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“It’s barely worn in.” He whipped off his tank top and pulled it over his head to prove his point, uneasily aware that she’d stared while he stripped.
“See?” he said.
“It’s full of holes and stained.”
“It’s fine. It’s perfect.” Except the junk she’d doused it in burned his nose, so he’d have to throw it in the hamper.
He hoped to hell Heidi’s boss had a spare room. Something told him the woman could mess up lots more than his favorite T-shirt.
3
HEIDI GRABBED the dish soap from among the cleaning supplies left from Tina’s regime and squirted pink liquid into the rushing hot water. It was all too surreal for words.
Two hours ago, her happy new life had peeled away from the curb and now she was cleaning a stranger’s town house. A handsome stranger, whose bare pecs she’d admired and with whom she’d flirted by fondling his hair. She was losing her mind.
How else could she explain hitting on a guy in the middle of the ruin of her life? Had to be an escape from the tension. When Jackson had whipped off his tank top, she’d stared and blinked like a kid. Oh, what gorgeous abs you have. He was so big and so male. Almost scary. He could crush her in an instant, except for the gentleness in him. She trusted him implicitly.
She scrubbed ketchup off a plate—the man put the red stuff on everything, it seemed—then rinsed it, fighting off what was going on in her mind…the desire to have sex with Jackson McCall.
She grabbed another plate and scrubbed it hard, pushing down the thought. It bobbed back up. No wonder. Her secret personal goal was to have wild sex with a wild man. And Jackson would be perfect.
She grabbed a really dirty plate and dug at it with the Brillo pad. Sex so far had been fast and fumbling and not all that satisfying. Jackson would be slow and skilled, she’d bet.
Scrub, scrub, scrub. He had hot, knowing eyes and a smart-ass grin that made her go tight in private places. Plus, he looked a little dangerous, so big and rugged, his jaw bristling with whiskers and masculinity. She could see him as a hardboiled detective in an old movie, unfiltered cigarette dangling from a lip, shoving up the edge of his fedora with a thumb to get a load of her.
So, why not have sex with him? Talk about making lemonade from the lemons of this catastrophe. She’d been hyperaware of him sitting beside her on the floor, feeding her a jelly. How about some candy, little lady? Actually, it had made her tooth zing. Getting that molar looked at had been one errand she’d neglected before she left Copper Corners. After the zing passed, though, the tart taste and sweet scent had added pleasurably to the spark and sizzle of being that close to Jackson.
And then she’d wrecked it. Blurted stuff about hot oil, dry hair and shiny engines.
And Jackson had treated it like a joke. As though she was just goofing around. Unfair. She could be as sexy as the next woman, couldn’t she? Well, maybe not in her cute little embroidered top.
She wasn’t getting anything right.
The only good news was that she’d stuck to her plan, not crumpled when Mike called. She hadn’t cried or confessed or asked for help or even sympathy. And she wouldn’t. Her pride was at stake. Her determination. And her future.
At least Black Saturday was nearly over. She’d get through Blue Sunday somehow—maybe the police would find her car, her purse or even her beautician’s kit.
For now, she’d get a small advance from Jackson for basic needs. On Monday, she’d go to Shear Ecstasy and talk to Blythe and at least get more hours. Maybe Blythe had a spare bedroom she could stay in? She hated to ask—it made her seem flaky—but Blythe seemed like a person who rolled with the punches.
She could ask her brothers for money. Maybe tell them Tina had moved out and she needed more for rent. But then they would doubt her judgment. Plus, if she took their money, she’d have to listen to their advice, and she was done with that.
Somehow, she’d save enough for tuition. She’d miss the first semester, but that way she’d have a few months to get oriented and make friends without being buried in her studies.
That was a relief, actually. She’d been geared up for ASU, but a little worried about how hard the classes would be. She’d agonized over the catalog and course descriptions and Googled all the professors. The result of her careful preparation was that she was a bit intimidated. So an adjustment period was good—needed, in fact. She’d go with this plan for now.
