Knowing You (6 page)

Mr. Slow Hands.

Stevie stopped just inside the kitchen and slapped her forehead against the closest cupboard.

He chuckled again and she slanted her gaze to one
side to look at him. His dark hair was rumpled, his tuxedo jacket was slung over one shoulder, and that stiff white shirt—with no buttons—hung wide, exposing his impressive abs and dark tan.

Her mouth watered.

“Please go away,” she said.

He shoved one hand into his pocket and gave her a slow, lingering look. “And if I do, that makes last night disappear?”

“No, but it makes it easier not to think about it.”

“And I want to make that easier, why?”

“Paul, we both know that last night was a—”

“-mazing?”

“Mistake,” she corrected.

“Probably,” he said, and his gaze swept over her again, igniting her skin, sending bubbles of awareness tripping through her bloodstream. “But I want you again anyway.”

Her stomach dived for her feet and Stevie swallowed hard. “Don't say that.” She mentally gathered up the unraveling threads of her self-control and tied them into a knot to keep from leaping onto the cold marble pastry counter and inviting him to join her. “This can't happen,” she said, and wasn't really sure if she was telling him or reminding herself.

“Yeah, I know.”

“You do?”

Hell, yes, he knew it. Just standing here looking at her, though, was almost enough to change his mind. Color filled her cheeks, her eyes flashed with emotion, and nerves hummed through her body, making her seem as if she were drawn tight enough to snap. Paul
dropped one hand to the counter's edge and curled his fingers around it just to keep from reaching out and grabbing her. Squeezing it tightly, he channeled his frustrations into his grip and allowed his features to remain a hell of a lot more composed than he felt.

Spending the night with Stevie was just not something he'd planned on. Oh, he'd thought about it a couple hundred thousand times over the years, but hadn't really expected it to happen. Now that it had, he damn well wished he had a plan for what to do next.

Paul Candellano was a big believer in plans. He liked knowing the odds. He enjoyed a good spreadsheet, and it was in his nature to have a reason for everything. He was, first and foremost, a scientist. Give him a puzzle to solve, a riddle to untangle, an equation to work out, and he was a happy man.

Ask him to understand Stevie Ryan and his response to her … and he was lost. Hell, only yesterday, at his sister's wedding, Paul had finally come to the conclusion that the only thing he could do was get over these lingering feelings for Stevie. And today there was a whole new wrinkle in their relationship. If you could call it that.

They'd had a friendship—built in part by her closeness to his family. But there'd always been something else between them, too. Just what that was … he'd never been able to figure out.

But whatever it was, it had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated.

“So you'll leave?”

Paul pushed away from the counter and flexed his hand, tight now from that death grip on the cold,
smooth marble. “Yeah, I'm going.” Like he should have gone last night. Swinging his tuxedo jacket off his shoulder, Paul shoved his arms through the sleeves and shrugged into the fabric.

He noted her gaze shift to his chest and back up to his eyes again and he enjoyed knowing that this wasn't any easier on her than it was on him. After all, she'd been driving him insane for years. Seemed only fair that she start feeling her share of the heat.

“Good, that's good.” Stevie nodded, bent down, yanked open a drawer, and snatched one of the clean, fresh aprons folded there. Slipping the neck over her head, she kept her gaze averted from his while she reached behind to tie the apron strings into a bow at the small of her back.

Paul's gaze dropped to the curve of her behind and he'd barely had time to enjoy the view before he was lifting his gaze again and telling himself to get a grip. “Right.” He adjusted the fall of his jacket, pushed one hand through his hair, then headed for the nearest way out. Slapping one hand onto the swinging door that led into the shop, he paused and looked back at her.

She was watching him leave and he felt the power of her gaze punch into his midsection with the solid blow of a well-aimed fist. “Stevie,” he said and waited for a response.

“Yeah?”

“Last night?”

“Yes?”

His back teeth ground together and he forced himself to stand still instead of stalking across the distance
separating them. That wouldn't do any damn good at all. Better to just say this and call it a day.

