Susan Connell - Tall, Dark And Temporary

She squinted under the bright lights, then turned to snatch a cream puff from the tray.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, raising the pastry high as if it were a hand grenade. More powdered sugar drifted through the air, but she waved it away.

“I’ll give you a hint,” he said, taking a step inside the kitchen. He turned down the volume on the radio, then raised his hands in mock surrender. “It’s not Elvis.”

Her green eyes widened. And those full, soft and lusciously kissable lips parted. The last time he saw her, she had the same expression on her face. He smiled with purely masculine satisfaction, knowing that he could still elicit the same response. And this time, he hadn’t even stolen a kiss from her.

“Remember me, Megan?”

“Nick?” she whispered, lowering the cream puff. “Nick Buchanan?” Her disbelieving stare continued for several more enjoyable seconds. Then she laughed.

He remembered her laugh. Flustered and hesitant, the breathy exhalation sounded the same as it had a decade ago when he’d held her in his arms and danced with her at her prom. And right or wrong, for better or worse, he knew why she was the first person he’d asked about on his return. He knew it from the way her laughter still echoed through him.

She shifted her backside against the edge of the table, then nervously licked at the corner of her mouth. A rosy blush continued creeping over her cheeks.

“You surprised me,” she said as she tried and failed to maintain eye contact with him. “I—I was just—”

“You certainly were,” he said, referring to the sexy dance he’d caught her performing. “And doing a damn fine job of it, too.”

When she brushed her fingers across her face and under her chin, he looked for a ring and saw none. Good, he thought, pleased beyond measure to know another man’s wife wasn’t having this stirring effect on him.

In the shared and silent stares that followed, the only sounds came from the hum of the refrigerator, punctuated by the occasional crackle from the bug zapper outside in the alley. The moment shimmered with the almost painful pleasure of knowing he hadn’t been wrong all those years ago. Maybe it was revealed at night and only in her kitchen, but Megan’s budding sensuality had definitely blossomed.

“You cut your hair.”

“You let yours grow.”

This time they laughed together and he knew he could easily spend the rest of the night in that kitchen exchanging banalities with her. What did he care about the paperwork waiting for him in his hotel room? Or the dozen or so calls he had to make before his meeting tomorrow night? He’d stumbled on his own welcome-home party and he wasn’t planning to leave anytime soon.

“You look good, Megan.”

“So do you.”

Smiling at her whispered reply, he picked up the can of sugar, took it across the room and set it next to the tray. When he turned to face her, he realized he was close enough to brush the sugar from her forehead... or lick it from her cheek. The thought made his mouth go dry. He leaned his hip against the edge of the table and pointed at the cream puff.

“You have a license to use that, lady?”

“What?” She looked at the pastry in her right hand, then rolled her eyes as she replaced it on the tray.

“So what are you doing here?” he asked, pretending Rebecca hadn’t already told him. “Besides making cream puffs to lob at your old friends.”

“I bought out Bailey’s.” Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, she looked up at him and smiled. “This is all mine,” she said, opening her arms, “as long as I pay the rent.”

He nodded, noting she was finally beginning to relax a little. “From the looks of things when I walked in, I’d say you bring a lot of enthusiasm to your work. But I thought that Andy Sloan would have had you living in one of those big houses out on Red Oak Road by now,” he said, referring to the most exclusive area in Follett River.

She looked away, rubbing her thumb against her lips as his gaze drifted over her. The signs of her sensual nature were still there, peeking through as surely as the white satin strap of her bra peeked out of her grape-colored top. Or in the curvy white-blond tempting-to-touch hair tickling at her collarbone. His gaze wandered to her eyes, then drifted downward again. “So whatever happened to Andy?”

“Nick,” she said, folding her arms across her midriff, effectively cutting off his view of the taut belly softly punctuated by a sugar-filled navel. “Andy did marry me.”

Nick blinked, then looked up, his lighthearted mood disappearing in her news flash. She was another man’s wife; she’d probably removed her wedding band when she’d started to make the pastries. Where was his head? A beautiful, sensual creature like Megan not married?

“Whoa,” he said, taking a step back. “I have been away a long time, haven’t I?” He tubbed at the back of his neck, then gave her an apologetic wink. “How is Andy? Still shaking up everyone over at the country club with his tennis scores? Did he become district attorney, like you predicted?”

Megan stared into the darkened dining room of the café. “Nick, Andy died.”

If hearing she was married had surprised him, this news threatened to take his breath away. “Megan, I am really sorry. I had no idea.”

“That’s okay,” she said, offering him a forgiving smile before her gaze shifted to the floor.

“How did it happen?” he asked, then wished he hadn’t. The last thing he wanted to do was make her feel more uncomfortable by dragging up heavyhearted memories.

“He’d been away on business in the southern part of the state,” she said, staring at her white tennis shoes. She crossed one foot over the other and rested it on its toe. “He was driving back and fell asleep at the wheel.”

