by Lynn Carmer
His need to avoid drama and stay mellow was one of the reasons he’d been so drawn to Janie. She’d seemed so calming, so gentle. Her voice never rose higher than a well-modulated reproach. Dainty, regal, and soft spoken, she’d been his idea of the perfect woman.
Damn. There was that word again: perfect.
To get his mind off of things, he’d fallen back on ritual. Visiting Ms. Belle’s Charm School had been a weekly event since, well, junior high. She’d been one of the few willing to take a chance on a street rat and show him something better. Hell, she’d even tried to teach him some manners along the way. And even though she’d died six months ago, he saw no reason to stop with the visits. Somebody still needed to mow the lawn, clean out the gutter, take out the trash. One by one, he ticked off the mental list of chores he needed to accomplish today.
His backpack slumped to the ground as he stripped down, tired muscles protesting as he sloughed off his heavy gear. It’d been a grueling ten-day shift. Summers were hell on Southern California firefighters. Semi-desert conditions, mixed with yahoos who thought setting off illegal fireworks would be “fun,” made for a busy season.
Just cut the grass and take your ass home.
He pulled up his pack and rammed the rest of his uniform into the small space. One thing firefighting taught you was how to change in a flash. Soft laughter—was that a squeal?—caught his attention. Glancing up, he saw three women staring at him from Ms. Belle’s upstairs bay window. In a blink, all three faces disappeared below the sill. A rustle of white danced in his peripheral vision. He turned, noticing one woman remained. He caught a glimpse of dark hair, ruby red lips and green eyes.
Caelen Calvo. He could never forget those eyes. How long had it been since he’d last seen her? Ten years? He’d been eighteen and just about to finish high school. Damn if his sluggish heart wasn’t lodged in his throat.
If that was Caelen in the corner window that could only mean the other three must be—?
The Calvo Quads.
A loud shriek filled the air and Dare just stood and watched, a stunned witness to the pandemonium. One was screaming and a few were laughing.
Wait … are they wrestling?
They must be having a good laugh, probably at his expense. He remembered the motley crew from summers at Ms. Belle’s. They couldn’t have looked different. Two were short and the other two—how had they described themselves? The shorts and the basketball courts? Caelen had the darkest hair, almost jet-black, while the other three sisters’ hair ranged from soft brown to blond. They may look different, but one thing was certain: all four were guaranteed drama.
Nothing’s changed.
His felt a small smile tug at his lips. Ask and you shall receive. He’d been feeling bored, let down, heavy. Well, if the Quads were back in town, it meant barely controlled chaos would soon follow.
Caelen had been his obsession and nothing like his ex. Temperamental, opinionated, loud, crazy-annoying, smart, hilarious, annoying—it merited mention twice—and exactly the kind of woman he swore he’d never date. She riled him up, awoke the fighter in him.
In junior high, they’d been at each other’s throats, two outsiders vying for the same place in their teenage social circle. Each of them came from a poor background, trying desperately to fit into the Sierra Madre “rich kid” crowd.
Damn. They’d gone toe to toe in bloody battles that only ended when one of her sisters, or Ms. Belle herself, intervened. Their fights had made his blood boil. He’d teased her, relentlessly, calling her every name in the book, because even at that young age he’d realized he would do anything to keep her attention squarely on him. He burned for those eyes, even as the poisonous words fell from his lips.
He’d been fascinated by her curvy frame, a shape she would describe as chubby, but he’d secretly thought was perfect. Silky, straight black hair she could never get to curl the right way, thick glasses that perched on a button nose, and silver braces protruding from a prominent overbite had somehow mixed together to create a teenage boy’s fantasy.
And those eyes. The Calvo quadruplets couldn’t look less like sisters, with one big exception, their eyes.
All four had large, green eyes, ranging in color from Granny Apple to forest moss. Caelen’s were a light, almost yellow-green and coupled with her fair skin, black hair and pin-up style figure, she’d earned the nickname Betty, as a living, breathing facsimile of Betty Boop.
