“Who’s in there?” Henry demanded as he stood.
Slowly, with fear gripping his stomach, Nick rose to his feet and faced the man his mother had always said was his father. He stood straight with his shoulders back and stared into Henry’s light gray eyes. He wanted to run, but he didn’t move.
“What are you doing in there?” Henry demanded again.
Nick shoved his chin in the air but he didn’t answer.
“Who is he, Henry?” the girl asked.
“Nobody,” he answered and turned to Nick. “You go on home. Now get, and don’t come around here anymore.”
Standing in buckbrush up to his chest, with his knees shaking and his stomach hurting, Nick Allegrezza felt his hopes die. He hated Henry Shaw. “You’re a lizard-sucking son of a bitch,” he said, then lowered his gaze to the golden-haired girl. He hated her, too. With his eyes burning hatred and stinging with anger, he turned and walked from his hiding place. He never returned. He was finished waiting in the shadows. Waiting for things he would never have.
Footsteps pulled Nick from thoughts of his past, but he didn’t turn around.
“What do you think?” Gail moved behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. The thin material of her dress was the only thing separating her bare breasts from his back.
“About what?”
“About the new and improved me.”
He turned then and looked at her. She was bathed in darkness and he couldn’t see her very well. “You look fine,” he answered.
“Fine? I spent thousands on a boob job, and that’s the best you can do? ‘You look fine’?”
“What do you want me to say, that you would have been smarter to invest your money in real estate rather than saltwater?”
“I thought men liked big breasts,” she said with a pout in her voice.
Big or small didn’t matter as much as what a woman did with her body. He liked a woman who knew how to use what she had, who lost control in bed. A woman who could let go and get down and dirty with him. Gail was too worried about how she looked.
“I thought all men fantasize about big breasts,” she continued.
“Not all men.” Nick hadn’t fantasized about a woman in a very long time. In fact, he hadn’t fantasized since he’d been a kid, and all those fantasies had been the same.
Gail wrapped her arms around his neck and rose onto the balls of her feet. “You didn’t seem to mind a while ago.”
“I didn’t say I minded.”
She slid her hand down his chest to his stomach. “Then make love to me again.”
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “I don’t make love.”
“Then what did we just do half an hour ago?”
He thought about giving her a one-word answer, but he knew she wouldn’t appreciate his candor. He thought about taking her home, but she slid her hand to the front of his jeans, and he thought maybe he’d wait a while to see what she had on her mind. “That was sex,” he said. “One has nothing to do with the other.”
“You sound bitter.”
“Why, because I don’t confuse sex and love?” Nick didn’t consider himself bitter, just uninterested. As far as he was concerned, there was no payoff in love. Just a lot of wasted time and emotion.
“Maybe you’ve never been in love.” She pressed her hand into his fly. “Maybe you’ll fall in love with me.”
Nick chuckled deep within his chest. “Don’t count on it.”
Chapter Two
The morning after the funeral, Delaney slept late and narrowly escaped a meeting of the Charitable Society of Truly, the small town’s equivalent of the Junior League. She’d hoped to lie around the house all afternoon and spend some time with her mother before leaving that evening to meet her best friend from high school, Lisa Collins. The two had plans to meet at Mort’s Bar for a night of margaritas and gossip.
But Gwen had different plans for Delaney. “I’d like you to stay for the meeting,” Gwen said as soon as she walked into the kitchen, looking like a catalog model dressed in powder blue silk. A slight wrinkle furrowed her brow as she glanced at Delaney’s shoes. “We’re hoping to buy new playground equipment for Larkspur Park, and I think you could help us come up with creative ways to raise money.”
Delaney would rather chew on tinfoil than get sucked into attending one of her mother’s boring meetings. “I have plans,” she lied, and spread strawberry preserves onto a toasted bagel. She was twenty-nine but still couldn’t bring herself to purposely disappoint her mother.
“What plans?”
“I’m meeting a friend for lunch.” She leaned her behind against the cherrywood island and bit into her bagel.
