by Lisa Jackson
“For tax purposes?” He sucked in a lungful of smoke.
Because we’re in love, she wanted to cry out. The tent was too dark, too close, and Philip’s younger brother too . . . male—the kind of male a smart girl avoided like the plague. “It makes sense.”
“Does it?” He gave her a last once-over and tipped his head. “Good luck. I think you’re gonna need it.”
“I doubt it.”
“You haven’t lived with my brother yet. I grew up with him.” He sauntered away and spent some time talking to the bartender while, disdaining his family, he got himself a bottle of beer rather than the traditional Santini glass of wine.
She watched as he found a tree to lean his shoulders against, then smoked and slowly sipped his drink as night fell.
What did J.D. know about Philip? They were eleven years apart in age and light-years apart in maturity. Don’t let him rattle you, Tiffany, she told herself as she blew out the candles under the warming trays and chafing dishes. She knew the entire Santini clan was against her marriage to Philip. J.D. was just up-front about it.
She saw J.D. off and on that summer. Their conversations were brief, cordial and detached. He didn’t bother hiding his disapproval of her engagement, and she bit her tongue whenever she was around him, which, thankfully, wasn’t often. He dated several women, all sophisticated, rich and brittle, none of whom he spent enough time with to justify introductions to the family.
J.D. made Tiffany nervous and fidgety, too aware of herself and his all-too-virile presence. She’d found out through snippets of conversation that he’d finished college and was thinking of applying to law school, though Philip found it ironic that his brother, who had come as close to becoming a criminal as anyone in the family, would want to practice law.
“But there are all kind of attorneys, I suppose,” Philip had confided to Tiffany. “Some who believe in the system. others who try to use it to their advantage. I’m afraid James is going to be one who bends the law to fit his own skewed perception.”
Tiffany wasn’t so sure, because for all his faults—and there were more than she wanted to count—J.D. possessed an underlying strength. He had his own code of ethics, it seemed. Still, the less she was around him, the better she felt.
She made it through that summer and into fall, dealing with J.D. from a distance, talking with him as little as possible when they were forced together, and generally avoiding not only him, but the entire Santini family. Carlo had made it abundantly clear he thought his eldest son should, for the sake of the family and his children, wait to get married. J.D. thought his brother should forget about walking down the aisle altogether and Frances, Philip’s mother, didn’t like the fact that Tiffany was fifteen years her son’s junior. “She’ll get used to the idea,” Philip assured Tiffany, but his mother barely tolerated her.
“You can still back out,” her own mother said only two weeks before the wedding. It was early October and Indian summer was in full force. The days clear and warm, the nights crisp and bright.
Tiffany was feeling the first twinges of cold feet. She knew she wanted to marry Philip, to be his wife and the mother of his children, but everyone else seemed to be pulling them apart.
The occasion was a dinner at his house, ostensibly to celebrate the upcoming nuptials, but Carlo had drunk too much of his own wine and become surly, Frances had repeatedly touched Philip’s arm and brought up his ex-wife and children, and J.D., seated across from Tiffany, had caught her eye time and time again. His gaze wasn’t openly hostile, nor was it friendly; just intense. He managed a smile or two during the meal but clearly felt as uncomfortable with his own overbearing family as she was.
Philip, Carlo and Mario, Carlo’s brother, were leaving for a convention that night in Las Vegas. Upon Philip’s return, he and Tiffany were to be married. She only had to get through this dinner and the next week, then she’d become Mrs. Philip Santini. Sweat broke out on her forehead as she tried to concentrate on the conversation while picking at her rack of lamb and seasoned potatoes. To make the meal even more uncomfortable, every once in a while Mario and his wife would lapse into Italian and everyone at the table, aside from Tiffany, understood the conversation. She sensed that she was being spoken about, but never heard her name and silently prayed that the ordeal would be over soon.
God, it seemed, had other plans.
The family lingered over coffee and sherry as the clock in the front hallway of the old brick house chimed eight.
“Don’t you have a nine-thirty flight?” Frances asked, startled as she counted the chimes. They were over an hour away from the airport.
