Her jaw tightened and a determined spark lit up her blue eyes. He had too much on the line to be thinking about anything other than business, but he couldn’t help but notice the way the flash of creamy cleavage peeking out from the top of her shirt rose and fell in response to her quickened breaths, reminding him of how she’d looked that night so long ago when she’d come undone underneath him.
In truth, there wasn’t much about Miranda that he could forget. The way her skin had smelled like spring rain. How seeing her around town was better than throwing out the first pitch during baseball season. The sweet taste of her lips before either of them remembered who they—and their families—were. The sight of her pink lips parted and back arched as his fingers slipped underneath her skirt and headed toward the promise land.
“If you’ll look at page three, you’ll notice that I outlined all of the growth within the craft brewery industry and the increase in customer demand for locally made beers.” Miranda slid the folder back in his direction, bringing him back to the here and now. “Also, while the brewery has fallen on hard times, I believe the opportunities outweigh any negatives. Turn to page ten and you’ll—”
He had to get her out of the office before he forgot who she was and who he’d become. “I wish you luck finding financing at another institution.” He handed her the folder and stood up.
She didn’t move. “This is a solid investment in what will be a strong, local business that employs twenty-five people, all of whom have kids to feed and mortgages to pay, many of which are held by your bank. And I will tell you in confidence that the company I work for has agreed to buy the brewery once it’s profitable.” A flush pinked her round cheeks, and the color of her eyes lightened to an almo
st Caribbean blue.
For a second, he forgot who she was, who he was, and why they weren’t both naked and on top of his desk. But he pulled himself back from the brink. “Then your company should be willing to back you.”
“The company is insisting on local backing.”
“As I said, I can’t give you that.”
“If you’ll just look—” Her already tight voice broke, and she fell silent. “Would you have said no if I had a different last name?”
Guilt tweaked his conscience. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yeah, what would a Martin even know about being a part of the family everyone in town whispers about?”
“Being a Martin isn’t everything you might imagine.” What he wouldn’t give for the freedom of being a Sweet and saying the hell with expectations and a life planned out for him before he’d even learned to walk. But, as his father often said in his drinking days before taking yet another swig of bourbon, if wishes were pigs, he’d be eating bacon every day.
“Really?” Her eyes went wide. “What happened, did your silver spoon tarnish?”
He laughed despite himself. This Sweet always did have a tart bite.
“Something like that.” He rubbed his hand across his jaw, the prickle of day-old beard scratching his palm. “Look, I’m sure you can find a buyer. I can help, if you want.”
Especially if that buyer was him.
“That’ll be the day.” Miranda stood up and smoothed her skirt over her full hips. “A Martin helping a Sweet, their sworn enemies? We’d have at least four generations rolling over in their graves.”
He nearly threw his hands up in the air in frustration. “You’re the one who came to me for help.”
“I should have known better. It’s probably best if we agree to forget about that.” She tucked a wayward curl behind one ear, an unconscious gesture that used to fascinate him when he’d watched her in chemistry class. A vision of the waves spread out around her in the bed of his Chevy truck, parked at the edge of the Hamilton River.
Want and duty played a tug of war inside Logan, but like always, the Martin genes ran roughshod over everything else, and he walked Miranda to his office door.
As soon as he opened it, the chatter in the lobby ceased and everyone turned to face them. Word of who was in his office had obviously gotten out. The town gossips had arrived en masse, like squirrels at a newly stocked bird feeder.
Miranda pulled herself up to her full height and angled her chin higher, putting her almost eye-to-eye with him at six feet. “Thank you for taking the time to see me.”
Damn, the woman made his left eye twitch, but he had to give her a sliver of respect for not cringing in front of Salvation’s Most Vicious Coffee Klatch. “Sorry it didn’t work out the way you wanted.”
“It’s not a problem.” She turned the full wattage of her blue eyes on him, and his chest tightened. “You know us Sweets—we always find a way.”
With that, she strutted across the lobby, her high heels clicking against the marble, and he stared after her, feeling like a man who’d forgotten his own name.
Chapter Three
There were few things in Salvation that Miranda ever missed, but The Kitchen Sink was one of them. Part-coffee shop, part-diner, part-chocolate heaven, it had been around for as long as she could remember. So had Ruby Sue Jepson, sitting behind the cash register by the front door, sucking down gallons of sweet tea loaded with enough sugar to give a dentist the vapors.
Miranda had just crossed over the Food is Love welcome mat when the early dinner crowd fell silent. Heads swiveled and the invisible hammer of judgment nailed her right between the eyes. A tingling sensation swept up her body, bringing the fire of humiliation with it until her cheeks burned.
Looked like the gossip of her arrival back in town had hit Main Street.