Naked Ambition (Harlequin Blaze Series #443)

Every time she so much as looked at J. D. Johnson, Susannah Banner could swear she felt his big, hot hands removing all her clothes, never even bothering to leave behind the panties. Even worse, the undeserving man had had this bothersome effect on her since she was only five years old, knee-high to a grasshopper her daddy had called her.

Yes, J.D. had started ruining her life as early as grade school, where she'd had the misfortune of first meeting him, Susannah fumed as she drove her compact car along Palmer Road, past Hodges' Motor Lodge. She then cornered off the main drag and into the back parking lot of Delia's Diner to hide the car so J.D. wouldn't see it if he followed her. She'd been young when she'd met J.D., and well, what little girl— especially one so innocent as Susannah—could have seen through a male as duplicitous as J. D. Johnson?

Years later, when Susannah was old enough, she'd fantasized about him for hours, a mistake that had led to hot-heavy sex and feelings of sincere regret. Not even in a proper bed, she reminded herself, her fury rising, but in the bed of his daddy's pickup truck.

Just minutes ago, J.D. had drawn his last straw, and she was still reeling. Oh, Susannah knew he hadn't been born with the sense God gave a gnat, but then what man had? J.D. possessed the devil's double-edged tongue when it came to sweet-talking his way out of bad tasting situations, too. And he'd been gifted with a singing voice that could charm the skin off a rattlesnake, and worse, the pants off any female country-western fan in America.

Susannah wasn't like those women, though, she thought as she headed toward the door to Delia's. Why shouldSusannah be impressed by J.D.'s good fortune, after all? Like everybody else in Bayou Banner, she'd known him before he was rich and famous. In fact, she was one of the chosen few who knew what the initials J.D. stood for.

"I just wish I hadn't married you, Jeremiah Dashiell," she muttered. It had been her biggest mistake. Tears shimmering in her soft blue eyes, she tossed one of her trademark oversize handbags into the corner that she and her best friend, Ellie Lee, occupied every Saturday morning for breakfast.

As Susannah scooted in after the bag, Ellie set aside a tented white reserved card written in Delia's calligraphy.

"Please forgive me!" Susannah began, scarcely registering that Ellie was still wearing sunglasses, although the day was overcast. "J.D. made me late." Susannah shook her head, making the ends of her long, wavy sun-streaked blond hair swirl around her face. "God, I hate him! I just wish I'd had sex with somebody besides him just once. But no," she continued, "I've always been faithful." She'd doubted that was the case with J.D., and now her worst fears had been realized. She blinked back tears. "Do you realize he's the only man I've ever slept with, Ellie?"

"Sure, I was born the day after you in the hospital in Bayou Blair," Ellie reminded. "So I've known you even longer than you've known J.D. And I agree. I think you should have slept with that banjo player, at least. Remember the hottie who played in J.D.'s band in high school? The one who looked like Justin Timberlake?"

"The one who called every time me and J.D. hit the skids?"

Susannah muttered, wondering how she was going to tell Ellie what had just happened. Thinking about the banjo player was a welcome diversion. She'd kissed him and let him feel her breasts, but that was all. "How could I forget him? Of course, three weeks after I saw him, I married J.D." She glared down at the gold band on her ring finger.

"You should have insisted on an engagement," Ellie mused, eyeing the band. "That would have given you time to consider the consequences."

"True." After his career had taken off, J.D. had offered to buy her a diamond, so it would look as if they'd been engaged, but Susannah had refused, since that would have ruined the spontaneity of their wedding night. Now, of course, their whole marriage was a lie. "You think I would have stayed single if I'd talked to somebody with a crystal ball?"

"Honey, not even Mama Ambrosia could have seen your and J.D.'s future."

The local fortune teller had a cabin on a meandering tributary near Bayou Banner. As angry as she was, Susannah could admit Ellie was right. Not even a professional such as Mama Ambrosia could explain the magic that still happened sometimes between Susannah and J.D. They'd even made up their own private language for it, with code phrases for lovemak-ing such as scarves and cards or hats and rabbits.

J.D.'s slow drawl rumbled in Susannah's ear, and she could almost feel his warm breath tickling the lobe. "What about a game of scarves and cards, Susannah?"

