She wished she had the luxury of sizing him up too. Instead, she swallowed her pride, and opened the door wider. “Come on, Dad. Let’s get you to bed.”
Dad took two Captain Jack Sparrow steps into the house, and his knees buckled. CJ snagged him before he hit the wood floor. “Whoopsh,” Dad said on a chuckle.
Natalie’s jaw locked down, but she forced it to unclench.
This was her fault too.
She reached for Dad. “Thank you for bringing him home,” she said to CJ’s lapel. “I can take it from here.”
Dad swatted in the general vicinity of her hand. “Itshy bitshy shpider don’t need girl help,” he slurred.
CJ cleared his throat. Natalie instinctively looked up. A dangerous amusement flickered from his eyes to his lips, and she felt an inexplicable pull low in her abdomen.
Inexplicable, unwelcome, and not as surprising as she wanted it to be.
“He’ll be okay soon,” CJ said.
Maybe someone else’s dad would be okay soon, but the liquor cabinet over the fridge held the exact same booze her parents had received as wedding gifts.
Except for those few open bottles she’d refilled as a teenager.
“How much did he drink?” Natalie said.
CJ’s grin turned a color of delicious that perfectly matched every last put-together inch of his solid, male body.
She disliked him more by the minute.
“Aw, Mom, can’t a guy have a night of fun every once in a while? This man here”—he slapped Dad on the back, then shifted to prop him up again—“hasn’t gotten shitfaced in years. When a man loses the love of his life, there’s nothing like a night or two to drink until you forget. Then you move on. All he’s been dealing with, he’s had it coming.”
Drool slipped out Dad’s mouth. He swiped at it, clocked himself in the nose and knocked his glasses crooked, then laughed like Noah had told a bad knock-knock joke.
Natalie’s roots radiated more heat than the heater. She stepped up to Dad’s other side. “Bedtime. Let’s go.”
He swatted at her again and banged the entryway table instead, knocking flat his wedding picture that had been there since Mom passed—one of the few photos that had survived the flood. “Can’t hold the fam’ly, can’t hold me. Man gots friends, time like thish.” Dad punched CJ in the ribs.
CJ didn’t flinch. His gaze flicked to Natalie, and a fleeting memory of her own guilt at that long-ago Knot Fest tickled her conscience.
“Might want to get him a bucket,” CJ said. “Sound good, Arthur? Bed and a bucket? Let’s go, buddy.”
With CJ’s help, Dad made it farther into the house.
The Queen General would read Natalie the riot act when she got wind of this. And she’d get wind of every bit—how Natalie was a shithead to Dad at the shop, how Dad went who-knew-where to get drunk, how Natalie welcomed CJ Blue into her home in the dead of the night.
If she could start this day over, she’d poke herself in the eyeball with a sewing needle to avoid having to live through it.
But she didn’t have that luxury. Instead, she had to attend to a drunken father and the QG’s poster boy. A drunken father who’d earned his night out, and a poster boy she now owed for not allowing Dad to drive home drunk and possibly causing Natalie to bury both her parents within a year.
The thought made her breath hitch.
And maybe her general dislike of CJ thaw.
But only a little.
She gestured toward a short hallway beneath the stairs. “His room’s that way.”
With the men headed to Dad’s room, Nat ducked out to the garage, sucked in enough chilly air to numb her lungs, snagged a bucket, and wondered how the hell she could minimize tonight’s damage.
She needed to stuff her pride back into the shadows and be a good little divorced daughter of Bliss, but when she got back inside, CJ was taking up Dad’s entire doorway with his tallness and broadness and inherent male Neanderthal-ness.
She might’ve gone a little tingly in some formerly dormant parts.
Residual cold from the garage. Her dormant parts were defrosting. Totally normal after going outside for less than a minute in early spring. Yep. That was all it was.
Nothing related to having an attractive, apparently capable, single man in her house.
Or related to thinking about what might’ve been her own role in the demise of her marriage. But she had enough problems without going there.
