by Sey, Susan
He stared at her, mouth open, system utterly flooded with lust and shock. “I—”
“Oh, no, you just shut up. I’m talking now.”
He shut up.
“I don’t know what I ever did to make you hate me so much but you can just get over it, do you understand me? Your family is in crisis, Jax. Our family is in crisis.” She poked him again. Jax sucked in a sharp breath and tried not to moan. Oh, Christ, he’d thought the dimples turned him on. Angry Addy was flat-out destroying him. She was tough and mean and laying into him like some outraged fairy princess and if she didn’t stop poking him, he wasn’t going to be responsible for his behavior.
“Yeah, that’s right,” she sneered, utterly misreading his blank blink. “I said ours. And I know that pisses you off for some unfathomable reason, that your family is somehow mine, too, but it’s a fact and you can just swallow it. Because I love those people like they’re my own but lord help us all, Jax, they are not quite capable of taking care of themselves. So if this situation is going to come right at all, it’s up to you and me here. So I need you to stop fighting me.” She jabbed him one last time for good measure. “Whatever it was I did or said or was or am that bugs you so darn much? It’s time to get over it.”
“I—” He had to stop, clear his throat and hope like hell that she continued to hold that merciless eye contact. Because if she looked anywhere south of his belly button, the cat was out of the bag. “I don’t know if I can,” he said finally. Because it was true.
“Screw that.” She folded her arms and glared at him with magnificent disdain. “Why not?”
He pushed a hand across his mouth, wiping away the completely inappropriate grin trying to blossom there. Because, damn, she was hot, all pissy and mean. Addison Davis, being unrepentantly rude, right to his face. Who knew she had it in her? “It’s…complicated.”
“I’m pretty bright.” She smiled poisonously and Jax’s amusement was instantly buried under a tidal wave of lust. “Go slowly and I’ll try to keep up.”
Jax paused, groping helplessly for his next move. Because the only explanation that made any sense here was the bald-faced truth, and he knew it. Just like he knew he wasn’t going to give it to her. Not here, not now, not like this. Hopefully not ever.
Then Matty opened the door and hesitated there, wearing a powdered sugar mustache and a soaking wet shirt. “Hey, Addy,” he said. “Can I catch that ride up the hill with you now? I’m drenched. And dirty. Which reminds me—” He shifted seamlessly from put-out kid to sarcastic semi-adult. “—thanks for the fantastic afternoon, Jax.”
Jax gave that a magnanimous wave, his eyes pinned to Addy. She treated him to one more beat of that razor-blade smile — Shirley Temple in a smoking rage — then shifted to Matty and let the dimples bloom for real. Oh, Christ. She was killing him.
“Of course,” she said to the kid. “That’s why I’m here.” She turned back to Jax with ill-concealed malevolence and the dimples died. “Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Matty stepped over to the waste basket and began to wring out the hem of his shirt. Jax, grateful for the distraction, opened a desk drawer with his boot heel, pulled out a fresh t-shirt and tossed it Matty’s way. Grabbed one for himself while he was at it.
Addy said, “I also came to ask your brother to dinner at Hill Top House.”
Jax stopped, the fresh shirt balled in his hands. “You did?”
She treated him to that furious smile again while Matty wrestled free of his dirty shirt. “I did. I have something I want to discuss with the family and thought it would be easier if everybody heard it at once.”
“Oh.” Jax didn’t look away from Addy when Matty held up his shirt in question, he only hooked a thumb toward the laundry basket he kept in the corner for just such occasions. Matty launched it in for an easy two points. “I thought you wanted to talk about—”
“How rude you were to me this afternoon? No.” She lifted her chin, peered regally down her cute little nose. “But if you’re really attached to the idea of an apology, you could offer one.”
Jax let that go without comment, mostly because he knew she was right. He’d been a jerk. But front row seats to another guy frenching her on Main Street was more than his manners could handle.
