by Cait London
“I don’t want to have anything to do with Grace,” Roman said. “She walked out on us. No mother should do that.”
“Oh, did she really? I’m sure you know all the facts, don’t you? I’ll bet you don’t talk about this either, or try to understand anything past a ten-year-old viewpoint.” Uma didn’t care if her tone challenged them; she understood exactly in facing these two brooding, stony-faced men why Grace might have given up and left Fred. According to Uma’s mother, communication wasn’t Fred’s strong point—evidently he’d passed that lack of ability onto his sons.
“Eight,” Mitchell stated. “I was eight. He was seven. Don’t try to make it right. That won’t work.”
She looked from Mitchell to Roman and back again. She could only handle one at a time. “So you’ve been brooding about that all this time? It was a logical suggestion. I do not manage other people’s lives. And what’s wrong with wanting no trouble?” Uma demanded, staring up at him. “Madrid is a good place to live.”
“Because it’s a lie, and I was talking to my brother. Not you.”
“I’ll bet you two have absolutely no meaningful conversations anyway. I can understand you being upset about your tires. But I can’t understand you being surly with me.”
“Yeah, well, it’s all a little package, isn’t it? And by the way, men don’t have intimacy. It isn’t a requirement.”
“Maybe you don’t. I don’t know what you mean about the package, and the way you say ‘intimacy’ makes it sound like a bad word.”
“I heard about you meddling in Lenny’s love life.”
She’d tried gently to help Lonny and Irma’s troubled marriage. “I…did…not.”
“Books aren’t life, honey.” Mitchell’s tone was sarcastic.
“I’ll leave you two to your squabbling.” Roman shook his head and took his mug with him, heading for the bathroom. He ignored the wad of wallpaper that Mitchell tossed at his back.
After a moment, the shower started and Uma, circling just exactly why Mitchell was up and watching her run in the morning, stood very still. She sipped her coffee there, leaning back against the kitchen counter with Mitchell, dressed only in his shorts and bad mood.
She looked down at her legs, smooth, gleaming slender-strong. Next to hers, Mitchell’s were bulkier, lightly furred, and definitely more powerful. An electric jolt skittered over her skin and slammed low into her body, and she decided to concentrate on the style of the brown pottery mug. She’d known sensual excitement in those first days with Everett, and she didn’t want that tug with Mitchell.
She held the mug with one hand, and smoothed the other hand up and down the surface, sensitive to the textures under her hands. She lifted the mug and blew lightly into the brew to cool it.
Next to her, Mitchell shifted abruptly, as if he were uncomfortable. In the ominous silence, his next statement roared, though he spoke quietly: “You’ve got sweat between your breasts and they bounce when you run. When you bent over to catch your breath I could see enough of your breasts to want to know how they’d fit in my hands, taste in my mouth. When you put your hands on your waist, trying to catch your breath, the whole package is there, sweetheart, nice and curved and soft. Your butt has just enough quiver to make a man hard, and those shorts should be illegal, showing off—”
She stared at him and blinked, trying to equate his dispatched brooding with the raw sensuality churning from Mitchell now.
Mitchell slowly placed his mug and hers aside, then turned back to study her. The tip of his ringer lifted to push beneath her chin gently, closing her parted lips. “What’s the matter? Didn’t you think I’d notice? That any man would notice? I may be trying to sort things out, but I’m not dead. You smell like a woman. You sweat like a woman. You move like a woman. You are a woman. Or is reality just too much for you?”
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She saw Mitchell’s hard expression ease, his eyes lower to her lips, and then his head was slanting, coming nearer.
She saw his eyes close, those thick lashes gleam as his lips brushed hers, and when he straightened, studying her, she forced herself to breathe shakily. Those gold eyes were soft and warm, amused, just like the slight curve of his lips.
She continued to stare at him, trapped by what had just happened as Mitchell leaned back, crossed his arms, and smiled.
She hadn’t expected that boyish grin, that delight as he watched her. Or the flush rising up her cheeks.
