There was a car in the middle of it. Some idiot had parked on the grass and—
She shielded her eyes from the sun so she could see more than just the outline of the car and felt a fresh onslaught of temper.
Her car.
Her car was parked in the middle of the field. And sitting on the hood was her soon-to-be dead niece, and a—oh, hell no, a boy. Next to them stood a man, who even from here she recognized. She had a feeling she’d recognize that body from a hundred miles, much less a hundred yards.
“Save me from idiots,” Mia muttered and stepped onto the grass, her one good heel sinking in. Perfect.
Kevin turned and watched her hobble toward him, and if she wasn’t mistaken, his mouth curved.
When she got close enough, she spoke directly to Hope. “What the hell is wrong with you? You looking to get arrested in this state, too? I nearly called the police and reported the car missing!”
Hope opened her mouth but Mia lifted up her hand. “No. No excuses. Get off the hood, get the hell off my hood—” She spared a scathing glare at the teenage boy sitting next to Hope, and then started around the car for the driver’s door.
Kevin shifted, and as a result she bumped right into him. “Out of my way, Ace.”
He didn’t, just studied her while he rubbed his jaw. The at least two-day growth there rasped in the morning air and scraped low at her belly.
She knew what that growth felt like against her jaw, her breasts…between her thighs.
“Sometimes things aren’t as they seem,” he said quietly, for her ears only. “And yelling isn’t going to get you anywhere. Patience—”
“Do I look like I have an ounce of patience?”
Instead of answering that, he lifted a hand toward her face.
She pulled back.
“You have a—” He waggled a finger at her cheek.
She put her hand there. “What?”
“Here.” His warm fingers brushed her skin and her ni**les reacted again. Very annoying.
Then she realized he was showing her what he had. A piece of confetti. “Go ahead,” he said. “You can finish blistering my hide now.”
She was certain steam was coming out of her ears as she pushed past him and got into the car. Hope had already gotten into the passenger seat and was staring sullenly straight ahead.
Kevin poked his head in the driver’s side, his face incredibly close to hers.
Again her body reacted.
Bad body.
“Hope,” he said, looking past Mia to the girl. “It was nice that you stopped and talked to Cole. I think he needed a friend.”
Hope nodded, and Kevin smiled again and said, “See you tomorrow.” Then he pulled back and, without so much as even glancing at Mia, turned to the presumed Cole. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, guiding him across the field toward the school.
Mia turned to Hope. “Well?”
Hope slid farther into her seat.
“Nothing? Really? Not even an ‘I’m sorry, Mia’? An ‘I screwed up, Mia’?”
“You said don’t let anything happen to the Audi. And nothing did.”
Mia felt her mouth fall open. “You’re kidding me, right?”
Hope crossed her arms over her skinny chest and turned forward, going the silent route.
Mia shook her head. She couldn’t believe it, but Hope was seething with resentment and hurt when Mia was the injured party here! “I don’t have time for this.” She threw the car into gear and drove them off the field and onto the street, heading toward the freeway as fast as she could without running anything over. The entire drive from Glendale Hills into the LA forest of high-rises, Hope stared out the window, her eyes full of antagonism. She kept her silence until they pulled into the parking structure of Mia’s downtown building.
“You were gone more than a minute.”
Mia looked over at her. “What?”
“You were gone like ten minutes. You get a quickie in his office or something?”
“No, I didn’t get a—You know what?” She shook her head. Forced a laugh. “You are not going to make this my fault. You came to me, Hope. I let you stay in my house, eat my food—”
“You don’t have any food.”
“—rattle my windows, and then I ask you for one thing. To wait in the car for a minute—”
“Ten.”
Mia could actually feel brain cells exploding. She glanced at the teen, with her stringy black hair, black gloss, black eyeliner that looked painted on, and still had no trouble reading loud and clear the antipathy coming off her in waves. Nothing was going to be enough to break that, or her years of pent-up anger.
