by Jane Kent
He reached to sever the connection but Rome stopped him. “Bastian? Thanks.”
“You owe me, asshole,” Bastian said, wanting to diffuse the potentially mushy, un-guy Hallmark moment. He closed down the connection and then crossed to the front window to watch Skye, making sure she got to her car safely.
The exterior light went out a few moments after Skye drove away and, a couple of seconds after that, the spill of light from the store on the snow outside was extinguished. Bastian listened for PJ on the stairs. There was no sound from the hall and he started to tense up until he heard her moving around in her apartment and concluded she’d likely done a final door check and gone directly to her apartment by way of the old servants stairs in the tearoom kitchen.
The ancient plumbing pipes suddenly rattled and cranked to life. PJ was running a bath or shower.
Shit! Bastian groaned along with the pipes. The mental vision of a wet, naked PJ was not one he needed if he wanted to get any sleep tonight. Looked like his shower was going to be a cold one. Wasn’t it lucky for him then that the lack of hot water in this old house, for once, wasn’t going to be a problem?
Chapter Two
“Mommy! I thee her, Aunt JP!”
“I see her too, Joshie,” PJ said, waving through the bookstore window at Kim Taylor as she climbed out of her SUV. PJ’s other hand was firmly locked on the bouncing four-year old’s red sweater to keep him from tumbling off the footstool he was standing on while they kept watch for his mother. “Come on, let’s get your jacket on.”
“I can jump big,” Joshie announced proudly.
“You can? Show me.” PJ took the little boy’s hand as he crouched and launched himself off the footstool in a dramatic eight-inch leap to the floor. “Very impressive,” she said, helping him into his coat, hat and mittens. “Now, have you got everything in your knapsack? Your book? Your Christmas cookies?” Joshie’s head nodded to each of her questions with enough force to make his entire little body vibrate and PJ smiled. “Okay then, I’ll just walk you to the door to meet mommy.”
“I’m a big boy. I can do it by mythelf.”
Ah, yes, independence.
“All right. Okay if I watch from here?”
Joshie grinned at her. “Yeth,” he said and PJ’s heart melted. He really was such a sweet, agreeable little boy. “Bye. Bye, Attie,” Joshie added to PJ’s fluffy, tiger-striped cat curled up in one of the reading chairs.
“Walk, don’t run,” she reminded him as he took off for the door. But, like most small children, the word walk wasn’t in his vocabulary and he only slowed down for two or three steps before he was off and running again.
She opened her mouth to stop him before he reached the door to the hall just as the glass-paned door opened, the bell above jangling merrily. Sebastian St. John’s big body filled the frame and the small boy careened full-tilt into the long jeans-clad legs in front of him. St. John’s hands shot out to grab Joshie’s shoulders, saving the little guy from a nasty off-balance crash into a display table.
Damn, the man had fast hands…uh, quick reflexes.
“You okay, buddy?” St. John asked Joshie, squatting down in front of the little boy and PJ tried—really, she did—not to goggle as the denim strained over St. John’s muscular thighs.
Joshie nodded mutely and PJ saw Kim, who was standing in the hall, give her son a prompting look over St. John’s shoulder.
“Thcuthe me. I’m thorry,” the little boy said contritely.
St. John smiled at Joshie, then at Kim, and PJ’s breath hitched in her chest. She saw Kim blink a couple of times out in the hall and knew she’d been blindsided by that killer smile, as well. “It’s okay,” St. John answered Joshie. “I should have looked through the window before I opened the door. But maybe you should slow down just a little, okay? Think of the mess you’d have to help your mom and Miss James clean up if you’d crashed into that glass door instead of me.” He held out his hand for Joshie to shake and the little boy took it solemnly and nodded.
Wow, the man was great with kids. He’d given Joshie a warning about running without freaking the little boy out with how badly injured he could have been if he’d gone through that door and then treated him like an adult with a male bonding handshake.
