His One and Only (9 page)

Yeah, he knew all right, but he couldn’t seem to lighten up or even stop obsessing over her.

Why had she come back to Alabama? And why had she agreed to take this job? Unlike the Josie he used to know, she just did everything he told her to do without a hint of her old sass.

Truth be told, when he’d flipped his tray off the table the night before, it had been half jealousy on his part and half a test to see how she’d respond. But she hadn’t protested or even grumbled. Just quietly cleaned up the mess, a meek shell of the Josie he used to know.

He couldn’t get a read on her and it was frustrating the hell out of him.

Still, flipping the tray had been wrong, he admitted to himself when he was back at the bay window after Mac left for the day. Maybe if he was nicer to her she’d open up to him, or at least talk to him as easily as she’d talked to Mac earlier. Or maybe she’d…

An image of Josie smiling at him in the glasses he’d brought her sprang to his mind, and his dick immediately swelled with the sweet pain of unfettered desire inside his jeans. Worse, he couldn’t stop the sequence once it started. The images came hard and fast, bombarding him: kissing her, tasting her, and finally moving inside her, watching her pretty face as she came, her eyes squeezed shut—

The phone’s loud spoken ringtone shattered the remembered fantasy. “Incoming call from Kitty Prescott! Incoming call from Kitty Prescott!”

Mac had said he left the phone on the nightstand, so Beau groped along the left side of the bed to guide his way to the nightstand. Only, he stubbed his toe against the thick, wooden bed post, and the sudden pain had him cursing and stumbling into a part of the room that had no furniture nearby with which to orient himself.

The phone continued to chirp, “Incoming call from Kitty Prescott! Incoming call from Kitty Prescott!”

Eventually he found his way to the nightstand, but it wasn’t pretty. He fell twice and knocked over a houseplant and something fragile (he heard it shatter into pieces when it hit the floor). But finally he had the phone in his hand.

“Answer call.”

“Hello, darling!” his mother sing-songed.

“Mom,” he said. “How’s wherever you are this week?”

“Oh, the Seychelles are beautiful, darling,” she answered. “If only your injury hadn’t been quite so dramatic, you could join us on our cruise.”

Beau had learned over the years to ignore most of what came out of his self-involved mother’s mouth. Also, he’d rather deal with a million Josie’s than spend any amount of time trapped on a cruise ship with his mother and her boyfriend. So he just said, “Glad to hear you’re having fun, Mom.”

“I am having a rather lovely time,” his mother answered. “Or perhaps I should say I
was
having a lovely time until Josie Witherspoon called here asking for a raise.”

“What?”

“She told me that you were a lot more work than she thought you would be and wondered if she might get more money.”

His heart iced over. Josie had been complaining about him behind his back, to his mother of all people. “And what did you say?”

“I reminded her I could get a Mexican to do her job for half the money.” His mother, who came from a long line of southern debutantes, answered in a voice ringing with entitled indignation. “But might I just say, I was very surprised she’d try to finagle a raise so soon. Josie has always been such a sweet girl. Never gave me a moment of trouble even in her teenage years, which is more than I can say about you. You were a little hellion from the age of four.”

Beau rolled his eyes in spite of himself. Use your mom’s Miss Alabama sash to make a slingshot once, and you’re labeled a troublemaker for life.

“What did she say when you said no?”

He could almost hear the frown in his mother’s voice when she answered, “She said she was sorry to have bothered me and she got right off the phone, as well she should after overstepping like that. But she sounded sad.”

“I’m sure she did,” he said, his voice flat. “Since working with me is such a hardship.”

“I suspect she needs the money,” his mother said in an off-hand way. To the former beauty queen who had never lacked for anything in her life, money was one of those trivial things only the unsophisticated worried about. “But I’m calling to make sure her complaints are without merit. You were always so great with Loretta. You’re not giving her daughter any trouble, now are you?”

“Don’t worry,” he answered. “Josie won’t be calling you anymore. I’ll take care of it.”

“Now, Beau,” his mother said. “Don’t do anything rash…”

“I’ll take care of it,” Beau repeated.

