Her Fifth Husband? (10 page)

“Hmm?” He blinked his eyes. They widened, darkened and then narrowed as he glanced at his watch. “White.”

“I mean the other side, where you live.” The outside of the entire building was white. The office, which was all she'd seen, was white. She could have suggested something with a little more pizzazz if she'd been asked. For a security firm, maybe sand with caramel accents and small shots of navy and teal—something solid, reassuring and masculine.

“What about it?” he asked querulously. At least he was awake now.

“What colors are you using?”

“I told you—white.” His chest rose and fell. His hands were still laced across the broad expanse. She wanted to be his hands. The plain, embarrassing truth was, she wanted to be all over him, inside and out. Maybe one desperate last fling?

Have you no pride?

Nope. Not a smidge.

 

From the chair, which was more comfortable than it looked, Jake watched through half-closed eyes. She was a natural. Those hips, the curve of her arms that was just right to hold a baby. Her breasts…. She probably thought she needed to lose a few pounds, but to his way of thinking she was perfect just as she was. Built just the way a woman should be built.

Cut it out, man. This is exactly the kind of thinking that got you in trouble back in high school. The same kind that landed your son in trouble ten months ago.

At least he'd married the mother of his kid. He had a feeling Tim and Cheryl were better off not going that far, but who was to say? Things were what things were.

Great. Now he was waxing philosophical. If he needed a clue that it was time to go, that was it. This baby was his responsibility, not hers, but Jake didn't kid himself that his granddaughter was the sole problem.

A large part of the problem was Sasha. It had been a long time since any woman had affected him the way she did. Hell, he'd been half aroused ever since he'd seen her sprawled out on the Jamisons' upper deck, with her shirt plastered to her breasts and her shapely legs sprawled out like an invitation. She was nothing at all like Rosemary.

Abruptly, he got to his feet. “I'd better hit the road, it's getting late.”

She didn't say a word. Her eyes said everything for her, although he couldn't have interpreted the message if his life depended on it. Didn't she want him to go and leave her alone with his baby? To stay? What? Hell, he didn't even know for sure what color her eyes were.

 

Peaches was fed, clean, dry and sound asleep again when Marty's white van pulled up in front of the house and two women piled out. When Marty had called half an hour ago about the fund-raiser, Sasha had told her about the baby and all that had happened over the past several hours.

“Shh, y'all be quiet, I just got her down,” she whispered by way of greeting.

“I can't believe it, you've got a baby!” Marty squealed. “I've got to see her. Wait'll I tell Daisy!”

The three women tiptoed upstairs to the bedroom. “Oh-h, she's so tiny,” Marty whispered.

“Now you done stepped in it,” was Faylene's only comment, but her voice was noticeably lacking its usual astringency.

“Come on down to the kitchen.” Sasha led the way, hardly limping at all.

“I see you're getting around better. I brought you another casserole when I came by earlier on my way to the post office. Good thing I left out the jalapeños. Nursing mothers, you know.” Marty snickered.

Faylene got right to the point. “We've thought up the perfect way to get Lily and this security fellow together. Things are gonna be closed up tighter'n a tick for the
holiday, so he won't be working. This big do at the community center on Monday, they got the school band from over to the college in Elizabeth City comin' to play, and lemme tell you, they're
good!
”

“I'm not taking this baby around all those people,” Sasha said flatly.

“Who said anything about you and her going? Lily's gonna be there helping out with the donations, so all you need to do is get this Smith fellow to carry whatever you're fixin' to donate over there for you.”

“I told you, Jake lives in Manteo.”

“So? He'll be coming here to see his baby, won't he?” Faylene blinked her eyes, the effect dramatic. She was the only woman in their small circle who wore more makeup than Sasha did.

“If she's still here,” Sasha cautioned. “I'm only keeping her until his paint fumes are gone and the roofers finish hammering.”