Tiny creases settled in the corners of Gwen’s blue eyes. “You’re going into town looking like that?”
Delaney glanced down at her white sleeveless sweater, her black jean shorts, and the thin patent leather straps of her Hercules sandals with the rubber wedgie soles. She’d dressed conservatively, but maybe her shoes were slightly different by small-town standards. She didn’t care; she loved them. “I like what I’m wearing,” she said, feeling like a nine-year-old again. She didn’t like the feeling, but it reminded her of the biggest reason why she planned to leave Truly quickly the following afternoon after Henry’s will was read.
“I’ll take you shopping next week. We’ll drive down to Boise and spend the day at the mall.” Gwen smiled with genuine pleasure. “Now that you’re home again, we can go at least once a month.”
There it was. Gwen’s assumption that Delaney would be moving back to Truly now that Henry was dead. But Henry Shaw hadn’t been the only reason Delaney kept at least an entire state between herself and Idaho.
“I don’t need anything, Mother,” she said and polished off her breakfast. If she stayed more than a few days, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Gwen would have her in Liz Claiborne and turn her into a respectable member of the Charitable Society. She’d grown up wearing clothes she didn’t like and pretending to be someone she wasn’t just to please her parents. She’d killed herself to make honor roll in school, and she’d never so much as received a fine on a library book. She’d grown up the mayor’s daughter. That meant she’d had to be perfect.
“Aren’t those shoes uncomfortable?”
Delaney shook her head. “Tell me about the fire,” she said, purposely changing the subject. Since she’d arrived in Truly, she’d learned very little of what had actually happened the night of Henry’s death. Her mother was reluctant to talk about it, but now that the funeral was over, Delaney pressed for information.
Gwen sighed and reached for the butter knife Delaney had used to spread preserves. The heels of her blue pumps clicked on the red brick tiles as she moved toward the kitchen sink. “I don’t know anything more now than I did when I called you last Monday.” She set down the knife then gazed out the big window above the sink. “Henry was in his tack shed and it caught on fire. Sheriff Crow told me they think it started in a pile of linseed rags he’d left by an old space heater.” Gwen’s voice wavered as she spoke.
Delaney moved toward her mother and put her arm around Gwen’s shoulders. She looked out at the backyard, at the boat dock swaying on gentle waves, and asked the question she’d been afraid to voice, “Do you know if he suffered very much?”
“I don’t think so, but I don’t want to know if he did. I don’t know how long he lived or if God was merciful and he died before the flames got to him. I didn’t ask. Everything that has happened this past week has been hard enough.” She paused to clear her throat. “I’ve had so much to do, and I don’t like to think about it.”
Delaney turned her gaze to her mother, and for the first time in a very long time, she felt a connection to the woman who’d given her life. They were so different, but in this, they were the same. Despite his faults, they had both loved Henry Shaw.
“I’m sure your friends would understand if you canceled your meeting today. If you’d like, I’ll call
them for you.”
Gwen turned her attention to Delaney and shook her head. “I have responsibilities, Laney. I can’t put my life on hold forever.”
Forever? Henry had been dead less than a week, buried less than twenty-four hours. She dropped her hand from her mother’s shoulders, feeling the connection snap. “I’m going outside for a bit,” she said, and walked out the back door before she could give in to the disappointment. A late morning breeze rustled the quaking aspen, filling the pine-scented air with the whisper of leaves. She took a deep breath and moved across the back patio.
Disappointment seemed the best word to describe her family. They’d lived a facade, and as a result, they’d been doomed to disappoint one another. A long time ago she’d come to terms with the fact that her mother was superficial, far more concerned with appearance than substance. And Delaney had accepted that Henry was an over-the-top control freak. When she’d behaved as Henry expected, he’d been a wonderful father. He’d given her his time and attention, taken her and her friends boating or camping in the Sawtooths, but the Shaws had lived a life of reprimand and reward, and she’d always felt disappointed that everything, even love, had been conditional.