Philip glanced at his watch. “It is getting late. We’d better get a move on, Dad.” He looked across the table. “You wouldn’t mind giving Tiffany a lift home, would you, James?”
Tiffany froze. The thought of being alone with J.D. truly alone—was terrifying. “I thought you were going to drop me off,” she said, trying to pretend that she didn’t really care one way or the other.
“Change of plan. We’re running late, so you’ll need a ride.” Philip winked at her and for the first time, Tiffany wondered if he was being a bit condescending.
“But—” She looked across the table at J.D. and caught the amusement in his gaze.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be good,” he said. “Trust me.”
Her words caught in her throat and she swallowed hard. She wanted to argue, but couldn’t risk making a scene in front of Philip’s parents. They already had reservations about her and she couldn’t let them think she was a spoiled, insecure little girl. “Fine,” she agreed with a smile that felt as phony as it probably looked. She’d foreseen something like this happening with Philip’s schedule so tight, and she’d offered to drive herself to his father’s house, but Philip had been adamant about their arriving together.
Now, it seemed, she was stuck with J.D.
She had no option but to make the best of a very bad situation. Philip and his father left, Tiffany offered to help with the dishes, but her prospective mother-in-law waved off her attempts and told her the servants would take care of the mess. Within half an hour she was riding on the bench seat of J.D.’s pickup, clutching the strap of her purse as if her life depended on it and trying to make small talk. He was, after all, going to be her brother-in-law. It was ridiculous for her to be on edge every time she was near him.
“Tell me,” he said as they drove along the narrow country road cutting through the hills surrounding Portland, “what is it you see in Philip?”
“Excuse me?” What did he care? Storm clouds brewed in the night sky, obliterating the moon and hiding the stars. Fat drops of rain began to splatter onto the windshield.
“I mean, let’s face it. He’s nearly twice your age.”
She bristled. “So I’ve heard.”
“I’ll bet.” Shifting down, he took a corner a little too fast. The storm began in earnest. Rain peppered the windshield, drizzling down the dusty glass.
“Are you going to try and talk me out of it?”
“Could I?” He slid a glance in her direction and her pulse jumped.
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.”
Headlights from an oncoming car illuminated the inside of the pickup with harsh, white light, instantly casting J.D.’s face in relief. Tiffany looked away from his strong profile. His hard, thin lips, tense jaw, eyes squinting as he drove, were far too sensual, far too male. The oncoming car passed them and the interior was dark again.
He poked the lighter. “Well, I guess it’s your funeral.”
“Wedding. You mean it’s my wedding.”
“Whatever.” The lights of Portland came into view and Tiffany felt a sense of relief as J.D. lit a cigarette from the pack on the dash. She just needed to get out of the truck and away from Philip’s disdainful brother. What did it matter what he thought or what anyone thought? All that was important was the one simple fact that she and Philip loved each other.
“You know, you could just try and accept the situation,” she said finally as he cracked a window. The smell of fresh rain mingled with smoke. “You don’t have to be antagonistic.”
“Is that what I am?”
“At least.”
“You’d rather I be what? Friendlier?” He snorted, smoke shooting from his nostrils.
“That would be a start.”
“Would it?” He let out a huff of derision as he cranked the wheel around a corner. “How much friendlier would you like?”
Bristling, she quietly counted to ten. “Look, J.D., you don’t have to try and bait me, okay? I just think we should be civil.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to be family.”
The look he sent her could have cut through granite. “I’ve got more than my share of family.” He eased into the lane for the Sellwood Bridge and as they crossed the inky Willamette River, he tossed his cigarette out the window. The ember died in flight.
“Just tell me what it is that you don’t like about me,” she said as he angled the car through the city streets. It was time to deal with all this pent-up and ill-directed hostility.
“It’s not you,” J.D. said.
Liar.
“Turn here,” she prompted when he nearly missed her street “If it’s not me, then what’s the problem?”
“You really want to know?” Tires skidded on the wet pavement.
“Yep. That one, third house on the right.”
He parked at the curb directly under a streetlight and cut the engine. Rain pounded on the car roof. “Philip already made one mistake when he got married the first time.”
