Seducing Liselle (3 page)

“Hello, I’m Julie,” the woman said. She
didn’t offer her hand.

Liselle
sensed the same damaged wariness in the woman that she felt herself
almost every day of her life. “I’m
Liselle
.” She
gathered her courage. “Please, I want to tell you…” She had to stop when her
voice shook. The woman didn’t smile or offer a hand or say anything.
Liselle
straightened her shoulders. “I want to tell you how
terribly sorry I am that my brother hurt you.”

Julie blinked,
then
grimaced. “I thought you were going to apologize for his death, you know, like
most people do.”

Liselle
felt sick.
“Um, no.
That was one of best
days of my life,” she blurted out, then hurriedly glanced at Beth. Shit. She
shouldn’t have said that in front of the girl.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, looking away.

“
It’s
okay, Aunt
Liselle
. I didn’t see him much growing up, so I didn’t
really know him until—” the girl broke off this time, her face wrinkling.

Liselle
put out a hand—Beth should never, ever, have to even think of her
father again. “No, don’t. I’m sorry. You don’t know how sorry I am.”

The girl stared at her, and hysterically,
Liselle
wondered if this was where she was going to spend
the entire visit: stuck in the hallway between the foyer and the kitchen,
facing off with her brother’s widow and daughter and all their relatives.

“This is stupid,” John muttered. He rolled
his shoulders, and
Liselle
noticed the faintest
grimace cross his face, but then he tugged at her arm and urged her forward.
“Let’s at least sit down and have something to drink while we hash all this
out, ok?”

Liselle
nodded as she walked, wondering if they had beer.
Or possibly vodka.
She never drank, but she was willing to
suspend her normal habits just for today.

“That sounds good to me,” Julie said,
relief coloring her voice. “I’m glad you were able to come.”

Liselle’s
brows rose. “I don’t understand.” She shook her head and tried
again.
“Really?
I’m just glad you let me visit. When I
first found out about Beth, I was shocked. I’d had no idea she existed.” She
very deliberately didn’t mention that it took her most of a year after her
brother’s death to call. “I didn’t think you’d let me meet her.”

Julie shrugged. “It’s not your fault he
was an asshole.”

Liselle
grimaced and caught the same expression on John’s face. Before she
could respond, they were in the kitchen. Two more women sat at the large table
placed in the center of the open space. The ceiling had exposed beams and the
windows on the one wall were floor to ceiling.
Liselle
took it in, amazed. It was the most beautiful house she’d ever seen.

“My Dad built it,” John said, coming up
behind her and correctly interpreting the look of appreciation on her face. He
put a hand over her elbow and guided her to the table.
Liselle
startled when he touched her and he dropped his hand with an apologetic look.
She felt bad, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t like being touched
unexpectedly.

“Jean, Janet, this is
Liselle
Parker.
Liselle
, these are my two other sisters.”

The women offered friendly greetings.
Liselle
smiled back at them, chewing on the inside of her
cheek when she realized that all their names sounded similar. Should she
mention it? It seemed rude, but she caught John grinning at her as if he could
tell what she was thinking. She gave up on keeping her mouth shut. She had to
say something. “You all have names that start with J?”

John laughed, startling her again. He
sounded so relaxed.
Liselle
wasn’t used to that. Most
of the men in her life had been … difficult.
You mean angry, mean, tense
, she thought to herself.
No sense sugar-coating it.
She sighed
internally, trying to shake the strange mood that had taken hold.

John was speaking.
“Yeah.
My parents thought it was hilarious. When Janet named her boys Anthony and
Daniel, it nearly caused a riot in the family.”

Janet shook her head, grinning. “I
certainly wasn’t going to give them J names. I couldn’t do that to them. I know
what that was like, growing up.”

“Yeah, unpleasant,”
Jenn
chimed in from near the stove. She shuddered dramatically and the rest of them
laughed.

Liselle
looked around for Janet’s sons, but didn’t see anyone else. The
room that lay beyond the low wall was dark except for the fire crackling in the
fireplace.

“They’re not here,” John said, once again
reading her mind. “Anthony lives in New York and Daniel is in Maryland, at
school. We don’t see them often enough.”

Janet nodded agreement. “They have to live
their own lives.”

“Oh.”
Liselle
bit her lip. What did you say to that?

“Yeah, yeah, it sucks, but whatever. They
used to put snow down my shirt when they lived here. I don’t miss that,” Beth
interrupted, pulling out a chair and throwing herself into it. She squirmed
around, then extracted a cell phone from her jeans pocket and started typing
very intently.

“Beth! What did I tell you about texting
at the table?” Jean asked, frowning.

Beth looked up, blinking vacantly for a
second, before focusing on her aunt. “Oh. I thought that was just when we were
eating? Sorry.” She grinned,
then
tucked the phone
away.

Liselle
smiled as Jean rolled her eyes. She really liked this family. John
pulled out a chair and offered it to her. She hesitated, looking at his hand on
the chair and then followed the line of his arm up to his shoulder. The muscles
in his forearm flexed as he held the chair. Damn, he was strong. He’d rolled
the sleeves of his shirt up, exposing skin up to his biceps.

“Would you like to sit?” he said, breaking
into her reverie.

