Tangled Up In Love Read online

  Knew that his butt was, indeed, as tight and round and perfect as it looked beneath a thick layer of denim.

  Knew that his chest was broad and smooth and would send professional trainers running for the gym to put in a few extra hours with the weights.

  And she knew what had been hidden behind the seam of his zipper and how potent that particular appendage truly was.

  Thanks to last night, she had a constant, full-blown, Technicolor instant replay of every single aspect of Dylan’s naked, amazing, mouthwatering body seared into her brain.

  The image flashed across her mind’s eye, and she went hot and achy all over. She thought of him and knew that if he were in the room at that very second, she’d be all over him like rats on cheese.

  She nearly groaned, realizing what sorry shape she was in. And her friends weren’t helping matters.

  “That’s the problem,” she told them. “I shouldn’t have been picturing him naked. Ever. And I sure as hell shouldn’t have slept with him. Oh, God.”

  Bending double, she buried her face against her knees and groaned. Her stomach was a mass of tightly coiled knots. And not the good kind. Not the tight knots of awareness and longing Dylan had evoked last night. The bad kind that made her feel like throwing up. That reminded her of exactly what she’d done, and how wrong it had been, and just how many horrible repercussions there would be in her future because of it.

  “I don’t know what you’re so upset about, dear.”

  Ronnie raised her head just enough to peek through the fall of her bangs and across the coffee table at Charlotte, who was sipping a cup of hot tea and munching on pretzel sticks like she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “You spent the night with a man you like and have known for quite a while, and find very attractive. You’re both young and single. I don’t see the problem.”

  “But I don’t like him,” Ronnie stressed, her voice muffled by her legs. “I hate him.”

  Charlotte didn’t respond for a moment, and then she said, “I’ve always found that there’s a thin line between love and hate.”

  Ronnie made a face where Charlotte couldn’t see it. She knew the older woman was only trying to help, but there’s a thin line between love and hate didn’t.

  “If you want my opinion—and I know you do,” Grace said, “I think this has been a long time coming. You and Dylan have been dancing around each other, tossing out challenges and taking part in an old-fashioned pissing contest for months now. If you ask me, all that misdirected passion was bound to come out eventually.”

  Ronnie lifted her head to stare at her friend, blinking as though she’d never seen the woman before in her life. When had the pod people taken over Grace’s body? When had they started turning her brain to soup and making her think these crazy, demented things?

  “Granted,” Grace went on, “I wouldn’t have expected it to come out twelve or thirteen times in one night, but hey . . . more power to you, girlfriend. I say if you can find a guy who can keep it up that long, you should hang on tight. To him or it, whatever works.”

  Jenna and Charlotte both chuckled, but Ronnie remained unmoved. By the joke, anyway, not by the rest of Grace’s little speech.

  “Are you insane? Did you fall on your head in the shower this morning? And what do you mean, it’s been a long time coming? You expected this?”

  “Expected, no. Hoped, yes.”

  Unable to sit still any longer, Ronnie tossed her knitting on top of the table and shot to her feet to pace.

  “I don’t believe this! I thought you were traitors for sending me home with him last night, but apparently you turned traitorous long before that. Did you set me up? Was this all part of your evil plan to ruin my life and send me into a room with padded walls?”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. Of course there was no plan. An opportunity presented itself and I thought it would be interesting to see how it played out.”

  “So I was just part of your little experiment,” Ronnie accused.

  “Yes,” her friend replied with heavy sarcasm, “you’ve been an excellent test study, and now we can put the finishing touches on our cure for HBS. That’s Horny Bitch Syndrome, for you laypeople.”

  Ronnie narrowed one eye, annoyed at the implication.

  “You have been a touch uptight lately,” Charlotte volunteered.

  “We thought rolling around in the sheets for a few hours with Dylan—or any half-decent man, actually—might relax you.”

  “And did it work?” Ronnie wanted to know, cocking a hip and crossing her arms. “Do I look more relaxed to you?”

