by Jan Hudson
He leaned closer, captivated. Her big blue eyes sparkled with life, and her deep dimples flashed as she related the water temperature off Padre Island. Kale grew fascinated with her pale blond hair, wondering if it felt as silky as it looked. Her blouse curved enticingly as she pointed out a patch of thunderstorms on radar, and he stirred, remembering how those soft curves had felt when he’d held her against him.
“She’s good,” Kale said. “Damned good.”
Foster nodded. “Would you believe that the last five-minute segment of the show is the only thing that’s keeping us alive? People watch news on the other channels in town, then switch to Sunny for the weather report.”
Puzzled, Kale said, “That’s strange. I mean, she far outclasses the rest of the tripe on KRIP, but, hell, one weather report is pretty much like another.”
“Well. . . not exactly. Watch.”
“And for tomorrow’s weather, the National Weather Service predicts continued cloudiness with an eighty percent chance of rain. But “—she paused to beam a golden smile that charmed the camera and bored into Kale’s midsection—”the skies will clear before dawn, and tomorrow is going to be a bright, sunshiny day with highs in the mid-nineties, so don’t forget your sunscreen.”
“Good God!” Kale exploded. “Why did she have to blow it with that outlandish prediction? Is the woman nuts?”
Foster punched off the program with the remote control and stood. “Sounds crazy, but she’s always right.”
Dumbfounded, Kale stared at his cousin. “What the hell are you talking about? How can that slip of a girl know more than the National Weather Service?”
Foster shrugged. “Beats me. I think it has something to do with her left ear itching.”
“Her ear? Holy hell! Now I’ve heard it all. Our crazy aunt has turned this station into a damned sideshow!” Kale shot out of his chair and strode to the door. “I’m going to Ravinia’s house, down a double shot of Scotch, and fall into bed. After I’ve had about two days of sleep, maybe I can deal with this mess. But not now.”
“Before you leave, there’s something I should warn—”
Kale slammed the door on his cousin’s words and stalked out of the building, muttering curses and deprecations that would have melted the strings of Ravinia’s harp if she’d been listening. How in the hell, in the two weeks vacation he’d scheduled, could he even begin to bring order to this chaos? It sickened him to think that KRIP, once the top-rated TV news station of Corpus Christi and the surrounding area, had turned into a bad joke.
* * *
Kale awoke feeling muzzy-headed and disoriented. In the dim light of the drapery-darkened room, he squinted at the furnishings, trying to get his bearings. Lord knows, in the past eight years he’d awakened in an endless array of strange places, most of them dirty and dangerous. When he caught the scents of potpourri and lemon oil and recognized the heavy Victorian furniture, he relaxed on his pillow and glanced at the ceiling. His old pinup poster of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, curled around the edges now, was still there, a familiar relic from the years when he spent summers in this room and worked at KRIP in its heyday.
He yawned, stretched, and scratched his belly, thinking he couldn’t remember when he’d had such a relaxed night’s rest. He’d been so tired the evening before, he’d merely stripped and dropped into the big bed. How long had he slept? He checked his watch. Twelve hours. It was seven a.m. on Saturday. He listened to the muffled patter of rain and considered drifting back to sleep.
Rain? Sounded like Little Miss Sunshine blew it. A shame, in a way, but not surprising. Thoughts of Sunny brought a blurry recollection of his having dreamt about her, something vaguely erotic. He tried to recapture the fleeting remnant, but it was gone.
Damn! What was it about Sunny Larkin that hooked his attention, stirred him, made him feel . . . protective? Was it her bright smile that tugged at him? Maybe it was the sweet sort of innocence that shone from her big blue eyes, a sassy naivete that was missing in the eyes of the women he’d encountered in the squalid, disaster-riddled places he’d been lately.
Or maybe it was simply her cute little tush that reminded him that he’d been a long time without a woman. He threw back the covers and headed for the bathroom, eager to shed the grime he’d toted halfway around the world.
