The only thing Anna could think was, Wow.
Gavin heard the back door slam and looked up, but there was no one there. Disappointment surprised him. The hope that Anna would come outside and talk to him surprised him. Neither should have. Constantly in his mind, Anna was.
The sound of footsteps behind him on the driveway had him turning, hoping somehow that it was her, even though he knew it couldn’t be.
The girl coming up the drive in sprayed-on biking shorts, an equally tight and revealing top that ended several inches above her navel, looked to be about seventeen. One ear sported three small silver stars, with a slice of a quarter moon dangling from the other. When she walked, she bounced, back arched so he’d be sure to notice that there was plenty of her to bounce.
He knew the type. Jailbait. Bored and looking for trouble.
“Like, hi.” Her eyes gleamed like a hungry predator spotting its next meal.
“Morning.”
“You must be a friend of Ben’s.”
Gavin’s lips quirked. “Must I?”
“Don’t mind me, I’m, like, just another nosy neighbor in a neighborhood full of, like, nosy neighbors.” She grinned and stuck out a hand bearing four gaudy rings that surely would turn her fingers green any minute. “I’m Sissy Roberts, from across the street.”
Gavin shook hands. “Pleased to meet you, Sissy Roberts. Gavin Marshall.”
“I figured you for a friend of Ben’s. I mean, that’s his Harley, right? And anyway, you wouldn’t be here to see Anna.”
Gavin arched a brow. “I wouldn’t?”
“Nah, nobody comes to see her. She keeps pretty much to herself, never goes anywhere. Dullest lady on the block. So how’d you end up with Ben’s Harley? Hey, he didn’t, like, sell it to you or something, did he? My daddy’s always told him if he, like, ever decided to sell, he’d, like, buy it. Boy, Daddy’s gonna be, like, mad.”
“No need,” Gavin said, tucking her comments about Anna into the back of his mind. “We, like, swapped vehicles for a while.”
The girl dug the toe of one sneaker into the concrete and swayed back and forth. “I can’t imagine Ben letting anybody, like, touch his Harley.”
Gavin grinned. “You think I stole it?”
Cocking her head and sticking out her rather sizable chest, she studied him. “You don’t look like a thief,” she said, trying for sexy with her voice and doing a credible job of it.
“What does a thief look like?”
“You know, like on TV, like, scuzzy. You’re, like, not scuzzy at all.”
“Gee, like thanks.” Spotting a fleck of tar he’d missed on the rear wheel, Gavin pulled a rag from his hip pocket and reached for the bottle of tar remover.
“So, like, is Ben coming home soon? I mean, to get his Harley or anything?”
“I expect he’ll be along anyday now.”
“Well, you tell him Sissy from across the street said hi.”
Like hell I will. But Gavin glanced up and nodded. “I’ll be sure and do that.”
As he watched her bounce that ripe little body back across the street, he shook his head. If Ben Collins got within twenty feet of that piece of trouble looking to happen, Gavin would break his legs. Surely even Ben wasn’t that dumb.
After cleaning the bathroom and changing the sheets on her bed and Gavin’s, Anna dusted and vacuumed her way through the house. When she hit the den and turned to straighten the items on the desk, something was off. Missing.
Her car keys. She always left them beside her purse.
She wasn’t worried, just curious. After all, no one had been in the house but her and Gavin.
Her questions were answered a moment later when she stepped out the front door. Hot, heavy air hit her like a wall and pressed the air back into her lungs as she tried to exhale. Gavin had finished with the motorcycle and had parked it on the grass beneath the maple tree that shaded the front lawn. He had then backed her car out of the garage, where he now stood hosing it off. The play of muscles across his back threatened to steal what little air she had left.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, approaching him from behind.
At the sound of her voice Gavin turned his head to look over his shoulder and smile. “Do what?” His movement shifted his aim just enough to angle the spray toward the outside mirror. From there it ricocheted straight into the side of his head. He ducked, squeezed his eyes shut. His mouth dropped open in shock as he released the nozzle trigger to cut off the spray. Water plastered one side of his hair against his skull and streamed down his face, off his nose and chin.
Anna couldn’t help it. A snicker came first, but when he opened one eye and glared at her, she broke out laughing.
Something long empty inside Gavin, a hole he hadn’t know existed, filled with warmth and light at the sound of her laughter. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh, but he vowed it wouldn’t be the last. If he had to play the clown to accomplish that, so be it.
But a devil took over just then. “You think that’s funny?”
Anna saw the maniacal gleam in his eye and started backing up, holding one hand out in front of her. “No,” she sputtered between bursts of laughter. “No, it’s not—” She struggled for breath, to stop laughing, and failed on both counts. “Not a bit.”
“Uh-huh.” For every step she took backward, he followed. “Let’s see how funny you think this is.” He let her have it in the chest.
Shocked that he would spray her, and that the water was so cold, Anna shrieked and sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh!”
Gavin hooted with laughter.
“Oh!” Her eyes were wide with shock as she used a thumb and forefinger to pluck the soaked fabric of her shirt away from her skin. “I can’t believe you did that!”
