Something to Talk About

“You’re such a dirty, dirty boy, Lionel!” the new dayshift operator, Simone, squealed in exaggerated delight from the office across from Jax’s. “If you keep this kind of behavior up, you know what’s gonna happen to me, don’t you, mama’s nasty little boy? You’ll make me scream for you to—”

Em coughed loudly, reacting without thinking before Jax had the chance to hear another word of Simone’s phone call. She forgot that touching the chest she’d dreamed of for two months would be the end of her. She forgot that her palms would ache to touch more of him. She just wanted to drown out listening to a phone call like Simone’s while standing right next to him.

Since she’d begun working at Call Girls, most of the naughty rolled right off her back, became background noise she heard it so much. But listening to it with Jax was akin to acting out the Kama Sutra page by page.

Placing her palms on his chest, she fought the swift rush of heat all those muscles created, battled the weakness in her knees, and gave him a shove into his office. “Let’s talk in your office,” she all but shouted to cover Simone’s next request of her client.

Their limbs tangled up, tripping and stuttering until they ended up pushed against the wall, Jax holding her firmly to keep them from falling.

But he didn’t let her go. He kept his hands sprawled over her hips, letting them rest along the rounded swells like they belonged there. He laughed, his minty breath washing over her face, his eyes amused. “The girls told me you could be pushy. Who knew?”

Somewhere. Her next breath was somewhere in her diaphragm, afraid to come out for fear her exhalation would press her tighter to Jax’s length. She took a step back, still clinging to the screwdriver for all she was worth. “I am not pushy. Don’t you listen to those women. They tell tales out of school. Next they’ll have you thinkin’ I’m some sort of ogre.”

“Ogres have warts.” He tilted her chin up with his Band-Aid–wrapped forefinger, examining her face. His eyes went smoky when he grinned. “No warts.”

Em’s breathing hitched in her throat when he placed a thumb just beneath her lower lip. “Not a one.”

“Definitely not,” he agreed, still keeping his hands loosely on her hips, still wreaking havoc with her forbidden bits. “So things get a little racy around here, huh?”

Em hid her gulp and shrugged her shoulders to fake nonchalance. Like she was a sexpert. “That? I’m so used to it, it’s like hearin’ someone report the morning news.”

Jax laughed, sort of low, which did squishy, unidentifiable things to her belly. “Can’t say I ever remember hearing Katie Couric use those words to describe the war in Iraq,” he quipped.

“That was probably Bryant’s fault, always tryin’ to keep a good woman down.” She giggled a little then silently reprimanded herself for behaving like an inexperienced schoolgirl.

While not off the mark, that wasn’t the impression she wanted to give. She was Emmaline Amos, general manager of Call Girls Inc. In charge of a multimillion-dollar corporation. In. Charge.

Jax cleared his throat, still staring down at her. “Anyway, that question...” he muttered.

She snorted when she remembered there’d been a reason Jax had asked her into his office. And it’s probably a sexless question, Nympho Nancy. Then she covered her mouth when she realized she’d snorted, flustered and red all over again.

This was a perfect example of why she and small talk with devastatingly gorgeous men were twains that would never comfortably meet. “Oh, my apologies! I forgot all about the reason you asked me in here. What can I do for you?” Or do to you?

“I forget the reason I asked you in here, too. But I have a better reason for you to be in my office that’s just as compelling.”

She totally backed away from the heat of his big body and the intoxicating scent of man, finally finding her footing. Em placed a hand at her throat in a familiar, soothing gesture. “Yes?”

“First, Maizy and I had a talk about her using the phone without permission—a long one.”

Instantly, her concern was with that sweet voice that had struck a chord in Em’s heart. “I hope you weren’t angry with her. I don’t know if she told you the nature of her call, but it was out of concern for you.”

Jax’s expression went from soft to softer at the mention of his daughter, his granite jaw relaxing, his eyes flashing pride. “She did, and we talked it all out. But you made quite an impression on my girl. She said you were so nice to her and your voice was pretty in her ear. In fact, she wondered about you again today.”

Em’s heart sped up, pushing against her chest. She lost track of how many times she’d tried to form a picture in her mind of what Jax’s little girl would look like—what precious face the voice was attached to. “She was really very sweet, and exceptionally polite. You should be very proud of her manners.”

