Love to Love You Baby
Kasey Michaels
“Simply adorable doesn’t begin to describe this charming contemporary romance... a delight”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review) on LOVE TO LOVE YOU BABY.
Publishing History
Print edition published by Zebra Books
Copyright 2001 by Kathryn A. Seidick
Cover design by Tammy Seidick Design
Digital formatting by A Thirsty Mind Book Design
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without written permission of the author.
For Elizabeth “Queenie” Brosious
Table of Contents
Quote
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Excerpt: Book Two in
The Brothers Trehan Series
Be My Baby Tonight
Titles
About the Author
Titles by Kasey Michaels
Now Available as Digital Editions:
Kasey’s “Alphabet” Regency Romance Classics
Alphabet Regency Romance Complete Box Set
The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane
The Playful Lady Penelope
The Haunted Miss Hampshire
The Belligerent Miss Boynton
The Lurid Lady Lockport
The Rambunctious Lady Royston
The Mischievous Miss Murphy
Moonlight Masquerade
A Difficult Disguise
The Savage Miss Saxon
Nine Brides and One Witch: A Regency Novella Duo
The Somerville Farce
The Wagered Miss Winslow
Kasey’s Historical Regencies
Indiscreet (Enterprising Ladies)
Escapade (Enterprising Ladies
A Masquerade in the Moonlight (Enterprising Ladies)
The Legacy of the Rose
Come Near Me
Out of the Blue (A Time Travel)
Waiting for You (Love in the Regency, Book 1)
Someone to Love (Love in the Regency, Book 2)
Then Comes Marriage (Love in the Regency, Book 3)
Kasey’s Contemporary Romances
Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You (D&S Security Series)
Too Good To Be True (D&S Security Series)
Love To Love You Baby (The Brothers Trehan Series)
Be My Baby Tonight (The Brothers Trehan Series)
Stuck In Shangri-La (The Trouble With Men Series)
Everything’s Coming Up Rosie (The Trouble With Men Series)
This Must Be Love (Summer Lovin’ Series)
This Can’t Be Love (Summer Lovin’ Series)
Sign up for Kasey Michaels' mailing list and get a free copy of Stuck in Shangri-La, Book One in The Trouble With Men Series.
Click here to get started: bit.ly/kaseymichaels
You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know
where you are going because you might not get
there.
— Yogi Berra
Chapter One
There is one word in America that says it all,
and that one word is, “You never know.”
— Joaquin Andujar, pitcher
“Brrrrrnnng—brrrrrnnng.”
“Damn it.”
“Brrrrrnnng—brrrrrnnng.”
Jack Trehan swore again, reached out blindly in the dark, snagged the phone on his second try. The first had knocked over the already tipsy lamp his Aunt Sadie had lent him out of the goodness of her heart. And Aunt Sadie had no heart.
His eyes still closed, Jack aimed the handset in the vicinity of his ear and mouth and grumbled, “Nobody’s home. At the sound of the tone, why don’t you go take a flying—”
“Jack? Jack, sweetie, is that you?”
Jack’s eyes opened all at once, sort of the way they would if someone had just crept into his darkened bedroom and dumped a bucket of icy Gatorade over his head. He transferred the phone to his “listening” ear, pushed up the pillows behind him, found the pull cord on the hula-dancer lamp with the neon pink fringed shade. Aunt Sadie also had no taste. “Cecily?”
“Oh, you remembered my voice, Jack. That’s so insightful of you. But, then, I always said you were a very old soul, with just gobs of intellect and earned wisdom. Oh, wait. I think that was Daddy. You’re the one I used to think was the reincarnation of Wyatt Earp. Strong, honest, but maybe just a tad sure of himself. Cocky, even. At least, that’s how both those actors played him in the movies. Kevin Costner was one of them—you know, that actor who made a movie about a mailman with webbed toes? Oh wait, that was something else, wasn’t it? Maybe two something else’s?”
“Two something else’s, Cecily. Definitely,” Jack said, grinning in spite of himself.
“Darn! Oh, well, back to Wyatt. I don’t remember the other actor, even though I liked him better. I’ve never figured out why they made two movies, Jack, did you? I mean, okay, so maybe he was Wyatt Big-whoop Earp. But two? I really think one would have covered it, don’t you?”
“Absolutely. Cecily?” Jack said—almost pleaded—his cousin’s childish, high–pitched voice making his ear itch as he blinked at the dial of his alarm clock. He hadn’t seen or heard from Cecily in over a year, but some people... well, they make an indelible impression. “Could we cut to the chase here? It’s two in the morning. And it was Kurt Russell. I liked him better, too.”
“Ah, thank you, Jack. I would have racked my brain half the night if you hadn’t told me. But why are you concerned about the time? Time isn’t relevant, Jack, you know that. It’s artificial, just something someone made up. Some neat freak who wanted to control everyone else. Probably anal retentive, too, don’t you think? And it’s two-fifteen here in Bayonne. Your clock must be wrong. That isn’t like you, Jack. Not that you’re anal retentive, of course. I’d never say that about you. I wish they’d find another description. That one’s so icky. Must we constantly use sex and body parts to describe things? Like male and female plugs—in electricity, you understand. I find that particularly disgusting. And calling cars she, and then smugly gassing her up by sticking a thing into her thing, and—”
“God almighty, Cecily, you’re killing me here,” Jack interrupted, holding a hand to his pounding head. “You’re back home in Bayonne, right? Same artificial time zone and everything. So can’t this wait for the morning? I’ll call you.”
“Oh, sorry, Jack. You know how I get carried away. I’m very intense. Blue Rainbow tells me that all the time. I jump in with both feet, try to feel the whole experience, and sometimes lose my way. It’s a great trial to me, but Blue Rainbow has promised, cross his heart, that he’ll teach me how to channel my energy flow, harness it, find my karmic center. Isn’t that sweet of him?”
