“Yes, of course.” He eased his grip on his sandwich, even if he’d already done considerable damage to it. “Alice was eleven years old when I got involved with her mom.”
I watched him stuff the mangled roll into his mouth and take a big messy bite.
“You didn’t know her mom before then?”
He shook his head. He was still chewing his food.
“For real?” I pressed him. “Alice isn’t your daughter?”
“No.” He shifted in his seat. “Her old man was a truck driver named Joel McKenzie.”
I remembered Alice telling me that her father had died when she was a baby. But that was all she’d ever said about him. “Did you have some sort of connection to Joel? Something Alice doesn’t know about?” Was there more to this than Kirby was letting on?
He sent me an annoyed look. “I never even met the man.” He put his sandwich down and pushed his plate away. “There’s nothing nefarious going on. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Then why are you acting so strange?”
“Because your joke about me being Alice’s dad wasn’t funny. You shouldn’t have said something like that.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He’d never lied to me before, so why would he start now? In spite of his sullied past, I trusted him more than anyone. But here I was, lying to him about my affair with Alice. Should I admit that my relationship with her was more difficult than I’d let on? Or should I continue to keep it private? I chose the latter. This wasn’t the time to open Pandora’s box. “You deserve better than that from me, and so does Alice.” I tried for a smile, hiding my feelings. “But we should probably change the subject now.”
I didn’t want to keep talking about Alice. Or thinking about her. Or wanting her. I was already anxious about seeing her again.
* * *
Two days later, Alice was back at my house with some clothes for me to try on. As she draped the garment bag over the back of my sofa, I caught sight of her profile. Her makeup was especially dramatic this afternoon. She’d even drawn those little lines in the corners of her eyes, for a catlike effect. It seemed fitting, considering what a hellcat she used to be in bed.
Would she still scratch and claw? Or would she be tamer now? I still had the foolhardy fantasy of being romantic with her. But I had feral urges, too, with how hot my blood ran every time she got near me. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t planning on starting another affair. The issue wasn’t how gentle or rough the sex would be. It wasn’t her celibacy or my abstinence, either. Our problem was another man. The guy Alice had been waiting for. The Mr. Right who wasn’t me.
“I brought a toy for Pete,” she said.
I redirected my attention. I’d been too busy analyzing the affair we weren’t going to have to notice the shopping bag at her feet. She reached into it and removed a squeaky toy shaped like a truck.
I let down my guard and smiled. It was damned cute. “He’s going to love it.”
She delved into the bag again. “I brought these for Candy and Cookie.” Two more squeaky toys. “The cupcake is for Candy, because it has candy sprinkles on it. And the cookie is obviously for Cookie.” She waved it around. “It looks like it already has a bite taken out of it.”
Kill me now, but I wanted to take a lusty bite out of her. Being Mr. Wrong wasn’t making my libido behave.
I shifted my stance and said, “Thank you for thinking of them. That was sweet of you.”
“I hope the noise doesn’t drive you crazy.” She squeezed the cookie. “They’re pretty loud.”
“No worries. I’m used to it. They have lots of those types of toys. Sometimes I accidentally step on them. They always seem to leave them in my path.”
“Then I better put these out of the way.” She placed them on the coffee table. “Do you want to check out the stuff I brought for you?”
“Sure.” As long we were on the subject of clothes, I took an appreciative gander at her outfit. She wore a flouncy little mini dress and ankle boots. Her legs were sleek and bare. Touchable, I thought. Or untouchable, depending how I looked at it.
She reached for the garment bag. “I still have a lot more shopping to do for you. But I wanted you to try on these shirts for now.”
I would try on whatever she gave me. I’d hired her to be my stylist. That was the point of her being here, even if it had become an exercise in restraint.
She continued talking. “I have this idea to put you in a formal shirt, hanging loose over a pair of holey jeans, like the ones you had on the last time I was here. We can even use those, if you want, rather than me getting you a new pair and tearing them up.” She ran her gaze along the length of me. “You wear your jeans well.”
I sported a different pair today that were less trashed. But the way she was looking at me was giving me goose bumps. Should I give up the fight and seduce her? For all I knew, she was already seducing me. My mind was too boggled to know who was doing what.
She unzipped the garment bag. “I got you three different shirts: a white, a black and a red one.” She handed me the white shirt. “Let’s try this first. Oh, and do you mind putting on your holey jeans, too?”
“No problem. What sort of shoes am I supposed to wear with this look?”
“I’m going to get you some leather oxfords. Dress shoes with a dress shirt. But I also want to try your biker boots and one of your motorcycle jackets with it, too. We’ll just mix everything up and see what we get.”
I went into my room to get dressed. I didn’t invite her to come with me, but I wanted to. If this kept up, I was going to need a cold shower. Damn Alice, anyway.
