Something to Talk About (11 page)

“It’s nice to meet you, Maizy. I’m Em. I work with your dad.”

Maizy looked to Jax. “Is this the lady you’re gonna ask to help make the house nice?”

Em’s eyes flew to Jax’s. Had she heard that right? She’d just asked him to have sex with her, and he was going to ask her to help him renovate?

Yes. Of course that was what had just happened. Jax was keeping things aboveboard and clean, and she was rolling around in the mud.

“Yep. She’s the lady I was going to ask to help us with the house.”

Facepalm.

Before Jax had the chance to explain his answer, Dixie and LaDawn were there, all coy smiles and sweet, round eyes.

Dixie strolled up to them, her hands behind her back, her eyebrow raised in that playful way she had. “Y’all gonna come mingle with the rest of us, or do you just want me to drop off a platter of weenies in a blanket and a bottle of wine here in your corner and let you two talk amongst yourselves?”

A wave of dizzy embarrassment washed over Em. Had they been that obvious?

“Yes,” LaDawn answered her question with a whisper in her ear, her throaty tone teasing. She glanced down at Maizy then, holding out her hand to her. “Are you Ms. Maizy? Why, as I live and breath, it’s really you in the flesh, isn’t it?”

Maizy, instantly drawn to LaDawn and all the shiny, colorful things she encompassed, grinned. “You know me?”

LaDawn bobbed her overly blond head. “Your daddy told me all about you over a pizza in our lunchroom. Said you were the apple of his eye. But you don’t look like an apple to me. You look like a little girl with hair the color of a sunset.”

Maizy giggled and took LaDawn’s hand, holding it up to the light as LaDawn drew her away. “You have pretty nails. I like glitter, but Daddy says it makes too much of a mess, and it’s hard to clean up.”

“Well, maybe someday, if we can get your daddy’s permission, we’ll have a girls’ day. You and me, Dixie, Miss Em, Miss Catherine and Marybell, too, and we’ll paint up your nails with some glitter, okay?”

Maizy, entranced by the offer, strolled off with LaDawn, leaving the three of them standing in the corner.

Dixie latched on to Em’s arm while still smiling at Jax. “Can I get you to give me a hand with a couple of things in the kitchen? I need some cookin’ advice,” Dixie prodded with the girlfriend signal in her eyes. The one that said “quit makin’ an ass of yourself, Emmaline Amos.”

Jax’s smile was amused. “Excuse me, ladies. I’m gonna go dig up some of those cocktail shrimp. Em? It was nice talking to you.” He tipped an imaginary hat with a smile and sauntered off toward the buffet table Sanjeev had arranged.

The words
nice talking to you,
as though they’d just chatted weather and the stock market, penetrated her devil-may-care lover-in-the-afternoon attitude. Slow and lazy, her blatant question began to seep in.

The second Em watched Jax’s broad back retreat out of earshot, Dixie pulled her toward the kitchen. “I don’t want to pry—”

Em winced. “But you will.”

Dixie’s eyes flashed bright, her eyes so wide her eyelashes touched her eyebrows. “Yes. Yes, I will. When the whole room hears my best friend ask a man if he wants to have sex with her, I’m pryin’.”

Her bravado’s bubble burst, splattering her shame all over Dixie’s beautiful chrome-and-granite kitchen. “Everyone heard?”

“Okay, not everyone. Just me, and Marybell, who’s now over there hidin’ in a huddle like some cornered animal at the pound. I’m worried—about her and about your flappy lips.”

Em’s eyes scanned the room, looking for Marybell’s trademark spikes of hair. She was leaning against the side of the impossibly beautiful hutch Landon had made specifically to hold his mother’s china—almost as if she hoped to melt into it and disappear. She held a wineglass of burgundy liquid in front of her face and a plate of toast points and cheese in the other.

Marybell wasn’t prone to large crowds of Plum Orchardians. They judged her like they judged no other because of her outrageous makeup and choice of hairstyles, but she dealt, and she did it often in light of her friendship with Dixie and Caine.

