Something to Talk About

by Dakota Cassidy

  Em stood, Gareth’s hand in hers, and she knew she wasn’t imagining Jax’s urgency. Not judging from the way Gareth tucked himself into her, his hand holding hers tighter. She put her hand on his arm. “Is everything okay?”

  No. It surely wasn’t okay. But Jax was going to tell her it was.

  He nodded, most of the panic gone from his eyes, but he was forcing himself to come across unruffled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, Maizy-Lou. I just lost track of you. Everything’s okay.” His eyes skimmed Em’s then returned to Maizy.

  Had something like this happened before? Or was he telling the truth—he’d just lost sight of her?

  Jax smiled now, that easygoing, everything’s-all-good smile. “Really. I just panicked. You know how that is.”

  She did. But something about the way he was trying so hard to convince her that was how it was, wasn’t convincing her. “I do know,” she replied easily, while her eyes fixed on his and wouldn’t let go.

  Maizy held up Em’s glove and put it under Jax’s nose, diffusing their stare-off. “Look, Daddy. Miss Em let me try on her glove. It has fur on it. It’s so soft. Can I have gloves like Miss Em’s?”

  “Maybe, princess. For now, whaddya say we go home and have some dinner with Uncle Tag and Uncle Gage?”

  “Who’s cooking?”

  Em stifled a laugh when Jax rolled his eyes. “Not me, okay? I can’t believe the bad rap I have for one burned fish stick.”

  Maizy leaned over Jax’s arm and handed her back the glove, her button nose wrinkled. “It wasn’t one. It was a whole box of ’em. Daddy’s a really bad cook,” she informed Em and Gareth.

  “My mom’s a really good cook. She makes really awesome macaroni and cheese, and it’s not from a box. Maybe you could cook for Maizy sometime, Mommy?” Gareth’s sweet, round eyes sought hers.

  Innocence in all its simplicity.

  Maizy nodded her head. “I love macaroni and cheese. Promise I’ll eat all of it.”

  “I always eat all of mine,” Gareth agreed.

  Now she was avoiding Jax’s eyes, looking anywhere but where he was. She ruffled Gareth’s hair with an affectionate hand. “Maybe when things aren’t so busy at work, I’ll make some macaroni and cheese.”

  “Macaroni and cheese? We love macaroni and cheese, don’t we, DeeDee?” Louella strolled along the thinning crowd, her suede boots clicking on the sidewalk, her perfectly streaked, vanilla-blond hair lifting in the chilly breeze. Hand in hand with her equally as blonde and pretty niece, she insinuated herself into their conversation.

  She gave Em the once-over with critical eyes—her way of acknowledging Em and dismissing her all in one glance. “Hi, Em. How nice to see you. Still runnin’ the business of somethin’ that rhymes with fin?”

  Hah-hah. Sin. Funny, clever Louella Palmer. Em’s cheeks flushed.

  Jax’s eyes caught Em’s over Louella’s head as he let Maizy slide down his hip and to the ground, but she didn’t understand the message he was sending her.

  He nodded politely at Louella, giving her a brief smile before holding his arm out to Em. “She is. Like a well-oiled machine, I might add. Anyway, we were just on our way to go get some of that macaroni and cheese with the kids. Nice seeing you again, Louella.”

  Oh. Message received.

  Was it wrong for her to smile smugly at Louella when big, handsome Jax offered his arm to her? Would she burn in the flaming fires of hell for enjoying the gasps of some of the other mothers?

  Probably. But at least she’d have Dixie on the big-fat-burn-in-hell couch right beside her. Tipping her heeled foot up, she smiled wide at Louella. “As always, nice to see you, too. Bye now, Louella!”

  As she let Jax whisk her away, she realized, all mom-eyes were on her, and everyone would be talking about the way she’d slighted Louella with Jax, totally defeating her “no one could ever get the slightest whiff of her relationship with him” vow.

  Yet, right this second, she didn’t care about propriety, or all the ugly rumors that would certainly circulate, or even that she’d one-upped Louella in public.

