The upstairs consisted of two large bedrooms, each with a door opening out to a common balcony that ran along the entire ocean side of the house. The balcony also served as a partial roof over the lower deck. The second floor had one full bathroom with a jetted tub and separate shower. The house came fully furnished, including dishes and cookware. It suited her needs exactly.
Blake emerged from the kitchen carrying a glass of iced tea and a bottle of beer. A quick flash of movement grabbed her attention, but not in time to prevent the inevitable disaster.
“Damn! What the hell—” The sound of breaking glass immediately followed his cry of pain. “Get the fuck off of me!”
He shook his leg in an attempt to dislodge the furry bundle with its claws firmly dug into his bare ankle. The cat finally broke off its attack and scampered away.
“Ty-Ling! You naughty cat.” Vicki’s first impulse had been to laugh at the animal’s antics. The same thing had happened to her numerous times. Then she saw the pained expression on Blake’s face and quickly banished any hint of amusement. “I’m so sorry. I’m afraid Ty-Ling gets a little cranky when she’s been locked up in the carrier. I…I’ll put her in another room.” Vicki rushed toward the cat, who deftly squeezed behind the couch out of her reach.
“Look, Victoria—”
“Please…” She glanced awkwardly at the floor, then back at him. “Call me Vicki.” Her embarrassment over the incident sent a heated flush across her cheeks. Her gaze darted nervously around the room in an attempt to avoid the disapproval she knew would be in his eyes.
“Look, Vicki…” His annoyance covered his face and filled his voice. “I’m standing here in my bare feet surrounded by broken glass. Do you think you can leave that holy terror of a cat alone long enough to give me a hand?”
His words elicited an immediate reaction inside her. What had been a heated flush of embarrassment turned into an incendiary moment of true mortification as her forehead heated up to match her cheeks. Her gaze leaped between the broken glass, his bare feet, and the place where the cat had disappeared behind the couch.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She hurried toward the kitchen. “I’ll get something to clean up this mess.”
“No!” He snapped out the angry retort, his words stopping her sudden flurry of activity. “Go out to the deck and get my beach sandals so I can put something on my feet and move without fear of slicing them open.”
“Of course.” She headed for the large sliding glass door that led outside. As soon as she opened it, the room filled with the sounds of waves breaking on the sand and seagulls calling out to one another. She spotted a box kite flying in the wind with its line tied to the deck railing. A large, colorful wind sock fluttered from a pole on the corner of the roof.
She closed her eyes and allowed the late afternoon sun to warm her face. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. The gentle breeze jangled the wind chimes. She took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh sea air. She loved the feeling of serenity the ocean provided, the inner calm chasing away all the anxieties and uncertainties that usually lived inside her.
“Fuck!” Blake’s painful cry jerked her attention from her contemplation and back to him. She quickly grabbed the sandals from the deck and carried them inside.
“Damn cat.” He reached down and took hold of the Siamese, pulling it away from the same ankle where it again dug its claws into his flesh, this time leaving deep scratches and several smears of blood. He held the squirming animal in both hands at arm’s length in front of him. “You’re definitely going to have to keep this wild beast locked up for the short duration of your stay.” He flinched as the angry cat scraped its back claws against his arm in an effort to get away, leaving ugly red welts and blood.
“Oh, no. Oh, I’m so sorry. Not everyone likes cats.” Vicki rushed to take the angry animal from him, quickly exchanging it for the sandals. Her embarrassment kept her from looking at him
He wiggled his feet into the sandals while she put the yowling animal back into the pet carrier. “Stop complaining, Ty-Ling. It’s your own fault. If you hadn’t been such a naughty girl, you wouldn’t have to go back into your cage.” She immediately returned her attention to Blake who was checking the damage to his ankle and arm. “Here, let me see.”
She took his forearm and lightly touched the numerous scratches. “I’m so sorry about this, uh, Blake.” Once again, the physical contact sent tremors of desire coursing through her. Desires that refused to be shoved aside. Embarrassment momentarily overruled the edgy situation building between them, supplanting any thought of physical attraction. “It doesn’t look too bad. The bleeding has stopped. Do you have some antiseptic? I think cleaning is all it needs.”
She looked up into his face. The muscles in his arm tensed when she made eye contact. Her heartbeat increased, followed by a momentary loss of breath. She didn’t even want to acknowledge the sudden tingling between her legs.
Warmth swirled through Blake’s body and shoved at his cock, her touch far more than merely soft and inviting. Something very different from when he merely lusted after a hot piece of ass. This represented a reality as disturbing as Vicki’s physical presence in his house. He had noticed it when they shook hands and again when she took hold of his arm.
He withdrew from her touch as tactfully as he could. Just watching her made his cock twitch. And with physical contact added into the mix, regardless of how fleeting and casual, his arousal hardened. The unusual circumstances of the moment left him unsure about what to do. If they were in one of the many bars in the village, if he had met her at a party or even picked her up on the beach, he would know how to proceed. But this… She had not shown up at his door looking for fun and games, a night of no-strings-attached hot sex with a stranger.
