THE LAST THING I wanted to do Monday morning was get out of bed and go to work.
Not only had I been up until almost two a.m., but Veronica was still asleep beside me, warm and beautiful and smelling like cupcakes fresh from the oven. I hoped that scent would stay on me all day.
I opened my eyes a few minutes before seven, which was the time my alarm normally buzzed, and quickly switched it off so it wouldn’t wake her. Then I curled my body around hers like a question mark, pulling the covers up to our shoulders, slipping my arm around her waist.
“Mmmm.” She hugged my arms closer to her. “This is nice.”
“I know.” I tucked my knees behind hers and pressed my morning hard-on against her ass. “So nice I’m thinking about calling in sick.”
“Do it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because my dad needs me. We have to finish the cabinetry in someone’s kitchen by this afternoon, and it’s not something he can do alone.” I kissed her shoulder. “What will you do today?”
“I’ve decided I’m going to learn to cook while the kids are gone. Maybe I’ll do that today.”
I laughed. “That might be more than a one-day project.”
“I’m a fast learner. When you come home tonight, there might be a rack of lamb waiting for you. Or beef bourguignon. Or coq au vin!”
“I don’t even know what that is,” I confessed.
“Me neither. But it sounds impressive.” She tapped my arm. “I want to impress you.”
“Believe me. You have.”
“Really?” She sounded surprised. “Like how?”
“Well, for one thing, you’re awesome with the kids and they love you. I was thinking last week how everything you said at your interview turned out to be true—you memorize routines fast, you work hard, you make everything fun, and you’re teaching the kids things that I could never teach them.”
“Thank you,” she said, like she was surprised by the compliments.
“And you’re brave,” I went on. “Kicking that asshole to the curb when you knew it would mean losing everything? Confronting him the way you did yesterday? Standing up for yourself? A lot of people in your situation might have broken down and begged. You stood your ground. I was fucking blown away.”
“You were?”
“Yes.” Unable to help myself, I slid my hand down between her legs, finding her warm and wet. “Also, you are unbelievably hot. And have I mentioned your spectacular blow job skills?”
“No.” She moaned softly as I rubbed her clit.
“Unrivaled in the history of all blow jobs,” I told her. “I. Saw. God.”
She slung one leg back over my hip, opening her thighs wider. “Think your dad will mind if you’re a little late this morning?”
“I’ve given him a lot of years. He can give me twenty extra minutes.”
“This won’t even take twenty minutes,” she said breathlessly. “You know how to make me come so fast . . . I don’t know what kind of magic you’ve got in those hands, but I like it.”
I got her off with my fingers, and it was so hot watching her pale skin flush with color and hearing her desperate cries and feeling her grow hotter and wetter that I nearly came too, my aching cock pressed against her perfect round ass.
While she caught her breath, I rolled away from her just long enough to grab a condom and tear open the packet. “So you know that yoga pose you do where you’re on your hands and knees and you sort of arch your back and stick your butt out?”
She laughed, watching me roll on the condom. “Yes . . .”
“Could you please do that right now and I’ll show you what I think about doing every fucking time I see you out there in the yard?”
Grinning, she flipped onto her stomach, popped onto her hands and knees, and arched her back. Then she looked over at me, her expression coy and seductive. “Is this the one?”
“Yes. Fuck, that’s hot.” Quickly, I got to my knees behind her and eased my cock into her tight, wet pussy. After only a few slow thrusts, I felt the climax beginning to build. I grabbed a fistful of her hair with one hand and gripped her hip with the other. “Jesus Christ. You know what? I might not even be late today. In fact, I might be early.”
The last thing I heard before I lost control was her deep, sexy laugh.
I couldn’t remember when I’d felt so good.
When I got home from work that evening, three things greeted me at the back door. First was the sound of Latin music playing, which I heard through the screens as I approached the house and grew louder as I entered the kitchen.
Second was the delectable aroma of barbecue sauce, which made my stomach growl with hungry anticipation the moment I stepped into the kitchen.
Third was the sight of Veronica dancing with her back to me as she chopped lettuce at the counter, her bare feet moving in a rhythmic pattern, her hips swiveling to the beat. She wore denim shorts and that halter top she’d removed in the window, and her hair was tucked up in a messy knot on the top of her head. The music was so loud, she hadn’t heard me come in, and I stood there for a moment, undetected, in a sort of mesmerized stupor.
