Home at Last [Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 1] (Siren Publishing Allure) Read online

  Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 1

  Home at Last

  Iona Davis has isolated herself in her cabin in West Virginia, running her consulting business only online. Okey Energy CEO CJ Davis, a green-eyed, tall cowboy, has worked with Iona for years without ever seeing her.

  When CJ shows up at Iona’s door unannounced, they meet for the first time. He needs her to help him in London to save a wind farm deal. CJ is floored that Iona is younger, blacker, and sexier than he imagined. He doesn’t pause as he sweeps her into his life and into his bed. They have a chemistry that blazes, but it’s too hot for Iona.

  CJ has to battle his soon-to-be ex-fiancée and Iona's wrongheaded desire to leave him for his own good. Iona must come to grips with her past and CJ’s present before they can find a home at last.

  Note: This book contains drug use.

  Genre: Contemporary, Interracial, Older H/h

  Length: 43,419 words

  HOME AT LAST

  Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 1

  JQ Jones

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  HOME AT LAST

  Copyright © 2012 by JQ Jones

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-060-5

  First E-book Publication: December 2012

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  HOME AT LAST

  Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 1

  JQ JONES

  Copyright © 2012

  Chapter One:

  Bright Familiar Sun

  CJ@OKEY: Hard or soft?

  Iona@Pangloss: Both. I like to nibble on the soft ones and suck the hard ones.

  CJ@OKEY: Thick or long?

  Iona@Pangloss: Both, I like the way the plump ones feel in my mouth.

  CJ@OKEY: Salty or sweet?

  Iona@Pangloss: Sweet turns salty anyway. I like that moment when it’s both at the same time.

  CJ@OKEY: I prefer mangoes so I’ll have to take your word for long, plump, sweet pretzels.

  Iona@Pangloss: Why mangoes.

  CJ@OKEY: They’re very sweet and they drip juice. I love slurping a good sloppy one down to the core.

  Iona@Pangloss: Never had one, do you eat them often?

  CJ@OKEY: I only like the really special kind. I’ve not had one for years. But when I find one, it’s gonna be all mine.

  Iona@Pangloss: Sounds promising. I hope the same for this deal. They’re very close to signing. I know they’re supposed to talk to the Chinese tonight but I think you have the better deal.

  CJ@OKEY: That remains to be seen. I’m getting a weird vibe from Jason Whittaker, he’s acting very squirrelly.

  Iona Davis continued the IM conversation with the CEO of Okey Energy for another three hours. Christopher Davis, no relation, called, e-mailed, and IMed Iona more and more the closer they came to signing the contract. Iona was a renewable energy consultant and Okey was her only client. They didn’t know that. Okey also didn’t know that Iona was a one-woman operation. She had various e-mail accounts that she routed to her main account.

  It didn’t take twelve people to do what her company did—find companies willing to engage in multibillion-dollar renewable energy projects around the world.

  CJ@OKEY: When are we going out to dinner? I can fly to Richmond or DC or fly you out to here or anywhere you want to meet.

  Iona@Pangloss: Business or pleasure?

  CJ@OKEY: Pleasurable business.

  Iona@Pangloss: You know I don’t mix them at all.

  CJ@OKEY: Worth a shot. Video conference tomorrow for the signing?

  Iona@Pangloss: You also know I don’t video conference. You don’t need me there. This is over to the lawyers now.

  CJ@OKEY: It’s your proposal that they accepted, so you should be at the signing then go to dinner with me.

  Iona@Pangloss: Love to but not available for the next few days.

  CJ@OKEY: I’ll put it off until you have a clear spot in your schedule.

  Iona@Pangloss: Like you’re gonna wait, you wanted to sign today. I’ll catch the Fiji thing. I’ll be in a more comfortable financial picture by then.

  CJ@OKEY: This would be on my dime.

  Iona@Pangloss: And you know I’m not gonna take that.

  CJ@OKEY: I know, but I’ll always try.

  After that, it was back to business. Iona created Davis Consulting because she had no intentions of spending years as an intern or assistant. She was confident enough about her ideas that she’d pitched the four largest energy companies in the world. Okey took the bait. It meant that the company invested in alternative energy that directly competed with the traditional energies these companies made their living off. Mr. Davis hadn’t hesitated, integrating her ideas into his projections and not balking when she’d insisted that she teleconference and otherwise communicated without any face-to-face time.

