Personal Assets (Texas Nights) (24 page)

The artwork featuring naked women riveted his attention. Huh, and she’d commented on the pinups hanging in his garage? Apparently, displaying women in the buff was okay as long as the artist had died a couple hundred years ago. And they did seem more productively engaged than his centerfolds, washing clothes and eating fruit, rather than straddling motorcycles and sucking on lollipops.

From where he stood just inside the door to the suite, he spotted a room with a table that would seat eight to ten people and a kitchenette off to the side. Allie was in neither. He found her in a small office, kicked back in her desk chair, shoeless feet propped on the windowsill, staring out at the parking lot. Deep in thought, maybe formulating a plan to work out her financial troubles.

Well, he’d come to offer her a solution.

Cameron took a few seconds to admire the smooth line of her neck and then cleared his throat softly. Allie caught a heel on the windowsill and flailed around, trying to keep her balance.

“Didn’t your mom teach you not to sneak up on people?”

“Who was eavesdropping at my garage the other night?” he asked. “Besides, you were entranced with your scenic view.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking of painting a mural of the Italian countryside on the blinds. I figure if I’m going to dream, I might as well do it right.” She checked her watch. “Whoa, it’s eight o’clock.”

Which meant she’d been staring out that window for a long damn time.

Around that window hung more pictures. Cameron turned a circle to take in each wall. And holy Mary, mother of Jesus, if he’d thought Allie’s anteroom was well adorned with bare skin, her inner office was the Louvre. The combination of prints and paintings should’ve been overwhelming with the different artistic styles, frames and sizes. Somehow it worked. Like she’d hung special portraits of her family and friends. Kinda reminded him of the Wall of Shame of Jamie and him his mom kept in her hallway, except they were guys and they had clothes on. All except those two bare-assed baby pictures.

He was still admiring the feast of female flesh when fingers suddenly appeared, snapping in front of his face. “Hey, you in there?”

He pulled his attention away from a scene portraying a woman with long golden hair on horseback. That Lady Godiva, she’d been one feisty chick. He’d love to have several hours to walk through the room. It was clear Allie was trying to make a statement about women in all their many shapes and sizes. The most compelling detail of each was the self-awareness and satisfaction in the women’s expressions.

“My female clients don’t find my art nearly this distracting.”

“You could charge teenaged boys admission.”

She laughed. “Why do you think I always meet Tiny and the crew at the softball field?”

“If they only knew.”

“Can I give you the grand tour?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

She led him back to the small lobby, pointed out a door in an interior wall. “That connects my office with Red Light. There’s not much to my space, but I was hoping to expand once we bought the building.”

“About that—”

“Please keep all hands and feet inside the tram and don’t interrupt your tour director.” Allie slipped inside the kitchenette and raided a cookie jar shaped like a fire hydrant. “Roxanne gave me this as a reminder some days may be real pissers, but cookies make everything better.”

If only that were the truth.

She handed him what looked like an oatmeal cookie, and he scrutinized the dark bits in it.

“Don’t worry, it’s chocolate.” She took a big bite of hers. “Eden knows raisins are against the rules here.” They stepped into the conference room. “This and the couch in my office are where most of my work happens. I host group sessions and workshops here several times a week.”

“You tried out that jackass one yet?”

“Saving it for a rainy day.”

Hell, it might snow and sleet on her soon if he couldn’t help her out of this mess. “You love what you do.”

Although her eyes were sad, Allie’s smile was bright. “As much as you love playing with your 653 horsepower engines and quadruple barrel radiators.”

Which meant she had just as much right to keep running her business as Chikkalo Bill’s did to bake biscuits and provide jobs. They wandered back to her office. Cameron sank onto a couch made for football watching and pulled Allie down with him. “Then you need to do anything you can to pay back your dad’s bank.”

“I’m handling this.”

“By trying to sell your Escalade?”

“Damn Jamie.”

“He was just trying to help.” He pulled out his checkbook and linked his fingers with her when she tried to stand. “Which is exactly what I want to do.”

