Almost Always_Book 2

by Christie Ridgway

  “Could be I’d benefit from getting some kinks worked out of my system….”

  Kinks! Tee-Wee White wasn’t owed Librarian Jane’s kinks. Griffin was the one who had to put up with her demands and with her maddening perfume and her crazy-making footwear. For God’s sake, he should be the one who deserved any kinks that rose to the surface.

  And what did anyone really know about Tee-Wee, anyway? He used an ax on the job, didn’t he? He could be an ax murderer. Or just plain lousy in the sack. Griffin could practically guarantee that.

  “If Skye’s hesitating, I guess that means you can have him, Jane.” Tess glanced over her shoulder at the window where Griffin lurked.

  He jerked back. Had she known he was eavesdropping?

  Jane gnawed at the bottom lip of her puffy mouth. “It’s not really my nature to be the aggressor in this sort of situation…”

  Didn’t Griffin know it? Be still, he’d said, and she’d done just that. He’d kissed her and she’d been made boneless. She shouldn’t just go around asking men to melt her, because that’s what she’d done under his hands and under his mouth—and she seemed to be aware of that. Blowing out a breath, he relaxed.

  “…but I suppose nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  His spine snapped straight. What? Had she actually said that? The same woman who’d also once repeated “Failure is not an option”?

  Nobody knew better than he how determined the woman could be.

  And Tee-Wee White was an ax murderer.

  Tess shifted Russ from her lap to her shoulder. The baby snuggled into his mom’s body, as peaceful as Griffin suddenly wasn’t. “I know,” his sister said. “You could ask Teague to Captain Crow’s tomorrow night. On Sundays they have a special menu, live music, dancing. It’s a lot of fun.”

  A little burn kindled in Griffin’s gut. He remembered Jane that second night she’d ventured into Party Central. There’d been music then too. Dancing. She’d been dressed in a bikini top and exposing an ungoverness-like amount of naked skin. What she’d run into hadn’t been fun.

  Hell, he thought, scowling. Something had to be done to occupy her Sunday night. Of course, he didn’t want the responsibility to fall to him, but he was the one with the means and opportunity.

  Three quick steps took him to his laptop and he xed out solitaire to peruse another program instead. He’d cursed the return of email to his life, but now he was happy to scroll down the list of correspondence he’d trashed after barely glancing at it.

  There.

  It took but a moment to compose a quick RSVP. Griffin Lowell plus guest.

  The women were still in their seats when he strode onto the deck. His businesslike footsteps caused the wooden surface to vibrate, but not even his sister looked his way. The trio continued their avid perusal of the half-naked firefighters on another scramble over the rocks.

  For a second he considered running over there and showing the rookies how it was really done, but he had another item on his agenda. He sailed a paper airplane toward the book doctor. The breeze caught it, and it nearly flew over her head. But at the last moment the wind died, and the folded sheet dropped, landing on the table right in front of her.

  Jane glanced up.

  So sweet and innocent she looked, with those wide-set eyes and that soft mouth. “Do you need something?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He reminded himself that she was a favorite of his agent. He owed the man, which just made this rescue more imperative. Frank would never forgive him if he let Jane find trouble here at Crescent Cove. “I require your assistance.”

  “Now?” She made to rise.

  He shook his head. “Tomorrow night. We leave in the morning. Pack a bag. Put in a party dress.” It struck him as he said it how rarely he’d left the beach house. See what she was making him do! But still he was determined to take her away. Save her from herself.

  She arched a brow. “I told Tess I’d babysit.”

  “Look at it that way, if you want,” he said with a shrug. “In any case, I need a date.”

  * * *

  LONGNECK BEER in hand, Griffin leaned against the wall of the California Pioneer Heritage Museum near L.A.’s Griffith Park. “How are you?” he murmured to a passing guest when their gazes briefly caught.

  “Great. You?” the other man answered, without pausing for Griffin’s answer.

