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Nate winced. “Okay—forget Bridget. Tell me about this girl you went bowling with last night—how did you meet her?”
“She works at a flower shop downtown.”
“Please don’t tell me you were in there buying flowers to take to the cemetery.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
Nathan groaned. “That’s pathetic.”
“Why does it matter where I met her? We’re just...friends,” he decided, because acquaintances seemed overly vague a description for a woman who had played a starring role in the sexual dreams that plagued his sleep the previous evening. Of course, he wasn’t going to share that with his brother.
“Is she coyote ugly?”
He choked on his beer. “Jeez, Nate. No. She’s not ugly at all.”
“Then what does she look like?”
He could picture her clearly: the silky brown hair that she kept tied back when she was working but had brushed out so that it hung loose to her shoulders last night; the deep blue eyes that reminded him of clear summer skies; the light dusting of freckles over the bridge of her pert nose; the tiny mole at the corner of her temptingly shaped mouth; the graceful slope of her shoulders; the unmistakably feminine curves.
But he couldn’t mention any one of those things, because he knew that if he did, his brother would somehow sense everything that he wasn’t saying. Most notably that Rachel Ellis was the first woman who had stuck in his mind—and stirred his body—in a very long time.
“She’s...attractive,” he finally said. “In a girl-next-door kind of way.”
Nathan’s brows lifted. “So if you’re really not interested, maybe you’ll introduce her to me.”
“No.” His response was immediate and unequivocal.
“Why not?”
“Because she’s...sweet.”
“I like sweet.”
“Said the wolf to Red Riding Hood,” Andrew noted drily.
His brother grinned.
“Besides, I thought you were dating some flight attendant.”
“Yeah, but since she picked up the San Francisco to Tokyo route, I hardly see her,” he admitted.
“I guess that would explain why you were alone on Valentine’s Day.”
“And most other days that end with a y,” Nate grumbled.
Before Andrew could respond to that, his brother’s pocket started ringing. Nate pulled out his cell phone and smiled when he saw the name on the display. Andrew started to clear up his tools while his brother answered the call.
“That was Mallory,” he said, tucking his phone away again. “She’s got four days off and is just about to get on a plane headed home.”
“I guess you’re not going to be alone tonight,” he noted.
His brother grinned. “Do you know where I can pick up some flowers?”
* * *
Maura didn’t understand why they had to go outside for recess. Mrs. Patterson, her first grade teacher, insisted that fresh air was good for them. But by the time they all got their boots and hats and coats on, recess was half-over.
Sometimes they played grounders on the climber, but today she was just hanging out on the swings with her best friend, Kristy. Not even swinging, just sitting on the cold plastic seats and waiting for the bell to ring again so they could go back inside.
“I saw Simon put a Valentine in your box on Friday.”
“He gave Valentines to everyone,” Maura said. “It’s like a rule.”
“But he gave you the biggest one,” Kristy said. “I think he likes you.”
Maura just shrugged. Kristy thought it was a big deal to know which boys liked which girls, but she didn’t really care.
“Boys give you things when they like you—especially on Valentine’s Day,” Kristy told her. “My mom’s boyfriend gave her a ring and now they’re going to get married and Greg’s going to be my new dad.”
“But you already have a dad.”
“Yeah, but my mom says he’s a deadbeat and Greg will be a better one.”
Maura frowned. It didn’t seem fair that Kristy was getting another dad when she already had one. Not that Maura wanted another dad—she already had the best dad in the world. But she thought it would be kinda cool if she could get a new mom, ’cuz the one she’d had died when Maura was little.
“And I get to be a flower girl in the wedding,” Kristy said. “But Tiffany gets to be a bridesmaid, ’cuz she’s older and ’cuz she got to be a flower girl at our mom’s last wedding. We’re gonna have matching dresses, though. Probably pink.”
Maura thought it would be fun to be in a wedding. Before Christmas, her dad had taken her out of school for a couple of days so they could go to Uncle Jack’s wedding. Her cousin, Ava, was a bridesmaid, and she got to walk down the aisle of the church just like the bride.
