Sweet Nothings (5 page)

He couldn’t stop the grin, knowing it was similar to the goofy one he’d kept exhibiting every time he’d looked at her the day before. Something about her simply made him happy.

“We’ll work it out. You come on back tonight and we’ll figure out a plan. Bring dessert. I’ll take care of dinner.”

With a slight nod and worry lines creasing the space between her eyebrows, she bit her lip and took another long look around the room. “You really think you can turn it into something someone would want?”

His chest expanded at the challenge and he crossed to stand in front of her, finally letting himself touch her as he’d been wanting to since he’d driven up and seen her standing so forlornly on the porch.

He put a hand under her chin and tilted her face up to his. Her skin was soft against the years of calluses built up on his fingers. “I’m positive I can make something of it, sweetness. In fact, I predict it’ll be so nice you’ll want to keep it for yourself instead of selling it.”

“That’s not going to happen.” She shook her head. “But I will be thrilled to get rid of it.”

Chapter Three

J
oanie flipped the switch to turn off the OPEN sign and locked the front door. She was wiped. Customers had been nonstop all day—the extra business likely from having the van out the day before—and she was grateful. Really. But she could use a long bath and a relaxing Friday evening off.

Only, she was going to get neither.

Her cell vibrated and she pulled it from the pocket of her jeans. It was Lee Ann.

“Hey,” Joanie answered, flipping out the main lights in the store. “I’m just closing up for the day. What’s up?”

“You have a date tonight,” Lee Ann accused.

Joanie froze. “No I don’t.”

She hadn’t so much as thought about dating for months now. Nick’s face came to mind and she grinned, admitting to herself that what she’d thought about doing with him would not be considered a date.

“I beg to differ,” Lee Ann started. “I’ve heard it from three different sources. You and my hunky brother-in-law-to-be are apparently having a date. He’s cooking for you. Not to mention living with you.”

“He is not living with me. He’s at the Barn.” GiGi and Pepaw had named the house during the early years of their marriage, though no one knew why it had gotten that name. It had been their little secret.

Joanie could almost see her friend shrugging. “Close enough. He’ll be all up in your space, and if he’s going to be renovating the house—which I also heard from several sources, none of which were you, by the way—then I assume you’ll be constantly in the middle of things, cleaning out Georgia’s accumulation of junk from three-quarters of a century of living there.”

Not to mention the years GiGi’s parents had lived there before her.

“Oh wow.” Joanie pulled a red-cushioned chair out from its matching bistro table and sat down. The enormity of what lay ahead was overwhelming. “There’s a century’s worth of stuff out there, Lee. I’ll never get through all that.” She shoved the corners of a handful of napkins back in the dispenser. “And you didn’t hear about it from me simply because I haven’t had time to call you today. This place has been packed. I’d planned to call later and beg an emergency girls’ day.”

Until Joanie had sold the salon, she and Lee Ann had made Monday afternoons their time for pedicures and much needed girl talk. She’d kept the business closed just for the occasion—along with handling the administrative stuff she hated so much—and though she would be doing the same with Cakes, each Monday so far had been too full with getting the business off the ground.

“Girls’ day,” Lee Ann said, making the idea sound as appealing as a tropical getaway. “
Yes
. Just name the time and place.” Joanie could hear occasional clicking on the other end. Probably Lee Ann was at the computer in her photography studio, touching up some shots. “And of course you’ll get through Georgia’s stuff,” Lee Ann continued. “Cody and I will help. The girls, too. Though they’ll probably spend more time bugging Nick than being useful. They’re crazy about their uncle.”

Forcing her heavy limbs to move, Joanie rose and scooted the chair up under the table, imagining Nick entertaining his nieces. She suspected he would love that. “Tomorrow night?” she suggested. “Ditch Cody and the girls. Let’s make it a real girls’ night. Want to go to the Bungalow?”

“Perfect.”

“And by the way,” Joanie added as she continued through the room, “the Barn is a disaster. I’m not sure it can be fixed.”

“Nonsense,” Lee Ann chided. “Nick’s a genius with his hands. You’ll be thrilled with the outcome.”

The thought of Nick’s hands brought to mind other things Joanie bet he could do with them. Which had nothing at all to do with this conversation. She needed to get a grip.

Or get laid, apparently.

She rolled her eyes at the direction her thoughts had taken, and returned her mind to the topic at hand. “I’ll be
thrilled
when the nursing home quits calling for money.”

“They called again?” Lee Ann asked.

Joanie nodded, even though Lee Ann couldn’t see the action. She stepped behind the counter and began pulling out a selection of cupcakes to box up. “That’s why I jumped at the chance to get Nick’s help,” she added. “I have two months to sell the house and settle the charges before they kick her out.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s fast.”

“Yeah. So you really think he can do it? Turn it into something worthwhile?”

“Of course. He’s brilliant.”

Joanie’s mind wandered back to Nick. And his hands. And shoulders. And legs. She really had to stop thinking about him like that. They were working together. That’s all. Two people, helping each other out. He was just a nice guy.

And a really good-looking one.

“Uh-oh,” Lee Ann said. “You keep going quiet. What am I missing?”

“Nothing,” Joanie mumbled, pushing the six-foot-plus vision of lean muscle from her mind. Her friend was too perceptive. She wedged another cupcake into the nearly full box.

“Oh,” Lee Ann drew the word out. “I get it. Nick. You like him.”

“Of course I don’t.”

