Just Like Heaven

by Lacey Baker

  “Mine is perfect. Works wherever I go no matter what the conditions,” Savannah added brightly.

  “Even being drenched in water?” Michelle asked her very mouthy younger sister. “That’s usually a killer for all electronic devices.”

  “Oh, no,” Heaven sighed. “It works, which is a good thing.”

  “Then what’s the ‘oh, no’ for?” Raine asked, leaning over slightly to look at the window of the phone then taking a polite step back when Heaven’s gaze met hers.

  “The liaison from the agency tried to call me but ended up sending a text instead. Apparently some of the paperwork wasn’t completed before they left for the day. I’ll have to wait until Monday, and they’ll fax everything so I can adopt Coco.”

  Heaven looked deflated. Michelle felt hopeful. She now had two days to change her brother’s mind.

  “Then you must stay right here until it’s all worked out,” she said instantly.

  “No, that’s quite okay. I couldn’t impose like that,” Heaven started.

  “It’s no imposition at all,” Raine added. “We’d love to have you.”

  “The Sunshine Room is available. Savannah will get it all freshened up for you while Raine helps find you some dry clothes,” Michelle continued happily. “I’ll go into the kitchen and warm up some of the dinner leftovers.”

  “I don’t know if it’s a good idea that I stay here,” Heaven tried once more.

  “You’re staying here?” Preston asked coming in from the parlor.

  He was dripping wet, too, only he’d stopped off, probably in the first-floor powder room, and found himself a towel that he used to wipe his face.

  “Yes, she is. And while you’re at it you might want to work on your hospitality skills. Taking a guest swimming while fully clothed is just rude,” Michelle stated before moving out of the room and heading into the kitchen.

  “Hmmm, big brother, your skills with the females are definitely slipping,” Savannah told him with a wink and a chuckle before heading up the stairs.

  “You should get out of those wet clothes before you catch a cold, too,” Raine scolded in her soft voice.

  Heaven had the good sense not to even look at him before retreating. And the puppy, the one Heaven and Raine had conveniently left in the parlor with him, didn’t have any decency at all. She rolled onto her back, mouth gaping open, eyes wide and pleading.

  “The last thing I’m going to do is rub your belly, you traitor,” Preston told her with irritation that wasn’t quite conveyed in his tone.

  Coco was a traitor all right, and Heaven Montgomery was one hell of a woman. Too bad she was like all the rest of them. She wasn’t telling him the truth. He should have expected it. Preston had been clued in to the female race at a very young age. First by his mother, who’d acted as if she loved her children to no end but ultimately up and left said children the day after her husband’s funeral. Then there was his grandmother, who hadn’t even told anyone she was sick and had died before they could get back to Sweetland to see and/or help her. Last, but certainly not least, was his doting and slightly overbearing older sister Michelle, with whom he was still very annoyed for not knowing their grandmother was sick since she’d been in this house with Gramma every day until her last.

  And those were just the women closest to him. Others, Preston kept at arm’s length all the time. He didn’t trust any of them farther than the bed he had sex with them in.

  And Heaven Montgomery was no different. She was certainly all woman, with her long legs and seductive curves. The quiet demeanor and nervous tendencies were probably an act. She had a sophistication about her; it wasn’t overt or intense, but it was there. A fact that told him she wasn’t as innocent as she’d tried to appear. And her eyes held secrets, loads of them, the kind only a female could keep stored. He should just give her the damned puppy and let her be on her merry way.

  Except he couldn’t quite dismiss what she wasn’t telling him, whatever she was trying to hide. He couldn’t quite dismiss her.

  * * *

  Half an hour later Preston was hungry and grumpy, part of which was the norm for him. The other part might have been an anomaly—but when he walked into the kitchen and glimpsed a certain female just finishing a glass of tea while sitting at the island, his grumpy mood resurged with a vengeance.

  “We meet again,” he said for lack of anything better to say—which coincidentally was another signal that he was a bit off.

  Preston always knew what to say and when to say it. That was how he’d gained such renown as a litigator, and when it came to being back in Sweetland, it was how he had maintained his half of the Double Trouble Cantrells. Parker was the better-looking bad boy of the family, while Preston remained the still-good-looking smooth talker. Quinn was the American Dream, with his serious demeanor and eye on responsibility and commitment. It worked well for him since he was the oldest of the Cantrell bunch.

  “I’m finished. I’ll just get out of your way,” Heaven was saying as she stood from the high-boy chair she’d been sitting in.

  She grabbed her glass and the empty plate that had also been in front of her and was headed toward the sink before Preston could say another word.

  He stopped where he stood, or else he would have run right into her on his way to the refrigerator. Instead, he watched her move. Long graceful steps, back straight and rigid, chin up as if all he needed to do was put a book on her head and make a bet to see if she’d drop it. That alone caused him to grit his teeth. She was too uptight, definitely not the type of female he was used to dealing with, or even wanted to deal with for that matter.

  When she stood at the sink a second longer than he deemed necessary, Preston sighed and headed over toward the refrigerator. On the way, he kicked one of the huge containers Michelle used to brew iced tea. It fell, instigating a domino effect that ended with four containers sprawling across the floor. The racket was loud enough to wake up anyone who’d dare go to sleep before eleven o’clock, which to Preston—a perpetual night owl—was like a travesty.

