Made for You (5 page)

A million denials ran through his head, but he couldn’t bring himself to utter them. Lying to his best friend by omission was one thing. Lying straight to her face felt wrong.

“Does Brynn know?” he asked finally, hating that his voice sounded like a nervous kid before asking someone to prom.

“No,” Sophie said softly. “I think she’s still as convinced as everyone else that you hate her guts.”

He didn’t hate her guts. Not even close. Although sometimes he thought he should. The woman could be downright witchy, and was so rigid, she was one good tantrum away from exploding into a million pissy pieces.

But she could also be sweet. Not to him, of course…
never
to him. But he’d spent enough time watching her over the years to know that she helped old ladies take grocery bags out to their cars, and went on a fishing trip with her dad every summer even though she
hated
fishing. He’d also rummaged through her mail under the guise of pissing her off, and knew that she contributed to about nine hundred different charities.

She was also funny as hell, assuming one liked the prickly, caustic type of humor. He did.

None of that explained why he was completely, irrevocably wrapped up in her, but he was. Had always been.

He’d been sixteen, and he’d simply
known
. Known that she was the one. Even when she was busy tearing his heart out.

Will sighed and resigned himself to coming clean with Sophie. “How did you find out?”

He’d been so fucking careful. Then again, moving next door to the woman perhaps wasn’t the height of stealth.

Sophie fiddled with the case of
Psycho
. “I wish I could say that as your closest friend, I’ve known all along. But the truth is, I didn’t really have a clue until her birthday party the other night. When James handed Brynn that jewelry box, and we all thought…Well, I saw your face.”

Will winced. “Was it that obvious?”

She shrugged. “To others you probably just looked disgusted. But as someone who knows you best, you looked…devastated.”

“I wasn’t
devastated
,” he said. “Quit making a frigging soap opera out of this.”

“Use whatever man-phrase makes you comfortable,” Sophie said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “The point is, I
saw
you. It’s why I called you immediately after you headed out. To let you know it wasn’t what you thought.”

“Thanks for that,” he said quietly.

Those moments after he’d walked out of the party thinking he’d lost Brynn for good had been some of the worst of his life. He’d seen Brynn in a white dress walking toward someone who was not him, and it had clawed at his chest like a heart attack.

Sophie’s phone call had come just in time to stop him from getting good and thoroughly drunk.

“Although, to be honest,” Sophie was rambling, “I feel like an idiot for not seeing it before. True love hiding behind the squabbling couple is like the oldest romantic-comedy trope there is.”

“Except in the chick flicks, it’s generally mutual,” he said, leaning down to pick up the shattered picture frame.

“True,” she said, coming over to help grab the bigger pieces of shattered glass. “But you have a plan, right? That’s why you moved back? That’s why you moved
here
?”

Will grunted. It was bad enough to know his secret was no longer a secret. He really wasn’t in the mood to have a pow-wow about it, even with Sophie.
Especially
with Sophie. She was Brynn’s sister, and as much as he trusted her…

“Soph, you won’t say anything, right? To Brynn? Or even to Gray?”

She hedged slightly. Secrets had never really been her forte.

“Please, Sophie. Just give me a little time.”

“But I could help! I could play matchmaker, but be supersmooth about it.”

Will gave her a look. She was about as subtle as a battering ram, which she knew full well. Smooth was absolutely not in her repertoire.

“Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll keep out of it. For now. But Will…” She stood, gingerly holding shards of glass with the tips of her finger. “You know that I’m rooting for you, but if she doesn’t feel the same way…”

“She’s a big girl, Soph,” Will said, trying to lighten the mood.

“I know,” she said, with a lift of her shoulder. “But she’s fragile under all those matching outfits, ya know?”

Actually, he didn’t know. Brynn had always been so damn
flawless
. But he’d always suspected that there was some piece of her that he was missing. All her die-hard dedication to perfection had to come from somewhere, he’d just never been able to figure out where.

Probably because they hadn’t had a civil conversation in…ever.

