The Perfect Husband

by Lisa Gardner

  She straddled his lap wearing a red gauzy skirt and a thin white top tied beneath her generous breasts. J.T. cradled her hip with one hand. She didn’t notice. Her attention was focused absolutely on his face.

  She’d spread an old green hand towel over his naked chest. Now she whipped the shaving cream in the small basin on the right and lathered it generously over his face. Rosalita believed a man should be shaved the old-fashioned way—with a straight razor and plenty of devilish intent.

  He had enough respect for her temper to hold perfectly still.

  He sat there, watching the world take on the warm, fuzzy hue he’d come to know in the last few years, and even then, even then he knew when she walked into the room.

  Her feet were bare and silent on the hardwood floor, but she broadcasted her arrival with her scent. He’d been six when his father had taught him to air-dry his clothes, wash with odorless soap, and rinse his mouth with peroxide so the deer wouldn’t smell anything as he crept up behind. In those days he’d accepted such teachings with reverent awe. His whipcord-lean, ramrod-straight, rattlesnake-tough father was omnipotent in his eyes, the only man he knew who could bag a six-point buck with a single shot. The colonel had had his talents.

  Rosalita sighted Angela hovering in the doorway. Her fingers instantly dug into his chin.

  “Hijo de puta!” she spat out.

  J.T. gave her a small shrug and lifted the Corona bottle to his lathered lips.

  “Angela, Rosalita. Rosalita, Angela. Angela is a current guest at our high-flying retirement resort. As for Rosalita . . . what shall we call you? An international hostess and entertainer?” He glanced at Angela. “Every year on September fourteenth Rosalita cleans me up. You might call it her frequent flyer program.”

  Angela nodded, her gaze going from him to Rosalita to him with open discomfort. The tension in the room was unmistakable. “Nice to meet you,” Angela said at last, her voice unfailingly polite.

  Rosalita froze, then began to smile. Then began to laugh. She repeated the words back to J.T. in Spanish, then chuckled harder. Nice to meet you wasn’t something other women generally said to whores. Only a good girl would feel compelled to say such a thing, and at this stage of her life, Rosalita knew she had nothing to fear from “good girls.”

  She picked up the razor, shoved J.T.’s head back, and exposed his throat. She pressed the straight edge against his jawline and slowly rasped it down, her dark eyes gleaming.

  Angela sucked in her breath nervously.

  “She can’t kill me yet,” J.T. volunteered conversationally. “I’m one of the few men who can pay her what she’s worth.”

  Four forceful strokes, and his neck was clean. Rosalita shoved his head to the side and turned her attention to his cheek.

  Angela finally entered the room; she wore an old white tank top and frayed khaki shorts that had probably fit her once. Now, they hung on her frame. In daylight, her coarsely dyed, badly whacked hair looked even worse—as if she was wearing a bad wig. For no good reason, it annoyed him tremendously.

  “Your wrist?” he barked, startling Rosalita and Angela both.

  “My wrist? Oh, oh, that. It’s fine. Just a bit bruised.”

  “I have some ice. We’ll put that on it.”

  “No, it’s not necessary. It’s not even swollen.” She moved along the side of the room, up on the balls of her feet, her back to the wall. As he watched, still searching for something to do that would make him feel better, she took a careful inventory of all the exits. Someone had at least told her a thing or two.

  Her gaze fastened on his iguana, a frown marring her brow.

  “Real,” he supplied.

  “What?”

  “The iguana. That’s Glug. He’s alive.”

  “Oh.” She looked at Glug for several seconds. The creature didn’t move.

  “Where’s Freddie?” she asked.

  “I gave him the day off.”

  “Gave him the day off?”

  “Yep.”

  “So there’s no one here?”

  “Rosalita probably doesn’t like to be called no one.”

  “But she doesn’t live here, does she?”

  “Nope.”

  “So only you’ll be around today?” She was clearly nervous. Her stance went from relaxed to prepared. Legs apart, shoulders back, hips rotated for balance. Just as it had last night, it tugged at his brain.

  Abruptly recognition came to him.

  “Cop.”

  She froze.

  “Uh-huh. I noticed it yesterday—you stand like a cop. Feet wide, chest out for balance. Left leg slightly back to keep your holster out of reach.”

  She looked cornered.

  He frowned, angling his head more so Rosalita could attend better to his cheek. “You’re not a cop though. You can’t even hold a gun.”

  “I’m not a cop,” she muttered.

  “So just who are you, Angela? And what about your daughter?”

  “What daughter?” Her voice had gone falsetto.

  “Oh, give it up. You can’t lie worth a damn.”

  She smiled tightly. “Then you’ll have to teach me how.”

  “Idiotas,” Rosalita interjected. She grabbed the hand towel and rubbed the remains of the shaving cream from J.T.’s face with more force than necessary. “Hombres y mujeres? Bah. Perritos y gatitas.”

