He spread his palms. “Then I’d have to give my agent fifteen percent. The IRS would stick their hands out too. The damned extras would want scale.” He shook his head. “Hardly worth it.”
She laughed. It shivered through him. He gripped the arm of the sofa so he wouldn’t get up and go to her.
“So, how long you been singing with Zach?”
“Years, on and off. Mostly outside the States.” She uncrossed her arms and braced her hands on the desk. Her shimmery blouse went taut across her breasts.
Somehow, he kept his eyes on her face. “Ma’s got all his CDs. She says you’re not on any of them.”
“I don’t like the studio.”
“So you’ve never recorded?”
“It doesn’t feel like performing. There’s no give-and-take with the audience.” She shifted again, picking up a glass paperweight shaped like a dachshund.
Holding it up to the light, she frowned. “This dog has three legs.”
“Tripod,” he said. “He’s my dog. Want to meet him?”
“Um, what about my father?”
“Sure, he can meet him too.” Popping up before she could gather her thoughts, he put a hand on the small of her back and steered her out through the glass doors, where the rose garden’s scent rolled over them like a wave.
She paused, inhaling. “Em brought me through here earlier,” she said. “It’s lovely.”
“Yeah, Ma’s into roses.” While the scent had her dazzled, he linked his fingers through hers and got her moving toward his part of the house. “Speaking of Ma, remember, she’s supposed to think we’re on a date.”
“Whoa.” The effect of the roses wore off. “This isn’t a date.”
“We’ll pretend. Just to make her happy.”
Keeping hold of her hand, he palmed them through another door, into his living room. Ma and Pops were stretched out in recliners, sound asleep in front of the tube.
He shut the door with a thud, and Christy hissed. “Quiet, you’ll wake them.”
He opened the door again. Slammed it.
Nothing.
“They slept through a tornado once,” he said in a normal tone.
But Tripod woke up and popped off Ma’s lap to sprint-hop to him. He scooped the runt up in the crook of his arm.
“What happened to him?” Christy asked, eyeing the scar where the missing front leg should have been.
“It was already gone when I found him wandering on Sunset.” Kota tickled Tripod’s belly so he wriggled like an eel.
She reached out and did a one-finger scratch. “Who named him Tripod?”
“Me. I call him Tri, for short.” He grinned. “Cute, right?”
“And original.” She looked up at him.
And she smiled.
His swallow stuck in his throat like a piece of steak. For a moment he gagged. Then he blasted a cough, a titanic explosion that made Tri lunge for safety.
Safety, meaning Christy. The dog hit her chest like a bowling ball. Her arms clutched him instinctively, but Tri wasn’t satisfied. Down her shirt he went, nose in her bra, tail sticking out the neckline.
Christy squealed, staggering backward, hitting a lamp that hit the floor like a gong. Her heels skidded on wood. She scrabbled for traction.
Before she could fall, Kota caught her arm and reeled her in against his chest. Tri’s ass wriggled between them. They each stuck an arm down her shirt.
Kota felt around more than he had to.
And together they pulled Tripod up and out.
Chapter Five
TRI SNUGGLED IN the crook of Kota’s arm. The dog’s silly grin and wagging tail seemed to say, Big fun for the guys. Kota didn’t disagree.
Tugging at her sagging neckline, Christy narrowed her eyes at him. “You groped me.”
He was all innocence. “Must’ve been Tri.”
“Please. He’s got one foot. You’ve got five fingers.”
“We could replay it in slo-mo, see who did what.” He shifted Tri closer, peering down her still-gaping blouse.
Her hand slapped her chest. “I know the difference between a hand and a paw.”
She was blushing, he noticed, right down to her bra. The heat rose in waves from her skin, stirring his blood like a mating call. He tightened the arm that still cinched her waist, pinning her with his biceps.
She moved her hand from her chest to his, but she didn’t push him away. Her eyes went dark, almost black. Her lips parted, drawing his gaze. Drawing him in.
