All Fired Up (Kate Meader) (16 page)

Pain and anger bit into his chest. What the hell was he doing here? He and Jack might share the same genetic code but that was where it ended. A biological connection that Jack didn’t want to acknowledge, that he saw as a problem to be dismissed with a few thousand Euros and nary a backward glance. Shane should know by now that blood was no guarantee of happiness. Neither was meeting the eyes of a beautiful girl across a crowded bar nor the hope-filled resurgence of that feeling every time he spent a moment in her presence. He was raw and torn up inside, his smiles brittle and false.

Nice? They had no idea.

“Everything okay?” Cara’s smooth tone penetrated his fog of bitterness. She stood in the doorway, a hazy mirage in a barren desert.

Blinking like it could right his balance, he reset the photo on the dresser and hardened his mind against all that soul-splitting love. He would make Jack’s wedding cake and move on. Go back to London and jump in on that business opportunity he’d put off for so long. Living like this hurt too much; he’d already experienced a lifetime on the wrong side of the glass.

“Tell Lili I stopped by,” he scratched out as he placed Evan in her arms. “And drop those annulment papers off when you get a chance.”

Her teeth snagged on her fleshy bottom lip, and he turned away, annoyed with how much that affected him. He needed to cut her loose, cut them all loose, and finally get his body on the same page as the brain that had just got a clue.

Behind him, he heard a small noise of discontent, whether from Cara or Evan, he couldn’t be sure. Shoving one foot in front of the other, he pushed through the gauntlet of photo love, only hauling in a breath when he reached the safety of the dark street.

Chapter 8

The natives were getting restless and her stand-in bartender was not making the grade.

As Cara watched Dennis-the-extern get more of a martini on the bar than in the glass (using one of the top-shelf vodkas, natch), she nibbled away at her lip gloss and then started in on her lips. Damn, damn, damn.

She checked her phone again, willing it to ring with the news she wanted to hear: her cousin Tad was winging his way on his Harley to this private event at Sarriette—a wedding rehearsal dinner—and bringing with him his cocktail-shaking skills along with his innate Italian charm.

When he got here, she was going to kick his cocktail-shaking, innately charming ass into the nearest wall.

She cast about the room, taking in the perfectly laid table, the beautiful peony-based centerpiece she had created, and the rather antsy-looking horde of guests who were waiting for their cocktail fix. At least the hors d’oeuvres were going over well, as long as you didn’t mind a side dip of misery. Stoically, Cara suffered the sullen stares of Maisey as she passed basil palmiers and crudités around to the guests, most of whom were scarfing it down while the line for the drinks got longer. Dennis had insisted he had experience when she roped him in twenty minutes ago, but it seemed the only experience he had was with wiping the bar down, and he wasn’t even very good at that. She really needed to get in there and sort it out.

Stooping to the small bar fridge, Cara pulled out a couple of bottles of champagne, and gestured Maisey over with a subtle motion of her head. Too subtle apparently, as Maisey chose to ignore her.

“Maisey,” Cara called out above the pop of the Piper-Heidsieck Brut, running mental calculations of how many bottles they’d have to eat to appease their guests.

Maisey trudged over as if the world might come to an end, her jaw set
à la
moody teenager. Hard to believe the woman was twenty-five years old. The same age as—no, she refused to spare that man another brain cell.

“Please serve our guests with complimentary champagne…” Cara poured the bubbly into flutes. “And cheer up, honey. It might never happen.”

Cara’s phone rang and she answered with a hissed, “Where the hell are you?”

“Hey, that’s no way to greet your favorite cousin.” Shit, he wasn’t coming.

“Tad, what’s your excuse? Did one of your lady friends break a nail?”

Tad sighed as if Cara was the difficult one. “I’m at the ER with Evan. He had a fever and Jules got worried.”