Knowing that Kristy was going to be in a wedding, Maura felt something curl in her belly. It was what her daddy called a green-eyed monster. She knew it wasn’t really a monster, but the bad feeling she got when she wanted what someone else had. She should be happy that Kristy was going to be in a wedding, but she wished she could be in a wedding, too.
And it really wasn’t fair that Kristy was gonna have two dads and she didn’t even have one mom.
* * *
Rachel flipped the page on the calendar when she opened up the shop Saturday morning. It was March 1st—two weeks after Valentine’s Day. And in that time, she hadn’t seen or heard from Andrew Garrett again. Which wasn’t at all unusual. In fact, if he stuck to his usual pattern, she wouldn’t see him again until August.
So while it wasn’t surprising that he hadn’t come by the shop, it was disappointing. She’d thought—hoped—that the time they’d spent together on Valentine’s Day might have meant something to him. Because it had meant something to her. The fact that he hadn’t made any effort to contact her since suggested otherwise.
She’d tried to put the events of that evening out of her mind as completely as he’d apparently done. But sometimes her thoughts would wander and she’d remember the surprising camaraderie they’d shared for a few hours—and the even more surprising tug of attraction.
There was something about the man that really appealed to her—and turned on parts of her that had been turned off for a very long time. Unfortunately, the attraction she felt was obviously one-sided. As Holly had pointed out, date or no date, if a guy was interested, he made a move. Andrew hadn’t made a move—he hadn’t even responded to her move.
If, that is, kissing a guy on the cheek could be considered a move and not just an impulse to express her gratitude for a fun evening. And maybe, subconsciously, she’d also been testing the waters a little.
The combination of his enticing masculine scent and the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw had been as intoxicating as the wine she’d enjoyed with her dinner. And when her lips had brushed his raspy cheek, she’d felt the tingles all the way down to her toes.
Sixteen months was a long time to go without dating—and everything else it entailed. The brief contact had her suddenly yearning for that everything else, and tempted her to dive right in. Andrew, on the other hand, had given no indication that he even wanted to get his feet wet.
She tried to put him out of her mind. It was ridiculous to spend so much time thinking about a man she barely knew. A man who, as Holly had pointed out, was probably still in love with and grieving for his deceased wife. Unfortunately that knowledge didn’t change the fact that, two weeks after their Valentine’s Day non-date, she hadn’t stopped thinking about him.
On the plus side, two weeks after Holly’s Valentine’s Day breakup, she wasn’t yet dating anyone new, so she and Rachel were hanging out more often. In fact, today Trish was coming in at lunch to manage the shop so they could head to Raleigh to catch an afternoon basketball game. But first they had to finish up the last of the centerpieces for Holly’s grandmother’s ninetieth birthday party the following day.
They were on the last one—Rachel cutting and Holly arranging—when Holly’s phone chimed to indicate a text message. She frowned at the screen.
“Problem?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know—it’s a cryptic bunch of letters and numbers from Gary.”
Gary was Holly’s brother, currently in England to finish up a Master’s Degree at the London School of Economics. “Letters and numbers?”
“‘BA5521 15:40 can u pick up?’” As she read the message out loud, Holly’s eyes widened. “Ohmygod. It’s flight information.”
“He’s coming home for your grandmother’s birthday party,” Rachel guessed.
Her friend’s eyes filled with tears as she typed a reply. “He didn’t come home for Christmas. I haven’t seen him since August.”
Rachel passed her a tissue. “You’ll see him this afternoon.”
“I’ll see him this afternoon.” Her lips curved in anticipation of the reunion, then her smile slipped. “Oh, Rachel, I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “Don’t you dare apologize.”
“But you already bought the tickets.”
“So I’ll find someone else to go with me—or I won’t. It’s not a big deal.”
“Are you sure? Because I could ask one of my cousins to—”
“I’m sure,” Rachel interjected. “Your brother coming home is a big deal—you need to be there.”
Holly nodded her thanks.
