About That Kiss Read online

  “I don’t know and it doesn’t matter,” she said. “I just want it back.”

  “It does matter.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” he said, “I feel like I’m missing all the good parts of this story. Is this going to be like the game Clue? Colonel Mustard in the library with the revolver?”

  She stood up. “This isn’t a game, Joe. And if you’re not going to help me, I’ll find someone else who will.” With that, she headed to the door.

  Which was when Joe realized he’d finally met someone more stubborn than himself. And according to his friends and family, that wasn’t even possible.

  Chapter 4

  #ICouldaBeenAContender

  Joe caught Kylie at the door of his office, barely. Wrapping his fingers around her wrist, he tugged her around to face him. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to help you, Kylie.”

  As her name fell from his lips, her gaze went to his mouth. Just for a single heartbeat, but it told him something he hadn’t realized he needed to know.

  She most definitely remembered everything about their kiss.

  “So you will help me?” she asked.

  A missing penguin? Seriously? But the absurdity of the task was eclipsed by the way her pulse raced beneath his fingers, by how her gaze slid briefly back up to his mouth before returning slowly, almost reluctantly, it seemed, to his eyes. He’d had a taste of her and yeah, it’d been . . . off the charts. But he wasn’t a man who went back for seconds. Ever. So he was as surprised as she was when his mouth opened and he said, “Yes. I’m going to help you.”

  “In exchange for the mirror,” she said, clearly not trusting him and wanting to clarify and lay out the terms. “Nothing more.”

  He smiled. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Say it, Joe.”

  He let out a low laugh. “Fine. My help for the mirror. You know, you might just be the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something.”

  “Do me a favor and don’t compare me to the women you date,” she said. “Or whatever you do with them. We all know the only reason you even remember their names is that you take them to the coffee shop in the morning and then read what gets written on their cup.”

  Okay, there’d most definitely been a time in his life when that had been true, but he was slowing down in his old age. Having just turned thirty, he was discovering that he wasn’t nearly as entertained by hooking up as he used to be. Not that he planned on admitting that. “If I’m going to do this,” he said, “I need details. All of them, Kylie.”

  “Sure,” she said so quickly that he knew she was full of shit.

  But it took someone else just as full of shit to recognize it. “Then come back and sit down,” he said. “Fill in some blanks.”

  She headed past him, shoulder-checking him as she did, which made him want to laugh.

  Even up against the wall, she came out fighting.

  She moved past his visitor chairs to his window, looking down at the courtyard below. “The penguin is a wood carving that has no value to anyone but me,” she said. “It was my grandpa’s.” She paused. “It’s all I have of him.”

  “Your grandpa . . . Michael Masters, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was an artist,” he said. “A woodworker like you. Is his stuff valuable?”

  “It wasn’t,” she said to the glass. “At least not until he died. Almost ten years ago now.”

  There was something in her carefully emotionally blank voice that gave her away. His second inkling that nothing about this was a joke to her. “How many of these carvings exist?”

  “All I know about for sure is this one,” she said. “My grandpa made it for me as a toy. He said penguins stick with their families for life. Like him and me.” She paused. “I think I remember him mentioning once that there might be another, but I never saw it.”

  “Who knew this one existed?” Joe asked.

  “No one,” she said. “The penguin was a toy to amuse me when I was little. As far as I know, he never made any for sale.”

  But clearly someone else had known it existed. He watched as she turned from the window and looked at him, and he saw a depth of hidden pain and vulnerability that nearly took his breath. Shit. He was really going to do this. He was actually going on the hunt for a toy, a chunk of wood. He never made decisions from a place of emotion. At least not anymore, not since that long-ago time when what he’d had to find was his sister. Then he’d run on pure emotion and it’d nearly gotten her killed. “Tell me more about your grandpa.”

  She turned away from him again and took a moment to speak. “He died after a fire in his shop.”

  “Were you close?” he asked.

  “Yes.” There was another long pause. “I lived with him at the time.”

  Hell. He gave her a moment to get herself together and took a deep breath himself. So much for the emotional distance. “Were you hurt?” he asked quietly.

  “I wasn’t there that night.”

  Joe wasn’t completely heartless, and his chest got tight at the guilt in her voice. “Damn, Kylie. I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  Yeah, but as he knew, time didn’t heal shit. Just as he knew—at least in his experience—that crime didn’t discriminate. Bad shit happened to good people. “What about your parents?”

  “What about them?” she asked.

  “Why were you living with your grandpa and not them?”

  She shrugged. “They weren’t really parent material.” She met his questioning gaze. “They were kids when the stick turned blue. They weren’t a couple or anything. My dad didn’t stay around, and my mom wasn’t . . . equipped to deal back then.”

  “Do you see them now?” he asked, curious about her. He knew that she was quiet, thoughtful, creative. He’d always wondered what made her tick. Now that he knew she’d been raised by her grandfather, things made more sense, like the way she seemed like such an old soul, or could walk into a room and turned heads but never even realized it.

  “My dad works on the oil rigs in the Gulf,” she said. “He blows through San Francisco every few years. My mom’s living la vida loca in the Mission District with her current boyfriend, but we do best with a little distance between calls and visits.”

  Joe and his mom had been incredibly close before she’d died when he’d been ten. And though he never knew how to describe his relationship with his father, they were in each other’s lives, forever bound by the ties of blood and family. Same with Molly. The three of them had many faults, but not caring wasn’t one of them. They were in a love/hate and undoubtedly dysfunctional relationship, but he had no doubt they’d stand at his back in any situation, no questions asked.

  Well, okay, there’d be questions. And yelling, lots of yelling, but they’d still be at his back.

  It seemed the person Kylie had ever had at her back was gone, and though he knew she wouldn’t want him to feel bad for her, he did. It sucked. It also made her life and her success in the artistic world all the more amazing for the fact that she was accomplishing it on her own. “Tell me more about the fire,” he said, not daring to risk her wrath by offering sympathy. “His entire shop burned? And what about any inventory in it?”

  “Everything was destroyed,” she said.

  “Which would’ve have made any work of his that had already sold instantly more valuable,” he said. “Right?”

  She turned to face him, her brow furrowed. “Yes. I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “That’s why you’re paying me the big bucks.” He smiled, hoping she knew he was teasing. “Okay, we’ll start with some paperwork.”

  She looked startled. And annoyed. “You mean like forms?”

  “No, a list,” he said. “How many people knew the both of you? Anyone have anything against either of you, a grudge, a vendetta? Anything?”

  She stared at him like he was crazy. “No one had anyth