Chapter Two
“Shit, Isaac. If the plumber needs quarter-inch pipe, get him quarter-inch pipe.” Matt threw open the door to his truck as he half listened to another lame excuse. He could recite them by heart at this point anyway.
“No, I can’t get the pipe. I’m at Phi’s house now.” He sighed as Isaac went with the predictable. “Yes, again, and I can’t come now. You’re going to have to fix this yourself.”
He slammed his door and keyed off his phone. Smartphones! He missed the days of being able to slam a receiver down. Jabbing your finger at those little icons didn’t have the same release.
When God handed out brains to the Evans clan, he must have realized he was running low for the family allotment and been stingier with the youngest members. Between Isaac and their sister, Jo, there could only be a couple of functioning neurons left. And their performance, like a faulty electrical circuit, flickered in and out.
He grabbed his toolbox from the back of the truck. This had to be the ugliest house in history, as if Hogwarts and the Addams family mansion had a midair collision and vomited up Philomene’s Folly.
His chest swelled with pride as he stared at it. He’d built every ugly, over-the-top, theatrical inch of this heap of stone. He’d bet he was the only man alive who could find real, honest to God, stone gargoyles for downspouts. Not the plaster molding kind. Not for Diva Philomene St. Amor. Nope, she wanted them carved out of stone and mounted across the eaves like the front row of a freak show.
“Hey, Matt,” a kid called from the stables forming one side of the semicircular kitchen yard.
“Hey, yourself.” He couldn’t remember the name of Phi’s latest rescue kid doing time in her kitchen yard. Kitchen yard! In this century. Diva Philomene wanted a kitchen yard, so a kitchen yard she got, along with her stables.
“I want a building to capture the nobility of their Arabian ancestors thundering across the desert.” She’d got it. Heated floors, vaulted ceilings, and pure cedar stalls—now housing every ratty, mismatched, swaybacked nag the local humane society couldn’t house and didn’t want to waste a bullet on. A smile crept onto his face. You had to love the crazy old broad.
He skirted the circular herb garden eating up the center of the kitchen yard. A fountain in the shape of a stone horse trough trickled happily. He’d have to remind her to drain it and blow the pipes before winter. He didn’t want to replace the piping again next spring.
The top half of the kitchen door stood open and he unlatched the bottom half before stepping into the kitchen. The AGA range gave off enough heat to have sweat sliding down his sides before he took two steps. He opened the baize door to the rest of the house and yelled, “Phi!”
He hadn’t even known what a baize door was at nineteen, but the Diva had educated him because she wanted one and it became his headache to get her one.
“Mathieu!” The Frenchifying of his name was all the warning he got before Philomene appeared at the top of her grand, curving walnut staircase. Thirty-two rises, each six feet wide and two feet deep leading from the marble entrance hall to the gallery above.
The soft pink of the sun bled through the stained-glass windows and bathed the old broad in magic. Her purple muumuu made a swishing noise as she descended, hands outstretched, rings glittering in the bejeweled light. “Darling.”
She made his teeth ache. “Hold on to the railing, Phi, before you break your neck.” It had taken a crew of eight men to put that railing in, and nearly killed the carpenter to carve a dragon into every inch of it.
She pressed a kiss on both his cheeks with a waft of the same heavy, musky perfume she’d always worn. She smelled like home. “You came.”
“Of course, I came.” He bent and returned her embrace. “That’s how this works. You call, I drop everything and come.”
A wicked light danced in her grass green eyes, still bright and brilliant beneath the layers and layers of purple goo and glitter. She’d been a knockout in her youth, still had some of that beautiful woman voodoo clinging to her. If you doubted that for an instant, there were eight portraits and four times that many photos in this house to set you right. Or you could just take a look at Pippa—if you could catch a quick glance as she flew through town. He made it his business to grab an eyeful when he could.
“I am overset, Mathieu, darling.” She pressed her hand to her gem-encrusted bosom.
“Of course you are.” The Diva never had a bad day or a problem. Nope, she was overset, dismayed, perturbed, discomposed and on the occasion her dishwasher broke down, discombobulated.
