“She did say he was named after his dad’s favorite car.”
“Good thing the guy wasn’t into Oldsmobiles.”
Ty laughed.
Kat twirled the paper umbrella.
“Did she mention his age?”
“Are you on the job, Vargas?”
She laughed. “Just curious.”
“Sometimes I wonder if there might not be someone out there from his family—parents, aunts, or uncles—somebody who might want to be part of Alice’s life.”
“Someone like you?”
“I guess.”
“Sometimes the past is best left in the past,” she said softly. Yet she couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d just said.
Dodge. Deceased. No other information. Not much to go on. She could start by searching for Alice’s birth records, but she didn’t even know if Sunny had named her Alice Simone, Alice Simmons, or given her Dodge’s last name.
It helped to have something for her brain to latch on to, something to focus on other than all the what-ifs that had been driving her crazy lately.
She studied Ty in the shifting candlelight. The soft, soothing sound of Don Ho singing “I’ll Remember You” filled the room. She tried not to concentrate on the lyrics, afraid the melancholy tune would melt her heart and break down the last of her defenses.
“I will remember you, long after this endless summer is through. . . .”
Kat picked up her tumbler, swirled the remnants of ice before she set it down.
“You’re a thousand miles away.” He reached for her hand. “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking we should have another mai tai.”
THEY HAD ANOTHER mai tai. The blending of rums and fruit juices warmed his blood, but not as much as being with Kat did.
Kat rubbed the back of his hand with her fingertips. Her words drifted softly to him over the exotic music.
“Now I want to know what you’re thinking.”
Ty looked into her eyes. Kat was more to him now than just a lovely dinner companion, more than someone he wanted to date for a few weeks this summer.
“I’m thinking that you’re the most beautiful woman in the room.”
Kat looked around. It was late. The place was almost deserted. “I’m one of the only women in the room.”
He leaned close, kissed her. “I mean it, Kat. Don’t brush the compliment aside.”
She lowered her lashes. “Thanks, Ty. Really. It’s just that I’m not used to this.”
“This what? Appreciation?”
“Attention. Kindness, I guess.”
“Is it that hard to take?”
She shook her head. “No. The trouble is, I could get used to it.”
“Then why fight it?”
Kat murmured, “I wish I could give you what you want, Ty.”
“What do you think that is?”
“It’s been so long, I’m not sure.”
“Then give me what you can.”
“Take me home,” she whispered, leaning close, her eyes rich with promise.
WHEN THEY REACHED his car, he slipped his hand beneath her chin, tilted her face up to his, and gently kissed her.
She leaned into him. Her breasts, soft, tantalizing, flattened against his chest. He heard her sigh. She tasted, delved, explored his mouth. Ty pressed her up against the car, wondering why in the hell they were standing out in a dark parking lot like two sixteen-year-olds when they both had empty beds at home. Then he remembered he couldn’t count his place—not with Sunny and Alice in the house.
When her hands slipped beneath his shirt and began to massage the small of his back, he didn’t care about a bed. He wanted her then and there.
“Quick. Get in the car,” he murmured against her lips, his hands all over her before he reached around her and fumbled for the door handle.
“I guess it is getting late,” she whispered as she grabbed the button above his fly.
He glanced around the parking lot. Except for a couple of cars parked across the lot, the place was practically deserted.
“How about the backseat?” he suggested.
“You’re kidding.”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.” For good measure, he rubbed against her, let her feel exactly how serious he was, and then he closed the front passenger door and reached for the backdoor handle. Kat glanced over her shoulder.
“Are you sure?”
“I want you, Kat. I haven’t thought of anything but making love to you for days. Say no and we’ll leave, or climb in the backseat. I’m ready to do it on the hood of the car.”
She looked around the deserted lot. “What about the security guard?”
“What security guard? This isn’t L.A.”
“The restaurant staff—”
“They’re busy cleaning up so they can get out of here. The closest car is a quarter of a block away.”
Even in the dim light, he could see that she was tempted. He kissed her again, long, slow, and deep, until she moaned and cupped his arousal.
Breathless, she whispered against his lips, “Okay, but I can see the headline now. ‘Naked P.I. Arrested in Parking Lot.’”
“You don’t have to get naked and we’re not going to get arrested.”
“Because this isn’t L.A.”
“Right.”
She slipped past him and climbed up into the car. He climbed in after her.
“I must have been more agile at sixteen,” he mumbled, slipping his hand up her skirt, tangling his fingers into her thong and tugging it down to her thighs.
With an urgency that matched his own, she leaned over and unzipped his fly. “You were probably shorter.”
“Not down there.”
He caught the flash of her smile a heartbeat before she took him into her mouth, surprising him, thrilling him, arousing him until all he could think about was Kat, Kat’s lips, Kat’s tongue, Kat’s eyes, her mouth, her body, her smile—and the way she made him feel.
She brought him to the brink of climax more than once, then withdrew and let him teeter on the edge. She kicked off her sandals. He drew off her flimsy scrap of silk that barely passed for an undergarment.