He dipped his chin . . . and Pops farted in his sleep.
Instantly, she pulled back and gave Kota’s chest a hard shove. And the gentleman Ma raised loosened his grip, even as the animal within roared his fury.
Ma sat up, wakened by Pops’s fart, when she could sleep through Armageddon. “Kota?”
“Right here, Ma. Christy’s with me.”
“Oh dear. You caught us napping.” She reached over and shook Pops. “Wake up, Roy, we’ve got company.”
Pops scrubbed a palm over his face. “I wasn’t asleep.”
The same conversation they’d been having for years.
Kota nudged Christy forward. “Pops, this is Christy.”
“Hello, young lady.” He stood up from his chair and gave her hand a courtly kiss. “I hear you’ve got my boy in a tizzy.”
“I do?”
“You must. He hasn’t brought a girl home to meet me since sixth grade. And that Verna Presky wasn’t nearly as pretty as you are.”
Christy smiled, then she laughed, a happy, husky sound that had Pop’s eyes going wide. The look he shot Kota said he got it, all right.
Ma took things in hand. “Christy, dear, you sit right here.” She directed her to the love seat that right-angled the recliners. “Roy, turn that TV off. Kota, get the poor girl some dinner.”
Good thinking. She looked kind of peaked. Kota hit a button on his phone. “Tony, get some food to the family room, stat.”
“I’m fine, really,” Christy said to Ma. “I know I look like a mess—”
“Don’t blame me,” Kota cut in. “Tri nosedived down her shirt.”
Ma snorted a laugh. “The little pervert does that to me all the time.”
Kota dropped the little pervert on her lap. Tri turned a tight circle, then settled down with both eyes on Christy.
There was a tap on the door, and a waiter wheeled in a cart loaded with covered dishes.
“That was fast,” Christy said.
“When Kota says jump, they jump.” Ma wagged her head like she couldn’t understand it.
Kota started lifting covers. “We got steaks, ribs, shrimp skewers, lobster tails.” He looked up, gauging Christy’s interest. “Don’t like meat? There’s pasta six different ways. Green stuff.”
“He means salad,” Ma put in.
“That’s what I said.” He raised another lid. Eww. “This looks like risotto, with some kind of lumps in it.”
“Mushrooms,” said Ma. “I had some. It’s delicious.”
Pops made a face. “Stick with the steak. You can’t go wrong with beef.”
Kota nodded. “You got that right, Pops. Beef built this house.”
Ma gave him the hard eye. “You know I don’t like it when you say that.” She turned to Christy. “Kota likes to say that beef built his muscles, his muscles made his money, and his money built this house. It’s his way of discounting his talent.”
She shifted back to Kota. “Make your girl a plate with a little of everything.”
Christy popped up like a cork. “No, thanks. I can do it.” She joined him at the cart, clearly anxious to prove she wasn’t his girl.
Yet.
He crowded her. He’d gotten a noseful of her scent when he’d held her tight. Now he took another whiff. She smell
ed like roses.
Not like peaches at all.
“Tell me what you want,” he murmured, “and I’ll give it to you.”
Her half smirk said she caught his double meaning. “Thanks, but I’ll take care of myself.”
Now there was a picture to stick in his mind.
She bent over to get a plate from the bottom of the tray. He stepped back to take in the view of her ass. Two round cheeks ample enough to fill even his big hands.
Her legs, all five miles of them, were tanned and toned and built to cinch his waist. And the toes peeping out of her shoes were pink tipped and suckable.
He’d never been a toe man, but this woman could change that.
Then she stood up and he forgot about her toes, because her breasts were under his nose again. He’d copped a feel, and they were prime. A solid C, all natural, and silkier even than the bra that housed them.
He was dying for another handful.
He shoved his fists in his pockets.
She poked around the pastas, spooned a few onto her plate. No beef, but at least she wasn’t scared of carbs. Thank God for that.
