Designed for Love (15 page)

“Is that what you want?” She searched her memory for any indication that Wil might have given that what was between them was more than sexual attraction. Where had she gotten the idea that was all it was? She’d cast Wil as the shallow playgirl, but Wil had never done anything to deserve that assumption. In reality, Jillian was the one who had been so concerned with appearances that she’d insulted Wil rather than face…whatever was between them. Jillian was stunned to think Wil might want something more permanent. And what if she did? Jillian couldn’t imagine either of them being happy in the other’s world.

“It doesn’t matter. I know you’re leaving. And I still have my own reasons for not wanting to get involved with you. But none of that changes the fact that I only have to look at you or think about you and I want you.”

“Then why shouldn’t we enjoy each other?” The proposal was too little too late, and she knew it. But hearing that Wil wanted her so, and the rasp of longing in her voice, made Jillian want to reach out. But she couldn’t reach far enough.

“No.” Defeat saturated Wil’s tone.

Jillian stood. “Okay. Thanks for tonight.”

A spring creaked as Jillian opened the screen door, and she stepped inside and let it bang shut behind her. She stood in the darkness and listened until a minute later she heard Wil’s truck start. Reminding herself that Wil had her reasons for turning her away didn’t alleviate the sting of rejection. She’d offered Wil what she could and had been turned down.

*

“I finished it a couple nights ago.” Wil pressed the remote to open her overhead garage door, then led her father inside.

“Wow. Wil, it’s great.” Bud crossed to the desk standing in the middle of the space and touched it lightly. “I had no idea you were making it so detailed.”

She hadn’t initially planned to, but as she worked she’d experimented with small touches of molding and decorative carving, testing her skill. She’d added ornate brass hardware and stained it the color of honey.

“It’ll look nice in your office.” Her father had been working behind the same banged-up metal desk for as long as she could remember. At first he couldn’t afford more, then she supposed it became habit. He’d spent most of his life fixing up other people’s houses, but when it came to his own home and office he was content to leave things how they were. His house was still decorated the same as it had been the day his wife had walked out on him.

He nodded and continued to run a hand across the satiny surface.

“Hey, Dad, did Mom ever like it here?” Wil asked cautiously. They rarely talked about her mother. When she was younger, he didn’t want to, and now she was just accustomed to not mentioning when she’d spoken to her.

“She said she did, at first.”

Her mother had been living in D.C. when they’d met while her father was on vacation. He’d courted her long-distance and within six months had convinced her to move to Redmond.

“So what happened?”

He shrugged. “I guess some are just country folks, and some aren’t.”

“And you don’t think they can change?” Wil had seen refusal slide across Jillian’s features the night before when she’d asked if she planned to settle down in Redmond. Like Wil’s mother, she would wither in a small town.

“Why don’t you ask your mother these questions?” Some of the old bitterness seeped into his words.

“’Cause I’m asking you.” She and her mother weren’t close, and often Wil related to her only out of a sense of obligation. She sensed her mother made an effort to reach out, but Wil would never understand how a mother could leave her child.

“Yeah, well,” he circled the desk and grabbed one side, “can you talk and lift at the same time?”

Wil picked up the other end and they carefully carried it out to the driveway where his old truck was parked. The logo on the side was faded and patches of rust showed through dulled green paint.

“About time for a new truck, isn’t it?” Wil rested her side of the desk on the open tailgate, climbed into the bed, and pulled the desk the rest of the way in.

“This one runs just fine.”

“The owner of a successful construction company shouldn’t be driving this old clunker.” Wil jumped to the ground. “All the foremen have nicer trucks than you do. Buy a new one. Call it a tax deduction for next year.”

“I suppose I could make this a shop truck. That one we’ve been using has seen better days.” They’d added three new storage buildings in the past five years and often used an old pickup to shuttle supplies between them.

Side by side they leaned against the edge of the still-open tailgate.

“If you’d known how it would end, would you still have asked her to marry you?” Wil steered the conversation back to her mother.

He folded his arms over his chest, clearly uncomfortable with the direction of their conversation. “Yes, I would do it again.”

“She broke your heart.” Wil remembered how devastated he’d been after her mother left. And sometimes she wondered if that was the reason he hadn’t dated since.

He shifted his weight and wrung his hands. “No one goes into a marriage thinking it’s going to fail.”

“But if she had stayed—”

“We both knew it was over well before that. Nothing’s ever so black and white. We had more problems than just geography.” He paced across the driveway, rubbing a hand over his scalp.

Feeling abandoned, Wil had made her mother into the bad guy. She’d spent years blaming her mother’s inability to adjust to small-town living for the demise of their family. She’d called her mother uncaring and inflexible. But her father had let her. Lost in his own heartache, he hadn’t been able to deal with her anger, so eventually she’d just buried her pain beneath so many layers that no one could touch it. And even now, she held her mother at arm’s length, as if she could punish her by shutting her out of her life.

“What made you think about all this now?”

“It’s nothing, Dad.”

“Is something going on with your mother?”

“No.” It wasn’t about her parents at all.

“Okay.” He seemed relieved to be off the hook, but his subject change didn’t ease Wil’s mind. “How are things at Miss Sealy’s? Has she forgiven me for pulling your crew?”

“Yeah, I think she’s over it.” Wil neglected to mention that she’d had to let Jillian work with her.

“She seems easy to get along with.”

Wil laughed. “Easy? Yeah. As long as she gets her way.”

“I was out at the school Friday and your girls spoke well of her.”

