Ain’t Misbehaving

Chapter Four

Kay crunched down noisily on a potato chip and saw five pairs of eyes turn irritably in her direction. She swallowed hastily.

“Do you by any miracle have just a little more of that dip in the refrigerator?” Stix asked.

“What’s it worth to you?”

“At least all my love for the rest of your life.”

“I know that. I meant in money.”

Stix aimed a slap at her backside but missed. Chuckling, Kay fetched a fresh bowl of dip from the refrigerator and perched back up on her stool. Stix instantly scooped up a tablespoon of the stuff on a quarter-sized chip and popped it into his voracious mouth, mumbling, “Raise two.”

Mitch smiled, as if the raise had pleased him. “See your two and raise another.” His eyes flicked first to Stix and then to Kay before his attention returned to the cards.

Sucking on a salted cashew nut, Kay watched with fascination as Mitch raked in yet another stack of chips.

Having lost her stake of five dollars-her max-to him earlier in the game, she was delighted to sit back and let the others suffer. Glancing at the clock, she saw it was nearing midnight. She still hadn’t figured out how Mitch had ended up at the poker game with her. He’d seen the four men waiting for her at the door when he brought her home, and the next thing she knew he’d blended into the group as if born there.

The table was set up in the living room. Soda and beer cans littered the side tables; chips and dip and napkins and bowls of cashews were clustered among the cards. John was the only smoker in the group, and his thin haze of smoke wandered around the room.

John chain-smoked when he had a good hand. Stix munched when he had a good hand. Barker fidgeted, and their resident CPA, Hailey, from three blocks down, pulled his mustache. Kay had always found him remarkably easy to beat.

Mitch did nothing to give himself away. He just won. No big deal, but he definitely kept drawing in the lion’s share of the chips.

And he listened. The man might have a zipper for a mouth as far as his own secrets, but he was remarkably adept at prying information from others. What they did for a living, how long they’d been married, how long they hadn’t been married…and how Mitch got them going, she had no idea, but the guys had been relating a disgusting selection of escapades from their-and her-younger days. One senior prom night that ended with skinny-dipping in Coeur D’Alene Lake. One perfectly innocent afternoon of fishing in the Sawtooth Mountains that turned into four days, thanks to a flash flood that washed out the roads…

“Kay always had the best ideas,” Barker told Mitch, still laughing. “Whenever the guys wanted any excitement…”

He left the sentence hanging. Thanks so much, Barker, Kay thought darkly. She stuck another cashew nut in her mouth. You’d think she’d spent her entire life in high-spirited antics, but that just wasn’t true. Working herself through college hadn’t been a lark, nor was making a life for herself alone. And earlier, there’d been some very dark years, when the family had been afraid Jana wasn’t going to make it, when her mother had come close to falling apart and it had been up to Kay to keep up the family’s morale.

Given a choice between a funny story and a tragic one she’d choose the funny one any day, but the picture of Capering Kay was hardly accurate. Her poker cohorts knew that; she was used to their ceaseless teasing, and she wouldn’t have cared at all if it hadn’t been for Mitch.

On the one hand, he kept feeding the guys their cue lines, obviously encouraging their most risqué tales. On the other hand, Mitch gave away nothing about himself. He played his emotions as close to the chest as he played his cards.

Finally, Stix stretched and yawned. “I give up,” he said lazily.

Simultaneously, the other players tossed their cards on the table. “I didn’t realize how late it was,” Hailey said with a frown. “Mitch, you’ve got to join us on another Friday. Really enjoyed it.”

There was a rush for coats. Hailey left first, once he’d found his glasses. John, after a kiss on Kay’s cheek, was the next to go. Barker went so far as to take his beer cans to the kitchen, then delivered his good-night kiss. Stix lingered a little longer, giving Mitch a sidelong glance as he tugged on his ancient cord jacket. “You want help cleaning up?” he asked Kay.

To her credit, she didn’t faint from shock. “You’ve discovered dishes don’t miraculously wash themselves?”

“Samantha’s taught me a thing or two. Don’t get sassy. I could help take down the table.”

“We can take care of it,” Mitch drawled from the hall doorway.

Still, Stix lingered a bit longer, taking endless care with every one of his coat buttons, eyeing Kay with a protective gleam that made no sense.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He glanced at Mitch. “Coming?”

Mitch moved forward with a half smile, his hand firmly extended for Stix to shake, exactly as he had done with the other men. “Appreciated the chance to get in a night of poker. I hadn’t done it in a long time.”

“Anytime…” The two talked for a minute before Mitch dropped back, and Kay stepped forward with a perplexed expression.

