They made it to Greenville by dinnertime after spending the worst afternoon in the history of car travel trapped in the SUV together. A few hours of Isabella’s frigid silent treatment made Eric long for the peaceful simplicity of a nice cross-country trip to the Grand Canyon with, say, four or five preschoolers. Several screaming, hitting, yakking kids, surely, couldn’t be any worse than what he’d just endured: the glares, the huffs, the cold shoulder. Even Zeus, recovered now to tail-wagging health, seemed pissed off at him and hadn’t let Eric scratch his ears upon his return, with Fluffles, to the backseat.
Finally they arrived at the working-class east Greenville neighborhood and small brick home where Izzy’s family had lived since before the dawn of time. As usual, the sprinkler watered the lush green grass, which was clipped and trimmed to horticultural perfection, and the top of the hedges beneath the windows was so level that Eric could probably balance a beer mug atop it.
Nothing about the house had changed, at least not as far as he could see. Mama Jo’s flowers overflowed from various beds and pots stationed on the porch and up and down the walk to the driveway—impatiens, geraniums and black-eyed Susans, among others, and there seemed to be no requirement that the flowers match or even complement each other. The result was a hodgepodge that would no doubt be the shame of any local garden club, but which Eric thought was beautiful.
Four or five ancient cars lined the driveway, warning him that her brothers were here and he would, therefore, have to endure a fair amount of good-natured ribbing before the night was out.
He grinned, looking forward to it. Other things he looked forward to: seeing Isabella’s mother, JoAnn Stevens, known as Mama Jo to all who knew and loved her, which was pretty much everyone she met, gorging on Mama Jo’s phenomenal cooking and talking golf with Isabella’s father, Ray.
Yeah, life was momentarily looking up. Izzy may be determined to ignore him for the foreseeable future, but her family would welcome him with open arms. Best of all, Mama Jo would be a powerful ally in his quest to win Izzy. The only issue was how to enlist her help, but he’d get that part figured out by dessert. He knew it.
For the first time in hours, he felt some of the heavy tension ease from his shoulders and he sighed with a quiet but deep satisfaction.
Man, it was good to be back here. Really, really good.
They trudged out of the car and Zeus, once more at the end of the leash that Isabella would no doubt never drop again, relieved himself before exploring the nearest flower bed. Eric started up the path toward the front door, but Isabella, now looking anxious for some reason, put a hand on his arm.
“Can I, uh, ask you a favor?”
Eric stopped dead, thrilled beyond all reason that she’d acknowledged his existence. Instead of pumping a triumphant fist in the air, which was what he felt like doing, he kept his wits about him and managed a scowl. No need to let her know she’d had his belly tied up in knots this whole time.
“Oh?” he said coolly. “You’re talking to me again? This must be my lucky day.”
“The thing is,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “my mother has always liked you—”
“I know.” Keeping his brows firmly lowered, he yawned and tried to look bored.
“—and wished we’d get together—”
“Right.”
“—and her little drumbeat has gotten worse since I entered my thirties—”
“Uh-huh.”
“—especially with all my brothers on their second or third kid by now.”
There was a pause during which a lightbulb went off over Eric’s head and his heart did a funny little stuttering thing, which he ignored. He thought he saw where this conversation was headed and was already thinking of a way to turn the situation to his advantage, but he let her flounder anyway.
“And this is my problem…how?”
Isabella did a fair amount of fidgeting before she answered, shuffling on her feet, running a hand through her hair, and retracting Zeus’s leash. After all that she opened her mouth and said…nothing.
Eric waited impatiently, praying he looked, at best, only mildly interested.
She shut her mouth, cleared her throat, and tried again. “I just want…I just want us to be, ah…careful not to give my mother the wrong idea.”
“I…see.” He hesitated, trying to maximize her obvious tension. “And what, pray tell, is this wrong idea you don’t want her to get?”
“You know very well what I’m talking about.”
Pulling his best perplexed face, he shrugged and shook his head. “No idea.”
