Taste for Trouble (24 page)
Wrong.
Because
this kiss, unlike the first one, wasn’t just an exercise in excellent kissing
as performed by an expert. No, indeed. It had still broken over her head like a
rogue wave, no argument. But it was no generic, I’m-a-boy-you’re-a-girl-let’s-have-fun
sort of kiss. This time it was personal. Unequivocally so.
This
time it was
James
kissing
Bel
. Watching her, touching her,
absorbing her, cherishing her. Throw that on top of what her admittedly limited
experience with such things led her to believe were masterly skills, and Bel
was suddenly fumbling for landmarks on a previously well-lighted path. A path
that led directly to her own custom-designed happy ever after, in which Prince
Charming and the fairy godmother had been replaced by a well-diversified stock
portfolio and a whole bunch of job security.
And
that pissed her off. She’d worked herself ragged forging that path. Who the
hell was James Blake to knock her off it?
The
doorbell rang again. “Stand By Your Man.” Bel snorted in disgust. Stand by your
man, indeed. Ha. Like she was going to waste any time or energy standing by
James Blake. Hadn’t she just spent an hour this very afternoon explaining to
him that his casual, no harm/no foul, we’re all grownups here approach to sex
was wrong? That it hurt vulnerable women? What possible excuse could she have
for wanting to be one of those women?
The
doorbell rang again—“I Fall to Pieces,” fabulous—and Bel stomped out of the
kitchen. First thing in the morning she was having a come to Jesus meeting with
James and his brothers in which they would be made to understand that she was
not their damn butler. She strode down the short hallway into the soaring
foyer, still shaking her head in disgust, and pulled open the door.
Audrey
Bing stood on the porch.
“Audrey?”
She checked her watch. Ten past midnight. “What are you doing here?”
She
gave Bel a grim smile. “Can we come in?”
We
? Bel glanced down and found a suitcase at Audrey’s
knee and a little girl holding her hand. The girl gazed up at Bel, her face
round and expressionless. No, Bel realized, her heart clutching. The kid had
expression. She just didn’t have any expectations. She watched Audrey and Bel
with a dispassion that spoke of a lifetime—albeit a short one—of disappointed
expectations and adults that didn’t behave.
Bel
looked back at Audrey and saw a bewildered, hunted weariness behind the perfect
bones and the brash courage. She smiled at them both and reached for Audrey’s
suitcase.
“Of
course,” she said, leading them into the kitchen. She deposited them both on
stools on the far side of the massive island counter. Audrey sat carefully, as
if worried she might shatter if she moved too quickly. The child simply
followed.
Bel’s
heart squeezed as she put on the kettle and took out a couple of china plates. She
tore off two generous hunks of the bread wreath and reached into the fridge for
a dish of whipped honey butter she’d made up earlier. She slid the plates under
their noses.
“Eat,”
she said, keeping her voice carefully brisk, matter-of-fact. She knew exactly
how frightening overly hearty strangers were to kids with eyes like those. “I’m
going to tackle these dishes, then we’ll see about making up a room for you two.”
She ran
a sink full of hot sudsy water and slowly washed and dried her measuring cups
and spoons, her mixing bowls and loaf pans. She brushed the cornmeal off her
bread stone that still radiated warmth and comfort, and tucked it back into the
oven. Bel had some questions that surely needed answers, but getting this child
fed and into bed came first.
Then
she glanced at Audrey, whose head drooped on her slender neck like a flower
after the rain.
She’d
get her answers in the morning.
Will
missed the old days. He held the memory of them in his heart like a warm pebble,
heating him up from the inside out as he padded down the chilly stairs in the
half-light of early morning. The days when they all rolled out of bed at the
civilized hour of ten and a motherly housekeeper with a tidy British accent had
mugs of coffee steaming in their hung over hands by 10:05.
God,
he missed that housekeeper. Mrs. Brimley. Now
there
was a domestic diva.
Somebody sweet and round and unflappable. Somebody who didn’t frown or
criticize or judge or
fix
. Somebody who wouldn’t balk at meeting last
night’s stripper over this morning’s breakfast.
Somebody
who sure as hell wouldn’t go around kissing her clients. Bel could take a memo
on that one. Because whatever she’d done to James yesterday had him twisted up
but good. Good enough that he’d been up at dawn, banging around in his room for
several extremely loud minutes before finally (to Will’s everlasting relief) locating
his running shoes and trotting off down the drive.
Not
that Will believed Drew’s bullshit about love for one minute. It wasn’t love. That
was fairytale foolishness. But it
was
something. Something worrisome
enough to have a full two-thirds of the Blake brothers up well before their
preferred hour.
And
Will knew exactly where to place the blame.
Bel.
The
least she could do was be awake and in the kitchen when he got there. Preferably
with a pot of coffee already brewing, because he hated to yell at people first
thing in the morning without the benefit of caffeine.
He idly
calculated the odds of this happening as he hit each chilly step with his bare
feet. The probability that she was already awake times the probability that she
was in the kitchen times the probability that she, as a tea drinker, would have
thought to brew a pot of coffee. It wasn’t a complex equation but the results
were damned depressing.
He
pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. At this point, he’d settle
for opening the pantry and finding some Lucky Charms. The cereal shelf had
become decidedly fiber-focused since Bel’s arrival. He’d have to speak to
James’ new assistant about that.
He
smirked to himself in the dimness. Assistant. Ha. He had to hand it to James. He
had a knack for lining up the pretty women to do his bidding. Too bad he was so
twisted up over Bel. Shame to put the curvy little stripper on the back burner.
He’d take a crack at her himself except that she was what, twelve? And the fact
that he’d looked closely enough to notice had him feeling more than a little
skeevy. And every one of his thirty years.
