by Lisa Childs
“Yeah, Wyatt told me he’s on his way home.” That must have been why Fiona was awake; she was waiting for her fiancé.
“What did he say about Cody?”
“He’s fine,” Fiona assured her. “He has a slight concussion. But his pride is what’s hurting most.” The other woman chuckled. “Probably because he knows the guys will never let him live it down.”
“Live what down?” she asked. “It was an accident. He slipped.”
“Exactly,” Fiona said. “Hotshots have these extraordinarily dangerous jobs, but he got hurt taking a shower. They’re going to razz him about it.”
“He fell because the tub was unusually slippery,” Serena said. Why? She had washed it earlier that day after he’d left for his meeting, and she didn’t think anyone had used it after that. “Do you think he’ll sue me?”
“Sue you? Why?” Fiona asked. As Serena’s insurance agent, she should have been concerned.
“Because he was hurt in my house.” Maybe the cleaner she’d used on the tub had made it oily. Could she have caused his fall? A pang of regret struck her heart; she hoped she wasn’t responsible for him getting hurt.
“I doubt it,” Fiona assured her. “From what I know about Cody, he doesn’t seem to care about money or possessions or anything but having a good time—whether he’s with a woman or fighting a fire.”
“But how well do you really know him?” Serena asked. As far as she was aware, she was the only one who knew that he paid half of Stanley’s room and board. How did he have enough money to be that generous?
“I know he’s an incorrigible flirt,” Fiona said. “He’s cocky and funny and competitive.”
“And?” she prodded. She wanted to know more about Cody than his clean criminal background and good credit could tell her. On her circuit of pacing, she passed her bed. She loved the old brass frame—loved that so many of her ancestors had slept on it. Her grandmother had even been born on that bed. But Serena couldn’t look at it now without imagining Cody in it, naked and sexy.
“Are you curious about Cody just because you’re worried he’s going to sue you?” Fiona asked. “Or are you interested in him?”
Serena snorted; she didn’t care how unladylike it was. “He’s not my type.” She had never gone for the sexy, cocky guy. Of course she had never stumbled across a naked one before either.
“No, he’s not,” Fiona wholeheartedly agreed. “You want a guy who will settle down and raise a family here in Northern Lakes.”
Her friend might not have known Cody all that well, but she knew Serena. Of course she had never made any secret of how much she loved her hometown and, most especially, her house.
“And Cody’s not that guy,” Fiona continued. “He can’t wait to leave Northern Lakes again.”
“But he comes back…” Unlike Serena’s twin, who had left Northern Lakes after high school and never returned—not even for their mother’s funeral. Courtney had never made any secret of how much she’d hated her hometown.
And apparently her home…
“You do like him!” Fiona accused her. Before Serena could deny it again, her friend added, “I get it. Wyatt isn’t my type either.”
“Then why are you marrying him?” If she was considering changing her mind, Serena and Tammy might want to hold off on the bachelorette party. They weren’t getting too far with the planning anyway. Serena wanted to have it at the house while Tammy wanted to go to some new club on male stripper night.
“Because I love him,” Fiona answered, as if it was just that simple.
But Serena knew better. Her mother had loved her father. But he hadn’t reciprocated, or he wouldn’t have left her. While she wished her friend luck, Serena wasn’t going to fall for someone who didn’t want the same things out of life that she did.
It would only end painfully. Her mother had never recovered from that broken heart either. She’d never married. She’d barely even dated. Her only loves had been her daughters, her family and her home.
“I just want to know if Cody will sue me,” Serena said. She already had one lawsuit she couldn’t afford to pay; she couldn’t deal with another.
Fiona sighed. “I can’t tell you if he’ll sue. People file lawsuits for the most bizarre reasons.”
Serena knew that all too well. She hadn’t expected the lawsuit at all, and she suspected she didn’t know the real reason for it. She sighed, too. “Then it’s very possible that he could.”
“He could,” Fiona admitted. “But he’s Cody. And you’re pretty.”
She was no beauty like her mother, but, thanks to her genes, she was pretty. “What does what I look like have to do with anything?”
“I think you could easily dissuade him from suing you.”
Lights glinted off the glass of the dormer window as a vehicle headed toward the house. Someone was coming home. Just Stanley or was Cody with him? If he was, she might know soon enough whether or not he was litigious.
“How?” she asked.
“I’ll give you the same advice Tammy gave me when I wanted Wyatt’s help to dissuade Matthew from quitting college to become a firefighter.” Matt was Fiona’s younger brother, and she was very protective of him. In Matt’s opinion, she was overprotective. He hadn’t been hired, though, and had voluntarily decided to return to college and get his degree—just like his big sister had hoped.
Serena could already imagine what Tammy’s advice had been, but she found herself asking anyway. “And what was that?”
“Seduce him.”
“Fiona!” she exclaimed. It was an outrageous idea.
Her friend laughed. She knew it was.
“Is that the advice of my insurance agent?” Serena asked. “Or my friend?”
“I’m kidding,” Fiona said. “I know you would never do that.”
But Serena flashed back to finding a naked Cody knocked out in the bathtub. Remembering how he’d touched her, how he’d kissed her, her skin heated. Maybe it wasn’t that outrageous of an idea.
