Better Than Chocolate Part 21

"Fine, if you won't help I'll do it myself. I don't need anyone to help me, anyway." She struggled to get up, leaving him no choice but to a.s.sist her.

Oh, boy, this would be one more thing she'd blame him for once she was sober.

"Oh, it's high up here. I can see everyone. Go, Mr. Dreamy!" She pumped the air with one hand and immediately lost her balance, toppling from the table. He caught her before she could bang her head.

"I think it's time to go home," he said, setting her on her feet.

Now Charlene was at the table. "Samantha, how many of those have you had?"

Samantha's brow furrowed. "How many what?"

"Never mind." Charlene thrust out one hand, palm up. "Give me your car keys."

"Don't worry. I'm taking her home," Blake said.

"To her home," Charlene said.

What did she think he was? He didn't bother to dignify that remark with a response. Instead, he got out a bill and laid it on the table. "Come on, party girl," he said to Samantha. "You've had enough fun for one night."

He put an arm around her and started moving her out of the bar. No one noticed. They were all too busy cheering on the Mr. Dreamy wannabes as the men paraded through the maze of tables accompanied by the Weather Girls singing "It's Raining Men."

They pa.s.sed the now-empty restaurant. Patrons had either fled the noise or gone to the bar to add to it.

"Is my head still connected to my neck?" Samantha asked as he opened the door for her. "It feels like a balloon."

"Yes, it's still connected but not enough for you to be driving."

"I don't want to go home with you," she said petulantly. "And I'm not going to run around the bank in my underwear or let you drown me in a vat of chocolate, either."

He blinked. "What?"

She blinked. "Uh, never mind."

They were at his car now, a cla.s.sic red Camaro in which he took great pride. He opened the door and she fell onto the black leather seat, giving him a view of leg and beyond that sent the blood rus.h.i.+ng from his head to an area slightly farther south.

Alcohol and a gorgeous female he was attracted to-that was all it took to make him want to do what men were designed to do. There were only a couple of drawbacks. Three actually. One, she was drunk. Two, she despised him. Three, he pretty much despised himself.

His parents had raised him to be a gentleman and that was exactly what he was going to be. But his fingers itched to touch her.

He got behind the wheel and started the engine, and the car roared to life like a giant beast. That made two beasts on the road. She leaned her head back against the cus.h.i.+ons and closed her eyes, unaware of how s.e.xy she looked with that long neck exposed, just waiting for someone to nibble on it.

"I'm tired," she sighed.

That comment had nothing to do with the time. He slanted a look her way. Now she was staring at him with those big hazel eyes.

A tear slipped from one and rolled down her cheek. "I'm trying so hard."

Oh, no. Don't cry. Please don't cry. "Samantha," he began.

She held back a sob and turned her face to the window. "I've drained my savings, I've had to beg all our suppliers to keep-" She pressed her lips firmly together to stop any more secrets from leaking out and wiped at a corner of her eye.

He pulled off the street. Now they were by the park. The giant fir tree that the town made great ceremony of lighting every Christmas loomed, creating the illusion of privacy. "Come here," Blake said, and drew her close to him, not an easy task considering the fact that this d.a.m.ned car had bucket seats.

She looked up at him, her head on his shoulder. Her hair brushed his cheek like a caress. "So many families in this town depend on us. What would Icicle Falls be without Sweet Dreams? Without chocolate? What would the world be without chocolate?"

This probably wasn't the time to tell her he was allergic to the stuff.

"Nothing in this world is better than chocolate," she murmured.

"Oh, there are some things," he said, staring at her lips. Don't do it.

"Ha! Like what?" He knew the second she recognized the glint in his eye. Her eyes widened, then her gaze dropped, showing him a flutter of long lashes. She looked at his lips and wet hers.

Okay, gentleman or no, he knew an invitation when he saw one. He leaned over and kissed her. She whimpered and he deepened the kiss, threading his fingers through her hair. He could feel her melting, all that female softness surrendering to him. Oh, yeah, there was something in this world a lot better than chocolate.

He had just gotten her into his lap and had a hand sliding along her thigh when her fingers froze in the middle of taking a trip up his neck. She pulled back and gaped at him in horror. "You...you..."

Beast. She was right. He was taking unfair advantage and they needed to stop. But not this way, not with her wearing that look of betrayal. "Samantha," he protested. "I'm not your enemy."

"Yes, you are and I almost slept with you!" she cried.

A few hot kisses on a cold night did not equal sleeping with the enemy.

She didn't give him a chance to tell her that, though. She was already scrambling off his lap. Now she had her hand on the door handle. "Samantha, wait," he begged.

She didn't. She got out of the car, pulling her purse after her, and slammed the door. Then she was off, marching a crooked path down the street.

He fumbled the keys in the ignition and started the car, then rolled down the window. "Where are you going?" he called.

"Home!"

He cruised alongside her. "I'll take you."

"You've taken me far enough for one night," she snapped. "I'll walk."

"You can't walk," he protested. But of course she could. It was perfectly safe in Icicle Falls. Really, the only danger to her had been the wolf behind the wheel, he thought glumly as he watched her lurch away.

He swore and smacked the steering wheel. This whole situation sucked.

He needed to reconsider his career choice.

Chapter Sixteen.

Helping your family is the equivalent of helping your family's business.

-Muriel Sterling, Mixing Business with Pleasure: How to Successfully Balance Business and Love After two days in bed feeling like Death had put out the welcome mat, Cecily awoke on Sat.u.r.day morning to the realization that she was going to live, after all. She called Charley to let her know she'd be able to work that night. Then she enjoyed a long, hot shower followed by a breakfast of fruit and her mother's homemade white-chocolate-lavender scones. That, along with two cups of tea, left her feeling ready to get back to work. It was now almost ten in the morning. Samantha should be awake. She'd check to see how the kickoff for the Mr. Dreamy compet.i.tion had gone.