“And now you think he’s making another.”
He gazed at her with eyes as dark as coal. “Definitely.”
“Well, excuse me if I seem offended,” she said as his gaze shifted to her throat and the smoky air in the cab was suddenly stifling. She cranked down her window. “But I am. Philip and I are in love and we want to—Oh!”
He reached for her so suddenly, she didn’t have a chance to react. His arms were around her, his mouth claiming hers with a wild abandon that stole her breath. She tried to push away, but he only tightened his embrace, his arms like steel bands surrounding her as his lips moved sensually over hers.
Her heart thudded, her pulse hit a fever pitch and the small soft moan that escaped her throat sounded like a plea.
He shifted, drawing her closer, his tongue sliding easily between her lips.
Closing her eyes she sagged against him, wanting more—only to realize what she was doing. This was wrong. So very wrong. She stiffened and pushed him away, half expecting a fight. Instead he let her go and his smile in the darkness was silently mocking.
“That’s why you shouldn’t marry Philip,” he said, and she wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
“Go to hell.”
He laughed as she scrabbled for the door and shot out of the truck as if she’d been propelled from a cannon. Her skin tingled with a wash of hot, deep color and she stumbled up the steps of the walk to her house. What kind of a fool was she? Why had she let him kiss her, touch her, create a whirlpool of want deep inside? She fumbled with her keys, unlocked the door and slid into the dark interior.
Oh, God, oh, God. Despair flooded her. What had she done? Slamming the door, she threw the dead bolt, as if the twist of an old metal lock could keep her safe from the horror of her own actions.
It was only a kiss, she told herself. A kiss. Big deal. Philip probably wouldn’t even care.
Then why was her heart still pounding, her lips tingling, her insides quivering? There were names for women who did what she’d done.
Tease.
Flirt.
Two-timer.
Those were the good ones. The harsher, cruel names that she wouldn’t even think about nibbled at the edge of her conscience and made her shake with shame.
She covered her face with her hands. It was only a kiss. One he forced upon her. She hadn’t expected it. But she’d reacted, dammit.
Sagging against the inside of the door, she heard the tires of J.D.’s truck squeal and its engine roar, as he drove away.
Thank God.
“Don’t come back,” she whispered, clutching her throat and trying to still her heart. “ You damned bastard, don’t ever come back!”
* * *
But come back he had. Years later. And now, like it or not, he was living in the same house with her. Worse yet, that same ridiculous sexual hunger that she hadn’t felt for years had resurfaced.
And this time she was free.
Chapter Six
Thank God it’s Saturday, Tiffany thought as she wrote out a list of weekend jobs. She was already on her second load of laundry, waffles were warming in the oven and she’d pulled out her basket of cleaning supplies. Stephen could mow the lawn and wash the car while she tackled the floors and windows. As for her nemesis and newest tenant, he’d left early this morning. Before she’d gotten up, she’d heard J.D.’s Jeep fire up and roll down the drive. She was grateful that, for the next few hours, she didn’t have to face him.
Ever since he’d rented the room upstairs, she hadn’t been able to quit thinking about him. “Stupid woman,” she grumbled, as she heard Christina stirring in her room.
“Mommy?” her daughter called from the upper hallway.
“Down here, sweetheart.” She smiled as she heard footsteps running toward the stairs.
“Someone’s here.”
“What?” she asked just as the doorbell chimed.
Thinking she had a prospective new tenant, Tiffany smoothed her hair and headed for the foyer. Christina was standing on the bottom step and holding on to a corner of her tattered blanket. She was staring unabashedly out one of the narrow windows flanking the door. A tall, thin man with blue eyes and a nervous smile peered through. All Tiffany’s muscles tightened as she recognized the bold features of John Cawthorne, the lying, cheating jerk who had the audacity to call himself her father. He literally held his hat in his hands, his big-jointed fingers worrying the brim of a dusty Stetson.
“I don’t believe this,” she muttered under her breath.
“Believe what?” her daughter asked guilelessly.
“Oh, nothing. Come here, honey,” she said to Christina.
