Hot & Bothered

by Susan Andersen

  Stubbornly refusing to admit that anything John said might have a grain of truth to it, he gave Mr-Silent-Swiftand-Deadly his best, go-fuck-yourself look and took the high road. “What the hell are you talking about? How did I disrupt Tori’s entire life? Whatever she decided to do, it was her choice.”

  “Jesus, kid, I know self-interest is the fuel that pretty much drives us all, but do you think you could consider someone besides yourself for five freaking minutes? You are not the sun your sister orbits around. She had a life in England and she uprooted it all—took Esme out of school, left her aunt and her friends, packed up her studio lock, stock and barrel and had it shipped halfway around the world. She did it for you, you ingrate, because she cares about you—not because it sounded like a rocking good time.”

  Suddenly the high road didn’t seem so high after all. “So, who asked her to?” he muttered defensively, but was immediately stabbed with guilt because hearing the words said aloud made him realize that as defenses went it was worse than weak—it was below contempt. He didn’t need the look John shot him to tell him that.

  Shit. He hadn’t even considered that Victoria might have a life that required some serious rearranging in order to help him. He’d just taken for granted that she’d be there. “So, okay,” he admitted slowly, “she didn’t have to be asked.” Shaking with mortification that he’d needed to have it pointed out to him, he instinctively struck back. “But what about you? I suppose your slipping the sausage to my sister doesn’t have the first thing to do with your own self-interest?”

  John came half out of his seat, rage emanating out of every pore. “Watch your mouth when you talk about her! I’m not going to warn you about it again.” Abruptly he seemed to catch himself, for his expression went blank and he sat back down.

  Jared noted with satisfaction, though, that John’s hands had a slight tremor before he flattened them against the desktop, and it gave him the courage to make a rude noise and sneer, “Like you don’t know she’s going to be worth a bundle once my dad’s will clears probate.”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck about her money!”

  “Oh, sure. Her wealth has nothing to do with why you’re all over a woman you just met a few weeks ago.”

  John presented him with a noncommittal expression, but Jared saw the pure fury that burned in his eyes. The other man’s voice was clipped and neutral, however, when he said, “Not that it’s any of your goddamn business, but I didn’t just meet your sister. She and I met years ago, and just for the record, E—” Cutting himself off, he shoved to his feet. “What the hell am I doing, arguing with you about this?” He leveled a finger at Jared once again. “Apologize to your sister. You don’t have to like or trust me. But you owe her your respect, not to mention your gratitude. If it wasn’t for her, you’d still be begging on the streets.”

  He walked around the desk and Jared expected him to just keep on going. Instead the tall man stopped in front of his chair and shoved his hands into his slacks pockets as he looked down at him. Jared glowered back defiantly, but his stomach was one big knot of icy nerves. Miglionni’s face might not demonstrate anger with anything so obvious as a scowl, but Jared knew he was furious. His shoulders were stiff and his jaw was tight, and Jared braced himself for the parting shot that would slice his confidence to ribbons.

  He was caught off guard when Rocket merely said, “If you think Victoria needs money to be attractive to men, kid, you’re not only self-absorbed, you’re stone-blind.”

  He blinked. That was it? No: you worthless little asshole? No: your mother should have ripped you out of her body before you ever got the chance to screw up everyone’s life? Just another defense of his sister? It was so far from what he’d been accustomed to hearing from his father that he could only blink like some damn demented rabbit.

  By the time he gathered his wits about him again, John had already sidestepped the chair where he sat and strode straight out the door.

  GETAGRIP GETAGRIP, GETAGRIP. The refrain beat time with the temper surging fast and furiously through John’s bloodstream as he stormed along the upstairs hallway toward his room. And he was trying. He was trying like crazy. But sweet, sweet Jesus! Wasn’t it bad enough that he couldn’t seem to keep his hands off Victoria? Now he’d come within inches of kicking the shit out of her kid brother, as well!

