Feeding the Fire (5 page)

Grant stepped down after her. “You’re walking home by yourself?”

That made Pepper stop and turn to him with her arms crossed over her chest in irritation. The move pushed her breasts up higher, until the firm globes of flesh he vividly remembered were proudly on display. God bless the man who invented V-neck tops.

“What are my options, Grant? No one else lives around here. All my neighbors are retirees who went to bed four hours ago. Do you suggest I start barhopping with my deaf, seventy-year-old neighbor Phyllis? Or maybe I should catch a cab.” Pepper walked to the curb and held out her hand to summon an imaginary taxi on the deserted streets.

“Stop being ridiculous. I’ll walk you home.”

“Oh, no!” Pepper said with a firm shake of her head.

“Come on, Pepper. You can’t walk home alone at this late hour. That weirdo is still running around town. Simon says they don’t know who it is.”

“I’m fine,” she argued. “I live three blocks from here. I don’t need you to walk me home.”

“It would make me feel better if I did.”

Pepper smirked and planted her hands on her hips. “The only thing you’re going to feel is disappointment. You’re not getting any more sex out of me, Grant. Not if you put up my mini-blinds, not if you walk me home, not if you buy me a drink and butter me up with compliments. It happened. It’s over. Good night.”

Grant watched as Pepper spun on her heel and marched off into the darkness. He frowned as he watched her go. He didn’t like the idea of her walking home alone and not just because he was trying to work her. She’d already been a victim of the peeper once. What if that pervert was out there right now, watching her?

To make himself feel better, he was going to make sure she got home safely. She just didn’t need to know about it.

Pepper didn’t turn around. She didn’t want to look behind her and see that smug, sexy face of Grant’s watching her walk away. It was bad enough that she was walking with an extra swish in her step in case he was watching her ass.

Originally, she’d hoped that she could catch a ride home with someone, but leaving early put the kibosh on that. Even though she wasn’t thrilled about the walk home, she couldn’t let him walk with her. Her resistance was wearing thin where he was concerned. After a stiff drink and a light dinner, she could get talked into something she would later regret. She might sleep with him again, or worse, let him into her house.

She paused on the sidewalk for a moment to pull out her pepper spray, and then continued on and across the street toward Pizza Palace. Once the lights of the restaurant faded and Pepper was deep into the darker residential section of Daisy Drive, she felt herself stepping a little faster down the street.

She wished Sheriff Todd would hurry up and catch the peeper so she didn’t feel uncomfortable in her hometown anymore. With her mini-blinds hung in the kitchen, she’d put the unpleasant incident behind her, but Grant was right: He could be out there right now, creeping through the bushes. Watching her walk home.

Pepper glanced over her shoulder once, secretly hoping that maybe Grant
was
behind her, but the sidewalk was empty and dark. Of all the times he would listen to her . . .

A loud snap of a twig in the yard beside her sent a surge of panic through her. She jumped, her eyes searching the darkness but not seeing any movement. “It’s probably just a raccoon,” she told herself, and started walking double time down the street. She hated that for the second time in a week, she was fearfully dashing through her own neighborhood. If they ever got that peeper, she was going to give him a sharp tap to the twig and berries.

Up ahead was the intersection with Second Avenue and the streetlights there would be brighter. She was almost to her house. No sweat.

“Pepper?”

She felt someone’s hand brush her shoulder, and reacting instantly, Pepper lifted her pepper spray and pressed the nozzle. It sent a long stream at the dark figure, which backed away and screamed.

“Jesus, Pepper,” the man moaned through clenched teeth. “What’s wrong with you?”

The slumped figure stumbled back into a yard and the porch light illuminated Grant’s bright red, tear-streaked face. He had her scarf in his hand. She must have dropped it. Now he did, letting the fabric slip through his fingers as he fell to his knees. He curled into a ball, groaning, and then whipped his shirt off to rub the material into his eyes.

“Don’t rub, it makes it worse!” Pepper shoved her spray back in her purse and ran up to his side. “You dumbass,” she said, crouching down. “Why the hell are you following me?”

“I wanted you to be safe.” He rolled onto his back and buried the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “Apparently you don’t need my help.”

“I told you that.”

“Can we argue about how you’re always right after we flush my eyes?”

Pepper looked around, but she couldn’t exactly use someone’s hose in the middle of the night. It was too far to go back to the bar. That left her one regrettable choice. “Yeah, let’s go.”

She helped hoist Grant back to his feet and led him down the street to her front porch. His eyes were puffy and swollen shut. If there was any time she had to let Grant into her house, this was it. He wouldn’t be able to see how bad it was.

