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Helen shook her head. “Run along.” She resumed her potato peeling. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
FEELING SORELY out of sorts, Zach settled into the driver’s seat of his car and drove around to the McCormick’s home. Mayor Chadwick had mentioned inviting Beth to this dinner meeting. Since her car was still here it seemed reasonable that she hadn’t left yet. It also seemed reasonable for them to ride together. No point in driving two vehicles. It was definitely more economical to ride together, he concluded. And the time would give them a chance to discuss what was going on between their mothers.
As if either one of those excuses was his real motivation.
The truth was, he wanted to have a few minutes alone with her. It was that simple, and at the same time too complicated for him to understand completely.
Shutting off the engine, he pushed that admission away. It wouldn’t be neighborly of him not to ask her if she wanted a ride. Zach smiled as he got out of the car and started for the door. That’s right. This wasn’t the city. People still went out of their way to help their neighbor down here. His gesture wouldn’t be perceived as anything else. He certainly didn’t want Beth to get the wrong idea.
Not that he had the right idea. He had no clue what was going on inside his head. His emotions were in a turmoil—as much from his mother’s odd behavior as from his own. The whole situation was confusing. The one thing he was clear on was that his mother needed him, and he had to put all else aside. Especially these crazy urges where Beth was concerned.
Zach paused at the cottage’s weathered door. He studied the arched portal, and then the ivy covered rock that surrounded it. The place had always seemed magical to him. Beth’s father had been a wizard with plants and flowers. Her mother was always stirring something in a big pot and making the best cookies in the world. And Beth…well she was like the fairy princess who lived in the cottage. Who rehearsed her pirouettes in the moonlight and somehow appeared wherever he was by daylight. Whether he was practicing football or writing a history paper, she was there asking questions, trying to help, distracting him, making him laugh. Making him love her.
You do not want to go there, he reminded himself.
Shaking off the past, Zach raised his fist to knock at the same time the door opened.
Beth made a little sound of surprise and pressed her hand to her throat. “Oh. Hello, Zach,” she said in that throaty voice that reminded him all too much of just how grown-up little Beth was now.
Unable to check the impulse, his gaze immediately swept the rest of her and his heart rate reacted accordingly. The dress was a soft yellow, not too short, just a few inches above the knee, not exactly form-fitting, but not loose either. The neck didn’t scoop nearly low enough. All in all it was just a plain dress designed for comfort. But it was perfect and sexy as hell on her. The color contrasted the fresh, healthy glow of her skin. The lack of makeup and the fall of her silky hair around her smooth cheeks made her look twenty-one instead of thirty-one.
Beth McCormick was beautiful.
He experienced the sudden, almost overpowering, urge to touch her. He immediately tucked his hands into his trouser pockets, nipping the impulse to reach out to her in the bud before it blossomed and embarrassed them both.
“Chadwick told me he’d called you,” Zach said, thrusting his emotions to the back of his mind much the same way he did in the courtroom or in a tense negotiation. “I thought we could ride together.”
Those dark eyes widened and she looked on the verge of turning him down. In fact, he decided, on further consideration of her expression, she looked stricken.
“Come on, Beth,” he coaxed. “I don’t bite. It’s only a ride into town.”
She still didn’t look convinced. Irritation trickled through him, dominating the good sense he’d intended to maintain in her presence. What was the deal here? What did she think he was? The big bad wolf? She never used to be afraid of him. Maybe she was still mad at him for turning her down all those years ago. If she only knew just how much he’d wanted to…
“I planned to drive myself,” she announced, squaring her shoulders and looking straight at him now with no fear or reservation.
He let go a put-upon sigh. It didn’t have to be this way. “Look.” He searched her eyes, determined to sway her decision. “Let’s not make this about the past. We’re both adults now.”
Something shifted in her dark eyes. Some barely perceptible something he couldn’t quite read.
“You’re right,” she said, stepping across the threshold and into the tiny space between him and the door. She closed it behind her and stared directly into his eyes, her own glittering with annoyance she made no effort to conceal now. “I’m glad you finally noticed.”
With that crisp remark, she sidestepped and brushed past him, the brief contact making his body tighten, and leaving the vaguest scent of roses.
Perplexed, Zach did an about-face, angled his head and watched her stride toward his car. Those long legs covered the distance in no time at all, but not quickly enough to prevent the gentle sway of her hips from doing strange things to his ability to breathe.
