“Because you’d rather pretend it never happened, right?” he pointedly challenged.
“That’s right,” she said, not backing down one bit. “I want to pretend it didn’t happen. I wasn’t supposed to ever see you again.”
He arched a brow. “Is that so?”
She almost swallowed her tongue at that question but managed to charge forward. “Yes. It’s so. And we both know you know it. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
“But here I am,” he said softly. “What are you going to do with me?”
Holly leaned back against the leather of the booth, and tried to portray her calm and collected courtroom persona. But as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and the glittery Santa shirt her mother had insisted she wear that day, and now regretted immensely, she was anything but. She was in uncharted territory. The men she’d been with in the past might have been merely “vanilla sex” competent, but at least she knew what to do with them. This one, she did not. At least not outside her fantasies, definitely not in flesh and blood. She’d never acted as brazenly as she had with Cole. What was she going to do with him? There were lots of things she wanted to do with him. Like lick him in all kinds of places, but that wasn’t going to happen.
He arched a brow that said, Feel free to throw out suggestions if you are having trouble narrowing the options. Or I could suggest a few possibilities myself. His eyes twinkled with sexy mischief. “You could start—”
Carol reappeared at that moment, and Holly wanted to scream. She could start how? Start by kissing him all over? By getting up and dragging him to the restroom and finally feeling what it was like to have that man inside her? To—
“How’s Jacob doing?” Carol asked, filling the two coffee cups she’d brought to the table with the pot she held. “I heard from Katie over at the salon, he got in some fight at The Tavern Friday night, defending some woman from a wife beater, and broke his leg.”
“Jacob is doing a fine job of defying doctor’s orders to stay in bed and has irritated me every opportunity he gets. So he’s pretty much back to his normal self, with the addition of a cast and bigger-than-usual attitude.”
Carol chuckled. “He was a hero from what I hear,” she told him. “Helped that poor woman. So cut the boy some slack. I’ll give you some pie to take to him. That coconut kind he likes so much. Let me know if you two need anything more.”
“I’ll see that he gets it,” he said. She walked away and he refocused on Holly. “And there you have the gossip circuit of a small town. She found out in the salon. But now you know. That’s why my brother came to the truck the other night; otherwise they would not have. Some fun over a beer inside the tavern is one thing. They know appropriate boundaries.”
Holly now felt bad for thinking the worst of his brothers the night before. “I’m sorry. I thought. . . .” She pushed her computer aside, welcoming him for the first time since he sat down. She should be writing, but she wasn’t going to try now. The diner would close soon anyway. “Did Jacob at least get one good jab in before he went down?”
A slow smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “That’s the exact question I asked when I found out.”
She smiled. “You did?”
He nodded.
“And?” she prodded. “Did he?”
“He did,” Cole said. “But the woman went right back to her husband. Jacob’s feeling like he did it all for nothing.”
Holly poured cream into her coffee and stopped a moment. “That’s not true,” she said. “Tell him it’s not true. What he did told her there are people out there that will help. Maybe it will become the tiny chip in her husband’s persona of intimidation that makes her less afraid to act. Sheriff Jack was involved, I assume? He’s never been one to look the other way. He’ll stay on the guy.”
“Sheriff Jack is the reason Jacob isn’t charged with assault. This kid he scrapped with is new in town. The sheriff promised the guy he’d take off his badge and punch him himself if he ever heard of him hitting a woman again. That pretty much discouraged him from filing charges.” He studied her a moment. “You know this town as if you grew up around here. And if the staff here is any indicator, it seems folks know you, too.”
Part of her clamored with the warning to stop the talking, to avoid getting personal, but she found herself answering anyway. “As I mentioned, I grew up here, yes. Went to school with Sheriff Jack. His dad pulled me out of more than a ditch or two in his day as sheriff.” She shook her head. “That was when I first had my driver’s license and it was not pretty. I wasn’t so good at navigating in the snow.”
Amusement flickered across his face. “And now? Are you good in the snow now?”
“Judging from the slipping and sliding I was doing coming over here, no,” she said, and laughed, amused at herself. “I’m out of practice, for sure. Other than a short visit here or there, I’ve been gone ten years. Around my area of the country, these past ten years, snow is a fable.”
“Where would that be?”
“Houston, Texas. Law school and then a law firm.”
He picked up the book. “And then writer?”
“Yes. And finally doing it full-time, which has me nervous as heck. I can’t seem to put words on the page. That’s why I came home. I thought a change of scenery might help me through the terror of failure.”
Glancing at the book and then at her, he said, “I think the part here that says ‘USA Today bestselling author’ guarantees you’ve succeeded.”
“One time on a list does not make a career,” she said drily, and shifted the conversation away from anything that reminded her of the deadline fast approaching. “What about you? I know you weren’t here before that because I’ve never heard of the Wiley brothers. And clearly everyone else has. How’d you end up here?”
“I came to town about two years after you left from the sounds of it.” He slid back into the seat and stretched one long leg parallel to the table, his back against the wall, one arm lazily draped on the seat. Casual, easygoing. “My mom and dad—both gone now—retired from corporate living in upstate New York. Dad and I had always talked about opening a business together, and it seemed the right time. I was twenty-five, four years out of college, working for a big-city contractor. There wasn’t a local operation in Haven, so it seemed a perfect fit. And where we went, my brothers tended to follow.”
She curled her jean-clad legs onto the seat and angled herself toward him. “I have two sisters and a younger brother who I adore, but I don’t think I could work with any of them.” She lifted her cup and mock-toasted him. “You’re a better man than I.” She sighed and set her cup back down. “Though I’m looking forward to seeing them when they get here. I just have to get my work done first.” She glanced at her watch. “They’re closing here soon.” Holly sighed. “And my parents’ place is proving a distraction that’s not working.” She laughed, feeling a bit awkward about what that distraction truly was. “I guess this town will never be big enough for a Starbucks. I would’ve torn through some pages with a good White Mocha in hand.”