This Perfect Kiss (6 page)

But Iris wasn’t quite through. “I want you to take me on a canoe ride.”

“Canoe ride?” Rory shook his head. “No. I have a meeting this afternoon. There’s not enough time.”

At Rory’s denial, the little girl’s eyes narrowed. She picked up a marshmallow and squeezed, marshmallow guts oozing from between her thumb and forefinger. “Greg always takes me on the canoe,” she said, as if daring Rory to disagree again. Then her gaze locked onto Jilly and she smiled sweetly, a normal, nice, four-year-old’s smile. “And you. You’ll come, too, won’t you please?”

Rory didn’t seem to notice that the little girl had spoken to Jilly in a tone different from the one to him. His gaze stayed on Iris as he answered for Jilly. “She can’t,” he said flatly. “She has work to do.”

Jilly frowned. No one told her what she could and couldn’t do. Not anymore.

“I want her,” Iris said, her eyes narrowing again. “Greg’s not here and I want someone else besides you to play with.”

Rory’s voice softened. “Give me a break, Auntie. She can’t.”

Jilly knew she shouldn’t. Not only was there the cataloging to do, but there was Rory himself. The man made her prickle, for goodness sake. Until she devised a way around that and also devised a way to plead Kim’s case successfully, she should stay clear of him. Still…

“Can’t,” Rory repeated.

There was that word again. Jilly hated it. Can’t, don’t, shouldn’t. She’d heard them so often, they’d become the theme of her lonely childhood. And they all smacked of control. Of trying to control her.

“Of course I can play, Iris,” she said impulsively. This was Kim’s daughter, after all. “I don’t know much about canoes, so you’ll have to teach me.”

Reluctant to check Rory’s reaction to her rebellion, Jilly kept speaking to Iris. “But you’ll need to eat something else first. I have a Swiss-and-sprouts sandwich in my lunchbox. You can have half.”

Iris hesitated for a moment. Jilly didn’t waver. “Okay,” the little girl agreed. “Half.”

“And you’ll change into some playclothes,” Jilly added. “Something like shorts and a T-shirt.”

After a moment, Iris nodded. “Okay.”

“Thank God,” Rory said under his breath.

Jilly still didn’t look at him, but turned and set her lunchbox on the counter. The top popped open and she rummaged for her sandwich. “So you didn’t pick that dress for her to wear this morning?”

“Lord, no! She commands, I get it off the hanger.”

Commands
. Now Jilly knew her earlier thought was right, and she almost felt sorry for Rory. Almost. It wasn’t as if he weren’t trying with Iris. But still, this was an opportunity for Jilly to make a small point in Kim’s favor. Maybe if he saw he wasn’t the perfect guardian for the little girl now, he would compromise on the issue later.

Jilly glanced up at Rory. “Has it occurred to you that you’re terrified of her?”

Terrified of Iris? Rory managed not to dignify that question of Jilly’s with an answer, even while they waited in silence for Iris to eat her sandwich and change her clothes. Once those tasks were accomplished, the three of them set off toward the canoe pond in one of the estate’s golf carts.

As the two females chatted, he didn’t try to join the conversation. It irritated the hell out of him that Jilly was along on this outing. She could have picked up on his not-so-subtle hint and stayed at the house. But no.

He grimaced. Not that he found it so easy to deny Iris either. He had a duty—a duty he took very seriously—to her and he had enough kidsmarts to realize she wasn’t exactly thrilled with him. Apparently Roderick had nearly ignored the little girl and Iris looked toward his brother, Greg, for caring and parenting. With Greg out of town on a short press junket for his newest film, the little girl’s animosity had grown from bad to worse.

Thinking of his brother gave him a little jab of guilt. Greg had been making noises about want
ing to take responsibility for Iris, but Rory couldn’t take him seriously. Roderick’s instructions were clear, and Rory figured the old man had finally wised up and realized that acting and parenting were a poisonous mix. For once, a Kincaid had considered the welfare of a child in his life. Far be it from Rory to counter the single less-than-selfish decision anyone in his family had ever made.

Laughter broke into his thoughts. Behind him, in the backseat of the golf cart, Jilly was playing knock-knock-who’s-there with Iris. Her “Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?” punch line delighted the little girl. Rory almost automatically smiled at the giggling, but then turned it to a frown.

Jilly. Not one of
his
most intelligent decisions, he must admit.

Though this morning’s run-in with her had reinforced his first impression that she was just another wacky L.A. flake, it was also more reason to keep up his guard. A woman aiming for no-holds-barred living was trouble.

Put that together with the first Blue Party campaign meeting scheduled for this afternoon, and the ever-hovering disaster he sensed gained the weight of a two-ton anvil. He rubbed at the tension clamping the back of his neck.

Dammit
! Flaky woman and important meeting or no, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let that anvil fall. No way. Ten years in the cutting-edge e-world had taught him control. It had taught him to analyze problems rather than let them overwhelm
him. One weirdly dressed woman wasn’t going to undo all that.

