by Jill Shalvis
Blind with annoyance, she whirled for the open door and plowed directly into a guy standing there.
Tall, dark-haired, and caramel-eyed, he looked like a younger version of Kevin, down to his matching mischievous come-get-me expression. Mortified at what he’d most likely just overheard, Mia didn’t stick around for introductions but shoved past him and walked away.
Damn, she felt flustered. Stinky feet? Snoring? Is that the best she could do?
And as for being bad in bed…Ha! He’d been sensual, passionate, earthy…amazing. And as she let herself out his front door into the bright Southern California morning, the hazy red, smog-filled air a backdrop for the LA skyline in the valley below, she had to admit, he’d gotten to her.
Big-time. She stalked toward her house, the Glendale Hills all around her still lush and green from a late spring. Her leather T-strap Prada pumps sank into the wet grass with a little pop each step, the feeling reminding her of a very drenched Tennessee morning. Of being fourteen…
Even at fourteen, Mia had known her life wasn’t a sitcom. People whispered about her older sister, about her momma, about their single-wide in Country Homes Trailer Estates, but mostly they whispered about her.
“Too hoity-toity.”
“Thinks she’s a fancy know-it-all.”
Well, she had news. She did know it all, thank you very much. She eyed the faux Formica kitchen counter, the window lined with duct tape to keep out the mosquitoes, she listened to the drip, drip, drip of the kitchen sink, and she knew she was destined for better no matter what anyone—everyone—said.
While other girls her age listened to music and hung out wherever there were boys, Mia went to the library every day on her way home from school, gobbling up everything she could, much to her momma’s mystified bewilderment.
There was a whole big world out there, and Mia wanted a piece of it.
Sitting at the kitchen table and fingering a crack in the veneer made when Momma’s last boyfriend had thrown the iron at a cockroach, Mia dreamed about how different things would be when she grew up and left here. For one, she’d have mountains of money. She’d have a house with a tub for bathing and not for soaking clothes. She’d have walls thicker than paper-thin fake-wood paneling and a car that not only started every time but also didn’t stall at stoplights. Oh, and leather seats.
She wanted real, soft, buttery leather seats.
“Apple!” This from her momma. Lynnette probably needed to be crammed, shoehorned, and zipped into her jeans for her date, a chore that Mia hated, so she pretended not to hear and instead opened her diary.
Notes for when I’m somebody, she wrote.
Don’t wear do-me red lipstick (like Momma). It smears and makes you look mean even when you’re not.
Don’t tease your hair higher than six inches (also like Momma). It looks like you’re wearing a cat on your head.
Always wear high heels, because height makes a woman smart and powerful.
Above all, Mia wanted to be smart.
“Apple!”
And powerful.
“Apple, baby, get your ass in here. I can’t zip!”
“Coming.” With a sigh, she closed the diary and hid it in the fruit drawer of the fridge, where no one but her ever looked.
She could hear her momma and sister chattering in the bedroom, and she headed that way past the tiny spot they called a living room, with worn carpet and yellowing ceilings and secondhand furniture packed into it like sardines, every inch covered with knickknacks.
The bedroom was more of the same, stuff crammed into every square inch, with white lace everywhere because her mother had a love affair with lace. Her momma had never met a garage sale she hadn’t loved.
Sugar was a chip off the old block and, at eighteen, looked it. She and Mia had never gotten along, but mostly that was Sugar’s doing. She didn’t like to share Momma, and whenever she could get away with it, she was as mean as possible to Mia.
“Why don’t you just spray-paint those jeans on?” Sugar asked Momma, who leaned into the lace-lined mirror over her dresser to admire her makeup job, which looked as if it might have been applied with a spatula.
“I would if I could. Finally, Apple,” Momma said and climbed onto the bed, stretching out on her back, her pants unzipped and gaped wide.
Mia reached for the zipper, Sugar tugged the pants as closed as she could get, which still left a good two-inch gap, while Momma sucked her body in. “Zip it up,” she gasped.
When Mia got it, they all sagged back, breathing heavy from the exertion. Sugar eyed Momma’s hair as she popped her gum with the frequency and velocity of an M-80. “You use an entire can of hairspray on that do?”
