by Beth Andrews
“Usually I don’t. But here’s the deal. I can help save your butt with the kid, help her save face at school and put that little twit Miranda in her place.”
Jack knew it was wrong—wrong, spiteful and more than a bit immature—to want to put a six-year-old in her place. So why did it sound like such a good idea to him?
“I’m listening.”
“Okay. So, I help you and the kid make cookies—”
“You can make cookies?”
“I’m multitalented,” she said dryly.
“What do you want in exchange?”
“Nothing.”
He laughed. “Right. You expect me to believe you want to help me and my daughter and want nothing in return?” He shook his head, leaned in closer so he could see her better. “I’m not buying it.”
“I’m trying to be nice here and you’re not making it easy.”
No, he wasn’t. “I appreciate the offer,” he told her, “but I’m going to pass.”
Anger flashed in her eyes. And he wasn’t sure, but he thought he detected a trace of hurt as well. “You don’t want my help? Fine. But my cookies are a hell of a lot better than—”
“You know how to make cookies?”
Jack groaned. “Emma, I thought I asked you to wait in—”
“Can you stay and help us make cookies?” Emma asked as she slipped past Jack. “Please? Pretty please?”
“Kelsey has to go.”
“I could probably stick around for a few minutes.” She looked down at Emma. “If it’s okay with your dad.”
“Oh, please, Daddy. Please!” Emma grabbed Kelsey’s hand and began hopping up and down. “Can she stay and help?”
Knowing he didn’t stand a chance, Jack nodded. Emma gave a whoop of delight and pulled Kelsey into his house.
THE KID DIDN’T SHUT UP.
“Now I’m in first grade and my teacher’s name is Miss Clark.” Emma stood on a chair next to the counter and dropped the last gooey spoonful of chocolate no-bakes onto a sheet of tin foil. “And tomorrow we have gym and we have to do curl ups. I can do twenty.”Kelsey felt her eyes cross. Jeez, she already knew more about the kid than she’d ever thought possible. Emma had talked nonstop since they’d gone inside, filling Kelsey in on her entire life’s story. Who would’ve thought someone who’d only been alive for six years had so much to say?
It had taken a full thirty minutes, but Kelsey had successfully been brought up-to-date on the life and times of Emma Martin.
What more could there be?
Except, hallelujah, the kid finally stopped talking. She glanced over to make sure Emma was still breathing and saw the expectant look on the little girl’s face.
“Oh,” she said when realization dawned. Emma wanted her to comment about—what had Emma been saying? Oh, yeah. Gym class. Curl ups. “Uh, that’s good.”
An adorable smile lit Emma’s face. Huh. Well what do you know? She’d said the right thing. Looked like someone deserved a gold star.
“These are yummy,” Emma said around a bite of her third cookie. “Did your mommy teach you how to make them?”
Seeing as how there weren’t too many cookie recipes that included vodka as a main ingredient, Leigh hadn’t done much baking. Or mothering, for that matter.
Not that the kid needed to know that. Emma’s life may not be perfect—what with her mother dead and all—but, compared to what Kelsey had survived, it was pretty damn close.
“No, my mother didn’t teach me.” Jack’s arm brushed her back as he squeezed past her. The kitchen was narrow, but warm and comfortable with light wood cabinets, white counters and appliances and a cream-and-green tiled floor. “My brother did.”
“You have a brother?” Emma asked in an awed tone. As if she had just admitted to being on a first-name basis with Cinderella or something.
“Yeah. His name is Dillon.”
“I want a baby brother. But Daddy won’t get me one.”
Kelsey’s lips twitched and she couldn’t stop herself from looking over at the sink where Jack washed dishes, his face a cool mask. He hadn’t said much while she’d helped Emma with the no-bakes, but it was obvious he wasn’t happy with her being in his house or helping his kid.
So much for not pissing him off anymore.
“Well,” Kelsey said, tearing her gaze away from Jack—who knew a man doing domestic chores could be so sexy? “Dillon’s older than me.”
Emma frowned. “I don’t want an older brother. Hayley says older brothers are a pain in the butt.”
“Language,” Jack warned.
“But she does say that, Daddy,” Emma told him, her face an expression of earnestness before turning back to Kelsey. “She knows ’cuz she has an older brother.”
Kelsey had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing out loud, or screaming in terror.
What had she gotten herself into? Why hadn’t she just written down the recipe and gotten the hell out of there?
Yeah, she knew why. When Emma had looked up at her with those big blue eyes, she was a goner. Plus, Jack had messed up chocolate chip cookies. He couldn’t be trusted with a recipe.
Besides, she was making nice. Okay, helping the kid with her cookies was going a bit above and beyond. Never let it be said Kelsey Reagan did things halfway.
“I liked having an older brother,” Kelsey said when she noticed Emma staring up at her. She’d loved having an older brother. Her entire life, no one mattered more to her than Dillon. He’d been her protector and best friend. And that awful night when she’d made the biggest mistake of her life, he’d even been her savior.
“Are you sad?”
She didn’t know what surprised her more. Emma’s question or the comforting feel of a small hand on her arm.
