Claimed by the Rebel

Pause. “Actually, I have a customer. If you’ll excuse me.” And then she hung up. Katie Pritchard hung up on him.

He set down the phone, stunned. And then he began to laugh. Be careful what you wish for, he thought. He’d wished for a surprise, and she had delivered him one. He’d just been rejected by Katie, the flower girl. He should have been fuming.

But for the first time in a long time he felt challenged. He could make her say yes.

Then what, he asked himself? A funny question for a man who absolutely prided himself in not asking questions about the future when it came to his dealings with the opposite sex.

Despite the rather racy divorcée title, Katie would be the kind of girl who didn’t go out with a guy without a chaperone, a written contract and a rule book. The perfect girl to invite to dinner at his sister’s house. That was the then what, and nothing beyond that.

So why did his mind ask, What would it be like to kiss her?

“Buddy,” he told himself, “what are you playing with?”

For some reason, even though she was pretending to be the plainest girl in Hillsboro, he could picture her lips, exactly. They were wide and plump, and even without a hint of lipstick on them, they practically begged a man to taste them.

He tried to think what Heather’s lips looked like. All he could think of was red grease smeared on his shirt collar. He shuddered, even though Heather was not a girl who would normally make a man shudder.

“Playing with Katie is like toying with a saint,” he warned himself. But he was already aware that he felt purposeful. Katie intrigued him, and he wanted her to come out for dinner with him. He was also about to prove to his sister how wrong she could be. About everything.

Now, how was he going to convince Katie to go out with him? He bet it wouldn’t be hard at all. If he applied a little pressure to that initial resistance, she’d cave in to his charm like an old mine collapsing.

An old mine collapsing, he told himself happily. Take that, Steinbeck.

CHAPTER TWO

“NEVER!” Katie repeated, slamming down the phone and glaring at it.

What had that been all about, anyway? Whatever it was, she hadn’t liked it one little bit. Why was Dylan McKinnon asking her out?

To be completely honest, it was a moment she had fantasized about since she had moved in next door to him, but like most fantasies, when it actually happened, the collision with reality was not pretty. Going out with him would wreck everything.

Because he only went out with people temporarily.

And then it would be over. Really over. No more Dylan dropping by her shop to tease her, to order flowers, to ruffle her feathers, to remind her of the fickleness of men. Dylan, without her really knowing it, had helped take her mind off the death of her marriage.

The death of—she stopped herself. She was not thinking about that death.

Two years since she and Marcus had parted ways. In the past year, the flower shop had given her a sense of putting her life back together. Whether she liked it or not, Dylan had been part of that.

It occurred to her that if Dylan’s running by her window and unexpected drop-bys had become such a highlight in her life, she really had allowed herself to become pathetic.

As if to underscore that discovery, she suddenly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror—no makeup, hair drawn back in a careless ponytail, and that dress. It was truly hideous, and she knew it. But when she had opened The Flower Girl she had convinced herself to take on a persona, she had shopped for vintage dresses that would underscore the image she was trying to create: back-to-nature, wholesome, flower child.

But underneath she was aware of another motive. Fear. She didn’t want to be attractive anymore. She wanted to protect herself from all the things that being attractive to men meant.

It meant being asked out. Participating in the dance of life. It might mean a heart opening again, hope breathing back to life.

I like to hope, she had foolishly said to Dylan.

But the truth was the last thing she wanted was to hope. Ever since the breakup of her parents’ marriage when she was nine, she had dreamed of a little house and her own little family. Dreamed of a bassinet and a sweet-smelling baby—

Katie slammed the door on those thoughts. Dylan had asked her out for dinner, and already some renegade part of herself wanted to hope. She congratulated herself on having the strength to say no before it went one breath further.

As egotistical as he was, even Dylan McKinnon had to understand never.

She sighed. Dylan was a disruptive force in the universe. The female part of the universe. Specifically, her part of the universe.

She glanced at the clock. Close enough to quitting time to shut the doors. She closed up and made a decision to head to a movie. Distract herself with something like a political thriller that had nothing to do with romance, love, babies. All those things that could cut so deeply.

