“This one is,” Rafe said. “Trust me. That thing’ll kill ya. Only if you pick it up, of course. Don’t pick it up.”
“It lives in the ocean,” Bailey said. “I live in Montana.”
“Well,” he acknowledged, “there’s that. Tell me about this dog, then.” Chuck was sitting on the rug in front of the wood stove, scratching himself industriously. “Whose is he? And is it just me, or are his paws weirdly large? That is also the biggest, blackest nose I’ve ever seen on a dog. Especially a brown dog. Sorry, but that is one funny-looking dog.”
“Blackest muzzle,” Lily said. “And he’s young, clearly, which is why he hasn’t grown into his paws yet. Wait, though. Hang on.” She dashed out to the back porch again and came back with a cardboard package. “Flea and tick pill. I almost forgot.” She held out a pill on a flat palm and told Chuck, “Gentle.” He didn’t have that one exactly down, but he didn’t bite her in his eagerness to get the pill. She told Rafe, “You need to vacuum in here anyway. Throw the bag away afterwards, that’s all. You might also want to wash this rug.”
“Brilliant,” he said. “Wonderful. I’m going to be scratching. People are going to think I have lice.”
“And as for whose he is,” Lily said, not laughing, “Bailey and I were just about to make a plan. A dog plan. Oh, dear, Bailey. You aren’t supposed to be in the house. Sorry, I forgot.”
“Why not?” Rafe asked. “Never tell me you have fleas, mate,” he told Bailey. “I won’t believe it. Don’t let her give you a pill.”
Bailey giggled. It was the first time she’d sounded like a girl. Was every creature with ovaries destined to respond to the werewolf? Probably. Lily said, “Of course she doesn’t have fleas. She shouldn’t go into strange houses, that’s all.”
“Ah,” Rafe said. “You’re right. We could sit on the porch.”
Or, Lily thought, she and Bailey and Chuck could leave. That would be the logical, rational, plan-appropriate answer. But, of course, they didn’t. Instead, they sat on the cabin steps in the dappled afternoon sunlight, after Rafe had brushed off the fir cones for her in an absolutely gentlemanly fashion to which she hardened her heart, she did not look at his body—at least, hardly at all—and Chuck flopped down on the ground below with a satisfied sigh, put his head on his paws, and closed his eyes.
It was all very…peaceful. Very sleepy, after her morning’s efforts in the garden and her afternoon’s efforts with Chuck. She stuck her legs out in front of her, considered the sorry state of her attire, let it go, and said, “Dog plan. Bailey’s grandma doesn’t like dogs in the house, and Chuck’s been sleeping under their trailer and not getting much to eat, so I thought he could sleep at my house, and eat there, too. And still be your dog,” she hastened to tell Bailey. “Like…”
“A foster kid,” Bailey said. “Like when the social worker picks you up, but your grandma can’t take care of you, so you go to a foster home. I don’t want Chuck to be a foster dog, though.”
Lily didn’t feel like laughing about this one. “I told you,” she said, “this is a different plan. A dog sharing plan, not a foster dog plan. Chuck is a lot of dog for one person, and neither of us can do it alone, but we could share. Part of my yard is fenced, for the deer, but I don’t trust Chuck not to try to dig his way out. I’m also not sure he’d do great in my store, at least not until we teach him his manners. Maybe…how about if I took him in there in the morning, and you could come by and get him, and bring him back to me in the afternoon? He might be all right for a little while.” Although she doubted it, and unless Bailey was away from her grandma’s trailer all day long, how could the girl keep Chuck with her? This hadn’t been the most brilliant plan, but what else was there to do? And for that matter—what about what Bailey was doing all day? She sure hadn’t had a sandwich with her today. Which wasn’t Lily’s responsibility, and she knew it. But…
“You have a store?” Bailey asked. “Like a grocery store? Because I think Chuck would eat the groceries. He loves potato chips. That’s his favorite. Or hot dogs. He can eat right through the bag. He eats the bag. I don’t think that would work.”
“It’s not a grocery store, fortunately,” Lily said, not looking at Rafe. “It’s a lingerie shop.”
Beside her, Rafe went still. The silver-blue eyes were locked on her, and it was an effort not to shiver. Damn him.
