Paradise County (41 page)

That was like telling somebody fine, yes, sure you can marry the handsome prince—if you can squeeze your size-eleven foot into this size-three glass slipper.

A quarter million in cash. He didn’t see how he could make that happen. If he sold everything he owned—not that it was debt-free or anything, because it wasn’t—he didn’t think he could realize that.

And then he and the kids would have to live while he struggled to make it work.

He’d gotten back from that meeting just in time to make a quick round of the horses, shower, change clothes, and head, with Josh, for the pep rally.

By the time he’d climbed into that hay wagon with the team, he’d been about as down as he’d ever felt in his life.

Then Alex had come aboard, and literally fallen into his lap.

And he’d found the silver lining to his gray cloud, the one bright spot in a very bad day.

Just having her in his arms had worked better than any medicine he’d ever tried. By the end of that hayride, if he hadn’t forgotten all about the shocks of the day, he’d at least been able, for a while, to push them aside.

Now, as he pulled her into the woods, Alex was the only thing on his mind.

Juvenile. That was the best way to describe how he was behaving, Joe thought with a quick inner grin as he towed Alex along the nearly pitchdark
path he remembered so well that he could have followed it blindfolded. He’d been pulling girls out of pep rallies and into this woods since he was in elementary school. Lots of pep rallies, lots of girls. He knew all the good spots.

He wasn’t the only one, either, judging from the flashes of movement he glimpsed under trees on both sides. Kids making out in the woods—it was a story as old as teenagers themselves.

The only problem was, he was now thirty-frigging-seven years old. And making out in the woods was a mild description for what he had in mind.

“Hey, you up there! Where’s the fire?” Alex sounded amused and faintly breathless at the same time. Her voice was low and husky, just barely audible over the sounds of the party behind them and the closer rustling of the woods.

Even listening to her voice with its faint Northern accent made him hard.

“I don’t know about you,” he replied over his shoulder, “but I’d just as soon get out of sight before somebody sees us and decides to come with us on our walk.”

Joe slowed down all the same, in deference to her high heels, which, if truth were told, might be impractical footgear for a pep rally but were, nevertheless, sexy as hell. Actually, everything she had on was sexy as hell, from the skinny black pants that made her legs look impossibly long and shapely to the sweater that clung like a second skin to her breasts and was so soft to the touch that, in the wagon, it had been all he could do to keep his hands where they belonged.
Deliver me from temptation
should have been the theme of that hayride. Sitting there with her pressed against his privates had been the worst kind of hell—and heaven. His arms hadn’t shaken like that since he was seventeen years old.

It had also taught him something: Trying to protect himself from Alex Haywood was a waste of time. He was already in about as deep as it was possible to get.

The path was too narrow to permit them to walk side by side, so she was trailing behind him, hanging on to his hand. Her hand was slender
and long-fingered, with cool, soft skin. He burned when he remembered what her hands had felt like moving over him.

“Is that what we’re doing? Going for a walk?” The hint of amusement in her voice almost made him walk faster again.

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh. I see. Do you often walk in the woods in the pitch dark?”

“Not often, no.” Actually, the last time he’d pulled a girl into these woods he’d been eighteen. After that he had graduated to making love in more private, and comfortable, surroundings.

“But you do know where you’re going, right? I’d hate to get lost in here—or walk off a cliff.” She did sound a little worried, he thought, and smiled wryly to himself. Walking off a cliff was definitely not on tonight’s agenda.

“I know where I’m going.”

“Joe, I think I saw somebody over there under the trees.” Her voice had dropped to a scared whisper.

“Hmm.”

“Really.”
The single word, still whispered, was urgent.

“Probably just some kids.”

“Why would kids be out here in the woods? All the action’s up by the bonfire—oh.”

That small
oh
as revelation struck made him smile again. “Yeah, oh.”

He found the now badly overgrown turnoff he had been looking for, took it, and, finally, stepped around a thicket of blackberry brambles that effectively boxed off a grotto containing a picnic table, a pair of wooden park benches, and a concrete statue of a dog with a basket of flowers in its mouth from the rest of the woods. A quick glance around told him that he and Alex were alone.

Good. He would have hated to have had to run off a pair of lip-locked kids.

“Joe …”

Before she could complete the thought, he swung her around in front of him and backed her up against the trunk of the towering elm that kept this spot cool and dark even on the hottest, brightest summer day. His
hands curved around her upper arms through the down-filled channels of his coat. He hadn’t even missed the garment, and no wonder. On the wagon ride over, she’d made him so hot he would have sold his soul for a bucket of ice water to dump over his head. The way he felt right now, he might never cool down.

She was looking up at him. There was just enough moonlight sifting down through the barren canopy of branches overhead to allow him to see the shadowy shape of her face. Delicate bones, wide blue eyes, the lushest, sexiest mouth it had ever been his pleasure to see. He slid his hand beneath the pale curtain of her hair to rest against the side of her neck. His thumb caressed the silky skin of her cheek.

She shivered beneath his touch.

“Remember what we were talking about just before we got off the hay wagon?” His voice was husky. It was, he discovered, an effort to pause long enough to talk, but there was something he needed to say.

“About Paul?” Her voice was soft, unmistakably short of breath—but still full of sass.

“About someone new in your life,” he said with the merest hint of an edge. “Honey, you’ve got yourself a volunteer.”

Then he kissed her. Her lips trembled and parted at the first touch of his, and her arms came up to wrap around his neck. His coat slid, unlamented, from her shoulders to the ground.

Her mouth was just like he remembered: warm, and wet, and incredibly sweet. God, he’d been having fantasies day and night about the taste of her mouth!

About the taste of all of her.