“Fragile how?” He knew he was prying, but the cat was already out of the bag. Might as well get a little information out of it.

Sophie was silent for several minutes. “Maybe ‘fragile’ wasn’t the right word. Brynn would kill me just for saying the word. But sometimes I think she’s made it her life’s mission to erase an imperfect childhood by being a perfect adult.”

Will took a sip of wine. “By ‘imperfect,’ I’m assuming you mean she once placed second in a spelling bee and never forgave herself?”

Sophie gave him a look. “You
have
seen some of our old photo albums, right?”

“Yeah, because that’s what every heterosexual guy longs for. To rummage through his friend’s family albums.”

“Well, if you
had
seen them, you’d know that Brynn hasn’t always been quite so…”

“Prim? Humorless? Slightly dead behind the eyes?”

“Well, I can tell you two are going to have sweet pillow talk,” she said. “Let’s just say she didn’t exactly hit the beauty-queen jackpot.”

Will’s eyebrows crept up. He hadn’t met Brynn until she was a little freshman hottie. He’d never done much thinking of what she’d been like before that.

“So? We all had awkward years,” he said with a shrug.

Sophie licked her lips and looked pained. “Brynn’s was more like an awkward
decade
. Actually, ‘awkward’ doesn’t even cover it. She was my big sister, and I idolized her because she was funny and sweet, even if she was a little—okay,
a lot
—overweight, and she was shy, and she had this gap the size of Africa between her teeth, and…”

Will held up his hand with a half laugh. “Tell me you have a picture of this. I can’t
believe
all this blackmail material was right at my fingertips and I didn’t even know it.”

Sophie was in his face in a flash. “Don’t you dare, Will. I know you two like your games, but don’t touch those years. Seriously.”

His smile faded.

Whoa. What is going on here?

“We’ve all got a few rough memories,” Sophie said more softly, “but kids can be cruel, and Brynn got more than her fair share of it.”

The pieces began fitting together and Will felt something tighten in his chest at the thought of a chubby, awkward Brynn who would have wanted so badly to fit in.

“How am I just now finding this out?” he asked softly.

“Well, gosh, I can’t imagine why Brynn wouldn’t have shared all this with you while you were torturing her,” Sophie muttered.

“Okay, in my defense, by the time I met the girl, she was queen of her freshman class.”

Sophie shrugged. “On the outside, sure. Inside she was still Dumpy Dalton. That’s what they used to call her.”

Will rocked back on his heels.
Christ.

He swallowed dryly. “Soph, you ever wish you could go back and do things all over again? I mean, like all the way?”

She gave him a look. “Will, my husband once assumed I was a Las Vegas hooker. So no,
of course
I wouldn’t want a do-over.”

He smiled slightly at her sarcasm, but his mind was already back on Brynn. For the first time, he was finally starting to see things the way they really were.

And a part of him—a big part of him—wanted nothing more than to cradle her to him and tell her that she was not that little girl anymore. That she didn’t have to try so hard.

But the smarter part of him knew that Brynn Dalton would take anything looking even remotely like pity and shove it up his ass.

He’d have to stay the course. At least for now.

Sophie’s eyes narrowed on him. “Oh God. I know that look. You’re
planning
.”

“Maybe,” he said, giving her a boyish grin. “Would that be so bad?”

“Well…” she said in a thoughtful voice, flouncing toward the kitchen. “Let’s see. There was that time that Brynn told Vicki Morales that you had crabs, and you got so pissed that you let the air out of the tires of the car my parents bought her for her sixteenth birthday. She’d had the car for exactly four days before you put it out of commission, and I honest to God thought she was going to kill you…”

Will had started to follow Sophie into the kitchen, but he stopped abruptly at the long-forgotten memory of Brynn and that car. He felt a small smile slide over his face.

Little did Sophie know that she’d just provided the next step in his plan.

B
rynn was going to be late.

She
never
ran late. The inability to keep track of the hour and plan for potential mishaps was just so
crass
.

