Hot in Hellcat Canyon (17 page)

“This is how I felt when I first saw night in Hellcat Canyon,” she said.

He could have guessed that. He and Britt Langley, he had a hunch, saw much of the world in much the same way.

There was a whole lot of strategy and very little delicacy in most Hollywood relationships. When people were so easily had, it was easy to forget the serrated thrill of uncertainty. The pleasures of
wooing
. Of actually earning someone’s regard.

He began to think that inner peace just meant knowing someone needed you. The essential you, whoever you might be when all the other nonsense was stripped away.

“Maybe you should get a dog,” he said, finally, to her. “Or do you have one?”

“I have a cat.”

“I hope by
cat
you mean ‘puma.’ ”

She smiled. “The dog a few houses down from me barks when a squirrel so much as sighs.”

He jerked his head toward her, feigning astonishment. “What do squirrels have to sigh about? You got world-weary squirrels here in Hellcat Canyon?”

She laughed. “I do have a blue jay who’s a bit of a dick.”

“Oh, blue jays don’t take any guff,” he said in all seriousness.

She laughed again. He loved the sound of her laugh.

He took the nearly U-shaped bend she silently pointed to and aimed the truck up the hill.

“I’m . . . riiiight . . . there. On the right. That yellow cottage with the red mailbox.”

He maneuvered the truck over and cut the engine and the party of deer arranged in front of her house like ornaments scrambled to their feet and trotted at a swift but hardly urgent pace up the path and out of her gate. They seemed less frightened of than guilty about being caught holding a lawn party.

Their hooves echoed on the hard earth as they all vanished.

“That’s one of my favorite sounds,” she said absently.

“What, deer hooves?” Somehow he just knew.

“Yep.”

“It’s a good one. Flapping’s good, too.”

“Flapping?”

“Wings, flags, sails, the ears of dogs and cats when they shake their heads.”

She turned to stare at him.

“All good sounds,” she said softly. As if it was the most perfect thing she’d ever heard.

He realized his hands were still gripping the wheel. Albeit loosely. He still hadn’t quite turned all the way to look at her head on.

He knew it was because the minute he met her eyes he would need to make a decision.

The atmosphere in the cab of the truck was a bit like the air just before a lightning storm.

His head turned, his hand left the wheel.

And it rose slowly, to slide along her cheek, and she tipped her head into it with a sigh. And then her eyes closed, and magically, as if they both knew this was the next step in the dance, they were leaning into each other, and his lips leisurely, softly, brushed across hers. It was the kind of caress, he knew from experience, that let all your other nerve endings know that mind-blowing pleasure was on its way.

It was very nearly a chaste kiss.

If, say, a burning match touched to a fuse could be considered chaste.

And the little carnal catch in her throat . . . well, he’d remember that sound forever.

He unleashed himself just a little. He let his mouth sink against the softness of hers.

He could all but taste desire in the back of his throat, electric and nearly desperate. It was as if every muscle in his body was pulled taut as a bowstring.

Her lips, her skin, her hair. So soft. Christ almighty.

His lungs moved shallowly. He could feel the answering tension in her. Her mouth parted softly against his; he pulled her lower lip gently, gently between his. Her breath was hot and shuddery and he wanted to slide his hand up under her skirt and between her thighs, watch as her eyes went hot and dazed and her head thrashed back as his fingers worked their magic.

And to get from here to there, all he had to do was take that kiss deeper.

In minutes have her in his lap, riding both of them to climax. This was hardly his first rodeo.

He knew exactly what to do to get what he wanted.

He ended the kiss.

It about killed him, though.

Their mouths hovered a hairsbreadth away from each other for a second.

He sat back slowly, as if he didn’t want to jar his body. He felt like a naked wire. Almost dangerous to touch.

He closed his eyes briefly and sucked in a long steadying breath. Released it at length.

His body, particularly his hard cock, thought he was nuts.

