Fiery (4 page)

Borrowing a page from her sister’s book of bravery, Carmen nodded. She could allow Ryan in without risking too much. The only man who’d ever been in her apartment had been Josh, but he didn’t really count because he was her brother-in-law and he’d been picking up his daughter.

There was nothing so innocent when it came to Ryan and the way he affected her. “Yes. I’m asking you to come to my place.”

“I’ll grab a pizza and meet you there.”

Chapter Four

Ryan had considered kissing her in the salon. Hell, she’d had him on the verge of grabbing her and pulling her into his lap from the moment she slipped her fingers into his hair at the wash sink. Then she invited him to her place.

He could have invited her to his, but he preferred more privacy than his apartment above the garage of his parents’ home offered. And until he knew why he was drawn to her, why he couldn’t dislodge the memory of her curves against him, and what he wanted to do about it, if anything, he wasn’t in the mood to share her.

She’d avoided him without even having met his family. Meeting them wouldn’t likely endear her to him. He didn’t need their scrutiny.

With a warm pizza in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, Ryan toed off his dirty boots and set them against the wall. Using his foot, he rapped twice on the metal door and called, “It’s Ryan.”

Carmen answered his knock quickly, which offered a change of pace from standing on her stoop like an ass. She scanned him quickly, frowning when she got to his feet. “What’s with you and shoes. Don’t you wear them indoors?”

“Not my work boots.” He lifted the pizza box. “I brought dinner.”

“Dinner doesn’t come in a box.”

“Do a tour during wartime. A box never looked so good.”

“I’ll have to trust you on that.” She jerked her head and stepped back, indicating he could enter. The gesture was casual, but her neck and shoulders were tense, like she didn’t often allow people into her space.

Ryan followed, taking the chance while it lasted. “I’m a trustworthy guy.”

Her response was muffled, but he found himself struggling to focus beyond the decor. Her clothes and hair and creamy complexion weren’t the only part of her that suggested she was living in the wrong time.

A black and white checker print rug dominated the living area’s floor. Centered on the rug was a round, glass-topped table with a red couch and two yellow chairs around it. The furniture and every knick-knack and picture in the place had to have come straight from the fifties.

Following her to the small kitchen, he saw that she’d carried on the same theme, though there was only so much she could do with the building standards of the modern-day apartment. She’d compensated for the modern by bringing in touches that made the room look like a diner. He could so easily picture her with an apron over her dress as she moved around the room in heels to cook a real meal.

“You decorate yourself?”

“Yes.” She pulled out a couple of plates.

He set the pizza box on the silver-edged table with plastic-covered chairs and turned to take the dishes. His chuckle escaped. They were shaped like vinyl records with the edges curved up. The centers were even painted with a label to identify the album. The two she’d pulled down were for Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Great Balls of Fire” and Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti”.

“Carmen, do you ever feel like you’re living in the wrong decade?”

She smiled as she closed a cabinet, holding two wine glasses. “Life then seemed simpler.”

Ah. She was an idealist. Life had never been simple, though. According to his parents, the fifties had been filled with people struggling with major changes, like the introduction of TV and rock ‘n’ roll being two big ones. It was a time of discovery. A time when family ideals began to shift, to make room for something new. Maybe that’s why it appealed to Carmen. Maybe she was in a time of self-discovery.

“Whispering Cove is pretty simple.”

She nodded. “That’s why Aimee and I stayed. We loved it as soon as we arrived.”

He pulled Carmen’s chair out for her and then sat beside her. He could go for some simple. “Aimee’s your sister, right? I heard she married Josh Bryan.”

“Yeah. Long story short, she was a fling he couldn’t let go.” Carmen flipped open the box and served him before sliding a piece onto her plate. “Turns out she didn’t want him to.”

“I heard someone say they’d be back in town for the parade. There’s a rumor floating that Josh will do another concert.”

Carmen shook her head. “They’ll be back, but not for him to do a concert. This is his home between appearances and when he’s here his only plan is to spend time with Aimee and Kendall.”