Oh, yes. She was definitely all grown up now.
But she was still Beth, and he had to remember that. She wasn’t like the women he usually dated. Beth was a forever kind of girl. He frowned at the thought of the ex-husband he’d never even officially met. But Zach didn’t have to meet him to know he didn’t like him. Anyone who had hurt Beth was his enemy.
Zach clenched his jaw and strode to the car where Beth waited. No matter how much he was attracted to her, he would never, ever take advantage of her. Beth meant too much to him. Even if a misguided need for revenge or an urge to prove she could seduce him started her thinking along those lines, he would not allow it to happen. He almost laughed at that. Wishful thinking on his part. There was no denying what he still felt. But…he would protect her just like he always had.
He would protect her from him.
“A PARADE?” Beth repeated, certain she couldn’t have heard the mayor right. Mrs. Ashton’s birthday celebration was turning into a three-ring circus.
“Yes,” Chadwick enthused. “Why Ms. Colleen is our most distinguished citizen. This momentous occasion simply demands that we pull out all the stops.”
“We want to make an official presentation, too,” Harve Baker, deputy mayor, added. “Like the keys to the city, only better.”
“You’re sure that’s not a bit much?” Zach suggested, speaking for the first time since the group had exchanged greetings and settled down to talk business.
Beth darted a stealthy look in his direction. She’d made sure when she arrived that she sat where he couldn’t end up next to her. With the table full, Zach had slid into a nearby booth opposite the mayor. Reclining against the wall so as to face those seated at the table, Zach looked relaxed and too darned good-looking. The light blue shirt set off the sky-blue of his eyes. The fit of those navy slacks displayed the best male buns she’d ever seen, and, as a doctor, she’d seen a few.
“I don’t think so at all,” Viola, the only female member of the council, piped up. “We did the same thing for Bert Sacks after he got himself on the Letterman show. Why shouldn’t we do it for Colleen?”
Beth struggled not to groan. She remembered all too well the parade for Bert. The only celebrity in town. Too bad his ticket to fame had been a musical cow. Though she hadn’t lived here at the time, Beth had come home for a weekend visit to find the whole town celebrating Bert’s claim to fame. She’d almost turned around and driven right back to Indianapolis. But she’d needed a break, more to escape her disintegrating relationship than to get away from work. The marriage had been doomed from the beginning.
She shifted in her chrome and red vinyl chair. She was getting off track. Beth shoved thoughts of Matt and divorce from her mind. She didn’t have time to think about men, past or present, right now.
“Well, see here, Viola,” the mayor was saying. “We certainly intend to do right by Ms. Colleen. Her parade will be every bit as big as Bert’s was.”
Viola and the other members of the council made agreeable sounds. Beth cringed. The school band, the Girl Scouts, the local civic clubs—everyone would get into the act. Anyone who’d ever been voted for and won anything in this town, from Miss Valentine to top hog caller, would want a place in line. Beth pressed her fingers to her temples and wished she were anywhere but here.
“You’d be good at that, don’t you think, Beth?” Viola asked.
Startled at hearing her name, Beth jerked to attention. Heat warmed her cheeks. No way was she going to allow anyone—specifically Zach—to know she hadn’t been paying attention. “Oh, sure,” Beth agreed with no clue to what the woman had said. “That sounds great.”
He was watching her, she realized, tensing instantly. The beginnings of a smile played at the corners of his mouth, drawing her attention there…making her want to taste those full lips.
“Heads up,” a crisp feminine voice warned.
Beth snapped from the forbidden fantasy. The waitress was circling the table, plates balanced in both hands. Beth silently railed at herself. She had to pull herself together here. She couldn’t keep acting like she was seventeen all over again. She had this community event to plan. And, more important, she had to find some way to get the truth out of her mother.
A white stoneware plate laden with glistening green beans and chicken-fried steak accompanied by creamed potatoes dark with thick gravy was plopped down before her. Beth felt the arteries of her heart narrowing already. She glanced around the table and wondered if she was the only one concerned with living a little longer. When her gaze collided with Zach’s, he was still watching her, those blue eyes expectant and somehow knowing. That smile slid fully across his lips now and he scooped up a forkful of potatoes and popped them into his mouth, a blatant challenge.
