Goes down easy: Roped into romance (6 page)

They had, in fact, shown him the truth of what family was all about. He’d fit in. He’d played a part. He’d eaten Thanksgiving dinner with the Schneiders, Randy’s family. He’d gone skiing over Christmas vacation with Ben and the rest of the Tannens. All of them—Jack, Ben, Randy, Quentin and Heidi—had spent spring break at South Padre Island. And they’d kept each other out of trouble and on the straight and narrow throughout their senior year.

He hadn’t been the one whose opinions were never sought, whose questions were never considered, whose needs had taken a back seat. Who’d been as invisible as Sugar Blues’ ghost. Janie had been sick for a very long time. Jack had ceased to exist in his parents’ eyes, way before the final move.

Staying in Texas wasn’t a show of rebellion. It was a show of standing on his own, of being the adult he’d been told for years he needed to be. His father had refused to allow it. He would move from Austin or there would be no money for school. Jack had been left little choice, his longhorn dream punted to the far side of a four-year enlistment.

Four years, that became eight that became twelve. Janie had died during the fifth year. She’d been only sixteen to his twenty-two. He hadn’t seen his parents since attending her funeral and standing alone at the rear of the church. Even now, thinking of her life cut
so short, of her suffering…he choked, swallowed, shook off the emotion. He could never take back that he hadn’t been there for her. And sharing his regrets wouldn’t do anyone any good.

If that was what Della had seen…well, whatever it was, he hoped she’d keep her secrets to herself and not share them with Perry.

Pity was the last thing he wanted.

He hadn’t seen either woman when he’d dropped back by Sugar Blues to finish up with the door. It had taken him the better part of the afternoon to install the dead bolt and put up a coat of primer. He could’ve done more, but rain was threatening, and he was beyond beat.

Kachina Leaping Water, the Native American seer Della employed, had been the one to give him the key to Perry’s townhouse when he’d gone into the shop to find her. He hadn’t needed directions; he remembered both Court du Chaud and Café Eros. He’d just wanted to make sure the offer to bunk at her place was still good.

He could easily have found a room at one of the Quarter’s many bed-and-breakfasts. Or even at a hotel. Thing of it was, he liked the idea of sticking close to Perry. A sort of sticking that had nothing to do with what her aunt did or did not know about him or his case or his background, and had everything to do with that kiss.

He climbed down from his Yukon, grabbed his duffel bag from the back seat and headed for her door. He was curious to see if she’d decked out her home to
look like Sugar Blues, with all its crystals, candles and statues of fairies that looked as if they should be baking cookies in an oven inside a tree.

The key in the lock, he pushed her door and let it swing open while he stood in the entrance taking it all in. He should’ve known. No beads or Buddha figurines for this woman.

Scarves draped over lampshades turned the walls into a rainbow. He could barely see her sofa, buried as it was beneath a mountain of pillows. And there wasn’t an inch of wall not covered with art prints and posters.

“Jack, oh,” Perry yelped from the hallway door, drawing his gaze that way. “I wasn’t expecting you yet.”

Obviously. She wasn’t wearing anything but a towel. He reached for the doorknob. “I’ll come back later.”

“No, wait.” She reached out, halting him with the hand not holding the towel to her chest. “I was going to put on the kettle for tea. Let me dress. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

Nodding, he dropped his duffel bag at his feet. “Sure. I’ll wait.”

The look that came over her face, the light that sparkled in the dark centers of her eyes, her smile that spread until her cheeks plumped like red apples, all of it should have warned him away.

Instead, he headed into the kitchen, filled her teakettle from the spigot on the refrigerator door and set it on the stove while he waited.

She was back in minutes, toweling water from her
hair and wearing a black T-shirt and a skirt with more colors than he could count. Not surprisingly, her feet were bare.

“Sorry about that. I came home to nap while Kachina handled the shop. But I couldn’t sleep—” she shrugged, tossed the towel to the countertop and shook out her hair “—and I thought a shower might help.”

He wasn’t certain if she meant it would help her sleep or help her stay awake. He wasn’t certain what to say because he hadn’t expected to find her here, and because she smelled so damn good. Like oils and incense. “I can leave, or just get a hotel room.”

“No. Stay here, please. I like the idea of the place not being empty.” The teakettle whistled, and she glanced over, the smile returning. “Thanks. Do you want a cup?”

“Sure,” he said, moving aside as she took over the small kitchen.

She lifted the kettle from the heat, and quickly grabbed two mugs from the cupboard and teabags from the pantry. Steam rose when she poured the water, deepening the color on her face. He leaned against the counter behind him, hooked his palms over the edge and watched her.

“How did things go with the reporter?” she asked as she emptied the kettle and returned it to the stove.

He shrugged. “Not so good.”

“You didn’t learn anything you can use?”

“The only thing I learned is that she doesn’t have time to give. Only to receive.”

