Saying Yes to the Boss

“God! Blow on it or something,” he begged between gritted teeth.

“That would defeat the purpose of disinfecting it.”

His eyes were watering. His hand was on fire. “I’ll take my chances. A nasty case of gangrene has to be less painful.”

He leaned over to blow on it himself. When he looked up afterward their gazes held. The air seemed to sizzle as he watched the firelight reflected in her dark eyes. She had questions, too. He saw them there. And it came as a huge relief to discover that he wasn’t the only one mired in this odd, instantaneous need.

The moment stretched before she finally looked away and muttered, “Men are such babies.”

“You’re not going to start in with that argument about how if it were up to us to give birth the human race would have ended with Adam, are you?”

No hint of feminine interest remained, but he felt sure he hadn’t imagined it. She smiled at him with the same smug superiority he’d often seen on his sisters’ faces.

“No. We both know which one is the weaker sex. Why rub it in?”

Then she ran the cotton swab of antiseptic over his broken skin again.

Dane decided to change the subject. To take his mind off the pain, he asked, “So, what have you got against developers that makes you keep a shotgun handy?”

“You mean besides the fact that the one I’ve had to deal with lately is greedy and unprincipled and only interested in buying Peril Pointe so he can tear down my home and put up condos or another high-priced resort that will make that snooty Saybrook’s on Trillium look like a pauper’s retirement community?”

She was affixing butterfly bandages across the ravaged skin of his palm during her vehement response and Dane grimaced. No way in hell he was going to admit to her that in the most basic sense of the word he was a developer or that he and his two sisters actually owned the resort she’d referred to as “that snooty Saybrook’s.”

So, when she finished her minidiatribe, he worked up what he hoped was a charming smile.

“I’ll take that wine now, please.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE grandfather clock chimed out the hour as they sipped their wine. It was only ten, but it seemed much later. Indeed, it felt as if hours had passed since Regina first opened the door to find a drenched and injured Dane Conlan on the other side of it. With the electricity out and no phone service for who knew how long, it was clear she wouldn’t be saying goodbye to her handsome houseguest anytime soon.

The thought had her bringing the glass of Chianti to her lips again and drinking deeply.

Two years had passed since Ree had spent an evening alone in the company of a man. The last encounter had ended with a screaming match inside a tent pitched in the Nevada desert. Actually “match” wasn’t the word for it as Ree had done all the screaming, peppering her accusations with the Italian curse words she’d heard her grandfather using when Nonna Benedetta was out of earshot. None of the verbiage had gotten a rise out of the recipient. Paul Ritter had barely managed to look up from the dusty dig log he so meticulously kept to respond.

“Let’s talk about this later, Regina.”

That had been Paul’s mantra throughout their previous five years of marriage, during which Ree had followed her archaeologist husband from one godforsaken dig site to another. Each time he’d promised this one would be the last and he would get a teaching post at a university. Ree wanted a home of her own. She wanted to start a family.

Two years later, she was legally separated and had filed for divorce. Paul had yet to sign the papers, not because he wanted to make their marriage work, but because he just hadn’t gotten around to it. She knew that because the one time she’d managed to reach him by telephone, he’d admitted as much, right after which he’d launched into an excited monologue on his team’s most recent findings. His work, once again, took precedence.

Regina hadn’t pressed the issue. Why rush failure? So she remained in limbo. Now she wondered, was that any better?

She glanced over at Dane. She barely knew him and yet in the span of a mere hour she’d already formed the opinion that he didn’t believe in postponing trouble or confrontations. No, he seemed the sort who faced whatever came along when it came along—from a sinking boat to a raging electrical storm to an angry woman aiming a firearm at his heart.

One broad shoulder poked from the afghan her grandmother had knitted a half-century earlier. Even the cover’s mauve-and-pink squares couldn’t detract from his masculinity. In the flickering light she noted the firm musculature on what she could see of his chest, arms and legs. More than good genes, it took discipline to get a body that looked like that. Ree respected discipline as long as it didn’t snuff out all spontaneity.

