by Reina Torres
Seth bit the inside of his cheek until he felt the metallic tang of blood on his tongue. He took pain the same way others soaked in praise. It built up his anger and his need until it burst out in a flash of anger that had left a body count in his wake.
Including his father.
When he met Robert’s eyes with his own, he saw the other man’s tan skin turn ashen at the look.
“Until I tell you something different, what you need to spend to make this happen, you spend. If you need to take the jet do it. Buy someone off, same thing. We’ll fix things later, but until we have both of them where I need them, you do what you need to do.”
Sitting up in his chair, Seth picked up the contract that he’d left on his desk a few moments before and turned his focus to the words on the page.
“And I want to hear from you every hour until you’ve managed to fix this. I don’t have to tell you how important this is. One loose cannon is a nuisance, but two? Two become a story once they start talking. And while I can’t afford this kind of distraction, it’s imperative that you find a way to get things under control.”
Robert stood there for a long, silent moment and Seth was very close to giving the other man a good example of how he’d made himself the majority owner of a major motion picture studio at his age.
Still, he needed Robert’s various and sundry skills. He could always assuage his particular anger later.
He felt Robert’s anger like a palpable touch in the room, curling and uncurling across his skin.
If the hired gun thought he knew what anger was, well, he just signed up for another lesson to learn.
Once the door clicked closed behind Robert’s retreating figure, Seth went back to deciding whose dreams to fulfill and whose to destroy with a stroke of his pen.
Blake stared at Annalise’s chest, because that was all she could do. Seated on the top of Adam’s clothes hamper in front of the sink, she was at Annalise’s mercy as Adam’s sister cut her hair. They’d decided on a deep mahogany red-brown hair dye with darker tones. It was just different enough from her normal shade to change her look, but not wild enough that it made her stand out. Being background? She had that down pat.
“Don’t be nervous.”
“I’m worrying about how long I'm going to be on my hands and knees picking up hairs off the tile. The last thing I want to be is one of ‘those people’ who come into someone’s life and turn things upside down.” With a little self-depreciating laugh at her own expense. “They say that house guests are like fish… you have to throw them out after a couple of days, but I don’t want to make your brother regret helping me. He doesn’t deserve that.”
Leaning back against the sink at Annalise’s unspoken urging, Blake was careful to lay the dark towel down on the edge of the white porcelain before leaning her head against it.
Reaching over, Annalise turned on the water and let it run for a bit before touching her wrist to the stream. “I don’t think you have to worry about my bother wanting you out of here.”
Blake closed her eyes and tried to ignore the smiling tone of the other woman’s voice.
“I think, if anything, he’s not going to want you to leave.”
Even with her eyes closed, Blake rolled her eyes.
Annalise’s laughter mixed in with the running water in her ears. “I’m not just saying it. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
Blake’s eyes snapped open and she started to sit up, but Annalise’s easy touch on her shoulder settled her back.
“You don’t see it?”
Blake moved her head back and forth but kept her eyes on Annalise. “See what?”
Warm water rained down over her hair, weighing it down, soothing her shock.
Annalise had her eyes focused on her work, using her hands to direct the flow of water over her hair, washing out the dye. “I have to admit, having your brother lose his head over someone on the run from bad guys sounds like a great movie plot. I mean, you could make big bucks off something like that. The hot ex-military guy,” she laughed when Blake’s brow creased together, “oh, he’s my brother, but even I know he’s hot. Lord knows I hear the women in the diner talking about him.” Leaning closer, Annalise’s voice became barely a whisper. “I think a few of them have brought their cars in for a repair when there wasn’t even a problem. No bites.”
Blake lifted her hand and touched the side of her neck and then rolled her shoulder when she’d realized what she’d done. Yes, her mind went there.
She certainly didn’t blame those women. If she wasn’t in the middle of the craziest moment in her life, she would have found herself staring at the very least. Okay, ogling. No, that didn’t sound any better.
“But you said he looks at me.”
Oh, smooth. Really smooth. Like eighth grade, pass-a-note-in-class kind of smooth.
The good thing was that Annalise didn’t seem to care.
“Like the moment he saw his first custom Harley.” She grinned and continued to wash the excess dye from her hair, pausing at times to use her fingers to separate the lengths that she’d cut. “And just so you know, he’s not a player. The man’s almost a monk in this town. And like I said,” she shut off the water and squeezed out the excess water from Blake’s hair, “he’s into you.”
Blake wrapped the towel up around her head and hair as Annalise helped her sit up.
“I can’t say that I wouldn’t enjoy seeing my older brother get wrapped around your little finger. He’s entirely too much of a rock for my own good. Adam needs to relax a little, smile a little. I think you might be just the thing that takes a little starch out of his jeans.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.” And it was so true. Adam? If wishes were horses, she would have had a whole herd by now. “This is just a temporary thing. I’m not even planning to stay here long. I just need to figure out a way out of this. Find Zoe, get her some help. Report that… that…”
“Douche bag?”
Smiling, Blake gave an emphatic nod. “Yes, exactly. Report the douche bag and get him locked up. After that it’s back to work.”
