A Holiday Romance (14 page)

She let out a squeak. “What in the
world?
”

“Hold this for me.” He gave her the washcloth. “You’ll see.” He spread the glue over her arm with his fingertips. “This is an old trick.”

There were red prickles on her calf, leading up beneath the three-inch slit cut into the hem of her skirt. He touched her knee. “May I?”

She inhaled. “I can do it.”

“No, don’t move your arm. Let the glue dry.” He slipped his hand under the skirt and pushed it higher up her thigh. “Can you elevate your, uh, leg?”

She put the affected leg on top of the other. “I’m sorry to be a bother.”

“No bother.” He smoothed the glue liberally along her calf and over the outside of her thigh. Her leg wasn’t
tight and muscular, but it had some firmness to it. And a very nice shape.

He coughed. “You should see a doctor for antibiotics.”

“The glue treatment isn’t a miracle cure?” Her voice was high and light with a bit of a wobble. “You know what works best. My mother said it, and I bet yours did, too.”

She was looking at him expectantly. “I don’t…What?” he said.

“A kiss. A kiss makes it better.” She put her hand on his, which he hadn’t moved from her thigh. “Didn’t your mother tell you that?”

“That’s not her style.”

Alice blinked. “Is it really gauche of me to ask for a kiss at this time of the morning?”

“I think—” he shifted closer “—any time is appropriate.”

They kissed. For longer than Kyle had intended. Her lips had a way of making him lose track of things, of rules and plans, even of goals. Previously that would’ve made him crazy, but now he was learning to like the feeling of freedom.

He eased away by trailing his mouth across her cheek, along the line of her neck, where he breathed her scent, as sunny and clean as the outdoors. “I can’t move,” he said against her skin.

She moaned. “Me, neither.”

“For real. My hand is glued to your thigh.”

“Oh!” She twisted against him. Her thigh flexed beneath his palm, lifting her skirt.

He peeled his hand away. “Ahem. My couchside manner needs some work.”

“I don’t know about that.” Alice’s face was flushed, but she was smiling. “I feel a lot better.”

He rubbed his thumb over the glue that had dried on her arm. “Now we peel this off and—see?—any of the plant matter still in your arm comes with it.” He lifted grayish shreds of the stuff off her arm, cleaning up the rest with a warm washcloth. Then he went to work on her leg.

“I feel like a snake shedding its skin.” She put her hand in her lap to hold the skirt in place.

His gaze veered away. “There.” One last wipe of the cloth over her thigh. “Finished. Does that feel any better?”

“Um, maybe.” She closed her eyes. “Yes, I think it does.”

“Still, we should pop into the doctor’s office before we leave. If you’re up to the drive, that is.”

“Where are we going again?”

“A small town called Elk River. My sister moved there about a year ago. Maybe you should stay—”

“No, I want to come along. I’m looking forward to meeting this mysterious family of yours. You haven’t even mentioned their names.”

“Daisy is my sister and Luanne is my mother,” he said, wondering if bringing Alice home with him was a good idea. For more than twenty years, he’d been cut off from his family, emotionally at first, and then physically, too, when he’d earned a scholarship and went away to school. They hadn’t understood his drive. He hadn’t understood their willingness to accept the status quo without a fight.

Until Alice, none of the women he’d dated had expressed any particular interest in where he’d come from. Not even Jenna, he’d thought. Maybe he just hadn’t picked up on their signals because it was easier that way.

Keeping himself at a distance from his family’s chaos had been his only chance to better himself. Now that
he’d achieved his goals—or almost—he could afford to let them back in his life.

Knowing how they felt about him, what his sister might say to turn Alice away, Kyle was aware that he could be making a huge mistake.

D
ENVER JOGGED UP
as they were preparing to leave. Alice had never seen him move faster than a stroll, but there he was, sweating and panting beneath his straw cowboy hat.

He yanked the hat off and whipped his head like a wet dog. Alice was given a friendly nod; Kyle got a narrow look. “Thought you were gonna leave without me, man?”

Kyle put the cooler in the backseat. “How did you know…?”

“I was invited.” Denver smirked. “This guy,” he said to Alice. “He kinda forgets I’m his brother.”

“You have your own car.”