Which was not something he was willing to discuss. At all. So he kept his mouth shut and his eyes on Matty’s violent struggle to put Jax’s dry t-shirt on his wet body instead. It was about the right length on him, Jax noted once the kid finally got it yanked on, but about twice as wide as his skinny self could fill up. He’d have to drag the kid into the weight room with him one of these days. Nothing wrong with skinny but a man wanted to be strong. And he was pretty sure, after the kind of work Matty had shown himself capable of today, that there was a man inside the kid he could work with.
“Well?” Addy said. She had her arms folded over her jacket, that lush mouth pinched tight, one clog actually tapping the linoleum. “Are you coming to dinner or not?”
“If this is about Diego’s Boob and Ass show, Matty already told me.”
“It’s not.”
Jax blinked, surprised. “No? What then?”
She smiled, dimples barely flickering. “Come to dinner, Jackson, and find out.”
He sighed, defeated. “I have to change my shirt.”
“You could change a lot of things.” She wrinkled her nose. “Definitely start with your shirt, though.”
Three hours and one family dinner later, Addy’s hands were still shaking. With fury, with terror, with remorse? She had no idea. All she knew for certain was that she’d finally unloaded on Jax, and with both barrels, too.
Not that he hadn’t deserved it. He had. He totally had.
He’d thought she’d gone to the fire station to apologize. Apologize! And why? Because a stranger had stuck his tongue down her throat in the middle of the street? Because she’d maintained her temper and risen above? Because she’d also refrained from punching Jax’s stupid lights out when he’d berated her for said rising above?
She picked up her wine glass and shot a broody glare to her right where he lounged at the foot of the table like the first born son he was. He gazed back at her with the same watchful equanimity he’d maintained from appetizers straight through dessert and said, “So, Addison. I understand you have something you want to discuss with the family?”
He sounded so indulgent and patient, like she was an overtired toddler instead of a dangerously angry woman. She set her wine down before she tossed it in his sanctimonious face.
“In fact, I do.”
“Oh boy,” said Georgie from her left and took possession of Addy’s wine glass.
On her right, Jax’s brows went up. “Would you like more wine, Georgie?”
“I might,” she said and knocked back a slug. “Let me finish Addy’s first.”
“Any reason Addy shouldn’t drink her own wine?”
“She doesn’t need it as much as I do. Not if this big idea of hers involves Granny Nan’s nasty old house and Willa Zinc.”
His eyes flew back to Addy. “This is about Davis Place?”
“And Willa Zinc?” Bianca asked sharply from the head of the table.
Addy looked to Jax and sighed. “You should probably just pass them the bottle.”
“Gracious,” Bianca said and sat back. Jax got up in silence and refilled his mother’s glass. Wisely, he left the bottle between her and Georgie.
“Uh oh.” Across the table, Matty looked up from the mountain of pie he was plowing through with dedicated devotion. “Okay, so before you all come completely unglued—”
“Nobody’s coming unglued,” Jax said with a stern look for his mother and returned to his seat.
“They always come unglued about Willa Zinc,” Matty pointed out.
“Not this time,” Jax said with an implacable serenity that brooked no argument. Addy clamped her molars together and Georgie belted back some more wine.
Matty gave that a beat of dou
btful silence. “Okay, then, so before you all engage in a productive and calm discussion about Willa Zinc like the rational adults you so clearly are, can I have my birth certificate?”
Bianca went still for the space of two heartbeats. She might’ve been carved from marble. Addy stared, concerned. “Your birth certificate?” Bianca asked, her lips as pale as her cheeks.
“Yeah.” Matty scooped up a massive spoonful of apple pie and melty ice cream. It was a testament to the riot going on in Addy’s stomach that she wasn’t even jealous.
“What on earth for?”
“Coach is taking us to see the Winnipeg Whiteouts this summer.”
Bianca blinked. “The Winnipeg what now?”