She put the bucket between her and CJ—a girl had to give some indication she didn’t like having strange men in her home. Until he acknowledged recognizing her from the confessional incident or introduced himself, she would absolutely call him a stranger.
She hovered just beyond the door.
“Here, let me.” CJ gave her an even more delectable grin. Hints at laugh lines creased the corners of his mouth.
“Arthur’s not decent.” CJ winked, and then the bucket was gone, her mouth was dry and she was staring at the closed bedroom door, wondering how the man who symbolized the worst wrong of her life was suddenly so manly.
She retreated to the living room and paced, rubbing her palms and listening to the occasional snort of laughter or verse of “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”
CJ appeared a few minutes later. “All set.” He plopped down on the couch and bent to untie his shoe.
Untie his shoe?
“You know what?” he said, seemingly oblivious to her sputters at his intention to make himself comfortable.
“I just realized,” he continued, pulling a long, black-nylon-socked foot from his shoe and flexing his toes, “I didn’t catch your name.”
Wait.
He didn’t catch her name?
He was playing, that much was certain, but an even more mortifying thought occurred.
He didn’t remember her from the Husband Games five years ago.
Just when she thought she didn’t have any ego left to bruise.
He had ruined her life, and he didn’t remember.
Worse, he had ruined her life, and now he was making himself at home in her home, right beneath where her son slept. “What are you doing?” she blurted.
He dangled a set of keys. Car key, house key, shop key, all on the Bliss Bridal key ring Dad had used since the 1990s. “In case you hadn’t noticed, your dad’s not in any shape to drive me back to my car tonight.” He plopped the keys on the end table, then went to work on his second shoe.
“You can’t stay here.”
He couldn’t. The things the Queen General would do to Natalie if the Exalted Widower did the walk of shame from this house in the morning.
How could Dad not realize the implications of bringing CJ here?
Oh, right. Because CJ had gotten him drunk.
CJ gave her a look that clearly said she was the fool who didn’t realize he was the king of this castle, then patted the leather couch that was at least a foot too short for him. “Slept on a lot worse. You got a blanket?”
She gaped at him. There was a quaking in the pit of her stomach that she couldn’t clench. “You can’t stay here.” She lunged for the keys. “I’ll drive you back to your hotel.”
Not the best option to leave Dad drunk and home alone with Noah, but she had to get CJ out of here before someone saw him. She’d be back in ten minutes. Noah and Dad would be fine.
CJ scoffed at her. “Lady, I have eleven sisters. No way in hell I’m letting you drive.”
Did he just—he did. The bastard.
She curved her lips into a tight smile. “I’m more grateful than you could know that you brought my father home safe, but I’d hate for an honored guest of Bliss to get pulled over smelling like you do.”
“If my choices are the couch or you behind the wheel, I’ll take the couch.” He lifted a speculative eyebrow. “Unless there’s a bed you wanted to show me?”
A pleasurable pang knocked on her dormant bits, which only made her want to show him a few other things. Like the door. Maybe with a side serving
of humility.
She had to get him out of here.
A cab was out of the question. The Queen General would hear about that. Lindsey was half an hour away. Dad was drunk.
“Why are you doing this?” she half-whispered.
He stretched back on the couch, hands linked behind his head. His light-green eyes held hers for what felt like longer than her marriage had lasted. His words rumbled out low and rough, as if the question had made him as vulnerable as it made her. “I’m tired. Why are you doing this?”
For more reasons than she’d tell him face-to-face.
Thank God they weren’t in a confessional tonight, or she might’ve spilled her guts again. “I know more about Bliss propriety than anyone should have to know,” she said, giving herself a mental pat on the back for not adding because of you. “And I know you need to leave this house before I ruin your reputation.”
He snorted. “What is this, the Dark Ages?”
“This is Bliss. And it’s close enough to where your in-laws live that you might want to keep that in mind.” It was a desperate play, admitting that she knew exactly who he was.
