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“I meant that in the nicest way possible.”
“Uh-huh.” She opened her biscuit and spread butter on each half. “These are my favorite. Along with, you know, the fancy wine. The casserole is good, too.”
“There are cookies in the freezer. We can defrost them after dinner if you’d like.”
She winced. “I put on weight pretty easily. I should probably pass on the cookies.”
He started to say she looked good to him but stopped himself. Under their present circumstances, that might be best left unsaid, even though it was true.
Natalie was petite, with plenty of curves. She had the energy of a person four times her size, with an easy smile. He meant what he said—he always liked it when she was in the studio. She was a balancing force for his demons.
“You might be stuck for a couple of days,” he said instead. “We can save the cookies for another time.”
“Tempting me with bakery goods. I never would have guessed.”
Her eyes were big and brown, half-hidden behind her glasses, but still expressive. He realized he didn’t know anything about her, other than the fact that she’d started working at the gallery two years before.
“Where did you move from?” he asked.
“When I came here? Sacramento.”
“What made you move?”
Her expression was quizzical. “You don’t know?”
He shook his head.
“I thought everyone had heard my sad little story.” She smiled. “I was practically stood up at the altar.”
What? He hadn’t expected that. “You don’t seem upset.”
“It was a while ago and probably for the best. My mom warned me I came from a long line of women who were not lucky in love. I didn’t want to believe her, but I guess it’s true.” She sipped her wine. “Back in Sacramento, I was trying to make it as an artist and failing, so I took an office job and through that I met this guy—Quentin Jones.”
She paused dramatically and sighed. “He was very handsome and smooth. Just supercharming.”
Ronan felt a twinge of something he couldn’t name but he sure didn’t like how it felt. “And?”
“And we started going out. His family owned a couple of car dealerships. One in Sacramento and one in San Diego. I met his parents and they were so nice.” She looked at him. “I liked being a part of a family after losing my mom. When he proposed, I knew it was going to be wonderful. We had a plan. He was going to take over the San Diego dealership and I would run the front office. We’d get a little place of our own.”
Her voice sounded regretful.
“What about your art?” he asked. There was no way Natalie belonged in an office—not full-time. She was meant to be wild and creative, not cooped up.
“I thought being in love was more important, I guess. I’m not sure. When I was with Quentin, my art didn’t seem that important.” She frowned. “He wasn’t exactly encouraging about it, which I didn’t realize until later. Anyway, we planned our wedding here, in Happily Inc. A destination wedding with a princess theme.” She laughed. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You’d make a very beautiful princess.”
“Thank you. I like to think so but one never knows. I sold pretty much everything I owned, packed up my clothes and drove to town to get ready for the wedding. Three days before the big event, Quentin called and broke up with me. He said he wasn’t sure anymore and his parents had never liked me and it wasn’t going to work.”
Ronan hadn’t expected a happy ending to her story—he knew Natalie wasn’t married—but he hadn’t expected that.
“He dumped you over the phone? What a jerk. Did he help cancel the wedding?” He held up a hand. “Never mind. I know the answer.”
Her mouth twisted. “Yeah, not so much with the cleanup. I was stuck doing everything and paying for most of it. It took me a full day to grasp what had happened. Then I had to scramble. What I hadn’t expected was how nice everyone was. Pallas only charged me her expenses to date at Weddings Out of the Box. In fact, everyone did that. I had to pay maybe thirty percent of what I owed, but it was still a lot. It wiped out my savings and left me with some credit card debt.” She sipped more wine. “A lot of credit card debt. But I was so surprised by how supportive everyone had been that I decided to just stay put until I figured out what I wanted to do next. Then I found the job with Atsuko at the gallery and a little apartment and here we are.”
He felt an odd flush of pride that his adopted town had come through for her, along with a very understandable need to find the ex-fiancé and smash in his face. Maybe he would take one of his brothers along so they could do a good job of teaching the asshole a lesson.
Natalie leaned toward him. “I’m fine and you’re sweet to be protective.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. You looked all mean and scrunchy. Thank you.”
Scrunchy?
