I Still Do (10 page)

“There you are!” A new voice snapped his attention away from his wayward thoughts. There was Laurie, the blonde he'd dated early that summer. While she gave him a wide smile, it was Emily she was addressing. “I've been looking all over for you.”

“Just got here,” she said. “What's up?”

“You remember my little plan.” Laurie's expression turned sly as she flicked her glance at Will then back to Emily. “Are you ready to leave your old friend in order to meet a new one?”

“Sure,” Emily answered with a little shrug. “That's what I'm here for. New friends.”

Relaxing a little, Will idly watched as the two women wandered off. Laurie had tossed him a throaty and promising, “See you later,” but Emily hadn't even wiggled her fingers his way. He wasn't bothered by that, though.

What bothered him, he decided a second later, was that Laurie had marched Emily right up to Carl Fletcher. Carl Fletcher! The dude was as blond as Laurie. What real man had hair the color of butter? He had a confident smile that proclaimed him the pampered progeny of orthodontists.

Since Will had personally paid the husband and wife team of Doctors Fletcher the cost of elephant upkeep to get five sets of identical Hollywood smiles for his younger siblings, it wasn't the grin that made him suspicious of the other man. It was his reputation.

Paxton, California, was a mid-sized city with a small-town grapevine. And face it, firefighters talked. Not just to their spouses or significant others, but also to many members of the community in the course of a day. And to each other. Between calls, when cleaning the engine or cooking a meal, they entertained themselves by yammering on about this and that. Sports, cars, movies…

Okay, and also about who was seeing whom, who wasn't seeing who any longer, who shouldn't be allowed near any woman who wanted to keep her panties on, even though the ladies somehow thought he was Mr. Nice Guy.

That would be Carl Fletcher.

The same Carl Fletcher who right now was enclosing his paw around the hand of new-to-the-area Emily. She was smiling up at Carl as if he wasn't trying to eyeball her breasts, which he was, damn it. Will tightened his grip on his beer and training his sights on the pair, started in their direction.

A hand landed on the center of his chest. “Where are you off to with that frown on your face?” Laurie asked. “I was coming back to talk. I've missed you.”

He blinked down at her. She was Barbie-doll beautiful, with yards of blond hair, light blue eyes and a body that seemed made for the skin-tight little dress she wore. No flippy, flirty skirt for Laurie, her clothes hugged tight to every sleek line and each generous D-cup.

She looked perfect…

For someone else.

Over the top of her head, Will caught sight of Carl laughing with Emily as he reached out a hand to tuck a piece of her shiny hair behind her ear. That burn in Will's gut intensified. “What's up with you and Carl?” he asked.

Laurie's eyebrows rose. “What?”

“Why are you pushing other women toward him?” Because Laurie and Carl were a matched set. Single Girl Barbie and Swinger Dude Ken, both slick, both energetic, both bouncing along without an interest in deep emotions or lasting attachments. “You'd be great together.”

A dull red climbed up Laurie's neck. “Did he say something to you about me?”

“No.” Bouncy Laurie didn't look so carefree at the moment. Will narrowed his gaze. “Are you okay?”

“Of course,” the blonde scoffed. “A few months ago there was a rumor going around that I had some sort of…thing for Carl, but it was entirely untrue.”

Yeah. Sure.

Laurie glanced over her shoulder. “I want to be certain he understands it was a complete, um, fiction. So when I met your friend Emily, I thought introducing him to someone else would seal the deal. Show him I'm heart-whole and fancy-free. You know.”

“I guess I do now.” Fun-and-Frolic Laurie had fooled him, but good. While he could have sworn she wasn't any more interested in tying herself down than he was—not to anyone—from the flush on her face and the worried line between her eyebrows, the woman was a goner for Carl. “Are you sure he isn't, um, flattered about that little ‘fiction' that was running through the rumor mill?”

She shook her head. “Absolutely not. Carl, he's…well, he's a nice guy…”

No, he wasn't.

“But you know him,” Laurie continued. “He strictly plays the field.”

Now it was Will's turn to frown. “Yes, I do.” Keeping Count Carl was what one of his close buddies called him, and at the moment he was beaming all his Ken-doll charm at Emily. Emily, who was beaming right back up at him.

“Excuse me,” Will said, without taking his gaze off the other couple. Then he headed straight for them.

They didn't interrupt their conversation when he strode up, so he did it for them. “Hey, Em, can I see you a moment?”

Surprise showed on her face, and she didn't look exactly agreeable, so he did what he'd promised himself he wouldn't—he attached himself to Emily by grabbing her hand. “I need to talk to the lady for a sec, Carl,” he told the other man, and then hustled her away from Mr. Keeping Count.

