Night Heat

“Yes, Leah?”

“Just wanted you to know I cooked dinner and I thought it would be nice if we invited a guest.”

Jocelyn moved her shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. She definitely didn’t have a problem with Leah preparing dinner since her sister was a pretty good cook, but she did have a problem with the suggestion of a guest. She couldn’t help wondering if Leah was finally going to come out of hiding and face Reese by inviting him to dinner. She had done a pretty good job of avoiding him the few times she’d returned home over the past five years.

“And just who will this dinner guest be?” she asked, curious as to how many languages Reese would say the words hell no in when he got the invitation from Leah.

“Jason called for you a short while ago and happened to mention that Mr. Steele arrived in town today.”

“And what of it?” Jocelyn asked, leaning back against a wall she hadn’t started painting yet.

“I think it would be a good idea to invite him to dinner. After all, he was Dad’s friend.”

“But that doesn’t make him ours,” she snapped, looking down at the hammer she had placed at her feet. She then glanced across the room at Bas. It was a tempting thought but she quickly decided that nothing and no one was worth going to jail.

“But I want to meet him. Aren’t you curious?”

Jocelyn rolled her eyes. “I’ve met him and prefer not spending unnecessary time in his company.”

“You’ve met him?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Earlier today at Jason’s office.”

“Well, what do you think of him?”

Jocelyn glanced back across the room. Bas was staring at her and it annoyed her that she felt a quick tightening in her stomach. She wished she could blame it on something like indigestion but knew she couldn’t. “There’s no way I could sum up what I think of him in twenty-five words or less.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

Jocelyn couldn’t help but smile. Now this was the Leah she was used to, someone always ready for a fight, and not the mousy person Jocelyn had picked up from the airport a couple of days before the funeral.

“Well, then,” Jocelyn decided to say, “how about infuriating, maddening, annoying, irritating, exasperating, galling—”

“Okay, okay, I get the picture, at least yours. I’d rather take my own snapshot and form my own opinion.”

“Fine, then count me out.”

“Aren’t you being a little immature?”

That did it. Taking a slow, steadying breath, Jocelyn walked around the wall into a bathroom whose fixtures had yet to arrive. What she had to say to her sister needed to be said in private.

Closing the door behind her, she braced herself against the area where the pedestal sink would be and said rather heatedly, “How can you of all people fix your mouth to call anyone immature, Leah? I’m not the one who acted like a spoiled, immature brat by up and leaving home without as much as a goodbye, leaving her family worried for over a week before we finally heard from her.”

Jocelyn knew now was not the time and place to unload feelings she’d held inside for years, but she’d done it and there was no way she could take back her words. Nor did she want to.

There was silence on the other end, and then Leah said in a somewhat quiet and unsteady voice, “There was a reason I left the way I did, Jocelyn, and maybe it’s time I tell you why. At least that’s what I’ve been told I should do.”

Jocelyn felt an uncomfortable feeling in the center of her stomach. “Told by whom?”

“Look, I’ll tell you everything when I’m able to talk about it, okay? Now getting back to Sebastian Steele, be forewarned. I do intend to invite him to dinner before I leave, Jocelyn.”

“Leave? When are you leaving?” That uncomfortable feeling about being deserted by those she cared about was becoming unnerving. She lifted a hand to her chest, feeling a tug at her heart at the thought that she was losing her sister again, so soon after losing her father.

“I don’t know, but I won’t leave without telling you. I promise.”

Before she could say anything, Jocelyn heard the gentle click in her ear. She took a deep breath. Her palms suddenly felt sweaty and she rubbed them against her jeans after returning the mobile phone to her back pocket. She had a feeling something was going on with Leah. But what?

She swung around when she heard the bathroom door swing open and her gaze collided with that of Sebastian Steele. She narrowed her eyes, madder than hell. “Don’t you believe in knocking?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders as he leaned in the doorway. “I figured you couldn’t be doing anything too private in here without any fixtures.”

He was right, of course, but still. “Any closed door is an indication that a knock is warranted before entering,” she retorted.

