JC arrived in the dining room a few minutes before the assigned time. He wore jeans and a sweater, not knowing what ‘real casual’ meant to Lauren Blackwood. Looking at the empty tables he wondered if he had misunderstood the time. No one was around. Just then Olivia’s head popped out from around a wide wooden door.
“Mister Chasez, we eat in here,” she told him with a bright smile. To someone behind her, she said, “You were right. He’s out there.” With another smile, she urged JC. “C’mon!”
“That’s the best invitation I’ve had in years,” JC told her as a he joined her behind the door.
He found himself in a large kitchen with commercial appliances of stainless steel, a large island work station, granite counter tops and a round table with place settings for five. Despite the fact it was obvious meals for more than the family were prepared here, the ambiance was warm, welcoming and countrified.
“Good evening, Mister Chasez.” Lauren indicated the table. “We are very informal here. Please, have a seat.”
“Joshua,” he grumbled. “You can call me Joshua.” He realized she was trying to keep a professional distance between them, but for some reason he didn’t want her being distant. Seating himself, he found himself flanked by the twins. “I bet your mom’s a good cook, huh?” he asked Sam.
The boy’s head bobbed up and down with great enthusiasm. “Uh-huh. She even makes Brussels sprouts pretty good.”
“Really?” JC smiled at such a high praise. Brussels sprouts were rarely any child’s idea of ‘good’. “She must be an excellent cook then.”
“Her speciality is pastry,” CJ announced, helping his mother by placing salads in front of everyone before taking his seat to Sam’s right. “Her breakfasts are so good people come here for Sunday brunch even when they don’t stay here.”
“Oh?” JC looked to Lauren who was bringing a large platter of roasted beef, carrots, and potatoes to the table.
“Especially during the holiday season we take reservations for brunch. Business is slower and it helps supplement the inn’s earnings,” Lauren explained.
“Then I can hardly wait to eat a legendary Blackwood brunch then.”
“You gotta,” Sam said. “It’s only Friday.”
“Mr. Chasez, we serve milk and coffee with family style dinners. We do have soft drinks—”
“Coffee is fine,Lauren.” JC emphasised the use of her first name.
“The salad dressing is house vinaigrette—”
“That’s cool.”
“For dessert you have a choice of chocolate cake or—”
“Chocolate cake!” Olivia cheered.
Before Lauren could scold the girl for interruption, JC laughed. “Is there anything else? Chocolate cake for me, too.” He waved Lauren into the seat across from him. “Sit down. This is a family dinner. If I make you that nervous I’ll go into the dining room.”
Lauren quickly sat. It was hardly this man’s problem she rarely had handsome men at her table — particularly men who sent out such blatant ‘I’m interested’ signals as this one did. He’d done nothing she could fault him for and she had received his good graces like a hormonal teenaged ninny. “I’m sorry. We rarely have guests who choose to eat with us, so I guess I’m out of practice.”
“Understandable,” he answered charitably. “I find eating with you guys much more appealing than sitting alone in the dining room.”
“When we have no guests, Mom put us out there when we’re bad,” Olivia said.
“So being out there alone is punishment.” JC’s smile made Lauren’s stomach do somersaults. “I don’t recall being bad.”
Despite the rocky start, the dinner was a comfortable, casual enjoyable meal. JC was allowed to help serve dessert. He didn’t hesitate to get up and get Lauren a second cup of coffee to make her linger after the children had been excused from the dinner table to do their homework.
“They’re great kids.”
Lauren smiled. “They are. I’m blessed.”
“Is there a Mister Blackwood?” There… JC thought he’d just put it out there and not pussyfoot around the question he wanted to ask.
“Actually Max Blackwood — my father-in-law. He helps me run the place. He’s been vacationing. If you are asking about the children’s father, he was a marine killed in action several years ago.”
“I’m sorry. That must be rough on all of you.”
“CJ the most. He remembers his father more than the twins. He was the same age as Sam and Olivia when it happened.”
