Serendipity (36 page)

“Come sit with me!” Tess said to her sister, shattering the unspoken link they shared.

“Sure.” Obviously shaken, Kelly pulled her hand back and joined Tess in a love seat on Nash's side of the room.

Everyone else took their seats too.

“So, you're ready for this private school gig?” Kelly asked Tess.

The teenager nodded. “I can handle anything those snooty kids throw at me. My brother's got more money than—”

Ethan cleared his throat in obvious disapproval. Tess might have cleaned up her act, but she still needed guidance.

The teen let out an annoyed sigh at being reprimanded. “Yeah, I'm ready. Did I tell you about the art professor I'm gonna have?”

Kelly laughed. “Only every time we talk.”

“So, I hear you got lucky with Faith's apartment,” Dare commented, glancing at Kelly.

She nodded. “I did. Since Faith signed a two-year lease, she offered to sublet to me.”

Nash narrowed his gaze. He thought she was a temporary visitor. “You're leasing Faith's apartment over Joe's?”

“Yes.”

“To visit Tess when you're in town?” Nash asked, pushing for information.

She tipped her head back and laughed. “No, I couldn't afford that!”

“She's moving here,” Faith clarified while Kelly was still busy laughing at his expense.

“Isn't that cool?” Tess asked.

Nash frowned at his sister. “I thought nobody said ‘cool' anymore,” he muttered.

She grinned. “Well, Ethan does. So now I do too.”

Swell.

“You do realize the apartment's located over a bar?” Nash asked, unreasonably uncomfortable with the idea of Kelly moving here. Ridiculously bothered that all those single guys who visited Joe's would soon become acquainted with the new girl in town.

“So?” Kelly studied him, her confusion and continued amusement clear. “I'm a big girl. I think I can handle it.”

“It just would have been nice if someone had filled me in,” Nash muttered. He knew he was being an ass, but between
feeling
left out and now
being
left out, Nash couldn't help his foul mood.

“Maybe we would have told you if you showed your face around here more often,” Ethan said, pointedly. “The only time I get to talk to you is when we have a family meeting.”

Yet Dare had known about Kelly moving to town.

Which meant Ethan and Dare got together without him. Now Nash knew how Ethan must have felt when he'd picked Tess up from his place only to find Nash, Dare, and Tess having breakfast without him.

Payback is a bitch,
he thought, feeling more and more on edge with each passing minute.

“You're welcome here any time, Nash.” Faith spoke up, obviously comfortable with her position in the house.

Nash knew he ought to thank her, but he just couldn't bring himself to be gracious to the woman whose father had destroyed the people who'd given him a home.

“What brought about the move?” he asked Kelly instead.

She shifted in her seat, hesitating and not coming up with a quick answer.

“That's easy,” Ethan said, jumping in when she didn't. “I wasn't about to send Tess back to the city and Kelly saw the logic in moving here.”

“I did.” Kelly agreed, her expression suddenly closed.

There was obviously much more to her story.

Whether or not Ethan was in on it remained to be seen. But Kelly Moss's move to Serendipity wasn't solely about Tess. Of that Nash was certain.

But why did he care what her motivation was? What was it about her, he wondered, distracted by her mere presence.

Her mother had been involved with Nash's traveling salesman father, which made any attraction he felt for her awkward. She was Tess's half sister, which though not a problem, it didn't make the sexual attraction welcome. But there was something about her that called to him.

Given her mother's relationship with his working-class father, Nash assumed Kelly's background was more working class like his own. Which put them on similar ground, at least before his parents died. After, he'd been brought into a home more like the one his brother lived in now. Nash had never been comfortable in his adopted house, but he'd made peace with trying to please his new parents. His becoming a lawyer had accomplished that goal, but too often Nash wondered if the suit and tie really
fit
.

While Kelly appeared relaxed, at ease with herself and the world, flustered only by their inexplicable chemistry. Nash wished he had the chance to be more himself. Whoever that was. He'd long since lost track. So for those reasons and many more, he found himself drawn to Kelly Moss.

“Nash! Are you paying attention?” Tess asked, popping in front of his face. “Ethan and Faith are getting married next month!”

He'd been too lost in thoughts about Kelly and hadn't heard. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” they both said.

Ethan wrapped his arm around his fiancée. “We hope you'll all be there.” His wary gaze settled on Nash.

Nash shifted in his seat but gave nothing away, needing time to think.

“And then they're going on a honeymoon,” Tess said in a singsong voice. Clearly she was pleased with the upcoming plans. “And I'll be staying with Kelly while they're gone,” she added happily.

“I'd have taken you, squirt, but my shifts are too crazy,” Dare said.

Kelly shook her head. “I wouldn't have let you. I've been away from her for too long.”

“Aww, you missed me!” Tess laughed.

Kelly's eyes warmed at Tess's pleased response.

And Nash's body heated up just watching her.

“Kelly and Tess will stay here so Tess doesn't have to uproot her routine and everyone will be comfortable.”

Comfortable,
Nash thought. The perfect word to describe the dynamic between them. All of them.

Except him.

They'd planned everything without him. The only good news was that with Ethan and Faith gone, he'd have the opportunity to get closer to Tess. The bad news was that to do so, he'd have to get closer to Kelly too. Not a good thing, considering she appealed to him on a visceral level he'd never experienced with any woman before.

So while Ethan enjoyed his honeymoon, Nash's life here would be equally memorable, courtesy of a female by the name of Kelly Moss.

Nash Barron might be cynical about life and more recently about love, but even he normally enjoyed a good wedding. Today's affair had been an exception. The invitation had requested the presence of “close friends and family.” Nash wondered if he was the only one in the group to notice the irony.

