The Sweetest Thing

Chapter 15

By noon, the houseboat had been towed back to the marina, where it was determined that the bilge pump had failed. Logan was perfectly safe although slightly disgruntled, and settled back at his original beach cottage after a phone call to the owners from Tara.

The weekend guests were no trouble at all. Chloe had been right. They were in their mid-thirties, on their honeymoon, and hadn’t noticed a thing about the inn. All they wanted was their bed.

Maddie was set to handle the afternoon and evening, with both Chloe and Mia for backup if needed. Tara had a shift at the diner, and she was running late. Keys in hand, she came running out of the cottage and nearly toppled over Mia, who sat on the top step.

Holding the recipe box.

“Hey, Sugar.” Tara pulled up short. “Where did you get that?”

“From Chloe.” Mia opened the box and pulled out the first card, on which Tara had written For My Daughter. “She thought I’d like to see it.”

Tara was going to be late for work if she stopped but she knew it didn’t matter. Talking to Mia was worth being bitched at by Jan-and Jan would bitch. Eyeing the wooden step, Tara bit back a sigh. Hiking up her pencil skirt to mid-thigh, she gingerly sat.

Mia pulled her lips in, trying to hide her smile, reminding Tara that in the girl’s eyes, she was not only old but also probably embarrassing.

“The porch swing would have been more dignified,” Tara told her.

“I like it right here. I can see the world sail by.”

That was true. From here, there was a lovely view of the marina and any ships sailing past it. “Are you interested in sailing?” Tara asked her. “Because it just so happens, you’re closely related to an expert.”

Mia smiled. “I know. And yeah, I’m interested. Ford said he’d take me real soon.” She pulled out a card and showed it to Tara. “Never miss a good opportunity to shut up?”

Tara sagged a little and let out a huff of laughter. “It fit at the moment.”

“Chloe?”

Tara looked at Mia and found the girl still smiling, and felt the helpless curve of her own mouth. “Yes. She has a way, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah.” Mia looked down at the box and was quiet a minute. Normal for her, not normal for Tara. She had to bite her tongue to keep it from running away with her good sense, to keep from filling the silence. And damn, it was hard to do, but when Mia finally spoke, it was worth the torturous wait.

“You thought of me,” she said.

Tara let out a low laugh. “A little.”

Mia lifted her gaze from the box and met Tara’s.

“A lot more than a little,” Tara said very softly.

Her daughter’s eyes warmed, those beautiful eyes that made Tara think of Ford every single time she looked into them. She wanted nothing more than to have Mia keep looking at her like that, but she had to tell her all of it. “I want you to know the truth, Mia. I need you to know the truth. I don’t regret giving you up.”

Mia went still. “Oh.”

“I loved you,” Tara said, and put her hand to her chest to absolve the ache she felt there at the memory of that sweet, sweet baby looking up at her. “Oh God, how I loved you, from the moment I first felt what I thought was a butterfly on my shirt and turned out to be you kicking. But I wasn’t capable of the kind of love you needed.” Tara paused, her throat tight. “Even in all my teenage selfishness, I knew you deserved more. You deserved everything I couldn’t provide. So that’s why I don’t regret it, Mia. Because in giving you up, you had a childhood that I couldn’t have given you.”

Mia ran her fingers over the grooves in the wood of the recipe box, her silence killing Tara. “And something else I don’t regret.” Tara reached for Mia’s hand. “Having you here this summer. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything, getting to know you.”

Mia’s fingers slowly tightened on hers. “Even if it means facing your biggest mistake?”

“Oh, Mia.” Tara risked all and slowly slid an arm around her beautiful, smart, reluctant daughter. “I meant what I said about that. You were never a mistake. You were meant to be, and I’m so very, very glad you’re here.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

After a beat of thinking about that, Mia laid her head on Tara’s shoulder, and Tara’s heart swelled to bursting. They sat there quietly a few more minutes, Tara ignoring the occasional and insistent vibration of her phone. She knew it was Jan; she could feel the temper coming across the airwaves, but Tara didn’t want to get up.

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” Mia said.

Tara smiled. “It’s been fun giving you the good jobs and making Chloe clean the bathrooms.”

Mia’s mouth quirked. Ford could do that, too, project an emotion with next to no movement. From within Tara’s pocket, her cell went off yet again, but Mia was looking at her, something clearly on her mind, so Tara didn’t move.

