Natural Born Charmer (22 page)

“And sweet. They do the job just fine.” He pushed up the hem of her T-shirt. Just a few inches. Just far enough to expose the only other garment she wore, some unimaginative, nude-colored, hip-hugger panties.

“I’m buying you a thong,” he said. “Red.”

“Which you’ll never see.”

“How do you figure?” He moved the beam across the panties from one hip bone to the other, then back to home base.

“If I do this—”

“Oh, you’re doing it all right.”

“If
I do it,” she said, “it’s a one-shot deal. And I’m on top.”

“Top, bottom, upside down. I’ll bend you more ways than you can imagine.”

A bolt of erotic lightning buzzed through her. Her toes curled.

“But first…” He touched the working end of the flashlight to the crotch of her panties, rubbed the hard case over the nylon for a few tantalizing seconds, then used it to push up the hem of her T-shirt. The cold plastic came to rest on the skin just beneath her breasts, sending a dim pinwheel across her bare rib cage. He cupped one breast through the soft cotton. “I can’t wait to taste.”

She nearly moaned. Her libido was way out of touch with her sexual politics.

“Which part of you am I going to unwrap first?” The flashlight beam danced over her. She watched as if she were hypnotized, waiting to see where the beam would land. It played across her covered breasts, her bare midriff, the crotch of her panties. Then it hit her square in the eyes. She squinted, the mattress sagged, and his denim-clad hip brushed her own as he dropped the flashlight onto the bed.

“Let’s start here.” His words fell across her cheek as his mouth dipped to meet hers, and she lost herself in the craziest kiss she’d ever
experienced, soft one second, tough the next. He teased and tormented, demanded and seduced. She reached up to wrap her arms around his neck, but he drew away. “Don’t do that again,” he said with a rough gasp. “I see right through your tricks.”

She had tricks?

“You’re determined to distract me, but it’s not going to work.” He pulled her T-shirt over her head and tossed it aside, leaving her only in her panties. He whipped up the flashlight and shone it on her breasts. Being less than a D-cup wasn’t always a bad thing, she decided. Her barely Bs sat up firm and ready for whatever was to come.

Which was his mouth.

His bare chest rubbed against her ribs as he suckled her, and her fingers dug into the mattress. He took his time, using his lips, his tongue. The careful scrape of his teeth stimulated her until she couldn’t bear it anymore. She pushed his head away.

“You’re not getting off that easy,” he whispered, his hot breath taunting her wet flesh. He hooked his thumbs in her panties and drew them down, then tossed them aside and stood up. The abandoned flashlight rested under the sheet, so she couldn’t see what lay beneath those jeans. She began to reach for the light, then stopped herself. He was always the object of desire, the one pursued and ministered to. Let him service her instead.

She slipped her hand back under the covers and flicked off the switch, plunging the caravan into darkness. The novelty of continuing this erotic game left her as boneless as his caresses, but the darkness also meant she needed to make certain he remembered he was dealing with Blue Bailey, not some faceless woman. “Good luck,” she managed to say. “I’m hard to satisfy with less than a two-man team.”

“In your dirty dreams.” His jeans hit the floor with a soft whoosh. “Now where’s that flashlight?” His hand grazed her side as he felt for it. Flicking the switch back on, he pulled it from under the sheet, then let the beam trickle over her naked body, from her breasts, to
her belly, and below. He stopped. “Open up, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Let me see.”

It was too much, and she nearly shattered right there. He parted her unresisting thighs, and the flashlight’s cold plastic chilled the inner slope of her skin. “Perfect,” he whispered, looking his fill.

After that, she knew only sensation. Fingers parting and probing. Lips seeking. Her own hands exploring everything she’d been wanting to touch and stroke and weigh for so long.

Her small body received his with perfect resistance. Tender musk and rugged velvet. They moved together. The flashlight fell to the floor. He pressed deep within her, withdrew, and pressed again. She arched, demanded, dueled with him…and, finally, accepted.

Making love without indoor plumbing wasn’t nearly as romantic as it seemed. “How did the pioneers handle this?” she complained. “I need a bathroom.”

“We’ll use your T-shirt. You can burn it tomorrow. Please, God.”

“If you say another word about my T-shirt…”

“Give it here.”

“Hey, watch where you’re…” She sucked in her breath as he put her T-shirt to a most inventive use.

She didn’t make it on top the second time, either. By the third time, however, she managed to invert the power structure. Or, since she had possession of the flashlight, she at least
thought
she’d inverted it. But the truth was, she’d gotten a little foggy about who was servicing whom and exactly what the political ramifications were. One thing was for certain. She could never again taunt him with “Speed Racer.”

