What I Love About You (15 page)

“I wanna stay and watch the fairy movie, Mama.” Charlotte turned and looked at Natalie. “It’s my favorite. I’ll be weally good now. I promise.”

“Honey, I’m tired.” Natalie took a breath and let it out. A dull ache pressed in on her temples, and she’d rather be beaten over the head with Carla’s garden gnomes than spend one more second than was necessary with the Coopers. “We can watch it another time.”

“I’ll bring her home later,” Michael offered.

Natalie lifted her gaze to her former husband and looked into his brown eyes. He didn’t have a cheesy grin or a charming smile. He simply looked at her, waiting for her response.

“Please, Mommy.”

“Okay,” she gave in because she wanted to go home so bad she feared she might be the next to cry. Besides, she could soak in the tub all by herself for a few hours without interruption. Or she could nap or watch what she wanted on TV or vacuum.

“She can spend the night,” Carla slipped in.

Before Natalie could say no, Charlotte jumped up from her chair. “Yea! I can watch the fairy movie two times. Or maybe five.” She pawed the air and shook her head. Then she took off, galloping from the dining room to the kitchen, running off her excitement.

“It’s too soon.” Natalie felt pressured and pushed and she didn’t like it.

“She spends the night here all the time,” Carla reminded her.

True. Charlotte had her own room at the Coopers’. She wanted to stay, and was Natalie saying no just because she felt pushed and manipulated? That wasn’t fair to Charlotte. “Okay,” she relented, but she wasn’t happy about it. She set her napkin on the table and stood. “I’ll help you with the dishes before I leave.”

“No need.” Carla stood, too, suddenly cheerful, and practically ushered Natalie out the door. Probably out of fear that Natalie would change her mind.

“Have her call me tonight before she goes to bed,” Natalie said as she buttoned her peacoat and grabbed her black purse.

“Of course.”

She kissed Charlotte good-bye, and Michael walked her out to her car. The heels of her pumps sank into the inch of snow on the Coopers’ sidewalk. Michael took her arm. It was the gesture of a gentleman. Something he would do for any woman, but she wasn’t just any woman. There had been a time when his touch would have made her feel secure. Another when it would have sent little tingles up her arm. Today she just felt uncomfortable.

“Sorry I ruined your mother’s Thanksgiving and made her cry,” she said as they walked to the driver’s side door of her Subaru.

“What was that all about?” Michael wasn’t wearing a coat, just his blue dress shirt and navy slacks. A chilly breeze ruffled his sleeves and short hair and gave color to his cheeks. He looked good. Handsome as the boy she’d dated and man she’d married.

“She was holding out hope that you and I would get back together. I told her it wasn’t going to happen.”

He dropped his hand and shoved it in the pocket of his pants. “That’s probably my fault. She knows I want my family back.”

“We’re not family, Michael.” She pointed to him and then herself. “I’m not married to you. You left me for a foreign bank account and a younger woman. Why am I the only one who seems to remember?”

He looked down at his shoes and his brows furrowed. “I remember, Natalie. I remember what I did. To you and my family and people who trusted me with their money.” He shook his head. “I could tell you why I did it, but right now isn’t a good time.”

She didn’t think there was ever going to be a good time. “You told me you left because I was boring.”

He looked up. “I don’t remember that.”

“I do.”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “You weren’t boring. It really didn’t have anything to do with you. It was me.”

“Didn’t have anything to do with me?” Was he serious? “It sure felt like it had something to do with me.”

“I meant it wasn’t your fault. I lost the principles and values my parents instilled in me. I lost myself and I lost you.” He hunched his shoulders against the cold. “I lost a lot.”

She’d lost a lot, too.

“Are you ever going to be able to forgive me?”