“You'll think of something,” Marty said. “Tell him she's got the sniffles and it'll be weeks before she can be around fresh paint, then tell him you need something carried over to the center and can he come take it for you so you won't have to take her around all those crowds.”

“You two are awful! That's the weakest plot I've ever heard!”

Marty picked up the book Sasha had been reading over breakfast only this morning. My God, when had her life taken such a bizarre turn? “What'd you think of her latest one?” the bookseller asked, holding up the paperback novel by one of the top romantic suspense writers.

“Speaking of weak plots?” Sasha retorted. “All right,
so maybe he'll let me keep her a few more days, but I can't ask him to take anything—and by the way, what
is
my contribution? I haven't even had time to think, I've been so busy.”

“Go through all that flea-market junk you got laying around,” the housekeeper said. “You got a whole herd of white elephants you need to chase outta here so I can clean this place.”

Sasha had to laugh. It was true. She happened to have a weakness for used personal treasures of past generations, partly because she had nothing at all from her own family, partly because just one such item placed in the right setting could change the focus of an entire room.

“Okay, so
if
she's still here over the weekend, and
if
Jake happens to show up, and
if
he'll agree to run an errand for me, I'll send him over there with that alabaster lamp or maybe that brass sconce I haven't been able to place. He'll spot Lily, fall madly in love and swoon at her feet, is that your plan?”

Marty nibbled on a crust from the casserole she'd brought over earlier. Frowning, she murmured, “Not enough cheese.”

“Next time use processed cheese slices, like I told you,” said Faylene, the uncontested world's worst cook. “Look, we got her lined up to list stuff as it comes in with folks' names for them that wants something off on their taxes. Who better'n her to know the rules?”

“Monday noon's the deadline,” Marty warned, “so you need to get him over there before then.”

Sasha poured three glasses of sweet tea and led the way into the living room. If they stayed in the kitchen long enough, Marty would taste up every bit of the food
she'd brought. Marriage seemed to have increased her appetite. “All right, let's say I can get him over here. Let's say I can prevail on him to take my donation over to the community center and say he sees Lily. What happens then? He proposes, she accepts and bingo, another match is made? Y'all are getting giddy. You know, we used to be better at this.”

“And we used to have more to work with.” Marty sighed. “That's the part we haven't thought out yet, but we're working on it. Lily's lost a few pounds she can't really spare, but she's still the most beautiful woman in town, present company excepted, of course.”

“Of course,” Sasha said dryly, and tossed today's paper at her. It was still bagged in a plastic sleeve.

Marty said, “You read the ads yet? You going to Norfolk Monday for the big sales?”

“I thought I was supposed to stay here with the baby and set up your pigeon.”

“Oh, yeah. Why do they always plan everything for the same day?”

“Because it's the holiday, you goose.”

They all laughed. Faylene washed the few dishes in the sink and then the two women left, offering to pick up any groceries she needed now that she wasn't quite so mobile.

Sasha closed the door and leaned against it, picturing the elegant accountant they'd been discussing. Over my dead body, she thought.

 

Beneath a rapidly darkening sky, a narrow band of pink sliced across the horizon as Jake drove home, his thoughts touching on his granddaughter, his son, the on-
again-off-again Jamisons and the sexy, maddening woman he'd just left.

Sasha Lasiter, alias Sally June Parrish and evidently several other names. Was anything about her genuine?

Did he care?

Yeah, he cared. Not for his own sake, but for his baby's. Was he crazy to leave his granddaughter with a woman he'd known for less than a week?

The trouble was, she felt like someone he'd known all his life—and would like to know a whole lot better. So far as he knew, she hadn't tried to hide anything about her past. A superficial check of public records had pretty well corroborated what she'd told him—not that he'd expected any surprises.

Sally June Parrish, born September 28, 1967, married Lawrence Combs, married Barry Cassidy, married Russell Boone, married Frank Lasiter, with divorces spaced at suitable intervals.

