Exclusively Yours (9 page)

Fortunately, the kids had all stayed back at the campground with Leo and Mary, despite the boys’ loud objections, so she didn’t have to worry about being shown up by a little squirt on an undersized ATV. And at the last minute, Lisa had claimed a headache and stayed behind, which made no sense to Keri. The four Kowalski boys were far from the cure for a headache.

Joe took his time on the ride, having her follow in his tracks through the rough spots. Twice she balked at a hill, making him walk back down and drive her machine up. Mostly, though, she enjoyed herself.

They stopped for a snack in a shady spot next to a pond, and Keri stretched her fingers and wiggled her thumb, trying to keep the stiffness at bay. With the machines off it was quiet in a way she could never find in Los Angeles, even within the walls of her apartment. In the distance a loon dove underwater, looking for fish.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Terry asked and Keri realized all the men had disappeared. Probably to mark their territory by pissing on trees, an ability she’d never envied until now.

“It’s definitely quiet.”

“Come out early enough and you’ll see some moose.”

“The four-wheelers don’t scare them off?” She wasn’t sure why Terry was making small talk with her all of a sudden, but she’d go with it.

“Moose aren’t afraid of anything. And the ones out here get used to it.”

Keri downed half a bottle of water—hoping she’d sweat it out and not have to pee before they got back to the campground—as the silence grew awkward.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Terry said, all in a rush as if she’d had to force the words out. “The crack about you breaking a nail, I mean. It was uncalled for.”

Wow.
“Thank you. Apology accepted.”

“Just like that?”

“I don’t want to fight with you the whole time I’m here. I’m sorry we grew apart and I’m sorry about things not working out with Joe, but that was a long time ago. We’re adults now and your brother knows why I’m here and he knows I’m leaving when the time’s up.”

Terry looked like she wanted to say more, but Kevin walked out of the woods, looking relieved, which ticked Keri off to no end. She had dirt on her face and really bad helmet hair, but she wasn’t so far removed from civilization she’d be hanging her bare ass over a log any time soon.

Mike and Joe reappeared, too, and they all sat on the grassy bank of the pond, munching on peanut butter crackers. An unfortunate choice, Keri thought, since she had to drink more water. Her poor bladder would never make it.

“So the whole world knows what Joe does,” she said after washing down the peanut butter, “but what about the rest of you?”

“I’m a bean counter,” Mike said. “Mostly Joe’s beans, but I have other clients, too. I specialize in authors. Lisa’s mainly a stay-at-home mom, but she chips in with the paperwork come tax time.”

“I do whatever his editor, agent, publicist and accountant don’t,” Terry told her. “I take care of his website. Moderate his forum and chat list. Presort his emails. Help hammer out plot problems at two in the morning.”

“Her official title is personal assistant to Joseph Kowalski,” Joe said with a chuckle, “but she’s really the glue that holds it all together.”

Keri nodded, then turned to Kevin. “How about you? Do you work for the family business, too?”

“No. I was a cop with Boston PD until two years ago, when I bought a sports bar in Concord.”

“Little too young to retire, weren’t you? Oh! You didn’t get hurt, did you? Shot or something?”

“No, I didn’t get shot.”

His jaw was clenched and Keri’s instincts told her there was a nice juicy story there, but she only hesitated a second before changing the subject. “I think it’s cool Danny wants to be a writer like his uncle.”

Joe laughed. “Not exactly like his uncle. He’s got a more serious, literary bent. Wants to write short stories and work his way up to the Great American Literary Masterpiece.”

They all chatted for a few more minutes, then set out for the campground. On the way Keri, who was well on her way to becoming addicted to four-wheeling, saw two rabbits, a tiny snake and what she thought might be a fox’s ass disappearing into the woods. She also got hung up on a rock buried by mud—what the guys called high-sided—once, requiring Joe to come to her rescue but, other than that, it was a great ride.

The evening, however, sounded as though it was going to be a lot more treacherous than rocks and stumps and the occasional mud puddle.

Once they were back in the cabin, Joe told her he’d also promised they’d take the kids out for pizza, and this was the night.