“It is that thing in the kitchen.” She narrowly missed taking his eye out with her talons as she threw her hand at the baize door.
Her kitchen might look like a medieval reenactment, but it was loaded for bear with every toy and time-saving device money could buy—all top of the line. “What thing, Phi?”
“The water thingy.”
“The faucet?”
She swept in front of him, leading the way into the kitchen like Caesar entering Rome in triumph. “See.” He dodged her hand just in time. “It drips incessantly and disturbs my beauty rest.”
He clenched his teeth together so hard his jaw ached. He ran a construction company big enough to put together four separate crews and she called him for a dripping faucet. “I could have sent one of my men around to fix that. A plumber.”
“But I don’t want one of your men, darling.” She beamed her megawatt smile at him. “I want you.”
There you had it. She wanted him and he came. Why? Because he owed this crazy, demanding, amazing woman everything, and the manipulative witch knew it. He shrugged out of his button-down shirt and pulled his undershirt out of his jeans. He was going to get wet and he’d be damned if he got faucet grunge all over his smart shirt.
Phi took the shirt from him and laid it tenderly over the back of one of her kitchen chairs. “This is a very beautiful shirt, Matt.”
“I’m a busy and important man now, Phi. A man with lots of smart shirts.”
She grinned at him, and stroked the shirt. “I am very proud of you, Matt.”
Damn it all to hell, if that didn’t make him want to stick out his chest like the barnyard rooster strutting across Phi’s kitchen yard. He turned the faucet on and then off again. No drip. “Phi?”
“It’s underneath.” She wiggled her fingers at the cabinet.
He got to his knees and opened the doors. Sure enough, a small puddle of water gathered on the stone flags beneath the down pipe. Good thing Phi had insisted on no bottoms to her kitchen cabinets. It had made it a bitch to get the doors to close without jamming on the stone floor, but right now it meant he wouldn’t be replacing cabinets in his spare time.
“You should be out on a date,” Phi said from behind him.
“If I was out on a date, Phi, I wouldn’t be here fixing your sink.”
“Yes, you would.”
Yeah, he would. He turned off the water to the sink. “Have you got some towels or something?”
She bustled into the attached laundry and reappeared with an armload of fluffy pink towels.
Wheels crunched on the gravel outside the kitchen and Phi dropped the towels on the floor next to him. She tottered over to the window to stare. A huge smile lit her face and she gave off one of those ear-splitting trills that had made her the world’s greatest dramatic soprano. Everyone, from the mailman to a visiting conductor, got the same happy reception.
He leaned closer to get a better look at the pipes beneath the sink. Were those scratch marks on the elbow joint? Neat furrows all lined up like someone had done that on purpose. He crawled into the cabinet and wriggled onto his back. They didn’t make these spaces for men his size.
“Mathieu?” Phi craned down until her face entered his field of vision. Her painted-on eyebrows arched across her parchment-pale face. “I have a visitor.”
“Is that so?” What the hell, he always played along.
“Indeed.” Her grin was evil enough to have him stop his tinkering with the wrench in midair. “I thought you might like to know about this visitor.”
The kitchen door opened. A pair of black heels tapped into view. The sort of shoes a man wanted to see wrapped around his head, and at the end of a set of legs he hadn’t seen since her last trip to Ghost Falls—Christmas for a flyby visit. His day bloomed into one of those eye-aching blue sky and bright sunlight trips into happy.
Welcome home, Pippa Turner.
* * *
Pippa wrapped her arms around her grandmother and held on for dear life. Thank you, God, she was home. She’d made it in one piece. Missing the bits taken off her by the women at the airport, the car rental lady, and a group glare from a bunch of tourists at the baggage carousel of Salt Lake City Airport.
Phi tightened her arms around Pippa, as if she knew. Of course she knew, Phi always knew. The ache inside her chest unraveled and unlocked the tears. Not once in this whole ghastly two weeks had Pippa cried. But the smell of patchouli oil wiggled underneath her defenses and opened the floodgates. Home. Safe.