“No. I was just—”
“You look sad.” Emma patted her arm and Kelsey thought her heart would simply burst in her chest. “Is your brother in heaven?”
“No,” she said while Jack snorted, presumably at the idea of Dillon standing at the heavenly gates. “But you know what?” She removed the girl’s hand from her arm. “Even though I liked having a big brother, your friend was right, too. Sometimes he was a real pain in the butt.”
As she’d intended, Emma giggled and the tension in the room eased.
“It’s way past your bedtime, Emma.” Jack wiped his hands on a dish towel. “Time to hit the sack.”
She stuck her lower lip out. “Do I have to?”
“Yes. You have to. What do you say to Kelsey?”
Like a well-trained child, she automatically responded, “Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about—”
The rest of Kelsey’s words stuck in her throat when Emma threw her arms around her neck and squeezed tight.
Now what was she supposed to do? She looked to Jack for guidance but the expression on his face told her he wasn’t any happier with the turn of events than she was.
Still, she couldn’t let the kid dangle there forever. She awkwardly patted Emma’s back, careful not to be too rough. Before she could decide holding the soft, cuddly body of a kid wasn’t all that bad, Jack pulled Emma away.
“Go brush your teeth,” he said, placing Emma on the floor. “I’ll be up in a few minutes to tuck you in.”
“Okay.” Emma yawned and sent Kelsey a sleepy smile. “Good night.”
“Night.” Kelsey cleared her throat, kept her eyes on Emma’s retreating figure. “Well, I guess I’ll be—”
“Did you think I would lay off your brother just because you helped my daughter make cookies?”
She blinked. Not so much at Jack’s question or the coolness of his voice, but at how her stomach fell in response to his anger. To his accusation.
“Excuse me?”
“Did you think I’d pull strings for Ward?” He walked over to her slowly and she couldn’t fight the feeling she was being stalked. “What did you hope to achieve here?”
“Those.” She inclined her head toward the
cookies. “Mission accomplished.”
“Out on the porch you said you were going to do me a favor. And favors usually come with strings attached. Is that what this is all about? You think I’ll owe you now?”
Because his accusation hurt more than she would’ve liked—and way more than she ever would’ve admitted—she forced out a laugh. “I didn’t do this for any reason other than to help the kid.”
“You expect me to believe you helped Emma out of the goodness of your heart?”
The derision in his voice turned her hurt into anger. Anger that she seized with both hands and held on to for dear life.
“I don’t lie.” Not anymore.
It was the need to get back at him that made her edge forward until their thighs brushed. The heat in Jack’s eyes became more intense. More exciting. And way more frightening.
Ignoring good sense, she slid both hands up his chest. His body tensed and a breath hissed out from between his teeth. With a small smile, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body against his.
“Besides, if I really wanted you to go easy on Dillon or look the other way or whatever it is you’re accusing me of,” she said in a husky voice as she rocked her hips against him suggestively, “I could think of something much more…interesting to offer you than cookies.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
JACK KNEW SHE WAS MESSING with him but he couldn’t stop himself from reacting to her nearness. Her scent. Her heat.
His hands trembled with the need to pull her closer, to slip under her shirt and caress her silky skin. He wanted to smooth his fingers up her bare legs and run his tongue over the delicate skin at her collar bone. To dip his head and taste the surprising sweetness of her kiss once again.He stepped back until Kelsey’s hands fell from around his neck. “I don’t like being used.”
Mostly, he didn’t like the idea of her selling herself short. Not to him, or anyone else for that matter. Especially not to help her brother.
“If I were to use you,” she said huskily, “I doubt you’d have any complaints.”
He studied her. Her voice was assured, she wore a cocky grin, but something in her eyes made him suspicious.
“So you’re here to screw me?” he asked evenly.
If he hadn’t been studying her so closely, he might’ve missed her slight flinch, but there was no way he could’ve missed the color reddening her cheeks or the indignation in her expression. She opened her mouth, more than likely readying yet another lie.
“Why don’t you cut the act?” he asked. “What are you really doing here?”
She picked at the bottom of her skirt. “It’s not important.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
She shrugged. “After our little…run-in this morning, I spoke with Dillon.”
He waited. When she didn’t go on, he prompted, “And?”
“And…” She blew out a breath. “And I sort of told him how we—” she gestured between them “—sort of had an argument and he was…well…he asked me to, you know, smooth things over with you.” She rushed on, “But not because he’s looking for special favors or anything.”
“You came over to apologize?” he asked carefully. Out of all the scenarios he could’ve imagined, her wanting to apologize for giving him a hard time hadn’t crossed his mind.
“Something like that,” she muttered.
“That still doesn’t explain the whole cookie thing with Emma.”
She pressed her lips together. “I can relate to what she’s going through. When my mother wasn’t tending bar, she was either passed out or on her way to being passed out.” Kelsey stuck her hands in her pockets, which pulled her skirt even lower and exposed more of her smooth, flat stomach. He forced himself to keep his eyes on her face. “I was always the one to go to school with dirty clothes and a lunch that consisted of peanut butter on stale bread.”
