Heaven Beside You Read online

  Ditching the New York apartment hadn’t helped. Releasing that shitty solo album made everything worse. Watching Bear find, court and marry his own one true love had been agony. Throwing himself into promo for the last album had worked because dropping into malls and small town radio stations during the tour not only boosted record sales and made him valuable to the rest of the band, it gave him something positive. He needed positive or he was going to get thrown out of the band, no matter how valuable he was.

  Once the tour ended, Sandy strongly suggested going to West Virginia to sit on the side of a mountain for a while and cool his heels far, far away from where he could piss off the band more. “I want you back on your feet for the Grammys, boy,” his manager had said. “You have two weeks.”

  In two weeks, he could seduce and thrill the sexy little miss and leave her with exciting memories while soothing his ego at the same time. A good bargain all around, right?

  Maybe not. Guilt gnawed at the back of his mind. He knew what it looked like from the female side when Mr. Right turned out to be Mr. Right Now And Gone Tomorrow. He still knew the names of all the men and boys who’d broken his sisters’ hearts even if they didn’t realize he’d noticed. No way did he want to be that guy for any woman.

  Still, she knew what the score was. She didn’t have to bite. He showed up as Mr. Right Now. All alone up here all winter, sexy Cassandra had to have some time to kill, and judging by the way she’d reacted to him, she was inclined.

  He checked his watch. Plenty of time to shower and shave before dinner. He opened his suitcase. Lots of black stuff, which suited his mood and his body. After ten years of being dressed by professionals, he knew what worked. With his swarthy skin and dark hair, black looked perfect. Blond Brian wore a lot of white and blue. Blond Brian, who was a husband and father before he ever meant to be. Unfair, to say the least. Jason had always wanted to settle down. He wanted a wife and kids and a house in the country. Brian had all that stuff. Bear had it now too. Some days it was hard not to hate Brian and Bear, even if they were his best friends.

  Jason threw a black shirt and black jeans on the bare mattress along with some underwear and socks. Then he sauntered across the living room to the bathroom and turned on the shower. The place was warm. Sexy Cassandra had made sure of that. The water spraying across his hand steamed. When Jody told him the proprietor of the In the Pines Campground was a woman named Cassandra Geoffrey, he’d envisioned a tough old bird with a buzz cut, built like a Marine and wearing a scowl that could scare tempered steel. He’d expected to spend his two weeks holed up in the rented cabin playing guitar and talking to himself. But the vision that had greeted him at the door had been more than welcome. That mass of curly hair made his hands itch to be buried in it, letting it twist around his fingers, and it was so red he wondered if cuffs and collar matched. From the shade of her eyebrows and eyelashes, they did, unless she dyed those too. Did women in the real world do that? He’d been living in LA too long. Seeing Jennifer Aniston in reruns and at the neighborhood Starbucks tended to warp the mind a little.

  Jason stepped under the water, feeling himself thaw. Cassandra’s sea-green eyes and lovely full mouth were pretty captivating too. And unlike most redheads, she didn’t have freckles. Nothing wrong with freckles, but they’d always made him think of little girls, and he preferred women. No, her skin, what he’d been able to see, had been smooth and pale as sweet cream. Maybe it was like that all over. That led him back to wondering what her body looked like under the parka. The hint had been strong enough that he knew it wasn’t bad, but how good was it?

  He warmed to more than the water. It had been some time since he’d had much reaction to any woman. Getting dumped in the national press had sort of put a damper on things. He took a deep breath. If he didn’t get himself under control quick, he’d have to stick his head in a snowdrift on his way to dinner, and she might wonder about him then.

  He smiled, hoping she was wondering about him now.

  Chapter 2

  The tablecloth she’d spread on the table looked stupid. First of all, the very bright summery yellow did not suit the season. Second, it smacked of trying too hard, and she didn’t want to fawn. Jason Callisto hadn’t come to West Virginia to be fawned over. If he wanted that he would have gone to Aspen where the skiing was better, according to People magazine.