“It’s not as fine as this one.” Denver swept a hand over the midnight-blue chassis of the Cadillac roadster. He opened the door and tossed his hat onto the front seat, then leaned over to study the interior. “The old man always wanted a Caddy. Never did get one, s’far as I know.”

“Fingerprints,” Kyle snapped.

Denver lifted his hand off the window. “Fussy,” he said, adding to Alice, “I used to wrinkle his bedspread just to bug him.”

“Let’s go.” Kyle came around the car to hold the door for Alice. He handed Denver his hat. “If you’re coming with us, you’re riding in the back.”

“Yessir, boss.”

“And cut that out. We’re not on the job today.”

Denver winked at Alice. “I should sa-a-ay not.”

Kyle was tight-lipped as they drove away from the resort. Alice snapped on her seat belt, catching Denver’s eye over her shoulder. He’d sprawled out across the backseat, his thumbs hooked in his jeans, hands framing the large silver rodeo buckle. The sleeves had been torn off the worn plaid cotton shirt he wore half-unbuttoned. His grin was as cocky as ever.

“So what’s goin’ on here?” he asked lazily. “You two hooking up or what?”

Kyle’s eyes went to the rearview mirror. “Stay out of it, Denver.”

His brother laughed. “Caught you red-handed.”

“She’s with me as a friend.”

Alice marveled at Kyle’s authority. Even she, minutes from a thorough good-morning kiss, believed him.

“Well, then, you got Mom and Daisy all excited for nothin’.”

“How do you mean?”

“Mom called me last night, said you were bringing a girlfriend home after all these years. You must be ready to make an announcement, she said. That was when I knew I had to come along.”

Kyle muttered under his breath. They were on the freeway now, heading west. The heat seemed to rise in waves off the blacktop. Like the steam coming out of Kyle’s ears, Alice thought, as he said tightly, “I don’t know where she got that idea.”

Denver poked his head between the seats. “Damn confusing, ain’t it? You got any idea what would have given the old lady that impression, Allie?”

“None at all.” She became self-conscious of her primping. A manicure and pedicure at the spa had seemed reasonable after the hot, dirty bike ride. But
then Mags and Mary Grace had come over and insisted on fixing Alice’s hair in a French twist that had seemed a good idea at the time. With her hair up, wearing her best pearl-teardrop earrings was necessary. And then the sandals with heels, because of her skirt.

“Like Kyle said, I’m just a friend.”

Denver hummed appreciatively. “A mighty purty friend.”

“Don’t talk that way,” Kyle said.

“You jealous?”

“That’s not—” He bit off the retort. “Why do you enjoy sounding like a corn-pone yokel?”

“Just being me.” Denver settled back. “Can you say the same?”

“I’m not faking it. I got myself an education. I’ve worked damn hard not to be like—” Kyle cut himself off again. He breathed through his nose.

“Sorry,” he said quietly to Alice. “This isn’t happening the way I’d hoped it would.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Relax. Things don’t have to be perfect for
my
benefit.”

“Man, I gotta get me some o’that education,” Denver said from the backseat.

Alice twisted around. “Don’t be a brat, okay?”

“I’ll have to turn this car around,” Kyle put in, straining for the humor, but at least willing to make the attempt. She smiled at him.

“Truce?” Alice asked Denver.

“Whatever you say, ma’am.” He slumped lower and dropped the hat over his face. “Gonna catch me a few winks. Wake me when we get there.”

She sat forward, exchanging a glance with Kyle.

“Family road trip,” he said apologetically.

“It’s okay. I’ve survived a few in my time.” She and Jay, in the backseat, squabbling and elbowing each other. They’d never gone far. To Bangor for the fireworks. To Jonesport to visit their elderly aunts.

“I was practically raised in a car,” Kyle said.

“You have just the one sister and brother?”

He nodded. “Unless my dad had a second family somewhere else. As often as he was gone, that wouldn’t have been a shock. Except that he didn’t even take care of the one he had.”

“At least you must have been happier after you were settled in one place.”

“It wasn’t as bad.”

But not good, she extrapolated. “My father was always nearby, running the boathouse at the marina. My mother could rarely get him off the island. I didn’t find out until just a few years ago that she’d wanted to travel, but she gave that up for marriage and kids.”

“Did she resent that?”

