There was no way he was going down that road again. Relationships definitely weren’t his thing. He had to get his brain back on track and find that damn Fury so he could cash in his score and get his mother back to Puerto Rico before her time ran out. He’d made her a promise, and he wasn’t breaking it.
But when Lisa turned toward him to make introductions, he forgot just what the hell he’d been rationalizing to himself. His heart did a slow thump before he could stop it. And he watched in amazement as her gaze raked his face, the look in her eyes shifting from soft to smart-ass in one long blink.
Well, hell. That was fitting. Since she’d leveled him in the Keys, it was the only emotion she’d tossed his way. He shouldn’t be disappointed. And yet he was.
Lisa’s mother heard nothing but his name, not the lame explanation Lisa was rattling off about why she’d dragged him along, nor her other daughters’ bickering. The woman braced both hands on his cheeks. “We are so glad to have you here, Rafe.”
She grasped his hand before he could respond and pulled him through the arched doorway into the living room. “Darin, get up off that recliner.”
Lisa’s father tipped his gray head toward the doorway and scowled but didn’t rise.
Oh, yeah. Lisa hadn’t lied. The man hated him on the spot.
The old man glanced back at the television flickering across the room. “Don’t look Irish to me.”
“Daddy, try to be civil.” Lisa brushed past Rafe and kissed her father on the cheek.
“Hello, cupcake.” His face softened ever so slightly before going hard and rigid again.
“Daddy, this is Rafe Sullivan. He’s a colleague of mine.”
“Sullivan sounds Irish,” her father mumbled.
“It is,” Rafe supplied, trying his damnedest not to huff it out. “My father was born in Galway.” A no-good Irish drunk, to boot. And judging from the empty Killian’s bottles on the end table next to Darin Maxwell, Lisa’s father wasn’t far off the mark either.
The older man harrumphed. “Don’t look Irish,” he muttered again. “Looks like those spics who broke in and trashed the store.”
Rafe’s jaw went tight.
Lisa’s hand on his arm only marginally cooled his raging temper, just enough so he didn’t let the old geezer have it. “Daddy’s store was broken into several times by some Latino gangs in the area. It’s not personal, Rafe.”
The hell it wasn’t. It was always personal. And she didn’t have a freakin’ clue what the hell she was talking about.
The only reason he kept his jaw tightly clenched was because Lisa had a death grip on his arm. That and the fact he knew once he started, he wouldn’t stop. And somewhere in the back of his head, his brain was telling him to grit his teeth and let it roll off so he could get his hands on the research locked in the attic upstairs. If he flew off the handle now, he’d never get what he wanted.
But man, it would feel good to let this ass have it.
In his peripheral vision he saw Lisa’s mother exchange worried glances with her daughters. She tugged on his arm. “Rafe, why don’t you come into the kitchen with me and tell me how you met my girl.”
Worry and a shadow of embarrassment darkened Lisa’s face. “Go on,” she said softly. “I need to have a word with my father.”
Yeah, right. Like that would make a difference. Stiff and rigid, he followed Colleen into the kitchen, contrary to every instinct in his gut telling him to go back in there and stand up for himself.
What the hell was Lisa going to say to the old man? You’re right? He’s a liar and a thief, just like those gangbangers? That’s all she knew about him, all she thought of him. He hadn’t given her one good reason to think otherwise. She didn’t have a clue why finding the Furies was so important to him, didn’t know it wasn’t just about the money. Didn’t know it was about life and death and a promise he wasn’t going to break this time.
Hell, she was probably having a good laugh with the old man right now. The thought sickened him more than the racial slur her father had so casually tossed out.
His jaw twitched involuntarily. The hunt to find the Furies warred with his need to stand up for what he knew was right. And for the first time since he’d laid eyes on Lisa Maxwell, curves or not, he wished he’d walked out of that goddamn auditorium and never looked back.
