Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story (10 page)

“What the hell are you doing?” Jo demanded, keeping her voice to an urgent whisper, as if she too realized
the need for quiet. Then, before he could come up with some clever lie to explain why he’d been sneaking around an old woman’s house in the middle of the night, Jo’s jaw dropped open and she stared at him, amazed.

“It’s
you
,” she said finally, her voice strained with incredulity. “
You’re
the Money Fairy.”

Cash scowled at her, but as long as she already knew what he was up to, he went ahead and finished his task for the night. Turning his back on her, he stepped onto the porch, opened the mailbox, tucked an envelope inside, then closed the lid quietly.

Shaking his head in disgust, he left the porch as silently as he’d arrived. He couldn’t believe this. He’d been delivering money anonymously—and damn successfully—around Chandler for more than a year and who was it who finally caught him?

“Come on,” he whispered, and grabbed her arm, dragging her farther down the flower-lined walk.

She pulled away from him. No surprise there, though he had to admit he was still a little stung. She was always yanking free of his touch. He rubbed his fingertips together as if savoring that brief contact before shoving his hands into his jeans pockets.

“I can’t believe this,” she was saying. “
You?
The Money Fairy?”

Cash winced at the title the town had bestowed on him so many months ago. “Will you
not
call me that?”

Her fabulous mouth quirked a bit. “Object to the word ‘fairy,’ do you?”

He shrugged and gave her a quick smile. “Let’s just say it doesn’t fit my self-image. Most men wouldn’t be comfortable being called a good fairy.”

“Nobody said anything about your being ‘good.’ ”

He glanced back at the still darkened house behind him, then back to her. “Hey, everybody in town loves me.”

Her mouth dropped open again. “Is that what this is about? You wanting to be a hero?”

A spurt of anger shot through him, but he throttled it back until it fizzled harmlessly. “For chrissake, if that’s what I was after, why would I be sneaking around town at night? Why am I hiding from those damn Stevenson kids with their motion-sensor video camera traps?”

Unexpectedly, Jo snorted out a laugh. “Those kids are way too clever.”

“Tell me about it,” Cash muttered, but smiled back at her, until she realized they were sharing a moment and squelched her smile. Cash, though, found that he missed it and was willing to work to see it again. “They almost had me a couple months ago.”

She tipped her head to one side and he watched that ponytail dip as she waited.

He cleared his throat. “They, uh, set up surveillance at the edge of their lawn and got me on tape taking some money to the Hardwick house next door.”

“I would have heard about that and—”

Cash shook his head and winked. “I saw the light flash from the camera. When I was finished, I walked over and erased the tape.”

“Clever.”

“Yeah, real smart,” he said with a groan, remembering that night and how . . .
impressed
he’d been by the kids’ setup. “I just barely managed to outmaneuver a pair of genius thirteen-year-old twins.”

Her mouth twitched again, but she fought it back valiantly. “Don’t take it personal,” she said. “They drive their own parents insane.”

“That’s something, at least,” he admitted, and glanced around the darkened neighborhood. The street-lights shone with a yellow glow, the fog lamps making misty circles of gold in the darkness. A soft wind raced down the street, carrying the scent of the sea.

“So if you’re not looking to be a hero, then why?” she asked.

He sighed and shifted his gaze back to her. “You’re really not letting this go, are you?”

“Nope.”

He brightened. “What if I leave
you
some money?”

“A bribe?” she asked, one eyebrow lifting as she shook her head and that ponytail of hers whipped back and forth. “That’s pitiful.”

“Yeah, probably.” Jo wouldn’t be bought off. He knew her well enough for that, anyway. The woman was like a terrier, once she had her eye on a prize. If she decided to have the whole story, he wouldn’t escape until she’d gotten it. Stubborn. He actually liked that about her. Which was just wrong, he supposed.

He gave another glance at the still dark house behind them and winced slightly. By standing around here, he was risking being caught by someone other than “the Great Marconi” and he didn’t want his identity being broadcast all over town. If it got out, he’d have to stop helping. Stop connecting. And this was the only way he knew.

“We should be going,” he said firmly.

“Not a chance,” she countered, now swinging the
pipe wrench in a lazy motion at her side. “Not until you explain.”