“She said no. But when her will was read…” Alice’s eyes burned at the memory of what her mother had done for her. She pinched her thumb and index finger together. “She left me money. Not a lot, just what she’d been saving in dribs and drabs over the years. She gave instructions that I was not to use it for medical bills or putting a new roof on our cottage or anything practical.”

Alice sighed, remembering Jay’s confusion that the small legacy should be Alice’s alone. She’d tried to explain, but her brother hadn’t shared the heart-to-hearts she’d had with their mother. Those times had been worth the years of not having a life of her own.

“The money was for a trip,” she continued. “Mom knew I wanted to travel, and she said in the will that now I’d be able to. I’d be doing it for both of us.”

Kyle squeezed her hand. “And so you chose Arizona in July?”

She laughed. “That was me, trying to be frugal. I thought that if I did the vacation-house swap, I might be able to stretch my mother’s money into several trips. No one told me just how hot it would be here.” But even if she’d known, she would have come, anyway. Luxury in the desert was the total opposite of her humble cottage by the sea, and that was what she’d needed.

Denver spoke up from the back. “Bet your mom woulda wanted you to blow it all in one shot.”

“That could be.” Alice grinned at Kyle. “But I have no complaints about what I got.”

Kyle glanced at her. “Even with all your misadventures?”

“Even with. Every sting and bump and bruise has been worth it.” Until right then, she hadn’t realized how true that was.

D
ENVER LOUNGED
against the outside wall of the gas station, his hat pulled low over his eyes, a water bottle in one hand. “I’d rather be having a beer,” he said when Alice stopped beside him on her way back from the women’s washroom. “But the boss would complain.”

“It’s barely noon.”

“Yeah, and you’re turning into a prig just like him.”

She smoothed her skirt over her hips. “Why are you being so hard on him?”

Denver didn’t answer. He took a long slug from the bottle. A droplet trickled along the stubble on his chin, but he didn’t wipe it away.

She stared at his lips. He had full, sensual lips.

“Did you get my flowers?”

She blinked and grabbed a pair of sunglasses out of her bag. “I sure did, thank you. They were lovely. Did you…did you get my message?”

“Yep. You’ll like the trail ride. The moon’ll be full. I won’t even hold you to that part about being a hotel guest.”

“But I meant it. We can’t be involved. For one thing, I won’t be the reason you lose your job.”

“Lose my…Well, now, that would be the height of hypocrisy, wouldn’t it? Seems
the boss
doesn’t care much about that ‘no involvement’ rule or you wouldn’t
be here. Anyway, jobs are easy to find.” He pushed away from the building and looped his arm around her waist. “Gals as sweet as you aren’t.”

His breath tickled her ear. “Get away.” She pushed him away, laughing.

He glanced at the car, where Kyle was filling up at the pump. “You know you want me,” Denver whispered as she walked past. “My women always check out with a smile on their faces.”

She stopped short. “How many have there been?”

“What the boss doesn’t know…”

“I guess I can stop worrying about being the reason you lose your job. You’ll handle that on your own.”

Denver just laughed. “Your schoolteacher side is showing, sweetheart.”

“If I could, I’d make you go stand in the corner.” She smiled, finding it impossible to stay mad at the man. She’d dealt with her share of troublemakers before, but they’d mostly been ten years old.

Surprisingly, Denver sobered. He pointed the water bottle at Kyle. “I figure I’m just a blip on the radar. But what’re you gonna do if you cost
him
a job?”

Even though the temperature had soared past 110, she got a chill. “How could that happen? He’s in charge.”

“There’s always someone higher up the food chain. Kyle’s bosses are coming in this week.”

“He mentioned that, but surely they wouldn’t fire him.”

“You never know what that bunch of fat cats’ll do. He’s got the whole darn staff spit ’n polished, but that doesn’t mean something still can’t go wrong.”

“Nothing will go wrong.” She crossed her fingers. “You…you wouldn’t cause trouble, would you?”

“For Kyle?” Denver shrugged. “I could care less if he gets his promotion.”

“You couldn’t.”

“Huh?”

“You
couldn’t
care less. And that’s not kind. He is your brother.”

“Yeah, well, there’re things about him you don’t know, Allie. He’s not as perfect as you think.”

She frowned. “I don’t think he’s perfect. He’s human.”

“Human?” Denver snorted. “My brother’s the tin man.”

Alice shook her head, perplexed.

