Tom tapped his foot against the doorstep. What was he doing here? Right now he should be downtown in the Financial District attending a meeting involving a billion-dollar corporate takeover. Instead he was wasting time on this ludicrous poodle paternity case.
He could have called Maddy about the poodle of course. He could even have gotten his secretary to call her. But these kinds of meetings were better conducted face-to-face.
Who was he kidding? He raked his hair back from his forehead with his fingers, something he tended to do when he was agitated. Stop fooling yourself, O’Brien. Truth was, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the green-eyed witch since the funeral yesterday.
This was just an excuse to see her again and he knew it. Unfortunately there was no relevant subsection in the five-year plan to deal with these inconvenient, unscheduled feelings that had been bothering him almost from the moment he’d met her.
Where was she? The entrance to her apartment was down a narrow pathway leading from the road. The gate had been open when he’d come through. Had she gone out? Or might she be out back?
He turned the other way and walked down into the garden. An early fog had lifted and the bay was gleaming blue under a brilliant sky. Brutus’s kennel under the jacaranda tree was empty. In front of it sat a big ceramic water bowl painted with the words “One Spoiled Dog Drinks Here” and a single purple jacaranda flower floating in it.
“Anyone home?” Tom called, but the only reply was the distant sounding of the horn of a ferryboat on the bay.
He strode around the other side of the house to find the second, larger gate also stood open. He made his way up onto the sidewalk. And there he saw her, walking on the opposite side of the road coming toward him.
He sucked in a breath of admiration. This girl was hot. Wearing a tight, apple green sweater that showed off her curves and a short denim skirt, her pale, slender legs seemed to go on forever. Her hair gleamed copper in the sunlight. Pow! His body’s reaction was instant.
“Maddy!” he shouted, trying to keep the excitement he felt at the sight of her out of his voice.
Startled, she looked up and saw him. Fearfully, she dipped her head. For an astonishing moment he thought she might run away. He stared.
Hey, this wasn’t the reaction he’d been daydreaming about when he’d engineered an excuse to see her again. In fact, it seemed like he was the last person on earth she wanted to see. But she crossed the road to meet him just the same.
Close up he could see that she looked agitated, her gaze darting up the road, over his shoulder, anywhere but at him. So much for subsection 2c and letting her down lightly if she got too attached to him.
“Is something wrong?” he asked. Okay, maybe he’d overreacted to the car-seat-chewing incident yesterday—although wait until Brutus got the bill for the repair. But there was no need for her to look at him like he was an ogre.
She wrung her hands together. Her lashes fluttered. Reluctantly she met his eyes. “Oh,Tom, I’ve lost Brutus again.”
He stared at her in disbelief before he exploded. “You what?” What gave with this woman that she could be so careless with a millionaire dog?
She looked up at him. Her eyes widened. She bit down on her lower lip with her two neat, white front teeth. “Don’t be angry. You know I wouldn’t have done it on purpose. I don’t know how he got out.”
“Got out?”
“He was safe in the backyard. I was in the kitchen cooking—I do most of my recipe testing at home. Jerome was upstairs looking through some of Walter’s things.”
“Jerome was here?” Jerome alone with Maddy? Tom didn’t like the sudden jealousy that jolted him.
She nodded. “He came by. Asked me if he could get some family photos and mementos of Walter.”
Tom groaned. “Maddy, you don’t even know this guy. And probate hasn’t been granted yet. Nothing should be removed from the property.”
She wrinkled up her nose. “Maybe you’re right, but he ... well, he looks so much like Walter it only seemed right to give him access to Stoddard family stuff. And he can be very convincing.”
Convincing? How convincing? Convincing with words, kisses? He supposed women would find the Englishman attractive, though he thought him too slimy by half. He couldn’t bear to think of Jerome kissing Maddy, touching her ...
Tom gritted his teeth. He wasn’t jealous. Of course he wasn’t. And Maddy could kiss whomever she liked. It was no business of his.
