C's Comeuppance: A Bone Cold--Alive novel (26 page)

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“You pick first.” C slid the small tray with the check and the fortune cookies over to Jemma. The buzz in the cafe made politely modulated conversation almost impossible, so they had eaten in relative silence, something Jemma had found surprisingly pleasant. There wasn’t a table available and the line stretched out the door, an occurrence she had never seen, even on Mother’s Day when taking mom to lunch was the height of local homage. But then C was hardly a regular customer.

She studied the two identical clear plastic packages, touched one, then the other.

“What are you doing? Getting good vibes? Bad ones?”

She laughed lightly. “Maybe.” She selected and tore the package, broke the cookie, read the fortune to herself.

“Got to read it aloud.”

“You first.”

“You know everything doesn’t have to be equal.” He followed her lead, watched his cookie break into a dozen pieces as he secured the fortune. “‘A happy house has a firm foundation.’” He paused and the tip of his tongue played on his bottom lip. “In bed.”

Jemma felt herself flush at the implication. “I wondered if you played that game.” She took a big breath. “Mine doesn’t really make much sense if you do that.” She reached for her purse. “Guess it’s time to pay up and go.”

“That it may be, but you read your fortune first.” He slid the check tray over to his side. “And I’ll be damned if this place is going to see you pay the bill.” He took a peek at it. “Especially when a twenty will cover it.” He patted his pants pocket and pulled out the two peppermint pieces from lunch. “Look what you never came to get.” He separated out the proper change and laid it on the table, then put the mints back in his front pocket. “Read.”

Jemma crinkled her nose. “You have to promise to keep a straight face.”

“I’d probably promise you anything.”

She caught her breath. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
He nodded, rested his elbows on the table, clasped his hands under his chin. “I’ll keep a straight face. I may laugh my head off in the car—”

“Fair enough.” She rolled her eyes. “I could read this in the car.”
“You’re squirming and I rather you saved that kind of action for my physical prowess, not my verbal skills.”

“The world underestimates you.”

“I’ve told the world that for years. You, however, have about five seconds before I grab that little piece of paper and make a scene.”

“Okay, okay.” She smoothed out the slip. “‘Good things come to those who wait.’”

“Who wait where?”

“In bed.”

“Thank you.” He leaned over the table, and the eyes that Jemma had found cold and forbidding two weeks ago, were sparkling and lively. “Let’s give them something to really talk about, all right?”

Before she could answer, he pulled her head toward his and kissed her deeply. Jemma didn’t know if the heat she felt was from the kiss or the photographer’s flash.

Chapter Twenty-Three

C
eased the car out of its space at the edge of the Lily Pond’s parking lot. They’d had to part the crowd in front to find the car. As he watched the highway traffic go by, he had no idea which way to turn. “Where to?”
“I wondered when we’d get to that.” Jemma crossed her legs and the fabric of the slacks made a swishing noise. She’d changed her clothes for their date, become less stuffy, more accessible. He’d already contemplated pulling off the cardigan, pulling up the sweater shell. Her full breasts, what would her wonderfully full breasts— “Just exactly where can we go?”
“That’s what I was asking you.”

“Just turn and we’ll figure it out.”

He caught the first opening in the traffic and turned right, toward the lake, toward Norm’s and the Quik-Lee and Lyla’s. Toward the Brady place.

“Our options are narrow, Jemma. Sitting on the porch with Norm. Sitting in the kitchen with your mother.” She shuddered. “Sitting in a parked car necking.”

She gave a little laugh. “You don’t suppose we’ll be followed, do you?”

“Probably tonight, but not after this. I’ll take care of it.”

“How do you propose to appease the First Amendment crowd?”

“I have my ways. I’ve played this game a very long time.”

Jemma leaned her head back against the headrest, sighed. “Then I’ll trust your experience. Mother was in rare form this evening. Last place I want to go is home.”

“Then let’s ditch the car that’s following us and go park.”

“I’m thirty-seven, Charles. I don’t do ‘park.’”

“Well, you sure as hell don’t do Blue Dream Inn.”

She gave a quick laugh. “I’m not going to sleep with you tonight.”

“When you’re with me, you don’t sleep.”

“Just about what Mandy quoted from those tawdry fan magazines she reads. I guess I need to be more specific. I am not going to have intercourse with you.”

