Something to Talk About (15 page)

He put his truck in Reverse and pulled out of Call Girls. He didn’t want to think about Jake and the guilt that still pounded out a steady beat in his chest, or Reece and her smiles or anything that had to do with his life with them. It was over, and he was doing his time because of it in the way of some major regrets.

There were new things in his life now. Things he wanted to do. With Maizy.

With Em, too,
Jake’s voice whispered.

Jax gripped the steering wheel tighter, making a left at the huge oak tree in front of Maizy’s new school.

Last night with Em was something he didn’t want to define or slap a label on. It was sex. When you started to label what kind of sex it was, was when your ass was in hot water.

Nope. It wasn’t just sex, friend.

He nodded while he watched the stream of kids file out of the elementary school, looking for Maizy’s bright red hair and purple bow.

Sure. Maybe it was a little more than sex. It was I-like-you-a-lot sex. Better?

That was true. Em wasn’t someone you forgot overnight like you were supposed to forget a friend with benefits. You definitely shouldn’t spend all damn day thinking about her unless you were just thinking about the amazing sex.

But he’d been thinking about more than just the sex. He’d been wondering what her reasons were for wanting to keep things strictly sex. She didn’t act as though her divorce had been especially ugly—or even that her marriage had.

In fact, Em seemed at peace with her choice. So what made her so determined to keep her freedom, as she’d called it? What was the big deal about the color of your towels or where you hung a picture?

Those things are just symbolic, Jax. They represent her independence.

Towels and the color of them equal a woman’s freedom?

You’re missing the point.

Jax nodded again. Obviously, he was missing something, and it didn’t matter anyway. He was going to keep right on missing anything towel/picture related. He was only going to think about the sex. Which had been mind-blowing.

All day long he’d carried the picture of Em, sprawled out beneath him, silky limbs wrapped around his, her cloud of dark hair spread out behind her on the pillow, the sweet taste of her pussy on his lips. The way she dragged her fingers through his hair when he’d sunk into her for the first time. That hot nightie she’d had on under her trench coat. That—

A knock on his car window made his head snap back into place.

A pretty blonde grinned and waved, gesturing for him to open the window. Jax flicked the button. “Remember me?”

No. He should remember a cute blonde. Remembering cute blondes was mandatory in the Man Book, but all he could think about was a sultry brunette. “Sorry. I’m terrible with names.”

Her features fell for a second, but she recovered nicely. “Louella. Louella Palmer. You’re Jax Hawthorne, right? We met briefly when you were here to look at your aunt’s house this past summer.”

He didn’t remember that, but he knew the name. She was the one who’d given up Em’s ex at the Founders’ Day picnic. A swell of anger raged in his chest when he remembered how he’d first met Em—crying and humiliated, so raw and fragile. All because of Louella Palmer.

Why was he angry? It was a shitty thing to do. He acknowledged all things shitty. They didn’t make him want to send a hit man after the person who’d done the shitty thing.

Because she hurt your woman. Guys get protective about their women.

She’s damn well not my woman, Jake. And who are you to preach to me about protective and guys, right? Go the fuck away.

The pretty blonde with no heart put her hand inside the window. Covered in a tan glove, she offered it to him and smiled again, but she leaned in too close, didn’t smell like pears and worked too hard. Or something like that. “Then this is the perfect time to get reacquainted, don’t you think? My niece DeeDee and your daughter, Maizy, are friends in class. I thought it might be nice if we get them together for a playdate sometime.”

Maizy’s head, bouncing in the line of children pouring out of the school, took his attention away from Louella and her playdate. He didn’t particularly care for the idea of Maizy having a playdate with anyone related to Louella, anyway.

Maizy was chatting excitedly to another little boy while she hauled the sparkly backpack that was almost the size of her over her shoulder.

Jax’s heart swelled with pride every time he saw her. Every time he was able to think, “That’s my kid.”

He yanked the lever on the door. “Excuse me, Louella, but that’s Maizy, and she’s all caught up talking instead of paying attention. Kids, you know?” He didn’t bother to stick around for her response.

Not when, in the swarm of parents and children gathering at the mouth of the school, there was another redhead. One just like his. But she wasn’t six and she wasn’t his.

Jax saw all kinds of colors flash in front of his eyes before he took off running.