Nick gave a sympathetic shake of his head. What he wanted to do was take her in his arms and comfort her, but that was probably the last thing she wanted from him after he’d just been teasing her about Andy.

Shifting uneasily, he studied her profile, hoping to find a clue for what to do or say next. Her eyes were dry. Her chin wasn’t trembling. Her lips weren’t quivering. All in all, she was handling the tragedy remarkably well. Come to think of it, he wasn’t surprised. Even at the untested age of eighteen, she had impressed him with an unusual strength of character. That same strength was now seeing her through the brittle reality of death.

Closing his hand over her shoulder, he managed, in the process, to tangle his fingers in her silky blond vanilla-scented hair. Those strands of hair might as well be made of steel cables and her shoulder a magnet holding him fast. He swallowed hard. Until that moment, he had no idea how strong his desire was to touch her. “Megan, is there anything I can do?”

Keeping her head bowed, she smoothed the toe of her shoe along an imaginary line on the floor. “It happened a long time ago.”

“I see,” he said, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze while he tried and failed to ignore what her nearness was doing to him.

Looking up at him, she let her gaze wander over his face, as if she were seeing it for the first time. Or memorizing it for the last time. Whatever the case, that glimmer of heated awareness he saw in her eyes was undeniable. So was that tugging sensation low in his belly. “How long ago, Megan?”

She was staring at his mouth now. “This September will be six years.”

“Six years,” he repeated as vague feelings of guilt scattered to make way for the relief rushing through him. Six years? The tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in his shoulders began to uncoil. He wasn’t certain about the protocol on such things, but six years sounded like a long enough grieving period to him. By the look in Megan’s eyes, he thought it safe to assume that she did, too.

He lifted a lock of her hair and moved it behind her shoulder. “Six years is a long time to be alone,” he said, one breath away from a kiss.

Megan Sloan froze on his last words. That Nick Buchanan had walked in on her while she was in the middle of a wildly sexy fantasy about him was astonishing. That she hadn’t screamed, passed out, or worse, tried to start a conga line with him was a miracle. But he’d just sent her crashing to earth with his last remark. She stepped away from the table.

She’d always known what to do with him in her fantasies, but dealing with him in real life wasn’t the same. And with everything else going on in her life right now, she did not need more impossible visions of Nick Buchanan crowding her thoughts. He’d taken a piece of her heart when he left town ten years ago. She wasn’t about to let that happen again.

Pulling at the hem of her shirt, she made several unsuccessful attempts at covering her navel before she gave up and crossed her arms over it. “I haven’t exactly been alone for the last six years.”

He leaned an elbow on the worktable and smiled. She remembered that smile so well. Part tease, part challenge, all bad boy and designed to make any woman who saw it melt. That damn smile. He could make curved lips and a riveting stare say more than mere spoken words ever could.

“So what are you saying? Is there someone special?”

“Very special.” The sooner Nick knew, the sooner he’d take the next predictable step...like every other man she’d met since Andy died. He’d leave. And she could start to forget that the gap between fantasy and reality had been bridged tonight. “Nick, I was pregnant when Andy died. I have a little girl.”

“A little girl?” He blinked as he pushed up from the table. “And you’re raising her all by yourself?”

“Aunt Sandra, my mother’s sister, watches her during the day, and for that matter, most anytime I need her to.”

Megan walked over to the framed corkboard next to the refrigerator. “Her photo’s over here,” she said, pushing aside several colorful crayon drawings to reveal a department-store photo. The plastic puppy barrettes and infectious grin only added to the charm of her child’s button-nosed beauty.

Nick walked up behind her, curved his hand over her shoulder and leaned to get a good look at the photo.

My God, she thought, I wasn’t imagining it before. He’s wearing the same aftershave he used ten years ago. A peppery lime scent that smelled like citrus punch on other men and a private party waiting to happen on him.

Megan held her breath as he reached past her. “What’s her name?” he asked as he worked out the plastic pushpin and lifted the photo.

“Paige. She’ll be starting kindergarten soon.”

“I have to get a better look,” he said, taking the photo from the shadowed corner of the kitchen to the bright light over the worktable.

Megan watched him study the picture for a few strangely heart-thumping seconds.

“She’s got your hair and that one dimple of yours,” he said, nodding as he touched his own cheek. “And she tilts her head like you do.”

“Does she? Let me see.” She joined him by the table. “You’re right,” she said, looking up to find him staring at her and not the photo. “I never noticed that before.”

His soft laughter made her ears tickle and her breath catch. “She’s beautiful, Megan. Are those boys in kindergarten ready for her?”

“Well, I don’t know about them,” she said, halfway disarmed by the genuine tone of his comments, “but she’s ready. She’s had her clothes picked out for the first day for over a month. The shoes, she tells me, are another matter completely.”

Resting his hands comfortably on his hips, he shifted his weight to lean against the table. “So what’s that about?” he asked, pretending mild confusion over the child’s whimsical concern.