Ethan (5 page)

“What do you need?”
he asked.

“The facts,” she decided. “Give me some background and then
give me the Tablet.”

Chapter Five

Ethan thought about his options. He could hand over the Tablet peacefully and retain some of his male dignity. Or he could sit on it and stare her down, thus accomplishing nothing and reducing himself to the level of a two year old.

He held it out to her, but she had to use both hands to wrestle it away from him.

“It can’t be that bad,” she muttered.

She shook her head, but then that smiled bloomed on her lips—patient, knowing, sexy as hell. He felt his dick stir. He was definitely attracted to her. His skin had been humming ever since he’d stood on the other side of the gate, staring at her smiling profile.

“The writing is crap,” he told her. It was raw and real and it spilled onto the page in choppy lines and, sometim
es, one word epithets. The man in those pages was a casualty. In his mind’s eye, Ethan saw his crumpled, blood-stained body and wanted to haul him over his shoulder and run him to the medics. Only the guy was him and he couldn’t save himself. He’d tried. “The events are real.” He struggled for his next words, “The emotions—” God, how he hated that word. It was worse than
feelings
and about on par with apocalypse—“are a mess.”

She was already navigating through the first pages. She looked up and nailed him with her eyes.

“Who’s Tina?”

“My wife.”

“You said you weren’t married,” Shae pointed out. “And not divorced. So I’m assuming your wife passed away?” Her voice softened on her last words.

“Yes.”

She considered him for a moment. Her eyes were a startling shade of mid-summer sky. Ethan felt like he could free-float in her gaze, buoyed by the promise of carefree days and languid nights.

“Are you having trouble dealing with her loss?”

“No. I’ve worked through that.” That was his starting point when he took on this project. He’d thought it had to be Tina’s death holding him back and so he’d dove right into it.  “It’s what happened before. I think.”

“How did she die?”

“Read and you’ll see.”

“What happened before?”

He pointed to the Tablet. “It’s all in there.”

She
laid the Tablet in her lap and stared up at him. “Even if I read the whole thing, we’re going to have to talk about it.”

“You mean you’re thinking about not reading it?”

She sighed and Ethan watched conflict wage on her face.

“It’s six hundred and seventeen pages,” she pointed out.

Ethan flinched. He’d written enough to fill out two or three screenplays and he wasn’t even done. She probably thought he was an egomaniac.

“What else do you have to do with your time?” he tried for humor.

“I’m leaving town tomorrow.”

“When are you coming back?”

“Never.”

“What?”

“It’s a permanent move,” she explained, and Ethan heard defensiveness in her tone. “I want more than this town can offer me.”

Stevie had said something about Shae contemplating a move that would result in career s
uicide. He tried to remember the man’s exact words.

“
And it’s waiting for you in Mayberry?”

“
Stevie talks too much.” She frowned and it put the cutest wrinkle between her eyebrows. “And it’s Mill valley. I grew up there.”

“
They say you can never go home.”

“
Who says that?” she challenged.

“
The people who tried?”

“
The people who have nothing waiting for them,” she corrected.

“
And you do?”

“
Yes.”

“
And you can’t delay a few days?”

She held up the T
ablet. “It’s going to take longer than that.”

“A few weeks
then?” He inhaled deeply. Hell, he hated the whole idea of need—unless it was sexual in nature, and then you could deal him in. “I know it’s asking for a lot. And there’s really nothing I can do to pay you back for it. I mean, it’s not like we can start practicing our acceptance speeches, right? And paying you, well Stevie said—”

“
You can’t buy heart,” Shae cut through his words. “And that’s what you’re asking for.”

And because that was it, exactly, Ethan stood quietly in front of her and agreed. “I need
your help.”

His soft entreaty sealed
the deal. He watched the fight roll off her shoulders, loosen the tension in her face. Shae Matthews was beautiful, with delicate, sunny features that reminded him of cat naps in the hammock and buttery sunsets that settled in a golden patina over the ocean.

“I’ll get a hotel room.”

“A hotel room?” he repeated. Okay, so he had sex on the brain and his first reaction was one hundred percent male. Shae naked and atop the silky sheets at the Marmot, her dark blond hair fanned out around her head, her blue eyes, so open and expressive, calling to him. And of course it made him stupid.

“I can’t commute,” she pointed out. “
Just getting here took me two hours.”

One b
eat. Of course she couldn’t. He recognized that fact but his inner caveman had control and was unwilling to leave his imagination behind so easily. Certainly not when fantasy-Shae was beginning to move on that big mattress. She rolled to her side, propped her head in her hand, and that sunny smile of hers turned sultry. A second beat. His mind refused to budge. He tried to shake it off. Really he did. But then she opened her mouth and her voice was thick with need, “Come here, Ethan.”

His attraction to her was stunning. It was almost mortifying, but he managed to slam the door
shut on the images that taunted him before he could embarrass himself completely.

“Ah, sorry,” he mumbled. “What did you say?”

“I’ll need to book a hotel room,” she repeated. Her lips, full and glistening because she’d just swiped them with her tongue—a move that
went straight to his dick—turned down at the corners.

Ethan took refuge in the office chair, tipping back and covering his lap with his folded hands. The move served two purposes—it gav
e him a few moments to collect his scattered wits, and it hid the evidence of his arousal—or so he hoped.

“This has really gotten to you,” she said. “You don’t like exposing yourself.”

“I’m not exposed.” Not yet. But he almost choked on the words and concern softened her face.

“But you will be.” Her fing
ers strummed the screen of the Tablet. “As soon as I get back to this.”

