Читать книгу Kiss Me - Susan Mallery, Susan Mallery - Страница 11

CHAPTER FOUR

“GET READY, TOMMY,” Lucy Sax told her brother. She kept her voice down, like Mrs. Fortier was always telling her, only this time it wasn’t to keep from getting on Mr. Fortier’s nerves. She spoke quietly so that no one could hear them.

Her brother shook his head. “I don’t wanna.”

Lucy planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You have to. I can’t do it—I’m not any good. You’re the best, Tommy. And you know we need the money.”

Tommy, ten and older than Lucy by two years, shook his head again. “It’s wrong.”

Lucy already knew that boys were more important, more special, than girls, but she didn’t get that at all. From her viewpoint, boys weren’t very bright. Wanting or not wanting didn’t have anything to do with it. Need mattered more.

They stood close together by the vending machines in the brightly lit bowling alley. Sound exploded all around them, from the smash of a ball crashing into the pins to the buzzing and beeping of the video games to the frantic laughter of desperate children.

Lucy glanced past her brother to all the nervous couples bowling with children they didn’t know and would never adopt. She hated coming to the social events. What was the point? No one was ever going to adopt her or Tommy.

For a long time she’d hoped they would get new parents. She’d agreed to wear her best dress, to smile and be polite. Until one day she’d overheard some adults talking about her and Tommy.

“Mongrels,” the man had said. “Not white, not black, not Hispanic.” He’d turned to his pretty pale-skinned wife and reminded her that they wanted to adopt a white or Hispanic child.

Lucy had saved her tears until she was in bed and no one would see. Then she’d given in to the sorrow. At the next social event, she’d concentrated on charming the African-American couples, but they didn’t seem any more interested in mongrel children. It was then that she realized she and Tommy were never going to find a home. They had each other, and that was all that mattered.

Now she glared at her brother. “I’m going to start doing cartwheels right now,” she told him. “While everyone is watching me, you’re going to take the money.”

He nodded, looking miserable. For a second Lucy felt bad about making him do it, but then she thought about all the times Mrs. Fortier sent them to bed without supper. It was one of her favorite punishments. Lucy had heard her talking to a friend once; Mrs. Fortier had said that at the end of the day, she liked her peace and quiet.

So Lucy and Tommy needed the money for food, and sometimes for clothes. She kept track of every penny, and they never spent it on candy or toys. She was saving, too, so that when they were bigger they could run away together.

But that was for later. Right now she had a plan.

After smoothing her hair, she marched to the front of the bowling lanes. She waited until Tommy was in position, then she smiled so wide her cheeks hurt and started doing cartwheels. Everyone turned to watch. On her third one, she deliberately fell. She’d misjudged the distance and really slammed her knee into the hardwood floor. It wasn’t hard to force out a few tears.

Instantly all the adults crowded around her. Lucy did her best to look small and hurt. From the corner of her eye, she saw Tommy moving toward the purses.

* * *

“HEL-LO, GORGEOUS.”

Phoebe looked around as she stepped out of Zane’s truck. Standing next to the passenger door was a tall teenager with bright, inquisitive eyes and a welcoming smile. He looked enough like Adam Levine to make it easy for her to guess his identity.

“You must be Chase,” she said.

“In the flesh. And you’re Phoebe.” He looked her over from head to toe, then sighed. “Maya said a lot of great things about you, but she never mentioned you were a goddess.”

The outrageous compliment made Phoebe laugh. “Hardly,” she protested, knowing that with her brown hair, brown eyes and unspectacular features she was little more than average.

“My heart is pounding a mile a minute,” Chase said, moving closer. “Want to feel?”

The driver’s-side door slammed shut. “Don’t you have chores?” Zane growled.

Chase took a step back, and his smile cranked down about 50 percent.

“All done. Even the extra ones you gave me. I got started early so I could be finished to welcome Phoebe.” Keeping a wary eye on his brother, he swept his arms open wide. “Here it is. Several thousand acres of Nicholson family ranch. Nicholsons have owned this land for five generations.”

