“It wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the new chief of police would it?”
Marissa’s eyes widened. “How…”
“Hon, people talk. People around here like nothing more than to talk.” Georgia leaned her hip against the stainless-steel countertop. “I caught a glimpse of him a while back. He’s grown into quite a looker.” She waggled her eyebrows then scrunched up her nose. “Even though he’s got to be close to forty, makes me feel like a dirty old lady saying so.” She chortled. “Your daddy didn’t mention Mr. Jackson.”
“He doesn’t know… That is to say, it’s new… It’s nothing. Nothing’s going on between us.”
“If you say so. I wouldn’t turn him away.” Georgia waggled her eyebrows again. “He looks like he could make you forget your name, address, maybe even how to breathe.”
Marissa’s pulse raced at the memory of Jax’s kiss. The feel of his hands on her. Her face heated and she ducked to keep Georgia from seeing, though the sharp-eyed chef didn’t miss much. “I brought some of my cupcakes. Would you like me to go get one for you?” She started to pull her hand from the ice.
“You sit yourself still.” She pushed away from the counter. “I’ll go grab one. Which do you recommend?”
“Knowing your sweet tooth, I’d say the double fudge.”
Georgia patted her hips. “Sounds like heaven. Be right back.”
Marissa was left alone in the kitchen as the waitstaff had filled up trays, then went out as well. The hum of the appliances and the echo of silence off all the stainless steel had always calmed her nerves. It wasn’t until she’d opened her own shop, had her own kitchen that she realized it. Her pop psychology told her it stemmed from the two women who’d been like mothers to her. Mrs. Humphries in her home kitchen as well as the one at the Bistro and later Georgia and her kindness. It was no wonder she herself had gone into baking.
“There you are. I wondered where you’d gotten off to.” Callie pushed through the door. “What happened?” Her eyes widened at Marissa’s hand submerged in the bucket of ice.
“My own clumsiness. It’s no big deal.” She removed her hand, let the rag fall into the bucket then wrapped a dry towel around it. She frowned. “Why were you looking for me?” Marissa couldn’t figure out this girl—woman. She had a hard time with the fact that Callie was a grown woman, not the young girl who’d had the entire club as her playground. Why was she going out of her way to be nice, to seek her out? Before she could help herself, she asked just that question aloud.
“I, um…” Callie’s normal poise fell in increments. Her smile wavered, her lower lip quivered even. She wrung her hands together in front of her. “Jax told me not to say anything. But I feel so horrible—”
“What does Jax have to do with anything?”
“—it’s been eating me for years.”
“Years?” Marissa stood up from the stool. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Someone cleared their throat. Marissa turned to find Jax standing in the doorway just as Callie blurted out, “I’m the reason you got fired.”
Jax slapped his hand to his forehead. He’d told his sister it was a bad idea to say anything. And if the look on Marissa’s face was any indication, he’d been spot on the money.
Marissa’s eyes narrowed. Her lips thinned out and she barely moved her mouth as she asked, “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s my fault you got fired.” Callie’s hands fluttered around as if she didn’t know what to do with them. “I threw a stupid red dress my mother made me wear into one of the washers. I grabbed a fresh stack of towels and tossed them in, too. I know it was stupid and childish. I was mad at my mother and I hated that dress.”
When Marissa did nothing but stare, Callie kept talking. “I don’t even know how the washer was turned on. When I left it wasn’t going.” She pinched her lips together for a moment. “I never meant for you to get into trouble.”
“My dad lost his job because of that. He worked here for close to twenty years and your mother fired him because she said I couldn’t be trusted.” Marissa fisted her hands at her sides. One, Jax noticed, was wrapped with something.
Callie gasped. “I didn’t know. I swear.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “I feel so horrible. I’m so sorry.” She said it through her fingers.
Jax wasn’t sure which of them was closer to breaking down. Marissa looked ready to take a swing, and with Callie, the waterworks could start any moment. He walked over and got between the two of them.
He set his hands on his sister’s shoulders. “You need to go back out to your party.” He leaned close to her and whispered. “This is why I told you not to say anything.”
Callie, seeming shell-shocked by Marissa’s revelation, merely nodded and let him lead her back over to the door that led to the banquet room. When he turned back to Marissa, she hadn’t so much as twitched. He moved in front of her until he was close enough he could see the dark flecks in her light brown eyes. Eyes that, if they could, would’ve bored a hole right through him.
“You knew?”
Jax shook his head. “Only recently. She told me the other day.”
“And you told her not to say anything to me about it.” She said it as a matter of fact. No question. And no anger.
At least she wasn’t going to explode.
“I didn’t see what it would help. She was a kid, didn’t mean anything toward you or your dad by it.” Jax moved closer, but Marissa eased back.
“Is this why she’s been so nice, almost bending over backward to give me business or invite me to things?” She waved her bandaged hand toward the party.
Jax shrugged. “I don’t know. Up until the last month, I hadn’t spent more than five minutes with her in years.” It was a sad testament that he didn’t know his little sister any better than Marissa might. “For all I know, she treats everyone like they’re her new best friend.”
