Barbara Hannay - One Winter Wedding

“Oh, Connor.” Her defenses crumbled to dust, and with her heart already reaching out, her hands immediately followed. The heat of his hands—strong, rawboned, and masculine—sent an instant jolt up her arms. Her heart skipped a beat at the simple contact, but it was the emotional connection that had her pulse picking up an even greater speed. For a second, as their eyes met, Connor looked as startled as she felt.

Taking a breath deep enough to force her heart back into place, she focused on the reason she’d dared touch him in the first place. “I’m so sorry. I lost my mom when I was sixteen. Do you want—”

“It was a long time ago,” he interrupted, jerking his hands out from hers in a pretense of reaching for his wallet to pull out a few bills. “I should get going. I’ll walk you back to your car.”

Stung by his abrupt withdrawal, Kelsey ducked her head before he could see the embarrassed color burning in her cheeks. Focusing on her purse, she searched for the keys she knew perfectly well were in the outside pocket.

“No need. I’ll be fine,” she insisted, and started walking. But if she thought she could out-stubborn Connor, he quickly proved her wrong.

“You will be fine,” he agreed, his light touch against her lower back a complete contrast to the steely determination in his voice. “Because I’m walking you to your car.”

Kelsey didn’t argue, even though Matt was probably long gone. Thanks to Connor, he’d learned his lesson. Too bad she had yet to learn hers. Because no matter what Connor said about how beautiful she was, actions spoke louder than words, and all the compliments in the world couldn’t erase the hurt of reaching out to Connor only to have him pull away.

Early the next morning Kelsey stood outside her shop, gripping the key tightly enough to dig grooves into her palm. The unexpected phone call from her landlord couldn’t have come at a better time. She still had plenty left to do for Emily’s wedding, but she couldn’t think of Emily without thinking of Connor. And Kelsey definitely did not want to think of him. Last night, she’d felt a connection—that loss and difficult childhoods gave them something in common. But Connor didn’t want common.

He didn’t want her.

With the morning sunlight glinting off the windows, she couldn’t see inside, but in her mind’s eye she pictured her shop. The subtle green and pink colors, the faded rose wallpaper, the shabby-chic-style parlor where she would meet with clients. Romantic without being overblown; classy while still being casual.

It was going to be perfect. Excitement jazzing her veins, Kelsey stuck the key in the lock, opened the door and blinked. With her dream office so firm in her thoughts she could practically smell her favorite peach potpourri, reality hit like a slap to the forehead.

No soft colors, no floral wallpaper…Shabby, yes, but chic?

“Not even close,” Kelsey muttered as she flicked on the lights and stepped inside.

The landlord had shown her the space a few weeks ago, when it had been a struggling craft store. Shelves and bins had lined every wall, filled with yarn and cloth, paints and silk flowers. She’d focused on the space, knowing everything else would go when the other store closed. But she never stopped to think about the mess left behind.

Holes from the now-absent shelves marred the walls with peg-board consistency. The carpet had a two-tone hue thanks to the areas exposed to foot traffic, and the bare fluorescent bulbs overhead buzzed like bug zappers in August. No wonder the landlord had left the key hidden outside instead of meeting Kelsey.

But Kelsey hadn’t spent her childhood living in sub-par apartments without learning a thing or two from her mother. “Wilson women against the world,” she murmured as she pulled the phone from her purse and called the landlord.

If there was one thing Connor hated, it was being wrong. The only thing worse was being wrong and knowing he had to apologize. Meeting his own gaze in the mirror, he knew he owed Kelsey a big apology. He’d seen the hurt in her chocolate eyes at his abrupt withdrawal and he felt like a jerk. She’d reached out to him—physically and emotionally—and he’d pulled away.

He could justify his actions with the same excuse he always used when thoughts of the past intruded. That time was over and done, enough said. And yet, the sympathy and understanding in Kelsey’s expression made him want to talk about the past. He’d wanted to turn his wrist, take her hand into his and hold on tight. That completely foreign desire had so rattled him, that he’d locked his jaw and put an early end to the evening.

After showering and throwing on some clothes, Connor called Kelsey’s cell. The phone rang four times before she answered, sounding breathless and sexy and—“Where the hell are you?” he demanded before he could keep the words from bursting out.

And what was she doing to give her voice that husky, bedroom quality?

“I’m…working.”

She was lying. Before he could remind himself what Kelsey did or who she did it with was none of his business, he heard a loud clatter followed by an abbreviated scream and a thump that sent his heart racing. “Kelsey!” Silence filled the line, giving Connor plenty of time to imagine half a dozen dangerous possibilities. “Kelsey!”

“I’m here. I’m fine,” she said after what sounded like a scramble for the phone. “I knocked over a ladder and a bucket of spackle went flying.”

Ladder? “Spackle?”

“You know,” she said, her voice sounding slightly muffled, and he imagined the phone held against her shoulder. “That compound stuff you use to patch walls.”

“I know what spackle is. The big question is, why do you know what it is?”

“I’m just handy that way,” she said a little too brightly, and Connor flashed back to the hurt in her eyes. Her answer might have been different if he hadn’t pulled away the night before. “Kelsey—”

“I’ve found an office space to rent. That way I’ll have more room to sell my lies about happily-ever-after to unsuspecting brides and grooms.”

Connor flinched despite her light-hearted tone. Seemed as if he might have even more to apologize for than he’d thought. “What’s the address?”

“Why?” she asked, as if she thought he planned to come by and torch the place.

“Because,” he said after a deep breath and a ten count for patience, “I owe you an apology.” Kelsey didn’t respond, and in the silence, Connor knew she wanted more. That need rose up again, pressure building inside him as words he’d held back for years struggled to get out. “I owe you an apology,” he repeated, “and an explanation.”

“I’m an idiot,” Kelsey muttered as she washed spackle from her hands in the tiny bathroom. She would have liked to look herself in the eye as she spoke those words, but the bathroom was missing a mirror, had no hot water, and a questionable-at-best toilet.

Why had she given Connor the address? Why had she invited him to invade her place? The dream office that filled her thoughts so strongly that morning had faded over the past several hours of hard work. The last thing she needed was Connor’s presence to overwhelm what was left of her lace-and-roses dream in a deluge of cotton and denim.

Not to mention his cynicism.

Yet she’d been unable to resist the demand in his voice or his promised apology.

The ring of the bell above the front door alerted her to her first visitor and saved her from her own thoughts. “Kelsey?” a familiar female voice called out.

She banged on the faucet handle a few times to turn off the water and hurried out, shaking her hands to get them dry. “Lisa? What are you doing here?”