Hot and Bothered (10 page)

She managed not to show her feelings for once, and he left her with a chaste kiss. He left her with another one when he brought up the dog.

Gringo was chained in a way that allowed someone to pass by without getting his leg bitten off. From her trailer door, Judith eyed the creature warily. Beady brown eyes glared back with malice. Paul had told her the dog was a cross between a Mexican hairless and a Queensland heeler. With its blue-gray skin, it looked as if it had an oxygen deficiency. Gringo’s forte was supposed to be noise and lots of it. She didn’t feel any better, her nerve endings jumping with anxiety now that she was alone.

While evening deepened into night, she remembered stories and news reports of guard dogs that had failed in their duty through being offered good, juicy steaks. Gringo was barking steadily now as people arrived home for the evening meal. She knew, because she’d run to the window with each woofish explosion, only to see her neighbors skirting a wide path around her trailer. Gringo might be making a lot of noise, but she wouldn’t put it past him to lie down and grovel when presented with a treat to end all treats.

She opened a can of chili and dumped it into
a pot on the stove. She diced some stripped
nopalitos
and doused the small squares with a little oil and vinegar for a salad. After putting the heated chili in a bowl, she set out her dinner on the table and looked at it in admiration.

“I’m getting better,” she murmured to herself.

But when she sat down to it, she toyed with the meal, poking her fork repeatedly into the diced cactus, then twirling the utensil through the chili. Her stomach churned but not from hunger.

Paul had thrown her already upside-down world into total chaos today, tempting her the way he did. What was she fighting anyway? Yet she knew it was part of the soul that kept one from being unnecessarily hurt. She would be hurt if she followed her heart with him. He’d been honest, making no false promises about the outcome, not even trying to predict one. Just living for the here and now. She couldn’t do it. She simply couldn’t do it … and yet she wanted to badly.

The problem of the upcoming vote ought to be occupying her time, rather than Paul. She finally forced herself to dig out the merger paperwork she’d received at Aunt Edna’s will reading. The projected income to the shareholders and for the company from the proposed sale looked good on paper. Almost too good. The purchasing conglomerate was an international one with its
assets in all kinds of food services. They had the knowledge to put Collier Chocolates onto Go-diva’s international levels, and they were giving the shareholders a great deal of money for the company. She’d had no idea Collier Chocolates was worth that much.…

Gringo started barking again.

Judith jumped in fright, half rising from her seat to see what was causing the fuss this time. She snorted and sat, knowing it had to be nothing again. After a few moments she began to wonder if this time it was something. Maybe the man was back.

She went to the window and looked out, but saw nothing. A kid was probably hurrying by up the hill to the community rest rooms. She groaned. This was bound to go on all night.

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she forced them back. Her imagination was running away with her. So someone
had
come. He’d gone away, probably never to come back. Wasn’t that why she’d picked this place? Because no one in his right mind would think she would? She’d won a hard-found freedom and yet had never felt so vulnerable and alone.

If only it were Paul with her tonight instead of his dumb dog. If only …

Something banged on the back of the trailer.

Judith screeched, her heart pounding in fear. She flung open the door and leaped outside. Gringo snapped at her ankles as she sailed over
him. By some miracle she landed on her feet. Taking advantage of it, she ran. The dog yapped furiously behind her as if protesting being left with the trailer banger, but she wasn’t going back.

She set Paul’s other dog off as she raced up the hill. Paul met her halfway. He grabbed her shoulders, stopping her from plowing headlong into him.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“Something banged on the trailer,” she gasped out.

He muttered a curse. “Go inside my house and lock the doors.”

“Are you kidding?” she exclaimed. “The whole place is glass! One rock, and a two-year-old could get in. I’m not staying there by myself.”

“Whoever it is will have to get past me first, and that
won’t
happen.”

She believed him. Yet once she was inside his house alone, all his glass doors seemed to taunt her. The minutes stretched out horribly. She was ready to run again, when she heard Paul call out for her to let him in.

“I found your culprit,” he said, holding up a cooking pot.

Judith blinked in confusion.