  “Great.” He slammed open the door to his room. “I’m turning into my goddamn father.”

  “Oh, I seriously doubt that.”

  His head shot up. Victoria sat in the striped silk chair across the room, her back elegantly straight, her legs crossed and one foot tapping air. But it was the first inkling he had that he hadn’t been paying the least bit of attention to his surroundings and a harsh laugh escaped him.

  “Perfect. You know, once upon a time nothing escaped me. I was one of the best—the few, the proud. Now socialite dollhouse designers and punk seventeen-year-olds can get the drop on me without breaking a sweat. What’s next—Esme gonna take me down?”

  “News flash, pal: you don’t have to be on guard around us.”

  Yes he did. Particularly after the session he’d just had with Jared. He gave her a cool stare. “Look, do you mind? I need a little downtime here.”

  She didn’t budge. “It didn’t go too well with Jared, I take it.”

  His bark of laughter was short on amusement. “No. It didn’t go too fucking swell—starting with letting him catch us in the first place. Like I said, I used to be a lot better at this.”

  “Back when you were a—how did you describe yourself in Pensacola?—a trained killing machine who specialized in covert reconnaissance?”

  Had he really been that fat-headed back then? Probably. Still, since the description pretty much covered what he used to do, he gave a curt nod.

  “Then give yourself a break,” she said. “You must have had downtime, even back then. And I know you were a big popular ladies’ man and all, but somehow I doubt you did much heavy necking while you were in ‘killing-machine’ mode.”

  He’d been prowling the room trying to burn off some of his temper, but her comment made him stop and stare at her. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because, I gotta tell you, baby, it just points out one more way I’ve screwed up. How many times have I told you I’m going to obey the no-sex rules?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “But then every time I see you, I’m all over you.”

  “I don’t recall protesting. As a matter of fact, who started today’s episode?”

  She had. Still…“That’s not the point. It doesn’t excuse me breaking my word. I could probably live with it, though, if it was only that. But there’s no excuse for physical violence against a kid and I wanted to beat the crap out of your brother!”

  “Trust me, I was right there with you in that desire.” She shrugged as if the urge was as common as dirt. “He’s a teenager, John. Who doesn’t want to smack them at one time or another?”

  “No,” he said flatly, looking up from the clench and flex of his fists to engage her gaze. “You don’t get it. I really wanted to hurt him. I wanted to wrap my hands around his scrawny little neck and squeeze until his face turned blue. I wanted to hit him with my fists. God, Tori, I wanted to mop the floor with his face. I’m no better than my old man.” And it scared the bejesus out of him. “I never thought I’d see the day when I’d have to say that, but I just barely hung on to my temper. We’re talking by a fingernail, here. I wanted to take him down—both verbally and physically.” He scraped his still shaky hands through his hair, digging his nails into his scalp. “You don’t know how badly I wanted to let go. I’d bet my life it was exactly the way my old man must have felt when he used to let me have it.”

  She gazed at him calmly. “But you didn’t do it, did you?”

  “No. But I was this close.”

  “Close doesn’t count.” She stood and crossed over to him. Staring solemnly up at him, she reached out to stroke a soothing hand down his arm. “The fact is, you di
dn’t. You held on to your temper and neither told him he was a useless waste of space, the way his own father did, nor hit him.”

  “This time,” he said flatly and stepped away. The trust in her eyes made his gut churn, because God knew he didn’t deserve it. She might not fully appreciate what sort of stock he came from, but he did. “Don’t break out any medals for me just yet, darlin’. Because who the hell knows what will happen the next time he pisses me off?”

  THREE DAYS LATER, ESME came running to Victoria, nearly in tears. “Mummy, John won’t play with me!” She threw herself against her mother. “Again! I tol’ him we could play Raccoon Ants if he wanted, but he said not now!”

