And Then Came You (21 page)

“Look at that.” Jo pointed with her hammer and felt a swell of disgust and fury pour through her body, thick enough to make the hammer shake in her hand. “Would you just look at him?”

“Him who? Jesus, who’re we talking about?”

“Are you blind?” Jo reached over, grabbed Mike’s chin in her hand, and positioned her head until she was looking where Jo wanted her to look. “Right there. Mr. God’s Gift to Women is hitting on one of the gypsies.”

“Huh? Oh. Cash.”

“Yeah,
Cash
.” Jo shook her head as she watched him, unable to tear her gaze away even though it was
none of her business what the bastard did—or rather,
who
the bastard did. As long as he stayed away from her crew, what the hell did she care?

But watching him drape one muscular arm around a woman who had to be twenty years older than him made her want to bean him with the hammer. Her fingers tightened on the worn wooden stock as she considered the odds of making that throw from this distance.

“That’s Kate, isn’t it?” Mike asked, squinting now.

“Looks like her,” Jo muttered, remembering that Kate was the youngest one of the summer women, although she was in her early fifties at least.

“She’s pretty,” Mike said.

“Of course she’s pretty,” Jo snapped and could just barely make him out through the red haze crowding the edges of her vision. “Would he waste his time with a dog? I don’t think so.”

“What’s it to you?” Mike asked.

“Nothing,” she snapped. It meant absolutely nothing to her. Cash Hunter was an irritation. A thorn in her paw. A worm in her apple. “But for God’s sake, can’t he keep it zipped?”

Mike laughed shortly. “Doesn’t look like the woman’s complaining any.”

No, it didn’t. Which only made Jo more furious. Were all women that stupid? she wondered. Did no one but
her
see that the man had more moves than a chorus line? Did no one have enough self-respect to not want to be one of a
legion
of Cash Hunter victims?

The woman wrapped her arm around Cash’s waist and leaned into him, her long black hair shining like a satin cape in the sunlight. She smiled up at him and
Cash, making his first move, dropped a kiss on the woman’s forehead.

Jo quietly sizzled.

The man should have a warning sign hanging around his neck.

He should be shot. Okay, she amended, maybe not shot. But caged. And kept where women could pay a buck and stare at him through the safety of steel bars. He could be studied. Like any other dangerous animal.

“You’re just jealous because you’re not getting any.”

Jo slanted her a look. “And you are?”

“This isn’t about me,” Mike pointed out.

“Fine. How do you know I’m not?” Of course, she wasn’t, but that didn’t mean she wanted that sad fact to be obvious to everyone.

“Please. Even
your
mood improves when you get laid.”

Hard to argue with that one. But she tried. “There’s nothing wrong with my mood.”

“Nothing a night with Cash couldn’t clear up.”

“Right.” Jo snorted. “One night with him and I go off to save the world? No, thanks.”

Mike’s blond eyebrows lifted. “Scared?”

“Not interested.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Shut up, Mike.”

“Ooh. Good comeback.”

“Don’t you have something else to do? Someone else to toss off a roof?”

“How ’bout I start with you?” Mike grumbled.

“How ’bout you help me finish these shingles?”

“Who died and made you the boss, anyway?” Mike turned to grab up her hammer and a fistful of shingles.

“Mama did,” Jo muttered, as her heart fisted in her chest.

“What?” Mike asked.

“Nothing,” she muttered darkly. Grabbing her sunglasses, she shoved them back on and deliberately turned her back on Cash and his latest conquest. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, with another look at Cash and the woman, strolling through the dappled shade. “I believe you.”

They took their coffee to the cliff park.

Not much of a park, really. It sat at the edge of town, a narrow strip of tidy grass bordered by a splash of summer flowers on one side and an iron fence on the other. Traffic on Pacific Coast Highway sounded out in a steady roar, but was drowned out by the wild crash and thunder of waves slamming into the rocks at the foot of the cliff.

