Love Like You've Never Been Hurt (10 page)

“Friends who kiss sometimes?” he held his hands out
hopefully. She couldn’t help but laugh.

“Friends who kissed once.”

“And who enjoyed it?” he raised his eyebrows.

She shook her head, amused by his playful determination.

“Is that a shake of the head for no?” he asked,
stopping dead in front of her so that she walked right into him. His
arms closed around her once more. She stepped back, not daring to
stay that close to him.

“I was shaking my head at you, not in disagreement with
you.” She kept on walking.

“OK, then,” he smiled. “Friends who kissed once
and enjoyed it. Do I have it right now?”

She gave a small nod, grateful that they were almost to her
building. She needed to escape from him now, because she badly wanted
to kiss him again and that wasn’t how this was supposed to be
working.

“How about friends who kissed once and enjoyed it so much
they will kiss each other again, deeply and often?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. He was nothing if not
persistent and he certainly knew how to make her laugh. She stopped
abruptly in front of her building and looked up at him.

“Friends who must say goodnight now and who will see each
other with their other friends out at the lake,” she smiled.

“Friends who are going to have coffee before they say good
night?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’ll see you at Pete’s this
weekend.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “Thanks for tonight, Emma. This
was good.”

“It was good. I enjoyed it so much, Jack. But, it really is
best for us to be friends.”

He nodded and gave her a hug. Then he tipped her chin with his
thumb and holding her eyes with his he slowly placed a chaste kiss on
her lips. He stepped back and smiled.

“Friends who kiss goodnight.” With that he turned and
was gone.

Emma let herself into her apartment and leaned back against the
door. She looked down at her shaking hands. “Oh my goodness!”
She was more attracted to Jack Benson than she had been to any man
her whole life – including the one she had married. The way he
kissed her. The tenderness in his eyes when he looked at her. It
would be sooo easy to do what Holly said and throw caution to the
wind. But, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t set herself
up for that kind of hurt. It was no good letting herself pretend that
she’d be happy with a fling. She was an all or nothing girl
when it came to her heart and Jack struck her as the kind of man to
have a girl in every port. She didn’t want to be one of the
crowd. She couldn’t, wouldn’t do it. She’d have to
find a way to deal with him over the summer. She enjoyed flirting and
teasing with him, but she couldn’t afford to lose her heart to
a man who would only shatter it into a million pieces.

Jack walked back to his own apartment which was only a few more
blocks. He hadn’t realized she lived right there. He smiled as
he thought of her fingers running through his hair. The way she’d
kissed him back; she could say what she liked about wanting nothing
more than friendship from him, but the way she’d responded to
his kiss told him she wanted a whole lot more than that, even if she
wasn’t ready to admit it to herself yet. That was OK, he was a
patient man. Tonight she’d told him, with her kiss if not in
words, everything he had hoped to hear.

He let himself in and took a cold beer from the fridge. Walking
through the apartment he looked around. It was all understated
elegance; the big leather couches, the modern artwork, everything
spoke of a successful man, so why did it leave him feeling so empty?
He’d worked so hard, come so far from the kid from the poor
neighborhood. The kid that had worked construction to support his
family. Was Pete right about him? Had he really achieved so much
success without achieving anything that mattered? He led a good life,
and he was certainly financially successful. He loved his work, kind
of. He just wished it meant more. He got to travel a lot, both for
work and for fun. He had no shortage of offers of female company. He
thought of the women he usually dated. Like the brunette at Mario’s
they tended to be beautiful, self-assured and knew what they wanted.
He smiled: none of them could hold a candle to his Emma.

He took his beer out to the balcony and looked out at the city
lights and the ocean. His Emma? If only. She was so different from
his usual type. While they were tall, dark and svelte, she was
smaller, maybe five feet six? She was so beautiful, in such a
different way. Hers was a natural beauty. She was a breath of fresh
air with her wavy blonde hair and dancing green eyes and her curves
that drove him crazy. He laughed to think that the types he normally
went for were plucked and groomed, manufactured images of beauty,
plastic in more ways than one, while Emma was the real thing.

