She touched his arm. “What happened?”
He blew out a breath and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Mornings weren’t her thing. We all knew it. Sara used to joke that in order to wake her up, we ought to just stand in the doorway and throw a two-by-four at her and then run like hell.”
She smiled. “My mom’s like that.”
“I learned young to leave her alone until she’d had her caffeine. Then the summer of my sophomore year in college, I was here working for a lumber company, and one day I got her up too early. Jesus, she lit into me and we got into a big, old fight.” He felt that familiar clutch of guilt. “I knew she needed me to move some boxes and furniture around for her, but I was a total dick about it. I left early for work and didn’t come home for my lunch break like we’d planned. After work, I went out on the water, and after that, hit a bar with the guys. I didn’t come back here until late.” He paused. “I found her on the bathroom floor. Stroke.”
“Oh, no,” Ali said softly, voice thick with pain for him. “Oh, Luke, how awful.”
He’d never forget the horror and gut-wrenching fear that had taken over his body at the sight of her. He’d dropped to his knees and tried to find a pulse, but she’d been cold and long gone. “It’d happened hours before. She probably lay there wondering where the hell I was and why I didn’t help her.”
She touched him, ran a hand down his back, saying nothing for a long moment. “How long until you were able to come back to the house?” she asked.
“Ten years.”
She went still, clearly doing the math. “This is your first time back?”
“Yeah.” He wished like hell that he could see his grandma standing there painting, smiling, full of life, just one more time. She’d always been so forgiving. So willing to love him, no matter what. And there’d been plenty to forgive, most notably the incident two years prior to her death, when he’d screwed up in a different way.
By failing Sara.
He’d failed them both, and Luke would give just about anything to be able to tell his grandma how sorry he was, that he never should have left her like he had. That he’d regretted it every single day since. That she was the reason he tried so damn hard these days to make sure he had nothing else to regret. “It was a long time ago,” he said.
“You and I both know that doesn’t matter,” she said quietly.
He stared down into her face, which was creased into an expression of honest concern. In the here and now, she had plenty to be worried about. Instead, she was worried about him and something he’d gone through ten years ago. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
“You’re probably ready to get back to San Francisco by now,” she said softly.
“Actually,” he said, “I love it here. I always have. But I need to get back. My commander’s been calling.”
She nodded, accepting, which wasn’t the same thing as being indifferent to his imminent departure, because she was the least indifferent person he’d ever met. She felt things to the bone. In fact, she had a capacity to feel things that he’d never had.
Or maybe it’d been so long he’d just forgotten how.
She could change that. At the thought, his chest tightened and burned with a need that wasn’t just physical, though there was that too. He wanted to let her warmth wash over him, wanted to feel things like she did.
Just for a moment, a single moment.
Or maybe two…
Hitting the touch pad on the wall to shut the garage door, he stepped close to her, sliding his hands up her bare arms to cup her face.
She met him halfway, winding her arms around his neck, her sweet kiss stealing the very air from his lungs. When her tongue touched his, it sent a bolt of hunger through him so strong he wasn’t sure he’d survive it. Pulling her up against himself, he enjoyed the feel of her, including the way her heart pounded hard into his.
When they broke apart, she stared up at him, breathing unsteadily. He touched her jaw, and she took his hand, wordlessly turning, tugging him with her. Into the house. Through the kitchen. Into her bedroom.
The walls were sky blue with sheer white drapes blowing gently in the breeze, beyond which lay a view of the water.
Home…
But by far, the more heart-stopping view was right in front of him. “Ali,” he said, his voice low and gruff. He wanted this. Christ, he wanted this. But…
She shut the bedroom door, leaning back against it to smile at him. “You look like you’re facing some sort of forbidden fruit.”
Truer than she could have imagined. He knew damn well that being with a man meant something to her. Lots of things meant something to her. He admired that about her—greatly—especially since he wasn’t feeling much for anyone or anything these days.
She could change that, a small voice inside him said, if you let her. He opened his mouth with no idea what he was going to say, but she pushed off the door and came close, pressing a finger against his lips. “Shh a minute,” she whispered. “I just want to see something…”
And then she went up on tiptoes and kissed him again.
He heard himself groan, and then his arms tightened around her as he opened his mouth wider on hers, willing to let her lead, to let her take this wherever she wanted to go.
She kissed him back, deeper, and his heart started to pound because he knew exactly where she wanted this to go.
Same place he did. Still, he shouldn’t let it happen. He shouldn’t…
And yet he couldn’t bring himself to pull away. Just one more taste, he thought. One more touch. His hands skimmed up her back, bared by her halter dress, and she arched into him seeking more.
God. God, she was so sweet, her lips clinging to his, her fingers digging into his arms like he was her anchor. And when she moaned and rubbed up against him, he knew.
He was in trouble. Deep trouble.
He’d been fantasizing about her, just like this, melting in his arms, taking everything he gave her and wanting more still. The reality of it was even better than the fantasy. She was warm and soft and eager. His. A ridiculous thought that didn’t stop him from taking, from slanting his mouth over hers more fully and cupping her breasts, sliding his thumbs over her pebbled nipples. He wanted her in his mouth, every part of her, and was tugging on the tie at the back of her neck toward that very goal when someone rang the doorbell.
They broke apart and stared at each other.
“Wait here,” he said, and gently nudged her aside to open the bedroom door.
He took his time walking through the house so as to not open the door with a full-blown hard-on. But looking through the peephole took care of that.
Ted Marshall stood on his doorstep.
Chapter 14
Ali followed Luke through the house and then went still when he opened the front door.
