Sizzling

Chapter Three

LORI PULLED INTO her driveway a little after five. Her neighborhood was light-years away from Gloria’s street of gated mansions, but Lori didn’t mind. She loved everything about her house.

Its two-bedroom, two-bath size suited her perfectly. She loved the details of the Craftsman style, the built-ins, the moldings. She loved that she’d painted every wall herself and had done most of the remodeling without help. She loved the colors, the garden, the porch, the way the house looked solid…and made her feel safe.

She walked inside and breathed in the scent of garlic. “You’re cooking,” she yelled by way of greeting. “You’re not supposed to be cooking.”

Madeline stepped out of the kitchen and grinned. “I don’t believe that was in the contract I signed, but I’ll have to go check. Besides, I’m having a good day. On good days I want to cook.”

Lori studied her sister’s face, searching for lines of fatigue or paleness in her coloring. Neither was there. Instead Madeline looked serenely beautiful, as she always had.

In Lori’s mind, the family gene pool had a killer sense of humor. Lori was average height, Madeline a few inches taller. Lori had inherited awful orange curls that had thankfully faded to a more muted reddish-gold. Madeline had auburn waves. She woke up looking like a 1940s movie star. With a little effort and some mascara, she looked like a goddess. It had taken Lori most of her life, but she’d finally learned not to be bitter.

“How was day two?” Madeline asked. “Gloria still a challenge?”

“She defines the term. This morning she nearly hinted that she liked having me around and then spent the rest of the day insulting me. I have to say there’s nothing wrong with her brain. She’s really good at the one-line put-down.”

Madeline folded her arms across her University of Washington sweatshirt. “You still like her?”

“I do. I know I shouldn’t. There’s a power struggle in our future and I’m going to win, but still, there’s something about her. She’s trying too hard to be a bitch and I can’t figure out why. Is it a defense mechanism? A way of coping? Did she have to be a bitch to get ahead all those years ago and forget to turn it off? One of her grandsons called. This guy named Cal. He wanted to come by and check on her. Gloria wouldn’t take the call and told me to tell him that she would be dead soon and then he could be happy.”

Madeline shook her head. “You didn’t tell him that, did you?”

“No, but it made me wonder.”

“Not every sick person is a saint. Aren’t most of them exactly like they were in their regular life?”

“Yes, in theory. But I just don’t want that to be true in Gloria’s case. I keep thinking something’s there. Maybe it’s because Reid was so insistent that she was awful. When I interviewed for the job, he made her sound like the devil.”

Madeline grinned. “Oh, so we’re back to talking about Reid. You do have him on the brain.”

Lori willed herself not to blush. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She sniffed. “I smell garlic but nothing else. What’s for dinner?”

“Don’t try to change the subject. Admit it. You have a thing for Reid Buchanan. My practical sister has totally fallen for a sports hero.”

“Not exactly fallen,” Lori muttered. “I have a stupid crush on him, okay? It’s chemical, which means it’s not my fault. I react to him. But it doesn’t mean anything. I’ll get over it. I’m smarter than him.”

“Being smart doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“So my hormones keep telling me.”

“Maybe you should go out with him,” Madeline told her. “Maybe he’s better than you think.”

Madeline was possibly one of the nicest people on the planet. She saw good in everyone and believed in miracles. But Lori had never been a believer, and most people got on her nerves.

In Madeline’s fairy-tale universe, men like Reid Buchanan would absolutely date women like Lori. They would probably find them fascinating. Unfortunately, Lori didn’t live in that universe.

She pushed up her glasses. “I don’t think I’m his type. I get on his nerves. I’m not deferential enough.” All excuses for the real thing—Reid would never see her as a sexual being. She was his grandmother’s nurse. Sort of a living appliance. No matter how much she wanted that to be different, it wasn’t.

“You’re funny and pretty and smart. Of course you’re his type.”

Lori avoided mirrors whenever possible, but she couldn’t escape them. Pretty? Not so much. She was average. Nothing more, nothing less.

“You’re an optimist,” she said. “Sometimes that’s annoying.”

Madeline laughed. “You can’t be mad at me. I made spaghetti with garlic bread.”

Lori’s mouth watered. “A carb fest for dinner?”

“Absolutely. I was in the mood.” Her sister linked arms with her and led her into the kitchen. “While we’re eating, we can strategize about Reid. What you can do to get his attention.”

“I don’t want his attention. He’s not anyone I would ever want to be with.”

It was an old pattern, but one that had always served Lori well. She found it really helpful to put down that which she couldn’t ever have. It made the doing without so much easier.

