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

  “His penis was so small I don’t think it broke my hymen.”

  His barked laugh told her that she had been too honest again. “Well, Lil Bit, after you’ve been with me, you won’t have any doubt.”

  “Not gonna be an issue.” She pulled herself up to her full five feet and braced her hands on the kitchen island. “The deal can be salvaged from here. I’ll call Whittaker while you’re here and see what we can do.” She looked around for her cell, pretending not to see CJ shaking his head.

  “I’ve already spent hours on the phone with him. He’ll give us one last chance to come up with some better numbers. We have a meeting with him at 4:00 p.m. in his London office day after tomorrow. You get your butt in the shower. I can call someone to take care of the place while you’re gone. Give me your clothes sizes. I need to have you ready for London by the time we get to the airport.”

  She stood motionless in the middle of the kitchen. CJ left his chair again and bent down, kissing her open mouth. It was a biting, sucking exploration of her. Iona swayed into him until he picked her up and wrapped her short, shapely legs around his waist. He tasted of cigars and vanilla. His tongue took control of her, making her hotter than she had ever been in her life. She ground into his chest, not caring a damp patch was spreading across his gray silk T-shirt.

  They didn’t stop at the honking of the geese, when the dogs began barking, or when the tall man cleared his throat for the third time. They did break when Cyn entered the room, grabbed up the broom from the corner, and began whacking CJ on the back.

  “Who the fuck are you? Iona, get down from there and put on some clothes. Who are these strange white guys and why you all over that one like a hen on a June bug?” Cyn’s fierce voice finally penetrated Iona’s fogged up brain. Cyn pulled her curvy five-foot-six-inch body up to full height. She wore jeans that curved over her high, tight butt and right now she quivered in indignation.

  “Oh shit,” she whispered.

  “Oh shit,” CJ said as he dodged another round of swats from the broom. The other tall white man leaned against the doorway, laughing until he had to hold his sides.

  “Clint, you’re my bodyguard. Protect my body,” CJ yelled, ducking yet another volley from Cyn as she stalked him with her broom.

  “Just be glad I don’t have my pistol,” Cyn said. She backed CJ into the back door.

  “I’m not getting in between the Tiny Terror and you. I value my life too much.”

  “I’m her sister and her guardian.”

  “Ma’am, you just look too young to have guardianship of someone this old,” Clint said.

  Cyn stopped pouncing on CJ long enough to smile at Clint. “You I kinda like, but I’m not having two grown men turning I’s head. She’s got issues. And I don’t want you”—she turned to pin CJ with an icy stare—“to take advantage of her.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I agree. I’m Clint Davis. I work for that child molester you’re chasing around the room. I’m sorry for the mess.”

  “I’m Cynthia Spencer Davis. I didn’t know we had cousins this big.” Cyn flashed Clint a clear, bright smile. “But I’m very happy to meet you, Clint. The other asshole not so much,” Cyn said.

  CJ took the opportunity to hurry Iona out of the room and up the steps. She sank on the edge of her rumpled bed, clutching her head in her hands. “We don’t have time for that, Lil Bit. Get in the shower and I’ll handle your sister. We need to be on the road in thirty minutes.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you give me the update from Whittaker. What does he want?”

  “We don’t have time. My secretary will have a passport waiting at Gatwick along with clothes. I’ll give you the details as we travel. I’ll handle the Tiny Terror downstairs.” CJ pulled a backpack, Iona’s only luggage, out of the closet and began throwing stuff into it.

  “Her name is Cynthia, Cyn for short. Get out of my underwear drawer, you big perv. Let’s go over the rules from our signed contract. I don’t fly, leave my house, or meet clients face-to-face,” Iona said.

  CJ kissed her hard, running his hands around her waist up to her breast. They overflowed his hands, allowing his fingers to pinch the erect nipples until she gasped in want.

  “OK, my almost virgin, shower and downstairs in fifteen.”

  Iona stood in the middle of her bedroom, wondering if she was still asleep. She touched her tender nipples, hissing as the movement caused her pussy to clinch. If it were a dream, it was a damn good one.

  Iona jumped when CJ stuck his head back into the room. “Don’t make that pussy come while you’re in the shower, Lil Bit. That’s my job from now on.” He grinned and slammed the door before she could answer.