Without thinking he reached out and covered her hand with his, communicating the desire to comfort. “It can’t be easy being a young widow.”
A young widow with raging hormones, she mused as she gazed at the hand over hers on the table. Even that simple, innocent touch heated her blood. It was Joshua Chasez’s misfortune to be the first male she’d noticed since Christopher’s death. “I do okay most days.”
Knowing she was asking for some emotional space, he asked. “Want help with dishes?”
Lauren’s head snapped up. “Certainly not! You are a guest.”
“Lauren—”
“Even if you don’t consider yourself a guest of the inn, you are a guest at my family table. Guests do not do dishes.”
He grinned. “Not that I was all that keen to do them.”
Laughing at her over-reaction, Lauren smiled. “Most men aren’t.”
“Okay, so what time do you want me down here for breakfast tomorrow?”
It was strange how JC had already adjusted to rising to eat breakfast with the Blackwoods in just two short days. Lauren was surprised and the children delighted when he showed up for the morning rush before school.
“I don’t have anything ready for you,” Lauren declared.
As if were an every day occurrence, JC grabbed a mug from the cupboard and helped himself to some coffee. “It’s cool, Lauren. Coffee and a muffin is fine.”
“But you pay for two meals—”
“And I get three.”
“But—”
On an impulse he leaned over and brushed his mouth over hers. They were both stunned; her eyes went wide and he grinned. “Now I know how to win an argument with you.” He told the speechless woman, than he took a seat between Olivia and Sam.
Lauren felt heat rush to places that had been cold for years. This Mister Chasez had awaken things best left sleeping. He was temporary she reminded herself sternly — and he was a celebrity. He only visited small mountain lodges. He lived in Los Angeles — balmy, warm Los Angeles where it never snowed.
“Mom?” CJ’s voice broke the spell and Lauren’s attention was once more where it belonged — on her daily responsibilities, on her children.
Less than an hour later, JC was walking hand in hand with Olivia to the children’s school bus stop. The girl looked nothing like her mother still he was willing to wager good money the same sweet charm the girl used on him was what had been sent to bear on the children’s father by their mother years ago — albeit Lauren’s teenaged charm had been honed by maturity Olivia’s had not. It might be the father’s big blue eyes gazing up at him but it was her mother’s smile. Heaven help the teenaged boys in another ten years.
Lauren had been quiet this morning. Right now she listened patiently to a chattering Sam. Did she even realize what her easy, serenity did to him, how she drew him like iron shavings to a magnet?
A tug on his sleeve drew his attention once more to the little girl. She indicated he should lift her up. Obeying he brought her eye to eye with him.
“Are you gonna be here when we get home, Mister Chasez?” Olivia asked him.
Before JC could answer, Lauren scolded, “Olivia, Mister Chasez is on vacation. He’s our guest — Here to relax and ski.”
Ignoring Lauren’s protest, JC answered Olivia. “Sure I will, honey.”
CJ had a question. “If he’s here to relax, why is he hanging around us?” His family was anything but relaxing — not with the twins and Barney around.
“Because I like you,” JC replied easily.
“We like you,” Sam said. “You aren’t all stuffy and stuck up.”
JC smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called stuffy — unless I have a head cold,” he joked gaining a round of giggles from the children.
What sort of single man chose to keep company with three lively children, their widowed mother and their two dogs? Lauren had to wonder.
He could practically see the wheels spinning in her head. JC thought as he stole a glance at Lauren. Why did he keep their company instead of going into town or seeking out the resort crowds? The answer was simple and complicated all at once. Being with them felt wonderfully right, blissfully normal. He hadn’t known ‘normal’ since he was fourteen. And then there was Lauren — Damn, there was just that something...
“Here comes the bus!” Sam announced darting to the edge of the walk so he could be first to board.
“Bye, Mom,” CJ murmured and followed his brother.
Olivia planted a smacking kiss on JC’s lips and wiggled to get down. “Bye bye.” She waggled her fingers at him in a girlie wave. She hugged her mother quickly then scampered off to join her brothers.
