So, if someone had told me that this day would end with Crew Turner kissing me I’d probably have laughed in their face then gone home and ate an entire pint of ice cream while doing my best not to cry in my pillow. I’d imagined what it would be like, what those amazing lips would feel like pressed on mine, how his body might mold against me, how he would taste if I ever got the chance to kiss him.
Imagination? Pfft. Pale comparison.
Maybe my inner feminist should have protested the unagreed to kiss now being deployed against my lips that moved in time with his though I didn’t give them the go-ahead to do so. Instead, I leaned into him, feeling my entire body sigh in answer to his touch, the delicious taste and scent and warmth of him spreading a happy ball of delighted tingling from the center of me to every extremity until I vibrated with the zinging joy that was kissing Crew Turner.
When he leaned away I barely suppressed the soft moan of regret, thinking, rather oddly, of that same sound Petunia often used to express her own disappointment when she didn’t get what she wanted. Which made me giggle ever so slightly.
Crew laughed. Threw back that handsome head of his with his dark hair curling over his collar and laughed a belly laugh that sounded like heaven.
“I don’t know if I should be offended or not you’re amused that I kissed you,” he said, grinning down at me while I smiled breathlessly back.
“Definitely a giddy compliment,” I said, not even trying to explain the pug connection and giving myself kudos for avoiding being a weirdo for once. Awesome. No, really. Awe. Some.
Crew lowered his big hands from my face, sliding them around my shoulders until he pressed me against his chest, my coat compressing under his grasp. I had trouble focusing on his eyes, though whether from the close proximity or the close proximity (you get what I mean, right?) I wasn’t in a position to decide.
“Thanks for the info,” he said, deep voice now rumbling and catching a bit. His pupils were dilated all over again, but this time for reasons that made me want to take my coat off and stay a while after all. Daisy wouldn’t mind. Especially if I told her why I didn’t come home tonight.
Growl. Down, girl.
“You’re welcome.” I sighed into his chest and did the right thing. “You won’t quit?”
He shook his head. “You’re stuck with me a while,” he said.
I’d take it. And leave it. “I guess I should go.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Make no mistake whatsoever. If Crew had decided me leaving wasn’t what he wanted, I can promise you right here and now I would have been staying put. But, he was a good boy, wasn’t he? Maybe his wife’s memory still lingered. There was enough in his expression, in the way he smiled at me, how his hand slid over my back a moment that told me there was a very good chance I’d be getting a date after all.
Imagine that.
He held the door for me while I slipped out, hopping to fix my boot while he shook his head and laughed again, waving when I smiled in turn.
“Stay safe out there,” he said.
I felt a bit giddy as I made it all the way down his walk—without tripping and falling on my face! Yay me!—and turned to find he was still at the door, watching me. I wanted to laugh, to yell and run like a teenager who’d had her first kiss. Instead, I bobbed a ridiculous curtsy when he waved one last time, the sound of his laughter carrying as he finally closed the door.
I stood there in the street, taking a deep breath of the cool night air before pulling out my cell phone and texting Daisy I was on my way. Realized I didn’t want to go home just yet the exact moment a black car with tinted windows rolled past.
I should have went home. But I was still on a high from Crew and now that I felt about as free and clear and a bit wild as I ever had, it was time to confront the Irishman who thought he could jerk my chain and get away with it.
I stomped down the street to the stop sign where his car had pulled up, but instead of waiting, his driver peeled away in the direction of The Orange. I scowled after them and made a terrible life choice, my favorite.
Another quick text to Daisy and I found myself bouncing the five blocks to the other side of town and a confrontation with destiny. Okay, not so much, but everything just felt epic and saga like, as if I’d walked into a Hollywood movie, the heroine with a passionate kiss for her true love off to do battle and all that. Though calling Crew my true love was a stretch. And I wasn’t that much of an action hero as I shivered in my coat and wished I’d taken my car two blocks before I reached my destination.
Heroines didn’t whine about the cold. Didn’t.
Malcolm was just getting out of his car when I crossed to the front door, pausing to raise an eyebrow at me, his personal coldness still firmly in place. He could rival the bitter wind now rising against my back. Crap, that meant a chilly walk home.
“You’re here,” he said, voice crackling with disdain, “to ask me if I killed the sod I went to collect money from. Because you didn’t get enough of me earlier, I take it. And you’re as much a nosy brat as they say you are.”
That was nasty and uncalled for. I scowled at him, unwilling to let him take the edge off my buzz. “And you’re pissed at me for not being courageous enough to look into my father’s past because I’m afraid I’m going to find something that breaks my heart.”
I watched his face thaw ever so slightly, his body twitch in response.
“Am I right?” His gray eyes clouded over. “Are you a coward, lass?”
“You tell me,” I said. “You’re happy judging me. That’s on you, Malcolm. But doesn’t answer the question. You’re right about that much.”
He grinned at last, quick and sharp. “The man was indebted to another, for dabbling with ponies and some troubles with the tax man.” The IRS? That was a new development, though hardly surprising. Someone like Ron Williams would try to defraud the government. “Not me personally. It’s damned hard to collect on what’s owed when he’s gone and died, now, isn’t it?”
I believed him. I wasn’t there to ask him about Ron anyway and I think we both knew it.
“Tell me one thing,” I said as he turned to enter his bar, his bullies hulking near the door.
“Aye,” Malcolm said. “One thing.”
“Am I going to hate my father when I’m done talking to Siobhan Doyle?” I squared myself, prepped for the answer. “Either way, I can take it. But I need to know.”
Malcolm’s face twisted, his gaze dropping to the sidewalk between us. He seemed like he wanted to say something, lips working, lean face tight. He finally just shook his head and turned his back on me.
“Come see me when you have that answer,” he said, the door closing behind him and his bullies while I glared after him.
He could have at least gotten one of his boys to drive me home.
***