Bad Reputation Page 10

  I knew if I said nothing to Joey about the fact that I was driving, I would seem like both a liar and a hypocrite. But if I explained to him that the van was on loan from my roommate’s father’s car dealership for the duration of my fundraiser, I’d feel like I was making an excuse. I also worried it would make it seem like I’d put a little too much stake in what Joey’s opinion might be.

  Wishing I hadn’t opened my big mouth in the first place, I climbed into the van and cranked the music up to drown out my thoughts. I was almost successful at doing so, until I rounded the corner into the Foxes’ neighborhood, and came face to face with the second thing on my list of reasons for rejecting the job.

  Abject, utterly intimidating wealth.

  Yes, most of my potential clients were well off. But I hadn’t made out with most of them in a humiliatingly tipsy state. I hadn’t handed most of them parking tickets and practically dared them to seek me out.

  Most of them weren’t Joey Fox.

  The last thing I needed was him throwing his money in my face and tossing around his superior attitude because of it.

  The sign at the top of the Foxes’ street read Woodrud Estates, and the sprawling properties located there made my head spin. It could loosely be called a cul-de-sac, but only because it would look like one from a helicopter. There were six driveways, each as long and winding as the next.

  No wonder they can afford to donate a wing.

  And it was no wonder that Amber liked him and was willing to put up with his philandering ways. I’d seen her house, and it was nothing compared to the Foxes’. This level of opulence probably made her think it was worthwhile.

  I pulled up to the biggest gate at the end of the private road, feeling even more self-conscious about the van. Usually it seemed like such an indulgence, but sitting in the Fox driveway, I felt like it was rusty old piece of junk.

  Still time to back out.

  But as the gates swung open, I gritted my teeth and made myself drive in. I followed the driveway up and around, and I wasn’t surprised at all when I had to park beside an ornate fountain. With a deep breath, I let myself out and grabbed my biggest bag of tools. I didn’t know what kind of hedges to expect, but I doubted they were going to be small.

  A middle-aged man dressed in a suit greeted me at the front door. He held himself stiffly and gave me a serious nod. For about thirty seconds, I assumed that he was Joey’s father, but when he closed the door behind me and then directed me formally through the house, I realized that he was staff.

  My mouth, which had been waiting for an excuse to drop open, did.

  “Are you a butler?” I blurted out.

  “Are you the gardener?” he countered.

  “I’m doing some work. But I somehow doubt that I’m the gardener,” I replied. “I’m not classy enough for this place.”

  The man stopped walking and smiled at me. He suddenly looked grandfatherly rather than stuffy.

  “I’m the house manager.”

  “Is that different?”

  “Probably not,” he admitted. “But it sounds so much better than butler, don’t you think?”

  “A little bit,” I agreed. “I mean, who even has a butler?”

  “The British?” he joked, and then leaned closer and whispered, “And I’ll tell you something else….”

  “What?”

  “They don’t let the gardener walk through the house with the butler,” he said with a wink.

  I laughed and followed him outside. And that’s where I was confronted my third, final, and biggest reason to not take the job at the Fox residence—Joey Fox himself.

  * * *

  He was standing at edge of an L-shaped pool with his back to me, wearing nothing but a pair of emerald-green swim trunks.

  My mouth went dry at the sight of him. He’d obviously been in the pool recently—his hair and his body were dripping.

  His body.

  It was a perfect example of the male form. His shoulders were wide and his back was tapered. He moved, and the muscles that lined his body moved, too, in a sinuous and nearly sensual ripple.

  Ugh, I groaned internally, disgusted at myself for being unable to look away.

  I hoped desperately that the house manager wasn’t watching me ogle his boss’s son. But I was utterly mesmerized. I felt a light sweat break out all over my body as I watched him.

  Joey lifted his hands over his head in a stretch, and I remembered instantly how it felt to have one of his arms draped across my shoulders. I dragged my eyes away in an attempt to bury the memory, but he had finished with the stretch and was bent over with his hands on his knees. I found my stare resting on his sculpted rear end, hugged perfectly by his wet shorts, and quickly moved my gaze up.

  He turned his face to one side. The sight of him made my heartbeat quicken and my lips tingled.

  So what if he’s good looking? Lots of guys are. I watched him for a second more. But not like that.

  There was something about him that made me want to turn from a sensible woman into a weak-kneed fool. It took a large portion of self-control to keep the urge in check.

  I braced myself to announce my presence, and cautioned my body to keep its reaction to itself, even when the full weight of Joey’s smile was turned on me.

  I dropped my bag onto the pool deck, pleased when the loud clatter made him jump and spin on his heel, surprise widening his green eyes. But before I could make a smug comment, Joey lost his footing. He yelped and toppled comically toward the water. Right before he splashed out of my view, a pleased grin lit up his face.

  “Nice work,” I muttered, and waited for him to surface.

  There was nothing but silence. I rolled my eyes and stomped over to the pool, satisfied by the thump of my boots on the deck.

  “Joey Fox, you’re a real jerk!” I called.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Joey?”