“The people in the trailer behind you had a big fight,” he explained, “and the wife chased the
husband out. She threw this after him for good measure.”

“Oh, God.” Judith started shaking. “I am so dumb.”

“No, just cautious.”

She shivered. “I can’t go back there. The dog barks all the time.… Can I stay at your house tonight?”

The question hit Paul right in the stomach. Her imaginary two-year-old could have tossed a rock at his gut. The effect was the same, direct and shattering.

He cleared his throat. “Are you sure?”

“No.” She turned away, wrapping her arms around her body. “I only know I can’t go back there tonight. I’ll be jumping at every sound. I feel like such a baby, but I can’t help it.”

“Okay,” he said, making up his mind. “You sleep in my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

She turned back around, looking hopeful and yet scared. “I couldn’t put you out. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

He grinned. He had wanted her in his bed again, but he’d expected to be in it with her. “No. The bodyguard always sleeps on the couch
as a first line of defense. Besides, I owe you for the night you babied me.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

He wondered if his brain had gone completely to mush. Letting her stay was as dangerous as anything he could think of. The two of them alone, throughout the long hours of the night … Torture could be no sweeter nor any worse.

“How about a cup of hot chocolate?” he asked. “It’ll calm your nerves.”

“Thanks.”

In the kitchen, he settled Judith on a counter stool, then set the milk heating on the stove. He could have nuked the milk in the microwave, but he wanted to prolong bedtime for as long as possible. Hours of lying wide awake on the couch didn’t appeal to him. Sleep would be impossible.

“What about the dog?” Judith asked.

“Gringo will be fine for the night, and if anyone does come snooping around, they’ll get a surprise.”

She shivered. “I bet.”

He had made many vows not to pry about her problems, but he threw them all out the window. The timing was probably about as bad as it would ever be, yet he couldn’t stop himself. “Judith, tell me what’s going on.”

She sighed. “I feel so silly reacting this way,
but … Have you ever heard of Collier Chocolates?”

“Yes, they’re a very expensive brand.” He gaped at her. “Are you that Collier?”

“One of them.” She made a funny noise. “The changeling actually. That’s the whole problem. My family—parents, brother, aunts and uncles, cousins, all my relatives—are extremely business-oriented and aggressive, and they’re all involved in the company. Except me. I’m not the go-getter they are. I tried. Truly, I did. I like peace and a quiet life—I always have—which disappoints my parents terribly.”

“I’m confused,” he said. “What does this have to do with men in black Mercedes looking for you? Did you steal the payroll?”

“Close. I inherited over one thousand prime shares in Collier Chocolates from my great-aunt Edna. I’m now a major stockholder with voting power, my worst nightmare. I don’t have a clue about business. I had some jobs in the past, decorating and such, but they never worked out. Now I work for the San Diego ConVis Bureau, the tourist board. I help tourists find places to visit and stay. I even help them find a doctor or a dentist if they need one, stuff like that. The only thing I know is tourists, and I like it that way. Now another company wants to buy Collier. There’s a board meeting in a few weeks to vote on the deal, and I don’t know what to do! If I were home, everyone in my family would be all
over me, trying to persuade me to vote either way. You have no idea what the Colliers are like. So I … well, I ran. There’s no other way to say it. I needed to hide out until the board meeting, so I can make an informed vote without all the pressure I’d get at home—”

Paul started laughing. “This whole business is about chocolates? Heart-shaped boxes that sell like crazy on Valentine’s Day? I thought someone was trying to kill you, and you’re running away from chocolates!”

She bristled. “I know it’s not the end of the world, for goodness’ sakes! Still, a lot of people work for Collier, and if I vote to sell, they could lose their jobs. If I vote not to sell, there won’t be the kind of growth that comes from being a big corporation subsidiary, which could create better salaries and new jobs. I have the paperwork here. In fact, I was reading through it when that pot hit my trailer wall. But the point is, I don’t want to make a wrong vote.”

“Couldn’t you have told everyone to just shut up and leave you alone?” he asked, pouring the warmed milk into the prepared cups. The cocoa bubbled up, turning the liquid a lovely shade of soft brown. He stirred both cups.

