Barefoot by the Sea (12 page)

“A future.” He punctuated that with a kiss on her fingertips and, for a moment, Tessa died.

And then the bells rang so loud she didn’t even hear the waitress come to the table. What the hell? They hadn’t even ordered yet and he was talking about a
future
. The same man who’d evaporated when she used the words
sperm donor
the other night? Something was very, very wrong with this picture.

Maybe he’d gone too far. Up until “a future,” Ian really hadn’t lied, not technically. He really
had
left the kitchen because he couldn’t wrap his head around what was happening and she
had
affected him and he most certainly
had
been scared of her—at least of her questions. Even the two-by-four wasn’t a lie, although it hadn’t been in his pants. It was a metaphorical plank that slammed sense into his head.

That was why he’d run off.

So everything was true, more or less. Until that last declaration. The only future he saw when he looked into her eyes was his, with Sam and Shiloh. He saw a means to an end and, damn, that made him a heartless bastard.

“A future?” From the cynicism in her voice, she wasn’t buying. “This is the same guy who said, and I quote, ‘I’m not marriage material and I don’t do complicated.’”

Yep, he’d said that. “At that point, I really was thinking with my…” He glanced down. “You know what.”

“And you’re not anymore?”

“Not entirely.” Of course, he’d do his level best not to be a complete asshole about the whole thing, but he had to work in certain parameters: He couldn’t hint at the truth and he had to work fast.

He lifted his glass. “Let’s toast, Tessa.”

“I will not drink to a future,” she said dryly. “But I will drink to a man who knows his way around a good line.”

“It’s not a line,” he said softly. “But if it will make you give me a chance, I’ll drink to something less intimidating than the future. How about we drink to a fresh start?”

“Your new job?”

“And our new”—he dinged the glass and went with it—“romance.”

She smiled as she brought the glass to her mouth, sipping a little, but laughing more.

“What? We can’t have a romance?”

“It’s old-fashioned,” she said. “And sounds incredibly out of place on a man who has horror-movie tattoos and is built like a human lethal weapon.”

“Hey, I flounced, remember?”

She laughed again, already a wee bit more relaxed, and it was too soon to be the wine. All very encouraging, plus she was even prettier when her shoulders weren’t so taut and her smile didn’t waver.

“Give me a shot, Tessa. That’s all I’m asking for.”

“A shot at what? To do something about how
affected
you are?”

“Absolutely not.” Okay, that sounded ridiculous. “Well, of course I’m physically invested, but—”

She lifted a brow. “Who says things like ‘physically invested’?”

A guy who went to Cambridge and studied economics. He’d better watch the wine and be damned careful. Nothing got by this woman. “I’m trying to impress you.”

“It’s working.”

“Really?” He grinned. “Good.”

“Finish your thought,” she said. “There was a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence.”

Indeed there was. “I’m attracted to you, but”—he squeezed her hand—“I don’t want this to be a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of deal.”

The smile morphed into a dubious frown. “You sure wanted to wham and bam when I met you in the bar.”

“Consider the setting,” he said quickly. “We’re colleagues now. Are you that jaded that you can’t believe a man could be interested in something more than sex?”

“I’m not jaded, I’m…” She laughed and sipped the wine. “Hell, yeah, I’m jaded.”

“Never been in a serious relationship?”

She almost choked on the drink. “I was married ten years.”

“Really?” It was his turn to be taken aback. She’d been married? She’d been down the aisle and on a honeymoon and shared a name—like he had? For some reason that tipped him a little bit off balance.

“Why are you so shocked?”

He shook his head. “I had the impression you were more or less committed to being single.”

She eased her hand out of his when bruschetta and tapenade were served, both of them taking a second to inhale the aroma of roasted garlic and chopped olives. Ian could make this dish in his sleep, and he almost told her, but didn’t want to get the conversation offtrack. He was much more interested in her ten-year marriage.

For some reason, that changed everything. He wasn’t sure how or why.