Thirteen

E
m grabbed Gareth’s hand and squatted on her haunches when he asked, “Why are you here, Mama? Grams is coming to pick us up from school today. Grampa Amos said we can shoot cans with his BB gun if we eat all our supper.”

She snuggled him closer and rubbed her nose against his cold one. “You can still go with Grandpa Amos. I just needed some Gareth hugs before I go home. That’s all. You okay with that, little man?”

Gareth’s willingness to still indulge her with a snuggle warmed her, and she was going to take as many snuggles as she possibly could before he took them away like Clifton Junior. She pulled him into a tight hug and inhaled the scent of Play-Doh and grape jelly before he squirmed his way out of her arms.

She tweaked his chin and rose to leave when she caught that brilliant shock of red hair swathed in a big, purple bow. “Well, if it isn’t Miss Maizy Hawthorne,” she said with a smile. Maizy tugged her maternal instincts in a totally different way than the boys did.

Maybe it was her sweet plea on the phone that night. Maybe it was the impish grin she used to try to hide her curiosity while her eyes devoured Gareth and Em together. Maybe it was just that she was a little girl and looked like the kind of little girl who loved all things having to do with being a girl, just like Em. But something about her drew on Em’s heart, pushed it around in her chest and made it stand up and take notice.

Maizy hung back for a minute in the shadow of the maple tree—tentative and shy.

But Em gave her a warm smile of encouragement and crooked her finger at her. “I like your bow. It’s the perfect color for you.”

Maizy took a step closer, her light-up sneakers flashing in the coming dusk, her eyes, uninhibited by emotions adults are eventually taught to hide, were full of pleasure. “I like your gloves. They have fur on them. That’s my favorite. Well, glitter’s really my favorite, but I like fur almost as much.” She reached a chubby hand out to touch the fluff at Em’s wrist.

Em pulled it off and offered it to her. “Want to try it on?”

Maizy nodded, dropping her backpack on the ground by Gareth’s feet. Em helped her put it on, and they both laughed when Maizy held it up, the fingers flopping.

A commotion off to their left had Em’s instincts pulling Gareth and Maizy close, her eyes scanning the mass of children for Clifton Junior.

“Maizy!”

Jax?

“Maizy! Where are you?”

Em heard the panic in Jax’s voice—it was the panic of a parent who thought they’d lost their child. She threw her hand in the air and waved it. “We’re over here!”

Jax’s bulk appeared in the throng of parents and children, almost lifting people off their feet to get to Maizy. His eyes zeroed in on her, and she was all he saw. Strong arms swooped down and scooped her up, hugging her tight. “I couldn’t find you,” he said, almost like an accusation, the words ragged and full of fear.

Maizy patted him on the cheek and gave him a toothless grin. “I was right here all the time, Daddy. With Miss Em and Gareth, waiting for you to come pick me up.”

Then everything was different. The cloudy haze in Jax’s eyes cleared, and his shoulders relaxed under his jacket. “I couldn’t see you. When I can’t see where you are, I get scared.”

Em stood, Gareth’s hand in hers, and she knew she wasn’t imagining Jax’s urgency. Not judging from the way Gareth tucked himself into her, his hand holding hers tighter. She put her hand on his arm. “Is everything okay?”

No. It surely wasn’t okay. But Jax was going to tell her it was.

He nodded, most of the panic gone from his eyes, but he was forcing himself to come across unruffled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, Maizy-Lou. I just lost track of you. Everything’s okay.” His eyes skimmed Em’s then returned to Maizy.

Had something like this happened before? Or was he telling the truth—he’d just lost sight of her?

Jax smiled now, that easygoing, everything’s-all-good smile. “Really. I just panicked. You know how that is.”

She did. But something about the way he was trying so hard to convince her that was how it was, wasn’t convincing her. “I do know,” she replied easily, while her eyes fixed on his and wouldn’t let go.

Maizy held up Em’s glove and put it under Jax’s nose, diffusing their stare-off. “Look, Daddy. Miss Em let me try on her glove. It has fur on it. It’s so soft. Can I have gloves like Miss Em’s?”

“Maybe, princess. For now, whaddya say we go home and have some dinner with Uncle Tag and Uncle Gage?”

“Who’s cooking?”

Em stifled a laugh when Jax rolled his eyes. “Not me, okay? I can’t believe the bad rap I have for one burned fish stick.”