They dozed off. Her little berth in the back of the caravan wasn’t long enough for his tall frame, but he stayed there anyway, one arm around her shoulders.

She awakened very early and crawled over him as carefully as she could. A rush of tenderness claimed her as she lingered for a moment to gaze down at him. The early morning light washed his back, sculpting the curve of muscle and ridge of tendon. All her life she’d had to settle for second best. But not last night.

She picked up her clothes and headed for the house, where she took the world’s fastest shower, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, and transferred a few necessities into her pockets. On her way back outside, she glanced toward the gypsy caravan under the trees. He’d been the unselfish, audacious lover she’d always dreamed of. She didn’t regret a moment of last night, but now dreamtime was over.

She wheeled the smaller bike out of the barn and pedaled to the highway. Each hill felt like a mountain, and her lungs started burning long before she reached town. By the time she crossed the final summit and began the descent into Garrison, her legs had turned into overcooked spaghetti.

Nita Garrison, as it happened, was also an early riser. Blue stood in her cluttered kitchen and watched her poke at a toaster waffle. “I charge four hundred dollars for a three-by-three-foot canvas,” Blue said, “with a two-hundred-dollar deposit due today. Take it or leave it.”

“Chump change,” Nita said. “I was prepared to pay a lot more.”

“You also have to provide room and board while I’m working.” She pushed away memories of the gypsy caravan. “I need to know Tango better so I can capture his true personality.”

Tango opened one droopy lid and stared at her through a rheumy eye.

Nita whipped her head around so fast Blue was afraid she’d leave her wig behind. “You want to stay here? In my house?”

It was the last thing Blue wanted, but inevitable after what had happened. “It’s the best way for me to produce a quality painting.”

A diamond and ruby ring glittered on Nita’s gnarled finger as she pointed toward the stove. “Don’t think you can leave your mess all over the kitchen.”

“You can safely assume your kitchen will be better off with me here.”

Nita give her a calculated look that didn’t bode well. “Go get my pink sweater. It’s on my bed upstairs. And stay out of my jewelry. If you touch anything, I’ll know it.”

Blue drove a mental knife into Nita’s black heart and stomped through the old woman’s overly decorated living room to get to the second floor. She could polish off the portrait and be on the road in a week. She’d survived a lot worse than spending a few days with Nita Garrison. This was her fastest ticket out of town.

All but one of the doors had been closed off upstairs, leaving the hallway marginally neater than the rooms below, although the pink plush carpeting needed vacuuming and a collection of dead bugs clouded the bottom of the cut glass ceiling fixtures. Nita’s room, with its rose and gold wallpaper, white furniture, and long windows elaborately swagged in rose drapes, reminded Blue of a Las Vegas funeral home. She picked up the pink sweater from a gold velvet chair and carried it downstairs through the white and gold living room, which had a velour chaise, lamps dangling crystal prisms, and wall-to-wall rose carpeting.

Nita shuffled into the doorway, her swollen ankles spilling over her orthopedic oxfords, and held out a set of keys to Blue. “Before you start work, you need to drive me to the—”

“Please don’t say the Piggly Wiggly.”

Apparently Nita had never seen
Driving Miss Daisy
because she missed the allusion. “We don’t have a Piggly Wiggly in Garrison. I don’t let any of the chains move in here. If you want your money, you have to drive me to the bank.”

“Before I drive you anywhere,” Blue said, “call off your dogs. Tell them to get back to work on Dean’s house.”

“Later.”

“Now. I’ll help you look up the phone numbers.”

Nita surprised Blue by barely putting up a fight, although it took another hour for her to make the calls, during which she ordered Blue to empty all the wastebaskets in the house, find her Maalox, and take a pile of boxes down into the creepy basement. Finally, however, Blue was behind the wheel of a sporty, three-year-old red Corvette Roadster. “You were expecting a Town Car, weren’t you?” Nita sniffed from the passenger seat. “Or a Crown Victoria. An old lady’s car.”

“I was expecting a broomstick,” Blue muttered, taking in the dusty dashboard. “How long since this thing’s been out of the garage?”

“I can’t drive anymore with my hip, but I let it run once a week so the battery doesn’t die.”

“It’s best to keep the garage door down while you’re doing that. A good thirty minutes should take care of it.”

Nita sucked on her teeth, as if she were drawing venom.

“So how do you get around?” Blue asked.