She glanced up then and realized he’d been watching her study him. Clearing her throat, she asked, “Are you hungry or would you rather just go to bed?”

His slow smile seemed to fan the heat that was flooding into her cheeks.

“I’m famished.”

It was Dane who spoke and yet Ree found herself moistening her lips. Another kind of appetite whetted as she repeated, “Famished.”

He winked then. “Yeah, but first I’d like to clean up a bit more, if that’s okay with you?”

She’d brought him a damp washcloth and towel after bandaging his hand, not trusting him to stand long enough at the bathroom sink to wash his face. But she could appreciate his desire to rinse off more of the grime.

“Of course.”

He leaned on her once again, putting one arm around her shoulders and holding the flashlight she’d provided in his good hand. With shuffling steps they followed the bouncing beam through the darkened house to the powder room just off the front parlor.

“Fresh hand towels are in the cabinet over the toilet,” she told him as he braced against the pedestal sink. Noting his hunched posture, she added, “I’ll wait outside the door just in case you need me.”

Ten minutes later, she helped him into one of the ladder-back chairs at the table in the home’s large kitchen. His face and upper body were freshly scrubbed, and his hair was as neat as his fingers had been able to make it. Ree hid a smile as she realized that Dane now smelled like the lavender rosettes from the guest soap dish. Then she sobered when he turned his head slightly and the rough stubble of his beard grazed her cheek. Certainly nothing else about the man could be considered remotely feminine.

She lit a few candles, including the one in the centerpiece on the table, and the scents of cinnamon and ginger mingled pleasantly as she moved about the familiar room, completely at ease despite the poor lighting. Ree had grown up in this house. Every squeaky floorboard and stubborn windowpane was committed to memory. Of all the massive house’s rooms, this was her favorite and thanks to her grandmother’s patience, Ree was a good enough cook to do it justice.

If houses had hearts, the kitchen was the Victorian’s. Life pulsed from here. That especially had been true when her grandmother was alive. Even now, as Ree stood in front of the late nineteenth-century cabinetry that unfortunately was starting to show its age, she could almost hear Nonna humming a Dean Martin tune, the blade of her knife making quick work of a bulb of garlic for pesto. It would pain her grandmother that the wood still needed resurfacing and more than a few of the door hinges begged for replacement. Ree had not been able to make those repairs or the many others the home required. Regret came swiftly, but she pushed it away. She swore she heard Nonna’s voice whispering to her that it was impolite to dwell on her own troubles when she had a guest to feed.

“The stove is gas, so it still works. I don’t have much in the fridge at the moment. I’d planned to go grocery shopping today, but…” She shrugged.

“No car,” Dane guessed.

“Exactly. So, grilled cheese and tomato soup okay with you?”

“Sure.”

She pulled a loaf of homemade bread from the old-fashioned metal box on the counter. As she sliced it, she asked conversationally, “So, tell me a little about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Let’s see…” She mulled her answer as she slathered butter onto the bread and transferred the slices to a cast-iron skillet. It was appalling, but the question she wanted to ask was if someone special was waiting for him, worrying over him, back on Trillium. She had no right to ask such a question. No right to even want to ask it.

She settled on the more generic, “Why don’t you tell me about your family.”

“I’ve got a couple of sisters, Ali and Audra. They’re twins.” He grunted out a laugh then. “Of course, they’re nothing alike in either looks or personality.”

Ree sent him a smile over her shoulder, ridiculously relieved that he hadn’t spoken of a wife and kids. “That must be nice. I always thought it would be fun to have a sister or two.”

“An only child, huh?”

“Not exactly.” She stirred water into the pan of condensed soup she’d opened. “I have two half sisters and a half brother, but…we’re not close.”

Not close? The sad truth was Ree had never even met them, and only knew of their existence thanks to an entry in a diary she’d found that had belonged to her mother.

“That’s too bad.”

She decided to redirect the conversation. “So, tell me about your sisters. Are they older, younger?”

“Younger, but that doesn’t keep them from trying to run my life.” There was a smile in his voice despite the complaint. “Ali tried to talk me out of coming over to the mainland for supplies. She wanted me to wait until the morning.”