Marissa snapped her fingers. “That’s it exactly. New best friend, indeed,” she mumbled under her breath, but Jax heard her fine.
“Callie doesn’t have a malicious bone in her body. She’s just the opposite of…”
“Your mother,” she finished when he didn’t. “If I didn’t already know that, you’d be hauling me off to jail for punching your baby sister.”
Jax chuckled. “I kind of got the feeling you were holding back.”
“A herculean effort on my part, I assure you.” Marissa eased back onto a stool and swiped a hand over her face. “I was so pissed. For years. I felt slighted by your family for what you did to my dad. I didn’t care about my job that much, but for him… It was beyond demeaning.”
“I—”
She held up her hand and stopped him from speaking. “You didn’t have anything to do with any of it. You weren’t even here at the time. And like you said, Callie didn’t do it to be malicious. She was just a kid. I remember her back then. Knobby knees and skinny arms.” Marissa shook her head and turned her back to him. “Your mother dressed her like some kind of warped doll. I get it,” she said over her shoulder. “I do. It doesn’t mean I can just release all the anger that’s built up over the years. But at least I know why it all happened now. And why Callie seems hell-bent to include me in everything. At the same time, I’m not stupid enough to pass up business.” She glanced at the slender watch on her wrist. “That doesn’t mean that I’m going back out there, though. I might as well go home.”
Jax wasn’t ready to let her leave. He moved up behind her, so close her warmth seeped into him. “What happened to your hand?” he asked as she cradled it in her lap. If that damned kid had done something to her…
“I’m a klutz.” She removed the rag and showed him the dark blue bruising and swelling.
“Damn, Marissa.” He gently took her hand in his, ran his thumb over the abraded skin. He wanted to press her for more info. Wanted to know what happened, but all thought fled when she shifted.
Marissa leaned back into him, reste
d the back of her head against his chest. For a moment he worried she’d be able to feel the way his heart pounded just from her simple touch. It’d been so long since he’d been willing to share even the smallest part of himself with anyone else. With Marissa, he wanted to ask about her day. Tell her about his. Do the things couples did. He wanted her. Plain and simple.
His free hand came up and settled at her waist. The smooth silk of the dress was nothing compared to her skin, but in the corner of one of the club’s kitchens it was all he would allow himself. There would be time yet, if he had anything to say about it.
A deep sigh shook her entire body.
Jax stopped rubbing her hand. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” She tilted her head up, looked him in the eyes. “You never do anything wrong,” she said almost on a sigh.
“What?” Jax frowned down at her.
“Not since high school.”
“What does high school have to do with anything?” He didn’t look angry, maybe a little confused.
“You were the king of high school,” she explained.
Jax snorted. “The king? What an honor.”
“You seemed to soak it up.”
“On the outside it was great.” He rubbed his hand down her arm. “But then I realized I didn’t know who was hanging around me to be near ‘the king’ or who was really my friend.”
“You poor thing,” Marissa teased but her smile fell. “You’re serious. You had so many friends.”
“I had a few good friends. The rest were hangers-on.” Jax wrapped his arms around Marissa, snuggled her up against him. “No serious girlfriends. No one like you.”
“Like me?” Her heart pounded heavily.
“Someone who would call me on my shit one second and whisper sweet nothings in my ear the next.”
A smile pulled up the corner of her mouth as she rested her head on his shoulder. “And you think I’d do that?”
Jax arched one eyebrow upward. “One can hope.” He leaned forward and meant only to place a chaste kiss on her lips. The moment he touched her, the sparks from the golf course came racing back. The woman lit every fuse he had, and some he hadn’t known of.
Her lips parted, invited him to deepen the kiss, which he did with no hesitation. He’d have had her on the counter and writhing beneath him moments later if someone hadn’t cleared their throat behind him.
Marissa stiffened and pulled away, careful to keep her hand tucked close to her body. “You need to get back to your sister’s party.” She stood, then turned and pushed on Jax’s chest until he was an arm’s length away. “I’m going to head home.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
“No need. I parked it with the valet.” She gave a quick chuckle. “Will you tell your sister good-night for me? While I completely understand, I need some time to…absorb it all.”
“Sure.” Jax nodded.
“And tell her, if she still wants the cupcakes I’ll have them ready, but she doesn’t need to feel some weird obligation to order them.”
“No weird obligation. Got it.”
She hesitated, looked like she might say something else to him, but just looked past him. “Bye, Georgia. It was great seeing you again.”
Georgia pushed past Jax and captured Marissa in a bear hug. “Don’t be a stranger.”
Marissa waved her hand in a quick farewell then hurried out the back door of the kitchen.
Georgia didn’t say so much as a word to Jax. She gave him her famous scary stare—one that had sent many a sous-chef running from the kitchen—and went back to preparing food. When her knife came down for the third time with just a little too much heft, Jax backed to the door.
“I’ll be going now, myself.”
One gray eyebrow arched upward. “You hurt her…” Georgia brought the blade down once more with a metallic twang as it bit through whatever was on her chopping block.
Jax’s balls shriveled up just a bit and he pretended he didn’t know what Georgia was talking about. “You hear that? I think Callie’s calling me.”