In the midst of her misery, it struck Em odd that Marybell, far less chatty than the rest of them, was exceptionally quiet lately. Her heart tightened. Something was wrong, and she’d been so wrapped up in her dirty thoughts, she’d overlooked her friend.

Em began to pull away from Dixie, forgetting she was due a lecture on what not to say at a dinner party.

Forgetting her erratic behavior, she shrugged Dixie off and made her way toward her friend.

Tugging on Marybell’s arm, she gave her a nudge with her shoulder. “What’re you doin’ over here hidin’ like you’re trying to become one with the furniture?”

Marybell’s eyes instantly went to her plate and the shiny, studded leather wristband she wore. “You know how I am with crowds.”

She did. She knew MB only showed up at these events because she loved Dixie, but lately, there was something.... Something else. Marybell wasn’t the open book LaDawn was; they didn’t know a lot about where she came from or really anything about her. But they’d all bonded over their love of Landon, so most times, it almost didn’t matter.

Except for right now. “I’m gonna be a Nosy Nellie, because the mother in me hears a faint alarm bell ringin’. Is there something bothering you, MB? Something I can help with? Because you know, I’m always here if there’s something you need to get off your chest.”

Marybell shook her head. “Nothing more than the usual ‘I don’t belong here’ syndrome.” Then she added on a smile to her words, one that didn’t ring true to Em.

Em wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You do so belong here. You belong here because I say you do. Got that, MB? You. Belong.”

Marybell paused for a moment, her makeup-masked face making it hard to read her emotions. “You know what, Em. If ever there was a place I thought I belonged, it’s here. I appreciate y’all. I don’t say that much, but I mean it.”

She didn’t want gratitude, she wanted MB to talk to her, let her in. But for now, or until Marybell deemed otherwise, it would have to be enough. She gave her a tight squeeze. “You just remember we appreciate you, too. Got that?”

Marybell nodded and grinned, the uncertainty in her eyes gone for the moment. “Gotten.”

* * *

Jax sipped at his tumbler of whiskey, looking past Caine’s shoulder to watch Em as she made her way across the room toward Marybell, concern on her face.

The swish of her ass held his focus, swaying and shifting beneath the clingy red dress, her long legs making quick work of the distance between her and her friend.

He caught Caine’s eyes following his, catching him watching Em. He put his focus back where it belonged.

Caine thumped him on the shoulder with a cackle. “You’re showing all your cards, buddy. Every last one.”

Jax eyed him, his grin sly. “Just appreciatin’ a good-looking woman, is all.”

“That thing over in the corner was intense. I’m just wonderin’ how it happened so soon. Haven’t seen you interested in anyone in a long time. Not sure if I should be glad or worried you’re jumping in with both feet after such a dry spell.”

“You sound like Tag and Gage.”

Caine swirled the amber liquid in the glass he held, his gaze as direct as he was. “Tag and Gage are smart. How’s Tag, anyway? How is he really?”

Jax flashed back to the conversation he’d had with Tag tonight and the shitty things he’d said. Fuck. He shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t understand his brother anymore—or this journey he kept saying he was on. He only knew he wanted the old Tag back. Maybe that’s where this would all lead—the road back to the old Tag. “Healing. That’s what he says anyway.”

But was he healing or merely surviving? Tag was tough as nails, but this past couple of years had been a shitpile of crap. Some of it his fault. A fault he had to live with forever. Sometimes he felt like Tag was just using all the right catch phrases, going through the motions while he tried to convince himself he was all right.

Caine’s eyes were sympathetic. Jax knew he got it. Caine got loss. “Time. I know that’s the cliché answer, but it’s the only truth.”

Time. Everyone said time would heal Tag. Ease his guilt, pacify his broken life, comfort his lost soul, but everyone wasn’t living with what he was living with. “Heals all wounds, right?” he agreed.

“Tell him we’re probably going to have some expansion work for him over at Call Girls, would you? See if he’s interested?”

