Matched, page 11
Will’s guitar was still there, along with a notebook. Bold handwriting was scrawled over half a dozen papers scattered on her couch.
A pang of yearning hit her in the gut beneath where her dinner sat. How cozy would it be to put on a fire, dim the lights, watch for snowflakes and sit across from him while he strummed his guitar, his fingers working magic, his voice rolling over her and into her and through her? To simply be a girl with romantic dreams and a handsome man and the courage to go for it?
Lindsey backed out of the sunroom.
If he’d been someone else, if they had no history, if they had a true chance at a real future, she might’ve stayed. But she didn’t belong in this room with him. With what made him magic.
She didn’t belong with him any more than she belonged with any of the other men she’d dated. She wasn’t meant to have a forever. With Will, she couldn’t even have a for-now.
WILL WAS HALF-LISTENING to Mari Belle’s offers to pray for his better sense to come back since he wouldn’t leave Bliss. Watching Lindsey stare at his guitar like she wanted to touch it was too distracting.
Been a long few days. Started okay, went a little nutty, then flushed itself so far down the crapper he couldn’t believe he’d ever see sunshine again. But then a smidge of light had come in.
A pinprick, but still light. Here, today, in Lindsey’s warm, cheerful home, the pinprick got bigger.
And the music got louder. Wasn’t all pretty, wasn’t all happy, but it was more music than he’d heard in a long, long time.
Had to be the decorations, he told himself. Couldn’t fault her for still having some of that brightness he’d fallen for fifteen years ago. And he could keep the bright separate from the rest of her. Liking her house didn’t mean he’d do anything crazy.
Didn’t mean he wouldn’t be himself around her, but it didn’t mean he’d be dumb enough to get ideas either.
“You listening to me?” Mari Belle said.
“Mm-hmm.”
One of them Mari Belle sighs told him that was the wrong answer.
Lindsey stepped back, and Will looked at the floor.
“I’ve got half a mind to come up there myself to drag you home.”
Will perked up. Maybe she’d bring Paisley. “I can get you tickets.”
Mari Belle huffed.
Girl didn’t like it when he tried to take care of her. None of the women in his life did.
Lindsey crossed past Will and went into the living room, knuckles white around her iPad.
Probably not his brightest idea, putting Lindsey and Mari Belle in the same town.
“What say you get you a ticket and get on home?” Mari Belle said. “Come stay with me a few days. Paisley would be in heaven.”
“Get to meet your friends?” For all the unconditional love Mari Belle claimed to have for him, she put a lot of conditions on him. Like not meeting her friends until she knew if they were worth being friends with.
Apparently he complicated her social life by being him. Probably he should tell her about Paisley’s plans for his show at Gellings. And that Mari Belle’s friends probably already knew about him. But should and would weren’t the same tonight.
“You are the most impossible man God ever put on this whole earth,” Mari Belle said.
Considering what she said about her ex-husband, that one dang near stung. “Love you too.”
He slid a look at Lindsey.
She didn’t bat a lash.
“I’m worried about you,” Mari Belle said. “So is Paisley. Will, I got home, and she was crying. She heard about Vera at school.”
His throat tightened. “Just a guitar,” he said.
“William Brenton Truitt, we all know better,” Mari Belle said. “Come home. We—”
His phone gave a warning beep, then died, cutting Mari Belle off mid-sentence.
And his work phone—the one he used when he took phone interviews or called in to radio stations—had burned up last night, along with his charger.
He looked into the living room. Lindsey was snuggled into one of her oversize couches with a yellowish knit blanket, looking tired, worn and almost dainty despite being near about as tall as he was.
Pink-tipped toes peeked out from beneath the blanket.
There was a lot of girly hidden beneath her tough lawyer girl walk. And Will was ballsy, but he wasn’t one of those perverted types that went digging through a woman’s underwear drawer when she wasn’t home. If she still wore those smiley face panties—his groin tightened, and for once, it brought back some of his better sense.
Her underwear wasn’t his business.
She slid a suspicious eyeball his way like she knew where his brain was going.
He held up his phone. “Battery died.”
“There’s a charger plugged in next to the fireplace.” She dropped her gaze back to her iPad.
He’d been dismissed.
Probably best. Because talking to her, teasing her, being around her felt too natural.
Like if he gave her half a chance, she could suck him into her world again, then crush him again. Exactly as his daddy had done to his momma.