“It has to be rough to be Josh. People always wanting something from him.”

“Even in Whispering Cove people can forget that sometimes all anyone wants is to be left alone.”

The loneliness Ryan had witnessed on the beach crept into her tone. He didn’t think she wanted to be left alone so much as he suspected it had become a state of normalcy for her. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask about her family, other than Aimee. He changed tactics, choosing instead something he thought she’d find safer.

“So, about the gazebo.”

“Yes.” She perked up, like she was relieved he’d changed the subject. “How’s that going?”

“We have the old bushes pulled and the bed area is ready for plants. I was thinking, instead of flowers and plants for every picture, we could alternate.”

“What do you mean?”

“In one section we could dye the mulch from the bushes we pulled and use it around the base of a large rock with one of your pictures painted on it. Then the next section would be plants or maybe a few flowers at the base of the rock statues.”

“What about the border?”

“I liked the white in your drawing, so I was thinking a white turtlehead outline around each section.”

She nibbled on her slice of pizza and watched him steadily. “It doesn’t sound like you need my help planning what to use.”

“No, but you deserve a say. It’s your design.”

“I drew the strip of pictures around the gazebo because I thought it would be a cool way for people to see the history of Whispering Cove without feeling like they were in a museum.”

“You didn’t have any thought on how it would look if it was done?”

“No, and frankly I wish I hadn’t let Byron talk me into entering and I wish I hadn’t won.”

“I can handle the materials, Carmen. And the heavy lifting. I’m not an artist, though.”

“I sketch a little.” She shrugged her shoulders. “That doesn’t make me an artist.”

Her shoulder shrug spoke louder than any words she chose. She didn’t want to think of herself as an artist any more than he wanted to be a landscaper. What he’d failed to notice while fighting the idea of working with her was that she’d felt a connection to her subject.

Her feelings for Whispering Cove had come through in each stroke she’d laid on the page, but what she didn’t realize, or maybe she did, was that she was gifted. She may enjoy the life she’d created for herself, but she could have more than a small apartment and a job cutting hair if she allowed herself to believe.

“I did some traveling in the Corps. Saw some things. Toured some museums.” To make his mother happy. Carmen rolled her eyes, but Ryan continued. “Woman, you’re an artist.”

She tensed when he called her Woman, but she didn’t comment on it. “Why plants instead of flowers? And why dye the mulch instead of smaller, colored rock?”

“Rock is more expensive than the mulch and flowers die and have to be replaced more often than plants.”

“So you want to do something that’s basically maintenance free.” She served him another slice of pizza. He hadn’t even realized he’d eaten, he was enjoying her company so much. 

“It’s easier on the town’s budget.”

She shrugged, again minimizing herself. He’d thought her to be a strong and confident woman when he’d watched her with the friends she’d made in town. Her friends had been a few years behind him in school, but he knew them well enough to know they’d never lacked confidence. She seemed to fit in smoothly with them; it was when she was alone she seemed different.

The unexpected side of her drew him faster than a bowl of cookies called to a sweet tooth. Maybe it was how clearly he remembered her reactions. Her touch. Her taste.

“Carmen.”

She glanced sideways, looking leery. “What?”

Ryan risked rejection and leaned close. “You never answered my question earlier.”

“What question?”

“Were you pissed that I kissed you or that I stopped? Or was it something else entirely?”

Her throat bobbed as she turned her head to him. Her hands flattened on her legs before her. “I wasn’t mad about the kiss.”

“That we stopped?”

She shook her head.

“So it was the comment about the non-natives.” He leaned a fraction closer, close enough now to catch the scent of shampoo and hair product she’d used during the day at work. “You thought since I had that view on plants it would transfer to you.”

She nodded.

He angled his head, watched her. “You weren’t too far off base.”

“Ugh.” She lunged back. “The women in the salon were right.”

“Yeah?” He didn’t move. Carmen would relax soon and when she did she’d be close again. “What did the town gossips say about me?”