“Oh, yeah,” he agreed and he was clearly off beat. Shae tipped her head and her eyes became
lasers.

She set the T
ablet on the desk, close enough Ethan could grab it if he wanted to.

“You’re going to need to trust me,” she began. “But you don’t know me and even if you did I think you’d still have trouble with that.”

He nodded. It wasn’t always that way. He’d trusted before. He’d trusted Tina, and she’d abused it. He’d trusted himself, but feared he’d messed up and would again.

“Maybe if we set some ground rules, you’d feel more comfortable.”

“What kind of rules?”

She shrugged. “It’s going to get personal. There’s no way around that. But it doesn’t have to become judgmental.
If we treat your life like a story—which is really the only way I can do this—and you remember that my comments are strictly about plot and character—we should do okay.”

“We’d do better if you
shared a little about yourself,” he countered. “You know, confess something you’ve never told another soul.”

“One naked person in the room is embarrassing, but two is a party?” she summarized for him and waited for his nod of agreement before she followed it up with an emphatic,
“That’s not gonna happen.”

He smiled. “I didn’t think so.”

Their gazes locked and Ethan watched her eyes flare. She exhaled and it was breathy. Then she tucked a strand of hair behind an ear and he noticed that her hand trembled slightly.

Awareness. Thick enough it was a form of captivity. For a moment. And then she shifted,
broke eye contact, and busied herself. She searched for and found her purse on the desk. She brought it to her lap and rummaged through it, bringing out her cell phone and a small notebook. When she looked to him again, her creamy skin was tinged lightly with pink, but that was the only remaining evidence of her interest in him.

“You have a recommendation?”

He stared at her, his mind a complete blank. What the hell was wrong with him? He was smart, quick. He’d never lost the threads of a conversation and now he felt them flapping at his fingertips. He couldn’t grab them.

Sexual heat. It simmered just below the surface. It melted his brain cells. He tried to
remember the last time he was so completely moved by a woman. High school. Back when Tina was more dream—dating but not dipping into the honey—than reality.

“Recommendation?” he tried to raise a cool eyebrow
but in the face of her open appeal, he couldn’t pull it off. How had Shae managed to remain so fresh and genuine in a world of wind-up toys?

“For a hotel,” she prompted him.

Damn, that again. Ethan stepped on the brake with both feet and brought his imagination to a grinding halt before it could get the better of him.

“
Sorry,” he said. “I’m preoccupied. I’m all about this—” he indicated the Tablet— “right

now.” Liar, he called himself. “That’s the way I work.”
Which was true. He tended to be a frenzy of energy with one focal point when he was on a project.

“Me, to
o.” She held up her phone. “So let’s get this out of the way and then we’ll get to it.”

“You can stay here,” he offered. “I have two guest rooms. They’re all primped up—my mom and sisters did it because they need a little more than toilet paper and Cheerios to get by.”

Shae laughed.

“We’ll get more work done that way
, too. Maybe it won’t take weeks to plow through this.” He tapped the Tablet and ignored the itch to draw it close.

“I have only an overnight case with me.
”

“And your surfboard.”
He’d noticed it, locked in the roof rack of her sporty SUV. A short board, probably a Handley, by the look of its sleek curves. A serious surfer girl. The thought made him smile. He wondered if Shae did everything with a do it right or don’t do it at all attitude. Which of course led his errant mind back to the side of his fantasy-Shae.

He closed the curtain on any theatrics his mind was conjuring, even though his body scr
eamed
action!

“I n
ever leave home without it,” she assured him.

“We have a decent roll here.”

“You surf?”

“
By the time I was walking. San Diego, born and raised.” He wondered what she’d packed in her case. Certainly a swimsuit. Taking her practical side into account, he decided she probably favored a tankini. Something in vivid colors with enough support she could be athletic with confidence. For a petite woman, she had generous curves. Just the thought of them—because he damn well
wasn’t
going to look at them again and slip back into that sexual maw—made his voice husky, “We can have your things at the Marmot packed and brought up here.”

“Someone I don’t know touching my things?”

She didn’t say intimates or unders, but Ethan heard it in her tone.
His pulse kicked up a notch, but that was as far as his reaction got.  Because, he reminded himself, he was a man of discipline. “We could send Eva for them,” he offered.

Yeah, he liked that. His voice was smooth, unaffected. The offer clean.

But Shae shook her head. “I saw several boutiques in town when I was driving through. I can pick up a few things there.”

“Then you’ll stay here?”

She nodded. “I’m in a hurry, too,” she reminded him. “The sooner we’re done the better.” She picked up the Tablet, but then looked at him over the top. “I’ll stay, but only as a matter of business.”

“Understood.”
Although the way her eyes heated as they moved over his shoulders, dwelled on his chest, skimmed over his thighs, was like an intimate caress and told him that he hadn’t imagined their brief connection earlier. “Just out of curiosity, what’s waiting for you in Mill Valley?”

“A baby,” she said. “And there you have it. That one thing about me I haven’t told another soul.”

“A baby?” he repeated dumbly, because that was the last thing he’d expected to hear.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “And I’d appreciate it if you kept that to yourself.”

“You’re having a baby?” If he continued to repeat it maybe it would sink in.

“That’s the plan.”

“You can’t hide something like that,” he pointed out, though his lips still felt numb. He let himself look at her this time. She had large breasts and maybe that was the result of the pregnancy. Her hips were nicely rounded. You’d think under the circumstance his body would stop reacting to hers. But no. He was of two minds. The rational hung a no trespassing sign over Shae, but his dick was apparently deaf and blind.