Kitabı oku: «Never Been Kissed», sayfa 3

Smiling fondly at Dan, she gave in gracefully. “Okay, you can stop twisting my arm. I’ll be nice to the guy. If he hands my head to me on a platter, I guess you can stitch it back on for me.”

Pleased, he rose to his feet with her and hugged her. “I knew I could count on you. You’re just like your mother.”

Janey couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather be like, but Dan had it wrong. Her mother was strikingly beautiful, and Merry was her spitting image. She, on the other hand, was more like her father and Joe. Quiet and plain as apple pie, she’d accepted long ago that she would never have her mother’s or Merry’s striking beauty or outgoing personality. That just wasn’t who she was. And that was okay. She would have never been comfortable being beautiful. Happily married to Nick and eight months pregnant, Merry still drew constant male looks wherever she went. Janey couldn’t imagine that. She would have hated it.

Convincing Dan of that, however, would have been impossible. An old family friend, he’d known her all her life and made no secret of the fact that he thought she was every bit as beautiful as the rest of the family. Returning his hug fondly, she promised, “I’ll do what I can.”

She told herself it would be easy. She would make a point of seeking him out when he came by the nursing home for rounds, and she was bound to run into him at the hospital when she was working rescue with the volunteer fire department. There wouldn’t, however, be much time to talk during work, so she had to find another way to make him feel welcome.

“I’ll make him a cake and take it over to the cabin,” she decided as she drove home after her shift. It was the neighborly thing to do, and her mother had an excellent chocolate cake recipe. She’d never made it before, personally, but how hard could it be? All she had to do was follow directions.

Wednesday night was the regular meeting of her mother’s bridge club at Myrtle’s, so Janey wasn’t surprised to find the house deserted when she got home. Her mother loved bridge and seldom missed a night out with the girls. Thankfully, Janey knew where she kept her recipes. Taking time only to change out of her nurse’s uniform into jeans and a T-shirt, she hurried back downstairs and tied on an apron.

She should have known she was in trouble when she finally found the recipe in her mother’s recipe box and discovered that it was nothing more than a list of ingredients written down in Sara’s neat hand. There were no directions, no indication of what order the ingredients were mixed or even what temperature the cake should be baked at. Frowning, Janey considered calling Sara at Myrtle’s, but she really hated to disturb the game, especially for something so minor. She’d watched her mother make the cake dozens of times over the years. Surely she could figure it out by herself. Quickly gathering all the ingredients and setting them out on the counter, she began.

Her memory wasn’t the best, but if she remembered correctly, the sugar, chocolate, butter and vanilla were in the icing, so by process of elimination, she deduced the contents of the cake. Pleased with herself, she tossed everything into the mixing bowl and turned the mixture on high. Now all she had to do was grease and flour the sheet cake pan and she could start baking. Grinning, she could just see her mother’s face when she came in and discovered she’d actually baked a cake. She’d be shocked!

The scent of burning chocolate hit Sara in the face the second she stepped through the front door. Surprised, she frowned. What was going on? She was sure she hadn’t left anything in the oven, and Janey didn’t usually venture into the kitchen on her own unless it was to heat up something in the microwave. Scrambled eggs was about the extent of her culinary repertoire, and with good reason. The last time she’d tried to bake something, she’d been twelve, and she’d nearly set the house on fire.

Alarmed by the memory, Sara rushed into the kitchen to find Janey peering doubtfully into the oven. “Janey!” she sighed in relief when she saw there was no smoke filling the room as she’d half feared. “What’s going on? I smelled something burning and thought the house was on fire!”

“I was making a cake,” she replied in disgust as she looked around in vain for the pot holders, “but I think I burned it. Don’t you put the oven on five hundred when you bake a cake?”

“Good Lord, no, honey! Not if you want it to be edible.” Quickly grabbing the pot holders she kept on a hook next to the stove, Sara jerked open the oven door and rescued what was left of the cake. Not surprisingly, it was a pitiful sight. Shrunk to half the size of the sheet pan, it was nothing but a hard, charred glob.

When Janey groaned at the sight of it, it was all Sara could do not to laugh. Pressing her lips tightly together, it was several long moments before she could manage to turn to her with a straight face. Even then her voice had a tendency to wobble with laughter. “Is that my chocolate cake recipe?”

