Not That Kind of Girl (20 page)

A loud crash made her eyes fly open in alarm.

“Sorry,” Teeny said, shards of an antique bowl and pitcher at his feet.

Rick shook his head, not caring in the least. He turned to Bea. His face was frozen in shock. “And?”

She nodded, steeling herself. “It’s Gloria Needleman’s oldest daughter, Rachel. She’s … she’s incredible. She’s a child advocate lawyer. She was a record holder in women’s giant slalom. She loves dogs. She’s devoted to Gloria. She thinks I’m … you know … pretty special, too.”

For thirty years, Bea had fantasized about how magical it would have been to stand on that center podium at the 1980 Olympics to receive her gold medal in the five-hundred-meter breaststroke. Of course, because of Jimmy Carter and the boycott, that moment would always remain a fantasy. But she figured this particular real-life situation had to come pretty damn close.

Teeny jumped from his chair, ran to Bea, and lifted her into his arms. He spun her around as he laughed and hooted. The room filled with cheers. And barking.

“This calls for a celebration!” Lucio screamed.

“Champagne for everyone!” Rick said.

“But I can’t get out of bed!” Josie yelled.

So, once everyone calmed down and Lucio and Rick had fetched a couple bottles of the good stuff—along with a bottle of mineral water for those who didn’t imbibe—they gathered around the bed for a toast in Bea’s honor.

“To happiness,” Ginger proposed.

“To love,” Josie said.

“To freedom,” Teeny added.

They drank to all those things, then Rick insisted that Bea bring Rachel to the ranch as soon possible. “We’ll have a party,” he said. “This group of friends has a whole laundry list of things to celebrate.”

Bea knew Rick was right. She put one hand behind her back and crossed her fingers, silently adding Eli and Roxanne to that list. Oh, how she hoped fate was unfolding as it should, somewhere in Utah.

*   *   *

He’d never had to force himself on a woman in his life. It wasn’t his style. Nor was there ever a need for that kind of thing. Women found him, then they found him irresistible. Women offered themselves to him by one of two paths: they came already mad with desire, or as a willing participant in the game of seduction. But no woman ever refused him.

Raymond’s latest conquest was a feisty little specimen. The way she’d been panting and growling against his neck was turning him on something fierce. He loved the way she feigned a struggle, pushing the flat of her palms against his chest, as if she didn’t like what was happening, as if she didn’t like the damp friction of his fingers inside her panties.

“Stop. Please. God, no.”

He chuckled, nipping the skin over her collarbone. “So you like a fight, do you?” he asked, increasing the pace of his pumping hand. “You like to play rough, baby?”

She pushed harder.

He lowered his mouth, searching for the excited nipple he knew he’d find poking up through the silk of her blouse. He rooted around, perplexed when his lips failed to find it.

“Get the fuck off me!”

Raymond felt a slam to his gut, then tumbled off the office couch. He thudded to the floor, landing flat on his back, his head slamming against the carpet. A strange tingling pain began to shoot through his left shoulder and arm.

Stunned, he observed the scuffed bottom of a woman’s high heel headed right for his face. It stopped millimeters from his nose, then moved away, hovering over the bandage on his throat. Under normal circumstances, he would enjoy the view this position afforded him—a direct shot right up the tight skirt to the parted inner thighs and beyond. But these weren’t normal circumstances.

The shoe’s pointed toe began to tease his windpipe.

“You gross, sick-fuck, asshole
grandpa
. You perverted old bastard dickface.”

Raymond took a moment to assess the tone of voice of his assistant. This went beyond the realm of sex play. She sounded positively furious.

“I should crush your fucking throat,” the voice said. “I should finish off what that dog started, you twisted fuck! I’m reporting you to every single place I can think of! The bar association, the Humane Society, the AARP, the SPCA!”

“Now just a—”

The assistant’s pointy-toed shoe hadn’t even touched him, yet he was barely able to lift his head off the carpet without searing pain. There appeared to be something wrong with him.

The girl’s shoe pulled away, but her face bent down close to his. He was struck by how young and beautiful she looked this close up, how tight the skin remained to the bone as she hung over him. No sagging whatsoever.

