Torch (Take It Off) (19 page)

He grinned. He had a really good grin.

“Who’s the man?” he sang.

“You are definitely the man,” I said, laughing.

He gave me a quick kiss and then bounded into the bathroom, where I heard the water run and the toilet flush. I knew I needed to clean myself up as well, but I couldn’t find the energy to get out of bed. Holt returned, still completely naked, but this time his, um… parts weren’t standing at attention.

He was carrying a small white cloth and he climbed between my legs and proceeded to clean me up. “You don’t have to do that,” I said, suddenly feeling very shy.

“It’s my job to take care of you,” he said, no hint of challenge in his voice. It was as if he appointed himself my sole caretaker and it was the most important job he would ever have.

Suddenly it didn’t seem like such a bad thing to be taken care of by Holt.

When he was done cleaning me up, he tossed the cloth into the bathroom where it smacked against the tile floor. He stretched out alongside me, gathered me into his arms, and rested his chin atop my head.

I lifted my head and looked down at him through the very dim lighting. “Will you let me take care of you, too?”

His face softened and he smiled. “Yeah.”

I settled back against him, feeling a gentle swelling in my chest.

After a few moments, he said, “So how are you going to take care of me?”

I slid my hand across his stomach and down toward his hips. His chest rumbled with pleasure, but he caught my hand. “Not so fast there. Your body is going to need a little time to adjust.”

“I feel fine,” I grumbled, and then my stomach growled loudly.

“Sounds to me like someone needs to eat.”

“How about ice cream?”

“Ice cream it is,” he said, patting the side of my hip.

“And after the ice cream?”

“I think it’s going to be past your bedtime. I’m going to have to tuck you in.” His hand moved to my breast as he spoke.

“Promise?”

17

I can’t believe I just did that.
Okay, that was a completely juvenile thought and so was the fact that I grabbed up my clothes and hurried into the bathroom only to lean against the back of the door and grin like an idiot while butterflies completely took over the inside of my body.

I suppressed a light giggle and began to dress in my olive-green T-shirt dress. One glance in the mirror told me I had total bedhead. I released the rumpled braid and combed through the now wavy locks.

I just lost my virginity.
And it was incredible.

I never realized sex could feel like that. Just thinking about it, my body practically slid into a puddle right there on the floor. Everything inside me felt loose and liquid. My head was slightly tipsy like I had one too many glasses of wine. I was also more aware of my feminine parts, more so than I’d ever been before. I felt different down there—stretched, slightly sore, and maybe even a little swollen.

I put down the comb and looked at myself in the mirror—straight in the eyes. Did I have regrets? I searched within myself; I dug deep, past the tingling of my body, the satisfaction within my limbs. I looked hard, not shying away from any of the thoughts and feelings swirling around inside me.

And I found the answer.

No.

Well, okay, maybe I did have one regret: the fact that I hadn’t done this sooner.

Another little giggle slipped out of my mouth and I grabbed up my lip-gloss, coating my lips. Holt knocked on the bathroom door as he moved down the hallway. “Get your butt out here, Freckles. You look hot.”

I take that back.

I’m glad I hadn’t done this sooner. I’m glad I took my time and waited for someone who actually made me feel this way. I might be inexperienced when it came to sex and romance, but I knew not every woman experienced this. In fact, I was almost positive there was no one else that could ever make me feel the way Holt did.

After carefully washing my hands, I walked out to the living room, grabbing up my bag and shoving my feet into my flip-flops. Holt held open the door for me and we stepped out into the late-evening sun.

Just when my feet stepped into the grass, a silver BMW pulled into the driveway and parked behind Holt’s truck.

I froze, not really sure what to do. Shouldn’t this guy be in jail? Shouldn’t he be sitting at the police station for what he tried to do to me just hours ago?

Couldn’t a girl go get ice cream without worrying about who might be waiting for her outside?

Holt moved up beside me, palming his keys, looking toward the BMW with irritation written all over his face. I thought it was a little strange he wasn’t displaying the murderous feelings he claimed to feel for this guy earlier.

Wonder why…

“Now might be a good time to tell me what the cops said.”

He placed his hand at the small of my back and angled his body toward me and slightly forward. “He’s a lawyer. He claims he’s been trying to talk to you for a while now.”

“So lawyers usually try to run people off the road when they want to talk?” I snorted. “People have these things now called phones.”

“You don’t have a phone anymore,” he reminded me gently.

Oh. Well, there was that.

But I still wasn’t willing to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. He scared me.

“The cops couldn’t hold him. Technically, he didn’t do anything wrong.” He spoke quietly, leaning in to softly say the words near my ear.

“You believe them?” I asked, turning to look into his eyes.

I saw the cloud of doubt that shadowed the blue. “I certainly don’t plan on trusting him. But maybe we should at least ask him before I unleash the mad dog.”

I arched an eyebrow. “The mad dog?”

He grinned. “Inside every man there is a mad dog just waiting to get out.”

