Wilde Forever (Wilde Women Book 1) (6 page)

She reached and plucked two for herself as Jax helped himself to a whole handful. When she arched an eyebrow at him he chuckled. “Shut up. Growing boy.”

“Uh huh,” she quipped with flashing eyes.

“Oh. My. Fucking.
GOD
!” he groaned with each bite. “You made these?” Finishing off the handful was no hardship at all. They were amazing, light and dense at the same time. Just the right amount of goo and a sharp cinnamon bite with vanilla on the back end that was nothing short of orgasmic. From that moment on he associated Brynn Wilde with soft, sweet, gooey rapture.

“I take it you like them?” Brynn asked with the same blush and oddly shy smile he’d seen earlier. Looking at her, he realized that she might be a tough cookie on the outside, but when it came to something she felt passionately about—her baking—she had a marshmallow center. It mattered to her what people thought.

“These are amazing Brynn.” He snatched a cannoli and all but inhaled the crunchy tube with the sweet, creamy filling. Throwing back his head he groaned like a dying man. “Honest to God.
Ah-maze-ing
.” He liked the way she reacted to his praise. First the pretty blush, then the half smile, and finally a wide grin. The woman was enchanting even with the stick still up her ass.

They reached for the pile of cookies at the same time when she spoke. “So, how is it you know anything at all about my business Mr. Merrill? I still don’t understand what you’re doing here.”

“Please Brynn. Call me Jax. No matter how old I get, whenever I hear Mr. Merrill, I expect to see my father.”

Snapping a cookie in half, he dunked it in his coffee then popped it into his mouth. When she nodded at his request to go by first names, he relaxed.

“Okay, so,” he said briskly. “Here’s the four-one-one. As best as I know it.” She looked at him with clear suspicion, which got him laughing. “I know, right?” he barked. “Sounds like bullshit already. I’m ahead of you though because between my father and yours, there may be a shit ton of malarkey going on, but hear me out, okay?”

“My father hasn’t said a word about you, Jax.”

“Not a surprise. Long story short—I do preservation and renovation work, and I’m between projects right now. My dad called me up with some unintelligible nonsense about paybacks and promises. Said he owed your dad a big one from their college fraternity days.”

“What?” Brynn wheezed. “College? Are you kidding? That was a million years ago. And my dad’s a professor now. I hardly think he’s caught up in some ancient college stuff.”

“Your dad’s a professor?
Shit.
Mine is a high school principal. I guess they had a lot in common.”

“I suppose,” Brynn dismissed with a shrug. “Doesn’t explain much though, don’t you think? Just a coincidence.”

“Well, whatever it is,” Jax drawled, “it still matters today. And clearly,” he reminded her, “from the way I reacted when we met, nobody bothered to tell me about you either.”

She snorted then buried her face in her mug.

“I hope that means you know how sorry I am for acting like a prick. In no way was I implying that I hoped you were a man.” Sipping his coffee right along with her, he swallowed and sat upright, fixing her with a look. “Much prefer a sexy baker in tight jeans to an old dude in a wife-beater with an apron tied around his beer belly.”

She almost choked on her coffee. The glare told him he was on thin ice.

“So, back to this week’s episode of
Our Two Dads
,” he continued as if he hadn’t just told her he liked her ass. “My father promised your father that I would pay you a visit, see what was happening with your renovation project, and offer my expertise. In whatever form or fashion I could be of use to you.” Jax kept his expression blank but his head was a riot of erotic scenes where his sexual expertise took on quite a few different forms and fashions.

Brynn silently sipped her coffee and toyed with the cookie on her plate. Her guarded expression suggested she was carefully considering everything he’d told her. It was the truth. All of it. Right down to the murky rationale behind the so-called favor his father insisted he fulfill on his behalf.

Under different circumstances, he would have cut and run by now, but the feisty woman with the flour handprints on her backside was already so far under his skin that sitting here watching her was the only pressing item on his agenda.

She was beyond pretty, with a face and body that started bar fights. Like all the women he’d encountered here, Brynn was refreshingly natural, completely unpretentious, and about as intriguing as a woman could be. With a thick mane of golden hair that she kept pulled away from her face in a tight ponytail, she gave off an All-American Girl vibe that surprisingly turned him on. She was like every girl-next-door fantasy come to life.

Her eyes, when she actually looked at him, were a soft calm shade of blue above a perfect nose and a pair of stunning lips that made his insides as gooey as the cinnamon rolls. When she quirked her mouth just so, he saw tiny dimples that frankly made his dick twitch. Besides having a sexy ass in the killer jeans, she had a pair of boobs that he was trying not to stare at. With her simple white t-shirt, he could make out the size and shape of her breasts and determined pretty quickly from the way they moved and jiggled that they were all hers. All that along with the husky voice and fire and ice thing she had going on, Jax was more than just a little intrigued.

“Well,” she quietly replied at last, “I do have a major project in the planning stage at the house.” Looking around the quaint tearoom she added, “The business renovation is complete. Now I’ve moved on to the house out back.”

“Is that where you live?” he asked.

She sighed and a look of frustration and anger shot across her face. He wondered what the hell that was all about.

“Yeah. For now,” she answered heavily.

“Well, now that you know I’m not a serial killer, why don’t you tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help.”

“Why would you think there’s anything going on?” she bit out defensively.

“I know a heavy sigh when I hear one, lady. What gives?”

