Chapter 9
When the phones on the desk and the bedside table in her bungalow began to ring, Audra at first thought the sound came from the television. But the picture on the flat screen wasn’t people at all, it showed a moody longshot of forsaken moors. A phone didn’t fit into the scene.
Then she figured out the true source and hurried to the nearest device, her overtaxed muscles protesting. She’d taken two Pilates classes that day and they were catching up with her, making her feel as creaky as a ninety-year-old. As she picked up the phone’s handset, she looked out the window into the evening darkness, a little nervous. Who would be calling? “Hello?”
“Hey.” A man’s voice, low and intimate.
“Kane,” Audra said, pretending her blood wasn’t starting to hum just at the thought of him on the other end of the line. “Um, how are you?” And why are you calling? Her mind jumped to the Naughty List, and she went hot remembering one of the items written on it was phone sex.
“Good.”
When he didn’t say any more, her nerves started hopping around like a toddler on too many sweets. Clearing her throat, she glanced about, hoping to find an excuse to get off the line. “I’m sorta busy,” she lied, because the idea of phone sex was both so appealing and appalling.
That couldn’t be why he called, though. Last night, she’d effectively shut down anything further between them when she’d said those simple words—Tell me about Tracy Smith. He’d instantly excused himself and strode off.
“Right,” he said now, sounding amused. “You’re busy. What’s the body count?”
How did he know? Scowling, she peered at the screen across the room. “Just one, over a cliff it looks like. I suppose a broken neck.”
“Audra. Baby.” His sigh communicated amusement as well. “You need a new obsession.”
You. Sex. Orgasms. All three, because each had occupied her mind since the moment they’d parted. “Well, I took some exercise classes today.”
“I heard.”
She blinked. Had he been checking on her? But, no. “That’s right. I ran into Amber and Jessie at the juice bar.”
“They said you worried you’d overdone it.”
“No, no. I’m fine.” Her arm muscles screeched as she smoothed her hair with her free hand and she was glad he wasn’t there to witness her wince and grimace. “Fabulous.”
“All in for a night of crime TV?”
And didn’t that sound pitiful? “Well…”
“I have another idea for you.”
Her spine shot straight, causing her recently targeted core muscles to twinge in protest. Grimacing again, she put her hand to her obliques and forced in a long breath. “Another idea?” she asked, certain she sounded calm.
Not like he was about to propose a session of dirty talk.
“We could knock an item off your list.”
Her obliques gave another twitch, but this came along with a prickly heat along her skin and another secret twitch of more intimate muscles. Phone sex. “I wish you wouldn’t bring that up,” she said, though her body was beginning to clamor for that very thing. Kane Hathaway, she was sure, would deliver very hot phone sex.
“It would be doing me a favor,” he said.
Phone sex? Though he’d not had a climax yesterday, not unless he’d found someone after he left her or pleasured himself in the shower. God, that was hot, so hot, the idea of water running down his rippled torso, his hand fisting that…that heavy thing that she’d only felt against her but never seen.
“We had some repairs done to one of the villas near you and I want to look it over.”
“A repair to the shower?” she said, because her mind was sluggish, stuck as it was on the fantasy. His big hand, sliding up and down a sudsy length of thick muscle. The edges of her hairline began to dampen.
“No…” Kane said, sounding puzzled. “What’s this about a shower?”
She woke up, as if doused by a cold one. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Maybe you should start over.” With a slow striptease. Her mind imagined that too, a bathroom filled with billowing steam, Kane’s hand reaching over his head to grab his T-shirt between the shoulder blades and then draw it up over his hard abs, revealing his pumped pec muscles—
“Audra? Kane to Audra? Are you there?”
She shook her head, blinking to orient herself in the here-and-now. “I’m really sorry. I got kind of lost for a minute.”
He chuckled. “You and those grisly murders. I asked if you wanted to join me at the villa to test out the private hot tub.”
Private hot tub. “Um…you said something about an item on my list?”
“Skinny dipping,” he said.
