Never Been Kissed (14 page)

Mission accomplished.

Colder, emptier, her hand slipped back to the bed.

At the door he paused, surrounded by the golden light from the lamp in the living area. The shadows over his
face were opaque and she couldn’t see his expression. Not that it mattered, his expression never revealed anything.

“We could never have been friends,” he said. “But I liked you. I’ve always liked you.”

The permit office was supposed to be open at nine
A.M.
on Monday morning. It said it right there on the little clock stuck to the window. Open at nine.

Cora checked her watch. It was 8:58.

She leaned down to try and see into the office through the small crack between the blinds and the edge of the window. There was no one there. The office was dark.

I do not have time for government inefficiency.

She’d left the restaurant—
during the morning rush!
—to try and get this paperwork filed so she could finally start plans on her back patio.

And now anything could be happening at the café. Fire. Leaks. Bruno could be fighting with Phil about the music.

They could run out of coffee.

From deep in her bag she heard her phone buzz and she dug it out, convinced it was Bruno telling her they’d been robbed.

But the picture on the screen was of her mother.

Delight laced with guilt filled her. She’d forgotten to call her back the other night and her mom had been keen to talk about something.

“Mama!” she said as she answered. “How are you?”

“I’m good, baby.” Her mother’s voice was like peach cobbler. Sweet but sharp. Comforting, all the way around. “How about you?”

“Standing in line in front of the permits office.”

“Well, I didn’t expect to actually get you, I wanted to leave you a message.”

“A message?” That was weirdly passive-aggressive for her mom.

“I just wanted to let you know, when I come up next month, I … well, I’d like to bring someone with me.”

“Oh, Mom.” She sighed. “Not Gloria. Gloria is mean to you and I know she doesn’t have any friends, but that doesn’t mean you need to spend your vacations—”

“It’s not Gloria. It’s … it’s Gary.”

Cora blinked. Gary? She hadn’t met any of mom’s friends named Gary. “Who—”

“I met him at church. In the choir. He just moved to town and … well, I like him. Quite a bit. And I … I was hoping when I come up next month, he could come with me.”

Dimly, Cora heard footsteps on the granite floors. They echoed through the hallways—all the hallways. There was no sneaking around in City Hall.

“Are you dating him?”

“Yes.”

“You’re dating someone.”

“I am.”

“A man.”

Her mother’s voice was small. Sorry. “I know it’s strange.”

“Mama,” Cora breathed, “it’s wonderful. It’s really wonderful.”

Her heart was pounding in her chest with such ferocity she could feel it in her eyeballs.

“Oh, I’m so glad you think so.”

She could barely get her breath. “It is. It is wonderful, and of course Gary can come. I’m thrilled to meet him.”

The footsteps were getting closer and she realized it was probably the person who worked in the permits office. “Mom, I’ve got to go—”

“Of course, I know. I’ll talk to you soon. Love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Cora hung up and lowered her arm to her side. A few years after her father died, when Mama was working during the days and going to school at nights, Cora had flirted with a crowd of tough kids. She didn’t particularly like hanging out under the overpasses and drinking warm beer, but she liked the idea of being bad, and when the freight trains went by and they all stood at the edges of the tracks—she liked the way her world shook. The anger, resentment, and fear that had blossomed inside of her like poisonous flowers, they all closed up and went away.

There was no thinking when a freight train roared by you, all you could do was hold on to yourself and try not to shake right out of your skin.

She felt that way right now.

Mama was moving on. Not that she hadn’t in so many ways already moved on from Daddy’s death. She’d taken the government money and Cora and run headfirst, bold as can be, into a new life. But she’d never dated. No one serious enough to introduce to Cora. Not the nice guys from church. Or the not-so-nice men who stood outside coffee shops smoking cigarettes and watched her walk past when she took Cora to school.

Cora’s high school principal had asked her mother to dinner.

Mama never went.

It was like Daddy had burned the need for a man in her life right out of Mama.

The footsteps stopped behind her; rattled, Cora turned to tell the City Hall employee that this was no way to run an office, but it wasn’t an employee standing there.