Chapter Six
Oh, yeah. This was better. Sitting in a chair at the Maxwell kitchen table listening to Colleen drone on about Lisa’s accomplishments as she shuffled from cutting board to stove was better than stewing about what a jerk Lisa’s father was.
Right. Like that was true. But at least it was better than wondering just how much of an ass Lisa thought he was, deep down. And it was way better than analyzing why he even cared what she thought about him.
The only good part about the situation was he finally had a beer in hand. And while Rafe would never admit it, a tiny part of him was enjoying hearing about the smart-mouthed Lisa as a cheerleader in high school. Images of her in a short, flitty skirt all giddy and juiced up on adrenaline surged through his mind and warmed his blood.
Yeah. A smile tugged at his mouth as he lifted the bottle and took a long pull. Lisa in a cheerleading skirt. In the backseat of his Mustang. Cheering him on. That was definitely better.
Darkness pressed in through the windows. Garlic and spices permeated the air. The little fantasy taking root in his mind burst with a pop when Lisa stalked into the kitchen with her brawny-looking father close on her heels.
Keira and Catrine stopped bickering at the counter where they were chopping vegetables for a salad. Colleen paused midsentence and glanced up from the steaming pot she’d been stirring. From the doorway, Lisa’s gaze cut to Rafe, and in her emerald eyes, there was no way he could miss the pleading.
And dammit, it softened him. Just enough so he didn’t lurch out of the chair and go after her father’s throat.
“So, Puerto Rico,” Darin said, shifting his feet, looking anywhere but at Rafe. “Been there once. Colleen and I took a cruise to the Caribbean. Nice island.”
Rafe’s eyes widened. That was an apology? Puhleeze.
Lisa’s big, green eyes did that pleading thing again, every muscle in her tense body begging him to just let it roll off his shoulders and go on.
Oh, hell. Rafe’s jaw clenched. He could make a scene or keep the peace. Neither sounded appealing at the moment.
On a long breath, he leaned back in his chair and frowned, finally giving up. “Yeah, nice island.”
As if that were good enough, Darin Maxwell nodded and stepped around Lisa into the kitchen. “How much longer ’til we eat?”
Great. Brush the whole sordid mess under the carpet and be done with it. Nice tactic. Hell, Rafe’s parents had done it their whole lives anytime things got sticky. Why should Lisa’s family be any different?
Catrine and Keira returned to their argument over some book they’d both read. Lisa’s parents chatted about the meal. When Lisa slid into the chair at his right, he unclenched his jaw and finally glanced up.
“Thank you,” she mouthed.
Thank you?
The gratitude across her face made him feel like he’d done something great for her. She was actually thanking him? That was an interesting turn of events.
He should simply have shook his head and looked away, sipped his beer and gritted his teeth. But for some idiotic reason he didn’t. Instead, he made the biggest mistake since he’d stepped foot in the house. He looked into those gleaming emeralds and felt the first stirring of…guilt. It shocked him more than her father’s half-assed apology. And it burned him deep inside.
The front door opened and closed. Male voices echoed from the entryway, followed by the low rumble of shuffling feet and high-pitched chatter streaking down the hall. Lisa glanced away, breaking the spell that seemed to be sucking him under, and within seconds the kitchen was flooded with more bodies than the small room could contain. Two men who had to be her sisters’ husbands
walked in just before a swarm of kids talking nonstop.
Rafe’s ears rang as the noise level jumped. He blinked and shifted, happy to have something else to focus on besides Lisa. He counted two…four…no, five kids, had no clue who went with whom, and seriously didn’t care. Kids weren’t his thing either. In fact, he avoided them at all costs. Partly because the few he’d encountered were brats. Partly because he’d had his fill from the years he’d taken over as father figure after his old man had finally croaked and he’d tried to set Billy straight.
That had gone over real well. Another ripple of guilt snaked through him. He took a long swallow of his beer and pushed down the familiar feeling.
