CHAPTER FIVE
“What on earth are you doing here?” April asked, peeking around the corner of the barn.
Maggie startled. She pulled the flimsy gauze shawl a little tighter around her shoulders. When night fell in the Texas Hill Country, even in April, unless you were dancing or drinking, you were cold.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Maggie said stiffly. “I’m hiding.”
“Oh, is Walter here?” Her sister stole around the side of the barn and then leaned against it with a sigh. “I can’t remember. Did Cass invite him?”
Maggie made a face. Walter Mitchell had a crush on her. He wore plaid collared button-downs, played the flugelhorn and collected pet rats. Everyone in Cuervo thought the way he followed her around was hilarious.
“I’m hiding from the best man,” Maggie said. “That guy Jake. I can’t stand him.”
“Jake?” April’s face registered shock. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Why would I be kidding? Oh, because what woman on earth doesn’t want a guy who looks like that?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I’m rolling my eyes,” Maggie said. “You can’t see me because it’s dark out here, but I’m rolling them just the same.”
“Okay, you do know who is he, right?” April had that dreamy look, which always worried Maggie because it usually led to talk about boys. As the youngest sister, April was the “romantic” one, Cassidy was the “sweetly shy” one and she, Maggie, the oldest, was the “hard-eyed realist.”
“What do I care who he is?” Maggie said. “He’s annoying. And he tried to have sex with some woman in the laundry room.”
“Lucky woman,” April said cheekily.
Maggie tried not to remember the moaning. “Okay, who is he then?”
April rubbed her hands together in apparent glee. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Jake. Sutton.”
Maggie’s grip loosened at the edges of her shawl. “Are you sure it’s not just some guy named Jake Sutton?”
“Jake Sutton, the one and only, accept no substitutions. As in Sutton Farms brand foods, Sutton Property Development, Sutton Global—”
“What’s Sutton Global?”
April shrugged. “Cyber security, maybe?”
“Doesn’t he own a newspaper, too?” Maggie asked faintly.
“Right—the Daily Reporter. Second largest paper in Texas.”
Maggie gave an involuntary little shiver. Of course she knew who Jake Sutton was—who didn’t? She’d seen his photo a thousand times, but hadn’t put it together, especially since in person he was so much more…
Virile.
“Does he seem quite so annoying now?” April teased. “Or would you prefer Walter?”
“Oh, please,” Maggie said. “This is crazy. Just because I spend all day in a bakery making snacks doesn’t mean I want to be one.”
April frowned in apparent confusion.
“Dating is like McDonald’s,” she explained, “and guys like Jake are always at the drive-thru.”
Of course, a good-looking guy like Jake, a guy who would never dream of settling down, who wanted nothing more from her than that didn’t sound so bad right about now. It had been…she tried to remember the exact amount of time since her last—what did you call it, a romp? A sexy adventure? But it was too embarrassing to even think about. Plus, she wasn’t the kind of girl who just did that kind of thing. At least not with someone she didn’t know.
Was she?
“Okay. No snacking,” April said. “But will you at least dance with the guy? Mom says it’s time to start the dancing. That’s why she sent me to find you.”
Maggie gazed woefully at the pavilion. She’d already spent hours hobnobbing and smiling and hostessing. But every time she turned around, Jake was there. Even when he was surrounded by people, which was pretty much all the time, he had this sixth sense for when she might be looking at him. Then their eyes would meet and she would feel this stirring deep inside, like a cat waking up and stretching its legs. But she didn’t like cats. It had been years since she felt anything stirring, but even so, never like this. Never where she went weak in the knees and her mouth was dry and she couldn’t remember what she was saying to people who then gazed at her pityingly as though she had a mental condition.
If danger signals were bells, her bells were ringing.
The pavilion glowed softly under a tent of string lights. They hung from poles draped in billowing white silk and shed their warmth on the tables and flowered centerpieces and her cake, which had been rolled out on a trolley. Cassidy and Mason were chatting and laughing with their guests, clearly at ease, clearly happy. But the rest of it felt like a trip to the principal’s office. And now she had to dance with Jake Sutton.
Before the night is over, you’re going to kiss me.
What if she did? She was being pulled in two—her brain shouting no, and her body… She couldn’t even think the word. But like it or not, the fact that billionaire playboy Jake Sutton had even given her the time of day was kind of delicious. Maybe she could have just a little bit of fun. A very teeny tiny amount of harmless adult enjoyment with… No, it was out of the question.
See, this was exactly why she needed to deflate this balloon now, right now, before it got any bigger.
“All right,” she said, rolling her shoulders back. “Let’s do this thing.”
