Tempt Me Tonight (38 page)

But instead she undid the last button on her blouse and let it fall to the floor behind her, still flashing her come-hither look. She smoothed her palms up her stomach and onto her breasts, pushing them together. “Touch me, Joe,” she purred. “Make me feel good.”

For God’s sake. He didn’t know what to do, how to get rid of her. If she were a guy, he’d have just tossed her ass out the door and been done with it. But what did you do when a woman you didn’t want wouldn’t leave your house?

For the most part, he and Bev had always had an amiable enough relationship, though he tried to keep it a distant one—and for Carissa’s sake, he didn’t want to ruin that. Hell, play this wrong and for all he knew, Bev would suddenly decide Carissa couldn’t see him anymore.

So he decided the best route here was to be gentle—something he wasn’t skilled at, but he’d give it a shot.

Stepping forward, he drew her hands from her chest down into his, then looked her in the eye. “Beverly,” he said slowly, trying to sound kinder than he felt, “I’m in love with Trish. But even if I wasn’t, you and I…would never happen.” He shook his head once more. “I just don’t feel that way.”

Trish sucked in her breath, watching through the front window.

She’d seen a strange car in the driveway, so given how she was dressed, she’d peeked to see who was inside before knocking.

Joe held Beverly’s hands, squeezing them in his as he peered into her eyes. Half undressed, she gazed up at him with such hunger that it gouged a hole in Trish’s heart.

Finally, Trish spun, turning to lean her back against the siding.

What had she just seen?

Was it the way it looked? Were they about to have sex? Was there more between them than he’d admitted?

Or maybe he was turning her down, for all Trish knew.

But
whatever
was happening in there, it was twisting her stomach into knots, thrusting a huge, horrible lump up into her throat, and making her eyes ache with the effort of holding back tears.

Whatever was happening in there—it hurt too much.

Trying to push back the pain, she silently scurried down the porch steps, careful not to let her heels make noise. Then she sidestepped the front walk and took to the grass, so she could run in earnest without being heard. Tears blinded her by the time she made it to the driveway, and she forgot all about being quiet as she slammed her car door, started the engine, backed haphazardly out into the road, then raced off into the night, thinking—
I can’t do this. I thought I could, but I just can’t.

Convict:
to prove or declare guilty of an offense or crime after a legal trial;
or
to impress with a sense of guilt.

On Monday morning, Trish sat at the little white wooden desk in her old bedroom, working at the laptop. But suddenly, the laptop was the only thing around her that felt familiar at all—the rest of the daisy-laden room seemed as foreign and distant to her as when she’d first arrived.

Not that she was thinking about her feelings. No way—she couldn’t afford to. It was a lot easier to just shove them aside.

Take care of business.

Focus on things she could control.

She’d already done her crying last night while she’d been sitting behind a barn in the dark, struggling her way out of a corset dress and back into a pair of jeans while cramped behind the wheel of her Lexus. It had seemed surreal. And humiliating—even if no one knew but her. What had happened to her self-respect? Maybe she’d left it in Indianapolis. She’d been behaving like an entirely different person ever since she’d left, after all.

Of course, thinking about that moment brought it all flooding back—that sense of emptiness and despair. Betrayal? Of that she wasn’t sure. But it didn’t even matter. She couldn’t take that kind of uncertainty, the desperate small-town drama that occurred when people decided they were bored with their lives and were going to change it, no matter whom it hurt or affected. A heavy knot settled in the pit of her stomach, leaving her nauseous.

But then she pushed it away again. She would not be a victim. She had a real life, far away from here, a job she was good at, people who appreciated her.

Case in point, when she pulled up her e-mail, she found one from Kent and clicked immediately to open it.

Hey, beautiful, are you ever coming home? I’m getting tired of chugging those mega-margaritas by myself. That’s what they have at Burrito Bob’s, Trish—MEGA-margaritas! I’ve got at least 3 megas worth of good office gossip saved up, but if you don’t come back soon, I’ll have to tell it all to Burrito Bob himself—which will suck, since he won’t get most of it; ) You’ve got a handsome (if I do say so myself ) guy here dying to buy you lots of drinks—how much longer can you resist?

