by Heidi Betts
Besides, she’d been alone in the house…just her and Dom Pérignon…and not expecting guests.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Connor responded, setting his mug on the countertop and grabbing a paper towel to blot at the stain on his shirt, just above the waistband of his low-slung jeans.
Lord, he wore denims like no one else she’d ever seen. Even out in L.A., where every waiter or valet was an aspiring actor or model, the men didn’t have waists and hips and buttocks like Connor Riordan. They would never be able to pull off the open flannel shirts over faded T-shirts the way he did, or the worn blue jeans and work boots.
Not that it had any effect on her whatsoever. She was merely making a mental observation, the same as she might be slightly awed by a famous, high-powered celebrity who waltzed into her office back on Wilshire.
“In case you’ve forgotten, this is my house.”
“Since when?”
She lifted a brow, her annoyance growing in direct proportion to the pounding in her skull. What she wouldn’t give for a cup of that coffee and fifty aspirin right about now.
But she couldn’t have those things just yet. Not until she’d finished this argument with Connor and kicked him out on his tight-but-aggravating butt.
“Since I grew up here. Remember?”
“That was a long time ago,” he remarked, picking up his mug once again and taking a slow sip of the black coffee that was making her mouth water. “Seems to me it’s not so much your house anymore. Your parents moved to a smaller place on the other side of town, and you moved all the way to Los Angeles. It’s your brother’s place now…his and Karen’s.”
Beth’s teeth gritted together and she felt her right eye begin to twitch, which it only did when she was resisting the urge to clobber somebody.
“I’m still family,” she told him, jaw clenched tight so that her words sounded half growled, even to her own ears. “This is my family home, and I’m sure Nick won’t mind me staying in my old room for a few nights while he’s on his honeymoon.”
Like she owed him any explanation! Honestly, this was her house—her family home, at any rate. He was the interloper. He should be the one defending himself and offering up explanations for why he was here.
“Well, sweetheart,” he drawled, “that’s where we might have a problem. Because Nick told me I could stay here until he gets back.”
Scowling, she let his words sink in, all the while wishing her brother were nearby so she could wring his neck. Was it too much to ask that she be allowed to stay in her childhood home while she was in Ohio? Alone. To rest and recuperate before going back to her mile-a-minute world and no-rest-for-the-weary occupation.
“Why do you need to stay here?” she wanted to know. “Don’t you have a house of your own to go to?”
She could have sworn he blushed at that. His cheekbones turned a dull red and he refused to meet her gaze.
“Yeah,” he said in a low rumble. “You’d think that would make a difference.”
“Excuse me?”
“I got kicked out, okay?” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and slouching against the counter cabinets.
He was pouting. And looking decidedly embarrassed, Beth thought.
Oh, the day was taking a turn for the better, after all.
She perked up, fighting the urge to giggle at his obvious discomfort and reversal of fortune.
“You got kicked out,” she repeated, trying not to sound too gleeful. “Of your own house. Why?”
The flush disappeared from his face, then was replaced by the flat, grim line of his mouth.
“Never mind why,” was his terse reply. “The point is, I needed a place to stay, and your brother offered the use of his house until he and Karen get back from their honeymoon.”
It was her turn to cross her arms. At this point, she didn’t even care that the gesture pushed her breasts up and caused the flimsy satin and lace bodice to bunch and reveal a fair amount of cleavage.
If the sight offended him, fine. If it turned him off, so be it. And if it turned him on…good. Maybe he would feel intimidated by his attraction to her and hightail it to the nearest hotel.
Or back into Lori-Lisa-Laura’s open arms.
Okay, that didn’t sit as well with her as the two previous possibilities, but still…whatever got him out of her brother’s house while she was there.
“Well, you can’t stay here,” she told him again, more firmly this time.
“Oh, no? You want to call Nick in Hawaii, interrupt whatever he and Karen are up to at this particular moment—” he waggled his eyebrows to indicate what he predicted they’d be doing, and probably wasn’t far off the mark “—and ask him exactly who his choice is for houseguest while he’s gone?”
“Sure,” she said, calling his bluff. “I’m pretty sure he’ll pick me, considering how I’m his sister and all. His blood relative.”
“And I’m his best friend since fifth grade,” Connor put in. “Not to mention invited. Does Nick even know you’re here?”
“Of course he knows I’m here,” she fired back.
When she’d first been making arrangements to return to Ohio for his wedding, she’d offered to get a hotel room. Wanted to, to be honest. But Nick had insisted she stay at the house.
“It’s your house, too,” he’d cajoled. “And besides, Karen and I will be leaving right after the reception. You’ll have the whole place to yourself.”
She’d agreed, partly because she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, and partly because she’d been looking forward to coming home, sleeping in her old bedroom, and just being alone with her thoughts and her memories for a few days.
So much for that, she reflected now. She hadn’t even been able to wake up and get a cup of coffee on only her second morning back without coming face-to-face with her greatest nemesis.