“Why tonight?” she wanted to know. While she wasn’t going to admit it, riding a four-wheeler required an entirely different set of muscles than sitting at a desk or walking in heels, and she was sore. “You should ration out the activities—save something for next week.”

“Because I can use the bribe again if I get it out of the way now.”

“Why do you have to do this again?”

“Mike got to ride with Kevin and me for two hours in exchange for two lifeguard duties, taking the boys out for pizza and ice cream, and s’mores duty the first night.”

An experience she might never recover from. Melted marshmallow was a bitch and the Kowalski kids knew how to fling it around like silly string. “Taking advantage of the plight of an overwhelmed mother for your own benefit isn’t very nice.”

“You’ve already done a lifeguard duty and s’mores with me. You really think
she’s
the one being taken advantage of?”

Good point. Considering what those kids could do with marshmallow, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see what they could accomplish with pizza sauce.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she told him. And probably another when they got back to get the strewn toppings out of her hair.

“You should let me check you for ticks.”

She paused in the act of digging through her bag for quarters. “Oh no you don’t.”

He pulled one of the chairs away from the table. “Sit. At least let me do your hair.”

“I was wearing a helmet.”

“Not during rest stops, you weren’t. Sit.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him there was no way in hell she was letting him run his fingers through her hair, but then her scalp tightened.

What if, right that very second, a nasty little tick was rummaging around in her hair, looking for the perfect spot to sink his fangs into her skin? She shuddered, shaking her head a little, but the creepy-crawly feeling didn’t abate. If anything, it got worse.

“Okay, fine, but make it quick.” She wasn’t sure how long she could take his hands stroking her, even if he claimed he was looking for bugs.

Her butt had barely hit the chair when Joe’s hands plunged into her hair, his fingertips massaging her scalp. She sighed and relaxed against the chair as the creepy-crawly feeling faded.

After a few minutes he pushed her head forward a little so his thumbs could rub the back of her neck. She was fairly sure it wasn’t a popular tick hangout, but it felt good. Very good. Definitely too good to protest.

“Got your question all ready for tonight?” he asked, but her brain was turning to totally relaxed mush.

“Hmmm?” was all she could manage.

“Your interview question? You know, the questions that are supposedly going to save your career?”

“Mmmhmmm.” She knew which questions he meant. It was just that, right then and as long as Joe had his hands on her, she didn’t care.

With a bone-deep reluctance, he let his hands drop and stepped back from the chair. “No ticks.”

She rolled her head, making more damn sex noises. “I could let you do that all night long.”

That wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do to her all night long, so he let that invitation pass. “I’m gonna round up the kids while you shower.”

He was out the door before she could say anything else his libido would warp with its sexual slant.

The last thing he wanted to do at that moment was face the horde of Kowalski kids, so he turned left on the dirt road, walking toward the woods and away from the center of the campground.

If his subconscious had been trying to punish Keri for dumping him in favor of high-rise littered pastures, it had seriously backfired. He was the one suffering.

The overwhelming—and surprising—want he felt for her was knocking him on his ass.

Sure, he’d thought about her a lot over the years. Her mom and his were close friends, so she came up in conversation. And she worked for a woman one skipped dose away from being his own personal stalker.

But it wasn’t like he hadn’t moved on. There had been plenty of women, some of whom he’d almost believed might be the one. And Lauren…

He wouldn’t have guessed those little pangs of nostalgia he’d felt whenever he thought of Keri were actually buried feelings waiting to slap him upside the head the first time he saw her again.

The low rumble of an ATV signaled incoming and Joe moved to the side of the road to let it pass.

It pulled up beside him, instead. “Hangin’ out with all your friends?”

He flipped Kevin the bird and kept walking. Sadly, his brother didn’t catch the hint and idled along beside him.

“Saw Keri headed for the bathhouse. Looked like she was in a better mood than you.”

No shit.
She
didn’t have the fly of her jeans chafing the erection that wouldn’t die. “Good for her.”

“Ouch. Wanna talk about it?”

Joe gave up and stood still. “Nothing to talk about.”

Kevin killed his engine and crossed his arms. “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, my friend.”

“What the hell was I thinking?”

“Hot. Alone. Cabin.”

