Busted (Barnes Brothers #3) (4 page)

Week Twenty-six

“You look tired.”

Trey jerked up his head, realizing he’d been
this
close to falling sleep. With his laptop open in his lap. In the middle of the children’s area.

Ressa Bliss stood in front of him, Clayton holding her hand and swinging it back and forth.

“Did you bring it in, Dad? Did you bring it in?” He let go of her hand to launch himself toward Trey.

Habit had him catching the boy easily even as he looked up at Ressa through dark lenses. “Yeah,” he said, wishing he had about a gallon of coffee to guzzle. “Have had a few late nights . . . trying to catch up on work before we fly out to California later this week.”

“We’re gonna see Grandma for Mother’s Day!” Clayton chirped. Then he grabbed Trey’s messenger bag and hauled it up, dumping it onto the low table. “Where is it, Dad? Where is it?”

It
was a gift.

Mother’s Day was on Sunday. It had been one rough week.

She said we were making presents for our moms . . . Daddy, I don’t have a mommy anymore and I was making it for Grandma and she said I wasn’t listening, but I didn’t want to tell her what happened and she kept trying to make me start all over . . .

Well, she sure as
hell
had listened to Trey. Sometimes he wondered what was wrong with people. It was very clearly marked in Clayton’s records that his mother had passed away—if they weren’t going to
look
at those records, why did they ask?

They’d finished up their crafts with Clayton working on his project that he’d give to Denise, his grandmother. He’d been so pleased with it, they’d hit one of the local craft stores and bought kits to make little clay paperweights for all of his grandparents, but he’d wanted to make something special for Ressa, too.

When Trey had pushed him on why, Clayton had just shrugged.

Everybody has a mommy who smells good and is pretty and tells them stories . . .

I tell you stories, man. Are you saying I stink?

Clayton had laughed. But then that sad look came back into his eyes.
Miss Ressa read a book about a little girl who’d lost her mama. There was a lady who lived next door who the girl was friends with. Miss Ressa told us that sometimes people don’t have mamas . . . or daddies . . . but they still have people who love them. Maybe . . . You think maybe she loves me?

The kid could cut his heart out sometimes.

So there was another clay paperweight.

Trey rubbed the back of his neck as Clayton turned, clutching it in small hands as he looked up at Ressa. He opened his mouth, nervous, then shut it. Then he shoved it out at her. “Here!” he blurted. “I made it for you. I . . . I wanted you to have it.”

Ressa looked down, puzzled.

And then, as her face softened, Trey felt something wrench inside his heart.

“Oh . . .”

She sank to her knees. A smile curved up her lips and he was struck, straight to the heart, by how beautiful she was.
Something came over him and it wasn’t that gut-twisting lust. It wasn’t that blood-boiling need that would never end in anything but frustration and humiliation.

It was something . . . more.

Something maybe even better.

A weight he hadn’t realized he still carried lifted inside him and he found he was smiling himself as she reached out, but instead of taking it from Clayton, she cupped her hands under his, steadying the oddly shaped heart the child had molded himself. “Wow,” she said, her voice husky. “You made this, didn’t you, handsome?”

Clayton nodded, chin tucked.

“My goodness.” She bit her lip and then leaned in, angling her head until she caught Clayton’s gaze. “Can I maybe hold it?”

“It’s yours.” Clayton dumped it into her hands and she caught it, handling it with the same care she might have shown had he just presented her with a Waterford crystal vase.

Judging by the light in her eyes, he might as well have done just that. “Clayton, that was really sweet of you,” she said, stroking her thumb over the overly bright, glass “jewels” they’d found to push into the clay. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a paperweight quite so beautiful in my life. But . . .” She looked up at him. “It’s not my birthday or anything. Why’d you give me something so nice?”

“Cuz . . .” Clayton shrugged his skinny shoulders. “You are nice. And I can’t give nothing to my mama.”

He didn’t say anything else, just turned and flung himself toward Trey, his face jammed against his thigh. “I wanna go. Daddy, can we go now?”

“Clayton—”

Trey looked at her and shook his head. “It’s okay. He’s okay.” Or he would be. Scooping Clayton up, he went to scoop his laptop into his bag.

“Here.” Ressa moved in. “Let me help.”

He got a headful of her scent, felt her curls brush his cheek. All the while Clayton clung to his neck like a monkey. “Thanks,” he said, his voice brusque. Things were coming to attention now—of course, and here he was juggling his son, her concerned gaze, his bag.

“I’m sorry if I—”

“You didn’t.” Trey shot her a look, almost explained then, but the last thing Clayton needed was to hear the blunt hard facts laid out just then. He lived with them every day of his life. “He’s just had a rough week, haven’t you, buddy?”

