Miracle Pie (7 page)

She shook her head again. Sometimes she
thought she might be a little insane, but she was nowhere near as
insane as this man.

“I can’t.”

“You don’t have to do anything. Leave it to
me. I’ll do it.”

She shifted her gaze. Not toward the camera
but toward the back door. Wishing she could step outside. The sun
was out. Coming home this morning after delivering pies to the
truck stop and the Italian restaurant in Tomahawk, she noticed a
few yellow and orange leaves on the sugar maple tree in the front
yard. In the dawn redness it looked like an old painting. She had
an urge to go outside and see them now, in full sunlight.

“You’re afraid,” he said.

Her head snapped around. “No.”

His eyebrows lifted. “It’s very common. Some
people are afraid of greatness.”

“I bake pies.” Her tone was sharp. What
didn’t this man understand about baking a pie? Anyone could do it.
In fact, everyone
should
do it. If all the leaders of all
the countries in the world went into their kitchens and made at
least one pie every day, the world would no doubt be a better
place.

Slowly, her breaths shallow, she turned her
gaze back to him. He watched her. Unmoving. Implacable.

She wanted to kick him.

“I promised Rosa to do this with her. I
can’t do it with you.”

“It’s not the same thing. She’s doing a
show. What we’re doing is small moments of time.”

“You sound like a politician.”

He put his hand over his heart. “You wound
me.”

“If the knife fits...”

Dropping his hand, he leaned closer again.
Inches away. His blue eyes brilliant, enthralling her so she
couldn’t pull back or look away. “Think of the videos like movie
trailers. If they become popular, it will make her show all the
more valuable. In fact, I’ll ask her to do some.”

“She said yesterday she doesn’t want to do
short videos.”

“Then she doesn’t have to. It will be just
you and me.”

“You’re worse than a bulldog.”

“I promise...” his smile returned... “I
don’t bite.”

She gritted her teeth and put both hands to
her hair, grabbing handfuls.
This man. This insane man. Can’t he
leave me in peace?

“You have no excuses,” he said.

“I don’t need an excuse. I don’t want to do
it.”

“Because you’re afraid. You have
this...magic.”

“Magic!” She stared at him. Her? She was the
quiet one. Her pies were special, she didn’t deny that. But she had
nothing to do with it. It was a gift, the way another woman was
born with a beautiful singing voice. The way Gabe was born to
captivate her. “This is too much.”

Emotion churned up inside her and she drew
back from him. Her body started to shake, as if she were in the
middle of an earthquake.

“Out.” Her voice quaking, she pushed up from
the chair. She was overreacting, she knew it, but right now she
didn’t care. “I just want you to leave. You didn’t have to say
that.”

“You don’t believe me.” He shook his head,
staying in his chair. “You really don’t know how powerful you
are.”

“If I were powerful, you’d be a pile of
ashes.”

“Powerful doesn’t mean the person who talks
the loudest or laughs the loudest or has the most money.” His gaze
locked with hers, and she couldn’t look away. “You’re powerful
because you care, and that shines out of you. You care about your
dog, your friend, your grandmother. I know you cared for her. Love
is powerful.”

“You are...” She flailed her arms up.
“Insane. Totally and horribly insane.”

“Then humor an insane man.” He smiled and
once again his eyes glowed and she could practically feel him
sending her waves of seduction that melted her muscles. “Do this
for me. We’ll try it a few times. It will prove who’s right. You or
me.”

She plopped back down onto the chair. “I
don’t have to prove anything.”

“Why does it scare you so much? You saw the
bit.” He gestured at the screen. “Once you relax, you’re a natural.
Even if I’m prejudiced because I want to sleep with you, there’s no
failure in this. No risk. People either watch you or they don’t. If
they do and we get ads, we’ll make money. If they don’t...” He
shrugged. “The only one who will lose money will be me.”

She sat stunned. She heard everything he
said, but the only thing that stuck in her head was that he wanted
to sleep with her. A squeaking sound came out of her mouth, but she
couldn’t form words. Her brain seemed to have turned into pureed
pumpkin.

“I believe in you.” His voice was even and
calm. He kept staring straight into her eyes, compelling her to go
along with him. “What I want to know is, do you believe in
yourself?”