Stix’s genial grin was gone. Suddenly, all six feet six inches of him exuded irritability. Stix was normally so laid back that Kay was baffled by the change in him. She stretched up on tiptoe for her good-night kiss. Her lips met a very stiff cheek; Stix glared at her and then departed, as the others had, into a very dark, very late night outside.

Kay turned back to find that Mitch had disappeared…and the card table was half cleared of debris. She snatched up the bowl of potato chips and two soda cans, carting both into the kitchen. There she spotted Mitch, who flashed her one quick, enigmatic smile on his way back to the living room.

It was like playing tag. When she headed back to the living room, Mitch was striding toward the kitchen again. The entire house was restored to equilibrium in minutes.

When she finally caught up with him, he was in the hall, pulling on his coat at the door. Kay stared at him from the kitchen doorway, astonished that he’d bothered to stay all this time…and was now leaving.

“They’re good men,” he said flatly.

“Old friends,” she agreed, bewildered.

He crooked his finger in a beckoning gesture.

Now there was the man she thought she’d spent the afternoon with. Chuckling, she went toward him. The wicked gleam was back in his eyes. It seemed he could turn it on and off at will, like a light. When there were no other people around, that light definitely glowed warmly. “Do you want a cup of coffee?” she asked him.

“All I want is to tell you something.”

“So tell me.”

“You’re too far away.”

Leaning back against the open doorway, he drew her arms around his waist until they were snuggled length to length. The web instantly woven around her was invisible, private and utterly male. The intimacy increased deliciously when his lips pressed into her hair. “You’re an affectionate lady,” he whispered.

“That’s what you wanted to tell me?” She tried to convince herself that she didn’t want him to stay. How could she possibly want him to stay? It was far too soon.

His lips nuzzled farther, his chin brushing back her hair so his mouth could center on the soft skin just below her ear. “No,” he murmured. “I just wanted to tell you that I wish I’d known you a long time ago. From the beginning. From before you were a woman, from the very moment you became a woman…”

She tilted her head back, touched by the earnest note in his voice. Mitch dipped down, placing a light kiss on her forehead, then on her nose, then on her chin. Her lips felt forsaken. “You don’t really wish that,” she told him with a sleepy half smile. “The young Kay was chubby, Mitch. And she had miles to go before she learned what she really valued in life.”

“Her…experiences had to be that extensive, did they?” His smile was lazy.

Kay slid her arms out from under his jacket and wrapped them around his neck. “You bet they did,” she whispered wryly. “I had more to learn than most.”

He chuckled, yet his dark eyes settled intently on hers before he leaned down to rub his cheek against hers, his arms suddenly restless over her sweatered back. “How long has Stix had a thing for you?”

“Hmm?” She’d been a teenager the last time she’d necked in a hallway. The sense of doing something that was forbidden had enhanced the moment then. One mustn’t, one shouldn’t, one would get caught. There was no danger of getting caught now, but there was still a lush sense of danger. Or was it anticipation? “Stix? You’re crazy, Mitch.” She pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat and felt his pulse jump. “Stix is just a self-adopted big brother,” she said absently.

“He mentioned your ill-fated engagement.”

What were they talking about? She pressed her cheek against his jacket and closed her eyes, loving the sensation of being held. “I won’t tell you my war stories unless you confess yours,” she warned him.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, ever. Do you mind that I’m curious about you?” His fingertips brushed back her hair so soothingly that she leaned her cheek into his palm.

She shook her head. “Of course not. Secrets are sad things. My war stories aren’t anything extraordinary, Mitch-I was engaged, twice. The first time I was seventeen, and the engagement lasted all of three days.”

“What happened?”

“We both used the ring as an excuse to do what we wanted to do. We soon decided sex wasn’t all it was cracked up to be-at least not for us-and we had the sense to call it off before anyone could be disastrously hurt,” she said wryly.

“Except,” Mitch said softly, “that you were disastrously hurt.”

Her eyes flickered up, brilliant and luminous. “No one,” she admitted, “could possibly hurt as much or as hard as a seventeen-year-old. Surely you’ve been there?” She had a sudden image of Mitch at seventeen, boyish and brazen and sexual…and then a second image, of the girl in his arms who must have been there. A little green glob settled in the pit of her stomach. “You’re not sharing war stories,” she reminded him, but her heart told her promptly that she didn’t want to know.

“We’re not through with yours yet. You said you were engaged twice.”

“The second one was named Mason.” When she looked up, his eyes had darkened, and looked oddly warm. Tell-me-your-secrets warm.

