From the Moment We Met (4 page)

Tanner rested his arms on the top of the steering wheel to get a better view of the deserted parking lot as though he were a detective on a stakeout when, in fact, he felt more like a Peeping Tom.

He had no idea how he’d managed to get stuck on Abby duty. Except, oh right, he’d lost big at last week’s poker game and the guys had called in their marker. Guys who happened to be named DeLuca.

Not that it was a hardship, he thought, watching Abby roll on her toes to peer inside the abandoned bottling plant. Nope, not when her shirt shifted
way
up, emphasizing the sweetest ass in the history of the world and two very toned, very sexy legs.

He reached for his thermos and took a pull of coffee, wondering A) what she was doing creeping around a dark construction site at night with her face pressed firmly against the window, and B) if she bent over just a little farther what color silk would he find peeking back. His brain already knew the answer to the first. Too bad his dick couldn’t stop thinking about the second.

For a girl who’d spent the past few minutes diving behind an overgrown shrub every time a car drove by, she sure picked the wrong outfit to lie low. Her tight cream skirt and matching sweater set was like a freaking homing beacon, radiating under the parking lot lights.

Drawing him in.

He pressed speed dial, calling Abby’s brother Marco. Having a wife and new baby daughter to worry about should have calmed Marco down a bit when it came to his kid sister. It hadn’t.

“Did you find her?” Marc’s voice filled the cab of his truck.

“Yup.”

“That’s it? Yup?”

“Yup.”

They’d had this argument less than an hour ago, when he’d made it clear that playing spy for a group of domineering brothers wasn’t going to happen. Tanner had only agreed to find Abby because they’d been worried sick since she’d decided to go radio-silent after the naked Dick appeared on her lawn. Then, there was the botched interview with Babs earlier—he should have known her brothers wouldn’t be able to help themselves. Which was why he figured she’d been avoiding them to begin with.

“I said I’d make sure she was all right. She is.”

“At least tell me if she’s crying. She doesn’t do well with this kind of stuff. Never has,” Marc said, but Tanner wasn’t listening. He was too busy watching Abby pull a flashlight out of that ridiculously gigantic bag she always carted around, kick off her shoes, and step up on a raised flowerbed to shine the beam through the widow. “God, I’m going to kill Nate if she’s crying.”

Tanner wanted to kill all of her brothers. It was an urge he fought on a weekly basis. This week it was stronger.

When would they figure out Abby didn’t need a keeper—never had?

Something Tanner knew firsthand.

“She’s not crying.”
She’s tougher than that.
“Although Nate will be when she kicks his ass. What was he thinking? Abby could have landed the Pungent Barrel account if you guys hadn’t undersold her as a doghouse designer.”

He could almost hear Marc flipping him the bird through the phone because he knew Tanner was right. They’d screwed up. Big-time. And Abby had lost out.

“We’re considering calling Gabe, asking him to come home early and help deal with this whole Richard shitstorm,” Marc said, referring to the eldest DeLuca brother, who was currently vacationing in Italy with his wife and three daughters.

“We as in you, Nate, and Trey?” Were they serious? “Because I guarantee you, there is no way Abby would agree to that. Bringing Gabe and his family back just in time for little Holly to see a naked statue of her father sounds like a complication Abby would want to avoid.”

Richard hadn’t just slept with his interns—he’d gotten one pregnant, then abandoned her. By some weird twist of fate, Richard’s mistress, Regan, was now married to Gabe, making Richard’s love child Abby’s niece. And the rest of them one big, happy family.

“Dick is still in her yard?”

“Until Sunday.”

“Sunday! That’s a long time to keep this from my nonna. Because if he’s still here when she gets home from her bachelorette party, all hell will break loose.”

ChiChi had recently ended a sixty-year feud with their family’s biggest rival, Charles Baudouin, and the two were now planning a wedding, an event that ChiChi and her geriatric brigade were currently celebrating in Vegas—at a strip club, according to the updates on Facebook. And Marc was right to be concerned. ChiChi was so unpredictable Tanner had no idea what she’d do when she learned that the most notorious Dick in the valley was once again stinking up her granddaughter’s life—only that it wouldn’t make the situation any easier for Abby.

Marc sighed like he was all put out, then went on. “You think you can still get her to the Sweet and Savory by seven?”

Abby took that moment to see just how secure the locks on the windows were. When the first one didn’t slide up, she stomped her foot, nearly falling off the flowerbed, and huffed her way toward another window on the far side of the building. “Not looking good, bro.”

