Hope Entangles: A New Adult Romantic Comedy (Book 2 of 3) (17 page)

Okay, I couldn’t even imagine that kind
of living arrangement.

“
My Aunt Freda lived in a
house just like this one, and I always thought they were the
luckiest people in the world. So I looked around until I saw a
house…” he stopped for a moment, and then took a deep breath.
“Until I saw a house I would’ve liked to have grown up
in.”

Bette sat down on a stool and leaned
her chin on her hand. “With your kind of money you could afford to
buy a hundred houses just like this one.”

He smiled roguishly. “I
have.”

I blinked. “What?”

“
I didn’t know what to do
with all the money at first. But I’d seen some of the elaborate
life styles the owners of some of the companies paying for my
barcodes had, and it just made me feel like they didn’t have homes.
They had show pieces and party houses, and cold, hard works of art
that they pretended to live in.

“
So one day I was at my
family’s summer reunion. We gathered at a campground in Hemis Fair
Park, and there must have been three hundred people
there.”

He shook his head ruefully. “And like a
hundred and fifty rusted out junkers.”

I felt a pang of recognition: I
abruptly knew exactly how he felt. I cringed.

“
My family has always been
poor,” he continued. “Maybe two or three people in the family went
to college. Only Aunt Freda owned her own home. And that’s when I
knew what I wanted to do with the money, and with my
life.

“
I wanted to help my family…
all my family.”

“
So,” Bette said, looking
starved for more of the story, “You bought them all
houses?”

“
And new cars—nothing
flashy—and set up a fund so anyone in the family who wants to go to
college, and has the grades to actually get in, can go.”

“
You’re paying for
college?”

He nodded gravely. “Right now there are
fifty one adults enrolled in community and state colleges all over
the country, and seventy-five teenagers. Ten are in Ivy League
colleges, but they won scholarships. I’m just helping out with the
extra expenses so they won’t have to work and try to go to
college.”

Well shit… here I was feeling like such
a humanitarian about helping Darla learn how to drive, and I’d had
a hot, sexy, male Mother Teresa living right next door!

He shrugged those massive shoulders of
his again. “So truthfully, I can’t afford much bigger of a house
than this right now.”

I had to laugh.

He smiled at me and at Bette. “So, are
you ladies okay with this? I mean, can I count on you keeping this
to yourselves… and not treating me any different?”

I caught Bette’s eye and she
winked.

I leaned across the floating island and
patted his hand. “I promise to treat you like the conceited asshole
you’ve always been.”

Bette snuck up behind him and threw her
arms around his heck. “And I promise to try to seduce you and get
you to be my next husband from now until the day you
die.”

Raphael’s eyes got round as saucers
when she playfully nibbled on his earlobe. “Um… Bette?”

“
Yes, baby?” she
purred.

I burst out laughing at the sudden look
of panic on his face. It was too freaking good!

Raphael got this long-suffering look on
his face. He’d obviously been the butt of his sisters’ jokes
before.

“
Woman…” he
muttered.

Bette let go and strutted back to where
she’d been sitting.

When I finally regained control of
myself, and stopped laughing at him, I took a sip of my coffee and
pondered getting a cookie—how had I not noticed the sparkling glass
cake pedestal boasting over a dozen white chocolate macadamia nut
cookies?

“
So, Sprinkles?” I
taunted.

He glared and showed me his white
teeth. It wasn’t a smile.

I gave him my best smile. That’s right,
Mother Teresa in hot male clothing or not, he was still the guy who
tried to chainsaw my sycamore tree.

I tried to extend my hearing
and decide whether
The Women
were still having it out on my porch. Nothing but
quiet and the sound of the wind through my tree.

Hallelujah!

“
So pick me up at six
thirty, okay?”

“
I’ll drive.” He smiled. “We
may not make it in your hunk of junk.”

“
Hey!” I grumbled, but he
was kind of right.

“
And…” He sat up straighter
and adjusted the nonexistent collar of his t-shirt. “I can’t be
seen showing up at a ritzy party in something as mundane as your
car.”

I closed my eyes and took a big, deep
breath. Don’t kill him… you need him… don’t kill him…

I shot him with my brightest smile.
“Just don’t dress too flamboyantly.”

He scowled.

“
We want everyone to think
you’re my sexy date, not my sexy gay best friend.”

His eyes turned to slits.

Ha, take that!

He stood and was suddenly right up in
my personal space. He smelled like butter and freakishly attractive
man. I felt hot and a little dizzy from the contact
high.

He leaned over and picked up the last
piece of banana nut bread from my plate, and popped it into his
mouth, chewing slowly, his thick, soft looking lips making a show
of it.

As he eyed me I gulped and tried to
look away—but I freaking couldn’t.

Damn him!

He swallowed and smiled again (asshole
didn’t even have anything stuck in his perfectly white
teeth).

“
I think I can pull it off.”
He turned and walked over to the coffee maker, sprinkle mug in
hand, and poured himself a cup of coffee.

Bette raised a lewd eyebrow at me and I
closed my eyes and shook my head.

What was I getting myself
into?

Chapter 15: Jake

When I got home my answering machine
was blinking that I had thirty-seven messages.

Okay, that had to be a
mistake.

I hit the play button and the cloying
voice of my cousin, Julie Hours, sang excitedly from the
recorder.