He had some money stashed even after buying the garage. Hell, Scoot should’ve paid him to take it off his hands. Cameron’s savings account wasn’t enormous, but he still had enough to open his business and lend some to Allie to get her out of this hole. That wouldn’t leave him with any ready cash to buy the two cars he’d planned to restore in the next year or so, but he was an expert in delayed gratification.

“No.” She scooted over to put distance between them, but he didn’t release her hand. “Please put your checkbook back in your pocket.”

A muscle clenched in Cameron’s chest. Hurt she was rejecting his help or that chili cheese dog he’d had for lunch?

Oh, yeah, he’d eaten a sandwich.

“I’m not going to let you risk your finances because I made a bad business decision.” She leaned an elbow on the arm of the couch, holding her head in her hand.

“Giving you money wouldn’t jeopardize the garage.”
Much
.

“Cameron, my loan was for seventy-five thousand dollars. I’ve already got most of it tied up either in the down payment for this building or in inventory for Roxanne’s store.”

Holy shit, he’d been thinking no more than twenty grand. He struggled to sit forward from his nest in the couch and recover the breath Allie’s admission had stolen from him. A quick round of mental math produced some damning numbers. If he pulled that kind of money from his accounts, he sure as hell couldn’t buy even a single car to rebuild. He’d be lucky to finish outfitting the garage with tools and equipment. “You’re telling me you took out a loan Roxanne used to buy merchandise? Was her name on that contract anywhere?”

“It’s not a big deal. She had a little credit trouble after leaving her previous employer. They weren’t happy when she resigned since she’d been responsible for their profit growth for several years. They’re an influential family in Houston, and she thinks they did some hocus-pocus that affected her credit score.”

“Not a savvy business decision on your end, however.”

“She’s my friend. Haven’t you ever done something risky for someone you love?”

He was possibly doing it right now.

The thought bolted through Cameron. But if he told her why he was willing to take a risk for her, she’d push him out the door, lock it and shove her couch in front of it. Admitting to Allie that he was falling in love with her would be like signing a death warrant for their relationship. He took a breath and tried to keep emotion out of his words. “You need money and I have money. It’s simple. I give it, you take it.”

Dear Jesus. It was anything but simple. He had a feeling he’d already jumped off into the most complicated situation of his life.

She twisted to look over her shoulder. “If I’m wearing a sign that says Rescue Me, someone put it on me by mistake. I have this situation under control.”

“Then tell me how you’re going to manage to repay seventy-five thousand dollars in one week.”

Chapter Twenty

“Where in the world are you taking me?” Emmalee sat in the passenger seat of Charlie’s truck, riding with him through Shelbyville’s dark streets. She smoothed her bed-head hair. Her heart beat with anticipation this time, rather than the shock she’d experienced when he first told her how he felt. What he wanted.

Tonight, he’d knocked on her door at midnight—midnight!—and roused her from bed. He’d barely given her time to brush her teeth and put on a bra before he hustled her out of the house.

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?”

“Next time, you might give a girl a chance to put on a little lipstick.”

He glanced at her, and a streetlight illuminated his expression, full of admiration. “Emmalee, you don’t need all that war paint to be beautiful. I lo—like you just the way you are.”

Dear Lord, had he almost told her he loved her?

Emmalee’s breath shallowed. She wasn’t ready for that. She closed her eyes and tried to calm her thumping heart. Obviously, Charlie knew she wasn’t ready to hear his feelings or he wouldn’t have cut himself short. He knew her. He knew what he was doing.

Even if she didn’t have a clue.

For some reason, that calmed her. Then he pulled into the parking lot of her son’s garage.

“Why are we here?”

“You’ll see.”

“Does Cameron know we’re here?”

Charlie shot her an are-you-outta-your-ever-lovin’-mind look and climbed from the truck. He came around and opened her door. “Something inside I want to show you.”

“How will we get in?” Cameron would never risk his tools and other equipment by leaving the door unlocked.

Charlie grinned, his teeth white in the dark. “Em, I’ve still got a few tricks up my old sleeve.”

He tucked her hand through his elbow, and she clutched his arm. Charlie had more than tricks up his sleeve. He had a nicely muscled arm. How would it feel to have his arms wrapped around her? She wasn’t a young woman. How would he react to her body, soft in spots where she wished she were firm? No man had seen, or touched, those places in way too long.

