Always Mine (9 page)

“And I have a girlfriend,” the other man said with a sigh.

“Oh,” Owen answered, amused. “She doesn't like football?”

Tom slid lower onto the cushions, as if misery was yanking at his ankles. “At the moment, she doesn't like me.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah,” Tom said morosely, his gaze going distant. Then he jerked upright. “Wait, wait. Who's that?”

“Huh?” Owen looked in the same direction. “Who's what?”

“Oh, baby. The world is looking up. Chic-lookin' dark-haired chick just flitted into the kitchen. She has a very,
very
cute butt, and maybe Mr. Tom can find a new seatmate for Sunday's game.”

Owen reminded himself that Tom was just acting his age and gender. It didn't help. “Was she wearing jeans and a red sweater?”

Tom's grin was appreciative. “
Tight
jeans, and—”

“She's with me,” Owen growled.

“Oh.” The younger man's smile died. “Sorry. No disrespect and all that.”

“Fine.”

Tom cast another speculative look toward the kitchen. “Except—”

“Taken.”
Guilt at the claim bounced right off him. “Irrevocably taken.”

“I got that,” Tom said, “the minute your expression turned all ugly.”

Ugly? Owen tried smoothing out his face.

“I just wondered if maybe she could introduce me to someone. I've still got those tickets.”

“So you and your girlfriend…?”

“Gretchen.” Tom turned morose again. “Who am I fooling? I don't want to meet anyone else. I don't want to go with anyone but her to the game.”

“Then you better make up with her or give away those tickets.”

“Yeah.” He glanced over at Owen. “I fell for her the minute I saw her. I was at this friend's birthday party and Gretchen walked toward me. I didn't have some perfect-girl image in my head. You know, this tall, or this colored hair, nothing like that. But here comes this girl and she tucks her hair behind her ears and her eye catches mine and I step closer and…well, she just smelled right, you know?”

“Sort of,” Owen answered. He was such a liar. That's how it had been with Izzy. She'd walked up to him, put out her hand, and it had been just like Tom and Gretchen. It had just been right.

Or at least he'd thought so.

“Who could believe in love at first sight?” Tom continued, shaking his head. “But it happened to me.”

That's not what had happened to Owen! It had been right, but right for the moment, right for the
weekend, but not right for…right for…Damn! This was exactly the kind of conversation he didn't want to be having with Tom
or
with himself.

“Why don't you phone Gretchen?” he suggested. “See if you can get back in her good graces?”

Tom brightened. “You think I should do that?”

“Yeah. Find a nice private corner and give her a call.” And let me return to my peace and quiet.

To his relief, Tom thanked him for the advice and wandered off. Owen was alone again, alone with thoughts that wanted to wander again toward Izzy and rightness, but he refused to let them. A little kid toddled by with a small car in hand, and he allowed his casted wrist to be used as a roadway.

“There you are!” a voice called out.

He and the kid both jumped, then looked at Emily. She was smiling at the little guy. “Your mom's looking for you,” she said. “She has a cup of pretzels for you.”

A plaster roadway was no match for pretzels, apparently. The toddler hurried off and Emily sat in the place previously occupied by Tom. “I'm sorry we've been ignoring you.”

“No problem.” He couldn't be impolite and say it was what he'd been hoping for, could he? With a gesture, he indicated the hustle and bustle as people moved in and about the room. “I'm enjoying the chaos.”

Emily smiled. “It terrified me at first. I was an
only child, and the first couple of times I found myself at a Dailey clan event I was overwhelmed.”

Maybe that was why Izzy had integrated so well into this party atmosphere, leaving him as the solo man on the sofa. Coming from a large family like this, she was likely accustomed to the commotion. Emily looked in fine form herself.

“You're good with it now, though,” he said, tilting his head. “You look very good with it.” Both Emily and Will shone with the same light he'd noticed beaming from them in Vegas. “You and Will.”

“Yes.” Just then, the man in question passed through the room and her gaze followed him. As if he felt it, he suddenly pivoted, walking backward while he shared a look with his wife. He gave her an intimate smile, then exited the room, causing Emily to turn back to Owen. “And you and Izzy?”

“Can we talk about something else?”

Her brows rose. “Uh, sure. How about those Raiders?”

“Tom has tickets to Sunday's game, I know that.”

“But he's on temporary outs with Gretchen,” Emily answered.

“Yeah. But I think he's on the phone over there…” Owen turned to indicate the corner where—

Where Izzy stood, her shoulder leaning against the wall, her cell phone at her ear. He swore he could read her lips, and on that smiling mouth was the
name of yet another hash mark for the “Male Callers” category. “Who is John?” Owen demanded.

