Seducing Liselle (2 page)

“Um—” Beth looked away.

John clenched his hands and shoved them in
his coat pockets. It wouldn’t do to let his niece know how pissed-off he was,
still, after all this time. He gripped the fabric on the inside of his pockets
so hard his fingers ached. He remembered shoving his fists into the asshole’s
face, despite the crippling pain of his newly reconstructed shoulder. He
remembered the satisfying sensation of the asshole’s nose breaking into several
distinct pieces. He’d also kicked the bastard in the nuts and still didn’t feel
the least bit sorry because he remembered the bruises all over his sister’s
face. And the cut on Beth’s, the one that had finally made something inside him
snap.

“Why?” he gritted out finally, glaring at
the wall over Julie’s head. He noted that the finish on the stair
bannister
needed to be touched up.

Julie’s shoulders hunched. “She had no
idea he had a kid.”

“So?” Why was that a reason for waltzing
into their lives?

Janet sighed and put a hand on his arm.
Brave woman.

“Apparently he’d done a number on her,
too, when they were younger, before she moved clear across the country to get
away from him and their father. She had no idea he had a daughter until he died
last year and the authorities contacted her to take care of his stuff.”

“I still don’t understand why she’s coming
here.” John shrugged off her hand and unzipped his coat. The guilt he thought
he’d feel for putting the bastard in the ground still didn’t show up.
God.
If he didn’t give his hands something to do he was
going to punch something and his sisters didn’t like it when he did that. He
knew his reactions were all wrong for the situation, but sometimes he just
couldn’t help it. Situations where the people he loved were threatened shoved
him right back into combat mode. His instinct was to protect, and this made him
feel like danger was headed their way.

Julie shrugged. “She called and asked.
Said she was considering moving back to Pennsylvania for work, and wanted to
meet her niece.” She took his coat from him and smoothed a hand over the fabric.
“She sounds nice. She’s coming here to meet everyone. If you ask
me, that
takes guts.” She looked up at him, her sweet face
suddenly drawn. “And that’s why we wanted you here.” She paused, took a deep
breath. “In case something goes wrong.”

He stared at her for a moment, her brown
eyes showing all the pain she’d suffered at the hands of that bastard and he
sighed. He smoothed her hair over her forehead and she leaned into his hand.

“If I’d known he was hitting you, I would
have come home sooner,” he said.

She shrugged. “He wasn’t, you know.
Hitting me.
He wasn’t even around until about a year before
your accident.”

John growled. “He should have stayed the
hell away from our family.”

She turned. “I don’t want to talk about it
anymore. Talking doesn’t help. It never did.” She headed for the kitchen. Janet
gave him a look and took off after her.

John closed his eyes and tried to count to
ten, but before he got to five, Beth was there, tugging at his hand. “Come on.
Aunt
Jenn
made your favorite stuff for dinner, Uncle
John.” She smiled tremulously at him and he relaxed. He never could deny her a
damn thing, and she knew it.

“Yeah, okay, squirt,” he said, just to see
her expression go sour. She hated that nickname. John didn’t care. He loved his
niece and his sisters beyond all reason. As he followed her into the warm
kitchen, he supposed that was all right. Family was supposed to stick together.

Chapter Two

Liselle
turned the car onto the gravel driveway and pulled up beneath one
of the enormous trees that surrounded the large cabin. When she turned off her
car, the tick-tick-tick of the engine made her already strung-out nerves
quiver. What was she doing? She’d asked herself that question at least a
hundred times since she’d climbed in the rental car this afternoon. She frowned
and scrubbed her hands through her shoulder-length hair. She
had
to
come. She wanted to meet her niece. She didn’t miss her brother, may he rot in
hell, but she hadn’t realized how much she wished she had someone in the world
she could care for. She would have to be careful, she knew. Her father was
still looking for her after she’d given him the slip him a few years ago, not
for the first time, and he was relentless. She didn’t want to lead him here.
She rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the tension in her neck. How many
times had she run from him and her brother?
Five?
Ten?
She wasn’t sure. The first time she’d been only
seventeen, and they’d found her within a year. That had been a very bad time in
her life.

She sighed, and forced herself to open the
door.
No sense dwelling on the past
,
she told herself. Strangely, the woods around her made her feel more at ease,
not less. She thought she would feel closed-in and threatened when she saw how
isolated the house was on the map, but instead the trees and snow imparted a
sense of peace, sadly lacking most of her life. She climbed out and shut the
door behind her, straightening her scarf. She’d worn leggings and her favorite
skirt with high black boots, but now she wondered if she’d dressed too
formally. Oh well. Nothing she could do about it now. She started up the
driveway, skirting around the ancient Chevy truck that had definitely seen
better days. Before she got halfway up the porch stairs, the front door opened.
She stopped and stared.

The man in the doorway had short blond
hair, green eyes, and a physique that she’d only ever seen before on the cover
of a supermarket magazine. She stopped, heart suddenly pounding, glad she had
mittens on because
sweaty palms was
not the kind of
first impression she wanted to make.

The man opened the screen door and stepped
onto the porch.
Liselle
forced herself up the last
few steps, desperately trying not to stare at his bare feet. Who walked outside
in February with bare feet? She forced her eyes up to his face, though she
couldn’t help lingering a second or two on his groin. The worn denim did
absolutely nothing to disguise the man’s extremely generous package. Who was
he? She thought she’d be meeting her niece and the girl’s mother, not facing down
the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.

“Are you
Liselle
Parker?”

She nearly stumbled. His voice was low and
rumbly
and it made her shiver. She nodded, trying to
pull herself together.

He frowned. “You’re tiny. I thought you’d
be taller.” He looked her up and down.