Naked, with Kane Hathaway. She bit her bottom lip to keep herself in the moment and recalled why it wasn’t a great idea to involve herself with him again. He wasn’t her type. He was too sexy for his own good and her own good as well.
To be honest, she wanted it too damn much and given her wonky emotional state she couldn’t take the chance on falling for another guy who would break her heart all over again.
“I really can’t,” she said.
“No problem,” Kane said, and she could hear the shrug in his voice. “You’re welcome to keep your suit on. But think about the bubbles, the heated water surrounding all those sore muscles…”
Oh, that did sound blissful. She closed her eyes, knowing how much better it would be than the soaker tub in her bathroom, because of the powerful jets that would ease her aches and pains. “But…”
“You’ll be perfectly safe from me.”
“Kane—”
“Hey, we’re friends, right? That’s what you decided. That’s what you said.”
And in the end it’s what got her out of her bungalow in her most modest bikini and one of the terry robes hanging on the back of her bathroom door, her hair piled on top of her head. Audra was good to her friends. Yeah. That’s why she’d caved to Kane’s request, not because she wanted to spend more time with him.
He stood on the path, looking as urbane as always in black board shorts, boat shoes, and a black sweatshirt, unzipped to show a slice of his bare chest. Reaching out, he slipped the beach towel she clutched from between her fingers. “Maybe we can share,” he said. “I forgot mine.”
“S-sure,” she said, and shoved her hands in the patch pockets of her robe as they set off down the winding path. Her gaze went to his lean hips and the cloth molded around his butt. God, he had a great body and she’d thrown away her chance to touch it again.
“You okay?” he asked now, his head turning toward her.
It forced her to jerk her gaze from him, but then it snagged on low movement in the foliage around them. “Look!” she said, softening her voice so not to startle the small creature peeking between two leaves. Its eyes were a matching green. She knelt and outstretched her hand. “A kitty.”
“A black cat.”
His grim tone had her glancing up at him. Kane frowned at the feline. “It’s more scared of you than you are of it,” she said.
Instead of answering, he pulled his phone from the pocket of his sweatshirt. “I’ll get maintenance out here with a trap.”
Alarmed, Audra shot to her feet. “Not a trap.”
“Relax,” he said, not looking up while he texted. “It’s not a bear trap. We use it to catch the occasional stray. That’s not the first feral cat that’s shown up here.”
“But…but…” She bit her lip, and surreptitiously shooed the little cat away by flicking her fingers.
“I see what you’re doing,” Kane said. “Look Audra, it’s not safe to have untamed animals like this around the guests.”
She supposed she could concede that. “But once you catch it—”
“We donate generously to a local no-kill shelter and sponsor their monthly adoption events. It will go there and ultimately find a home.”
“Oh.” He’d put his phone away and was already moving on. Audra trotted to catch up with him. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem.”
She grabbed the hem of his sweatshirt, tugged, then sent him a smile when he glanced back. “You looked like you were afraid of that little kitty,” she said, teasing.
“Some people think black cats are bad luck.”
Yeesh, so serious. Where had his sense of humor gone? She was totally rethinking gifting him with a Tickles.
At the villa, he used a key card to let them through a gate in the fence that enclosed a space the size of a small backyard. Landscape lighting revealed a small deck and lounge chairs, fire pit, lap pool, and a glowing hot tub. Flames leapt in the pit and steam already rose from water.
Audra looked at the bubbling liquid and her body wanted to weep with joy. “I love you, Kane Hathaway.”
His startled expression made her laugh. “That came from my quads, my triceps, and just about every other muscle I own.”
Grinning now, he shrugged out of his sweatshirt. “Get in then, girl.”
She tried not to stare at his body as he climbed into the hot tub. So she forced her gaze away and noted a small cooler was set on the ledge. “What’s in there?” she asked, nodding to it.
“Beverages for your pleasure, ma’am.” He dug a mini bottle of white wine out of the ice and held up a plastic glass. “Can I tempt you?”