  With another shake of her head she flattened her palm on J.T.’s chest and tried to launch herself from his lap. He clamped one hand over Rosalita’s wrist.

  “Wait.”

  He twisted her lush form on his lap, bringing her ample hips intimately against his groin. Angela had gone still, as if expecting some new form of attack.

  “Look at her,” he said, pointing at Angela. “Look at that haircut, Rosalita. We can’t have her running around like that.”

  Rosalita raked Angela up and down with a scathing eye. She was clearly unimpressed.

  “I can’t take it any more, Rosalita. With that do, she might as well pin a ‘fugitive’ sign on her coat. Fix it for me, will you? We’ll consider it my good deed for the decade.”

  “You’re too kind,” Angela murmured.

  J.T. continued focusing on Rosalita. “I’ll pay, of course.”

  Payment was the magic word. Rosalita started out asking for twenty but settled for ten. J.T. took the money from a highly skeptical Angela, pointing out that Rosalita certainly couldn’t do any worse than Angela had. Moments later Rosalita had Angela positioned in J.T.’s chair, the green towel wrapped around her neck. While she washed Angela’s hair and set about snipping with expert flair, J.T. propped himself up on the edge of the couch and opened a fresh beer despite Angela’s disapproving frown. He could see her wrist, now on her lap. It was badly bruised.

  So now you’re beating up on women, J.T. Just how low do you plan on sinking?

  In the disconcerting quiet of his living room he didn’t have an answer. He’d never considered himself a great man, not even a good man. But he had his few principles and they gave him comfort. Don’t lie and don’t pretend. Don’t hurt people weaker than yourself—there are enough SOBs out there who deserve it. Never, ever hurt a woman.

  If Rachel could see him now, she would be ashamed.

  He crossed over to the sliding glass door and watched the sunlight dance across the rippling surface of his pool.

  “Terminé!” Rosalita announced.

  Reluctantly, J.T. turned to inspect Angela’s new look. He froze, too stunned for words.

  Rosalita had hacked off most of Angela’s hair. Now intricately layered strands darted before her ears, wisped at the back of her neck, and fringed around her eyes. The short-cropped hair should have made her look like a teenage boy, except teenage boys didn’t have cheekbones that high, noses that small, or lips that full. Teenage boys didn’t have saucer-shaped eyes of liquid brown, framed by thick, lush lashes.

  “Jesus Christ,” he murmured. “Jesus H. Christ.”

  He started paci
ng. Even then he felt the tension curling up inside his belly.

  “It’s . . . it’s a start.” Angela sounded a little stunned by the transformation herself as she gazed into the hand mirror.

  Rosalita bustled away with the basin of soapy water, leaving them alone in the living room. A taut silence descended. Angela’s fingers began to fidget on her lap.

  “Want a piece of advice?” J.T. said all of a sudden. “It’s free.”

  “Doesn’t that make two good deeds in one day? I thought you’d already met quota for the year.”

  “You caught me at a weak moment. Now, do you want the advice or what?”

  “Okay.”

  “Dye your hair,” he said flatly. “It’s the trick of a disguise—come up with something that looks even more you than the real you. I’d recommend a dark brown or auburn, something that fits your natural coloring. Then you’ll have a new look that’s subtle. Right now you’re too obvious.”

  “Oh.”

  “So there you go. Visit a pharmacy, buy some hair dye, and thirty minutes later you’ll be all set.”

  “Thank you.”

  He grimaced. “Advice wasn’t that good.”

  “J.T., about yesterday. I need to talk to you, will you—”

  “Hungry?” He turned to face her. “You need to eat more. I can make oatmeal.”

  She hesitated, clearly wanting to return to the original topic. “That makes three good deeds,” she pointed out.

  “Blame it on my upbringing. I certainly do.”

  “Breakfast would be nice, I guess.” She nodded toward the nearly empty beer bottle dangling from his fingertips. “Looks like you’ve already had yours.”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you always drink so much?”

  “Only to excess.”

  “Vince didn’t say you were an alcoholic.”

  “I am not an alcoholic. Prissy teetotaler.” He thumped the bottle against his thigh. She had an accent. A northern accent. Well educated. What had brought a well-educated northern woman all the way to the Mexican border, exhausted, malnourished, and obviously terrified?

  His gaze fell to her thighs.

  Shit.

  He took a step toward her. She stiffened. It didn’t matter.

  He walked right up to her even as she leaned way back, sinking into the chair. Her eyes were wide and fearful. He ignored her distress, reaching out and swiping a finger down the vicious scar marring her pale thigh. Broad. Shiny. Many snaking tributaries, the kind that would be made by a bone snapping and tearing through flesh.

  “He do that?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Dammit, did he do that?”

