Slow Burn Page 8

  And here Cale had thought Ben was the only brother to constantly stick his nose where it wasn’t wanted. “I planned on going to the store before my shift tonight.”

  Drew shrugged. “You still need to,” he said, returning his attention to the frying bacon. “I only picked up enough to make breakfast.”

  Cale looked around the clutter in his small kitchen. More like enough to make breakfast for a small army. Which could only mean Ben would be arriving shortly.

  Maggie turned and reached into the cabinet for another mug. His gaze zeroed in on the curve of her backside and the way the charcoal-gray top he’d picked up for her crept up, exposing smooth, creamy flesh above the waistband of her jeans. “You didn’t tell me your brother was a minor gourmet.” She filled the mug with coffee and handed it to Cale.

  He grunted in response. Drew did enjoy cooking, especially for beautiful women. He always figured it was his brother’s idea of foreplay.

  With that thought blossoming like ragweed in his mind, Cale shifted his gaze from Maggie to Drew and back again until it finally dawned on him that Maggie had dressed herself. How was that possible? Yesterday she’d been near tears because she hadn’t been able to manage on her own. Now she wasn’t just dressed, but damned chipper besides? He was not jealous. Even if Cale was powerless to prevent the nagging suspicion that perhaps his overly chivalrous brother had arrived early enough to help her into her clothes, he was not falling victim to something as petty as jealousy.

  His gut twisted again, making a liar out of him. Dammit.

  “Any problems this morning?” he asked Maggie, throwing in a determined sweep of his gaze down her alluring body for good measure.

  Her eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed slightly. The gold rim surrounding her irises came to life, adding just the right amount of spark to set his pulse into overdrive.

  “Nothing that a little ingenuity didn’t solve.” Her sharp tone let him know loud and clear she’d picked up on his meaning, and that she didn’t appreciate the Neanderthal routine.

  Was it his fault he was feeling a little…Okay so he was jealous. There. He admitted it. Shoot him. Not that he had any right to those feelings, but after the way Maggie had kissed him, he couldn’t stop himself. Apparently, his body had staked a claim, even if his mind had yet to fully slip around the idea.

  He ignored Drew’s questioning look as he took his coffee and strode into the breakfast area to see to Gilda before he made an even bigger fool of himself. Maggie’s life was in enough turmoil without him complicating matters. Besides, once her memory returned, she’d be gone. History. Adios, baby. Yup, Maggie LaRue would be just one more in a relatively moderate line of women he’d stepped forward to assist in one way or another. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  Now that he needed to remember, not the way her body had arched against his, or the way her lips had parted, welcoming him inside. While he was at it, he’d better forget about the feel of her satiny-smooth skin beneath his hands, too.

  Maybe, if he tried hard enough, and was damned lucky, he just might pull it off.

  Yeah? And who do you think you’re kidding, pal?

  He slipped the cover from Gilda’s cage and tucked it on the shelf beneath. The big bird ruffled her bright-colored feathers and squawked, followed by the sound of a rich purr that would’ve made Mae West proud. “Hello, lover.”

  Although still a bit too crude for polite company, at least the old gal was getting better at realizing her own gender. Half the time she greeted him like a drunken sailor requesting a sexual favor.

  “Good morning, Gilda. Sleep well?”

  Gilda squawked in response, then bobbed up and down, anxious for her favorite morning treat of fresh grapes. Since he hadn’t been to the store in nearly a week, dry fruit-flavored cereal rings would have to placate her for the time being. If they didn’t, then Lord only knew what vile words she’d spout to voice her displeasure.

  He took care cleaning Gilda’s cage, wandering back and forth between the kitchen and the morning room. With each trip, his awareness of Maggie heightened. The way her eyes met and held his. The slight blush that stained her cheeks when he caught her staring at him when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. The sweet sound of her voice as she carried on a conversation about books with Drew. The soft, alluring scent of her.