Janey nodded glumly. “Somehow it didn’t turn out like yours does. What’d I do wrong besides cook it to death?”

From the looks of it, everything, but Sara couldn’t bring herself to say that. Not when Janey had gone to so much trouble. Pulling out a chair at the kitchen table that had been in the family longer than anyone could remember, she patted the spot next to her. “We’ll get to that. First, sit down and tell me what brought this all about. The last time you wanted to cook, you still had braces on your teeth.”

Wincing, Janey remembered that occasion all too well. Her brothers still teased her about it. “Please,” she begged, “let’s don’t even go there. I was just trying to be nice to Reilly, like Dan asked me to, and I blew it.”

“Reilly?” her mother repeated, surprised. “All this was for Reilly Jones?”

Janey nodded and told her about her first meeting with Reilly several days ago, then her encounter with him earlier in the day at the nursing home. “He’s a very unhappy man. Dan thinks he needs a friend, so I thought I would make him a cake and take it over to the cabin. You know, sort of a welcome-to-the-neighborhood type thing.” Wrinkling her nose at the miserable excuse for a cake, she had to laugh. “So much for good intentions. I guess I should have just stopped at Ed’s on the way home from work and bought a pie. At least that would have been edible.”

So why hadn’t she? Sara wondered. What was it about Reilly Jones that had inspired her to make a cake for him? Janey had never done such a thing before for any man, let alone one she’d only just met. What in the world was going on?

Questions buzzing around in her head, Sara told herself not to be nosy. Janey was a grown woman and certainly didn’t have to answer to her mother. And Sara didn’t want to say anything that might make her feel self-conscious. Not when she appeared to be showing an interest in a man for the first time in her life. “Don’t give up hope,” she said, dumping the burned cake in the trash. “He’ll be able to eat yours, too. We’ll just make another one.”

Sara could have whipped up her famous hot fudge cake in record time, but this was Janey’s cake, not hers. So after helping her assemble fresh ingredients, she patiently gave her step by step instructions, then watched her every move to make sure she didn’t make any mistakes.

Pleased with herself when she finally pulled the finished product from the oven, Janey had to admit that the cake didn’t look anything like the one her mother usually made, but she couldn’t complain. It might not look pretty, but compared to her first effort, it was a virtual masterpiece.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said, hugging her. “I don’t know what I would have done without you. Do you think it’s too late to take it over to the cabin tonight?”

“No, it’s early yet, and I’m sure Reilly will appreciate the gesture,” she assured her. “While you’re there, why don’t you invite him to join the decorating committee for the Christmas festival? The festival’s just two weeks away, and the first committee meeting is Monday.”

It was a great idea, one Janey knew she should have thought of herself. Every year the town celebrated Christmas by turning the town square into a winter wonderland the second weekend in December. There were food and crafts booths, not to mention a complete village for Santa and his elves, and they were all constructed by the decorating committee, which was comprised of volunteers from all over the county. Because the committee meetings were as much fun as the festival itself, there was never any shortage of volunteers, but no one was ever turned away. The more, the merrier.

“It’ll give him a chance to meet people,” she said, pleased. “Thanks, Mom! I’ll do that.”

Made of logs that had been cut from the property itself, Nick’s cabin sat in the middle of a thick stand of pines and looked as though it had been there forever. With a deep front porch and paned windows that were designed to let in the light and bring the forest inside, it had a charm to it that Janey had always loved. Tonight, only a single lamp burned in the living room, but that was enough to cast an inviting glow across the porch.

Parking in the circular drive, she wasn’t surprised when the porch light came on as she started up the stairs to the porch. The cabin sat at the end of a long private drive, and in the dark of the night, Reilly would have seen her headlights the second she turned down the drive.

Janey didn’t consider herself a shy person. She liked people and enjoyed talking to them, but something happened to her on the way up the steps to his front door. Suddenly her heart was pounding, her knees weren’t quite steady, and the little welcoming speech she had all prepared flew right out of her head the second he opened the door to her. And for the life of her, she didn’t know why. Flustered, she forced a weak smile and couldn’t think of a thing to say except, “Hi.”

