Innocent Ink (8 page)

“Want me to put some water on for tea?”

Her words went through him cold and fast, like a mouthful of ice water. Gripping the box of baking mix in one hand and a bowl in the other, he turned to see her holding the red teapot aloft, her slender fingers curled around the handle as she eyed him and then the nearby faucet.

“Actually, I drink coffee.” He set the bowl down on the counter, and the sound seemed absurdly loud.

“Oh.” She lowered the teapot back onto the rear left stove burner, the one he never used.

“I’ll put some coffee on. Do you drink it?”

“Yeah. I just saw the teapot and figured you didn’t.”

“It was my wife’s.” He poured too much baking mix into the bowl, then turned away to fetch eggs anyway, leaning into the fridge as the chill crept over his skin. He knew damn well that Karen probably didn’t know about Alice, and that sticking his head in the refrigerator was an idiotic thing to do. Still, he didn’t want to watch her face transform when he dropped the bomb on her.

“I didn’t know you were ever married.” Already, her voice was a little softer than before.

“For ten years. Lost Alice five years ago.”

“Oh, Jed.” The whisper-soft noise of her feet against tile rang in his ears again, strangely loud. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

She was so close now that he felt the heat radiating from her body. Straightening, he stood and closed the fridge, a carton of eggs cradled in one arm. “It was cancer.” 

“No one ever mentioned it. I—” 

“It’s all right.” A pang of guilt struck him deep in his chest as he met her eyes. They were so wide, still shining, but not with her early-bird cheerfulness. “I just didn’t want to keep it a secret. Everyone else knows.” Most or all of Hot Ink’s staff, anyway. Maybe not Mina, who’d only been working in the shop for a few months, but the rest… James and Tyler had known Alice, and the others had been there long enough to hear the stories.

“I feel terrible for bringing it up.”

“Don’t. If I couldn’t bear thinking about her, I’d have put the teapot away. You’re fine.”

“Okay.” She didn’t say anything else about it, but she stayed close by his side and helped him make the pancakes even though it was so easy that two people complicated the process more than simplified. He didn’t mind the closeness, the rubbing of elbows and the soft whip of her t-shirt hem against his thigh. But he minded the way her sunniness had disappeared, replaced by a more somber version of the Karen who’d twirled up to the table just minutes ago.

As they ate the pancakes and sipped coffee together, she blushed a little when she told him how much she’d enjoyed the night before. Her words and the way she looked up at him from beneath her lashes were enough to make him fully hard beneath the table. Still, he didn’t dare take her in his arms and loose himself in loving her again, because the sunlight that filtered through the nearest window illuminated the way she checked her smiles, the way she glanced at him every now and then as if searching his face for something that worried her.

He should never have brought her back to his apartment. Five years had passed since Alice’s death, but the place was still a museum of his grief; the kitchen alone held so many of her things, from the teapot to the little drawer full of decorative towels to the old tins of loose leaf tea that lurked in the back of a cupboard. He didn’t use any of them, but he didn’t get rid of them, either – how could he?

Karen was brighter and warmer than the sunlight that backlit her, lending her hair a fiery sheen. It had been wrong of him to bring her to a place where she felt the need to suppress herself and whatever happiness she possessed, and it was wrong of him to keep her there. When she said that she had a Sunday afternoon portrait session she needed to prepare for, he did his best to ignore the stabbing feeling of longing the idea of her departure filled him with.

As he waited at the table while she dressed in the bedroom, being alone in the kitchen didn’t feel as natural as it usually did.

When she paused at the door and pressed her mouth gently against his, he fell back into the trap of passion, completely and selfishly. For a few moments, he kissed her deeply, until he thought his lips might bruise. His cock was hard, aching like the rest of him, and her body was so soft and hot against him that he had to remind himself why he couldn’t just keep her there, pressed against the doorframe, forever. Mentally cataloguing all of Alice’s kitchen items, he pictured Karen as she’d looked when she’d apologized for offering to make tea.

“Are you closing the shop tonight?” she asked when he finally ended the kiss and pulled back.

“Yeah. I’m opening too, in about two hours. That leaves plenty of time for me to give you a ride home.”

