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“YOU’RE GOING TO NEED HELP.”
Leaving Joel standing at the register with her pithy words and the bill in his hand, Willa carried a very messy Leigh into the ladies’ room of the diner where he’d treated them to a late lunch of his favorite home-style cooking.
Chicken-fried steak. Garlic potatoes and cream gravy. Hot rolls with butter and green beans with ham. Willa, of course, had ordered a salad. A spinach salad. And Leigh—criminy!
The queen of Cuisinart had squashed each bean into a pulp of green strings against the high-chair tray, mashed already mashed potatoes between her fingers, sucked a crust of bread until she’d turned it into glue, and dreadlocked half the hair on her head.
And today was only day one. At least five more loomed in his future. Five days of bath time and play time and quiet time and feeding time. Sure he could manage on his own. He hadn’t grown up the oldest of five and not done his fair share of babysitting. But it wouldn’t be the same walk in the park he’d be able to make on two good feet.
He wouldn’t complain about the laundry, though with the little bit Jen had packed and the way Leigh was going through her wardrobe, he’d be making a trip to his sister’s house today for a week’s worth of miniature outfits.
He wouldn’t worry about adjusting his work or sleep schedule. Since he didn’t have the first, he didn’t have the second. His hours were pretty much adaptable to whatever Leigh required.
He wouldn’t turn his nose up at diapers. Or spit and drool. Or the paste Leigh managed to make of fruits and vegetables. And cereal. And bread... though the way Scout looked a few minutes ago when Willa carried her off for a quick wash and wax did have Joel shaking his head.
How did someone so small create a mess so big?
He’d dressed Leigh this morning in the same clothes she’d worn when Jen dropped her off. His choices had been limited. It was either a repeat of the dress or a pair of red Winnie the Pooh pajamas.
Jen had expected their folks to be home last night, not on their way to the West Coast. If those expectations had panned out, the clothing dilemma wouldn’t have been one. Joel knew his mother kept a spare dresser full of clothes for the grandkids. Her emergency stash, she called it.
Emergency stash indeed.
Which reminded him. He needed to check in on Howie Jr. while at Jen’s. Make sure the teen was taking care of Shadow as promised. Keeping clean and legal, as he’d sworn to Joel and the judge.
Yeah, Joel thought, his interest pricking as the ladies’ room door swung open and Willa stepped through. When he put it all together and added his burn leg... Willa was right. He was going to need help.
And damn but he liked the way she walked. Her long legs wore blue jeans well. Her approach was confident, her line of sight locked on him. He liked that, too, that she had eyes for no one else. Gave a certain integrity to his thoughts of her that ran to the private and personal.
She made it to his side then, baby on her hip. Comfortably, naturally on her hip. A woman’s hip, cocked to the side to support her cargo and curved to fit a man’s hand, built to hold his weight, shaped to mate to his body. A groan rolled up from Joel’s throat as Willa brushed a lock of Leigh’s hair from her forehead.
“We’re back,” she said, smiling at her charge first, then at Joel. “And only a little worse for the wear.”
“So, I see,” he said and cleared his throat. He looked first at Leigh then at Willa. From damp blond curls to wild golden strands. He straightened where he stood. From scrubbed rosy cheeks to skin kissed with freckles. He took a step back.
From innocent Bambi-browns to intelligent blue eyes—eyes that knew his thoughts hovered on the verge of a proposition. He swallowed hard. It was all he could do to ask, “Ready?”
Willa nodded, and Joel pushed open the door. The sunlight hit them square in the face. Willa pulled sunglasses from the pocket of her flannel shirt. Leigh buried her face in the crook of Willa’s neck. Joel kept his mind on nothing but the trip to the truck.
The breeze was cool yet the sun was hot, beating down hard enough that Joel’s cane pressed into the newly tarred parking lot as he hobbled along behind them, feeling worn and old when he knew he was neither.
Worn and old was a state of mind and body that was temporary; one easily attributed to the past few weeks of doing nothing. It was a situational frustration he could deal with. Had been dealing with. Would continue to deal with.
And it was a lot easier to manage than the sensation that he’d stepped off into a great big hole when he’d crossed Willa’s backyard this morning. A hole down which he was still falling, falling hard, falling deep.
He didn’t like the dreamlike feeling, the loss of power over mind and body. Yeah, he’d been thinking about Willa in ways that had him knotted and stiff. But the feeling of head over heels down the side of a cliff cut a little too close to a loss of control. And that wasn’t going to happen. No matter how much he wanted her.
Once at the truck, he took Leigh from Willa’s arms and buckled her into the car seat that Willa had borrowed from the Craigs across the street. He had no idea how she’d known they kept one on hand for their grandbaby’s visits. But she had.
