Wild in the Moment (8 page)

“In return for which, Harry hired you on as a cook?”

“Not exactly. Harry said he hasn't got enough business at this time of year to hire anyone full-time. But we made a deal. Most days, I open and close the place for him—which is easy for me to do, living upstairs this way, and that way he can sleep in and leave early. And I'm putting in a few hours—as many as he'll give me—baking. French pastries, fancy stuff. He said he'd give it a try, and even if it's only been a week, it seems to be working to bring in new customers.”

“But he can't give you more than part-time hours?”

“No,” she admitted. “On the other hand, with zero expenses, I'm putting everything away. It shouldn't be that long before I can put a down payment on a used car. Then I can look at moving somewhere there's some job potential.”

“But for right now, you'd like more money?”

She looked at him. That quiet, intense expression—Teague could be very hard to read. Obviously, she wanted more money. She just wasn't sure exactly what he was asking. But before she could even try leaping to a wrong conclusion, he filled in what he was thinking.

“I told you, Daisy. I need help. Exactly the kind of help you could give me. I've got more carpentry work than I know what to do with, but I'm lousy on the decorating end. For a while, when you wanted to, you could work as a consultant. Even better, you could work when you had free time, because the specific hours wouldn't matter to me.”

She stiffened. “Trust me. I don't do charity.”

“I'm not talking charity.”

She pushed off the edge of the bed and started pacing—not that there was more than a few feet potential to pace with. The most walking she could get in was a circle around the couch. “Come on. You told me flat-out that you had trouble working with other people. You said that was how you ended up in White Hills, because you wanted a place where you could make a one-man business work. Trying to do a partnership didn't work out for you, you said. You always want to be boss, you said. You—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know all that stuff I told you. And it's all true. I'm a pain in the butt. Domineering. Single-minded. And it doesn't help that I'm always right.”

She had to grin at his arrogance, even if she still couldn't relax enough to quit pacing.

“But this is different,” he said.

“Yeah, it's different. Because I admitted being broke right now, so you got the idea I needed a white knight. Only I don't do white knights. And I didn't tell you so you'd feel sorry for me. I'm not having any trouble living poor for a while, so don't waste your breath thinking I need your charity.”

“It's not charity I'm offering.” Now he was on his feet, pacing, too. There was something strikingly alert in his eyes suddenly—like she shouldn't have mentioned not doing white knights, as if she had once, as if he were taking in that information like a robber learning a bank code. He didn't make anything of that, though. Didn't ask. He just started firmly arguing. “I need help, whether you do or not.”

“Sure you do,” she said dryly.

“I'm serious. And I told you straight, that I failed playing well with others in the sandbox in pre-K. But
our situation's different. I know you're not going to stay in White Hills for long, so it's not as if either of us have preconceptions about a long-term future. And for right now—you don't know anything about carpentry, so you'd have no reason to fight with me about how I do things. And I have no interest in interfering with any ideas you've got about style or decorating whatsoever, so you'd have a free rein. It seems like a workable plan to me. You wouldn't have to be pinned down to a set schedule. You could just work whatever hours you had free.”

Probably because she was looney, it was starting to sound like a good plan to her, too. Of course, she'd fallen prey to persuasive men before, and knew better than to just blindly trust her own judgment. She plunked her wineglass down by the minisink on one of her pacing rounds circling the couch. “It still won't work. I don't have a car, Teague. How would I get to wherever you were working?”

He plunked down his wineglass, too, which was still full. He really wasn't a wine man. Just like her, though, he seemed to instinctively pace when he was thinking. “Hmm. Well. I've got both a car and a work truck. I need the work truck.”

“I hear a ‘but' in your voice.”

He scowled. “Because there is one. I do have a spare vehicle. So in principle it'd make sense to let you use it for a while.”

“I still hear that ‘but' in your voice.”

“Because it's a Golf GTi.”