* * * *
In Jake’s experience, there were three things your average Hollywood starlet never did: eat, laugh or engage in any activity that involved sweating. Well, maybe one sweaty activity. But only if something could be gained from it, like an introduction to a casting director or a diamond tennis bracelet. It tended to make him a little cynical.
Okay, a lot cynical.
There wasn’t anything authentic about women like that.
But as he watched Maggie cross the pavilion toward him, her obvious dread had the strange and opposite effect of charming him. Here was a woman who couldn’t be anything but authentic. She wore her heart on her sleeve.
He liked the fact that she was tall and moved with such feminine grace. He liked that she didn’t dye her hair. He liked knowing that underneath that silly pink bridesmaid number she had a lot going on. Real breasts. Real hips. Legs that probably went on forever. That idea generated its own heat.
The last woman he’d kissed, just this afternoon in fact, had so much goop injected into her lips, it was like kissing a beach ball. Not that she wasn’t beautiful and exciting and every inch a woman. She just wasn’t…what was that word again? Authentic.
Maggie came marching up to him in all her fiery glory. Her eyes, dark and distrustful, met his, and again he got the impression that she hadn’t come willingly. He didn’t care. The urge to touch her, to pull her close, was just too irresistible. When was the last time he’d been so electrified by doing something he hated doing, such as dancing?
He nodded appreciatively when the music began. Etta James’s “At Last.” Hey, Mason knew his classics.
Maggie gave him her hand. He liked the feel of it, feather-soft and unadorned. Her only jewelry appeared to be the pearl earrings all the bridesmaids wore. There was intense satisfaction in slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her close. Palm-to-palm, he swayed her gently to the music, the scent of her perfume rising and mixing with the heat of her skin.
They weren’t the only ones on the dance floor—all the bridesmaids and grooms had been herded out here—but it sure seemed like he and Maggie were alone. Jake was used to having his radar out at all times, taking in information, looking for problems, assessing his odds.
Right now, all he saw was her.
“If I weren’t afraid you’d accuse me of resorting to flattery, I’d tell you how beautiful you look.”
“Ah, but see, pretending you’re not flattering me doesn’t mean you’re not flattering me,” she replied. She seemed very sure of that. Also a little confused.
“Let s face it, Magdalene. You hate weddings.”
“No, I don’t.” He wondered if she got that bland, insufferable look every time she lied. He kind of liked it.
“Of course you do.”
“It was hot. We were in a barn.”
“Oh, come now. Weddings are bullshit and you know it. You’re better than that. You’re better than Cuervo.”
That surprised her, he could tell. Her eyes were still wary, but there was a searching quality to them that he recognized: radar. He used radar himself to suss out integrity in an employee or a business partner or to gauge whether an owner might drop his asking price. But in his experience, you didn’t develop radar unless you’d gotten pretty burned.
“You have a lot of crazy ideas,” she said. “You may think it’s pathetic, but I happen to love my life here.”
“So you want to spend the rest of it frosting cupcakes and wearing a hair net? Gotta tell you, princess, it’s not your best look.”
The muscles under his hand went taut. Uh-oh. Was it Mason who’d told him once; Jake, sometimes you really should just shut the fuck up.
“I’m sure you think women should just hang out all day in heels and a thong,” she said testily.
“Too distracting. How would I get any work done?” He imagined her in heels and a thong. Now that was worth thinking about. It fired his blood in ways that made standing close to her a problem. If she felt anything banging up against her, she’d run like hell.
What could he do? He hadn’t had this problem since junior prom when Angela Berglomini’s bra strap broke during a slow dance, which was, come to think of it, a lot like this one.
“So with the whole world at your feet, you decided to stay here?” he asked. “Ever been out of Texas, Maggie?”
He could tell before she opened her mouth that he’d struck a nerve. Again. “Summer trip after high school,” she said. “Me and my friends. California, Arizona and New Mexico. I actually lived in New York City for six months when I studied pastry making.”
Now the image in his head morphed from her wearing heels and a thong to her wearing heels and a thong and bending over to pull something hot and delicious out of the oven. He was pretty sure that was the single most regressive, chauvinist thing he’d ever come up with. If she knew, she’d rightly punch him in the face. But Christ, it turned him on. What were they talking about?
“When I cook,” he confessed, “I’ve been known to use the smoke detector as a timer.”
He was surprised to feel her suppressing a giggle. His spirits took an uptick. It had never occurred to him that Maggie could giggle. Now that she had, he wanted more than anything to make her giggle again.
If he could piss her off and make her laugh? How wasn’t that progress?