“Thanks.”

His feelings of guilt hadn’t faded by the time he pulled up in front of her apartment building. There, he clutched the wheel as he remembered his first impulsive, selfish mistake – kissing her instead of letting her walk inside untouched. He made the same mistake again, stroking his tongue along the seam of her mouth and inside, where it entwined with hers, before she opened the passenger side door.

“You mind if I give you a call tonight, after I close up?” he asked, knowing he couldn’t not say anything.

She smiled, and her genuine expression wrenched something deep inside him painfully. “I’ll talk to you then.”

He watched her climb the stairs and disappear into her apartment. Alone again, he pulled away from the curb and tried to figure out what he’d say to her that night, how he could possibly convey the truth – which was that he had nothing to offer her – in a way that she’d believe.

* * * * *

Karen sank into her desk chair and breathed a sigh of contentment. It was so nice to shoot reasonable, poseable human beings. Much better than hyperactive greyhounds. Her client – a highschool girl – and her mother had just left the studio, and there wasn’t a trace of pee or silver hair anywhere. Popping the SD card out of her camera, Karen prepared to spend an hour or two going through the images from the senior portrait session, choosing the best and beginning editing work.

She’d barely tagged three especially good images when her phone vibrated against the surface of the desk.

Her heart gave a little leap as she reached for it, her mind awash with memories of Jed’s touch, Jed’s heat, Jed’s voice… Hot Ink wasn’t due to close for a couple hours, but she couldn’t help but wonder whether he might be calling her early during a break. Who cared that she’d seen him just that morning? Remembering their time together was like a natural high, and she couldn’t wait to see him again, to do it all over again.

It wasn’t Jed. A potent little bolt of disappointment shot through her as she eyed the unfamiliar number. 212 – what area code was that? Not a Pittsburgh one.

“Hello?” She answered the call, still half-lost in thoughts of Jed.

“May I speak with Karen Landry?”

“That’s me.” She drummed her fingertips against her desktop, eyeing two very similar shots. The girl’s smile was a little wider in one, but they both flattered her.

“This is Emma Day-Rogers. I’m calling on behalf of Marc St. Pierre Bridal.”

Karen’s heart leapt into her throat and she immediately stopped drumming her fingers on the desk, gripping the edge instead as her pulse pounded in her ears. “Yes?”

“We’re pleased to inform you that your entry in our Elegant Bride Photography Contest has passed the final round of judging and has been chosen as the winner.”

Somehow, Karen resisted the urges to scream into the phone and / or pass out on the spot. Gripping the phone hard, she managed some kind of response and spent the next fifteen minutes jotting down all the details Emma gave her, asking questions here and there and confirming that yes, she was able to travel during the set dates. By the time the conversation was over, she felt like she was floating on a cloud, high above the skyline.

Mina was at work, so Karen dialed Hot Ink’s number, spinning in her desk chair as she waited for her to pick up.

The sound of her best-friend’s voice sent her excitement spiking to new levels. “Mina! Guess what?”

“What?” She lowered her voice to a half-whisper. “Did you finally get together with Jed this weekend?”

Karen took a deep breath as memories of doing exactly that hit her again. “Yes, but that’s not what I’m calling about.”

“Okay, what’s so exciting that you’re skipping telling me about your date with Jed?”

“You know those photos you let me take of you in your wedding gown for that contest?”

“Yeah.”

“I won! I won the contest, Mina. I get to go to New York in a couple weeks to shoot a spread for Marc St. Pierre’s winter bridal catalogue!” It was the first time she’d said it out loud, and she found herself half-shouting despite her best efforts to contain her enthusiasm.

“Karen, that’s amazing! Congratulations.”

Karen forced herself to exhale slowly. “Thanks again for posing for those photos. This is going to be amazing for my portfolio. I mean, Marc St. Pierre! What a tear sheet!”

“I bet this will open all kinds of doors for you, Karen. I can’t wait to see the photos.”

“I can’t wait to take them. I’m so excited I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t edit images right now – I can’t even sit still.”

