by Lisa Jackson
“Stephen,” she reproached gently.
“Clean enough for me and it’s my room, okay?” He was already through the front door and grabbing a beat-up skateboard that was propped against the side of the house. The board sported peeling decals of what J.D. assumed were the names of alternative rock bands. “I’ll see ya later.”
“Five. Remember.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Watching him leave, Tiffany worried her lower lip between her teeth. “Teenagers,” she said in a tone so low he almost didn’t hear the concern in her voice.
J.D. didn’t blame her for being apprehensive. Stephen needed to be sat down on, and hard. The kid had an attitude and it wasn’t going to get any better over the next couple of years.
Sighing softly, Tiffany shook her head as if she were having a private conversation with herself and losing. Badly.
“Since you’re here, I assume you wanted to see me.”
He tensed at her choice of words.
“Come into the kitchen,” she said curtly. “Christina, you, too.” Sandals clicking in agitation, she marched down the hallway, throwing herself through the pair of swinging doors.
J.D. hauled his bags with him and followed, catching one of the doors as it swung back at him. The kitchen was at the back of the house and looked like something out of Better Homes and Gardens. Sunlight spilled through the windows, giving the room a warm, golden glow. Shining pots and pans hung from the ceiling over a center island while bundles of fragrant herbs, suspended from hooks, scented the air. The refrigerator was adorned with a three-year-old’s artwork, notes about repairs that needed to be done to the house, and emergency phone numbers.
Homey.
Charming.
And as phony as a three-dollar bill.
Tiffany reached into the windowsill for a bottle of aspirin and shook two white tablets into her hand.
“Headache?”
“At least.” She turned on the tap, grabbed a glass from a nearby cabinet, filled it and tossed the pills and a huge gulp of water down her throat. “Now, what is it you want, Jay?”
J.D. set his bags on the floor and leaned a hip against one of the cupboards. A needle of guilt pricked his conscience as he thought about the deed to this house tucked into a pocket of his duffel bag. As much as he disliked Tiffany Nesbitt Santini, he didn’t relish adding to her problems.
“There must be something. You didn’t drive all the way down here from Portland just to say hello.”
“No, but I did come to see you.”
He noticed the slight catch of her breath, the widening of her eyes, but the look of anticipation was quickly masked. “Why do I have a feeling this isn’t going to be something I want to hear?”
An older woman wearing oversize coveralls, a straw hat and gardening gloves appeared at the back door. Sunglasses covered her eyes and in one hand she held clippers and a bouquet of roses.
“I thought I heard voices,” she said as she shouldered open the screen door. She stopped short at the sight of J.D. “Oh, I didn’t know you had company.”
“Roberta Ellingsworth, this is my brother-in-law, "J.D. Santini.”
“Pleased to meet you.” J.D. offered his hand.
The woman chuckled as she, still holding the roses, extended her gloved fingers.
“You, too. Call me Ellie. Everyone does.”
“Ellie, then,” J.D. replied.
“I brought these in for you,” she said to Tiffany as she released J.D.’s hand.
Tiffany was already reaching for a vase. “Thanks. They’re lovely.”
“I helped pick them!” Christina announced.
“That you did, honey,” Ellie acknowledged, handing Tiffany the roses and winking at the little girl. “You were a big help.”
“So were you,” Tiffany said, sniffing the fragrant blooms. “Thanks for pinch-hitting with the kids.”
“Any time, honey, any time.”
“Would you like something to drink? I’ve got iced tea or coffee—”
“Oh, not right now, but I’ll take a rain check,” the older woman said, wiping her brow and lifting her sunglasses as if to peer at the strange man in Tiffany’s kitchen more closely. “It’s about time for my program.” Her eyebrows rose a fraction as she looked at J.D. “I try not to miss my soap.”
Tiffany grinned and her eyes sparkled with sudden merriment. “Don’t tell me—Derek’s evil twin has kidnapped him and is going to marry Samantha in his place.”