  “Definitely not,” Charlotte said, and Jenna shook her head in agreement.

  “Who knew that even a dozen big Os wouldn’t dislodge the stick from your butt?”

  After blinking a few times and letting the shock of that statement wear off, Ronnie replied, “I think I’m offended. I think I’m wondering at my choice of friends. Because believe me, if this is your idea of being a pal, I’d be better off buddying up to Jack the Ripper.”

  “Most of the time, you act like Dylan is Jack the Ripper,” Grace said. “He’s a nice guy, Ronnie. Given some of the Y chromosomes walking around out there, Dylan may even be one of the best. But you treat him like he’s the Antichrist or something, sent to suck the soul from your body.”

  Ronnie knew she was overreacting, knew that her emotions and state of mind were always in chaos where Dylan was concerned. But after last night, Grace didn’t know how close her comment came to the truth.

  She felt as though Dylan had the power to suck out her soul. And he’d most certainly turned her world upside down.

  “We let him take you home because we thought that maybe if the two of you spent some time alone, you’d get to know each other better and maybe even start to like each other,” Jenna interjected. “We didn’t do it as an act of sabotage or because we thought you’d end up sleeping with him. Please don’t be angry with us.”

  Jenna’s soft plea and the genuine concern in her green eyes took the wind out of Ronnie’s sails as nothing else could have. She stopped pacing, let her arms fall to her sides, and dropped back onto her seat.

  “I’m not angry.” Not anymore. She’d feel like a jerk if she kept her mad on now. “I’m just . . .” Confused. Frustrated. Petrified. Annoyed.

  She took a deep breath, then a long swallow of her now tepid tea, and shook her head. “What am I going to do?”

  “What do you want to do?” Charlotte asked.

  “Go back in time and change what happened. Kill Dylan before he can breathe a word of it to anyone else. Crawl into a hole and die.”

  “All good ideas,” Grace said flippantly.

  “What about giving him a chance?” Jenna suggested. “Spend a little more time with him and see where things take you. You may end up liking him, and not just in the bedroom.”

  Ronnie scowled, not liking that suggestion at all. “Well, I have to see him again, whether I want to or not” she admitted, rubbing the pad of her thumb over the spot between her eyes where a headache was beginning to throb. “That’s the problem—or one of many, anyway. I agreed to continue with our private knitting lessons.”

  Jenna and Charlotte raised brows, but remained silent at that bit of news. It was Grace who let out a loud guffaw.

  “Oh, boy, you really are screwed.”

  With a groan, Ronnie reached for her abandoned knitting and flopped back in her chair, slowly wrapping the tomato-red yarn around one of the needles to form the first stitch of a new row. Then another and another as she eased back into the routine and stopped slacking off on her offer to help Charlotte fill her craft booth order.

  She was getting nowhere in her quest to make sense of her actions last night. Just thinking about it was giving her an ulcer.

  But Grace was right; she was screwed. Big time.

  Her fear, though, was that very soon she would find herself once again in Dylan Stone’s company, once ag
ain suffer a moment of weakness, and once again find herself screwed, both figuratively and literally.

  A shiver raced down her spine. While the former made her break out in a cold sweat, the latter certainly did not. It made her feel warm and twitchy.

  And that’s what scared her most of all.

  Row 12

  Charlotte stood just inside her front door, watching as the girls climbed into their respective cars. Tiny moths and other nighttime bugs fluttered around the single bulb that illuminated the small porch and part of the yard. She lifted a hand to flick them away when they got too close, then kept her hand up to wave good-bye as the women drove off.

  They’d gotten a lot done tonight, but her pleasure at filling the large dishcloth order was secondary to what she’d felt when she’d heard the news that Ronnie had succumbed to that nice young man, Dylan.

  She was nearly giddy with excitement, realizing that the yarn she’d spun with the family spinning wheel was working. It really was enchanted. It really did possess the power to bring two people together in true love.

