Caleb’s eyes cut to the women behind the counter, noting the shocked horror in the blonde’s eyes and the sneer on the redhead’s face. He grinned, liking her screw-you attitude.
“What’s she so bitchy about?” he asked, keeping his smile friendly. Nothing connected with a mark—or suspect—faster than sympathy. Besides, facts were facts…the woman had been a bitch. He wandered the store ostensibly looking at merchandise while eyeing the back wall and its bead-covered doorway.
“That’s her default personality,” the redhead said.
“Pandora, is it?”
He wondered why she was looking at him as if he was a wolf about to pounce. Sure, he’d been a troublemaker as a teen, but he’d been gone almost twelve years. Was his rep still that bad in Black Oak? He didn’t recognize her. Younger than him, she was closer to his sister’s age.
“Hello?” he said, giving her a verbal nudge as he picked up a clear rock shaped like a pyramid, pretending to inspect it. Her worried stare was starting to bug him.
“I’ll go make sure everyone’s out of the café since it’s closed now,” the blonde murmured.
“Yes, I’m Pandora,” the other woman said, grabbing the arm of the blonde before she could move away. “I’m the, um, owner. Can I help you?”
“Owner? You don’t sound so sure.”
“I’m still getting used to the idea.” Pandora’s smile was as stiff and fake as the blow-up doll Caleb had shipped off to Hunter the previous day. “What can I do for you?”
God, so many things. Let him taste those lips to see if they were as soft and delicious as they looked. Slide that silky-looking hair over his naked body. Tell him about all her favorite sexual positions and give him a chance to teach her his.
“I’m just looking around. You’ve got a nice place here.”
“Thanks. Was there anything specific you were shopping for?”
His grin said it all. A sweet pink flush colored her cheeks, but he saw the flash of reciprocated interest in her eyes. Then, for some bizarre reason, she slammed that door shut with an impersonal arch of her brow.
What the hell? Unlike his brother, Gabriel, he didn’t expect women to fall at his feet. And the hard-to-get game did have appeal sometimes. But to totally deny the attraction? What was up with that?
Focus, Black,
he reminded himself. He’d come to town for a crappy reason and wanted to leave as fast as he could. So her denial was a good thing.
And maybe if he told himself that a few hundred more times, he’d believe it.
“So you have a café here, too?” he asked, poking through a basket of glossy rocks and trying to take his own advice to focus. Now that he was closer, he noted the noise and tasty scents coming through that beaded curtain. Was the back door to the alley through there?
Before he could poke his head through to see, a group of people strode out with a clatter of beads and a lot of laughter. They’d obviously been having a happy holiday lunch.
There, in the center of the group like a king surrounded by his royal court, was Tobias Black. His lion’s mane of black hair had gone gray at the temples. His face sported a few more wrinkles, adding to its austere authority. Still tall and lean, he wore jeans and biker boots, a denim work shirt and a mellow smile.
Caleb froze. Control broke for a brief second as he closed his eyes against the crashing waves of memories as they pounded through his head—and his heart. Holidays and hugs, lectures and encouraging winks. Watching his dad pull a con, then pulling his first con while his dad watched. The trip to Baskin-Robbins afterward, where Tobias let Caleb treat to hot-fudge sundaes with his ill-gotten gains, cementing the lesson that winning was sweet, but the money had to be kept in circulation.
And then his last day of college. The day when Caleb had told dear ole dad that he was bucking family tradition and basically becoming the enemy. A cop. And when he’d threatened, in cocky righteousness, that if his dad didn’t dump his new partner and go straight, Caleb was leaving the family. That’d been the point his dad had told him to get his ass out.
Good times.
Caleb took a deep breath, his eyes meeting the wide hazel gaze of the pretty redhead behind the counter. He frowned at the sympathy and concern on her face. In the past eight years, he’d faced down whacked-out drug addicts and homicidal drug lords for a living with a blank face. Why did this pretty little thing think there was anything to be sympathetic over? Something to mull over later. Right now he had to pay the piper.
