Matched, p.13
Matched, page 13
Been a long time since that happened. It wasn’t a love song, wasn’t a hate song. Simply a song about hanging out, drinking beer, loving life. Good old-fashioned country music. Inspired here.
His fingers itched to strum again, but he set the guitar aside instead.
He made to stand, turned to the door, and there she was, shuffling through the kitchen, barefoot. Her light hair was tied back so tight it looked painted on, her skin paler than it should’ve been, exhaustion etched in the slope of her back and shoulders.
Will started toward her. The chair next to her clattered, and she yelped. “Ow!”
That would hurt. Stubbed toes sucked. “You okay, lawyer lady?” He leaned in the doorway, watching her turn those tired brown eyes toward him, sizing him up as though she was deciding if he was asking about her toe or her day.
“I’ll live. Thank you.” She set another plastic bag on the table. “Leftover Chinese if you’re hungry.”
He’d planned to grab something on his way to a hotel, but Chinese sounded decent. So did company, even though he knew better. She turned toward the stairs with a barely noticeable limp in her gait.
“Eat any babies today?” he said.
She pinned him with a suspicious side-glance. He shouldn’t have asked. Didn’t need to get more attached. But she’d let him stay here for two nights and days now. She’d offered him dinner last night, let him raid her fridge, bake cookies, brought him dinner tonight. She hadn’t offered anything else. He hadn’t asked.
But she’d been friendly, if guardedly so. Not starry-eyed. No agenda. And he’d been on the lookout for an agenda. Best he could tell, the biggest difference between the woman standing here and the girl he’d known fifteen years ago was life experience.
“No babies,” she said finally. “And despite the Queen General’s best attempts, I didn’t play matchmaker for her daughter either. I did, however, help save a village of dinosaurs from sweet and sour meteor-droids. For purely selfish reasons, I promise. Dinosaurs taste almost as good as babies.”
The Queen General. She was that Marilyn lady that the folks in Bliss had mentioned a time or two. Supposed to be scary. His team told him they’d fielded three phone calls from her already inviting him to welcome receptions and offering him a key to The Aisle, which he figured was what a town like Bliss did instead of offering keys to the city. He wanted to ask about the matchmaking part, but it wasn’t his business what she did or didn’t do with her gift.
Even if Mikey was hanging his hat at the home of one Miss Dahlia Mallard.
“Don’t seem likely, you and that Queen General lady running in the same circles,” Will said.
“My father is special friends with her. We have family dinners on occasion.”
“You want, I can have my psychic talk to him about that.”
The corners of her mouth wobbled until she gave in and put her pearly whites on display. With her lips spread in a full-on smile, he got that funny feeling in his belly, right under where his heart started drumming one of those painful-but-good beats.
“That’s very kind of you,” she said. “But I’ve got this one covered.”
He didn’t doubt it. “What I hear about that Queen General lady, even a baby-eater like you might could need some backup with that one.”
“Don’t tell me the great Billy Brenton is afraid of a crazy old lady from a little town in the middle of nowhere.”
“I grew up in a little town in the middle of nowhere. I know what those crazy old ladies can do. Darn right I’m scared.”
Lindsey blinked at him.
He winked, and then something even more terrifying than meeting her Queen General happened.
She tipped her head back, put a hand to that delicate neck, and she laughed.
It was a little peal of laughter, but the music in it filtered into his soul and made his heart beat out a stronger rhythm, sending electric shocks through his veins.
He wanted to bottle that laugh, that happy twinkle, that bright smile, and put it in a song.
This was the girl he’d fallen for in Colorado. Part insecure, part confident, but bright and happy and shining beneath it all. He had a notion she didn’t laugh like that for just anybody.
Darned if that wasn’t a better feeling than the first time one of his albums went double platinum.
“At least she’s not Southern too,” Lindsey said.
Will inclined his head in agreement. Couldn’t find his voice to say anything.
