She would love to know if Grammy had said anything to Mitch about Kurt, but she didn’t want to ask. Grammy hadn’t known that Kurt was up here in Alaska, and there was no reason for Mitchell to know, either.
If Mitchell left when the snow cleared, that might be about the time that Kurt would drive up to see her. She hoped he’d bring her mentor, the person who would teach her the ropes. They might pass Mitchell going the other way, headed for the airport, which would be perfect. If Grammy had mentioned Kurt at all to Mitchell, she wouldn’t have had anything good to say.
Grammy had to be embarrassed about her rejection of Kurt. When Ally had tried to get her to talk about him, her usually poised grandmother had turned bright red. She’d refused to discuss Kurt and had forbidden Ally to mention him again.
“I take it you’re not going to finish that sentence?” Mitchell said.
She turned to find him watching her and knew she’d have to come up with some plausible ending to her comment. “Oh, she fired one of the staff over some little detail. But I have no right to judge. I’m sure she had her reasons.”
Ally hadn’t agreed with her reasons, though. A maid had put through a call to her grandmother from Uncle Kurt. Apparently the young woman had been bold enough to say that she couldn’t see the harm in a stepmother talking to her stepson on the phone. Grammy had sent her packing that very day.
“She did demand loyalty.”
“Yes, she did.” Which meant Ally had battled feelings of disloyalty from the moment she’d started communicating by e-mail with Uncle Kurt. Grammy would have hated it. But Uncle Kurt understood Ally’s need for adventure and Grammy never had. He’d encouraged her to live life to the fullest and not become a pampered society type. All this time he’d been her lifeline.
Ally decided to see if she could derail this discussion of Grammy, a discussion she’d been dumb enough to start. “Ready for some of that blackberry pie?”
“Sure.” Mitchell set his beer on the floor, walked over to the dresser and picked up the pie plate. “How about forks?”
“I didn’t get any.”
“Neither did I.”
As they looked at each other, both of them obviously considering whether it was worth going back to the kitchen, a muted moan of ecstasy drifted up from the first floor.
Mitch’s eyes widened. “Again? These people are practically senior citizens! Have they no shame?”
Ally laughed. “I guess all that tap dancing has kept the guy in shape.”
Escalating cries penetrated the floorboards.
“In shape is one thing.” Mitchell shook his head. “I think the guy’s mainlining Viagra.”
“Whatever he’s on, you won’t catch me trundling down to get the forks.”
“Me, either. The way this thing has been going, I wouldn’t doubt they’re doing it on the kitchen table. I’m staying upstairs until morning, and even then I don’t know if it will be safe to go back down.” He cocked his head as Betsy trumpeted the news of another climax. “That’s five.”
“Don’t you have to start over with number one?”
“Any way you count it, those two belong in The Guinness Book of World Records. And the night’s still young.”
“Which leaves us with the problem of a blackberry pie and no forks.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“We could eat it with our fingers.” She didn’t believe for a minute that Mitchell J. Carruthers, Jr., the guy who wouldn’t tolerate crumbs in his bed, would go for that. Even she knew it would make a big mess.
“Okay. Why not? It’s no crazier than all the other staff we’ve been involved with today.”
“But we need bibs if we’re really going to do this.” Ally went back into the bathroom, grabbed both bath towels and gave one to Mitchell. “Let’s sit on the floor and tie a towel around our neck. And I strongly suggest you roll up your sleeves.”
Mitchell sat down on the braided rug and put the pie plate in front of him. “There’s two-thirds of a pie here. Once we dig into it, no one else will want to touch it.”
“Then we’ll have to finish it, won’t we?” She sat across from him Indian-style and tied her towel around her neck. Then she rolled up the sleeves of her flannel pajama top.
Mitchell followed suit, pushing his sleeves up past his elbows.
To her surprise, his forearms looked muscular. Inviting, even.
He glanced at her. “After you, madam piggy.”
“I have to say, Mitchell, that this is turning out to be a most excellent refrigerator-raiding experience.” For all the anger she’d felt when he’d shown up this afternoon, at this moment she was kind of glad he was here.
“Even with the unplanned entertainment?”
“It added that extra challenge.” She realized that without Mitchell here, she might not have raided the refrigerator, and she could easily have ended up in her room all alone, listening to Betsy and Clyde go at it.
“It’s been a unique event, that’s for sure.” He paused to listen to the sounds from the first floor. “That’s either two or six, depending on which way you want to keep score.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to face her at breakfast in the morning.”
“Who says they’ll be finished in time for breakfast? We might be on our own for days.”
“Then we’d better fortify ourselves.” Ally dug her fingers into the pie and came up with a gooey handful that smelled heavenly and dripped purple on her white bath-towel bib.
Pushing her fingers into the pie turned out to be an extremely sensuous experience. The thickened juice oozed through her fingers and the pebbled surface of the blackberries rolled against her palm in a moist caress. Add in Betsy’s climactic vocalizations, and it was almost enough to give Ally an orgasm on the spot.
Her body humming with tension and anticipation, she started eating the pie. Then she glanced over to see if Mitchell actually had the nerve to put his hands in the middle of that dessert. Maybe not.
