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“How could you possibly…”
“Come on, Kate, opening a new Bare Essentials right here in Pleasantville? Next door to the Tea Room?” He paused, letting the concept sink in, then reluctantly began to chuckle. “Damn, you really are something.”
“You…you’re not shocked?” she whispered.
Shocked? No. He’d already learned that Kate Jones was like no woman he’d ever known. He shook his head. “Not shocked. I think you’re crazy, and you’re going to lose your shirt.” He cast a heated glance at her body. “I mean figuratively speaking. Literally, I wouldn’t mind in the least.”
She rolled her eyes.
“If you ever open your doors, that is. I’m sure there’ll be a protest from certain quarters. You could lose everything you’ve already put into this place.”
“Which wasn’t much. It cost only some sweat equity—mostly Cassie’s—and shipping charges to ship stuff here.” She shrugged. “Besides, it’s not about money.”
“Of course not.”
She stepped closer and her smile faded. “It’s not some silly revenge plot, Jack. I had to be here…I needed to come back to town this summer.”
He couldn’t imagine what could possibly be important enough to bring Kate back to a place she quite obviously hated, and told her so.
“I can’t really talk about it,” she said. “A lot of things happened all at once.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and rubbed her hands up and down, as if chilly.
“Kate, whatever is going on, whatever this is about…”
“Yes?”
“Just be careful. Sometimes things don’t work out the way you think they will.”
“I somehow think this will,” she said, “because I don’t have unrealistic expectations. I fully expect to fail here.”
He raised a brow.
“We’ll open, we’ll cause a lot of chest-clutching, a lot of scandalous whispering, and then, when Cassie’s safe…” She cleared her throat. “I mean, when Cassie’s ready to leave…we’ll close and go away. Cassie will sell this building and everything else she owns here and we’ll never come back. No ties, no bad memories, just a laugh when we think back on our one last hurrah.”
“Cassie’s in trouble?”
“No. Forget it, okay? Cassie’s fine.” She looked at her nails, obviously feigning nonchalance. “Did you like her?”
“Like her? I barely spoke to her.”
“Most men don’t have to speak to her to form an impression.”
Jack shrugged. “She’s beautiful, of course. Flamboyant and probably too sexy for her own good. She’ll drive any man who loves her to the verge of insanity.”
She waited. When he didn’t continue, she prompted, “That’s all? You weren’t…interested?”
He shook his head. “Do you think I’m a total scumbag? What kind of guy would lust after the cousin of the woman he’s involved with?”
“We are not involved.”
“Bullshit. We are very much involved,” he admitted, confirming that not only to her, but to himself.
He waited for her to deny it. She couldn’t. Who could deny the inevitable? They might not have done much about their relationship since they’d been back in town, except for a few hot kisses and that one close encounter yesterday. But there’s no question they would. Sooner or later.
Judging by the look in her eye, and the expectancy in the air, he suspected it was going to be sooner.
He waited for a mental voice to tell him no, waited for his feet to instinctively turn toward the door. Waited to hear from the nice-guy voice of reason who’d been whispering in his ear for weeks.
That voice had been growing weaker as each day passed. He’d been listening to her from the other side of the duplex, seeing her shining, dark hair as she left in the morning, hearing her off-key singing as she showered. Every day another chunk had disappeared out of the wall of willpower he’d tried to erect between them. And after yesterday, it had come down like the last remnants of the Berlin Wall.
Sure he’d had good intentions, but all the good intentions in the world couldn’t stop what was happening between them. No more than a surfer could stop a wave on which he was riding.