He gave her a smile—the practiced one he’d used when reporters had hunted him down over the years, whether it was because of his writing, his wife’s death, or his connection to two famous actors. It was a blank smile, one that could say everything and nothing, one that could hide a million secrets or be as open as one could hope. “He needs a nap and maybe some pizza. In a few days, we hop on a plane and he’ll be seeing all his cousins and his uncles. He’s been looking forward to that. Don’t worry, he’s fine, aren’t you, buddy?”

Voice muffled against his neck, Clayton said, “I’m gonna see ’Bastian this time, Daddy?”

“You bet.” He rubbed his cheek against Clayton’s curls. “Uncle Sebastian wouldn’t dare miss Mother’s Day.”

“Is Aunt Abby making cake?”

Chuckling, he said, “I certainly hope so.” Giving Clayton a light squeeze, Trey murmured, “Why don’t you tell Miss Ressa bye? I think she’s upset and thinks she hurt your feelings?”

Clayton rolled his head on his shoulders. “Bye, Miss Ressa.”

*   *   *

The memory of Clayton’s smile lingered, hours after he’d left.

It lingered even after they closed up and she was sitting at the computer, debating.

Debating hard, because she was about to do something she had no right to do.

Or she was
tempted
. She wasn’t really about to do it, but she was closer to it than she was comfortable. Shit. How often did
she
get pissed when people tried to—or did—meddle in her background? She had plenty of things that she’d rather not have dragged out right in the open.

Actually,
pissed
didn’t even touch on how
she
felt when people started meddling. There were some secrets she had that she’d just as soon take to her grave.

Besides, what was she going to do—general search for kids with the name
Clayton
 . . .
five years old
 . . . hey, she knew he had a birthday in September. That would
really
narrow the focus.

“What’s up?”

Guiltily, she jerked her hands away.

One of her coworkers, Alex, stood on the other side of the desk, eying her.

“Nothing.” Guiltily, she powered down the computer. “Is everybody pretty much done?”

“A few more wrapping up downstairs.”

With a nod, Ressa picked up the little paperweight, carefully cradling it in her hand.

“Did somebody bring you a gift?”

“Yep.” She displayed it, feeling as pleased as if she’d received chocolate and flowers.

“Who is it from?” Alex eyed it, his head cocked.

With a smile, she said, “Clayton . . . the little doll who shows up at reading hour.”

“Ahhh . . . your shadow.” He grinned knowingly. “That kid has a major crush on you, Ressa.”

She grimaced. “Geez. That’s great to hear.”

“You’re going to break his heart when you transfer out this summer.” He tsked and shook his head. “You might want to break the news sooner, rather than later.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Not much you can do about it.” Alex gave her a sympathetic look. “You need the transfer so you can be closer to school—these are the chores of being a parent . . . or a guardian as it were. Your cousin needs you.”

Ressa nodded, her thoughts drifting to the child she’d been taking care of for so many years. “I know. Neeci is why I’m doing it.”

Still, a heavy ache settled in her chest as she looked down at the molded heart she held. Funny . . . she was just now realizing how fragile it was.

Week Thirty

Sheets twisted around him.

Dream and reality blurred together in that surreal way they did in that short time just before waking.

The twisted ropes of cotton weren’t really cotton. They were long limbs, warm and golden brown. That mouth, always slicked with colors that made him think of sinful wines or lush fruits, moved against his. It was a seductive red today and as he fisted his hand in her hair, she sank her teeth into his lower lip.

“Trey . . .”

That was when he knew he was dreaming.

She’d never called him by name.

With a groan, he rolled them, putting her body under his, determined to enjoy it as much as he could, for as long as he could. She laughed against his lips, a husky sound that tripped down his spine. Who knew that a woman’s laugh could be so erotic?

She might as well have reached between his legs and cupped his balls.

And then she
was
reaching down, one hand closing around his cock.

“Don’t,” he muttered, tearing his mouth away. “I . . . fuck, I can’t.”

“You can’t what?” Ressa smiled up at him, dragged her hand up, then down.

“I can’t . . . this. I just . . .” He shoved away from her, but she followed. Her hand milked him and he groaned, because the pleasure was there, leaving him hovering on an edge between pleasure and pain.

“I think you can.” She sat up and he found himself staring up at her. Her breasts—or least the image his dreaming mind had conjured up—were full, her nipples a deep, deep brown. While she continued to pump her hand up and down his cock, she used her other hand to reach out, grab his wrist and bring it to her breast. “Touch me . . . you know you want to.”

Want?
“You think that covers it?”

“You never have done it.” She lifted a brow. “Why is that?”

Any answer he might have given was lost, because she gave a slow, thorough twist of her wrist as she dragged it back up. Then she caught the fluid leaking out of his cock, smoothed it around the swollen crown.

