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“Why did you decide on accounting?” Brennan asked, rubbing her shoulder through the hand-knitted angora wool, unintentionally stirring moths around the flame of desire igniting in her belly. She tried to ignore the way the fluttering caused warmth to pool in her pelvis and instead concentrated on his question.
“Numbers make sense. They’re concrete, finite, and there’s always a solution. My life with my mother and my younger brother felt like walking in a minefield. Nothing in my house went smoothly despite my mother’s intentions. There were always broken dishwashers, burst pipes, new medications for Caleb, and bills left unpaid. Drama, drama, drama. But with numbers, everything works, you know?”
“Why did your brother take medication? Is he sick?”
“Oh, no. Not really. He has cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair, which sometimes lends itself to other problems. But mostly he’s healthy.”
Brennan studied her as the choir hit a stirring chorus, soft and plaintive in the bustle of the sunny afternoon, almost intentionally juxtaposed. She could tell he didn’t know what to say to her declaration, so she beat him to it. “Caleb’s normal in his mental capacity, and my mother has involved herself in creating a charter school for challenged students like Caleb. My brother has a nice future laid before him.”
“And you?”
What about her? She leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees, stroking the supple leather of the boots she was embarrassed to have bought. “I’m taking my CPA exam in a few months and will hopefully have an offer from Ivan to become part of his firm, maybe even his partner one day.”
“So, you want to stay in the city?”
“I never liked living on a farm much. My mother took comfort in it, probably because she’d had an adventurous life in California, living on the road with various musicians.”
He arched an eyebrow, and she shrugged. “Okay, she was a groupie, but life had harder corners than she expected. After a bad breakup with a boyfriend she refuses to talk about, she came back to Louisiana to lick her wounds and heal from the skinned knees she’d gained playing fast and loose with men who played faster and looser. She loves living in the middle of nowhere, milking cows and goats, making cheese and growing zucchinis, and I’m happy she’s good with where she is. But I never wanted that life for myself.”
“You wanted…?”
“To live in a city full of interesting people, to have a job that supported me and that I could take pride in, to have something more to contemplate than the grass and sky, as nice as they are at times. I wanted to do things, you know?”
He nodded. “Idealistic.”
“Yeah, a little. Mushy and easily persuaded to rescue people but rooted in enough reality to know not all dreams are realized or achieved. But thereissomething worthwhile in the trying.”
For a moment, they were silent.
Brennan placed a hand on the back of her head then slid it down to her neck, gripping it in the manner of a coach to a player, but his touch was soft. When she turned, his eyes were admiring. “I’ve never met someone like you before.”
“I’ve never met anyone like you, either. Not many guys in Crosshatch who drive Maseratis and live in town houses above daiquiri shops. More like John Deere and small farmhouses. Even the guys I dated in college were more ramen noodle than filet mignon.”
Brennan sighed, releasing her. “It’s an Aston Martin, by the way, and I don’t see myself the way you do. I guess I grew up accustomed to a certain way of life without thinking too much about it, though I suppose I like some luxuries well enough—especially the car.” He smiled and the devil appeared in his eyes. She decided she liked that little devil. Liked seeing the pleasure he took in all things from the bread pudding he’d eaten at brunch to the machine he drove.
“I noticed you like that car.”
“Anyone would like that car,” he said, clapping politely as the choir finished the song. After the choir started a new song, he tugged her into the curve of his arm. “You know money isn’t the most important thing to me, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Control is.”
He stiffened. “I was actually thinking more along the lines of personal achievement or security.”
Mary Paige idly stroked his thigh, enjoying that she could take the intimacy without waiting for him to make a similar gesture, reveling in his body tightening, this time not in indignation. “Most people want control of their lives. Even me. A job, a title, and a nest egg in the bank make me feel as if I’m in the driver’s seat, as if I can handle the fall better when it happens. Opening up to others, trusting them though they might deceive, hurt or disappoint takes a good deal of courage.”
“So, you’re braver than me?”
Was she? She trusted people easily. Maybe too easily. But she was also afraid of loving Brennan. Simon seemed a veritable pussycat compared to the heir to the Henry throne, and she’d eaten a lot of Ben & Jerry’s after Simon and she had split. What would loving and losing Brennan do to her? She wasn’t sure there was enough Zumba offered to cover that. “In some ways, but in others, I’m just as scared.”
He stilled her hand. “I don’t like being painted as scared.”
“Who does?” she asked, not looking at him, not wanting to show him she was as fearful as he. She didn’t want to love a man who, while he may not kick a homeless person, dismissed them all the same. She didn’t want to love a man who hated Christmas because it reminded him of pain. She didn’t want to love a man who thought so much about the bottom line, he forgot about the people who contributed to that bottom line. But she knew she was already halfway there.
She could stop now and go home, tucking her tail and hiding in the shadows because it was safe there, but that would make her less than who she needed to be.
Mary Paige Gentry hadn’t been raised to duck her chin and feel unworthy of any man…and she hadn’t spent the past few years of her life reinventing herself merely to run away at the thought of getting hurt.
“I’m not as strong as I’d like to be,” she said, turning her hand over so that she clasped his. “But I don’t want to shut the door on you.”
