All You Can Handle (Moments In Maplesville Book 5) (16 page)

Besides, what would he say? That he was falling for his beautiful, carefree tenant? That, for a moment, he actually believed he had a chance with her? Until he’d discovered just how deeply that free-spirited attitude ran. Until he discovered that after years of committing to becoming a doctor, she’d up and quit like a kid who no longer wanted to take piano lessons—or like a mother who no longer wanted to raise her family.

His most eye-opening discovery? Learning that the bohemian goddess living above his garage came from money. Crazy money.

Here he was, crossing his fingers in hopes of getting a loan to buy a building in tiny Maplesville, while Sonny’s dad owned an entire medical group in Houston with over fifty high-powered surgeons working under him. Ian still couldn’t get over the shock he felt as he’d scrolled through web search results for Dr. Carter White. The man was a legend in his field. He could give his daughter the world.

What did Sonny have to gain by tying herself to a mechanic in Maplesville?

Sure, he had money coming to him in a few years from the settlement from his dad’s accident, but that was what? A hundred grand? That didn’t go far these days, and Ian planned to put half of that money on the side for Kimmie. Sonny probably had a trust fund ten times the size of that.

What could Ian possibly offer her? Other than a couple of orgasms in the passenger seat of her VW Bug.

He swallowed a groan.

It was so damn unfair.

But he’d never fooled himself into thinking that life was fair. Life was life. You took what it handed you and you pushed forward. Fairness wasn’t guaranteed. It wasn’t even expected. No one who had lost his father in a freak accident, then watched his mother checkout on her own family, could ever be naïve enough to think life was fair.

Sam tossed his pool cue on the table. “Whadda y’all say we go down to The Corral.”

“I’m good with that,” Dale said. “It’s fifty-cent wing night.”

“No!” Ian practically shouted.

Dale put both hands up. “Okay, man. Chill. I didn’t realize you had something against fifty-cent wings. You don’t have to eat any, you know.”

Ian drew both palms down his face. “It’s not the wings,” he muttered.

He was seriously losing his shit, and if he didn’t take it easy his friends would realize it was something more than just the bank loan. Based on the confused glances they shot his way, they already had.

But he couldn’t handle The Corral tonight. Ian wasn’t sure he would
ever
be able to handle it. He couldn’t even drive past there without getting hard. Of course, the same was true for Ponderosa Pond, Hannah’s Ice Cream Shoppe, even St. Michael’s Church. It’s a good thing he wasn’t Catholic.

If only he could ignore the warning signals that began to blare in his head the moment he discovered Sonny had deliberately abandoned her residency program. The thought of her flunking out hadn’t disturbed him nearly as much as knowing that she’d quit on her own.

He didn’t want to think of her in those terms, as a quitter, as someone who could so easily walk away. He wanted her to be the kind of person who stuck around, even when things got tough.

Maybe he was being too pessimistic. Maybe, if he tried hard enough, he could convince her to stick it out. Maybe he could show her that life here with him in Maplesville is all she would ever need. He could fix bikes all day while she baked cakes, and then they could spend every night naked and sweaty in bed.

But his more practical side, the side responsible for making sure the electric bill got paid and that the milk in the fridge wasn’t expired and that his little sister flossed nightly, knew that he couldn’t get caught up in this fantasy.

Sonny would eventually get tired of living in three hundred square feet of cramped space. Ian was even more convince of it after seeing the palatial Houston estate she’d grown up in displayed in one of the articles he’d run across last night.

The socialite blog had a picture of Carter White, his wife, Regina, and someone who vaguely resembled the woman currently living in the apartment above his garage. The three of them stood before the open wrought iron gates of an enormous home. Even though the caption underneath the picture stated that the younger woman was Madison White, Ian still had a hard time believing it. She had bone-straight hair, falling just past her shoulders. The dozens of bangles and the adorable nose stud were nowhere to be seen, and the white slacks and beige sweater looked like something out of a preppy catalogue. He couldn’t imagine the Sonny he knew wearing something so boring without it being forced on her at gunpoint.