One short, redheaded mongrel who couldn’t have been more than three launched himself at Lisa’s legs as she introduced Rafe to the newcomers. Laughing, she swept the boy up in her arms before he could do serious damage, lifted his shirt and blew raspberries all over his belly. The boy shrieked and laughed, tried to wiggle out of her arms, but from the look of pure joy on his face, it was clear he didn’t want to be anywhere else.
A memory flashed in Rafe’s mind as he sat there, one of him and Lisa and that steamy hotel room in Milan. And he instantly understood what the boy was feeling. When he’d been in Lisa’s arms, he hadn’t wanted to be anywhere else, either.
With a smile, Lisa leaned back and glanced down at the scruffy-haired boy. Her eyes lit up as she teased and tickled and gazed into irises the same color as her own. In one swift moment her whole face transformed from stunning to downright gorgeous.
And Rafe’s chest did that weird tightening thing again.
Me. Me. Me. Look at me like that.
He stared at her, consumed by the sparkle in her eyes.
Just once. Just long enough so I can know what it feels like.
Lisa dropped the boy on his feet, tucked her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and, stepping toward the stove, laughed at something her brother-in-law said. The boy tore out of the kitchen after his cousins.
And just like that, the moment passed, as if it had never even happened in the first place.
Rafe blew out a shaky breath and took another long pull from the bottle in his hand. What the hell was happening to him? He needed to get away from these strange people before he got sucked into their craziness. Or, at the very least, he needed to stop looking at Lisa, because for some reason the woman was doing a number on him he just couldn’t explain.
Theirs was a business arrangement, plain and simple. He didn’t have any desire to figure out what made her tick. God knows, he didn’t need that complication on top of everything else.
At least that’s what he told himself. All the way through dinner.
***
This was much better.
Rafe followed Lisa up the narrow stairs from the third floor of her parents’ house toward the attic. His stress level was already dropping, just by being out of the infernal chaos downstairs.
“You look a little shell-shocked, Sullivan.” Lisa pushed the door open with her hip and flashed a smug smile over her shoulder as she stepped into the dark attic.
“My ears are ringing,” he muttered.
“I warned you about tagging along.” She pulled a dangling cord in the middle of the room. Light from an unshaded bulb above flooded the area, blinding Rafe for a swift moment.
As his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he slowly took in the surroundings. Boxes were stacked four high where they met the steadily sloping ceiling and the naked trusses. Several trunks sat against the far wall just under a round window that let in a smattering of street light from below. A rickety rocking chair, an old coat hanger, framed art and pictures lay scattered around the space. The scent of mothballs was strong in the room, the sounds of cars passing on the street below easily discernible, drowning out the voices from downstairs.
Lisa moved to a pile of boxes in the corner. “I think this is most of it. Some of this is my research, some of it’s Doug’s.” She hefted a box and pulled it toward the old rocking chair.
Rafe took a step toward the mountain of boxes as she sat and started going through papers. He tipped his head and read Lisa’s name written in black pen across the cardboard. “So what exactly are we looking for?”
Lisa fingered papers in her hand. “There should be several boxes with research on the Furies. Doug kept binders and binders of information. He was anal about recording everything, keeping careful notes, doing in-depth research.”
He looked over his shoulder. Light spilled across her hair, casting her face in shadows. She didn’t meet his gaze, but the way she’d said Stone’s name made Rafe automatically dislike the guy.
He’d already figured out there’d been more than just a professional relationship between the deceased professor and his prize student. Why else would she have all his crap in her attic? And why was she suddenly interested in the Furies now, fifteen years after his death?
Shaking off those questions because he was sure asking any would be like diving into shark-infested waters with a severed artery, he turned back to the box, lifted the lid and pawed through a pile of old clothes. Near the bottom he found a black and red cheerleading outfit. A smile slinked across his face as he lifted the tiny garment and took in the pleated skirt and sleeveless V-necked top.
“Stop drooling, Sullivan.”
The image of Lisa in the back of the beat-up ’69 Mustang he’d driven in high school seeped back into his mind. Only now he could see it in living color. And oh, man. It was better than he’d imagined. “What do I have to do to get you into this thing?”