To keep control of this situation with Jilly Skye, all he had to do was detect potential problems, then defuse them. At the thought, a bee buzzed by his nose.
Of course
. His mind immediately focused.
There it is, potential problem number one
.

He stomped on the brakes and turned abruptly toward Jilly. “Are you allergic to bee stings?” he asked, meeting her startled gaze.

It was a valid question. See, a bee sting could pose a serious problem. If she was stung and then stopped breathing, he’d certainly be compelled to perform artificial respiration. His mouth meeting her mouth. God. His blood…chilled—yeah, that was it—at the thought.

Her brows drew together and she closed her pink lips on whatever she was saying to Iris, then opened them again. “No.”

“Fine.” Only partially relieved, he turned back, pressed the accelerator, and continued thinking. What else could possibly go wrong in the next hour? Golf cart…pond…paddle…

And the answer, of course, was obvious. Curvy woman, tippy canoe.

Oh, great. Jilly was going to fall into the water.

He could see it now, that paper-thin shirt plastered wetly against her breasts, the jeans that would shrink-wrap her great butt and thighs. He’d have to get her back to the house, probably in his arms, and the Blue Party team would be early and…

Damn. Even worse, there was that threat of
artificial respiration again. He stomped on the brakes a second time. “Tell me you can swim.”

She looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

He grunted and accelerated again, slower now, to steer the cart down the zigzagging path to the bottom of the canyon. When he braked for the final time beside the boathouse, he heard Jilly suck in a breath. He ignored the sound and jumped out of the cart. Jilly and Iris followed more slowly, and he had enough time to turn over the small aluminum canoe and grab a paddle and Iris’s life jacket.

Jilly stood on the grassy shore, staring up at the waterfall that tumbled with a muted roar down the canyon face to feed the canoe pond. Then her gaze swept over the rippling ribbon of water that meandered through Caidwater’s nine-hole, par-three golf course. “This is…overwhelming,” she said.

He handed Iris her life jacket. “Overblown’s more like it.” Then he dragged the canoe into the water and stood beside it on the shore, one foot at the bottom to steady the light vessel. He crooked a finger at Iris, then assured himself the little girl’s jacket was secure before lifting her in. “Front bench, Auntie.”

Jilly was next. She moved forward as if to step inside on her own.

“Uh-uh,” Rory said. It was a moment made for a wet tumble. He grabbed her under her arms,
swinging her from shore to canoe. His fingers sank into the soft sides of her breasts.

Rory froze, Jilly’s feet six inches off the ground, her frothy hair tickling his chin. He was glad they weren’t face-to-face, but even without looking into the no-holds-barred green of her eyes, what he’d been dreading since the moment he met her happened. Energy traveled between them, some kind of crackly, burning life force that surged up the tensing muscles of his legs and through his fingertips to meet electricity,
spark spark spark
, shooting from the soft, warm heat of her body.

Mouthing a curse, he dropped her with a metallic clunk.

She slid onto the seat beside Iris. Gritting his teeth, Rory took his own behind them. From the moment he’d glimpsed her cherry-red toenails, he’d known she was capital-T trouble. He picked up the paddle. It was skinnier than a certain woman’s neck, but he throttled it anyway.

Iris pointed ahead imperiously. “That way.”

Rory shoved off smoothly, trying to remain calm. So there was a little sizzle between him and Jilly. No need to be rattled. It was merely another reason to keep a sharp eye out for that anvil-trying-to-drop disaster.

“You two move closer to the center of the bench,” he ordered, the premonition of a wet Jilly in his arms flashing through his mind. God, with the sparks flying between them, they’d both be electrocuted.

He paddled slowly and easily, making no risky moves, and directed his few comments exclu
sively to Iris. The pond was stocked with bass and trout and he pointed out to her the particular places he and Greg had fished for them as boys.

The two of them had run wild for a time. But then, even before Rory’s voice had changed,
he
had changed. There had come a day when he realized that Caidwater needed at least
one
adult in residence.

As they floated farther from the waterfall, its noise became a soft hush in the background. His paddle swished and swished again, and in the quiet rhythm of the sound and movement, Rory found himself relaxing. A fish jumped somewhere ahead and the too-warm sun loosened his muscles and ignited fiery threads in the curly darkness of the woman’s hair in front of him.

“Stop!”

At Iris’s abrupt command, Rory jerked. The canoe rocked.

Jilly gasped, grabbing for the aluminum side. The canoe tipped wildly again.

“Hold still,” he ordered. He held his breath until their vessel calmed. “Now,” he said, “what is it you want, Auntie?”

She pointed to his right. “The island. Your and Greg’s island.”

They didn’t have a lot of time. “I don’t think—”

“Please,” the little girl said.

The politeness was a first, and the parenting books he’d been reading recommended rewarding children for positive behavior. He wasn’t convinced it was smart to actually point out she’d pleased him, though, so he just silently headed in the direction of the “island.” It wasn’t an island at
all, really, but an undeveloped pocket of the canyon floor that wasn’t part of the golf course.

Once they reached it, Iris scrambled out before he could help her, and Rory had to stab his paddle in the squishy pond bottom to keep both Jilly and himself from tumbling.