“So what was he like?” Mitch said softly.

She shrugged, tucking her cheek into his chest. “Mason I loved,” she said simply. “No excuses, no apologies…and no lingering feelings. Love, unfortunately, isn’t all it takes to make a relationship.”

“No?” he murmured.

She half smiled. His arm enclosed her and she felt sealed up, protected, enveloped. His lips were pressing into her hair again. “I’d known Mason for such a long time. His laughter could light up a room. You would have liked him-everyone liked him. But to Mason, people were like wine. Wonderful to get high on, but once the bottle was empty he moved on. It took me a while to catch on. People who really celebrate life don’t have to use other people to do it. Anyway…that was three years ago. And you know something?”

Mitch’s thumbs slowly traced the line of her cheekbones. “Tell me.”

“You have to make a choice,” she said simply. “You can choose to be defensive, to protect yourself against all the people-users, to guard yourself against feeling too much. That’s the safe way. I’ve been there, Mitch, but life’s too darn rich, too darn short, too special. I feel sorry for the people like that.

They’re missing it all…and you’d think I’d had four glasses of wine, the way I’ve been rambling on.” She cocked her head back at him with an impish grin. “Your turn. Are you sure you wouldn’t like some coffee? And in the meantime you can start telling me about when you were engaged, married, or otherwise entangled. Don’t let me be the only one hanging out the dirty linen. Which was it?”

He hesitated. “Actually, none of the above,” he said curtly.

“Not even the coffee?” She arched a teasing eyebrow.

He placed a swift, firm kiss on her mouth. His forefinger followed, tracing the shape of her lower lip, then the upper one. Abruptly, she forgot the thread of their conversation.

“Don’t you change,” he said roughly. “You’re real. Real, Kay. Honest, giving, soft. You don’t seem to realize how easy it would be for a man to love you. Really love you.”

And with that, he was gone.

Mitch got out of the car at his house, glanced at the dark, unwelcoming windows and decided to take a walk. A bitter wind nipped at his face and throat.

The streets were deserted. Cars were parked and windows were lamp-less at the late hour. Shadows shifted in the wind.

With his head bent low, Mitch jammed his hands in his pockets and just kept going. Kay had loved two men. Two was not an unmanageable number. He was surprised there hadn’t been more. Maybe there had been. In this day and age, she could well have had a dozen lovers.

Every damn man at the table could have been one of them. They all loved her. And she didn’t even seem to see.

Mitch felt like a fool. It wasn’t a sensation he’d felt often, and he definitely didn’t enjoy it. She’d had, and still had, her choice of lovers. For that matter, he knew exactly what she needed in a lover. A giver. A man who ever so carefully nurtured that sensual sweetness of hers. A man who would protect and treasure her vulnerable heart. A man experienced in pleasure, who’d take her fast past anything she’d felt with those fiancés of hers. A man who knew just what flesh to touch, what words to say, what timing would send her so high…

He walked. And kept on walking. Frustration lay like a dead weight inside him. He resented those lost thirteen years as he’d never resented anything before.

Kay stood in the open doorway a long time, even after Mitch’s car had disappeared from sight. Finally, shivering, she closed the door.

Talk about bewitched, bothered and bewildered… She could have written the song.

Trying to convince herself she was exhausted, she changed into a lavender-and-white striped nightgown, washed her face, brushed her teeth and turned off the light a few minutes later.

Sleep was the last thing on her mind.

He’d gone to a lot of trouble to find her-only to leave without even mentioning that he wanted to see her again.

He stole kisses in very odd places. Like hospital parking lots in the rain. Like fire towers. She had no question in her mind that he’d been as turned on as she’d been each time they touched. Only he’d left without the least attempt to press for more.

She’d told him practically her entire life story, and he hadn’t even told her his last name. Or what he did for a living. Or where he lived. Or why those wonderful smiles of his were so few and far between…

There was so darned much experience in his eyes-life experience, and not the easy kind. Every time she was around him, she had an urge to cuddle him. Hold him tight, coax out more of those smiles of his, make him laugh, razzle-dazzle him with…what? Brown hair and brown eyes and an average figure?

She thumped the pillow with her fist. Just what is going on here, Kay Sanders? she scolded herself roundly. Mitch had the look of a man who’d known plenty of women. Undoubtedly more attractive, sexier, smarter, more creative types, she added glumly. Maybe he was between women just now. Maybe he’d simply happened to have a free afternoon and evening today.

She told herself firmly that she had more sense than to make too much of it. Yet her dreams were haunted by a pair of dark eyes and a lazy, disarming smile.

“Mitch?”

