Rhonda Nelson - Blazing Bedtime Stories, Volume IX

“Thanks again for the ride,” she said, her skin especially creamy beneath the glow of her porch light. If she wore any lipstick at all, it had long ago worn off, leaving her mouth a lovely rose color. “Can I expect you at the clinic anytime soon?” she asked lightly. Too lightly.

“First thing in the morning,” he said, just to unnerve her. “Things are slow at Ranger Security at the moment. Do you mind if I use your bathroom before I leave?” he asked. “It’s a bit of a drive to Hawthorne Lake.”

Her eyes rounded in surprise, from his request or the Hawthorne Lake comment, he couldn’t be sure. “Er, yes, of course.” Her shoulders sagged minimally—a sign of defeat?—and she inserted the key into the lock and opened the door. A loud meow immediately issued from the depths of the house and then a very large gray cat with misshapen ears streaked straight at Marion and curled around her legs.

Meow, meow , MEOW.

She chuckled, set her purse aside and then scooped the massive animal up into her arms and cuddled it close. “Yes, yes, I know. I’m late again. My apologies, Angus.” She glanced at Robin, a smile on her face. “The bathroom’s through there,” she said, gesturing through the dining room door.

He nodded and headed in that direction, taking note of the wide plank hardwood floors, the squashy floral patterned furniture arranged around the working fireplace. Soft pastels covered the walls—pale pink in the living room, robin’s-egg-blue in the dining room, pale yellow in the kitchen and, since the bathroom had been added by erecting another wall along the back of the kitchen to create a small hall, a quick peek into her bedroom revealed a lilac shade with spindly white furniture and mountains of accent pillows.

The whole place was light and airy and, more significantly … girly .

She might as well put a sign out by the curb that said No Boys Allowed.

He’d noted several pictures of her family—mostly Michael—on her mantle, a collection of old colored-glass bottles and several prints from the Art Deco era—Parrish, Fox, Icart. A corkboard with postcards of various famous landscapes—Venice, Rome, Paris, Greece, London—was adhered to the wall in the kitchen, along with the caption “Bucket List.” Another little insight into her soul.

“Can I get you something to drink?” she called, much to his delight. “Coffee? Iced tea?”

“Iced tea would be great,” he said. He hadn’t really needed to use the restroom, of course. It had just been a ploy to get inside. She probably suspected that, so he flushed the commode and washed his hands just in case she was listening.

She was just sliding a few cookies onto a plate when he entered the kitchen. Spying the dessert, his eyes widened and a hopeful smile slide over his lips. “Are those—”

“Snickerdoodles?” she finished, shooting him a grin. “Yes, they are. It’s my mother’s recipe and still my favorite, though I still haven’t managed to make them quite as well as she did.”

If his childhood could be labeled with flavors, no doubt butter, brown sugar and cinnamon would be high on the list. The cookies were melt-in-your-mouth delicious. He swallowed, his smile dimming. The cookies had been Michael’s favorite, as well. Marion’s mother had stopped making them after he’d died and no amount of hints or wheedling had changed her mind.

A quick glance at Marion’s face confirmed that she knew he’d made the connection, that he remembered. She released a small breath and handed him a glass of tea. “Let’s go to the living room, shall we?” And get this over with hung, unspoken, between them.

Back to square one, Robin thought with an inward sigh. And it was too damned familiar.

FEELING AN INCREASING SENSE of doom, Marion led the way to the living room and watched Robin lower his considerable frame onto her ultrafeminine couch. He should have looked out of place—ridiculous even, considering that costume—and yet … he didn’t.

Just as she’d feared.

Marion had bought the house a little more than three years ago and had personally overseen every nuance of the renovation. It was the first time she’d ever had a place of her own. Before that, she’d lived with her mother. Guilt could be a serious tether.

When her mother had decided to move to North Carolina to live with her sister, Marion had taken the opportunity to finally feather her own nest. Friends kept trying to convince her to get a bigger place, one that would accommodate a future husband and family, but Marion had ignored their advice because she wanted something that was just hers . Did that mean she was opposed to this mythical husband and family? No, though admittedly she was beginning to have her doubts as to whether or not either of those were in her future. It just meant that she wasn’t going to live in perpetual expectation of that happening. Her gaze slid to Robin and her heart gave a little squeeze.

He was the first man, other than the ones she’d hired to renovate, who’d stepped over her threshold. She could only name two who’d ever made it to the front porch. No doubt he thought she was being ungrateful and rude by not inviting him in, but the truth of the matter was, she’d wanted to issue the invitation too much.

Robin Sherwood was her Achilles’ heel, her ultimate weakness. She knew that an inside visit would shatter the boundaries she’d been so carefully trying to put into place. Of course, the fissure had started tonight when she’d seen him again. It was easy to imagine that she had some sort of control over her feelings when he wasn’t around.

And now he was going to be around—in Atlanta—on a permanent basis.

At Hawthorne Lake.

“When did you move to Hawthorne Lake?” she asked, unable to help herself. It had never occurred to her that he wasn’t living on the family estate. Though she hadn’t seen him in years—not since she’d moved her mother out of their old cottage—she knew his grandfather was in terrible health. Not that she cared, of course. He was a rotten man—it was only fitting that he … rot. Which was horrible, she knew, particularly coming from her, but Marion couldn’t help the way she felt. Henry Sherwood was an awful, awful man, the one who was ultimately responsible for the death of her brother. Forgiveness—and perspective, she’d admit—was never going to be forthcoming.

“I’ve always lived there when I was stateside,” he said. “Because Ranger Security is downtown, I considered a loft, but decided I’d rather make the commute than live with the noise.” He smiled at her, his honey-colored eyes crinkling at the corners. “Cottonwood is peaceful. I like watching the sunset over the meadow, listening to the bullfrogs croak from the pond.”

He couldn’t have surprised her more if he’d told her he lived in a mud-covered hut. Cottonwood was an old two-story white clapboard farmhouse that was idyllic but not grand. It sat back on a small knoll overlooking a pond and was surrounded by a grove of cottonwood trees, thus its name. It achieved a bit of notoriety during the Civil War, when Robert E. Lee was purported to have stayed there. Her mother had taken them all there the summer before Michael died, during Robin, John and Michael’s “civil war phase.”

They’d tromped over a lot of battlefields and visited several plantation homes, but Cottonwood had appealed to Marion the most because of the second-story porch. At the time it had felt a bit like a tower and she’d been going through her princess stage. Unbeknownst to the rest of them, she’d slipped away from the tour, ducked under the velvet rope and snuck up there. Michael ultimately spotted her from the ground and demanded that she come down—which she’d refused to do of course because “he wasn’t the boss of her”—and it had been Robin who’d coaxed her back. He’d told her that princesses weren’t meant to be locked away in musty old towers, they were supposed to be at Court. That had made sense to her, so she’d come down of her own volition. She smiled, remembering.