ONCE UPON A VALENTINE Read online

  Her stomach churned. She hadn’t exactly given him any sort of opening

  “I’ll pick you up at your apartment tomorrow at eleven,” he said flatly. “I want a couple hours of your time.”

  “But—”

  “That’s the deal, Shea. You don’t get to call all the shots all the time.”

  “I don’t call anything!”

  His expression didn’t change. “Eleven.” Then he turned his back dismissively and strode away.

  Chapter Four

  Shea didn’t sleep at all that night.

  After Pax had walked away, she’d made herself go back into the ballroom and show some professionalism if only to prove she wasn’t a complete failure. She wasn’t able to interview Erik Sullivan because, while she’d been interviewing the agency’s director, he also left early to be with his fiancée and son. But she’d still come away with more photographs than Harvey would ever want or need, even though she knew the shots he really wanted were of Pax and his partner. She’d only gotten the one photograph of them when she’d first arrived, and it was blurry thanks to her hands shaking the second Pax had spotted her.

  When she’d gotten home, she’d given up working on the article altogether and finished her report about Elise Williams for FGI instead. Cornelia was going to be disappointed that Ms. Williams hadn’t been as honest about the reason for her financial struggles as she’d thought. Shea, however, hadn’t been surprised at all. It just proved what she’d told Pax. People lied. All the time.

  She’d emailed the report to Cornelia and then lay in bed staring at the ceiling until well after dawn.

  Only then had she gone to sleep.

  And naturally, given her usual luck, once she’d gone to sleep, she’d overslept.

  Which meant that she was still rushing around the next day like a ninny with damp hair and still trying to decide what to wear when she heard a knock on the door.

  She swallowed an oath, catching her panicked reflection in the antique mirror hanging next to the entrance. She was wearing blue jeans, a pink lace bra and nothing else.

  She stood on her toes to look through the peephole. Of course Pax had to be right on time.

  She went back down on her heels and pressed her forehead to the door, willing her heart to settle down. He was wearing black jeans and a heathered fisherman’s sweater that made his shoulders look a mile wide.

  Why did the man have to look so blasted good?

  “Give me just a sec, okay?” She knew he’d be able to hear. The doors and the walls in the place were thin as paper. She went back on her tiptoes to look through the peephole.

  He was looking straight at her, and even though she knew he couldn’t see in the way that she could see out, she still felt heat streak through her. She nervously jumped back, nearly tripping over Marsha-Marsha, who’d decided to take that moment to wind around Shea’s feet.

  The poor cat let out a squall and bolted for her perch at the top of the cat tree near the window.

  Pax knocked again. “You okay in there?”

  “Yes!” Her voice sounded as frazzled as she felt. She didn’t even know what it was he had in mind. She liked to be able to put a name to things, but she didn’t know if this was a date, an interview or what.

  She just knew that her head was pounding, she felt sick to her stomach and she was a nervous wreck.

  She’d never had to tell a man before that she was pregnant with his child.

  “I’m fine,” she said loudly. “Just tripped over the cat.” She snatched up the first long-sleeved T-shirt she’d started out with before having an attack of what-do-I-wear-itis and yanked it over her damp head. Then she grabbed up the pile of discarded clothes, lifted the lid of the steamer trunk and dumped them inside to hide the evidence. She twisted her hair up on top of her head, stuck a long pin in it and yanked open the door.

  She was sweaty and breathless and a lock of hair fell over her forehead. “You’re the type who’s never late, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

  “When it’s important.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “I hate it when you say stuff like that,” she muttered. It made her feel like she was the worst person on the planet.

  “Sorry.” He didn’t look it as he stepped past her without invitation and glanced curiously around the apartment.

  Aside from the occasional girlfriend, Shea didn’t invite people to her apartment. It smacked of allowing them too close. This was her space. Her refuge.

  “Not what I expected,” he said after a moment.

  Her muscles tightened. She’d spent a lot of time in a lot of secondhand stores finding good pieces, and then more time after that refinishing, recovering and generally refurbishing. Everything she owned, she’d earned, and it all meant something to her. “Oh?”

  He slid a glance her way. “It’s softer. Some reason I figured you more for acrylic and steel.”

  Her lips tightened. “Like my personality, I suppose?”

  “I’ll plead the fifth on that.” He picked up a needlepoint pillow of pale yellow and blue. “Better never let Harvey see this place. It’s got cupcake written all over it.”

  She huffed the hair out of her eye. “Great.” If he was still angry, he was doing a masterful job of hiding it.

  He cocked his head and studied her. “You look like you’re headed for the gallows. What do you think I have planned?”

  Now. Tell him now! She opened her mouth. “Nothing. I just need to—” A deafening burst of music from the apartment next door made her jump.

  “Need to what?” He had to raise his voice over the racket.

  She smiled weakly and gestured toward her shoes in answer. She quickly pushed her bare feet into her loafers and grabbed her jacket from the wrought iron coat tree next to the door. Whatever he had in mind had to be better than standing in her small apartment like this. “We should go.” The door was still ajar and she pulled it wide. “It’ll get louder before it stops.”

