T
he rain was pouring down on the Palm Springs desert in biblical proportions the night he stalked into the spa's small bar. He was a big man, tall, brawny, the harsh planes of his face unsoftened by his wet, dark hair. Clint Eastwood minus forty years and plus forty pounds of pure muscle. Water dripped from the hem of his ankle-length black slicker to puddle on the polished marble floor beside his reptilian-skinned cowboy boots.

She flashed on one of the lessons her father had drilled into her.
A girl as beautiful as you and with a name like yours should always be on guard for the snake in Paradise
.

And as the stranger took another step forward, Eve Caruso heard a distinctive hiss.

The sound had come from her, though, the hiss of a
quick, indrawn breath, because the big man put every one of her instincts on alert. But she'd also been taught at the school of Never Showing Fear, so she pressed her damp palms against the thighs of her tight white jeans, then scooted around the bar.

“Can I help you?” she asked, positioning her body between him and the lone figure seated on the eighth and last stool.

The stranger's gaze flicked to Eve.

She'd attended a casual dinner party earlier that eveningâescorted by her trusty tape recorder so she wouldn't forget a detail of the meal or the guest list, which would appear in her society columnâand hadn't bothered to change before taking on the late shift in the Kona Kai's tiny lounge. Her jeans were topped with a honey-beige silk T-shirt she'd belted at her hips. Around her neck was a tangle of turquoise-and-silver necklaces, some of which she'd owned since junior high. Her cowboy boots were turquoise too, and hand-tooled. Due to pressing financial concerns, she'd recently considered selling them on eBayâand maybe she still would, she thought, as his gaze fell to the pointy tips and her toes flexed into involuntary fetal curls.

He took in her flashy boots, then moved on to her long legs, her demi-bra-ed breasts, her shoulder-blade-length blonde hair and blue eyes. She'd been assessed by a thousand men, assessed, admired, desired, and since she was twelve-and-a-half years old, she'd been unfazed by all of them. Her looks were her gift, her luck, her tool, and tonight, a useful distraction in keeping the dark man from noticing the less showy but more famous face of the younger woman sitting by herself at the bar.

Eve placed a hand on an empty stool and gestured
with the other behind her back.
Get out, get away,
she signaled, all the while keeping her gaze on the stranger and letting a slow smile break over her face. “What would you like?” she asked, softly releasing the words one by one into the silence, like lingerie dropping onto plush carpeting.

“Sorry, darlin', I'm not here for you,” he said, then he and his Southern drawl brushed past her, leaving only the scent of rain and rejection in their wake.

Eve froze inâshock? dismay? fear?
“I'm not here for you.”

What the hell was up with that? Granted, life hadn't been going her way lately, but though she knew not to depend on men, surely she could depend upon their reactions! Blonde hair and blue eyes, long legs and big breastsâ¦they'd never failed her before.

What did it mean? What was the world coming to? Rain in the desert. Men underwhelmed by her beauty. Next the dead would rise from their graves. A shiver rippled down her spine. Come to think of it, just a few weeks before that had actually happened.

“What the hell are you doin'?”

The sound of the man's next words released Eve from her paralysis. She spun around, but his wide shoulders blocked her view of the person he was speaking to. Eve could imagine her, though, huddling in her corner, big-eyed, her broken arm hugged tight against her thin body. She remembered the feeling herself, she remembered feeling lost and helpless as the darkness closed in, squeezing the air from her lungs, choking her throat. Her first experience with the claustrophobia that could still make her cower.

Then the light, the voice.
“What a pretty girl. I'd never hurt you.”

“Well?”

The man's impatient tone banished the memory, and Eve's pulse skittered. A second shiver bolted down her spine.
Move,
she ordered herself. Get between them again.

Or get out,
her weaker self reasoned.
You're no Wonder Woman, we both know that. Do what you do best
.

Look out for #1
.

Trapped by indecision, Eve heard the scrape of the barstool's legs and tensed. If Jemima Cargill decided to run for it, Eve would be right behind her. The Clint-clone looked that dangerous.