  By two o’clock Iona had made sure her dogs, Buster and Bunny, were where they were supposed to be. They had the entire moun
tain as their playground and tended to use it that way. She lived at the end of Davis Holler, a forty-acre tract of land that had been deeded to her grandparents before the Civil War. Most of the people left in the Holler were related to Iona and her sister Cynthia and brother Lincoln. Few people admitted it. Iona and her siblings were the last of the Black Davises. The rest were white and sheepishly admitted that the common ancestors were freed slaves.

  Iona lived alone in this cabin since she was fourteen. Cyn had been in grad school and Linc had just begun his vascular surgery practice when their parents died. Iona had insisted that she continue her homeschooling with Mrs. Crockett, an alcoholic former teacher. Linc had agreed and Iona had taken her education into her own hands. Mrs. Crockett signed off on the reports Iona wrote and collected her checks. Iona lived alone in the 2,300-square-foot cabin with two dogs, fourteen geese, and a goat she’d never really seen.

  The geese had been put away long ago. They policed themselves into and out of the pen in the back of the house. The dogs were settled for the night and the goat could be heard bleating all over the mountain. By 3:30 a.m. she’d smoked a joint, taken a shower, and brushed her teeth and fell, exhausted, across her bed for a quick nap.

  * * * *

  The incessant honk of the geese woke Iona out of a fitful sleep. She cracked open a bleary eye and tried to focus on the clock, pushing her dreadlocks out of her face. She usually tied them back at night, but after a grueling marathon thirty-six-hour negotiation between British Electric and Okey, she’d been too tired to lift her arms. The ten-minute nap at 4:00 a.m. hadn’t revived her, but she was less punch-drunk. Her last call with Mr. Davis had convinced her that the deal was finally tied down. All they needed was signatures. Resting her eyes had ended up in full-clothes sleep and a ringing headache.

  She finally got a bead on the small digital clock covered with papers. It was 6:30 a.m. Not even her sister, Cyn, who had no respect for boundaries, came to the house before noon. Everybody, including all possible delivery men, knew that Iona never got up before noon. An early delivery for her was 1:00 p.m. But the geese kept up the alarm, announcing someone was at the gate and more than likely on the way up the path to the porch.

  Iona’s cabin was at the end of the hollow, backed close to the mountain. Few people ventured this far back, assuming that the road ended in the woods. A tiny one-lane dirt road led to the home designed and built by her parents. Her parents had never lived in the house. The night before the move into the new house, a bad gas connection caused a house fire that had consumed the old house and killed her parents and grandmother. Iona, eager to sleep in her new room, had been at the new cabin that night, arriving the next morning just as the house exploded into flames. She remembered the overwhelming sound of the fire as she waited for the volunteer fire department, desperately trying to get into the house and screaming until her voice was gone. The day imprinted on her in more ways than just the husky voice she had now.

  She rarely left her house, preferring her solitude to the sterile perfection of Linc’s house or the total chaos of Cyn’s that left her unable to think. This was her fortress of solitude. Neither her brother nor sister had insisted that she live with them after the fire. Cyn had been working on her law degree and Linc had just established his practice. Iona had completed her education online and had almost but not quite convinced her siblings that she was totally agoraphobic. They each wanted to call “bullshit” but decided to err on the side of caution.

  With the geese quiet, Iona drifted into a light sleep, waiting to get up whenever the dogs barked to announce the visitor was coming up the path. Bunny, the mastiff, slept on the porch while Buster, a small terrier mutt, slept in the living room. Both were extremely territorial, guaranteed to bark if someone walked to the bottom of the path that ran four hundred feet from the road.

  The lack of a bark put her at ease enough to drift off into a light sleep, relaxing into the pillow only to jerk awake from the hard, fast, and loud pounding on the door. She flounced out of the warm bed. She slowly pulled on sweat jacket, pants, and thick socks, sliding her revolver into the pocket of the oversized pants. She stumbled down the stairs. Buster sat quietly at the door, waiting for whoever it was to come in.

  She slammed open the door, ready to curse whoever it was, when she crashed into a man’s chest, a very, very large man’s chest. Her big brown eyes traveled up to clash with deep emerald-green eyes that smiled down at her.

  “You most certainly are not my cousin,” the green-eyed giant rumbled. He pushed a black cowboy hat back to reveal curly, shoulder-length blond hair. “But that’s neither here nor there, is it? I need for you to get packed and come with me to England. The deal is falling apart a-damn-gain. We don’t have time to keep it going over the net or by phone.”