“Surprised?” he asked. “Are you going to come out and play or not?”
“What do you mean?”
His grin widened and he said softly, “I bet you’re rosy all over. I didn’t know women still blushed. It’s fascinating, the way that pale skin changes to pink, how it sort of blooms like a rose.”
He was obviously flirting with her, enjoying unraveling a self-possessed woman, a woman everyone saw as functional and quiet and in control, the wallflower she preferred to be. “I’m not. I’ve just run and—”
In slow motion, his finger reached to hook her tank top, just between her breasts, and he tugged lightly. His finger trailed across the neckline, brushing her skin, before moving away.
Those light brown eyes traced her face, the heat upon it. “Sure. Tell me another one. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a woman react like you did out there on the street, all engines humming and heating.”
“Mitchell! Don’t talk like that.”
There was that slow, devastating smile, that sexy look of a male—
She wished she hadn’t looked downward—but then, how could she stop?
Mitchell was definitely aroused and ready, and those humming motors were definitely gearing up.
Uma held very straight, lifting her chin. She wouldn’t let him unnerve her, she understood herself, he wasn’t getting to her—“Thank you very much for the coffee. I have work to do. I’d better not keep you from your business.”
“Okay,” he said easily, those gold eyes still amused.
Uma cleared her throat. “Yes. Well Goodbye.”
She sensed him watching her as she forced herself to walk slowly out of the kitchen and down the hallway, her heart pounding to a rhythm she didn’t want.
She wanted safety, and Mitchell definitely wasn’t that.
Later, in her shower, Uma leaned back against the stall, lifting her face to the streaming water. She could just feel his kiss, feel the need behind it, the testing, the sensual current dancing between them.
In another life, one of dreams and forevermores, Everett had kissed her like that, just a brush of his lips. He sometimes kissed her now like that. Years ago, she’d enjoyed lovemaking, the safety of a man committed to his marriage and to her, the gentleness of it, the friendly comfort, the assurances in the afterplay. Everett was the kind of man who would be there in the morning, and the next day, and the next.
She knew his body, the pleasure of it. And yet her desire for him had slowly died.
Mitchell wasn’t meant to be a gentle man or to comfort. His words this morning said he wanted, and that desire ruled him, nothing more.
She opened her lips and let the water inside, still tasting that kiss.
She couldn’t take him seriously. Are you going to come out and play or not?
“Not,” she whispered as the shower streamed against her skin, sensitizing it. When you bent over to catch your breath, I could see enough of your breasts to want to know how they’d fit in my hands, taste in my mouth.
Mitchell stood in the shower, letting the cold water stream over him. He tried not to think of Uma’s smoky stare, the way it had taken in his body this morning. He could feel her awakening, the stark stirring of her sensuality there in the mist—and knew it was wrong. With a failed marriage behind him, and enough relationships to tell him that life with him was hard on a woman, he could only hurt her.
He closed his eyes, and the image of her breasts, quivering as she ran, and the rounded shape as she bent to catch her breath, tantalized hi
m.
He shook his head and wondered what had possessed him to reveal his desire, a controlled man who shielded his emotions from everyone.
He sighed roughly. Uma was inside him, stirring him, and with her, it wouldn’t be sex-on-the-go, it would be problem after problem. He had enough to do sorting out his life, and he was flirting with her this morning, just like he was on the make and she was in the direct line of fire.
The worst part was how much he enjoyed her reaction, all that rosy, warm soft skin heating up, her confusion, the elegant ladylike way she pulled herself together.
No, the worst part was how much he’d wanted her, there on his bed, in the cool, fragrant morning. Worse yet was the way he’d exposed how he’d wanted to touch her, taste her.
Mitchell briskly soaped himself. He felt raw and bristling and surly, as Uma had said, and he didn’t like the knowledge that at his age, sex still created enough pressure to waylay him from clear thinking.
