The Road to Rose Bend Page 5

  “He’s loading up his truck with some food I’m sending over with Sydney,” she replied, studying him in the same contemplative manner that had dragged the truth out of him the first time he and Tonia had sex all those years ago. The CIA could uncover secrets of states, nuclear codes and the location of Jimmy Hoffa’s body with her stare. She was dangerous.

  Not willing to spill any of the confusion swirling inside him, he dipped his head in a nod and with a, “I’ll go see if he needs any help and ride over with him,” he stalked toward the kitchen and the driveway that reached around the back of the house.

  Maybe physical labor would ease some of the tension riding him. Besides, he was looking at, what? Three hours of work at the most? He could assist in transporting food and unpacking Sydney’s belongings without it being a big deal.

  In and out. Hell, he could be back at his house by early afternoon, his original weekend plans resumed.

  Not a problem.

  * * *

  HE HAD A PROBLEM.

  “Why can’t Moe or Sinead get the rooms ready?” Cole demanded of Leontyne, thrusting his hand through hair that no longer existed on his head. Damn, after almost two years, he still wasn’t used to not having longer curls. Instead, he scrubbed his palm over his head, the soft, short strands grazing his skin. “Or I can go, and you can stay here.”

  Dammit, he sounded panicked. Panicked and desperate. If the anxiety kicking a hole in his gut wasn’t enough of a clue, the worried glances Leo and Wolf exchanged would’ve been a huge red flag.

  “So let me get this straight,” Leo said slowly, as if talking to a child—or someone unstable. “You—who hasn’t actually worked at the inn in the last seven years—should return to air out and ready the rooms for an unexpected influx of last-minute guests? Rather than me, who runs the place every day along with Moe and Dad? ’Cause, y’know, it’s my job. Sounds legit.” She shrugged a shoulder. God, who knew a half shrug could carry so much attitude? She lanced him with a narrow-eyed stare that was eerily reminiscent of their mother’s. “And to answer your other boneheaded and insensitive question, Moe’s already starting to prep food for dinner and Sinead is manning the front desk since Moe let Cher go hang with her friends and Florence pulled another shift at Six Ways to Sundae. So that leaves me and Carrie to ready the guest rooms,” she explained, mentioning the young woman the family employed as a part-time maid. “And yes, I need Wolf to drive me back since, as you know, I rode here with Sydney. Now. Any more questions?” She arched an eyebrow, popping her hands on her hips, her vibe fairly screaming, Go ’head and ask one more thing. I dare you.

  No thanks.

  Leontyne might be twenty-seven, but she was a Moe mini-me. And he’d prefer to keep the remainder of the ass he had left after that nice-nasty chewing out.

  “What’s the problem with you staying here?” Wolf asked, driving straight to the heart of the matter. Damn him. “I thought you and Sydney were friendly back in the day.”

  “We were, and there is no problem,” Cole objected, and tasted the grime of the lie on his tongue. “For God’s sake, can you two stop doing that?” he snapped when his siblings exchanged another glance. “It’s creepy as hell and just rude. I said I have no issue staying to help Sydney settle in, and I don’t.”

  His vehemence and show of affront did nothing to erase the skepticism from their expressions. And being the Dennisons that they were, neither tried to hide it.

  “First, you damn near bit my head off yesterday after mentioning how sexy she used to be—”

  “Eww, Wolf.” Leo screwed up her face. “Gross. She was a teenager.”

  “Again. She. Was. Legal.” He scowled at Leo before refocusing on Cole. “As I was saying, you bit my head off, and now you’re acting like Sonny does when he’s trying to get out of eating okra—”

  “In his defense, who doesn’t want to get out of eating okra?” Leo interjected.

  “If you’re not going to be a contributor to this conversation, I’m going to put you in time-out in my truck,” Wolf threatened their sister.

  Her lips turned down in a pout that would’ve done the twins proud. “I’m a grown-ass woman. You can’t put me in time-out like I’m a child... But fine,” she grumbled. “Wolfgang has a point, though,” she said, her voice rising over his ominous rumble at the use of his full name. “Is there a reason you don’t want to be alone with Sydney? Did she somehow offend you in the eight years she’s been gone or the two and a half hours you’ve been in her presence today?”

