Tease Me

She could call her brothers. On her first day? Three hours after her escape? She didn’t even have bus fare to get home, if she were willing to give up. Which she was not. She swallowed across a dry throat.

If she stayed with Jackson, did that make her weak or merely practical? She needed to know before she said yes.

The doorbell rang. “That’s the police,” she said, delaying her decision. “Maybe they found my car.” She didn’t need the doubt in Jackson’s dark eyes to tell her she was dreaming. She needed something to cling to. Her new life had just taken off down the road without her.

2

JACKSON WATCHED HEIDI race toward the entry hall, around the corner from the living room, the tight bounce of her backside distracting him a bit. He heard the door open and her say, “Did you find my car?” with too much hope in her voice.

He didn’t catch the mumbled response, but her “oh” was so dejected he felt it in his bones. Hell, the car was chopped or halfway to Mexico by now.

She could stay with him for a few days easy. Probably she had family who would come fetch her, poor thing. Though she’d jutted that pixie chin and blinked back tears so fiercely, he figured she’d take some convincing to call them.

She led the cops to the living room where he stood and she cleared the couch for them as though she already lived here. “Were you making coffee, Jackson?” she said. She had a husky voice like that woman on Cheers. Kirstie Alley, wasn’t that her name? It sort of locked into him like invisible hooks on a cholla cactus spine.

“Right. Sure.” He’d have to talk her into staying—for her own good. He sometimes let the girls from Moons live with him when they had troubles with boyfriends or landlords. You always have to be the hero. That’s what his ex, Kelli, said about him. Everybody’s big brother, nobody’s one and only.

What was the point in fighting his nature? If someone needed help, he helped. Period.

These days, maybe, he was the last person who should offer though. His radio station—his dream—had gone belly-up after six months, taking everything he had, everything his parents had given him. He’d thrown it out as stupidly as Heidi leaving the keys in her car. Only he’d written Take Me in shoe polish on the windshield.

To cut his losses and keep expenses down, he’d sold his house in Scottsdale and moved into his rental town house—supposedly investment income. Yeah, right.

But he wouldn’t think about that now. Now he’d brew some java for the sprite in the living room who was about to hear the cops weren’t likely to recover a hubcap.

Leaning over the coffeemaker, he got a blast of scent from his shirt, where Heidi had pressed her face. Flowers and something tropical and it made him go soft inside. She’d sort of folded into him, then stiff-armed herself away—not offended by the hug. More as if she didn’t dare let herself feel better.

He pinched up some fabric and took a big sniff. Mmm. Made him think of down pillows and that lip gloss girls wore in middle school, when the first wave of testosterone had knocked him to the sand. Those middle-school girls. Batting their lashes, pursing their lips, jiggling those curves—not fully aware of their power over him and the other hapless boys under their spell.

Heidi was hot that way. With big eyes that shimmered blue—like the metallic paint on the Corvette he’d rebuilt. She had some stare on her—innocent and all-knowing both.

At least Kelli wasn’t around to give him grief about taking in another stray. She’d cut out right after the station folded and her departure hadn’t hurt as much as it should have. He’d been kind of distant. Still was, he guessed. Gigi had stayed here for ten days and he’d turned her down flat. That wasn’t like him.

But his neutrality would make Heidi feel safe, he hoped.

How could he get her to stick around? She’d hitchhike or sleep in the bus station before she’d take charity or money, he’d bet.

Listening to the coffee hiss into the pot, he watched a fly take a lazy header into a blob of ketchup on the counter. The place was a sty lately, true. Comfortable, but messy. The kind of messy women loved to straighten out….

So she could be, like, a housekeeper. He’d trade cleaning for rent. She’d go for that, he’d bet. She seemed to have a lot of energy. And a cute little jiggle. Mmm. He felt a strange zing. As if something in him was waking up.

She’s your guest, man. Or soon would be. Shut it down.

When the coffee was ready, he loaded the pot and some mugs onto a pizza box and carried it all out to Heidi and the cops.

Heidi stood to help, but when she caught sight of the mugs, she sucked in a breath, then swooped them up, hiding them against her chest.

“What the…?” he said.

Keeping her back to the cops, she raised one mug—a gimmee from the opening of the Toy Box sex boutique, it showed a topless girl—and frowned before she bustled off.

Like the cops would care.

He made small talk with them while she rattled around in the kitchen, finally returning with two white mugs from Moons. If the cops recognized the bar name they’d think worse thoughts than over a couple of naked chests, but the slivered moon design looked innocent enough.

They all sat and drank, while the cops took down Heidi’s statement, and Jackson wondered what kind of a roommate Heidi would be. If tits on cups freaked her out, she’d hate his decor. What if she was a neat freak? Was he ready to never find his stuff where he had put it? Prepared to have the newspaper tossed out before he read it? And no hot water whatsoever? What was it with women and baths, anyway?

At least Gigi had been a slob like him.

Maybe he could get one of the girls at Moons to let Heidi stay with her. Not the best influence, though, the girls. And Heidi struck him as a babe in the woods.

The detectives finished the interview and Jackson walked them to the door. He returned to find Heidi slumped on the couch, elbows on her knees, chin in her palms, looking as though she’d just been turned down by the last foster family in town.

“Maybe you’ll get some stuff back,” he said to cheer her.

“Maybe.” She lifted the pizza box with the coffee crap and climbed to her feet, moving as if the weight of the world rested on her shoulders. “I’ll clean this up, make a few calls and get going.”

“Hold on a sec,” he said to stop her. “Now that you mention cleaning…I was thinking maybe you’d help me out.”

“Excuse me?”

“You can see I need a housekeeper.”

She looked around the room and gave a droll smile. “You think?”

“So, how about I trade you a room for cleaning? Save me calling a service.”

She seemed to doubt his intentions. “Thanks, anyway, Jackson. I’ll ask my boss about…options.” She snatched her lip between her teeth, looked toward the sofa.

He noticed a basket of nachos on the arm. They looked pretty gross—the cheese shriveled and an unnatural orange. “If you weren’t here, I might actually eat those,” he said.

She turned shocked eyes on him. “You wouldn’t!”

“Take the job. Save a life.”

She smiled, then studied him, scrunching up her short nose and the freckles like sprinkled cinnamon that decorated it. “What were you planning to pay?”

Hell, what was the going rate? “Twenty bucks an hour?” he threw out. “Thirty?”

She frowned, ferreting out ulterior motives. “Not more than twenty. Let’s see…I was going to pay Tina three-fifty a month for the room. It would take maybe six hours to clean up the first time, three after that. At twenty an hour, that’s…sheesh…not even close to rent.” She looked suddenly ill.

“Don’t sweat the money now. Get back on your feet and we’ll work it out.”

She sank back to the sofa in despair, jarring the nacho basket, which landed on her lap upside down.

“Damn!” She swept the chips back into the container, leaving a grease spot and a smear of hot sauce on her tan shorts, nicely tight across her thighs. She must work out.

She scrubbed at the spots. “These are the only clothes I own.” Her husky voice cracked and wobbled with the motion and she was chewing her lip raw again.