“That’s fairly specific. I can live with that. Tonight.” He flashed her a wide smile. “I know where we can go and be safe from the reporters. Are you game?”

“Where?”

“Are you game?”

“Yes, I’m game.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and watched the road. As he took the turn by the Quik-Lee, she nodded. “You think Lyla and Sam will welcome you with open arms? It’s going to be a strange conversation with you on the front porch and me inside.”

“Lyla and T are on the houseboat reliving old memories.”

Jemma cast him a sideways look. “And you can have the run of the place? Charles, I don’t think so.”

“Well, look at it this way. Our friends behind us will stop because the gates are locked and I know the combination to get in.”

“Half the county knows the combination.”

“Not our friends behind us.”

“And then we’re going to—”

“Sit on the porch. Sit on the dock. Sit by the hot tub. Check the doors to make sure they’re locked, but they will be. I don’t know the combo to the alarm system. I don’t suppose—”

“No. Not privy to that.”

They arrived at the gate and C rolled down the window, punched in the numbers. As the gate tripped open, he saluted the truck behind him with an obscene gesture and threw dust in his wake. Jemma glanced behind them to be sure the reporters were stopped.

“Nothing to keep them from climbing over and coming on down.”

“True, but they won’t. I’ll make it right with Marty and Jake.”

“Like you made it right with Abby Sander for the exclusive with Sam? That little open-mouth-insert-foot got you tossed off this property the first time.”

“Is nothing sacred? Are there no secrets?”

“Common knowledge.” She acted as if she’d just played a trump card.

“Well, come tomorrow morning common knowledge will have your reputation tarnished so badly you’ll never be able to put it back right.” He braked at the circle drive and shoved the car into park. “You know that, don’t you? Just being here alone with me does that?” His brows knitted and Jemma knew the concern was genuine.

“Certainly I know that.” She studied the dash, toyed with the lock on the glove box. The guard-light on the dock fifty feet away illuminated their faces. “I’ve thought of little else. The best I can hope for right now is that those two clowns think Sam and Lyla are here and that this is a legitimate visit between brothers.” She turned to him. “I appreciate your concern, Charles. I bet not many women have had the opportunity to say that.”

He shrugged, seemed embarrassed, fumbled with his words. “Part of finding out who, ah, who Edward Charles really is.” He refused to look at her.

Jemma leaned toward him and stroked his cheek until he did. “So is Edward Charles being sincere or Eddie C being clever?”

“You have no idea the difficulty of being sincere.” He pulled at his jeans. “I’m very uncomfortable and would like to walk. That is honest.”

“Pity.” Jemma leaned in closer. “I thought I might settle an old debt.” She brushed her lips across his. “I owe you a kiss in the car.”

“Damn, woman.”

“It’s okay, then? You can walk in a minute?” She kissed his upper lip, ran her tongue across his bottom one.

“No guarantees. Just kiss me, Jemma.” His hands moved to her sides between shell and cardigan and he ran them up and down.

Jemma kissed him. Slowly, softly. He let her take the lead, let her tease his tongue. She was aware when his hands first touched the skin of her back as he raised her shell, ran his fingers over her bra strap. She gave a little cry.

“Jemma?” He pushed her away but didn’t take his hands from under her clothes. “I thought—”

“Shhh.” She put a finger on his lips to hush his words. “I’m okay. It’s just that, well, it’s been a while.” She pulled away from him and caught his hands as they slipped from under her sweater with her movement. She kissed his fingers. “Part of me is regretting that I didn’t wear a blouse that buttons, that’s all.”

He laughed heartily. “I always knew the quiet ones were the ones to watch. C’mon, let’s walk a bit, cool down.” He opened his door and swung his long legs out, came around the car to hand her out. “You’re going to let me open doors for you?”

“I needed the time to compose myself. I’m quite capable of opening—”

“I know, I know.” He pulled her to stand in front of him. “Want your jacket?”

She rubbed lightly at her arms. “Please.” He reached into the back seat and retrieved their light coats, settled hers around her shoulders. “I’ve got sleeping bags if you change your mind.” She quirked a brow at him. “Or if you just want to cuddle on the swing.”

“Rental cars come equipped with sleeping bags?”