“And of course it would be today,” she muttered as she pulled her cell phone out of her purse.

Normally Brynn’s work schedule could withstand the occasional delay. She trusted her partner completely, and Dr. Wee would be more than happy to cover one of Brynn’s patients.

But today, Brynn
really
wanted to be there in person. Seattle’s mayor was bringing her daughter in for an initial consultation. And while it was hardly the president, the mayor was still something of a local celebrity. It was just the sort of reference that Brynn could put on her website that would set her apart from the other orthodontist practices that were popping up with increasing regularity.

Only one tiny problem…

Her tire was flat. Beyond flat.

She flipped through the list of contacts on her phone until she found AAA. She’d been a member ever since buying her first car. She’d never needed assistance before, but she’d found it prudent to plan for emergencies. She just wished it hadn’t happened today.

Brynn patiently pushed all the requisite numbers to get through their automated call-intake system and calmly explained her situation to the woman on the other line.

“What do you mean it’ll be ninety minutes?” Brynn exploded.

Suddenly her silk blouse started sticking to her back. She hissed in frustration. She hated perspiration. It was so…pedestrian.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the polite voice was saying. “We’ll get there as soon as we can, but we only have so many available agents.”

She glanced at the Chanel watch she’d bought herself for her thirtieth birthday. The mayor’s daughter would be in her office in a little over an hour and ten minutes. There was no way she’d make it in time. Dr. Wee would just have to take the appointment with Liz Blanton.

Unless…

Brynn’s eyes fell on the house next door.

Will’s house.

The thought still made her vaguely queasy.

“You know, I think I’ll see if an, um…friend can take care of the tire for me,” Brynn heard herself saying to AAA. “Thank you anyway, though.”

She dropped her phone back into her purse and delicately pulled at her shirt with her nails to keep it from sticking to her body. Of course this
would
happen on what would probably be Seattle’s one hot day of the year.

Although, truthfully, she wasn’t sure what was making her sweatier: the weather, or the thought of asking Will Thatcher for help.

But Brynn was nothing if not practical. AAA wasn’t nearby, and she knew firsthand that Will was just a few hideous steps away. She’d seen him preening in front of his kitchen window that looked directly into hers.

She avoided looking in the direction of his house as often as possible, but the occasional glance had been inevitable. Best as she could tell, Will Thatcher did not seem to own a shirt. He probably enjoyed the reflection of his own pecs too much.

Brynn started marching toward his front door. If he wanted to torture her by living next door, she’d just let him see exactly what it meant to be
neighborly
.

She should have been prepared for it when she opened the door, but she still gaped. “For God’s sake, Will, put some clothes on. You’re going to scare the neighbor kids.”

Will stretched and leaned against the door. “Yeah, but their moms will be happy.”

“Gross,” she muttered, scooting past him into the air-conditioned home, being careful not to brush against his impeccably carved chest.

He made a valid point, though. The soccer moms would be drooling if they could see him. The man was wearing only black boxers, and the rest of him was nothing but golden skin and defined muscles.

“Why are you all shiny?” she asked with a sneer as she gingerly scraped a nail down his bicep. “You look like you just got done with a wrestling playdate with Hercules and Achilles.”

“Is that your way of saying I look like a Greek god?” he asked as his fingers locked on her finger. She jerked her hand back. She hadn’t meant to touch him.

“That’s my way of saying you need a shower,” she snapped. “And would you quit with the flexing? You look like you’re having seizures.”

“Can I help you with something or did you interrupt my workout just to come ogle me?”

Right. Keep your eye on the prize. And not
that
prize. Do it for the mayor’s daughter.

Brynn tried to let her eyes go soft while maintaining her smile. It wasn’t easy when she had the irrepressible urge to strike at him. Or maybe pull him closer. Or maybe…

“Brynn?”

“I need help,” she blurted out.