  Chapter Three:

  Careful and Kind

  Iona came down fifteen minutes later in clean jeans, T-shirt, V-neck sweater, and her favorite slip-on canvas shoes. Buster and Bunny were slumped at CJ’s feet. Cynthia was fixing a big country breakfast. CJ and Clint sat on the high stools around the tiny island, talking to her as she whipped together a full country breakfast.

  “What exactly does Iona do for your company, CJ?” Cyn said. Waiting for the potatoes to simmer, she sat across the kitchen island, drinking coffee from a bright-blue mug that Iona had made for their mother when she was nine. She smiled at Clint, treating him like a welcome guest as she produced muffins for his coffee. CJ reached for one and drew his hand back at the look of total disgust that she cast his way.

  “Miss Davis was hired two years ago as a consultant to Okey Energy, Ltd. She’s an expert in alternative energies and a world-renowned peer-reviewed scholar,” CJ said. He turned to stare at Clint wolfing down yet another muffin. “She doesn’t look like she’s out of high school. I got played, cuz.”

  Clint laughed into his coffee.

  “Iona has a degree from McGill University in Montreal. She did off-site studies. She received her doctorate at twenty. All that other stuff I don’t know about, but if Iona says it’s so, it’s so. She don’t lie. Much.” Cyn punched a number into her cell phone and excused herself from the group. She went outside by the back door facing the sharp incline of the mountain covered in bright fall trees.

  Cyn stepped back into the room and was the first to notice Iona standing in the doorway. The older version of Iona twisted her mouth into a scowl.

  “I called Lincoln. He and Jeff are coming over tonight after he finishes surgery. It doesn’t seem to me that you know this guy well enough to be jumping in his arms like he’s your long-lost husband. I don’t know him, Linc never heard of him, and Jeff is clueless, too, so he’s not somebody you talked to any of your family about. What’s up with the whole ‘duck on a June bug’ act I caught when I walked in?” Cyn’s curly, shoulder-length hair seemed to sizzle with indignation as she glanced from CJ to Iona.

  “I thought it was some strange Oklahoma greeting. I’ve never met anyone from there, so culturally, that might have been a typical greeting,” Iona said.

  “I’ma culturally beat your hind end if I catch you doing something like that again,” Cyn said.

  Before Iona could say anything else, CJ pulled her into the circle of his arms, cradling her gently against his obvious erection. “I told your sister that I’m your client in an alterative energy deal that’s happening in London. You’re going with me now, or as soon as I have you packed and ready to go. Cyn, I know as a woman of the world you know how sometimes people just click. We’ve been in close communications for over two years, late-night chats, e-mails and phone calls. I might have reacted indiscreetly, but Lil Bit kinda surprised me. I was expecting a thirty-five-year-old blonde,” CJ said. He traced a pattern on Iona’s shoulder that burned through the layers of shirts she wore.

  “My brother and I need to talk to her in a calm family way to get a better understanding of what it is that you need her in London for. How long have you worked for this company?”

  “Like CJ said, Okey Energy hired me over two years ago to put together a wind farm project for Grea
t Britain,” Iona said. She didn’t move from the heat radiating from CJ’s legs as she stood between them.

  “You don’t have a job. Linc and I pay for all your expenses,” Cyn sputtered clearly out of her comfort zone.

  “Actually, I never asked for you to. You guys assumed. I’ve worked since I was fifteen. The Internet doesn’t require a lot of identification. And the money you guys put into my account for living expenses I used to contribute to green initiatives around the world. I started buying Okey stock when they accepted my first proposal. I like to put your money where my mouth is. It’s held in trust for your kids. I figured you and Linc will have children and they’ll need a college fund,” Iona said. She didn’t look at her older sister as she spoke, swirling the dregs left in CJ’s coffee cup to give her hands something to do. “You have a really bad portfolio and Linc and Jeff are way too conservative in their investment choices.”

  “Tell me that you didn’t hack us again?”