“Come on. I saw the way you looked at him at Christmas, remember?”

She had looked at him at Christmas. She’d shown up at the mountain cabin Lee Ann had rented, and Nick had answered the door, spatula in hand, and smelling like warm chocolate chip cookies. If she’d had
a glass of milk at that moment, she would’ve been tempted to take a big bite.

After watching him throughout the day, though, she’d determined that he was a man who needed a wife and kids. The type of guy who would burrow into a woman’s heart until she went dumb for him. The type women would twist themselves inside out for. Just to please him.

Given how her family had a habit of coming out on the wrong end of men’s charms, she wanted no part of someone like him.

“What you saw,” Joanie explained patiently, “was appreciation for a hot guy. Casual flirting.”

She couldn’t help it. She was a flirt. Everyone knew that.

A beat of silence passed before Lee Ann asked, “Then what’s going on now?”

“Nothing,” Joanie answered. She licked icing off her fingers. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you keep going quiet. You’re thinking about him.”

“I’m not… it’s just…” Joanie sighed. Why was she fighting it? “There’s something about him that’s bothering me this time, is all. It’s not like it was at Christmas. He makes me nervous. Jittery. And I don’t like being jittery.”

“Okay.” Lee Ann turned serious in an instant. “Then let’s figure it out.”

She loved Lee Ann for this. The problem solver.

“What specifically has bothered you?” Lee Ann asked.

“The way he looks at me,” Joanie stated. She pictured Nick standing out front of her shop, smiling at her as if he couldn’t remember his name. It had been cute.

“He saw you in your miniskirt, didn’t he?”

“Uh-huh.” Joanie nodded.

“You know your legs make men go dumb, Jo.”

“I have to show them. It goes with the theme.”

Lee Ann snorted. “And with making a fortune selling cupcakes.”

Joanie giggled and licked her fingertips one more time, catching a spot of blue icing on her tongue before closing the box she’d just packed.

“So Nick ogling your legs bothers you?”

“Not exactly.” How did she explain it? “It’s just that, every time he’d look at them he’d get this really goofy grin. But something about it kept feeling like… I don’t know.
More
. Another example was this morning when we were talking at GiGi’s,” she hurried on to say. “He kept looking at me as if he could see something inside me that isn’t there. He kept asking what I saw when I looked at the place. I see a heap that needs to be burned to the ground, yet the way he was looking at me made me want to run to the mirror and check for myself. You know what I mean?”

“Hmmm…”

Before Lee Ann could continue, Joanie jumped back in. “And yesterday, yeah, he was hot for my legs. He wanted me. Big deal, I’ve seen that my whole life. But Lee, I wanted him too.
Bad
.”

There was a tiny pause. “Then go for it, hon. Have some fun.”

“He comes with a cat.” She enunciated each word carefully.

Laughter rang through the phone. “What does his cat have to do with anything?”

Joanie sighed. “He’s a nester. He wants serious. I can’t sleep with someone who comes with a cat.”

She grabbed her purse out from under the counter and slipped the strap over her shoulder.

“Yeah,” Lee Ann admitted, her voice hesitant. “He is the settling-down type.”

“My point,” Joanie replied. “Let’s drop it. It’s a ridiculous conversation, anyway. He’s working for me. That’s all.”

“And preparing for a hot date.”

“Oh, good grief. It is not a date.” It wasn’t. It was a business dinner. “How did anyone possibly get that idea?” Joanie flipped off the remaining lights and grabbed her jacket from the coat rack. She headed through the back room.

“Well, let’s see,” Lee Ann began. “He was picking up supplies at Sam’s Foodmart and mentioned that he was cleaning your house before you got back out there tonight. Jean from the store would have told
someone else who came in, who carried it from there to who knows where, where it got all around town, so that now everyone thinks there’s a hot date going on this evening.”

Joanie shook her head, amazed at the path the rumor had taken. “He picked up cleaning supplies and that turned into a hot date?”

“He also picked up two steaks, potatoes, and the fixin’s for a salad.”

“Oh.” Yeah, that could do it. She pushed open the back door. “Well, we’re not having a date. Feel free to spread that around. He said he’d provide dinner. I’m taking dessert.”

“He also got wine.”

Joanie narrowed her eyes.
It was not a date!
And he’d better not be thinking it was. “Maybe wine’s just his thing.”

She knew she might sound silly, but she wasn’t about to so much as hint at a date. It was bad enough the whole town already thought it was one.

Rolling laughter filled Joanie’s ear as she stepped into the quiet alley and locked up. Lee Ann was clearly enjoying her discomfort.

“Are you about finished?” Joanie spoke into a pause in the laughter.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I know. It’s business, not a date. But I have a word of advice.”

Which did not surprise Joanie at all. “What’s that?”

“Dalton men have something about them, Jo. Something that’s pretty irresistible.”

Joanie set her cupcakes and purse on her passenger seat and shrugged into her jacket. “And?”

“And… since he’s making you nervous already, you need all your wits about you if you plan to make sure it stays only business.”

Joanie smirked.
No shit.
“So how do I do that?” she asked.

“My advice? Don’t drink the wine.”

The sun had just disappeared below the horizon as Joanie’s Mini Cooper pulled into the driveway, her lights flashing over the front yard, and
Nick’s blood began that double-time thing it liked to do when she was around.

He’d spent the day scrubbing out the grime in enough rooms to make the house livable, but she had never been far from his mind.