Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story

by Maureen Child

  “Didn’t mean to.” He dipped his head, and his hair, the same brown color as her own, fell across his eyes. Probably would have blinded him if he hadn’t suddenly jerked his head to one side to blink up at her. The frown was back. “But you wouldn’t understand and Cash did.”

  Ouch again.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Cash and noticed that he was practically whistling and rocking on his heels, trying to pretend that he wasn’t listening to the conversation. Fine. She’d do the same.

  “Wouldn’t understand what?” she asked, dropping to one knee on the sun-warmed grass.

  Jack blew out a breath that ruffled his hair, then rubbed the back of his hand under his nose. “The kids at school say I throw like a girl.”

  “What?”

  Jack rushed on. “Justin Shepard says I can’t throw cuz my dad is old and all I got is sisters.”

  Temper flickered inside her. “Justin Shepard.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, and glanced at Cash before looking back at his sister. “And he wouldn’t pick me to be on the baseball team at school and I had to stand there like a girl and do nothing while everybody else played and stuff and I just thought that maybe Cash could show me how to throw like a guy because I have to know how, all the guys know how and . . .”

  He was still talking, showing absolutely no sign of stopping or even, hell, slowing down. Regret bubbled through Jo. She should have been able to figure out what was bothering the kid. Should have made him tell her.

  Threw like a girl because he only had sisters?

  Poor kid had come to Cash out of desperation. Because his own sister hadn’t known what to do. Or maybe because she hadn’t cared enough to look closer. To really listen to what Jack needed.

  And that stung.

  Shame rippled through her as she acknowledged, at least silently, that “taking care” of a kid required more than just making sure he showed up at school and brushed his teeth after dinner. She should have been paying closer attention. Should have gotten past her own discomfort with the fact of Jack’s existence to understand that the little boy was really lost.

  And somehow, Jo pledged, she’d make that up to him.

  When Jack finally ran out of breath, she stood up and winked. “Justin’s father went to school with me,” she told him. “And Tom Shepard couldn’t catch a ball if someone had handed it to him and stitched it into his glove.”

  Jack laughed.

  Cash moved up closer.

  But she focused on her little brother. “You know, the guys are right, you do only have sisters.” She wouldn’t touch that “old father” thing at all. “But every one of your sisters plays ball better than Justin’s father ever did.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I could have helped you. I played shortstop on every school team and I still play softball.”

  “Yeah,” he said, swiping the toe of his shoe across the grass and watching as every blade went down, then sprang back up again. “But it’s still not the same. You’re not a guy, Jo.”

  “Ah.” And that was the real problem. He hadn’t just needed to know how to throw, he’d needed a guy to teach him. She really tried not to mind that the guy he’d chosen was Cash.

  “Now watch,” Jack said eagerly, and sprinted for one corner of the yard, where a sheet of plywood with a hole cut dead center of it was propped against a tree. “I’ll show you.”

  “The Testosterone Club is very exclusive,” Cash whispered from just behind her.

  “So says its president,” she murmured, keeping her gaze locked on the boy who was winding up and letting a baseball fly.

  “We all have our strengths.”

  “And shortcomings,” she pointed out.

  “Are we really going to talk about size before our first date?”

  Jo snorted, amused in spite of herself.

  “Did you see?” Jack called, crowing and doing a silly little step-dance in celebration of the pitch that had gone straight through the hole in the plywood.

  “I saw,” Jo yelled back. “Way to go!”

  “You didn’t answer me,” Cash said.

  “Ignoring you was my answer,” Jo said.

  “Haven’t you figured out yet,” he asked, “that ignoring me just isn’t working?”

  “What will?” she countered, turning around to look at him.

  His mouth curved. “Kiss me.”

  Her stomach did a slow dip, but she managed to keep sarcasm in her tone as she answered, “In your dreams.”

  “Every night, Josefina,” he whispered, his gaze locked with hers. “Every night.”

