by Julia London
Robin sniffed. “I never eat junk, especially when I’m trying to drop a few l.b.’s.”
Now that was just plain stupid. Robin Lear was about as perfect in body as a woman could get, and in fact, upon further reflection, that perfect little ass of hers wasn’t quite so perfect—it could use another pound or two. “That’s ridiculous,” he said with a snort.
“What do you know?” She folded her arms across her middle and in doing so, pushed her breasts dangerously close to the opening of her blouse.
“I know what looks good on a woman, and you look good,” he blurted.
Robin blinked her surprised, and then a slow, seductive smile spread across those lips. “Well, thank you,” she said, looking entirely too pleased with herself.
With a sigh, Jake leaned back in his chair and looked up at the greasy ceiling.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she added.
He instantly lowered his head and eyed her with all due suspicion.
“In fact, if it wasn’t for your general lack of humor—”
“Well now, that’s the pot calling the kettle black,” he said. “You’re the don’t-talk-to-me, you-must-be-a-pervert girl.”
“That again?” She flicked her wrist dismissively. “I said I was sorry. You’re too sensitive. And you need to take some responsibility for your part in it.”
“My part?” he choked. She shrugged casually and gave him a pert little smile. She was teasing him. Jake shook his head. “You are one piece of work, Peanut.”
“Priceless art,” Robin said, and when Jake lifted a brow, she giggled.
Damn it if a smile didn’t spread across his lips. He didn’t think that was the direction he needed to be heading, so he changed the subject. “So . . . how’s your dad?”
Robin’s smile quickly faded. She shrugged, picked at a seam on the table. “I guess he’s okay. Mom says they are going to California to see a spiritualist. My mom is really into homeopathy and Eastern philosophies.”
“I knew a guy who had Lou Gehrig’s disease and chose Eastern treatment,” he offered.
Robin lifted a very hopeful gaze. “And?”
And he should have kept his mouth shut. Joe Powell had died. “He, ah . . . he did all right,” Jake lied, grateful that Grok chose that moment to come back with the drinks. Jake asked her about where she’d grown up. She told him how her parents left West Texas cotton farms behind for Dallas, and how her father had been a line-haul driver for years before branching out on his own and creating the shipping company that was, judging by her trappings, extremely successful.
By the time Grok brought the food, Robin was actually making Jake laugh with stories of her childhood. “We lived in a two-bedroom house next to the railroad,” she said as she carefully separated the two hot dogs to opposite ends of the plate. “We’d sneak out and go put pennies on the tracks so trains would smash them.” She picked one hotdog and opened the bun wide.
Interesting—Jake and his brothers had done the same thing, only with objects far more interesting than pennies. It was almost impossible to think of Robin living in the same kind of place, particularly as she scraped the cheese and relish from the dog. But there she was, going at it with gusto, as if it was a perfectly natural thing to do to a hotdog.
“My mom caught us one day when the train was barreling down the track,” she said, pausing in her task to lick her finger. “Needless to say, that was the end of that.” She pushed the discarded toppings to one side, then pushed the wienie from the bun, and proceeded to cut the hotdog into bite-sized pieces. Fascinated, Jake watched her destroy a perfectly good hotdog as he shoved three and four french fries into his mouth.
“She didn’t like what she called our ‘experiments,’” Robin said and forked a clean, bite-sized piece of wienie into her mouth.
“Ah. Reminds me of a similar experiment gone awry. My little brother, Todd, had a stuffed Bullwinkle that he dragged everywhere. My other brother, Ross, had this idea that if a train were to run over Bullwinkle, he’d just flatten out and spring right back to shape. Well, Bullwinkle did not spring right back to shape. There was cotton batting scattered from Houston down to the Gulf.”
“Ooh, poor Todd! What happened?”
Jake’s memory soured, but he forced a smile. “My dad whipped the dickens out of me and Ross.” In truth, the whipping had left horrible welts on them.
Robin smiled. “You have two brothers? I have two sisters. Where are you in the lineup?”
“The oldest.”
“Me, too!” she exclaimed with delight. “So what do your brothers do?”