6
A KNOCK RATTLED the bedroom door, echoing the pounding in Cody’s head. Maybe he should have filled the prescription for painkillers the ER doctor had given him. But Cody hated taking pills. Growing up he’d had more than enough from the foster parents, counselors and social workers who’d tried putting him on every kind of ADHD medication—no matter that he had never been diagnosed. He’d just been an active kid, and they’d wanted to calm him down to comatose.
No, he’d had enough pills to last him a lifetime. He could handle the pain. If the pounding stopped…
“It’s open,” he called out before his visitor knocked again.
The old hinges creaked as the heavy mahogany door opened. He expected it to be Stanley, checking on him again as he had throughout the night. Had the doctor scared the kid with talk about bleeding on the brain and loss of consciousness? Or had Stanley felt guilty? Had he done something to make the bathtub as slippery as it had been?
While Stanley had been driving him home last night, Cody had asked him, “So what was that? Some kind of hazing?”
Growing up they’d been through it all every time they’d gone to a new foster home. Cody couldn’t imagine it had been any better for Stanley than it had been for him. Stanley had been befuddled, though. “What was what?”
“Sliming my tub so I’d fall—you did that, right?” Cody had asked.
And Stanley had been so hurt that he’d looked like Cody had struck him. Hard. He was too upset to be faking, and he’d kept checking to make sure Cody was okay. He was a good kid.
Cody had realized that when they’d met a little over nine years ago. Stanley had been slow but sweet. So Cody had defended him from kids who would have picked on him. He’d kept in touch with Stanley throughout the years and brought him to Northern Lakes when Stanley had had to leave the foster home in Detroit.
Now, Stanley loved living in Northern Lakes and had been so grateful to Cody for bringing him there.
; “I’m sorry about before,” Cody said as the door opened farther. “It was just the concussion talking.”
“What do you mean?” It wasn’t Stanley who asked the question. The voice—though husky—was feminine. And so was the curvy body that stepped into the room, clad again in cutoff shorts and a tank top.
“I thought you were Stanley,” he said, and he shifted against the mattress so he could get a better look at Serena.
She glanced down at herself. “I haven’t been mistaken for a teenage boy in a while.”
“Probably never,” Cody said with an appreciative sigh.
“Maybe when I was twelve,” she said. “Did you hit on Stanley last night, too?”
So he hadn’t dreamed that scene in the steamy bathroom. He had touched her. He had kissed her. “No, apparently just you,” he said.
She stepped closer to the bed—but not close enough for him to reach for her, to pull her down into the bed with him. He wanted to feel her—to kiss her—now that his mind was clear and he could remember every detail and sensation.
“Don’t I deserve an apology, then?” she asked.
He shrugged. “What would be the point when I intend to do it again?”
He hadn’t intended to do it at all. He didn’t need to complicate his life by hitting on his landlady. But now that he’d crossed that line, he couldn’t uncross it. He couldn’t pretend—to himself or her—that he didn’t want her.
Even if he tried to lie now, his body would betray him. His erection tented the thin sheet he’d pulled over himself. Maybe that was why she stayed out of reach. But she must not have realized how long his arms were. He moved quickly, pulling her down onto the bed beside him before she was able to escape.
But she didn’t fight him. Instead she flopped down on her back, laughed and murmured, “You do like living dangerously.”
“That’s the truth.” He put himself in danger all the time—fighting fires, driving too fast, hitting on other guys’ women. He hadn’t thought taking a shower would prove to be the most hazardous thing he’d done lately.
But what about her? Would she cause him pain?
She looked so damn beautiful lying beside him, her hair strewn across his pillow—just as he’d imagined so many times over the past few months. He propped himself up on an elbow and leaned over her. She stared up at him, her eyes so wide and dark.
“Are you going to hurt me?” he asked.
Her voice a husky whisper, she said, “I was just going to ask you the same thing.”
He hadn’t thought he’d scared her. “I would never hurt a woman,” he assured her.
“Maybe not physically,” she agreed. “What about emotionally?”
Maybe he shouldn’t have worked so hard to make people think he was a player. But that protected them as much as it protected him. “Your friends Fiona and Tammy warned you about me?”
She nodded. “Should I believe everything I hear?”
The way she was staring up at him—as if she could see right through him—was unnerving. Nobody had ever looked at him like that, like they actually saw the real him. But then she knew about how he was helping Stanley.
Realizing that he was still clasping her wrist, he ran his fingers up her bare arm to her shoulder. Then he leaned down farther so his lips nearly brushed hers as he replied, “You better believe it.”
“So you are a heartbreaker,” she said with an almost regretful sigh.
He shook his head. “No,” he assured her with all seriousness. “Someone actually has to love you for you to be able to break their heart.”
“Nobody’s ever loved you?” she asked. And now there was something in her dark eyes he hated seeing more than anything else: pity.
The poor orphan. The kid nobody wanted to keep…
He forced a laugh, like he always had. “Only because I don’t give anyone the chance,” he said. “I take off before things can get serious.”