He’d wanted her then, and he wanted her now. The decision was made in a split second, but that was okay because most of his best ideas came to him that way. His head tilted back, and he let out a soft laugh, the women’s muffled screeches drifting down around him, the exhaustion from a moment ago sloughing off like dead skin.
Caelen was back! And it was time for her to see how much he’d changed.
It will be different this time. He made the silent promise to himself as he imagined showering her with compliments instead of insults. She would feel the full power of his attention, instead of his sloppy, teenage jabs.
Holy hell. Just like that, life was good again.
Let the insanity begin.
Chapter 3
‡
TIME TO FACE the music.
Caelen had almost convinced herself she was talking about the meeting with Mr. Brown, not Darren Lagos, aka Dare, as she swept down Ms. Belle’s formal staircase. It was bad enough she was caught gawking at the window, but now she’d have to see her middle school nemesis, hangover and all, before she went into the meeting. Of course he wasn’t gentleman enough to stay outside and leave her alone.
Nope. He was downstairs, greeting all of her sisters, acting like he was actually a human being instead of a toad. The whole thing made her want to throw up.
Or maybe that was the hangover.
Caelen gripped the rail like a vice and only faltered a tiny bit when the deep timbre of Dare’s voice floated up the staircase: gravel on silk.
His voice sent goose bumps racing down her spine. That was new. In middle school, his voice still cracked, à la Peter Brady from The Brady Bunch. Time had been good to Dare, at least voice-wise. Who was she kidding? According to her blurry perusal, he was gorgeous. An image of the wiry teen flashed through her mind. Back in the day, he’d had acne, a shaggy mullet, and a huge chip on his shoulder.
How times have changed.
But even from this vantage point, there was one part of him that remained the same. Exactly the same. His lips. He’d been a scrawny brawler with a busted nose back then, but now even with her blurry vision, his lips—Oh my Gucci!—were perfection.
Full, firm, plump. And if she was honest with herself, she’d never forgotten the feel of them. Locked in the closet together for Seven Minutes in Heaven had been, well, heaven.
Nope. Not going there. Nuh-uh. Not now. If she let herself wallow in that memory, she wouldn’t be able to steal herself against the coming confrontation. There was too much water under the bridge for it to be anything but explosive.
God, he had been such a jerk to her.
The other three Quads had made it down before her, and the Ibuprofen had finally kicked in, but she was still taking things easy. She hit the bottom step and her brain cells—the few that weren’t marinating in sweet wine—spluttered and flamed out when she caught sight of him.
Dacey was bouncing on her heels, waiting her turn to greet her archenemy, and in her typical exuberant style, she launched herself into his arms to say hello. Dare smiled at her sister, and that was when things got fuzzy.
The primitive part of her brain still functioned so she could only process the basics, like muscles, spiky hair, tan skin… and luscious lips placed in the middle of the most masculine and intense face she’d ever seen. The passing years had made him harder, firmer. He definitely wasn’t pretty. He was all man.
Yup. Time had been very, very good to Dare.
He rumpled Dacey’s hair, and she playfully punched him on the arm. “What are you doing here, Dare?”
“I’ve been helping out, just taking care of some stuff around the school.”
“How long have you been doing that?”
“Years,” he said on a low laugh. “I always ended up here for one reason or another and didn’t see a reason to stop.”
“That’s so sweet.” Dacey practically yelled over her shoulder, in a sickeningly saccharine tone, directing the comment toward Caelen on the stairway.
“So what brings you guys back?” Dare said with a smile, not having caught sight of Caelen yet.
“Secret meeting. I could tell you, buuut…” Dacey said with a twinkle in her eye.
He raised his hands in the air. “You’d have to kill me? Got it. Top secret. I can take a hint.”
Oh, dear God. Were those dimples under his stubble? Had he always had dimples? Maybe she’d never noticed them under his acne. Huh. Crooked smile, muscles, an ass you’d slap your best friend just to touch, and now dimples? She felt faint. She gripped the railing, not ready to make an entrance.
