Natural Born Charmer

  “She cleaned up her act when she was pregnant. Probably hoping he’d marry her. Fat chance of that.” He rose and shoved his feet into his shoes. “Stop stalling. Let’s go.”

  She rose reluctantly. “I mean it, Dean. No contact.”

  “I’m starting to get offended.”

  “No, you’re not. You just want to give me a hard time.”

  “Speaking of hard…” He set his hand in the small of her back, just where it was most sensitive.

  She moved a step away and gazed up at the front bedroom window. “The light’s out.”

  “Mad Jack in bed by midnight. That’s gotta be a first.”

  Her flip-flops squeaked in the damp grass. “You don’t look anything like him.”

  “Thanks for the compliment, but there were blood tests.”

  “I wasn’t insinuating—”

  “Could we talk about something else?” He held the side door open for her. “Why you’re so afraid of sex, for example?”

  “Only with you. I have an allergy to your beauty cream.”

  His husky laugh drifted out into the warm Tennessee night.

  By the time Dean came out of the bathroom, she was settled in bed. She pulled her eyes away from the noticeable bulge in his End Zone forest green knit boxers, but only got as far as his ridged abdomen and an arrow of golden hair pointing the way to Armageddon before he took in the enormous wall of pillows she’d arranged down the middle of the bed. “Don’t you think that’s a little childish?”

  She dragged her gaze away from his Garden of Earthly Delights. “Stay on your side of the bed, and I’ll apologize in the morning.”

  “If you think I’m going to let him see how juvenile you are, you’re wrong.” He spoke in a low whisper to avoid waking his unwanted houseguest.

  “I’ll wake up early and tear it down,” she said, thinking about the one hundred dollars.

  “Like you did yesterday morning?”

  Was it only yesterday morning he’d had his hand down her jeans? He flicked off the chipped white ginger jar lamp April had brought over from the cottage. Moonbeams penetrated the room, painting his body in light and shadow. As he approached the bed, she reminded herself he was a player, and this was a game to him. By saying no, she’d waved a green flag.

  “You’re not that irresistible.” He threw back the sheet and climbed in. “You know what I think?” He propped himself on an elbow and glared at her over the pillow wall. “I think it’s yourself you’re afraid of. You’re afraid you won’t be able to keep your hands off me.”

  He wanted to spar. But their sparring felt like foreplay, and she bit off every smart-ass retort that sprang to mind.

  He lay back…and reared right up again. “I don’t have to put up with this!” With a sweep of his arm, pillows flew, and her wall came crashing down.

  “Wait!” She tried to sit up only to have his weight press her back into the mattress. She braced herself for an attack, but she should have known better. His mouth nuzzled softly against hers, and for the second time that day, he began teasing her lips.

  She decided to let him kiss her for a while—he was so good at it—but only for a few minutes.

  His hand slipped under her T-shirt, and his thumb found her nipple. She tasted toothpaste and sin. Heat began spreading through her body. His erection pressed against her leg.

  A game. This was only a game.

  He dipped his head and began suckling her nipples through her T-shirt. As long as she kept her clothes on…He teased her with the hot, wet cotton, then pressed his hand between her thighs, against the fabric. Her knees slowly fell open. He toyed and dallied, thinking they had all the time in the world. But he played too long. Her head fell back. The moonlight shimmered then splintered into a thousand silver slivers. Through her barely muffled cry, she heard a soft, answering groan and felt him shudder along with her. Only as she came back to herself did she grow aware of something damp against her leg.

  With a curse, he rolled off her, flung himself out of bed, and disappeared into the bathroom. She lay there—sated, angry, self-destructive. So much for her willpower.

  Eventually he emerged from the bathroom. Naked. His soft growl drifted across the room. “Don’t you say one word. I mean it. That is the single most embarrassing thing that’s happened to me since I was fifteen.”

  She waited until he’d resettled before she propped her head on her elbow and gazed down at him “Hey, Speed Racer…” She leaned forward and brushed his lips with a quick, casual kiss that told him their encounter meant nothing to her. “You owe me another hundred bucks.”