He just didn’t like Jerome. Walter had warned him about his great-great-nephew, and his own observations had done nothing to make him disagree with Walter’s canny assessment.
The incident at the cemetery had worried him. But there’d been no proof that Jerome had had any evil intent.
“So, did he let Brutus off the leash like he did yesterday?” he asked.
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. He told me he went down to the garden for a cigarette and found the gates open and Brutus missing.”
“And you weren’t suspicious of that?”
“Well, yes, I was. I never leave the gates open, I swear to you. I told you what a wanderer Brutus is. And quite a lot of traffic comes along this road.”
“So what happened then?”
“I asked Jerome to help me search for Brutus, but he said he had an urgent appointment and had to go.”
“How convenient.”
“That’s what I said. And do you know what he did? He shrugged.”
“He shrugged? And that’s a problem?”
Maddy’s chin tilted upward and she looked as fierce as a pretty girl with a heart-shaped face could look. “A little dog is in danger and all the guy does is shrug. He’s a shoulder shrugger of the first order and it bugs me. I told him to get out and never come back here again. I am so over Jerome.”
Good. If Jerome never went near Maddy again, Tom would be a happy man. But he wrote himself a mental memo never to shrug his shoulders in Maddy Cartwright’s presence.
He looked up to the end of the sidewalk. “We’d better go look for Brutus.” He thought again of his mauled custom-dyed-in-Germany leather car seat, but somehow it wasn’t as painful as imagining Brutus squashed somewhere on the road. Annoying as the animal was. “Come on.”
“Wait.” Maddy held up her hand to halt him. “I need to think for a moment. I’ve searched all around these streets. Hang on. He may have gone to Coco’s house. I hadn’t thought of that. He adores her.”
“Coco? You mean the litigious poodle who is, uh, the mother of his puppies? The alleged mother, that is.”
“Right. I bet he’s there. Come on, she lives on the next street. Up this hill and turn left.”
Tom strode along beside her, easily taking the steep slope. “So, if Brutus is a doggy womanizer, where does Coco fit in?”
Maddy giggled. She had the most delightful, melodious laugh. “She’s his number one girlfriend, I guess. In fact, I think he’d be happy just with her if Coco’s owner would let him hang around instead of putting the hose on him.”
“Huh,” snorted Tom, “a monogamous dog. That’s a new one. Which crazy canine psychology theory of yours does this fit into?”
Maddy stopped. She looked up at him, wide-eyed. He noticed the green of her sweater emphasized the color of her eyes. “You don’t believe in fidelity,Tom?”
Was she serious? He couldn’t be sure. “You mean for dogs or for humans?”
“Humans of course. Men and women.”
“Of course I believe in fidelity. Uh, at the right time, that is.”
Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean at the right time?”
Hey, who was the lawyer around here? How come she kept putting him on the spot? “When the time is right for ... for well, you know, commitment.”
He felt uncomfortable talking about this kind of stuff. Very uncomfortable.
“Ooh.” She drew the sound out in a long, teasing way. “You mean marriage.”
“Marriage? Yes, I suppose I do.” How in h
ell had the conversation gotten around to the dreaded M word?
“But until then?”
He started walking again; she had to skip two steps to his one to keep up. He couldn’t help noticing how her breasts bounced when she did so. “Uh. Well, I don’t intend to settle down for a long time yet so I, uh, guess I hadn’t given it much thought.”
“So, you wouldn’t be faithful to a steady girlfriend?”
“I didn’t say that, but dammit, Maddy, I don’t have time for a serious girlfriend.”
“Oh,” she said.
They’d reached the midsection of the hill and they paused, waiting to cross the road. Her eyes were gleaming with mischief.
“What do you mean, ‘oh’?”
“Well, that’s not what your mother told me when we were chatting after the funeral. She said you never got to meet any nice girls in that cutthroat law firm of yours.”
“She what?” He loved his mother but he hated her relentless matchmaking. And he’d never had trouble finding a girlfriend for himself when he wanted one. “What else did she tell you about me?”
