by Isla Bennet
Peyton watched from afar as she stepped out of the car—and all the blood in his body seemed to localize in one hazardous zone below his belly. Did she have legs like that when he’d known her growing up? Slender, graceful, long enough to wrap perfectly around his hips.
In the cool Texas night, he was sweating bullets.
As she rounded the car and accepted a foil-covered tray from Dinah, the barely-there layers of that damning dress floated flirtatiously in the soft breeze.
Then the pair entered the house, completely unaware of him.
He wanted to have the right to walk into the house and pull Valerie into a dance. He didn’t have any moves, never cared to learn more than a waltz, but if he could have her body fitted against his and just sway in a rhythm with her, it was all he needed.
Peyton went inside and sought her out.
VALERIE HAD SPECIFIC instructions to set Dinah’s apple crumb cake in the Turners’ kitchen. On the way she got sidetracked by the jaw-dropping Christmas tree, by the live band playing a toe-tapping rendition of “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” by compliments and overly polite greetings from people with curiosity and less than good cheer in their eyes.
Yes, I’m the baby mama, she considered announcing loud and clear, just to get it out of the way. As she passed the living room, she spotted Lucy and her friend Sarah standing together and giggling over glasses of ginger ale. If they could get through this night without Lucy being insulted, then she would be grateful for that.
Nathaniel stopped her with a jovial hug, mindful of his cocktail and her precious cargo. “Apple crumb. This is the stuff of legends. Set it in the kitchen, will you, darlin’?”
Darlin’? Nathaniel wasn’t a hugger and had never called her “darlin’.” She glanced at his glass, and suspected he’d had too many merry cocktails.
“I will.” And on her way she discreetly took a tour of the entire main floor, glancing to her left and right for Peyton, but didn’t see him. Suddenly, the atmosphere changed and she stopped in her tracks, then headed to the ballroom where most of the guests were now converging.
A hard, heavy bass beat reverberated throughout the entire poinsettia-and-garland-filled room, it seemed. The band members were at rest, their instruments silent, and this pulsing sound came from some hidden system with speakers wired throughout.
After the first few lyrics, she recognized Jay-Z’s voice over the speakers. Then she recognized her daughter and her friend in the middle of the ballroom dancing in fast, raised-armed, booty-shaking movements—in elegant formalwear.
“What good’s a holiday if you can’t have fun?”
Valerie looked over her shoulder at Nathaniel, who grunted a hoarse chuckle at the sight of the girls dancing and urging others to join them. “You switched from holiday tunes to hip hop just to please Lucy.”
“This party was getting too damn stuffy.”
“Maybe you’re just an old softie, is all.” Valerie smiled, touched to know that despite Nathaniel’s stance that Peyton and Valerie’s intimate past should never have happened, Lucy’s great-grandfather did love her.
As others joined Lucy and Sarah—first a horde of children, then a scatter of adults—Valerie went into the kitchen.
And one look toward the butler’s pantry made her regret agreeing to cart around Dinah’s apple crumb cake.
Pressed flush to the open pantry door was a petite blonde woman in a sparkling red dress that appeared too short to begin with. Moving against the man locked to her, she’d caused the hem to rise to the point of indecency.
But she didn’t seem to care. With low, bell-like moans, she swept her hands up greedily to clutch the man’s back as he kissed her—hard, hungrily, hotly. His hands were braced on the pantry door on either side of the woman’s head, his body pinning her there, his mouth apparently making her anxious for more.
Valerie couldn’t breathe. She had to get out of here, before the couple discovered her watching and they’d all end up mortified.
Deciding to slip out of the kitchen as quietly as possible, she took a backward step and heard the woman groan, “Jasper, yes.”
What the …? Valerie glanced at the man and woman fused together again, just for confirmation. The woman was grabbing a handful of wavy strawberry-blond hair, and he was leaning down in a determination to keep mating his mouth with hers.
Jasper and Hope!
