by Candis Terry
Her mother hooted a laugh. “You kids really do have a dry sense of humor in common. But you’ve got a lot more teeth to your edge. Maybe I should have visited you first.”
“Why change now? Dean and Kate were always your priority.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Look, Mom. If you’re going to come all the way back from the dead, we might as well talk straight about things, don’t you think?” Kelly felt that old spark of resentment sneak up on her. She thought she’d left those days behind when she’d grown up and moved away. Apparently the old issues were new again. And the attorney inside of her, the one who loved a good cross-examination, raised her head.
“I treated all you kids the same,” her mother said defensively.
“Wow.” Kelly kept her foot steady on the gas. “Seriously? How’s that river of denial working for you?”
Silence engulfed the interior of the car, and the glow dimmed until it became barely visible.
“Is that the way you really feel? That I ignored you? That I put Kate and Dean first?”
Kelly gripped the wheel. What was wrong with her? The woman was dead. Couldn’t she just play along with whatever it was and let her mother rest in peace? She inhaled a sharp breath of air. “Sorry. Just having a bad day.”
“You’re an officer of the court, daughter. Sworn to tell the truth. And I hear what you’re saying.” Her mother’s tone turned melancholy. “Obviously a lot of damage has been done. But I promise to fix that. If you’ll just trust me.”
Kelly turned, but the backseat was cold and empty. And her mother was gone.
CHAPTER NINE
Guilt, as heavy as the day her mother died, hung over Kelly like a soggy wool coat. She should have kept her big yap shut. Her mother had been distant enough while she was alive. No need to totally alienate her when she was dead.
Kelly wanted to call her back from wherever she had disappeared to, but how did one go about summoning the deceased? Angry with herself, she put the car into drive and headed toward the address on Railroad Avenue Kate had scribbled down on a pink sticky note.
The tree-lined street ran parallel to the train tracks, thus the name. Aside from being in a rather noisy location, the homes on the street appeared cozy and friendly. Front porches had swings or wicker chairs, and walkways were lined with petunias in vibrant summer colors. Although it held possibilities, one house on the street remained bare of a flower border and welcoming porch. Only one had a big black bad-boy truck in the driveway and a Harley Davidson parked on a lawn that barely clung to the color green.
Kelly parked the Buick at the curb and wasn’t surprised to hear Steven Tyler wailing about love in an elevator through the open windows of the small cottage-like house. Before she lost her courage, she grabbed James’s jacket off the seat and opened the car door. She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and started up the walkway, kicking aside a football that looked faded from being out in the sun too long. She stepped up onto the doorstep, raised her fist to knock on the wooden screen door, and stopped cold at the sound of a male voice.
“Don’t lick me there.” The man’s voice came out in a low groan, and Kelly dropped her raised knuckles back down to her side.
“Stop it.” A long pause and then a deep chuckle. “Okay. Okay. As long as I can’t keep you off me, have at it.”
Looked like James had company. Of the female sort.
Kelly stepped back. He may have cheated death and he may be loyal to his friends, but when it came to women she should have known he’d be the same guy he’d been in high school. After all, he’d shown up at her brother’s barbecue with bubble butt in tow, hadn’t he? As far back as Kelly could remember, James had never been without a girl hanging all over him and at least two more waiting in the wings. Well, she wasn’t the type to get in line.
Time to face the truth. Other than taking advantage of her inebriated state at Kate’s wedding and a pretty nice date in the forest, he’d not shown any real sign of interest in her. Well, maybe he did seem to touch her a lot. And some of those long gazes with those deep-brown eyes did make it seem like he was intrigued by her. And he’d made that fifty-dollar bet with her about getting her into his bed again. But when he’d taken her on the date, he didn’t even try to kiss her.
Talk about mixed signals.
