Tori blinked up at him. “Huh?”
“Give me the keys. I don’t feel like laying our lives on the line again today.”
She huffed, then dropped the ring into his hand. “Fine.”
Fifteen minutes later, he steered the van into the driveway of her mother’s house. The Spanish-style home wasn’t quite as imposing as he remembered. The paint above the arched entryway was peeling, and some of the wrought-iron accents were rusted, but years ago he’d seen it through the eyes of a poor kid rather than those of a wealthy man.
Tori’s mother opened the front door before they’d left the van. Her face had grown slightly more lined since he’d last seen her, but overall she appeared to be transcending the march of time. “Heath! It’s wonderful to see you. How are you?”
He rounded the vehicle and met her at the porch steps. “Fine, thanks. You look great, Mrs. Sutherland.”
“Look at you, so tall and muscular. You’re old enough now that you can call me Charlotte. Tori tells me you’re at the top of your game.” She gave him a halfhearted hug that he returned in kind. Then she turned to her daughter and frowned. “That dress is awfully bright, dear. Dark colors are more slimming.”
Heath gritted his teeth but held back the urge to tell Mrs. Sutherland to lay off. Tori’s relationship with her mother was their business, not his.
To Tori’s credit, she ignored the jab and gave her mother a peck on the cheek. “Nice to see you, too, Mama. Where are those checks you wanted me to deposit?”
“Somewhere in my desk. Give me a few minutes to find them.” Charlotte invited them inside. They sat in the living room, which hadn’t changed at all since he was a kid. Even with all his money and prestige, he still felt like he had to be on his best behavior.
“Would you fix me a cup of tea?” Charlotte asked Tori.
She hesitated a moment. “Sure, why not.”
The instant Tori left the room, Charlotte slid closer to Heath. “So tell me, how’s baseball treating you?”
“I can’t complain. I’m doing what I love.”
For the moment.
“How nice for you.” She glanced over her shoulder then lowered her voice. “What made you decide to grace Cat’s Paw Cove with a visit after all this time?”
He didn’t want to admit it was his agent’s idea for him to make more appearances to keep his face and name in the public eye in case he wasn’t able to keep playing ball.
“I was invited. It’s been a while since I came back, and I figured it would be nice to see some familiar faces.” Why did he suddenly feel like she was going to baste him and flip him over like a slab of ribs at any moment?
“Maybe it’s more than that, hmm?”
What the hell was she talking about? She couldn’t possibly know about his elbow. “I’m not sure I—”
“Tori’s not the woman for you. I have a suspicion you think she is. I can tell these things.”
The temperature in the room dropped about a dozen degrees. This felt eerily similar to the talk he’d had years ago with Tori’s father. Apparently, Heath was still beneath the Sutherlands in Charlotte’s eyes despite the fact his net worth was probably fifty times hers. Before he could respond, Tori returned with a mug in hand she set on the coffee table in front of her mother.
Charlotte took a sip of tea and winced. “Too much sugar.”
Tori frowned. “You should have known I’d do it wrong. Do you have those checks?”
“Oh, yes. I’ll go get them. I have to properly sweeten my tea as well.” She left the room, but the thick tension she’d stirred up remained in her wake.
Tori started to sit, but he took her arm and pulled her toward the door since she didn’t appear any happier to be there than he. “Mind if we wait outside?”
She chuckled. “You never did like being in this house, did you?”
She knew him so well. “I’ve been on an airplane or in a terminal or some other building all day.” He didn’t want to tell her what her mother had said, mostly because Charlotte’s words were partially true.
Outside, he caught a glimpse of the old tree house where they used to play as kids. “I can’t believe that’s still there.” He started toward it, inhaling the sweet scent of orange blossoms. A flood of warm memories bombarded him.
“Mama keeps threatening to have it torn down.” Tori followed him to the giant oak tree.