Uncertainty filled the depths of her hazel eyes. He usually had no trouble putting people into categories and placing them within the structure of surrounding influences. He did it every day at work. Well, he used to do it every day, back when he worked for a living. In the days before…
He shoved away the unwelcome painful memory before it could get a foothold in his consciousness.
Blake thought he had already neatly categorized her, but Victoria Templeton turned out to be a bit of a puzzle. One moment an uptight, indignant woman determined to be in charge and the next minute she seemed shy and uncertain. “Look…you take care of that mess your cat made.” He indicated the broken glass and spilled tea and beer, softening his voice in response to her obvious distress. “And I’ll take care of this mess your cat made.” He balanced on one foot and extended his other leg to display his wounded ankle while holding up his scratched arm.
“I’m so sorry about this. I apologize for Ty-Ling. I don’t know what got into her. She’s usually very well behaved.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper, clearly conveying the sincerity of her words. “I feel so terrible about this.”
“It’s no big deal, really.” An impulse or maybe an emotional desire that came from that vulnerable place he tried so hard to ignore pushed him to place his fingertips beneath her chin and lift her face until he could see her eyes again. “Don’t worry about it.” Uncertainty covered her face and the wariness clouded her eyes. “Do you always take everything so seriously?”
“I…I don’t know what you mean.” Vicki felt it again, the increased heartbeat and the shortness of breath. This stranger, this totally inappropriate and unacceptable man, had a disconcerting impact on her senses—one that left her wanting to know much more about him and, at the same time, left her confused and wary.
Her carefully planned future did not include a beach bum regardless of how sexy or the way he made her pussy tingle and her juices flow. The man with an important place in her life would be a hard worker. A responsible person with goals similar to hers, not some kite-flying, over-aged surfer type with no ambition, whose only redeeming qualities were a hard body, a handsome face, a killer smile, magnetic sex-appeal, and a mesmerizing voice.
&n
bsp; He held her gaze a moment longer before dropping his hand and stepping back. “You’ll find paper towels in the kitchen. I have some antiseptic upstairs in the bathroom.” He shot a wary glance at the caged cat before heading toward the stairs.
She breathed a sigh of relief once he withdrew his fingers from beneath her chin, even though the sensual warmth of his touch lingered. Another tremor darted through her body. She shook it away and bent to collect the larger pieces of glass before going to the kitchen in search of paper towels.
After cleaning up, Vicki glanced toward the stairway. Blake had disappeared upstairs without another word. Hoping to be finished before he returned, she opened one of her cardboard cartons and took out the litter box and a bag of kitty litter, the cat’s food and water bowls, and a container of cat food. She could not leave Ty-Ling confined inside the cage. Surely, it would be okay to temporarily house her cat in the laundry room with the door closed.
“Well, what do you think, Ty-Ling?” She opened the carrier and stroked the cat’s fur. “Do you think you can leave Blake alone if I let you out? I know you don’t like being locked in your cage, but you can’t go around attacking him every time he crosses your path. Do you think you can be a good girl?”
The cat closed its eyes and purred contentedly. She stroked it for a moment longer before shutting it inside the laundry room.
Vicki took a quick look at her watch and wrinkled her brow into a frown. It was after five-thirty, and no one from the rental office had bothered to return her call. Something had to be resolved about exactly who had to leave and who could stay in the house. A touch of pique pulled at her sense of order when she recalled Blake’s audacity in demanding to see her rental agreement. Well, maybe demanding wasn’t exactly the right word, but he had definitely made the request in a rather emphatic tone.
****
Blake quickly tended to his injuries, then started toward the stairs. He paused at the top with his hand on the banister as haunting memories from the past, stirred to the surface by Vicki’s unexpected intrusion into his life, filled his mind.
Retracing his steps, he entered his bedroom and closed the door behind him. He stood motionless in front of his closet for several seconds, then carefully took a box from the top shelf. It had been three months since he’d last looked at the contents of the box. He thought about Vicki. About the place inside him her situation had somehow managed to touch. A place he had carefully closed off behind an emotionless wall in hopes of keeping the pain tucked away. A place where a little spark of life and emotion still fought to survive.
Opening the box, he reached a trembling hand inside and withdrew a photograph. His gaze landed on the picture of the little boy waving from the swing. He picked up another photo, this one of himself with the same little boy flying a kite at the beach. Then he withdrew a piece of paper, and a knot of emotion lodged in his throat. He unfolded the crayon drawing of a brightly colored kite flying in the blue sky. The words below it printed in a childish scrawl.
I love you, Daddy.
Another twinge of despair stabbed at Blake’s heart, but he quickly shoved it away. It had been two years since the painful loss of his six year old son. He had easily dealt with the situation of his wife deserting them when Bobby was only a year old. After all, the accidental pregnancy had been the only reason for their marriage, and she had not really wanted the baby.
But losing his son had been almost more than he could handle. Bobby had been run down by a speeding car right in front of his eyes, and at that moment, a gaping hole had been ripped in his heart. His plans for the future—for his son—had been cruelly snatched away, leaving him drifting aimlessly without purpose. On that day, he stopped living. His life became nothing more than a day-to-day existence.