  He refilled Gilda’s bowl with her daily feed, dropped a few bits of cereal in a second bowl, then carried them back for Gilda’s inspection. The parrot showed her appreciation by hanging off the side of her cage and belting out a couple of bars of “Peggy Sue.”

  Something about Maggie had changed since last night, he realized as he snapped Gilda’s bowls back into their holders. An air of self-assurance that had been hiding beneath the surface all along, perhaps? He’d already determined the woman possessed an independent streak a mile wide. Nor did she bully easily, as evidenced by the way she’d held her own against those two detectives who had questioned her. But why all of a sudden, he wondered? What had changed in the last nine hours or so?

  The exact answer evaded him as he returned to the kitchen to retrieve from the pantry the bottled water he kept on hand for Gilda.

  “Oh, my God!” Maggie exclaimed suddenly. “I remember reading that book.”

  Cale straightened. “What book?” The sheer delight on her face made him smile.

  Drew slung the dishtowel he’d been using as a pot holder over his shoulder, then poured himself another cup of coffee. “Fahrenheit 451.”

  Cale vaguely recalled the story. “Something about burning books?”

  Maggie’s grin widened. “Sort of,” she said, her excitement palpable. “It’s more about censorship and the deterioration of a society obsessed with visual medium.”

  “What else have you read?” He kept his tone casual, hoping to not appear as if her answers held any more value than a discussion of reading tastes.

  A slight frown marred her forehead for the space of two heartbeats. “William Faulkner.” Her smile slowly returned. “His Snopes trilogy and As I Lay Dying. George Orwell. 1984. Animal Farm. I can’t believe I remember this,” she said, her voice filling with laughter.

  Drew cast a quick glance in Cale’s direction, then walked back to the stove to remove the bacon from the pan. “Doesn’t sound like reading for pleasure to me.”

  Cale set the water container on the counter, then crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s because your idea of literary fiction comes in a plain brown wrapper.”

  No one could ever accuse Drew of being dense. Despite his nonchalance, he obviously understood the importance of the small snippet of information for Maggie and strove to keep the conversation flowing in case another revelation surfaced.

  She pushed away from the counter and shook her head. “It wasn’t for pleasure,” she said, her tone turning cautious. Her eyes took on the same faraway look she’d had when she’d announced she’d gotten her name from a headstone.

  She tilted her head slightly to the side. “It was for a paper that I wrote comparing As I Lay Dying to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. I focused on the pilgrimage theme in both books.”

  Drew shot Cale a knowing look. “That doesn’t sound like any high-school paper I ever wrote.”

  Her lips thinned into a grim line as she reached deep inside her cloudy mind for the memory. “That’s because I wrote it in college.” She focused her attention on Cale. “Do you know what this means?”

  “That you went to college.” Nothing like stating the obvious.

  Her nod was as cautious as her tone, as if she didn’t quite trust the memory. “Do you realize what my chances are of finding out where?”

  Zip to none, he thought, understanding her reluctance to celebrate this latest discovery. Contacting the thousands of colleges and universities across the nation would be a task nothing short of daunting, not to mention the possibility that Maggie LaRue might not even exist, except as a figment of her faulty imagination.

  “About as likely
as finding a woman in Southern California that Drew hasn’t dated,” he said, hoping to lighten her mood again.

  The doorbell rang, signaling Ben’s arrival. Drew tossed the dishtowel at Cale good-naturedly. “You’re a real comedian,” he said, then went to open the door.

  Maggie rewarded Cale’s attempt at levity with the barest hint of a smile as she digested the new minute detail of her past. While a welcome change from all those hints of a nefarious lifestyle, the fact remained that this single piece of the larger puzzle provided little help in determining her identity.

  “Breakfast is nearly ready,” she said, unwilling to face yet another postmortem. “I’ll set the table.”

  She opened the cabinet where she’d spied the plates when she’d been searching for coffee mugs earlier and lifted up on her toes to reach the shelf. A large, warm hand settled on her hip. She didn’t need to look to know that Cale had moved in behind her. The stuttering of her pulse gave off more than enough warning of his nearness.