Hadn’t he always? And was that…flirtation she heard in the question? But his expression was perfectly bland so she played along, smiling and nodding as she slipped out of her robe and slid into the heated liquid. It frothed at her shoulders, and even though the underwater lights were on, the bubbles added modesty to her not-so-skimpy two-piece. The temperature was perfect and her sigh of pleasure was audible in the quiet.
Kane chuckled. “I should have told you not to start with one of Kipenzi’s classes. She’s a martinet.”
“A martinet who loves planks.” Audra said, closing her eyes. “No one’s supposed to love planks.”
He laughed again and handed her the glass of wine and they sat and soaked in companionable silence. After a while, Kane dove into the pool and she watched him swim laps without the slightest compunction to do the same. Feeling lazy, her eyes half-closed as he returned to the hot tub, his big body making waves.
“You swim like you’re part fish,” she said.
“Maybe because I half-drowned once,” Kane replied.
“Really?”
“We had a pool at home and the house had steps down from the bluff to the ocean. But I wasn’t taught to swim until I was eleven.”
Surprised, she stared. Every coastal California kid, she would think, would learn as a matter of survival. Too many neighborhood pools and beach access points not to take make those lessons practically mandatory.
“I’d been invited to a pool party—Holly Burton’s pool party—so I decided to take it upon myself.”
“Of course you would,” Audra murmured. Take-charge, confident Kane would ever and always be a problem-solver. And with a Holly Burton’s—whoever that little strumpet was— party as the carrot…
“But it didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped.”
Audra tensed, not liking the offhand tone of his voice.
“Our handyman had to pull me off the bottom of the deep end.”
Her hands jumped to the place where her heartbeat suddenly double-timed. When he’d said he’d “half-drowned” she hadn’t painted any visual in her head, but there was one now, the boy’s limbs splayed, unmoving. “You’re okay, though?” Her voice sounded thin to her own ears.
He smiled. “Some would argue not. But I’m here, right?”
She swallowed, reached for her wine on the tub’s ledge, took a large swallow from it. Calm, she told herself, Kane’s fine. “Thanks to the handyman.”
“Val Soros. He taught me the most important things I know—how to swim, how to fix plumbing and small appliances, and even make minor car repairs.”
Breathing came easier now and she felt a little silly for the scare but also a lot compassionate for the boy who’d had to go looking outside of his parents for important skills. “Val was a handy man to know.”
“I see what you did there.” Kane laughed, then he reached over to top off her wine with the rest of the small bottle. “He advised me as well—to be wary of black cats and not to be obvious about ogling women with wet, beautiful breasts.”
Wait…what? Before she could react to his comment, the lights went out, plunging them in darkness.
She might have squeaked.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Kane assured her. “I have the remote that controls all the lighting.”
“Why’d you turn it off?” He advised me not to be obvious about ogling women with wet, beautiful breasts. Simple answers to simple questions.
“Take off your swimsuit, Audra,” the devil in the hot tub said, his voice whispering to her in the night.
“Um…”
“You can put a line through skinny dipping, right?”
“Um…”
“What are you afraid of?”
Not ever finding someone waiting at the end of the altar who made heated desire course through her body like Kane did. It was more fiery than the water in the hot tub and made her feel edgy and alive and…unsatisfied.
Last week, she’d been having nightly dreams of traipsing down the aisle to find only emptiness, but that had been chased away by a series of spicy dreams starring a man with wide shoulders and confident hands.
“Audie,” he said, using the name only those who were closest to her used, “what are you afraid of?”
Instead of answering, she made a statement, wiggling out of her bathing suit, then dropping both pieces to the hot tub’s ledge. They plopped wetly.
Kane groaned. “Jesus Christ. Do you find that sound as sexy as me?”
Oh, God. The silence as she didn’t answer filled with all things she should not say. The bubbles tickled her sensitized skin and she felt a different wetness between her thighs. She wanted to know if he’d get naked for her because she wanted to touch him. But she also wanted to see him, to see that hard body and the hard erection and feel that she was a woman again.
