Chapter 13
“You have to learn to pace yourself, Audra,” Kane said, holding her bound wrists in one hand so he could pin them to the mattress. “There’s no reason to rush.”
“But I have to make up for lost time,” she said, pouting a little and squirming under his naked body. “Now that I no longer have to settle for ‘selfie Os’ as you call them.”
He couldn’t help but grin down at her. Audra Montgomery, talking about selfie Os. Of course, he shouldn’t be talking about any kind of Os with Audra Montgomery, particularly when they were both without clothes. But there were only so many revelations a man could have in one day and still keep his distance from a sexy and willing woman resolved to knock an item off her list.
Earlier that evening he’d put out a fire, determined the direction of his future, and acknowledged he’d fallen in love.
When the woman who’d knocked him head over heels grabbed the back of his pants before letting him follow Birdie, Gordon, and his sister Amber out her door, he’d known he’d have to be made of strong stuff in order to resist her.
Then she’d dangled the tie of her bathrobe in front of his face.
In her shower, as he’d washed away the smell of smoke clinging to his hair and skin, he’d tried to talk himself out of taking her to bed again. There were good reasons to resist.
Selfish reasons, the kind that he was the very best at heeding.
But when she’d joined him, stepping under the spray, he was lost.
Soon enough she’d be lost to him, back in LA and on to the next phase of her life, so he’d told himself another night with her wouldn’t hurt. After all, the state of his heart was already a given.
But it was torture, knowing there was a limited number of kisses left. That each was one fewer he’d have from those beautiful lips. That there weren’t days and nights of lovemaking in store for them, but just hours before she’d go and he’d be back to his lonesome, lonesome life.
“Now who’s the one staring?” Audra said.
He cupped her jaw in his free hand and lowered his head to hers. “Just memorizing this beautiful face, baby.” His lips brushed hers, back-and-forth caresses that made her squirm again.
“Give me what I want,” she demanded, lifting to press harder against his mouth. She slid her tongue across his lower lip until he relented and let her in, groaning as she filled him with her sweet taste.
The kiss went from heated to fiery and Audra slid one slender thigh over him, tilting her hips up in fervent demand.
He lifted his head, panting. “Baby, didn’t we agree to make this last?”
“But we have all night, Kane,” she said. “So we can do it again and again and—”
Laughing, he cut her off with his palm over her lips. “You’re ambitious.”
“Yes,” she said from behind his fingers.
“And optimistic.”
“Yes,” she said, then in a quick move tipped her chin in order to pull one of those fingers into her mouth.
“Oh, God.” His eyes would have rolled back in his head if he didn’t want to see her suck on him like that, filing the visual in his brain to bring out during future solo pleasure. His gaze remained avid as she released his finger only to draw her flattened tongue along his palm, leaving it lavishly wet.
“While I’m all tied up,” she said, “maybe you could show me what you do with that hand when you’re all alone.”
Oh, God. A monster had been created. “Audra—”
“You’re the one who brought up selfie Os.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Kane.” That lower lip of hers punched out and he could see the pleaser had turned the corner and now expected to be pleased, instead. “I want—”
“I know what you want,” he said roughly, and began crawling down her body toward the heaven between her thighs. “But I’m saving all my Os for you.”
It was a good thing she was going back to LA. Because with anything less than a hundred miles between them, he thought, breathing in the heady scent of her arousal, he’d never allow anyone else orgasm-close to Audra.
In the morning, he found the willpower to resist an offer of room service for breakfast and another round of sex for “second breakfast” as Audra suggested with a teasing smile. No, he’d insisted on taking her to the resort’s dining room for a seat at a public table while properly clothed. They were almost finished with their meal—eggs, bacon, and toast for him, fruit and waffles for Audra—when a cleared throat caught their attention.
They both looked up, but it was Audra who nearly squealed in happiness. “Lilly!”
Kane stood to greet his second cousin Alec and the spitfire brunette who’d caught the other man’s eye at the resort not long before. They’d gone from dancing around each other to dancing between the sheets and then to commitment in such a short time it had at first surprised Kane—but didn’t any longer. As he now well knew, love didn’t dawdle and it sure as hell didn’t ask for permission.
Kane bent to kiss Lilly’s cheek and then reached for Alec. The other man shook his outstretched hand then pulled his own back, shaking out his fingers as if Kane had squeezed the life from them. “What’s put a deathly grip in you?” he asked, then glanced at Audra.
Kane ignored the question, both explicit and implicit. He was supposed to be weaning himself off Audra—starting right now—and talking about her with his cousin/best friend who was as close as a brother would not get her out of his head or his heart. “What are you doing here?” he asked, to redirect the conversation.