  “I never stopped. You guys said that it would be nice for me to stop looking at your personal financials and such. I stopped for a few years but you talk about how hard the market kicked your collective asses over the past four years, so I decided to invest the money you deposit because my compensation from Okey is more than enough to cover my expenses.” Iona paused as CJ and Clint interrupted her with laughter. Cyn’s eyes slitted as she looked at her little sister.

  “I won’t ask you how much they pay you because you think that as long you can pay for your Internet access you’re in high cotton. Who negotiated your contract with this company?”

  “I did. It pays a flat fee per year and I take a percentage of the deal at the back end,” Iona said.

  “Oh God, you’re making minimum wage at least?”

  Iona grinned broadly. “Yeah, it’s a little above.”

  “If you consider a percentage of a €45 billion deal a little above minimum wage,” CJ said between sips of coffee. “We need to be in London tonight. My jet is waiting in Charleston and we have a meeting set up for tomorrow.”

  Iona and Cyn began talking at once. Iona paused to listen to Cyn explain to CJ, as if he were a hybrid of a slow donkey, why Iona couldn’t go to London. After she finished, Iona added, “Whittaker can’t make a decision of this magnitude without going through quite a few British agencies. The story was leaked to the press last night. Now, he doesn’t have the time to convene a meeting tomorrow without looking like he’s in a panic. So, day after tomorrow he will want to meet with Okey.”

  “I can imagine where that leak came from,” Clint said. He smiled at Iona and went in for another muffin.

  “We have got to talk to Linc and Jeff about you going off to London with people none of us knew about until a few hours ago. Plus, you guys”—Cyn pointed to CJ and Iona shaking her head—“Are a little too friendly. Makes me uncomfortable.” Cyn’s large brown eyes closed in a frown.

  * * * *

  Clint stood in the hallway speaking in low tones as he arranged for a few rooms at a hotel for the night. CJ walked out onto the front porch to coordinate with his team on the plane. After a few minutes of awkward silence, Iona got her box of weed down from the high shelf, where she left it for “medicinal” reasons.

  Cyn accepted the joint Iona offered her off of the roller. Cyn offered it to Iona, who shook her head and rolled her own. They sat quietly smoking for fifteen minutes before Cyn asked her first question.

  “Why didn’t you come live with either Linc or me after Nana, Ma, and Dad died? I should have made you.”

  “You were in law school, Linc had just set up his practice, and he and Jeff were just starting out as a couple, and there was no way you could have made me do anything. You guys needed your lives without unnecessary baggage. Besides, I needed to be alone. Want some wine?” Iona used her step stool to pull down two wineglasses from an open shelf over the counter. She opened a bottle of pinot noir, presenting her sister with the first glass.

  “Neither one of you would have been any fun to live with.” Iona sat beside Cyn at the island.

  “Do you realize that you said that out loud?” Cyn asked.

  “You tell me that all the time, but I guess living alone with just me and the animals got me into the habit. I’m working on just thinking without speaking, but it’s an old habit. I’m better than when I was a kid. Remember when I said that Nana would look better if she put her teeth in?” Iona said.

  They laughed at the memory of their grandmother chasing Iona around the old house with her store-bought teeth. Over the next few hours Iona explained the wind farm proposal, piquing Cyn’s growing interest.

  “I thought you were like stoner-baby-sister smart, but you’re international-projects smart. How could I have missed that?” Cyn sounded genuinely puzzled.

  “I’m both, and it works really well. I wasn’t hiding it or anything, it’s just my thing. I planned on telling you guys—” Cyn held up her hand to stop her sister.

  “Hold it. I think Linc and Jeff are here. They need to hear this,” Cyn said.

  Jeff Antonetti bounded into the kitchen, hugging Cyn first before hugging Iona longer and harder. “You are in so much trouble,” Jeff said. He moved over to stand close to Linc, who came into the kitchen to lean against the counter between the oven and the dishwasher.

  Iona said, “I don’t think so. I know some people that you guys don’t know about. And I’ve been working and am being paid quite well for the past two years. Oh, I gave most of the money you guys put in my account away but some of it I invested in Okey Energy from Oklahoma. Plus, I’ve been working for them for the past two years on a project in England. I think that’s about it.” Iona poured Jeff some coffee.

