Nobody's Baby but Mine(63)
“And exactly what terms are those?”
“You’re going to have to like me first! A lot!”
“I already like you a lot!” he roared.
“You are pathetic!” With an exclamation made up of equal parts fury and frustration, she snatched a pillow from the bed, threw it at his head, and flounced back to her bedroom.
Moments later, she heard a loud thud, as if somebody’s fist might very well have connected with a wall.
Cal’s parents lived on a hilly residential street shaded by mature trees and lined with older homes. Vines that would soon bloom with clematis and morning glory clung to the mailboxes, and empty white latticework planters waiting to be filled with colorful blooms perched on front porches.
The Bonner house sat at the top of a steep slope carpeted with ivy and rhododendron. It was a graceful two-story cream stucco topped by a roof of curving pale green Spanish tiles, with the shutters and trim painted the same light green. Cal pulled the Jeep under the porte cochere off to the side, then came around the front to open the door for her.
For a moment his eyes lingered on her legs. He hadn’t commented on her soft, taffy-colored skirt and sweater ensemble, even though she’d rolled the skirt twice at the waistband so that a good three inches of thigh showed through her pale hose. She thought he hadn’t noticed and figured her thirty-four-year-old thighs weren’t any match for all those long-stemmed aerobicized legs he was used to, but now the flicker of admiration in his eyes made her wonder if she’d misjudged.
She couldn’t remember ever being so confused. Last night she’d felt as if she’d run through an entire gamut of emotions with him. When they’d talked in the kitchen, there had been a sense of companionship she’d never expected. There had also been laughter, anger, and lust. Right now, the lust disturbed her most.
“I like your hair,” he said.
She’d left it down, along with abandoning her glasses and taking twice her normal time to apply her makeup. The way his gaze slid over her made her think it was more than just her hair he liked. Then he frowned.
“No funny business tonight, you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.” She deliberately stuck a burr under his saddle so she’d stop thinking about last night. “Don’t you want to throw your coat over my head to make sure none of the neighbors get a good look at me? Now what am I saying? If any of them spot me, you can just tell them I’m the mother of one of your girlfriends.”
He grabbed her arm and steered her toward the front door. “One of these days I’m going to slap a piece of duct tape right over that smart mouth of yours.”
“Impossible. You’ll already be dead. I spotted an electric hedge trimmer in the garage.”
“Then I’m going to tie you up, toss you in a closet, throw in a dozen rats crazed from hunger, and lock the door.”
She lifted her eyebrow. “Very good.”
He grunted and opened the front door.
“We’re in here,” Lynn called out.
Cal led her into a beautifully decorated living room done almost entirely in white, with accent pieces in peach and soft mint green. Jane barely had a chance to take it in before her attention was caught by one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen.
“Jane, this is my brother Ethan.”
He walked forward, took her hand, and looked down at her through kind blue eyes. “Hello, Jane. We finally meet.”
She could feel herself melting, and she was so surprised by her reaction to him that she barely managed to acknowledge his greeting. Could this blond-haired, finely chiseled, soft-spoken man really be Cal’s brother? Gazing into his eyes, she felt the same swell of emotion she sometimes experienced when she saw a newborn baby or a photograph of Mother Teresa. She found herself sneaking a glance at Cal, just to see if she’d missed something.
He shrugged. “Don’t look at me. None of us can figure it out.”
“We think he might be a changeling.” Lynn rose from the couch. “He’s the family embarrassment. Goodness knows, the rest of us have a list of sins a mile long, but he makes us look even worse in comparison.”
“For very good reason.” Ethan regarded Jane with absolute sincerity. “They’re all the spawn of Satan.”
By now Jane had more than a passing acquaintance with the Bonner sense of humor. “And you probably mug old ladies in your spare time.”
Ethan laughed and turned to his brother. “You finally caught yourself a live one.”
Cal muttered something inaudible, then glared at her with a silent reminder that she was supposed to be alienating everybody, not buddying up. She hadn’t forgotten, but neither had she let herself think too much about that part of it.