He hissed out a breath.

She did the same and he didn’t realize it was because he’d plucked at her nipple. “I’m sorry . . . fuck, I hurt you—”

“No.” She shoved her breast into his hand. “Do it again.”

Instead, he shoved upright and caught the tip in his mouth.

That warm, soft laugh echoed around him before fading into a moan. He settled between her hips and then the dream . . . shifted. Rolled.

IcantIcantIcant!

Her hands cupped his face and she rolled up against him. “Make love to me!”

He was buried inside her.

He went to pull out. Felt the smooth, sweet glide of her pussy against him and he shuddered.

“Sweet fucking hell,” he breathed out. Then he drove deep inside her.

She cried out his name.

He might have sobbed out hers.

And moments later, he came awake just as he climaxed, one hand wrapped around his cock while the other twisted in the sheets.

Shuddering, Trey lay there, half-stunned.

“Son of a bitch.”

He’d just orgasmed for the first time in more than six years.

“Son of a bitch.”

*   *   *

“Are you just going to bite the bullet and ask her out?”

He glared at the phone on the bathroom counter. Razor in hand, he leaned forward. “Travis? I’ll listen to your advice on my love life when you listen to mine.”

“I don’t have a love life.”

“Exactly my point.” He finished one pass down his jaw, rinsed the razor off, started another. “Look, it’s just . . .”

He stopped, because there was only so much he was willing to tell. Even his twin. He sure as
hell
wasn’t about to share certain humiliating details.

Unaware of the thoughts circling through Trey’s mind, Travis pushed on. “Just
nothing
. It’s been almost six years since Aliesha died. I
know
you’re moving past that—or
have
moved past it. So it’s not her.”

“Don’t.” Even he heard the biting warning in his voice.

Travis’s sigh came over the line. “I just worry about you, man.”

“Same goes. And hey, I’m not the one who’s working myself into an early grave, right?” He could still remember how Travis had looked in San Francisco when they all met up for their annual get-together. Mom insisted it wasn’t necessary, but she still had that light of complete delight in her eyes when they all descended en masse, ringing the doorbell to the house their parents had lived in for years.

Travis had looked like somebody had dragged him, sopping wet and close to drowning, out of the Pacific.

“I’m not working myself into a grave,” Travis said, his voice grim. “I refuse to die doing this shit work.”

There was an edge to his twin’s voice, one Trey hadn’t heard before. “Everything okay with
you
?”

For a moment, there was just a taut, heavy silence. Then
Travis sighed. “Yeah. I’m just . . . tired. I need a vacation. I’ll take care of that. Soon. But let’s talk about this librarian. Who is she? What does she look like? Fess up.”

“We’re not in high school anymore, Trav.”

“Too bad, because then I’d be able to figure this out on my own. Come on, I’ll just work it out of Clay.” There was a sly note in Travis’s voice.

“Bastard.” Trey finished up shaving and rinsed the foam from his face, using a towel to dry off. His hair hung in his face, too long, desperately in need of a trim. “How about I give you something else to hassle me over?”

“It won’t be near as interesting,” Travis said.

“Sure it will.” He twisted the towel around his hands as he readied himself to say it. “I . . . uh . . . I committed to speaking at a writer thing next month. One of the writers at my agency had to cancel—some family emergency, and Reuben decided to take a chance at asking me. I said yes.”

For a moment, there was just silence.

Then Travis said, “Repeat that.”

“You heard me,” Trey said wearily. “It’s in Jersey. Not far, but . . .” Now was the hard part. “I tried to see if Al and Mona could watch him, but that’s their anniversary and they are taking a cruise. So I called Mom and Dad. They . . .”

Shit. Hand shaking, he dragged it down his face, realized there was some stubble he’d missed. Maybe he should—

Quit stalling. Just spit it out.
“They want to take him to Disney. Just the two of them.”

“And you’re letting them.”

He gripped the counter. “Yeah. I’m letting them.”

“Have you puked yet?”

That startled a laugh out of him. “Nah. But if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“If you did, I wouldn’t tell the others.”

Now he smiled. “Yeah. I know.” He checked the time. “Look . . . I gotta go. It’s almost time to go to the library. I’m surprised Clay hasn’t come up here and banged on the door already.”

“Okay. Man, one second—listen. Make yourself a list or something. You do better with lists. And on that damn list, put down for you to just ask her out on a date.”

“Shit.” Trey rolled his eyes. “I can’t be around her without my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth, or worse . . . drooling.” He grimaced. If he asked her out, then he’d have to worry about other things—what if he kissed her? What if
she
kissed him? What would happen when he started thinking about the void of his memory from that night? Drooling would be the
least
of his concerns. “Trust me, a date is no good.”