“
Hey Jake, thought you
should know your mother and sister are back in town,”

Yeah, tell me something I don’t
know.

“
And they showed up on Hope
Jones’ porch.”

That I didn’t know.

“
There was a commotion, some
yelling and cursing—on your sister’s part—and then Hope’s mother
showed up.”

Oh dear god…

“
They almost came to blows,
but the old man across the street came out and threatened to call
the police, so they all decided to leave. Call me when you find out
what they were there for, okay?”

Beep.

The second message was from Rhonda
Porter, a woman that worked at Wal-Mart in the frozen foods
department.

“
Hey Jake. Just wanted to
let you know your mother and sister were spotted giving that Jones
girl a hard time on her front porch. Right out where everyone
passing by could see and hear. And from what I heard, they were
arguing about you. You sneaky little devil. I didn’t even know you
and Hope were dating! Call me.”

I sat down and cringed as people I
hadn’t even thought of in years told me over and over about
sightings of my mother and sister, and the verbal battle they had
with Hope’s mother.

Now that would have been the scariest
thing… ever. My sister was the meanest bitch of her generation, and
my mother was a freaking iceberg of mean. But Hope’s mother was the
kind of evil they foretell of in the Bible.

Pure, unadulterated nasty.

“
Hey, Jake-y,” came Tammy
Faye Bullock’s sweet twang. “I heard about your mother and sister
getting into it at Hope’s—no class there, no class at all. But I
thought you should know they’re all over here at Crickster’s calmly
chatting over milkshakes and a basket of cinnamon
twists.”

Okay, that’s not good.

“
Nothing good can come of
this, so I thought I’d give you a heads up.”

Beep.

The messages were still going when
Paula and mother came through the front door. They stopped and
looked guilty.

“
So,” I said, my anger
barely held in check. It felt like my fury was expanding in my
chest, ready to explode. “I hear you two have been busy
today.”

My sister regained her bitchy composure
and cocked her hip at me. My mother folded her arms over her chest
and took a breath to speak.

I jumped out of my chair and bashed the
answering machine with my fist, crushing it with a crunch and some
sparks.

Both women winced and took a step
back.

“
I don’t care what you and
that bitch Hope’s mother think you’re doing, but it’s
over!”

“
Jacob Michael Troy!” Norma
breathed heatedly.

I cut her right off. “Shut
up!”

Her head went back as if I’d slapped
her.

“
Get your things,” I
snarled. “I’m driving you to the airport.”

She started to say something and I
grabbed the broken message machine and threw it across the room,
just missing the front window but knocking an old cuckoo clock from
the wall.

“
I said get your shit…
you’re leaving.”

Chapter 16: Hope

I couldn’t sleep. Well, I couldn’t get
comfortable. It was as if I had forgotten something important… like
leaving the stove on or the dog out in the cold… if I had a
dog.

I just couldn’t shake the feeling that
I’d missed something.

Or something was missing…

And then I felt movement in my bed; for
some reason I wasn’t a bit surprised when a muscular arm draped
over my shoulder, pulling me possessively against him. He smelled
of Dial liquid soap and a hint of axle grease.

Jake…

I shivered as his breath tickled the
back of my neck.

He chuckled and pulled me closer. He
was naked, and so was I. I could feel every lovely inch of him,
warm and hard against me. Shamelessly, I wiggled my bottom back
against him, making part of him all the harder.

He cursed, and before I knew it he’d
flipped me over onto my back and maneuvered himself in between my
thighs.

Good god, yes… I needed him inside
me.

Please, please, pretty
please…

I didn’t have to beg. He reached down
and lined himself up to me and before I could pull in another
breath he pushed into me. I gasped, my body tensing, my sex
contracting. I gripped him inside me so tightly he groaned with
need, with hunger.

“
I want to fuck the hell out
of you,” Raphael said, his dark, sexy voice making me
jerk.

I planted a hand against his chest and
pushed him back, but that just made his hard cock push even farther
into me. His skin gleamed in the moonlight, the tattoos on his arm
shone silvery.

I shuddered as he pushed further into
me and my body responded.

Where was Jake?

I’d been with Jake, right?

But Raphael was inside me, and as he
leaned down I smelled his scent mixed with melted
butter.

What the hell was going on?

He leaned down to kiss me, his hips
pounding into me.

I came awake, gasping for breath, hands
pulling the covers up over my body, sweat pouring off
me.

I looked around my room. All the lights
were out but the moon streamed in and illuminated everything in a
reassuring glow.

Clive rested on the dresser across the
room from me. He twitched his tail and blinked at me, his eyes
flashing red for a beat like he was a demon. He turned his feline
head from me, telling me openly that he thought I was too pathetic
to look at any longer.

I couldn’t be having sex dreams about
two men at the same time…

Oh, wait, hadn’t I already had
one?

One in that damn chocolate dress I was
going to be wearing… tonight!

Oh lord,
I prayed.
Have mercy on me. Please,
please, please have mercy.

***

I tried to burn off my nervous energy
by taking a three-mile walk through town. That didn’t work, so I
did some gardening. And when that hadn’t done the trick I went down
in my basement and started moving things around. The basement was
clean and neat, but I could still burn off some nervousness moving
things around.

This finally worked, and I fell asleep
on the couch for an indeterminate number of hours until someone
started banging on my door and ringing my phone. I staggered to the
door, dismissing the phone as just an irritating noise.