  A high-pitched yelp followed by the clanking of dishes in the stainless-steel sink added to the echo of noise and drew Preston’s attention directly to the female he’d been trying to avoid. She stood with her back to him, almost perfectly still if he didn’t catch the gentle shaking of her shoulders. He cursed, almost as loud as the other noise that had just subsided, and moved to put his hands on her shoulders. His thought was to still their shaking.

  Instead she jumped at least a couple of inches off the floor and moved quickly out of his reach.

  “Whoa, I’m not the bad guy,” he said, holding both his hands up in the air and making eye contact with her.

  It wasn’t easy since she looked in the direction of the downed buckets, then toward the back door, all before finding him again. One hand was wrapped around her throat while the other arm had folded across her torso as if to protect herself from something, or someone.

  Preston’s sour mood worsened.

  He took a step toward her. “Just me being clumsy,” he started, his voice substantially calmer than it had been seconds ago. “No big deal. I’ll restack them before Michelle gets back here at the crack of dawn. She’ll never know I disturbed the perfect sanctity of her kitchen.”

  Heaven still wasn’t speaking, but her fingers were no longer clenching her throat. They’d fluttered there a second longer while he spoke; then she’d slowly lowered her hand altogether so that her arm fell to her side.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m so silly,” she said with a shake of her head.

  She pulled her long hair back. It still looked damp from their impromptu dip in the river, but the style gave her a youthful look, fresh and untouched, that was an instant kick in the gut for him.

  “It’s my fault, making enough noise to wake the dead at this hour,” he told her, feeling the need to take the blame from her but not really knowing why.

  She pulled her arms tightly around herself, still shaking
her head. “Just a few buckets,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have been frightened. New places make me nervous.”

  Her voice was low, and she was staring at something he thought might be just beyond his shoulders. It didn’t seem as if she was talking to him. And he didn’t like it. There was a spooked look on her face, her eyes just a bit brighter than they had been before. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but Preston was doing it anyway. He stepped closer to her, close enough to extend his hands, placing one on each shoulder to hold her steady.

  “No big deal,” he said. “I’ll clean up and you can go on to bed.”

  She looked up as if she was startled to see him. He was partially relieved when he realized she wasn’t actually talking to him. She’d gone somewhere in those few seconds, somewhere that frightened her. Preston didn’t like that revelation at all.

  “No,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I’m just being silly. Here, let me help you.” This offer was her escape as she slipped quickly from his grasp and knelt down to pick up a bucket.

  Preston wisely kept his mouth shut this time. He wanted to ask her what had happened to make her so jumpy, but he refrained. She wasn’t liable to tell him, not right now anyway. But he would find out. In the meantime, he picked up the remaining buckets, and then stacked them beside the cabinets where they’d been before he disturbed them.

  “Well, good night,” she said. She was just about to turn away from him when Preston touched her once more.

  This time there was a spurt of heat that started at his fingertips then settled in his palm as he wrapped his fingers around her arm and held tight. She felt it, too, because her eyes widened as she turned to look at him, about two seconds before she tried to pull away.

  “I’ll walk you upstairs,” he told her solemnly, suddenly his hunger for food completely fleeing from his mind.

  “I know the way,” she argued.

  “I insist,” he told her, keeping her arm in his hold and moving toward the door.

  “Really, this is silly. I can walk myself upstairs and you can continue to do whatever it was you wanted to do down here.”

  They’d gone through the swinging door and were walking past the parlor toward the foyer and the winding staircase with its original oak banister. That banister had held Preston and his brothers on many occasions as they’d slid down as a way of avoiding the numerous steps, or just to have fun, whichever excuse worked for the moment.

  “Arguing is silly considering we’re already at the steps and I’m not taking no for an answer,” he told her firmly.

  She opened her mouth to reply, then quickly snapped her lips shut. They took the rest of the stairs in silence, turning left at the top and heading to the end of the hall where the Sunshine Room was. It was bright there, hence the name. The walls were painted a canary yellow while the bedding and window arrangements were in a softer yellow, royal blue, and white paisley print. The bed, with its four brass posts that reached to within inches of the ceiling, was draped with sheer material. All the remaining furniture in the room was of a dark cherry oak, including the leather chest at the end of the bed. It was an extremely feminine room to Preston’s way of thinking. And it was perfect for Heaven.

  As she stepped inside the room and turned to him, he could almost swear she looked calmer. Of course that could also be attributed to the fact that he was no longer touching her and the noise from the kitchen had subsided.

  “Now I’ll bid you good night,” he said, really intending to walk away and leave her in her room.

  “Thank you,” she said in that voice that should have been too soft to be sexy. She licked her lips and looked away from him.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied and stood there like some high school kid on his first date. And just like that horny teenager, the sight of her tongue moving across lips kick-started the arousal he’d been trying to hold at bay where this woman was concerned. Briefly he toyed with the idea of leaning in for a good-night kiss and maybe more. But from the way she was looking back into the room, then questioningly at him, he figured that was a bad idea.