He
slowed as he approached the island counter. A cloth-covered basket sat in the
center, with a note pinned to it that read
Eat Me
. Will squinted at
Bel’s clean, elegant printing. Obvious reference to Alice in Wonderland, yes,
but also a sneaky little kiss off to the next guy who stomped into her kitchen
looking for a fight.
Eat
me. An unwilling smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he uncovered the
basket. Bel might be a pain in the butt, but she was sharp. He’d give her that.
And,
he was suddenly willing to admit, she was damn good at what she did. The scent
of sugar and butter and cinnamon rose up and curled around him like a lover and
he helped himself to a cinnamon roll the size of his fist.
He
chewed blissfully, his mood going the same direction as his blood sugar. He was
headed for the coffee maker when a tiny noise had him turning to peer into the
shadows behind the kitchen door. When he registered what he was seeing, shock
had him accidentally swallowing an uncomfortably large chunk of half-chewed
sweet roll. Because, damn and what the hell, there was a
kid
over there.
She
sat in what Bel called the breakfast nook—a sort of built-in bench-and-table
deal in the space behind the swinging door. Nobody used it because the island
counter was so much more appealing, but she’d squirreled herself away back
there. Barricaded herself, actually. It was as if she’d made herself a little
fortress of it and stared at him from the safety of its walls.
“What
the hell?” Will said. She gazed at him with enormous eyes, the fragile bones of
her face pressed tightly against parchment paper skin, a pair of delicate hands
frozen above another of Bel’s gooey hunks of cinnamon goodness. He pressed a
fist to the wad of dough lodged in his chest and tried to think of something
more appropriate to say. Because judging from her silence, the kid wasn’t
biting on his opener.
“Who
are you?” he finally managed. It seemed like an appropriate if not particularly
polite question. “And what on God’s green earth are you doing in here?”
She
continued the silent staring but her hands flew into action like startled birds.
She folded up the edges of the paper napkin she’d been eating from, bundled
away the remains of her roll and deposited it neatly on the edge of the table,
ready for trash pickup.
Will
watched, struck. Those hands. Those skinny wrists. He frowned at her. “Do I
know you?”
She
shook her head hard and scooted off the bench.
“Hey,
wait!” Will scrambled around the island counter and caught her by one bony
elbow before she could disappear. “You’re not going anywhere. Not until you
tell me who you are and what you’re doing in my kitchen.”
She
turned and glared at him, fury and terror and hate exploding behind those giant
eyes and a shock of recognition stabbed through Will, all the way to his bare
toes.
He
wasn’t at all surprised when Audrey Bing flew through the door next, a raggedy
t-shirt skimming high on a pair of gloriously naked thighs. A t-shirt that
barely—sadly—covered her world-class backside. And yeah, Will felt like a lech
for even noticing. He ought to be several years past lusting over women who
couldn’t legally drink.
“Let
go of her!” She snatched the child out of Will’s already slack grip and glared
at him. Which made two pairs of matching violet eyes drilling him with their
laser beams of anger and dislike.
Will
held up his empty hands in surrender and backed away slowly. Audrey pressed the
kid to her chest—a pang of envy Will would have preferred to skip raced through
him at the sight—then pulled away and looked down into the child’s face. “Are
you all right, honey? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
The
kid shook her head slowly and Audrey brought a hand up to her thin cheek. “Just
scared you, then.”
The
kid glanced at Will, assessing this time. She turned back to Audrey and rolled
a shoulder as if to say
nothing serious
. Audrey tucked the kid under her
arm and turned contemptuous eyes on Will.
“Don’t
you ever,” she said, each word flash-frozen and carefully enunciated so as to
prevent any possible misunderstanding, “
ever
put your hands on this
child again.”
Will
stared at her. He’d been well aware that Audrey Bing was an ethereally,
incandescently beautiful woman. No surprises there. And while some women became
exponentially less attractive when pissed, Audrey, sadly, wasn’t one of them. Will
had learned that one first hand on a few different occasions now.
But
he’d never seen her in a killing fury before. Not like this. Logically, a woman
gunning for blood ought to put a guy off. At the very least, it ought to dampen
a smart man’s libido. And while his brain had never failed Will before, it
failed him now.
He
opened his mouth to respond but nothing fired. No words presented themselves,
no dry, cutting rejoinder the likes of which he’d always prided himself on. He
couldn’t look at her and think all at the same time. It was too much.
He
finally tore his eyes away and muttered, “I wasn’t molesting her. Jesus.” He
winced inwardly. God. Could he possibly sound any sulkier or more defensive?
“I’m
serious,” Audrey snapped. “You don’t touch her. Not for any reason.”
He
forced himself to focus on tiny imperfections in her face and figure. The
imprint of the sheet on her cheek. The weed whacker scramble of her moonlight
hair. Anything to lessen the monstrous impact of standing two feet from her
barely covered curves and the terrible beauty of her face.
“My
apologies,” he said, a deliberately mocking edge to his voice. “I wasn’t aware
that we’d experienced an infestation of free-range children over night. She surprised
me.” He shifted his gaze to the child. God, how old
was
this kid? She
was tiny but those eyes were ancient and wise and incredibly sad. “As I’m sure
I did her.”
Again,
the thin shoulder twitched up and down, an acknowledgement or possibly a
non-verbal
whatever
.
“But
I’d still like to know who she is and what exactly she’s doing here.” Will
brought his eyes back to Audrey’s, prepared this time for the breath-stealing
punch of that face of hers. “And you. Last time I checked, you were an hourly
employee. When it comes to making our lives a regimented and nutritionally
sound snoozefest, Bel has the night shift.”
Audrey
gave that same impatient shoulder twitch, one more nail in the coffin Will was
building in his head. “Things have changed. I’ll be discussing my new terms
with your brother this morning.”