But, as she was leaving her business, so was he. Despite her effort to turn the lock more quickly, pretend she didn’t see him, escape, her fingers were suddenly fumbling, and there he was looking over her shoulder.

“Hey,” he said, taking the keys from her, turning the lock, handing them back, “I think we’re going to redesign the jacket.”

She was annoyed that she had to see him again so soon after declaring never, and even more annoyed that she shivered with awareness at that brief touch of his hand. Still, she could be relieved that he seemed to have already forgotten he had asked her out. That’s how much it had meant to him.

“Make the hood detachable, sleeves that zip on.”

He was too close to her; she liked the protection of her counter separating them. The cool scent of mountain breezes wafted from him, his eyes were intent on hers. She struggled to know what he was talking about, and then realized he was back to the jacket she had seen him running in. She didn’t care about his jacket. She wanted to get away from him. Desperately. How dare he look so glorious without half trying? How dare he make her so aware she was looking a little frumpy today? How dare he make her care, when she had managed to care about so little for so long?

“I don’t like clothes with zip-on parts,” she said, then instantly regretted offering her opinion, when it did not forward her goal of getting away.

He frowned at her. “Why not?”

“Because they’re confusing and hard to use,” she said.

He eyed her. “You’re not particularly coordinated. Remember the time you dropped the vase of roses? Slipped on the ice out there, and I had to help you up? Or how about the time you tripped over that piece of carpet and went flying?”

His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. He was aging, just like everybody else. So, he was the one other man in the universe, besides Richard Gere, who could make eye crinkles look sexy.

“Thank you for bringing up all of my happier memories,” she said, annoyed. It was really unfair that he could make her feel as embarrassed as if that had happened yesterday. Of course, he never had to know it was him who brought about that self-conscious awkwardness!

“So, no offense, but you’re not exactly the person we’re designing for.”

“That’s too bad,” she said, coolly, “because I’m average, just like most of the people who buy your clothing are average. They’re going for a run around the block, or taking their dog out for a walk. They want to look athletic, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they are. They aren’t getting ready for the Olympics or the Blue Jays training camp.”

He was glowering at her, which was so much better than the sexy eye-crinkle smile, so she continued.

“So, then it starts raining, and where are your sleeves and your hood if they’re detachable? Making nice lumps in your pockets? Or at home on the entryway table? Within three months I would have lost at least one of the sleeves, and probably the hood.”

He sighed. “We need you on the design team. Want a job?”

“No.”

“Okay, want to go grab a burger, then?”

She eyed him narrowly. Ridiculous to think he had given up on his dinner invitation. He had the innocent look down pat, but when he wanted something, she was willing to bet he had the tenacious predator spirit of a shark! “I already told you no to dinner.”

“Grabbing a burger is not exactly dinner,” he said. “Market research. The smartest girl I know can help me with my jacket design.”

“I am not the smartest girl you know!” Oh boy, relegated to the position of the smart one. Almost as dreadful as being relegated to the position of a friend but never a girlfriend.

“Yup, you are.”

“Well then you don’t know very many girls.”

“We both know that’s a lie,” he said smoothly.

“Okay, you don’t know very many girls who hang out at the library instead of at Doofus’s Pub and Grill.”

“You don’t have to say that as if it’s a dirty word. I’m a part owner in Doofus’s.”

Which explained why a place with a name like Doofus’s could be so wildly successful. The man had the Midas touch—not that she wanted to weaken herself any further by contemplating his touch. She had to be strong.

Hard, with him gazing at her from under the silky tangle of his soot-dark eyelashes. “Do you hang out at the library?” he asked.

How could he say that in a tone that made her feel as if he’d asked something way too personal, like the color of her underwear. She could feel an uncomfortable blush starting. “You don’t have to say that as if it’s a dirty word. The library is beautiful. Have you ever been to the Hillsboro Library?”

“Have you ever been to Doofus’s?” he shot back.

“Oh, look,” she said, changing the subject deftly, “it’s starting to rain. And me without my zip-on sleeves. I’ve got to go, Dylan. See you at the library sometime.”

