“Marlys, of course I didn’t know what would happen.” This wasn’t the first time she’d defended herself. But Marlys, the press, and many in her social circle had continued to look on her with suspicion.
“It hasn’t helped that you don’t talk to your old friends. Aunt Helen said you won’t return her calls.”
“Aunt Helen” was Helen Novack, a contemporary of Wayne’s, someone he’d known since childhood, and who’d never warmed up to Juliet. So Marlys was right, she had been dodging Helen’s calls and ignoring others. The “old friends” had been Wayne’s old friends and not hers. Without him, would they have anything to talk about? And if they got together, wouldn’t the “without him” be just that much more painful?
But the grief counselor had told her she’d have to push herself to be sociable. And while she might not yet be ready for Helen and that circle, she could look at the dinner tomorrow night as practice.
The sense of purpose lifted her mood a little. A dinner party. Tomorrow night. She turned toward her cookbooks.
Marlys’s box sat in the way. She slanted the brunette a look. “What is this?”
“Showed up at home and addressed to you,” Marlys said. “From the publishing house.”
“The books.” Juliet’s mood bobbed higher. “It must be the books.”
Ignoring Marlys’s blasé shrug, Juliet armed herself with a knife and sliced through the packing tape, anticipation making her breath come faster. Beneath the flaps and a wad of crumpled paper were two stacks of hardback books, their covers gleaming. General Matters: My Military Life & More, by General Wayne L. Weston. Juliet stared. Here it was, Wayne’s dream.
Here it was, Juliet’s hope. Her hope that whatever tarnish their marriage had brought to his reputation would be polished away by his life story in his very own words.
Despite her casual attitude, Marlys crowded in for a look. It was she who reached in to take hold of the top copy to survey the front cover with eager eyes. It was a dark silhouette of a man, the red, white, and blue of the American flag rippling behind him.
Slowly, Juliet reached inside to retrieve her own book. Her palm slid across the sleek front, and then she turned it over. Wayne.
It was a wonderful photo of him, black-and-white, which played up his silver hair and dark, watchful eyes to their best advantage. With her forefinger, she traced the edges of his military brush cut and then let it fall to find the curve of his black eyebrows and then the line of his firm lips.
Oh, Wayne.
Was it really natural? she wondered to herself. Was it really natural or forgivable, that though her gaze drank in her beloved’s face, the rest of her was still humming in reaction to the warm, sexy resilience of another man and the pulse-jittering thrill of his kiss?
Noah gave Marlys plenty of time to clear the premises before heading back across the pool. The general’s daughter didn’t take rejection well, even though he’d been as tactful as he could in rebuffing the feelers she’d sent out when they’d first met.
She was beautiful in a petite, devilish sort of way, but Noah hadn’t been moved by either her lures or her ensuing vitriol when he’d turned his back on her. Marlys was a powder keg and he was careful to keep any sparks away from her.
Even the sparks that had been generated by Juliet’s body against his. By his mouth to hers.
The memory caused his pace to quicken as he skirted the pool. That kiss wasn’t something he could ignore. He was going to confront Juliet . . . and then follow her lead. Through the kitchen windows, he could see her figure, back turned toward him, and his hands curled inside his pockets.
God knows, it was going to be hard to let her direct their what-came-next discussion. He’d gone back to the guesthouse with her high-class scent on his hands and the taste of her hot mouth in his. Hell, she’d sucked on his tongue! The memory of that was enough to have him going hard again as his libido geared up for a second round.
But blowing out a breath, he forced himself to slow his stride and rein in his sex drive. Yeah, he was a man trained for action, but Juliet deserved more from him than his thuggish sexual impulses. She’d seemed to enjoy herself—hell, he thought all over again, she’d sucked on his tongue!—but she was still the officer’s wife, the officer’s widow, and he was still the enlisted guy she’d hired to live across the pool.
He shouldn’t presume that anything more would come of this—but he couldn’t ignore it either. He had to find out what she was thinking about their kiss.