“I believe my daughter has a crush on you,” Lauren said at JC’s bemused expression.
“Is that bad?”
“Only if you don’t treat her feelings with care and respect.”
JC had been taken in by the Chasezes when he was slightly younger than Olivia. He remembered how easily a young child’s psyche could be bruised. “I respect children. Their feelings are real.”
“Then if you can ride out my daughter’s first crush it isn’t a bad thing.”
The same woman with short-cropped steel grey hair had been picking up the Blackwood children for years. The bus driver greeted them cheerfully. Innocuously she added, “Whose your friend?” indicating JC.
“That,” Olivia stated with smiling certainty, “is my new daddy.”
She wished he would find something else to do, Lauren decided as she prepared pie dough for dinner’s dessert. Since the children had left, JC had parked his fine butt at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and newspaper. It was something Christopher had done when he’d been home on leave. With him, it had been comfortable companionship. With JC, it was a sizzling awareness making the spacious kitchen seem too small for two people.
“The shuttle to the ski area runs every hour until nightfall,” she hinted largely.
“Thanks.” JC murmured at her helpful information. He did not look up from his reading.
Dense. Men were so dense. “I’m making pecan and cherry pie for dinner.” Maybe if she chattered enough she would drive him off.
“Sounds good,” he answered absently.
Was she the only one distracted by the physical pull between them? Ever since he’d kissed her… And he was fairly ignoring her! Her pride was pricked much to her folly. To see if he was paying her any mind at all, she stated, “And I’m serving dinner in a negligee.”
JC glanced up with laughing eyes. “Oh really? Let me know the exact time to be in my chair. I wouldn’t want to miss the floor show.”
Lauren’s cheeks flamed. Damn! He had been listening!
Grinning, he left the paper and his seat. He moved behind her, whispering in her ear. “Is that for my benefit, honey?”
He’d called Olivia ‘honey’ earlier, but this time it was an entirely different word. Seductive. Irresistible. And Lauren was finding him difficult to resist.
“I couldn’t ignore you if I tried, Lauren. I was just trying to not come over here and kiss the hell out of you.” Dragging his lips along the sensitive cord of her neck, he inhaled the warm sugar scent of her skin. It was an appropriate choice for her, conjuring thoughts of her warm country kitchen, of welcome, of home.
She shivered at the feel of warm lips and bristled jaw. He needed to stop before she melted into a puddle at his feet. Parts of her were definitely becoming hot and mushy, parts of her she’d been ignoring for years. “Mister Chasez...”
“Lauren,” he scolded keeping his voice low and soft when her use of his last was meant to put distance between them. “Joshua. Say it.”
As if she had no will of her own, she whispered, “Joshua.”
“See how easy that was?”
He had to step away, Lauren decided frantically. The feel of his hard body pressed to her backside was causing an inferno to rage. Long denied hormones were flooding her brain, making logical thought nearly impossible. The seductive timber of his voice stroked along her nerve endings, soothing any negative ideas, erasing any possibility of refusal.
“Can these pies wait?”
“I—I suppose so.”
“Well then...” He took the bowl of dough, covered it with a dish towel, then put it in the commercial refrigerator.
When he took her hand to lead her from the kitchen, she grasped for some reason to protest. “You—you were going skiing...”
His low chuckle made her stomach to do a tiny flip. “I think it can wait.”
“I—um—I’ve never done this before. I mean it’s not even ten o’clock...”
“Believe it or not, honey, you can do this at any hour.” He gave her hand a gentle tug as he started up the stairs. “There’s something very freeing about making love in broad daylight.”
Broad daylight... Making love... Oh God! She couldn’t!...
Sensing her panic, JC pulled her to him and settled his mouth over hers in a leisurely, claiming kiss that left no room for denial. Once she opened for him, he learned every corner, every crevice of her sweet mouth. Her legs turned to gelatin and he was forced to support her before she sank to the risers. Scooping her up, he carried her the rest of the way to his room. He smiled in triumph when she sighed, burying her face against his neck.