“I’ve just been trying to imagine it,” Mia finally said. “Me, right now, having a baby at my age. It’s… incomprehensible. The trauma. The utter responsibility of it all.”

Tara laughed without much humor. “Don’t forget the abject terror.”

“Were your parents awful about it?”

“My dad, yes.” Tara could still hear the bitter disappointment in his voice over the phone line. It’d taken him days to return her tearful message from wherever he’d been traveling for work. “But your grandma, she was surprisingly supportive.”

“Why surprisingly?”

“We didn’t see each other often. Just sometimes in the summers. But she didn’t judge or yell. She didn’t try to make me feel bad. She just found me a special high school to attend in Seattle, and she was there when I needed her. She came for your birth. And she was there for you later too, when-”

“When I got sick.” Mia nodded. “My parents told me. She helped pay the medical bills.”

“I didn’t know it at the time,” Tara admitted. “I never heard anything about it until she died. But I snooped through her papers and read about your condition. You had a problem with a heart valve.”

“It was… misbehaving.” Mia put finger quotes around the word. “That’s what my parents called it. I had surgery, and now my heart’s perfect. That’s what my cardiologist said. Perfect.”

“It must have been so scary for you.”

She shrugged. “My parents kept buying me presents, and they took me to Disneyland afterward.”

The resilience of youth…

“How about Ford? How did he handle the news of you getting pregnant?” Mia asked.

“Better than me. He was…” Strong. Steady. Calm. Looking back, Tara knew he must have been freaking out every bit as much as she was, but he’d never shown it. “Amazing.”

“And you’re not together why?” Mia asked, smiling when Tara sighed. “Sorry, couldn’t resist asking again.” She pulled out another index card. “The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.” Mia laughed again, and the knot in Tara’s chest, the one that had been there since the girl had first shown up in Lucky Harbor, loosened. God. God, her baby was so beautiful. “This is nice,” Tara said. “I like being with you like this.”

Mia stared down at the box. “I’m sorry I said you were rigid and uncompromising and stubborn.”

Tara blinked. “You never called me those things.”

“Oh, right. Well, I thought them.” Mia winced. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I am those things, and more.”

“You’re also smart, and pretty, and you care,” Mia said quietly. “You’re, like, all calm and collected, and you have this don’t-mess-with-me vibe, but you also care about everyone in your orbit. Even people who drive you crazy.”

Tara laughed a little, shocked. And touched. Unbearably touched that her daughter appeared to know her so well. “How do you know that?”

“Chloe told me. She said she drives you crazy and you’re still there for her, no matter what. That’s her favorite part about you, and mine too.”

Tara’s heart throbbed painfully. In a good way. “You know what my favorite part is?”

Mia shook her head.

“You.”

Her daughter’s eyes got misty as she smiled, and Tara had to fight for control as well. She reached for Mia, and then they were hugging just as Tara’s cell phone vibrated yet again. Mia sniffed and pulled back. “Somebody really wants to get a hold of you.”

“It’s my boss.” Tara swiped beneath her eyes. “Mascara?”

“Still okay,” Mia assured her. “You need the waterproof kind, though. And a nicer boss, like I have.”

Tara laughed and got to her feet, brushing off her butt and hoping she wasn’t wrinkled. “Come to the diner after you finish here, and I’ll make you dinner.”

“Can I bring someone?”

Carlos, Tara thought, which was something else that had been keeping her up at night-the idea of the teens moving too fast. Already, they were inseparable. “Honey, about Carlos,” she started slowly. “He’s”-A horny teenage boy?-“too old for you.”

“He’s my age.”

“Well then, he’s too…” Hell. He was too nothing. He was a great kid. But no boy was going to be good enough, she knew that already.

“Actually,” Mia said. “I meant Ford. Do you have any objections to him? Because he likes to watch you cook. He told me.”

Tara paused, struggling to change gears. “He did? What else did he tell you about me?”

“That he loves to see you and me together.”

Aw. Dammit. There went her heart again, squeezing hard.

This question was accompanied by a certain look in her daughter’s eyes, a speculative gaze that had Tara narrowing hers. “Sugar, you’re not up to anything sneaky, are you?”

“Like?” Mia asked innocently.

Oh, Lord. “Like trying to get Ford and me together?”

“Hey, I didn’t start the poll.”

“Mia.”

Mia was suddenly looking much younger than her seventeen years. “Would it be so awful?”