She looked around at the rolling hills that stretched out to the horizon. They were a mere fifteen minutes outside of Fool’s Gold, but the only signs of civilization were two wind-power generators on a hill miles away. A two-story ranch house sprawled out on her left. To the right were several barns and corrals. Trees crested the nearest hill. In the distance she could see cattle. Lots of cattle.

“Amazing,” she said honestly.

“If you’re so fired up about playing host,” Zane said, his expression both fierce and closed, “I’ll let you take care of her luggage and show her to her room.”

He put his hat on his head, nodded once at Phoebe and stalked away.

She stared after him for a second. He looked as good from the back as he had from the front. Her hormones yelled out catcalls of appreciation which—fortunately—only she could hear. But however impressed she might be with him, Zane obviously didn’t return her feelings. He practically burned rubber in his haste to get away.

Chase brightened the second Zane was gone. “How was the drive?” he asked as he walked around to the other side of the truck and pulled her suitcases out from behind the driver’s seat where Zane had placed them.

“Good.”

“Did Zane talk?”

Phoebe glanced at him, not sure of the question.

Chase hoisted her luggage with the same ease Zane had shown and started for the house.

“He’s not much of a talker,” he explained as he walked. “I can’t figure out if the act of forming words is physically painful, or if he just doesn’t have anything to say.”

She thought about the drive from the airport. “Things started out well,” she admitted. “Then we sort of stalled about twenty minutes into the drive.”

Yup—nothing like asking about bull sperm to shut down a conversational exchange.

“Twenty minutes, huh?” Chase glanced back at her over his shoulder and grinned. “I’m impressed. Most people get a grunt. He must really like you.”

Phoebe laughed again. “Yeah. He was so overpoweringly impressed he couldn’t wait to get away.”

She followed Chase up the front steps onto a wide porch that seemed to wrap around the whole house. While the teenager had a long way to go before he was as hunky as his older brother, he was still pretty impressive. Good-looking, funny, easy to talk to.

“I’ve been had,” she muttered more to herself than to him.

“What do you mean?”

“Maya got me out here early by implying you were neglected and pitiful all on your own. I thought I was going to be rescuing a lost waif.”

Chase winked. “I am. Can’t you tell? Zane practically keeps me chained up in my room.”

“Uh-huh. I’m all in tears over your broken spirit.”

Chase chuckled, then led the way into the house. They entered a large foyer that opened up into a living room big enough to hold an international peace conference. The furniture—chintz-covered chairs and a matching dark red sofa—wasn’t new, but it looked cared for and comfortable. Several other rooms led off the foyer, but Chase headed for the stairs, and Phoebe was forced to follow. She told herself there would be plenty of time to explore later, and the house would be worth the wait.

Even the little bit she could see was amazing. She’d never seen anything like the intricately carved stair rail, and she’d been in plenty of million-dollar-plus mansions. Old photographs lined the stairway wall, and she caught glimpses of black-and-white pictures of multiple generations of men who looked nearly as handsome as Zane.

At the top of the stairs, the landing led both left and right. Chase went right and stopped in front of a door at the end of the hall.

“You’re in Maya’s old room,” he said. “There are two beds. Normally you wouldn’t have to share, but with everyone else arriving, we’re a little tight on space.”

For the second time since she’d met him, Phoebe saw the humor fade from Chase’s eyes. His mouth twisted slightly.

“I don’t mind if Maya doesn’t,” she said. “Plus, I’m here first, so I get to pick the good bed, right?”

Chase’s smile returned. “Right.”

He pushed open the door and carried her suitcases inside. Phoebe followed. The room was large and bright, done in various shades of lavender. A pansy-print wallpaper decorated the walls from the white chair rail up, with lavender paint on the bottom half. Two beds sat on either side of a big window covered with crisp white curtains. There was a dresser topped with a TV against one wall, two doors on another and a second window on a third.