His face expressionless, he arched a brow at the sight of the cake pan in her hand. “What’s that?”

“What? Oh!” Suddenly remembering why she was there, she blushed to the roots of her hair and abruptly thrust the pan into his hands like it was a hot rock. “It’s a cake,” she said unnecessarily. “To welcome you to the neighborhood.”

“I see.”

Janey wasn’t too sure of that. From his expression, he’d never seen a cake before, and Janey couldn’t say she blamed him. It was awful looking. Suddenly appreciating the humor of the situation, she grinned. “I know it looks terrible—I’m not much of a cook—but trust me, this is a real prize compared to the first one I made. That one ended up in the trash can.”

“You made two?”

“I didn’t want to poison you,” she said simply. “The whole point of this was to make you feel welcome.”

He should have laughed. She expected him to. When he didn’t, she reminded herself that he was going through a difficult time and probably didn’t mean to be rude. If she was going to be a friend to him, she had to remember that.

Shrugging off her hurt feelings, she forced a smile that didn’t come as easily as she would have liked. “Well, it’s getting late. I just stopped by to give you the cake. Oh, and to invite you to a meeting of the decorating committee for the Christmas festival,” she added. Quickly telling him about the festival and how much fun the committee meetings were, she said, “Our first meeting’s next Monday, and I thought you might like to come. It’ll give you a chance to meet people and have some fun at the same time. If you’re not busy, of course.”

There was nothing the least bit offensive about her little speech, but Reilly knew better than to be taken in by the apparent innocence of it. Did she really think he was so gullible? Ever since Victoria’s death, he had been hit on by just about every woman who crossed his path, and he was heartily sick of it. There were three casseroles in his refrigerator from three other women who’d had the same idea as Janey. And despite their claims to the contrary, he knew they weren’t just being neighborly. He’d played the game too many times with the women in L.A. after Victoria had died. By bringing him a covered dish, they were each ensuring that they could return in a few days with the excuse that they were there to pick up their cookware.

Just thinking about it irritated the hell out of him. From the little he’d seen of Janey McBride, he’d thought she was different. Obviously, he’d been wrong.

“I’m busy Monday night,” he said coldly.

“Oh. Well, then, maybe some other time.”

When she started to turn, her smile now gone, he should have let her go. If she wanted to go on thinking there was a chance they’d get together at a later time, that was her problem, he told himself. He wasn’t responsible for what she thought. But even as he tried to convince himself of that, he knew he had to set the record straight. He wasn’t a man who led women on—he never had been. Honesty wasn’t always appreciated, but it prevented a lot of problems in the long run.

“No, there won’t be another time,” he said flatly. “You might as well know that now. If you’ve set your sights on me, you’re wasting your time. I’m not interested.”

Stunned, Janey couldn’t believe she’d heard him correctly. He actually thought that she…that she was the kind of woman who would…

Unable to finish the thoughts whirling in her head, she almost laughed at the ridiculousness of his accusations. He couldn’t be serious! She’d never come on to a man in her life—she wouldn’t even know where to begin. This had to be some kind of a joke.

But there was nothing the least bit amusing about the hard glint in his blue eyes. He actually thought she was making a play for him, and he wanted nothing to do with her.

Later—years from now—she told herself, she might be able to look back and laugh about this. But for now she’d never been so insulted in her life. Pride coming to her rescue, she drew herself up proudly and stared down her nose at him with all the regalness of a queen. So he wasn’t interested, was he? Well, neither was she!

“Someone here has an overinflated ego,” she said coolly, “and it’s not me. For your information, Doctor, the only reason I brought the cake over was because Dr. Michaels asked me to be nice to you. Since I’ve obviously failed at that, I won’t bother you anymore. Good night.”

Chapter 3

She didn’t slam the door, but she didn’t need to. She’d made her point, not that Reilly cared. Watching her storm out, he told himself he was lucky to be rid of her. If he was any judge of character, Janey McBride, unlike the other women who had tried to sweet talk their way into his home, wouldn’t be back. He’d hurt her pride, and as she drove away and her taillights disappeared into the darkness, he knew she was probably consigning him to the devil. And that was all right by him. He wasn’t interested in her or any other woman.

