THIS PERFECT KISS

by Christie Ridgway

  Damn and damn again. Instead of immediately smoothing over the moment with the politicos, he quickly stripped off his shirt and shoved it in Jilly's arms. "Put this on," he said, meaning to turn away from her without a word. But she looked irritated and so much like a wet kitten ready to spit that he paused.

  "Sorry," he whispered, and tapped her damp, gold-dusted nose with his finger. He sighed, still looking at her as she covered those sweet curves with his dripping shirt.

  Oh, yeah, he was sorry, all right. Because, after all, that ill-conceived drenching hadn't changed or solved anything. That dark, doomed cloud was looming over him once more.

  With nothing left but to brazen out the situation, Rory hauled in a deep breath and jogged up the steps to face the dark suits. With any luck, the team would just ignore what they'd seen.

  But as he introduced himself and damply shook Charlie Jax's hand, Rory quickly deduced the campaign director wasn't the type of man to turn a blind eye to anything. As a matter of fact, both his small, dark eyes quickly shot in the direction of Jilly, who was ascending the stairs wearing Rory's shirt and an undecipherable expression.

  Jax's thin face was equally inscrutable. "And this is…?" he asked.

  Someone I promise to avoid from this moment on. "My, um, a, uh, friend of mine." Rory almost groaned out loud at his complete lack of suavity and quickly focused on his brother and Iris, who were also heading up the steps in their direction. "And let me introduce you to Iris Kincaid and my brother, Greg Kincaid." At least Greg's hand was dry.

  "The actor," Jax said.

  "That's right." Greg walked forward and gave the man's hand a friendly shake, despite Jax's clearly disapproving manner.

  Rory quickly greeted the other three members of the Blue Party team. Then he pasted on a rueful smile. "If you'd just excuse me for a few minutes, I'll join you shortly in the library for our meeting."

  Rory signaled his brother with his eyes, who thankfully and instantly got the message then guided Iris toward the house. That left Rory with the dripping and who-knew-how-mad Jilly. He clamped his hand around her arm. "Let me see you … out." Yeah. Out was the safest place for her.

  Charlie Jax's voice stopped them in mid-stride. "Wait!"

  Rory swung around reluctantly. "Yes?"

  Jax smiled thinly. "You never said what happened. How did you get so … wet?"

  Oh, there was a wealth of questions in that simple little word "wet." What was Rory doing with a woman who looked like Jilly? What was Rory doing wet with a woman who looked like Jilly? "A little—mishap." He didn't dare look at Jilly's face.

  "Oh, my," said Jax. He smiled another thin, knowing smile as he assessed Jilly's damp, curvy body. "We'll need to ensure that such things aren't a habit with you, Rory. Though certainly a mishap like this might be … tempting, the Blue Party demands more. As our candidate, we just can't afford you any indiscretions."

  Rory forced himself to return the smile. The warning was loud and clear. "I understand," he said. Which he did. A rising political career, especially a Blue Party political career for someone with the last name of Kincaid, didn't need the kind of complication a wet woman in "GO WILD" pants provided.

  The campaign director studied Rory. "Then I'm sure in future days you'll keep your mishaps to a minimum, or at least more … private."

  Private, his ass. What Jax meant, of course, was that in future days a sweet treat like Jilly must be completely-off limits. Or else.

  Or else the Blue Party would rethink its choice. Rory nodded and took a firmer grip of Jilly's arm, pretending he wasn't the least bit aware of her delectable body or carefully blank expression. It was time to get her out of here.

  Out of his sight. Out of his mind.

  Except the minute he got her in the house she shook her arm free of his grip and planted her feet on the floor. The carefully blank expression evaporated. He thought maybe she was a little mad.

  "I don't like being called a mishap," she said hotly.

  Make that really mad. He cleared his throat. "Well—"

  "And I particularly don't like it after someone makes a pass, then passes me under a waterfall, then tries to pass me off as their 'uh, friend.' I'm a professional—"

  "Oh, God, please don't say that!"

  She glared at him. "A professional businessperson."

  He rolled his eyes. "Next time I'll let you hand out your card."