As if his expression unfroze her voice,
words spewed out of her mouth in a hot rush. “Yes. Yes, I do. Yes,
I believe in myself.”

He grinned and sat back. His intense gaze
lessening, as if he were releasing her from a compulsion spell.
Which was more crazy thinking. The result of reading the whole
Harry Potter series. Real people didn’t have compulsion spells. As
for her magic pies... Some people could write songs by the time
they were three. Others could do college math in third grade. She
made pies.

Yes, they were magic, but everyone had
magic. It’s just that not everyone knew it.

“You know I meant...” She stopped, suddenly
fighting laughter. “If Rosa gives her okay, I’ll do it.”

“Done.” He slapped his hand on the table, as
if he were sealing a deal. And he smiled at her like a man who’d
just won the poker hand.

She guessed that made her the loser.

Slowly, she stood. This was the craziest day
she could remember since she came to Miracle. This man was turning
her calm and ordered life upside down.

“Do you have a card?” she asked. As if this
were a normal conversation about business. As if he weren’t crazier
than her. Locked up, medicated and throw-away-the-key crazy. “I’ll
call you.”

“Am I scaring you?” he asked. “Am I moving
too fast?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you won’t mind if I do this.” He
stepped toward her, put his arm around her...and then he leaned so
close to her she felt his breath on her skin. He pulled her against
him and she closed her eyes and sighed, her body curving against
his.

Chapter Ten

Her kiss was as luscious as her pie.

Gabe’s brain was weakening, all the strength
going to his penis. The head with no brain. He meant to do a quick
kiss, but that was when his brain was running on full power. Now
only a few cells fired inside it, screaming at him to pull back, to
take it slow. That he was moving too fast with her.

But his body wanted her. Right now. With a
need he hadn’t felt...ever. As if something in the pie inflamed
him. He’d never heard of a banana pie aphrodisiac, but something
was happening to him. He wanted to take her on the table. Or the
floor. Or carry her to her bedroom. Make love to her on a soft
surface instead of a hard one. Kiss her neck. Her bare shoulders.
Her breasts.

A snuffling sound came from behind him, but
he ignored it. Jesus, he wanted to hold her breasts in his hands.
And then lower. Slide his hands down her ribcage. Reach her belly.
Stop and kneel and kiss it. Feel the warmth of her. The softness.
Knowing that below his mouth on her skin was her womb.

And then lower, the heat and the woman smell
drawing him like honey draws a bee.

The snuffling sound came again, a pig-like
grunt.

“Stop.” With a hoarse whisper, Katie put two
hands on his chest, her fingers splayed, and shoved him off
her.

He stepped back, her hands falling off his
shoulders. He felt dazed, as if he’d been hit by a bat. The blood
still hadn’t returned to his brain. She was staring at him with her
lips parted, looking dazed, too. As though wondering what the hell
happened.

That kiss was like a flower turning into a
garden in a snap of time.

Another snuffle came and she looked down at
Happy. “Come on, sweetie.” Turning toward the back door, Katie
lurched forward. She caught herself then walked steadily as he
watched the way her ass swayed in her navy slacks. Like a
metronome. Swinging back and forth, back and forth.

She could walk like that in front of him all
the time. He could make a video of her walking, filmed entirely
from the backside. Her ass could hypnotize him, the cheeks nicely
padded, the hips wide. Good for child-bearing.

He slapped his hand to his forehead, knowing
that wasn’t his mind speaking. That was his primal instinct that
wanted to populate the world with his seed. His mom used to say
they had Viking blood in his family. For the first time he believed
her.

His non-primal self didn’t want to populate
anything. It wanted to enjoy himself. To laugh. To eat good
food—including pies. Lots of pies. And make his films. Show people
as they were, with all their faults and all their greatness. Make
them laugh and cry. Most of all, make them
feel
.

But right now he was the one feeling. An
overload of emotions, all telling him to do the wrong thing that
somehow felt so right.

The back door opened and cool air puffed
into the kitchen. He needed colder air than that, but it would have
to do. She said something to the dog who probably didn’t hear her
though her husky voice floated into the kitchen.