“I am, and she’s a great kid—which is why I wondered if I could ask you a favor.”

Em didn’t hesitate. “Oh, of course.”

“I know we don’t know each other, but you struck such a chord with her, and she’s feeling a little displaced since we left Atlanta. I don’t know many women here in Plum Orchard, and I really need a woman’s touch.”

Love slave. He was going to ask her to be his love slave. Yippee!

Wait. That had zip to do with Maizy.

He leaned back against the wall, letting his long legs stretch out in front of him. “Seeing as you’re admittedly handy with power tools, I’m betting you’re just as good at picking out colors for a little girls’ room. We’re almost done with the renovation in Maizy’s room, and I want to surprise her with something that will make her happy.” He held up his hands in a sort of helpless gesture, his smile lopsided.

This smile, different from his half grin, changed his whole face from ruggedly sculpted to playful and adorable. “What can I say? I’m a guy with guy tastes. Whatever I pick out will unequivocally suck. I can just picture her wrinkling her cute little nose at me in that, ‘oh, you’re so stupid, Dad’ way, if I’m left to my own devices. But I need help picking colors for the walls—girl things, you know?”

He needed an interior decorator? That didn’t sound like love slave at all. But her heart did that twitchy-melty thing again. He really loved his little girl. No one could fault him for that. Em smiled at him.

How could she say no when it would make that enchanted voice on the phone from the other night happy? She agreed without even thinking. “Of course. I’d be happy to help you pick colors.”

“Furniture, too, maybe? She’s been bunking with me while my brothers Tag and Gage finish up her room, but she’s grumbled about my stinky feet on more than one occasion. It’s time she has her own space like all little girls should.”

Em laughed even while she couldn’t imagine a single inch of Jax was stinky. “Sure—just say the word.”

She couldn’t read what was in his eyes because she was afraid to read wrong, but they looked lighter. “Tomorrow night? Are you free? I’d like to get her situated as soon as possible. I’ll buy you dinner for your trouble.”

Giddy. Oh, that wave of giddy at the mere thought of sharing a meal with Jax hit her hard. She pictured him biting into a juicy hamburger, his white teeth sinking into...

This would never do.

Shoulders squared, Em reminded herself his request was about Maizy. She was proud of the way she waved him off as she inched around his enormous frame to head back out into the hall. “Dinner’s not necessary, Jax. Really. I’m happy to help with anything that will make such a charming little girl smile. And tomorrow night’s fine. I’ll ask Aunt Dixie and the girls to babysit.”

“Well, you have to eat, right? I definitely have to eat. I won’t get out of here much before the dinner hour anyway.”

How would she ever eat with Jax across a table from her when she almost couldn’t breathe around him? But she found herself agreeing. “Okay. Tomorrow after work. See you then.”

“Thanks, Emmaline. Maizy and I appreciate it.”

“Anytime,” she managed, like spending an evening with him was going to be effortless and breezy. She even squeezed out another smile before she made one more clumsy break for Marybell’s office.

Rounding that hazardous corner again, she slipped inside Marybell’s office, shut the door, and leaned back against it, still clinging to her magic screwdriver.

It’s just dinner and some paint, Em. Breathe.

But it was dinner and some paint with him. Him.

The him.

The effects of Jax, after spending only ten minutes in his presence, left her body tingly and hot all over. Breathless, shaky and dizzy, too.

What would an entire evening and a meal bring?

An Em bonfire?

* * *

“You’re going where?”

“To dinner with a gorgeous woman.” Jax smiled to himself. His off-the-cuff request of Em had been genius. Since he’d met her at Caine’s a week ago, and agreed to take the freelance work, he couldn’t think of anything else but seeing Em again.

Not good. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want all the sticky, mostly messy end result of a relationship. Especially with a woman who had as many battle scars as she had. He’d been to a war once, and he’d just barely gotten out alive.

Though, she’d been damned elusive this week, seemed their paths almost never crossed while he’d set himself up in the office Caine and Dixie had appointed him. So when the opportunity finally presented itself today, and she was so close it was all he could do not to haul her up against him just to see what it felt like to have all that soft, feminine woman against him, he’d done the next best thing.

Asked her to help him pick paint colors while he silently berated himself for even opening the door just a crack to being around her more than at the office.

Dumb ass.

