Summer Kisses (288 page)

“So what did Will say to stir you up so much?” I asked, knowing I risked pissing him off again.

“Nothing.”

I was going to argue the point.

“He said, ‘hi’. That was it.” He sighed. “Maybe I overreacted?”

“I didn’t say it.”

Evidently, that was enough time away from Man-land for John. He changed the subject. “So let’s get to business.”

“I talked to Mike Brown and Charles Thomas. They’re still in. I explained the situation and the steps we were taking to fix it. Charles suggests we sue the paper and name Amanda specifically.”

“I don’t want to sue. I just want the money to get this gym up and running.”

“I can understand that. You don’t want to poke a bear with a stick.”

We brainstormed a list of other possible investors. Unfortunately, we were already hitting the bottom of the barrel.

John endeavored to prep me for that night’s meeting. He drilled me on the investor and how to make Mitchell Fitness look good. John can be a jerk occasionally, but he was definitely good at his job.

A number of hours later, we’d done all we could do and I sent John on his way.

Meeting Katherine in the gym by four-thirty, I felt like my shoulders were up around my ears. I attacked the weights like a crazy man, pushing myself harder than I’d done in months. I was lucky I didn’t seriously injure myself. Katherine followed one Nautilus machine behind, not saying much of anything, simply waiting until I finished each set before readjusting the weights and hopping on.

I appreciated her not chatting away. That was exactly what I needed: one more thing to find attractive about her.

By the time we made it to the treadmills, I was already covered in sweat.

“Want to talk about it?” she asked as I upped my speed to almost eight miles an hour.

I shook my head. “Not right now.” I threw the headphones I almost never used into my ears, cranked up the volume, and ran like I was trying to escape a zombie apocalypse.

“Do you have plans for Saturday?” I asked after we finished and my entire body was spent.

“I have tentative plans to hang out with my sister, but nothing concrete. Why?”

“How would you like to go hiking?”

Three weeks ago, the very idea of a physical activity like this would have undoubtedly sent her running away. “That could be fun. Where do you want to go?”

“The Nature Center?” I asked, referring to the hiking area south of Sudden Falls. “You could invite your sister to come along if you want to.”

“Do you think we need a chaperone?” she joked.

I smiled ruefully and shrugged. “Probably.”

Her grin said that pleased her more than was good for either of us.

“I’ll ask Grace she’s up for it. Sounds like fun.”

It did. Of course, most everything with Katherine was fun, which made her that much more difficult to resist.

“Hey. Want to go out for a drink?”

Quinn’s voice on the other end of the phone was a surprise, especially since he’d said he’d planned to wine and dine his potential investors for the evening.

“Should I take it as bad news that you’re already done with dinner?”

“You could say that.” He sighed. “So, how about it? Want to meet me at the pub on Main Street?”

I’d been there twice on blind dates, and both were horrible. That place had bad juju for me.

“Why don’t you come here? I have a fully stocked liquor cabinet.” Beyond the bad bar mojo, I didn’t really feel like going back out. I’d had a long day and wanted to stay in my quiet house with Norah Jones playing over the sound system.

“Sure. You don’t mind me just showing up?”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I did.”

“Good. I’m less than two minutes away,” he said.

True to his word, Quinn knocked on the door about ninety seconds later. Good thing we weren’t dating, or I would have been annoyed by the lack of primp time. However, since we
weren’t
dating, I didn’t need to impress him.

Yeah,
right
.

When I opened the door, he looked even tenser than he had in the gym. His tie was askew, the lines around his grim mouth had deepened into crevices, and his movements were jerky and tight.

“Ouch,” I said. “It really didn’t go well, did it?”

He shook his head. “No, and I don’t really want to talk about it.”

He followed me into the kitchen, and I pulled two Killian’s from the fridge, popped the top on each with a bottle opener, then handed one to him.

Tilting his head back, he tipped the bottle to his lips, chugging a couple of swallows.