  “Smug,” he murmured to the guy’s retreating back. The evening was working out better than he’d planned. Not only had it given him a legitimate excuse to avoid writing, but it was restful to disappear in the crowd. His original motivation still stood, however. He’d accepted the invitation to the book launch party—another of Frank’s clients was making a big splash with a literary mystery set during L.A.’s Spanish Era—in order to save Governess Jane from making a romantic misstep. She might say she was interested in “satisfaction” and not a relationship, but that didn’t add up to Griffin. With her prim appearance and rule-bound nature, he figured she was ripe for throwing her heart into the wrong ring.

  Griffin had learned the lesson about honesty when it came to women, but there was no guarantee that Teague White was the kind of man who would be up-front with her. He might take what she offered without being straightforward about his own intentions. By insisting she leave the cove tonight, Griffin figured he’d prevented Jane from being hurt.

  Though why he was going all hero about this, he wasn’t quite sure. Maybe she was starting to feel like a little sister to him.

  He ran his gaze around the room, trying to catch sight of her. They’d checked in to a nearby hotel earlier in the day, a few hours before leaving for the party. While he’d gone for a run, she’d borrowed his car to swing by her place for some clothing.

  Her apartment was an hour from the party and she’d made noises about staying there overnight, but he wasn’t having it. The suite he’d booked had two bedrooms, and that way there’d be no concerns about drinking and driving. Upon her return, they’d ordered room service for an early dinner and then she’d retired to her room to change.

  She’d come out in a deep violet dress of some swishy fabric that fluttered and swirled a few inches above her knees. The neckline skimmed her throat, and she had a matching long-sleeved, waist-length jacket on top of it. Her shoes were Jane all the way, lavender-colored and ultrafeminine, the wide straps across the toes and the tops of her feet securing her onto a provocative tiptoe.

  He should keep tabs on her for those chichi high heels alone, he thought, continuing to survey the room. As practical as Jane’s nature might be, her choice of footwear meant the slightest stumble could take her down. It played out in his mind’s eye, a small slip, a tumble to the ground, her skirt flying up to reveal a pair of panties. What would they be this time—

  Stop. He clamped down on the mental movie reel. She was a little sister to him.

  Or something like that.

  To his left, he caught a flash of color among a small knot of dark leather dress shoes and black stilettos. Pushing off from the wall, he ambled toward the bright spot, then froze as her feet shifted, and he caught a glimpse of the backs of her shoes.

  Hell. Before, he hadn’t seen them from behind. Now that he could, he noticed that each heel bore a distinctive, one-and-a-half-inch brass zipper. You’d have to unzip her to get her out of them! His mind made an instant leap to nakedness. Jane’s nakedness, of course. Before he could control the urge, his gaze traced from those fascinating shoe fastenings to the backs of Jane’s bare calves. After her days at the beach, her legs had a tinge of creamy gold tan, a color repeated where the dress revealed a slice of skin right over her spine.

  More nakedness.

  She’d taken off the jacket. It dangled from her fingers, and its removal showed him another rear view that he’d missed when she’d been covered up. While the dress was beyond modest from the front, in the back it was open from neck to waist. The sleeveless top of the garment was held up by—what else?—a long-tailed bow, its ends
trailing to tickle her delicate vertebrae.

  He hoped he wasn’t doing something stupid like drooling. As if she sensed his regard, Jane’s head suddenly turned over her bare shoulder. Her silvery eyes picked up the deep hue of the dress, and his breath hitched. He dropped his gaze to the prissy, plump mouth that she’d glossed the color of a ripe plum, but that didn’t help.

  The whole package made him so hungry he could barely breathe.

  Christ, he’d insisted on the party to save her, but who the hell was going to resuscitate him?

  She didn’t look away from him as he started forward with some vague plan of getting her out of here. Then getting her out of those clothes— No! Well, yes, getting her out of those provocative clothes and into something dull and Skye-sloppy. Following that, they’d repair to their individual rooms, where she would study grammar and he would take a subzero shower.

  Otherwise he couldn’t be held responsible for the consequences.

