Wildly Inappropriate (15 page)

The young boy looked at Cynda with a plea in his green eyes. "Do you have a copy of this Southern Boy rule book? It's gotta be bigger than the encyclopedia and I can't find it online." He adopted a more formal tone after a heavy sigh. "Nice meeting you, Miss Avery. What grade do you teach, ma'am?"

"I handle the milk and cookies brigade." Cynda smiled at the kid, chuckling at his joke. "If you need help learning to tie your shoes or memorizing your ABC flashcards, I'm your girl. And please, call me Cynda." Deciding to pick on him a bit, she added, "What did you say to get on restriction? I've been wondering."

Jonah sat the bowl down and huffed. He eyed Dan plaintively. "I don't get it. If a girl has a nice rack, why can't I say so, Uncle Dan? It wasn't like she was standing there, you know? Lila asked me what I like best about Myrtle Beach, so I told her."

Cynda felt Daniel shaking with laughter, but he covered it by rubbing his hand over his jaw.

"There's rule in that book somewhere that says you can't talk about a woman's girlie parts without also describing her eyes in great detail and still be a southern gentleman," she explained.

"Huh," the kid said, appearing to think that over. "Wish I'd known that last night. I could've just told Lila her eyes were blue and gotten out of being chained to my desk to match a butt load of socks." He reached to open a drawer.

Daniel dropped his hand from around Cynda's waist, darting around the bar awfully fast for a man his size. "Let me get that for you, kid."

Desk.

"Oh Lord, Daniel, I keep forgetting to ask if you knew about those diaries of your mother's? I found 'em when the side panel fell off of your desk the other day," she blurted before she forgot again.

"Cynda, my mother didn't keep a diary." Daniel handed Jonah a spoon and moved to block the drawer concealing the toy cock with his big body.

"Sure she did," Cynda replied. "There's a bunch of 'em."

"Ooh, let's go read 'em," Jonah said, his green eyes alight with excitement. "This is better than my news that Lila's gonna coach my fall baseball team." He drilled a finger into Dan's side, laughing. "Dan, you'll never believe who's supposed to be her assistant coach. Uncle Colton's still cracking up."

"Must be Reggie," Daniel guessed, taking the casserole dish from Jonah's hand. Jonah nodded emphatically, still laughing uproariously. "Karma's a bitch, huh, kid?"

"You're not gonna read 'em," Cynda interjected, shaking her head fiercely, fearing Daniel might allow that. "It'd be wildly inappropriate for a young man your age to read a woman's private thoughts about her husband, even if they are your grandparents. Me and you are gonna listen to that music of yours while your uncle reads 'em. Can you dance?"

She glanced at Daniel to be sure he wasn't angry she'd made the prohibition, but men could be stupid about such. She didn't read anger in his face, but for a moment, he sure looked a lot like the ugly stuffed bass over his desk.

Chapter Twelve

When they all trooped into his office, Dan stood beside the desk panel she'd said had fallen, hesitating, watching Cynda put one of Jonah's ear buds in her ear. She began to sway, grabbing Jonah by the arms. Jonah might not be the only one who shouldn't read Cammie's innermost thoughts about Rafe. Dan both feared and longed to know what the diaries might contain.

Would his mother admit to the lover Dan had come to believe she'd had? What if something Cammie had written made him suspect one or more of them might not be Rafe's children? What if he wasn't Rafe's son? Could any of that be worse than learning Cammie had left his father because Rafe was exactly the kind of man Daniel felt himself to be? The kind who didn't hesitate to spank his wife if he felt she'd lied? Dan knew he was nothing like Colton, who seemed content to swim in the stormy hormonal waters that swirled around Lila with a sense of calm acceptance Dan couldn't comprehend. He privately agreed with the sentiment Eric had expressed last night, coming in the door. It was Eric's sense of timing Dan had felt was off, not the underlying dynamic. Colton should've bent Lila over a table and fucked her into submission about her driving long before she'd had that wreck, like the minute she'd called him a cocksucking liar in front of his brother. Had Lila been his woman, Dan knew she'd never have made it out the door before finding her legs in the air and him between her thighs. He'd not have given much thought to the fact his brother was in the room, either.