Tag could use the work. Not just for the money he refused to let Jax loan him, but for the good it would do his spirit.

Tag and rebuilding something were like mac and cheese. They went together. “I’ll do that. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the consideration.”

“How are your parents? Are they still driving around in that motor home, lighthouse hunting?”

Jax smiled. In their retirement, his mom and dad had gone off to live the life of their dreams, traveling from state to state at their leisure, visiting historic lighthouses. They’d offered to come and help with Maizy when Harper died, but as far as he was concerned, they’d done their time raising three boys. They deserved their retirement.

“I get a postcard at least once a month with a picture of a lighthouse they’ve been to.” His eyes strayed again to Em as she laughed and smiled with Marybell.

Caine used two fingers and pointed at his face. “Eyes on me, pal. You have stray dog all over your face.”

He probably did. For the first time in a six-pack of years or so, he was having trouble focusing on anything but Em. “Sorry.”

Caine laughed. “Just so you know, she’s the best GM on the face of the planet. You fuck that up, I gotta kill you or at least make a good show of it in front of Dixie. She’s also Dixie’s closest friend. You could make shit sticky for me. Don’t do that. Plus, I like her a lot. She’s a good person who’s had a messed-up time of it with that jackhole of an ex of hers. I’m just gonna warn you once, then I’ll shut up. No dabbling with the goods and hurting feelings. Now, if your intentions are pure, carry on.”

“Understood,” he said to his friend, making their circle bigger when another party attendee joined their conversation.

His intentions weren’t exactly pure, because he’d thought of her naked and in a hundred different positions beneath him today, but to be fair, he’d also given equal thought to what it would be like to watch the news with her, take a walk.

Just sex? It’d been a while since he’d just been in it for the sex.

You just met her a week ago.

Yeah? Well, life’s short.

Nobody knew that better than he did.

He didn’t know what it was about Em that made him think about houses, and porch swings, and looking over the morning paper at her across a table littered with coffee mugs and glasses of orange juice. He didn’t even know if she liked orange juice.

But he wanted to, and he didn’t like that. He’d felt this kind of immediate attraction once before, and the end had sucked.

Maybe all this thinking about Em had to do with his fears Maizy would go without feminine input for the rest of her life and that was fueling this infatuation with her. Maizy was only getting older. The older she got, the more his ineptitude for nail polish and glittery lip gloss stood out like a sore thumb.

His hope she’d turn out to be a tomboy, thereby easier to relate to, had been crushed when at just two, she’d latched on to a lipstick at the grocery store and pitched a fit when he’d taken it from her.

Em was that kind of woman. Ruffles and pastel colors.

No doubt, Em was sexy as hell, but she was sexy as hell and apple pie. Warm smiles and fresh blueberry muffins on a lazy Saturday morning. Bedtime stories and reminders to brush your teeth.

And she was fighting like hell to shed that image.

So how was he going to respond to that?

Did he want to?

Jax stole another glance at her while Caine and some guy from the county courthouse talked football, their conversation growing muted as his eyes drank her in.

Her hands were moving in animated fashion until her youngest son, Gareth, stole up behind her and grabbed her leg with a chubby hand very similar to Maizy’s. Em’s right hand reached down to stroke his dark head, the caress light, but full of the exact sort of love he felt for Maizy.

He knew that love. The sort of love that kept you up at night, held you captive with fear, with joy, made you willing to sacrifice every solitary thing you owned in order to keep them safe—make them happy.

That was what Em’s touch held.

A weird tightness bloomed in his chest, making him physically itch. His ears roared. His mouth went dry.

And all he could think was
Be her boy toy, stupid.

Nine

J
ax looked at his phone again, double-checking the number. Reece. It had to be. It was the only number he didn’t recognize. No message, just the log of the phone call. After all this time, what the hell could she possibly want?

Straighten that shit out, man. Call her up and find out. Get this out of the way so you can focus on the rest of your life. You know it’s what Jake would want. He said so in his will.