“Yeah. Just darling.” Jack was out of bed now, pacing on the bare hardwood floor. Blue Rainbow was a man. He’d gathered that much. With Cecily, there was always a man. But he’d be damned if he’d ask about the guy, because then Cecily would tell him, and then he’d have to jump with both feet—out of his second-story window and kill himself. “Cecily,” he said when she ran down—or at least paused to take a breath. “Is there a reason you’ve called me in the midd
le of the night, or are we just being chatty?”
The small, chilly silence on the other end of the line told Jack that he’d insulted his cousin, which was next door to hurting her, and closer than he wanted to consider to making her cry. He hated when Cecily cried. She talked when she cried, and hiccuped, and it was pure hell to try to understand her.
“Cecily? I’m sorry, honey,” he said—and he really was. The last time Cecily had launched into a crying, talking, hiccuping jag, he’d ended up owning five hundred shares of stock in Creative Pyrotechnics, her boyfriend’s company. That had gone bust—or boom—six months later, along with the boyfriend, and one small town’s Fourth of July celebration. He’d heard later that Cecily had buried the boyfriend in a jar. A small jar.
“You’re sorry? Well, that’s easy enough for you to say, Jack,” Cecily said, and he could hear the tears in her voice. “You can be really hor-hic-rid, Jack, do you know that? And... and I always thought you li-hic-ked me, that you were the nice one. That’s why I called you. Because you always understand, and you always help. Just like... well, just like Wyatt-hic-Earp.”
Sitting down on the edge of his bed—nearly falling down, as he’d forgotten that his bed was no more than a king-size mattress and box spring, stacked on the floor—Jack took a deep breath and tried to control himself. “Okay, Cecily, honey, okay. Let’s just calm down now. Tell me what’s wrong. Let me help. Honest, honey, all I want to do is help.”
Because then you’ll go away and I can get some sleep. But he didn’t say that.
He waited as Cecily tried to compose herself. She hiccuped once more, blew her nose extremely close to the phone, then took in a deep breath, let it out slowly. Jack could imagine just how she looked as she did this. She looked cute. Cecily always looked cute. Big blue eyes, soft blond hair, a petite package of curves. So much on the outside. So little on the inside. Still, he loved her. You’d have to be the kind of person who kicks puppies not to love Cecily Morretti.
“Okay,” she said at last, “here goes. It’s so embarrassing. You remember how last year I was living in that commune in Oregon? Reading all those self-help books? Trying to educate myself? Pull myself up by my own—is that bootstraps? Does anyone really wear those anymore? Oh, we wear boots, sure, but bootstraps? I don’t think we—”
“Cecily. Concentrate, baby. You can do this.”
“Well, no, Jack,” she answered, starting to cry once more. “That’s... that’s just it. I couldn’t do it. I thought I had it right, but then I realized I had it wrong. The books said get in touch with your inner child. But I thought that meant the child inside. I was so wrong, and then I was sort of stuck, you know. I mean, what do you do with the child inside, once she gets out? You do see the diff-hic-erence, don’t you, and how difficult that could-hic-be.”
“Sure,” Jack agreed quickly. Hell, he’d agree to anything his cousin said, if she’d just not start that hiccupping again. “Inner child, child inside. Inner child, child outside. There’s a difference. Got it. There. Does that help? Because I just want to help, Cecily. Anything I can do to help.”
She was crying again. Tears of joy, probably. But even tears of joy came with hiccups. “Oh, thank you, Jack! I knew you could understand, and I knew you’d help me. You’ve always been so kind. Blue Rainbow insists that I leave with him tomorrow, and Joey’s no help—why I came back to Bay-hic-onne to ask for his help I’ll never be able to tell you. My brother is a waste, Jack—a total waste!”
“Still trying to break into the local wise guys, is he?” Jack asked, but Cecily was on a roll and didn’t answer. She just kept talking.
Now Cecily’s words were tumbling over themselves as her mind (always a dangerous thing) seemed to go into third gear. “And how does one find one’s karmic center in Bayonne? I mean, really, Jack—New Jersey? So I was at my wit’s end. But you’re going to help. There’s time, if Blue Rainbow can just find the keys to our rental. Oh, wait. Here they are, in my pock-hic-et. Isn’t that always the last place you look? But this is wonderful! We can get there, get back to Jersey in time, and be on our way on the morning flight from Newark. You still get up real early, don’t you? You probably do. Oh... I can’t thank you enough, Jack. I just ca–hic–n’ t.”
“Then don’t try,” Jack said, feeling pretty smug. He didn’t know what he’d said, but obviously he’d given her the right answers. Not that he was going to push his luck and do something dumb, like ask where in blazes she and Blue Rainbow were going. Get there, get back? Go where, get back to where? Bayonne? No, not Bayonne. Newark. The airport was in Newark. The woman made no sense. Still, if he asked, she’d probably tell him they were taking a hot-air balloon to Jupiter, and he didn’t want to know that. He really didn’t. “Why don’t you call me when you get back?”
“It could be months. Years,” Cecily told him, but the smile was back in her voice—which meant she was once more sounding like Betty Boop on helium. “And you’re all right with that? Are you really sure you want to do this?”
Do what? What had he just agreed to do? Had he actually agreed to do anything? He hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. Still, ignorance was bliss, and with Cecily, very often ignorance was downright necessary to one’s sanity. “Honey, if it makes you happy, I’m just fine with... whatever,” Jack told her, already collapsing toward the pile of pillows, more than ready to go back to sleep.
He aimed the phone at the cardboard box he’d been using as a nightstand, saying through a yawn, “Just glad I could help.”