“That would be a real shame.” He tested the worn wooden pegs Tori’s father had nailed to the trunk more than two decades earlier. They seemed secure, so he climbed to the third step and glanced down at her. “I dare you.”
She set her hands on her hips, which transformed her back to the strong-willed little girl she used to be, the one who never backed away from a challenge. “You do see how I’m dressed, don’t you?”
He lifted himself a few more steps into the tree house. It looked a lot smaller than he remembered. Shards of sunlight filtered through the western side of the structure, illuminating an impressive network of cobwebs. He found a stick on the floor and cleared them away. “You never used to complain about messing up your clothes when we were kids. In fact, I think you enjoyed getting those frilly dresses dirty, the ones your mom made you wear to church. You probably couldn’t make it up here anyway. Not anymore.” He didn’t have to look down to know she’d be right behind him in seconds.
She huffed. “Shit.”
He laughed as she tossed her shoes across the lawn.
“You’re a bastard, Heath Castillo.” She started up after him.
“You say the sweetest things.”
She struggled up the tree in her short dress, which gave him a hell of a view of her cleavage and the lacy black edges of her bra. He pictured her stripping off her clothes and coming to him wearing nothing but that bra and matching panties. His mind filled in the blanks. Her breasts would feel so firm and full, a perfect fit in his hands. He could almost taste her silky skin and smell her feminine scent.
He had to give her points for effort as she hauled herself up each rung, muttering curses under her breath until she reached the top and practically fell into his lap. “There, I did it. Told you I could.”
“I had no doubt.” He couldn’t bring himself to tear his gaze away from her chest since her dress had ridden down and now exposed more cleavage.
“I’m so not dressed for this, and I don’t even care.” She lay back on the wood planks, breathing hard, long curls fanned out around her head like the petals of an otherworldly daisy. She probably looked a lot like that after a serious lovemaking session—face flushed and sweaty, breasts heaving.
He mentally undressed her, imagined those full breasts exposed and his for the taking. In his mind’s eye, he traveled lower, took in the creamy expanse of her abdomen, the swell of her hips and thatch of brown curls between her legs.
“Now I need a shower thanks to the dirt up here and the heat.” She shut her eyes, giving him more time to feast his eyes on her.
And now he needed a cold shower.
She was far from the little girl who’d shared this little Cantina with him. She was all woman now. So much more attractive than the plastic variety with whom he’d kept company lately. Every inch of Tori was real from the way she laughed at him when he did something stupid to how she licked her fingers after eating something deliciously messy with her hands.
He knew everything about her, like that the scar on her knee was from falling off his bike when she’d been riding on the handlebars, and he’d stopped short to avoid crashing into an ice cream truck. He knew when to tell her it was okay to uncover her eyes after the goriest parts of a horror movie. And how she plucked the tomatoes out of her salad and dropped them into his bowl because she knew he did like them.
She opened her eyes. “I haven’t been up here in like a hundred years. I can’t believe I made it.” She playfully smacked his arm. “You’re rotten for challenging me to come up after you.”
�
�Hey, no one forced you.” He stretched out next to her, not caring how dirty the boards were. “You do everything you set out to. You always have.”
She looked at him, mesmerizing him with that soulful stare.
Awareness sizzled through him.
“Not everything.” Her voice was quiet, but it held worlds of emotion.
His heart pounded as he stared at her full lips, watched her tongue slide out to moisten them. He’d far exceeded his wildest dreams, yet he’d never get the most precious thing he desired. He wanted her in every way. But he couldn’t trust himself not to screw it up, so he’d have to settle for being her friend. “What did you want but didn’t get?”
She withdrew her gaze.
He shifted onto his side and propped himself up on his good elbow. The breeze blew a leaf onto Tori’s neck, and he plucked it off, his fingers grazing the satiny alabaster skin of her throat. He longed to kiss a trail along her jaw, up to her earlobe but he forced himself to shake off the fantasy. “Come on. What didn’t you get that you wanted? Or whom?”