  She crossed her arms over her chest. She shouldn't do that. It caused her endowments to rise to distracting prominence. "There better not be a next time," she said.

  "I hope not," he answered fervently. Honestly. Oh, God, he really hoped not.

  * * *

  A few hours after the campaign meeting, Rory sat in the library in front of his laptop, staring as the screensaver ricocheted a bright red ball through an ever-changing maze. When his fingers found the computer's mouse and stroked it, he wasn't even thinking, really.

  His mind was occupied with the last items Charlie Jax had gone over with him—essentially a second round of heavy-handed hinting. Getting wet and half naked with a sexy, voluptuous woman was not the stuff of upright and "true-blue" Blue Party candidates.

  The party's plan was to infiltrate Washington and shake it up—by backing politicians who were personally ethical and who would be publicly beyond reproach. It was going to mean something—something honorable and good—to be a national leader again.

  As he continued staring absently at the screen, some other part of his mind automatically logged on to the Internet. The cursor swam across the navigational screen toward his bookmarks icon. Click. He touched the mouse's button and the addresses of the places he regularly visited on the Web were listed there, including one he didn't actually remember saving.

  Click. A new screen materialized.

  He let out a humorless laugh. An address he didn't actually remember saving?

  Right.

  Why was he lying to himself? This was Jilly's Web site he was looking at, and he remembered very well saving its address. He maneuvered the mouse once more. Click.

  The screen changed again and he saw the interior of her store as the Web cam slowly panned. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on the desk, his chin on his hands, and waited. There.

  There was Jilly.

  Dry now, she sat behind a cash register, her pose the mimic of his own with her elbow on the counter, her chin on her hand, her eyes pensive. She didn't look mad, like she'd been when she'd left Caidwater. As he watched, she sucked her lower lip into her mouth. Rory's muscles instantly tightened.

  Hell. Bad day for new liaisons or not, it didn't even take them being in the same canoe for him to wish he'd tasted that unusual mouth, to wish he'd stroked that dusting of freckles, to wish he'd held those remarkable breasts in his hands.

  Despite all the warnings, she was still making him crazy.

  Maybe it was a family curse. God knew the Kincaid men always had women around them who made them crazy.

  Maybe Jilly Skye was his curse. His downfall.

  No. No way would he let her get to him. His anger heated up again and he gulped in a breath of air. She sold old clothes, for God's sake. She dressed and behaved in flaky, weird, and unpredictable ways—everything he hated about L.A. There was the Blue Party to remember, the candidacy, the senator, this chance to be the Kincaid who did something truly worthwhile.

  The camera stopped, then panned back in the opposite direction. Jilly lifted her hand and combed it absently through her uncontrollable hair. Rory felt the springy stuff against his palm, as if he were touching it. He closed his eyes, unable to fool himself any longer.

  He didn't like her, but, dammit, he wanted her. And he'd never been any good at not getting what he wanted.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  Two days after returning home, Greg Kincaid wandered into the kitchen, where Rory sat slumped behind the table, obviously held prisoner by a very black mood or a very bad headache. Since Gr
eg had returned to Caidwater from the press junket, he'd noticed Rory becoming increasingly tense. "Are you all right?" he asked.

  Rory straightened. "I'm fine," he said automatically. "Do you need something?"

  Of course he says he's fine. Greg mentally shook his head. Rory had ever been the strong, responsible older brother. "There isn't something I can help you with?"

  Rory grunted. "There's nothing you can do."

  Greg tried his best disarming grin. "What about talking you out of this Senate thing?"

  "Don't start with me again," Rory warned. "I've heard everything you have to say on that subject ten or twelve times already."

  "You're impatient, autocratic, and undiplomatic," Greg said quietly.

  Rory rubbed the back of his neck. "Gee, thanks," he said dryly.

  "And those are your good points," Greg added, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Maybe if you'd been climbing a ladder in some corporation for the last ten years, I could see you playing dirty political games." But instead, Rory had formed his own software company and kept strict control of the reins—all the reins—until he'd sold it six months ago.