“I know,” she told him. “Not an expected compliment, but I mean it that way, all the same. Once I settled in Happily Inc, I realized that I had found here what I’d been looking for with Quentin.” She lowered her voice. “Family. If you don’t have one, you make one. At least, that’s what I learned. I have friends and my art and there are giraffes at the animal preserve just outside of town, which you know because your sister-in-law is the curator.” She shook her head. “Is that the right word?”
“I’m not sure someone can curate giraffes. At least not legally.”
She giggled. “Oh, wow, the wine is so going to my head.”
It had been a quarter of a glass. “I’m glad you’re not driving.”
“That would take a car.” She did a little dance in her seat. “I’m getting a red car. I can’t wait.”
“You have other criteria, don’t you? Other than the color?”
“No.” She sighed. “Okay, fine, yes, safety, but red. Red, red, red.”
“I’m going with you,” he muttered. “You aren’t allowed to go on a car lot alone.”
“Mr. Bossy Pants. Just like I said. Do you have any kids?”
He’d been swallowing and nearly choked on a piece of chicken. “No. Why do you ask?”
She drank more wine. “Kids are great. The unlucky-in-love thing is a serious drag, but just because I can’t have romantic love doesn’t mean I can’t have children, right?”
He cleared his throat against an imaginary tight collar. Somehow the conversation had gone in a direction he hadn’t expected. “Ah, sure.”
“Your family is pretty healthy. There aren’t any big diseases in every generation, are there?”
The question touched a sore spot, but Ronan kept his face emotionless. “Not as far as I know.”
How could he know?
“You’re athletic—I’ve seen that. Did you do well in school?”
“I guess. Math was easy. I didn’t love history. Why are you asking all these questions?”
“Practice.” She reached for her wineglass, then put it down. “Can you keep a secret?”
He could but he had a bad feeling that, in this case, he didn’t want to. But instead of saying no, like a man with a working brain, he found himself nodding.
“I have a new app.”
Not the secret he would have expected. “Congratulations.”
She giggled again. “No. That’s not the secret. It’s what the app is for. It’s called Baby Daddy.” She frowned. “Or maybe Daddy Baby. I can’t remember. It’s for finding a sperm donor. You know, so I can have a baby.”
He was on his feet before he realized he was moving. “Are you—”
“Asking you?” She wiggled her eyebrows. “No. You can sit down. The app comes with a list of questions and I was trying out a few. Don’t panic. I’m sure you have great sperm but you can keep it to yourself. Or not. I mean, I don’t need it. Or them. I don’t need a donation.”
He lowered himself back onto his chair. “No more wine for you.”
“MBP,” she whispered.
It took him a second to realize she meant Mr. Bossy Pants. Well, hell.
* * *
BY MIDNIGHT NATALIE was sober, slightly chagrined and wide-awake. It made sense that half a glass of wine would metabolize quickly and she’d always been a night owl. Working a job with traditional hours had been a challenge. Given the choice, she would be up all night. She loved to create when the rest of the world was asleep. The quiet, the darkness, seemed to fuel her creativity. As for chagrined, well, she had no one but herself to blame.
In retrospect, she had to admit that maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to test her find-a-sperm-donor app on Ronan, only she’d just downloaded it the day before and she was curious about how it worked. There were tons of questions—she’d barely started with Ronan and now she doubted he would be willing to answer any more.
Not that she wanted him to donate sperm. Sure, he was good-looking and smart and gifted and funny—in fact, nearly everything she would want in the father of her child. But he was someone she worked with and kind of knew. Having his baby would be awkward, to say the least. No, if she went the baby daddy sperm donor app route, she was hooking up with a stranger.
She paused on the landing outside her bedroom. Not hooking up, she corrected. Making medical arrangements with. She had no interest in sex with a stranger.
The house was dark and quiet. She could hear rain and wind outside, but with the thick stone walls, the weather seemed to be at a safe distance. She was itching to work—her fingers practically trembled with the need to do something, only she didn’t have any supplies with her. Just her usual stash of origami paper and she’d already left little animals, flowers and shapes all over the house. She wasn’t in the mood for TV, so maybe she should try reading. There was a whole library of books in Ronan’s office. She would creep downstairs, collect one and return to her bedroom to wait for elusive sleep.