Beef might’ve built his muscles, but pasta built her ass.
Ma caught him staring. He couldn’t pretend to feel guilty about it.
“Christy might like some wine,” Ma said mildly.
“Right.” How was he supposed to remember his manners when all the blood had gone from his head to his pants? “Red? White?”
“Whatever you’re having,” said Christy. “You’re eating too, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, sure.” He threw a steak on a plate, poured two Cabernets, and carried everything to the coffee table.
“So, Christy.” Ma leaned forward to begin the interrogation. “Do you live nearby?”
Kota was all ears.
“In the canyon,” she said. “A few miles from here.”
Excellent news.
“By yourself?”
“With a roommate.”
Uh-oh.
“A girlfriend?”
Nice one, Ma.
“Yes, a college friend.”
Whew.
Christy twirled her linguini. Cream sauce dripped from her fork, and she caught it with her tongue.
Kota forgot to chew his steak.
Then her lips closed around the fork, sucking it clean, and his knife slipped from his fingers. It clattered on his plate, and Ma threw him a mind-your-manners look. Right. He should mind his manners while Christy had sex with her pasta.
Ma smoothed her skirt, smiling at Christy, deceptively casual. “Tell me, dear,” she drilled down, “what do you do with yourself when you’re not singing?”
Kota leaned in.
And Pops ruined everything. “Je-sus. Let the poor girl eat. You’re as bad as the dentist, asking questions while he’s got his hand in your mouth.”
Ma gave a light laugh. “Roy’s right. I’m just curious, is all. Here you are, such a talented singer. Why, you took my breath away. Stole it right out of my lungs. And nobody seems to know anything about you.”
“Maybe she likes it that way,” Pops butted in. “Everybody doesn’t have to go on Oprah. Some folks still know the meaning of privacy.”
Ma folded her hands. “We’re just conversing. Nobody’s prying.”
“Oh you’re prying, all right. Sizing her up for a wedding band.”
Christy coughed out Cabernet.
Ma reached over and patted her back. “Don’t mind Roy. He’s up past his bedtime.”
“Yeah, Pops,” Kota said, “you can turn in anytime.”
“Don’t you start too,” Pops said. “You’re not the boss of me.”
Kota rolled his eyes.
“And don’t sass me either. I’m not one of your ass kissers.”
At that, something crashed into the door, rattling the frame.
“Now you’ve done it, Roy,” said Ma.
She rose and opened the door, and a slavering blur of fur exploded into the room.
WITH NO THOUGHT involved, just fight or flight, Chris leaped up on the love seat as the monster dove at Kota, bared teeth aimed at his throat.
It landed in his lap. Paws on his shoulders, it slobbered all over him, hugging him, if a dog could be said to hug.
“Je-sus,” said Roy, rising to give Chris a hand down.
Verna was laughing. “Cy can’t stand it when Roy chides Kota. He has to comfort him.”
Kota wrestled the creature to the floor. He was laughing too.
Chris didn’t see the humor. She’d have sworn the animal meant to rip all four of them to bloody shreds. She still wasn’t sure it wouldn’t, so she balanced her butt on the edge of her seat, poised to run for her life.
“Sit,” said Kota, and the creature sat. “Say hi to Christy.”
The boxy head swung her way, and she recoiled instinctively.
Staring at her from his one and only eye was the ugliest dog in the world.
“He’s a lover,” said Kota, rubbing the dog’s barrel chest.
“Uh.” Words failed her.
The dog’s square, brindle face was a ghastly patchwork of scars, the most vicious a white slash bisecting his sewn-shut socket. His mangled lips gave him a perpetual snarl. Even his lolling tongue looked like he’d licked razor wire.
“I call him Cyclops,” said Kota. “Cy for short. He had a run-in with some barbwire, and the barbwire won.”
“Ah.” Compassion pushed past revulsion.
“He’s part pit bull, part wussy, aren’t you, boy?”
