Love Me Sweet (A Bell Harbor Novel) (3 page)

Upstairs, the water continued to run and Carl had begun to sing. Loudly. Well, actually
sing
was kind of a strong word. Caterwauling was more accurate. Like he was trying to wash a wounded pelican down the drain. An unpleasant sound. How long did it take to swap out a faulty showerhead, anyway? She splashed a little more wine into her jelly jar and brought it with her to the stairs.

A sock lay on the first step. Another one five steps higher. Carl certainly had made himself at home. At the top of the creaky steps was a heap of something beige that most definitely had not been there when she’d left. She picked it up, careful not to spill wine on it.

It was a sweater, one of those thick cable-knit sweaters that only fishermen wore. A queasy sort of churning started low in her gut. Something here wasn’t right. She dropped the sweater back onto the shag carpet and took another few steps, pausing outside the bathroom.

The shower ran. Carl caterwauled.

But . . . the caterwauling . . . gurgled. And the water didn’t sound as if it was spraying right down the drain. It sounded . . . like . . . like splashing.

Splashing?

Delaney put her hand on the wooden door and gave it a nudge. It opened a few inches and bumped up against something heavy. She nudged harder and spied a big black duffel bag sitting on the floor. With a final shove, the door flew open. And so did her mouth.

She hadn’t meant to scream so loud.

Heck, she hadn’t meant to scream at all, but that crazy old dude wasn’t
fixing
her shower. That crazy old dude was
in
her shower! What the hell? The jelly jar slipped from her shocked fingers and shattered against the black-and-white tile floor, splintering into a thousand sparkly fragments. Wine spewed. Her scream echoed off the baby-blue walls, then so did his.

He yelled back, in obvious surprise, and flailed around behind the frosted glass, arms reaching, body twisting.

Delaney snatched up her pink blow-dryer from the counter and pointed it like a gun. The shower door flew open with a clang of glass and metal. And there stood a man.

A totally naked, totally shocked man.

Brandishing a loofah on a stick.

“What the hell?” he shouted. “Who are you?”

“Who am I?” she screeched. “Who do you think I am, you crazy fuck? What the hell are you doing in my shower?”

Her pulse beat like bongos, erratic and hollow. He was a big guy. A big naked guy, muscular and dripping wet. Her eyes dropped down. She couldn’t help it.

Carl was not at all what she expected. Donna Beckett must have a whole lotta something fabulous hiding under that manatee sweatshirt because this guy was hot. And half Donna’s age.

“Hey!” he shouted, following her gaze. He dropped the loofah and grabbed a paperback novel from the top of the toilet tank. He opened it and covered himself. Sudsy water ran down his arm. “Who
are
you?”

“I’m De . . . Elaine. Elaine Masters.” Her cheeks burned hot, and not from the steam he’d built up in that shower. She forced her eyes back to his. “I’m your tenant.”

“My . . . my what?” He brushed a bubble of shampoo away from his hazel eyes with a nicely muscled forearm.

“I moved in a few days ago. Didn’t Donna tell you?”

He was staring at her as if she were a rabid dog in need of outmaneuvering, but at the mention of Donna’s name, a look of subtle comprehension seemed to pass over him. “
Donna
rented this place to you?”

“Yes.”

Crazy Naked Man had the nerve to offer up a chuckle and a hint of lazy smile. He swiped more water away from his face with one hand while holding the book firmly in place with the other. That was her book. She’d just about gotten to the good part and now the pages were drenched and pressed up against his . . .
hiccup
.

“OK, sweetheart, we seem to have a little situation here,” Naked Man said, “but let me finish this shower, and as soon as I’m dried off we can straighten everything out, OK? Put the blow-dryer down before you electrocute us both.”

Sweetheart? Her ire officially surpassed her surprise and she forgot about her ruined book. “Don’t you
OK sweetheart
me, you jackass. Get out now or I call the police.” That was a lie. She couldn’t call the police. If she did, her name would be front and center in the news again. Not to mention that little matter of a fraudulent signature on her lease. But he didn’t need to know that.

“I’m soapy,” he said impatiently, as if that should explain everything.