Well, part of that may be true, but she’d be damned if he’d keep her from her daily shot of caffeine a second longer.
Marching forward, she grabbed a ceramic mug from the cupboard just above Connor’s right shoulder and poured herself a cup of rich, black coffee from the still-hot carafe. She crossed to the refrigerator to add a dollop of milk, then leaned back against the opposite countertop to stir in a spoonful of sugar.
She took a sip, savoring the sweet, creamy brew before Connor’s voice interrupted her momentary enjoyment.
“So if Nick knows you’re here, and he knows I’m here, I guess that means he thought the two of us could act like mature adults and stay together in the same house for a while without killing each other.”
Beth swallowed another great gulp of coffee before spearing him with a saccharine grin. “He’d have been wrong.”
“Come on, Beth Ann.” He set his coffee on the counter with a clink, sliding his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans as he shifted to face her more fully.
She cringed at his use of both her first and middle names together, hoping he didn’t notice. If he did, he would call her that all the more just to annoy her, the same as he had when they were kids.
“Can’t we get along well enough to rattle around this place together for a few days? I’ll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine.”
I’d rather chew broken glass, she thought, downing the last of her coffee, then moving to refill her cup.
“I sincerely doubt it,” she told him bluntly, not bothering to look at him. Pivoting on the ball of her bare foot, she started from the room. “I’ll find somewhere else to stay.”
Four
Connor watched her saunter out of the room, unable to decide whether he’d won or lost that round. Lost, would be his guess.
He should have taken the opportunity to talk to her like he’d wanted to last night. To sit down with her and discuss their relationship. That night seven years ago, when they’d done something they shouldn’t have, and how it had affected them to this day.
Instead, he’d been so surprised by her sudden appearance in the
kitchen doorway that he’d let her goad him into arguing with her.
Truth be told, it had been kind of fun. She’d stood there in that frilly little excuse for a nightgown…shoulders bare, breasts heaving, bottom hem barely covering the area where he prayed panties had been.
It was too much for him to imagine her naked under there. He was already hard and throbbing just from her mere presence. Knowing she wasn’t wearing underwear would have caused smoke to pour out of his ears for sure.
As it was, a cold shower and a quick dip into a sub-zero freezer weren’t out of the question.
Her nose had been pointing up in the air, her glacial gaze implying he was no better than a piece of chewing gum she might scrape off the bottom of her steel-heeled stilettos.
She was a snob, but she hadn’t always been like that. Hadn’t been anything like that before college. And then he’d seduced her, taken advantage of her, and he was very much afraid he was responsible for the woman she was today.
A successful entertainment attorney, with her own firm, making more money in a year than he’d probably earn in a lifetime? Sure. But also a cold, calculating professional who put her career ahead of her family and personal happiness.
The old Beth would never have let anything come between her and her parents or brother. The new Beth had purposely moved over two thousand miles away and didn’t come home unless it was absolutely unavoidable.
It was his fault she’d grown so distant from her family, but damned if he knew what to do to fix the problem.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Beth flicked mascara over her lashes while balancing the cordless phone between her ear and shoulder. The minute she’d left the kitchen and turned her back on Connor, she’d gone about trying to figure out exactly what she should do to get away from him permanently. She thought about going back downstairs and forcibly removing him from the house, but doubted she could budge his hulking, overbearing frame.
Now, she was on the phone with the airline, trying to change her flight back to L.A. So far, she was having about as much luck as she’d had trying to get a decent, quiet breakfast this morning.
Her stomach growled, sending her an uncomfortable reminder that she still hadn’t eaten and was hungry, darn it. Which only put her more on edge.
The way she was feeling, she might just stand a decent chance of muscling Connor out of the house, after all.
“All right, if I can’t get a flight out today, I’ll take one for tomorrow,” she told the woman on the other end of the line.
She heard the clickety-clack of fingers tapping a keyboard for a second, and then the woman said, “I’m not showing anything for tomorrow, either.”
“What about another airline? I don’t care if it costs more. I’ll even buy another ticket, I just really need to fly out of here as soon as possible.”
Click-click-clack. “No, ma’am, I’m sorry. And I feel it’s only fair to warn you that the storm front moving in has forced us to delay and cancel many of our flights. You may not even be able to get out of town with your current reservation.”
Beth muttered a curse, resisting the urge to rub her eyes and smear the makeup she’d just spent the last quarter of an hour applying. She wanted to ask the woman to check the schedule again. She even thought about putting on her dragon-lady act and insisting the airline do whatever it took to get her home. But her current predicament wasn’t the woman’s fault, and neither was the weather.
“All right, thank you,” she forced herself to say in a polite, moderate tone before hanging up.
No flights. Not today, tomorrow…maybe not for the rest of the week. This definitely put a crimp in her plans, but she hadn’t gotten where she was in this world by taking no for an answer.
