Coming Home (10 page)

Roxanne smiled at him, showing her teeth. “Well, if that's the case, you'd better be off so Sam and I can get to work.”

“No problem,” he murmured, a glint in his eyes that made her uneasy.

She was wise to have been uneasy, because he stunned her by walking around Tindale, pulling her into his arms, and dropping a hard kiss on her mouth.

While she stood there frozen, gaping at him, he drawled, “Thanks for, uh, an
interesting
morning. See you around, Princess.” He winked and patted her familiarly on the rear. “I'll keep my eye out for that invitation to the housewarming.”

Chapter
5

H
er lips tingling from Jeb's kiss, Roxanne sucked in her breath, uncertain whether to curse or cry. She could do neither, not with Sam Tindale standing right beside her. Her right hand did clench into a fist and the smile she sent Jeb was anything but friendly.

“If you'll excuse us,” she said to Tindale, “I want to walk with Jeb to his truck.”

“Oh, sure,” Tindale said, glancing up from the plan, oblivious to the undercurrents. He sent Jeb an amiable smile. “Nice meeting you. Hope to see you again.”

“Same here,” Jeb said.

Whatever else he might have said was lost when Roxanne pinched him in the arm and hustled him across the room and out the door. She didn't say anything as they walked to his truck.

Reaching his vehicle, Jeb glanced down at her. “You wanted a word with me? I assume that's why you're being so polite in escorting me to my truck.”

She looked up at him, a puzzled expression in her eyes. “I just want you gone. You don't like me and I sure as hell don't like you.” She wrapped her arms defensively across her breasts. “I don't know what happened between us in there, but I want you to know, that despite what you might think of me—th-th-that isn't something that I d-d-do--or have ever done before in my life.”

Jeb cocked a brow. “You want me to believe you've never had sex?”
“That isn't what I meant and you know it.” She sighed impatiently. “I don't even know why I'm trying to explain myself to a rednecked cretin like you.”

Jeb grimaced. The lady sure held a high opinion of him and all things considered, he couldn't really blame her. “Look,” he said finally as the silence between them lengthened, “let's just both claim that we went a little crazy or something—jumping the bones of the nearest attractive woman isn't something I do either. I don't know what happened between us. Something in the air. Or maybe there's something in the water. Maybe old Aston smoked a lot of Spanish fly in there and it permeated the walls and we got a whiff of it. Something happened, but what it was I sure as hell can't even begin to guess.”

Roxanne felt a little better knowing that he was as baffled as she was by their wild lovemaking. Sex, she reminded herself. Wild sex. The wildest. And Spanish fly worked for her—it made as much sense as anything else did. She half smiled. “Yeah. Spanish fly. Ilike that. Sounds like as good an explanation as anything I could come up with.”

He smiled back at her. “OK. Spanish fly it is.” He hesitated, feeling the need to say something else. “I'm not going to risk getting my face slapped again,” he began quietly, “by saying, I'm sorry, but I
am
sorry if I've made the situation worse between us.” He grimaced. “On a good day we can barely tolerate each other—I'd hate for us to have really bad blood between us.”

Roxanne bit her lip. For reasons that totally escaped her, she discovered that she didn't want there to be serious trouble between them either. What she wanted was for this morning never to have happened and for them to go back to their usual exchange of insults. “I know what you mean,” she admitted. Thought for a second, then added, “Um, listen, I don't know how to say this without offending you"—she flashed him a half grin—“something I enjoy doing enormously—but not in this case.” She hesitated, then blurted, “Do you think we could just pretend th-th-that what h-h-happened, didn't? Just go back to our usual snarling and growling at each other?”

He took in a deep breath. What she was asking was impossible, but probably not for the reasons she thought. He'd never be able to forget the glorious slide of her sleek body against his, the hot glove of her wrapping around him … didn't
want
to forget. He looked over at her, saw the embarrassment, the uneasiness, the bewilderment in her eyes. He was corn forted to realize that she was equally as blown away as he was by what had occurred on her countertop. But that didn't mean he was going to wipe out the memory of the explosive sex between them. He couldn't explain it, but he didn't want to forget it. She obviously did. Which left him, he thought ruefully, with only one thing to do.