Grant stumbled across her hardwood floors to the kitchen. She leaned him over the sink and spent several minutes flushing his eyes with cool water. That seemed to help.

“Stay here, I’m going to get some milk.”

“Thirsty, kitten?”

Pepper sighed. “You know, I thought burning capsaicin in your eyes would shut down that mouth, but I was wrong.” She pulled a jug of milk from the refrigerator and poured some into a bowl. She soaked a couple paper towels in the milk, then carried the bowl into the living room. She left it on the table beside the bed, then returned to the kitchen to retrieve her patient.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To the living room. You’re going to lie down and I’m going to—”

“Unbutton my pants?”

Pepper placed her hands on his shoulders and shoved him down onto the bed. “Your pants are staying on,” she replied. “Lay back, please.” It was bad enough his shirt was off. Missing now, actually. He probably left it in someone’s yard. Perfect. Not only was Grant in her house, he was half-naked and lying on her bed.

He leaned over, removing his boots before he eased back to lie among the pillows. It would seem a thoughtful thing to do if it didn’t put him one piece of clothing closer to naked.

“I’m going to put some paper towels over your eyes that have been soaked in milk. We’ll need to just leave those on for a few minutes, then we’ll apply some ice.”

“Does milk work on the pepper spray the same way drinking it helps with the burn of hot wings?”

“You’ve got it.”

“Okay. Thanks.” It was the first thing he said all night that didn’t seem to have some sexual undertone.

Pepper squeezed out some of the milk, then laid the wet towels over his eyes. Grant immediately sighed in relief, his whole body relaxing into her bed. With the rag over his eyes and his pain subsiding, she didn’t feel guilty about letting her gaze stray to the hard, exposed body lying across her bed.

Grant was a hard-carved piece of man; a thought that brought the awkward conversation with Miss Vera back to mind. But she’d been right. Every muscle seemed to hover just beneath the thin layer of his skin, outlining every detail. The sprinkle of dark chest hair over his pecs narrowed into a trail down his stomach, disappearing beneath the waistband of his jeans. She’d followed that path with her tongue that night they spent together. The thought was enough to make her shift uncomfortably in her seat.

It had been a while since she’d been with a man. Grant had been her last lover, in fact. With everything happening with her dad, she simply hadn’t given her love life much thought. She was reacting to Grant because she was hard up and he was pretty. That was it. Nothing more would come of it. They weren’t compatible. And even if they were . . . he was a Chamberlain. He didn’t seem to understand what that meant, but to her, it was a deal breaker. End of story.

“You know, if those pants are in your way, you can just move them.”

Pepper’s gaze moved back up to Grant’s face, where he’d lifted one of the paper towels to spy on her. Only a tiny slit of his eye would open, but it was enough for him to catch her ogling him.

“Please stop suggesting we remove your pants. It’s bad enough you aren’t wearing a shirt.”

“I think I dropped it in the Robertsons’ yard.”

“You can pick it up on your way back to the bar.”

Grant frowned and lowered the towel back over his eyes. “You’re going to throw me out into the cold, dark night after assaulting me?”

“Yes.” Pepper stood up and moved from the bed. She needed a little more space between them. “Are you thirsty?” she asked, looking for something to occupy her hands.

“No, I’m fine. Well, I’m not fine, you shot burning liquid in my eyes, but I’m not thirsty. I could use something else, though, if you’re offering.”

Pepper sighed. She would never live this one down, she was pretty certain, but she wouldn’t allow him to guilt her into sexual favors to make up for it. “Nice try. If you’re no longer in agonizing pain, why don’t we talk about why you’re following me home like a creepy stalker?”

Grant fought his way up into a seated position, keeping his face tilted to the ceiling so his towels didn’t slip. “I am not a creepy stalker. You wouldn’t let me walk you home, so I thought I’d just follow behind and make sure you got home safe. Then you dropped your scarf. I had no intention of making my presence known until I saw it lying there. I knew I had to give it to you so you didn’t go back out looking for it later. There
is
a weirdo out there, but it’s not me.”

“And you didn’t think sneaking up on a woman walking home alone in the dark was a bad idea?”

“Well, maybe, but I had no idea you were armed with Mace. I would’ve kept my distance and left the scarf on your porch if I’d thought you were going to come for me like that.”

Pepper pulled a chair out of the kitchen and sat down. “You don’t advertise that kind of thing.”

“Well, your future safety is secured. Once people find out what happened tonight, the whole town is going to know you carry pepper spray. No one will touch you.”