Valerie scooted out of the kitchen, left the cake with a waiter and claimed a goblet of wine. She needed air. No, a freezing-cold shower. The passion coming from the butler’s pantry was palpable, and she’d been an innocent bystander who’d been smacked with a heavy dose of it.
At the ballroom archway, she was tapped on the shoulder.
“Peyton.”
Damn it. Did he have to look so sexy tonight? It was almost irritating that to top it off, he smelled wonderful, like she could lick her way to the source of that masculine, sensual scent.
“You okay?” His blue-gray eyes moved over her.
Why did that feel so … erotic?
“I …” She was reminded of the game Clue, and tempted to say, The butler did it. In the pantry. With the landscaper.
Only, that wouldn’t be fair to Jasper. He was her friend. The man had kept quiet about her pregnancy, so she could keep quiet about this.
“I’m okay.” Deflecting the conversation away from her and the secondhand horniness she’d contracted, she gestured to the crowd on the dance floor with her goblet. “This party’s going well. Nice turnout, don’t you agree?”
Without replying, Peyton continued to watch her.
“Just trying for polite conversation.”
“Polite,” he repeated, still studying her but now with a veil of coolness.
Then someone said loudly, “Look at that! Y’all are caught under the mistletoe!”
Valerie noticed the mistletoe hanging from the archway above their heads.
He’s going to kiss you. It’s part of tradition. Let it happen. You know you want to.
And she did, she realized. She wanted his kiss, wanted to taste his lips, wanted that closeness that was physical but could be so much more. However, she wouldn’t let it be more than physical satisfaction.
She couldn’t.
She let her eyes move from his steady, unreadable gaze to his sulky mouth. Hip hop music drummed in her ears, dozens of pairs of eyes bored holes into her. But all she cared about was kissing Peyton Turner.
He bent, brought his face to hers. Of their own accord, her lips parted.
And then there was coldness, a brush of air left in his wake as he walked away.
A few of the guests gasped or murmured their sympathy at her being rejected under the mistletoe. Valerie didn’t stick around for anyone’s consolation or commentary. She took off in a fast walk, desperate to be alone but trapped in a place packed with people.
She sensed him behind her as she rushed out the door and across the drive to the three-tiered fountain in the center of the front lawn. Everywhere were twinkling lights, and the water in the fountain glittered like strands of diamonds.
Peyton stopped her with his hands on her shoulders. “Valerie, I’m sorry.”
“What’s with you, Peyton?” She jerked free. “When we’re alone you flirt with me, but in public—no, in the company of well-to-do stuffed shirts—you snub me. Not okay.”
“No, it’s not,” he said, locking her to him and moving her to the side of the fountain facing away from the house. In a second-long flash she had the image of Jasper and Hope clenched together like this—except there was bona fide passion in their embrace, not frustration. “But neither is some kiss under mistletoe.”
“Whatever.”
“Valerie, you think a public peck on the lips is right for us? Us? After all we’ve been through, all we’re meant to be to each other?”
“Who’s to say what’s meant to be?” she whispered.
Peyton stared hard into her eyes, and for a long moment she couldn’t
blink. “It wasn’t the right moment. When it comes—” his gaze briefly brushed the quick rise of her breasts peeking out over the neckline of her borrowed dress “—if it even comes at all, we’ll know it. And neither one of us is gonna be able to stop it. As strong as you and I think we are, we won’t be able to stop that.”
It was a cross between a dark promise and a carnal warning.
“So why are you holding me?” She clutched his arms and was technically holding him, too.
“Because I’ve been wanting to touch you like this since I saw you step out of your car.”
Valerie suddenly became aware of herself, as if her nerve endings were shocked alert. She felt the fabric of his tuxedo pants brush her legs, felt her nipples harden as she shifted against him.
“You won’t get a mistletoe kiss tonight,” he said as he edged back slightly, just far enough to be able to dip and press his mouth to her collarbone.
A moan flirted on her tongue but she bit her bottom lip to contain it.
Peyton’s lips traveled up her neck to her ear. “If there’s going to be a kiss—my mouth on yours—are you sure it’ll stop there?”
