Fund-raising.
The party.
He sat back, forgetting about the book, the work, his dreams, lost in the memory of looking at Mike and hearing her agree to go to the damn fund-raiser with him. Still wasn’t sure why he’d asked her. But it had felt . . . right. He’d rather not go alone. And Mike was entertaining, if nothing else.
A shout from downstairs had him jumping up from his desk chair and walking into the hall. Leaning over the wrought-iron railing, he stared down at a burly man in coveralls, standing in the middle of the foyer.
The man tipped his head back and squinted up at Lucas. “Just wanted to let you know, we finished up in the guest bathroom and we’re headed out now.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“No problem.” The man let his gaze wander around the foyer before looking back up. “You sure got a nice place here, Lucas.”
“Yeah.” He nodded and smiled. “Thanks to you guys. You do good work.”
“ ’Preciate it.” The man waved and headed out the front door.
Alone in his house, Lucas forgot about going back to work and instead headed for the guest bathroom, to check out the finished job. He walked through the big, airy room that overlooked the backyard and had its own balcony and set of French doors. Smiling to himself, he kept going, into the adjoining bath. It was the last piece to his house. Once that tub was in, then the job was complete and . . .
He looked down for a long minute, grinding his back teeth together. Then he snatched his cell phone from his jeans pocket, flipped it open and punched in a set of numbers. He’d dialed the damn numbers so often in the last two months, they were branded into his brain.
She answered on the first ring.
“This is not the tub I ordered,” he snarled.
She laughed. “Who is this?”
“Damn it, Mike—” His fingers tightened on the cell phone until he almost expected it to snap in his hand. “This was supposed to be a dark blue tub. Nothing fancy. Just dark blue.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said, “but—”
“This tub is green,” he pointed out tightly, waving one hand at it like a cheap magician trying to make too many rabbits go back into a hat. “And it’s got Jacuzzi jets in it.”
“Geez, Rocket Man,” Mike said, “chill out, will ya? The green is much better with the wallpaper.”
Lucas wondered if she’d dropped the tone of her voice to raw sex on purpose. And knew it didn’t matter. She’d done it again. Stepped all over his plans, waltzed through his house in her size 7 combat boots, and left muddy footprints all over the damn place. She hadn’t even had to be here to do it!
His chin hit his chest, he felt his eyeballs roll in his head and his blood pressure spike. “Mike,” he said slowly, silently congratulating himself on his forbearance, “there is no wallpaper.”
“There will be tomorrow morning. Sam Chaney will be there around nineish—can’t be more specific than that, his wife has line dancing lessons and he has to drop her off at the community center first.” She paused for breath, but not long enough to let him get a word in. “Sam’s great. He’ll do a good job.”
Lucas muffled a snort of what he was really afraid might be hysterical laughter. Dropping down onto the edge of the tub, he sighed. “I’ll thank you later, I suppose?”
“See? You really are a genius, aren’t you?”
“Right.” He shook his head and threw one hand high, signifying surrender. He was only glad she wasn’t there to see it. “If I’m so smart, why do I have a Jacuzzi tub I didn’t order?”
There was a long, heartfelt pause before Mike spoke again and this time her voice was even lower, skimming along his nerve endings. Making him think of hot nights and silk sheets and cool breezes drifting across naked bodies. “Rocket Man,” she said, purring out each word softly, breathlessly, “if you don’t know what those jets can do—you really do need to get out more.”
Then she hung up.
Lucas’s blood turned to steam and heated him through from the inside out.
“She did that on purpose,” he said and glared at the phone. “She knew damn well what that voice does to a man and she used it to steamroll me.”
He ought to be furious.
What he was, was hard and horny.
“Damn it.”
Alone, Lucas sat on the edge of a damn tub he hadn’t ordered, and didn’t want. The woman had shifted his world completely off its axis and he wasn’t sure how to get it back on again. “I thought life in the country—hell, small-town life—was supposed to be easier.”