Mari Belle was probably right. He should get out of here.
Instead, he found the cord, plugged in his phone, then settled in to the cozy room.
No cookies or dinner. He wasn’t truly hungry. And fun time was over. Lindsey wasn’t interested. Will couldn’t be. He was here to work on his songs. Nothing more.
Will was feeling too nostalgic about Vera to write, but playing—he could handle playing. He wanted to play. He loved music. It soothed his soul. Always had.
He started slow. Something from the last decade or so, some newer country. Nice and mellow. Brad Paisley’s “Whiskey Lullaby” was a real good start. Good and heartbreaking. Alcohol and death.
He played for himself, but he wouldn’t have minded if the noise bothered Lindsey.
She bothered him just by being there.
He moved on to some David Allan Coe, “You Never Even Call Me by My Name.” Lindsey’s reflection in the back window jolted, her mouth hanging. Will chuckled to himself, dialing up the twang so thick he could barely understand himself by the time he got to that third verse, the one about momma and prison and that ol’ train.
Voices clicked on.
Loud voices, like she turned on the TV to drown him out.
Will grinned to himself and finished the song with a flourish, then switched gears again. Something slower. Steve Wariner’s “Holes in the Floor of Heaven,” one of those sentimental pieces about a man who lost the love of his life.
Had a feeling Lindsey was working up a good bit of mad.
But she still didn’t stand.
Any other woman in the world would’ve been all up in his business, batting lashes and telling him which one was her favorite song. He knew not to trust Lindsey far as he could throw her, but he was still curious. Who was she? What had she done all these years?
Had she missed him?
Dangerous questions, but Sacha was right.
He wasn’t done here.
Truth was, Lindsey had snuck into the front of his mind when he gave in and started working on Hitched. He’d seen her and heard her everywhere those few months. And hearing the brass say those songs—those old, sad, lovesick songs of his youth—were his best ever had made him question if he’d truly grown as a musician, or if he was about to wash up. If his best days had been behind him before his career ever started.
Will changed tunes again, this time taking a few liberties with the chords, though not the lyrics, on Jason Michael Carroll’s “Alyssa Lies,” a good ol’ knock-’em-in-the-gut song about a little girl with bad parents.
He was finishing the first chorus when Lindsey stalked into the room.
“Stop,” she said.
Warmth crept over Will’s ears.
The lady’s eyes were hard and hot, her lips set grim as a reaper, and unless Will was way off the mark, he’d gone and pissed her off real good.
He never was the brightest guy on the block—didn’t have to be with the other gifts God gave him—but he knew he was wading into quicksand over an unstable sinkhole. He clapped a hand over the guitar’s strings, plunging the room into silence.
“Them cookies ready?” he said.
There was a good chance she considered the question grounds for murder. He had a feeling she might’ve been justified, though he couldn’t say why.
“I’m going to bed,” she said, the lethal undercurrents in her voice terrifying in a sultry, seductive, sinful kind of way, though Will had the good sense to know she didn’t mean to be showing her bedroom side, and he didn’t mean to be looking for her bedroom side. “And I swear to God, if you don’t stop with the achy-breaky-twangy crap that’s coming out of this room, I will snap that guitar in half and then light it on fire myself.”
She could’ve probably ignited his guitar strings with one of those looks.
“So… ain’t no cookies?” Will drawled.
Wouldn’t ever be cookies, unless she was thinking about baking his cookies. And he didn’t mean the kind with chocolate chips.
Girl was hot.
In every way she could be.
That right there had a song in it. Something strong. Warrior womanish. A minor key, loud and hard, but with some soft, easy moments. He reached for his notebook, scribbled notes. Words. Chords. No full lyrics, just feelings, a theme, an idea.
His heart thumped, a solid bass drum beating beneath the riff in his head.
He didn’t notice when Lindsey left. He scribbled more, flipped for a blank page, sketched out an arrangement—guitar, bass, drums, fiddle.
After a while, he noticed voices echoing above him, soft, then louder.
He took a gander at the ceiling and listened.
National Public Radio, he’d bet Vera’s strings.
Hell and tarnation.
Didn’t have Vera to bet anymore. And he was a doggone fool to have ever said he would’ve bet any of her for anything.
He set the notebook aside, rubbed his eyes, then went to check the battery on his phone and text Mikey. Got a minute for a song?
Ladies Night at Suckers came back two minutes later. Can be there in 30 if you need me.
