How come one woman was never enough for one man? How come she wasn’t enough for Trip?
The answer came roaring back in her head. Because I couldn’t take the chance of letting him know the real me. The one who’s scared to fail.
Trip was supposed to be different. This time she’d planned to marry for all the sensible reasons. On paper she and Trip were perfect for each other. She didn’t have a clue whether love even existed, and lots of doubts that it would ever exist for her. She’d convinced herself she was in love with Trip. Obviously, she didn’t break his heart. He was probably already setting up a date with her successor.
She went back to the pantry floor beside Seth. “You’re a mess.”
“More on me than in them,” he said. “I’m sticky as a bear in a honey tree. I think you can drop the feedings to every six hours with the food we added to the milk.”
“Really? Does that mean I can sleep?”
“Sleep? I’ve heard that word a time or two. Not sure what it means.” He stood up and slipped Peony back into her nest.
Emma didn’t take his proffered hand to stand up this time. “There’s another word I’ve heard, but not recently. Food? You ever hear of that?” She grinned up at him. “I went to the grocery store between feedings this afternoon. I have lots of bacon, plenty of eggs and enough onions for a Western omelet. Plus I bought some artisan bread. And beer. I don’t drink it, but I thought you might.”
He followed her into what passed for a kitchen. “At this point I’d fight Peony for her dog food. Don’t tell me you can cook. Girl like you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I grew up with hot and cold running servants? Here.” She tossed him a big Vidalia onion. “Peel and chop this. You do the crying for a change.”
An hour later as he finished his fourth piece of buttered toast, he said, “Okay, so you can cook.”
“Very limited menu. And you can eat.”
“Big engines require a lot of fuel. So, who’s this guy Trip you don’t like?”
She took a deep breath. To tell him or not? Oh, why not? It wasn’t a secret. Not at home, in any case. “A rich, handsome corporate lawyer on the fast track to being named partner. Just not mine. He’s got political aspirations, too. Going to put his name in the race for State senator, maybe eventually governor. Let’s drop it, okay? I cook, you clean.”
“What? No dessert?”
“You’re kidding, right? All you have to do is rinse and load the dishwasher. It may be the world’s smallest and oldest, but it works.”
As she was scrubbing the kitchen table, she said, “I wish you’d known my aunt Martha. I used to spend my summers up here with her. I loved this place.”
“From what I hear, I wish I’d known her, too. Barbara said she was a great gal. After she died, how come you didn’t come up here before now?”
“My stepmother and I came up to deal with the estate and the papers and things right after. She left me everything, but there wasn’t much actual income to fix the place up, and I didn’t have any disposable income myself. Plus I was at a place in my life where I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the house. She already rented it out, so that’s what I did. I hired an agent who handles it all. When the last tenants—the Mulligans—left six months ago, I missed the little bit of income they brought me, but I figured sooner or later I’d get a new tenant. I was looking for somebody who might want to barter upkeep for rent. Karma, I guess. It hit me when I got fired and unengaged practically the same day that I needed a sanctuary. And thanks to Aunt Martha’s kindness, I had one.” She glanced around the shabby room. “This, however, needs help.”
“Not to mention the skunks.”
She leaned back against the table. “I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful, but aren’t you going to get in trouble over my skunks?”
“You shouldn’t think of them as your skunks, or you’ll hate letting them go even more. Yes, I can get into trouble, but if we return them to the wild before somebody reports them, I can ask forgiveness.”
“As opposed to permission?”
He rinsed out the sink and hung the dish towel on its hook. And yawned. “Sorry.”
“Go home. Go to bed.”
She followed him to the front door.
“Don’t forget. We meet in the morning at the Farmers’ Co-op.”
She nodded.
He turned, took one step, swung back and reached for her.
* * *
JUST A “meet the new neighbor kiss.”
Maybe it started that way, but it got out of hand—fast. She wasn’t used to being lifted off her feet. When he wrapped his arms around her, she felt as if she were being hugged by that bear in the honey tree.
He tasted of the fig preserves they’d used on their toast, and when their tongues met and teased, her head seemed to lift free of her body.
He set her down, let her go, wheeled around and almost ran across the street. Thank God there was no traffic, because he hadn’t checked either direction, just barreled on inside his house.
She leaned against the wall beside her front door and tried to catch her breath. One kiss, and she could feel her nipples harden.
She hoped he didn’t regret it. She didn’t. Or did she?
Talk about your rebound! The last thing she wanted in her life right now was another man—any man. Certainly not this big, powerful, difficult man who would not be manipulated. Even if she was any good at manipulation. Which she wasn’t.
She’d sworn off the entire sex for the foreseeable future. Maybe forever.
So far, she’d done all right convincing him to help keep her skunk babies safe, but that was only because he had a soft spot for small animals. He could always revert to being Mr. Regulation and take them away from her.
She needed to keep him on her side, but there were limits as to how far she’d go to manage that. On a lifestyle compatibility scale of one to ten—ten being the most compatible—the two of them were about minus a thousand. If her father thought Trip was barely good enough for her, he’d flip out the first time he laid eyes on Seth.
She didn’t truly believe Seth was expecting some sort of sexual quid pro quo for helping with the skunks. If he was, he’d made a big mistake.
But what did she know? If some other halfway stranger had swept her into his arms and kissed the stew out of her like Seth had, she’d have sent him flying with a big red handprint on his cheek.
And possibly found herself facing a stalker who wore a uniform and carried a gun.
She sank onto the front step of her porch and leaned against one of the columns that held it up. The guy had majorly overstepped his boundaries.
Even if it was the best kiss she’d ever experienced in her entire life. Not that she’d kissed that many males, but she hadn’t been a nun either.
It was just a kiss! she reminded herself.
Emma looked across the street. She could see him pacing back and forth, silhouetted against the front window of his house. She went back into her hall, turned off the lights and shut the front door with its big oval pier glass. He wasn’t going to watch her pace up and down or keep track of her by the lights that went on throughout the house, from living room to bedroom. She’d undress in the dark.
Tomorrow