A Family Kind of Gal

by Lisa Jackson

  “Shh, honey, it’ll just sting for a minute.” Tiffany’s voice faded again. Disturbed, J.D. walked out the back door into the hot afternoon. The covered porch opened on to a wide backyard. A swing and two rocking chairs were pushed against the worn siding, and planters filled with blossoming petunias, marigolds and some other flower he didn’t recognize splashed color against the porch rail. A small foil pie plate had landed upside down on the top step, and a spray of mud, flower petals and grass littered the walk.

  J.D. eased past the mess and stepped onto the sun-dried lawn. Philip had bought this place—an investment of sorts, as their father was interested in expanding to this part of the state—just a year before his death. All the buildings—house, garage and carriage house—were painted a soothing dove-gray and trimmed with black shutters and doors. The white gingerbread trim and steeply pitched roofs added a touch of Victorian élan that, he supposed, appealed to nostalgic types who felt more comfortable in a rambling old manor than in a modern, utilitarian apartment house. Those renters would gladly forgo the convenience of a dishwasher for the gloss of original handcrafted woodwork.

  He took a long sip from his bottle and felt the cold beer slide down his throat. Philip had never intended that his small, second family would move down here, but then Philip hadn’t planned on dying suddenly at forty-eight. Scowling, J.D. took another cool swallow. A hornet buzzed past his head while a neighbor’s dog began to bark incessantly, only to be scolded by a woman’s sharp voice.

  “Cody, you hush!”

  The dog ignored her and kept yapping.

  A wail from a discordant guitar screamed down from the open window on the second floor of the main house. Squinting, J.D. looked up and saw his nephew standing in the middle of his bedroom. Biting his lower lip, Stephen bobbed his head, a hank of dark hair falling over his eyes while he banged on the strings. As if he sensed he was being watched, Stephen glanced through the window, and the guitar immediately fell silent. He disappeared from view.

  J.D. wondered about the kid. Would he make it? Stephen seemed about to embrace the wild side of being a teenager. Just as he himself had done. J.D. had had a broken nose, stitches running up one leg from an automobile wreck and a juvenile record that fortunately had been cleared before he reached adulthood. Stephen seemed about to embark on the same dangerous path away from the straight and narrow—a path that included drinking underage, joyriding in “borrowed” cars, shooting BB guns at mailboxes and generally raising Cain.

  “Hell,” J.D. muttered under his breath as Tiffany, with Christina in her arms, stepped outside.

  The little girl had a bandage on her chin as well as her knee, but she was clean again, face scrubbed, with no trace of the tears or dirt that had tracked over her round cheeks.

  Tiffany, too, had taken the time to release her ponytail and apply lipstick. Her glossy black hair framed her face which, aside from the touch of lipstick, was devoid of makeup. Nonetheless she was a striking woman. No doubt about it. With high cheekbones, pointed chin, straight nose and those golden eyes accentuated with thick, curling lashes, she had a way of making a man notice her. Add to the already fine features eyebrows that arched so perfectly they appeared arrogant, and the image was complete.

  “Are you Daddy’s brother?” Christina asked. Her eyes rounded as if she’d just made the connection.

  “That’s right.”

  “Daddy’s in heaven,” the imp said so matter-of-factly it was almost chilling.

  “I know.” J.D.’s jaw tightened.

  “He’s not coming back.”

  He exchanged glances with Tiffany, and her eyes warned him to be careful. “I know that, too.”

  “Are you staying in a ’partment?”

  “For a while,” he said and felt more than a trace of guilt.

  “How come?”

  Good question. He noticed Tiffany stiffen, the tremulous smile on her lips freezing. “Uncle Jay is here on business—for his work—and…he decided to visit us.”

  “That’s right,” J.D. said, mentally noting that it really wasn’t a lie. “But I’ll be in town a while.”

  Tiffany’s mouth tightened a little.

  Bored with the conversation, Christina wriggled, and Tiffany set her on the ground. “You know, Jay, I still can’t picture you working for your dad. You were always...well…you know.”

