Where You Least Expect It (6 page)

“If I’m not myself, who would you be having dinner with?” she asked, puzzled by his comment, then instantly embarrassed by her question.

“That’s what I’m hoping to find out,” he said quietly.

Her face grew even hotter, if that were possible. She reached over and lowered the temperature on the thermostat, glad for the immediate blast of cold air that hit her from a vent above.

“Name your preference. We could do steak, seafood. I’m even up for a burger and fries at the pub if that’s more your style.”

Penelope averted her gaze. Did she even have a style? She’d only been to a restaurant once in her life. And that had been a coffee house-diner with her mother.

She swallowed hard. “Thank you for the invitation, but I can’t.”

“You can’t, or won’t?”

She didn’t answer. Did it matter? It was the same thing, wasn’t it? Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?

He reached across the counter and tipped her face up to force her to look at him.

“Can’t, or won’t, Penelope?”

H
ow he hated the shadow in her tortured dark eyes. But Aidan had to do it. The instant he’d made the decision to ignore his gut and stay in town, he focused on exploring a friendship with Penelope. And part of being a friend meant encouraging the other to do what she normally wouldn’t.

“I just can’t,” she said again.

“Good,” he said, dropping his arm to his side. “I’ll see you here when you close at five.”

“What?”

Aidan merely grinned, winked at her, then casually left the shop, though he felt anything but casual inside.

The truth was, he wasn’t sure it was such a wise idea to push Penelope. He didn’t know where Penelope’s boundaries were. Push too fast, too hard, and she might shut him out, much the same way she shut out everyone but her grandmother.

He remembered last night—the look on her face when she quietly asked him never to leave. He had felt an immediate need to protect her, to help her.

He didn’t care what he had to do. Or at what cost. He would help Penelope Moon in a way that he couldn’t help himself.

“Sheriff Cole.” He nodded at the young man in uniform where he stood in front of the library.

“Afternoon, Aidan.”

As Aidan passed by, he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It was a way he’d never felt until the day after the gas station robbery. Was it all in his mind, this suspicion that everyone was looking at him differently? Or could there be a grain of truth to it?

Whatever it was, he’d decided to stay and ride this out to its natural conclusion. In truth, he was tired of running. Tired of packing his suitcase and hitting the road to nowhere. Of being alone, keeping people at arm’s length and waiting for the shadow following on his heels to catch up with him and suffocate him. Maybe that was the reason he’d stayed in Old Orchard to begin with. Perhaps he’d subconsciously known that this was the place where his running would end.

For starters, he had to stop running from Penelope Moon and whatever bonds were developing between them.

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. She, Penelope Moon, was not out on a date with one of Old Orchard’s most eligible bachelors at one of Old Orchard’s most popular gathering places.

She fiddled with the skirt of her violet cotton dress, wishing she could have gone home to change, taken a bath so that her skin smelled like rose petals, put her hair up. In some way to have done something special to reflect how unique the occasion was.

“Penelope?” Aidan’s voice reached for her across the pitted pine table at Eddie’s Pub. “Are you all right?”

She blinked up at him, feeling…surreal.

How many times had she passed the pub? And yet she’d never seen the inside, aside from the brief glimpses she got in the summer when Eddie sometimes left the door open. She was vaguely surprised by the pervasive smell of beer. The rugged decor. The familiarity with which the patrons—people she’d known all her life—entered and took stools at the bar. In fact, she and Aidan were two of the few seated at one of the dozen or so tables.

She suddenly realized she hadn’t answered Aidan, and laughed nervously. “I’m…fine.”

“Are you sure? We could always go somewhere else if you’d like.”

“No!” she said a little too quickly, thinking she would only feel more uncomfortable elsewhere. “I mean, here is fine.”

In fact, she didn’t know what she was doing there at all. Throughout the day she’d resolved to thank Aidan for the invitation to dinner but politely decline. But as she and Maximus stood outside the front door while she locked up, Aidan’s smile had been so warm, so handsome, so full of kindness,
that she hadn’t been able to say anything at all. She’d merely followed when he took her arm and led her across the street to the pub.

There was a bark of laughter at the bar, and Penelope’s face grew hot. She chanced a glance to find the McCreary brothers eyeing her and Aidan curiously. Oh, God. She’d known this wasn’t a good idea.