The park was the oldest in town, with grass and trees, and a creek running through it. A meandering asphalt path led to the playground established at one end with swings and slides.

“What's going on?” she asked, as he towed her across the expanse of lawn. “Is there a problem between you and Laurie? You're acting very weird.”

Will didn't dare let go of her. “I'm acting on your behalf, okay?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.” Emily planted her feet in the grass so that he was obliged to stop, too. Pulling her arm from his grasp, she stared up at him. “Will?”

He forked a hand through his hair, feeling as awkward as he had when explaining to Tom about the birds and the bees. “Look. You should probably keep away from Carl.”

“Huh?”

This time he shuffled his feet. “He's…you know.”

“What?”

“Dangerous?” Too late, he remembered how he'd promised to be Em's danger that evening in his bed.

Emily blinked. “Dangerous how?”

When he hesitated, she persisted. “An arsonist? A communist? A…I don't know…pugilist?”

“Of course he doesn't hit women,” Will finally said. “But he hits
on women.
”

“Lots of men hit on women, Will. It's not a high crime. Not even a misdemeanor. As a matter of fact, it's usually how a man and a woman start to get to know each other. One says something, even, gasp, something flirtatious, and then—”

“This is beyond flirtation, okay?”

Emily shook her head. “Will, give me credit for some experience, okay?”

“But—”

“I'm not one of your sisters.”

One part of him wished she was. Then he'd feel free to lock her up in her room, instead of having to reason with her. “Emily…”

“Later, Will.” Sidestepping, she made to move around him and head back to the knot of people that included Keeping Count Carl.

Will blocked her way. “Listen to me.”

“Why should I?” She jammed her hands to her hips and sparks glinted in her eyes. “You—”

“He's a horndog, okay? One of those kind of men who are into the conquest, but not what comes after. Carl's been through more women than my household used to go through tissues during cold season.”

She rolled her eyes. “Will—”

He put his hand on her shoulder. “I don't like him, Em.”

Her gaze went icy. “Why not? You just said it, didn't you? He's one of the kind of men who's into the conquest, but not what comes after, right? He's a ‘horndog', correct? Isn't that exactly the goal you've set for yourself?”

His suddenly lax hand slid off her as she stomped off. She was eight feet away by the time he could feel his tongue in his head. “Em!” Sprinting, he took off after her.

She glanced back, and then totally missed the small ledge where grass gave way to the concrete sidewalk. With a little cry, she stumbled in her cherry-red flip flops and fell to the rough gray surface.

And though he'd promised himself to stay unattached—to Emily as well as anyone else—when he hauled her up and saw that there was red blood welling from her palm, her knee and even from a scrape on her chin, blood as bright as those cherry-red sandals, he found that he couldn't let her go.

U
nder protest, Emily allowed Will to whisk her away from the park and around the corner to his house. Claiming she could use paper napkins and water-fountain water to clean up the damage from her fall had not made a dent in his determination. The stubborn man had even insisted he drive her and her car the short distance to his driveway.

But when she got inside his house, and caught sight of herself in a mirror, she understood his point a little better. Besides the raw knee and gashed palm of her hand, the blood had run down her neck from the injury to her chin and there was more than a little gritty dirt sticking to the tacky red stuff wherever it was starting to dry on her skin.

She had to whimper a little at the mess her clumsy tumble had wrought.

Will's hand tightened on her waist as he ushered her into his kitchen. “Hurting, honey?”

“Mostly my dignity,” she admitted. She was irked that the accident had meant leaving the barbecue. Getting out in her new world, meeting new people, all of this was exactly why she'd left her hometown after her mother's death. A fresh start was what she'd needed to get her moving on from her grief and out of the little mousehole she'd made for herself in her hometown.

Will pushed her into a chair at the table. “I don't think I have dignity bandages, but I have all others known to man—sporting everything from superheroes to spring daisies.”

“What about ones a little more inconspicuous? I don't want to return to the park looking like I'm eight years old.”

One of his brows rose and he took on a big brotherly tone. “Why? You afraid Wonder Woman on your chin will leave you dateless next weekend?”

She restrained a roll of her eyes. His overprotective behavior, no doubt well-practiced during the years as the oldest sibling of younger sisters, only served to annoy her. “No comment.”

He shrugged a shoulder. “I'll be back with the first aid kit in no time.”

On his way out of the kitchen, his gaze lit on the answering machine sitting on a nearby countertop. She followed his look and noticed the blinking, message-waiting light. He pressed the play button as he ducked out of the room.

