Matched(19)

Will slept on his stomach on the green dinosaur comforter, his arm dangling over the side of the bed. His fingers twitched, then his hand lifted, reaching for something in his sleep. A guitar? A ball? The dog she suspected he'd lost?

And hadn't that been a lovely moment last night? She knew his mother was dead. She remembered that vividly from spring break, because she'd grown up in the land of fairy tales, and there was an adorable orphan boy who wanted someone to love. The boy without a family had chosen the girl without a friend. He'd crept into her thoughts often since her own mother passed away. But last night she'd let out her win-at-all-costs side, and she'd gone straight for his jugular without thinking. She hadn't shoved her foot so far down her throat since the night he pulled her onto the stage in Colorado and told her-and the whole tavern-that he loved her.                       
       
           



       

But he was here, for reasons God only knew, sleeping soundly.

His breath came out slow and steady. His cap sat crooked on Noah's T. rex pillowcase. If he stayed much longer, he'd need to see a barber. Lindsey had a nearly uncontrollable desire to run her fingers through his hair, to see if it was as soft today as it had been the last time she'd known him. And that thick stubble on his cheeks and chin was long enough to be soft too. The good soft. Especially against her softer parts.

Intrigue and desire warmed the smileys on her panties.

She turned away.

He could have anyone he wanted.

He could be good for anyone he wanted.

And despite everything, or maybe because of everything, she hoped that one day he'd find the woman he deserved.

She tiptoed across the hall to her bedroom, changed into a fuzzy lavender sweater and jeans, then went downstairs and pulled her chicken Parmesan out of the bag. She opened a Mae Daniels book on her iPad while she ate. Nat had liked the book. Kimmie had raved about it. Lindsey hadn't had a chance to read it yet.

But as soon as she realized the hero was Southern-the charming, drawling, smiling kind of Southern-Lindsey shoved it away.

She had enough of that in her life.

"What's wrong, lawyer lady? One of them couples you're splitting up get back together?"

Will peered at her from between the slats of the banister on the top step. Despite his words, his voice was mellow and relaxed. Borderline teasing. How long he'd been sitting there watching her, she couldn't say. Awareness prickled her skin, and the smileys on her panties leapt to attention.

In all the good ways.

In all the bad ways.

She wiped a smudge of marinara sauce from her lips. "Yep. Nailed it."

He didn't move, but sat there watching her with his sleepy bedroom eyes.

She pushed away the rest of her pasta. "Did you call someone and tell them you're safe?"

"Called and told 'em I'm not dead. Not so sure about safe yet."

Her pounding heart could appreciate that. "How's Mikey?"

Something flickered in his expression, then shuttered. "Fine. Might could be better if you told me about him and that brunette you didn't want to talk about last night." He stood and stretched. The white t-shirt beneath his red plaid button-down rode up, giving Lindsey a glimpse of chiseled abs and a trail of sandy hair.

Almost the middle of January, twenty degrees outside, and she was suddenly craving an ice cream cone. To distract her. To cool off. To have something else to lick.

He made one of those stretching noises, then dropped his arms and started down the stairs, bouncing casually, in no hurry, subtly asserting his dominance in her house.

Her blood pressure started an uphill climb. Didn't matter how edible he looked, he didn't get to play man of her house.

"You gonna finish that?" Will-no, Billy, because he was wide awake now and one hundred percent channeling his inner country rock god-rounded the base of the stairs and eyeballed her pasta with the kind of lust a man usually used on Lindsey herself.

She'd represented a congressman's wife, a popular local news anchor's wife, and the wife of the biggest badass divorce attorney in the county. And she'd gotten her clients excellent settlements in every case. She wasn't easily intimidated, she didn't back down from a fight and she never ran away.

But tonight, she pushed her dinner away and stood. "Help yourself."

Capitulating was apparently the wrong move, because the grin he gave her went past country boy and all the way to redneck. Here, hold my beer and watch this shit kind of redneck.

"Saw you got some chocolate chips," he said. "You bake cookies? Got a hankering for something sweet and gooey."

