Emily glanced at her dashboard clock as she pulled into the parking lot at the Old Carlisle Inn. Twenty minutes late. That was the problem choosing a place so far out of town.
She tugged at her sleeves as she hurried up the steps of the old stone inn. There was a bite in the air; tonight would probably mark the first hard frost. She should have put on a coat before she left her cozy rooms over the shop, but by the time she’d realized just how biting the breeze had become, she was halfway to her car.
No reason to make herself even later for her date with Simon McCall. Of course, if she’d chosen a place anywhere near Main Street, she might have arrived on time. Okay, not on time. She was still Emily Barton. But she wouldn’t have kept Simon waiting quite as long.
Too bad, she thought as the heavy front door swung closed behind her. She’d chosen the Carlisle precisely because of its distant location. The last thing she wanted was an audience for her date with Simon.
No, she realized as she walked into the dim bar, peering for her date. The really last thing she wanted was Matt Dawson at her date with Simon.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she said, breaking up the men’s chummy conversation at a table by the bar.
“Emily!” Simon said, pushing back his chair and stumbling to his feet. He started to hug her, then thought better of it. He wiped his palm against his jeans, then extended his hand to shake.
Conscious of Matt slowly rising beside them, Emily solved matters for Simon by leaning in and kissing him on the cheek. God, was he wearing Old Spice? Grandpop wore Old Spice.
“Simon,” she said, consciously trying to fix the mistake of attacking Matt before she even said hello to her date. “I’m so sorry I’m late.”
“That’s okay,” he said, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. His sandy hair was plastered to his scalp, the frozen furrows left behind by his comb looking painful. “Matt and I got to talking while I waited.”
Matt shrugged and offered her his hand. “Emily,” he said.
“What a surprise to see you here.” There. That sounded better than her first shouted exclamation. She followed up her statement with shaking his hand, pumping twice just to prove he hadn’t flustered her. Because the hummingbird hammering beneath her breastbone wasn’t because she was flustered. She was just hungry. And wired from concentrating on the winding mountain road she’d taken to get up here to Carlisle’s.
“Sometimes a guy just wants a place where he can drink alone,” Matt said. Which was pretty much why she’d chosen to meet Simon here. “Please,” Matt said. “Don’t let me keep you.”
Emily resisted the urge to set her palm on Simon’s arm as she turned them toward the restaurant. She didn’t have to prove anything to Matt. And Simon might misunderstand.
The hostess greeted them with a bright smile. Before long, they were settled at a lovely table for two. Well, it would have been lovely, but Emily had a view straight into the bar. She watched Matt raise a hand for another drink. The waitress didn’t need to stand quite so close when she took his order. She definitely didn’t need to touch his shoulder when she brought him a glass filled with something amber over ice. Matt said something and shook his head. The waitress left, her shoulders slumped with transparent disappointment.
Emily looked away, in case Matt glanced into the restaurant.
Not an auspicious start for a first date. She turned her attention back to Simon, and they worked their way through reading the menu, through ordering, through making small talk as they waited for their drinks.
“A Manhattan!” Simon said after she ordered. “That’s what Mama drinks!”
Great. What girl didn’t want to hear that she reminded her date of his mother? Still she’d accepted Rachel’s dare. And there was pretty much zero chance that Simon was secretly married or an axe murderer. So Emily was going to stick this out—tonight, then something toward the middle of the week, wrapping up with a third date on Halloween.
She took a grateful slug from her drink when the waitress returned. Then she toyed with the stem of her glass as she said, “Manhattan. It sounds so much fancier than New York.”
Simon laughed and pretended to order. “Waitress! I’ll have a New York please.”
“I used to think New York was the fanciest place in the world.”
“Did you go on the choir trip your senior year?”
Emily nodded. She’d gone, even though she’d begged her mother to let her drop out. Because Kaylie Putnam was in choir. And the senior trip was over spring break, after Jon had dumped Emily, the very week her father had moved out of the house. Of course Mom had said she wouldn’t forfeit the non-refundable money on the trip, especially when Emily wouldn’t tell her why she was so desperate not to go. Emily had spent the better part of her New York trip hiding in the last row of the bus, ignoring the sights of the big city, counting the minutes until she could be home. “What about you?” she asked, because Simon had graduated two years ahead of her. Matt’s year. “Did you go?”
He shook his head. “Mama didn’t think it was necessary.”
And that pretty much put an end to that conversational topic.