The street lamps outside radiated fading rainbow smudges on the steamed windows. Kat moved up and over him, climbed on his lap. Warm and wet, she took him inside, rode him until he grabbed her hips and captured her, gently eased her down until he was sheathed deep inside. So far inside that she let go a low, throaty moan before she covered his mouth with hers.
She raised her hips, drew herself up the length of his penis, plunged again, kneeling over him. Other than the sound of the leather upholstery creaking beneath him, Ty was oblivious to everything, to the night, the fact that his knees were shoved up against the back of the driver’s seat. His entire consciousness was centered on Kat.
Her need, as great as his own, communicated itself through her every move, her every touch, her every sigh.
He wished she could let herself love him, trust him as deeply as she craved this intimacy they shared. Their bodies were so attuned to each other that they moved as one.
If only she could trust enough to give him her heart the way she gladly gave her body. If only she’d let him bring her heart and soul to life so that she could really live again.
He unbuttoned the linen sheath she wore. She wasn’t wearing a bra. He exposed her breasts, found her nipple, sucked it into his mouth. She cried out with pleasure, threw her head back, and rode him harder. Driving him over the edge, Kat buried her fingers in his shoulders as they came together.
Replete, she collapsed, still straddling him. He hadn’t the urge to move. He wanted to stay inside her, enveloped by her.
It was Kat
who drew back first, to stare into his eyes.
“That was a great idea,” she whispered, kissing him again. Then, with the grace of a dancer, she swung her leg over him, twisted around to sit beside him, and began searching for her thong on the floor of the car with her toes.
He reached down and scooped it up for her. Before she buttoned up her dress, he ran his hand over the smooth ivory skin of her breast.
“I don’t want you to leave when the Montgomerys come back.”
She went perfectly still, her hands paralyzed on a button.
He leaned into her, whispered against her temple, “I mean it, Kat. I wish you’d think about staying in Twilight.”
“Impossible.” She didn’t mean to voice the thought aloud, but it was the first thing that came to her mind.
“Anything’s possible.” Ty ran both hands through his hair and then zipped his fly. “Who’d have thought I’d have my daughter with me already?”
“I have a business in Long Beach. I just can’t walk out on it.” His life was nice and tidy now. He had Sunny and Alice here, his own long-distance business seemed to be running fine, but she’d worked long and hard to establish her agency, and life had showed her more than once that there were no guarantees.
“Look, Kat.” He could feel her shutting down. Even if she was thinking over what he’d suggested, she’d fallen silent. “Just think about it, all right? That’s all I’m asking.”
Think about it.
Didn’t he realize that all she’d done for the past few days was think about him and wonder what in the hell she was going to do when Jake got back?
Chapter 18
TWO FREAKING hours to go.
Sunny had no clue how she’d lasted almost the whole week at Mermaids.
If it weren’t for Alice, she’d have walked out of town and never looked back. Chandler put her on a small allowance and told her that she could keep all the money she earned, but that he expected her to contribute by helping out with chores.
She turned her back to the store surveillance camera, pulled a fresh stick of gum out of her jeans pocket, quickly slipped it out of its foil wrapper, and popped it in her mouth.
Earl Stanley, her boss and the owner of the shop, didn’t allow gum chewing on the job. On her first day at work, he’d given her the list of rules that he expected his employees to abide by.
He hated chewing gum, not because it was a dirty habit, but because he claimed teenagers never properly disposed of it.
He freaked whenever he found a gum wad stuck beneath the countertop or the one, hard wooden bar stool he had in back of the counter, in the off chance any of the clerks ever had time to sit down.
Earl never worked the register—he acted as if dealing with tourists was beneath him—but he hung out all day in the tiny back room, hovering in the doorway, overseeing everything.
Floor to ceiling, Mermaids was crammed full of tacky tourist ware. Anything with a mermaid on it was jammed into the eighteen-by-sixty-foot space. There were mermaids made of sand dollars, mermaids with seashells strategically covering their breasts, mermaids under glass snowballs, mermaid Christmas ornaments, mermaid place mats, mugs, silver spoons, charms, key rings, woven mermaid throws.
You name it, Earl had it.
Though she hated Earl and the shop, the job gave her the opportunity to get out of the house and leave Chandler and French Fry alone together. She’d finally decided on a plan, and if things were going to work out, she had to be certain the baby and Chandler really took to each other. Chandler was already obsessed with raising Alice right. He absolutely doted on her.
Kat Vargas seemed to be getting used to having Alice around. She and Ty went jogging on the beach together in the afternoons and they’d started renting old movies to watch at night while he babysat.
Chandler had been in a great mood all week, but something about the way Kat acted around Alice made the hair on the back of Sunny’s neck stand up. And knowing Kat was a private investigator only made things worse.
Chandler had been taking care of French Fry from one in the afternoon until seven at night. At first he’d been anxious about doing everything right, but now he actually seemed to enjoy it.
He used his time in the mornings to work on the computer and make phone calls when French Fry was napping.