“I’VE MISSED EVERYTHING about this kitchen,” Penny Buchanan said as she ran her hands across The Waterfronts countertops, then lightly touched the control knobs on the stove. “It’s bigger than I remember. Is that possible?”

Dani Buchanan grinned at her sister-in-law. “No. You’re remembering the kitchen filled with people and now it’s empty.”

“But it will be full soon,” Penny said dreamily. “We’ll be cooking delicious food and it will be like I was never gone.”

She leaned against the counter, then stared at Dani. “Oh, God. Am I a horrible mother for being thrilled to be back at work? I am, aren’t I?”

Dani laughed. “Not at all.”

Penny shook her head. “No. It’s not natural. I shouldn’t have any interests other than the baby. What if Allison knew I loved my work more than her? She would be devastated.”

Dani grabbed Penny by the arm. “Hey, slow down. Take a breath. You’re fine. Loving your work is allowed, even encouraged. You need to be back in the kitchen because being a chef is part of who you are. As for the baby, Allison is incredibly spoiled and totally loved. Just be grateful you love your job.”

“You mean be rational,” Penny said with a slight smile. “Hard to do these days, when I’m living in a sea of hormones. But I’ll try. You’re right. I love Ally, but cooking will always be my passion.”

“See, I think you have a much bigger problem with Cal than with the baby. He’s not going to appreciate knowing he comes second to a bunch of pots and pans.”

Penny’s smile softened. “He knows I love him.”

Dani had liked Penny the first time Penny had married Cal. The second time was even better.

“So you’re back, you’re excited about being back,” Dani said. “This is a good thing.”

Penny eyed her. “I think I can guess why. You want to leave.”

Dani glanced around at the restaurant kitchen. Penny had given her a job when she’d desperately needed to do something with her life, but this wasn’t where she wanted to be in five years, or even five weeks.

“Let’s just say the thrill of sticking it to Gloria has faded,” Dani admitted. “You were great to give me a chance here, but I have to move on.”

“I understand,” Penny told her. “I don’t like it, but I understand. Do you have any idea what you’re going to do?”

“Try to make up for all the time I wasted trying to please Gloria.”

Penny touched her shoulder. “Maybe if you think about it as a growth experience…”

“So far, that’s not working. As mean as Gloria is, I still can’t believe she let me work for her all those years, let me believe I had a chance of moving up in the company, when she was never going to let it happen.”

Dani closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. If she continued to let Gloria upset her, then she continued to let the old bat win.

But it was hard to let it all go—and impossible to forget Gloria’s bombshell. That the reason Dani would never make it in the Buchanan empire was that she, Dani, wasn’t a real Buchanan.

“Look at the bright side,” Penny said, affection obvious in her voice. “You have a great résumé and fabulous letters of recommendation from me and Edouard.”

At the mention of the cook who had been left in charge of the kitchen while Penny had been out on maternity leave, Dani grinned. “Edouard said he wasn’t going to write me a letter of recommendation. He said I hadn’t been deferential enough while he was in charge. That I hadn’t supported his pain.”

“Oh, really? Then perhaps I’ll tell Edouard I’m not feeling ready to come back. I can leave him in charge a little longer.”

As Edouard had spent the last eight weeks whining about the extra work of covering for Penny, Dani knew it was the perfect threat.

“I’ll let you tell him,” she said.

“I can’t wait.”

LORI WAS STARTLED to find a woman lurking on Gloria’s front porch. In this upscale part of Seattle, the houses were mansion size, the lawns perfect and no one lurked.

“Can I help you?” Lori asked as she slipped her key in her pocket and crossed her arms over her chest. While the woman was perfectly well dressed and seemed normal, Lori had a bad feeling she couldn’t explain.

The woman smiled at her. “Hi, I’m Cassandra. Cassie to my friends. I’m a reporter. I recently wrote an article on Reid Buchanan.”

No need to define which article. In recent weeks there had only been one anyone would remember. “An article, huh? Is that what you’re calling it?”

Cassie smirked. “Oh, so you’re one of his little fans.”

Lori might have a stupid crush on Reid, but she wasn’t about to admit it. Besides, this wasn’t about her feelings, it was about using one’s position to try to destroy an almost innocent—well, innocent—person.

“Do I look like one of his little fans?” she asked bluntly. “I’m actually just a person who wonders about today’s standards of journalism. There’s a difference between reporting and being mean. You got away with what you wrote because you’re a woman. If the situation had been reversed, the article wouldn’t exist.”

