Emily gaped at the glass in her hand. At the dripping, empty glass. Slowly, feeling the hot flame of embarrassment kindle in the tips of her ears, her eyes rose to the face of the man whose crotch she’d just christened with her birthday cider.
Matt Dawson.
All six feet and more of him. His dark brown eyes were wide with shock, and his mouth hung open as if he were half-way through a word. His black hair was tousled like he’d just gotten out of bed. Not that she was thinking about Matt Dawson anywhere near a bed…
“Matt,” she finally said. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to— I just turned around when Kevin said your name— I didn’t realize—”
“It’s okay,” he said evenly.
But it wasn’t. By reflex, Emily grabbed a stack of napkins from the bar and bunched them in her hand, the way she did when Heather March drank a little too much and the librarian got sloppy from her trademark gin and tonics.
But it was one thing for Emily to dab at a girlfriend’s blouse. It was a completely different matter to mop up the well-soaked fly of a man she hadn’t seen in…what was it? Twelve years?
Of course it was twelve years. She knew exactly how long it had been.
“Here,” she finally said, handing over the clump of napkins.
Matt grimaced and crushed them into a ball. Yeah. There wasn’t exactly a delicate way for him to soak up the cider either. Not that delicate had ever been high on the list of the Dawson boys’ charms.
Kevin Sinclair saved her, passing over another glass of cider and saying, “Emily’s had a rough night.”
Matt offered up the expected questioning glance.
Kevin said, “She was late getting here. Pulled up to her usual parking space, only to find some cidiot asshole parked in her spot. Big black monster of a truck.”
Matt nodded at the cider. “Add that to my tab.”
“You don’t have to—” Emily said. She should be buying him a drink after what she’d just done.
He shrugged. “I’m the cidiot asshole.”
Damn. This night just got better and better. Kev took Matt’s announcement as his signal to start pouring those drinks for the guys at the back.
“Sorry,” Matt said to her.
“It’s no big deal. It’s not like we have assigned parking spaces or anything.” Her forced laugh sounded like a hyena giving birth. She downed half her cider, making it disappear faster than the pint she’d tossed at Matt’s jeans. Which only reminded her to keep her eyes front and center. Pinned, in fact, on a spot in the precise middle of his forehead.
“So, how’re you doing?” he asked.
She spoke to his eyebrows. “Same old, same old.”
From her peripheral vision, she could see his chin jut toward the front table. “Someone’s birthday tonight?”
Crap. There went the tips of her ears again, flaming like she had something to hide. “Mine.” She remembered how to laugh. “The big three oh.”
“That explains the tiara,” he said, without cracking a smile.
She reached up and yanked the plastic contraption out of her hair. “Um, yeah.”
“Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
And two point seven from the Russian judge on Emily Dawson’s conversational skills! But all the parts of Emily’s brain that would normally have reminded her to talk about the weather, to ask what brought Matt back to town, to comment on the freaking baseball game on TV—all those parts were shut down by the mantra: Don’t look at his crotch. Don’t look at his crotch. Don’t look at his crotch.
“I think someone’s trying to get your attention,” Matt said.
“I’m not looking!” Emily exclaimed, but then she parsed what he’d said and followed the tilt of his head.
Rachel stood beside the Yoga Night table, one hand resting on her baby bump. The other made a trio of short, brisk waves, like she was shooing away a particularly stubborn mosquito.
No way. There was no way Emily was asking Matt Dawson out on a date. Who even said he was single?
She glanced at his left hand. No wedding band.
Well, lots of guys didn’t wear wedding bands. Especially when they made their livings with their hands.
Don’t think about his hands. Don’t think about his hands. Don’t think about his hands.
At least that was a new refrain.
Even now, the entire complement of Yoga Night leaned toward the bar, threatening to capsize their table. One more inch, and they’d send Emily’s collection of birthday presents cascading onto the floor.
Her presents. The last thing she needed was for Rachel to drag Matt over to their table, for Matt to see the old-lady gag gifts. The condoms. The shockingly purple Pleasure Parade. The champagne.
She turned her back on Rachel and the others. “So,” she said. “What brings you back to town?”
“It was time,” he said.
Of course it was. Jon had died in Afghanistan almost ten months ago. His parents must need Matt back here. “So,” she said, because the memory of Jon made silence awkward, even more awkward than throwing a glass of cider on a guy. “You’re staying with your folks?”
He shook his head. “I bought the Marshall place.”
Wow. It was one thing to read newspaper articles about small-town boy done good, about the millions of dollars Matt had earned on his last big-league contract. It was another thing to understand just what that sort of cash could do.
