Beneath the Surface (19 page)

Frankie wanted to be a rock musician, and reminded her too much of what her biological father must have been like—what her mother had fallen for—for Tabitha to see anything else.

She loved him but couldn’t be with him. They parted ways, so amicably in fact that every once in a while he popped up on her doorstep to let her know what it felt like to be responsible for someone else besides herself while reminding her of her past and that she wasn’t totally alone in the world…and of course, to borrow a few dollars “until he got on his feet.”

“Ready.”

Tabitha blinked and stared at him from her place at the door.

When he said ten minutes, he really did mean ten minutes, she thought, glad that there were still some people in the world who meant what they said and said what they meant.

“Okay, let’s go.”

* * * *

“Hey, you’re looking chipper this morning,” Cynthia said, proffering several messages as she answered Tabitha’s first silent question.

“Is that another way of saying I don’t usually?”

Cynthia shook her head, chuckled. “You always look fine. You just have a little extra something going on this morning, a little oomph.”

“Oomph?”

Cynthia shrugged as the phone rang on her desk.

Tabitha headed toward her office and called over her shoulder before she closed the door, “I’ll get that.” She threw her trench coat towards the oak coat rack behind her door, and practically ran to answer the phone, breathless when she sat down behind her desk and said hello.

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“Hello, Tabitha. This is Angela Calminetti, Evelyn and EJ’s sister.”

“Oh…hello, Angela.”

“Were you expecting someone else?”

“Uh, no. Not really,” she lied, knowing damn well she’d been hoping it was Eric.

“Oh, because you sounded a little disappointed.”

“No, not at all.” Tabitha arched a brow, wondered what prompted this call.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Evelyn to give me your number. I have a big favor I need to ask of you.”

“A favor?” Her other brow joined its twin in her hairline.

“I know we barely know each other, but I think I can trust you to do this.”

Barely wasn’t quite the way Tabitha would put it, at least not on Angela’s part.

She’d met the woman exactly once, and had come away from the encounter feeling as if her very soul had been frisked and mugged. The woman seemed to know her better than she knew herself, finishing her sentences for her, seeming to pull her thoughts and emotions from thin air to put them into words.

Tabitha vaguely wondered if she had this effect on everyone. “What is it you need?”

“I’m assuming you received my invitation in the mail?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, we’re hitting a little snag on how to get EJ out of his house for a little while. I mean Evelyn and I have keys to the loft in case of emergencies…”

“I was wondering how you were going to throw a surprise party in his apartment without his knowing.”

Angela giggled and her warm girlish tone put Tabitha more on guard than relaxed her. “Yes, well getting in is one problem we’ve solved, but getting him out is one we haven’t.”

“The snag you mentioned,” Tabitha prompted.

“You see, if any one of us, his sibs or his parents, try to get and keep him out for most of the day, he’ll automatically suspect something. Besides which, when he’s writing, which he’s doing most of time, he tends to ignore our calls unless we 911 him, and we don’t want to resort to such a measure for this.”

“Of course not, but Eric and I aren’t—”

“That close?”

There she was again, finishing her sentences. “Not really. I mean we’re cordial and he’s a client, but we really don’t have the sort of bond that would warrant us spending all day together, other than in a business capacity. I’m sure he’ll suspect 105

Gracie C. McKeever

something’s up if I try to keep him away from his apartment as well as if any of his siblings tried.”

Angela’s prolonged silence seemed to say she knew Tabitha was blowing smoke up her ass and that she had already made up her mind she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“We both know that’s not true,” Angela said. “You know you’re more than capable of keeping my baby brother occupied. All you have to do is say the word and he’ll come running.”

The simultaneous images that Angela’s words evoked—of a helpless baby and a loyal puppy— didn’t quite agree with Tabitha’s vivid images of the tall, arrogant and sexy Eric.

Besides, what would they have done about this quandary had Tabitha not been in the picture? They would have had to find some other way. The woman couldn’t have been counting all along on Eric and Tabitha being a couple, could she?

Had Evelyn said something to her about that day she’d visited her brother’s apartment and found Tabitha there in the bedroom? True it had been business, but with the Vega clan who all seemed to have some sort of sixth sense about each other and the people in their lives, who knew what Evelyn had sensed, or told her sister?

“Will you do it? The entire Vega clan will be in debt to you.”

Oh, the woman was a master manipulator whether purposely or not, instinctively knew all the right buttons to push. “I don’t know,” Tabitha hedged, hated to be a pushover for anyone, friend or foe.

“We really need your help on this, Tabitha.”

A mass request, not just from Angela but her entire family. All ganging up on Tabitha in the interest of one of its members.

Tabitha wished she had someone as loyal and determined in her corner.

“I’ll do it.”

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EJ’s plane touched down at JFK Airport a little after seven p.m., two days before Thanksgiving, the dark night sky twinkling with hundreds of stars that he never could have seen even on a clear day in the city, too many tall buildings blocking the view.

Out West, he’d had a different problem adjusting to all the smog and congestion, while in the Southwest the wide-open plains seemed to go on forever, uninterrupted by civilization. He’d enjoyed himself, worked himself to the bone every step of the way, but now he was home, and in the city where Tabitha lived and breathed.

EJ smiled, shouldered the satchel holding his laptop, practically skipping to the luggage carousel to retrieve his other bag, as eager as a puppy when its master arrives home after a long day away. Tabitha might as well have been waiting for him at the terminal for all his anticipation, and even though she wasn’t he knew he’d see her soon, whether she knew it or not.

There was no way he would let too much time go by without touching base with her. He had to keep the little momentum he had with her going, make his presence known before she tried to forget what they’d shared.

He knew the woman’s MO, how discombobulated and embarrassed she must have been when she’d hung up, probably a little in denial of what she’d done.