Ellie laughed. “Close enough, honey, close enough. On This Life Is Mine you never know what can happen. I’ll see you later.” She was peeling off her gardening gloves. “Nice meeting you,” she said to J.D. before leaving.
“My pleasure.” J.D. watched her slowly descend the steps, then round the corner to disappear from sight.
“Ellie watches the kids for me when I’m at work, and believe me, she’s an absolute godsend,” Tiffany said, her smile fading a bit, and then, as if she’d belatedly realized that she’d been a little blunt earlier, she added, “So how about you? I’ve got coffee or iced tea”
He shook his head.
“Something stronger?”
“Later, maybe.”
“Later?” she asked, her gaze moving to his duffel bag and her eyes narrowing enough that he noticed the curl of her eyelashes. “Don’t tell me you’re planning on staying?”
“For a while.”
She tensed. “How long a while?”
“Till I accomplish what I set out to do.”
“Don’t talk to me in riddles, okay?” She arranged the roses in the vase, added water and set the bouquet in the center of the old table. Christina hovered near the back door. “Can I do drawing?” she asked.
“Great idea,” her mother replied, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. She reached for a pack of crayons on the counter, only to have her daughter turn up her little pug nose.
“I want to draw outside!”
“Outside?”
“With the chalk.”
“Why not?” Tiffany scrounged in a drawer filled with cards, pencils, keys, batteries—anything a person could imagine—until she came up with a box of colored chalk.
Beaming, Christina snagged the prize from her mother’s outstretched hand and scurried out the back door. The screen slammed behind her as she rushed to plant herself on the cracked concrete patio, upon which she began to doodle in pink, yellow, green and blue.
Tiffany watched her daughter until she was engrossed in her task, then turned to face J.D. “So, brother-in-law, to what or to whom do we owe the honor of your presence?” she demanded, then shook her head at the question. “No”—she held out her hand as if to ward off his words—“let me guess. You’re here on a mission. Just checking up on your brother’s widow. Trying to figure out if she really is the right kind of mother to raise Philip’s kids.”
She’d always been smart. Calculating. He leaned a hip against the center island. “I’m here on business.” That wasn’t a lie. Well, not much of one.
“Sure. That’s why you’re standing in my kitchen. With your bag. Come on, Jay, you can do better than that.” She closed the short distance between them and a hint of her perfume teased his nostrils. It was the same fragrance she’d worn the last time he’d seen her. Touched her. He gritted his teeth and decided it was time to take the offensive.
“Before we get into all that, why don’t you explain what you were doing with the juvenile authorities?”
“I don’t really think it’s any of your business.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I can handle my children,” she said with a cold smile. “No matter what the rest of the Santini family thinks.” With a quick glance through the screen door to assure herself that her daughter was safely out of earshot, she lowered her voice. “I know what your father thought of me when I met Philip. I know he tried to convince Philip that I was a no-good, gold-digging woman who was barely an adult, one who looked at Philip as a . . . a father figu
re,” she said, pain sweeping through her eyes.
You don’t know the half of it, he thought with another stab of guilt.
“And I heard that you tried to talk Philip out of marrying me.”
The muscles in J.D.’s shoulders tensed. “Careful, Tiff,” he said. “I had my reasons.”
She flushed and her eyes sparked with anger. For a second he thought she might slap him. “None of them good, Jay,” she said through lips that barely moved. “None of them good.”
“Good, no. Valid, yes.”
“Philip and I had a . . . a strong marriage.” Her chin inched up a notch as if she dared him to challenge her.
“If it worked for you.”
“It did.”
He bit back a sharp retort and stared down at her. His gaze lingered on her lips for a second before lowering to the neckline of her blouse, where her skin was flushed with anger, her pulse leaping at the base of her throat. His bad knee throbbed, his stupid crotch was suddenly tight and he realized that he still wanted her. As he always had. Hell, what a mess.
“Mind if I sit down?” he asked, then didn’t wait for an answer, but slid into one of the tall ladder-back chairs that flanked an old claw-footed table.
