His Brown-Eyed Girl

by Liz Talley

  If she kept saying it, it would be true.

  “Yeah, but after the crap he pulled last week, I wish you’d reconsider the gated community idea. I’d feel better if you weren’t in that old house with your crazy aunt.”

  “Dad, don’t call Aunt Flora crazy.”

  “She was crazy before Alzheimer’s. I’ve always called her crazy…to her face. Not changing now.”

  Addy knew her father loved Flora so she let it slide. “I can’t leave Aunt Flora and she won’t move. We have sturdy locks and nosy neighbors. I feel good about where I live, Dad—it’s safe.”

  “Call a security system company. At least get an alarm, baby.”

  “I’ll think about it. But remember I know how to protect myself. I live smart and I listen to my intuition. I have a plan for dealing with whatever Robbie throws my way.”

  “Which is?”

  “Ignore him but remain vigilant. Any attention I give him is fuel for the fire.” Addy had spent years in therapy studying people like Robbie. She understood him better, and that gave her added protection. Understanding the threat was half the battle.

  She could get lucky and not have to deal with him at all. Maybe freedom and no response to his threats would work and Robbie would leave her alone.

  Probably not.

  But she could hope.

  “If he gives you any trouble, I’ll finish what I started with that baseball bat.” Her father wasn’t a big man…he just thought like one. “I’ll be at the parole hearing on Monday. Let’s see if my statement can sway the board.”

  “Glad you got my back, Dad. We’ll hope Robbie doesn’t get his freedom. That will solve everything.”

  “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”

  Addy allowed a smile to curve her lips. “That’s always been our family motto.”

  “Yep. I’ll call you after the hearing. Be safe, my darling. And keep the dang phone close.”

  “Always, Dad.”

  Addy hung up. The last parole hearing had been a year ago and Robbie had been denied early release, but some jittery feeling in her belly told her this time would be different…or maybe she was hungry.

  “Want some pirogues today, Shelia?” Addy asked, unlocking the cabinet and withdrawing her purse. She slid the cell phone into her smock pocket and grabbed her wallet. “My treat if you’ll walk over.”

  “Like I’m turning down red beans and rice?”

  “Only good thing about Monday.” Addy smiled thinking about the steaming mound of red beans and andouille sausage. In New Orleans, red beans and rice was a traditional dish served on wash day—Monday. “I’ll call ahead.”

  Shelia grabbed the twenty dollar bill and hugged her. “I overheard your conversation with your dad.”

  Addy hugged her friend back. “I’m not scared.”

  “Of course you’re not,” Shelia said, chucking Addy playfully on the chin.

  But they both knew a lie sat between them.

  Chapter Nine

  “YOU GOTTA sign this permission form, Uncle Lucas, and I need ten dollars for concessions.” Chris waggled a crumpled piece of paper at Lucas’s head as he tried to figure out the complicated satellite television box. Charlotte sat on the couch crying because something had happened to the TV in the middle of Ms. Calico and Creampie, whatever that was.

  “Okay, get it out of my face.” Lucas pushed Chris’s hand downward and glared at the stupid black box. “Wait, ten dollars for concession?”

  “I eat a lot.”

  Chris didn’t move the paper. Lucas jerked it out of his hand. “I’ll give you five dollars.”

  “Awww,” Chris whined.

  “But if you go get Michael, I’ll make it ten.”

  “Woot!” Chris fist-pumped and galloped up the stairs shouting “Michael!” at the top of his lungs.

  “Dear God. I need whiskey and a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. That’s my fee for this gig. Booze and silence,” Lucas muttered to himself as he punched the input button. He glanced back at the television but found the same blue screen.

  Mother Fricker.

  “Creampie was gonna win a medal in the pet show,” Charlotte moaned between sniffles. The child sounded as weary as Lucas felt. Maybe she hadn’t gotten a nap at preschool. Lucas sure the hell hadn’t. The dog had pissed on the floor again, and he had to take him into the vet. His afternoon had been chopped in half. By the time he’d shoved the pills down Kermit’s throat and finished a conference call with his business manager, it was time for carpool.