The resentful side of him balked at calling her back. Why the hell should he call her? If she caught him when he was available, fine. If she didn’t, she could damn well have the courtesy to leave a message.

The world didn’t stop because Reece Givens was calling. It didn’t stop turning because she wanted something.

Old baggage, pal. You’re hanging on to your resentments and
your
attachment to her. Those feelings have nothing to do with her connection to Maizy and parenting properly but everything to do with manipulating the situation by allowing your crap to make the choices.

But she left. Walked away. Didn’t look back.

And now she’s back.

Fuck. He scooped up the phone, ignoring the slap of one of the operator’s whips from beyond the far wall, and dialed the unfamiliar number. Maybe it wasn’t her number? Maybe it was some telemarketer’s or Maizy’s new doctor’s number or anyone but—

“Hey! This is Reece—leave me a message and I’ll get back to you ASAP.”

Her voice took him right back to the first time he’d seen her, long legs, lanky, creamy skin and a riot of red curls streaming behind her as she strode across the street to the little luncheonette where she worked.

Bubbly, irresponsible, breathtaking Reece.

Like a moth to a flame, he’d headed straight for the light. And he’d been burned so bad, upon reflection, even he couldn’t believe it.

Everyone had seen it but him.

More whip cracking brought him back to the present. He cleared his throat, her name stiff on his lips. “Reece? Jax. Call me back at this number.” He clicked the phone off. There. Obligation satisfied.

Ten seconds after he hung up, the phone rang.

* * *

Em sucked in a long breath and poked her head into Jax’s office, stealing a glance of him staring at his ringing phone. “Can I borrow a minute of your time?”

She’d come with hat in hand, after a long weekend of contemplation, wherein she’d mentally flogged herself and decided he deserved an apology. Had the roles been reversed, she couldn’t swear she wouldn’t have been offended.

Working together, asking him such a forward question, put him in an awkward position. She had to make that right. For the sake of Call Girls. She was the GM, not the femme fatale.

Jax grinned, dropping his cell phone to the surface of his desk. “If you’d said
pen,
I would have said
not on your life.
Pens are supersacred to nerds like me. But time? Got plenty of that to spare. I was hoping to see you anyway.”

Who hoped to see the person that had treated them like a slab of baby back ribs? “I just wanted to...” Em licked her lips, tugging at the scarf around her neck, letting the smooth fabric soothe her hot fingertips. It was symbolic—black, the color of her unforgivable shame.

Wait. He’d been hoping to see her? “You were hoping to see me?”

When Jax rounded the corner of his desk, filling the space between them, his footsteps held determination, solid and steady. He stopped just shy of a foot or so between them, reaching over her head to close the door. “I was. So about your question at Dixie and Caine’s party—”

Em’s hand went up in a protective gesture—to his chest—because that’s where all hands went when they were in protective mode. “That’s why I’m here. I want to apologize for my behavior—”

Jax pulled her to him, wrapping a hand around her waist, and kissed her hard with delicious force.

He wasn’t asking permission, either. He was demanding she kiss him, angling his mouth over hers, coaxing her lips to his will with a tongue that tasted like peppermint and sex.

Em’s bones melted, became all floaty and light. She found her favorite anchor, the collar of Jax’s shirt. Her fingers clutched either side of it, clinging to it to keep her legs from crumbling.

The rush of the memory of his fingers between her legs came back full throttle—and she wanted. Instantaneously, she wanted him. Wanted him naked, tight against her body, wanted all of the naked, sweaty naughty she’d played like a movie reel in her mind’s eye.

His kiss got hotter, more urgent, until her back was to his office wall, his rigid thighs straining against hers. Her nipples tightened, achy, needy, crushed against his broad chest, leaving an imprint of Jax all over her. One she wanted to roll around in, inhale, devour.

Em’s fingers went to his shoulders, flattening her palms against them, admiring the ripply feel of hard flesh.

Then he was pulling his mouth from hers, his breathing harsh on her face, just as she was mentally shedding her restrictive clothing and doing more un-Em-like things.

