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Their great-aunt waved a papery hand, her focus on the passing houses more than on the fight Maeve had picked with him the moment she’d slid into the backseat.
“You think I like this? That I enjoy always being the heavy? Come on, Maeve. If I don’t tell Erin to turn her head on and open her eyes about this guy then who the hell will? You? Beth? Carla? I don’t think so. You girls are so caught up in all the romance B.S. you don’t even register the impracticality of a guy who literally weaves baskets for a living.”
“He’s an artist,” she sniped back.
“Oh, he is. Everyone was talking about how beautiful his work was at the Acres.”
The seniors’ living facility where his latest works were on sale.
Maeve’s eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms over her chest. “It doesn’t matter what he does, Garrett. Erin loves him.”
At his scoff, she grumbled from the back, “And to think I’d been looking forward to seeing you. Where have you been anyway?”
He made some noise about work and scowled at the road ahead, not wanting to get into it. But Maeve was … Maeve.
“Cripes, it’s either feast or famine with you. Years of you only pulling your head out of your business and books long enough to bitch about whatever we’re doing wrong, and then suddenly you’re like a plague. Everywhere.” Her eyes rolled as she let out a dramatic huff. “And just when I start thinking it was kind of fun having you around, you drop off the face of the earth again.”
Teeth gritting down, he glanced in the mirror at her. “You’ve managed fine in the past.”
“Yeah, but I always had Nichole around. And she’s been suspiciously absent these last couple weeks. Tired. Busy. Working late.”
Garrett’s hands tightened on the wheel as the implication hung in the air.
Damn it.
“Anything you want to own up to?”
Not even close. “No.”
The silence stretched between them until finally he shot a demanding look into the rearview mirror. “What?” “I thought you liked her.”
“I do.” More than he should, considering what he had to offer.
“You know, Garrett, I’ve always wanted a sister.” Wonderful. And now she was playing with him for sport. Because that was what demon sisters did.
Breathe. Don’t start looking for a ditch. “You have three.”
“But not a little sister. You know Nikki is two months younger than I am?”
“It’s not like that, Maeve.”
Gloria’s frail hand reached up through the seats to pinch his cheek. “It’s wonderful, dear. All your wild-oat sowing has to stop sometime. Nikki’s a darling girl.”
Another reminder that Nichole was in with his entire family. Including his great-aunt.
“It’s not like that,” he said again, though why he bothered he had no idea.
“So what’s it like, then, Big Brother?”
Did he really want to have this conversation? Only a glance into the back showed that both women, despite their respective teasing and maternal pats, were intent on getting the scoop. And maybe saying it out loud would help it finally sink in.
“I don’t want to marry her.”
Maeve barked out an indignant cough. “Geez, I didn’t realize she’d asked.”
Snide. Nice.
“She didn’t. Obviously. But—” Damn it, he’d wanted to get that critical tidbit out first, because it seemed important. But the way it landed he sounded like an ass. For more than one reason. Cue the clarifications. “I’m just trying to explain. It isn’t because she isn’t good enough. She is. I mean, I can’t believe either of those schmucks she was engaged to let her get away. Any guy would be lucky to have her. Trust me when I tell you I want to have her. Just not in the way she deserves.”
“It’s okay,” Maeve offered from the backseat. “You’ve had an overfull plate for a long time. And after Mom and Dad you have a hard time letting people in. Getting close. You aren’t ready to think about marriage yet.”
He bristled, not for the first time cursing Maeve’s freshman-year psychology class.
It wasn’t about letting people get close. Or what had happened with his parents.
True, he didn’t have a lot of people outside Jesse and his sisters he shared much of a bond with. But that had more to do with what his life had been like these last years than any avoidance on his part. And the connection with Nichole had been immediate. She was the person he’d become most comfortable talking to.
It was about things like this damn recurring conversation about Erin’s boyfriend. He’d been playing the “hard-ass” and making tough calls for over half his life already, and what he wanted out of a relationship was something where those kinds of responsibilities didn’t apply. Where the consequences of his actions and choices didn’t impact the rest of another person’s life.
Hell, just thinking about it had the muscles in his gut starting to knot.
“It’s not just yet. I don’t know if I’m going to want it ever. Which makes me a bum deal for a woman with ‘someday’ in mind.” His fingers tightened around the wheel. “Nichole’s been engaged twice. She’s a woman with a white picket fence dream just waiting to be realized.”
Maeve sat back in her seat, arms crossed in a contemplative pose. “I don’t know, Garrett. Yeah, she’s going to want to get married eventually. But I think for now Nikki just needs to learn how to have a little fun again. And from what I hear … you’re a pretty fun guy.”
He let out a humorless laugh, not feeling like much fun at all. “But not the guy for Nichole.”
They’d decided already. They weren’t going to pursue it. And the problem wasn’t just an off alignment of goals … it was also the little lady sitting in the seat behind him. It was the strings.
Maeve’s lips pursed as she stared him down.
“And you’re cool with that?”
“Yep.” No. But he’d get there.
“Just as well. There are a lot of fun guys out there. And her dance card is filling up anyway.”
Sure … right … wait—”What?”
Only Maeve seemed to have lost interest in him and turned to Gloria.