“Tomorrow is somebody’s birthday celebration,” he said. “And Lilly wanted extra time to catch up with her BFF.”
The two women already had their heads together, mouths moving a mile a minute.
“Seems like they won’t come up for air anytime soon,” Kane observed.
“That leaves me and you,” Alec said, “to pass the time together.”
Kane didn’t like the gleam in the other man’s eye. “Then let’s go hunt down Amber and Jessie. I’m sure they’ll want to see you.”
His sisters managed to be maddeningly elusive for once. So he and his cousin took up space in the shade of an umbrella by the main pool and Kane kept up the conversation and kept it away from what—who—he didn’t want to talk about by telling his cousin first about the minor fire the night before, then the job offer from the eco-resorts people, and finally his decision to stay on with the family company.
Talking about it felt good to him, hearing it out loud again and the way he actually warmed at the thought of it let him know it was the right conclusion. With a new satisfaction, he watched a father and a couple of school-age kids set up camp at the other end of the pool, by the shallow beach entry.
He glanced around to make sure the resort lifeguards were in place and felt himself smile when the two kids leaped into the water with fierce shrieks of glee. The dad watched them, grinning, and Kane felt more warmth fill his chest. He got to be part of this.
Though he wouldn’t have Audra, he got to be part of this making of happy memories.
Then he became aware that Alec was frowning at him. “You’ve been struggling with this life decision for some time and you never said anything?” the other man said.
He shrugged. “You know me, I’m not much of a talker.”
“You’re not,” Alec agreed, his voice quiet. “Especially since we lost Simon.”
Kane swallowed, all the warmth inside him going out on a tide of pure sadness. “He was your brother.”
“As close as one could be to you, too.”
“Yeah.” Kane looked down at his hands, remembering the brother of another mother who’d been their ringleader, their cheerleader, their ringmaster. The man who would still walk among them if not for a drunk, wrong-way driver. “Fuck, Alec.”
“Sometimes that’s all we can say about it.”
Silence stretched between them that his second cousin finally broke. “But he’s gone and we’re family. You should talk to me when you have a need.”
“I don’t—”
“You should talk to me when you have a need.”
Kane tried to sneer, automatically on the defensive. “I think your mom read us that book around the campfire while we ate s’mores. You’ve got to be a friend to have a friend. Something like that.”
Alec sighed.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Kane said, and rubbed his face as if that could ease the sudden rush of guilt. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“And there it is.”
Kane’s hands dropped and he turned his head slowly to look at the other man. “What?” he asked, wary.
“That other big dilemma you’ve been grappling with.” He paused. “Or should I say that beautiful blonde you’ve been grappling.”
“I never mentioned it.”
“The one that’s the cause of your lack of sleep.”
“I never mentioned anything about that either.” Audra was not long for Kane’s world and talking about her wasn’t going to change a thing.
“That call I made to warn you she was looking to make some man fall in love with her—”
“Forget about that call.”
“Should I have warned Audra instead?” Alec asked quietly. “Upon reflection, she was talking a good game about getting her mojo back by breaking some guy’s heart, but she was in a very vulnerable place. Still is, I’m sure.”
Kane made fists, then spread out his fingers again. “I’d never hurt her. And she knows all about me.”
“Yeah?”
“Hard-to-Hold Hathaway. She’s called me that.”
“Okay.”
“She knows I said I’ll never fall in love.” Though that was before he did, damn it.
“Because you’re too selfish.”
“Right.” He stared out at the pool, noting the woman with the little towhead in a stroller was back. She joined the father and called out to the pair playing in the pool. That’s what Audra was going to have, in LA. There she’d find a man who would be a loving husband and textbook perfect father, something he knew nothing about.
“Love,” Kane grumbled. “What the hell is it, anyway? A man like me shouldn’t even believe in it.”
Alec snorted. “A man like you?”
Kane had half-forgotten his cousin was sitting there. “What’s that mean?”
“You believe, cuz. How could you not?”
In the distance, he saw Audra and Lilly strolling in their direction, and when he saw the blonde was smiling he had that feeling again. Sunshine in his pocket. Happiness on her face made him happy. God. Kane Hathaway, happy.
He watched the pair get closer and closer, and drank in Audra’s form, another memory to keep forever.
“Oh, yeah, you believe in love,” Alec said, his voice for Kane’s ears only. “A guy who thinks a pinch of salt will keep the devil away and that a rabbit’s foot can bring good luck…yeah, he knows there’s magic in the world.”
