C's Comeuppance: A Bone Cold--Alive novel (27 page)

He stretched his right arm out, as if to grasp something only he could see. “We just fell into our own special traps of our own special making. And Fletch let us fall, let us be famous and make money for him and ourselves. Let us be besotted with our own demons. Money, sex, drugs. I hate him for it and I’m grateful to him all in the same breath.” He bit at his lower lip. “Then T sobers up and finds Lyla, finds a Muse if you will, when he does that, I think—I think, it’s all over. Where am I?
Who am I
?”

He slowly lowered his arm and brought his gaze to hers. “A crash course in Eddie C grows up and it’s not a pretty picture. Is that what you wanted to know? Too much? Too little?” He leaned toward her. “Too scary?”

Jemma settled back against the glider, realized she clutched folds of sleeping bag tightly in her hands. Slowly she released them, stretched out her fingers. “No. That’s what I wanted to know.” She licked her lips. “Thank you for telling me. For trusting me.”

“I hear that’s what relationships are built on. Trust.” A smile tilted the corner of his lips. “And sex and money.”

Her laugh broke the tension between them. “I’ve had a very mom-and-apple-pie upbringing compared to that.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but mom-and-apple-pie upbringings usually yield marriages and scads of children. Aren’t you a little behind in the game?”

“A little.” She looked off toward the lake.

“You’re going to have to do better than that.” He took a deep breath, and the tension seemed to melt from him. In the light of the moon, he looked younger to her, more at ease. Stretching back against the glider, he put his arm on the back, an invitation for her to come into his embrace once more.

“I know.” She twisted her hands, finally drew her attention to his face. He was studying her. He had been so honest with her, so unexpectedly, heart-wrenchingly honest. How could she be otherwise?

But a face flashed in her mind, a face she loved dearly. And Jemma closed her mind to any pretense of honesty. There was no reason for him to know anything other than the Lovelace family party line. At least, not yet.

And maybe never.

***

“Dull childhood full of things small-town kids do. Older brother that bedeviled me. Summer camps and going to college. Thinking I wanted to be a lawyer, settling for a real estate license…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He drew his brows together. “You wanted to be a lawyer?”

“At first. Took the requisite courses…” She felt herself flush, hoped he couldn’t see it in the bare light.

“Well, hell, if that doesn’t explain a lot, including that damn legalistic mind of yours. No wonder. Why didn’t you do it?”
Jemma chewed on her lower lip and stumbled for a way out from under his ability to catch every word and nuance. So many men didn’t pay attention, why did she have to get one that did? “I, ah, I don’t really know. I guess I just got sidetracked. Happens, you know.” He nodded. “I came home after college and got involved in Daddy’s business and I was good at it. Then James Thomas and Doree came. Mandy. Weeks turned into months and months into years and all of a sudden I realized I hadn’t been out on a date in a while. Then a long while. The older I got, the greater the number of retreads and all it took was one date to know why they were in the marriage market again. I decided to move out because Mother was really getting unbearable and the next week Daddy had a stroke. Debilitating. Mother wouldn’t hear that he be in a facility and good ol’ Jemma’s there and long story short, good ol’ Jemma still is.”

“But good ol’ Jemma’s getting itchy feet, isn’t she?”

“Yeah.” She finally leaned back against his arm, relaxed now that her storytelling was over. “No matter what. If this works with you and me or not, I’ll be moving out. I have my eye on some property.”

“Realtors and bankers. Always know where the next deal is.”

“That’s how one stays ahead.”

“Your family story seems a bit tidy. No skeletons to jump out of the closet at some inconvenient time? No reason for being ‘sidetracked’?”

“What you see is what you get.” She closed her eyes and looked away from him.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
Soft fingers turned her head toward his.

“I’m going to let you get away with it for now.” His voice was soothing, his eyes searching. He leaned toward her and his breath on her ear sent shivers down her spine. “But every family has a black sheep, darlin’.”

“I’ll introduce you to James Thomas and Doree as soon as they get back to town.” She caught her breath as he kissed her neck, felt a warmth that had nothing whatsoever to do with being ‘legalistic.’ “Charles.”

“It’s enough to make you lose your resolve, isn’t it?” His lips were inches from hers. One hand rested casually between cardigan and shell, cupped her breast.