“OK,” he said mendaciously. “We'll forget about it. Just go back to being what? Enemies? Not friends? Unfriends?”

She smiled slightly. “We've never been enemies … exactly. I guess 'not friends' works as well as anything.”

“Shake on it?”

Solemnly they shook hands, their eyes met, the same expression of wariness and confusion in both pairs.

“Not friends,” Jeb said.

“Right,” Roxanne said, “not friends.”

She watched him get into his truck and drive away. She should have been glad that he was finally gone, but as she slowly turned and walked back to the house, she was conscious of a nagging sense that the day had somehow become duller, that some vitality, some spark, was missing from it. Hogwash, she thought as she reached the front door. It would be a cold day in hell before Jeb Delaney's presence, or lack of it, made any impression on
her
life.

A careless smile composed on her lips, she pushed opened the door and walked over to where Sam Tin-dale was still examining the plans. “So where do you want to start?” she asked brightly.

Unlike Roxanne, Jeb had time to consider the situation as he drove down the twisting road from her place. He wasn't in the mood for pie and chatter at Nick's place. A quick call on his cell phone took care of that. He thanked Nick for the offer but said that he was taking a pass on the pie today. “Tell Maria I'll eat twice as much the next time,” he promised as he rang off.

Not in the mood for company, he drove home. He let the dogs out and prowled around with them as they sniffed and marked several intriguingly scented trees and bushes. Inside the house, the dogs sprawled on the cool kitchen floor watching Jeb as he fiddled around, putting away the clean dishes in the dishwasher, wiping down the counter, and folding and tossing the newspaper in the paper recycling bin outside the back door. His housework done for the moment, Jeb sat down on the comfortable blue and green plaid couch near the kitchen table.

He sat there a long time, staring at nothing, his thoughts on Roxanne … and the incredible sex they had shared. He shook his head. It was inexplicable. If anyone had asked him to name the woman he'd least like to have sex with, he'd have sworn that Roxanne's name would have been dead last on his list. He grimaced. And now she went right to the top of the list of the women he'd most like to have in his bed. What a hell of a scary admission that was.

He couldn't figure it out. It made no sense. Oh, sure, she was an eyeful and for some reason he believed her when she said that she didn't do that sort of thing. He didn't either, and while the tabloid stories about her would lead one to believe she jumped from one bed to the next as regular as fleas got on dogs, the expression on her face when they came to their senses had reflected the same shock and horror he knew had been on his. He rubbed the back of his neck. What in the hell had gotten into the pair of them? It'd been a while since he'd been intimate with a woman, but he wasn't a teenage sex maniac either. He was long past that stage. And today with all the diseases out there, when he did go to bed with a woman, he made damn sure he knew her sexual history and that he wore a condom …

Jeb jerked upright, his eyes going wide. Oh, shit! He hadn't worn a rubber. He swallowed. They'd had unprotected sex. Funny thing though, it wasn't the idea that he might get a disease from her that sent his stomach flipping, it was the knowledge that in those moments of frenzied sex they might have created something else … a baby. He swallowed again, his throat tight, his breathing constricted. Oh, Jesus. He really didn't want to go there. Almost hyperventilating, he considered all the reasons why there should be no lasting repercussions from this morning's event. Surely Roxanne was on some sort of birth control? Yeah. Sure. Had to be. Woman with her past must take precautions all the time. There was nothing to sweat. But just in case she wasn't on birth control, he thought uneasily, luck couldn't have been so against them that they had happened to go crazy just when she was ripe and fertile. But what if she had been ovulating? Feeling like a fist had just slammed into his chest, he groaned and buried his head in his hands. Jesus! He didn't want to think about this. Didn't even want to think for one second about Roxanne having an abortion. Didn't want to think about her bearing his child and tripping off to New York with it. What he discovered to his fascinated horror was that he liked the possibility of the pair of them raising a child together. He froze, his eyes almost starting from his handsome head. The idea that he had actually considered having a child with Roxanne made him break out in a cold sweat.

He sat up and ran a hand across his forehead. He felt a little hot. Maybe he was coming down with something. Summer flu? A cold? Brain fever? Yeah, his brain was all scrambled, fevered. That was it. He was sick. His brain not processing information the right way.