He waited for her to take some bread and add the topping before asking, “What happened, if you don’t mind me prying.”

“I don’t mind.” She toyed with the bruschetta, thinking. “I guess the answer to that depends on who you ask.”

“I’m asking you.”

She cast her eyes down. “He had an affair and she got pregnant.”

“Ouch.”

“After ten years of our trying and failing to have a baby.”

Oh, bollocks. “That had to hurt.”

“It sucked, I’m not going to lie. We had spent a decade desperately trying to get pregnant, traveling the world to start organic farms, growing everything but”—she gave a wry smile—“the one thing I wanted to grow the most.”

As she talked, guilt twisted his gut. He was no better than the dickhead who’d dumped her for a baby maker. He was just a dickhead who would dump her after he used her to get his own children back.

He longed for a deep drink of wine but toyed with the stemmed glass instead, listening. She told her story slowly, as if she were in her garden and could pick only the best words. Didn’t matter what words she used; it wasn’t a nice story. A hopeful wife, a cheating husband, a broken heart, a single woman.

And what a lovely chapter he planned to add to her life. A lying bastard.

Self-contempt rolled through him like the aftereffects of the wine he’d yet to drink.

“However, as you know…” She finally took the time to look him right in the eyes. “I don’t intend to let that stop me from having a child.”

And there was that little complication. “You, uh, mentioned that the other night.”

“And that sent you running as fast as whatever it was in the kitchen this morning.” She eyed him suspiciously. “Giving me the impression that you, John Brown, are a runner. Or at least a drifter. Definitely not a man interested in”—she launched one eyebrow north—“settling down.”

Such a smart, smart woman. “People change,” he said.

She let out a heartfelt laugh, tipping her head back enough to tease him with the hollow of her throat. “Nobody changes that fast.”

“You don’t know that,” he said, knowing how flimsy that defense sounded. He
had
made a blatant play for sex the other night, and he
had
bolted the minute she’d asked him anything more than his name in a job interview.

And really, from that moment on, he’d been lying to her in one way or another. So why was he having such a hard time now? Because this woman was tender and vulnerable and so unsuspecting. She had needs and wants, but—

A thought played in his head. Tessa wanted a baby. Why didn’t he just cut a deal?
Marry me for reasons you never need to know and I’ll give you sperm for a baby I never need to know.

Except she’d need to know the reasons.

And he’d need to know the baby.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she said, resting her chin on her knuckles. “Still thinking about a future now that you know a little more about me?”

It would be so easy to promise her that baby—or that baby-making juice she’d mentioned the other night. And all she had to do was marry him. “Yes, I am,” he admitted. “I’m thinking about it more than ever.”

Her shoulders dropped as she exhaled long and slow, as if she’d been holding her breath the entire dinner. “Well, then…” She lifted her glass as if to make a toast. “Why don’t you tell me everything about you? That is, assuming you can do it and not run out of this restaurant and leave me for the third time.”

But this time, he couldn’t run. He wouldn’t. He had to go forth with this plan.

“Everything?” He lifted his glass and let it ding the rim of hers. “All right, here goes.”

Let the lies begin in earnest.

Tessa made her decision sometime after John told her why he’d left California. Maybe before that, when he explained how he’d been kicked out of college his first year and went to culinary school in Nevada. And got kicked out of there, too.

The boy was trouble, no doubt about it. And he was funny and flirtatious and he might be trying to seal the job, but she suspected it was still a full-court press to get her into bed. He’d changed his tactics from the bar, so she had to give him bonus points for creativity. The sweet seduction and old-school wooing was probably going to work and work big.

But first she was going to put him through one more test.

He slid the bill to the end of the table, a wad of cash inside, and gave her an expectant look after she thanked him for dinner.

“So, now what?” he asked. “A walk on the beach? A ride on my bike? What would you like to do now that you know everything about me?”

“I don’t know everything,” she said.

“More than most.” And he sounded a bit wistful about that. But Tessa was too content to question that. She’d asked enough questions, and he’d answered every one.

