Sweetest Mistake (Nolan Brothers #2) (17 page)

“I didn’t come here to talk about Kate.”

Both eyes popped open, and though they were heavy lidded with tiredness, he could still make out the whiskey swirls near the center.

He ran a hand down his thigh. “I owe you an apology.”

“For what?” Her husky voice had a vulnerable hitch.

He shifted on the table, the right words suddenly difficult to find.

She grew impatient. “For insulting m-my cooking?”

“No.”

“For nitpicking the way I drive?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“For kissing m-me?”

He leveled her with a look. “Absolutely not.”

“For not kissing m-me m-m-more?”

At the hopeful ring in her tone, a smile tugged at his mouth. “Maybe, but that’s not where I’m going with this. I’m sorry for the way I left. You didn’t deserve that.”

Her cheeks turned a brighter shade of pink. “I said something to upset you. It’s one of the reasons I try not to talk too much.”

Guilt kicked in his chest. “No, it was nothing you said.” He raked a hand through his hair. “It’s all this hero bullshit. It’s driving me crazy.”

She studied him over the top of the quilt for a long moment. “You’re so weird.”

That startled a laugh from him. He opened his mouth to say more. Hell, he might’ve told her the whole shitty story if he hadn’t caught himself in time.

For all he’d tried to forget the day a fifteen-year-old took his dad’s gun to school and opened fire on his classmates, Luke found himself wanting to talk to Emily about it, if only so she’d understand what a load of bullshit this idea of him being a hero truly was.

Or maybe it was more than that. He couldn’t shake the feeling, the hope, she’d understand the devastation he felt watching his fellow cop felled by that coward’s bullet. How, when his friend slumped to the floor, he didn’t think, didn’t feel, but lifted his gun and fired. In cold blood.

Luke had been close enough that the kid’s blood splattered on his face and clothes, marking him with the truth.

That though he’d built his entire life around being honorable and fighting for the good guys, he was no different than his dad. A cold-blooded murderer. A bad guy.

Her hand poked out from under the quilts and she knuckled one droopy eye.

“I’ll let you rest.” He scooped up her nearly empty bowl and turned to leave.

“Luke?”

He turned.

“Thanks for the soup.”

“You’re welcome.” He closed the door to her suite behind him.

An odd disappointment spread through him and he rolled his shoulders, trying to shake it off. It was for the best he didn’t tell her all of it. She was the one thing in his life not tainted by the stain of that day.

He rinsed out her bowl and laid it in the dishwasher. He should head out. There was still time to hit the gym if he wanted any chance of sleeping more than an hour or two that night.

Yep, that’s what he should do.

She dreamed of him.

Of him with
her
.

Her white-gold hair cascaded across the pillow. Silken strands of spun gold. His mouth brushed over her milky smooth skin.

She laughed and rolled to face him. His large, tanned hand closed over her full breast.

Emily longed to kiss her skin, everywhere his mouth had touched, so that she might know the taste of his pleasure.

She stirred enough to know she dreamed before the blackness pulled her under once more.

Sometime later, she awakened to warmth and darkness, and the vague niggling of some far-off pain.

“Wake up, sweetheart.” He wiped her cheeks with wet hands and she twisted away from him.

Light flickered against the beige walls and the silhouette of a man crouched before the fireplace. The glow of a fire cast him in warm lighting, illuminating his profile as he stared into the flame.

Her heart constricted.
Why does he have to be so beautiful?

His head snapped up and he straightened to his full height.

The sofa dipped when he sat on the edge next to her. “How are you feeling?”

She blinked away sleep. Was he really there, beside her?

He held a cup of water under her nose. “Drink this.”

The cool water slid down her parched throat. Her head pounded and she collapsed onto the cloud of pillows.

Sleep reached out to her, and a vision of Kate, naked and splayed for him, jolted her awake.

Emily didn’t know if Luke was telling the truth that he and the beauty were only friends. She supposed it didn’t matter. It changed nothing between them.

“You should go.” The words cracked with the dryness in her throat.

“Can you take these? They’re for the fever.”

The pills scraped the walls of her swollen throat and she winced.

“Try to sleep,” he told her. “I’m here.”

But when she awoke the next morning, she was alone in her big old empty house.

T
he weeks passed in a flurry of cough syrup and antibiotic intake until Emily’s sinuses dried out and her muscle aches eased. With her renewed energy, she completed the inn’s website and designed an advertising campaign to begin in the next few months and slowly ramp up, peaking in the spring.

She’d also gotten her period.

At loose ends, she convinced Mina to let her take on more wedding-planning activities. She crafted handmade invitations and mailed all but one to the forty-person guest list comprised mostly of family members and colleagues from the university where Noah worked.

The last invite, to the Mayor of Thief Island, sparked a squabble between the couple, with Noah arguing Mina’s ex-fiancé had no place at their wedding and Mina countering, gently, that despite their failed engagement, the Mayor had been a childhood friend to her.

Mina won the dispute.

Next, Emily delivered Vivian’s menu to a caterer in town that would prepare the meal for the reception following the ceremony. She then selected a bakery and presented a sampling of three cakes—vanilla, red velvet, and chocolate—to the couple. Another heated discussion ensued with Mina favoring the red velvet and Noah arguing the cake, when cut, looked like roadkill.