Delaney walked past a towering Ponderosa to the large dog run on the edge of the back lawn. Two brass name plates tacked above the door of the kennel declared the Weimaraners inside were Duke and Dolores.
“Aren’t you pretty babies?” she cooed, touching their smooth noses through the chain link and talking to them as if they were lap dogs. Delaney loved dogs, having been raised with Dolores and Duke’s predecessors, Clark and Clara. But these days, she moved too often to have a goldfish, let alone a real pet. “Poor pretty babies all penned up.” The Weimaraners licked her fingers, and she lowered to one knee. The dogs were well-groomed, and since they’d belonged to Henry, no doubt well-trained. Their long brown faces and sad blue eyes silently begged her to set them free. “I know how you feel,” she said. “I used to be trapped here, too.” Duke let loose with a pitiful whine that tugged at Delaney’s sympathetic heart. “Okay, but don’t go out of the yard,” she said as she stood.
The kennel door swung open and Duke and Dolores threw themselves forward, shooting past Delaney like two streaks of lightening. “Damn it, get back here!” she yelled, turning just in time to see their stubby tails disappear into the forest. She thought about letting them go with the hope they’d return on their own. Then she thought of the highway less than a mile from the house.
She grabbed two leather leashes from inside the kennel and took off after them. She didn’t feel any attachment toward the dogs, but she didn’t want them to end up as roadkill either. “Duke! Dolores!” she called, running as fast as she could, carefully balancing her weight over a pair of wedgie sandals. “Dinnertime. Steak. Kibbles and Bits.” She chased them into the forest and on old trails she’d roamed as a child. Towering pines enclosed her in shadows and shrubbery slapped at her shins and ankles. She caught up with the dogs at the old treehouse Henry had built for her as a child, but they took off just as she made a grab for their collars. “Milk-Bones,” she called out as she pursued them past Elephant Rock and through Huckleberry Creek. She might have given up if the two animals hadn’t stayed within spitting distance, teasing her, taunting her with their closeness. She chased them under low-hanging aspen branches and scraped her hand as she hoisted herself over a fallen pine.
“Damn it!” she cursed as she inspected her scratches. Duke and Dolores sat on their haunches, wagging their stubby tails and waiting for her to finish. “Come!” she commanded. They lowered their heads in submission, but as soon as she took a step, they jumped up and took off. “Get back here!” She considered letting them go, but then she remembered the Truly Charitable Society meeting at her mother’s house. Chasing stupid dogs through the forest suddenly sounded like a good time.
She followed them up a small hill and paused beneath a pine tree to catch her breath. Her brows lowered as she gazed at the meadow in front of her, subdivided and cleared of trees. A bulldozer and a front-end loader sat idle next to a huge dump truck. Neon orange paint marked the ground in several spots beside big sewer trenches, and Nick Allegrezza stood in the midst of the chaos next to a black Jeep Wrangler, Duke and Dolores at his feet.
Delaney’s heart jumped to her throat. Nick was the one person she’d hoped to avoid during her short visit. He was the source of the single most humiliating experience of her life. She fought to suppress the urge to turn and go back the way she’d come. Nick had seen her and there was no way she was going to run. She had to force herself to walk calmly down the incline toward him.
He was dressed the same as he had been yesterday at Henry’s funeral. White T-shirt, worn Levi’s, gold earring, but he’d shaved today and his hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He looked like he belonged on a billboard wearing nothing but his Calvin’s.
“Hello,” she called out. He didn’t say anything, just stood there, one of his big hands leisurely scratching the top of Duke’s head as his gray eyes watched her. She fought the apprehension weighing the pit of her stomach as she came to stand several feet before him. “I’m walking Henry’s dogs,” she said, and was again treated with silence and his steady, unfathomable gaze. He was taller than she remembered. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. His chest was broader. His muscles bigger. The last time she’d stood this close, he’d turned her life inside out and changed it forever. She’d thought he was a knight in shining armor, driving a slightly battered Mustang. But she’d been wrong.
