by Leslie Kelly
They were alone again, staring at each other with awareness and intensity, their eyes locked together. Hers were molten gold, full of fire. He felt the same way. On edge. Ready. Waiting for a spark to set them both ablaze.
As if not even aware she was doing it, Emma slipped her tongue out to moisten her lips. His whole body clenched. The lip-licking move could’ve been the spark. It sure had been this morning in the kitchen when she’d been kissing him like she needed his breath to survive.
But it was also accompanied by a slight wince when her tongue brushed against the lump on her bottom lip. So, as much as he wanted to haul her up outta that chair for another brain-zapping kiss, he was able to resist.
Kissing the taste out of her mouth would hurt her. Not to mention further rip his guts out when she did her pretty little song-and-dance as far away from him as she could get once their lips were unlocked and her defenses firmly back in place.
“I’ll be right back,” he muttered, needing to get away. He headed for the kitchen, to get her some ice. Maybe he could throw some down the front of his shorts while he was at it.
The kitchen was a mess. Lumps of powdered sugar doughnuts were strewn like little mummies across the table, and white powdery fingerprints all over the fridge and pantry door. Tiny fingerprints. He chuckled, thinking the construction foreman had been lucky Eve’s kick had missed its target. The kid was a terror.
While in the kitchen, Johnny grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down the names and numbers of a couple of good attorneys in Joyful and Bradenton, the next nearest town. Then he filled a bag with ice and wrapped it in a towel. Returning to the other room, he held it out to her. “Here. It’ll help the swelling.”
She took it gratefully and brought it to her mouth, hissing when the coldness touched her skin. But her hiss quickly turned into an appreciative sigh. When she rubbed the moist bag back and forth over her lips, the condensation made them slick and shiny.
Johnny closed his eyes against the sight, fighting the urge to kiss her again. She was hurting; it would be downright ungentlemanly to kiss her. Not that he was a frigging gentleman. No one had ever accused him of that, any more than they had any other Walker.
Still, he was decent enough to see when a woman was in pain. Physically as well as emotionally. And Emma seemed overloaded on both. So he stepped a few feet away, maintaining a careful distance.
The space between them didn’t stop him from idly trying to remember whether or not she was wearing a bra under the loose T-shirt she wore. His hands remembered better than his brain. Nope.
She looked up, curious, obviously not noticing the testosterone level in the room had gone way, way up.
He’d sure noticed. The continued tightness in his shorts told him his brain had lost the battle with his groin when it came to Emma Jean. At least for now. She was about to realize that, too, unless he got the hell outta here.
He headed toward the door. “Go take a shower, Em. Get dressed. Have something to eat.”
She mumbled something about her cane. But even knowing she was going to have a rough time getting around by herself didn’t make him pause.
He had to get away. Lusting after a woman with a fat lip and a sprained ankle was bad. That the woman was Emma Jean made it a million times worse.
Their kiss that morning had proved they still shot incredible sparks off one another. Those kind of sparks had left his ass fried the last time she’d been around. He didn’t know if any man was capable of being so badly burned twice in a lifetime. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Johnny,” she called as he reached for the knob.
He looked over his shoulder, seeing her watching, her eyes wide and curious over the bag of ice clutched to her lips.
“Thanks,” she mumbled. “For everything.”
He shrugged it off. “No problem. I left you the names and numbers of some lawyers. They’re in the kitchen.”
She thanked him again.
“Just try to stay out of trouble.” He opened the door, but before leaving, he had to caution her about one more thing. “And stay away from the construction site.” Seeing her frown, he quickly added, “At least until you get all the facts.”
She sighed and her lip popped out a little more, probably from more than mere swelling.
“Em,” he said, a warning tone in his voice, “I don’t want to have to meet up with you in a jail cell again.” She didn’t respond, or even meet his eye. “Emma Jean…”
“I know, I know.”