She shrugged inside her wool coat. He hadn’t said much beyond he was sorry, and she wasn’t sure she wanted him to say more. She wasn’t sure there was anything he
could
say for her to forgive him for the unforgivable. “If you’d left just me, I probably could forgive you. I’m not a perfect person. I’ve certainly made mistakes, but you left Charlotte. You left your baby and you were never coming back.” She blinked back the sting in her eyes. “I love that child so much my heart can’t hold it all. Every time I look at her, my love gets bigger. She is everything to me. Everything, and you left like she was
nothing
. I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that.”

“She wasn’t real to me then.” He took a step forward and put his hands on her arms. “That’s not an excuse. We tried so hard for so long to have her. By the time you got pregnant, my life was headed down a whole different path.” His hands squeezed her arms, and he shook his head. “I think we forgot how to be together. We forgot how easy it was between us. We forgot that we’d loved each other since the tenth grade.”

She hadn’t forgotten how to be with him. She hadn’t been unhappy. She’d been too caught up with her infertility treatments and trying to have their baby to think about being unhappy. “I’ve wondered if it wasn’t too much for you. I’ve often wondered if, while I was so wrapped up in trying to have a baby, you were unhappy and I didn’t notice.” Not that anything excused what he’d done, and she’d stopped second-guessing herself years ago.

“You were always so easy to be with.” He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. “I’ve missed you, Nat.”

For a few seconds she let him hold her. While a cold breeze rattled the tops of the pines, she let herself feel the weight of his arms and his cheek against her temple. It felt strange. Like someone she should know but didn’t. She didn’t love him. She didn’t hate him. She just wanted to go home.

She pushed out of his embrace. “Don’t, Michael.”

“I love you and want you back.”

She looked into his eyes and told him the truth. For his sake and hers and Charlotte’s. “I don’t love you, Michael.” She hurt him and took no pleasure in the pain crossing the brown eyes she’d once loved beyond anything. “I don’t think you love me. I think I’m easy to be with, like you said.”

“Don’t tell me I don’t love you, Natalie. I spent a lot of time in prison getting my head straight.” He sniffed and dropped his hands. “Do you love him? That big guy who picks up dog poop?”

Blake? Did she love Blake? She looked down at her shoes and dug her car keys out of her coat pocket. Her feet were freezing.

“Do you?”

She was very afraid that she did, but the last person she wanted to talk about it with was her ex-husband. Especially since Blake did not feel the same for her. “Go in the house, Michael. It’s freezing out here and my feet are numb.”

“Do you love him, Nat?”

She also knew Michael. If she didn’t answer the second time, he’d fill in the blanks. She looked up. “Yes.”

He closed his eyes and she was afraid he was going to cry. First Carla, then Charlotte, and now Michael. She was batting a thousand today.

“I’ll bring Charlotte home tomorrow.” He opened her car door for her, and his dark lashes looked suspiciously wet and the color in his cheeks a little too bright. “I’ll call first.”

“Happy Thanksgiving,” she said as if it wasn’t too late. She climbed in her car, and Michael shut the door. It wasn’t her fault everyone was crying, she told herself as she turned the ignition. Charlotte was five and cried at the drop of a hat. It wasn’t her fault Carla and Michael cried. She didn’t love Michael, and that was Michael’s fault and not hers. There had been a time when he had been her everything. A time when she would have done anything for him. He’d been her lover and best friend, and she would have happily spent the rest of her life loving him. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t love him now.

She put the car in reverse and looked behind her. If it wasn’t her fault, then why did she feel so bad?

Chapter Twelve

I took the mutt
.

Natalie reached for the paper towel stuck to her refrigerator with a cupcake magnet. The bold, blocky words had been written with the pink marker sitting on the counter. She guessed this meant Blake was back in town. She’d never seen his handwriting, but it had to be he. Either that, or someone else had walked into her house and kidnapped the dog. After the day she’d had, she wouldn’t be surprised if she found a ransom note and a lock of Sparky’s fur.

Natalie shrugged out of her coat and tossed it on the kitchen counter. She was tired. Emotionally drained and on the verge of a panic attack. The day had started with a disastrous Jell-O mold, had escalated to Natalie making everyone cry, and had peaked with being railroaded into letting Charlotte spend the night.

