A Date With the Other Side (25 page)

Ignoring the expression on Shelby’s face, he said, “I’ll call Brady and have him come over and keep an eye on the house while they’re setting up, and I’ll take you home to pick up your overnight bag.”

He pictured Shelby in a filmy white nightgown, the ultra-feminine kind that stopped above the knee, with a high waist and a little ribbon running through it under her breasts.

His mouth went dry.

“I’m not spending the weekend here.” Shelby didn’t look as if she had filmy nightgowns on her mind as she glared at him.

“I’m doing this all for you,” he said with a manipulative wheedling that should have made him feel ashamed of himself. But it didn’t. “Nothing ever happens unless you’re here with me, and think of the business a story like this could bring. I bet the Columbus channels pick up on it too, and you’ll have more tour-goers than you know what to do with.”

Shelby crossed her arms over her chest and looked torn. “You won’t… try anything will you?”

“Why? Afraid you can’t resist me?” he teased, running his thumb over her wrist that wasn’t injured.

“You know I can’t!” she snapped.

While he’d been fairly certain that was the case, he’d expected her to lie about it. That she didn’t thrilled him. “I can’t resist you either. So why are we?” He remembered there had been reasons, but they just didn’t seem relevant anymore. He wanted to tuck Shelby Tucker up into his bed and romp the weekend away.

“Because.”

“Because why?”

She shot him a look of exasperation and tried to tug her hand away. “Because… because!”

“Because because why?”

He wanted to laugh at the outrage distorting her pretty features. He should have been concerned about her unenthusiastic response, but he wasn’t. In fact, he was feeling pretty damn good. Shelby was his for the weekend whether she liked it or not.

Shelby was his, period. He loved her. She made him feel younger and happier and freer than he’d ever felt, and he didn’t want to give that up. It was just going to take a little coaxing, that’s all.

“Because you’re a bossy brat, that’s why.” She wrenched her hand from his.

Okay, so a lot of coaxing. But hell, they had all weekend to work on it.

Boston leaned forward and nuzzled her neck. “Yeah, but you love me anyway.”

Shelby didn’t say anything, but when he looked up, the truth was there, for him to see plain as the charges on Amanda’s credit card. Shelby loved him. He had been teasing, but she did.

Nothing had made him feel so triumphant, so joyous. The other stuff didn’t matter. She loved him, and they would work out all the minor details later.

He cupped her cheeks, tilted her head, closed his eyes… and met empty air.

Shelby had ducked out of his touch and turned her back on him.

Minor details. He had all weekend to work them out.

Jessie Stritmeyer watched her grandson hang up the phone in her kitchen and grin.

“Boston wants me to come and watch the house while the TV crew is setting up.”

“So he agreed?” Jessie was a little surprised, truth be told. Boston Macnamara wasn’t a man who liked his hand forced.

“Yep.” Brady had the nerve to pull out a cigarette and stick it in his mouth.

Jessie gave him a withering look. He tucked it back in his pocket. Blue hair or not, Jessie loved Brady as dearly as she loved Shelby. Unlike Shelby, who was wont to hang back and let life pass her by Brady’s flaw was trying to stir it up if it was too boring for his taste, which was a good deal of the time.

It was a definite that Brady would leave Cuttersville and test the waters somewhere more exciting, and Jessie was resigned to that. The trick was to see that he didn’t screw his life up before he graduated high school.

Brady pushed her copper flour canister over and vaulted onto her countertop. She didn’t even want to think about where the butt of his jeans had been before he’d sat them on her counter. Where she planned to fix dinner in a few hours.

“So you think Boston will really want to stay in Cuttersville?” Brady acted like no one sane would consider that.

*

“Men will do strange things for love,” Jessie told him, hoping she was right on this one. As sure as she was that Boston was the right man for her granddaughter, she didn’t want to be wrong and have Shelby hurt. “Besides, this is where his job is.”

“For a while anyways. Unless Amanda has her dad assign him here permanently. Then he’d have to quit his job if he wanted to go back to Chicago.”

