Josie Day Is Coming Home (31 page)

“This isn’t the Wild West,” Luke informed him.
“There aren’t any cows around here.”

“Hmmm.” Momentarily crushed, TJ gazed at the
ceiling. A small pucker marred his pierced brow. He brightened. “I guess
it’s Bubba’s, then! I’m off to pick up Amber. I didn’t get all decked out in my
best clothes for nothing.”

Palming his truck keys, he meandered to the carriage house
exit. Luke grinned at the suspiciously shaped scorch mark on the back of his
board shorts. Apparently, TJ’s big-date prep had gone beyond putting on an
almost-clean novelty T-shirt and sniffing his pits…all the way to actually
ironing.

“Hey, your shorts are on fire.”

“What? Where?” Slapping at his backside, TJ turned
around like a dog chasing its tail. The minute Luke guffawed, he wised up.
“Screw you, Donovan. Josie told me Amber would appreciate the freaking
gesture.”

Josie. That explained where he’d gotten hold of an iron.
Luke sure as hell didn’t have one.

“You must really like this girl,” he mused.
“Next thing you know, you’ll be ironing
her
clothes.”

Good-naturedly, TJ flipped him the finger.

“Or writing her love letters. Sending her
flowers—”

“Flowers?” TJ swore, a strange expression flashing
over his face. He hurried upstairs, only to return with a scraggly bouquet of
carnations in his hand. “Good thing you reminded me. I don’t want to leave
these babies behind.”

Luke plucked out the plastic
Get Well Soon
spike
stuck in the midst of the blooms. “Quickie Mart?”

“Damned straight. And I got Amber these, too.”

“Breath mints?”

“Just in case. Don’t worry, I know how to be
subtle.”

Luke doubted it. Before he could make a wisecrack, though,
TJ tossed a sealed envelope at his chest.

“Hey, I almost forgot. That came for you today.”

Turning it over, Luke frowned. It looked like an invitation.
The envelope was made of thick paper, and his name and address were written on
the front in fancy calligraphy.

“I got a phone message for you, too,” TJ added.
“From the secretary at Donovan & Sons. Something about a property you
were looking at for your mechanic’s shop? The owners couldn’t track you down on
the cell phone number you gave them—”

Luke flashed on the cell phone he’d hurled into the woods.

“—so they called the company looking for you.”

TJ fished a crumpled Snickers wrapper from his pocket. He
smoothed it against his chest, then handed it over.

“Here’s the 411. Names, phone numbers, all that stuff.
I guess the deal they were working on fell through, so the property’s available
again. If you work fast.” TJ squinted at Luke. “Is that the place you
told me about?”

“The one with six repair bays and most of the equipment
intact,” Luke said. “Yeah.”

He knew the one. It was his dream property, the perfect
place to locate his motorcycle mechanic’s shop. He’d thought it was a lost
cause when he’d left L.A. Evidently, it wasn’t.

If you work fast
.

“Dude, that’s awesome!” TJ punched his shoulder,
looking psyched. “Once you lock down that place, there’s no
way
your dad can look down on you. Not if you have a sweet setup like that.”

Silently, Luke turned over the wrapper. There was only one
way he could
work fast
to snatch this opportunity. He’d have to finally
list Blue Moon for auction. He’d have to finally sell the place…right out
from under Josie.

“Jesus, Luke. You look like somebody just kicked a
puppy. I thought this was what you wanted. To get out of here and go back to
L.A.”

“I do.” Or at least he always had. Determinedly,
Luke shook off his weird mood. This
was
good news. News he’d been
waiting for. “It’s perfect.”

“Call ‘em,” TJ advised. He plucked out his beloved
spyathon-swag PDA and tossed it to Luke. “Use that. It’s got a phone built
in. Seal the deal, then take Josie out to celebrate.”

Luke doubted Josie would want to celebrate this news. Not
when it meant she’d lose Blue Moon.

He frowned at the wrapper. The contact information there
looked clear enough, even written with what must be a permanent marker in TJ’s
angled scrawl. No excuses there.

“Maybe we can double-date sometime before you
leave,” TJ blathered on, looking as happy-go-lucky as Luke
didn’t
feel. “You and Josie and me and Amber. That would be sweet. Oh, and dude?
Don’t look for me to show up back here anytime soon. I might be out
all
night.”

