He was so not on her radar.
The man was a walking hormone. And judging by her own body’s reaction to him, even women who weren’t interested in him weren’t immune.
Irritated both by her own reaction to him and his easy acceptance of the effect he had on her, she asked, “You’re still doing it.”
“What?”
“Turning every question into a sexual innuendo.”
“Am I?” That half-smile curved his mouth once more.
Amazed, she said, “You just did it again.”
“Wow. I’m good.”
His smile widened and Jo’s temper spiked. “So the rumor mill says.”
He laughed and went down on one knee, bracing his forearm across his thigh. Too close, she thought. The man had absolutely no respect for personal space. His eyes flashed and his scent was sawdust and man. A dangerous combination.
“You intrigue me, Josefina.”
“Lucky me.”
“So what’s bugging you besides me.”
She didn’t really care for the fact that he seemed to know something else was bugging her. What she ought to do was jump up and stalk out. But then he’d think he’d chased her away—which he would have, but she didn’t want him to know it, so she stayed put.
Annoying man.
“What makes you think it’s not just you?”
“You’ve made it clear many times that I don’t worry you—so there’s gotta be something else going on.”
“Even if there is,” she hedged, “what do you care?” She shot him a look, then took out her pad and wrote down the last measurement she’d taken before it rushed out of her mind.
“Let’s say I’m curious.”
“Great.” She stood up and muttered, “You’re curious and I’m drowning.”
He stood, too, and looked down at her. “Okay, now I have to know.”
Jo rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers—more to avoid looking at Cash than in any hope of easing the headache that had been pounding in her skull for hours. Heck, weeks.
He was waiting. Standing there as patient as a statue. Hardly breathing, just watching her. Waiting.
She never should have said anything. Didn’t know why she had. Stupid. She shouldn’t tell him. But she’d been thinking about this for two weeks and had to tell somebody. She couldn’t tell the family. She didn’t want them to know what she was up to until she’d succeeded. Which was beginning to look a little iffy at the moment.
“Fine,” she blurted, speaking up fast before she could change her mind. “I’m—Oh God.” She slapped one hand to her abdomen to try to still the butterflies suddenly swarming inside. It didn’t help. Still felt as though each of those cute little butterflies was carrying a power drill, using them to bore holes in her stomach lining.
“I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this.” Jo paused to glare at him. “And if you ever repeat it, I’ll have to kill you . . .”
“Understood.”
Clutching her tape measure and notepad tightly, Jo stalked around the perimeter of the small barn. Her brain raced and her nerves jumped. She glanced at him as he stood in one spot, turning to follow her progress around the room.
“Jesus, Josefina, what’s wrong?”
“I’m getting to it.”
He intercepted her and dropped both hands onto her shoulders. “What is it? Are you a contract killer? Married to a felon? Pregnant with quintuplets?”
“Nothing that easy,” she said. “I’ve been . . .” She took a breath and blurted out the truth. “I’ve been going to school. College. At night. A couple times a week.”
She expelled a breath and felt . . . better. Weird.
“Interesting, but hardly worth all this drama.”
“There’s more.”
“Can’t wait.”
She stepped out from under his grasp, and admitted, “I’m flunking my science class.”
“You’re kidding.”
She snapped him a look designed to age him ten years. “Do I look like I’m kidding? I needed a stupid science credit and I didn’t want to dissect anything and God knows I suck at chemistry—an incident in high school we won’t go into at the moment—so I picked astronomy. I mean, how hard could it be? Look at stars through a telescope, for God’s sake.”
“And . . .”
She shot him another stony look. “Turns out there’s just a touch more to it than that.”
He grinned. “How bad is it?”
“Did you miss the part about me flunking?”
“So you study harder.”
Jo gave him a long dismissive look up and down, then pushed past him, saying, “Gee, why didn’t I think of that?”
