Don't Let Go (41 page)

“God, I really am pathetic.”

She laughed again and pulled my hands away. “You aren’t the challenged one in the family, Savi. Dad is.”

“He texted me that he was leaving Mrs. Sullivan’s house this morning,” I said, rubbing a temple. “Why would he do that?”

“Because he made us do that,” she said. “Heaven help us if we didn’t find a phone to call home before we got in a car.”

“Well, I’m pretty good on him driving across town,” I said. “And I really don’t need to know about his visits to Mrs. Sullivan.”

“Jigsaw puzzles,” Lily said.

“Yeah, you gotta love that they have a code word for it, I’ll give them that,” I said.

“Don’t you think she needs to drop the
Mrs.
?” Lily said, her nose crinkling. “I mean, I understand respecting the deceased and all, but once you’re doing—jigsaw puzzles with another man, I’m thinking it’s time to let that go.”

“Especially when Dad says it,” I said, getting a body shiver over the image of them—nope, wasn’t going there.

“Well, at least Duncan said yes,” Lily said, making my body shiver change direction.

“Oh, good, we’re back there, are we?”

She laughed. “It’s a good thing. Gives you something good to focus on.”

The words hit a nerve, as I recalled Duncan saying something similar about my focus. “And now I’m a hot mess.”

“Why?” she asked. “It’s what you’ve wanted since he hit town.”

“I know, but I turn into a babbling idiot around him,” I said. “I don’t know why. Any other man, I’m myself, I’m mature. I take control. I hold the cards.”

She eyed me over her tea glass. “Wow, romantic.”

“It works,” I said, sitting back. “That may sound unromantic to you, but—”

“If it worked, Savi, you wouldn’t still be doing it over and over,” she said. “Men aren’t estate sale contracts. Or old rusty crap to pick over.” She laughed at that. “Well, some of them are.”

I paused and toyed with a piece of bacon, letting her words settle. “Romance and I aren’t friends.”

“You can’t judge that off one man,” she said, the earlier cloud of distraction coming back to her eyes as she met mine. “Maybe this guy is different because you’re thinking with your heart instead of your business sense.”

“Well, my heart needs to grow up a little before tomorrow,” I said. “And you’ve got to come to my rescue if you see me sinking.”

“Me?” she said, and then the cloud got ominous. “You’re coming here?”

I widened my eyes. “Where else would we go for breakfast?”

“The diner? I mean—wouldn’t you want to be alone?” she said. “Without eyes around?”

I shook my head. “The diner’s not alone, Lily, it’s got more eyes. And the ones here I know,” I said, chuckling. “It’ll help distract me when I zone out into the stupids. What could go wrong with that?”

Lily licked her lips and narrowed her gaze like she was thinking out her words, making me feel like I needed to hold on to something. “You’d be surprised,” she muttered under her breath.

I frowned, the warning flags from earlier waving a little closer to the front now. “What?”

“Wanted to let you know we’re going to have a house guest for a while,” she said. “Or the shop is. The rooms upstairs. Someone is coming into town tonight.” When she paused in her very uncharacteristic rambling and I just stared at her, she sighed like I was forcing the words from her. “From Florida.”

New tingles hit my skin as her meaning hit the mark, and not the good kind. More like that feeling you get when you’re told a tornado is about to rip through your world.

“Ian?” I breathed, and then cleared my throat. “Ian’s coming home?”

My voice sounded funny to my ears. But that could have been the blood rushing through my head.

Lily nodded. “Afraid so.”

“For how long?” I asked.

She glanced around, as if the subject was making her itchy and she wanted customers to rescue her. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think—maybe indefinitely.”

“Maybe indefinitely,” I echoed. I stared at the bacon in my hand and set it back on the plate.

Maybe indefinitely.

• • •

Ian McMasters and I were like gasoline and fire. Chemistry I could feel from a mile away, and more addictive than any drug. Together, we were explosive.

That was fine. For a long time, in fact, that worked for us. We were both wired that way—off the beaten path. Or the rocky one, according to my mother. Romance and love were silly things we avoided, at least with each other. Probably because we weren’t good at it.

I thought I found it once in my early twenties—with a musician who rolled through town dripping with sex appeal and dreamy eyes. I spent a week telling myself that it was love at first sight, waved my heart around and let my guard down. Evidently all my guards down. Three weeks after the guy rolled away, I found myself pregnant.

Ian was there. He was always there—my rock and my hard place, all in one. Telling me it would be okay. That I wasn’t alone and we’d find the way like we always did. Reminding me that our reality was so much more trustworthy than words.

And it was. We may have been trouble together, but we were solid. Sex and excitement were real. Tangible. Any worries or fears were drowned in a sea of adrenaline and steamy, mind-blowing sex. It worked for us. No strings, no expectations. No overnight stays, even. Just a fix to a craving. Ian, with his intense smoky eyes and sexy swagger. His voice that whispered naughty things against my skin. It was easy.

When Abby was born, she made things whole. I calmed my wild ways a bit and fell in love with being her mother, but
Uncle Ian
was always in our lives. He was all I needed—a best friend and a lover, who always went home because not staying kept it real.

Until we broke our own rules, and he broke my heart.

I’d become stronger in his absence. I turned the rebel attitude to my advantage and became a kick-ass mom, a hard-nosed negotiator in my dad’s business, and steeled myself around men. Well, except when it came to Duncan Spoon, evidently, but I wasn’t counting that. That was just a silly crush on my part. But no one hurt me anymore. I didn’t need that, and I didn’t need the work of romance and gush and all that fluff. Men were icing, not the cake.

Now, my biggest heartache, my kryptonite, the original cake before any icing, and the one person aware of all my broken places, was coming back.