“I don’t know how you are socially,” she said.

He gave her a confused look as they exited the booth, reaching for her hand. “This didn’t count as social?”

“I mean in a group. My friends are getting together tonight. You’ve met them. Now you can meet the men in their lives, too.”

He looked interested. “Is this the equivalent to meeting your family?”

“As a matter of fact, this is the only family that counts.” They walked to the car, hand in hand, then he curled his arm around her back so he could pull her all the way into his side in a move that only a boyfriend made. It shouldn’t have felt quite as good and natural as it did.

“Tell me about them,” he said.

“Well, these women have been my closest friends since we all met in the dorm in college. Zoe and Joss and I were in a triple room, and Lacey was our resident adviser. We got close and stayed that way through the years.”

He nodded, absorbing that. “What about your real family? Parents and siblings?”

“Not much to tell.” Not that she wanted to share, anyway. Not yet. “I’m an only child, and my mother is…” Oh, no. Not the time for this. “Not really in my life,” she said quickly. “My ‘friend’ family is the one that matters. And who’s who will be self-explanatory, and you’ll get to know them all when you work at Casa Blanca.”

“Can you give me a refresher before we get there?”

“Sure. Lacey and Clay Walker own the resort and have a new baby, Elijah, plus Lacey’s teenage daughter, Ashley. Zoe has a hot-air-balloon excursion business, which she has someone else piloting right now because she’s pregnant. She’s engaged to Dr. Oliver Bradbury, an oncologist, and they’re planning to get married after the house they’re building is finished and the baby’s born.”

“After?”

“She wants the baby at the wedding. She lives to be unconventional.”

“So there are a lot of babies in the air,” he noted, keeping his arm tightly around her.

“A few. None for Jocelyn, yet. She recently married Will Palmer, a local carpenter. She runs the spa at Casa Blanca.”

“How did you all end up at the resort?”

“Lacey launched the project and, one by one, we came to join her.” At the truck, she unclipped her key ring from her bag, handing it to him. “Don’t think it escaped my notice that you barely drank one glass of wine and let me dip into a second. You drive.”

He took the keys, maneuvering himself so her back was against the passenger door. “Be happy to.”

She sighed as he got closer, tilting her head up to look at the full moon, but her gaze caught his instead, and stayed there, letting the power of those blue eyes nearly flatten her. For a long moment, he said nothing, just looked into her eyes.

Since he’d taken over the conversation at dinner, the warning bells had stopped ringing. He’d made her comfortable and content. He had convinced her they’d had two rocky starts—the bar and the interview—but this was all new. He had made her stop doubting, at least for now.

“What are you thinking?” she asked him.

“You don’t want to know.”

The answer surprised her. “Then I wouldn’t have asked.”

“I’m thinking about a lot of things.”

“Name one.”

“How perfect you are,” he whispered.

“Oh, with the lines.”

“That’s not a line,” he insisted. “You are perfect.” He backed her against the passenger door with one step, stroking her cheek with a shockingly light knuckle, the feathery touch making her close her eyes. “I’m not sure how I feel about that, but you’re perfect.” The hint of sadness in his voice made one of those dormant warning bells ring again. Something wasn’t right with that answer, or the regretful tone in his voice.

“Perfect for what?”

He frowned and shook his head, not answering.

She put both hands on his chest, not to push him away but to get a good feel of the muscles under his shirt. “What exactly are you looking for in a woman, John?”

“I don’t know,” he said gruffly, added some pressure so they were chest to chest, legs to legs. “But I think I found it.”

Oh, God. Was it possible he was for real? Was she about to kiss a guy who could possibly…

No. Not this soon. Not this man. It wasn’t—

He lowered his head, angling it one way, then the other, as if he couldn’t decide the perfect way to go in for the kill. “Damn it, you’re beautiful.”

His mouth covered hers, warm and wet, soft and sweet, his lips lingering like she was as delicious as the tiramisu they’d just shared.