  “Oh shit, you’re Mr. Davis. What are you doing here?” Iona stepped back to let him into the house.

  Chapter Two:

  The Only Thing I Own

  Buster looked up at the man crowding Iona’s entryway with friendly eyes, while Bunny stood at his knee butting him for more of the rubbing she was already getting. Both of the dogs followed Iona and Christopher into the bright-yellow kitchen. He was one of her clients. Hell, his company was the only client of her Internet consulting club. She was a leading expert in green energy. Wind and solar were her specialties.

  Christopher Joseph Davis IV, the president and COO of Okey Energy, looked Iona up and down. Smirking at the telltale droop of her jacket that indicated a gun, he looked around her house, glancing at the piles of books and magazines in her living room, throwing a brief glance up the wooden staircase, and made a beeline for the kitchen.

  “Call me CJ, Lil Bit. All my friends do. I consider you a great friend already. I’ve been talking to you for a long damn time. Till ten minutes ago, I had no idea that you were so young or so black, so very pretty, so goddamn sexy. Since we finished last night, nope, three hours ago, the damn Chinese came up with a plan that cuts ours out by about €2 billion. The Brits are balkin’ like a hard-headed mule and the deal needs the personal touch. That’s why my jet is gassed up and ready to leave from Charleston as soon as you get a bag.”

  The project itself had been her first proposal to CJ and Okey, a wind farm large enough to power most of the eastern half of the British Isles. It was a daunting project full of ups and downs and close calls. Most of them handled by phone calls combined with e-mails, e-mails, and more e-mails. Last night, or rather this morning, she fell into bed with the clear knowledge that her bonus, lavish and well earned, was on its way.

  Now Mr. Davis, CJ, sat gingerly on her broom-bottom stool at her kitchen island. “I told you last night I can’t go. No passport. Besides, I’m agoraphobic. I never leave the house.” She poured cranberry juice for herself and rummaged her pantry.

  “I don’t have any coffee or tea. My sister, Cynthia should be here in a few minutes with some if you want to wait. Meantime, is cranberry juice okay? I have pomegranate.” She was trying not to look at him. He made the room seem so small and cluttered. He stroked Bunny at his feet and Buster lay content on his wide lap. He flashed a thousand-watt smile that turned into a laugh as he continued to stroke the dogs, both of whom were in a catatonic state of bliss.

  His rumbling chuckles went straight to her gut, making her whole body tremble as an erotic deluge began that threatened to run down her legs. She sat down without getting his juice. Her dreads brushed her butt and for the first time caused a sensual thrill through her.

  “How much of what you’ve been telling me for the last two years about your experience and expertise is true and how much is bullshit?” he asked.

  “I’m a peer-reviewed expert in alternative energy. I didn’t fake the articles I sent you. But I might have been slightly off on where I went to school. Maybe how old I was and probably how long I’ve been in business.”

  “You lied like a rug, Lil Bit, but this deal has the potential to take my company into a whole other lucrative en
ergy business stream. Pull your hair back, lose the jacket and the gun, and stand against the door. Wait here for a minute.”

  Without a question, Iona gathered the butt-length dreads away from her face and stood against the light-honey door of her pantry. Buster complained when CJ picked him up from his lap and placed him beside his playmate. CJ moved to stand in front of Iona, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. He left the kitchen, leaving Iona with her dogs.

  “You guys are an embarrassment. Some big old guy comes in and you turn into pussycats. I’m ashamed. What if he’s a serial killer?” The dogs hung their heads but still perked up when CJ returned with a clean light-blue sheet that he hung over the door. He straightened the collar of the blue dress shirt she wore to bed. She turned her back to slip the gun from her pocket to the utility drawer. She looked up in time to see CJ’s twisted smile.

  “You’re a cautious lady. Whose shirt is this?” CJ clicked a few pictures on his cell phone, pausing between shots to dismiss them as he saw fit.

  “My father’s.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “No.” He looked up at her emphatic tone and cocked a brow. “Girlfriend?”

  “No. Agoraphobic, misanthrope, hermit, almost a virgin. That’s me.”

  “Bullshit. You’re too young and pretty. With a body like that, you’ve got your share of lovers.” He snapped another close up, nodded his head, and returned the stool, furiously typing on his phone. “And how can you be almost a virgin?”