by EC Sheedy
Deanne jumps into relationships heart-first.
Eager to start fresh after her nasty divorce, Deanne Moore adopts a stray dog and begins the healing process. She has learned—the hard way—to take chances and just enjoy life. The one thing she isn’t expecting, though, is to get a second chance with her first crush.
Julius won’t let lust burn away the last of his brain cells.
After losing his entire family in one blinding instant, Julius Zern has learned to steer clear of happily-ever-after scenarios. Meeting Deanne stirs something tender within him. So he stays. Overnight. And falls…hard.
But just as he begins to follow his instincts—and his desire for Deanne—trouble arrives and threatens to destroy their fragile bond.
Dear Reader,
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Overnight
EC Sheedy
Dedication
Always and forever for Tim.
CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER 1
Deanne heard the first knock and the second, ignored them both.
Julius Zern! Oh, my God, I’m ignoring Julius Zern.
For a dog.
She glanced down at the canine. “Come on, Samba baby, you can do it. It’s the last one, I promise.”
The weary dog gave her a disbelieving look and rightfully so. She’d used the it’s-the-last-one promise two puppies ago—and now there were four. She stared in awe at the slicked and gooey quartet on the whelping bed, totally in thrall, even while wondering how she’d gone from petless to midwife in two short weeks.
I am so-o out of my depth here.
Another knock on the door.
Another puppy slid out of Samba—this one tricolored—and like the good mother she was, Samba immediately started the clean up, giving Deanne a necessary break from the puppy action.
She stroked Samba’s head, whispered something inane about what a great job she was doing and stood. Shoving her hair back from her face, smoothing down the front of her rumpled shirt and wishing she wasn’t wearing skinny jeans, she hustled her butt to the front door, to greet one of Seattle’s most influential art collectors.
Opening the door wide, she blinded him with a smile in the vain hope he’d miss seeing the denim. “Mr. Zern.”
“Deanne Moore.”
As she’d expected, he didn’t recognize her. He also didn’t return her smile. What he did was x-ray her from her disheveled hair to her—
Oh, my God, the slippers.
Ignoring the heat inching up her neck on prickly feet, she said, “Come in, please. I’m sorry I kept you waiting. My dog is—” Damn. This meeting was about selling art, not dogs. Clancy’s next month’s rent, and her new start in Seattle, depended on her making this meeting work.
Zern gave her a quizzical look, waited calmly for her to finish whatever it was she was going to say—which she’d totally forgotten. His gaze, so fixed on hers, set her stomach on butterfly mode. It’d been a long time since that happened. Particularly with a man like this one.
A chilly man, she registered, with a stern mouth and an unwavering gaze from sharp, say-nothing eyes, their color exactly as she remembered, somewhere between gray and green. His color choices of shades of gray, topped by a black leather jacket, gave him a steely look. Big, tall and ultra cool. The phrase lean, mean, fighting machine came to mind, as did…unpretty. Severely masculine. Remote. Imposing…intimidating. Not what she’d expected. Or remembered.
“Your dog?” he prompted, his tone bass low and surprisingly mild—as if he were speaking to a verbally challenged three-year-old.
“Yes…” She still hadn’t found that other direction she was looking for, Memory Lane not being an option. When in doubt, spit it out. It had taken her the better part of a year to learn that simple concept. So the dog excuse it was. “She’s, uh, having…puppies.”
“Maybe I should come back another time.”
If she let Zern get away, Clancy would kill her—if she didn’t kill herself first. “No. No. Everything’s under control.” Hah! He took another couple of steps deeper into the room. If his step echoed on the freshly polished hardwood, she didn’t hear it, but she did catch the light scent of something like orange and sandalwood when he stepped past her.
Again they faced each other, but this time Deanne gathered up her stray brain cells and took control. “I know I’m looking a little…disorganized at the moment, but believe me, Mr. Zern—”
“Julius.”
She nodded. She was glad for his correction, because given what she knew of him, the Mister thing felt seriously strange. “Believe me, Julius, when you see Clancy West’s work, you’ll forget my dog’s bad timing, and me…wearing jeans and slippers.” She smiled—as if she were in her right mind.
“I hope so.”
Ignoring his ambiguous answer, Deanne gestured to the stark white wall, where three paintings hung in symmetry. “There they are,” she said, not above stating the obvious. She’d spent all last night and the wee hours of the morning getting ready—cleaning, painting the walls and finally hanging Clancy’s remarkable work exactly right. Other than the art, an ivory leather love seat, a tall lamp and an ebony lacquered coffee table, there was nothing in the room, making it appear larger than it was and settling the focus squarely on Clancy’s work.
Julius Zern shifted his attention from her to the paintings.