“Except that would be manipulative.” Jessie headed for the refrigerator. If Brady was going to hang around all afternoon, she might as well feed him. The kid was a goat—he’d eat anything, and all of it in large quantities.

“Isn’t calling the TV channel manipulating?” Brady fiddled with a blue tip of hair.

It was possible. “If we didn’t call, someone else would have.”

Brady laughed and hopped off the counter. Next thing Jessie knew, he had her up in the air in a big bear hug. That was the injustice of being five foot two and having a grandson almost six feet tall and not even fully grown yet.

“Gran, remind me never to go against you.” He kissed the top of her head, messing up her combed-out bob haircut.

“You remember that,” she told him, unable to resist smiling and patting his cheek. “Now set me down, damn it.”

Boston had the nerve to follow her into her bedroom. Shelby was determined not to talk to him, but when he came up the stairs in the Yellow House and down the hall and right on into her room like he had a right, she whirled on him.

“Do you mind?” Lord almighty, the man was so annoying.

His eyebrow rose. “What? I’m just trying to help you.” Reaching out, he plucked a lacy pillow off her easy chair, which had been reupholstered in a pink floral chintz the summer she was sixteen.

She’d loved that chair and had requested this room in Gran’s house after her divorce solely for the pink chintz. Now Boston was fondling the pillow and she knew she’d never be able to sit there again without thinking of him. Remembering their night together.

The man was disturbing her peace.

The last thing in the world she wanted was to have him invading her own private personal space and cluttering it up with memories of him. When he left, which he would, and soon, she wanted to forget him. To shove him in a little box in her heart marked passion, use sparingly, and keep it locked for eternity.

“I don’t need your help.” Shelby bent and grabbed a duffel bag from under her bed, wondering if keeping the tour going was worth the dangers of spending the weekend with him.

Truthfully, though, she wasn’t doing it for the tour, which could fold and not really hurt her in the end. She had Danny to go back to, after all, or her gran would help her get back on her feet. The real reason she was agreeing to have cameras record her every move was because she was into masochism and wanted to spend this one last weekend with Boston.

Not having sex. Just being together.

Boston made a low growling sound in the back of his throat.

Whirling, she caught him staring at her behind, a feral gleam in his eye.

Shelby stuck the overnight bag behind her back, so her butt was covered with olive canvas.

“That just makes your breasts stick out,” he told her.

Before she could finish a gasp, he moved to her dresser and started inspecting the objects scattered over it. Her fingers twitched with the urge just to grab everything he picked up right back out of his hand.

It was absolutely unbelievable to her that Gran had not said a single word in protest when Boston had followed her upstairs. Her grandmother had always been a stickler for Shelby not having boys in her bedroom. But then again, she was a grown woman and Gran had offered birth control advice.

“You’re very neat.” He said it like he was surprised.

Shelby went to her closet and pulled a couple of T-shirts off metal hangers and stuffed them in her duffel bag. “Why does that shock you?”

“You don’t exactly treat your clothes with reverence.” He nodded at the duffel bag.

The unmistakable feeling of a blush stole over her cheeks. “Some of us wear clothes to keep from getting sunburned and to show a measure of modesty, not to make a fashion statement.”

His lip twitched. “There’s functional and then there’s just ugly.”

Shelby wanted to get her bras and panties from the dresser, but there was no way she was doing that with him standing right there. She nudged him out of the way, opened her shorts drawer, and pulled out a pair.

“Of course, I’d be happiest to see you
out
of your clothes.”

Though his words sent heat rippling through her, she glared up at him. “Are you trying to talk me out of this?”

“Of course not.” He caressed the ceramic angel on her dresser. “I like seeing this side of you.”

“The one that’s griping at you? You see that all the time.”

“No, this softer side. Angels, antique perfume bottles, floral chairs, and a lacy bedspread.” Without warning, he opened the top drawer with one sharp yank. “I bet you have whimsical panties, don’t you?”

Somehow instinctively he’d picked the one drawer Shelby didn’t want him in, and she refused to let him see the satin pushup bras and barely there panties shoved to the back. Moving slowly so as not to alert him, she scoffed. “You’ve seen my panties. They’re cotton and I’ve never thought of cotton as whimsical.”

