Summer Reads Box Set: Volume 1

by Freethy, Barbara

  "I had no idea they'd ever met," she murmured. These two men, who had shaken hands some fifty years ago, were her grandfathers.

  "It's a small world," Ben commented.

  "Yes," she agreed. And it was getting smaller by the moment.

  * * *

  Riley set his grandfather's armchair back into its upright position and adjusted the cushions. He looked around at the living room his grandmother had always kept so neat and wondered if it would ever look that way again. Whoever had ransacked her house had been hastily and ruthlessly brutal in their search. Obviously time had been a factor. There was also a sense of purpose. This hadn't been a random burglary. It didn't appear that anything had been taken.

  He moved over to the end table, staring down at the piles and piles of photographs that had been dumped out of the box his grandmother kept them in. It had been a family joke for years that Nan was not a photo-album kind of person. She'd been talking about organizing the photos of her life for as long as he'd been alive, but here they were, a mass of black and white and color photographs from a lifetime of living.

  He sighed. He wished he could just hire a cleaning service to come in and tackle this mess, but his grandmother had already told him that she didn't want any more strangers in the house. She'd do it herself tomorrow, and that would be fine, but he couldn't let her face this.

  His cell phone rang, and he answered. "Yes?"

  "There's a beautiful blonde casing the house," Gilbert, one of his security guards, told him. "She's been standing on the sidewalk for almost five minutes. You want me to talk to her?"

  "No, I think I know who it is," he said, feeling an unexpected jolt at the information.

  "She's walking up to the door now."

  "I've got it, thanks."

  Riley slipped his phone back in his pocket and went to open the front door. Paige was in the process of reaching for the doorbell. "Looking for me?" he asked, surprised and pleased to see her. He'd spent most of the day with her, but he'd missed her the past few hours. Damn, not a feeling he wanted to examine too closely.

  "How did you know I was out here?" Paige asked.

  "I have a sixth sense."

  Her gaze narrowed speculatively. "You have an undercover guy sitting in a car at the corner."

  He grinned at her. "Very good, Miss Hathaway. He said you were stalling. Why?"

  "I was having second and third thoughts. Can I come in?"

  Riley held the door open for her. "It's a mess, I warn you."

  Paige walked into the room, her eyes widening as she took in the destruction. "My goodness. When most people say their house is a mess, it's usually spotlessly clean. But this really is a mess."

  "They did quite a job. Take a look." He led her around the downstairs, showing her the living room, dining room, and kitchen, where they had to step over pots and pans to get to the back stairs. The upstairs was just as bad. The bedding had been tossed off all the beds, the drawers upended, items pulled off the shelves.

  "Oh, Riley." Paige shook her head at the sight of his grandmother's bedroom. "Whoever did this was very serious."

  "I know. You live in a secure building but you should be careful, Paige. Until your father can tell us what happened, we need to be cautious."

  Paige's face lightened at his words. "That's what I came to tell you. My father is awake."

  "That's great. How is he?"

  "He's okay, I think. But he doesn't remember what happened this week at all. He only spoke for a few minutes, and he seems to have lost a few weeks. I asked him about the dragon, but he didn't know what I was talking about. The doctor said it's not unusual for there to be short-term memory loss."

  "Probably not, but it's damned inconvenient," Riley grumbled. He couldn't help wondering if David really couldn't remember or if this was just another trick, but in light of Paige's happiness at her father being awake, he decided to keep that thought to himself.

  "Everything seems so much better now," she said. "I know we don't have the dragon back yet, but I feel as if we're getting closer. As soon as my dad can tell us why he went to Chinatown, we'll have an idea of who is behind all this."

  Her smile took his breath away. He liked the optimism in her voice. She reminded him of his grandmother in that way, always wanting to see the best, the potential, the possibilities. Meanwhile his brain was spinning with the complications. "Your father may not be safe," he began.

  "My mother is hiring a security guard."

  "That's good. We don't want anyone to take another shot at your father."