“I’m five three, that’s not tiny,” she
said defensively, smoothing her scarf over her coat. Okay, sure, she was a bit
plumper than she’d like, and maybe that made her look shorter than she actually
was, but still. He didn’t have to point it out.

“You’re shivering. Come inside.” He
stepped out of the way, holding open the screen door for her.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He didn’t smile at her, but she could tell
he grinned a lot by the fine lines around his clear green eyes. “I’m John.
Beth’s uncle.”

Liselle
stepped closer, hoping he couldn’t tell how apprehensive she felt.
“Oh. I didn’t realize—”

“That she had an uncle?
Or
three other aunts?”

He sounded vaguely belligerent.
Liselle
stopped, feeling suddenly exhausted. Damn her
brother anyway. “I knew, but I didn’t expect you to be here. You’re the one who
punched Matt in the face?”

He nodded, his whole body going tense.
“That a problem?”

She swallowed. This man had made one of
her dreams come true and he had no idea he’d done it. If it hadn’t been for
him, she would never have been free of Matt. She’d tried moving across the
country but her brother and father always found her. Her life had been hell for
twenty years. She gathered her courage and pushed past him into the warm house,
then turned to face him.
John
, she told herself.
His name is John.

“John,” she began, savoring the taste of
his name on her lips. “No, it’s not a problem at all. In fact, I’m glad you’re
here.”

He stepped back, the controlled violence
of his body receding while she watched. He relaxed his hands and tilted his
head, confusion chasing across his face. “I don’t understand.”

“I was going to look you up next, after I
met Beth,”
Liselle
forced out. She hadn’t come this
far to chicken out now. “I wanted to thank you.” She swallowed, throat dry. “I
want
to thank you. You saved my life.”

He blinked and opened his mouth, but
nothing came out. Before either of them could say more, a teen girl clomped
down the stairs. “Uncle John? Did I hear the door?”

That voice had to belong to her niece.
Liselle
braced herself and looked up, but even so, she
gasped as the girl’s face came into focus: light blue eyes, blonde hair
carelessly pulled back into a ponytail. Except for the hair, she was the
spitting image of
Liselle
at the same age. She had
pictures to prove it. She was the spitting image of Matt,
Liselle’s
dead brother.

“Elizabeth?” she managed to croak, feeling
faint. This girl was her family. Even if she never saw her again, at least she
had that much.

“She likes to be called Beth,” John said,
his voice strangely gentle.
Where before he’d seemed
menacing, angry, now he radiated calm, to her surprise.
He smiled at her
and all the little laugh lines she’d suspected crinkled into existence around
his eyes. God, he was beautiful.

Tentatively
Liselle
smiled back, trying not to hyperventilate. She had to swallow again. If she
didn’t get something to drink, soon, she wouldn’t be able to talk at all.

“Are you my aunt?” the girl
asked,
her face open and curious.

Liselle’s
heart gave a hard thump. This girl, her niece, was looking at her
as if she just assumed she would be a nice person.
Liselle
didn’t remember the last time she’d felt that way when meeting someone new. She
briefly mourned the innocence she’d never really had and squared her shoulders.
She had to clear her throat in order to speak.

“Yeah, I’m
Liselle
.
You don’t have to call me aunt,” she said quietly. “I wasn’t around when you
were growing up, so…” She shrugged, vaguely ashamed, though she’d had no idea
the girl even existed.

“Aunt
Liselle
,
let me take your coat,” Beth offered, coming the rest of the way down the
stairs.

Liselle
smiled. She couldn’t help it. What had she done to deserve this?
Beth grinned at her and
Liselle
felt something hard
and cold inside her chest break apart. “We have the same eyes,” she said, like
an idiot.

John’s face darkened unexpectedly. “Yeah,
that’s all she got from that—”

Liselle
tensed, but before he could finish, a woman bustled down the hall,
wiping her hands on a towel.

“John! You didn’t tell me she was here,”
she said, cutting him off.

Liselle
looked at the newcomer: shoulder-length blond hair, same green eyes
as John.
She must be one of the sisters
,
she thought, unbuttoning her coat slowly. She used the time to get herself back
under control.

“Hi, I’m
Jenn
Steele, Beth’s aunt.” The woman offered her hand.

Liselle
took it and shook tentatively. The woman’s hand was warm and
slightly damp.

“I’m
Liselle
Parker. Um—” she broke off, not wanting to bring up her brother’s name.

“Yes, I know, Beth’s long lost aunt. We’re
happy you’re here.”

Liselle’s
brows rose. The woman seemed completely serious. Maybe this visit
wouldn’t be a disaster. Beside her, she sensed John calm down, to her relief.

“Thanks.” She slid her scarf off and
stuffed it into the sleeves of her coat.

“I’ll take that,” Beth said, slinging the
thick wool over her arm. The girl grinned impishly at her,
then
tossed it over the rack near the door. It teetered precariously on top of the
already overflowing pile of winter coats.

John watched his niece, eyes twinkling. “I
don’t think you’ve got enough coats on that thing yet. Maybe you should hunt
down some more.”

Beth rolled her eyes at him. “You’re such
a dork, Uncle John.”

The first completely natural smile spread
over
Liselle’s
face. Beth was lovely and kind and her
uncle and aunt had welcomed her, against all expectation. She’d never felt so
relieved in her life. Her brother hadn’t damaged his daughter. She took a deep
breath, trying to wrestle her swinging emotions into some sort of calm. Just
when she thought she’d managed it, another woman stepped out of the kitchen.
She was younger. Her hair was the same length as Beth’s. She wasn’t smiling.
Her light brown eyes were cool.
Liselle’s
gut
abruptly twisted. This had to be Matt’s wife.
Ex-wife.
God.