My senses were overwhelmed. My mouth watered. I might have moaned.
Veronica set the knife aside and scooped up the lettuce with her hands, dumping it into two wide, shallow bowls. Once I could tear my eyes from her, I noticed two large chicken breasts, smothered in glistening barbecue sauce, resting on a foil-lined baking sheet near the stove. They didn’t appear burnt or undercooked. Next to the bowls was a cutting board with a pile of halved cherry tomatoes and a clump of chopped herbs.
Veronica turned around and shrieked. “Oh! You scared me!”
“Sorry,” I said with a grin, setting my keys and wallet aside. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you. It smells fantastic.”
“Good.” She turned down the music. “How was your day?”
“The usual.” I took off my work boots and left them on the rug.
“Talk to the kids at all? How are they?”
“They’re great. Dad and I FaceTimed with them.” I gave her a quick kiss and went over to the sink to wash my hands. “What’s for dinner?”
“Barbecue chicken salad. It’s not coq au vin,” she said. “But Pioneer Woman calls it one of her go-to summer recipes.”
“Pioneer Woman?” As I dried my hands, I checked out what was on the stove. On one gas burner was a large skillet full of black beans and corn. A small saucepan, empty now, looked like it might have contained the barbecue sauce.
“Yes. I went to the library and asked Noreen, the librarian, if she had any recommendations for cookbooks, but she pointed me in the direction of some YouTube tutorials and websites instead. She said Pioneer Woman is her favorite, so I started there.” She shrugged, palms up. “I think I did okay! I found a meat thermometer in one of your drawers, and that helped me know when the chicken was done. I’d never used one of those before.”
I laughed. “It’s good to have tools. Do I have time for a quick shower?”
“Yes,” she said. “I still have to slice the chicken off the bone and finish putting the salads together.”
“Perfect.”
“I have to confess, I didn’t make the sauce from scratch—it’s just from a jar,” she said, her expression guilty. “Same with the apricot preserves I added to it. But,” she went on, brightening up, “Noreen told me that the Cherry Tree Harbor farmers’ market is on Tuesdays, so tomorrow I’m going to go check it out, and maybe get some local ingredients to make something fully from scratch. She said everything tastes better when it’s direct from farm to table.”
“I’m sure whatever you made tonight will taste as good as it smells. I appreciate you making dinner—you didn’t have to.”
Pink roses bloomed in her cheeks. “I wanted to.”
I dropped another kiss near her temple. “I’ll be right down.”
Taking the steps two at a time, I started stripping my clothes off before I even reached my room.
“It’s official,” I told her, setting my fork down. “This is the best meal you’ve made yet. Ten out of ten. Highly recommend.”
“Thank you,” she said, bowing her head. “I appreciate that.”
“I’ll do the dishes.”
“I don’t mind doing them. With the kids gone, I don’t have much else to do, and you’re still paying me.” She took a sip of her wine. “Don’t you want to work tonight?”
The only thing I wanted to do tonight was get inside her again. It was my new favorite place. “I don’t really have anything I’m working on right now. I have to find the wood for Xander’s bar. That’s my next project.”
“Oh right—the bet.”
“He texted me like fifty times today asking when it’s going to be ready.” I picked up my beer and took a long swallow. “Pain in the ass.”
“I don’t blame him for wanting you to make it.” She brushed the tabletop with her fingertips. “Your work is so beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
“That was cool about Quentin and Pierre wanting to sell your tables at their gallery,” she said. “Think you’ll take them up on the offer?”
“I doubt it.”
“Why not?”
“If orders started coming in, I’d have to devote serious time to keeping up with them, and I just don’t have it.”
She propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin in one hand. “In all these years, you’ve never thought of leaving Two Buckleys? Of doing your own thing?”
“Actually, I have.”
“Tell me.”
“When I was twenty-five, and Mabel was sixteen and pretty self-sufficient, I wanted to move out to California. A friend of mine from high school had opened up a surf shop in Santa Cruz and had this idea about making custom paddle boards. He invited me to go into business with him, so I went out for a visit. That’s where I met Sansa.”
“Ah. I feel like I know how this ends.”
“Exactly.” I finished off my beer and set the empty bottle down. “Back at home, I spent a few weeks working up the nerve to tell my dad that I wanted to quit Two Buckleys and move across the country, but before I could do it—literally the very day I’d planned to have the talk with him—I got the phone call that changed everything.”
“Wow, the timing. Were you devastated?”
I shrugged. “I just figured it wasn’t meant to be. And I wouldn’t trade my kids for anything.”
“I know you wouldn’t. But you’re also really talented at something you love to do. It doesn’t seem fair that you can’t do it.”
“I can do it,” I argued.
“I meant make a living with it.”
I frowned. “Look, I’ve had this argument with Xander and Mabel a thousand times. I won’t quit on my dad.”
“So you’ve never told him you’d like to start your own business?”
“There’s no point.”
“Don’t you think he’d want you to do what you love?”
“It doesn’t matter what I love,” I said, anger working its way up my spine. “Last year, he had a heart attack and fell off a ladder. Fractured his arm and some ribs. If I hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have been found for hours.”
“Oh no!” Veronica gasped, her elbows coming off the table. “Owen mentioned something about a heart attack. Poor George!”
“He’s okay,” I said. “But I don’t trust him not to climb ladders or lift things he shouldn’t or exert himself too much. I make sure he’s safe. It’s what he’d have done for his father.”
“Is it the thing you’d want Owen or Adelaide to do for you?”
I thought for a second. Would I want them to set aside their dreams for my sake? “No. But it’s different.”
“How so?”
“It just is,” I snapped. “And it’s my family and my business so leave it alone.” I stood up and grabbed both our empty bowls, carrying them to the sink.
A few minutes later, I was still at the sink doing dishes when she came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my torso. “I’m sorry, Austin,” she said, laying her cheek on my back.
The tension in my back eased. “I’m sorry too. It’s a touchy subject between me and my siblings, but I didn’t mean to get short with you.”
“I was out of line to push you. I just wish there was a way for you to do what you really love.”
I shook my head. “Me too, but there isn’t. It comes down to a choice between what’s best for my family and what I want for myself. And I won’t be the kind of guy who chooses himself.”
“I understand.” She pressed a kiss to my spine. “And I admire that. Your family is lucky to have you.”
Turning off the faucet, I rotated to face her. Lowered my lips to hers, warmth flooding my body. “Thanks. Want to go upstairs and let me untie your top with my teeth?”
She laughed. “That’s why I wore it.”
The next morning, I woke up to multiple texts from Xander.
Dude. Lumber yard. Today.
I’ll be at your house at four. We can drive together.
No excuses. YOU LOST.
My groan must have awakened Veronica, because she rolled to her side and faced me. “What’s wrong?”
“My brother is bugging me to knock off work early and take him to the lumber yard to find some wood for his bar.”
“And you can’t?”
I exhaled and scratched my stomach. “I don’t like leaving my dad alone on the job.”
“Hmm.” She snuggled closer. “What if I invited your dad to come with me to the farmers’ market this afternoon?”
“Would you?”
“Of course! I’d love his company. But will he say yes?”
“I think he would.” I thought for a second. “Would you be willing to come ask him in person? I don’t think he’d be able to resist you.”
“Like father, like son.” She giggled, dropped a quick kiss on my chest and hopped out of bed. “I’m going to work out, and then I’ll clean up and pop over to the job site. Can you text me the address?”
“Yes.” I watched her pulling on her clothes and wished I could yank her right back into bed.
I could practically hear the clock ticking down on our time together.
She showed up at lunch time, while my dad and I were eating sandwiches in the shade of our client’s side porch.
“Hi there,” she called, strolling up the driveway. “How’s it going?”
“Veronica!” My dad, as expected, was delighted to see her. He rose to his feet and smoothed his Two Buckleys work shirt over his ample belly. “What are you doing here? Did you come to see me?”
“As a matter of fact, I did!” She beamed at him in full cherry-lipped glory, then gave me a smaller, more secret smile. “Hi, Austin.”
“Hi.” I took another bite of my sandwich, wishing I could eat her for lunch instead. How many hours was it until bedtime?
“So George, Noreen at the library told me about the farmers’ market, and I’m planning to head there this afternoon. I wondered if you and Xander might like any fresh produce.”
“Well, sure! Isn’t that nice of you?” My dad slipped his thumbs beneath his suspenders. “I haven’t been to the market in years.”
“Why don’t you come with me?” she suggested. “I’m all by myself with the kids gone, and I’d love the company.”
“I’d love to, honey, but I’ve got work to do.”