Will shook his head at the screen. Something wasn’t right. Mikey should’ve invited Will out. Said they could talk tomorrow.
Offering to leaving ladies night?
Will had a sudden thought, a suspicion so crazy, it made his staying with Lindsey seem sane.
He glanced at the clock. Barely twenty-four hours since they were last at Suckers. Time for Mikey to be moving on to his second phone number, if Mikey was being Mikey.
You sick? Will texted.
Eat shit, buckaroo.
Will scratched his whiskers, sent another look at the ceiling where Lindsey’s NPR was still playing.
He texted Mikey again. Where you staying tonight?
Dude. Ladies Night. Quit breaking my groove.
That was more like Mikey. Will slouched on the couch, glanced at the reflection of the empty couch in the front room. Then he shoved to his feet and went to the kitchen.
He’d get to the music soon enough. But for now, he had something else to do.
Chapter Nine
LINDSEY WASN’T an early riser by choice, but given her case load and her houseguest—who had been awake God knew how long last night—she was showered and dressed before the sun. She had enough drama at work with divorce season dawning. She didn’t need it at home too.
Yep, that was why she was tiptoeing in her dark house, slingbacks dangling from her fingers, barely breathing for fear the noise would alert Will to her presence outside the bedrooms.
But halfway down the stairs, she paused.
A light shone in the sunroom. Either Billy—the ass—hadn’t been to bed, or he didn’t care about wasting energy.
But then she noticed something else.
She sniffed. Then sniffed again.
Her house smelled sweet. Like sugar and chocolate and melted butter.
Like cookies.
She hit the bottom of the stairs and flipped on the light switch over the breakfast nook.
The glow was bright enough to filter into the kitchen, where her counters were spotless, the sink empty except for two cookie sheets in the drying rack. A plate of chocolate chip cookies sat on the table.
Lindsey’s mouth watered.
Her family had never been big on cooking or nutrition, but despite the sugar and TV dinners she fed Noah when he came to visit, she couldn’t eat anything she wanted anymore without feeling it in the fit of her clothes. So she’d been teaching herself to eat healthier, which meant branching out into learning to boil water and watching the occasional Food Network show. She’d mastered the art of oatmeal, and had she not worked late last night, she probably would’ve baked a chicken breast and put it over some leafy greens.
Cookies for breakfast—she shouldn’t.
“They don’t bite,” Will said from the doorway to the sunroom.
For everything else he did loudly, the man could move quiet as a ghost. He padded into the breakfast nook, white socks on his bootless feet, and took a cookie. His sandy hair was mussed, and he’d ditched the overshirt in favor of only a white T-shirt that highlighted the slant of his shoulders and gave her a glimpse of solid biceps and forearms. His eyes sported evidence of an all-nighter, and he smelled like cotton and fresh-baked sugary goodness.
On his way to the fridge he took a big bite, as natural as if he’d been in her kitchen every day of his life, showing off jeans stretched across a squeezable ass. “Not poisoned either.”
He grabbed the milk, then pulled two glasses out of the dishwasher and poured them full. “Eat up, lawyer lady. Don’t want you getting hungry for any babies today.”
He was the only man Lindsey had ever been susceptible to, and he was making it worse this morning.
She sat. Slowly, because now her kitchen smelled like both cookies and breakfast date.
There was sunshine in her kitchen even though the stars were still out.
There had been sunshine in her whole house since he’d stepped into it, even with all the god-awful sounds coming out of his guitar last night, even with the history swirling between them, and she couldn’t deny it.
He put the milk before her, then offered her a cookie.
“Thank you,” she said.
His eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Not a morning person?”
“I’m not a people person.”
“Bet that cookie might could change your mind.”
His grammar had both irritated her and endeared him to her fifteen years ago. Because the corners of his lips always tilted up whenever he said something that would’ve made Lindsey’s grade school English teachers twitch. They still did, as if he knew he was abusing the English language, but he also knew where he came from, he liked talking that way and he didn’t give a good gosh darn what prim and proper people thought.
She’d envied that. For all her talk of what she intended to do with her life, the big things she’d accomplish, how she’d go into politics and save the world, how she’d be so much bigger than a housewife in some Podunk town—he had something she didn’t.
He had personality and talent and inherent charm. He’d been everything he needed to be so he could reach his dream and shoot past it, all the way to the edges of the galaxy.
She’d severely underestimated him then. Consciously.