Cara’s stomach dropped. “Oh God, is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’ll be fine. Doc says it’s just a bad cold and not meningitis or something worse. I was getting ready to come over but Jules called and it all happened so fast.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. Was it possible she hadn’t covered the little guy up properly last night and made him ill? Just further proof of how bad she was at all this family jazz.

“I’m going to stay with them,” Tad was saying above Cara’s internal admonishment. “With Jack and Lili away in New York, she’s on her own. I’m sorry I couldn’t call earlier but they don’t let you use cell phones inside.”

“Tell Jules I’m thinking of her.”

“Sure. Hey, they’re coming out. Later, cuz.” The line went dead.

The tinkle of breaking glass signaled another Dennis mishap.

Five minutes later, she was close to whipping out the high-end grappa she kept in the bottom drawer of her desk for emergencies. None of the usual bar backs were picking up her calls and the temp staff agency she used said they’d call around but she shouldn’t hold her breath. Frantically, she headed for Sarriette’s front of the house to see if Aaron could spare one of the waiters. Wednesday nights in most restaurants were often slow affairs, but not here. Jack’s insistence that the fine-dining experience remain in the ordinary punter’s grasp with bargain basement prices ensured full houses every night they were open. Needless to say, hope was low.

Until she passed the employee locker room and hope took root in her chest. Through the open door, she spied Shane hunched over on the bench, massaging out some tension in the back of his neck. And he was naked.

Okay, that was a teensy exaggeration. Not naked, just shirtless. Gloriously and beautifully shirtless. His tightly loomed back muscles just about made her jaw bungee to the floor.

Her reaction now wasn’t all that different to finding him in Evan’s room last night. The little guy had been buried in Shane’s neck—hmm-hmm, did Cara know the attraction of that. They looked so perfect together, like one of those popular man-with-child posters that were all the rage when she was in high school and now formed the backbone of half the boards on Pinterest. Some shirtless hottie holding a baby that was supposed to make a girl’s ovaries overload with the sheer
aw
of it.

Except for the unfortunate chest cover-up, the scenario had hit all her weak spots. The baby scent always made her gaga, but superimposed with hints of Shane, it rocketed her senses past eleven. Freshly baked bread and raw male. A trifecta of perfection that felt so out of reach—food, child, man.

But her beating heart had jumped into overdrive at the sight of Shane as he held that photo of Jack, Evan, and Jules. His expression had overcome with a parade of emotions. Pain and longing and fear, things she recognized because they were her constant companions. They looked all wrong on his face, as though they didn’t know how to arrange themselves but just hung there, waiting for instructions. In that moment, she had realized she knew nothing whatsoever about him, and boy, did she want to. Before she could probe further, Shane deposited a pacified Evan in her arms and left with a bark to tell Lili he had stopped by. Oh, and don’t forget the papers that separate us legally.

Just who exactly had she married?

“Cara.”

The bone-deep shiver skating down her spine brought her back to the locker room and the man who turned her on by merely breathing. During her drift, Shane had stood and now faced her.

That recalcitrant lock of hair still fell over his right eyebrow and she itched to push it back and then take a tour with her fingers through his dark hair. Her plunging gaze pulled short on a silvery scar linking one strong shoulder to his collar bone. Raw circular welts peppered one corner of his upper chest. A pinkish-white swatch the color of old prosciutto trailed his left side. The product of a rambunctious youth? Perhaps.

Something about the sight of him made her itch to touch and explore. Only when he grasped her reaching hand did she realize that her wayward body parts had suddenly became the boss of her.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured while he held her hand in a kiss to his skin. “I didn’t mean to…”

Didn’t mean to what? Grope his chest like it was within her conjugal rights? She had thought he couldn’t be more attractive to her but, surprise, surprise, here they were. The hair, the chiseled jaw, the dark nipples—she could write a poem about those nipples—and now that ravaged prize fighter’s body that spoke to a very womanly instinct. Could she ascribe her feelings for Shane to some sort of twisted maternal compulsion?

