“Maxie, I am not playing with you in that pile of leaves,” Joy complained to the huge mutt. She’d been enjoying a lazy Sunday until the dog’s insistence made her go outside.
The mutt pulled at its leash, yanking Joy along.
“Maxie…it’s cold out. Let’s just get to the woods and do what you made me think you needed to do.” She was walking him—though running was probably more accurate—in the rear grounds of the large, rambling house in Greenport where she still lived with her mother and a series of guests during the summer season. Her mother had turned the house into a bed and breakfast after her father’s death three years ago.
Maxie headed straight for the largest pile of leaves on the back lawn and made every attempt to climb to the top of the heap. Joy made every attempt to stop him until she slid on a patch of leaves coated with ice and tumbled into the pile. It was the end of November and the winter-cold air froze any moisture on the ground.
“All right. You want leaves, Maxie,” Joy said, laughing as she lay on her back. She let go of the leash, picked up a handful of leaves and threw them up at the dog.
Maxie barked happily.
“Can I play, too?” a voice asked from behind her.
As Joy looked up, her heart lurched, then quickened to a mile a minute. Nick. In an ungainly fashion, discombobulated as she was by his appearance, Joy struggled to get to her feet. Nick came to the rescue and took hold of her wrists to pull her up. Maxie sprang at him, his front paws ploughing into Nick’s back.
“What the…” Nick uttered, just before he landed indelicately on top of Joy, his thighs straddling her hips.
Lifting himself enough to balance his weight on his elbows, Nick smiled down at her. “Hi, Joy.”
“Nick…” His face was no more than inches from hers. Her heart was beating wildly.
Nick’s smile became a grin. “This kind of feels like where we left off the last time we were together.”
Joy was breathless just looking up at him without that reminder. Not that she needed any prompting to be reminded. “I—I think we should get up.”
A smile still on his mouth, Nick bounced back on his heels. Getting the leverage he needed, he sprang to his feet. Joy grasped his offered hands and got to her feet, noticing that Nick held on to her a touch longer than was necessary.
“What are you doing here?” Joy asked. It was about four and a half months since she’d last seen him. He’d accepted an assignment abroad two days after their morning on the beach. He hadn’t been back since.
“Where else would I be with your sister marrying my brother? They haven’t changed their minds, have they?” He brushed leaves off her shoulders.
“No, they haven’t changed their minds. They’re getting married in three weeks. The reception is going to be here in the house.” Joy was shivering more from her pulse going wild than from the cold. She was bundled up well enough, in a very heavy sweater, the war-surplus pea coat she wore to knock around in and a knit hat pulled down low on her forehead and covering her ears.
“Diana and Kevin didn’t expect you to be able to get back for their wedding.” Joy thought in horror about what she must look like to him. The sweater and coat had to make it seem like she’d added fifty pounds to her frame. And that wasn’t the worst of it. The hat! The hat was the worst. “You’re supposed to be in Europe.”
“I was in Europe yesterday. Now I’m here. I did what I had to do to get back.”
He thought she looked adorable. Her face was all eyes. The hair at her neck was hidden under the collar of her coat. “I wasn’t going to miss my brother’s wedding.” His first inclination had been to show up after the fact, but only because he was concerned that Kevin would be uneasy. Though when Kevin had called to tell him he was marrying Nick’s ex-fiancée, his brother hadn’t sounded uneasy.
Joy gazed up at him suspiciously, her eyebrows getting lost under her hat.
“What’s that look for?” Nick grinned as he picked out a few leaves that had stuck to her hat. He knew what she was thinking. Only she couldn’t have been farther from the truth. He was not in love with Diana. He hadn’t thought about her at all during the past four and a half months. He had thought a lot about the woman standing in front of him right now.
“You’re here to make trouble, right?” Joy nodded her head in emphasis.