Subconsciously, though, she had to have known. She’d wanted what he had—his easy grace, his comfort in his own skin, his simplicity.
He was simple. In the best way. He wanted something, and he went for it.
And despite the digs he’d aimed at her, after watching him everywhere else, after hearing her coworkers and friends and family talk about him, she suspected he hadn’t sacrificed who he was to be what he was.
Whatever he wanted from Lindsey this morning, though, it could be neither simple nor easy.
She bit into the cookie.
The world may have gone a bit unfocused, and a moany whimper may have slipped through her lips. Butter and sugar and still-melted chocolate. Goodness and happiness and perfection to start her day.
Lindsey was in love.
With the cookie. Not with the man who made them.
The man who was watching her with amused interest, his gaze lazily focused on her while his lips tipped up in the corners beneath his whiskers.
She swallowed, resisted going Cookie Monster on the rest of the cookie and took a sip of milk instead.
“Like ’em?” Will said.
“They’re okay.”
He laughed softly. “You’re a hard nut to crack.”
“I know very few people who enjoy being cracked.” But if he didn’t quit using those sleepy eyes on her over his chocolate chip cookies, she’d be one of them.
“Notice you’re not getting all objectionable over being a nut though.”
She chose to let that comment pass. Because being objectionable would’ve required using her mouth for something other than eating his cookies.
Will slouched in the chair across from her, still watching her eat. His strong fingers wrapped around his milk glass, veins visible beside the bones of his hand, fingernails short and clean.
His hands had learned her body when they were younger. Learned her body and played her body. Like his eyes, they bore evidence of more experience. A scar on his index finger. Tanned skin. The lines in his knuckles more pronounced.
And he could use those hands for everything from playing his guitar to baking cookies to stroking a woman’s most sensitive parts.
He’d undoubtedly be better now than he’d been then. And she’d had no complaints then.
His lids slid lower, as though he could hear her thoughts. See where her mind was going. That her body was fully onboard.
But they weren’t there. They couldn’t ever be there.
But perhaps—perhaps they could honestly be friends. This time. “I helped with a domestic violence divorce case a few years ago,” she said. “Our client’s daughter almost died. Your song—I don’t like it.”
He inclined his head. “My apologies. Won’t play that one again.”
A pang of yearning hit her in the gut beneath where her dinner sat. How cozy would it be to put on a fire, dim the lights, watch for snowflakes and sit across from him while he strummed his guitar, his fingers working magic, his voice rolling over her and into her and through her? To simply be a girl with romantic dreams and a handsome man and the courage to go for it?
Lindsey backed out of the sunroom.
If he’d been someone else, if they had no history, if they had a true chance at a real future, she might’ve stayed. But she didn’t belong in this room with him. With what made him magic.
She didn’t belong with him any more than she belonged with any of the other men she’d dated. She wasn’t meant to have a forever. With Will, she couldn’t even have a for-now.
WILL WAS HALF-LISTENING to Mari Belle’s offers to pray for his better sense to come back since he wouldn’t leave Bliss. Watching Lindsey stare at his guitar like she wanted to touch it was too distracting.
Been a long few days. Started okay, went a little nutty, then flushed itself so far down the crapper he couldn’t believe he’d ever see sunshine again. But then a smidge of light had come in.
A pinprick, but still light. Here, today, in Lindsey’s warm, cheerful home, the pinprick got bigger.
And the music got louder. Wasn’t all pretty, wasn’t all happy, but it was more music than he’d heard in a long, long time.
Had to be the decorations, he told himself. Couldn’t fault her for still having some of that brightness he’d fallen for fifteen years ago. And he could keep the bright separate from the rest of her. Liking her house didn’t mean he’d do anything crazy.
Didn’t mean he wouldn’t be himself around her, but it didn’t mean he’d be dumb enough to get ideas either.
“You listening to me?” Mari Belle said.
“Mm-hmm.”
One of them Mari Belle sighs told him that was the wrong answer.
Lindsey stepped back, and Will looked at the floor.
“I’ve got half a mind to come up there myself to drag you home.”
Will perked up. Maybe she’d bring Paisley. “I can get you tickets.”
Mari Belle huffed.
Girl didn’t like it when he tried to take care of her. None of the women in his life did.
Lindsey crossed past Will and went into the living room, knuckles white around her iPad.
Probably not his brightest idea, putting Lindsey and Mari Belle in the same town.
