Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She Goes\A Promise for the Baby\That Summer at the Shore (13 page)

“Colin, I'm joining Noah for dinner. He says he'll bring me home.” She listened for a minute, then said, “That really isn't any of your business. I'll see you later.”

“Let's walk,” he said. “You must be feeling housebound.”

Her laugh was shaky but real. “That's one way of putting it.”

He pushed open the door and laid a hand on her back as he escorted her out. God, she felt good. The muscles moving beneath his fingers were lithe and supple. He kept his hand there as he turned her to head east on the sidewalk.

“How'd the community input meeting go?” he asked easily.

Talking business relaxed her. It carried them for the two-block walk to Chandler's.

Cait glanced at him when he opened the door for her. “Do you ever eat anywhere else?”

“Sometimes.” Rarely. Mostly when he was scoping out new places. “I can trust my own employees not to gossip about me.”

“That makes sense.”

“I cook for myself most of the time.”

A shapely brunette who must be a new hire showed them, at his nod, to a very private booth tucked in a corner rather than a window seat. She obviously knew who he was. Noah sat so he could see the restaurant, but no one walking in was likely to notice Cait. They ordered, steak and fries for him, spicy chicken wrap for her. He was a little surprised when she asked for a glass of wine.

They were there early enough, the restaurant hadn't yet filled up. He was glad of the quiet. They'd be long gone by the time the band set up.

“Tell me how you really are.”

She gave a short laugh. “Oh, fabulous. Can't you tell? I thrive on tension. Having a guard everywhere I go? One of the perks of surviving a murder attempt.”

“I'm serious.”

Her smile vanished. “You really want to know? It sucks. Everything sucks. I can't do my job adequately. I can't live in my own home. Nell's mad at me. Colin's mad at me. So we're all excruciatingly polite, and I can't even yell at them because it's my fault they're mad at me. I ruined my favorite suit, my car is starting to feel at home in auto body shops—wow, glad one of us can feel at home somewhere—oh, and I can't sleep for staring at the window thinking how quickly someone could break it. I could be dead by the time Colin got his bedside drawer open.”

Jesus. Okay.
He'd asked.

“Someone?” was what he said.

“Blake. Is that what you want me to say?”

He hoped she didn't notice how he was clenching his teeth. “You sound like you're hoping it's someone else.”

“Why would I be hoping that?” Cait stared at him like he was crazy. “Oh, my God! Do you know how freaky it would be to have
two different people
after me?”

“Uh...yeah. I guess it would be,” he admitted. He hadn't thought of it that way. “It seemed to me you might be determined to think Ralston couldn't possibly want to hurt you.”

She was still staring, but he had absolutely no idea what she was thinking beyond feeling sure he wouldn't like it. It had to be thirty seconds before she looked away. “Okay, you've got me,” she said. “I do believe Blake would hurt me if he gets mad enough. I'm scared of him, all right? But that's not the same thing as him buying a gun and trying to kill me from a distance like that. It doesn't feel right.”

It didn't feel right to Noah, either. It was one of many things that had been eating at him.

But when he didn't respond quickly enough, anger sparked in her eyes. “What is it? You think I'm still nursing fond feelings for him?”

Noah shrugged, watching her. “Happens.”

“Well, it's not happening here.” She was still mad. “I feel nothing but this kind of horror that he can be totally fixated on making my life miserable. Or, God, ending it. And do you know the worst part? It's trying to figure out how I could have been so blind.”

“Hey,” he objected. She'd said that before, and he hadn't liked it then, either. He reached for her hand even though the waitress was bearing down on their table with salads. “This is not your fault. Don't go there. How could you ever have anticipated this kind of crazy?”

She bent her head so their eyes weren't meeting again. Because she didn't buy what he was saying? Or because there was something
she
hadn't said? His eyes narrowed, but he let go of her hand, nodded a brusque thanks to the waitress and reached for his napkin.

Cait did the same. “I'm sorry,” she said after a minute. “I must be wonderful company. You and Colin have been great, and I keep feeling resentful because I need you. That doesn't say much about me.”

“I'd resent it if I needed anyone else, too,” he said. The words were barely out when he was hit by a staggering thought.
I do need her.
And part of that witch's brew in his belly was resentment, because he didn't
want
to need anyone. All week long, he'd battled against the magnetic force pulling him toward her so powerfully, sometimes he almost needed to grab a door frame and hold on to keep himself from being sucked down the hall to wherever she was. And, yeah, that made him angry. He tried to blame her. He kept telling himself he wasn't obligated to her. Protecting her was her brother's business, not his.