Right there in the office while phones rang and the night shift was just getting settled in.

Flirty Em, the one who seemed to take over like a possessed Linda Blair, made an appearance. “Wow.” She heard her voice, an unfamiliar husky, just-been-kissed voice, and fought not to frown. How unusual. Had she sounded like that with Clifton? Smoky and kittenish?

Jax put his hands on the wall, planting them on either side of her head, and stared down at her, his eyes with the thick fringe of lashes teasing. “Name your terms.”

“My terms?”

“For this no-connection, sex-only deal. Let’s negotiate.”

“Negotiations never occurred to me.” When a woman made an offer like this, didn’t men just show up and shut up? “We have to have terms? Do we need a written contract, too?”

Jax nipped her jaw, still keeping his body from totally reconnecting with hers. “Yeah, like rules. I figure, we work together, and you probably won’t want anyone here at work to know. Plus, you seem like the kind of person who likes order, so there must be rules. Name them.”

Right and right, but before her thoughts landed on work, her first concern was for the boys and what more gossip would do to them. “Discretion,” she blurted out, making herself look up at him. No one could ever know Emmaline Amos was having an indiscretion.

Likely, no one would believe a man as gorgeous as Jax was willing to be indiscreet with her, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

“I don’t want to get involved. I really don’t. So discretion is a must.” She didn’t. She couldn’t. Could she? No. She didn’t want to invite more chaos. Meshing dating with children and busy lives was chaos times a million. She had to focus on her—her life—her needs—her children, especially Clifton Junior and his anger.

Jax nuzzled her jaw again, sending all sorts of new heat through her body. “Meaning?”

Her breath shuddered a little. “Meaning, we don’t do it in the square? At Lucky’s in aisle seven?”

Jax’s head shot upward as he barked a laugh. “You’re new to this, right?”

She liked his neck, solid, corded with muscle—nose-burying worthy. “I just stumbled off the turnip truck.”

“I mean, my house? Your house? Or a hotel?”

She shook her head and looked him square in the eye—her lusty penchant temporarily on the back burner. “Not my house or yours. No children. That’s an absolute. They can’t be involved in any way. No sleepovers, no catching us in the act.”

“Fair enough. Seeing as my daughter’s always underfoot, I have two nosy brothers living with me and you’re a single mother, hotel?”

“Not in Plum Orchard. You couldn’t be seen within a hundred paces of that place without Johnson Martin blowing your cover.”

“Johnson Martin?”

“He owns the Plum Orchard B and B. It’s the only game in town, and if he were a woman, he’d be a Mag. That’s how good he is at gossipin’.”

Jax cupped her jaw, scraping his thumb over her skin. “Got it,” he rumbled. “I have an idea. Don’t the boys visit their father?”

Her fingers circled his wrists like they’d always been doing it. “They do...they also visit their grandparents, but I can’t have your car at my house. Everyone will set to talkin’ then because Plum Orchard has eyes.” Everything in her cringed in panic. All she needed was just one Mag’s tongue wagging.

“Is that like
The Hills
only with Southern belles and shotguns?”

“Worse.”

“So am I your dirty little secret?” He moved his mouth away from hers.

“Well, you are a secret, but I don’t mean for it to sound cruel. I’ve just had dirty little secrets on public display. I don’t need to add to that by sleepin’ around.”

Jax relaxed again, moving his hand to the back of her neck, kneading it as he drew her closer. “But you’re not sleeping around. That would imply you’re sleeping with a lot of people at once. I’m only one man. Not a lot of them.”

Now she pulled away, flattening her feet, her gaze direct. “If you can’t understand why I wouldn’t want people talking, we can end this conversation now. I don’t have to explain myself or my reasons. You haven’t lived in Plum Orchard all your life. You don’t know what it’s like when everybody knows your business. I’m not givin’ those horrible women somethin’ to talk about.”

“Understood,” he soothed, until she was straining toward him again. “So where to go?”

“My Jeep?”