“What say you get you a ticket and get on home?” Mari Belle said. “Come stay with me a few days. Paisley would be in heaven.”
“Get to meet your friends?” For all the unconditional love Mari Belle claimed to have for him, she put a lot of conditions on him. Like not meeting her friends until she knew if they were worth being friends with.
Apparently he complicated her social life by being him. Probably he should tell her about Paisley’s plans for his show at Gellings. And that Mari Belle’s friends probably already knew about him. But should and would weren’t the same tonight.
“You are the most impossible man God ever put on this whole earth,” Mari Belle said.
Considering what she said about her ex-husband, that one dang near stung. “Love you too.”
He slid a look at Lindsey.
She didn’t bat a lash.
“I’m worried about you,” Mari Belle said. “So is Paisley. Will, I got home, and she was crying. She heard about Vera at school.”
His throat tightened. “Just a guitar,” he said.
“William Brenton Truitt, we all know better,” Mari Belle said. “Come home. We—”
His phone gave a warning beep, then died, cutting Mari Belle off mid-sentence.
And his work phone—the one he used when he took phone interviews or called in to radio stations—had burned up last night, along with his charger.
He looked into the living room. Lindsey was snuggled into one of her oversize couches with a yellowish knit blanket, looking tired, worn and almost dainty despite being near about as tall as he was.
Pink-tipped toes peeked out from beneath the blanket.
There was a lot of girly hidden beneath her tough lawyer girl walk. And Will was ballsy, but he wasn’t one of those perverted types that went digging through a woman’s underwear drawer when she wasn’t home. If she still wore those smiley face panties—his groin tightened, and for once, it brought back some of his better sense.
Her underwear wasn’t his business.
She slid a suspicious eyeball his way like she knew where his brain was going.
He held up his phone. “Battery died.”
“There’s a charger plugged in next to the fireplace.” She dropped her gaze back to her iPad.
He’d been dismissed.
Probably best. Because talking to her, teasing her, being around her felt too natural.
Like if he gave her half a chance, she could suck him into her world again, then crush him again. Exactly as his daddy had done to his momma.
Mari Belle was probably right. He should get out of here.
Instead, he found the cord, plugged in his phone, then settled in to the cozy room.
No cookies or dinner. He wasn’t truly hungry. And fun time was over. Lindsey wasn’t interested. Will couldn’t be. He was here to work on his songs. Nothing more.
Will was feeling too nostalgic about Vera to write, but playing—he could handle playing. He wanted to play. He loved music. It soothed his soul. Always had.
He started slow. Something from the last decade or so, some newer country. Nice and mellow. Brad Paisley’s “Whiskey Lullaby” was a real good start. Good and heartbreaking. Alcohol and death.
He played for himself, but he wouldn’t have minded if the noise bothered Lindsey.
She bothered him just by being there.
He moved on to some David Allan Coe, “You Never Even Call Me by My Name.” Lindsey’s reflection in the back window jolted, her mouth hanging. Will chuckled to himself, dialing up the twang so thick he could barely understand himself by the time he got to that third verse, the one about momma and prison and that ol’ train.
Voices clicked on.
Loud voices, like she turned on the TV to drown him out.
Will grinned to himself and finished the song with a flourish, then switched gears again. Something slower. Steve Wariner’s “Holes in the Floor of Heaven,” one of those sentimental pieces about a man who lost the love of his life.
Had a feeling Lindsey was working up a good bit of mad.
But she still didn’t stand.
Any other woman in the world would’ve been all up in his business, batting lashes and telling him which one was her favorite song. He knew not to trust Lindsey far as he could throw her, but he was still curious. Who was she? What had she done all these years?
Had she missed him?
Dangerous questions, but Sacha was right.
He wasn’t done here.
Truth was, Lindsey had snuck into the front of his mind when he gave in and started working on Hitched. He’d seen her and heard her everywhere those few months. And hearing the brass say those songs—those old, sad, lovesick songs of his youth—were his best ever had made him question if he’d truly grown as a musician, or if he was about to wash up. If his best days had been behind him before his career ever started.
Will changed tunes again, this time taking a few liberties with the chords, though not the lyrics, on Jason Michael Carroll’s “Alyssa Lies,” a good ol’ knock-’em-in-the-gut song about a little girl with bad parents.
He was finishing the first chorus when Lindsey stalked into the room.
