Sweet but Sexy Boxed Set

by Maddie James

  “Aw, you throw like a baby,” Rob chided, liking the way she threw like a boy, moving with an athletic grace that showed off her femininity. “Worse yet, you throw like a girl.”

  She didn’t say a word, but her eyes narrowed. Lining up carefully, she threw again and this time came closer.

  “Sissy! You couldn’t hit a barn!” Rob rubbed it in.

  She licked her lips and shook the tenseness out of her shoulders. Then she stepped forward again with the same throwing motion and sailed the hard ball toward the target.

  Before he could blink, Rob felt the seat give way, and in a swift whoosh, he plunged into the dunk tank sending a splash of cold water over the side.

  Damn, she did it! Rob laughed, swallowed a mouthful of water and climbed out of the tank. He reached for a towel left in the grass next to the ladder and wiped his eyes. Toweling his hair, he walked around the side of the booth anxious to speak to Kelly.

  But she was gone.

  What had she done? Kelly scurried through the crowd, sick to her stomach. Rob Scott was the last person on earth she expected to see sitting in a dunking booth on the courthouse lawn.

  Her last glimpse of him was at graduation. She had avoided him after the ceremony. Already pregnant with his child, there was no way she could face him after the way his mother treated her. Besides he was bound for Northwestern the following day, heading to summer school so he could get a jump on his freshman year. Rob was like that, a risk-taker, full of big plans and lofty ambitions.

  Over the years, he had attained them. She caught sketchy details of his life from her mother’s gossip during visits to Louisville. Rob was a big shot lawyer in Chicago raking in millions. He had married another lawyer. That news had hurt more than she could have imagined, but good for him. That’s what he always wanted—career, money and marriage. She was glad he realized his dream—something that wouldn’t have happened if he had a wife and child to care for just as he was getting started.

  But what was he doing here? And why did he look so damn cute and boyish sitting there in that booth? His blond hair was a little too long and his smile a little too cute. What had snapped inside her? Maybe it was when his gaze had connected with hers. That knowing, superior look in his eyes had gotten to her. Suddenly angry, remembering the way his mother had talked down to her, the way she had always felt inferior to his family, she wanted to take him down a peg—let him know there was more to her than a one-night stand.

  It was a good thing she had learned the proper way to pitch so she could teach the kids in her fifth grade class. Pitching was like riding a bike. Once you had the technique, your brain and body didn’t forget how to do it.

  Yet she’d been surprised when the ball connected to the bull’s-eye and Rob had plummeted into the tank. At that moment, she wanted to celebrate. Instead she ran.

  Kelly ducked into the Country Affair Antique Store, one of the small specialty shops that surrounded the town square, plunging deep into the rows of consigned furniture and knickknacks, not looking for anything in particular. She just hoped to hide and regain what was left of her composure.

  “Kelly? Is that you?”

  Kelly pasted a smile on her face as she turned and recognized Mary Beth Jameson, one of the few girls who’d talked to her in high school. “Yes, it’s me,” she said. “I’m surprised you knew me.”

  “There’s no mistaking that hair color. I like it short.” Mary Beth gave her a quick hug. “I’m so glad to see you. I figured you would come home.”

  Kelly stepped back, crossing her arms even though the cool air-conditioned shop felt good. Town gossips already knew her mother was moving. “Yes, I’m here to help my mother.”

  “I hear congratulations are in order,” Mary Beth said. “When I saw your mother in church last Sunday, she told me her good news and mentioned your daughter got married recently.”

  Kelly smiled. She was proud of C.B. and her marriage to such a nice young man. “Thank you. How’s your family?” She couldn’t remember if Mary Beth was married.

  “My parents retired to Florida and my oldest son starts college in the fall. The youngest one will be a freshman in high school.”

  Kelly shook her head. “Imagine us having grown children.”

  Mary Beth huffed a breath. “I turned forty in February, and I tell you, I feel so old.”

  “Well, you don’t look it,” Kelly said giving her an approving glance. Mary Beth looked the same as the last day she saw her, the day Kelly had said good-bye before boarding the bus for Louisville to live with Aunt Bess.