  Upon reaching her, he stroked the back of her slender arm, and then he had to curse himself and her for the little shiver he watched roll down her naked back. She pulled her elbow close to her body and held it there with her opposite hand. “What?” she asked, sounding truculent.

  “We should go.”

  Her brows pinched together. “We just got here. And I haven’t had a chance to say hello to Frank.”

  “I know.” Griffin glanced toward a corner of the room where he could see the agent. The literary mystery had already been optioned and Frank was huddled with movie types. You could pick them out by their watches and their overwhitened teeth. “We’ll have to talk with him another time.”

  “This entire excursion was your idea. I’m sure you just want to avoid explaining your nonprogress to him.”

  He ignored both her points. “Look, we can spend the evening studying Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.” In separate corners of their spacious suite. “Won’t that make you happy?”

  She leaned close enough for him to breathe in her flower fragrance. Her brows came together. “Is there an actual problem?”

  “A gut feeling,” he lied. “We need to go.”

  Jane’s hint-of-violet eyes studied his face for a long moment. Then she shrugged. “All right.” At her half turn, her small nose just missed the chest of a man on fast approach.

  She stumbled—Griffin knew those shoes were trouble—and he steadied her with a hand on each shoulder, pulling her back to his front. “Ian!” Jane exclaimed.

  Ian? Could the man before them be Ian Stone?

  Griffin figured it had to be him, because Skye’s description matched. There was the gold hair, the green eyes, the smile—though to him it looked more smarmy than seductive. His precise haircut, tailored clothes and overshouldered physique screamed a guy who’d spent too many years as the pip-squeak in prep school and now sweated too many mornings with his Bowflex machine in a mirrored home gym to make up for it.

  “Jane,” Ian replied, his gaze running from her mouth to her bare toes, then back to her mouth. Leaning forward, he went for a kiss, but because Griffin didn’t release his clasp, Jane couldn’t meet him halfway. The guy ended up sort of smooching the air.

  It wouldn’t be polite to snicker.

  But maybe he made some kind of sound, because the other man glanced at Griffin’s hands on Jane’s smooth skin, then at Griffin himself. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said.

  Jane’s posture was stiff, her voice only more so. “Ian Stone, this is Griffin Lowell. Griffin, Ian.”

  Their right hands met in the required shake, but he kept his left on the librarian. Tension was humming through her, so he gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Are you ready to go?” He pretended to smile at Ian. “We were just on our way out.”

  “Oh, but Jane and I haven’t been able to catch up yet,” he protested. “And we were so very…close for those happy productive years.” His gaze transferred back to her, and he made another almost-rude inspection. “But now you look different. I’ve never seen your hair appear so…unruly.”

  Wearing a small frown, she raised a self-conscious hand to it. “I’m living by the ocean,” she said, touching the soft waves.

  Griffin loved her hair. It was natural-looking, the half-tousled strands reflecting every color of sand from wet to dry. Here and there glinted highlights the sun of his cove had coaxed out.

  “You don’t like it at the beach. You’re afraid of the ocean.”

  “I’m afraid to swim in the ocean.”

  It was Griffin’s turn to frown. He couldn’t imagine the governess being afraid of anything. But it was true he hadn’t seen her set a toe in the water.

  Now Ian’s eyes flicked upward once again, taking Griffin’s measure. “I didn’t know you were seeing someone.”

  “He’s a client,” she said, her voice clipped.

  “A client!” Ian’s brows rose.

  Jane’s tone was icy. “Yes, I managed to find another one. So I’m pretty busy these days.” And then her voice turned scary-sweet. “How’s your latest book coming?”

  Ian Stone ignored the question to address Griffin. “She’s a treasure, Janie is. But slippery. We worked so well together, then one day…poof!”

  Griffin wished he and his gut had hustled her out of the party sooner. The undercurrents between his librarian and this other man were murky, and he didn’t want the dirt getting anywhere near her or her pretty shoes. Janie, the man had called her. We were so very…close for those happy productive years. Christ, she’d been more than the author’s muse.

  Much more.