She flushed the color of the pickled beets her mother would no doubt be serving within the hour, but plowed ahead, her chin high. “I don’t want her to get the idea that there’s something going on between us.”
“There is something going on between us.” Enjoying himself now, he walked up the path to the front door. “Why would I pretend otherwise?”
“Eric.” Her voice sounded strangled now, and he heard her hurrying footsteps behind him. She pulled him around by the arm, openly desperate now. “Do you want me to beg? Is that it?”
Grinning both because she was so funny and, more importantly, because he knew it would infuriate her, he stepped closer and made a big production out of trailing his fingers down the smooth, sexy column of her neck.
To his further amusement, he saw a red patch at the base of her throat that was clearly, even to the untrained eye, a spot where he’d accidentally scratched her with his goatee during the heat of passion. His grin widened. She’d never hide that from her eagle-eyed mother.
“Well.” Ignoring the sound of excited voices inside the house, he let his fingers glide lower, over that wonderful swell of her breasts. “I do love it when you beg.”
This reference to their time together in the honeymoon suite did not seem to calm Isabella or allay her fears, much to his continued amusement. In fact, she looked more flustered than ever as she shot a panicked glance at the door and then looked back at him with irritation in her flashing brown eyes.
“Now is not the time for any of your little practical jokes, so don’t even think of embarrassing me in there. This is not all fun and games,” she hissed, pointing a finger in his face.
Yeah, she was right about that. Well, partially right: this was fun, but it was no game. Not when he still wanted her so much and she was so important to him. Moving quickly—someone was almost at the door now, he could hear them—he ran his hand around to her nape and gently tilted her head so she could look at him and see how serious he was.
If the neighbors caught him touching her like this, or her parents or brothers, so much the better. He wanted to shout it from the rooftops but kept his voice low because, his desire to be open about their new relationship notwithstanding, he didn’t think Greenville was quite ready to hear about his X-rated plans for Isabella.
“I still want you, Isabella.”
“Oh, no.”
“I wish I was inside you right now, and I plan to get you naked again in the next few hours. We are in a relationship and your mother will be thrilled to know it. I’m not hiding anything.”
Clamping his other hand around her, he pulled her, struggling, up against him, fitted his mouth to her sweet lips, and gave her the kind of kiss that could never be mistaken as platonic.
Just as Eric had planned, they were still fused at the mouth—Isabella stopped struggling, just as he’d known she would—when the door flew open and the sound of her mother’s shocked “Oh, my!” followed by excited clapping broke the silence.
Isabella tried to push him away, but he was having none of it.
Taking his time about ending the kiss—Izzy’s mother had waited years for this moment, so he might as well make it worth her while—he nuzzled Izzy’s lips once or twice more, broke away, and waited for the fireworks to begin. Judging from the fury flashing in Izzy’s eyes, they were going to be spectacular.
Chapter 10
Reeling
from Eric’s shenanigans—she should have known not to waste her time asking that so-and-so for a favor of any kind—Isabella smoothed her hair with her free hand and stretched her still-tingling lips into what she hoped was a nonchalant smile for her mother’s benefit.
No need.
The darn woman was too busy greeting the person she really wanted to see: Eric, Spawn of Satan. Glowering, Isabella folded her arms over her chest and watched the whole sickening display.
“Eric!” Mama shrieked, holding her arms wide, her mouth open in a delighted smile big enough to accommodate a whole McDonald’s cheeseburger. “You give me a hug right now!”
But Eric caught her hands, held her at arm’s length, and surveyed her in a critical appraisal that involved much headshaking and appreciative muttering.
“Mama Jo,” he said, flashing that patented dimpled smile that was fatal to any woman who beheld it. “You get prettier all the time, don’t you?”
Isabella snorted at this blatant brownnosing and was generally ignored as Eric caught Mama in a bear hug and swung her around in a circle while Mama kicked her short legs and squealed like a toddler.
After a minute or two of this foolishness, Mama smacked Eric’s arm as though she meant business. “You put me down, boy.”
