On Common Ground (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Kelleher, Tracy

She opened her tired eyes. “You always did remember the details—especially when it involved women.” Irony was the only emotion she seemed able to muster.

  “I’m not sure that’s entirely a compliment, but I’ll just assume it is.” He looked around, then pointed to her backpack. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “That and my laptop.” She held up the case for him to see. “I prefer to travel light. It’s just easier, faster. I’m all about streamlining.”

  He nodded uncertainly. “I can imagine the advantages. Well, let me take your pack.” He didn’t bother to wait and moved to take it off her shoulders. He slipped his long fingers between the padded strap and the thin cotton of her T-shirt.

  Lilah felt her skin prickle. She blinked. I really must be tired after the flight from Spain, not to mention the hard work getting the race all sorted out. The race… That’s right. Her muscles were still sore.

  Yes, she was tired, but even Lilah couldn’t deny the ego boost of having a good-looking male in his absolute prime touching her body—even if it was strictly on a practical level and wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination accompanied by smoldering looks. Ah, the imagination…

  Lilah watched Justin sling her pack over one shoulder as if it contained only a fistful of Ping-Pong balls instead of the forty-pounds-plus of clothing and paperwork stuffed into its bulging sides. Relieved of the weight, she felt as if her spine had decompressed and she’d grown an inch. And she would have felt even more relieved if she didn’t still feel the residual tingle of Justin’s touch.

  “Shall we go find the car, then?” he asked with a nod of his head.

  That tingle she was feeling just got even more annoying because it appeared that Justin was totally oblivious to the same hypersensitivity. Lilah frowned. The decision to return to Grantham appeared to promise additional obstacles. At least, maybe she could find out about the obvious one that had been bugging her ever since she’d heard about the award. “I was wondering. I know you said you weren’t Stephen’s emissary, but do you know if he’s planning on coming this weekend?” She tried to sound oh-so-casual. She practically had to hop to keep up with Justin’s long strides.

  “As far as I know, he’s not coming to Reunions. So you’re safe,” he said, waiting for her to go through the revolving door first.

  Lilah stopped. “Safe? I think the embarrassment factor is still pretty high. I can’t begin to remember the number of times I poured out my soul to you. About the only thing I do remember is that it was way more than to Stephen.”

  “And you never thought that was one of the problems with your relationship?” He scooted in behind her into the slowly turning segment of the revolving door.

  She was conscious of his legs coming perilously close to the back of her thighs. Lilah cleared her throat. “Let’s leave that evaluation aside for now, okay? I don’t need you to lecture me on how I wronged your good buddy. Besides, for all I know, as soon as you’re alone, you’ll immediately contact him to let him know my rear end is bigger than ever.”

  Finally, the slowly revolving door deposited them on the sidewalk, and she stumbled out on the pavement. The fresh air should have been a relief, but this was Newark, and fresh air was a relative concept given the bus and taxi fumes.

  Justin followed closely behind. “I won’t text, let alone communicate with Stephen in any form. I should let you know, I haven’t kept up with him since graduation.”

  Lilah raised her eyebrows. “You’re kidding me.”

  “So you’ve nothing to worry about on that score.” He held his arm out toward the street. “We need to cross here. I’m parked in the lot across the way.”

  “But you two were practically joined at the hip in college.”

  “Except where you were concerned,” he reminded her. “And by the way, I don’t know where you get off saying your butt is too big. Anyone can see you’re incredibly fit and trim.” He started to cross the street when the light changed. “In fact, if anything, you could probably afford to gain a few pounds.”

  She shouldn’t have felt pleased, but she was. It was the inner-anorexic in all women who were once overweight. “Well, I run a lot these days—the job kind of requires it. So, it’s hard to gain weight.”

  “You could try eating more.”

  “Eating? Who has time for eating?”

  “Lots of folks do. It’s called three square meals a day.”

  “I know. It’s something we try to make happen in the villages.”

  He slanted her a glance. “And you don’t practice what you preach?” He kept up a steady pace as they passed the rows of cars.