The moment they’d walked in the door, she’d been aware of every eye in the place on her. They were all probably wondering what she was doing there. And with Aidan Kendall, no less. She, the odd girl who lived with her crazy grandmother just outside of town, and Aidan, a respectable schoolteacher who could have any single woman he chose.

She gazed deep into his brown eyes. Why
had
he chosen her?

“Because I wanted to,” he said quietly.

Had she really said the question aloud?

Penelope opened her eyes wide and pretended an interest in the menu, though she really didn’t see a word of it.

“Have you decided?”

“Hmm?”

Aidan gestured toward the menu. “Have you decided what you’re going to have yet?”

“Have? Oh.” Panic collected in her stomach. “I’m sorry. Am I taking too long? I’m taking too long, aren’t I. You probably have things you need to do and I’m holding—”

The feel of his hand on hers nearly sent her catapulting from her sandals. But the instant she saw his smile, she felt all right again. Almost.

“No, Penelope, you’re not taking too long. I just wondered if maybe you needed help. A recommendation.”

Help. Oh, boy, did she ever need help. But she didn’t need it in the form of a dish recommendation. She needed to consult the stars. Mars was hovering overhead, which would explain the chaos swirling inside her. But it was Venus’s bright glow that made her heart pound hard.

She offered a small smile, then looked back at the menu, feeling silly but unable to stop herself. “Do you feel like everyone’s looking at us?”

What she meant to say was “me.” But she was glad she hadn’t.

Aidan nodded toward the door. Penelope turned her head slightly to watch a young man come in. She was surprised to see that every person in the place turned to watch him enter and that there was a heartbeat of a pause before Eddie greeted him and he took a place at the bar.

Was Aidan pointing out that everyone looked at everyone else?

If she’d felt silly before, now she felt doubly so.

As a double Capricorn, she was usually practical about such matters. But the one thing most astrologers didn’t emphasize enough was environment. She knew that the tamest Leo could turn into a deadly Scorpio if his or her environment dictated.

As a loner, she tended to internalize things too much. Take them too personally.

And the fact that she may have been doing that all of her life, lending a self-absorbed slant to her usually positive traits, well, surprised and bothered her.

Aidan leaned closer. “If they are giving you a little extra attention, it’s because you’re beautiful to look at.”

Penelope’s cheeks flamed for an entirely different reason, but she tried to shrug off the compliment. “Pisces.”

His brows drew slightly together, then realization dawned and he grinned. “Nope.”

She sighed heavily and lay her menu down. “Are you ever going to tell me what your sun sign is?”

An odd expression passed over his face, then was gone. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I do, you’ll pigeonhole me. You’ll use those charts to try to piece me together like some assembly-required toy.”

“Scorpio.”

His deep chuckle made her squeeze her thighs together.

A woman standing next to their table cleared her throat. Penelope’s smile instantly disappeared. Were they going to be asked to leave?

“Hi, Frannie,” Aidan said easily. “Any specials for tonight?”

She was the waitress.

Penelope wanted to crawl under the table. If only the move would allow her to escape herself.

The young woman wearing a blue T-shirt with the pub’s name across her chest took a pad out of her back pocket. “We have beer-batter shrimp and some lake perch we got fresh this morning.”

“Sounds good.”

“You’re Penelope Moon, aren’t you?” the waitress asked.

Penelope blinked up into her face. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

She smiled. “I’m Jeanie. I’ve heard great things about your shop. I keep meaning to come by and get a better look inside.”

“You should,” Aidan said, when Penelope couldn’t think of a response.

“I think I will.”

She looked at Penelope expectantly.

“Would you like me to order for both of us?” Aidan asked.

Penelope could feel her body deflate as she exhaled the breath she was holding. “Yes. Yes, please.”

Aidan handed Jeanie his menu. “I’ll have the perch, and why don’t you bring Penelope the shrimp? Oh, and bring us a plate of those fried onions Chef makes so well.”

“Will do.”

Jeanie left their table, slid the menus next to the cash register and disappeared into the kitchen.

Penelope picked up her glass of cola and sipped it.

“So tell me,” Aidan said, relaxing back into his wood chair. “What is your sign?”

Penelope raised her brows. “What?”

