Every Little Kiss (9 page)

S
he kept her head down and worked through the rest of the weekend. It was easy not to think when she had a wedding to deal with each day, which kept her, Brynn, and the two part-timers she affectionately called her Weekend Warriors hopping. By Monday evening, Emma wasn’t thinking about the posting on YouTube, unwanted date offers, or the flaming wreckage of her own reputation. She also wasn’t thinking of anything remotely business related. Her feet ached, her brain was tired, and all she wanted was to let her mind drift. Which it did. Except it was more like circling a single point of interest.

Emma sat on her couch, staring off into space while Boof lolled in her lap, purring loudly. Every once in a while, she’d lift a hand to touch her lips, which she could swear still tingled. A glass of wine sat on the coffee table, forgotten, as did her laptop with the notes for Penny Harding’s wedding proposal up on the screen. Normally she’d still be going over it, making sure everything was perfect for tomorrow’s presentation. Nothing seemed all that pressing right now, though. Not since that kiss.

That mind-bending, completely consuming kiss.

She’d always thought that romance novel descriptions
of that sort of thing were overblown. It was so much bullshit, the idea of addictive kisses that made you forget your own name while they were happening. At least, it had been. Until she’d gotten one planted on her. She still didn’t know what he’d been thinking, and from the shell-shocked look on his face afterward, neither did Seth.

Emma rubbed absently at Boof’s fluffy tummy, wondering what the hell she was going to do. “Stay away from Seth” seemed the most obvious answer. So why did she keep turning it over in her mind? And why had she found herself scanning the street for passing police cruisers all weekend? She’d even seen him once. Well, she was pretty sure she’d seen him. She’d nearly crashed her own car while craning her neck to see. That would have been one way to get his attention, she guessed.

Sadly, considering every other interaction they’d had, she didn’t think he’d be surprised.

She looked around her apartment, as tidy and boring as it always was, then looked at the clock: seven p.m. Not too late to get away from her own company. She scooped up the cat and stood, eliciting an irritated little “mrrr” from Boof.

“Let’s go do something,” she said to him, trying to force some excitement into her tone. He didn’t look impressed. “Sorry, Boof. You’re kind of my social life. It’s why we have the special kitty carrier. So we can be
all-the-time friends
.” Her cheerful voice hadn’t elicited much of a reaction, but her purposely creepy one got her a plaintive meow, the one that said, “Help me.”

“Oh, knock it off. You know I only take you to Mom’s or Sam’s. You can eat all their kitty food and act superior.”

Emma considered her options, decided on the most
obvious one, and despite Boof’s loud protestations, got ready to go.

*   *   *

It was a warm evening, so Emma drove her little roadster with the windows down. Boof was in the passenger seat, secure in his bright blue soft-sided pet carrier and making quiet unhappy sounds. Nine times out of ten he was happy with their destination, but their occasional vet visits were enough to make him permanently mistrustful of her motives for bringing him along.

She drove up Hawthorne, out of the square and past Two Roads Gallery, then hung a left onto Crescent Road. The road cut through a well-manicured neighborhood of small, older homes before it curved and began to trace the shape of the cove. The trees became bigger, and enormous houses with long drives vanished behind them. Some peeked through the trees, but many were only indicated by the mailboxes lining the road. This was the Crescent she’d grown up on, with old names like Owens and Pritchard and Harding. The Sullivans, parents of Shane “Not the Nice Redhead” Sullivan, were out here. And there, glowing like a beacon, was the violently green mailbox of the Henrys.

Her reactions to it varied with her mood. Today, it made Emma smile. Not that she’d ever admit that to her mother.

“Let’s go see Peaches, Boof. You can let your sister beat you up for a while.”

Emma felt better as soon as she saw the house, and wondered why she’d been so determined to stay away Saturday night. It might have done her some good.

Behind the trees, the Henrys’ land opened into a verdant lawn that rolled all the way down to the rocky edge
of the land that met the sea. This land had been with the Henrys since the beginning, but the current house, built in the 1800s, was its glory. The sprawling white Victorian was a study in slightly faded elegance, with its wraparound porch and tower room, its arches and angles that had hinted to Emma when she was a child of all manner of secret places to explore. There had been plenty, she remembered, found on her and Sam’s adventures. Some their father had shown them, and some he’d let them discover on their own.

