Chapter Thirteen
Faith watched Jamison and Jake step outside with a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Great. Just when she needed a little brotherly support, her surrogate siblings decided to take a walk. Why they were going outside when it was barely above freezing Faith had no idea—they didn’t smoke and it wasn’t that loud in the ballroom yet—but it was just her luck lately.
“Are you sure you want another cookie?” Neil asked, glancing dubiously at her midsection, making Faith see red as bright as his cheesy bow tie.
Faith had rock hard abs, had run seven miles that morning, and more than earned a couple of cookies. But even if she hadn’t, it wasn’t Neil’s place to police her food intake. Her body was hers, and she didn’t appreciate Neil or any other man thinking he had the right to tell her what to do with it. Even Jamison got on her nerves when he teased her about having chip belly, and she knew he was totally kidding. But she was sensitive when it came to stuff like that. She’d grown up watching her mom give men power over every aspect of her life—tying herself in knots to please the man of the moment—and Faith refused to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
She was her own person, and she liked that person. She was happier alone than her mother had ever been with her string of losers, and Faith’s dates with Neil had only solidified her intentions to stay that way. Alone. Happy. And safe from the kind of blood-pressure-spiking antics of guys who thought it was okay to tell you your triceps were “too big for a girl’s” when your job necessitated upper body strength to save lives.
Saving lives, blockhead—because there are more important things than being weak and fragile so that insecure jerks like you won’t feel threatened.
“I mean, that cider probably had two hundred calories,” Neil continued, oblivious to that fact that Faith’s hands were curling into fists at her sides. “You don’t want to carb load on top of that.”
What she wanted was to aim one of her fists at Neil’s eye and see if she could blacken it in one blow; instead she forced a smile and said, “It’s a special occasion. I think the food police should take a night off.” Faith pointed a finger at the refreshment table. “I want one of the chocolate chip ones with walnuts.”
“But I’m allergic to walnuts,” Neil said.
“Then it’s a good thing you won’t be the one eating the cookie, isn’t it?” Faith asked in a syrupy voice, pushing on before Neil could offer any more of his irritating opinions. “I’m going to run out to the car and get my purse. Be back in a few.”
Faith aimed herself at the door Jamison and Jake had exited a few minutes before. She hadn’t brought a purse—purses were a pain in the ass, and she only carried one when she absolutely had to—but she figured that was as good an alibi as any to explain her disappearance while she went hunting for the boys.
She needed out of here—ASAP.
She was never going to make it through a single dance with Neil, let alone the three she’d promised herself she would. Nine hundred dollars on the line or not, she couldn’t stomach another night in that dip-wad’s company. If he wanted to complain and his gram wanted to demand a refund, then they could go right ahead and do it. Faith was stick-a-fork-in-her-and-call-her-ready-for-Christmas-dinner done.
With any luck, Jamison would be feeling the same way, and she could sweet talk him into leaving now. If all went well, she’d be back at her apartment in her flannel pajamas, with her cat, Captain Snugglepants, cuddled in her lap before the clock struck eight.
Faith emerged into the frigid air and immediately crossed her arms, huddling against the cold, cursing women’s fashion. The guys got cozy tuxedo jackets; the women got sleeveless gowns. It was ridiculous, and yet another item on Faith’s long list of “Reasons it Would Suck Less to Be a Dude”
“Jamison? Jake?”” she called out, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness before picking her way along the paving stones to the single gaslight burning at the center of the garden. She kept going past the pool of warm yellow light to an arbor covered with dormant grape vines curling up its sides, but there was still no sign of the Hansen brothers.
“Shit,” Faith muttered, shivering under the arbor. It blocked the wind, but it was still freezing out here. She couldn’t stay outside for long.
The boys must have decided on a longer walk, or circled back around to the front door to rejoin the festivities. Either way, she’d missed them, and now she was going to have to go back inside and make nice with Neil for another ten or twenty minutes.
Rationally, Faith knew that wasn’t long, but the irrational, Neil-chafed part of her rebelled at the thought of another second in Mr. Simpson’s company.
And so she was still shivering under the arbor, torn between longing for the comforting warmth of the ballroom, and gratitude for the comforting lack of Neil out in the cold, when a decidedly masculine shadow emerged from the ballroom to step out onto the garden path.
Faith knew immediately that the man wasn’t Neil—the shadow had broad shoulders, but a clearly defined neck, whereas Neil looked like his fat head had been fused directly onto his body. The shadow also had narrow hips, long, strong-looking legs, and a hint of a swagger. Neil didn’t swagger. Neil waddled like a cranky bulldog. This man walked like a professional athlete, someone with such confidence in his body’s ability to perform that he glided through life, oozing sex and high self-esteem.