Maizy leaned over Jax’s arm and handed her back the glove, her button nose wrinkled. “It wasn’t one. It was a whole box of ’em. Daddy’s a really bad cook,” she informed Em and Gareth.

“My mom’s a really good cook. She makes really awesome macaroni and cheese, and it’s not from a box. Maybe you could cook for Maizy sometime, Mommy?” Gareth’s sweet, round eyes sought hers.

Innocence in all its simplicity.

Maizy nodded her head. “I love macaroni and cheese. Promise I’ll eat all of it.”

“I always eat all of mine,” Gareth agreed.

Now she was avoiding Jax’s eyes, looking anywhere but where he was. She ruffled Gareth’s hair with an affectionate hand. “Maybe when things aren’t so busy at work, I’ll make some macaroni and cheese.”

“Macaroni and cheese? We love macaroni and cheese, don’t we, DeeDee?” Louella strolled along the thinning crowd, her suede boots clicking on the sidewalk, her perfectly streaked, vanilla-blond hair lifting in the chilly breeze. Hand in hand with her equally as blonde and pretty niece, she insinuated herself into their conversation.

She gave Em the once-over with critical eyes—her way of acknowledging Em and dismissing her all in one glance. “Hi, Em. How nice to see you. Still runnin’ the business of somethin’ that rhymes with fin?”

Hah-hah. Sin. Funny, clever Louella Palmer. Em’s cheeks flushed.

Jax’s eyes caught Em’s over Louella’s head as he let Maizy slide down his hip and to the ground, but she didn’t understand the message he was sending her.

He nodded politely at Louella, giving her a brief smile before holding his arm out to Em. “She is. Like a well-oiled machine, I might add. Anyway, we were just on our way to go get some of that macaroni and cheese with the kids. Nice seeing you again, Louella.”

Oh. Message received.

Was it wrong for her to smile smugly at Louella when big, handsome Jax offered his arm to her? Would she burn in the flaming fires of hell for enjoying the gasps of some of the other mothers?

Probably. But at least she’d have Dixie on the big-fat-burn-in-hell couch right beside her. Tipping her heeled foot up, she smiled wide at Louella. “As always, nice to see you, too. Bye now, Louella!”

As she let Jax whisk her away, she realized, all mom-eyes were on her, and everyone would be talking about the way she’d slighted Louella with Jax, totally defeating her “no one could ever get the slightest whiff of her relationship with him” vow.

Yet, right this second, she didn’t care about propriety, or all the ugly rumors that would certainly circulate, or even that she’d one-upped Louella in public.

She only cared that the man who was directing her to her car was Jax, and her arm in his, cradled in the nook of all that power, made her feel good.

Safe. Protected. Even from the evil intentions of Louella Palmer.

* * *

“I know what you’re thinking.” Jax’s breathing was heavy and choppy, his chest expanding and deflating with the effort.

“No. I don’t think you do,” Em huffed, her arms visibly shaking, the material of her long sweater stretching across her slender back. Jeans. She changed into jeans tonight when he’d talked her into checking out couches with him after they’d left Louella in their dust. A rare occurrence for her—but, Jesus, she was killing him with her long legs and that rounded ass.

He admired it from behind her back when he replied, “Sure I do. You’re thinking, wow, that’s huge.”

“It is—” she fought for air “—huuuge,” blowing the last word out with a heaving grunt as she jammed his new couch into place.

He took a step back and gave the room a critical eye. “I should have listened to you.”

Em nodded with a resigned sigh, coming to stand beside him, but keeping that safe distance she always kept when other people were around. “When it comes to things like size and placement, you should always listen to me, Jax. I know huge by eye. This is what an impulse buy will get you.”

He took another step back and looked at the cramped space of his home office full of nothing but this enormous couch he’d been talked into in the heat of a couch-buying moment. “Swear, I really thought it would fit.”

Em gave him that you’re-so-five look. “You got caught up in the moment. It was cash-and-carry. Plus, Liam Tobias is a good salesman. I tried to warn you about him before we ever hit the store. He could talk you into buyin’ Brazilian butt implants. Now look. You have a couch the size of Godzilla and no room for anything else.”

“You gotta admit it’s a nice color.” It was. A foresty-green, or something woodsy, Em had said. Manly. It was very manly—not some sort of nondescript, wishy-washy color like beige.