But everything, from the swell of her hips in her tight-fitting, yet somehow modest skirt, to the slope of her breasts, perfectly shaped beneath the black, figure-hugging sweater she wore, made his damn mouth water.

The small pearl buttons, running from the edge of her sweater right up to just under her chin, had him spending the time after she left fantasizing about how fast he could pluck them open and reveal what was beneath.

The scent she wore, pears, sunshine—a combination that, when recalled, made him wonder if every inch of her smelled like that.

And her lips. Jesus. Her lips. Soft, plump, red, just begging to have his mouth on them, nipping them, and it took more restraint than he’d like to admit to keep himself in his office while she stood so close to him he could see her pupils dilating.

Stir her cute Southern drawl into the pot and the way she drew out his name a little longer than everyone else, and he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about her.

Tag poked his head over his brother’s shoulder, his eyes finding Jax’s in the crooked bathroom mirror. “Wait. You have a real date? With a real woman? Or one of the blow-up variety?”

Jax smoothed some aftershave over his jaw and grinned at his brother’s reflection. One that wasn’t as haunted or pained these days. “Like you’d know the difference? And it’s not a date.”

Tag punched him in the shoulder and smiled, his eyes lighter than Jax had seen them in a long time. “So who’s this gorgeous woman?”

“Emmaline Amos.” Just saying her name made his gut tighten, bringing to mind those red, red lips of hers. Double shit.

“The one with the ex-husband who wears women’s clothes?”

Jax’s jaw stiffened, his grin fading. He’d never forget the pain on Em’s face the night he’d first seen her in the square after her husband’s secret was revealed at the Founders’ Day gathering.

Raw and so damn palpable. Raw enough that even without knowing anything about her, he’d wanted to beat the shit out of the person responsible for making her cry. “You heard, then?”

Tag nodded, leaning his arm against the chipped pink-and-gray ceramic tile on the wall. “Who hasn’t? This town sees everything, man. Everything. They talk the hell out of it, too. Especially those women who’re part of that gladiola club—or whatever they call it.”

Jax chuckled. “I think it’s Magnolias, and I’ve met Louella and her crew. Interesting bunch.” Somehow, in all the summers he’d spent at his aunt’s, he’d managed to overhear bits and pieces of the gossip that seemed to fuel such a small community, and the Magnolias were almost always at the center of it. Or if Aunt Jess’s words were right, they were the cause of it.

Tag’s broad shoulders rolled. “I don’t know. It’s some damned flower or another. You can’t go into that diner without hearing something about someone.” He put a hand on Jax’s shoulder, his eyes searching his older brother’s.

Tag knew how and when to look for signs something was up with Jax when no one else did. “So what’s so special about Emmaline Amos that she made you decide to crawl out from under your rock after not a single date since the Stone Age?”

Jax shifted his eyes first, focusing on rinsing the sink. He didn’t have an answer to what drew him to Em. He was just drawn—sucked in—total immersion. That was more than he could claim about a woman in a long time. “Not a date,” he repeated.

“Jax’s coming out from under his rock?” Gage asked, pushing his way into the crowded bathroom just like he’d always done since he was ten. “Good. Means you can do the dishes.”

Tag slapped his little brother on the back. “Yep. So that means we’re on dish duty tonight, bro, and Maizy duty, too. Big brother’s got a date.” He cackled the words like they were joke-worthy.

But it wasn’t a joke. He hadn’t dated in a few years. And he wasn’t dating tonight.

Gage whistled and grinned, his face lighting up. “A date? Nuh-uh. Who’d date you, you ugly schlub?”

“Not a date,” Jax repeated.

“Emmaline Amos,” Tag replied, adopting his impression of a feminine voice, complete with a bat of his eyelashes and a twirl of his finger around a lock of his shaggy hair.

Gage’s eyes opened wide. “No shit! The one that works at the phone-sex company with Caine?”

Jax’s eyes narrowed in Gage’s direction. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Gage. She’s the GM. She doesn’t answer the calls.”

Gage flicked his fingers at Jax’s reflection. “Oh, stop getting your back up. Still, workin’ in a place like that—” he wiggled his dark eyebrows “—I bet she knows a thing or two.”