“Christ,” Marc mumbled. “Lexi will be crushed if she doesn’t show. She’s been planning this party for months. Got the whole bistro looking like some kind of twisted bachelorette party, only in reverse.”

Right
, because, again, what Abby really needed right then was a surprise divorce party?

“I’ll try my best to get her there,” he said, smiling when she dug through one of the half dozen pockets and flaps on her purse and pulled out a screwdriver, which she wedged between the window and the sill and—if his eyes didn’t deceive him—started jimmying. Here her brothers were worried she was sobbing her eyes out in some dark alley, and Abby was getting ready to add breaking and entering to her resume. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

Worst. Day. Ever.

Okay, not worst, since she’d had quite a few of those in her lifetime.
But easily top ten,
Abby thought as she wiggled the window to see if she’d loosened it enough to—

“Yes!” she squealed when it slid open, and she did a silent happy dance that included several fist pumps and a lot of booty shaking.

Feeling pretty darn proud of herself, she scanned the dim lot once more to make sure she was alone—not that she was breaking in so much as taking a peek around.

Walking away from the Pungent Barrel project wasn’t an option. Not anymore. She had been living a half-life since the day Richard left. And just when she thought she’d been given a break, had finally let her guard down enough to allow for something amazing, something more, Richard had once again crapped all over her plans. Then her brothers and their insistent meddling had smeared it all around.

Well, she was done allowing people to mess with her life, even when it was done lovingly and with her best interests at heart. If the Hamptons wanted a resourceful, savvy, take-charge person to head this project, then Abby was going to give it to them.

Starting tonight.

Step one: gather inside information.

In order to get Babs in her corner, Abby needed to walk the space, measure the layout, see what had been done by the previous designers so she could come up with accurate blueprints, an exact budget, and a complete design package to present.

Which meant she had to get inside.

Flashlight between her teeth, she stuck her head through the window and wrinkled her nose. The heavy scent of damp cork and fermented air blasted her as she leaned farther inside to glance at the floor. It wasn’t very far down. Then again she wasn’t very tall, a fact that ticked her off—especially tonight.

Dropping her purse inside first, she looked over her shoulder and did a thorough sweep of the area for any bypassers. When the coast was clear, she tugged her skirt up around her waist and slipped one leg through the opening, then the other, until she was sitting on the sill. Turning around, she shimmied her way down, clutching the ledge with her arms. Unable to shimmy any more, she took a final breath and dropped to the floor—with a loud thud.

Her flashlight flew across the room, her tailbone smarted from the nasty collision with the concrete floor, and she was pretty sure she was going to be sick from the jarring impact.

“Do you know how many nights I fell asleep dreaming about how you’d look sneaking out your window, only to wake up with a woody?” a smug, annoyingly male voice said from somewhere inside the building. Somewhere close enough that she could smell his cologne. “Never once, in all those years, did I picture it like that.”

Yup, definitely going to be sick.

“What are you doing here, Jack?” Because really, Tanner catching her sprawled out on the floor, with her skirt to her ears, easily catapulted this day into the top five. Scrambling to her feet, the cool air whooshing past her southern region, she yanked her skirt down and tried to glare at him—only it was too dark to see where he was.

“You mean besides getting a glimpse of the sexiest panties in town?”

“Says the man who’s seen everyone’s panties in town,” she mumbled, squinting harder. “Plus, it’s too dark to see.”

Just to be safe, she tugged at the bottom of her skirt again and, since she was already there, batted away what felt like wet clumps of sawdust. She also batted away Tanner’s hands, which were giving a valiant effort of dusting off her backside.

“Just trying to help,” he laughed, but didn’t move his hands, except to slide them up to gently grip her hips. “And I have excellent night vision. It comes from years of playing night games.”

“The NFL uses stadium lights, Jack.” She tried to back up, get some distance between them, because he was so close she could smell him. Feel her brain cloud over and her hormones kick in.

“Did you know that, besides my mom, you’re the only one who ever called me Jack?”

Something she’d started doing shortly after they’d met the summer before her senior year. Tanner, it seemed, belonged to everyone, but Jack was just hers—or so she’d thought. He’d walked into her life at a time when she’d desperately needed something new—something that didn’t remind her of what she’d lost.

Because he lived two towns over, he didn’t know her family or parents or the happy, carefree girl she’d been before the accident—the one who everyone obviously missed and would do anything to get back. Only
that
girl was never coming back. The easy-to-love Abby died in the car with her parents, and with Tanner there was no pretending, no apologizing—she could just be.