  Lilah frowned. Why did he seem angry with her? She took a few giant strides to catch up. “Wait a minute. I don’t get it,” she called out after him.

  Justin stopped. He fished some keys out of his pocket and waited.

  She jogged to his side. “Tell me this. If you’re not here because Stephen sent you to escort me, why are you here?”

  A giant SUV pulled out of the row near them, and the driver gunned the engine as he raced off.

  “Why am I here?” he repeated. “To tell you the truth, I don’t usually get too involved with Reunions stuff.” He wet his top lip. “I’m here because of you.”

  “Me?” Lilah stopped while Justin opened the trunk of a green sports car. She looked down. “And this…this…little car is yours?”

  “This is not just a little car. It’s a fully restored…well, partially restored—I still have some body work to do—Triumph TR4, a British classic.” He gazed at it lovingly.

  The rust around the back fender didn’t exactly induce confidence. “Is it roadworthy?” she asked.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Careful, or I’ll change my mind.” He shut the trunk lid and gave it an extra push to make sure it closed. Then he turned to her. “I was the one who recommended you for the Paine Prize, and as a result, I have the enviable task of serving as your personal chaperone for the duration of the Reunions festivities. How can I put this?” He rubbed his chin philosophically. “We’ll be like two peas in a pod.”

  “In this thing we will, that’s for sure,” she joked, then from his silence, realized she may have gone too far. “That’s very nice of you,” she said quickly to make up for her insensitivity, “but you know, it’s really not necessary. I’m sure I can find my way around.”

  Justin walked over to the passenger-side door and held it open. “You’d deny me the pleasure of your company? Besides, if you don’t toe the line, I’ll be the one to get in trouble. And who knows, on top of all the trouble I caused in my undergraduate days, they might just take away my diploma retroactively.”

  Lilah had to laugh. “You didn’t get in that much trouble—okay, you did. But it wasn’t as if you ever flunked a single course—even if I never saw you study.”

  “Ah, I had my secret ways.” He pointed to the open door. “Are you going to get in?”

  “Are you changing the subject?”

  His smile was a little too charming.

  “Okay, we’ll let that pass—for now.” She slipped into the seat without further complaining. Until it collapsed under her weight. “I think you need to do some internal renovation in addition to the bodywork,” she said, watching him circle the car.

  He slipped into the driver’s side. “Be careful of the loose spring on the right side.”

  Lilah shifted closer to the gearshift. “Now you tell me.” The bucket seats were really quite close and the gap separating them, not that wide.

  “I’ve been concentrating on working under the hood so far.”

  “So you fix cars for a living?”

  “It’s just a hobby. And my work is nothing nearly as exciting as yours, that’s for sure.” He turned the key in the ignition and put the car in Reverse
, looking over his shoulder before he pulled out.

  “No, I’m curious. I mean, what does someone end up doing who spent most of his college years seducing every woman in sight and giving parties that are possibly still talked about in some quarters.”

  Justin grinned slyly. “Not possibly. Definitely.”

  He still had terrific dimples, Lilah noticed.

  “And I didn’t seduce every woman, as you personally can attest to.” He reached across, his forearm almost skimming the front of her shirt. “Excuse me.”

  Lilah swallowed with difficulty.

  He flipped down the glove box and pulled out a ticket. “Your job is to guard this with your life,” he said and held it out for her.

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You don’t want to know what the Port Authority will do to you,” he joked.

  “Oh, for a minute, I thought you had plans.”

  He swung into the lane that led to the payment booths. “Oh, I have plans, but they’ve got nothing to do with parking fees.”

  Lilah rolled her eyes. “So what do you do if you’re not in the business of fixing cars? Provide escort service, because I gotta tell you, your pickup lines are getting a bit old.”

  He pulled to a stop behind a Cadillac Escalade. “You think? No one’s been complaining lately.”

  “Then the women where you live have pretty low standards. Where do you live anyway?”

  “In Grantham.” He put the car in first and inched his way up to the booth.

  “In Grantham! You’re joking?”