The problem was, she seemed to be the only one who’d gotten the message, he thought irritably as he shut the front door and headed for the kitchen. The others who’d come bearing gifts and a come-hither smile hadn’t been nearly as easy to discourage. Refusing to take offense at his rudeness, they’d just shrugged off his bad manners with an irritatingly forgiving laugh and promised to lighten his mood. All he had to do was give them a chance.

Sex. He hadn’t pretended to misunderstand what they were offering. That was what they wanted, how they thought they could catch him. They could pretend to themselves and everyone else that their motives were pure—they were just being friendly by welcoming the new widower to the neighborhood—but he knew a woman on the prowl when he saw one. And everyone who’d knocked on his door that evening had had that gleam in her eye that had sent alarm bells clanging in his head.

Everyone, that is, except Janey McBride.

He tried to deny that, but he couldn’t forget the look on her face when he’d told her she was wasting her time if she’d set her sights on him. She’d been shocked—there was no other way to describe it—as if the thought had never entered her head. And now that he thought of it, she hadn’t been dressed like a woman bent on seduction. Far from it, in fact. Unlike the others, who’d delivered their culinary gifts decked out in full makeup and body-hugging sweaters that were designed to make a man drop his teeth, Janey had worn faded jeans and an old college sweatshirt that still bore traces of cocoa and flour from her baking. As for makeup, her face had been bare and natural but for mascara and lip gloss.

Yeah, the lady’s really after you, Jones, a voice in his head sneered. She was decked out like a real Jezebel. It’s a wonder you were able to control yourself.

The truth hit him then like a slap in the face. Janey McBride was, in all likelihood, everything she’d appeared to be—considerate, caring, generous. The only reason she’d brought him a cake was because Dan really had asked her to be nice to him. It was something his partner would have done. And how had he responded to her kindness? By mocking her efforts and accusing her of coming on to him.

“Son of a bitch!” he groaned. How could he have been so stupid? He would have liked to use the excuse that he’d just met her and didn’t know what kind of woman she was, but anyone with eyes could see that she just wasn’t the type to blatantly chase a man. With her prim-and-proper manner, she was too old-fashioned for that. She’d wait for a man to approach her, not the other way around.

Cursing softly, he wanted to kick himself. He was an intelligent man who knew women—he should have seen the kind of woman she was from her appearance alone. Instead, he’d jumped to all the wrong conclusions and acted like a general all-round jerk—after she’d spent hours slaving over a hot stove, baking not one cake, but two for him! No wonder she’d stormed off like an insulted queen. He didn’t blame her. Just thinking about the way he’d spoken to her disgusted him. He’d been raised better than that.

There was no question that he would apologize the next time he saw her, he promised himself. He’d been wrong, and he owed her that, at the very least. He didn’t, however, regret making it clear to her that he wasn’t interested in having a relationship with anyone. The only woman he wanted was dead, and he didn’t expect to ever love anyone else again. The sooner the women of Liberty Hill knew and accepted that, the happier he’d be.

Sinking down onto the couch, he picked up the medical journal he’d been trying to read all evening, but with a will of their own his eyes kept drifting to the picture of Victoria that sat right next to him on the end table. Young and beautiful, her blond hair flowing loose around her shoulders and her green eyes impish with laughter, she smiled at him with a love that lit up her whole face.

It had been eight months since he’d seen that smile, eight months since the warmth of her love had made him feel whole. Everyone had told him that the hurt would fade with time, that the wound to his heart would scar over and eventually heal, but it hadn’t. Every time he saw her picture, every time he thought of her, he ached so badly, his very soul hurt.

Tears glinting in his eyes, he reached for her picture, just as he did every night. Because he couldn’t reach for her. He wanted to touch her, to feel her, to love her, but this was all he had left. Pictures. Things, dammit! And memories. And that wasn’t nearly enough.

Fuming all the way home, Janey wasn’t surprised to see Dan’s Suburban parked in the circular drive in front of the house. He usually dropped in several nights a week to visit with her mother, especially when Janey was out. He claimed he didn’t like the idea of Sara being alone at night, but Janey suspected he really wanted a chance to have her mother all to himself. And her mother didn’t seem to have a clue.