He shook his head. “Save your rules for another time. We need to talk.”

“We have nothing to discuss.”

She made a move to walk past him when he said, “Reese just let Manuel go on my recommendation.”

She stopped and swung around to him, nearly all in his face. “What?” she almost shouted at the top of her lungs, not caring her that her high-pitched voice didn’t at all sound professional. “Manuel’s the best and most dependable worker I have.”

“Sorry, but you’re going to have to find someone to replace him.”

Jocelyn suddenly saw red, blood-red, and she fought the urge to go find her hammer and start knocking a few heads. First Bas’s and then Reese’s. She couldn’t believe Reese had meekly followed Bas’s orders without first consulting her. “How dare you think you can come in here and—”

“He’s an illegal immigrant.”

Jocelyn’s mouth snapped shut and her gaze widened as if she’d been slapped by Bas’s words. Impossible was the first word that came into her mind. Manuel had worked for her father for almost a year. There was no way Jim Mason would have broken the law by hiring an illegal immigrant. “I don’t believe you. We have his citizenship papers on file at the office.”

Bas then said easily, “Any papers you have are bogus. When I asked to see his green card, which is the same thing an inspector would have done had he shown up here, he got nervous and confessed the truth.”

Jocelyn couldn’t believe it. She didn’t want to believe it. She shuddered at the thought of what would have happened if Duran Law had shown up. He was still plenty pissed about her continued refusal to go out with him. It seemed each time she’d turned him down his pride had gotten crushed. He would just love to hit her with a stiff fine and make her life miserable.

“And how did you know? I’m sure Manuel wasn’t wearing a painted sign on his forehead,” she all but snapped. A part of her was grateful Bas had saved her from possible misery under Duran’s hands, but another part of her resented that he had discovered something she hadn’t.

“I picked up on his nervousness when Reese introduced us. Trust me, in my line of work at the Steele Corporation, I’m faced with this fairly often enough. I wished there was a way around it but the law is the law.”

She glared at him. “I know the law, Bas, and I don’t have to trust you. But still, I appreciate you finding out about Manuel before I was faced with repercussions that I don’t want or need. Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. I was merely doing one of the things Jim brought me here to do.”

And that was what bothered Jocelyn the most, knowing her father actually had brought him here and hadn’t bothered to tell her. Jim Mason had been talking and in his right mind up to forty-eight hours before he’d died. Her father of all people knew that she didn’t like surprises and should have told her about Bas.

“Fine,” she said and began walking, annoyed when he automatically fell in place beside her. “That’s a point for you. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with my crew.”

“They aren’t here.”

She stopped and stared at him as though he’d lost his mind. She quickly rounded the wall and looked around. “Where are they? It’s only three o’clock. There’s another hour of work time left.”

Bas leaned back against an unpainted wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “I gave them the rest of the day off.”

Jocelyn’s mouth dropped. She wondered why it hadn’t just fallen to the floor with his statement. “What do you mean you gave them the rest of the day off?”

“You would have done the same thing. Manuel has worked with these guys for almost a year. They’re like family. All of them were shocked that he’s in this country illegally, but they still felt bad that he won’t be working with them any longer. They like him.”

Jocelyn inhaled deeply. Bas was right. Now that she thought about it, she would have done the exact same thing. “What’s going to happen to Manuel? He has a family. A wife and child.”

“Yes, and he also admitted to receiving public assistance benefits, public education for his son, public housing and other taxpayer-funded benefits over the past year without being detected.”

Jocelyn glared. “You make him sound like a criminal,” she snapped.

“Just stating the facts, ma’am. And something else you need to remember is that illegal immigration in this country is a crime that extends to anyone giving them a job.”

“I know that, and I’m sure Dad didn’t know he was an illegal. Like I said, Manuel’s papers looked legit.”

“I’m sure Jim didn’t know. As for what will happen to Manuel, I have a feeling he’ll be moving his family again. I agreed not to turn him in to the authorities.”