Momma carefully patted her teased-up-and-out, bottle-processed hair, which added nearly a foot to her height. “You know it.”
They grinned at each other.
Mia sighed.
Sugar shot her a dirty look. “What’s the matter?”
Mia knew better than to say. That would be like poking the bear. She still had the bruise marks on her arm from the last time she’d disagreed with Sugar. “Nothing.”
Sugar went back to primping. She and Momma were getting ready to go to the monthly rec center barbeque. Tonight was extra special because there was a bunch of truckers in town for some big competition, and both Momma and Sugar had their eyes on a prize.
A prize with a steady job and benefits.
Momma’s smile revealed a smear of lipstick. “Check out this color. Tastes like cherries. Somebody’s going to ask me to marry him tonight.”
Sugar laughed. “Looking like that, he’s not going to ask you to marry him, he’s going to ask you to f—”
Momma’s hand slapped over Sugar’s mouth. “Hey, not in front of Apple.”
Sugar’s mouth tightened at the reminder that there was a baby in the house that wasn’t her.
Momma, oblivious, grinned at Mia. “Be good tonight, you hear? I’m going to get us a rich husband. Then you two can go to college.”
Sugar laughed. “I’m going to get a rich husband of my own, thanks. Apple here, though, you might want to worry about.” Sugar ran her gaze over Mia, a sneer on her painted lips. “I don’t see her ever catching a man, not with that scrawny body and mousy brown hair.”
“Leave her alone, Sugar,” Momma said.
As for Mia, her eye began to twitch. She ignored Sugar. “I’m going to college, Momma. But on my grades. You don’t need a husband.”
Please don’t get another husband.
Momma smiled and chucked Mia beneath the chin. “You’re so sweet. How did you get so sweet? You ain’t your father’s child, that’s for certain.”
“Maybe she’s the mailman’s,” Sugar said.
Momma smacked Sugar upside the head. Sugar rubbed the spot and said, “Jeez, just kidding. You gotta admit, she’s a weirdo.”
Momma stood up to primp in front of the mirror and began to sing “It’s Raining Men.”
Mia sighed. Momma loved men, all men, but mostly the kind that never stuck around—or if they did, you wished they hadn’t.
Mia sank back to the bed, piled with tiaras and cheap makeup and the magazines Momma and Sugar liked to hoard their pennies for. She ran her finger over the cover of the Enquirer, which had a small picture of Celine Dion in one corner. Not classically beautiful. No red lipstick or teased hair. Beautiful, but almost…plain.
Like Mia.
She turned her head and looked out the window. The neighbors on the left, Sally-Ann and Danny, were fighting on their front porch again, screaming and hurling insults at each other like fastballs. Their dog, Bob, was howling in tune to the screeching coming from Sally. The sound was somehow both lonely and sad, and Mia put her folded hands on the windowsill and set her chin down on them. She felt like howling, too.
On the right, Bethie and Eric, two kids in her class, were rearranging the letters on the mailboxes, probably spelling dirty words, even though Tony, the trailer park manager, h
ad threatened to knock their heads together if he caught them again.
“Hey,” Sugar complained to Momma. “You’re wearing my red lace bra.”
“You won’t be needing it tonight.” Momma waggled her eyebrows. “But I might.”
Nope, Mia was going. All by herself.
Chapter Two
Kevin heard the front door slam as Mia Appleby exited his fantasy life. Sounded about right.
Now back to his regularly scheduled program—reality. Mike still stood in the doorway, hair practically singed from Mia’s fiery exit. He raised a brow and a questioning shoulder at Kevin.
Kevin shook his head and looked around him. His new house was a fixer-upper, a kind term, really, given all that needed to be done to it. But the property had been just his price—cheap. He figured he could rework one room at a time, at his own pace.
There were still boxes scattered around from the move, which he was ignoring because he didn’t have the time for them right now. Passing the tousled bed where he’d just had some off-the-charts, mind-blowing sex, he stripped off his jeans, then stubbed his toe on a box. “Goddamnit.” In the bathroom, he cranked on the water. When he turned around, Mike was right there in his face. “Jesus, wear a bell, would ya?” He adjusted the water to his preferred temperature—scalding.