Dammit, dammit, dammit
, Brynn thought anxiously. This guy saw right through her. The thought did not sit well at all.

She hadn’t intended to convey so much with one sigh, but when Jax asked her if the house was where she lived, the ridiculous situation with the deed for the property crashed headlong into her thoughts. Yeah. She lived there and hadn’t been joking when she’d said
for now
. The reminder made her uneasy on so many levels.

Maybe this wasn’t the time to even be thinking about the work she wanted to do on the house. Not if Nana was going to give it away when Brynn wouldn’t meet her crazy marriage demands.
Fuck.
It was the only word that really applied.
Fuck.

Her patience already stretched thin, she snapped. “I wasn’t just being a bitch when I said I was busy, Jax. This isn’t a good time for me to be distracted from everything that needs to be done in the bakery.”

He gave her a look that suggested he wasn’t happy being brushed off. Oh well. Guess it sucked to be him.

“I hope you don’t think me rude if I ask you to come back later. Maybe dinnertime when we’re closing up. I’d be happy to give you a quick tour of the house and hear your opinions. If you want to that is.”

The tension she felt rolling off him backed off considerably when she finished speaking.
He looked, well…I don’t know
, she thought. He looked relieved somehow. Maybe he thought she was going to blow him off completely until she extended the invitation to meet later.

Brynn needed time to check some things out including calling her dad to find out what the hell he was up to and maybe even another phone plea to Nana begging her to reconsider this foolish plan to marry her off.

Plus, Jax Merrill intrigued her. She knew she was behaving like a granny with her prudish hands-off attitude, but if she could keep him focused on other things, maybe she could fend off his flirty ways long enough to get things under control at the farmhouse. It sure did need some professional expertise.

To say she was startled when he suddenly stood up and held out his hand was a huge understatement. She practically fell off her chair when his arm shot in her direction.

“Deal,” he said as he wagged his fingers so they could shake on it.

Flustered, Brynn stood up and swiped her hands down the top of her thighs before offering up a slightly trembling handshake. This time when his big hand enclosed hers and the electricity shot up her arm, she couldn’t stop the moan that rumbled from her chest.

H
OURS LATER AND AFTER AN uncomfortable phone call with her dad, Brynn was puttering aimlessly around the shop as her mind wandered all over the place.

Learning that her unexpected visitor was the son of Adam Merrill, one of her father’s college buddies, and that the two older men had stayed in touch over the years helped her down off the ledge where the sexy stranger in black was concerned. He was apparently just as he presented himself, a highly skilled and sought after preservation and restoration specialist. Her dad thought he might be a good resource for the work she was tackling in the house.

She’d started the conversation with a super-size helping of sarcasm that her professorial father had not found amusing. Telling her he didn’t care for her snotty ‘tude only made Brynn feel like a chastised kid.

“How about you take a moment to remember just who you’re talking to young lady,” he’d suggested in that way parents have when they have to put one of their offspring in their well-deserved place.

Crap.
“I’m sorry Dad. Really. It’s just that Nana and her interference is making me all sorts of crazy.”

She heard him sigh heavily, the sound making her heart clutch. “Brynn, sweetheart. You know that Mom and I are as proud of you as any parents could be. What you’ve managed to pull off with the bakery and then the tearoom is mighty impressive.”

“Thanks Dad.”

“But here’s the thing. When you went off and hid in upstate Pennsylvania, we thought it was just a reaction to the divorce. Roger treated you horribly and nobody blamed you for needing to pull back.”

This time it was Brynn who sighed. “Where’s this leading Dad?”

He didn’t even bother to hold back and consider her feelings. “Daughter, what the hell are you doing? All you do is work and from what we can tell you have nothing that even remotely resembles a personal life.”

“Dad! For God’s sake. Building a successful business takes a lot of hard work. I don’t have time for a social life. Sheesh.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. When was the last time you went on a date?”

Oh my fucking God. Really?
“I do
not
have time for such nonsense,” she spat out.

“Make the time Brynn. All work and no play…okay?”

She rolled her eyes and clutched the phone so hard it was a wonder it didn’t crack. “I most certainly do not need another man in my life to complete me.”

“No one said you did.”
Shit.
She walked right into that one. “Look honey, just because your marriage crashed and burned doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try again. And if you don’t want to try again, that’s fine. But cutting off every other man on the planet because one asshole did you wrong is no way to live. You’re young, beautiful, and successful. Don’t you want more in your life than just working dawn to dusk?”

Groaning she tried not to fall back on one of her rehearsed responses. “Dad, listen to me. Being married is just not my thing. You guys and Nana trying to make me do something I obviously suck at is just so wrong.”

“You didn’t suck at being married. Just chose the wrong guy, that’s all. Don’t you want a family, Brynn? I mean, what’s all that success for if all you do is sit in that old house and listen to silence?”

“Those grandchildren you and Mom want so bad are going to have to come from Rhiann or Charlie. Seriously Dad. Men are too much trouble—present company excluded. I’m much better on my own. It’s the way I’m built. Period.”

Robert Baron-Wilde snorted in frustration tinged with unabashed love and affection for his daughters. “You’re joking, right? With you and your
I don’t need a man shtick
, Rhiann with her crazy New York life, and Charlie with her hippy dippy new age beliefs, your poor mother and I don’t stand a chance of having any grandkids to enjoy once we retire.”