The bathroom door opened with a creak of hinges, and she crossed the hall to her childhood bedroom, where her suitcase lay open on top of the unmade bed. She slipped her stockinged feet into the basic black sling-backs she’d brought to go along with most of the outfits she’d packed and headed downstairs to find a phone book.
She didn’t know where Connor was, and told herself she didn’t care. It was too much to hope that he might have abandoned the house of his own free will, but maybe if she could avoid him for another few minutes, things would work out okay.
Keeping her ears open for signs that he was moving around the house, she crept into the room her brother used as an office-slash-den and started rooting around. She found the phone book in a drawer beneath the phone. So sensible, it had to be Karen’s doing. Nick didn’t have an organized bone in his body and was as likely to leave the phone book in the dishwasher as the office.
She dropped into the chair behind the desk and flipped to the lodgings section at the back of the directory. There were any number of two- and three-star motels listed, as well as a couple of decent hotels. She would have to drive an hour or more to find a really nice place to stay, but at this point she would be happy with just a bed and private bathroom.
The telephone receiver was in her hand, her fingers tapping out the first of the hotel numbers, when she suddenly froze.
What was she doing? Why was she the one calling the airline and trying to find another place to stay when this was her house?
Well, her brother’s house now, but she’d lived here with him and their parents for the first twenty years of her life. That certainly had to count for more than Connor’s close friendship with Nick and the fact that he’d lived across the street from them for almost the same amount of time.
Dropping the phone back in its cradle, she slapped the directory closed and stood, sending the chair scuttling back several inches.
No, she wasn’t going to do this. She was going to stay in her own house, in her own room, until she flew back to Los Angeles.
Hopefully that would be Thursday, on her original ticket. But if the weather grounded that flight, she would stay until the next one available to the West Coast.
It wouldn’t be the most comfortable few days she’d ever spent, she knew. Being in the same town with Connor was difficult enough…staying in the same house with him was bound to give her a migraine of epic proportions.
No problem; she’d brought her Imitrex. Along with plain ibuprofen, antacids and all the other over-the-counter medications she kept on hand for when her body began to protest the long hours and high stress levels she forced it to endure.
The point was, she’d been telling herself for years that she was well and truly over Connor. No more childhood crush, no more unrealistic, adolescent fantasies that he couldn’t fulfill. Now was the time to step up and prove it.
She was debating her plan of action where Connor was concerned when he poked his head around the doorway, startling her. For a nanosecond, her heart stopped beating as it jumped into her throat.
“You’re still here,” he said unnecessarily.
“Yes.” She drew herself up, smoothing the front of her white silk blouse, though she doubted she’d picked up any wrinkles in the short amount of time she’d been dressed. “And I’m staying, so you might want to look into finding other accommodations.”
“What’s the matter? Couldn’t get an earlier flight?”
His eyes twinkled devilishly and her jaw snapped closed. He was so aggravating, the way he seemed to know what she was thinking and find it amusing.
“No, actually. There’s a storm front moving in, and they’re not sure I’ll even be able to leave at the scheduled time.”
“You could always go to a hotel,” he offered, moving to fill the doorway and leaning a shoulder against the carved-wood jamb.
“So could you.”
“Stalemate, then. Since we’ve been down this road before, and neither of us is willing to leave, I guess that means we’re stuck together.”
She hated to admit it, but he was right. They were well and truly stuck with each other.
“Come on.” Connor pushed away from the wall and motioned toward the kitchen with a hitch of his h
ead. “If we’re going to be roommates for a while, we might as well make nice. I fixed breakfast. Come get some.”
With that, he turned and walked away, leaving her to follow or not. She stood behind the desk for another minute, debating whether to let down her guard and eat with him or hold tight to her pride and avoid him as much as possible.
A whiff of toast and other unidentifiable scents floated into the room, causing her stomach to rumble and making up her mind for her. She was starving, he’d cooked, and she’d be darned if he’d keep her from eating when she was hungry in her own home.
She crossed the office and strolled down the hall, her high heels clicking in cadence with her steps. When she reached the kitchen, she found Connor at the stove, stirring something in a frying pan and scooping portions onto plates.
As though sensing her presence, he glanced in her direction, then carried the two heaping plates to the table.
“Have a seat,” he told her. “I’ll get the toast and some napkins.”
Waiting until he was back at the counter, she skirted him and settled in the chair nearest the wall. That way, she could see every move he made and map out her escape route, if one became necessary.
He piled four slices of buttered toast on another plate and grabbed a handful of paper napkins from a drawer by the sink before returning to the table.
“Don’t wait for me. Go ahead and eat.”
She lifted the fork at her place setting, but merely toyed with the omelet fixings in front of her while he continued to move around the room. He opened a cupboard and retrieved two glasses, taking them with him to the refrigerator.
“Milk or juice?” he asked.
Juice would go better with breakfast, but her ulcer wouldn’t thank her for it. “Milk. Thank you,” she added grudgingly.