Except he did want to protect her. He wasn't sure he could live with himself if he didn't. And he wanted to make love with her more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. And
that
infuriated him, too.

Obsessed.

Who could he blame but her?

She lifted her chin and looked at him with astonishment for what he'd said. “I didn't think anyone would understand.”

His tongue felt thick. “I do. You came here to start a new life. Maybe to forge some kind of new relationship with your brother. But even that's been screwed up, because your old life followed you.”

Her eyes kept searching his, her expression so open, radiating such pain, it was like she'd taken a meat cleaver to his chest. But what she said took him by surprise.

“Do you have sisters or brothers?”

Noah shook his head. “No siblings. I think after my mother remarried, they tried. Although I could be wrong.”

“It's lonely, isn't it?”

He opened his mouth to say, probably rudely,
What do
you
know?
but realized she did. She'd had a brother and lost him. At the same time as she'd lost her father.

Who most people would say was no loss, but most people would say that about Noah's father, too. And they'd be right, but somehow that didn't help.

“Yeah.” He had to clear his throat. “It was.”
Is.
Even if that's the way he wanted it.

Cait nodded, as if they'd said everything important, and reached for her fork. “It was nice of you to ask me to dinner tonight. You're right. I was going stir-crazy.”

In self-defense, he started to eat, too.

He asked about her dissertation, and he wasn't surprised when she admitted she'd managed only a few weekend hours on it.

“Of course, there's no real deadline, and a little break from it might actually be good,” she said. “I can see it with a more objective eye. I'm not letting myself worry about it until I'm more settled into the job.”

She didn't say,
And until I don't have to worry about somebody trying to kill me.

Eventually he got her talking about her brother and this new sister-in-law, and he told her what he remembered about Nell Smith aka Maddie Dubeau's reappearance in Angel Butte.

“It was the biggest news we've had since I moved to town,” he said wryly. “Got bigger, too, once there were a couple attempts on her life, and your brother's investigation opened such a can of worms.”

“The drug trafficking.”

He shook his head. “We already knew that was a problem in the area. Our police department has been part of the joint task force for a long time. What we didn't know was that we had corruption in our own department.” He still had trouble believing it. “Our own goddamn police chief. And I always thought this town might as well be Mayberry.”

“Apple pie, Little League baseball, kids able to play after school with no one having to worry about pedophiles or drunk drivers, moms putting wholesome dinners on the table, dads walking in the door at five-thirty to kiss their wives and talk about their days?”

He looked at her ruefully. “You always knew better, didn't you?”

“My life here was not that idyllic.” Her twisted smile made him ache. “The idyllic parts were all because of Colin. I guess I took him for granted.”

“You're supposed to be able to take the people you love for granted.” He heard himself and was stunned. Did he believe that?

Maybe. What he couldn't do was relate it to himself.

“I suppose so,” she said softly.

After that, conversation became easier. He did tell her a little bit about his mother and stepfather, the childhood that hadn't been abusive and sounded okay from the outside, about his teenage ambition to make it to the NFL before a knee injury had put paid to it, him considering going to New York with an aim to be a Broadway star.

“A villain, of course,” she teased him.

“Naturally.” He smiled without regret at what had both been typically youthful dreams. “Went to the U of O and majored in business. I worked in a sporting goods store the last couple of years of high school, Boulder River Sports Company. Do you know it? Really smart guy started it. He's only a few years older than I am. By the time I was a junior in college, I realized I wanted to be him.”

“Does he have political ambitions, too?” She took a big bite of her wrap.

Noah chuckled. “Wouldn't surprise me. It's damn tempting to try to reshape your environment to suit. He may get there. Although with stores all over the West now, he'd have to run for national office.”

Cait tilted her head. “
You
might have to run for state office.”

He was already shaking his head. “Don't think so. The mayor gig was an alternative to opening a fourth restaurant. Next time, I'll go with expanding.”

He admitted, when she asked, that he hadn't figured out a prospective site, which was one reason he hadn't opened any new locations in the past several years. “Maybe up to The Dalles or Hood River, down to Klamath Falls.” He shrugged. “There'd be a lot of driving either way. Not sure that appeals to me.”

“Do you have to expand?”

“I get restless.”

Noah couldn't remember the last time he'd talked to anyone like this. He had friends, but men didn't talk about Mom and Dad or what their childhoods had been like. Plans for a business, sure, but not the underlying unease. Cait was a good listener. He'd told her more about himself tonight than she had told him, although that was probably fair given how much he already knew about her childhood and problems.

