It had been years since he’d dreamed of a woman’s hair, a woman’s body, or the sounds she made in pleasure.
This one sent a surge of adrenalin through his blood. His heart even skipped a few beats. When he’d been a dreamer years ago, he’d imagined a woman like her. He didn’t allow himself those fantasies now. The most he allowed was his own hand in the middle of the night when it was either that or go crazy.
At that moment, she smiled. Not at anyone, but to herself, as if she’d suddenly had an amusing thought or she was laughing at herself over something silly.
Most people didn’t laugh by themselves. They didn’t go out to eat unaccompanied or attend movies alone, as if they had to be with another person to get any enjoyment out of life. Maybe that was true. He oughta know. But this woman had a smile that could wrap a man’s guts up in a nice, neat bow, a smile to dream about on a balmy night, one that inspired music.
It had been more years than he could count since he’d noticed a woman’s smile.
“What the hell are you doing back there, Cole?” Frank gave him the evil eye again. “You daydreaming your ass out of a job?”
Cole smirked. “Yeah, go ahead and fire me. I hear McDonald’s is hiring.”
Frank flipped him the finger and shook the grease off another basket of fries. It was a time-honored charade they played. It had been Frank’s idea that Cole flip burgers for a few weeks rather than sit alone in a house steeped in Stephie’s little-girl scent, her horse pictures, her favorite pink sweater. A few weeks had become seven years, and he wasn’t leaving until hell froze over. Even in Yosemite, it didn’t get that cold.
A pretty woman with a sexy, tantalizing smile wasn’t going to change how he lived his life.
Long ago, when Cole still believed he deserved a soul mate and true love would be his reward, he’d have dropped his spatula and run to her. Better yet, he’d have found her in a dark lounge where she’d come to watch him play five nights in a row, and she’d have approached him. But Cole had lost the chance at happiness, and though he believed in fate and destiny, he knew she wasn’t his destiny. When her order came up, he wrapped her burger, shoved it in a plain white bag, and let her walk away without ever knowing he existed.
* * * * *
Four hours later, Cole had showered off the greasy residue of several pounds of French fries and enough hamburgers to comprise a small herd of cattle. No matter the tourist season, Friday night was always busy at Easy Cheesy. His leg muscles were pleasantly sore, the soles of his feet ached, and he was bone-deep tired, enough to sleep without nightmares.
He’d just thrown a bowl of canned vegetable soup in the microwave for a two-minute zap when the doorbell rang. It had been so long since he’d heard the sound that he didn’t immediately know what it was. He stood there with his head cocked like a dog, listening. Until the bell rang again, an off-key sound that seemed to cut off in the middle. Well what the hell? Hair wet, chest and feet bare, he yanked open the door intending to send whoever it was on their way with a quick scowl.
His heart stopped.
It was her, the brunette. Up close, she had blue eyes the color of his hydrangeas when he bothered to feed them the right plant food. Or even watered them. Which he hadn’t done in longer than he could remember. In fact, most of the flowering bushes flanking the house were dead now.
CT wound around the woman’s feet, rubbed its nose against her jeans, then sat, its crooked tail flicking. That’s what the CT stood for, Crooked Tail. Midnight black, the cat was battle-scarred, its tail broken in two places, a chunk of its ear missing, and a bald spot the size of a dime on its head. Either a stray or a neighbor’s cat who came where the food was easy pickin’s, CT had been hanging around his front porch like a bad smell for about two years. Cole knew he shouldn’t have fed it that first time.
“Your cat wants to come in.”
She had a soft, smooth sound, like a moody classical piano suite, sweet with a slight edge that snuck up on a man and turned him inside out. She was dangerous.
“It’s not my cat.” He spread his feet, rocked heel to toe, and shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, pushing them low on his hips. “It’s a little wanker, and I only feed it so it won’t wail by my bedroom window at three o’clock in the morning.”
She looked at him as if she were disappointed he hadn’t cooed at the little pest.