He turned to get a good look at the thing and damn if he didn’t instantly imagine Mike there. He could see her, wearing nothing but a layer of bubbles and that smile that did some very unexpected things to his blood pressure.
And he could see himself, joining her, and showing her that he knew exactly what a Jacuzzi could be good for.
He stood up and let that image dissolve as quickly as popping soap bubbles. Groaning, he left the room and headed for his own bathroom. So he could stand under the stinging spray of an icy cold shower.
For all the good it’d do him.
7
A few hours at Castle’s Day Spa was enough to improve anyone’s attitude.
Nothing quite like being pampered by people who knew what they were doing. Mike sighed and rolled her shoulders on a soft groan of satisfaction. A massage, a facial, and now, a manicure/pedicure. “God, does it get any better than this?”
The question was rhetorical but naturally Jo couldn’t leave it at that. “Why is it when we have a sisters’ day, we end up here?”
Mike opened one eye and looked at her sister. “Because God loves us?”
Sam laughed from her chair on the other side of Jo. “Put a sock in it, you two. You’re ruining the atmosphere.”
True. Mike leaned her head back against the spa chair and let herself relax into the damn near blissful sensations of a foot rub.
Castle’s had started out life as a three-chair beauty parlor. But once Tasha Flynn married Nick Candellano, they’d redone the old Victorian—well, actually, the Marconis had done all the work, and a damn fine job of it too, if she did say so herself. With Nick’s money and Tasha’s sense of style—not to mention the Marconis’ excellent work—they’d turned the old house into the most plush spa in the county.
On the main floor, there were manicure/pedicures, and a row of hair-styling stations facing large, ornate mirrors. The walls were a soft butter yellow with cream-colored crown molding along the edge of the ceiling. Strains of classical music pumped through speakers discreetly hidden behind copper planters from which ferns and brightly colored flowers tumbled in abandon.
Upstairs were several different massage rooms, each painted in soft, soothing colors, boasting comfy beds and piped-in New Age music designed to slip into every cell of your body and induce relaxation.
And back on the ground floor, muted conversations from contented women whispered through the open spaces. In the far corner of the room, the Leaf and Bean concession boasted plushly cushioned chairs and impossible-to-resist pastries.
In short, Mike thought, a half-smile on her face, it was a little slice of heaven.
“We just did this last month,” Jo complained and jerked her ticklish foot out of the pedicurist’s hands.
But, Mike told herself, even paradise had had a snake.
She glared at her older sister. “I’m amazed that you’re willing to admit you haven’t had a pedicure in a month.”
“I’ve got a few more important things going on.”
“Nothing’s more important,” Mike said. “For God’s sake, Jo, you’re a girl. Try to keep that in mind occasionally, huh?”
“You think of it often enough for all of us.” Jo winced when the manicurist snipped at her cuticle. “Isn’t it enough that I agreed to you taking the day off to get ready for your weekend of sin in the sun? Did you have to drag us along for the ride?”
Mike straightene
d in her chair, despite the muttered warnings of her manicurist. “Nobody said anything about sin,” she pointed out, and scowled as the woman polishing her toes smirked. “Besides, if I’m gonna sin, I sure as hell don’t have to apologize for it.”
“Who asked you to?” Jo demanded, then added to the girl still happily snipping away, “Hey, I’d like to keep that finger, okay?” before turning her gaze back on Mike. “All I’m saying is that just because you wanted to spend a day here—”
“Would it physically kill you to enjoy yourself?”
One of Jo’s dark brown eyebrows lifted. “Possibly.”
“Well, I for one am enjoying myself,” Sam muttered thickly.
“See? She’s my sister,” Mike said.
“What’m I?” Jo demanded.
“Still working that out,” Mike countered, grinning.
Jo sighed and gave her foot back into the care of the woman glaring at her. “Fine. We’ll do the girly thing, so you can run off and play . . . whatever, with your latest conquest.”
“He is so not a conquest.”
“Then why the weekend getaway?” Sam asked on another sigh.
