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She cast Rick a beaming smile, praying it looked at least a little sincere, and wrapped her arm around his. “Why don’t we go inside and see if I can dig you up a shirt to wear that isn’t smeared with ranch dip.”
His eyes lit up, his hand sliding over hers where it rested on his arm. The small talk started on the walk to the house and she tried to listen. But all she could think about was the tingling sensation of being watched. By him. By Caleb. Probably all too happy right about now. He’d gotten his way. She was walking away with another man.
THE INSTANT SHE SLIPPED her arm around Rick’s and started marching toward the house, betrayal ripped through Caleb. As if she were one of his fellow Aces, a trusted friend who’d reached over and pulled his weapon from the holster and shot him with it. That was how personal the blow; how bitter the bite. Which was insanity. Shay owed him nothing. He had no rights to her, no claim.
Caleb tipped up his beer and drank. Then he did the same with Rick’s. Maybe for the first time in years, he’d get wasted. Completely flipping wasted. He glanced at Sharon, who was now standing with Bob, smiling up at him…oh, so happy. Okay. “Wasted” wasn’t an option. At least not here. Not now.
He watched one of Bob’s brothers toss a horseshoe. He was a good guy named Mickey, who had always made Caleb feel like genuine, blood-related family. This was his family. Shay was his family. He took another drink. This time the beer was hot and bitter, like the feeling welling inside him.
Kent took another shot and missed. Mickey and Bob cracked jokes. Kent headed toward Caleb. “Go ahead and crack your joke. Get it over with now.”
Caleb barely heard Kent, despite Kent getting up close and personal. He was thinking about Shay. About the look on Shay’s face just before she’d turned away from him. The defiance etched in her delicate features flashed in Caleb’s mind, followed by the image of her walking arm-in-arm with Rick. She was trying to make him jealous. Or trying to spite him.
Caleb glanced at Kent and shoved the beers in his hands. “You’ve never been a good shot when you’re sober. Drink up. I’ll go for more.”
Before Kent could respond, Caleb started walking, his fingers curling into his palms by his sides. He’d played this cat-and-mouse game with Shay for too long. She could have whatever man she wanted, but not like this, not because of him, to get to him. At least, that’s what he told himself so he could ignore the twist of jealousy inside him.
He cut into the house, through the patio door and then ground his teeth when Shay and Rick were nowhere to be seen—and neither was anyone else, for that matter. Everyone was outside, socializing, having fun, allowing Shay the empty house to be with Rick. He crossed the room, possessiveness just beneath the surface, though he preferred to call it protectiveness.
The sound of Shay’s laughter fluttered down a hallway—that damn angelic laugh that had driven him wild a good half of his life, now velvety with a distinct hint of flirtation. A few more steps, and a lot more of that protectiveness ground a path along his nerve endings.
The laughter floated closer, along with the soft muffled sound of Shay’s voice. Caleb stopped dead in his tracks. The sound was coming from Shay’s old bedroom. Oh, hell, no. This wasn’t happening. Caleb charged forward, on edge and ready for war. He rounded the corner to the room, door open, to find Rick sitting on Shay’s bed.
“Almost ready,” Shay called out softly from the closet.
Caleb didn’t want to know what she was ready for. Anger spiked inside him. His years of combat were the only thing that kept him outwardly in check when inside he was raging, a distinct tick in his jaw pulsing.
Rick’s gaze was riveted to the doorway as if he sensed the crackle suddenly in the air. And apparently he didn’t like what he saw in Caleb’s face. He paled and jumped to his feet.
“Leave now,” Caleb said before Rick could speak, his voice low and even.
Rick was already headed to the door.
“Okay, I found a shirt,” Shay said, walking out of the closet. She was still dressed in the cover-up that seemed far more skimpy up close than it had across the lawn.
“Caleb?” she said, surprised. “What’s going on? Rick! Wait. You need the shirt.”
“Rick was just leaving,” Caleb said, ignoring the T-shirt in her hand. “He has his own shirt.”
Rick stopped in front of Caleb out of necessity. Caleb was blocking his way. “It’s best you call it a day,” Caleb said thickly.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Rick said. “I—”
“I don’t care,” Caleb said shortly. “Don’t want to know.”
“Caleb!” Shay objected. “Stop acting like a brute. Rick, don’t go.” Rick didn’t look at her.
Caleb stepped aside. “Goodbye, Rick.”