This is where all similarities ended. Jake took a big bite of burger, chewed thoughtfully, pondering Robin’s reaction, then wondering why he cared. She had hired him to do a job, not father a child. He swallowed. “Ross was killed in a drunk-driving accident,” he said, omitting the small detail that Ross was the drunk driver. “And Todd is in prison.”
To her credit, Robin did not balk or faint or scream in terror. She said nothing, just picked at the last two bites of the hotdog. “Really?” she asked after a moment. “Maybe I know Todd.” She lifted her gaze; her blue eyes were shining with empathy. “Hardy har har.”
Jake smiled, grateful that she had tried.
“So what’s he in for?”
“Armed robbery.”
She nodded. “And how long has he been gone?”
A lifetime. “About three years now. He’s got another twelve to do. Maybe less if he can keep out of trouble.”
“And Ross? When did he die?”
Jake looked out the front window at the sunlight dappled on the hood of his truck and wondered just exactly when the spirit had left Ross. “Two years ago.”
“You must really miss him.”
Her voice sounded odd; Jake looked at her, saw the sadness deep within him reflected back in her eyes, and knew she was thinking of her father. “I miss him a lot,” he said solemnly.
They sat just looking at one another for a long moment, until Robin’s fair skin colored an appealing shade of pink, and she abruptly attacked the second hot dog, scraping the condiments from the meat.
“Wait,” Jake said, shaking his head. “I can’t watch you do that again.”
“Do what?”
“Destroy a perfectly good hotdog. Eat it right.”
“I am eating it right!”
“No, you’re not, you’re eating it like a teacake.” Jake impulsively grabbed her wrist with one hand, then reached for the dog with his other. “This is how you eat a hotdog,” he said firmly, and let go her wrist, swiped up the catsup bottle, and poured a respectable pile onto the dog. Then he shoved one end in his mouth, took a bite, and put the rest of the dog back on her plate. “Try it. You’ll like it.”
“No!” she exclaimed, looking at her plate in horror.
“Come on—”
“It’s gross.”
“Chicken.”
“What? What did you say?” she gasped, her brows forming a sharp V. “Did you just call me a chicken?”
“Bok bok bok—”
It worked. She picked up the dog so fast he almost didn’t see it. She put the dog to her lips, stretched her mouth open to carefully accommodate it, and slowly slid it between her teeth. Her eyes rounded. “Umm,” she said.
Jake thought he was going to faint, right then and there.
Robin chewed slowly and thoughtfully as if tasting meat for the first time ever, while Jake squirmed and silently begged her to take another bite. She swallowed, looked at him in great surprise. “Not bad!” she admitted, and put the dog to her mouth again in such an innocently seductive way that Jake feared he would melt all over the damn floor.
She finished the dog, drained her water. “So? Are you going to sit there and critique my eating habits all day? We need to get back,” she said. “I’ve got a lot to do.” She popped up from her seat.
Yes, yes, yes, they needed to get back to reality right away. Jake dug in his back pocket for
his wallet, lifted out a twenty and tossed it on the tabletop as Robin fussed with her unruly hair. He followed her out, noticed how smoothly she slipped into the truck when he opened the door for her. He came around to the driver’s seat, started her up, and was adjusting the radio again when he caught her looking at him.
He lifted a brow in question.
Robin smiled. “Is the game still on?”
As a matter of fact, the Astros game was now in its seventh inning, and he and Robin drove down Kirby listening to the game while the pink flamingos danced in the rearview mirror. When they turned onto North, the Astros drove a run in, and both whooped, high-fiving it like old friends.
“You know,” she said coyly as they neared her house, “I meant what I said today. You really aren’t half bad.” She gave him a grin so wicked that it made his pulse pound. He smiled and turned toward her, waiting for the punchline.
Robin arched one sculpted, devilish brow.
A silly grin spread across Jake’s lips, and he felt exactly like he had in the fifth grade when Maria Del Toro said she liked his shoes. He could have leapt tall buildings in those shoes after that. “Is that right?” he asked.