The younger woman's fingers gripped the man's slicker sleeve and yanked him forward. “Oh, sod off, Nash,” she berated in a soft, pseudo-British voice, “and sit down and have a beer.”

To Eve's surprise, he merely grumbled, then obeyed. Jemima Cargill, Hollywood's latest and greatest waif-actress, looked over her shoulder, all enormous dark eyes and sharp pointed chin. “Would you mind serving the dope a drink?”

Eve obeyed too, moving around to the other side of the bar, her wariness easing a little now that the big man was sitting down, even though he couldn't look less dopey as he narrowed his eyes at the young woman seated beside him. “Don't mess with me, Jem. I've been doing the whole trains, planes, and automobiles thing for the last”âhe squinted down at the watch on his burly wristâ“thirty-eight hours.”

“I didn't call for the cavalry,” Jemima answered, her British accent evaporating into her usual California-speak. “As you can see, I'm just fine.”

He relaxed against the back of his stool as Eve set the draft beer down in front of him. His voice changed
too, still good ol' boy slow but now more frustrated. “Is that right? Then why is your arm in purple plaster and why is Allison sending faxes all across Europe insisting I play bodyguard?”

“Because she's an overprotective stage mother who's on her honeymoon and, shock of all shockers, she actually might love her new husband enough not to end it early.”

Shaking his head, the man reached for his beer and then paused, staring at the wineglass in front of Jemima Cargill. “Tell me that's ginger ale.”

The actress rolled her eyes.

“You're underage.” The man swung his head toward Eve and pinned her with his gaze. His eyes were an eerie, almost-clear gray. “Ma'am, you're serving a minor.”

“Ma'am”?
First, “I'm not here for you” and now, “ma'am”?

“I'll be twenty-one in two weeks,” Jemima put in. She glanced over at Eve. “In case you haven't figured it out, this is my big brother, Nash Cargill. On the monster-truck circuit, you won't be surprised to learn, his nickname is The Preacher. Nash, this is one of the spa owner's daughters, Eve Caruso, whoâ”

“Eve Caruso? Allison mentioned the name.” Suddenly, he was really looking at her, and there was hellfire and brimstone in The Preacher's eyes, though his voice stayed as country boy laidback as before. “You're the one whose tell-all society column spilled my little sister's whereabouts.”

Jemima rolled her eyes again, then offered up to Eve an apologetic smile followed by a little shrug. “Preacher, meet the Party Girl.”

In the morning, juice and lattes were served at the Kona Kai's bar. Eve picked up her doubleshot and took it through the French doors into the small dining room where guests were served breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the appropriate hours. It was early, so the only two seated were her half sisters, ensconced at a glass-topped table in the corner. TÃ©a, four months older than Eve, looked radiant but frazzled, the same way she'd been looking since her recent engagement. The three had been meeting two mornings a week, ostensibly to help TÃ©a with the details of her upcoming wedding.

As if their older sister would let a single one of them go.

TÃ©a's straightened hair was already starting to wave at the ends as she tucked the dark mass behind her ears and bent over a mile-long to-do list. Joey, two years younger, was tapping a white envelope against the glass tabletop in an annoying, impatient tattoo.

Eve stood where she was, waiting out the inevitable before joining them. It only took another ninety seconds.

Joey continued to tap. “Stop what?”

Joey's eyebrows rose. “Whatâ? Oh.” She let the envelope drop to the table and started drumming on the glass with her fingertips instead. “Sorry.”

“Oh.” Joey stared down at her hand and then flattened it, obviously forcing it to stop moving. “Sorry again.”

Now with Joey more subdued, Eve moved forward with a smile, her mood lightening. Maybe her world
wasn't so messed up after all, not when the Caruso sisters were as predictable as ever. Busy interior designer TÃ©a, the responsible, good-girl oldest sister, who had only finally loosened up after falling in love and becoming engaged to Johnny Magee. Impulsive, always moving Joey, who threw her bottomless energy in a dozen directions, including a successful career in the family's one legitimate business, the gourmet food company La Vita Buona.