“Oh, nothing much,” she said. “How smart you are, what a great athlete you are, how adorable you look in your baby photos, especially the naked ones. That sort of thing. Then she told me how you needed—”
“Stop! I don’t want to hear another word.”
Maddy laughed her delightful laugh as they crossed the road. “Don’t worry.You’re safe. She tried the baby photos on me once before. I told your mother I wasn’t interested in a serious relationship. I thought about telling her I only ever date a guy twice but decided that would be giving her more information than she needed.”
What? Tom reeled at her words—it was more information than he needed. Had he misjudged her again? So she wasn’t on a husband hunt?
“So why is that? The two-date thing?”
This new piece of information was disconcerting. He’d bet she wouldn’t be able to stop at two dates with him. That is, if he ever asked her on a date. Which right now didn’t look in any way likely.
She looked straight ahead as she walked along. “I was engaged once. But ... but it didn’t work out.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tom said. But he wasn’t. He didn’t like to think of Maddy with another guy.
“Don’t be. In some ways I’m glad. He didn’t support me in my career. It’s ... less complicated to stay single while I establish myself.”
That last sentence could have been words coming from his own mouth. So why didn’t he like the sound of them from hers?
She turned around. Again her eyes were wide and guileless. “I, uh ... am assuming you’re interested in girls. You know, sometimes mothers can be blind to that kind of thing.”
She was trying to look serious but her mouth kept quirking upward and betraying her. Now Tom knew for sure she was teasing him. He put out his hand and took her arm to stop her.
“I am definitely interested in girls,” he said slowly and deliberately, letting his gaze roam across where her sweater hugged the swell of her breasts.
He lingered there and was astounded and aroused to see her nipples firming under his scrutiny. With his thumb he made little circles on her arm through the fabric of her sweater and felt her quiver in response.
His gaze slid down to the gap of taut tummy where her sweater stopped and her skirt started, and then to her firm, bare thighs. “Yes,” he said, bringing his gaze back up to her face, “I am very interested in girls.”
He’d started by responding to her teasing in kind. She’d met his gaze defiantly. But now, subtly, the atmosphere between them changed, became charged with awareness.
She flushed pink under her redhead’s pale skin and stuttered into silence when she attempted to speak. He found he was powerless to drag his eyes from her. She stared back as if mesmerized.
Then she swayed ever so slightly toward him and, before he could think about what he was doing and why he shouldn’t, Tom was kissing her, claiming that enticing mouth that had fascinated him from the get-go, tasting her honeyed sweetness, pulling her soft curves to him with a strangled sound that was somewhere between triumph and capitulation.
Kissing her was invalidating every subsection and sub-subsection of his five-year plan. But she felt so good in his arms he wondered why he hadn’t done it sooner.
Maddy was melting like the finest Belgian chocolate. Tom O’Brien was kissing her, and she was rising on her toes to kiss him back, sighing with delight at his firm, warm mouth on hers, the slight roughness of his chin against the softness of her skin, the fresh citrus smell of him mingled with his own maleness.
She wound her arms around his neck, reveling in the firmness of his muscles against her curves, her breasts tingling as she pressed them against the hardness of his chest. She was so close to him she could feel his heart pulsing in time to her own. Her eyes closed as she savored the sensation.
“Mmm,” she murmured as he twined his hand in her hair, tilting her head back as he deepened the kiss, pushing against her lips with his tongue. Eagerly she parted her mouth to welcome him, meeting the tip of his tongue with hers, tangling with it, taking it inside her.
He tasted of toothpaste, fresh, sharp.Yes, Tom O’Brien would be the type of man who kept toothpaste in his desk drawer for an after-lunch brush. It was thoughtful, considerate. She liked that. She liked this. A kiss had never felt so good. In fact, this kiss took kissing to a level she never thought she’d reach.