“Do you live in Sierra Madre?” Dacey asked.
“Yeah, I—” He finally looked her way and Caelen couldn’t remember if he’d finished answering her sister’s question. There could have been a tornado surrounding them, but all Caelen could focus on was him. The rest of the room, the school, the planet, faded away and she got lost in the intensity of his eyes. The dark brown seemed to be lit by a flame, giving them a golden cast, and she felt him studying every inch of her without moving his gaze. It was like she was being eaten alive, and, dear God, she loved it.
Damn, if patterns didn’t repeat themselves. Even now, in the first moments of seeing each other, after ten years, they started things with a battle. Who was going to break eye contact first? Her hands began to tremble, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before her legs followed.
I don’t have time for this.
She wussed out and broke first. The weight of having lost battle #1 was enough to snap her out of her stupor. Not that there’d be battle #2. Nope. She was going to make sure of it.
Plastering on her fakest smile, she picked up steam and attempted to blow past Dare. “Am I late?”
“Caelen.” His deep voice made her name sound like a long, drawn out breath on his lips. “It’s good to see you.”
It took everything in her to just keep smiling and avoid eye contact. No chitchat necessary, just a quick retreat.
“Hello?” His smooth tones now became a bit rougher.
She tried an indirect route toward the den. “Dacey, is Mr. Brown here, yet? The meeting’s supposed to start any minute.”
Hint, hint. Hopefully that would get him the hell out of her way.
Dacey’s eyes got wide. Brynn and Athena were already waiting in the den, so it was just the three of them in Ms. Belle’s opulent foyer. “Yeah, he’s here.”
“So, what? You’re just going to ignore me?” Now his hands were in his pockets. He waited.
Ah, yes. I’m going to do exactly that. She got a few steps closer, but he was still planted in front of the door.
“Aw, come on. You can’t still be mad because I used to tease you when we were kids?”
Teased? He’d tortured her. Well, sort of. The torture might have been mutual. The better description would be that they couldn’t stand each other. People changed, but she saw no reason to think things might be any better now. Except for the fact that he’s friggin’ hot. So she gave him her patented smile: vapid, vacant, and meaningless. It was the way she’d learned to “manage” men, by playing dumb. “Oh, hello. I didn’t see you there.”
“How could you have missed me? We’re two feet apart.”
“Well, I try and focus on the important things in life. Excuse me.” She knew she shouldn’t engage him, but he wouldn’t move out of the way.
“This is going downhill fast,” Dacey muttered aloud.
He let out a breath and hooked a thumb in his belt loop. “Just admit it. You’re still mad.”
“Mad? What do you mean?” Oh, I know exactly what you mean.
His smile faltered. “What do you mean, what do I mean?”
“He means the verbal smack downs you used to give each other when we were kids.” Dacey piped in.
Caelen shot Baby D a “shut the hell up” look and tried to keep from rubbing her temples. She just didn’t have the energy to combat Dare today. “Smack downs, really? Did we fight? It was so long ago, I must have forgotten. Excuse me.” She tried to brush past him into the front office.
“Forgotten?”
“Yes, you. She’s trying to say she forgot all about you. Sheesh,” Dacey said.
Caelen swore she heard him mutter, “You forgot about me?” Gone was the stunned look, and a full-fledged frown sat between his dark brows. He actually took a few steps away from the door, and Caelen took full advantage of the opening.
It made her want to shout in victory. God, she still loved getting under his skin. Right before she hit the door, mere inches from the den, she couldn’t resist getting in one parting shot. “I mean, we hardly knew each other, right?”
Her youngest sister groaned aloud and Caelen stepped back as Dare took one, then two, deliberate strides toward her. His face looked like a thunder cloud. She had been so close to escape; why’d she have to throw in that last dig? And why was she now shaking in anticipation? “I don’t know, Betty. I’m a little worried about your memory.”
“Well, don’t be.” She just held on to her vapid smile.