“Will!” Right away Emily pinned it as his sister Betsy's voice. “You were at Jamie's the other night. How come you can go by her house, but you can't come over and visit me? I've asked you fourteen-and-a-half times to drop by to see how well mom's quilt looks hanging on my living room wall.” She huffed out a sound of irritation. “And if you can't figure out what that ‘half' of fourteen-and-a-half refers to, it's the hint I'm leaving right now that you ASAP visit your adoring—okay, and annoying—cupcake-baking little sister.”

As Emily smiled, Betsy's voice turned to wheedle. “Chocolate, Will. With chocolate frosting. Much tastier than those ones you bring home from the bad-food aisle at the grocery store and are probably right now in the cupboard next to the fridge.”

Emily knew those cupcakes. Will had brought a suitcase's worth of them to camp every summer. Darting a look in the direction he'd gone, she popped up from her seat and snuck into the cupboard next to the fridge. Gold! Without a guilty qualm, she brought a package back with her to her chair and dug in as the next message started playing. “Yo, bro. Alex here.”

Will's brother, Alex, the only Dailey male sibling missing the night of her spaghetti dinner. Already Emily was predicting what he would have to say, and she discovered she was correct.

“So you had dinner with Max and Tom? What am I, chopped liver? You couldn't take me up on that run-and-a-bagel I suggested last Wednesday morning? And I was going to give you this great stuff for rubbing out scratches in auto paint. It'll get rid of that ding Betsy-Wetsy left last spring when she borrowed your truck.”

Will walked in, a towel over his shoulder and a plastic case the size of two shoe boxes in his hands as his brother finished up his message. “Dude, call me.”

Emily lifted her eyebrows at her host. “You've had some good offers there. Your brother can get rid of a scratch on your truck. Your sister will make you cupcakes.”

His gaze dropped to the cream-filled concoction she'd half-demolished. “Looks like I might need some.”

Without hesitation, she popped the rest in her mouth. “That's why I'm eating 'em,” she said, once she swallowed the cake and frosting down. “I consider it my duty to bring about a familial reconciliation.”

“My siblings and I aren't in any kind of conflict,” Will said, yanking out a chair and then dropping into it to face her. He took hold of her injured leg and drew it over his knees so he could tend to her wound.

All right, she was a wimp, so she closed her eyes and reached for the package's second chocolaty treat as he went to work. “You're still working hard to keep them at an arm's length, though.”

It cracked her heart just a little, that distance he was insisting upon between himself and his family, though she didn't think there was much chance that Will was going to have continued success with it. Not only did his brothers and sisters seem relentless, but there was Will himself. What kind of man took it upon himself to interrupt his afternoon and take a friend home in order to tend to her minor scrapes and bruises?

A caring man, who would sooner or later figure out that those sibs he considered so burdensome were actually pretty special.

Thinking of them and how much they cared about their big brother, that crack in her heart widened a little more.

“You know what I think, Will—” She gasped, interrupting herself as the sting of antiseptic met raw skin. He did the same to her hand before she got her breath back.

Bandaged on both places, she glared at him. “You did that on purpose.”

“It was either that or stuff another cupcake in your mouth and I'm damn protective of my stash.”

“You're protective, period,” she grumbled. “I haven't forgotten, by the way, your silly little scene at the park regarding Carl Fletcher.”

“Keeping Count Carl,” he murmured.

“What?”

“Never mind,” he said, then set her foot back on the floor and scooted his chair closer to hers. “Now it's time to clean up that chin.” He lifted the damp towel he'd set on the table.

“You know,” Emily said, leaning back. “I can do it myself.”

He grabbed a handful of her hair to tug her near again, and without waiting for permission, went to work removing the blood that had trickled toward her throat. Gently.

Who could be annoyed at a man with such a soft touch?

His voice was soft, too. “You have chocolate on your mouth,” he said. “You look like you did at fifteen when you stole into my cabin and found my hidden cupcakes.”

Embarrassed, she ran her tongue over her lips. “There? Did I get it?”

His gaze was focused on her mouth. She saw his nostrils flare and she wondered if he could feel the suddenly racing pulse in her throat through the towel. His hand released its grip on her hair to stroke it instead. “Emily…”

Then he sucked in a breath and let both his hands drop as he edged back on his seat. “So tell me what you've been doing with yourself this week?”

She gazed down at the bandage on her palm. “Quite a bit, actually. I've been taking yoga every morning at the gym I joined—hope my fall doesn't slow me down—and I went out for coffee with one of the other women from class before work yesterday.”

“A new friend already,” Will commented, a smile flitting over his face.

“I also officially joined Jamie's book club, which gave me an idea for something to start at the library. A movie club for teenagers…with tie-in books to get them reading more as well.”

