she’d spent half her life loving was with someone else? Melanie shook the thoughts off. A bit of regret was normal with any divorce, no matter how the marriage had ended. After all, she’d been with Cade for twenty years. She’d only dated two other guys before him. He was what she knew, what she’d always known, and giving that up for good was bound to leave her a little melancholy.
Add to that seeing him again after a year apart and Melanie had a Betty Crocker-worthy recipe for regret. That’s all it was—the opposite of cold feet. Regardless of what she might think she saw in his eyes or felt in her chest, she wasn’t going to change her mind. The decision had been hard enough to make—there would be no rethinking of it.
“So, when’s he coming in?” Kelly asked.
Melanie glanced at the clock, watching the hand sweep upward to nine o’clock. “Any minute now. I thought he could learn the ropes today. The weekdays are way too busy for me to have time to show him anything.”
“Sure you don’t want me to stay?”
Melanie grinned. “You’re just looking for an excuse to get out of that baby shower.”
“Hey, I am so done with diapers, I don’t even want to look at them. Even the smell of rash cream brings back bad memories.” Kelly rose, pushing her empty cup to the side. She laughed. “Oh, what am I saying? I miss my boys being little. Every time I turn around, they’ve grown six inches.” She let out a sigh, then swung her purse over her shoulder. “Maybe I’ll take a sniff of the Desitin. Just for old times’ sake.”
Melanie was still laughing after Kelly had left, a second morning brew in a to-go cup. Five seconds later, the bell jingled and Cade walked in, wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt. Emblazoned across his chest was an ad for a wine festival.
Cade.
She watched him cross the room, still handsome as any man she’d ever seen in a magazine, with that lazy, tempting grin and a twinkle in his eyes that seemed to always tease at the edges of laughter. She told herself he no longer affected her. That she could get through a day of working with him—
And not lose her mind or worse, her heart.
Yet, as he drew closer and she read the words curving across his chest, her heart stopped with the memory of the fall weekend when they’d driven up to Michigan to attend the wine festival. Two, no, three years ago. She’d planned the time away for a couple of weeks, reminding Cade several times to clear the weekend on his schedule.
She’d rented a room at a bed-and-breakfast, bought a little sexy black nothing, and hoped the two days alone would bring back the magic that seemed to have disappeared sometime between late night bottle feedings and school plays. She’d thought it would be as simple as throwing on a lacy negligee and spending a few extra hours in bed.
It hadn’t. The weekend had been a disaster of epic proportions, with Cade talking on his cell phone more than to his wife. There’d been one moment, when they’d spread out a blanket on the grass, shared a bottle of Chardonnay and a block of cheese, and laughed—oh, how they’d laughed. She’d thought maybe…just maybe, they were recapturing the magic.
Then his phone had rung and the spell had shattered as easily as a crystal vase dropped on concrete.
And yet, as Cade approached, Melanie found herself wondering if that spell had really been broken or merely needed to be reworked a bit.
“So,” Cade said, “where do you want me? I’m dressed to work.”
Cade had taken her “dress casual” advice to heart and was clearly attempting to appear relaxed. Between the Levi’s and the way he was leaning on the counter, he was the poster boy for relaxed. Only she knew that underneath that well-pressed T lurked a man who hated any kind of disorder.
Nevertheless, desire stirred within her, picturing them together again. On the counter. Against the wall. In her bed. She ran a hand over hot cheeks and pushed the fantasy away.
“How about we start with the basics?” Melanie said, keeping her focus on work, not the shirt and the memories it resurrected. And certainly not on Cade’s face, on eyes that still had the power to set her pulse off-kilter. “I’ll show you how to brew the coffee, then we’ll work up to cappuccino.”
“Before you know it, I’ll be a brewmaster.” He cocked a grin at her and she found herself returning the smile. He slipped behind the counter to stand next to her. A year ago, when Melanie had opened the shop, the space had seemed so much wider, particularly when it was just her and Emmie. But Cade made the place seem confined, too tight for two.
Or too tight for her and the one man she didn’t want to get close to, not again. Too close and she was risking another heartbreak. One was enough.
“Here’s our, ah, main coffee station,” Melanie said, clearing her throat and indicating a cranberry and black countertop machine with several spouts and dials. “We brew it here, put it in the carafes, then make a fresh pot whenever the coffee’s temperature drops below 150 degrees.”
“Doesn’t that waste a lot of coffee?”
“Not really. On a busy day, we can go through twenty pots or more.”
“Can’t you use the old coffee to make those iced things?”
“No, not unless you want to risk cross-contamination. For iced coffee, I have a special five-gallon brewing pot.” She opened the fridge and indicated a big white plastic container shaped like a coffee urn.
“Do you roast the beans yourself, too?”
She stepped back, surprised. “You’ve been reading.”
He gave her a grin as familiar as her own palm.
“You know me. I always do my homework.”
Except for with me, she wanted to add, but didn’t. Cade, who put thought into every decision from the brand of toothpaste he used to the car he drove, hadn’t quite applied those same principles when it came to that night twenty years ago in the back of his car.
Heck, neither had she. In those days, they’d thought of nothing but each other. Nothing but the feel of his mouth on hers, his hands on her body, and the sweet release from the thunderstorm continually brewing between them.
“Uh, no, we don’t roast our own beans,” Melanie said, returning her mind to the subject at hand. “I’d like to get a roaster, but I don’t have the room for it.”
“Unless you buy the space next door.”
“Right.” Melanie turned away from Cade’s intent gaze and reached for one of the bags of coffee beans, imported from Columbia. “We grind the beans in—”
“Here?” Cade asked, reaching for the grinder at the same time as she did. Their hands collided, sending a rocket propelled grenade of attraction through Melanie. It was a hundred times more intense, a thousand times hotter, than anything she could remember with Cade, as if the time apart had intensified his appeal.
Sexual appeal, she reminded herself. Not marital appeal.
And yet, she didn’t pull her hand back right away. She looked up and their gazes met, held. Want tightened its grip on her, holding her captive to the spot. To Cade.