St. John rose to his feet and moved aside to let Joshie pass and PJ saw Kim give her son another prompting look, murmuring something to him.
Joshie turned back to her and said, “Thank you, Aunt PJ, for the party. I had fun.”
“You’re welcome, Joshie. Say hi to Melinda for me.”
His little face grimaced at the mention of his sister but he said “okay” in his agreeable way and dashed out the door to his mother’s side. Kim was frantically pointing at PJ’s head behind St. John’s back, and then shrugged resignedly when PJ didn’t pick up on whatever it was she was trying to signal. Kim gave St. John one last appreciative look, and then raised a salacious eyebrow at PJ before ushering her son out the front door.
“Aunt PJ?” St. John asked.
“Joshie has a lisp and the other kids tease him. It was just easier to have all the kids call me Aunt PJ. Ms. James and—”
“And Miss PJ have too many esses,” he finished for her. “I remember those days.”
“You had a lisp?” she asked, surprised. The man oozed self-confidence and looked too perfect to ever have suffered ridicule over anything is his life.
“Sure did. Telling people my name was Sebastian was an exercise in agony,” he admitted cheerfully.
Where was Neanderthal man? Who was this good-natured, charming guy?
Atticus chose that moment to hop down from his reading chair throne with a soft thud to saunter over to St. John, twining around his legs and mewing for attention. St. John leaned down to rub the cat’s ears and run a soothing hand along his back. A sudden image of that same hand stoking her skin with that slow, easy glide sent PJ’s heart rate into overdrive and her breathing into…
Do not go there, Portia Juliet James! The man is gay, remember?
But where had the monosyllabic-speaking, grim-faced, cat-hating man PJ had been encountering for the past two weeks gone? Aliens? It had been easier to remember he was gay before he’d morphed into this likable man.
“I thought you hated cats” burst out before she could stop it. The wary, forbidding look he’d favored Atticus with when he’d moved in had certainly given that impression.
“No, I like them fine. But they usually don’t like me.” He gave Atticus one last scratch under the chin and straightened up. He looked her over and his lips quirked as if something about her secretly amused him. And then he smiled that wicked smile. PJ couldn’t help the flush she felt suffusing her body.
Oh, crap! He really needed to stop doing that.
“You look a little…hmm, what’s the right word here? Frazzled?” he finally said.
She laughed. “That’s what an afternoon with more than two dozen kids under the age of ten will do for you.”
“Ah, yes, your children’s Christmas party.” He frowned slightly. “Didn’t you have any help?”
Last year she’d held a small party for the two children she’d mentored in reading and the few children who’d hung around in the reading room after school. But somehow, over the course of the last year, more and more children had started coming into Words to Live By, and the small party had expanded into A Big Event, anticipated with excitement by PJ, the kids and, surprisingly, the children’s parents.
“Oh, sure, some of the parents were here. And Dave and Jack. But—”
“Ah. Yes. Jack,” he muttered in an odd tone.
“—the party was over at five. Joshie was still here because his mom was at a dance recital with her daughter and couldn’t get back to pick up him until just now.”
“You have…um, you…” He stopped abruptly. He was talking to her chest instead of her face, his gaze riveted to her breasts, something PJ normally found insulting and annoying, but in a gay man it was just plain
weird. St. John cleared his throat, swallowed hard and raised those amazing blue eyes to her face, something dark glinting in their depths. His hands folded into fists at his sides as if he were afraid they might do something unexpected on their own and he said, “You appear to still have some of the party on you.”
PJ looked down. There was a small smeary chocolate handprint on her soft white-and-silver snowflake Christmas sweater. On the upper slope of her left breast. “Oh, God, just shoot me now,” she muttered, mortified.
His lips twitched and then he laughed. PJ was entranced and she couldn’t help smiling back.
“So, Mr. St. John, what brings you down here? What can I do for you?”