When Annalise didn’t say anything in reply, Blake looked up, worried that she’d said the wrong thing.
That was her default setting after all.
But… when she met Annalise’s curious gaze, all she saw was a knowing look and a tilted smirk.
“Well, I know that my brother doesn’t have a hair dryer. Have you seen his hair?” Annalise shuddered. “Like I said, he’s all too strait-laced for his own good. “How about I just rub it out and-”
The peal of a cell phone stopped Annalise cold.
“Oh damn.”
Blake reached up to tighten the makeshift towel turban on top of her head. “Something wrong?”
“One sec. Okay?”
Shrugging, Blake sat quietly while Annalise answered the call and made some grumbling comments to the person on the other end. When it was over, Adam’s sister gave her a wincing look. “I’ve got to go. One of the waitresses called in sick and the other waitress is… swamped.”
Annalise picked up her purse from the top of the closed toilet lid and made a vague gesture toward the wall.
“Adam took Ada into his room to take a nap-”
Blake stood. “I’ll let him know.” She followed Annalise into the hall, both of them lowering their voices to help the little girl sleep.
Annalise paused by the door, looking over Blake’s hair with a self-satisfied smile. “Your hair should dry on its own. Given the curl I’m already seeing, you’re going to look so hot.”
Rolling her eyes, Blake smiled back. “If wishes were horses.”
Giving Blake a wink, Annalise opened the door and stepped out onto the landing. “Save the horse, girlfriend, ride the cowboy.”
When Blake closed the door, she felt the heated flush on her cheeks.
Right. Me?
Chapter 7
Blake saw that the bedroom door was cracked open but she didn’t
want to call out to Adam and wake up the baby. She crept up to the door and pushed it open inch by inch, hoping that the hinges wouldn’t squeak as she went.
Looking over at the bed, the tension in her shoulders eased and she stepped inside.
Adam was fast asleep on the bed, his body a curved wall with his head just under a window and his knees against the wall on the other side of the corner. Along the wall was a whole phalanx of pillows. A perfect protection for his niece…
Who was sitting up against them and playing with her toes!
When she made it to the side of the bed, little Ada looked up at her and the sudden movement tipped her backwards.
Blake didn’t have to lean over very far to catch her. Even if she hadn’t, everything around the little girl was plush and protective. Still, when she reached out for the little girl, Ada reached back with grasping hands.
“Whoa there, little girl.”
Ada was a little thing, but she had a solid body and when Blake set Ada on her hip, she had to gasp in a breath when Ada attached herself like a limpet.
“What’s going on, little one?”
Wiggling in her arms, Ada giggled. “Unca sleeping!”
“Shhh…” Blake touched her finger to Ada’s lips.
“Shhh…” Ada repeated into Blake’s finger, laughing at the end.
Sitting down on the bed in the open space that Adam had left Blake adjusted the way she held the little girl and smiled at the almost-toothy grin. “You’re a big girl, aren’t you?”
Ada bobbed her head and the curly ponytail that had been high atop her head started to migrate down over her forehead.
“Looks like you might need someone to fix that ponytail.”
The little girl blew a raspberry and Blake blew one right back making Ada laugh hard enough to hiccup. Together they looked back at Adam, but he was still asleep.
“Why don’t we try and take care of this.”
She set the little girl down on her lap and managed to wriggle the ponytail holder free of the wispy curls and then she worked her fingers through the little girl’s hair, finger-combing for a few seconds while the little one closed her eyes and relaxed into her touch.
Oh, how beautiful she was. Beautiful not just in her features but the light in her eyes and her whole-body laughter. Blake tried to remember the last time she had enjoyed that kind of freedom.
After a moment of pondering, she realized that she could count those moments on a single hand and date them all to the time when she had become friends with Sadie.
Her early dreams of finding her creative life in Hollywood were a long-gone memory that had never materialized, but Blake had always been a stubborn girl and she would not- could not- go home.
Blake looked down when something soft touched her forearm. Ada had the ponytail holder in between her fingers and she was dancing it along Blake’s bare forearm.
“Ponytail.” With a little burst of air from her lips, Ada shook her own head, turning her hair into a wild frizz that made her look like a little Einstein. “Gallop horsey.” She continued the path of the little pink elastic hair tie, making little clicking noises as she went. “See?”
Blake did see. How precious was this little girl?
“Silly girl.” Wrapping her arms around her, Blake leaned in and rubbed her cheek against that silken shock of curly hair. “So smart and perfect.”
“I think so too.”
He could tell by the way Blake stiffened that she heard him.
The look she turned to him was a little hesitant, but the impish face that peered at him over her shoulder made it impossible for the awkward moment to stand.
“Sleepy Unca.”
“Got me there, baby girl.” He pushed up on one hand and moved around so he could get a little closer to the two of them. “She faked me out.” Reaching his hand out, he snuck it under Ada’s chin and found one of a half-a-dozen ticklish spots. “Didn’t you?”
She couldn’t answer, shaking with laughter as she was. And the giggling girl tucked her chin down, trapping Adam’s hand. He tried to move and withdraw it, but Ada was trapped in her laughter and the movement made him bump up against Blake. He couldn’t see, nor was he willing to look down and risk feeling like a complete letch, but he knew his arm was pressed against Blake’s breast.