Just as nothing was going to cut through the years it had taken Mia to put a shine and polish on her lowly early existence.
There was no middle ground here.
She turned off the engine and got out of the car, walking to her trunk where she kept a spare pair of shoes. Teardrop Jimmy Choo slides, and though the color was just a little off for her outfit, that was the least of her worries. “Remember, this is a professional place of business,” she told Hope. “No funny stuff, no loud music, and especially no sticky fingers.”
“Gee, Aunt Apple Pie,” Hope said in a slow, exaggerated drawl, cocking her head slightly to the side as if maybe she wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box. “Whatever will I do with myself if I can’t square dance or steal stuff?”
Mia stopped short and turned to face her. “And don’t even think about calling me that again.”
“Ma’am, yes, ma’am.” She snapped to attention, mockingly saluting her.
Oh, yeah. It was going to be a helluva day.
They entered the building. Mia had long ago stopped gawking at the gorgeous architecture of the glass and steel all around her, at the shiny marble flooring of the foyer bigger than her entire hometown. There was a flower cart, a donut shop where she bought Hope breakfast, an expensive jewelry shop, the glass elevators that rose so high into the sky they practically vanished, all surrounded by lush green tropical plant life cultivated throughout the bottom floor.
Hope hadn’t even seen anything like it before, and she totally gawked, her hard, cynical face softening as it tipped back to catch all that she could.
“Pretty amazing, huh?” Mia showed her badge to the doorman to get into the elevators.
Hope closed her mouth and her expression and lifted that careless shoulder. “It’s okay.”
Mia shook her head, and they took the elevator in silence, even when the high-speed electronics whirled them up at a dizzying speed.
Hope merely clutched at the handrail, her face practically glued to the glass.
On Mia’s floor, they entered a set of brass and glass double doors and stepped into the organized chaos that was Mia’s entire world. Phones rang, well-dressed people hurried back and forth carrying files and laptops, talking, laughing, more talking…
Gen, behind the huge reception desk, covered the mic near her mouth and said to Mia, “They just got here.”
Mia nodded and pulled Hope around a corner, where Tess sat at her large L-shaped desk. She also wore a headset and was talking into it. “No, that’s unacceptable. That’s right, but we’re nothing if not flexible. How ’bout we meet you halfway?” She began handing over a stack of phone messages and another stack of files to Mia while she continued her phone conversation. “That’s great, uh huh, gotcha. Buh-bye now.” She looked at Mia. “I’ve given them coffee and donuts and set them up in the conference room. You’ve also got that Danville account meeting right after this one, and they’ve called to confirm. Steven, Dillon, Janice, and Tami are all planning on being there with the artwork and presentation. And later the fire marshal is coming back to interview. Oh, and then a staff meeting where you-know-who is going to be hailing you with questions, so I’ve made a list—”
“Tess.” Mia put her hand on Tess’s arm. “You stopped breathing. You know what the doctor said about that.”
“Ha ha. If I’m anal, it’s your fault. You’re a slave driver.” But Tess let out a long breath, then drew another, pressing a hand to her belly. “This is all giving me ulcers. Did I tell you I put the Anderson people in conference room three because your office still reeks of smoke from yesterday, speaking of which, nice makeup job on the brow.” Taking another breath, she blinked at Hope, who stood off a little to the side, chewing on her black fingernails, looking more than a little out of place.
“Hello,” Tess said.
“This is Hope,” Mia said. “She’s my…” She broke off, because, damn, this was going to bring up a whole host of questions she didn’t want to answer.
“Long-lost daughter,” Hope interjected in the thickest Southern voice Mia had ever heard. She held out a hand. “Yeah. My momma here gave me up at birth. Left me in the Piggly Wiggly Dumpster, actually, but don’t judge her, she’s served her time.”
Tess’s mouth fell open.
Mia resisted banging her head down on Tess’s desk. “Funny, Hope. Tess, this is my niece, car thief and wannabe comedian.”
Hope rolled her eyes.