“Great.” Will appeared even more pleased. “You'll meet a lot of people through my sister and that teen thing sounds like fun.”

“Yeah.” She gave a little nod. “I'm in e-mail contact with a film studies professor at the local community college. He's interested in being involved and we're meeting for drinks next week to discuss the possibility.”

Will went from happy to uneasy in the blink of an eye. “He? Who is this guy again and how much do you know about him?”

She shrugged, ignoring his meddlesome tone. “Not much, other than he was recommended to me by my boss. He lives next door to her. That's why we're going out for drinks. To find out more about each other and what we might do with this teen program.”

“Right, right.” Will's expression smoothed out and he leaned forward again, this time with a can of antiseptic spray. “Close your eyes while I get this stuff on your chin.”

“No,” she protested, eyeing the industrial-strength can. “I'm fine.”

“But cowardly,” Will said. “Stop being such a wuss.” But his hand was gentle again, as it touched her jaw to angle her face just so.

“Please hurry up,” she grumbled, closing her eyes, bracing for the next sting and bracing against the way his caring attention seemed to be doing more work on her weakened heart. “I want to get back out there.”

“You're doing that, aren't you?” Will murmured, as he administered a cold, smarting shot of spray. “You wanted to move to a new place, create a new life for yourself. You've gone a long way toward your fresh start already. I admire that, Em. I really do.”

She felt the press of an elastic bandage against her skin and she opened her eyes to see Will close up. Close up, and not moving away. He cradled her face in both of his hands as he studied her, his expression unreadable.

“What about you, Wild Will?” she asked softly. “Have you made any progress on your own goals?”

His mouth turned upward in a wry grimace as his gaze drifted to hers, then dropped back to her mouth. Her heartbeat sped up again, and heat flashed over her skin, setting her wounds to throbbing…and other places, too.

“My goals…” Will started, then sighed. “When I'm around you, I have to admit, Em, they seem to get all scrambled up.”

“Will…” she cautioned, as he leaned forward.

“Shh.” One finger pressed the center of her lips as he came nearer. “Let me. I just have to kiss and make it better.”

The warm, light touch of his lips to her bandaged chin was not the least bit sexual. But all the same she felt it like a spear of sweet heat heading straight toward her toes. Her hands came up to clutch his wrists, but she didn't pull them away. She didn't move away.

Instead, she moved in for a real kiss. The sound of the quiet groan he made as she mimicked his gentleness, only lip-to-lip this time, went straight to her chest, finding that new crack and pushing it wider. The sure signal that she affected him as much as he affected her wiggled its way into her heart, causing an inner voice to warn about danger that the rest of her refused to heed.

“Emily…” Will said her name against her mouth, and then again as his lips drifted across her cheek. He rubbed his face against her jawline and she felt his eyelashes brush her warming, sensitizing skin. Goose bumps ran for cover, dashing down her neck and under her tank top.

In reaction, her breasts swelled and her nipples tightened. Will speared his fingers through her hair and went back to her mouth, adjusting her head so that the slant of his mouth could achieve a tighter, deeper fit.

“Better than any boy's dream,” he murmured, lifting his head to look into her eyes. His forehead rested against hers. “You murder the man,” he said. “I admit I'm slain.”

“Victim to my charms?” The thought delighted her, and she moved her mouth to kiss him for bringing up the idea. Librarian Emily, the girl who'd stayed home on prom night, the woman who'd holed up on weekend evenings with her stack of to-be-read books and her fantasies of summers long past, really had a fresh start here.

She was slaying a man!

And it was Will.

“I want you,” she said to him.

He blinked, then a slow smile curved his mouth. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Why couldn't she, why shouldn't she want him? Why couldn't she say it straight out loud? The new Emily she was now wasn't the same as the predictable, overly cautious, dry-as-dust Emily that she'd been in her hometown. And furthermore, she'd already been through where wanting Will would lead her and the result had been spectacular. Not only had the fireworks been a fabulous mix of fire and dazzle, but they'd been able to get up and go on just as before.

So why not again?

After the first time she'd been, well, smug, as she'd already acknowledged, and his Wild Will aspirations had not been compromised, had they? As a matter of fact, maybe they could put them to good use…

“I've been thinking.” She cleared her throat and peeked at him from under her eyelashes. “A man who aims for ‘wild' in his appellation—”

This time Will's groan was several notches louder. “What do I have to give you not to bring that up ever again?” he asked, scooping her from her chair and depositing her onto his lap.

He was warm, smelling of soap and sunshine and…Will. She snuggled against his chest because it seemed like the most natural place in the world for her to be. “Oh, come on. I think it's time you showed me your best untamed moves.”