Then he said, “End call.” But he kept the phone gripped tight in his hand even after he heard the phone click off.

Josie had called his mother behind his back, to tell on him like he was a toddler she couldn’t control. But he wasn’t a toddler. He was a grown man. And before Josie left for the night, she’d know that.

CHAPTER 8

JOSIE DEBATED WHETHER TO REMIND BEAU
she wouldn’t be around that evening as she walked up the stairs with his dinner tray. On one hand, her mother had always done the Prescotts the courtesy of letting them know when she was leaving the house, especially if it was for more than the couple of hours it took to run her weekly errands.

On the other hand, her heart was still in a permanent state of cringe since the call with his mother.

It couldn’t have gone worse. First she’d stuttered through her request for more money, not being nearly as diplomatic as she would have liked as she explained the situation. Then Mrs. Prescott had responded in a way that made her feel like the lowest form of dirt, reminding her that there were many “illegals,” she could hire for less money and that Loretta had never complained about Beau even when he was an unruly four year old and prone to throwing back-to-back temper tantrums.

She hadn’t known how to explain that dealing with adult Beau was worse than dealing with a four year old. Four year olds didn’t make your job harder just for the hell of it. Four year olds didn’t snap at you whenever you tried to help them. And most of all, four year olds didn’t look like Beau Prescott.

When she’d dropped off a snack for him and Mac earlier that afternoon, she’d found him doing chin-ups with weights strapped around his ankles, and she literally stopped and stared. He was working out in a ratty, gray college t-shirt with “Bama” written across the front in tall, crimson letters. It had become so thin over the years that it clung to his sweaty body and made her wonder what it would feel like to reach underneath and feel those muscles, warm beneath her hands…

But then Mac had snapped her out of her trance by telling her to just set the tray of hummus and pita bread she was carrying on a foldout table in the corner of the room.

She had no business thinking of Beau Prescott like that, especially after what happened between them twelve years ago. If sleeping with the high school quarterback had blown up in her face, sleeping with the thirty-three-year-old version would surely be nothing short of a nuclear disaster.

What was wrong with her? She’d loved Wayne to a fault, had done everything to try to be the perfect wife for him. But she’d never been that sexually attracted to him, even in the beginning before he showed his true colors. However, Beau had not bothered to pretend to be anything less than a complete jerk, and here she was fantasizing about him.

To her great relief, Beau wasn’t engaged in any embarrassing phone calls when she arrived at his bedroom door that evening. But to her surprise, he also wasn’t at his usual place in the bay window. He was already seated at the table, as if he’d been waiting for her. However, he didn’t say one word, not even to acknowledge her presence in the room.

A little unsettled, she put the tray down in front of him. “I’ll be back in a little bit to take away your empties.”

She turned to leave, but he said, “Hold on, this is a sandwich.”

She reluctantly turned around. “Actually it’s a southwestern chicken panini. It’s real good. I had it myself for dinner before I came up.”

He picked up the sandwich like it was a dead rat she’d put on his plate. “You’re trying to serve me a sandwich. For dinner.” He felt around the rest of his plate. “And a couple of pickles.”

Josie bit her lip and looked to the right. The truth was she had purposefully chosen a dish that tasted good, fit within his dietary restrictions, and would be easy to clean up if he decided to flip his tray again.

He tossed the sandwich back on the plate. “Get me a big plate of that pasta you made yesterday and a bowl of that lentil soup from lunch.”

She opened her mouth to say she wasn’t a short order cook, and that his parents had never made her mother swap out a meal. But in the end, she clamped her lips together forcing her tongue to stay put.

She needed this job, she reminded herself as she walked back down the stairs and reheated the leftovers from last night. She needed this job
bad
, she told herself again as she came back into Beau’s room with the new tray of food.

But she stopped short when she saw that the original meal she’d brought Beau was already gone with nothing but a few crumbs to suggest it had ever been there in the first place.

“You ate it,” she said. “Does that mean I should take this food back downstairs?”