  “The black sheep, the son who swore he’d never work for his old man, the guy who did everything he could to keep his distance from anything remotely associated with Santini Brothers Enterprises.”

  His off-center smile was a little self-deprecating, and his eyes, gray as evening clouds, darkened as if a summer storm were gathering in his soul. Tiffany tried not to notice. She’d been caught in the web of those eyes before and wouldn’t make that mistake again. She couldn’t. He tipped his bottle back and drained it. “As I said before, the prodigal had a change of heart because his older brother died.” The grin fell from his face.

  She folded her arms over her chest and sighed. “Life has changed for us all.”

  “Hasn’t it, though?” His gaze touched hers so intimately she shivered, then looked away.

  “So what’s going on with Stephen?”

  If only I knew. “He’s nearly fourteen.”

  “And already in trouble with the law.”

  “Nothing serious,” she countered, ready to defend her son against anyone and anything, including his uncle if need be. Rather than meet the questions in his gaze, she went to the back porch, grabbed a broom and swept up the remnants of Christina’s mud pie.

  “Looks serious to me.” J.D. followed her and rolled his bottle between his palms.

  “You should know about being a rebellious youth.”

  He hesitated, then set his empty bottle on the rail. “That was a long time ago, Tiffany.” The way he said her name sent a stupid little thrill down her spine, and an unwanted memory started to rise to the surface of her consciousness, a memory that she’d sworn to bury so deep it would never appear again. But there it was, in her mind’s eye. Clear as the day it had happened: J.D. stripped to the waist, drips of sweat sliding down the finely honed muscles of his chest and abdomen.

  “You can’t just forget the past, pretend it didn’t happen.” Her throat constricted, and she wanted to call back the words, but it was too late.

  “It would be better if we could sometimes,” he said, and she knew in a heartbeat that he, too, was fighting unwanted memories; forbidden, painful recollections of something that, if acknowledged, would only cause more damage.

  This conversation with its intimate overtones was getting her nowhere in a big hurry. She swept the last of the drying pansy petals into the shrubs and noticed that Christina was busy plucking blades of grass and tossing them into the air. “Don’t worry about Stephen,” she said a little too sharply. “I can handle him.”

  “It’s a tough load. Teenage boy, little girl, part-time job and running this place.”

  “Not a problem, J.D. Well, at least not yours.” She forced a confident smile and wiped her hands on her jeans. No reason for him or any of the Santini family, for that matter, to know any of her troubles.

  “It looks like you could use a man around here.”

  “Excuse me?” she said, nearly stammering at his gall. “A man? Is that what you said, that I could use a man?” She let out a puff of disbelief. “Let’s get one thing straight, Jay. I don’t need a man. Not now. Not ever. I—we’re—just fine.”

  “Are you?” He hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans, and she was suddenly aware of his bronzed forearms, all muscle and sinew, where his sleeves had been rolled up. His fingers framed his fly, and she looked up sharply to see an amused smile slash across his face. Set defiantly, his jaw showed the first shadow of a dark beard, and his teeth flashed white as he spoke. “Let me tell you the way I see it,” he said, moving closer. Too close.

  Tiffany’s heartbeat quickened.

  “Your daughter is only three,
probably doesn’t really understand what happened to her daddy, your son is on his way to becoming a major delinquent, this house is falling down around you, and you’re dead on your feet.”

  “Is that what you see?”

  “On top of all that, you’re trying to deal with being a widow and single parent.”

  “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “These kids are my brother’s.”

  She rolled her eyes and fought a surge of anger. “Come on, J.D., you haven’t shown much interest in them until now. Why all of a sudden? Don’t tell me that just because you had a motorcycle accident you’ve had some kind of epiphany, because I won’t believe it. It’s not your style.”

  “And you know what my ‘style,’ as you call it, is?” His voice was low. Way too sexy. It brought back all those old, ridiculous emotions that she’d fought for much too long a time.

  “Unfortunately, yes. I think I already mentioned that you’re too independent, irreverent and self-serving to work for your father.”

