Zach was mad at her? He’s the one that had kissed her then stomped out.
Flustered, Leia toyed with the strap on her purse. “I have no idea.”
“Hmm.” The knowing smile Fiona gave her just made her all that more furious at Zach.
The chime tingled over the door and Stan Kowalski aka Stan the Man entered the shop. His face brightened when he saw Leia. The tall, lanky man reached in his pocket and pulled out a card.
“Here’s the name of the man I told you about. He’ll do a good job on the studio you want to put in your house.” He handed the card to Leia.
She glanced at the name. “Anton Shevnak.”
“I’ve used him. He did my kitchen.” Fiona took her French bread and baguettes from Nita. “Thank you, dear.”
“Can he keep a secret? Don’t really want known what I’m doing right now.” Leia chewed her lip, thinking about the studio she wanted put in upstairs.
Fiona shifted the bags. “Understandable. The media makes quite a big deal out of everything you do, don’t they?”
Leia frowned. “Yes, they do. Thanks, Stan. This will help.” Leia shoved the card in her purse.
Tiny divested himself of a tray of donuts and made his way to the counter. “You want your usual?” Tiny asked, shaking out a sack.
Nita bumped him out of the way. “Hey that’s my job.”
Leia laughed at their good-natured teasing. “Yes, the usual.”
Fiona had taken the chance to draw Stan aside for a conversation and they returned to the group. “I must be off. You coming to the library fundraiser tonight, Leia?”
She handed Nita money. “Yes, I’ll be there.”
“Excellent. Good chance for you to meet the rest of the family.” She walked out of the bakery with a jaunty step, leaving Leia with her mouth open and a rolling stomach.
She said goodbye to the other three and drove to the grocery store. She arrived home forty-five minutes later to find Carlee sitting in the sunlight on her front porch shredding a maple leaf. She grinned and stood when she saw Leia pull up the driveway.
Leia eyed the all black outfit, the red streak in her black hair and the heavy dark eyeliner and cringed. When the garage door opened, she pulled the car into its spot and got out. Carlee met her at the door.
“Can I hang here for awhile? Dad’s out on a call.”
Leia hesitated, stuck again between wanting to befriend the girl and Zach’s warning.
Carlee’s pleading eyes made the decision. They could have some girl time and make that horrendous makeup go away. “Help me with the groceries.”
Carlee squealed and raced to the trunk. She was such a bundle of conflicting little girl versus young woman.
Leia watched her for a moment. Had she been like that as a child? Thoughts like that led to sadness about her mother and made her sympathy for Carlee even more pronounced. She grabbed a bag of groceries and Carlee followed her into the kitchen.
When everything was put away, Leia took Carlee’s coat and her own and hung them up. Then she took two drinks from the fridge and grabbed the bag from Tiny’s. “You can help me rearrange my closet. I can’t find anything.”
“Okay.” Carlee followed her down the hall like a lost puppy, slurping on her cola.
Leia kicked off her shoes, took a bite of Tiny’s chocolate glazed donut with nuts and groaned. “God that man can make pastries.”
Carlee took a bite of a plain glazed twist. “Yeah, he’s pretty cool, too.”
Leia finished off the donut in two bites, dusted off her hands, and took two sips of cola. Then she drew open the closet which was stuffed with clothes, some on hangers, some stacked on the floor. When she’d unpacked, she hadn’t taken the time to organize and this was the result. In L.A., she had a maid and a personal assistant that did all this stuff. Didn’t that just make her about the most spoiled miss thing on the planet, her mother’s voice chastised her.
She took a pile from the floor and placed it on the bed, watching Carlee eat the rest of her donut. She really shouldn’t avoid asking the teen. Since it was nagging at her and she didn’t want to get another screaming lecture from Zach, she cleared her throat and asked the question.
“Does your father know you’re here?” She slid her jeans onto hangers.
Carlee licked her fingers again and took several big gulps of her drink. “Well, I told him I was done with my chores and I was going outside.”
“So, no.”
“Technically?” She gave Leia a hesitant look. “Uh, no. Why does it matter?”
