Confessions of a Small-Town Girl

Catching her glance, one dark eyebrow slowly arched. Something dark glittered in his quicksilver eyes.

Her breath went thin. Their bodies were molded from chest to thigh. Something liquid gathered low in her belly. Totally disconcerted by the way his heat moved into her, she lowered her heels and jerked back.

Looking totally unfazed by their contact, and her desperation, he stepped back himself to move beneath the lightbulb. Opening the paperback-size book, he flipped through the pages of small, looping script.

When Sam had found the little volume, it had simply looked like a girl-thing to him. Preoccupied with his project and the constant and nagging knowledge that he had weeks to go before he could leave, it had been of no real interest at all where he was concerned.

Aware of how uneasily Kelsey watched him, he conceded that he was definitely interested now. On a number of levels. The feel of her tempting little body arched against his had seared itself into his brain. As conscious of her effect on his long-neglected libido as he was the pages themselves, he started reading a page toward the front. The date was April 23.

The math test was awful, she’d written. I think I passed it, but I was so not ready for cosigns. Tommy M kept trying to look over my shoulder. He’s such a jerk. I helped Mom in the diner before homework. Bertie Buell came in to have another slice of mom’s coconut pie. Mom says Bertie is trying to figure out her recipe and is all bent because she won’t give it to her. I told her Mrs. Buell is always bent. I overheard Carrie’s mom say its because she’s never had sex.

Seeing nothing incriminating there, he flipped to the middle.

I’m at the mill. Carrie is grounded. She sneaked off to see Rob again. Shell has to baby-sit her sister. I wish I could live here. I could fix up the old miller’s quarters and plant flowers in the window boxes. The building seems sad sitting here with nothing to do. It’s like it’s just sleeping and waiting for someone to wake it up and put it back to work.

He’d never thought of a building being sad. And just that afternoon, she’d said the house they were in seemed lonely. He had no idea what made her think such things about inanimate objects, but other than a bent toward sentiment he couldn’t begin to relate to, nothing he read accounted for why she looked as if she were holding her breath.

Or so he was thinking when he skipped forward a few more pages.

His own name stared back at him, written in a half dozen ways.

Sam. Sam MacInnes. Samuel MacInnes. KES + S?M. Mr. and Mrs. Sam MacInnes. Kelsey MacInnes.

Frowning, he turned the diary toward her. It was out of her reach, but still close enough for her to see.

“What’s this all about?”

Heat moved up Kelsey’s neck. “It’s just something teenage girls do. It doesn’t mean a thing,” she insisted, reaching for the diary again.

He immediately lifted it away, leaving her to back off once more as he flipped ahead a few pages.

“‘I dreamed about Sam again,’” he began aloud, only to pause, glance up, then start reading more slowly. “‘It was just like on The Tame and the Torrid when Jack kissed Angela’s neck and backed her into her bedroom. My heart was pounding when I woke up and my stomach felt weird. Just like when I’m around him. I’d give anything if he’d kiss me. Really kiss me. The way Jack did Angela.’”

Thinking this was definitely getting better, he turned back a few pages to see what he’d missed, skimmed over an entry that began with I haven’t seen Sam for four days, then began again when he noticed his name once more. “‘Carrie asked what I like best about Sam,’” he read. “‘I didn’t know where to start. I like his smile and the way he twists his mouth when he seems to be thinking about something. And I like his eyes and how big his shoulders are—’”

Kelsey heard him cut himself off as he read the rest of the line to himself. A moment later, he looked at her with a grin that would have stopped her heart had she not been so busy being mortified.

“You thought I had a great butt?”

He watched her press her fingertips to her forehead, and slowly shake her head as she lowered it. Her cheeks had turned a telling shade of pink. If he had to guess, he’d bet she was burning with embarrassment from the inside out.

He should put her out of her misery, he thought, and give her back her diary. It would be the decent thing to do, given how uncomfortable she clearly was. She really did look pretty thoroughly humiliated. But he wasn’t ready yet. He honestly couldn’t have imagined anything that would have so completely diverted his focus from what he’d nearly done to her.