“No, I’m not here to make trouble. Scout’s honor. Now do I get to come in out of the cold?” He made a point of flippantly hiking up the collar on his leather bomber jacket. The wind was buffeting her back and ruffling his hair. The cold wasn’t bothering him, but he expected she was freezing, given the way she was doing a little jig from foot to foot.
“Yes, you get to come in,” Joy replied tartly and turned toward the house.
Seeing that she was forgetting her mutt, Nick grabbed the leash and dragged Maxie along as he followed her into the house. Joy went through a back door straight into the inn’s large, homey kitchen. Nick unfastened the dog’s leash and hung it up on a hook near the door while Maxie took off.
Joy quickly yanked the ugly hat off her head, stuffed it in her coat pocket and tried casually to fluff her soft brown hair with her fingers. “Are you hungry?”
“Starved. I didn’t stop for lunch. How about going out with me for something to eat? Did you have lunch?”
“I’ve had lunch.” It was going on four p.m. “I’ll make you a couple of sandwiches. There’s some cold chicken.” Joy unbuttoned her coat and hung it on a peg near the back door. She didn’t feel she’d been able to do much with her hair.
“Cold chicken sounds great,” Nick said, taking his jacket off and hanging it on a peg alongside hers. “Kevin told me Diana’s been staying here till the wedding and that he comes out on the weekend. Did I miss him?”
“No. He’ll be back.” Joy closed the refrigerator door with the side of her hip. She had a platter of cold chicken and a jar of mayonnaise in her hands. “They went to have lunch with my mother at the restaurant that’s doing the catering. They’re still debating about some of the dishes they want at the wedding.”
“How come you didn’t go with them?” He moved to stand next to her at the counter.
Joy looked at him from the corner of her eye. She’d already taken in the lean-hipped fit of his black slacks and the bulky, wheat-toned sweater, that made it impossible not to notice his wide shoulders.
“I’m too much of a junk-food junkie to be on the food committee.” She meant to speak in a joking tone, but his nearness was giving her a case of apoplexy. The words came out flat.
His eyes roved over her profile. “What committee are you on?”
“Wedding attire and flowers.” Joy took two rolls out of a bakery bag on the counter and a knife from a drawer. “And…” She was about to say more but his hand came up to her hair, ending that train of thought. “What are you doing?”
“Smoothing down your hair,” Nick said easily. “Turn around and let me get the other side.”
Joy swung around to face him. She was secretly thrilled by his attention, which was exactly what had her bristling now. “You know what surprises me?”
“What surprises you?” He took the knife she didn’t realize she was still holding out of her hand and put it down on the counter.
“I’m surprised that you didn’t come back when Diana and Kevin first started dating.” Joy watched his gaze drop to her hips as she placed her hands there. For a second Joy wondered if she was intentionally trying to flatten her red sweater so he’d know it was the sweater that was puffy, not her hips.
“Actually I didn’t know Diana and Kevin were dating. The first I heard of them being a couple was when Kevin got ahold of me and told me they were getting married. But I wouldn’t have come back even if I had known.”
My eye! Joy muttered in her head. He certainly had come back quickly enough when he’d found out they were getting married.
“Do we really have to talk about Diana and Kevin?” He smiled. “I’d much rather talk about you.”
“There’s nothing about me to talk about.” Joy turned back to the counter. She picked up the knife and jaggedly sliced open both rolls.
“We could talk about your column. Or we could talk about whether you’ve been affected by the sun or any full moons since I’ve been gone.”
Joy’s face flushed deep red. Was he intentionally trying to embarrass her by bringing up that kiss? “Did Kevin tell you how he and Diana first got together?”
“No and I didn’t ask,” Nick responded disinterestedly.
“Diana needed a lawyer to collect money from one of her clients,” Joy said. “That was three months ago.”
Nick leaned back against the counter. “I assume Kevin got Diana’s client to fork over.”
Joy nodded. Taking a plate down from the cabinet overhead she placed the sandwiches on top of it. “He’s a very good lawyer.”
“No question about that.” Nick took the plate and walked over to the kitchen table in the center of the room.