As the man started down the path toward her, awareness flickered through Faith, warming her chilled skin, and surprising the hell out of her in the process.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been attracted to a guy, but it had to have been more than a year. She’d broken up with her first and only boyfriend, Eli, at a Halloween party the year before and hadn’t dated anyone since.
She had high standards—impossibly high to hear her mom talk—and refused to compromise them. Faith knew what she wanted in a man and wasn’t willing to settle for anything less. She understood that meant she might spend the rest of her life alone, but she was fine with that. Almost as fine as she pretended to be around Jake and Jamison…
She had urges like everyone else, but she wasn’t the type to get silly over a guy just because he had broad shoulders, or a nice body, or a confident strut. Or all three. Especially before she’d even gotten a look at the broad-shouldered, nice-bodied, confident-strutting man’s face.
Faith warned her libido that the guy coming toward her could have chewing tobacco sores in his mouth or a butt picking habit. He could be a creepy mouth breather, or a sociopath, or a cocky jerk every bit as obnoxious as Neil. But the mental simmer-down talk did nothing to cool Faith’s flushed cheeks. She was still warm all over and buzzing in places that hadn’t buzzed in ages, when the man stepped into the gaslight’s glow and the shadows concealing his features faded away.
“Mick Whitehouse?” His name burst from her lips in a tone every bit as incredulous as she felt. Faith slapped a hand over her mouth, mortified by her outburst, but it was too late. Mick’s gaze had already shifted her way.
“Faith Miller. There you are.” He laughed—a little uncomfortably Faith thought—before ambling toward the arbor “My sister saw you head out here and asked me to come check on you. You okay?”
Was she okay?
No, she was not okay! She’d just been feeling frisky feelings about a guy she’d known since she was in kindergarten, a boy she used to pound on in second grade when she was going through hell at home and he was the only person in her class smaller than she was. These days, Faith was a respectable five eight and one-hundred-and-fifty pounds of pure muscle, but back in elementary school she’d been the runt of the litter.
Except for Mick Whitehouse, the shortest boy in class, all the way until graduation five years ago.
Mick Whitehouse, who had obviously done quite a bit of developing and lifting of heavy things since then, who had grown into his big, goofy grin and whose smile now made things low in Faith’s body flutter.
But Faith knew she couldn’t say any of those things. Ever.
“I’m fine,” she said, doing her best to keep her teeth from chattering. “I’m just hiding from Neil.”
“Ah, I see.” Mick nodded, casting a glance back at the ballroom as he stopped in front of her, close enough for her to smell the sugar cookie and clove scent clinging to his tux. It was a homey smell and shouldn’t have made Faith’s flutters any worse, but it did, ramping up her awareness of the man Mick had become, proving her body was in a state of full-out rebellion.
“Naomi told me about Neil,” Mick said, sending another zing of awareness coursing through her as his big blue eyes met hers. “He sounds like a hairy asshole.”
“The hairiest asshole ever,” Faith said, laughing as she wrapped her arms tighter around her body, determined to get a hold on herself. “Actually, he’s more like a dingle berry clinging to the hairy asshole. Wouldn’t want to give him too much credit.”
Mick laughed, a sexy rumble that did nothing to help Faith with the “getting hold of herself” thing. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
Faith shrugged and exhaled a puff of crystalline fog, wondering why the question hurt a little. “I don’t know. I guess not.”
“Here, take my coat,” Mick said, shrugging out of his tuxedo jacket and swinging it around her shoulders before she could insist that she didn’t need it. “You’re turning blue around the edges.”
“Thanks.” She paused, looking up at Mick, still trying to wrap her head around the fact that she had to look up at Mick Whitehouse. Senior year, he’d barely come to the bottom of her chin.
“You certainly have changed, though,” she continued, motioning up and down with one hand before she tucked her arm back inside his coat. “When did you do this whole…turning into a giant thing?”
Mick smiled. “Freshman year of college. I grew six inches in ten months. I was a human string bean. Took me all of sophomore year to eat and exercise enough to put any muscle on, but I finally managed.”
Boy had he managed…
“Well, it looks good on you,” Faith said, careful to keep her tone friendly, just a casual compliment from the girl who used to shove him off the monkey bars in elementary school.
Which reminded her…
“Sorry for pounding on you back when we were kids,” Faith said. “I don’t think I ever apologized for that, and I should have.”
