Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story (20 page)

Flipping her hair back behind her shoulder, Jo lifted
her chin and met his gaze. “I’m a
Marconi
,” she said, her voice flat, quiet, despite the decade-old fury clawing at her insides. “I should have fought him.”

“You did what you could.”

“No I didn’t. I just
lay
there and cried.” Bitterness filled her mouth and she swallowed it down like a vile medicine she was too accustomed to taking. “But he didn’t win,” she murmured now, feeling fire erupt in her belly, snaking out tentacles of heat to chase back the bone-deep cold. “I didn’t let him win. He didn’t turn me away from men completely. He didn’t take my
life
. Just my virginity. I didn’t hide away,” she said, her voice firming, her breath quickening. “I have sex every few months. Whether I’m interested or not. Just to prove to myself that I beat him. That
I
won, in the long run. He was nothing more than a bad blip on my radar screen.”

“You’re wrong.”

“What?”

“I said you’re wrong,” Cash repeated, reaching out to stroke her hair back from her face. “He’s still winning.”

“He’s won
nothing
. Weren’t you
listening
?” Her features twisted and her eyes flashed.

“I was,” he said, “but I don’t think you were.”

“What the hell are you talking about, and by the way, what the
hell
do you know about it?”

“I know you have sex and don’t want it,” he said, capturing her gaze with his, staring at her until she felt as though she were tumbling forward into the rich, dark depths of his eyes. “You don’t—
won’t
—enjoy it.”

“Who says I don’t?” she whispered, and heard the strain in her own voice.

“
I
say it.” Cash cupped her face between his palms.
“I felt it. Your body was here, Josefina, but
you
weren’t.”

And he was the first man who’d ever noticed. What did that say about her?

About
him
?

She reached up and plucked his hands from her face, while at the same time stepping back and away from him. It was the only safe thing to do. The only
smart
thing to do. She couldn’t allow herself to have strong feelings for him. Couldn’t let herself wonder what her life might have been if she’d never dated Steve Smith.

Shaking her head, she kept backing up, until she was nearly at the door of the great room. She needed to go. Needed to get home. And if that was running away, then she’d just have to live with it.

But as a Marconi, she had to take the last shot.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe
you’re
the reason I didn’t see the ‘stars’ during our little encounter?” She watched his eyes narrow, then delivered the last barb. “Maybe the great Woman Whisperer finally found a woman he couldn’t reach.”

The worn-out shingles on the Meyerses’ roof bit into the seat of Jo’s jeans and made her shift uncomfortably in the hot sun. She glanced skyward and winced at the brassy beauty of the cloudless expanse of blue.

Spring was already shaping up to be a warm one, which could only mean that summer was going to be hot. She scowled a little at the thought, since usually summer in Chandler was just about perfect. This year, naturally, would be different.

Just as too many other damn things in her life were different these days.

She drew her knees up and dangled her hands between them, idly swinging her favorite hammer in a metronome fashion. She dropped her gaze to the scarred, metal head of the hammer and blindly watched as the sun glinted off the metal like stray sparks from a downed electrical wire. Her eyes felt gritty and she was bone-tired.

But then, that’s what happened when you lanced open a puddle of poison in your insides, then stayed awake all night reliving it.

Sex with Cash was supposed to have been recuperative,
for chrissake. The man was an artist, according to all reports.

A Mozart in the bedroom.

The modern-day Don Juan.

A freaking walking
orgasm
.

She’d expected . . . Hell, she wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Maybe just to get through another sexual encounter with her pride intact. But no, not Josefina Marconi. Why settle for something subtle when you could go all out, make a complete ass of yourself, and
then
leave? Never let it be said that a Marconi did anything in a small way.

“Oh God, I can’t believe I told him,” she muttered, and realized that she was beginning to sound like a tape recorder stuck on repeat. She’d been saying the same thing over and over again all night long and through most of the morning. And every time the words left her mouth, she saw Cash’s face again. The shock in his eyes. The fury—and then the
pity
.

She’d given a hard blow to an ego that had to be the size of Mount Everest by now. Every other woman who’d spent time in his bed had not only seen the stars, they’d run off to save the world. Not Jo, though. Her, he hadn’t even been able to reach.