“What’s that?” Bailey asked.
“Underwear,” Lily said. “Nightgowns.” Rafe was a sophisticated man. He could hear the word lingerie without getting excited, and she could say it to him without getting excited, too. Absolutely.
“Oh.” Bailey considered that. “How can you have a whole store just for underwear?”
“You have lots of different kinds,” Lily said. “That’s how. You can come by and see. You will come by, because you’ll need to get Chuck. The shop’s called Sinful Desires, and it’s on Main Street. I think it’s the prettiest store in town, but I could be prejudiced because it’s mine.”
“Oh,” Bailey said. “The porno store?”
Rafe laughed, the jerk. Lily glared at him and said, “It’s not a porno store. Everything I sell is beautiful. There’s no porn involved.”
“I sense a field trip,” he murmured, and she tried to glare some more, but couldn’t quite manage it, because the smile he was suppressing made her want to laugh.
“Oh,” Bailey said. “Everybody says the porno store. I could come get Chuck, I guess. Or you could just let him go out. He likes to go around and see things, but he always comes back to sleep under the trailer, so I bet he’d come back to your house to sleep, too. Especially if his food was there.”
“No wandering around,” Lily said. “Animal Control will pick him up eventually, and he’ll be in a shelter. That’s not happening to our shared dog. You’ll come help me out with him, and I’ll go to the pet store and get him his own bag of food—a big one—and dishes, and a collar and leash, and a bed and so forth, we’ll make a vet appointment for him, and then we’ll…”
“Bring him to me in the mornings, on your way to work,” Rafe said. Smoothly, like the smooth guy he was. “And if Bailey wants to come get him, she can. The only thing I’m doing is taking some riding lessons. Other than that? I’m running, I’m working out a few times a day, and I’m working on a…on some work. Chuck could keep me company while I do it. Not much harm he could do here. Jace’s cabin isn’t much like a lingerie shop. No silk nightgowns or stockings or…other fragile things.” His eyes lost some focus at the end there, even though Lily had never been this much of a grubby mess around a man in her life, let alone a man she was interested in.
Well, not interested in. Because she wasn’t. Interested. Even though he was still wearing only a T-shirt and gym shorts, and he still had those crinkles around his eyes when he smiled. Also dimples, the manly kind that were more like “creases.” They’d been hidden in the scruff before, and now they weren’t.
Bailey said, “What kind of riding lessons? Like a motorcycle?”
“Nah, mate,” Rafe said, switching his gaze to Bailey as if it were an effort, and forgetting his accent yet again. “I know how to ride a motorcycle. This would be horses.”
“Cool,” Bailey said.
“Yeah,” Rafe said. “We’ll hope so. I need to learn how for a job I’m doing. Practice until you get it right, that’s the idea.”
“Anything worth having,” Lily said, teasing because she could, “is worth working for? That the idea?”
“Yeah,” Rafe said, and smiled. Slowly. Eyes. Mouth. Everything. “That’s the idea.”
How, Lily wondered, as she followed Bailey’s blue bicycle down the hill and past the city limits, barely able to keep up, had they ended up with this plan?
Because it was logical, that was how. Because it was necessary. That was why she and Bailey and Chuck had waited on Rafe’s—Clay’s—front porch while he’d gotten ready to go, and why Chuck was shedding his remaining fleas in Rafe’s car right now.
She was never going to manage the “Clay” thing. She’d just call him “Hey, you.” It wasn’t like she’d have to call him anything much. Civility. Chuck-management. That was all.
“You need a leash before you can take him with you on the bikes,” Rafe had pointed out when they’d come up with the first part of the plan. “He should stay in the car until you get that.” Which was true, and it was also true that it wasn’t appropriate to put Bailey in either her car or Rafe’s, so she and Bailey had waited for Rafe to take a shower and change. And when he’d come out of the house again, his short hair still damp, wearing cowboy-cut Wranglers, a gray T-shirt, and scuffed boots, she’d reminded herself of all that once again. That they needed him for all the varied parts of this plan, starting with meeting Bailey’s grandmother, and never mind that loose-limbed way he walked, something about lean hips and athletic confidence and man.