Not. A. Chance.

“What happened?”

A brush of pain crossed his face, and his next words were casually strained. “It can get rough at the pastry station.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said, not wanting to push but needing to know something about him. Desperately wanting to know something personal about her husband.

“Just ancient history.” The sweet glaze of his eyes hardened over like a crème brûlée sugar shell, and she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed he’d taken the easy way out. “Did you need something?”

Yes, she needed. Her body raged with need.

“I’m in a bit of a bind. Evan got sick—”

“Is he all right?” Not letting go of her hand, he stepped in close. His pulse thumped beneath her fingertips.

“He’s fine. Tad and Jules took him to the ER but everything checked out.”

“Does Jack know?” Shane’s voice sounded tight. No more fake casual.

“I’m sure he does. Jules would have called him immediately.” She regarded him intently, uncertain how to take his concern, which seemed out of proportion. Perhaps there had been a spot of bro-bonding last night. “So Tad was supposed to help out upstairs and now he’s not coming and Dennis is making a hash of it and…”

He moved closer—still shirtless, don’t forget that; still holding her hand, can’t forget that—and the words dried in her throat. She tried to keep her eyes focused on his face. It was a very handsome face above a very hot body.

“Do you know anything about tending bar?”

“You assume because I’m Irish I must know how to work a bar?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean—”

“Cara, it’s okay. I’m kidding.”

Less than twenty-four hours ago, there had been steam and flirtation, laughter and connection.
This is what happened that night. This feeling.
But with his abrupt departure, she felt like she had been hurled back to square one, unable to navigate the nuances of boy-meets-girl. Even a joke had her second-guessing every thought, word, and action. They couldn’t be married, but she’d had high hopes she would be claiming alimony in the form of Shane’s body.

“I’ve got advanced degrees in mixology and bar chat,” he said. I’d be happy to help.” His face lifted in a brazen grin and her heart lifted right with it.
Down, stupid heart.

“Will what I’m wearing do?”

Reluctantly, she extracted her hand from his and gave him the up-down, then up. And another down, just to be sure. Those jeans that clung affectionately to his legs, the broad bareness above the waist. The maximum concentration of sex appeal allowed by law.

“Um, you look fine.” So fine. “I can find you a shirt.”

She tried not to sound too melancholy about that. A bare-chested Shane shaking a cocktail was a delicious fantasy she’d be dreaming about tonight and so would every other woman at that party upstairs. Best to cover up those pecs and biceps and tasty nipples…She’d blanket him in a burka if she had to.

A couple of minutes later, he was behind the bar decked out in a tight black button-down shirt stuffed into the waistband of his well-filled-out jeans. A very relieved Dennis hugged him like he was the Second Coming, and Cara mentally kicked herself.

Why hadn’t she thought of that?

*  *  *

Not for the first time this evening, Shane’s rich laugh drew Cara’s attention and she looked over to see that same smattering of female guests who had elected to take their dinner in liquid form. At the bar, they drooled as her bartender poured cocktails and charmed them out of their panties. Not literally, of course, but anyone could see they were thinking about it. If this were a hotel or cheesy cruise, his pockets would be weighed down with room keys by now.

He laughed again at something one of them said. Just doing his job, she knew. Something dark and unkind burned inside her and she held onto it, thinking about how she could use it later at the gym. Cara wasn’t the kind of woman who tickled a guy’s funny bone. She was too tightly wound, too self-conscious of how her body looked when she laughed, too aware of those embarrassing laugh-snorts. In Vegas, it had been different. Shane had made her laugh and dimly, she recalled returning the favor, but isn’t everything funnier with vodka goggles? Now she was jealous because the husband she didn’t want found other women amusing. It was so beneath her.

It didn’t stop her from hating every single one of his skanky admirers with the heat of a thousand suns.

Shane caught her eye and made an almost imperceptible beckoning motion with his head. She stepped behind the bar.