Nothing could possibly go wrong with a simple pizza dinner. The niggle of apprehension in his nerve endings was unwarranted.
Nevertheless, as Matt drove back to Sandcastle Inn with the book he’d intended to return to Charley still on the seat beside him since the man hadn’t been dishing up tacos today, he cracked his window to let air into his suddenly claustrophobic car.
Maybe he shouldn’t have tempted fate while he was at the bookshop by asking Vienna to join them for dinner, but the invitation had popped out faster than he could stop it. And what was the harm? Andrew and Paige would be there, and sharing a pizza wasn’t like lingering over a multicourse meal. If Vienna followed her pattern of keeping herself scarce, she’d chow down fast and disappear to her room.
“I wonder why she would do that?”
As Charley’s musing from yesterday played back in his mind, he took a deep breath.
He could think of one reason.
The same one that made him keep his distance.
Namely, that the electricity between them was hard to resist and he was afraid if they interacted too much one-on-one, it might become more disruptive than it already was.
Not that Vienna would have any grounds to walk a wide circle around a buzz of attraction, as he did. She wasn’t grieving a devastating loss that had left a boatload of guilt in its wake. Her reluctance would be related more to the folly of getting involved with a man who would be returning to his vet practice in the not-too-distant future while she went off to who-knew-where for the next step up on her career ladder.
Considering their circumstances, it would be foolish for either of them to allow hormones to divert them from the plans they’d laid out for their lives.
He swung into the driveway of the inn, dodging the potholes the contractor who’d come by yesterday afternoon had promised would be repaired next week. A job that would put another large dent in Kay’s dwindling cash on hand.
Which had also been a motivation behind the volunteer painting gig he’d taken on that Andrew had initially resisted. The sooner they could get the inn up and running, the faster Kay could begin to replenish her resources.
As for the more immediate problem of dinner with Vienna—the invitation may have been a mistake, but despite his qualms, a meal shared by four people ought to be safe.
His illogical apprehension was much ado about nothing.
Quashing his misgivings, he parked in front of the house, next to Andrew’s truck. No point pulling into the garage. He’d be leaving again to pick up pizzas in an hour and a half.
As he entered, the Thompsons were coming down the stairs.
He stopped inside the front door. “How does pizza sound tonight?”
“From Frank’s?” Andrew’s face lit up.
“Yes. Vienna will be joining us for dinner. Do you two want your usual supreme, or are you in the mood to mix it up?”
“The supreme is—”
“Andrew.” Paige took her husband’s arm and locked onto his gaze. “I thought we were going to have a beach picnic tonight. You know. We said the next warm evening, we’d take dinner down there and watch the sunset while we ate.”
From the blank look he gave her, the beach picnic was news to him.
“Um . . .” Andrew scrutinized her, and some silent signal passed between them. The kind married couples sent, the message clear only to the parties involved. “Yeah. We should do the picnic.” Andrew turned back to him. “Would you mind if we bail on dinner?”
They wanted to leave him in the lurch tonight of all nights?
Yeah, he minded.
But how could he tell them that without explaining why?
Besides, after all the hours they’d put in here, how could he object if they wanted a romantic dinner alone?
“No. That’s fine. You two enjoy yourselves.”
“We will.” Paige smiled at him as she wove her fingers through Andrew’s. “I hope you do too. Come on, Andrew. Let’s finish up in the great room so we can run into town and get our picnic fixings.” She tugged him through the foyer, toward the back of the house.
As they disappeared, Matt expelled a breath and forked his fingers through his hair.
This was a fine kettle of fish.
Short of canceling on Vienna, he was stuck. And reneging on a dinner invitation would be rude.
He’d have to suck it up, order their pizza, and do everything he could to make their dinner pleasant, polite—and impersonal.
Armed with that plan, he set out plates on the table in the utilitarian kitchen rather than on the terrace, despite the balmy weather and blue skies. Picked up the pizza. Paced in the kitchen while he waited for his solo dinner guest.
When the crunch of tires on gravel announced her arrival, he froze. Wiped his damp palms down the scuzzy jeans he’d donned in an attempt to position this as just another end-of-workday meal, even if it was Saturday.
A couple of minutes later, the knob rattled and Vienna entered.
Instead of making a beeline for her room as usual, however, she appeared in the kitchen doorway juggling a ziplock bag of cookies and her laptop. “I could smell Frank’s pizza the second I opened the front door. It has a siren song.”
“Try driving all the way home with it on the seat beside you.”
She flashed her dimple at him. “No thanks. That would be too much temptation for me.” She glanced at the single flat box on the counter as she set her offering beside it. Frowned. “Did Paige and Andrew eat theirs already?”
“No. When I got back from town they informed me they intended to have a picnic on the beach tonight. Meaning it’s just you and me for pizza. What would you like to drink?”
“Um . . .” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, obviously as uncomfortable with this turn of events as he was. Unless his instincts were failing him, she’d bolt if she had half a chance.
But with their dinner sitting on the counter between them, she had to feel as stuck as he did.
Propping up the corners of his mouth, he motioned toward the fridge. “I can offer you a choice of soft drink, coffee, tea, water, or orange juice—but I doubt the latter would be compatible with pizza.”
