More Than Anything (Broken Pieces 1)

“Sex.”

“I don’t agree.”

“That’s your prerogative, but if you’re expecting much more from me, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. I have to get ready. I’ll see you later.” She half turned to walk away, but he stopped her.

“Wait. Tina . . .”

She looked back at him, and he surprised her by slanting a completely roguish grin at her. “What?”

“Gimme a kiss?” His voice was so ridiculously, and boyishly, hopeful that Tina was helpless to do anything but comply. She made her way back to the swing, and he watched her with predatory intent. Her lips parted in an unconsciously seductive smile, and she bent at the waist to drop a completely chaste kiss on his waiting mouth.

He growled, obviously unhappy with the dry little peck, palmed the back of her head beneath her high ponytail, and deepened the kiss. Tina’s knees turned to jelly when his tongue deftly slipped into her mouth, and she gasped when it drew hers out for a quick bout of thrust and parry before he ended the kiss without warning.

Tina wobbled before righting herself almost immediately. She stood upright and smoothed her damp palms down her pajama-covered thighs.

“Remember that when you think of me,” he said, his smile filled with lazy confidence. “That . . . and this.” He cupped his straining erection through the thick fabric of his jeans, and she unconsciously licked her lips before lifting her eyes back up to his. He was still smiling. Arrogant bastard.

“Definitely,” she responded, her voice hoarse with desire. “And you remember you still owe me a taste of that.”

The smug smile disappeared from his face and leaped to hers. She waggled her fingers at him and walked away.

“You have a visitor, boss,” Ricardo announced after interrupting Tina’s solitaire session halfway through their afternoon service. After a half an hour of schmoozing random patrons that morning, Tina had retreated to her office. She had opened her laptop, brought up her daily sales reports, and taken one quick panicked look at the numbers before minimizing the accounting program and opening up her card game instead. She’d played about seven games back-to-back before Ricardo’s interruption.

She had never gotten around to contacting the paper again either. She had all but convinced herself that it was probably too late to apologize now.

“Oh?” she asked, lifting her eyes and fully expecting to see Harris standing behind Ricardo. Instead it was a vaguely familiar woman, whom she couldn’t immediately place. It was only when Ricardo shifted to one side and she saw the woman’s huge belly that Tina recognized her as Daffodil Carlisle.

“Hey,” the woman said with a quick smile. “I should probably have called and made an appointment—I know you’re likely busy. But I was seriously bored out of my gourd at home, so I hopped into the car and popped over. I wanted to show you what I’ve been working on.”

Ricardo, clearly figuring he was no longer needed, left without further word, and the pregnant woman waddled into Tina’s office and sat down across from her, dumping her satchel unceremoniously onto the other chair.

“Sorry. Just give me a sec to catch my breath. This baby is heavy as hell. I swear, he’s probably going to be as huge as his dad someday.”

“It’s a boy?” Tina asked, for lack of anything else to say, really.

“Damned if I know,” the other woman said with an indifferent shrug. “It better be. A girl the size of my husband would be a little unfortunate.”

The irreverence surprised a laugh out of Tina. Earth mother Daffodil Carlisle was not.

“Anyway, I’ve been thinking about what we could do to promote the—”

“Wait, hold on.” Tina held up both hands to stop her, and the other woman gave her an impatient look but stopped talking. “I’m sorry. We should have discussed this before. I wasn’t expecting you to just up and run with it like this. Look, Mrs. Carlisle . . . I really appreciate this. I do. But I don’t think I can accept your help.”

“Why the hell not?” the other woman asked, her brow furrowed and impatience still gleaming in her gray eyes. “And Jesus, call me Daff. Mrs. Carlisle sounds like some fuddy-duddy old bird in slouchy gray support stockings.”

Tina choked back a laugh. She was starting to really like this woman. She was completely different from her huggy, overly sweet sister, and Tina appreciated her frankness.

“I don’t think I can afford your services.”

“Damned straight you can’t afford my services, not the way this business is clearly struggling. I know it’s early days and everything, but damn, woman, this place is emptier than a church on a Saturday night out there. Luckily for you, I’m not charging you for my services.”

Like Tina needed even more affirmation of how terribly the restaurant was doing. Clearly, everybody could see how badly she was botching up this business. Even perfect strangers. It was disheartening to hear all her worst fears about MJ’s being verbalized so frankly. And having the woman offer her services for free was absolutely humiliating. Did the situation look dire enough to outsiders to actually warrant charity?