“I just don’t want to disappoint you,” Tara said. “Because Ford and I, we’re not-”

“I know, I know. You’ve mentioned this a time or a hundred.” Mia’s attention was suddenly diverted by something behind Tara. “You’d better go. You don’t want to be late to the diner.”

Tara turned to look behind her at whatever had caught Mia’s eyes and saw Carlos, walking across the yard toward the marina building.

“So have a good shift,” Mia said, getting to her feet. “See you later.”

“Mia-”

But Mia was already halfway to Carlos, and back to looking very much seventeen.

Much later that night, Tara awoke to someone trying to chainsaw their way into the cottage. She sat straight up and realized it was just her sister snoring.

From the next bedroom over.

Tara looked at the clock-midnight. Great. She slipped out of bed and down the hall to Chloe’s room. “Turn over.”

Chloe muttered something in her sleep that sounded like “a little to the left, Paco.”

“Chloe!” Tara said, louder.

Chloe rolled over and blessed silence reigned.

With a sigh, Tara went back to bed and started to drift off. She got halfway to a dream that involved her naked and being worshipped by Ford’s very talented tongue before Chloe began sawing logs again. Tara looked at the clock.

Midnight plus two minutes.

Hell. Sleep was out of the question, and anyway now she was hungry. She must have been channeling her sister Maddie because suddenly she wanted some chips. Needed some chips, quite desperately, as a matter of fact. Only problem, there were none in the cottage; she’d removed them for Maddie’s sake. The only place she knew to get chips was in town.

Or… on Ford’s boat.

Was it breaking and entering to board a man’s boat and steal food? No doubt. But hell, she’d already stolen his shirt. In fact, she was wearing it right now, so what was one more act of pilfering?

Her stomach growled, and making her decision, she rolled out of bed once more. At the door, she realized she needed shoes, and slipped into the only ones she had out-her wedge sandals. She gave a brief thought to how she must look in Ford’s shirt, panties, and the heeled wedges. Ready for a “Girls Gone Wild” video.

No one else will see you at this hour, she assured herself. The boat was only fifty yards across the driveway. She ran in the heels, skirting around the marina building and onto the dock, by some miracle not twisting an ankle or breaking her neck.

The night was noisy. No wind, but there was an owl hooting softly somewhere on the bluffs, and the answering cry of its mate. Crickets sang, and the water, stirred by the moon’s pull, pulsed against the dock, slapping up hard against the wood.

In Houston, Tara had slept in a fourth-floor condo. City lights had slashed through her windows, blotting out the moon’s glow, and there’d been no noise except for the drone of the air conditioning just about 24/7. Six months ago, when she’d first arrived in Lucky Harbor-bitchy, resentful, and unhappy-she’d hated the sound of nature at night. It’d kept her up, and she’d lay in bed for hours, mind racing. But somehow, over the months, she’d come to accept the noises. Even welcome them.

They soothed her now, as did the utter darkness of the night itself. There were no city lights here, nothing to mute the glorious stars. She would stay outside and enjoy the night but she wasn’t exactly dressed for it. And those chips were calling her name. She did have a bad moment boarding the boat in the wedges, and pictured falling into the water between the boat and the dock and being found with Ford’s T-shirt up around her ears.

Once she managed to board, she headed below deck, and as hoped found a bag of chips on the counter in the tiny galley. She downed her first mouthful, and her hand was loaded with her second when the light came on. Blinking in the sudden brightness, she turned and faced…

Ford.

He took in the fact that her mouth was full, her fingers loaded with more chips, and began to smile. By the time he eyed her undoubtably bedhead hair, bare legs, and heels, it was a full-blown grin. “Nice,” he said.

“This isn’t what it looks like.”

“No?” He wore sweatpants low on his hips and nothing else. His hair was rumpled in that sexy way that guys’ hair get when they’ve been sleeping. He leaned back against the opposite counter and slid his hands into his pockets. Relaxed. Watchful.

Amused.

Damn him.

“So what do you think it looks like?” he wanted to know.

Like she was a crazy chick so on the verge of losing it that she’d broken and entered and stolen his chips. “Uh…”

His eyes had locked in on her shirt. “You’re either chilly or very happy to see me-is that my shirt?”

Crap. She looked down and crossed her arms over herself, which made the shirt rise up higher on her thighs, possibly exposing her pink lace panties.

This momentarily diverted his attention downward. His smile went naughty and the air around them heated to scorching.

Yeah, definitely she’d exposed her underwear.

“That is,” he said. “That’s my shirt.”