“Suit yourself.” She ran stiff fingers through her hair, then seemed to realize she was being too defensive. Waving with one hand, as if to disperse the cloud of fury surrounding her, she said, “Come on, Jay. Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing down here? If it isn’t to spy on me, there must be a reason. The last I heard, you hated all things that had to do with me or this town.”
“Hate’s a pretty strong word.” But she was right. He didn’t trust her and as far as Bittersweet, Oregon, went, he had plenty of reasons to despise this small town filled with small-minded citizens.
Folding her arms over her chest she lifted one delicately arched eyebrow, silently urging him on.
“As I said, I’m here on business.”
“In Bittersweet?” She shoved a lock of blue-black hair from her eyes. “Don’t tell me you chased an ambulance all the way from Portland down here.”
That stung. “I left the firm.”
“No way.” She cocked her head as if she hadn’t heard him correctly. “But I thought you were a partner.”
“I was. Sold out.”
“So,” she encouraged, suddenly wary, “why?”
“Dad offered me a job with his company.”
She laughed without a drop of mirth. “Come on. Don’t give me that worn-out line about an offer you ‘couldn’t refuse,’ Jay.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, this is rich. You with Santini Brothers. I never thought I’d see the day.”
“Neither did I.” He stretched his bad leg and rubbed at the pain in his knee through his jeans. “Since I was down here on business anyway, I thought I’d check up on you and the kids.”
“Ah. As I suspected.” Her shoulders slumped a bit and she looked at her nails. “Since when do you care?” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
She always had been forthright. Nearly to the point of being rude. Well, two could play that game. “I’ve always cared.”
Her eyes darkened for a second. A shadow flickered in their whiskey-colored depths and the pulse in the hollow of her throat, above the deep V of her blouse, beat a fraction more rapidly. Hell, she was beautiful. No wonder his brother hadn’t been able to resist her. Neither had he.
“So how have you and the kids been doing?”
“I already told you. We’re fine.”
“No problems?”
Her jaw tensed a bit. “None that we can’t deal with, Jay,” she said and wished he’d just disappear. She glanced out the window and spied Christina drawing stick figures on the walk. “You can tell your dad that we’re doing fine. No, change that.” She waved expansively. “Tell him we’re great. Not a care in the world.” She’d never gotten along with Philip’s father, Carlo, nor with his mother, for that matter. As his second wife, so many years younger than her husband, Tiffany had been looked upon as a bimbo, a fraud, a little girl who didn’t know her own mind and worst of all, as someone who was after all the Santini family’s wealth. Considering the circumstances, all those thoughts were nothing but a cruel, ironic joke.
And what did J.D. care? When had he ever? Her heart pumped a little at the sight of him and she silently called herself an idiot. He was just as ruggedly male as she remembered him, with his long, jeans-clad legs, black hair in need of a trim and penetrating silver-gray eyes.
“What about the juvenile authorities?”
Her fingers tightened into fists. “Don’t worry about it.”
His smile was cynical and downright sexy. If a woman noticed. Tiffany told herself she didn’t. She’d known J.D.—James Dean Santini—too many years to trust him. She’d let down her guard a couple of times and in both instances she’d gotten herself into trouble—the worst kind of jeopardy. It wouldn’t happen again. Too much was at stake.
“You know, Tiff, you’re still a member of the family.”
“Since when?” she retorted, skewering him with a look that, she was certain, could kill. She pointed a long finger at him. “I’ve never been considered a part of the family. Over fourteen years of marriage and neither one of your parents accepted me.” Nor did you, she silently seethed, but held her tongue. There had been enough pain borne on both sides. She had always longed to be part of a real family, one with a father and mother and siblings, unlike her own small group of relatives. Shivering inwardly, she pushed those thoughts aside and stubbornly refused to think of them even though, at the end of this very week, her father—her biological father, for that was all he really was, a man who had donated his share of genes to her DNA—was marrying his longtime mistress.
Wrapping her arms around her middle, she walked to the window that overlooked the backyard. A smile teased her lips as she watched her daughter.