Cy rolled his adoring eye toward Kota, who kissed him on the nose.
Chris’s heart turned over with a thud.
Verna must have heard it, because she smiled. “Kota’s got a hand with animals. Always has. The hurt ones find their way to him.”
Roy made a face. “Lame coyotes, orphan jackrabbits. He should’ve been shootin’ ’em like every other self-respecting rancher. But no, he’s out in the barn nursin’ ’em instead.”
“My boys have big hearts,” said Verna.
Kota turned red. “Enough, Ma.” He aimed a pointed look at the clock.
She took the hint. “Will you look at that. Midnight’s come and gone. Come on, Roy, let’s go to bed.”
“Now you’re talking.” Roy shot his recliner upright. “Take care of yourself, young lady.” He gave Chris’s knuckles another gallant kiss. “Until we meet again.”
“Good night,” she said, wishing it wasn’t good-bye forever. Unexpected emotion put a catch in her voice. She had a mom-crush on Verna. And who wouldn’t love Roy?
Verna took Chris’s hands in her own. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow, dear? There’s a pretty little rose garden out behind the house. We’ll have lunch before Roy and I head home.”
It was out of the question, but still, temptation made Chris hesitate. The Rains were nice, down-to-earth people, the kind of folks who lived in the same house for fifty years. The opposite of her rootless parents. She loved Zach and Emma, but they’d never been much in the stability department.
Still, that didn’t give her the right to lean on these fine people, not when she carried betrayal in her heart. If Verna knew how Chris meant to exploit her precious sons, she’d never befriend her. She’d cut her off at the knees.
And Chris would deserve it.
So she rose, smoothing her skirt. “I wish I could, but I only stopped in for a minute. I’m heading out of town for a while.”
Verna’s disappointment seemed genuine. “Business or pleasure?”
“A bit of both.” If she had to go into exile, it would damn sure be someplace warm and sunny.
“Another time, then.” Verna patted her arm, then turned to her son. “Kota, you take care of your brother.”
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“Yes, ma’am.” He kissed her cheek, shook hands with his father, and off they went.
Some of the warmth left the room with them.
“I should get going,” Chris said. “You’ve got Dad covered. He doesn’t need me.”
She would’ve moved toward the door, but Kota stood in the way, too big to get around without touching, and too hot to touch without getting burned.
“No problem,” he said. “I’ll walk you out.”
That was too easy.
Then, he added, “Okay if I finish my steak first? I hardly ate a bite all day.”
She eyed him. He blinked innocently.
“I don’t like being manipulated,” she said.
“I don’t like eating alone,” he replied.
Then he smiled at her. She tried not to be dazzled, but she found herself back on the love seat anyway.
He dug into his steak, then aimed his fork at the pasta she’d scarcely touched. “If you don’t like it, take something else.”
“It’s delicious. I’m just not hungry.” She sat back with her wine to wait out her sentence. Surely God was punishing her duplicity by waving Kota under her nose.
Tri hopped off Verna’s chair and up onto the love seat. His skinny tail wagged. He eyed her neckline.
She covered it with her free hand.
“Down, Tri,” Kota said, and the little shrimp stretched out along her leg, nose pointed at her pasta. Kota slid the dish to the middle of the table.
Cy licked his chops. Kota gave him a look, and Cy lay down too, head on his paws, lone eye fixed on the love of his life.
“They’re devoted to you,” Chris said. She didn’t know what to make of it. She had no experience sharing space with animals. Neither of her parents had stayed in one place long enough for pets. And she’d bought her own house just six months before, barely time enough to consider it home, much less add a pet to it.
Kota shrugged one shoulder. “Dogs are easy. Give ’em love and some food and they’ll give you their soul. Take Cy here.” Kota fed him a nibble of steak. “Some asshole kept him tied out on a four-foot lead. He got away, snarled himself up in barbwire, and the asshole never even took him to the vet. Just tied him back on the lead.”
The Wedding Band Page 5