“There’s a bathroom in there,” Chase said, setting her luggage on one of the beds. “The other door is the closet.”

“It’s great.”

“Want to see my room?”

Chase might be seventeen, but at that moment, he looked about ten. She nodded.

“I’d love to.”

“Sweet.”

He led her back down the hall to a room just off the stairs. Phoebe stepped into a messy room with a full-size bed, a massive computer and more electronic equipment than she’d ever seen outside of a Best Buy. Dials glowed, lights flashed, boxes beeped. Circuit boards lay scattered like so many discarded toys.

Chase sank into the only chair in the room and began typing on the keyboard.

“A couple of my friends and I are working on some really great special effects on the computer. You know, for websites. We’re also working on a robot, but it’s not going that great. I think the main problem is in the programming, but it’s hard to tell because everything else is screwed up, too.”

He finished typing and pushed back from the desk. Phoebe stepped forward and saw a three-dimensional swirling object on the screen. Chase handed her a pair of 3-D glasses. When she slipped them on and stared at the screen, the spiraling blob seemed to leap out at her.

“I like it,” she said, handing the glasses back.

He grinned and rose. “I have a baseball I caught when Zane took me to San Francisco a couple of years ago. It was a fly ball, bottom of the third. Dodgers against the Giants.”

He picked up the ball from a shelf above his bed and held it out for her inspection.

“Wow.”

“There’s also the—”

“I doubt Phoebe wants to see your entire collection of treasures right now.”

At the sound of Zane’s voice, they both jumped and turned toward the door. Phoebe had a bad feeling that she looked guilty...mostly because she felt that way. Which was crazy. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

Zane stood leaning against the doorway, his arms folded over his chest. He looked strong and unmovable. Maya’s claims about Chase’s broken spirit didn’t hold water when compared with the teenager’s outgoing personality, but Phoebe couldn’t help wondering what Zane was thinking as he studied his brother.

“Is your room all right?” Zane asked her.

She nodded. “Everything is great.”

“Maya wants me to take you to dinner in town.” He glanced at his watch.

Feel the love, she thought, not sure if she should call him on his lack of graciousness. “You don’t have to.”

“It’s fine.”

“Can we go to Margaritaville?” Chase asked. “I could go for nachos.”

“What you could go for even more is staying home and finishing cleaning all the guest rooms. There’s a pizza in the freezer. Elaine Mitchell’s going to pick up the greenhorns and Maya on Friday and bring them out to the ranch in her tourist van. You’ve got a lot of work to do before they get here.”

“But—”

Zane cut him off with a look, then turned back to Phoebe. “Meet me downstairs in an hour.”

Phoebe knew a dismissal when she heard one. Due to the fact that she was an uninvited stranger who had shown up with little warning, she didn’t feel that she was in a position to complain.

She gave Chase a quick smile, then moved toward the door. Zane stepped out of the way to let her pass. As she walked by him, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up and swayed in salutation.

* * *

WHEN PHOEBE LEFT her room an hour later, she could hear Chase singing in a bedroom down the hall. She smiled. He was such a cheerful kid, a pure-hearted spirit. Forced to stay home and do chores, he’d decided he might as well make them fun.

She was a little nervous about spending the evening alone with his big brother, though. What would they talk about?

Zane was waiting for her at the base of the stairs. She stopped on the last step so that when he turned toward her, they were eye to eye.

“I’m sorry I didn’t bring anything dressier,” she said. She’d changed into white jeans and a pale, dusty purple top with an embellished scoop neckline.

His gaze traveled to her feet and back to her face. She thought maybe she read masculine appreciation in his raised brows.

“You’re fine,” he said.

So much for any appreciation. On his part, at least. “Give me a moment while I bask in the glory,” she murmured and stepped past him to the front porch and then down toward his truck.