Pete was right, he didn’t
do relationships, at least not in the usual sense. He was more used
to, well, what? Convenient arrangements? Was that it? He guessed it
was. The women liked his money and his name, especially in Houston
and New York. In Miami and definitely here in LA, where everything
was about the beautiful people, he acknowledged that he was as much a
trophy date as any woman ever was. These women wanted to show off a
handsome boyfriend; most hoped to make him a handsome husband. And
what did he get out of it? Well, of course there was sex. He took
another sip of beer and shrugged. Hey, he was a red-blooded male
after all. But, was that really it? Was he really what Emma thought
him to be? A guy who wanted nothing more from women than sex, who
moved on when their demands for more than that became too much? No,
he shook his head. It was just that he’d never met a woman who
had made him want to stick around for more. Until now. Until Emma.
She’d touched his heart, as well as his libido. So what did he
want from her? Sex, yes. But so much more than that. He wanted to
make her smile and laugh, make her eyes sparkle just for him, as they
had tonight. He wanted to wake up with her in the morning, watch her
sleeping and make her coffee, like he’d done at Pete’s
cabin. He remembered how her eyes filled with tears as she spoke of
her grandfather. He wanted to be there for her when the old guy did
pass on, to let her know that she did have someone left in the world.
Someone who would love her and protect her. He wanted to show her
that it was OK to give her heart, because he would cherish it and
never hurt her or let her down.

Damn! He finished his beer and put the bottle down. He really had
it bad! And of course it was all for a woman who was too scared to
love him back. He shook his head. Love? “Yeah, Buddy!” he
muttered to himself. “That’s what this is starting to
sound like.” Trust him to fall for the one woman who wouldn’t
willingly drag him down the aisle at the first chance she got. A
woman who insisted she would never be more than his friend. He went
back inside and got ready for bed. As he switched off the light he
said, “We could have it all, Emma. I’m going to prove it
to you.”

Emma sat on the front deck of
Aunt Martha’s house watching the early morning sun sparkle on
the water. Aunt Martha’s house? She smiled:
my
house. Thanks, Aunt Martha. She’d inherited the house as a
teenager when her great aunt had died. It had provided her with some
rental income over the years, but other than that she’d never
really given it much thought. She’d spent many happy times here
as a child. The old lady, Grandma’s eldest sister, was the one
who’d instilled in her the love of cooking and especially
baking. She remembered Aunt Martha stirring a huge bowl of cake mix
and waving her wooden spoon at her saying,

“Don’t you go getting into those diets and picky
eating habits like your friends, young lady. Cakes and cookies are
some of life’s goodies and you need to enjoy them. Eat what you
like, just make sure you always work hard to burn it off. Do the same
with life. Dieting is like saying you’re going to abstain from
the good stuff because you don’t want to do the work to pay for
it.”

It was a philosophy that had sat well with Emma and she still
lived by it. She ate well and she worked out every day. More than
that though she applied it to the rest of her life. When she’d
first bought her apartment she’d looked at others that were
smaller, further from the beach and much less expensive. But the one
she now owned was what she’d really wanted. She could see the
ocean, it had a huge kitchen that she loved and it was full of
natural light. She’d gone for what she wanted and then worked
her tail off to make sure she could afford it. She felt like it was
an upward spiral; she was sure she had been more successful in her
writing career than she would have if she’d held back and
bought a lesser home.

She looked up as she heard a car approaching. Pete’s truck
pulled up and he bounded up the stairs to greet her.

“How’s it going, Mouse? You all settled in?”

“Not that quickly, no,” she laughed. “I only
arrived last night. I had dinner with Gramps and Joe out at his place
so all I’ve done here so far is sleep and make coffee. You want
some?”

“I’d love a cup.” He settled his big frame into
one of the chairs. Emma returned with his coffee and a plate of fresh
muffins.

“Wonderful,” he said, taking a bite. “You know,
you could always open a bakery here if you’re done with the
writing.”

