Careful What You Kiss For (28 page)

Rhonda’s smile shot icicle daggers into Tensley.

“Get the hell out of here, Rhonda,” Max ordered. Then he turned to Tensley, who had already dug her fist into the leather seat and was using it to push her numb body out of the booth. “She’s not my wife any more. Don’t listen to her — ”

Any more
. She wanted to have a great comeback, something worthy of a wronged heroine in a classic tale, but her fight-or-flight instincts took over instead, with flight asserting control. She was up on her wobbling legs now, pushing toward the door.

When she heard Max following, she made sure the door to Sol’s diner banged on him. “Where are you going?” he demanded.

She didn’t answer.

He caught up with her, grabbing her arm. “You know better than to listen to — ”

Her voice returned, scraping like sandpaper against her throat. “You
married
Rhonda.”

His hesitation told her everything she needed to know. “It’s not that simple,” he said.

“But it is.” Tensley spun on her heel, unsteady as she was, and made for her car. She opened the door and hurtled inside, fumbling in her purse for her keys. This scenario was way too familiar for words.

That fast, Max was against the driver’s side door, his arm on the roof as if he could stop her from driving away. He rapped on the window and gestured for her to roll it down.

She wouldn’t. No way. She jammed the keys into the ignition.

Then she sat back against the seat and rolled the window down.

He leaned in through it, his face inches from hers. “Yes. Yes, I married her. But we’re divorced.”

“You still see her.”

Again, he hesitated. “There’s a reason for that.”

Bryan-with-a-y-not-an-i all over again. It had to be in the male DNA. Tensley focused her gaze straight ahead. She turned on the ignition. “Step away from the car.”

“Ten — ”

“Step. Away. From the car,” she growled.

He did.

There was some satisfaction in peeling out of the parking spot, leaving him standing in the exhaust. And relief in the fact that she hadn’t decked Rhonda. Or Max.

This time.

No guarantees going forward.

• • •

Kate’s neighborhood was a great place for a walk. Trees, flowers and a park not far away that bordered a city lake. People caught up in their everyday lives, shopping, working, taking care of kids. Not many who had enough time on their hands to stare into her face and wonder what was wrong.

Since her best friend wasn’t home when Tensley arrived, she took the animals with her for a pounding, mind-clearing jaunt to the park. Blinky and Stinky weren’t too sure about it and Gemini seemed alarmed, but they came, anyway.

Then again, they didn’t have a choice. She held the leashes.

On the way to the park, she tried to sort out her feelings, which were racing through her at all different speeds and colliding in one pileup after another.

Stinky took the lead for their little group, acting as seeing eye dog for Blinky, who was close on his heels. Tensley followed, holding on as the leashes became taut from the dogs straining to go faster. Gemini brought up the rear, but kept enough of a distance to allow him to pretend he wasn’t with them.

Max had married Rhonda.
Married
her. Even though he’d told her that whole kiss in high school had been staged so he could get Tensley to leave for college. Yeah, right. Since when did you marry someone you didn’t care about? Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes as she visualized their wedding, Rhonda poured into a tight, white leather dress, showing cleavage so substantial, it needed its own zip code.

She couldn’t help it; she glanced down at her own chest. A perfectly respectable C cup, but nowhere near Rhonda territory. Max must have felt like he needed a flashlight and a map to even find her boobs.

Stop it. Stop … it.
She could not, would not, do this to herself again. This wasn’t high school; she was a professional woman, even if her life didn’t reflect it right now. She’d done fine without Max before and would do fine without him again.

One tear splashed downward, in the direction of an unsuspecting Blinky. That’s when she realized how far she’d let her chin dip. Ridiculous. One night with the guy and she was back to being seventeen again.

But she had a much bigger problem, and she knew it. Pure nostalgia would be one thing. They’d have a good time in bed and say goodbye. Fun revisiting old times — see ya.

It wasn’t that easy. Max the adult, the confident officer of the law, willing to do whatever it took to take down a bad guy … the man powerful enough, ripped enough, masculine enough to be gentle when it counted … was pulling her in with far greater force than a memory ever could. Old memories fade. It was the new ones you had to watch out for.