So he rapped on the French door, then opened it, pausing at the threshold to take in the sight of the sleek fall of fine hair draped against her elegant back. It was a straight swathe the color of the caramel used to cover autumn apples. Today she was in a matching caramel shirt and plain jeans.
“Juliet?” he said softly, even as his inner gangster itched to take what he wanted. His hands would close over her shoulders and spin her to face him so that he could plunder her mouth all over again. From there he’d touch, he’d kiss, he’d taste everything. He could see it all in his head, but he didn’t stir a muscle to make it happen.
His body tensed as she remained frozen in place. His voice roughened. “Juliet?”
She didn’t turn, just talked, and in a decidedly—deceptively?—cheerful tone. “I heard from Cassandra. She and Nikki can make dinner tomorrow night. Nikki’s bringing along her fiancé, Jay, and Cassandra asked if she could tell Gabe—that’s the wallpaper guy—that I wanted him to join us as well. That way she can ensure he eats. Apparently she sees herself as his nutrition guru.”
“Ah.” He didn’t know what else his response should be.
“I thought maybe you’d like to come as well.”
As Juliet’s date? “Sure.” Confidence surging, he took a step toward her—
“It will even out the numbers.”
—and then halted his forward movement. Shit, there he was again, unsure of himself, and hating every moment of the uncharacteristic hesitance.
So stymied about his next move, he was still standing halfway between the door and Juliet when she at last turned to face him. The jewel-brightness of her blue and green eyes hit him like a one-two punch in the gut. His palm over his heart, he inhaled a hard breath, and then realized his pose mimicked hers. Except her hand was used to hold an open book against her body. General Matters by General Wayne L. Weston.
Noah’s gaze flicked to the cardboard box behind her. So that was what had brought Marlys to Malibu. Irritating woman. Thanks to her, now he couldn’t bring up what had happened in the kitchen, could he?
“So it’s here,” he said. “Those are your copies?”
She ignored the question. “He wrote about me.” Her voice wobbled a little. “He said he would, but I was never sure.”
Noah’s eyebrows rose. The general had asked her not to read the book in manuscript form, and obviously she’d kept her promise.
“Wayne wrote about the day we met,” Juliet continued, “the day we re-met, I should say.”
“Page three hundred and forty-three.” By the time the galley form of the manuscript had arrived—the last step before publication—it had been Noah who had checked through each sheet because the general didn’t have the energy. “ ‘She was everything fresh and fine this jaded soldier had forgotten about the world.’ ”
Juliet gave a little shake of her head. “I can’t believe he wrote something so . . . so . . .”
“Sappy?” Noah tempered the word with a little smile. “When it came to you, there wasn’t much the general wouldn’t do.” Or ask of Noah, either.
“It was at my parents’ funeral. He was a friend of my father’s. I hadn’t seen him since I was a kid, but there he was again.”
Noah nodded. “He remembered you as that child, but when he saw you at the funeral service . . .”
“I was twenty-two, yet he thought he needed to take care of me.” She wore a half-sad smile.
“He fell in love with you,” Noah corrected.
“And I’d daydreamed about a handsome prince since childhood. In dress uniform, he was about as close to one as a modern American man could get.”
Great. On the one hand there was common-as-dirt Noah, and on the other was a highly decorated, wife-adoring ghost. Why the hell for even two seconds he’d let his imagination run to images of refined Juliet going sweaty skin to sweaty skin with him, he didn’t know. For a smart guy, he sure could be as dumb as the next box of rocks.
“What did you think the first time you met me?” she suddenly asked.
His surprise made him step back. “Huh?”
“I don’t remember it. Do you?”
Christ, was the question a test? It felt like a test, and hadn’t he told her he was such a good taker of them? Now he felt tongue-tied and buffalo-footed, while the man she’d married had written: She was everything fresh and fine this jaded soldier had forgotten about the world.