  And Lucas was certain carpool was the devil’s afternoon recruiting ground. He probably claimed a dozen souls that very afternoon when someone had blocked the K-2 loop. Who knew soccer moms had such creative curse-word combinations?

  A rumble down the stairs along with shouting announced the arrival of the two boys.

  “You’re such a moron, Chris,” Michael said before slinking into the family room and casting Lucas a withering look. It was always a withering look, as opposed to, say, a helpful look. “What?”

  Lucas tried really, really hard to be patient, but the day had been crappy and he was tired of being Mr. Nice Guy. Okay, he hadn’t been exactly Mr. Nice Guy, but he’d attempted to keep up the good-sport veneer he’d painted on before walking into his brother’s house last week. That veneer had cracked and worn thin and the bill had come due.

  “How about you lose the attitude?” Lucas said, rising and stretching to his full height of six foot four. He glowered at the kid, but the effect was lost on Michael because as usual he’d shifted his gaze away. “Your whole moody teen thing is on my last nerve.”

  Michael gave him a blank stare. “Like I care? I’m controlling what I can control and I’m leaving you alone. You’re the one who wanted me down here, and I’m here.” The kid straightened his spine but still looked vulnerable as he tossed his hair out of his face with a practiced flip of his head.

  Lucas reigned in his aggravation and took Michael’s advice—control what you can control. He needed the damn TV fixed so Charlotte would stop whining. “Something happened in the middle of your sister’s video—I think she sat on the control—and I can’t get it back on.”

  Michael sighed and took the control from Lucas. “First you have to make sure it’s on this channel. Then you go to Input, then make sure—”

  Performing a complicated series of button-pushing, Michael nodded in satisfaction as a cartoon tabby appeared wearing a huge pink bow.

  “Creampie!” Charlotte shouted, pointing at the screen.

  “There, squirt,” Michael said, rubbing his sister’s hair and moving toward the foyer and stairs.

  “Thanks,” Lucas called, impressed, but afraid he’d never be able to mimic what the kid had done with the remote.

  “No problem,” Michael called back.

  It was the most civil conversation Lucas had had with the kid since arriving last week…if one could call that a conversation.

  “Pay up,” Chris said, shoving a grungy palm Lucas’s way.

  “You really need to wash your hands, dude.” Lucas reached for his wallet right as the doorbell sounded. He glanced at his watch. Six o’clock. Dinnertime. But he hadn’t ordered pizza.

  Maybe Addy would be standing on the porch with something Flora had cooked that day. He’d hated the way it had felt that morning. The vibe had been wrong, and he’d spent the day thinking about her, about how he could change things. But he had come up with no solution. Pursuing anything other than temporary friendship was selfish of him.

  Besides he wasn’t a man to lose his head over a woman…to daydream about her soulful eyes and long dark hair. The kids and lack of sleep were pecking at him, making him weak, making him poetic.

  Ugh. He hated poetry…unless it showed in his photographs.

  The doorbell sounded again, and Lucas took his boots to the front door. Two seconds later he was looking at Tara Lindsay, aka Sheldon’s mom.

  “Hey,” she said smiling with overglossed lips. �
�Thought I’d be a good neighbor and bring you guys some supper.”

  For a second, he just stared. She wore tight jeans, high heels and a shirt that dipped dangerously low between her breasts. Her perfume wrapped around him, making him want to turn his head for a good deep breath of night air.

  “Lucas?”

  “Oh, sorry. Been a rough day. Come on in.” He stepped back and she sauntered in…without Sheldon. Maybe the kid was afraid of Charlotte exacting revenge. Or maybe Tara wanted to concentrate on other things like exploring what she thought to be an invitation. He shouldn’t have put his arm around her. Dumb-ass move.

  He closed the door as Tara turned toward him. “You want this in the kitchen?”

  “Yeah.” He gestured toward the back right corner, wondering if the “this” was the foil-wrapped pan in her hands…or something else she wanted to give him. Uh, seemed determined to give him.

  She strolled back to the kitchen, each click of a heel preceded by a little hip wiggle.

  Here was an obvious woman.

  Even the ten-year-old standing in the open entrance of the foyer got that. He turned to his uncle and wiggled his eyebrows.

  Cheeky kid.

