Heaven Beside You (2 page)

He cursed at the floor. “A little detail Jody left out. Does Domino’s deliver?”

“We don’t have a Domino’s around here.”

He raised an eyebrow. “No Domino’s? Next thing, you’ll tell me there’s no McDonald’s.”

She shook her head. “Not in the valley. And you probably don’t want to head down the mountain this time of night anyway. It’s getting dark and it could be hard to find your way back.”

“No McDonald’s,” he repeated.

“There’s one off the highway but that’s—”

“Thirty minutes away.” He grimaced as if he were afraid of what might come out of his mouth if he opened it now. After a moment, he sighed. “Okay, this isn’t your fault. I should have known Jody would pull a stunt like this. I guess I go hungry tonight.”

“I’ve got a roast in the oven. It’ll be ready in about an hour, if you want to come back over.” She heard herself offer, but couldn’t believe it. How would she eat with Jason Callisto across the table when she couldn’t even breathe when he was in the same room?

“That would be great.” He sighed. “I promise not to be a huge problem while I’m here, I just didn’t know I had to bring my own groceries.”

“You probably didn’t bring linens either.”

“Was I supposed to?”

Cass nodded. All of this had been in the confirmation letter she’d sent his office over a week ago, and she’d repeated the information to the secretary over the phone. Whoever Jody was, she’d pulled quite a stunt. “I’ve got some extras you can borrow. I’ll get you a couple of towels now so you can shower, and have the rest ready when you come for dinner.”

“Thank you.” He bounced the keys in his hand. “The only one that’s open?”

“The first one around to the right. The rest have shutters over their windows.”

“So it’s just you and me,” he said.

She nodded.

This time when he smiled, it crept into his eyes, lighting them in a distinctly melting way. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Had it suddenly gotten hot in here? Or maybe it was uncontrollable shivering without being cold. It didn’t matter; she was shivering all over. Even if he didn’t mean it the way it sounded, her body whole-heartedly believed the sexiest man alive was propositioning her. “I’ll get you those towels.” She tried to go up the steps backward and tripped on the top one then staggered backward a few steps before catching herself on the chair beside the mantle. Another two steps and she would have fallen into, and no doubt broken, the coffee table. She’d managed to attain the age of thirty with a modicum of dignity, but now that there was a cute boy in her house she’d dropped right back to puberty. Pulling herself up, she hurried out of the room.

* * * *

Fish in a barrel.

Jason set his suitcase on the floor beside the bed. He’d brought his guitars in first and left them in the living room. The bed was indeed a bare mattress. Leave it to Jody. She was still pissed because she hadn’t made the short list when Stella dumped him. The fact that nobody had been on his short list didn’t deter her for an instant. Of course, Jody wouldn’t understand something purely physical. She wanted everything, up to the diamond ring. Pre-nup optional.

The cute little campground owner didn’t have any of that predatory gleam. She had more than down-home charm. Something that looked suspiciously like honesty.

He glanced out the front window of his cabin at the owner’s little Craftsman style bungalow. What was her body like under that puffy parka? If the legs were any indication, excellent. And every redhead he’d ever known had run a little hotter than average. If the way she’d acted a few minutes ago meant anything at all, her temperature was already rising. Getting that woman in bed was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel. Nothing spelled ego boost like a good sexual conquest. He needed the ego boost.

Stella dumped him in
People
magazine. Walking though the airport from the first class lounge to the gate last year, he’d kept seeing that fucking magazine in all the newsstands, but he’d avoided it. Then the goddamn attendant came around with the basket of reading material and instead of picking up something logical like
Forbes
or
Business Week
or the goddamn
New York Times
, he’d picked up
People
. If the airline had had better movies lined up on the in-flight entertainment, he could have been spared the news at least until he’d landed, but no, they had to have bought the Bruce Willis block that month. He’d been looking forward to settling in to their familiar New York apartment until the moment he’d flipped to that fucking sidebar. Leave it to Stella to use even their breakup to forward her career. Leave it to
People
to stick it in a sidebar. At least he hadn’t had to face a half empty apartment unwarned when he’d arrived there. No, Candy had been on the phone with him seconds after the crew told them they were allowed to turn on their phones, pissed that her mole at
People
hadn’t warned her ahead of time as she made sure he was okay.