  "My mother will make sure that doesn't happen. She knows how to protect what's hers." She paused. "Anyway, why don't I help you clean up? That's what you came here to do, right?"

  "Surely Hathaways don't clean."

  Her brown eyes sparkled. "Not usually, no. But I think I can stumble my way through the process. Besides, I've seen your apartment, and I don't think you're exactly an expert."

  "You don't have anything better to do with your Friday night? No hot date with Marty?"

  "Martin."

  "Whatever. How come you're not out with him?”

  "He didn't ask."

  "Are you one of those girls who must be called by Wednesday for a Friday date?"

  "Monday or Tuesday at the latest. What about you? Are you one of those guys who calls at four o'clock on Friday and says, " 'Hey, babe, want to hang out tonight?' "

  "What's wrong with that?"

  "No finesse. No style." She walked into Nan's room and picked up one of the drawers from the floor. She set it on the bed and began folding his grandmother's shirts and shorts.

  Riley watched her from the doorway. Once again, her behavior was surprising him. She should have been out celebrating her father's awakening with her fancy friends in a fancy restaurant. Instead she'd come here—to him. That thought was more than a little disturbing. What was she doing here? What did she want?

  "Are you going to help?" She cast him a curious look. "Or are you going to stand there and stare at me?"

  "I haven't decided yet."

  Paige finished with one drawer and returned it to the dresser. "You probably don't want to go through your grandmother's underwear, do you? I can understand that women's lingerie would make you a little uncomfortable."

  "My grandmother's underwear definitely makes me uncomfortable," he said with a smile. "Women's lingerie is another story entirely."

  "I'll bet. Red teddies and black garter belts, right?”

  "I keep an open mind. And I don't discriminate.”

  She rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you don't. Do you have a woman in your life right now?"

  "Yeah, an irritating, nosy blonde who asks a lot of questions."

  Paige finished with another drawer. "Help me get the bed together," she said, ignoring his comment. "Maybe we should wash the sheets. I bet your grandmother would feel better if everything was cleaned."

  "She is a big believer in clean sheets. I had to strip my bed every Saturday morning like clockwork. For the first fourteen years of my life, I was lucky to sleep on any kind of sheets. Sleeping bags and old blankets were more the norm." He was sorry he'd mentioned it when he saw the pity come into her eyes. "It was like camping. It was fun," he added, not wanting her to feel bad for him

  "It was wrong. Every child deserves at least the basics—food, shelter, clothes, security."

  "That requires money. I don't expect you to understand."

  Paige tossed the bedding in a pile on the floor, leaving the mattress bare. "You always bring up money. You always point out how different we are. It's as if you want to make sure I know there's a line between us that we can't cross."

  She was right. He was drawing a line between them, because right now, alone in a bedroom with a bed only a few feet away, it would be easy to forget there was anything to keep them apart. Her flowery scent was tantalizing, her brown eyes beckoning with the fire of challenge in them. And her body. Hell, he'd have to be a saint not to notice the curve o
f her breasts through her silk blouse or the shapely ass encased in a pair of black pants. She was quite a package, and he was dying to unwrap her.

  "Well? Nothing to say?" she asked.

  "You seem to be talking enough for both of us.”

  "Show me your room, Riley."

  "I haven't lived here in a long time."

  "Show me where you slept when you did live here."

  It was another dare; he could see it in her eyes. She wanted to get to know him better, to get inside his head. And he wanted to get inside her body. Two distinctly opposing goals. Although they didn't have to be, if he gave her what she wanted...

  He turned and walked down the hall to his old bedroom. It had been his mother's room when she was a girl, but there was no sign now that any female had ever lived here. Now the room housed a full-sized bed with a blue bedspread, a simple oak dresser and matching desk where he'd once done his homework. There were a few items from childhood in the room, the model airplanes he'd made when he'd dreamed of being a pilot and flying away from it all, the posters of football players that had never quite come down. Now he was almost embarrassed to see them.

