When he opened the door, she shoved the sweatshirt into his arms in a lame attempt to deflect his attention from her appearance.
It worked, at first. “Cool,” he said, as if he’d been looking around for a jacket or something similar to wear in deference to the winter chill.
As he raised his arms to pull the garment over his head, his T-shirt rode up above the low waistband of his jeans, exposing a few inches of flat stomach, outrageously sexy hip bones, and an intriguing line of silky dark hair leading down from his navel.
A sensual image came to mind, one of her falling to her knees and rubbing her cheek across that smooth expanse.
Her heart began to beat a pagan rhythm. Oh man, oh baby, oh…yes.
Oblivious to her lustful paralysis, he ran a hand over his hair, straightening the sweater’s hem and cuffs. “How do I look?”
She had to laugh. “Good.”
His eyes roamed over her, and he wasn’t shy about zeroing in on her breasts. “So do you. Better than good. Delicious.”
Her stomach muscles clenched. “I look…delicious?”
“Yeah. Buttery and syrupy, like waffles. Or maybe I’m just hungry.” He looked up the stairs. “Carly!”
Carly Fortune swept down the stairs, throwing her long hair over one shoulder, outdoing them both with a spectacular, slinky black dress. It was long-sleeved and high-necked, with a short skirt that showed off legs most women would kill for.
“I said casual,” he complained.
“Daddy, you’re wearing shoes. That’s formal.” She kissed his dark cheek in a Lolita-like greeting, solely for Sonny’s benefit. Judging by the hard set of his jaw, he was not amused.
Carly summed her up coolly. “Are you a lesbian?”
Sonny almost choked. “Uh…”
“Carly!”
“What, Dad? Look at her hair.”
“I’m sorry.” He clamped his hand around Carly’s forearm, applying enough pressure to silence her. “My daughter is obsessed with sexuality.”
Carly’s jaw dropped. “I am not.”
“Then don’t ask rude questions.”
In a midnight blue Lincoln Navigator worth more than Sonny’s annual salary, there was an argument over where they would eat. Ben still had a hankering for pancakes.
“I am not going to IHOP in this dress,” Carly wailed. “How about Veracruz?”
Ben looked to Sonny for confirmation. “Sounds lovely,” she said, hoping she would live through the meal.
Veracruz was an upscale steak and seafood house where no one blinked an eye at their mixed attire. The maître d’ called Ben by name, told Carly she looked stunning, and seated them at the best table in the house.
Sonny ordered a steak, hoping she wasn’t showing her trailer park heritage by having it cooked thoroughly. Most snobs turned their noses up at anything but medium rare. As it turned out, the faux pas was much worse. Just when Sonny was cutting into her steak, thinking she’d dodged a bullet, Carly announced, “Dad’s a vegetarian.”
Her knife clattered against the plate.
“Don’t you think that’s wimpy?”
Sonny looked carefully, but she couldn’t find anything unmanly about him. “No.”
“Carly’s exaggerating,” Ben said, giving his daughter a quelling stare. “Enjoy your meal. Please.”
“I’m not exaggerating,” Carly insisted. “You don’t eat red meat. It’s totally gay.”
His mouth tightened at the slur, but he let it slide. Sonny supposed he had to pick his battles. When Carly turned to her for a reaction, Sonny lifted her fork and took a big bite, wanting no part of the conversation.
Ben also polished off a good amount of his meal, not letting his daughter’s surly mood bother him. For a gay man, he was giving off some pretty strong hetero vibes, and Sonny had to admit that under his gaze she’d never felt less like a lesbian. Every time their eyes met the air between them crackled with electricity.
“I have better things to do than watch you two stare at each other,” Carly said acidly.
“Like what?” Ben asked, his patience worn thin. “Smoke weed in your room?”
Carly narrowed her catlike eyes at him. “When are you going to get over that?”
“It was five days ago.”
“Oh, please. You’ve smoked a mountain of pot in your lifetime.”
“That doesn’t mean you can.”
“You don’t let me do anything!”
Ben nodded, agreeing that this was the best course of action.
“He doesn’t even let me drive,” she complained to Sonny. “I’ve had my learner’s permit for six months.”
Sonny tried not to shudder at the idea of Carly Fortune behind the wheel of an automobile.
“I’m going to the ladies’,” Carly announced, squaring her shoulders.
“If you throw up, I’m taking the bill out of your allowance,” he warned.
Sonny almost choked on her vegetables. What would be next? Hari-kari over dessert? Carly For tune was a walking, talking teenage nightmare. “I’ll go with you,” she said quickly, putting her napkin on the table.
“He’s only joking. I never puke.”
Ben gave his head a slight shake, indicating that Carly was lying. Sonny couldn’t conceive of a man who would be so nonchalant about his daughter’s eating disorder, but when she studied him closely, she realized he was at the end of his rope. As she rose to follow Carly, he leaned forward, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose in a way that was positively heartbreaking.
No wonder he didn’t go out. Carly sapped the energy from the room like a tsunami, sucking up everything in its wake.
“You may as well forget it,” the girl said moments later as she emerged from a stall.
“Forget what?”
“Bagging the bachelor,” she replied, performing a mini-toilette at the sink. “My dad isn’t interested.”
“Who said I was?”
Carly’s eyes met hers in the restroom mirror. “Give it up. He’s hot.”
Sonny conceded the point with a nod. “Don’t you want him to be happy?”
“He is happy. He has surfing and me.”
“What about you? Don’t you want a boyfriend?”
“No,” Carly said, lifting her chin. “I’m going to be an independent woman.”
Sonny smiled. “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“I’ll leave him alone, if it means that much to you.”
Carly looked suspicious. She wanted an argument, not an agreement. “Fine,” she said anyway, whipping her long black hair over one shoulder.
“I’m sorry about Carly,” Ben said again, leaning back against the seawall at the crux of some craggy rock formations at Windansea Beach.
“Don’t be. You aren’t responsible for her every action.”
He looked out at the water, his expression somber. “Now you’re thinking you should have let her take her chances out there, right?”
The Pacific was as stormy and unpredictable as it had been the previous evening, a formidable hash of blue and white, like the soapy surface of a giant washing machine sloshing back and forth. Sonny got a disturbing image of Carly’s lifeless form, laying facedown on the foam-specked surface, dark hair floating around her head.
“I was a teenager once. Not too long ago,” she added, in deference to the role she was supposed to be playing. Ben was awfully young for a man with a sixteen-year-old daughter, but she knew he wouldn’t be interested in an immature girl, fueled by hormones and emotion. He had more than enough drama with Carly.
“Were you? I have trouble picturing you giggling or throwing tantrums.”
“No. I misbehaved in other ways.”
“Let me guess. You got into fights.”
Her pulse accelerated. “What makes you say that?”
His dark eyes flicked over her. “There’s something about you, a violence, lying just below the surface. I wouldn’t turn my back on you.”
“Jesus,” she said with a shaky laugh, running her fingers through her hair. “Don’t romanticize it. Just say what you think.”