In spite of the fact he
didn’t want to talk about it,
he launched right in. “It was a slaughter. He wasn’t about to be convinced that that area of town is in need of another gym, not that there’s another one for more than ten miles.” Quinn took another drink. “You know when you’re talking to someone, and they’re completely not paying attention, like they’re doing their taxes in their head or something?”

I nodded.

“Yeah. It was like that.”

“Ouch,” I said again.

He took another swig. “Thanks for letting me come over. I was too wound up to go home and too exhausted to swim the number of laps I’d need to decompress.”

“Glad to have you here,” I said, more honestly than he’d ever know. “Living room?” I pointed that direction with the mouth of my beer bottle.

Quinn shrugged. “Sure.” When we got there, he sat down on the sofa and pulled off his tie, draping it over the arm of the couch. I knew one way to help him relax. Well, I knew several, but only one that wouldn’t cause me to abandon my clothes and open me up to a pile of regret.

I set my bottle on a coaster on the end table before moving behind the couch.

“What—”

He cut off when I dug my fingers into the steel tendons of his shoulder. “Tense much?” I kneaded the tight bands of muscle I found.

He groaned, and I’m not sure, but he may have drooled on himself.

I smiled as I concentrated my efforts on the side of his neck. He let his head fall forward, one-hundred-percent on board with the program, leaving me with nothing but the enjoyable sensation of warm skin, rapidly loosening muscles, and Quinn’s unique scent.

This went on for longer than was probably platonic, but I really enjoyed having an excuse to put my hands on him, and he certainly didn’t seem to mind.

By the time my fingers started cramping, he’d finished his beer. I fetched two more, even though I hadn’t finished my first one, and sat down next to him.

“Thanks, Kath. I really needed this.”

Like his company was some sort of hardship. I leaned my head against the back of the couch and took in his profile. “You don’t have to thank me anymore.”

Norah Jones’ last note trailed off, and Michael Bublé started doing his thing. Quinn closed his eyes. Somehow, he’d managed to finish his beer before I even started my second one, so I passed it over. He needed it worse than I did.

Part of me recognized there was a reason I was liquoring him up. A, to calm him down. But also, B, I wondered what would happen if he lost some of his restraint. It wasn’t a proud moment for me.

Not that it stopped me from grabbing a couple more beers from the kitchen when he finished his third.

He felt so good next to me, the side of his body stretched along the length of mine. The soft cotton of his shirt brushed my bare arm, exposed by my short-sleeved shirt. The heat of his skin under the thin fabric called to me.

I wanted to grab his head and pull him to me. But since he’d drunk my Irish courage, I couldn’t even consider it, even after our kiss the day we went scuba diving.

With his now slightly unfocused eyes and sad mouth, there was something oddly vulnerable about him.

I patted his thigh, which was about as far as I could talk myself into going.

“It’ll all work out. I’m convinced of it.”

“I’m glad one of us is. I’ll probably be a laughingstock by morning,” Quinn said.

“I’m sure that isn’t true.”

“It is true.”

Except he didn’t say “true.” It was more like “twoo.” Visions of
The Princess Bride
came to mind. “Twoo Wuv. It’s what bwings us togever today...”

I tried not to giggle. Fortunately, he was so far in his own head that he didn’t notice. I definitely didn’t want to have to explain.

“So why didn’t you want to meet me at the pub?” he asked, apropos of nothing.

“I’m not big into the bar scene,” I told him. “Too much rejection in places like that for women like me.”

“Maybe you intimidate them. I know if I met you in the bar, you’d intimidate the hell out of me.” He chuckled self-deprecatingly.

“
As if.
Besides, men like you don’t pick up women like me in bars.”

“Smart men would.”

God, he was sweet.

“And don’t get down on yourself.” He sounded vaguely pissed off at that.

“I’m not. I’m realistic.”

He started to argue more then tilted to the side and somehow landed with his head in my lap. I couldn’t keep my fingers out of his hair.

“Problems?” I asked.

He grinned, an incredibly adorable, boyish grin complete with dimples. At that moment, he was nearly irresistible. “Everything went kind of diagonal.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’d pick you up,” he said, returning to his earlier topic of conversation.