She waved the blow-dryer, aiming at his chest. That very fine chest. “I don’t care if you’re Dopey, Sneezy, and Doc. Your wife rented this place to me and you need to get out of my shower.”

She thought there might be dimples under that scruffy facial hair. Hard to tell, though, because that little bit of smirk was now gone.

“Donna’s not my wife. She’s my mother. And this house isn’t hers to rent. It’s mine.”

Eight thousand miles. That’s how far Grant had traveled to get to this shower.

Seventy-two hours ago he’d been in the hot, sticky jungle having an even hotter, stickier argument with Blake Rockstone—his idiot boss who was none too happy to hear that his coproducer and director of photography was quitting in the middle of a shoot, but maybe Blake should have thought of that before stealing Grant’s girl. The fight ended in a stalemate with Blake threatening to sue him for breach of contract. Too bad Grant couldn’t countersue Blake just for being a douche bag.

After that, Grant had boarded a rickety plane of questionable flight-preparedness in Pampanga, and spent the next horrendous twenty-four hours sardined between two Japanese businessmen, one who snored and drooled like a Saint Bernard, and one who wanted to rest his bald head on Grant’s shoulder.

Twelve hours ago he’d landed in Chicago only to discover his flight to Bell Harbor was canceled because of a blizzard. He managed to score a ride home with a church group generous enough to offer him a spot on their school bus, and spent the final leg of his journey being Saved. So right about now, all he wanted was a long, hot shower and a long, deep sleep.

Meaning that whoever this pissed-off brunette was, whatever deal she’d arranged with his flaky mother, they could talk about it after he’d scrubbed the jungle from his skin and rinsed the shampoo from his hair.

“What do you mean it belongs to you? It can’t belong to you. I just rented it,” said the girl, aiming that pink blow-dryer right at his heart.

If he wasn’t so damn exhausted, he might find that funny. She was holding the thing as if it would protect her. It was a
blow-drye
r
! He nodded at it. “What do you plan to do with that thing, honey? Style me to death?”

“That’s it. I’m calling the police.” She took a step backward, one foot landing in the hallway.

“Wait! Wait. Just wait a second.” The knot of tension he’d carried for days, which had only just begun to wear away, came back with a blunt blow to the sternum. That’s all he needed. The police showing up here before his family even knew he was home. He’d meant to call ahead, but he’d kind of wanted to surprise them. Plus phone reception being what it was over the Pacific Ocean, he hadn’t bothered to try. All things considered, that may have been an oversight on his part. “Please let me rinse off, OK? Calling the cops will just waste everybody’s time, and if Mickey Pinkerton is still the sheriff, he won’t make it out here until Tuesday anyway.”

“Then I’m calling your mother.”

“No!” His voice came out in a burst and the girl’s big blue eyes went bigger still. “Look, please, don’t call my mother. Just. Wait. OK? I’m at a serious disadvantage here, don’t you think? So if you could demonstrate just a little bit of patience, I’d really appreciate that. No one in my family told me they’d rented my house. I thought my brother was living here.”

“That’s pretty hard to believe.” She backed up farther as if preparing to bolt.

“I’ve been out of the country. And my mother is . . . unreliable.” That was the nicest way he could think of to say his mother was a walking disaster in a polyester tracksuit. She was unpredictable, shortsighted, and lacked both impulse control and problem-solving skills. He loved her, of course. She was still his mother, but he’d figured out it was a lot easier to love her if he hardly ever saw her.

The brunette looked him up and down once more, her perusal so thorough he felt partially vulnerable and partially turned on. He might have sucked in his gut just then, when her bright gaze slipped over it. She was cute, and she was blushing. He hadn’t seen a woman blush in a very long time. The paperback in his hand twitched and he pressed it against himself a little more firmly. This would be an inopportune moment for an erection.

She set the blow-dryer down on the white countertop and crossed her arms. “What’s your name?”

“Grant.”

Her chin tilted. “Grant what?”

“Grant Connelly.”

“Ah-hah!” She scooped up the blow-dryer with both hands and pointed it at his chest again. “That’s not my landlady’s last name! Who are you really?” she demanded. Her face scrunched up in what he could only assume was her meanest expression, but it wasn’t remotely effective. She had the face of a homecoming queen, all sparkly eyed and rosy cheeked. In those tight jeans and big red sweater, and the bouncy ponytail on the top of her head, she was about as menacing as a ladybug.