“I could write a list. Starting with my childhood, I never got the sibling I asked for, or the puppy or horse. Mama never would let me straighten my hair back then. Which makes me sound really spoiled, I know. I didn’t get William, which is probably a good thing, cheating bastard that he was.” She slid her hand over his forearm, back and forth. “I used to wish for a best friend until your mother brought you with her to work. I can’t remember how old we were.”
“I was almost eleven. You were nine. I was so pissed off at my mother for making me come with her. I told her I was plenty old to stay home with my sister. I’m glad she disagreed.”
Tori slowed her strokes over his skin. “Who knew that would begin such a long friendship?”
He tried to think, but with her touching him, his mind wouldn’t function properly. He moved his arm out of her reach and let go the breath he’d been holding. “After I met you, I started begging mom to take me with her to work. I loved coming here, hanging out with you, away from my real world.”
When she gave him a sad smile, he shook his head. “Don’t you dare pity me. I saw enough of that from people when I was a kid.”
“It’s not pity. I was thinking about how much I enjoyed you being here back then. I always thought you had somewhere better to be, but you felt sorry for me or something.”
“I just liked being with you. You never asked anything of me, and it got me out of my house, away from my messed-up family. I didn’t even care that your mom hated me being here.”
She shrugged. “Usually, I had no one else to play with. Mama set up a few play dates for me with that weird girl from my class who had a thing for turtles. She had like ten of them as pets.” She laughed. “She was strange. I had to beg Mama to quit inviting her over and making me go to her house. I didn’t really care that none of the girls from school wanted to hang out with me. You were my only friend, and that was fine with me.”
“You’re still my only true friend.”
“We should stay in touch better than we have in recent years.” She gave him one of her honest smiles, the kind he could never find from anyone else. “I’ve missed you.”
Desire crackled in the air, so powerful he had to turn away to break the spell.
“Remember when we used to play Captain Planet up here?” she asked.
“Wow, that takes me back. I was Wheeler, the power of fire, and you were…” He racked his brain to remember.
“Linka, the power of wind.”
“Right. Your Russian accent was the worst.”
She howled with laughter. “Whatever do you mean?” she said with the same awful accent.
They bumped fists. “Go planet,” they said together.
He smoothed a curl off her forehead and tamped down the urge to kiss it, to kiss her. Those gorgeous eyes softened, and something passed between them, a current of emotion. He’d missed seeing her, being near her. Staying away had been almost as difficult as being with her.
She parted her lips slightly, let out a breath, and he drew it in. The raw power of their connection was impossible to deny. Had it always been there, simmering just below the surface?
He skimmed his gaze over the swell of her breasts, down to her perfectly curvy hips and shapely legs. What he’d give to touch her. All over. To lose himself in her.
He moved closer, close enough that he picked up on her sweet scent, felt the heat rolling off her in waves. He’d never wanted to kiss a woman so much.
Just once. He couldn’t stop himself, not anymore.
“Tori?” her mother shouted, breaking the spell. “Where are you?”
Chapter Four
Tori jumped at her mother’s sharp tone. She pulled herself up and tried to compose herself before peering out the small window of the tree house. Her mother headed across the lawn, toward the big oak tree. “Mama’s going to think we’ve lost our minds climbing up here.”
“Tori? Heath?” her mother called.
Maybe I have lost my mind.
She could have sworn Heath had been about to kiss her. And she’d wanted to kiss him back. Which was crazy. He had his pick of beautiful women. He was way out of her league. Unless there were more to that teasing they’d always engaged in, an undercurrent of real sexual attraction. Not likely. She’d learned that lesson with a huge side of humiliation back in high school when he’d rebuffed her come-on.
“Up here, Mama.” She waved at her, then wished she’d remained silent when she saw her mother’s scowl.
“Come down from there this instant. Lord’s sake. What in the world is wrong with you two? You’re acting like children.”
