C's Comeuppance: A Bone Cold--Alive novel (6 page)

“T looked at this. Remember him talking about it.” He thumbed through the pages, settled on the asking price at the bottom of the last one, whistled softly, then returned to the top and studied the pictures. “Huge place. Nasty divorce. Abandoned property. Bank owns it. Right?” He raised those cold blue eyes to hers.

“Impressive memory.”

“That’s not all that’s impressive about me. The second one?”

“Old family farm. Good land, quite a bit of acreage. Been farmed, had livestock run on it. Farmhouse is in deplorable shape with no socially redeeming values except there’s indoor plumbing and the front door locks.” He was scanning the information. “On the other hand, the land is prime for location. Commercial possibilities could abound in a decade if the town keeps growing in the direction it’s headed and the new highway comes through as rumored.”

“And how long has this new highway been rumored to come through here?”

“Since I was a child.” She smiled weakly. “I’d say those rumors and the land deals involved put clothes on my back and sent me to summer camp for many a year.”

C snorted, rolled the papers together and clenched them in his hand. “This would also make me my brother’s neighbor, right?” She nodded. “Well, well, wouldn’t Lyla be surprised.” He seemed pleased at the prospect of settling in next to the woman who’d been trying to get rid of him for a week. “Let’s go see them.”

Standing up, he slapped his thigh with the paper roll. “I’m hungry. Where are you taking me to lunch?”

***

Lunch. Well, of course, she’d take any other ordinary client to lunch. If it was a couple, they’d go to the Chinese buffet, hunters she’d seat at the Quik-Lee, C she’d—

There wasn’t any place she wanted to take him to lunch, to be seen with him, to open herself to public scrutiny and talk. How could they gracefully order in? Where was the nearest drive-through?

The mental answers were negative to both those questions. Jemma smiled weakly at him and gathered her purse and jacket, took out a ring of keys from the cabinet on the wall. He followed her like an obedient puppy, standing by the door as she told Carolyn where they were going, even opening it for her as she neared the exit.

She didn’t bother to turn at the ringing of the phone until Carolyn called her back as she cleared the small concrete porch and stepped off onto the gravel of the parking lot. “Jemma, it’s for you. He’s insistent!” Carolyn stood on the porch and held out the portable phone.

“Couldn’t you tell whoever it is I’m gone?” She turned back to her employee only to find her pointing the phone in the direction of the realty business in the next block. Standing in his driveway and staring at her, phone clutched to his ear, was Wiley Rose.

“Like he’d believe me,” Carolyn stated as she handed the phone over.

“Yes, Wiley. Obviously you can see I’m—”

“Stealing my clients. That’s what you’re
obviously
doing!” She watched as he changed his stance and folded his arms, hugging the phone to his ear with his shoulder. “Jem-Jewel, that’s not very ethical of you.”

Jemma stopped where she was and set her jaw. C stood by her car between the adversaries, moving his head as if at a tennis match. “Wiley, since when have you worried about ethics— yours or anybody else’s?”

“I’ve always been concerned about everyone else’s. Particularly the lack thereof. I’m just surprised at you, that’s all. But I’ll forgive you. Just tell him to come on over where he’ll get a better deal.” Wiley motioned for C to come join him.

Jemma narrowed her eyes at the two men. C didn’t move, in fact seemed to be enjoying the exchange. Wiley was just being his usual ass-self. “Look, Wiley, not that it’s any of your business, but we’re going to lunch now.”

She could hear his laughter in the air, didn’t have to confine it to the receiver. “Lunch! A nooner? Jem-Jewel, you just don’t stop surprising me!”

“Bastard!” Jemma didn’t care if he heard her or not, the intent was certainly there as she punched off the phone with an exaggerated motion and handed it back to Carolyn.

“Problem with the competition?” C raised his eyebrows and leered.

“You shut up, too.”

“Whoa! What did that good ol’ boy say to ruffle your feathers? I’m going to have to talk to him about that. I need a calm agent. I need—”

“You just need to get in and shut up, Mr. Samuels.” She aimed the remote at the SUV and clicked the button to unlock the doors. Instead, the alarm went off, its whoop-whoop being accentuated by the head- and tail-lights flashing in rhythm. “Oh, this damn—”

Eddie C stood about two feet from her and she slammed her purse and jacket at him. He caught them as she took a shooter’s stance at the car and clicked every button on the remote. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Wiley laughing so hard he had to sit on the ground.