“Jo—”
“Just forget it. Can’t believe I told you about this anyway.” She kept walking, faster now, headed for her truck. She was parked at the back edge of Cash’s property. What would be the little guesthouse was separated from the main house by a patch of woods so thick not even sunlight could punch through the leafy cover. She’d wondered when she arrived what Cash’s house looked like; now, all she could think about was getting out of there.
How humiliating was this? Now, not only was she flunking a stupid college course that some idiot eighteen-year-old could probably pass in his sleep, but Cash Hunter knew all about it. Smooth move, Jo. Damn it. Why was it genetically impossible for a Marconi to keep her damn mouth shut?
She heard his footsteps right behind her, so naturally, she sped up and managed to yank her truck door open just as he caught up to her. She climbed in fast, but he grabbed the edge of the door and held it when she would have slammed it closed, sealing herself inside. “Go away.”
“You don’t have to run off,” he said, his voice a low rumble of sound that seemed to be pitched at precisely the right note to skim along a woman’s nerve endings. He probably practiced it.
“Yeah, I do. Got a meeting with my sisters and Papa.”
“Okay,” he said and closed the door, as she fired up the engine. But he didn’t let go. Leaning his forearms on the window frame, he stared in at her. “But we could talk about this another time . . .”
She snorted. “Sure. Another time.”
“When?”
He was way too close. Jo leaned back as she looked at him. Snapping her seat belt on, she shook her head and said, “When you’re strapping on ice skates in hell?”
He smiled and, damn it, something inside her lit up before it was quickly snuffed out by memories and instinctive caution.
“I really like you, Josefina,” he mused, and sounded as surprised as she felt.
“Well,” she said, dropping the gear shift into drive, “now I can die happy. And I told you, I don’t like that name.”
“Too bad. I do.”
She growled and stepped on the gas. He leaped back out of the way as the truck jumped forward. The spinning tires spit up a tail of dirt and gravel as she bulleted away from the scene of her latest humiliation.
Deliberately, she reached out and flipped the rear-view mirror up so she wouldn’t have to look at him as she left.
Change just really sucked.
Oh, not that anything about the Marconi family house ever changed. Here, in the comfortable kitchen, time had stood still. They’d been holding the construction company meetings around the old kitchen table forever. Hank Marconi, better known as Papa, had never minded having daughters instead of sons. In fact, he’d treated his daughters as he would have sons. At least as far as construction work went.
When they were little, it had been an adventure, going to work with Papa. By the time the sisters were teenagers, they were working construction regularly—Jo’s expertise lay in roofing, Sam was the painter/refinisher/artiste, and Mike had never met a pipe she couldn’t undo and put back together better than new. They each had their specialties, although all three of them could do just about anything in construction. The girls and their father ran the business, and business was good.
That
didn’t change, either.
It was the family itself that was spinning in new directions all over the place.
Take what had been happening around here in the last couple of months, for example.
Mike’s gaze landed on her middle sister, Samantha. Sam had done more smiling in the last few weeks than she had in the last nine years. Not surprising, really, since she’d not only managed to reunite with Emma, the daughter she’d given up for adoption, but with the little girl’s daddy, Jeff “Weasel Dog” Hendricks. Although, Mike admitted silently, he was turning out to be less of a weasel dog than she’d thought.
So maybe some changes weren’t all bad.
Then her gaze shifted to Josefina. As the oldest, Jo had pretty much stepped into the breach as mom/sister/warden when Sylvia Marconi, their mother, died nine years ago. Jo’d given up on college, come home and taken over. The fact that she thought she was still in charge led to some pretty spectacular fights, but that was all in a day’s work for an Italian family. Yelling just meant you were breathing.
But even Jo was changing. Mike stared at her older sister and frowned thoughtfully. Something was going on with her. She disappeared two nights a week and wouldn’t tell anyone what that was about—and judging from her attitude lately, Mike was fairly certain Jo wasn’t out meeting some guy for sex. Anybody getting laid regularly would be in a better mood.
