Crush on You (15 page)

The brothers exchanged a glance that didn’t give away their thoughts, but Penn could guess them all the same. He ran his fingers through his hair again, frustrated, angry, ashamed. But hell, why should he be ashamed? He wasn’t the one who’d been sitting in that posh house among these vast acres that were the source of a glamorous luxury product.

“When the Tooth Fairy first slipped a buck under my pillow, I was what? Six, seven years old?” His voice sounded harsh, but so were the memories. “Even then I knew we needed every dime. I would sneak the money back into my mom’s wallet. If I got a gift for my birthday or Christmas that I could take back, I did that, too, and slipped the cash into her purse.”

“You remembered all that when she showed up with your big fat college fund,” Liam said.

“Yeah.” He looked out over the vineyard, the vastness underscoring the miserly way he’d treated his mother. “And I continued remembering all that until she confessed where the money came from on graduation day. Four years after that, she had a massive stroke and died.” But at least he’d spent those four years trying his best to make it up to her. He thought at least she’d understood.

Again, Liam and Seth were silent. Which meant there was more silence than Penn had ever experienced before. Here, in between the vines, there wasn’t the background noise of rushing cars, overhead airplanes, or the constant pulse of surf that he was accustomed to. The lack of clamor made his thoughts too loud in his head—and made even more imperative his need to go south.

“Listen,” he started. “I—”

“He said he was taking a solo backpack trip to Yosemite the week that I finished law school so he missed the ceremony and the big party my mom threw,” Seth said. “I found out later he spent seven days with my ex-girlfriend at a private resort in Kauai. Oh, yeah, and she got a pretty BMW convertible out of it, too.”

Penn blinked. “Jesus.”

The younger man grimaced. “Not exactly what I said, but yeah.”

Liam climbed into the first ATV. Though he sat calmly, with his elbows on his knees, Penn drew closer, sensing the older man had something to say, too. “You have a story as well?”

“A long time ago I had a girl . . .”

Penn stared. “Christ, he had her, too?”

“No, no.” Liam shook his head. “I don’t . . . I can’t . . . Let’s just say he ruined things between us forever.”

“He screwed us all, you’re saying.” Penn looked between the two brothers, a little angry at them, a lot frustrated. Where were they going with these confessions?

“I guess he did,” Liam agreed, still with his characteristic cool.

It frustrated Penn even more. “Then why did you stay when he was alive?” he asked, first to Liam and then to Seth. “Why the hell are you still here?”

Liam shrugged. “Because this is our place. Our land. Our town. Our friends.”

“Cal Bennett isn’t this,” Seth added, lifting his arms to indicate the surrounding vines. “
We
are. I didn’t and I won’t let him chase me away from my family . . . from my brothers.”

Jesus.

But they were his brothers, Penn couldn’t deny it. They looked like him, with their dark blond hair and their rangy bodies. Liam’s sober exterior and Seth’s quick smile were both part of Penn’s makeup, too. They might have grown up with more material things, but their lives had been just as affected by Calvin Bennett’s failings as his had been.

Was that why Penn wanted to run back to Malibu? Was he looking to escape from ties that he’d never had?

He opened his mouth, not yet sure what might come out, but shut it as he saw Liam stand, shading his eyes with his hand. Penn turned to see a cloud of dust rising in the wake of yet another ATV.

One mad-eyed Italian girl was behind the wheel. For a second he thought it was Alessandra and his gut churned, but then he realized it was Giuliana Baci and her crackling temper—if her gaze was any indication—was focused on Liam.

“
You
,” she seethed as she braked the vehicle.

He crossed his arms over his chest and looked down his nose at her. Penn could have told him that an exhibition of nonchalance would not sit well with one of the badass Baci women.

And he would have been right.

She was out of her seat and had hold of the tail of Liam’s shirt in the blink of an eye. “Can’t you keep your mouth shut?” she demanded.

Since the oldest Bennett was one of the most close-mouthed men Penn had ever met, he thought this was an odd criticism. So did Liam, who made a long show of extricating his clothing from the woman’s fist. “Jules, I thought it is my lack of—how did you term it?—‘emotional candor and sharing’—that is one of the things you abhor most about me?”

Penn looked over to meet Seth’s gaze. They exchanged a rueful smile, brothers in sympathy for their older brother. Brothers. Once again, there was that word. Penn’s gut took another tumble, but this time because he realized he was trapped. No, not trapped, but attached. Already attached.

Hell, how had this happened? Because they’d traded confidences in a fertile field? Because they shared a similar appearance? Or was it that their matching halves of DNA had some sort of magnetic property?

For whatever reason, he was part of a tribe now. From this moment on, he was connected. Penn sighed. Since there was no chance of walking away now, he decided to step up. Literally.

“Is there a problem I could help you with, Giuliana?” he asked.

She spun toward him, a little poof of dust flying into the air from the soles of her shoes. Her eyes sparked just like Alessandra’s when she was angry. “Did
you
tell anyone there are financial problems at Tanti Baci? Because it appears the word is out.”

He shook his head. “That word didn’t come from me.”

She gazed on him a moment longer, possibly assessing the truth, possibly plotting his dismemberment, then gave a little nod. “Fine. So I’ll only ask that you promise on your own grave that you’ll have the cottage ready for the weddings on time.”

Seth bumped his shoulder as he came to stand beside him. “I’ll kill him myself, Jules, if he doesn’t come through.”

Penn turned to stare at the younger man. So much for brotherhood, he thought.

Seth shot him an unrepentant grin. And when Penn found himself reluctantly grinning back, he had the moment’s thought that the brotherhood connection might not be bad, might not be bad at all.