I returned wearing the outfit she’d designed, down to the boots and jacket. I left the shirttails loose, as she’d suggested. Her eyes lit up when she saw me.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “That’s so badass. Now let me see it without the jacket.”
I ditched it and tossed it aside.
“We could do it both ways. You look rebellious, but handsomely refined, too.”
Like the reformed bad boy that I was supposed to be? She admired me from every angle. I wanted to tell her to knock it off.
She handed me the black shirt. “Try this.”
Instead of going back to my room, I changed where I was, and she watched as I bared my chest. She even bit down on her bottom lip. A nervous habit of hers. Well, it served her right, torturing me the way she was.
While I buttoned the black shirt, she came forward to help. “You missed some,” she said.
She finished closing the rest of the buttons, and I inhaled her soft, floral scent. It wasn’t the same fragrance that she used to wear, but it was just as enticing. I wanted her so badly, I imagined kissing her right here and now.
As she stepped back, her breath rushed out. “I like it, but the white was better, I think.”
“Should I try the red now?” I was doing my best to concentrate on anything except sweeping her into my arms.
She nodded, and I switched shirts. This time she didn’t help me button it. She seemed to recognize her mistake.
“That’s definitely a possibility,” she said, wringing her hands and twisting her fingers together.
Was she doing that to stop herself from touching me? My body was on fire, the embers burning hot and slow.
After a moment of heart-thundering silence, she said, “I think we should consider using a tie to create some contradiction.”
“Torn jeans and a tie.” I tried to sound as if I was mulling it over it. But mostly I was just battling the heat.
“I’ll bring a selection with me next time. Or I’ll go through yours and see if any of them will work. Your hair should be a little more tousled, too.”
I tunneled my hands through it, pushing it away from my face. “Like this?”
“Yes, just like that.” She breathed heavi
ly again. “Also, will you roll up your shirtsleeves so part of your tattoo is visible?”
I followed her instructions. “Is this good?”
“It’s perfect.” She just stared at me.
I stared back at her, too, awkward as could be.
Then she said, “It’s such a big tattoo. You must have put a lot of time and thought into getting that.”
I broke eye contact and responded, “It was my gift to myself after I got sober.” Getting inked was part of my growth, of my reawakening, of trying to create a new identity. But now it just felt like another facet of my uncertainty, of struggling to know who I was inside. Being around Alice wasn’t helping those feelings, either, not with how hungry I was for her. “I wanted something that seemed primal, that connected me to my heritage.”
“You used to say it didn’t matter. You wouldn’t even tell me what tribe you were from.”
“That’s because I don’t know what my tribal affiliation is. My mom met my dad in Arizona when she was on a road trip with some friends. I don’t know if that’s where he was from or if he was just passing through, too.”
Alice leaned against the side of the sofa. “Was it a one-night stand?”
“That’s what I gathered, yeah. I was pretty young when she first told me about him, so I pieced most of it together later. His name was Edward. No last name. I guess they never got around to sharing specifics. If she’d known that she was going to get pregnant by him, then maybe she would’ve taken notes.”
“I wish you would have told me all of this before. You were always such a mystery.”
I shrugged. Sometimes I still was, even to myself. My sobriety hadn’t changed that. But at least I had my work to express myself. “Creative people are supposed to be mysterious.”
She picked up the toy she’d gotten for Pete and glanced at it. “Did I ever tell you that my dad was a trucker?”
“No, but Kirby did. He also said that your dad’s name was Joel.”
She scowled. “Well, that figures, doesn’t it? Kirby yapping to you about my personal business.”
“He didn’t say all that much. Just your dad’s name and profession.” I wasn’t about to admit that I’d accused Kirby of being her father. I wasn’t in the mood to get my head chewed off. I’d already caught enough hell from him.
Her frown waned, making me relax a little. But I was still sort of jittery, too, always trapped in the middle with her.
She expelled a sigh. “Here’s a tidbit that Kirby might not know about me, unless Mary told him. My parents named me Alice because my dad’s favorite band was Alice in Chains. He wasn’t into country, not like Mama. He preferred glam and grunge and rock.”
Alice in Chains. Alice in Spencerland. Now I wasn’t sure which nickname fit her better. I thought they both sounded disturbingly sexy.
She placed the squeaky truck back on the table. “I’ve never met my dad’s family. He was originally from a small town in Washington. His parents are gone, but his brothers and sisters are still there. Just this year, I started reaching out to them on social media. It’s been nice having an online rapport with them.”
Immersed in what felt like an emotional moment, I said, “Someday I might try to find my dad.”
“Really?” Her gaze locked onto mine. “How would you go about doing something like that?”
“I could submit my DNA on the ancestry sites that help you search for biological family members.”
“I think that’s a great idea.”
“You do?”
“Absolutely.” She stepped closer to me. “You have a right to know who your dad is.”