He shook his head, once, slowly. “She got remarried. Donna Beckett is my mother’s name. Is that who you rented this house from?”

The woman paused. Her doubtful expression fell away and she set down the blow-dryer again, gently, with a slight air of embarrassment. “Yes.”

The surge of adrenaline he’d felt at her entrance burned away, and now Grant was more fatigued than ever. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since finding out about Miranda and Blake, and the last few days of travel had been hell in a bucket. He just wanted to dry off and find a bed. “OK, so can I please finish this shower and talk to you when I have some clothes on?”

She paused, looking skeptical once more.

Her gaze slid back to his groin.

“You’ve ruined my book.” She pressed a thumbnail against her lip, and he silently reminded himself that flaunting his physical state of interest would probably not work in his favor at the moment. But he couldn’t resist. If she was going to keep staring, he’d give her something to look at.

“This book?” He lifted it chest high and smiled as both of her hands slapped over her eyes with a smack so loud the sound bounced off the walls of the bathroom.

“Oh my gosh, yes, that book. Never mind. Put it back. Put it back.” She turned away and waved a hand at him, refusing to look.

Wow. She
was
a homecoming queen. She would’ve fit right in on that church bus he’d come home on. He looked at the soaking-wet paperback. The cover had a bare-chested man holding up a great big sword. Nothing phallic about that. “
The Chieftain?
Hmm, looks racy. Don’t worry. It’ll dry.”

She gave a single shake of her head. “Trust me. It’s ruined. So . . . I guess . . . I guess I’ll just wait for you in the kitchen. But if you’re not downstairs in ten minutes, I’m calling your mother. And the police.”

Chapter 3

DELANEY HEARD HIS FOOTSTEPS ON
the stairs a full twenty minutes later. She’d picked up the phone five times to call Donna Beckett since leaving that bathroom, but she hadn’t because he’d asked her not to. She was polite that way, plus she was still hoping to settle this situation calmly and quietly. The fewer people involved in her business, the better. Sure, this guy could be a prison escapee, a drug dealing, car thieving ax murderer, or some kind of deranged sociopath—or all of the above—but his story seemed plausible enough, and he didn’t really
look
like a deranged sociopath. Not that she had much experience in the deranged sociopath department. Then again, maybe she did. She
had
grown up in Beverly Hills, after all.

He came around the corner of the living room dressed in well-worn jeans and a white T-shirt. A swirly tattoo of initials was dark against his bicep. She’d missed seeing that when he was in the shower, what with all his other manly business capturing her attention.

“Took you long enough,” she said.

“I had to clean up all the glass. Apparently somebody dropped something in the bathroom.” Without glancing her way, he paused near the thermostat to adjust the dial.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” She picked up the phone again. Maybe she
would
call his mother.

Now he looked at her. In this light his eyes weren’t so much hazel as they were green, but either way, they were trained on her, and she wished they weren’t.

“I’m turning up the heat. It’s freezing in here,” he said.

“No, I have to pay for that heat. Turn it back down and put on a sweater. And some socks. Better yet, put on your coat and boots and go someplace else. What did you say your name was?”

“Grant Connelly.” He walked past her and into the kitchen.

She turned to watch his movements. “OK, Grant Connelly. You’re showered, dried off, and dressed. So now you need to skadoosh right on out of this house. The house which I have rented and paid for.”

He looked over his shoulder at her as he put his hand on the refrigerator door handle. “Do you have any food?”

“What?”

“Food. You know? Something to eat?” His wet hair was messy, as if he’d shaken like a dog to get the water out but hadn’t bothered with a comb, and the scraggly beard looked like more a case of lost razor than style decision. Clearly he was not trying to impress anyone.

“Yes, I have food, but it’s mine,” she said.

His smirk was sly and crinkled the corners of those eyes, whatever color they might be. “If it’s in my fridge, then I should get to eat some of it, don’t you think? I can’t go anywhere on an empty stomach.”

