Bombshell for the Black Sheep
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Janice Maynard
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19,3K
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17
One
Hartley Tarleton had made a lot of mistakes in his life, but walking away from Fiona James—twice—had to be the dumbest. He’d had his reasons. Extenuating circumstances. Familial obligations. Still, he’d handled things badly. The woman in question was not likely to be in a conciliatory mood. Even worse, here he was—proverbial hat in hand—to ask for a favor.
Despite a host of misgivings, he parked across the street and a few cars down from her neatly kept bungalow-style home. The middle-class Charleston neighborhood had aged gently, preserving the best of the city’s Carolina charm in a price range single people and young families could afford. Fiona was a landscape painter. A very talented one with a quickly burgeoning reputation. Hopefully, her starving-artist years were behind her.
Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, Hartley rehearsed his speech. The home and the woman drew him, creating a burning ache in his chest. He’d spent two nights in that house, though not in succession. For reasons he wouldn’t examine too closely, he recalled every detail.
On difficult days this past year, he had calmed himself by remembering the vintage dinette set in Fiona’s tiny breakfast nook. The table was yellow, speckled with gray. He had imagined Fiona, with her naturally curly red hair and wide-set gray-blue eyes, sitting in one of the chairs with the chrome legs, a sketch pad in front of her.
Slowly, he got out of the car and stretched. This momentary procrastination was unlike him. If anything, he erred on the impulsive side. When he was a teenager, people criticized those tendencies as a sign of immaturity. He preferred to think of himself as grabbing the bull by the horns. He liked controlling his own destiny.
A trickle of sweat ran down the center of his back. The day was ridiculously hot and humid. Maybe he had been gone too long. Charleston was his home. Why then, did he feel like an interloper?
His heart hammered in his chest as he crossed the street and walked up the path. He had worried that Fiona might be out and about, but her carefully restored VW Bug sat in the driveway. The car was cotton-candy pink with tiny blue seahorses scattered across the hood. It was a whimsical vehicle, and perfectly suited to the imagination of an artist.
On the porch, he loosened his tie and told himself he wasn’t going to lose it. Grief and a host of other emotions bombarded him. His throat was desert dry. Grimly, he reached out and rang the buzzer.
Fiona heard the doorbell and sighed with relief. She had ordered several hundred dollars’ worth of new paint—oils and acrylics. The overnight rush fee made her cringe, but it was her own fault for not realizing sooner that she didn’t have what she needed to begin a newly commissioned project.
She was wearing a paint-stained T-shirt and ancient jeans with holes in the knees, but the delivery guy had seen her in worse. Her back protested when she sprang to her feet. Sitting in one spot for too long was an occupational hazard. When she was deeply involved in her work, she could paint or draw for hours and never notice the passage of time.
Sprinting through her small house to the front door took a matter of seconds. The only thing that slowed her down was stubbing her toe on the back corner leg of the sofa. Damn, damn, damn. The pain had her hopping on one foot. She had to hurry, because the package required a signature.
She flung open the door, breathless and panting, momentarily dazzled by the bright sunshine. The man standing on her porch was definitely not a delivery man. Nor was he a stranger.
It took her a full five seconds to process the unimaginable.
“Hartley?” Her shock quickly changed to anger. “Oh, heck no.” This man had bruised her ego and maybe even broken her heart.
She slammed the door on instinct. Or she tried to slam the door. One big foot—clad in a size-twelve Italian leather dress shoe—planted itself at the edge of the door frame. The foot’s owner grunted in pain, but he didn’t give up his advantage.
“Please, Fiona. I need your help.”
There it was. Her weakness. Her Achilles’ heel. Growing up in a succession of pleasant but unexceptional foster homes had taught her that becoming indispensable to the family in question secured a roof over her head.
She’d been self-sufficient for over a decade now—ever since she had aged out of the system. She had money in the bank, and her credit rating was unblemished. This perfect little house was almost paid for. Pleasing people was a habit now, not a necessity. A habit she had vowed to break.
But when she actually peeked at Hartley’s face, her resolve wavered. “You look terrible,” she muttered, still with her hand on the door blocking his entrance. Her statement wasn’t entirely correct. Even haggard and with dark smudges of exhaustion beneath his eyes, Hartley Tarleton was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Muscular shoulders, slim hips and a smile that ought to be outlawed on behalf of women everywhere.
They had first met more than a year ago at the wedding of mutual friends, Hartley a groomsman and Fiona his matching attendant. He had escorted her down the aisle during the ceremony. Later that evening, after a raucous reception that involved copious amounts of extremely good wine and plenty of dancing, he had removed her ghastly fuchsia bridesmaid dress...in her very own bedroom. Where she had invited him to join her.
That night, their physical and emotional connection was immediate and seductive—impossible to resist.
When she woke up the following morning, he was gone.