“Smart woman,” she replied pointedly, giving the soup another stir before flipping the sandwich.

“Yeah, and I can guarantee she’s not going to let me forget it. Neither of them will once they find out I’m okay.” He cleared his throat. “Wish that could be sooner rather than later. My sisters are probably pacing the floor.”

His voice brimmed with remorse. The tone told her that family was important to him. Nothing was more important, Regina knew, and so she couldn’t help but admire Dane Conlan’s priorities. Not everyone put family first. Her husband clearly wasn’t willing to, and her father hadn’t. Or, at least, Ray Masterson hadn’t put the family Regina was a part of first.

She lowered the heat on the soup. Glancing over her shoulder again, she said, “It’s nice to have people who care enough to worry about you.”

“What about you? Who’s worrying about Regina Bellini?”

No one. The sparse reply echoed painfully through her head.

Since her grandmother’s death after a long battle with congestive heart failure several months earlier, Ree had been completely alone. And lonely. So lonely. Tears threatened now and she was grateful that, in the low light, Dane could not see her blink them away.

Even so, she turned back toward the stove, stirring furiously for a moment as she collected her thoughts. “I’m pretty much on my own,” she said at last, amazed that her voice sounded so normal.

She no longer had any immediate family—at least none that acknowledged her. Nor could she count on any close girlfriends. Maintaining meaningful relationships with other women had been difficult when she’d lived like a nomad for half a decade and then had returned to her hometown with her marriage in tatters and the only person who could be of any comfort wasting away in a nursing home bed.

Ree had moved Nonna back to Peril Pointe and hired a private nurse. Between the two of them, they had tended to the fragile, elderly woman until Benedetta Bellini drew her final breath. During those dark and painful months, even if she’d had friends, Ree wouldn’t have had time for them.

She heard both surprise and sympathy in Dane’s voice when he asked, “What about your folks?”

“My mom…died when I was six,” she replied vaguely.

Ree half expected Dane to ask her how. She wasn’t sure what her answer would be, which was strange. She’d never even told Paul the details of her mother’s death beyond saying Angela Bellini had drowned. Suicide was an ugly family secret, one she’d long chosen to keep.

But all Dane said was, “God, I’m really sorry. And your dad?”

She chewed her lower lip for a moment. Another ugly family secret, and yet she found herself sharing this one.

“My mom never married my father, so he wasn’t around when I was growing up.”

She did keep the more painful details to herself, such as the fact that the real reason Ray Masterson had not wed Angela Bellini after the scared and pregnant eighteen-year-old had showed up at his doorstep was that he was already married and the father of two children with a third on the way.

“That had to be tough.”

“It was a long time ago,” she said, trying to sound as if her father’s disavowal of Ree’s very existence didn’t still wound her to the core.

“So, who raised you?”

“My mom’s folks. Great people.” She smiled now as she dished the soup into a blue porcelain bowl and put the sandwich on a matching plate.

“Are they still living?”

“No. They’re both gone. My grandfather passed away during my senior year of college. My grandmother died last Thanksgiving.”

As she set the meal in front of him, Dane surprised her by reaching for her hand. The pad of his thumb rubbed over her knuckles in a negligent caress that still had her breath hitching. “God, Ree. I’m really sorry.”

She stared at their hands, wanting so desperately to turn hers over so she could weave her fingers through his and simply hold on. It felt so good to be consoled, and, God, how she missed being touched. Her grandparents had demonstrated their love with frequent hugs, kisses and pats to her cheek. Paul had run hot and cold with his displays of affection. When a dig was going well, he’d sometimes surprise her with an embrace. If not, days could pass without so much as a brush of fingers against her arm or a chaste peck on the cheek.

“Thank you,” she replied hoarsely. Maybe it was only because Dane was still holding her hand that she admitted, “I really miss them, especially Nonna. She was something else.”

“Nonna?”

His hand fell away and Ree took the seat opposite his at the table. “It’s Italian for grandmother.”