There’d been a lot of things Willa had surprised him with today, he thought, watching over the top of the car seat and through the rear window as she circled the back of the truck. Her ease at handling Leigh’s needs was the first.
The woman knew every in and out of babysitting. Leigh had but to babble in that baby-babble way she had and Willa’s maternal instincts kicked right in—as if she’d been waiting for this opportunity.
Truth is, she hadn’t been waiting for a thing. He knew that. This opportunity was just a chance for Willa to do what came naturally. Of that, he was sure. The same way he was sure there was a reason she had no children of her own. And a reason she wasn’t married. Or involved.
Joel huffed, impatient with himself and his thoughts. Even though he wanted to know what it was that made Willa tick, her personal life was none of his business. Just as his was none of hers.
Of course, that hadn’t stopped him from spilling most all of his guts through his big mouth at her simple prompting. Nice going there, too, Wolf Man. Way to keep a poker face. He would’ve thought he’d been on the job long enough to play the right cards in an interrogation.
Now if he could just hold on to his precarious hand for the rest of the week... Hell, he’d be happy to make it through the day, because Willa’s offer to help was never out of his mind. And he wasn’t yet sure his idea of help was what she intended.
Willa climbed into the passenger side and slammed the door. Joel got behind the wheel, slid his cane across the floor, lay his arm along the top of the seat, and looked over his shoulder to back out of the parking spot.
That his fingers grazed Willa’s nape, grazed and tangled in loose strands of her hair, didn’t faze him. Not at all. Leigh’s hair was as soft. Jen’s hair was as soft. His own wasn’t much coarser. Just shorter. Hair was hair, after all, he reasoned, rubbing Willa’s between his forefinger and thumb.
But not this time, he had to admit. And not this hair. The threads wound around his fingers on their own, alive with a static attraction drawn from Willa’s energy. He breathed in and fell a little deeper. Breathed out and continued to fall.
“Sorry,” she said, reaching back to bind the strands once again. “My hair has a mind of its own at times.”
She smiled at him and once he’d recovered from that and had the truck heading out of the lot, he moved his arm from the back of the seat. Reluctantly.
“I keep thinking I should cut it,” she said, still struggling with the cloth band that bound it in a ponytail. “It’s too long to be practical.”
He glanced over at her. She’d finished with her hair and was looking straight ahead now, one elbow braced on the door, her chin at rest in her palm. Her hair lay sleek against her head in multicolored shades of blond. He thought of corn silk. Of wheat fields.
He thought he was out of his mind.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “No. Don’t cut it.” But instead, he turned back to driving and asked, “Why don’t you?”
She laughed. “Vanity, of course.”
“Vanity.” He grunted, an annoying noise he figured would draw a reaction. Anything to keep her talking. He intended to know her well before she stopped. “Females. I should’ve known.”
“Now, Detective Wolfsley. What could you possibly have against females?”
“I spent eighteen years growing up with four sisters in a house that had only two bathrooms.” Again a grunt. For good measure. “Women and mirrors and showers—”
“Oh, my!” Willa laughed and turned to the side to look at him while she talked. “C’mon, Joel. Think about it.”
“Think about what?”
“Boys have all the fun with their frogs and snails and puppy dog tails—”
“Damn straight,” he interjected.
She cleared her throat “And girls get stuck with sugar and spice and orders not to get dirty. We don’t even have a say in the matter. It’s all decided by the time we’re wrapped up in the hospital nursery’s one-size-fits-all pink blanket.”
She’d obviously been pampered and petted, put on a pedestal, a look-but-don’t-touch pretty package. He wanted to know more—who she was, her likes and dislikes. He wanted a palette to work with. Seduction was a fine art, after all. “Should’ve asked the nurses for blue, I guess.”
She screwed up her nose, pressed her lips together in thought. “I think I would’ve chosen red, actually. Deep and rich and dark. Fit for tribal queens and ladies of the evening and divas and pro basketball players.”
“Jen did Leigh’s nursery in red and purple.” Hmm. Why did that bit of information feel like an attempt to score points rather than a way to draw her out?
“Red and purple? Really?”
He nodded. “Rob still gripes that the room looks like a sixties’ peace rally. And Jen keeps lecturing him on primary colors and child development and some psychological connection which went in one of my ears and out the other.”
“Good for her. And bad for you.” Willa leaned into Leigh’s car seat as Joel made a right turn. “I like your sister. This little one may be wearing white ruffles today, but she’ll no doubt be decked out in soccer cleats and a goalie shirt tomorrow.”
