Nelson's Brand

Her hand trembled as she put down the glass. He was out of her league and she was getting nervous. It didn’t take a college degree to understand what he meant. “You’re going too fast,” she blurted out.

He leaned back, studying her through narrow eyes. She was a puzzle, a little mass of contradictions. But in spite of that, she appealed to him as no one else had in recent years.

“Okay, honey,” he said after a minute, and smiled faintly. “I’ll put on the brakes.” He took another bite of barbecue and washed it down with what looked and smelled like beer.

“How old are you?” she asked without meaning to, her eyes on the hard lines of his face. She imagined that he had a poker face when he wanted to, that he could hide what he was feeling with ease. She knew his age, because Dwight had told her, but it wouldn’t do to let him know that she’d been asking questions about him from the very first time she saw him.

He glanced at her, searching her wide, curious eyes. “I’m thirty-four.”

She dropped her eyes to his chin and farther down, to his broad chest.

“Too old for you, cupcake?” he asked carelessly.

“I’m twenty-five,” she said.

His dark brows drew together. He’d thought she was younger than that. Yes, she had a few lines in her face, and even a thread or two of gray in her dark hair. Nine years his junior. Not much difference in years, and at her age, she couldn’t possibly be innocent. His heart accelerated as he studied what he could see of her body in the revealing dress and wondered what she’d look like without it. She was nicely shaped, and if that beautiful bow of a mouth was anything to go by, she was probably going to be a delicious little morsel. If only she wasn’t best friends with Winnie.

He studied her again. She really was a puzzle. Young, and then, suddenly, not young. There had been a fleeting expression in her eyes when he’d asked her about her profession—an expression that confused him. He had a feeling that she wasn’t at all what she seemed. But, like him, she seemed to hide her emotions.

“Twenty-five. You’re no baby, are you?” he murmured.

Her eyes came up and that expression was in them again, before she erased it and smiled. Fascinating, he thought, like watching an actress put on her stage makeup.

“No. I’m no baby,” she agreed softly, her mind on the ordeal she’d been through and not really on the question. She didn’t realize what she was saying to him with her words, that she was admitting to experience that she didn’t have.

He felt his body reacting to the look in her eyes and he stiffened with surprise. It usually took longer for a woman to affect him so physically. He wouldn’t let her look away. The electricity began to flow between them and his eyes narrowed as he saw her mouth part helplessly. She was close, and she smelled of floral cologne that drifted up, mingling with the spicy scent of barbecue and the malt smell of his beer.

His gaze dropped to the cleft between her breasts and lingered there, on skin as smooth and pink as a sun-ripened peach. His chest rose and fell roughly as he tried to imagine how her breasts would feel under his open mouth…

The sudden shock of voices made the glass of beer jerk in his lean hand.

“Did you think we’d deserted you?” Dwight asked Allison, echoing Winnie’s greeting. “I see you’ve found Gene,” he added, patting the older man on the shoulder as he paused beside him. “Be careful that he doesn’t try to drag you under the table.”

“Watch it,” the older man returned humorously. But his eyes were glinting, and he knew that Dwight wouldn’t mistake the warning even if it flew right past his new acquaintance.

Dwight understood, all right, but he didn’t do the expected thing and go away.

“You don’t mind if we join you, do you?”

“Of course not,” Allison said, frowning slightly at Gene’s antagonism. She glanced from him to Dwight. “You two don’t favor each other a lot.”

There was an embarrassed silence and Winnie actually grimaced.

“No, we don’t, do we?” Gene’s eyes narrowed as they glanced off Dwight’s apologetic ones. “We all share the same mother, but not the same father.” He leaned back and laughed coldly. “Isn’t that right, Dwight?”

Dwight went red. “Allison didn’t know,” he said curtly. “You’re always on the defensive lately, Gene.”

The past few months came back to torment him. He stared at his half brother with eyes as cold and unfeeling as green stone. “I can’t forget. Why should you be expected to?”

“You’re family,” Dwight said, almost apologetically. “Or you would be if you’d stop lashing out at everybody. You’re always giving Marie hell.”

“She gives it back.” Gene swallowed his drink and put the glass on the table. His eyes went to a silent, curious Allison. “You don’t understand, do you, cupcake?” he asked with a smile that was mocking and cruel. “I had a different father than Dwight and Marie. I was adopted. Something my mother and stepfather apparently didn’t think I needed to know until my stepfather died six months ago.”

She watched him get up, and her eyes were soft and compassionate as they searched his. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “It must have been very hard to find it out so suddenly.”

He hated that softness in her eyes, that warmth. He didn’t want compassion from her. The only thing he might ever want from her was that silky body, but this was hardly the time to be thinking about it. He glared at her. “I don’t want pity, thanks.”

“Gene, for God’s sake,” Dwight ground out.

“Don’t worry. I won’t spoil your party.” He caught a strand of Allison’s dark hair and tugged it. “Stay away from me. I’m bad medicine. Ask anybody.”

He grabbed his beer and walked away without another word.

Allison’s eyes followed him, and she almost felt his pain. Poor, tormented man….

“Don’t make the mistake of feeling sorry for him,” Dwight told her when Gene was out of earshot. “Pity is the last thing he wants or needs. He has to come to grips with it himself.”

“Where is his real father?” Allison asked quietly.

He started to speak, but before he could, a smaller, female version of Dwight slammed down into a chair beside Winnie.

“So he’s gone,” Marie Nelson muttered. “Dwight, he’s just impossible. I can’t even talk to him….” She colored, looking at Allison. “Sorry,” she said. “You must be Allison. Winnie’s been hiding you for days, I thought she’d never introduce us!” she said with a smile. “I didn’t mean to start airing the family linen in public. You’ll have to excuse me. Gene always sets me off.”

“What’s he done now?” Dwight groaned.

“He seduced my best friend,” she muttered.

“Dale Branigan is not your best friend,” Dwight reminded her. “She’s a divorcée with claws two inches long, and if anybody got seduced it was Gene, not her. It’s not his fault that she won’t realize it was a one-shot fling for him.”

“I don’t mean Dale,” she sighed. “I meant Jessie.”

“Gene’s never been near Jessie,” Dwight said shortly.

“She says he has. She says—”

“Marie,” he said, calling her by name for the first time and confirming Allison’s suspicions, “Jessie couldn’t tell the truth if her life depended on it. She’s been crazy about Gene for years and it’s gotten her nowhere. This is just a last-ditch effort to get him to marry her. I’m telling you, it won’t work. She can’t blackmail him to the altar.”

“She might not be lying,” Marie said, although not with as much conviction as before. “You know how Gene is with women.”

“I don’t think you do,” Dwight said. “Jessie isn’t even his type. He likes sophisticated, worldly women.”

Marie leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “Poor Jessie.”

“Poor Jessie,” Dwight agreed. “Now say hello to Winnie.”

“Hi, Winnie,” Marie greeted belatedly, and smiled. “It’s nice to see you again. And I’m glad Allison could come,” she added, smiling. She didn’t add what Dwight had said about the effect she had on Gene. Now that she’d seen it for herself, she was intrigued. There was indeed something very special about Miss Hathoway, and apparently Gene had noticed it.

“Thank you for inviting me,” Allison replied sincerely. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”