Page 76 of Moonshine and Magnolias
Rob ran a finger over the paper next to him as he skimmed the page, then returned his attention to his tablet. Obviously he had to travel for work, but surely it didn’t matter where he lived. Claremont, Georgia, was as good a place as any. She licked her lips, but her tongue was sandpaper. Perhaps all the moisture from her mouth had left and found its way to her hands.
Fiddlesticks. Now her face was sweating, too, accompanied by the rapid heartbeat. She forced the longing away to analyze why she forgot how to use her vocal chords. It wasn’t hard to figure out. Fear of crushing disappointment. Givingherself much too soon. Misinterpreting his actions.
Stay. Please.
His face turned toward her. His lips started to smile until they flattened and his eyebrows drew down. “Everything okay?”
“Right as rain.” She alternately loved and hated that he read her so well, better than anyone else ever had.
“What’s with the…?” He nodded his chin, his eyes focused on her hands.
She followed his gaze and found her fingers had grown a consciousness all their own, tapping a pencil against the table in a loud, rhythmic pattern. She placed it flat and moved her hand away, resisting the urge to swipe it against the pillow. “Sorry. Was it bothering you?”
“Not at all.” He joined her on the sofa, and put his arm around her, snuggling her into his body and his familiar woodsy scent. “But something’s bothering you.”
Just a leap into an emotional abyss. No big. “Working the books.” She forced out a grin. “We hired a guest to do some work around the Hall and the compensation messed up our accounting.”
“What a jerk. You should punish him.” He gave a playful tug to her ponytail. “Severely.”
She let herself melt into him. What would it be like, to have this kind of comfort and support, this companionship, every day?
Stay, damn it. Please.
Rob nudged the ledger. “She pitches, she balances accounts, she runs a tight ship. Is there anything Wendy Marsh can’t do?”
Demand what she wanted, apparently. “I can’t cook.”
“You burn everything because you’re so hot?”
She laughed despite the tension in her stomach. “Did that line ever work on anybody?”
He captured her mouth with his own and raked his fingers over her scalp. Each push forced the elastic in her hair away from her head and sent tingles to her breasts. He increased the pressure of his lips to coax her mouth open, then circledand stroked her tongue with his own.
The simple intimacy weakened her. The sensations were new and exciting and for once, she believed in them. Rob’s thumbs swept against her forehead to her ears, then back to her temples where he rubbed slowly. She let her hands roam over his back, enjoying the play of his flexing muscles under his shirt.
“Wendy, honey,” Eulalee said as she crossed the library threshold. “I’m fixin’ to … do absolutely nothing.”
Wendy gripped her loosened hair and slid away from Rob. Usually the clop of her aunt’s sturdy shoes announced her presence before her actual arrival, but this time she’d been as silent as rabbit in socks.
“Well, don’t stop on my account.” Eulalee flapped her hand in their direction as she scooped up the phone. “I have to call the air conditioner repair man. Carry on.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Rob murmured as her aunt left the room. He slid an arm around her shoulders and angled his head.
Wendy kissed her finger and placed it on Rob’s lips. “I really should get back to work. And so should you, or your client will be mad at you for wasting his time.”
“I don’t think my client will mind all that much.” Rob gave a soft chuckle and traced a circle on her back. “So my line didn’t work, then?”
His question didn’t register. “Why does she need to fix the air conditioner?”
“I’ll take that as a no.” He kissed her nose and returned to his tablet on the Queen Anne desk. “Because it’s broken?”
“I don’t think so.” Her perspiration was caused by emotional upheaval, not by too much heat. But Gerald Mitchell’s phone call from Belle’s on Sunday. Its air conditioner hadn’t been working. And in all the years Wendy had been at the Hall, she couldn’t remember ever taking a call from the brewery.
Weird.
She stared at where the phone had laid on the table. Really weird.
No, her mind was making connections that didn’t exist. She needed to focuson the extra income.
