She's Gotta Be Mine (10 page)

* * * * *

He should stop answering the doorbell. She was the only one who ever rang it. Yesterday, he hadn’t quite recognized the sound. This time, however, he knew. He opened the door anyway. Today she was carrying a stainless bowl of...pasta salad.

Shit. He liked pasta salad. And if it was anything like her lasagna, he didn’t stand a chance.

“I’ve already had dinner,” Nick told her, while enumerating to himself all the reasons he shouldn’t invite her in. She’d just been dumped. She was needy. She was no spring chicken, had probably gotten ousted for a younger model. She was also excessively chipper. He didn’t trust chipper.

Bobbie held out the bowl like a religious offering. “You can eat it tomorrow.”

He held onto the door with one hand, ready for the slam. She was pushy, and he didn’t trust pushy either. “Lady, what does it take to get rid of you? Permanently.”

He expected a serial killer comment. Instead, she seemed to take him seriously, pulling her lower lip between her teeth and chewing, giving the matter her considerable brain power. Christ, the idea was for
him
to chew the lipstick off her mouth. And damn, he wanted to. Badly.

“Well, I’ll get off your porch this time. If you promise to go to the Accordion Festival with me in a couple of weeks.”

He laughed. Lasagna,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, pasta salad, and now the Right Honorable Mayor Wylie Meade’s Accordion Festival, which was supposed to cover the budget shortfall caused by his erection, of the
Taj
Ma’Wylie
, that is.

Damn, a Freudian slip. He shouldn’t be considering erections and Bobbie Jones in the same thought. “Don’t think so.”

“But they’ll be having polka dances and stuff. Don’t you love watching the polka? Haven’t you ever seen Lawrence
Welk
do it on PBS? He was the most marvelous dancer.”

She gave him a dreamy, half-lidded look reserved for Justin
Bieber
, if you were under the age of fifteen, or the prospect of sultry southern nights spent on satin sheets if you were over the age of consent. The bulge in his pants indicated they both clearly met his age requirement.

Bad idea, really bad idea.
Repeat after me, you learned your lesson when Cookie Beaumont came sniffing around
.

Bobbie licked her lips, and his dick twitched. Apparently he hadn’t learned his lesson.

“Stop that.”

Her eyes widened. “Stop what?”

She stared at him, all innocence and sweet green eyes. Funny thing, he wasn’t sure she had a clue what she was doing to him. “I’m not going to the Accordion Festival.”

“Aw, come on. You might find everyone will start liking you when they figure out you’re just a normal
kinda
guy.”

He ignored the insult of being considered normal. “Do I look like I care if any of them like me?”

She pursed her lips, considered him a moment, as if she couldn’t believe he didn’t give a damn. He was about to reiterate when she conceded. “All right, then settle for surprising people. They’d never expect it. You’d drive them crazy.”

Especially Eugenia Meade, who’d planned the whole thing right down to headlining the Linz
Minyon
Band from Milwaukee and snookering Cookie Beaumont into decorating. Bobbie’s eyes sparkled with excitement at the prospect. Suddenly Nick saw exactly what
Janey
Dillings
and Patsy Bell Sapp saw. The man who’d left her had to be freaking insane to kick the brilliance of that smile out of his life forever. Not to mention his bed.

“When is your divorce final?”

She clutched the bowl of pasta to her stomach as if he’d punched her. “Warren is working on all that stuff.”

He squashed the rumble of remorse over wounding her. He needed to know. “You don’t really want a divorce, do you?”

She took a deep breath, her chest straining the stretchy sweater material, then said, “It’s the height of bad manners to stay where you’re plainly not wanted.” Her eyes opened wide as she made the connection between divorce and standing on his porch. “So, I guess my coming over here is the height of bad manners after you’ve plainly told me to go away.” Then she shrugged, smiled, and held out the bowl one last time. “You can have it anyway. No strings attached. From one outcast to another.”

The woman had an uncanny sense of word use, picking just the right ones to reach inside and twist a man’s heart. Nick didn’t take the dish from her hands. Instead, he found himself giving her, what was for him, an apology. “Actually, the first time, I told you to come over whenever you got the itch. Bad manners on my part to take back the invitation the next day.”

Jesus Christ, he could have gotten rid of her if he’d just taken the dish and closed the door. What the hell was wrong with him? His gaze fell to her firm breasts beneath the sweater. And he knew damn well what was wrong with him.

Bobbie arched a pretty brow. “I totally agree.”

He could only hope she’d agree to anything. “You aren’t an outcast by any means. Cottonmouth loves you, if the gossip I’ve heard is reliable.”
Shut your mouth before you actually beg her to come inside
. What was he trying to do, make her feel better or something?

“Let me put it another way. You’re the outcast. I was cast out.” Then, smiling, she shook her fist in the air. “And darn proud of it, too.”

Only an optimist could smile like that after getting the heave-ho. Or a psychotic. Since he was pretty sure optimists were a figment of someone’s imagination, he opted for psychotic.

And there was that old proverb, better to keep the psychotics out of your house. Hadn’t Jung or someone said that? He pushed the door fully open. “
Wanna
come in and wash out your lasagna dish so you can take it back home?”

Idiot. He felt like banging his head against the door as she took him up on the invitation.