“Let’s get going,” Kyle called, holding her door open. In jeans and T-shirt, he still looked serious and thoughtful. Was that because he’d seen her in conversation with his brother?

She murmured her thanks and slid into the Cadillac. Denver climbed into the back. While Kyle walked around, his brother reached out the open window and rapped his knuckles against the door.

Alice jumped.

“No heart,” Denver said. “He’s capable of cutting you out of his life just like that.”

The car’s interior was still cold from the air-conditioning. She was able to tell Kyle that was why she suddenly had goose bumps.

“H
EY
,” A
LICE SAID
twenty minutes later, “it’s been nearly three hours of nothing but dirt, rocks and cacti. Are we almost there?”

“Almost.” Kyle felt rather grim. They’d crossed the border ten miles back, and with every additional mile he grew more certain he’d made a mistake by bringing Alice to Elk River for the birthday party. Did he really
want her to know him as well as she would after today? He’d thought he was taking an important step, one she’d appreciate. But as their arrival loomed closer, he’d become more worried about whether, at the end of the day, she would still like him.

He wasn’t at his best around his family. They knew just where to find the sore spots.

“Ah, the old hometown,” Denver said fondly. He’d never had a problem with their vagabond lifestyle. He’d been born knowing how to roll with the punches, whereas Kyle had never learned not to take life so seriously.

“What’s it like?” Alice asked.

“We’re not actually going to the original family home,” Kyle said. “That was sold years ago.”

“Sold,” Denver echoed. “Yeah, sure. Why don’tcha tell it like it is?”

“I was being discreet.”

“Here’s the unvarnished truth, Allie,” Denver drawled. “The old man lost the family estate in a poker game. But he forgot to tell his wife and kids. One day, the county sheriff showed up at our door with an eviction notice.”

Alice looked at Kyle with large solemn eyes. “For real?”

Her sympathy made him uncomfortable. Sympathy was too close to pity. He didn’t want either.

He nodded. “We had only a few days to pack and get out.”

“That must have been hard.”

“The place was a dump,” Denver said, “and so was the town. I was glad to get away from there.”

“How old were you, Kyle?”

“Fifteen.” Although Kyle hadn’t thought about the incident in years, the memory was still sharp.

The town was small; everyone had known they’d moved into the one-bedroom apartment of their mother’s friend, also a waitress. At school, he’d acted as if he didn’t care that he had to share a pull-out sofa with his eleven-year-old brother and wash dishes in the greasy spoon after school to help pay for the family’s meals. He’d even kept quiet when the kids spread the rumor that the Jarreaus ate the leavings of the regular customers. Until Daisy, only eight, had cried at recess over being called Garbage Guts.

That was when he and Denver had teamed up and beaten the crap out of the instigators. They’d landed in the principal’s office, branded as white trash in spite of Kyle’s honor-roll status.

A few months later, their mother had found a new man, another wannabe high roller who’d claimed she’d earn big bucks in Vegas as a cocktail waitress. Kyle had been ready to move out of the family home by then, especially as he knew that Vegas, like most of his parents’ big ideas, would be a bust.

“It was a long time ago,” he said.

They were driving through the town now, passing the dinky post office, the run-down pharmacy, the school where all the grades fit into one small building. He turned off the main road before they reached Traveler’s Rest, the diner and truck stop where his mother had worked.

“There’s Jimmy K’s old house,” Denver said from the back.

Kyle glanced at a well-kept ranch with a wishing well in the yard. It looked almost the same. “And the Mabreys’.”

Alice smiled at him. “Feeling nostalgic?”

“Maybe.” Elk River was no place of consequence, but it was the only home they’d ever had, the only place
they’d stayed long enough to make friends. It was familiar, even after twenty years. He’d figured that was why his sister had moved back—to give her children a taste of the same.

“Childhood memories are strong,” Alice mused.

“They were for Daisy. She always talked about Elk River as if it were Shangri-la.” That was as much as Kyle would admit. “It’s her house we’re going to. She lives with her kids and her second husband.” A lout, in Kyle’s opinion, but at least this husband was sticking around, unlike the first one.

“Nieces or nephews?”

“One of each.”

“I’ve got three. I miss them.” Alice glanced in back to include Denver. “You two must make great uncles.”