“Put down the tray,” he said, his voice flat.

She did as he asked, sliding the new tray in front of him after gathering up the old tray. “I’ll be back to pick up the rest of the dishes,” she said, as she turned away to leave the room again.

But she wasn’t even to the door when she heard the scrape of the silver tray being flipped over, followed by a couple of hard thunks and the clanging of the tray hitting the floor.

And despite growing up the daughter of a consummate servant, and everything she had put up with while married to Wayne… She. Just. Snapped.

“No!” she said, dropping her own tray and turning on him. “No, you do
not
get to do this to me, you spoiled little rich boy!”

“I’m not a boy!” he roared, coming out of his seat. “I’m a grown man. But if you treat me like a little boy, whining to my mom behind my back, that’s what you’re going to get!”

Josie’s eyes widened. This was about her asking his mama for a raise? “I only went to her because she’s the one in charge of my checks, and I told her the truth. I’m not getting paid enough to put up with your bull hockey!”

Josie was so angry, she bent down, scooped up a handful of the fettuccine, and threw it at him, catching him across the face with noodles, ham, and low-fat cream sauce. It was hands down the most satisfying thing she’d done in years. So she scooped up some more and threw that at him, too.

“I don’t care how insulted you feel about me telling your mama the doggone
truth!
You’re not the king of Alabama and you need to realize that when you make a mess, other people have to clean it up!”

She followed this declaration with another swat of pasta and another and another, until her hands were covered in white sauce and there was no pasta left.

She stared at her palms in horror and then back up at Beau. He looked like he’d been attacked by a bowl of pasta. His face, his chest, his shoulders were all covered in white sauce, cubed bits of ham, and whole-wheat fettuccine.

And though she couldn’t see his eyes behind his ever-present sunglasses, he held his entire body in a clench, including his large, hulk-like fists. Her heart went tight with the old fear, and for a few seconds, she stood there, frozen like a frightened bird, hoping if he couldn’t see or hear her, he wouldn’t be able to find her to hit her.

But then he took a step toward her, and he was so much bigger than Wayne. He easily had an extra one hundred pounds on her former husband. All of it muscle.

She screamed, hunkering down and covering her head with her arms.

BEAU DREW UP SHORT. Was she screaming? Why was she screaming? He was the one covered in food.

“Josie,” he said, softening his tone and bending down toward where he sensed she was, grabbing her by her forearm.

She broke off screaming with a yelp of fear. “Don’t! Don’t hit me!” she cried. It sounded like she was on the edge of hysteria.

“I won’t!” he yelled back. “Now stop screaming! The neighbors are going to think I’m in here murdering you.”

He felt her lower the arm he’d grabbed, but she was still trembling.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he asked.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be sorry,” he answered. “Tell me why you threw my dinner at me.”

He could still feel her shaking, but her voice was laced with defiance when she answered, “Because you were being a jerk.”

Despite the circumstances, he had to hide a smile. So the Josie he used to know hadn’t been completely replaced by the meek maid who had been serving him without complaint for the last two days.

“Well, the joke’s on you, because now this jerk needs you to help him take a shower.”

Silence from Josie but eventually he felt her stand up. “Let’s get this over with,” she said. “I’ve got plans.”

And Beau’s heart hardened as he stood up as well. Josie’s plans not only caused his blood to boil with jealousy, it reminded him that he was blind and dependent on others to do even the most basic shit now. He’d gone from being one of the most eligible men in Los Angeles to some shut-in, living like a ghost in his childhood home.

And it for sure didn’t help when she took his hand and led him into the bathroom. A certain portion of his body that didn’t seem to get that Josie was about to head out on a date with another guy roared to life when her soft hand clasped his.

Pathetic, especially since Josie was less than interested. As soon as she got him standing just outside the shower, she let go of his hand.

A few seconds later he heard the sound of water spraying out of the shower head, and she said, “I’m turning my back so you can get undressed.”

A minute later it sounded like she was on the other side of the large bathroom when she asked, “Do you need me to help you into the shower?”