Tag slapped him on the back of the head. “Shut up, Gage. This is the first time our wee boy’s been out in as long as you’ve been sexually active. Leave him the hell alone.” Tag’s eyes sought Jax’s again with the “If you need to talk...” signal before he said, “I’m happy for you, man. Glad to see you’re getting out. New town—new life. Clean slate, right?”

Jax and Tag had a clear understanding of clean slates. Both of them wanted one—both of them were going about finding them in their own ways.

Maizy, the final piece to their nonconformist, but totally a work-in-loving-progress puzzle, dipped between pairs of legs to latch on to Jax’s thigh. “You’re going out, Daddy?”

He looked down at his daughter; her bright auburn hair and freckles so much like her mother’s, so unlike the Hawthorne’s dark looks, and his chest tightened with that unconditional love her dark, chocolate-brown eyes summoned. “I am, kidlet.” He scooped her up in his arms, dropping a kiss on her freckled nose. “You got a problem with that?”

She captured both sides of his face and rubbed their noses together. “Only if you’re going out for ice cream. Then I’d be madder than a hornet.”

Jax hitched his jaw, making a comically confused face. “A hornet? Where’d you learn that, Maizy-do?”

She roped her arms around his neck, resting her cheek on his. “Uncle Gage says it all the time. He said it’s better for me ’n the S word.”

Jax rolled his eyes at Gage. “A sight better, I’d say. So, you gonna eat all your dinner like a good girl for Uncle Tag while I’m gone?”

“If he promises not to burn the fish sticks again.” Her honesty always made him laugh. They were all shitty cooks. Him probably being the shittiest. On the best of nights, they only managed to eke out a barely passable meal for Maizy. It included all the approved food groups suitable for a six-year-old.

It just wasn’t always edible—at least not the outside of it. Sometimes, if you picked your way to the middle of a chicken breast, there was a silver lining. But what Maizy lacked in their culinary finesse, they more than made up for with love. No one would ever mess with Maizy Hawthorne as long as her uncles and father were around.

“Note to self—Daddy needs to watch the Food Network more.” He’d made a vow—once they settled into this rundown house so full of all the potential Gage and Tag kept talking about, he’d learn to cook. For Maizy. Because everything was for her, and that’s how it was going to stay.

“Hey!” Tag teased, tugging on a tightly coiled ringlet of his niece’s hair. “They were blackened fish sticks, thank you very much, Ms. Food Critic. Cajun style. I was trying to broaden your food horizons.”

Maizy shook her head full of curls and wrinkled her nose with her trademark display of disapproval at Tag. “Uncle Gage said that was a fib. It was really just burned. It was yucky.”

Gage scooped her out of Jax’s arms and swung her around his back so she could hold tight to his neck piggyback style. “It sure was yucky. Probably the biggest fib Uncle Tag ever told you, too. It was right up there with, ‘Look, Maizy-do—this big ole gooey mess tastes just like Chicken McNuggets if you close your eyes and pretend. Give it a chance.’”

Maizy giggled, squeezing Gage’s neck. “That was so gross. So if Daddy won’t be here, will you be my unicorn tonight, Uncle Gage?”

Gage reached upward and ruffled her hair with a smile. “I’ll always be your unicorn.”

The phone interrupted Maizy’s giggling as Gage galloped out of the bathroom with her. “I’ll get it. You finish prettying up for your daaate,” Tag drawled with a laugh.

One last glance in the mirror, and Jax sucked in a deep breath, bracing his hands on either side of the pink, shell-shaped sink. Damn. He was nervous. When was the last time he could lay claim to that emotion? Especially when it concerned a woman whom he absolutely wasn’t dating?

He rolled his head from side to side to loosen his muscles, tight with anticipation.

Tag’s scruffy head was back in his line of vision. “Uh, Jax?”

“Yep?”

“Someone’s on the phone for you.”

His ears picked up something in Tag’s voice—something almost urgent, maybe even ominous. No one ever called them. No one who stirred up the kind of warning Tag’s voice held anyway. “Who is it?”

Tag’s throat worked, his Adam’s apple sliding up and down. His lips fell into a thin line as he jammed his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans.

A strange chill rolled along his spine. A warning chill. “Who the hell is it, Tag?”

“Reece. It’s Reece.”

The floor fell away from Jax’s feet in a tidal wave of his blood pounding in his ears and his heart dropping to his feet. Well, that explained why Tag’s voice sounded alarms in Jax’s head.

