Fire And Ice

“You’re up on your legal jargon.”

“I watched the Simpson trial like every other American.”

She cracked a smile. “No. Self-defense.”

“Intriguing.”

“Yes, I’d say that’s the word that definitely applies in this situation.” She didn’t catch herself putting fruit in her mouth until she was already chewing it. She paused, grudgingly finding it good. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had fruit. The only thing that came close to qualifying were the lemons she’d sucked on after shots of tequila at Dulcy’s bachelorette party. The night she met Tommy.

“My father used to cut fruit like that,” Jena said. Her eyes widened at the casual reference.

Tommy smiled. “Only child?”

“How’d you guess?”

“You have that only-child air about you. You know, confident, self-sufficient, a loner.”

“You mean selfish, greedy and arrogant.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, I did.”

He slowly chewed on a piece of peach and motioned toward the corner of the kitchen. Jena found Caramel had given up on the two of them and the hope of any more tasty tidbits and was circling around and around before finally plopping down on top of her dog bed with a long-suffering sigh.

“You know, she could do with a little discipline,” Tommy said.

Jena stared at him. “She just got back from three days at obedience school.”

“I said discipline. From you. Dogs like to know who’s in charge. And from what I can tell so far, she’s in control of you instead of the other way around.”

Jena made a face. “I’ll take your words under advisement.”

He chuckled. “You know, I always wondered what it would be like to be an only child,” Tommy said, drawing her gaze back to him. “I have four older sisters.”

“I always wondered what it would be like to have siblings. Brothers. Sisters. Didn’t matter.”

“Living hell.”

“Being an only child wasn’t exactly heaven on earth,” she said quietly. Especially when you lost both your parents at the same time and ended up alone.

“You said that in the past tense.”

She realized she had. She shrugged, trying to adopt an air of nonchalance. In truth, she hadn’t spoken about what had happened to her parents in so long, she’d forgotten the stories she used to come up with to explain their absence to strangers. Car accident. Plane crash. Anything that made the loss less painful, less real. Anything but the truth. Only Dulcy and Marie and a few others knew that. And not even they suspected that she needed to take on the Glendale case as a result of that truth. “Yeah. They died. A long time ago.”

“Aunts? Uncles? Cousins?”

“One aunt. She moved to Washington State a few years ago.” She shook her head to move her hair from her eyes. “You?”

“Both parents still alive and kicking. They live in the same house they bought thirty-five years ago. My four sisters are in various stages of engagement, marriage and divorce. All of them live within a mile of my parents in Minneapolis.”

“How did you end up in L.A.?”

“They matched my price.”

“Ah.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled in a way she found irresistibly sexy. “Yeah, ah.”

“Do you miss them? Your family, I mean.”

“Sometimes. But I try to get home at least once a month. I was just back there for Thanksgiving.”

“And the knee brace?”

He fell silent although his expression didn’t change. “Injury, eight weeks ago. It put me out of commission.”

“So you haven’t played since then?” Jena asked, her brows rising.

“Nope.”

She considered that. What would she do if something happened and she wasn’t able to be a lawyer for two months? “How do you feel about that?” she asked quietly.

His grin made her curl her toes against the kitchen tile. “Like picking you up and continuing a nonverbal conversation in the bedroom.”

Jena laughed. And it felt so good to do so that she continued doing it until she discovered that Tommy had stopped chuckling and was watching her through suspicious eyes.

“Careful or you’re liable to give a guy a complex.”

“A big jock like you?” Jena reached for her plate only to find she’d demolished the fruit he’d put on it. He held out another piece, but waved her hand away when she reached for it. She leaned forward and opened her mouth, waiting until he slowly put it inside. She drew her lips along the length, then took it full in along with his fingers. His gaze fastened on the movement, he slowly withdrew his hand. She took her time chewing, watching his face as he watched her. His eyes darkened. His jaw tensed. And a restless kind of energy seemed to emanate from him and reverberate off of her.

“A big jock like me still has an ego, you know,” he murmured, blinking up into her eyes.

“Trust me, baby, you don’t have a thing to worry about in that department.”

His grin was just this side of completely wicked. “I know.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re also bigheaded?”

“Depends on which head you’re talking about.”

She rolled her eyes to stare at the ceiling, but before she could make a jab about his adolescent remark, he was sweeping her off her feet and up into his arms. She automatically clung to his bare shoulders, feeling his broad, hard chest against her side.

“Now, how about I go and show you just how bigheaded I can be?”

“Sounds like an idea to me.”

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