His cocky grin abolished all traces of the sexual awareness she’d been feeling a second earlier. Or mostly abolished them, anyway. If only he’d put a shirt on…

“I have a flat tire,” she said, trying to keep her voice helpless and innocent. “And I called for help, but it’ll be a while, and I have an important appointment at work, and I know you hate me, but if you could just be a decent human for like thirty seconds out of your entire year—”

“Sure,” he said, interrupting her plea-slash-demand. “I can help.”

“Oh,” she said, surprised by the lack of a fight. “Thanks…You know about cars, right?”

“Seems to me all women assume that men being born with a cock somehow correlates to auto-mechanic expertise, but in my case, you’d be correct.”

She gave him a bland look. “Were you just looking for a reason to say ‘cock’ just now?”

He grinned. “Maybe. Probably. Let me put pants on and I’ll come take a look.”

“Don’t forget a shirt!” she called after him. “I wouldn’t want you to be embarrassed when all of the neighborhood dads see your beer belly!”

She let herself out the front door and headed back to her own driveway, where she called her partner to let her know she’d be late, but that she wouldn’t miss the Blanton appointment.

At least she hoped she wouldn’t. If Will could use his hands on her car like he had on her body…

Firm palms bracketing her waist, pinning her to the mattress as his head dipped lower, licking and loving…

“Ah!” Brynn rapped her knuckles against her head in a futile effort to erase the mental images from her mind. It had only taken her an entire year to forget how good it had been between them. Taken her two more years to remember all of the reasons why they should never ever do it again.

She was not a savage.

She was a lady.

And ladies did not fantasize about soulless men who made a career out of making themselves disposable.

“So what happened?” Will asked from behind her. She turned, expecting him to still be half-naked just to annoy her. Thankfully, he’d thrown on jeans and an old college T-shirt. Unfortunately, neither did much to hide the body beneath it.

Think of James. James is fit. James is sexy. James is—

“Oh, you know, I just went off-roading on a bunch of spikes,” she snapped to distract herself. Fighting with Will was vastly preferable to thinking about his really delicious-looking shoulders.

“Probably just a nail or something,” Will said, ignoring her bitchiness as he knelt to look at the front left wheel. “You got a spare?”

“Of course I have a spare.”

Actually, Brynn had no idea if she had a spare. But her car was only a year old and was pricey as hell. Surely that meant they threw in one of the extra wheel things, right?

Will gave her a look that said he knew exactly what she was thinking as he popped the trunk and began rummaging around.

“You golf?” he said, pushing aside her teal golf bag.

“Taking lessons,” she muttered. “I belong to a group.”

“Of course you do,” he said, finding a hidden compartment and pulling out the spare tire.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” he said, as he swung the tire out and rolled it to the front of the car, “that everyone I met at your birthday party belonged to some club of some sort.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong with cultivating my interests.”

He paused in the process of setting up some sort of tools. “Do you ever listen to yourself?
Cultivating your interests?
Is that really what you want your life to be about?”

Brynn felt her temper rising.“You’re seriously lecturing me on how to live my life? You, who hasn’t been in the same place longer than a couple years? You, who has no idea what it’s like to maintain a steady job? You, whose longest relationship was determined by how long it took you to figure out the color of her sheets…” She broke off, running out of breath.

Will was looking up at her with a cocked eyebrow. “Oh, I’m sorry, Ms. Dalton. Here I thought you wanted me to help you out.”

Think of the mayor’s daughter. Think of your career. Think of the big picture…

“Right,” she grumbled. “Sorry. Please commence with the man-moves.”

He snorted at her grudging apology, but returned to swapping out her tires. She told herself to watch what he was doing so she could learn how to do it herself. Not that she had any interest in being Ms. Do-It-All-Herself, but she sure as hell wouldn’t be asking
him
for a favor in the future.

But she couldn’t concentrate on what he was doing. Her mind kept going back to his barb about her clubs and hobbies.
Is that really what you want your life to be about?…

There was nothing wrong with her life. And she didn’t understand why he’d said “clubs” with such disdain. Lots of women were in a book club. And a knitting club. And a yoga club…and…okay, maybe most women weren’t in
all
of those clubs like Brynn was, but how was she to remain balanced if she didn’t dabble?