Good question. Mike had been asking herself that very question for days. The best she’d been able to come up with was pretty pitiful. But she tried it out on her sisters anyway. “Lucas doesn’t know anybody around here. He’s got some big-deal fund-raiser to go to and he doesn’t want to go alone.”
Jo gave her a wry, sidelong glance. “So this is a pity date.”
She stiffened. “Who said anything about pity?”
“So why, then?” Sam asked, stepping into the middle of a blossoming argument, just as she always had. Sam, the peacemaker. Sam, the middle child. Sam, the sister waiting for an answer.
“He’s . . .” Mike’s voice trailed off and she would have waved her hands but they were held in a tight grip by the manicurists stationed on either side of her. She searched wildly for what to say, but a good Italian required her hands to have a decent conversation, so she came up empty.
“You like him.” Sam sounded pleased.
“I don’t hate him anymore,” Mike allowed.
Jo looked at her. “Decent of you to forgive him for building his own house.”
“On my land.”
“Which he bought,” Jo pointed out.
“After going behind my back,” Mike countered, feeling the old resentment spring to life inside her again.
“Which he didn’t even know was there,” Jo said amiably.
Hell, Mike thought grimly, Jo was always amiable when she thought she was winning an argument.
“Back to the point of this,” Sam said, winning a glare from both of her sisters. “Which is, you’re going away with a guy you’ve only known two months.”
“Hah!” Mike snorted. “Excuse me? Aren’t you the one who married the Weasel Dog after three hot weeks of sex and giggles?”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “And remember how well that turned out.”
“Worked out now,” Mike reminded her.
“Sure, nine years later.”
“Got you there,” Jo chortled.
“Are you almost finished?” Mike asked the manicurist on her left. “I’d like to punch my sister as soon as possible.”
“Nails are wet.” The girl laughed.
“Damn it.” Mike inhaled sharply and huffed it out again. “Look, I’m going away for the weekend. It’s a . . . favor.”
“That’s a new one,” Jo said, chuckling.
Mike snapped her a killing look that bounced right off her, like bullets off Superman’s chest. “Is it so hard to believe that I could do a nice thing?”
“No,” Sam said quickly, as Jo was just opening her mouth to comment. “It’s just that, while you’re doing this nice thing . . . I hope you’re careful.”
“Yes, mom,” Mike muttered. Sam’s warnings were so unnecessary. Mike had been giving herself this same speech for days. Actually, since right after agreeing to go with Lucas in the first place. She’d thought about The Kiss every night in her dreams. Well, not really thought about it. More like relived it. In glorious Technicolor with Dolby digital-enhanced detail.
The man might be a scientist, but he had some really interesting layers. The question was, did she want to peel him?
Always before, the men in Mike’s life had been temporary. Deliberately chosen to be temporary. She didn’t want to fall in love. Actually, tried hard not to fall in like. She preferred keeping things on a strictly hormonal level. Want was okay. Need was not. Lust, yes. Love, no.
Not that she had anything against the whole “happily ever after” thing. Hey, she’d listened to as many fairy tales as the next woman. It was just that Mike would never be able to have the whole fairy tale.
And half a “castle” worked for nobody.
“Fine. We’re supporting our sister during her charitable mission,” Jo said grimly, with a glance at Sam. “But while we’re here, could we at least—I don’t know . . . talk about work?”
“You really need a life,” Mike muttered.
“Like yours? No, thanks.” Then Jo ignored her. “We signed on to do Stevie’s new roof, so I’ll be handling that while you guys start working on Cash’s place next week.”
“Us? Not you?” Sam asked.
“It’ll be easier this way,” Jo insisted, taking her now freed right hand and inspecting the clear polish with a nod of approval.
“Easier on who?” Mike asked. “If we all do Stevie’s roof we can have it done in three or four days. You working alone will take nearly two weeks.”
“Your point?”
Mike blinked and looked at Sam.
“Her point”—Sam picked up the thread and ran with it—“is that we work together, Jo. You know that.”