Amazing woman. She swung that wrench, which had to weigh thirty pounds, as another woman would have dangled her purse. Tall and toned and way too gorgeous for his own good, Josefina Marconi was the most woman he’d ever known.

And she wasn’t going to move from that spot without either an argument or a long discussion. “Now’s probably not the best time,” he said, jerking his thumb at the quiet house behind him.

“Oh please. Mrs. Sanchez sleeps like the dead.” Jo shook her head and smiled again. “Start talking, Cash.”

A shame she didn’t smile more often, Cash told himself. Then realized that if she did, he’d be in worse shape than he was already.

And who the hell needed that?

“What’s to explain?” he demanded, keeping his voice low. “You caught me. Congratulations. Now go away.”

“Why are you doing this?”

He scrubbed one hand across the back of his neck and stalled. It was a long story. One he hadn’t planned on sharing with anybody. But even in the dim starlight, he could see the stubborn glint in Jo’s pale blue eyes and knew he wasn’t going to ease out of this one.

“Fine,” he said shortly, feeling just a little trapped. “But can we go somewhere else?”

“I don’t know what you’re so—” She stopped, cocked her head and listened. “Did you hear something?”

“I can only hear you,” he snapped, but then shut up himself to strain his ears for whatever sound she’d caught.

“I’m sure I heard . . .
there
.”

Cash went completely still and, a moment later, he heard it, too. Just below the rustle of the wind through the trees. It sounded like . . .

Growling
.

“What . . . ?”

“Oh crap.” Jo sucked in a breath and blew it out again hurriedly. Her voice rushed and colored with desperation, she whispered, “It’s Precious!”

An instant later, she turned and bolted for the street and the safety of her own lawn. Apparently giving up on the whole secrecy thing, she shouted, “Run for it!” as she sprinted.

It wasn’t until then that Cash noticed the doggy door cut into the bottom of Mrs. Sanchez’s front door. As he backed up, that door slapped open and a tiny brown ball of fur shot through it like a bullet, aimed right at Cash.

Instinctively, he backed up, then caught himself and laughed at Jo’s panic. A damn
Yorkie
made her run?

But his laughter died as the tiny brown dog lunged at him, all fangs and snarls. It buried its needle-sharp teeth in the leg of his jeans and tore at them as if Cash were a giant milk bone.

The little bastard meant business.

“Cut it out,” he said, trying to keep his voice low as he shook his left leg and hopped on his right.

“Head for the street,” Jo urged from across the way. “He won’t go into the road.”

“Great,” he shouted, forgetting all about covert maneuvers
himself. What was the point with the world’s angriest rat attached to his left leg? “Just great. Get off me, you rotten little . . .” He swung one hand at the mutt, trying to dislodge it, and missed.

The little dog hopped and jumped around him, rearing back, snarling, biting through the jeans and trying to work its way down to flesh. It shook its head hard enough to send the little pink bow in its hair flying.

“Don’t hit him!” Jo warned.

“Him?”
He glared down at the little monster still shredding his jeans, then lifted his gaze to see that a light had snapped on in the Sanchez house. “Perfect,” he muttered thickly, still shaking his left leg, despite the little dog dangling from him like some weird Christmas tree ornament. “Just perfect. Damn it, let go, you little fleabag . . .”

From down the street, a chorus of dogs picked up on Precious’s concert. Howls and barks filled the quiet night and lights flashed on behind closed curtains up and down the block.

“Precious?” A high, wavering voice called out in the night and the hairs on the back of Cash’s neck lifted straight up. Mrs. Sanchez could do voice-overs for horror movies.

He kept hopping, headed for the promised land—determined now to escape with what little dignity he had left.

This had all started out so well, too.

A simple job.

Leave the money, slip away.

Nothing to it. He’d been doing it for almost a year now and everything was fine. He had a system. He had a plan. He had . . . reached the curb. He hopped off and
Precious instantly released him. Sniffing, snorting, the little dog lifted its hairy chin and then victoriously trotted back up the neat sidewalk to its house.

The porch light snapped on.