Dan knew he was the real caveman in this bunch. Not Eric. So instead of prying the side off his desk, he watched as the pair writhed to music he couldn't hear, torn between grinning and growling when he noted Jonah's dazed expression and the admiring glance the teenager gave Cynda's ass when she turned around to bump against the kid.

Luckily, the song ended before he had to shed blood.

"Cynda Sue, how do you do?" Jonah crowed. Then the kid blushed and he grinned shyly. "Sorry. All the way to the beach and back, Uncle Eric had Johnny Cash cranked up. Guess I got a toxic dose." The teenager smiled at Cynda again.

"Where'd a white boy like you learn to dance like that?" Cynda asked breathlessly.

"California. Where'd you get a fine booty like that, Cynda Sue?" Jonah waggled his brows up and down, leering at Cynda.

Yep, he'd had a toxic dose of Eric all right.

Cynda smiled back at the kid, shaking the body part under discussion. Dan's hand fairly itched to smack her ass for that. He really disliked her doing that for another man, even if that man was only thirteen.

"Wait till I tell Lila you evaluated a lady's
girlie parts
less than five minutes after you met her, right to her face." Dan smiled internally at the way the flush drained from the kid's cheeks.

"But she has such pretty brown eyes," Jonah protested.

"Who's Reggie?" Cynda asked, making Dan suspect she was deflecting his anger from the kid. Making him surer Cammie had done that for him and his siblings with Rafe. Yet Cynda's protective attitude toward a child she'd just met made Dan feel oddly more drawn to her.

"He's the reason I don't turn Jonah over my knee and paddle his ass for what he's thinkin' right now. Last man who hurt Jonah was Reggie and he's still got the scars from Lila's teeth in his ass. His baseball coach overworked his arm last season. Jonah tore a rotator cuff, thanks to Reggie."

Cynda looked from him to Jonah, frowning. "Is Lila your mama? She sure sounds like your mama, but you look just like Daniel or Colton."

Jonah shook his head, but his grin got bigger. "She's Charlie's momma, but she's gonna be mine, as soon as she and Uncle C get married. I heard her say she was gonna adopt me and Uncle Colton is too."

Married.
"They must have made up if they're talking about getting married." Dan smiled, yet his heart ached for the couple.
Had Colton brought up marriage as a way to get Lila insured? Would Lila talk about getting married if she had breast cancer?

Jonah lost his smile. "No, she was talkin' to her friend Amy. She's still mad at Uncle C, but we don't know why. I didn't overhear that part."

"Why do you need adoptin'?" Cynda asked.

"My momma's dead," Jonah explained.

"Mine too. My grams raised me. Which one's your daddy?" Cynda persisted.

"My sister never saw fit to tell anybody who he was," Dan explained, finally kneeling beside his desk, but still watching the pair. Stalling.

"Oh." Cynda's eyes grew wide. "Then Sarah must be your mom, right?" She smiled at Jonah. "You look just like the rest of the family, but you must have your daddy's eyes."

Dan must've frowned as he tried to recall if he'd ever mentioned Sarah to Cynda because she rushed to explain. "Her name was engraved in a locket in the trunk where you sent me to look for clothes. And in Cammie's diary, she mentioned Sarah had just been born."

"My momma got murdered and my grandma ran away," Jonah contributed to the pile of woe. "Uncle E says women never stick in this family. Do you think he's right, Uncle Dan?"

"Women stick to the men who stick to them," Cynda declared, reaching out to push Jonah's long hair out of his eyes. "If she can find one worth sticking to, that is."

That's the problem
, Dan thought, looking away from the motherly gesture he'd seen Lila make so many times. Men and women these days had vastly different ideas on what was worth sticking to, it seemed. Dan wanted a woman who wanted to make him a home and give him a family—not so hard to find. But he also wanted one who'd want nothing more than to stay home to raise those children. Yet everywhere he looked, he saw women putting a desire for material things over staying home to raise their kid and accepting the lifestyle their man could afford. At least that was his take on things. He knew for a fact there were more day care centers than ever popping up around town.

He was worse than a caveman. He was a dinosaur, destined to become extinct because there didn't seem to be any female dinosaurs left.

"So, did you read those diaries, Cynda?" Jonah asked as Dan hooked his fingers around the edges of the panel and gave it a yank.

