way. An even deeper way. And, God, he loved it. Loved just
being
with her. Her simple presence, her acceptance of his touch, healed whatever had been wounded at his parents’ house. Which was when he realized that was exactly why he’d come here tonight. Because something inside him had known she was the cure for his pain.

A bubble of anxiety welled up in the pit of his stomach. He’d never met anyone who could do that for him. He’d had a couple of girlfriends in college but nothing serious. And after his life went to hell when Ian died . . .

He’d never been able to connect with anyone after that. Never trusted anyone enough to give them that much real estate in his heart. Out-of-town hookups had been the answer for him. It was always easy to take a short drive to San Francisco and find a fun girl at a bar. Set out the rules up front—give, receive, and then leave without any worries, any ties. And without any of the complications or rumors that developed in a small town where his family was woven into the fabric of the community.

But Delaney was so different. Delaney seemed to shove everything else inside Ethan out of the way, making room just for her. And looking back, he was beginning to think she’d done it in high school, too, just by being herself.

“You feel good.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but the desire thrumming from the words moved Ethan.

He turned his face into her neck, kissing her there, breathing her in and letting his air out on a soft moan, his entire body aching with the need to hold her, feel her, love her. “Come home with me.”

She groaned a sound of anguish. “God, no. I shouldn’t even be doing this.” She lifted her head and straightened away from him. “You need to go.”

“Hold on.” He held tight, keeping her on his lap. “We just had something, right there. Something really . . . great. Didn’t you feel it?”

Pulling her knees up, she pivoted on her butt until she sat sideways between his thighs. She gave him that you-should-know-better look. “It doesn’t matter what I feel.”

“It does matter.” He took her jaw in one hand, firmly keeping her eyes on his. “It matters to me. You feel it, don’t you? You want me, don’t you?”

She covered his hand with hers, curved her fingers around his, and smiled, but it was a sad smile. A you-silly-boy smile. “Ethan.” She shook her head. “We had a night. One night we both knew would end in the morning. This”—she gestured to the bar—“has just complicated everything.”

“Maybe it’s given us the opportunity to get to know each other instead of just walking out of each other’s lives,” he argued.

Her brow fell, and a funny smile quirked her mouth. “Have you been sampling too much of your own brew? ’Cause you’re really not thinking straight.” She rolled out of his lap and dropped the rest of the photos back into the box as she got to her feet. “I’m beat. I’m going to head back to Phoebe’s. And you need to get some sleep, Mr. Hayes. Maybe that will give you a little better perspective.”

Frustrated beyond reason, Ethan used the bar to haul himself to his feet. He gripped her waist with one hand and pulled her against him, then cupped her head with the other. With her back braced against the bar, he let his body weight sink into her until they were molded perfectly together. Until her lids were heavy. Until her breaths were shallow.

“Ethan . . .”

“That’s better,” he murmured, pleased with the ache filling her voice. He threaded his fingers a few inches into the hair at the base of her skull and massaged until her eyes fell closed and a groan ebbed from between her lips. “Much better.”

He kissed her, just whisper passes of his lips over hers, even though he wanted to devour her. Even when she arched toward him. Even when his entire body throbbed with a kind of need only Delaney created inside him.

He licked her lower lip. When she opened to him, he pulled back, breaking body contact.

“Baby, you’re the one who’s not thinking straight.” When her eyes opened, searching his, he added, “Maybe that will give you a little better perspective.”

And he stroked his fingers gently down her face one last time before turning and walking out of the bar.

SIX

Delaney adjusted her sweaty grip on the sledgehammer’s handle and swung another wide arc. The metal head plowed through old drywall, and white powder puffed into the air. She swung again. And again. And the remaining gypsum board broke away from the studs.

“Finally,” she muttered, dropping the hammer to the floor with a clunk. She dragged off her filtration mask and used her hands to pry the smaller pieces away from the opening. Over the last two years, she’d spent more time bossing other people around than actually working, and she wasn’t nearly as efficient as she used to be.