The smart thing to do would be to get in the bathtub and relax. Yeah, that would be the smart thing she should do, but that wasn’t what she wanted to do. She stared at the note in her hand and felt a funny little glow in her chest. It grew bigger and bigger, and she took a deep breath around it. She’d only had this feeling one other time in her life. With the man she’d left crying in his mom’s driveway, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d find herself drawing hearts on the paper towel and circling Blake’s house on her bike.

When I get back
, Blake had told her,
we’re going to knock bellies and make wild monkey love
.

Natalie bit her bottom lip and set the note on the counter. Then he’d kissed her in front of Michael and Lilah, Ted and his cat Diva. Lilah thought that meant something. Natalie didn’t know what it meant. When it came to Blake, she didn’t know what anything he did meant. Why had he taken Sparky when she wasn’t here? Why hadn’t he waited until she got home? Did he want to avoid her?

I want kisses that lead to long, lazy days in bed.
The memory of his seducer’s voice brought with it the memory of his touch, on her face and belly and between her legs. Warm, liquid memories that made her stomach turn warm and her thighs liquid.

Had he left the note on her refrigerator hoping she would see it and walk the short distance to his house? He wouldn’t know that she didn’t have Charlotte. She glanced at the clock on the stove. It was five-thirty. Would he return Sparky after Charlotte’s bedtime, thinking he could spend the night getting her sheets hot and her skin sticky?

She thought of the other night. Of his hot mouth on her breast and how good it had felt to order off his menu. He’d promised she could have sex any way she wanted it. He’d promised that when he got back, he was going to take his time.

She wanted that. No, he hadn’t come right out and said they were in an exclusive relationship or even dating, but by kissing her in her shop, he’d made everyone in town think it was true. He’d created the kind of gossip she’d tried to avoid for years. She might as well enjoy what people had her doing anyway.

Natalie grabbed a bottle of merlot out of the refrigerator and walked next door before she could talk herself out of it. She put her head down against the wind that had kicked up. Cold air lifted her hair and seeped through her sweater dress. If the whole town thought they were a couple, that meant the whole town assumed they were having sex. If the whole town thought they were having sex, why not order off the big fella’s menu?

And yes, she knew she was justifying what she planned to do. She didn’t care. She’d had a horrible day, and spending the night with Blake sounded a whole lot better than spending it alone. She was falling in love with Blake. Head over feet, and she wanted to make love with him. She wanted him to make her forget her crappy day.

The choice was easy.

The heels of her pumps tapped up the stone steps and across Blake’s porch to the door. She took a deep breath and held the bottle of wine against her chest. For a few brief seconds, she thought of opening the wine and taking a few slugs to calm her shaking hands and jumpy nerves. She didn’t have a corkscrew so she knocked on the door instead. Sparky barked from within, and through the wavy glass, she watched Blake’s big, watery outline move toward her. Her heart pounded and her mouth got dry as she frantically reconsidered her decision to walk over here. Maybe he was tired. What if he didn’t want to see her? He hadn’t mentioned wanting to see her on the paper towel note.

The door swung open and her tongue stuck to the roof of her dry mouth. He wore a black long-sleeved T-shirt, tight across the muscles of his developed chest. He’d cut his hair a bit shorter, more spiky on top. She liked his hair long enough for her fingers to comb through, but it didn’t matter. The man had a large menu. He looked good enough to eat, and she’d skipped breakfast, eaten a burnt roll and some green beans for dinner, and she was starving.

His gray eyes looked at her. Watching her as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her standing on his porch with a bottle of merlot clutched to her chest.

“Hello,” he finally said.

Lord, she loved his voice. It just kind of slid to the pit of her stomach. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat and the expanding glow in her chest. Then she said fast before she lost her nerve, “And you’re right. We’re both adults and Charlotte’s at the Coopers’ until tomorrow. We have all night. I want to do what you promised.”