Her stomach knotted, and she drew in some silent breaths. Waited. How very different he was from…then. But then so are you, Deanne Moore. Thank God. Walking the few steps to the paintings, he leaned forward as if to study the brushwork. Deanne fisted and flexed her hands, determined not to break the silence and stay focused, despite her fuzzed brain from lack of sleep and her concern for Samba’s plight in t
he kitchen.
Turning back to face her, Julius looked surprised and—yes! Impressed. “They’re brilliant. I’d like to—”
Another knock on the door. This couldn’t be happening. “Excuse me.” Biting back an unbusiness-like curse, she headed for the door.
Don Summers, her vet, strode in before she got there. “Morning. Sorry, I’m late. Emergency surgery. An Airedale. In terrible shape—cuts like Samba’s.” He shook his head. “Third time this month some creep has done a number on a dog. Her owners found him roadside. Damn sick son of a— Sorry.”
“Will it be okay?” Deanne had been a dog owner for less than three weeks, but after having Samba, remembering how she’d looked that first day, cowering on her doorstep, her fur matted, the blood…She felt sick all over again.
“He’ll be fine as soon as the cuts heal. Bastard slashed the— But let’s get to Samba. Where is she?” He looked harried, as usual—as though he’d been blown backward in a wind tunnel.
“In the laundry room, off the kitchen,” Deanne said, her mind still stuck on the image of the abused dog.
Forcing another smile, she looked up at Julius. God, he was tall. Six-three, at least. “As you’ve probably guessed—this is my vet. Do you mind? It’ll only take a minute.” She was thankful Clancy wasn’t here to witness this fiasco—although knowing him he’d have gleefully added to it.
Zern looked at her, then the vet. “I’ll be fine.”
“Thanks.”
Julius watched the woman and the vet disappear into the kitchen, his gaze sliding to Deanne Moore’s backside a second before she moved out of sight. A damn fine backside—the kind jeans were created for. Stellar from the front, too. Long honey-colored hair, blue eyes—dark, a night-sky blue—and a smile to melt crystal. But judging by the dazed and confused expression on her face when she’d answered the door, he figured she was working way out of her league and making a major effort not to let it show.
Again Clancy West’s paintings drew his attention. Regardless of the woman’s sales experience or lack of it, she had a damn good eye. West’s work was some of the best he’d seen in a long time. Pure genius. Urban street scenes, gritty and uncompromising—they were painted boldly in shades of gray ranging from pearl to granite; the only color on the canvases the clothes and faces of the people populating them. The minimal use of color brought the subjects alive and gave the work a stunning energy. Brilliant.
His cell phone vibrated in his jacket pocket, and being temporarily abandoned by the artist’s stressed-out agent, he pulled it out and glanced at the call display. Guardian, Inc.
“Kit?” he said.
“Yeah. Didn’t want to bug you, Jules, but that call you were expecting came through. I just hung up. She wants to know if it’s a go, and if it is, for you to be there next Saturday—a.m. For three days.”
Julius and his partner, Joe Worth, were personal security specialists, their clients mainly businesspeople traveling with their families, people determined to ensure safety for their loved ones in an unsafe world. A world Julius knew very well, from firsthand experience. The work wasn’t something he had to do, but it was something he cared to do—perhaps was fated to do. Still, he wasn’t keen on spending time in Paris looking out for the latest cover model featured in Vogue. But at sixteen she was still a kid…Being stalked, according to her worried mother. “Tell her yes. And load up on the particulars, will you?”
“Got most of them, and I booked a Friday late-afternoon flight—just in case. But I’ll confirm the rest.” Only nineteen, Kit was the resident brainiac and go-to guy at Guardian, Inc.
“Thanks—and, Kit?” He glanced at his watch.
“Uh-huh.”
“Will you swing by the house and take Lily and Brutus for an extra long walk this morning? I’m going to be here awhile.” Lily and Brutus were his two chocolate Labs, a brother and sister, and the only family he allowed himself. Anybody ever abused them—in the way Deanne’s vet described—they’d be the ones needing emergency surgery. Point in the disorganized Deanne Moore’s favor—she had a dog.
“Sure. See you.”
Julius clicked off and stuffed the phone back in his pocket.
Moore’s raised voice drifted in from the kitchen. “Oh, my God, when is she going to stop?” She sounded desperate. “Is she going to be okay?”
The vet mumbled something Julius couldn’t hear.
He ambled toward the open doorway. Hell, he already knew he was going to buy the paintings, but if he had to wait for a whelping bitch before he did, he might as well take a look at her pups.
CHAPTER 2
The vet stood to go just as Julius arrived at the laundry room door.
“She’s done,” he said, “and the puppies are all healthy as far as I can see. Just leave them be for now. Samba will take care of things.”
