“I could so get used to this type of treatment,” she said as he carried her into the bedroom.
Ethan could get used to it too. Going to bed with her at night. Sex in the early morning hours. Rolling over and waking up to her smiling face. He could get very used to it.
He set her gingerly on the bed and stared down at her gorgeous body. When she lay back and spread her legs in welcome, he licked his lips and prepared to take another dip inside her waiting heat. But something stopped him. As if a giant cement wall had been mysteriously erected right in front of him, Ethan came to a standstill. He looked at her full breasts, the dark nipples that made his mouth water, down her narrow waist to the mound of low-cut dark brown curls at her juncture. Then his gaze came back to her face. Her gorgeous amber eyes were staring back at him in question. She wanted to know what was going on, but Ethan didn’t have the words to tell her.
How could he make her understand that he didn’t trust anyone anymore? Not his mother, not Stacey, and unfortunately not her. And if he didn’t trust her, how could he even entertain the idea of keeping her? The war between his heart and his mind was proving to be an annoying sonofabitch and he closed his eyes, trying like hell to think of some way to make her understand that this wasn’t her fault. That it was all him. He was a hot mess and he hated that he’d pulled her into his vortex of disappointment.
Instead, Ethan took a step back. He dragged a hand down the back of his head and mumbled, “I’ve gotta get down to the bar to open up. I’ll catch up with you later.”
And then he went to the closet, grabbed his clothes and found sanctuary in the bathroom. When he came out twenty minutes later, Portia was gone. Ethan walked to his bed, where he’d last seen her sitting. He picked up the towel that had been wrapped around her and lifted it to his face. Inhaling deeply, he could still smell her scent. His entire body tensed at the aroma. He hurled the towel across the room and cursed fluently before dropping down onto the bed and burying his face in his hands.
He was a hot mess indeed.
* * *
An hour later, Ethan walked into the bar. They opened at eleven every day and it was just about forty-five minutes after that, but the lower level had a good number of tables already full. Music played in the background, baseball games, MSNBC, a pre-game football game and local news were on the televisions. Shaun, a trainee Ethan had hired part-time from the bartender school he’d attended, was behind the bar. She looked to be managing well considering only Rod sat in his favorite spot at the far end of the bar, talking to another man. She was filling an order when Ethan joined her.
“Mornin,” he said in a voice he hoped was a lot more cheerful than he was feeling.
She looked up from the glass of soda she was making and smiled. “Hey Ethan.”
“Everything go well opening up this morning?” he asked while moving around her to begin his daily check of supplies behind the bar.
Ethan hated to run out of anything, especially when it became crowded. He liked to fill his orders as quickly and politely as possible, without too many interruptions and found the best way to do that was to be prepared at all times.
“Cool,” she replied. “That delivery you were expecting last week arrived. I signed the packing slips and put them in the folder beside the cash register as you instructed. The guys took the boxes back to the storeroom.”
Ethan listened and frowned. The storm had delayed the delivery so he couldn’t be too upset with one of his main distributors. Still, that meant he’d have to spend some time in the stock room today. That would probably work out for the best since he didn’t think he was in the mood to deal with too many people today.
“I’ll take care of that first,” he said. “Just let me review the schedule for the weekend. The local college has classes starting next week, so we’ll get parents and faculty pouring into town in the next couple of days. And Lance has some band coming in to perform on Sunday night. We’re probably going to need all hands on deck. Are you available?”
“Anytime on Saturday and Sunday after one. It’s Family and Friends Day at church,” she told him as she picked up her tray of drinks and moved around the bar.
Ethan nodded as he pulled out the tablet they used for everything in the place and moved his fingers over the screen to pull up the schedule. “Got it,” he yelled out to her, briefly recalling the yearly event at the church. While at the House, the boys had been required to attend all Sunday services. It was the grown-ups’ that were in charge, way of trying to cleanse the boys’ wayward souls. Even though there’d been nothing wrong with Ethan’s soul at that time.
“Hey Ethan, you got a sec?”
He looked up from the tablet to see that Rod was now standing in front of him and the guy he’d been talking to was right beside him. A slim, borderline skinny man, who looked to be in his early thirties like Ethan. He wore a blue and white Dodgers cap pulled low on his head, so that the wire-rim of his glasses were more visible than his actual eyes. He had a backpack on one shoulder and what looked like a small recording device in his hand.
“Hey, Rod. What’s going on?”
“This is Brent Reardon. He’s from The Wire, a national magazine. Came into town this morning to do a story on Portia and her big book debut,” Rod said. “Imagine that, huh? Out little Portia a bigtime author and stuff.”
Ethan knew that Rod had been overly impressed with the “and stuff” that Portia did. Once she started coming into the bar regularly people had begun to notice her and not just because she’d grown up in Providence. Rod had been overly excited when he found out who she was and what she did for a living. He’d thought it a push from fate that he was working on her house. But Ethan had politely pushed his thoughts in another direction as he’d very pointedly told Rod that Portia was off-limits to him. His old friend had seemed to accept that warning in stride, but today his eyes were back to looking bright with excitement as he’d said her name.
“Reardon,” Ethan repeated. He’d never heard the name before, but he knew of the tabloid rag called The Wire. “You come all the way down here just for a story about an author?”
From his days at the Secret Service when part of one of the investigations he’d been assigned to consisted of him tracing dozens of media outlets for information, he recalled The Wire’s home offices were in Chicago.
“Yeah,” Reardon said, using a finger to push his glasses up further on his face. “It’s a big story. We’re trying to get the scoop before she starts getting invites to the morning shows and stuff.”
Ethan nodded. “One little book is making that much of a splash?”
“It sure is,” Reardon told him. “Rod here tells me that you’ve known Portia Merin all her life and that the two of you are pretty close.”
Ethan shot Rod a heated glare.
“I mean, you are, right?” Rod stammered. “You were helping her out at the house too. Boarding the windows during the storm and things like that.”
