Stirring Up Trouble (8 page)

The rest of her sentence was cut off by her unmitigated laughter, a sound so musical and full of unexpected happiness that Gavin had no choice but to start laughing with her.

“You’re not an idiot. And for the record, I’m the one who acted like a jerk. Call it even?”

She nodded, and their laughter twined together for a full minute before subsiding. “So you’re really okay?” she asked again. She reached up to brush her fingers over his cheekbone in a gentle sweep, and even though the touch was benign, he felt it in the darkest places of his body.

God, he wanted to kiss her again; only, this time, he wouldn’t be an idiot and stop. She tilted her face toward his in the smallest gesture, her teeth pressing against her bottom lip to interrupt the lush shape of her mouth. The soft pads of her fingers coasted to a stop over his temple, lingering as her eyes met his.

Gavin shifted his weight with the intention of touching her back, of pulling her in and not letting go. But just as he moved, Sloane dropped both her hand and her chin, slipping away from him as if she’d realized the mistake of her proximity and meant to make good on her promise to leave. Already in motion, he had no choice but to do
something,
so he skimmed a clumsy palm over his own face in the wake of her now-absent hand.

“Yeah. You’ve got a pretty hard head, though.” Everything seemed to be back in working order, except for maybe the rational section of his brain, and he nodded slowly as he let go of the desire brewing in his gut.

Sloane snorted, but the gesture sounded way more endearing than rude. “Gee, I’ve never heard that before.” She popped to her feet in a shockingly fluid move, offering him a hand. Getting vertical was decidedly less graceful on his part, but he managed well enough.

“Thanks.” Gavin watched her roll up the yoga mat, and the silence between them stretched out like a napping cat. “So how did things go today? Okay?” he asked, in a lame attempt to fill it.

“If by ‘okay’ you mean, ‘Bree ignored me while I came up with a bunch of epic-fail ideas for a book’, then yes. We were very okay, all day long.” Sloane’s easygoing tone erased any heat that her words might’ve carried, as if it were simply her way of saying
sure, we had a great day.

Gavin nodded. He hadn’t figured Bree would be an open book with her, but at least the weekend hadn’t been a disaster. And the tutoring part had gone better than he’d expected, which was an added bonus. At least her grades were safe, for now. Maybe he was getting the hang of taking care of Bree, bit by bit.

“I really appreciate your help, especially with the tutoring,” he said. “But I’m sorry about the book ideas thing.”

Sloane bent to gather the scattered lumps of paper by the arm of the couch. “No problem. Like I said, Bree did most of it herself. I just refereed, really.”

“Well, I’m glad she didn’t give you any trouble. She can be, ah, difficult sometimes.”

“She was okay. Actually, she spent most of today in her room, watching movies as far as I could tell. Oh, that and she tried on a bunch of red lipstick and black eyeliner.” A sly half grin crossed Sloane’s lips, as if wearing a ton of makeup was perfectly normal behavior for a middle schooler.

Panic uncurled in Gavin’s chest. “Are you serious?”

Weren’t girls supposed to be older than Bree before they wore makeup? Like, thirty, maybe? Why would Sloane let her do something like that? Christ, he was ill-prepared for this.

Sloane’s grin faltered before fading completely. “Sorry. I didn’t know you’d feel that strongly about it. We stayed here all day, so it didn’t seem like a big deal. And honestly, the only reason I even saw it was because she came out to grab some water with it on.”

“Bree knows I’d never let her do that,” he muttered. Why did she have to be so defiant all the time? It was like she was trying to make him angry on purpose. Only that was ridiculous.

“Well, that explains her motivation. She had to know I’d tell you,” Sloane said with a nonchalant shrug, as if the explanation made all the sense in the world.

Would he ever understand anyone with an XX chromosome?

“Why on earth would she do something she knows I’ll get angry over, and then go out of her way to get caught?” The logic made no sense at all. How come Sloane seemed to understand it so perfectly?