Before she’d taken a more managerial role at Pacific Coast’s Finest, she would have been able to tear through this wall in seconds and move on to the next. Her crew had dubbed her Demolition Delaney. They’d developed an amazing system where she tore shit down, and they got out of her way and cleaned up her mess.

Still panting, Delaney swiped the flashlight from the floor and poked her head through the new opening. She shone the light upward first, checking the condition of the timber at the corner of the room where the roof met the wall.

“Dammit.” The wood was shredded. If she tapped it with a stick, sawdust would rain down. Prepared for the worst, she turned her light down toward the floor and found the thick layer of rodent feces she’d expected, but she still groaned.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

The male voice behind her wasn’t the one she craved, but it still brought relief. She straightened and turned with a smile for Trace Hutton, the man she’d chosen to consult with on this possible job for a couple of reasons, one of the main ones being price. If she couldn’t afford to hire Trace as her right hand in this project, she couldn’t afford anyone. She was pretty sure Trace was the contractor Ethan had considered recommending for demolition. But Delaney knew Trace was capable of so much more.

She worked up a smile for him. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

He didn’t look near as pleased, his expression pained as his gaze roamed up the wall, over the ceiling, and back down. “Why? Because misery loves company?”

“Oh my God, stop. You’re supposed to be in savior mode. Did I forget to mention that?” She set the flashlight on a table nearby, lifted her safety glasses to the top of her head, and walked into his arms, giving him a bear hug. “Good to see you.”

Trace was a throwback to Delaney’s wild-child years. Almost a decade older, he’d wandered in and out of the biker drug scene where Delaney had lived on the fringe. But he hadn’t been there by choice, and Delaney had felt a twisted kind of kinship with him, both of them seeking something they couldn’t find within normal societal boundaries.

He released her, still looking around the place with an expression of pain. “Delaney, Delaney, Delaney. Why do you always have to take the roughest roads in life?”

“You’re one to talk.” She planted her hands at her hips. “Keep it up, and you’re going to have a hysterical female on your hands.”

“You? Hysterical? That will be the day I can retire to a Tahitian beach with my harem.”

She smiled and took a good look at him—a six-foot wall of muscled, dark Irishman. That jet-black hair and those striking blue eyes had gotten him in a hell of a lot of trouble growing up—a dicey childhood spent jumping between a sick mom and a druggie dad, dumped with his grandmother in Wildwood when both his parents hit bottom at the same time. She’d only discovered during a recent conversation with Phoebe that Trace had gone to prison on drug charges several years ago.

“Good God, look at you,” she said. “From what I’d heard, I expected a little more wear and tear. Hell, Trace, you look like you’ve been living at a damn spa.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” He laughed the words, but his voice was filled with you-have-no-idea seriousness. “Folsom State Prison ain’t no spa. And I’ve been out awhile.”

Delaney laughed. It was nice to have someone to chat with. Someone who wasn’t perfect. Someone who’d made a few wrong turns along the way and lived to tell about it. Someone who didn’t judge others quite as quickly or as harshly.

His expression shifted from wry to sheepish, and he glanced away, shifted on his feet, shoved his hands in his pockets. “About my conviction . . . I—”

“Trace, we can talk about why and how you ended up there sometime if you want to, but, honestly, there are only a few things that matter to me here and now.”

His whole body relaxed, and the shame cleared from his eyes. “Okay, shoot.”

“One, you still have a contractor’s license in good standing.”

“Check.”

That told Delaney he hadn’t been convicted of a felony. “Two, you’ve left your past in the past, and you’re willing to do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, no messing around, no bullshit, no excuses.”

He chuckled. “I like your take-no-prisoners attitude. Check.”

“Three, you’re going to give me a great deal in trade for a great reference.”

“Check.”

She lifted her hands and shrugged. “That’s it.”

“Then we’re good.” He crossed his arms, set his feet wide, and looked around again with a heavy sigh. “I’m ready. Throw it at me.”

Delaney had given Trace only the very barest of facts about the job over the phone, which had been easy since she didn’t know what it entailed yet. All that was left to do now was line out the details and see how Trace handled it.