And just like that, Rick was gone. Shay shoved her hands onto her hips and glared. “What the heck do you think you are doing, Caleb?”
He shut the door, the scent of citrus and honey flaring in his nostrils. Shay’s scent, for as long as he could remember. It breathed in the room like a living thing. Just as the lust and tension between them had for far too long now. It was time to deal with it, once and for all.
Caleb leaned against the door, arms in front of his chest, one booted foot over the next. “We need to talk.”
3
CALEB COULD SEE the firestorm coming. Shay’s eyes darkened and pink rushed across the delicate ivory of her skin—both sure signs she was in fighting mode. He had a knack for bringing it out in her. Had intentionally drawn her right to this hot little spot of temper as he had so many times in the past. As a defense, a distraction. Anything to fight the forbidden, sizzling-hot attraction that had always existed between them.
“Talk,” Shay repeated, starting to walk toward him. “I’ve not heard a word from you in the two months you’ve been home, and now you want to talk. Because you’re ready. All the times I was ready, you tucked tail and ran.”
“I’m not running now, Shay,” he said, not denying the truth. He had run. Run and hoped they’d outgrown the adolescent infatuation they’d shared. But it had matured as they had, turned dangerous in its demand. “I’m here. I’m ready. Let’s talk.” It was long overdue and he knew it.
“Well, I’m not ready.” She stopped in front of him, impatiently waving him aside. “You might as well move away from in front of the door, Caleb. The only person I’m going to talk to right now is Rick. You scared the man half to death with that ‘lethal soldier’ act of yours. That was rude and it was wrong.”
“Rude was visiting the daughter of the party’s host in her bedroom,” he said. “Rick deserves to be scared.”
“You’re in my room,” she pointed out. “What does that say about you?”
“I belong here. Rick doesn’t.”
“I decide who belongs in my room,” she said and held up a finger to stop his objections. “It’s still my room, whether I live here or not. And unlike you, Rick was invited.” She slapped the shirt in her hand against Caleb’s chest, and he reached up and caught it as she added, “He needed a shirt. Too bad I didn’t spill my plate on you instead of him.”
He started to toss the shirt, and his gaze caught on the University of Texas championship logo. “Wait one damn minute.” His eyes jerked to hers. “This is my shirt,” he said, then added, incredulously, “You were giving him my shirt.”
“My shirt,” she declared, hands on her scantily clad hips.
“That you stole from me the year I moved into this house to sleep in and never gave back. You know damn well you were giving him that shirt to piss me off.”
She snatched the shirt right back from him and tossed it over her shoulder. “It was convenient. Like you shoving Rick in my direction because you couldn’t handle being in close quarters with me.”
“I’d say I’m pretty damn close right now.” Close enough to see the sprinkle of light brown freckles on her nose that she hated and he loved. Close enough to touch her. “And I had nothing to do with Rick, besides kicking him out of here. The date thing came from Kent and your father.”
She didn’t look convinced. “Rick sure didn’t see it that way.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t there when Rick was pining over you,” he agreed. “But you know damn well I couldn’t say anything without drawing questions.”
“Right,” she said smartly. “We wouldn’t want to draw any questions. Better everyone think we’ve decided we don’t like each other than dare believe we want to jump each other’s bones.”
“Touchy, touchy,” he chided. “See. I knew you were pissed at me. Exactly why I wasn’t going to risk you using Rick to get back at me.”
“You sure are full of yourself, Caleb Martin,” she roared back. “It takes a lot of arrogance to assume I only wanted Rick to get back at you.”
“You did just say you wanted to jump my bones,” he pointed out, teasing her despite himself. It was second nature, a part of what he’d always done to her, with her. It was also going to get him in deeper water, but then, with Shay, he was damn near always drowning anyway. “I said we, not I, and I was only making a point and you know it.”
“Anger works like alcohol on you,” he said. “It makes you say what you really feel. And anger, directed at me, makes you do things you normally wouldn’t do. Not only were you giving Rick my shirt, you were alone with him in a bedroom at your conservative parents’ house. That’s not you and you know it.”
Her eyes flashed. “How would you know what is or isn’t me, Caleb?” She poked his chest, her body barely a hairbreadth from his. “The few times you came into town over the past ten years, we both hoped we’d have outgrown the past. When we hadn’t, instead of dealing with it and talking to me, you avoided me like the plague. Like that somehow made it all go away, but really it was just you that went away. Well, it’s not going to work now that you’re home, Caleb. Kent, Mom and Dad are going to start asking questions about the tension between us.”