“Who’s he?” The little girl stared straight at the stranger who had spawned her mother.
Tiffany’s throat tightened. “My . . . Your . . . Uh, Mr. Cawthorne.” Lifting Christina and balancing her on one hip, she braced herself, then opened the door.
“I thought we should talk,” he said without so much as a “Hello.” His eyes brightened when his gaze landed on Christina and for a fleeting instant Tiffany wondered if he could care for his granddaughter at all. Was blood really thicker than water? If so, why had it taken him over thirty years to figure it out?
“Now?”
“Before the wedding.”
Her voice nearly failed her. “Well, then, I guess it better be now, because we’re running out of time, aren’t we?” Telling herself she was every kind of idiot on the planet, she added, “There’s really not a whole lot to discuss, but come on in.”
You’re asking for trouble, she silently thought as she led him into the kitchen and tried to come up with an excuse to get rid of him. So what if he was the man who had sired her? Where had he been when she’d needed a father, when her mother had needed a husband, or at the very least, a lover she could depend upon?
Tiffany let Christina slide to the floor while John, damn him, eyed the refrigerator with its artwork, grades and personal notes to the family.
“I’ve got waffles in the oven,” she said to her daughter and wished Cawthorne would disappear. She had nothing to say to him. Nothing.
“Not hungry,” Christina said, winding a ringlet of her dark hair and eyeing the stranger suspiciously.
John turned and smiled, his eyes actually warming as he met his granddaughter’s cur
ious gaze for the first time. “So you’re little Christina.” Tiffany’s heartstrings tugged ludicrously. This was not the way a family was supposed to be. Despite her own upbringing, she foolishly believed in the traditional family—of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Holidays spent together. Vacations. Memories.
Fool.
“Christina, say hello to Mr. Cawthorne,” she said.
“She can call me—”
“Mr. Cawthorne.” Tiffany sliced her father a glare that dared him to argue.
His jaw worked for a second. “You can call me John,” he replied and Tiffany nodded as she found a pot holder and pulled the plate of warm waffles from the oven.
Christina climbed into her chair and as Tiffany forked a waffle onto her plate, she lost interest in the stranger and her mother’s reaction to him. “I want syrup,” she ordered.
“I’d like some syrup, please,” Tiffany corrected as she opened a bottle of maple syrup and doused the waffles to Christina’s satisfaction.
“Where’s Stephen?” John asked.
“Still sleeping.” Automatically she cut her daughter’s breakfast into bite-size pieces, then poured a small glass of cranberry juice.
“I’d like to see him.”
She couldn’t believe her ears. After thirteen years, suddenly it was important that her estranged father connected with them. “Let’s go into the parlor and talk.” Without asking, she poured them each a cup of coffee from the glass pot warming in the coffeemaker, then handed him a mug. “If you want sugar or cream—”
“Black is fine,” he assured her.
“Good. Chrissie, we’ll be in the parlor.”
“’Kay.”
Why she was even being civil to the man, Tiffany didn’t understand. Gritting her teeth, she led him through an arched doorway and into the small, formal room at the foot of the stairs. For a man with as much wealth as John Cawthorne, the room with its re-covered camelback couch and secondhand floral rug tossed over floors that needed refinishing probably seemed simple and unrefined, she thought, then changed her mind. Wasn’t he marrying Brynnie Anderson Smith McBaine Kinkaid Perez? There was a simple woman with far-from-refined tastes. Perhaps this room done in peach and forest green with its hardwood floors and lace curtains wasn’t as quaint as she’d first thought. And so what if it didn’t suit John Cawthorne’s tastes, whatever they were? She loved it. The parlor was light, airy and filled with pictures of Tiffany’s family. Her mother, Rose, and grandmother, Octavia, smiled from portraits hung on the walls. Stephen’s baby pictures and school photos were displayed on several shelves of a built-in bookcase. Christina’s toddler shots were mounted on one wall and a framed portrait of Philip and Tiffany on their wedding day stood on the mantel, but nowhere was there even a snapshot of John Cawthorne or anyone remotely connected with him.