Emily dug deep. “You know what I remember most about you from school? Pet Day, in elementary school. I was in first grade, and you were in third. And you brought a goose to class.”
Simon laughed. “Gertie the goose. I loved that bird.”
“She terrified me. The way she spread her wings and hissed!”
“She only did that because Paul McLean’s bulldog charged her.”
Emily shook her head. “I never knew anyone else who had a pet goose.”
“It had to be a bird, if I wanted a pet at all. Mama’s allergic to dogs and cats. And she wasn’t about to let me have a guinea pig or a hamster or some other vermin in the house.”
Mama. Again.
And so the date went. The weather wasn’t lovely lately; Mama wasn’t fond of autumn weather because the cold made her knees ache. Daylight Saving Time was going to be a disaster; it took Mama almost a month to adjust to “falling back.” Rare steak did not have more flavor; Mama always asked for hers to be butterflied, so she could be certain it would be cooked all the way through.
After a while, Emily decided to play a game. She tried to find a topic where Mama didn’t have an opinion. Space travel was right out (they never should have paid to send a man to the moon when there were perfectly good rocks here on earth.) Horoscopes were a no-go too (the Taurus ones were spot-on but all the others were made-up garbage.)
“What do you think about non-teleological thought in the novels of William Faulkner?” Emily asked, spearing a green bean from her rare steak’s pool of rich juices.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what that is,” Simon said. Emily waited. “The only Faulkner I ever read was As I Lay Dying, for Mrs. Anderson’s American Lit class in tenth grade. That’s the one where the crazy guy says, ‘My mother is a fish.’ Right?”
Close enough to join the Mama list.
Emily almost cheered when Simon said he was too full to eat dessert. When the waitress brought the check, Emily snatched it up, setting a new land record.
“Now that doesn’t seem right,” Simon said.
“It is, because I asked you out.” Emily put her credit card in the folder.
“About that,” Simon said. “I wasn’t quite sure why you called. I mean, I’ve had a great time and everything, but I was really surprised to hear from you. Especially when you said it was so important for us to get together tonight.”
Emily delayed her reply by taking a sip of water. This was the moment for her to say she’d had a wonderful time. For her to pin Simon down for a second date, any night the next week.
But that wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair.
Simon would go along with it, she was pretty sure. He’d be thrilled if Emily suggested getting together with his mother; maybe they could all go to the movie theatre in Winchester or meet at the diner and ask Anne to burn them some steaks. For a third date, they could meet at Mama’s house and watch Jeopardy! while sipping Manhattans.
But Emily knew, dare or not, that she’d never have a relationship with Simon. And pretending otherwise was dangerously close to mocking the guy.
He didn’t deserve that.
So she squared her shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. “I should have been more forthcoming,” she said.
“This is about Save Our Stores, isn’t it?”
Emily’s good intentions wavered. “Yes?” she said, and she couldn’t help but turn her statement into a question.
“You’ve been doing all the work. And you’re really good at it!” Simon hastily added. “But I’m sure you need help. Someone who’s got some extra time to hand out flyers and stuff. Maybe a second in command.”
He looked so hopeful. And it was so easy to say yes. “You’ve seen right through me,” Emily said with a laugh. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. That I need someone I can count on to help as this thing grows.”
“I’m your man,” Simon said. He so wasn’t. “As long as Mama doesn’t have an emergency or anything.”
“Of course,” Emily said.
“The thing is, it doesn’t take me that much time to run the store. It’s not like I need to update the windows or anything. Mama made me promise never to change anything from the way Daddy had it when he died.”
“I understand,” Emily said. Before she could think of a way to gently guide Simon toward reconsidering his window display policy, a cell phone jangled a jaunty tune. Mother and Child Reunion. Of course.
“That’s me,” Simon said, unclipping his phone from its holster on his belt before he answered. “Hey, Mama. Just a sec.” He looked up at Emily expectantly.
“I’ll let you take that,” she said. “Thank you so much for volunteering for Save Our Stores.”
“I’m glad I can help out.” He glanced down at his phone, clearly eager to get back to his call.
“Go on,” Emily said. “I’m just going to stop at the little girl’s room before I start back.”
Simon made a bee-line for the door, already speaking into his phone. “I’m almost at the truck, Mama. I’ll be home in no time.”
Emily followed through on her plan, detouring to the restroom. She took extra care washing her hands, giving Simon plenty of time to finish his conversation and hit the road. What a waste of an evening!
But the disaster was only made complete when she reached the bar. Matt still sat at his table, nursing a glass with half-melted ice cubes. “So,” he said as she tried to slip past him to the front door.
