Dirty Sexy Knitting (12 page)

Because this wasn’t, of course . . . “Dr. Frank Tucker?” Gabe said the name out loud, just to see what would happen.

The two men immediately bristled. “Who wants to know?” the doctor said. The younger one seemed to be scanning the lot for a threat.

Gabe lifted his hands in casual surrender. “I’m here with my”—he glanced over his shoulder at Cassandra, still sitting in her car—“wife.” Like Maddie’s name, he hadn’t said that word in a long while and it stopped on his tongue.

Hell, he should have said he was here with his nun, sister, neighbor, friend, anything but
wife
. He wouldn’t have one of those again. But the word seemed to calm the men. The guy with dreadlocks ran his gaze over the Mercedes and then Cassandra.

“We’re his sons,” the doctor said. “I’m Patrick Tucker, this is Reed.”

The one with all the hair nodded. “And you’re not a reporter, right? We’re not real fond of the press.”

“Hell, no. No reporter here.” Gabe gave them an easy grin. “It’s just that my wife”—there was that word again—“she wants a little work done.”

“Oh?”

With a subtle tap of his forefinger, Gabe indicated his chin, mouth, then finally his nose. “And we’ve heard good things about your dad, and thought we might, uh, book a consult.” Of course, normal people would make a phone call, but neither of these two seemed to notice.

Maybe people who came here to have their beaks tweaked and their lips enlarged were a bubble off normal anyway.

Dr. Patrick stuck his hands in his coat’s patch pockets. “Sorry to say you’re out of luck. My father’s been in Switzerland working at the university in Geneva for the last five months. He won’t be back for another couple of weeks, and I know for a fact his appointment book’s full until late summer.”

Tacking on a professional smile, he leaned around Gabe to beam it Cassandra’s way through the wet windshield. There were dollar signs in his eyes. “Maybe I could . . .”

“We’ll let you know,” Gabe interjected, making a hasty turn toward the car. Christ, if they saw the perfection that was Cassandra’s face, the jig was up. “Thanks for the information.”

He hopped into his seat. “Move it, Froot Loop.”

As the car started, the two men continued on into the medical building. Cassandra flipped on the wipers to clear the misty droplets off the windshield. “Am I wrong, or did you tell them I wanted a nose job?” she asked, an edge of accusation in her voice.

Whoops, she’d noticed that. “I hope you have nothing against collagen injections and a chin implant, too.”

“Gabe.” She yanked the steering wheel to pull off the road and onto a side street. There, she put the car into park.

Uh-oh. Oh, well, mad would work if it would guarantee a healthy gulf between them. “C’mon, Froot Loop. Should I have said all your vegetarian vittles had given you a bad case of cauliflower ear?”

Instead of giving him a piece of her mind, her hands tightened on the steering wheel. As he watched, a tear tracked down her cheek.

Hell. He froze, digging his fingers into his thighs to keep himself from doing something stupid. Determined to keep that wedge between them, he tried again. “Tofu tongue? Jicama hips? Mushroom mouth?”

Another tear chased the first. He swallowed his groan.

“Switzerland for the last five months?” she said, her voice husky.

“That’s what was said,” he confirmed.

Cassandra wiped at her face, but another tear rolled down. “That’s before the tabloids took up the story.”

“Yeah.”

“He may not even know about that dumb gossip.” She shot him a look from drenched blue eyes.

His short nails could delve through denim, he discovered. “He may not.”

“So . . . so maybe it wasn’t something about me that made him want to avoid us.”

And damn, distance was something he couldn’t take anymore. As more wetness flowed down Cassandra’s face, he hauled her over the console between the two front seats. In his lap, his arms went around her, her nose found a niche in the crook of his neck and shoulder, and her tears were soaked up by his shirt. “Froot Loop,” he murmured against her scented hair. “No sane man would willingly stay away from you.”

Good family life is never an accident but always an achievement by those who share it.

—JAMES H. S. BOSSARD

 

 

 

 

Gabe told himself he’d been keeping an eye on the action at Malibu & Ewe because they’d had that incident with the kids playing with fire. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he couldn’t get Cassandra’s tears off his mind or the memory of her curled in his arms out of his head.