  The birds woke her the next morning. She’d slept as far from him as she could to guard against any middle-of-the-night coziness, and her leg dangled over the edge. She slipped out of bed without waking him. His skin looked golden against the stark white sheets, and a patch of pale hair grew on his chest between formidable pecs. She took in the tiny hole in his earlobe and remembered the silver skulls Jack had been wearing. She had no trouble imagining Dean doing the same. Her gaze moved lower and came to rest on the mound pushing against the sheet. All that could be hers…if she’d only leave her brain behind.

  He didn’t stir as she headed for the shower. She turned her face into the spray to clear her head. This was a new day, and as long as she didn’t make a big deal out of the relatively innocent events of last night, he couldn’t rack up any points on that scoreboard he carried around in his head. It was true that she still had no job, but she did have a temporary bargaining chip until she found work. He wanted to keep her right here at the farm, standing between him and the people who’d invaded his world.

  As she dried off, she heard the water go on in the hallway bathroom. When she came out, the bed was empty. She hurriedly pulled a sleeveless black T-shirt from her duffel and a pair of jeans she’d cut off at midthigh. She felt a bump in her pocket and discovered her missing mascara and lip gloss. She made use of both, but only because there was a good chance she’d see Jack Patriot before he left for Nashville.

  On her way downstairs, she smelled coffee, and as she walked into the kitchen, she saw Mad Jack himself sitting at the table, sipping from one of the white china mugs decorated with cherries. The same light-headedness that had rendered her mute when she’d met him last night struck again.

  He wore yesterday’s clothes, along with some rocker stubble. The flecks of gray in his hair only made him sexier. He observed her with the familiar, heavy-lidded eyes she’d memorized from a dozen album covers. “Good morning.”

  Somehow she managed to squeeze out a wheezy, “M-morning.”

  “You’re Blue.”

  “B-Bailey. B-Blue Bailey.”

  “Sounds like that old song.”

  She knew what he meant, but her face had frozen, so he clarified. “Won’t you come home, Bill Bailey? You’re probably too young. April tells me you and Dean are getting married.” He didn’t quite hide his curiosity. She wondered if he’d looked in on them sleeping or if Dean had wasted two hundred dollars. “Have you set a date?” he asked.

  “Not yet.” She squeaked like Minnie Mouse.

  His cool survey continued. “How did you meet?”

  “I was, uh, doing some…promotional work for a lumber company.”

  Seconds ticked by. When she realized she was staring, she stumbled toward the grocery bags in the pantry. “I’ll bake panmakes. Make! I’ll make pancakes.”

  “All right.”

  She’d had adolescent sexual fantasies about this man. While her classmates argued over who had dibs on Kirk Cameron, she’d imagined losing her virginity to Dean’s father. Ew. Ick.

  Still…

  She sneaked another glance at him as she came out of the pantry with the pancake mix. Despite his olive skin, he was pale, as if he hadn’t spent enough time outside lately. Even so, he radiated the same kind of sexual magnetism as his son, but Jack’s allure felt a lot safer. As she opened the box, she reminded herself to give Dean as hard a time as
possible today.

  She concentrated on mixing the ingredients without screwing up the measurements. Usually, she made pancakes from scratch, but this wasn’t the morning to attempt it. Jack took pity on her and didn’t ask any more questions. As she poured the first batch on the new griddle, Dean sauntered in, all scruffy high style, his jock stubble as rugged as his father’s rocker stubble. Maybe it was genetic. The perfect number of wrinkles creased his periwinkle T-shirt, and his khaki cargo shorts fell on his hips at exactly the right point. He didn’t look at Jack. Instead, he took her in from head to toe before he settled on her face. “Makeup? What happened? You look almost female.”

  “Thanks. You look almost straight.”

  Behind them, Jack chuckled. Ohmygod, she’d made Jack Patriot laugh.

  Dean leaned down and kissed her—long, cool, and so premeditated that she barely let herself get worked up about it. This was his opening move in another game, the one he played with the parents he hated. He was marking her as his teammate so that Jack knew it was now two against one.