“She’s just pushing your buttons to see how far she can go.”

Gavin had a bad feeling he was gaping, but that didn’t stop him from asking, “Did she tell you that?”

Sloane’s good-natured belly laugh plucked its way through him with enticing warmth. “Of course not. But I was a teenage girl once, too, you know. When I was fourteen, my mother flat-out insisted I wear these annoying pants underneath the skirt of my school uniform.”

Great. He was never going to get rid of the image of her in those damned kneesocks. Gavin cleared his throat. “That seems a little extreme for a fourteen-year-old.”

She popped a shadowy brow, sliding a hand over one denim-encased hip. “Not once she heard from Joey Romano’s mother that the boys had taken to going under the bleachers to look up the girls’ skirts.”

The image in his head caught fire and exploded. “You wanted the boys to look up your skirt?”

Sloane meted out an insouciant smile. “Please. I kept my legs crossed like everyone else once we figured it out. And anyway, you’re missing the point. It was totally embarrassing to wear pants under my skirt like a little kid, and I wanted my mother to know I could take care of myself.”

“You were fourteen.” He looked at her dubiously.

She pointed to herself with both index fingers, grinning. “Hello, figured it out, remember?”

Gavin’s curiosity got the best of him and he gave in. “Okay, so how’d your mother find out you didn’t listen to her if all this went down at school?”

“Because rather than leaving home with the pants on and just taking them off once I got there, I left them folded up, right on top of my bed every morning. It was standard teenage boundary testing, and I bet it’s exactly what Bree’s doing. She just wants to prove she’s growing up.”

His gut gave a hard yank at the thought. She didn’t have to grow up
that
fast. “Well, it wasn’t a good idea to let her put on all that makeup. You should’ve said something to her.”

Sloane’s laid-back expression shorted out like a faulty fuse, and she set her jaw in a firm line. “We stayed here all day, so nobody saw her except me. It just didn’t seem like such a big deal.”

“Well . . .” Okay, so she had a point. Still, the idea of makeup on his little sister’s face, especially red lipstick with all its grown-up connotations, made him more than vaguely nauseous. He couldn’t let it happen again.

“We’ll just have to agree to disagree, I guess. But thanks for letting me know.”

Sloane’s smile returned, albeit at half the wattage of before. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. After the novelty wore off, she muttered something about looking like a clown and then she wiped it off.”

“Oh. Good, then.” His words were like overstarched shirts, stiff to the point of breaking.

God, when had he gotten so old?

The urge to talk about it, to air his frustrations with someone who might get it—hell, someone who’d just listen—pushed its way to the surface.

“Sloane?”

She froze, one arm encased in the red wool of her pea coat, the other one halfway in the sleeve. “Yes?”

For a split second, he wanted her to stay. She seemed to have some insight on Bree, and the simple snippets of conversation they’d shared both yesterday morning and again tonight had strummed up a long-forgotten feeling of ease in his chest. Gavin opened his mouth to ask her if she wanted to stay, maybe have a glass of wine, when his conversation with Adrian punched through his memory with startling clarity.

Who was he kidding? She wasn’t going to stick around, and after Mrs. Teasdale returned, he wasn’t going to see Sloane again. There wouldn’t be any more conversations, and anyway, airing out his personal life would only stir up trouble. He’d have to figure this out on his own.

Gavin served up a cool, professional smile, one that he knew from experience didn’t reach his eyes. Walking her to the door, he said, “See you on Tuesday. Have a good night.”

Chapter Eight

Gavin spared a glance at the clock, as if the numbers would change simply because he’d willed them backward.

Nope. Six
A.M.
pretty much sucked no matter how you sliced it. And when it followed a restless night’s sleep spent trying to get rid of a gut full of unease, getting out of bed on his day off was just that much tougher.