“What are you still doing here?”
“I couldn’t leave you unchaperoned with Simon there.”
Emily flashed him a quick view of her middle finger.
He raised his eyebrows in amused surprise. “You better be careful,” Matt said. “Mama wouldn’t approve of a fine young lady like yourself using such a vulgar gesture.”
“You know about Mama?”
“Anyone who spends more than a minute with Simon McCall knows about Mama. What were you guys talking about?”
“Business,” Emily said primly.
“Save Our Stores business?”
“You don’t need to worry about it.”
“Okay,” Matt said, raising his hands in a gesture of pure innocence. “I only ask because it would be cruel for you to lead on a guy like Simon. He doesn’t have a manipulative bone in his body.”
Emily struggled to push down a defensive response, even though she’d reached the same conclusion. “I’m not leading anyone on. I told you. We were talking business.”
“Good.”
“Good.” What the hell did she mean by that? Instead of trying to figure it out, she turned on her heel and headed out the door. She ordered herself not to think about Matt as she jammed her key into the ignition, as she peeled out of the parking lot.
The mountain road was dark. The curves seemed tighter than when she’d climbed up to the Carlisle. Her headlights barely penetrated the gloom. Parts of the road had no shoulder, and the forest ran right up to the asphalt.
Emily leaned forward and tightened her grip on the wheel. She hunched her shoulders, as if that would help her peer into the darkness. The trees seemed to rush up toward the car, ghostly pale in her high beams.
The eight-point buck came out of nowhere.
~~~
Matt settled up his tab, leaving a generous tip for the waitress. She’d asked him to wait till she got off her shift at midnight and he’d thought about taking her up on it. That was part of driving all the way up here to the Carlisle—no one was watching him. No one was keeping tabs.
Except Emily. He’d felt her eyes on him the whole time he was placing his order. He’d wanted to look toward the dining room, to explain himself. Not that he had any explaining to do.
At least no more than she did.
He’d known something was up the second Simon McCall walked through the door. McCall had been friendly enough, coming up to him in the bar, offering to buy the first round. McCall had said he was here for a date with Emily Barton.
Right. Emily dating Simon McCall was about as likely as her going out with Kevin Sinclair. McCall wasn’t gay, but he might as well be, the way he spent his time waiting on Mommie Dearest.
But Matt was willing to play along, just so he could get to the punchline of the joke. He’d offered to pick up the second round, but Emily had arrived before they got the attention of the waitress. She was almost half an hour late—which wasn’t the way she’d been when she was dating Jon. Then, she’d gotten to the house five minutes early for everything. Drove Jon nuts, made him feel like he was being judged and found wanting.
In any case, Matt should have left as soon as Emily arrived. His cover was definitely blown. He’d pretty much lost out on the quiet evening he’d planned, an anonymous drink, an escape from worry about the store.
But he wasn’t ready to pack it in. Not when he had a ringside seat to the mismatch of the month.
The expressions on Emily’s face were priceless as she talked to McCall. He could tell she was trying to be polite. Her eyebrows were raised and her lips were pressed together, like she was fighting back a shout of laughter. A few times, he thought she was going to lose it. Once she grabbed for her water glass so quickly, she almost knocked her knife onto the floor.
The thing was, Matt knew exactly what McCall was telling her. Over the years, he’d heard the guy talk about his mother endlessly. With anyone else, it would have been a bad joke, something sick. But McCall was just telling the truth. That’s the way he lived his life—always at his mother’s beck and call. He seemed happy, so who really cared?
Emily, of course. She seemed to care as she battled her way through dinner.
McCall and Emily were both long gone by the time Matt got to the parking lot. He blew on his hands when he got inside his truck. Damn, it was cold. He’d have to place a quick order for winter gear to sell at the store—hats and scarves and gloves. He was still working out the hiccups in his supply chain.
He keyed the ignition and took a wide turn to exit the parking lot. Jesus, it was dark up here. He flipped on the high beams and tightened his grip on the wheel. He was glad he’d kept himself to two drinks spread out over a couple of hours. He tried to remember how many Emily had ordered.
And he was still working on that calculation when he found her car.
He slammed on his brakes even as he took in the scene. Skid marks, swaying left and right and left again. The car half on the road, half off, right side perilously lower than the left. Trunk open, sending a dull light into the night, almost lost above the hypnotizing blink of her bright red hazard lights. Trees looming over all of it, like giants in a horror story.