The Marshall place had been empty for three years, ever since Zebediah Marshall died at the age of 109. Nobody in Harmony Springs had the sort of money old Walter’s grandson wanted—not for a thirteen-room farmhouse that looked like it had just tumbled out of The Addams Family. And definitely not for the disintegrating barn and stable, for a certain rotting footbridge determined to take “dust to dust” as a command…
Until Matt Dawson came home.
Whoops—it was time for her to say something again. “That should keep you busy.” There. That wasn’t too idiotic. If only she hadn’t taken fifteen minutes to spit it out.
Matt smiled. She’d forgotten he had a dimple in his left cheek. Same as Jon. Her heart twisted inside her chest. Or maybe that was her belly turning over. Definitely not anything lower. Nope. Nothing at all.
Matt said, “I’ve got a few irons in the fire. What about you? Mom said you work at Charisma?”
She made a face involuntarily. “I left there about five years ago.” Women who paid five hundred dollars for a skirt didn’t want to be waited on by someone who wore faded khakis and over-large sweaters. And the owner didn’t want an employee who showed up late for every morning shift. And every afternoon shift. And the occasional evening shift, too, during holiday season.
Yikes—it was still her turn to talk. “I went from there to the Wine Emporium. And then Totally Toys. Now I’m at Harmony Skeins.”
He nodded, as if a knitting store on Main Street was the most fascinating thing in town.
Then, perversely, she couldn’t shut up. “It’s a good fit for me. I love to knit. And part of my job is testing out new fibers, showing our customers what they can make. Plus, Theresa lets me live right above the shop. Helps me to get there on time. Schedules aren’t my strong suit. Never have been. But now I can set my alarm for fifteen minutes before the shop opens and still get downstairs in time to greet the first customers. If they don’t mind bed-head, you know?”
Oh my God. She’d lost it. She’d totally, completely lost it.
Desperate to stop looking like a scatterbrained fool, she looked over her shoulder at the Yoga Night booth. Big mistake. Rachel was waddling over to the bar. And Emily could read the calculation in her best friend’s eyes at fifty paces. “No!” she mouthed. Matt didn’t count for the dare. Matt couldn’t count for the dare.
But Emily was too late. She was twelve years and half a dozen jobs too late.
“Matt!” Rachel said warmly, leaning in to brush a kiss against the man’s cheek.
“Rachel Little,” Matt said.
“Lacey,” she corrected, waggling her wedding band. “And I have to say, you’re showing me up. Here I’m the editor of The Herald, and I didn’t have a clue the town’s most famous son was back among us.”
“I’ve been keeping things quiet,” he said.
“So you’re home to stay?” Rachel sounded like she was interviewing him for a front-page feature.
“That’s the plan,” he said. And then he must have caught the dagger glance Rachel thrust at Emily, because he said, “I owe those drunks at the back table another round. I’ll let you two get back to your party.”
“Why don’t you—” Rachel started to say, and Emily knew she was about to invite him over to their table, to the pile of gifts, to the fluorescent purple Pleasure Parade and the bottle of champagne.
“Why don’t you get the guys their drinks, before they start climbing the walls,” Emily interrupted. And then, because Rachel was her best friend, because a dare was a dare, because the Purr hadn’t died away completely at the back of her head, even in the embarrassment of the world’s least successful conversation, Emily said, “It’s great to see you, Matt. Maybe we could grab dinner some time.”
“Sure,” Matt said, just like she hadn’t spent the past twelve years avoiding him.
Rachel’s back was to Matt. He couldn’t see her face as she mouthed, “Set a date.”
If Emily didn’t, Rachel would. So Emily followed through on the rest of the dare, the Purr ratcheting louder in her ears. “How about the diner then? Tomorrow night?”
If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. “Tomorrow night,” Matt said, sealing her fate.
At least she’d be on her home turf. Her sister, Anne, owned the Orchard Diner. Emily would be comfortable in the red leather booths, listening to the familiar clatter from the kitchen, eating off brightly colored Fiestaware plates. She could relax at the diner.
So they settled on six-thirty. They’d meet at the restaurant. She was glad to see him. He was glad to be back home. Yay. Great. Goodbye.
“I’m going to murder you!” she muttered to Rachel, after Kevin had once again refilled her cider and she’d returned to the front booth.
“Good news,” Rachel announced to the Yoga Night crowd, obviously not fearing her imminent demise. “Emily is one third of the way to meeting her October goal!”
The cheers were loud enough to make everyone in the bar look at the front table. Emily had no choice but to drink her cider and tell herself everything would be fine. Matt didn’t have to be her three-date guy. She could find someone else for that honor, that curse, before the month was over.
She’d have to. Because there was no way in hell she and Matt Dawson would ever make it past one awkward, uncomfortable dinner. And that was a Truth she’d take to the bank.