Including him? The unhelpful question popped into Pepper’s head, making her close her eyes and shake her head slowly. Why was it that the one man in town she couldn’t have was the one man in town she wanted? And who seemed to want her?

Their one-night stand was supposed to put an end to all this. End the curiosity and the anticipation. The reality was supposed to sink in so they could both move on. It had totally backfired. Now she just had this hot memory that rushed to mind every time she saw him, or thought about him, or he inappropriately propositioned her on a public sidewalk. It didn’t help her resolve anything at all.

“This place needs a lot of work. Why is your bed in the living room?”

Pepper’s eyes flew open at Grant’s observation. He had pulled up one side of the towel again and was investigating her house, just as she feared. “I know it needs work. The bedrooms aren’t usable right now. There’s a reason no one is allowed in the house, Grant.”

“No one, huh? I thought it was just me.”

“No. My own family hasn’t even been in here yet. You’re actually the first person to step foot into my home.”

Grant smiled, his chest slightly puffing up at his ability to make it over the threshold of her private abode, as though he had charmed his way inside. Then he looked around and squinted at the little home she had cobbled together for herself. “You need to invite some more people over. Like a carpenter, an electrician, a plumber, a painter . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Very astute of you,” Pepper noted with a frown. She knew it was bad. She didn’t need someone else pointing it out and making it seem even worse. “Yes, it needs a lot of work. But work takes money, and money takes time. I’ve finally saved up about five thousand dollars, and the week before Valentine’s Day, I’m going to get the ball rolling.”

“That might be enough to make it livable.”

“And that,” Pepper said standing up, “must be enough milk. Let’s load up a Baggie with ice and get you home.”

“Why?” He pouted, pulling the last of the damp towels from his eyes.

Pepper smiled as sweetly as she could. “Because you can see. And if you can see, you’re miraculously cured and I no longer have to keep you in my home.”

Chapter Four

“How many times do I have to tell you, Grant? When a woman says no, she means no.”

Grant looked up at Blake’s amused expression as he strolled into the living room of their family home. “Very funny,” he muttered. He should’ve known better than to show up for Sunday dinner today. He was certain to draw his fair share of harassment for his puffy, bloodshot eyes. He’d hoped when he woke up, the swelling would have gone down. And it had. He could see just enough to drive. But he still looked like hell. “So how did you find out?” he asked.

“Pepper told Ivy, who told me, of course.”

“Perfect. Does anyone else know?”

Blake shrugged, but Grant had a hard time buying his aloof response. That wasn’t the way his family worked. There were virtually no secrets. Well, there was the one only he knew about—the one he kept about his father’s extracurricular activities—but for the most part, if one of them knew something, they all knew it. That meant at least three out of his five siblings were about to give him a ribbing. Thank goodness his older brother Mitchell was away at med school and his baby sister, Hazel, was too nice. She was the only one of the children without blue eyes and the only one without a vindictive streak a mile long.

This was confirmed as Maddie bounced down the stairs with a wicked grin on her face that contrasted sharply to her perky ponytail and fuzzy pink sweater. “Aww, don’t cry, Grant. I’m sure there’s another red-haired skank in town for you to chase after.”

“Shut your mouth, Maddie, or you’ll be the one crying,” Grant snapped. He loved his family, but sometimes, loving his older sister, Madelyn, was the hardest of all. He didn’t know how Mitchell withstood nine months in the womb with her. She was a French-trained pastry chef whose beautiful confections made even the toughest person smile. You’d expect her to be friendly and happy. But she wasn’t—at least not unless she was with her gaggle of girlfriends making fun of someone. She was a mean girl who hadn’t grown out of it when school ended, the way he’d hoped.

He was getting tired of her opinion where Pepper was concerned. She always had a nasty quip, a dig, an insult whenever Grant mentioned her. They had been in the same grade together, so he’d been hearing this long before he started pursuing the redhead. Pepper didn’t like his family, and Maddie didn’t help the matter. It was no wonder Pepper was hesitant to be seen with him.

Maddie rolled her eyes. “Oh, I’m really scared,” she mocked, and headed on toward the kitchen. Before he could get up from the couch, Simon came in the room, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. Grant sighed. Yes, everyone knew.

“So,” Simon began, “we got a report last night of a grown man screaming in the Robertsons’ front yard around midnight. Know anything about that?”

“I was not screaming.”

“What would you call bellyaching so loudly you woke an eighty-four-year-old deaf man from a sound sleep?”