She laughed. “No, thank
you. I bake for myself and my friends, that’s it. And besides,
I’m not done with writing, only with that fake city for a
while. That novel idea I was telling you about is brewing nicely in
my mind and is about to start spilling out through a keyboard any day
now.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, sir. It seems this summer is working out perfectly. I
can write, spend time with Gramps and see more of Missy and Ben.”

“And me!”

“I know. I told Missy I’ll probably see more of you
here than I do in LA. That place makes everything so difficult.”

“Well, I’ve decided I am going to be up here a lot
more too. We don’t have much going on ‘til the fall and I
want to have the house built by then, so I’m thinking of doing
three or four day weekends up here, what do you think?”

“Oh, Pete! That will be wonderful.” She was delighted.
“It’ll be like old times, the four of us hanging out at
weekends.”

“Pete gave her a sideways look. “Yeah, but there will
be five of us, not four remember? You’ve not forgotten that
Jack will be here too? You know I’m not going to leave my
partner out.”

Emma did her best to appear casual. “Of course I hadn’t
forgotten. He is my friend too now. We had dinner the other night, as
friends do.”

Pete laughed. “So, you’re sticking to that road, are
you?”

She nodded her head vigorously. “Just friends.”

“You are a crazy little lady, you know that? The guy is
perfect for you, why won’t you give him a chance?”

She looked at him seriously now. “Pete, you know why. I’m
not going to lie to you, you know me too well. I find him incredibly
attractive...”

“I knew it!”

“But that’s the point!” she said, frustrated.
“It seems I have some strange malfunction that means I am only
attracted to incredibly good looking cheats and charmers!”

“Oh, Em,” Pete sighed, “Jack is neither a cheat
nor a charmer.”

She laughed, “Oh, he is definitely a charmer.”

“Look, Em, if you don’t want to go there that’s
your choice. I think you could be missing out on something special,
but that’s for you to decide, not me. All I really wanted to do
is make sure I’ve not messed up by having him out here. I don’t
want you to be uncomfortable having him around.”

“It’s fine, honestly. He is a really nice guy, he fits
in with everyone. It’s no big deal, right?”

“And you don’t mind having him at the other end of
your beach? I’ll be a lot happier knowing there’s someone
out here should you need them. It’s a bit isolated up here, you
know?”

“What do you mean, at the other end of the beach? He’ll
be staying at the resort, won’t he? Since you don’t
actually have a house here yet.”

“Mmm,” Pete started to look a little uncomfortable.
“Whenever he’s building he likes to stay on site. You
know he’s bringing his brother up to meet Scott? Well, Dan has
an RV so they’re driving that up here for Jack to stay in while
he works.”

“Oh.”

“Problem, Mouse?”

Oh my. She certainly hadn’t been expecting to have Jack
staying out here.

“No, no problem. I just didn’t realize.”

“It’ll be fine. Like you said, he’s your friend
too now, and I really do like the idea of you having someone else up
here if you need them.”

“OK.” Emma didn’t want to think about it at the
moment. “Anyway, what are your plans for today?” she
asked, eager to change the subject.

“That’s what I came to ask you. Jack and Dan should be
rolling in at about three o’clock, so I’m free ‘til
then. I wondered if you wanted to come walk the lot with me, knock
around some ideas for the house and make sure your new neighbor isn’t
going to spoil your views or anything.”

“Oh, that’ll be fun. We can walk along the beach from
here. Let’s go.”

Aunt Martha’s house stood at one edge of a large cove.
Pete’s lot occupied the other half of the headland that the
cove bit into.

“Isn’t it cool that you’re going to be my
neighbor up here?” she asked as they walked along the beach.

“I’m so glad you think so. When I decided on this lot
I wasn’t even thinking that you owned Martha’s old place,
let alone that you’d be living up here so soon.”

“I think it’s wonderful! I wish your house was already
done and you were staying the whole summer too. Imagine how much fun
we’d have.”

Pete smiled at her enthusiasm. “Don’t worry, Em. We’ll
have fun, I’ll be around quite a bit. And once the house is
built it will always be here. This place will always be home. When
we’re old and gray we’ll be the batty old neighbors up on
North Cove.”