But his hand on her sleeve stopped her. It was not a momentous occasion, a casual touch, but it was the second one in as many minutes. But given she had not wanted to even think about his touch, it seemed impossibly cruel that she now was experiencing it again. He probably touched people—girl people—like that all the time. But the easy and unconscious strength in his touch, the sizzle of heat, made her heart pound right up into her throat, made her feel weak and vulnerable, made her ache with a treacherous longing.

“Tell me something about you,” he said. “One thing. Anything you want.”

“I just did. I like the library.” No wonder he had a woman a month! When he said that, his eyes fastened on her face so intently, it felt as if he really wanted to know! She knew it was a line, so she hated herself for feeling honored by his interest.

“Something else,” he said.

“I live with three males,” she said, no reason to tell him they were cats.

He laughed. “I bet they’re cats.”

The thing you had to remember about Dylan McKinnon was that underneath all that easygoing charm, he was razor sharp. She glanced down at herself to see if had completed her glamorous look today with cat hair, but didn’t, thankfully, see any.

“I’m divorced,” she reminded him, hoping that failure would be enough to scare him off, unless he enjoyed the horrible stereotype some men had of a divorced woman, a woman who had known the pleasures of the marital bed, and now did not: hungry.

“That is a surprise about you,” he said. “I would have never guessed divorced.”

Had she succeeded in making herself look so frumpy that he didn’t believe anyone would have married her? If that was true, what was his sudden interest in her?

“Why not?” she demanded.

“I don’t know. You seem like a decent girl.”

“Divorced women are indecent?” she asked, and then found herself blushing, looking furiously away from him.

“Sorry.” He touched her chin. He had to quit touching her! “I didn’t mean it like that. You just seem like the kind of woman who would say forever and mean it.”

“I did mean it!” she said, with far more feeling than she would have liked.

“So it was his fault.”

She was not going to have this way-too-intimate conversation with Dylan McKinnon on a chance meeting on a public street.

“Does it have to be somebody’s fault?” she asked woodenly. Who, after all, could predict how people would react to tragedy? She had miscarried the baby she wanted so badly. It had all unraveled from there.

Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep at night, she tormented herself by wondering if it had been unraveling already, and if she had hoped the baby would somehow glue it back together, give her someone to love in the face of a husband who was distant, from a life that was so far from the fairy tale she had dreamed for herself. This was exactly why she now dedicated her life to her business. Business was not painful. It did not cause introspection. It did not leave time for self-pity or self-analysis.

“Come grab a burger with me at Doofus’s,” he said, and laid a persuasive hand on her wrist.

She heard something gentle in his voice, knew she had not succeeded in keeping her pain out of her eyes.

“They make a mean burger.”

“I’m a vegetarian.”

“Really?” he said skeptically.

“If I went there, would you come to the library after?” she said, sliding her arm out from under his touch as if she was making a sneak escape from a cobra. Maybe the best defense was an offense. He’d be about as likely to visit a library as she would be to visit a turkey shoot. Still, as he contemplated her, her heart was acting as if she was in a position of life-threatening danger, racing at about thirteen million beats per minute.

“Sure. I’ll come to the library. I like doing different things. Surprising myself.”

Right. He just had all the answers. He’d never go to the library, just say he was going to, and then send a bouquet of flowers when he didn’t show.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, folding her rescued limbs over her chest, protectively.

He sighed, looked away, ran a hand through the rich darkness of his hair. “I want a change,” he said, and she was pretty sure he surprised them both with his sincerity.

Still, to be asked out because he needed a change from his bevy of bimbos? It was insulting!

“And you’d like a new toy to play with,” she guessed, with a shake of her head.

He regarded her thoughtfully. “I bet your husband didn’t deserve you. He probably wasn’t worth the sadness I saw in your eyes when you mentioned your divorce.”

The comment was unexpected, his voice quiet and serious, a side of him she had never seen.

Dylan McKinnon’s charm was dangerous when he was all playful and boyish. But it turned downright lethal when he became serious, the cast of his face suddenly accentuating the firmness around his mouth, the strength in the cut of his cheekbones and chin.

“I have to go,” she said.

She whirled away from him. Her eyes were stinging.

“Hey, Katie,” he said, jogging up beside her now, blocking her attempt to escape from all his sympathy with some dignity, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Would you go away? Guys like you always hurt girls like me.”