“Unfortunate.” Grant clapped his hands on his thighs and got up. He was about three seconds from bailing on dinner. He could just as easily pick up a calzone from Pizza Palace and eat it in peace.

That was when their mother, Helen, came into the room. Her hazel eyes swept over her three boys, her brow drawn together in concern. When she finally stopped at Grant, she frowned. “Cookie says that supper is ready. Grant, what did you do to your face?”

“A girl pepper sprayed him,” Hazel chimed in as she skipped past them toward the dining room. Her voice was more chipper than he’d heard in a long time. She seemed to be getting an inordinate amount of joy out of his situation. Perhaps Grant was wrong about her being the nice one.

Their mother’s mouth dropped open, her delicately manicured hand flying up to cover it. “Oh sweet heavens, are you okay?” She rushed over to where Grant was standing to examine his injuries. At least she seemed worried about him. Everyone else just wanted to tease him about it.

“I’m fine, Mama.”

“Is it still tender? Did you put milk on it?”

He reached for her hands and pulled them away from his eyes. “Yes, Mama. It just happened last night, though, so it’s still a little red.”

Helen reluctantly backed off, but he could tell she was itching to start fussing over him. If he wasn’t careful, she’d have him in a dark guest room with ice packs on his eyes. At the moment, that didn’t sound all bad. It would at least get him away from his siblings, but he was too old to have his mama playing nursemaid.

“Everyone wash up for supper, please,” she said instead, commanding the boys to march off toward the powder room in the foyer.

Grant was the last out of the restroom, joining a full table for supper. His grandmother Adelia, parents, and siblings were all assembled there, waiting on him. He took the empty seat in the center of the table, directly across from Maddie. As much as he didn’t like having to look at her all afternoon, at least he wasn’t looking directly at his father or his grandmother. He’d prefer they didn’t notice his injury and kick off the conversation anew.

Instead, he bowed his head and his father said grace, then focused on filling his plate. Cookie, the Chamberlain housekeeper and chef, had outdone herself today. There was a glazed spiral ham, squash casserole with a crumbly cracker topping, roasted red potatoes, green beans with bacon, cornbread, and if his nose judged correctly . . . carrot cake. Screw pizza. He’d take the abuse from his family for Cookie’s food any day.

The older woman’s name was actually Courtney, but the story went that Blake couldn’t say Courtney as a baby and called her Cookie, so it stuck. Grant had a hard time looking at the plump, smiling woman in her sixties and referring to her as anything other than Cookie.

As he put a bite of the creamy, cheesy squash casserole in his mouth, he realized he’d call her whatever she wanted him to. Man, it was good.

Grant managed to get through about half of his plate before the conversation started rolling at the table again.

“Grant, dear,” his mother began, “tell us what happened last night. Who is it that pepper sprayed you?”

“I don’t really want to talk about it, Mama.”

“It was Ivy’s friend Pepper,” Blake added, always helpful.

Helen frowned. “Pepper Anthony? From down at the salon on the square?”

“Yes,” Grant said.

His grandmother watched him thoughtfully for a moment, thus far silent on the subject of his puffy, red eyes. “What did you do to her?” she asked at last.

It was bad enough he didn’t get any sympathy for his wounds. His family had to add insult to injury by assuming that he did something to deserve it. “I startled her. It’s not a big deal.”

“Oh, for chrissakes,” Norman muttered, shoving a buttered piece of cornbread in his mouth. “Stay away from that girl, Grant. That whole family is trouble.”

Grant swallowed his bitter response. The last man on earth he’d want relationship advice from was his father. The man hadn’t drawn a monogamous breath in his life. It was an unfortunate truth he’d stumbled upon when he was only eleven, and he’d been bombarded with the signs of his father’s infidelity ever since. It wasn’t Grant’s sin, but he couldn’t be the one to tell his mother that her husband was unfaithful. He certainly couldn’t confide in his siblings and burden them with that painful knowledge, either. It was bad enough he had to know the truth and keep the secret.

Seeing that other woman in his father’s arms had been a life-shaping moment for him. Everything changed. That was why Grant didn’t lie. He was as honest as he could be about everything he could. He already had one giant secret weighing on his conscience, he didn’t want another.

“Wasn’t it her brother Logan that broke Blake’s nose in high school?” Helen asked.

“Yes,” Grant spoke up, happy not to talk about himself for a minute. “Let’s discuss Logan beating up Blake.”

“Let’s not,” Norman said, his face drawing down into a sour frown. “How are your eyes? Do you want to press charges? That’s assault, you know.”