Because she didn’t need him, he thought, as he glanced through the rain-spattered windows across the parking lot to her shop. It was Tuesday night and the knitters who got together to share their yen for yarn and companionship were straggling out the door and into their cars. For sure she didn’t need him, not only because she knew now that her concern about her father was misplaced, but because all evening she’d had a roomful of women at the ready to offer her advice. He’d heard them doing just that—whether it was about a project or about a personal problem—dozens of times when he’d been at the shop to make a repair or to deliver Cassandra another cup of contraband coffee.

The last of the visitors exited, two of them waving to each other as they headed home to their families. Leaving Cassandra alone. He saw her figure moving about the shop, tidying the counter, and then putting some errant skeins back in their bins. She looked so . . . solitary.

But that was no different from what he was, he reminded himself. The clock read half-past nine P.M., and he was alone at the fish market fiddling with a recalcitrant kitchen fan. He was content enough, wasn’t he?

For the moment. Until another one of his black moods tackled him and dragged him under.

A car circled the lot. He followed it with his gaze, wondering if one of the women had returned for something she’d left behind. The sedan made a couple of slow laps, and the hair on the back of Gabe’s neck rose. He skirted the counter, heading for the front door, when he spied a dark figure approaching Malibu & Ewe on foot, its movements stealthy.

Gabe ran into the parking lot, part of him noting that the anonymous car accelerated toward the exit and shot onto the Pacific Coast Highway. The other part of him saw the stealthy figure burst into Cassandra’s yarn shop.

Under the interior’s bright lights, she whipped around, her hand going to her throat. Gabe picked up speed, and then Cassandra did the same. She rushed the unknown person—a man, he could tell now—and leaped into his arms.

Gabe yanked open the shop’s door just as her long legs wrapped around the stranger’s waist.

Lonely, my ass, he thought, as she laid a lavish kiss on a guy Gabe had never seen before in his life.

He considered backing out, but planted his feet and crossed his arms over his chest instead. “Another long-lost relative?” he inquired, as the shop’s door shut behind him.

Grinning, Cassandra slid down the man’s body so that the soles of her shoes once more touched ground. Then she tugged the other man toward Gabe. “This is Carver!” she said, face flushed, eyes bright. “Carver Shields. I’ve told you about him.”

She didn’t bother waiting for Gabe to answer. Instead, she turned to the other man. He appeared about thirty and Gabe supposed Cassandra thought him good-looking, given the way she wouldn’t let go of his hand. He wore his light brown hair to his shoulders and a tattoo of a naked woman with long flowing tresses was sprawled on the skin of his arm like she was waiting for a lover. Her face was hidden by the short sleeve of his shirt. “I thought you were touring in Europe until summer,” Cassandra said.

Ah, yes, Gabe remembered now. Carver Shields. Cassandra’s prom date and the drummer for the mega-successful heavy metal band Mercy.

Carver grimaced. “We had to cut it short. Lou—” He glanced at Gabe. “Lou’s our bass guitarist—developed a little substance abuse problem while we were in Berlin. I dragged him back here and checked him into rehab.”

Though there was a treatment facility for each and every mile of Malibu coastline, Gabe couldn’t figure out why the drummer had to bring his buddy here of all places. Was it so he could then drop in on Cassandra, his beautiful, obviously enthusiastic former prom date?

“Stop looking like that, Gabe,” Cassandra said, frowning at him. “You’re not one to judge.”

A trickle of shame slithered down his spine. Shit. He didn’t deserve the feeling, damn it. Neither Froot Loop nor her dedicated drummer boy knew the demons he faced or if they would do any better against them.

Carver’s eyes narrowed. “So, this is your curmudgeonly landlord?” His voice was easy; his gaze wasn’t.

Gabe gritted his teeth. “I take her rent money every month.”

“Yeah, and what else?” Carter asked. He crossed his arms over his own chest, his pose matching Gabe’s. Except Gabe didn’t have a voluptuous babe inked on his skin, one with truly awesome tits and red-painted toenails that seemed to balance on the band of his platinum-and-steel watch. “What else do you take from her?”

Cassandra stepped between the two of them. “Healthy meals, whenever I can wean him off saturated fats and high-fructose corn syrup. Now, Carver, stop bristling and tell me you’re coming back to my place for tea and cookies.”