She dusted off her hands and set the safety glasses on another table. “I’ve done a preliminary on everything—foundation, framing, electrical, plumbing. Of course everything in here needs something, right? Go figure—the place is a century old. But, believe it or not, I’ve seen worse, and I’ve renovated worse. Granted, I used someone else’s money, but still.

“I thought I’d walk you through, room by room, tell you what needs repair or replacement and what I had in mind for the space, and have you work up a bid for me. I’d also really appreciate any creative cost-cutting options that come to mind.”

Just getting that part of this mess square in her head made her feel better. Now she was on level ground. This mess she understood. The mess inside her, the way she couldn’t stop thinking about Ethan—that she didn’t understand. At all.

Delaney took a deep breath, planted her hands at her hips, and smiled at Trace. “Does that work for you?”

He was frowning, mouth propped open as if he was going to say something, but his mind didn’t seem to be cooperating. “Uuuuuuuh . . .” He got that pained look again. “We’re not talking about demolition?”

A split second of confusion ended with a cold streak straight through the center of her body. Then, like a divining rod, that streak turned red-hot.

She clenched her teeth, but that wasn’t enough to hold in her anger. “That 
fucker
.” Delaney wrapped her hand around the top of the nearest chair and stared at the floor, shaking her head. “When could he have
possibly
—”

“Okay, now
this
is getting interesting.” Trace wandered toward a table, dragged out a chair, and plopped down, then kicked his feet up on another. Trace and Ethan knew each other growing up through Ethan’s mother and Trace’s grandmother. Then as adults through their work, before and after Trace’s prison sentence. “What in the hell is going on here, girl?”

She growled in answer.

God damn him.

“What’s going on is I’m trying to make a decision on whether to risk renovating this place, hoping I don’t drown in a financial black hole or throw away every penny I’ve saved over the last decade by demolishing it. And it
pisses . . . me . . . off
”—she punctuated the words by stamping the chair against the hardwood—“that everyone is trying to make that decision for me.”

“Ooooo-wee.” Trace laughed. “You’ve still got a temper that matches your hair.”

Actually, she didn’t. Normally she was very level-headed. Normally she was flexible and easygoing and cooperative and nice. But there was nothing normal about this situation.

“Yeah,” he said, scratching his jaw. “Ethan gave me a totally different picture.”

Ethan’s casual little visit the other night had obviously been more about checking up on her and less about getting to know her. After all these years and all she’d been through, how could she have believed he’d sincerely cared? God, she was so stupid.

With no other outlet for her rage, she strangled the back of the chair while she tried to calm down enough to think.

“Are you going this alone?” Trace asked. “’Cause you’re talking at least two or three times the amount to renovate as it costs to tear it down.”

“Phoebe’s offered to help, but I’m not thrilled with the idea of using her money. It’s one thing to risk my own money, but it’s another to risk hers when she’s done nothing but give to us her whole life. And there’s a lot more than money churning up trouble in this place.”

“I’m sure there is. When Ethan called and talked demolition, I didn’t think anything of it, but this . . .” He gazed at the floor and rubbed his jaw, then shook his head. “He really ought to find a way to bow out of this. I don’t see how he could be objective.”

“Thank you.” A burst of gratification straightened her spine. “That’s exactly what I said.”

“What with everything he gave up after Ian died, he’s got to want to see this place plowed into the ground more than just about anyone.”

“I’m so glad someone else—” Delaney suddenly realized she and Trace weren’t talking about the same thing. “Wait. What? What did Ethan give up after Ian died?”

Trace’s distant gaze refocused on Delaney. “Ah, that’s right. You left town as soon as you were cleared by the cops. But Ethan didn’t. Ian’s death put Ellen into a tailspin. I mean, she was a little”—he made small air-circles at his temple—“to begin with, but she took a serious nosedive. And you know Beth and Ellen are so close. It hit Ethan’s mom pretty hard, too. She made herself sick with worry over Ellen. And when Ellen tried to commit suicide—”

“What?”
Horror swamped Delaney. She slapped a hand against a sudden pain in her chest. “Ellen 
what
? When?”