It was Sean Baxter. Lean and intense-looking under the beat-up Razorbacks cap he wore.

She must have made some kind of face because Sean smirked.

“Good morning to you, too,” he said.

Oh God, she never did this right with him. Never. It was as if something in her head saw Sean Baxter and his beautiful hair and fierce heart as a threat, and she had to get in the first punch. She was constantly defending herself against the perceived danger of him.

The danger of being attracted to him. Because she had been. She was. He was just so damn loyal. And strong. Ferocious. And he didn’t know when to quit. She liked that about him. And she did everything in her power to pretend that just wasn’t the case.

“The office isn’t open yet,” she said.

Sean looked at his watch and the plastic clock on the window and swore under his breath. And then he crossed his arms over his chest and settled in to wait.

She fumbled to return her phone to her purse, but her hands were shaking and it clattered to the floor.

Sean picked it up and handed it to her.

“You okay?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowed over his sky-blue eyes.

“Fine,” she lied.

“What are you getting a permit for?” Sean asked.

“My patio.”

The silence filled the hallway like a cloud and she had to tip her head back to get a breath. Mama had found out about the bad kids and the freight trains and signed her up for about a thousand after-school programs with the Boys & Girls Club in New Orleans.

One of them had been a cooking class. And her life was changed. Turned inside out with change.

“You need to sit down or something?” Sean asked and Cora realized she was panting. Nearly hyperventilating. And crying.

She should be mortified to be so undone in front of
Sean, who would find some way to use this as a weapon against her. But the freight train was still rattling through her head and she couldn’t even think.

“My mom has a boyfriend,” she whispered, but because of the granite hallway even that echoed.

“Is that … bad?”

“It’s amazing.”

His smile was tight. “Then why are you crying?”

“I’m happy.”

Sean nodded.

Mama didn’t raise her to hate men. She raised her to be indifferent toward them—to not in any way believe she needed them. Men were an accessory. A beautiful purse to pull out when the occasion called for it, but otherwise, not necessary.

“I never thought she’d do it.”

“I would be thrilled if my dad had a girlfriend.”

“You would?” She turned to face him, surprised that he’d offered up anything about himself. He pulled his hat off and resettled it on his head. He did that a few times. A nervous tick.

“My brother, too. My brother, especially. It’s like they both just clammed up after Mom died.”

“What about you?” she asked and he shrugged. This was an actual conversation with Sean. They weren’t yelling at each other, or throwing poison arrows. They were talking. And it was nice.

“I’m busy.” He lifted the permit paperwork. “I’m trying to build something out of the bar. Who has time?”

“I understand that,” she said. “What’s your permit for?”

He blinked as if realizing he was about to give secrets to the enemy and she very suddenly and very wholeheartedly hated that she was someone’s enemy. Especially this man’s. They should be working together to improve business
in this town. Being enemies didn’t make any sense and she had the terrible feeling that she’d started it.

All because she’d liked the way the sun looked in his pretty hair. And didn’t know how to handle that.

“Sean,” she whispered. “I’m sorry—”

The door to the permit office opened and a harried-looking woman took down the sign. Cora recognized her from the café—Tammy Someone-or-other. She had very new babies.

“I’m so sorry to keep you waiting,” she said. “It’s just been one of those mornings.…” She took a deep breath and shook it off. “Come on in.”

Cora glanced back at Sean, who gave her a lopsided grin before holding out his arm for her to go first into the office.

“After you.”

“You know,” she said, “you’re not so bad, Sean Baxter.”

“Neither are you,” he said. They grinned at each other and at the moment, Cora promised, no more fighting. No more bitter sarcasm. No more being mean.

Cora went into the office, filed her paperwork, and headed back to the café, where there had been no fires or sudden coffee shortages.

Her life had gone on just fine without her.

But somehow everything was different.

Brody woke up on the edge of a blade. Eyes open. Heart a steady thud in his chest. Under the pillow his hand was gripped around the old hunting knife Sean had given him for high school graduation. The front door was closed.