He glanced over at his cousin and his knowing expression, remembering why he tried to keep his superstitious side a secret. Over the years, though, Alec had seen him skirt an open ladder or two.
Well, if Kane believed in love then he had to believe he’d survive it. One hundred days, he decided. A day for every mile that measured the distance she would put between them. By the end of a hundred days he’d be over her.
Lilly practically danced up to Alec, her wavy brunette hair as lively as the rest of her. She was talking a mile a minute as he pulled her down onto his lap. “What are you jabbering about?” He smiled and tucked a wayward lock of curling hair behind her ear.
“Audra’s going to start her own floral business.” She threw a smile at her friend. “Which will make her deliriously happy and I know she’ll be wildly successful.”
“That’s great,” Alec said.
“Not so great for me, though.” Lilly went from smiles to a frown in a heartbeat. “I’m losing her as my usual lunch date.”
“You can meet her outside the company cafeteria any time you want,” Alec said, kissing her temple. “No big.”
“No, I can’t. And it’s a hundred-mile big.”
Wait. What?
Kane glanced over at Audra, who watched her friend with a bemused expression. Then, as if she sensed him staring, her gaze switched to him.
Boom. Bang. Crash. The sounds of home truths colliding in his brain.
Over the noise of his personal disaster, he heard Lilly’s excited voice. “Audie’s starting her business here. In Santa Barbara.”
He shot from his chair, so fast the thing fell over and startled several finches from nearby shrubbery. Hyper-aware of the puzzled glances he was getting, he yanked out his phone and pretended to receive an important text.
“Gotta go,” he muttered, then gave Audra a last swift look before striding off.
One mile, one hundred miles. One day, ten years.
Kane was never going to get over her. Never fucking ever.
But a man had his pride and neither she nor anyone else was ever going to find that out.
On the couch in Audra’s bungalow, her brother Connor stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankle, his expression skeptical. “You just keep believing that, Pollyanna.”
She frowned at him, then downed the last of her first coffee of the morning. “Dad said. He told me Mom was going to be fine with me quitting the family company, moving a hundred miles north, and starting my own business.”
“Did you hear yourself just now? Especially the part about moving a hundred miles north?”
“It’s part of the plan,” she said. “I’ve done some preliminary research and it looks to be a good location to establish myself. Not too big a city but with lots of opportunities to ply my new trade.” Okay, the preliminary research might better be classified as rudimentary, and though she’d delve deeper, it already just felt right. And she did trust the opinion of Marie Stillwell, Kane’s florist for the resort.
Kane. When she’d floated the idea of a floral business, he’d been all for it. Then, when Lilly had blurted out the day before that Audra had decided to locate said business in Santa Barbara, he acted like he’d been scalded. His escape had been so rushed the bottoms of his shoes had practically left skid marks.
The man wasn’t in the market for a girlfriend. She knew that. Hadn’t she coined the nickname Hard-to-Hold Hathaway herself? But with the news that she was settling in his city, he’d obviously jumped to the conclusion that it was because she wanted more of him.
Okay, because she did want more of him.
Connor stood, crossed to the mini fridge, and began rummaging through the offerings. “You think I’m here at oh-too-early just to see if you have any of that iced tea I like? I was planning on sleeping in, but Mom called and arm-twisted. I’m supposed to encourage you to go back home. If you want to start a business, it will be better on familiar turf, she said to tell you.”
“See?” Audra jumped to her feet and threw out her arms. “That’s why I have to move. I love her dearly, but she’ll smother me before I’m thirty. She probably hopes I’ll move back in with her and Dad.”
Connor straightened, one of his coveted teas in hand. “I quote here—‘Moving home would be a cost-saver for a budding entrepreneur.’” He grinned. “God I love being the sibling that screwed up over and over. She’s happy as long as I’m not in jail or in the hospital and God forbid I ever move home and she has to witness my life firsthand.”
“You didn’t screw up. You made your own choices, damned the consequences, and somehow always came out on top.” Audra sighed. Con got all the brash Montgomery genes, while she’d spent as much time second-guessing as making an initial decision in the first place.
Like maybe she should go back to LA and restart her life there.
A little chill sent her scurrying to the bedroom to find a hoodie. Connor idly followed her, sipping from his can of iced tea. As she grabbed the garment from where it had been flung over a chair, her brother stiffened, then crossed to one of the nightstands. “What’s this?”
She glanced over, froze, then tried concocting a fib her brother would believe as to why a man’s money clip was on the table beside her mattress. As she frantically ran through several admittedly flimsy excuses, she saw him finger the few dollar bills that were folded over a couple of unused, foil-wrapped condoms.