“That fool Chauncey Crole. He drives what passes for the town’s taxi. But he’s always spitting out the window, and that turns my stomach. His wife used to run the Garrison Women’s Club. They all hated me, right from the beginning.”

“Big surprise there.” Blue turned out onto the town’s main street.

“I got even.”

“Tell me you didn’t eat their children.”

“You have a wisecrack for everything, don’t you? Pull in at the pharmacy.”

Blue wished she’d kept a leash on her tongue. Hearing more about Nita’s relationship with the good women of Garrison would have been a nice distraction. “I thought you were going to the bank.”

“First, I need you to pick up my prescription.”

“I’m an artist, not your errand girl.”

“I need my medication. Or is fetching an old lady’s medication too much trouble for you?”

Blue’s mood sank from dejection to misery.

After stopping at the drugstore, which had a
WE DELIVER
sign prominently displayed in the front window, Nita made her run into the grocery for dog food and All-Bran, then stop at the bakery for
one
banana nut muffin. Finally, Blue had to wait while Nita got a manicure at Barb’s Tresses and Day Spa. Blue used the time to buy a banana nut muffin of her own and a cup of coffee, which used up three of her last twelve dollars.

She peeled back the tab on the cup lid and waited for a silver Dodge Ram truck to pass so she could cross the street to the car. But the truck didn’t pass. Instead, it braked, then angled in front of a fire hydrant. The door swung open and a familiar pair of gay boots emerged, followed by an equally familiar set of lean, denim-clad legs.

She succumbed to a ridiculous moment of giddiness before she frowned at the gleaming truck. “Don’t tell me.”

“Where the hell have you been?” Dean
wore a biscuit-colored cowboy hat and a pair of high-tech brushed metal sunglasses with yellow lenses. A few hours earlier, he’d been her lover, and that made him a walking, talking road hazard blocking the highway that made up her life. From the beginning, she’d given him little pieces of herself, but last night she’d handed over a major chunk, and now she intended to get it back.

He slammed the door. “If you wanted to take a bike ride this morning, you should have woken me up. I was planning to ride anyway.”

“That truck is yours, isn’t it?”

“You can’t have a farm without a truck.” Heads were starting to poke up in store windows. He grabbed her arm and drew her against the side panel. “What are you doing here, Blue? You didn’t even leave a note. I was worried.”

She rose to her toes and planted a quick kiss on the side of that belligerent jaw. “I needed to get to town to start my new job, and my forms of transportation were limited, so I borrowed the bike. You’ll get it back.”

He yanked off his sunglasses. “What new job?” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me.”

She pointed her coffee cup toward the Corvette roadster across the street. “It’s not all bad news. She owns a great car.”

“You are
not
painting that old lady’s dog.”

“My current net worth isn’t enough to cover one of your tips at McDonald’s.”

“I’ve never met anybody so obsessed with money.” He shoved his glasses back on. “Get over it, Blue. You’re giving money way too much power in your life.”

“Yeah, well, as soon as I’m a multimillionaire jock, I’ll stop doing that.”

He yanked out his wallet, peeled off a roll of bills, and stuffed them in the side pockets of her jeans. “Your net worth just took a turn for the better. Now where’s the bike? We have things to do.”

She withdrew the money. A stack of fifties. Her jaundiced face stared back at her from his yellow lenses. “What exactly is this for?”

“What do you mean, what’s it for? It’s for you.”

“I gathered that, but what did I do to earn it?”

He knew exactly where she was headed, but he was an expert at throwing touchdown passes off the wrong foot, and he let one fly. “You spent all weekend in Knoxville picking out my furniture.”

“I helped April pick out your furniture. And I was more than adequately compensated with great meals, a first-class hotel, and a massage. Thanks for that, by the way. It felt terrific.”

“You’re my cook.”

“So far, you’ve eaten three pancakes and some miscellaneous leftovers.”

“And
you painted my kitchen!”

“I painted part of your kitchen and your dining room ceiling.”

“There you go.”

“You’ve fed, housed, and transported me for more than a week,” she said. “That makes us almost even.”

“Are you keeping a ledger? What about that mural you’re painting in my dining room? The
murals
. I want four of them, one for each wall. And I’m having Heath draw up a damned contract today.”

She pushed the bills into his front pocket. “Stop trying to manipulate me. You don’t care anything about murals. That was April’s idea.”

“I do care. I liked the idea from the beginning, and I like it even more now. It’s also a perfect solution to this problem you’ve created. But for some reason, you’re afraid to go ahead with it. Explain that to me. Explain why you’re upset by the idea of painting some murals for a man you’re
indebted to
.”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“I’m offering you a legitimate job. It’s got to beat working for that crazy old bat.”

