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“Sarcasm isn’t pretty.”
“Yeah, but so appropriate.” She smiled and punched his shoulder. “So if you’re avoiding women, what’re you doing hanging around my place?”
Straightening up, Connor dropped one arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick, comradely squeeze. “That’s the beauty of it, Em. I’m safe here.”
“Huh?”
He looked at the confusion on her face and explained. “I can hang out with you and not worry. I’ve never wanted you. Not that way. So being here is like finding a demilitarized zone in the middle of a war.”
“You’ve never wanted me.”
“We’re pals, Em.” Connor gave her another squeeze just to prove how much he thought of her. “We can talk cars. You don’t expect me to bring you flowers or open doors for you. You’re not a woman, you’re a mechanic.”
Emma Virginia Jacobsen stared at the man sitting next to her and wondered why she wasn’t shrieking. He’d never wanted her? She wasn’t a woman?
For two years Connor Reilly had been coming to the shop she’d inherited from her father when he passed away five years ago. For two years she’d known Connor and listened to him talk about whatever female he might be chasing at the moment. She’d laughed with him, joked with him and had always thought he was different. She’d believed that he’d looked beyond her being female—that he’d seen her as a woman and as a friend.
Now she finds out he didn’t even think of her as female at all?
Fury erupted inside her while she futilely tried to reign it in. Not once in the past two years had she even considered going after Connor Reilly herself. Not that he wasn’t attractive or anything. While he continued to talk, she glanced at his profile.
His black hair was cut militarily short. His features were clean and sharp. High cheekbones, square jaw, clear, dark-blue eyes that sparkled when he laughed. He wore a dark-green USMC T-shirt that strained across his muscular chest and a pair of dark-green running shorts that showed off long, tanned, very hairy legs.
Okay, sure, he was gorgeous, but Emma had never thought of him as dating material because of their friendship. Now, she was glad she hadn’t gone after him. He would have laughed in her face.
And that thought only tossed gasoline on the fires of anger burning inside her.
“So you can see,” he was saying, “why it’s so nice to have this place to hang out. If I want to win this bet—and I do—I’ve gotta be careful.”
“Oh, yeah,” she murmured, still watching him and wondering why he didn’t notice the steam coming out of her ears. Of course, he hadn’t noticed her in two years. Why should he start now? “Careful.”
“Seriously, Em,” he said, and stood up, turning to look down at her. “Without you to talk to about this, I’d probably lose my mind.”
“What’s left of it,” she muttered darkly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Right.” He grinned and hooked a thumb toward her office, located at the front of the garage. “I’m going for a soda. You want one?”
“No, but you go ahead.”
He nodded, then loped off toward the shop. She watched him and, for the first time, really looked at him. Nice buns, she thought, startling herself. She’d never noticed Connor’s behind before. Why now?
Because, she told herself, he’d just changed the rules between them. And the big dummy didn’t even know it.
While the sun sizzled all around her and the damp, hot air choked in her lungs, Emma’s mind raced. Oh, boy, she hadn’t been this angry in years. But more than the righteous fury boiling in her blood, she was insulted…and hurt.
Just three years ago she’d allowed another man to slip beneath her radar and break her heart. Connor had, unknowingly, just joined the long list of men who had underestimated her in her life. And this time Emma wasn’t going to let a guy get away with it. She was going to make him pay for this, she thought. For all the times she’d been overlooked or underappreciated. For all the men who’d considered her less than a woman. For all the times she’d doubted her own femininity…
Connor Reilly was going to pay.
Big-time.
A few hours later Emma was still furious, though much cooler. In her own house, she had the air conditioner set just a little above frigid, so a cup of hot tea was enjoyable at night. Usually she found a cup of tea soothing. Tonight she was afraid she’d need a lot more than tea.
Even after Connor left the garage that afternoon, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him and about what he’d said. Anger had faded into insult and insult into bruised feelings, then circled back around to anger again.
There was only one person in the world who would understand what she was feeling. Alone at home, she set one of the last remaining two of her late mother’s floral-patterned china cups on the table beside her, picked up the phone and hit the speed dial.
The phone only rang once when it was picked up and a familiar voice said “Hello.”
“Mary Alice,” Emma said quickly, her words tumbling over each other in her haste to be heard, “you’re not going to believe this. Connor Reilly told me today that he doesn’t think of me as a woman. I’m a ‘pal,’ A ‘mechanic.’ Remember I told you about that stupid bet he and his brothers concocted?” She didn’t wait for confirmation. “Well, today he tells me that the reason he’s hanging out at the garage is because he feels safe around me. He doesn’t want me, so I’m neutral territory. Can you believe it? Can you actually believe he looked me dead in the eye and practically told me that I’m less than female?”