“This is quite unnecessary,” he said, using his famous suave baritone, a tone of voice known for sucking the fight right out of the most stubborn of jurors. “There seems to be a misunderstanding, Ricky.”

“My name is Dusty, you dirty old narcissistic senior-citizen fuckhead!”

“Remember, your future is in my hands ”

She leaned even closer. Her shiny hair swept over his cheek. “Guess what? I don’t even
want
to go to law school anymore! You’ve cured me of that particular affliction! All I want now is the satisfaction of seeing you hung by your shriveled old gonads!”

Raymond winced.

“Roxanne Bloom is my new hero!” the girl added, a gleam in her eye. “Ha! That’s right. You heard me. The way I see it, that chick is a prophet—a fucking
saint
!” She leaned in so close that her nose bumped his. “I wish that dog had ripped your guts out, you disgusting old loser.”

Suddenly, she stood up. From her position high above him she looked down, smirked, and said, “By the way. I told my brother about you. He’s gonna kick your sorry ass.”

Then she was gone. The door to his office suite slammed with a sense of purpose. He tried to sit up, but he quickly reached that same limit to his range of movement. The sizzling pain in his shoulder and arm had now moved to his fingers. He gauged his position on the floor—he was in front of the couch but several feet from his desk, certainly not within reach of his intercom.

Raymond fished around in his trouser pocket for his BlackBerry. He must have left it on his desk.
Fuck.

“Oh, Yvonne?” he called out casually, hoping his voice was loud enough for his secretary to hear but not loud enough for any of his associates to notice. He couldn’t allow anyone important to see him like this.

“Yvonne?” he called out a little louder. “YVONNE!”

Raymond rolled his head around to get a look at the ancient cherry grandfather clock across the room.
Wait—did that little bitch just call me a “grandpa”?
The clock read ten minutes past noon—Yvonne was probably at lunch. That meant that unless he could get his ass up off that floor, he’d be lying there like roadkill for another fifty minutes.

Fuck.

He pressed his palms flat to the floor. He used every bit of strength he had to push, push, push … but it hurt so bad he gave up.

Raymond didn’t know which was worse—the discovery that he was now paralyzed for life or that Roxie Bloom and his new assistant had obviously been in cahoots. Had the Bloom bitch somehow set him up? Why else would Ricky refer to Roxie as a saint? A prophet? Damn! He’d been framed!

“Somebody?” he squeaked, hoping that nasty young woman was bluffing about her brother. “Help me!”

Chapter 12

Eli was glad he knew every curve and dip in this part of Highway 89, because it had become increasingly difficult to keep his eye on the road. As soul-stirring as the scenery was—and as glad as he was to be on his home turf—he couldn’t stop looking at the sleeping Roxie Bloom. His travel companion had taken on the beauty of a dark-haired angel in her repose, and a softness had settled over her. There wasn’t a single frown line to be seen on her pretty face. He wanted desperately to stroke that rosy cheek and tweak that cute little chin.

But not as much as he wanted to kiss her.

As startling as it seemed, it had only been five days since he’d approached Roxie at the baby shower, hoping to grab a few minutes of her time, just to clear the air. Instead, he’d ended up grabbing her and kissing the hell out of her—which didn’t clear up a damn thing. He’d gotten his very first taste of Roxie’s penned-up fervor that day, and it had only made him want more. It had made him want everything she had to give him.

Looking down at Roxie now, Eli had a better handle on why things had unfolded the way they had with her. It was no fluke that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking of Roxie for all those months. It wasn’t an accident that once he got his hands and his lips on her, he couldn’t let go. And it was no coincidence that when he’d tried to run away from Roxie Bloom, the universe had pulled him back to finish what he started.

He smiled to himself, remembering how surprised he’d been when his cell phone rang at the Salt Lake airport and Roxie was on the other end. Sometimes, Eli knew, you couldn’t avoid destiny, no matter how hard you might try.

“Rrrr … umph,”
Lilith said, watching him carefully, the white whiskers over her eyebrows twitching in concern.

