Keeping You (11 page)

It was the wine. The wine was to blame.

Aria had had an entire glass of Cabernet before dinner and then another with her signature
David’s
steak, and she was a bit of a lightweight when it came to wine.

That had to be it. The wine was the reason she felt warm all over, the reason her heart beat faster every time Nash leaned over to whisper in her ear, the reason her stomach fluttered when his fingers brushed back and forth across her bare shoulders in an idle caress as they studied the menu and waited for their meals to be delivered to the table. Too much wine was why her chest felt so tight she could barely breathe as she watched Nash carry Felicity into the bathroom to change the baby’s diaper before they ordered desert.

It had nothing to do with the fact that Nash was grinning at her daughter like Felicity was a treasure he’d never expected to find, or that her daughter was laughing up at Nash like he was funnier than peekaboo,
Sesame Street
, and the deer head jack-in-the-box Grandpa had bought her all put together.

Seeing her baby in the arms of a man who clearly loved Felicity was enough to break Aria’s heart in the best way. Nash had been nothing but kind and funny and just plain wonderful since the afternoon they said their “I dos.”

And the way he looked at Aria herself…

Well, the way he looked at her made Aria feel more beautiful than she had in years, and a part of her couldn’t help wishing this was more than an elaborate game of pretend.

“
It’s just the wine,” Aria whispered to herself, forcing a friendly smile as Nash emerged from the bathroom with a freshly changed Felicity in his arms.

She did her best to ignore the electricity that leapt between her and Nash as their eyes met across the crowded restaurant.

In gray dress pants and a black button-down that emphasized his dark lashes, Nash looked even more amazing than usual. The man had eyelashes like a baby llama, long and sooty and curled just the slightest bit at the edges. They were gorgeous.
He
was gorgeous. There wasn’t a woman in the restaurant who hadn’t darted an appreciative glance Nash’s way while their date’s attention was elsewhere.

Not that Nash would have noticed. He seemed only to have eyes for Aria and Felicity.

“
So how was it?” Aria asked as Nash settled Felicity into her high chair and moved the baby’s toys back within reach. Felicity had been amazingly good all evening, gumming on pieces of their food and playing with her toys like she dined at fancy restaurants every other day.

“
From dirty to clean in thirty seconds flat.” Nash eased into his seat beside Aria, casually resting his arm on the back of her chair. “Haven’t lost my touch,” he said with a grin before leaning over and pressing a kiss to Aria’s bare shoulder that made her shiver.

Shiver, and her nipples tighten into aching points that begged for those lips to attend to them as well. Aria silently thanked God for padded bras. Without hers, she would be making quite a spectacle of herself. Nash was just too good at pretending. He made this evening feel so real, like they were really in love, really a family. If she didn’t know better, she would almost believe their marriage was a love match herself.

“
What are you thinking?” Nash drawled in that husky voice that made things low in her belly twist.

“
I was…” Aria blinked, fighting to keep the way he affected her from showing on her face. “I was thinking that you have eyelashes like a baby llama.”

Nash smiled so hard his dimple popped.

Adorable dimple. Aria wanted to kiss it. A lot. A whole lot.

“
No, I meant about dessert,” he said, glancing at the small, rectangular menu in front of her. “Chocolate and ice cream, or the three sorbets?”

Aria cleared her throat, but couldn’t seem to pull her eyes away from Nash’s face. “I don’t care. I’m easy.”

“
Is that right?” he asked, lifting a teasing brow.

Aria got the joke and slapped him playfully on the chest.

Rock hard chest. Aria wanted to kiss it, too.

“
When it comes to dessert, you pervert,” she said, smiling when Nash chuckled beneath his breath before turning to the waiter who had appeared by the table.

“
We’ll have the flourless chocolate cake and an extra cup of vanilla ice cream for the baby,” Nash said.

The waiter departed with a nod; Nash turned back to Aria.

“
So I have lashes like a llama and arms like a boa constrictor,” he said. “I didn’t realize I was quite so…animalistic.”