If Noah wanted his tongue in her mouth again—he did—and if he wanted her scent on his hands, on his chest, and every other inch of skin he could manage—he did—then his answer was crucial. Still, his mind was as thick as a custard milkshake and refused to stir.
It was the truth or else risk looking like he suffered from some sort of brain damage. “If I recall correctly, we met on the front porch as you tore out of the house screaming at the top of your lungs while chasing after Marlys’s dog with a plastic bag full of dog shit.”
As if all the air leaked out of her, she sagged back against the butcher-block table. “Oh, my God. What must you have thought?”
If he hadn’t been there to interview for a job that seemed perfect for his circumstances, he probably would have laughed his ass off. “I thought I better not have an accident on the carpet in the master bedroom.”
“ ‘Accident,’ ” Juliet scoffed. “That dog takes his attitude cue from his owner.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And just in case you think I’m mean—I happen to love dogs.”
Noah had had more than one run-in with that unruly canine himself. “I know you’re not mean, Juliet. You don’t have a mean bone in your body.”
Body. See, he shouldn’t have said that word, because it put her body in his mind, and he was pretty sure he was wirelessly broadcasting those fantasies he’d been suppressing for longer than he cared to remember. Those fantasies that had come roaring to life along with his hard-on the instant he’d touched his tongue to her bottom lip and felt her mouth opening for him.
Here came a few now . . . Juliet, dressed only in a swim-suit, on that armless chaise lounge beside the pool, her long legs parting to wrap around his hips as he came down over her.
Juliet, wearing those jeans she had on now and nothing else, walking toward where he was sitting on the edge of a bed, the hard nipples of her pale breasts at the perfect height for his mouth.
Juliet, in a hot shower, her naked body obscured by the wavy glass door, then only covered by steam as he opened it to step inside.
In the fantasy, her eyes widened. In the now, they widened, too, and Noah curled his fingers into fists again, trying to keep himself in check. Yeah. He was definitely broadcasting, and it was hard to determine what she thought of the waves he was sending out because though there was a pink flush riding the edge of her cheekbones, she was clutching that book in front of her like a shield.
“Maybe . . .” She cleared her throat. “Maybe that’s just what I need.”
“What?” His voice cracked like an adolescent’s. He cleared his throat, too. Damn. Was she saying that she needed a little flesh-on-flesh time? “What is it you need?”
She blinked at him. “A dog.” The “What did you think I meant?” went unspoken, but it was there all the same.
Kee-rist. She was talking about a dog, which meant the person who needed to get something was him. He needed a life. New fantasies. A woman in his bed. Juliet was right, it had been a monastery around his place for too, too long.
“I’ve gotta go,” he said, before he made a further fool of himself. He was at the door when her voice caught him.
“Noah. Are you all right?”
He paused, wrapping his hand around the doorjamb. His gaze took in the pool, and didn’t sweep around to her, because he didn’t want to tempt himself again. The woman had just received copies of her dead darling’s autobiography—She was everything fresh and fine this jaded soldier had forgotten about the world—and now wasn’t the time for another man to be coming on to her. Still, he had to find out what was going through her mind.
“That should be my question,” he said. “I took something that wasn’t exactly offered. Are you okay about that?”
“I’m okay.”
He hesitated still. Were they talking about the same thing? Because putting himself in her place, he could see that she might be feeling bad, guilty or something, and he hated the idea.
“Look, I have to ask. About what happened, about our, uh, hug. I hope you don’t feel, didn’t feel . . .” He still couldn’t make himself turn around and face her. But he heard her just fine anyway.
“Hmm,” she said. Her voice was threaded with gentle amusement. “You’re sure you want to know the truth?”
“Sure, I’m sure,” he answered, because he suspected he might need to soothe her spirits.
She let a second go by and then she slayed him. “The truth is, Noah, what I felt when I kissed you was horny.”
Five
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
—MOTHER TERESA
The truth is, Noah, what I felt when I kissed you was horny.