For dessert, they shared a chocolate ganache tart with orange flavoring and cream. Sharing a dessert with someone else was another thing he didn't make a habit of doing. He hadn't much of a sweet tooth, for one thing. There was the unspoken intimacy, too, of their forks sometimes bumping, of knowing as they reached the middle they'd be mingling his and hers.

He hardly tasted the tart. Watching her slip each bite in her mouth and make a low humming sound and seeing her eyelids flutter, that had him so damn aroused, it was all he could think about. After each bite, her tongue would sweep over her lips as if she was savoring the last hint of flavor.

Damn.
Noah took a hasty swallow of his coffee and choked on it.

“Are you all right?” Cait asked.

“Didn't know it was still so hot,” he said when he could.

“Do you want any more?”

“More?” He looked without comprehension at the dessert, then shook his head. “It's all yours.”

“Hah!” She scooted the plate closer. “You can't take it back.”

Despite his acute state of arousal, Noah grinned at her greedy pleasure. Partly staged, no doubt, but not altogether. He watched as she finished the last few bites, scraped her fork over the china and studied the plate as if she was seriously thinking about licking it.

“That was so good.” She finally sighed.

He laughed. “We aim to please.”

For a moment her smile was merry and trouble-free, causing a hitch in his breathing. Happy, she was astonishingly beautiful.

She works for me. She's vulnerable.

Good arguments, but...

She would demand more than Noah wanted to give.

Cait sighed. “I suppose you'd better return me to captivity.”

“Would you like to see my place?” he asked, voice husky.
Oh, damn.
Had he just said what he thought he had?

She was staring at him.

He could give her a quick tour of remodeling projects, offer her another cup of coffee. Keep it...collegial.

If only his self-restraint wasn't at such a foolishly low ebb.

Her cheeks had turned pink, her eyes shy. “I'd like that,” she said, and triumph roared through him like a high-summer forest fire.

CHAPTER NINE

S
HE
SHOULD
HAVE
said “Oh, thanks, but not tonight.” Or even just “No.”

He'd probably thought she was hinting with that stuff about him returning her to captivity. It
sounded
like a hint.
God, was I?

Cait truly didn't know.

She had never been as attracted to a man as she was to Noah Chandler, which freaked her out on so many levels, she couldn't identify them all. And didn't need to. The timing alone was so abysmally awful, why go further? She was—what?—seven months out of an abusive relationship. She'd vowed celibacy-slash-independence for the foreseeable future. She
worked
for this man.

Who was not at all her type. Yes, indeed, count the levels, from the longshoreman build to the almost-but-not-quite-homely face. The ruthlessness, the impatience, the automatic assumption of authority.

And she couldn't forget the fact that Colin despised him. Cait shuddered at what her brother would think if Noah brought her home late, looking rumpled, cheeks abraded by that dark stubble on his jaw, lips puffy from his kisses, body limp from complete satisfaction.

Her panic was cousin to the electric shock she'd gotten as a kid when she'd stuck a hairpin decorated with colored glass “jewels” into an electric socket. The cause didn't demonstrate any more intelligence.

I can still say, “You know, this probably isn't a very good idea.”

He'd taken several turns and she realized the houses on her right were riverfront. She leaned forward.
Oh, boy.
She did want to see his house, even if she made her excuses before anything happened.

“Here we are.” His voice was a quiet rumble in the dark vehicle. The turn signal was on, though they were alone on the street.

She could see enough from streetlights and porch lights to guess this was one of the town's older and most elegant houses. Which really wasn't saying that much; there'd been no big money in Angel Butte until tourism had changed the entire nature of the region. But she liked this part of town way better than she did the developments with outsize log homes she just knew would be decorated with peeled ponderosa pine furniture, lamps fashioned from elk horns and a deer head or two on the walls. Oh, and there were the faux Swiss chalets that were only four or five thousand square feet. Cait had always preferred old. Even knowing they, too, were way too big to actually live in, she had coveted the old mansions on Federal Way in Seattle and up toward Volunteer Park.

Noah killed the engine in the driveway in front of a detached garage and opened his door. Eager despite her voice of common sense, Cait hopped out to join him.

“Did you buy the house right away when you moved here?”

He gave a low, rusty chuckle. “I was twenty-four. I had, oh, about five thousand dollars in the bank, saved to open my own business. No, home-owning was low on my list of priorities then.”

“You thought your dad was here,” she remembered. “Did you expect to be able to stay with him?”

It seemed to her that he went still for a moment before he put the key in the lock. “No. I was curious, not expecting the great father–son reunion.” He sounded curt, even harsh.
Back off.

Chastened, Cait didn't say anything else until they were inside and he'd turned on lights.