She’d tumbled into bed the other night with the shadow of a teenage boy. And ended up falling for the man who had taken his place. A man who had decided he had to draw the line between right and wrong in sleeping with her. It never should have happened, he’d said.

She both loved and hated him for that.

Tensley swiped at the tears with the back of her hand and threw her shoulders back. Her odd parade of animals had reached the park now. She steered them toward a bench that had been warmed by the sun and collapsed onto it, her legs sprawled in a tangle of leashes, eyes staring straight ahead at the lake.

She needed yet another mental checklist. First item, forget Max. She’d forget the club, too, if she hadn’t promised Sarah she’d show up tonight to show her how to figure her profits and losses. The woman couldn’t continue on not knowing how much she truly made. She had a child depending on her.

There was also the matter of Tensley making enough money to get out that place for good.

So, second item, get another job. Where, she had no idea. But it had better be someplace that didn’t do a background check.

Third item … um … .
Ummm
. Who was she kidding, she had no idea what was third on the list. She glanced down to see the two dogs sitting before her, faces turned upward. Even Blinky’s blind eyes were filled with concern. From several feet away, Gemini also watched her, his tail swishing gently across the grass. When he saw her looking at him, he turned away. And then back again.

Her bruised heart melted a little. At least someone cared about her. So what if she had a two-item checklist. She’d get it finished that much faster.

“Come on, guys.” Tensley stood, jiggling the leashes. “Let’s go.” Kate would be home before long. Bet she wouldn’t be such a big fan of Max’s once she found out he’d said “I do” to Rhonda the Skank, who could probably say “I did” about every guy in their high school.

Why did you have to go there, Max? Why Rhonda, of all people?
It wasn’t a question Tensley would likely get answered any time soon, or ever, since she was putting Max and his whole confidential informant thing out of her mind for good. Let the police department sue her. She’d like to see them try.

She’d always been able to talk a good game, when it was confined to her own mind.

They turned onto the street leading to Kate’s condo. The air smelled of cinnamon and freshly baked waffle cones. The legs of a wrought iron chair scraped against the sidewalk and an overhead umbrella creaked as a woman from a small café cleaned up the dishes of patrons who had left. Stinky led them around it.

The summer sun washed against Tensley’s face. For a moment, she closed her eyes and imagined she was back in her old life, where she belonged. Where Max hadn’t intruded and her worst problem was figuring out how to convince her mother to give her back her job after the Bryan debacle. Everything had been so much simpler then.

Stinky stopped, causing Blinky to run into the back of him and Tensley to stumble and step on Gemini’s tail. Her eyes flew open at the cat’s offended yowl. “Sorry,” she apologized. “Stinky, what’s the matter?”

Nothing, apparently, but a bowl with fresh water placed outside a red-bricked storefront. Stinky led Blinky to it, where they both lapped it up.

Tensley’s gaze wandered to the store’s wooden sign, “Fowler’s Books and More.” Her heart did the familiar coming-home leap it did whenever she saw a bookstore and longing spiraled through her for the smell of ink and feel of crisp pages beneath her fingers. All those stories she hadn’t yet read, just waiting for her.

She dropped her hands to her sides, letting the leashes slacken. The dogs finished their drinks and backed away from the water bowl, waiting. “Come on, guys. We’re going in,” she said. She had to have her fix. Some people gambled, others drank, still others did drugs.

She bought books.

The black screen door creaked, announcing her arrival. The store was crowded, filled with tall bookcases of dark wood. A long table in the front, with a lamp on each end, held stacks of calendars, note cards and bookmarks.

All standard fare for a bookshop, but there was something not quite so standard about this one. Could have been the classical music, playing in leaps and bounds overhead. Or the smell of freshly baked cookies somewhere close by. Or the jaunty, bright curtains gracing the tops of the long, narrow windows.

Tensley’s shoes made soft plodding sounds on the wood floor as she moved further into the store, followed by her faithful trio of animals, and faced a familiar dilemma — where to start. In romance? She craved it. Mystery? She wanted to figure it out. Self-help? She needed it.

