The Bourbon Kings
Page 110

Ah, the joys of being a Bradford, she thought. “You have a backup Porsche, I’m sure.”
“Even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered as long as you’re okay.”
Squeezing together, they made it through the jambs of her bedroom and into her bath—and then, as she turned on the shower, he went for her clothes, unbuttoning things, releasing zippers, shedding her second skin’s worth of wet and cold and clingy.
Goosebumps tickled her arms and thighs, but that was more from the heat in his eyes than the chill in the air. And then Lane was taking off his own clothes, leaving them where they landed in a tangled mess with hers.
“Under the water,” she groaned as he nuzzled into her throat, kissing his way to her mouth.
He cursed as they stepped into the warm, gentle spray—and as the blood washed off, she was relieved. Just cuts on him, nothing serious …
And that was the last thought she had as his big hands traveled over her slick breasts, and his mouth came down hard on hers, and that familiar erotic urgency sprang to life between them.
I love you, she thought inside her head.
I love you all over again, Lane.
Sometime later, after the power came back on, and Lane had made love to his Lizzie twice in the shower and once more in her bed, after they had gone down and had the last of that frozen lasagna and most of the peach ice cream in her house, after they had returned upstairs and gotten into her bed again … all the problems of the day came back to him.
Fortunately, Lizzie was asleep and it was dark, so whatever expression he didn’t have the energy to hide was a non-starter.
Staring at her ceiling, his mind pulled a churn and burn over it all, and the next thing he knew, light was glowing at the edge of the horizon. A quick glance at Lizzie’s alarm clock and he was surprised to find that he’d blown the whole night.
Sliding out from under the sheets, he got to his feet and went into the bathroom. His clothes were unsalvageable; he picked them up off the floor and put them into her trash. The only thing he saved? His boxers.
Better than driving home buck-ass naked on the Lord’s day.
Back out in the bedroom, he went over to Lizzie. “I gotta go.”
She came awake on a jerk, and he soothed her until she put her head on the pillow again. “I’ve got a date with a beautiful woman that I can’t miss,” he said.
Lizzie smiled in a sleepy, fuzzy way that made him want to stare at her forever. “Tell her I said hello?”
“I will.” He kissed her on the mouth. “I’m bringing you dinner tonight, by the way.”
“Will it be frozen?”
“No, hotter’n’hell.”
The smile she gave him went right through to his blood, cranking him up even though there was no time to do anything about it.
“I lo—” Lane stopped himself, knowing she wasn’t going to like that good-bye. “I’ll see you at five o’clock tonight.”
“I’ll be here.”
He kissed her one more time and then strode for the door.
“Wait, what about your clothes?” she called out.
“They can’t arrest me. The naughty bits are covered up.”
Her laughter escorted him down her stairs and out of the house. And the sight of half that tree on top of her car made his heart skip a beat.
As he took a deep breath, his first instinct was to take out his phone and call Gary McAdams to remove the limb and get that crushed tin can of hers off to a scrapyard. But he stopped himself. Lizzie was not the kind of woman who would appreciate that sort of maneuvering. She would have her own contacts, her own idea of how to handle the problem, her own plan for the Yaris.
Knowing her, she would try to get it back on its feet.
Shaking his head, he walked over to his car. The Porsche had very nearly been destroyed, too, the 911 missed by only a couple of feet. After clearing some leaves off the hood, he got in, juiced the engine, and made his way slowly down the lane, steering around the fallen branches and the divots in the dirt that were full of water. As soon as he hit the asphalt, he made up for lost time, speeding toward Charlemont, ripping across the river, gunning his way up Easterly’s hill.
He was halfway to the top when he had to slow because another car was coming down.
It was a Mercedes sedan. Black S550.
And behind the wheel, in huge dark sunglasses and a black veil like she was in mourning, was his soon-to-be ex-wife.
Chantal did not look over at him even though she knew damn well who she was passing.
Fine. With any luck, she was relocating and they could let the lawyers take it from here. God knew he had enough other stuff to worry about.
Leaving the Porsche out front, he went in through the main entrance and paused when he saw the luggage in the foyer.
It wasn’t Chantal’s. She had matching Louis Vuitton. This was Gucci, and marked with the initials RIP.
Richard Ignatius Pford.
One asshole leaving, he thought. Another coming in.
What the hell was Gin thinking?
Oh, wait. He knew that answer. For a woman with little formal education and no professional skills, his sister had one unassailable talent: taking care of herself.
Spooked about money, she had gone along with their father and latched onto the wealthiest sap in town so that no matter what happened to the family, her style of living wouldn’t be affected. He just hoped that the cost to her didn’t prove to be too high. Richard Pford was a nasty little SOB.
Not his circus, not his monkeys, however. As much as it saddened him, he had long ago learned to give Gin her head and just let her go—there was no other strategy to deal with his sister, really.