Then he’d died, and the adventures had stopped. Sam had retreated inward, and Emma had . . . Well, she’d . . .

Emma tightened her jaw at the melancholy that wanted to curl around her like a comfortable old blanket.
Not doing this today. Look at Mom’s flowers. Look at something good for a change.
She was glad to see Andi’s roses were in full bloom all around the base of the porch. They were red and soft pink, making the house as pretty as a Valentine’s postcard. Her mother didn’t hold with too many traditions, but the roses were one she had always adored. That, and filling the small, glassed-in greenhouse off the back of the house with fragrant herbs and whatever flowers had struck Andi’s fancy. Horticulture had apparently been a favorite pursuit of the Henry women for generations.

Somebody in there had had a black thumb, though; Emma knew because she’d inherited it. Every time she gave in to the urge and bought a plant, she felt like she should apologize to it for sealing its fate.

She cruised down the drive, hearing the comforting and familiar crunch of gravel beneath the tires. It took her a moment before she finally noticed the extra car in the driveway beside Andi’s sunny yellow Beetle. It was instantly recognizable, a classic Austin Healey
convertible. She didn’t know exactly what year it was—1960-something—but it had been around town forever and she’d always loved it. The owner was a sweetheart, too. Even if he was putting the moves on her mother.

“Man,” Emma grumbled. She didn’t really want to know what Jasper Reed and her mom were up to in there. She pulled in beside the Austin Healey, weighed her chances, and had just decided she would risk hysterical blindness by knocking at the door (no way in hell was she just walking in under these circumstances), when she heard the unmistakable growl of a motorcycle’s engine coming up the driveway. She frowned, then turned her head to watch a vaguely familiar-looking bike closing the distance between them. The rider was more than familiar, in his beat-up jeans and leather jacket. The helmet hid his face, but she knew his body. Somehow, in a very short period of time, she’d become well-versed in the contours of Seth Andersen’s form.

Emma knew it was sad, but nobody could judge her for it if she kept it to herself.

Her stomach dropped, then felt as though it exploded into butterflies as she stared. She wanted to move. In fact, she really wanted to turn the car back on and floor it down the driveway. Instead, she ruthlessly stomped out the flight instinct and got out of the car, wondering what he could possibly want. Had he followed her here? He didn’t seem like that type, but anything was possible. Maybe he was secretly creepy. That would banish the weird guilt she’d been feeling about springing her “let’s go out but not” idea on him.

Then again, she didn’t have that kind of luck.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, cringing inwardly at the way her words had come out. Seth took his time replying, pulling off his helmet to reveal
appealingly tousled hair and a wary expression she didn’t much like. It wasn’t like she’d gone all ninja and kissed
him
in a parking lot!

“I got invited. Nice to see you, too.” He tucked the helmet under his arm.

Emma stiffened. “Invited? My
mother
invited you out here?” She heard the bitter snap in her own voice, loathing it even as she couldn’t control it. “What, is she going to try to butter you up so you’ll agree to take her poor, workaholic, socially stunted daughter out? Is that what this is?” It was a horrible thought, one she hated the instant it appeared even though it made an awful kind of sense. Andi worried too much. She knew all about the wild stories that had sprung from Sam’s party, knew about Seth. Sam had probably fed her information while the two of them talked about how to push her into whatever they thought she needed in her life. Directly intervening with Seth seemed kind of extreme, but she couldn’t discount it.

Not until Seth gave her a look that made her wonder whether she’d suddenly grown an extra head.

“No. And you might want to calm down, because that steam pouring out of your ears seems like a bad sign.” He arched a brow, his expression reproachful, before he started to walk toward the house. “Just a suggestion.”

Emma stood staring after him for a moment, completely at a loss for words. Only a mix of curiosity and anger got her moving again. She took Boof’s carrier out of the passenger seat, slung the strap over one shoulder, and set off after Seth. She didn’t understand it, but she was thrilled and infuriated to see him, both at the same time. It took until he was almost to the porch steps to catch up, and by then another car was pulling into the drive, a nice silver sedan. Seth turned his head to look at it, then lifted one hand in greeting.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Emma said, falling into step beside him.