Zane got there ahead of her. A neat trick explained by his much longer stride. He towered over her. He’d changed clothes, too, into dark blue jeans and a fitted white T-shirt that showcased his hard-earned muscles. His dark hair was still damp. An image flashed through her mind of him in the shower, water running over his broad shoulders.

He opened the door for her, then helped her into the truck. The masculine scent of his soap and shampoo wafted toward her as he climbed in beside her, making her limbs melt into the leather seat.

This felt like a date. It wasn’t, but still. Phoebe sighed. Maya had promised her a distraction, and Zane was certainly that. Too bad he didn’t seem to like her one bit.

* * *

PHOEBE WAS A little relieved when Zane didn’t park outside Margaritaville. After Chase had mentioned wanting nachos, it would seem mean to eat there. Instead she and Zane walked into a place called The Fox and Hound.

The restaurant had lots of dark wood and booths. There were English hunting prints on the wall. Campy, Phoebe thought happily, following the hostess to a booth and sliding in.

She told herself the quivering sensation she felt inside was because she was hungry and had nothing to do with the man sitting across from her. Then she felt bad for lying, if only to herself.

She took the offered menu but didn’t open it. When they were alone, she glanced at Zane.

“Do you not like me or is this just your style?”

Zane’s gaze was steady. Almost laser-like. She wanted to squirm but didn’t. Nor did she look away.

“I like you fine,” he said at last.

The low gravelly quality of his voice was so nice, she thought, before the actual words sank in. “Really?”

He sighed. “Why are you surprised?”

“You aren’t exactly welcoming. I know you’re doing all this to teach Chase a lesson, so it’s not like you asked me to visit, but you didn’t have to take me out to dinner just because Maya asked you to.”

“You didn’t have to say yes.”

“I was hungry.”

“So was I.”

* * *

ZANE KNEW THAT he and Phoebe were no longer talking about the same thing. At least not when it came to hunger. She would be thinking fish and chips, and he was thinking more along the lines of naked.

He wanted to tell himself it was simply because he was a man and she was a woman, but he knew it was more than that. As he’d admitted, he liked her. She was cute and funny. When she looked at him with her big brown eyes, he wanted to grab Tango and ride his horse into the sunset to save something for her. Talk about idiotic. He barely knew her.

Yet there was something about Phoebe Kitzke. An innocence, maybe. No, that wasn’t right. It was how she seemed trusting. More fool her. Or maybe him.

Not that it mattered. Wanting wasn’t having. She was here as Maya’s friend. Possibly to keep watch over him so he didn’t hurt Chase. Because Maya wouldn’t trust him.

“You’re looking fierce,” Phoebe said.

Her hair was long and loose. Sexy. He deliberately steered his brain away from that line of thinking.

“My sister brings out the fierce in me.”

“Because of how she’s always thinking you’re too hard on Chase?”

“Maya talks too much.”

“She says less than you think,” Phoebe told him. “It’s more what she doesn’t say. She worries about Chase.”

“Everybody does.”

Phoebe wrinkled her nose. “She worries about you, too.”

He raised a brow. “I doubt that.”

Phoebe raised her shoulders, then let them drop back into place. “Okay, maybe she doesn’t say that exactly, but I know she does. We’re friends.”

“Being friends gives you insight?”

“Of course. It’s not like being family, but it’s close.”

“Family can be a pain in the ass.”

“Maybe,” she said, “but it has to be better than being alone.”

Maybe if he didn’t feel so responsible for Chase, he would be able to enjoy his brother more. As it was, he walked that precarious line between brother and father figure. He spent half the time annoyed with some of the boy’s boneheaded decisions and the other half worried the kid was going to screw up his own life.

“An optimist.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s important to be realistic.”

She leaned toward him. “It’s important to have dreams. To see the possibilities.”

He’d believed that once, he reminded himself. Before he’d destroyed what mattered most to his father. Before he’d understood that some things were unforgivable. No matter how much a kid tried to make them right.