“You can be a bastard.”

“I am a bastard.” He drew her closer, put her legs over his until she was almost in his lap, kept his hand on her thigh, a sign of possession she thought she’d never allow. “Now that we have family out of the way, can we get down to sex?”

“Don’t you ever give up?” He shook his head as she put her arms around his neck, drew her fingers through his ponytail. “Maybe you should take me home.”

“Maybe I should put you on your back on this dock and show you what it’s all about.”

“You don’t think I know?”

“Babe, you haven’t a clue.” The hand that had rested on her thigh now eased upward under her sweater, massaged her ribs, traced her breast.

“And that would be a satisfying experience? On the dock, showing me what it’s all about?”

“Not in the long run, but short term it would get the job done.”

“So that’s how you see our first lovemaking? Short term to get the job done?”

“So you do see us making love?”

“Maybe.” The word caught in her throat as his wandering hand was at her waistband, fingers slipping below.

“And where do you envision this taking place if not on the dock or in a hotel?”
“If I decide to make love to you, Charles, I’ll find the place.”

“Okay. It’s a deal.” Abruptly, his hand left the warmth of her body as he set her off his lap. “Let’s go.”

“What?” Jemma sought some sort of inner control for her hormones. Damn man knew just exactly what he’d done to her!

“Taking you home. You’ve made me confess, I don’t think you’ve been entirely honest with me, and I can’t take the sexual tension any more. Not necessarily in that order.” He ripped the sleeping bag from her lap and stood to fold it.

“Where have I not been entirely honest with you?” And what in hell did he mean
he
couldn’t take the sexual tension any more?

“I’m not sure where. But it’s there and you know it and I’ll either figure it out or you can confess, but one of those two things will happen before I leave town Sunday.” He pulled at the bag she was still sitting on. “C’mon, up!”

Reluctantly, Jemma stood. She was a physical and mental wreck.
How had he known?
She’d simply told things the way everyone believed them, told them the way she had for so long that sometimes she had to make herself remember it wasn’t quite that way.

“So you don’t trust me?”

“Not entirely.” He finished with the bag. “But that simply adds to your feminine mystique. Anyway, I love a good puzzle. I’ll find that missing piece.” He started toward the steps.

“Do we need to put the glider back where we found it?”
“Nah. Let’s see how observant my relatives are.” He was halfway up the steps.

“You’re in an awfully good mood to say, one—you don’t believe me and two—you’re ‘unsatisfied.’”

“I’m enjoying my new experience.”

“How so?” She hurried to catch up with him.

“In my adult life, I’ve never had a date without sex if I wanted it.”

Jemma stopped at the hood of the car while he put the sleeping bags in the trunk. “You have got to be kidding.”

A smile spread across his face. “More often than not, more than once.”

“Really?”

He opened the car door for her, grinned slyly. “Really. See what you have to look forward to?”
Oh, Lord
, Jemma thought as she got in the car and leaned her head back against the headrest as C climbed in the driver’s side.
I’m in trouble now.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“K
nock, knock, open for business?”

Jemma jerked her head around at the unexpected intrusion. It wasn’t even eight on Thursday morning, and she was pouring water into the office coffeemaker. The aroma from the sack of cinnamon rolls she’d picked up at the bakery was enticing her to hurry with the brew. Not that she wasn’t happy to see the man who was striding toward her, clarinet in hand.

“Good morning, Charles. Awfully early for you, isn’t it?”

“True, I am usually just getting to bed by this somewhat ungodly hour.” He placed the instrument on the blotter and circled behind Carolyn’s desk, taking the carafe from Jemma’s hand, setting it on its hotplate. “But when one gets dumped by one’s date before ten, one hasn’t any other options than to just go on to bed and get up with the chickens.” He drew her into his embrace and pulled her so their bodies touched intimately. “And the old man who owns them.” Leaning down to her, his words were lost in the touch of their lips.

Jemma welcomed him, his touch, his kiss, his breath. Their foreplay on the glider the night before had awakened her slumbering sensual soul, a significant fact she’d convinced herself of about midnight when her mother had finally gone to bed and left her alone.

