House Of Payne: Scout (5 page)

As far as he knew, finger paint had never made it across the chateau’s threshold.

A group of children raced by, holding balloons and streamers and shrieking with laughter. Either he didn’t understand what a family get-together was, or one of the families—the Panuzzis or the Fourniers—was doing it wrong.

“Hey there.” Out of breath from her turn at the Electric Slide, Scout skipped over to him, holding her shoes in her hands and apparently unembarrassed to be barefoot in public. Then he noticed that many other women were also barefoot, either holding onto their shoes or ditching them entirely along the edge of the dance floor. “Sorry I abandoned you for a bit, but this crowd digs its special dances, and I couldn’t resist. I wish you’d given it a try.”

As far as he knew, no Fournier had ever done the Electric Slide. “Perhaps another time. It did look fun.” A
lot
of fun, actually.

Her smile made the disco ball overhead seem dim. “Oh man, it
so
was. You hungry?”

“I could eat.” He watched her dump her shoes in a pile by the dance floor before she grabbed his arm and hauled him in the direction of the buffet tables manned by white-jacketed caterers. “This is an exceptionally organized party for such a large gathering of a diverse group of people. Your handiwork, I presume?”

“Guilty. Papa Bolo and Mama Coco’s kids—both their biological children and their fosters—take turns putting this annual shindig together. We all chip in and somehow make it happen. And every year the guest list gets bigger.”

He looked around the crowded dance hall as they got in line for juicy slices of prime rib. “How many were invited this year?”

“Let me think… there are the five Panuzzi kids, now adults, and their spouses and children, some cousins, aunts and uncles thrown in. One of their kids wasn’t able to be here tonight—some kind of snafu with the military, or so I heard—but there are still about sixty or so blood relatives who managed to show up. Can you imagine?”

“No.” And he didn’t want to. Imagining that many Fourniers would make him vomit, he was sure of it.

“Then you have the strays. Foster kids,” she expanded when he shot her a questioning glance. “Over time, Bolo and Coco took in about a dozen or so, and several of us managed to stay in touch after we became adults. There are seven of us here, along with the friends and families we now have, so that’s almost twenty people. So, with random friends of the family thrown in, it’s close to a hundred.”

He’d been to parties where the headcount had been many times that amount, but attending those bashes were a matter of seeing and being seen—necessary networking events with insanely debauched backdrops as the settings. This gathering, however, was something so beyond his experience, he could only shake his head. “Ironic, that there are more foster children than biological, yet not nearly the number of people associated with the so-called strays, as there are with the biological children.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why it was so important I had a plus-one tonight.” As they got closer to the servers, she snagged a couple of plates and handed him one. “A lot of us who grew up in the system aren’t all that terrific at making lasting attachments.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well… take Tonya, for instance.” She nodded toward a beautiful woman who appeared to be an exotic mix of African, Native American and Caucasian, with cheekbones so perfect he knew instinctively that the camera would worship her. “It took her husband Adam freaking
years
to convince her that the world they’d built together wasn’t going to disappear out from under her. Instinctively that’s what she kept thinking would happen, because that’s the only life strays like us have ever known. Stability, home, belonging… that’s not for us. That’s for other people with real families and real blood ties.”

His mouth flattened. “Blood ties are not all that they appear to be.”

She glanced at him curiously before lifting a shoulder. “I wouldn’t know. What I do know is that many of us strays haven’t settled down yet. Maybe we’re just too scared to let anyone close because we’re afraid that the bottom will fall out—because trust me, the bottom
always
falls out. Or maybe that’s just the luck of the draw and things simply shook out that way. But there’s no denying that while all but one of the Panuzzi kids are happily married with a minimum of three kids apiece, there are only two Panuzzi foster children out of a dozen who are currently married, and those two couples have each produced only one child.”

That didn’t sound like the luck of the draw to him. “So… you needed a date tonight to prove that you are well-adjusted, and not an emotionally stunted commitment-phobe?”

“Geez, the way you say it.” She wrinkled her cute little nose, and all at once his hands itched for his camera in a way that almost never happened. “I’m not emotionally stunted, or a commitment-phobe. I just don’t have anyone in my life at the moment. Big difference.”

“Ah.” Personally he couldn’t understand why she wasn’t exhausted from beating lust-maddened suitors off with a golf club. A woman with such lush curves and the sexiest self-confidence he’d ever seen was a treasure any man would want for himself. “So why did you need me to come along with you tonight?”

She grimaced. “Papa Bolo and Mama Coco seem to think that being paired up somehow equals happiness, especially when it comes to us strays.”

That one word was starting to grate on his nerves. “What does it matter, whether you are alone or not?”