  Four

  When her cell phone rang, Jo grabbed for it gratefully. Stepping away from Cash, she flipped it open, checked who the caller was, and then said, “What is it, Mike?”

  “Jack okay?”

  She shifted a glance at the boy, who was throwing another pitch at the target Cash had provided. Burned her butt to have to admit even to herself that Cash had done a good thing for her brother. But true was true.

  “Yeah,” she said, through gritted teeth. “He’s fine.”

  “Good. One problem down, one to go.”

  “Huh?”

  But her sister was already talking again. “I figured out why Papa suddenly agreed to go on that cruise with Grace.”

  A yawning hole opened up in the pit of Jo’s stomach. She closed her eyes against that sinking sensation as she said, “That sounds ominous.”

  “Oh yeah.” Mike paused and snapped at someone else, “I’m getting to it. Jesus, Sam, why don’t you go puke some more and let me handle this? Jo? You still there?”

  She gritted her teeth. “And waiting.”

  “You’re not gonna believe this.”

  Jo’s gaze shifted from her little brother, playing in a splash of sunshine, to the dark-eyed man standing way too close to her. “Just spit it out, will you?”

  “Guess who just called like five minutes ago?” Mike asked, then didn’t wait for her to answer. “Nana.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” Mike said, then spoke to Sam again. “If you give me five lousy minutes, I will tell her. God, how does Weasel Dog live with you, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be the calm one?”

  Her sisters’ arguing did nothing to close that gaping chasm in the pit of her stomach. In fact, she was pretty sure sharks were now swimming down there. She could almost hear that foreboding music from Jaws.

  Da-dum. Da-dum. Dum-dum-dum-dum . . .

  Jo’s nerves jittered and she sucked in a deep breath. She shifted her gaze from Cash to something less dangerous. Less distracting. She stared blindly at a wall of trees and absently watched as a slight breeze ruffled the new leaves, brushing them against each other in a quiet little dance.

  It should have been relaxing.

  It wasn’t.

  “Will you talk to me, not Sam?” she muttered darkly, trying to keep her voice down, despite the sudden, almost overpowering urge to shriek.

  “Fine, fine,” Mike snapped. “I get chewed on by both of you. That’s fair.”

  “Mike,” Jo grumbled, “if you make me hunt you down like a dog I’m going to—”

  “Nana’s already on her way here.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Honest to God, does nobody listen in this family?” She huffed out an impatient breath and said, “No, I’m not giving you the phone, this is my phone, if you want to talk to her, call Jo on your own damn—”

  “Jo?”

  “Sam,” she muttered, sighing. “Sanity. Thank God. What’s going on?”

  “Just what Mike said—hold on—”

  In the background, Mike was shouting and Sam was telling her to be quiet and not get upset, that it wasn’t good for the babies.

  Jo counted to ten.

  Then twenty.

  Before she hit thirty, Sam was back on the line again.

  “What the hell is going on over there?” Jo demanded.

  “Mike tried
to take the phone back, so I had to get up and move out of her reach. No way can she lever herself off the couch without Lucas to pull her up.”

  “Oh,” Mike shouted, “that’s really nice.”

  Jo felt a headache blossom between her eyes. And she also felt Cash’s gaze pinned on her. Strangling the impulse to shout and throw the cell phone through the target he’d made for Jack, she finally asked, “Will one of you guys tell me about Nana?”

  “She just called. Apparently,” Sam was saying, “Nana talked to Papa three weeks ago. Told him she was coming for a visit. She wants to see her newest great-grandchildren born.”

  “And make Papa’s life miserable,” Jo added.

  “Always a plus from her point of view,” Sam conceded.

  “Trouble?” Cash asked.

  Her head snapped up and her gaze locked with his. Oh yeah. Trouble. Capital T kind of trouble. But nothing anyone outside the family would understand. Or know about. She shook her head and forced a smile.

  Turning her back on him, she whispered, “When’s she arriving?”