  Lucas shrugged and followed behind the sexy kitten in eff-me heels because there was really no other recourse. The woman had brought a casserole…and the kids needed to eat.

  Tara tossed her hair over her shoulder as Lucas entered the kitchen. “I brought some lettuce and tomatoes. I’ll toss the salad together real quick if you’ll grab me a bowl.”

  “Awfully nice of you to do this, Tara.”

  Her answering smile made him nervous. “I love the way you say things. Awfully. So deliciously cowboy.”

  Cowboy. Ah…now he understood. Some women had fantasies about men in worn jeans and boots—a romantic notion of cracked leather, hard abs and a soft heart. It was almost laughable. Most cowboys Lucas knew were about as romantic as cow crap. They were surly, out of shape and a dentist’s dream. Lucas wasn’t a cowboy, though he liked his comfortable jeans and boots fine. He was a photographer who dabbled in ranching. Big difference. “You know I’m not a cowboy.”

  Her laugh was soft. “Well, to a city girl like me, you’re close enough. Do you know where Courtney keeps the cheese grater?”

  Lucas spent the next several minutes opening and slamming drawers but couldn’t find the grater. The whump-whump of Tara slicing small cherry tomatoes echoed in the kitchen, along with the off-key song she sang under her breath. Somehow it seemed too intimate and made Lucas feel itchy in his skin.

  “I brought ranch dressing because that’s what men always seem to like, and I pride myself on knowing what men like,” she said, casting blue eyes on him.

  “Do you?” Shit. What could he say to that? He shouldn’t have put an arm around her when her husband acted like an ass. This is what being nice got him. Another problem…and Lucas Finlay was full up on problems in his life.

  “Yeah,” she said, setting the paring knife on the cutting board and moving closer to him. Lucas tried to step back but he hit the cabinet. Totally cornered.

  “Makes you quite the catch.” He braced his hands on either side of the granite and tried to figure a way to slide out of the corner without being offensive.

  “Mmm,” Tara purred, reaching out and straightening the collar on his shirt. “I’m a talented woman. Be glad to prove it to you.”

  “Uh, here’s the thing, Tara. I’m leaving in a few days—”

  “I don’t want to marry you, Lucas,” she said with a drawl, her blue eyes twinkling with something he recognized as turned-on woman. “I want to fu—”

  “Yoo hoo!” someone called at the back door.

  Tara snapped her mouth closed and looked at the back door slowly opening. Lucas almost sighed in relief as Flora popped her head in.

  “Hey, there, tall drink of water,” the older woman said, elbowing the back door open while balancing a huge Dutch oven in her hands. The smell of something spicy wafted in with the night air. “Brought you some jambalaya, but it looks like someone beat me to the punch. Do I need to arm wrestle her?”

  Addy followed behind with a gallon of tea and a couple of sacks with French loaves peeking over the edge. Her brown eyes widened when she saw Tara standing beside him…close beside him.

  Lucas moved past Tara to help the older woman with the dish. “I’m not sure Tara here can get much traction in those heels so you’d have the advantage,” he joked.

  Tara flipped her hair. “Don’t be so sure, honey. Women can do more in these things than you think.”

  Addy didn’t seem to find it funny. She lifted her dark eyebrows and sat the tea on the counter.

  Tara’s gaze darted to Addy and he saw something fire in her eyes. “And don’t you just have women jumping to help you? Those dimples work magic.”

  Lucas hated his dimples.

  “I’m Tara,” the blonde said, stretching out an arm jingling with bangles toward Addy. The light caught the glowy flecks in her nail polish, and when Addy reached out with her own small hands tipped with short unpolished nails the difference was marked.

  “I’m Addy and this is my aunt Flora. We live next door,” Addy said, keeping her gaze from him. Somehow he knew her feelings were hurt, though he doubted anyone else in that kitchen caught on. Somehow, some way, he could read her.

  “This jambalaya will keep,” Flora said, lifting the lid. The smell made Lucas’s stomach growl.

  “I made chicken spaghetti,” Tara said, lifting the foil off her pan revealing golden cheesy goodness.

  All three women stared at him, silently asking him to choose.

  “I hit the jackpot, huh? Lucky for me I’m hungry enough to eat both,” he said as the door leading to the innards of the house swung open. In trooped Michael and Chris.