It was the lousy reception that album had gotten. Thanks to the off album, their relationship no longer helped her career. He’d wanted to believe she loved him so much, he’d ignored how she’d used his fame to get her acting career going.

No, he’d sensed something, because he’d planned on asking her to marry him so she wouldn’t leave. As if saying
I do
would have stopped her from jumping to a better gravy train.

Ditching the New York apartment hadn’t helped. Releasing that shitty solo album made everything worse. Watching Bear find, court and marry his own one true love had been agony. Throwing himself into promo for the last album had worked because dropping into malls and small town radio stations during the tour not only boosted record sales and made him valuable to the rest of the band, it gave him something positive. He needed positive or he was going to get thrown out of the band, no matter how valuable he was.

Once the tour ended, Sandy strongly suggested going to West Virginia to sit on the side of a mountain for a while and cool his heels far, far away from where he could piss off the band more. “I want you back on your feet for the Grammys, boy,” his manager had said. “You have two weeks.”

In two weeks, he could seduce and thrill the sexy little miss and leave her with exciting memories while soothing his ego at the same time. A good bargain all around, right?

Maybe not. Guilt gnawed at the back of his mind. He knew what it looked like from the female side when Mr. Right turned out to be Mr. Right Now And Gone Tomorrow. He still knew the names of all the men and boys who’d broken his sisters’ hearts even if they didn’t realize he’d noticed. No way did he want to be that guy for any woman.

Still, she knew what the score was. She didn’t have to bite. He showed up as Mr. Right Now. All alone up here all winter, sexy Cassandra had to have some time to kill, and judging by the way she’d reacted to him, she was inclined.

He checked his watch. Plenty of time to shower and shave before dinner. He opened his suitcase. Lots of black stuff, which suited his mood and his body. After ten years of being dressed by professionals, he knew what worked. With his swarthy skin and dark hair, black looked perfect. Blond Brian wore a lot of white and blue. Blond Brian, who was a husband and father before he ever meant to be. Unfair, to say the least. Jason had always wanted to settle down. He wanted a wife and kids and a house in the country. Brian had all that stuff. Bear had it now too. Some days it was hard not to hate Brian and Bear, even if they were his best friends.

Jason threw a black shirt and black jeans on the bare mattress along with some underwear and socks. Then he sauntered across the living room to the bathroom and turned on the shower. The place was warm. Sexy Cassandra had made sure of that. The water spraying across his hand steamed. When Jody told him the proprietor of the In the Pines Campground was a woman named Cassandra Geoffrey, he’d envisioned a tough old bird with a buzz cut, built like a Marine and wearing a scowl that could scare tempered steel. He’d expected to spend his two weeks holed up in the rented cabin playing guitar and talking to himself. But the vision that had greeted him at the door had been more than welcome. That mass of curly hair made his hands itch to be buried in it, letting it twist around his fingers, and it was so red he wondered if cuffs and collar matched. From the shade of her eyebrows and eyelashes, they did, unless she dyed those too. Did women in the real world do that? He’d been living in LA too long. Seeing Jennifer Aniston in reruns and at the neighborhood Starbucks tended to warp the mind a little.

Jason stepped under the water, feeling himself thaw. Cassandra’s sea-green eyes and lovely full mouth were pretty captivating too. And unlike most redheads, she didn’t have freckles. Nothing wrong with freckles, but they’d always made him think of little girls, and he preferred women. No, her skin, what he’d been able to see, had been smooth and pale as sweet cream. Maybe it was like that all over. That led him back to wondering what her body looked like under the parka. The hint had been strong enough that he knew it wasn’t bad, but how good was it?

He warmed to more than the water. It had been some time since he’d had much reaction to any woman. Getting dumped in the national press had sort of put a damper on things. He took a deep breath. If he didn’t get himself under control quick, he’d have to stick his head in a snowdrift on his way to dinner, and she might wonder about him then.