  He shook his head. “Ticket, please.” He held out his hand.

  Lilah slowly placed the stub in it, careful to avoid skin-to-skin contact. “So you work at the university? Doing what? Coaching crew?”

  He paid for the parking and pulled away, smoothly shifting up to second. “No, I gave up rowing a year out of college. I teach.”

  Lilah leaned away from him to get a broader view. “You’re kidding me?”

  He shook his head and concentrated on the signs.

  “You mean at the university?” she asked.

  “I have a much higher caliber student.” He deftly avoided a semi crossing three lanes at once. “The turnoff for the turnpike comes up sooner than you think, so I need to get in the far lane.”

  “I don’t get it. Higher caliber? What do you mean?”

  “Ah, ha! There it is.” He put on his signal and took the sharp exit to the right. “I told you it came up quickly.” He glanced over, obviously pleased with himself. “What do I mean? Isn’t it obvious?”

  She shook her head.

  “I teach kindergarten.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MIMI HAD HER HEAD BURIED in the refrigerator at her father’s house when she announced loudly, “Well, I for one wouldn’t mind having Justin Bigelow pick me up from the airport—or any place, for that matter.” She shut the stainless-steel door. “Dah, da-ah!” She held a jar of peanut butter triumphantly aloft. Then she spied the label and her enthusiasm diminished. “Wouldn’t you know it? Organic peanut butter with no salt and no sugar. No wonder it was in the fridge.”

  “Since when has your dad become all health food conscious?” Lilah asked. She sat on a stool in the Lodge’s sprawling kitchen. Her entire studio apartment could have fit into the center island—with room to spare. The surface gleamed with acres of polished granite.

  “It’s not Daddy. People who raid beleaguered companies don’t do organic, or so I’ve been told. It’s the preoccupation of his latest wife, the lovely Noreen, by way of Limerick. It seems no processed food is allowed to touch the lips of my little stepsister Brigid. Noreen even sent Cook to a health food cooking school for further instruction.”

  Mimi seemed to think nothing of having “Cook” as part of the household. Ah, the prerogatives of privilege, Lilah thought. Not something that had been part of her upbringing, that was for sure

  She watched Mimi unscrew the lid to the peanut butter and stick her finger in. Then she swallowed a glob and gagged. “Oh, yuck,” Mimi howled. “It’s like having sex without an orgasm.”

  It had been way too long since Lilah had had sex, let alone an orgasm, for her to comment. Which probably also explained why her next thought was of Justin. She cleared her throat and moved on to the obvious—not about sex. “Noreen? Last I heard your father was married to Adele.”

  Adele had originally been Mimi’s nanny before she pushed aside Mimi’s mother to become the second Mrs. Lodge. That was also before Mimi’s mother had committed suicide, a forbidden subject at all times.

  “Boy, are you behind the times. After Adele and Daddy had a son, they hired Noreen as a nanny. That son would be my half brother, Conrad Prescott Lodge IV, known to one and all, yourself included, as Press.”

  “Which would not have been my first choice for a nickname,” Lilah quipped.

  “Be that as it may, Noreen then replaced Adele in the wife department. Daddy, as you may have gathered, seems to focus on the household help when he’s looking for a new mate. It doesn’t require too much legwork, I guess.”

  “Look on the bright side. At least he marries them,” Lilah reflected. “Hey, how old is Press now? Last I saw him, he was obsessed with Magic Cards and some little medieval action figures or other.”

  “Warhammer figures—the holy grail of prepubescent boys with unwanted blackheads and extensive imaginations.”

  “I hope he’s gotten out of that phase—the blackhead part, I mean.”

  “Oh, he’s turned out all right, our Press—quite a handsome man-boy. He’s very nice, actually, no thanks to either my father or Adele. I mean, how can you relate to a mother who looks like a boiled prune from playing tennis all day or a father who’s never there? Come to think of it, maybe that’s why he turned out so well?”

  “So he’s how old?” Lilah asked.