"I just read the last entry she made in 1984, before she left. She thought she was expectin' again and was going to talk to Georgia about it." Dan glanced over to see her looking anxiously at him as he laid the panel on the carpet. "The vacuum got away from me. I don't think I hurt the desk, though."

"No, you didn't. The desk is fine, Cynda." Dan set the panel aside and peered into the desk with the flashlight he'd brought along, spying the journals. He could only get two fingers into the tiny slot, but that was enough to grasp the closest diary. "I never could figure out who she left with, but I always thought she left with someone. No one else we knew left town, though. She didn't buy a bus or plane ticket, according to my dad." He gave Cynda a reassuring smile. "Thank you for finding these. I never knew she kept a diary. Neither did Rafe. There must be answers in here."

Answers to which questions?
Dan didn't know and he still couldn't decide whether he wanted to read them, even as he held the leather-bound book and opened the cover.

"So you play baseball, huh, Jonah? My brother played baseball, too." Cynda smiled once more at the teen, making Dan's heart twist at the way she seemed to be trying to connect with his nephew. A lot of women would've been rude to the kid, under the circumstances.

She stepped away from Jonah to kneel by his side. Her hand caressed his back. "I think I can reach the others. Do you want me to try?"

"Please." Dan got to his feet, taking a seat in his chair, closing the slender volume. Cynda kept talking to Jonah, and he was grateful she entertained the kid while he stared. He flipped it open again. His mother's handwriting still looked familiar to him after all these years. She'd signed his notes from school and left him lists. Her handwriting was old-fashioned and elegant. Like she'd been. He had to blink rapidly.

"Jarrod played baseball so good he got drafted to play in the big leagues."

"That's what I wanna do," Jonah said excitedly. "Who'd he sign with?"

Cynda began stacking the journals on Dan's desk while she talked. "The Dodgers. He was the one hundred and twenty-ninth overall draft pick that year. You got to go higher than that to get a big signin' bonus. He got hurt while he was still down in the minors and he was afraid he was gonna get cut, so he went to the Dominican Republic to play winter ball. We didn't know he went there for the drugs. Something to make him stronger, so he didn't get hurt again."

"Steroids," Jonah breathed, his eyes rounding. "Lila says she'll kill me if I even think about using steroids."

"She's right. Jarrod got hold of some bad ones and they made his heart stop."

She turned toward Dan, a plea in her eyes. "After havin' to wait weeks for them to do the autopsy and release Jarrod's body, we found out the insurance he had through the league wouldn't pay off because he had steroids in his system. We had to get the money to bring him home and bury him somehow. I had just heard from the school district my job had been cut. Grams was too old to find a job. Jarrod was just about broke. Grams decided to borrow the money against her house. Those bankers wanted her to refinance the whole amount the house was worth. She only wanted five thousand dollars and she couldn't have made the payments on what they wanted to loan her. I told her she could take the money then pay back all but what she needed right then. When she went back to do that, they asked her to get a co-signor. Grams has her pride. She felt the bank was jus' jerkin' her around 'cause she was black. It was her house, free and clear. So, she went to King instead, because she was upset and didn't have my Grandpa Earl to tell her what to do."

Dan winced. Nineteen thousand dollars due on five thousand borrowed. He understood now why her "commission" was so high. No money would change hands. King was a loan shark. He'd tear up the note once Daniel sold him the land.
If
such a man could be trusted to do that.

He had no intention of selling Kingsley Dazza that piece of land. But he was very interested in learning why the man wanted it, even as his heart sank at the realization of what his decision would cost Cynda. His vision blurred again, making it impossible to read the diary entry.

She'd been forced to become Kingsley Dazza's prostitute to save her grandmother's home. Outrage burned in his chest.

It'd been different somehow when he'd believed she'd signed his "contract" to put cash in her own pocket. He thought Brian Case had dangled a huge commission in front of a naive and probably new realtor. Or a whore. He'd sensed all along Cynda knew nothing about real estate, yet the women sent by Brian over the years had sent clear signals that sex was on the table. Anyone could've made his mistake.

Sure they would've. The same way most any man would've asked a strange woman to sign away her body for two weeks.
Mocking laughter seemed to ring in his ears, drowning out Cynda and Jonah's chatter about a sport she, like Lila, seemed to know and enjoy.