He raised one brow. “So. You rang my doorbell. Or was that a mistake?”
She opened her huge purse, which was more like a suitcase, and bent her head as she muffled around in it. Cole had the insane urge to sniff her hair. He thought he smelled vanilla.
And woman. Fresh, clean, vanilla-scented woman.
She found whatever she was looking for in that mysterious bag. “Here it is.” She smiled, just as she had while standing by herself in front of Easy Cheesy, and held up a CD case. “Is this you?”
The sight of his own face startled him. His blood started beating at his temples like a woodpecker’s beak. Damn, he’d been so young. He’d been free. He’d had dreams and hopes, a future, a daughter he treasured. He’d believed he deserved everything good that life had to offer. He’d thought he’d turn the next corner in his life and meet the woman of his dreams. Even at thirty-five, he’d been naive. Seven years later, at the ancient age of forty-two, he knew better.
“Nope, that’s not me.” He gripped the edge of the door until his knuckles hurt.
She tipped her head, her pretty hair falling past her shoulder, her gaze traveling from his eyebrows to his nose to his cheeks and down to his mouth, then she flipped the jewel case to gaze at his long-ago photograph. “Are you sure?”
“I should know who I am.” He started to close the door, but she’d somehow gotten so near that shutting it would smack her in that pert nose of hers. He pointed to his upper lip. “See, no mustache.” He’d shaved it off because keeping it trimmed was a pain in the butt.
“You’re not Colton Amory?”
He hadn’t been Colton Amory for seven long years. He was Cole, that was all. He worked full-time at Easy Cheesy flipping burgers for a living. He was so far from Colton Amory that he couldn’t even remember who the guy was anymore. “Nope. Not me.”
She studied the photo again, then looked back at him. “Is he your brother, then? Because you look an awful lot like him.”
He didn’t look a thing like Colton Amory. His face was lined, his hair was shaggy and streaked with gray, and his boots, sitting by the side of the door, stank of grease no matter how often he swapped them out for a new pair. He hadn’t played a note in seven years. “No, he’s not. I don’t have a brother. I don’t know that guy, and I don’t want to know him.”
“Oh.”
Which seemed to be about all she could say to that, so he went for the gold. “Are you some door-to-door sales chick? Because I’m not buying, and if you’ll back up three inches, when I slam the door, it won’t break your nose.”
She backed up automatically.
Cole shut the door in her face.
* * * * *
Not only had he closed the door in her face—though he at least gave her fair warning—he’d gone around turning off all the lights, including the porch light where she was standing.
He was Colton Amory. Jami knew it. And he was an asshole. Oh. My. God. She’d driven two hundred miles to find an asshole. Dick Head was an angel compared to Colton Amory.
She dumped his CD back in her purse, then wondered why she bothered. Meeting him had changed everything. His music would never sound the same. His lyrics wouldn’t have the same meaning.
Back in the car, she started the engine, and the stereo began to play. His music washed over her and set her endorphins and pheromones and hormones racing. “Baby, I’ll Find You” was her favorite. At least it had been her favorite. Jami closed her eyes.
“I dreamed of you again last night
Your naked body wrapped in moonlight
I don’t know you, but I want you
/> I can’t see you, yet I need you
God help me how I miss
Your completely electric kiss
Our fate is written on the air
Baby, I’ll find you out there
Promise me
You’ll find me, too.”
The rude man in that house couldn’t have written lyrics that spoke directly to her heart. He couldn’t strum the guitar with such feeling. He couldn’t make music that sang through her mind and soothed her nerves. He didn’t have enough soul for that.
Yet she hadn’t a doubt it was him. How could he be so different in the flesh?
Then again, she was listening to music he’d composed seven years ago. In seven years, there were no new CDs, no website, nothing. Instead, he’d morphed into a six-foot-three, two-hundred-pound jerk. Why?
Jami stared at the facade of his little house, the peeling paint, the overgrown yard, the dead bushes along the front. Even his truck parked in the driveway looked as if it had seven years worth of dirt spoiling its white paint job.
