Nancy Warren - Aftershocks

“I have been thinking about it. But what we’re doing at work is important, too, and I’m egotistical enough to think that I’m making a meaningful contribution at the office.”

“I know. You’re right. I’ll wait…but not too long.”

“Things will improve dramatically when the funding comes through from the bond. Why don’t we have this conversation again in a month?”

He nodded once, knowing she was right. Talking his assistant into quitting for entirely personal reasons wasn’t the best service he could render the people of Courage Bay. “All right, lady. You’ve got a month. And in four weeks-less, if things calm down at work enough that I can replace you-you and I have a date with a king-size bed.”

“If all you want is sex-” she began, but he cut her off.

“You know it isn’t. If I only wanted sex, believe me, I could be having it every night. There are plenty of single women who actually think I’m a pretty good catch. But for some damned reason, the only woman I want, the only woman who’s keeping me awake at night, making me take cold showers and generally making my life hell, is you.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. I’m not saying it will work out. Maybe it won’t. But in the three years since Janie died, I’ve barely looked at another woman.”

She glanced up, startled. “You mean you’ve never-” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. What am I saying? That’s none of my business.”

He removed her hand from her mouth and kissed the palm. “Of course it’s your business. We slept together. I think that gives you a right to know about my sex life. And the answer is no. I haven’t had sex with anyone since Janie died. Not until you.” He brushed a hand over the gold of her hair, which was like a halo in the streetlight, and wished he could take her back inside and show her how much she meant to him.

“I had no idea.” She whispered the words, and it almost sounded as though she were close to tears.

“Well, going without sex for three years is not something you plan. But I loved my wife. I missed her for a long time. I still miss her. I guess I always will. And I was so busy with the kids and work that I…I never got around to dating other women. I missed sex of course. I’m still a man.” He grinned in the dark. “But until you came along, I never did anything about it.”

He had no idea if he’d just made himself sound pathetic or needy, but he didn’t much care. He believed in the truth. He tried to be truthful always, especially with people he cared about. And he cared about Briana. More than he wanted to.

“I see.”

“I’ll tell you something else. You can go without for a long time and kind of put it out of your mind, but once you find a woman you desire again, once in three years is not enough.”

She laughed softly, but she sounded almost nervous. Why was she so skittish now? She’d been so passionate and open when they were trapped together in the elevator.

Maybe Briana was affected by something in her past, just as he was. He decided to find out.

“Okay. I’ve told you my story. What’s yours?”

“There’s not much to tell,” she said, easing away from him. They ended up side by side, both leaning against her car.

“You left a job as city manager to come and be an admin assistant. I’m guessing you left your former job for a compelling reason. Bad relationship?”

Her hand was still in his, and now it squeezed into a claw against his palm. Aha. But Briana didn’t admit to a bad relationship. In fact, she shook her head.

“No. I-I just needed a change.” She sighed and looked up into the dark sky. “I was engaged, once. But it didn’t work out.”

“Did you end up with a broken heart?” That could explain her reluctance to get involved with him.

“No. A few broken illusions, perhaps. He was a slick-talking, smooth-moving cattle rancher, and we hit it off right away. Within six months we were engaged. I started planning the wedding, and he grew a little distant. Then I started showing him decorating magazines. I had such ideas for the ranch house. Oh, and the gourmet kitchen I was going to have installed. That house was badly in need of updating, you understand.” She laughed at the memory, but she didn’t sound bitter. “He’d usually change the subject whenever talk turned to home-decorating, and I thought it was just because he was a man. But then I happened to mention some ideas for a nursery. He didn’t merely change the subject on me that time. He changed women.”

“You mean that moron dumped you because you wanted to have kids?”

“Oh, don’t make a tragedy out of it. I think he dumped me because he’d gotten carried away on a fantasy of the two of us on a never-ending honeymoon. He thought nothing would change except that he’d have me there in his world, and here I was, hauling curtain samples and kids into his dream. We simply weren’t a fit.”

Patrick would let her decorate his house any way she wanted, he realized. He’d toss out everything, including the kitchen, and start again if that’s what she wanted. With a stirring of mingled pain and hope, he realized he’d even go along with the nursery. He loved kids, and he’d be happy to have more.

But after half declaring his love and seeing her back off, he wasn’t about to freak her out with an offer to redecorate and set up a nursery.

If he did, she’d probably run from him faster than the ranch boy had run from her.

What he had to do was get the council back in session quickly, vote to release the funds and get Courage Bay ’s emergency services fully functioning again.

Then he could go after the woman he loved.

PATRICK WAS ACTING exactly as her uncle had predicted, Briana realized as she reached home, battling frustrated lust. Her boss was charming her-not seducing her exactly, but making it very clear he wanted to. Sure, the whole “I’ve been celibate three years since my wife died” could be a line that hooked women like so many gullible trout, but she couldn’t believe that.

Oh, she knew she was in trouble. It wasn’t just that Patrick had all but declared his love, which was plenty scary, though also wildly exhilarating. No, it was the way she’d caught herself imagining how nice his kitchen counters would look in granite, and that with a little rearranging, the furniture in the den would work so much better.

She crawled into bed, and Patrick’s words came back to echo in her head. You and I have a date with a king-size bed, he’d told her, with that fiery glint in his eyes that set her skin sizzling. In an elevator, in the dark, he’d been terrific. And if what he told her was true, he’d also been out of practice.

She smiled a cat-in-cream smile as she stretched among the heap of pillows she’d sewed herself. Patrick in a king-size bed, and back in practice, was something to look forward to.

Of course, her bed wasn’t a king, but she had a feeling he’d do just fine in a queen-size bed.

Her body warmed at the thought of what the two of them could get up to between these covers, and she recalled that it would be happening in one short month if she took him up on his challenge. Sooner, if she got the evidence she needed to clear Patrick of wrongdoing.

How exactly was she going to do that, she thought as she yawned, wishing Patrick were beside her and that they were free to work out thorny problems like this together. She was tempted to start by talking to the reporter who’d broken the story in the Sentinel and trying to get a good look at the photograph they’d run. But of course it was impossible. Asking a nosy reporter a lot of questions was going to rouse his suspicions. There had to be another way.