Each shelf had a hand-lettered guide to the author’s last names and all of them called to her. She wasn’t sure how much money she had in her pocket, but she knew from experience she could hold eight paperbacks before she had to set them down at the register and get her second wind.

“Hello?” A woman with shoulder-length steel gray hair, a well-worn pink sweater and smile wrinkles framing a sharp blue-eyed gaze appeared from behind a bookcase. “Can I help you find something?”

Gemini answered before Tensley could. His meow bounced off the bookcases and landed in front of the older woman. “I wasn’t asking you,” she said to him, “but if you like, I’ll show you where the cat section is.”

Tensley smiled for what felt like the first time in months. “I hope it’s okay they’re with me. We were going for a walk and I saw your store and just … ” She lifted a shoulder. “Had to come inside.”

“Pets are welcome. As long as they mind their manners.” The woman’s attempt at a stern look didn’t fool anyone, including the animals. Stinky began sniffing the floor, followed closely by Blinky, while Gemini adopted a bored look, flicking his gaze at the woman every few seconds to be sure she’d noticed.

“Thanks. I’ll make sure they’re on their best behavior.” Her hands were itching to begin pulling books out and reading the back cover blurbs.

“If you need anything, let me know. I’m the only one here.” She shook her head. “Was supposed to be with my grandchildren today, but my helper quit this morning.”

Tensley paused with her hand on the top of a book in the mystery section. “Does that mean you might be hiring?”

“Do you know someone?”

“Uh, well, yes.” She turned to face the woman square on and used her corporate voice. “Me. I’m dependable, good with customers, and I love to read.”
Just don’t ask why I can’t work nights. Or what my customer service experience is.

The woman was silent for a moment as she regarded Tensley. Then she extended her hand. “Patsy Fowler,” she said.

“Tensley.” She shook Patsy’s hand. “Tensley Starbrook.” No need to bring the Tanner part of her into it.

“All right, Tensley Starbrook. How about if you follow me back to the office. We can talk there.” She gestured to the animals. “You, too. Come on.”

Half an hour later, Tensley had learned that Patsy, who had opened the store twenty years earlier, didn’t get to see nearly enough of her grandchildren. And she was not happy that she’d not been able to make the two-hour drive south to see them today.

The interview began with the storeowner giving her a Q&A on the store’s best-selling books — romance novels. Tensley passed with flying colors, especially when it came to the last question.

“Tell me a new writer you would recommend to one of my customers,” Patsy challenged her. “And why.”

“So many good ones to choose from. Depends on the kind of hero she wants to fall in love with.” Tensley mused. “But okay, here are two. Marcella Burnard for sexy sci-fi romance. Takes you, literally, to a whole different world. Jami Davenport for passionate romance with the hot athlete you always knew had a tender side under all that testosterone.”

“Good,” Patsy nodded, jotting the names down on a piece of paper. “I’ll order their books.” Next, she moved the discussion to Austen, Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, along with a healthy rundown of mystery authors. Tensley held her own.

“Favorite quote from a book,” Patsy challenged her.

“We all have a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”

“Jane Austen.”

Tensley nodded and gazed over the other woman’s shoulder, wondering why she hadn’t reflected on the truth of that quote lately. “From
Mansfield Park
.”

“I like it. I like you. When can you start?”

Her attention focused back on Patsy. “Right away.”

“Good. Be here tomorrow, by nine
A.M.
”

Tensley hesitated. “Do you want me to fill out an application?” She didn’t want to, since she had no idea what references she would list, and she was terrified of a background check that would reveal the felony, but it would be worse to show up for work and be told she didn’t meet the criteria.

Wait a minute. As Jane Austen had said … .

“I’m not worried about it. You can do that tomorrow when you get here,” Patsy said briskly, getting to her feet. “I can generally tell everything I need to know about a person from their favorite quote. Now you’d better go finish your walk. That one,” she pointed at Stinky, “is practically crossing his legs.”

Tensley grinned. “Can I ask just one thing, Patsy?”