  “That’s the thing,” Sam said. “Tomorrow morning. She said, and I quote, ‘Tell Josefina I will make calzones for supper.’ Unquote.”

  “Oh man . . .”

  “Exactly. Lucas already volunteered to pick her up at the airport and—”

  “Is he crazy?” Jo asked as little black dots danced in her suddenly swimming vision. “Did Mike finally make that poor man suicidal?”

  “He’s never met Nana.”

  “Good point.”

  “She didn’t say how long she’s staying, but my guess is she’s here for a looooonnnngggg visit.”

  “Oh crap.”

  “Pretty much covers the situation,” Sam said, then added, “She said ‘Oh crap,’ Mike. Happy now?”

  “He knew about this three weeks ago,” Jo said, furious to realize that Papa hadn’t said a word about it to anyone. He hadn’t told her. And he’d known that his mother-in-law was on her way to town.

  “Yep. Makes it easy to understand how Grace talked him into that cruise, doesn’t it?”

  Yeah, it really did. No wonder the man who’d never been interested in long vacations had run like a rabbit for the Greek islands.

  Nana Coletti had never been a big fan of Henry Marconi’s. She’d always been convinced that her daughter Sylvia could have done much better in the husband market. And, since finding out about little Jack Marconi, and how Papa had been off with another woman while his wife lay dying . . . well . . .

  Jo had to admit, she really couldn’t blame her father at all for wanting to get out of the country before Nana hit town. That little reunion, when it finally did happen, wouldn’t be pretty.

  But oh man. “Wish Grace could take me on a cruise right about now,” Jo muttered.

  Not that she and her sisters didn’t love Nana. They did. When they were kids, summer visits to Nana’s house in Omaha were always special. They’d camp out in the backyard and catch fireflies at dusk. Nana always had ice cream in the freezer and hot dogs on the barbecue.

  But having your grandmother running your life when you were ten was a lot easier than having the same thing happen when you’re thirty.

  “I hear that,” Sam said, then muffled a groan.

  “What’s wrong?” Jo asked her.

  “Gotta go throw up. Talk to Mike.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake—”

  “Hi,” Mike said, “me again!”

  “Good-bye, Mike,” Jo snapped and hung up while her youngest sister was still talking about how no one ever listened to her.

  Stuffing her phone back into her pocket, she took a deep breath and pushed thoughts of Nana to the back of her mind. Of course, her grandmother wouldn’t stay there, but for now, she’d give it a shot. Bracing herself, she turned around and faced Cash. He was still watching her, a question that wouldn’t be answered shining in his dark eyes.

  “Everything all right?” he finally asked.

  “Oh, terrific.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  She tipped her head to one side and studied him. “Why would you want to?”

  “I’m a nice guy?”

  Jo laughed shortly.

  Cash grinned and Jo’s stomach did a fast little two-step. Oh boy.

  “Okay, so maybe I just want to help so you’ll be indebted to me.”

  Her eyebrows shot straight up. “That’s honest, anyway.”

  “No it’s not,” he said softly, taking a step toward her. “But it’s what you were thinking.”

  “Ooh. You read minds, too.” “I’m a man of many talents,” he said, one corner of his mouth quirking.

  “So I’ve heard.” She blew out a breath. “Look, Cash,” she started and then paused, searching for the right words, the right—oh, the hell with it. “I appreciate the offer. Seriously. But it’s a family thing and, really, there’s nothing you can do.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded and suddenly admitted, at least to herself, that she wished there were something he could do. Was she weakening toward him? Oh, good God. She was. Damn, he really was good.

  She took a step back and said what had to be said so she could leave. “Look, I, uh . . . thanks. For helping Jack out—”

  “Bet that hurt,” he commented wryly.

  She shrugged and smiled. “Not as much as I thought it would.”

  “Progress,” he said, smiling back at her.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong? What your sister said that made you go pale?”

  “You know?” she said, backing up to keep that distance between them. She needed it now more than ever, since there was a part of her that really wanted to step right up and let him hold her. She could use a little comforting right at the moment. But that path was a bit too dangerous. “I really don’t think so.”