“What?” Emily asked.

He couldn't stop himself. “Who is John—and Greg and David and Brad? There's likely more, because that damn phone of hers is ringing all the time.”

“Am I the only one who thinks she needs to get a little more varied with the ring tone? Aren't you sick of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody'?”

Okay, he knew he shouldn't press it. He was, after all, the one who wanted to not talk about Izzy. “Emily,” he heard himself say anyway. “The woman takes more phone calls in a day than the department takes training runs in a year.”

Emily laughed. “Yeah. You must be
really
sick of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.'”

“I thought they were calling regarding work, and then I thought they must be that large family of hers checking up on her, but she says they're all friends.”

“They're not her family, that's for sure.”

“Huh?”

Emily glanced over at Izzy, still chatting in the corner. “They forget she exists most of the time, I think.”

“What are you talking about? She said she comes from this big Italian family. She implied they were the close-knit group you immediately think of when—” He broke off, frowning at Emily's
compressed lips and shaking head. “They're not close-knit?”

“Not with Izzy. Maybe I shouldn't tell you…”

“Maybe you should,” he insisted. “What's the deal?”

“Izzy won't thank you for feeling sorry for her…”

“I know how unpleasant it is to be felt sorry for. Don't worry about that. Just spill it, Emily.”

“She's adopted.” Emily darted a glance at Izzy and lowered her voice.

Owen had to lean closer to hear her over the hubbub in the house. “And?”

“And her parents quickly lost interest in having an infant. I think it was a passing phase, they fancied the idea of a child, but they run a tour agency—”

“She said that. Global excursions, particularly to Europe.”

“Right, and they discovered that a baby put a crimp in their business plan. So they shuffled her around to various relatives, moving her from one Cavaletti to another to another. I don't think she stayed anyplace for more than a year or two.”

Izzy.
He tried imagining her circumstances. “Didn't anyone think that was cruel?”

“I don't know what they thought. I only know they let Izzy live with a succession of mostly maiden aunts and elderly widows. I think twice in her life she spent summers with families with kids. In essence, she raised herself.”

Oh, Izzy.

“So instead of counting on the Cavalettis, she's made a family of friends for herself all over the country.”

“The ones who hold on to her stuff,” Owen said.

“Yeah. You know about that?”

“Boxes have been showing up at my place.”

“Oops.” Emily looked like she was biting back a smile. “I might be guilty of, um, letting it slip out that she's had a change in circumstance.”

“It's making her crazy, having all her things showing up.”

Emily's head tilted and her eyes narrowed. “Is it making
you
crazy?”

“No.”
Izzy
was making him crazy—her scent, her mouth, the memories of the two of them in bed—but not those cartons that kept arriving on the doorstep.

“Izzy's good at getting people to like her,” Emily said.

“Probably because of all that moving around she had to do,” Owen surmised.

“Probably,” Emily agreed. “But I'm not sure she allows herself to depend on anyone, in case they disappoint her like her parents and relatives.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Izzy move past the couch and out of the room, her phone no longer in evidence. “She has so much,” he murmured. “Beauty, brains, charm out the wazoo—”

“But no trust,” Emily interjected, pushing to a
stand. “I don't know that she can believe that anyone will make a lasting place for her in their life.”

Owen wasn't, that was sure.

Though he shouldn't feel guilty over it, because that was the way both of them wanted it. She'd made that clear the day she'd run from him in Las Vegas. His runaway bride was back, but it was only to end their marriage.

I
zzy was using her foot to shove the latest delivery away from the front door when Owen hobbled down the stairs. His eyebrows rose. “Another box?”

Heat crawled up her neck. “Somehow this address got out. Blasted e-mail loops.”

“How many is that now?” he asked, sitting on one of the steps.

“Nine.” She kicked at it, moving it just an inch or two. What was in this one? She couldn't remember. “I should just take them all straight to the Salvation Army.”

“And lose your Louisa May Alcott books? Why would you do that?”

Izzy waved her hand. “All that happy family/ happy romance was the stuff of childhood fantasy. I'm grown-up now.” She knew the score and knew the difference between what a child longed for and what an adult could depend on. She glanced over at Owen, still aware of the embarrassed heat of her face. “I'm sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Not inconvenient for me. You can store them in the garage, if you want. Indefinitely.”

Indefinitely. But there was a definite between them, a definite end date to this interlude. To their marriage. She snuck another look at him and noticed how tired he looked. Not sleeping again, she figured. His gaze was fixed, unseeing, on the shelving in the living room that held the vintage firefighter memorabilia.