Looking into her pretty face, the other man relaxed. The backs of his fingers trailed down her cheek. “That’s the plan, doll. Knowing the cell reception’s shit out here, I told my people I’d be heading to your place. Gave them the number because I’m expecting a call from the president of my fan club. You’ve still got that landline, right?”

“Yep.” She gave a little bounce of pleasure. “If you’ll wait just a minute, I have a few things to do in the back and then we can go.”

“Take your time, doll,” Carver called to her retreating form. “I’m sure Gabe and I can find something to talk about.”

When she disappeared around a corner, the younger man pivoted toward him, his face set. “I just have one thing to say. Screw with her and I’ll kill you.”

Gabe shook his head, trying not to let his annoyance show. “What do you think you know about me or about the two of us?”

“I’ve got e-mail, all right? And this is Cassandra, dude. She can type almost as fast as she can knit. You know her. She’s pretty much set on ‘Spill All’ all the time.”

Christ. Was she telling the world he’d bedded her that night after the Beach Shack? “Look—”

“No. You look. She’s special and I can’t figure out why she’d think you’re worth scraping off bar floors, but—”

“I’ve heard this lecture before,” Gabe ground out, impatient with the second round of shame snaking through him. “And I’m not inclined to listen to it another time.” Especially coming from some too-pretty, globe-trotting musician who’d bought Gabe’s nun neighbor sister friend a wrist corsage once upon a time.

“Cassandra—”

“What is she to you, anyway? So one time you two slow-danced across the gym floor to a Celine Dion tune.”

Carver took a quick step forward. “We’re close. We—”

“Close? This from the man who’s been on tour for the last couple of years.” Christ, did no man do right by this woman? And yeah, Gabe was fully aware he could include himself in that group.

“We have an . . . an understanding, okay?” Carver shoved a hand through his long, rock-boy hair, his frustration palpable. “This is Cassandra. Her heart’s so big and she gives so damn much—”

Bells rang out as the door of Malibu & Ewe opened. A long-legged blonde walked in. Her stride hitched and her eyes went wide as she took in the man confronting Gabe. Carver glanced her way, then froze. After a moment, he slouched and a charming smile crossed his face.

He put his hands in his pockets. “Oomfaa. Darling.”

One of the Most Famous Actresses in America didn’t move. She was a Malibu & Ewe regular, another of Cassandra’s friends, and apparently shocked to run into Carver Shields.

Then she seemed to get over her surprise. She walked farther into the shop, using an exaggerated runway model heel-to-toe that made her slender hips sway. Her worldwide-recognized smile spread across her face, but she had eyes only for Gabe now. She flicked a careless finger along Carver’s jaw as she passed him. “Where’s our girl?” she asked.

“In the back,” Gabe answered. “She’ll be out soon.”

“I can’t wait even that long. I’ve got to get going,” Oomfaa said. As an actress, she was good. Nothing about her body language gave away a thing, but she couldn’t control her body’s response. She was radiating sexual heat and none of it was radiating Gabe’s way.

Carver was staring at the back of her head, that smile still on his face. “Don’t let me scare you away, sweet thing.”

She snorted, but didn’t turn to face him. “As if you’ve ever frightened me, Carver. Why are you here? Running from another of your amorous groupies? I grant you that they’re pretty scary.”

“Ah, you’re just mad that I didn’t invite you to star in our latest music video. I saw you in Timberlake’s and you know I don’t do seconds.”

Her spine snapped straight. She held out a pair of knitting needles to Gabe. “Take these before I shove them somewhere the drummer would find very painful.”

Carver’s smile widened. “You already broke my heart once, Oomfaa. I’m made of stronger stuff now.”

Their repartee had a decidedly familiar ring to it, Gabe realized. He and Cassandra used to regularly spar like this . . . and hell, he couldn’t close his eyes any longer to the fact that it was a tool to dilute a supercharged sexual chemistry. What was going on between Carver and Oomfaa could be sold back to the energy grid at premium prices.

“So you two know each other . . .” he ventured.

“We met at a Coldplay concert,” Oomfaa said, still not looking at the man behind her. “Gwyneth introduced us.”