“Here! You’re not getting anywhere with that!” C took the remote from her and handed her back the purse and jacket.

“It hates me!” she answered through gritted teeth.

He laughed in response and pushed the appropriate button. The alarm ceased and the doors popped unlocked. “Want me to drive?”

“Over my dead—”

“Well, at least I know that red hair’s real!” C didn’t try to control his enjoyment of the situation as he reached into the Porsche for something before climbing into the SUV’s passenger seat, piccolo now in hand.

“Are you going to serenade me?”

“It’s said music hath powers to calm the savage breast.” She looked at him askance. “Or something like that.” He gently laid the instrument on the dashboard.

Jemma threw her purse and jacket into the backseat and ground the keys in the ignition. “Put your seatbelt on.”

“Wouldn’t think of not doing it with that temper of yours.” He drew back toward the window to distance himself before continuing. “You know, I usually have to see a woman naked to know if she’s really a redhead. I mean, even though this display does take away some of the suspense—”

He was knocked back against the glass as she shoved the vehicle into reverse.

Chapter Six

“S
o is this restaurant really back in the woods, or what?” C let his voice rise on the last word as they rolled none-too-gently down a gravel road. They’d taken progressively worse roads since leaving the main highway, and if they’d been going in the other direction, C might have thought they were headed to Tib’s.

“We’re not going to a restaurant right now.”

“Ooh, a picnic. Ms. Lovelace, who’d have thought—”

He watched her lips tighten into a determined pinch. She hadn’t said a word since she’d launched them into the traffic pattern in front of Lake Country. Her left hand-turn had just about been his undoing. His driving was legendary for its seat-of-the-pants no-holds-barred style, but the reflexes of the driver of the 4x4 that switched lanes to avoid them impressed even C.

“Are you taking me into the woods and dumping me?” Even though there were meadows on either side of the white-rock road, the hardwood trees fifty yards beyond were dense. It was a facetious question, but C knew cell phone service could be spotty and she’d probably know exactly where.

“Don’t give me any ideas.”

“See, you are getting your sense of humor back.”

She cut her eyes at him.

“So what did ol’ Wiley say to get you so pissed off?”

“It’s really none of your concern, Mr. Samuels.”

“Charles, remember? You’re going to call me Charles.”

Now the eye-cut became a stare. “And who was the last person who called you Charles?”

“The IRS fondly refers to me that way. Edward Charles Samuels. That’s the signature they like to see on the big fat checks I send them. As to when the last time I actually
heard
myself called Charles…” He paused and looked out his window, tapped his knuckle against the glass. “Oh, I know.” His tone was derisive. “Right after T and Lyla tied the knot and BCA and I came down to help him celebrate and we all got hauled to jail.” He nodded. “Yes, that’s the last time I heard Charles. Just as the bailiff was bringing the court’s attention to me.” He smiled at her. “Satisfied?”

“So you have such fond memories of it, you can’t wait to hear it from my lips.”

C stopped himself in mid-thought, curbed his words before he said what he started to: the word “Charles” wasn’t top of the list of what he wanted her full lips around, but it would do for a start. He stretched in the seat, brought himself under strict physical and mental control. There was a time for limits, and since she could very easily leave him in the middle of nowhere, he wasn’t going to push his luck. She looked over at him and he was saved from answering when the driveway broke through the trees and they were face to face with a construction tragedy.

The circular drive was still intact, although weeds poked through the concrete seams, and the center, where it appeared a fountain would have gone, was totally overgrown. A pipe stood like a deformed totem pole, its characters replaced by dead and dying grasses and one drooping sunflower skeleton.

Jemma stopped the SUV between fountain-space and front entry. Silently, she and C emerged from the vehicle, letting their doors stay open as if for a hasty retreat.

Doors and windows were conspicuously absent. Although most of the brickwork appeared to have been done before the project was abandoned, the three chimneys reached just to the roof. Only the stone entryway appeared to have weathered all the storms and vandals unscathed.