One thing she could count on, though, to always remain the same was this house where they’d all grown up. Mike let her gaze sweep the kitchen quickly, taking in the butter-yellow walls, the white cabinets, and the damn near antique appliances. The refrigerator hummed like a forgetful old aunt and Papa’s huge golden retriever, Bear, snored under the table like an elephant.
It was . . . comforting.
Even if she was still living at home at the ripe old age of twenty-six. Which was really sort of embarrassing to admit.
“Will you quit that?” Jo snapped the words out, shooting Mike a glare that should have curled her long blond braid.
“What’m I doing?”
“You’re rocking on that damn chair and it’s squeaking and making me insane.”
Mike stopped, leaned forward, and let the kitchen chair slap down off its rear legs to thud onto the linoleum. “I’m not making you nuts, Jo. You were born that way.”
“I was born,” she retorted, “an only child. Would that it had stayed that way.”
“Thanks very much,” Sam piped up.
“See? Now you’re insulting the sister who likes you,” Mike said.
Jo smirked at her. “Clever. Just”—she shook her head—“shut up.”
“God, take a pill, will ya?” Mike should have known better than to race home to get to this meeting. After all, when Karma started going bad on you, things usually just went right to hell.
And hadn’t Karma been kicking her ass for months now? Ever since Lucas Gallagher strolled into town and snatched her dreams away?
“If you guys are through . . .” Sam held up both hands and stepped into her traditional role of peacemaker. No matter how many times Mike had warned her that it was usually the innocent bystander who took one between the eyes, Sam just couldn’t seem to help herself. “I want to get this stuff done—Jeff and I are taking Emma out to Rosie’s tonight.”
Rosie’s Café. A great little place, sitting right on the coast road, overlooking the rocky cliffs leading down to the ocean. And right now, a night at Rosie’s sounded much better than the frozen dinner Mike had planned on. “Great idea,” she said quickly, “I’ll join you.”
“You’re not invited,” Sam said and reached out to pat her hand.
“Fine.” Mike sniffed, pretending to be insulted. “I’ll call Terrino’s and order pizza.”
“Now that the menu’s settled . . .” Jo said, and picked up one of her gazillion file folders.
Mike leaned back on the kitchen chair again, pushing it until it rested on its two rear legs, then she rocked idly and watched Jo scowl at her. But quickly enough, she pretended to ignore Mike and the squeaky chair and get right down to business.
The woman could give God an ulcer when it came to organization. Seriously, Mike mused, if the universe ever got too much for the Big Guy to handle, he could just turn the whole mess over to Jo—who would have the world whipped into shape in no time.
She had a file folder for every job and every estimate they’d ever made tucked away in the Marconi family vault—a big steel file cabinet they kept stored in the workshop out back.
“Aren’t we going to wait for Papa?” Sam asked.
“Oh, crap.” Mike let the chair slap down hard again and then leaned her forearms on the table. “Forgot to tell you. Papa went to San Francisco for the weekend. With Grace.”
Jo’s hands stilled on the sheaf of papers. She shifted her pale blue eyes to Mike. “What do you mean, with?”
“I think I mean just what you think I mean.”
“Well, that was clear,” Jo muttered, “thanks.”
“I think she’s right,” Sam said.
“She’s almost never right,” Jo argued.
“Feel the love,” Mike quipped and reached for the bowl of fall apples in the center of the table. Grabbing one, she took a huge bite, then talked around it. “I know what I saw, and I’m telling you, something’s up over there.”
Jo snorted. “Please.”
“Papa and Grace have been seeing each other.”
Mike and Jo both turned to stare at Sam, who shifted uneasily in her chair, then cupped both hands around a cardboard cup of coffee from the Leaf and Bean. That latte had to be ice-cold by now, but Sam’s fingertips danced up and down the sides of the cup as if it were boiling hot.