She grabbed the waistband of the baggy sweatpants—she’d hung up her dress for the night—and tiptoed down the staircase. When she reached the foyer, she paused to get her bearings in the dark, turned toward what she assumed was the hallway and ran smack into something big, solid and warm.
She screamed and the big, solid, warm thing grabbed her arms.
“It’s me,” Ronan said in the dark. He released her and clicked on a light. “You okay?”
She blinked in the sudden brightness. Ronan had changed his clothes, or pulled on new ones. He wore jeans and a sweatshirt. They were both barefoot, which felt oddly intimate or weird, depending on one’s perspective.
“Did I wake you?” she asked. “I was trying to be quiet. I wanted to get a book.”
“Can’t sleep?”
“I’m a night owl.”
“Me, too.”
He gave her a slow smile. It was one she hadn’t seen before, or if she had, she hadn’t been paying attention. Or maybe it was different because of the time of night. Regardless, the curve of his mouth was unbelievably sexy and totally caught her off guard. She suddenly felt breathless and young and intensely aware of the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
He pointed down the hall. “Go find a book. I’ll make us hot chocolate and maybe that will help you sleep.”
“I, ah, thank you. Hot chocolate would be nice.” She wanted to say something to make that smile return, but honestly, her mind was totally blank, so she headed down the hall, only to stumble when she stepped onto the rug, which was just so typical.
Ten minutes later, book in hand, she walked into the kitchen. Ronan had a small pot on the stove and two mugs on the island. There was a blue oval tin, trimmed in gold, sitting on the counter.
“What did you pick?” he asked as she settled on one of the stools.
She waved a hardcover thriller. “Nazis, missing gold treasure and genetically modified twins. I’m not sure it can get better than that.”
He chuckled. “You have unexpected reading tastes.”
“Given my choice, I would much rather sink into a steamy romance novel, but you don’t seem to have any of those on your bookshelves.”
“My apologies. I’ll order several first thing in the morning.”
“I doubt that, but thank you for offering.” She pointed to the tin. “First, let me say how impressed I am that you have hot chocolate in your house.”
“I don’t have it often, but every now and then you gotta indulge.” He measured out several tablespoons of the dark powder, then handed her the container. “It’s my favorite. It’s German, from a little shop in what was East Berlin.”
She studied the label and tried not to laugh. “And they ship it to you?”
“Not just me. They’ll ship to anyone.”
“Uh-huh. You can’t just get the stuff from the grocery store like everybody else?”
“It’s an indulgence. Why not have what I really want?”
A philosophy she planned to emulate just as soon as she had an extra nickel or so, she promised herself. For now, her indulgences were things like meat and paying her light bill.
He stirred the powder into the milk for nearly a minute, then filled each of the mugs. He pulled one of those whipped cream spray cans from the refrigerator and added a generous dollop to the mugs before handing her one. She inhaled the scent of sweet chocolate and nearly moaned.
“You do know how to treat a girl,” she said before taking a sip.
Not moaning became even harder. The drink was smooth and sweet, without being too sweet. The chocolate flavor indulged her senses, especially her taste buds.
“This is so good it’s dangerous.”
Ronan settled next to her and grinned. “Women and chocolate.”
“It’s a thing. We can’t help it.” She took another drink and sighed. “Oh, man, I could get used to this and I bet it has like a billion calories. Does it?” She held up a hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“I’ll send you home with the can.”
“Thanks, but don’t you dare. I’m short and curvy. I told you, weight finds me much more easily than it does my leggy friends. I try not to be bitter, but sometimes I can’t help myself. And don’t say you understand. You’re a guy and you have a job that’s physical. You can eat the entire grocery store and not gain a pound, which annoys me and I don’t want to talk about it.”
He studied her for a second, then smiled again. “I see the late hour doesn’t make you any less feisty.”
Feisty? He thought she was feisty? That was very close to sexy. She told herself not to think about her braless state. She was wearing an incredibly baggy sweatshirt. He would never notice. Still, it was nice to pretend, even for a second. Although after the conversation they’d had at dinner, he would probably be terrified if she made the slightest move. Speaking of which...