And that reminded her…

“Say,” she said, giving the box one last push with her foot so it was out of the way of the door. “How about we go for a drive? You can show me all the Paxton, California, scenic locations.”

They could both use a diversion. She certainly wanted to think about something other than the belongings that were catching up with her. She had to be ready to leave at a moment's notice; it had always been that way for her, and too many things would only make it harder when she had to pick up and go.

Shoving the thought away, she noted the remote expression on Owen's face and the shadows under
his eyes. He needed a change of place, too. “Let's get out of here, Owen.”

“You'll have to play chauffeur,” he reminded her.

She slapped on a grin, trying to lighten both their moods. “There's nothing I like better than to drive a man…crazy.”

A smile ghosted over his mouth as he got to his feet. “You've got it down pat, sweetheart.”

Heat washed over her again, across her face and down her body so that her skin felt too tight beneath her jeans and sweater. That night in his bed had been an aberration, but that didn't stop her from remembering every moment of it, from the first sure thrust of his tongue to the gentle withdrawal of his erection from the still-pulsing liquid center of her body.

She cleared her throat. “I could use some fresh air,” she murmured.

“Won't help,” he offered. “Last night I opened my window and stuck my whole head out and it didn't erase any thoughts from my brain or take my temperature down a single degree.”

Oh, and as if that little comment cooled
her
off. She ignored him as she brushed past on her way to retrieve her purse. His low laugh was as good as a touch, though. It ruffled through her hair and traced like a fingertip down her spine.

Bad man.

Being closed up in his SUV didn't help matters much. Yes, they each had their own bucket seat, but this
close she could smell his shampoo and see the strength of his long legs from the corner of her eye. Forcing her attention to the road, she said, “Where to?”

He directed her to his elementary school first. It was a typical, somewhat sprawling, suburban public school, with handpainted notices about the upcoming Fun Run and Halloween Festival taped to the surrounding fence. It was Saturday, so the fields were full of knee-socked little kids playing soccer. They moved about the grass in huddles and she and Owen idly watched their antics for a few minutes from the parking lot.

“So you spent kindergarten through fifth grade here?” she asked.

“Yep. Then I went to the junior high that's down the road and the high school beyond there. Go Paxton Panthers.”

“I'll bet you were a jock.”

“My mom already told you. In high school I played football and ran track. But I was a smart jock, remember? Salutatorian.”

“And modest, too,” she teased.

He reached over and yanked on the ends of her hair. “Hey, when a guy doesn't have his full mobility he's got to keep his ego pumped.”

“Ah.” She trained her gaze out the window, not daring to look at him. “So that's what you call it.”

He groaned. “You're heading into dangerous territory, pretty girl.”

She shook her head. “I wasn't one, you know. I
wasn't a jock and I wasn't pretty, either. I was brainy and I wore glasses and I was the kind of girl the guys never looked at twice.”

“Now that's a lie.”

“Really.”

“You just never caught the guys looking at you. I noticed that about the bookworms. They should have glanced up from the page a time or two.”

Izzy glanced over at him now. Big mistake. That…that
thing
that had been between them from the first moment in Las Vegas flared to life again. Her breath caught and her thigh muscles clenched, and she felt herself tremble as he reached over to play with her hair. His fingertips brushed the rim of her ear as he tucked some strands behind it, then toyed with the small gold ring there.

“You're so damn pretty now, Isabella,” he said.

They both moved at once, each leaning toward the other. Her mouth tingled, in anticipation of his kiss. “Damn pretty,” he said again, his breath washing over her lips.

Thunk!

They started, and straightening, Izzy saw a soccer ball roll off the hood of the car. “Whoa,” she said.

“Wake-up call,” he muttered.

Checking her watch, she turned the key in the ignition. “Where should we go next?” Someplace that wouldn't allow for that inconvenient intimacy to arise between them again. Those waters were dangerous.

“Let's check out the old homestead.”

He directed her through suburban streets with green lawns and mature trees that had leaves just turning to autumn's colors. There were kids on the sidewalks on bicycles and people walking dogs, and if she could have put it all in a bubble with little white flakes, it would have made a perfect snow globe.

She sighed as he indicated a house on a corner with wraparound grass and large trees anchoring each end. “You actually grew up there?”

“I actually grew up there.”

“But your family lives in San Francisco now.”

“After Bryce graduated from high school, Mom and Dad moved into the city. But before that, we were right here, doing the whole small-town thing.”

Izzy sighed again. Add seven boy cousins and she would have been in heaven in such an environment. “Is that a treehouse?”