He padded across the cold floorboards to place a hand on Bree’s door, only to find it open and her room vacant. A faint glow edged out from the bathroom doorframe, and the steady hum of running water confirmed the fact that Bree was already up and getting ready on her own. Damn, he simultaneously loved and felt sick at how well she could take care of herself, like it had snuck up on him and transformed her from a kid in a car seat to a capable preteen overnight.

Then again, considering some of the choices she’d made in Philadelphia, plus failing English here in Pine Mountain,
capable
was a bit relative. The whole makeup escapade with Sloane yesterday was really just the cream in the cannoli, hammering home the fact that he couldn’t leave her alone. No matter how much she hated him for it.

Gavin swept a hand over his sleep-mussed hair and headed for the kitchen, putting just enough water on to boil before beelining for the bag of coffee beans behind the sleek, white cabinet doors. The stainless steel coffee grinder released a chorus of soft clicks as he poured the beans into its belly, and the familiar, calming sound polished the rough edges off his nerves.

The rhythm of being in the kitchen, of filling the French press with precise tablespoons of fresh grounds, the earthy, complex aroma of the hot water meeting the coarse coffee grounds as he poured it into the pot—all of it unfolded over fresh calm. By the time Bree trundled into the kitchen wearing a pair of faded jeans and a scowl that looked more sleepy than surly, Gavin had assembled half a dozen ingredients on the rolling butcher block island. The comfort of feeling the food beneath his hands fled at the sight of Bree’s frown.

“You don’t have to get up early just to make sure I get on the bus, you know.” The intensity of her expression slipped a notch as her eyes rested on the carton of eggs lying open on the smooth wooden square of the butcher block, but she didn’t move from the doorframe.

Ah, right. Their favorite morning argument. Only today, something told him not to bite. “I’m making omelets. You want one?”

“No.” The word crossed Bree’s lips at the same moment her stomach growled, and she surrendered a heavy sigh. “Okay, maybe.”

Gavin bit back his urge to smile in case she caught it and decided to flee after all. “French okay with you?” He slipped a knife, thin and gleaming, from a slot in the side of the island, and the smell of fresh-chopped parsley met him like an old friend at the door.

“Whatev—I guess.” Bree corrected herself with a shrug, and although the noticeable hitch made his curiosity uncoil, Gavin didn’t pursue it.

“Anyway, I don’t get up early just to make sure you get on the bus.” He meant the words as a peace offering, but her disdainful eye roll negated his good intentions.

“I’m not going to do anything stupid with you right down the hall. Plus, you’d wake up if I did.” Bree kept her focus firmly on the butcher block, her frown locked into place.

Gavin’s irritation spurted. “I said that’s not why I get up early.” He looked down, only to see that his hands had stopped moving and his knuckles were as blanched as raw almonds. Shit. This was so not the early morning chat he’d envisioned. Time for a redirect.

“Anyway. How was your weekend with Sloane?” he asked, pulling the thin leaves from a sprig of tarragon a lot more smoothly than he’d changed the subject.

“Fine, I guess. She’s kind of weird.”

The sound of Sloane’s quirky, full-bodied laugh ribboned through his memory, and the potshot it took at his gut made him glad he’d put the knife down. Talk about ruining a guy’s concentration.

“Weird how?” Gavin knocked two eggs together in his palm, splitting them into a shallow dish one right after the other before repeating the process with the four remaining eggs.

Bree lifted one shoulder in a birdlike flutter. “She likes Shakespeare.”

“She’s a writer, Bree. All in all, that’s not too shocking.”

“She went on for like ten whole minutes about how
Romeo and Juliet
was the quintessential love story with tragic elements. And she cited direct quotes. In a British accent.”

Gavin choked out a laugh. “Really?”

“It’s not as much fun as it sounds,” Bree said, although a smile twitched over her lips. “And anyway, only geeks know that much about Shakespeare.”

Huh. She kind of had a point. Sloane struck him more like the naughty limerick type. The fact that she seemed to house a vast knowledge of Shakespearean plays was as much a surprise to him as it was to Bree.