He stopped. Stared at her. She saw her arrow had hit.

“Not every man is going to be like your ex-husband,” he said evenly.

“How do you know? You didn’t know him.” Or me.

The truth was it didn’t really matter if Dylan was like Marcus, if she was still like her. It was herself she didn’t trust after her whole life had fallen apart. She did not trust herself to make good choices, and certainly not to be able to survive that kind of pain ever again.

But it was true Dylan was nothing like Marcus had been. Dylan had his faults, but he didn’t try to hide any of them. If anything, he seemed to celebrate them. He didn’t seem to have any secrets, unless she counted that one bouquet that he picked himself every week and delivered himself.

Other than that her remark about guys like him hurting girls like her was really undeserved. He had been her most loyal customer. He’d always only been kind to her, funny and charming. He’d helped her pick up the glass that time she had broken the rose vase. He had a gift for making her feel oddly pretty—or at least interesting—even on her ugliest days. He was aggravatingly sure of himself, yes, but he never crossed that line into conceit.

“Come have a hamburger,” he said. “No strings attached. I promise I’ll make you laugh.”

“How can you promise that?” she said, aware suddenly that she ached to laugh. To feel light and unburdened. To forget that she had failed at marriage and miscarried a baby. In his eyes she thought she glimpsed something of herself she had lost, a woman who had been carefree and laughter filled. She longed, suddenly, to be that woman again, even if only for a little while.

The pull of being returned to a happier self was too strong to resist.

“Okay,” she said, “A hamburger. To reassure you that I’m not in any danger of turning into a tragic cat lady. And maybe to give you a few ideas for a jacket that people won’t lose the sleeves of. And then that’s the end of this. Am I clear?”

He nodded with patent insincerity.

She looked at her watch. She could make a quick trip to the mall before she met him. If sympathy had in any way motivated this invitation, there would be nothing like a new pair of jeans and a slinky top to convince him—and herself—that she was not in need of it.

“I’ll meet you. In an hour. At Doofus’s.”

“Perfect,” he said, and smiled that slow, sexy utterly sincere smile that had convinced a zillion women before her they were the only one that mattered to him.

It was once she was safe in her car, away from the mesmerizing magnetism of him, that she allowed herself to look hard at the terrible truth he did not know…or maybe he did.

She had a crush on him! That was why she watched him run every day! Look at how easily he had overcome her objections! She had vowed one moment she was never going out to dinner with him, and broken that vow within minutes of having made it.

“I can’t do this,” she realized.

Because what if—okay it was way out there—but what if they developed feelings for each other? What if she fell in love with him, and he with her? What if all her fairy-tale fantasies roared back to life?

And what if she lost again?

“I cannot survive another loss,” she whispered. So much safer to have an unrealistic crush on a man, to watch him run, to keep a safe enough distance that each of his faults remained crystal clear, not blurred by the beauty of his physique, his eyes, the totally unexpected firmness in his voice, when he’d said, “I bet he didn’t deserve you.”

No. Here was the thing she was going to have to realize with her and with men, whether it was Marcus Pritchard, who had seemed safe and stable, or Dylan McKinnon, who seemed dangerous, but who called to some part of her that wanted an adventure. Her judgment was just plain bad.

Some people had good instincts. They knew good people from bad, they knew which horse to bet on, they got a chill up and down their spine if the airplane they were about to board was going to crash.

Katie did not consider herself one of those people. Not anymore. The girl most likely to stay married forever was now divorced. Following her heart the first time had led her to heartbreak. But had it been her heart she had followed, or a desperate need to believe in family after her own had broken apart?

She wanted to impress Dylan that she could look great in hip-hugging jeans and tops that showed a little décolleté? She had to fight that impulse and do the exact opposite! She didn’t need to upgrade her wardrobe! She needed to downplay it even more than it was down-played now.

So, instead of driving to the mall, she drove home. Her three cats, Motley, Crew, and Bartholomew greeted her at the door with enthusiasm that could have only been earned by a tragic cat person.

