The Trouble with J.J. Page 5

  “That’s okay,” he said, sighing. “You’re right.”

  He sat up, leaned his elbows on his knees, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I know I’m not normal. I’ve never had to be. Nobody in my family is what you would call average. But I don’t see why that should matter. I really want to settle down, you know. That’s why I brought Alyssa here. I thought a small town, a big house, a lawn—that’s how I want my daughter to grow up.” He reached out and absently stroked the head of a flamingo. “I believe in individuality, but I need to fit in, Genna. I have to learn how to be normal, at least appear normal, or I could lose my little girl.”

  The strain in his voice on those last words almost broke Genna’s heart.

  J.J. turned toward her with hope in his eyes. “You’re a teacher. You’re normal. You need a job …”

  She caught on to the direction of his thoughts and shook her head. “Oh, no. Not me.”

  How could she take on a job like that, be with him every day without succumbing to this weird attraction she had to him? Yes, she had finally decided to be honest enough with herself to admit she was attracted, but she still couldn’t stand him.

  “Please, Gen.”

  “No. Really, Jared, shouldn’t you hire a man for the job?”

  “No!” He abandoned his root beer and got on his knees in front of her lawn chair. One big hand wrapped around her wrist as he gestured with the other. “You’re perfect for the job! Women are always telling men what to do!”

  “Not this woman.” Not that she wasn’t tempted. She thought of Eve—she’d been tempted and look what had happened to her. Of course, a little voice nagged her, succumbing to this temptation probably wasn’t going to sentence all of humanity to eternal damnation or anything. She steeled herself, shutting out the little voice. “No.”

  “Come on, Gen,” Jared begged unashamedly, his thumb stroking Genna’s wrist. “It’s the perfect job for you. You don’t have to dress up or drive to work. You could set your own hours. It’d be for only the summer.”

  She was getting a crick in her neck from shaking her head.

  “You’d be getting paid to boss me around.” He could tell she was tempted, like a fish eyeing a lure. Patience, J.J., he reminded himself. He gave her a devilish smile. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  Genna tried without great success to take a steadying breath. She felt as if he had his hand around her throat instead of around her wrist.

  “I have to admit it holds a certain appeal … but … no, I’m sorry.” She tore her gaze away from his smile and congratulated herself on regaining her self-control. “I just don’t think it would be a good idea.”

  Jared reined in his impatience. No one ever caught a fish by yanking the bait away. His grandfather had told him that. His grandfather had also pointed out the similarities between fishing for trout and attracting a woman. He offered up silent thanks now to Grampa Jace for his lessons.

  Jared eyed Genna shrewdly, looking for the weakness in her defense system. Under his thumb her pulse was racing like a rabbit’s. “What are you afraid of, Gen?” he asked, knowing he’d hit the mark when she practically bolted. “It’s a good honest job offer,” he said to reassure her. Slow and easy, J.J., don’t scare her off. “It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me or anything.”

  “Afraid?” she laughed hysterically. “Why would I be afraid?”

  Scared witless, maybe. But wasn’t she adult enough to control her own responses around him? Of course she was. And he’d said himself that he wasn’t asking her to marry him. He probably wasn’t interested in her as a woman at all. Men like Jared never were. She was too ordinary and sensible.

  Even if he were interested, she told herself, she would just explain to him that he wasn’t her type. Simple. No problem.

  She thought of the stack of bills on her dining room table. This was a genuine job offer. Lord knew it was the only one she’d had. What would be worse—spending every day with Jared or having her car repossessed?

  “Fifteen hundred dollars salary,” he offered.

  “Fifteen hundred?”

  “Two thousand.”

  “Two thousand!”

  “Twenty-five hundred. I’ll pay the taxes on it at the end of the year too. And an unlimited budget to make me into Normal Norman.”

  Genna’s head swam. Twenty-five hundred dollars. That would cover a lot of car payments. And wouldn’t it be fun to make Jared mow his lawn properly and get rid of the flamingos and the punk hair?