There was no sound in the cab of the truck apart from the two of them breathing, and that sound, in its intimacy, was purely erotic. And he remembered the Eternity Oak, and the sound of the falls near it.

“I’ll watch you get in your door.” His voice was a husk.

If she was surprised, she didn’t betray it.

She hesitated.

“Okay,” she said softly. “Thanks.”

She got out and the door shut with a thunk behind her.

She flapped a hand behind her in farewell, tossing a little smile over her shoulder.

He watched her go up the little flagstone walk to the raised wooden porch, surrounded by a railing that he doubted would survive a good lean by a person any heavier than she was.

And the porch itself had a definite curve. Like a slight smile.

Or her butt in that skirt.

When she leaped that top step like a pro he winced. One wrong move and she might just drop through that thing like it was a trapdoor. He remembered her “triage” on priorities, and the muscles of his stomach tensed again. He could so easily fix that porch.

Now she was in the warm, yellow pool of light on her porch.

It briefly turned all of her a shade of gold.

Funny, he felt a little like that inside. Gold and lit.

She tucked her hair behind her ear, away from her face, to jam her key in the lock. She turned around, paused, and flashed him a smile, and disappeared inside.

He watched a moment longer. Unwilling to move just yet.

He’d have to go back a long, long way to the last time he’d felt quite like this.

Back at least before he’d learned that he could be cavalier about sex and still live with himself.

Whatever had happened to Britt Langley made him want to protect her, and if that meant from him, too, so be it. If she wanted him—if she really wanted him—she would let him know. In the same way she’d dropped off that beer this evening.

They’d both be lying awake burning tonight, he was pretty sure.

It wasn’t really strategy on his part. But it might work out that way, anyway.

Then he swiped his hands down his face and turned up the music again, and started the truck.

CHAPTER 9

D
uring the last bad winter storm in Hellcat Canyon, a power line had snapped and lay arcing and sparking on the ground in front of Britt’s house until Pacific Gas and Electric came to take care of it.

Britt’s body felt like that all night long.

She could feel the tension in J. T. when he’d touched her. She could all but
taste
how badly he wanted her.

But now she suspected the man who had once blithely partaken of women as if they were a bowl of peanuts and probably would have blithely partaken of her, too, before last night . . . was being careful with her.

She was frustrated. Maybe a little amused.

And also, when she thought about it, unaccountably moved in a way she didn’t necessarily want to feel. Because it made her feel a little exposed. Like that snapped power line.

He’d ferociously protected her last night. The funny thing was, however . . . she’d felt oddly protective of him, too, from the moment he’d walked into that diner.

J. T. was missing something, she was pretty certain. She wasn’t certain it was only sex.

She did know that she needed to make it clear to John Tennessee McCord that part of taking care of herself meant partaking of
his
body with wild abandon.

The sooner the better. Or the two of them might never sleep restfully again.

She must have eventually slept.

Because she opened her eyes to a soft early-morning light. She didn’t have to work until this afternoon.

But an inspiration had brewed while she was sleeping.

And now she was quite breathlessly eager to call Gary, which was a first.

She had the pleasure of hearing
his
morning voice, which was gravelly and very, very irritable.

“This better be good, Britt. I got an early tee off time and I need all my beauty sleep.”

“Have you lost your mind?” was his response when she told him why she’d called.

“Maybe. I just have a hunch.”

Gary sighed noisily and cleared his throat in a phlegmy way that made her wince. “Okay. I’ll set it up. If you can rent that place to him I’ll know for sure they’re weirder in Hollywood than we ever imagined.”

S
he’d scrambled to get ready, but J. T. had beat her to the Greenleaf place.

She saw him through the trees as she approached in her car. He was standing in front of the house, his head tipped back, hands in his pockets. He appeared to be studying the roof. Probably critically eyeing the gutters. A very guylike pose.

He turned around when he heard her car. And went still.

She turned off the engine and shouldered the door open.

J. T. tracked her with his eyes when she got out of her car.

Today’s tank top was white and her shorts were denim and the buttons came undone pretty easily.

