Summertime Dream (21 page)

Office? Well, he had claimed the morning room table as a workspace, but calling the cleared half of a dining table an office was a major stretch.

He found Margie tiptoed on the stepladder stretching to clean the top panes of a window.

“Careful!” He dropped the bags and bolted across the room to steady her.

“I’m fine. I’m holding onto the window frame.”

He loosened his grip, taking in the view of his hand on her thigh, her smooth legs and the way her sweetly curved bottom filled out her denim shorts, and his mind blanked on what he’d meant to say next.

“How did your errands go? How do you like the room?” Steadying herself on his shoulder, she stepped carefully down the ladder.

Errands? Room? Then the reek of furniture polish and window cleaner and the transformed state of the room registered in his brain. “Wow. I can’t believe...Really an office. You did this all while I was gone?” Yes, could he sound more inane?

“It looked worse than it was. Your job has been keeping you so busy, I thought you should have a more organized place to work. Working in that mess couldn’t have been comfortable.”

“This is great. Really, great.” How had she done all this in a couple hours? Add in his filing cabinets, his desktop computer, and printer from his apartment, and he’d be right at home. More than right at home.

“How did the appointment go?”

“Very good. The agent was very helpful and will stop by tomorrow morning to take a look around and we’ll finalize the listing price.”

“Good.” She turned away, but not before sadness flashed over her face. “Okay, I’ve worked up an appetite. How about lunch and my ice cream? What flavor did you decide on?”

He retrieved the sacks he’d dropped in the doorway. “Thought I’d surprise you.” He’d chosen four different pints from Ruth’s Scoops, all flavors he’d never tried before, thinking stepping out of his ice cream comfort zone with Margie might be fun.

As they ate the burgers and fries, he filled her in on the meeting with the agent. But something was distracting her, weighing her down. Maybe she was simply tired from her morning’s hard work, but maybe the trouble was his fault from setting up lunch here in the kitchen, putting last night’s lovemaking on the table front and center in both their minds.

They needed to talk about last night. But every opening for that conversation stuck in his throat. Conflict resolution in the boardroom was a million times easier than relationship talks. He chuckled. Kind of explained his lackluster love life up until now.

As they shared tastes of ice cream, watching her soft lips close over each spoonful sent every kiss and touch into replay in his mind, the impulsive passion, his pride and pleasure in bringing her to come apart in his arms, savoring her husky plea, “
I want you
.” He fought steadily against pulling her close and kissing her and...He shifted miserably. Well, a mouthful of blackberry crumble ice cream was a deeply unsatisfying substitute for what he craved.

Despite the brain-derailing hard-on, he’d scraped together a conversation plan by the time they were cleaning up, when Margie abruptly excused herself to go home and shower up before the vet appointment.

This odd quiet couldn’t remain the status quo between them. He pulled her close for the kiss he’d been anticipating all day, hot and deep—and far too brief, and then let her go. “Good luck at the vet’s. I’ll see you later.”

She blinked at him. “Ah, yes. Thanks.”

And then, he was alone.

Time to work. He headed to the morning room—make that his office—thinking to tackle the emails he hadn’t had time for this morning with all the calls from Gloria Everett. He stopped in the doorway, astounded again at the transformation Margie had accomplished. The table was now an organized workspace with a proper comfortable desk chair. The built-in cabinets now displayed neatly arranged books and decorative items. A decanter stood ready for some scotch. Sure, cracks still spidered the plaster ceiling, wallpaper curled, and faded streaks marred the drapes, but she’d turned this trashed room into a homey, welcoming space he could work in, wanted to work in.

He plugged in his earphones and tried to bury himself in his favorite music and logic of numbers, but his usual remedy failed. The sensual jazz only made him want Margie here with him all the more. His mind refused to stop churning over Margie and their making out at the river and what they’d almost done in the kitchen, and then that kiss at the car last night.

With a heartfelt groan, he shut down the computer. Sitting was giving him too much thinking time. There was far too much to do to be wasting time staring at the screen.