She'd never heard of the car, but she knew men and their toys, and he had one of those Guy Looks on his face. “Ah. Your baby.”

“It's not like an old Jag or anything that expensive.
In fact, I picked her up last year for a song. But as old as she is, she'll still go another seventy thousand miles if I take care of her. And she's the MK 1 version. Cross-spoke BBS aluminum wheels. The golf ball gear lever—”

Daisy cut to the chase, her tone sympathetic. “You just can't let anyone drive her but you.”

He didn't immediately respond, probably because both of them were distracted. When Teague put down his wineglass, he'd seemed to forget their pacing pattern and reversed his direction. As a result, they found themselves facing each other in front of the couch—with no passing lane for either of them to get by.

She could have backed up. So could he. But suddenly they were barely inches apart. Close. As physically close as they'd been that wild night of the blizzard. Maybe they were both fully dressed this time, but for her, the same sensations welled up. She felt alone in the universe with just him. No one else in sight or sound.

No one else who mattered.

She saw his hand rise. Saw the fire in his eyes kindle—and then smoke. She knew, inside, that he was going to reach for her even before he did it, and she had ample time to pull away.

Instead her arms swooped around his neck at the same time his wrapped around her waist. His lips met hers halfway.

Ignition was faster than nitro exposed to a match.

She knew he was wrong for her. She just forgot why. In fact, why she was afraid of being with him disappeared faster than a sixteen-year-old with the car keys. Wicked heat seeped from his kiss to hers. Sinful hopes communicated from her tongue to his. Her pelvis so
naturally ground provocatively against his groin. He shot up, hard, in the nestling privacy between her hips.

That single kiss darkened, richened. She couldn't see, couldn't think. No matter what he thought, she'd never taken up with a stranger, not like she had that night in the blizzard. No matter what anyone thought, she'd never been the wild girl everyone thought her to be, growing up in White Hills. She'd never even been the wild girl she wanted to be.

Except with him.

Something about Teague—the taste of his kisses, the sneaky stroke of his tongue, the scent of him—set off explosions of bad, bad ideas in her mind. And between her legs.

His mouth lifted…probably because both of them were gasping for breath. His eyes found hers, loved hers, expressed hunger and a fury of frustration…yet his voice was as lazy as a summer morning.

“Okay, okay. You can drive my Golf GTi. But it's a hell of a concession. And don't think I'll just give in every time just because I'm dying from wanting you.”

She tried to recoup as fast as he did, tried to laugh, but her legs were shaky and her heart even more so. “Are you trying to suggest that kisses are part of this work deal?”

“Hell, no. I don't make deals about sex. If there's a ‘deal' about working together—all I'd say is let's be careful to put all our cards on the table. If an arrangement works for you and me, let's do it. Sex is nothing like that.”

“You don't put your cards on the table about sex?”

He raised an eyebrow, managing to look as if he were almost breathing regularly again…even if his pelvis was
still rocking against her pelvis. “You know anyone who's completely honest about sex?”

“Yeah. Me,” she said.

He chuckled. “Me, too. But the fact is—I don't know how to promise guarantees on something as intricate as two people. From where I stand—I want to sleep with you. In fact, I'd like to have another two-week blizzard where no one could reach you in the entire universe but me. In fact, I'd like to spend the next five years in your bed nonstop. But who knows if that would be a good idea for you.”

“Quit making me nervous, Teague.”

He stopped smiling. Gently touched the side of her jaw with his thumb. “Somehow I don't think many men have made you nervous. Maybe it's good for you to be nervous. Maybe being thrown off base might be terrific for you.”

He wanted her to tease back, Daisy sensed. And she wanted to flirt. Wanted to play the way they'd been playing, wanted to
want
the way she fiercely, wildly wanted him.

But Teague had no way to understand. Being nervous wasn't a joke for her. She simply couldn't let a man throw her off base. Ever again.

T
hree days later, Teague hiked toward the café, feeling edgier than a porcupine with an itch.