Another time Janey might have smiled at that. Everyone seemed to know that Dan was crazy about Sara—everyone except Sara, herself. But Janey could find no humor in the situation tonight. Not when all she could think of was Reilly Jones and how she’d like to string him up by his thumbs. Damn the man, what kind of woman did he think she was?

“Don’t answer that,” she snapped to herself as she stormed inside and slammed the door behind her. “You already know the answer to that one.”

And that was what hurt the most. She wasn’t some loose floozy who made a play for every good-looking cowboy who came along with a fat wallet. The very idea was ludicrous! Didn’t he look at her? Couldn’t he see that she was just an ordinary—

“Janey? Is that you?”

Wincing, Janey wanted to kick herself for not slipping quietly inside and making her way upstairs without anyone being the wiser. Her mother would want to know how Reilly had reacted to the cake, of course, and she didn’t want to talk about it. Not now. She wouldn’t be able to hide her anger, and that would just lead to more questions, and she really didn’t want to repeat Reilly’s outrageous accusations.

But her mother wasn’t going to let her escape upstairs without some kind of explanation, so there was no hope for it but to go in and try to put the best spin on the situation as possible. Forcing a grimace of a smile, she called back, “Yeah, Mom. I’ll be right there.”

She wasn’t much of an actress, but she thought she hid her anger well. She should have known, however, that she couldn’t fool Sara. The second she stepped into the great room and greeted her mother and Dan, who were watching their favorite detective show on TV, Sara took one look at her and immediately frowned. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said easily, hanging on to her smile for all she was worth. “I’d like to stay and talk, but it’s been a long day and I’m worn out. I think I’ll go to bed.”

She would have rushed up the stairs, but Sara stopped her before she could take a single step. “How was Reilly? Did he like the cake? What did he say?”

Another time Janey would have found a diplomatic way to answer. After all, Reilly was Dan’s partner, and she didn’t want to put Dan in the position of having to defend him. But she was still so steamed, the words just popped out. “Trust me, you don’t want to know. He was horrible.”

“What?”

“Oh, Janey!”

“I know you wanted me to be nice to him, Dan,” she told the older man, “but I just can’t. He’s rude and conceited and I wish you’d never taken him into your practice. God knows how I’m going to work with him. As far as I’m concerned, I never want to lay eyes on him again!”

“But what happened?” her mother asked, stunned by her daughter’s vehemence since she rarely lost her temper. “From what Dan said about him, he was nice but reserved. What did he do? You just took him a cake. Why would he be rude about something like that? Most men would have been thrilled to have someone cook for them.”

Janey would have preferred not to discuss it—now or ever. Just thinking about the things Reilly had said to her brought the painful sting of a blush to her cheeks. But she knew her mother and Dan. They were both as protective as mother hens, and they wouldn’t let the subject die until they had some answers.

Left with no choice, she blurted out, “He thinks I had an ulterior motive.”

“Good Lord, how? You just baked him a cake.”

“He accused me of setting my sights on him and told me I was wasting my time. He wasn’t interested.”

For a long moment there was nothing but stunned silence. Embarrassed to death, Janey couldn’t bring herself to look either her mother or Dan in the eye, so she didn’t see the surprise that flared in their eyes—or the sudden smiles they quickly bit back.

“He didn’t want to help with the decorating committee for the Christmas festival, either,” she added stiffly. “When I offered to introduce him around some other time, he made it clear that wasn’t going to happen. He was busy.”

Dan winced at that, feeling responsible. He’d only been trying to help, and instead, he’d messed up everything. “I’m so sorry, Janey,” he said gruffly. “I never meant for you to get your feelings hurt. I know he’s still grieving for his wife, but he can’t take his anger out on other people. I’ll talk to him.”

She should have let him. Every instinct she had urged her to jump at the offer. Then she wouldn’t have to deal with the oh-so-conceited Dr. Jones anymore except on a professional level. She wouldn’t have to speak to him, be nice to him, even acknowledge his existence on a personal level, and that sounded just fine with her. After the way he’d treated her, she wanted nothing to do with him ever again.

But even as she considered letting Dan fight her battles for her, she knew she couldn’t. She wasn’t the helpless female type—she never had been. Her parents had raised her and her sister, Merry, to stand on their own two feet and handle what life threw at them with confidence. She didn’t go running to her brothers or Dan or any other man when something difficult cropped up. She took care of it herself. She’d do the same with Reilly Jones.