He blocked the door, leaning casually against the frame with his arms crossed. Now he had a quizzical look on his face, as if he couldn’t quite figure her out. Good. “Oh, but I am. Worried, that is. No problem. Maybe I should remind you about how well we knew each other? And all the ways I used to tease you.”
“No, you don’t have to—”
“Maybe some of the nicknames I called you might jog your memory. My favorite is Betty but let’s see… There was Half-Pint, ’cuz you were such a shrimp. What else? That’s right, Goggles. I mean, those Coke bottles you wore were crazy thick. Another favorite was Pippi, but that had more to do with a personal fantasy I had.”
Caelen winced, just waiting for the deathblow. He still hadn’t used the one name she’d hated most of all, and the idea of it was so painful she really didn’t have a comeback.
“Hmm. None of it coming back, huh? I know what might jog your memory. How about the time we played Seven Minutes in Heaven, when I got a taste of your soft, wet …”
Ooh! Already her blood started to boil, but a tiny part of her was relieved. He hadn’t used the dreaded nickname, yet. “Cut it out.”
“Not until you admit you remember me… well.”
“I’m a grown woman; I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to.” She used her airiest and most nonchalant tone.
“You do if you want to get in this room. Now I’m gonna get started on all the names you used to call me, like Pizza Face, Street Rat, Goldie. Hated that one,” he muttered just loud enough for her to hear.
“Come on, Caelen. Mr. Brown is waiting.” Oh, now her sister decided to jump in. Where was the interjection back when she was trying to ignore him?
“Nothing yet? Back to you, then.”
Her heart stopped.
“Oh yeah, wasn’t there something about a Care Bear? Sunshine Bear? No, I remember! Grumpy Bear, because—”
That. Was. It. It wasn’t the worst she’d been called, but she’d had enough. “Now, I remember why I didn’t remember you.” That sounded so much better in my head. “I must have repressed you like a bad memory. You were a jerk then and you’re a jerk now. Who brings up past nicknames? It’s so juvenile.” She poked him hard against the chest, hoping to move him out of her personal space.
He grabbed her small hand in his large palm and pressed it against his chest. “Aw, see? It’s all coming back to you. That’s good enough for me. For now.”
“Nothing has changed between you two,” Dacey said dramatically before enterin
g the office.
“Puh-leeze. Get out of my way, Goldie.” Dare had been in the Golden Globes Junior Tournament back in the day. He’d been an amateur boxer heading for the pros, but instead of being proud of the accomplishment, he’d never wanted to talk about it. She’d seized on his weakness and had used the moniker at every opportunity when they were younger.
Caelen tried to tug her hand free from his chest, fighting the urge to shake away the heat that had seeped through her skin, a warmth that had somehow moved through her veins, igniting tiny fires under her skin. Her cheeks, her palms, all felt tingly and… awake.
He moved back slowly and relinquished her palm, reluctantly. He looked down at the floor and then peeked up, his rough hands shoved in his pockets. “I was going to play nice, Betty. Tell you how much I missed you, but seems like old habits die hard.”
Her heart jumped. Missed me. He’d missed me? “As usual, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She yanked up the front of her sleeveless jumpsuit.
“I think you do.”
“Just… go away. I don’t have time for this.” With those last words, she finally crossed the threshold. Safe.
For good measure, she asked Athena to shut the door. Just before it clicked shut, Dare called out. “By the way, why’s all the stuff rammed in the white Toyota out back? Is somebody moving in?”
Athena spun around and glared accusingly at Caelen. “Toyota? You’re moving in?”
Busted. He’d ratted her out! The bloodhounds were released. As she picked her jaw up from the floor and took her seat, she swore she heard Dare’s soft laughter on the other side of the door.
Chapter 4
‡
“I GOT FIRED, okay?” Caelen kept her face as nonchalant as she could muster.
“What?” Athena, half-whispered, half-shouted as she glanced briefly at the attorney, Mr. Brown, who sat in front of them. “Again? I thought you really liked this job.”
No, I really liked my married boss. Caelen shrugged and pasted what she hoped was a carefree smile on her face. “It just wasn’t for me.”