“Back here, Dad,” Mitch called out. Removing the magnifying loupe from his eye, he strode briskly across the small octagonal room to greet his father-but Aaron Cochran was already in the doorway.

Aaron clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder affectionately. “I thought you must be back from Spokane by now. You know, I could have picked you up, if I’d known what time your plane was coming in.”

“I left my car at the airport. No problem.”

“So how’d it go?”

Mitch gave his father an amused glance. Amazing, how he’d misjudged his dad once upon a time. The Cochrans came from a long line of rough-and-ready lumberjacks. If these days Aaron spent most of his time overseeing his timber empire from an office, Mitch still suspected that his father valued physical rather than mental prowess in a man. Way back, when Mitch had been forced into a sedentary lifestyle, the transition had been that much tougher because he couldn’t help feeling that he was failing his father along with everything else.

But it was Aaron who’d nudged Mitch into minerals, gruffly challenging his son out of his depression, filling the library with books, bringing in tutors so Mitch would have the education he certainly never thought he wanted at fifteen.

And at the moment, his father was impatiently surveying the octagonal room, with its sheets draped as curtains and its bare floors and spectroscopes and balancing scales, with Mitch’s own feeling of possessiveness. “Are you going to keep me in suspense for the next year?” his father demanded. “Was the meeting worth it or not?”

“Well worth it. He jumped for the tourmalines, but more important-” Mitch handed his father the loupe. Silently, Aaron fitted it to his eye and bent over the table. The single stone, on white velvet, had the dazzling brilliance of an emerald. Its fire caught every ray of light as Aaron slowly shifted it in his fingertips.

“Tsavorite,” Aaron identified it. “Dammit, I’ve never seen one this large before.”

“Flawless,” Mitch affirmed. He leaned a shoulder against the wall, enjoying his father’s pleasure. Neither said anything for a minute.

“How much did you have to pay?” Aaron demanded finally, but his eyes were still on the stone. Perching on the stool, he adjusted the lamp and then bent over the tsavorite again.

Mitch answered his question.

“You know, with a little more training, you could have been a thief,” Aaron complimented him wryly.

“Hell, he tried to pawn a tray of smoked opals off on me first.” Mitch took the stone and wrapped it carefully before locking it in the trunk chest against the far wall. “You want a cup of coffee?”

“No time. Was that the only stone you bought?”

Mitch shook his head. “A few others,” he said as they wandered back toward the front of the house. “He didn’t really have the quality I wanted. Frankly, I don’t know how he got his hands on that one.”

A barren hall with a swinging lightbulb led to the living room, where Aaron paused, giving his son a wry smile. It wasn’t exactly a living room yet. Ladders and drop cloths and paint cans caught the early afternoon light. “You know,” Aaron drawled, “you’re socking away plenty of money these days. Going to get around to buying a few sticks of furniture for this old barn eventually?”

“In time. It’s taking me a long time to fix the place up.”

“All of which you could afford to hire others to do.”

Mitch shook his head, and his father chuckled. “When do you sleep?”

“I haven’t time.”

Aaron sobered abruptly. They were alike physically, both tall and broad-shouldered and lean. Mitch had his father’s dark hair, the same quietness in the way he moved, the same enigmatic expression in his dark eyes. They were both stubborn. Both fiercely independent. And they understood each other, at times, far too well. “You’re pushing it, you know,” Aaron said quietly. “Trying to do everything all at once. It’s not like that anymore. You’ve got time. And you know I’ll help you-”

“Good. You can let me know what my last round of medical adventures cost you.”

Aaron sighed. It was an old argument. Even before that final operation, Mitch had been pulling his financial weight in the family, with a drive that his father respected and a stubbornness no one could control. Lately, yes, Mitch had pursued a most determined course in fortune-building…and he’d fiercely resented his father’s paying the last hospital bill.

Aaron understood. Mitch had never been able to tolerate feeling dependent on others, and had a man’s need to pay his own way. But for Aaron there was no forgetting the long hours in the waiting room, with the knowledge that this last operation could swing either way. It wasn’t the gift of money but the gift of life he’d been so desperate to give his son. The decision to go under the knife one final time had been Mitch’s. It was Aaron who’d barely survived it.

“If you want to help me out, you can accept your mother’s invitation to dinner tonight,” Aaron said abruptly.

Mitch dug his hands in his pockets as his father pulled on his coat. “Dad-”

“She told me to tell you there’d be prime rib, a good Burgundy, glazed carrots, blueberry pie…”

“And who’s she lined up as a surprise across the table this time?” Mitch smiled dryly.