A strange expression crossed his face and he emitted a sort of strangled choke before clearing his throat again and saying, “For starters, you can call me Bastian. I don’t think we’re that far apart in age. Mr. St. John makes me want to check over my shoulder to see if my father’s standing behind me and Sebastian makes me feel like I’m talking to my mother.
“As to why I’m here, I wanted to bring you these post-dated rent checks I promised you before they slipped my mind again.” He handed her the checks he’d pulled out of his pocket.
“Oh. Thanks,” she said, feeling a bit let down. Well, really, what had she expected him to say? “I’ll just get you some receipts.”
“One for all of them will be fine.”
The first thing PJ did when she reached her office was rush into the tiny attached powder room and scrub at the embarrassing chocolate stain with a damp facecloth.
She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and did a classic double take, then stared in dismay. Damn, she was a mess!
Her crazy curly hair had escaped the neat ponytail she’d started the day with, her glasses were smudged and any make-up she’d put on this morning was a distant memory. And worst of all, the stupid stuffed reindeer antlers headband she’d worn for the kids was not only still on her head but sitting askew! No wonder Kim had been gesturing frantically and Bastian had looked secretly amused!
And she’d misjudged the amount of water on the facecloth in her haste. Her sweater was practically see-through now where she’d attacked it and clung to her left breast in a large wet circle. She peeled it away from her skin, fanning it with her other hand and blowing on the spot in desperation, wishing she had a hairbrush and some mascara, when the futility of her vanity hit her and she started to laugh.
She was pathetic! The man she was primping for was gay! He wasn’t interested in how she looked and she was behaving like a ninny. But she did remove the reindeer antlers.
When she returned to the store, Bastian was leafing through one of the books she’d left out on a reading table earlier with Atticus draped over one powerful shoulder. He looked up when she entered and his gaze flickered to her breasts, then quickly away, but his only comment was “You’ve lost your antlers”.
PJ blushed. Oh, for crying out loud, James, grow up!
Silently she handed him the receipt and a hastily wrapped plate of cookies. He took the receipt and set Atticus on the floor before taking the plate with a quizzical life of his eyebrows.
“Leftovers from the party,” she explained. “I have to get rid of them or I’ll eat them.”
“Thank you.” He nodded at the books on the table. “Are you studying for something?’
She rolled her eyes. “Sort of. Skye, my friend…you met her when you first got here, remember? Anyway, Skye has decided to have a No-Resolutions-Good-Luck-Customs-of-the-World New Year’s Eve party and I’ve been elected to supply the lucky food. I was looking through these books this morning before the children’s party for traditional dishes.”
Bastian looked down at her scrawled notes. “Quite a list. Lentils for good fortune from Italy, Germany and Brazil; sausage from Italy—pork, no chicken or turkey, lest diners scratch in the dirt for the rest of the year; green foods, especially collard greens, to represent money and cabbage with waxed paper-wrapped coins; sauerkraut, long strands symbolizing long life; coin-shaped food to represent money; Hopping John black-eyed pea casserole from the Southern U.S. and chiacchiere, honey drenched balls of dough from Italy; sweets from Hong Kong; Korean rice cake soup; spiced punch from Austria; twelve grapes eaten at midnight for twelve happy months in the coming year from Portugal and Spain; olive salad from Russia; pomegranates from Turkey; black…” he looked up, the expression on his face a mask of horrified disgust, making her smile.
“Black hair-like algae,” she finished for him. “Its name in Cantonese is similar to the Cantonese word for prosperity. I think I might skip that one.”
Her smile turned wicked. “I just have to cook. Skye’s the one with the problem. Her list includes Chinese red banners and fireworks, banging on the walls and door with Christmas bread for Ireland, smoking Hogmanay sticks for Scotland, burning effigies representing the evils and misfortunes of the past year for Hungary and South America. The neighbors are going to love her. And I really want to see how she figures out the whole German dropping molten lead into cold water thing and telling the future from the resulting shapes. Her interpretations will likely be pretty wild…if she can find a way to get molten lead.”