“She’s going to need something to do,” Mia decided aloud. “Just keep her away from your car keys.”
Hope rolled her eyes again.
“What did I tell you about that?” Mia asked her. “I’m going to get a jar—”
“Yeah, yeah, so I can just shake my eyeballs instead of roll ’em. I remember.”
Tess smiled warmly at Hope. “Oh, my goodness. You’re just like her!”
Both Hope and Mia gaped at her. “What?”
Tess came around her desk to hug Hope tight. “I love your aunt dearly, and I’ve been dying to meet some of her family. The two of you are two peas in a pod.”
Over her head Hope stared in shock at Mia.
And if Mia hadn’t felt that same shock, she’d have laughed at the look of horror on Hope’s face.
Alike?
“You really need to lay off that morning crack pipe,” Mia muttered to Tess. “Now let go of the girl and give her some slave labor filing or something. You do know your alphabet, right?” she asked Hope.
Hope started to roll her eyes, then stopped. “I know that my favorite Aunt Apple—”
Mia bared her teeth and Hope stopped talking, but her eyes were still lit with more than her fair share of trouble.
Damn it. Mia took an exaggerated deep breath. “Just try to be good until I can come for you.”
Hope smiled sweetly. “You know it, my very dearest, dearest aunt.”
What could she do? Child services would frown on locking the kid in the closet, so with no other choice she went off to her meeting and worked on forgetting it all. Ted, and the upcoming meetings. Tess, and the questions in her eyes. The impossible, Tums-inducing Hope. The irritating, infuriating Kevin McKnight.
Okay, make that sexy as hell Kevin McKnight.
Especially if he wasn’t talking. My God, when that man wasn’t intent on making her brain explode with frustration, he could really turn her on.
She grabbed some things from her office to take into the meeting, then did a double take at her plant.
Its leaves were dragging on the floor and no longer quite green. “Damn it, if you die, I’ll kill you.” She hurried out and stopped outside the conference room. Pasting a smile on her face, she entered.
And an hour later she was in the midst of outlining her plans for the creative personnel, production department, media planners and buyers, and the goals and objectives of the campaign. When she needed access to another file, she picked up the phone in the middle of the big conference table and dialed Tess’s extension.
“Danny’s Dunkin’ Donuts,” boomed a voice in her ear. “What’s your pleasure this morning?”
Mia stared at the phone. “Sorry, Danny. Somehow I got the wrong number.” She hung up. Ignoring the bad feeling sinking like a pit in her belly, she tried again.
“Danny’s Dunkin’ Donuts.”
Mia blinked. “Uh…” She hung up and glanced at her clients. “Could you excuse me a minute?” Then she walked out to the main floor. Anyone and everyone at a desk was standing up, phone to their ear, looking confused. Margot and Ted came out of their offices. So did Dick.
Tess frantically waved Mia over. “Someone’s rerouted all our phone lines to Danny’s shop downstairs,” she said quietly. “Danny’s getting a kick out of it, but he doesn’t know how it happened.”
“Where’s Hope?”
“Filing.”
“Uh huh.” Mia went to the filing room. No Hope. Damn it. Mia searched the floor and finally found the kid in the women’s bathroom, sitting on the counter, back to the mirror, head tipped up as she smoked a cigarette, blowing lazy smoke rings into the air.
“Jesus!” Mia snatched the cigarette from her black lips and stuck it under the tap. “You can’t smoke in here, the alarm’ll go off!”
“Nah, it hasn’t been reset since your fire adventure yesterday.” Hope smiled. “Gossip train is running full steam ahead in this joint. Did you know no one but Tess likes you?”
Mia pinched the bridge of her nose. “You haven’t been doing anything but filing and smoking, right?”
“In any of our conversations, did I ever mention I’m an electronics wizard? No?” She smiled. “Oh, probably because, like, we’ve never really had any conversations.”
“Goddamnit, it was you.”
“Well, I don’t like to toot my own horn, but—”