“Last night…” he repeated, “it didn't happen.”

She sucked in a breath, held it, then released it again in a slow rush of air that seemed to sigh into him from across the room. Folding her hands in front of her waist, her fingers clenched together until her knuckles whitened. “That's probably a good idea.”

“Yeah.”

“So okay then.” She paused. “We're … okay?”

He gave her a smile, and judging by her expression, it wasn't much of one. “Why wouldn't we be?”

“Right.” She nodded. “Why wouldn't we be?”

He pushed through the door and walked across the shining wooden floors of the Leaf and Bean. His footsteps echoed in the silence and every instinct he had was clamoring for him to turn around and go back into that damn kitchen. He wanted to grab her, toss her over his shoulder, and cart her right back up the stairs to her bedroom. Paul stopped at the front door and flipped the latch, unlocking it. When it was open, he stepped outside into the early-morning chill.

Tendrils of fog still lay across Chandler like a blanket made of tattered gray silk. Dampness settled against his skin, but it didn't come close to cooling off the fire still lingering in his bloodstream. He had a feeling nothing short of a blizzard would.

His gaze swept over the still-sleeping town. Antique street lamps lined wide Main Street where tidy shops sat behind neatly swept sidewalks. A few trees dotted the length of the street, their roots pushing up through the sidewalks until the cement squares looked like
rolling hills. The city fathers had tried a few years ago to pull the trees and repair the cement. But old Mrs. Henderson and her Friends of the Trees group had tied themselves to the endangered elms and vowed to stay there until the mayor changed his mind. The mayor, a man dedicated to remaining in office, had finally surrendered and now made do with slapping cement patches on the sidewalks from time to time.

Paul wondered if he'd surrendered to his feelings for Stevie last night or if he was just patching up the empty places inside with a temporary fix. Great. He was equating his hunger for Stevie with sidewalks. Oh, yeah. He was in good shape.

He glanced at the morning sky and noted the streaks of rose and lavender bleeding into the horizon, announcing the coming sun. Within the hour, Chandler would start sputtering to life. Stevie would be first of course, with the other early-morning types staggering to her place for coffee.

But by eight, the town would be awake and bustling. Just like it was every day. Chandler, the town where he'd grown up, was as comfortable and dependable and predictable as an old movie you'd seen hundreds of times. Nothing ever changed here, and that was part of its charm.

But for Paul, something had changed last night. Pretending nothing had happened wasn't going to put enough of a spin on it, either. Reaching into his pockets for his car keys, Paul walked toward the gray 4Runner parked outside the Leaf and Bean. He hit the alarm button, the car beeped at him, and he opened the door. Climbing in, he slammed it closed behind him,
jammed the key in the ignition, snapped on his seat-belt, and shoved the car into reverse. Steering it down the silent street, he tried to tell himself that there was still a way out of this mess.

All he had to do was find it.

*   *   *

By the time the morning crowd arrived, Stevie was exhausted. She'd been baking like crazy all morning and still hadn't managed to work off the frenzied energy jumping through her.

Amazing, really, she thought, feeling the cells in her body actually skipping. Being with Paul had been a real eye-opener. Nothing she'd ever experienced—not that she was all
that
experienced—could compare to what she'd felt in Paul's arms. Which meant … what?

“Zip, that's what.” Honestly, why couldn't she just let it go? Why couldn't she simply be grateful for the orgasm—make that
plural
—and move on? What had she told Carla not so long ago?
Use a man, then dump him
. But this was different, she told herself firmly. This was Paul. It wasn't as if she could cross his name out of her little address book and never see him again. He'd been a part of her life since she was twelve—and that wasn't going to change.

God, Stevie, stop analyzing everything
.

She forced a smile she didn't quite feel as she leaned across Ben Zion's table to refill his coffee cup.

“Ah, Stevie,” he said, inhaling the scent of the rich Jamaican brew, “run away with me and be my Coffee Queen.”

