Chapter Eight

Well, hell, looked like he was the one who’s going to be spending the day with Rory. He hadn’t intended to get up yet, but when Jim overheard her complaining to Sam about him going in to work, the devil in him compelled him to seek them out and watch.

Rory, beautiful angel that she was, made him breakfast that he was now currently enjoying as he sat across the table from her, watching her sip her coffee. God, she was sexy as hell. She had on a pink terrycloth robe, but he was willing to bet she was still wearing that hot little nightie from last night. Or maybe nothing at all.

He groaned inwardly as his c**k came to life and began to harden against his thigh. Jesus, he was horny as hell and desperate for her. He hadn’t gotten laid in almost a year because he’d had no s*x drive, but now all he could think about was f*****g his sister-in-law. What the hell was the matter with him?

She was trying so hard to make him feel welcome in her home. She doted on him, he knew that, and he liked it, even though it drove Sam crazy. It was the little sisterly kisses she’d been giving him that were making him lose his mind. Every time she touched her lips to his skin, he wanted to just grab her and kiss her.

“You all right, Jim?” she asked, peering at his face. “Thank you for volunteering your time this afternoon. Junie’s kids are a handful already, but they also have a few of their friends coming over, so we need help keeping the kids in check.”

He shrugged. “I don’t have a hectic social calendar, Rory. I’d rather be out there than be cooped up in here binge-watching ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ on Netflix, which I had just started rewatching, by the way.”

She beamed at him. “I didn’t realize you were a Star Trek nerd. You’d get along with my brother, Gregorio. He’s super into music, too. He’s in law school right now.”

Jim knew that Rory was close to her siblings. She came from a large family and wanted one of her own. One night, while he was out in the back patio with Sam, his brother confessed that they’d been having trouble conceiving. They’d both gotten themselves checked out by specialists and declared healthy, but the baby thing just hadn’t happened yet.

He imagined Rory being pregnant with his child and became obsessed with the idea. What if Sam couldn’t get her pregnant, but he could? He’d recommend that they do it the old-fashioned way, of course, and not via turkey basters, but he was pretty sure Sam would kill him for even suggesting it.

“What’s with that smile on your face, Jim Kelly?” his sister-in-law asked, leaning forward across the table. “Did I say something funny?”

He shook his head. “I was just remembering the crap Sam and I used to get up to when we were younger. We had a neighbor who had a pool and over the summer, we’d spend all our time there. You know how crazy teenage boys get. Someone got the bright idea to jump off from the one-story roof of my friend’s house and cannonball into the pool, which was ten feet at the deepest because my neighbor’s kid was a competitive high-diver. Anyway, underage drinking was involved and not a whole lot of common sense.” He could laugh in remembrance now, but the experience traumatized him for years. “I saw Sam do it and he looked really cool. Made an enormous splash. The kids dared me to do it, too—”

Rory put her hand on his arm. “Wait, my Sam jumped from the roof of a one-story house into a swimming pool on a drunken dare?”

Jim cleared his throat. That wasn’t really the point of his story. “Yes. Hey, my brother wasn’t always a square. Anyway, I was trying to impress this really hot Korean girl named Kimmy and our friends were egging me on, so I went for it.”

Rory covered her mouth. “This is going to end in disaster, isn’t it?”

“Welll… I did it exactly the way Sam did it: ran across the roof before jumping so that the momentum would land me right in the middle of the pool for maximum splashing. Okay, I didn’t do it quite the way Sam did it: I hesitated before jumping.”

Rory still had her mouth covered, her dark brown eyes now looking at him with concern. “Oh no.”

“I should have known better. I had the physics figured out in my head, but I got scared at the very last second and hesitated, so I lost my momentum. I missed the pool by a couple of feet. Broke my right leg in two places.”

“Wait, you stopped to figure out the physics necessary to accomplish this foolhardy act, but not the safety concerns? Yes, you should have known better. You could have broken your damn fool neck, Jim!”

“Rory, it happened almost twenty years ago. Relax. I’m alive, so is Sam.”

His sister-in-law glared at him, then picked up the neatly folded napkin in front of her and threw it at him. “i***t. Was the girl impressed?”

The napkin hit his cheek, then landed on his lap. He picked it up and brought it back to the table. “With Sam. They dated for six months. I had my leg in a cast for almost as long.”

“Awww.” She patted his hand, but didn’t look sympathetic. “If I were the girl and found out you were doing it to impress me, I would never have given you the time of day. You or your brother. Of all the idiotic things!” She smacked his upper arm.

Jim chuckled, unsure how to handle her reaction. She seemed genuinely upset. “Rory, seriously, we turned out okay. And hey, I developed a healthy fear of heights after that.”