Sexual.
Desirable.
Healed.
The night seemed to pulse around them and her breathing quickened as the tension inside her wound tighter and tighter. “Kane,” she said, her voice thick. “I—”
“Let me tell you about Tracy Smith.”
The words popped the bubble of intimacy surrounding them.
Of course Audra knew why he’d said it. To warn her, just like last night she’d used the name as a warning to him.
The ensuing story was something she could have guessed. The name belonged to a woman he’d dated for a time. He called himself “careless” with her because though he’d given her his standard disclaimer about an avowed disinterest in anything long-term, she’d gone along for a while, all smiles and few demands, until she’d wanted him to escort her to her sister’s wedding, then to her father’s birthday dinner, then to the big family reunion in Texas where she planned to show him off to all her big-haired, too-much-made-up cousins.
“She said that?” Audra asked, aghast.
And she’d showed him photos. And when he’d told her he thought attending events like that with her would send the wrong message, she’d gone from a sweet, considerate woman to a swearing, screaming termagant. She’d said he’d never given any woman he was with what they wanted.
He’d replied that was the whole point of being clear he chose to remain relationship-free.
Then this Tracy person had gone so far to curse him. Actually curse him, telling him she came from a long line of bayou witches and that he was now destined to remain alone for the rest of his life.
Goggle-eyed, Audra tried to make out his expression in the darkness. “Kane, are you superstitious?” She remembered his remark about toasting with water, about the mirrors facing each other, about the black cat. “You believe she actually, uh, jinxed you?”
“Val Soros warned me about things,” he said, non-committal. “But I know that curse didn’t doom me. It’s my essential nature. I’m no long-term bet.”
Audra got back into her swimsuit after that. Kane flipped the lights back on and she tried to be graceful as she crawled out of the hot tub, but one glance told her he was avoiding looking at her.
Steam waved off her skin as she stood in the evening chill and reached for her towel. “I turned prune-y,” she complained, and then he glanced around and their eyes met.
His dropped to take in her damp, pink-tinged skin.
Embarrassed to imagine he thought she was tempting him after yet the latest back-off signal, she hastily wrapped the terry robe around herself.
Though she was now covered, everything between them remained stilted and uncomfortable as he walked her back to her bungalow. She stole small looks at his handsome profile, and sighed silently over his confident male stride.
Understanding his wariness around women didn’t make her want him any less, damn it. They might be “friends” now, but that didn’t stop him from also being the most attractive man she’d ever met.
How was she going to say good night to him, let alone goodbye in a few days?
She ran a few practice phrases through her head, staring at her toes, when Kane nudged her with an elbow. “Audra.”
She glanced up at him, saw him focused ahead. Approaching her bungalow from the opposite direction was a familiar couple…a familiar couple who shouldn’t be here.
Audra gasped. “Mom? Dad?”
“This is delicious,” Polly Montgomery said, her smile so bright it rivaled the sunshine pouring down on the resort’s patio. “There were so many great choices at the breakfast buffet.”
Audra pulled her sunglasses out of her tote and perched them on her nose before she was blinded by the dazzle. Her mom used sparkle to distract a person from discerning her true agenda.
“I’m so glad your dad and I had a chance to see the resort before we all go home together. Later today.”
Ah-hah. That’s what she wanted, the chick back in the nest as soon as possible.
“I’m not quite ready to be back in LA, Mom.” Lilly was there, and Audra missed her best friend, but here she didn’t have to face the endless questions and looks of pity. Then there was the birthday celebration she’d been invited to. She’d practically promised Kane’s sisters she would be on hand for that.
While her mother was distracted by the waiter refilling her coffee, Audra glanced at her father, who was frowning over some headlines on his phone. “Dad.”
He grunted.
“Dad.”
“Sorry, hon.” He looked up and tucked his phone in his breast pocket. “What is it?”
“You and Mom should take a few days and explore the wine country around here.”
“That sounds nice,” he said. “Semi-retirement has its perks.”