“No, I didn’t. Anything you’ve come up with is bound to be a lot more interesting than the truth.” He looked down at her bag when it mewed piteously. “Tell me that’s not some kind of cat purse. Like the things people carry those tiny dogs around in.”

“It’s just for short trips,” Emma said. “He likes it.” She didn’t know why she always felt so defensive around Seth, but she couldn’t seem to help it. His skeptical expression right now wasn’t helping.

“Yeah, he looks thrilled. Isn’t he kind of big to be in there?”

“It’s just his fur. He fits fine.”

Seth shook his head. “Only you would stick a giant cat in a color-coordinated purse to go to your mom’s house.”

“It’s not color—oh.” Emma glanced down at herself and realized that the stripe in her thin boatneck sweater perfectly matched the carrier. As did the ballet flats peeking out from beneath her wide-legged denim trousers. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, just habit, but she still felt her cheeks grow hot. “It’s not a crime to dress well. I’m just not a ‘T-shirt and leather jacket’ kind of girl.”

She realized as soon as she’d said it how he was likely to take it. Sure enough, his expression hardened. “Yeah, I got that,” he said.

“I . . . That’s not what I meant!” Emma snapped, clutching the strap of the bag as she hurried up the steps behind him. “Way to jump to the worst possible conclusion, Seth.”

“Wow,” was his only response as he reached the door and turned to face her.

If at all possible, her cheeks felt even hotter. Not just because he was right about the idiocy of her statement,
but because being this close to him brought back every hot second of his kiss. It would have been bad enough before. Now, though, knowing exactly how good he felt, and tasted, and smelled . . . Unable to adequately describe how she felt, she simply gave a guttural growl.

“You’re driving me crazy!” she snapped. That finally prompted a glimmer of humor in his eyes, and in the slightly rueful curve of his mouth.

“Welcome to the club,” he said just as the door swung open.

“Honey!”

Emma managed to tear her gaze away from Seth to look at her mother, who looked like she’d just gotten a particularly wonderful present. She was under no illusions that it was just because of her. Seeing her obstinately single daughter and Seth standing here together was exactly the kind of thing that would make Andi’s day.

“Hey, Mom. I didn’t know you were busy, so I brought Boof for a visit.”

Andromeda Henry looked between them with more shrewdness than her proud eccentricity and usual Bohemian attire might indicate. She looked good, Emma thought, taking in the bright blue eyes that matched her own, the dark blond hair pulled up into a braided bun, the loose, flattering dress accented with natural amethyst and peridot beads at her ears and throat. Actually, she looked even better than usual, and she knew her mother had aged well by anyone’s standards. But there was a . . . a
sparkle
to her that Emma had almost forgotten.

Jasper
. There couldn’t be any other explanation, though it was strange to associate the kindly bookseller with the twinkle in her mother’s eyes lately. Emma didn’t know if they thought they were being sneaky or what, but they
weren’t doing a great job of it. It was one of the few things on which she and Sam completely agreed.

Andi clucked her tongue. “Don’t be silly, Emmie. You know you can come whenever you want to. I’m just glad you finally came out of your cave. We missed you Saturday.” She rubbed a finger against the mesh Boof’s nose was pressed to. “Missed you, too, big guy.” Then she turned her attention to Seth, and any wild theories Emma might have conjured about his presence here tonight crumbled immediately to dust. Really embarrassing dust.

“Nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Henry,” Seth said, putting out his hand. Andi shook it, smiling.

“Seth! I didn’t think Steve and Ginny were ever going to get you to come!”

“I felt a little weird intruding on their social life. They’re just really persistent,” Seth replied with a grin. “Plus they said you’ve got the best sunsets in the Cove right here.”

“They’re right,” Andi replied. “And I’m glad they finally prodded you into coming out. It’s such a nice evening, we thought—I thought—I’d throw together some munchies and invite friends to enjoy the evening.”

“We,” Emma said, “meaning you and Jasper.”