“How so?”

“She’s got a great information flow going. All of it incoming. I’m lucky I got the time of day.”

“Well, that sucks,” Perry said, spooning sugar into her mug, offering him the same. He nodded, and she stirred before handing his mug to him. “What are you going to do now?”

“Do you have an Internet connection? Or a phone jack I can use to dial up?”

“I have cable, and this place is wired like you wouldn’t believe. The previous owners were connectivity freaks.” She pointed toward the main room. “You can set up on the desk in the living room, or on the dining room table. Either one.”

“Great. What about a subscription to the
Times-Picayune?
I want to dig through the archives and see if our reporter ever wrote anything on Eckton Computing or on Dayton Eckhardt before his move to Texas.”

“Here’s my login,” she said, jotting the information onto a notepad hanging on the fridge. “And I’ll be out of your way—” the ringing of the phone cut her off, and she smiled “—as soon as I get that.”

Jack left his mug on the counter, returned to the front door for the laptop case packed inside his duffel bag. He decided the dining room light would be best, and started setting the computer up on the table.

He could hear Perry’s, “Sure. No, it’s not a problem. I’ll see you tomorrow,” coming from the kitchen. And since his was the business of snooping, he listened without remorse to her side of the conversation, curious about
what
wasn’t a problem, and who it was she’d be seeing.

She walked into the dining room a few minutes later, bringing him the tea he’d left in the other room. He took the mug from her hand as she settled into the chair opposite the one he’d chosen. He watched her sip at her drink; she did so nervously, flexing her fingers around the mug, refusing to meet his gaze.

“What’s up?” he finally asked, when he realized she wasn’t going to come clean on her own.

She toyed with the charm at her neck. “That was Della.”

“She feeling okay?”

Perry nodded. “She’s fine. Better than fine, actually.”

“How so?”

“It’s Book’s night off. He’s going to stay over and take care of her.”

Ah. He’d wondered about that. “So you don’t have to.”

“I don’t think that’s the reason he’s staying, but no, I don’t have to go back.”

“Which means I should pack up and see about that hotel.”

“Not necessarily.”

He didn’t say anything. Just lifted his drink and waited for her to offer him exactly what he wanted.

“You’re already set up here,” she finally said, waving her hand toward his laptop. “And I’ve actually spent a lot of nights on the couch. If it’s not too short, you’re welcome to use it. Or I can sleep there, and you can have the bed.”

“I don’t have to stay, Perry. Have duffel bag, will
travel, and all that. I can plug in at a coffeehouse and, if I can’t find a place, bunk in the back of the Yukon.” He’d done it often enough that it wasn’t even a hassle. “It’s not a problem. Trust me.”

“I do trust you. And I’d rather you stayed here with me.”

D
ELLA LET
her hand rest on the receiver now cradled in its base, pleased that both of her calls had turned out so well. The timing had been iffy on the first; she wasn’t sure, when she finally tried to reach Book, if it would be too late to put her plan into motion.

When she’d heard Jack enter the shop to pick up Perry’s key from Kachina, Della had made her move. Still at his desk in operations, Book verified that he was off work the next day. Her only moment of panic had come after asking him if he’d like to spend the evening with her. At home. Alone.

His silence had gone on too long. She’d listened to the void, finally hearing him clear his throat and breathe before accepting. They’d talked for a few minutes more, and he’d agreed to stop by around seven. He’d even offered to pick up Chinese, a typically thoughtful gesture. She’d thanked him, certain that nerves would keep her from eating a single bite.

Months ago, she’d given him a key to the front door of the shop as a safeguard, should Perry ever be out of touch. Tonight, the key would come in handy. He could let himself in, and she could stay off her foot. Things
couldn’t be coming together any better than if she’d plotted this evening for weeks.

Her conversation with Book had given Jack time to make the short drive to Court du Chaud. She’d waited a bit longer in case he’d run into traffic, made any stops or been otherwise delayed. Then she’d dialed her niece’s number and made her case. Perry hadn’t minded the change of plans at all, and that made Della smile.

As a rule, she was not a busybody—even as she recognized that was drawing a fine line between truth and fiction, considering her entire livelihood was based on what she knew about other people’s affairs. She kept her client information confidential, the same as if she were an attorney or physician.

The difference tonight was that her interference was an effort at making amends.

Hobbling around her sitting room, putting things in order, Della wondered if there had ever been another woman less suited to being a mother. The skills that it took had never been in her repertoire. She wasn’t sure when she’d first recognized that raising a family was not a lifestyle that suited her situation, but it ended up making no difference. She’d been twenty-eight when Perry had come to her as a frightened child, lost and alone, and nothing else had mattered.

They’d made their way together, Della following to the letter her late brother’s instructions for his daughter’s rearing, instead of relying on instincts that had never let her down. She hadn’t paid any heed to Perry’s wishes to be like the other kids.