Instantly, Beth regressed to the summer she’d been twelve and determined she could beat Zach at anything he did—including eating her mother’s lemon meringue pie.
She hated lemon pie to this day. The mere sight of it made her stomach queasy.
Beth firmed her resolve and booted the past back where it belonged, in some rarely visited corner of her mind. Her good eating habits would not be undermined by Zach Ashton. “Excuse me,” she said to the waitress efficiently making her way around the table. “I’ve changed my mind. I’d like a salad, please. Dressing on the side.”
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you missed out on Josie’s chicken-fried steak.” Zach chuckled as he pulled out onto Main Street, headed in the direction of home. “It was awesome.” He glanced at his silent passenger. She looked even more beautiful by moonlight. Forcing his gaze straight ahead, he blinked away her lingering image. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking that way, but he couldn’t get his body and mind to cooperate with each other.
“It’s called being health-conscious,” Beth explained pointedly. “You should try it. After all, you’re not getting any younger.”
A brow notched up his forehead and he stole another quick look in her direction. “Ouch,” he returned. “Surely one evening of eating on the edge won’t drive the final nail in my coffin.” A frown furrowed across his brow. “When did you get so uptight about every little thing anyway?”
She waved him off. “Typical male thinking, Ashton,” she said irritably. “You think because you play the occasional game of racquetball and pound out a few miles on the treadmill once or twice a week that you’re immune to the effects of aging.”
He couldn’t believe this. Was she insinuating that he was old? “What has my age got to do with anything?” he demanded, irritation gnawing its way through his composure. He ran a couple miles every single day. Did his time at the gym three times a week as well.
She flared her palms impatiently. “Games, Ashton,” she snapped. “You’re still playing your immature little games. You thought if you ate it, I would. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t throw down the gauntlet back there with that first forkful of potatoes. Remember the lemon pie? You were always trying to prove you were better because you were older and a boy.”
“A boy?” He darted another look at his lovely, albeit confusing, passenger. A grin stretched across his face at her stiff posture. She was furious. At what, he couldn’t be certain. Surely they could put the past behind them if that’s what the problem was. “I thought we’d already established that we’re both adults now.”
She folded her arms firmly over her chest. “Well, at least one of us is.”
He braked to a stop at a red light. Was she accusing him of being immature just because he’d eaten his steak and potatoes? He ignored that little voice that told him she was right about the challenge. It was instinct. Whenever he was around Beth, he tried his level best to treat her like one of the guys. It was the only way to protect himself from doing something completely stupid—like kissing her. The mere thought made his muscles harden, some more than others.
“Would you care to elaborate on that innuendo?” he prodded, determined to get to the bottom of her unreasonable behavior once and for all. His mother’s peculiar conduct was more than enough to contend with. He and Beth could at least be civil to each other. “The burden of proof lies with the accuser,” he added when she didn’t answer.
Beth rolled her eyes and huffed. “Don’t use your lawyer talk on me. You know exactly what I mean.”
“You’re saying that one of us isn’t an adult. I just wondered from what basis you drew your conclusions.”
She shifted to face him, one long shapely leg crossed over the other, and totally unaware that her dress had slid up a few more inches, showing off a little more tanned thigh. Zach’s mouth parched as he sneaked a second look.
“Well, let’s see,” she began, ticking off the list on her fingers. “There’s the cherry-red sports car and the GQ look.” She shook her head as if what he had was terminal. “Not to mention the immortal male attitude.”
He glared at her, his foot going automatically to the accelerator when the light turned green. “What about my car and the way I dress?” Ire sprouted inside him. Sure he had a little attitude, but what the heck? A guy couldn’t survive in his profession without a pair of brass ones.
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug of indifference, or maybe disdain. “I think any man who feels the need to express his insecurities so literally when he hits middle-age is immature.”
Middle-age? Insecurities? He arrowed a glower in her direction. “You think I bought this car because I feel insecure about being closer to forty than thirty?”
She pursed those lush lips and inclined her head in triumph. “Yes, I do.”
Fury hurdled through him. He didn’t bother slowing down for the next light that went from yellow to red before he passed under it.
“I am not,” he said, enunciating each word slowly, precisely, “going through any midlife crisis. I bought this car because I liked it. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my clothes.” He turned onto Hunter Ridge Road. “Or with the occasional meal that includes more than leaves and twigs.”