Roman shoved open the door of the old garage on Maloney Street and inhaled the musty past. The morning sunlight was warm on his back, spreading between his legs and over his head and shoulders to lay his silhouette on the old concrete floor.
There were Dozer’s lawnmowers, the riding and the push ones, and his assortment of pruning tools and chain saws, the bottles and sacks of weed killer, insecticide, and fertilizer. The bagged fertilizer’s sharp tang mixed with echoes of Roman’s father’s voice, the shadows stirring memories around him. Fred was a really good mechanic, not a rancher. He was best with tools in his hand, bent into a humming motor.
Maybe it was that frustration that he chose to take out on Mitchell and Roman.
Roman didn’t want to think about the bitter memories associated with Fred. He pushed away the night of the fire but couldn’t drown out the sounds of his own voice echoing from the past, “The old man deserves what he gets.”
Maybe he did. Maybe they all did. Life had never been easy, growing up in Madrid.
Maybe he’d always been racing back here. Roman shook his head. He’d come full circle, through the fame and the money, back to Poor Town. He had enough to think about—Shelly might have given him a child, a daughter, and he hadn’t known. Whatever he was, he would have stood by her.
He scanned the shadows, the mechanic’s pit without the lift, the workbenches, and frowned when he saw pale, fresh sawdust on the floor beneath the steps. He glanced up at the old office and eased up to the top steps. He crouched to run his finger across the rough planks and then angled around to look at their underside. Someone had sawed the boards just enough that weight would cause the board to break. And the cuts were fresh.
Roman shook his head. Eighteen years ago, someone had nailed boards across the house, setting it afire. And his homecoming present was Lyle’s kidney punch and nails in his Harley’s tires. People were watching from behind their curtains, suspicious of where he went and what he did. Things hadn’t changed much.
He turned to go down the stairs and then momentarily slowed as he saw the tough-looking girl standing in the shadows, watching him. Without the hard look, the punk and the paint, she might be around Dani’s age.
She watched him walk toward her, the buttoned leather vest and cutoffs making her seem very slender and young. “Saw you walking past the house and followed you here. Heard you had tire trouble.”
“You can tell your friend that I’ll be expecting his money for the tires.”
Within the hard black makeup, her eyes widened. They were light brown, he decided, catching the dim light and changing into a dull gold—just the shade of his. “Oh, no. Jace wouldn’t do that. He wants that bike and said the tires alone cost a fortune and that he could get a good price for them.”
“Someone nailed them. I’ll be finding out who. They’ll pay for my brother’s truck tires, too.” He wanted to find out about Dani. “You go to school, kid?”
“Hell, no. I’m out.” When she shook her head, the spiked hair caught the light and he wondered about the true color—rich and auburn and soft, like Shelly’s?
“Summer vacation?”
“I’m just out.” She held out a slender, small hand, the wrist layered with beaded bracelets. “My name is Dani. I hear yours is Roman. Nice. Like gladiator stuff, right? I heard you can handle yourself, too. I like a man like that.”
Dani. This young girl, slender, had Shelly’s clean-cut Nordic features, and eyes the same light brown as his. He forced himself to breathe, his heart pounding. He wondered, no, he knew, she was his.
“You okay, guy?” she asked, frowning up at him. “You look like you forgot something.”
How could he forget that night? Why hadn’t he checked on Shelly after that? She’d been a virgin—a sweet, giving virgin. “I’m fine, kid. I’ll feel better after I have breakfast. What’s the best place to eat around here? Show me and I’ll buy.”
“Ruby’s is good. Home-cooking and good pies and sweet tea made in the sun. I work there sometimes.” She grinned at him, and Roman’s heart stopped. There was Shelly, young and shy and tender—all pain and edges and uncertainty—beneath layers of paint and hair dye and leather. This was his daughter.
The rumble of a motorcycle preceded the young tough he’d met earlier. The boy paused in the yawning opening of the garage, and Roman knew exactly what he was, because that’s just how he’d been—girl crazy, taking what he could get, showing off just how tough he was.