Which started with earning her rent money by cleaning Jackson’s place. She’d finished the main living areas, emptying five trash bags, dusting and vacuuming, and was closing in on the kitchen. The drawers had been easy. They were mostly empty, except for paper goods, a few mismatched pieces of flatware, can and beer openers, some tools—including an entire set of weirdly shaped wrenches—and some fancy knives.
The pantry was decently stocked—obviously Tina’s doing, since Jackson seemed to be a fast-food guy, judging from the six thousand packets of soy, plum and taco sauce she’d found.
Fast food and easy sex, she’d bet. She’d ruined her chance at that by suggesting she tune up his hair. Oooh, baby, so not sexy. Even worse, she couldn’t even do what she’d offered. She had no oil treatment, no shears, not even a comb to her name.
Though her lame attempt at flirtation was not the real problem. Jackson went for chesty women who wore clothes like the ones in the closet—things so tight and short they barely covered critical anatomy. Heidi was way too small-boobed and small-town for Jackson.
She’d be his housekeeper, not his love slave.
He seemed lonely to her, she thought, wiping something gross off the counter. At loose ends. He’d gone visibly still when he talked about his parents’ death. She wondered if she could help him talk through that a little. If she tiptoed very, very carefully around his gruffness. I’d rather have bypass surgery.
She’d bet that was true. He could sure sound fierce, but his basic tenderness showed through. Or maybe she was seeing that because he had her urges in turmoil.
In the glass-fronted cupboards, she turned the naked-women mugs so the plain sides showed, then dried the mugs she’d given to the detectives. They were plain white except for “Moons” in black script below a line drawing of two slivered moons. Heck, if you squinted, they almost looked like a drawing of a naked backside. All the nudity around here had her seeing body parts everywhere.
Her own derrière was nice, she’d been told. She considered it her best feature and worked hard to keep it in shape—running for miles and doing hours of toning videos. Just her luck that Jackson was into breasts, not butts. So much for the wild sex part of her plan.
JACKSON WALKED OUT of the gym feeling cranky. Heidi had messed up the rhythm of his Saturday. Because the gym’s weight circuit was crowded on the weekends, he usually only swam laps there and worked out at home. But with Heidi bustling around, distracting him, he had needed to get out of there. She’d completely blown his video-game Zen.
The delay at the gym made him late for the recording session he wanted to listen in on. There were two studio musicians who had a great sound he thought would go well with Heather Lane, a singer/keyboard player he’d been tracking. But they’d come and gone before he arrived.
Probably too much trouble to put them together, anyway. The fiasco with the radio station had taught him his lesson—stay clear of stuff he didn’t know cold.
So he climbed into the Aston Martin to head for Moons, the bar he managed and his home away from home. With the ragtop off, the car was hot, even though he’d parked in the gym’s shade. He headed to the bar on a slow cruise, the breeze in his wet hair cooling him down.
At Moons, he parked by the Dumpster to keep the car from getting scratched, tugged up the ragtop and put on the canvas cover. Old-man fussy, but this was the only car he’d hung onto when he sold everything to help fund the station. He was taking prime care of his last prize—his baby.
He headed to the back door, glancing up at the smaller version of the sign out front. He liked the logo—two quarter moons you had to squint at to notice they made the perfect curve of an ass. A classy hint at the titillation inside. Come to think of it, that perky little rump looked exactly like Heidi’s…or as much as he could tell through her shorts.
He wondered what kind of underwear she had on. Some sweet flowered thing. Certainly not a thong. He was sick of thongs. And those crotchless things, too. If it was that easy to get to, what was the point in going after it? There was something really hot about daisies…. Forget it, Bucko.
Liquor deliveries came in the afternoon, so Taylor, his bar man, was already there and the door was unlocked. Jackson pushed inside, blinking at the blue-black light flashing off the mirrors and chrome poles, getting used to the dark. He’d convinced Duke Dunmore, the owner of the bar, to add sparkling drapes and soft, upholstered chairs, which Jackson had pushed away from the stage for a classier effect. The girls said it made them feel more professional.
