“Stop it!” Hallie said. “Braden is—” She wasn’t sure how it happened, but suddenly their anger turned into passion.
Jamie pulled her into his arms and kissed her. At first the kiss was hard and she pushed at him. But his big body against hers made her pull him closer. His lips on hers softened and the kiss deepened. His tongue touched hers.
Hallie forgot who she was, where she was. Only this man and this moment mattered.
When he lifted her and set her on the table, she didn’t protest. His hands went under her shirt and her bra unsnapped. He took his lips away only long enough to pull her shirt over her head so she was bare from the waist up. In the next second, his shirt came off.
His beautiful chest, scarred as it was, was against her breasts, his hot, bare skin next to hers.
Hallie’s heart was pounding, her breath coming fast. His lips were on her breasts, her neck, then back up to her waiting mouth. All she wanted in the world was to get the rest of their clothes off.
“Hallie?” came Braden’s voice. “Where are you?”
It took long moments for her to realize where she was and who was calling her. She pushed at Jamie, but his eyes were glazed, as though he were in another world.
“Jamie!” Hallie hissed. “Let me go!” She pushed hard at him. “In here,” she called to Braden as she ducked down and slid off the table away from Jamie. She grabbed her T-shirt and hurried into the pantry. It was only when she was in there that she realized her new lacy black-and-pink bra was still in the kitchen, hanging by a strap on the back of a chair.
She peeped around the door to Jamie. He was pulling his shirt on over his head. “Pssst!” she said and pointed to her underwear.
Jamie started to reach for it, but Braden appeared in the doorway.
“Good morning,” Braden said.
Jamie put himself between the blond man and the chair. Behind his back, he lifted the bra.
“How are you feeling today?” Jamie asked as he moved sideways across the kitchen toward the pantry.
“Not so good but better than I thought I would. Is there any coffee? And where is Hallie? This is her house, isn’t it?” Braden wiped his hand across his face. “I don’t remember too much from last night, but I did see her here, didn’t I?”
“Sure you did. She stepped outside. Let me get her.” Jamie went into the pantry, closed the door behind him, and held out the bra to Hallie. “He doesn’t even remember last night, but you’re wearing his ring!” he whispered.
“Turn around,” she whispered back.
“We were just about to make love for the second time, and now I’m not allowed to see you?!”
“Sex on a table or against a wall isn’t making love. It’s two people who have been doing without for a long time in a situation where they can’t control themselves.”
“I’ve been ‘controlling myself’ for over two years and I’ve been in lots of easier situations than this one.”
Hallie turned her back on him and removed her T-shirt. She put her arms through her shoulder straps of the bra and tried to fasten it in the back. But her hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t do the clasp.
“Here!” Jamie said angrily. “Let me.” He quickly put the hooks and eyes together.
She turned back to face him. “You’re good at that, aren’t you?” she said just as angrily.
He was staring at her breasts in the bit of lace that had been designed to lift and enhance. It was doing its job very well.
“I have cousins,” he said softly.
“What does that mean?”
“Girl cousins cut their teeth on boy cousins. I’ve fastened so many bikini tops I couldn’t count them.” He looked back at her eyes. “That’s what relatives do. They help each other.”
Hallie pulled the T-shirt over her head. “I guess that’s supposed to mean you think Braden and I are related. Well, we’re not. Would you move so I can go to him?”
“Of course. Go back to the rebound guy who gives you a used engagement ring that you don’t even like.”
“Once again, you’re being a jerk.” She had her hand on the doorknob as she looked back at him. “You wouldn’t tell Braden about…about us, would you?”
“About our extreme sexual attraction to each other? That every time we get too close, clothes go flying? Is that what I shouldn’t tell him?”
Hallie couldn’t help herself and laughed. “However colorfully you state it, just don’t tell him, all right? Whatever you think, Braden is real to me.”
“And I’m not?” Jamie asked softly, all his anger gone.
“You and your whole family are a fantasy. Will you promise me?”
Jamie closed his eyes for a moment. “Yeah, I’ll keep my mouth shut. Anything else you want from me? Blood on a contract?”
“You are too much! Just behave yourself and don’t hurt Braden.”
“Hurt him?” Jamie said. “What makes you think I’d—?” But Hallie had left the big pantry and closed the door behind her. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He did need to get himself under control.
There was a sound, as though something on the shelves had moved. He opened his eyes and saw that by the door into the tea room, a little wooden butter mold had fallen to the floor. When he picked it up and put it back on the shelf, he saw the piles of clothes on the couch. He could tell the clothes were for him and he guessed that Hallie had brought them back from her shopping trip.
Why had she left them in the tea room? Why hadn’t she shown them to him?
All he could figure out was that she was very angry at him about something, but he had no idea what. All day yesterday, every time he got too near her, she jumped away. She had stayed intently focused on trying to find a job somewhere in the U.S. If he so much as mentioned that he might possibly like to spend time with her past when his knee was healed, she bit his head off.
Jamie had backed down, pretended to read a book, and just answered questions. He refrained from saying, “I have PTSD. What’s your excuse?” He didn’t think Hallie’s bad mood would allow her to laugh.