She blushed, hoping no one saw her acting
like a teenager mooning over the quarterback, and sat down. He didn’t move
away. Instead he loomed over her, all handsome and smelling good and really,
really tall, and she felt her face go even hotter. The last thing she’d
expected when she’d decided to come here was to meet a hot guy. She didn’t
date. She didn’t really like men, not after how her brother and father had
treated her. She’d long ago given up on finding someone and wasn’t planning on
changing her mind, so having John stand near her being amazing and beautiful
was seriously messing with her.

Just because you don’t date doesn’t
mean you can’t look
, a traitorous part of her mind
whispered. She gritted her teeth and shoved her libido down, throwing a mental
lock over that part of her psyche. Getting involved with her niece’s uncle
would be a disaster. Particularly since despite all of his niceness, she had
the feeling he didn’t feel particularly happy about her visit.

“Thank you,” she said to him. He sat down
next to her. “And thanks for having me over,” she said to the women around the
table.

“I’m glad you came,” Beth said.

Liselle
smiled at the girl, feeling a little less unsettled now that John
wasn’t standing over her.

“Dinner will be ready in five,”
Jenn
said. She pulled something that smelled divine from
the oven.

Liselle
picked up her water glass, determined to ignore the man sitting beside
her.

An hour later, she knew she’d failed. She
couldn’t help stealing glances at him throughout the meal. He was polite, kind
to his sisters, and knew how to use a napkin, all things which were foreign
experiences for her when it came to men. Her brother had been a total slob, and
her dad … well, no need to even go there. The guys she’d dated had reverted to
selfishness almost immediately after their first dinner together. Clearly she
was bad at picking dates.
Liselle
forced herself to
look away from John and focus on her niece. The girl was the reason she came
here, after all.

After talking with her throughout dinner,
she’d come to realize that Beth was just as sweet on the inside as she seemed
on the outside. Beth’s mother Julie was a little bit cooler toward her, but
Liselle
thought she’d made progress in convincing the woman
that she didn’t want anything from them. She just wanted to meet Beth. The
oldest of the four sisters, Janet, kept grinning at her throughout the meal,
and
Liselle
was mortified when she thought about why.
John had been extremely charming for the last hour, a sudden switch from his
initial standoffishness. It made
Liselle
feel
strange. Most of the guys she’d dated had been assholes like her brother and
father. John wasn’t like that and
Liselle
wasn’t
quite sure what to make of him. Why was he being so nice to her, especially
when he’d been so hostile at the beginning?

“Did you like the pie?” he said, sitting
back in his chair. He sipped his beer, looking relaxed and masculine. Damn him.
Liselle
tore her eyes away.
Again.
Every time he lifted the bottle to his mouth, she had to watch him swallow. His
lips were full and pink, and they made her want to do something crazy, like
push away from the table and drag him off with her so she could kiss him. She
fiddled with her napkin.

“Yes, it was delicious,” she replied. She
really had to get the hell out of here before she did something stupid. She
pushed away from the table and glanced out the windows. It was snowing and she
remembered the forecast was calling for a couple of inches.

“I really should get going. The weather’s
supposed to deteriorate and I don’t want to drive down the mountain on
unfamiliar roads, particularly if it gets icy.”

Jenn
nodded and got up from the table. “Let me pack a piece of the pie
for you to take with you.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that,”
Liselle
protested. “You’ve already fed me dinner.”

“Don’t bother to argue,” John said, a
smile playing around his mouth. “She’ll win, and you’ll feel like a truck ran
over you.”

Jenn
rolled her eyes at her brother, but he just winked at her.

Liselle
couldn’t help smiling. It was just so strange to watch a man act
nice
.

“Where are you staying?” John asked.

She started, once again forcing her eyes
away from his mouth.
How can he look so damn masculine with such pretty
lips?
she
wondered.

“I booked a room at the Holiday Inn near
the highway.” She glanced out the window. The snow was coming down harder now.
She frowned, beginning to worry.

John sat up, his air of relaxation suddenly
gone. “That’s about an hour’s drive.”

She looked away from the window and lifted
her eyebrows at him. Was he worried about her? He didn’t even know her.

“I’ll be okay. The car I rented has front
wheel drive, so as long as I leave soon, I should be fine,” she said.

“I’ll follow you down the mountain—” he
began, but
Liselle
hurriedly shook her head.

“No! No, that’s okay.” She hoped he would
take her word for it. The thought of him following her made her skin crawl. It
didn’t matter how nice he seemed at dinner, to her it would feel like he was
stalking her. She firmly pushed away the memory of her brother showing up at
her apartment when she’d moved to Arizona a few years ago, with their father
not far behind him. It had taken her four months to lose him again in
California. She shook her head. “I’ll be okay, I promise.”

He looked at her skeptically, but nodded.
“If you run into trouble, I’ll be leaving in about an hour, just so you know.”

Liselle
tried to imagine him coming to her rescue and failed. She even let
herself picture him in that beat up old truck she’d seen out front,
instinctively knowing it was his, and she couldn’t do it. She associated men
with
fear
and
danger
for too long. Even though John
was the nicest man she’d ever met, she couldn’t let herself count on him to
come and save her. She’d save herself, just as she had in the past.
She done
so too many times to expect anything different.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” she said
politely, and turned to Beth. “Hey, thank you. I’m really happy I got to meet
you.”

The girl smiled and scooted in, giving
Liselle
a completely unexpected hug. “My dad was an
asshole, but you’re not like him at all.”

The unexpectedness of it had tears
pricking at
Liselle’s
eyes, even as she tentatively
hugged Beth back. “Um, thank you.” She drew back. “You know
,
if you ever need anything…”