He crossed his arms and shrugged. “Well, I figure since you keep asking me about mine that you think yours reveals something about you.”

Maybe a little too much, Penelope thought. “Capricorn.”

“The goat, right?”

She smiled. “Yes, the goat.”

“Does that mean you’re stubborn?”

She nearly sprayed the table with her cola. “You’re thinking of Taurus.”

“No, I’m thinking of Capricorn.”

“Do you know anything about astrology?”

“I know about astronomy. And the stories associated with the constellations.” His smile widened. “And I also happen to have been around goats, and they can be just as stubborn as bulls, just smaller.”

Aidan watched Penelope blush prettily. He didn’t know many women past the age of eighteen who blushed anymore. Either they had already heard and seen it all, or they didn’t know how to take a compliment. And while Penelope never openly accepted or voiced appreciation for compliments, she was obviously touched by them. And touching her on an emotional level made him want to touch her on a physical one.

Would the skin of her stomach flush when he bared it to the night air? Would she shiver if he licked the supple expanse, then blew on it? Would she bite her bottom lip as she tried to keep from calling out, then ultimately give herself over to his attentions and her own emotions?

Would there ever come a time when he might freely pursue the answer to those questions?

Someone came to the door of the pub and said something to those inside. There was much screeching as stools were pushed back and a few patrons moved to the open doorway.

“Were you always a teacher?” Penelope asked him quietly, completely unaware of the activity behind her.

Aidan moved his napkin and silverware farther to the left, then rested his hands on the table.

“No.”

She watched him as if waiting for him to offer more. When he didn’t, she dropped her gaze to his hands.

“I’m sorry. That was too forward, wasn’t it.”

So confident in so many ways, it was surprising that she lacked confidence when it came to relationships. “Penelope, asking someone if they have herpes is forward. Asking what another person does for a living isn’t.”

Of course, having said that, he’d cast himself in a suspicious light for not easily sharing his past.

“I used to work in construction.”

“Construction?”

He nodded. “Yes, you know, doing small carpentry jobs. Adding built-in bookcases. Crown molding. Wainscoting. Things like that.”

“Doesn’t sound small to me.”

“No, but I wasn’t exactly building houses, either.”

“Do you know how to install doors?”

He chuckled quietly. “What’s to say Mavis won’t just take them off again?”

She sighed and relaxed slightly in her chair. “I moved everything that I couldn’t bear the thought of losing to my bedroom and I lock the door every night. But I’m afraid she’s going to either pick the lock or gain access through the window and I’m going to go home to find everything gone.”

She said this as if Mavis’s behavior were par for the course. And maybe for her, it was. Having met and spent a little time around Mavis the other night, he admitted to thinking the older woman wasn’t the unbalanced senior she portrayed. Rather, she seemed to map out each of her peculiar doings as if hoping to provoke a reaction. But what kind of reaction? And why?

“Have you ever thought about getting your own place?” Aidan asked.

Penelope stared at him. “You mean, leave my grandmother?” She shook her head. “No.

Never.”

“Why not?”

This appeared to stump her.

Aidan didn’t think it was an unusual question. Eventually everyone came to a point when they wanted to strike out on their own. Claim their own space. But it was apparent the thought had never even occurred to Penelope.

“Why not indeed…” she said quietly, a curious light in her eyes.

“Aidan and Miss Moon?” Eddie called from the door. “You two, um, might want to come have a look at this.”

Penelope’s soft brows drew together. Aidan considered telling the bar owner they were otherwise occupied.

“Max,” Penelope whispered.

Aidan pushed back from his chair and followed as she hurried for the door.

At first it wasn’t apparent what everyone was looking at. What was clear was that nearly everyone within shouting distance was standing outside, staring at something going on in Lucas Circle. Aidan squinted, trying to get a better look, but there were too many people blocking his view.

He watched Penelope crouch down and pet Maximus where he was straining against his leash near the light pole, barking at the area of interest.

“Come on in! The water’s fine!” a woman called.

Penelope jumped up and an expression of horror crossed her face. He lightly grasped her hand as she pushed her way through the throng of people, then came to a jarring stop.

Aidan moved to her side, staring at what everyone else saw. Namely, her grandmother, in nothing but her underwear, splashing in the fountain in the middle of Lucas Circle. And she was reaching for the back of her bra as if to undo it….