  "Did you make these?" Paige asked, pointing to one of the airplanes.

  "Yeah." He picked up the globe and the stand that his grandfather had given him. It had been knocked over during the burglary.

  "You like to fly."

  "I do. I like looking down on the world. How about you?"

  "I love flying, especially takeoff, when you're speeding down the runway and the plane is shaking and suddenly you're up and away. It's a wonderful feeling."

  He frowned, hating the way she'd echoed his own feelings. He didn't want to have anything in common with her. "I'm sure it's a better experience in first class than in coach."

  She groaned. "Oh, my God, Riley, would you knock it off? You may have grown up poor, but you're not poor anymore."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because I know. There's nothing wrong with this house, either. It's nice, comfortable, a lot warmer than the one I grew up in."

  She sat down on the bed, which was disheveled but intact. Apparently, their uninvited guest had done only a cursory run through this room. Probably because there wasn't much in it. Riley swallowed hard as Paige did a little bounce on the bed. His bed. His teenage bed. The bed he'd dreamed of sharing with a beautiful, sexy blonde like Paige.

  "This is much softer than mine was," she told him. "My mother believes a firm mattress keeps the posture straight and the body supported. It's also extremely uncomfortable. I used to pile extra blankets on the mattress and sleep on top of them. Now, of course, I have a nice soft mattress, like this." She laid back on the bed, her legs dangling off the end. "Look, you have the universe on your ceiling. That is so cool."

  He glanced up at the ceiling, which his grandfather had painted like a nighttime sky, a dark blue with twinkling gold stars. "My grandpa got tired of me climbing up on the roof. When my mom would leave, I'd go up there to watch for her. Then I started stargazing."

  "What's that one?" She pointed to the ceiling.

  "Orion. Get up, Paige."

  "What's the problem?" She sat up halfway, resting on her elbows.

  "I want you out of my bed." He could have bit his tongue at the way that came out, but he was fighting an overwhelming feeling of lust at the moment, and it was that or jump on top of her and show her just how much the bed could bounce.

  "Sorry," Paige said hastily as she scrambled off with a hurt look on her face.

  He caught her by the arm. "That's not what I meant."

  "You were pretty clear."

  He gazed into her face and knew he couldn't look away, couldn't walk away, couldn't make her go away.

  "Riley," she whispered, "let me go."

  "I can't." He leaned over and covered her mouth with his. She tasted sweet, sinful, sexy, sophisticated. It was a heady combination and completely irresistible, especially when she moved into his body, when her breasts came into contact with his chest, when her hands crept around his waist. She should have been resisting, pushing him away, not kissing him back like she didn't want to stop. And when he slipped his tongue into her mouth, she absolutely should not have met him halfway. Nor should she have made that lusty little gasp of desire that he wanted to hear again and again.

  "Riley, I need to breathe," she murmured against his mouth.

  He played his lips across her face, her neck, the curve of her shoulder. He moved behind her and used his hands to memorize her body, from her slim waist to her soft breasts. He rolled his palm over one breast, feeling the nipple tighten beneath his fingers. It was too much of an invitation to resist. He slipped his hand inside the V neck of her blouse, into her lacy bra so he could touch her bare skin, feel the heat rising between them. He used his other hand to bring her bottom flush against his groin, where he was hard as a rock.

  There was that little gasp of desire again. It made him crazy.

  His name rolled off her lips like a plea for more. And he intended to give her more, much more. He turned her to face him again, backed her up against the bed until the backs of her knees hit the mattress, and they both went down. He landed on top of her, exactly where he wanted to be, and found her mouth again. He wrestled with the buttons on her blouse, one, two, three. Finally, he had them undone, and as he pulled open her shirt, he broke away from her mouth to gaze down at her. Her beautiful breasts were rising up and down, her nipples peaking through the sheer lacy cups. God, he was in heaven.

  He leaned over and pushed her bra aside, putting his mouth to her breast, rolling his tongue around her nipple until she groaned. But she didn't push him away; she put her hand around the back of his neck and pressed him closer.

