Chasing I Do (The Eastons #1) (13 page)

And she left the top two undone enough that when she reached the driveway and leaned down to see who was in the car, he got enough of a view of white lace and creamy cleavage to have him manning up below the belt.

But when he saw the pink tint on her nose from a day in the sun, and her hair, which had blown loose from those up-dos she wore, he knew he was toast. He wanted her—more than was safe.

She was staring at him, too—squinting to be exact— as if she could get her eyes narrow enough he’d morph into anyone other than him.

Gage hopped out of the car, Stephanie’s wedding book in hand, and smiled. “I’m a few minutes early.”

“I would ask what you’re doing here,” she said tartly. “But that seems to be a redundant question at this point.”

“I’m here for our new client appointment.” He handed her Rhett’s signed contract.

“Rhett and Stephanie are my new clients. Not you.”

“Rhett is out of town.” He leaned in, close enough to see the pulse in her neck beat. “Where’s Kylie?”

“Taking a nap. She was having too much fun, and skipped her afternoon nap to play doggie dress up at the park.”

“I heard she was with her uncle.” Gage straightened and leaned his hip against the front of his car. “Guy must be a total douche for letting her miss naptime. I hope he at least said thank you.”

She didn’t smile, but her lips twitched at the corners and her eyes lit with humor. “I’m sorry Rhett will miss this, but Stephanie will be here in a few minutes, and I need to get prepared.”

“Stephanie’s not coming.” And neither was Kylie, which meant they were alone. “And you look more than ready.”

She dusted her hands down the front of her dress, then reached for her hair. “I look like a mommy who spent the day at a windy park chasing a dog.”

Gage reached out slowly, giving her time to step away. When she didn’t, he tucked a strand of hair that had escaped behind her ear. “You look beautiful.”

His voice fell to a whisper because touching her skin made it difficult to breathe. He hadn’t touched her like this since before Kyle had made his intentions clear. He forgot how smooth she felt, how soft.

“Thank you.” He let his hand slowly fall away. “For raising an amazing kid, for giving me today, and for letting her miss her naptime. What you’ve created here is special.” Gage looked to the quaint cottage, with the flower pots in the window and the makeshift dance barre on the porch. “It’s magical.”

“You were great with her. And Kylie deserves a little magic in her world.”

“So do you.”

An uncertain expression played on her face, and he could tell that she wanted to believe him, but was gun shy. After her childhood, then his family, her hesitation was understandable. Yet, it still rubbed him wrong that trust was still such a foreign concept for her.

“So you came here to say thanks?” she asked, taking a cautious step back.

“I came here to tell you that Stephanie doesn’t get back until Monday, and she asked me to deliver the contract and this.” He held up the four-inch binder that was comprehensive enough to plan an Inaugural Ball at the White House, and heavy enough to double as a weapon. Leaving out the part where he’d known since before their last meeting that Stephanie would be unavailable today.

“You could have told me that at the park,” she called his bluff.

“I could have, but it would break rule number one, mixing business with family.”

A trembling laughed escaped. “The dog. The park. That.” She pointed to the binder. “You listened.”

“I listen to everything you say,” he said, wondering how many times she’d gone unheard. By the look on her face, he didn’t even want to guess. It would ruin his good mood.

“Thank you.”

“You have a big enough heart to give me a second chance. I’m not going to blow this.”

He’d gone to the park with the intention of being the spokesperson for his family. But after two seconds with these two ladies, Gage knew he was in deep.

He’d somehow gone from being the defender of the Eastons to the protector of the Kincaids. Which left him torn between two families—both with different agendas.

“And you drove all this way to make sure they were kept separate?”

“Yup. I’d drive to New York and back if it meant seeing you smile like that.”

“New York is a long drive for a smile.” Her lips tilted up even more, shy like, as if she were liking the banter.

“That’s some smile.” His eyes fell to her lips, full and glossy, and damn near perfect. “And when it’s aimed at me, I end up saying things that I shouldn’t.”

“Who said I was aiming it at you? Maybe I was just smiling and you happened to step in front of me.”

“Pink, I know when you’re smiling, and when you’re smiling at me.” He leaned in, and, in that tone that usually had women melting like putty, said, “there’s a difference.”

“Why do you insist on calling me Pink? I never wear pink.”

He grinned. “You did that first day I met you.”

“I wore a blue top.”

“I wasn’t commenting on the color of your top.” When she didn’t even blink, he flashed his trademark grin, the one that had been passed down from Easton father to Easton son. “That black skirt of yours was awfully short, and when you bent over to grab my pencil for me...”

Her mouth gaped open. “You dropped it like five times.”

“Seven,” he said, remembering every single time.

“Men.” She snorted. And although her expression gave nothing away, he could tell she felt it. That undeniable heat that went from zero to surface-of-the-sun whenever they were within sparing distance.

“But if you don’t like Pink, I can always come up with something different.” Gage held his car keys out and made a big show of dropping them. “Whoops, look at that, I dropped my keys and I can’t get them because my hands are full.”

She took the wedding album and gave a
that’s the best you got?
smile.

“Hey, it worked before.” He picked up the keys. “Now, how about we go inside and get to that meeting of ours?”

“Right. Explain to me again why the woman, whose wedding was so important I had to uproot my life, couldn’t make a mandatory meeting, which she agreed to?” Darcy asked warily.

“It’s just this meeting,” Gage said. “And I offered to drop off the contract and her book, which, if you flip through, you’ll see the woman has dedicated a good ten thousand hours to planning the perfect day.”