Thirty-seven

A
lex was trembling as his arms came around her, under her blazer, strong enough to crush the breath from her lungs if he chose, pulling her tight against him. His body was big and warm and hard with muscle, and she reveled in the feel of him as her breasts flattened against his chest and she wrapped her arms around his neck. One hand slid down her spine to curve over her buttocks, bringing her hard against the bulge in the front of his jeans.

She moaned, and wriggled even closer, pressing against him with unashamed need. She wanted him naked and all over her and inside her—and she didn’t want to wait.

The hard arms holding her close to him began to shake.

He lifted his head then, breaking the kiss, drawing in a sharp breath.

“See what you do to me? My arms haven’t shaken like this since I was a kid.” His voice was a near whisper, husky, dark, and unbearably sexy.

“I like it when your arms shake.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

With hungry urgency, she went up on tiptoe to press her lips to the warm prickly skin on the underside of his jaw. His breath caught, and
then he slid both hands beneath her bottom and picked her clear up off her feet.

“Joe …”

“Shh.”

His mouth found hers again even as he swung her around, his hands moving from the cheeks of her bottom down along her thighs until her legs, at his urging, wrapped around his waist.

He lifted his mouth from hers.

“Remember the kitchen, when you were sitting on the countertop trying to wrap your legs around my waist?” He was walking with her.

“Mm-hm.” Clinging to him, she was busy kissing his neck.

“Walking away from that almost killed me.”

“Your own fault.”

His mouth found hers again as he set her down on the picnic table that she had just glimpsed in the seconds after he had pulled her around the briars, then bent over her until her back was against the hard cold wood. Her legs were locked around his waist, her arms around his neck. The table was bearing her weight; she could feel the small gaps between the boards through her clothes. He was leaning over her, lying almost on top of her, with the bulge in his pants grinding hard and deep against her crotch. Burning up with passion, her nails digging into the back of his neck, her hips moving in hungry answer to his thrusts, she had to pull her mouth free of his just to breathe. His mouth was scalding hot as it trailed wet kisses along her cheek and down her neck.

“What do you say we try that kitchen thing again?” he murmured in her ear.

“Oh, God, Joe.” She arched against him helplessly, weak with hunger for him, absolute putty in his hands as his mouth moved down to find her breast. Her hands gripped his shoulders as he pressed his mouth against her there. Then he was pulling up her sweater and her bra, pushing them out of his way, and closing his teeth around her already pebble-hard nipple, biting her gently. She gasped at the sharp pleasure-pain of it. His hand slid down between their bodies to find the button that closed her pants… .

“Give me a toke, would you?”

The voice probably wouldn’t have penetrated the fog Alex was lost in if it hadn’t been close—and familiar. Joe must have heard it at the same time, because his head came up.

“I didn’t think you smoked dope.” The second voice was higher pitched, coquettish, and even more horribly familiar.

“You must be thinking about somebody else.” The first voice again.

A giggle was the response.

“What the hell …” Joe muttered, lifting himself off her and yanking her clothes back into place. Still slightly dazed but appreciating the urgency of the situation, Alex slid off the picnic table. She was decent and standing beside Joe when the tall, shadowy figure that was Eli came into view around the blackberry bush. Behind him, holding his hand, was Neely. Eli was, unmistakably, taking a drag on a joint as he stepped into view. The red glowing tip grew brighter as he inhaled. The sickly sweet smell of marijuana wafted through the air.

“What the hell … !” This time Joe’s voice was louder as he stared in horror at his son. Eli stopped dead, the hand holding the joint falling and the joint itself dropping to the ground.

“Oh, shit!” Neely said, and dropped something too. A can, which rolled toward the side of the clearing. The scent of beer joined the smell of pot as the can’s contents spilled out.

“Dad!” Eli’s voice was a croak. He must have glanced down and seen the still burning joint, because he stepped on it, and pulled his hand from Neely’s at the same time.

For an instant there was an appalled silence as adults and teens stared at each other.

“What are you
doing?”
Joe said to his son, as if he couldn’t believe what he indubitably had seen. “What the
fuck
do you think you’re doing?”

“Dad …” There was anguish in Eli’s voice now.

“It was my stuff,” Neely said defiantly. “All Eli did was take a drag. The beer was mine, too.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Joe bit off, barely sparing Neely a glance. His attention was focused almost exclusively on Eli.

“Neely!” Alex groaned.

“Dad!” This was another voice, a more distant voice, calling Joe: Josh.

“All right, give me the stuff.” Joe held out his hand, palm up, toward the kids. “Whatever you’ve got. Right now.”

“Dad!” Josh’s voice was closer, coming down the path, and urgent.

“Dad, I’m
sorry,”
Eli said.

“Give me the stuff.” Joe’s voice was low, ugly.

“Dad!” Josh was yelling.

“Here.” Neely pulled something from her bag and slapped it—a Baggie with something in it, Alex saw—into Joe’s palm. In the dark, Alex couldn’t be sure about its contents, but she was prepared to make a guess. “It’s mine, I told you. Not Eli’s.”

“Oh, Neely!” Alex moaned. For the moment, at least, there just didn’t seem to be anything else to say.

“All right, march. Both of you. Back to the field. Damn it to hell anyway, Eli, I never would’ve believed … I said march! Josh wouldn’t be looking for me if it wasn’t important.”

Stuffing the Baggie into his pocket, Joe caught Alex’s hand, pulling her after him as he followed the silent figures of Neely and Eli from the clearing. At the last minute Alex remembered Joe’s coat. It had fallen to the ground beside the elm tree. She snatched it up, clutching it in one hand as Joe stepped around the briars and out onto the path.