  “They saw each other last night.”

  Leo jerked her head toward Wolf at his revelation, her lips forming a perfect O on a sharp gasp. “Shut. Up.”

  “Nope, I think he was the first person to see her when she returned to town. He’s the one who told me she was pregnant,” the gossiping rat bastard supplied.

  “You knew before me? That’s such a violation of the girl code! Why didn’t you mention anything?” Leo asked, her head whipping back to Cole. “Did something happen between you two?” An avaricious gleam entered the gray-blue eyes she’d inherited from their father. Dad’s eyes only glittered like that when he talked about football, fishing and his wife. Gossip, drama and a sale at the local farmer’s market put it in his sister’s, and since he wasn’t presenting her with half-off tomatoes, he had to guess it was the whiff of a story to carry back to his mother and sisters that had her stare practically glazed over.

  Fucking Wolf and his big mouth.

  “Because there’s nothing to tell and no,” Cole said through gritted teeth.

  “Uh-huh.” Leo squinted at him. “Say what you want, but I’m definitely getting a ‘there’s something to tell’ vibe.”

  Cole sighed. “I’m going back in now.” He turned around and headed back up the short walk that led to the cottage’s front door.

  “Only the guilty flees when no one pursues,” she sang behind him. Now she was quoting Proverbs. Brilliant.

  He held up his arm and let his middle finger do his talking.

  Bellows of laughter rolled after him, and though his brother and sister were annoying, he couldn’t stop his lips from curling. Not that he would turn around and let them see, though. That would just encourage them.

  “Is that your mayoral finger?” Wolf snickered.

  “We should take a picture and—”

  Cole opened Sydney’s front door, stepped inside and closed it on his sister’s reply. He wrote a mental note to himself. Confiscate Leo’s cell later tonight and make sure she hadn’t snapped a picture of his one-finger salute. He didn’t put it past her to print copies and post them up at city hall right next to the First Presbyterian Church flyer for their annual clothing bazaar.

  “Sorry about tha—” Cole’s apology broke off when he spotted Sydney in the small kitchen. “Stop. What are you doing?” he barked, rushing through the living room toward her. The layout of her cottage mirrored his, and he maneuvered the space quickly, reaching her within seconds. Without thinking, he cupped her waist, steadying her on the short stepladder where she was perched. “Sydney, the hell? Get down. Carefully.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him, her arms still raised, hands clutching the cups she’d been in the process of stashing in the glass-front cabinets.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him with a small frown.

  “Well, seeing you on top of this thing, I’m not. Come down. Please,” he added, the plea softer than his demand. His fingers tightened on her, the tips denting firm flesh.

  For a long moment, she studied his face and though he wanted to turn away to avoid that penetrating stare, he didn’t.

  And he hated the part of himself that enjoyed looking at her more than it desired escaping her scrutiny.

  “Okay,” she finally murmured, slowly descending the three short steps. He guided her, not letting go of his grasp on her hips until her feet met t
he kitchen floor.

  Then, as if her flesh singed him through the layers of her clothes, he released her, shifting backward—as much as he could in the tiny kitchen—and inserting much-needed space between them.

  But he’d miscalculated; he should’ve never touched her. And now, it was too late to fix the error. Much too late.

  Unless he could cauterize the nerve endings in his fingertips, he now knew the dichotomy of firmness and softness in her hips and the dip of her waist that hadn’t fully disappeared yet with her advancing pregnancy. His hands contained the knowledge of just how wide those hips flared and how perfectly they fit his palms. In the moment right after her feet hit the floor, his body learned exactly how it would cover her, surround her. With the top of her curls brushing the base of his throat, and his chest easily spanning the width of her shoulders with plenty of room... With his cock inches from nestling against the small of her back directly over the delectable swell of her ass... Yeah, in bed, with her on her hands and knees in front of him, his bigger frame would swallow her smaller one. He could fuck her and protect her at the same time.

  Jesus Christ.

  His heart thudded against his rib cage.

  Where had that thought come from?

