Be Mine(46)

“When I’m doing work for the pub, that’s your business. When I’m not, it’s not.” She couldn’t make it any more plain that he was overstepping. And because knowing he’d been worried about her made her feel all warm and gooey inside, she needed to nip it in the bud.

“We also happen to be sharing a living space, and no matter how platonic it might be, if you’re going to disappear for hours, it’s polite to leave a damn note.”

“Fine.” She could be just as loud as him. “Next time I’ll leave a damn note. Hopefully it won’t get wet.”

When she tried to go around him to get to the trunk, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“I’m not lying about your number, Darcy. It was pouring and I was on a dirt road and a car was in the ditch. By the time I pushed her out, I was soaked and so was the paper. The ink ran and I couldn’t read it.”

“I said forget it. It doesn’t matter.”

He cupped her chin in his hand, gently but firmly lifting it so she had to look at him. “It does matter. You think I blew you off and I didn’t. I wanted to see you again and because I was a nice guy and helped a woman get her car out of a ditch, you think I’m an *.”

Her opinion of him wasn’t anywhere near that low, but before she could tell him that, he bent his head and kissed her. There was nothing tentative or shy about it this time and it brought back every minute of that amazing—almost freaking magical—night. It also brought back the teenager-like giddiness as she waited for his call. And how hurt she was when the phone never rang. How stupid she felt.

How much worse it would be to add professional humiliation on top of it if she had to go running home before the pub was open, nursing a broken heart. She broke off the kiss, turning her face away from his.

“Darcy.” His voice was rough.

“Technically, while I’m here I work for you. You’re my boss and if you do that again, I’ll quit.”

She pushed past him and grabbed a few bags out of the trunk to carry upstairs. He could lug the rest. After dropping the load in the kitchen, she went into her room and closed the door. Dropping her head back against the wood, she tried not to cry.

He probably hadn’t deserved that, but it was the only way she could think of to make him stop touching her.

Jake wasn’t the first guy not to call when he said he would, but he was the first she’d invested that much hope in. It was the first time she’d cried into her pillow instead of muttering disparaging comments about the nature of men and moving on with her life. And that scared her.





CHAPTER FOUR



JAKE BURNED OFF some of his anger making trip after trip up and down the stairs with groceries, but by the time he’d brought up the last bag, he still had a low simmer going on.

She was full of shit. Their working together—and him technically being her boss—had nothing to do with her pushing him away. She was pissed he hadn’t called her and she wouldn’t allow herself to believe him no matter how many times he told her he’d tried. That wasn’t on him and she was grasping at straws trying make it otherwise.

“I carried them up, you put them away,” he called to her door. “I’m going to make sure they locked up downstairs.”

He didn’t say it out of courtesy but so, if she was in a snit, she’d know it was safe to come out and put the groceries away without running into him. The last thing he wanted to do after the day he’d had was sort canned goods from boxed and try to figure out how to fit everything in the fridge.

It didn’t take as long as he’d thought to do a walk-through of the restaurant, so she was still at it when he returned. She looked calm enough, but he’d spent enough time watching her to see the tension in her shoulders.

Jake wasn’t one to let things fester, so he grabbed a bag to unload. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. You made it clear to me you weren’t interested in anything but working with me, and I should have respected that. But the boss card?”

“That was uncalled for,” she said before he could, which surprised him. “I just needed some space, and that was an excuse.”

“And you’re still mad at me. Admit it.”

“Fine. I’m still mad at you. And before you say it, maybe you tried to find me, but I didn’t know that, so I was hurt and I was mad.”

And that’s where the lashing out had come from. Not anger. Hurt. “How many freaking boxes of macaroni and cheese did you buy?”

“It’s my favorite food.”

“And you gave me shit about frozen pizza?”

“No comparison.”

He lined up the boxes in the cabinet and peeked in another bag. “So, if you were hurt when I didn’t call, I guess that means you cared if you ever saw me again or not?”

When she got really still, studying the label on a can of green beans, he forced himself to be patient and wait for the answer. “Yes, I cared. I wanted to see you again.”

“And now?”

She set the can in the cupboard and turned to face him. “Throwing that whole boss and employee thing at you outside was wrong because of why and how I did it, but the truth is, I do work for you. More importantly, I work for Kevin and this is important to him. I don’t know how much money you have to throw away, but he doesn’t have a lot, so we have to make a success of this place.”

“I promised Kevin I wouldn’t touch you.” Saying it out loud somehow seemed to make the guilt better and worse at the same time.

“Why did he think you would? I swear, if you told him—”

“I didn’t. He didn’t mean you specifically. He just didn’t want me getting involved with whoever he sent.”

“Is that a problem you have often?”

“No, which is why it pissed me off when he said it. And when you said it.”

“I like you, Jake.” The words would have had him singing and dancing on the inside except he heard a but coming. “But after one night, I liked you enough to be hurt when you didn’t call. If we start something and then we have a problem, I won’t be able to stay. I’ll let Kevin down and I’ll let myself down.”

He was pretty sure if he backed her up against the counter and kissed her again, she wouldn’t slap his face for it. But she was vulnerable right now, so that would make him a jerk. And she was right about Kevin. If the pub suffered or, God forbid, failed because things went south between him and Darcy, Jake would lose her and one of his best friends.

“I’m not giving up,” he told her. “Once you’re back at the bar, you might see more of me than you think.”

“Sure. You’ll call me, right?”

“Hey!” She laughed at him, then turned back to the last couple of bags of groceries. “Stop buying cheap pens, woman. We’d probably be married already if you’d used a damn Sharpie.”

“You’re a real funny guy, Jake Holland.”

So damn funny he tossed and turned half the night, wondering how much truth was in his words and imagining what might have been if she’d just used indelible ink.

* * *

DARCY NEEDED CHOCOLATE. With alcohol. Alcohol-infused chocolate with a bag of potato chips on the side. She was going to strangle Jake Holland with her bare hands, even if she had to sneak up behind him and knock him unconscious first.

Her car was nothing more than a car-shaped mound of more snow than she’d ever seen fall at one time. The windchill could freeze a person’s eyes closed if she took too long blinking. She felt caged in the building, and Jake was going out of his way to be as sexy as possible.

He had to be doing it deliberately. There was no way a man could be like that naturally. In the three weeks since they’d talked and come to an understanding there would be no sex, he’d gone out of his way to make her want him. She was sure of it.

Half the time the man didn’t have a shirt on. January in northern New Hampshire and she’d find him painting the stall doors in the men’s bathroom, dripping paint down his naked chest in a way that encouraged a woman’s gaze to follow the eggshell path south. He must have switched shampoo or soap or something because she was constantly aware of how delicious he smelled. And half the time when she glanced at him, he was watching her with that same look in his eye he’d had the night they met, just before he’d kissed her.

She needed a distraction, so she picked up the phone and punched in the number for Jasper’s Bar & Grille. And, just as she’d hoped, it was Paulie who answered.

“Hey, Paulie, it’s Darcy. Can you spare a few minutes?”

“Of course. Let me pick it up in the office. Hold on.” Darcy heard her yell to somebody she was taking a break and to hang up the phone after she picked it up in the office. Kevin had yet to invest in a real phone system. “Okay, that’s better. So, hey, hear you guys are getting a hell of a snow up there.”