Why did it matter indeed. “Never mind. I was just wondering.” This was an issue she was going to have to take up with Zach.
She lifted a pile of shirts from the closet. She’d grabbed these clothes at random from her closet in L.A. She sorted through them, separating ones that were too small from one’s she regularly wore while Carlee avidly watched. “You want to try on this T-shirt?”
“Can I?” Carlee’s eagerness made her smile.
“Yes, you can. How about we do make-up and hair, too. It’ll be fun. How long is your Dad going to be?”
“Probably afternoon. He was meeting with somebody. I don’t know what it’s all about. I’m supposed to check in with Uncle Beau every hour.”
“We’ve got time then. Let’s get started.”
Leia shooed Carlee into the bathroom to wash her face and try on the shirt she handed her.
More clothes in her hands, Leia listened to Carlee singing in the bathroom. “I just hope Zach understands what I’m about to do,” she muttered.
CHAPTER SIX
Zach rolled over in bed and looked at the clock. First day off in ages and he had to wake up at five a.m. like he had to be to work or something. He pushed against his pillow and tried to get comfortable again, willing himself to sleep just a couple more hours before Ryder and Beau came to get Carlee to go hiking.
He’d go with them, but Drake Winston’s wife was about to pop out another baby. If the man had to leave work, it would leave the office short. He had to stay close by to cover, if necessary. Which was fine. He had more than enough chores to do around the house to keep occupied while Carlee spent some time with her uncles.
He punched the pillow and rolled over again, closing his eyes and trying to focus on the list of chores and pretend the bed wasn’t lonely and cold. Lately, his undisciplined thoughts were getting him in trouble, heating his libido, frying his focus, and forcing a self-discipline he rarely had to use on himself anymore. All because of that one blasted woman.
She’d lived across the street for a month now, quietly furnishing her house through local businesses. The weather had been hovering at the freezing mark for days, leaves were dropping, first snow had hit the snowline in the mountains and was threatening to drop to the street level. He figured once that happened she’d high-tail it back to the warmth of Los Angeles or fly off to some sandy beach. He was too aware of her and he was edgy and more than ready for some loving.
Therein lay the problem. There was no way he wanted tangled in her life and having a relationship with a woman tended to do that. While she’d successfully kept the media out of his town so far, he was still sure it would be a matter of time before they descended like a pack of killer bees and he’d be left with stings and welts and it just damn wasn’t worth it. How he wanted her to be just the plain-Jane, girl- next-door. That didn’t describe Leia Shae Daniels in any way.
He’d even tried a date with Sally Mae Martin’s niece last night. Nice girl. Nice enough to look at, nice and low-key about herself. She wasn’t too talkative, knew just the right questions to ask a guy, and she’d focused on him and his answers like a leech onto skin.
To say she’d been somewhat obsessive with his stature as a cop wouldn’t be too exaggerated. Holster sniffers just turned him off. He’d had more than his fair share of women willing to sleep with him to get out of a ticket to accept that kind adoration. She might profess to want to be a homemaker and have a family, but he
couldn’t fake interest. It wasn’t in him. When the questions turned to Leia Shae, he drove her home.
He rolled over and sat up on the bed, rubbing his naked chest and groaning. The “nice” factor on that girl had been a ten, but she’d driven him to taking her home right after dinner with that one question. No kiss goodnight at the door either, even though she’d made it clear with her body language that a kiss would be more than welcome. Unfortunately, he just wasn’t in the mood for her brand of lips.
He shoved off the bed and went to the bathroom. He stepped into the shower with memories of those kisses with Leia screwing with his priorities and his body. He should have kissed the hell out of Miss Ardella Martin just to break the insistence of his brain to replay those moments like it was a life turning point.
It wasn’t until he gotten wet, soaped up, and sluiced it all off in the hot water flowing over him that he admitted he had to do something to get Leia out from under his skin. He was happy with his old life before he’d had her in his day-to-day thought process and dammit he wanted it back that way. But he wasn’t sure exactly what to do. Every time he got in a room with her he kissed her. His avoidance tactic wasn’t working. He was still dreaming, still yearning, still eavesdropping every time her heard her name.