The result, all these years later, was that they were both products of circumstances into which they’d been thrown, rather than the individuals, the women, they would have become had their lives not been so inexorably intertwined.

It was an interesting look at the human condition, wondering what path each would have chosen had tragic events not determined their way. Her only regret was how insular their world had become as she’d looked after Perry, and Perry, in turn, had looked after her.

And, foolish or not, Della had always put her niece’s needs above her own. Which was why she hadn’t yet allowed herself to admit her feelings to Book Franklin.

She’d always told herself that if Perry were settled, if Perry didn’t depend on her, if Perry this and that, if Perry a dozen different things, then exploring a relationship with Book would be an option.

The truth was that, at forty-eight years old, she didn’t know where to begin. Because somewhere along the line, the dynamics had changed. Now Perry was the one doing the looking after, a reality Della had come face-to-face with today. Into Perry’s life had walked the amazing Jack Montgomery, and what did Perry do but throw up a protective wall to keep him away.

As weak as Della had been feeling the last few days, from the migraines brought on by her visions, she appreciated the buffer her niece created for her between Sugar Blues and the world.

What she didn’t like was how Perry hid behind the wall as well. Which was why, when presented with the
opportunity to play interfering, busybody matchmaker, Della had jumped at the chance. Now all she could do was hope her manipulative ways didn’t come back to haunt her.

Hearing the bell chime on the door as Book let himself in, Della hopped and limped back to the chaise lounge where she’d already spent too many hours. The aroma of the food he’d brought with him wafted ahead and made her realize that she was hungry after all.

But then, the empty sensation deepened, tightened. And none of what she was feeling had a thing to do with the food. It was a sense of anticipation she’d not let herself experience in years; a hope, a flutter of girlish excitement. And it hit her the moment he walked through the door that she’d loved him for a very long time.

He still wore his suit coat, though his shirt collar was unbuttoned and the knot of his tie hung loose. He’d wrapped one arm around the paper bag he carried, almost like he was charging ahead with a football.

It made her smile, the way he was so unequivocally male, the way her heart raced when she noticed. She laced her fingers tightly together in her lap and watched him come into the sitting room from the landing, well aware of the tension created by her invitation.

“That smells wonderful,” she said, hoping to put them both at ease. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was till you got here.”

“Good. Because I brought more than plenty.” He unloaded the containers onto the coffee table, surpris
ing her with a six-pack of beer, then sliding the table closer to the chaise lounge and handing her a pair of chopsticks. Only then did he look around for a place to sit.

“Here. I’ll make room.” She shifted her legs to the side of the seat, and then she waited, her pulse accelerating, a sheen of perspiration breaking out between her breasts.

He hesitated, and she wasn’t sure of the cause until he said, “Do you need anything from the kitchen? Something other than beer? Do you want a glass? Do you need a fork or a knife?”

“I’m fine,” she said, still nervously waiting. “Book, I don’t bite.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” he said under his breath, causing her to wonder if he knew he’d spoken aloud.

But he did sit, and the world didn’t come to an end when his hips made contact with her legs. He pulled a bottle from the six-pack, twisted off the top and handed it to her.

Their fingers met when she took it from his hand, the bottle cold, his skin warm. She reacted strongly, a sharp shiver that caught her unawares. He held her gaze for a very long time before bringing his own bottle to his mouth and turning away to drink.

Della drank, too, hoping the buzz from the alcohol would ease what she was feeling, would soften the tension into something sweet. Right now it was unbearable, and she didn’t want anything about her time with Book to be that way.

“So, what did you bring me to eat?” she asked, setting her drink on the corner table at her shoulder and snapping her chopsticks together.

Book opened the closest carton. “Spring rolls.” Opened another. “Sesame chicken.” Opened a third. “Mongolian beef.” Opened a fourth. “Kung Pao shrimp.”

She leaned forward, clipped a spring roll with her chopsticks and sat back. “You know these things are my favorite foods in the world.”

Book chose the beef. “I seem to remember that. The last time we ate dinner together it was Chinese. You and the spring rolls were inseparable.”

“My weakness,” she said, sighing before biting down. “Mmm. I don’t know what it is, but I think I could live on these.”

“When was the last time you had them?”

She had to stop and think. “I believe it was the last time you brought them to me.”

“Sounds like it’s absence making the stomach grow fonder.”

She laughed. “Or it’s the company that makes everything taste so good.”

Book chuckled, dug through the beef and came up with a sliver of bok choy. “If I didn’t know you as well as I do, Della Brazille, I’d think you were flirting with me.”

She considered him over her bottle of beer. “Would that be a bad thing? If I were?”

He stopped chewing. He stopped picking through the meat and the vegetables. He stopped moving alto
gether, for a time that seemed longer than she was able to wait.