Today, his coffee-colored eyes—so dark as to be almost black—glittered with strong emotion. “Please, Fee.” His voice was hoarse. “Five minutes.”
What was it about this man that tore down every one of her defensive barriers? He’d walked out on her not once, but twice. Was she a masochist? Normally, she didn’t fall for stupid male flattery. But she had actually believed Hartley had been as caught up in the magic of their tantalizing attraction as she’d been.
Sighing at her own spineless behavior, she stepped back and opened the door wider. “Fine. But five minutes. Not six. I’m busy.”
It was a pitiful pretense of disinterest. When he stepped past her, the familiar crisp, fresh scent of his shave gel took her back to a duet of nights she had tried so desperately to forget.
Hartley crossed the room and sprawled on her sofa. She remained standing, arms folded over her chest. The first time they met, he had worn a tuxedo befitting his inclusion in the wedding party. Nine months later when he had shown up on her doorstep without a word of explanation for his long absence, he’d been in faded jeans and a pale yellow cotton shirt with rolled-up sleeves.
Today, his hand-tailored suit screamed money. Despite his almost palpable misery, he looked like a rich man. In other words, not the sort of person Fiona should date. Or sleep with. Or include in any kinds of future plans.
The silence stretched on. Hartley leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed. He was a man who always knew what to say. The kind of guy who could summon a woman’s interest with one mischievous, wicked quirk of his eyebrow.
Now that she had let the big, bad wolf into her house, he was mute.
The uninterrupted, empty silence finally broke her. “What do you want, Hartley?”
The five words were supposed to be inflected with impatience and disinterest. Instead, her voice trembled. She winced inwardly, hoping he hadn’t noticed. If ever there was a time for a woman to seize control of a situation and play the hand on her terms, this was it.
He didn’t deserve her sympathy.
At last, he sat up and faced her, his hands fisted on his thighs. There were hollows in his face that hadn’t been there before. Unmistakable grief. “My father is dead,” he croaked. The expression in his eyes was a combination of childish bewilderment and dull adult acceptance.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Despite her anger, her heart clenched in sympathy. “Was it sudden?”
“Yes. A stroke.”
“Were you in Charleston?” They had discovered at the wedding that they both lived in the beautiful low-country city, but clearly they moved in different circles most of the time.
“No. But it wouldn’t have mattered. He was gone in an instant.”
“I don’t know what to say, except that I’m very sorry, Hartley.”
“He was old but not that old. It never occurred to me I wouldn’t get the chance to say goodbye.”
She wanted to sit down beside him and hug him, but she knew her own limits. It was best to keep a safe distance. Sliding into Hartley Tarleton’s arms made her reasoning skills turn to mush.
His jaw firmed. “I need you to go to the funeral with me. Please.” He stood and faced her. “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t so important.” The muscles in his throat flexed as he swallowed. He needed a haircut. When one thick lock fell over his forehead, he brushed it aside impatiently.
She had seen him naked. Had felt the gentle caress of his big, slightly rough hands on every inch of her sensitive skin. That other Hartley made her body sing with pleasure...made her stupid, romantic heart weave daydreams. But she didn’t know him. Not really.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Hartley. We’re nothing to each other. You made that abundantly clear. I don’t want to go with you to the funeral,” she said firmly, trying to sound tough and no-nonsense and not at all like the type of woman who let a man disappear for days and weeks on end with no explanation and then three months ago took him back into her bed...again.
“You don’t understand.” He moved a step in her direction, but she held him off with a palm-out stance.
“No touching,” she said, reading his playbook. She wouldn’t let him soften her up.
He shrugged, his expression harried. “Fine. No touching. But I need you to go to the funeral with me, because I’m scared, dammit. I haven’t seen my brother or sister in over a year. Things have been strained between us. I need a buffer.”
“Charming,” she drawled. “That’s what a woman wants to hear.”
“For God’s sake, don’t be difficult, Fee.”
His scowl would have been comical if his behavior hadn’t been so atrocious. “I’m perfectly reasonable and rational, Mr. Tarleton. You’re the one who seems to have lost your mind.”
He ran a hand across the back of his neck, a shadow crossing his face. “Maybe I have,” he muttered. He paced restlessly, pausing to pick up a nautilus shell a friend had brought her from Australia. It had been sliced—like a hamburger bun—with a fine-gauge jeweler’s saw to reveal the logarithmic spiral inside. Hartley traced the pattern with a fingertip, the gesture almost sensual. “This is beautiful,” he said.
“I just brought it out of my studio. I’ve been working on a series of four watercolors...a galaxy, a hurricane, this perfect shell. The pattern occurs in nature more often than you might think.”
He closed his palm around the opalescent wonder and shot her a look. “And the fourth?”
Her face heated. “Oddly enough, it’s a kind of broccoli... Romanesco.”
