Time After Time (Sweetbriar Cove #14) - Melody Grace Page 0,13
at her, hopeful, and she felt her resolve waver. He hadn’t been excited about anything like this in months. “OK,” she agreed, and Matty lit up.
“Thanks mom!” he smothered her with a hug.
“Not so fast,” she warned him. “I want your room tidied, and you to eat a proper dinner, not just junk.”
“No problem.”
“And you can clean the bathroom, as well,” Stella added, spying a chance to get some extra chores out of him. “And on Sunday, I’m taking you to brunch at the diner. And you have to sit through the whole meal without rolling your eyes once.”
“Fine!” Matty exclaimed, he grabbed his mug of cocoa and made for the door. “I’m going to go tell the others. Night!”
“Goodnight.”
Stella cleaned up, and turned the lights out. Her bedroom was in the attic, up a rickety spiral staircase, under the eaves, and as usual, the bed was already full.
“Move over, Buster.” she said, shoving the German Shepard out of the way. He curled on the floor, instead, leaving only two cats, and the Poodle mutt on the duvet. “It’s no wonder I can’t find a man,” she said, looking around. “There’s already no place to put him.”
She tried to imagine Aidan in a room like this, smooshed in beside the ginger pussycat, with Buster drooling on his perfect jaw. She couldn’t picture it. He would probably leap out of the window at the first sight of her hand-crocheted blanket and mismatched pillow shams. That was a man used to sophisticated designer sheets – and sophisticated, designer women in bed with him.
Stella let out a wistful sigh. Despite all her protests to her friends, in the quiet of the night, she had to admit, Aidan’s rejection stung. Sure, she hadn’t actually been asking him on a date, but knowing he would react with such awkward panic to the idea…
It wasn’t exactly good for her ego, knowing she inspired such horror in a man. Especially the man who had taken up residence in all her most private thoughts.
But that was just the fantasy, Stella reminded herself. Her dreams had been of wild, consequence-free passion… with someone who wouldn’t be making awkward excuses the next morning, or find a way to let her down. Aidan’s only appeal had been the fact he wasn’t a part of her world – even if she could add a few more things to the list now.
Taut, tanned, muscular things…
Stella shook her head, and turned out the lights. Despite Aidan’s many assets, he’d made it clear that she was the last thing on his mind. He was well and truly off-limits, and she wasn’t about to disrupt the safe, steady life she’d worked so hard to build here. The sooner her subconscious got the hint, the better.
But maybe one more dream wouldn’t hurt…
4
The Sweetbriar Cove gossip tree worked fast. Aidan woke at dawn the next morning with a buzz of messages from his family already flooding his phone.
“You’re in town? Why didn’t you say?”
“Dude, what’s going on?”
“CALL ME!!”
He groaned, and rolled over in bed, wondering what had given the game away. He knew he would have to face the music eventually, but he’d been hoping for a few more days peace to figure out his answers to the questions that would no doubt be heading his way.
No such luck.
His family weren’t the type to respect things like ‘space’ and ‘boundaries’ and sure enough, he soon heard a determined banging on the front door.
He opened it, still yawning, and found his sister standing on the doorstep with her hands on her hips and an accusing stare on her face.
“You dirty, rotten liar!” she exclaimed, her choppy hair dyed pink at the tips this week.
Aidan stretched. “Great to see you too, kid.”
He padded barefoot down the hall to put some coffee on; he could already tell that he was going to need it. Cassie followed. “Save it,” she said. “We’re meeting the others for breakfast at the diner. Your treat, as punishment for all your dirty rotten lies.”
“Am I allowed to put pants on first?” he asked, teasing.
“Please do!” Cassie said, already investigating the contents of his fridge. ‘But I’m driving.”
She took the backroads like the Indy 500, nearly running a slow-moving tractor off the road. “Nice ride,” she said with a smirk, as they pulled up in the town square, tires screeching loud enough to draw attention from the group of old-timers doing Tai Chi under the trees.
Aidan slowly released his grip on the passenger seat, heart pounding from