A Very Daring Christmas (The Tavonesi Series Book 8)

by Pamela Aares

  Cameron could’ve sworn all the air was sucked out of the room and from her lungs when Jake walked in. He wore a white T-shirt that clung to his body like melted butter on a cold spoon. His jeans were slung low and molded perfectly to his hips and everything in between. She dragged her eyes away and to the boy beside him.

  Parker harrumphed. “My cousin here has unilaterally decided that I can’t be on your team. That I, instead of the kids, must judge the contest.”

  The boy with Jake let out a whoop. “I wanted to make the cookies. Judging’s no fun.”

  “I warn you, Sabrina, Tyler’s a ringer.” Parker shot a triumphant gaze at Cameron. “You’re outclassed before you even start.”

  “Blind tasting, Parker. And no playing favorites,” Sabrina said as she nudged him toward the door.

  “I know when to fold.” He winked at Jake. “Leave the kitchen to this gang and come riding with me. Apparently I need something to do for the next couple of hours.”

  “I think I’ll stay,” Jake said, shooting Cameron a devilish look. “I can take the heat.”

  “Where’s Sophie?” Tyler asked Sabrina.

  “On her way.” Sabrina turned to Cameron. “She’s my cousin Alana’s stepdaughter. She—”

  “She doesn’t know how to cook,” Tyler said with a smug smile. He looked up at Jake. “But you do, right?”

  Jake shook his head. “I nearly burned my mother’s kitchen down last week frying chicken.”

  Cameron stifled a laugh when Tyler’s face turned stormy.

  “Last chance to go riding,” Parker said with a challenging smile.

  Hope flared in Cameron. Let him leave, let him leave, let him...

  Jake nudged Tyler. “We can handle this, can’t we, sport?”

  At the word sport, Tyler pulled himself up to his full height. He came up to Jake’s belt. Cameron was not going to think about what resided under Jake’s belt.

  “Okay,” Tyler said. “But we have to cook my—”

  “Ah, ah, ah.” Sabrina wagged her finger at him. “No giving away what you’re making. Rules are rules.”

  Parker laughed. “Except when they’re not.”

  At Parker’s words, Jake froze midmotion. Maybe he was changing his mind. Maybe he’d ride off into the sunset and spare Cameron the hard work of ignoring him.

  “Here’s Sophie,” Sabrina said as a girl with about three inches on Tyler came bounding into the room. “Get out of here and let us ladies get on with our triumph.”

  Cameron didn’t miss the adoring look in Jake’s eyes as he watched Parker lift Sophie like she was a sack of feathers and twirl her in the air until she giggled.

  He might think he was immune to children, but his actions said otherwise. He was a natural with them and cared about their interests.

  But even as her heart threatened to soften toward him, his words accusing her of manipulation came zinging back. Too bad he was an arrogant jerk. Just too flippin’ bad.

  “Pass me the eggs,” Tyler said in a stern voice to Jake.

  Jake suppressed a smile. Tyler had looked up a recipe on the tablet in the kitchen. For the past fifteen minutes they’d raided the pantry. Jake had resisted using the tablet to go online and read his emails. A day free from cellphones and emails had already made him want a whole lifetime away from all that. Sabrina had checked hers, though, and had excused herself to deal with her agent, leaving Cameron and Sophie facing off with him and Tyler. The scene in the kitchen was like Iron Chef gone haywire.

  He’d refused Parker’s invitation to ride again because he wanted a chance to settle things between him and Cameron, maybe find a tolerable peace. He’d fought the truth, but while he’d smacked ball after ball in Ryan’s batting cage the previous afternoon, he discovered he couldn’t fool himself any longer. Sure, she’d pissed him off, made him feel like a piece of meat, like a thing to be won with soft talk and a warm body. And though he’d thrown harsh words at her in anger, they didn’t need to carry all that forward into their friends’ holiday gathering.

  Cameron and Sophie lined up brown sugar and vanilla on the counter in front of them. Cameron had been avoiding his eyes. He tried not to stare as she rose up on her tiptoes to reach for a container of flour on a high shelf.

  “The eggs, Jake,” Tyler repeated, drawing Jake back from his thoughts.