Chapter Twelve
Jax went in search of his sister. He was tired and with Marissa gone, wanted to head out. He’d gone nonstop all day at work trying to get caught up on paperwork between the umpteen phone calls he’d gotten. Callie had left several messages throughout the day for him on his personal phone, but it’d been close to dinnertime before he could even retrieve them. He’d pushed all his work on the back burner, sat down for his dinner—which he’d ordered in from Calista’s Bistro—and he’d finally listened to her message.
“Hey, big bro. We’re having a party tonight, remember? I sent you an invitation a while back. Anyway, I hadn’t heard if you were coming or not. I’d love to see you. And you owe me one.” There’d been a long pause. He’d thought she’d hung up but then she said, “Marissa’s coming.”
He’d wrapped up the rest of the paperwork on his desk and made a point to get out of work at a decent enough time so he could make the party. For his sister.
Yeah, and if he told himself that enough he might be able to convince one person.
When he left Georgia in the kitchen, his sister was out on the dance floor with several other women. They were all laughing and shaking in time to the music. He wasn’t about to interrupt that.
He snagged a sweet tea from the refreshments table. His stomach grumbled even though he’d stuffed down dinner at his desk. He found a couple of cupcakes that looked suspiciously like Marissa’s. He took the last of the chocolate and had just finished eating it when someone stepped next to him.
“You couldn’t pay me enough to go out there in the middle of that.” Wes—his brother-in-law to be—clapped him on the shoulder. “Are you brave?”
Jax chuckled. “Not in the slightest.” An awkward silence hung between them. Jax didn’t know Wes enough to ask about his business or much of anything else for that matter. He was wracking his brain to come up with something, anything, when the music ended. Callie spotted them both, waved and left her friends under the mirrored ball.
“My two favorite men in the whole wide world.” She eased up on her toes and looped her arms around Wes’s neck to give him a long, noisy kiss.
Jax shuffled and looked anywhere that wasn’t at Callie.
“Are you uncomfortable, big brother?” she asked when she finally came up for air.
“I, uh…no.”
“Ha! I think you are.” She looked past him and her smile fell. “Where’s Marissa?”
“She went on home.”
“Aw man.”
“No, it’s okay. She’s not angry. She said she understands but needs time to absorb it all. And she also said to tell you, you don’t have to order the cupcakes from her out of some weird obligation.”
Callie’s baby blue eyes widened, “I wasn’t. They’re fabulous. I wouldn’t order food just to make someone like me.”
Jax held up his hands. “You don’t have to convince me.”
His sister’s face scrunched up. “I was going to ask her if she was feeling better.”
“What do you mean, better? Because of her hand?”
“No.” She shook her head and looked a little confused. Then she opened her mouth and hesitated.
Jax paused in lifting his tea to his mouth. “What’s wrong with Marissa?”
“It’s nothing specific.” His sister sighed. “I was at her shop earlier today to place my order for the bridal shower—which I totally want and intend to keep.” She nodded. “Marissa looked terrible and when I told her so—”
“You told her she looked terrible?” Jax let his hand fall to his side, careful not to spill his drink.
“Well, yes. We are…we’re… I hope we still are friendly enough for that kind of honesty.”
Jax covered his face with his hand. Only his sister would take meeting someone a few times to friendship.
Callie set her hand on his arm. “She wasn’t mad. She agreed with me even. Well, sort of. Anyway, that’
s why I wanted to talk to her. To see if she was okay. She said she didn’t get much sleep last night.”
Heat billowed through Jax as his mind shot to his and Marissa’s escapade past the eighth green. He’d been up half the night himself, turned on and frustrated beyond belief that Marissa had said they needed to back off. Keep their distance from each other.
“Did you hear what I said?”
Jax shook himself. “What?”
“You’re not listening. She thought someone was snooping outside her house.”
Jax’s shoulders stiffened. “Did she say that?” Why hadn’t she called him? Why hadn’t she told him five minutes ago? “Did she see someone?”
“Not exactly, no. I think she chalked it up to her imagination, but your imagination doesn’t keep you a little scared and awake all night.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes it can.” Hell, his had spun any number of delicious ways he could get to know Marissa better. Not one of them had been the least bit conducive for a good night’s sleep.
“Jax.”
“Callie.”
“Aren’t you worried about her? I know you like her.” Her singsong taunt hit him just as it had when they were younger.
“Whether I like her or not is totally irrelevant.” But he liked her more than he was willing to admit to anyone. The fact that she hadn’t called him last night meant either the noise was nothing more than her imagination as she’d told Callie or that she didn’t want to see him anymore. Though he was sure if it had been something, she wouldn’t have hesitated to call in to the station.
Jax shook his head. “Look, Cal, stop trying to play matchmaker.”
“I’m not. Not much. I don’t have to do much anyway if the way you two look at each other is any indication.” She gave a long, exaggerated blink. “You know, you should go and check in on her.”
“I’ll think about it, Cal.” He pulled his sister into an embrace. “Now go on out there and have fun.”
Callie beamed up at him. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek then ran back out to her friends.
“You know she’s going to keep at you over Marissa,” Wes said.
Baker’s Law Page 13