  “John is not here to play Barbie dolls with you, sweetie. He’s here to do a job.” Victoria kept her voice placid, but inside she was far from calm. She was, in fact, about ready to tear her hair out by the roots. But reining in her frustration, she held her hand out to her daughter. “I realize it might not be on a par with playing reconnaissance Barbies with John, but why don’t you come be my helper in the studio today?”

  “I guess that’d be okay.” Esme wore a long face as she grasped the proffered hand, and she dragged her feet as Victoria piloted her toward the studio. She was by nature an optimistic little girl, though, and by the time they reached the garage she’d begun to skip alongside Victoria and regale her with the details of her earlier telephone conversation with Rebecca. As they let themselves into the studio she provided a word-by-word report of everything her best friend had said to her and her own clever responses.

  Victoria um-hmmed and occasionally commented to show she was listening. Her thoughts, however, kept sliding back to John.

  God, he was making her nuts. He actually believed that the incident with Jared proved he was on a par with his abusive father and no amount of talking on her part would make him listen to reason. Add in her own inability to concentrate on anything else for more than a minute or two at a time and you had serious ulcer potential.

  Unfortunately, unless John decided to quit being an idiot, her stress levels weren’t likely to magically correct themselves anytime soon. So acknowledging she wasn’t at her sharpest, she got Esme tricked out in a voluminous apron and set her up with one of the scale models, a glue stick, and the package of roofing shingles she’d ordered in the wrong color. The latter could also be blamed on Rocket, since she’d placed that order the day after she’d discovered John Miglionni of Semper Fi Agency was none other than her onetime lover.

  The way she felt right now, in fact, damn near everything wrong with the universe could be laid squarely at his long, narrow feet.

  Once Esme was absorbed in her task, she picked up the hot glue gun and automatically began applying gingerbread shingles to the dollhouse she was making to replace the one she’d given P.J. Fortunately for her fingers, siding was a job she’d done dozens of times before, because she couldn’t concentrate to save her soul.

  The day before yesterday Jared had apologized to her. He’d been embarrassed and less than articulate, but she suspected that had quite a lot to do with having to place her and sex in the same context. From what she could glean from his rambling explanation, though, Rocket had spent the entire time he was struggling not to knock her brother’s teeth down his throat defending her. It certainly seemed to have impressed the hell out of Jared, which she could understand, having seen their father in action.

  But would John see that? Oh, no. He was still stubbornly convinced that he was just one argument away from turning into a child abuser. He’d distanced himself from both her brother and Esme, throwing up an emotional wall to prevent them from getting close. He was perfectly civil, but in a distant sort of way, taking extra care to keep both of them safely at arm’s length.

  Jared didn’t seem to mind. The poor kid had learned the hard way not to expect too much from adult males, so any attention he received from John probably seemed like a lot to him. He appeared content enough just to know that the man he was clearly beginning to idolize wasn’t mad at him anymore.

  But Victoria had specifically removed Esme from her grandfather’s sphere so the child would never have to learn the kind of emotional limits that Victoria and Jared had. And she was getting damn tired of seeing her daughter’s unhappy confusion over the man who would play imaginative games with her one day, then blow her off the next.

  A car engine started up in the garage below the studio and her mouth twisted as she recognized its distinctive growl. Well, speak of the devil she thought sourly. The rat was apparently deserting the ship.

  Okay, that probably wasn’t fair. Still, she glanced over at Esme, afraid her daughter would also recognize the sound of the car accelerating down the lane and have her hurt feelings resurrected. But Es had her tongue caught between her teeth as she concentrated on pressing a miniature shingle next to several others she’d already glued in a lopsided line along the roofline. It wasn’t until the reporters outside the gate began clamoring that she looked up.

  “Is that the wuffs?” she asked.

  “Yes.” A slight smile tugged at Victoria’s lips. Jared calling the reporters wolves had stuck in Esme’s mind.

  “Why are they yelling?”

  “One never knows with that lot, but I imagine it’s because they tend to get excited when people leave or enter the estate.”

  “Is someone here?” Esme hopped up and shoved her chair over to the window. She climbed up and stood on her tiptoes to peer out the window. When that didn’t garner her the results she clearly expected, she started to climb up on its arms.

  “Hey, hey, hey! What have I told you about chair safety?” Victoria walked over, scooped her daughter off the chair and set her safely on her feet on the floor. She cupped her palm beneath Esme’s soft-skinned chin and lifted it in order to look into her eyes. “You can’t see the gates from here, anyway, sweetie.”

  “But who’s here? Maybe somebody came to see us.”

  “No.” She hesitated, then admitted, “John just left.”

  Esme stared up at her for a moment, then nodded. “’Cause he’s gotta work?”

  “Yes.”

  “’Kay.” She pushed her chair back over to the worktable. After clambering up to sit on it, she reached for the shingle she’d been applying a smear of waxy glue to before the reporters started yelling. “Good.” She slapped the shingle on the roof.

  Victoria went back to her own glueing. “Good, huh? Why is that?”

  “’Cause maybe he’ll want to play with me when he comes back from his job.”

  “Oh, Es. He still might not have the time.”

  “Uh-huh. He will so.”

  Damn John. She and he were going to exchange some serious words if he didn’t straighten up and fly right in a big fat hurry. He simply could not persist in this nonsense—not if he wanted to have a place in his daughter’s life.

  She knew perfectly well he would never strike a child, in anger or otherwise. He had better realize it pretty darn soon, as well, because she would not put up with this. She’d had no choice but to grow up with a father who’d made it clear his time was much too valuable to squander on a mere child, but she could damn well make sure Esme didn’t endure the same thing. She bent a fiercely protective glance on her little girl.

  Because better no father at all than one who couldn’t—or worse, wouldn’t—return her love.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  JOHN SPENT THAT AFTERNOON at the club, talking to the dining-room hostess, the pro shop manager and several of the caddies, walking a fine line to ensure his interviews came across as casual conversation. He rounded off his day by nursing a beer in the bar and jawing with the bartender. The tidbits the man let drop were filed away with the others he’d collected, and all of them, he noted, had to do with the quirks of individual personalities. Since it was his experience that information concerning people’s behavior often led to figuring out who was likely to do what, he was content with that.

  When he finally tipped
the bartender and headed for his car, however, contentment was the last thing he felt. Instead, the foremost thought running through his mind was, What the hell am I doing investigating a murder?

  Being a Marine had taught him to go with his strengths, and murder was so far outside his area of expertise as a P.I. it wasn’t even funny. It was one thing to have a knack for locating runaway and throwaway kids. Finding a stab-happy killer was something else again. He should have known better than to take the assignment in the first place. Hell, he had known better, but when it came to Victoria, his resistance seemed to be nil. The fact was, though, to be effective he needed the cooperation of the local police, and at the moment he wasn’t exactly Detective Simpson’s favorite person. So even if he figured out who’d plunged the letter opener into Ford Hamilton’s chest, what was he going to do about it, muscle the killer into confessing? A derisive sound slipped out of his mouth. Sure thing, chief. That’s likely to happen.

  He had, as Mac had been calling daily to remind him, a business that needed his attention. And God knew that, so far, the only result of his professional help had been to locate Jared for Victoria. Well, that and generate a bill for her that would probably rival the national debt if one of them didn’t get real here pretty soon.

  He knew that person had better be him. Although he’d always known on some level that he and Victoria had come from different worlds, hanging around the club really drove home the fact that it was time to quit fooling himself it could somehow be otherwise. He couldn’t even say why he’d believed a lasting relationship with her—not to mention being a real father to Esme—had struck him as a possibility in the first place.

  The thought of not being a part of their lives, though, gnawed at his gut with razor-wire-sharp, poison-tipped teeth. And he sure didn’t look forward to telling Tori. Not after he’d let her think they had the potential to be a unit.