“Whenever one of us shows up without someone in tow, drama immediately ensues. They jump to the totally wrong conclusion that they didn’t give us enough stability or love or whatever. Then it’s all about taking the blame for not raising us foster kids to be happy and whole.”

“Are you? Happy and whole, I mean?”

She lifted a shoulder as they moved up the line, and she held her plate out for a slice of pink meat done to perfection. “I’ve got a great life. What’s not to be happy about?”

“I do not know if I would be happy about being called a stray.” But maybe that was because he’d been called so much worse. That didn’t stop him from getting pissed off at the label that had been slapped so carelessly on her. It made her sound like she was an unwanted and unloved thing. He knew what that was like all too well, and it was a feeling he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.

Though, of course, his worst enemy was the very person who made him feel that way in the first place.

The corners of her mouth curled. “The Panuzzis didn’t come up with that, actually. A social worker called me a stray when she thought I was out of earshot—dehumanizing me to the point where I was nothing more than an animal. I called her on it straight away by telling her that I was proud to be a stray, because strays are survivors. With no home, no one to love them or take care of them, a stray has to be smart enough and strong enough to take care of themselves. I was yelling all this when the Panuzzis walked through the door to drop off some paperwork to take in Sass—another foster sister,” she explained when he frowned, and she pointed to a petite woman with long black hair out on the dance floor. “They refused to leave the building until it was agreed that
I
would also be going home with them.”

“Unlike that ass who compared you to an animal, I am glad the Panuzzis were able to recognize quality when they saw it.” Fury whipped up hard and fast at that long-ago social worker.  He looked deep into Scout’s eyes to see how much damage those careless words had caused, but for some reason all he could find was surprise at his statement. “Now I begin to understand.”

“Understand?” She shook her head, her gaze clinging to his as if she didn’t have the power to look anywhere else. Dear God, but he liked having her undivided attention, much more than he probably should. “Understand what?”

“Why you have such devotion to these people, even after all these years. Without even knowing you, they heard the strength of you in your words. They saw the unbreakable spirit in you as you rose to the task of defending yourself. By this they knew your worth. It pleases me to see you understand this deserves devotion. And,” he added, catching her free hand in his, “it pleases me that unlike your earlier caretakers, these foster parents knew better than to crush such a delicate flower.”

He thought she might have whispered his name before she at last looked away. The moment he lost that connection, his stomach twisted in a way he didn’t enjoy at all.

“I’m no delicate flower.” She slipped her hand from his and shook her head as though trying to snap herself out of a stupor. “Let’s grab a seat and eat, okay? I don’t want to miss out on the Chicken Dance, and I sure as hell won’t allow you to miss out on it either.”

With that ominous statement, she led the way toward the head table.

Chapter Five

Scout was in trouble. Big time.

She made her way through the food on her plate on autopilot, tasting nothing and taking in her surroundings even less. The only thing she was aware of was Ivar sitting in the chair next to her. If he would just stop saying things that made her catch her breath and ache to reach out and touch him, everything would be fine. But everything wasn’t fine. At all.

By this they knew your worth.

Her throat tightened with an emotion she couldn’t define, and she took a tiny sip of water to unknot it. It was almost like he knew she’d struggled her whole life to feel like she was worthy of being in the lives of the people around her. Obviously that was a leftover from her craptastic childhood, the infamous Unwanted-Kid Syndrome that haunted most parentless children. But she was an adult now, damn it. She should have grown out of that insecurity a long time ago.

Nevertheless, it touched her way down deep that he understood she needed to hear she was
worthy
.

“So, Ivar.” Belatedly she heard Mama Coco’s voice, and the sound spawned a wave of comfort that calmed her inner restlessness. She glanced over at the small, birdlike woman with her halo of short red-henna hair, a style that had gone unchanged from the time when Scout had first met her all those years ago. “I haven’t heard Theresa mention your name before, and it’s a name I’d remember. Have you two known each other long?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Scout watched Ivar’s blank eyes suddenly blink with recognition at her given name. “Not at all long, Mrs. Panuzzi—”

“Oh, make it Coco, cutie. We’re not big on formality around here.”

She smirked. Coco calling a former supermodel “cutie” was absolutely fabulous. Then she almost rolled her eyes when he tilted his head in a gracious gesture that was very much like an Old World sort of bow. No matter how uncertain she was of him from a personal standpoint, at least he had some kick-ass manners.

“I first became aware of Scout a couple months ago when I contacted House Of Payne regarding a work project. Then, when we finally met face-to-face, I confess that I could not stop myself from staring at her. Aside from the violet she had in her hair, purple skirt and white blouse that made me think the term
dangerous curves
was created just for her, it was her gray eyes that captured my attention the most.”