Worse than the dull, practical clothes, was her face. It was as beautiful as it was now, but there was something missing in her eyes. They lacked the sparkle he saw when she was working in his kitchen or flipping through fashion magazines with Kimmie. And her smile in that picture, while still lovely, was the fakest he’d ever seen.

Ian could only hope that she would never go back to that life. It became obvious to him within seconds of stumbling across that picture that the woman standing there with her parents was unhappy.

But he couldn’t be sure that once she got bored she wouldn’t trade in her current living situation for a brand new adventure. And if she did, the price he would pay would be far more than he was willing. Not that
he
couldn’t handle a broken heart, as much as it would devastate him. He was thinking about Kimmie.

His little sister already thought Sonny hung the stars in the sky. If Kimmie thought even for a second that there was something serious between him and Sonny, that her new idol was more to their family than simply the person renting the garage apartment, she would become even more attached than she already was. And if Sonny then decided to move on?

His baby sister would be crushed.

Ian could figure out a way to deal with his broken heart, but he refused to do that to Kimmie.

The only way to prevent that from happening was to do exactly what he and Sonny had vowed to do from the very beginning. They couldn’t be together. It was better for all of them.

Chapter Seven

As he emptied a second bag of ice over the cans of soda he’d just replenished, Ian glanced over at the concession table and noticed they were running low on chips and popcorn.

Damn, at the rate these kids inhaled junk food, snacks would be appearing on some extinction list soon.

As he headed for the house, he gave the backyard a cursory glance, making sure there was no need to rough up any knuckleheaded boy Kimmie had invited to the party. So far the boys had been well behaved, but Ian knew that meant nothing. It hadn’t been all that long ago that he was their age. He, Sam and Dale had been masters of being perfect gentlemen in the presence of adults, but when those adults weren’t around…

Ian didn’t even want to think about it. If he did he might just grab every teen boy by his collar and toss him onto the street.

Payback really was a bitch. He suddenly had the urge to apologize to the parents of every girl he’d felt up at a birthday party.

He tossed the empty soda boxes on his way into the house. When he entered the kitchen he found Sonny standing at the stove, the unique sound of popcorn popping in a metal pot ringing through the air.

“You are amazing,” Ian said.

She looked over her shoulder. “I already know that. What makes me amazing this time?”

He chuckled at her sassy comeback. If he had to count all the things that made her amazing in his eyes, he would be there until next week. Yet, there he was with his hands tied, unable to do anything but fantasize about what could be if circumstances were different.

The thought made Ian want to hurl something against the wall.

“I just realized we were running low on popcorn, and here you are, already on top of it.”

“My eyes have been glued to the snacks,” Sonny said. “I cannot believe how much they eat! You would think they were starving.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.”

Ian looked behind him to make sure they were alone, then walked up behind Sonny, slid his hand over her stomach and pressed a kiss to her neck, just underneath her ear. He did it because he had to.

And because he was a glutton for punishment.

He heard the soft sigh that escaped Sonny’s lips as she relaxed against him.

“Ian,” she murmured. There was a warning in her voice, but he’d be damned if there wasn’t longing too. Which made this even more ridiculous.

“Yeah, I know,” Ian said. “We can’t do this.”

It remained her favorite line where they were concerned.

He’d backed off, too, acknowledging that it was best if they not act on the attraction between them. But knowing they shouldn’t didn’t make it easier. Knowing they shouldn’t didn’t curb the urge to sweep her into his arms and pin her against the wall, especially when her skin looked so warm and dewy after standing in front of the hot stove. And when her firm backside fit so unbelievably perfect against his aching groin.

God, did he ache for her.

“Do me a favor,” he whispered against her skin. “Don’t pull away yet. Let me savor this for just a minute.”

Instead of pulling away, which Ian half expected her to do despite his request, she brought her arms over his hand that covered her belly.