Joy made a half turn in his direction. “Would you like a beer with that?”
“Okay.” Nick took a seat and stretched his legs out.
Joy came to the table with a glass, a bottle of beer and a bag of potato chips. She placed her bounty down within his reach and then took a seat across from him.
Nick opened the bag of chips, took a helping out and put them on his plate. He passed the bag to her. Joy took a handful of chips out for herself.
She watched him begin eating his sandwich.
He watched her munch on chips.
A stretch without any conversation went by while Joy commanded herself to get her eyes off him. Her command went unheeded.
Nick finished one sandwich. “How are you doing with your column?” He had read them all, having worked out an arrangement with the owner/editor of the Greenport News to have the paper forwarded to him. He’d even spoken to her editor a few times, which was how he’d known the paper was up for sale before any official announcement. He toyed with the idea of telling her that he was her new boss, instead of waiting until tomorrow at the Monday morning staff meeting.
“It’s going okay,” Joy returned. “Nothing all that exciting.” She did have something exciting in the works, but she didn’t want to go off on that tangent now. She was hoping to ease back into the topic of Diana and Kevin. She wanted a more definitive expression from him about his intent.
“You’re the one with the glamorous career,” Joy said, directing the conversation to his globetrotting. She knew he’d been in Russia, Egypt, then Europe during the past four and a half months. She’d hunted out every picture of his that had been published.
“It’s not at all glamorous. Living out of a backpack most of the time means not always showering. And it’s almost impossible to establish any relationships. As soon as I meet someone I’d like to get to know, I’m off to someplace else.”
Joy tipped her head slightly. “That doesn’t sound at all like the way you used to speak about your career.”
Nick shrugged his shoulders.
Joy was surprised by his change of attitude. It was the excitement she used to hear in his voice that had given her the impetus to seek out a similar career for herself as a journalist. She’d just gotten a go-ahead last Friday to take on an assignment in Bolivia, three days after Diana and Kevin’s wedding. She hadn’t told anyone about it yet. She thought it only right that she give her notice in to the Greenport News first.
Joy dabbed up some potato chip crumbs on the table with the tip of her finger. “That part about not getting a chance to really know people you wanted to get to know, did that include women you might have thought of getting serious with?”
“Are you asking me if I was interested in anyone romantically?”
“Was that what it sounded like?” She’d been trying to find out whether there had been any lessening in his feelings for Diana. It wasn’t because she was jealous, she reminded herself.
“That’s what it sounded like,” Nick said, grinning. He poured beer into his glass, then studied her over the rim as he took a deep swallow.
“So were you?” Joy impatiently met the mirthful look in his eyes.
Maxie barked just as the front door opened.
Joy took a big frustrated breath and blew it out fast, releasing her disappointment that there wasn’t time now to press him for a response.
Nick’s gaze locked with hers. “No, I didn’t meet any woman I wanted to spend more than one night with or even a single night with.”
“Oh,” Joy managed to say, before her mother appeared in the kitchen, followed by Diana and Kevin. All three looked as surprised to see Nick as Joy had been.
“Nick…” Emily Mackey gushed. She was an attractively unfussy woman on the cusp of turning fifty. Short brown hair framed her lively round face. “It’s wonderful to see you again. We couldn’t imagine whose car was in the driveway.”
“It’s wonderful to see you,” Nick said, returning the smile. He was on his feet, enthusiastically ready to receive a hug, bending to accommodate Emily, who was inches shorter than both her daughters.
Kevin approached to shake his hand, then thump him on the back, getting a thump in return from Nick as males will do in place of an embrace.
“Son of a gun,” Kevin said with a grin almost identical to the grin he was getting from Nick. “I thought you still had pictures to take.”
“I couldn’t think of any picture I wanted to take more than one of you getting hog-tied.” Nick raised his eyebrows, relieved to see that Kevin appeared really happy he’d arrived.
Then it was Nick and Diana facing each other as Kevin drew Diana to his side.