  Yanking the tablecloth off, she folded it up before stuffing it back in the drawer. The roast had to go on the good platter because it was the only thing big enough, though she was not going to get much roast beef for sandwiches, which had been the point of cooking a big meal.

  She checked the roast. It looked fine and would be ready on time. Good thing she’d done the full service carrots and potatoes.

  In her bedroom, she surveyed the choices. If she didn’t make up her mind, she would greet him at the door in her birthday suit, and that would put an entirely different spin on the evening. At least, she decided, they didn’t do that in Aspen.

  She picked up the jewel-tone purple sweater her mother had given her for Christmas. As yet unworn, but her mother had an unerring eye for color. However, it had a turtleneck. Hardly sexy. The other option was her tight black chenille with the low neckline. She’d bought it in the children’s department, which is why it was so tight and low. That’s also why almost nobody around town had seen it, but she felt voluptuous when she wore it around the house.

  The dinner rolls had to get in the oven or they wouldn’t be ready.

  She pulled on a pair of black bell-bottoms—they accentuated her curves—and the purple sweater because it didn’t make her look like a tart. A good trade off, under the circumstances. Then she hurried into the kitchen and, after wrapping an apron older than her mother over the ensemble, got the dinner rolls going and assembled her trifle.

  Now, that was over doing it. Or looked like it. The pound cake and the strawberries were frozen and the pudding, instant. The whole thing took five minutes tops to throw together, but in a crystal bowl, it looked gorgeous and frilly. She turned the bowl. Did it even have a best angle? Every inch was bright, gooey and mouthwatering. Before she found one, the bell rang.

  Jason stood outside, moody and seductive in his long black coat, like a member of the French Resistance who’d fallen out of World War II. Or a rock star who’d appeared in West Virginia to have dinner with a fan.

  Because that happened all the time.

  She pulled open the door and summoned up her normal speaking voice. Not an easy task when her tongue wanted to loll out of her mouth. “Hello, you’re just in time. Come on in.” She led him up the three stairs to her living room door.

  Since she not only lived and worked here, but got stuck inside sometimes for weeks in the winter, the place was very cozy and warm. Dark wood floors, whitewashed walls, and overstuffed burgundy furniture facing the fieldstone fireplace, which she kept blazing most of the winter. Curtains blocked the view of her office. The TV sat where she could see it from the couch, but had a thick film of dust on it because she hadn’t cleaned since she’d come back up the mountain after Christmas. On either side of the TV, bookshelves groaned with books and DVDs. It was nice. Not MTV Cribs nice, but nice.

  He bypassed all of that and walked straight to the window overlooking the valley. She hadn’t managed to set up her easel yet so there was nothing to block the view.

  “Nice view,” he said.

  She felt obligated to go stand beside him. Because he was a guest and not because she couldn’t resist the opportunity to be near him. Really.

  Beyond her tiny side yard and across the access road, the ground dropped off for about five feet then resumed a more leisurely descent into the valley below. It gave the impression that her cabin was hanging on the edge of the mountain. The town below looked like a miniature in a snow globe, lit by a few lights from street lamps and houses, peaceful and sleepy. Across and down the valley, the new ski lodge did a brisk business, like an illuminated scar o
n the mountain. She hadn’t minded it until they’d started with the night skiing. Then it ruined her pretty view and kept all the tourists on the slopes in the evenings instead of giving them time to go into town for dinner and shopping.

  “Is that a ski lodge?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She kept her voice neutral. Finally, she’d found something to counterbalance his appeal. The ski lodge. She didn’t remember any of his press saying he skied, but he might. Or he might be bored enough to take it up over the next two weeks. His rented Caddy wouldn’t look as out of place in their parking lot. “Do you ski?”

  “No, I don’t. I just was thinking it looks funny lit up like that. Kind of ruins the view.” He turned to her. “There. That’s better.”

  “Better?” Her breath caught. So much for counterbalancing appeal.