* * *
Sunny stood under the pulsating spray, humming softly and lathering her body with herb-scented soap. With a sudden, clattering swish, the shower curtain flew open. Her heart jumped to her throat, and her eyes widened in shock.
A naked man stood glowering at her. She screamed bloody murder.
Chapter Two
Sunny whipped the shower curtain around her like a sarong. “What are you doing here?” She tried desperately to keep her eyes on Kale Hoaglin’s scowling face and ignore the other impressive parts of his anatomy, which he seemed to have no interest in covering. Had the man no shame?
“This is my house. And I’m about to take a shower in my bathroom. The question is, what are you doing here?”
“I live here. That is, we live here. I mean, Estella and I have been house-sitting for Ravinia. After her death, Foster asked us to stay on and—what are you staring at?” she asked.
“The interesting array of polka dots.”
She looked down at the widely spaced, dime-sized dots decorating the clear curtain. They afforded about as much coverage as a fly’s wing. Her face blazed. She spun around, presenting her back to him and still gathering the transparent plastic to her with as much dignity as she could summon.
“Mr. Hoaglin, if you’ll step out for a moment, please, I’ll leave.”
“Don’t you think that ‘Mr. Hoaglin’ seems a little too formal for the situation?” he asked, stepping into the tub beside her. “Call me Kale.” He tugged at the curtain clutched in her hands.
“What are you doing?” she shrieked.
“Taking a shower.” He held out the soap to her. “Mind washing my back?”
She snatched the soap and flung it. The bar caromed off the tile wall and fell into the tub with a dull thud. “Wash your own back, you pervert!” She scrambled from the tub, grabbed a towel, and hurried to her bedroom, slamming the door to the connecting bath so hard that the pictures jiggled on the wall.
When she heard deep laughter from the bathroom, she itched to throw open the door and give him a blistering set-down. Instead, she took a deep breath, counted to ten, and reminded herself that Kale Hoaglin was her boss. And, after all, this was his house.
By the time she’d dressed, Sunny’s temper had cooled, but her embarrassment lingered. Her steps didn’t have their usual spring as she went downstairs to fix breakfast. How did she always seem to land in such messes? Not only had she already had two humiliating experiences with Kale, but now that he was here, she and Estella would have no option but to vacate the lovely old estate they’d called home for the past several months. With Estella’s advanced pregnancy, finding a new place and moving would present a problem.
Too bad they would have to leave, she thought, staring out the kitchen window across Ocean Drive. She loved the view overlooking the water. Only the palm-lined boulevard and a curving grassy bluff beyond it separated the stone mansion from the panorama of the Gulf inlet. If Corpus Christi, which hugged the bay with cupped hands, was often called “The Sparkling City by the Sea,” surely this spot was one of the diamonds on its finger.
And she and Estella certainly wouldn’t be able to afford the housekeeper who came three times a week. But then, she and Estella didn’t have truck-loads of priceless furniture and doodads that needed polishing either.
She started the coffee and downed a glass of orange juice as though it were a shot of red-eye. Maybe when the vitamin C kicked in, she’d be able to think more clearly about options. Something would turn up. It always did. No need to sweat the small stuff.
As for the encounter in the shower with her new boss, it was no big deal, she convinced herself. She’d gr
own up with three brothers and two sisters who shared one bathroom, and modesty had been a lost cause. Too, thinking back on it, the situation had been sort of funny.
Soon she was whistling as she bustled about the huge old kitchen, and her whole body bounced to the tune as she rhythmically plopped spoonfuls of pancake batter on the griddle.
“Could I have a cup of that coffee?” asked a deep voice from behind her.
Startled, Sunny jerked, and a big dollop of batter flew over her shoulder. She whirled around to find Kale standing there, a glob of goo sliding slowly down his cheek.
He stood still as a statue, his face expressionless except for a tiny twitch in his jaw. “A simple no would have sufficed.”