“Laura Kingsley.”

Mitch chuckled. “Let no one suggest that Mom leaves any stone unturned.”

“Your mother-” Aaron cleared his throat “-occasionally lacks subtlety. On the other hand, she says we haven’t had the Kingsleys over in some time.”

“And their daughter, by some miracle, just happened to be in town.”

“A miracle, yes.” Aaron looked at his son and burst out laughing. “Do you want a word of fatherly advice?”

“No offense, Dad, but not particularly.”

“Thank God.” Aaron glanced at his watch, then negotiated a path around a pile of cardboard boxes near the door. “You know, if you should want to sell that garnet-”

Mitch shook his head. “If I can find a match, I’ll work up a set of earrings for Mom for Christmas.”

“Dinner?” Aaron asked abruptly, giving his son a wry look. He knew damn well Mitch was going to find some way to pay back the debt.

Mitch hesitated. “Not tonight, Dad. I’ve got an afternoon of painting here, plus I want to get a run in, maybe a game of racquetball. Beyond that, I honestly have work to do. Tell Mom thanks-and I’ll stop by to see her tomorrow.”

“That’ll mollify her.” There was a moment more, as both men stood in the doorway, a quick flash of eye contact that simply conveyed the very real affection they had for each other. “Not that I appreciate being left alone to entertain those two vacant-headed Kingsley women over dinner this evening. You just keep in mind that you owe me one.”

Mitch closed the door a moment later. With his father gone, the house seemed pregnant with a peculiar, lonely silence. He tugged off his tie, taking the steps upstairs two at a time. His bedroom was the only room in the entire house that was more or less furnished. There’d been ample space in the huge room for a couch and armchair on one side, for his double bed on the other. The rest of the furniture included some handsome teak bookcases and an old chest lacquered in navy blue, Chinese style, that had belonged to his grandparents. He’d collected Chinese prints from the time he was a kid, so the walls didn’t look too bare. Chinese had been the first language he’d started to learn during those years when he’d been forced to pursue sedentary activities.

Sheets hung in the windows. He’d gone to a store to buy curtains once, but couldn’t make head or tail of the measurements, nor did he have the least idea what a valance was. Of course, he could have asked for help-but he wasn’t much inclined to take help from anyone these days. All his life, he’d had to ask for far too much from other people.

Within ten minutes, he was out of the business suit he’d worn to lunch and into painting jeans and an ancient crewneck sweater.

He switched on the overhead light and opened a paint can, smiling to himself as he thought about his mother’s less than subtle machinations.

She wanted him married. She also wanted an even dozen grandchildren. Preferably yesterday.

The paint roller scudded over the wails, turning an odd shade of rose to an antique cream. The house was around fifty years old. When he’d finally recovered from the last operation, he’d looked at newer houses. And to speed the recovery process, he’d generally tried to fill most evenings with a woman across a restaurant table from him. That’s what he thought he should want: to buy a brand-new bachelor’s pad, and to hurry back into circulation and make up for lost time. Neither houses nor women had been hard to find.

Neither gave him what he wanted.

He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t play it like a kid just starting out. He was a man, not a kid. He had a man’s need for a home and privacy, but the home had to express him, and none of the newer places he looked at fit the bill. He also had a man’s need for a woman at his side, the kind of woman he’d like to wake up to in the morning. He wanted more than just the quick encounters that were readily available.

Oh, he’d considered going to bed with them. An easy lay would have solved any number of problems-not the least of which was sheer overwhelming physical frustration. And with a stranger-well, if she guessed about his inexperience, it would hardly matter.

Mitch stepped back, viewing the half-finished wall with a critical eye. The plaster sucked in the paint, and minutes later the original color showed through. The cathedral ceiling had taken him an entire week to paint, and then another week to repaint.

Strangers hadn’t been an answer. Twice, he’d been close. But the scenes had reeked of two people taking advantage of each other so cold-bloodedly that he’d backed off, feeling like a bastard. The women might not care that they were being used, but he did. He’d had to fight for life too damn hard not to separate the gold from the dross. Nobody had time to waste on experiences with no value.

An image of Kay flickered in his mind. He blocked it, irritated. In the past two weeks, ever since he’d left her that Friday night after the poker game, he’d been carrying a mental picture of her around with him everywhere. Gold framed. Twenty-four-karat gold, because she was far softer than fourteen-karat.

He told himself he was completely over that first rush of overwhelming attraction for her. She had droves of men in her life already, lovers he couldn’t begin to compete with. And he wasn’t going to try. But he just couldn’t dismiss that resistant mental picture of the woman.