She smiled patiently, as if completely certain of her assessment. “You date a different woman every weekend. You don’t have time for a social life through the week,” she added, nailing down his personal life in two short sentences. “You tell yourself that there’s plenty of time for marriage and children later. That legitimately explains your single status and leaves you free from having to commit.”
He shook his head. How the hell did she know all that? “What is this? The amateur psychology hour?”
“Am I right?”
Oh, he saw now. This was a trick. She was baiting him to get the answers she wanted. She wanted to know about his personal life—his sex life.
“Am I right?” she repeated, adding extra emphasis to the last word.
“If you want to know how often I have sex, just ask. And besides, what would you call divorcing the man you supposedly loved after five years of commitment?” A four-way stop gave him the opportunity to look directly at her and wait for the answer to his pointed question.
Silence thundered for several excruciatingly long beats.
She wasn’t going to say anything. The dim glow from the dash didn’t allow him to read her eyes completely, but he could see that he’d done what he intended. He had ended what she started. Cut her off at the knees like any good attorney would do. The knowledge gave him no pleasure. In an abrupt epiphany he also realized what he’d given away with his heartless remark—he knew the ink wasn’t even dry on her divorce papers yet. She would know he’d asked about it.
“I’d call it a mistake,” she said finally, her chin quivering slightly.
He held her gaze, hard as that proved in light of the hurt he knew he’d wielded. He wanted to hold her and apologize profusely for what he’d said and whatever the jerk she’d married had done. Disappointment pooled in his gut when he considered her words further. She thought she’d made a mistake. And all this time he’d thought he’d been the one who made the mistake. But then, they weren’t talking about the same mistake.
“The divorce or the marriage?” he asked quietly, unable to help himself from pursuing the subject. He had to know.
She wanted to lie. God, a part of her wanted so badly to deny the truth…to somehow explain it away as something other than a personal failure. The other part of her wanted to hit Zach for even asking.
“The marriage,” she relented tightly. “It was a mistake. But we’re still friends.”
She saw the sympathy flicker in those blue eyes. She was so hopelessly pathetic. She faced front, turning away from what she no longer wanted to see, especially from Zach.
“Sorry,” he said contritely. “I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s okay.” She didn’t want to hear what she’d already seen in his eyes.
“Are we through fighting?” he asked softly, too softly.
She continued her stare into the darkness. “I guess so.”
“What are we going to do about our mothers?”
Beth closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about that either. “I don’t know. I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Zach pulled away from the intersection. “I can’t figure it out. Something’s changed though. Mom isn’t behaving like her usual self.”
At a loss to stop herself, Beth studied his handsome profile, her heart doing a little dance in spite of the anger she’d felt at him just moments ago. “Different how?” She wondered if it was anything like her own mother’s odd behavior.
He exhaled noisily. “I can’t exactly pinpoint it, just different. She told me she loved me three times in the space of as many minutes. She was almost clingy.”
Beth knew exactly what he meant then. Colleen Ashton was one of the strongest women Beth knew, her mother included. Colleen had never been one to show her affection with outward gestures. Hers was always an understated way.
“Your mother won’t tell you anything?” he asked as he parked and turned off the engine and lights, leaving nothing but the moon to relieve the darkness that now cloaked them.
“Nothing.”
“We have to get to the bottom of this,” he said, his voice curling around her in the still, dark night. “At their age life is too uncertain to stay mad at each other. Think how one would feel if something happened to the other while this standoff was going on.”
Beth nodded. “What can we do?”
“Just keep plugging away until we figure out what it is that’s caused this kind of damage.”
At that moment Beth wanted more than anything in this world to feel Zach’s arms around her. Further proof that nothing had changed. They could be yelling at each other one minute, then making up the next. “Good idea,” she mumbled, then quickly scrambled out of the car. She would not let her emotions get the better of her again.
Zach followed her up the flagstone walk and to her door. She faced him there, the glow from the outside light pooling around them like a dim spotlight. Good-night would be said right here. She didn’t want him to come inside. She’d had all the Zach stimuli she could handle for one night.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said lamely. Truly pathetic.
“Any time,” he offered in that deep, husky voice.
“Good night, Zach.” The words sounded breathless. But how could they sound any other way with him standing so close and her pulse tripping so out of control? She wanted to back up but the closed door was right behind her, preventing her escape.