He knew Carlee was sneaking over there and he chose to take the coward’s way out and not confront her because the truth of matter was that he was scared. Scared the minute he saw Leia up close and personal again, he’d do something he wasn’t sure was in the best interest of his long term goals to protect his town and his heart. Scared because he could too easily get himself up to his neck in a personal relationship with her and he never let anyone that close except his family.
Sex he could do. Relationship rituals—making love, “I love you, honey”, and being forced into intimate conversation made him squirm. Revealing parts of himself that he ignored most of the time and where it was necessary to understand the female mind when he was truly clueless—no, none of that was his forte.
He stepped out of the shower, toweled off and dressed quickly in jeans and a navy flannel shirt. The chilly air told him the furnace was set too low and Carlee would be whining as soon as she woke up.
Making his way downstairs, he mulled whether to approach Leia as he turned up the heat, made coffee, and took his first cup of the day to the front window to watch the sun come up. Leia’s car was idling in her driveway, its headlights illuminating the garage door, which closed as he watched.
Leia came out the front door in a long black jacket, leggings, and boots, lugging a small bag, and her hair tucked up under a red beret. Her loose-legged walk to the car had him imagining all sorts of fun times in bed with them wrapped around him.
The bong of the grandmother clock on the mantel said it was six o’clock. Where was she going? She backed from the driveway and pulled away, leaving Zach sighing in relief and drowning in curiosity all in one happy barrel of monkeys.
A couple hours later he was out in his driveway. Craig Silversteen had dumped two cords of firewood in front of his garage yesterday morning. Zach put on his gloves and picked up several hefty, flat chunks to start a pile at the side of the house under the walkway to the garage.
Usually he only ordered one cord of wood for his fireplace, but he figured his city-diva neighbor would want some and not know where to get it and he was willing to share. His thought process on that had taken two seconds when he’d been on the phone ordering the wood and now he regretted it. Every neighbor for blocks around had asked why he had so much. Was he expecting a bad winter or something?
The sun was beginning to burn through a rare morning fog. He could see his breath, but the warmth was beginning to melt the frost on the grass. The silence in the neighborhood on this October Saturday morning was one of his favorite things. The pine smells, the bird calls, the uncomplicated thunk of wood striking the pile. The rhythm of stacking soothed his cranky beast and he forced himself to maintain the focus and not think of Leia. It worked for a bit.
Carlee poked her head out the back door and shivered as the cold air hit her purple-striped pajama clad body. “Dad! Where are my hiking boots?”
“Hall closet.” He dropped the pieces of wood he carried on the stack. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
She made a face and slammed the door. Ten minutes later she came out again, dressed in jeans, socks, and a red thermal shirt. “Dad, my laces are tangled.”
Zach dropped the last of the next load of wood onto the pile. “New laces. In my sock drawer. I’ll be right there.”
“Hurry. Uncle Beau will be here any minute.” She slammed the door again and Zach shuddered as the glass rattled. Kid was going to break the window in that door if she wasn’t careful.
Any minute arrived. Zach heard the engine on Beau’s car two blocks away. He pulled off his gloves and waited. About a minute later, true to his ear, Beau parked in the driveway and he and Ryder got out.
The two men walked slowly up the driveway, turning periodically and walking backwards so they could stare at Leia’s house across the street. They were yammering like a couple of old hens in a pecking contest.
“She’s not home,” he called, enjoying deflating their anticipation.
“Well, hell,” Ryder swore. “What’s a man gotta do to catch up with the pretty little thing. Haven’t seen her since the library benefit.” He gave the house another avid stare.
Zach stiffened, furious at the streak of plain old-fashioned jealousy that jettisoned through him. He wrestled the feeling until he was sure it was stomped cold. He was not going to open his mouth and stake a claim. Nothing would draw his brother’s torment radar faster than admitting he was zeroed in on the woman himself. You’d think they were teenagers fighting over the girlie magazines like they had when Zach had been fourteen.