Aria’s brow lifted. “You’re the biggest man in this room by at least fifty or sixty pounds of pure muscle,” she said, reaching for her ice water, hoping it would help cool her down. “That’s pretty animalistic in my book.”

Nash watched her drink, his eyes lingering on her lips. “I look at it differently.”

“
How so?” Aria asked.

“
I think of the muscle as a deterrent to other people who might be inclined to indulge
their
animalistic sides.”

Aria looked deep into his eyes, his steady green eyes that hadn’t shown a single spark of anger or irritation, even when enduring hours of Felicity’s screaming in the middle of the night. Nash was a giant of a man, but he was gentle through and through.

“
Is that why you started working out so much?” she asked. “Someone’s animalistic side?”

“
You could say that.” Nash glanced over at Felicity, the edges of his mouth lifting slightly as he watched the baby use her toy hammer to smash all the sugar packets in front of her.

“
My grandpa had a drinking problem, ever since my mom was a kid,” Nash said, smile fading. “I think that’s why she married my dad so young; she wanted out of Grandpa’s house. But Gramps would come by our place when I was little, asking Mama for money. Sometimes he’d get violent if he didn’t get it.”

Nash turned back to her, an intensity in his gaze that made it impossible to look away. “I was about five the first time I saw him hit her. My daddy was at work. Gramps hit my mom so hard she fell down, and when my sister, Raleigh, tried to go to her, he picked Raleigh up and threw her against the wall.” He paused. “She was three years old.”

Aria’s breath rushed out. “Bastard.”

Nash nodded, the slightest tip of his head. “That’s when I decided I was going to be big and strong enough to stop all the bad guys some day.”

“
But some bad guys have guns,” Aria said, worrying about him all over again. The fact that he dealt with criminals on a daily basis had hit her sometime Tuesday morning and she had been vaguely troubled ever since.

“
They do,” Nash said. “But you’d be surprised how much size can intimidate a man, even one with a gun in his hand. And being in shape makes me feel more…in control.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Lifting has become such a habit now, I probably couldn’t stop if I tried.”

“
And the women of Summerville would be very upset if you did,” Aria said, with a wry smile.

Nash leaned closer. “There’s only one woman in Summerville who has my attention,” he whispered before brushing his lips lightly across hers, sending currents of awareness flowing from her mouth to every part of her body, making Aria feel lit up from the inside.

When Nash pulled away, she could barely remember how to breathe, let alone think of a witty comeback. Thankfully, the waiter arrived with their dessert a second later, granting her a reprieve, and a chance to pull herself together.

Pretend, it’s just pretend,
she silently chanted to herself.

But as she and Nash laughed together over the mess Felicity was making of her cup of ice cream, and Aria fought Nash for the last bite of their shared dessert, she couldn’t deny how real it all felt. Or how much she wished Nash would be joining her in his big bed when they got home tonight.

Even when dinner ended and they escaped to the sidewalk outside the restaurant—strapping Felicity into her stroller and taking an after-dinner walk past the busy restaurants and shops of Main Street—Aria still felt the glow of dinner surrounding them, making it impossible to keep from twining her arm through Nash’s, and leaning into to him as he pushed the stroller down the street.

She was enjoying the excuse to be close to him so much that she didn’t hear the woman’s voice, or realize why they had stopped, until she looked up to find Rachael Wertz standing in the middle of the sidewalk in front of them, wearing a gaudy red tube dress and a dumb look on her face.

Rachael’s wide mouth hung open and her big blue eyes were the size of silver dollars, but it was the way her gaze flicked between Aria and Nash with increasing speed that gave Aria her first hint that Rachael Wertz was
the
Rachael, the woman who had broken Nash’s heart.

By the time the pudgy, balding man with Rachael said—

“
Well, Captain Geary, imagine running into you again.”

—
in a tone that made it clear running into Nash was comparable to being stabbed with poisonous darts, Aria was sure of it.

Sure of it, and certain she was going to enjoy helping Nash get his revenge even more than she had anticipated.