He'd finished up the Cochran job, had two more projects he was putting in motion this week. Daisy was going with him to see both sites. First, though, they had to settle the wheels thing.

Teague jingled the change in his pocket, thinking that a guy had to draw a line somewhere. Maybe he was crazy to fall in love with her. She was so determined to leave White Hills. So used to the excitement of a more exotic life. So not like him.

Still, he could accept a certain level of lunacy in himself. She was so damned special that he could work with the love problem—maybe—at least a little longer. But letting Daisy drive his car—in snow—was a different problem entirely.

A guy's car could be like letting someone else use
your toothbrush. It was hard. Really, really hard, to let someone else do it.
Really
hard.

He pushed open the door to the café, the knot of dread in his throat feeling glummer by the second. She needed wheels. He had the spare vehicle. It's just…this was not good. To have to test a relationship as fragile as theirs this soon, with something as hairy—for him—as this.

She was free as of one o'clock, she'd told him. It was ten minutes after one right now, yet when he hiked inside, he could see right off that the café was blasting busy…when no place was blasting busy in White Hills in the middle of a snow-crusty winter. Over heads and sounds and smells, he spotted her instantly…talking to some regulars at the bar stools up front, right at the bakery counter. Three guys had her attention corralled.

Her hair was wooshed up today. Clipped somehow. Strands had escaped their prison and were cavorting in wild wisps around her neck. Her cheeks were flushed, as if she'd just pulled dishes from the oven. She didn't look to have an ounce of makeup on, yet her ears were showing off a jewel that matched the same blue-hued stone around her neck. She had some kind of blouse that wrapped around her instead of buttoned, leaving a deep vee for the stone to lie, almost to her cleavage, almost showing her cleavage—only not quite. Even when she was leaning over and the guys were trying their damnedest to get a peek.

“Yeah, you've got that right,” she was saying to her trio of drooling fans. “Jean-Luc made it big. He should. He's a really special, talented artist.”

“I thought you had to die to make money if you was an artist,” one of the guys said.

“Well, he was hauling it in for the last few years. And I can swear on a Bible, he was definitely alive.”

The three men laughed. “So why'd you get divorced, then, Daisy? We all thought you had the perfect life. Traveling around the world. Living high and nice and all. Your guy making lots of money. Able to do all the things you dreamed of.”

Good question, Teague thought, as he shifted out of his jacket and sidled forward—slowly—because she hadn't spotted him yet. He wanted to hear the answer to that question in the worst way.

It just didn't make sense. If her Jean-Luc was so wealthy, how come Daisy couldn't afford even a used set of wheels? She'd told him a lot the other night…but not a clue what her divorce had been about. He needed to understand how she could have all this expensive stuff, and yet still be the worst kind of broke. Bad broke. No health-insurance broke. Seriously broke.

Smells wafted toward him. The bakery counter had little formal signs now. Lavender Cookies. Brownies with Lavender Whipped Cream. Lemon Loaf Lavandula.

Roast pork with rosemary and lavender had been added to the chalkboard up front—where Harry's lunch specials were usually limited to brats and hot dogs.

And the café had started to look completely different. The grease smell seemed to have disappeared. The cash register shone so hard it looked new. The old red-and-white-checked curtains had been pulled back with ties and the windows washed.

If Harry hadn't been shamed into doing those things in the past thirty years, it was a cinch he wasn't responsible for the improvements—and neither were the two part-time waitresses who'd worked there forever.
So Daisy was transforming the place. The mystery was how a woman who presented herself as willful and spoiled and used to the good life could be such a worker.

Too many customers talking for him to hear everything Daisy said, but as he walked a few feet closer, he picked up some of her comments.

“You're so right, Ted. I
do
love money, and Jean-Luc had a ton of it. But it's like the whole town said when I was a kid, you know? I guess I just wasn't meant to settle down.”

“I'll bet you lived in some really fancy places.”