  Pax set the pillow back on her slipcovered couch and stepped past her into the hall. She locked up and shoved her key inside her pocket. The music was even louder in the hallway, where the walls seemed to vibrate.

  “That go on a lot?”

  She nervously headed for the stairwell, bypassing the elevator that was perpetually out of service. “Often enough. Fortunately, Gonzo’s mom doesn’t let him play it like that at night.” She started down the steps. “Probably a different world than that fancy penthouse loft of yours.”

  Pax didn’t bother denying it. He watched the thick knot of hair on top of her head bounce as she skipped down the stairs. “There was a cop car outside the entrance when I got here,” he told her. And he hadn’t breathed easy until he’d seen that the officers were focused on a unit on the second floor. Shea’s apartment was on the third.

  “The Boerners, most likely. He likes to drink and she likes to scream.” She glanced back at him. “I’ll take Gonzo’s music over that any day of the week.”

  He had no clue what sort of salary she earned at the Tub, but it couldn’t be much if this place was all she could afford. They reached the landing and started down the next flight. “Smells like onions here.”

  She glanced at him again and quickened her step. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

  Her apartment, however, had smelled like vanilla and chocolate. The place had felt soft and feminine and inviting, and seeing it was proof that there was a soft, gooey center hidden inside her hard candy shell. “Reminds me of the first apartment I had after college.”

  They reached the next landing and she paused for a moment. “You went to Amsterdam after you finished college.”

  He didn’t make the mistake of thinking she’d suddenly become curious. In her first interview with him, he’d told her about working with a boat builder
there for nearly a year. “They have onions in Amsterdam, too.”

  She shook her head a little and began quickly descending the stairs again. Her feet pounded the steps rhythmically and he decided she’d had a lot of practice going up and down them. He was glad that he ran with Hooch every day, or he’d be puffing away like an old man trying to keep up with her.

  “From what I understand,” her voice echoed in the stairwell, “they have a lot of things in Amsterdam.”

  “You’re a journalist, Shea. If you want to know something, you’d better learn how to ask it.”

  She shot him a skeptical look. “Legalized pot?”

  He’d figured it would either be that or the sex shops in the Red Light District. It’s what every tourist was curious about. “It wasn’t legalized. It was just...low on the radar where the police were concerned.” He waited a beat. “So I heard, anyway.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “You’re saying you didn’t partake?”

  “I’m saying I never inhaled.”

  She absorbed that and suddenly laughed.

  He could count on one hand the number of times he’d heard her laugh like that. Unfettered. Unselfconscious. It sounded good on her, and no matter how angry he’d been the night before, he knew he wanted to hear it more.

  “So where are we heading, anyway?” she asked when they reached the dingy, minuscule lobby on the ground floor.

  “Magnolia.”

  She visibly stiffened. “What’s in Magnolia?”

  “My grandparents live there.”

  She stopped walking altogether, giving him an alarmed look. “We’re going to see your grandparents?”

  He thought about warning her that they would be seeing a lot more people than just his grandparents, but he didn’t. She’d probably turn tail and run, whether she needed quotes from him or not.

  Phil had been right.

  He needed to step up his tactics or Shea would keep him at arm’s length until he was eighty.

  “Yeah.” He pushed open the door and tugged her out onto the sidewalk. It was uncommonly clear for the middle of February, the sky magnificently blue.

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re expecting me,” he said smoothly. And they were already late. He pointed at the SUV parked up the street. “Over there.”

  She looked from his face to the SUV and back again. “What happened to the cherry-red toy that costs more than I earn in a year?”

  “It’s taking the Sunday off, occupying the spot in my parking garage where this one usually lives.” He pulled the key fob out of his pocket as they approached the SUV and the locks obediently chirped.

  She was studying him as if he were a puzzle missing half its pieces. “You’re always driving that car.”

  He opened the passenger door for her and refrained from grabbing her waist to help her inside. He didn’t have quite so much control, though, when it came to appreciating the way her jeans fit her rear as she stretched her foot up to the high running board. “During the week,” he agreed absently. Parking was easier to find with the Audi than with the SUV. “I’m thinking about selling the roadster anyway.”

  Maybe it was his partner’s satisfaction with his newfound home life or maybe Pax was just getting older. Either way, his fast-lane lifestyle had worn thin. He wanted a house with a backyard for Hooch. And if he wanted speed, he could always take out Honey Girl.

  He tried not to picture Shea in that backyard with him and his dog, but it was impossible.

  She finally slid onto the seat and looked at him. “Already bored with it?”

  “Is it habit for you to think the worst of everyone, or is that just with me?”

  “I don’t think the worst of you.”

  “Could’ve fooled me, sweetheart.”

  She swiped at the hair that kept falling down her cheek. “Well, clearly, I’m awful. So why do you bother with me at all?”

  “Ordinarily, I’d ignore that. Because, once again, it’s nonsense. But since you’re obviously in need of a remedial course in trusting people, I won’t.”