  Tyler was doing a great job of not being homesick. His mother had reluctantly gone with her fiancé, Alex’s cousin Adrian, to Rome to a dedication of some sort for Adrian’s late mother. Alex and Sabrina had taken Tyler under their wing for Christmas. So far he was enjoying every minute of his newfound freedom and lapping up the attention that Alex lavished on him.

  “You mean these round white things?” Jake chided. Tyler was taking the competition seriously. Hell, he would have too at Tyler’s age.

  Cameron’s laugh crossed to him from the other side of the counter.

  He loved the sound of her laugh.

  “Just so you know, you’re not fooling us,” Sophie said. “We know those sorts of fake moves. My dad says baseball players live and die by knowing when to fake.” She peered up at Cameron. “Don’t trust them. Especially Jake. Dad says that Jake is the wiliest coyote. You know what that means.” Sophie didn’t take a breath. He could feel Cameron’s suppressed smile from across the cool granite. “It means,” Sophie went on, “that Jake can know what you know and yet pretend that he doesn’t. That’s what coyotes do. It’s how they catch things. But I like coyotes. There are lots of them out at the ranch. We have to keep the cats away from them, but—”

  “Pass. Me. The flour.” Tyler’s stern-voiced command broke through Sophie’s monologue. “We shouldn’t let girls in the kitchen. They don’t stay focused. My mom says focus is everything. That and having a heart for what you do.”

  The kids were killing him with their sweet, deep truths. He glanced at Cameron. This time she didn’t slide her gaze away. There was truth in her, a truth that he suspected lined up with his, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

  He’d been mad about the trashy article, but he guessed her words had been taken out of context, if not made up completely. She wasn’t the kind of woman who’d say those things to a tabloid reporter.

  “Just crack the eggs, Jake,” she said with a soft smile.

  So he did. Right onto the countertop. Tyler’s look of horror melted quickly into a laugh. Cameron raised a brow and then burst out with a guffaw. Sophie crossed her arms and knit her brows.

  “Wily, wily, wily,” Sophie said. “I bet he did that on purpose, Cameron.”

  When Sophie planted her fists on her hips and gave him a perfect copy of her father’s on-field glare, Jake was the one to laugh. But to protect her feelings, he pretended to be laughing about himself.

  He scooped the eggs up with a spatula and into the yellow ceramic bowl in front of Tyler. Cameron laughed again. Her delight shouldn’t have made a warm spot spread in his chest, but it did. And the heat was both soothing and arousing.

  “Good fake. We’ve got them now,” Tyler whispered. “We have the greatest recipe too. Snickerdoodles are Parker’s favorites. Well, next to my chunky chocolate chips.” He nudged Jake and added in a louder voice, “If we win, will you take me to the batting cage tomorrow?”

  “That’s bribery,” Sophie said.

  “Not if you’re on the same team,” Jake shot back. “Sure, sport. And not if, but when.”

  The handful of flour that sailed into his face had him blinking to clear his eyes.

  “Hey!”

  Sophie, giggling behind one hand, pointed to Cameron. Cameron grinned. She had a ballsy side to her that she hid well, but he loved it. He hadn’t seen that spark since the day at her cottage. He wanted to leap over the counter and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe. To hear her cry out his name as he took her to the places every woman loved to go. And the shock of it was, when he’d taken her to that deep, sensual place the night they’d made love at her cottage, she’d taken him right alo
ng with her.

  Tyler scooped up a fistful of flour and launched it at Sophie, covering the granite counter in a fine spray of white. Sophie grabbed an egg and, with an aim her shortstop father would’ve been proud of, hit Tyler smack against the side of his head. Tyler yelped and reached for the last egg.

  Jake locked his fingers around Tyler’s forearm. “We might need that.”

  “Ahem.”

  They all turned toward the door to face Alex.

  Alex gestured to the mess. “This is what the future face of Nike does in his spare time?”

  Cameron shot Jake a confused frown that morphed into a chilling stare.

  He wiped flour from his face. “That news traveled fast.”

  “It’s all over the web, so everybody knows.” He wiggled his brows. “And watch out—this will poke a very big hole in your argument with Coco about not flaunting yourself for profit or charity. She’ll be after you full force to pose for her calendar.”