“Yep. We even rigged a bucket on the end of a rope so that we could haul up snacks that my mom would bring out to us. On Halloween, once we were past the age of trick-or-treating, we put up ghosts and ghouls inside and made our buddies pay us a quarter to go through it.”

“Oh, Owen.” She smiled over at him. “It must have been great.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But the city has its pluses, too. If I go to work for the family company, I'll probably move there to avoid a long commute.”

“You're still considering that?”

He hedged. “I'm reading all those boring reports.”

“But—”

“I remember you commenting a couple of days ago it wasn't your business,” he said, scowling.

“Yes, but—”

“And it
isn't
your business, Izzy.”

She scowled back. Fine, then. They might not have a discussion about what he should do, but she still had a little demonstration up her sleeve. With a twist of her wrist, she restarted the car.

“Where now?” he asked.

“I'll head downtown. See what's up.”

The Paxton “downtown” was three blocks of small shops and restaurants with the city administration building and the central fire station at the northern end. As they neared the main thoroughfare, they found that the road was barricaded and people were lining the sidewalks.

“What's going on?” Owen asked aloud.

He'd still been ignoring the local newspaper, but she hadn't. “Parade,” she answered. She swung into the parking lot of a bank, digging into her purse to give the attending Boy Scout the five bucks the troop was charging for a prime location. Just as the first marching band passed them, she was turning off the engine and setting the emergency brake.

She snuck a look to her right. Owen had gone expressionless again, his face betraying nothing as the
groups marched past. There was the junior high jazz band playing something—pretty badly—from their places in the back of a pickup. Tiny gymnasts came next, in spangled leotards and carrying a banner that read “Paxton Pixies.” Next up was the obligatory horse riders in flashy chaps and silver-studded finery, their animals' hides gleaming.

Then a mixed group of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, carrying a sign:

The crowds on the sidewalk cheered, then cheered louder as a fire-engine-red fire engine slowly rolled down the street. Firefighters, including Will, Izzy noted, leaned out of the vehicle, throwing candy at the parade watchers.

“Let's go,” Owen ground out.

“Don't you want to enjoy—”

“For God's sake, Izzy, give me some credit,” he said. “I know what you're trying to do. But surely you realize I didn't do the job for the parades.”

“Why did you do the job?” She cleared her throat. “Why do you do the job?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Then he ran his hand through his hair. “I don't know, damn it. I don't know the why of anything anymore.”

The words tore at her heart. Dangerous territory, indeed. She twisted the key in the ignition and blinked away the sting of tears in her eyes before backing up and leaving the parking lot. Though she was pretty sure no matter how many miles they put between themselves and this place, there was no getting away from the uncertainty he'd just shared.

 

Owen didn't protest when Izzy made another stop before returning to his place. Privacy wasn't what the two of them should risk right now. He was equal parts angry and horny, and she'd been rubbing against him in both the right and wrong ways all morning.

They were either going to get into a full-fledged fight or they were going to get into bed. Neither was a good idea, and before meeting Izzy he would have thought he had enough control over himself to make sure what he didn't want didn't happen.

But she added points to his blood pressure just by the way she looked in a pair of old jeans and black boots.

And he was the one who prided himself on his calm demeanor and his cool under pressure.

“I thought we could have some lunch,” she said, pulling into a parking space of the lot beside a small Italian restaurant. “Every time I drive past this place the smell makes my taste buds start crying.”

It did smell delicious, he had to admit as he limped into the restaurant, using the cane that it still annoyed
him to be relying upon. He knew the food tasted just as good as it smelled; he'd been there a time or two with a date, though he decided against admitting to that. Frankly, when he slid into the booth opposite the woman he'd married, he couldn't picture any other woman's face across the table.

They both ordered. When the waiter was gone, she toyed with the stem of her water goblet. “Owen…”

His attention was focused on her fingertip, the one that was ringing the base of the glass. He remembered her small fingers caressing his chest, the way they stroked the back of her hand against his jaw, how she'd gripped the ends of his hair as she rode him in sweet, cowgirl style.

God, he'd loved to see her do that again, while still wearing those shiny black boots…

“Owen?”

He blinked, bringing himself back to the moment. Oh. Right. Lunch.

“What?” The word came out rough.

She blinked, blushed. “About earlier…about at the parade…”

His temper shot up again. “Damn it, Izzy—”

“I wanted to say I'm sorry.” She reached across the table and touched his hand with those seductive fingertips of hers. “You were right, I was wrong. I had no business putting that in your face or asking you any kind of questions at all.”

Her apology deflated him. He slumped against
the back of the banquette. “Izzy…” Without a clue where to go next, he let the word die.

She curled her fingers around his and tightened them. “Don't be mad.”