For the first time, the tension in his broad shoulders eased visibly, and a trace of his trademark grin lightened his face. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Fiona.”
She bristled. “What does that mean?”
“You’re special. You see the world in a way us mere mortals don’t. I envy you that.”
The quiet sincerity in his voice and the genuine compliment reminded her of all the reasons she had fallen for his charms the first time. And the second. His habitual smile was an inexplicable combination of sweet and sexy. For a man who stood six three in his stocking feet and carried himself like an athlete, the hint of boyish candor caught her off guard again and again.
What could it hurt if she accompanied him to his father’s service? It was an hour of her life, maybe less. She sighed inwardly, already losing the battle. “What day is the funeral?”
Now he definitely looked guilty. “Today.”
She gaped at him. “Today today?”
“In an hour and a half.”
Her temper ramped to a slow boil. “And you seriously thought you could simply waltz in here, demand my cooperation and get what you want?”
“No,” he said forcefully. “No.” The second denial was quieter. “I was hoping, Fee. Just hoping.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, and he didn’t move. She gave him points for that. Everything in her past interactions with him suggested that he could indeed get what he wanted with little more than a kiss. But Hartley didn’t try any funny business. All he did was ask.
Before she could formulate an answer, he grimaced. “I know I owe you explanations for my behavior. If you’ll do me the kindness of standing beside me this afternoon, I swear I’ll tell you whatever you want to know afterward. I won’t run out. Not this time.”
She searched his face for the truth. “Why are things awkward with your siblings? Isn’t your brother your twin? I seem to recall you telling me that. Aren’t twins supposed to be tight?”
“I did something to upset my father and Jonathan, my brother. I was written out of the will. And to be honest, maybe I deserved it. But I love my family. They’re everything to me. I would like to heal the rift...if that’s even possible.”
He could have wheedled. Or flirted. Or even pressured. Instead, he simply stood there. Looking at her. So intently that her nipples tightened beneath the soft cotton of her bra. She hadn’t imagined the physical connection between them. It was as real today as it was the other times he had blasted into her world. As real as the mantel clock that ticked a steady rhythm.
“Okay. I’ll go with you.” A platonic date to a funeral didn’t mean she was capitulating a third time. “I can be ready in half an hour. Will that do?”
He nodded. “Thank you, Fiona.” His gaze was sober. “I appreciate it.”
“Wait for me here. If the doorbell rings, please answer it. I’m expecting some packages.”
Hartley watched her walk away, wishing he could join her in the shower and forget that his life was imploding. It was nothing short of a miracle that she had agreed to go with him. Because of the situation he was in and the looming stress of seeing his family again, he had to slam the lid on all the erotic memories this small house contained.
His gut was in a knot, but the burning dread eased. With Fee beside him, he could get through this afternoon.
Before he could pull out his phone and check his email, a loud knock sounded at the door. The uniformed delivery man on the porch was beaming when Hartley answered the summons, but his smile faded.
“I have some packages,” he said.
Hartley didn’t call him out on the awkward, unnecessary explanation. “I see that,” he said mildly.
The kid, barely twenty at most, tried to peer inside the house. “Fiona needs to sign for this delivery.”
Hartley’s territorial instincts kicked in. “Ms. James is in the shower.”
The young man recognized the veiled rebuke. His face flushed. “You could do it, I suppose.”
“I supposed I could.” Hartley scrawled his name and handed back the electronic clipboard. “I’ll tell her you said hello.”
Three large boxes changed hands. Hartley gave the poor schmuck a terse nod and closed the door firmly. He couldn’t blame the kid for having a crush, but Fiona deserved a man in her life.
The irony of that didn’t escape him. In fact, now that he had Fee in his corner, he could spare a moment to wonder what she had been up to in the weeks and months he had been traveling the world. Was there a man somewhere who would protest Hartley’s current involvement in her life?
His stomach-curling distaste for that thought told him he was more invested than he wanted to admit. It seemed impossible he could be obsessed with a woman he had known for less than a week, collectively. Yet of all the people in his life who could have been persuaded to accompany him to his father’s funeral, Hartley had chosen Fiona.
The momentary peace he experienced deep in his heart told him he had made the right decision.
A lot of things were going to change in the next weeks and months. Even if his brother didn’t trust him and his sister would reproach him for being gone so long, the three of them would have to work together to settle their father’s affairs.
Only Hartley knew how very difficult that was going to be.
A noise in the hall brought his head up. His breath caught in his throat. “Fiona,” he croaked. “You look amazing.”
Her classic black dress was sleeveless and knee length. Sexy black sandals showcased slender legs. She had tried to tame her medium-length hair with two antique tortoiseshell combs. Now fiery curls framed her elfin face. “Is this okay?” she asked. “To be honest, I haven’t been to a funeral in a very long time.” She toyed with the simple pearl earrings that matched the necklace at her throat.
“You’re perfect,” he said.