Whether or not she noticed she didn’t say anything, she was laughing as well and all he could do was hold on, but a moment later she teetered to the side and leaned her head on his shoulder.
He got a chance to study her hair with her so close. Adam lifted his hand and smoothed a curl between his fingers. “Wow, I just noticed the cut.”
She gave him a look that just might have been offended, but while he was fully awake, he still didn’t know much about the silent language of women.
“It’s good.” He let go of the curl and dropped his hand back to his side. Yeah, he’d blurted that out and even his niece stopped laughing to level a look at him that gave him a feeling he should probably stop where he was. But he apparently had left his self-preservation skills elsewhere. “Really curly. Like... like...” He made some kind of idiotic hand gesture near his ears and saw Ada’s mouth dropped open and it seemed like she was staring at him in horror. “Like,” he paused and tried to keep his gaze off the sweet curve of her backside in those worn black denim jeans against his light blue comforter. That curve.
Inside his head he shook himself, hard, and tried to remind himself that while Ada didn’t have a vast vocabulary of her own, she had the moment amazing mimicking skills and apparently a little death wish for him.
“Betty,” he breathed, “you look like that Betty cartoon, Betty Boop.”
Blake’s cheeks flushed prettily and her eyes softened. “Well, that’s quite the compliment.” Then she looked at him again as if she wasn’t quite sure. “That was a compliment, right?”
Instead of blurting out an answer, he let her look at him and see the answer in his eyes first. “I like the way you look, Blake. I really do, but more than that, it’s you.”
“Me?”
“You,” he repeated, “I’m drawn to you. I want to protect you.” He drew in a breath and let it go. “I feel an instinctual need to stand between you and the world.”
Blake’s whole body changed as Ada snuggled in against Blake’s shoulder. All the tension in her shoulder’s eased and she touched her cheek to Ada’s head, her eyes closing as she rocked Ada in her embrace.
She didn’t say a word and he could tell her mind was working a mile a minute. And this really wasn’t the time to talk about it. Not when Ada was finally falling asleep.
And this time, the little girl wasn’t faking it. Her little body looked almost boneless as she cuddled close against Blake, her eyelids slowly drifting down.
“Are we keeping her tonight?”
Blake turned her head slightly and gave him a look. “Her mom was called in to work another shift. What time does she finish?”
Adam looked at the alarm clock on his nightstand. “The diner closes in a couple of hours. She’ll probably text me to let me know more.”
Blake nodded and continued to rock Ada, humming as she did.
Touching her shoulder, he tilted his head toward the door. “Your back is going to hurt in a bit. I can take her and we can go out into the living room, or you could sleep in here if you like.”
He saw the hesitation in her eyes as she looked at the bed and then the door. When she made her decision, he saw a little spark in her eyes.
“I can handle Ada. She’s just a little bit of a thing.” With ease she got up from the edge of the bed and Adam was torn with moving ahead of her to prepare a space or following, almost alongside just to burn the memory of her into his brain. Seeing Blake holding his niece changed something in him.
Maybe changed wasn’t the right word.
Unlocked, maybe. Like the click of his mom’s old cabinet when the weather changed and wood shifted. The way it would pop open and let him get into the cer
eal late at night.
And Blake? The way she held Ada close, smoothed her hair, bouncing her ever so slightly as she hummed… it hit him square in the chest.
A sledgehammer that took his breath away.
He lifted a hand to touch her and then pulled it back to rub at the back of his neck, giving him something to do rather than what he wanted.
To touch her.
To savor the moment.
To feel her soft skin under his fingers. Against his palm.
“Um, here,” he let his voice go in a rush, “I’ll clear a space on the… on the couch.” He met her gaze. “That work for you?”
Her smile was likely for Ada, but when she lifted her chin to look at him, he was lost in the glow. “That’s great, we can watch her there.”
“Yeah,” he nodded and moved on ahead of Blake, and around to the front of the couch, tossing the extra pillows down on the ground. “My sister keeps buying pillows for me. She says that with it only being me here, the couch looks too lonely.”
When Blake sat down, she looked at the ground between the coffee table and the couch. “It reminds me of the inside of Jeannie’s bottle in ‘I Dream of Jeannie.’ All you need are some fancy lanterns and diaphanous drapes hanging from the ceiling.”
Now he hadn’t seen much of the tv show but there wasn’t a man alive that he knew who didn’t know what Jeannie looked like. Those pants made of that fabric that was almost see through and that top, no more than a bikini, encrusted in jewels.
He bet Blake would look good in one of those.
Really good.
“Is it safe to put her down here on the seat cushion?”
Saved by the question!
“Sure.” He chuckled. “Sometimes she sits with me while I’m watching television and she falls asleep.”
Pulling the blanket from the back of the couch, Adam laid it down on the cushion and watched as Blake easily laid his niece down on the seat beside her.
“What do you watch?”
“Hmm?” He pulled his gaze away from the way Blake rubbed her hand on Ada’s back. “What did you say?”