Scout nearly choked on her last bite of dinner. He was simply playing the role of her date, of course, so that wasn’t what had her on the verge of needing the Heimlich maneuver. The thing was…

He remembered what she’d been wearing when they first met.

She knew the skirt he was talking about. It hugged her ass in ways that should be illegal. But she didn’t remember wearing it on the day she’d first met him at the House.

He did, though. And he’d been captured by her eyes…

No, she thought, slamming down on that ballooning concept to make sure it popped. He was just playing a role, spoon-feeding her old foster parents what he thought they wanted to hear. It wasn’t the truth.

It just sounded like it.

Sergio “Bolo” Panuzzi, in his customary bolo tie worn with a yellow plaid shirt, tilted Ivar a wink from behind thick glasses. “That’s the way of it, isn’t it, son? Ask any woman, and they’ll say that the first thing a man notices is a knockout pair of legs or a nice rack. But that’s not always the case, am I right?”

Mama Coco smacked his arm while Scout snorted. “
Bolo
.”

“What? I’m just saying the first thing I noticed about my Coco were her beautiful eyes. Then her smile. Then I noticed her rack. At that point, my heart was lost.”

His wife looked like she didn’t know whether to brain him or kiss him. “Don’t pay any attention to him, Ivar, you’ll just make him worse. What do they call it on all those internets? Feeding the trolls? That’s my Bolo. Now,” she leaned in and looked like she was readying herself for a good, long gossip session, “tell me all about yourself, cutie.”

Ivar’s usually blank eyes held a hint of alarm. “There is not much to tell, sad to say.”

“Oh, pish. You’ve got such a honey of an accent, it could turn the head of any girl. Where’re you from?”

“Montreal.”

Mama Coco’s mouth made an O. “Not France? I was thinking France. Are you sure?”

“Positive.” Then he glanced at Scout, and she was surprised at the genuine amusement in his expression. “Should I apologize?”

“Just keep talking in that awesome accent and she’ll forgive anything.” And if he kept looking at her with such real emotion she might be in the same boat.

“Oh, you.” Mama Coco batted a hand in Scout’s direction before leaning her way. “Now it’s your turn, Theresa honey. What did you first think when you met this oh, so beautiful man?”

All at once everything was a lot less funny. She glanced at Ivar, only to discover his gaze was locked onto her like a magnet to steel.
Crap
. “I thought he was trouble.”

“With that accent? That face of a fallen angel? Those amazing shoulders that fill up half the room?” Her former foster mother let out a bawdy cackle. “Oh honey, of
course
he’s trouble! He’s the kind of trouble any woman would want to get into. Obviously you take after your Mama Coco when it comes to your taste in men. Wait, don’t say anything. I’m having a proud moment over here.”

“Unless,” Papa Bolo put in, touching his wife’s fragile, liver-spotted hand, “we’re talking about Theresa’s uncanny sixth sense when it comes to sniffing out trouble. That might be the kind of thing we’re talking about. Then we’ve got a problem, because our girl is never wrong about these things.”

“If that were the case, she wouldn’t have brought him around for us to meet, Bolo.” Again Mama Coco made a batting-away gesture with her hand. “A mother knows her daughter. She
likes
this one, and I have to say I like the look of him, too.”

Papa Bolo’s bushy gray brows went up over the frames of his glasses. “Should I be jealous?”

“Maybe. I like to keep you guessing. A little mystery keeps you young, stud.”

“And on that note,” Scout announced, popping out of her seat and dragging Ivar up as well, “we’re going to get something to drink before hitting the dance floor. Can we bring you anything?”

“Thank you, honey. A couple of those fancy Kir Royales to toast putting up with each other for forty-four years would be lovely,” Mama Coco said.

“Forty-five,” Papa Bolo corrected, and his wife did a great job at pearl-clutching.

“Dear God, have we put up with each other for that long?”

Bolo lifted a shoulder. “How the hell should I know? The banner over the stage says forty-five years, so I’m going with that.”

“Two Kir Royales, coming right up,” Scout said before anyone could say another word, and made a swift getaway.

“Your former foster parents seem very comfortable with each other.”

Scout analyzed Ivar’s tone in an attempt to read between the lines, and decided he sounded vaguely wistful. After they’d dropped off the drinks, they’d been waylaid by one of the Panuzzi children and her spouse, then another. Then another. Each time she could sense the increasing tension in the man beside her, and while she understood he might be bored with meeting a party full of strangers, the tension had her baffled. Since she couldn’t figure out what had him so keyed up, she coaxed him out onto the dance floor—the only privacy to be had in the building—while another party favorite, “Jambalaya” played on.

“That’s just how they are,” she offered after a moment, trying not to be aware of his hand on her waist and the occasional brush of his thigh against hers. But something told her she’d have to be a marble statue not to be aware of every place their bodies touched. “They tease each other constantly.”