  Oh, the happily-ever-after was still far off on the horizon, with Ronnie fighting it every step of the way. That girl was nothing if not stubborn as a barnyard mule.

  But things had definitely been set in motion. After all, a night of wild, passionate lovemaking was a far cry from the snarking that usually took place between those two—even if Ronnie was trying her level best to go back there. She would just have to hope that the yarn was powerful enough to break through all that poppycock.

  Turning to go back inside, Charlotte flipped off the porch light and locked the front door behind her. Not that it was necessary. She lived at least a mile from her nearest neighbor, on a very lightly traveled gravel road. But a woman alone couldn’t be too careful.

  Her fingers itched to go upstairs and spin another skein of yarn on the magic spinning wheel. To test its powers even further and see if she could manage another love match.

  But just because Ronnie and Dylan seemed to be moving in that direction didn’t mean the outcome was guaranteed. Better, she decided, to wait awhile longer and see how things truly worked out. There would be time later to do more spinning and matchmaking.

  With a sigh, she shuffled back into the living room and began to clear the coffee table, stacking used dishes onto the serving tray and boxing up the finished dishcloths to transport to the craft booth.

  The Knit Wits’ next meeting was nearly a full week away . . . so long to wait for an update on the Ronnie and Dylan situation. She wasn’t sure she could wait that long to find out, and wondered if there was some excuse she could concoct to contact Jenna or Grace again and maybe finagle a few juicy tidbits ahead of time.

  Then again, good things came to those who were willing to wait, and she had a feeling that if she could be patient as this one played out, the results would be very good, indeed.

  Row 13

  Juggling bags of Chinese takeout and his ball of yarn and needles, Dylan made his way down the hallway toward Ronnie’s apartment. He was whistling, he realized, and was further surprised when it dawned on him that he was in an exceptionally good mood.

  He was actually looking forward to seeing Ronnie again—and not for the reason he would have expected.

  She’d made it clear there would be no more slap and tickle between them. And while he was disappointed—what hot-blooded American male wouldn’t be, after a night like the one they’d spent together?—he was also okay with her hands-off policy.

  He figured he’d gotten luckier in the twelve hours he’d spent making love to Ronnie than he was likely to get in the next twelve years, so he would just have to save up those pleasures like some kind of sexual hermit, storing them away until he could come out of hibernation and go looking for a good time again.

  Besides, having a one-night stand with the Queen of Mean was one thing. Going for a two-night stand, or anything more substantial, would put him at risk of getting involved. Of creating a . . . relationship other than the one they’d already established. And that was something he definitely didn’t think he was man enough to handle.

  Trading snipes and dares was easy.

  Trading snipes and dares by day, then rolling around on the floor by night, would put him too close to a line he’d rather not cross.

  Reaching her door, he lifted the hand that held his ongoing attempt at knitting and rapped with his knuckles. He waited, ready to greet her with a grin and a quart of the best egg drop soup Cleveland had to offer.

  A minute later, when she still hadn’t answered, his smile began to slip.

  He checked his watch. Yeah, it was Saturday, but it was also after 10 PM, and judging by her routine in the past she should be here.

  Knocking again, he crouched to see if there was any light showing under the door. But either the apartment was dark or the door was tight enough on its frame that it wouldn’t have shown anything even if high-powered floodlights filled the room.

  “Ronnie?” He tapped more loudly a third time, and leaned close to the door to listen for noise or movement inside. “Ronnie, it’s Dylan. Are you in there?”

  He thought he heard shuffling from the other side, but couldn’t be sure. And then Ronnie removed all doubt.

  “Not tonight, Stone. Go away.”

  She sounded odd, her voice thick and shaky.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, now go away.”

  Tossing the needles and yarn on top of one of the bags of food, he tried the knob, but found it locked. With a low curse, he called out, “Open the door, Ronnie. I’m not leaving until I’m sure you’re okay.”