She stood still, her chin raised, her eyes on his. He’d give her one thing, she had courage. She didn’t hide. Even when she spoke about something that was obviously hard on her, she met it straight on.
“How is that like Emma?” he asked in his cop voice. Emotionless. Detached.
“When I was around her age, it was my turn to bring in a treat. The teacher took me aside, told me she could bring in something and tell the class it was from me.” Kelsey frowned as if she was still angry at her teacher for trying to help her. “I told her I’d bring in something myself.”
Jack could easily picture her as a little girl. All skinny arms and legs, a mop of red hair and a mile-long stubborn streak.
“After school that day,” she continued, “I went home and bugged Dillon to help me. He took me to the library where we found a recipe that was user-friendly and cheap. We made the cookies and I took them to school the next day.”
“Daddy,” Emma called from the top of the stairs.
“I’ll be up in a minute, honey.”
He turned back to the sexy, surprising woman before him. Not that he’d changed his mind about keeping his distance from her, but it wouldn’t hurt him to ease up on her a bit.
“Sounds like you and Ward had a rough childhood,” he said, neutral.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Jack frowned as he realized he wanted to know all of it.
“What about your father?” he finally asked.
Her pretty mouth thinned. “What about him?”
“Wasn’t he in the picture?”
“He took off before I was born.”
“So it was just you and Ward and your mother? That must’ve been tough.”
“Not really. Besides, it was rarely just the three of us. More like the three of us and whatever man my mother was sleeping with at the time.”
“What about Dillon?” he asked as he turned and opened the door to his refrigerator. He took out two cans of soda and pushed the door closed with his foot. “Was he in trouble a lot when he was younger?” He held out a can of soda to her.
She stared at the soda, the expression on her sexy face growing darker with each passing second. “What the hell is this?”
He glanced down. “It’s cola. You don’t want it? I have beer or—”
“I’m not talking about the soda,” she hissed as she straightened and slapped her hands on her hips, “and you damn well know it.”
Hell, yes, he knew it. But he wasn’t ready to admit it quite yet. He schooled his features into a puzzled expression. “I’m not following you.”
“Oh, you’re not only following me, you’re interrogating me.”
Jack stepped forward. She straightened and lifted her chin. He ignored how she tensed when his hand brushed her arm as he set one of the cans down on the table. He eased back and opened his own soda, took a long drink.
When he lowered the can, she was still looking at him like he kicked puppies for entertainment. “This isn’t an interrogation. It’s a conversation.”
“What you’re doing is fishing for information.” She sneered. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you man enough to come right out and ask what you want to know?”
He ground his back teeth together. She sure had a thing about challenging his manhood. “I’m…curious about you.”
She snorted out a laugh. “Right. You want to know what makes me tick, huh? What’s made me the woman I am today.”
“I want to help you, Kelsey.” He said it quietly, and realized he meant it. He did want to find out more about her. To figure her out. But only because she was such a damn puzzle, he assured himself.
One he fully intended to solve.
He met her eyes, willed her to believe him. To trust him. “Talk to me. Tell me why you’re so willing to stick up for Ward. Why are you so loyal to the man who killed your stepfather in cold blood?”
KELSEY’S THROAT CONSTRICTED and her mouth grew dry. She snatched the soda off the table, popped the top and took a deep gulp of the cold liquid. It didn’t help ease the dryness much, but it gave her time to gather her
thoughts.
She could feel Jack’s eyes on her. Intense. Probing. As if he could break through her barriers and see all her secrets if only he looked hard enough. Waited long enough.“What’d you do? Look into my brother’s past or something?”
Jack stuck his free hand in his pocket. “I ran a background check on Ward when he first moved here.”
“You run background checks on all your town’s new citizens?” Not that she was worried about him looking into her past. Her records were sealed. She watched him thoughtfully. “Then again, someone like you probably does.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Someone all upstanding and righteous.”
“You make it sound like there’s something wrong with being upstanding. And I didn’t check Ward’s background for my own pleasure or to appease my curiosity. I did it because he was applying to rent from a friend of mine.”
“Did this friend ask you to check up on my brother?”
“She didn’t have to—”
“In other words, no.”
He scowled. “Surprisingly, people with less than exemplary backgrounds don’t always go around announcing that fact. Besides, that’s what friends do. They look out for one another. They don’t wait to be asked for help.”
She wouldn’t know. She didn’t have any friends. “Who is this ‘friend’?”
He hesitated. “Nina Carlson. She runs Sweet Suggestions for her grandparents.”
She raised her eyebrows. “So she allowed Dillon to rent from her, anyway? I bet that just fries your bacon.”
“I’m not thrilled that a convicted murderer is living above a single mother of two,” he admitted. “Or that he’s befriended my sister.”
“Dillon would never hurt—”
“He killed a man.”
“You don’t know anything about what happened that night,” she said, unable to keep her voice from shaking.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Oh, he was good. When he looked at her with those mesmerizing eyes of his, when he spoke to her in that gentle, cajoling tone, she wanted to trust him. To believe him.
God, but she was pathetic.