She’d jumped up and headed for her bike, not wanting to study him too closely, but Bailey had had no such qualms. She’d hung back and said, “Hey. How come your eyes look different?”
Rafe slipped on his sunglasses, a flat-brow, gunmetal-rimmed pair that unfortunately only made him look even more like the kind of sinfully decadent treat you craved but didn’t dare eat, because it was so bad for you. “Could be it’s because I’m clean.” His accent was all the way back to Clay Austin, like the costume change had flipped the switch. Which it probably had.
Lily shouldn’t have said anything. She did, of course. “The sunglasses might be over the top. Cowboys don’t wear sunglasses. They wear hats.”
He gave her a rueful, lopsided smile that proved he didn’t have much to learn about cowboy charm. “You know what they say. All hat, no cattle. I’m working my way up to earning the hat. That hard riding and all.”
Bailey said, “It isn’t because you’re clean, though. Your eyes were kind of shiny before, and now they aren’t.”
“They change,” Rafe said. “With my moods. Never heard of that?”
“Oh.” Bailey digested that for a minute. “I never knew anybody whose eyes did that.”
“But then, you didn’t know about the blue-ringed octopus, either,” Rafe said. “The world is full of wonder.”
“It is not,” Lily muttered under her breath. Rafe raised a black eyebrow at her, and she added, “The eyebrow thing also doesn’t fit. Stop it.”
“Ah,” he said. “Good to know. Ready to go?”
“Yes.” She would have stalked over to her bike and made a dignified if overalls-intensive exit, but they had to get Chuck into Rafe’s car first.
Five minutes later, the garage door was open, Rafe’s car door was open, too, and Bailey was still beside it, patting the seat and saying, “Come on, Chuck. You can do it. It’s fun!” And Chuck was still hanging back and looking worried.
“Do you have any ham?” Lily asked Rafe.
“Right here in my pocket,” Rafe said. “Oh, wait. No, as it happens, I’m fresh out of ham. I got here two hours ago.”
“I was just asking,” Lily said. “Some people carry snacks on car trips. People who aren’t too fancy for that. They might have ham. String cheese. Potato chips. Oreos. Gummy bears. Any number of dog-enticing treats to while away the miles.”
Rafe, of course, looked revolted. “My body is a temple.”
“You have so much to learn,” she said. “That’s what you say to the girl.”
“That my body is a temple, and she should worship it? Kind of a dick move, isn’t it?”
She tried not to laugh, which meant it came out as a snort, which made her clap her hand over her mouth and made him laugh. She did not talk to attractive men when she was muddy and messy, and she sure didn’t snort when she laughed. “No,” she said. “You say hers is.”
“Oh.” He considered that. “Nah. Still a dick move. Next you’ll be telling me to ask her if it hurt when she fell from heaven. Right. I don’t have any gummy bears or Oreos, so what do we do?”
“Go back into the house and get a handful of dog food,” she said. “Like a breadcrumb trail. As hungry as Chuck is, I’m guessing it’ll work.”
It did. Although when Bailey shut the door on Chuck, he started barking, and he kept on doing it.
“Come on,” Lily told Bailey. “Let’s go.”
“Chuck’s scared, though,” Bailey said.
“We’ll ride ahead of him, so he sees us,” Lily said. “Then he won’t be scared.” She hopped on her bike. “Lead the way.”
Rafe was, in words Clay Austin might have used if he were here—which he was—a stone-cold fool. He was meant to be focused. He was meant to be anonymous. Instead, he was meeting people on purpose and going barking mad. Literally.
When he finally pulled into the circular drive of a mobile-home park, rocked over three speed bumps, and came to a stop in front of the shabbiest and saddest trailer in the place, he got out of the car fast and slammed the door behind him.
The relief was absolutely physical.
“Chuck’s still barking,” Bailey observed.
“Excuse me?” Rafe said. “Your mouth is moving, but there are no sounds coming out.”
“Stop it,” Lily said. Loudly, because Chuck could still make heaps of noise even with the windows mostly closed. “You are not deaf.”
“Close enough,” Rafe said. “Right. Here we go, Bailey. Ready for our close-up.”
Bailey eyed him and Lily dubiously. “What time is it?”
Rafe looked at his watch. “Four-ten.”
