Icing on the Cake (Close to Home) (3 page)

Conn had told him about Sara’s repeated come-on attempts the first time he’d met her, all of which she’d made in front of Nia. Curtis had thought his brother was exaggerating. What kind of person tries to steal her sister’s brand-new boyfriend right in front of her face? Now he knew.

Sara glared at him while unlocking an early-eighties-model Trans Am parked a few car lengths ahead. Red, with a hood bird. A classic. The perfect car for a hot girl with ego and attitude.

He ducked into his Mustang and brought it rumbling to life. Angry as she was, Sara wasn’t likely to wait around for him to tail her out to Peter and Meredith’s place. She’d probably prefer he got lost—and stayed that way.

She had every right to be pissed. He’d never been one to mince words, but that crack about keeping her out of trouble so she didn’t screw up the wedding had been on the “dick move” scale. Somewhere around a six, he’d guess.

At the first stop sign, Sara once again issued him the middle finger, this time via the rearview mirror. He tapped the horn in response.

He wasn’t a saint by any stretch, but he wasn’t an asshole either. So why had he issued the low-blow comments to a woman he didn’t even know?

Because she’d gotten under his skin.

Bombshell gorgeous with a fast tongue and not an ounce of fear. If women had balls, Sara’s would be so fucking big, she’d be walking bowlegged. She might as well have a neon sign above her head flashing “Bad Girl.” Goddamn irresistible.

He’d been seconds away from blowing off the rehearsal party. From bullying her into his car and heading straight to his hotel room where he could strip her bare and find out exactly how bad she could be. See what it would take to tame her.

Wrong weekend for that kind of fun. Wrong girl too. He and Sara would set fire to the sheets, he had no doubt. But she was practically family. Too close to home.

The second she’d passed the town limits, Sara hit the accelerator. He grinned for no one to see and gave the Mustang gas. Thought she could shake him, did she? Not a chance. Her Trans Am was no match for his ’67 Fastback. Also, he wasn’t inclined to lose.

The woman could drive, though. She led him on a heated chase, ripping down empty rural roads, ignoring the posted speed limit, failing to stop for those irrelevant red signs on the corners. He cranked up the tunes and followed suit through every twist, turn and straightaway.

The game ended way too damn soon, with a final turn down a long, gravel laneway bordered by thick woods. Fifty feet later, they reached a charming red-sided house set on one side of a large clearing. Natural forest surrounded the massive yard, except for a small stretch on the far right side where waterfront broke the circle. On the other side of the yard stood a small smokehouse. And speaking of smoke, there was Peter, waving from his station at the barbecue, near the house’s adjoined garage.

Curtis returned the greeting, shut off the car and hopped out. No wonder his brother liked coming up here to visit the future in-laws. Not only were Peter and Meredith Chambers nice people, they had a sweet setup—if you liked the whole “serenity” scene, as Conn did. Curtis didn’t mind kicking back for short stints now and then, but too much calm and relaxation made him twitchy. Give him the adrenaline rush of ripping down a country road any day.

The object of his recent pursuit had parked directly in front of the garage. Two beefy Dodge trucks separated their vehicles, obscuring his view. Despite being divorced for many years, his parents had made the six-hour trip northward together, along with his sister Lindsay. That was truck number one. The second, and almost matching, Durango belonged to Conn. Apparently the lovebirds hadn’t detoured to the hotel for a quickie—or something longer—as predicted. They’d make up for the missed opportunity on their honeymoon, no doubt. Hell, given their storybook romance, Curtis wouldn’t be surprised if Nia came home pregnant. That’d be the icing on the cake.

“You kept up,” Sara said as he rounded his car and popped the trunk.

He turned and found her leaning against the nearest truck, legs crossed at the ankles and arms folded across those amazing tits, straining the limits of the world’s tightest black t-shirt. Sunlight filtering through the treetops bounced off her shiny, dark hair, giving it an amber aura that matched her eyes. At the moment, those eyes were loaded with daggers, all of which were aimed at him. Deservedly so.

Didn’t change a thing though. If possible, it increased his urge to stalk over there and stake his claim on the wild-eyed beauty. He settled for the stalking part. And some looming over her, which he did with his hands tucked safely in his pockets.

“You didn’t want to lose me. Admit it.”