“No?” His laughter turned, to her ears, sinister. “Wanna see me do it again?” He raised the nozzle and aimed.
“No!” Laughing now, because she couldn’t seem to help herself, Anna backed farther up the sidewalk.
Gavin got her again, this time in the stomach. She stumbled back, tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, and abruptly found herself sitting in the flower bed, a clump of purple petunias on either side of her and one, she was certain, squashed beneath her. Her fingers sank knuckle-deep in damp earth.
“Oh, yuck!”
Gavin laughed so hard he had trouble standing.
Anna pulled her hands from the muck and shook them. It didn’t help. “Look at me,” she complained, laughter still in her voice. She raised her gaze slowly to him. “I believe I’ll have to get even for this.”
“Ah, but I’m the one with the hose,” he taunted.
“In fact,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken, “I’m sure that if you look up the phrase ‘getting even’ in the dictionary you’ll find my picture.”
Smiling, and carefully aiming the hose away, Gavin stood over her. “Will it help if I apologize?”
“Are you any good at groveling?”
“I don’t know. I never tried it.” He chuckled then at her mock glare and sobered appropriately. “If you’ll hold your arms out I’ll wash off the dirt.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m supposed to trust you?”
“Certainly.” But his grin said, If you dare.
“Hmm. I question your sincerity, but since I don’t want to take all this dirt and mud back into my clean house, I guess I’ll have to trust you.”
His grin widened. “Atta girl.” He crimped the hose and took off the spray nozzle so he could have a nice even stream that wouldn’t spray out. Unless he wanted it to.
Anna held her arms out, and held her breath, fully expecting to get squirted in the face.
But Gavin Marshall was good at keeping her off balance. She was on her rear in the flower bed, wasn’t she? He leaned down and wrapped an arm around her waist, lifting her from the flower bed. He ran a gentle stream of water over one hand, using his free hand to help dislodge the dirt.
The water was cold;
his hand, and his eyes, were hot. Anna shivered. And wondered what it would feel like to have his hand move up her arm all the way, then down to cover her breast.
Shocked not only by her body’s heated response to the thought, but stunned that the idea had even occurred to her, she opened her eyes, only just then realizing that she’d closed them.
He released her hand and took up the other one, treating it to the same startlingly sensual rinsing. He was looking at her. Watching her. Reading her thoughts, it seemed to her. She flushed, embarrassed to her core that he might know what she was thinking.
He did know. She read it in his eyes as heat flared there, and an answering heat flared deep inside of her.
Then he blinked and lowered his gaze to her hand. “There you go.”
The playful tone in his voice eased the tension inside her. She chuckled in relief. “I find myself wanting to say thank you, out of habit. But since it was your fault I got muddy, I don’t think I will.”
“My fault,” he protested in mock innocence. “All I did was spray you with water. You found the mud all by yourself.”
Anna pursed her lips. “I’m beginning to develop a real sympathy for your mother.” ,
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, eyes narrowed in playful suspicion.
“It means, that if she’s got even half her wits about her after raising you, she deserves a medal of honor.”
“I still have the hose.”
“I’m going in now.” She spun quickly toward the house. “Thank you for washing my car.”
“Hey, Anna,” he called when she reached the front porch.
She paused and looked back over her shoulder. “What?”
“I missed a spot.”
“Where?”
“Right—” he pointed the nozzle he’d just replaced, and squeezed the trigger. A hard jet spray hit her in the rear.
Chapter Eight
“You should have seen the look on your face.”
Three hours later, and Gavin was still bragging about getting the drop on her with the hose.
To his benefit, he was doing a credible job of making up for soaking her. He had insisted on taking her out to dinner, someplace nearby, casual, because all he’d brought on his trip were jeans, plus he didn’t want her to go to the trouble of dressing up. They had settled on the all-you-care-to-eat buffet at Catfish Cabin.
It was a family restaurant, informal, with friendly waitstaff. The smell of fried catfish hung on the air not unpleasantly. Anna knew she wouldn‘t—couldn’t—eat enough food to justify the cost of the meal, but the restaurant was losing money on Gavin, so she calculated that it evened out all right.
“Your eyes must have been as big around as silver dollars. I’ll bet you gaped about like this catfish did when he got himself caught for dinner.”
Anna took another bite of the tender, steamy fish and savored the delicate flavor. “You know, it’s really going to feel good getting even with you. I never could get revenge on Ben when we were kids. He loved to do the typical boy things, you know, like a frog in my shoe. Not unlike spraying an unsuspecting person with a garden hose. I believe he was ten the last time he pulled that one.”
Gavin grinned over his corn-on-the-cob. “Is that your way of telling me I was childish?”
“I wouldn’t dream of saying such a thing.”
Oh, but Gavin loved that sparkle of laughter in her eyes. “If you could never get even with Ben, what makes you think you can with me?”
“Because you’re not six years younger than me and you can’t get me in trouble with our parents for picking on a little kid.”
“Ah, the old ‘Mama, she’s picking on me’ routine. Know it well.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
“Were your parents musical?”
Anna blinked. “Pardon?”
“What part didn’t you understand? Parents, or musical?”