Mike merely smiled.
“I’m not kidding,” Kevin said. “You ever think about knocking?”
For that, he received another shrug of the shoulder, but seeing not-so-hidden misery in his younger brother’s eyes, Kevin didn’t step into the water. His brother was twenty-seven, a supposed grown-up, but that didn’t compute quite the same as it did with other people because Mike was different. Special.
Deaf.
What’s the matter? Kevin signed with his hands instead of speaking because Mike preferred that.
Nothing, Mike signed back.
Nothing, hell, but experience had taught Kevin that pushing Mike was like pushing a brick wall.
A big fat old waste of time.
Mike was smart as hell, his IQ off the charts. But as with certain kinds of genius, it was almost too much. Like his brain couldn’t handle all the extras it’d been dealt. He pretended to be normal, and for long periods pulled it off, but then those odd little self-destructive tendencies would pop out, making it impossible to keep a job, a woman, friends.
But Kevin knew the bittersweet truth: he himself had made it too easy for his brother. He’d cleaned up too many messes, made too many excuses, and now Mike was what he was. A spoiled kid in a man’s body.
The babe, Mike signed. She was a pistol.
A spoiled kid in a man’s body, with a man’s appetite. No, she was a tornado, Kevin signed back. Blew in and blew out.
Mike grinned. I like the blow part.
Get your mind out of the gutter, you perv.
Mike waggled an eyebrow. You had a good time.
Yeah, but she’s not my type.
Mike laughed, a low, dull-toned sound that could have been mistaken for a cough. Could have fooled me.
But Mia wasn’t Kevin’s usual type. He liked soft women who laughed easily and loved hard. He liked women with causes to champion, who gave their heart one-hundred-percent, every single time.
Mia Appleby didn’t fit the profile. Sharp, edgy, tough as nails, cool as cream—definitely. But soft and fast to laugh? Probably not. And he doubted she’d ever let her heart go with ease, and yet in bed…yeah, she’d done it for him there. But then she’d woken up, panicked that she’d stayed all night, and taken it out on him.
Bad in bed.
Bullshit. She was running scared.
Mike was still watching him. She’s pretty.
Yeah, like a rose-with-hidden-thorns pretty. Like a sleeping-tiger-with-sharp-claws pretty. You think they’re all pretty.
Mike agreed with a nod. So your big dry spell’s over. You finally got yourself laid again…and then what? Dumped? All within the same twenty-four hours. That’s a record, even for you, huh?
Kevin gave him a very universal sign that involved only his middle finger, then got into the shower. Over the roar of the water he heard Mike’s toneless but unmistakable laugh.
Fine. Let him laugh. It was the truth. Between getting Mike off the streets and trying to keep the local teen center open and available for the kids who needed it, and teaching, moving, buying this damn house, Kevin’s sex life had suffered. Actually, it’d died a slow, painful death.
Mike cracked the shower door. Can I borrow fifty? He smiled hopefully. You could just tack it onto what I already owe you.
You already owe me a bazillion dollars.
Mike gave him sad puppy-dog eyes and Kevin sighed. Here was the problem. He’d established himself as the Go To. When Kevin’s father had died and then his mom remarried, Mike came along pretty quickly. But when Mike’s father turned out to be not just an asshole but an abusive asshole, Kevin turned into the Go To not only for his mom, but his new kid brother, too.
That he’d not been fast enough, that at age two Mike had lost his hearing due to a blow to the head by said asshole while a five-year-old Kevin watched, made it much harder to turn Mike down when he needed something. Like now. I’ve got forty bucks in my wallet. Take it.
I’m going to get that job next week, Mike signed. You’ll see.