The groom's two brothers, Nash included, were a step short of estranged, and they'd only known the flower girl, their newly discovered half sister, Tess, for six weeks. The bride's father was in jail, which left her flamboyant decorator friend to give her away, while her mother spent the afternoon downing wine and bemoaning the loss of her beloved home, which just so happened to be the site of the wedding. The landmark house on the hill in their hometown of Serendipity, New York, was now owned by the groom, Nash's brother Ethan.

Come to think of it, the irony of the situation might be the only thing Nash had enjoyed about this day.

That and Kelly Moss, the woman sipping champagne across the lush green grass of the backyard.

Tess was Nash's half sister, a product of his father and Tess's mother's affair. Kelly, Tess's half sister on her mother's side, was a sexy woman who by turns frustrated him, intrigued him, and turned him on. Complicated yet simple enough to be summed up in one sentence: Kelly Moss was a beautiful woman and they were in no way blood related.

Which didn't make his desire for her any more acceptable. A simple acquaintance-like relationship seemed the safest route, yet Nash had been unable to find comfortable ground with either Kelly or Tess in the time since they'd been in Serendipity. Nash had no idea why he couldn't connect with his fourteen-year-old sister, who seemed determined to freeze him out.

As for Kelly, at first Nash blamed his frustration with her on the fact that she'd unceremoniously dumped Tess, a sister the Barron brothers knew nothing about, on Ethan's doorstep back in August. She'd demanded he parent the out-of-control teen. Nash hated to give Ethan credit for anything, but he had to admit his older brother had turned the wildly rebellious kid around in a short time. But Nash still had issues with Kelly's methods. So when she'd resurfaced and moved to town, he'd been both understandably wary and shockingly attracted. And she'd been getting under his skin ever since.

Nash turned away and his gaze fell on Ethan, his brother whose luck seemed to have done a one eighty since he'd abandoned his siblings ten years ago. He had chosen the perfect day for a wedding. Through early October, the temperature had hiked into the low seventies, enabling him to have the wedding outdoors. Ethan stood with his arm around his wife, Faith, talking to their youngest sibling, Dare. Even he had forgiven Ethan for the past.

Nash couldn't bring himself to be so lenient.

He glanced at his watch and decided his time here was over. The bride and groom were married, cake served, bouquet thrown. He finished what remained of his Ketel One, placed the glass on a passing waitress's tray, and headed toward the house.

“Leaving so soon?” a familiar female voice asked.

“The festivities are over.” He turned to face the woman who'd hijacked his thoughts just moments before.

Kelly, her hair pulled loosely behind her head, soft waves escaping and grazing her shoulders, stood close beside him. Her warm, inviting lemony scent enveloped him in heat.

Nash was a man who valued his personal space. Kelly was a woman who pushed past boundaries. Yet for a reason he couldn't fathom, he lacked his usual desire to find safer ground.

“The band is still playing,” she pointed out.

“No one will realize I'm gone.”

Or care. His leaving would probably ease any tension his presence created.

“I would.” She gazed at him with perceptive brown eyes.

Intelligent eyes that seemed to see beyond the indifferent facade he presented to the world. One he thought he'd perfected in his late teens, when his life had been turned upside down by his parents' deaths followed quickly by Ethan's abandonment of both Nash and their younger brother, Dare.

“Why do you care?” he asked, even though he knew he'd be smarter to walk away.

She shrugged, a sexy lift of one shoulder that drew his attention to her soft-looking skin.

“Because you seem as out of place here as I am.” She paused. “Except you're not a stranger to town or to this family.”

Out of place. That one comment summed up his entire existence lately. How had she figured him out when no one else ever could?

“I need to leave,” he said, immediately uncomfortable.

“What you need is to relax,” she countered, and stopped him with one hand on his shoulder. “Let's dance.” She playfully tugged on his tie.

He glanced over to where the rest of the family gathered next to the dance floor. “I'm not really interested in making a spectacle.”

“Then we won't.” She slipped her hand in his and led him to the far side of the house beneath an old weeping willow tree.

He could still hear the slow music, but he could no longer see the dance floor, and whoever was out there couldn't see them. She tightened her hold on his hand and he realized he'd better take control or she'd be leading him through this dance. He wrapped an arm around her waist, slid his other hand into hers, and swayed to the sultry sound of the music coming from the band.

A slight breeze blew through the long dripping branches of the tree. She shivered and eased her body closer to his, obviously in need of warmth.

He inched his hand up her bare back. “Cold?” he asked in a gruff voice as her body heat and scent wrapped around him.

“Not anymore.”

He looked into her eyes to discover an awareness that matched his own, glanced down and caught sight of her lush lips. As they moved together to the music, warning bells rang in his head, but nothing could have stopped him from settling his mouth on hers. The first touch was electric, a heady combination of sparkling champagne and sensual, willing woman. Her lips were soft and giving and he wasn't sure how long their mouths lingered in a chaste kiss they both knew was anything but.

His entire body came alive, reminding him of what he'd been missing in the two years since his divorce. That this woman could awaken him both surprised and unnerved him. It made him want to
feel
more. He trailed his hand up the soft skin of her back and cupped her head in one hand. With a sweet sigh, she opened for him, letting him really taste her for the first time. Warmth, heat, and desire flooded through him.

“Oh, gross! Just shoot me now!” Tess exclaimed in a disgusted voice.

Nash jerked back at the unwanted interruption. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, the annoyed words escaping before he could think it through.

“Looking for Kelly. What are
you
doing?” She perched her hands on her hips, demanding an answer.

Isn't it obvious?
Nash shook his head and swallowed a groan. The kid was the biggest wiseass he'd ever come across.