But that evening, the arrival of a drunken, stinking, blond lawyer had turned her into a pot of melting honey. Instantly, her snapping turtle persona was gone and in its place was an ooey-gooey, eyelash-batting girl who nearly swooned at the sight of a skinny, pale guy with regurgitated beer down the front of his shirt.
Jamie was sure his own actions got him some high marks in Heaven. He had helped his rival get into bed, checked his vitals, and even got the boys to help clean him up a bit.
All for Hallie.
Jamie picked up a sweater off the couch. It was exactly the kind he liked: good quality but not flashy. The complete opposite of that hideous ring that was nearly welded to Hallie’s finger.
“You two did this, didn’t you?” he said aloud to the spirits in the room. “You’re two well-meaning old biddies who want Hallie to get a whole man, not a damaged one like me. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
Jamie threw the sweater back onto the couch. “The hell with the lot of you!” He turned on his crutches and went out the door. He needed to get dressed for his aunt’s wedding and as soon as it was over he was going home. Back to Colorado, where only horses stamped a man’s heart to the ground.
In the tea room, two beautiful young women looked at each other and smiled. In their experience, sometimes you had to light a fire under a man to get him to do what he should.
Chapter Nineteen
“Hallie,” Braden said when she entered the kitchen. He’d showered, washed his hair, and put on one of Jamie’s sweatshirts—which hung on him. “I was beginning to think I’d dreamed you last night.”
“No, I’m very real. Want some coffee? There are muffins on the table.”
“Actually, I am hungry, but I don’t see the muffins.”
Hallie looked up from the coffee pot and saw that the basket was gone. She looked under the table, but it wasn’t there either.
> “Wind blow them off?” he asked.
“Something like that. How about some toast?” She had to turn away so he wouldn’t see her blush. Jamie tossing her onto the table must have sent the whole basket flying somewhere.
“Hallie, you look great. Have you lost weight?”
“I think so, but I don’t know how. There’s a B&B next door and the owner’s mother brings us lavish teas with cakes and cookies, and we eat every bite.”
“The ‘we’ refers to you and your client? Is he the big guy I just met? On crutches?”
“Yes, that’s Jamie. He got you into bed last night.”
“I’ll have to thank him.”
Hallie put a plate of buttered toast in front of him.
“That’s an interesting ring you’re wearing,” Braden said.
Hallie tugged at it but it didn’t move. “Sorry. I couldn’t get it off. Jamie tried but no luck.” She poured him a cup of coffee. “I’ll stay away from the salt today and it’ll come off.”
“I think it looks good on you. I didn’t, by chance, ask you to marry me, did I?”
Hallie smiled as she cracked eggs into a bowl. “’Fraid you did, but I won’t hold you to it.”
He didn’t say anything until Hallie handed him a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon and sat down across from him with a cup of coffee.
“I took the slow ferry to the island, the one that brings cars over,” Braden said. “I wanted time to do some thinking.”
“Did you?” She sipped her coffee. “About you and Zara? Or your job?” She wasn’t going to remind him that he’d told her last night what the partner at his law firm had said about getting a wife and kids.
“Neither. I was thinking about that old adage of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That’s what I do. I fall for these knockout, gorgeous women who care only about my future prospects. Not about me but about what they can get from me. The minute they find someone who seems to be moving up the ladder faster, they leave me behind like a snake shedding its skin.”
“That’s some comparison.”
“Am I shocking you? I guess since I’ve always seen you as a little girl, I used to dull down my conversation. But you don’t look like that now. You are one hot babe.”
Hallie laughed. “Thanks.”
“Anyway, all the way over on the ferry I was thinking about you and me. I’d like for us to get to know each other better—but in a different way. Do you think that’s possible?”
What he was saying was wonderful, a dream come true. But at the same time, something about it bothered her, though she couldn’t put her finger on what, exactly. Maybe it was the word “gorgeous.” He said he usually liked “knockout” women, but now he wanted to go another route—and that seemed to mean Hallie. It looked like she was a woman he was sure wouldn’t dump him.
“Did you know I took those papers out of the trunk of your car?” he asked.
Hallie was so deep in her thoughts that at first she didn’t know what he meant. But then her eyes widened. If the papers she was to deliver to her boss had been in the trunk where she’d put them, she wouldn’t have gone back to the house to get them. If she hadn’t returned, she wouldn’t have found out that Shelly was trying to steal a house that had been willed to Hallie.
“I knew Shelly was up to something,” Braden said. “She borrowed a fancy tea set from Mom. I couldn’t imagine any of Shelly’s boyfriends drinking tea out of a porcelain cup. I thought you should look into what was going on, so I ran across the street and took what looked to be an important package out of your car and put it inside the front door. I watched and saw Shelly pick it up.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me what you suspected?”
Braden shook his head. “Hallie, dear, if I’d told you Shelly was up to something, you would have stayed away until midnight. Both you and your dad always ran away from Shelly. You still do.”
That was news to Hallie. “Do I? I always thought I stood up to her.”