She grinned at him and patted his lined, weathered cheek. Ben Zion hadn't seen the sunny side of seventy
in more than five years. But as he was willing to tell anyone who'd listen,
Snow on the roof don't mean there's not a fire in the house
. “Ben, if we run off together, what'll Erma do?”

At the mention of his wife, Ben winked, took a long sip of coffee, and sighed before saying, “She'd hunt us both down like dogs.”

“My kind of woman.” Stevie laughed and kept moving, telling herself to concentrate on her customers rather than the twisted mess her life had become. Nodding to her regulars, stopping to chat with the sprinkling of tourists, she wandered the room while Grace Boyd manned the counter.

Stevie'd been doing this for years now and it was second nature to her. She loved her shop. Loved getting up before dawn to bake the scones and muffins and cookies that her customers wolfed down during the long day. Loved seeing the same faces every day, being a part of Chandler, belonging to the simple, uneventful chain of life that continued to unfold in this small town.

Stevie had come to Chandler, her father's hometown, when she was twelve, and it had been an awakening. She'd never known a regular routine. Or had friends for longer than a school semester. But here in Chandler, life was different from anything she'd known before. Thanks to her father.

Her parents, the original odd couple, had met in college, when Stevie's father, Mike, was ambitious and driven. When he made his first million, he married Joanna, and the two of them traveled and partied and played until bad investments cost Mike most of his
money—and his wife and child. Mike had moved back to Chandler and taken over the family hardware business, and Joanna took Stevie off to Europe and married her next rich future ex-husband.

But at twelve, Stevie had gone from being a weary, world-traveling kid to carrying her lunch to school. And she'd thrived on it. Chandler became everything she'd always wanted. It still was today. Stevie loved knowing that she'd made herself a place here. A place where she had friends. A connection. And even a sort of adopted family.

The Candellanos.

Frowning slightly, she weaved her way through the cluster of small round tables and tuned the snatches of conversation around her into the background. The Candellanos.

They'd been her touchstone most of her life.

And she couldn't …
wouldn't
lose them.

Although sleeping with
two
of them could put a chink in the relationship. Oh Lord, could brains actually dissolve?

“For the love of God, give me coffee.”

Stevie half-turned at the sound of the familiar voice. Looking up, she stared into Nick Candellano's bloodshot brown eyes and felt her stomach give a lurch.

Nick.

Her ex-boyfriend.

And twin brother of the man she'd just slept with.

Oh, good Lord. This was starting to sound like an episode of the
Jerry Springer Show
.

“Do I have to beg?” Nick asked.

“Could be entertaining,” she admitted, and let her
gaze sweep over him. Still wearing his tux from the night before, Nick had mud halfway up his pant legs, and his feet were completely covered by a layer of dried mud that made him look like he was wearing cement shoes. His jaws were covered by whisker stubble and his hair was practically standing on end.

He looked like a poster boy for an antidrinking campaign.

“You look hideous,” she said.

“Probably look better than I feel.”

She gave him the once-over again. “Don't count on it. But clearly, coffee is needed.” She walked around him to the end of the counter, then slipped behind it to snatch up a large bright red earthenware mug. Filling it to the brim with the strong Jamaican coffee, she slid it across the counter at him and waited while he took a seat.

Nick's hands curled around the mug as if he were trying to absorb the heat soaking through the ceramic finish. Then slowly, reverently, he lifted the cup to his mouth and took a long drink. He hissed in a breath as the steaming liquid slid down his throat, then expelled it in a rush. “I may live.”

“Now where've I heard that before?” she wondered aloud. She'd poured coffee for her ex on many a “morning after.”

“Yeah, I know,” he muttered thickly, and lifted one hand to stop the lecture he was obviously expecting.

Stevie kept her mouth shut. For the moment. Though she was grateful that at least she'd stopped thinking about Paul. But she had to wonder what the hell was going on with Nick. He'd never been a big
drinker before. Oh, he was more than willing to party hard with his friends. But the last few weeks, he'd been drunk or hungover most of the time. And that just wasn't like him.