He'd proposed on one of those liquid-velvet nights the Mississippi Delta had made famous, when the moon was just right, and shadows on the surface of the bayou rippled like fairy wings, making everything seem like an illusion, including scents of forsythia that stirred in the midnight air as gently as the cream in Madame Ambrosia's darkest love potions.

Their prom clothes—his tux and her butter-yellow dress beside them—they'd been lying naked on their backs on pine needles, stargazing through the waving fronds of willow branches. With a voice as smooth as the inky sky, J.D. had sung the traditional song, "Oh, Susannah"—something he always did, since his family had come fromAlabama—then he'd whispered, "I want to marry you right now, oh, Susannah Banner."

She'd smiled into blue eyes, threading her fingers in the dark hair of his chest, then she'd kissed him, his light goatee tickling her nose and chin. "You want to marry me right now?" she'd teased, just to hear him say it again. She'd never heard anything as sexy as his drawl, and everybody else felt the same way. His voice was smoky and mysterious, a low bass rumble that came from his chest and shot into a listener's bloodstream like a Cupid's arrow tinged with sex. "I want to marry you this very second."

"Why should I say yes?" she'd kindly inquired.

"Because when we're legal, we can lie in bed all day."

"Now there's a typical J.D. answer." She'd laughed. "Sex is never far from your mind, is it?"

"Does that bother you, oh, Susannah?"

"Your sex drive is the only thing I like about you, J.D.," she'd assured, although secretly she'd hadn't much minded his sense of humor, either.

She had been eighteen then, and since her parents had died the year before when their car crashed on the road between Bayou Blair and Bayou Banner during a flash flood, there had been nobody left to stop Susannah from marrying bad-boy J.D., except her big sister, June, who was ten years older. And of course, Susannah had never once listened to June.

"Well, J.D.," she'd said reasonably. "All we have to do is drive into Bayou Blair and find ourselves a preacher and a place to get a blood test."

And so, by the next morning, they were husband and wife.

Back then, J.D. had been playing music in clubs around the tristate, and he and his band could haul equipment in nothing larger than a cargo van. Now he came with an entourage, and she was lucky if his publicist, Maureen, would even share his most current cell phone number. Susannah had never been interested in gadgets, but her traditionally decorated house was full of them at the moment—everything from new phones to fancy laptop computers and an intricate home alarm system she couldn't even operate.

"Susannah? You gonna have the usual?"

Delia's voice cut through her reverie. Thankfully Delia was the polar opposite of J.D. Nothing had ever changed the diner owner—not two divorces, or losing her mama to cancer, or having her last boyfriend run off with the librarian from Bayou Blair. Come hell or high water, Delia remained as steady as a rock. She was a little plump, with a pretty face that never aged, and she'd always worn the same tan uniform and white apron. As always she was unsheathing a pencil from a mussed bun of tawny hair as if it were a tiny sword. She pointed it at an order pad, ready to do battle.

"What are you girls having?" she drawled.

Susannah shrugged undecidedly, thinking that Delia had even looked this way years ago when Susannah and June had come here with their folks every Saturday morning. Memories made Susannah's heart squeeze. After her folks had passed, Ellie had begun meeting Susannah here every Saturday, keeping up the Banner family tradition. When nothing else in the world helped, smelling sausage frying on Delia's grill could usually soothe Susannah.

"I'm not sure, Delia…" Susannah forced herself to stare at the menu, only to notice her wedding ring and feel a wave of depression. "I'm not very hungry. Maybe toast—"

Groaning, Delia dropped the order pad into her apron pocket and planted her hands on her hips. "I should have known something was wrong by the crazy way you pulled into my parking lot. What did your devil in blue jeans do now?"

"Not a thing," Susannah lied, knowing if she opened her mouth—at least to anybody except Ellie—her dirty laundry would be hanging out for all of Bayou Banner to see. Of course, before J.D., Susannah's own mama had caused a few eyebrows to rise around town, too.

Still, the Banners had been the town's most prominent family, and Susannah had hoped to uphold tradition. However, instead of decorating the town square's Christmas tree or spearheading the Easter egg drive, she'd spent most of her time apologizing for her rowdy husband and his big-city friends, all of whom made her mama look tame.