Seals barked, tourists wandered, and in-line skaters whizzed along the sidewalk, buzzing by the unwary and making them jump for cover. Wind rushed in off the sea and tugged at Sam’s hair, making her wish for the cap she’d left in the truck. Heck, if she was going to wish, then she’d just wish herself away from here. To somewhere safe. Where the heat that pulsed inside her whenever Jeff was around wouldn’t be able to take hold.

Like the North Pole.

Taking seats opposite each other at a steel table-and-bench set with peeling red paint, each of them waited for the other to start. She’d be damned if she’d talk first.
He who speaks first loses power
. She wasn’t sure
where she’d heard it, but it made sense and she was going to fight her Marconi instinct to jump in and fill a silence.

Sam’s insides skittered, but she kept her hands steady as she set her coffee cup down and began tugging at the cinnamon roll. Just because she wasn’t going to talk, didn’t mean she wasn’t going to eat. Besides, when her nerves started jangling, it was like ringing a dinner bell. Her body craved food. Usually in great quantities. And preferably
chocolate
.

“You always did have a sweet tooth.”

Her hands stilled and her gaze lifted, meeting Jeff’s squarely. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t talk like you know me.” She shook her head firmly, swallowed the knot in her throat, then deliberately popped a piece of the gooey roll into her mouth and chewed. “You don’t have the right.”

A short bark of laughter erupted from him as he slapped both hands down onto the tabletop. “Fine. I don’t know you. I
did
, though.”

She squirmed uncomfortably. Happened every time she remembered their past. Every time she let herself wander down a road that was filled with disappointment and regret. “That was a long time ago.”

“You haven’t changed that much.”

Sam took another bite, wiped her hands on the napkin Stevie had jammed into the pastry bag, then reached for her latte. She had a quick sip and, fortified, told him, “I’m not that girl you walked out on, Jeff.”

“I didn’t walk out.”

“Funny,” she snapped. “Looked like you.”

His lips flattened into a grim slash and his eyes narrowed
into slits. “We’ve been through this. I went to London. To study.”

“And nine years later, you’re back. Tough course.” She winced, hearing the strident tone of her voice and not much caring for it. It was Mike’s fault, she thought. Making her wonder about Jeff’s motives. Making her second-guess every word that came out of his mouth and weigh every word that came out of her own. “There’s no point in going over it all again.”

“Agreed.”

“Yay us,” she said, with a twist of a smile. “So how about instead we talk about what’s important now?”

“We should be able to work something out.”

“Gee? Think you can be a little
more
vague? Or is that the best you can do?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Jeff blurted and pushed to his feet as if he couldn’t sit still and have this conversation.

Sam knew just how he felt. She watched him stalk around the edge of the table, like a man who needed to move, but had nowhere to go. The wind caught his black hair and tangled it around his head. His short-sleeved blue shirt was the same deep sea blue of his eyes and his jeans looked new enough that she was convinced he rarely wore them.

He wasn’t a part of her world anymore. He was just a visitor and the casual clothing he wore was nothing more than a costume, helping him to fit in with the locals. His reality was suit-and-tie, corporate America. A world where Sam would be as lost as he looked.

Blowing out a breath, she said bluntly, “I
want
you to tell me that you’re willing to share custody of Emma.”

He glared at her and the muscle in his jaw twitched spasmodically. His dark blue eyes flashed and he scraped one hand across his face in an obvious attempt to calm the temper sparking in his eyes.

“Just like that,” he said flatly. “It’s been just me and Emma for eight years and now you want to take her away from me?”

“You’ve had her in your life, Jeff. I missed all of it.”

“Your choice,” he reminded her, teeth clenched, jaw muscle working as if he were trying to chew rocks. “Not mine.”

“I didn’t
have
a choice.” Frustration bubbled inside and Sam had to react. She wanted to throw something, kick something, and if he came one step closer, she’d be happy to use him for target practice.

Thankfully though, he seemed to have a pretty good memory of their time together, too, because he stayed just out of kicking range. Sam didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed.

Standing up, she walked across the postage-stamp portion of grass to the iron railing at the edge of the cliff. She closed her hands over the cold, damp bars, and held on as if the earth were being tipped harshly to one side and those bars were her one grip on reality.