“Whoa, babe.” C pulled away and Jemma felt herself redden. “Maybe I should have shown you what was what on the dock last night.”

“I’m sorry, Charles.” She whirled away from him, flipped the switch on the coffeemaker.

“Don’t be embarrassed.” He circled his arms around her and clasped them about her waist, rubbed his chin on the top of her head. “I’m flattered. Pleased.” He ground his hips against her as he kissed her ear. “Happy to see you.”

Jemma was saved from having to answer by the opening of the front door. “Well, if you two aren’t cozy.” T fussed with closing the door as C disengaged himself from Jemma. “Knew there was a reason C dropped me off at the bakery while he hot-footed it down here.” He grinned as he stood on the other side of Carolyn’s desk. “And, by the way, where is your car?”

“Couldn’t have Fletch figuring out the red rental. I took it across the street and parked it in the bank’s lot in Jemma’s brother’s spot.” He quirked a smile her way. “Don’t think he’ll mind, do you?”

“Let’s just hope nobody has it towed.” She tapped her fingernails on the desk, felt relief that her face was returning to its normal hue. “I’ll call the bank’s info desk and let them know. In the meantime, it looks like we’re all interested in serving Mr. Fletcher a nutritious breakfast.” Jemma peeked into the new sack. “At least you got donuts. And three kinds at that.” She found a cake plate below the coffeemaker shelf and started arranging the breads. “So you two are going to hide-and-watch?”

“Can’t think of a single reason not to. Can you, T?”

“Not one. I don’t suppose we could go on and start on those?” He lifted a napkin from the desktop where it had dropped and reached toward the plate.

“You should have eaten at your wife’s place this morning, like I did.” C sat down in Carolyn’s chair and helped himself as well. “Norm and I opened up.” He patted his knee and winked at Jemma. “Wanna sit down and join us?”

“No.” She hissed it at him.

T chuckled. “You got a lot to learn, big brother.”

“
Big
brother?” Jemma stared at C. “You’re the older?”

“What did you think?” C licked the chocolate donut icing from his fingers. “I bet you wouldn’t have asked that question two years ago. It was obvious who the responsible member of the family was then.”

He started to help himself to a cinnamon roll. Jemma slapped his hand. “Leave some for the paying clients.”

“You’re mad because I’m older? And you, hey, Edwin Thomas, you can quit laughing now!” C complained as T wiped sugar from his fingers and took another one. “Jemma, slap his hand, why don’t you? He’s having seconds!”

“He hasn’t had breakfast like you.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m about to toss the two of you out on your rears.” She took a mug from the wall peg and poured a cup of coffee, doctored it. “Now what is it you hope to accomplish by hiding?”

“Meanness. Just pure meanness,” T repeated, his mouth full of bread. He swallowed and held out his hand. “I’d take a cup of coffee, Jemma.”

“Me, too, while you’re at it.” C let a sniffle into his voice.

She sighed and filled two more cups from the rack. It was little wonder the Samuels twins had managed to wear out a set of parents and a grandmother. Fletcher seemed to be the only one who had survived them for any length of time. Her curiosity about him mounted.

“And you’re going to accomplish this meanness by—?”

“We thought we’d hide in the restroom, then when he’s gone in to talk about property with you, we’d come out and switch on the intercom. Listen over Carolyn’s shoulder.”

“Don’t think she’ll mind, do you?” T asked.

“Like I told you, bro, Carolyn likes me.
She’d
have sat on my knee. Not that I’d have offered.”

“Oh, honest to Pete.” Jemma left them sitting there, speculating on how surprised Lyla would be to see Fletch. She went into her office, closing the door with a finality that left little doubt they were to stay put.

***

“He’s here!” T dropped the mini-blind back in place and skidded across the floor to their hiding place.

“What’s he driving?”
“Silver Mercedes. And he had better not dun me for it out of expenses.”

“That’s enough from you two!” Carolyn shoved them into the restroom and closed the door on them, opened it back up and handed C his clarinet. She hit the intercom key. “Jemma—”

“I heard, I heard.” She opened the door to her office and leaned against the frame. “Like I couldn’t hear the thundering herd of elephants out here.” She glanced at the wall clock. “Early. Good sign. Anxious to buy.” She smiled.