One Winter Wedding. Barbara Hannay

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СКАЧАТЬ made friends with some of the other people I’ve worked with. But I never would have hired them if I didn’t think they’d do an awesome job.”

      She lifted her chin, ready to battle for her friends the same way she had when she hired them for Emily’s wedding. But if this was a fight, Connor didn’t play fair.

      Reaching up, he tucked a loose curl behind one ear. His eyes glowing with a warmth that stole the fight from her spirit and the breath from her lungs, he murmured, “It wasn’t a criticism. Only an observation. Your friends obviously care a lot about you. Just like you care about them.”

      Intensity lit his emerald eyes, and Kelsey could almost believe he wanted her to look out for him, to care about him—but that had to be a delusion due to lack of oxygen from the breath he’d stolen with his nearness. “I do,” she managed to murmur.

      “So why was it so hard for you to accept their help?”

      She started to deny it, but when Connor’s eyebrows rose in challenge, she knew he wouldn’t believe anything but the truth. And maybe if she told him, he would understand why Emily’s wedding was so important. “Fixing things is what I do. It’s what I’m good at. I wasn’t brought up as one of the wealthy Wilsons. I was raised by my mother. We didn’t have much, but growing up I didn’t know that. All I knew was that I had an amazing mother who taught me how to cook delicious meals without spending more than a few dollars and how to clip coupons to make the most of what little money we had.”

      A memory came to mind, and Kelsey smiled. “Our favorite day was Black Friday, but we didn’t just shop for Christmas. We bargain-hunted for the whole year. My mom taught me how to look at secondhand furniture and see beyond the layers of flaking paint or rust. She showed me how to strip away the exterior to the natural beauty beneath.”

      Her smile faded away. “But then she died, and I came to live with my aunt and uncle. None of the things I knew how to do mattered anymore. Coupons and discount stores and secondhand furniture were as foreign to them as paying hundreds of dollars for a pair of shoes was to me. They had people to shop and clean and fix things.” Kelsey gave a short, sad laugh. “The only thing broken in their house was me. I know they cared about me, but…I just didn’t fit, no matter how hard I tried.”

      “Kelsey.” The low murmur of Connor’s voice mirrored the tenderness in his gaze. This time it was Kelsey’s turn to pull away, to try to escape.

      “That’s why the wedding is so important. It’s my chance—” her only chance, because if she screwed this up, why would the Wilsons or anyone trust her again? “—to prove that I can do this, that I’m good at something. So I really hope your gut’s wrong, Connor, and that Todd is everything my family thinks he is. Or all this hard work is going to be for nothing.”

      “It won’t be for nothing because you’re going to be a success with or without Emily’s wedding. Maybe if you were more like Emily or Aileen, more used to everything going your way, you’d be more likely to give up. But a single setback won’t stop you. You’re stronger than that.” Catching her hands and smiling at the streaks of spackle marring her skin, he said, “You aren’t afraid of hard work.”

      Strong…unafraid… Kelsey liked the sound of that, but she wasn’t feeling the least bit of either as Connor stroked his thumbs across the palm of her hands. She felt downright weak and terrified by the desire coursing through her at such a simple touch.

      Her fingertips tingled, tempted to chart the planes and angles of his face, the strong column of his throat. The broad shoulders and wide chest covered by cotton as soft as Connor’s body was strong. But she curled her hands into fists. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—reach out to him again. The embarrassment of Connor pulling away was too painfully fresh in her mind, and her heart was too vulnerable to risk rejection a second time.

      In the end, she didn’t have to reach out; she didn’t even have to move. It was Connor who pulled her closer, Connor who lowered his head, Connor who brushed his mouth against hers. Any thought of him pulling away disappeared as he deepened the kiss. He buried one hand in her hair and wrapped the other around her waist, holding her body tight to his, as if she were the one who might back away.

      But escape was the last thing Kelsey wanted.

      Instead she wanted to capture this moment, bottle it up, save it for a time when memories were all she would have left of Connor. But even that proved impossible, as he slanted his mouth over hers, his lips and tongue stealing her breath, robbing her of her ability to think, and leaving her with no choice but to feel…

      Her breasts against the hard wall of his chest, her heart pounding desperately enough to match the rapid beat of his, the firm press of his fingers against her hip. She splayed her fingers across his back, searching out as much contact as possible, the material thin enough, soft enough, heated enough, that she could imagine his naked skin and the play of muscles beneath her hands.

      “Connor.” His name escaped her on a breathless sigh as he trailed a kiss across her cheek to her jaw, his warm breath setting off a chain reaction of shivers down her spine. She swayed closer, her hips brushing against his solid thigh. The heated contact weakened her knees, and all she wanted was to sink to the floor, pull Connor down with her and feel the weight of his body on top of hers.

      She might have done just that if not for the ring of the bell and an embarrassed “Oops. Pretend I was never here.”

      Kelsey tore away from Connor in time to see her friend Sara backing out of the door with a platter of food in her hands. She wanted to call Sara back, but it was too late, leaving Kelsey with little choice but to face Connor. With his eyes dark with passion, his chest rising and falling, it was all she could do not to dive back into his arms.

      Two seconds ago an interruption was the last thing she wanted. But now with passion clearing, she realized it was exactly what she needed. Already Connor was going to her head; it wouldn’t take much for him to go straight to her heart. “That, um, was Sara. I should ask her to come back inside.”

      Her friends were waiting, her dreams were waiting and she didn’t dare push them aside. Not even for Connor. No matter how much she wanted to.

      Hours later, Connor looked around Kelsey’s shop, amazed by the transformation. The scent of paint filled the shop, and the soft pink and green colors highlighted the walls. The carpets had been shampooed, and the new rug and drapes stored in the back would soon complete the new look. Kelsey’s self-proclaimed talent for stripping away the layers and revealing the beauty beneath was on magnificent display in all the work she’d done.

      How could she possibly doubt her own worth, her own ability? Connor wondered…until he tried to imagine Emily—or heaven forbid, Charlene—dressed in a T-shirt and cutoffs, with their hair covered by a bandana, a streak of pale pink war paint on one cheek and spackle on the other. None of the other Wilson women would be caught dead looking the way Kelsey did right then. Yet seeing her eyes sparkle as she laughed with her friends, celebrated every small success and worked her ass off, Connor didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman look as vibrant, as alive, as sexy, as Kelsey.

      As if feeling the heat of his gaze, Kelsey glanced his way. Heat flared in her cheeks, and she ducked her head, taking a sudden interest in flipping through the phone directory, cell phone in hand as she searched for a plumber.

      A phone call to her uncle, and her plumbing problems would have been solved. Hell, a single call to Gordon Wilson and all her problems would have been solved. Gordon could have easily set up Kelsey in a furnished, upscale Scottsdale or Paradise Valley suite instead СКАЧАТЬ