A Bad Boy for Christmas (3 page)

“Well, they didn’t beat you up. They took us seriously—mind you, your face helped with that. They said they’d be in touch …”

“The oldest one wants to drown you.”

Mia grinned. “He does, doesn’t he? On the upside, he almost bonded with
you
.” She headed for their ride, a 1957 metallic-red Chevy Bel Air. Original everything except for the paint and the red interior leather, it was Nash’s latest pride and joy.

If only it had air conditioning.

“They think you’re their
sister
,” he continued, still dark with her.

“Pretty sure they don’t. And even if they do, I’ll clear that minor misunderstanding up eventually. I just wanted to give them a taste of how bad it
could
be. Peeling back to only having to accept you into the family is going to be such a relief. You’ll see.”

Nash snorted. “That’s your game plan for getting them to accept me?”

“And it’s a good one.” Confidence was her middle name.

“Remind me to leave your delicate ass back at the shop next time I go hunting long-lost family. You’re a menace.”

That was her
other
middle name. “The plan is solid.”

“No, the plan is demented. I want them to like you, Mia. You’re
my
family, and if they’ve a mind to accept me they’re going to have to accept you. You didn’t make it easy for them.”

“Yeah, well, you know me and the easy road.” She never took it. As for her and Jackson being family, that one was only as true as they wanted it to be. She’d been eight to his thirteen when they’d first met. Two foster kids kicking around in a broken system where predators flourished and vulnerability was a weakness. Nash had cut out of the foster care system as soon as he could, but not before securing a place in her mind as the best person she’d ever met. He’d kept in touch. Given her a place to stay when she’d needed one and a job when she’d had none. Kept her out of trouble whenever she headed that way.

She was proud to say that keeping her out of trouble was only a part-time job these days.

Mia opened the car door, wincing at the heat that shimmered off hot, sticky leather. All hail summer time. The engine rumbled to life and she got in fast, adjusting her voice to rise over the top of the Super Turbo Fire V8. “Do you think that’s why we’ve never screwed?” she asked.

“Do I
what
?” Nash now looked as uncomfortable as his brothers had looked earlier. Apparently she was on a roll.

“Us. You and me. We’ve never done the deed. Do you think it’s because we think of each other as family?”

“Yes,” he said firmly. “That’s exactly what I think.”

“You look just like him, wouldn’t you agree? The oldest one, back in that boatshed.”

“Mia, where’s this going?”

“Unexpected places, dude. Because I never felt the kind of instant attraction towards you that I felt towards him. You’re comfortable. He’s fireworks.”

Nash eyed her warily. “You want to bed the elder Jackson brother? The one who looks just like me? You don’t even know his name.”

“Wouldn’t have to be a bed. I bet he’s real adaptable.”

“You know
nothing
about him.”

“I know you got an apology out of him. Makes him fair-minded.”

“Mia—

“You also got an honest reaction from him. He’s easy to read. None of this wary impenetrable wall thing.”

“Since when is this a plus?”

“And I know he has no trouble delivering a smackdown and taking control of a situation when he’s had enough.”

And then there was the heat thing.

Because the minute she’d stepped through the door and he’d turned his bright gaze on her she’d felt the burn of it beneath her skin. “So all I’m saying is that I wonder why—when you’re so physically similar to him, and you being the best man I know—why, when I drive around with you all day, did I take one look at
him
and get all lustful.”

“Could be your undisputed death wish.”

“You think I should tell him I want to see him naked?”

“No!”

“You’d rather I left him alone?”

“I’d rather you thought this through.”

“Yeah,” she said on a sigh as she leaned gingerly back against the hot upholstery. “Maybe you
should
have left me at home.” She fished around in her bag for her sunglasses and slipped them on, wondering again at the reason for her insta-lust.

It had been a while since she’d felt desire for a person kick in that hard and that fast. She usually limited her lust to inanimate objects, like flawless graffiti or a fine dark roast coffee blend. Especially the coffee. “Maybe I just need to meet more seafaring types. Maybe I’m developing a thing for them.”

“Maybe you’re bored.”

“It’s true you haven’t let me paint a vehicle for a while.”

“Last time I let you paint one of my cars you put puppies on the hood.”