Rachel started transferring the finished centerpieces to the fridge while her friend swept the cuttings from the table. When the front door chimed, Rachel’s hands were full of flowers and Trish wasn’t in yet, so Holly went to the front of the shop to assist the customer. Thirty seconds later, she was back again and nudging her business partner toward the showroom.
Though Rachel was puzzled by her friend’s odd behavior, she didn’t ask any questions. It wouldn’t be the first time Holly had chosen to hide out in the back rather than face an ex-boyfriend who had ventured into the shop. With her polite smile in place, she moved out past the counter—and found herself face-to-face with Andrew Garrett.
“Mr. Garrett. Hi.”
He smiled, and her already wildly pounding heart kicked it up another notch.
“I thought we were on a first-name basis now,” he said to her.
Were they? She didn’t know what to think, why he was there. But she couldn’t deny that she was really glad to see him. “Andrew,” she amended. “How can I help you today?”
“What kind of flowers would you recommend to express a heartfelt and sincere apology?”
She felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “How badly did you screw up?”
“You tell me.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s supposed to be my line,” he said. “And I am sorry.”
“Why?” she asked cautiously.
“Because I couldn’t decide whether or not I should call, and when I finally admitted to myself that I wanted to call, I realized I didn’t have your number. By then, a whole week had passed so I figured there was no point in tracking you down because you’d probably already written me off. And now it’s two weeks later, but I haven’t stopped thinking about you, so here I am anyway.”
“You’re here to see me?”
He nodded. “Obviously you’re working right now, but if you don’t object to giving me your number, maybe I can call you sometime and we could make plans to do something again?”
She took one of the business cards from the holder by the cash register and was scribbling her home number on it when Holly came through from the back with a spring assortment to set in the display case.
“I’m sorry for reneging on our plans this afternoon,” Holly said to Rachel. And then, as if she’d only now realized that Andrew was there, “Oh—I didn’t realize you were with a customer.”
Rachel rolled her eyes in response to the blatant fib. “Holly, this is Andrew Garrett. Andrew, my friend and business partner, Holly Kendrick.”
“I apologize for interrupting,” Holly said to him. “I just got a message that my brother’s coming into town so I have to pick him up from the airport, but I feel terrible about abandoning Rachel with two tickets to a Wolfpack game on a Saturday afternoon.”
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to the airport now?” Rachel suggested.
“You’re right,” Holly agreed. “It was nice meeting you, Andrew. See you tomorrow, Rachel.” Then she disappeared into the back again and—hopefully—out the back door.
“Was that your friend’s not-so-subtle way of letting me know that you don’t have any plans today?” Andrew asked when Holly had gone.
“Actually that was subtle, at least for Holly. And I do have plans.”
“The basketball game.”
She nodded.
“I like basketball,” he said. “If you wanted to sell the extra ticket to me, I’d go with you.”
“I’m not selling the ticket to you,” she told him. “But I will let you buy the popcorn.”
He smiled. “Sounds fair. What time’s the game?”
“Four o’clock.”
“I’ll pick you up at two-thirty.”
* * *
Andrew pressed the code to buzz Rachel’s apartment at precisely two-thirty. After he identified himself over the intercom, she told him “apartment 704” and released the lock.
He stepped into the lobby and took a moment to look around while he waited for the elevator. He’d never lived in an apartment and wasn’t sure he could do so without feeling claustrophobic, but he had to admit that this building had ambience. There were watercolors on the walls, fresh flowers strategically placed around the room and leather seating around a gas fireplace.
A quiet ding indicated the elevator’s arrival and, a minute later, he was at Rachel’s door. She responded promptly to his knock.
“I just need to grab my purse,” she said, and stepped back so that he could enter.
He didn’t glance around her apartment because his gaze was riveted on her. She’d changed from her work clothes into a pair of black jeans that molded to her narrow hips and a soft pink sweater that hugged her curves and somehow made her eyes seem even bluer. She’d brushed her hair out, so that it spilled over her shoulders in a silky cloud. On her feet she wore black boots with heels that looked more fashionable than practical.