Bastian set down the cookies and opened the book he’d been looking at earlier. “Hmmm, it says here that in Italy wearing sexy red lingerie is believed to be good luck.” He gave her “the look,” the one men usually reserved for women like Skye, a slow, speculative up and down, his blue eyes half-hooded, and then that gorgeous sensual smile appeared and her breathing stopped.
Was he flirting with her?
No, that couldn’t be right. Her male-female signal reading was totally messed up by this man. This was just the same good-natured teasing she got from Dave.
“Actually,” she said primly, “I believe it just says red underwear. And that could mean Santa’s red union suit, which is anything but sexy.”
He laughed. “You got me there. And I’m sorry I can’t stay to continue this lesson but I’m due at work.” He started to fold the receipt still in his hand, and then stopped, his attention caught by something on the paper. “The P in PJ is for Portia?”
“Yeah. Portia Juliet. Pretty pretentious, isn’t it?” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“Your parents are fans of Shakespeare?”
“My mother, whose name is Olivia Rosalind, by the way, is. A professor of Shakespeare, no less. She’d love your first name. My father is a car freak. The compromise was Portia and Romeo. You know, Porsche and Alfa Romeo?”
He looked startled for a second and then a strange smile played across his sexy lips. “Rome’s real name is Romeo?”
“Romeo Benedick.”
“Is that so?” he mused, eyebrow raised in thought, the strange smile still in place. Then he flashed her his now familiar, devastating grin, dimple and all, as he picked up the plate of cookies and her heart did its usual flip flop. “Thanks again for these.”
She nodded a “you’re welcome.”
He hesitated a second, then reached out a hand to push her glasses up her nose with one careful finger before saying, “Well, uh…see you later.”
“Come down anytime,” she replied as he disappeared out the door and she wondered again where this funny, charismatic—and off-limits, she reminded herself—man had come from.
Chapter Three
Five a.m.
Bastian rolled his face away from the clock’s glowing red numbers to continue his contemplation of the water-stained ceiling barely visible in the dim blue light escaping from the laptop he’d moved to the bedroom.
Well, shit, he might as well get up since he wasn’t going to get any more sleep tonight. PJ would be getting up soon to start baking for the tearoom anyway. And there he was, back to PJ, the whole reason he wasn’t sleeping to begin with.
What the hell had he been thinking last Sunday, going down to the bookstore? He could have just slipped the checks under her door. But no, he just had to go down to t
alk and laugh with her, and tease her. Sure, he’d decided to be nicer to her by not snapping her head off to cover his attraction, but there was nice and then there was stupid.
He’d nearly blown his cover by flirting with her. And had he learned his lesson? Oh, no. Because he was apparently some kind of secret sexual masochist, he’d just had to stop by her store everyday this past week to see her pretty face and laughing eyes and to get to know her better, chatting about nothing in particular.
And he knew when a woman was hot for him. He’d been reading the signs since he’d reached puberty and PJ was just as attracted to him as he was to her, even though she didn’t want to be. He’d taken more ice-cold showers this week than he cared to count, and not because of the antiquated plumbing.
Shit, he was stupid jerk-off!
His lips lifted in a humorless smile at his mind’s Freudian name-calling. Because, yeah, he’d done that this week too.
Now he was wrestling with the question of whether he should hire Marco Santini, one of the guys who worked part-time for his security company when they were overloaded, to help him protect PJ.
And whether he should stay on the job at all.
His lack of sleep was playing havoc with his wits and reflexes, and his obsession with PJ and everything she did meant he was distracted whenever he was anywhere in her vicinity. The last thing he wanted was to put her life in further danger through carelessness. He couldn’t live with himself if anything happened to her because he wasn’t on top of his game.
In fact, he was coming to realize, he couldn’t and wouldn’t want to live period, if anything happened to her, his fault or no. PJ was fast becoming his reason to breathe.
And, Goddamn it, she thought he was g—
Soft beeps snapped him out of his dark thoughts.
Shit, somebody was on the back balcony!