Not when that honest smile of hers was making him wonder again why she’d pegged him for a bad match for her all those years ago. What he could see, they got along fine.
And when she went to work untying her coat and slid it off her shoulders, his gut tightened.
So did his groin.
Now that—that, a man could get behind.
Bad, bad idea, his brain said.
But everything else about him was jumping onboard.
This was the girl he missed.
She was still in there. Tucked under layers and layers of stiff, uptight lawyer lady, that girl he’d met—the one he’d laughed with, the one he’d gotten drunk with, the one he’d gotten matching tattoos with—that girl was still in there.
But she was more too. More than he’d known. Fifteen years ago, she hadn’t mentioned the psychic matchmaker thing until the minute she broke up with him. What wasn’t she telling him now?
More important, why did he care?
She set her coat over the chair, then reached for the buttons on her stiff suit jacket. “The better news for you,” she said, “is that she doesn’t enter the lair of evil divorce attorneys like me. So you’re safe for now.”
“Not so sure I’d agree, so long as you keep taking your clothes off.”
Her hands froze, and the happy slid right off her face. Wary curiosity took its place, her soft brown eyes watchful, lips tugging down, upper body subtly leaning back.
Will liked the happy better. He wanted the happy. He needed the happy.
Her gaze dipped to his lips.
She wanted to kiss him. Whatever she thought about being a good or bad match for Will—and it hadn’t escaped his attention that she hadn’t come right out and said one way or another lately—he knew she wanted to kiss him.
He knew she wanted to be that carefree girl who danced while the snow fell down. Who would dance in the rain too.
“My apologies,” she said softly. She took a step back. Then another.
It wasn’t a retreat—her stubborn side was coming out, all those barriers slamming up to block out the girl she was hiding underneath that frigid lawyer lady exterior.
“You seeing somebody?” It was the dumbest question he could ask her, but he had to know.
“That’s none of your business.”
He hitched a corner of his mouth. “So that’s a no.”
“It’s a none of your business.”
He didn’t move, didn’t follow her while she made her way to the steps, but he knew how to keep a woman’s attention even when he knew she was right about that very bad idea thing. “I ain’t pretty enough for you?”
I’m still a bad match for you?
“Your ego doesn’t need my stroking.”
He tilted an eyebrow.
Let her think about what else she could stroke if she had half a mind.
The way her brows slammed down over her pinkening cheeks—she was thinking it. Getting agitated by it too.
Good agitated, he guessed. Unless he was losing his touch.
“Anybody ever tell you you’re pretty when you smile?” he murmured.
“Once. But he doesn’t exist anymore.”
That one hit him in the heart.
She was wrong about that. Probably should’ve done the I remember you thing different. Maybe she’d open up if he said the words.
Maybe they could do some forgiving, some healing. Looked to him like they could both use it. Or maybe once they stopped doing the not-talking-about-it thing, she’d tell him he still wasn’t a good match for her.
That she was good for inspiring music, but she wasn’t his to keep.
She looked at him once more, like they might’ve been sharing some thoughts, but then her gaze slid past him, went wide, and all the shrieking floodgates opened.
“What the hell is that?”
Ah.
That.
What with her distracting him, that had slipped his mind.
Wrigley scooted himself into the doorway right next to Will.
“What’s what?” he said to Lindsey.
“That dog.”
Will scratched the whiskers on his chin, made a show of looking right, left, up, and down. Winked at Wrigley. “I don’t see no dog.”
He slid a glance at Lindsey. Yep, looks could kill, and he was dying about fifty deaths here.
She marched up to him, bringing a whiff of flowery shampoo, fried egg rolls, and something innately Lindsey, and went straight to where Wrigley was sighing a sad, lonely dog-sigh on her kitchen floor. His brown eyes tracked her movement, all full of I need somebody to love me.
“This dog,” Lindsey said, pointing between them at Wrigley.