“Tell me about them?”

It came out a question and because he seemed genuinely interested, Ree did.

“Nonna and my grandfather came over from Naples just after the Second World War. My grandfather worked in an automobile factory in the Detroit area and my grandmother stayed home raising my mother. When my mother was a girl, they came north for a vacation and stayed at Peril Pointe. The people who owned it rented out rooms and my grandparents returned every summer after that. My grandfather decided to retire early and they used their savings to buy the house and move here.”

“Did they run it as a bed-and-breakfast, too?”

She shook her head. “No. I think they planned to. They took in guests here and there, and they loved meeting new people. But then my mom died and they wound up raising me.”

“They sound like incredible people.”

“They were. And very much in love.” She smiled at the memories that always warmed her. “When my grandfather was still alive, he and Nonna would go for a walk along the beach every evening in the summer. They always held hands.”

Ree had envied them that. Their grand, sweeping love affair had spanned more than five decades of marriage, while even the most tepid of emotions hadn’t been evident just a few short years after her and Paul’s wedding day.

“I can’t imagine that kind of love,” she murmured.

“My sisters seem to have found it,” Dane said thoughtfully after chewing a bite of sandwich.

“They’re both married?”

He nodded. “And Audra’s expecting her first baby in the fall. A girl. The doctor says she’ll arrive around Halloween, but if the kid is anything like Audra, she’ll be so stubborn she’ll hold out till Christmas.”

Interesting, but beneath the humor she thought he’d sounded almost wistful. And so she asked boldly, “What about you? Have you found that kind of love?”

Dane had spooned up a mouthful of soup as Ree spoke. Then he nearly choked on it as the name Julie Weston blasted into his brain with all the subtlety of a stick of dynamite detonating. It was the first time he’d thought of his girlfriend since arriving at Ree’s. He acknowledged that truth with a stab of guilt, followed swiftly by regret, because he knew that neither the knot on his head nor his near-death experience was the real reason she’d failed to show up on his mental radar.

Everyone kept telling him how perfect Julie was for him. After nearly three years of dating, he’d be the first to admit she was a fantastic woman: smart, funny, pretty in an understated sort of way. She cooked a mean beef stew, could carry on an intelligent conversation and was the ideal euchre partner, never reneging or failing to take a trick with trump. But too often he found himself wishing for a loner hand and thinking that something was missing.

One question haunted Dane: Was this all there was?

Ali had Luke. Audra had Seth. Both couples seemed to have hit the mother lode of happiness. They deserved their bliss. Dane didn’t begrudge them a moment of it. But as they feathered their new nests and made plans to start families, he felt envious, and maybe even a little empty.

He was thirty-five, settled and successful. During the past few months he’d begun to agree with Julie: Time was ticking away and they weren’t getting any younger. Yet marriage to her seemed utterly anticlimactic, an epilogue rather than an exciting new chapter in his life. He had enough respect for the institution that he didn’t think it should be that way.

“When are we going to make it official, Dane?” Julie had asked him the question that very afternoon. He’d had no answer for her when he’d left Trillium, so eager to escape that he’d foolishly headed out into a storm on the pretext of getting supplies that the resort hardly needed posthaste.

He glanced across the table at Regina Bellini. God help him, but he did have an answer for Julie now, and it wasn’t one she was going to like. But how could he make a lifetime commitment to one woman when in the space of a couple hours a virtual stranger had helped convinced him that would be a huge mistake?

Love at first sight? Nah. No way. But something was going on here. Something disturbing enough that it had caused him to forget completely the woman with whom he had been inching toward matrimony.

“Well?” Ree asked.

He blinked. “S-sorry?”

“I asked if you’ve managed to find that kind of love.”

The candle flickered briefly between them on the tabletop, the dim light making the room intimate as the revelation in his head slipped past his lips.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

They talked for another hour sitting in her homey kitchen. Thunder rumbled in the distance, but the storm was moving off. Dane credited the food, the painkillers and a second glass of wine for the fact that he no longer felt so shaky and weak. He credited Regina for the fact that he was actually enjoying himself on what undoubtedly had been one of the worst nights of his life.