“Paul, they wouldn’t leave me alone even if I put a message on every billboard along every highway in San Diego County! Collier would make a KGB interrogation squad look like amateurs. Look at what they’re doing to find me. You
saw that guy yourself. Those are the lengths they’ll go to to get their way.” She let out her breath in a whoosh. “What’s the use? It sounds silly … except it isn’t.”

The point about her family looking for her was well taken, Paul thought. That man in the black Mercedes hadn’t been Mister Rogers welcoming people to his neighborhood. He pushed a cup toward her. “Here. Drink your chocolate.”

“Very funny.” She took a sip anyway.

So did Paul, mindful of the irony. The brand was decent, but he wondered what she thought of it, Collier Chocolates being so very rich and very expensive. “I ought to be angry with you. I thought you were in real trouble.”

“I
am
in real trouble, dammit!”

“I mean with the Cosa Nostra, the mob. You were always so damn coy about what you were doing here that I did think it was life or death for you.”

She gaped at him. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“Not your fault I have a suspicious nature that works overtime.”

“I figured the family would look for me, so the less I said to anyone, the better.” She took another sip of her drink. “If they find me, everyone will descend on Sunset Cove. I couldn’t handle the confrontation. I don’t do well in that kind of situation. They know it. They count on it.”

“You reamed me out without blinking an eye,” he said.

“That was different. That was about your daughter, not chocolates.”

“You’ve been tenacious on the subject—although you’ve been wrong.”

“Paul! How can you say I’m wrong? Your daughter needs you—”

“Not nearly as much as she doesn’t need the baggage that comes with me. However, this discussion is about you, not me. I would think you could face them all down easily.”

“I’ve been … different here.” She shrugged and wrapped her hands around the mug, as if needing to warm her fingers. “I don’t know why. Back in San Diego I live at home to make my parents happy. Since I have no attachments, it seems the least I can do to make up for my lack of interest in the family business. I have to admit, too, a concession there eased the fighting about any further familial apathy on my part.”

“If that’s the case at home, you really are different here.” He paused. “You said before that you were never married. If your family’s so pushy, how did you avoid any matchmaking?”

She smiled. “It wasn’t easy, but I had some luck there. My father doesn’t believe in daughters marrying company men. He says you can’t tell whether they’re fortune hunters or not. He did match me with three men from my parents’ social set. The first cheated openly on me, which my father found more humiliating than I did.
The second turned out to have a drug problem of major proportions, and the third …” She chuckled. “The third was gay and decided to come out of the closet to spite
his
parents, who were pushing for an engagement. My father didn’t trust his own judgment after that and gave up.”

Something niggled at Paul’s subconscious. The guy in the Mercedes … His searching for Judith was a good deal of expense to go to for chocolates. “Are you sure there isn’t more to this than a couple of shares in a chocolate factory?”

She made a face. “This isn’t Willie Wonka, Paul. We’re talking tens of millions of dollars in profit from the sale.”

That explained the guy in the Mercedes. With that much money at stake, Paul would have called an APB across the country for her.

He gulped down his drink, realizing Judith was way beyond his reach as a woman. He’d always recognized her elegance and moneyed background, but he hadn’t had to face it square-on before. Now he did, and it hurt.

“I better go back to my trailer,” she said. “It may be money, but like you said, it’s not life or death.”

“No, stay.” The words were automatic. And foolish. He straightened. “Stay. I doubt you’d get any sleep if you went back to the trailer. The people behind you will probably fight all night.
She was still pretty wound up when I spoke to her.”

“I probably shouldn’t, but I’ll be a nervous wreck if she keeps throwing pots and missing her husband.” Judith smiled a little. “You think I’m a nut, don’t you?”

He smiled in return. “I thought you were a nut the first time I saw you, cleaning out your trailer in that outfit.”

“That outfit cost the earth, and I don’t miss it at all.”

“You look cuter now,” he said, waving his mug in the direction of her chest. He read aloud the slogan on her T-shirt. “ ‘I am Woman. I am strong—’ ”