He led her to the back of the building, where heaps of old rags and trash sat. Lord, it must’ve taken Cameron days to muck out Scoot’s junk.

Charlie pulled a flashlight from his pocket and stooped to inspect the lock. He stuck a tool in it, jiggled it the way she did her toilet flush handle when it ran too long, and pushed open the door. “Cameron needs new locks on this place.”

“Which of us do you propose should tell him?” The garage was dark inside and smelled of oily rags. “When he asks how we know, we can simply explain how we were engaged in a little B&E and discovered his oversight.”

Charlie chuffed out a laugh. “B&E? You’ve been watching too much
Castle
lately.”

“Nathan Fillion happens to be a good actor.”

“Mmm-hmm, it’s his acting you like, huh?” He grabbed her hand and pulled her inside. “Don’t worry about Cameron’s security. I’ll mention it as part of his insurance policy consultation.”

Three hulking shapes sat in the gloom. “This doesn’t feel right,” she whispered.

“Would you prefer I brought you during the day when Cameron’s here?”

Emmalee bit her lip. She wasn’t quite ready to advertise her and Charlie’s more-than-friendship relationship.

“That’s what I thought.” His tone was clipped. Oh dear, now she’d hurt his feelings.

“It’s just that...this is all so new. How can I explain our relationship to my sons when I’m still figuring out my own life? You know how protective they are, especially Cameron.”

“You’ve got a point. I don’t want to piss off the boy until he finishes working on this.” He grinned with pride and pointed his flashlight toward a car with a crumpled side panel and flaking paint. “Isn’t she something?”

Something only a mother could love. “Yours, I assume?”

Charlie swung open the car door with a screech, sending a shudder up Emmalee’s spine. He muscled the front seat forward so it rested on the steering wheel and motioned Emmalee inside. “Come check her out.”

She scooted into the backseat, which was actually quite roomy, snagging her silky pajama bottoms on the cracked vinyl. Oh, well, a perfect excuse to do some more shopping at Red Light. She chuckled softly.

“What’s so funny?”

Oh, men, their cars and their egos. “I’m just thinking you’re smoother than you look.”

He slid in behind her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look how easily you talked me into the backseat of your car.”

His face slackened with surprise. Then that handsome grin spread across his face again. “Even smoother than I realized.”

“Seducing me in an empty garage at midnight wasn’t your original plan?”

He ducked his head. “Will it make me look like an idiot if I say no?”

“No, it makes you look like a gentleman.” Emmalee leaned toward him and murmured, “But even a gentleman needs to act like a bad boy now and then.”

And when their lips met, that first kiss was sweeter than all the snickerdoodles in Emmalee’s kitchen.

* * *

Allie pushed the brass doorbell at her childhood home, and the muted chime echoed inside the house. She stood silent and still although her insides were dancing in a mosh pit. The heavy wooden door opened, revealing a plump, sterling-silver-haired woman who’d been her father’s housekeeper since Allie left for college.

Allie slapped on her best Sunday smile. “Hello, Mrs. Gill. I’m here to visit my father.”

“You know he don’t like to be disturbed during his pre-dinner readin’ and relaxin’ hour.” She blocked the door like a Brinks security guard.

“This won’t wait.” If she didn’t do this now, she’d simply be spending one more day under his thumb. How would she ever have a healthy relationship with a man when she was still playing by her father’s rules? Cameron was under the impression she needed a sugar daddy, and who could blame him when she’d allowed her own dad to interfere in her life for far too long?

The housekeeper drew in a breath and gusted out a sigh. “You know where he is.” Under her breath, she muttered, “But I ain’t gonna tell him you’re here.”

Allie stepped inside, inhaled the familiar scent of lemon furniture polish and the past. When her mother was alive, fresh flowers and scented candles softened the stern décor of the Greek Revival house. After she died, flowers and candles no longer graced the rooms. Only heavy antique furniture too valuable for little girls to sit on. Fragile heirlooms too precious for little girls to touch. Persian rugs too luxurious for little girls to play dolls on.