“Who is this?” An amused female voice interrupted her.
“Very funny.” Emma smiled, in spite of her anger, then jumped up off the old, worn sofa in her family’s living room and stalked to the mirror above the now-cold fireplace. “Weren’t you listening to me?”
“You bet,” Mary Alice said. “Heard every word. Want Tommy to call out the Recon guys, take this jerk out for you?”
Emma grinned at her own reflection. “No, but thanks.” Mary Alice Flanagan, Emma’s best friend since fifth grade, had married Tom Malone, a Marine, four years ago and was now currently stationed in California. It was only thanks to Mary Alice that Emma had ever discovered the mysteries of being female.
Emma’s mother had died when she was an infant, and after that she’d been raised by her father. A terrific man, he’d loved his daughter to distraction, but had had no idea how to teach her to be a woman. Mary Alice’s mother had filled the gap, and when they were grown, Mary Alice herself had given Emma the makeover that had helped her attract and then win the very man who’d left her heart battered and bleeding three years ago.
The two women stayed in constant touch by phone and e-mail, but this was one night Emma wished her oldest and best friend was right here in town. She needed to sit and vent.
“Okay then, if you don’t want him dead, what do you want?” Mary Alice asked.
Emma faced the mirror and watched her own features harden. “I want him to be sorry he said that. Sorry he ever took me for granted. Heck, sorry he ever met me.”
“You sure you want to do this?” her friend asked, and the worry was clear in her voice. “I mean, look how the thing with Tony worked out.”
Emma flinched at the memory. Tony DeMarco had done more than break her heart. He’d shattered her newfound confidence and cost her the ability to trust. But that was different and she said so now. “Not the same situation,” she said firmly, not sure if she was trying to convince herself or her friend. “I loved Tony. I don’t love Connor.”
“You just want to make him miserable?”
“Damn skippy.”
“And your plan is…?”
“I’m gonna drive him crazy,” Emma said, and she smiled at the thought of Connor Reilly groveling at her feet, begging for just a crumb of her attentions.
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m going to make him lose that bet.”
“By sleeping with him?”
“Sleep’s got nothing to do with my plan,” Emma said softly, and ignored the flutter of something warm and liquid rustling to life inside her.
Two
Saint Sebastian’s Catholic Church looked like a tiny castle plunked down in the middle of rural South Carolina. Made from weathered gray brick, the building’s leaded windows sparkled in the morning sunlight. Huge terra-cotta pots on the front porch of the rectory, or priests’ house, were filled with red, purple and blue petunias that splashed color in the dimness of the overhang. Ancient Magnolia trees stood in the yard of the church, draping the neatly clipped lawn with welcome patches of cool shade.
The church’s double front doors stood open, welcoming anyone who might need to stop in and pray, but Emma drove past the church and pulled into the driveway behind the rectory.
She turned off the engine, then stepped out of the car and into the blanketing humidity of summer. The heat slapped at her, but Emma hardly noticed. She’d grown up in the South and she was used to the heat that regularly made short work of tourists.
Besides, if she was looking to avoid the heat, she could have stayed at the shop, in the air-conditioned splendor of her office, and had one of her mechanics drive Father Liam’s aging sedan back to him. But she’d wanted the opportunity to talk to Connor’s older brother.
Ever since her enlightening conversation with Connor the day before, Emma’d been fuming. And thinking. A combustible combination. She’d lain awake half the night, torn between insult and anger and even now, she wasn’t sure which was the stronger emotion churning inside her.
She’d thought that maybe talking to Liam might help sort things out. Now that she was here, though, she didn’t have a clue what to say to the man.
Muttering darkly, she headed past the small basketball court in front of the garage, down the rosebush-lined driveway and around to the front door.
She knocked, and almost instantly the door was opened by a tall, older woman with graying red hair and sharp green eyes. Her mouth was pinched into its perpetual frown. “Miss Jacobsen.”
“Hi, Mrs. Hannigan,” Emma said, ignoring the woman’s usual lack of welcome. Practically a stereotypical housekeeper, she was straight out of an old Gothic novel. So, Emma never took her grim sense of disapproval personally. Mrs. Hannigan didn’t like anybody.
Stepping into the house, she glanced around and smiled at the polished dark wood paneling, the faded but still colorful braided rugs and the tiny, diamond-shaped slices of sunlight on the gleaming wood floor. “I brought Father Liam’s car back. Just want to give him the keys and the bill.”
“He’s in the library,” the housekeeper said, already turning for the hall leading back down the house toward the kitchen. “You go in, I’ll bring tea.”