“Me and the Army-Navy this afternoon. But don’t worry, I ran into Oklahoma to buy them. Nobody around here’ll know.”

“And just precisely why did you buy them?”

“Be prepared. Part of the Edward Charles motto.” He looked around. “Anyway, look at the mess we’re in just to talk. Can’t go to your place. Can’t go to mine. If Lyla and T were home, we wouldn’t be here. Celebrity has its pitfalls, so I have planned ahead for any contingency.”

“Somehow I think hotel suites are more your style than campouts.”

“Well, I’ll call a hotel right now, if you’ll go.”

“Very clever, Charles.”

“I thought so.” He took her arm. “Let’s stretch.”

They walked silently to the top of the bluff that overlooked the dock and the steps leading down to it. “T put a glider down there.” C peered over the edge. “Shall I get my ill-gotten gain and we can sit there?”

“Go for it.”

He loped back to the car. Jemma heard the slam of the trunk as she watched the full moon pattern on the lake. “Shall we?” C led the way down and dumped the two sleeping bags on the wooden planks. He looked up at the guard-light and studied the position of the glider. Grabbing it, he dragged it two feet further back from the water and watched it disappear into the shadows. “A certain amount of privacy, madam.”

“Good thinking.” She smiled as he unzipped one sleeping bag and covered the bench with it, draping it over the top and pushing it until it conformed to the glider’s dimensions. Unzipping the other bag, it shook it out and indicated that she sit down. As he settled beside her, he spread the second one across their laps.

“Toasty?”

“It’ll do.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and set the rhythm for the glide. Jemma found it easy to rest her head on his shoulder, lay one hand on his thigh, let the other toy with his jacket closure.

“So if we’re not going to have sex, what are we going to talk about?”
She laughed lightly at him. “What do you usually talk about with women when you’re not having sex?”

“I don’t.” She felt the rumble of his voice in his chest. “We have sex, then we talk about the next time we’re going to have sex.”

“That might go a long way in explaining why Miss Sander parted company with you.”

“Abby and I had a few other things to talk about. Industry things.”

“What do you plan on talking about with me?” She raised her eyes and watched his face. “You came to court me. Or so you said. So talk.”

“People really talk?”

“There is more to life than a tumble in the hay.”

He creased his brow. “You sure? Who told you that?” He looked down at her upturned face, caught the sparkle of gold-flecks in her eyes. “You’re reading the wrong ladies’ mags. Sex is everything.”

“I’m reading the magazines where money is everything.”

“You have a point.” He tipped her chin up and kissed the tip of her nose. “So, there’s sex and money. What else?”

“Family, Charles. Tell me about your family.”

He stopped the glide, increased the pressure of his hand on her shoulder, looked away from her. “I think there’s an unauthorized biography running around somewhere that’ll bring you up-to-date on that.”

“I want you to tell me.”

“Then you’re going to return the favor.”

“That’s the gist of conversation between two people who might be serious about one another. It’s a two-way road, Charles.” Still he didn’t look at her. “Shall I go first?”

“No.” He set his jaw. “I’m the one that has the most to prove in this. I’m the one nobody seems to be able to believe can be serious about anything but music and money.” He started a short glide, a nervous rhythm with his feet. Jemma felt his heartbeat increase and raised her head from his shoulder. She pulled herself from his embrace, as she sat up and folded her hands in her lap. Maybe it would be easier for him if she didn’t touch him.

He didn’t look at her, just studied a point in the middle of the lake. “The old man wasn’t worth killing, our mother so out-of-touch with reality she couldn’t handle the two of us. They divorced and the judicial system in its infinite wisdom dumped us at Grandmother’s.” His voice was harsh, thick. “I think T heard from the old man. Once. Later, when we were worth something monetarily. Our grandmother tried to do right by us—church and school and good food on the table. Someone who really tried to love us. All we ever gave her was misery and grief. The older we got, the more we acted like she didn’t exist, until one day—” he let his hands fly outward “—one day she didn’t! She died and we were really alone with each other.”

He took a deep breath. “Brothers are close, twins are closer, but the two of us breathed like one person from the beginning. We protected each other and covered each other’s butts till we looked like blankets! Even when T was high and I was besieged with groupies, we were one. A look and I knew what he was thinking. A touch and we were on the same wavelength.”