  “Let me.” The low husky rumble of his voice near her ear stirred her senses. Not that they’d been all that dormant since he’d strolled into the kitchen wearing a pair of faded jeans and a lazy bedroom smile.

  She was, after all, a red-blooded woman. What was she supposed to do if her hormones whipped into a frenzy whenever she dared to look at the way the snug denim clung to his lean hips and strong thighs? The heather-gray-and-navy-baseball-style T-shirt outlining his powerful chest and wide shoulders hardly helped matters, either. Just the idea of taming her more base instincts was downright laughable.

  If she didn’t divert her eyes from the way the muscles in his forearms corded as he lifted the heavy stoneware plates from the shelf, the odds of her actually having to wipe drool from her chin doubled by the second.

  “Thank you.” Despite being surrounded by all that distracting maleness, her vocal chords were at least operational. “I can take it from here.”

  Using her cast for additional support, she scooped up the plates and scooted into the sunny breakfast nook. She refused to think of her abrupt retreat as anything but self-preservation of what little common sense she had left. Unfortunately, where Cale was concerned, hers had apparently gone AWOL.

  She didn’t have time to bemoan that little fact of life. Cale’s oldest brother had arrived, Drew proclaimed breakfast ready and Gilda had decided now was as good a time as any to serenade them with snippets of Elvis and Buddy.

  She enjoyed the delicious breakfast and listened as Cale and his brothers gently teased one another and talked about people and places that held no meaning for her. As she bit into her second flaky, buttery croissant, a quiet sense of longing slipped over her. The feeling no doubt stemmed from the carefree camaraderie Cale shared with his siblings, however, she hadn’t expected the familiarity of the emotion. It was as if she’d experienced the sensation many times over the years.

  “So what can you tell me about yourself, Maggie?”

  Her hand, holding a knife with a small slab of butter on it, stilled in mid-air. Ben’s abrupt question not only took her by complete surprise, but she detected thinly veiled suspicion, as well. Hadn’t Cale told his oldest brother about her lack of memory?

  The smile she attempted felt more like a grimace of pain. “Seems that’s the question of the hour.”

  Ben nodded slowly, then lifted the porcelain mug of coffee to his lips. His chilled, icy-blue eyes never left her face.

  Cale let out a rough sigh and pushed his plate away. “Real subtle, Ben.”

  “Don’t take it personally, Maggie,” Drew told her. “Ben is under the misguided belief that everyone else’s business is his.”

  “It’s a curse,” Cale added, and shot a dark, warning look at his older brother.

  Rather than comment, Drew downed the juice in his glass.

  Ben’s expression softened only slightly. “I apologize, Maggie. I didn’t mean—”

  “Look, it’s okay.” She meant it, too, knowing she’d consider herself lucky if someone in her life cared about her the way Ben obviously did his brothers. “What do you want to know?”

  He pushed aside his own empty plate and leaned forward, bracing his arms on the table. “Anything that might help us determine your identity.”

  She laid her knife on the edge of her plate along with the uneaten croissant. “Well—”

  “She doesn’t remember much of anything,” Cale interrupted. “So don’t go upsetting her by reminding her of that fact.”

  Drew used his fork to toy with the remnants of the hash browns on his plate. “He’s got a point, Ben.”

  She appreciated Cale, and even Drew, coming to her defense, but dammit, she was really getting a little tired of being treated like a delicate china doll that would shatter if anyone spoke a harsh word to her. Worse, she realized with sudden clarity, since she’d awoken in the hospital, she’d done her part by letting herself play the role of victim.

  Well, no more. Whether she’d ever make a full recovery remained as much a mystery as her past, but that most certainly did not render her incapable of facing her future. The time had come for Maggie LaRue to stand up and take charge.

  So she couldn’t remember anything significant about her life. She wouldn’t allow her situation to provide her with a license to depend on anyone but herself. And she could start by defending herself in the face of Ben’s understated cross-examination.

