“I don’t want you and Natches to fight,” Crista told him firmly. “I wouldn’t be happy, Alex.”
He set the coffee cup on the counter and tightened his lips. “Fine. I’ll castrate Dawg. Since sisters are all off-limits here, I think I’m about due my pound of flesh.” He nodded to the bulge of her stomach. “A lot of years overdue, Crista. Dawg didn’t exactly do you any favors when you were eighteen, but I let him live.”
A shadow of pain crossed her face. The night she had spent with Dawg when she was eighteen had resulted in another pregnancy. A child she had lost. It had nearly destroyed her, and caused her to leave home for almost eight years.
The fact that Dawg had been too damned drunk to even realize what the hell he had done hadn’t mattered. The son of a bitch should have kept his head enough to leave her alone. But Crista had been an adult. Alex had raised her to be an adult. And as angry as he had been over it, in some ways, Alex had known the other man cared more for her than he had let on.
“You’re fourteen years older than she is,” Crista finally said hesitantly. “Janey hasn’t had a chance to live yet, Alex.”
“Enough.”
“Alex, I know you,” she said softly. “I can see it in your face. Something’s going on, and I’m afraid it could end up hurting all of us.”
“Only if Natches decides to make me his business.” He stared back at her implacably.
“Janey’s his business,” she warned him. “I heard him and Dawg talking, Alex. He’s not stupid. He knows something’s going on.”
“Crista, go home with your husband.” He picked up his cup and moved to the sink, rinsing it out before laying it in the bowl. “Take care of Dawg and that little niece or nephew of mine and stay out of this.
Natches and I can deal with each other without your interference.”
“You’re all my family now, Alex,” she whispered, hurt filling her tone. “I know you and Natches both.
He’s just got Janey back in his life. He’s like a father with her. He’s already so full of guilt that he couldn’t make things easier for her that it eats at him. And we both know you’re not in love with her. If you have an affair with her and walk away like you always do, then you’ll deserve the fight he brings you.”
“Crista, go home.”
He wasn’t fighting with his pregnant sister, and he damned sure wasn’t going to let the anger building inside him erupt against her. When the hell had the Mackays decided he had nothing more to do than use a tender, vulnerable virgin and then toss her aside like garbage? When had his own fucking sister decided to go along with it?
“Alex . . .”
“Do you think I haven’t tried to stay the fuck away from her?” The words tore from him as he faced her, watching her eyes widen in surprise. “Do you think I got up one morning and planned to have a king-sized hard-on for that woman, Crista? What the hell is in your mind? Since when do you take me for some bastard that doesn’t give a damn who he hurts?”
Her lips parted. “You are sleeping with her?”
“I’m not sleeping with her, Crista,” he bit out. “Do you want me to swear I’m not going to sleep with her?”
She breathed out slowly. “Could you?”
“Not in this lifetime.” He shook his head, knowing it was only a matter of time. “And Natches will just have to deal with it if it happens. Won’t he?”
She stared back at him in surprise. “Are you . . . in love with her?” she asked hesitantly, then grimaced at the scathing look he tossed her. “Ah yeah. Forgot. Love doesn’t exist for Alex Jansen.” Then she grinned. And that grin was enough to make a smart man run for the hills.
Unfortunately, Alex was too pissed to be smart. It was bad enough the Mackays thought he was some bastard without morals, but his sister?
“Crista. Look. I have things to do, and making my pregnant baby sister cry isn’t one of them,” he assured her in irritation. “So why don’t you go home with your husband, and stop worrying about Janey.”
Her expression, surprisingly, brightened. She straightened from the counter, walked around the room,
and before he could stop her she grabbed his wrists and burrowed against his chest.
Hell. He hugged her. Because she was his sister and she’d got him used to her hugs while she was still in diapers. Sometimes he even missed them.
“You know I love you, Alexander Jansen,” she whispered as he let his arms tighten around her, just a little bit. “And you are the best brother in the world.”
He grunted at that. “Yeah, well. You’re not bad for a sister either.” He kissed the top of her head and let her go, shaking his head at her moods as she left the house and moved along the walk to where her husband was cooling his heels at the truck.
Alex watched and almost chuckled. The fierce, devil-may-care Dawg Mackay was a fool for his wife.
And it was a damned good thing; otherwise Alex really would have killed him.
Crista let Dawg help her into the truck, snapping her seat belt as he loped around the front of the vehicle and then stepped into the driver’s side.
“Well, at least you’re not crying.” He sighed as he started the truck and pulled out of the drive. “You still should have let me go in. I could have at least made him mad before we left.”
Crista chuckled. “He has enough problems.”
“How do you figure?” He cast her a wary glance. “What kind of problems?”
“I’m not telling you.” She laughed.
“Why not?” He glowered back at her. “We don’t have secrets, Crista. Remember?”
Her lips twitched. “I’m not telling you, Dawg.”
“Why?” he demanded incredulously. “I keep your secrets real good.”
“But this is Alex’s secret.”