“I’m working tonight because I was just getting home from the fieldtrip this morning, but I’ll be off work in a couple hours when the shop closes. Let’s meet for a drink to celebrate. It’ll be just the two of us – Eric went home an hour ago, so he’ll be there for Jess if she needs anything.”

“That sounds great. Ruby’s?”

“Of course.”

“Call me when you’re on your way.”

“All right.”

Karen ended the call and prepared to make another, but stopped before doing so. Why should she sit in her studio talking on the phone when she could head over to her grandmother’s place? If there had ever been news worthy of an in-person visit, this was it. And if she knew her grandmother, they’d open one of the bottles of wine she’d brought home from the winery the day before and have a glass of something sweet to celebrate.

She exited her studio, locking up and racing down to her car in the lot below with record speed. Once she was behind the wheel, she made straight for her grandmother’s condo.

There, as she climbed the building’s stairs, she could practically taste wine on the tip of her tongue. Maybe the pink moscato they’d tried yesterday – they’d both liked that, and her grandmother had purchased a couple bottles.

The condo was on the second level. When Karen neared the unit, she was greeted by a familiar figure. “Hi, Sylvia.”

The woman stood in the open doorway of her own unit, bracing herself with a hand against the doorframe. As Karen approached the open door, preparing to pass, she came close enough to see that Sylvia’s grip on the wooden frame was tight and white-knuckled. “Is everything okay?”

There was an uncharacteristic tightness about the middle-aged woman’s features, too – a few lines in places that were normally smooth. Apprehension crept into Karen’s gut and stopped her in her tracks, where she was uncomfortably aware that she was the sole recipient of Sylvia’s undivided attention.

Karen knew Sylvia well enough to realize that this wasn’t her normal behavior – Sylvia had lived in the unit neighboring her grandmother’s for a couple years. She’d even joined Karen and Helen for pie and coffee a couple times.

“I wanted to call you,” Sylvia said, her lips bright pink against a pale face. “I didn’t know your number.”

“What’s wrong?” Karen gripped her purse handle like a lifeline and resisted the urge to rush to her grandmother’s door and knock until it was opened to her. “Why would you need to call me?”

“Your grandmother had an… A heart attack, I think. I’m no doctor, but the walls are thin enough that I heard her cry out for help. I hurried over and she was complaining of chest pain. I called 911 right away.”

Oh my God
. The words echoed through Karen’s mind, but didn’t come out. Pressing her lips together, she summoned her voice. “How long ago was this?”

“The ambulance left about ten minutes ago.”

Karen’s head spun as a distinct feeling of sickness settled over her. Should she be grateful? Panicked? She was both, and terrified on top of it. “What hospital?”

“Allegheny General.”

As Karen turned on her heel, Sylvia reached for her. “I can drive you. Do you need a ride?”

“That’s all right. I can drive myself.” She didn’t – couldn’t – trust anyone else to drive fast enough. Jogging, she was nearly to the staircase before her mind caught up with her instincts. “Thank you,” she called over her shoulder, “thank you so much for helping her.”

She charged down the steps, not waiting for Sylvia’s answer, and rushed across the parking lot, only minutes behind the ambulance that had taken one of the most important people in her life.

* * * * *

A shadow slipped over Jed’s empty tattoo chair, and he knew it wasn’t a client – none were scheduled, and he’d have heard a walk-in. “Everything okay?” He looked up and caught Mina’s reflection in the mirror that lined the back wall of his half-booth.

One second of eye contact in the mirror and it was obvious everything wasn’t.

“Sorry Jed, but would it be all right if I left early? Karen’s grandmother had a heart attack and is in the hospital in critical condition. Karen’s there alone – her parents live in Scranton.”

Scranton was on the other side of the state – Jed didn’t need to do the math to know that unless someone went, Karen would spend an agonizing night alone in the hospital. “Yeah, of course you can go. I’ll take care of any walk-ins.”

The day was almost done anyway – Hot Ink was scheduled to close in just over an hour.

Mina thanked him and Jed watched her leave, still in his half-booth as he wracked his mind for some reason – any reason – to go with her.

But Mina had a car; she didn’t need a ride. And Karen didn’t need him, anyway – not when she’d have her best friend. Mina knew Karen much better than he did.