“Sometimes, I guess.” He didn’t meet her eyes. “Now that I’ve been on the receiving end of her selfish little tricks, I better understand what you endured.” Braden reached across the table and took Hallie’s hand in his. “I wish I’d helped more when you were a kid.”
“You couldn’t have done anything, and you helped me a lot.” She smiled. “Don’t forget that if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t have gone to college. And now I owe you for all this.” She gestured toward the house. And I wouldn’t have met Jamie, she thought but didn’t say.
She pulled her hand from Braden’s. “I’m going to a wedding that starts in about an hour and a half. You can stay here or come along. Did you bring any nice clothes?”
“I’m a lawyer, so of course I brought suits. I just have no idea where they are.”
“I’ll go look,” she said, but Braden caught her arm.
“Hallie, I’m making a mess of what I’m trying to say, but I want you to think about you and me. We could have a good life together. I’ve thought about nothing else for the last few days and I think it could work. You’re already part of my family.”
“Braden, this is all so sudden and unexpected. I don’t know what to say.”
“I know, and that’s my fault. I should have had sense enough to see what was right in front of me. But I didn’t. Will you promise to think about this? And later we can talk. I won’t leave until we do.”
“All right,” she said. “I promise. But I have to get ready now.”
“Sure. I look forward to spending time with the new you. I think we could work something out.”
He sounded like he was negotiating a contract. She gave him a bit of a smile, then hurried from the room. Right now she couldn’t think about what Braden was saying. All she could think about was seeing Jamie. Their fight had upset her. How was he feeling?
She went up the stairs, but Jamie wasn’t there. The bed had been made and a big leather hanging bag was spread out on it. She knew without asking that it was Braden’s. She could almost hear him saying that the expensive piece of luggage looked like something a lawyer on his way up would carry. Braden had always valued image.
Jamie wasn’t anywhere upstairs. It looked as though he’d gone to the wedding without her. Ahead of her, she corrected herself. She couldn’t blame him for wanting to be with his family.
It was only when she went back to her bedroom and opened her closet door that she saw the dress. No, actually it was The Dress. She’d only seen garments like it on movie stars. It was short, with a scoop neck, sleeveless, simple really. But it was far from simple. It was made of an unusual pale pink lace, kind of crocheted, kind of embroidered, all under a very fine net.
Hallie’d said she didn’t want to wear anything from Jamie’s family, but that was before she saw this dress. She knew without trying it on that it would fit. It wouldn’t have before she came to Nantucket—too many late night doughnuts and not enough exercise—but now it would.
On the floor was a pair of cream-colored high heels with a rhinestone ornament across the toe. Manolo Blahnik was written inside them.
For a moment Hallie thought about ignoring the outfit. She’d bought a perfectly respectable navy-blue dress to wear to the wedding.
But then she saw the Dolce & Gabbana label inside the dress and that did it.
She made a quick trip downstairs to tell Braden his luggage was there and that she was going to get dressed. “Meet you in an hour,” she called as she ran back upstairs. She went to the bathroom, wrestled with a curling iron, and managed to put her hair up on her head. Little tendrils fell down beside her face.
One thing she’d learned from being around Shelly was how to pile on the makeup. She had one of those little kits of eye-shadows and she used every one of the earth colors. Blush followed base, then she outlined her lipstick.
When her hair and face were done, she went to the bedroom and stripped down to her skin. She was glad she had pretty, white, matching underwe
ar.
The dress felt as good on as it looked. It had been lined with some silky fabric that slid over her skin. And it fit perfectly—as did the shoes. There was a little white beaded clutch on a shelf and Hallie quickly put her keys, credit card, some cash, and a lipstick in it.
She was almost afraid to look in a mirror. When she did, she saw a different person than the one who usually stared back at her. Braden was right. Something had changed in her.
There was a soft knock on her bedroom door and she immediately thought, Jamie!
But she found Braden standing there wearing a dark suit. She had the great satisfaction of seeing him inhale sharply, and he seemed to be speechless.
Hallie turned full circle. “How do I look?”
“You…” Braden could do little more than stare. “Stunning,” he said at last. “Are you really the little girl with skinned knees who lived across the road from me?”
“One and the same.” Oh, but it felt good to have a man look at her as Braden was doing! It was a kind of power she’d never felt before. Men used to say, “Hallie, do you know if your dad has a hammer I can borrow?”
But right now Braden was looking at her the way men looked at Shelly. “Can I get you something?” they asked her. “Can I do something for you?”
“Shall we go?” Hallie asked, her voice as demure as she could make it.
“I would be proud to escort you,” Braden said and held out his arm to her.
The sidewalk in front of the church was full of people, all beautifully dressed.
Suddenly, Braden halted, holding her to him. “Hallie, that’s Kane Taggert and next to him is his brother, Michael. And the man on the left is Adam Montgomery senior.”
“Really? I bet he’s Adam’s dad. I’ll have to introduce myself.” She started forward, but Braden didn’t move.
“Hallie, you don’t seem to realize who these people are. They own things. Big things. We’ve been trying to get the Montgomery-Taggerts to our firm for years. To handle just one percent of their business would make us. If I brought them to the firm, I could write my own ticket.”