She was close enough for him to touch her cheek. To kiss those pink lips. To taste. “Him? He ain’t a dog. He’s my friend.”
Her jaw stretched open, as though she were winding up to give him a good ol’ what-for.
Will couldn’t hide his grin. This one looked to be even better than last night’s what-for. She was fixin’ to toss him out on his rump. And he was fixin’ to enjoy it.
Before Lindsey could utter a word, Wrigley scrambled to his feet and nudged her hand. She jumped, looked at the pup’s big, brown, silent love me, lady plea, and then the funniest thing happened.
That stiff, uptight, gonna-give-you-a-talkin’-to melted away, and danged if it didn’t look like the girl fell in love.
Her shoulders softened. So did those brown cowboy-killers. Her jaws of doom closed, leaving lips slightly parted, and she touched hesitant fingers to Wrigley’s fur. Wrigley arched into her touch, some love me more? going on there. She stroked his head, and his tail wagged.
“He doesn’t bite,” Will said. “Likes a good scratch behind his ears.”
“How do you know?”
“Most dogs do. Not so complicated. Not like people.”
“Nat’s allergic,” she said softly, more to Wrigley than to Will. “We never had dogs.”
Her fingers skimmed his fur like she couldn’t figure out where his ears were, but the simple gesture sent blood surging to Will’s groin.
He wouldn’t have minded having her fingers on him like that.
He tucked his hands in his pockets and stepped into the sunroom, watching. A girl without a dog, and a dog without a home.
He blinked quickly. Swallowed.
Right special sight there.
“If it makes any messes on my rug, you’re cleaning it,” she said.
“He’s a he, and he ain’t so fond of baths.”
She sent him a laser death eye. “If he makes any messes anywhere, you’re cleaning everything,” she said.
Wrigley nosed her hand, looking for more love. She squatted, met him at eye level. “We can be friends,” she said, “because it’s not your fault you’re here.”
Wrigley licked her cheek.
Dang dog hadn’t licked Will’s cheek yet.
“And stay off my furniture,” she said to Wrigley.
He thumped his tail.
Lindsey gave him one last long look, then stood. She turned, and her words were soft, but he heard her all the same. “Gonna have to try harder than that, country boy.”
“To piss you off, or to win you over?” He was right smart like that.
“Depends on how bad you want to hurt.”
The girl always had been the smarter of the two of them. Would’ve been nice if she hadn’t had to prove it.
Mikey had nailed it. Will was looking to join the Dumbass Hall of Fame.
Because he was staying here in Lindsey’s house. Dog and all.
He didn’t trust her all the way yet, but she still held a piece of him no one else had ever come close to touching.
WHEN LINDSEY GOT her job after law school and moved to Willow Glen, she’d bought a cute bungalow in a modest neighborhood where everyone knew everyone else. She hadn’t had much time to socialize outside work, but she’d still met most of her neighbors. She’d learned their kids’ names, and she recognized their pets.
But four years ago, a flood had completely wiped out her street, among other places here in Willow Glen and over in Bliss.
Some of her old neighbors had stayed, salvaging what they could. Some had torn down their homes and rebuilt on the same land. And some, like Lindsey, had moved to higher ground. She liked her house well enough—it was functional and modern, and since it was new construction, she didn’t have to worry about maintenance on her appliances for a few years. There were enough bedrooms for Noah to have his own and for Lindsey to keep a home office.
As a house, it was everything she needed.
She called it home because that was what people called the house they claimed as their own. But having Will in it made it feel homier.
Having Will in it was also giving her ideas she had no business having.
And having Wrigley—that was scary on a whole new level. Friday morning, when she realized she was sharing her oatmeal with a dog, she bolted out of the house so fast her shoes left skid marks.
She should’ve had a fit about Will bringing a dog into her house. She should’ve kicked them both out. A person staying a few nights was one thing, but a pet—what if it had fleas, or peed on the furniture, or got into the cabinets or chewed her towels or ate her secret stash of Hershey bars?