In the end, though, that girl hadn’t been enough for Tanner, either. A fact that her body seemed to have forgotten, since it was straining to get closer.

“What are you doing here?”

“Wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m fine.” When he didn’t move, she reluctantly admitted, “It’s just a little sore.”

“I wasn’t talking about your butt, although, if you think my night vision is impressive, you should check out my massaging skills.”

She felt the air shift around her as though he was moving closer, moving into position to give her a hands-on demonstration of those skills. The mere idea of his big hands on her jump-started every suppressed urge she’d been ignoring since Richard walked out.

“I’m fine.” She shoved at his chest, not wanting any of his skills, massaging or otherwise, near her. He was so refreshingly male that, just like most women in town, she didn’t think she’d be able to resist, even on her best days.

“Are you, Abs? Because if not, I’m here to help you,” he whispered, sliding an arm around her waist and proving her point. Desire and something much more vulnerable rushed through her body and settled in a part of her chest that she’d long ago designated off-limits to the dicks of the world.

And in true Jack Tanner fashion, his hands slipped even lower, proving that the kind of help she needed and the kind he was offering didn’t match up. The only reason her body heated up, she convinced herself, was that seven years with only a vibrator for company could do that to a girl.

Nope, taking him up on his kind of help was a bad decision. It wasn’t the guaranteed hot night she was worried about. It was the cold bed and even lonelier morning after that were sure to follow.

CHAPTER 3

R
eally, Jack?” She took a big step back and reached down for her purse and—
whoa
, what was up with the
don’t touch me asshole
glare? “The last time you used a line like that on me, you managed to help me right out of my kick pants, only to take off with some blonde afterward.”

“What line?”

She raised a brow and, okay, so maybe putting his hands on Abby had been a serious lack of judgment. Sure, she’d looked lost and disappointed and in desperate need of a hug. But the second his hands slid down her back and she snuggled closer, all of his good intentions went to shit. And all he could focus on was that his fingers were inches from her ass, and her breasts—the ones he’d been dreaming about since he was seventeen—were crushed up against his chest. And that she needed him.

The DeLuca Darling, who didn’t need anyone, needed him. Then she gave a horrified expression, as though realizing who she was talking to, and it became “I don’t want to talk” and “hands off.”

Which worked for him, since listening to her talk about the dickwad she’d been married to always managed to make him mad. Although the “hands off” part he’d like to change.

“And I was only going to take Kendra Abrahams to homecoming because she’d already asked.”

“You had sex with me the week before.”

“I couldn’t cancel. I had her corsage ordered and everything,” he explained. “Not that it mattered, since
your
school’s mascot mysteriously ended up in
my
truck for a joyride,” he said, smiling when her only response was a long, weighted silence. Guilt did that to a person—especially Abby. “But if I hadn’t been banned from the dance, I would have wanted to go with you.”

At that she looked up, and the expression she shot Tanner about singed his soul. He wasn’t joking about his night vision. Lit only by the faint glow of the moonlight, he could make out that her big brown eyes were slit into a glare that was too frosty for his taste, and her lips twitched slightly as though trying not to laugh in his face. A task at which she failed miserably.

“And we were in high school,” he added as though that made up for the fact that he had taken her virginity in a wine cave.

He’d gone there with good intentions; she’d called him crying and upset and needing a friend. What happened after he’d arrived, after she’d started kissing him . . . well, he hadn’t been thinking like a friend. Worse, he’d behaved exactly like people expected him to.

“I was actually talking about junior year of college, after the UC All-Star Bowl,” she said.

Now, there was an image. “Well, you were wearing red kick pants, I thought it was a go.”

“My whole cheer team was wearing red kick pants,” she said, fumbling around in her purse and coming up with a tape measure
and a little notebook. “But with that lovely reminder, you can help me out by leaving.”

Not waiting for him to respond, she turned her back on him and, hands out in front of her, blindly searched for her flashlight. He watched her for a good minute, especially focused when she dropped to all fours, shaking that heart-stopping ass for his viewing pleasure, then started back toward him, giving him something else entirely to focus on. The moonlight cast a faint glow across her face and the generous shot of cleavage she had going on.

“And leave you here to fend for yourself? Nah.” He took one step, bent over, and picked up the flashlight, clicking it on. “Looking for this?” When she just stared up at him, irritated and a little confused, he added, “Night vision, remember?”