Who would have thought stuffy Tom O’Brien would be such an amazing kisser? Or that she would respond with shivers of delight coursing through her body, her nipples hard, her knees all wobbly? She felt dizzy with the pleasure of it.
She could feel his heat through the layers of his jacket and shirt and felt her own heat rise in response. She slid her hand up his back, caressed the back of his neck between his collar and his hair. The feel of his bare skin made her want to tug on his tie, loosen it, unbutton his shirt, feel more than this tantalizing taste of his body. Test the strength of those muscles, discover if they felt as good as they looked.
His hands moved down her shoulders, traced the side of her breasts. She trembled, gasped within the kiss, pressed her mouth hungrily to his, demanded more.
Then was blasted into reality by the slowing of a passing car and a male voice yelling, “Woo-hoo! Get a room!”
Her eyes flew open and she pulled away from the kiss, mouth swollen, heart pounding, gasping for breath. She was kissing Tom O’Brien in the street? Where her neighbors could see her and passersby yelled ribald comments? How could she have let herself go so out of control?
Tom did not step back from her. “Wow,” he said, sounding dazed.
“Double wow,” she echoed, giddy from the aftereffects of his kiss. She looked up at him, speechless. He seemed in an equal state of shock.
She licked her lips. They tasted of him. “That ... uh ... that shouldn’t have happened,” she whispered, still looking up into his eyes, still light-headed with an inexplicable excitement.
“True,” he said in a deep, husky voice. “Not a good idea.”
But his gaze was not repentant or regretful. She found herself unable to look away, her heart thudding in anticipation.
With one long, strong finger he traced the outline of her mouth where his mouth had been just a minute before. Still looking into his eyes, she took his finger between her teeth, lightly nipped it and curled around it with the tip of her tongue.
With a husky laugh, he withdrew his finger. Then he leaned forward and claimed her mouth again in a kiss that made her gasp and was over too quickly.
He smiled. Ohmigod, that dimple! It was irresistible. She wanted to reach up and plant a kiss on it.
Kiss Tom O’Brien’s dimple? What next? This was way too confusing. She braced herself against his chest and pushed herself away from the too-alluring circle of his arms.
“You ... you just said that wasn’t a good idea,” she managed to get out, her breath
ing ragged. “So why did you do it again?”
“It was you who said it shouldn’t have happened. I just agreed.”
Maddy was pleased to note that his voice was as unsteady as hers.
“And I kissed you again because you’re beautiful and I couldn’t stop myself.”
Tom sounded as though he were surprised at his own words. He even shook his head as if to clear his thoughts.
She swallowed hard, willing her voice to sound normal. “Well, you certainly proved your point.”
“My point?” His brow furrowed.
“That you’re interested in girls.”
His dimple deepened. In such a strong, masculine face that dimple was a surprise. Like the special touch of seasoning that transformed an ordinary recipe into a culinary masterpiece.
Maddy couldn’t look at him; she couldn’t trust herself not to reach up and kiss him again. She looked down to the sidewalk, noting where a youthful hand had chalked a red heart with “K & J forever” entwined within it.
Huh. Forever love. She’d given up on that idea some time ago. Love brought strings she wasn’t willing to entangle herself in. Strangle herself in.
She cleared her throat. “It isn’t a good idea,” she said. “The kissing I mean.You being Brutus’s lawyer and all.”
Truth was, she was shaken by how much she’d enjoyed Tom’s kiss, how disappointed she’d been when it stopped. Wanting more kisses—and more than kisses—from Tom O’Brien did not fit into the strict two-date regime she’d imposed on herself.
“What? You see a conflict of interest?”
Trust him to use such lawyerlike words. “No, it’s not that.” She looked up. “It was just ... unexpected. And ... and . . .”
“And . . . ?” Tom prompted.
She didn’t want to say, I liked it so much it frightened me. She sought frantically in her brain for the right words. And didn’t find them. “And ... we shouldn’t be spending time kissing or talking about kissing when Brutus is missing.”
Love Is a Four-Legged Word Page 7