Finally, he set the carton of food on the table, his chopsticks sticking up like a television antenna, and cocked one knee as he shifted on the seat to face her.

She started counting the beats of his pulse at his temple, but lost track long before he spoke. “What are you asking me, Della?” He shook his head to delay her answer. “I mean, I heard you. I just don’t know how honest you want me to be.”

She closed her eyes because she already had her answer. She’d heard it in his words, in the tone he’d used when he’d spoken. But she’d seen it even more clearly in his expression, something she was certain he’d meant to hide.

Her gift was both a blessing and a curse. And right now, as in the kitchen earlier with Jack, she wished she was blind to the energy she was picking up from Book.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” she asked, opening her eyes again and taking him in. “How long we’ve known each other. The horrors we’ve shared. Yet we’ve never really been honest as a woman and a man.”

He hunched forward, his shoulders straining the fabric of his suit coat, and spread his hand on the seat cushion next to her leg, giving her the choice, to touch him, or not to touch him.

“Is that what you want?” He flexed his fingers in the fabric. “Do you want me to tell you the truth? To admit how much you mean to me?”

She placed her drink on the table at her side and straightened, covering his hand, wrapping her fingers
around his, then reaching up to caress his cheek. She didn’t say a word. All she did was touch him, feel him, sense him.

And then he shook his head, a sly smile crossing his mouth. He turned his palm up and laced his fingers through hers. “I don’t have to tell you anything, do I? You already know.”

“I know, yes,” she admitted, hearing his breath catch, his pulse pound harder and faster. “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to hear it, anyway. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a man declare his feelings to me.”

He brought her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to the center of her palm. She couldn’t even begin to describe the winds of change sweeping through her.

“I’ve never been very good at expressing myself with words,” he admitted, his voice tight, his tone gruff.

Oh, but her heart was filled to the brim and on the verge of bursting. “That’s hard to believe, when you have such a very nice mouth.”

He arched a brow. “Then let me use it to show you how I feel.”

P
ERRY WOKE
with a jolt, uncertain what had startled her from sleep, feeling as if she were in an unfamiliar place when she knew that she wasn’t. She was sleeping in her bed. In her room. In her own home, surrounded by all of her things. And then she remembered.

The thing that was different was Jack.

When she’d told him she wanted him to stay the night, he hadn’t reacted. At least not in the ways her
limited experience with men had taught her to expect. He didn’t leer or make any sort of off-color remark about getting lucky.

He’d just shrugged, nodded and continued to hook up his equipment with no more than an agreeable, “Sure.”

She’d figured that feeding him would be the hospitable thing to do. Unfortunately, she wasn’t much of a cook. If she didn’t have salad fixings on hand or leftover containers of takeout, she usually did no more for herself than open a can of soup or make a turkey sandwich. Turkey and soup she had. The deli was her friend.

But the occasion had seemed to call for more effort. After all, Jack was the first man to sleep over since she’d purchased the town house. Not that he was sleeping with her, but he was company. And he had gone out of his way to take care of the repairs to Della’s kitchen door.

So she’d boiled pasta, opened and heated a jar of gourmet marinara sauce and grated fresh parmesan over the top. He’d thanked her and dug in, but hadn’t been much for conversation, intent instead on his research.

His focus had given her time to study him while eating in silence. Study, and wonder about the man he was. A man who would come into the lives of two women who were strangers, and make himself indispensable in less than two days.

Several minutes into their hushed meal, he’d reached into his laptop case for a pair of reading
glasses, grimacing when she’d grinned at him putting them on.

She couldn’t help it. He’d looked so…scholarly, so Indiana Jones, what with the touch of gray at his temple, frowning at his screen as he read and jotting illegible notes onto a yellow legal pad. But then she’d taken in the rest of him and realized what a contradiction he was.

She’d been at work when he’d cleaned up and changed in Della’s little-used first floor shower. He still wore his Reeboks, today with a pair of black jeans, and instead of yesterday’s hoodie, he’d warded off the cold with a bomber jacket over nothing heavier than a T-shirt.

It was that T-shirt that had finally gotten to her. He’d sat there beneath the dining room’s low-hanging light fixture, reading, eating, taking notes, his movements economical and concise, but still drawing her gaze.

She’d watched the flexing of his biceps beneath the tight cotton sleeves, watched the binding of the fabric over the balls of his shoulders and the pull over his chest when he stretched.

She’d seen it all earlier when he’d been working on Della’s door, but she hadn’t been this close, and it hadn’t been dark, and they hadn’t been alone. Looking away and focusing on her food had put a huge strain on her minimal willpower.

She’d been too aware of having him there. Of what a calming presence he was. Of how easily he’d made himself at home.

Not once in her life had she felt the need to have a man around to provide security or a sense of safety, or to make her complete. But Jack being there, just…being there, had seemed right in more ways than she had fingers to count.