Caleb slowly turned around, automatically shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and rocking back on his heels. He’d known this moment would come, but now that it had, he wasn’t ready. He’d walked away from his family and used that lack of emotional ties in building his career. But now he was back, face-to-face with his father.
And he had no idea how he felt about it.
Like a bull who’d suddenly hit a steel wall, Tobias slammed to a halt. His midnight-blue eyes went huge. But only for a second. Then he grinned. A charming grin that Caleb knew was hiding that shock he hadn’t meant to show.
“Well, well,” Tobias said, slowly walking forward. “What have we here? If it isn’t the prodigal son.”
3
OH, MY. MR. TALL, HOT and Dangerous was one of the wild and mysterious Black clan? Along with the rest of the gawpers standing around the store, Pandora stared, rapt, as the two men faced off.
“Wow,” Fifi breathed.
Pandora nodded. Wow, indeed.
The Black clan was legend. History said a Black had founded the small town a hundred years back. But for all their standing in the town, people still passed rumors and innuendo in whispers, wondering where the Black fortune came from. Everything from inheriting from an eccentric relative to robbing banks to wise investments. All anyone knew for sure was that they were the wealthiest family in Black Oak, that Tobias’s wife had died of leukemia before his youngest child could walk, and until five years ago when Tobias had opened a custom motorcycle shop, they hadn’t appeared to work for a living.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” Tobias was saying. Pandora frowned, though. The older man didn’t look so much surprised as… What? She studied his body language, the way he rocked back on his heels, the set of his shoulders. If she had to guess, she’d say he looked satisfied.
“I didn’t realize I had to check in with you as soon as I crossed the city limits,” Caleb returned.
“Check in?” Tobias’s hearty laugh filled the store, making half the customers smile in response. “Son, you know I don’t make rules like that. But if I’d known you were gonna be in town for the holidays, I’d have had Mrs. Long get your room ready.”
Caleb’s only response was an arched brow.
Pandora tensed. They seemed amiable enough, but she still felt as if she was watching a boxing match. The two men circled each other without even moving. The gorgeously sexy biker looked even more dangerous than he had when he’d walked in. On the surface, he was relaxed, leaning against the wall. She could see the bored look on his narrow face and the general sense of
screw-you
surrounding him. But his feet gave him away. Instead of crossed at the ankle, or rocked back on the heels, his boots were planted as if he were ready to run.
This reunion was a family thing. Private. Especially if one of them decided to throw a punch.
“Maybe the two of you would like some privacy,” she offered. The customers turned as one, a few shooting her guilty looks while the rest glared. Black Oak loved its gossip.
“No.” Caleb shook his head before stepping forward to lay a warm, strong hand on Pandora’s arm. The only thing that kept her from gasping and scurrying away was a desperate need to not add more fuel to the already out-of-control whisperfest brewing.
“We need to talk, son,” Tobias insisted. His words were quiet, they were friendly and they were offered with a smile. They were also hard as steel.
“Maybe later,” Caleb dismissed them. “Right now Pandora’s promised me lunch.”
“What?” she yelped. Caleb’s fingers tightened on her arm.
“Really?” Tobias said at the same time, drawing the word out and giving them both a toothy smile.
Rock, meet hard place. Pandora’s eyes swept the store, noting the slew of avid townspeople staring, waiting to see what she did. A few even mouthed the words
stay here.
Even the cats were watching her, Bonnie with her head tilted in curiosity, Paulie peering at her through slitted eyes, as if she was disturbing his nap. Then her gaze met Caleb’s.
His eyes didn’t beg. His face was passive. He simply returned her stare, his eyes steady. She could only hold his look for a few seconds, the intensity of those gold eyes sending crazy swirls of sexual heat spiraling down through her belly.