And wouldn’t you know he’d notice?

“Hey, need some help?”

Jo’s gaze snapped up and she watched her sister Sam’s head pop up over the edge of the roof. She grinned at Jo from between the rungs of the aluminum ladder. Sunlight caught the red streaks in her sister’s hair and for a brief moment made it look as if her head were on fire.

“What’re you doing here?” Jo asked, fighting down
the spurt of worry that jolted up inside her. “And why the hell are you on a ladder, for God’s sake?” She scooted toward the edge of the roof, sliding the soles of her boots along the raggedy shingles.

Sam only grinned and slowly handed over a tray bearing two coffee cups and a paper sack with the Leaf and Bean logo on it. “Are you gonna help with this or what?”

Jo took the tray then watched as Sam sprinted up the last few rungs of the ladder and stepped out onto the roof with an ease that spoke of years of practice. Glancing at the two-story drop-off, Jo then shifted her gaze back to her younger sister. “You sure you should be up here? This is no place to get dizzy.”

Sam waved a hand at her, then walked up the slope of the roof to its crest. There she plopped down and drew her knees up, as at home as she would have been on the sofa in her living room. “I feel
great
,” she said, flinging her arms wide and grinning up at the hot sun. “Woke up this morning and it was like the baby just decided, Hey, let’s cut Mom a break.”

She did look better, Jo thought. For the first time in months, Sam didn’t have a green tinge to her face. And her eyes were a clear, pale blue, unlike her own that were as red streaked as a closeup shot of a city map.

Walking back up the roof to take a seat beside her sister, Jo made herself comfortable and pulled one of the cups out of the cardboard tray before handing the other one to Sam. “Latte?”

“God, yes,” her sister said on a heartfelt sigh. “The doctor said I could have one a day. And this is the first day I’ve felt good enough to enjoy one.” She took her first sip, sighed dramatically, then reached into the paper
bag for a cinnamon roll. Only after she’d taken her first bite did she really look at Jo. “So what’s with you?”

“What?”

“Nice try, but you heard me,” Sam said, and frowned as she chewed and swallowed. “You look like shit.”

“Gee, thanks for stopping by.” Jo took a long gulp of her latte and felt the hot milk sear her throat.

“Spit it out.”

“The latte?” Jo asked, deliberately misunderstanding. “You must be nuts.”

“Back atcha if you think that little stalling tactic is going to throw me off. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“Would it do any good to tell you to mind your own business?”

“What do you think?” she asked with a snort of laughter.

“I think life would have been much simpler as an only child.”

“Nah. You would have found a way to complicate things anyway,” Sam said, still smiling. “It’s your nature, Jo. Go with your strengths.”

Jo looked at her and laughed shortly. Damn if she hadn’t missed her smart-ass sisters the last few months. Even when they were driving her nuts, they were at least a distraction.

Taking another sip, she glanced at the pile of paper-wrapped shingles stacked at one side of the roof beside a roll of tarpaper. “With you here, we should be able to get most of the roof done today. Finish it off tomorrow or the next day,” she said quickly. “And we’ve got to get out to Mrs. Phillips’s house to give her an estimate on expanding her back porch and screening it in.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said, taking a small sip of her latte. “I heard the Money Fairy had been by over there. Loretta Phillips has been wanting to enclose that porch for years.”

The Money Fairy.

Cash.

Damn it, even when she wasn’t actively thinking about him, he found a way back into her brain. Was that fair? And thinking about Cash naturally brought up memories of the night before and something cold and ugly gnawed at the pit of her stomach as she recalled the rest of it.

Telling him about Steve.

Reliving that long-ago night until it was all as fresh and clear in her mind as her last trip to the dentist.

“Okay, talk.”

“About what?”

“About whatever’s putting that look on your face.” Jo frowned, deliberately made the attempt to smooth out her features, and looked at Sam through wide, innocent eyes. “Finish your latte and let’s get to work.”

“Josefina Angela Christina Marconi,” Sam said softly, “I never thought you’d be too scared to tell me what you’re thinking.”