Rachael Wertz had been a spider since elementary school—when she broke all Aria’s crayons in half. Through junior high—when she spread the rumor that Aria was a lesbian. Into high school—when she realized Aria didn’t care if people called her a lesbian anymore, and resorted to telling everyone who would listen that Aria was a slut with some kind of exotic crotch disease.

Rachael was a very nasty piece of work, indeed.

And Aria was going to enjoy the next few moments very,
very
much.

“
Rachael, how are you?” Aria asked. “I haven’t seen you in years. Hi,” she said, shifting her attention to Rachael’s fiancé, not waiting for Rachael to recover enough to speak before reaching a hand out to him with her most fetching grin. “I’m Aria, Nash’s wife.”

Rachael made a strangled yipping sound; Aria’s smiled widened.

“
Lee Otter, Rachael’s fiancé,” Lee said, gaze flicking up and down Aria’s body, clearly finding nothing to complain about.

Aria was glad she had worn her tight, sleeveless green cocktail dress instead of the long, black halter dress she had tried on first. She never looked better than she did in this dress, and for Nash’s sake, she was glad of it. He deserved so much better than Rachael Wertz, and Rachael deserved to have her mean, weasel-face rubbed in Nash’s happiness.

“
Nice to meet you,” Aria said, releasing Lee’s hand and leaning back into Nash, wrapping her arms around his waist and glancing up at him with an adoring look.

He draped one arm around her and smiled, the gleam in his eyes leaving no doubt how pleased he was with her performance.

“
And this is our daughter, Felicity,” Nash said, hugging Aria closer as he nodded in Felicity’s direction.

“
Your daughter?” Rachael repeated, a harsh note in her voice that made her fiancé bring his hand to her back. But Lee’s touch only made Rachael stiffen more, and Aria’s happy sigh come even easier.

“
Nash is an amazing stepfather,” Aria said as she laid her cheek on Nash’s chest.

“
It’s easy with a kid like Skeeter,” Nash said, real affection in his voice. “Sweet as pie, and as funny and beautiful as her mama. Impossible to keep from loving either one of them.”

Aria looked up at him again, pleasure coursing through her when she met his eyes. If she didn’t know better, she would believe that Nash meant every word, that he adored her, treasured her, maybe even…loved her.

In that moment, the world and Rachael and everyone else in it, disappeared. For a second, it was only her and Nash, holding each other’s gaze, each of them wondering what was real and what was pretend, and if it even really mattered when being together felt so right.

“
Divorced and remarried already, with a baby so young?” Rachael asked, shattering the moment. “That must have been so hard on you, Aria.”

Aria turned back to Rachael, smiling in the face of her false concern. “I’m back with Nash. Nothing seems too hard as long as that’s true.”

“
Aria and I met when she was fifteen,” Nash said. “We were young, but a part of me knew there would never be another woman for me. Even way back then.” His arm tightened around Aria’s waist. “I just feel blessed that we found our way back to each other before I settled for something less than the real thing.”

Nash’s drawl was as honeyed as always, but there was no doubt Rachael felt the barb lurking beneath his words. Aria would have sworn she could actually see steam coming out of the other woman’s ears as Rachael snatched her fiancé by the arm.

“
Well, you two certainly deserve each other,” Rachael snapped, dragging Lee past them, and down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.

Aria heard Lee call out, “Nice meeting you,” but she didn’t turn to wave. She was too busy squeezing Nash’s arm, trying not to laugh.

She waited until they started walking again until she giggled and whispered, “Rachael Wertz? You have to be kidding me, Nash. She’s a snake.”

“
I take it you two know each other,” Nash said, chuckling.

“
I have no idea what I did to get on her bad side, but she made my life hell in junior high,” Aria said. “And tried her best to ruin my reputation in high school, but by then everyone knew better than to listen to a word out of her poisonous mouth. What did you ever see in that witch?”

“
Well, she wasn’t a witch when we started dating,” Nash said, sounding a little defensive. “I didn’t see that part of her until we’d been living together for almost two months. It took me awhile to realize the ‘new’ Rachael was the
real
Rachael and the sweet stuff had only been an act.”