He’d been forbidden to her all her life, and she’d been drawn to him like an insect to a bug light. She’d been a good girl longing to be set free, and all he’d had to do was crook his finger at her and utter four words. Four provocative words from his bad-boy lips. “Come here, wild thing,” he’d said, and her soul had responded with a resounding yes. It had been as if he’d looked deep inside her, past the facade, to the real Delaney. She’d been eighteen and horribly naive. She’d never been allowed to spread her wings, to breathe on her own, and Nick had been like pure oxygen that went straight to her head. But she’d paid for it.
“They’re not as well behaved as Clark and Clara were,” she continued, refusing to feel intimidated by his silence.
When he finally did speak, it wasn’t what she expected. “What did you do to your hair?” he asked.
She touched her fingers to the soft red curls. “I like it.”
“You look better as a blond.”
Delaney’s hand fell to her side, and she lowered her gaze to the dogs at Nick’s feet. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“You should sue.”
She really did like her hair, but even if she didn’t, she couldn’t very well sue herself. “What are you doing up here?” she asked as she leaned forward and snapped the leash on Duke’s collar. “Looting?”
“No.” He rocked back on his heels. “I never plunder on the Lord’s day. You’re safe.”
She looked into his dark face. “But funerals are fair game, right?”
A frown creased his forehead. “What are you talking about?”
“That blond yesterday. You treated Henry’s funeral like a pick-up bar. That was disrespectful and gauche, Nick. Even for you.”
The frown disappeared, chased away by a licentious smile. “Jealous?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Want the details?”
She rolled her eyes. “Spare me.”
“You sure? It’s pretty juicy stuff?”
“I think I’ll live.” She pushed one side of her hair behind her ear, then reached for Dolores.
Before she touched the dog, Nick reached out and grabbed her wrist. “What happened here?” he asked and cupped the back of her hand. His palm was big and warm and callused, and he lightly brushed his thumb across the scratch on her own palm. A surprising little tingle tickled her fingertips, then swept up her arm.
“It’s nothing.” She pulled a
way. “I scraped it climbing over a blowdown.”
He looked into her face. “You climbed over a blowdown in those shoes?”
For the second time in less than an hour, her favorite shoes were being maligned. “There’s nothing wrong with them.”
“Not if you’re a dominatrix.” His gaze slid down her body, then slowly climbed back up. “Are you?”
“Dream on.” She reached for Dolores again, and this time successfully clipped the leash on the dog’s collar. “Whips and chains aren’t my idea of a good time.”
“That’s a shame.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned his butt against the tire well of the Jeep. “The closest thing Truly has to an experienced dominatrix is Wendy Weston, 1990 state champion calf roper and barrel racer.”
“Can you afford two women spanking your bum?”
“You could steal me away,” he said through a grin. “You’re better looking than Wendy, and you have the right shoes.”
“Gee thanks. Too bad I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon.”
He looked a little surprised by her answer. “Short trip.”
Delaney shrugged and pulled the dogs toward her. “I never intended to stay long.” She would probably never see him again, and she let her gaze roam the sensual line of his dark face. He was too handsome for his own good, but maybe he wasn’t as bad as she remembered. He would never pass for a nice guy, but at least he hadn’t reminded her of the night she’d sat on the hood of his Mustang. It had been ten years; maybe he’d mellowed. “Good-bye, Nick,” she said and took a step backward.
He touched two fingers to his brow in a mock salute, and she turned and headed back the way she’d come, dragging the dogs along with her.
At the top of the small hill, she glanced over her shoulder one last time. Nick stood just as she’d left him beside his Jeep, arms folded across his chest, watching her. As she stepped into the shifting forest shadows, she remembered the blond he’d picked up at Henry’s funeral. Maybe he’d mellowed, but she’d bet pure testosterone, not blood, ran through his veins.
Truly Madly Yours Page 3