Her response didn’t sound exactly enthusiastic. He stared at her until she met his eye. “Don’t do it,” he bit out.
He wasn’t leaving until she agreed. She seemed to realize that because she finally sighed and mumbled, “I won’t.”
She’d said what he wanted. Somehow, though, he had the feeling Emma might have had her fingers crossed behind her back.
“I won’t bail you out next time.”
She smiled. “You didn’t bail me out this time. The charges were dropped.”
“You know what I mean.”
Crossing her arms, she leaned back and frowned. “I’ve learned my lesson, Johnny. Cross my heart and hope to die, you will never see me sitting in a jail cell facing assault charges again.”
ON MONDAY MORNING, Emma was arrested for trespassing.
She’d kept her word, at least. She hadn’t assaulted anybody. Though she’d certainly felt like it when the stupid foreman had insisted the sheriff take her into custody for refusing to leave the construction site.
She’d gone out there, all reasonable-like, politely but firmly asking to see the building permits, or to talk to someone in charge. Anything to find out just who was behind this nightmare.
Instead, she’d immediately been ordered to get back into her car and leave.
She’d gotten back into her car, all right. But she hadn’t left. She’d pulled it dead center in the middle of the site, blocking one dump truck and a half-dozen angry, sweaty construction workers trying to unload a tractor-trailer full of drywall.
For a second there, she’d thought the foreman was going to order the dump truck driver to fill Emma’s pretty little car with a few tons of dirt. She’d held her breath, resisting the urge to blink at his unexpected game of chicken by hitting the button to put the convertible top up.
He’d finally backed down, disappearing into his trailer.
The cops had shown up eight minutes later. Sheriff Brady had come out to the site to make the arrest and take her away. He’d been nice about it—the barrel-chested man had always been a nice old guy, except when anyone named Walker was around. But he’d also been stern. When Emma had tried to defend herself, insisting she was the wronged party, he’d merely shaken his head with pure patronization, and told her she didn’t know the facts.
Emma hated being told she was wrong. Particularly by a blustery, laid-back old Southern man who thought he knew everything. One who had fathered Emma’s high school arch-enemy.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re going to claim this doesn’t count as breaking your promise?” a voice asked.
She looked up from where she sat perched on the very edge of the cot in the much-too-familiar jail cell. This time, she’d thought far enough ahead to wear long pants, which were going in the wash as soon as she got home.
“Because I didn’t,” she told Johnny. She’d been expecting him ever since Fred Willis had locked her in this place.
Stiffening her shoulders, she tried to keep her lips stiff, too. Not to mention her voice. She wasn’t going to cry on Johnny’s shoulder again. “I didn’t break any promise. Besides which, it wasn’t a real promise. I didn’t pinky swear or anything.”
Tsking, he shook his head. “You couldn’t stay out of trouble for forty-eight hours?”
“I started trying to reach Jimbo Boyd on Saturday and have left a half-dozen messages, but he’s not returning my calls.” Emma stood and walked over to the cell door, favoring her bad ankle, which had, at least, improved en
ough so she didn’t need a cane.
Johnny had kept his word and left it on her porch sometime Sunday night. But Emma had resisted the urge to bring it with her out to the grove today, figuring there was no point tempting fate. Or depriving the construction foreman of future children.
Not that the world wouldn’t be better off without the progeny of foul-mouthed, foul-smelling, foul-tempered jerks like him.
Never taking his eyes off her, Johnny unlocked the cell. When the bars were swung out of the way, and they stood there, face-to-face, she tilted her head back and narrowed her eyes, wanting him to understand. There was one way to get her point across. “Would you have just let it go?”
He met her stare, his frown easing somewhat, and she knew the answer to her own question. No. In her position, Johnny would have done exactly the same thing.
“At least you didn’t hit anybody this time,” he offered, with one lip quirked up in a half smile.
“I told you I wouldn’t assault anyone.” She had to hand it to herself, she’d sounded downright pious that time.