And there, finally, standing in the grass, in the shadow of the trees, was Emily.
He pulled his truck to a stop at an angle, automatically hitting his own hazards before he climbed down from the cab. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted.
She glared at him as she brandished a lug wrench. “Changing a flat.”
“Jesus! What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything!” She brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I was taking it easy on the curves. Focusing on the road. And the biggest buck I’ve ever seen came crashing out of the woods ten feet in front of me.”
That explained the skid marks. He stalked to the front of her car. Those half a dozen steps gave him the time he needed to steady his breathing, to slow his pulse. He forced himself to look at the grill and the headlights. Only then did he trust himself to say, “You missed him?”
“Yeah.” She lowered her voice to match his. “But I started to drive off the road. The front right tire blew when I pulled back on.”
Thank God that was all that had happened.
Matt never should have let her leave Carlisle’s alone. He should have told her he’d follow her down to the valley. He should have insisted, no matter how hard she protested. That’s what Jon would have done, if he’d still been alive.
But Matt’s body was finally starting to understand what his brain had already accepted. She’d handled things just fine. She hadn’t hit the buck. The buck or any of those nasty-ass trees. He shook his hands to drive off some of the adrenaline that still saturated his blood.
“Have you got a spare?”
“Right there,” she said, pointing at the tire she’d already wrestled out of the trunk. It was a doughnut, but it’d get her back to the valley.
“Great. You have the parking brake on?”
“Yes, Dad,” she said, scowling. “And I found the flattest spot I could to stop. I turned on the hazard lights, too, all by myself.”
“Nobody likes a smartass,” he said. He took off his jacket and pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. “Hand me the wrench.”
She clutched it like he was threatening to take away her lifeline. “I can change a tire.”
“I know you can,” he said, even though that was news. “But I’m here. I might as well do it for you.”
“I don’t want you to do it for me.” She knelt by the tire and, as he watched, applied the wrench to the first nut. It didn’t budge.
She made a show of not looking at him. Instead, she transferred the wrench to the next nut. He watched her fingers tighten, saw the tendons in her wrists pop out like wires. He pretended not to hear her grunt as she leaned into the lever, throwing all her body weight behind the metal.
The third one wasn’t any looser. The fourth one either. The fifth was every bit as stubborn.
Speaking of stubborn… She shouted, “Arrrghhhh!” as she tossed the wrench into the soft blanket of pine needles by her feet. He let her stomp around for a minute.
“Hey,” he finally said. “How about I loosen them for you?” Her eyes shot bolts of lightning in the uncoordinated flash of hazards from both their vehicles. “You can change the tire,” he said. “I’ll just get things started.”
He saw her weighing her options, but he already knew what she’d decide. She wasn’t stupid. And if she didn’t let him loosen the lug nuts, she’d have to call down to town. Joe Henderson was already shut up for the night, so that would mean getting some friend to come out, to drive all the way up here.
Better to take advantage of a sworn enemy. She handed him the wrench.
He’d never admit it out loud, but the damn nuts were tight. He put his weight into it, though, and got the first one going. The other four were easier. At least he wasn’t out of breath when he’d finished.
He glanced up to see if she would let him place the jack. No dice. She was already sliding it under the Fiesta’s frame.
Yielding to the inevitable, he stood by the side of the road and watched the woman change her own tire.
She moved with a perfect economy of motion, like she’d thought everything through before she started. Her fingers were confident as she inserted the rod into the jack. She turned it evenly, using her whole body. He told himself not to look at her ass as she swayed back and forth. He utterly failed to listen to his own advice.
Once she had the car up, she wasted no time spinning off the lug nuts. She wrestled with the tire a little, shifting her hands for the best grip, but one venomous glare told him to back off. A serious tug got the damn thing loose, but she ended up sitting on her can in the pine straw.
He knew better than to offer her a hand up. Instead, she swiped her hair off her face, leaving a smear of greasy dirt high on her cheekbone.
After that, everything was a piece of cake. She put on the doughnut and tightened the nuts, alternating between all five. She lowered the jack, hypnotizing him again with the sway of her body. She picked up her tools and returned them to the trunk, settling them in their storage compartment before she rolled the old tire into place. One massive heave, and she was done.
The slam of her trunk sounded like a shout of triumph.
He pretended he didn’t see her gasping for breath. She recovered in less than a minute. “Thank you,” she said, her voice perfectly even.
“My pleasure.” And the thing was, it had been. He dug in his pocket for his handkerchief. “Here,” he said, gesturing toward his own cheek.