She frowned at him, still looking at him as though she didn’t believe him. “You’ve got a fear of heights?

“And those fake statue people painted silver. They hang out at Fisherman’s Wharf just standing still and move when a person gets close. Terrified me when I was a kid.”

Her dark eyes sparkled with humor once again. “I hate those guys! They’re so creepy. I don’t think that fear is irrational at all. You can’t trust fake statue people, everyone knows that!”

He offered to clean up the kitchen while she took her shower and changed out of her jammies. He tried not to imagine her naked and wet while he washed the dishes. He’d openly flirted with her this morning when they were talking about dreams and he told her that people dream about things that they can’t have.

She probably didn’t even pick up on it. He was so under her radar that he barely registered. He was Sam’s “troubled” brother and Rory was a kind, nurturing person whose first instinct was to take care of people.

He needed to get rid of all the excess testosterone surging through his body. He headed to his room, changed into running clothes, and laced up his kicks. He grabbed the plastic pouch that held his ID and a couple of bucks. He had to be out of here before Rory got out of the shower looking clean, fresh, pink, and smelling like flowers.

TEN MILES. He ran ten miles. Five miles up to the Calabasas Peak from his brother’s house and five miles back with that goddamn thing attached to his ankle. He nearly collapsed in Sam’s front yard.

“Are you all right?” asked a husky feminine voice.

Jim had his hands resting on his knees as he was crouched over, trying to catch his breath. He made it a point to avoid his brother’s neighbors because he didn’t want them nosing around in his business, but there were a handful of women who had been pretty persistent about getting him into bed with them, and they made no bones about it.

“I’m fine,” he said without looking up. It sounded like Claudia Goldstein who lived across the street and whose husband was a successful plastic surgeon. “Just need to catch my breath.”

“Do you really run all the way up to the Peak? Suzette Samson has seen you a few times and told me. You must have some stamina.” Her voice was almost a purr.

“I do all right,” he muttered. He really didn’t want to talk to this lady. She was an attractive, slender blonde woman in her thirties, but she did absolutely nothing for him.

“Jim?” Rory called from somewhere behind him. “So that’s where you disappeared to. I was worried.”

Jim straightened to his full height to see Rory walking up to him from the front stoop of the house. She was wearing a blue denim skirt and a green sleeveless button-up blouse that tied at the waist. On her feet were strappy black sandals.

“I had to burn off my breakfast,” he told her when she looked up inquiringly at him.

“Hey, Claud, how’s it going?” she greeted their neighbor. “Nice Saturday we’re having. Where are Frank and the kids?”

The smile on Claudia’s face froze and she seemed to grit her teeth. Jim laughed to himself. Rory had just subtly reminded her that she was married with children.

“Oh, the kids are with their grandparents down in Pasadena and Frank is in a conference in Las Vegas till Tuesday,” Claudia said airily.

Jim scoffed. No wonder she finally had to guts to approach him. Hubby and the kids were gone.

“Oh, that’s too bad. I hate it when Sam goes to medical conferences. I get so bored,” Rory said in her sweet voice. “Luckily, I have my brother-in-law with me. He’s staying with us for a while. Jim, this is Claudia Goldstein. Claud, this is Jim, Sam’s younger brother.”

“Oh, I thought I saw a resemblance. You’re very handsome like your brother.” She held out her hand for a shake.

“You don’t want to shake my hand. It’s all sweaty and gross.” He kept his hands out of her reach by putting them behind him.

“I don’t mind sweaty.” She winked at him, then turned back to Rory. “Finally, we know who this guy is. We’ve so been wondering about the new hottie coming in and out of your house. I thought he was some kind of contractor or something.”

“Nope, he’s Sam’s brother,” Rory answered cheerfully. “Well, I actually need Jim for a couple of errands, so I’m gonna borrow him for a second. You guys can catch up later.”

Jim bit down on his lower lip to keep himself from laughing. Claudia Goldstein was not happy. Rory had soundly put her in her place.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Claudia said in a syrupy tone. “I’ll see you later, Jim. I might have a couple of errands I’d need help with, too. Bye Rory!”

Rory grabbed Jim’s arm and pulled him toward the house. “You stay away from the woman. She is a piranha and a vicious gossip.”

Jim grinned at her. “Was that why you felt you had to save me?”

His sexy sister-in-law raised an eyebrow. “I had no idea you were so eager to be piranha chow. Go take a shower, will you? We need to get going. Junie is freaking out and asked if we could get there early.”

He wasn’t looking forward to an afternoon of wrangling a bunch of rambunctious kids, but if it gave him more time to be with Rory and made him look good in her eyes, he was all for it.