She flinched at the use of both her middle and confirmation names. That was pulling out the big guns. “Nobody said anything about being scared.”

“So?”

“Fine.” She blew out a breath, looked dead into Sam’s eyes and said, “I had sex with Cash last night.”

Sam’s eyes popped open wide enough that Jo was pretty sure she could see right through them to the back of her sister’s skull. “Well, that’s disappointing.”

Not the reaction she’d been expecting. “Why?”

“Because I’ve never seen you look more miserable. He’s either not very good at it, which his reputation clearly indicates is not true—” She tilted her head to one side to stare at her. “Or there’s something else you’re not telling me.”

And for the first time in . . .
ever
, she thought about it. Oh God, she seriously thought about telling Sam the truth. For about five whole seconds, before she dismissed the idea completely. And how sad was that? she asked herself silently. That she could tell
Cash Hunter
the whole truth, but couldn’t face her
family
with it?

Her throat tightened as she fought to breathe, to drag air into lungs that felt sealed shut. Stupid. Opening up that wound last night had left it raw and bleeding and too easily noticed. She hadn’t been able to hide her misery from Sam today—and she’d been pulling it off successfully for ten years. So how was she going to manage to hide it all again? To push it back into the cold black pit of her heart where it had festered so long in silence?

Panic reared up inside her. She couldn’t. Couldn’t tell them. Couldn’t see their faces fill with pity or, worse . . .
shame
.

She’d simply have to find a way to face her past and let it go.

Sure. No problem.

“Nothing satisfies you, does it?” Jo snapped, taking another long gulp of her coffee in a vain attempt to ease the chill beginning to crawl through her. “I finally tell you what you want to know and you think there’s got to be more.”

“Isn’t there?”

Jo pushed to her feet and automatically shifted into the cautious position she used when walking around a roof. She might be on edge, but she had no intention of going over that edge and hitting the ground like an overripe watermelon. “No, there isn’t. I’m fine. Cash is fine. Sex is fine. Now can we work?”

“Jeez,” Sam muttered as Jo stomped off across the roof, sending loose shingles falling like black rain to the ground. “Who knew
having
sex could make you crabbier than
not
having it?”

Cash felt as if his guts were on fire. On fire and being twisted. By a giant, cold hand.

Yeah. That about covered it.

Opening the door to the guest cottage, Cash stepped inside and paused to take a quick look around. He smiled, despite the rampaging thoughts thundering through his brain. No matter how messed up the rest of his life might look at the moment, at least
this
was coming together.

It was finished.

Or should be.

Technically, the place had been completed six months ago. But he’d kept finding new things to add. New things to tempt his mother with. He wasn’t such an idiot that he didn’t know what he was doing.

He wanted to make Kate Hunter a place so nice that she’d finally want to stick around. To put down roots. To be more than a kind stranger in her own son’s life.

The windows were covered by lacy swatches of fabric
that swung low across the glass and then were gathered back by more lace, tied into bows. Sunlight splintered through the leaded windows and lay in diamond-shaped patterns on the gleaming wood floor. The walls were a pale golden oak, much like the main house, but here, there was something more feminine about it.

He’d hung pictures on the walls, spread area rugs on the floor, and furnished the place with feather-soft chairs and lamps that looked as if Tiffany himself had designed them. There was a tiny kitchen filled with every convenience he could think of. The small bedroom had a mural of a cloud-filled summer sky on the ceiling, courtesy of Sam Marconi. And the luxurious bathroom boasted a spa tub that Mike Marconi had wired complete with stereo speakers fitted into the garden window. The Murphy bed Jo had built for the living room would do for any of Kate’s friends who might like to stay over, and the deck spearing off the back of the house held a brick fire pit and built-in padded benches.

“This time she’ll stay,” he murmured, and ran one hand across the smooth edge of a built-in bookcase as he walked through the cottage to the back door and the deck beyond.

There were just a few more things to finish back here, then it would be ready. He stepped outside into the cool shadows of the pines surrounding the house and took a deep, satisfying breath, grateful to have thoughts of Jo gone—and just like that, she was back.