The need lessened slightly, the blood
flowing upward, more brain cells firing, telling him it was a good
thing the dog had interrupted them. That it wasn’t a good idea to
make love with her.

Yeah. Like he believed that.

Unplugging the USB cord, he heard a man’s
voice. Gabe stopped. Not even breathing. As if listening for a
rival.

He shook his head at the thought. He wasn’t
a man staking his claim, watching out for rivals. Viking ancestors
or not, he was just a man who wanted to make his videos. And maybe
have a little fun. What man didn’t want that?

But that kiss... He hadn’t expected anything
that intense. It was like starting a fire in a grill and having it
flare up in his face.

As he shut down his laptop, he heard
hard-soled boots hit the hall floor, and they didn’t come from
Katie. His muscles clenched, but he turned his head toward the back
door and set his easy smile on charm, the way he did for the brides
and grooms and their families who didn’t seem to notice the
emptiness in his eyes.

A tall, lean man with long, white-streaked
black hair entered the kitchen, Katie and Happy behind him. His
thin face had seen a lot of life and his eyes bored into Gabe.
Though he wore a flannel shirt and jeans, Gabe easily pictured him
as an outlaw in an old western. The kind of cowboy that drank hard,
played hard and shot hard.

“Gabe, this is my father, Sam Guthrie.
Daddy, this is Gabe Robbins.” Katie’s voice was breathy and her
face was flushed. Softened. Like someone who’d just been kissed
very thoroughly.

Gabe suspected he had the signs of arousal
on his face, too, as desire still thrummed through his veins, like
the last note on a guitar singing in the air. Hard to look a man in
the face when two minutes ago you’d thought about taking his
daughter on the table, the floor, against the wall. A man in such a
primitive arousal that any surface would do.

It wasn’t the first time Gabe had to talk
himself out of an awkward situation. Taking a deep breath, he
strode toward Katie’s father, his hand out. Gabe made the instant
decision to call him by his first name. Man to man, instead of one
man to another man whose daughter he wanted to bang.

Sam looked at Gabe’s hand then into his eyes
for a long moment. Gabe was about to put his hand down when Sam
took it. Not a handshake, just grabbing it and taking it.

Something happened to Gabe. For one second,
two seconds, he froze while Sam’s eyes pierced his as if trying to
see inside his soul.

Then Sam released his hand, and Gabe’s mind
whirled. He started to wobble, and a slender hand gripped his
arm.

“Daddy, you didn’t!” Katie grabbed him and
held him upright.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,
baby girl.”

“You’re impossible. Come on, help me get him
into a chair.”

Sam gripped Gabe’s left arm. The
father-daughter team half dragged, half pulled him to the kitchen
table, then dumped him onto the chair he’d been sitting in when
this all started. Gabe slumped back and looked up at the two faces
staring down at him. One with a worried frown, the other with a
curled lip.

“Did you just give me a Vulcan mind
meld?”

“Daddy.” Katie shook her head at her father,
her lips flattened into a thin line.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sam Guthrie’s voice reminded Sam of a car driving over gravel, his
dark eyes sharp like a vulture’s. “I don’t have pointy ears, and
this isn’t a
Star Trek
episode. You really think any of that
is real?”

“Of course not,” he said, though a smile
played on Sam’s mouth, and Gabe suspected there was more to the
story. Something had happened. Something weird. It wasn’t his
imagination.

“Maybe you’re not feeling well.” Katie’s
gaze didn’t quite meet his.

“Maybe it’s a guilty conscience,” Sam
said.

“Daddy!” She glowered at her father. “What
did you come here for, anyway?”

“Pie, sweetie.” The muscles of his face
relaxed and he looked slightly less intimidating. “And to say hi to
my favorite girl.”

“You don’t need to sweet talk me for a piece
of pie.” She hurried to the counter. “I made banana cream.”

Gabe watched her load a piece of pie on a
plate. It seemed surreal. He felt like Alice in Wonderland with a
sex change. But there were no magic mushrooms in sight. Just pie.
The best damn pie he’d eaten.

Just thinking about it, energy whispered
back into his body. He sat straighter. Not fully at speed but
faking it. Sometimes he thought he was almost as good at faking
small moments like these as a woman faking an orgasm.