He frowned. “He’s sleeping with her?”
“He’s definitely not sleeping with her.”
“He’s doing something besides sleeping with her?” He slid her a look from the corner of his eyes. “Things Natches would go ape shit over?”
“Nope.” She shook her head.
“Then what’s the secret?”
She leaned closer and grinned. “That’s for me to know, and you to convince me to tell.”
Immediately, lust slammed into him, seared his guts and tightened his balls. Okay, he could play with that one.
“I’ll make you scream it,” he decided. “Oh, baby. This one will be fun.”
“I’ll never tell,” she drawled.
“Ah, a challenge?” He headed for home. “I can deal with that. Now let’s see if you can.”
He knew a variety of ways of making his wife talk. And he knew she loved every damned one of them.
Yeah, Dawg was so good when he was bad.
Janey slipped from her apartment that evening, made her way to the restaurant office, then sneaked back out the back door and onto the next street. She ducked into the pizza shop there and called a cab, waited impatiently until it pulled up outside, and then she was out of there.
Alex was due to arrive at dark, and it was almost that now. It was edging past five and she had agreed to meet Rogue at the bar outside of town at six. She would be a little early, but it would be worth it. She had a feeling Alex wasn’t going to be all about letting her go barhopping with Rogue.
Strangely, despite the fact that Rogue had been injured six months ago because of the information she’d overheard in the investigation against Dayle Mackay, the other woman had still sought her out.
Rogue had come to the restaurant several times, made her friends come. All that leather in one place could be a bit intimidating, but Janey had liked her friends. The big rough-and-tough biker types. The
ones Rogue rode with had hearts of gold, even if they were hard-talking and just as hard-drinking.
With her long red gold hair and violet eyes, Rogue wasn’t a woman Janey would have imagined enjoyed the crowd she ran with. But there was no doubt she did.
She and Rogue had shared lunch several times in the restaurant before it opened, talking about Dayle and Nadine Mackay. Talking about Somerset. Rogue was better than a psychologist. And she had a way of getting to the heart of a matter without asking a single question.
Rogue reminded Janey a lot of herself, too. She wasn’t the touchy-feely type, so Janey didn’t have to worry about that. But she was fun, she liked to laugh, and Janey had never really had friends before. She could have friends now, she thought, as she paid the cabdriver nearly a half hour later and entered the bar. She had that option and she intended to take advantage of it.
“You’re early.” Rogue looked up in surprise from the bar where she was sitting. “And here I was afraid you wouldn’t make it at all.”
“I told you I wouldn’t cancel out this time.” Janey slid onto the barstool beside her friend and looked at the bartender. “A beer please? Very cold.”
He nodded and turned away.
“Yeah, you said you’d be here,” Rogue agreed. “But you’ve been really short on the phone when I call. I thought maybe you were rethinking our friendship.”
Rogue’s grin was knowing as she tipped her own beer to her lips and took a drink.
“It’s been hell week,” Janey muttered, gratefully accepting her beer and taking a long, cold drink.
Every night after dark, Alex arrived. The four days a week that the restaurant was open, he would wait in her office until she was finished for the night.
Those nights weren’t so bad. Once Fat Cat ate, she and the cat retired to her bedroom, where they watched the news, often going to sleep while watching.
Each morning she awoke and the television was off. Which meant Alex must have turned it off sometime in the night. And that only pissed her off more.
He hadn’t touched her again. He was quiet, often retreating to his own room, bringing his own food with him. He talked to her, very casually. Hell, one night they even discussed politics. Stupid frickin’ politics.
And she was dying. Tossing and turning at night, dreaming of his touch, waking wet and hungry for him in a way she had never imagined being for a man.
A week. There were no more letters so far. Nothing had happened. She was throwing him out tonight.
She’d already made that decision. When she got back, she was kicking him right out the door.
“It looks like hell week doesn’t describe it,” Rogue drawled. “Sweetie, you forgot the makeup. And the skirt.”
No kidding. She might have forgotten her brain in her rush to get away this evening.
“I was in a hurry.” Janey shrugged.
“You never get in too big a hurry for your makeup. Grab your beer. We’ll run upstairs and fix you up, then come back down after the band gets started.”
Janey grabbed her beer, but she wasn’t so sure about this.
“Do I look like a hag?” she asked the bartender as Rogue dragged her away.
“Naw, you look sweet.” He grinned. “Sweet don’t do well in here, sugar.”
Great. Now she looked sweet.
“What does he mean by that?” she asked as Rogue dragged her behind the bar and through the Employees Only-marked door.
“He means you look like a fresh-faced virgin.” Rogue laughed. “Virgins scare men, Janey. Big boys get all kinds of messed up when it comes to a virgin. So we’re going to liven you up some.”
“That’s a scary thought.” She sighed as Rogue dragged her up the stairs. “Liven me up?”
She didn’t want to look like a virgin. She didn’t want to act like a virgin. She wanted to have fun. To just be Janey. To let free all the bold, vibrant dreams she had held trapped inside her so long.