Oh, look at those near-dead hydrangeas. It was a travesty.
Yet... She’d driven too far and let too many fantasies play through her mind to give up so easily. Colton Amory was a mystery, and she was going to unravel him, no matter how many doors he closed in her face.
Chapter Four
A popped bedspring poked her back all night long, the showerhead dripped, and the couple next door had been overly exuberant on their squeaky bed
If she was going to stay longer in Masterson, she’d have to find a motel vacancy elsewhere. The town might not be large nor a main thoroughfare, but it was the Yosemite Valley’s welcome wagon, and most of the better places were full.
You should have made a reservation. Her mother’s voice rang in her ears. Shoulda, woulda, coulda...didn’t. Gee, she could apply that to a lot of things she’d done wrong. Maybe, after a long hike out in the fresh air, it was Mom’s sweet grating voice in her head that had Jami heading to Easy Cheesy Burgers again for a very late lunch instead of some healthy salad bar. Boy, talk about passive-aggressive behavior, Jami was engaging in it even when her mother was two hundred miles away in the Bay Area.
The mountain weather in fall was gorgeous, a nip in the air when the sun went down, but warm enough for a jean skirt and short sleeves during the day. But while last night it had seemed like a good idea to ferret out all Colton Amory’s secrets, this afternoon, her right shoulder blade aching from a broken bed spring, the whole thing seemed kind of stupid. She needed to figure out her life, not futz around with some rude hermit like Colton Amory.
Maybe the best plan of attack was a ride out of Dodge on the noon stage, so to speak. In fact, she’d already packed up her car.
Still, here she was at Easy Cheesy, in line behind a family; dad, mom, and a boy and girl, both primary school age. How utterly average. And perfect. The gray minivan, the only vehicle in the front lot this long after the lunch rush, had to be theirs, with booster seats and a DVD player that dropped down. Would this have been her and Leo if she hadn’t waited so long to put her foot down?
“Would you stop?” she whispered.
“Mom, that lady’s talking to herself. Is she crazy?”
“No, honey, lots of people talk to themselves.” Tweaking a pigtail, the woman reeled the little girl closer to her side.
Jami smiled. Crazy wasn’t a bad definition, better than a loser who didn’t have anything to say for herself.
His son tugging on his Bermudas, Dad changed the order yet again, a flush spreading up the back of his stubby neck into his cropped brown hair.
“Daddy, can I have a chocolate shake, please, Daddy?”
The flush deepened on the man’s pale skin. Mom dragged the little tyke away while Dad repeated the order, minus the shake, and Jami was sure it wasn’t the same as the time before. The teenage girl behind the counter, the same one who’d helped Jami yesterday, stared first at the register, then the order ticket, and finally the man’s beefy hand as he played with two twenties.
“But didn’t you just say—” she began, her voice barely above a whisper.
Dad grabbed the order pad and wrenched it around so he could read. “Dammit, I didn’t ask for three Cheesy Works Burgers and an Alpha Dog. I said two regular cheeseburgers, a regular hotdog, and only one Cheesy Works Burger.”
“But s-sir, we don’t have regular cheeseburgers. There are only Cheesy Works Burgers without the works.” The girl’s eyes looked suspiciously teary.
“And you’re going to charge me for the works when my kids won’t eat the works?” He stabbed a finger behind him without even looking. “Does that kid look like she can eat the works? She’ll be throwing up all over the backseat if I give her the works.”
“No sir, I-I—”
“Load up the kids,” he snapped to his wife. “We’re outta here. I don’t have to take this kind of shit from some high-school bimbo.”
He was probably the kind of guy who’d blame the babysitter the first time his son said the word shit, when the kid had actually learned it from him.
A commotion in the kitchen caught her eye, the flash of a stained white apron, a mess-hall cap topping a tall frame, and a shorter guy shaking his finger in the cook’s face. Otherwise occupied, it didn’t look like the girl’s coworkers would be coming to her rescue any time soon.