She admitted nothing. Just stared up at him wearing a defiant, sexy smile. “Exceeding the speed limit, failure to stop, reckless driving. I’m shocked at your blatant disregard for the law.” She
tsk
ed. “Maybe I should make a citizen’s arrest.”

“Go for it. You’ll have to hold me until an officer arrives. Think you could?” He moved closer, still keeping hands off, yet essentially pinning her to the vehicle. “I, for one, would enjoy your attempt to restrain me. Very much.”

Tires crunching over gravel and the accompanying toot of a horn interrupted whatever saucy thing would likely have flown from Sara’s lush, red lips. Instead, she pushed past him, brushing her tits against his arm and copping a feel of his groin in the process.

“Seems you’re already half-cocked at the idea.”

He threw his head back and laughed up at the trees. The silent surroundings gave the sound a booming quality. He really did have his work cut out for him this weekend. Making sure Sara behaved—he could do that. Holding himself to the same standard was looking to be the more difficult task.

She paused and looked back when he didn’t trail after her. “Are you coming?”

He snagged the bottle of Scotch from his trunk, closed it and caught up with her in two strides. One hand positioned on the small of her back, he leaned in close to her ear. “When we’re naked later, babe, you won’t have to ask. You won’t even be able to ask, because you’ll be moaning my name at the time.” He smacked her ass hard enough to make her jump, then abandoned her to join his brother on the Chambers’ deck.

Conn raised his eyebrows at Curtis’ wide grin. His brother’s gaze drifted to Sara, currently clipping across the floorboards, cheeks aflame and arms swinging, a tight fist balled at the end of each one.

“You responsible for that?” Conn asked.

“Oh yeah.”

Conn laughed under his breath. “I’ve never seen Sara rattled. Didn’t know it was possible, actually.”

“You told me to make sure she doesn’t cause any trouble.” A zing of awareness hit Curtis squarely below the belt when Sara looked his way. “Best way I can do that is to keep her off balance and otherwise occupied.”

“With you.”

“Hey, just doing what needs to be done so your big event goes off without a hitch. I take my duties as best man seriously.”

This time, Conn’s laugh rang in the summer air. “Your selflessness is noted and appreciated.”

Curtis waited for the attention Conn’s laughter had drawn to subside. When the last pair of curious eyes turned away, he lowered his voice to a more private, serious level. “Hard to believe Sara and Nia came from the same mold.”

Conn shifted where he stood. “There’s more to that story, that’s all I can say.”

“All right.” He didn’t pry or push. But his brother’s lack of disclosure had fully engaged his cop brain. Sticking close to Sara this weekend just got that much more intriguing.

*

All her dad’s prized steaks had been devoured. Most of the salads and desserts too. Plenty of booze remained, but that didn’t come as a shocker, given the party’s limited, and apparently straight-laced, attendees.

Sara edged her way out of a conversation between her mom and Conn’s that involved mind-numbing minutia such as last-minute changes to tomorrow’s seating plan for dinner. If listening to that didn’t merit another drink, she didn’t know what might. She grabbed a beer from one of the coolers, used her jeans to wipe the moisture from the bottle and headed off the front deck in search of Nia.

“Hey, Sara, wait up. I’ll go with you,” Lindsay, the eldest Lawler sibling and other bridesmaid, said as she jogged to Sara’s side.

Now they were buddies? Not likely. Sara had only met Lindsay a few times prior to today, but those were enough to know Nia’s soon-to-be sister-in-law would like nothing better than to unseat Sara as Nia’s best friend. And that was so not happening.

“Getting bored with the pastor?” Sara asked, though judging from Lindsay and Ben’s cozy position on one of the outdoor loveseats, they’d been anything but bored.

“Ben’s a really nice guy. But I suppose ‘nice’ is synonymous with boring by your standards. I doubt Ben’s the type of guy who’d break in to a furniture store and have sex in the showroom.”

“His loss.” Well, burn. Good to know Lindsay, if not the whole family, had the gory details of her life down pat. She didn’t blame whoever had brought the Lawlers up to speed. At ten years old, life had handed Sara the biggest batch of lemons possible. She’d been making toxic lemonade ever since.

But not this weekend. For once in her life, she wasn’t going to fuck things up. And that included playing nice—relatively, anyway—with Lindsay.