Getting up from the couch, he walked into his bedroom to the master bathroom and opening the medicine cabinet took out a bottle of aspirin. He swallowed two of them, threw some cold water on his face, and accompanied by the two dogs, lay down on his bed. The dogs joined him, Dawg laying her head on his chest and Boss on the opposite side curling up next to his hip.

Both dogs were mixed breeds—Boss part Dobie and shepherd with maybe some pit bull thrown in for good measure; Dawg appeared to be some sort of poodle/cow dog cross and if her wrinkled forehead was anything to go by, sharpei. He'd found Boss five years ago, a half-grown, half-starved black and tan pup prowling around Joe's Market, and even knowing he was being a soft-hearted fool had taken pity on him and brought him home. Even at that young age, from the size of his feet, Jeb had known that Boss would grow up to be a big dog and he'd been right. Boss's back came to Jeb's knee, and he was close to seventy-five pounds. Dawg was smaller, her head barely reached Jeb's knee, and like Boss she'd been a stray. She'd just shown up one day about four years ago, a spotted curly-haired puppy not weaned for very long, starving and dehydrated. She'd been lying in the shade next to Boss's kennel and had met Jeb with a shyly wagging tail when he'd come home from a particularly bad day—a murder/suicide on the coast, father, mother, and six-month-old baby. He'd taken one look at the flea-bitten, mangy little lump of skin and bones and some of the anger and pain of the day ebbed. It had been, Jeb informed her frequently, Dawg's lucky day. Neither dog would ever be called beautiful, neither having picked up the best genes from their respective parents—whatever they may have been—but they suited Jeb just fine.

The familiar weight of Dawg's head on his chest comforted him, as did the warmth radiating from Boss. Absently he scratched Dawg's floppy ears, trying not to think about Roxanne, sex, or the prospect of parenthood. It was difficult. Just about the time his thoughts would be drifting in another direction, like steel to a magnet, they would switch right back to Roxanne and this morning's events.

Finally he gave up trying not to think about it and attempted to consider the situation realistically. After chasing various scenarios around in his mind for the better part of two hours, he concluded that if, and it was a big if, Roxanne did become pregnant, he would support her in whatever decision she made about the baby. He would support her, emotionally, financially, morally, whatever—with no strings. His mouth twisted. That would be the hard part—no strings. And in the meantime, if fate was kind, the question would become moot and he could get his life back on track. He'd have to talk to her, though, at least discuss the possibility of a baby, so she'd know that he'd be there for her if needed.

It was several hours later before Roxanne was alone and able to think about what had transpired on her kitchen countertop that morning. Unlike Jeb, she'd realized almost immediately that they'd indulged in unprotected sex and that had horrified her as much as the fact they'd had sex at all. She had
never
acted in such an irresponsible manner. And it didn't matter that Jeb was probably healthy, it mattered that she hadn't taken the time to find out. But as for a child, she wasn't worried—her period was due any day now and it was unlikely that she'd be in a state to conceive.

Sitting out on her deck that evening, the bowl and plate that had held her dinner at her feet, the thought of a child did cross her mind again, but she brushed it aside. Wrong time of the month. Sipping on a bottle of water, she stared down at the valley, a few lights coming on as darkness fell. Her gaze was drawn to the twinkling lights on the place on the mountain across from her and she smiled. Her neighbor across the way.

She lifted her bottle in a toast. “Dear neighbor,” she said softly, “I hope, I really do hope, that your day was less stressful than mine. And makes more sense to you than mine to me.”

She shook her head at her silliness and took another drink. Tindale had stayed until almost dark, both of them checking and double-checking the plans for any last-minute changes. Since she was financing the place herself, they didn't have to have any minor changes approved by a lending institution. Beyond discussing the possibility of slate terraces at the back of the house, instead of wood decking, she and Tindale were satisfied with the plan.

“Big day on Monday,” he'd said as he'd turned to get into his car.

Roxanne had let out a happy sigh. “Yes, it is. I can't wait. It's like Christmas and birthday and every daydream you ever had rolled into one.”