  “You’re perfect for the job, being a teacher and living right next door. You know the neighborhood. You know what the PTA types think of as good, normal parent material. And we’re friends—sort of—aren’t we?”

  “I guess.” Damn, he made a good argument. Those eyes of his should be declared lethal weapons, she thought, as the expression in his beautiful baby blues became soft and pleading.

  “I need your help to keep my little girl,” he said huskily. He was dead serious about the job. If Genna could coach him through a successful summer season of being normal enough to please the custody court, he’d give her every cent he had. Spending time with her was just going to be a bonus for him. “Please, Genna.”

  His free hand landed on her knee. Lightning went straight to her heart, then exploded and zipped down her arms and legs. The sensation excited her breasts and swirled between her thighs. Her heart raced, her breath caught in her throat. Their gazes locked. So much for controlling her own responses.

  “No,” she gasped, a feeble attempt at self-preservation.

  A plaintive cry from inside the house broke the negotiations. Jared was on his feet and through the door before the second call of “Daddy.” Concerned, Genna followed him to Alyssa’s room.

  Jared flipped a switch that lit a carousel lamp beside the white canopied bed. “What is it, sweetheart?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking his sleep-dazed daughter in his arms.

  “I don’t feel good,” Alyssa whined, pressing her head against his shoulder.

  J.J. frantically felt her forehead for a sign of fever. “Where don’t you feel good, honey?”

  “My tummy.”

  He looked up at Genna, his face a mask of concern. “It’s her tummy. Do you think it’s her appendix? It could be her appendix.”

  A veteran in dealing with the maladies of five-year-olds, Genna came forward calmly and bent over them, brushing Alyssa’s bangs back. “What’d you have for supper, honey?”

  “Sausage-anchovy pizza and a chocolate shake,” Jared answered.

  Genna stared at him in horror.

  He looked wild. “It had something from all the food groups!”

  She shook her head and sighed resignedly. “I’ll take the job.”

  After they had Alyssa settled back in bed with her doll and a tummy full of antacid, Jared walked Genna out onto the porch. Night had draped its black cloak across the sky and sprinkled it with stars. The corner streetlamp’s pale silver light didn’t quite make it to Jared’s house. He settled his hands on Genna’s shoulders and smiled down at her with his warm, winning smile.

  “Thanks. You’re a life saver.”

  “I think most people would have thought of antacid,” Genna said, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the magnetic pull of his body.

  Jared’s mouth twitched at the corners. “I don’t mean just that. I mean about helping me become normal. I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am.”

  He moved closer, one hand wandering under her hair to caress the nape of her neck. Genna shivered. She thought she should make an appropriate employer-employee type statement, but the inside of her mouth had turned to sand, and she couldn’t do anything but gaze mutely up at him.

  He inched closer still, until his thighs were nearly brushing hers. He lowered his head at an angle as his glittering ice-blue eyes held hers captive. When he spoke, his voice had the same texture as the night sky. “I can’t tell you, but maybe I can show you.”

  Genna told
herself she should voice a protest as she tipped her head back and parted her lips, but that was impossible and she knew it. For some insane reason she wanted Jared Hennessy to kiss her. She wanted to know what it was like to be held by those muscular arms.

  Jared was more than happy to show her. He gathered her against him, and his lips stole across hers in a teasing caress that had her arching up to him, silently begging for more. His hand cupped the back of her head, the silk of her hair threading through his fingers. His mouth slanted across hers, tasting, savoring her sweetness.

  Genna moaned deep in her throat. His kiss was overwhelming. Not demanding, but a wonderful experience that sent her senses racing. She felt tiny and soft and feminine against Jared’s rock-solid body. The heat his mouth generated against hers poured over her until she felt like a caramel that had been left out in the sun to melt.

  Her hands set off on a journey that began at his lean, hard waist and wandered up the steep outward slope of his rib cage, then around and over the ridges and planes of muscle on his broad back. His body was a work of art. She felt as if she were caressing Michelangelo’s David.