He let her go then, and her mind whirled as she watched him stride across the lawn to the house.
“Are you sure it’ll stop there?”
What if it didn’t? Could she handle that?
LUCY POINTED HER mother’s key fob at their Chrysler, waited for the double beep and opened the passenger door to find her cell phone. She’d left it in here earlier, and wanted to take some pictures with Sarah at the party.
A dark silhouette in the cup holder between the front seats caught her eye. Found it!
Phone in hand, she shut the door with a bump of her hip and was about to hurry into the mansion when someone said, “What a beautiful get-together!”
Lucy jumped. Maybe her hearing aid was acting kooky, because she surely didn’t hear anyone walk up to her. “Yeah, it’s awesome.”
“And such a marvelous house. Nathaniel’s outdone himself with these decorations.”
That super-heavy, obviously New York accent had Lucy looking at her sharply. Where had she heard that voice?
The woman smiled, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners under a fringe of brown bangs. She lifted a hand to wave and Lucy recognized the cherry-red birthmark on the woman’s forearm that matched her own. “Hi, Lucy.”
“It was you, in the corn maze at the orchard. The witch.” Lucy turned to go into the house, but Marin Beck molded her cool fingertips to her arm. “Let me go. I shouldn’t talk to you.”
“But it’s fine to spy on me at the diner?”
“I wanted to see what my grandmother looks like,” Lucy blurted, still feeling guilty that she’d let curiosity get the best of her some days ago when she’d gotten Sarah, who was the one friend she trusted not to blab, to help her sneak off to the diner.
Marin glanced around cautiously, then her face was pinched with sadness. “It’s not fair, Valerie keeping us apart this way. You should be allowed to decide for yourself whether I’m worth your time.” She leaned down so they were eye level. “If you’re serious about fashion, the way people around town say you are, then you’ll need to spend a lot of time here at the mansion. With the right training, the right connections, you could flourish in New York City.”
Lucy stood in awe, imagining noisy streets, tall buildings and bright lights. “I’ve never been there, or anywhere outside of Texas, actually.”
“A young woman like you needs a bite of the Big Apple. The shopping’s fantastic. The nightlife’s better than anything you could ever find in Night Sky.” She shrugged. “I’d tell you more, but I can’t stay. We probably won’t ever see each other again. Valerie wants it like this—to keep you away from me the way Nathaniel kept Peyton from me.”
“Wait!” She couldn’t just say hi-and-bye to her grandmother. “What if my mom didn’t know? We could plan it really carefully.”
Marin’s voice dropped to a whisper, and her eyes went momentarily flat. “Most important, then. Don’t tell anyone you saw me. Not at the orchard and certainly not here. It’s our secret. Swear that I can trust you.”
“I swear.”
“Okay.” Marin lifted Lucy’s hand, and the new bracelet glimmered in the golden light washing over the drive. “What a gorgeous trinket!”
“It’s a Christmas gift from my dad.”
“Peyton must think you hung the moon. Lucky girl.”
Lucy smiled at the memory of him giving her the bracelet with a hopeful but edgy look in his eyes. “Guess so.” She spotted her mother in the doorway, and hoped she wasn’t ready to leave already. It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. If she had to beg to stay awhile longer, she would. To Marin she said, “There’s Mom. Gotta go.”
At the word mom, Marin’s face seemed to change … harden … as she followed Lucy’s gaze and took a step back into the shadows. But Lucy didn’t pay it much mind as she hurried to catch Valerie at the door.
The last thing she wanted was for the party to end.
EPISODE EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
PEYTON DIDN’T REALIZE where he was headed until he took a slight left off the fork in the road and saw the diner. The neon sign in the window blinked open and the silver fringe banner taped to the glass door exclaimed “Happy New Year!” It was still New Year’s Eve, but when he stepped inside he found the place already deep in noisy celebration. The wait staff wore party hats and everywhere was colorful confetti.