Despite herself, she appreciated him for that. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

For a long moment neither said anything else, but Jocelyn felt it just as clearly as if it was something tangible that she could reach out and touch. It was there, that same damn attraction she had felt from the first moment when her gaze had collided with his in Jason’s office. It was the same attraction that was there each time she’d stopped pacing on Jason’s carpeted floor and found him staring at her with those intense dark eyes of his.

And it was there now as he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, his head cocked to the side as if taking in the full view of her. A little more than a few feet separated them and whether she wanted to or not, she could feel his heat, and even at the distance she stood she could actually feel the warmth of his breath on her lips, coaxing her own to draw in his heat, mingle in his taste.

She inhaled deeply, thinking she must be losing her mind. She didn’t want to be attracted to the man who owned a fourth of her company. The man who would be a pain in the butt for the next few months.

A man who had her stomach sizzling and intense heat gathering between her legs.

Drawing in another deep breath, she took a step back, started to move past him and stopped when he reached out and grabbed her wrist, gently pulling her closer, bringing her toe to toe, body to body.

“And another thing,” he said huskily, before reaching out and lifting his hand to the knot in the scarf on her head. “I understand that on occasion you’ll wear a hard hat or a scarf like this when there might be a lot of dust in the air. But just so you’ll know, I really like seeing your head uncovered.” And with that, he expertly took off her scarf, which made her curly locks tumble to her shoulders. And, as if he was satisfied with what he’d done, he then handed the scarf to her.

She balled it in her hand, crushed it while wishing it was his neck. Tilting her head, she glared at him. “I don’t care what you like.”

“Then maybe you should,” he said, leaning in close, bringing his lips within a breathless inch. He smiled. “You have some temper and whenever I see you mad it makes me want to taste your anger.”

Taste her anger? What he said didn’t make sense because she didn’t have a temper…at least not normally. Typically, it took a lot to make her mad. But she had to admit that for some reason he seemed to bring out the worst in her. When she opened her mouth to state that fact, he inched even closer and was within a heartbeat of closing his mouth over hers when the sound of a car door slamming had them quickly moving apart.

Jocelyn was grateful for the timely interruption before anything could happen. Something they would both regret.

“That’s probably Marcella coming to check on today’s work…as well as to make more changes. Goodbye, Bas,” she said, moving swiftly past him and walking as fast as her legs could carry her.

Chapter 3

An entire week later, Jocelyn was still thinking about how close her and Bas’s lips had come to touching. It would only have been a kiss, she’d tried telling herself over and over again. No big deal, she’d locked lips with other men before, although she could count on one hand the times she had done so.

Still, it annoyed her to no end that even after a week she could feel every muscle of Bas’s body that had been pressed against hers. Then there had been his mouth, close, hot, ready. She could only imagine the taste of it. Her heart beat wildly in her chest at the mere thought. If Marcella hadn’t shown up when she had, there was no doubt in Jocelyn’s mind that they would have kissed.

Bas’s face had been close to hers, breathing in her scent the same way she’d been breathing in his. Never had any man gotten absorbed in her senses so quickly the way Sebastian Steele had. And then it seemed that once Marcella arrived he had vanished into thin air, leaving the job site by way of the back entrance, making her wonder if the entire thing had been real.

She had tried to avoid him, knowing he was spending time at the office going through files and records. She had no idea what he was looking for, but as long as he stayed out of her way that was fine. Twice she had seen him when she had stopped by the office to sign some papers. He had been so wrapped up in what he’d been reading that he’d barely acknowledged her presence, and she’d barely acknowledged his.

“That pork chop is already dead, Jocelyn. There’s no need to keep stabbing it to death.”

Jocelyn snatched up her head and met Leah’s gaze. Jocelyn had been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she had completely forgotten her sister was sitting across from her. They hadn’t exchanged a lot of conversation during dinner and eventually their dialogue had drifted to a dead end.

Leah was nervous, Jocelyn could tell. If she had been stabbing at her pork chop for the past few minutes, then Leah had been guilty of nervously nipping at her lips, an old habit when she knew she was about to get into trouble. Evidently Leah had something on her mind, something serious. Jocelyn wondered if her sister was ready to explain why she’d left home so abruptly. The explanation was five years too late, but then, better late than never.