She sighed. Dear, sweet Kent. He
was
handsome. Charming. A catch.

Anyone would think so.

Maybe she
was
a fool for still being here.

After all, Kent and she actually had things in common. Their work, for one, which was huge. But other things, too. They both liked margaritas, after all. And they enjoyed dinner parties. And foreign films—it had been Kent who’d first recommended
Life Is Beautiful
to her, and they’d been discussing foreign movies ever since. Kent jogged in the park on Sundays, and Trish kept
meaning
to jog—so that was sort of like a common activity, wasn’t it? Maybe if she dated Kent, it would motivate her to start jogging once and for all.

And what did she and Joe really have in common besides their backgrounds? The sex was good, of course. Okay, that was a lie—the sex was
great.
And they both liked pancakes. And her mom’s home cooking. But at the moment, that didn’t sound like a lot.

Unless she remembered that one warm pink tulip in the bouquet he’d bought her—how it had somehow drawn him, made him think of her.

The knot in her stomach expanded then, growing into something wider, rounder, threatening to become the biggest part of her.

Stop thinking about him. Now. Get back to work.

She closed Kent’s e-mail, feeling guilty for not answering, but she didn’t think she could muster the strength to flirt about margaritas at the moment.

That’s when she spotted a message from Elaine at work, with the subject line: Melbourne
DNA
Results.

Finally—it was about time. She clicked to open it.

Bad news on this, Trish. Dankins says traces of Richie Melbourne’s
DNA
were found on the cups retrieved from the rape scene. And on the victim’s underwear, too. Even worse, the ratio of X to Y is 3 to 1—one male and one female, and the alleles showed only two contributors to the sample. Dankins will e-mail you his full report later today, but that’s the gist of it. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Trish let out a heavy whoosh of breath, then closed her eyes, suddenly dizzy. She tried to shut out the vision of Richie raping that girl. Oh God.
Oh God.
Richie was
guilty?
Richie, whom she’d believed in so much? Whom she’d been so anxious and determined to defend, to save?

She curled her hands into fists, fighting the strong urge to fling her laptop across the room and watch it bust into a million useless pieces.

This is what you get, Trish, when you trust someone, when you believe in them with your whole heart, with no doubt.

She clenched her fists so tight that her fingernails dug into her palms, but she managed not to throw the laptop. What Richie had done was ugly and a world apart from her little yellow-and-white daisy room—she couldn’t let that ugliness completely take her over, especially not here.

Get calm. Take deep breaths. Then
stay
calm.

Quit feeling it. Quit feeling anything.

Be the old Trish. You got by fine that way for a lot of years, after all.

So she blew out long, relaxing breaths until her heartbeat slowed, but she still felt sick to her stomach. Then she composed an answer to Elaine, simply thanking her for the information and indicating they would need to swing their defense in an entirely different direction. Now, they would refrain from introducing the
DNA
evidence themselves, but they’d still have to come up with a supposition as to how Richie’s
DNA
ended up in such damning places if he wasn’t guilty, since surely the prosecution would have their own experts examining the evidence.

She knew how to play it, of course. Make the
girl
guilty.

She’d left a party, drinking and possibly drunk, on the arms of two different guys. Anything could have happened. She could have taken the drug found in her system completely willingly. She could have invited one or both of them into the bushes with her, then cried foul when it was over.

Trish didn’t believe for a second that was what had happened, but it was no longer about what she believed. It was back to being about what it was
always
about—how to get her guy off. How to get her guy—a stinking, lying, sniveling, raping little bastard—off, so that he could go out and do it again.

She hit Send. Took a deep breath. Closed the laptop.

And with it, she closed up the part of her heart she’d been foolish enough to open way too wide the last few weeks. If she’d needed proof, this was it. Screw the flowers—
this
was her sign. And it said, loud and clear, that appearances were deceiving, that no one could be trusted, that you couldn’t put faith in anyone without making yourself vulnerable.