Cassie shrugged. “Maybe, but I’m getting great play out of the story. It’s all true. He was lousy in bed, but as I said, that’s just my opinion. Others don’t seem to agree. Is he home?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lori said, staring at the woman and refusing to even glance at the door.

“I can’t find him anywhere and I don’t think he left Seattle. There aren’t that many places he could go to hide.”

“What about with one of his fans?”

Cassie laughed. “Reid commit to one woman? I don’t think so.”

Which was kind of how Lori saw him, but she was going to ignore that for now.

“You’re trespassing on private property,” she said. “Please leave.”

“Sure. No problem. Oh, by the way, do you spend much time on the Internet?”

“What? Not really.”

“Then you probably haven’t seen these.”

Cassie passed her several photos. Lori glanced down automatically, then wished she hadn’t.

There were about a half-dozen glossy images of Reid having sex. Each picture showed him with the same woman. The pictures were crude, explicit and grainy. But they made the point—he was a man who loved women.

Doing her best not to react, Lori passed them back. She felt like she needed to wash her hands or something. “Thanks, but not before breakfast.”

“These are online. Even a ten-year-old could download them. Are you sure you want to protect him? We should stand together against men like Reid Buchanan.”

Despite the sick feeling in her stomach, Lori shook her head. “I’m not interested in standing with you on anything.”

She waited until the woman left before she headed inside. The sick feeling didn’t go away. What horrible pictures. Did Reid know about them? Had he posed for them? She wanted to believe the pictures had been taken without his knowledge, but how could she be sure? She knew almost nothing about him. Wanting him to be one of the good guys meant absolutely nothing. Based on how he lived his life, he was most likely the guilty party.

That should take care of her little crush. It wouldn’t, of course, but it should.

“YOU NEED TO WALK,” Lori said, hanging on to her patience with both hands. “Just across the room and then we can be done.”

“I’m done now,” Gloria snapped. “It’s enough that damn physical therapist pushes me. At least he knows what he’s doing.”

“You either do your physical therapy and get better, or crawl back in bed and die.”

“You keep threatening me with death,” Gloria snapped, “and I’m still standing.”

Lori stared at the old woman hunched over a walker. “Barely. Don’t you want to get strong enough to kick my ass?”

“What I want is to be rid of you. Get out. Get out now!”

The last couple of words were nearly a scream. Lori ignored them and patted the bed. “Eight steps,” she said cheerfully. “Seven if you don’t shuffle.”

“I don’t shuffle,” Gloria told her icily.

“Looks like shuffling to me.”

“I loathe you with every fiber of my being,” the old woman said.

“I’m sure you do. Now walk.”

Gloria slowly, painfully, made her way across the study. When she reached the bed, Lori steadied her as she lowered herself onto the mattress and slowly lay down.

“Great job,” she said, careful to keep her voice neutral. She wasn’t gloating and didn’t want Gloria to think she was. At least their workout together was a distraction. Lori wanted to stay busy enough to forget the photos she’d seen earlier. Speaking of busy…

She opened the tote bag she’d brought with her and set several catalogs on the table.

“You have a lot of choices,” she said, fanning out the pages. “DVDs, books on tape, your basic shopping, although all my catalogs are discount, which I’m guessing you don’t do.”

Gloria looked from the shiny pages to her and frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Something to fill your day. Currently you’re staring at these four walls, being cranky and, frankly, getting on my nerves. You need to do something else. Get interested in a soap, read, listen to a book, watch a movie. I would normally add ‘visit with family’ but you seem to be avoiding them.”

Gloria stared at the window. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Interesting. Kristie told me that one of your grandsons stopped by early yesterday evening. Walker. That he’d called first and you’d told him not to come, but he’d shown up anyway.”

The information had stunned Lori. After all, in her mind, Gloria had been the abandoned elder of the family. But first the old woman had refused to see Cal and now she’d told Walker to go away. As much as Lori hated to admit it, Reid might have had a point when he’d said his grandmother was a little difficult.

Gloria narrowed her eyes. “This is none of your business. You mention my family again and you’re fired.”

Lori pretended to yawn. “I’m sorry. What? Did you say something?”

“Don’t think I can’t,” Gloria told her. “One call to the agency that employs you and you’re gone.”

Lori shook her head. “You don’t want me gone. I’m tough on you and you respect that. I care about you and you need that. You can’t be mean enough or crabby enough to scare me away, and that’s new for you. So here’s the question. Why are you trying so hard to live your life alone?”