“That knowledge helped you get all your work done,” he offered, starting to whisk the eggs. “So it can’t be that bad.”

Another shrug. “Yeah.”

They lapsed into silence while Gavin finished prepping the omelet mixture, then melted a pat of butter into a rich, golden river across the bottom of his skillet before starting to cook. The conversation, while neither deep nor terribly meaningful, had been one of the longest they’d had since their mom died that didn’t encompass an argument. Bree had once been the kind of kid who would burst into laughter just as soon as look at you. When had it become so difficult for them to just talk?

“So, ah, you want to flip these when they’re ready?” Gavin dipped his chin at the stove, giving the batter in the skillet an expert tilt. Omelets were finicky as hell, and if you didn’t keep a careful eye on them, they went right from hot breakfast to hot mess.

Bree crinkled her nose. “I don’t think so.”

He knew he should let it slide, but something about the small success of their earlier conversation made Gavin push instead. “Come on. You always ended up with the most perfectly folded eggs when we’d make these at home. You’re a natural.”

“Uh-uh.” Bree’s protest chilled by a few degrees, but she didn’t shut down or walk away. Maybe teasing her a little would bring her out of her shell, and he could unearth one of those fantastic smiles he knew she was capable of.

“Don’t be so modest, kiddo.” He tossed in some ham and Gruyère, giving the pan another slanted shake as he pulled it off the burner with a flourish and a smile. “Here, it’s already starting to slide. C’mon! Go for it.”

“I said
no!
”

The shrill burst of the word hit him with all the force of an actual blow, and for a minute, neither of them spoke. Not knowing what else to do, Gavin flipped the omelet gracelessly and deposited it onto a plate.

“Sorry,” he finally managed, and the brief ease he’d felt just moments before went completely numb. God
damn
it, he was in so far over his head. He didn’t even know how to communicate with his own sister.

“I don’t . . . I just don’t want to cook, that’s all.” Bree’s voice cracked over the words, as broken as the eggshells on the butcher block between them. “Okay?”

Gavin started to say no, it was definitely
not
okay for them to keep going like this, fighting each other at every freaking turn, when her expression knocked the breath from his lungs.

Rather than wearing her customary scowl, Bree looked at him with genuine pleading. Tears tracked down both sides of her face, so silently that if he hadn’t looked with care, he’d have missed them altogether.

“Okay. Just let me know if you change your mind.”

 

 

Sloane peered down at her cell phone and willed herself not to throw up. What had she been thinking when she’d signed up to get those stupid reminders about her bills being due?

“Are you okay?” Carly’s voice startled Sloane from her reverie of debt, whirling her back to one of the most posh suites Pine Mountain Resort had to offer. Sloane straightened from her perch in a tastefully fancy silk and damask chair, stuffing her phone into her tiny purse.

“Yeah, of course.” While she didn’t make it a habit to lie, she was pretty sure there was a special circle in hell for people who bogged their best friends down with personal issues on their wedding day. Although if Sloane got kicked out of the bungalow for not paying her rent, moving back in with her mother would make that circle of hell look like a carnival ride at Coney Island.

Shit.

“Are you sure? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Sloane pasted on a smile and shoved her purse out of sight behind a lamp on the side table. “Nope! I’m totally fine.”

Okay, so she wasn’t
fine
-fine, but she wasn’t exactly screwed, either. As of this morning, she had a whole week’s worth of babysitting under her belt, and Gavin had written her a check for it that would help cover the bungalow for this month, at least. But paying rent would drain her account, tossing her back to square one on her ticket out of Dodge, and with the rest of her bills, next month’s rent was iffy at best.

She had to be on a plane by then.

“Anyway,” Sloane continued, mashing down her dread, “the last thing you should be worried about is me. You’re getting married in a few hours.”