“You’re surprisingly much better than a pervert.”
“Thanks. That means a lot coming from you, Peanut.”
“But I have to take off points for your advocacy of processed meat snacks and the nasty things you said about Moz, who is the greatest pitcher ever.”
“Fair enough,” Jake agreed. “And I’m taking points off for the Fu-fu Notdogs.”
“That’s not fair, Jake. You can’t take points off for being healthy.”
“No, the points are being knocked off for being wacko,” he said, laughing, fully intent on telling her that she still wasn’t half bad in spite of her grave error in judgment, and in fact, pretty damn good, but Robin’s gaze was drawn to a point over his shoulder and her smile suddenly faded.
Jake dragged his gaze from Robin to look over his shoulder, to where Lindy was standing at the window holding an insulated lunch bag.
Chapter Eleven
How odd, Robin thought, as she sat staring at the girl with shoulder-length mousy brown hair, that she detected the faint smell of fried chicken. She and Jake opened their doors, stepped out at exactly the same moment, and he said, “Lindy, what are you doing here? How did you find me?”
Robin almost dropped her purse. Lindy? This was Lindy? This little chicken-fried jailbait was Jake’s girlfriend? What happened to blond and willowy? What happened to adult? What was she, maybe twelve? Unbelievable! Robin could kick herself—I meant what I said, you know—Damn it! She could just die of humiliation right here and now.
“Your mom. Hey, I brought you some fried chicken. Are you hungry?” Lindy was asking.
“That was nice of you, but you probably should have checked with me before coming down to the job site.”
“Oh,” she asked, looking curiously at Robin. “I just thought you might need a break and a chance to eat before we hooked up later.”
Hooked up later? Robin frowned at Jake’s back, grabbed one pink flamingo and stuffed it under her arm. Jake took the insulated bag from Lindy, clasped her elbow, and turned her away from the truck and Robin. As Lindy smiled adoringly up at him, Robin grabbed another flamingo and started for the door. She could be such a dolt sometimes. She glanced back to see if Jake was coming or making out with Lollipop Lindy behind the garage, and in the course of doing so, she collided head-on with Evan, who stepped out the door at the precise moment she was stepping in.
One flamingo fell to the ground.
“Oops . . . are you all right?” he asked, catching her elbow.
“I’m fine. But what are you doing here?”
Evan stooped to get the dropped flamingo. “I’m happy to see you, too,” Evan said with a wry smile and handed her the flamingo. “And I’m here because we’ve got work to do, kiddo. What are these?”
“Well . . . they’re pink flamingos.” Obviously. She stepped past Evan into the house and on to the dining area, where she deposited the two flamingos against the wall.
“Why?” Evan asked, following behind.
“Why what?” Robin tossed her kate spade bag onto a chair.
“Why the pink flamingos?”
“I am thinking of getting a pool,” Robin said, and before he could question her endlessly about that, she marched to her computer, hit a button, and watched her e-mail pop up. Four messages. One from Darren at Atlantic (Hope you’re okay!!), one from Bob (Was it something I said?), and two from Lucy (1. Insurance guys; and 2. Re: Insurance guys).
“Did you look over those accounts?” Evan asked, pink flamingo in hand.
“Yes. And I made several attempts to speak to those accounts, and I am dying for someone to clue me in on what sort of name is Eldagirt Wirt—”
The smell of fried chicken interrupted her train of thought. Jake had strolled in, the insulated meals-on-wheels delivery in hand. Robin looked back to her papers. “Are we still on to meet with the insurance guys?” she asked Evan.
“As a matter of fact, I talked to the agent earlier—it looks like it was probably faulty wiring.”
That momentarily drew Robin’s attention from the smell of fried chicken. “Faulty wiring,” she repeated, thinking it was a trap to get her to admit she’d left the coffee pot on.
“A short in the alarm system.”
“Not arson?”
Evan chuckled. “No, not arson.”
Flooded with relief, Robin instantly, unthinkingly, looked at Jake. He gave her a thumbs-up behind Evan’s back and flashed a smiled that raced right down to her toes.