“Funny. The question threw me, that’s all. No, they weren’t musical, unless you count the radio, or their old stereo.”
“I just wondered how Ben came to be so damn good on the piano.”
Anna smiled. “He is good, isn’t he? But it certainly wasn’t inherited. He came by it via threats and bribes.”
“Come again?”
She took her time spreading butter on a hot, yeasty dinner roll. “By the time he was twelve, Ben decided he was through with the piano. Mama had started him on lessons, but after she and Daddy died, he was, after all, the man of the house. He couldn’t be bothered with piano lessons.”
“I was a twelve-year-old boy once. Their egos are so damn fragile. So you threatened and bribed?”
“I tried logic first.”
Gavin chuckled. “I bet that went over well. To the average twelve-year-old boy, there is absolutely nothing logical, or even sane, about piano lessons.”
“You do know him, don’t you?” she asked with sour humor. “I very calmly explained to him that I was working two jobs to keep him out of foster care, keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.”
Ben had told Gavin some of this, but he’d glossed over it. Now Gavin was getting a clearer picture of what Anna had gone through to take over raising her kid brother after their parents were killed. She hadn’t had an easy time of it, despite the lighthearted way she described the things she’d had to do.
“I cooked all his meals, washed—not to mention paid for—all of his clothes. I asked only that he mow the yard in the summer, keep passing grades at school and be home by nine on weeknights. I didn’t think practicing the piano thirty minutes a day was too much to add to the list.”
Gavin grinned. “You’ve obviously never been a twelve-year-old boy, or you would have known better.”
“True enough. But there was one thing Ben wanted more than anything in the world, and that was Daddy’s Harley.”
“That’s right, he told me it had been his dad’s.” Gavin let out a low whistle. “He must have made practicing the piano into a religion to get his hands on that bike.”
Anna chuckled. “Not quite. We had to cut a deal. He played the piano every day for thirty minutes, unless he was deathly ill, or I would sell the Harley to Mr. Roberts across the street.”
“Ah, that would be Sissy’s father.”
Anna’s eyebrows inched up her forehead. “What have you been doing? Making the rounds of the neighborhood while I’m at work all day?”
“She bounced—I mean, walked over and, ah, introduced herself while I was washing the Harley this morning.”
Anna made a choking sound and covered her mouth with her napkin.
“What, no comment? And she had such nice things to say about you.”
“I’ll just bet she did. She and her friends egged my house last year at Halloween.”
Gavin winced, thinking of peeling paint and disgusting window screens. The smell of rotten eggs if the goo wasn’t washed off before the sun dried it. The flies. He’d done his share of egging in his misspent youth.
“She’s not one of my favorite people,” Anna added.
“Can’t say as I blame you. Anyway, threatening to sell the Harley must have done the trick. He’s good, Anna. Really good.”
She smiled with pride. “I know.”
“So,” he said as casually as possible, “when he finally left the nest, why didn’t you get married and raise kids of your own?”
“Oh, and after doing such a fine job with Ben, right?”
“He was twelve years old, his personality more than set by the time you took over.”
“But I didn’t help much, did I? I never made him stand on his own.”
“So maybe you’ll do things differently when it’s your own children.”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” she told him, “I don’t have my own children. I have other goals to work on before I even consider a family.”
“What goals, if you don’t mind my asking?”
She smiled. “Don’t look so skeptical. I’m starti
ng college this fall. A little later than most, but it’s something I’ve always dreamed of.”
And could never do, Gavin guessed, hearing her unsaid words, because so much of her money went to Ben to get him out of trouble every time she turned around.
“Between school and working, I won’t have time for much of anything else.”
“It doesn’t sound like it. Does your brother know you’ve wanted to go to college?”
Her face closed off as if she’d slammed a door. There was that sisterly loyalty again. He had to admire her for it, even if it made him want to shake her.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s not something that comes up in everyday conversation.”
“It came up in ours,” Gavin said. “But knowing Ben, and knowing you, I imagine when the two of you talk, it’s about him. What are you going to study?” he asked before she could jump to Ben’s defense. She’d been about to; he’d seen it in her eyes.
“I want a degree in accounting.”
“That’s your thing, isn’t it? Numbers?”
“That’s my thing.”
“You’re already a bookkeeper. What will you do once you have your degree?”
She got a faraway look, her eye on a goal only she could see. But she wasn’t smiling, didn’t look dreamy or eager. Only determined. He could see her coming a mile away.
“I want to be a Certified Financial Planner, someone families can come to for financial advice.”
“Because of your parents.”
“Ben talks too much.”
“Sometimes.” Ben had told him how their parents had run their car into a utility pole on their way home from a party, both of them drunk. About the mountain of debts they’d left their two grieving children. How Anna had worked two jobs, sometimes three, to keep the house, feed and clothe her and Ben. How she had fought off the social workers to keep Ben with her.
“It seems to me,” Gavin said, “that you could have sold that Harley, and the house, and come out all right. Hell, they weren’t your debts anyway. You weren’t liable for them.”
“Tell that to the bill collectors, the lawyers and the IRS, all of whom came pounding on the door.”
Until You Page 11