Though it was still early, she reached way into the back of her closet, found her ugliest, frumpiest and most comfortable flannel pajamas. She heated a frozen pizza in the microwave and finally looked up the number of Doofus’s.

“Is Dylan McKinnon there?”

“Who’s asking?”

The question said it all. It was asked warily, as if the bartender fielded dozens of these calls. Women, infatuated beyond pride, beyond reason, calling for Dylan, after hearing he hung out there.

“Um, I was supposed to meet him there in a few minutes. Could you tell him I can’t make it?”

“You’re standing up Dylan McKinnon? Who are you? Leticia Manning?”

The mention of the young and very gorgeous Canadian actress served as a reminder of the kind of woman Dylan really went out with, the status of the kind of women he really went out with. Katie Pritchard was a plain Jane. He was a playboy. She needed to remember that.

“Unless he’s expecting more than one woman to meet him tonight—” a possibility? “—he’ll know who I am!” she said, slammed down the phone, and took a bite of her pizza. It tasted exactly like cardboard. Bartholomew climbed on her lap and she broke off a piece and fed it to him. He purred and sighed and kneaded her with his paws.

Which begged the question—what was so wrong with being a crazy cat lady? She’d send Dylan a bouquet of flowers tomorrow by way of apology. After all, he did it all the time.

Dylan took a sip of his beer, put the nine ball in the side pocket and glanced at the door. The smug sense of self-congratulation that he had felt ever since he’d so easily changed her mind about coming here was dissipating. Was she coming or not? He was a little unsettled by how tense he felt now that it was getting later and she wasn’t here. Katie was not the “fashionably late” kind of gal. It was raining quite hard now. The streets would be slick. Did her lack of coordination extend to her driving? Had she—

“Hey, boss,” Cy called, “your lady friend ain’t coming. She just called.”

Rafe Miller looked up from the pool table, guffawed with great enjoyment. “Hey, Dill, you been stood up!”

Dylan liked coming to Doofus’s because it was just a local watering hole. It was staffed by people he’d known for a long time. Most of the clients were his buddies. No one here was the least impressed with his celebrity, which at the moment, for one of the first times in his memory, he was sorry for. Guys who really knew you had no respect; they didn’t know when to back off.

“Are you seeing Leticia Manning?” Cy asked.

More guffaws.

Dylan glared at him.

“Because she was snooty sounding, just like Leticia Manning.”

Well, that left absolutely no question about who had called.

“Want me to cancel your burger?” Cy said helpfully.

“Hell, no.” That would make it too much like he cared. And he didn’t. Though when he’d seen that pain flash through her eyes at the mention of her divorce, he had cared, for a second. He had sincerely wanted to make her laugh, not just prove to his sister—and himself—that a decent girl would so go out with him.

Then there was the possibility she was teaching him a little lesson. She’d been sending his flowers too long. She knew he stood people up sometimes. She knew he’d let down Heather last night. It would be just like Katie to want him to know how it felt.

And the truth was it didn’t feel very good.

Tonight he’d been the one who had learned something, whether she’d intended it or not. It didn’t feel too good to be the one left waiting. Dumped. Stood up. Imagine Katie Pritchard being the girl who taught him that!

But he doubted Katie was trying to teach him anything. She was terrified, plain and simple. Marriage had burned her.

He thought of his parents. Maybe marriage burned everyone, given enough time. Which was why, for the past year, he’d been intent on not getting serious, not committing, not caring. Katie needed to learn just that. You could still live, without risking your heart. He bet he could have made her laugh. He bet he could show her laughing again didn’t have to mean hurting again.

If he was so determined to tangle his life with hers a little more deeply it occurred to him it was going to require more of him than he had required of himself before. He would actually have to think a bit about her, not just about himself. He would have to be a better man.

Right there at Doofus’s, with the tang of beer in the air, and pool balls clacking, Dylan McKinnon had an epiphany.

This is what his sister had tried to tell him: that he could be more. That he had not expected enough of himself. That to get a decent girl to even have dinner with him he had to be a decent man, someone capable of putting another person’s interests ahead of his own, capable of venturing out of a place where he risked nothing.

His sister had seen a painful truth. Dylan McKinnon was known as being fearless. But in the area of caring about other people, he was not fearless at all.