  Jeff looked like a mixture of his Italian father and Irish mother. He was five feet ten inches tall and built like an elongated fire hydrant. For him, delivering babies was a full-on contact sport so he worked out and had thick shoulders and arms tapering down to a narrow waist and a cuppable butt. His mouth twisted to keep a smile off his face.

  “She left out some things,” Cyn said.

  Iona laughed, unable to stop a grin spread over her face. She ducked her head in an attempt to hide her sense of wonder about what had passed between her and CJ. “Snitch, you could at least let him take a hit or get a drink or something.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. You should have seen her, Linc. I walk in and she’s doing a slow grind on some huge blond cowboy. I’m thinking, I haven’t heard of a cowboy my baby sister should be humping on, so I react without thought. Grab a broom like he’s a field mouse or something and start to whack, whack the guy. It was worth the shock to see old boy ducking and dodging. This guy is taller and thicker than you are, Linc,” Cyn said.

  “So Missy here is grinding on the cowboy and he’s palming her ass and kissing her like he just got back from the war and I interrupt, a little stricter than I should’ve, but she ain’t stopped grinning since I walked in.” Cyn smiled at her petite baby sister.

  Linc pushed at his nose to push back the glasses that he no longer wore. “I understand the business aspects of the deal, but why would you have to go to London to sign for the deal? Sounds like its dead in the water.”

  “Please, this is just starting. The Brits have to make sure they get the best possible bang for the buck. That would be the deal I created. I don’t want my first big deal to go down the tubes because I wasn’t there to explain something really simple,” Iona said. She sat with her feet tucked under her, knowing that she would definitely go to London.

  “Well, that’s settled. Got everything you need?” Jeff hopped up on the counter, resting his head on Linc’s shoulder from the back. They talked about the logistics of leaving on such short notice. Cyn had come home for the weekend to spend some down time. She agreed to stay until Thursday. The animals and the house were in good hands for at least four days.

  They talked until four, falling into the easy rhythm that had developed over the years with the three distinct siblings. They st
ood in stair steps, Linc towering at six feet four inches, Cyn with her comfortable height and towering five-inch heels, and Iona, just under five feet tall and one hundred twenty pounds, most of that ass.

  “Isn’t it amazing that women are paying to get an ass like mine? For years I’ve tried to exercise or diet mine off and it just gets rounder and rounder,” Iona said. She twisted around to try to catch a glimpse of the bane of her existence.

  “I, for one, applaud that fact.” CJ stood at the entrance of the kitchen.

  Jeff and Linc immediately straightened up and glared at CJ while Iona introduced them. Testosterone levels go up, mental capacity goes down.

  Only Cyn laughed.

  “It’s nice to meet y’all. I came to see if Lil Bit would go with me to the little bar down the road.” CJ threaded his fingers through Iona’s.

  “We don’t go there,” Linc said.

  “Why would that be?” CJ asked.

  Iona answered as she brushed past him in the doorway to grab a man’s fedora, a rain coat, and neon blue rain boots from the hall closet.

  “Our ancestors owned this entire holler since 1845. It was extremely difficult to keep land in a negro’s hands, so one of my greats married a white woman and their kids married light or white for the next few generations so that by the time the twentieth century rolled around, there was a set of white Davises and a set of black Davises. But the twist was that the white ones can live here forever but the land belongs to the black cousins. So when you called me cousin all those months ago, I took it to be true.” Iona pulled her outerwear on and walked toward the door.

  “You’re going?” Linc’s eyebrows shot up, reaching for a hairline that didn’t exist on her brother’s shaved head.

  “Of course. I’m curious,” Iona said. She led CJ out of the house and to the waiting car.

  * * * *

  After a five-mile trip, CJ pulled up in front of a clapboard-enclosed warehouse. Once a vibrant red, the rain and snow had muted the color to a sad, weak pink, a perfect backdrop for the weathered hitching posts aligned with the front entrance. Potted flowers drooped in the rain now coming down harder. The door flew open with Iona’s push and the wind. She stopped in the entryway, smiling at Lacy Davis behind the bar and her boyfriend, Jack Echols, now turning around in his stool to watch Iona and CJ slide into a booth. The red leather was neatly patched with red duct tape. Iona whispered tidbits of information on most of the people in the bar.