Darcy opened the book, and with a glare that could have blistered paint, flipped to the first page—which Gage still didn’t understand. It was sketches of hair styles, rudimentary and definitely old fashioned. It made no sense. But Miss Planner didn’t bat an eye, just mumbled, “interesting,” and flipped to the next page.

Which was even more confusing. Pictures of wedding tents, cut from magazines, not a single one of them even remotely similar. To everyone else they would look like a jumble of ideas and fabric swatches, but to Darcy they must have made sense, because she looked up and said, “She has a very clear idea of what she wants.”

“You got all of that from magazine pages and stick figures?”

“Just like you can read a contract and know what everyone’s really looking for in the deal, I can look at these pictures and decipher what Stephanie really wants.”

Gage looked over her shoulder at a photo that showed some kind of giant circus tent, with dozens of white branched trees covered in twinkle lights, and silver globes hanging from the ceiling. “What, a stuffy wedding?”

“No, to feel cherished.” Darcy’s eyes lit with warmth and yearning, and those instincts that had caused Gage trouble in the past, kicked in. He wanted to tell her she deserved to be cherished too, but before he could say a word, she was closing the book and looking antsy. “I’ll study these and give her a call on Monday. That will give me a chance to put a presentation together.”

Gage shoved his hands in his pockets. “So, that’s it?”

Darcy looked at Fancy, who was standing on the dashboard, making a picture with his tongue on the front windshield. “That’s it.”

“Then I guess I should get going.”

“I should probably get back to the cottage. It’s Finger Food Friday, and Kylie likes to help with the preparation. Even though I think it’s more about the chef’s costume.”

Gage smiled at the image of Tiny in an apron and chef’s hat. Darcy lowered her lashes, and—
holy Christ—
that loose piece of hair escaped, falling softly across her cheek, and suddenly, all he could picture was Darcy. Standing in her kitchen in an apron, those heels from the other day—and nothing else. And it took everything he had to keep his eyes from straying to places he had no business straying.

Not that it mattered, the air turned charged and he watched as Darcy’s pulse picked up at the base of her neck—because, yeah, he’d strayed, and she was stunning.

And every single one of the million and three reasons he’d listed over the years, of why
not
to go there, vanished. Because Gage might not know the best way to handle this situation, but he knew women. And Darcy’s thoughts weren’t that far off from his.

“I didn’t expect this to be so—” she swallowed, “—intimate.”

“Me either. But I should have expected it.”

As if afraid to ask him what
that
meant, she said, “No, I bet it’s just spending the day together, with Kylie, then talking about wedding stuff. They’re the two things in my life that I feel passionately about. And sharing them with you, like this, feels…”

“Intimate.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of them moved, to leave or to get closer. They just stood there, staring, as if they were both seeing each other with fresh eyes. Eyes that weren’t clouded with history or anger or judgment. And when the newness turned to interest, and the interest to something heavier, finally Gage took a step back.

“Good night, Pink,” he said, taking another step. Then two more.

“Wait.” Darcy took a step, then stopped. “What about the cake tasting? Jillian, my friend, she owns Cake Goddess, she has a special tasting ready in the main house. She needs time to design it, and designs are determined by flavor composition.” She waved a nervous hand. “I don’t know much about it really, it’s her thing. But she assures me it’s an important step in the process, and she needs to know what flavor combination, or combinations, Stephanie and Rhett want for their wedding. And she’s already behind, and it’s important.”

“You already said that.” Gage thought about walking inside that house and taking a seat at the table. Not the one in the main house, but Darcy’s house. The cottage with the family ready porch and the welcoming front door. Then he thought about how much trouble they could get into making finger foods, and then he was staring at her lips.

Again.

She had an amazing mouth. Full and lush and sweet.

So damn sweet he found himself unable to tear his gaze away, and instead of moving backward and diffusing the building heat, he took a step forward and threw some gasoline on that fire.

“Gage,” she breathed, and he could almost taste the strawberries from lunch on her lips. “Do you want to come and sample the cakes? It’s an important part of the process.”

“Is that the Cake Goddess’s thing or yours?”

“It’s my thing, I guess.” Her eyes fluttered up and—
bam
—he was a goner. Somehow transported back to junior year, when she aced her final.

They stayed up all night in his room, studying, because she was afraid she’d fail. So when the professor posted their grades, he was right there and she wrapped those arms around his neck and gave him a hug that had him questioning everything. Then she looked up at him with those soul-melting eyes and he’d damn near kissed her.

Even though he’d been dating Cheryl.

And instead of saying,
Fuck yeah, he was down for a tasting,
he heard himself say, “I’ll have to take a raincheck. I have dinner with my brothers.”

And just like seven years ago, Darcy took a big step back and worried the fabric of her dress.

“Right, Friday night family dinners,” she said with a jerky laugh, and that smile went from playful to professional. But there was a wistful tone that made him think she missed family dinners.

Darcy hadn’t just opened her heart to Kyle, she opened it to the entire Easton clan. Even Margo. She’d been to family dinners, reunions, every important event since Kyle had first brought her home. They’d become her family, and she’d become theirs. Up until the wedding they’d been her entire world—and she’d been cut off without even an explanation.

That kind of loss would wreck the strongest of people, yet Darcy had managed to pull her world back together. Make her own family out of the wreckage.

Gage considered asking her to come, but then he’d have to explain it was at his mom’s house. And look at that, one thought of his mom and Gage’s body temperature went from heated interest to stone cold—sending his boys into hiding.

He must have been quiet for too long, because her smile cracked at the edges and she said, “I can use the cake for a tasting I have tomorrow, no biggie.”