One brow rose up his forehead. “What exactly did I promise?”

“Really?” There was something a little different about him tonight. Something subtle that she couldn’t quite grasp. Maybe his new haircut made his forehead look a bit broader. Or maybe it was his eyes. There wasn’t the usual flash of interest in his storm-colored gaze when he looked at her. “Are you going to make me say it?”

He grinned and folded his arms across his big chest. “Oh yeah.”

She swallowed past the lump in her throat and clutched her wine tighter. “Knock boots. Bump bellies. Hot monkey love.” She could feel her cheeks burn and not from the cold. “But I still prefer make love.”

“Hot
monkey
love.” He tipped his head back and laughed. “No shit?”

He was acting weird. Like maybe he got hit real hard on the head during the super-secret military thing he did for a living.

“Maybe I should leave,” she said, and took a step back. Just as Blake shook his head like he wanted her to stay, a woman with dark hair looked around his shoulder.

“What are you laughing at?” the woman asked. Big blue eyes stared back at Natalie, and a long curtain of her black hair fell across Blake’s arm.

“Oh,” Natalie managed, and took a step back. The glow in her chest popped and she felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. Like she was going to be sick. Blake had company. Female company with blue eyes.

“You must be a friend of Blake’s.” She was young and beautiful and smiled like she was happy to see a woman on Blake’s doorstep.

“I’m a . . . his neighbor.” Maybe the woman was a relative.

Blake looked across his shoulder. “Hey, baby, could you get him.”

Baby?
A man didn’t call a relative “baby.”

“Come in.” The woman motioned with her hand. “It’s cold outside.”

“No. Thank you.” Blake didn’t call Natalie “baby.” He called her Sweet Cheeks. Maybe he called all the women in his life by different names to keep them straight. “I’m obviously interrupting.”

“We finished an hour ago. Now we’re just watching the game.” The woman looked behind her. “Here he comes.”

Finished?
Natalie about choked on the ball of pain and anger and embarrassment in her throat. She opened her mouth to tell him he was the raging asshole she’d thought the first time she’d met him, but just as the first word sputtered out, an identical copy of Blake muscled his way past Blake.

“I didn’t expect to see you today,” the second Blake said. This Blake’s T-shirt was navy.

Natalie looked from one to the other. Her brain seemed to shut down and refuse to process what stood before her. “What?” was the only thought that leaked through her mental block and escaped her lips. Her ears rang and she blinked against the sudden blur at the edges of her vision. A dizzying wave tingled down her neck and chest, and the bottle fell from her hands. It smashed between her feet as the identical Blakes rushed forward.

“Natalie.” Blake carried her limp body over his shoulder. Not exactly the most romantic way to carry a woman, but the quickest and most effective. With one arm around her long legs and his other hand on her behind, he moved through his house.

“Did she hit her head?” his brother, Beau, asked as he tossed several cushions off the brand-new couch.

“I reached her first.” He sat down and carefully laid her out on the dark brown leather. Her blond hair covered part of her face and he pushed it from her cheek. “Natalie. Can you hear me?” She didn’t respond and he lightly shook her shoulder. She’d looked so pale standing on his porch. He’d watched the blood drain from her face and he’d rushed forward as her eyes rolled back. “Natalie.” He shook her lightly again. “Wake up.” It didn’t look like she was wearing anything constricting, but he ran his hands over her body and dress before he placed two fingers against the carotid pulse in her neck. “Can you hear me?”

“She’s got glass in her shoes,” Beau said as he shoved a cushion under her feet.

Blake glanced down her body and legs to her feet. Her dress looked like a long, skin-colored sweater. It hugged her body and had ridden up to mid-thigh. Red wine splattered her shins and up her legs through her thin hose. “She needs those shoes off, and those hose probably have glass in them, too.”

Beau lifted a brow as he grabbed the remote and turned off the football game they’d been watching. “You want me to take off her panty hose?”