  His eyes glinted with male challenge. “No doubt he’d agree with you, but he didn’t have much choice because he seems to think blood is thicker than water.”

  “Is it?” There was no use continuing this conversation. “Time will tell.” She turned toward her little girl. “Chrissie, I’m going into the house and check on Stephen. Stay in the backyard.”

  The imp, squatting and watching a butterfly flit from one dandelion head to another, didn’t reply.

  “I’ll watch her,” J.D. offered.

  “The gate’s locked, she’ll be all right,” Tiffany retorted. “You don’t have to—”

  “I said I’ll watch her.”

  Fine. What did she care? “I’ll just be inside,” Tiffany said rather than argue with the man. She stalked through the house and up the stairs, telling herself that she only had a few weeks with J.D. so close at hand, several months at the most. She could handle it.

  She had no choice.

  A Do Not Enter sign was posted on the doorknob of Stephen’s room. Tiffany ignored it, tapped lightly on the door and opened it herself.

  Stephen was half lying on his unmade bed, staring up at pictures of models and rock bands and fast cars that he’d taped to the ceiling. His guitar lay across his abdomen, and his injured eye was nearly swollen shut. He rolled it toward her as she approached. “I want you to come with me to the emergency clinic, and I don’t want to hear anything else about it,” Tiffany said.

  “Forget it.”

  “We’re going, and right now. I can’t take a chance with your eye. So come on and get into the car. On the way there you can tell me why you and Miles got into it.”

  “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Of course it was, Stephen. Otherwise you wouldn’t have landed at the police station sporting the biggest shiner I’ve ever seen.” She stepped over CDs and video games to stop at the window. Christina had climbed into the old tire swing and had conned J.D. into pushing her. Tossing her black curls over her shoulder, the three-year-old clung to the ropes suspending the swing from a branch of the old apple tree and laughed delightedly. Tiffany sighed. When was the last time Christina had laughed—really laughed? When had Philip pushed her in a swing, or helped her on to a slide, or sat on the other end of a teeter-totter? Never. He’d never had the time, and here was J.D.—with most of his weight resting on his good leg as he shoved on the worn black rubber—sending Christina into a slowly spinning circle in the shade of the leafy tree.

  Muttering under his breath, Stephen set his guitar aside and climbed to his feet.

  “The officer said there was talk about a girl.”

  Stephen snorted. “It wasn’t about a girl.”

  “Then what? Isaac Wells?”

  Stephen’s muscles tensed. Suspicion slitted his good eye. “I already told you that I don’t know nothin’ about him taking off.”

  “I know, but the officer on the phone said you were found with keys that might belong to Mr. Wells.”

  Stephen paled to the color of chalk.

  “No way.”

  “They have the keys down at the station. With Mr. Wells’s initials on them.” She paused at the door, and her son, chewing nervously on the corner of his lip, nearly ran into her. “You want to explain?”

  “They weren’t mine.”

  “Then whose?”

  His jaw worked in agitation. “I—I don’t know.”

  “Stephen—”

  “I mean it, Mom. I found ’em. In, in, the park when I was in-line skating.”

  “And you didn’t tell me or turn them in to the police?” Oh, how she wanted to believe him, but this was way too much of a coincidence.

  “No.”

  “You know that the police are going to take those keys out to Mr. Wells’s place. If any of them fit in the locks of his house or his cars, they’ll have a lot more questions for you. A lot.”

  Stephen’s lips clamped together, and Tiffany realized it was useless to argue with him at this moment. She’d give him a little time to think things over, but then she intended to get to the bottom of whatever it was that was bothering him.

  “Wait for me in the car,” she told her son, and stopped at the back porch where Christina, her small hand fitted snugly in J.D.’s large one, was skipping toward the house.

  “Unca Jay says we can get ice cream,” she announced.

  “Does he?”

  “After dinner.”

  “That’ll be a while, honey. I’ve got to run Stephen to the clinic. Come along.”

  She reached for Christina’s hand, but her strong-willed daughter thrust out her little bandaged chin. “Ice cream,” she ordered.