“Save your breath, okay? So far, the only real service I’ve provided happened last night, and even a dumb-ass like you has to see I can’t take your money after that.”

He had the nerve to sneer. “Were we in the same bed? Because, the way I remember, I was the one providing the damn service. You want to reduce everything to commerce? Fine. Then you should pay me. As a matter of fact, I’m sending you a bill. For a thousand dollars! That’s right. You owe me a grand. For services provided.”

“A thousand dollars? As if. I had to fantasize about my old boyfriends just to get excited.”

It wasn’t quite the discussion-ending blow she’d hoped to deliver because he laughed. Not a mean laugh, which would have lifted her spirits, but a highly amused laugh.

“Girl!”

Blue winced as Nita chose that moment to emerge from Barb’s Tresses and Day Spa, her freshly painted crimson talons curling around her cane. “Girl! Come help me across the street.”

Dean gave Nita an obnoxiously cheerful smile. “Good morning, Mrs. Garrison.”

“Good morning, Deke.”

“It’s Dean, ma’am.”

“I don’t think so.” She thrust her purse toward Blue. “Carry this, girl. It’s heavy. And watch my nails. You’d better not have been wasting my gas while I was inside.”

Dean hooked his thumb in his jeans pocket. “I feel a whole lot better now that I see how well the two of you are getting along.”

Blue grabbed Nita by the elbow and steered her into the street. “Your car’s parked over here.”

“I have eyes.”

“I’ll swing by the house and pick up the bike on my way back to the farm,” Dean called out. “You all have a nice day now.”

Blue pretended not to hear.

“Take me home,” Nita said as she resettled in the passenger seat.

“What about the bank?”

“I’m tired. I’ll write you a check.”

Only three days,
Blue told herself as she sneaked a look back toward the truck.

Dean stood with a foot propped on the fire hydrant and one of the local beauties hanging off his arm.

When they got back to the house, Nita insisted Blue take Tango for a walk so they could get acquainted. Since Tango was lame and a thousand years old, Blue let him snooze under a hydrangea while she sat on the curb out of sight of the house and tried not to think about the future.

Nita maneuvered her into making lunch, but first Blue had to clean up the kitchen. As she dried off the last of the pans, a silver Ram truck pulled up in the alley behind the house. She watched Dean get out and retrieve the bike she’d left by the back door. He threw it in the rear of the truck, then turned to the window where she was standing and tipped his cowboy hat.

First Jack heard the music, and then he saw April. It was dark, just past ten o’clock, and she sat on the cottage’s sagging front porch un
derneath a crooked metal light fixture, painting her toenails. The years evaporated. In her clingy black top and pink shorts, she looked so much like the twenty-year-old he remembered that he forgot to watch where he was going and tripped on a tree root inside the broken-down picket fence.

April looked up. And immediately looked back down again. He’d been rotten to her last night, and she hadn’t forgotten.

All day he’d witnessed her relentless efficiency as she’d directed the house painters who’d finally straggled in, argued with a plumber, supervised the unloading of a truckload of furniture, and pointedly avoided him. Only the men’s gazes following her were familiar.

He stopped at the foot of the wooden steps and tilted his head toward the raucous music. She’d perched on an old Adirondack chair with her foot propped on the seat. “What are you listening to?” he said.

“Skullhead Julie.” She kept her attention firmly fixed on her toes.

“Who’s that?”

“An alternative group out of L.A.” Her long, jagged hair fell over her face as she reached back to lower the volume. Most women her age had cut their hair, but she’d never followed trends. When everyone else had worn the Farrah flip, April had adopted a brutal geometric cut that had showcased those amazing blue eyes and made her the center of attention.

“You were always the first to spot new talent,” he said.

“I don’t really keep up anymore.”

“I doubt that.”

She blew on her toes, another excuse to freeze him out. “If you came to get Riley, you’re about an hour too late. She got tired and fell asleep in the second bedroom.”

He’d barely seen Riley today. All morning, she’d followed April around, and in the afternoon, she’d gone off with Dean on a purple bike he’d pulled from the bed of his new truck. When they’d gotten back, she’d been red-faced and sweaty, but she’d also been happy.
He should have been the one to buy her a bike, but he hadn’t thought of it.

April shoved the brush into the bottle. “I’m surprised it took you so long to get over here. I could have been spiking her milk with uppers or filling her head with stories of your seedy past.”

“Now you’re being petulant.” He propped his foot on the bottom step. “I was a real prick last night. I came over to apologize.”