Jax chuckled. “Wait. I have that big guesthouse in the back. It’s not heated, but I suppose I could run an extension cord from the garage for one of those floor heaters. It’s got a blow-up mattress. We meet in secret. You park your car somewhere discreet.”

Em sighed, her shoulders slumping. “A blow-up mattress.” A pump and some plastic had never entered her forbidden sex fantasies.

“It’s all I have unless you have something better?”

She’d never done this before. Places to have sex where a Mag wouldn’t find you had never occurred to her before. “I’ll think on it. For now, it’s the guesthouse.”

“Next?” he muttered, stroking the shell of her ear with his tongue.

“No romance. You don’t need to bring me flowers. I mean, I love ’em, but I don’t want them from you.”

“What’s wrong with flowers from me?”

“Nothing’s wrong with them. I’m sure they’d be beautiful. What I mean is, I don’t need romance with my...”

“Sex?”

Her skin went hot and red again. “Yes. That.”

He shrugged his wide shoulders, but his face said she was crazy. “Okay. No romance.”

But wait. “Do I have to define what ‘romance’ is?”

“I think I get the meaning. No food or wine or feeding me grapes.”

She giggled, maddened by the press of his lips. “How is me feeding you grapes even a little romantic?”

“Totally joking. Anything else?”

“You don’t have to ask how my day was.”

“You don’t want to talk at all? No warming you up? Are you real?” he teased.

She was real. This bargaining was very real. And she was doing it like she’d been to the bargaining table before. “I might want you to talk, but it won’t be about my day—or yours. I don’t want to know about your day, either.”

“What if I have a bad day and I need to talk it out?”

“Find a good therapist, but first call and cancel our date.” She didn’t have room for any more issues. Clifton finding himself was as much issue as she could handle in one lifetime.

“Okay, no pleasantries. None.”

“We can still be pleasant.”

“Pleasant without the intimacy of conversation. Got it. More rules?”

“How do you feel about experimenting?”

He backed up a little, but only enough to cock his dark head. “With?”

“Things.” All the things she heard the girls talk about on the phone. Well, maybe not all of them, but a lot of them.

“I want the definition of
things
or it’s a no-go.
Things
is too vague and could lead to things I’m not good with.”

She couldn’t possibly list all the things she wanted to try, all the things the girls talked about on the phone. His sudden acceptance had caught her off guard. “I can’t define them all right now because I don’t know them all right now. I only know I’d like to try some things....”

“And I can say no to these things.”

“You absolutely can.”

“Can I try some things?”

“Define
things.
”

“How about we leave the
thing-
thing open-ended?”

“Deal.”

“Is there more?”

“No hard feelings when it’s over. If one of us gets tired of the other, just say the word
done
.”

“Is that like our safe word?”

“Call it whatever you like, but that’s the word we’ll use, and no one leaves with hard feelin’s. Sometimes things just run their course, and I understand that perfectly.” Like marriage. Hers had run its course. She’d run Clifton’s course. But wow, she was being very “lover in the afternoon,” wasn’t she?

“Deal. So how often are we doing this?”

“Am I allowed to call the shots?”

“Am I?”

She laughed, even as she wondered if she was a shot-caller. This bold half of her, while invigorating and exciting, was still waffling. “Let’s just say, we can be free to let the other know if the mood has struck—and if it doesn’t strike. We both have lives and children and responsibilities.”

“Okay, so now that that’s settled, I have a favor to ask you, our—” he wiggled his eyebrows “—deal aside. And you can say no, but if you do—I’m just throwing this out there—I’d be crushed.”

Ripples of pleasure raised goose bumps of delight on her forearms at the contact of his hand along the curve of her hip, stroking, discovering. “Dramatic,” she teased, moving her hands from his wrists to place them at his waist. Testing the waters, learning his body.

“Will you help with the house? I need serious help with everything from fixtures to paint. Top to bottom.”

But that would put them together much more than just on an air mattress. Could she be his lover and his interior decorator? Did that sound too much like the ingredients for a bad romance novel?