“Whiteouts.” Matty swallowed heroically. “You know, the professional lacrosse team? Coach used to play for them.” He shoveled in another enormous bite of pie and spoke around it. “He’s putting together a field trip for the team. We get to go into the locker room and meet the players and everything. Even do a practice on their field.”
“You need a birth certificate to meet the Winnipeg whatevers?” Bianca asked.
“Whiteouts. And yes, you do, because it’s in Winnipeg.” Matty tipped his dish and scraped up the last bit of melted ice cream. “Which is in Canada.”
“I’m aware.”
“So I need a passport.”
“But you’re under eighteen. And it’s Canada. You don’t need a passport to get into Canada, for heaven’s sake.”
Matty shrugged. “Coach says we do.”
Jax said, “He might, actually.” He met his mother’s sharp glance and said simply, “9/11.”
“Coach says we have to have them because we’re not traveling with our parents. I guess the paperwork takes forever which means the application was due, like, yesterday. So do I have one?”
“A birth certificate? Of course you have one.” Bianca waved an irritable hand. “You were born, weren’t you?”
“That’s the assumption.” Matty waited a beat. “So where is it?”
“Around here somewhere.” Bianca seemed to shake off whatever had gripped her for a minute there. She lifted her wine glass for a long swallow. “I’ll have to look for it.”
“But I can go, right?” Matty set down his spoon and leaned in. “On the field trip?”
“This field trip that I’ve seen no documentation for, and have received no communication whatsoever about from any responsible adult?” Bianca asked, brows rising. “That field trip?”
Matty’s mouth went hard, and Addy’s stomach pitched. Oh, she hated seeing Diego on her beloved boy’s face. “There was an email.”
“An email.” Bianca rolled her eyes. “Of course there was.”
Matty shoved to his feet. “I’ll go print it out for you.”
“You do that,” Bianca murmured into her wine glass. Georgie nudged the bottle a few inches closer to her mother’s elbow.
“Addy?” Jax said when Matty had stomped from the room. His eyes were dark on her, and more unreadable than usual. “You might want to hop in here. Before the discussion gets any more adult and rational on us.”
“Right.” She linked her fingers together on the tablecloth in front of her. “Georgie’s right, about Davis Place and Willa Zinc.”
“Crap,” Georgie breathed and took the wine bottle back.
“I don’t see what one has to do with the other,” Bianca said.
“I’m getting there.” She paused, pulled in a fortifying breath and said, “Okay, so as we’ve discussed, you need an income stream.”
Georgie lifted her replenished glass. “May Jason Bloom rot in hell and his hair model go bald.”
“Amen,” Bianca murmured.
“Your investments will recover,” Addy said, “given time and room to breathe. But this means you’ll need to be disciplined about your spending for at least the next five years, if not ten. Or longer. And since you’ll want to reinvest your gains until you’ve built your holdings back up, you need an income stream independent from your investments.”
“An independent income stream,” Bianca repeated cautiously.
“A job,” Jax translated, his eyes on Addy. “She means you need a job.”
Georgie drank.
Bianca blinked. “But I thought you were opposed to that teaching position at the university.”
“I’m opposed to a move,” Addy said. “But I think you should definitely consider teaching.”
“What, locally? Where?” She shuddered. “And please don’t say the high school.”
“I wasn’t going to. I think you should teach at Davis Place.”
Chapter 11
SILENCE. THICK, CONFUSED silence. Jax watched the color rush into Addy’s cheeks, and wondered what the hell she was talking about.
“It has massive potential as a high-end bed and breakfast for artsy amateurs,” she said quickly. “Davis Place does. And I think we should renovate it into exactly that.” She turned a high-beam smile on Bianca. “Especially if you, the woman who trained Diego Davis, agreed to teach there.”
It took Jax a couple seconds to recover his powers of speech.
“That,” he said finally, “is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“That’s what I said.” Georgie spoke mournfully into her empty glass.
“You want to turn Davis Place into a bed and breakfast?” Bianca asked slowly.