After a beat, she exhaled. “Any white soda is fine. Diet if you have it.” She set her laptop case on the counter.
“Coming right up. Grab the pizza and have a seat.” He waved toward the table and pivoted to get their drinks.
She chose a chair at one end of the table and began opening the box. As if she wanted to dive in, eat fast, and vamoose.
As expected.
He set her soda at her place and chose a seat at right angles to her, scooting his chair slightly farther down the table as he pulled it out.
“May I?” She indicated the pizza.
He waited until she’d taken a piece, then followed suit. “What time is the awards program you plan to watch?”
“Eight.”
Two hours away.
Not an excuse she could use to cut out fast.
Without giving him an opportunity to respond, she found another reason to exit ASAP.
“I promised to call Kay, though. Text and email have sufficed until now, but a real conversation would be more efficient to deal with several questions and make a few pending decisions. We were scheduled to talk this afternoon, but it got crazy at the shop, so I texted her and switched it to tonight.”
Before or after his impromptu invitation?
She didn’t offer that piece of information.
“From what she’s told me, the interior plans are moving along at warp speed.”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far.” Vienna plucked a wayward mushroom off her plate. “But most of the soft goods have been ordered, along with the furniture. The website launched this morning too. Have you seen it?”
“Not yet.”
“Let me show you.” She wiped her fingers on a paper napkin and started to stand. As if she was glad to have an impersonal topic to talk about.
“You may want to wait until we finish the pizza. I’m not certain your keypad will appreciate tomato sauce and grease.”
After a brief hesitation, she settled back into her chair. “I see your point. I monitored the site in the few spare minutes I had this afternoon, and it’s already generating traffic. A few questions and comments have come in through the contact form too. Kay’s fielding those.”
“Where are you with the half-price soft opening and blogger promo you and I talked about?”
“Full speed ahead. Andrew says they’re on track to finish a few days early, thanks to a third set of hands added to the painting staff.” She took a second piece of pizza.
“I don’t put in the hours they do, though. Five or six a day, tops.”
“Mmm.” She finished chewing a bite. “If no glitches arise, Andrew thinks he’ll wrap up in less than ten days. Once he does, I’ll put the interior décor in place, with Kay’s assistance. We’ll do the soft, half-price opening for a few days, followed by the blogger weekend at the end of July. It’s too bad you won’t be around to see us hit the finish line. Kay says you’re scheduled to leave next Sunday, the day after she comes back.”
“That’s the plan. Duty calls.”
“I hear you. I’ll be moving on too. Once the bookings begin coming in, I’ll polish up my resume to include a successful relaunch and send it out into the world. That will give me an edge on the opportunities out there.”
“Your mom will miss you.”
“I’ll miss her too. More than I expected, in light of our history.”
“Because you two had a tendency to clash?”
Her pizza slice stopped halfway to her mouth. “She told you that?”
“Uh-huh. The day I stopped in at the shop in search of the community bulletin board, after she suggested I offer you a room here in exchange for your work on the inn. She said you have very different personalities. I guess she felt like she had to explain why you weren’t staying with her.” It might not be wise to mention the Oscar and Felix reference.
Vienna’s lips twisted. “Leave it to Mom to share our issues with the world. She’s nothing if not outspoken.”
“She also said you two love each other very much.”
“Also true. But love doesn’t always eliminate clashes. It’s been more congenial on this trip, though. She’s mellowed, and I’ve grown up.”
“So far, so good. Which is nice, since it’s always been just the two of us.” She took a sip of soda.
Always.
That begged a follow-up question.
And given her matter-of-fact tone as she relayed that bit of information, maybe she wouldn’t mind if he asked it.
Keeping his inflection casual, he took another slice of pizza, prepared to back off if she balked. “May I ask what happened to your father?”
“Never in the picture, but I know who he was. Mom was up front about that, like she is about everything. She says I have quite a few of his traits. Long story short, when she was twenty-four, she hooked up with a soldier who was stationed at a nearby military base. A few weeks later, he was deployed to the Middle East. Within a month, he was killed in action. Mom found out she was pregnant after he died.”
“That had to be tough.”
“Yeah. In a number of ways. I think she cared about him more than she ever admitted. Might even have married him, though she says it probably wouldn’t have lasted, thanks to her independent streak. But in any case, my arrival changed everything. Another mouth to feed meant she had to make dramatic changes in her lifestyle to accommodate an unexpected daughter. She gave up being a vagabond, got a decent job, and raised me as best she could.”
“You have to admire her for doing the right thing.”
“I do. More and more as I get older.”
“So tell me about your name. I’ve never met anyone called Vienna.”
A distant echo of pain flared in her eyes, and Matt stopped chewing.
So much for what he’d assumed was an innocent question. Apparently she was more comfortable talking about her sometimes rocky relationship with her mom and her absent father than about her name.
Why?
Despite his curiosity, if the subject was one that caused her distress, he wasn’t going to probe.
“Sorry. I seem to have touched a nerve. Can I get you another soda?”