She tried to keep a straight face, to act contrite, but a bubble of laughter exploded in her throat. He glared. Another bubble escaped, then another. She gritted her teeth to hold back the gales threatening to erupt and grabbed a paper towel.
“Sorry about that.” She quickly wiped the batter away.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re not at all sorry?”
She wet another towel and scrubbed the vestiges from his cheek, noticing that it was clean shaven now. Smiling, she cocked her head and looked up at him, about to say something glib. Their eyes locked like dueling sabers. Her thoughts fled. Her smile faded. Her strokes lapsed into slow motion, then stopped. The intensity of his gaze was so potent that she could have sworn he had X-ray vision and was scrutinizing the synapses in her brain.
A shiver akin to what she felt with an approaching thunderstorm slithered up her spine. She blinked, breaking the disquieting contact between them, and hurriedly returned to the pancakes.
He poured a mug of coffee and, while he sipped it, lifted the ruffled curtain over the sink and peered out. “I could have sworn that I heard it raining a few minutes ago.”
“Nope. The weather cleared about five this morning. It’s going to be a beautiful day.”
“Must have been the shower I heard.”
Her hand stilled as she scooped pancakes onto a platter. “Probably.” She kept her eyes averted while she finished her task. “Would you like some of these?” She waved her hand over the heaped dish.
“They look better than anything I’ve seen in weeks. Do you have enough for me?”
“Oh, sure. I can’t possibly eat all these, and Estella’s are already in the warming drawer. I come from a big family, and I can’t seem to break the habit of cooking too much. All my recipes are for eight, and even when I halve them . . .” She shrugged. “Orange juice and strawberries are in the fridge. Everything else is on the table. You can have Estella’s place. She won’t be up for an hour or two.”
They carried the food to a breakfast nook where baskets of greenery hung in the corners and pots of bromeliads lined the ledge of a huge bay window overlooking the lush backyard. Morning sun shimmered across the swimming pool’s blue reflection. A breeze rippled the water, waved the leaves of the banana trees, rustled the palm fronds, and set the huge red blossoms of hibiscus bushes nodding.
“I’d forgotten how much I like it here. It’s so peaceful, so clean.” After a moment his gaze turned to her with that fierce, penetrating scrutiny that gripped her like a fisherman’s gaff. “And the view is spectacular.” His forehead wrinkled. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That it wasn’t going to rain today.”
“I just knew.” Sunny grabbed the glass bottle shaped like a grandmother and thrust it toward Kale. “Have some syrup.”
With the bottle hovering over his pancakes, he paused and stared down at his plate. He frowned as if trying to decipher hieroglyphics.
Sunny reached across and rotated his plate a quarter turn until the design on the pancakes was facing him. “It’s a happy face made of raisins and cherry slices.”
When he raised one eyebrow in a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding gesture, she shrugged and said, “Estella needs cheering up these days. Just pick them out if they bother you.”
She busied herself spooning strawberries into bowls and pouring orange juice, trying to act blase and to disregard Kale’s looming presence, which charged the air around him. “Listen, I’m really sorry about Estella’s and my intrusion on your privacy here. Ravinia insisted that we move in with her. I think she worried about Estella being alone and pregnant, and although her excuse was that she needed us to house-sit while she was out of town, she really wasn’t gone all that often. I believe she was more lonely than anything. Anyway, if you’ll give me a couple of days, I’ll find another place for us to live, and we’ll be gone.”
“No need for that. We can manage for the short time I’ll be here. Until Foster and I decide what to do with the place, you’d be doing us a favor by continuing to watch out for things here.”
“Well,” she said, hesitating as she considered the range of complications of both staying and going, “I suppose we can stay, at least until the baby is born and Estella’s husband returns from his sea duty. Neither you nor Foster wants to live in the house permanently?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I live out of a suitcase most of the time. And can you imagine Foster and Alicia living here with their two little hellions?”
Sunny chuckled. “Alicia doesn’t seem the type to appreciate a moose head over the fireplace, a suit of armor in the hall, and a collection of blowguns and tomahawks on the wall. And Ravinia’s bromeliads would all be dead with a week.”