Professional. He shook his head, amused. Stripping was a perfectly respectable way to make a living. It was an act. If a little wiggle-jiggle brightened the dreary lives of the slobs who came in here, where was the shame in that?
But the girls insisted he call them exotic dancers, not strippers. Well, la-de-da. Still he called them what they wanted to be called.
He would love to bring live music here, but it would be expensive. Music was only background to what the customers came to see. Jackson settled for taking over the DJ booth when the regular guys needed time off or when he was in the mood.
Nevada, one of the dancers, trotted his way. She was small with long, fake blond hair and a decent boob job. Some silicon sets looked like bowling balls about to burst their bags. Felt like it, too, and cool to the touch. He preferred a nice warm human handful himself.
His thoughts flipped back to Heidi. Her breasts were high on her chest, her nipples perky, delicious pebbles against the tongue….
What the hell was wrong with him? He wasn’t that hard up, barely cared that he hadn’t gotten laid in months. Something about his new roommate….
“Glad you’re here,” Nevada said, wiping sweat from her face with a towel. “I need fresh tunes. Will you help me, Jax?”
He got that rush he always got when someone asked him about music. “Show me.”
She headed to the main stage, where she launched into some spins, splits and a pole climb worthy of a trapeze artist. Nevada didn’t settle for the usual tit-waggle, ass-thrust, and her pole routines were athletic. She’d been a gymnast and danced in New York, she’d told him once.
He half closed his eyes and did a mental music sort. Right away an instrumental jazz/salsa thing his father’s band had recorded popped into his head. “Got it,” he called to her and headed upstairs to the DJ booth where he kept a lot of his music. He put the record on the turntable. Nevada listened, head cocked, swayed to the music, frowning, testing the sound with her new moves. Soon she shot him a thumbs-up and went at it hard, into the sound. Great. A grin split his face. Couldn’t help it.
Afterward, he met her downstairs at the bar, where Taylor had already set out two seltzers. Taylor was eerily silent for a bartender, but he had a telepathic sense for when to take an order and a solid work ethic. Bartenders could be squirrelly, with all that cash passing through their hands, but Taylor was rock solid. Jackson hired no one he didn’t trust.
“So, what do you think of the new routine?” Nevada asked, sucking down her drink.
“What do you think I think? You’re good.”
“You say that to all the girls.”
“Only when it’s true.”
She winked at him, stirring her drink with a straw. “If I didn’t play for the other team, I might consider taking you for a test drive, Jackson.”
“I’ll hold that thought.” He winked at her.
She shot him an open smile—rare for her. She’d had a raw deal in life and seemed half braced for blows all the time. Her girlfriend—also hot—tended bar at a lesbian club across town. They had a stormy relationship, he knew from talks like these. Nevada practiced more than the other dancers—always trying new bits—so they had these leisure hours to shoot the shit.
He leaned back, bracing his elbows on the bar and looked around. He liked Moons like this—quiet and dark, just stirring for the night to come, a few folks hanging out, setting up, throwing jokes and kicking around their news.
The door opened, sending a long triangle of sunlight into the place, burning his eyes like a vampire. He’d been living the nocturnal life of the bar for six months now and it felt right. He liked the dark. Everything looked better with the details blurred.
The door closed and he saw that Jasmine, another dancer, had entered, trailed by her eight-year-old daughter. “But I don’t want to read,” Sabrina whined. “I’m tired of reading.” Transportation snafus sometimes meant Sabrina hung around the club for a while before it opened.
“Hi, Jax,” Sabrina chirped, climbing onto the stool between him and Nevada, and giving him a smile bigger than her face. She had a little crush on him. He’d dated Jasmine for a while until they both lost interest, though Sabrina didn’t know this.
“I thought you were going to day camp,” he said.