She admitted freely to dyed hair, tinted contacts and fake fingernails and eyelashes. So what about her was genuine?

Admittedly, not much. Only the things that mattered, like her heart, her character—that self-deprecating sense of humor that knocked out his defenses.

One of the things he'd uncovered was the fact that she'd been doing pro bono work for years at various women's shelters and nursing homes. She was a regular speaker for various girls' groups. God knows what she taught them—how to make the most of their physical assets? How to throw together a roomful of mismatched furniture and make it come out looking pretty
good? How to laugh even when you catch a heel in a crack and damn near break a leg?

None of that, he admitted as he headed home, explained the crazy way she affected him. The way she'd affected him right from the start, when he'd been shooting pictures of a lush-looking redhead sprawled out on Jamison's deck, soaking up sun while she waited for her lover to arrive.

At least that's what he'd thought at the time. Even then he'd envied Jamison without ever having met the guy. The lady would have tempted any man, married or not.

It had been a long time since Jake had looked at a woman that way. Okay, so maybe he'd looked—hell, he wasn't over the hill, far from it—but it had been a while since he'd been tempted to do anything about it. Raising a son, plus operating a business, had taken all his time and most of his energy after Rosemary had died when Timmy was seven.

Sure, he'd gone out with a few women. Dinner and a movie, that sort of thing. He'd even gone dancing at one of the nightclubs out on the beach a few times, but none of the women he'd dated turned him on. Not that they weren't attractive, but under the sleek tans, the tight jeans and the shaggy bleached hair, they'd been pretty much cut from the same pattern. Mostly they talked about movies he hadn't seen, celebrities he'd never heard of, reality shows he'd been too busy with real life to bother watching.

Sasha, on the other hand, set her own style. She definitely wasn't built to today's standards. Her clothes, even when she was supposed to be working, were neither beachy nor practical, yet he couldn't imagine her
in a tailored dress or a two-piece business suit. From her crazy shoes to the top of her tousled red hair, she was the kind of woman all men dreamed of taking to bed.

Which meant she probably had men stacked up like cordwood, waiting for her to return their calls.

Reluctantly turning off the semierotic daydream, he parked in the backyard, leaving the three-car space out front available to any drop-in customers. With the holiday weekend bearing down fast—it looked to be a rainy one, too, which was never a good sign—there'd be a bunch of false alarms and screw-ups as cottages filled up with people who didn't take time to read a simple set of instructions.

He went in through the back door, frowning at the smell of paint. Work would stop for the holiday. It was a wonder they'd even got this far. Once the job was finished he could air out the rooms and bring his granddaughter home where she belonged.

Yeah? And what about the woman? Where does she belong?

He knew where he wanted her, all right. In his bed, now and for the foreseeable future, or at least until he ran out of steam and his boilers shut down.

And that made about as much sense as anything else in this cosmic comedy he called his life. Starting with that call from Timmy, his modestly rewarding, occasionally interesting, but mostly predictable life had changed beyond all recognition.

He couldn't imagine Rosemary, who'd been only twenty-six years old when she'd died, as a grandmother. She'd been a good mother—casual, but just what a boy needed, especially once he started getting interested in
sports. She'd never been much for rocking or cuddling, but that was just her style.

Sasha, on the other hand…

Yeah, well…this was a whole new ball game. If there was a rule book for this kind of situation, he'd better find it and do some fast cramming, because the game had already started.

Passing through his freshly painted, semifurnished living room on his way to the shower, he wondered if tonight was too soon to drive back to Muddy Landing. Traffic died down after dark—he could make it in less than forty-five minutes.

On the other hand, if he put in a couple of hours in the office, he'd be good to go first thing tomorrow.

By the time he stepped under the needle spray, he was whistling under his breath. It wasn't a lullaby.

W
as that the phone? At the shrill sound, the dream that had started out as wishful fantasy and morphed into something wildly erotic shattered and began to fade. Desperately, Sasha sought to hold on, but the bits and pieces slipped away like handfuls of fog.