There went that glare again. It should have been scary as shit to be hit with that look, but considering she was on her knees and her overall adorableness, it only managed to turn him on and make him smile.

With a huff, she stood and he lost his view—and the flashlight. “Thank you. Now you can go.”

Instead of heading out the back door like he should have, he followed her to the front part of the warehouse and braced a hip against an entry-wall arch she was sizing up.

She ignored him, scribbled a few notes in that notebook of hers, then, flashlight stuck between those pursed lips, reached up to measure the height from the top of the arch to the floor. Only she was too short.

She tried again, giving a little hop that did nothing but make him grin, then kicked the wall—twice—and mumbled something about the male gender that was way too dirty to be darling.

Smart man that he was, he silently took one end of the measuring tape from her clutches and pulled it all the way up until it touched the highest point of the archway—being six five had its benefits.

Abby paused for a moment, as though deciding if she wanted to kick him or just write down the measurement so she could get away from him faster. Amazingly, she took option two, and they worked their way around to the back part of the room, him reaching the tall parts and her making detailed notes.

If she was thankful for the help, she didn’t say. In fact she didn’t speak at all. So when they moved into the main part of the warehouse, he was surprised when she opened her mouth.

“I guess Babs was one of the investors in Richard’s winery.” She looked over her shoulder and snapped the measuring tape, and he flinched. “But I assume you already knew that, considering you’re Ferris’s new go-to guy and all.”

“Yeah.” He knew. Although Ferris wasn’t his anything—other than another potential client. Tanner wasn’t even sure he liked the guy.

After his mom had walked out, Tanner was too young to stay at home and had spent his summers swinging hammers with his old man for college money. He’d worked on a few Hampton projects in high school, but hadn’t officially met the developer until they both lost big on a local start-up winery gone bad. Richard’s.

“Wait. You didn’t know?”

Abby shook her head and,
holy Christ
, he didn’t know how it was possible she hadn’t known. Not that he should be so surprised; Abby was so damn trusting she was the last one in town to figure out she’d married a lying, cheating sack of shit.

“Nope, and I am tired of being left in the dark. Tired of being screwed with. Which is why I went to see Judge Pricket after meeting with Babs today about getting my divorce.”

“What did he say?”

“That it’s too late. Richard is, um . . . three years ago he was in a car accident in Budapest and he and the passenger both, um . . .” He heard her swallow, and a bad feeling settled in his gut. “Rodney was telling the truth.”

Ah, hell. He hated the SOB for what he put Abby through, but for it to end this way was probably tearing her apart. Especially since he’d bet everything that Richard’s passenger was a very young, very attractive woman. “I’m really sorry, Abs.”

“Me too.” She cleared the rawness from her throat. “Since the divorce wasn’t filed until this year, I am legally his widow.”

“Abby.” He moved in to hug her, but was met with a tape measure instead.

“Can you tell me the measurements of the windows on the wall behind you?”

He looked at her for a long moment, and when he saw that she needed a minute, he eyeballed the top of the window and said, “Eleven by four.”

She shrugged and wrote it down.

“Are you going to fight for a divorce?” he asked gently. Richard was the last person he wanted to talk about, but if she had just been hit with that news, she probably hadn’t talked about it with anyone yet.

“I don’t think so.” She dropped her head to look at—well, he didn’t know, except that it wasn’t at her sketch. And that she didn’t do it fast enough to hide the way her eyes shimmered, or the way she worried her lower lip—something she did when she was lying. All signs Richard had won, and he hated that. Hated that Abby had worked so hard to open her firm, get her life back on track, only to have that son of a bitch weasel his way back in and derail everything.

“Is that what you want?” he asked, measuring the width. And, yup, four feet exactly.

“No.” She stood, and even though she had that chin-up, shoulders-back
thing going on, she still only came to his chest. “The last thing I want to be is Richard Moretti’s widow. And I sure as hell don’t want to go down as the woman stupid enough to stay married to a man who slept with half the town. But I want to move on . . .
need
to move on, and before I can, the town has to.”

“You think a legal battle will bring it all back up again?”

“No, but if I get the divorce, I don’t get Richard’s estate, which is still quite large, according to his lawyer, and the courts will divide it. If I’m his widow, I get the estate, and it would be enough to cover a lot of what was stolen from outside investors. Including you.”

Last year, Abby had freaked out when she’d discovered Tanner had lost a million dollars in Richard’s scam.