Noah won the debate.

In that time, fall came to the island with a relentless chill and an explosion of color. Growing up in the desert, Emily was unprepared for the drama of the seasonal change. Deep red and vibrant orange torched the treetops, and a honey-yellow glow warmed the landscape.

One afternoon, she arrived at the cemetery to find her mom’s oak tree had dropped a ring of fire on the ground, burying the tombstone with orange leaves, and for the first time, Emily experienced a sense of ease when standing beside her mom’s grave.

Two weeks before the wedding, she sent Max an e-mail to verify his arrival the Monday after the wedding, which he confirmed.

Two days before the wedding, the order she’d placed for fresh-cut flowers arrived at the inn. She gutted twenty white pumpkins and stuffed them to bursting with deep purple ranunculus, cream-colored lilies, and greenery.

The day before the wedding, after she’d checked in with the vendors and fussed some more with the flower arrangements, she drove into town to pick up her dress from the bridal shop. On her way home, she spotted a sign hanging over one of the storefronts. With a muttered curse, she whipped into an empty parking space in front of the Curl Up and Dye Hair Salon.

Unable to recall the last time she’d had her hair cut, she didn’t allow herself to think through her decision, knowing she’d only talk herself out of the long-overdue trim.

An electronic chime sounded when she entered the shop and a woman at the front desk looked up with a warm smile. The woman’s smile crumpled.

Emily gasped. Her feet grew roots where she stood, or she’d have run. The psychologists had it wrong. Fight or flight might describe most people’s instinctual response to attack, but not Emily’s. No, for Emily, when a threat presented, the circuits of her brain went haywire, leaving her mute and motionless. It should be fight or flight or freeze, but they never mentioned the
or freeze
.

“Can I help you?” Kate managed a stiff smile.

“I n-n-need a haircut.” Emily’s voice sounded muffled through the whoosh of blood rushing past her ears.

Kate’s cornflower blue eyes took in Emily’s unkempt hair. She shoved to her feet. “Follow me.”

Emily swallowed the bile rising in her throat and focused on not tripping over her feet as she followed Kate through the salon. Black leggings clung to her impossibly long legs, and her hips rocked with a womanly sway. She had everything a woman could want, Emily realized glumly. A killer face with unblemished skin, Luke Nolan, and a thigh gap.

“Just a trim today?” Kate swiveled a chair around.

Emily climbed in and Kate tossed a black cape over her.

Looking at her reflection next to Kate, Emily frowned. “Do wh-whatever you want to it.”

Kate’s blue eyes widened and her gaze locked with Emily’s in the mirror.

“Wh-whatever you think wo-would look nice,” Emily rushed to clarify.

With a comb, Kate started to pick at Emily’s snarls. “Have you ever considered layers?”

Emily shook her head.

“Layers would add some body. What about the length? Can I take it up a bit?”

Emily wrinkled her nose. Her hair was a kind of security blanket, providing her with a curtain to hide behind when she needed one. And she always needed one. “M-maybe a little, but I like to—”

“Pull it back in a ponytail.” Kate finished Emily’s sentence with a smile. An adorable dimple appeared in her left cheek. “Got it.”

Kate led Emily to a row of wall-mounted sinks where she wet and shampooed Emily’s hair. The conditioner’s fruity scent floated with them when they returned to Kate’s styling station.

After running the comb through Emily’s now snarl-free hair, Kate picked up the scissors.

With the first snip, Emily squeezed her eyes shut.

“How long have you known Luke?”

One eye popped open. “Uh, n-not long. You?”

Kate’s gaze remained fixed on the top of Emily’s head and a frown pulled down the corners of her wide mouth. “We’ve known each other for years. He’s been a good friend to me.”

Relief swamped Emily, and with it, a smile brightened her face. Luke was telling the truth. He and Kate were just friends and Emily was not, in fact, the other woman.

Kate caught Emily’s smile in the mirror and her frown deepened. “But we’ve been growing closer lately. It’s only a matter of time before we make it official.”

Emily’s smile fell.

The scissors sliced and a hank of Emily’s hair fell to the floor. “We’re perfect for each other, really. I know we are…”

“But?”

“But… It’s just… He’s so…”

Annoying?

Bullying?

Kate sighed. “Perfect.”

Emily deflated in the chair.

Another slash of scissors sent more hair falling. “Although, he does have this one little problem.”

“What problem?”

In the mirror, Emily watched Kate hold up her index finger, straight and rigid. Then her finger drooped like a wilting flower.

Emily stared at her finger a moment before its meaning struck. “He’s impotent?”

A frisson of panic swept over Kate’s features. “I’m sure it’ll pass, once we’ve gotten to know each other a bit better.”

Emily recalled the firm press of Luke’s erection poking against her thigh, and the feel of it sliding inside her.

“Promise you won’t say anything. I’d feel terrible if he found out I told you.”

Emily smoothed the shock from her expression. “Of course. I just can’t believe it. He seems so….”

“Virile?” Kate offered.

Emily nodded. Yes, virile, and hot-blooded, and horny.

“He is. I’m just being picky. He’s perfect, except for that one little thing.”