“No.” He’d seen a hundred guys faint in his life, but watching it happen to Natalie had been scary as hell.

“I didn’t think so.” Beau’s fiancée, Stella, stood slightly behind him. Looking worried and upset. He still couldn’t believe his twin was getting married.

“Could you bring me a cold cloth?” he asked her, more to give her something to do than anything else. “Natalie, wake up.”

“Has she ever done this before?” Beau took off Natalie’s shoes and set them on the floor.

“Not in front of me.” She looked gorgeous, in a fainted Cinderella sort of way. Or was it Sleeping Beauty? He wasn’t sure. As a kid he’d never really been into those Disney chick cartoons. “Wake up, Natalie.”

“She should be coming around any second.”

“Has it been about a minute?” He shook her again and looked into her face. She hadn’t been out long enough to worry about yet. So why did his heart pump a little harder in his chest?

“A minute, three seconds.”

“Natalie!” It seemed longer. He shook her harder and raised his voice. The next step to revive a fainter was pain. He didn’t want to do that and stared into her face, willing her eyes to pop open. “Wake up.”

“Stop that,” she whispered.

“Can you hear me?”

Her eyes sprang open.

“There you are.” He let out a breath, more relieved than he let on. “It’s good to see you.”

Confusion pulled her brows together. “Where am I?”

“At my house,” he said as Stella handed him a damp washcloth. But before he could put it on her forehead, Sparky barked and squeezed between them. The puppy licked her face and nuzzled her with his head. Blake knew how the dog felt. He was so relieved he wanted to nuzzle her, too.

“Sparky?” She lifted a hand to weakly push the dog away.

“How do you feel?” He pushed the dog behind him and lightly put the cloth on her head.

“I don’t know. What happened?”

“You fainted.” He looked in her eyes, a little glassy but clear. “Is Charlotte at home?” he asked. He didn’t believe she was the kind of mother who’d leave her child at home while she drank wine with the neighbor, but he needed to know she wasn’t sitting over there waiting for her mom and Sparky.

“She’s at the Coopers’.” She raised a hand and placed it on the washcloth on her forehead. “I fainted?”

“Yeah. Have you ever fainted before?”

“No. Wait. Once when I was pregnant.” She frowned. “How did I get in here?”

“I carried you.” Her pale cheeks made her blue eyes bluer and her pink lips pinker. “We need to take your hose off.”

She pushed the washcloth a little higher up her forehead. “Can we wait a few more minutes to get naked?”

Behind him his brother burst into laughter.

“Stop, Beau,” Stella shushed him.

Natalie turned her head and her gaze followed the sound of his brother and his brother’s fiancée. Her eyes got wide and she tried to sit up.

“Not yet.” He put his hand on her shoulder to keep her from rising. “Stay down for a bit more.”

The washcloth slid off her head and fell on the couch. “There are two of you?”

“I told you I have an identical twin brother.” He picked up the wet cloth and tossed it on an end table.

She shook her head and her gaze returned to him. “You told me you have a brother. I would have remembered if you’d mentioned a twin. Especially a twin who looks just
like
you.” Her face flushed, turning her cheeks and throat from white to red. “I have to go.” She pushed his hand away and struggled to sit. “I want to go home.”

He helped her sit but blocked her from standing. The last thing he wanted was for her to drop again. “I’ll walk you home in a few minutes.” He glanced over at his brother. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t
do
anything.” He cleared his throat and tried to hide his shit-eating grin. “She thought I was you, and she may have said some things that, upon reflection, were private between the two of you.”

It must have been something sexual. Something so embarrassing she fainted. “What things?”

“Never mind!”

He turned back to Natalie. She looked good flushed. Much better than pale. He pushed her hair behind one ear and touched her heated cheek. “You’ll tell me later,” he said, low enough so that his brother couldn’t hear.

“No.” She shook her head, and her chin brushed his palm. “I’m never saying it again.”