“Okay. Okay.” Eric gave her a kiss on the cheek and released her.
Mama jammed her hands on her hips and made the angry face that’d terrified her four children over the years but which she’d never really level at her precious Eric. “Why didn’t you come see me at Christmas? You know I was expecting you.”
“Did you make the sweet potato pie?” Eric asked.
“Yes, I did.”
“Man.” Eric threw a hand over his heart as though he’d been mortally wounded by this news that he’d missed one of Mama’s pies. “I was sick about missing Christmas down here. I was in Hong Kong and I—”
“A-hem.” Isabella, who’d had more than enough of this blissful reunion, decided she needed to remind these two of her presence. “Maybe you two can catch up later so my mother can greet me now. How would that be?”
Mama let Eric go at last, looked around, and acted surprised to see Isabella standing there. “Eric!” she cried. “Did you bring Izzy Bee with you?”
“Ha, ha,” Isabella muttered. “Very funny.”
“Poor baby. Come here.”
Mama yanked her into her fierce magnolia-blossom-scented embrace, and the two women swayed together for a minute. Something loosened around Isabella’s heart, and she knew that, whatever mess she’d gotten herself into with Eric, and it was a big mess, she was home now, with Mama, and Mama wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
“How’s my baby girl?” Mama murmured before kissing her cheek.
“Pretty good,” Isabella lied.
As usual, Mama could detect a falsehood at a thousand paces. More than once Isabella had wondered if Mama could actually smell a lie the moment it hit the airwaves, and this time was no different. Pulling back a little, Mama studied Isabella’s face with a critical eye and frowned.
“Hmmm. What’s up with you and this boy here?” She nodded in Eric’s direction. “Something you want to tell me?”
“No.” Well aware that her voice was way too high and sharp, Isabella shot Eric a warning look—he grinned and winked at her, the jackass—and forced herself to smile at Mama. “You do look great. Is it all the golf?”
It was true. Retirement agreed with Mama, who seemed to bloom a little more every time Isabella saw her even though Isabella knew Mama missed the little second graders she’d taught at the elementary school around the corner since time immemorial.
As always, Mama’s brown skin glowed with the kind of health and vigor that were the envy of women half her age, and her dark eyes were sharp and bright. Today her short, slightly plump body was dressed in a pink polo shirt and god-awful pink and purple plaid shorts that screamed Golfer, here! And there was a telltale flattened ring around Mama’s wavy bob that told Isabella Mama had worn her sun visor within the last several hours.
“We played eighteen holes this morning.” Mama, as always, recounted her golf adventures with the seriousness and enthusiasm of a cardiac surgeon who’d just performed quintuple bypass and saved a life. “Only nine yesterday on account of the rain. We’ll try for eighteen tomorrow. Your father shot a ninety-seven, so he had to do the vacuuming. I shot eighty-nine. Hah!”
“What driver are you using these days?” Eric, wide-eyed with interest, matched and probably exceeded Mama when it came to golf fanaticism. “Did you get that Callaway you were talking about?”
Isabella rolled her eyes. “Oh, for crying out loud.”
“I’ll tell you later, Eric.” Mama patted Eric’s arm in a mollifying gesture, and then her piercing gaze swung back around to Isabella. “Right now I want to know what’s going on with you two.”
“Nothing.”
Isabella had never been a good liar, especially not to her mother. Worse, she knew she wasn’t a good liar, which only added to the awkwardness when she needed to tell a little white lie on occasion. Like now. That telltale twitch began in her right cheek, and she bit her lip, trying to stop it. This, of course, made it hard to talk, but she somehow managed to babble anyway.
“I already told you nothing is going on. Nothing. Eric and I are just friends. Same as always.”
Eric clicked his tongue and gave her a reproachful look that did nothing to hide his amusement. “That’s not exactly true, is it, Izzy?”
“I am talking to my mother now,” Isabella snarled.
