Just as he finished his narrative, light footsteps sounded inside the room. We walked in from the balcony. Carter's wild child, Rainsford, was standing in the center of the room, her dark brown hair in a tangled mess and her face pink from the motorcycle ride. Her blue eyes sparkled, and a two inch dimple creased her cheek as she crossed the room to Carter.
She gave him a hug and a kiss. "Happy birthday, Daddy. Twenty-nine, right?"
Seconds before, Carter had been complaining about her and had called her gruffly up to the house, but it seemed the big shot, cut-throat business tycoon was putty in his youngest daughter's hands.
The motorcycle started up out on the front drive.
Carter looked down at his daughter as she stepped out of his embrace. "You didn't invite your friend to stay?"
She walked over and poured herself a shot of scotch. "What friend?"
I, of course, watched with more than a little interest as she dropped her head back, pushed the glass to her lips and shot it down. Aside from long lashes, a button nose with a tiny diamond stud and a great pair of legs, Carter's youngest had a lot more tattoos than one would expect to see on the daughter of an old money billionaire.
"The man on the motorcycle. The man I just watched you kiss on the front steps," Carter huffed.
"Why would I invite a man I just met an hour ago to my dad's birthday party?" It seemed she had just noticed me standing in the room, which didn't do a helluva lot for my confidence.
Carter shook his head. "Oh, I don't know, Raini, maybe because you were kissing him out on the front steps as if you had just married the man."
She laughed. It was a fucking awesome laugh. It had a sexy, gritty quality that could make a man tell a lot of jokes or plan a tickle fest just to hear it.
She placed the shot glass down on the table. "Well, I wanted to thank him for giving me a ride. Otherwise I'd still be on the highway with my thumb—Oops." She sucked in her bottom lip to stop her words as her dad's formidable brows formed a furry bridge over his angry scowl.
"Rainsford Bonneville, what have I told you about hitchhiking and where the hell is your car?"
"It's making a funny sound and that blasted check engine light won't turn off."
I had to turn my face so that Carter wouldn't see my smile. It seemed a good time to make an exit, which was my plan until Raini walked over.
"You'll have to excuse my dad for not introducing us. He is, after all, the birthday boy and his head is filled with gifts and cake and expensive bourbon." She stuck out her hand. "I'm Raini."
"This is Zane Bostwick," Carter interjected.
Raini tucked her hair back, exposing a long line of tiny hoops in her ear along with a hidden tattoo, a feather that lined the back of her ear. "You're one of the guys who owns that sex toy company. What's it called?"
"Plaything and yes, sensual toys are part of it." I'd learned that if I replaced the word sex with sensual when describing Plaything it sounded less shocking. Even though I was sure Raini wasn't the type to be shocked by anything. Carter, however, preferred not to be reminded. As long as his healthy residual checks came in, he was fine staying out of the details of the business.
Raini's eyes reminded me of blue pearls, round and nearly opaque with color. She took the time to look me up and down in the same brazen fashion I'd caught myself doing thousands of times when I met a beautiful woman. The only reason I hadn't done it to Raini was because her dad was standing five feet away, and it might have been pushing his good will just a little too far. Now Raini had beaten me to it. Although, standing on the opposite side, I was feeling a little violated. I wondered briefly if that was how the women felt when I did it to them. Nah. How could that be?
Apparently, Raini didn't have a lot of social filters. She reached over and picked up a long strand of my hair. I had worn my hair long for several years, mostly because my copper colored locks had always been an attention grabber with the women.
"Is this color real?" Raini asked. It seemed my hair had grabbed her attention too. Just not the kind I was used to.
"It was like this when I was born, so I guess it's real."
She studied the piece in her fingers. "You're not a ginger. You're a, hmm, a burnt umber."
"Raini, for heaven's sake, leave the man's hair alone. Zane, why don't you head out to the buffet. I need a few words alone with my daughter."
"Sounds good. Nice to meet you, Raini." I headed down to the bottom floor and out to the patio where most of the guests were standing with their drinks and plates of food. I could see Aidan's dark blond head towering above everyone. He was talking to two women. I waved to him and headed over to the buffet table.