“Gosh, must have been . . .” He clasped his hands behind his head. “I don’t remember exactly, but within the first few months after Ian died.”

“Ian’s death changed
everything
. And not just for me.”

“Oh my God.” Ethan’s angry words to her repeated in her head, and Delaney’s stomach dropped. She closed her eyes and combed her fingers into her hair. Collecting herself, she said, “Go on.”

“Well, Ethan—poor guy. I mean, Ian getting killed was tragic, but then his aunt trying to commit suicide? The guy was swallowed in guilt. He dropped out of Berkeley and stayed home to piece his family back together.” He shrugged. “Guess he did a pretty good job—they seem tight. But who ever really knows what’s happening on the inside?”

Delaney wasn’t processing anything past the word
guilt
. Her mind was spinning and spinning but going nowhere, a hamster on a wheel. “Hold on. Back up. Why did Ethan feel guilty?”

Traced huffed a sound that didn’t quite reach a laugh. “In the big picture, it seems so . . . I don’t know, insignificant, but I guess if I were in his shoes, maybe I’d feel the same way.

“Wayne and Ellen asked Ethan—the straight-A, varsity-letterman-four-years-in-a-row, class-president, exemplary child to go out with Ian and his friends for Ian’s twenty-first party because, as we all know, Ian was everything Ethan wasn’t. Ethan, I guess, tried like hell to get out of it, but you know how those families are tied by blood and money, so Jack and Beth insisted Ethan go.

“And Ethan, being the stellar kid he was, went. And he kept them out of trouble. And, crap, that could
not
have been an easy job. I’d take a handful of Folsom inmates over Ian and his buddies any day.”

“Amen,” Delaney muttered, rubbing her eyes to clear the horrible memories flashing to the surface.

“Well, I guess by the time they reached this place, it was the only bar still open, so you have to know how smashed they were.”

“I was here. I had to dodge their goddamned hands and ignore their disgusting mouths.”

Trace nodded. “But somewhere in between the last bar they’d hit and here, the diamond-encrusted golden child and Ian had an argument about coming here. When Ian said he was going with or without Ethan, Ethan went home.”

And Ian was killed.

The unsaid words hung in the air.

And Delaney’s insides crumbled.

“Oh, Christ . . .” She breathed the words, barely able to sustain the burden, the pressure, the wicked guilt this information wrought.

Her mind jumbled the past and the present. Pain swelled from her belly to her chest. Her chest to her throat. Ian—dead. Ellen—suicidal. Ethan . . . Christ, his whole future had been ruined.

“How’d you end up here, doing this? Did you decide you hated science or get someone pregnant or something?”

She’d known something wasn’t right about him in the position of building inspector. And now she knew why.

“Hey. You okay?”

Trace’s words cut into her misery. She pulled in a deliberate lungful of air and lifted her head, but she didn’t try to cover the distress swimming inside her. “I can’t believe I didn’t know. I can’t believe Avery or Chloe or at least Phoebe didn’t tell me.”

“Well, it was a long time ago. Seems everyone wants to put it behind them and forget it ever happened. Which is why I have to be honest, Delaney. It’s hard to imagine Jack Hayes or Wayne Ryan letting this renovation go through. But if you can get the go-ahead, I’m two hundred percent on board. I need the money, and I need to show everyone that I’m still together and I’m still dependable. I need people to know they can hire me and get the same quality work they did before my life went to shit.”

Delaney’s shock settled into a dull ache, and she forced her mind away from the tragedy to make sure this place didn’t ruin her. With Trace on her side, she even had a shot at coming out on top for once.

“Let’s not worry about that until it’s a reality.” She crossed her arms and looked around the room. If she’d been unenthusiastic about renovating this place before, now the thought sickened her. “I just want to get an estimate and line up my finances and budget to see if it’s even feasible. Can’t get blood out of a turnip, right?”