“They were Hounds of Hell.”

“They were
Labradors
.”

“It was a phase.”

“It was a tragedy I don’t ever care to see repeated. Why don’t you ask your new brothers if you can spray paint some of their boats?”

“I could.” Mia sat forward, the better to unstick her back from the seat. “Did you see them? The fishing trawlers and the dive boats? The yachts? There’s some serious horsepower floating around that marina. Your new family’s loaded.”

“I don’t want their money.”

They were driving down a pretty ribbon road flanked on both sides by coastal shrubbery. Give or take five more minutes and the shrubbery would give way to a winding river that ran beside the road all the way into the small seaside town of Brunswick Bay.

“So what
do
you want from them?” she asked finally. “Besides answers, which you kind of already have. The dad didn’t know about you. Your mother never told him.”

“
If
you can believe a word they say.”

“They may not have been overly welcoming, but I think they were honest in their reactions. Especially the older one. I think you can take what that one says to the bank. He is what he is, he feels what he feels, and he sees absolutely no need to change any of it.”

“Says the woman who wants to sully him.”

“
Sully?
That would imply a level of purity I really don’t think he has.”

“Enough. Before I have to start defending him.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I might. I’m definitely leaning towards having some sympathy for him. Can’t be easy trying to figure how we fit into his picture-perfect world. So cut him a break and leave him alone. He has enough to chew on.”

He did. They all did. Even Mia had some adjusting to do when it came to Nash’s new brothers and the overwhelmingly tight-knit family vibes they gave off.

“Sorry,” she said and meant it. “I’ll be on my best behavior from here on in. I won’t let the heat or my jealousy that they actually
are
related to you get to me. Cool as a cucumber here. Promise.”

Mia had wriggled her way into this road trip not because she’d thought it a good idea but because she’d thought it a bad one. Walking into a long-lost family required backup, and she was it. This situation with Nash and his father … the potential for rejection was huge and Mia didn’t want Nash to be alone when it happened. Not when he’d buried his mother three weeks ago in a graveside ceremony attended by no one apart from them.

“Do you
want
to be part of that family?” she asked. “Don’t you already have a testosterone pack back at the garage?”

Nash shrugged, his gaze never leaving the road ahead. “I just want to talk to the man who fathered me. Ask him what kind of relationship he had with my mother, why he left her. She was the way she was for a reason.”

“Yeah. Drugs.”

He shot her a swift, bleak glare. “Something had to have set her on that path. Maybe it was him. Maybe it wasn’t. I just want to know.”

“Are you really going to try and blame him for the way your mother was? Because, honestly …” Mia didn’t know how to say what she wanted to say next without hurting him. Sometimes people were beyond repair to begin with and nothing anybody did was ever going to fix them. “Your mother made her choices. Mostly they were bad ones. You couldn’t stop her. No one could.”

Nash said nothing.

Nash had loved his crack-ravaged mother, no matter what.

“Sometimes I think your heart is too big,” she said quietly.

So much room for hurt in it.

The rest of the trip passed in silence, all the way into the little township shoehorned around a pretty blue bay. Brunswick Bay boasted one pub, one workmen’s club, and a couple of blocks of tourist shops, restaurants and shabby holiday houses built in the seventies. There was a surf club and a community hall. A tiny police station and a row of tall seaside pines packed with lorikeets.

“Wonder what it’d be like in the dead of winter?” she said.

Dead, obviously. She was just trying to change the subject. “Whoa. Tattoo den at ten o’clock! Can we take a look?”

Nash nodded and turned into the angle parking outside the little shop. It wasn’t much. A blue wooden door was flanked by waist-high shopfront windows. Western-style lettering proclaimed that this was Beryl’s Tattoo and Piercing Emporium. According to the window display and the inventory outside, Beryl also dabbled in crystals, candles, driftwood, seashells and surfboards.

It was the least imposing tattoo studio Mia had ever seen. “That’s just so—so—

“Family friendly?” Nash suggested.

“I was going to say wrong, but who am I to judge?” Besides, two of the surfboards were sporting some seriously gorgeous artwork on them. Have surface will paint. Mia was all for that. She put her shoulder to the door, trying not to grin at the tinkle of tiny bells that sounded their entrance.