The glint of battle lighting her brown eyes, she raised her chin a notch. “I appreciate the offer, Dan,” she replied quietly, “but I can handle Dr. Jones just fine all by myself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go up to bed. I run rescue tomorrow night, so it’s going to be a long day. Good night.”

She turned and sailed proudly out of the room and never saw the speculative looks her mother and Dan exchanged. In the quiet left by her leavetaking, Sara arched a brow at Dan. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

He nodded, his lips twitching with wry humor. “I’ve never seen her this way before. Reilly’s definitely stirred her up.”

“And she seems to have done the same to him. But do you think that’s possible, Dan? Maybe we’re reading too much into this. After all, Reilly’s still mourning his wife. And Janey…”

She hesitated, searching for words to describe her oldest daughter. “I’ve prayed that she would meet someone someday and find happiness with a good man she could share her life with. But she never seemed to want that for herself. She’s always been so dedicated to her work. And if she ever took an interest in any of the boys she went to school with, I never knew about it. She just always seemed so content to be alone.”

“Maybe that’s because the right man hadn’t come along yet,” Dan replied.

“And you think Reilly might be that man?”

He shrugged. “It’s too soon to say. But they definitely seem to have struck sparks off each other.”

“But he’s still in love with his dead wife!”

There was, unfortunately, no denying that. “And a part of him will always love her. They obviously had a wonderful relationship, and you and I both know how hard it is to let go of something that was so perfect. But a man can only take so much loneliness before he’s forced to admit that the woman he loved is gone forever. If he doesn’t want to be miserable the rest of his life, he has to let go of the past and find someone else.”

He spoke from experience. After months of heartache and long, empty nights he’d thought would never end, he’d come to accept the fact that Peggy was never coming back. Admitting that had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. It was like losing her all over again. He’d cried for days. But then, when his tears had dried, a peace unlike anything he’d ever known before had settled over him, and he’d gradually begun to heal. He’d found himself looking forward to each new day rather than dreading it. And that’s when he’d looked up and found Sara.

Just thinking about that day he’d noticed her as a woman for the first time still brought a smile to his lips. She’d smiled at him just as she always did, and every nerve ending in his body had sat up and taken notice. It had shocked the hell out of him. Up until then she’d always just been Sara, the widow of his old friend Gus, and one of Peggy’s best friends. For years the four of them had been like family, spending holidays and special occasions together, and that hadn’t stopped with Gus’s death. Sara and the kids had still been a huge part of his and Peggy’s life, and never once had he looked at her as anything other than a friend.

Then she’d smiled at him one day, and everything changed.

He loved her. It still amazed him how much. And she didn’t have a clue. Oh, she knew he loved her as a friend, but that apparently was as far as she thought it went. She didn’t begin to suspect the depth of his feelings for her, and he didn’t know how to tell her. He loved her and needed her in his life, but he wasn’t sure if she would want anything more from him than friendship. So rather than risk losing her completely, he kept his feelings to himself and they went on as they always had.

“There is another possibility,” she said. “I’ve never known Janey not to get along with anyone before, but this could just be a case of a personality clash between the two of them. They might not be attracted to each other at all.”

“That’s true,” he agreed. “Whatever it is, I’m sure they’ll work it out. After all, it’s not like they can avoid each other. Not when they’ll be working together at the nursing home and the hospital.”

Watching Janey and Reilly come to terms with the sparks they rubbed off each other would, in fact, be damned interesting. For now, though, it was his own romance he was concerned about. “But enough about the youngsters,” he said, abruptly changing the subject. “What I want to know is when are you going to go out with me?”

It was an old joke between them, one that went back to that day when he’d first looked at her in a new light and realized that his feelings for her went much deeper than friendship. Caught up in the headiness of his newfound emotions, he’d asked her out, and she’d mistakenly thought he was joking. At the time he couldn’t blame her. She’d been spending a lot of time with him, helping him through Peggy’s death, and the town gossips had begun to wonder if they were dating. He’d suggested they go out to give the busybodies something to talk about, and she’d been joking about it ever since.