The Sweetheart Bargain (A Sweetheart Sisters Novel) (16 page)

She laughed and dodged the towel the second time. “Truce! Truce! I mean that in a good way.”

Just like that, she had eased the mood, tugging him out of the dark place with her light touch, her lyrical voice. He dried the glass and tucked it away. This felt good, better than anything he could remember in a hell of a long time.

“A good way, huh? Well, that definitely strokes my male ego.” And more, but he didn’t say that out loud. Just being around Olivia did a lot more than pump up his ego.

“Well, maybe I should change tactics. I wouldn’t want you to get a swelled head,” she said.

“Might be too late for that.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, her teasing tone saying the exact opposite. “I’ll try to behave.”

The innuendos thickened the tension between them, raised the temperature in the small kitchen. He didn’t want this moment to end. Didn’t want her to leave.

“You know, I might not be very good at cooking lunch or dinner, but I can make a hell of a breakfast,” he said. “If you’re ever in the mood for an omelet, you know who to call.”

“Oh, really?” She had finished the dishes and turned, putting her back to the draining sink. “Do you deliver?”

He shifted closer to her, his gaze dropping to those tempting lips, then her breasts, then back up to her eyes. God, he wanted her, and all the sass and fire that came in this enticing package of Olivia. “Oh, I do, but my delivery area is very, very limited.”

“Well, that might be a problem.” She raised her chin, her mouth so close to his that her words whispered across his skin. “Exactly
how
limited?”

“Just upstairs.” He thumbed toward the ceiling, then took another step, enough to bring him within touching distance. “Though properly motivated, I can be swayed to deliver a plate next door.”

“That’s good to know, because sometimes I get cravings for omelets at the oddest times,” she said. “And I assume you’d expect a tip?”

“Only if the service is outstanding.”

“I suspect”—she took in a breath, her chest rising and falling, her gaze locked on his—“that it would be all that and more.”

Desire rushed through him, igniting parts of Luke that had gone dead ever since the accident. He reached up to brush her hair away from her face, telling himself to keep his distance, not to complicate her life. Instead, he drew her closer, until their mouths met and he was tasting the sweetness of Olivia Linscott. She let out a soft sound, curved into him, and opened her mouth against his. Her tongue slipped into his mouth, sending a racing fire through his veins. His erection pressed against his jeans, a painful reminder of how long it had been since he’d been with a woman. God. Damn.

The urge to take her upstairs, to take her to his bedroom and make love to her for the rest of the day, the whole night, until they were both exhausted and spent, rose inside him, fierce, fast. Her pelvis pressed against his, a sweet, agonizing pressure that threatened to undo him.

Then she reached up, her hands coming up to cup his face. Her fingertips brushed his scar, and though it didn’t hurt, it sent a shock wave through Luke. He jerked back. What was he doing? He was a man who destroyed things, who hurt the ones he cared about. Who let people down.

Who got them killed.

And a woman like her deserved so much more than Luke Winslow could ever give.

As if on cue, Chance scratched at the door. “Your . . . your dog needs to go out,” he said, then cleared his throat and made himself say the next words. “And you should go.”

The moment of silence told him the harsh words had hurt her. He refused to feel bad about that. He was doing her a favor. Maybe someday she’d see that and breathe a sigh of relief that she’d dodged a destructive bullet.

“Yeah, I agree,” she said. The light warmth had faded from her voice. “It’s past time for me to get back on my side of the fence.”

He stayed where he was until he heard the door click. Then he turned to the wall, pulled back his fist, and let it fly. His fist exploded into the plaster, and for one brief second, he felt relief. Then the pain hit him all over again.

Like a familiar friend who had overstayed his welcome.

Ten

Every time Olivia thought about Luke’s hot-and-cold response, she told herself she didn’t need a man like him in her life. Right now, she wanted uncomplicated. Easy. A man who would take her to bed, then leave in the morning, without any messy emotional connections or morning-after regrets. And Luke Winslow was anything but easy.

That didn’t stop her from looking out her window every five minutes to see if he was crossing the divide between their properties. Or wondering if she had misread his signals.

Hadn’t she learned her lesson when her marriage went south? Scott had been the kind of guy every mother would choose for her daughter. A respectable doctor, intelligent, handsome, soft-spoken. A good man, she’d heard dozens of times before she married.

The ring had barely lost its wedding-day luster before she realized that good man was also a womanizer who had married her because she completed his image, the perfect portrait of a respectable family doctor building his private practice. She’d been nothing more than one more achievement to hang on his wall. A trophy on his arm that he could trot out to patients and colleagues as part of his local-boy-makes-good picture.

If she ever got involved with someone else, she’d be the one calling the relationship shots. She wouldn’t be so quick to trust, so blind to shortcomings, and definitely not so fast to open her heart.

Despite the long, hard day of working on the house, sleep refused to come that Saturday night. Olivia tossed and turned, alternately sweating, then freezing, covers off, covers on, and when she did doze off, her dreams were filled with images of Luke.

Sunday morning dawned, and by the time her second cup of coffee kicked in, Olivia had decided she would steer clear of Luke Winslow. She’d come here for answers, for closure, and getting busy with the neighbor didn’t bring her either. Every time she was around him, he brought her dangerously close to the very precipice she’d vowed to avoid. The one where she leapt without thinking. She’d done that with the move here, and look how
that
had turned out. No more thoughts of Luke. She’d focus instead on the reason why she was in Rescue Bay—for answers about Bridget.