But Wrigley’s sad, soulful eyes—his I don’t have anybody else to love me look—she’d melted. Lindsey was such a sucker.
She hadn’t lied. Nat’s allergies had kept her family from having pets. But Lindsey had wanted a dog.
She’d wanted a dog more than she’d wanted to breathe most of her middle school and junior high years.
After her spring break with Will, she’d wanted anyone or anything that would love her. She’d found it in her neighbor’s black lab during her summer internship.
No judgment, just love.
It had reminded her of Will.
And now, she had Will, and she had a dog. Sort of. Once he found a new house to rent—or decided to bail on Bliss—they would both be gone. She knew he had a concert in Georgia in a couple of weeks. She’d heard him talking to his management on the phone about it. And then a tour, recording more albums, more touring.
He was temporary.
Even if she and Will could make peace with their past, she’d never be the partner a public figure like Billy Brenton needed. He was surrounded by people all the time. People wanted to talk to him, wanted to talk about him, wanted to talk about who he was with, pass judgments. She couldn’t tolerate that scrutiny aimed at her and her gift. She couldn’t tolerate the scrutiny he would endure for her gift. Good for him that he was comfortable having a psychic, but being half-raised by one was different than dating one. And with her discomfort in crowds on top of it?
She couldn’t date him, because he made her match-o-meter malfunction. He wasn’t a good match. Or maybe he was, and she was overthinking it. Or maybe he wasn’t, but she wanted him to be anyway.
So Friday night, when the cleaning crew arrived at the law firm, she went home and tucked herself into her home office to do a little extra work, earplugs firmly in her ears. Will had been plugged in to a laptop computer, his guitar next to him and earbuds in his ears, murmuring something to himself, and she was fairly certain he hadn’t even realized she was home.
She was perusing online menus, contemplating the deep philosophical question of chicken or steak on a salad—but what she wanted was cheese fries from Suckers—when the unmistakable scent of yummy food wafted into the room.
Lindsey’s stomach growled. Once again, he’d made her mouth water.
The man was so good with the torture.
Fleeing the house for food was tempting. But it would’ve been rude.
Unless he hadn’t made enough for her too.
That would’ve been rude.
She logged off the remote connection to her files in her downtown office, and was about to close her Internet browser when the smell got stronger.
“You hungry, lawyer lady?” a voice drawled behind her.
It was a muffled voice, but it came through the earplugs. She pulled them out, then twisted away from her desk to face him.
Today, he wore a blue plaid button-down open over his white T-shirt, and his stubbled cheeks looked freshly trimmed. But what caught her attention most was the plate he carried, heaped with stir fry, and the glass of white wine in his other hand.
If the man had flaws, she couldn’t remember what they were. “I am,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Promise to behave myself if you want to come on downstairs and eat with us.”
With any other man, she would’ve asked what the fun was in behaving herself. Instead, she nodded, then followed him downstairs.
While Wrigley lay at her feet, Will told funny stories about life on the road and alternated it with asking loaded questions with an innocent delivery. What did a lawyer lady do for fun? How did she sleep at night with all those dinosaurs across the hall? Was it true she’d also played matchmaker for CJ’s co-owner at Suckers? He didn’t mention Mikey.
Funny, because Lindsey had heard Mikey was staying with Dahlia instead of at a hotel. The same Dahlia that Lindsey had pegged as a not-bad match for Mikey and that Will had asked her about more than once.
Lindsey’s plate was empty, her wine nearly so, when Will pushed back his empty beer glass and leaned his elbows on the table. “You’re not so bad when you relax a little.”
“And you’re not so bad when you’re not playing god-awful music.”
There went the killer country boy grin, with a full eye-twinkle to go with it. Good thing the man didn’t have dimples, or he probably would cause heart attacks every time he used them. He was giving the smileys on her panties heart palpitations as it was. They practically leapt off the cotton. Smile at me! Look at me!