His expensive how-to-raise-a-kid books were all over the house. As far as she was concerned, no one needed a book to tell them how to raise a kid. You fed them, changed them, kept them from harm, hugged and kissed them a lot. Big freaking deal.
Chandler was constantly making a major case of everything, worrying about whether or not Alice was “on target” for her age, taking notes, comparing her to what the books said she should be doing by now.
Because Alice did some things ahead of schedule, he was convinced she was exceptional in every way. He bragged that she was, without a doubt, the smartest kid on the planet.
I could have told him that. She gets it from me.
Me and Dodge.
Dodge had always run the show. Butch, Leaf, even Jamie couldn’t touch Dodge’s mind. He had a knack for business and had been on the way to making a real name for himself. Unfortunately, he was a legend now.
“Do you have any of these in green?”
Sunny raised a brow, looked down her nose at a stout woman with over-processed red hair and freckles showing her a ceramic mermaid spoon holder.
“Excuse me?” She entertained herself by making customers ask everything twice.
“Do you have this in green? My kitchen is all done in green and it just has to match.”
“My kitchen is all done in green.”
Give me a freaking break.
Sunny popped her gum. Loudly. “Sorry, ma’am. Those only come in hot pink and neon yellow.” Leave it to Earl to stock only the tackiest colors.
Disappointed, the woman set the spoon holder down beside the cash register and walked away. Sunny picked it up and put it on the go-back pile and then glanced over toward the corner where a dumb, pimply-faced junior-high geek hovered over the mermaid pocketknife collection.
She’d noticed him when he walked in fifteen minutes ago. Who wouldn’t? He was wearing a baggy sweatshirt on one of the hottest days yet. Who in the hell but a shoplifter wears a heavy, hooded sweatshirt with pockets on a summer day?
He’d been fingering the knives with mermaids on the handle. Hold it up and the mermaid’s tits were covered. Turn it upside down and they were bare. To each his own.
She snapped her gum and watched him slip the knife into his sweatshirt pocket. She went to help a woman take an ornament off the fake Christmas tree in the front window. The tree had been there so long the dust on the branches gave the impression of fake gray snow.
The minute the geek in the sweatshirt crossed the threshold, Earl came tearing out of the back room, grabbed the kid by his hood, and dragged him back into the store.
Earl had owned the place for thirty years and probably hadn’t bought himself any new clothes in all that time. Dressed in plaid polyester pants and a yellow shirt with a pleated shirtfront, a white belt, and matching loafers, he was totally retro—though not by design. He was completely clueless. His thick, oversized horn-rimmed glasses magnified his eyes to twice their size, giving him a fishy look.
“Give it up, young man!” Earl shoved the kid against the counter, no doubt having seen one too many episodes of NYPD Blue. Andy Sipowitz made taking down perps look easy. Earl was doing his part to stop crime.
The kid was shaking and sweating. Sunny was sure he was either going to burst into tears or throw up. Earl held out his hand and waited. The kid reached into his pocket and out came the mermaid knife, flashing bare tits. The kid’s face was red as a cherry when he dropped the knife into Earl’s palm.
Earl read the kid the riot
act then tossed him out the door, onto the street.
“If I ever see you in this store again, I won’t hesitate to call the police!” Earl wagged his finger, making sure everyone in the vicinity had overheard.
Sunny was ringing up a cash sale for two eleven-year-olds who had selected shells from the fill-a-bag-for-a-buck box. She looked up and saw Earl bearing down on her looking like a Rat Pack fugitive long overdue for a cocktail.
“You watched him pocket this knife, didn’t you, Miss Simone?” He waved the knife under her nose. “Don’t try to deny it. I saw you on the monitor. You were looking right at that young cretin when he slipped this into his sweatshirt, and you didn’t say a thing.”
“I wasn’t really paying attention.”
He rose up onto the toes of his white patent-leather shoes.
“You most certainly were, too.”
She shrugged. “He’s just a kid.”
“That knife cost five ninety-five plus tax.”
A good three inches taller than Earl, she leaned over the counter until they were nose to nose and popped her gum.
“What did you pay for it, Earl? Fifty cents? A buck? He’s just a kid.”
“He’s a thief, and you were aiding and abetting.”
“Give me a break,” she mumbled.
Earl was sweating profusely. His bald spot gleamed beneath the fluorescent lights. “You’re fired.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“You’re through at the end of your shift.”
She stepped out from behind the cash register. “You think I’m going to finish out my shift? Get real.”
“If you want your full week’s pay, you will.”
“Give me what you owe me up to this minute ’cause I’m outta here.” A small crowd waiting for help had gathered near the cash register. Earl fumed, finally stalked off to the back room, and came out with her check. She glanced at the piddling amount. It didn’t come close to what she needed every month. She shoved the check in her back pocket.
Not enough to cover a third of the bills piling up in L.A.
Sunny took the gum out of her mouth and, right in front of Earl, stuck it under the countertop before she walked out.
Heat Wave Page 15