A mistake it was high time she stopped making, once and for all.

Another Monday afternoon at the Waffle House, and Carissa sat in a booth in the corner doing homework while Beverly served up yet another plate of food. It was finally September, and brutal summer seemed to be over at last. Something to be thankful for. That’s what Beverly was seeking out today, things to be thankful for. To help her forget what she’d done last night.

Even as she set a plate of eggs and grits before a trucker at the counter, her face warmed with humiliation and regret, remembering. She wasn’t sure what had made her do something so stupid, so desperate. She’d just wanted Joe so bad. And she’d tried so hard. She’d really believed she could make it happen, through sheer will, if she just kept trying.

Tossing Butch out of her life had been smart, but had also left her vulnerable, and lonely. Going to Joe’s house had been an ill-thought-out, split-second decision—she’d literally been driving home from work, feeling sorry for herself, and it had hit her that maybe if she just put herself out there, told him how she felt, it would magically change things.

When would she ever learn that sex wasn’t the way to a man’s heart? The whole world seemed to think it was. She’d been sure of it as a girl. But she’d had sex with a lot of guys over the years, and not once had it reached anyone’s heart but her own.

What did men want?

She simply didn’t know.

Maybe it was time to just give up, quit trying to understand. Just accept that it was her and Carissa against the world.

Just one problem with that, though, she thought as she waved to an older couple, regulars Mabel and John, as they came in for their afternoon coffee and pie. The problem was—she
wanted
a man. She wanted love. A sense of security. Someone to lean on when she was feeling weak. And to take care of when she was feeling strong. She’d yearned for that kind of connection with a man for as long as she could remember—and she’d never, ever had it. Not for more than an hour or two anyway.

“You okay, Bev?” She looked up to see Floyd at the griddle, leaving everything to fry and sizzle on its own for a minute to glance her way. “You look like you don’t feel good.”

He was a sweet old man, Floyd. Surely he knew what she did when she disappeared out the door with Butch for half an hour, but he never judged her. They’d worked here together for over ten years—she wouldn’t start dragging him into her troubles now. “No, Floyd—I’m fine, thanks.” Then she pointed to the griddle. “Don’t let those hash browns burn now.”

Pull yourself together. This is just like any other day. Nothing has changed.
She just hoped Joe didn’t hate her too much now. And she tried not to remember the awful moment when she’d finally realized that he
really, truly
didn’t want her, when she’d had to put her blouse back on and slink away into the night, defeated and alone.

The Dixie Chicks started singing “Cowboy Take Me Away,” as the front door opened to bring in a tall, clean-cut man with short blond hair—military short, although he wore civilian khakis and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Handsome and lean, confidence filled his brown eyes.

Brown like Carissa’s, she thought, and that’s when her gaze stuck on him, and it was as if he moved in slow motion toward the counter.

He was…the spitting image of her daughter. Almond-shaped eyes the color of milk chocolate, thin nose, wide mouth, slightly pointed chin.

Holy shit.

Could he be…? Was it possible?

He
was
. She knew it without doubt, that fast.

He was her long lost Dairy Queen lover.

He was…Charley.

Her heart nearly burst through her chest, but she held herself steady, tried to stay cool. Tried not to wonder too hard how this could possibly be. How this man, of all men, could come waltzing into the Waffle House fourteen years since she’d last seen him.

“What can I get you to drink?” Her voice didn’t quiver. Good.

“Coffee, thanks.” He smiled kindly into her eyes. A familiar smile. Her daughter’s smile.

Shit, shit, shit.
This was impossible. Wasn’t it? She turned away, pouring a cup, careful not to spill it, since her hands were trembling.

Facing him again, she watched him perusing the menu as she gently lowered the cup before him. “Know what you’d like?”

He placed the plastic-covered menu back in the holder at the counter’s rear edge. “I’ll have an egg and bacon wrap with some hash browns and toast.”