  Reluctantly Jared lifted his head and let an inch or two of cool night air separate their bodies. Genna wasn’t indifferent to him at all, he rejoiced inwardly. He had wanted the kiss to go on forever, but he’d felt his body responding to the sensual stimulus and had had enough sense to back off. Genna might not have fought off his kiss, but she was trying to fight the attraction that sparked between them. He wasn’t going to push her. He had his fish on the hook now and he knew better than to lose her by reeling her in too fast. They’d be working together. She’d get to know him—and like him, he hoped. Gazing down into the surprise and confusion in her eyes, he realized how important that was to him.

  “See you tomorrow, Teach.” He smiled and backed toward the screen door.

  Genna’s tingling mouth formed the words “good night,” but no sound issued forth. She offered him a weak smile and a nod.

  “’Night, Genna,” he said huskily, slipping into his house.

  Genna wasn’t so sure she had enough control of her motor skills to get across their respective lawns. She wasn’t altogether certain she wasn’t going to keel over right there and then. Picking up her pink pumps, she limped toward her house feeling as if she’d just jumped into the rapids above Niagara Falls.

  Turn Jared Hennessy into a normal person? Jared, with the diamond earring and striped lawn and kisses that sapped the strength from the knees of a perfectly controlled woman?

  What on earth had she gotten herself into?

  FOUR

  “FIRST OF ALL, what do you know about being normal?” Genna asked, her pencil poised. She sat at Jared’s kitchen table with a yellow legal pad in front of her, the top page covered with notes.

  Jared stared into space with a look of intense concentration. He bit his lip and shifted on his chair like a teenager who’d gone to the ball game instead of reading his social studies assignment. Finally his gaze returned to Genna. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing at all?” she questioned, a tad dismayed. It would take more than giving Jared a haircut and getting the mannequin off his porch to impress a judge. She had hoped he would at least have a passing knowledge of basic normal behavior.

  Maybe he did and just didn’t realize it. She decided to throw out some questions that the average small-town person would know. “Just jump in when you have an answer. What’s the best day to hit a garage sale? When do you fertilize the lawn? What do you wear to a PTA meeting? What’s the best way to get rid of door-to-door salesmen? How many Brownies make a troop?”

  He shook his head and shrugged.

  Genna sighed. She didn’t know anything about custody cases—they would know more when Jared’s lawyer called back—but if it was anything like adoption, the court would send someone to report on Jared. They definitely had their work cut out for them if he was going to pass inspection.

  “Well,” she said, “the first order of business is to get you a housekeeper. Someone to cook and clean and keep an eye on Alyssa when you leave the house.”

  “I’d never leave Alyssa alone.” He plucked another blueberry muffin out of the basket Genna had come armed with. Steam rose from it as he broke it open and spread butter on it. “Just what would having a house-keeper entail? Does she have to live here?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t want some fussy old bag taking over with Alyssa.” He didn’t always get her braids straight and he wasn’t really up on the latest fashions for five-year-olds, but those were duties he wouldn’t give up for anything.

  “That’s fine,” Genna scribbled on her notepad. “You’re hiring a housekeeper not a grandmother.”

  “Good.” He devoured the muffin, thinking it was the most exquisite thing he’d ever tasted—next to Genna’s lips. “These muffins are fabulous.”

  “Thank you,” she said, not looking up.

  “And that pie you brought over looks great.”

  “I’m glad you think so.” She continued writing.

  Jared watched her, smiling to himself. She had shown up at his kitchen door at eight A.M. sharp, dressed in navy walking shorts, a pink oxford-cloth shirt, and big tortoiseshell reading glasses that made her eyes look impossibly large and guileless. She’d had a notebook under one arm and a wicker basket on the other. He guessed this schoolgirl look was intended to cool his ardor. Try again, Genna. If only she knew he was fantasizing making love to her with her wearing nothing but those glasses.

  “I think I know someone who might fit the requirements,” she said, thinking of Amy’s Aunt Bernice, who lived five blocks away. Bernice had been around. She wouldn’t bat an eye at Jared’s … uniqueness. “I’ll call her and see if she’s interested and if she can come by for an interview.”

