Authors: Jan Hudson
She snatched the soap and flung
it. The bar caromed off the tile wall and fell into the tub with a dull thud. “Wash
your own back, you pervert!” She scrambled from the tub, grabbed a towel, and
hurried to her bedroom, slamming the door to the connecting bath so hard that
the pictures jiggled on the wall.
When she heard deep laughter
from the bathroom, she itched to throw open the door and give him a blistering
set-down. Instead, she took a deep breath, counted to ten, and reminded herself
that Kale Hoaglin was her boss. And, after all, this
was
his house.
By the time she’d dressed, Sunny’s
temper had cooled, but her embarrassment lingered. Her steps didn’t have their
usual spring as she went downstairs to fix breakfast. How did she always seem
to land in such messes? Not only had she already had two humiliating
experiences with Kale, but now that he was here, she and Estella would have no
option but to vacate the lovely old estate they’d called home for the past
several months. With Estella’s advanced pregnancy, finding a new place and
moving would present a problem.
Too bad they would have to
leave, she thought, staring out the kitchen window across
Ocean Drive
.
She loved the view overlooking the water. Only the palm-lined boulevard and a
curving grassy bluff beyond it separated the stone mansion from the panorama of
the Gulf inlet. If
Corpus Christi
, which hugged the bay with cupped hands, was often
called “The Sparkling City by the Sea,” surely this spot was one of the
diamonds on its finger.
And she and Estella certainly
wouldn’t be able to afford the housekeeper who came three times a week. But
then, she and Estella didn’t have truck-loads of priceless furniture and
doodads that needed polishing either.
She started the coffee and
downed a glass of orange juice as though it were a shot of red-eye. Maybe when
the vitamin C kicked in, she’d be able to think more clearly about options.
Something would turn up. It always did. No need to sweat the small stuff.
As for the encounter in the
shower with her new boss, it was no big deal, she convinced herself. She’d
grown up with three brothers and two sisters who shared one bathroom, and modesty
had been a lost cause. Too, thinking back on it, the situation had been sort of
funny.
Soon she was whistling as she
bustled about the huge old kitchen, and her whole body bounced to the tune as
she rhythmically plopped spoonfuls of pancake batter on the griddle.
“Could I have a cup of that
coffee?” asked a deep voice from behind her.
Startled, Sunny jerked, and a
big dollop of batter flew over her shoulder. She whirled around to find Kale
standing there, a glob of goo sliding slowly down his cheek.
He stood still as a statue, his
face expressionless except for a tiny twitch in his jaw. “A simple no would
have sufficed.”
She tried to keep a straight
face, to act contrite, but a bubble of laughter exploded in her throat. He
glared. Another bubble escaped, then another. She gritted her teeth to hold
back the gales threatening to erupt and grabbed a paper towel.
“Sorry about that.” She quickly
wiped the batter away.
“Why do I get the feeling that
you’re not at all sorry?”
She wet another towel and scrubbed
the vestiges from his cheek, noticing that it was clean shaven now. Smiling,
she cocked her head and looked up at him, about to say something glib. Their
eyes locked like dueling sabers. Her thoughts fled. Her smile faded. Her
strokes lapsed into slow motion, then stopped. The intensity of his gaze was so
potent that she could have sworn he had X-ray vision and was scrutinizing the
synapses in her brain.
A shiver akin to what she felt
with an approaching thunderstorm slithered up her spine. She blinked, breaking
the disquieting contact between them, and hurriedly returned to the pancakes.
He poured a mug of coffee and,
while he sipped it, lifted the ruffled curtain over the sink and peered out. “I
could have sworn that I heard it raining a few minutes ago.”
“Nope. The weather cleared about
five this morning. It’s going to be a beautiful day.”
“Must have been the shower I
heard.”
Her hand stilled as she scooped
pancakes onto a platter. “Probably.” She kept her eyes averted while she
finished her task. “Would you like some of these?” She waved her hand over the
heaped dish.