Mama cocked her head, narrowed her eyes, and put her hands on her hips. “Nothing, eh?” she asked, all business now and reminding Isabella of a bloodhound on the scent of an escaped convict. “What was Eric doing with his tongue down your throat just now if nothing’s going on? Checking to see if you still had your tonsils?”
Isabella cringed and felt her face all but burst into flames. Eric choked back a startled snort of laughter, which both the women ignored.
“That was…nothing,” Isabella said with rising desperation as she felt the tide turn against her. “Nothing.”
“Uh-huh.” Mama huffed, vibrating now with the kind of indignation that would accompany a false accusation of murder. Her lips managed to be both pursed and tight. “I’m guessing that hickey on your neck is also nothing.”
What? What? She had a hickey? No. Please, God, no. Anything but that. Why couldn’t lightning just strike her dead on the spot and save her from this inquisition? Isabella clapped a hand to her neck.
“Oh, this? This is a…a little scratch, from, ah, Zeus. Not a hickey. Please. Hickey. As if.”
Mama raised one eyebrow, the picture of motherly exasperation. “Other side.”
Fuming, Isabella moved her hand to the other side of her neck. Eric laughed at her obvious discomfort, but the smile was sucked off his face when Mama turned in his direction and fixed him with that no-nonsense look that only Southern mothers can truly manage.
“Uh-oh.” Eric snapped to attention like a Marine during inspection.
Mama crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at Eric, barely five feet of determined elder-womanhood ready to take down Eric’s six-plus feet if it proved necessary.
“Since I am getting nowhere with my daughter, I expect you to tell me the truth, and I expect you to do it right now.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Over the top of Mama’s head, Eric shot Isabella a furtive glance that communicated about a paragraph’s worth of information, namely that he was sorry to put her on the hot seat like this, but not sorry enough to miss this chance to gain a powerful ally in Mama Jo, and he hoped that Isabella forgave him one day but didn’t really care if she didn’t.
Isabella glowered at him.
“What’s going on with you and my daughter, Eric?” Mama asked.
“Well,” Eric began, but was interrupted before he could get any further.
“Woman,” bellowed a gravelly male voice fr
om inside the darkened depths of the house on the other side of the screen door. “Are you going to let my daughter in this house or not? The food is getting cold.”
Mama, looking furious at this unwanted interruption, turned her head over her shoulder and hollered back. “We are talking. Talking. And you had best not interrupt me again if you know what’s good for you.”
“We are hungry.”
Daddy’s voice sounded forlorn now. Pitiful even, as though he hadn’t eaten in a good three weeks or more. But Mama was on a righteous mission and wasn’t about to let trivialities like food and supper sidetrack her. Muttering darkly, she wheeled around, marched up to the screen door, opened it and stuck her head inside.
“Did you hear what I said?” As always, Mama repeated herself, louder, as though she wanted to rule out the twin possibilities that Daddy actually hadn’t heard what she’d said and/or had a hearing problem. “I said that we are talking and you had best not interrupt me again.”
Silence from inside the house.
Mama withdrew her head. Now wearing an expression of grim satisfaction, she let the screen door bang for emphasis. Isabella, meantime, cringed from embarrassment and wondered whether it was too much to hope that she’d been adopted and did not, in fact, belong to this uncouth family. But no. She looked much too much like her mother for that to be a possibility, alas.
What Eric thought about the whole tacky Stevens clan, Isabella shuddered to think as she shot him a veiled look from under her lashes. His family, in their genteel estate, Heather Hill, never yelled, never bickered and probably never called any of the women woman.
She’d always wondered what had brought him back here for visits so many times over the years. No doubt it was fierce loyalty to Isabella—Eric was good like that—that kept him from openly laughing at the eccentrics she called parents. But Isabella’s cringing and fretting were abruptly cut off by Mama’s purposeful throat-clearing.
More determined than ever, Mama marched right back up to Eric, replaced her hands on her hips, drew herself up and resumed her interrogation.
“What is going on with you and my daughter? Answer me now.”
Road to Seduction (Kimani Romance) Page 10