Suddenly, something inside Susannah's chest wrenched, and she almost uttered a soft cry; she could swear her heart had done three somersaults and now, it was aching to beat the band. How could she get the old J.D. back? The sweet, gentle man she'd married?

If only her mama was alive! Barbara Banner would have known how to handle J.D. She'd been a delicate woman who read too much, painted in her spare time and was overly emotional and prone to indulge too many fantasies, the type to take to her bed in winters, and to get involved in dramas of her own making. Still, her advice about men was always on target. Realizing Delia and Ellie were staring at her, Susannah blinked.

"You sure you're okay, honey?" asked Delia.

"Fine," Susannah lied. Knowing only a hearty appetite would appease Delia, she added, "I changed my mind. I'll have the usual. In fact, you'd better add extra grits." As she said the words, her stomach rumbled. Like most Southern women, Susannah included, Delia had inherited enough mouthwatering recipes to open a restaurant. For years, Susannah had been begging Delia to share her recipe for strawberry-rhubarb pie, but Delia kept refusing, saying the ingredients were top secret. "I'll have my favorite pie for dessert," Susannah added.

For Delia, having dessert after breakfast showed proof of mental stability—it was as good as formal papers signed by the board of health—so she sighed in relief, then took Ellie's order and headed for the counter, saying over her shoulder, "I'm puttin' cornbread on top of them grits, too, honey-bun. That'll keep that miserable excuse for a man from scrambling your noggin. Yes ma'am, the only thing I allow to be scrambled in Delia's Diner is my own damn eggs."

Lifting a hand so as to display her airbrushed nails, Delia held her thumb and forefinger an inch apart to indicate the minuscule length of J.D.'s penis. "Johnson's johnson," she called loudly, just in case Susannah hadn't caught the allusion.

Susannah wished it were true, but unfortunately J.D. was hung like a racehorse, and he knew how to use every inch of his equipment. Otherwise Susannah would have divorced him by now, or at least that's what she told herself.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Ellie drawled as Delia put in their order.

"I have. Of my own husband. Oh, he was always kind of wild. Everybody knows that, Ellie. I hate to admit it, but that's why I fell in love with him. I think J.D.'s shenanigans remind me of Mama. Remember how dramatic she could be? So full of life? How she'd race around town in that little pink convertible Daddy bought her? But this…" She shook her head. "He threw another wild party."

"That's nothing new."

"True." But the house they shared, Banner Manor, meant the world to Susannah, and one of her dreams had been to restore its former glory. She and June had grown up there, and despite its sizable acreage and isolated location, nestled in a grove of mature oaks, Susannah had kept living there after her folks were gone. By then, June had moved into town with her husband, Clive, and they'd had two kids.

So naturally J.D. had moved in after he'd married Susannah. They hadn't even discussed it, no more than they'd talked about having kids or sharing finances. At eighteen and twenty-two, respectively, passion had been their focus.

"What?" prompted Ellie, drawing Susannah from her reverie once more. "Did some cigarette-smoking guitar player burn another hole in the upholstery?"

Susannah visualized a nicotine stain left on her mama's favorite love seat, wishing it were that simple. She swallowed around the lump in her throat. "Do you remember how I was going to that two-day seminar you turned me onto, in Bayou Blair? The one about how to start your own business?" Because she figured J.D.'s new friends would only destroy any improvements she made at Banner Manor, and she wasn't going to have kids while J.D. was acting like a kid himself, Susannah was considering opening a shop, although she didn't yet know what kind.

"You went, right?"

"Yeah. I got back this morning, so I figured I'd stop by the house before I met you, drop off my bags and say hi to J.D. I mean, I've been gone for two days." It was her longest trip away from home since high school, and the sad truth was, she'd enjoyed it, except that the seminar had been in the town where she and J.D. had eloped.

"You found a house full of people?"

"You knew?"

"You just missed Sheriff Kemp. He told everybody in Delia's that he got complaints last night about noise."

"Sheriff Kemp? Was he in here flirting with Delia again?"

"Yeah, but he didn't ask her out yet."

Ever since Delia's boyfriend left her, the sheriff had been sniffing around. "How could he get a complaint about our house? You know how isolated it is!"

"Gladys Walsh drove up to the door out of sheer nosiness."