  Only after he drew away did he acknowledge his father’s presence with a crisp nod. Jack nodded back and tilted his head toward the windows in the dining niche. “This is a nice place. I never figured you for a farmer.”

  When Dean didn’t bother to respond, Blue broke the tense silence. “First batch of pancakes coming up. Dean, see if you can find syrup in those bags in the pantry. And grab some butter, will you?”

  “Be glad to, sweetheart.” He pecked her forehead with another strategic kiss. As she reached for the plates, she wondered if her life could get any weirder. Her life savings had been handed over to a band of South American guerrillas, she had a phony engagement to a famous football player, she was homeless and jobless, and she was making breakfast for Mad Jack Patriot.

  As Dean came out of the pantry, Jack gestured toward Blue. “Where’s the engagement ring?”

  “She hated the first one I got her,” Dean said. “The stones were too small.” He had the nerve to tweak her chin. “Nothing but the best for my sweetheart.”

  She hummed the Speed Racer theme song.

  By avoiding looking at Jack, she managed to deliver his pancakes without sliding them into his lap. Dean ate his standing up, hips resting against the counter. He talked to her as he ate, but made sure he directed an occasional comment to Jack so he couldn’t be suspected of ignoring him. She’d practiced the strategy too often herself not to recognize it. Don’t let anyone see the hurt. She didn’t like how well she understood him.

  Since she couldn’t imagine eating her pancakes across the table from Jack Patriot, she ate standing up, too. The back door opened, and April came in. She wore khakis, a coral top with a ribbon tie, and her sandals with a rainbow wedge. Riley followed, her damp brown hair parted in the center and pulled back from her forehead with a series of iridescent blue clips that April must have arranged. With Riley’s curls tamed a little, her pretty toasted-sugar eyes were more noticeable. She’d exchanged yesterday’s FOXY T-shirt for a black one just as tight with a woman’s pouty, crimson lips on the front. Dean turned away to make a trip into the pantry. As Riley spotted her father, she stopped where she was.

  Jack rose but, once he was on his feet, didn’t seem to know what to do next. He settled on the obvious. “There you are.”

  Riley picked at a remnant of fingernail polish.

  “I made pancakes,” Blue said brightly.

  April avoided looking at either Jack or her son. “We ate cereal at the cottage.”

  “I hope you thanked April,” said the man who’d once kicked a drum set across the stage and told a cop to fuck himself.

  Dean came out of the pantry, an unnecessary jar of peanut butter in his hand. This might be the first time he’d been in the same room with both of his parents. He stood stony and silent. Although he didn’t need anyone’s protection, she went to his side anyway and slipped her arm around his waist.

  Jack reached in his pocket. “I’ll call Frankie to pick us up.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Riley mumbled. And then, as he pulled out his cell, “I—I’m not going.”

  He looked up from the phone. “What are you talking about? You’ve already missed a week of school. You have to get back.”

  Her chin came up. “Summer vacation starts next week, and I finished my work. Ava has it.”

  He’d obviously forgotten, but he tried to cover. “Aunt Gayle is expecting you. She arranged for you and your cousin to go to that camp in two weeks.”

  “I don’t want to go to camp! It’s stupid, and Trinity will get everybody to make fun of me.” She dropped her pink jacket and backpack. Red blotches sprang up on her cheeks. “If you try to make me, I’ll—I’ll just run away again. And I know how to do it.”

  Riley’s show of rebellion took him aback, but Blue wasn’t surprised. This was the same kid who’d managed to get from Nashville to her half-brother’s farm in the dead of night. Dean’s muscles had gone rigid beneath his T-shirt. Blue rubbed the small of his back with her fingertips.

  Jack palmed the phone. “Look, Riley, I understand it’s been really hard for you, but things will get better.”

  “How?”

  He was out of his element, but he put up a good effort. “Time will make it better. After a while it won’t hurt so much. I know you loved your mother, and—”

  “I didn’t love her!” Riley cried. “She thought I was ugly and stupid, and the only person she liked was Trinity!”