“Is it safe to go in?” C turned to her as he neared the double-door space.

She shrugged. “Me, thee, and everybody else has been doing it since the divorce. Doesn’t matter that the gate to the property used to be locked at the main road. There are far too many four-wheel drives around here not to make adventuring out to the Brady place a sport for all. Plus it’s been a source of free materials for five years.” She came to his side, pitched her head back to look at the underside of the small porch. C caught the scent of an unfamiliar perfume, even as he concentrated on the curve of her throat and the slight pulse under her ear. He turned his head quickly and moved into the house. It was time for him to go back to Hollywood and Abby Sander.

Jemma followed him. “It was much closer to being finished than it would appear from this sorry state. I’d think a good fifty per cent of all remodeling projects in the last five years have a piece of the Brady in them.” She put her hands on her hips and tapped a foot. “Every time I see this, it’s more barren. Such a shame.” She pointed in a half-circle. “But it’s self-explanatory. Kitchen, family den, living room, down the long hall’s the master and its bath, study. Up the spiral stairs are three more bedrooms and what was to have been an exercise area.”

“What stairs?”

She followed his glance. “Well, I wondered when someone would get real creative. Guess it happened this summer.” She shook her head. “There was a lovely spiral staircase. Cherry. Custom built.” She walked to where it had been. “If you’re truly interested in the property, we’ll get a sturdy ladder out here and you can climb up. The view from the back bedroom toward the lake is spectacular.”

C wandered into the living area and scanned the cathedral ceiling. “So all this madness was brought about by whose misdeeds?”

“Depends on whether you’re listening to him or to her.” Jemma moved past him and sat down on what was left of the fireplace hearth. “But suffice it to say, he’s in jail and she’s on husband number two.”

“So he did the horizontal mambo and she ditched his butt.” He joined her in front of the gaping hole that should have held andirons and logs.

“She’d been overlooking the mambo for years. It was his little dance around the tax man that got her attention.”

“She forgave the mambo for money.”

“As long as it was legal.”

“And she cared enough to keep track of it.”

“Oh, yeah. It had been Daddy’s business.”

C crossed his arms on his raised knees. “Hollywood’s got nothing on you people.”

“All those ideas have to come from somewhere.” She stretched her legs in front of herself, studied the toes of her shoes at the hem of her broomstick skirt. “Well, what do you think? Are you game? Comes with forty acres. You supply the mule.”

Was that the merest hint of a smile? C gave serious consideration to leaning over for a kiss.

Jemma broke the stare by looking downward. Was it possible she was having a pleasant conversation with this unholy man, this inveterate chaser of women, this self-proclaimed God’s gift to womankind? That this man who’d bullied his way into her office yesterday was actually sitting here beside her and not making a pass?

And why should he, she thought as she rose and dusted at her bottom, a reflex she thought about too late to stop. Oh, fine, now she’d rubbed her hands, no matter how quickly, across her rear, not only giving him a view of the shifting of her skirt, but also no telling what kind of ideas! And how was she to know what kind of ideas a man like Eddie C would have? No matter how lascivious her thoughts, she was pretty damn sure he’d lived them with women far prettier and certainly more willing than she would ever be.

She glanced over her shoulder. His eyes were on her all right, but at her eye-level, not her rear. He rose in a smooth graceful motion, looking for the world like he was reading her mind. Jemma felt her cheeks redden.

“Mules have never been in short supply in the Samuels family. But I think I need a look around before I commit to this.” He strode nonchalantly to the doorway. “Are you buying my lunch or not?”

***

Between the Brady place and Norm Hudson’s there was only one watering hole, and although she knew she’d live to regret it, Jemma steered the SUV toward the Quik-Lee. The only thing in her favor was the New England trip currently being taken by all the senior busybodies. She glanced at the console clock: 12:45. With any luck, only Sally the cook would still be there and they could escape unnoticed by the community at large.

C had a slightly different take on her choice of eatery. “Heading for the safety of hearth and home, Ms. Lovelace? Don’t want to be seen out in public with me so we’re slipping into the country to dine?”