“They look better than anything
I’ve seen in weeks. Do you have enough for me?”
“Oh, sure. I can’t possibly eat
all these, and Estella’s are already in the warming drawer. I come from a big
family, and I can’t seem to break the habit of cooking too much. All my recipes
are for eight, and even when I halve them . . .” She shrugged. “Orange juice
and strawberries are in the fridge. Everything else is on the table. You can
have Estella’s place. She won’t be up for an hour or two.”
They carried the food to a
breakfast nook where baskets of greenery hung in the corners and pots of
bromeliads lined the ledge of a huge bay window overlooking the lush backyard.
Morning sun shimmered across the swimming pool’s blue reflection. A breeze
rippled the water, waved the leaves of the banana trees, rustled the palm
fronds, and set the huge red blossoms of hibiscus bushes nodding.
“I’d forgotten how much I like
it here. It’s so peaceful, so clean.” After a moment his gaze turned to her
with that fierce, penetrating scrutiny that gripped her like a fisherman’s
gaff. “And the view is spectacular.” His forehead wrinkled. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That it wasn’t going to rain
today.”
“I just knew.” Sunny grabbed the
glass bottle shaped like a grandmother and thrust it toward Kale. “Have some
syrup.”
With the bottle hovering over
his pancakes, he paused and stared down at his plate. He frowned as if trying
to decipher hieroglyphics.
Sunny reached across and rotated
his plate a quarter turn until the design on the pancakes was facing him. “It’s
a happy face made of raisins and cherry slices.”
When he raised one eyebrow in a
you’ve-got-to-be-kidding gesture, she shrugged and said, “Estella needs
cheering up these days. Just pick them out if they bother you.”
She busied herself spooning
strawberries into bowls and pouring orange juice, trying to act blase and to
disregard Kale’s looming presence, which charged the air around him. “Listen, I’m
really sorry about Estella’s and my intrusion on your privacy here. Ravinia
insisted that we move in with her. I think she worried about Estella being
alone and pregnant, and although her excuse was that she needed us to house-sit
while she was out of town, she really wasn’t gone all that often. I believe she
was more lonely than anything. Anyway, if you’ll give me a couple of days, I’ll
find another place for us to live, and we’ll be gone.”
“No need for that. We can manage
for the short time I’ll be here. Until Foster and I decide what to do with the
place, you’d be doing us a favor by continuing to watch out for things here.”
“Well,” she said, hesitating as
she considered the range of complications of both staying and going, “I suppose
we can stay, at least until the baby is born and Estella’s husband returns from
his sea duty. Neither you nor Foster wants to live in the house permanently?”
she asked.
He shook his head. “I live out
of a suitcase most of the time. And can you imagine Foster and Alicia living
here with their two little hellions?”
Sunny chuckled. “Alicia doesn’t
seem the type to appreciate a moose head over the fireplace, a suit of armor in
the hall, and a collection of blowguns and tomahawks on the wall. And Ravinia’s
bromeliads would all be dead with a week.”
Kale nodded. “I imagine their
kids could trash Ravinia’s accumulation of Greek and Chinese artifacts in two
days.” They ate silently for a few moments, then he stared at her again, his
eyes narrowed. “Is it true that you’re never wrong about the weather?”
“‘Rarely’ would be more
accurate.”
“How rarely?”
She sighed, not wanting to
discuss the subject. “I’ve missed once or twice.”
Stone-faced, he continued to pin
her with his gaze. “Once or twice?” he asked skeptically.
“Well, once. I was coming down
with the flu.” What was it about this man that made her nervous enough to jump
through her skin? “Are you finished?” She reached for his plate, eager to evade
his line of questioning and flee the room.
His hand clamped her wrist. “No,
I’m not finished. These pancakes are the best thing I’ve eaten in a long time,
and I plan to devour every crumb.”
He continued to eat, seemingly
absorbed in his food, but his left hand remained around her wrist. She tried to
gently tug away, but he held on firmly and his thumb absently stroked the
tendons along the back of her hand.