  “That’s not true,” Jack said. “She loved you very much.”

  “How do you know?”

  He faltered. “I—I know, that’s all. Now I don’t want to hear any more. You’ve caused enough trouble, and you’ll do what I tell you.”

  “No, I won’t.” Dry-eyed and furious, she curled her hands into fists. “I’ll kill myself if you make me go back! I will! I know how. I can find Mom’s pills. And Aunt Gayle’s, too. I’ll swallow all of them. And—and I’ll cut myself like Mackenzie’s big sister. And then I’ll die!”

  Mad Jack was clearly shaken. Dean had gone pale, and April tugged on her silver rings. Riley started to cry and rushed toward her. “Please, April! Please, let me stay with you.” April’s arms instinctively curled around her.

  “April can’t take care of you,” Jack said brusquely. “She has things to do.”

  Tears rolled down Riley’s cheeks. She was staring at the ribbon tie on April’s top, but she was talking to her father. “Then you stay. You stay and take care of me.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? You could stay for like two weeks.” In a display of youthful courage, she regarded April with pleading eyes. “That would be okay, wouldn’t it, April? If he stayed for two weeks?” She took a tentative step toward her father. “You don’t have any gigs or anything until September. I heard you say you need to get away somewhere so you can work on some new songs. You could get away here. Or at the cottage. April’s cottage is really, really quiet. You could write your new songs there.”

  “It’s not my cottage, Riley,” April said gently. “It’s Dean’s. So is this house.”

  Riley’s chin trembled. She dragged her gaze from April and focused on Dean’s chest. Blue felt his skin burning through his T-shirt.

  “I know I’m fat and everything,” Riley said in a small voice. “And I know you don’t like me, but I’ll be quiet, and Dad will be, too.” She lifted those heartbreaking eyes so she was looking directly at Dean. “He doesn’t pay attention to anybody when he’s writing songs. He wouldn’t bother you or anything. And I could even help. Like, I could—I could sweep up stuff and wash the dishes maybe.” Dean stood frozen as Riley’s tears blurred her next words. “Or…if you…if you needed somebody to throw the football so you could practice and everything—I could maybe try.”

  Dean squeezed his eyes shut. He barely seemed to be breathing. Jack snapped open his phone. “I don’t want to hear any more. You’re coming with me.”


  “No, I’m not!”

  Dean jerked away from Blue, and his voice cracked like an ice dam breaking. “Can’t you give the kid two lousy weeks out of your big, busy schedule?”

  Riley went still. April’s head came slowly up. Jack didn’t move.

  “Her mother just died, for chrissake! She needs you. Or are you going to run away from her, too?” Dean realized what he’d said and stalked toward the door. The window over the sink rattled as he slammed the door behind him.

  A tiny muscle ticked at the corner of Jack’s jaw. He cleared his throat, shifted his weight. “All right, Riley, you’ve got one week. One, not two.”

  Riley’s eyes widened. “Really? I can stay? You’ll stay here with me?”

  “First, we’re going back to Nashville to pack up. And you have to promise me that you won’t ever try to run away again.”

  “I promise!”

  “We’ll come back on Monday. And you’d better keep that promise, because if you try anything like this again, I’ll send you to school in Europe, someplace where it won’t be so easy to run away. I mean it, Riley.”

  “I won’t! I promise.”

  Jack shoved his cell back in his pocket. Riley gazed around the kitchen, as if she were seeing it for the first time. April slipped to Blue’s side. “See if he’s all right,” she said softly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Blue finally located Dean in the weeds behind the barn. He had his hands on his hips, and he was gazing at the rusted frame of a red pickup truck. Through the gaping hole where the passenger door had once been, she could see springs poking through what was left of the upholstery. A pair of dragonflies flitted over the rotted wood, bald tires, and unidentifiable pieces of farm machinery that littered the truck bed. She followed the path he’d made through the weeds. As she got closer, she spotted the remnants of a bird’s nest roosting on the steering wheel column. “I know it’s tempting to trade in your Vanquish now that you’ve seen this,” she said, “but I’m against it.”