  “In a while.”

  “Now.”

  “Come on, Christina,” Tiffany said, exasperated. Who was J.D. to try and interfere? Give it a rest, she reminded herself. He was just trying to help.

  Or was he? She didn’t trust her brother-in-law’s motives. This sudden change of heart about his brother’s family had to be phony or, at the very least, exaggerated. Nervous sweat broke out between her shoulders.

  “I’ll come with you,” J.D. offered.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Come! Come!” Christina cried merrily as she tugged at J.D.’s arm.

  “I want to,” he said, his eyes serious as his gaze caught her. “I’ll watch Christina while you get Stephen stitched up.”

  “You don’t have to take care of us, you know,” she retorted, feeling cornered. “This... We…aren’t your duty. Don’t you have work or something better to do?”

  “Than look after my brother’s kids?”

  “They don’t need looking after. They have a mother.”

  “But not a father.”

  “Oh.” She laughed without a hint of mirth as a horn began to blast impatiently. Stephen. She started for the car. “So now you’re applying for the job. Substitute dad? Give me a break.”

  With lightning speed, he grabbed her arm with his free hand and spun her around to face him. “Give me one, Tiffany,” he said, his face suddenly stern. “From the moment I set foot here you’ve been baiting me and fighting me.

  “Maybe it’s because I don’t trust you.”

  His jaw slid to the side and he dropped her wrist.

  “Come on,” Christina insisted, pulling on his other hand. He waited. The car horn blared again.

  “Fine, fine! Come with us!” Tiffany said as she marched across the dry grass and fished inside her purse for her keys. Christina sprinted ahead and crawled into the back seat

  J.D.’s voice, calm and so in command that it irritated her, chased after her. “You know, Tiffany, we don’t have to fight.”

  She stopped short and her temper flared. “Of course we do, Jay. It’s what we’ve always done.”

  “Not always,” he reminded her, and she, remembering too vividly how intimate they’d been, how she’d let down her guard before, felt fire climb up her cheeks.

  “Th
ere are some things better left forgotten,” she warned before opening the door of her car and motioning Stephen to climb into the back seat. Grumbling, he did as he was bid, and J.D. slid into his recently vacated spot. He winced a little as he dragged his bad leg into the warm interior. Sweat dripped down the side of Tiffany’s face as she inserted the ignition key.

  Just get me through this, she silently prayed and flicked her wrist. The engine caught on the first try. If only the rest of the evening would go so well. But what were the chances, now that she was trapped with J.D. for the next hour or so? Slim and none leaped readily to mind, along with several wanton, and unwanted, illicit memories.

  J.D. slipped a pair of sunglasses on to the bridge of his nose, and Tiffany slid a glance in his direction. Wearing the aviator glasses he reminded her of the first time she’d seen him, and she willed that memory to fade.

  She didn’t have time to dwell on the past. Not now, not ever. They drove to the clinic in silence.

  Only much later, after Stephen had been stitched up and they had returned home to a late dinner, had she, after spending hours with J.D. and her children, finally unwound.

  Alone in the bathtub, with cool water surrounding her and the lights dimmed, she remembered, in vibrant Technicolor, the first time she’d come face-to-face with J.D. Santini.

  She closed her eyes, sighed, and finally let all her old emotions come to the surface. It had been nearly fifteen years ago, she’d been eighteen at the time and more naive than any girl should have been.

  She could almost hear the sound of champagne bottles popping over the strains of “The Anniversary Waltz” played by a pianist seated at a baby grand so many years ago. She’d been much too young, had thought what she’d felt was love for an older man and had never expected to run into the likes of James Dean Santini.

  But she had, and she remembered the first time she’d seen him as clearly as if it had been only this afternoon...

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tiffany rested in the bathtub and remembered that evening so long ago...

  “Look at that rock!” Mary Beth Owens, a friend who had graduated with Tiffany this past spring, reached for Tiffany’s hand and eyed the diamond sparkling on her ring finger. “Wow,” she breathed, her eyes as bright as the stone.