Fuck. Fuck, no.

Five

The front door to Em’s small ranch blew open with a gust of winter wind, Dixie’s beautiful face in the middle of it. “Well, hello, fine sir! Might I interest you in a cheeseburger and some fries with your aunt Dixie and the girls? Like a real dinner date?” Dixie swung Gareth up into her arms, nuzzling his neck with her nose until he was in a fit of giggles.

The moment Dixie walked through Em’s front door, Gareth launched himself at her. Dixie, Caine, Sanjeev and the girls had become as important to Em and her children as any family member.

Her mother didn’t like it, and no one in town did either for that matter. But she no longer cared what other people didn’t like. She didn’t care that the women in town mocked her parenting for letting the boys be around the women of Call Girls. Their “I can’t believe she’d allow young, impressionable boys in the presence of those women” snide comments rolled right off her like water off a duck’s back.

At least those women were honest. They might talk dirty, but they didn’t talk behind your back.

Over the months, during the hardest transition of their lives, Dixie and the girls were always there for her and her sons.

While she’d picked up the pieces of her life, while she’d driven Clifton to his counselor, while she’d learned how to be single—they’d been there, too. Helping her through meltdowns, passing her tissues and teaching her how to be a part of a group of women who accepted her for who she was. That was more than she could say for her judgmental mother and the Mags.

“Stop, Aunt Dixie!” Gareth cried between bouts of laughter as Dixie kicked the door shut with her foot. “I have somefin’ to tell you ’bout school. It’s ’portant!”

Em held her breath. Please, don’t let it be another incident where one of his classmates poked fun at him about his father’s cross-dressing.

Dixie’s eyes twinkled down at Em’s youngest son. “Did you find a new sweetheart? You better not be courtin’ someone new,” she teased, walking her fingers up his chubby arm until he squealed. “I’m your only girl, buddy. You’d do well to remember that.”

Gareth instantly let his head fall to Dixie’s shoulder to signify his loyalty, snuggling against it and wrapping his legs around her slim waist. “No, silly. I got an A on my alphabet test.”

Em let air into her lungs, sending up a silent prayer it had been a torture-free day for Gareth. That, on top of a phone call from her mother, Clora, reminding her the boys lacked proper discipline because she didn’t make them tuck their shirts in, would have been too much.

“You are the smartest boy ever!” Dixie punctuated her words with kisses. “Now, you scoot—go get handsome for Miss Dixie. I can’t have you goin’ out on the town with me if your hands look like they’ve been rootin’ around a pig farm. Tell that good-lookin’ brother of yours, Clifton, to kick it into overdrive, too!” She let Gareth down with a plunk and a pat on his behind, shooing him upstairs. “Are MB and LaDawn here yet?”

Em sighed with a nod, watching Gareth run upstairs to get his pouty brother. “Upstairs charmin’ Clifton Junior. You’re all so good with them. I wish Clifton would talk to me like he does to y’all. What is it with you and the opposite sex, Miss Dixie Davis? Honest, it’s like anyone with a man-garden falls ripe from the tree when you’re within range.”

“What is it about you and a man, Miss Emmaline?” Dixie closed the front door, putting her hands behind her back and strolling over to Em with a smile on her lips.

Em’s eyes fell to the floor, her fingers tangling up in a shaky knot. “Oh, hush. It’s not like that. We’re just picking out colors and some furniture for Maizy’s room.”

It wasn’t like that. It really wasn’t like that because she wouldn’t let it be like that even if Jax wanted it to be like that. Which, surely, he didn’t.

As she’d carefully applied makeup in preparation for tonight, she’d decided to get control of her wandering thoughts and behave like an adult. She was going to put her fantasies about Jax on a shelf where they belonged.

He was a coworker she was helping out because she had a skill he lacked by virtue of being the opposite gender. Single parents needed to stick together and support each other. Rah-rah.

Besides, her life was in such upheaval with the boys and the constant trouble they were having at school with everyone teasing them about their father, she didn’t need another complication in it. Men were complicated.

All she wanted was freedom right now, some room to breathe after holding her breath for so long she didn’t even know it was happening.

But wasn’t it you just a few days ago who was thinking about dabbling in the friends with benefits section of the relationship aisle? Yes. That had been her, but was it the real her?