Terry McLaughlin - A Small-Town Homecoming

“I’ll talk with Geneva and-”

“I’ve talked with her. I met with her this morning. For breakfast. And before you start giving me grief over that,” he said, raising his hand, “you told me you don’t do mornings.”

She closed her file and rolled the mouse precisely to the center of its pad. “I would have made an exception in this case.” Again.

“The thing is,” he said in his irritatingly reasonable tone, “you’ve already been paid the lion’s share of what you’ll make on this project. The design is done, bought and paid for. I’ve got a payroll to meet and men who are wondering when the next one will be. Your design isn’t the problem. Getting it built is mine.”

“Isn’t there some way to continue to work around the cleanup?” she asked.

“Not for a while. A week, maybe.”

“What will you do?”

He stood and paced to one of her models and stared down at it, his hands in his pockets. The winery, the one he’d admired. He’d surprised her, not so long ago, with his concise, spot-on summary of the heart of her design.

He looked so big, looming over her model, so strong and sure. She often forgot how many people were counting on him, how many responsibilities he bore on a daily basis. “Don’t you worry about me,” he said. “I can always find work.” He gave her a wry smile. “Men with tool belts are very popular.”

She rose from her seat and went to him. “They’re very attractive, too.”

He cupped her face in his big, strong, sure hands. “Think so?”

“One of the main reasons I went into this line of work. For the view.”

His gaze softly touched all her features. “We’ll be okay, Tess. We’ll find some way to work around this.”

“All right.”

“What?” He drew back. “No argument?”

She wrapped her fingers around his wrists. “Actually, I don’t think much of your water-feature idea.”

“Okay. I can compromise on that.” He brushed a sweet kiss across her lips, paused and moved in for another. And then another, as the familiar heat simmered and snapped between them. He dropped his hands to her waist and yanked her close. “Tess.”

“I’m here.”

“Yes,” he murmured against her throat. “You are.”

She grabbed his collar and hung on tight while he carried them both away from their troubles for a few moments, and then she floated back to earth on a sigh. “I like what you can do to me, Quinn.”

“Good. Because I plan on doing it a lot.”

He shifted an inch away and took her by the chin. “I wasn’t sure why I came here today or what I’d say when I walked through your door. But I’m glad I did.”

“I’m glad, too,” she said as he left.

She moved to her window and watched him shove two quarters into the meter near her car. And ordered herself not to fall in love with him.

QUINN STALKED into his office trailer on Saturday morning and threw a fistful of invoices on his counter. He’d been able to cling to his insurance so far, and he’d received permission to continue work on the building while the En-Tech engineers hauled away the contaminated soil. They’d been lucky; there was no sign yet of a leak into the bay.

He should be grateful he was still here, making progress, but sometimes the daily dose of insanity got to be too much. “Goddamn it,” he muttered.

“Dad.” Rosie swiveled in his chair, spinning in a clumsy circle. “You’re not setting a very good example for the kid.”

He grinned at her use of Tess’s term, relieved the two women in his life had begun to reach some sort of understanding. The basis for that understanding made him a little nervous-and he was too cowardly to examine it too closely-but at least it was an improvement on that disastrous first dinner scene.

Enough of an improvement, perhaps, to try his luck with the next step. He may have been having more success recently managing his urges to take a drink, but his craving for a certain woman’s company seemed beyond his control. “I’m thinking about taking Tess out for dinner.”

Rosie halted her swiveling and frowned.

“Or not,” Quinn said.

She tilted her head, and her frown tugged to one side. “I guess it’s your turn.”

“What do you mean?”

“She brought the food last time.”

He leaned his elbows on the counter. “I’m thinking this dinner with Tess would be like…like a date.”

“Like a date?”

“Okay. A date.” His face was heating. “Which means you’re not invited.”

She shrugged. “That’s cool.”

“It is?”

“Yeah.” She resumed her swiveling. “If you leave me with a pizza. And a new video. Maybe that one about the spaceship and the pirates.”

“And Neva.”

Rosie’s skinny chest lifted and collapsed with a grown-up-size sigh. “Two videos, then.”

“That’s extortion.”

“Is that like blackmail?”

Quinn muttered an oath under his breath as he gathered the invoices and tapped their edges into a neater stack. “Tess was right to wonder about the crap they’re teaching you in school these days.”

TESS STOOD outside Quinn’s apartment door, waiting for the flutters in her stomach to quiet. She knew what was coming-a few scorching glances, some deliciously teasing verbal foreplay and then a frenzied, mindless, glorious bout of lovemaking. It would all leave her exhilarated and exhausted and struggling to resurrect clear boundaries between lust and longing.

Boundaries she was considering ahead of schedule.

This had to stop. She was a woman who knew how to handle an affair, a woman who knew how to keep things casual and make a smooth exit.

The trouble was she’d lost sight of the exit sign.

Her hand, when she raised it to knock on his door, was trembling. And her heart, when he opened his door and pulled her inside, seemed to stumble and stop.

It wasn’t the soft jazz whispering from Rosie’s purple player in the corner, or the tangled iris stalks stuffed inexpertly into a juice pitcher on the small table, or the candles burning beside them or the kiss he brushed over her knuckles that made her nerves bubble and her breath catch in a jerky sigh. It was the look in his eyes, the intense gaze that told her he had no doubts about this evening. No reasons to hide anything from her-his desire, his affection, his delight in what they would share.

And oh, she wanted that, too-that certainty that everything would work out in the end, that they could make love and remain friends. Surely that was the reason her face was so warm and her mouth was so dry.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asked.

“A drink? Yes. I-Yes. Water. Please.”

She dropped her purse on the sofa and walked to the window, rubbing her hands over her arms. She thought she recognized the tune floating through the air, and bits of phrases flitted through her mind as she tried to piece together the lyrics. She focused on the words, trying to sort out the rest of the song. It was easier than trying to sort the sensations tangling and knotting inside her.

“Tess.” Quinn’s voice was a caress as he handed her the glass. He waited patiently as she sipped, and then he gently tugged the drink from her hand, placed it on the windowsill and slowly pulled her into a dancer’s embrace.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Dancing with you.” His fingers spread in a warm fan across the small of her back, urging her closer.

“Why?”

“Why not?” He rested his cheek against hers, so softly. So sweetly. “I’ve been wanting to hold you all week.”

“You can do that later. In bed.” Could he hear the panic in her voice?

“I’ve been wanting that, too. Waiting for that.” He took her hand and curled her fingers in his, against his chest. “Imagining how it will be.”