“Not all the time.”
“Most of the time,” Sam insisted.
“I just thought it would be easier to get both jobs going at once.” Jo frowned at the pink polish on her toes.
Curious, Mike leaned closer to her oldest sister. “What’s going on with you and Cash?”
Jo’s blue eyes snapped up to meet Mike’s. “Absolutely nothing. The man is a pig. A self-satisfied, arrogant, know-it-all pig.”
“Whoa,” Mike said, laughing, “don’t hold back, Jo. Tell me what you really think.”
“Cute.”
“Are you sure you’re not—”
“What?” she snarled.
Mike looked at Sam, smiled, then shifted her gaze back to Jo. “You know what. Worried about maybe spending so much time with drop-dead gorgeous Cash and then sleeping with him only to discover your hidden altruistic side? Marching off to do good works?”
Jo scowled at her. “Do you ever get tired of talking?”
“Nope.”
“Any woman who sleeps with Cash needs her head examined,” Jo grumbled and waved both hands, hurrying up the nail polish drying.
“He’s hot.”
“So’s nuclear waste.”
“He’s also living like a priest.”
“Huh?” Both Jo and Mike said the word at the same time and turned astonished gazes on Sam, who was thanking the pedicurist and admiring her dark-coralpainted toes. Slowly, she lifted her gaze to her sisters and smiled. “Didn’t you hear? Women all over Chandler are pining away, apparently.”
“Since when?”
“By all reports, our secretary Tina was the last one to fall to Cash’s charms.”
“But that was like two months ago,” Mike said, remembering that Tina had spent one night with Cash and then gone home to Georgia to work for Habitat for Humanity. The man was a sexual hypnotist or something.
“Yep,” Sam said. “Two months. It seems Cash has taken a vow of celibacy.”
Jo snorted. “A vow. His dick probably wore out and fell off.”
Mike laughed. “You volunteering to find out?”
“You are insane.”
“Hi, you guys, how’s everything?”
All thr
ee of them turned to look at Tasha Candellano. She’d just had a baby a couple of weeks ago and already her figure had snapped back into shape—she was as tiny as ever. Her dark auburn hair was streaked with blond and paler shades of red and her green eyes sparkled.
“You look way too good,” Sam said to her. “Seriously, there are women here who would kill to look like that so soon after giving birth.”
“Trust me,” Tasha said, giving her almost flat stomach a pat. “There’s still plenty there. I just hide it well under clothes.” Then she looked around, nodding at the girls who were packing up the manicure/pedicure kits, and asked, “You guys having fun?”
“Oh, a blast,” Jo grumbled.
“Pay no attention to her,” Mike piped up. “She’s obviously deranged. So how’s the baby?”
“She’s gorgeous,” Tasha said, grinning. “Two weeks old and Angie has taken over the household. Jonas is nuts about her—he and Nick are always fighting to hold her.”
Tasha’s foster son, Jonas, had been adopted by Nick and Tasha the minute they got married and the boy was a sweetheart, even if he was closing in on being a teenager.
“I swear,” Tasha continued, “if I wasn’t breastfeeding, I’d never get any time with my daughter.” She caught herself, stopped and smiled even wider. “Can’t believe I can say that. My daughter. Wow.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty great,” Sam said.
Mike smiled, too, knowing her sister was happy at last, with her husband, the “Weasel Dog,” and her daughter, Emma, back in her life. And she really was happy for Sam. Really. It was only that—
“Ah good, the Marconis.” Another voice, older, warmer, and carrying the flavor of Italy.
Angela Candellano, known universally as Mama, stepped up next to Tasha and gave her a quick hug as she sent a welcoming smile to the Marconi girls. Mama was short, a little round, and a woman who had her finger on the pulse of everyone—not only in her own family, but in all of Chandler. And the woman never seemed to change. Her long gray-streaked black hair was always piled in a knot on top of her head and her sharp dark eyes missed nothing.
A Crazy Kind of Love Page 9