He also couldn’t remember the last time anything had made him genuinely feel like smiling. Especially after his perusal of a few more pages revealed him to be the subject of a few more rather specific fantasies. Very specific, actually.

“I can see why you wanted this back.”

Kelsey was dying inside. “May I have it now? Please?”

She couldn’t remember exactly what else she’d written. All she knew for certain was that whatever she’d felt toward him had been fueled by a huge romantic streak—and that whatever he was now reading must be fairly provocative. His eyebrows had risen just before his mouth formed a thoughtful upside down U and he gave what looked very much like an approving nod.

She noticed, too, that the tension had left his face, allowing his smile to reach his eyes when he finally looked to where she stood wishing she could evaporate.

“Do you still have erotic fantasies?”

“No,” she insisted, not about to give him any more insights than he already had. “That’s nothing but the imaginings of a teenager who used to watch a lot of soap operas.” And read a lot of romances, she thought. She and her girlfriends had devoured them. Sam had been every hero she’d ever fallen in love with. No doubt she’d written something about that in there, too.

“You mean you’re repressed now?” he asked, still grinning.

Her tone went heavy with forbearance. “I am not repressed.”

“Then, you do still have fantasies?”

He was having entirely too good a time at her expense. Even the rich tones of his voice held a smile. “Of course, I do. Right now, I’m fantasizing about a hole opening up under my feet. Or yours.”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one who wrote this stuff.”

“It was meant to be private.”

“I don’t mind that you shared.”

“I didn’t share. You picked the lock.”

“A technicality,” he murmured and, still grinning he finally, mercifully, held out the diary.

She practically snatched it away.

“Thank you,” she muttered, so relieved to have the incriminating little volume back in her possession that she didn’t bother wondering what else he’d read. All she wanted now was to leave. Better yet, to get on a plane back to Phoenix and forget she’d even come to Maple Mountain.

She wasn’t at all inclined to give Sam points for sensitivity. Yet, he actually seemed to take pity on her rather desperate need to escape.

The floor creaked beneath his weight as he walked over and closed the window she’d opened. “You might as well go out the door,” he said, nodding toward the stairs on his way back. “No need to risk your neck on the ladder.” He flipped on the stairwell light, turned off the one overhead.

“Thank you,” she murmured again, and was down the stairs and halfway across the living room before he stopped her.

“The back door is open. You can go that way.”

She changed direction as the beam of a light arrowed over her shoulder. “Don’t forget these.” Coming up behind her, undoubtedly still grinning, he handed her the flashlight she’d borrowed from her mom’s and the stocking cap he’d tossed to the floor.

She didn’t bother to thank him this time. Taking them, she clutched the cap in her hand with the diary and followed the flashlight’s beam through the kitchen to the back door. She’d made it across the porch and down the steps when his deep voice stopped her again.

“Where’s your car?”

From a dozen feet away, she turned to see him close the door and descend the steps. Bathed in the pale moonlight, his body gleamed like hammered bronze. Broad shouldered, bare-chested, scarred, he looked like a warrior to her. Heaven knew he’d had the training of one.

“It’s at the mill.” Not sure if she was compelled by the thought or disconcerted by it, she motioned behind her. “I walked over from there.”

“It’s dark. I’ll walk you to it.”

The offer caught her off guard, the chivalry behind it. A warrior and a gentleman. The combination held a certain lethal quality of its own. “You don’t have to do that. Really,” she insisted, backing up. “I know the way.”

For a moment, Sam said nothing. He simply watched as she kept going, glancing behind her so she wouldn’t trip over a tree root or a stray piece of lumber. She clearly wanted nothing other than escape. The thought that it was him she wanted to get away from kept him right where he was.

“Be careful then,” he finally allowed.

“I will,” she assured him, and turned, her movements as quick and silent as a deer’s as she headed for the trees.

Sam watched her disappear in the direction of the footbridge, but he stayed where he was until he heard the distant sound of her car engine when she started it up. Only then did he move the ladder from where she’d propped it beneath the window, shaking his head at the thought of her wrestling its cumbersome weight in the dark, and return, smiling, to the trailer and bed.