“Stop,” she said.
Warmth crept over Will’s ears.
The lady’s eyes were hard and hot, her lips set grim as a reaper, and unless Will was way off the mark, he’d gone and pissed her off real good.
He never was the brightest guy on the block—didn’t have to be with the other gifts God gave him—but he knew he was wading into quicksand over an unstable sinkhole. He clapped a hand over the guitar’s strings, plunging the room into silence.
“Them cookies ready?” he said.
There was a good chance she considered the question grounds for murder. He had a feeling she might’ve been justified, though he couldn’t say why.
“I’m going to bed,” she said, the lethal undercurrents in her voice terrifying in a sultry, seductive, sinful kind of way, though Will had the good sense to know she didn’t mean to be showing her bedroom side, and he didn’t mean to be looking for her bedroom side. “And I swear to God, if you don’t stop with the achy-breaky-twangy crap that’s coming out of this room, I will snap that guitar in half and then light it on fire myself.”
She could’ve probably ignited his guitar strings with one of those looks.
“So… ain’t no cookies?” Will drawled.
Wouldn’t ever be cookies, unless she was thinking about baking his cookies. And he didn’t mean the kind with chocolate chips.
Girl was hot.
In every way she could be.
That right there had a song in it. Something strong. Warrior womanish. A minor key, loud and hard, but with some soft, easy moments. He reached for his notebook, scribbled notes. Words. Chords. No full lyrics, just feelings, a theme, an idea.
His heart thumped, a solid bass drum beating beneath the riff in his head.
He didn’t notice when Lindsey left. He scribbled more, flipped for a blank page, sketched out an arrangement—guitar, bass, drums, fiddle.
After a while, he noticed voices echoing above him, soft, then louder.
He took a gander at the ceiling and listened.
National Public Radio, he’d bet Vera’s strings.
Hell and tarnation.
Didn’t have Vera to bet anymore. And he was a doggone fool to have ever said he would’ve bet any of her for anything.
He set the notebook aside, rubbed his eyes, then went to check the battery on his phone and text Mikey. Got a minute for a song?
Ladies Night at Suckers came back two minutes later. Can be there in 30 if you need me.
Will shook his head at the screen. Something wasn’t right. Mikey should’ve invited Will out. Said they could talk tomorrow.
Offering to leaving ladies night?
Will had a sudden thought, a suspicion so crazy, it made his staying with Lindsey seem sane.
He glanced at the clock. Barely twenty-four hours since they were last at Suckers. Time for Mikey to be moving on to his second phone number, if Mikey was being Mikey.
You sick? Will texted.
Eat shit, buckaroo.
Will scratched his whiskers, sent another look at the ceiling where Lindsey’s NPR was still playing.
He texted Mikey again. Where you staying tonight?
Dude. Ladies Night. Quit breaking my groove.
That was more like Mikey. Will slouched on the couch, glanced at the reflection of the empty couch in the front room. Then he shoved to his feet and went to the kitchen.
He’d get to the music soon enough. But for now, he had something else to do.
Chapter Nine
LINDSEY WASN’T an early riser by choice, but given her case load and her houseguest—who had been awake God knew how long last night—she was showered and dressed before the sun. She had enough drama at work with divorce season dawning. She didn’t need it at home too.
Yep, that was why she was tiptoeing in her dark house, slingbacks dangling from her fingers, barely breathing for fear the noise would alert Will to her presence outside the bedrooms.
But halfway down the stairs, she paused.
A light shone in the sunroom. Either Billy—the ass—hadn’t been to bed, or he didn’t care about wasting energy.
But then she noticed something else.
She sniffed. Then sniffed again.
Her house smelled sweet. Like sugar and chocolate and melted butter.
Like cookies.
She hit the bottom of the stairs and flipped on the light switch over the breakfast nook.
The glow was bright enough to filter into the kitchen, where her counters were spotless, the sink empty except for two cookie sheets in the drying rack. A plate of chocolate chip cookies sat on the table.
Lindsey’s mouth watered.
Her family had never been big on cooking or nutrition, but despite the sugar and TV dinners she fed Noah when he came to visit, she couldn’t eat anything she wanted anymore without feeling it in the fit of her clothes. So she’d been teaching herself to eat healthier, which meant branching out into learning to boil water and watching the occasional Food Network show. She’d mastered the art of oatmeal, and had she not worked late last night, she probably would’ve baked a chicken breast and put it over some leafy greens.
