peered over. “What?”
“What if all the weddings are on the same day? I can’t even do two cakes a week. Forget about three. I’d have to turn everybody down.”
“Sounds to me like you’re borrowing trouble.”
“No. I’m thinking ahead. I might look like an uneducated bumpkin to you, but I’ve really thought through my business. I know what I can do and what I can’t, and I’d have to turn down any cake for a wedding on the same day as another booking.”
He nodded, curious about why her fear had sent a rush of male longing through him. He wanted to fix everything that was wrong in her life. The depth of what he felt for her didn’t make sense. He could blame it on his teenage crush. Tell himself that he felt all this intensity because he already knew her. That his feelings had more or less picked up where they’d left off—
Except that didn’t wash. They were two different people. Two new people. Fifteen years had passed. Technically, they didn’t “know” each other. The woman she’d become from the girl she had been was one smart, sexy, beautiful female. And how he felt right now wasn’t anything close to what he’d felt when he was eighteen, because he was older, more experienced.
So this couldn’t be anything but sexual attraction.
A very tempting sexual attraction.
But only sexual attraction.
She had goals. She had kids. She’d already warned him off. And he didn’t want another relationship…
Unless she’d agree to something fast and furious, something that would end when he left?
He snorted to himself. Really? He thought she’d go for an affair?
Was he an idiot?
He lectured himself the whole way home. But when they had unloaded the SUV and stood face-to-face, her in her pretty blue dress, with her hair slipping from its pins and looking sexily disheveled, his lips tingled with the need to kiss her.
She smiled. Her full mouth bowed up slowly, easily. “Thanks for your help.”
“Thanks for…” He stopped. Damn. Idiot. She hadn’t done anything for him. He’d done a favor for her. He sniffed a laugh to cover his nervousness. “Thanks for letting me go with you?”
She laughed, too. “Seriously. I appreciated your help.”
He nodded, unable to take his eyes off her. The way she glowed set off crackling sparks of desire inside him. Even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to kiss her, his head began to lower of its own volition.
Her blue-gray eyes shimmered up at him. Her lips parted as she realized what he was about to do. He could all but feel the heat from her body radiating to his—
She stepped back. Smiled weakly. “Thanks again for your help.”
Then she spun away and raced into the house.
He stood frozen.
It took a while before he realized he probably looked like an idiot, standing there staring at her back porch. So he walked into his grandmother’s house and dropped onto the guest room bed without even showering. He was tired. Crazed. Crazy to be so attracted to someone he couldn’t have, and it was driving him insane that this attraction kept getting away from him.
Two minutes before he fell asleep that night, he wondered if somehow her excitement for her business had gotten tangled up in his feelings for her and morphed into something it shouldn’t be.
That would really explain things for him. Normally, when he decided someone was off-limits, he could keep her off-limits. So it had to be the excitement of the day that had destroyed his resolve. That was the only thing that made sense.
The next morning he strode over to her house. Ostensibly, he’d come to get Owen to play. In reality, he had decided to test out this attraction. If it had been seeing her excitement about her business that had pushed it over the line the day before, then he’d be fine this morning.
Her door was open, so he knocked on the wood frame of the screen door. “Hey. Anybody home?”
“Come in, Wyatt.”
Her voice was soft but steady. No overwhelming attraction made her breathless. In the light of day, they were normal. Or at least she was.
Now to test him.
He pulled open the screen door. “I came for Owen… .”
Papers of all shapes, sizes and colors littered her kitchen table. But she had a pretty, fresh, early morning look that caused his heart to punch against his breastbone. So much for thinking it was her excitement about her wedding cake opportunities that had gotten to him the day before. It was her. Whatever he felt for her was escalating.
He carefully made his way to the table. “What’s up?”
She peeked up, her blue eyes solemn, serious. “Doing some figuring.”
He sat on the chair across from hers. “Oh?”
She rose, took a cup from her cupboard, filled it with coffee and placed it in front of him.
“What I need is an assistant.”
“Do you think—” Because his voice squeaked, his cleared his throat. “Do you think your business is going to pick up that fast?”
She refilled her own coffee cup and sat again. “I plan for contingencies. I don’t want to be known as the wedding cake lady who can’t take your wedding.”
He laughed. “There’s something to be said for playing hard to get… .” Maybe that’s why she was suddenly so attractive to him? Didn’t he always want what he couldn’t have? Maybe he’d only been kidding himself into thinking he was trying to get his inner nice guy back? And her playing hard to get had just fed his inner selfish demon? “Everybody wants what they can’t have. You could charge more money—”
“The more cakes I bake, the more referrals I get. I don’t need to be exclusive. I want to start a business, a real business. Someday have a building with a big baking area and an office.”
Their knees bumped when she shifted, and her gaze jumped to his as she jerked back. Her voice was shaky when she said, “I’ve been going over my figures, and if I didn’t save money for the winter I could hire someone.”
He tried to answer, but no words formed. Mesmerized by the gaze of those soft blue eyes, everything male in him just wanted to hold her.
He frowned. Hold her. Protect her. Save her.
Was he falling into the same pattern he’d formed with Betsy? Once they’d started dating, he got her a great apartment, a new car. All because he didn’t want to see her do without.
And he knew how that had ended.
Owen came running into the room. “I made my bed!” He jumped from one foot to the other, so eager to play that energy poured from him.