* * * * *

Bobbie didn’t find any frying pans with human livers on the stove. Not that she would have known a human liver from any other kind of liver. Nick had washed out the lasagna dish despite what he’d said. And he’d shared the pasta salad with her. He was even a sort of accomplished host. He provided napkins in the form of folded paper towels, and sat her at the kitchen table instead of making her eat over the sink.

His skill at conversation, though, could use some help.

“Do you know Beau down at the garage?”

“Yeah.”

Bobbie waited for more, but nothing was forthcoming. She probed further. “Why doesn’t he sell that place and start somewhere else?”

“It’s his home.”

Daintily spearing and chewing two more bits of curly pasta and an artichoke heart, she waited. Again, nothing. Air drifting in through the open back door caressed her cheeks like warm fingers. She imagined that’s how his touch would feel. The spicy tang of the salad dressing exploded in her mouth. That’s how
he’d
taste. Swallowing, she pushed on. “Is Beau a little...off?”

Nick spooned more pasta into his bowl. “No. He’s right on.”

What did that mean? “So, is there anything else you want to tell me about him?”

He put down his fork and gave her the full benefit of a dark-eyed stare. “No.”

“Don’t you want to gossip?”

“I don’t gossip. I
am
gossip.” Said like a king, with a diabolical grin that made her pulse rat-a-tat.

“So I guess that means you don’t want to tell me anything about the mayor either?”

He raised a brow, and she knew there were all sorts of juicy things he could reveal. But he wouldn’t.

She tried another route. Compliments. “I love your kitchen.”

He looked down at the linoleum. Probably once a rusty redbrick simulation, it was now faded and peeling back in the corners where it met the cabinets. Bleach stains spotted the Formica countertops and paint blotches ornamented the porcelain sink. The harvest gold stove and refrigerator, entering the house sometime in the early seventies, were probably here unto death.

He gave her a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look.

“It reminds me of when I was a kid.” Her mouth watered with the memory of jam tarts and chocolate chip cookies baked in her mother’s harvest gold oven. She’d been a jubilant eater, licking the last of the chocolate smears from the corners of her mouth in a last ditch effort to keep the flavor on her tongue as long as possible. Heaven was a man tasting of chocolate.

He looked at what she saw. “Yeah, well this
is
the kitchen from when I was a kid.”

“You’re not thinking of remodeling it, are you?” A shiver of regret swept through her.

“How could I replace it? They don’t make harvest gold anymore.”

Her initial intent for invading the serial killer’s home had been merely a reward for enduring the Cookie Monster. But here was an added bonus she’d never even dreamed of. If she wanted to remember her mother before Alzheimer’s claimed her life, all she had to do was bask in Nick’s kitchen.

There was so much she wanted to know about him. But she wouldn’t make the mistake of asking about Mary Alice Turner. Not after yesterday’s reaction. “Can I see your paintings?”

He choked on his last pasta swirl, then coughed. “No.”

“Oh.” She chewed on her bottom lip. His gaze dropped. “Why not?” she asked.

“Because.”

He was one tough nut to crack. Their bowls were empty, as was the dish she’d brought the pasta in. The polite thing to do, as her mother always told her, was not to overstay her welcome. But Roberta had been the mannerly child. Bobbie would stay until Nick threw her out.

He drummed his fingers on the table. Long elegant fingers, much as she imagined an artist’s to be. He probably did lots of things well with those dexterous fingers. Her face heated with all the possibilities.

“I don’t paint clowns,” he said finally, almost as if the prolonged silence had drawn the admission from him. “I have never painted clowns. And I will never paint clowns.”

Bobbie soaked up the fact. She’d decided days ago that Cottonmouth was wrong about him, but it was nice to confirm he was no John Wayne
Gacy
. Now, though, she longed for more information. “What do you paint then?”

“Sci-fi fantasy.” He shrugged, maybe a little too carelessly. “For book covers and calendars. Posters.”

“Like Conan the Barbarian stuff?” With near-naked women battling dragons and taming warriors with rippling, muscled thighs the size of tree trunks.

Where had she seen something like that? Recently, too.

“That’s part of it,” he said.

Bobbie shivered. Some of that stuff could be quite...erotic.

She pushed her bowl to the side, crossed her forearms on the table, the notion of Nick’s erotic art luring her closer.

His gaze buried itself in her cleavage. Her nipples tingled against her lacy bra.

“Can I see your book covers?” He would keep copies of them, wouldn’t he?

“No.”

Darn it. She’d never been forward, couldn’t have imagined it would be this difficult. But being Bobbie, rather than Roberta, she persisted. “Can I see the rest of the house?” She mentally crossed her fingers and hoped for something other than another “no.”

“Why?”

Well, that was better. Sort of. “Because.”

He snorted and leaned over his bowl, then raised his hands in defeat. “Just the living room. Not upstairs.”

Which was probably where he did his painting and kept all his book covers. Hidden away from prying eyes.

“Great.” She grabbed their bowls, skipped over to the sink and rinsed them. She’d work her way upstairs later.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a pain in the ass?” The slight curve of his mouth kept the insult out of the question.

“Just you.” She dried her hands on the towel hanging from the refrigerator door. The fabric was surprisingly clean. “I’ve learned if you don’t ask for what you want, you don’t get it.”

Though sometimes when you did ask, ad nauseam, you didn’t get it either. So, she would
not
ask for sex. She’d maneuver
him
into asking for it, pleading for it.