by Reina Torres
Her smile raised the temperature in the room a few degrees. “What do you watch on television with Ada?”
Shrugging, he rubbed his palms on his thighs, trying to remind himself that touching Blake wasn’t something he could just do. “Whatever was on. I’m not big on kids shows, but there’s some half-way decent reality shows. She’s pretty good with animal shows but doesn’t like people yelling so Bar Rescue and Hell’s Kitchen are out.”
Blake laughed softly. “Yeah, those are kind of loud, but I’m more of a Project Runway or Ink Master kind of girl.”
“Ink Master?” Heat prickled between his shoulder blades. “You like tattoos?”
“Sure!” Turning more toward him, she pulled her knee up on the sofa cushion and leaned against the back. “Some of the artwork is amazing and I like the creative aspect of it. If I wasn’t so,” she shuddered, “icky about needles and pointy stuff I would get one.”
“Where?”
Maybe it was the lump in his throat or the lack of air in his lungs, but hearing Blake talk about wanting a tattoo made him hot. Thinking about her skin and where she might actually put a tattoo and-
“You’d think it was silly.”
Oh hell no.
“Try me.”
“My hip.” She used her fingers to brush Ada’s wispy bangs from her forehead and then looked up into his eyes with a blush across her cheeks. “Or rather, near my hip. I’m told the hipbone makes it hurt a lot. So, if I pick a place that has a little more… flesh, then it’s not supposed to hurt as much.”
“More flesh…” he tried to let out a breath but didn’t have one to let go. “Where?”
Her cheeks were almost a brilliant red. “I don’t know what it’s called in anatomy and I’m not going to point it out.”
He shrugged. “Okay.” For now.
She went back to humming and rubbing her hand gently over Ada’s back.
“You’re really good with her. The first few times I tried to hold her she cried,” he shook his head, “my sister had to show me how to hold her and even then I didn’t do much more than sit in a chair and hold her like she was an armful of C4 explosives. I’ve never been so afraid.”
“It’s not that bad,” she straightened Ada’s dress in the back, “but I bet you got over all of that. Ada certainly is very comfortable with you.”
“Mostly.” He blew out a breath. “Normally when she falls asleep, I still hold my hand in front of her nose every once in a while just to make sure.”
Blake’s smile widened. “You’re too sweet.”
Sweet? That’s something no one had ever called him. No one.
“I bet you’re an awesome uncle.” He swore he heard her sigh and that sound did all kinds of un-uncle-like things to him. “Ada’s a lucky little girl.”
“You?” He cleared his throat. “Do you have any kids… in your family?”
Her smiled dimmed a bit. “No, nope. Just me. Dad wanted a boy and got me, so that’s why I’m Blake. Daughter of Blake and Nancy Lennox.”
Adam smiled. “You’re Blake junior?”
“Blake, the second,” she corrected him.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Yes, your highness.”
Ada stirred and Blake smoothed her hand over the little girl’s hair and hummed a few notes of a song.
The sound stirred a memory in him and he narrowed his eyes trying to grab a hold of the title in his head. “What… what song is that?”
“Home on the Range.” She sighed and leaned her head on the back cushion of the sofa. “It’s my go to for years now. Every so often I get a request.”
“A request.” He was struggling to understand. “Why would-”
“My first job in Hollywood. It was a kid’s show. If I had pig tails right about here,” she lifted her hands and held them on either side of her jaw, “and a big brown cowboy hat and lots and lots of plaid. Would that jog your memory?” She lifted her shoulders as she dropped her hands back into her lap. “Then again, it wasn’t really a show like Bar Rescue, just a little kids’ show on PBS, but-”
“Frontier Friends.” He repeated the words and slowly nodded. “Annalise had Ada listening to that while she slept.” He saw a flicker of emotion run across her features. “Not that I’m saying it was boring. She said it made her calm.” He groaned. “I’m sticking my foot in it, aren’t I?”
Blake reached out and her hand touched his forearm.
He went still because the heat of her hand made him tense. And it made him hard.
“You’re fine,” she smiled at him and tilted her head, “It wasn’t supposed to be action packed, just a sweet show about a community of folks that help each other. As much as people laughed at what we did, the kids really loved it. Part of the reason why I loved it is that we always had kids on the set.” Blake lifted her hand from his arm and as much as he wanted to reach for it and take it back, he watched as she smoothed her fingers through Ada’s curls. “Any chance I got to hold one of the kids, I did.”
“So,” he couldn’t believe how easy it was to talk to her, “are you planning on having a whole bunch of your own?”
She cast her eyes away from him, looking down at Ada as she slept on between them. “We’ll see,” she hesitated in the middle of her answer, “I’m hoping to have a guy in my life first, but if that doesn’t work out… I don’t know. It’s hard to find a guy in Hollywood that doesn’t take one look at me and stick me firmly in the ‘BFF’ category.”
He narrowed his gaze on her. “Best Friend Forever?”
“Close, but not quite.” Her eyes didn’t lift to meet his and he didn’t think she wanted to. “Big Fat Friend.”
Blake’s hand settled between Ada and the back of the sofa, her fingers moving over the fabric on the cushions.