She decided to go ahead and get the conversation started. “Last week you said you wanted to tell me something when you felt you could talk about it. Can you talk about it now?” Jocelyn asked, after taking a bite of her pork chop and savoring the taste. Evidently Leah had kept up her cooking skills during the five years she’d been away.

Whenever she’d come home—which had only been twice in five years—she’d only stayed for a couple days, as if passing through, and she never talked about why she had left Newton Grove or what she was doing in California. The only thing she would say was that she was fine and making it; she refused any money they offered her.

“Yes, I can talk about it now, but first tell me about Sebastian Steele. You haven’t mentioned him at all this week.”

Leah’s request caught Jocelyn off guard and she had to fight not to choke on the piece of pork she was chewing. She quickly picked up a glass of water to wash it down. She had to be careful, very careful, not to give anything away, like the fact she found him so damn attractive and that they had almost kissed.

“I haven’t had any reason to talk about him. He spends his days over at the office and I spend my time over at the job site. I haven’t seen him much and that’s the way I like it,” she said.

At the lifting of Leah’s brow it occurred to Jocelyn she really hadn’t answered her sister’s question. “All right, what is it that you want to know?”

“Well, when you talked about him he didn’t seem like a nice person, which makes me wonder about his relationship with Dad. Why would Dad strike up a friendship with such a man as Sebastian Steele?”

Jocelyn could understand Leah’s concern. She also knew it wasn’t fair for her to portray Bas as a totally awful person. His handling of the Manuel situation had proven him quite the contrary, and had certainly earned him Reese’s and the men’s respect. He could have easily called the authorities and had Manuel arrested but he hadn’t, and according to what she’d heard after talking to Reese later, Bas had even gone so far as to suggest that Mason Construction advance Manuel a full month’s salary in recognition of his hard work and dependability.

Although it would be a lot of effort on her part, considering her dislike of Bas, she needed to convince Leah that even though she didn’t know the full story, Bas was probably just the type of person her father would hook up with.

She leaned back in her chair and smiled. “I might have gone a little overboard in my description of him earlier,” she finally said. “I was upset about the situation Dad placed me in with Mr. Steele and I immediately formed my own opinions of him. In the first few hours of our meeting I refused to consider that I might like him.”

“And do you like him?” Leah asked, taking a sip of her tea and watching her sister closely.

Jocelyn reached for another dinner roll. “To say I like him would be stretching it a bit since I don’t really know the man,” she said honestly. “Let’s just say I can tolerate him.”

“How long does he have to hang around and supervise?”

“Dad’s will indicated a minimum of at least six weeks. But Bas mentioned he would be around for at least three months.”

“Bas?”

Jocelyn glanced up and saw the curious light shining in Leah’s eyes and decided to put it out. She didn’t want her sister getting any ideas about her relationship with Sebastian Steele. “Yes, Bas is what he prefers to be called. It’s short for Sebastian.”

“Oh, I see.” After a few moments Leah added, “I’m glad you’ll be able to work with him, Jocelyn. And like I told you, I don’t want my share of the business, so the sooner you can buy me out the better. I have plans for what I’m going to do with my money.”

Although Jocelyn knew she didn’t have any right asking, she couldn’t help herself. “And what do you plan to do with it?”

To her surprise, Leah smiled and Jocelyn could see excitement shining in her dark-brown eyes. “I plan to open my own restaurant. For the past five years, I’ve been working as a cook while taking classes at a culinary school in San Diego to perfect the basics.”

Jocelyn opened her mouth in astonishment. Leah had been working as a cook all this time? She didn’t want to admit some of the things she’d wondered about what her sister was doing to stay alive. It had always been Leah’s dream to hit California by storm and become a model. Jocelyn had heard just how unscrupulous some modeling agencies could be and had hoped and prayed that Leah hadn’t gotten mixed up with one of them.

“What happened with your dream to become a model?” Everyone knew it had been Leah’s aspiration. Everyone except for Reese. Oh, sure he’d known it, but he had counted on his love for her and her love for him changing her mind.