“Only if you’re lucky,” Luke said.

“Or Amber’s lucky.” With a chortle, TJ headed out
the doors, flowers in hand and spikes in hair, ready for a night of
“romance.”

Luke sank onto the nearest vintage Indian bike, the opened
invitation in hand. He frowned, bugged not by the innocent invitation to his
cousin Melissa’s upcoming wedding but by the handwritten note she’d included.
He looked at it again.

I know you and your dad aren’t exactly getting along
right now,
Melissa had written,
and I’m sorry about that. But a wedding
is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, Luke. I don’t want a family feud in the middle
of it. Maybe it would be better if you stayed away. Just…stay away and give
your dad some time.

Stung, Luke stared blankly at the nearest Kawasaki. He
guessed his whole family knew about what had happened with his dad. Usually,
they kept their perpetual disagreements to themselves. But not this time. This
time, Robert Donovan meant business.

If you want to live like a blue-collar grease monkey, you
go right ahead. But don’t expect me to respect you for it.

The funny thing was, Luke had. Naïve as it seemed now. He
had
expected his dad to respect him for it. And the rest of the family, too. After
all, Robert Donovan hadn’t been born a freight-trucking tycoon. He’d been born
the son of a banker and the grandson of a man who’d amassed much of the family
fortune in the five-and-dime business.

Every generation of Donovans had made their own way in life,
starting with the nineteenth-century lumber mill owner who had—unbeknownst to
Josie—built Blue Moon and founded Donovan’s Corner. Even Tallulah had carved
out a niche in business before marrying Ernest Carlyle. Donovans came with an
entrepreneurial streak in the genes. Luke wasn’t exempt.

“Settle down. Relax. Take advantage of
not
having to struggle for everything,” his dad had said to him once.

But Luke didn’t mind struggling. He didn’t mind working hard
and he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. Hell, he didn’t see how he could
live with himself if he
didn’t
do those things.

There was more to him than a fat bank account. More to him
than being the family black sheep or the name at the bottom of somebody’s
paycheck. If he’d never laid eyes on a motorcycle, if he’d never felt the urge
to take something apart and put it back together again…things might have been
different. But he had. There was no going back now—not if he wanted to feel
like
himself.

It wasn’t the money he missed. Most of that had been tied up
in accounts and trust funds and investments anyway. A few assets would have
come in handy right now to buy Josie a replacement dance studio, but cash
wasn’t really the answer. No, what Luke missed most was trust. Trust and faith.

And open invitations to family events.

Not that he was panting to go to a stupid wedding. Far from
it. But he’d grown up with Melissa, damn it. They’d shared summer vacations and
Jolly Ranchers and Ping-Pong tournaments. They’d sneaked out to the movies to
watch
Aliens
together when both their parents had declared it
off-limits. He deserved to see her walk down the aisle in one of those froufrou
dresses, to get shit-faced at the reception, eat wedding cake, and make a
cheesy toast…to give her a hug as she started off on her new life.

Jesus, he was getting sentimental over this crap.

Frowning, Luke examined the invitation again, then the note.
Melissa wouldn’t have sent it if she wasn’t worried—if she didn’t believe there
was a real chance Luke’s feud with his dad would wreck her big day. He owed it
to her to stay away.

He
had
to stay away.

Luke swore. Of all the screwed-up things in life, this
definitely fell in the top ten. But telling Josie the truth about Blue Moon
would be worse.

“Hey there, handsome,” came a sexy voice from the
carriage house entryway. “Can you give a girl a hand?”

He looked up. Just as though he’d conjured her there, Josie
stood in the growing night. Framed in the light from his work lamps, she looked
wild and free and a little bit loopy. Her hair tumbled loose. She held a
sweating glass of something pink in her hand—something, judging by her crooked
smile, that was just as intoxicating as the way she looked.

She turned her back to him, exposing a long column of
shimmery bare skin. Her dress gaped at its zipper.

“Do me up, would you? I can’t reach.”

Over her shoulder, she batted her eyelashes at him. Her
fakes were back, he realized. A ridiculous sense of relief filled him.
Josie
was back.

