by Sarah Hegger
“That’s an impressive vocabulary you’ve got there.”
She nodded and put her head back again.
Josh inched closer.
She smelled incredible, sweet and tart all at once. He needed to stop doing this shit or he would have to slap his own face.
“I came by it honestly.” She shrugged. “Being dragged around the world like we were. You learn all sorts of things they don’t teach you in school.”
“Like what?”
“Like what a wanker and a git are.”
Josh let the silence stretch as she took another sip of her wine. He wanted behind those walls she built up around her.
“You also learn how much it means to have a home,” she said, surprising him.
It wasn’t much, but it was another one of those tiny chinks in her armor. Through them he caught tantalizing views of the woman she kept hidden behind her ugly jeans and faded sweatshirts.
“Yeah.” His home life had been very different. His mother and father had, for the most part, had a good marriage. His father, Des, was the sort of old-fashioned man whose word was his bond, but it also made him a stubborn, intractable ass sometimes. Richard took after their father. At least he had been as stubborn and set in his ways until his recent marriage.
Josh was always closer to his mother. Like most middle kids, he was often cast adrift between his overachieving big brother and Thomas, the baby. Some baby. All six foot four of heaving bulk. Thomas had been home for Christmas, tanned like leather and almost blond from the Zambian sun.
Despite their differences, though, they had been well cared for and loved. Des and Donna had erred on the side of the old-fashioned when raising them, but Josh was grateful for it now. A man’s integrity defined him, and his strength was a responsibility. It was why he still wished he could go back and redo that last conversation with his father. To assure Des that he got it now: women were to be nurtured, loved, and cherished. Holly would have his ass for even thinking it.
“Yeah,” he said. “I bet it does.”
“Still.” She pulled the corners of her mouth down. “I’ve seen some amazing places.”
“Like?” Outside the bank of windows, the sun made its way down and the soft pink light bathed her intense features, making her appear vulnerable. She did a good job keeping that part of her hidden, but it was there. “Where did you go after Willow Park?”
“First my father got some work on a project in Dubai and then we moved on to Malaysia.”
“Tell me.”
He nearly ground his teeth to stubs as the shutters came down and she disappeared from view.
“Dubai was hot and compound living. Malaysia was wetter, but still hot, and we lived in a small apartment.”
“I’m sure there was more to it than that.” He pushed to see if she would let him in again.
“I suppose.” She pulled a face. “My father got married again in Malaysia.”
“Really? How was that?”
“Boringly predictable. Young new wife is not happy to share space with grown daughters of former wife. I can’t blame her,” she said after a short reflection. “I was pretty much set as the family matriarch, Grace takes shit from nobody and the twins were teenagers in every sense of the word. It was a lot.”
“And your mother? What about her?”
She didn’t move a muscle, didn’t breathe.
He’d hit pay dirt.
Her stillness swirled like a vortex between them. “I don’t talk about my mother,” she said in a cold, still voice.
“No?”
“Back away from the cliff, pretty boy.”
“Okay.” He held up his hands in a gesture of defeat. “But I would like to register my objection to the term—again. And have it put on the record I prefer the more gender neutral term stone-cold fox.” He threw down the charm and eased out of the moment as he safely tucked away the snippets of information he’d gleaned.
Holly Partridge responded with a smile and sipped her wine. She didn’t know it, but he was a man who loved a puzzle, and he was slowly and painstakingly putting the pieces of her together. She was a sweet, tempting enigma he was unraveling and drawing inexorably closer. Holy Holly Partridge had no idea, but she was in big, big trouble.
Josh had a sneaking suspicion he might be in the same sort of difficulty.
Chapter Eleven
It came to Josh in a dream. Didn’t it always? You could spend your waking hours racking your brain for the answer and it wouldn’t come. The harder you tried, the more elusive the solution became. It hid, laughing its ass off at you, waiting until you were drifting somewhere between the nether and the now, and then it hit you like a knee to the balls.
Josh rolled over and groaned. He wouldn’t sleep anymore tonight, or this morning rather. Holly sleeping down the hallway had played havoc with him for most of the night. Before Laura, he would have cruised on down the hall and tried his luck. What a dickhead he’d been. He’d made a promise to his dad at the funeral that he would do better. Not until Holly barreled back into his life had he been seriously tempted to break that promise.
It didn’t stop his libido from prowling in its cage and snarling and clawing at the restraints. Watching her pert ass sashay away from him into the spare bedroom took an act of self-discipline worthy of a medal. The door had closed behind her and he’d stood there like an overeager, horny puppy, holding his breath and willing her to turn and give him the signal, even the smallest sign, that it was on.
He sat up and swung his legs over the bed.
The conversation tonight must have got his subconscious moving because he’d finally locked onto the last conversation he’d had with Holy Holly all those years ago. Maybe despised wasn’t too strong after all.
He had some groveling to do. Josh went to throw water on his face. Coffee first.
Holly battled to fall asleep and stay that way. Her mind wouldn’t rest long enough for her to drift off. She was worried about Portia for certain. And Emma, which was pretty much a perpetual state. Also, there had been a tone in Grace’s voice that had got her thinking.