“Of course.” Wil agreed without thinking. Despite having criticized her, after they found out Wil had slept with her, the girls seemed to have warmed up to Jillian again. “I’ve seen the way Tracy looks at her. And supposedly
she’s
straight. And don’t get me started on Andy and Patti. Jesus, my entire crew was half in love with her.”

“Really? Your
entire
crew?”

Her words echoed in her head. Had she just admitted she was in love with Jillian? No. No, she’d said
half
in love. And she’d only been trying to make a point about the girls. She hadn’t meant that she was actually…had she?

“Uh, no. It was a figure of speech. I just meant the girls really took to her.” She backpedaled quickly and he seemed to buy it.

Distracted by her line of thought, Wil barely responded as he thanked her again for the desk. His truck sputtered to life and she pulled herself together long enough to wave good-bye before crossing to her porch and sinking down on the steps.

She was an idiot. How did this happen? She’d been guarding herself against this very thing since the moment they’d met.
Right. So that’s why you slept with her after knowing her for two days. Way to keep your distance.
Distance. That’s what she needed now. Wasn’t it?

She shoved a hand through her hair. It would be smart to keep any future interactions professional. No more taking Jillian to the Ranch or sitting under the stars with her.

But even as she made this promise, she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Staying away from Jillian didn’t keep her from thinking about her, wondering what she was doing. It was too late to avoid getting hurt, she was certain of that. Jillian’s open house was next weekend. After that she’d be leaving and Wil would deal with missing her then.

Maybe the answer was to spend more time with her. Yes. They were so different that a relationship between them likely wouldn’t work out anyway. So she just needed to let the attraction run its course, as quickly as possible. By the time Jillian left, Wil would probably discover some annoying fault and be happy to be rid of her. It was either the most brilliant or the most insane idea she’d ever had.

Chapter Twelve

Two hours later as Wil knocked on Jillian’s door, she was still trying to decide which it was. When Jillian opened the door, Wil leaned toward insanity. Jillian had on the same cutoffs she’d worn to paint the kitchen, and this time a pale yellow tank top hugged the swell of her breasts, the arc of her ribs, and the flat plane of her belly. Jillian’s exposed arms were firm, Wil guessed from a routine gym regimen, and her creamy skin lacked the uneven tan Wil always seemed to have from working in the sun.

Wil traced her eyes over the flare of Jillian’s hips but wrenched them away when she reached her thighs. She had a visceral memory of those very muscles hardening under her hands as Jillian sat in her lap. Wil tried to swallow, despite the fact that all the moisture in her body had flooded to parts south.

Jillian stood completely still while Wil’s gaze swept over her and a flush of heat followed in its wake. The path seared back up her body, and as they stared at each other, Jillian didn’t even try to hide the images flying through her head. For a moment she allowed herself to wonder if she would rather Wil undress her slowly or tear her clothes off.

Wil was the first to look away, but the current continued to jump between them, snapping like the severed end of a live wire dancing in the air.

“We’re going on a picnic,” Wil blurted, as if she needed to fill the silence. And Jillian noticed for the first time that her right arm was wrapped around a paper grocery bag and a small cooler dangled from her other hand.

“We are?”

“Yes. It’s part of your typical Redmond weekend.” Wil shifted the bag and adjusted her grip on the cooler.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Jillian stepped aside. “Come in. Let me take that.” She lifted the bag from Wil’s arm and led her to the kitchen. “God, this smells great.”

“I made fried chicken, potato salad, and biscuits.”

“I could get used to you showing up at my door with food.” After setting the bag on the counter, she turned and almost ran into Wil.

“Sorry.” Wil grasped her upper arms. “For such a roomy house, I seem to get in your way an awful lot.”

“Yes. You do.” Jillian cleared her throat and took a step back. “I—just give me a minute to change and I’ll be ready to go.”

Wil gave her a slow perusal. “What’s wrong with what you have on?”

“Oh,
now
you don’t have a problem with what I’m wearing?”

Wil grinned. “Well, it
is
going to be just you and me. So whatever you’re comfortable in is fine.”

“Yeah. I think I’ll change just the same.” Jillian waved a hand toward the bedroom.

Arousal hung in the air between them, seeping into their clothing like the scent of campfire smoke, and lingered to remind Jillian of the moments when the flames had consumed them.

*

“Where are we?” Jillian asked as Wil steered her truck into a tree-lined gravel drive. She stopped in front of a small house, further dwarfed by the towering trees and vast stretches of green grass that surrounded it.

“My place. It’s not much, but it’s home.”

Jillian slid out of the truck and looked around. Thick woods edged the lawn on three sides, and she imagined in the fall a colorful cocoon would surround the house. If any neighbors were within range, she couldn’t see them from here.

“How far does your property go?”

Wil lifted the cooler from the bed of the truck. “About two hundred yards into the trees on either side. The back runs to a clearing near the lake. I thought we could picnic down there.”

Jillian searched the tree line for a break that would indicate a road. “How do we get there?”

“On those.” Wil pointed at two ATVs sitting side by side near the corner of the carport. One had camouflage paint and black luggage racks on the front and back. The other, a smaller, sportier model, was bright yellow.

“Are you kidding?” Jillian eyed the two machines, wondering if she was about to embarrass herself.

“I told you I like to go down to the lake.”

“I thought you meant a peaceful walk on the shore.”

Wil grinned. “I guess we have different definitions of peaceful. Have you ever been on one of these?”

“No.”

“This one’s yours.” Wil crossed to the larger one and stowed their dinner in a cargo box secured to the rack behind the seat.

“I don’t want the bigger one.”