He could not bring himself to look at the other items in the box. Perhaps he would later. He carefully refolded the drawing and placed it back inside along with the photographs, then set the container on the dresser. Taking a steadying breath, he headed back to the living room.
The sound of Vicki’s voice brought him to a halt at the foot of the stairs.
“But I don’t understand. This is the answering service? How can there not be anyone available to help me until Monday? What happened to the person I was speaking with just a little while ago? I explained the situation to her. Someone was supposed to get back to me today. There’s a man living in the house I rented, and he claims to have a lease. This situation must be cleared up immediately. All of my belongings are here. I don’t have a car or any other means of moving my things again, and I have no place else to stay. I paid five months’ rent in advance.”
Desperation filled her voice, touching Blake in ways that shocked him. He went straight to the desk and returned with the copy of his lease. Then he watched and listened as she concluded her conversation.
She seemed so distraught and in need of help. Again, a little flicker of life tried to warm that cold place deep inside him where he had locked away his emotions. The words caught in his throat, but he finally managed to force them out. “Vicki, I—”
She jumped at the sound of his voice. “You startled me. I didn’t hear you come downstairs.”
“I’m sorry you’re having so much trouble.” He offered a sincere smile. “Obviously, the rental agency doesn’t intend to deal with this screw-up until Monday. Gary Sanderson, the owner of the house, is out of town for the weekend. That’s probably what the rental people discovered, so they ducked out without resolving their mistake, leaving you to fend for yourself.”
She didn’t utter a word, but her look of despair said it all.
“Did I hear you say you paid for May through September in advance with a cashier’s check?” His words were a vague, half-formed thought that had somehow managed to escape into the open of its own volition.
Vicki nodded.
“That’s odd. It doesn’t sound like the type of thing Gary would do.” He handed her the piece of paper in his hand. “This is a copy of my lease. As you can see from the date, I do have prior claim on this house.”
She hesitantly reached for the offered document. She stared at the piece of paper, then heaved a sigh of resignation and sank onto the couch. The hopelessness of the situation reflected in her eyes when she returned the paper to him.
“I…I don’t know what to do. I have my business to take care of. I planned to use the dining room as my office. I don’t own a car. This house is conveniently located just a couple of blocks walk from the village and my clients.” She looked around the room, sadness edging into her voice. “It was all so perfect.”
“Business? What do you do?”
“I’m an accountant.”
Blake managed to hide his surprise. She certainly didn’t look like the stereotypical image of an accountant—not with that body, a very tempting mouth, and those eyes.
“I’ve contracted with several of the summer seasonal businesses in the village to have them as my clients. I need someplace large enough to let me work, and yet close enough so not having a car won’t be a problem. I also need something fully furnished.” She again looked around the living room. “This was the only house that fit all those needs. This is where my clients are, so this is where I need to be.” Her voice faltered. “Now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“You’re doing this just for the summer? What do you do the rest of the year? Where do you normally live and work?”
“Until a week ago, I worked for a large insurance company. I plan to return to the university in the fall. I’ve been saving my money so I can go straight through to get my master’s degree while living on campus without having to hold down a job. That way, I can take a heavier class schedule and finish sooner.”
Vicki firmly believed that would provide her with the means of guaranteeing a secure future without any reliance on anyone else—a sense of security all important to her carefully orchestrated life. “That’s why I don’t have a car. I sold it to pay the rent on this house. I d
ecided it was a good trade off, since I can make more money over the summer here than if I continued for the next few months at my old job.”
“Sounds like a pretty ambitious program.”
“You can’t just sit around and assume things will work out by themselves.” Her indignation made its way into her voice despite her obvious attempts to keep it out. “It takes hard work and planning for the future.”
“Really? Is your entire life already planned out, with every minute accounted for in your schedule? Do you have any time set aside to have fun? To enjoy what life has to offer?”
“I…” Vicki suddenly felt as if she were under a microscope, her entire life and philosophy being dissected, studied in detail, and challenged. She set her jaw in determination and brushed at an imaginary tendril of hair. “There will be plenty of time for that later. Right now, it’s important for me to plan for a secure future.”
She rose, crossed the room to the sliding glass door, and stared out at the ocean. The only thing in her life to occur on an unscheduled basis was hot sex when someone special stimulated her desires. She took a calming breath in an attempt to stop the unwanted throbbing in her pussy. Someone exactly like this man—the totally unacceptable, yet physically desirable Blake Callahan.
Anger welled inside her. How dare this stranger challenge and ridicule what she held as so important to her life? He obviously didn’t know a thing about maintaining a proper sense of responsibility. She turned and glared at him.
“I don’t know what you do for a living, assuming you actually do some type of work.” She shot a pointed barb at him. “But I intend to make sure my future is properly secured. I have no intention of wasting my time on frivolous nonsense. Besides—”
Tears welled in her eyes. She quickly blinked them away, not sure if they were tears of anger, righteous indignation, or some deeper sense that something very important was missing from her life. “My mother never had a washer and dryer!”
Summer Sizzle Page 2