“We just got back from London,” Polly protested, her now-full cup in hand.
“Semi. Retired,” Lee said, smiling so wrinkles fanned the outer edges of his eyes, as blue as Audra’s own. His crewcut was a mix of pale blond and silver and he was her first hero and at the rate things were going, would be her last as well. “Do you want to come with us?” he asked now.
Groan. Her point was to divert her mother from her tendency to helicopter-parent and get her at least two-dozen miles distant. Lilly had done Audra a huge favor by convincing the elder Montgomerys to go ahead with their European travel plans even though the wedding had been cancelled. But now Polly was back and in fighting form. While it was great to see her mom had recovered from the initial upset over the wedding-that-wasn’t, Audra wasn’t ready for the kind of managing her mother lived for.
If she didn’t have a big event like getting her daughter to the altar to organize, then no doubt she’d just try to get her daughter organized instead.
“We’re going to need to unpack your boxes and resettle everything in your condo,” Polly said now. “It’s a good thing you didn’t sell the place already.”
Yep, she was going to organize her daughter. “Maybe I’m going to move,” Audra said, the idea just coming to her. Restarting her life back in the same place didn’t seem right. The Audra Montgomery that had lived there was gone, left on the beach waiting for a man who would never come. “Maybe I need a change.”
Her mom’s gaze snapped to her dad’s. “Didn’t I just say that, Lee?”
“Uh…yes?” Her dad had the guilty look on his face that said he hadn’t been following the conversation.
“Lee,” her mom chided. “Pay attention. Audra just mentioned she’s wanting a change. Why don’t you tell her about what you’ve been thinking?”
Lee Montgomery wasn’t hen-pecked but he definitely caught on when it was time to follow his wife’s guidance. “Actually, Audie, I do have an idea for you.”
He proceeded to share it with her.
Their energy company had recently acquired a small turbine manufacturer in Wyoming, one that specialized in making devices for inshore water areas like lakes and fjords. He wanted to send someone there for a short while to get a better read on the organization of the business and how the employees felt about the new ownership. “It’s a bit outside of your PR purview,” he said, “but you might enjoy doing something different.”
“And I could come out for a while,” her mom put in, all dazzle and sparkle. “You and I could visit a dude ranch together!”
A dude ranch. With her mother. Audra glanced up at the sky, looking for a friendly bolt of lightning to bring her down.
“Oh, there’s that young man you introduced us to last night.”
Audra straightened, and saw Kane in the distance, pointing something out to a skinny busboy who nodded like a bobblehead doll.
“He’s very good-looking,” her mom murmured. “And he was so polite to Dad and me. And to you, of course.”
“Mom, that’s his job. He’s the hotelier—”
“Whom you were apparently hot-tubbing with last night.”
There was that. It did seem to go beyond the confines of professional cordiality. “Fine, he’s a friend.” With one benefit that she’d allowed herself to experience one single time.
And it might have ruined her, she thought on a sigh.
Her mother sent her a sharp glance. “Audie, this isn’t the time for you to be looking for another man. You know that, right? You’re not in a good place to make a sound emotional judgement, not so soon after being…”
“Jilted? Rejected? I got that, Mom.” It’s not like she could deny the truth of what her mom said. It wasn’t good timing. And Kane wasn’t a long-term bet, anyway. She cleared her throat, spoke up a little louder. “I told you, Kane’s just a friend.”
As if he’d heard it, the man in question’s head snapped around and he looked straight at their table. Feeling herself flush, she lifted her hand in a little wave.
“The way he looks at you…” her mom murmured again.
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Audra cautioned. But she felt that green gaze on her, a color that should be cool but heated her up anyway.
“Dad and I couldn’t bear for you to leap into another relationship that might ultimately hurt you again.”
Oh, hell. “Mom—”
“He’s coming over here,” Polly said. “Wearing a lovely smile. Are you sure he knows that you’re unavailable?”
Feeling fifteen again, Audra wished the floor would open up beneath her the same as that time her mother had warned the cute college freshman working at the deli that her daughter was much too young for him. While she was standing right there.