“That’s okay—” Horrified, Emma spoke up quickly, trying to head the woman off. Everyone in Baywater knew enough to say no to Mrs. Hannigan’s tea. But it was too late. The housekeeper ignored Emma’s protest and strode down the hallway, filled with purpose, and Emma knew there would be no getting out of having to drink the world’s worst tea just to be polite.
Grumbling to herself, she crossed the hall, opened the door into the library and paused, waiting for the young priest to notice her. It didn’t take long.
Father Liam Reilly set aside the book he was reading, stood up and smiled at her, and Emma had to remind herself that he was a dedicated priest. As she was sure every female was forced to do when face to face with Liam.
As tall as his brothers, he was every bit as gorgeous, too. His black hair, longer than the triplets’ military cuts, was thick and wavy and his deep-blue eyes were fringed by long black lashes any woman would envy. His generous mouth was usually curved in a smile that set people immediately at ease, and today was no exception.
“Emma! I’m guessing your arrival means you were able to save my car again?” He crossed to her and dropped one arm around her shoulder, leading her to a pair of overstuffed chairs near a fireplace that held, instead of flaming logs, a copper bucket filled with summer roses.
“I brought it back from the brink again, Liam,” she said, and handed him the bill she pulled out of her back pocket before taking the seat he offered. “But it’s on life support. You’re going to need a new one soon.”
He grinned, then glanced at the bill and winced. “I know,” he said, lifting his gaze to hers. “But there’s always a more important use for the money. And Connor’s promised to rebuild the engine when he gets a chance, so I’ll wait him out.”
Connor.
The very man she wanted to talk about. But now that she was here, she really didn’t know what to say. How could she tell a priest that she wanted to kill his brother?
“Something wrong?” Liam asked, sitting down across from her and leaning forward, elbows braced on his knees.
“What makes you ask that?”
He smiled. “Because the minute I said the name Connor, your face froze and your eyes caught fire.”
“I guess poker’s not my game, huh?”
“No.” He shook his head, reached out, tapped the back of one of her hands and asked, “So, want to talk?”
Emma opened her mouth, but they were interrupted. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“Tea, Father,” Mrs. Hannigan announced as she bustled into the room carrying a wide tray loaded with a pitcher of a murky brown liquid, two tall glasses filled with ice and a plate of cookies.
“Oh,” Liam said with heartfelt sincerity, “you really didn’t have to do that, Mrs. Hannigan.”
“No trouble.” She set down the tray, dusted her palms together, then turned on her heel and marched out of the room with near military precision.
“We have to drink it,” Liam said on a sigh as he reached for the pitcher.
“I know.” Emma braced herself as she watched him pour what looked like mud into the glasses.
“She’s a good woman,” Liam said, lifting his own glass and eyeing it dubiously. “Though I can’t imagine why the concept of tea escapes her.”
Emma decided to get it over with and took a hearty swig. She gulped it down before it could stick in her throat, then set the glass back on the tray and coughed a little before speaking again. “So about Connor…”
“Right.” Liam gagged a little at the tea, set the glass down and shuddered. “What’d he do?”
Intrigued, Emma asked, “How did you know he did anything?”
“Something put that flash of anger in your eyes, Emma.”
“Okay, yeah. You’re right.” She jumped up from the chair that was big enough and soft enough to swallow her whole and started walking. Nowhere in particular, she just felt as though she needed to move. “He did do something, well, said something and it made me so mad, Liam, I almost punched him and then I thought he wouldn’t even understand why I was hitting him and then that made me even more mad, which even I could hardly believe, because honestly I was never so mad in my life and he didn’t even have a clue. You know?”
She was walking in circles, and Liam kept his head swiveling, to keep up with her, following her progress around the room and trying to keep up with the rambling fury of her words.
“So, would you hate me, too, if I said I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about?”
Emma blew out a breath and stopped in front of the wide windows overlooking the shady front lawn. The scent of the roses in the cold hearth mingled with the homey scent of lemon oil clinging to the gleaming woodwork. Outside, a slight wind tugged at the leaves of the magnolias and two kids, oblivious to the heat, raced past the church, baseball bats on their shoulders.
“He’s an idiot.” Emma turned and looked at him. “Connor, I mean.”
“True,” Liam admitted and gave her a smile that took the edge off her anger. “In fact, all of my brothers are idiots—” he caught himself and corrected “—maybe not Brian anymore since he wised up in time to keep Tina in his life. But Connor and Aidan?” He nodded. “Idiots. Still, in their defense, they’re under a lot of…pressure, right now.”
“You mean the bet?” Emma asked.
Liam blinked. “You know about it?”
“It’s practically all Connor’s talked about for the last month.”
“Is that right?” Liam smiled again, wider this time. “Driving him crazy, is it?”
Emma grinned at him, despite the bubbles of anger still simmering inside her. “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“I shouldn’t be, should I?”