Juliet had said those words, trying to make light of that impromptu embrace in the kitchen. She hadn’t wanted Noah to worry that she’d taken it too seriously. But it wasn’t possible for her to entirely understand how he’d taken it because after her half-laughing remark, he’d made tracks for the guesthouse across the pool.
She’d even wondered if he might not make it back to her place for dinner the following night, but he did, entering through her open back door just as she heard commotion coming from the direction of the front one.
There, she pulled on the doorknob in time to see a man stride around the curve of her walkway, carrying a laughing woman. It was Nikki, and, presumably, her fiancé. Her arms were thrown around his neck, and to go along with his blond good looks the guy wore a grin that declared all was right with his world.
He stopped short when he caught sight of Juliet. His low whistle pierced the air. “I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.”
“Well.” Made nervous by his intense regard, Juliet rubbed her palms along the skirt of her new, knee-length dress. It was a silky, paisley mix of turquoise, pink, and black, with three-quarter sleeves, a V-neck, and a sash that tied around the empire waistline. Was it too matronly? Too young?
“Come on in.” From behind her, Noah’s deep voice gave the welcome she’d been too preoccupied to utter. His hand landed on her shoulder and gave it a supportive squeeze.
It helped her find her voice. “Yes. Welcome,” Juliet said, stepping aside to let the man—still carrying his fiancée—inside. “Did something happen, Nikki? Are you hurt?”
The woman kicked her legs, bared by a little skirt and ending in a pair of strappy sandals. “Jay likes me in high heels, but he doesn’t like me walking in them because I had recent knee surgery. So we’ve negotiated. I wear, he walks.”
He set her gently on her feet. “Oh, yeah, right, as if you don’t like your girly shoes just for yourself.”
“I like my girly shoes because of what you’ll do to get me in them—and then back out again,” she retorted, but the hand that moved up to adjust the collar of his shirt was gentle. She patted his cheek with her palm. “Jay Buchanan, meet my sister, Juliet Weston.”
Her sister. She was Nikki’s sister.
Biologically, yes, they were connected. But she was still cautious about extending that into a relationship. Though what if it could fill these e
mpty, lonely places she’d woken up to find were in her life?
The arrival of an arguing Gabe and Cassandra distracted her from her thoughts. “If you weren’t such a flake, you wouldn’t have forgotten to feed those wild cats of yours before we left,” the dark-haired man said, shaking his head. “Then we wouldn’t have had to backtrack, which caused us to be late.”
“The cats aren’t wild,” Cassandra replied. Looking like an earth goddess in a leaf green, off-the-shoulder sweater she’d surely knitted herself, she smiled a greeting at the other two couples.
Gabe barely appeared to register her protest. “And why I had to be the one to pour the food into their bowls and then endure their annoying ankle-winding—”
“Because they miss you, Gabe. They like your attention and you haven’t been by in a couple days.”
He narrowed his dark eyes at her. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Froot Loop.”
“And yet you let me do it anyway,” she said softly. Then she took him by the shoulders and turned him to face the rest of the party. “Meet the nice people, Gabe. You forgot to say hello when they came into the shop the other day. This is Noah Smith. And this, this is the last of the three sisters. Juliet Weston.”
After shaking Noah’s hand, he turned to Juliet. When he smiled, he went from good-looking to good-God good-looking. “Three witches, you mean,” he corrected, taking her hand in his. “Because it must be some spell that allows all three of you to be so alike . . . and so damn attractive.”
Cassandra’s eyebrows headed for her hairline. “Gabe? Compliments? And smoothly done at that. I’m shocked.”
Me, too, Juliet thought. So alike? Yes, she and Nikki had the same dual eye color, but did she and her—okay, use the word—sisters, really have anything more in common?
Again, it was Noah who stepped in to move the evening along. He put his hand on her forearm and drew her away from Gabe. “Drinks, everyone? What can I get for people?”
Unravel Me Page 6