Aidan came up behind me holding a new plate. "The lobster salad is fucking awesome. Where have you been?"
He piled his plate, his third or fourth, most likely, high with the salad.
"I was upstairs talking to Carter." And then I thought about the last few minutes up in Carter's sitting room. I looked at Aidan. "You know how on the drive up to the house I said I didn't know what type of woman I wanted but that I'd know when I saw her?"
"Since it was only twenty minutes ago, I remember." Aidan grabbed a crab puff and shoved it into his mouth. "Why?" he muttered over his food.
"Because I think I just saw her."
Chapter Three
Raini
I'd worked very hard at avoiding my sister. I'd gone to my room to change and after some quick greetings with people whose names I barely remembered, I found my brothers for a short conversation and hug. All without one glimpse of Mindy.
I'd managed to get through the back patio and out the gate to the path leading to the storage shed only to run into her coming out of the shed with Dad's business partner, Zane, in tow. He was carrying two foldable chairs under each arm while Mindy led the way, her arms completely free to point out the way back to the house.
She stopped with an angry fist on hip stance when she saw me. "Raini, there you are."
My gaze flitted past her scowl to the man behind her. I was sure I caught him gazing back for a second but then he pretended to be interested in the scenery. He had that cool dark copper coloring that was always so captivating, especially to an artist's eye. He had a light smattering of freckles on his face, but they were mostly camouflaged by the golden brown hue of his skin. The sunlight reflected off of his brown eyes that were flecked with hazel green. He would be fun to paint, I thought briefly, while girding myself for my sister's forthcoming lecture. In fact, with the way he looked in his tight t-shirt and swim trunks, it seemed he would be fun to paint in the nude. Preferably both of us, artist and model.
"Raini," Mindy's harsh tone snapped me out of my daydream, "did you hear me? You're a day late. I expected more help from you." She glared at the beach towel under my arm. "Where are you going?"
"I thought I'd take a swim."
"Good, then while you're at the pool area you can make sure that the guests have everything they need out there."
"I'm going to the swimming hole. Didn't you hire like fifty billion people to help out this weekend?"
"That's not the point. The guests expect to see us mingling."
"No, Mindy, that's only in your head. They've got great food and tons of booze. They could care less whether I'm sitting in on their dull conversations or not."
Zane, it seemed, decided it best to keep moving with his load of chairs and let the sisterly love happen in private. I ignored Mindy's wrath for a second and took the opportunity to get to know the sex toy seller a little better.
"Hey, burnt umber."
It took him a second to realize I was talking to him. He turned back with his unwieldy load of metal chairs.
"I'm going to take a bike ride to the swimming hole. Why don't you join me after you're through moving furniture."
A small gurgling sound came from behind, and I swung back to my sister. "Oh, wait, sorry, I didn't realize that something was going on here." I looked back and forth at each of them. "That explains why you have one of the guests carrying chairs around."
Mindy's face darkened. She couldn't seem to get the words out, which was unusual for her. I'd struck a nerve. She had struck one too. I never would have pictured the guy with long copper hair and that obvious bad boy eye twinkle as being her type. Guess I underestimated her taste.
"There's nothing happening, Raini. Zane is just helping me, which is more than I'm getting from my sister."
Zane took that as his cue to move on.
I looked back at Mindy. "Sorry, Min, I didn't know."
"There's nothing to know. Oh my God," she groaned, "why the heck did Mom think it necessary to have a fourth kid?" She hurried along to catch up to Zane.
I turned back down the path and headed into the shed to dig out a bicycle.
Chapter Four
Zane
Aidan was having just a little too much fun watching me help Mindy with the chairs. She had found me almost instantly in the party crowd, one of the hazards of having an unusual hair color. Aidan lifted his drink up as I walked by the massive hot tub where he was sitting with not two but three women. I continued through the pool area, following the boss as she led me through the gate and out on the patio. If carrying chairs was Mindy's idea of flirting, then it was easy to see why she was still single and why her dad was working so hard to match her up with someone. The thing that was especially annoying was that I'd had to ignore her sister's far more appealing invite down to the swimming hole.