She started to pick out her biggest, softest, most faded pair when Boston’s big hand slid past hers. Those hands with the sprinkling of dark hair on the backs of them shifting through all her underwear disturbed her. That seemed nearly as intimate as sex.

The bastard somehow emerged with a satin set. “Well, look what we’ve got here.” He dangled the emerald green intimate wear up in the air. “Take this pair.” With his own lack of reverence, he crammed them into the duffel bag alongside her oversized T-shirts.

“Boston…” Shelby warned him. One glance at the front of his jeans showed her he was picturing her wearing those ridiculous underwear.

She’d worn them only once, near the end of her marriage when she’d been desperate to crack the code on orgasms. It had been futile.

That wouldn’t be the case with Boston, and her nipples knew it. They were winging out at him like tree roots to water.

Boston smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Let’s go.”

Shelby had spent the afternoon avoiding him.

Boston was frustrated and horny, not necessarily in that order.

Not to mention that if Shelby refused to be in the room with him, there was not going to be any ghost-like activity. At least he didn’t think there would. And after all, this was all for Shelby and her financial security. His nefarious plan to convince her to make love to him, marry him, and move to Chicago was just a side bonus since they were alone together.

Except she wouldn’t come near him.

When they’d discovered the cameras were in place and the crew and Adrienne Ashley were out interviewing witnesses, Boston had sent Brady home and prepared to coax Shelby out of her clothes. She was faster than he was, though, and had disappeared in the yellow bedroom with her bag, shutting the door in his face.

Three hours ago.

He’d thought about knocking on the door but had been afraid she was actually taking a nap and hadn’t wanted to wake her. But he was bored and restless. He’d worked in the parlor for a while, clearing out his e-mail and leaving a few messages for Monday morning.

But then he had found himself standing outside Shelby’s door again listening with his ear pressed to the wood to see if she was awake and moving around. Nothing. She was either asleep or she’d crawled out the window and shimmied down a tree. He wouldn’t put it past her.

Edgy, he went down to the kitchen to distract himself with food. Mary was coming in the back door.

“Hello, Boston.” She gave him a wide smile in her soft round face.

Boston had a real fondness for Mary. She popped in right when he really needed her, and she baked some mean sugar cookies with little candies pressed into them. She was no stranger to a Pledge can either, and kept him out from under a layer of dust.

“Hi there, Mary. How are you today?” Boston leaned against the counter and tried not to salivate. Surely Mary would cook something for him.

The TV channel’s camera was on the refrigerator, he noticed, and the red light blinked steadily, showing him it was recording.

“I’m fine, as usual.” Mary set down a package wrapped in brown paper and string. “I baked you some raisin bread.”

“Thank you.” He wondered if it would be rude to dive for it.

Mary didn’t keep him waiting. She reached for a knife, cut the string, and unwrapped the bread. “I hear Shelby’s staying here.”

“Yes, for the weekend. In the yellow bedroom.” He didn’t want to lose his housekeeper by offending her.

“She loves you, you know.” Mary sliced the bread, not looking at him.

Boston was a little startled. “I hope she does,” he said honestly. “Do you know Shelby?”

“Since she was a little girl.” Mary pointed the knife at him. “And she’s worth the sacrifice, Boston Macnamara.”

“What sacrifice?” He felt a little uneasy for some reason. The conversation seemed odd.

“Here you are,” Mary said briskly, the loaf fully sliced. “I’ll be back to do the house on Monday.”

And she left, as quickly as she’d arrived.

Boston bit into the bread and wondered.

He’d almost finished the loaf when Shelby walked in. Her presence was announced by her stomach growling in the quiet room.

“Where did you get that?” she asked.

“From Mary.” He took the last remaining slice and walked over to her. He held it in front of her lips.

She didn’t take it. “Who’s Mary?” Something like jealousy laced her voice.

Which was satisfying, but amusing. Mary was fifty if he was inclined to be generous. “My housekeeper.”

“You have a housekeeper?”

“Yeah. She came with the house.” He tapped her lip with the bread.

“What’s her last name? I never heard of a Mary who cleans this house.”