She was on the upper deck of an oceanfront cottage in a canopied bed, and she was not alone—there was someone in bed with her, someone who was…

Gone.

A few glimpses lingered then disappeared. The feelings they engendered lingered longest of all, but in the end there was nothing left but a wisp of memory and a nagging sense of dissatisfaction.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. She was in her own living room, not on the upper deck of a half-familiar oceanfront cottage—lying on her own linen-slip-
covered sofa instead of a canopied bed. Even more depressing, she was alone. She remembered putting the baby in her bassinet and coming back downstairs to turn out the lights and lock up for the night. She'd decided to read a few pages….

The shrill sound came again. It was the doorbell, not the phone. And the background noise was rain drumming down on the roof, not the ocean swishing against the shore.

“Oh, for Pete's sake, hang on, I'm coming, I'm coming,” she muttered. Squinting against the glare of a reading lamp and the hall fixture, she hobbled to the door to see who on earth was calling at this hour. Middle-of-the-night visitors always meant trouble. She wished now she'd had a peephole installed in her front door, but it wouldn't have fit with her seasonal wreaths.

With her hand on the doorknob she blinked at her watch and waited for her eyes to focus. Seven minutes before
ten?
Oh, for heaven's sake, she hadn't slept more than twenty minutes at most. It only seemed longer because of that crazy dream.

She opened the door and there he stood. Her crazy dream in person. Wet hair falling over his forehead, rain glistening on the shoulders of a navy windbreaker bearing the logo of the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island.

They spoke at the same time. She said, “What do you want?”

He said, “I brought some stuff we forgot. I meant to wait until morning, but—”

Turning him away wasn't an option. Besides, he had no way of knowing she'd just been dreaming about him. Unless…

No, that was crazy.

“Come on in…I guess.” He was probably worried about his baby. While he was here she could talk to him about attending the fund-raiser. “What's that?” She blinked at the red nylon bundle under his arm.

“It's, a—a backpack, I guess you'd call it. You put a baby in it and carry it on your back while you shop or run or do whatever else you need to do.” He shook it out, holding it by the shoulder straps.

“While I
run?
”

“Yeah, well…some people do.”

“Do I look like a runner to you?” She stepped back and led the way into the living room before she remembered that before her nap she had showered, toweled her hair and left it to air-dry, giving forty-seven cowlicks their freedom. She had slathered on moisturizer, eye cream and lip balm, and she was wearing her favorite at-home costume.

This is not about me, she told herself, it's about the baby. “Did you carry Timmy around in a sack on your back when he was barely six weeks old?” Feeling challenged always put her on the offensive. “That's scary.”

He didn't react the way he was supposed to. Instead, he looked bemused. With a half smile on his face, his eyes moved slowly from her bare feet to her naked freckles, to her wild, slept-in hair.

“We had a baby carriage. Rosemary used to wheel him all over town. After supper, we both took him for carriage rides. Later on it was wagon rides, tricycle rides, bicycle rides without the training wheels.”

“Yes, well, Peaches is too small for a backpack, and in case you failed to notice, sidewalks are rare in my neighborhood.”

“I think you can wear it in front, too. That'd work, wouldn't it?”

Wear what—the sidewalk? With her brain out on disability, she quickly changed the subject. “You're dripping. No matter how much you water them those flowers aren't going to grow any bigger.” She pointed to the stylized blossoms in her faded Oriental rug.

“You want me to leave?” He sounded plaintive, and she was pretty sure it was deliberate. A splendid specimen of prime masculinity, and he sounded
plaintive?

I don't think so, Sasha thought, amused in spite of her irritation. Amused because he had a way of doing that to her. Irritated because he'd caught her looking her unadorned worst. The heroine of her X-rated dream hadn't been any freckled, overweight woman wearing a fright wig.