The windows were open, and the screens they had were fine.

He turned. Ashley’s bedroom door was shut. The bathroom door was open.

What woke me up?

“You know, in the movies,” said Ashley’s disembodied voice, “you’d wake up with a gun in your hand, ready to take on the bad guys.”

He let go of his knife’s rugged grip and in a breath his heartbeat calmed back to normal.

“This isn’t a movie.” He turned to find her sitting in the darkest shadows just to the left of the chair, her back against the wall. A box next to her. A box she was going through.

“You don’t sleep with a gun under your pillow?” she asked. “Some bodyguard you are.”

“You’re feeling better.”

“I am. I’m feeling both better and bored.” She held up a newspaper. The headline screamed in all caps MUSICIAN MURDERED BY STARLET WIFE. “You didn’t tell me this apartment was the scene of a murder.”

“It happened in the alley.”

“Well, I’m totally comforted by that.” She unfolded the newspaper and it ripped down the middle. “Oops.” Her efforts to put it back together were useless. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s junk, Ashley.”

“Not all of it.”

“Trust me. All of it. It’s stuff from the bar my brother couldn’t throw away.”

“I don’t blame him.” She pulled over a lamp made from the glass body of a naked woman, her hands covering her breasts. “These are treasures.”

“What are you doing?” He sat all the way up, making sure the sheet was pulled over his hips. As it was, he felt her eyes on his chest. His arms. She watched him carefully, secretly. Like the girl she’d been.

He hated that it turned him on.

She’d caught him at a vulnerable time. Mornings were the worst for him, the cobwebs of his dreams clung to him, blurring what he knew was real and what he wished was real.

“Going through stuff,” she said. “This place reminds me of Nonnie’s.”

“Nonnie’s”—he couldn’t believe he was saying that word with a straight face—“is a billion dollar Manhattan apartment. This is a dump above a dive bar.”

“Yeah, but Nonnie would like this.” She held up the old rattlesnake skin he and Sean had found when they were kids. Amazing, that it had survived.

Carefully, she put the snakeskin back in the box, and the white T-shirt that was too big for her slipped down over her shoulder, revealing her collarbone, hinting at the swell of her breast.

The memory of her in the bath just hours ago flashed through his brain. The knobs of her spine, the muscles in her shoulders. The pink of her ears through the wet ropy strands of her hair.

The bruises, you pervert, remember the bruises.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Ten. Time to rise and shine.”

It was like waking up to a different person.

If it weren’t for the bruises he could still see despite the shadows where she sat and the way she held her arm, he’d wonder if this cheerful, joking woman was Ashley.

“I’m bored. I’m hungry. Let’s go do something.”

“The entire news media is looking for you.”

“But they certainly aren’t looking for me here.” She picked up the newspaper she’d accidentally torn and read from the masthead. “In Bishop, Arkansas, population three thousand.”

“I imagine it’s grown since that newspaper came out.”

“I imagine it doesn’t matter. Come on, Brody. Let’s do something. I’ll give you a raise.”

He was bored. He was hungry. And he was pushed off-kilter by her smile.

Suspicion wasn’t just part of his job, it was part of him. Why was she smiling? Especially now. After last night. The press conference.

“Oh, God, Brody, stop staring at me like that, I want to go outside. Do something. See people.”

“You can’t see people. You’re in hiding.”

“Then I just want to see signs of civilization.”

As she smiled the light in her brightened, and he remembered that the woman who’d been sleeping for days, grouchy and angry,
she
was the anomaly. This woman, with the smile and curiosity, the light that burned away the shadows, this was the Ashley he remembered.

And there was no question she was up to something. But what?

“Aha!” she cried, holding up several pieces of fishing rods, the fishing line tangled in an iridescent knot. “Do these still work?”

Two hours later they were driving down a dirt road. Ashley had battered down all Brody’s protests. She just kept smiling and laughing and joking and working it until he threw up his hands and said fine.

It was exhausting. She was exhausted. The white-knuckled grip she was using to keep her shit together was killing her.