“Go ahead.”

“I thought that’s what I just did.”

“Think again.”

He deserved everything she was throwing out and more, but he couldn’t hold back a smile as he stepped up to the edge of the porch. “You want me to grovel?”

“For starters.”

“I would, but I don’t know how. Too many years of having everybody kiss my ass.”

“Try.”

“How about I begin by admitting you were right,” he said. “I have no idea what I’m doing with her. That makes me feel stupid and guilty, and since I don’t know how to deal with either one, I took it out on you.”

“Promising. Now say the rest.”

“Give me a hint.”

“You’re scared out of your mind, and you need my help this week.”

“Yeah, that, too.” Despite her pugnacity, he knew he’d hurt her. Lately he seemed to be hurting a lot of people. He gazed out toward the woods where the fireflies were beginning to show off. Peeling paint scraped his elbow as he leaned against one of the porch’s candlestick posts. “I’d give anything for a cigarette right now.”

She dropped one foot and pulled the other up. “I don’t miss cigarettes so much. Or drugs, for that matter. For me, it’s alcohol. Scary to think about living the rest of your life without a glass of wine or a margarita.”

“Maybe you could handle it now.”

“I’m an addict,” she said with an honesty that unsettled him. “I can’t ever drink again.”

From inside the cottage, her cell rang. Quickly capping the bottle, she jumped up to answer it. As the screen door banged behind her, he shoved his hands in his pockets. Today he’d found a set of blueprints, for the screen porch. His dad had been a carpenter, and Jack had grown up with blueprints and tools lying around, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a hammer in his hands.

He gazed through the screen into the empty living room and heard the muted sound of April’s voice. The hell with it. He went inside. She stood with her back to him and her forehead resting on the arm she’d propped against one of the kitchen cabinets. “You know how much I care,” she said so softly that he could barely make out the words. “Call me in the morning, all right?”

Too many decades had passed for him to feel these old stabs of jealousy, so he focused on the brochure lying on the counter. As he picked it up, she closed her phone and gestured with it toward the brochure. “That’s a group I volunteer with.”

“Heart Gallery? I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s made up of professional photographers who volunteer their time to take these amazing portraits of adoptable kids in the foster care system. We display them in local galleries. They’re more personal than the mug shots social services takes, and a lot of kids have found families through the exhibits.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“About five years.” She padded back toward the porch. “I started out styling the sittings for a photographer I know—putting the kids in clothes that reflected their personalities, coming up with props, helping them feel comfortable. Now I’m doing some of the portraits myself. Or at least I was until I came out here. You’d be shocked how much I love it.”

He pocketed the brochure and followed her out to the porch. He
wanted to ask about the guy on the phone but didn’t. “I’m surprised you never got married.”

She picked up the nail polish bottle and resumed her perch on the Adirondack chair. “By the time I was sane enough for marriage, I’d lost interest.”

“I can’t imagine you without a man.”

“Stop fishing.”

“Not exactly fishing. Just trying to figure out who you are now.”

“You want to define me with a head count,” she said bluntly.

“I guess.”

“You want to know if I’m still the bad girl solely responsible for the fall of countless good men too weak to keep their pants zipped.”

“Put like that…”

She blew on her big toe. “Who’s that brunette I spotted last week traveling with your entourage? Your valet?”

“A very efficient assistant I’ve never seen naked. So are you serious about anybody right now?”

“Very serious. About myself.”

“That’s good.”

She wiped off a polish smudge. “Tell me about you and Marli. You were married for what? Five minutes?”

“A year and a half. Ancient history. I was forty-two and thought it was time to settle down. She was young, beautiful, and sweet—at least I thought so at the time. I loved her voice. I still do. The demons didn’t come out until after we were married and discovered we hated everything about each other. I’m here to tell you that woman did not like sarcasm. But it wasn’t all bad. I got Riley.”

Following Marli, he’d had two long-term relationships that had been well covered by the press. Although he’d cared a lot about both women, something fundamental had been missing, and with one failed marriage behind him, he hadn’t been eager to enter another.

April finished her toes, capped the polish bottle, and unfolded
those endlessly long legs. “Don’t send Riley away, Jack. Not to summer camp, not to Marli’s sister, and especially not to boarding school in the fall. Keep her with you.”

“I can’t do that. I have a tour coming up. What am I supposed to do? Lock her in a hotel room?”

“You’ll figure it out.”

“You have too much faith in me.” He stared out at the sad excuse for a fence. “Did Riley tell you about last night? With Dean.”