  I got to the very edge of the pool before I saw the tinge of red in the water and Joey’s still form, floating on the surface. My heart skidded to a stop.

  Joey was face up with his eyes closed. His head appeared to be held up by a set of wide cement stairs, which descended from the deck to the water. The blood was thickest near his scalp.

  Without time for another thought, I rushed toward Joey, and stepped right into the pool. My boots sloshed as I went down the stairs, and my shorts sucked up the water like a sponge. I slipped my hands under Joey’s arms and pulled as hard as I could. I hauled his shoulders up to the deck, then met with resistance. My muscles burned with the effort. I took a deep breath and yanked one more time. My feet slid forward and Joey slid backward, smearing blood across my lap and the pool deck.

  This is my fault.

  I moved Joey gently off my lap and knelt beside him. I put my head on his bare chest, but with my own heart pounding the way the way it was, I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. I decided not to take any chances. I moved myself from his chest to his face, and with as little hesitation as I could manage, I tilted his head back and pushed my mouth against his.

  Even in my hurry, I had mentally prepared for cold, unmoving lips. When I instead met soft, warm ones, I almost forgot the reason I had my mouth there in the first place. I breathed out, but it was much too soft of an exhale for the task at hand.

  I pulled back, determined to try again, properly, and sudden Joey’s mouth was not only warm, but alive and moving. I was startled into stillness as his lips worked against mine, first gently and then with increased insistence. I tried to recover from the surprise of the sudden and arduous onslaught, but I didn’t have time. My body responded all on its own.

  I tilted my head so I could more easily meet Joey’s demanding mouth. With each kiss, desire jolted through my every nerve. And with each pause, I felt a keen sense of loss.

  “Tucker,” he murmured.

  My name, uttered in his deep and sexy voice, made me shiver.

  I heard myself groan, low in my throat, and in reply, Joey
tugged on my bottom lip with his teeth. Then he stopped, and ran his tongue along spot that he’d left tingling. The sensation was almost unbearable.

  He gripped me forcefully and pulled me down so that I was lying flush against him. The hard lines of his body contrasted with the softness of mine, making me more aware of my own femininity than I had ever been before. His hands traced my curves, following the swell of my hip to the dip in my waist to the ache in my breasts, and finally settled gently on my cheek.

  “Tucker,” he said again, desire clear in his tone.

  I dragged my lids open to meet his gaze.

  I could drown in those eyes.

  The thought reminded me of why my lips were pressed against his in the first place, and I pulled away reluctantly as I remembered that he was injured.

  Joey sat up slowly. He gingerly touched the back of his head, and his hand came away bloody.

  I hopped up to grab a small towel from the table on the pool deck, then folded it into a square and blotted it against Joey’s head. I was relieved to have the cloth between us. At least it offered some small amount of protection from my involuntary reaction to physical contact with him. But I was disappointed, too. Because I wanted to keep touching him. It made me feel alive.

  No. Being near Joey reminds me that I’m alive.

  The correction, dragged from my subconscious and shoved to the front of my mind, was jarring. It made my hands shake a little as I wiped away the blood from his head. I did my best to examine the wound without succumbing to the urge to run my fingers through his hair, or trail them along his face. I knew he wouldn’t stop me, if I did.

  I allowed myself one small touch of his forehead, then cleared my throat and focused on what I was supposed to be doing.

  “It’s not so bad,” I stated.

  “No scar?” Joey asked.

  “You sound a little disappointed.”

  “I’ve always thought having a scar would give me character. Make me more handsome,” he replied.

  You couldn’t be more handsome, was the first thought that popped into my head.

  I pushed it down and made myself laugh. “You could try falling face first next time. Maybe knock some sense into yourself at the same time.”

  “I’ll take that into consideration,” he replied dryly.

  “In all seriousness, though…you should probably see a doctor,” I told him. “You were knocked unconscious. You probably have a concussion. You—”

  He cut me off. “Take me to the hospital then.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Why not?”

  I sighed. “Because I have hedges to trim. And because when I’m done here, I have to go to my other job.”

  “Suit yourself. But if I die, you’re responsible,” he warned.

  I rolled my eyes and stood up, then grabbed my bag and sloshed my way past already well-groomed bushes. I turned back to Joey.

  “C’mon then,” I said. “Before I change my mind.”

  Joey

  From the corner of my eye, I watched Tucker as she maneuvered out of my parents’ driveway. I’d offered to let her drive my truck, but she’d insisted on shoving the equipment off the passenger seat of her van, and I hadn’t been able to talk her out of it. Even when I pointed out that she’d lied to me about driving at all in the first place.

  I still liked the way she looked in the driver’s seat, lips puckered in concentration. Her hair was disheveled, both from her frantic attempt to revive me and from the passionate moment it led to.

  My eyes went automatically to her lips as I remembered it.

  I knew she was leaning over me even before I fully came to. My head swam, like I was underwater, but I could smell her shampoo and also a hint of something muskier that made my body heat up. Until her lips met mine, I was completely unable to move. When she exhaled into my mouth, I knew what her intention was—to breathe life into my still body. The only problem was that my body was no longer still, and it had other ideas about how to react. And breathing had very little to do with it.