His body went rigid and his eyes flat.
Bullseye.
“My in-laws are fair-minded people,” he said, the dangerous edge to his words making her shiver in both good and bad ways. “Is there anything else I should worry that they’d hear?”
Oh, no.
Not that.
Not tonight.
Nat’s heart jumped into her throat and threatened to choke her. “No.”
“You sure?” CJ said. “Because you sound just like this woman I met in a confessional today. She had a lot to say about a Queen General’s poster boy, and turns out—unless there are two—I’m him.”
Words wouldn’t come. Because here, late, alone with him—and the undeniable knowledge that he was the type of guy who could kiss a woman and not remember it, and that she was the type of girl whose body was having a serious reaction to his maleness and broadness and general male Neanderthal-ness despite his being CJ Blue—she was too far out of her own skin to formulate coherent thoughts, much less put them into words.
“So that was you today.” He stood, peeled off his tux jacket. “Looks like you and I have some unfinished business.”
Her eyes tripped on the fit of his white dress shirt, and she had to force herself to look away and point to the door. No way, no how. The QG would kill her. And then bring her back to life, kill her again, follow her to hell, and do it a third time.
And then there was CJ himself.
Bad enough he didn’t remember. The last time she’d seen him, the last time he’d touched her, her entire world, her entire life, had broken. It had taken him less than three seconds to strip her of everything she’d ever wanted.
She hardly had anything left, but what if he did it to her again?
“You need to leave,” she said.
He tossed his tux jacket over the back of the recliner, then assumed stubborn-male position: arms crossed, feet wide, expression growly. “Can’t say to my face what you’ll say behind my back?”
Natalie wanted to flinch, but she refused. “Feeling guilty?” she shot back instead.
Wrong move.
He took a step toward her. A giant, manly, CJ-size step.
She gulped. But she maintained eye contact.
“About what?” he said.
Hell with it. He wanted to talk? They’d damn well talk. “About destroying my marriage.” But she had to admit that saying it out loud, to his face, didn’t feel nearly as good as she’d hoped it would.
Damn it.
CJ took another step. His eyes went dark and ominous, his cheek ticking over his solid jaw. “I don’t feel guilty over something I didn’t do.”
Natalie matched one of his forward steps with one of her own. She didn’t have his stature, but she refused to be intimidated in her own home. “Not having the decency to remember doesn’t help.”
“Or maybe you’re a freaking nutjob looking to blame anybody but yourself for your problems.”
Her face went white-hot, and before she realized she’d moved, he caught her hands mid-air, abruptly stopping her from shoving him.
“A feisty nutjob,” he murmured, “but definitely a nutjob. Too bad. Waste of a pretty face.”
The jackass was playing with her. And while there was a flash of amusement in the quirk of his lips, there was flat calculation in his narrowed eyes.
“Were you this much of an ass to your wife?” Natalie said.
His grip went lax, releasing her hands, and everything about him went still as death.
His eyes, his breath, probably his very pulse. She felt it as surely as if it were her own.
She’d hit a nerve. A major nerve.
She couldn’t stop herself today, could she?
And what right did she have to attack his marriage? What good would it do?
She blinked at the floor, gathering her courage. I’m sorry wasn’t a sentiment she’d ever been good with, but she’d crossed a line.
Several, in fact, by Bliss standards. Her mother would have been horrified.
“Oh, don’t do that,” CJ murmured. “We’re just getting to the good stuff.”
His lethal tone sent a shiver from her hairline to her tailbone, but it wasn’t fear.
It was genuine intrigue. He wanted a fight.
She lifted her gaze again. His eyes, spindled with the red lines of exhaustion, were nonetheless sharp and glittering. His lips were tight, and he slowly rubbed his hands together.
“Because if you do that,” he continued, his dangerous edge inspiring her second shiver of intrigue, “I might feel guilty for suggesting I did your husband a favor. And I’m not real big on feeling guilty.”