“Fine. Put
no drooling
on the list. But stop sitting on your ass.”

*   *   *

One hand closed into a fist as Trey stood there.

He hadn’t just done that. He really hadn’t made a stupid list.

He was going to kick Travis’s ass over this . . . because, dumb-ass that he was, he had made a list. More than likely, nothing would come of it.

So, yeah. He’d made a list. Big deal.

Ressa Bliss was gorgeous.

She was outgoing.

She probably had a boyfriend. For all he knew, she might even be married. Not that rings really meant anything, but . . . blowing out a breath, he looked down at the one he had yet to take off.

Slowly, he reached up and traced the tip of his right index finger across the engraved surface of his wedding ring. It wasn’t so much that he couldn’t let go that kept the ring on his finger. He had accepted and acknowledged all of this a long time ago.

He grieved for Aliesha long and hard—probably longer and harder than he maybe should have, losing himself in a dark, ugly pit of despair. It had been easier to do that than focus on some of the other things that had gone wrong in his life. It hadn’t been until the past year that he realized just how messed up he’d let himself get.

Oh, he’d hidden it.

He’d hidden it well from everybody except his twin . . . and probably Mom. Travis and Denise Barnes saw past the walls nobody else had even realized were there.

But only Travis had any idea of just how messed up Trey
probably was. There were missing hours that Trey still couldn’t get back—followed by a morning where he had been forced to remember, all over again, that he’d lost his wife.

That void, those missing hours, they haunted him and all he wanted was to
forget
—the whole damn night, not just pieces of it.

Sometimes, he thought he almost remembered. A woman’s laugh, the burn of whiskey.

Then a vicious pain.

He’d left the hospital with bruised ribs, bruised knuckles, and various other aches and pains. At some point, he’d gotten into a fight. The bartender said there had been a man in the parking lot, and he thought the woman Trey had been drinking with had left with him.

But beyond that?

He only had emptiness, questions—and a good, thirty-minute gap of nothingness that the bartender couldn’t account for between the time he’d noticed the commotion on his security cameras and the time Trey had stumbled out of the bar.

The few dates he’d tried to go on since then, he could almost hear the echo of a woman’s laugh in the back of his mind and it was like the fumes of whiskey clouded his head. Any interest he
might
have felt died under a rush of near memories.

So he’d just . . . stopped. Stopped trying to live again, lost himself deeper inside himself.

Until he’d seen Ressa. Staring at his ring, he closed his hand into a fist and slowly relaxed it. Then, without giving himself a chance to think about it, he tugged the ring off.

It wasn’t a connection with his wife, really, that he was removing.

In more ways than one, it was his shield.

How he’d kept himself cut away from everybody and anybody save for his family and a few very select friends. If he took that off, then he had to admit to himself that maybe he was ready to move on.

He wanted his life back—or some semblance of it.

He wanted to feel a woman’s skin against his own without memories of something he didn’t even understand haunting him. Wanted to know he could touch a woman and actually
feel that need—feel something other than the grief of Aliesha’s death choking him.

How could one night change something so basic? How did something he didn’t even
remember
change everything?

“Dad!” Clayton’s voice rang through the house.

Wincing, Trey did exactly what he’d done for almost six years—compartmentalized everything. He’d think about all of this later. “Be down in a minute, buddy!” he shouted back, slowly putting the ring down on the counter. Whether or not he’d put it back on, he didn’t know.

But he had taken it off. Even if it was just for a little while, that counted, right?

Picking up the little moleskin notebook he carried everywhere, he flipped to the middle and eyed the list he’d just made.

To-Do List

1.
Clothes shopping

2.
Get groceries—you’re out of deodorant, moron

3.
Ask her out

4.
Try not to drool

The list was out of order.

And it was just as stupid as he’d thought it would be.

Abruptly, he went to tear it out of the notebook, but then he stopped.

If he didn’t do this now, then when would he?

Abruptly, he grabbed his pen and scrawled something else down at the bottom.

5.
Start living again

“Dad?” There was a pause, and then a more persistent yell with an edge of panic.
“Dad! I can’t find my books!”

Saved by the boy,
he mused, stroking a finger down the list,
lingering on the final item.
If nothing else, that one right there was something he had to do.

He’d take it as a sign. So he’d think about it. Think about it and just see. See what happened.

Really, what could any of this hurt . . . nothing really, right? Not more than it hurt to dream about her at night, fantasize about that mouth. Or other attractive parts of her anatomy.

It was a seductive, taunting road, one paved with fantasies and frustration, but it was better than the desolate one he’d walked for far too long.

“In the basket on the bookshelf by the door,” he called out as he shoved the notebook into his pocket. “Exactly where I told you to put them last night.”