“Oh, yes. Aix-en-Provence was one of my favorites. It's a town for artists, with cobblestone streets and fountains all over the place and enchanting little squares. And then there was Bonnieux. There's a hotel there that has the best food I've ever eaten, not just gourmet or gourmand but beyond anything you could dream of…
gâteau au chocolat fondant
…meals served in the garden, with pale-pink tablecloths and flowers. And then of course there was Vence, a mountain town…”

She spotted him, took in a breath and then lifted five fingers in the air. Five minutes? He nodded a no-sweat. He could see that, as lazy as she was talking, she was dishing out confections and swooping away empty plates.

“And then there's the fabulous area around Fragonard and Molinard—that's flower country, and in the spring and summer, they grow lavender, roses, carnations, violets, jasmine…. You wanted another slice of cheesecake, didn't you, Moore?”

A foolish question, Teague thought. Moore wanted anything she dished out in any form.

“Boats, too?”

“Ah, yes. We spent months on different yachts around the Riviera. Jean-Luc was always getting an invitation from…” She sashayed over to him and whispered, “I'm sorry! I didn't mean to be late. But Harry had to pick up something, said he'd be back five minutes ago. I can leave the instant he returns, okay?”

“Totally okay.”

He never asked, but she brought him a cookie and mug of fresh almond coffee without ever breaking stride, still keeping up with the guys and their questions and orders at the same time. Teague wondered if any of them remotely realized that she was working. Her slow, lazy voice created pictures of nude beaches and the Riviera and women decked-out in jewels, long yachts and buttery mornings and sun-soaked skin and nothing to do but be rich and indulge oneself.

Ten minutes later she'd hooked a jacket and they escaped. “That was a terrific cookie,” he said.

“Nah. Not terrific, but a pretty good recipe. It was the lavender idea that Harry bought into. He was suspicious, but he said he'd try anything to see if he could bring in some customers this time of year. And my sister ran the herb haven for years, so I had an inside to the best lavender source anywhere on the planet.”

He stopped her mid street, pulled on her sleeve. Immediately she turned her face up to him—her normal face, her normal voice. Fresh skin, honest eyes, the soft, soft mouth. Striking, yes, even disconcertingly beautiful, but that whole exotic spoiled-woman look had completely disappeared.

He kissed her, just to get a taste. To make sure he was with Daisy and not that confusing woman who'd been weaving those stories in the café.

“Hey,” she murmured, when he lifted his head and frowned at her. “What was that about?”

“I didn't want to kiss you,” he assured her. “I was just trying to practice being a pickpocket.”

“Huh?” She plunged her hands into her jacket pockets. Her right one emerged with a small square box. Inside was a perfect four-leaf clover immersed in clear resin. Her lips parted and then she looked up at him again, this time with more vulnerability in her eyes than he'd seen even when they'd been naked.

“This is for me? You bought this for me?”

“Nope. I didn't buy it.” The look on her face was damn near close to his downfall. He knew—from all the evidence—that she was used to all kinds of expensive stuff, so there'd been no point in trying to outbuy what she already had or was used to. In fact, it'd been damn scary trying to think up something to give her at all…but he'd wanted to.

“But then how—hey, you're rushing me along!”

“I know, but we're really getting late now, because first we have to go to my house. Get you familiar with the car. Then you can drive to the Shillings' behind me—”

“Teague. It's beautiful. More than beautiful. It's fresh and different and personal and…perfect.”

“Yeah, I liked it, too.” He tried to keep up a galloping pace, so she had a hard time keeping up with him, but somehow she still managed to cavort ahead for a second to get a good look at his face.

“You really didn't buy it?”

“Nope.”

“Then you
made
it?”

“Are you kidding? No one can make four-leaf clovers.”

“I meant the resin. You sealed it in the perfect resin.”

“I might have.” That was the most he was willing to admit to—at least until he saw how she drove.