Her fingers touched his as she reached for the square of white cotton, and a thousand volts of electricity jolted through his body.
Her touch was a time machine. They weren’t standing on a mountain road on a moonless night, braced against a freezing breeze and barely keeping the conversation civil as she railed against his help. Instead, it was a spring afternoon, soft and warm, and she was fighting back tears as pink-white petals showered down around them. He heard her sweet moan as his fingers slid against her heat. He felt the touch of her lips, the sweet pressure of her tongue against his. He tasted the champagne on her breath.
He couldn’t kiss her now, of course. Shouldn’t have done it then. So he handed over the handkerchief and let her wipe at the grease.
Which was a disaster, because she only smeared it more.
“Let me,” he said, reaching out for the cloth. And miracle of miracles, she did. She handed it over.
He folded the corner over, giving himself a clean surface. He kept his fingers light as he touched her. He didn’t want to hurt her. He’d never wanted to hurt her.
She caught her breath at his first touch. And then he cheated. Because he didn’t want to wipe away the dirt. He didn’t want to be finished. So he slipped his free hand behind her neck, cradling her nape as he tilted her face to what he swore was a better angle. He edged the handkerchief higher on her cheek, close enough to her lashes that her eyelids fluttered closed.
He saw her lick her lips, her tongue quick and furtive. He couldn’t help himself. He palmed the handkerchief and slipped his fingers down her cheek. His thumb hovered against her lower lip, barely touching the moist surface.
She opened her eyes then. He saw a flicker of something that might have been fear. Or regret. Or…some other emotion he didn’t dare name.
“Matt,” she whispered, transforming his name into a kiss against his thumb. He couldn’t help himself. He slid his thumb past her lips, slipped it against the hot wet trap of her tongue. His handkerchief floated to the ground like a flag of surrender.
And a car came lumbering around the bend in the road.
They leaped apart like kids caught necking by Harmony Lake. Matt wiped his thumb against his pants, destroying the evidence that she was human, that maybe she cared, possibly, just a little. He bent down and retrieved his handkerchief as the invading car pulled to a stop. “You guys okay?” asked a woman who was old enough to be his mother.
“Just fine,” Emily said. Maybe he should have been upset that her voice was even. Instead, he was proud of her control. “I blew a tire, but it’s changed out now.”
The woman congratulated them on their handiwork and slipped her own car back in gear. Matt waited until she’d pulled around the bend before he trusted his own voice. “Go on, then. I’ll follow you back to town.”
“I’m fine.”
“I know.”
But she shivered as she walked around to the driver’s side. He scooped his coat off the hood of his car. “Here,” he said, settling it around her shoulders before she could complain. And that was another echo, another tug back to that spring day. But this time, her eyes were hooded. This time, he knew he had to keep his distance.
“I’m not cold,” she said, but her teeth betrayed her by chattering, just like they had a dozen years ago.
He tugged the collar close under her chin. “I’m not listening,” he said.
“I’ll crank the heater as soon as I’m back in the car.”
“Nyah, nyah, nyah.”
She laughed then, apparently realizing that she sounded like a toddler who didn’t want to go to bed. Bed. Now that was a word he shouldn’t be thinking about where Emily Barton was concerned.
“I’ll get it back to you tomorrow. I’ll…” She trailed off, and he understood what bothered her, as if he could read her mind.
“You’re not going to come anywhere near the American Discount,” he said. “If anyone saw your car in my parking lot, you’d never hear the end of it.”
“I…” But she had the integrity not to lie.
“I’ll come by your place in the morning.” And then he realized she might misunderstand. “The store, I mean. Harmony Skeins.”
Her smile actually reached her eyes. “We open at ten. Can’t miss the cidiot trade, you know.”
“Ten o’clock, then.”
She opened her door and climbed inside. He turned back to his truck, taking his time to start his engine, to turn off his hazards, to release his parking brake. And then he followed her down the mountain, slow and steady, taking his time around every bend in the road. He couldn’t see the doughnut on her front right tire, but he picked up the faintest hint of a shimmy as she negotiated the curves.
He didn’t draw a full breath until they reached the flat strip of Main Street. He shadowed her to the doorstep of Harmony Skeins, flashing his lights after she executed a perfect parallel parking maneuver. He almost backed into an open space two cars down, ready to catch her as she worked her key in the lock, ready to claim back his coat, more.
But he shook his head and continued down the road, because he was pretty sure they’d only hate each other in the morning.