A puff of relief escaped from her lungs. Go anywhere? Good. He was planning to leave, and she then could have this place back to herself. That’s all she wanted. To be left alone.

“There’s peanut butter and jelly,” she said.

“Peanut butter and jelly?” The smile turned dubious and he looked her over more carefully. “How old are you?”

First rule of celebrity was never admit your age. “How is that any of your business?”

“I just want to make sure I’m not harboring a runaway sixteen-year-old.”

Delaney crossed her arms and all but stomped her fuzzy-slippered foot—which would not have helped prove her maturity, so she refrained.

“I’m well beyond sixteen. I just happen to like peanut butter and jelly. So how about I make you a sandwich while you get your things together and then you can lea—” Another thought interrupted the first. “Where’s your car?”

He shook his head and opened the refrigerator. As if he owned the place. “I don’t have one. The church bus dropped me off.”

“The church bus?” Oh, no. Not another preacher’s son. She would’ve rather he’d been dropped off by an alien spacecraft.

“Yep. Church bus. Hallelujah and amen.” He did the Jesus woot-woot with both hands, then pulled an apple from the top shelf. He really wasn’t catching on to the whole
get-your-ass-out-of-here
vibe she was sending. He seemed to be more in the
make-yourself-at-home
mode.

“Well, if you don’t have a car, then we should call you a cab. It’s getting late, and in case I haven’t mentioned it, I’d like you to leave.” The sooner she could get him gone, the sooner she could start to breathe again. He didn’t seem like the tabloid-reading kind of guy, so there wasn’t much chance of him recognizing her, but it was unnerving to have a total stranger in her house. Or his house. Landlady’s son or not, she didn’t know anything about him.

Except for what he looked like naked.

She did know all about that. Hiccup.

“Yeah, about leaving.” He set the apple on the counter and ran both hands through his wet hair, slicking it back a little. It looked good that way. Sexy, which Delaney so did not need to notice. Her lungs went whump as her knees went goosh.

He took a step toward her. “See, my family doesn’t know I’m back in town yet. I was hoping to surprise them, but it’s too late to do that tonight, so I think I’ll just crash here and call my mother in the morning. In the meantime,” his voice dropped and his mossy-eyed gaze met hers, “how about if I make that sandwich for myself and you can entertain me with a story about why you have a backpack full of cash sitting in the closet.”

All her blood seemed to clot in place, leaving her queasy and breathless. She leaned back, as if she could physically evade the question. “You went into my closet?”

One light brown brow lifted and he crossed his thick arms. “Technically it’s my closet. Where’d you get that money?”

Damn it. She’d had a lot more control over the situation when he’d been naked and soaking wet. A man without his pants was a man willing to negotiate, but right now she was the one exposed and vulnerable. She took a big, deep breath. “The money is mine, and I don’t owe you any explanation. That was totally unethical of you to go through my things.”

He shrugged, broad shoulders flexing under white cotton. “It was an accident, but maybe we should call those police now and we can both talk to them.”

He was bluffing. What a bluffer!

Delaney straightened up and stood her ground. “Why would you call the police just because I have my own money? This is none of your business, you know.”

He tilted his head. “Probably not, but I think I’d sleep a little easier if I knew you weren’t some mobster’s girlfriend who helped herself to all the loot in the casino safe.”

Her fisted hands went to her hips. “Do I look like a mobster’s girlfriend?”

Well, that was a stupid thing to ask. She didn’t want him studying her face that way. She may as well pull out the latest edition of
Us
magazine and show him her picture, although since arriving in Bell Harbor she’d given herself long bangs with a pair of dull scissors and dyed her normally highlighted hair a nondescript brown. With no makeup, she looked a lot different than those stock photos tabloid magazines used for covers. Still, she wished she’d put on her fake glasses. She pulled her new bangs down and over to the side as if that might hide her identity while Mr. Plain White Tee stared. Evaluating. Scrutinizing.

“No. You don’t look like a mobster’s girlfriend,” he finally said, “but I’m trying to figure out why somebody with that much cash on hand would be renting this old house in Bell Harbor.”

What the hell was she supposed to say to that?