However, it wasn’t family churning in her mind in the wee hours of the morning. Nope, that dubious honor belonged to Josh. He kept popping into her mind and sticking with the stubbornness of old bubble gum on the bottom of your shoe.
Their conversation tonight had been enlightening and disturbing. It was easier to keep him at arm’s length when she could put him into a neat box and label him trouble. A more sensitive and caring Josh presented way more danger.
Even with her limited experience, Holly got that she was attracted to Josh. Blisteringly so.
Steven barely shifted the needle out of tepid.
Josh, on the other hand, redlined it all the way, and it made her twitchy and uncomfortable in her skin.
Some people weren’t designed for the grand passion. They weren’t made that way, and she was one of them. Sure, every once in a while she got the feeling perhaps she was missing something. And there were times when she got restless, dissatisfied even. Relationships, however, weren’t built on chemistry and wild, unruly surges of emotion.
She was a pragmatist and a realist. Take Romeo and Juliet, for example. She would have checked for a pulse before offing herself, which she wouldn’t have considered doing in the first place. As such, she had no trouble recognizing how colossally insane it was to be attracted to a man who, up until two days ago, she wouldn’t have spat on if he were on fire.
The worst part being she liked him. God knows he could make her laugh, but he also had a way of knowing what she needed and when she needed it. It made her feel special and treasured. Her feminist soul writhed like a worm on the hook, but it couldn’t be denied and she relished every moment of it. He got her in a way Steven didn’t even come close to.
Steven! Holly didn’t want to think about Steven. Her disloyalty sickened her. Six years was a long time to invest in someone. She would bet Josh Hunter hadn’t had a relationship lasting s
ix years.
A noise outside her room grabbed her attention and she snapped on the light switch. Footsteps padded down the hall toward the kitchen. It was probably Josh.
She turned off the light. Holly lay in the dark like a quivering vestal virgin, frightened he might have noticed and terrified he hadn’t. He was messing with her head.
A soft knock on the door and Holly froze, at least the part of her brain responsible for coherent thought. She battled to hear much over the insistent drumming of her heart.
“Holly?” Quiet enough it wouldn’t wake her if she were asleep, but loud enough to be heard if she wasn’t. She could pretend not to hear.
“Yes?” Way to go on the keeping-your-distance thing.
“Are you awake?”
“Why?”
Josh’s chuckle made her smile. Super job of keeping a level head on your shoulders, Holly.
The door opened a crack. His silhouette shadowed the doorway. “Too late; I already saw your light.”
“What do you want?”
“Don’t ask leading questions, Holly.” He padded toward her on near silent feet.
Holly pulled the covers up to her chin. They were alone and she was in bed. A small thrill of deliciousness snaked through her as he moved closer.
“I had an epiphany.” The bed dipped beneath his weight as he made himself at home.
“What the hell are you doing?” She glared through the dark at him.
His hip bumped hers and she scooted over. “I’m sharing my epiphany.”
Holly struggled into a sitting position, feeling way too vulnerable lying on her back. “Get off my bed.”
“Jeez, you’re a grouch.” He settled his weight on his hands.
“It’s the middle of the night.” And you’re in my bedroom, on my bed, and my nerve endings are breaking into a happy dance.
“Really?” He got comfortable. “Hey, stop kicking me.”
“You’re on my bed and I want you off.”
“Just wait.” He fastened his big hands around her legs below the knees. She could hear the laughter in his voice and make out the light flash of his teeth. “I want to talk to you. I was going to wait until morning, but you’re awake, so I might as well get this over with.”
“Get what over with?” Holly wriggled her legs. “Let go of me.”
“Only if you promise not to kick. God knows what you could hit in the dark.”
“Are you turning weird on me?” The dark was too intimate, and she leaned over and snapped on the light. Mistake, because she got a good look at Josh and her pulse leaped.
“Shit.” He recoiled and let go of her legs to cover his eyes. “And no.” He shook the bed as he laughed. “I am not turning weird. Man, Holly, you’re a crazy woman. It’s probably why I like you so much.”
He dropped his hands and grinned at her. He was only half dressed in a pair of track pants and his hair was mussed, as if he’d been running his fingers through it.
Holly’s hand twitched to brush it straight.
“Why don’t you do us both a favor and put a shirt on?” She looked pointedly away from the warm, hard muscle perched within inches of her hungry fingers.
“You could always give me my T-shirt back.” He indicated the one she was wearing.
Holly threw him a withering glance and folded her arms over her chest.
He pulled a regretful face. “No?”
“Why are you here, Joshua?” He needed to go before she did something stupid.
“Actually …” He ran his hands over his face. His expression grew serious. “I was lying in bed, thinking about you, and I got it. All of a sudden.”
Oh, damn but that did hot and shivery things to her. “You were lying in bed thinking about me?”
“It was the night of the Valentine’s dance, wasn’t it?”
Her mind shifted, so fast it made her gape at him. She was sixteen going on seventeen, and he was the boy who made her heart go pitter-patter. The same heart skipped a beat and started again sluggishly.
It was, indeed, that night. It was a night she had replayed again and again in her teenage mind.