Before he could say anything, she did. “I’m used to it, so don’t think you need to say anything to make me feel better. I feel fine.”
Even as she said it, the slight tremor in her voice said otherwise.
“No one should hear things like that. Especially when it’s-”
“You can’t say it’s not true,” he heard a slight edge to her tone, “that’s my role in Hollywood now. I’m the fat girl. The comedy relief. The one lucky enough to hang out with the cool girl. That’s how Sadie and I met.”
He was processing the idea that anyone could see her as fat. Curvy? Lush? Yes. Fat? That was crazy.
“I can’t see Sadie buying into that label for you.”
“Oh, she didn’t,” Blake rushed to defend her friend. “Sadie’s too… normal for that. She’s one of those people that is completely genuine. She was always a port in the storm for me, and since she’s living here in Eagle Rock, I’ve tried to be that for other girls. Accepting them the way I was accepted and trying to help them navigate the sharks and hippos in the waters.”
“Hippos?” That wasn’t one he expected.
“There are stories of river travel on the Nile in the Victorian Era where Hippos ripped apart full sized vessels.” She winced. “You’ll never catch me getting anywhere near hippos.”
Laughing, he nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. No hippos for Blake.”
An odd moment passed between them and before he could figure out what happened, Blake lifted her hand to cover her mouth, but she couldn’t stop the yawn that came a moment later.
“Hey.” He smiled at her cautious look. “Why don’t you go get some sleep.”
She hesitated, looking down at Ada. “I’ll wait up with you-” another yawn made her sigh. “I’m sorry.” She looked down at the pillows and started to reach down. “I can curl up down there and-”
Adam leaned down and took her hand in his before she could pick up one of the pillows. “Hey.” They were eye to eye, less than a foot apart, and the feelings he’d felt when he kissed Blake flooded back. If she wasn’t so exhausted and running on empty, it would be a different matter altogether, but more than he was attracted to her and craving her touch, Adam knew she needed
her rest.
And rest, she was going to get.
“You’ve got the bed, Blake. After Annalise comes back, I’ll pull out the sofa and sleep out here.”
She started to move and then hesitated. “What if she doesn’t come back tonight?”
The way she looked at him, concerned, made him feel like he was basking in the sun. How anyone could have overlooked her appeal was beyond him. “If she’s too tired, she knows I’ll keep her.” Gesturing to a door on the other side of the room he smiled. “I have a fold out sleeper for her. I’ve got this uncle thing down pat.”
Standing up, Blake leaned down and brushed Ada’s wispy hair back from her face before she placed a tender kiss on the little girl’s cheek. When she stepped past him on the sofa, Blake lifted her hand and set it down on his shoulder. “That, you do, Adam. And they’re lucky to have you.”
He was stunned at her touch and more importantly her words. She sounded… wistful. Before he could shake the confusion from his thoughts she was gone.
Chapter 8
The phone rang and Seth gave the offending object a blistering rebuke before he picked it up. “What?”
“She has a different car. Shouldn’t be that hard to track. Plates are out of date.” Laughter made its way through the phone line.
“You don’t have her.” He sat up in the tub and water sloshed over the edge onto marble floors. “I fail to see why you think that’s funny.”
“Come on, man. She’s driving a hunk of junk. I don’t see how that’s going to get her anywhere but in a ditch. Your problem is halfway solved.”
Seth tossed a towel on the ground and stood, narrowing his eyes at the ever-widening pool of water on the floor. “Halfway doesn’t mean shit, Robert. Until I have her under control and find out what she’s said or done, I’m going to be breathing down your neck.”
There was a hesitation on the other end and Seth smiled knowing that he’d gotten his point across. “Yes, sir.”
“And the old woman?”
Another pause. “Who is she going to tell?”
Seth leaned against the sink and met his own cold gray eyes in the mirror. “Bathroom tiles are slippery, Robert. And get that car taken apart. I don’t want anyone else following your trail.”
Clicking off the phone, Seth threw it across the room and listened to the satisfying crack as it hit the wall beside the tub.
“Looks like Blake found her backbone.”
Blake almost fell to the floor when she woke up. The unfamiliar surroundings coupled by the rampant nightmares running through her head had her disoriented and shaking. Reaching out she felt the wall above the pillows and let the rough scratch of the brick wall ease her anxiety. The touch was centering and helped her clear her head.
She couldn’t quite remember just when she’d left Los Angeles. Everything after the traffic on the 210 seemed like a hazy blur, but sitting here, in Adam’s bedroom, felt like she’d fallen down the rabbit hole.
Touching her fingers to her mouth she could feel his lips against hers.
Closing her eyes, she could almost call it back up like a scene from a movie, but one she was starring in… as the heroine.
And if she was any judge… any judge at all… he was into it.
Into her.
She squeezed her eyes closed and rubbed her fingers over her lower lip, but it wasn’t the same. She couldn’t feel his hands on her. Couldn’t feel his breath on her lips.
Her eyes flew open and she scooted toward the edge of the bed. Swinging her legs off the bottom edge, she got to her feet and moved toward the door.
Blake stopped under the doorframe and looked from the front room and then back over her shoulder to the bathroom. The apartment over the shop had the one bathroom.