Outside the cozy kitchen, wind screamed in off the ocean and slapped at the house as if trying to find a way to sneak inside. Under the table, Bear snorted, grumbled, then shifted until his heavy bulk was stretched out across the toes of Mike’s boots. She sighed and got used to the pain because Bear was just too damn old to be nudged off. Besides, she had bigger things on her mind at the moment.
“You know something.” Mike narrowed her gaze.
“Spill it.” Jo folded her arms on the table and waited.
“It’s just something Emma said on the Fourth of July.”
“Two months ago?” Amazed, and just a little offended that Sam had kept the news to herself, Mike stared at her sister. She never would have believed a Marconi could be quiet for so long.
Sam winced a little. “Hey, I wasn’t sure. Still not. But anyway, Emma went home with Papa after the carnival and apparently they went to Grace’s. Where they watched movies and played games until Emma fell asleep.”
“Well,” Mike said dryly, not sure if she was disappointed or relieved at the innocuous disclosure. “Hire a minister and buy me a dress. I’m convinced.”
Sam withered her with a quick look. “That’s not the best part. Emma said that after she fell asleep ‘Grace and Papa played games all night and that Grace said Papa knows lots of fun games.’ ”
“Oh God.” Jo dropped the file folder and didn’t even cringe when several of the papers inside slithered loose. A sure sign that she was upset. “Games? What kind of games?”
“Don’t ask,” Sam said.
Mike knew just how she felt. “You know, there are just some images of her father a daughter shouldn’t have in her mind.”
“I’m with you on that one.” Jo cleared her throat, gathered up the scattered papers, and carefully aligned each one of them with the other. “That’s . . . interesting. But it’s still not proof.”
“Proof?” Mike laughed at her. “Who’re you? The prosecuting attorney? Who said we have to have proof?”
“Atta girl,” Jo said with a slow shake of her head. “Grab the rumor first, look for facts after.”
“Both of you cut it out,” Sam said shortly. “It’s none of our business if Papa has a girlfriend.”
“Oh, jeez . . .” Mike practically moaned. “Could you
not call her that?”
Sam smiled, clearly enjoying this. “And, if the two of them want to go to San Francisco and ‘play games,’ that’s up to them. God knows they’re old enough.”
“Stop,” Jo said tightly, covering her ears with both hands. “Too much information. Disk full.”
“Fine,” Sam said. “I was a little freaked out, too. But I’ve had a couple months to get used to the idea and now I think it’s kind of cute. Besides, I like Grace.”
“Me, too,” Mike said, and slid a glance at Jo, just uncovering her ears. “But what if he marries her or something? We could be redoing that damn house of hers for the next thirty years.”
Jo slapped her hands back into place and started humming.
Mike grinned.
Sam slapped her arm. “Just for saying that, you can go to church and light a candle.”
“Just one?” Jo muttered.
Then as her sisters settled down to tackle the business end of Marconi Construction, Mike’s brain wandered. Something was going on with Jo, Papa was out getting laid— God help her—and Lucas Gallagher was ensconced in her dream house.
Yep.
No doubt about it.
Change sucked.
Change was a good thing, Lucas told himself as he stepped out onto the front porch to watch a storm blow in off the ocean. A line of tall pine trees stood at the edge of his yard, waving frantically in the rush of wind sweeping in from the Pacific, more than a mile away. Overhead, the sky was being blanketed by clouds racing in from the horizon and the deep-throated rumble of thunder grumbled in the air.
Only a few months ago, he’d been tucked away in a sterile lab outside San Jose. His days had been filled with equations, experiments, and too many disappointments to count. He went to work before sunrise and left long after sunset. The only time he ever got outside was walking from his condo to his car.
Not much time for a social life, which was fine by him. The few dates he had were generally with coworkers. Women who understood what he was trying to do and appreciated the fact that sometimes he just didn’t have time to call.
A Crazy Kind of Love Page 4