  Color filled her cheeks. Probably from irritation, but at least she didn’t look in danger of passing out.

  “One.” He reached out and tucked the silky lock of hair up into the long pin tenuously holding her mass of hair on top of her head. “I do not think you’re awful. I think you’re clever and smart and too jaded for your own good. And two—” He broke off.

  Her eyes were wide. Waiting.

  He stomped on the urge to kiss her. “And two...you’re just going to have to wait for and realize for yourself.”

  He pushed her door closed, noting the confusion clouding her eyes, and walked around the SUV.

  She kept saying that relationships didn’t last?

  It would be interesting to hear what she’d have to say when they arrived at his grandparents’ seventy-fifth wedding anniversary.

  Chapter Five

  The number of cars parked along the tree-lined street was Shea’s first clue. The enormous gold, silver and white balloon arch that soared high above the brick walkway leading to the front door sealed the deal.

  She looked up at the bobbing balloons as they walked beneath them, trying not to panic. She grabbed Pax’s arm, wanting to slow him down, and bumped right into him when he stopped. Her nerves fizzed even more and she quickly stepped back so that her breasts weren’t pressed against his arm. “Want to give me some context here?”

  “It’s a party.”

  She hadn’t felt like stomping her foot since she’d been twelve and her mother had told her that she was divorcing Ken. “I realize that!”

  The smile that had been so noticeably missing the night before was back in his eyes, almost providing a soothing balm to her rising anxiety. “I had suspected, but I’m just now realizing what a control freak you really are.”

  She couldn’t be bothered being offended when she knew good and well that he was right. “What kind of party?”

  “It’s my grandparents’ anniversary.”

  She groaned. “Pax! I can’t be going in there for something like that!”

  “Because you’re morally opposed to celebrating wedding anniversaries?”

  She made a face. “Because it’s a family thing.”

  “Yup. Lots and lots of family packed into a house too small to hold them all.” He closed his hand around her arm and started toward the front door again, pulling her along whether she liked it or not. “Pretend it’s an assignment and put a smile on your face. It’s not a freakin’ execution, for Pete’s sake.”

  “But it’s not an assignment. And no amount of pretending is going to make it feel like one.”

  “Couple hours, remember?” He pushed open the front door and pulled her inside the house.

  She wasn’t likely to forget.

  The second they entered, it was as if they’d walked into the center of a circus.

  Unlike her mother’s oversized showplace, Pax’s grandparents’ home was modestly sized. And it was currently bulging at the seams. Little kids chased each other around batting balloons, big band music blared—not quite as loud as Gonzo’s, but close—and through the sliding glass door that was opposite them, she could see adults standing around outside cheering at something.

  “Pax!” Beatrice appeared in the living room, rounding a comfortably dated couch. “Hey there, Shea!” Gone was the brilliant red dress, but Pax’s sister was just as striking now in a white T-shirt and colorful tie-dyed skirt as she had been the night before. “Hurry up.” Beatrice opened the sliding glass door and beckoned. “Grammy and Granddad are out there swing dancing. It’s a hoot!”

  Pax’s grip on her arm didn’t lighten up as they threaded their way past the kids. Maybe he thought she’d cut and run if he didn’t hold on to her, t
hough she supposed she couldn’t blame him if he did.

  She sidestepped a little girl with lopsided blond pigtails and would have been happy to hover in the doorway behind Pax if he hadn’t pulled her around in front of him and nudged her farther out onto what she realized was a wooden deck that seemed nearly double the size of the congested living room.

  He closed his hands over her shoulders. “Can you see?”

  Pretty much all she could see were the backs of the people in front of her. And all she could feel was the heat of Pax standing so close behind her.

  It wasn’t fair that along with everything else, she had to stave off a shiver from his proximity.

  He was still waiting for an answer, and she shook her head, too dry-mouthed to speak.

  “Yo, Donny.” He tapped the man directly in front of her. “Make a hole, man. Not everyone’s oversized like the Merricks.”

  Donny, who looked remarkably similar to Pax but with gray flecks in his brown hair, glanced back at them. His face creased in a smile and he grabbed Pax in a shoulder-bumping hug, squashing right over Shea. “Sorry.”

  He grinned at her and Pax with such good nature, she managed a fairly natural smile in return. And then, before she knew what was happening, both men were pushing her forward until she was in front of the crowd and had a clear view of an elderly couple cutting a dauntingly spry jig.

  The two were surrounded on all sides by people who were smiling and laughing and cheering them on, but before long, the woman—obviously Pax’s grandmother—begged off, laughing and pressing a hand to the string of pearls at her neck.

  Her tall, thin husband kept shuffling his feet, though. “Come on, baby,” he beckoned to a slender, graying brunette who was wearing a white apron over her dress and holding a toddler in her arms. “Give your old pop a dance.”

  “Give yourself a rest before you have a heart attack,” Pax’s grandmother told him wryly. She patted her white hair and moved toward where Shea stood, giving her a friendly smile. “Hello, dear,” she greeted and squeezed Shea’s hand lightly. “You must be Pax’s friend.”