Decision made, she dropped his jacket to a plastic patio chair near the door then turned on her heel to get the heck out of there before anyone saw her. Her tennis shoe squeaked against the wood porch, and in a flash the maniacal yapping of dogs hit the screen door with the force of a mini tornado. She jumped back, fearing the fur would fly right through the screen and sink razor teeth into her ankles.
“Knock it off, you two.” The male voice growled from within the room, and Aerosmith abruptly ceased going down in the elevator.
Kelly turned to find two pint-sized fur balls jumping at the screen as though they were Dobermans and she was casing the place. Then the male voice from within the house appeared. Not James, but a younger version of the same. Same sandy-blond hair, just longer. Tall, lean, muscular, and cocky. Had to be related. Son maybe?
“Who are you?” he asked, scooping the two Yorkies up into his arms and studying her through deep-brown eyes.
“Who are you?” she fired back.
“Alex.”
Well that told her plenty.
“You here for James?” He opened the screen door and held it, obviously expecting her to walk in. He gave her tank top and cutoffs a leisurely once-over. Obviously he’d been tutored by the expert in the house.
“I . . . uh . . .” She battled with Sister Serious all of two seconds. “Sure.” She grabbed James’s jacket off the chair and strode into the house to the simultaneous growls of the two pipsqueak pups in Alex’s arms. Though the dogs looked identical, one wore a pink bandana around its neck, and the other wore yellow. At the moment, Kelly couldn’t tell whether they were smiling or snarling. She pulled her gaze away from the dogs and took a quick look around the living room.
Someone had attempted to make the house a home with nice furniture and a few haphazardly placed pieces of artwork. But there was another element that screamed male domination. The walls were white. A flat-screen TV with a video game in stop-action took up half the wall. Surround-sound speakers were placed high in all four corners. And the leather sofa was in the perfect location to receive the full-throttle effect of it all.
Through a pass-through Kelly could see into the kitchen, where a few dishes were stacked lopsided in the sink. On the counter, pizza boxes had the same leaning-tower effect.
Alex flopped down onto the couch and let the dogs go. Both headed straight for her ankles. She backed up.
“They won’t bite,” Alex assured her while he grabbed the game controls, cranked up the volume, and dove into some kind of war game.
Kelly looked down. She’d never been afraid of dogs. Then again, she’d never been around little dogs, and these two looked like ankle-biting repeat offenders. The one with the pink bandana stood on its hind legs and did a little wave thing with its front paws, while the one with the yellow bandana sniffed her feet like Sherlock Hound. Kelly gave a fleeting look to the screen door and wondered how many steps it would take to make an escape. She shouldn’t have come here. Obviously James wasn’t around, and Alex had no interest in entertaining her. Or protecting her from the tiny-teeth team.
Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall. “Turn that shi— Oh. Hey.”
Kelly turned toward the new voice.
Whoa. Apparently James was home, as he now stood in the living room, with a bath towel wrapped loosely around his lean hips. But the towel wasn’t what Kelly noticed. Nope, she went right for the naked part. The perfectly etched tribal tattoo banding his right bicep. The hard muscles rippling down his stomach. Three droplets of water glistened on the tight, tanned skin of his broad chest and took a slow slide downward to the even more interesting parts hidden beneath that fluffy blue towel.
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br /> When she realized she was staring, she jerked her gaze upward and met his perceptive brown eyes. His firm sexy lips tilted with appreciation.
She wanted him.
He knew it.
Well, heck. There went all her bargaining power.
“Kelly.” He forked the fingers of one large hand through his wet hair, while the other hand clutched the tucked-in section of the towel. “This is a surprise.”
“I . . . brought back your jacket.” Her eyes took another stroll down his body. “I thought you might need it.”
He grinned and stepped forward. “In July?”
God, she was so busted. “Doesn’t matter. Here.” She thrust the coat at his chest and turned to get out of there. He grabbed her hand.
“No need to run off.”
She glanced over at Alex. “Who is that?”
“My little brother.”
Ah. Brother. Not son.
Clutching her hand, James called out, “Alex, don’t you have some homework to do?”