“Well…” Ree stood and began gathering up the dishes. After depositing them in the sink, she said, “You’re probably getting tired.”

“Not especially. I’m a bit of a night owl,” he admitted. “Besides, I read somewhere that people who take a blow to the head shouldn’t go to sleep—at least not alone. Something about the possibility of lapsing into a coma.”

He couldn’t resist flirting with her and he enjoyed immensely watching one side of her mouth quirk up.

“I think that’s an old wives’ tale,” she replied dryly, but she settled back onto the chair opposite his.

She didn’t rise again for another two hours. By then, they both were yawning.

“I’ll show you to your room,” she told him as she blew out the candle and flipped on the flashlight.

Dane pulled the afghan more securely around his midsection and stood. Even though he felt steady on his feet, he didn’t object when she drew near to assist him.

For the past couple hours they had talked companionably about everything from the right way to eat French fries—doused in mustard rather than catsup—to whether the Detroit Lions would ever manage a winning season. Neither would bet on it. Beneath the newly established camaraderie, awareness had simmered. Now, as he walked with her through the quiet house, that awareness returned to a rolling boil.

“I think you’ll be most comfortable in here. This is the only one of the seven bedrooms located on the main floor.”

Ree opened the door and Dane knew right away that it was hers. The light bewitching floral scent had him inhaling deeply. In the dim light he eyed the big four-poster bed with its fluffy down comforter and then cleared his throat.

“This is your room.”

“Yes.”

“Where will you be sleeping?” It came as quite a surprise to realize he was holding his breath after he asked the question.

“I’ll be in the first room to the left at the top of stairs.”

When he started to protest, she shook her head. “I’ll be perfectly comfortable there. It’s the room I slept in before my grandmother died. Besides, I don’t think you’re ready to navigate stairs in a strange house in the dark. I’ll feel better with you in here.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She was still standing beside him, one arm wrapped loosely around his waist. It took little effort for Dane to turn until they were facing one another. When he bent, he intended only to brush a kiss over her cheek, but she turned her head slightly or maybe he turned his. Either way, his mouth settled over hers and the chaste peck graduated to a kiss full of curiosity.

Still, he might have pulled back and managed to bank the need, but she made a soft moaning sound in the back of her throat that had the same effect as pouring kerosene on a campfire. Heat flared and good intentions were forgotten. He framed her face with his hands. He had to do something with them, because if they were allowed to roam any lower he knew he would be doomed.

And that was before the afghan wrapped around his waist tumbled to the floor right along with the flashlight she’d been holding.

The kiss ended on his strangled laugh and Ree was chuckling as well when Dane rested his forehead against hers.

“I seem to have lost something,” he said at last. “And you, too.”

Oh, Regina knew she’d lost something. Forget the flashlight, she’d lost her mind. This was crazy, foolish and she wasn’t the sort of woman who did crazy, foolish things. She’d toed the line her entire life, eager to spare her grandparents the worry and grief her mother’s impulsiveness had caused.

Thinking of them, she said, “I’d better go.”

“Yes. You should.”

But he didn’t release her and she found herself almost glad. It felt so good to be held, to be wanted. It took all of her willpower to finally step away—and to keep her gaze level with his before she turned toward the door.

“I’ll leave the flashlight with you. Good night, Dane Conlan,” she called over her shoulder when she reached the threshold. “Sleep well.”

He laughed, sounding bemused, and she thought she heard him mutter, “Yeah, like that’s going to happen now.”

Alone in the room upstairs, Ree lit a candle, tugged the dustcovers off the furniture and dropped heavily onto the side of her old bed. She’d never been this wound up or felt this…this physically aware. She scrubbed her hands over her face, amazed by and a little ashamed of her body’s reaction.

As she made up the bed with fresh linens, it dawned on Ree that she’d forgotten to grab a nightgown from the dresser before leaving Dane in her room. She wasn’t fool enough to tempt fate now by going back for it, so she stripped off her clothes and climbed into bed wearing only her underwear.