Teddy stood there in a business suit that, unlike Zach’s, fit him perfectly.
“What are you still doing here?” he asked her, looking just as shocked as Ali.
What was she doing here? “Oh no. You first,” she said, going for polite, but not quite making it.
“I’m looking for my backup cell phone,” Teddy said. “I was going to ask the new tenant if he’d found it.”
“You sure you don’t want to accuse me of stealing it?” Ali asked, not even in the realm of polite now.
“Did you?”Luke slid a hand to the nape of her neck.
Right. She had no idea if Zach could defend premeditated murder. “You might want to close your eyes,” she said to Luke, “so that you don’t have to testify against me.”
He smiled.
“Oh for crissake,” Teddy grumbled. “For the last time, you were the only one in my office who had a motive.” He pulled off his expensive reflector aviator sunglasses, the ones she’d used to think made him look so hot, and stared at her. “So what’s going on here anyway? And what’s wrong with you? You’re all…flushed.”
Extremely aware of her kiss-swollen lips and just-made-out hair, Ali stormed off to the kitchen, opened the junk drawer, and—shock—found Teddy’s spare phone. Grabbing it, she slammed the drawer and brought it to the front door. “I didn’t steal it, and for the millionth time, I didn’t steal that money either.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know!” She tried to take a calming breath. It didn’t help. “And I don’t even know why you thought it would have been me.”
He sighed. “You need the money. You always need money.”
Low blow. It took her a minute to catch her breath. “There are more important things than money,” she said. “And have you thought that maybe one of your other girlfriends might have done it?”
Guilt flashed for a single beat on his face. “Look,” he said, “whatever Melissa and Aubrey have told you is—”
“Aubrey?” Ali stared at him. “You had both Melissa and Aubrey on the side? Seriously?”
Ted’s face had closed up. “All I’m saying is that you’ve been misinformed—”
“Stop,” she said, lifting a hand. “You’re just reinforcing your ass-ness.”
“Fine. I don’t have to explain myself to you anyway.” His gaze flicked to Luke. “And what’s going on between you two? You found a way to stay here, huh?”
This time Luke tensed, and Ali grabbed his hand. “Don’t bother,” she murmured.
Luke didn’t take his eyes off Teddy, but he kept his thoughts to himself, looking extremely dangerous to Teddy’s well-being. “You’ve got your phone,” he said quietly. “Leave now.”
“I’m going, but I want to talk to you first,” he said to Ali. “Alone.”
He was very brave, or very oblivious. Either way, Luke didn’t budge, and Ali was choking on all the testosterone. “Oh for God’s sake.” She turned to Luke. “It’s okay.”
When he still didn’t budge, she stepped outside and shut the front door. “You have two seconds,” she said to Teddy.
Teddy eyed the front door warily. “My attorney advised me to stay away,” he said. “But you really embarrassed me, Ali. At work. In town. I thought we were okay, that we had a good run and then it was over, no hard feelings. So I have to know—why did you do it? You had to know you wouldn’t get away with it.”
“I didn’t do it—”
“I’m trying to work my way up to council and then to mayor,” he said, “and you made everyone doubt and mistrust my judgment.”
“Me? You were sleeping with half the town! You made yourself look bad.”
“Ali, you broke into my office and stole back a stupid ceramic pot that you’d given me. That’s just ridiculously stupid. Stupid and childish.”
“I didn’t break in.” But she flushed because he was right, on all accounts, and she hated that. “Yes, okay, it was stupid and childish. But I was hurt. You’d walked away without so much as a look back. You didn’t deserve the pencil pot.”
“Forget the f**king pot!” he yelled, and then made a visible effort to relax. He even poured on a little Teddy charm. “Look, I was just trying to be nice, okay? You were cute and fun, and when you had to get out of your apartment, I wanted to help you out. So I offered to share a place.”
This stunned her. “I thought we were a thing.”
“Okay, yes, we had a thing. But you weren’t my thing.”
She stared at him. “You could have told me,” she finally managed.
“You’re right, I should have told you. I should have said that I’d made a mistake. That you weren’t my type.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
He sighed. “Forget it.”
“Tell me.”
“Fine,” he said. “We’re…different.”
“You mean you’re a cheating bastard and I’m not?”
He sighed again, the put-upon ex-boyfriend, suffering through the breakup talk. “That’s not what I meant.”
No, actually, she knew what he meant, she knew exactly. He’d come from money and she’d come from nothing.
“I want that money back, Ali. I mean it.” And with that, he strode off the steps like he owned the world.
She’d have given just about anything to be holding the new key pot she was making so she could wing it at the back of his thick skull. In fact, she whirled around looking for something, anything, to bean him with.
“Later,” Luke said, joining her on the porch after clearly having listened to the whole exchange. “I’ll hold him down for you.”
“When?” she demanded.
“When you don’t have witnesses.”
She followed his gaze to Mrs. Gibson, who lived on the other side of Luke’s grandfather’s house. Fifty-something, she was a local teacher, soaking up the spectacle from her doorstep.
Luke waved at her.
Mrs. Gibson returned the wave and went inside.
“We’ll make Facebook before the hour’s up,” he muttered.
Luke could feel Ali vibrating with emotions.
“I really want to hit him,” she said.
“Bloodthirsty,” he murmured, taking her hand, running his thumb over the pulse racing at her wrist. “I like it.”
She didn’t look at him, and he realized she was shaking. “Hey,” he said softly, pulling her inside, turning her to face him.
She looked down, so he bent his knees to put them nose to nose. “What are you doing, letting him get in your head like that?” he asked.