He smiled, hoping she was wondering about him now.

The tablecloth she’d spread on the table looked stupid. First of all, the very bright summery yellow did not suit the season. Second, it smacked of trying too hard, and she didn’t want to fawn. Jason Callisto hadn’t come to West Virginia to be fawned over. If he wanted that he would have gone to Aspen where the skiing was better, according to
People
magazine.

Yanking the tablecloth off, she folded it up before stuffing it back in the drawer. The roast had to go on the good platter because it was the only thing big enough, though she was not going to get much roast beef for sandwiches, which had been the point of cooking a big meal.

She checked the roast. It looked fine and would be ready on time. Good thing she’d done the full service carrots and potatoes.

In her bedroom, she surveyed the choices. If she didn’t make up her mind, she would greet him at the door in her birthday suit, and that would put an entirely different spin on the evening. At least, she decided, they didn’t do that in Aspen.

She picked up the jewel-tone purple sweater her mother had given her for Christmas. As yet unworn, but her mother had an unerring eye for color. However, it had a turtleneck. Hardly sexy. The other option was her tight black chenille with the low neckline. She’d bought it in the children’s department, which is why it was so tight and low. That’s also why almost nobody around town had seen it, but she felt voluptuous when she wore it around the house.

The dinner rolls had to get in the oven or they wouldn’t be ready.

She pulled on a pair of black bell-bottoms—they accentuated her curves—and the purple sweater because it didn’t make her look like a tart. A good trade off, under the circumstances. Then she hurried into the kitchen and, after wrapping an apron older than her mother over the ensemble, got the dinner rolls going and assembled her trifle.

Now, that was over doing it. Or looked like it. The pound cake and the strawberries were frozen and the pudding, instant. The whole thing took five minutes tops to throw together, but in a crystal bowl, it looked gorgeous and frilly. She turned the bowl. Did it even have a best angle? Every inch was bright, gooey and mouthwatering. Before she found one, the bell rang.

Jason stood outside, moody and seductive in his long black coat, like a member of the French Resistance who’d fallen out of World War II. Or a rock star who’d appeared in West Virginia to have dinner with a fan.

Because that happened all the time.

She pulled open the door and summoned up her normal speaking voice. Not an easy task when her tongue wanted to loll out of her mouth. “Hello, you’re just in time. Come on in.” She led him up the three stairs to her living room door.

Since she not only lived and worked here, but got stuck inside sometimes for weeks in the winter, the place was very cozy and warm. Dark wood floors, whitewashed walls, and overstuffed burgundy furniture facing the fieldstone fireplace, which she kept blazing most of the winter. Curtains blocked the view of her office. The TV sat where she could see it from the couch, but had a thick film of dust on it because she hadn’t cleaned since she’d come back up the mountain after Christmas. On either side of the TV, bookshelves groaned with books and DVDs. It was nice. Not
MTV Cribs
nice, but nice.

He bypassed all of that and walked straight to the window overlooking the valley. She hadn’t managed to set up her easel yet so there was nothing to block the view.

“Nice view,” he said.

She felt obligated to go stand beside him. Because he was a guest and not because she couldn’t resist the opportunity to be near him. Really.

Beyond her tiny side yard and across the access road, the ground dropped off for about five feet then resumed a more leisurely descent into the valley below. It gave the impression that her cabin was hanging on the edge of the mountain. The town below looked like a miniature in a snow globe, lit by a few lights from street lamps and houses, peaceful and sleepy. Across and down the valley, the new ski lodge did a brisk business, like an illuminated scar on the mountain. She hadn’t minded it until they’d started with the night skiing. Then it ruined her pretty view and kept all the tourists on the slopes in the evenings instead of giving them time to go into town for dinner and shopping.

“Is that a ski lodge?” he asked.

“Yes.” She kept her voice neutral. Finally, she’d found something to counterbalance his appeal. The ski lodge. She didn’t remember any of his press saying he skied, but he might. Or he might be bored enough to take it up over the next two weeks. His rented Caddy wouldn’t look as out of place in their parking lot. “Do you ski?”