“Right.” I would just file that under useless information that I would never need to know again.

Mr. BMW opened up his car door and stepped out, standing between his car and the door to stare at us over the roof. “Miss Parker? I apologize for the misunderstanding earlier, but my name is Paul Goddard, from Goddard, Goldberg, and Stein. I’m an attorney. I’ve come a long way to speak to you.”

Was this just some lame attempt at getting close enough to kill me?

Holt leaned down and whispered in my ear, “The cops said his identity checks out.”

“What do you want?” I called to the man.

“I just need a few minutes of your time. It’s about some legal documents.”

“Is this about my house burning down?”

“No, ma’am. I wasn’t aware your house burned down until I arrived in town today.”

“Where are you from?”

“Hollywood, California.”

“I don’t know anyone in California.”

“Would it be okay if I came closer to explain?”

I pondered that request for a moment. He was certainly being cautious this time around. He did look like a lawyer. Wearing a dark suit and tie. His salt-and-pepper hair was short and he had a deep tan, which implied he could be from California (either that or he had an unhealthy addiction to the tanning bed).

Of course, now I was curious as to what this could possibly be about.

“Okay,” I told him.

He reached in his car and grabbed a briefcase, shut his door, and walked across the yard to stand a few feet away. He had a black eye from where one of the men at the fire station punched him. I didn’t feel bad about it. He deserved it.

“I feel we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” he began.

I laughed. “If you consider following me through Wilmington, tailgating my car, and trying to run me off the road ‘getting off on the wrong foot,’ then I suppose you’re right.”

“I wasn’t trying to run you off the road. I was trying to get your attention. You are a very hard woman to find, Miss Parker.”

“You called me Katie before.”

“Again, another mistake. I thought you might stop panicking if I called you by your first name. I thought it would give you the impression I was familiar with you.”

Holt snorted. “Familiar like a stalker.”

“Yes, well.” He cleared his throat. “I hadn’t realized you were having some… trouble until I was escorted to the police station.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Someone’s trying to kill me,” I replied bluntly.

“I’m afraid I might know the reason why.”

Holt stiffened beside me and I gripped my purse, twisting the strap in my hands. “Maybe we should talk about this inside.”

Holt handed me the keys to the front door and then ushered me ahead of him, keeping himself between me and the lawyer at all times.

I perched on the end of the couch, anxiety and suspicion cloaking me. Holt sat down beside me and I slid a glance at him. “Did the police say anything about this to you?” I asked out of the side of my lips.

He gave a faint shake of his head.

Mr. Goddard heard and replied, “I didn’t discuss this with the police. Attorney-client privileges.”

“I’m not your client.” I was getting irritated with all of this talk I didn’t understand.

“No. But your father was.”

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed. I shifted uncomfortably. “You must be mistaken. I don’t have a father.”

“Miss Parker, do you know who Tony Diesel was?”

I wrinkled my nose, thinking back to the commercial I saw earlier. “The rock singer?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t like rock,” Holt said.

“It’s not my favorite.”

He put a hand over his heart like I shot him and made a face.

I rolled my eyes.

“Tony Diesel was like a rock god,” Holt announced. “Such a shame about his death.”

I looked back at Mr. Goddard, who was shaking his head solemnly. “What does this have to do with anything?”

“Mr. Diesel named you in his Last Will and Testament.”

“Me?” I said, feeling more confused by the second.

“You are Katherine Eileen Parker, are you not?”

“I go by Katie.”

“You were born on March 15, 1991, and your mother’s name is Elena Marie Parker.”

“Was,” I corrected, my voice hollow.

“Excuse me?”

“My mother died several years ago.”

“I’m sorry, I only know the information that was on file. I didn’t look into your… situation. I really should have.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s fine.”

Mr. Goddard paused, sitting down on the opposite end of the couch and glancing at Holt as he did so. When Holt didn’t object, he laid his briefcase on the space between us and opened it, reaching in to grab a stack of bound papers.

Then he looked up.

“Tony Diesel named you as his sole surviving relative—his daughter, to be precise.”

I jerked like someone slapped me and stared at him so intently that my vision went blurry. Holt slipped an arm around my waist, but I scarcely felt it.

“He was not my father,” I whispered, pain slicing through my chest. If this was some kind of sick joke, it was very, very mean.

“In all honesty, I don’t know if he is or not. But he seemed to think you were. I have here a letter—a letter written by Elena Parker dated in the fall of 1990. She wrote to your father, explaining that she was pregnant, that he was the father.” As he spoke, he handed me the letter.

I unfolded it, staring down at the handwriting that belonged to my mother. I stared at it, feeling tears well in my eyes as I traced with my finger the letters—the words—that she wrote. My mother once held this piece of paper. The sentences written here were all thoughts that were inside her brain. Throughout the last seven years, I lost pieces of her, pieces that I still mourned but pieces that I would never get back. What little I did have burned the night of my house fire.