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She did laugh then, and I grabbed her hand and we turned down another hall, safely out of sight of anyone exiting the room where the bridge game was being held.
“That was the worse poem I’ve ever heard,” she said, bending forward as though her stomach hurt from holding back laughter.
I chuckled then too, turning away and then back toward her as I recalled the looks on their faces. “Never in my life have I looked more ridiculous than that,” I said.
Her mostly silent laughter dwindled, but her lips remained tipped. “I like when you’re being ridiculous,” she said. “You should do it more often.”
My own smile faded. “You seem to bring it out in me.” My heart thumped and for whatever reason, Travis’s words came back to me—Don’t worry, Buchanan, someday you’ll be chasing down cats too.
Is that what I’m doing now? My own version of chasing down cats? Acting outrageously for a woman because she brings out a side of me I’ve never met before? A side I’m not sure if I like, even if I’ve never smiled more in my life?
I broke eye contact. “Check out the art,” I said, waving my hand to the paintings decorating the walls. “There’s a lot of it.” Maynard Siggins was obviously a fan of art. I only hoped he dabbled in painting himself and had hung at least one of his own pieces.
His house was both comfortable and stylish. Not stuffy at all like all the other houses of the men who might be Rory’s father.
Please let this man be Rory’s father. Please let the reason he’s still single be that the one true love of his life disappeared without a trace and he still holds a torch for her. Rory’s mom had referenced a family needing him, but that didn’t necessarily mean a wife and children. And if that was the case, wouldn’t it mean he’d welcome Rory with open arms? I wanted that for her. She was good and kind and had the brightest spirit I’d ever known. She deserved to be loved by as many people as possible. She deserved to be claimed by both sides of her family and feel that sense of belonging that I’d enjoyed all my life.
We peeked inside one room after the other, tiptoeing up a set of stairs near the back of the house and quietly exploring the second floor. There was lots of art. Unfortunately, none brought to mind the watercolors we’d come to recognize.
We were just leaving what seemed to be a guest bedroom when the click of shoes sounded on the back stairs. We reversed course, ducking back inside the room as the footsteps came closer and the sound of a woman humming met my ears. A housekeeper? Rory’s eyes widened, and she pointed to the closet to her right. I nodded, and we scurried to it, pushing the door that was already open a crack and then easing it shut behind us.
It was a rather small closet and so Rory and I stood pressed together as the woman entered the room we were in. I put my fingers over my lips and then leaned to the side to peer through the slats. The housekeeper, an older woman with short gray hair, continued to hum as she put fresh bedding on the bed, snapping the sheets and fluffing the pillows.
I stood upright and met Rory’s eyes, both of us staring, our lips pressed together as we hid in the dim closet, waiting for the housekeeper to leave. Her breath stalled, chest rising and falling in tandem with mine as her pulse fluttered at her throat. I wanted to place my lips there and feel that rapid pump of life just beneath her skin. My own breath stuttered, heat infusing my body, head swimming. I could smell her intoxicating scent and it wrapped around me, making me feel slightly drunk the same way it had that night. The night I’d been inside her. The night I’d kissed and tasted her. Christ, I wanted that again. My cock swelled, pushing against my jeans as I took in a lungful of her scent. Of Rory. Of the woman I wanted but couldn’t have. I almost groaned out loud, but bit it back when the housekeeper moved closer to the door and then finally, gathered her things and left the room.
We waited, breath mingling, gazes clashing. The housekeeper had left the room, but it sounded like she was doing something in the hall. Dusting, maybe…waving a feather wand over all those paintings on the wall.
We couldn’t leave and yet…this closeness, this tension was almost too much to bear. “I thought you said you were going to learn bridge,” I whispered.
She breathed out a silent laugh. “I meant to watch some YouTube videos but…” She changed positions slightly, brushing against my erection and I clenched my teeth, trying not to alert her to the fact that I was so turned on, I was woozy. “My dog walking business has exploded,” she said. Don’t say the word exploded. “I decided to go for the fake it ’til you make it approach.”
The housekeeper’s footsteps moved further away, down the hall. “Which is obviously the approach of losers, because that’s about all I did.”
I bit my lip not to laugh and she pressed hers together. And God, despite the fact that we might be caught in a man’s closet at any minute…despite the fact that my body was in a state of painful, barely controlled lust…and despite the fact that this mission was basically a failure, it was so good to be with her again. The last few days had seemed…lifeless. I’d been antsy again which had made me realize that that feeling disappeared when I was with her.
Our gazes met again, mine lowering to her lush mouth. I knew just how it tasted. I remembered the dizzying rush of pleasure when she’d wrapped her tongue around mine. She swallowed, her breath seeming to grow shallow right before she exhaled and turned her head, breaking our eye contact and making me realize that I’d been moving my face closer to hers, drawn and unable to resist the pull of her lips so close to mine. “I…I thought about the question you asked,” she whispered breathlessly. “The one about the difference between goals and dreams.”
My gaze moved over her lovely features, taking in the two high points of color on her cheeks. “What?” I murmured, feeling a burst of happiness at the knowledge that she’d thought about me while we’d been apart, and relishing the feeling of telling secrets in the dark.
She met my eyes again. “I think…dreams come from a place inside you untouched by outward influences.” She reached up and splayed her fingers over my heart. “Dreams are things you’d do even if you didn’t get paid to do them.”
Something expanded in my chest, right under the place where her palm rested, and I became highly aware of the sound of my own heart, beating loudly in my ears. I’d open my own restaurant. I wouldn’t crunch numbers or broker deals. I’d create. I’d come up with dishes and prepare meals for others. For gatherings. For celebrations. For life’s most meaningful moments. I was overwhelmed by Rory’s closeness, my defenses down, and so the vision bloomed large in my brain before I could even begin to tamp it down. That was an impossibility of course, but if I could…if I were someone different…
Not a Buchanan.
Rory’s eyes widened as if she’d heard my heart singing its secret. But then she turned her head, moving her eyes to the side as she listened. “She’s going down the main staircase,” she said.
I felt shaken and off-balance as I turned my ear toward the slats and listened as well, confirming what Rory said. I could hear the soft clunks of the housekeeper descending the stairs at the front of the house. The vision faded, and I tucked it away, back in the place reserved for pipe dreams that had no place in the real world.
Rory stepped to the side and I turned, slowly pushing the door open so that we could tiptoe out. When I reached the door to the hall, I peeked my head around the casing. “All clear,” I said, reaching for her hand. “We’ve been gone so long, they probably think we left,” I said. “Maybe it’s in our best interest to sneak out.”
We turned toward the back stairs, when there was the distinct sound of two pair of footsteps climbing them, and male voices conversing. Shit! We pivoted, hurrying in the other direction as the voices became clearer, talking about some character in a play. We weren’t going to make it to the front stairway without being seen. I yanked Rory’s hand, pulling her into a dark room as the footsteps became louder, moving directly toward us.
There was no time to hide and closing the door would only alert whoever it was to our presence.
I grabbed Rory and began kissing her. At first she froze, obviously shocked by suddenly having my mouth pressed against hers. But then I felt her soften in my arms and if I’d hoped the men talking and laughing and coming toward us would move past us unaware before, I wished for it twice as much now. Go. Keep walking. Allow me to keep kissing her. Allow me to keep pretending this is a charade.
“Oh!” a man said from our left, obviously having stopped in the doorway as the lights blared on. I broke from Rory’s mouth, giving the man named Timothy what I hoped was a contrite smile as I let go of Rory. She stepped back, seeming to lose her balance slightly before catching herself.