  She pulled in a deep breath and gave Ben a level stare. “My name is Maggie LaRue, but I doubt it’s really mine.” The careless shrug was just an act, but it worked for her. “I believe I may have taken the name off a headstone.”

  Drew coughed, nearly choking on his last slice of bacon.

  “Maggie, don’t—”

  She lifted her hand to stop Cale before he said anything further. With determined bravado, she settled back against the tropical-print cushion, crossed her legs and addressed Ben. “As of this morning I’m pretty sure I went to college.”

  Ben shrugged. “Which means you’re probably a little overqualified for a career in ditch-digging.”

  Her courage slipped a notch when she felt a flash of irritation, demanding attention. Whether it stemmed from Ben’s tone or her own growing frustration over her lack of solid answers, she didn’t much care.

  “I have a feeling that William Faulkner is one of my favorite authors, and that I prefer books to movies or television, but I do have an appreciation for anything by Ibsen or Tennessee Williams. I also believe I have firsthand knowledge of firearms and security systems.”

  Cale cleared his throat, either distressed by her behavior, or concerned over his brother’s stoic reaction to her last bombshell. “Maggie, don’t do this.”

  Foolish or not, she ignored his warning. “I also know what I don’t like.”

  Her gaze connected with Cale’s, allowing him to gauge her mood. At least the man had the good sense to remain silent.

  “I don’t like being told what to do,” she said, giving each brother a pointed stare. “While I do appreciate the concern, I most certainly do not welcome being coddled. And I especially don’t like not knowing who I really am or where the…” She pulled in a deep breath, then let it out slowly in an effort to cool her rising temper. “Or where it is I come from,” she finished in a gentler tone.

  She shifted her gaze back to Cale’s older brother. “That’s it,” she told him. “That’s all I know. I’m open to suggestions, but you should know that it’s a pretty good bet I don’t appreciate people meddling in my life, either.”

  Ben’s icy gaze filled with something she suspected just might be grudging respect. A small grin tipped the corner of his mouth, confirming her suspicions. “Such as it is,” he said, after a moment.

  She let out the breath she’d been holding and returned his smile with a brief one of her own. “Yes. Such as it is.”

  Something passed between Cale and his younger brother, a look that spoke a silent language she understood nothing about. “You forgot s
omething,” Cale told her.

  Drew attempted unsuccessfully to smother a laugh. “Boy, I’ll say.”

  “And?” she prompted when the brothers exchanged yet another conspiratorial look.

  “Temper,” Cale said, a teasing expression entering his heavenly blue eyes.

  “Should’ve known,” Drew added with a shake of his head.

  Ben chuckled. “It’s the hair,” he said, then actually winked at her.

  Cale snapped his fingers. “A dead giveaway. How did I miss that?”

  Relieved that the tension had finally passed, Maggie rolled her eyes, then stood and started collecting the dishes. Chairs scraped against the tile floor as the Perry men rose from the table. Drew and Ben made a hasty escape on the ruse of examining the latest renovation on the house, leaving her and Cale alone to clean up the mess.

  “Like rats deserting a sinking ship,” Cale called after his brothers.

  “I should probably apologize,” she said, gathering the silverware. “I didn’t mean to lose it like that.”

  Cale circled the table and took the silverware from her, depositing it inside an empty glass. The gentleness of his touch as he settled his big hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him, warmed her from the inside out. The man was simply too dangerous. Not only to her senses, but to her newly discovered—or resurrected—determination to depend on no one but herself.

  One of those seductive little half smiles tipped the corner of his mouth, weakening her resolve. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” His hands slowly inched toward her neck. “If Ben and Drew were in your shoes, I’d bet their ability to hold back their frustration would be nonexistent.”

  From the way the tips of her breasts were tingling in response to the seductive brush of Cale’s thumbs against her throat, her frustration had stretched to astronomical proportions, the kind that would take a cold shower to ebb.

  The base of his thumb pressed against her rapidly beating pulse, revealing to him just how much he physically affected her. His eyes darkened, desire simmering in the depths, intoxicating her.