Then she forgot she had irritated him. “Oh, Noah,” she breathed, walking into the living room to her right.

Hardwood—maybe hardwood, but definitely not oak—floors gleamed. Molding had been stripped and stained the same warm color. The fireplace had an amazing mantel, also wood and elaborately carved like one of those Victorian-era buffets. Lions' heads finished each corner. She could only imagine the work it had taken to strip the carving of old varnish. The plastered walls were painted a rich shade of cream. With night behind them, small-paned windows reflected a sparkling view of the interior.

“It's magnificent!”

He glanced around, looking a little self-conscious, Cait thought.

“This is the first room I finished. Dining room was next. Had to work my way up to the kitchen.”

“You really are doing it all yourself?”

“Yeah, I guess you could call it a hobby.” Now he sounded mildly bemused, as if he didn't understand himself.

“Had you worked construction?”

“No.” As if testing for rough spots, he ran his fingers over the broad molding that framed the wide entry. “I educated myself along the way. The wiring, thank God, had been redone. Plumbing was a bitch.”

“Of course plumbing has to be feminine,” she said sweetly.

He flashed one of those wicked grins that threatened her already shaky knees. “Naturally.” It turned into a grimace. “When I run water upstairs, I still hear some strange gurgles,” he said, chagrined. “She's probably laughing at me.”

Like Cait did. She clapped her hand to her mouth, but the giggles died anyway when she saw the way he was looking at her. His eyes had heated, and his mouth...well, she didn't know, only that it was all she could do not to lift her hand and touch his lips.

“The kitchen.” Her voice squeaked.

He nodded and turned away. She trailed him past the staircase with refinished balustrade and steps. The dining room on the opposite side of the entry looked much like the living room, except a built-in buffet filled much of one wall. That wood, too, had been stripped and lovingly refinished to a fine gloss.

Cait felt as if she'd wandered into a house of mirrors. Noah had said he was remodeling a house, but she hadn't really envisioned it. The work this had taken had to be monumental. And the house itself was so...traditional. If she'd had to guess on meeting him, she would have seen him in a place like Colin's: beautiful but modern, simple. Noah seemed like a man who'd demand the best but not be that interested in his surroundings. Instead, he was creating this gorgeous home with his own labor. And love. It had to be.

He wasn't quite who she'd thought he was. Pieces didn't fit.

“I ended up painting the kitchen cabinets,” he said, stepping aside so she could pass him. “Maybe I should have hired a cabinetmaker to build new ones, but, uh...” His big shoulders moved in a shrug. “I was trying to stick to the original.”

She could see his problem. Additional cabinets seemed to have been added as the years passed and housewives were dissatisfied with the lack of storage and counter space. He'd unified what must have looked like a mishmash with a soft gray-blue paint that contrasted with the same creamy white wall color, a tiled backsplash and warm wood floors.

“It's perfect,” she declared, feeling this weird discomfort inside because, well, if she ever had a home she wanted it to be exactly like this. She stayed with her back to him, pretending to keep looking around, so he wouldn't see the yearning she suspected her face would betray.

Beyond the kitchen proper was a more informal dining space she guessed had begun life as a glassed-in porch. In daylight hours, it would look right out at the river.

“Do you want to see the upstairs?” he asked, voice a notch huskier.

Cait's stomach tightened.

No. Thanks, but I should be getting going.

She managed an almost casual smile and turned to face him. “Is that the ‘before'?”

“Something like that.” His eyes were dark and unreadable. His very stillness sent a shock of awareness through her body.

“Then...sure.” Oh, heaven help her—
her
voice was husky, too.

He turned and led the way, but at the foot of the stairs he gestured for her to go first. Cait climbed, pricklingly conscious of him behind her.

At the top she glanced into the first open door and saw...“Before,” she murmured.

“Yeah.” He spoke from so close behind her, she swore she could feel his breath on her nape. “Haven't touched this room yet.”

Wallpaper with some sort of paisley print had aged to olive-green and mustard-yellow. The wood floor was scuffed and scarred.

Across the hall was what had once been a child's bedroom. Now yellowed wallpaper decorated with rocking horses hung in tatters. She paused in that doorway, feeling sad.

“Every damn room in the house was papered,” Noah said behind her. “Halls, bathrooms, even some ceilings. Someone went way overboard on the wallpaper.”

As disgruntled as he sounded, she couldn't help a giggle. “It can be pretty, you know,” she said, turning.

He was smiling, but his eyes were still darker than usual. “In moderation.”

“In a child's room,” she heard herself say. “Are you going to keep this one as a nursery?”