“Go on, Dad,” I said. “We’re about done here. I’ll finish up.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. And since I picked you up this morning, why not just go with Veronica now?”
“I guess I could,” he said. “Long as you’re okay without me.”
“I’m fine.” Behind his back, I gave Veronica a thumbs up.
“Are you ready?” she asked him.
“I guess I am,” he said, stuffing the trash from his lunch back into his reusable bag. “And maybe if we have time, we can stop into the barber shop. Gus always gets a proper shave on Tuesday afternoons, and we can see if he or Larry need anything from the market.”
I was one hundred percent sure his motive for stopping into the barber shop was more about Gus and Larry seeing him with Veronica than offering to pick up beans and squash for them. Hiding a smile, I waved goodbye as they headed back down the driveway, and Veronica lifted her sunglasses and winked at me over one shoulder.
My heart stumbled over its next few beats.
“So?” Xander said as soon as we hit the road. He’d left his SUV at my house so we could make the thirty-mile drive in my truck, which meant I was stuck with him for the next half hour.
“So what?”
“So how’s it going with Veronica?”
“Fine.”
“That’s it? Fine?”
“Yep.”
“Does that mean it’s still on?”
“It means what it means.”
He thumped my shoulder. “Don’t be a dick. How’d it go in Chicago? She get her stuff?”
“No. But I did get to punch her ex in the face.”
“Nice.” Xander sounded impressed. “So now what?”
“Now she has to buy some new clothes.”
“I mean, now what for her? Will she stay in Cherry Tree Harbor?”
“Just for the summer,” I told him. “In the fall, she’s going back to New York.” As I said it, I realized how much I hated thinking about it.
“Why?”
“She misses her life there.”
“You can’t convince her to stay?”
I frowned. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Because you’re into her?”
“I’ve known her for less than a month, Xander. I shouldn’t even be messing around with her.”
“But you are. She’s the first woman I’ve seen get under your skin.”
“We’re just friends.” I rolled my shoulders, wishing he wasn’t right. “We have a good time together. But when the kids come home on Sunday, it has to stop.”
“Why?”
“Are you serious?” I shot him a look. “Because it’s not okay to fuck the nanny—or anyone else—with the kids in the house.”
“Is that what she thinks too?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
Of course he didn’t. When Xander saw something he wanted, he always went for it. “Look, if I’d met her under different circumstances, maybe I’d go down that road, see where it led, but as it is, things between us end when the kids get back.”
He was silent for a moment, the hum of the tires on the highway filling the cab. Then he asked, “You really think that?”
“Think what?”
“That if you’d met Veronica under different circumstances, like maybe if she’d just been a girl you saw one night at The Broken Spoke, you’d have gone down that road? Because I don’t believe it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t. Somehow you always have a reason why you can’t ultimately do the thing that would make you happy.”
I scowled. “Right now I can’t think of a single fucking reason not to throw you out of my truck right here on the highway, and that would make me very happy.”
Xander exhaled. “Never mind. Sorry I brought it up.”
I was annoyed for the rest of the trip, giving short, dickish answers when Xander asked my opinion on anything at the lumber yard and barely nodding my approval at the gorgeous barn wood he chose for the bar, even though I was excited about working with it.
What he’d said had hit a nerve.
Of course I wanted to be happy. But you couldn’t just go around doing whatever you wanted without thinking about the fallout—at least I couldn’t. The one time I’d acted selfishly, carelessly, I’d gotten Sansa pregnant.
At the same time, I hated thinking about what it would be like not to have Veronica in my bed at night. See her naked. Touch her when I wanted to. I felt like a kid who’d just opened the best Christmas gift ever only to hear that he couldn’t keep it.
By the time we loaded the lumber in my truck, my mood had soured to the point that Xander didn’t even bother talking to me on the drive back to the house. We unloaded the wood in silence, and he uttered a quick thanks before he left.
I closed the garage door and headed for the house, wondering if I had time for a run before dinner. I felt like I needed to work off some of this tension or else I was going to take it out on Veronica.
She could tell something was up the moment I walked into the kitchen, which smelled so good my stomach growled.
“Uh oh,” she said, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I ditched my work boots by the back door and tossed my keys on the counter.
“Are you hungry? Dinner is ready.”
“I was thinking about taking a run before dinner if I have time. Is that okay?”
“Sure.” She glanced behind her at a pot on the stove, and I felt guilty.
“You can eat without me if you want.”