She braced herself by gripping the rocking side and peered anxiously in the direction the little girl had taken. “Will she be all right?”

He nodded. “My brother brings her here a lot. It was one of our favorite places when we were kids.”

She half turned to straddle the bench and shaded her eyes with her hand to get a good look at him. “You grew up here?”

He nodded and shifted his legs, his knee brushing her calf. She drew hastily away from him. “Believe it or not, my grandfather and whichever wife he was on were more stable than our parents,” he said. Which wasn’t saying much.

About twice a year their mother had remembered she had sons, her timing based on an intricate formula that factored in the dates of the Paris couture shows and the state of her bank account. Their father’s visits had been even more irregular. Rory had never discovered a rhyme or reason to his selfishness. “Greg and I always lived here at Caidwater.”

“And was it a good place to grow up?”

Rory flinched, surprised. Most people assumed living in the opulence of the estate guaranteed a happy childhood. “No,” he said honestly. “That’s why I won’t regret taking Iris away from here.”

Now Jilly flinched. She swung completely around on the seat. He shifted to accommodate her movement, so that suddenly she was facing him, both of her legs caged by his much longer ones. Her jeaned knee—decorated with a lipstick-red patch that read “GO WILD!”—pressed against the inside of his right thigh like a mouth. Heat arrowed to his groin.

“You’re taking her away?” she asked.

“Mm-hmm,” he said, staring at her face. “I live near San Francisco. In a few weeks we’ll leave southern California and Caidwater for good.” Up this close, he found himself fascinated by her skin.

“You seem so eager.” She swallowed. “What, is this place haunted or something?”

Rory’s eyebrows rose. “Maybe so,” he said slowly. By ghosts of scandals and betrayals. “But let’s not talk about that.”

He watched her swallow again. “What do you want to talk about?” A dash of tiny freckles, just one shade golder than Jilly’s complexion, kissed each high cheekbone.

Kisses. Now why the hell did he have to think of that? It made him focus on her mouth. Like the rest of her, it was unconventional. Jilly’s lower lip was full, almost puffy, while the upper one had only the shallowest of dips. Really, the greedy little thing had more than her share of sensitive nerve endings. It didn’t seem fair that Jilly would possess that riotous hair and those voluptuous breasts and a mouth just made for kissing, too.

Made for him to kiss.

Already half hard, he felt another flaming arrow burn toward his groin.

He glanced around, aware they were completely private. No Iris, no possible way a telephoto lens could catch them here. Adisaster-proof opportunity. The sudden thought stunned him. Rory Kincaid, usually the soul of sober responsibility, was thinking about taking a kiss.

A kiss from a woman as diminutive and delectable as Jilly Skye. One who was nothing like the cool, goal-oriented beauties who typically interested him. Instead, she was a knock-knock-joking, lunchpail-toting, mind-blowing combination of luscious, danger-ahead curves.

But what would one kiss hurt? Not when Jilly was made for it. Not when that electricity was charging up again, those sparks lighting in the air between them without anything more than her kneecap against his inner thigh. He leaned forward.

She leaned back.

He almost smiled, the idea of kissing her sounding better and better, even if it made no more sense than before. “Now why are you doing that?” With his free hand, he reached around her and released her hair from the confining clip. She didn’t move as it tumbled to her shoulders in those misbehaving curls.

Then he took one of the soft tendrils between his thumb and forefinger. He tugged on it gently, bringing her forward again. Her mouth was still and ripe and he remembered that nervous tic she had and was glad she wasn’t nervous anymore.

She licked her lips with her tongue and he wanted to tell her he could do that for her, but that would take too much time, so he tilted his head and lowered it toward her wet, delectable mouth.

“I don’t think you want to do this,” she said.

He paused. “Strangely enough, I think I do.” Yeah, it was out of character for him, but he just
had
to taste her. “Don’t you?”

Her eyes widened. “Um. Uh. You don’t understand. This is—this is an inauspicious day for new liaisons,” she said hastily.

“What?”

Her eyes were nervous, but her mouth was still temptingly wet. “An inauspicious day for new liaisons.”

He laughed softly. “Says who?”

“My, uh, chart. I have an astrologer who gives me daily readings of my chart.”

His laughter died. “You’re kidding.”

“No.” Her gaze slid away from his. “I’m an Aquarius, February seventeenth.”

“That’s my birthday, too.” The words slipped out.

“Well, there you go,” she said. “I’m sure it’s a bad day for new liaisons for you, too. I could get my astrologer to make up your chart, though, if you’d like. What time of day were you born?”

He blinked. That staticky energy still crackled between them, their mouths were so close her breath was puffing against his face, and she was talking about what time of day he was born. Charts. Goddamn
astrology
.

But why the hell was he surprised? This was
the land of the weird and unpredictable. This was, after all, L.A. That reality drenched him like a trash pail of cold pond water.

And the electricity between them smoked, went out.

He dropped the corkscrew of Jilly’s hair and backed away from her. “Iris!” he yelled. “It’s time to go!” It was time to regain his good sense as well.