“That you’re cold, almost cruel. When you set your sights on a woman you rock her world, but the thing people remember you most for is your skill at running away.”

He smiled. It never hurt a man’s ego to hear women call him a world rocker. As for the leaving part, truth was truth and there was no point denying it. He hadn’t stayed away and he wasn’t a player now, though. “So that’s why you reacted the way you did on the beach.”

“What way?”

“Surprised when I approached, though I have to say you recovered your surface cheer quickly.”

She leaned close, confronting him. “My cheer is not
surface
.”

“Not always.” He drew in a deep breath and caught the scent of salon shampoo that blended with the pizza dinner.

“You’re not even going to defend yourself against what they said?”

“No.”

She made a face like she was disgusted with him, which only made him smile because she was dropping her public masks. He was going to have to get her alone more often.

“Fine.” He digressed. “I used to date girls, fool around with them and then break up if they began to get serious. Sixteen years ago.”

“They talked like it was recent.”

“I’ve only been back a couple of months.” He leaned in and with his cheek almost brushing hers drew in the clean aroma of her shampoo. He whispered, “You’re the first, the only, woman I’ve kissed since coming home.”

“Why?” Carmen asked, wanting to believe him.

The idea that everything she’d heard was based on who he was sixteen years ago, when he was only a kid, suggested that he could be different. If he could change who he was, maybe people really could change and become something more. Something better.

“Why did I behave like I did in school? Or why are you the only woman I’ve kissed since coming back?”

“Both.”

“I never thought I belonged here.”

“So you never let people in as your way of proving that.”

He shrugged, not wanting to think about it.

“Why would you think you didn’t belong here?”

“It’s complicated.” His voice was barely a breath below her ear. “Turns out I was right and wrong.”

“So.” Her voice crackled, forcing her to clear her throat. Unsure of what he meant by that, yet feeling like he wouldn’t discuss it further, though she was curious, she pursued the topic that made her very uncomfortable without turning to face him more fully. “What about the kissing?”

He turned his head enough that his nose brushed her jaw, his breath warmed her. “Did you not enjoy the kissing?”

Her eyelids, too heavy to hold open, fell. “That’s not an answer.”

“Woman, you could drive a man to madness.”

He practically growled
woman
and, for the first time, instead of irritating her, it sent a sexy shiver down her spine.

“I’ve only kissed you, because only you arouse me. You shook my hand, placed your hand on my arm, and I was captured. You argued with me, kissed me in that gazebo, and I was sunk. I won’t even think about the haircut.”

She dug her nails into her thighs. Her breaths rasped through her open mouth. It was the kind of thing Josh said to Aimee, and it was the kind of thing she’d never thought to hear aimed at her.

Her voice, when she found it, was so hushed she barely heard it in the silence of her kitchen. “You can’t mean that.”

He raised one hand, rested it on her jaw and turned her face to his. “I can,” he whispered against her lips.

Holy shit!
She opened her eyes and found herself a prisoner of want. Want shone in his gray eyes, lighting them up so they looked silver. Want rolled through muscles and cells, wrapping her in an inescapable cocoon.

“I’ve spent more time the last three days trying to get you to talk to me than I have working.” He shook his head, never blinking or breaking his gaze. “That isn’t like me.”

“It’s not like me to ignore someone. You irritate me, though.”

“I think I know the feeling.”

Carmen licked her lips, extending her tongue just enough that the tip touched his mouth.

“Stand up.”

She had fought him in the gazebo, stood on that bench and insisted she was no man’s subordinate. Still, she found herself following his command to stand and there was no way to take it as anything more than a command.

When she was on her feet, he placed his hands on her waist, and lifted her so they were eye level. She could lean into a kiss without craning her neck or without him having to bend like a pretzel to reach her. It had made her feel like an equal when she wanted to fight him, but on the beach, with her hand on his arm and his towering height beside her, she’d felt protected to be smaller.

She kind of preferred the height difference. Until he eased in and pressed his lips against hers. Then only the feel of his mouth on hers and the taste of pepperoni lingering on his tongue mattered.