Eve supposed they saw the same girl they always had when they looked at her, too. The blonde in the middle of their tight brunette circle. The social sisterâfirst to date, first to French kiss, first to discover the power of being female. She made a living by writing her “Party Girl” column, which ran in the Palm Springs daily, as well as articles for the Southern California luxury magazine
Wealth
. Starting next month she was going to be blogging on a new entertainment website, HipPop.com. Along with her investments, it should have been enough to keep her in classic clothes and trendy accessories, but then she'd taken a stupid, greedy risk.

Still, as Eve slipped into a seat at the table, she felt almost normal for the first time since October, when, in the same week that their missing father had been confirmed dead after sixteen years, she'd received an unexpected phone call from her stockbroker, followed by an even more unpleasant one from the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Good morning,” she said to her sisters.

Still perusing her list, TÃ©a
mmm
'ed and Joey continued frowning down at her hand, as if daring it to move. More of Eve's tension eased, including a nagging knot between her shoulders. Yes, she could believe her life
was getting back on track. It really was. She glanced out the windows at the sheets of rain, refusing to see the strange climate change as a bad omen. “How about this weather?”

Joey looked up, then her gaze jumped over Eve's head, her eyes widening. “How about that man?”

The knot between Eve's shoulders jerked tight once more. She kept her gaze forward. “What man?”

Eve set her jaw. “What big man?”

“He's hot in one of those I-could-break-you-in-half-with-a-snap-of-my-fingers kind of ways. Check him out,” Joey urged, “before he turns around andâuh-oh.”

“Uh-oh, what?” The knot twisted tighter.

“Uh-oh you can't look now,” her younger sister said. “He's coming in here.”

“Tell me he's not coming to our table,” Eve whispered, her fingers clutching her latte. Speaking of omens, she'd ended the night before with Mr. Break-You-in-Half-with-a-Snap-of-His-Fingers, and she didn't think it was a good one to begin the day with too. She didn't like big men, not that she'd ever let them know it.

Eve tried shrugging off the new sense of disquiet he'd brought with him into the room. “That's Jemima Cargill's brother. He arrived last night and he happens to think I'm the devil incarnate.”

Joey snorted. “Right. And you with all your angel looks.”

“He does.” Last night, Jemima had apologized for his behavior before towing him off to register for a
room, but he hadn't looked the least bit apologetic to Eve. “It seems he blames me for her broken arm.”

“I thought you actually moved her out of the way of that oncoming car,” Joey said. “She tripped and fell all by her itty-bitty self.”

“Shh,” Eve said. At dusk a week before, she'd encountered the actress a block away from the spa. As they'd stood chatting, an oncoming car had swerved on the narrow, sidewalkless street, coming straight for them. Eve had pulled herself and the younger woman out of the way. “It was an accident. Jemima and I both believe it was nothing more than that.”

Except the incident
had
left an odd aftertaste in Eve's mouth, which was why she'd been so apprehensive when Nash Cargill had walked into the bar the night before. She frowned down at the layer of froth on her latte. “Apparently Jemima's mother called on Big Bad Brother to look over the situation. To look over
me
.”

Her younger sister began to rise. “Well, I'll just straighten himâ”

“No, Joe.” Eve put her hand on her arm, though the unswerving loyalty would make a softer woman cry. “I can handle my own problems.” TÃ©a and Joey and their mother, Bianca, had done enough for her over the years. They'd been her family since she was three years old, when her father, Salvatore CarusoâJoey and TÃ©a's father tooâhad brought home his daughter by his dead mistress to be raised by his wife. Eve owed them, not the other way around.

“Forget it. Let's talk about something else.”

Her older sister paused. “If you say so.” Then she sipped from her own coffee. “How's the home-hunting going?”

BOOK: The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men

13.73Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads