Bad Girls Don't (8 page)

“Six?” His voice sounded rusty.

She nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking the other five senses. I’m a real big fan of them. I mean, listening to a Kurt Cobain song while looking at a summer sunset and eating organic strawberries? Heaven. And touch. There’s nothing quite like touch.” This time she ran her finger down his bare arm. “See what I mean?”

Was she deliberately trying to seduce him? Two could play that game.

“You mean like this?” He ran his index finger down her arm and back up again.

He’d meant to prove a point, but instead he’d just activated his body’s launch sequence with amazing speed. Erection begun . . .

Nathan tried to focus on her reaction instead of his own. She could have been outraged. Angry. Disinterested.

But not her. Her eyes widened. So did her smile. “Yeah, just like that. Or maybe a little more slowly . . .”

She swirled her fingers down his arm, her finger dancing arousing him more than any lap dance had in his single days.

“Right. Slowly.” He repeated her movement, adding a few seductive moves of his own. Caressing the inside of her elbow made her eyes go all dark and her lips part. “Slowly is good.”

“Slowly is great,” she murmured before grabbing a handful of his T-shirt and tugging him closer.

Her lips met his head-on.

There was nothing slow about the kiss. It has hot and fast. Open mouths and tangled tongues.

Then it was over.

She scooted backward. “Why’d you do that?”

“
Me?
You were the one—”

“Yes, I was. Bad idea.”

“Felt damn good.”

“Yes, it did.” Skye dazedly touched her lips before frowning. “But still a bad idea.”

“Agreed.”

“Agreed,” she repeated.

Nathan nodded and then walked away, leaving Skye behind, reminding herself once more that while she might be bad, she sure wasn’t stupid.

True, her sister . . . her
half
sister Julia wouldn’t agree. But then, Julia had never agreed with the various paths Skye had chosen to take in life.

Julia had never actually called them stupid. She didn’t have to. She had a way of looking at you that made her thoughts real clear. As if Skye had a giant
L
plastered in the middle of her forehead. Loser, loser, loser.

Not that Skye cared. Not really. Okay, maybe just a little bit. Big deal.

The bottom line was that Skye and Julia were total opposites. They didn’t even share the same father. Julia’s biological father was some capitalist billionaire. That bit of recently revealed info explained a lot, as far as Skye was concerned.

It explained why they were so different. Why Julia was so prim and proper. So conservative. So locked into worrying what other people thought. And Skye . . . wasn’t.

Skye also wasn’t going to exchange saliva with an uptight by-the-book cop like Nathan. Even if he was a damn fine kisser. Not that their kiss had lasted long enough . . .

No, don’t go there. No experimenting with this man.
No
wasn’t a concept that Skye dealt with very well. She hoped that making Nathan forbidden territory didn’t just entice her into wanting him even more.

 

 

“I’m worried about Skye,” Angel told Tyler later that night as they sat beneath the stars on a park bench in Serenity Falls’ quaint town square.

Clasping his hand in hers always made her feel better, but tonight that wasn’t working. And, okay, yes, Tyler was still a man of mystery, but Angel didn’t care. She knew enough about him to know she loved him with every fiber of her being.

Since she was now a fiber artist—designing, spinning, crocheting, and knitting hats, scarves, and sweaters with a funky twist—she’d started visualizing various threads running through her life.

Angel had followed many convoluted threads in her fifty years. She liked to think they’d all led her here, to this wooden bench in Serenity Falls nestled beside Tyler.

Not that she was a fan of the conservative little town. The place was entirely too anal for her tastes. But she’d found Tyler here, so she couldn’t complain too much.

Besides, she was stuck here house-sitting until her oldest daughter Julia returned from her adventures on the back of bad boy Luke Maguire’s Harley.

Tyler still hadn’t verbally responded to her comment about being worried about Skye. But he’d started rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand in that soothing way he had, as if to reassure her that things would work out.

So much had changed since Angel had blown into town with Skye and Toni almost a year ago. Pivotal moments became snapshots in her inner scrapbook. Her first meeting with Tyler beside the pond behind the library, her first sighting of him Rollerblading to cope with his insomnia late at night, her guilt at not telling Julia about her biological father.

“It’s money,” Angel murmured, reaching up to touch the amethyst crystal she wore around her neck. Amethyst was said to have a calming effect on the emotions and to increase perception and creative insight. All attributes she could use about now.

“What’s money?”

“The reason I’m worried about my daughter.”

“So this is about Adam?”

“No, it’s about Skye.”

“I don’t understand. Is she jealous about Julia having a rich father?”

“No way,” Angel said. Then she frowned. “At least, I don’t think so. We’ve never really discussed it. Maybe we should. Anyway, that’s not what I was talking about.”

Tyler just waited.

“Skye was almost arrested yesterday.”

“And that’s why you’re worried?”

Angel shook her head. “Oh no, I was actually very proud of her. We even staged a sit-in to protest the way she was being treated.”

“How was she being treated?”

Now Angel patted Tyler’s hand. “You sounded so lawyerly there for a moment.”

“Shoot me now,” Tyler muttered.

“It still hurts you, doesn’t it? Thinking about your former life as a prosecutor.”

“I’m not the same man anymore.”

“You’re a much better man.”

“Most people wouldn’t think that scraping by as a handyman doing odd jobs around town is better.”

Angel rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “Ah, but you already know I’m not most people.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the things I love about you.”

Tyler said he loved things
about
her, but he’d only said he loved her once. She told herself it didn’t matter. No way was she rocking the cosmic boat too much at this point.

“But getting back to Skye,” Tyler prompted her.

“Yeah, well, it turns out she has a bunch of unpaid tickets from the West Coast.”

“Not good.”

“Apparently not. But no reason to put her in handcuffs.”

“They handcuffed her?”

“The sheriff did. Of course, she slipped right out of them, just like Sister Mary taught her. But that’s another story. Anyway, we eventually got the ticket thing sorted out, with Owen loaning her the money to pay them off.”

“Owen the funeral director guy?”

Angel nodded. “To show him her appreciation, Skye bought him some of those instant lottery tickets. Apparently, one of them was a winner and he insisted on giving it back to her.”

“Generous of him. So how much did she win?”

“A lot.” Angel nervously plucked at the floaty, tie-dyed Indian-cotton skirt she wore.

“A hundred?”

Angel could forgive him for starting low, since to her a hundred dollars was a lot of money. “A million.”

Tyler almost choked.

Angel patted him on the back and nodded. “I know. It’s a lot of money. Not to someone like Adam, maybe . . .”

“Did you return his call yet?”

Angel shook her head.

“Why are you avoiding him? Are you afraid that if you talk to him, your old feelings for him will come back?”

“Of course not!”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

“A lot of things. Global warming, mercury in fish, the disappearance of the rain forest, schoolchildren getting obese from soft drinks in schools.”

“Do you hold Adam responsible for all those things?”

“Well, he
is
a capitalist pig.”

“With whom you had a child.”

“A long time ago.”

“It’s still a bond the two of you have.”

Angel shifted in her seat. “I wish you wouldn’t put it that way.”

“Why not?”

“Because it makes it seem as if . . .”

“As if the two of you had sex?” he demanded.

Totally stunned by Tyler’s comment, Angel leapt to her feet and shouted, “I haven’t had sex in thirty years!”

Chapter Five

“You
haven’t had sex in thirty years?” Tyler rose to his feet, but took his time doing it. “What do you call what we did last night?”

“I meant that I haven’t had sex with Adam in thirty years.” Angel’s voice was much calmer and a lot quieter now.

Julia might be out of town, but she’d have a hissy fit if she heard via the grapevine that her mother was yelling about sex in the middle of Serenity Falls.

Skye wouldn’t care.

Angel’s two daughters were polar opposites, which often left Angel feeling like she was being torn apart in the middle.