“Yeah? How would you do that?” I was curious if for no other reason than I was certain he could be very smooth with the ladies when he put his mind to it. “What’s your pick up line?”

His dark chocolate Oreo eyes met mine. “I like pancakes. Do you swim?”

It’s possible I passed out after my brilliant pick-up line. I certainly don’t remember much after that. Just the feel of Katherine’s thigh under my cheek, and her fingertips lightly stroking my hair.

I woke up the next morning feeling like somebody had drained all the water out of my body. My blood flowed at approximately the rate of cake batter. My brain rattled around my head like rocks in a tin pail.

Opening my eyes for about two seconds, I groaned before slamming them shut. My pillow moved.

Oh God. My pillow was still Katherine’s lap.

Well, at least now I wouldn’t have to worry about fighting her attraction for me. Only mine for her. She’d think I was either a lush or too pathetic to bother with.

“How’re you doin’ there, Sparky?” I could hear the smile in her voice. I made a vaguely pained noise. Her leg moved under my head as she reached for the end table. I was annoyed to be disturbed until she placed a bottle of Advil on my chest.

“You’re an angel of mercy.” At some point, she must have gotten up to fetch the pain reliever then returned to the couch to resume pillow duty.

She could have covered me with the afghan on the back of the couch and slept in her own comfortable bed. It had been a lifetime since anyone had cared for my comfort at the expense of their own.

Katherine followed the painkiller up with a bottle of water. I took both from her and managed to choke down a few tablets, past the lump in my throat.

“The coffeepot’s automated. It should be finishing its thing in about four minutes.”

“I think I just fell in love with you.”

She made a little indrawn breath but didn’t respond.

I groaned. “What I meant was—” The statement had escaped without any thought to back it.

“Don’t worry. I wasn’t getting ideas.” However, she stood up at that point, letting my head bounce down onto the cushion.

“You like your coffee black, right?” She moved into the kitchen.

“Yeah.” I threw my arm over my throbbing eyes.

Fuck
.

I think I just fell in love with you.

Quinn’s statement played in my head on an endless loop for most of the day. I knew he was being flippant. I knew he hadn’t meant it. And yet, it played to the soooper-secret fantasy in the part of my brain that was still sixteen years old, where the popular, well-liked boy liked
me.
Just as I was.

Fortunately, that morning I’d made plans to meet my staff of interns at the office. I’m not sure I could be trusted to sit in the office next to Quinn’s without regularly interrupting to moon over him. Nor would I be able to handle the certain rejection—and possible restraining order—that mooning would bring on.

Before I’d even made it to my office, I ran into Sherri.

“I hear things didn’t go so well with Rodney,” she said.

I hadn’t seen her since the disastrous blind date. “He seems nice enough. But I don’t think we’re a very good match.” At this point, it didn’t hurt to be charitable. Besides, she didn’t want to hear that her nephew was a tool.

“No. I’m sorry. We always see the best in those we love. When he told me about your date, I was mortified that I even set you up.”

The blood drained out of my face.
So I’m not good enough for your jerk of a nephew?

“It seems my nephew can be a jackass. I blame my sister’s husband.”

The blood that had left my face now rushed back and brought friends. I’d almost over-reacted. I pulled my wits around me and my mouth into a smile. “It was fine. I appreciate you thinking of me.” Okay, so that might have been a stretch.

“I have to say,” Sherri continued. “What Bennington is doing to your project is deplorable. I’ve seen the early drafts of your work on the Mitchel Fitness campaign, and I’m impressed. I can’t believe you’re doing it without any support.”

“I have support. I have
interns
.”

She laughed at that.

“We actually have some impressive talent here. And they’re definitely getting their semester’s worth on this project.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I need an experienced programmer. Jack—the web devel intern—is amazing, but he doesn’t have any real-world experience, and that’s not an area of expertise that I can fake.” And we needed to get Mitchell’s IT security up to par.

“I’ll see what I can do. Good luck!” She brushed my sleeve in parting and headed down the hallway. I now had a renewed bounce in my step.