“Where’d she go?” Beau skirted the edge of the wood pile and put his booted foot on the first step of the porch. Ryder rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt and brought a load of wood to the pile.
Carlee walked out on the porch, white thermal vest over her shirt, but her hiking boots were in her hand. “I can’t get the laces out, Dad.”
Beau put his hand out. “Let me.” He took one look at the laces and gave Carlee a glare. “What did you do, use your laces to wrestle a bear?”
Carlee blushed. “Maybe I was in a hurry last time I wore them and didn’t straighten them out when I took them off?”
Ryder got another load of wood and peered at the boots on the way by. “Should I give her your lecture, Zach? The one we heard dozens of times growing up about taking care of our stuff?”
Carlee huffed. “I’ve heard Dad’s lecture on that subject before.”
She had. Maybe he’d get drummed out of fatherhood, but he didn’t want to play the mean, lecturing Dad today. “Cut them.” He slipped his pocket knife out of his pants and tossed it to Beau, who deftly sliced the old laces and tossed them aside. Carlee sat down next to him and waited for him to finish putting the new laces in.
“So, you didn’t answer, Zach. Where is she?” Ryder dropped some more wood on the stack.
“I don’t know.” He fitted his gloves back on his hands and reached for another armful of wood, determined not to look either brother in the face so his thoughts would be given away.
“She had to go to L.A. She has some songs to record for her new album.” Carlee clamped her hand over her mouth.
“Busted,” Beau said, under his breath.
Zach stopped his chore and looked at Carlee. For at least a couple weeks now, she’d been dressing normally and this morning was no exception. Her hair was even in a neat pony-tail, no orange or blue streaks, no dangling earrings, no black lipstick.
He’d come home late from shift last night and found her cleaning her room. He’d been tempted to ask where the real Carlee was, but hadn’t wanted to jinx the good fortune. He decided to give her a break. “I know you’re going to see Leia a lot. It’s okay as long as she’s okay with it.”
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Carlee beamed at him and his heart swelled. He been in love with Carlee’s smile since she was an itty bitty baby and sucker punched him with her sweetness.
She jumped off the porch in her stocking feet and hugged him. “Thanks, Dad. She’s so cool. I like spending time with her.”
Cool wasn’t the word he’d use.
Hot. Smoking. Sexy.
That’s what he’d call her. He wanted to spend time with her, too. Horizontal, vertical, top, bottom—he didn’t care. Carlee released him and went to put her boots on.
He searched for a subject, desperate to get off thinking and talking about Leia. Having tied her boots, Carlee went inside to get her backpack and water bottle.
“I’m wondering what that look is in your eye, brother?” Beau turned a pondering stare on him after checking Carlee was out of hearing range. Ryder stopped stacking wood and rested against the porch railing. He leaned to get a look at Zach’s face too, his lawyer cross-exam look on his face.
“Lust. Same as us,” he proclaimed.
Zach wanted to wipe the grin off his face, but Ryder kept in shape and even though as sheriff he knew all the moves, he wouldn’t use them and he wasn’t sure he could take him without them. Wouldn’t the neighbors love that.
“I never said she wasn’t a good looking woman.” Zach strove for mild in his tone and reached for more logs. “Where are you going hiking?”
“I promised to hike the parameter of the main ski area to check for problems. Not a hard hike. We’ll be back in about four hours.” Beau stood and zipped his thermal jacket, eyeing the wood pile. “Isn’t this more wood than usual?”
Zach desperately wanted to squirm, but forced himself to keep the stacking rhythm. “Yeah, I ordered more this year. Almost ran out last year.”
“Can’t have that.” Beau gave a speculative glance across the street, but said nothing else.
“You sure you don’t want to go?” Ryder slapped Zach on the back as he went by with an armload.
Only to have to dodge questions about Leia all afternoon? Nope. Let them pump Carlee for information. That would make her feel important and he could bask in his lust without his brothers questioning his sanity.
Pumpkins, Cowboys & Guitars Page 54