“Denver, maybe. I don’t visit that often.” Kyle found Daisy’s place and turned his car onto the long dirt driveway. Her house, a split-level stone-and-cedar ranch, was set back from the road. Cartoon-colored plastic toys pockmarked the seedy lawn.

“Let’s roust the troops.” Denver reached past Kyle and blasted the horn, three times in quick succession.

“It’s a nice house,” Alice said, looking through the windshield. “I like the roses.” Rosebushes lined the driveway beside a split-rail fence. Climbing roses wove around the stair rail of the elevated entrance and deck.

“That’s my mother’s work,” Kyle said. “She always said that someday she’d have a yard where she could plant roses. There’s a mother-in-law apartment out back for her.”

Two chubby children in swimsuits had burst out of the house, shouting excitedly. Denver got out and scooped them up in one big hug.

“That’s Arabella and Jasper,” Kyle said. “Denver’s good with them.” He shrugged. “I had trouble remembering how old they are until Lani put their birthdays on my electronic calendar.”

Alice laid her hand on his arm. “It’s going to be all right.”

“Of course.” He was more abrupt than he’d intended, jerking the key from the ignition.

She pulled back. “I thought you seemed apprehensive. Maybe I was wrong.”

His mother and sister stood on the deck, looking down at his car.

“No, you’re right,” he told Alice. He’d better warn her. “There’s friction between me and Daisy. So don’t feel unwelcome if she seems irritable. It’s not you, it’s me.” He paused. “But do me a favor and don’t believe everything she says about me, okay?”

“Hey, I know how families are. There’re usually hurt feelings and old grudges. They can be hard to let go.”

“But you stayed close to your family.” Daisy was moving down the steps with her hands on her hips. She was pregnant again. Her first with Judd, and she hadn’t even bothered to tell her oldest brother. He supposed that was his fault, for shutting her out when the friction between them got too distracting.

“You’re lucky,” Kyle said to Alice. He rubbed his hands on his jeans before reaching for the door handle. “But then, I don’t suppose you ever had to fire any of your family.”

L
UANNE “CALL ME
L
U
”
Jarreau looked Alice up and down while they shredded cabbage for the coleslaw. She yielded a butcher knife with the skill of an old pro.

Alice felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny. “I’m afraid I overdressed.” She should have come in flip-flops and shorts, but Kyle had given her no clue of what to expect.

They were having a birthday lunch in an air-conditioned room at the back of the house. At the moment, Daisy’s kids, plus a few neighborhood pals, were in the backyard, jumping between a wading pool and a water hose manned by Denver. Kyle and his sister were parked in a couple of lounge chairs. The husband, a trucker named Judd, had wandered off toward the big rig he kept parked in an adjacent empty lot.

“Are those real pearls?” Luanne rolled her cigarette to the other side of her mouth and peered at Alice’s earrings without a break in her chopping. Sliced cabbage flew indiscriminately.

In fear for her fingers, Alice didn’t dare scoop it up. “Handed down from my mother.”

“I heard tell you lost her. That’s a real shame.”

“Thanks. Her name was Dorothy. She sent me on this vacation.”

“From beyond the grave?” Lu let out a
hah!
that became a cough. Ash dropped from her cigarette. “My kids won’t listen to me even while I’m alive and kicking.”

“Not even on your birthday?”

“Nosiree. I’m sixty-five and I get no respect.”

“Oh, I doubt that. Kyle seems to respect you. He told me that you worked very hard for a lot of years to keep the family together.”

“Damn straight I did.” Lu took the cigarette out of her mouth to exhale a stream of smoke, and Alice was finally able to scrape the mound of cabbage into a bowl. “Huh. He did finally agree to come to my party, but it took some persuading, lemme tell you.”

“He’s busy at work.”

“Nothin’ new ’bout that.” With sure hands, Luanne twisted open a jar of salad dressing. She upended it over the bowl and slammed her hand on the bottom of the jar. “So you’re staying at his hotel? Fancy place, eh?”

“I’m in one of the condos. But I’ve only got a few more days.”

“You’d think he’d let his old ma come and stay, wouldn’t you? But you’d be wrong.”

Alice mixed the glop into the cabbage. “I’m sure he—”

“What’re you, settin’ your sights on him?” Lu shook her head. She was about five-seven, a few inches taller than Alice, and rawboned, with a hard stringy body that spoke of years spent working on her feet. Her hair was cut short and dyed red.