She felt heat radiate under her
chin, and tiny prickles tingled her scalp. Was he coming on to her? No, surely
it was her imagination. She tugged again. He held firm. Seductive currents
rippled up her arm and swirled inside her like a building cyclone. She had a
feeling she’d made a big mistake in agreeing to stay in the same house with
Kale Hoaglin, even for a couple of weeks. Oh, he was a sexy devil all right,
and under different circumstances she’d be attracted to him, but she had no
intention of being a temporary diversion for someone who’d simply been in
Bangladesh
too
long.
When his thumb made slow forays
between her fingers, she sucked in a breath, jerked her wrist back, and jumped
up. “Listen, Mr. Hoaglin, I think we’d better get one thing straight right now.
I don’t come as a bed warmer with the house. Our relationship must be strictly
professional. Maybe I’m mistaking your intentions, but if you try to hit on me,
I’ll scream sexual harassment so loudly that reporters will be on your tail
before sundown.”
He looked at her as if she’d
lost her mind. “I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about. If I meant
to hit on you, sweetheart, you wouldn’t mistake my intentions.” His eyes raked
her from toe to crown. “You can relax. You’re not my type.”
A wave of humiliation flooded
her. She ached to shrivel into a dust ball on the floor. Besides feeling
totally mortified, she felt oddly . . . bereft. Refusing to examine the latter
response too closely, she brazened the situation out with a saucy grin and a
waggle of her head. “Good. I’ve never pictured myself as a groupie for a
network stud.”
She restrained a giggle when she
saw that her zinger had gone straight to his molars. His expression turned as
icy as a Canadian cold front.
“That was a cheap shot. I resent
the hell out of that label. I was out busting my butt to become a serious
journalist when you were still in training bras.”
“Oh, lighten up, Hoaglin. Don’t
be such a bear,” she said, laughing. Not even a smidgeon of a smile appeared on
his lips. Holding her hands prayerfully beneath her chin, she bowed. “Forgive
me, your venerableness, I didn’t mean to rattle your slats. Why don’t we call
the score tied and start over? Pretty please?”
Looking her up and down as
solemnly as an embalmer eyeing a corpse, he waited a long time before
answering. Then he gave a curt nod. “Fair enough.”
Quickly gathering the dishes
from the table, Sunny said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just stick these in the
dishwasher and be off. I’m a working girl.”
“On Saturday?”
“Yep. I get to be both reporter
and anchor for tonight’s news. My contribution is to cover some sort of do that
the historical society is having this morning.”
“Sounds deadly dull,” he said,
following her into the kitchen.
“Probably. But Ravinia’s
good-news policy puts the quietus on all the interesting stuff.”
“That policy is about to change.”
“Well, hallelujah! It’s not a
moment too soon.” Sunny wiped her hands and tossed the dish towel on the
counter. “Everybody on the staff has been about to go crazy with the good-news
business. I adored Ravinia, but sometimes she got the strangest ideas. I think
the good-news concept was something her guru conned her into. Everybody except
your aunt could see that it wasn’t working. People like a little excitement in
their lives.”
“Even you?”
She laughed. “Especially me.
Have you ever seen a news reporter worth his or her salt who didn’t thrive on
excitement?”
“But I thought you were a
weathergirl, not a newsperson.”
“Weather reporter,” she said,
her irritation with the term shading her words. “And the weather can be
exciting sometimes, especially when a hurricane howls into the Gulf. But I don’t
intend to spend my life doing the weather. I have bigger plans in mind.”
“Oh?” He looked mildly amused—at
least that’s what she surmised from the faint movement of his lips. It was hard
to read a face that was about as animated as those of the
Mount Rushmore
quartet.
“Believe it. I have a real nose
for news. Julie Chen and Robin Meade had better move over and make room for
Sunny Larkin,” she said, laughing and giving an exaggerated strut as she left
the kitchen.