Right now, the little girl was chasing after the cat, Charcoal, as he darted between the shrubs.
“What kind of trouble is Stephen getting himself into?” J.D. persisted. She’d forgotten how determined and maddeningly single-minded her brother-in-law could be.
“Nothing that serious.”
“Just serious enough that you had to talk with the authorities.”
Silently counting to ten, she rotated her neck and worked out the kinks. “You know, J.D., the last thing I need right now is to be grilled or given some kind of lecture by you. I don’t know why you’ve decided to come to visit right now, but I’m sure it wasn’t just to harass me.”
He snorted. “Just a simple question.”
“Don’t give me that. Nothing you’ve ever done is simple or without a purpose.”
“And you’re dodging the issue.”
“Because it’s none of your business, counselor.”
“The kid’s my nephew.”
She whirled on him. “And you’ve never given a damn.”
“I’m giving one now.” His expression was hard and demanding, just as she remembered, his eyes relentless and piercing. He hadn’t changed much except for the fact that she’d never before seen him seated in one position for so long. He’d been too restless, too filled with nervous energy. But now he was waiting.
“He got caught with alcohol about a month ago,” she admitted as if it wasn’t the big deal she knew it was.
“At thirteen?”
“Yes, at thirteen. He was with an older boy, the brother of one of his friends, who was throwing a party. Anyway, the neighbors complained, the police showed up, everyone ran, but Stephen and a couple of other kids were caught. Even though Stephen hadn’t been drinking, he got himself into some hot water. A juvenile counselor was assigned to his case and just a few minutes ago I was speaking with her.”
J.D.’s eyebrows slammed together. “And you don’t think this is serious.”
“Serious enough,” she admitted, though she wasn’t going to let her bachelor brother-in-law, a man who’d never had any kids
, know just how worried she was. It was too easy for him to criticize. “Stephen will be all right.”
“If you say so.”
“He’s a teenager—”
“Barely.”
Tiffany bristled. She stepped closer to him and tried vainly to keep her temper in check. “Don’t start passing judgment, J.D. You remember how much trouble you can get into during those years, don’t you? According to Philip, your adolescent exploits were practically legendary.”
His jaw hardened and he climbed to his feet. He winced, then hitched himself across the room to stare out the window over the sink.
“What happened?” she asked, angry with herself for being concerned. J.D. Santini was the last man she should care about. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“Tore a couple of tendons. It’s not a big deal.”
“When?”
“A few months ago. Motorcycle accident.”
“Oh.” So there was still a bit of the rebel in him. Good. For some reason she didn’t want to examine too closely, she found that bit of information comforting, but she couldn’t dwell on it. Wouldn’t. “No one told me.”
“Why would they?”
“Because, dammit, I am still part of the family.”
“I was laid up for a few days. No big deal. Believe me, if it had been life-threatening, you would have been notified.”
“Before or after the funeral?”
His jaw tightened. “You act as if you’re ostracized. The way I remember it, you came down here and cut the ties, so to speak, because you wanted to.”
That much was true. She’d run fast and hard to get away from the suffocating grip of the Santini family.
“Let’s not get into all that,” she suggested. “It’s water under the bridge, anyway. Why don’t you tell me why, if you’re working for the company, you’re in Bittersweet?”
“Dad’s interested in buying some land around here someplace. Potential winery.”
“And you’re the expert?” This wasn’t making a lot of sense.
“Looks like.”
She didn’t remember him being so evasive. In fact, the J.D. she’d known had been blunt and direct, a man who could make you squirm with his intense, no-nonsense gaze, thin-lipped mouth that rarely smiled and somewhat harsh demeanor. With raven-black hair, thick eyebrows and sculpted features, he never gave an inch and was known to call them as he saw them. And never had he worked for his father. The way Philip had told it, J.D. the renegade, eleven years his junior, was forever at odds with his old man. But then who could get along with Carlo Santini, patriarch with the iron fist and closed mind?