Johnny, of course, saw right through it. “You knew what I meant, though. I warned you to stay away from the site, Emma. Now the foreman is talking about filing a restraining order. You’d be restricted from coming within a hundred feet of the property line.”
Groaning, she swiped an angry hand through her hair. “They can restrict me from my own property?”
“According to the tax records, it’s not your property.”
His words stunned her for a moment. Judging by the sincerity—and the regret—on Johnny’s face, he was entirely serious. “But I inherited it…along with the house.”
“A company called MLH Enterprises is the recorded land owner and has been since April of last year. I looked it up this morning. I can get you a copy of the tax roll if you don’t believe me.”
April. The month Grandma Emmajean had died. She couldn’t take it in. “That can’t be. Grandma Emmajean’s will…”
“Did you see the deed?”
Absently shaking her head, she admitted, “My parents took care of everything. Like I said, I was just out of the hospital, still in physical therapy. After probate, I invested all the cash, and left the property in the hands of Jimbo Boyd.”
His jaw tightened, as if he didn’t like being reminded of her accident. On rainy days, when her healed bones ached, she agreed with him. “Did your parents tell you the land was included in your inheritance?”
She had to admit it: no, they hadn’t. But it had been a foregone conclusion. Her grandmother had always made it clear what she wanted. Emma’s parents didn’t have the need, or the ties to Joyful. Though her father had been born in Georgia, he’d become firmly ensconced in Mother’s world and currently ran the London branch of her family’s electronics company. He wasn’t interested in coming back to Georgia and had always agreed that the home place should go to his daughter, who truly loved it.
A daughter who would fight for it. No matter what.
“I’m certain the will said I inherited everything.”
“Even if it did…she might have already sold the land before changing her will.”
“She didn’t,” Emma snapped. “I know it. You can believe me or not, but one way or another, I intend to prove it.”
DANEEN HAD GIVEN Jimbo the messages from Emma Jean Frasier every time she’d heard another one on their office answering machine. Each time, Jimbo had barely spared them a glance before shoving them into his desk drawer.
Interesting. He was avoiding the woman. Daneen had seen that kind of behavior before. Usually, though, Jimbo only avoided the stupid, brainless women he’d done then dumped whenever he and Daneen were on the outs.
There’d been more than a few of those over the years.
Jimbo worked fast, but he sure couldn’t have worked fast enough to have done anything with Emma Jean. Not with her only having been in town a few days. And not with Jimbo having spent all of his sexual energy with Daneen right here in the office. So she wondered why he wasn’t calling Emma Jean back.
“Is that something I can take care of?” she asked, after giving him the last message Monday evening.
He shook his head. “Nah, sweet pea, she’s just being a northern pain in the ass. Always gotta have everything right now.”
Hmm…sounded like some men she knew.
“I hear she caused a commotion out at the site of the club. Not once but twice.”
Jimbo pushed his chair back from his desk, leaned back and laced his fingers together over his chest. “Did she now?”
Jimbo knew darn well she had. Daneen’s father had been in here earlier telling him all about it. Daneen hadn’t heard all their conversation through the closed office door, but she’d heard enough to know her daddy hadn’t been happy with Emma Jean.
“I woulda paid money to see her tossed into jail,” Daneen said with a grin.
“It was all a misunderstanding,” Jimbo murmured, still watching her from across the desk. “But do me a favor, will you?”
She nodded.
“Keep an ear out. Let me know if you hear anything else about her, okay?”
Daneen assumed he meant anything other than the porn star story, which was garbage and she knew it. So she nodded, then turned to leave his office. But as she returned to her desk, she had to wonder why Jimbo cared so much. Which also made her wonder about who else seemed to care too much about Emma Jean’s presence in town.
Johnny.
She still hadn’t been able to get a minute alone with him since Friday. She’d seen him Sunday, at his mama’s place, when she’d taken Jack out for a visit. But she hadn’t had a chance to grill him on Emma.