He put down Melissa’s wedding invitation. Carefully. In a
place where it wouldn’t get soaked in motor oil or covered in screws. He wove
his way between the disassembled motorcycles, stopping when he reached the
place where Josie stood beneath a shop light.

No, he hadn’t conjured her up. He never could have imagined
anything as amazing as the way she looked tonight.

He examined her dress, hesitant to touch it with his big
mechanic’s hands. Pale, floaty, and plunging down to
there
, it somehow
seemed innocent and provocative at the same time. Dressed like that, Josie
looked every inch the seductive showgirl, accustomed to champagne and glitter
and neon nights.

“Just do up the zipper,” she said, lifting her
hair out of the way. “I tried, but I couldn’t quite reach.”

Her next over-the-shoulder glance made a lie of her words.
Luke would have bet anything—even that perfect L.A. property he wanted—that she
hadn’t tried to zip up her dress at all. That she’d shimmied into its
whisper-light fabric, walked outside with it threatening to fall off at any
moment, and found him here.

Found him speechless. Fumbling. Unable to take his gaze from
the smooth expanse of naked skin that stretched from her shoulder blades to the
luscious curve of her ass. Just looking at her made him sweat.

He exerted a superhuman effort to reach for her zipper.

“The only thing a dress like this is good for,” he
said as he pulled it up, “is making men wonder what you’d look like
without it.”

“Maybe.” She smiled, then let her hair tumble over
her shoulders. She turned. “But all I’m looking for tonight is a chance to
cut loose. Not to make men wonder.”

Luke doubted it. Even zipped, that dress looked indecent.

“It’s been a tough couple of weeks.” She sipped
her drink, making a small sound of appreciation as she did. “I could use a
night off. It’s
exhausting
being respectable.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

Josie scrutinized him, from the tops of his work boots to
the top of his head. She lingered over his tattoos. She smiled.

“No, I guess you wouldn’t. I like that about you.”
Brightening, she came closer. She trailed her fingertips over his chest.
“I like
lots
of things about you.”

She weaved, nearly toppling. Luke caught her.

“Whoa. Maybe you ought to ease up on the pink
stuff.”

“Are you kidding me? This is my own invention. A little
pre-cocktail cocktail. Chambord plus vodka plus…something else I can’t
remember right now. Try it.”

She pushed it toward him. Liquor fumes wafted upward.

“No, thanks.” Making sure she was steady on her
feet, he let her go. He didn’t trust himself not to pick up where they’d left
off at the Kincaid House. Given how much he wanted Josie, it wouldn’t take much
for him to loosen his stance on not seducing tipsy women. “I’m more of a
beer guy.”

She squinted. “Maybe. But something tells me you’ve got
more than a nodding acquaintance with expensive whiskey, too. Maybe even
champagne. After a few years in the casino, a girl learns to size up a fella’s
tastes. You’ve got high roller written
all
over you.”

On the word
all
, she teetered sideways. Thank God she
didn’t know how close to the truth she really was.

“That’s because you’re drunk. I’m just a
mechanic.”

“Maybe so.” Josie’s expression zipped from
thoughtful to purposeful in that exaggerated way sometimes caused by a few
cocktails. She gave him a canny look. “But that doesn’t explain your
pony.”

Her
ah-hah
! tone made him smile.

“My pony doesn’t like whiskey or champagne, either.”
He put his hand to the small of her back, inciting a serious urge to drag her
upstairs and tell her girls’ night to go screw itself. She’d look good on his
apartment’s lonesome bed—and even better on him. “How about some company
on your big adventure tonight? You’re going to Bubba’s, right?”

Bubba’s—also the site of TJ’s big date with Amber—was one of
Donovan’s Corner’s most popular watering holes. It featured foot-long
margaritas, dollar Jell-O shots, and two kinds of beer—regular and lite. Plus pool
tables, a regular live band playing covers, and a pack of shit-kicking locals.

Josie nodded vigorously. Several times. Luke grinned,
resisting an urge to clap a hand on her scalp like a guy with an overactive
bobblehead on his dashboard.

“Yes, Bubba’s. Where the drinks are sloppy and so is
the dancing. But men aren’t invited. Sorry.” She touched his arm, seemed
to get distracted by the glide of her fingers over his bare biceps, and sighed.
She snapped to. “In fact, the girls ought to be here any minute to pick me
up.”