Plus this way, if she had a falling-out with one group, she’d have the other ones to fall back on.

See? It was just good sense.

“So what’s so important?” he asked, maneuvering the spare tire into place with ease.

“What?” she asked, distracted by her internal moping.

“What’s the big hurry that you couldn’t wait for Triple A? Must be important if you resorted to knocking on my door.”

Seconds ago, Brynn had thought her reasoning completely sound. But for some reason now, when faced with Will sitting on the hot, hard pavement wrestling with her dirty tire, it felt a bit…shallow.

“Just an important client,” she said, striving for confident nonchalance. He was sweating, and it made his dark blond hair curl just the slightest bit and his shirt stick to his torso. It should have looked messy and unkempt. It
did
look messy and unkempt. It also looked…good. Really good.

“I didn’t know there was a such thing as an important client in orthodontics.”

“Why do you always do that?” she asked, tilting her head at him.

“Do what?”

“Belittle my career. You always make it sound like I sold my soul to the devil or something.”

Will stood and absently rubbed some tire grime off his hands as he examined his handiwork. “Just seems boring to me. Not to mention superficial. You get paid God knows how much money to tell kids they need to have you fiddle with their mouths in order to be attractive.”

“Now hold on,” she snapped. “First of all, you’re the last person to lecture me about noble careers. You’re not exactly curing cancer yourself. And second of all, several of my patients’ oral situations cause real pain and medical issues for them. I’m a doctor. Of teeth. And do you know how many little girls have sat in my chair, crying because someone made fun of their overbites?
I fix that.
”

“Well. Let’s just get you a Wonder Woman cape, shall we?”

Brynn huffed and began digging in her purse for her keys. “I don’t know why I bother.”

“Bother with what?”

“Talking to you!” she said, shaking her keys in his face. “Just when I think you’re going to be nice, you get me all…”

Will took a small step closer. “Get you all what?”

Brynn swallowed dryly and resisted the urge to take a step backward. He was just inches away, and if she’d been slightly sweaty before, she felt downright hot and bothered now.

“Please step away. Your man-stench is making my hair frizz.”

He didn’t move. “You didn’t finish your sentence. I get you all what? Riled? Panting? Hot?”

“I was going to say ‘nauseated,’” she snapped, starting to move around him.

He moved his body and blocked her way. “I don’t think so, Brynny.”

She sighed and tried to look unperturbed by his presence. “What do you want, Will? Money? You want me to pay you for playing Mr. Handyman?”

Just to piss him off, she started to pull her wallet out of her purse. His expression went stormy, just as she’d known it would.

“Keep your money,” he growled.

“And have you lording this over me? I don’t think so. How much do you want?”

Brynn glanced at her watch and winced. Even with Will’s help, she was probably going to be late. In the time she’d spent arguing with him, she might as well have waited for AAA.

At least then she wouldn’t be so…oh, damn, he was right. She
was
riled and hot. And possibly on the verge of panting.

“I’ve gotta go,” she mumbled, tearing her eyes away from his. “Think about whatever ridiculous price you want to put on your little hero-task and let me know.”

Will moved so quickly Brynn didn’t have a chance to react before he’d pressed her against the side of the car, his hands bracketing her waist.

Then his lips were on hers, and his mouth was every bit as firm and hot and wrong as she remembered. There was nothing soft about the kiss, and she stiffened as his tongue pushed between her lips and moved in silky possession against hers. She knew what he was doing…he was punishing her, torturing her, teasing her with the knowledge that she wanted him even as she hated him.

And she loathed knowing that he was right. She did want him. Hated that he could
make
her want him against her will. Still, she refused to let her hands slide around his neck to pull him closer, even as they itched to grab his head and give in to the onslaught of desire that rushed from her neck to her toes.