  More noise from inside—some banging, grumbling, and a muted stomping that grew louder as she neared the door. The dead bolt twisted and she yanked the door open, but only the inch or two allowed by the still-caught chain.

  A slim portion of Ronnie’s face appeared, but even in shadow, her skin looked pale, her eyes puffy, her mouth drawn.

  “I’m fine,” she bit out. “See? Good-bye.”

  She moved to slam the door closed again, but Dylan was quicker. He shoved the toe of his shoe—which happened to be his favorite pair of year-round hiking boots—into the narrow opening, keeping her from shutting him out.

  “Let me in, Ronnie,” he murmured softly.

  “Not tonight, Dylan, okay?” Resting her forehead against the edge of the door, her eyes fluttered closed. “Just go away and leave me alone.”

  Now she was downright scaring him. He’d never seen her like this. Hadn’t known she could be like this, all subdued and vulnerable looking. And he’d never heard her voice sound so thin and strained, as though she’d taken more than she could handle and was ready to give up.

  “If I go, it’ll be straight to the nearest phone to call Grace and Jenna to come over and check on you. That’s two buttinskies instead of one. Unless, of course, they decide to bring Zack and Gage along, which would make it four. And since I’m already here . . .”

  He shrugged a shoulder, trying for his best harmless-human half smile. “Plus, I brought enough Chinese for a three-day sit-in. So who would you rather have bugging you tonight—a sexy, blue-eyed journalist who comes bearing lo mein and General Tso’s chicken, or a couple of rolled-out-of-bed, let’s-share-our-woes, empty-handed girls and their misbegotten significant others?”

  Was that a quirk he saw tugging at the corner of her lips? He sure hoped so.

  “They’re not girls,” she responded almost by rote, “they’re women.”

  “They’re women without wonton.”

  Her lashes swept upward and she studied him for second. Then she sighed with her whole body, closed the door thanks to his removed foot, and slipped the chain lock free. By the time the door opened again, wider this time, she was already turned and walking in the other direction.

  She was dressed in pajamas already, but not the hot pink basset hound ones he’d been treated to on his first visit to her place. Tonight’s set was canine-free, t
he pants a solid tangerine with no pattern or decoration, the long-sleeved top a swirling, whirling mix of mismatched but somehow well-blended colors. Blue, green, pink, yellow, beige, orange . . .

  But it wasn’t the roller coaster of colors that caught his attention so much as the pert roundness of her ass as it sashayed away from him. One thing was for sure, Ronnie Chasen looked as good going as she did coming. And he meant that both figuratively and literally.

  Kicking the door closed behind him, he followed her into the living room and dropped the bags of takeout on the long mahogany coffee table. Ronnie was curled up in the corner of the couch, turned slightly away from him, inconspicuously trying to dab her eyes and wipe her nose with a tissue.

  She’d been crying, just as he’d suspected. The question was, why?

  She’d also been sitting practically in the dark, the only light in the apartment coming from a tall lamp in the corner with a low-watt bulb and an old-fashioned, muting shade edged with ugly olive-green fringe.

  Her uncharacteristic show of emotion put him on rocky ground. Her flashes of temper and brittle personality, he could handle with his eyes closed. But tears, sadness, vulnerability . . . he could feel his palms turning damp, a trickle of cold sliding down his spine.

  Buying them both some time, he slowly started removing Chinese carry-out containers from the bags and setting them on the table.

  “Fork or chopsticks?” he asked, knowing it was probably the stupidest and least important dilemma in her world right now.

  She tipped her head slightly, balling the tissue in her hand and lowering her arm so he wouldn’t see what she’d been up to. “Chopsticks, I guess,” she said in a watery voice.

  He moved around the table and plopped down in the center of the sofa, close to her, but not touching. Flipping open containers and removing lids, he jabbed a set of chopsticks into a serving of shrimp lo mein and passed it to her.

  “I’m really not hungry,” she said, but he noticed she didn’t refuse the noodles.