It was Kane’s money clip, of course, that he’d left there the night before last, following the fire. After he’d doused the flames, he’d told her he was staying on at the resort and not leaving for that other job. Riding on the excitement of ducking near-disaster and maybe not exactly expecting but just kinda hoping for more from him beyond their casual sexcounters, she’d persuaded him back to her bed.
That she was in love with him, of course, had gone unsaid.
Would go on going unsaid, given that she now clearly knew he wouldn’t welcome that from her.
Connor wagged the money clip between two fingers. “I won’t bother advising you against getting too serious about anyone at this juncture…”
Audra swallowed.
“Jumping into something with someone you barely know is not what a smart, responsible person would do.”
“You might,” Audra said, stung. While she knew Kane wouldn’t welcome her feelings for him, that didn’t mean those feeling weren’t real, despite their short acquaintance. “You very well might jump into something, Con. Tell me I’m wrong.”
His mouth twisted. “You’re not wrong. But that’s how I roll. Face it, both Mom and Dad would lose their minds if their just-left-at-the-altar daughter, the ever-obliging and always-sensible sibling of the family, believed herself serious about a man so short a time later.”
“But doesn’t the left-at-the-altar business prove that months and months of knowing a person, as well as being engaged to a person for months and months, means you actually might not know a person no matter how much time passed? That time is not—”
“Audra.” He tossed the money clip back to the night table and shook his head. “Are you trying to tell me that mere days after a broken engagement you fancy you’re in love with this near-stranger? Come on, that’s not like you. Clearly, you don’t know your own mind.”
Her ringing phone interrupted her next salvo in what she could foresee was an unwinnable argument with her big brother.
Lilly calling. They’d spent yesterday and last night together and she’d heard all about the other woman’s future plans with Alec, while keeping mum about Kane. But now she needed to talk and swiped to accept the call.
“Hey—” Lilly began.
“Sofi Tukker, ‘Best Friend,’” Audra interrupted.
A short pause. “Does it count that we know that one from a phone commercial?” Her voice sounded amused.
“Lilly…” She needed a sympathetic ear and she needed it right now. “Please, I’m serious.”
“Okay, Audie, all right.” Her tone lost its lightheartedness. “You want to meet me at the lounge?”
She smiled in relief. By paraphrasing the lyrics, Lilly proved she understood the emotional moment Audra was describing when naming that song. “Yawp.”
In the lobby, her best friend held a steaming coffee in each hand. Upon passing one over, Lilly shot her a quick look, taking her in from head-to-toe. “I can’t believe I’m saying this to Audra Montgomery, woman who rarely makes a misstep—but what have you done?”
She fought not to cringe. Was falling in love written all over her? “It’s that noticeable?”
“You’re wearing two different flip flops.”
God, she was. But she couldn’t go back to her room in case Con was still there and hanging in the resort’s public spaces in mismatched shoe-wear wasn’t what she wanted either. “Let’s walk on the beach,” she suggested, and Lilly nodded.
Once their feet hit the sand, her best friend had one word. “Spill.”
So, as they walked along the wide, pristine beach, Audra did, from mistaking Kane for Mr. Jones to finding that the plumber/hotelier was the man for her. The one who rang all her bells. The one with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life, though he wouldn’t welcome those feelings, it seemed.
After a few beats of silence, Lilly drew in a long breath, let it out. “Okay. We can fix this.”
“We can?” Audra gazed on her loyal wingman since college freshman year with renewed appreciation. That fast, Lilly had a plan for Audra. A plan for Audra to have Kane for her own. Yay! “How so?”
“You’ll use your head!” the other woman practically yelled.
Audra jolted back.
“You don’t love this man. You love the non-selfie Os.”
Blushing, Audra suddenly wished she hadn’t shared that part.
“It’s not just sex.”
“It is. And if it’s not, you’re going to decide it’s just sex. You tell your brain and the rest of you will follow, Audra, because you’re a considerate daughter and a wonderful friend and you would never do this to us.”
“What wouldn’t I do to you?”
“Pine after a player like Kane Hathaway. He’s handsome as sin, I’ll give you that, and I believe all his sexy bona fides, but you won’t put the people who love you through the ringer of watching you angle for more disappointment. Not after what just happened. Jacob surprised us all by turning out to be a jerk. But we know Kane Hathaway hasn’t a serious, stick-with-one-woman bone in his body. We already know this.”
“But—”
“God.” Lilly shook her head. “I was worried for him for like five minutes that he’d be that misgivings-guy you were planning on snapping in two, but this is far, far worse.”