“Hi, Nick,” Diana said slowly.
“Diana,” Nick replied without a grin. He hoped she was truly in love with Kevin. She was going to have him to answer to if his brother got hurt.
Joy caught the lingering look between Nick and Diana and glanced quickly at Kevin to check for his take on the situation. Kevin’s brown eyes gazed affectionately—and naively—at Diana. Joy resisted an impulse to punch Kevin in the head.
“Joy, did you put on coffee?” Emily Mackey asked, taking off her coat, adding it to the leather jacket and navy pea coat already on hooks.
“No, but I will,” she replied. Joy watched Diana and Nick break their regard of each other, and she walked over to the counter where the coffee maker was.
Filling the pot with water, Joy observed as Kevin assisted Diana with her coat. Joy already knew what Diana was wearing underneath her coat. A short, straight black skirt, a white cashmere sweater, black tights and sexy black high-heeled boots.
Joy craned her neck to see if Nick was appraising her sister. When she saw that Diana did indeed have his attention—Joy let the water spill out over the top of the glass coffeepot. Embarrassed she quickly turned off the faucet.
Kevin said to his brother, “I know you gave up your lease. You’ll stay with me.”
“Thanks, Kev,” Nick replied. “But I figured on finding a place here in Greenport.”
Water sluiced over the sides of the coffee maker as Joy poured from the pot. Of course he wanted to stay in Greenport! All the better to see Diana.
“There’s no need for you to look for someplace to stay. There’s certainly plenty of room here,” Emily Mackey announced. “The downstairs is a mess with all the painting going on, but the bedrooms are all fine.”
“That would be great, but are you sure I won’t be in the way?”
Joy gnawed her bottom lip as she mopped up water from the counter with a sponge. Didn’t anyone else realize what was going on here? Was she the only one that wasn’t naive?
“Not another word about it,” Emily Mackey insisted. “Joy, I’ll finish making the coffee. Would you two girls go up and get a room ready? Nick, please finish your sandwich. I’ve got cherry pie for you. I baked just this morning.”
Joy and Diana left the kitchen. Kevin walked out behind them to hang his coat and Diana’s in the front hall closet. The three maneuvered around furniture that had been covered with heavy drop cloths and pushed into the middle of the living room. The front entryway was the only completed section on the first floor.
“Hurry up you two,” Kevin said as Diana and Joy started up the stairs to the landing. “I can’t stay too late. I’ve got briefs to go over tonight.”
“You’d better not be thinking of bringing any briefs on our honeymoon,” Diana replied over her shoulder.
“I’m not figuring on bringing any briefs at all,” Kevin called back up to Diana.
Diana smiled to Joy showing her amusement with Kevin’s retort.
She wasn’t in a smiling mood, but Joy gave it her all to smile back as they reached the second floor. “Did you ever think of not waiting any longer and just eloping?”
“Don’t be silly,” Diana answered with indignation. “I want a church wedding with all the trimmings. And I want my reception here, where no one else has had their reception. It’s going to be just perfect having it here once everything’s all together. Don’t you think so?”
Joy wistfully nodded her head as she opened the door to the linen closet in the hallway. If she were getting married she’d want it to be just the way Diana had it planned.
“Which bedroom do you think we should put Nick in?” Diana asked her.
“How about the attic bedroom?” Joy suggested, gathering together a set of sheets.
“I think Mom would rather have us all on the same floor. Let’s put him in the bedroom between yours and mine.”
Joy scowled.
“What?” Diana asked.
“Nothing.”
Diana wouldn’t let it go. “Was it obvious to you, too?”
“Was what obvious?” Joy asked innocently.
“Nick. He’s still in love with me. Did you see the look in his eyes when we said hello to each other?”
“I saw it.”
“Poor Nick.” Diana released a deep breath. “I really feel badly about it.”
Joy didn’t think Diana felt half as bad as she did—not that Joy imagined Nick could ever be interested in her, even if Diana was out of the picture.