  “Phaw!” Mary Beth waved off the compliment. “I camouflage the fat well. You, on the other hand, still look trim and fit.”

  “I work at it.” Kelly shrugged. They turned and strolled toward the shop door.

  “You’re not the only one who works at it,” Mary Beth remarked. “I see Rob Scott jogging every morning on the high school track. He’s still as handsome as he was in high school.”

  Kelly paused at the door, took a breath and fought the pain that shot through her heart. She glanced sideways at Mary Beth wondering if her friend had ever guessed the truth. “What’s Rob doing back in Lanham?”

  “He’s working in his Dad’s law firm and he’s divorced.”

  The news rocked Kelly like a blast of wind. “Really?” She tried to sound nonchalant.

  Mary Beth leaned close. “It was a nasty one,” she said in a loud whisper. Then she stood straight, her face reflecting satisfaction about the juicy tidbits she was about to impart. “They had moved from Chicago several years ago, but his wife never liked Lanham. She up and left him for another man.”

  Kelly stepped back, floored by the information. “She did?”

  Mary Beth nodded. “Yes. Rumor says Rob is doing a lot of work for the children’s club because he’s trying to avoid dealing with the loss of his wife.”

  “Really? He must have loved her very much.” Kelly looked away, confused. She didn’t know how to digest all that gossip. The fact that Rob was back in town was reason to finish with her mother’s business ASAP and leave. Thinking Lanham could be a cozy retreat had been a big, fat mistake.

  Mary Beth opened the shop door. Light streamed inside revealing dust motes dancing in the summertime air. “Well, I’ve got to run. So nice to see you again.”

  “It’s been nice seeing you,” Kelly agreed. And informative. Knowing that she could run into Rob again didn’t do much for her equilibrium.

  She turned and wandered down the nearest aisle, trying to make sense of Mary Beth’s revelation. She had nothing to fear from seeing Rob again. C.B. was healthy and happy and all grown up. No one in the whole wide world knew her secret. She’d kept it well hidden. If she stayed away from Rob Scott, he could pose no serious problem.

  Kelly rounded a corner and halted. Rob walked down the opposite aisle looking as if he was searching for something…or someone. She stepped back behind a huge mahogany armoire. Great. If she had nothing to worry about why was her heart racing?

  “There you are.”

  Kelly’s blood stilled. She turned slowly, reluctantly, and stared up at a practically naked ghost from her past. Rob’s wet T-shirt had the Lanham Children’s Club logo on it. He wore swim trunks and Teva sandals. His dark, blond hair, still damp, curled at the nape of his neck and around his ears, too long for a high-priced Chicago lawyer she thought.

  Tall, bronzed, muscled—he was much more than her faded dreams. His presence was magnetic. Kelly felt the pull of his charisma, his blue eyes drawing her in, even though he had not said more than three words.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, hardly able to speak, and nodded at him to indicate she meant his wet clothes.

  “You’re the first one to dunk me all day,” he said as she felt heat sweep her face. “I must admit I was feeling pretty cocky about avoiding the water.”

  “You were always a cocky son-of-a-gun.”

  He grinned. “And you always surprised me when you spoke your mind in
class.”

  Kelly shrugged, amazed how easy it was talking to this specter from her past. “I hope I’ve learned a little caution over the years. My mouth doesn’t get me into as much trouble as it used to.”

  “We had some hot debates in journalism class,” Rob acknowledged, his gaze sweeping over her face.

  “That we did.” Kelly offered an awkward smile and glanced away, unable to meet his probing eyes. Damn! She would be forty in three days. She was not a heartsick teenager. The promise of passion in Rob’s eyes, however unintentional, was almost too overwhelming to be ignored, and it made her queasy.

  “You disappeared after I got dunked,” Rob said. “Luckily, I ran into Mary Beth, and she told me where to find you.”

  “Oh?” Good old Mary Beth. She had certainly taken over as queen of the town gossips. Her friend was probably already spreading the word that divorced, hunky lawyer Rob Scott was inquiring about unfortunate Kelly Baron, the poor girl from town who got knocked up in high school and had never married.