  This was Sydney.

  Leontyne’s friend. The young girl with the wide heart and wounded eyes that he’d once comforted next to her sister’s grave. Even if he was ready to be with another woman—which he wasn’t; no way in hell was he ready—she was pregnant by another man and married.

  This inconvenient and unwanted attraction had turned him into a deviant who lusted after another man’s wife.

  “I know Leo most likely browbeat you into staying with me, but you don’t have to.” Sydney’s husky voice tore him from the self-loathing he’d been circling like a drain. “I can finish unpacking on my own. You can go. I won’t rat you out.”

  She smiled. The gentleness in the gesture and the words dug under his skin and burned like live coals.

  “I don’t need handling, Sydney.” And though he felt like an asshole for snapping at her, he couldn’t stop himself. “Contrary to whatever Leo or Wolf might’ve told you, I’m not fragile.”

  Sydney tilted her head to the side, studying him silently before giving him a slight nod and crossing her arms over her chest.

  Don’t you fucking look down, he silently ordered himself. But his eyes shot him a “To hell with that,” and dipped. Taking in how sweet, rounded flesh swelled over the neckline of her tank top, that shadowed cleft a siren’s call. Had she been smaller before the pregnancy? Was she sensitive?

  None of his. Damn. Business.

  “All right then,” she said, tone still gentle with a new vein of steel barely running through it. “First, let’s clear something up. Leo and Wolf didn’t say anything about you. As a matter of fact, other than telling me you’d volunteered to help me move in here—which was obviously a lie on their part—your name didn’t come up in our conversations. Sorry to disappoint your sensitive ego there,” she drawled. “Second, I don’t need anyone to tell me what I can ascertain all on my lonesome. Me being pregnant bothers you. Don’t deny it.” She thrust up a hand, palm out as if jamming the denial he had been about to vocalize back down his throat. “Yesterday, you couldn’t get away from me fast enough after realizing I was pregnant. And today, you can’t even bring yourself to look at my stomach.”

  He started to contradict her, to reassure her that no, he didn’t have a problem. But the words couldn’t squeeze past the constriction of his throat.

  She was wrong...but she wasn’t.

  How did he explain that it wasn’t just her pregnancy? Rose Bend had seen its fair share of pregnant women in the last two years, and as mayor he’d encountered babies as well as expecting mothers. No, the explanation became murky and difficult when he tried to introduce his dick into the mix. Being attracted to a pregnant woman scared the shit out of him.

  But that enlightenment would also mean he had to talk about Tonia and Mateo. And he couldn’t do that. Not today. Not with her.

  Not when a noxious cauldron of emotion—shame, guilt, betrayal, lust and an unforgivable thread of excitement—brewed and bubbled just beneath his sternum. No, he couldn’t bring his wife’s name up here when the woman who’d kindled that storm of feelings stood not even feet away from him.

  That seemed like even more of a betrayal.

  Especially since Sydney was another man’s wife. About to be the mother of that man’s child.

  “I’m not judging you, Cole,” Sydney continued, lowering her arms to her sides. He caught the slight twitch of her right hand. As if she’d been about to stretch it toward him but decided against it. “And while I might not know the details, I think I understand.”

  “You do?” He arched an eyebrow, hating the caustic bite in his tone. “What do you think you understand?”

  She didn’t bat an eye at his sarcasm. “I saw you over at the cemetery, Cole. And you told me yourself you were visiting your wife and son.” She glanced away, her throat working. But when she returned her gaze to him, her eyes were clear, her voice steady. “I don’t need the details. They’re yours, not mine. Especially if you’re not ready to give them to me. But all that to say, I don’t need excuses if you don’t want to stay... If you can’t stay,” she murmured.

  Part of him leaped at the out she offered him like it was a rapidly unraveling lifeline. But then, a shadow flickered in her chocolate eyes. There and gone like a bend in light, but he recognized it. Was intimate with it.

  Loneliness.

  Sydney was lonely.

  No.

  Something deep inside him roared the denial. He couldn’t abide her hurting. Couldn’t abide being a perpetuator of that pain.