“Ma petite.” Phi stroked her back in long, soothing strokes. The jewels encrusting her bodice pressed into Pippa’s chest, like they had all through her childhood. “My poor, sweet girl.”
The tears came thicker and faster, gumming up her throat and blocking her nose until they roared out in great gasping sobs.
Phi absorbed it all, like Pippa knew she would. Quiet murmurs and calming pats that eventually calmed the storm enough for her to speak.
“Now.” Phi cupped Pippa’s face between her pampered palms. “You will tell me all the dreadful things that man did to you.”
The relief almost got her crying again, but Pippa dragged in a deep breath. She could tell Phi everything, about Ray, the vapid blond thing he was boning, her meltdown, the lies—all of it. She had a list of every last one. And Phi would believe her. Not like those sharks surrounding her in LA. “Did you see it?”
Phi’s eyes clouded and her mouth dropped. “I did, my love, and it did not look good.”
“I only watched it once, and I haven’t had the guts to watch it since then.” Pippa’s stomach clenched up so tight she thought she might puke. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to watch the footage a second time, and that one blurred nightmare viewing was enough to know it had to be bad. Plus, the angry women mobbing her everywhere she went pretty much gave the game away.
Phi’s droopy mouth confirmed how bad.
“It was Ray.” Her legs collapsed like overcooked green beans and she needed to sit. The heavy kitchen chair screeched across the stone floor as she pulled it out. “He wanted me gone and used the show to make sure it happened.”
“But why?” Phi threw her shoulders back, looking ready to do battle for Odin. It was the same pose she’d been photographed in while singing Wagner in Milan.
For the first time since Christmas, a real smile curled around the corners of Pippa’s mouth. Drama was hardwired into her grandmother. Her mother hated it, and her sister, Laura, did her best to flatten Phi’s flare. Pippa loved it. It warmed her from the inside and gave her that bit of driftwood she desperately needed. When you were with Phi, you had to go with it.
“Ray wanted a younger piece of ass.” Saying it out loud brought the slow simmer up to the boil again. She’d only turned thirty-two three months ago. How much younger ass did Ray want? The answer stuck like a phlegm ball in the back of her throat. Twentysomething and fresh out of journalism college. Probably Debbie Does Dallas U.
“Men.” Phi snorted and thrust her chin out. The Aida angle, a touch of defiance and high enough to catch the glitter of the follow spot. The expression crumpled and Phi glanced down at the floor. “It’s all about sex for them.”
A grunt sounded from under the sink. Pippa’s nape crawled as her brain sorted this new information. “Phi?” She was afraid to ask. “Is there someone here?”
Phi waved a hand toward the sink, looking way too arch to be innocent. “It is just Mathieu.”
“Thanks, Phi.” A deep, dark country-boy rumble from under the sink.
Just Mathieu! An hysterical scream of laughter gathered in Pippa’s throat. Matt Evans wasn’t just anything, and he was under Phi’s sink listening to every word of this.
“Hey, Agrippina,” said the voice from the floor.
Only one person, other than Phi, called her Agrippina and lived to tell the tale. Sonofabitch, and she’d thought her day was done messing with her. “Hey, Meat.”
“Matt is fixing my sink,” Phi said.
Useful information she might have appreciated . . . say . . . five minutes ago. She leaned back and peered around the side of the table. Sure enough, a set of jeaned legs stuck out from the cupboard. His white T-shirt rode up exposing a couple of inches of tanned, smooth stomach. Matt Evans still had a little something-something going on. A too good looking, seriously charming, hot as hell, cocksure son of a bitch. Seriously nice thighs under those jeans.
“Don’t mind me,” he said.
With Phi listening she might have launched into her men and sex theories.
“We need champagne.” Phi leaped to her feet.
“Champagne?” Pippa dragged her eyes away from the sizeable bulge at the top of those thighs. Matt Evans was packing. “I don’t think I’m in much mood for celebrating.”
“Darling.” Phi flung her hands out in front of her. “Never let them see you bleed. Tonight we drink to your homecoming, and poor, single Matt eventually getting a date. Tomorrow we plot our revenge.”