He headed into the basement and set to hauling out more junk to the Dumpster, until his body was aching and he was drenched with sweat. He stripped off his T-shirt and scrubbed his head and face. Who needed a stairclimber and weights?

After soaking his head under the kitchen tap, he grabbed a beer and bag of pretzels and collapsed onto one of the front porch rocking chairs. He’d just rest out here a bit, finish his beer, and then take a well-needed shower. He stretched out his legs and took a long draw on his beer, half-expecting to hear Penny’s tail thump in hope of a pretzel. He shut his eyes and rested the cold bottle on his bare stomach, the condensation rolling off in chill trickles.

The already familiar sound of the Olssons’ truck pulling up to the curb snapped his eyes open and his heart revved and body tightened, hungering for Margie.

Joe emerged from the cab and stomped up the walkway like a man with a mission, grimmer than usual.

Great. Christopher groaned inwardly, but unclenched his jaw and stood, determined to be polite. “Hi, Joe. Can I get you a beer? If you’re looking for Margie, she’s at Penny’s vet appointment.”

“No.” Joe planted his fists on his hips. “I’ll say this plain, so there’s no mistaking my meaning. I don’t like Margie spending so much time with you. You think I can’t see how she feels about you? You’re going to leave and my baby sister’s going to have another broken heart. I let this go too far already.”

“I’m not going to hurt Margie.” Hell, he prayed he wouldn’t. Hadn’t. Beer and pretzels churned in his stomach. Last night had opened some question about that.

“I’m not going to stand for another guy to fuck over my sister. I’m damned if I’m going to see her broken up after another guy leaves her for the big city.” He took a challenging step forward.

“I think we need to get on the same page here.” Christopher spoke calmly, and stepped back in an attempt to defuse the moment. Had she told her brother what she wouldn’t tell him? Had she told Joe about last night? And what other guy left her?

Joe’s flushed face darkened. “The page we need to be on is you back in LA and out of my sister’s life. Now.”

“Hey, I didn’t tell her to help. She volunteered and she’s having fun. She’s an adult. She’s allowed to choose what she wants to do. What’s your problem?”

“Margie was sick last year,” Joe snarled, his expression warping between fury and fear.

“She told me. She told me she’s fine.”
But…what if she wasn’t?

“Did she tell you she nearly died?”

Christopher stared at Joe. Oh,
shit
.

“No, I thought so. She had a heart defect that missed being diagnosed until it nearly killed her last year. Do you know what it’s like to hear the doctor tell your mom and dad that your baby sister might die? And there’s not a fucking thing you can do but pray your heart out?”

“Shit. She told me she was recovered. I had no reason to doubt her.” A cold, sick sinking shook him. Her
heart
! All the hard physical work she’d been doing…Losing her…

“She is, she can, I mean, they fixed it. But damn it, she’s not being herself. She used to have her head in a book and glued to her writing. Now…She’s trying to prove something she doesn’t need to. We let her work at the restaurant, but she’s too smart to be wasting her time handing out menus.”

We
let
her? That put down pissed off Christopher. “The job and being a part of your family business is important to her.”

“It’s not what we want her doing. She needs a real career with her writing.”

He’d really like to get up to speed. Life-threatening illness. Bad break up. Be nice if he’d had a clear clue from Margie about those. “It’s what
she
wants. She enjoys working with you all.”

“We don’t need you coming in here like some big shot, playing on her soft heart, and then splitting.”

Getting into everything with Joe right here and now was the last thing he wanted, but he didn’t want to sit back and get his ass kicked by an irate big brother either. Joe still looked about to pop a vein.

Christopher sucked in a deep breath and spoke soft and easy. “Look, I don’t owe you this, but here’s the deal. I’m not involved with anyone but Margie. I’ve never been married. I’ve never been engaged. I’ve never lived with anyone. I don’t have any kids. I’m financially secure. I’m very good at my job. Yeah, I came here intending to do a quick flip of the property, but as circumstances changed, I accepted my responsibilities and adjusted my plans. I cancelled my vacation to stay here this long. I’m leaving on the twenty-seventh because I have a set-in-stone business meeting in New York on the twenty-ninth. Margie knows all of this. Is Margie part of the reason I’ve stayed this long? Truth is yes.”