  “The view. It’s much better from this direction,” he said.

  Cass glanced down to hide the blush she had to be sporting and realized she was still wearing her apron. And she’d been worried about what sweater to wear? “I should get the roast out.”

  She spun around and dashed for the kitchen. The roast was done enough to take out, the rolls were not.

  Maybe he’d agreed with her about the ski lodge, or he was buttering her up. But how would he know he was agreeing with her? What would be the purpose of buttering her up? She shivered at the thought.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  Cass jumped and spun around holding the serving fork like a weapon. Jason leaned against the doorway smiling lazily. He seemed less harsh than he had before. She cleared her throat. “I suppose if you want a job, you can get this out of the roaster and start slicing while I make the gravy.”

  “Gladly.” At the exact moment she lost her grip on the fork, his fingers brushed hers and she would have dropped it if he hadn’t been holding it. She fidgeted behind him while he moved the roast. “You look like you know what you’re doing.”

  “I get a lot of practice. When the roads get bad up here, they can stay that way for weeks sometimes. I could probably get down the holler, but there’s no guarantee I’d get back up.” She took the roaster out of his hands and turned away to make the gravy.

  “Couldn’t you stay with someone in town?” Jason asked over his shoulder. He’d picked up the knife and begun slicing.

  She tried to stop imagining Jason’s long fingers wrapped around her serrated knife. “I could stay with my parents, but nobody wants that.” She poured the gravy into a stoneware gravy boat. Overkill again. When she ate alone, she dumped what she needed into a coffee mug.

  “You don’t get along with your parents?”

  She wondered if the question was more than idle curiosity and then dismissed that idea as a figment of her overactive imagination. Even if he was, as she sort of hoped and sort of feared, trying to seduce her, why would he care about her relationship with her parents? “Sure, as long as they’re in the valley and I’m up here. I usually spend about three weeks with them between Christmas and mid-January. About the end of that, we’re all ready to say our good-byes until summer.”

  “What happens in the summer?”

  “Dad gives nature walks and Mom does craft classes.”

  “A real family affair.”

  “Half the town does something. I’ve got a storyteller and another craft teacher and an astronomer, and a historian who does tours of local sites. There’s even a guy who comes up about once a week to show old movies on a sheet strung between the trees.” Speaking of which, she had to get started scheduling. It gave her something to think about that wasn’t Jason Callisto slicing roast beef in her kitchen.

  Shiver. Jason Callisto slicing roast beef in her kitchen.

  She took out the dinner rolls. Double batch. They would freeze fine. Unless Jason ended up liking them and ate the lot.

  Jason glanced at the rolls and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got enough campers in these cabins to support all that entertainment?”

  “Oh no. There’s two lots of RV hookups down the road and a couple of tent camping areas. I can have up to two hundred people here on an August weekend.” She cradled the gravy boat in her hands to keep them busy.

  Did he think it was hokey and provincial? It was kind of, but it was nothing to be ashamed of. When she’d bought the place, every cabin, including this house, needed extensive work. The town had been hanging on by a thread, full of older people who had nowhere else to go and half the shops had been closed. She’d done a lot with this place, and for the town below. In a way, the stupid ski lodge was her fault. She’d been so successful, she was surprised a McDonald’s and a Domino’s weren’t sitting side by side in the center of town by now. “I want to build a rec hall next year so we can do more stuff and have someplace for tent people to go if the weather gets bad.”

  “So why aren’t you open in the winter?”

  “Too cold. Who wants to go camping in the mountains in the winter?”

  Jason shrugged. “I didn’t think it was too cold. My cabin’s nice and warm.”

  “Wait until your fire goes out and you don’t notice until morning.” She carried the gravy boat to the table, trying to focus on extending her season and ended up thinking about Jason anyway.

  “In the middle of the table?” Jason asked.

  She jerked and sloshed gravy over the lip of the boat. “That’s fine.” She scraped the escaping drop from the side of the boat and licked it off her finger.

