In minutes she got the story straight. Cassandra visited a website where sperm donors could register information such as the fertility clinic where they donated, donation dates, and their identifying number in the hopes of connecting with offspring who were curious to learn more about that unknown half of their biological equation.
Cassandra was all for making contact.
Nikki was satisfied with sisters.
Juliet decided she was somewhere in the middle. At the moment, anyway.
But, surprise, surprise, she found the other two allowed her to negotiate their differences. Because she was the oldest sister? It didn’t make sense to her, because she’d never been considered bossy in her life—dreamy, yes, agreeable, often—but it was obvious her sisters looked at her to take charge.
So she did.
With an assurance she hadn’t called upon before, she got them both to agree to table the decision—as well as more discussion—for a few days so they could all think it through on their own. They were going to make contact, or not make contact, whichever the case might be, as a group. Given their burgeoning closeness, it didn’t seem possible that one or two could get in touch with the man without compromising another sister’s privacy.
Cassandra seemed mollified, Nikki satisfied, and Juliet felt . . . pretty darn good, actually. Even after Cassandra—with Juliet’s permission—shared with her the name of their sperm donor after Nikki exited the shop. Knowing his identity didn’t redirect the way her mind was running.
She’d fled to Malibu & Ewe so that someone could tell her what to do. That was her usual MO. After her parents’ death, she’d looked to Wayne. After losing him, she’d relied on Noah to help ease her way. She’d too often placated as well—swallowing her thoughts so as not to upset the people in her life like Helen and Marlys.
But this afternoon, she hadn’t needed direction. She hadn’t rolled over, either. She’d stepped in, stepped up, and solved the problem.
This same sort of action would work in other areas of her life, too, she decided, as she drove back to her house. Instead of faking sleep, she should have faced Noah and asked the questions she wanted answered.
What now?
And why had he treated her like she might break? Did he worry she couldn’t stand up to a man’s passion?
Without giving herself time to fret about the confrontation, she marched straight from her garage to the guesthouse. In the tiger’s den, she’d take him on.
Its door opened the instant her knuckles left the wood.
Oh.
A dark-haired, gray-eyed man was on the other side.
Oh, hell.
She’d forgotten about Dean. He stood gazing at her, and over his shoulder she saw Noah. He was looking at her, too, but she couldn’t decipher the expression on his face. She could only remember the whiskery roughness of his kiss, the sure touch of his hand, the seductive sweetness of his dirty words:
I’m going to do you so good.
Her knees wobbled and she had to grab the threshold of the door. What was her face telling him? she wondered.
But before she could come up with an answer, a familiar, yet unwelcome voice cut through the silence. “Stepmama! Hey, boys, it’s going to be a foursome for our little barbecue after all.”
Thirteen
Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
Marlys planned on taking Dean to her bed. That’s what she’d decided after their little late breakfast/early lunch rendezvous. So she’d showed up at his place after the boutique’s closing hours and demanded to be fed. Later tonight, serious was going to be supplanted by sex.
Of course, she was going to torture him first by using all her skills to tease him out of his mind. She owed him the abuse for showing up in her ordered, man-free life and making her feel all female. Soft.
Sex would give her a hold over him.
To that end, she sat on the arm of his chair in Noah’s small living area, while Juliet took a place on the nearby sofa. Marlys let her fingers run through the hair at the back of Dean’s neck. The dark stuff was thick and bristly, but already longer than the day they’d met. He shot her a glance, and at her innocent smile, he grimaced and reached up for her hand.
Ticklish, huh?
She bussed a little air kiss in his direction and was satisfied to see his gaze drop to her mouth.
Yeah, baby, keep on looking.
But she felt other eyes on her, too, and it was no surprise to find that her father’s wife was staring, her weird, bicolored gaze betraying surprise. The goody-goody likely had her granny panties in a twist over Marlys’s not-so-subtle signals that she intended to do the dirty with Dean, a man she’d known for only slightly longer than a couple of drinks at a dance club.