Why? I’d asked Lily that, but she shrugged it off, saying he was just working with Jim on some things with the business. Stepping up and being “family” for once in a long time. I took that as her very nice way of saying they were bailing him out of something. I figured his diving business in Key West was flopping, and Jim, the responsible brother, was waving a life buoy.

Jim and Lily, the eternal pillars of doing the right thing. That had to get exhausting.

“Are you gonna be okay?” she asked me before I left.

“Of course,” I said, mumbling something about time and water and bridges.

In reality, I was eyeing the clock, wondering what time the ripple would hit me. The one that would knock me to the floor and throw walls up around my heart once Ian McMasters was within my radius.

Keep reading for a short excerpt

 from the nationally bestselling novella

Just One Day
.

She has nothing but time . . .

Twenty-four hours. That’s how long Andie Fremont has to say yes—or no. At forty-four with a daughter in college, she’s no young kitten with starry-eyed ideas of what love is. Still, when the man who is everything she should want pops the question with a ring he knows isn’t her style, during a party she didn’t want to have, Andie balks. Something tells her that it isn’t right. 

Looking to clear her head, Andie hits the Texas highway in search of an answer. And when she stumbles upon an old roadside diner she decides waffles might be it, at least for now. What she didn’t expect to find was Jesse Montgomery. The man who stole her heart and broke it all in one day, two decades earlier.

As a Texas-size storm takes shape outside, the electricity between Andie and Jesse builds inside. Suddenly Andie is faced with more than just yes or no. As the storm clears there are two men who will want answers.

Chapter One

My face was sore. Like maybe I should have done facial stretches beforehand. Then again, I had no inkling that the night would be so—social. I’d sort of expected something a little more intimate for our special evening. Like—dinner for two. Still, I had an open mind, and Brad was nothing if not innovative.

I smiled again as I nodded and shook another hand, hugged another of Brad’s bank colleagues, wondering how many of them really remembered me. I wasn’t the typical arm candy.

“Andie, you’ve got yourself quite a guy here,” a gorgeous brunette woman said, as she gave Brad a sideways hug, pressing her very exposed cleavage against him. Her hair was done up in a chignon I could never pull off, although I’d tried. Mine looked more like a messy cluster, and I just hoped that appeared intentional.

I struggled with her name—Marcia? Marissa? Oh, how I wished for the stick-on name tags of Brad’s usual company parties. But this wasn’t supposed to be a company party. It was our party, and cleavage queen had the unfair advantage of a giant banner sporting mine and Brad’s names.

“Oh, don’t I know it,” I said, smiling equally as coyly, trying to play the game and blend. I would have loved to press my boobs against him, too, but I was afraid the movement would knock them out of the dress I was wearing. Instead, I pulled his hand to my lips and planted a kiss on his knuckles. “He’s the best.”

Marcia-Marissa laughed, a sexy husky sound that drew four appreciative sets of male eyes to her. And those were just the ones I noticed.

Brad didn’t appear to be moved by her, however; which either meant he was a really good bluffer or overly smitten with me. Either way, he responded with a soft kiss on my lips that I chose to signify the latter.

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” Marcia-Marissa cooed, laying a hand against Brad’s arm as she extracted herself. “You’d never peg this guy as cutthroat, seeing him with you tonight,” she said, laughing again.

Brad snagged a passing drink, and handed it off to her. “Nope, no business talk,” he said. “It’s all about me and Andie tonight.”

As we smiled at each other, my first thought was,
Then why invite the office?

“Bradley, you’ve outdone yourself,” boomed a voice from behind me.

We turned and were greeted by the toothy grin of his best friend, Martin. He slapped Brad on the back and kissed my cheek. I got the feeling, as usual, that his aim would have been more centrally directed if I didn’t turn.

“Martin,” I said. “Where’s Alicia?”

He turned for a cursory look around for his wife. “Somewhere,” he said with a wink. “At least I think that’s who I came with.”

He laughed as if that were hysterically funny, and Brad shook his head as he laughed with him.

“She might not want to go home with you if she hears you talking like that, big guy,” Brad said.

Martin held up his drink. “Too true,” he said. “My wife is a saint.” After downing half his glass, his eyes landed on me. “Wow,” he said, backing up and making a big show of taking in my appearance. “Don’t you look amazing.”

“Thank you,” I said, holding my chest in as I did a mock bow.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this—” He gestured with his hands as if he couldn’t find the words.

“Fancy?” I suggested, trying to ignore the embarrassed heat climbing up my neck.

Martin chuckled. “I was going to say
exposed
, but sure, we can go with that.” He winked at Brad and nudged his arm.

My smile felt like a grimace. “Well, that’s better,” I said under my breath.

Brad squeezed my hand as I tuned out the rest of their banter. He knew I only tolerated Martin because of their longtime friendship. I drew in a slow breath, inhaling the salty Gulf air, and coaxing myself to relax.

He really
had
outdone himself for this party, I thought, as I pushed back the self-imposed walls and let myself appreciate the beauty around me. The boat—a term I’d use very loosely for something that could hold that large a party and not go belly-up—was decorated in tiny white holiday lights and crystal accents, making everything appear to twinkle like diamonds. Food adorned tables at every corner, the deck was polished to a sparkle, a band played from the upper deck overlooking us, and free alcohol flowed as freely as the water surrounding us in the ship channel.

To me, a boat was something you went fishing in. Possibly skied behind. I spent most of my childhood in my dad’s boat, strapped in poofy orange life vests with a fishing pole or a crab line in my hand. What I sat in then, with hot aluminum under my bare feet, was a boat. What Brad owned was a floating ballroom.