The Shillings were expecting him around two, and their house was only a hop-skip from his. But as his white pickup took the curves, she held the four-leaf clover, kept looking at it. And then at him. And then at the road. Hell, had no one ever given her anything that didn't have a price tag attached to it?

“I haven't been on these roads in years,” she said quietly. Down Cooper Street, across the creek, came a section everyone called Firefly Hollow. “Does every teenager in the country make out here in the summer like they used to?”

“That was the in spot for kids, huh?”

Obviously, there were no fireflies now, but in the summer the leaves formed a cool, fragrant canopy overhead. In fall the colors were brilliant; in summer fireflies danced in the shady arch. Now it was just a dip in shade and memories. Past the hollow, his white pickup climbed the hill and curved around Swisher's land—Old Man Swisher had a pond.

“Most of the farmers around here have ponds, but his was our swimming spot, because there's a big old cottonwood tree with a limb that was just perfect for swinging into the water.”

“So…every single one of your memories of White Hills was bad?”

She lifted her brows. “Good grief, no. It was a great place to grow up. It's just…”

She never got around to finishing that thought. They passed red barns and white fences, hillsides that would be taken over by clover and buttercups in the summer.
Patches of elms and big old sugar maples dotted the landscape, but they were naked now, revealing the underside of their character. Past the red covered bridge, he turned in the first drive.

“Car's in the garage. I've already got the key.”

She balked. “What? You mean we're not going to go in?”

“In? Now? We have to be at the Shillings' in a few minutes.”

“But you haven't shown me your house.” She looked with interest at the white-shuttered stone bungalow.

“We can do that another time.” If he didn't get this car thing over with soon, he was too likely to have a heart attack. “You know how to drive a stick shift, don't you?”

“Teague, I grew up on a farm. Of course I can drive a stick. Oooh.” When he popped the button on the garage door, she saw his baby. Actually, he figured all she saw was an old car. Someone who didn't know about old Volkswagen Golf GTi's was hardly going to be impressed. But she was a nice shiny black. Waxed to within an inch of her life.

“Isn't she pretty,” Daisy raved. “No wonder you're in love with her. What a darling.”

He relaxed. A little. “You like her.”

“What's not to love. And not a scratch on her.”

“Not one,” he agreed. Carefully. “You
do
have an active driver's license, right?”

Daisy laughed—right in his face, even if it was a kindly kind of chuckle. And then she motioned to the keys by waggling her fingers in the universal gimme gesture. “We'd better get a test drive over with, Larson, before you have a stroke. Try and stop worrying, okay?
If you can't handle it, you can take back the offer to use your car, no problem.”

“I
want
you to use the car. There are just a couple things you need to know before you take her out.” He mentioned a couple of them. Maybe he mentioned a few more than a couple. Hell, who knew how many he brought up? At some point, he realized she was biting her lip, obviously trying to keep from laughing.

“It's not funny,” he said testily. “She's got a silky smooth engine, but the Golfs, the original ones, they put the standard drum brakes in the rear. Which means she loves to go, but she's not so excited about stopping. And then her carburetor is a little on the sensitive side—”

“I believe you mentioned that. Twice now. And I'm beginning to get a sneaky feeling how important this car thing really is. If we can survive this—or should I say, if I can survive this driving test—we just might make love again, right? Or else it's all over? Have I got the stakes about right?”

“Well, I wouldn't go
that
far…”

But he was thinking about it. Maybe she'd avoided him, but spending time with her was proving even more tantalizing than before, so now it was impossible not to think about sleeping with her. Making love with her. How much he wanted to, in any form and way she was willing. But before he built any more risky fantasies that they had a shot together, he had to know that she could swallow some of his rough edges.

Teague knew he was good to people—but not necessarily good with people. He never planned on being a loner. By this time in his life, he'd always thought he'd be married, have a kid or three. Instead he'd lost more than one woman—and screwed up a great busi
ness partnership—because he had the slight tendency to like things his own way.