Fine, it surprised the hell out of her, too, because Marlys didn’t easily shed her layers—of clothes, emotional armor, what have you—but it was either take Dean to her sheets or chance finding him someplace much more dangerous. Shameful as it was to admit—and unprecedented—she was afraid for her heart.
She slid her thumb from Dean’s grasp and stroked the edge of her nail against the top of his hand. The long muscle on his forearm hardened, lifting against his skin in reaction. Smiling, she flicked him another suggestive glance, but the expression in his eyes snuffed her amusement. They were molten silver, and they seemed to promise wicked payback—when she was the one who was supposed to be holding all the weapons.
The skin at the back of her neck prickled, and with haste she redirected her attention, focusing on Noah, who had come from the kitchen with a round of cold beers. He passed one to Juliet—the perfect lady drank beer?—and then to Marlys.
After he handed over a bottle to Dean, he toasted the man with a clack of glass to glass. “Enjoy it while you can, friend.”
“Planning an abstinence kick?” Marlys asked, then nudged Dean’s ankle with her foot. “I hope you don’t mean to extend that to other sorts of sins.”
“He’s off to Afghanistan,” Noah answered. “Once his leave is over, he’ll be heading to another danger zone.”
“Oh.” Juliet’s mouth turned down in distress and her gaze jumped to Noah’s face and then back to Dean. “Give us your address,” she said, “and we’ll be sure to send care packages.”
We?
Though there was an uncomfortable chill rolling over Marlys’s skin, that odd word registered. But then it was gone, as her body trembled with a full-on, this-sounds-like-trouble shiver. Afghanistan. Danger zone. Dean.
His hand squeezed her cold fingers. “What about you, angel? What will you send me?”
She made a grab for her composure and managed to lift the corners of her mouth. Then she leaned down to whisper. “Play your cards right, and I’ll send you away with some very sexy memories.”
This close, she could smell his skin. Her lashes falling, she drew in the scent, holding it deep in her lungs so she could focus on each note—and not anything else. Fresh, green—sage?—it made her think of clean snow and mountain air.
The mountains and cold of Afghanistan.
Oh, God
. If she didn’t get him in her bed and out of her system, something very bad could happen here. She might find herself destined to sick worry and hours glued to CNN.
“Marlys?”
She jerked back at the sound of his concerned voice and made another grand effort at an effortless smile. No way would she let him see her alarm, her dread at what might turn into a daily scouring of military websites and a fixation on counting down the days to the end of his deployment.
She couldn’t care that much.
For the first time in her life, she felt an inkling of sympathy for her mother.
“When do you leave?” Juliet asked, leaning forward to put her bottle on the narrow coffee table.
Dean brushed back Marlys’s bangs with his free hand, then turned to Juliet.
Whew.
And another first—a dollop of gratitude toward her evil stepmother.
“I’m off for another couple of weeks, but I have a few short visits to make here and there. Tacoma, maybe, before I report.”
At his place beside Juliet on the couch, Noah froze, his beer halfway to his mouth. “Why Tacoma?”
“You know,” Dean answered, his easy voice a distinct contrast to the other man’s sudden palpable tension. “I thought I’d check on Tiny Tim.”
“Tim?” Noah shot to his feet so fast, beer bubbled out of the bottle he held. “Why the hell would you do that? You know there’s nothing to see.”
Dean took a breath. “Noah—”
“Never mind. Shit.” He ran his free hand over his face, then looked around at the startled company. “Shit,” he said again, then he mumbled an apology and left the house, leaving the three of them staring in the direction of the slammed door.
“What’s with the private?” Marlys asked, bewildered.
Juliet slid to the edge of her cushion and shifted her gaze to Dean. “His roommate in Iraq, right? He told me about him.”
“Yeah?” Dean appeared surprised. “Noah’s usually close-mouthed about that.”
“He told me Tim’s permanently disabled.”
Dean grimaced. “A traumatic brain injury. In this case, an
extremely
traumatic brain injury.”