  "Don't stop," she whispered. "Don't stop."

  "I won't," he promised. But the words had barely left his mouth when the sound of a door slamming penetrated his foggy brain.

  A voice came from down below. "Riley? Riley, are you here?"

  Paige shoved him off, panic in her eyes. "Is that your grandmother?"

  "Riley?" Nan called out again.

  "Oh, my God. She can't see us like this," Paige said.

  Riley sat back in a daze, watching as Paige fumbled with the buttons of her shirt. She looked incredible, with her blond hair tangled from his fingers, her lips red from his kisses, her breasts moist from his tongue. He knew he needed to move, get up, go to the door, tell his grandmother he'd be right down, but all he could do was look at Paige and wish to hell they could go back to doing what they had been doing.

  "Riley, help me," Paige begged as they heard footsteps on the stairs.

  He finally got his brain to function. "I'll head her off." He got off the bed and took a deep breath, willing the rest of his body to cooperate. His grandmother might be in her seventies, but her eyesight was still perfect.

  "I'll be right there, Grandma," he yelled. He gave Paige a rueful smile. "She always did have bad timing. I'll get rid of her."

  "How are you going to do that?"

  "I don't know."

  "Don't tell her I'm here."

  "I wasn't planning on it." He walked out of his bedroom and took care to close the door behind him. He found Nan in her room, staring at the mess.

  "It's worse than I remembered." She walked over to the dresser and set up the photo of herself and Ned at their fortieth anniversary party. "That's better."

  Riley's heart began to slow down as he realized his grandmother's distraction was definitely to his benefit. "What are you doing here? I thought you were staying at Millie's."

  "I needed my robe. I forgot to get it earlier. I saw your car so I figured it would be all right to come in. Plus, I saw Gilbert sitting in his car at the corner, so I know I'm safe. You hired those old boys to watch over me, didn't you?"

  "Yes," he admitted, still feeling a bit uncomfortable when she turned her gaze on him.

  She stared at him for a long minute, and he wondered what she was seeing. Did he hav
e lipstick on his face? Was his hair as messy as Paige's? He distinctly remembered feeling her fingers run through his hair.

  "What's wrong?" she asked him.

  "Nothing."

  "You look—funny."

  "It must be all the dust I've been stirring up."

  "Must be."

  "There's your robe." He grabbed it off the chair in front of her dressing table. "This is your favorite one, isn't it?"

  "Yes, it keeps me warm." She gave him another long look. "I guess I'll go back to Millie's, unless you want me to stay and help."

  "No. You take the night off. There will be plenty to do tomorrow."

  "Are you going to sleep here tonight, honey?"

  Sleep was the last thing he had on his mind. "I don't know yet. I'll see how late it gets."

  "If you are, you should change the sheets on your bed. I have extras in the hall closet. Why don't I help you do that before I go?"

  "No," he said abruptly. "I mean, I already did it. So you can just go back to Millie's."

  "You already did it? I must have taught you something after all." She smiled at that. "Well, don't work too hard."

  He followed her down the stairs, praying she wouldn't suddenly stop and decide she needed to get something else. But they made it to the front door without a hitch.

  "I'll watch you walk next door," he said.

  "You always take good care of me, Riley."

  "That's my job."

  She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Good night, honey." She walked down the steps, then paused. "By the way, tell Paige I said hello." Her knowing grin made him feel fourteen years old again. "I hope you didn't make her hide in the closet like you did Jenny Markson."

  "Paige is definitely not in the closet," he replied. Her laughter lasted all the way next door. When be shut the door, Paige was right behind him.

  "I am totally embarrassed," Paige said. "She knew I was here the whole time."

  "I never could get away with anything." He took a step toward her. "Now, where were we?"

  She put a hand on the middle of his chest, holding him at arm's length. "Who is Jenny Markson?"

  "She's not competition, if that's what you're worried about. I think she has a couple of kids by now, and at least one husband."