“Yeah, but I probably won’t get any hits, anyway. How likely is it that my father or someone from his family would’ve submitted their DNA? And even if by some miracle I do locate him, he might not want anything to do with me.” I’d already been cast aside by my aunt and uncle. I didn’t want to pin my hopes on a stranger, too. “When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time imagining what he would be like, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to live up to my expectations.”
“I have expectations about who my future husband is supposed to be. And I’m not going to give up on finding him.”
“We could both end up being disillusioned.”
“I hope not.” She moved away from me.
“Yeah, me, too.” I kept opening myself up to her, sharing my insecurities, saying things I never intended to say. “Are we done? Can I change out of this shirt now?”
“Certainly.”
“I left my T-shirt in the bedroom. You can come along, if you want to. To give Cookie and Candy their toys,” I clarified. I wasn’t inviting her for any other reason.
“Are they hiding under the bed again?”
“Yes. But I think they’ll come out to snag their toys and sneak another peek at you.”
Alice joined me in my bedroom. I removed the red shirt and yanked my T-shirt back over my head.
“Should I put the toys on the floor?” she asked.
“Sure, just set them down.”
She placed them near her feet. The bait worked. The dogs came creeping out. They looked at me to get my approval. I nodded and said, “Have at it, girls.”
They each grabbed a toy and started chewing the rubber. The squeaking noise was deafening.
Alice laughed in sheer delight, and I smiled, too.
“They’re so cute,” she said, bouncing on her heels. “Did they pick the right ones?”
“No. But they’ll swap at some point.”
“I can barely tell them apart. They look like twins.”
“Cookie’s ear is a little tweaked from her injury, and Candy is a little fluffier.”
She studied the dogs. “Oh, yes, I see that now. My niece and nephew are twins, but it’s easy to tell them apart.”
I stated the obvious. “Because of their gender differences?”
She laughed again. “Yes, but their personalities are different, too. My nephew is wonderfully behaved.”
“And your niece is a hellion?” I lifted my eyebrows. “Like her auntie?”
“Who me?” She made an innocent expression, putting her hands beneath her chin and batting her lashes. “I had nothing to do with it.”
“Yeah, I can see how sweet you are.” Little vixen that she was. “The twins are cute kids. I’ve never met them, but Kirby shows me pictures of them all the time. He’s an adoring grandpa.”
“It’s nice that you think the twins are cute. But I’d rather that you left Kirby out of it.” She grabbed the shirt I discarded. “I know he dotes on the kids. I hear about it from Mary all the time. I don’t need you singing his praises, too.”
“At least Kirby is a real person. It’s better than you talking about a fictional husband you might never even meet,” I snapped.
She glared at me. “That’s a low blow.”
Okay, so she was right. It wasn’t fair for me to squelch her dreams. But her attitude annoyed me. “You can’t get mad every time I say something decent about Kirby.”
She huffed out a breath. There was no reasoning with her when it came to Kirby. We could argue about this until we were blue in the face, and never get anywhere.
I tried to make nice by asking, “Do you have your wedding all planned out? You know, the details women sometimes think about?”
She jerked her head. “No.”
I didn’t believe her. I inched forward, showing as much interest as I could. “Not even a little?”
“Maybe,” she conceded.
“Come on. Tell me what parts you’ve thought about.”
She hesitated, as if she didn’t quite trust me with the information. But she gave in and said, “I want a black diamond for my engagement ring.”
“Really?” I was surprised by her choice. It seemed a little gloomy to me. “Why?”
“I like how unconventional they are. Besides, black diamonds represent strength and power.”
Now that I had time to reconsider her jewelry preference, I was intrigued by it. “That is kind of cool.”
She fussed with the shirt in her hand. “I haven’t picked out the type of dress I want. I don’t want to go overboard when I don’t even have a groom yet.”
“You’ve got plenty of time for that.” I glanced at the dogs and realized that they’d stopped squeaking their toys. Did they sense that Alice and I were discussing something important to her? Something that was totally foreign to me?
I knew nothing about weddings. Or phantom husbands. Or wannabe wives. I couldn’t fathom spending eternity with someone. I was just trying to get through each day.
“How many more fittings do you think we’re going to have?” I asked, changing the subject.
“It depends on my next shopping excursion.” She seemed to be studying me now. “Would you rather I make fewer trips over here?”
“No, it’s fine. You can come by however often you need to. But maybe we could do one of the fittings at your place.”
She gave me a weird look. “Why do you want to do that?”
“Because you never asked me to come over before, and that always made me feel a little slighted. But you can make up for it now.” I chanced a half-cocked grin, using what little charm I had left. “You can cook me dinner or something.”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you seriously trying to beg a home-cooked meal off of me?”
“I seem to recall you telling me that you liked to cook.”
“I do,” she said, making me wonder if she just might do it.
I never really knew with Alice. She was a hard nut to crack. This woman from my past, invading my mind and disorganizing my life. I was suffering just by being in her company. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to spend more time with her—in whatever troubling ways I could.
Five
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