“I noticed.”

“When I first came to their house I was totally freaked out by their play-bickering. I thought they were fighting. It took me a while to realize they were best friends, and best friends have the freedom to say anything to each other and still be safe and loved.”

“I see.” For a moment his thoughts seemed far away, and he glanced back at where the elderly couple still sat, their heads close as they touched their glasses in an obvious toast. “I have never seen a husband and wife act in such a manner.”

There was a softness in his eyes that intrigued her. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

That softness remained as he turned his attention back to her. “The best thing, I think.”

“Ah.” She didn’t fully understand, but at least he seemed to like her former foster family, so that was good. “How do husbands and wives usually act in your family?”

“Very appropriately.”

Scout almost blasted him that there was nothing inappropriate about the Panuzzis, when she realized he was merely speaking a truth. “I don’t understand.”

“For this, I am glad. I suspect your foster family knows the key to living a good life—they find fun and laughter in everything. Fun and laughter rarely have anything to do with being
appropriate
.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that.”

“And no matter what great age is reached, there is still excitement to be had in the opposite sex.” A wicked smile suddenly flashed. “I am still reeling from the shock of your Mama Coco flirting with me.”

“How could she not, cutie?” Before she thought better of it, she winked at him. “You’re a dish.”

“A what?”

“A dish. A looker. Eye-candy. A choice piece of beefcake. Mayor of Playerville. A hummina-hummina hottie. Take your pick.”

“I believe I prefer hummina-hummina hottie.” To her surprise, he suddenly twirled her around before bringing her back hard up against him. The jolt of feeling his body—as hard as a brick wall but contoured in all the right places—flashed through her like lightning. The heat of it sizzled in her blood and evaporated the air in her lungs, and all she could do was clutch at his shoulder so she wouldn’t pass out at his feet. “I would rather you think that I am hot instead of trouble.”

“You can be both.” And he was, no doubt about it. He proved it by moving his hand from her waist to slide along the small of her back to her opposite hip, his forearm pressing her into him just above her butt. The bold insistence of that hold—of making sure she felt all of him with all of her—was impossible to ignore, and the scorching way he smiled down at her told her that he knew it.

Oh, yes. His talent for being both hot and trouble knew no bounds.

“Do I feel like trouble to you
, ma fleur
?” As he spoke, he brought the hand he held to his neck, molding her fingers around it in a firm hold. With one hand now free, he ran it up the length of her spine with an almost painful slowness, as if he wanted to savor the trip. At last it stopped at her nape, his touch surprisingly gentle. His fingers pressed into the taut muscles there, massaging the tendons she could feel sliding under his kneading fingers, and her bones melted. A soundless moan escaped her parted lips and her eyes drifted closed on a wave of bliss, something she regretted because she could no longer see his gaze drilling into hers. Until that moment, she’d never really believed there was such a thing as eye-sex, but now she knew better. One smoldering, strip-you-bare look from Ivar enthralled her with such intensity she felt a stirring of heat between her legs.

“Have you no answer for me?” His whisper was a rough purr and full of knowledge of what he was doing to her. He squeezed her nape again, and her head did a slow-motion drop, only to have her brow come into contact with his lips. They pressed there, a sweet gesture that surprised her just as much as his gentleness. “Mm,
ma fleur
?”

“I think you might be the most extraordinary trouble to ever hit womankind.”

She felt his mouth move into a smile. “Why?”

“Because you actually feel like the greatest gift I’ve ever received.” He came to a complete standstill, as if her words had paralyzed him. The reaction startled her enough to drag her eyes open, only to find him staring down at her with that damned shuttered look she was beginning to hate. But there was also something else there, a warring against that blankness, as if he was struggling to push his way past it. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“I have never been considered a gift. A bane, of course. And a monster. I have been cursed countless times, but never has the word
gift
been applied to me.”

Damn, she’d asked for honesty, but the bitterness threading through his voice had been the last thing she’d expected. She searched his face, trying to figure out where it came from. “Did I offend you?”

“A beautiful woman telling me I am like a gift? Why would I be offended?”

She wasn’t sure, but something had upset him, she was sure of it. “Well, like I said, it only
feels
like you’re a gift. Time will tell if you really are.”

“Then I will have to be on my very best behavior.” A corner of his mouth curled as the pressure against her nape increased, this time guiding her face toward his. In something like alarm she watched his head slant, an unmistakable move of readying for a kiss. In that moment, she could easily imagine his mouth on hers. It would be addicting, that sensation. The taste of him would invade her senses with the first touching of tongues. Then she’d know the flavor of him, something she would never be able to forget every time she saw him from that moment on…