“Lilly—”
“Promise me,” her best friend said, grabbing her hand. “You are going to forget about this man before…before…”
“Before what?”
Lilly squeezed her fingers until they hurt. “Before the emotional moment is best described by The Wreckers’s song, ‘Leave the Pieces.’”
In which the singer implores the object of her affections to leave behind the shards of her broken heart.
The toot of a horn had them both spinning around. A utility vehicle was churning through the sand in their direction, its cargo area stuffed with stacks of white wooden folding chairs. Amber Hathaway sat behind the wheel while her sister Jessie rode shotgun.
They slowed beside Audra and Lilly. “I hope we didn’t startle you,” Amber said. “We’re all-hands-on-deck and running behind on a wedding setup.”
“A second round of the flu is cutting a swathe through the staff,” Jessie added.
“I can help,” Audra offered, without even casting a glance at Lilly. She still loved her BFF but she wanted to avoid a drawn-out discussion of what the other woman considered to be a dead-end romance with Kane. Hopping onto the running board of the vehicle, she smothered a pang of guilt. “See you later, Lil.”
It didn’t take long to realize for whose wedding she helped unfold eighty-seven chairs. Amber and Jessie found it quite charitable of Audra considering bride-to-be Tracy Smith had doubted whether she could get their brother into a dating relationship.
Which, of course, Audra hadn’t.
But the sisters had heard about the encounter, proving true what Kane had told her about hotels being a hotbed of gossip. “She deserved to be taken down a peg or two,” Amber said now, “for trying to rub her impending marriage in Kane’s face because she was mad he broke up with her.”
“I know,” Audra agreed, feeling more than a little stabby herself, thinking about it. “Especially when he’d been honest with her from the beginning that he was only looking for casual. I understand her being disappointed, but…”
Jessie grimaced. “But the be-yotch decided to hit him in his weak spot…a direct shot to that superstitious streak he avoids owning up to.”
“He told you about it then?” Audra asked the sisters. “The curse?”
“We were there when she announced it,” Jessie said. “It was on Kane’s birthday four years ago.”
“But…but…today is Tracy’s wedding day—and also his birthday.”
“Yes,” Amber said. “And don’t think for a second that’s the least bit coincidental. She’s marrying on the anniversary of the day she put a hex on our brother.”
Jessie folded her arms over her chest. “She stood up at the dinner table where he was surrounded by friends and family and said, in this scary and dramatic voice—”
“‘I curse you to be alone the rest of your life,’” Audra finished for her.
“I have no idea whether he truly believes in it or not, though.” Jessie shrugged. “Because he’s always been committed to bachelorhood anyway.”
And then Audra remembered Kane’s own words. I’m no long-term bet.
Meaning that she, Audra, was cursed as well.
Whether she loved him or not, he would never see a future for them.
Finally, finally it was truly sinking in. Kane had been honest with her from the beginning too, right? Then Con had said it, followed by Lilly, and now his sisters. There would be no Audra and Kane no matter how much she didn’t want that to be true.
On leaden legs, she continued with the task at hand. Then, with the wedding venue prepared to the Hathaway sisters’ satisfaction, they urged her to hop aboard for a return to the resort. Audra opted to stay behind and took a seat in the last row of chairs, her gaze focused on the ocean framed by a wedding arch made entirely of driftwood. She wallowed in her dark mood.
That turned even darker when a battered black dirt bike made its way through the sand toward her. On it sat Kane, looking beyond cool in worn jeans, T-shirt, and a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses.
He looked dangerous and beautiful and unattainable and longing welled inside her even as she tried to tamp it down. She remembered his hand on the back of her neck, his whisper against the skin of her throat, his amusement when they discussed DIY videos. The way he’d praised her flower-arranging in front of her parents.
His concern about what that sigil on his back might mean.
I’ll be discontented all my days.
Audra figured, now, that would be her.
He braked a few feet away. “Hey,” he said with a lift of his chin.
She gave him a jaunty salute, and she hoped it was jaunty enough to cause him to overlook her lack of speech. A damn lump in her throat made that impossible.
“You’ve been having fun catching up with Lilly?”
She nodded. Why was he staring at her like that? And why was he so good-looking and how could she have forgotten that she steered away from the glamorous playboys? Everyone knew they never wanted to settle down.
I’m no long-term bet.
Silence settled between them, both awkward and tense. Audra considered a swim, a flee down the beach, a primal screen.
Then Kane’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “God, Audie, I wish you wouldn’t cry.”