Kale nodded. “I imagine their kids could trash Ravinia’s accumulation of Greek and Chinese artifacts in two days.” They ate silently for a few moments, then he stared at her again, his eyes narrowed. “Is it true that you’re never wrong about the weather?”
“‘Rarely’ would be more accurate.”
“How rarely?”
She sighed, not wanting to discuss the subject. “I’ve missed once or twice.”
Stone-faced, he continued to pin her with his gaze. “Once or twice?” he asked skeptically.
“Well, once. I was coming down with the flu.” What was it about this man that made her nervous enough to jump through her skin? “Are you finished?” She reached for his plate, eager to evade his line of questioning and flee the room.
His hand clamped her wrist. “No, I’m not finished. These pancakes are the best thing I’ve eaten in a long time, and I plan to devour every crumb.”
He continued to eat, seemingly absorbed in his food, but his left hand remained around her wrist. She tried to gently tug away, but he held on firmly and his thumb absently stroked the tendons along the back of her hand.
She felt heat radiate under her chin, and tiny prickles tingled her scalp. Was he coming on to her? No, surely it was her imagination. She tugged again. He held firm. Seductive currents rippled up her arm and swirled inside her like a building cyclone. She had a feeling she’d made a big mistake in agreeing to stay in the same house with Kale Hoaglin, even for a couple of weeks. Oh, he was a sexy devil all right, and under different circumstances she’d be attracted to him, but she had no intention of being a temporary diversion for someone who’d simply been in Bangladesh too long.
When his thumb made slow forays between her fingers, she sucked in a breath, jerked her wrist back, and jumped up. “Listen, Mr. Hoaglin, I think we’d better get one thing straight right now. I don’t come as a bed warmer with the house. Our relationship must be strictly professional. Maybe I’m mistaking your intentions, but if you try to hit on me, I’ll scream sexual harassment so loudly that reporters will be on your tail before sundown.”
He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about. If I meant to hit on you, sweetheart, you wouldn’t mistake my intentions.” His eyes raked her from toe to crown. “You can relax. You’re not my type.”
A wave of humiliation flooded her. She ached to shrivel into a dust ball on the floor. Besides feeling totally mortified, she felt oddly . . . bereft. Refusing to examine the latter response too
closely, she brazened the situation out with a saucy grin and a waggle of her head. “Good. I’ve never pictured myself as a groupie for a network stud.”
She restrained a giggle when she saw that her zinger had gone straight to his molars. His expression turned as icy as a Canadian cold front.
“That was a cheap shot. I resent the hell out of that label. I was out busting my butt to become a serious journalist when you were still in training bras.”
“Oh, lighten up, Hoaglin. Don’t be such a bear,” she said, laughing. Not even a smidgeon of a smile appeared on his lips. Holding her hands prayerfully beneath her chin, she bowed. “Forgive me, your venerableness, I didn’t mean to rattle your slats. Why don’t we call the score tied and start over? Pretty please?”
Looking her up and down as solemnly as an embalmer eyeing a corpse, he waited a long time before answering. Then he gave a curt nod. “Fair enough.”
Quickly gathering the dishes from the table, Sunny said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just stick these in the dishwasher and be off. I’m a working girl.”
“On Saturday?”
“Yep. I get to be both reporter and anchor for tonight’s news. My contribution is to cover some sort of do that the historical society is having this morning.”
“Sounds deadly dull,” he said, following her into the kitchen.
“Probably. But Ravinia’s good-news policy puts the quietus on all the interesting stuff.”
“That policy is about to change.”
“Well, hallelujah! It’s not a moment too soon.” Sunny wiped her hands and tossed the dish towel on the counter. “Everybody on the staff has been about to go crazy with the good-news business. I adored Ravinia, but sometimes she got the strangest ideas. I think the good-news concept was something her guru conned her into. Everybody except your aunt could see that it wasn’t working. People like a little excitement in their lives.”