  I drew her closer, begging her with every part of my body to stay there with me. For one perfect moment, it worked.

  I was so relieved to be able to call out her name, to say it tenderly into her ear.

  When I did, she breathed a soft, dizzyingly sexy noise against my lips. I wanted to say it again right that second, to wrap my mouth around it the way I’d wrapped my arms around her beside the pool.

  Tucker.

  I didn’t realize I’d actually said it out loud until her eyes flicked my way.

  “Yes?”

  I cleared my throat to cover the slip up. “I think you owe me an interview.”

  “I think you should bring it up again on a day when I haven’t just saved your life.”

  “You mean when you haven’t snuck up on me and nearly killed me?”

  She flushed guiltily. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was just trying to get you back for tricking me into coming to your house.”

  “You knew it was me?” I asked.

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “I don’t think you are.”

  “But you thought it was okay to pay some poor girl to fool me into giving her my name,” she reminded me.

  “I didn’t pay her,” I protested, and then grinned. “Not with money, anyway.”

  Her face colored again. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Jealous?” I teased.

  “More like pissed off.”

  “You wouldn’t take my calls,” I pointed out.

  “Do you think there might be a good reason for that?” she asked, exasperation clear in her voice.

  “Not a good enough reason. You didn’t say I had to be nice about finding out your name. You just said I had to do it and you’d give me the interview.”

  “Why are you so damned determined to interview me?” she demanded.

  For a second, I floundered. I didn’t want to lie to her, and that realization caught me off-guard. I didn’t normally bat an eye at deceiving a girl. Of course, I wasn’t normally around long enough to have time to bat an eye. If I told Tucker the truth, she’d probably drive me into the nearest telephone pole.

  “Why are you so determined to not be interviewed?” I finally countered.

  Tucker didn’t seem to notice the delay, or the lameness of my reply. Her hands just tightened on the steering wheel.

  “My experience has taught me that the media isn’t big on respect. Or trust. Or the truth, for that matter.”

  “Those are big things for you?” I asked with more than a touch of guilt.

  “Are you asking me off the record?”

  I shrugged in an attempt to appear more casual than I felt. “Sure.”

  “I don’t want a sure. I want your promise that if I tell you what I think, you won’t print it in the paper.”

  “You have my word that I won’t print anything you say to me in the paper,” I said with complete honesty,

  She relaxed enough that her knuckles were no longer white.

  “Those are the only things for me,” she admitted.

  “Besides the community center,” I corrected.

  Tucker shook her head. “No, those things play into what I’m doing there, too. Its whole role revolves around respect, trust and truth. And a lot of the time the people who seek out the community center lack those things in other parts of their lives. If it gets torn down to make way for a mall, or a high-rise…all those people–especially the kids—will lose out. It’s tied together, Joey, believe me.”

  At the conclusion of her short but impassioned speech, I opened and closed my mouth, unsure what to say. Her fundraiser clearly meant more to her than she’d let on, either at the meeting with the city officials, or with me previously. It wasn’t just about altruism. It was personal.

  Did my dad’s business deal mean that much to him? I wondered. Did anything mean that much to him?

  I doubted it, and guilt hit me again, this time stronger and m
ore focused. Tucker’s project meant something to her. My dad’s desire to destroy it was just another dollar in his pocket.

  And what did that say about me?

  I opened my mouth again, but Tucker beat me to it as we pulled into the emergency parking lot.

  “We’re here,” she announced. “I’ll walk you up to the desk, then you’re on your own.”

  I started to laugh, but her face was serious. “You’re not kidding, are you? You’re not going to stay?”

  She shook her head. “I said I’d bring you to the hospital, and I did.”

  Tucker swung her door open, climbed out, and came around to my side of the van.

  “How am I going to get home?” I asked as I climbed out, too.

  “You’re a big boy. Take a cab or something,” she suggested. “I still have to go back to your house and do the work you’re paying me to do. And don’t even think about pulling another guilt trip.”

  “Don’t worry about the work. I’m going to pay you anyway.”

  “I’m running a charity, but that doesn’t make me a charity case.”

  “You do see the irony in that statement, right?”

  I slid my hand down her arm and pulled her closer.

  “Joey—”

  I cut her off with a spontaneous kiss on the cheek. She turned her face up toward me, and her eyes were soft. I brought my hand up, ran my thumb along the edge of her lips, then cupped her cheek and leaned in again.

  “Stay with me,” I said right into her ear.

  For a second, I thought she might waver, but then my phone rang, ruining the moment.

  “Are you going to answer that?” Tucker asked.

  “No.”

  It rang again.

  “Maybe you should get it,” she said. “It could be important.”

  I slipped the phone from my pocket and glanced down.

  “It’s just Amber,” I said.

  Tucker’s face tightened and she pulled away.

  “Then you should definitely answer it,” she stated in a firm voice, and turned to make her way back to the other side of the van.

  “What if I said I don’t want to?” I called.