Kelsey buried the diary in the bottom of her travel bag the moment she slipped back into her room, locked the bag and dropped the key into her purse. Any relief she felt having it back in her possession was pretty much buried beneath the embarrassment she’d suffered listening to Sam read from it.

She didn’t know how long she lay with her head under her pillow after she’d crawled into her old twin bed trying to block the inescapable feeling. But the tenacious sensation was still there when her mom knocked on her door a little before 5:00 a.m. and started loudly humming “Oh What a Beautiful Morning,” which had always been her way of telling Kelsey it was time to wake up. That awful discomfort remained, unbudging, as she threw together batches of blueberry and carrot raisin muffins, fired up the griddle and made herself smile at the morning’s first customers, all the while dreading the moment Sam would walk through the diner’s door.

From what she’d learned yesterday, he ate there every morning. Usually around seven-thirty.

The Fates apparently decided to toy with her a little more. Seven-thirty came and went, which left her feeling that much more anxious each time the door opened because each time it did, she thought it was him. There was something a tad distressing about facing a man who knew she’d once obsessed about him. Especially since he now knew that what she’d wanted was for him to get up close and very personal. But that had been a lifetime ago, back when she’d been all imagination and no action. Not that she was into action that much now. Or ever had been, actually.

She could honestly say that no man had ever consumed her thoughts the way Sam once had. She could also swear on every bible the Gideons had ever printed that she had not written down her thoughts about a man since her last entry in that diary, whatever it had been. She hadn’t looked. As rattled as she’d been, still was for that matter, she’d been in no hurry to read what else she had written and further embarrass herself.

By ten o’clock, Sam still hadn’t shown up. Desperately hoping he’d chosen to avoid her, and finding a certain humiliation in that, too, she busied herself peeling apples for pies since the breakfast rush was over while her mom scurried past to answer the ringing telephone. Within seconds of her mom picking up the dated instrument on the wall by the stainless steel fridge, Kelsey’s agitation was joined by an entirely different sort of distress.

“It’s for you,” her mom announced, leaving the receiver dangling by its black cord. “It’s Doug Westland.”

Doug wanted a decision. Unfortunately she was no closer to making one now than she’d been when she’d left the day before yesterday. Because Sam and that damnable diary had totally occupied her, she’d thought of little else. “Tell him I’ll call him back, will you?”

Her mom’s forehead pinched as tightly as the coil of her intricate bun. “This is the second time he’s called since you’ve been here. He sounds very nice, dear. You should talk to him.”

She had talked to him. Yesterday afternoon, she’d returned the call he’d made while she’d been at the Baker place. He’d wanted to make sure she hadn’t yet accepted the offer from the Regis-Carlton so he could overnight the contract and offer they’d talked about rather than wait for her to return. She’d told her mom that. What she hadn’t mentioned was how he’d assured her again that he knew they would work well together and repeated what he’d maintained before, that they would make a great team, a great partnership.

You have no idea how passionate I can be about what I want, Kelsey. And what I want right now is you.

He’d first informed her of that in the beautifully appointed bar of his most successful restaurant to date, the restaurant he and all the critics predicted soon would be surpassed by the endeavor he’d invited her to join. It had been midmorning, the restaurant wasn’t yet open and he’d made the offer over coffee and pie-charts illustrating parts of his proposal at the long granite bar.

It had been strictly a business meeting. In her mind, anyway. Yet, the way he’d looked at her, the way he’d sounded, had made it clear that his words could be taken however she chose. There had been times in her meetings with him since then, too, when he’d subtly let her know he was interested in more than business. She would concede that she cleaned up fairly well when she bothered with heels and a skirt rather than the comfortable baggy pastry chef shirt and clogs she worked in. But the man was a hugely successful entrepreneur. He was smart. He was wealthy. He oozed charm. He had gorgeous single women on his staff and hanging around his establishments. He could easily have the pick of any one he wanted.

He was a player. She was not.