Jocelyn watched as Leah began nervously nipping at her lips again. “I’d changed my mind about that before I even left here.”

Jocelyn frowned. Now she was confused. “Then why did you leave the way you did? If you wanted to become a cook you could have moved somewhere close by. There are a lot of good restaurants in Memphis and I’m sure Reese would have understood. Hell, considering how much he loved you, he probably would have moved there with you. The two of you could have made things work, Leah.”

Jocelyn studied her sister, saw the tears that suddenly sprang into her eyes and knew she’d hit a sensitive nerve. “Yes, and believe it or not I had decided on doing just that and was going to suggest it to Reese, but…”

When Leah’s voice drifted off and the tears began pouring more freely, more abundantly, Jocelyn immediately got up and went to her sister, leaned down and hugged her. “But what, Leah?” she inquired softly. “If you had planned to hang around, why did you leave the way you did and without telling anyone you were leaving? Especially Reese?”

Leah shook her head, trying to regain her composure before she could speak. “Something happened, Jocelyn, and I couldn’t tell anyone. Especially not Dad or Reese. Not even you.”

Jocelyn heard the trembling in her sister’s voice and the strong conviction, as well. Whatever had happened was something Leah actually thought she could not have shared with anyone. She pulled back and met her sister’s intense, tear-filled eyes. “What happened, Leah?”

Leah hung her head for a moment, then when she lifted her gaze, Jocelyn saw in it tortured memories, recollections Leah didn’t want to relive but was being forced to. Jocelyn felt a warning chill slowly work its way up her spine and thought that nothing could have been bad enough to make her sister flee into the night the way she’d done.

Jocelyn’s hold on her sister tightened and she hoped she was giving Leah the strength to get out whatever it was she needed to say. When she felt Leah respond by holding tightly to her hand, she knew that she was. For the first time Leah was accepting all the smothering, the babying, the overprotectiveness she had refused from her for so many years.

“What happened, Leah?” Jocelyn inquired again, in an even softer tone of voice than before. “What happened to make you leave when you did?”

Leah opened her mouth to speak. Then paused. She slowly opened it again as she met her sister’s intense stare. “I was raped, Jocelyn. Neil Grunthall raped me.”

If Jocelyn had been standing upright instead of leaning over with her arms around Leah, she would have fallen to her knees. If not the words her sister had just spoken, then the pain and suffering she saw lining Leah’s face would have definitely knocked her there. For a moment she began trembling, or was it Leah? No, she was certain it was her and she was trembling in anger.

“Neil raped you?” As she heard herself saying the words, she was stunned that the no-good drifter their father had hired on that spring had gone so far.

“Yes,” Leah answered softly, “and please sit down. It’s time I tell you about that time.”

Jocelyn moved around the table, still clutching Leah’s hand in hers, not wanting to lose the connection, the closeness, the need to exchange strength. When Jocelyn returned to her seat, she braced herself against the chair, needing support. “All right, tell me everything.”

Leah lowered her head and whispered, “I doubt if I can, but I will tell you what you need to know, okay?”

At Jocelyn’s nod of understanding, Leah began talking. “You know Reese and Neil never got along. Everyone wondered why Dad even hired Neil because he was nothing but a drifter and he was always causing trouble. Well, Dad finally fired him but I didn’t know it. Late that same afternoon I went to the construction site looking for Reese. I wanted to tell him that I had decided to accept his marriage proposal and would go to a cooking school around here and wouldn’t be moving to California after all.”

A tear fell down Leah’s cheek, joining the others. “I arrived at the job site, thinking the work crew was supposed to be there, working on Alyssa Calhoun’s home. Instead I found Neil there, gathering up his stuff. I didn’t know Dad had fired him just a few hours earlier. Neil claimed Reese was downstairs in the basement, finishing up something and stupid me, I went looking for him.”

Jocelyn felt her sister’s palms getting sweaty, but she held them tighter, refusing to let them escape her grasp. “And when he got me alone in the basement, he raped me and dared me to tell Dad or Reese. He said if I did he would deny it and convince Reese I went along with it.”