  Another handful of flour flew across the room. All three adults whirled to face Tyler.

  Tyler shrugged, wiped the egg off the side of his head with a dish towel and began industriously stirring the contents of the bowl in front of him.

  “Truce.” Alex held up his hands. “Jake, I need a favor. Sabrina told me there’s a problem with the oven—evidently some wire loose to the thermostat. You’re the only person here today who knows one electrical wire from another.” He laid a set of pliers and a roll of electrical tape on a clean spot on the counter.

  Jake brushed the flour off his forearms and dusted off his T-shirt. “Wouldn’t want our host to be cooked along with our prize-winning creations. Just tell me which piece of equipment the stove is,” he said with a chuckle.

  Alex laughed along with the children. But Cameron turned away and began measuring sugar into a cup.

  Jake fiddled with the stove and couldn’t help but smile as Tyler and Sophie both clamored to give Alex their version of who started what first. With a deft twist of the pliers and a wrap of electrical tape, he reconnected the thermostat wire.

  “Evidently you’re visible when it suits you and the money’s good enough.”

  Cameron’s icy statement was barely audible over the squeals of laughter from the children.

  He pushed away from the stove and faced her. He didn’t need a thermostat to measure her irritation. Her crossed arms said plenty.

  “As are you, Miss Kelley.”

  He had his reasons for taking the Nike contract, reasons that were his alone. It was his body, his life, and he could decide what he’d do, and when, with both. Besides, she’d been the one to throw his name to the media hounds in that nasty way.

  The anger he’d thought he’d beaten back flared anew.

  She stepped toward him. “Look, if this is about the article in Star Weekly, I can explain.”

  “The article that said I was pond scum?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Close enough.”

  She tapped his arm.

  Any other time, it would’ve been a simple touch. But as she closed her fingers on his forearm, he knew it wasn’t.

  “It was a mistake, a misunderstanding. I didn’t think—”

  “Clearly you thought plenty.” He pulled away from her touch. Damn, the woman made it hard to keep his head on straight. Especially when she touched him. Hell, all he had to do was think about her and his thoughts scrambled.

  He turned and walked to where Alex was showing Tyler the grip for a fastball. Using an egg. He’d fallen into a theater of the absurd.

  Jake grabbed the cookie recipe and handed it to Tyler. “If we’re to win this baby, we’d better get cracking.” He gestured to the gas range. “Stove should be working just fine now,” he said to Alex. “Plenty of heat.”

  Alex eyed him. There wasn’t much the guy missed. And the tension between Jake and Cameron didn’t require any special sensitivity to register.

  “Fastballs later,” Alex said as he headed for the door. “You too, Sophie. No reason a girl can’t learn to throw hardballs.”

  Sophie dashed over to Cameron. “We can beat them. Our cookies have icing. Parker loves decorations.”

  Cameron gave Jake an unreadable look, her face as blank as an unplugged screen. “Oh, we’ll beat them, honey. One way or another.”

  The tightness in Jake’s chest was more than a warning. The opening in his heart that he’d known would be dangerous pulsed. He rubbed at his chest.

  Rules had their place, and he should’ve stuck to his. He would now. Cameron Kelley was a force he wouldn’t be messing with.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Why so glum?” Sabrina asked as she joined Cameron at the barn. “It’s a hayride and a Christmas-tree hunt.”

  Cameron crossed one jean-clad leg over the other and scooted over on the hay bale to make room for her friend. “My PR team only managed to line up one interview, and it’s not until the second week in January. The LA Times wants to leverage the article with the announcement of the new film.”

  “Seems like a good strategy.”

  “Better than nothing, I guess,” Cameron admitted. “But the clock is ticking. The Water for Life project needs funding soon, or it’ll go the way of all good ideas that politicians ignore.” She toed the hay-strewn brick floor of the barn. “At least I trust the reporter the Times has assigned. I’m not about to risk talking to anyone that Roberta or I don’t know. That last so-called interview was a disaster.”

  She filled Sabrina in on how she’d been duped by the sweet-smiling Vi.

  “Jake’s angry.”