Gloria pointed at the door. “Get out. Get out now.”

Lori was about to argue when she felt a queasiness in her stomach. She nodded and left, heading directly for the kitchen. By the time she hit the back hallway, she was shaking and feeling close to fainting.

A quick glance at her watch told her she’d gone too long without food. She knew better, but between the reporter’s ambush and her morning workout with Gloria, she hadn’t noticed the time.

She walked into the kitchen only to find the one person she most didn’t want to see. Reid.

He looked up from the thick stack of papers he was reading and smiled at her. “I heard shouting. Should I be worried?”

She was already pretty weak, what with her blood sugar crashing, so the last thing she needed was a visceral reaction to a useless, possibly horrible, man.

But there it was—a sudden fluttering of her heart, a trembling of her thighs that had nothing to do with needing to eat and everything to do with needing a man.

But why did it have to be this one?

“We’re good,” she said and walked to the refrigerator, where she’d stashed a bottle of juice. But before she got there, he was on his feet, next to her.

“Lori? What’s wrong? You look like crap.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m serious.” He touched her cheek. “You’re sweating. And shaking.”

The light brush of his fingers was nothing. Less than nothing. Yet she found herself leaning into the contact and imagining him touching her everywhere. So humiliating. She had to remember there wasn’t an actual person inside. That he was nothing more than a pretty shell. A shell who liked to take pictures.

“I have low blood sugar. I’m crashing. Go away, I’ll be fine.”

He ignored her much as she ignored Gloria’s demands that she go away. “What do you need?”

Oral sex? No, wait. That wasn’t right. “Juice. Food.”

“Done.”

He pushed her into a chair and then got her a glass of orange juice. She gulped half of it, then let the high-sugar liquid sit on her tongue for a few seconds before swallowing.

The results were nearly instantaneous. The trembling stopped, her body relaxed and she started to feel almost normal.

“Better,” she said, looking at him. “Thanks. Go away.”

“That’s nice,” he said sarcastically. “Who crapped on your day?”

“Honestly? You. There was a reporter waiting for me outside your grandmother’s front door this morning. She wanted me to confirm you were staying here, which I didn’t. Just to put a little sparkle in my schedule, she showed me some pictures she’d downloaded from the Internet. Guess who was the star?”

His expression tightened as he swore. “I thought they were gone.”

“You knew about them?” She couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.

“They were taken about six years ago,” he said grimly. “Without my knowledge. This woman I was with wanted proof to show her friends. One of them suggested she get a little more publicity, so she posted them online.”

He sounded embarrassed and mad and frustrated. Lori wanted to believe he wasn’t to blame, but it was difficult. “How have you been living your life?” she asked. “This sort of thing doesn’t happen to normal people. The pictures, the reporter. You need to get your act together.”

“I’m trying. But stuff like this makes it impossible. I even got a court order that the pictures be removed from the Web site. But they’re still showing up on other sites. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You feel okay now?”

The change of topic caught her off guard. “Yes. I have to eat something.”

“To maintain a higher blood sugar?”

She nodded. “Chocolate would be best. Preferably from Seattle Chocolates.”

“You’re kidding. That can’t be good for you.”

“It’s not.” Like him. “But it’s my fantasy and I can have it if I want to.”

He shook his head and muttered something under his breath. “Okay. Let’s see what real food we’ve got.”

He opened the refrigerator again and began pulling out ingredients. Shredded cheese, some cooked chicken, salsa and large flour tortillas. Food she didn’t remember being in there before.

“Did you go to the grocery store?” she asked.

“I went online and they delivered. There wasn’t anything in this kitchen.”

At least the Internet was good for something, she thought. “Gloria’s meals are delivered fully cooked. I bring in my own stuff.”

He shrugged and dug around for a large frying pan. “Now we have real food.”

“What are you doing?”

“Making you a quesadilla.”

She wasn’t sure which shocked her more—that he knew how, or that he was making one for her. “You can cook?”

“I have a few specialties. I’m very multitalented.”

“I brought my lunch.”

He glanced at her. “No, that’s not it. Let me think. Oh, yeah. How about ‘Reid, thanks so much for making me food and saving me from death.’”

She smiled reluctantly. “You have a well-developed sense of the dramatic.”

“I’m used to being adored.”

She was sure of that. Although some of his fans had turned against him.

She wondered what it would be like to be so much in the public eye, then decided it couldn’t be a good thing. Complicating an already difficult situation was the fact that Reid had a real habit of making lousy choices when it came to women.