“In your dreams, Slick,” she mumbled behind him. Papers rustled again.
“Oh, Querida.” He didn’t hide the smile in his voice. “I’m not sure you want to know what I’ve been dreaming since Italy. This just kicked it up a dramatic notch.”
With a huff, she stalked across the attic and lifted the box lid he’d set on the floor next to his feet.
Gardenias. He always smelled the sexy flower when she got close. The scent brought a swift visual of her tugging the shirt out of his slacks, running tantalizing fingers along his skin while she pressed her sensuous lips against his.
His back tingled at the memory, and his stomach tightened as she leaned close to grab the outfit from his hands. Her fingers barely brushed his in the process, and electricity zinged through him, gathering low in his stomach.
She tossed the red and black outfit back in the box and dropped the lid on top. Bracing both hands on the outside of the cardboard, she leaned over to lift it, pausing long enough to look him in the eye.
Heat from her muscular little body slid around him. Her hot breath washed over his skin. Arousal speared through his stomach and settled in his groin.
“Clothes. Not research. Try another box, Slick.” She straightened and moved the box away, then shifted back to her papers.
If he told her he liked that little nickname, she’d probably stop using it. Hell, he’d be as slick as she wanted, however she wanted. All she had to say was when.
He was smiling as he reached for the next box marked Lisa, flipped the lid and glanced down at another pile of clothes. A tiny T-shirt with the words JUNIOR ARCHAEOLOGIST stenciled across the front caught his attention.
“I take it this isn’t research either?”
Her head didn’t move, but her gaze lifted to his. A blank look ran across her face. “My sisters saved all their baby stuff for me, figuring one day I’d get around to it.”
He chuckled and dropped the shirt back into the box. “You don’t strike me as the maternal type, Maxwell.”
She stared at him a long moment before looking down again. “Yeah. Hilarious, huh?” She pushed the box away with her feet. “Hand me the next one.”
They spent the next hour sorting through boxes, pulling papers and binders, searching for anything remotely related to the Furies. Several papers referred to someone named Landau. Rafe made a mental note of the name in case it came up again. He�
�d pulled a couple of notebooks filled with chicken scratches and had made a pile of papers that had anything to do with Greek mythology. Together they created a stack in the middle of the room.
He grabbed the last box and popped the lid, while Lisa moved to one of the trunks under the window. A couple more filled notebooks, a pile of research books, mountains of little sticky notes. Geez. Anal was an understatement. The guy had even saved napkins he’d jotted info down on. Complete with…yup, ketchup on the corner.
Shaking his head, Rafe lifted the last notebook and spotted a handful of photographs in the bottom of the box. He smiled at what had to be Lisa in college. Her hair was down past her shoulders, her face young and innocent, and she wore the baggiest sweatshirt and sweatpants he’d ever seen—obviously, he noticed looking closer, to cover up a much-chubbier body than she sported now.
He flipped through the stack. There were a few of her with her siblings. One with a guy who had to be the infamous cop brother (they looked too alike for him to be anything other than family), a few more of her working in the field with colleagues, one of her in front of a lecture hall, teaching. None were overly remarkable, except for the fact she was much younger, but the last one made him pause.
Her arm was around an older guy with brown hair slightly gray at the temples, sporting a deep tan and a worn, rugged face. She was smiling, he appeared to be scowling. Both were wearing sunglasses, and they were standing on a boat, cool blue water glittering behind them.
But it wasn’t the location that stopped Rafe. It was the fact her hand covered his on her stomach. And looking closer, he realized she hadn’t been chubby in those pictures, she’d been pregnant.
Pregnant? Lisa?
He glanced across the room to where she was busy sorting papers in the trunk, paying no attention to him. He looked back at the photo. It was definitely her. No question about it. And because these pictures were with Stone’s research, it was pretty obvious the guy with her was none other than the dead archaeologist.
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