  “We smelled something good,” Chris said, rushing toward the stove. Michael hung back, but grabbed a stack of paper plates sitting beside the fridge and eyed the two dishes sitting on the stove hungrily.

  Addy pushed some school papers to the side and sat the bread on the counter. “I’ll leave this here.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” Aunt Flora said, brushing her hands together. “We need to slice it. It will be perfect with that salad Ms. Tara made. The kids can choose whichever they want to eat, and we’ll put up the rest. I’m going back to my kitchen and grabbing some of those plastic disposable storage containers.”

  For an older lady, Flora moved fast. She was out before Chris had dropped his first spoonful of spaghetti on the floor. Luckily Kermit had come in with the kids and went right to work on cleanup.

  “Where’s Charlotte?” Lucas asked Michael.

  The older boy shrugged. “Where you left her?”

  Lucas made a move toward the door, but Addy beat him to it. “I’ll get Charlotte. You have a guest.”

  The way she said “guest” made him cringe. He felt guilty, too, though he didn’t know why. He and Addy weren’t anything to each other. It was silly to feel guilty for being caught with a woman he didn’t want by a woman he did want…but couldn’t have.

  Lucas wanted to bang his head against something to shake the befuddlement out. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time because Kermit reared up on the stove.

  Tara shrieked.

  “Get down,” Lucas said, pulling Kermit by his collar. “Stupid dog.”

  “He’s not stupid,” Michael said, grabbing the bread and pulling a hunk from the loaf. “You forgot to feed him.”

  “That’s Chris’s job,” Lucas said, toeing the dog away from the stove and eyeballing the kid who had already wolfed down half his plate.

  “Mff?” the boy said, looking up with a greasy look of innocence.

  “When you finish eating, you need to feed your dog and cat. Where is the Wicked Cat of the West?” Lucas asked, wiping up a spill on the stove.

  “Curled up in your cowboy hat,” Michael said, with a gleeful voice.

  Great. Cat hair on his Stetson. />
  Tara grabbed a serrated knife and started slicing the bread, piling the slices onto a paper plate. The door swung open and Addy entered, holding a sleeping Charlotte. “She’s down for the count. You want me to put her to bed?”

  Lucas shook his head. “I’ll take her. I know where everything is, and I need to put out fresh water for Pickles and Fancy Nancy.”

  “Who?” Addy whispered.

  “The hamsters.” Lucas reached for Charlotte, sliding his hand between the child and the woman who haunted his thoughts. Addy had changed after work into a pair of jeans and a soft Beatles T-shirt and his hand brushed beneath her breasts. Inhaling her scent, he plucked the child from her grasp, wishing he could find a reason to touch her again. Her gaze flicked up to meet his, and in that brief glance he tried to convey how much he wanted her.

  She looked away and he resettled the child against his shoulder, glanced around the near-surreal scene unfolding in his brother’s kitchen and pushed out the swinging door.

  Five minutes later after tucking Charlotte into bed in her clothes, feeding the noisy hamsters and ignoring the toothbrush Courtney had demanded he use every night, he made his way back into the kitchen where Addy sat chatting with Chris, Tara washed dishes and Flora lifted pieces of pie from the depths of a tin pie plate.

  “One down, two to go,” Lucas said.

  “Poor little tuckered-out angel,” Flora said, grabbing a fork from a drawer and taking Michael and Chris a slice of lemon meringue pie. “She’s about as cute as they come.”

  The domestic scene should have been comforting to Lucas—three women taking care of the Finlay children, coming to the aid of a helpless man—but he didn’t feel comforted. In fact, the glances Addy and Tara kept trading made him decidedly jumpy, so he grabbed a plate and heaped a spoonful of jambalaya and chicken spaghetti on the plate. Ignoring the salad, he grabbed some bread and settled in at the kitchen island, near where Flora served the pie. The older woman looked up at him, a smile hovering at her lips as if she understood he was a chicken.

  “Guess I better scoot,” Tara said without enthusiasm, after drying her hands on a clean dish towel. “Sheldon’s at my mother’s and she goes to the casino on Monday nights with her gentleman friend. Walk me out, Lucas?”