  Then she turned to look at the boy, still happily pitching baseballs through a target. “Jack! We gotta go! Get your bike and put it in the truck.”

  While Jack, shoulders slumped, dragged his feet across the lawn as if they were blocks of concrete, Jo stalked to the truck and flung open the driver’s-side door. Didn’t even surprise her when Cash followed her.

  He grabbed hold of the door’s edge when she would have slammed it shut and leaned in toward her.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Jo pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and tucked it back behind her ear. “What?”

  “At the job site. The Santiagos’ new deck?”

  “Oh.” Damn it. She’d forgotten about that. Forgotten about having to hire Cash because neither of her sisters was up to the work at the moment. When did her life become an amusement park ride? “Right.” She tugged at the car door.

  He let it go and it slammed shut with a metallic clang that echoed over and over again inside her head.

  “Yeah,” he said, stepping back from the truck, his dark eyes damn near sizzling as they fixed on her. “I’m looking forward to it, too.”

  Her stomach jumped, her blood pumped, and she told herself to back off the caffeine for a while. No way was Cash Hunter getting to her. Oh please, God, he wasn’t getting to her.

  Jack clambered into the truck and slammed his own door before leaning down to peek out at Cash. “Thanks a lot, Cash.”

  “Anytime, Jack,” he said, then shifted his dark, damn near smoldering gaze to Jo. “See you, Josefina,” he said in a low voice designed to rattle a woman’s defenses.

  “Oh, for God’s sake . . .”

  She threw the truck into reverse, and as soon as Jack had buckled himself in, Jo stepped on the gas and peeled out, spinning dirt into the air and never once looking back at the man who watched her go.

  His smile slowly fading, Cash walked back to his workshop, trying unsuccessfully to put Jo Marconi out of his mind. But try as he might, she just wouldn’t go.

  He knew damn well that the safest thing for him to do was to stay away from her. And yet, she pu
lled at him. She was a mixture of temper and gentleness that appealed to him on too many levels.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe he was attracted to her because she didn’t coo and flirt with him. Maybe a part of him was intrigued by the fact that she didn’t seem to want him.

  But it was more than just that.

  Something about Josefina resonated with him in a way that he’d never experienced before. And while a part of him wanted to enjoy it, wanted to bury his hands in her thick hair and himself in her damp heat, he knew damn well that if he ever did get her into his bed, he’d lose her.

  He kicked at a rock on the road and sent it skittering into the high grass and wildflowers. Stopping dead, he lifted his head and stared up at the sky, already streaked with color as the sun slowly slid out of view. Clouds drifted, the wind kicked up, and the scent of the nearby lake filled him.

  He should be happy. This house was everything he’d once dreamed of. All he’d wanted as a kid was somewhere to belong. Now he had it and it wasn’t enough.

  He was a part of Chandler and yet separate. Still on the outside looking in, and there was no way past the invisible barriers that shielded him from the rest of the world.

  Of course, he’d erected those barriers himself so he had no one but himself to blame.

  “Small consolation,” he muttered. Reaching up, he pushed both hands through his hair, scraping his fingertips along his scalp, then let his arms drop as he headed for the workshop again. He’d lose himself in work. It was the one refuge he could still count on.

  STEVE SMITH FOR STATE SENATE.

  Jo winced as she looked at the poster tacked up outside Jackson Wyatt’s law office. She studied the face of the man in the picture and fought down the chill snaking along her spine. Her mouth went dry and her palms went damp as her gaze locked on Steve’s image.

  It was as if he were looking right into her soul.

  Smirking at her.

  God, ten years and it was just like yesterday. She could almost smell the stale odor of beer—hear the music pumping through the frat house—feel the wood floor beneath her back—

  “Jo?”

  She heard Jack’s voice as if it were floating up from the bottom of a well. Today drifted into a thick mist as yesterday came sharper, clearer.