  On and on thoughts he might later qualify as ridiculous played in his mind, until she finally closed the door in his face.

  “Right,” he murmured and continued to talk to himself as he took the stairs again. “Note to self, she’s a head case, so steer clear.”

  Chapter 4

  “Steer clear of who or what?” his twin asked the moment he stepped into the foyer.

  “Nobody,” Preston replied quickly.

  Parker chuckled. “For the record, ‘nobody’ is who you were talking to. I’m just asking who you were talking about.”

  Parker was walking with a slight limp after his motorcycle had taken a wrong turn on the interstate and ended up wrapped unattractively around a median strip. Since that thought still put a lump the size of a boulder in the center of Preston’s chest, he looked away from his brother’s injured leg and headed back toward the kitchen.

  “Why are you up?” Preston asked, heading straight to the refrigerator.

  “Michelle’s gone home, which means my curfew has been lifted,” Parker said with a chuckle. “Now your turn. What are you doing up and why were you upstairs?”

  Preston had just resurfaced from his facefirst dive into the refrigerator. In one hand was a carton of orange juice; in the other, a plate of thick-sliced ham pieces wrapped in red cellophane—only Michelle Cantrell would find red cellophane in a grocery store, especially in Godfrey’s, Sweetland’s one and only stop for groceries. The place that carried absolutely no pre-packaged frozen meals sold multicolored plastic wrap. Amazing.

  He went to the island and took the stool opposite his twin, opposite the one Heaven had been sitting in only minutes ago.

  “Unlike you, who has always had a serious problem with following the rules, I do not have a curfew,” he told him with a bland look.

  Parker turned over two coffee mugs positioned toward the end of the island near the two-frogs-sitting-on-a-bench salt and pepper shakers and the ceramic apple with the worm centered atop that opened up to display a mountain of sugar. Gramma always had coffee in the morning when she came in to get breakfast started. Michelle was most likely keeping up the tradition. Preston opened the orange juice and poured his twin a cup first, then himself.

  “I’ll admit you were always a night owl, but you’re looking particularly out of sorts at the moment.” Parker talked while removing the wrapping from the plate of ham.

  As competitive as the twins were in their youth, and as much as Preston was used to always coming out on top even if it was by the smallest margin, in the arena of eating Parker had always won hands down. Case in point: While it was Preston who had originally come into the kitchen for a snack, Parker was the first to stuff a huge slice of ham into his mouth, chewing heartily even as he continued to speak.

  “Somebody pissed you off. Is it the case you just finished? I thought that pled out a couple of days ago, and that’s why you came back to Sweetland.”

  Luckily Preston was accustomed to his brother’s food-riddled talking and wasn’t fazed by it. Had his sisters been in the kitchen they would have undoubtedly been screaming about manners and rudeness and common courtesies that men just didn’t need from one day to the next.

  “There’s nothing I can do about the case now. The judge took the guilty plea even though it was for the lesser manslaughter charges. The defendant’ll probably get a suspended sentence and a chunk of probation, and it’ll cost the state thousands of dollars to monitor him. And he’ll no doubt violate it, because he’s a career criminal, and we’ll repeat this asinine process all over again.”

  After that synopsis Preston drank from his own cup in big, thirst-quenching gulps. Parker simply nodded.

  “I know that song. I’m sick of arresting the same guys over and over again. It’s getting to feel like a reunion every time I show up at a crime scene,” his brother said, taking another slice of ham.

  Pa
rker was a Baltimore City homicide detective. While Preston had headed to the University of Maryland to study criminal justice, Parker had gone to the police academy. And when Parker had begun patrolling the crime-riddled streets of Baltimore City as a beat cop, Preston had still had his head in the books at the University of Baltimore School of Law. They’d either seen or spoken to each other every day during those years, both of them keeping apartments in the downtown area of Baltimore where they could be close to work and school. When Preston joined the prosecutor’s office, he frequently saw his brother as the arresting officer of the defendants he tried in court. If folk in Sweetland thought the twins had been inseparable during their teenage years, they should have seen them in their early adult years, but with ideals of ridding the world of bad people in the best way they knew how. Now, more than ten years later, it seemed they were both having second thoughts about those career choices.

  “It’s never going to change, you know,” Preston said after chewing on his piece of meat. Michelle made the best brown-sugar-and-pineapple baked ham. That woman was simply a blessing in the kitchen, no doubt about that.

  Parker shook his head. “We were crazy enough to believe it would. That we would be the ones to change it.”

  Preston nodded. “You’re right. We were crazy.” Still, Preston knew he wouldn’t really change his career choice if he could. He’d always dreamed of being an attorney and knew he wouldn’t be satisfied doing anything else. His main issue now was how to be an attorney with a thriving practice in Baltimore when his family was going through its own transition in Sweetland.

  “And what are we now?” Parker asked contemplatively, which was a look that normally never crossed his twin’s face. Parker was the impulsive twin, the act-now-think-later one who never backed down and rarely apologized for what he did if he thought it was right. And most times Parker thought he was right.

  Preston was the thinker, the overanalyzer who once upon a time had a wild streak that he’d seemed to temper over the years.