And it had red pillows. When Em had tried the couch on for size in the store, she’d put her pretty head on those very pillows, letting her dark hair splay out on them, and he’d had to look the other way to keep from hauling her off that couch and kissing her senseless.

Her shoulder brushed his when she chuckled, making her inch in the other direction. That was what Em always did when they were in close quarters and they had witnesses. “That’s because after all that talkin’ me into something I knew wouldn’t fit, I was forced to at the very least choose a color that would work in the room. You want your office to be a place you want to come to every day, don’t you? Somewhere that’s all you?”

The more time they spent together out of their guesthouse lair, the more he liked Em. Every chance he got, he stole a glance at her. He was becoming convinced he was going to have to buy another house that needed redecorating in order to keep her around. Then he’d quash that notion. No women. Things ended badly when you let them steal your common sense.

Reece was a prime example. He’d lost all his senses when he could’ve sworn he’d seen her at Maizy’s school. Where was she and why was she lurking around Plum Orchard?

“Are you hearin’ me, Jax?”

Yeah. He heard. Stern teacher’s voice got un-fucking-believably-sexier each time she used it. “Yes. But this couch feels like me.” He gave her a wink and a wiggle of his eyebrow, a look she thoroughly ignored. She had on her game face while Tag and Gage roamed through the house.

He thought her game face was adorable. Her efforts to avoid any contact with him at all? Even more adorable.

For the umpteenth time in as many hours as they’d been at this, they danced the dance. If he so much as brushed against her, she was all panicked feet and bristling limbs, moving anywhere but where he was. Those very things were making her even more attractive than just a few hours ago.

He was pretty sure his intense attraction for her had nothing to do with her refusal to become involved. Maybe some subconscious protest against the fact that she’d rejected him as anything other than her boy toy. But he’d mostly tossed out the “when a woman treated you like a side of beef, the more attractive she became” theory.

At first he thought maybe it was a case of the “Gwendolyn Studebakers.” Gwen being the girl he’d had the most heartfelt of crushes on in third grade. The girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day while he mooned like a lovesick dog. Until she did give him the time of day and he discovered she was mean and he didn’t want her time of day.

But this thing he was keeping to himself with Em wasn’t like that. Em didn’t make him feel like a side of beef. She did make him feel. Fuck, it was uncomfortable.

She waved a hand under his nose. “So? Now what do we do, Mr. Jeff Lewis?”

“Who?” He didn’t know who that was, but he was sure he didn’t have a mouth as pretty as Em’s.

“He’s a design guy on TV.” Em shook her head like he was hopeless. “Never mind. What are we going to do about this couch, Mr. Hawthorne? It’s too big—it doesn’t work. It takes up the whole office. You have no room for the desk and printer stand I ordered. You should have gone with the one I showed you the other night online.”

“Miss Emmaline! I’m glad you’re still here,” Maizy screamed her excitement, pushing her way into the newly oak-paneled room and past the couch to make a beeline for Em.

Jax smiled. He liked that, too. He liked that Maizy liked Em. He liked that while she helped him pick out carpet colors from the swatches they’d gathered tonight, she also giddily talked hair and manicures with Maizy.

He liked that she’d stopped on her way home to change and picked up chocolate chip cookies on a big flowery plate for her, claiming she had just a couple leftover after baking them for Clifton and Gareth. He really liked that she’d taught Gage and Tag how to make some crazy casserole with Tater Tots because Maizy had loved the leftovers she’d brought with the cookies.

And he loved how Maizy looked at Em. Sort of dark eyes filled with half admiration, half unsure what to do with a female presence in her life again.

Em smiled down at her, dropping a finger to her nose to run it along the tip. “If it isn’t Maizy Hawthorne again. Twice in one day. How was your evenin’? Did you do what I told you to do with your hair so it wouldn’t get in your eyes?”

Maizy’s nod was solemn. Everything Em said was a nugget of wisdom to his daughter. She always paid close attention, almost as if she was afraid if she didn’t, Em would disappear in a puff of fruity perfume and a cloud of raven hair. “Just like you said.”

“Did it work?”

“Uh-huh.”

Em beamed down at her, lifting a fist in the air to celebrate the triumph of taming Maizy’s hair. “Yay!”

Maizy grabbed on to her hand, tugging her out of the room. “Will you play with me? My Pop-Pop Givens sent me a new doll in the mail today.”