Joe snorted, wishing it were that simple, but a part of him had been playing
what-if
as soon as he heard she was looking for him. The
hot
came after. “She’s here for work.”

“Maybe you repressed the memory, but you kissed her in front of the whole family. She didn’t exactly knee you in the balls for it.”

Worse. She’d given him the
let’s be reasonable adults
talk. And made it sound reasonable. His brain got the message, but so far the memo hadn’t made it below the waist. “We’re taking the kids out for pizza tonight.”

“Ding! Nice change of subject. And, no, I don’t wanna tag along.”

“I don’t remember inviting you.”

“Just you, your high school sweetheart, and a pack of kids. Cozy.”

It would be good. Since he wouldn’t put the moves on her in front of the kids, even in his current state of sexual starvation, maybe he could regain his footing. Being forced to keep his hands to himself might give him a chance to remind himself she was just using their past to further her career.

So far that had yet to trump
Hot. Alone. Cabin.

“You’ve got that glazed look you get when you fall in a plot hole,” Kevin said.

He’d fallen in some kind of hole, all right. And it was time to climb out before his libido dug it any deeper.

He slapped his brother on the shoulder. “I’m going to round up the kids. Catch you later.”

Not surprisingly, Joe found Steph slumped in a chair under their camper’s awning, earbuds in place and eyes closed.

He pulled her right earbud out by the wire. “Hey, kiddo.”

“Hey, Uncle Joe.”

“Keri and I are taking all the kids into town for pizza. You in?”

“Nah. I’ll just hang out here.”

Even taking into account pre-teen attitude and maybe even the onset of feminine crankiness, which he did
not
want to consider, Steph seemed out of sorts. “It’s not like you to pass up pizza. There might even be ice cream.”

Steph shrugged. “Not hungry.”

Now he knew something was wrong. Steph’s last name might be Porter, but she was a Kowalski and Kowalskis never missed a meal. “What’s buggin’ you?”

A one-shoulder shrug this time, for variety. “Nothin’.”

“Pants on fire?”

“Whatever.”

If she were one of his nephews, Joe would roughhouse her into submission, but she’d turned the corner into that awkward phase where he couldn’t drag her onto his lap and tickle her until she begged for mercy.

Of course, if she were one of the boys, they wouldn’t be in this situation to start with. They were pretty vocal about everything, including anything weighing on their minds.

“I heard Mom crying today.”

Shit.

“She thought we were all at the store, but I forgot my money so I came back. She was in her bedroom with the door closed and she was crying.”

“It’s a hard time for your mom, honey. For
all
of you.”

“It makes me mad at my dad,” she said in a little voice that reminded him of the little girl who
had
crawled onto her uncle’s lap, looking for comfort after a scrape with her cousins.

Joe satisfied himself with crouching in front of her, his hands on her knees. “You’re going to have a lot of mixed-up feelings, Steph, and they’re all normal.”

She shrugged again, but it was as though the weight of the world rested on her shoulders, making the gesture slow motion. “I love them both.”

“And they both love you. You don’t ever have to choose sides.” He longed for the bygone days when a magic kiss could heal any boo-boo. “No matter how things turn out, it
will
get better. The emotional upheaval will settle and you’ll find a new normal.”

When she sighed and managed a small smile, Joe stood again. He was getting too old to crouch down like that for long. “You sure pizza and ice cream won’t make you feel better?”

“I just wanna hang out and enjoy time alone. Maybe I’ll get to go in the pool without any brats trying to drown me.”

He leaned down and kissed the top of her head, then gave her hair a tousle. When she squealed and slapped at his hand, Joe laughed and went off in search of the brats.

Twenty minutes later, he was driving north with four rambunctious boys and Keri.

Keri, who smelled like soap and shampoo and the tropical flowers of her skin—and mosquito—friendly herbal insect repellent. No doubt she’d go for the DEET-heavy stuff within five minutes of getting back, but for now it was hard not to be distracted by the fresh, feminine scent wafting his way.

Okay, time to get a grip, Kowalski.
On himself, not her.

She’d broken his heart. She was using him to get ahead at work. She lived as far away as possible without leaving the contiguous states.

She laughed at something one of the boys said.

Hot. Alone. Cabin.