She twitched, and put her hand to her face. Tears. When had that happened?
“He’s not worth it,” Kane said gruffly. “That jerk-off doesn’t deserve one iota of your attention or pain.”
Staring at him, she tried to figure out why he was speaking of himself in the third person.
“I’m sure this,” he jerked his head in the direction of the driftwood wedding arch, “reminds you of that day you were left waiting, but that dickhead shouldn’t get any more of you, you understand? Not your thoughts, not your time, not your tears.”
Oh, he thought she was weepy over Jacob, she realized, instead of the ending of what she’d hoped was the beginning of the two of them, of Kane and Audra.
“It hurts,” she croaked, and clutched her hands to her frozen throat. Maybe she was coming down with something. Or maybe a terminal case of lovesickness started here, robbing you of speech before it robbed you of the happiness you’d thought you could always believe in, the happiness that somehow would find you even if you took a wrong path or two.
That reward for always doing the right thing. Being the good girl.
More hot tears stung her eyes and Kane cursed. Then he hung his head to swear in the direction of his knees. Finally, his head came up again, those mirrored lenses aimed her way.
“I’m in love with you, Audra.”
She jolted, rearing back in the chair and rocking up the front legs. Wh—? Her lips moved without sound.
He shoved one hand through his hair. “Alec told me that’s what you think it will take to get your spirit back—a man with misgivings falling at your feet so you can stomp all over his heart.”
Audra stared, going hot, cold, hot as he shoved the sunglasses to the top of his head and she saw the mix of sincerity and unhappiness written all over his face.
“So it happened, even though I didn’t think it could,” Kane continued. “Even though I didn’t want it to.”
He hauled in a breath. “I love your crazy TV shows and the kindness you showed Birdie and Gordon. I love your loyalty to Lilly and your strength when facing down your ex. I love the beautiful things you create with your hands and the vision you have for your future. I love your body and the idea that you wear sinful underwear beneath a ladylike dress. That you have the sweetest damn mouth that makes me feel like doing the most wicked things. I love the way you care about your parents and your brother and you have a cat named after a dried penis-wearing Viking warrior maiden. But mostly I love…the scent of your hair at the nape of your neck and the fact that you never want to eat out alone. God, I want that for you…for you to always have a companion to fulfill your every need and to have your back and to hold your hand. I want you to find that man.”
But it wouldn’t be him. That’s what he was saying. Frowning, she sat forward. “Kane…” she croaked.
“Don’t talk. Let me finish.” He rubbed his eyes, then looked at her again. “So here are my misgivings, just to assure you it’s the whole package. I didn’t think I could fall, but I did. But the falling doesn’t change that I can’t be everything for you. I don’t have the forever gene. I’m the opposite of a pleaser, Audra. I’m a please-me. I’m too selfish to make you happy, but I find I’m honest enough to embarrass myself with this confession.”
“Kane—”
He held up a hand. “If your spell for a happy future and a whole heart includes one man who learned he could love on the way to losing the woman he felt that for…you got it. You’re healed.”
And before she could form a cohesive sentence, he spun the bike around and was gone, speeding back in the direction of the resort, sand scattering like her thoughts.
Audra couldn’t stay away from the dinner Kane’s sisters had arranged for his birthday. Leaving an empty chair at the table for what was supposed to be a celebration seemed all kinds of wrong. Maybe it was her goody goody coming out again, but she didn’t stifle the urge and instead made her way to the beach where a long dining table was lit by candles and surrounded by flaming bamboo torches.
Her shoes matched this time, strappy flat sandals worn with a flowing sun dress. Her hair had been coiled in a ballerina bun at the crown of her head.
But mostly I love the scent of your hair at the nape of your neck.
She told herself that she hadn’t chosen the style for that reason, but knew it to be a lie.
Maybe she wanted him to suffer a little because she’d be suffering too, knowing about his feelings and yet knowing he didn’t believe he could be her forever man.
He held those misgivings she’d spoken of so cavalierly to Lilly. Was it karmic payback that Audra had fallen for the very man whose unhappiness was supposed to make her whole again?
She had no doubt Kane would stoically watch her walk out of his life and believe it was the best thing for them both.
At the idea of that she wanted to scream and cry and stomp her feet, but Audra Montgomery would never cause such a scene. So, she continued onward toward the party.
Most everyone was already seated. Kane sat at the head of the table and she noted Birdie and Gordon Welch, Lilly and Alec, Kane’s sisters, an older couple she assumed to be his parents—Amber had told her they were expected—and then…
Polly and Lee Montgomery?