“For aspiring artists, yes,” Addy said, and held out staying hands. “Now I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out. I really think this can work. I haven’t drawn up a formal proposal or anything yet but—”
Matty stomped back into the room, a piece of paper in his fist. He slapped it down beside his mother’s plate. “There you go,” he said. “Documentation, right in your inbox.”
“My inbox?” Bianca turned slowly, and looked up at him. “Since when do you have access to my inbox?”
Matty froze, and Jax thought Oh, hell, kid. You have no poker face. And he didn’t. He shot Jax a panicked look that only served to underscore the vast canyon between him and their dead brother. Because while Diego’s eyes had been a deep, dark brown that concealed everything, Matty’s were a gun-metal gray that revealed everything. And the funny thing was, nobody knew where they’d come from. If Jax wanted to see Diego’s eyes, all he had to do was look down the table at his mother. Georgie’s were the same brilliant blue as their father’s had been, and his father’s before him. Jax’s own were an ordinary hazel, and he could thank Granny Nan for that, but Matty’s silvery eyes were a family mystery. It was the only mysterious thing about him, though, because holy hell, the kid could not lie. Not with those eyes.
“I, uh—” He started, but Bianca cut him off with a sharp hand.
“Matisse. You hacked into my email program?”
He collected himself enough to roll those transparent eyes. “Right. First I’m an artistic genius, and now I’m a computer hacker? Make up your mind, Mom. Which superpower are we going with?”
“The one that explains your ability to print out my emails.” She smiled without teeth, a close-lipped threat. “I’d like to hear more about that one.”
“What the crap, Mom. Your password to everything is DIEGO. All caps. It doesn’t take a genius.” He shoved both hands into his pockets and scowled. “So can I have my birth certificate now?”
Bianca picked up the paper, fished a pair of bright blue cheaters out of her hair and inspected it. “This trip is scheduled for the week before Devil Days.”
“So?”
“So you can’t leave town the week before the new show! It’s going to require an enormous amount of work from all of us, but especially from you.”
“From me?” Matty went still.
Bianca ignored him and smiled at Jax. “I’ve decided to bring out Diego’s early work.”
“The Boob and Ass period,” Georgie said helpfully.
Jax sighed. “Yeah, I heard.”
“I’d like to do a chronological layout,
like at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam,” Bianca mused. “When the viewer progresses through the journey alongside the artist, it allows him to truly appreciate each incremental step forward. And it makes those sudden leaps of ability and insight all the more stunning.”
He shot a look at Addy, who lifted helpless shoulders and made what-can-you-do eyes at him. “Not sure it’s the best idea you’ve ever had.”
Bianca only smiled. “It isn’t art if it doesn’t challenge the viewer, Jax.” She shifted her gaze to Matty, who hunched automatically, as if protecting his internal organs. “And it should definitely challenge the artist. Which is why we’ll also be displaying your work right next to your brother’s.”
He folded into his chair slowly, those silvery-gray eyes blank with terror and pinned to his mother.
“I know.” Bianca patted his elbow calmly. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier either.”
Jax stared at his mother, at the manic light in those dark eyes that said she was attached, firmly and irrationally, to this idea.
What the crap, he thought wearily. Just…what the crap.
“Oh, don’t look so terrified.” Bianca smiled warmly at Matty. “I know you can’t support an entire show just now.” She leaned forward urgently, laid her hand over his on the tablecloth. “But the potential in your canvases is so enormous, so raw. It would be a crime not to put them, to put you, in your rightful place next to your brother.”
Jax had no idea if she was right. All he knew was that the kid was practically vibrating in his chair, the rage and helplessness rising off him like smoke from a house fire. He glanced at Addy and found her gazing at his younger brother with a tender sorrow that took his breath away. Addy loved the kid, loved him with everything in her. He knew that, and had never doubted the sincerity of her attachment. But that sorrow, that aching grief he sometimes caught in her eyes when she looked at him? That was for Diego.
And that was Jax’s sorrow to bear, wasn’t it?