He wasn’t going to be the dirty little secret she kept hidden in the closet with all her other little sex toys.

EJ frowned as he retrieved his Jeep from the airport parking lot, the image of his Tabby with a battery-operated latex penis between her thighs was inconceivable but vivid enough to harden his cock and simultaneously make him jealous.

If any penis was going to be between her legs, it was going to be his, and no other, not even one with a battery. Especially not one with a battery.

He was tempted to stop off at her house straight from the airport but didn’t want to seem too eager or easy.

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Instead, he drove home, arriving in a little under a half-an-hour, most of the traffic on the Grand Central Parkway going in the opposite direction of him, so he’d almost had the road all to himself.

EJ hit his loft running rather than exhausted and jet-lagged, quickly unpacking, showering, throwing on some jeans and a turtleneck, and getting comfortable as he booted up his computer and checked his phone messages.

Nothing he wasn’t expecting—messages from his mother and Angela to see if he’d arrived home okay. Messages from Jodie about several more interviews she’d set up and a couple of appearances, readings to do in addition to his New York signings. A message from Jade.

The last glared at him more accusatorily than their final unconsummated time together.

Jade had not been happy leaving his apartment unfulfilled and he hadn’t been happy trying to fake the funk and pretend that he wanted her when all he could think about was one pixie-faced, chestnut-haired woman who had his brains scrambled and his cock in a perennial exclusive state of readiness.

Jade had noticed this very state and wondered aloud why he didn’t want to perform when it was clear to see he wanted her.

Not clear. Nothing about his life had been clear or simple since he’d met Tabitha.

But Jade had not been able to let it go, and even asked him if he’d already run out of the condoms she’d brought, not understanding that preparedness was the least of his issues with her.

There
had
been times when he’d come up short—with Jade, with other women—

where he’d had to decline sex because he never had sex without a condom, never. It was why Jade had gotten into the habit of bringing over a supply of her own because she didn’t like his coming up short with her.

EJ automatically dialed his mother.

He couldn’t deal with Jade right now, didn’t know when he’d be able to deal with her, if she even wanted to speak to him.

His mother got on the line now sounding breathless and rushed, worrying him for the split second it took her to say hello and him to ask how she was.

She’d been working out, she told him, and EJ laughed thinking of his almost seventy-year-old mother pumping iron, then asked about his father.

Mom had been worried about Dad the last time EJ had spoken to her, said the man had been working extra hard remodeling and getting the house in shape for the holidays. She wanted him to take it easy. She was ecstatic with the changes he’d made so far—finally turning Angela and Donna’s old bedroom into Mom’s computer room. Mom was an Internet junkie and loved to chat in over sixty chat rooms, which made him smile.

They were turning Nick and EJ’s old bedroom into an exercise room. He’d made Evelyn and Emilia’s old bedroom into Mom’s sewing room a few years ago.

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“I swear, he doesn’t act like a retired man half the time, EJ, and I keep telling him to get help or hire someone, but he won’t listen.”

“You know how Dad is. He likes to keep busy, and doesn’t think anyone else can do the job as good as he can.”

“He’s usually right, but he’s also seventy, not a spring chicken anymore.”

“At least he’s home.”

“You’re right, I shouldn’t complain. It’s just that I worry about him. You know he doesn’t eat as healthy as he should, and he doesn’t get as much exercise as I’d like.”

“Don’t Mom. Dad’s a healthy active dude. He’s going to be kicking for a long time.”

His mother giggled at his description, and EJ’s heart turned over at the reality that they’d been married almost fifty years, and couldn’t have been closer.

They’d had their rough times raising six kids with Dad putting in eighty and ninety hour weeks—first in construction then building a successful landscaping business—and Mom a public school teacher who’d had to squeeze in enough time between parent/teacher nights at school to see to her own kids’ needs with Little League, Boy Scouts, and ballet lessons.

They hadn’t suffered from empty nest syndrome in a long time, too busy enjoying their twilight years. These days they spent their free time doting on Angela’s youngest two girls and Emilia’s boy and happily sending them back to their respective parents when a visit or baby-sitting gig was over.

“What’s Dad up to now?” EJ asked.

“Oh, you know your pop. He’s in the garage, restoring a car.”

EJ smiled, remembered many a day as a child watching his dad work on someone’s old Chevy in the family garage, remembered many a day as a teen helping him. He could see the pleasure on his father’s face when he fiddled under a hood, rebuilt an engine or painted and buffed an old roadster to its former luster and glory.

Mom offered to call him to the phone, but EJ told her not to bother him, reassured his mother that she shouldn’t worry about the old man, and told her he’d be seeing them in a couple of days for Thanksgiving before he signed off.

He dialed Angela immediately after, thanking his patron saint that he got her answering machine. He left a quick message, ready to escape to his computer and pick up where he’d left off with his laptop on the plane.

The phone rang as he typed Chapter Twenty on the keyboard and he ignored it until Angela’s voice came over the airwaves after three rings.

“I know you’re there, coward. Pick up.”

Oh, those were fighting words. Never let it be said he let a puny woman push him around! Chuckling, he answered the phone.

“So, you made it back to the city in one piece.”

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“Got in a little while ago, and I was about to throw myself into some work,” he said hoping she’d get the message, but he forgot to whom he was talking.

“So, how are things?”

“Angie, I just told you I’m trying to work.”

“Work you can do any time. How often do you get to talk to your big sister?”

Lately, too often
. To his sister he said, “Angie, I just got off the phone from Mom and I’d really like to try and get some work in.”

“All work and no play, EJ.”

He sneezed and heard Angela gasp on the other end of the phone.

“See that. You’re running yourself ragged, probably coming down with something.”