Meanwhile, she was warm and supple in his arms and her hair smelled like peppermint. A crescent moon hung in the night sky, which was vast and clear and full of stars. As a boy working on his uncle’s farm, he remembered nights such as these when the air itself seemed alive with promise. Uncle Marty would take him and his brother Dillon night hunting for feral hogs down by the Sabine River. He had that same feeling of keenness now, of racing excitement.
“You don’t come to Cuervo that often, do you?” she asked, gazing up at him with those magnificent eyes. “I mean, aside from Mason and my sister, there really isn’t anyone you know here, is there?”
He was confused by the question, but it was hard to focus when her lips were so close. Plus, the song had ended, the dance floor was filling up, and he hated crowds.
“Let’s take a walk,” he suggested.
She hesitated, that bitable lower lip caught between her teeth. His heart beat a little faster as he waited for her to decide. He didn’t know a lot about Maggie, but he’d figured out at this point not to sweet talk her. She’d clearly had plenty of that in her life. No way was she buying it now.
She glanced around and then gave him a faint smile.
Bingo.
They headed toward a gazebo surrounded by a moon-drenched garden full of silver ghost roses. Maggie kept darting glances at him like maybe she needed to make sure he wasn’t going to try anything funny.
“I grew up in Texas,” he said, trying to win her over. “A place called Palestine. Not exactly as charming as your Cuervo, though. Being here reminds me how fast life changes.”
“Ah ha. So that’s why you think we’re all a bunch of hayseeds. Because not too long ago, you were one yourself.”
And she comes out swinging. “I said you hated weddings, not that you were a hayseed.”
“I don’t hate weddings.”
“The hell you don’t.”
She pulled her shawl around her defensively. “Okay, maybe I’m a tiny bit allergic.”
“Allergic to the point of almost passing out?”
Her startled expression was its own reward.
“Poker,” he told her. “Not your best game.”
They reached the gazebo and climbed the steps. The yearning to touch her pulled at him again, stronger this time because now he’d gotten her alone.
“It’s complicated,” she said. “Maybe I don’t love weddings, but I do love my sister. And it’s not true that I don’t belong here.”
“Oh, so you don’t crave adventure, Magdalene?” She sat down on a bench and he slid in beside her, half-hidden in the shadows. “There’s nothing weird about a beautiful woman like you hiding out in a town the size of a parking lot?”
He wasn’t trying to sweet talk her. But usually when he told a woman she was beautiful, she would smile coyly or deny it so he’d say it again. Maggie didn’t blink. She wasn’t even his type—“skinny, blond ice queens” his brother, Dillon, called them. The brother he hadn’t talked to in years. Yet here he was thinking Maggie might be one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.
“You make it sound like I’m doing something immoral,” she said. “I’ve worked hard to build my business.”
“Maybe there was a guy who done you wrong.” He propped one leg over the other, leaned back and crossed his hands behind his head. “A woman like you never winds up in a place like this for no reason.”
“And a man like you doesn’t steer a woman like me out here alone for no reason,” she said in a way that had his senses tingling.
He let his gaze wander over what he could see of her in the darkness. All around them were the high-pitched calls of the spring peepers and the quieter chorusing of crickets. Music drifted over from the pavilion, which suddenly seemed as though it were miles away. He saw the outline of her thighs in the gauzy dress and heard the huskiness of her voice. It was intoxicating.
“I got you out here because I mean to kiss you,” he said.
She leaned away from him, facing the interior of the gazebo, bracing her weight on the palms of her hands. It had the unsettling effect of arching her lower back, which was one of his favorite places on a woman. All he wanted to do was brush his lips there.
“Do you think I should do it?” she asked. Her tone might have been teasing, but her eyes weren’t. Her eyes were testing him for the truth. Lies. Weaknesses.
He went with the truth. “If the kiss is good, I’ll want more.” Lazily, he ran a long spiral of her hair through his fingers. Watched it spring back. Heard her breath quicken. “We’ve already established that I’m not boyfriend material. And that you hate weddings. So we can get all those silly expectations out of the way.”
“Do you promise to behave horribly?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “And to never do anything that will cause me to like you? Not even a little bit?”
“I promise,” he said, and every molecule of his body leaped like a wall of flame.
That alone should have alarmed him, but it didn’t. He was too focused on the way her breasts rose and fell inside the neckline of her dress. He wanted her naked and waiting for him in his bed, all that long dark hair flung across his pillow. He wanted to taste her.
When she licked her lips, need punched him in the stomach. She’d cast a spell over him without meaning to, without even caring. A tiny voice inside his head warned him not to do it, that kissing this woman would send him down a road he’d sworn he would never set foot on. But it was already too late.
She gazed directly at him, a heavy-eyed, almost insolent look which made the flames of his personal damnation rise even higher.
“So what are you waiting for?” she asked.