The woman stared at the brood of puppies—Julius’s quick count said there were six—looking shell-shocked. Her response to the vet’s instructions was a barely-there nod. She was holding her hair back from her face with both hands, but let it fall when her wide eyes briefly touched on him.
“I’ll leave you this.” The vet waved a couple of papers in her general direction before setting them on the dryer. “Most of what you need to know is there, but call if you need me. Either way, I’ll come by later today if I can. Okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Okay.”
“And stop worrying. Everything’s fine.” He ran a hand through thinning brown hair and, when she didn’t say more, added, “I’ll see myself out.”
Julius stepped aside to let him pass.
“Good-looking pups.” He stayed standing in the doorway, kept his distance. Not smart to approach the whelping bed and upset a new mother. “And the vet’s right. They look very healthy.”
Still kneeling beside the litter, her blue eyes met his and she blinked, tilting her head as if she were coming back from a faraway place. Her dreamy gaze entered him like a shot of Scotch neat. His chest heated.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “About all this.” She dipped her chin to gesture at the dogs, then took a deep breath. “But I’ve never had a dog before—didn’t have Samba until a couple of weeks ago.”
“She’s a stray?” Julius looked down at the trim black-and-white border collie, an obvious purebred, and her multi-hued litter, so obviously not.
“I found her curled up on my back porch a few days after I moved in,” she said, stroking the dog’s back. “It had been raining all day, and she was soaked through, and bleeding from some deep cuts. I brought her in the house and called the vet. Don said the cuts were from a razor—like the ones on the Airedale he mentioned.” She shuddered. “Can you imagine someone doing that?”
“Like your vet said. A real sicko.” Unfortunately, Julius easily imagined that kind of someone—and worse. His rose-colored glasses shattered years ago. But by the looks of Deanne Moore’s shocked expression, hers were still intact.
After a second, she waved a hand over the wriggling litter—every one of them snuffling against the mother and looking for breakfast—and stood. “Anyway, now I have all of them. It’s a bit overwhelming.”
“I can see that.” In the close confines of the laundry room and under the overhead light, he picked up on her exhaustion, the shadows under her eyes. She looked beat. Judging from the boxes in the corner—the neatly stacked paint cans—she wasn’t even finished unpacking yet. And six puppies? If she’d acted as novice midwife, she’d probably been up for hours.
“But, as none of this is your problem,” she said, “and Don said I should leave Samba alone for a while, why don’t we go to the living room and get back to why you’re here. Clancy West’s work.” She moved toward where he lounged in the doorway, preceded by the scent of roses—and turpentine.
The mixture eddied in his senses, stilled him, punched him. Whoa. He needed space. Stepping aside, he let her pass, then jerked his head toward the kitchen counter. “Would you mind?”
“Exc
use me?”
“That is coffee I smell, isn’t it?”
She smiled again. This one coming easier. She liked to smile, he thought, even when she was bone-tired. “Yes, it is. Sorry, I should have—”
The kitchen door banged open, and a kid waltzed in, a boy of maybe fifteen or sixteen. Moore’s face flashed annoyance but she quickly covered it with yet another smile, this one drawn and glued into place.
The woman doth smile too much…
“Kurt,” she said, “I asked you to knock. Remember?”
“Sorry,” he muttered, not looking it. “Some of your mail ended up in the big-house box.” He handed her some letters.
Deanne took the mail, said firmly, “Next time, you knock. You got that?”
“Yeah. Got it.” His gaze fired over to Julius, assessed him as if he were a dark alley. “Who’s he?”
“Kurt.” She gave him a look icy enough to freeze the Sahara.
Julius stuck out his hand. “Julius Zern. And you are?” He did some assessing of his own. Short, five-six max, a bit overweight, pale, with hair in need of a cut and a wash. He had a splotch of fine hair on his chin. Wearing none-too-clean jeans and an XXL tee, the kid had a mean, abandoned look about him—and a serious case of rude.
“Kurt Minton. From the big house. She rents from us.”
This area was far-east Seattle, where the city ended and country began. Driving the last leg of the potholed road leading to Deanne’s, Julius had spotted the big house. A gingerbread-dripping, porch-sagging, paint-chipped, dark-windowed monstrosity. Easily a hundred years old, it looked terminal. A gentle hill and a grassy expanse of open field lay between here and the sagging Victorian. A few trees separated the two properties at one end but didn’t obscure the view between them. The big house, as the kid called it, was the only other house within sight, sharing the dead end of the road with Deanne’s freshly painted cottage. On first arriving, he’d wondered what the hell the woman was thinking, running a business so far from Seattle—until he’d spotted the lake at the back of the house. Beautiful.