Her eyes pierced his, her glare packed with challenge. “And you know what else isn’t working? You pretending that dumb ten-year-old kiss didn’t happen, and then looking at me like you want to kiss me again. It’s ticking me off.” She poked his chest again. “Bad.”
He wanted to drag her into his arms, every nerve ending in his body aware of her, aware of how long they’d wanted each other, how long they’d denied that need. “I’m not trying to piss you off, Shay.”
“Too late,” she declared, a tiny lift to her pointed chin, which indicated confrontation, but her hand uncurled beneath his hold and flattened against his. Her voice softened. “Sometimes I just think…maybe…we’re like the apple to Adam and Eve. It was just an apple, but the forbidden aspect made it tantalizing. Maybe if we kiss again, we’ll find that the first kiss has been blown into something bigger and better than it really was. Maybe then we can just move on.”
Whoa. She thought that kiss—the one that had kept him fantasizing for ten flipping years—wasn’t as good as they remembered? He must be insane, because the idea wasn’t half-bad. He wanted the kiss to be nothing. He wanted the torment of wanting the forbidden fruit to be gone. Then again, a part of him didn’t want it gone. It simply wanted her without recourse. Which was impossible.
“It won’t work,” he said, slipping away from her as if burned. Shay was leaning slightly in his direction, and the action caught her off guard. She swayed into him, her slender body melting against his. She gasped and caught herself with her hands, no doubt a result of her hips pressed against his. He was hard, thick and pulsing with ache. He had been from the moment he’d drawn that first breath of her scent.
His hands went to her shoulders, and Caleb’s eyes locked with hers. She wet her lips—nervously, not seductively—but the impact was no less alluring. No less tempting. Suddenly, the kiss held new appeal.
Caleb slid his hands over her shoulders toward her neck, and she shivered beneath his touch. It was the first time he’d ever allowed himself to touch her like a man touches a woman.
“Shay,” he said softly, lacing his fingers into the wild mane of blond, pool-tangled locks that framed her heart-shaped face.
She lifted on her toes, closing the distance between her petite five foot two inches and his six-foot frame, bringing their lips close, a breath apart. He could all but taste her. He was going to taste her. Again. Finally.
Until abruptly, a fist pounded on the door behind Caleb. “Shay?” Kent’s voice called. “Caleb? You in there? What happened to Rick?”
Caleb reined himself into control instantly, Kent’s voice a much-needed cold dose of reality.
Shay’s hands went to Caleb’s wrists. “No,” she whispered. “Not again.” She raised her voice. “Go away, Kent!”
“Not until I find out why Rick peeled out of the driveway and won’t answer his cell phone.”
“No,” she said to Caleb. “Not this time. Not until we finish this once and for all.”
“Finish what?” Kent demanded through the door.
Shay growled low in her throat, like only a sister can at her brother. “Fighting! We’re fighting.”
“If you don’t open the door,” Kent warned, “you can add me to the battleground.”
Any minute now, Kent was going to get impatient and reach for the doorknob, which wasn’t locked. Caleb reached for Shay and pressed his lips to her ear, trying not to think about her body next to his. “You aren’t going to wake up and find out I left tomorrow,” he promised. “I’m staying.” What that meant for Shay and him, he didn’t know, but whatever it was, they had to deal with it, once and for all. Just not now.
He set her back from him before she knew what he was doing and turned the doorknob, allowing Kent’s entry. Kent was inside in a heartbeat, and like the previous time ten years ago, Kent’s timing had been perfect. He’d once again saved Caleb from a grave mistake. Had Caleb kissed Shay again, he had no doubt it wouldn’t have stopped there. Not this time. He wanted her too badly, and Caleb was smart enough to know the line between lovers and enemies was too fine to walk with Shay.
No matter how good she felt, no matter how good she smelled, Shay wasn’t the woman for him…no matter how much she always seemed to be that and more.
4
“LET THE TALKING BEGIN,” Kent declared, taking up way too much space in Shay’s bedroom as far as she was concerned. “What the heck happened to Rick?” he demanded.
With her breath lodged in her throat, Shay’s eyes locked on Caleb’s face. Her skin was still hot from his touch. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was leaning against the wall, arms in front of his chest, focused on Kent.
“Rick had not only found his way into Shay’s bedroom,” Caleb said, “he was on her bed.”