He felt a distinctive tug low in his groin and couldn’t deny it was attraction. And his body’s instinctive response to Rachel Ellis worried him, because he sensed that there was something more going on here than basic chemistry. Lust was simple enough, but what he felt for Rachel wasn’t simple. There was something more mixed with the desire he felt, and he was concerned that he could—maybe already did—actually like her.
She picked up her purse off the console, double-checked that she had the tickets, then grabbed her coat from the closet. “Okay,” she told him.
When he didn’t shift from his position in front of the door, she looked up at him. He watched her eyes darken as puzzlement changed to awareness, and the pulse at the base of her throat quickened as awareness gave way to desire. It had been a long time since he’d had to read a woman’s signals, but he was confident that the attraction he felt was reciprocated.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Are you, uh, ready?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “There’s just one thing I think we should get out of the way before we go.”
And then he kissed her.
Chapter Four
Oh. My. God.
He was kissing her.
And this wasn’t a casual brush of the lips. It was immediate and full mouth-on-mouth contact. Not in a way that could be considered aggressive or pushy, just direct and sure, and there was something incredibly sexy about his self-confidence.
In the space of a heartbeat, those masterful lips took Rachel from casually intrigued to completely aroused. About three seconds later, she decided that if levels of expertise could be assessed like in the martial arts, he was a black-belt grand master of kissing. Two seconds after that, she was incapable of forming any other coherent thoughts.
Kissing Andrew Garrett was simply...bliss.
He lifted a hand to cup the nape of her neck, his thumb gently brushing over the racing pulse point below her jaw. His other arm curled around her back, drawing her closer. She went willingly, eagerly. Her lips parted beneath the pressure of his, and when his tongue slipped between them, she felt the surge of heat through her veins, igniting flames of desire.
And still he continued to kiss her, savoring the taste and texture of her mouth without pressing for anything more. His lips nibbled, his tongue teased and everything inside of her quivered with want, need. He wanted her, too—there was no mistaking the desire she tasted in his kiss—but it was tempered by patience, balanced by caution.
Because she had her own reasons for being careful, she appreciated his restraint. But she was still disappointed when he finally lifted his mouth from hers.
She was twenty-seven years old. She’d had boyfriends, relationships, heartbreaks. She’d shared her body and her bed with other men, but never had any other man kissed her with the focused intensity Andrew demonstrated. Even now, he kept his arm around her, as if he wasn’t quite ready to let her go.
“I’ve been thinking about that since Valentine’s Day,” he told her.
“Oh. Um.” The power of conversation had completely deserted her along with the ability to form coherent thoughts.
He smiled. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”
“I wasn’t— I’m not—” She blew out a breath. “I’m on a dating hiatus.”
“You mentioned that.”
“And we’re supposed to be going to the basketball game.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“I’m a really big Wolfpack fan.”
“Okay,” he agreed.
“But now I’m thinking...that I might want to not see the game even more.”
The glint of humor in his green eyes faded; the arm around her waist tightened. “Rachel.”
“I’m not usually the impulsive type, and I don’t even really know you. Or maybe it’s just that sixteen months is a really long time to go without having sex. Except that I didn’t even think about it for most of that time, and all you did was kiss me, but I’m definitely thinking about it now.”
“I’m thinking about it, too,” he admitted.
“But we had a deal,” she reminded him.
“We did?”
She nodded. “You’re buying the popcorn.”
“Popcorn. Right.” He finally released her and took a step back. “Then I guess we should be going.”
She felt a little bit steadier as they waited for the elevator. Although there was no one else in the hall, she was confident that she had enough self-restraint to refrain from tearing his clothes off in a public place. And when the doors of the elevator closed behind them, she was sure the moment of insanity had passed.
The blast of cold air that greeted her when they exited the building quickly cooled her heated skin. In fact, she’d only taken a few steps before she was wishing that she’d grabbed a hat and gloves. Instead, she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and tucked her chin deeper into the collar to combat the unseasonably cold weather. When her heel caught a patch of ice, she would have fallen onto her butt if Andrew hadn’t managed to catch her elbow and hold her up.
“I was right,” he murmured.
“About what?”
“Your boots are more stylish than practical.”
“I wear the practical ones every day,” she told him. “I like to dress up a little when I go out.”