Another twist. And, vanity or not, Joel knew this was about more than clothes. There’d been just enough of a rise in Willa’s tone. “Hmm. I’m trying to decide here if you have something against white ruffles or a thing for sports.”
Willa blew out a long sigh and waited a moment before she replied. “No fair, Detective. Interrogations are allowed only while you’re on duty.”
Now they were getting somewhere. This is what he’d wanted, to touch a nerve, to elicit more than a quick and witty comeback. Joel smiled. “I am on duty. I’m driving.”
Willa shifted in her seat. “Is that how it works?”
“Yep. Good cop, bad cop.” He pulled to a stop at the next intersection’s red light. “Here’s the deal. Good cop feeds you lunch. Bad cop won’t let you out of the truck until you talk.”
She looked at him for a minute, her eyes bright with the captured sunbeams that shone through the broad windshield. The blue sparkled in the light, danced with that energy that lived beneath her skin.
Joel held his breath. That energy was creating his anticipation. An anticipation that was stirring his body and his blood.
“Tell me, Joel.” Her smile widened. “Is it the good cop or the bad cop that gets into a staring match with his prisoner and sits through a green light?”
“Damn.” Joel spun back around, hit the gas and made it through the intersection on the tail end of the yellow.
Willa leaned her head into Leigh’s and ruffled the baby’s curls. Willa’s lashes slowly lifted, slowly lowered. If he hadn’t known better, he would’ve thought she was flirting. Thing is, he did know better. He had sisters.
“What a silly uncle you have,” Willa crooned to the baby. Leigh giggled and wobbled her head excitedly, up and down, side to side, a circle of angel hair bobbing to no particular beat.
“Not silly.” Joel bared his teeth. “Just the better to entertain you with, my dears.”
Willa tossed back her head and laughed. “What do you think, Leigh? As long as he keeps his claws and fangs to himself, should we let him entertain us?”
Leigh nodded at Willa’s questioning tone and the gurgling giggles began again. Joel rolled his eyes but kept both hands on the wheel, his focus straight ahead. He needed to consider his strategy. And his strategy required no distractions.
A nice long blacktop highway stretched ahead. That ought to work. He nodded toward it. “Look. No lights. No stop signs. No traffic. Plenty of time for an enlightening discussion of ruffles and cleats.”
She twisted her mouth but didn’t say no. He liked it that she hadn’t said no. The game was a lot more fun when there was still a chance he might lose. He slowed the truck.
She looked over, lifted a brow. “Been on leave too long, Detective? So long that you’re forced to practice interrogation tactics on your neighbor?”
He nodded, lightened his foot on the gas pedal. “Next comes the bamboo under the fingernails.”
“And then bread and water once a day?”
“Nah.” This one was easy. He’d seen her eat. “Wouldn’t want to spoil you.”
“All right. All right. I give up. I can’t take it anymore.” She stuck both arms out, wrists up and crossed. “Your driving is torturing me.”
“You prefer that I move this along?” He pressed forward five miles per hour, pressed the tension level in the cab up one notch. “I expect to have your full cooperation.”
She crossed her heart. “You’ll have all the cooperation I can muster.”
“You’ll tell me about the ruffles?”
She nodded.
“And the cleats?”
She nodded again. Furiously. “Anything and everything. Except about throwing Kristen Hamilton’s padded bra into the boy’s locker room in tenth grade.” She huffed. “C cup my ass.”
Oh, yeah, he liked this woman. Liked her a lot. “Tenth grade, huh? Right about the time sixteen-year-old boys are into comparison shopping.”
Willa scoffed. “Unlike sixteen-year-old boys to whom size does matter, the problem between the girls is not the size of the cup, but the lies of the wearer.”
This was a new one. “Lies?”
“Lies.” Arms crossed over her chest, Willa lifted her nose and affected a sixteen-year-old attitude. “Kristen’s was padded. Mine wasn’t. I proved it. She lost the bet”
Joel had a feeling Willa had been a teenage terror. He clicked his tongue. “Total humiliation.”
“She wasn’t half as humiliated as I was when I got back from the locker room to find my bra missing.” She paused, sank lower in her seat. “And to find it later hanging from the flag pole in the school cafeteria.”
It was so damn hard not to laugh. “Bet you got a few looks that day.”
“That day and every one after.” Willa broke into a smile, the wry twist of her lips one of self-deprecating good humor.
“And that’s when you took up soccer, right?” He liked that the memory amused her. “Nothing like a few cleat marks upside the head for payback.”
“Actually, I never played soccer. But when I was eleven, I wanted it more than I wanted to breathe.”