Kevin wouldn’t be holding his breath. For the past three years, Kevin had taught high school science and coached basketball in Santa Barbara, and Mike had happily fit right into the heavy party college scene there and found trouble nightly. When he’d slept with the much older wife of a cop and then been arrested for a bar brawl with said cop, Kevin knew it was time to leave town. Now they were back where they’d grown up, in Glendale Hills, with the first day of summer school starting in an hour. In the fall, he’d add chemistry and more coaching to the itinerary. He just hoped the familiarity would give Mike a sense of balance, of security. Mostly he hoped Mike would grow up.
Kevin took his time getting ready. The one blessing of summer school: a later start than during the regular school year. He didn’t have to be in the classroom until nine forty-five.
By the time he was dressed and walked through the house, Mike was gone. More, he suspected, from the need to put distance between them so that Kevin couldn’t press for details on what was wrong, rather than Mike wanting to give Kevin any privacy.
Mike had no sense of privacy. For him, everything was out there, on his sleeve, to be accepted or not, no big deal either way.
People loved that about Mike, people being women. Yeah, unbelievably, given the difficulties in communicating, Mike, the jobless, directionless, happy-go-lucky bum, was a chick magnet.
Apparently some things translated well.
It was the big joke in the house that Kevin, the brother with the job and all the responsibilities, the guy with the drive to succeed, with the need to teach and make people realize their potential, had never had half the social life of his brother.
Until last night.
Kevin shook his head at himself as he ate breakfast. He was still shaking his head as he started the one vice he allowed himself: his motorcycle. As always, riding calmed him, whether it was the balmy LA weather, the wind in his face, the speed, the sheer power of the machine beneath him…
On the freeway, his thoughts shifted to last night, an event he felt sure would headline his fantasies for months to come.
Bad in bed…Ha!
No way had those low, whimpery pants of hers been for show. She couldn’t have faked her eyes going opaque, glazing over as he’d sent her skittering off the edge with his fingers, then his tongue.
No way.
Damn, he should have stuck to his usual evening plans. A pizza, a beer, no harm, no foul. Instead, Mia Appleby had stayed him with one glance. Maybe she wasn’t classically beautiful, but she had a way of walking, of holding herself, of looking at a man that made her extremely worth a second look. And a third. There was just something about her—maybe her co
nfidence, her no-nonsense ways, maybe her sharp mind, or maybe just the stubborn set of her chin…
She was a woman who knew what she wanted and went for it. She’d gone for him, and it had been quite a ride.
Until she got spooked.
She could insult him all she wanted. She could walk away—even run—but he knew better.
Last night had been more than she’d bargained for. Far more.
The roads were surprisingly clear of traffic, and he enjoyed the view of the low-riding hills on either side, still green from a late spring. The air was cool enough now but held a hint of the muggy heat yet to come once the sun got on its way. He pulled into the high school with half an hour to spare, thinking he could use the time to further prepare his new classroom.
Parking turned out to be limited due to the construction of a desperately needed new gym and cafeteria. The parking spot he’d been told to use had a Dumpster sitting on it. He eyed the next spot over, which had a sign that read RESERVED FOR PRINCIPAL.
Joe Fraser and Kevin went way back, but they hadn’t exactly been friends.
In high school, Joe had been a football star and all things popular while Kevin had been backpedaling as fast as he could, surviving a broken home, dealing with Mike, etc. In fact, due to Joe’s bullying and obnoxious ways, they’d hated each other.
Not much had changed there; that had been obvious during the hiring process. But Kevin got the job, with or without Joe’s approval, so it was with great pleasure that he pulled into the “reserved” spot and turned off his bike.
Payback was a bitch.
The school was mostly empty. Heaven forbid anyone got here early. The halls were hot, too hot, and smelled vaguely like feet. Kevin wondered if the janitor was still Vince Wells and if he’d gotten drunk in his office again, turning on the heater instead of the AC.
Perfect. The students would all be napping at their desks by ten thirty.
Kevin passed by the front office, where Mrs. Stacy was already filing. She’d been there since the dawn of time. Not exactly the warm, fuzzy, grandma type, she stood tall and was painfully thin, with a perpetual frown on her grim face, her glasses hanging off her nose. “Yesterday when you came to set up your classroom, you left your lights on,” she snapped. “Lights are expensive, Mr. McKnight. I turned them off for you.”