  Her eyes shot to Sabrina’s. “How do you know he’s angry?”

  “Any guy would be. Well, anybody not used to being the sensational focus of tabloid lies and gossip. But Alex told me. He said that there was tension in the kitchen this afternoon.”

  “Like I said, spies in the castle.”

  Sabrina’s eyes lit with a smile. “We leave the spying to the Italian side of the family. Although Coco’s dad has threatened to retire after this year. The cyber-cartel sting last month and the resulting publicity have pretty well blown his cover.”

  “He’s a real spy?” Cameron asked. “And you can just retire from being a spy?”

  “Probably about as much as a person can retire from being an actor or a baseball player or from any other passion—I think love stays in the blood forever.”

  “I’m hoping that’s not true.”

  Sabrina sat on the hay bale and put an arm around Cameron’s shoulders.

  “Hey, I should’ve told you that Alex invited Jake up here. But you are so stubborn. And since Elliott, you’ve been gun-shy. You wouldn’t have come. And I just had this feeling about Jake and you, and—”

  “Forget it, Sabrina. I hit a nerve. I mean, okay, I did try to get him to go to DC to pitch the project to the president. But what I didn’t tell you is that I asked him after I’d slept with him. After he’d blown my mind and body with the most amazing sex of my life. After I realized I was way more into him than I wanted to be.”

  “Seems like a good time to me.”

  “Not if you’d seen his face. So stony. So cold. He accused me of seducing him to get him to do the PR. Seducing him! As in using my body to get him to fold, to do what I wanted. Like the sex—and my interest in him—like it was all an act. And I can’t forget the feeling I had at the table that morning in the cottage, like I’d stepped into some sort of other realm, like it wasn’t even me he was seeing. But he sure didn’t stick around to talk about it.” She kicked the heel of her boot against the hay bale. “And while I feel terrible about that Star Weekly article, yesterday when I was in the kitchen and heard he was doing the Nike contract, I got mad.”

  “Good for you. I’ve never seen you get mad. It’s about time. You let Elliott stomp all over you.”

  “Waltz is more like it. I didn’t even know how much he was using me until the end. Our relationship was more like a merger—the perfect Hollywo
od couple. And then when he saw a better career opportunity, he bolted. He actually said that I’d see it was better for business. For business! His, of course.”

  “I know that experience, sister,” Sabrina said. “Derrick nearly ate my heart with a spoon before I wised up. At least you grew up in Hollywood. When I first landed, I wasn’t prepared at all.”

  Cameron snorted. “Evidently the experience didn’t do me much good. I swore I’d only date normal men. Swore it. You need to help me stick to that.” When Sabrina didn’t respond, she added, “Jake’s doing everything he told me he wasn’t interested in doing, that he absolutely wouldn’t do. Public face and all that. And I believed him. Why do I believe these guys?”

  Sabrina pulled her close, and she fought the tears stinging her eyes. She was not going to let another guy with a raging ego rip her heart out.

  “I mean, Jake can do an ad for a big lump of cash, but he can’t put in a good word for some kids? They’re dying down there. And not just in Dominia, all over the world. I jabbed at him, and I shouldn’t have; it is his life, of course it is. But I know how much he could help if he wanted to.”

  The barn door flew open, and Alex and Jake stood on the other side. Backlit by the sun, they looked like a poster for every woman’s dream. But Cameron knew better now. Only one of the men outlined in the sunlight had a heart she could trust. And it sure wasn’t Jake Ryder.

  “Let’s get this shindig up and running,” Alex said. “The kids are down by the winery. I just need to grab an ax.” He turned to Jake. “Entertain these ladies while I try to remember where I put it.”

  Within fifteen minutes Cameron found herself riding on the back of a horse-drawn wagon and cruising with five kids out to the back acreage of Trovare—with Jake squeezed in beside her and Sophie on her other side. She’d tried to cajole Sabrina into sitting next to Jake, but her friend had chosen to drive the wagon with Alex. Though she’d tried to talk it down, her anger jabbed under her ribs. He’d told her he wouldn’t be a public face and then sold out to Nike? Would have his face and body plastered on billboards and buildings all over the world? It was all she could do to sit there and not give him a piece of her mind.