Her next smile came a lot more easily, and she let it take over. The absolute glow suffusing her best friend’s face canceled out any remaining unease churning in Sloane’s gut, and she exhaled over the temporary reprieve. She was about to take part in a gorgeous wedding and spend the entire night in one of the luxuriously appointed hotel rooms the resort executives had blocked off for their star chef’s special guests. Just for tonight, Sloane was going to send her troubles packing. No worries, no stress, and no distractions, period.

Including her brooding, sexy, calm-cool-and-collected boss, and the fact that she could
still
feel the kiss he’d laid on her nearly a week ago, even though they’d been all business, all week long.

Carly popped up from her chair and smoothed a hand over her jeans. “Wow, is it already that late? I know we’re done with the hair and makeup thing, but I should get dressed.” She headed for the white garment bag perched on a stand over by the full-length mirror in the suite’s dressing room, but Sloane stopped her in her tracks.

“You have to wait for your mother,” she protested. She might not ever be destined for the altar herself, but Sloane sure as hell knew the rules of the game. Unless you had a death wish, inciting the wrath of an Italian mother on her only daughter’s wedding day was just plain stupid.

Carly laughed. “Since when are you so sentimental?”

“It’s self-preservation, not sentiment. Your mother will kill us both if you get into that dress and she’s not here. Plus, it won’t be long. She and Bellamy should both be here any second.” Bellamy Blake was the only other female chef on Carly’s staff, and Sloane’s compatriot in bridesmaid duties.

“You’re probably right. I guess we can wait another minute or two.” Carly shrugged. “I have to be honest, it’s kind of nice not to have such a big production. The first time through was a lot different.”

Sloane couldn’t help it. She scoffed. “The first time through, you married an asshat.”

Carly’s laughter echoed through the luxurious suite, bouncing off the peach-colored walls to land happily back around their ears. “Yeah, but I found my swan, so it all turned out fine in the end.”

She should’ve known sharing that metaphor would come back to bite her. Swans mated for life, so calling the happily-ever-after guy a swan had made sense to Sloane. Of course, she usually reserved it for her books, since real-life swans seemed more legend than likelihood. But as hard as it was to imagine Carly’s six-foot-four fiancé as an elegant white bird, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind Jackson was her swan.

“Did someone slip you a happy pill? You are way too laid-back for someone about to get hitched.” Sloane’s nerves did a jump-and-jangle in her belly, as if to make up for Carly’s nonchalance. While the week she’d spent tutoring and looking after Bree had been uneventful, Sloane’s unease at not being able to write a single useable word had gone from niggling worry to flat-out dread.

Nope! No worries tonight, remember? La la la la!
Sloane metaphorically plugged her ears and drowned her worry in a deep, calming breath.

“There’s no point in being nervous.” Carly’s grin took over, recapturing Sloane’s attention as her best friend kept on. “Marrying Jackson is the easiest thing I’ll ever do.”

Sloane lifted a brow. “Now who’s sentimental?”

“Give me a break. I’m getting married.”

As if on cue, Bellamy poked her head past the dressing room entryway. “Hey, sorry I’m late. I just wanted to make sure the catering guys had everything under control in the restaurant for the reception.”

Bellamy’s at-ease smile was an unspoken testament to the fact that everything downstairs was running smoothly. Otherwise, knowing her, she’d probably have thrown some chef’s whites over her bridesmaid’s dress and started whipping up the perfect cocktail sauce with one hand while rolling crisp-tender asparagus spears in prosciutto with the other.

“They’re being careful in my kitchen, right?” While Carly’s smile remained in place, her words came out on a serrated edge, making Sloane laugh.

“So much for laid-back,” she said.

Bellamy leapt into chef mode, reassuring Carly with a detailed account of the food prep. With most of La Dolce Vita’s staff attending the wedding, it had only made sense to have the reception in the restaurant itself. Getting management to agree to the deal would’ve been tough for anybody other than their star chef, but the stack of rave reviews that kept rolling in for La Dolce Vita along with a reservation log that was booked a solid month in advance sealed the deal. If Carly had asked for the moon on a plate, the resort execs would’ve been on the next rocket out of town.