“Summer vacation, dude.”
“Then maybe somewhere to go?”
“Nope,” Alex replied without even a glance toward his big brother.
“Yes. You do.”
“He doesn’t have to leave on my account,” Kelly said.
Alex clicked the TV remote, tossed it on the sofa, and stood. The huge frown over his brown eyes verified he was an unhappy camper. “Can I at least take the bike?”
“When hell freezes over.”
“That sucks.” The teen stormed out the door, and the screen slammed behind him, which sent yellow-bandana dog and pink-bandana dog into a fit of scrambling feet and ear-piercing yips.
“Come on, girls. Be nice. We have a guest.” Both dogs immediately quieted, trotted to James, and looked up at him with pure doggie adoration in their big eyes.
“Are they yours?” Kelly asked, doubtful that a man like James Harley would own anything less than a Rottweiler, German shepherd, or at least a Lab.
“Yeah. You don’t remember them?”
Kelly looked down at the two pink tongues dangling between tiny sharp teeth. “Should I?”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve been here.”
“It’s not?” Kelly looked around and found nothing familiar about the place. “It has to be. I’m sure I’d remember.”
“It was dark. We were . . . busy.” Then James looked around, too, and shrugged those broad shoulders. “Sorry about the mess. I keep trying to teach Alex to pick up after himself, but he thinks we should live like bachelors.”
We? Dear God, please tell her his little brother hadn’t been in the next room while she and James were . . . “I wasn’t judging.”
“Sure you were.” He gave a deep laugh. “Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll go get dressed.”
“That’s not necessary.” She began to back toward the door. “I just wanted to return your jacket.”
“If that were true you could have dropped it by the station.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that.
He caught her hand and tugged her close enough to inhale the fresh, clean scent of his man soap and shampoo. Every ounce of estrogen in her body went on I-want-I-want-I-want alert.
“You afraid?” he asked in a low, confident tone.
“Of?”
His gaze caressed her face and lingered on her mouth. “Me.”
Why would she be afraid? Just because he was three-quarters naked and she hadn’t had sex since December? “No.”
“Then relax.” The heat from his body seeped into her skin as he leaned in and took a deep breath. “Mmmm. You smell great.”
“I’ve been at the bakery.”
“Then you smell good enough to eat.”
She ducked away, and he laughed again. “I knew it. You are afraid.”
Before she could voice a protest, he tossed the jacket on the back of the sofa. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
He turned, and that’s when she noticed the amazing tattoo that started at the base of his neck, spread across his shoulder blades like wings, then intertwined down the middle to the small of his back. The tribal design was simple and had the same elements as the band around his bicep. The tattoo had been designed to disguise a thin scar that dissected an otherwise perfectly muscular back.
Before James, she’d never been with a man who had tattoos. She’d always identified those kinds of men as dangerous. She might be thirty-two years old, but her experience on the romantic side of life had been semi-limited. She’d gone from home to a college dorm to an apartment in Chicago. Along the way she’d missed a few steps most women had taken into maturity. Instead of joining her college roommate at the local pub, she’d stay in her room to study. Once she graduated and moved into a place of her own, she’d gotten a job and had spent all her extra time trying to prove herself to those who’d taken a chance on her. Most of her romantic adventures had been limited to men who didn’t mind taking her to a nice dinner but were never there in the morning when she woke up.
She’d spent two-thirds of her life trying to prove herself. To whom? Her mother? The state attorney who hesitated every time he spoke her name as if he couldn’t remember? For what? A long string of lonely nights?
James was right. She really did need to find her hidden talent. Maybe she’d discover something really fun. And a bit risqué.
She exhaled a heavy sigh and glanced down at the dogs still looking up at her. “Mind if I sit down?” she asked them, wondering why she even contemplated staying. Pink-bandana dog sneezed, and Kelly took that as a “Go ahead and sit, but don’t be surprised if we sneak a bite out of your leg.”