The voice that told them she’d be right out was gravel rough and came from beyond the macramé seashell curtain that Mia couldn’t stop looking at.

“You want one for the shop back in Melbourne.” Nash couldn’t stop his smirk. “I can tell.”

“I want ten.”

“Cutter Jackson, if you’re in here looking to get Betty Boop put on one of your brother’s asses again, you’d better be ready to pay up,” the whisky-rough voice reached them again. “Because one of these days I’m going to put one on yours and let you wear the consequences.”

Cutter? Mia blinked and shot Nash a glance.

Cutter
Jackson
?

“You think that’s our mystery brother?” she whispered. “No wonder he never told us his name. Who the hell calls their kid Cutter? Bad, bad people, dude.” And then louder so that all could hear, “I don’t think Betty would do a butt that fine justice. The man needs a Tweety Bird.”

“You’d never get the yellow to stick.” The woman who parted the curtain of shells was easily in her sixties. She wore a blue-rinse buzz cut, a turquoise T-shirt, bright pink bicycle shorts and full-sleeve tattoos. Her legs were brown and her toenails were vivid orange. “He’d have to keep coming back over and over again for a touch-up.”

Indeed. Mia smiled a Cheshire grin and nodded, and then the woman looked towards Nash and did a double take.

“You’re not Cutter Jackson,” she said.

“No, ma’am. The name’s Nash.”

The old woman’s painted eyebrows rose even higher. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. I remember it though.”

“Maybe you knew my mother.”

“Son, if you’re talking about Lizzie Nash, I did. Wouldn’t say I knew her well, though. Hard girl to know.”

“You know anyone who might have known her better?”

“She dead?”

“Yeah.”

The older woman nodded as if to herself. “Son, I’m not one to get involved in other people’s business. I figure if you’re here for answers you’ll find them soon enough. Don’t need me in your ear.”

“Are you Beryl?” Mia asked, and at the woman’s nod, “You have a sign in your window for a holiday let. Two bedroom. Kitchenette. Laundry facilities. Sounds good. Is it available?”

The woman eyed her narrowly. “And what’s your name?”

“Mia Blake.”

“That’s not a name I know.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Who are you to him?” The jerk of Beryl’s head signaled the
him
in question.

“Family.”

“Huh.”

Mia smiled, cucumber cool. “Is that a problem? Given your aversion to other people’s business?”

“Don’t you spout my tripe back at me, Missy.”

Mia liked her already. “I don’t suppose you’re looking for a tattoo artist around here? Temporarily? Because I’m in the business.”

The old woman looked her up and down. “You? Where’s your ink?”

Obediently, Mia turned around and was met with silence.

When Beryl finally mentioned a name well recognized in certain circles, there was reverence in her voice and Mia knew she’d established her credentials.

“Tato came into the shop where I was working in Melbourne to give a masterclass in Nara ink. I spent the next two years in Japan apprenticed to him.”

“How’d you get him to accept you?”

“I’m very persuasive.” People thought she’d gotten the apprenticeship by lying on her back but she hadn’t. Tato was a gentleman, for one thing. Secondly, and much harder for people to swallow, he’d seen a talent in Mia worth cultivating.

“He taught you traditional irezumi?”

“No.” She’d be lying if she said that. “Modern form with some old techniques. I specialize in dragons, koi, tigers, snakes, cherry blossom and ukiyo, and I am
always
looking for canvas and to share techniques.”

“I’ll think about it,” Beryl said, but there was interest there that the older woman couldn’t hide. Had Nash not been standing next to Mia she’d have had the job already.

“And the holiday let?” Mia prompted. “Will you think about that?”

“I will.” This time the woman’s sharp gaze encompassed Nash and slid to the classic car outside. “That your ride?”

“Yes.” Nash said.

“You restored her yourself?”

“Yes. It’s what I do.”

“Ever had anything to do with boats?”

Nash held the older woman’s gaze, his expression closed. If Cutter was an open book, Nash was his opposite. Most of the time you had to pry him open with a sharp instrument. “No. Never had anything to do with the sea. Wasn’t born to it.” He looked to Mia. “I’m heading for the takeaway on the corner. You want anything?”