  She made more notes, mainly to keep her wayward gaze off Jared. He’d answered the door wearing nothing but a red velvet bathrobe and a pair of gray wool socks. The robe gaped open now, exposing a wide expanse of muscular hair-covered chest. He didn’t seem to care. She was sure he would have felt just as comfortable sitting there stark naked.

  That thought suffused her body with heat. It was too easy to remember the feel of his fabulous body against hers and too hard to remember he wasn’t her type. Oh, why in the world had she ever let him kiss her? She hooked a finger inside the collar of her blouse and swallowed hard.

  “While I’m on the phone,” she said a bit raggedly, “you can put some clothes on and go mow the lawn.”

  He chuckled deviously, an unholy gleam in his eye. “Don’t you like my outfit, Genna?”

  “It isn’t exactly haute couture for lawn mowing,” she said dryly, arching a delicate brow at him.

  Jared leaned across the table, forcing her to look into his twinkling eyes. “I love it when you talk French to me, Gen. Do it again.”

  She leveled a no-nonsense look at him. “Mow the lawn, Jared.”

  “Okay,” he said equably, sitting back in his chair. “Plaid this time?”

  “Regular.”

  He frowned. “As in plain?”

  “Plain. Nondescript.”

  “Herringbone?” His brows lifted in a show of hope.

  “Plain, ordinary, free from affectation, unremarkable.” She didn’t let his scowl daunt her. “Normal people don’t mow their lawns in patterns. And get rid of the flamingos.”

  Suddenly he looked like a little boy who’d been told Christmas had been canceled and he could never have a puppy or join the Cub Scouts. Genna felt her resolve sway.

  “All of them?” he asked.

  Darn it, yes, she said to herself. She hated those cheap plastie vultures; they were eyesores. But Jared looked so genuinely disappointed. Be tough with him, Genna. Steel yourself.

  “I kind of like them,” he said sadly.

  The steel cracked and crumbled like old plaster. “All right, you can keep two—”

  “Six.”

  “Four. Two in front and
two in back.”

  “Done.”

  He stood up and demonstrated some respect for Genna’s sensibilities by tightening the belt of his robe. The action didn’t keep her from thinking that red was an incredibly sexy color on him and that it brought out his tanned good looks. She was going to stop thinking things like that as soon as he left the room, she told herself. But instead of leaving, he came toward her, leaned down, and kissed her.

  “We’re gonna be a great team, Genna,” he said against her lips. “Trust me. I know these things.”

  Trust him? When pigs fly.

  He sauntered out of the kitchen singing something about being in heaven and walking on clouds.

  He even sings sexily, she thought.

  With Jared out mowing the lawn and Alyssa across the street playing with Courtney Dennison, Genna took a tour of the house, making decorating notes. She had feared it would resemble a frat house, but it wasn’t so bad. Jared had more or less left it alone, thank God.

  The basement had been turned into a miniature gym with shiny, chrome-plated Nautilus machines. The big country kitchen had been left completely unadorned except for a giant pink hippopotamus cookie jar filled with dry, unappetizing, store-bought cookies. She made a note to bring over some of the peanut butter-chocolate chunk cookies she’d baked at one A.M.

  Crayon pictures Alyssa had drawn covered the front of the refrigerator. They would definitely stay. Genna smiled. Each one depicted a very tall stick person, Jared. She recognized him by his hair and earring. Some showed their new house, and most had Flurry in them somewhere. One showed “Uncle Brutus” with his Mohawk hairdo. There was even one that immortalized Genna. Her head looked like a pyramid, and she had lopsided breasts and a chocolate chip cookie in each hand.

  A print of dogs playing poker hung in the formal dining room. Genna grimaced. That would have to go. An eighteenth-century watercolor should hang on the rich cream and navy wallpaper, she decided. A beautiful cherry corner cabinet stood empty. She had a set of china that would look perfect in it. Maybe she would loan it to him.