She stared at the tabletop and hoped to God her mother wouldn’t replay that scene.
“Good morning, Polly, Lee.” Kane’s voice, smooth and low. “Morning, Audra.”
His body moved closer and then he was beside her chair, leaning down to brush a kiss on her cheek. “Okay, baby?” he said, for her ears only.
Glancing up, she nodded, but whatever he saw on her face made a little line dig between his brows. “May I join you for a moment?” he asked her mom.
“Of course,” Polly said, and went on to compliment the resort and their room in polite terms as he took the empty chair beside hers.
“I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying yourselves at The Hathaway.” He put a casual hand on the back of Audra’s chair.
Her mother’s gaze darted to it.
Gah!
“It appears that Audra’s been enjoying her stay here, too,” her mom said.
Kane looked at her and she thought of the day they’d met, when she was still wearing her wedding dress and hiding away in a dark room obsessively watching murder after murder. It astonished her now that he’d returned.
Remembering that, she smiled at him, and he smiled too, a private exchange nearly as intimate as a kiss. Kane turned back to her parents. “Audra has found some pleasure here, I think.”
What? She froze, then creeped her hand beneath the table and under the cover of the cloth to grab his thigh and squeeze in reprimand.
His mouth moved like he was holding back a laugh.
Rat. Big, sexy, needs-to-be-punished rat.
Her dad rumbled into the conversation. “Well, I want to thank you and your staff for taking such good care of our daughter.”
Oh, great. Now Kane’s mouth moved into a definite curve and he shot her a look full of mischief.
“Yes, such great care,” she murmured sweetly, and squeezed again, hard.
She saw him wince, but her parents didn’t catch on, thank God.
“We do our best to meet the needs of all our guests, of course, but Audra is a special case,” Kane said, his expression completely serious. “We owe her a good time.”
The double-entendres were flying.
“Oh?” her mom asked, one eyebrow arched.
Kane turned his head to look at Audra. “Don’t you agree, Audra?”
“About the good time? Oh, sure.” This time she dug her fingernails into his leg.
This time, he had to clear his throat to hide the wince. “Because she did me a huge favor earlier in her stay. We had a floral emergency coupled by a flu going through the staff and she managed to save the day. Made all the flower arrangements for a special event hosted here at the resort.”
Her dad beamed. “She has a little hobby of sorts,” he said. “She’s always had a knack for making things beautiful.”
“I have photos,” Kane said. “This looks more to me than a little hobby.”
Audra’s hand dropped from his leg as she leaned forward to peer at the images captured on his phone. When had he taken them? Or perhaps they’d been forwarded by a professional photographer because they were perfection, the setting captured in all its loveliness. He swiped through them slowly so they all could see.
“Well done, Audie,” her mom said. “Next time I host the women’s club, you’re assigned flowers.”
“I emailed them to our usual florist and she was very impressed,” Kane said.
Audra stared. “You did that?”
He shifted in his chair, smiled at her. “Marie said she’d give you a job on the spot if you wanted one.”
“I have a job,” she pointed out, even as the praise warmed her.
“Yeah, but you can never have too many sincere compliments.”
Which made her think of their talk the night after her orgasm, walking in the dark back to her bungalow and him fishing for compliments about his performance. She’d been kind of annoyed at his smug confidence when she’d still felt like a tangled skein of nerves. Had she ever let him know how good it had been for her?
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. “Thank you.”
“You said it already.”
“Really. Thank you,” she repeated.
He stilled, his gaze narrowing and that familiar connection snapped into place between them. They stared at each other and Audra felt her chest tighten. She wished her hand was still on him because she could use a solid anchor and she also wished she could duck the truth, but there was no missing it.
No matter how much obstacle-erecting, reminder-sharing, friend-zoning they engaged in, there was something between them beyond mere attraction, something that grew each time they were together and became more dangerous by the minute.
Because it was going to be hell to walk away from. But they both knew that they were going to have to let it go.