“Afraid I’m going to take my revenge now that I’m the bigger, stronger one?” he asked, stepping closer, a teasing twinkle in his eye that made Faith smile no matter how hard she tried not to.
“No,” she said, rolling her eyes, acutely aware that Mick had joined her under the arbor and was now standing less than a foot away. “I just wanted you to know I’m sorry. I was going through some crappy stuff back then and I took it out on you, and that wasn’t right. So maybe I’ve been too hard on Neil. Maybe I’m the asshole.”
“You’re not the asshole,” Mick said softly, brushing a hair the wind had whipped into her lip gloss back over her shoulder, making Faith’s heart lurch and her throat feel tighter than it did before.
“Yes, I am,” she said. “I was just thinking that I could probably still take you down if I had to. Even if you do have fifty pounds on me.”
Mick’s eyebrows lifted, and his smile grew wider. “I’d say more like sixty or seventy. I weigh in at two ten on a good lifting week. Even with those gorgeous arms, you can’t be more than a hundred and fifty.”
“It’s not good manners to talk about a woman’s weight,” Faith said, the “gorgeous” part of his comment flustering her more than she would have liked.
“It is when you’re trying to convince her she’s not in the same weight class you are.” Mick braced one hand on the arbor above Faith’s head, his face so close to hers she could smell the mulled cider on his breath. “And that she shouldn’t start something she can’t finish.”
“Oh, I could finish it,” Faith said, lips tingling from the electricity crackling in the air between them. “Don’t underestimate me, Whitehouse.”
“Never. I’ve heard all about you, Miller.”
“Oh, yeah?” Faith asked, voice so breathy she barely recognized it. “And what have you heard?”
“Enough to know you’re probably going to punch me if I kiss you right now,” he said, pushing on before Faith could talk her heart down from where it had lodged in her throat. “But you’re standing under the mistletoe.”
Faith’s eyes flicked up to spy a sprig of mistletoe dangling from the top of the arbor, the sight sending her heart diving down to collide with her flipping stomach.
“And your pal Neil just stepped outside,” Mick continued, cupping her face in one big hand, sending a rush of heat spreading from his warm skin to every inch of her body. “And I’m not the type to let a chance to kill two birds with one stone slip through my fingers.”
Faith opened her mouth to protest—to tell Mick she didn’t kiss people she didn’t know, or hardly knew, considering that until tonight, she hadn’t spoken more than six words to him since grade school—but before she could get her tongue to cooperate, Mick’s tongue was slipping between her lips.
For one crystal-clear, breathless moment, time stopped. Something deep inside of Faith stilled, paralyzed by the recognition that she had never felt like this, never had a man’s kiss ignite something combustible at her center even as it sent sweet, easy warmth spreading through her chest like molasses. It was a moment of enlightenment, brief but powerful, rocking her to the core before the fireworks exploded.
And there were sparks of light dancing in the air around Mick’s face, in the vines above their heads, in the pockets of darkness at the edges of her vision. Even when Faith’s eyes closed with a moan, her arms wrapped around Mick’s shoulders, and she kissed him back with everything in her—tongue sparring with his as his arms drew her closer and his heat warmed her from head to toe—the night was still sparkling.
Sparkling. Like too much champagne, like a hundred cameras flashing at once. Mick’s kiss was dizzying, blinding.
None of the sweet, respectful, perfectly acceptable kisses she’d had in the past could compare to this, to feeling like a door had opened in a guarded part of her and Mick was walking inside, seeing all the dusty corners and childhood fears and secrets Faith did her best to keep concealed. She felt exposed, but helpless to close the door he’d opened. Because closing the door would involve pulling away from Mick, and that was…unthinkable.
She didn’t ever want this moment to end. She wanted to stay right here, marooned on an island of kiss-generated warmth while the rest of the cold world spun on without her. For the first time in her life, Faith knew what people meant when they said they’d been swept off their feet. She had been swept, so completely swept that by the time Mick finally pulled away her head was spinning and her body floating with all ten toes still on the ground.
“He’s gone,” Mick said, his breath coming faster and his arms still tight around her, holding her so close Faith could feel the strong planes of his body pressed tight to hers.
“Who?” Faith asked, blinking once, twice, hoping it might help banish the fizzy haze clouding her thoughts.
“Neil,” Mick said, but it still took a beat for Faith to remember who Neil was and why she should care.
“Oh, right,” she said. “Well…good.”
“Great,” Mick said, squeezing the curve of her hip with one hand, the touch so intimate and possessive that it helped bring Faith back to her senses.