Joe sneered. “So you’re saying you’re going to marry her?”

Marry? His brain stuttered and he missed what Joe said next as he scrambled for a reply that wouldn’t further piss off the irate man. He sucked in a hard breath. “What I’m saying is I’ve been truthful with Margie from day one. Margie and I are friends, and we’re figuring out what this relationship is together. I like her. I care about her. I respect her. If our friendship is going to become more or not, that decision is Margie’s and mine, not yours.”

Yeah, and nearly taking her on the kitchen table last night, real respectful—not.

Guilt churned sickly. But she had been far less than open with him. What else wasn’t she telling him?

He might as well have been talking to the flagstone walk, judging by Joe’s stony face.

“You need to finish your business here and head back where you belong. A buddy of mine is a developer. I’ll see if he might be interested in the property.” He jabbed a finger into Christopher’s chest. “Leave my sister the hell alone!”

Joe spun on his heels and marched to the pickup, driving off with a peel of rubber.

Yeah, he needed to wrap up things here and get the hell back to LA, but perversely, Joe’s demand made him want to dig in his heels.

Stupid. He needed to get this place sold. He needed to get back to his regular life. He grabbed up his beer and headed in for a shower. He needed to do some heavy-duty thinking before he saw Margie again.

After his shower, he found a message from Margie. She’d had to go over to her grandparents for supper and wouldn’t be back.

Damn. He needed to get out of the house. There wasn’t one room in the place that didn’t get him thinking about Margie. He headed to Collingswood. There had to be something at the hardware store he needed. There was always something there he could use. He’d stop somewhere new for supper.

But escaping the house didn’t let him escape the questions. What did he really want with Margie? Maybe his sadly lacking social life was just making something out of nothing, but the needy ache in him didn’t feel like nothing.

Marriage.

He was in favor of marriage in the general sense, but he’d never met anyone before that raised that question to personal action.

Did he want to marry Margie? Was craving her like a starving man enough? Was being happy to simply sit on the riverbank with her enough? Were his feelings for her enough to deal with her jerk brother for the rest of their lives?

Would she even want to marry him?

That gloomy rumination brought him back full circle to the larger problem of his life and hers. He’d been solo so long. Honestly, he was mostly boring, fixed in his ways. So much so Mom even called him an old fart. When the glow wore off and he was working nonstop and their age difference made a difference, then what? When they didn’t have the house as an interest between them, then what?

Farms, fields, woods, and scattered houses streamed past his windows. Falk’s Bend was in the middle of nowhere with a long-ass drive to the airport. No good for his work. He needed the amenities of living in a city like Los Angeles. She’d have to come with him, but taking her away from her family...Margie had deep roots here and she loved this town and her job.

He considered Mom, so often so far from her family because of Dad’s career. She loved Dad fiercely and had stuck with him from post to post, but there was no ignoring Dad’s career had often caused Mom a lonely life.

Could he do that to Margie? Was this really more than some summertime dream?

They had a lot to talk about.

The next morning, he woke way too early, hard, aching, and frustrated from an intense dream about him and Margie. Dawn was barely a faint rosy glow to the east, but there was no getting back to sleep after that dream. The only real cure for the need burning in his mind and gripping his body was sleeping blocks away safe and sound in her own bed. He’d have to settle for a cold shower and hot coffee.

After a thoroughly unsatisfying shower, Christopher dragged out to the front porch with his phone and coffee. He settled into the rocker, laying his phone aside on the small iron table.

He’d always liked this shadowy cool time of day and the deep quiet before the sun rose above the horizon. Even the sparrows flitting from rose bush to rose bush seemed sleepy. If he had been at Mohave this morning, Dave would be up already getting the coffee going. Lloyd was another early riser and there’d be hushed companionable talk, catching up, and fishing plans made while they waited for everyone to wake.

He’d miss this morning peace when he went back to LA. His apartment balcony offered him striking sunset views, but little peace with the busy avenue below and nearby highway. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent time out on the balcony for more than watering his tomato plant.