More than she wanted to breathe. The highway rolled by beneath his wheels and Joel wondered what soccer had to do with what Willa’d really wanted. “No cleats then I take it. Just ugly white ruffles.”
“They weren’t that ugly. They just didn’t go well with skateboards and go-carts. Have you ever tried to get tire tread marks out of yellow dotted Swiss?”
A tomboy. Not surprising. “No. But I know how hard it is to get blood out of a white velvet Easter dress. Jen used to pick on me like she was a starving dog and I was the only bone for miles around.”
“And one day you picked back?”
“Not picked. Punched. Or tried to. Mine landed short. Hers was right on the nose.”
Willa grimaced. “Your nose?”
“Yep. My nose. My blood. Her white dress.”
“But you were the boy so the fight was your fault”
“You got it. One size fits all, remember?” He glanced her way then back at the road. “Those frogs and snails and puppy dog tails chafe after a while.”
“Touché.”
Joel drifted to the right to give more clearance to a passing car. “Jen and I grew up more as friends than siblings. Which meant when we fought it was fast and furious but short-lived. The battles she waged with Carolyn seemed to last for years.”
“I guess that’s not unusual for sisters.” She shrugged. “I had more male friends than female.”
“It’s not too hard to figure out why.” He raised a brow at her questioning look. “Not if you made a habit of tossing bras into locker rooms.”
She forced a shudder. “They say there are some experiences best lived through but once in a lifetime.”
“Like an IRS audit?”
“Ooh.” Turning her back to the passenger door, Willa propped her elbow on the top of the car seat that sat between them. “How bad was it?”
Joel wondered if he could belt Leigh’s seat on the far right of the cab so Willa could sit closer. “Never had one. Never plan to.”
“I don’t think they ask permission first.” She lifted one of Leigh’s curls, let the strands drift back to settle on top of the others. “But you go right ahead and dream.”
It was really hard to keep both hands on the wheel. He wanted to touch Willa’s hair the way she was touching Leigh’s. He wanted to feel those wild strands spread over his bare chest.
He shook his head. “Been there. Done that. My dream was to be a cop. And I got what I wanted.”
“You don’t dream about anything else?”
Her voice was soft, her words powerful. Kitten fur with a tiger’s bite. Joel felt the impact of both, the first on his senses, the second on his heart.
He laughed off his reaction because it wasn’t real. His heart had nothing to do with this. This was all about enjoying Willa with his body and his mind.
It certainly wasn’t about dreams he didn’t have.
“Hey, whose interrogation is this anyway?” he groused.
“I decided to take over since your concentration seems shot.”
“How so?”
“You just passed the turnoff for home.”
Joel braked hard, then realized the effort was wasted. Like he was going to stop in the middle of the highway and back up? Criminy. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“I’m listening.”
“I need to make a run to the store if Scout here is going to have anything to eat this week. If you’ll push the basket while I hobble down the aisles, I won’t mention soccer again.”
Willa couldn’t keep a straight face. “As long as I don’t mention dreams, you mean?”
“Yeah,” he said in a Jimmy Cagney aside. “I’d tell you my dreams but—”
“Then you’d have to kill me.” Willa interrupted, finishing his sentence.
“Nah. Just kidnap you.”
“I see,” she said and nodded as if she were thinking it over.
He wanted her to think it over. And over. To consider the possibilities. To come up with ones he hadn’t thought of yet. His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “I’d have to keep you restrained, you know.”
“I’m sure.”
“With handcuffs.”
“No doubt you keep several pairs on hand.”
“Twelve.” He couldn’t help himself because just the idea was making him sweat.
She squirmed in her seat. “You go through a pair a month, do you?”
“When I’m lucky I go through two.”
He arched a brow and glanced her direction. The color in her face was a dead giveaway. He had her where he wanted her. Almost
She rolled her eyes and glanced at her watch, no-nonsense, black-banded, white-faced. He upped the ante because he wanted to see more of her. There was a lot of time left in the day and the games had just begun.
“Okay. An offer you can’t refuse. A charcoal-grilled dinner of your choice.”
He watched her mouth twitch and knew she was close. Also knew that what she was fighting, even more than time, was the very thing that assured him he would win this battle.
He knew that by the look on her face when she turned her head, when she raised her lashes slowly, when he saw in her eyes a reflection of what he was feeling. The certainty that they were headed toward more than an afternoon spent shopping, an evening spent in front of the grill.
“Well?” he prompted, because what had been anticipation was now alive and clawing a hole in his gut. He had to know.
“It depends.”
“On?” he prompted again.
“On whether or not you’re planning for me to walk a mile for my supper.” She nodded toward his gas gauge. “You’re running on empty, Wolf Man.”