Clare turned toward the office entrance of Gil’s auto service, Edenville Motor Repair, because the metal doors covering the service bays were already down for the night. It was after seven, but she was relieved to find the office open, indicating the boss still hadn’t left for the day. She had to see him.

The chair behind his desk was empty, but the door leading to the service area was ajar. She cleared her throat as she approached it, surprised at how hard her heart was hammering. This was her best friend she was here for, no one scary.

“Gil?” It came out puny-sounding, so she cleared her throat again and forced herself to say the name louder. “Gil?”

“Here,” she heard the word echo in the cavernous room that smelled of grease and gasoline. “The Mercedes.”

She found the car and stared at it, recognizing the sleek vehicle. “That’s my mother’s,” she said.

A muffled laugh sounded from beneath it. “Hey, she’s a woman who wants only the best, and when it comes to taking care of her automobile, she knows that’s me.”

Clare walked around the back bumper to see a pair of legs in coveralls sticking out. Gil’s legs, of course. No one else could claim the long length. She frowned at them, because she’d come here to talk to
him
, not his ankles.

“Why’d you stop by?” he asked.

Thinking of her reasons, she felt herself flush and was glad, maybe, that they weren’t yet face-to-face. “Can’t a woman drop in on her best buddy?”

In response, he made a noncommittal grunt that only reminded her again of that distance that had cropped up between them in the last several months. She couldn’t put her finger on when it happened . . . before she’d become engaged to Jordan, she knew that.

Clare needed her best friend—the Man of Honor—as her wedding crept closer, though. She had the usual bridal jitters that only someone as close as Gil could help her manage. Would she break out on the morning of her ceremony? Would her mother send her over the bend before the honeymoon? Was it normal to have such vivid dreams starring someone other than her husband-to-be every night?

“I can hear your wheels turning from under here,” Gil called out. “What is it this time? I’ve already agreed to be part of the wedding party. Do I have to wear a pink dress after all?”

“No.” She laughed at the thought, picturing her Italian Stallion in organza and flowers in his hair. The image was so wrong that she immediately mentally undressed him . . .

Oh, God.

Right there was the trouble she’d been having for the last several days, ever since he’d confessed to the new woman in his life. It had sounded serious, and the only woman that Gil had ever been faithful to for any length of time was . . . her.

But what kind of friend was jealous of her buddy’s lover?

“You like Jordan, don’t you?” she said to Gil, though it wasn’t really a question. He’d never hinted at anything less, and it ate at her that she couldn’t welcome Gil’s new interest with the same kind of open acceptance that he’d shown her fiancé.

“Why would you ask that?” he said. “If you want to marry the guy, it shouldn’t matter what I think.”

Clare stilled. Yeah, she sucked at softball, and though the “girl geek” label Jordan used had stung, she knew she
was
smart. Meaning Gil’s nonanswer answer was wreathed in flashing neon and whistling alarms.

Frowning at the rubber soles of her best friend’s black work boots, she drew up a folding chair and sat near his feet. “You told me you thought I was ready for marriage.”

“When did I say that?”

“When we went on our trip. When we drove to Colorado last summer and stayed with my friend Daphne.”

“Oh, yeah. That trip.”

More lights were flashing and she thought back to those seven days the previous July. Gil had agreed to go on a road trip, and they’d ended up staying in the tiny apartment of her friend from college. On the two days there and back, she and Gil had taken separate rooms at modest motels, but they’d shared the living room at Daphne’s place.

As she recalled, it had been three nights of friendship and laughter. They’d brought a case of Napa wine with them, and she, Daphne, and Gil had stayed up into the early morning hours, drinking, reminiscing, planning their futures.

It was all a bit hazy, thanks to that case of wine, but two things were indelibly etched in her brain: One, that she and Gil had slept together each night, spooned, on Daphne’s narrow couch; and two, on the way back to Napa she’d asked Gil if he thought she was ready to be a wife.

He’d said yes, damn it!

She’d just started dating Jordan and upon her return home—and with her mother’s overwhelming approval—they’d quickly started talking marriage. A month later, she’d accepted his proposal.

Hadn’t Gil shaken Jordan’s hand in congratulation when he’d learned the news?

Wasn’t it her cheek Gil had kissed?

And at that she could feel it, the touch of his lips to her skin. Her face burned, and she pressed her fingers to the spot, trying to rub the sensation away.

But it wasn’t a kiss that innocent she’d been dreaming about.

For the last few nights Clare had been coming awake in her bride-to-be bed, tangled in her sheets and panting at a dream in which Gil—her best buddy Gil!—touched and undressed her. Then he kissed her, kissed her with the kind of sexual intent that her mother had always warned teenage Clare of when she talked about young men and what they wanted from young women. Then, Sally Knowles had probably feared that kind of stark sexuality might rub off Gil and onto her darling daughter . . . and now, all these years later, Clare was worried it finally had.

She dropped her head into her hands, wishing she didn’t remember the dreams. In them Gil was behind her, spooned like they’d been on Daphne’s couch, and though she couldn’t see his face, she knew it was him. The size of him, the familiar scent of him were impossible to mistake.

“Clare? What’s going on?”

“I’m going nuts,” she muttered.

But he heard it, even from his position under the Mercedes. “Your mother?” he asked, voice full of sympathy. “What now?”

There was that, too, making her crazy. “She wants to insert a moment of silence in my wedding ceremony to honor Tommy. A special lighting of candles, too.”

“Good God, Clare.”

“Not so good to me,” she said. “And if Tommy’s the angel that my mother believes, then he should be doing something from up there to stop all this.”