He was watching her, instead. Then she realized exactly how he was watching her, with definite lust in his brown eyes, and her already supercharged libido went into overdrive.
She hadn’t meant to seduce him with this pie-eating deal. Or herself, for that matter. Yet that seemed to be what she’d accomplished. Okay, so maybe the way he was looking at her got her even hotter. So maybe she wanted him to nail her right here and now, on the floor, in the middle of eating blackberry pie.
But then what? She’d be stuck with him. If he was infatuated now, he’d be over the moon if he got lucky tonight. He would rightly assume that she wanted him to stay in Alaska. He’d still be here when Uncle Kurt arrived. He’d be in the way.
So no sex for either of them. It would only cause problems. Once he started eating the pie, she should be safe. Making a grab for her while he had his fingers covered with blackberry juice would require a level of abandon she didn’t think he had, despite the door-bashing incident.
“Dig in,” she said. “Before I end up eating the whole thing by myself. It’s really yummy, Mitchell. You don’t want to miss out.”
Chapter Nine
Mitch knew exactly what was yummy, and he wasn’t thinking about the blackberry pie. Ally had no clue what a temptation she dangled in front of him as she calmly ate the pie with her fingers. He felt like a long-at-sea pirate sighting his first woman in months. He ached. He drooled. He hardened.
He craved those plump lips that were stained with blackberry juice. He wanted that eager tongue that lapped thick syrup from between her fingers. He wanted that tongue to lap in other, more personal places. His personal places.
He wanted to get closely involved with her mouth and taste the blackberries she was munching with such abandon. Then he would move on, eliminating her bib, her pajama top, and especially her pajama bottoms so that he could sample fruits sweeter than any blackberry ever invented.
For one glorious moment she looked at him as though she’d go for that routine. If that look h
ad stayed in her green eyes another second, he would have shoved the pie plate aside and deployed his eager forces. Unfortunately, her expression had changed, and he could guess what was going on.
Her mind had taken over the controls. Although her body might have been swayed temporarily, due to the circumstances, her mind hadn’t changed its tune. Mitchell J. Carruthers, Jr., anal nerd-boy hired to do boring paperwork for her grandmother, was not the man for Ally Jarrett, Alaskan adventure seeker.
He should be relieved that she’d taken control. He’d been about to lose it, and that would definitely screw up the program. Telling himself that he was, in fact, extremely relieved, he settled for the consolation prize. He dug his fingers into the blackberry pie.
The experience made him think of sex, but in a former whorehouse with a landlady like Betsy and a next-door neighbor like Ally, he didn’t have much choice. He’d naturally associate everything with sex. The place was saturated with it.
“Good, huh?” Ally gouged out another handful of pie. “I’ll bet this will stain our fingernails, so Betsy will know we ate with our hands.”
“Considering the fact that she offered us condoms before she left for the Top Hat, I don’t think blackberries under our fingernails will shock her much.” For the first time he noticed that Ally’s nails weren’t long and artfully polished. They were short and neat, without a trace of polish, not even clear.
Yet her grandmother had indulged in a biweekly manicure until a few days before she died. He remembered that because she’d asked him to make his reports during her scheduled manicure. She’d been a dedicated multitasker.
“What?” She licked her fingers and gazed at him.
“I was just thinking about your grandmother’s manicure sessions.”
“Ugh. Don’t remind me. Before you showed up she’d schedule me in there to make use of that time.”
“Yeah? To do what?”
“Probably the same thing you had to do—read her the minutes of one of her endless charity board meetings or else a prospectus on some stock she was considering. Am I right?”
“Pretty much.” He couldn’t tell her that he’d been advising Madeline on security issues inside and outside of the mansion, plus relaying any worries about Ally’s current friends, and most of all, telling Madeline what Kurt Jarrett was up to these days.
“Man, I dreaded those manicure sessions.” Ally held up her hand, the nails facing him. “That’s why I go bare. One sniff of nail polish and I’m comatose with boredom.”
He’d never thought of not wearing nail polish as going bare. Right on schedule, his penis started to dance the tango as Mitch pictured her going bare everywhere, prancing around the room in her bare nails, her bare breasts, her bare tush. God, he was a sorry case.
“So, are we gonna play poker?”
He thought not. He’d had about all the seductive exposure to Ally that he could stand for one night. “How about we postpone it till tomorrow night?”
She looked disappointed. “There’s always the chance you won’t be here tomorrow night.”
“With the way the storm’s blowing out there, I think there’s an excellent chance I’ll be here tomorrow night.” So she still planned on getting rid of him. He might have to bribe Rudy to put Slewfoot Sue on the disabled list. Without a shuttle to the airport, Mitch would be forced to stick around.
She gazed at him for several long seconds. “Mitchell, I’m afraid I don’t believe you when you tell me that you came up here because of some important papers I have to sign. I think you really do have a thing for me.”
He tried to think of a snappy response and came up empty. He was developing a thing for her, so she wasn’t totally off track. And he couldn’t tell her the real reason he was here, either.