She pushed aside a pillow that was meant to be decorative but looked as though it had been used as a TV tray. No sooner had she sat down than pink-bandana dog jumped up in her lap and began to lick her chin. “Oh.” Kelly gave a startled laugh. “Okay then.”
Yellow-bandana dog remained at her feet, glaring up at her.
“Princess. Get down.”
Kelly looked up when James reentered the room. He’d dressed. Sort of. Worn jeans with a torn knee and nearly threadbare at the crotch. No shirt. No shoes. She didn’t mind.
“Princess?”
He pointed to yellow-bandana dog on the floor. “And Poppy.”
“You have dogs named Princess and Poppy?”
The dark slash of his brows lifted. “Obviously the name selections did not come from me.”
“What happened? Old girlfriend sneak away in the middle of the night and leave them in your custody?”
“Nope.” He grabbed an empty pizza box off the coffee table and tossed it through the pass-through into the kitchen. “Mother with a stroke who couldn’t care for them anymore.”
“Oh god.” She clutched her hand to her chest. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.” One very broad shoulder, now clad in a black T-shirt, lifted in a shrug. “It’s just the way it is.”
“Did you inherit Alex, too?”
“Yeah. And believe me, the dogs are much easier.”
“He does seem a bit surly.”
“He’s seventeen and pissed at the world. Basically, he’s me at that age.” His large hand came up and he pointed at her. “You want something to drink?”
“No. Thank you. I really did just come by to return your jacket.”
“I know. Doesn’t mean you can’t stay, though.”
Her heart did a funky somersaulty flip thing. The invitation didn’t come just from his words. Those dark-chocolate eyes of his were carrying on a conversation all their own.
From the time he’d been able to ride a two-wheeler, James had always been gorgeous. And he’d always known it. He’d always been enigmatic and sexy—even at the age of thirteen. Everything about him warned a sane girl to keep away, even though the mysteries of her body were telling her to forge ahead. Kelly had managed to do just that all through high school. Even when she’d caught him looking at h
er then the same way he looked at her now, like he wanted to pour pancake syrup all over her body and lick it off. Slowly. Somehow she’d managed to keep her wits intact.
Still, something about him didn’t make sense. During her years in the courtroom, she’d been given varied signals from those on the witness stand, but she’d always been able to sniff them out and take appropriate measures. James had become a master magician at mixing his signals.
The night he’d taken her up into the mountains on his ATV he’d given her that look. The look that she’d misread as he wanted to kiss her. He hadn’t even tried. So maybe that was just his look. Maybe he couldn’t help the way his long eyelashes lowered just enough to spark some curiosity in a girl.
The problem? She knew James could deliver on those sparks. And had. Yet, since the night he’d apparently brought her home from her sister’s wedding reception, he hadn’t made a move. And he’d had plenty of opportunities.
“You want me to stay?” She decided to make light of it. If only to save herself the embarrassment when he revealed that he had no real interest in her. He’d had her once and apparently that had been enough. All his bets and challenges were just big talk. “Oh. I get it. You want me to help you clean your house. Is that it?”
“Hadn’t even crossed my mind.” He gave her a choirboy smile. “But it’s not a bad idea.”
She stood. “Sorry, Deputy. I’ve got a brand-new sewing machine and a box of fabric out in the car. And I’ve already got plans.” Okay. Wow. She’d just painted herself to be the dullest person on the planet.
“For what?”
“I decided to make quilts from my mother’s old overalls.”
“That’s a nice idea.” He folded his muscular arms across that smooth, hard chest. “But it doesn’t sound like much fun.”
“It will be once I figure out how to actually use a sewing machine.”
“Kelly?” His head tilted. “That’s not your idea of meeting my challenge is it?”
“Maybe.”
“No. Way.” He shook his head, cupped his hands over her shoulders, and eased her back down to the sofa. His face was inches away from her own, and his sexy male scent caused the woman in her to jump to attention.