And Cash had to make a run for it. Still cursing the dog, he sprinted for Jo’s house. He joined her on the lawn and together they hid in the dark behind her truck while Mrs. Sanchez flashed her porch light on and off as if she were signaling ships at sea.

A few minutes passed as they huddled together, listening to the street settle down again. One by one, the other dogs quieted and lights clicked off, welcoming the darkness.

“Well,” he said finally, leaning back against the cold steel bumper. “That was humiliating.”

She grinned at him in the dark and Cash had to fight down a rush of something hot and ridiculously needy pulsing inside him. The woman had no idea what she did to him. Or maybe she did and she was just enjoying the torturous aspect of their relationship.

“I told you to run,” she said, still chuckling over the picture he and the little dog had made.

“So you did,” he admitted, raising his knees to rest his forearms on top of them. “But I wasn’t expecting that clump of hair to be so damn mean. He wrecked my jeans.”

“Poor baby,” Jo said, then gave his arm a friendly pat. “Maybe the Money Fairy will visit you so you can get a new pair.”

He ignored that. “And what kind of name is Precious for a male dog? And a
pink
bow? Hell. No wonder he’s vicious. He’s fighting for his manhood every time he steps outside.”

Jo leaned her head against the back of the truck, set the wrench down on the cold concrete and laughed again, a low, warm rumble of sound that seemed
intimate
in the shadows. “The male ego is a fragile thing, it’s true.”

“Speaking for my gender . . .
hey
.”

“Sorry,” she said, lifting both hands in mock surrender. “Didn’t mean to hit a nerve.”

“No nerves hit. Just . . . bruised.” He shrugged. “You’re not exactly catching me at my best.”

“Is that right?” She tipped her head to one side to look at him and he tried not to notice how that thick brown ponytail lay against her shoulder.

Swallowing hard, he pointed out, “I’ve been doing this nearly a year. Tonight’s the first time I was caught.”

“Which,” she pointed out, “brings us back to the ‘why’ portion of our evening. You said you’d explain.”

Yeah, he had. And he should have known Jo wouldn’t let it go. The woman was like Precious in that. Once she had hold of something, she just dug in her heels and hung on for all she was worth. So, he surrendered to the inevitable and started talking.

Staring up at the starlit sky, he focused on the brightest spot of light he could find. “Chandler’s the only place I’ve ever thought of as ‘home.’ ”

“It’s my home too, but I don’t run around at night playing Santa.”

He shook his head. “You don’t get it. This place.” He waved a hand at the big old house with its shutters and wide front porch and overgrown flower beds. “—This place was always yours. You never had to doubt it. Never wondered if you could stay. It just . . .
was
.”

He shook his head, glanced at her, then turned his
gaze back on the heavens. It was easier to talk if he wasn’t looking at her. If he looked at her, he wanted her, and then all thinking went right out the window.

“Every summer, I came here with my mom and her friends and we’d stay at Aunt Grace’s and—”

She grabbed his upper arm and Cash felt the flash of heat jolt through him like a summer-fueled brush fire. “Aunt?
Grace?
Grace Van Horn is your
aunt
?”

He nodded. “My mom’s older sister.”

“Grace never said anything.”

“Any reason why she should?”

“No . . .”

“I live on her property,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but I just thought—hell. Don’t know what I thought.” Jo released her grip on his arm and eased back against the truck. A night for surprises, she thought, studying his profile as he studied the night sky.

She’d thought he was finished surprising her. When she’d seen the house he’d created, she’d taken a new look at him and admitted the possibility that there was more to Cash than she’d thought. Tonight, she discovered that Cash was the Money Fairy. Still more depths to the man she’d have been willing to bet money was as deep as a cookie sheet.

Now she’d found out he was related to Grace? Instantly, she cringed to think of all the snide comments she’d made about the fluttery, sometimes nutcase older woman. Not that she didn’t have reason. Grace was enough to drive any contractor right out of his mind. But she felt bad now, knowing that Cash had heard plenty of her tirades. Just went to show, her mother had been right. Better to not say anything at all, if you couldn’t say something nice.

But then, Jo mused, if she and her sisters lived by that rule, they might as well be mute.

As her mind raced, one thought flashed through, demanding to be noticed. “You said you used to come with your mom and her friends. You mean the gypsies?”