  He set the platter on the table, but she caught his gaze skittering away from her mouth. “My manager’s cousin vacationed here a few years ago and really liked it, but I guess it was smaller then. He didn’t say anything about all those activities you talked about.”

  “It gets bigger every year. I just got my RV hookups for last season and I’m running out of room already.” She ducked back into the kitchen for a deep breath and grabbed the potatoes and carrots and the basket of rolls at the same time. “What about you? All we’ve done is talk about me.”

  “There’s very little about me that hasn’t been printed up in a tabloid someplace,” he muttered as he settled into a chair.

  How true was that? Many of those tabloids were tucked in a box under her bed. Maybe she could check tonight after he left.

  If he left. Hmm. “I’m sure that isn’t true,” she lied. “How about your family?” Father deceased, mother still living, four sisters, she thought.

  “I have four sisters, all older than me. My mother still lives in Illinois and two of my sisters are close by her, the other two live in California near me. My father died when I was a kid. That’s about all there is to tell.”

  “Are you close?”

  He shrugged and served himself some potatoes. “Sure.”

  “I’m not interviewing you.”

  He looked up and met her eyes. For a moment he stared, then he grinned, making her breath catch. “I guess not. Sorry, habit.”

  “I understand.” Her heart pounded in her throat. Photographs couldn’t capture that grin, somehow rawly sexual and endearing at the same time.

  “So what do total strangers talk about over dinner?” he asked, that gleam never leaving his gaze.

  Cass smiled. Steamy eye contact or not, this she excelled at. She spent so much time chatting with total strangers, she hardly knew what to say to people who knew her. “What’s your favorite movie?”

  “Boy, current or for all time?”

  She laughed. This would make things easier. Talk about neutral subjects, then she wouldn’t have to wonder what his lips would feel like against hers.

  “You know, I’ve always liked From Here To Eternity.” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Really? I’ve never seen that one.” Not all of it, anyway. Everyone had seen the beach scene. The stars rolling through the surf kissing. How was it everything led back to kissing? She should be relieved he hadn’t picked Fatal Attraction, the way she was headed.

  “You should. It’s a
classic. Maybe one night while I’m up here we can rent it.” He bit down on the piece of meat on his fork.

  Cass watched his white teeth sink into the tender meat. Her mouth felt like parchment. He had such beautiful, full lips. “It is something I’ve always meant to see,” she managed to say without her jaw unhinging.

  “Do you have Netflix or a Red Box in town?”

  “Red Box? No, but we have a little video rental place. I can call Walter and see if he has it, if you like.” Cass picked up her fork. If she didn’t start eating, he would wonder. She had to attempt to act normal. Not easy, under the circumstances. This was every high school fantasy she’d ever had. Her favorite rock star, sitting across the table from her chatting and making flirtatious motions. At least she hoped they were. She wanted them to be.

  “No hurry. We have two whole weeks. What about you? What’s your favorite movie?”

  Fortunately, she had a pat, but true answer ready for that question. One that had nothing whatsoever to do with kissing. “The Haunting. The original black and white one with Claire Bloom.”

  “The original? I thought there was only one.” He reached for another roll, pausing with his hand over the basket, and looked at her. He liked the rolls. Cass suppressed an irrational desire to giggle.

  “No, the one with Catherine Zeta Jones was a remake. I’ve got the original. Widescreen. It’s very scary and everything is done by suggestion.” To distract her gaze from his hand on the rolls, she glanced at her DVD shelf. She’d gotten the DVD for Christmas and hadn’t even opened it yet.

  “If that’s an invitation, I accept. After dinner?”

  She nearly dropped her fork. Bad enough to have him for dinner, but to have him sitting in her living room, on her couch all evening watching a movie? She’d have to make popcorn—did she have any in the house? In separate bowls, it would help her tone down a little bit. Might ruin his appetite for the trifle though. Maybe if she kept making food for him, her mind and hands would be too busy to embarrass her. “If you like.”