In Phi’s wake the baize door swung shut with a whisper across the stone floor. Tools clinked from under the sink.
“Are you going to come out from under there?” Pippa craned her neck and caught a glimpse of his firm chin, dotted with stubble.
“Is it safe?”
The edge of another weeping storm swept through her. “Probably not.”
“Younger piece of ass, huh?” Matt chuckled softly. Go ahead, rub it in, you smug shit.
“Dateless, huh?” Hard to believe the man who girls had ripped one another’s hair out for in high school was dateless.
Matt snorted a laugh. “Damn, it looks like someone cut this pipe.”
Phi! Pippa dropped her head to the table with a thud that reverberated all the way to the back of her aching skull. The timing was too convenient to be believed. Not to mention the super-subtle way she’d worked into the conversation how unattached Matt Evans was.
“If you’re done with the crying thing, could you hand me a wrench?”
Was she done with the crying thing? Tears stung her eyes and made her blink. Nope, she had a few tons of water left to shed.
“Wrench.” A tanned hand emerged from the cupboard and curled his fingers in her direction. Oh no, he didn’t. The last man to crook his fingers at her . . . had been Matt Evans. She hadn’t responded that time, either.
She was done with taking crap. Hello, Mr. Leg Man, here comes trouble, sashaying over the kitchen floor right at you. Matt and his ogling were one of the best parts of coming home to Ghost Falls. Nothing like steady appreciation to lift a girl’s spirits. Matt didn’t do subtlety, either. Hot, naughty twinkle in his eye, small smile playing on his mouth, he’d hand out that sexy attitude in bucketloads. Her heels rang against the stone floor. She parked a four-inch heel right next to his hip, pressing her ankle in to get his attention. She lifted the other over and trapped him between her legs. Her pencil skirt pulled tight across her thighs.
The man between her thighs stilled. He loaded his voice with enough warning to tell her he was onto her. “Agrippina.”
Through the opening where the sink trap had been she caught his eye, twinkle still there, daring her to do her worst. “Meat.”
His eyes widened as he read her intention a split second before she opened the faucet to max. Water gushed out, straight down the downpipe. His body tensed.
Pippa leaped out of the way as he uncoiled from under the sink. Damn that felt good. Absolutely childish but so good. Turns out, Matt knew some very nasty words. She sprang back as he emerged, shaking his head like a big, wet dog.
“You think that’s funny, do you?” She did. She totally did, and her grin said so. Strong hands fastened around her hips, whipped her right off her feet, and slammed her into a rock-hard, very wet chest. Her feet dangled a foot off the ground. Water spiked his eyelashes and dripped off the end of his nose. “That was not very nice.”
Her blouse clung to her in a sodden mess as he held her in place. She wriggled to get free, mashing her breasts against him. The damp cloth between them vanished against the blaze of warmth coming off his chest. “You can put me down now.” Damn, her voice got all breathy and girly.
He gave her an evil grin and lowered her to the ground, chest rubbing all the way. It felt so good, her little old toes curled in her kick-ass shoes. The smug shit knew it.
Matt stepped back and she got a good eyeful of him. Matt in his twenties had been hot, hot, hot. Today’s Matt was a supercharged version with hard angles and sinewy muscle. He fisted the back of his T-shirt and dragged it over his head.
Holy shit! Hard ridges marched up his belly from his belt to expand into the hard slabs of his pecs. Those shoulders begged to have her sink her teeth into the muscle. Her mouth dried and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.
He raised one dark eyebrow at her. “Well.”
She folded her arms over her see-through blouse. “I see you’ve let yourself go.”
“Liar. You were so checking me out.” He laughed, a flash of white teeth that softened his harsh features.
The sound tugged at something buried deep inside her. It bubbled up under her chest and turned her mouth up at the corners.
The look in his topaz eyes warmed into hot, melty chocolate, and reminded her who was the girl here and who was the boy. God, it must be years since a man had looked at her like that. A look like that could make a girl’s day a whole lot better.