She sat at the kitchen table, fingering the butterfly necklace, and staring at Diana’s business card. Below the office number, she’d listed an emergency contact number.

Her cell rang, dancing across the kitchen table with the vibrations. Olivia scrambled to pick it up, then balanced the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she grabbed another cup of coffee. After her sleepless night, she needed an IV drip of caffeine. “Hello?”

“Olivia?”

The unfamiliar voice jarred Olivia. She’d expected Anna’s daily call. “This is her.”

“It’s Dr. . . . uh, Diana. Your sister? Uh, and vet.” The words came out hesitant, unsure, with more questions than answers. The feeling echoed in Olivia’s chest.

“Hi. I’m glad to hear from you.” Olivia clutched the phone and tried not to let her eagerness explode across the cell connection.

A pause, a bit of silence, then, “I was just wondering how Chance was doing.”

“Great. He’s great.”

“Good. Glad to hear it.” The line hummed for a moment. “I was wondering if you could . . . well, the office closes at four tomorrow. Mondays are our early day, and, well, anyway, I was thinking”—Diana paused—“maybe you’d want to chat for a little while after work.”

Olivia hadn’t realized how much she’d hoped and prayed for Diana to say exactly that until she heard the words. Her sister—and the key to the mother Olivia had never known. “I would love to talk with you,” she said. “My last appointment should finish by three, so that works out great. Do you want to meet somewhere? Have some dinner?”

“I don’t think this is a conversation for a restaurant. We could meet at my office, but there’s always an intern or someone around, checking on the animals,” Diana said. “I think this should be . . .”

“Private,” Olivia finished.

“Yes.”

“We could meet here, if you wanted. That way you could see Chance, too.”

Diana agreed, though she sounded reluctant, and Olivia wondered if she’d made the right move. After all, the inheritance of the house had to be a sore point for Diana. But it was too late—the offer had been made.

“I’ll see you Monday, then,” Diana said, and then she said good-bye and hung up the phone.

Olivia finished her coffee, then took a walk around the house, hoping maybe some elves had come in while she was sleeping to finish the myriad of projects. No such luck. So many things undone, so many things yet to do. With Diana coming over on Monday, Olivia wanted to pull off a renovation miracle, if only to show her sister that she was taking care of their mother’s legacy. But her sore muscles and achy back threatened to stage a mutiny if she so much as picked up a hammer. “Miss Sadie, what we need is a few hours off. You up for a ride?”

Miss Sadie yipped, then raced to the door, sitting her butt down to wait, tail swishing against the floor. Chance lurched to his feet and Olivia gave him a sympathetic smile. “Oh, buddy, I don’t think you’d like spending the day riding around in the car. I hate to leave you here alone.”

Her gaze went to the window, to the gray bungalow next door. Maybe Luke would watch Chance for her. It might be good for the dog, who could use some socialization. Yeah, right. She wasn’t attaching a leash to the dog and bringing him next door because she wanted to see Luke again for a little socialization of her own. Yeah, not that at all.

She climbed his porch and was about to knock when she heard the sound of the back door opening and the screen door slamming shut. Chance perked his ears up, then clambered down the steps and around the side of the house, with Olivia tagging behind. Luke stood in his backyard, his back to her.

He had on khaki shorts and a faded red T-shirt. Her gaze landed on his legs—strong, defined, muscular, with heart-shaped calves—and took its sweet time rising. She could almost feel his skin under her palm, the firmness of those thighs against hers . . .

Chance nosed Luke, and he turned around, then looked at her. She jerked her gaze to his face, with a little flicker of guilt at being caught checking him out.

“Hey,” he said.

Not much of a greeting, but then again, they hadn’t had much of a good-bye the last time they’d seen each other. She put on a face that she hoped said she didn’t care that he’d shoved her out the door so fast, there were skid marks on his kitchen floor. “I hate to bother you, especially after yesterday, but I needed someone to watch Chance. I wouldn’t ask if I had anyone else to take the dog. Believe me.”

“I know you rightly think I’m a jerk, but trust me”—he took a few steps forward—“I was doing you a favor.”

She arched a brow. “A favor? Really? Where I come from, that kind of thing is called rude.”

“I was saving you from a bad relationship.”

“Who said I wanted a relationship?” She parked her fists on her hips and tried to pretend being this close to Luke didn’t affect her. Didn’t make her want him to kiss her again. For God’s sake, she was only here to drop off the dog.

He closed the gap between them and dropped his gaze to her mouth. “You have
relationship
written all over you. You’re a settle-down, bake-a-pie-in-the-fall kind of girl.”

She snorted. “Not anymore. That didn’t get me anywhere but divorced.”

He arched a brow. “Do I detect a jaded tone in your voice?”

“Honey, I’m so jaded, you could color me green.”

His eyes, his thoughts, all remained hidden by the sunglasses. But a simmering heat seemed to fill the space between them when those dark frames locked onto her eyes. “Don’t you know what it does to me when you call me
honey
?”

“It was just a—”

“You flip this little switch inside me,” he went on, coming even closer to her, until she caught the scent of his cologne, could see the tick of his pulse in his neck, “that makes me forget all the reasons why I should stay away from you. This little switch that makes me want to scoop you up, carry you to my bed, rip those clothes off you, and taste every single, solitary inch of your body.”