Her mother gestured Audra to an empty seat beside hers and she slid into it because it was far from Kane’s and because why were her parents here as well as why were her parents here?
Her mother answered that right away. “We stopped in after our tour of the local wine country—thank you, sweetheart for the recommendation—and ran into Jessie Hathaway in the lobby. She insisted we join the family for dinner since you were going to be in attendance as well. Isn’t that nice?”
“Very,” Audra asserted, darting a glance down the table at Kane. The torchlight made his expression unreadable.
Servers started placing salads in front of them just as her brother Con and a woman who looked a lot like Alec—she was quickly introduced as his sister Jojo—took the last two empty seats.
Audra applied her attention to her plate, letting the conversation at the table flow around her until it dawned that the talk came exclusively from Kane’s parents. They told story after story, about their travels and about their friends, amusing incidents that centered around the two of them.
As the meal wore on, they never questioned anyone else at the table, including their own children.
They’re the type of people who shouldn’t have kids. They didn’t want to put time into it—into us, Kane had said, and she could see the truth of that.
But he must see himself in them, because he’d also told her, just hours ago, I’m too selfish to make you happy.
Audra’s mother leaned close. “We need to talk,” she whispered. “I’m worried about you. I’m worried about this business idea and I’m really worried about the way you look at that young man.”
The impulse to scream and cry and stomp her feet rose up again. “Mom—”
“Audie. You’re in a bad place. It would be best to come home and give yourself time to get your bearings. Relax and regroup among family before making any decisions. It’s the right thing.”
The right thing. The right thing. The right thing.
She wanted to put her hands over her ears because it seemed as if she’d been striving to do that all her life—the right thing—and it never turned out quite as satisfying as promised.
“You’ll see,” her mother said, patting her hand. “We can drive home tonight—it won’t be too late. How’s that?”
She opened her mouth, the pleaser inside her poised to agree. But those three words kept echoing in her ears. The right thing. She’d always believed happiness was the reward for that, but here she was, wretched at the thought of leaving behind the man she loved because it was the right thing.
But was the right thing what her parents, brother, and best friend thought was the right thing?
Or would she have a better chance at happiness by doing the right thing for her?
So far the evening had proceeded about as Kane had expected. The recent reductions in staff due to illness had precluded his sisters from carrying through with anything crazy. They’d all been too busy picking up the slack.
But the food was delicious, the setting unbeatable, and no surprise, his parents were going on in their usual way that didn’t allow anyone else to get in a word. The guest list, however, had taken him aback some.
He’d not thought to see Polly and Lee Montgomery ever again, though they’d thanked him for being included and extended best wishes before seating themselves at the opposite end of the table. Audra sat with them.
His heart had stumbled as he saw her enter the circle of torchlight. She looked cool and untouchable in a pale gauzy dress, her hair twisted on top of her head. It seemed impossible that he’d caressed her creamy skin with his whiskers and clutched at her perfect body with greedy hands.
That she’d let him.
That she’d moaned for more.
The ringing noise of a spoon tapping a wineglass interrupted his thoughts. He looked over, saw Amber stand up and his parents mouths stop moving mid-self-involved anecdote.
“We have a tradition,” the older of his sisters said. “The three Hathaway siblings, I mean. We usually do it privately, but it’s been so busy at the resort we haven’t had a chance until now.”
He nearly groaned, but he didn’t want to dim that smile on Amber’s face.
“On our birthdays, we tell the birthday sib why we’re glad they’re in the world today.”
“I’m first,” Jessie said, standing. “And I’m glad Kane’s in the world today because he’s always supported my choices and laughed at my jokes—even when they’re at his expense.”
He played shaking a fist at her.
She laughed. “And because he’s a model hotelier and a model big brother and I love working with him every day.”
Blowing a kiss, she sat down. Then Amber began her little speech, echoing much of Jessie’s. Warmth filled Kane’s chest, melting some of the cold lump residing there since this morning’s confession on the beach. God he loved his sisters. For the past few hours he’d been trying to talk himself into that eco-resorts job again, thinking life would be less painful far from Audra, but he couldn’t do it. If he couldn’t have her, he could at least have Amber and Jessie and Alec and Alec’s folks, a family that he’d work to fully attach to now. Because it was an imperative to survival.
He’d commit to them and so live easier with what he couldn’t have…a family with Audra.
As the other guests gave their own polite remarks, he nodded and smiled but his focus kept straying to the other end of the table where she sat, her head down. Maybe her lips were moving, he thought. Practicing what she might say?
Then it was her turn and Kane’s breath caught in his lungs as she stood, then slipped from her chair to approach him. He remembered another birthday dinner, four years ago, when a woman he’d been involved with had made her own declaration.