  Why so defensive all of a sudden? Plenty of women were in her shoes. And there weren’t old maids in the twenty-first century. A woman wasn’t a failure simply because she never married. At least she had made a conscious decision about her marital status, letting Thomas down as easily as she could before leaving Louisville, never taking his ring. She was liberated. And she liked it that way.

  There was nothing to be defensive about.

  Except when she stood face-to-face with the father of her child, who was now divorced and even more drop-dead gorgeous all grown up.

  “How did you make that great throw?” he asked.

  “I’m just lucky, I guess.” She tried to brush him off.

  But it didn’t work.

  “I’m glad I’m going to get time to spend with you. You can teach me how to pitch like that so I can teach the children’s club kids.”

  “We’re spending time together?” This was news.

  “We’re going to dinner at the Eagle’s Nest tonight. You know, I want to feel good about this marriage. I haven’t had much luck with the institution myself.” Rob cocked his head and she saw something like hurt in his eyes. “But the two of them are dead set on doing it. How do you feel about it?”

  “About what?” Somewhere along the line he had lost her. Had she missed something in the conversation? Kelly frowned, her lips turning down. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rob. Who is ‘we’?”

  “You, your mom, my dad and me,” he answered quickly.

  “I don’t know your dad. Why are we going to dinner?”

  “To talk about wedding plans.”

  “What wedding?” Kelly heard the pitch in her voice rise.

  He rubbed his forehead. “Don’t you know? Your mom is marrying my dad.”

  Chapter Three

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” Kelly poured microwaved water into a crockery mug over an Earl Gray teabag. Trying to still her shaking hand, she pressed the flat part of a spoon against the bag while the tea steeped. She was so angry she couldn’t look her mother in the face.

  Grace Baron brought a small glass pitcher filled with half-and-half to the kitchen table and sat down across from her daughter. The kitchen was the only place in the house to sit, and even it was crowded with big brown boxes packed with her mother’s dishes, pots and pans.

  “You were so busy with Colleen’s wedding and the end of school,” Grace said with a shrug. She put her elbows on the table and leaned toward Kelly. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “Bother me?” Kelly couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She looked up. “About something so important? You let me believe you were moving into a retirement home.”

  “I never said anything about a retirement home. You assumed that’s what I was doing.”

  “That’s what women your age usually do, not get married!”

  “I’m not dead yet.” Her mother’s mouth drew into an angry straight line. “It’s never too late to find true love.”

  Kelly ran her fingers through her short-cropped hair. “How long have you known this man?”

  Grace shifted uneasily in her chair but didn’t remove her gaze from her daughter. “His name is Howard. I’ve known of him since your father and I moved to Lanham, but I didn’t meet him personally until after your father died a year ago. We met at the grief support group at church,” Grace quickly explained, her chin lifting as if to deflect Kelly’s implicit criticism. “He was lonely. His second wife died two years ago.”

  “Second wife?” Kelly’s voice rose.

  “Yes.” Grace drew the word out losing patience. “His first wife, Rob’s mother, died when Rob was in his early twenties.”

  At the mention of Rob’s name, Kelly stiffened. She was wired tight. Her right heel tapped silently against the hardwood floor. She cupped the mug in her hands and took a sip, forcing herself to ease the strain in her shoulders as she stared across the table at a mother she didn’t recognize any more.

  At least Rob’s domineering mother was no longer in the picture.

  “Even though your father was a harsh man, I depended on him.” Glancing down, Grace toyed with the handle of the cream pitcher. “I’m not like you, Kelly. You don’t need a man. You’re okay not being married. But I’ve never lived alone.”

  Hearing herself described that way made Kelly grimace inwardly. Her mother’s portrayal wasn’t flattering. She wasn’t independent or self-reliant by choice. She liked to think of herself as a woman who had done what she had to do.

  “You sell yourself short, Mother,” Kelly said, unable to hide her frown.