He remained absolutely, almost unnervingly, silent.

And then he smiled. Slowly, crookedly, purely wickedly.

It was almost knee-bucklingly sexy.

He knew why she’d called him.

That smile was his way of telling her that he would be calling the shots.

And he would leave her in suspense as to when the shot calling would commence.

She stood next to him.

The Greenleaf house was a tiny two-bedroom Craftsman-esque residence built circa 1920-something. Geographically, it occupied a fairly indeterminate place in the hierarchy of Hellcat Canyon territory. Sort of in between all those vacation palaces and the deep dark of the hills. She doubted Jonah Greenleaf was trying to make a statement with the location, but you never knew with the Greenleafs.

And it was kind of falling apart. The porch was caving in; there was a hole in the roof; the back deck was hazardous.

He was still quiet.

“There’s only a little hole in the roof over
one
of the bedrooms,” she said. “I don’t think it needs a whole new roof. You might need to shoo the squirrels out. I don’t think a raccoon has gotten in yet. Plumbing’s good. Wiring’s good. The porch is bad, as you can see. The back deck needs help. Gotta watch your step out there. Nice woodwork inside. Your basic Craftsman.”

Her words were clipped and nervous because he looked utterly absorbed by what she was saying, while he was clearly thinking something else.

“Love Craftsman homes.” He said this after a funny pause. As if his thoughts were on a time delay.

“You’re tucked in off the road here among the trees, but there’s a really wonderful view of the canyon nearby. One of my favorites. I go there a lot. It’s a sort of vista point not far from my place. Kind of set back a bit off the road.”

“Mmm,” was all he said.

He patrolled the front of the house, looking a bit like a stalking panther.

She decided to take his lack of glib commentary as a good sign.

“If you stand here, you can hear the river. A little creek runs around back of the property. No one can see in through the trees, but you get plenty of sun in the afternoon in the back of the house, especially in the kitchen.”

They stood together and listened to the creek.

“Another good sound,” he said.

It was a reference to last night, and that kiss they weren’t talking but in a way was all they were talking about. It thrummed through every word and every silence.

He turned to smile faintly at her again. And then strode off suddenly, heading toward the corner of the house. It looked as though he intended to go around the back of it.

He went stock-still just as he turned the corner.

Her heart lurched.

He must have seen the blue-eyed Mary’s.

This was the thing that decided her. She knew they grew in a sort of unchecked abundance up against the back of this house.

She didn’t know if it would be a painful memory for him, or a sweet one. But she wasn’t sure it mattered. She had a hunch they meant home to him, regardless, and she knew deep down that John Tennessee McCord needed a place that felt like home, even if he didn’t know it.

He didn’t turn around for so long she started to worry.

But she half suspected it was because he didn’t want her to see his expression.

She cleared her throat. “It’s just . . . I saw them and thought of you, and I just thought . . . I thought the house might give you . . . something to take care of. A fixed point in the sandstorm.”

He turned back around slowly then and looked at her full on.

His expression was carefully inscrutable.

And then his face lit, and his slow smile about yanked her heart out of her chest like a lariat.

“I don’t mind.” His voice was low, and smoky. It was like being stripped nude and laid down on velvet in a dark room.

She lost her breath.

“Can I see inside?” he said mildly.

She couldn’t speak. She could hear her own breath, swiftly now over the beating of her heart.

She just turned and climbed up the steps, and he followed.

She fumbled with the key yet again. She could feel the heat of his body against her skin.

Behind me. Over me. On me. In me.

Her dirty little prepositional phrases started up like a chant again.

She turned the key and pushed open the door.

He stalked through this room, taking it in thoughtfully. The entire house was
maybe
a thousand square feet. The living room looked out onto the porch and the woods; the little bedrooms flanked it. It wasn’t as moldy as it might have been, mainly because the hole in the roof was recent and the intense Gold Country summer heat tended to dry things out. The prevailing smell was good, aging wood.