Eli laughed. It seemed Lilith had been keeping an eye on him, and the sound she’d just made wasn’t a growl, really, but more of an inquiry. In the language of dogs, Eli figured Lilith had asked where they were going and what his intentions were with her owner.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” he told her. After a quick check of the road, Eli reached over Roxie’s sleeping form to rub the dog’s ear. “You’re a good girl,” he assured Lilith. “Such a very good dog.”

Roxie stirred. She mumbled something in her sleep. Carefully, Eli put his right arm around her and pulled her tight against his side as he drove. She let her head fall onto his chest. As much as he was enjoying the warm pressure of her body against his, he knew he’d have to wake her up in a few minutes. He wanted to give her enough time to be prepared when they arrived at the ranch. Eli knew his mother and sister would spy the truck coming from a mile off, and they’d likely be waiting in front of the house like sentinels.

That wasn’t the kind of thing you should spring on someone still half asleep.

He stroked Roxie’s long, silky hair and consciously focused on his breathing. Eli would face a lot of questions from his mom and Sondra. That was a given. And they’d ask who Roxie was, why he’d brought her to the ranch, and what made him change his mind about finding a girlfriend in San Francisco.

He had no idea how he’d answer.

The truth was, this was a first for him. He was kicking logic to the curb and trusting his instincts in a way he never had before. Of course it wasn’t smart to get involved with a woman who lived nine hundred miles away, let alone a woman who excited him so intensely. But something about Roxanne was making him take a leap of faith. Maybe, just maybe, this woman who hated men for a living was the one who could truly love him.
All of him.

It was funny, really. Eli was about to take the ultimate risk. He was about to start something with a woman while simply being himself. For the first time in his life. And who did he pick to bare his soul to? Roxanne Bloom, the man-eater.

He’d learned early on that his gift was more of a curse when it came to matters of the human heart. The precisely tuned antenna at the core of him—his basic nature—made him highly sensitive to the energy of other living things. It was what had led him to become a dog whisperer. And it was what turned his relationships with women into complicated messes, or worse.

He’d never been able to fall in love. Not all the way. If what he sensed about a woman didn’t feel exactly right, he couldn’t move forward. That was the problem with Tamara, like every woman he’d ever been involved with, though he tried for three years to turn it into something it wasn’t.

Tamara was sure and steady, deeply spiritual. They had a lot in common professionally—she was an equine vet who specialized in traumatized horses. But Eli had never felt they created anything unique when they were together. He had never felt their union had a life of its own, its own force. He had never felt like they fit together.

He glanced down at Roxie again, shaking his head in wonder. Roxie was another story. She seemed all wrong for him on the outside—pissed off and suspicious and full of anxiety. But they clicked somewhere deep down, where it mattered. When he was with her, he felt a profound sense of joy. He knew she felt it, too. Their attraction was so powerful that every time they’d met in the last year they’d ended up doing the same dance. They’d circle around one another cautiously, sniffing, ears pricked to catch the faintest sound, eyes trained on each other’s slightest movement. But that was as far as it ever went—until now.

He let a handful of her hair slide through his fingers, watching it reflect the evening sun like a mirror, thinking that the only real explanation he could give his mom and Sondra—or himself—was that he’d brought Roxanne here because he had to. He had to see what would happen once they spent time alone. With no distractions. He had to allow this fascination to unfold. Thank God the ranch had plenty of open space for the explosion to occur. His as well as hers.

“Roxie, you better wake up.” Eli pulled her tighter to him, then rubbed his hand up and down her upper arm. She grumbled again in her sleep but didn’t move. Eli bent down and kissed the top of her head, inhaling the soft scent of her hair and skin. “Roxie?”

“What!”
She popped up so fast that the top of her head cracked into the underside of Eli’s jaw.

He let her go and began feeling his face for anything broken or dislodged.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry!” Roxie placed her hand on top of his. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“No problem,” he muttered, moving his jaw back and forth until a loud pop filled the cab of the truck.

Roxie collapsed, leaning her head back against the front seat. “You’re going to look like you’ve gone six rounds with Mike Tyson by the time we get there.”

Eli laughed. “And to think, it was just a couple of days with the Bloom girls.”

Lilith began licking Roxie’s face, happy to see her owner awake. Roxie stroked her until she sat quietly at her side. “So where are we?” she asked, looking out the windows.