Blinking at the sunlight suffusing the open areas of the apartment she knew she’d slept in late and Adam was likely hard at work.
Looking down at her sleep-mussed clothing, she wondered what she was going to do.
The least she could do was splash some water on her face and see what her hair looked like in the morning light.
Entering the bathroom, she realized that she hadn’t really looked at it the night before.
At first, she was so focused on Adam’s sister and making sure she didn’t get on the woman’s bad side, and after with Annalise’s mad rush to get back to work, Blake had barely had time to notice anything around her. Now, she took a breath and stood in the doorway to survey the room.
Crisp lines of tiny black tile swept the room from one side to the other at the height of her chest and again at her calves. The rest was pristine white and seemed to glow even without the lights on. The towels and all of the shelves were the same bright white as the main room. The only odd colored objects were the toiletries that Adam left on the counters and even those were kept to a minimum.
She would bet all the cash in her purse, all of twenty some odd dollars, that he’d locked everything dangerous away even though Ada couldn’t possibly reach them.
He’d err on the side of caution for the little girl, and she loved that about him.
The shower curtain had been left open so she could see the old fashioned footed tub against the back wall, and the amazing handheld shower head that had washed all the dye down the drain.
Blake leaned in to check the bottom of the tub to make sure they hadn’t left Adam a mess.
Satisfied, she stood up and pulled the curtain closed out of habit and stopped to laugh.
Not out loud and from her gut but a subtle shake of her shoulders. The image on the curtain was a cartoon pinup of Betty Boop dressed in biker leather and a red rose tucked over her ear.
She’d bet the same money that Annalise had picked out the shower curtain like she’d picked out the pillows and a bunch of other things in the space.
Still, his comment the night before popped up in her head. Maybe he liked the old pinup style, but she did too. She’d always liked Betty’s style and her ability to work those heels.
Sighing, Blake turned back toward the door and her eyes caught sight of a stack on a stool just beside the open doorway. She’d missed it on the way in, but it was impossible to miss it on the way out.
She crossed to the stool and picked up the note written on Masterson Mechanics letterhead.
B-
Hope you slept well. I didn’t want to wake you up because you were out like a light.
Annalise is coming by later to take you shopping. I don’t have a clue about women’s clothing, so if I made an ass of myself, you can make me pay for it later.
A
We’ll get you through this. I promise.
The sentiment had her near tears. She’d had her share of promises since she’d moved to California and most of them had been empty.
And yet the way Adam had been since she’d arrived, the way he had acted, had cracked open the door she’d slammed close years ago.
When she’d been backed into a corner… and had her choices taken away.
Snatching up the towels she turned on her heel and headed for the tub.
Pulling off the one sock that had managed to stay on her foot, she attacked the button on her jeans and struggled with her zipper.
“I’m not going to wallow,” she grumbled at herself as she pushed her jeans and panties over her hips, “not now. Not ever-”
But she couldn’t promise herself that.
Dark and unhappy thoughts didn’t have a twelve-step program. Still, she tried to rescue herself when they came up.
It just wasn’t possible, not yet anyway, to push those thoughts out of her head.
Too many years of damaging words hurled at her had made it easier to accept the negative, no matter how much she wanted to fight back with the positive. Some things just stuck to her.
Pulling her shirt off, she dropped it on top of the pile and reached between her breasts to unhook her bra.
She let it fall from her fingers to the pile on the floor, but she didn’t look at her
self in the mirror.
She knew what she’d see there, and she would need all her courage later to go shopping. That was usually just as disappointing as trying out for roles outside of the public’s perception.
Setting the water on hot she was surprised how quickly the water temperature climbed to the perfect setting and she stepped in to rid herself of the grime from the road.
It would have been pure folly to think she could scrub herself free of what she’d seen at the studio. No, that nightmare would only go away when Seth Coleman had paid for what he’d done.
Adam stared at the electronic readout on the screen and couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The most frustrating part of it wasn’t that he’d paid a good chunk of change for the diagnostic machine, it was a necessary piece of equipment seeing how Eagle Rock was home to a growing number of folks with expensive automobiles with sensitive systems. The real problem was that he couldn’t seem to keep his mind on his work.
His head was filled with things other than working on the Jaguar XJ6 sitting in his shop.
When he’d walked through his bedroom on the way to the shower, he’d tried to keep his eyes focused on the narrow path, but that just hadn’t been possible.
He wasn’t a man who let his curiosity get the better of him, but he’d already lain awake in bed half the night imagining what she looked like in his bed. The opportunity for a peek?
And what was worse, what was really threatening his ability to focus on the job in front of him, was the fact that Blake Lennox looked better in his bed fully clothed than any woman had ever looked naked… anywhere.
Curves. Lush. Gorgeous. Like Marilyn Monroe. Like Sofia Loren.
Her cheek on his pillow. A hand splayed over his sheets. His blanket tucked between her legs.
He didn’t even have to close his eyes to call the image up into his mind.
It was just there.
Living and breathing. The flush of pink in her tanned cheeks. The parted fullness of her lips. The rise and fall of her chest and-
“Hey, brother!”
BANG.