  “I’m good, Sydney,” he said, choosing not to analyze the impulse, the urge that demanded he remain here with her. “Put me to work.” He threw a pointed glance at the step stool. “I’ll start with the cups.”

  “Okay,” she finally conceded after a long moment. “Thank you.”

  For the next hour, they worked in companionable silence, finishing the kitchen and moving to the living room.

  Sydney had been truthful; she hadn’t brought a ton of belongings with her. The cottage had already come furnished for guests, and most of the things they unpacked were dishes, clothes, small pieces of furniture like artwork, a scratched but beautiful rocking chair, knickknacks and one of the best record collections he’d ever had the pleasure to lay eyes on.

  “You’re kidding me,” he muttered under his breath, holding up a blue album cover with bright red lettering and an image of John Coltrane playing a saxophone. “You have My Favorite Things?” he asked Sydney, incredulous. Picking up the next black-and-white cover with another image of the famed jazz saxophonist, he held it up. Stared at it as if he’d never seen it before. And to be honest, he never had—in person. “And Love Supreme?” He didn’t care if envy layered his tone. “How did you come by these? Sell a kidney? Knock over a collector? What are you not telling me, Sydney Collins?”

  She chuckled, pausing in the middle of adding books to the novels already occupying the tall bookshelf against the far wall of the living room.

  Shaking her head, she warned, “I would tell you, but then I’d have to murder you in your sleep. No witnesses and all that.”

  Plucking Giant Steps from the box, he stared at the original 1960 album and muttered, “It might be worth the risk.”

  “Careful there, Cole,” she teased. “You’re sounding a little jealous.”

  “More than a little,” he admitted, flipping the cover over and studying the details on the back. “I’m a lawyer, but I’m still over here mentally preparing my defense just in case I decide to perform a little B&E.”

  Her laugh, full and as husky and sultry as her voice, filled the room, and he had to look up from the LP to gla
nce at her. Delight suffused her lovely features, softening her chocolate eyes and curving her pretty mouth.

  “I have to admit, I would’ve never taken you for a jazz fan.”

  “Jazz enthusiast, thank you very much.” She smirked. “I think I’m a little offended. And disgustingly curious. What kind of music did you ‘take me’ to be a fan of, then?”

  Yeah, he’d clumsily tripped into a minefield. A “how much do you weigh?” kind of minefield. And he had no one but himself and his big mouth to blame.

  “Oh no, Coltrane Dennison. Don’t get judicious on me now. You’ve put your foot aaall the way in it. Like, I’m three-point-two seconds away from a ‘bless your heart.’ Which in Southern speak means, fuck you.” She grinned, arching a dark eyebrow high. “So you might as well ride this one out.”

  He held up his hands, palms out. A snicker escaped him before he could trap it inside. “Well, hell. Don’t ‘bless your heart’ me. I just seem to remember you and Leo blasting a lot of Maroon 5, Fall Out Boy and even some One Direction back in the day. Forgive me if I assumed you still worshipped at the altar of pop.”

  “One. Adam Levine is a sexy, tatted beast with the voice of an angel and the flexibility of a gymnast. Yum. Two. I still love Fall Out Boy and I deny that One Direction accusation. You have no proof, and counselor, you of all people should know any allegation without evidence means nothing. Although, I would watermelon and sugar the hell out of Harry Styles.”

  Cole shuddered. “That is...disturbing.”

  “Look here, Judgy McJudgerson, you don’t see me giving you side-eye over your Celine Dion obsession—”

  “She’s a legend,” he interrupted.

  “—so I’ll thank you to keep your opinion about my only slightly unsettling fantasies about Harry to yourself. But to satisfy your nosiness, I’ve always loved jazz. Dad owns a huge collection himself, and I used to sit in the study with him and listen to it. He would quiz me on what instrument I heard or which artist was playing.” A faint smile whispered across her lips. “It’s one of the few things we have in common. Our love of music.” Clearing her throat, she slipped the book in her hand onto the shelf and grabbed another one from a box. “But c’mon,” she said, her voice a little huskier, a little rougher. “You’re named after one of the most celebrated artists in jazz history. Please tell me you have his music.”