“Cash flow.” Sabrina sounded too adult for her years.
“Horseback riding lessons are pricey,” Jasmine said, coming to stand behind them, beads and bells clinking in her gypsy skirt. Her dark, slanted eyes added to the effect, except she’d dyed her hair a fake blond.
“What can I do? I’m bored,” Sabrina said to her mom. “Can I try on your costumes?”
“No way.”
“Why not?” she said, halfheartedly, spinning the stool.
“Because they’re itchy.” The real reason, Jackson knew, was Jasmine didn’t want Sabrina to have anything to do with dancing.
“I’ll take her to the swim club,” said a voice from behind them. It was Autumn, the third of Moons’ best dancers. She wore her reddish-brown hair short and had great breasts, courtesy Mother Nature. “My cousin works there and at least she’ll get some exercise. She needs it. It’s summer.” Autumn was the most practical of the three. And the most blunt. She harped on Jasmine’s bad decisions about money and mothering, but she loved her like a sister, and Sabrina like a niece.
“How ’bout I teach you to play blackjack,” Jackson said to Sabrina, wanting to nix the tension. Jasmine did the best she could and Autumn could be harsh.
“Cool.” Sabrina stopped spinning and beamed up at him.
“My daughter is not learning how to gamble.”
“We’ll play for fun, won’t we, Sabrina? No money involved.” He leaned back to mutter to Jasmine, “Teaches her math. All the adding up to twenty-one, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. I guess so.”
“Excellent idea,” Autumn said, patting his cheek.
Now that he noticed, she was Heidi’s height and build—well, not counting the jugs. “Listen, you got some clothes you could spare?”
“What for? You got secret habits, Jax?”
“It’s not for me. I’ve got this situation at home. With a woman.”
“A woman at home? Oooh,” Jasmine said. “I thought Gigi went back to Ohio.”
“She did. This woman, see…there was a misunderstanding about my place being for rent. She got her car and her money stolen right outside the door, so I’m letting her stay for a few days.”
“Letting her or making her?” Autumn said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Autumn said. “Just that you tend to be kind of…”
“Smothering, Jax,” Jasmine said. “You smother people. Like a big, hairy blanket.”
Somebody had to steer the girls away from trouble. Jasmine, especially. Dancers made good money, and customers offered more for favors after hours. He wasn’t about to let them ruin their lives without saying a word. “Well if it weren’t for me, a certain dancer I know would have paid fines up the ying-yang for late taxes.”
“I’m teasing, okay. Kind of.”
“And you didn’t bitch about the book work I got you,” he said to Autumn. She was great with numbers and he’d asked her to double-check the bar receipts, as well as the monthly financials for Duke.
“Just keeping you humble,” Autumn said. “So, what’s this naked vagrant’s name?”
“It’s…Heidi. And she’s not naked.” Had he said that weird? “She’s about your size, except not so much in here.” He held his hands out, shaping breasts. “Maybe some shorts, jeans, shirts and slacks—something she can wear to work. She’s a hairdresser.”
“A hairdresser, huh?” Autumn said. “Heidi the hot hairdresser. Sounds perfect for you.”
“It’s not like that.” He felt himself redden.
“Then why are you acting all twitchy?” Autumn asked.
“I’m not.”
“You do sound weird, Jax,” Sabrina said mildly, not even looking up.
“You have a thing for her,” Autumn declared.
“She’s from a thumb-suck town, she doesn’t know what she’s doing here. She was supposed to go to college, but she lost her tuition money. She’s just plain lost.”
“Exactly,” Autumn said. “And you have to save that poor lost girl from the big, bad…hmm…who is it you’re saving her from again?”
“I’m just getting her some clothes, okay? Maybe some makeup? Any of you have any extra face goo?”
“Give me a few bucks and I’ll buy it,” Nevada said. “I’ve got to snag some major pancake for this razor rash on my thigh. I look like I’ve got leprosy.”