“I’m not sure what’s so interesting around back. If it’d only been our dads that’d snuck away from the front deck, I’d say mine had insisted on showing off his homemade smokehouse or the bat houses he installed in the trees. But Curtis, Conn and Nia all left too.” There, look how normal and congenial she could be. Somebody should put a gold star in her journal for good behavior.

“It could be Curtis doing the showing off. I keep telling him if he gave a woman half the attention he invests in his car, he might find himself with an actual girlfriend instead of a little black book full of crossed-out names.”

“Maybe that’s why he focuses on the Mustang.”

“Sad but true. Unlike Conn, my other brother does not want to be caught.”

“If you’re trying to warn me off—no need.”

“Really?” Lindsay gave Sara the raised-eyebrow treatment. “Because a person would have to be not only blind, but utterly sensory deprived to miss the ‘I’m not sure if I want to dropkick you or fuck you’ looks you two have been shooting each other.”

Sara snorted at the accuracy of the description. Anything she might have said in response died on her tongue as they rounded the rear corner of the house. She left Lindsay in her dust and cut across the yard.

At the sight of Sara storming their way, her dad, Nia and Conn formed a tight line. A human wall designed to block her view. Too late for that, she’d already seen what they wanted to hide—a shiny orange chainsaw, sitting quietly but far from innocently on the woodpile.

“What the hell is that? Tell me I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing.”

The color drained from her dad’s face. “Sara, honey. I planned to talk to you about this tomorrow, after everybody left. Then, while I was giving Conn’s dad and brother a tour of the property, we got to talking about the maintenance and responsibility of living out here, surrounded by forest on three sides. How expensive it’s gotten the past few years, paying somebody to come out and cut up the fallen trees for firewood when I could do it myself. I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I should’ve taken Edward and Curtis into the garage to see the saw I got, not brought it out here where it could upset you.”

Her pulse pounded in her temple and tightness gripped her chest. Wrong, all of it. This couldn’t really be happening. Especially not now, on the most important weekend of her sister’s life. There had to be a mistake. “I can’t believe this.”

“Sara, he’s taking extra precautions. He wears full safety gear now, including chainsaw chaps and—”

She wheeled on Nia, whose complexion turned as pale as her naturally blonde hair. “You
knew
he’d been cutting up trees again?” The feeble nod was all it took to push her over. She shot a visual dagger at Nia and spun back toward the man who apparently owned—and operated—the saw. “No more chainsaws. You promised me.”

“Honey, that was eighteen years ago.”

“I didn’t know promises came with an expiry date, Peter.” She hadn’t called him by name in the same amount of years. His accident had been the catalyst that’d changed how she’d addressed him. And now…

A barrage of sounds assaulted her back as she stormed to her car. The shuffle of feet, voices pleading for her to come back so they could talk about it. As if there was anything more to be said.

“Hey.” A hand wrapping around her biceps accompanied the deep, gruff voice. “I don’t know what that was about, but it was way out of line.”

“Go to hell.” She shook free of Curtis’ grip and reached for the driver’s door.

His big, warm hand landed on hers, preventing her from lifting the handle. “You’re not getting behind the wheel, you’ve been drinking.”

He was right, she knew he was right. But with Nia, Conn and Peter headed her way, she didn’t care about what was right. She had twenty seconds, maybe. Heat seared her cheeks and her vision blurred. Shit, shit, shit.

“Let me into my car.” Her eyes burned from holding back the tears. She would not cry in front of people. Certainly not him. But she was almost out of time. “I just—”A stupid tear leaked free and rolled down her cheek. “I need to get out of here. Curtis, please.”

“Bloody hell.” He muttered the curse as the door opened before her. “Get in and get over, I’m driving.”

She whipped her head around and glared at him through watery eyes. “No way.”

“Over. Now.”

Not only did the set of his jaw and narrowed eyes reek of stubbornness, Sara was in no position to argue. Curtis had offered her an escape and she’d be a fool not to take it. Her family obviously took her for a fool, but that was their mistake.

“Fine.” She ducked in and slid over the low center console, onto the passenger seat.

Curtis followed, filling up the driver’s side with six feet, two inches of determined, sexy male. “Seat belt,” he barked, clicking his into place. He turned the key where she’d left it in the ignition. Issued a quick nod to his brother as he backed up. Then they were off, their siblings’ wedding rehearsal party quickly becoming a blip in the rearview mirror.