“—probably ten months or so before the office is inhabitable again.” Evan was still talking, Robin realized. “They’ll talk to us about it. But we’re covered and I let your dad know.”
Well, wasn’t that cozy, Evan reporting to her father. Perhaps he mentioned to Dad that he got her drunk on very expensive wine last evening and then had sex with her. Perhaps Dad and Evan toasted his success over the phone.
“I asked Lucy to make the arrangements for our travel to Minot,” Evan blithely mentioned.
Robin paused. She looked up at him. “Excuse me?”
Evan paused in his casual perusal of the pink flamingo. “You don’t think we are going to acquire a company over the phone, do you?”
“We?” she said, stealing another glimpse of Jake, who had, thankfully, put the stupid lunch bag in his backpack and resumed work.
“Yes, we,” Evan said, looking at Jake, too. “I’m not going to leave you hanging, Robbie. Of course I am going to go with you. At least to Minot.”
Oh no. That was much, muchmuchmuch too convenient. “Thanks, but I prefer to do this on my own.”
“Robin—”
“Evan, if you want me to learn, shouldn’t I just jump in and do it?”
“Maybe I need to remind you that I tried to let you do it before, and now Aaron is holding me responsible for that little Atlantic deal you cooked up. Face it, Robin, you could stand a little guidance, and your father has charged me with giving it to you. It’s just to Minot, so don’t get your panties in a twist. Once I show you how to handle this sort of thing, I’ll go on to New York and you can go to Burdette and try your hand with Ms. Wirt.”
Robin’s face was flaming—she was certain Jake thought her a complete boob now, thanks to Evan.
“I told Lucy to set something up for next week. In the meantime, why don’t you try and get Ms. Wirt on the phone?”
Oh, brilliant idea! Why hadn’t she thought of that before?
“And there are some local accounts that need your review. They’re out in the car—I’ll be back in a jiff.”
She watched him stroll out of the dining room, dressed to the nines as usual, his Italian leather loafers almost soundless on the tile floor. As he walked past Jake, Robin was momentarily distracted by the tattoo peeking out beneath the arm of Jake’s T-shirt as he reached high above his head
. She was dying to see it, imagining it was something like a heart, with a name scribed in flowing letters across it. I heart Lindy. Better yet, maybe it was a skull and crossbones. Whatever, it sent a peculiar little shiver down her spine, just like the rest of him.
Oh God—was she really doing this? Was she really lusting after Jake? Robin abruptly turned away, walked out of the dining room and down the long corridor to the master suite. Since when had she become so . . . so aroused by the sight of a man? Irritable now, she shut the door behind her and stood, hands on hips. What she was doing was avoiding work. It was so obvious. She was avoiding work because she felt like a fish out of water. Not only did she not have the foggiest clue how to go about acquiring a company, she was so inept she couldn’t even get the likes of Eldagirt Wirt on the phone. And the only person who could teach her was her ex- lover Evan (Definitely ex! One gigantic slip in judgment did not constitute a re-relationship! Ex, Ex, Ex!).
She supposed she could at least be happy that she hadn’t burned down her office.
Robin fell backward onto her bed and stared morosely at the ceiling. Dad was right; she was arrogant and useless and nothing but window dressing. But she was going to change that. All Robin had ever wanted was to follow in Dad’s footsteps, to become a viable, integral part of the company, his legacy. One she hoped would be her legacy one day. The thing to do was to pour herself into this job and do it right. She had to stop avoiding it with this fruitless, impractical, stupid flirting with Jake. She could not let her fear of failure derail her.
Robin suddenly sat up. She had work to do. She was going to out there and start researching bubble wrap. And when she proved she could do it, Dad would see how wrong he was about her and everything would go back to normal. Assuming she could figure out what normal was. Okay, well, one thing that was definitely abnormal was lying on her bed and fretting in the middle of the day, and she didn’t want to face the fact that maybe she was just a little bit, teeny-tiny bit afraid.
That did it.
Robin sat up, shook her fingers through her hair, and walked out of her room to do what she did best. Work.