Cookies for breakfast—she shouldn’t.
“They don’t bite,” Will said from the doorway to the sunroom.
For everything else he did loudly, the man could move quiet as a ghost. He padded into the breakfast nook, white socks on his bootless feet, and took a cookie. His sandy hair was mussed, and he’d ditched the overshirt in favor of only a white T-shirt that highlighted the slant of his shoulders and gave her a glimpse of solid biceps and forearms. His eyes sported evidence of an all-nighter, and he smelled like cotton and fresh-baked sugary goodness.
On his way to the fridge he took a big bite, as natural as if he’d been in her kitchen every day of his life, showing off jeans stretched across a squeezable ass. “Not poisoned either.”
He grabbed the milk, then pulled two glasses out of the dishwasher and poured them full. “Eat up, lawyer lady. Don’t want you getting hungry for any babies today.”
He was the only man Lindsey had ever been susceptible to, and he was making it worse this morning.
She sat. Slowly, because now her kitchen smelled like both cookies and breakfast date.
There was sunshine in her kitchen even though the stars were still out.
There had been sunshine in her whole house since he’d stepped into it, even with all the god-awful sounds coming out of his guitar last night, even with the history swirling between them, and she couldn’t deny it.
He put the milk before her, then offered her a cookie.
“Thank you,” she said.
His eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Not a morning person?”
“I’m not a people person.”
“Bet that cookie might could change your mind.”
His grammar had both irritated her and endeared him to her fifteen years ago. Because the corners of his lips always tilted up whenever he said something that would’ve made Lindsey’s grade school English teachers twitch. They still did, as if he knew he was abusing the English language, but he also knew where he came from, he liked talking that way and he didn’t give a good gosh darn what prim and proper people thought.
She’d envied that. For all her talk of what she intended to do with her life, the big things she’d accomplish, how she’d go into politics and save the world, how she’d be so much bigger than a housewife in some Podunk town—he had something she didn’t.
He had personality and talent and inherent charm. He’d been everything he needed to be so he could reach his dream and shoot past it, all the way to the edges of the galaxy.
She’d severely underestimated him then. Consciously.
Subconsciously, though, she had to have known. She’d wanted what he had—his easy grace, his comfort in his own skin, his simplicity.
He was simple. In the best way. He wanted something, and he went for it.
And despite the digs he’d aimed at her, after watching him everywhere else, after hearing her coworkers and friends and family talk about him, she suspected he hadn’t sacrificed who he was to be what he was.
Whatever he wanted from Lindsey this morning, though, it could be neither simple nor easy.
She bit into the cookie.
The world may have gone a bit unfocused, and a moany whimper may have slipped through her lips. Butter and sugar and still-melted chocolate. Goodness and happiness and perfection to start her day.
Lindsey was in love.
With the cookie. Not with the man who made them.
The man who was watching her with amused interest, his gaze lazily focused on her while his lips tipped up in the corners beneath his whiskers.
She swallowed, resisted going Cookie Monster on the rest of the cookie and took a sip of milk instead.
“Like ’em?” Will said.
“They’re okay.”
He laughed softly. “You’re a hard nut to crack.”
“I know very few people who enjoy being cracked.” But if he didn’t quit using those sleepy eyes on her over his chocolate chip cookies, she’d be one of them.
“Notice you’re not getting all objectionable over being a nut though.”
She chose to let that comment pass. Because being objectionable would’ve required using her mouth for something other than eating his cookies.
Will slouched in the chair across from her, still watching her eat. His strong fingers wrapped around his milk glass, veins visible beside the bones of his hand, fingernails short and clean.
His hands had learned her body when they were younger. Learned her body and played her body. Like his eyes, they bore evidence of more experience. A scar on his index finger. Tanned skin. The lines in his knuckles more pronounced.
And he could use those hands for everything from playing his guitar to baking cookies to stroking a woman’s most sensitive parts.
He’d undoubtedly be better now than he’d been then. And she’d had no complaints then.
His lids slid lower, as though he could hear her thoughts. See where her mind was going. That her body was fully onboard.
But they weren’t there. They couldn’t ever be there.
But perhaps—perhaps they could honestly be friends. This time. “I helped with a domestic violence divorce case a few years ago,” she said. “Our client’s daughter almost died. Your song—I don’t like it.”
He inclined his head. “My apologies. Won’t play that one again.”