“No thanks.” She set the rest of her pizza slice down. Swiped a trailing bead of condensation off her soda can. “And no need to apologize. Few people know that my name is a sore subject.”
“For what it’s worth, I like it. It’s unusual. And it suits you.”
She gave a soft, mirthless laugh. “That’s what the kids at school thought too.”
“I have a feeling they didn’t think that in a positive sense.”
“Not even close.” She wadded her napkin into her fist. “Growing up with Bev as a mother came with certain stresses. She was always different than the other kids’ moms. Like, when it was her turn to provide a treat for the class, she brought a tray of international desserts instead of the usual cupcakes or cookies. She went to a global food market and got kataifi from Greece, cannoli from Italy, alfajores from South America, mini crème brûlées from France, kashata from Africa, sesame balls from China. I can remember the selection like it happened yesterday.”
“Wow. That took a lot of effort.”
“Tell that to a bunch of fifth graders.”
“I take it they didn’t appreciate her attempt to broaden their culinary horizons.”
“No, and I got the brunt of their derision.”
He stopped eating. “Explain that.”
“Kids can be mean. Bullying wasn’t as much on the radar back then, but that’s what it amounted to. And that led to other problems. To compensate for being ostracized and for my lack of friends, I ate. More and more.”
It was hard to believe the slender woman sharing his table had ever been overweight, but the motivation for turning to food for solace was understandable. Food could be comforting. It was also one aspect of your life you could control.
“I take it weight became an issue, and that turned into another source of ridicule.”
“Bingo—and my name didn’t help. Are you familiar with Vienna sausages?”
It wasn’t hard to deduce where this was heading.
“Yes.”
“So were my classmates. I became known as Sausage. If no one in authority was within hearing range, that’s what they called me.”
Living with that kind of harassment could dent the strongest ego.
“Did you tell your mother?”
She snorted. “Are you kidding? She’d have marched up to the school and had it out with the teacher and the principal. That would only have made it worse.”
Yeah. It could have.
“I’m sorry, Vienna.”
She lifted one stiff shoulder. “I survived. But bolstering my self-image was a long battle. By the time I got to college, I’d become anorexic. Thankfully, I had a counselor who realized what was going on and helped me work through it.”
Yet scars remained.
No wonder she and Bev had a complicated relationship.
“I can see why you and your mom have clashed.”
“There was blame on both sides. I was too sensitive, and she had difficulty accepting I would never be the free spirit she was.” Vienna pressed her fingers against the little pile of crust crumbs she’d gathered up and deposited them on her plate. “Ironically, Mom always told me she felt like a square peg in a round hole growing up. Her parents were staid and straitlaced and discouraged her eccentric, daring streak. Yet she ended up with a daughter who felt the exact same way, despite Mom’s attempts to be everything her parents hadn’t been. On a happier note, though, we’re finally finding our groove.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Yeah.” She summoned up a smile. “In any case, to answer the question that led to this long story, Mom named me after the city at the top of her bucket list of places to visit.”
“Did she ever get there?”
“Yes. Five years ago.” Vienna’s brow pinched. “She asked me to go with her, but I told her I was too busy. So she went alone. I regret that in hindsight. In fact, I regret all the sacrifices I made for my job.”
“The two of you could always plan a different trip together.”
“True. And that may be smarter anyway. Thanks to my classmates, I have such negative feelings about Vienna that I almost did a legal name change while I was in college.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” When she lifted her gaze to meet his, he locked onto it. “I think it’s a beautiful name. I associate it with grace and elegance and culture and charm.”
The room went silent as they looked at each other. Only the faint boom of the surf pounding against the sea stacks offshore intruded, in rhythm with the sudden pounding of his heart as an emotion that was clear to read softened her features.
Yearning.
His fingers twitched as he fought the impulse to lift his hand and touch the delicate line of her cheek. Trace the soft curve of her lips. Stroke her lustrous hair.
As her sweet scent invaded his senses, crumbling the foundations of his rigid self-control, he swayed toward her and—
“I-I should go.” The longing in Vienna’s eyes changed to panic, and she scooted her chair back and leaped to her feet so fast it almost tipped backward. “I have to call Kay. Thanks for the pizza. It was great.”
With that, she darted toward the foyer, snatching up her laptop en route.
Seconds later, her feet pounded up the stairs, followed by a quiet click that indicated she’d closed her bedroom door.
It took Matt a full five minutes to muster the strength to push himself to his feet and begin gathering up the remains of their meal.
This dinner hadn’t ended anything like he’d expected.
But it had proved one thing.
Being around Vienna alone was dangerous. Their cozy twosome had given him all sorts of inappropriate ideas.
Based on her expression, she’d had a few of her own as well.
Thankfully, she’d had the sense to flee before mistakes were made that couldn’t be retracted.
Of course, there was a logical explanation for what had almost happened. Loneliness, plain and simple. What else could be prompting his disconcerting thoughts and impulses?
He carried their plates to the sink, pausing as he passed the bag of cookies containing their uneaten dessert.
But he didn’t need a sugar fix.
Because for one fleeting instant with Vienna tonight, he’d tasted a sweetness no high-fructose confection could come close to replicating.
And hard as he tried to deny it, he wanted more.