She smoothed her hair back from her face and did her instant face-lift, raising her brows, tilting her chin and sucking in her cheeks. It was one of the first things Sally June Parrish, with all her insecurities, had taught herself to do. She'd practiced for hours in front of a cracked and speckled mirror.

“Could I see her?” Jake whispered.

“She's asleep.”

“I won't wake her, I just want to look at her again.”

Sasha knew how he felt. How many times had she tiptoed upstairs to the bedroom just to make sure she hadn't imagined the whole thing?

“All right, but leave that thing in the foyer. I hope you saved the receipts.”

“What's the difference between a foyer and a hall?”

At the foot of the stairs, she shook her head. “Don't
try to change the subject, I'm not having this conversation with you. You want to see Peaches, come on. Two minutes, that's all. Infants need all the undisturbed sleep they can get and this one has already been through enough of an upheaval.”

Once more they stood side by side, close enough so that she caught a hint of soap and aftershave and something that was uniquely healthy male. Uniquely Jake.

She could feel his body heat as together they gazed down at the sleeping infant.

Jake whispered. “God, she's little, isn't she?”

“Shh. What did you expect, that she'd grown in the last few hours?”

“I think Timmy was bigger at that age, but it's been a long time.”

He was standing so close his breath stirred her hair against her cheek. She did her best to ignore the tickling sensation. If he noticed her irregular breathing she could blame it on the stairs. It was no big secret that she was hardly the athletic type. “Boys are born bigger.”

She knew better than that, it just popped out. Her father had called Buck the runt of the litter, among a few less-flattering things.

“Her hair looks like it's going to be curly. Tim had curls when he was born.”

His warm, coffee-scented breath on her cheek raised a flurry of goose bumps along her flank. “That's not hair, it's peach fuzz.”

He smiled, and then she did. As several minutes ticked past, Jake made no move to leave. Neither did Sasha. Even though the bedroom smelled of Odalisque perfume and baby powder, she was far more aware of
the clean, earthy scent of his body that the rain had only accentuated. The only light in the room came from a pink-shaded lamp with a bronze Venus-on-the-halfshell body—another of her flea-market finds.

Suddenly the intimacy was smothering. Jake took a deep breath and expelled it in an uneven sigh. “Trust me, it'll grow out curly.”

She didn't dare trust him, but she wasn't about to argue. The sooner he left, the less likely she'd be tempted to do something incredibly stupid. It wouldn't be the first time, but she had a feeling that this time the effects would be far more lasting.

Tucking her arm through his, she steered him out into the hall. “That's four minutes. You've used up your viewing allotment for the next two days.”

“No way. Don't forget whose baby she is.”

She smirked. “Don't forget who can't take care of her because he's in the middle of having his house painted in colors I wouldn't use on an outdoor privy.”

“What the hell do my colors have to do with anything? Besides, last I heard white wasn't even a color.”

“Shh, keep your voice down,” she hissed as she flounced down the stairs. Pride was a marvelous analgesic. Her ankle didn't hurt at all.

Jake followed two steps behind, his feet thudding solidly on the carpeted stairs. At the foot of the stairs she spun around, but before she could say a word he clamped his hands on her shoulders and leaned over until his face was on a level with hers. “Listen to me. Just because I'm allowing you to keep her for a few days, you don't want to lose sight of who she belongs to.”

Her gaze strayed from his narrowed eyes to his lips. Big mistake.

“The minute the work crew clears out I intend to hook up an exhaust fan and pump the place out so by the time I get her back where she belongs, you won't be able to smell a thing but good, fresh air.”

“Ha!” she said weakly. With his hands gripping her shoulders and his face only inches away from hers, it was the best she could do.

“Damn right,
ha!
This has been one hell of a day, in case you hadn't noticed. I've spent most of it on the highway going back and forth between your place, my place, Cheryl's and the lawyer's, not to mention all that shopping. On the way here tonight I ran out of gas, and on top of that, the barbecue place was closed, so I haven't had anything to eat since lunch—and in case you forgot, I didn't get to finish that.”