Their server came by to take their drink order. Phoebe asked for a glass of red wine while Zane got a beer. When they were alone again, Phoebe leaned toward him.

“Tell me about Fool’s Gold.”

“What do you want to know?”

He was expecting a question about the tourists, or the history. Instead she surprised him by asking, “What do you like best about living here?”

“It’s what I know.”

She nodded slowly. “Because you’ve lived here all your life. I get that. You have a connection with the town and the rhythm of the seasons. You probably have friends from when you were really small.”

He stared at her. “You don’t need me around for this conversation, do you?”

She laughed. “Sorry. I can get carried away.”

“That’s okay.”

“So do you have friends from when you were little?”

“Sure.”

She glanced out the window. “I like the window boxes with flowers.”

“You should see this place at Christmas.”

Her eyes brightened. “All decorated?”

“Every inch.”

“That’s so nice.” She jumped a little in her seat. “Oh, wow. Do you get snow? Are we high enough for snow?”

“There’s nearly always a white Christmas.”

He had no idea why he was trying to sell her on the town. While he liked it well enough, he wasn’t looking to join the tourist commission or whatever it was called. What did he care if Phoebe was impressed by Fool’s Gold or not? Yet he found himself wanting her to think it was special.

Which made him a fool, and for the life of him, he couldn’t say why he was bothering.

* * *

C. J. SWANSON REFUSED to look at her husband, Thad. Instead she stared out the window and tried to ignore his words. He didn’t understand...he would never understand. Yes, the problem was with both of them, but somehow she always felt guilty. As if there was something wrong with her.

“They’re just kids,” Thad was saying. “Why would you want to deprive them of this vacation?”

“Why is it my responsibility?” she asked before she could stop herself. “Why do I have to be the bad guy? It’s not my fault that the couple going with them had a death in the family. It’s not anyone’s fault.”

“C.J....” Thad reached out and touched the back of her hand.

She turned away again. “I can’t. You’re asking too much. What would be the point? We aren’t interested in them. They were horrible. That boy’s a thief, Thad. Have you forgotten? His sister is just as bad. She might not have taken the money, but I would bet you anything she put him up to it.”

“They’re just kids,” her husband said in his calm, reasonable voice. Normally she appreciated his willingness to see things clearly, without being blinded by emotion, but today he was really getting on her nerves.

“Con artists, you mean.”

C.J. tried not to sound bitter, but she didn’t think she was successful. After so many years of trying, after so many disappointments, she felt as if she had finally reached the end of the road.

She and Thad would never have children. Not their own and not any they adopted. She and her husband loved each other. They had a strong, healthy marriage. That would be enough—she would make it enough.

Beside her, Thad turned her hand over and laced his fingers with hers.

“I like them,” he said softly.

Her chest tightened. Of course he did. Because he was a good man. Because he always rooted for the underdog, whether it was in his personal life or in the courtroom. After fifteen years of practicing law, he’d been appointed to the bench where he could put all his idealistic notions into practice. Her husband, the man whom she had loved since the first moment she’d seen him seventeen years ago, would like a ten-year-old pickpocket and his con artist younger sister.

She turned her head to study his familiar features. The steady gaze of his blue eyes, the thinning blond hair worn in a conservative cut...not because he was conservative, but because he was cursed with unruly curls that made him look like an aging rock star. She visually traced the lines at the corners of his eyes and the firm set of his full mouth. He was a good man. A kind man. A man who loved her and never blamed her. He knew her better than anyone, knew what he was asking. How was she supposed to tell him no?

“All right,” she said softly. “We’ll take Lucy and Tommy on the cattle drive. One week, Thad. That’s all I’m willing to give them. Please, don’t expect to make it more.”

He smiled, then leaned forward and kissed her. “You won’t regret it.”

She didn’t answer. Instead she prayed that he was right. Between the two of them, they already had enough regrets for this lifetime.