  She only cared that the man who was directing her to her car was Jax, and her arm in his, cradled in the nook of all that power, made her feel good.

  Safe. Protected. Even from the evil intentions of Louella Palmer.

  * * *

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Jax’s breathing was heavy and choppy, his chest expanding and deflating with the effort.

  “No. I don’t think you do,” Em huffed, her arms visibly shaking, the material of her long sweater stretching across her slender back. Jeans. She changed into jeans tonight when he’d talked her into checking out couches with him after they’d left Louella in their dust. A rare occurrence for her—but, Jesus, she was killing him with her long legs and that rounded ass.

  He admired it from behind her back when he replied, “Sure I do. You’re thinking, wow, that’s huge.”

  “It is—” she fought for air “—huuuge,” blowing the last word out with a heaving grunt as she jammed his new couch into place.

  He took a step back and gave the room a critical eye. “I should have listened to you.”

  Em nodded with a resigned sigh, coming to stand beside him, but keeping that safe distance she always kept when other people were around. “When it comes to things like size and placement, you should always listen to me, Jax. I know huge by eye. This is what an impulse buy will get you.”

  He took another step back and looked at the cramped space of his home office full of nothing but this enormous couch he’d been talked into in the heat of a couch-buying moment. “Swear, I really thought it would fit.”

  Em gave him that you’re-so-five look. “You got caught up in the moment. It was cash-and-carry. Plus, Liam Tobias is a good salesman. I tried to warn you about him before we ever hit the store. He could talk you into buyin’ Brazilian butt implants. Now look. You have a couch the size of Godzilla and no room for anything else.”

  “You gotta admit it’s a nice color.” It was. A foresty-green, or something woodsy, Em had said. Manly. It was very manly—not some sort of nondescript, wishy-washy color like beige.

  And it had red pillows. When Em had tried the couch on for size in the store, she’d put her pretty head on those very pillows, letting her dark hair splay out on them, and he’d had to look the other way to keep from hauling her off that couch and kissing her senseless.

  Her shoulder brushed his when she chuckled, making her inch in the other direction. That was what Em always did when they were in close quarters and they had witnesses. “That’s because after all that talkin’ me into something I knew wouldn’t fit, I was forced to at the very least choose a color that would work in the room. You want your office to be a place you want to come to every day, don’t you? Somewhere that’s all you?”

  The more time they spent together out of their guesthouse lair, the more he liked Em. Every chance he got, he stole a glance at her. He was becoming convinced he was going to have to buy another house that needed redecorating in order to keep her around. Then he’d quash that notion. No women. Things ended badly when you let them steal your common sense.

  Reece was a prime example. He’d lost all his senses when he could’ve sworn he’d seen her at Maizy’s school. Where was she and why was she lurking around Plum Orchard?

  “Are you hearin’ me, Jax?”

  Yeah. He heard. Stern teacher’s voice got un-fucking-believably-sexier each time she used it. “Yes. But this couch feels like me.” He gave her a wink and a wiggle of his eyebrow, a look she thoroughly ignored. She had on her game face while Tag and Gage roamed through the house.

  He thought her game face was adorable. Her efforts to avoid any contact with him at all? Even more adorable.

  For the umpteenth time in as many hours as they’
d been at this, they danced the dance. If he so much as brushed against her, she was all panicked feet and bristling limbs, moving anywhere but where he was. Those very things were making her even more attractive than just a few hours ago.

  He was pretty sure his intense attraction for her had nothing to do with her refusal to become involved. Maybe some subconscious protest against the fact that she’d rejected him as anything other than her boy toy. But he’d mostly tossed out the “when a woman treated you like a side of beef, the more attractive she became” theory.

  At first he thought maybe it was a case of the “Gwendolyn Studebakers.” Gwen being the girl he’d had the most heartfelt of crushes on in third grade. The girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day while he mooned like a lovesick dog. Until she did give him the time of day and he discovered she was mean and he didn’t want her time of day.

  But this thing he was keeping to himself with Em wasn’t like that. Em didn’t make him feel like a side of beef. She did make him feel. Fuck, it was uncomfortable.

  She waved a hand under his nose. “So? Now what do we do, Mr. Jeff Lewis?”

  “Who?” He didn’t know who that was, but he was sure he didn’t have a mouth as pretty as Em’s.

  “He’s a design guy on TV.” Em shook her head like he was hopeless. “Never mind. What are we going to do about this couch, Mr. Hawthorne? It’s too big—it doesn’t work. It takes up the whole office. You have no room for the desk and printer stand I ordered. You should have gone with the one I showed you the other night online.”

  “Miss Emmaline! I’m glad you’re still here,” Maizy screamed her excitement, pushing her way into the newly oak-paneled room and past the couch to make a beeline for Em.

  Jax smiled. He liked that, too. He liked that Maizy liked Em. He liked that while she helped him pick out carpet colors from the swatches they’d gathered tonight, she also giddily talked hair and manicures with Maizy.

  He liked that she’d stopped on her way home to change and picked up chocolate chip cookies on a big flowery plate for her, claiming she had just a couple leftover after baking them for Clifton and Gareth. He really liked that she’d taught Gage and Tag how to make some crazy casserole with Tater Tots because Maizy had loved the leftovers she’d brought with the cookies.

  And he loved how Maizy looked at Em. Sort of dark eyes filled with half admiration, half unsure what to do with a female presence in her life again.

  Em smiled down at her, dropping a finger to her nose to run it along the tip. “If it isn’t Maizy Hawthorne again. Twice in one day. How was your evenin’? Did you do what I told you to do with your hair so it wouldn’t get in your eyes?”

  Maizy’s nod was solemn. Everything Em said was a nugget of wisdom to his daughter. She always paid close attention, almost as if she was afraid if she didn’t, Em would disappear in a puff of fruity perfume and a cloud of raven hair. “Just like you said.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Em beamed down at her, lifting a fist in the air to celebrate the triumph of taming Maizy’s hair. “Yay!”

  Maizy grabbed on to her hand, tugging her out of the room. “Will you play with me? My Pop-Pop Givens sent me a new doll in the mail today.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t, sweetie. I have to get home and let out poor Dora. But I brought you a little somethin’ for a snack. I put it in the warmer in the oven.”

  Maizy pouted. “I like it better when you’re here. You make the house smell like flowers.”

  “Don’t you mean cookies?” Em teased, and he found himself smiling because Maizy was smiling.

  Yeah. He liked it better when Em was here, too.

  * * *

  “I’m not sure I like this.”

  “Like what?” Em feigned cute from the new air mattress in the guesthouse. Totally naked, totally comfortable, totally ready for round two of Jax and Em: Sex in the Guesthouse.

  “This,” Jax said.

  Em rose up on her elbows, the mattress sloshing and moving with her. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s threatening my manhood.” He held the threat up between two fingers and dangled it over her naked belly.

  “Why, Jax Hawthorne,” she cooed, fighting a giggle at his look of distaste. “I didn’t think anything could threaten your manhood. What kind of manhood do you have?”

  He crawled up along the bed, making her laugh harder at his unsteady movements. “Something called the Annihilator doesn’t sound at all threatening to your manhood?”

  Em fell back, unable to hold herself up anymore due to her fit of laughter. “Never! My manhood is very secure.”

  Jax dropped the vibrator next to her and captured her lips, inhaling her sigh. “We’ve made love one time and already you’re turning to devices called the Annihilator to spice things up? Is this the seven-hour itch? We could be in for trouble.”

  Em ran her hands over his shoulders, a shudder of breath escaping her lips when he kissed her like that. “It could have been the twelve-inch variety. Never forget, things could always be worse.”

  He cupped her breast, flicking a finger over her nipple, making her sigh and squirm and leaving her slick and achy. “So you’ve really never used a vibrator?”

  “Are we here to talk about my lack of expertise or are we here to end my lack of expertise?” Jax was kissing her jaw, her neck, sweeping his tongue over her collarbone, making it increasingly hard to focus.

  He worked his way back up over her shoulder until he was at her ear. “Why did Louella do something so crappy to you on Founders’ Day?”

  Em stiffened. He’d come to her rescue tonight at the school. She knew he had. He’d offered her his arm as a way to poke at Louella. But why? Never you mind, Emmaline. He was just bein’ gracious. Gentlemen do that.

  After all, he’d been a witness to her ultimate humiliation. Maybe he was just one of those people who took a stand on behalf of a good victim. “Louella Palmer is a sure way to throw a bucket o’ cold water on this.”

  He nibbled at her earlobe, softening her again. “She’s pretty mean. I was just wondering why all that mean is directed at you. You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to. If it’s too personal.”

  That information could definitely be considered too personal if it weren’t for the fact that she’d be savin’ his life. Someone had to warn Jax about that viper Louella... It might as well be her. “She’s angry at me for siding with Dixie when she came back to town, swearin’ she was a new woman. Again.”

  Jax used his free hand to stroke the curve of her hip. “Again? She’s been a new woman more than once?”

  Em closed her eyes and sighed when her nipples scraped his chest. “It’s a long story, but it’s the real reason Louella hates Dixie. I was once a black sheep Mag, aka their whipping boy. Only allowed to enter the palace when my services were needed. Until I decided my services were no longer up for the occasional grab. When Landon appointed me mediator to that crazy phone-sex contest between Dixie and Caine, I had two choices. I could be driven straight out of my mind by keepin’ Louella informed of Dixie’s dealings, or I could refuse to be used as a pawn. I refused the position of pawn.”

  For the first time in her life, she didn’t care if Louella and the Mags were angry with her. Maybe it had been the first signs of her finally finding her backbone, or maybe it was just that she couldn’t bear to do wrong by Landon, but she’d stuck to her guns back then, infuriating Louella.

  Jax’s fingers skated over her belly, making her inhale with anticipation. “So she put a pretty personal picture of your ex-husband up at a town gathering just because you wouldn’t be her inside edge?”

  Men would never understand the machinations of small-town life and the women who lived it. Sometimes, she didn’t understand it, either. “That’s not the only reason, no. Eve
n though Louella and I were never really friends in the true sense of the word, she didn’t like that I took to defending Dixie. Somehow, in her twisted head, I think she figured she was the lesser of two evils, and because she’d done less hateful things to me than Dixie, I’d choose her.”

  Jax frowned. “Dixie did hateful things to you? But she’s your best friend.”

  “She was horrible to me in high school. But we’ve long since gotten past it. I admit, when she first came back to town, I was just tryin’ to remain respectful to Landon’s last wishes, and I was skeptical she’d changed. But she had. She really had.”

  “So Louella was jealous of your new relationship with Dixie, and she lashed out. Jesus.”

  “Something like that. She still hated Dixie for stealing Caine right out from under her nose. So she found a way to hurt both of us by sneakin’ that picture of Clifton into the mix of the slide show on Founders’ Day. She knew I’d immediately blame Dixie because of Dixie’s past and all the horrible pranks she played on me. Dixie was the only person aside from Marybell I’d told about Clifton. I knew it wasn’t Marybell. She almost never talks to anyone outside of us unless it’s to scare them off with her infamous snarl. I didn’t even consider her. I jumped to conclusions because of me and Dixie’s jaded past, and well, you know the rest of the story.”

  “I get the impression Louella wants Call Girls gone.”

  “You get the right impression. She’s begun a petition to rid the PO of all our sinnin’, last I heard. Says it’s sullyin’ our reputation and hurtin’ tourism. But that night... That was dedicated to her pure jealousy over Dixie.”

  He ran a finger down the tip of her nose. “It was a pretty horrible night, wasn’t it?”

  Em shrugged as if that were no longer an open wound—as if her children weren’t still fending off the horrible taunts that night had brought about.

  She didn’t want Jax’s pity or to remember the first night she’d met him. She wanted this. Them naked. “But it’s over now. I’m just givin’ you some background on Louella Palmer, should you choose to take up with her.” Inner Em gasped. Did you really just say that out loud? Take up with her? That’s fishin’, Em.