“Caleb, damn it!” she exclaimed. He was trying to draw attention away from the two of them by turning the heat on Rick.
“What?” Kent said, whipping around to Shay. “I thought Rick had more class than that. I might have to kill Rick. And you, Shay. Do you know how upset Mom and Dad would have been if they’d found you in here with him?”
“Oh, good grief,” she said, cutting Caleb a hard look. “You two talk this out. I’m going to gather everyone for gifts and cake.”
“You come back here!” Kent yelled.
Shay kept walking, but she still heard Kent mumble, “When I told Rick there was no time like the present, I didn’t know he was going to try right here and now.”
That drew Shay to a halt. She wasn’t going to let Rick’s friendship with Kent suffer because of her and Caleb. She started to turn, when she heard Caleb say, “It wasn’t like that. Shay was just getting Rick a shirt, but I sent him home before I knew what was going on.”
Despite her frustration, which was part emotional, part sexual, Shay felt her lips lift ever so slightly. There was a reason her family had taken Caleb in. He was a man of honor, a born gentleman. She sighed heavily, her breath shuddering from her lungs. Being with her would defy everything he believed in, everything he felt was right. To him, she really was that damned forbidden apple. She didn’t want to lose the garden for the fruit any more than he did, but just when he was back—to stay this time—it seemed so was the temptation to see if they could have both.
AN HOUR LATER, filled with cake and cheer, a good twenty-five guests—family, friends and neighbors—gathered poolside as Sharon and Bob opened gifts.
All too aware of Caleb sitting not far away in an outdoor chair with a beer in hand he’d hardly touched, Shay stood behind her parents, gathering wrapping paper as it was ripped away and organizing packages.
Shay chuckled as her father, a UT Longhorns season-ticket holder, unwrapped his-and-hers Texas Aggie shirts from a former coworker. The principal of the school where her mother had taught for twenty years gave Shay’s father a huge supply of coffee. Knowing how cranky Sharon was without her morning caffeine, it was a gift meant to ensure another happy forty years.
One of the final packages was a large envelope from Caleb. Shay stared at it curiously and, unable to stop herself, cast him a questioning look. He simply smiled and sipped his beer.
“From Caleb,” Shay said, handing it to her parents, and looked over her mother’s shoulder as the envelope was unsealed. Shay gasped at the same moment her mother did…at the airline tickets and hotel vouchers for a second honeymoon.
“Italy?” Shay silently mouthed to Caleb.
“It’s a trip to Italy!” Sharon said to the crowd, who gasped, oohed and aahed. “I’ve always wanted to go to Italy.”
“I remember you saying that every time we went to Olive Garden,” Caleb teased.
Everyone laughed. Sharon blushed. “It’s because they send their chefs to Italy to train. It’s so exciting. The idea of being sent to school in Italy. It makes me want a second career as a chef.”
“You can take a class while you’re there,” Caleb suggested.
Sharon’s eyes lit up before she shook her head. “We can’t accept this, Caleb. No. It’s too extravagant. What about that business you started, the Hotzone?”
“I took several lump-sum, reenlistment bonuses and bought some lucky stock. Enough to leave the Army when the time was right to open the Hotzone. And I set the money aside for your fortieth anniversary years ago.”
Kent eyed a brochure for the villa Caleb had rented for his parents. “What the heck kind of stock did you buy, man, and can I get some?”
Caleb leaned back in his chair and set his beer on the ground. “Apple before the Mac craze,” he said nonchalantly, as if it weren’t a big deal. “I bought in at the right time and stayed in.”
“No way,” Kent and Bob said in unison. Kent quickly added, “That kind of stuff never happens to me. How much did you net?”
“Kent,” Sharon reprimanded sharply, “that’s rude. We have company.”
“Right,” Kent said, elbowing Caleb. “Tell me later.”
Caleb laughed and slipped one arm up on the back of his chair, his focus on Sharon and Bob. “This trip is the least I can do to thank you guys, considering you put up with me for so many years.”
Shay’s heart squeezed at the sweetness of the words that she knew reached deep beyond the gift, into Caleb’s soul. She’d never wanted him more than in that moment. And she’d never known just how wrong it was to pursue her interest in him, either. The idea that she’d kept Caleb away from all of this was hard to swallow. But when they were together, things like what happened in that bedroom always happened. The crackling intensity between them had gradually become more like firecrackers than sparklers.