“Um, yes. Lunch,” she murmured, finally pulling her arm out from under his hand. Needing to move, she headed toward the café.
Caleb sauntered beside her, his long legs easily keeping up with her rushed steps.
Everyone in the store moved, too. Apparently, customers were positioning themselves for the best view into the café.
Tobias, however, followed them right through the beads.
“I’m so glad to see so many holiday shoppers,” Pandora called back through the beaded doorway of the café. “I know Cassiopeia will be thrilled when I tell her who was in buying merchandise today.”
That got them going. Customers scurried to shelves, displays and tables in search of something to keep the town woo-woo queen from cursing them. Or worse, not giving them a peek into their future the next time they asked.
“I’m sure Pandora won’t mind if we have a little chat before lunch,” Tobias said.
She shook her head no, and was about to offer to wait in the kitchen, when Caleb laid his hand on her arm again.
She froze. Her breath caught and her legs went weak at his touch. The guy wasn’t even looking at her and she was about to melt into a puddle at his feet. While his only use for her was to avoid talking to his daddy.
Yep, he was bad news.
Needing to unfog her brain, and unlust her body, she stepped away.
“I’m just passing through,” Caleb said, leaning casually against the wall. But the smirk he shot Pandora was amused, as if he knew exactly what kind of effect he had on her.
“How long until you passed through my front door?” Tobias challenged. “You were going to let me know you were in town, weren’t you?”
Silence. The hottie had that intense, brooding rebellious thing down pat. Without him saying a word, Pandora knew he hadn’t planned to see his father, would have preferred that dear ole dad didn’t even know he was in town and was thoroughly pissed to be put in the position of defending himself.
The air in the café was heavy with tension. So out of her element she wanted to turn heel and run all the way back to San Francisco, Pandora shifted from one foot to the other, forcing herself to stay in place.
“Today’s special is a hot and spicy double meatball sandwich and four-layer Foreplay Chocolate Cake for dessert,” she blurted out in her perkiest waitress voice.
It wasn’t until both men shot her identical looks of shocked amusement that she realized what she’d offered. Oh, hell. She wanted to smack her hand over her mouth in horror. Her lust for Caleb was bad enough, but for it to sneak out in front of his father?
“I mean, um, that’s the menu. Not an offer, you know? I wouldn’t do that. Hit on a customer, I mean. That’d be rude.”
Holy crap, Pandora thought. It was like taking her foot out of her mouth and shoving her ass in instead.
Thankfully, Caleb was sticking with his brooding silence. Wincing, she glanced at Tobias, who still looked amused. With an actual reason this time.
“I’ll let the two of you do lunch, then,” the older man decided. He glanced through the beaded doorway. Pandora followed his gaze and cringed. How’d the crowd get even bigger?
She couldn’t make Tobias go out there. They’d be on him like a pack of rabid dogs. And yes, she eyed the older man, noting the freakishly calm stance and lack of anger emanating off him, he could probably handle himself fine. Better than she could, that was for sure.
Still…
“Tobias, did you want to—”
Before she could finish the sentence, Caleb snapped to attention, straightening from the wall like a stiff board. Nice to know he could get stiff that fast; she almost smirked. Then she saw the intense anger in his eyes and swallowed.
What? Did he think she was going to invite his dad to stay?
“It’s a little crowded with shoppers in the store now,” she finished slowly, choosing her words as if they would guide her through a live minefield. “So, um, would you like to go out the back and cut across the alley to your own shop?”
Tobias rocked back on his heels, mimicking his son’s stance and considered the two of them. He glanced through the beads again and then arched a brow at Caleb.
Clueless, Pandora looked at the younger man, too, trying to figure out what the silent question was that had just been asked. But she couldn’t read a thing on either man’s face.
She wanted to scream. Even if it wasn’t a talent, she’d at least had a decent grasp of reading body language—bs, that was. Before Sean. Now? She might as well be blind.