Of all the houses in all the towns, she had to go and rent a place that wasn’t really up for rent to begin with, and one that came with a man inside. That was some shit luck. Almost as shitty as having her old boyfriend sell their sex tape to the tabloids. What had she done in a previous life to deserve this particular situation?

Time to dial up the perky. “Look, I swear the money is mine. I just . . . I wanted a change of scenery so I took all my money out of the bank and decided to do a little traveling, have a little adventure for myself.”

Wait. Shoot. That was probably a foolish thing to admit. If he had a mind to, he could make her and her money disappear, and no one in her family would ever know what had become of her. Damn it. There sure was a steep learning curve to being on the lam. For instance, is that even what they called it anymore? On the lam? Well, whatever it was called, she wasn’t proving to be very good at it.

Grant picked up the apple and shined it on his shirt, right over that muscular torso. “You’re looking for adventure? In Bell Harbor? In the middle of winter?” He sounded doubtful, and with good reason.

Delaney tossed her ponytail in what she hoped was a convincingly carefree manner. “I heard you have good skiing here. But listen, if you can get my rent money back from your mother, I will gladly go elsewhere.”

That wasn’t entirely true. She’d go elsewhere all right, but she wouldn’t be glad about it. None of the other places she’d looked at had been remotely acceptable, and with her luck, if she went back to the hotel, she’d get snowed in and end up like Jack Nicholson in
The Shining
. Leaving town wasn’t much of an option right now either. There was sixteen feet of snow in every direction, and she was driving a frickin’ Volkswagen Beetle. She’d nearly ended up in the ditch on the way home from the grocery store.

Grant continued to stare, until the pressure nearly broke her. Maybe she should offer up the famous Masterson smile. It had worked in convincing his mother, but something told Delaney that Grant Connelly was a little sharper in the intellect department than Donna was. So she waited, silent, while his body seemed to fill the space in front of her. The scent of one of her mother’s trademark soaps emanated from his skin. Ginger peachy. Most certainly not his usual fragrance, and the idea of him using her bath bar made those knees of hers wobble again. Not the time to be weak limbed. She crossed her arms and tried to look determined. Certain. Not guilty. The money was hers, after all. That was the only thing that really mattered here. He didn’t need to know all the details about why she’d left Beverly Hills.

His sigh, when it came, was full of resignation. “You swear to me you’re not some runaway Girl Scout who took all the cookie money?”

She held up three fingers in what she hoped was the Girl Scout salute. “I swear.”

This chick was no Girl Scout, and anybody on the move with that much cash had to have a story, but he was just too damn tired to care. He hadn’t even meant to find that bag. He’d gone into the first bedroom and opened the closet just to throw in his own stuff, and there it was, a backpack, unzipped and gaping wide with banded stacks of money inside. If she was a thief, she wasn’t very good at hiding it.

He scrubbed a hand across his whiskered jaw and resigned himself to wondering. Whatever her situation was, it wasn’t his problem. Tomorrow he’d go see his mother and the rest of his family. He’d get the girl’s deposit back and send her on her way. He turned back to the kitchen counter. “Fine. Whatever. Where’s the bread?”

“That’s it?” Her voice squeaked in surprise, and then she hiccupped.

“That’s it for now. I told you, all I want is food and sleep. I’ll get your deposit back for you tomorrow and you can find another place, because you can’t stay here.”

“Deposit and six months’ rent,” she said.

“What?”

“I gave your mother a security deposit and six months’ rent, so she’ll have to give it all back. In cash.”

A dull thudding began inside his skull, like the pounding of a Kayumanggi drum. Historically, things involving his mother did not go smoothly, and this had catastrophe written all over it. He turned back around, hoping maybe the girl would be gone. That maybe he was asleep and he’d dreamt up this whole thing. But no. There she was, all innocent looking, which meant she was anything but. “Please tell me you didn’t pay my mother in
cash
.”

She frowned, delicate as an angry kitten. This chick was too cute for his own good, but at the moment, his mother’s gambling habit was the primary issue. Donna liked the slots, but they didn’t like her. If she had fifty bucks in her pocket, the only safe bet was that she’d lost it, and six months’ rent was a lot of scratch to donate to the Four Eagles Casino.