Marlys’s stomach jittered. She didn’t know this Tim, but she kept abreast of military news. Brain injuries were common in this generation of soldiers. Surgeons managed to save their bodies, but couldn’t restore damaged gray matter so much. Without thinking, she slid off the arm of the chair and into Dean’s lap. She needed his heat and the reassurance that he was whole to ease her stomach-tumbling disquiet.
As if he read her mind once again, he wrapped an arm around her middle and drew her closer into the curve of his body. Marlys leaned her head against his shoulder, and despite how weak it showed her to be, she turned her cheek to press a kiss against his soft cotton sleeve. His arm gave her an answering squeeze and it was just silly how comforting she found it to be.
Juliet gazed toward the door again. “His friend’s injuries hit Noah hard,” she said, then frowned. “What a dumb thing to say. Of course they hit him hard.”
“It’s worse because of the promise he made.”
“What promise?” Juliet’s odd eyes went laser as they re-focused on Dean’s face.
“Before Tim transferred to our squad, he’d witnessed firsthand the result of an IED attack. Maybe he had a premonition, maybe it was just plain bad luck, but Tim agonized over ending up severely injured like this other guy he knew. So he forced a pact on Noah.”
Juliet’s hand crept toward her heart and pressed there, maybe to make sure it was still beating. “What kind of pact?”
“A promise that Noah wouldn’t let him become a vegetable. That if his injuries looked serious, Noah would delay medical help and let him go in peace.”
Juliet paled, and Marlys felt a little clammy herself. She pressed even closer to Dean. “That wasn’t fair.”
Dean shrugged. “Love and war, angel.”
“So Noah feels like he failed his friend,” Juliet mused. Color was returning to her face, and her eyes were so bright Marlys figured those were tears she was blinking away.
“Probably,” Dean admitted. “But really, there was a medical officer on scene, so the choice was out of his hands. It was out of everyone’s hands.”
Setting her mouth in a line, Juliet pushed up from the couch. “I’ll go talk to him.”
Marlys turned to look at Dean. “Shouldn’t it be you?”
His gaze on Juliet, he hugged Marlys close. “I think I’ll stay here. Tell Noah I’ll be ready to put my famous chicken on the barbecue in half an hour.”
The new silence within the walls of the guesthouse only deepened Marlys’s disquiet. Afghanistan. Promises. Injuries. Tears.
Damn it! This was all she didn’t want.
Twisting on Dean’s lap, she glared up at him. “I don’t like feeling this way.”
A smile kicked up one corner of his mouth. “And you think I do? That’s out of our hands, too, angel.”
No, it wasn’t. Marlys had only been powerless twice before—when her parents divorced and when her father had died. Other than that, she took charge of her life, she owned it, and she dealt with its dilemmas with cold-blooded selfishness.
She always did what was right for Marlys Marie Weston, hang how it might affect anyone else.
And right now, Marlys Marie Weston needed to get back to her original plan. She needed to take this man to bed. This minute.
Winding her arms around Dean’s neck, she pressed closer. “Who cares about your famous chicken?” she said against his mouth.
He put two inches between them and smiled. “I’ve had marinating breasts waiting in the refrigerator since three.”
Marlys’s fingers went to the tiny buttons that closed her sweater and she gave him a saucy smile. “Well, let me tell you how long my breasts have been waiting for—”
His kiss stole the last word from her. It stole her breath. Like every other time their flesh met, heat sparked, blood fired, the surface of her skin seemed to drum in time with her double-quick heartbeats. She dug her fingers into his thick biceps and hung on to ride out the thrill.
He lifted his head to stare down into her face. “Tell me again why I wanted to barbecue.”
“Because I hadn’t issued my much better invitation yet.” Her second cat smile didn’t seem to offend him.
He stood, keeping her close, and groaned as her body’s good parts touched all the hard ones of his. “Let me get my coat.”
“And I’ll bid adieu to the others for both of us.” Yeah, this was the way to handle the situation. She’d sex him right out of her head, her life. Practically licking the cream from her lips, she poked her head out the guesthouse door.
Entwined figures were backlit by the greenish glow from the pool. Marlys blinked. Who the hell had invaded Juliet’s backyard?