She stepped back, untangling herself from Mick’s arms, welcoming the sharp gust of cold, thought-clearing air that rushed in between them.
This was crazy. Mick Whitehouse hardly knew her, and he certainly didn’t respect her. If he did, he wouldn’t have assumed he had the right to kiss her—mistletoe or no mistletoe—and certainly wouldn’t have run his hands over her like she was property that belonged to him when he hadn’t even so much as asked her out on a date. She should be livid with this man. Her hands should be balling up, ready to teach him some respect with a swift sucker punch to the gut.
Instead, she was still tingling all over, achy and needy and wanting nothing more than to be back in Mick’s arms. She wanted him to pull her tight against him and kiss her senseless all over again. She wanted him to put his hands wherever he wanted—do whatever he wanted to do to her—as long as he kept making her feel like she was sparkling from the inside out.
Faith wasn’t scared of much—not burning buildings, or mean dogs, or meaner people, even those twice her size—but suddenly she was scared to death.
This must be how her mother had felt, all those times Pressie Miller had been so gone on a guy she’d let Faith’s welfare take a backseat to the man of the moment. This craving for more of a man’s touch was why Pressie used to feed Faith at four o’clock and send her to her cramped room by five-thirty so her daughter wouldn’t be underfoot when Hank or Ron or Pete got home. This was why it took Pressie six months and catching Hank in the act to believe Faith when she said that Hank hurt her when her mom wasn’t around, that he pinched her arms and legs and told her he wished she would get lost and stay lost, that he wished she had never been born because her mama would have been better off without a burden like Faith hanging around her neck.
“Faith? Are you okay?” Mick asked.
Something in his voice made Faith believe it wasn’t the first time he’d asked, but she couldn’t seem to get her mouth to move. She was too horrified, terrified by the realization that she was her mother’s daughter, after all, as pathetic as the woman she had spent her life struggling not to become.
Mick put a gentle hand on her shoulder, but Faith shrugged it off with a swift whip of her hand.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice tight as she stripped off Mick’s tuxedo jacket and held it out to him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his handsome brow knitted with concern, making no move to take the jacket.
He looked even more tempting with his lips puffy and his dark curls mussed from where she’d driven her fingers through his hair while they were kissing, Faith thought, disgusted with herself for noticing.
“Nothing, I just have to go,” she said, giving the jacket a shake, indicating that he should take it.
“Listen, if this is about the kiss,” Mick said, still not reaching for the coat, “then I’m sorry. I just wanted Neil to get the message to back off and…I wanted you to know that I like you.”
Faith frowned. “You like me? You don’t even know me.”
“Sure I do,” Mick said. “I know you’re funny and interesting and different than any of the other girls around here, as well as one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.”
Strong.
She wasn’t strong. She was weak, as weak as her mother, and she couldn’t stay here with the man who had made her realize it another second.
“Sorry, I’m not interested.” Without another word, she dropped Mick’s jacket to the ground between them and darted from beneath the arbor, moving so fast she was halfway down the path when Mick called out.
“Why not?” he asked, starting after her. “Can I at least call you? Can we go out for coffee or something and talk about—”
“I don’t talk,” Faith threw over her shoulder, rounding the gaslight at the center of the garden and aiming herself for the ballroom. “And I don’t date. Ever.”
“Never?” Mick asked with a laugh, obviously not understanding that this was no laughing matter.
Faith stopped, spinning back to face him to make sure he got her message loud and clear. “Never. So don’t call me, don’t think about me, don’t even look at me sideways if we run into each other on the street. Got it?”
“What about straight on?” Mick asked.
“What?” she asked, a scowl pulling at her face.
“If we run into each other on the street, can I look at you straight on?”
“I’m not kidding,” Faith said, pointing one accusing finger at the arbor. “That never should have happened, and it’s never going to happen again.”
“Never is a long time.” The humor vanished from his expression. “Especially to go without another kiss like that,” he said in a low, husky voice that made Faith’s traitorous body start to tingle all over again. “I can’t remember the last time a kiss made me feel like that, and I know you felt it, too.”
“Like I said, you don’t know anything about me.” Faith stood up straighter, determined not to show any more weakness tonight. “Goodbye, Mick.”
She turned, grabbing the door handle and hurling herself into the warmth of the ballroom, ignoring the fact that the night seemed colder than it did before.
Colder than back before she knew what she was missing, before Mick Whitehouse set her to sparkling and blew her happy, simple, single-and-loving-it world apart.