“I’m fine, please. And no, I’m not pressing charges. It was an accident. It could’ve happened to anyone.” Grant reached out to the platter of ham and used the carving fork to stab a slice and lay it on his plate.

“Well, that’s what you get for slumming with that trash,” Maddie said.

Grant leapt out of his chair, lunging across the dining room table until the carving fork was about an inch from Maddie’s throat. He ignored the gasps and startled words of his family around him. “You take that back,” he warned with an uncharacteristically cold tone.

“Or what?” Maddie didn’t even blink. She knew Grant wouldn’t hurt her, even though she deserved it. “You going to stab me with that fork like a glazed ham?”

“You and every member of your stuck-up, condescending pack of hyenas would deserve it if I did. You’re not better than everyone else, Maddie. Now, take it back.”

Maddie bristled at his suggestion but scooted her chair back just enough to get out of Grant’s reach. Norman reached out and took the fork from Grant’s hand and stared him down until he was back in his chair.

“We haven’t had a stabbing at Sunday dinner since Hazel got Simon for taking the last piece of cake,” Norman noted calmly. “Let’s not break our streak, shall we?”

“I was three!” Hazel protested from behind her square glasses.

“It didn’t hurt any less because you were three,” Simon grumbled. “I got seven stitches in my thigh from that.”

“Enough,” Norman said, his voice raised just over polite discussion levels. He rarely raised his voice, even in the courtroom. “Let’s talk about something else.
Anything
else.”

“I heard the peeper struck Gloria Everett Friday night,” Maddie offered, her gaze fixed on Grant with an apologetic smile. That was as close to an “I’m sorry” as he was going to get. He’d take it.

“Gloria, the high school principal?”

“Yes, I overheard her when she was in the bakery yesterday to order a tray of croissants and muffins for the teacher-appreciation breakfast the seniors are hosting.”

The topic shift started the table buzzing and soon everyone was speculating on the creep’s identity and had forgotten all about Grant’s eyes. He let them talk, happy to eat his ham and roasted potatoes in peace at last.

It wasn’t until he carried his dish into the kitchen when they were finished that his grandmother caught his attention and summoned him to her library.

She sat him down in the seat opposite her large mahogany desk. “What’s going on between you two? You and the Anthony girl?”

Grant sighed and slumped back in the chair. He wasn’t going to lie about what happened, especially not to his own grandmother. But he didn’t relish telling her the truth, either. “We had a brief thing,” he said, being as vague as humanly possible.

“A one-night thing?” she asked, and he nodded.

“Holding a carving fork to your sister’s throat over an insult seems like a bit of an overreaction for a one-night stand.”

“It was just in my hand at the time,” he argued. “I could have just as easily threatened her with my spoon.”

His grandmother watched him over the top of her glasses. “Grant?” she prompted.

“She deserves better than the way Maddie treats her. The way a lot of people treat her. So what, she grew up poor? She’s done a lot for herself over the years. She’s worked hard, bought her own house. People just won’t let it go. Stupid small towns with small minds,” he lamented.

Adelia nodded slowly, although he was wondering how much more she was reading into his words than he was saying. “What is it about Pepper that makes her different from the other girls you’ve dated?”

That was a good question. He’d asked himself that a hundred times. Why did he want her so badly? Why was she the one woman he couldn’t get out of his head? He gave the only answer he could come up with. “She doesn’t want me,” he said. “Although I don’t know why that’s appealing.”

“You’re used to getting whatever you want without trying very much, especially when it comes to the ladies. You’re like your father that way. When he was young, all he had to do was smile and the girls would trip all over themselves like they do with you.”

He didn’t enjoy that comparison, but he knew it was true. The difference was that his father continued to charm the women long after he was married. Grant refused to commit so he wouldn’t be tempted to make the same mistake. You can’t cheat when there’s no one waiting for you at home to cheat on.

“I think you’ll find that sometimes,” his grandmother continued, “working hard for something makes it that much sweeter when you succeed.”

Grant had to admit the night they spent together was exceptionally sweet. At least up until he woke up alone. He’d never had a woman walk out on him like that. Of course, that was because he usually bailed first. Pepper had turned the tables on him that night and he liked it.

A lot.

“Pepper, can you fit in an emergency cut and color?”

Pepper sat aside her broom and looked at her appointment book to confirm. She nodded to Sarah. “Yeah. My two o’clock canceled, so I don’t have another client in until Colette comes in for her relaxant at four. Who is it?”

Sarah held the phone to her chest, a smirk twisting her lips. She reminded Pepper of Ivy when she did that.
Adelia Chamberlain
, she mouthed silently.