As he heated the pan and assembled the quesadilla, he asked, “How’s it going with Gloria?”

“Great. She’s making progress.”

“She’s a challenge,” he told her. “You can say it.”

“Not even under threat of torture.”

He raised his eyebrows. “So I was right. Admit it.”

“I won’t. I still believe her family helped make her the way she is. She’s alone and lonely.”

“She’s crabby, difficult and mean.”

“She’s not mean. Not to me.”

“You don’t know her well enough,” Reid said as he slid the folded tortilla onto the hot pan.

Lori set down her empty glass and tried to find something to look at other than the man at the stove. If she didn’t distract herself, she was afraid she’d start drooling.

It didn’t seem to matter that his character was suspect. Her body wasn’t interested in the three thousand other women he’d had sex with. It just wanted to be number three thousand and one. How sad was that?

She picked up the top sheet of paper from the stack Reid had been going through.

“What’s this?” she asked as she scanned a letter from a boy wanting an autograph.

“A bunch of crap sent over by my manager,” Reid grumbled. “I let his office handle all my fan mail, which might have been a mistake.”

Lori remembered the slams about Reid ignoring kids in need in the newspaper article.

He flipped the tortilla. “I didn’t want to bother,” he said grimly. “That’s my big crime. So I trusted others to take care of things and apparently they did a piss-poor job. Seth’s response to everything was to send a check.”

“Seth’s the business manager?”

He nodded. “I was invited to a hospital opening and didn’t know. They put me on the program and everything. That’s not good.”

“But if you didn’t know, it’s not your fault.” Wait! Was she defending him? She resisted the need to slap herself. Didn’t she consider him useless? Hello, naked pictures. That had to mean something.

“Tell that to the people waiting for me to show up.” He grabbed a plate from the cupboard and slid the quesadilla onto it. “It gets worse. Some kid who was dying wanted to meet me as his last wish. But I didn’t show up. Instead he got an autographed picture and a signed baseball.”

Reid handed her the food, then slumped down across from her. “It all just sucks.”

She was torn, both feeling sorry for him and wanting to shake him. “You’re some famous baseball player, right?” she asked before taking a bite. The quesadilla was perfect—hot, with melted cheese, grilled chicken and just a hint of spice.

“Used to be.”

“Then you’re in a position to make a difference on a much bigger scale than most people. Things went bad. You can’t change that, but you can fix things. The paper mentioned some kids who got stranded with no return ticket. Pay them back. Call the kid and go see him now. Manage your fan mail, yell at your manager or fire him. Get involved.”

Reid stared out the window over the sink. “It’s not that easy.”

Okay, now shaking him had a definite priority over pity. “It can be. I know you were too busy with your exciting life before, but you don’t have that excuse anymore. You have a responsibility. Be the person everyone expects you to be. Grow up. You might surprise yourself.”

“You don’t think much of me, do you?”

“No.”

He gave her a slow, sexy smile. One that gave a whole new meaning to the phrase blown away. If he’d shown her the slightest bit of interest, she would have ripped off her clothes and done it with him right there on the kitchen table.

Of course, according to Cassie’s article, Reid wasn’t all that great in bed. Except she had a feeling Cassie was lying. She had to be. Everything about Reid, the way he moved, he teased, he spoke, declared that the man loved women. All women.

Well, all women except her.

Reality splashed over her like cold water. Time to end the fantasy fest. She wasn’t his type. She would never be someone he could see as appealing. If he knew how he got to her, he would only pity her.

The thought of that shamed her and she spoke before she could stop herself.

“Just so we’re clear, I’m not interested in you,” she said coolly. “Or anyone like you. You’re no one I could like or respect.”

The words hung there in the silence. She desperately wanted to call them back. What had she been thinking? He was Reid Buchanan—he could emotionally eviscerate her with a couple of well chosen words.

She braced herself for the attack as he rose and stared down at her. But he didn’t say what she’d expected.

“I thought you were different,” he said quietly. “I didn’t think you were the type to kick me when I was down. Guess I was wrong.”

And then he was gone and she was alone.

Shame returned, but this time it had nothing to do with wanting a man she could never have. Instead it was about hurting someone who didn’t deserve to be hurt.

She’d been trying to make herself feel better by saying he was nothing more than an empty shell—a pretty façade, not a real person. But she’d been wrong. Reid was very real.

She’d been disrespectful and dismissive. Pretty much acting the way she’d expected him to act. The way others had acted toward her.

She’d become someone she didn’t like and she didn’t know how to fix that.