A muscle jumped on one side of his jaw. “Do I look like father material?”

“You could be.”

He grunted and looked past her into the room, as if seeing it anew. “This house has four bedrooms plus the library downstairs. Five bedrooms before I just tore out a wall.”

It was a family house. He must have known that when he bought it. And yet his expression suggested he wasn't happy with the reminder.

“You don't...want a family?” she asked tentatively.

“I can't see myself.” But he was frowning, his face tight.

After hesitating another moment, she slipped past him. She was getting perilously near to his bedroom, but she was past resisting temptation.

The bathroom had a huge cast-iron claw-footed tub circled by a shower curtain on a stainless-steel rail suspended from the ten-foot ceiling. This room he'd finished, down to the white pedestal sink and a floor-to-ceiling cabinet in the corner. A sturdy antique chair sat beside the tub, a couple of clean, folded towels on the seat. His toothbrush and toothpaste were in a china cup on the rim of the sink. She suspected the beveled glass mirror hid a medicine cabinet.

More perfect, except that he had left the rooms so plain.

“No art,” she observed.

A shift of air told her he'd shrugged. “Maybe someday. Or maybe I'll get bored once I'm done and decide to turn the house and start over with another one.”

That brought her around. “You can't!”

One side of his mouth curled up. “Why not?”

“Because... For heaven's sake! You must have put years of hard work into it. And it's perfect.”

His smile disappeared as he searched her face. “I'm glad you think so,” he said in the voice that undermined her defenses.

They did nothing but look at each other for a minute. Her skin felt...stretched. She had a very bad feeling her nipples had tightened. And, even though she wouldn't let her gaze lower, she knew he had an erection. Still, he didn't touch her.

Instead, he backed out into the hall again and gestured her ahead.

One more bedroom, this one also featuring faded, undistinguished wallpaper and worn floor. The smell of sawdust was growing sharp in her nostrils. There were two doors remaining on her left. One leaned against the wall, leaving the doorway itself open. It had been yet another bedroom, of course; she tried to distract herself from Noah by trying to imagine life here with a family large enough to require five bedrooms and yet having only
one bathroom
upstairs. A family a hundred years ago might have had kids doubled up in some of those bedrooms, too, it occurred to her. The morning rush must have been a battleground. She hadn't seen the downstairs bathroom, but guessed it was no more than a powder room.

She stepped in and saw from the ceiling and floor where the wall had been demolished. A heap of dusty plasterboard and old studs still needed to be hauled out, too.

Beyond, of course, was where Noah slept. An antique dresser now held a fine layer of white dust. An old sheet protected a dark comforter on the king-size bed that dominated a room really too small for a bed that big.

“So what's the plan?” she asked, voice a little too high.

He had followed her, footsteps silent.

“Second bathroom, walk-in closet. I thought about ripping out yet another wall to make this bedroom bigger, but...” He shrugged.

He didn't want a family, but he did want a family home. Did he recognize his own dichotomy? Gathering lines on his forehead made her wonder.

But then those vivid blue eyes speared hers. “Cait,” he said gruffly. Just that.
Cait.

She trembled. This was the last thing in the world she ought to do. No men, remember? Didn't work out so well last time. Remember
that?
And, oh, yes, this man was her boss, which meant she was endangering her new life only because she was overcome with lust.

She prayed this hunger to touch him, rub up against him, feel his hands and lips on her, was only lust.

“I...” She squeaked and stopped.

He swore and stepped forward, close enough to touch but didn't. “You know I want you.”

Cait bobbed her head. Hard to miss, no pun intended.

“You can say no.”

She nodded again.

Frustration crossed his face. “I need to hear you acknowledge out loud that you know there will be no repercussions on the job if you say no. Or yes. Either way, this is separate.” He huffed out a breath. “Maybe you don't know me well enough to be sure—”

“I do.” He'd come to her rescue over and over, no hesitation. He'd repeated over and over again, “You are not to blame.” He had to be the single most confident man she had ever met. He would never lower himself to pressuring a reluctant woman for sex. For heaven's sake, women probably offered themselves to him on a daily basis! “I know this only has to do with us,” she said almost steadily.

Now, at last, he slid his hand around the back of her head. He moved forward enough to edge a foot between hers. Cait made a helpless sound as he groaned and bent his head.

His kiss was hot and urgent, blurring her thoughts. His tongue drove into her mouth and she met it with hers, the texture and insistence making her want to climb inside him. She kissed him back, trying to say
yes, yes, yes
without words. That big hand still wrapped the back of her head, angling it to please him, but the other one had made its way beneath her silk shell, roving up and down her back.