Unfortunately, “reality” was six feet three, with broad shoulders, long legs, and thick black hair that made a woman want to run her fingers through it. She glanced over her shoulder at him. Even if it was just to hold his head still while you banged it against a door.

“I know that look,” he said warily.

“Then go away.”

“Can’t.”

“Won’t.”

“Whatever. We’ve got to talk and it may as well be now.”

She snorted and ignored the flash of pain inside, concentrating instead on the ripple of annoyance riding atop it. “There’s that king-to-peasant tone I admire so much.”

“You’re a snob, Sam.”

“What?” Sheer dumbfoundedness had her gaping at him. She felt her mouth drop open and her eyes bug, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

“You heard me.” Jeff stepped up alongside her and grabbed hold of the iron railing, his left hand way too close to her right. “You’re the one who was always making a big deal about my family being rich.”

She fisted one hand, and in self-defense he quickly dropped his own over it.

“Easy enough to say money means nothing when you’ve never had to go without it.”

“I guess it is.”

She yanked at her hand and practically snarled, “Let go.”

He laughed shortly and tightened his grip. “Not a chance. You’ve got a mean right hook, as I remember it. And since I can’t hit you back . . .”

Scowling, she told herself not to notice the well of heat building up beneath his touch. She tried desperately to ignore the scattershot of lightning-like sparks that shot up her arm and into her chest. But her breathing hiccuped and her heartbeat started a trip-hammer pounding that made her head swim.

So not fair.

That Jeff Hendricks would be the
one
man who could do this to her.

Nine years since he last touched her and it was as if it were yesterday. Memories rushed through her brain and nearly staggered her. She had to get some distance. Had to keep Mike’s warnings in mind and take charge of the hormones screaming at her to let go and enjoy.

“Fine,” she grumbled, relaxing her hand under his. “No hitting. Just . . . let go.”

He almost did. Then thought better of it and instead rubbed the pad of his thumb across her knuckles, sending waves of sensation rocketing around inside her. Dammit, he was doing it on purpose. Had to be. Was he really using her own body’s reactions against her in an effort to get his own way?

“Jeff . . .”

“I missed you.”

“What?”

He sighed and kept his gaze focused straight down, to the froth and foam of the waves as they crashed onto the cliff rocks and the small crescent of beach below. There was a handful of surfers, astride their boards, waiting for a good ride in, and just as many seals, diving slick bodies beneath those waves, looking for a meal.

The past swirled around him, cloaking memories in a velvety fog that made everything look a little softer, cleaner, kinder than it actually had been. But in the midst of those memories, Jeff was forced to stop and consider a harsher, more recent memory, as well.

Cynthia.

Trying to convince him that Sam had never wanted Emma. That she still didn’t. That all of this scrambling to spend time with her daughter was merely to save face in front of her family.

But he couldn’t believe that.

Not of the Sam he used to know.

But hell. Had he ever really known her? Hadn’t she given away their child?

“You missed me?” she asked, breaking the chain of thoughts threatening to strangle him.

“Hell, yes.” He smiled tightly. “In London, there was no one to shout at me. No one to throw a lamp at my head.” He looked at her. “No one to lock me out of the house in my underwear.”

Her lips twitched.

“So yeah. I missed you.”

She blew out a breath and Jeff knew he’d surprised her. A brief flicker of pleasure spurted inside him, then was smothered again just as quickly. It had never been easy to surprise Sam. She’d always been too quick. Just one step ahead of him.

A little out of reach.

Just like now.

“You never said so.”

He shrugged and tried to remember himself, nine years ago. Crazy about Sam. Worried about the future and so damn scared he was going to fuck up his life and hers along with it . . .

“Young and stupid,” he said, as if that explained it all.

“If you hadn’t gone . . .”

“At the time,” he admitted for the first time in, well,
ever
, “I thought if I didn’t leave, then you would.”

“What? Why would I?”

He turned his gaze on her and lost himself in the pale blue wash of her eyes. The sun kissed her hair, teasing out red streaks and spotlighting the few freckles crossing her nose. If possible, she was even more
beautiful than she’d been then. And back then, she’d stolen his breath away every time he looked at her.