  “And here I didn’t think you’d miss me at all,” Jane said, the edge in her voice sharp. She tilted her head to look beyond Ian. “You were so busy with… I don’t think I ever learned your name.”

  She was addressing a woman that Griffin now realized was standing slightly behind the bestselling author. The man brought her forward with a small flourish, as if presenting a prize. “Deandra.”

  Apparently Deandra didn’t require a last name, or it had slipped Ian Stone’s mind. The lady was red-haired, brown-eyed and so thin you could slip her between a door and its jamb, then wiggle her like a credit card to jimmy the lock. Griffin reached out to acknowledge the introduction, and it was like shaking hands with a skeleton.

  She might be perfectly nice, but Griffin didn’t care to find out either way because Jane’s body was finely trembling again. Her skin was cool, too cool under his palm, and he wished they were back at Crescent Cove.

  Tee-Wee White couldn’t hurt her there, Griffin realized now. Because Jane was romantically wounded already, injured by none other than this arrogant, irritating “literary superstar.” Damn! While he’d been smugly congratulating himself on saving her by commanding her to come to this party, he’d managed instead to bring her face-to-face with the man who’d apparently broken her heart.

  Jane was going to kill him.

  The tense silence that followed seemed to reinforce the idea. But someone had to end the standoff, and so he broke the quiet by announcing they were leaving. Jane didn’t protest, but clutched his forearm as they made the short walk to their hotel situated across the street from the museum. Her body seemed to go more brittle with each step and Griffin eyed her with concern. Would she make it back to their suite before she fell apart?

  Yes, he could leave her to deal with the aftermath alone, but tonight’s event had been his idea. So he resigned himself to doling out tissues and considered offering a drink to combat an emotional collapse. What kind of booze mixed well with tears?

  At the door to their rooms, he let go of her to reach for the key card. On his first try, he fumbled it. Jane snatched it out of his hand. Uh-oh, he thought, she was clearly eager to commence the weeping.

  In another second they were inside. Wary, he walked backward into the living room, watching her as he braced for the first whimper.

  She stood against the door, her palms flattened on the wooden surface. Her gaze hopped and ski
pped around the room, then finally settled on his face. “What do you have on hand that I can use as a murder weapon?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JANE SAW GRIFFIN flinch, but in her hot and bothered state she didn’t try interpreting the reaction. As she stalked into the room, he kept a cautious eye on her. “I’m really sorry,” he said as she passed him by to head for the desk placed against the far wall.

  “Huh? Only be sorry if you can’t find me a way to maim him.” Yanking open the drawer, she scooped up a letter opener and brandished it. She needed some way to work off her terrible temper. “Will this do?”

  “Maim him? Not, uh, maim me?”

  She turned to look at Griffin. “What are you talking about?”

  “Attending the party was my idea.” He shoved his hands into the elegant, angled front pockets of vanilla-colored trousers. He wore them with a vertical-pleated Mexican wedding shirt in pale turquoise linen and gleaming leather loafers. At the cove, she’d seen him in nothing other than shorts or jeans and ragged Hawaiian shirts or tees. If she’d had to guess, she would have claimed his best pair of shoes had a swoosh on their sides.

  She wasn’t sure this cleaned-up stranger was any more attractive than the bronzed guy at the beach, however. For whatever reason, both managed to ring her sexual bell. Yet he was confusing her now, looking at her in a strange way that she couldn’t decipher.

  “Why don’t you put down your instrument of death,” Griffin suggested, crossing to her. He placed gentle hands on her shoulders, just as he had at the party. “Let me take your jacket.”

  Leaving the book launch, she’d shrugged it on, but she was happy to shed it now. The mad she’d worked up on the way back to the hotel was like a fire under her skin. Griffin hung the garment over a chair, taking an extra moment to straighten the lapels.

  Aware he was usually a flinger, her eyebrows rose at his uncharacteristic fastidiousness. He was operating with the slow, careful movements of someone defusing a bomb. From the corners of his eyes, he sent her a sidelong glance. “Can I get you a drink?”