  "The Blue Party wants to call a halt to those kinds of games," Rory replied.

  But what did Rory want? Greg suspected there were only two reasons why his brother was even considering the Senate candidacy. "You're bored," he told him. That was one.

  Rory frowned. "Why are you fighting me on this? Don't you want the Kincaid name to stand for something besides scandal?"

  That was the other.

  Greg dropped into the opposite chair. "And I'm not contributing in that regard?"

  "The Kincaids already have Oscars, Greg."

  "Ouch." But Greg already knew his brother didn't understand the passion for acting that had made him follow in the profession of Roderick and their father. Rory didn't respect the business because he didn't respect the men in their family who had been actors. "You really know how to wound a guy."

  "Sorry." Rory didn't look the least contrite. "Where's Iris?"

  That was something—someone—else Rory didn't understand. "Mrs. Mack took her on some errands. Ice cream was mentioned."

  "Ah."

  Greg took a breath. "About Iris—"

  "No," Rory said flatly.

  Greg took another breath to calm himself. Stubborn Ass was his brother's middle name, and getting the Ass's hackles up wouldn't help matters. "Rory—"

  "For God's sake, I'm saving her, Greg. We lived here, remember? We grew up in L.A., and with an actor for a parent. Do you really want her? Do you really want that for her?"

  It was the same argument Rory used every time Greg brought up the guardianship. "I'm not our father, Rory," he said.

  Rory just stared him down, his face set.

  Frustration rising, Greg fisted his hands. He hated arguing with his brother. Ever since they were kids, it was Rory who had cared about him, raised him, and that deserved his loyalty. But this was about rescuing someone else's childhood.

  "Rory—"

  "No."

  Temper flaring, Greg stood up. "Damn it, Rory." He rested his knuckles on the table.

  Rory's eyes narrowed. Obviously spoiling for a fight, he jumped to his feet, too. "Damn me, you mean?" He leaned over the table, his eyes hot and his jaw tense.

  Startled, Greg jerked back. Though it was true Rory was at the core autocratic and impatient, he was usually also incredibly coolheaded and self-contained. This anger, this pose, was so uncontrolled, so un-Rory, that Greg's own frustration and anger instantly leached away. He sighed. "Forget it," he said, sitting back down.

  Time and patience, he told himself. He had to trust that time and patience would untangle the situation, because Rory was unmovable in this mood. Something was getting to his brother, bad. Greg blamed the Blue Party, but it could be Jilly Skye, too. He'd noticed that Rory took convoluted paths through the house just to avoid meeting up with her.

  Which reminded him. "Didn't Jilly ask if she could take that black gown with her yesterday when she left?" She'd tracked Rory down in this very kitchen at lunchtime, and Greg had watched with surprise and interest the way the air between them shimmered. He wasn't quite sure if they irritated or excited each other, or some combustible combination of both.

  At her name, Rory fell back into his seat, his face shuttered. "Yeah. She wanted to display it at some show this weekend."

  "She must have forgotten it. It's on the foyer table."

  Rory grunted.

  Obviously Rory didn't want to think about or talk about the woman. Greg smiled to himself, itching to poke his brother's buttons. It was so rare that Rory let himself be annoyed, and he was being so damn stubborn about Iris he deserved it. "Maybe you should take it to her," Greg said, his voice casual.

  Rory didn't fail him. "Forget it," he answered forcefully. "I have from now until Monday morning free of that wacky woman and her even wackier outfits, and I'm going to savor it."

  Greg raised his eyebrows innocently. "I guess that means she'll have to come over and pick it up herself. As long as she's here, I bet she stays and puts in a few more hours." He rubbed his chin. "I wonder what she'll wear. She told me she just bought a dress Marilyn Monroe wore in Some Like It Hot."

  Rory looked so aghast that Greg almost laughed out loud. It was more than entertaining to see unflappable Rory flummoxed. The free-spirited Jilly—so different from the cold-faced superwomen his brother usually squired—was just the right thorn to pierce Rory's sometimes puritanical hide.

  But then Greg thought of the signs of tension written all over him—the testiness, the tiredness—and he relented. "Do you have her address? I'll take it to her."