“So, yesterday two guys from her office asked her out. Within an hour of each other …”
Of course they had. Because she was gorgeous. And she’d probably had that smile going—the one that stuck with a guy for days after he’d seen it. The kind of smile that made a guy want to get to the bottom of what exactly put it there and make sure—
“And you know Nikki—she’s always with the flat-out forget it, but in that really smooth way she’s got. Probably because she doesn’t even realize it’s going on most of the time. But this time—”
A horn blared and Garrett jerked the wheel. Hell.
“Geez, Garrett. Take it easy. Precious cargo back here.”
“Sorry, girls.” He needed to get his head together. But, damn, Maeve needed to knock off the dish … or get to the point a hell of a lot faster.
Only now his great-aunt Gloria was tapping at the window. “Oh, would you look at this house?”
Maeve nodded her approval. “I love the landscaping.”
Garrett did a mental ten count, willing his heart rate to slow, his blood to cool. There was no way Maeve was going to leave them hanging, was there? And even if she’d seriously lost her train of thought how was it his aunt wasn’t demanding resolution?
“My roses never bloom like that. I’ve added eggshells, coffee grounds.”
“Maybe it’s got to do with the sun or how much water they get.”
“Nichole,” Garrett barked out, fast on his way to losing his cool. “What did she do?”
Silence from the back of the car. He checked the mirror and found both Maeve and Gloria staring at him. One looking quietly amused, the other looking … satisfied.
“What did she do when, Garrett?”
Molars grinding down, he shot a look at his baby sister he hadn’t been forced to use since she was sixteen. A look that seemed to have lost its mojo, based on the way she crossed her arms and jutted her chin at him.
“You mean with all the guys asking her out?”
Now it was all the guys? The steering wheel creaked within his grasp and he forced his grip looser. “Yes.”
Maeve checked her nails. “She hadn’t decided when I talked to her. But she did say a date might be just the distraction she needed.”
The car slammed to a stop and he stared out the windshield at his sister’s driveway. The front door opened and relatives streamed out to greet them, but Garrett just cranked around in his seat. “A distraction?”
Maeve blanched, leaning back in her seat as Gloria shuffled out of the car.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean it … however it is you’re taking it.”
Except Garrett was damn sure she did. Which meant she was still as hung up as he was.
And she was about to look to another guy to distract her.
“Out of the car, Maeve.”
CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_3ca0c62b-0d91-5bb3-9e95-ead477aa9e98)
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK. Knock, knock.
Nichole swallowed hard, her heart beating like the fist at her door.
Garrett.
Maeve’s single cryptic text had been the only warning. No explanation of what he wanted. No response when she’d texted back. And now, after two weeks of avoiding him, of lying awake at night thinking about the hard crush of his mouth and the low rumble of his voice, of telling herself just a few more days and she’d get past this physio-emotional chaos she’d never expected herself to be a part of, he was here.
She didn’t have to answer. She could walk back to her room. Turn out the lights and lie in bed until the sun came up the next day. It didn’t matter that Garrett had seen the light in her windows and knew she was home. It wasn’t as though he wouldn’t understand what she was doing. He might not even blame her.
So why wasn’t she turning around and walking back down the hall? Why wasn’t she flipping off the lights and climbing into her bed alone?
Because it would be rude? Because he’d spent the last forty minutes driving back from a family party he hadn’t even made it inside for to see her? Because maybe they needed to talk around an issue they’d already beaten to death?
No.
The answer lay in the nervous flutter deep in her belly. In the almost painful thump of her heart. In the eager ache that had permeated her body as a whole.
She wanted him.
Like she couldn’t remember wanting anything before.
Fingers trembling, she reached for the door. Felt the pull of him like a loose charge in the air even as she grounded herself against the knob. And then the door was swinging open and there was Garrett with those deep blue whirlpool eyes coming up to meet hers as his lips slanted into a grin.
This was such a mistake.
One solid arm was braced against the frame above her head as he reached for the back of her neck and leaned in, stopping only a breath away. “I hear you need a distraction.”
Ah-ha.
Now she understood. Maeve had repeated something only Garrett could fully understand. And he hadn’t liked what he’d heard.
Heat rushed her cheeks and, wetting her lips, she tried to think of something to say. Only the rough growl of approval as his eyes followed the movement blanked her mind of anything beyond how glad she was to see him … and how wrong that was.
She looked up into his eyes. “I keep thinking about you.”
A nod. She could feel his breath swirling over the side of her face. “Same here.”
“I thought—” She swallowed, tried not to lean into all the heat of a body too close to ignore. “Giving someone else a chance might help.”
The fingers at the back of her neck stroked, soft and gentle. “So you’ve got a date?”
And yet there was no mistaking the firm hold for anything but the possessive claim it was.
“No. I backed out.” It wouldn’t be fair to go out with one man solely in the hopes of his distracting her from another. Especially when the likelihood of it working was so slim.
“Good.”
God, those eyes. The feel of him so close. Her body hummed in response to his proximity. What were they going to do about this?
“So I’ve got an idea.”
Nichole nodded. She was starting to get an idea as well. One night. The night they never should have left unfinished all those weeks ago. Finally out of their systems. And then they’d never get within fifty feet of each other again. It wouldn’t interfere with her relationship with Maeve. It wouldn’t threaten anything.
“I like it,” she murmured, pressing her palms into the broad chest too temptingly close to ignore.
Garrett let out a gruff laugh, then tipped her head back to bring her attention up to his eyes. “I’m glad. But how about you hear it first, then agree?”