The list of reasons continuing this fight was a bad idea was longer than the train of Princess Di’s wedding dress.
But he didn’t remember what he’d done. What kind of person forgot something like that? She licked her lips.
His eyes went a shade darker.
“Must suck for you, then,” she said, her voice low and husky and unrecognizable, “that you actually did me the favor.”
A flash of teeth showed in his hard smile. “Interesting way of expressing your appreciation.”
“Tell you what. When you remember what I’m supposed to be appreciative for, then I’ll thank you properly.”
His gaze took a slow meander up and down her body. “Define properly.”
Properly would be to wipe that blisteringly inappropriate speculation off his face.
But despite everything, his suggestive scrutiny was awakening her long-forgotten femininity.
She needed to cut this off right now. “Hard,” she said. “Loud. Painful. Properly.”
“Too bad you’re a nutjob, or you might be my kind of woman.”
When his lazy, broody-eyed stare took another meander at her goods, she knew she was in trouble. Was it because she hadn’t heard that smoky tone from a man in too long, or was it because she was extra-susceptible to CJ?
That had been the problem, hadn’t it? “Too bad you destroy marriages, or I might’ve mistaken you for a decent human being,” she said.
“Lady, I’m a guy. There’s a lot of asshole under this skin. But I’m not a homewrecker. Never have been, never will be. So you and I, we’re going to work this out. I’ve got too much respect for the institution to let you say otherwise.”
Natalie’s breath caught.
Hard not to be susceptible to a guy who said things like that.
A muffled, off-tune baritone cut through their staring match. “Twinkle, twinkle, little bar…”
She shot a glance down the hall. Her father’s door was still closed. The singing faded, replaced by a slow, deep snore.
“You need to go,” Natalie whispered. If they could wake Dad, they could wake Noah.
CJ shifted, putting himself squarely in her personal space. “You own this place? Because your dad told m
e to make myself at home.”
“My father’s inebriated. And whose fault is that?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I forced all that liquor down his throat. You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
“Would you keep it down?” Natalie hissed.
“Sure. As soon as you tell me what the hell your problem is.”
“You know what? I’ll call you a cab.” She’d call Lindsey. Same thing.
“Or,” CJ said, “I’ll ask your dad.”
Natalie stopped with her hand on her phone. He wasn’t talking about asking Dad for a ride.
Her chest ached. She should’ve stuck that sewing needle in her eye this morning. She’d done this day completely wrong.
The last six months hadn’t been easy on any of them. Suddenly having to bury Mom, the injury of having the Golden Husband Games taken out of the family, explaining why Grandma was gone to Noah. And now she was on the verge of making tomorrow worse for not only herself, but for Dad too.
She dropped her phone back in her pocket and did the one thing she hated the most.
She gave up.
“You kissed me,” she said, but it was barely more than a whisper, because saying it was like living it all over again.
And while the fall-out had been horrific, there had been a moment in that kiss—maybe two—that haunted her for a different reason.
“Oh, that’s bullshit,” he said. “I didn’t—”
He stopped himself. The sudden flare of his eyes suggested he might have remembered after all.
Nat scrubbed her hands over the goose bumps on her arms.
His brow crinkled. His gaze dipped to her lips, and then back up. Uncertainty and a hint of vulnerability had snuck past the hardness in his eyes. “I kissed you,” he echoed.
Her head drooped as low as her self-worth. She stared at his socks on the tan carpet. “It was horrible,” she said. “And you don’t even remember.”
The blind kissing challenge was the crowd’s favorite event of the Husband Games. All the wives lined up on the outdoor stage set up at the Bliss High football stadium, and then one by one, their blindfolded husbands were led up to find and kiss the right wife.
Usually Dad had led the men onstage. Both Natalie’s parents got credit for being chair couple of the Husband Games committee, but other than Dad’s role as emcee of the event, Mom did all the work. Not that year, though. That year, Dad had come down with food poisoning and missed all the festivities.
Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) Page 6