  “I don’t think so.” Grace was defensive. “Your father is not around to help me. Neither are you. I can’t do all this on my own.” She waved her hand around the kitchen. “This house is too big for a single person.”

  Kelly’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the tiny woman with salt and pepper gray hair. When she told her parents about her pregnancy, her father had been furious. He had insisted on an abortion. Her mother, always the good wife, had not objected, leaving Kelly alone to defend herself from the wrath of a man sorely disappointed in his only daughter. She had never gotten over her mother’s betrayal.

  Kelly placed the mug on the table and leaned forward. “I don’t understand.” She shook her head. “Why Mr. Scott? He’s not our kind. We’re a blue collar family. The Scotts are from Locust Grove.”

  It was true. The Scotts were Lanham high society unlike Kelly’s father who had worked a minimum wage job at a plastics injection molding company. The Barons lived in a fairly nice house only because her dad had inherited it. The Scott family lived in a stately colonial in the better part of town. Howard Scott was a lawyer and former town mayor.

  And he was C.B.’s grandfather.

  The thought made Kelly choke. She coughed, swallowed hard, and looked away. Good grief. What was happening here? This was developing into her worst nightmare.

  Grace started to cry. She got up and pulled a tissue from a box on the counter and then came back to her chair. “I can’t believe you’re worried about appearances.” She dabbed the corner of her eye. “That’s so unlike you.”

  Another dig at her big mistake. Would she ever live it down?

  “Howie isn’t a bit concerned about what people think,” Grace said.

  Howie? Kelly sank back in her chair. Think! This was going to happen—she could tell from the uncharacteristic determination in her mother’s weepy eyes. How could she protect C.B.? Herself? Facing the hard edge of reality had her searching for an escape.

  “What do you want from me, Mother? Why am I here?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t come if I told you the truth.” Grace wiped her nose. “You and C.B. and Daniel are family. I wanted my family to be here with me when I marry Howie.”

  Kelly sat forward again. She should feel guilty that her mother had to trick her own daughter into coming to the wedding. But she had finished with the list o
f “shoulds” a long time ago.

  “When is it?” Kelly asked in a cool voice.

  “July ninth. Until then, I really do need your help going through things. I’ve left your room for you to do.” Grace nodded, her eyes watering. “And the attic is a mess.”

  “Okay.” Kelly sat back widening the distance between them. “What about this dinner tonight?”

  “I want you to meet Howie. We’re invited to dinner with his son. You remember Rob from high school. He’s divorced now and single.”

  Divorced people were usually single, but Kelly didn’t point that out. Instead, gritting her teeth, she remained silent, figuring a smart-alecky comment wasn’t worth the effort. Her mother was matchmaking, and Kelly was being set up. With Rob Scott of all people. The irony was too much.

  “You’d best clean up,” Grace said. “Put on something besides those shorts.”

  Now her mother sounded like her normal self. Kelly pushed back from the table and stood. “Yes, that sounds like a good idea.” Giving her mother a tiny smile, she went into the living room where she’d left her suitcase.

  She slung her duffle bag over her shoulder and grabbed the handle of her wheeled luggage. Then she climbed the stairs to her childhood room, dragging the luggage behind her.

  Kelly dropped the duffle bag onto the wooden floor by her bedroom door. Slowly she released her grip on the handle of her luggage, leaving the bag at the doorway, and stepped into the room. A flood of shame overcame her. She sucked in a breath and stared at her bedroom. It looked the same as it had looked over twenty years ago when she was a kid in trouble.

  For one heart-stopping moment, Kelly felt as if she had never left home. All the guilt and anger and fear from those last two months of high school came spiraling back. Her knees weakened, and she sank down on her Jenny Lind bed with its white spindle headboard and pink and purple flowered bedspread. Why had her mother refused to change this room?

  Last year when she came for her father’s funeral, she and C.B. had stayed at a motel. She hadn’t even been up to her room. Now seeing it again like this was creepy, especially after running into Rob today. Memories rushed back as she sat quietly looking at a Phantom of the Opera poster that had yellowed on the wall.