“Did I mention how nice you look?”
“Not in so many words, but I thought the kiss might have been an indicator.”
“I’m usually pretty good with words, but it’s been a long time since I’ve done the dating thing,” he said apologetically, as he walked around to the passenger door of his car.
She had no complaints about his communication skills, but she didn’t dare say so in case he interpreted her response as an invitation to kiss her again. Not that she would object if he did so, she just wasn’t sure she could handle another one of his kisses right now.
“I should have said that you look nice—beautiful, actually.”
It wasn’t the smoothest compliment she’d ever received, but she could tell that he meant it, and despite the fact that her teeth were close to chattering, she felt her cheeks heat.
He opened the door for her.
She lowered herself onto the leather seat and reached for the belt. Andrew slid in behind the steering wheel and started the car, immediately turning up the temperature. Before he had pulled out of the parking lot, she could feel the warm air on her frigid feet.
As the heat permeated the vehicle and thawed her extremities, she became aware of other things: the wide-palmed hands wrapped around the steering wheel, the breadth of his shoulders beneath his leather jacket, the strong line of his jaw darkened with just the slightest hint of stubble and the clean, masculine scent of him that filled her nostrils every time she drew a breath. She definitely wasn’t feeling cold anymore, not with all of the heat churning inside of her.
She unfastened the top two buttons of her coat, and he automatically reached for the button to adjust the climate control. She mentally added courteous to his already-impressive list of attributes that included handsome, charming, loyal—and a fabulous kisser.
In fact, her head was still reeling from that kiss. Ordinarily such a bold move would have put her off. But it was hard to be annoyed when every long-dormant nerve ending in her body was standing at attention and begging for more.
“So how did you become a Wolfpack fan?” he asked her.
“My brother played college basketball.”
“At NC State?”
She nodded. “Did you ever play?”
“No, my game was football. At Duke.”
She might have guessed football, because of those shoulders. But he was tall enough that basketball wouldn’t have been out of the question. The school, however, surprised her. “Both Holly and I went to Duke.”
He smiled. “I think we’ve already established that I would have been there a lot of years before you.”
“Unless it took you a long time to graduate,” she teased.
He laughed. “I got the standard four-year degree in four years.”
She had a lot more questions, but he turned the focus back to her. “Did you meet Holly at college?”
“No, we go way back to the second grade when Holly’s parents split up and she and her brother came to Charisma to live with her grandmother. We first decided we would go into business together when we were in fifth grade, but we didn’t know the business was going to be flowers.”
“How did that come about?”
“We both majored in business, but Holly liked to try a lot of different things and occasionally took courses just for fun. One of those was a floral-design class offered on Saturday mornings, and she fell in love with it.”
“So you’re the ‘Buds’ of Buds & Blooms,” he realized. “Clever.”
“We thought so,” she agreed. “Most people assume ‘Buds’ is a reference to undeveloped flowers—and it is. But we liked that it was also an abbreviation of buddies.”
And since she’d already told him far more than she intended, she said, “So tell me about you—what do you do?”
“Nothing very exciting,” he warned.
“You mean you’re not a NASA astronaut or government spy?”
He chuckled. “Unfortunately, no. I’m a carpenter.”
Which explained his strong and confident hands. “What kind of carpentry do you do?
“Mostly finish work and cabinetry.”
“So you’re a detail man,” she surmised.
“I guess that’s a fair assessment.” He turned into the parking lot of PNC Arena.
“Do you like your work?”
“Most days.”
“Then you’re doing the right thing.”
The parking lot was rapidly filling up, so he drove directly to the gate. “Why don’t you get out here and I’ll meet you inside after I’ve parked the car?”
“Okay,” she agreed, and added chivalrous to the ever-growing list she was compiling. Obviously his mother had raised him to treat a girl right—and this girl’s heart was already starting to go pitter-patter.
It’s just a basketball game, she reminded herself. Not a date. He was only there with her because Holly had bailed and Rachel happened to have an extra ticket. And she might almost have believed this was just an impromptu outing between casual acquaintances, except for that kiss.