She didn’t really want to talk about the shirt. “I couldn’t sleep. I got hungry and figured you had chips.”

“So you committed felony B &E,” he said, nodding. “Good plan. Except for the getting caught part. Were you going to sleep in my bed, too, Goldilocks?”

The way he said bed brought vivid memories of all the mind-blowing, amazing things he’d done to her in a bed. And out of a bed…“No,” she said. “That would be rude.”

He laughed softly. “Are you still working on your issues?”

“Yes,” she said primly. “You?”

“I’m a work in progress, babe.” He slid her a bad boy smile. “Still hungry?”

Oh boy. “Yes,” she whispered.

He crooked a finger at her. “Come here, Goldilocks.”

“That would be… a really bad idea.”

“I can make it so bad it’s good.”

Gah. “You’ve got to stop that.”

“Stop what?” he asked.

Looking hot, she thought. Talking naughty.

Breathing.

As she turned to face the counter and set down the bag of chips, she grabbed a bottle of water and washed down the crumbs. She knew by the tingling at the base of her neck that Ford was right behind her now. Then he was so close that she could feel his body heat seeping through the shirt to her skin. She could have moved away, but the truth was, she was exactly where she wanted to be.

“Okay,” she said shakily. “Here’s the thing. I’m… still attracted to you.” Her breath shuddered out when he nudged her hair aside and brushed his lips along the nape of her neck. She locked her knees. Had to, in order to keep standing. “But I don’t want to sleep with you again.”

“And yet here you are,” he murmured against her skin. “On my boat. In the middle of the night.”

“Yeah. That looks bad,” Tara admitted. “But really, it was all about the chips.”

“And my shirt.” He ran a finger down her spine, stopping far below the line of decency, making her breath catch in the sudden silence. “How is it that you have it?” he asked, his hand on her ass.

She fought against the urge to thrust her bottom into his palm.

Or better yet, his crotch.

“Tara.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I stole it. The day I returned your crepe pan.”

“Look at me.”

No. No, thank you very much.

His hands settled on her hips and he turned her to face him. “Not that I don’t like the sight of you in the shirt,” he said. “Because I do. Very much. But you’ve been keeping your distance, and I’ve been trying to respect that. But you came to me tonight, so all bets are off. Tell me why you’re in my shirt.”

She nibbled on her lower lip. She didn’t have an answer. At least, not one she wanted to give him. “You gave me one just like it when you first got them.”

“I remember. I just didn’t realize you did as well.”

“Yes, well, I do. And I loved it,” she told him. “And I lost it in the fire. I really missed it. So when I saw yours…” She closed her eyes. “Hell, Ford. I can’t explain it. I lost my head and stole your damn shirt. There. You happy?”

“Hmm,” he said noncommittally. “The fire was six months ago.” He was still gripping her hips, his hands beneath the hem of the shirt now and his thumbs scraping lightly up and down on her bared belly, making her muscles quiver. “You had it all that time?”

“It was comfortable.”

He smiled at that. “Comfortable. You kept a shirt for seventeen years because it was comfortable.”

“Yes.”

“Liar. Such a beautiful liar.” Leaning in, he kissed her.

Soft.

A warm-up round.

She knew just how potent the next round would be, so she put her hand to his chest, not quite sure if she was stopping him or making sure he couldn’t stop.

In the silence, her stomach growled, and he grinned. “I stand corrected. You really are hungry.” Turning to the small refrigerator, he pulled out tortillas, grated cheese, and salsa.

“What are you doing?”

“Making you a quesadilla. I’d grill it, but I can’t do that in here.”

She watched as he stroked a spoonful of salsa onto the tortilla, then layered grated cheese over it. There was something about the way his hands moved, his concentration, the obvious ease that he felt in his kitchen, that got to her.

And he did get to her, in a big way.

He waited until she’d eaten the entire quesadilla to take the plate from her and then lifted her up to the counter. Eyes on hers, he stepped in between her thighs.

“I didn’t come here for this,” she whispered as he slowly lifted his shirt from her and peeled it off over her head.

“Your nose is going to start growing, Pinocchio,” he said, resting his hands on her waist.

“You didn’t eat anything,” she said inanely.

“Wasn’t hungry for a quesadilla.”

“What are you hungry for?”

His eyes were so heated that she felt her bones melt away. “Guess,” he said, and slid his hands up her thighs. He hooked his thumb in her panties and inched them down. Then he dropped to his knees and proceeded to show her.

Over and over again.