“I’m not upset about that,” she said. “In fact, I’m touched.” Then she gave him an endearingly serious look. “But you have a job to do back in L.A., and I’m starting a new career up here in Alaska, so even if I returned your feelings, which I’m sad to say I don’t, there’s no way we could have a relationship.”
Relationship, maybe not. Hot-and-heavy fling, definitely. He thought of suggesting it, rejected the idea. He’d continue to let her think he was infatuated, though. “I understand.”
Her expression softened. “It’s better if you go back, Mitchell. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m tougher than you think.” He almost smiled when he said that, but managed to maintain his sincere-but-saddened look.
“Oh, I’m sure you are! I never meant to imply that you were weak. It’s just that having you stay on, when we both know it’s hopeless, would be… well, awkward.”
“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” Just Fort Knox safe.
“I meant awkward for both of us, Mitchell. It can’t be easy for you, having me near and yet knowing that nothing will ever change.”
He thought plenty had already changed. She’d never entertained thoughts of sex with him before tonight. And he knew good and well she’d entertained them a little while ago.
“I know exactly what you need,” she said.
“Do you?” He couldn’t resist putting a little heat into his gaze.
Sure enough, she blushed. “I mean, other than that. You need to find the right woman for you, and I’m not that woman. You need someone who’s… more like you.”
“In what way?” By getting her to answer that question, he could check out how his nerd disguise was working.
She hesitated, obviously searching for a description that wouldn’t offend him. “You know… someone quiet and methodical.”
He nodded. So far, so good.
She brightened, as if encouraged that he was accepting her description. “You need someone who likes a more structured life, someone who’s happy with a steady routine. I mean, look at me—running off to Alaska, abandoning the life I’ve known for twenty-six years, giving up all the advantages of a big city and the warmth of sunny L.A. so I can freeze my butt in a one-Bronco town like Porcupine. That’s so not you, Mitchell.”
“You’re right about that.”
“See?” She looked triumphant. “We’re all wrong for each other. I’m ready for change and adventure, and you’re… you’re…” She seemed to have run out of sympathetic adjectives to attach to his blah self.
“Boring?” he supplied helpfully.
“No! I don’t mean that. You’re incredibly reliable, and that’s wonderful. The world needs all kinds of people, and you’re great at what you do.”
He certainly hoped so, if that meant he could help her avoid the clutches of a guy like Kurt. “I accept the label of boring,” he said. “Don’t think you have to make me sound like Russell Crowe. I know my strengths and I know my weaknesses. You’re not going to damage my fragile ego.”
She regarded him silently for a few seconds. “That’s good,” she said, a new note in her voice. Was it interest? “That’s very good. Self-confidence is a valuable thing. But I think hanging around here is liable to erode—”
“Look, Ally, you’ve made it clear that you’re not the one for me. I accept that. But this sudden dash to Alaska scared the shit out of me. Before I leave, I have to establish for myself that you’re going to be okay up here.”
“I will be fine up here.” The rebellious light was back in her eyes. “Perfectly fine. These are good people.”
“So far, I agree with you. The ones I’ve met seem like good people. Fixated on sex, but good people. I haven’t met everyone yet.”
A muscle in her jaw worked. “It’s a small town. I’ll bet you could meet them all in an hour. Then off you go.”
“Like I said, I care about you. For my own peace of mind, I need to know that you’re in good hands before I leave.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She stood and used her towel to wipe the blackberry juice from her mouth. “Now you sound like an insurance company commercial. I’ve tried to spare your feelings in gratitude for what you’ve done for Gramm
y and for me, but the truth is—in case you’ve missed the message—I don’t want you to stay. I don’t care a whole lot about your peace of mind, to be perfectly honest.”
He stood and pulled off his towel so he could wipe his mouth, too. Ultimatums weren’t as effective when you had blackberry juice smeared all over your mouth, and he was about to deliver one. “Tough.”
She stared at him. “Tough? Is that what you just said?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Can I fire you?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe. You’d have to come back to L.A. and talk to the lawyers who drew up the trust.”
She bristled. “And wouldn’t you just love that? You’d get me to abandon my Alaskan adventure and fly back to L.A. so I could be bogged down in legal details trying to get you fired, which I might not even be able to do. Probably can’t do, if I know Grammy. She put some clause in there that requires me to prove you embezzled or something equally drastic. I doubt there’s a provision for me to fire you because you’re a pain in the ass.”
He kept his face free of expression as he gazed at her. Madeline’s instructions had been quite specific in that regard and Ally didn’t have grounds to get rid of him. He’d make sure she never had grounds. And he would do the job Madeline had hired him for, whether Ally liked it or not.
“And here I was starting to think you were an okay guy. But an okay guy would grab a clue and leave. He would not stay and inflict himself on a woman just for his own peace of mind.” She paused, as if gathering more insults to hurl at him. “Haven’t you ever heard that saying, that if you love something, you should let it fly free?”
“I’ve heard it.”
“Well? What do you have to say about that?”
“Once I’ve checked out your fly zone, you can flap around in it all you want. But I’ve been charged with administering your sizable estate. Can you imagine the truckload of paperwork I’d have to deal with if anything happened to you? I hate to even think about it.”
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