“It’s Family Feud,” Bailey informed him. “It’s probably not even a commercial.”
“Nice try, kid,” Rafe said. “Let’s go. We’ll wait for you to announce us.”
Bailey sighed and led the way around an ancient Pontiac riddled with rust spots and up a rickety set of wooden steps. The trailer was bordered by the kind of latticework you might have seen in a garden, except that it was broken in spots. Lily pointed and said quietly, “Chuck’s domain,” and Rafe said, “You’re joking.” She’d said the dog had been sleeping under the trailer, but he hadn’t expected it all to be this…marginal.
When Bailey opened the metal screen door and went inside, the smell of cigarettes and ancient carpeting nearly knocked Rafe backwards. He heard some excited game-show voices, but he couldn’t see much through the filthy, brownish screen. Then the volume dropped, and after five more long seconds, Bailey came back and opened the door, her elfin face blank and her mouth, for once, shut.
Lily stepped inside, and Rafe followed her. A woman in a housecoat and slippers heaved herself upright on a yellow-flowered couch and said, “What’s going on?” She looked from the two of them to Bailey and back. “If Bailey did something, she didn’t mean to. She’s a kid, that’s all.”
The oxygen tube clipped to her nose was fastened to a tank on wheels beside her. It probably would have worked better without the cigarettes. Not to mention the “No Smoking” sign and the “Highly Flammable” warning on the tank.
Lily stepped forward. She’d tidied herself while he’d been in the shower, and her hair, neatly fastened into a braid now, shone brighter than anything in the drab, cluttered living space. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Lily Hollander, and this is, uh, Clay Austin. You must be Bailey’s grandma. It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”
She actually looked like she meant it, and if any woman had ever sounded and looked sweet, it was her. Other than with him, of course.
The woman, whose own graying-blonde hair was in a ponytail, looked from one of them to the other and said slowly, “Ruby Johnson. Have a seat. Do you want iced tea?”
“Oh, no,” Lily said, taking a seat on the side chair. “Thank you. We just had a snack.” Which was the right answer as far as Rafe was concerned, since he’d bet Ruby was talking about a jar of powdered stuff in a cupboard, and that it would be sweet. Iced tea was something he still couldn’t wrap his head around. Lily went on. “We just wanted to introduce ourselves, that’s all. Bailey didn’t do anything. She’s been
hanging out with me, though, and I told her she could come visit some more and help me in my garden, but I thought we should meet you first and make sure it’s all right, and give you our addresses and phone numbers and so forth. Clay’s my neighbor up on the mountain. We sort of share a dog, so he’s here, too, since Bailey’s planning on visiting him. The dog, that is.”
“Well, sure,” Ruby said. “If you’re sure. But I don’t know about her visiting a strange man.”
That was rich, considering that Bailey seemed to have about as much supervision as a goldfish, but Rafe said, “I’m not so strange, I hope. I’m borrowing a friend’s cabin for a month or so this summer. Obviously, I wouldn’t have kids inside when I was home alone.”
Ruby looked at him out of narrowed eyes, which may just have been because she was taking a long drag on her cigarette, which was followed by a fairly spectacular coughing fit. When she finished, Lily asked, “Can I get you a glass of water?”
“That’d be nice,” she said, keeping her gaze focused on Rafe like he would probably be making some suspicious moves at any moment. Possibly stealing her collection of tabloid magazines.
Oh, bloody hell. The one on top featured him and Kylie in happier days. He could read the title upside-down, too, since the type was of the big and bold sort. Kylie’s Australian Heartbreak.
Brilliant.
He leaned against the wall, scratched the back of his neck, realized that was probably a flea bite, and dismissed the thought. After that, he crossed his ankles, hooked a thumb into the front pocket of his jeans, and projected “Not an Australian. Or a Werewolf” with all his might.
Ruby took the glass from Lily and said, “Aren’t you sweet,” so she clearly passed the test. As a bonus, Ruby wasn’t staring at Rafe anymore.
Lily said, “Bailey called you from my phone, so you may have the number already, but if you have a pad of paper and a pen, maybe I could write it down. My address, too.”
“Be my guest,” Ruby said. “You’re not social workers, are you? Because Bailey’s fine.”
Tempting as Sin Page 11