At the moment, however, all she cared about was not being pushed. When her mother’s refusal to pass on her message resulted in her having to take his call, she told him that, too. Nicely, because the professional opportunity he’d offered was incredible and it was entirely possible that her own insecurities were playing with her head. As she stood at the back of the room, holding the phone to her ear with one hand and rubbing at the little knot at the back of her head with the other, she told him she wasn’t signing anything with anyone until she returned to Arizona. She also assured him when he asked that she wasn’t stalling as a ploy for a larger salary or bigger percentage of the partnership. And that, yes, she was enjoying her visit with her mom.

It seemed like a good news/bad news sort of morning to her. The good news was that she would only be in Maple Mountain for less than a week, which meant she only had less than a week to go before she never saw Sam MacInnes again. The bad news was that at the end of that time, she really did need to make a decision about her future employment. She just didn’t know which position was the better move for her career. Or her personal life.

Listening to Doug—who sounded as if her coming on board was a done deal—and thinking of how the Regis-Carlton’s manager assumed the same about her accepting the promotion, she could feel a headache brewing. With a silent sigh, she pulled off the chef’s cap covering her hair and rubbed once more at the little knot on her skull.

From where he’d just sat down at the counter, Sam caught the pinch of Kelsey’s brow and the tentative motion of her hand.

He had arrived late on purpose. He wanted to talk to Kelsey. He just didn’t want to do it with the regulars around. He knew how nosey the locals could be. Proof of that had been evident less than two hours ago when Charlie had stopped by to see why he hadn’t been at the diner that morning. Amos had driven by two minutes later and stopped when he’d seen Charlie’s pickup.

When Amos had asked why he hadn’t shown up for breakfast, Sam had told him the same thing he’d invented on the spot for Charlie. That he just hadn’t felt all that hungry when he woke up. The explanation seemed inconsequential enough, until Charlie proceeded to confide that the last time he’d lost his appetite, he’d been coming down with a summer cold. According to him, the best remedy for that particular ailment was lemonade spiked with whiskey and honey. Heavy on the whiskey.

Amos swore by chicken soup. Homemade. Not store bought.

Sam promised to keep the prescriptions in mind simply because both men had bothered to be concerned. He’d also made sure they both understood that he really felt just fine. He knew how the grapevine worked in Maple Mountain. If he hadn’t declared himself healthy, it wouldn’t have been long before word of him being ill made it out to his aunt and she or one of her friends showed up with broth and a poultice. Concern seemed to run as deep as the granite mines in people’s veins around there.

He was feeling an uncomfortable dose of concern himself as he sat at his usual spot at the counter.

“I didn’t know if we’d be seein’ you or not this mornin’.” Sounding as friendly as always, Dora automatically filled a mug with coffee and set it in front of him. “Charlie stopped by on the way back from your place and said you might be coming down with a cold. You should get extra vitamin C,” she insisted. “How about some orange juice?”

“The juice would be great, but I’m feeling fine. Honest.” So much for preempting that little rumor. “I’m just late this morning,” he explained, sticking closer to the truth than he had earlier. “There’s nothing wrong with me that food won’t cure.”

“In that case, I’ll go start your breakfast myself.” Holding her injured arm protectively at her waist, she glanced over her shoulder into the kitchen, then back at him. “Kelsey’s on an important call. She might be a while.”

As usual, she asked if he wanted buttermilk pancakes or blueberry with his bacon and eggs, then disappeared through the swinging door before she reappeared again inside walking past the service window.

His focus, however, was on Kelsey. He could see her at the back of the kitchen, pacing as far as the six-foot phone cord would allow.

She’d been the last thing on his mind last night, and the first that morning.

He couldn’t begin to deny how it intrigued him to know that she had once fantasized about him. With the memory of her scent and the feel of her long, taut body fused into his brain, he couldn’t deny the temptation to invent a few fantasies about her of his own, either. But entertaining such thoughts, interesting as they were, would have to wait. He had slammed her pretty hard against that stud.

He had never in his career come as close as he had last night to harming an innocent person. And she was an innocent. Despite the way she’d been sneaking around, she was definitely not the hard-core type he’d grown so accustomed to dealing with.