She started to interrupt but he cut her off. “Look, I'm not the sweetest guy you ever met, even when I'm in a good mood. When I'm tired, ticked off and hungry that goes double. So don't mess with me, lady, because I'm not in the mood to play games.”

Somewhere during the tirade Sasha's mouth had fallen open. Her eyes had widened, while his had gone from warm hazel to cold obsidian. It was several moments before she noticed that his fingers were no longer biting into her shoulders, but had moved to the bare skin above the boat-necked caftan. “Sasha?” He sounded almost puzzled.

Unable to look away, she murmured, “Hmm?”

“I don't know what you're doing to me, but…”

And then he closed the few inches between them.
The instant before his face went out of focus, she saw his mouth soften. Then his lips brushed hers, pressed lightly and lifted before she could come to her senses enough to react.

Desperate to reclaim his touch, she took the initiative. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him, using the tip of her tongue to lure him into responding.

By the time the kiss ended they were on the sofa with no memory of having moved. Jake's hands had found their way under her voluminous caftan. She wore panties underneath—just barely. As she wasn't wearing a bra, there was nothing to impede the way of a pair of determined hands.

He settled over her, covering half her body. There was a baby in her bedroom, otherwise she'd have led him right back upstairs.

“Talk about going from zero to sixty in ten seconds flat,” he said with a short laugh.

“I know of a Lamborghini that does it in four,” she replied, her voice no steadier than his.

“Sorry. Six-year-old Suburban. Ten's my best finish.”

“Are we—?” Finished, she meant. Her faded caftan was up around her shoulders, her body fully revealed, flaws and all. She had managed to tug his shirt from his belt so that she could run her hands over his muscular torso. Discovering his sensitive areas, she concentrated on those, thrilling to the way he gasped when she brushed his nipples. Her fingers trailed down to his belt buckle and he sucked his breath audibly.

With a catch in his voice, Jake said, “Finished? I hope not. I don't suppose this couch of yours opens up?”

“No, but there's a downstairs bedroom.”

“I can probably make it that far.”

Sasha wasn't at all sure she could even stand. For the first time she regretted being a collector. There was no room to spread out where they were. He wouldn't be able to straighten his legs without kicking over a stack of something.

He stood and pulled her to her feet and into his arms. Sasha couldn't remember the last time she'd wanted a man as much as she wanted this one. The year she'd discovered sex, it had been more a matter of adolescent hormones than anything else. Comparing what she'd felt then to what she was feeling now was like comparing wading in a plastic pool to diving off the continental shelf. Both involved getting wet, but one involved testing unexplored depths.

“Which way?” he asked, his voice barely audible.

“That way,” she replied without moving away. His exploring hands cupped her breasts and her knees threatened to buckle. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she held on to his belt. When her fingers slipped inside his jeans she was glad that for once she wasn't impeded by her usual array of rings. His hips felt as hard as they looked. He was hard everywhere—hard and sweet and utterly intoxicating.

With only a few more hungry kisses along the way they managed to make it to the spare room. At the moment it looked more like a warehouse than a bedroom, but at least the bed was relatively uncluttered.

Sasha swept away a stack of fabric samples and several catalogs while Jake dug his wallet out of his hip pocket, withdrew a foil packet and placed it on the bedside table.

She started to lie down, and then hesitated. Undress first? Wait to see if he wanted to undress her? Race to see who could get naked first and dive into bed together?

For a woman who'd been married four times, she suddenly felt as awkward as a virgin bride. What if he didn't like her? What if he thought she was too fat? She had a few stretch marks. She thought of them as damask, but Jake probably didn't even know what damask was.

She was still dithering when Jake lifted the caftan over her head and tossed it at the chair. Tomorrow she would tear the wretched thing into dust rags—or maybe press it in her memory book.

“Last chance to back out,” he said.