He was an idiot to put himself through this. He’d already decided that even if Sonny changed her mind, he couldn’t trust her not to do exactly what his mother had done. In fact, he fully expected her to bail when she got bored with this town.

But that didn’t stop Ian from wanting to pretend, just for a couple of minutes, that things were different.

“Every time I think I’m making the right decision with resisting you, you make me question it,” Sonny said.

“Yeah, well, who the hell said I was going to make this easy for you?”

“Ian,” she said in a strained voice.

“Shhh,” Ian whispered against her skin. “I just wanted to thank you.”

She turned around slightly to look over her shoulder. “For what?”

For coming into my life.

Even though it killed him, knowing her time with him was limited, Ian could not regret a single second of what had happened since the moment he looked down the bar at The Corral and spotted her looking back at him.

“For throwing Kimmie the best birthday party she could ever hope for,” he finally answered. “I never would have been able to do this without you.”

“You would have done okay by yourself,” she said.

“Not even close. Every time I’ve looked at Kimmie today she’s had this huge smile on her face. You made that smile possible. ”

Sonny shut off the fire and moved the pot to another burner. Then she turned to him and cupped his cheeks in her soft hands.

“
You’re
the one who made this possible. It takes an extraordinary man to go to this much trouble to make his baby sister’s birthday special.”

Ian’s throat tightened with emotion. “Thank you,” he said again, his voice hoarse.

Minutes stretched between them as they stood in the middle of the kitchen. God, how he wanted to wrap his arms around her and lose himself in her kiss.

But that wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

This? Them? It wasn’t going to happen. Eventually, he would accept that. Then maybe he could lay off the self-torture.

Although that probably wouldn’t happen until her packed-to-the-brim VW Bug pulled out of his driveway for the very last time.

And that’s when the
real
torture would begin.

“The credits are rolling,” Sonny said.

“What?”

She tipped her head toward the door. “The song that’s playing. It’s at the end of the movie. It’s time for the birthday cake. Can you help me bring it out?”

For a moment he’d forgotten there was a party in progress.

“Yeah, sure,” Ian said, taking a couple of steps back. He followed her into the dining room where she’d hidden the cake she’d made at Kiera’s yesterday. They each picked up one side of the rectangular base, and together carried it outside and set it on the round table Sonny had set up for it.

The crowds’ excited reaction to the cake managed to put a smile on Ian’s face. It looked better than it had in the picture he’d seen online.

Sonny called for everyone to gather around the table, and in the most inharmonious chorus known to mankind, they all sang happy birthday.

Because he’d apparently turned into a masochist over the last few weeks, Ian allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy of this being real. Of Sonny being here, not as the tenant renting the apartment above his garage, but as the woman at his side.
His
woman. Celebrating his little sister’s birthday with him. Sharing his life.

It was a foolish dream. It would only make it that much more difficult when she left Maplesville. But he granted himself the brief fantasy all the same. He would need these memories to keep him company once she moved on.

Kimmie did the honors of cutting the first piece of cake. Ian thought it was a shame to slice through Sonny’s masterpiece, but after his first bite he refused to feel bad about it. The cake was pure genius. He knew in that instant that her dream of owning her own specialty cake business would not only happen, but it would be an enormous success.

Once copious amounts of cake had been consumed by everyone, the parents of the boys who’d attended the party—none of which Ian had been forced to rough up—began to arrive. Sam and Dale, who’d both loaned Ian their pick-up trucks to serve as additional seating for the drive-in, came over, and, along with Sonny, helped to shuttle the girls to the sleepover at Michelle Foster’s house.

By the time he got back home all Ian wanted to do was crash on the sofa and sleep until noon, but the backyard was a mess. He wouldn’t be able to rest with trash everywhere. As he grabbed an empty garbage bag from the box underneath the sink, Ian couldn’t summon the motivation to complain. Just thinking about that smile on Kimmie’s face made every empty candy box and soda can strewn about the yard worth it.