She drew in a deep breath—which pushed her breasts against the thin material of her lacy bra and her tank top. “I didn’t need any warning,” she said.
“You already had my number?”
She shook her head. “You do a better job pushing people away from you than anyone else could.” The pity was gone from her gaze now, but she was still looking at him in the way that told him she really saw him. And maybe even understood him.
Now he was the one who was afraid. Nobody had ever gotten to know him so well—so quickly.
“What did you do to Stanley if you didn’t hit on him, too?” she asked.
In a ragged sigh, he released the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding until his chest had begun to hurt. Regret filled him—regret for what he’d said to Stanley and for pulling Serena into bed with him. “I accused him of pranking me.”
“Pranking you?” she asked, her brow furrowing.
“By rubbing oil on the tub, so I would slip and fall.”
“Stanley would never do anything to hurt you,” she said. “He worships you.”
He didn’t know about the worship part, but he knew the kid wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less a person. Too bad people hadn’t always treated him with the same care. Too bad Cody hadn’t last night. “I know he didn’t do it.”
“But you think someone else did?”
He nodded. The tub hadn’t just been oily like someone had taken a bubble bath; it had been slicked down with something like petroleum jelly—so there was no way he could have avoided falling.
Although it didn’t quite reach her eyes, her lips curved into a teasing smile. “Couldn’t you just be clumsy?”
“I’m not,” he said. And he suspected she knew it. He wouldn’t have survived his job—wielding chain saws and other heavy equipment—if he was. He would have lost a limb or his head before now. “Someone had to have sabotaged the tub.”
“It was slippery,” she admitted. “But who would purposely do something so juvenile?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. Even if the older residents had reverted to their second childhoods, they wouldn’t have been able to climb the stairs. And he hadn’t even seen the other tenant yet. That left only her and Stanley.
“None of your ex-girlfriends live here,” she teased.
He continued to stare down at her; she was so beautiful—so tempting—lying next to him. Why hadn’t she moved? “Not yet.”
Her dark eyes narrowed. He couldn’t tell if she was playing or really offended when she asked, “Are you implying that I’ll be your next ex?”
He moved closer, so that his erection nudged her hip. “I want you.”
Did she want him? She hadn’t jumped up from his bed. And he hadn’t imagined her in the bathroom with him the night before. Had she kissed him back?
He had to know. He had to kiss her again. He lowered his head and tentatively moved his mouth across hers. Her breath—so sweet and warm—sighed across his lips. He deepened the kiss, parted her lips and dipped his tongue inside.
She gasped. But she didn’t pull away. She kissed him back—just as he’d imagined. Her tongue flitted across his, teasing him.
He groaned. He’d already been hard just thinking about her. But now he ached. He rolled her against him so they lay front to front. Her breasts pushed against his bare chest. He could feel the hardness of her nipples. He moved one hand beneath her tank top and found the clasp of her bra lying against the curve of her spine. A flick of his finger undid it.
She gasped and pulled her mouth from his. “You are too good at that.”
He’d just gotten lucky. But he tensed, worrying that his luck was about to run out. She was looking at him, but not like she had before; now she was seeing the player she’d heard about.
But that was better—for both of them. She wouldn’t expect too much from him, then. She wouldn’t get too close emotionally.
Physically she wasn’t close enough. But the space she had put between them allowed him to pull up her tank top, so that he could see the breasts he’d fre
ed. He pushed up the shirt and the white lace bra. Desire overwhelmed him. Her breasts were perfectly round and full, the nipples puckered and waiting for his touch. He brushed a fingertip across one.
A moan escaped her. She was so responsive, her body instinctively arching toward him.
He lowered his mouth and closed his lips around that point. He tugged on it gently.
She lifted her hands to his hair, running her fingers through it before her fingers touched the bandage covering the stitches on his head. Then she tensed.
“You’re hurt,” she said, as if she’d just remembered.
At the moment, he didn’t give a damn. “I’m fine.”
“You have a concussion,” she reminded him—or maybe it was herself she was reminding. “We can’t do this…”
He pushed his straining cock against her hip. “I can.”
He needed to do this, to bury himself inside her.
“No,” she said. “This is a bad idea. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“I’m not thinking clearly either,” she said. “I came in here to check on you, not—”
“—sleep with me?” he teased.
Her face, already a pretty tan, flushed red with embarrassment.
“Or did you?”
And finally she moved. She tugged her shirt down and rolled out of bed, dropping to her knees next to it. “Of course not. I wouldn’t. Fiona wasn’t even serious—”
Before she could scramble any farther away from him, he caught her wrist. “About what?”
“Me seducing you…”
He gasped in shock. “What?”
And she shook her head. “No, no, she wasn’t serious. She just said that so you wouldn’t sue me. She’s my insurance agent and you got hurt on my property. So she told me to…”
“Seduce me.” Now he managed to laugh. That was the last thing he would have suspected anyone—let alone a friend of hers—to suggest.
“She was kidding,” Serena said. “She told me that you wouldn’t sue anyway.”
“Hmm…” He acted like he was considering it. But he must have been a better actor than he’d thought because now her skin grew pale and she began to tremble. “Of course I wouldn’t,” he assured her. “I’m fine.”