He picked up his coffee, watching her over its rim. He’d come to make sure she was all right, but his initial assessment was that she was not. She rubbed the back of her head as if it might be sore. From what he could see of her profile, she also seemed to be struggling over something, or someone, as she hung up the phone.

She stood with her hand on the receiver, clearly lost in thought, in the moments before her mom noticed she was no longer occupied.

“Grab the eggs for me, will you?” he heard Dora call to her.

Without a word, Kelsey turned to the refrigerator beside her, yanked open the door and pulled out a large gray cardboard flat.

“Sam’s here,” Dora continued, her tone utterly conversational. “He wants his usual. That means four. Best bring more bacon, too.”

Kelsey’s preoccupation fled. Sam watched, fascinated, as she jerked her head toward where he observed her through the window. As she did, her eyes met his, her arm bumped into the door and the eggs hit the floor.

“Oh, Kelsey, no.” Dora practically moaned the words. “That’s the last of the eggs till Edna delivers more tomorrow. Are there any that didn’t break?”

Kelsey sank to her knees. “One,” she murmured, as fifteen others oozed from their shells.

“Why didn’t you just take out what we needed?”

She hadn’t taken out what they’d needed because the instant she’d heard Sam’s name her thoughts had scrambled. She was not, however, about to admit that to her mother. “I’ll run up to the store and get more.”

“I’ll do it. You clean that up.” Already working her apron loose with one hand, her mom headed for the back door. “There’s nobody else out front except Claire and her cousin from Montpelier. I just refilled their coffee so they’ll be fine until I get back. Sam has a fresh cup.”

Flustered, hating it because it made her feel so out of control, Kelsey grabbed a roll of paper towels and was back on her knees as the screen door banged shut. The sound coincided roughly with the ominous beat of rather large work boots coming through the swinging door.

Sam’s knees creaked as he crouched in front of her and reached for the towels himself.

Her glance made it from the denim stretched over his powerful thighs to the scar on the underside of his chin before it fell back to the mess on the beige linoleum. “You don’t need to help.”

“I’m the reason you dropped part of my breakfast. The least I can do is help you clean it up.”

Feeling flustered was bad enough. Knowing he knew he was the reason for that circumstance magnified her discomfort level by ten. She hadn’t behaved like her normally calm and collected self since yesterday when she’d first heard his name.

With their heads nearly bumping, she picked up a paper towel full of the slippery mess, shells and all, and dumped it on the cardboard flat between them.

Paper ripped as he separated a towel from the roll. “I wanted to talk to you anyway.”

A hint of the raw tension she’d felt in him last night surrounded her once more. Even banked as it was, there was no mistaking that quiet intensity, that edge of complete and utter control. It surrounded him like a force field, invisible, invincible and emitting a kind of restive energy that taunted every nerve in her body.

She now understood completely why that edge was there. She’d had no idea that a man his size could move so quietly or so fast. But she didn’t care to imagine what he’d dealt with that had honed his skills to such a degree, and instilled such lethal instincts. What she had encountered last night told her all she cared to know. The man did not do his work from behind a desk.

That edge lurked beneath his quiet perusal even now.

“I could have hurt you last night.” He hesitated, his deep voice dropping as he ducked his head to catch her eyes. “Are you okay?”

There was no mistaking his concern, or the guilt that tightened his jaw. Caught off guard by both, she quietly murmured, “I’m fine.”

“Then why were you rubbing the back of your head?”

“It’s just a little bump,” she conceded, taking the towel he held to take another swipe at the floor. “It’s nothing.”

“That’s what you said about the diary.”

She didn’t get a chance to tell him she wished he’d never laid eyes on the blasted thing. With her head bent, she could only see his spread knees, but she caught the motion of his hands an instant before she felt them on the sides of her head.

“Let me see,” he insisted, and skimmed his fingers toward the back of her hair.

Sam was accustomed to relying on his own assessments, making his own judgments. Thinking she might be minimizing to get him to go away, he wanted to determine the size of the bump for himself.