He held back the impulse to rip the kid from the seat and threaten him. That wouldn’t help him with Dani.
The kid purred the bike inside and Roman didn’t like his dark look at Dani. “Hop on,” the kid said in a tone that warned.
Jace could have been Roman as a teenager, just there, framed in that square of sunlight, revving his motorcycle. And Roman knew exactly what kids that age wanted—and his daughter wasn’t going to be ordered around, or used. He had always been very careful to stay within the bounds of girls—okay, older women—who knew the score. He had preferred older; Shelly was different that night and he’d needed her in a way that was soft and warm. “She’s with me.”
“Oh, yeah?” The tough revved the bike and Roman knew what would happen next—he’d be fighting a boy for his own daughter!
Roman glanced at Dani and found her eyes bright and hopeful—and worshipful of a man she wanted for her own.
Well, hell. What would a real father do in his place?
First things first. “Dani said you wouldn’t have nailed my tires or pushed my bike over. Did you?”
The kid’s eyes widened, showing his youth, not that hard, tough look. “Not me. I wouldn’t do that to a Harley.” He spoke the name with reverence.
“If you pick up who did, I’d appreciate the lead. But Dani and I were just going down to Ruby’s. How about coming with us?”
The kid revved his bike. “I’ve got business,” he said and back-walked the motorcycle out.
When he roared away, Roman asked, “Are you going to have trouble over this?”
“I can handle myself,” she said and the inviting look she gave Roman shocked him.
“Old guys aren’t fun,” he said sternly and surprised himself at the paternal protective nudge. Dani needed someone to—oh, well, hell, what did he know about what a father could teach a girl, or how to protect her from users? “You shouldn’t try a come-on with me. Just how old are you, anyway?”
Dani shrugged and her tone was casual, as if she knew everything there was to know about life and accepted it. “Jail bait. I’d lie, but you’d find out if you stay around town. But I know the rules. I’m the same as my mom, and she never told anyone who my father was.”
But Roman knew, and he wanted to know more.
SIX
Uma leaned back in her desk chair. After hours of trying to understand what had happened to her computer, why all the files had been erased or corrupted, she still had no idea. At five o’clock in the morning, she had a deadline for her Charis Lopez column in two days, and a layout for a
real estate company, and now she had to start all over. The backup CDs she was meticulous about making were not readable, either. She had to reinstall all the programs, write the column, and—
And it was the third week of July, hot and dry. It had been two weeks since Mitchell had—since he had been so, so intense, and had kissed her.
Mitchell was a concentrated male package—taut, edgy, brooding, concealing his thoughts. And emotional. She had merely caught his dark side, that bristling male shield that wanted to put her off guard, to defend his inner emotions.
She tapped the pencil she was holding. Naturally Mitchell would be emotional, coming back to Madrid, remembering—
But then, she should be worrying about her deadlines, the way her computer had crashed.
She looked past the window’s sheer lacy curtain onto the street. Earlier, distracted by her computer problems, she hadn’t noticed the two holes in the window. She picked up the BBs on her desk. Her father wouldn’t be happy, and she’d have to make a point of telling the Ellison boy to not shoot at birds. His father had been irresponsible, showing little Nicky how to shoot at birds, and she’d complained at the cruelties. She would again—just as soon as she could talk to his father.
Her own father was still snoring, the sound cruising down the hallway like a revved chainsaw. Tracking the Warrens’ movements through a network of townspeople, what they bought, where they went, was exhausting work.
Other than the crashed computer, and the BB holes in the window, everything else appeared normal. Ellie Long was on her morning walk, pushing her baby’s stroller in front of her. Life in Madrid was as usual, Mrs. Simpson trying to fit her big Lincoln into Maggie Fenton’s driveway.
Uma still tasted Matthew and the sensual electricity surrounding them. She’d been off balance since then, nettled and sleepless and angry with him—and with herself for letting him get to her. She’d avoided looking at his house, though she badly wanted to help him restore it.