“That’s okay, I’ll wait.” She looked at me again and bit her lip. “Do you want company on your run, or would you rather be alone?”
“I’ll run alone.” I headed out of the room, but only made it as far as the stairs before stopping. Fucking Xander’s voice was in my head again. Making me question things.
When I re-entered the kitchen, she was putting the lid back on the pot. “I changed my mind about company,” I told her. “Do you still want to run with me?”
She turned around, her expression surprised. “Sure. But I’m not super fast or anything.”
“I don’t care. Come with me.”
A smile lit up her face. “Give me five minutes to change.”
She met me out front wearing her black yoga shorts and a Two Buckleys Home Improvement T-shirt, knotted at the waist.
I laughed when I saw it, my bad mood evaporating further. “Where’d that come from?”
“Your dresser,” she said, giving me an impish grin. “I stole it yesterday morning, so I didn’t have to walk back to the garage naked.”
“Looks good on you.”
She curtseyed. “Thank you.”
“Ready to run?”
“Yes, but don’t kill me, okay? My legs aren’t as long as yours.”
I eyed them with appreciation. “They’re pretty damn close.”
We jogged in silence, side by side, winding our way through hilly neighborhood streets and ending up down at the harbor. After catching our breath at the crosswalk, we hurried across the street and without saying a word, we both headed for the seawall.
I took her hand as we carefully stepped across the rocks to the same big, flat boulders we’d sat on the day I hired her. The sun was low on the horizon, painting the sky with streaks of pink and orange. Seagulls swooped above us as I leaned back on my elbows and inhaled the lake air. The breeze cooled my hot skin.
“How was your afternoon with my dad?” I asked.
Veronica leaned back on her hands, her legs stretching out in front of her. “Lovely. He’s so sweet.”
“Did he show you off at the barber shop?”
She laughed. “Yes. Told all his friends he was on his first date in twenty years. We spent two hours at the farmers’ market, then he insisted on taking me for a ride on the ferry. He told me all about growing up in Cherry Tree Harbor, all the changes he’s seen, and how some things never change.”
“Thanks for spending the afternoon with him. I know you didn’t hire on to be an old man’s nanny.”
“It was honestly my pleasure. And you’re paying me for this week even though the kids are gone, so I want to help you out.”
“I appreciate it.”
“We made a date to go back again next Tuesday—I want to bring the kids too. And did I tell you he wants to come to my dance class tomorrow night?”
I laughed. “No. I’ve been trying to get him to go to that senior mixer for years. He says no to me every time, but naturally, since you’ll be there, he’ll go.”
She smiled. “Naturally.”
We rested there for a couple more minutes, listening to the gulls overhead and the water splashing against the seawall. From the nearby Pier Inn restaurant, I smelled something cooking, and hunger began to gnaw at me. I was about to suggest we head back and eat dinner when she spoke up.
“So what was your bad mood about earlier?”
“Something Xander said that pissed me off.”
“What did he say?”
I watched a sailboat glide into the harbor. “That I always seem to have a reason for not doing the thing that would make me happy.”
She digested that for a moment. “Do you disagree?”
“Yes,” I said, slightly irritated by the question. “I’m not unhappy. I mean, is my life perfect? No. But I’m doing the best I can with the cards I’ve been dealt.”
She studied me for a moment, then looked out at the water. “Xander is really different than you. He’s not as right as he thinks he is.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if he sees your sense of duty to people you love as a flaw in your character, he’s wrong. It’s part of what makes you, you. It’s what makes you such a great dad and son and brother and friend. You put others first, and that makes you happy.”
I looked over at her, wondering how she could know me so well in such a short time. “Thanks.”
“But it also means you ignore a lot of your own needs, and I think that’s why you get so uptight. It wouldn’t kill you to put yourself first every now and again, even with family,” she said. “Love isn’t an obligation. It’s a gift.”
“Excuse me. Did you just call me uptight?” I leaned over and poked her shoulder.
“Yes, I did.” She laughed. “But I’m doing my best to loosen up all your tight spots. Maybe I’ll give you that massage this week.”
“Maybe I’ll let you.”
She stood up and brushed off her butt. “I’m hungry. Should we go home and eat? I made orecchiette with bacon and summer squash that I got at the market.”
I looked up at her from where I sat on the rock. “You should wear my shirt every day.”
She beamed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I like it on you.”
It made her look like mine.