“Abby, if there is money to get, the investors will get theirs.” This he knew for a fact. His voice mail was filled with several messages from different investors, already asking him to help create a united front. “The minute that statue showed up, people got their lawyers working.”

“Did you?”

“No.” He stepped closer. “I’m a big boy, Abs. I understood the risks that came with investing in a start-up. This one didn’t work out. Most of them don’t. It’s not your fault.” When she looked up to argue, he cocked a brow. “They’ll get the money regardless of what you decide to do.”

“That could take years and they’ve already waited a long time. I don’t want them to wait any longer.”

Such a textbook Abby move. She was going to stay married to appease a group of people who’d turned on her during one of the hardest moments of her life. Not that it would matter. A good half of the people in town still believed Abby had covered for Richard, giving him enough of a lead to disappear. The other half just thought she was too stupid to notice that her husband spent more time training interns than he did getting the vineyard up and running.

Tanner knew the truth. Abby was loyal and smart, and when it came to love she went all-in. She wasn’t stupid and she wasn’t gullible, Richard was just a master of deception. He’d fooled the entire town and several surrounding communities. How Tanner saw it, Abby had been played the same as everyone else—except her loss was staggering in comparison.

“I want my life back, want to make my firm a success, and I can’t do that if I’m always wondering how Richard factors into things. I need to make this right so we can all move on, have a clean slate.”

“You know the slate was always clean with me, right?” He prayed to God she did. They had enough history to wade through without her husband wedging his way back between them.

“Does that mean I don’t owe you a lifetime of piano lessons?” After discovering Tanner’s investment, Abby had vowed to pay him back in monthly installments.

“No way. A deal is a deal.”

He didn’t want her money, let alone another reason for Abby to avoid him. He wanted time with her—a safe place for her to come to terms with the chemistry that was between them. So they struck a deal: payment in piano lessons. Which meant that every Tuesday and Thursday evening, Tanner got to be bossed around by the one woman who drove him absolutely crazy.

“Plus, you made me do that embarrassing as shit recital at Vintner’s Hall with all those eight-year-olds. Well, guess what? I’m in the next grade, which means I get to do right by
my
ten-year-old self at the next stupid as shit recital and play the theme to
Star Wars
.”

“
Star Wars?
” She laughed, and it sounded a hell of a lot better than her in near tears. So Tanner dropped the topic of Richard and everything that
that
must have brought up for her and went with light. He was good at light.

“Yeah, the Imperial March. I already bought the sheet music.” Actually, he’d bought it when he was a kid. Only he’d never actually learned how to play it.

“I see.” She crossed her arms in an attempt to appear intimidating, but on her it just looked cute. “Well, I don’t allow students to play that piece until they are grade four or five. You’re a grade three, which is more of The Sugar Plum Fairies or The Entertainer.”

Hell, no. The guys on the crew were already giving him a hard time over cramming his body onto the same bench as most of their kids. “What do I have to do to get to a grade four before the next recital?”

“Besides practice at home, and not just when you’re at my house?”

“Yeah. Besides that?” He hated practicing. His body was too damn big for that tiny little bench, which was why, after a year of lessons, he was only a grade three.

“How about another trade?”

“As in a barter?” He liked the sound of that.

“I’m meeting with my lawyer tomorrow to start the paperwork for a transfer of Richard’s funds. I want to pay the Hamptons and everyone else back by the end of the week, if that is even possible. If not, I’ll call Babs and explain my plans, then resubmit my ideas for the Pungent Barrel. I need to know that if she says no, it is because my work isn’t what they’re looking for, not because of something that happened in the past.”

Tanner smiled. This was the Abby he knew lurked beneath the DeLuca Darling facade. “So what do you need from me?” he asked.

“What I need is for you to hold this.” She smacked the measuring tape to his chest. “No recommendations, no favors, just help me measure the length of the room and tell me exactly what the Hamptons expect in a proposal, so I can resubmit my plans and prove to Babs that I am the best person for this job.”

Tanner crossed his arms. “All right, two extra practices a week, plus the promise that I get to play the Imperial March at the next recital, and I will make sure you get that job.”

“Won’t that cut into your dating life?” she said.

“Darling, my dating life is nonexistent since the girl I keep asking out keeps shooting me down.”

She rolled her eyes. “One extra lesson a week, and not starting until
after
I meet with Babs.” She went up on her toes, trying to look like she meant business, which was ridiculous. She was so petite he could pick her up and stick her in his pocket. “I had to cancel all my lessons this week to focus on landing that job.”