The smileys on Lindsey's panties stood higher and waved at him, but she gave them a silent order to behave.

Even if sweet and gooey sounded pretty fabulous to her too. Smeared all over his chest-nope.

Couldn't go there.

Will wasn't fling material. He was lifetime-of-regrets material. And she wouldn't do that to either of them again.

She went to the cabinet over her fridge and pulled out her paternal grandmother's old cookbook, then deposited it on the table.

"That ain't cookies," Will said.

"Closest you'll get from me. I keep everything on hand except motivation."

Those toasted honey eyes connected with hers.

Serious. Curious. Dangerous.

Her stomach launched into a getting-jiggy-with-it two-step, which should've been anatomically impossible, not to mention wrong, but with Will-he inspired her crazy.

His gaze dipped to her mouth.
                       
       
           



       
She swallowed hard. Licked her lips. Lifted her chest. She couldn't help herself. Responding to male interest-it was natural.

She liked men. She liked being with men. But usually, she kept that no-longer-petrified organ in her chest out of it. With him-she was already invested.

She always had been.

His eyes lifted again, darker, more intense. "Got a notion I could get you motivated."

He could.

He absolutely could.

His voice was seeping through her cracks again, poking at her softer parts, her feminine parts, her weak parts. "There is one man that I bake cookies for," she said, "and you, Billy Brenton, are not him."

If he was curious about her other "man"-Noah-he didn't show it.

Ego probably told him he didn't need to worry.

"Deep down," he said, still in that hypnotizing voice of his, still holding her captive with that gaze, "I'm just a country boy. Friends and family, they still call me Will. Think he might get some cookies?"

Oh, cookies. The good kind of cookies. The kind that was better than butter and sugar and chocolate. She swallowed. Hard. "If he-"

A song split the tension in the kitchen. Something twangy and loud that made Lindsey think about his sister.

Will stepped away from the table, reached into his pocket and answered his phone. "Yes, ma'am?"

Lindsey turned away.

No. The answer was no. She couldn't give him any cookies. The baked kind, or the between-the-sheets kind. Not with their history. Not with who they each were today.

Will's conversation was heavy on the mm-hmms and uh-huhs, with the occasional yes or no thrown in. Lindsey took her iPad from the table and walked into her sunroom.

Will's guitar was still there, along with a notebook. Bold handwriting was scrawled over half a dozen papers scattered on her couch.

A pang of yearning hit her in the gut beneath where her dinner sat. How cozy would it be to put on a fire, dim the lights, watch for snowflakes and sit across from him while he strummed his guitar, his fingers working magic, his voice rolling over her and into her and through her? To simply be a girl with romantic dreams and a handsome man and the courage to go for it?

Lindsey backed out of the sunroom.

If he'd been someone else, if they had no history, if they had a true chance at a real future, she might've stayed. But she didn't belong in this room with him. With what made him magic.

She didn't belong with him any more than she belonged with any of the other men she'd dated. She wasn't meant to have a forever. With Will, she couldn't even have a for-now.





WILL WAS HALF-LISTENING to Mari Belle's offers to pray for his better sense to come back since he wouldn't leave Bliss. Watching Lindsey stare at his guitar like she wanted to touch it was too distracting.

Been a long few days. Started okay, went a little nutty, then flushed itself so far down the crapper he couldn't believe he'd ever see sunshine again. But then a smidge of light had come in.

A pinprick, but still light. Here, today, in Lindsey's warm, cheerful home, the pinprick got bigger.

And the music got louder. Wasn't all pretty, wasn't all happy, but it was more music than he'd heard in a long, long time.

Had to be the decorations, he told himself. Couldn't fault her for still having some of that brightness he'd fallen for fifteen years ago. And he could keep the bright separate from the rest of her. Liking her house didn't mean he'd do anything crazy.

Didn't mean he wouldn't be himself around her, but it didn't mean he'd be dumb enough to get ideas either.

"You listening to me?" Mari Belle said.

"Mm-hmm."

One of them Mari Belle sighs told him that was the wrong answer.