Shit. His body strung tight with tension and he braced for whatever Audra might impart.
“I’m glad Kane is in the world today,” she said, her voice loud and clear, “because he’s the man I’m in love with.”
He jolted, and his heart stuttered in his chest. She loved him?
Audra had made it to his side, and she looked down at him, torchlight gleaming against her pale hair, her eyes trained on him. Her beauty brought a terrible ache to his heart. “Kane Hathaway, I want to be your sunshine and your good luck and…and your wife.”
Wife?
Gasps could be heard around the table. Kane stopped breathing.
“And I know you’ll be everything I need. You’ve already been my handyman and my bringer of light and my generous lover. I don’t know what else any woman could ask for.”
She looked at him expectantly now but his brain was reeling and there was no air coming in and he gripped his knees so he wouldn’t reach out to grab and run away with her. “I…I’m not…”
You deserve better than me.
He couldn’t stop his gaze from sliding down the table to where Jim and Leigh Hathaway sat, looking confused or bored or a little bit of both. See, they’re who I come from. They’re who modeled how to be a spouse, parent, family.
Glancing back at Audra, he tried again. “Look. I…” I’m just like them.
“No,” she said, as if she’d heard his unspoken thought. “You’re not. I’m the one who’s selfish. Because I’m not going to walk away with my head down even if that’s what you think I should do. Even if you think that would make things easier for you and better for me.”
“Audra…” He’d never seen her with that militant light in her eyes and it shook him a little. “Baby—”
“Kane, I’m going to fight for what I want, and what I want is you.”
An uneven breath made its way into his lungs. His thoughts untangled a little, enough for him to realize that every time he’d walked away, every time he’d eased out of a relationship, that no woman had ever fought to hold onto him. He’d been cried over and cursed and cursed at, but not one woman had ever claimed they were going to remain steadfast.
God. God.
Maybe…maybe that’s what he’d needed. What he’d been waiting for. Who he needed to fill that void he’d sensed inside himself.
An angelic-looking, stubborn fighter of a female with a penchant for ghastly murders.
Perhaps he’d kept his relationships shallow because he was afraid of never finding such a one. But here she was.
His Audra. He might be superstitious, but he wasn’t stupid, and giving her up would be just that, stupid.
So he’d hold onto this woman who would amuse, surprise, and satisfy him for a lifetime.
The truth of that took only a moment to sink to the depths of his soul. “Audra,” he whispered, humbled by what she was offering. “Baby…”
Could he really take this chance? I want to be your sunshine and your good luck.
Okay, he wasn’t turning away from that. “Audra—”
“And one more thing,” she said now. “In case you think that ridiculous curse is keeping you from making a commitment to me, I’ve been all over the Internet again and discovered that the number one cure is surprisingly simple.”
He was feeling much more settled now and his lips twitched. “And that is?”
Without a pause, she lifted the full glass at his elbow and upended it over his head. “A purifying water bath.”
He sputtered, ran his hand over his wet face, then reached out and hauled his love onto his lap. “That was dirty.”
“No.” She grinned, then leaned to whisper into his ear. “Dirty comes later.”
He laughed, the sound of it ringing out over the smattering of applause from some of the guests. “I love you. God, so much,” he said, holding her close. “I’ll make you happy.”
Maybe his knuckles grazed the wooden tabletop, but who could blame him?
Then he glanced down the long surface in the direction of her family and Lilly. “But the reality of an us may take some convincing.”
Audra lifted one eyebrow. “You only have to convince me.”
With his mouth on hers, he delivered a kiss he hoped conveyed devotion and gratitude and faithfulness. His head lifted before it could slide into something too lusty for the lookers-on to handle. “Later, baby. But right now…”
Staring into her beautiful face, he felt a niggle of doubt.
And, smart girl, she saw it. “You haven’t forgotten, have you, that you promised to compensate me for that emergency flower-arranging?”
“Yeah.” He smiled a little. “What do you want?”
“An engagement ring.”
His smile widened. The doubts disappeared. She was serious about becoming his wife and it sounded good. Damn good. “We’ll put it on the list.”
“At the top,” she said.
“Where you’ll always be for me,” he replied, then bent his head to kiss her again. Miracle of miracles, Audra loved him.
When they came up for air once again, she beamed at him. “Remember you once told me sometimes you have to settle for the next best thing?”
He touched his forehead to hers. “Yeah.”
“We’re not settling, ever.” She tightened her arms around him. “We’re only going to have the very best thing together.”