Tuning out her mother’s tirade, she faced Heath. Had he planned to kiss her? No, of course not. He’d made it clear years ago that he didn’t find her attractive. He was just an incredibly hot man who oozed sexuality. And she was an incredibly sex-starved woman whose imagination was working overtime. She couldn’t bear it if Heath rejected her again. That’d be way worse than when William had.
“She caught us.” Heath stood up and bumped his head on the ceiling. “Ouch. I think I was about a foot shorter last time I was up here.” He offered her a hand to help her down ahead of him, but she shook her head.
“You go first, remember? In case I slip, you’ll be there to catch me like you did when we were kids.” She brushed a brown smudge from the front of her dress. “I hope you realize that I’m covered in dirt, thanks to your dare.” It had been fun to let loose, even if it was just for a minute.
Her mother waited at the base of the tree with her hands on her bony hips, and a sour scowl on her face. Tori couldn’t imagine her mother ever climbing a tree or doing anything outdoors other than sitting at a church social or on a lounge chair by the pool. Heaven forbid her perfect hair should get wet or blown around.
Heath climbed down in seconds then looked up at her. “Okay, come on.”
When she set her feet on the first rung, she realized Heath could see under her dress. There was nothing she could do about it now but try to keep her legs as tightly closed as she could. Which she quickly realized was impossible. At least she had on pretty underwear. She hiked up her dress and went for it. Although if she was honest with herself, the notion of him staring up at her panties gave her a twinge of excitement. She could feel his eyes on her. Sexual awareness heated her from the inside out.
On the third rung, she felt something sharp stab the ball of her foot. “Damn it.”
“What’s wrong?” Heath asked.
“I either got a splinter, or I stepped on a nail.” She twisted around to check her injury but lost her balance. It seemed to happen in slow motion. Her heart thumped wildly as she tried to grab onto something, but her hands slid uselessly over the rough tree trunk. She fell backward.
Right into Heath’s waiting arms.
Relief flooded through her. She wrapped her arms around Heath’s neck, buried her face in hi
s neck and breathed in his scent—a mix of his piney cologne and pure male. Muscles deep in her core pulled tight.
“Are you okay?” He kissed the top of her head, which incited a rush of warm tingles, like tendrils of something sweet and wonderful.
“Good thing you remembered that I was supposed to go down first, huh?”
She nodded, too overcome with emotion to speak. Plus she still had her face against his collar. She didn’t want to move a muscle. Ever.
“Tori Elizabeth Sutherland, what were you two doing up there?” Her mother plucked a leaf out of Tori’s hair, shattering all that deliciousness. “For goodness sake, Tori, you’re not a ten-year-old tomboy anymore. You’re a grown woman.” She pulled at Heath’s thick arm, which didn’t budge. “Put her down this instant.”
When he did, Tori mourned the loss of contact. Squeezing his arm, she said, “Thank you for catching me.” She glared at her mother. “You should be thanking Heath, not reprimanding him.”
Heath scrubbed a hand over his chin then set off in the direction of her discarded shoes.
Tori faced her mother, hands fisted at her sides. “How dare you speak to him that way,” she whispered. “Thank goodness he was there. What would you have had him do, let me plummet to the ground?”
Her mother poked a finger at her. “I don’t like what I see between you two.”
Tori’s face burned. She prayed Heath hadn’t heard what her mother just said. She lowered her voice, hoping Mama would follow suit. “Oh? What’s that?”
“Chemistry, that’s what. You think William had a lot of women? I’m sure Heath has ten times more.”
The painful reminder of her fiancé felt like a slap of icy morning air. She took a backward step. Heath was nothing like William, and even if he did have lots of women in his life, what business was it of hers? Yet the possibility bothered her more than it should.
“With the matchmaking gift that you inherited from your father, I’d think you’d have found a suitable man for yourself by now.”
Tori’s irritation flared hotter. “It doesn’t work that way, Mama. Earthly Cupids find love for others, not ourselves.”
Her Homerun Hottie Page 5