  Greg was still smiling as he left Caidwater. He'd thought Rory was going to kiss him when he'd made the offer. Despite the Iris-dilemma, it was good having Rory around.

  His smile died. God, he'd hate for the mess Roderick had left behind to ruin their relationship.

  Curse the old man. Curse him, and curse his marquee-sized ego, too. Greg had continued living at Caidwater with Roderick for the past four years, both of them obstinately refusing to acknowledge the secrets between them. But in the end, damn him, Roderick had won. He'd given the guardianship of Iris to Rory.

  The thought so depressed Greg that he forced his mind from it, concentrating instead on the scripts his agent had sent over the day before. If Rory couldn't be convinced, and actually took Iris north, he would need a new project to fill the huge void in his life.

  She'd been like his daughter since the day she was born.

  Since before she was born.

  Yet Greg wasn't sure how hard and how far to fight for her. Rory would certainly be a responsible father figure for Iris, he had no doubt about that. But would he ever understand her spirit? Would he ever love her?

  Greg understood Iris. Appreciated her. Loved her.

  But he wasn't sure he didn't have to pay for the past by losing her.

  Those thoughts depressed him as well, so he went back to considering the scripts. He'd read through them yesterday, and the one that appealed to him most would shoot on location in Wyoming.

  So far he'd been doing "buddy" roles, the kind of character who never got the girl, and this one was no different. But there was something appealing about this part. Ned Smith was the best friend of the hero and a bronco rider, a man in extreme and chronic physical pain throughout the course of the film.

  It would be an interesting challenge, and according to his agent, maybe even a breakthrough role. But only if Greg could realistically portray a suffering man. At eleven, he'd broken his leg while skiing at Big Bear. But that single injury, along with some jammed fingers from beach volleyball, was the extent of the personal experience he had to draw upon.

  Once in the FreeWest district, Greg whipped his Land Rover into a parking space down the block from Jilly's shop. His mood lightened as he looked around the area. A condom shop? And the art theater on the corner was showing a film he remembered reading a
bout. From an Indian director, it was said to curl the toes of the most jaded sensualist. Greg grinned. He'd vote for Rory himself just for the chance to see his brother's face the first time he got a load of Jilly's neighborhood.

  The image made him whistle a jaunty melody that he saved for only his cheeriest moments. The long string of bells on the front door of Things Past dashed with his musical notes, but he kept right on whistling as he walked a few feet through the store, the box with the dress she wanted in his hands.

  He didn't see her or anyone else. "Hello?" he called out. "Jilly?"

  At the very rear of the shop was a doorway, presumably to an office, and Greg headed in that direction. "Jilly?" he said again, and poked his head around the door.

  No.

  No!

  His heart froze but then restarted, seeming to fire instead of beat, going off in a swift burst of explosions. Bap-bap-bap, bap-bap-bapbap.

  "Kim?" God, it didn't sound like his voice, but it looked like her, sitting in a chair in the small office. There was the familiar golden color of her hair, though the woman he was staring at wore it in a confining bun instead of loose. There was the familiar fineness of her skin, as clear and sweetly colored as Iris's. There was the familiar, gut-clenching beauty of her face.

  And then there was the familiar, desperate sense of shame he felt at looking at it, at wanting her.

  "Kim?" he said again.

  He'd never seen her move so fast. She rocketed out of her chair. She brushed past him, her shoulder knocking into his chest.

  She ran out of the store.

  Greg couldn't find his breath or his feet or his way to the front door. His heart kept on with those uneven blasts—bap-bap-bap, bapbap-bap-bap.

  When he realized she wasn't coming back, he finally commanded his feet to move. It took him a long time to return to his car, because he kept stopping every couple of feet to catch his breath and survey the street, willing her to show herself to him.

  But she didn't.

  He put the box beside him on the Land Rover's passenger seat, not even remembering what it contained or what he was supposed to do with it. Then, somehow, the engine was idling and he backed the car out of the parking space and started driving. If there were stoplights, he didn't see them. If there were pedestrians, he hoped they got themselves out of the way.