It took several rings for Samantha to answer with a weak h.e.l.lo.

"Were you still asleep?" Cecily asked. Samantha probably got in late. She should have waited to call.

"No."

Then why did she sound so funny? "Are you okay?"

"I have the mother of all headaches," Samantha said. "I think I had one too many chocolate kisses."

There had been an inspired idea. Not that Cecily was fis.h.i.+ng for compliments or anything, but... "How did those turn out?" Okay, so she was fis.h.i.+ng for compliments.

"Fabulous. They're also death in a gla.s.s. My head feels like somebody stomped on it."

"How many did you have?" Her sister had never been a big drinker. It wouldn't take much to put her under the table.

"I can't remember."

"You know, most of us get this drinking thing sorted out by the end of college."

"Well, I'm a late bloomer."

"Can you remember anything about last night?"

The only answer Cecily got was silence.

"Oh, no," she groaned. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Samantha said irritably. "The kickoff was a smas.h.i.+ng success with s.h.i.+rtless men and girls going wild. We'll probably have a population explosion nine months from now. And yes, I made sure to put in a plug for Sweet Dreams."

"That's all good."

"Yes, it's all good. Everything's good."

"Okay," Cecily said dubiously. "Do you still want to work this afternoon?"

"Not particularly," Samantha said, "but we need to. Let's meet at the office around one. Maybe by then these rhinos stomping around in my head will have settled down for a nap."

They ended the call and Cecily sat at the kitchen table, idly twirling a lock of hair and wondering what had happened the night before that her sister hadn't told her.

Mom came into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of tea. "Did everything go well last night?"

"It sounds like it." Why didn't it feel like it?

Mom sat down at the table and studied Cecily. "Is something wrong?"

"No, I guess not." Mom looked worried, so Cecily added, "I'm sure everything's fine."

Mom didn't say anything to that. She just kissed the top of Cecily's head and disappeared into her bedroom.

Cecily remained alone in the kitchen. When she'd first offered to come home and help with the festival, she'd had a vague feeling that her family needed her, that destiny was waiting for her in Icicle Falls.

So far her destiny seemed to consist of irritating her sister and running unimportant errands. As for Mom, well, all she really needed was time and that obviously wasn't something Cecily was in a position to give.

"Why am I here?" she muttered.

The cuckoo clock on the kitchen wall struck the hour and the little cuckoo popped out the door to tell her just what he thought of her. She left before he could finish.

Blake had several errands to run this morning, but a visit to his grandmother topped the list. Janice Lind was one of the town's old-timers. She'd been a young woman when Icicle Falls pulled itself from the brink of extinction by transforming a collection of boarded-up storefronts and empty streets into an alpine village. Blake's maternal grandfather, Tom, whom everybody called Swede, had been the town's only mechanic for years. He'd owned the gas station where Blake's dad worked as a teenager before he married Blake's mother and went into car sales. Even Blake had worked at the station a summer or two. Since he was the only boy in the family, both his dad and his granddad had plans for him. Gramps had wanted him to run the garage after he graduated. Dad had wanted Blake to come and work with him selling cars in Seattle. If he'd done either, he could've connected with Samantha under different circ.u.mstances. Maybe they'd have been an item by now. He frowned as he made his way up the front walk to his grandparents' cozy log home.

She must have seen him coming because he was halfway up the walk when she opened the door, a slim modern granny with a flour-dusted ap.r.o.n over her slacks and tiger-print bifocals dangling from a chain around her neck. "This is a nice surprise," she greeted him.

A surprise? Rather like learning he'd been entered in the Mr. Dreamy contest.

"I'm making oatmeal cookies."

"My favorite. You must've known I was coming."

"Well, they're almost your favorite. I'm trying out a new recipe," she said, leading him into the kitchen. "This one uses Sweet Dreams chocolates. I figure it can't hurt to try and impress the judges."

He wished all Samantha Sterling needed to be impressed with him was home-baked cookies. He took a seat at the old red Formica table. Gram's kitchen always smelled great. This morning the aroma of the day was spices mixed with coffee. Not only did the place smell good, it looked like a stage for some cooking show. Everything was state-of-the-art, from the stainless-steel fridge to the ceramic-top stove. Copper pans polished to a high sheen hung from a rack over her counter, and two baking racks were stacked with man-size cookies.

She poured him a mug of coffee and set it in front of him, along with a plate of cookies. "If they've got chocolate, I'll pa.s.s."

"Silly," she said, tapping his shoulder playfully. "I made a special batch just for you. No chocolate, only raisins and nuts."

"In that case." He took one and stuffed half in his mouth.

"How is it?"

"Good," he said around a mouthful of fabulous. "Where's Gramps?"

"At the garage, doing some paperwork. And making sure the new mechanic really knows what he's doing." She shook her head. "Your grandpa just can't stay away from there. So much for semiretirement."

Blake had known all along that his grandfather wouldn't ease up, no matter how many mechanics he hired. Running that garage and filling station was his pa.s.sion. Lucky guy. He'd found something he loved to do and been able to do it his whole life.

Once Blake had believed that banking was what he wanted, but life in the real world hadn't matched his vision, especially lately.

"Did the people from Sweet Dreams contact you?" his grandmother asked, bringing up the very reason he'd come. She was smiling like she'd done a wonderful thing.

"That's why I came by."