And now she had Tyler acting weird. “Where is this coming from?”

He just shrugged.

That shrug was the last straw. “I hate it when you do that. I read your gesture as you telling me that I’m not worthy of a reply.”

He looked at her blankly. “What gesture?”

“Your shrug.”

This time he rolled his eyes instead.

“That’s not a real good substitute,” Angel informed him. “Just talk to me. Tell me why you’re so manic about Adam all of a sudden.”

“It’s not all of a sudden,” Tyler said softly.

“Well, you haven’t acted like this before.”

“How am I supposed to compete with one of the richest guys on the planet?”

“There is no competition.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Is this some male thing I’m missing here?” Angel was totally mystified.

“You’re obviously avoiding speaking to him.”

“And
that
makes you think I want to have sex with him? I avoid talking to the mayor of Serenity Falls. That doesn’t mean I want to have sex with
him
.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

“About having sex with the mayor? No. Yuck.” Angel made a face, the same one she made at the thought of eating a caribou burger. “Am I curious about Adam and what he wants? No, not really. Will it make you feel better if I promise to return his call tomorrow?”

Tyler sighed and kicked a stone in the path.

Angel sighed right along with him. “You’re dying to just give me a shrug as an answer, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“So what, exactly, is it that you want me to do?”

Tyler got a look in his eyes that let her know his thoughts had returned to sex . . . and her . . . with him.

“I can read your mind sometimes,” Angel said.

He smiled, slow and sexy. “Yeah, I know.”

“But not
all
the time. So when you’re feeling insecure or upset about something, you need to
tell
me. Deal?”

Tyler took her in his arms and kissed her, but he never did agree to her deal.

 

 

“You boys better not let yourself get out-pretzeled by some girl.” This was Coach Russ Spears’s warning to the members of his football team gathered in the Rock Creek High School gym.

Even though it was still only August, and the new school year hadn’t officially begun yet, the gym’s walls were already covered with ENTERING TROJAN COUNTRY signs. Or maybe they’d been left up from last year. They did look a little the worse for wear. But then, so did much of Rock Creek, including the high school and the football team.

Although Skye didn’t know a lot about sports, she’d been expecting teenage boys as big as buildings and strong enough to bulldoze them down if any structure got in their way.

And, okay, yeah . . . there were a couple of those. And a few beanpoles. A
lot
of beanpoles.

Coach Spears, by comparison, looked like a Buddha, with his protruding belly stretching his Trojans polo shirt to capacity. The coach was deceptive, though. He might be built like a fireplug, but he could move fast when he wanted or needed to. He also had the kind of voice that made others move fast when he ordered them to do so. “So you boys swallow your pride and get into the lettuce position. Pronto.”

“Lotus,” Skye corrected him. “Not lettuce. Thanks, Coach. I’ve got it from here.”

A kid with red hair, freckles, and wire-rim glasses tentatively raised his hand.

Skye gave him an encouraging smile. “Yes?”

“Coach told us that Adam Vinatieri, the kicker for the Patriots, does yoga.”

“Hmmmm.” Skye wasn’t really into the details of football. She just knew this was a job she enjoyed—teaching yoga.

“Do you think this yogi stuff will help my kicking game?”

“A brain transplant would help your kicking game,” one of the hulks said.

“It’s yoga, not yogi,” Skye said, “and, yes, I do think it will help your kicking game, if you let it. Do you all remember the moving into stillness I talked about last time?”

“Stillness?” The coach frowned. “I want them to have more flexibility. To run faster. Tackle better.”

“Right.” Whatever.

The coach folded his arms across his barrel chest and fixed her with an intense stare, the look of a man who’d weathered years of dealing with teenagers and wasn’t about to put up with any crap. “You know some folks think this is too foo-foo. Then I read about the University of Memphis using yoga for their football team. They get into a meditative state that puts them beyond discomfort. That’s where I want these guys—beyond discomfort. Pronto.”