  “He’s just finished up his junior year at Grantham, a biology major but focusing on paleontology. I think he also plays on the tennis team. Anyway, he mentioned that he’s working Reunions, but I don’t know what exactly.”

  Mimi abandoned the jar of peanut butter on the counter and wandered over to the adjoining walk-in butler’s pantry. Lilah, being Lilah, screwed the lid back on the jar and put it away in the fridge. Then she followed Mimi, leaning against one of the old-fashioned cabinet drawers that held linens. On one wall, glass-faced cabinets displayed massive amounts of silver serving pieces and glassware. On the others, shelves held neatly arranged packages and jars of whole-wheat flour, honey and granola. Lilah took in the jars of dried beans and legumes of varying dull colors.

  “I can see that Noreen has had a major influence on this room, as well,” she said. “When I think back to college, these shelves had the biggest supply of Pop-Tarts I’d ever seen—it just makes me want to cry.”

  Mimi let out a dramatic sigh. “You’re right. It’s the fall of civilization as we know it.” She shook her head and marched out of the pantry. “Never mind. There’s still the liquor cabinet.”

  Lilah tripped along behind her into the dining room, where drop cloths covered furniture, rugs were rolled up and bundled in plastic, and the walls were denuded of paintings. “So what’s going on? A garage sale?” she said.

  Mimi lifted a spattered sheet covering the sideboard. “No, it’s protection from the dust, all part of the current-wife-renovations phenomenon. First comes the new master bedroom—for all the obvious reasons. Then they work their way around the house imprinting their own unique personality. When Adele became the official Number Two, she had the kitchen redone, a wine cellar built and a new pool house put in the back. Now that Noreen rules the roost, she’s converting my old bedroom into a yoga room and turning the library into a screening room. They’ll probably sit around and w
atch documentaries about eating local.”

  Lilah watched Mimi study the labels of various bottles of liquor. “So where are you staying, then?”

  Mimi grabbed a bottle by the neck and straightened up. “Why, the pool house of course. It’s my version of the stepdaughter’s revenge. I’m co-opting something that really mattered to that money-grubbing bitch who usurped my mother’s rightful place.” She marched back to the kitchen. “C’mon, I’ve made the unilateral decision that we’re going to have gin and tonics. I think I noticed some designer tonic water in the back of the pantry.”

  “And I’m sure there’s organic limes in the fruit bowl.” Lilah yawned. In Spain, where she’d just come from, it was already well after midnight. Between jet lag and the time difference, she was fading fast. “Dare I ask where the ‘money grubbing bitch’ is now?” she asked, trying to keep up with the conversation.

  “Oh, in the center of town, ensconced in the new town house development on Grantham Square. It’s supposed to look oldie and charming—all brick Georgian and stately. But of course the places have elevators and the latest in stainless-steel appliances and jetted spa baths. But get this. According to Noreen, they’re asking more than a million for the places, and you still have to pay parking on top. Can you believe it?” After a quick pit stop to the pantry, she marched back in the kitchen and placed the bottles on the counter. She opened a cabinet and took down two highball glasses.

  Lilah covered her mouth and stifled another yawn. “Sounds better than the dorm where I’m staying. Mind you, I haven’t seen it yet. I asked Justin to bring me here first.”

  “And he didn’t stay for a chat? I’m offended.”

  “I offered, but when we pulled up to the house he checked his email, and said that something had come up that he needed to follow up on right away.”

  “Ooh! Quel mystère. I can just imagine the type of emergencies Justin Bigelow must have.”

  Lilah was about to explain that the Justin of today didn’t totally resemble the Justin of yore, but Mimi had already moved on.

  “I don’t know why you want to stay in the dorms when you can bunk here with me.” She didn’t bother with a jigger and instead poured generous amounts of gin in the glasses, stopped, eyed the levels and added more. Then she picked up the glasses and ambled over to the refrigerator. “I’m sure the pool house is bigger than the room they’ll put you in.” The automatic ice maker made a racket when she pressed one glass and then the other against the lever. “I mean, really, a girl could start to feel rejected,” she shouted over it.