“The reason you’re mad at me is that night.” He didn’t seem to need any response. “I asked you to dance and you said no.”
Holly’s throat was dry. The night was burned on the back of her brain. “Actually, I said I made it a point never to dance with anyone who was prettier than me.”
“And I said, ‘Then you must never dance.’”
“And everyone laughed,” Holly said.
It was in the open and Holly was—deflated. It sounded inconsequential, one of those childish interludes that came and went, over as fast as it had begun.
“Fuck. I was an insensitive little shit when I was a kid.” He broke the silence. “It was the first time any girl had ever said no to me and I didn’t take it well.”
“No, you didn’t.” Holly tried to dredge up the hurt and the self-righteous anger, but it wasn’t where she’d last left it.
He sat on the end of her bed without morphing into a monster. What she had was a rumpled, sexy man wearing a ferocious frown and looking as guilty as hell.
“You were a little shit,” she said. “It crushed my teenage ego.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I can see how it would. Is there an expiration date on apologies?”
“But it wasn’t entirely your fault.” Holly surprised herself with that one. She was even more amazed she meant it. “It was a very bad time for me, and your rejection came on top of some other stuff that had nothing to do with you.”
“It was a mean thing to say.” He shook his head. “I had forgotten all about it. I never meant it, you know?”
“It was mean,” Holly said. “And it did hurt, but I think there was probably a lot more going on than just that night.” Okay, that was some sort of half-assed evasion. “I know there was a lot more going on.”
“I only found out later your mother had died. I tried to come around and apologize. I got to the door, but the movers were there. You were leaving.” His shoulders shifted up and down in one of his habitual shrugs. “And I guess I put it away and forgot about it. It is why you hate me, right?”
“Despise.”
“Mildly dislike,” he said. “I was young and stupid, Holly.” He gave a short laugh. “You want to hear the funny part?”
“What’s the funny part?” she asked when he remained silent.
“I was so hot for you,” he said.
Holly’s mouth dropped open and she shut it. Josh had been hot for her? She would never have guessed that. She made some vague, choking sound of disbelief.
“Man, was I hot for you, Holly.”
Searing heat shot through her core. Holly shivered and brought her knees up to her chest.
He took one of her hands and threaded his fingers through hers.
She was hypnotized by the way her palms seemed to throb in time with the steady pulse of her blood through her veins.
His thumb brushed the inside of her wrist. “I used to watch you all the time when you weren’t looking. It blew my tiny mind I was crazy for the girl who was making my life difficult. You had this short pleated skirt.” He stopped himself and cleared his throat. The smile he gave her was pure predator. “That was one hell of a skirt.”
“You’re making this up.” It shocked Holly how much she wanted to believe him.
“I swear to God, I’m not.” He raised one hand like he was taking a vow. “And you.” He tightened his fingers around hers. “You were cool and aloof. It made me want to go ape shit. I could get any girl I wanted, any girl.” He wasn’t being arrogant. That was the way it had been. “But the one I wanted didn’t want me. I didn’t like the rejection.”
“You were laughing with your friends,” she said. “Over by the door to the gym. You were looking at me and laughing. I thought you only came over as a joke.”
“You thought wrong,” he said. “My friends were laughing at me. They said I didn’t
stand a chance.”
“They were right, you didn’t.”
“Apparently not.” He made a rueful face. “Anyway, I was lying in bed feeling like the world’s biggest shit because I saw that look on your face again. As I said it, you got this look on your face, and I knew I’d hurt you far more than I meant to. I only meant to salvage my pride. It occurred to me it might be time for an apology.”
It was a bizarre feeling. She’d been hugging this close since she was sixteen. It should have taken an Act of Congress to make it go away. “Okay.”
“Okay what?” His gaze drifted to her mouth.
“Let’s hear this apology.”
“I really am sorry, Holly. I shouldn’t have said it, and I should have apologized long before now.” His eyes went deep, deep blue, almost purple. A girl could drown in eyes like his. “If my dad had known about that night, he would have been ashamed of me then, too.”
Huh. Apparently a sincere apology would do the trick. And she had to get real here. Perhaps Josh had only ever been the proverbial straw. It had been an awful two years.
By the time the family arrived in Willow Park, she and Grace had given up trying to fit into new schools. The sisters stuck together and got through the school day as best they could. There was no point making new friends. The family would only be leaving soon, and with Melissa getting worse by the day, there was no way to invite their new friends home. The Partridge family circled the wagons to keep their secrets.
Her mother’s illness spiraled out of control during Holly’s last year of high school. Holly had isolated herself from the rest of her class, desperate to hide the truth from friendly, interfering eyes. Her schoolwork was the one thing she could master, and she’d thrown her spare energy into it. So had Grace, but for different reasons. Good grades were going to be Grace’s ticket out of the insanity.
“Holly?”
“Yes?”
“Would you like to dance with me?”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. Better late than never.”
“Get a grip.” For an insane moment, she nearly said yes, but that was a bad idea for more reasons than she could name. She pushed against his solid shoulder. “I’m not going to dance with you. It’s four in the morning and you are just too smooth.”