Joe was looking less than pleased himself. “Damn.”
“Yeah. Sucks to be single in a wedding party.”
“Yeah,” Joe agreed. “But hey, positive spin—it doesn’t suck to be single.” He flopped onto his bed and grabbed the remote, bringing up an MMA fight.
Sean blew out a breath and turned to the door.
“It’s nearly midnight,” Joe said to his back. “Where you off to? Back down to the hot chick who didn’t recognize you?”
“She totally recognized me,” Sean said.
“Right.”
“She did.”
“Dude, then that’s even worse.”
Sean flipped him off and left as Joe laughed, heading back down the stairs. Because Joe was right, being recognized and ignored was worse. And it was all his own fault.
The night had gotten noisy. Wind battered the old Victorian, rattling the windows, causing the trees outside to brush against the walls, which creaked and groaned under the strain. Sean hoped like hell that the carpenters back in the day had known what they were doing and that the place would hold.
For the second time in ten minutes, he strode up to the check-in desk. Pru had been the one to insist on this B&B because it’d been built in the late 1800s and had a cool history that he’d been told about in great detail but couldn’t repeat to save his life because he hadn’t listened. All he knew was that Pru had wanted to stay here so badly that he’d made it happen for her.
But it didn’t mean he had to like it.
Lotti was no longer in sight. There was a small bell for service on the desk and just as he reached out to hit it, he heard a male voice from inside what looked to be an office.
“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” the unseen man was saying. “But you know we’re not working. You’re so closed off that I can’t get close to you.”
Sean froze for two reasons. One, Lotti had always hated her full name. Hated it to the bone so much she’d refused to answer to it.
And two . . . those words. You’re so closed off that I can’t get close to you . . . They reverberated in Sean’s head, pulling memories he’d shoved deep. That long-ago summer night they’d shared had been the accumulation of several years of platonic friendship, started when he’d needed help in English and she in chemistry. They’d tutored each other, the perennial bad boy and the perennial good girl, and then one night they’d been each other’s world in the back of her dad’s pickup on the bluffs of Marin Headlands.
Afterward, she’d told him she loved him. He could remember staring into her sweet eyes and nearly swallowing his own tongue. Love? Was that what this all-consuming, heart and gut wrenching emotion he felt for her was? And even though he’d suspected that yes indeed it’d been love, he’d wanted no part of it because it hurt like hell.
And then proving just that, she’d gone on to tell him that her family was moving away, but since they were in love, they could stay in touch and write and call and visit.
She was going to leave. Even with all he’d felt for her, he’d known he wouldn’t, couldn’t, be the guy she’d needed. She’d indeed written him, and being the chicken-shit, emotionally stunted kid he’d been back then, he hadn’t written back. Or returned her calls. Losing her had been like a red-hot poker to the chest but he hadn’t been able to see himself in a long-distance relationship, or in any relationship at all.
Hell, he couldn’t have committed to a dentist appointment back then.
He’d thought of her, always with a smile and an ache in his chest because he deeply regretted how he’d behaved. By the time he graduated, he’d grown up enough to try to find her to apologize, but he’d had no luck. He’d never seen her again—until now.
A guy came out of the office, presumably the one who’d spoken, and headed straight for the front door, walking out into the storm without looking back.
Sean waited a minute, but there was only silence coming from the office. No sign of Lotti, nor a single sound. Clearly it was the worst possible time to try to talk to her, but her eerie silence worried him.
Then suddenly came the sound of glass shattering, but before he could rush into the room, she came out.
She wasn’t crying, which was a huge relief. Her eyes were . . . blank, actually, giving nothing away. That is until she saw Sean. Then they sparked, but not the good kind of spark.
“You,” she said.
Yep, he had the bad timing thing down pat.
Chapter Two
OF COURSE Sean O’Riley would be the one standing there, witness to the fact that she had a problem letting people in. Gee, wonder where she’d learned such a thing.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t turn back time. He’d clearly overheard her being dumped by Trevor, a guy she’d gone out with six and a half times. The half date had been the other night when he’d brought her dinner and had pushed the issue of becoming lovers.
She hadn’t been ready and he’d been frustrated with her. She got that, she did, but intimacy was a big—and not easy—step for her and dammit, she’d just needed a little more time. Trevor had said he understood, but clearly that hadn’t been true. He’d dumped her.
In earshot of her first lover.
Perfect.
And that that was her only concern at the moment told her everything she needed to know about her real feelings for Trevor. Clearly, it would never have worked out. Not that this eased her embarrassment one little bit. Honestly, she couldn’t see how this night could get any worse and with a sigh, she met Sean’s gaze.
And holy cow, an age-old tingle of awareness and heat sliced through her. She decided to attribute this to the fact that he was still sex-on-a-stick, maybe even more so now. Back then he’d been trouble with a capital T, but with such charisma that he’d been like the Pied Piper. She’d followed him right to her own undoing.
And she had a feeling not much had changed.
“Is there a problem with your room?” she asked politely, hoping to get rid of him quickly.
But she should’ve known better. Sean smiled that smile that had once had her panties melting right off. “Yeah,” he said. “The bed’s too small.” He was taller than she remembered and leanly muscled. His hair was still dark but with some lighter streaks from the sun and messily tousled, most likely courtesy of his own restless fingers. His eyes still shined with more mischievousness than any one man should hold.
Not going there, she told herself just as a gust of wind knocked the house like a bolt of lightning. The lights flickered as the electricity surged and she held her breath. This old building could barely tolerate the electrical needs in decades past, so the demands they put on it in the here and now were always a gamble. Luckily the guests they had always seemed charmed if the electricity went out, and she made sure to keep lots of candles and lanterns around. Plus, she had a generator if she needed. But tonight she didn’t want any problems. Not when her biggest problem was standing in front of her looking good enough to eat, damn him.
Another gust of wind hit hard and the electricity blinked on and off again. Please don’t go out, please don’t go out . . .
It went out.
“Are you serious with tonight?” she asked karma or fate, or whoever was in charge of such things.