All right. Jami would have to take care of this herself, because she wasn’t a loser who’d let a meathead demoralize a teenage girl. “You don’t need to call this young lady a bimbo.”
Mr. No-Neck drew his head back and stared down his bulbous nose at Jami. “Excuse me?”
“You changed your order six times while I was standing here.” Jami smiled politely, especially since it was a slight exaggeration. “No wonder she couldn’t keep up.” The man reminded her of her boss, Dick Head. Maybe if she’d stood up to Dick Head this way when he ordered her to sign that PO, she’d still have a job. Shoulda, woulda, coulda...didn’t.
The man’s lip curled. “Hey, lady, butt out.”
“Is there a problem here?” The bald guy she’d noticed earlier leaned on the counter just on the other side of the order window, the teenage girl now a step behind him. He didn’t shake his finger at No-Neck as he’d done with the fry cook. He didn’t have to. Burly chest, beefy arms laced with intricate tattoos, a small gold hoop through one earlobe, and a voice halfway between Freddy Krueger of Elm Street nightmares and that wolf guy in X-Men, he was enough to make Jami’s bones rattle.
Obviously, Mrs. No-Neck felt the same way as she gathered her brood and dragged them to the minivan. “Sweetheart,” she pleaded with her husband, “let’s go. The kids would rather have Happy Meals at McDonalds anyway.”
“Yeah, sweetheart, the kids want Happy Meals.” A chipped tooth blemished the bald man’s smile, just a tiny chip, but it brought to mind ways in which he’d busted the tooth. Such as a bar fight with pool cues where he was the winner.
Mr. Sweetheart opened his mouth a moment, as if he were thinking about going for the holster at his belt. Since it held only his cell phone, he backed off a step.
His wife called out once again. “They’ll be out of Happy Meals if we don’t hurry.”
“Mom,” the small boy wailed, “they’re not Happy Meals. They’re Kids’ Meals.”
“No, dear,” she said sweetly, “they’re back to being Happy Meals again.”
“Whatever,” the dad snarled, and scooped up the kid, tossed him in the backseat, and slammed the door. “We’re outta this dump.”
The tattooed man rolled his eyes as the van squealed out of the parking lot. “Happy Meals at McDonalds?” he mouthed, circling a finger around his ear to indicate the family of four were definitely nuts. Then he beamed at Jami. The chipped tooth and tattoos didn’t look half as scary with that smile. “What can we get you today, pretty lady? Whatever you want, it’s on the house.”
“What for?”
“Because he was an asshole and you”�
��he pointed at her—“were not.” Punctuating with a nod, he glanced over at the girl by his left arm. “Right, Andrea?”
“Right, Frank. Thanks for sticking up for me,” she added directly to Jami.
Maybe it was all the years of letting Dick Head walk all over her—not to mention Leo—she couldn’t let the same thing happen to this pretty girl. Her dark hair pulled tightly back behind her head and covered with a net, a faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and the hesitancy of a wary puppy, she looked all of thirteen, when, of course, she had to be at least sixteen.
“You still don’t have to give me anything,” Jami said.
Frank ignored her protest. “Cole, fix her a Ruby Special,” he called out in his gravel-pitch voice. “And I”—he proudly tapped his chest—“will make you the house strawberry-banana shake.”
“Frank makes the best strawberry-banana shakes,” Andrea confided in a soft tone, her gaze on Jami’s elbow as if she’d suddenly gotten nervous. “Most people don’t rate bananas.”
Maybe the poor girl needed some reassurance. “You know, you handled that guy just fine. You were polite and patient and didn’t let him intimidate you.” She stuck out her hand. “My name’s Jami Baylor, by the way.”
Andrea blinked and shook Jami’s hand tentatively. Then, her eyes a deep, thoughtful, intuitive brown, she met gazes for less than a quarter of a second before she returned once more to contemplating Jami’s elbow. “That’s nice of you to say, but I’m pretty much a wimp.” She glanced first over one shoulder, then the other, and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “He almost made me cry.”
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