He was not the man his mother would have wanted him to be.

So, it was a good thing Katie hadn’t shown. Because that type of total attitude shift was the type of thing a man wanted to think about long and hard before he committed to it. Dylan didn’t want to be a better man. He liked the man he was just fine. As far as erasing that flit of sorrow from the flower lady’s eyes, he was the wrong man for the job.

“Rack ’em, Rafe. Cy, bring everyone a drink.”

“What are we celebrating?” Cy asked, suspiciously.

“Freedom,” Dylan said, remembering he’d ordered the kiss-off bouquet for Heather today, too.

That announcement was followed by some serious whistling and whooping.

But for all that he tried, and hard, to catch the mood of his own celebration, in the back of his mind a single word worried him.

Terrified.

And he just wasn’t giving up on her that easily. Not even, damn it, if it did require that he be a better man.

The fact that a bright bouquet of flowers awaited him on his desk when he arrived the next morning only made him more determined. He flicked the card open.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it last night, Love K.”

Well, at least he’d taught her something in the year he’d known her!

He sat down and thought. Obviously, a burger at a sports bar had limited appeal to Katie. He’d always been able to count on his own appeal to convince women to take a leap out of their comfort zone, but Katie just wasn’t most women. He needed a Plan B.

What would be irresistible to her? It was humbling to realize for Katie it was not him! Dylan McKinnon had become accustomed to being irresistible to women!

Whether she knew it or not, Katie had thrown down the gauntlet.

He was going to help her get back in the swing of things whether she liked it or not! To prove to his sister he could be a decent guy. Or maybe to prove it to himself.

By midafternoon he had two tickets to the most sought after event in Canada—the NHL All-Star hockey game.

He went into her store. She glanced up, looked back down hurriedly. She was blushing. “Sorry I couldn’t make it last night. Something came up.”

“What?”

She glared at him, annoyed he was rude enough to push. “Sanity.”

He reminded himself, firmly, of his goal. One outing, or two, to make her feel attractive. Confident. Happy. To be who he guessed she once had been. He’d just help her get her feet wet again, so she didn’t end up a tragic cat lady.

He guessed she had never been gorgeous, but lovely in some way that transcended whatever the current trend or fad was. She’d always had a way of holding herself that had seemed proud, as if she was above caring what others thought.

He’d just be a knight, for once in his life, show her that she didn’t have to roll over and die since her marriage had failed.

Looking at her, he realized she seemed to have worked extra hard at not being attractive today. The dress was billowing around her like a tent city, and her hair was pulled back a little too tightly from her face. Not a scrap of makeup, though now that he’d noticed her lips he realized she didn’t really need it.

“Thanks for the flowers,” he said.

“You were supposed to think it was funny.”

“Ha-ha,” he said.

She glared at him again. That was more like it, the green suddenly dancing to life in those multicolored eyes, snapping with color.

“So what can I do for you today?” she said. “Heather has been history for a full twelve hours or so. Someone else on the radar?”

If he told her she was on the radar, she’d run. He wouldn’t catch her until Alaska, and then she’d probably throw herself into the Bering Sea and start swimming. It was an unusual experience for him to be having this kind of reaction from someone of the female persuasion.

“Um, no. I’m going to take a break for a while.”

She was punching flowers into some sort of foam thing, but she lifted her eyes, looked at him, squinted.

“Uh-huh,” she said, skeptical and not even trying to hide it.

“Here’s what I was thinking. Maybe while I took a break, you could do a few things with me. Like the All-Star Game next weekend in Toronto.”

Getting tickets to that game was like winning a lottery, and he waited for her face to light up. Maybe she’d even come around the counter and give him a hug!

He was a little surprised by how much he would like to be hugged by Katie.

But instead of her face lighting up, she stabbed herself in the pad of her thumb with a rose thorn, glared at it, distracted.

“The what?” She stuck her thumb in her mouth and sucked. She really did not have to wear lipstick. Even watching her suck on that thumb was almost erotic. That was impossible! Look how the girl was dressed. He had just finished dating Miss Hillsboro Bikini, and never once felt the bottom falling out of his world like this.