She wanted to know why the other woman had come back. How long she planned to stay. If there was anything Daneen could do to make her hurry back out of town.
And just how Johnny felt about it.
Daneen wanted things to get back to normal, with her being the only local woman Johnny gave the time of day to. She knew it was only because they were family, but that was better than being ignored, like the rest of the female population in Joyful.
Johnny could have had any woman he wanted. Rumors said he wanted a lot of women. From down in Bradenton. Or up in Lawton. Not in Joyful, though. Never.
She’d long since given up on thinking she’d ever actually get him. Johnny had made it pretty clear years ago that even their friendship would disappear if she didn’t back off. It’d been hard to do, considering he was darn near the sexiest man she’d ever seen. But she’d done it, knowing she’d never be able to hold on to him. And she’d certainly never be able to get him to marry her. The chance of that was even lower than the chance she’d ever been able to get a commitment out of Jimbo.
Because Johnny was a loner. He’d never fall in love, never settle down, never commit to one woman. He didn’t believe in any of it. His parents’ marriage had done something to him and he seemed content to be alone during the day.
As for the nights? Well, they were another story. But as long as she didn’t have to hear about who in town he was spending them with, Daneen found it in herself not to mind so much that it wasn’t her.
CHAPTER NINE
AS MUCH AS she wanted to deal only with the pecan grove, Emma realized by Tuesday morning that a job was going to have to come first. She didn’t have a penny to spare to hire a lawyer, not yet anyway. And until she could reach her parents—who were traveling somewhere in Spain this week—she couldn’t get a copy of her grandmother’s will or find out where the rest of the paperwork was. So there didn’t seem to be much she could do, except risk arrest.
Which was getting a little tiresome.
However Emma fully intended to show up at Jimbo Boyd’s office if he didn’t call her back soon. She’d plant herself on his doorstep and get some answers. The one reason she hadn’t was that, honestly, she hated the thought of seeing Daneen. She couldn’t handle the other woman yet. Her nerves were stretched too thin. The way
she was going, Daneen would set her off and she’d end up in jail again. Or a blubbering, sobbing mess. At this point, she couldn’t say which was worse.
If Johnny was around, the blubbering part probably would be the way it ended up. With her luck, she’d wind up in his arms again, which was about as tempting—and as bad for her—as a Krispy Kreme doughnut was to a woman on Atkins. She’d been held by him practically from the minute she’d arrived back in town Friday afternoon. When she’d fallen, when she’d cried. When they’d kissed.
Oh, God, when they’d kissed.
Just a kiss, it was just a kiss.
And the Golden Gate was just a bridge.
Enough. She couldn’t think about him anymore, couldn’t speculate on the things she’d learned—that he was single, eligible, sought after and could get it up five times a night.
Darn you, Claire!
She couldn’t allow herself to admit that he’d been truly nice to her, in spite of his teasing, when she’d expected the opposite. Couldn’t acknowledge that all those crazy things he’d made her feel when she was young and foolish were ten times more potent now that she was older and experienced.
She was immune to him, she really was. At least, she would be, as long as she stayed away from him. Forever.
Dressing carefully in a brightly colored sundress she’d picked up at Bergdorf Goodman earlier in the spring, Emma set out early Tuesday on her job hunt. Luckily, she had at least one pair of low-heeled sandals, since she didn’t want to end up back in Ace bandages. She wore a bright yellow scarf tied loosely around her neck, needing the confidence of something hanging down the back of her neck, like her hair used to.
The dress was cute. The scarf was bright. Her makeup was carefully applied. And she was no longer limping. But even wearing all her feminine armor and looking healthy and in control, she confronted some really strange reactions in town.
“You’re her, ain’t ya?” This came from a young man tinkering under the hood of an old Ford Fairlane in the downtown parking lot where Emma parked her car.