“Marin’s not here,” red-haired Junie said over the commotion, with a hearty meat-and-veggies entrée in one hand and a streamer in the other. Her expression said there was no point in him denying that he’d wound up here in search of his mother. “New Year’s Eve’s tough on an alcoholic, and they’ve got an A.A. meeting going on at Pastor Bruin’s church. Bud cut her shift so she could go.”
“She’s been going to the meetings regularly?”
“You could set your watch by her. And she even helps out at the gas station.”
Peyton wasn’t a man with a death wish, as Valerie had once called him. He wasn’t a glutton for punishment, like the cop who’d arrested him when he was twenty-one had said. He wasn’t out to give his mother yet another turn to gut him. But he was thankful to have the chance to know his daughter, and how could he not give Marin the chance to know the person he’d turned out to be? If she was sincere about getting her life right, then she needed someone—her son—in her corner.
It was his choice. Not his grandfather’s. Not Valerie’s. And when he showed up at the church and waited in the hall near the open multipurpose room where people sat on metal foldout chairs and took turns at the podium admitting how difficult it was to refuse a drink when life got tough, he’d decided not to tell either of them what he intended to do.
As Pastor Bruin’s wife bustled into the room to urge the volunteer chairperson to wrap it up, Peyton slipped into the room and waited while his mother grabbed a handful of crackers from the refreshments table. She was wishing others happy holidays when she noticed Peyton.
Marin hurried to him. “Can we talk outside?”
He followed her out and they sat on the bench in front of the church. People trickled to the parking lot, until finally the old building was dark and the street quiet. She offered him a cracker. “You came here to check up on me.”
“Is this fresh start for real?”
“Would you believe me if I said it is?” She handed him another cracker, then broke the last one in two and popped half into her mouth.
Peyton looked at her. In the months that she’d been in town she hadn’t asked anyone for a handout. Nor had she tried to insinuate herself into his and Lucy’s lives. And right now, even with her sitting right beside him, he missed her even though he had more bad memories of her than good. “I would.”
“What about Valerie? She doesn’t want me anywhere near you or your daughter.”
He’d told Valerie he was done with Marin. But th
at was before he saw that she was different now. “Valerie’s only protecting Lucy.”
“And you. It’s sweet.” She nudged him with her elbow. “Judging the way you just said Valerie’s name, I’ll bet this protection thing goes both ways. You’re serious about her?”
Peyton nodded, not interested in tiptoeing around the truth. “Yes, but that’s all I’m going to say.”
“All right.” Marin smiled but averted her eyes, then started for a black Accord in front of the church.
“Mom,” he said, as she unlocked the vehicle. “Happy New Year.”
After leaving the church, Peyton didn’t know where to go. He’d searched for his mother to find answers, but ended up with more questions than before. For one, how would he get Valerie to understand that his relationship with Marin was Rubik’s-cube complicated, and that drawing lines in the sand and tossing around ultimatums wouldn’t fix anything? Years ago, Valerie had been the supportive friend when it’d come to Marin. Would she be the one to come between them now?
He showed up at Bueno Eats desperate to clear his head.
“Jerk chicken and stewed tomatoes with okra,” a Jamaican-accented voice said over the rush of Spanish music as he entered the restaurant. A dark woman with braids down to her waist appeared and offered a slim hand. “I’m Fatima.”
“Peyton Turner.”
“I know. You’re Valerie’s old friend, and the doctor who patched up my Diego. Your meal’s on us, as a thank-you.” She led him to an unoccupied table, but Will emerged from the double doors leading to what had to be the kitchen and got a narrowed-eyed look at him.
“No, Mama,” Will said perceptively. “He’s not here to eat. He’s here to train.”
Will led Peyton to the little bungalow behind the restaurant, and inside was the gym. Without prelude, Diego climbed out of the boxing ring, leaving Wayne Beaudine from the auto body shop alone to practice his footwork.
“Bienvenido!” The man clapped, his injured wrist in good form now, and motioned for Will. “Get him taped and gloved. Can’t let el médico ruin his hands.”