  She opened her mouth, then gave up and simply stared at him.

  “Who the hell are you, Angela?”

  “A woman who needs help.”

  “Your husband was that bad?”

  “No,” she said bluntly. “He was worse.”

  J.T. turned away. He was angry again. That was always his problem. He was too good at getting angry and not good enough at fixing anything. Control, control. It’s not your problem, it’s not your business.

  But he hated the sight of the scar on her thigh. It made him think of things he’d dedicated the last few years to forgetting. And it made him want to find her ex-husband and slam his fist through his face.

  He forced himself to relax and took a swallow from his beer. He didn’t speak again until he trusted himself completely.

  “I’ll make oatmeal.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Honey, you haven’t tasted it yet.”

  ANGELA FOLLOWED HIM into the kitchen. He was proud of the kitchen—Rachel had designed it. He knew a lot about pools, and in the last couple of years he’d become a good landscaper. He didn’t know much about decorating though. In the marines you stuck a girlie poster above your bed and that was considered the finishing touch.

  Rachel had had a natural flair, so she’d designed the house they were going to build in Montana, where the sky was endless and they would always feel free. He was going to learn about horses. She was going to study interior decorating. Maybe they would have a second kid, give Teddy a little sister to play with. And Teddy and his little sister would be raised right, without any bad memories to keep them awake on dark nights later in life.

  Those dreams were gone. J.T. just had Rachel’s kitchen, a large, cool room with a red-tiled floor and eggshell-blue counter. The stove was big and accented with a wreath of jalapeños. A huge collection of brass pots and pans hung from a wire rack suspended from the ceiling. He’d placed each one just where he figured Rachel would have, having listened to her excitedly describe the kitchen night after night as they’d lain together in bed and dreamed like children.

  “It’s a nice kitchen,” Angela said from behind him. “Do you cook a lot?”

  “I don’t cook at all.” He moved to the sliding glass door, which Rosalita had left slightly cracked. The heat seeped in like a tentacled beast. He shut the door.

  “You aren’t going to lock it?”

  “Lock what?”

  “The door.”

  “No.”

  There was a small pause. He contemplated the pots and pans, trying to figure out which to grab. It had been a long time since he’d tried cooking anything; that was Freddie’s job.

  “Do you lock your front door?”

  “Nope.”

  “Could . . . could I do it?”

  He looked at her. She stood by the wood table, her hands twisting in front of her, and her gaze fastened on the sliding glass door.

  “Sweetheart, this is Nogales, the outskirts of Nogales. You don’t have to worry about anything here.”

  “Please.”

  He was really starting to hate how well she used that word. “You’re scared,” he said flatly.

  She didn’t bother to deny it.

  “You think he followed you here? This big bad ex-husband of yours?”

  “It’s possible. He’s very, very good at that.”

  “You said you paid cash, used fake names.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re fine.” He turned back to the stove, but he heard her move behind him, then heard the click of the sliding glass door lock sliding home. Whatever. He didn’t feel like telling her about the small arsenal he kept in a safe and the fact that even dead drunk he could shoot the Lincoln head out of a penny at two hundred yards. If she wanted the doors locked that badly, he wasn’t going to argue.

  He boiled water. He opened a canister of oatmeal and wondered how much he was supposed to dump in. He dumped in half and figured what the hell. If he could rig explosives, he ought to be able to manage oatmeal.

  “Generally people measure it out,” Angela commented, returning to the kitchen.

  “I like to live dangerously.”

  “I want my gun back.”

  “The water-logged .22? You’d be better off with a slingshot.”

  “I want my gun.”

  It irritated him. Too many people thought guns fixed things. They didn’t. He ought to know. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do with a rifle and yet everyone he’d ever loved had been destroyed. Guns didn’t fix anything.

  “First let’s get through breakfast.” He dumped the oatmeal into two bowls. It had the same consistency as mud. He sprinkled the bowls with raisins for more iron and poured two glasses of milk. Angela looked at the oatmeal as if it were an unrecognizable life-form.

  “Eat,” he said. “Tough guys never turn away from a nutritious meal. Hell, if we were outside, I would’ve topped it with bugs. They’re almost pure protein, you know.”

  “I didn’t know,” she confessed, and finally, gingerly, scooped up the first spoonful and thrust it into her mouth. Her eyes were closed. She looked like a little kid and he found himself thinking of Teddy again with a sharp, bittersweet pang.

  “Yugh,” she said.

  “Told you I wasn’t a cook.” He took in three spoonfuls at o
nce. “Don’t chew. It goes down easier.”

  She looked horrified. She pushed the bowl away. Just as fast, he pushed it back in front of her. “Eat,” he ordered. “I wasn’t kidding before—soldiers eat what they’re given. And you need your iron, Rambo, so stop dreaming about room service.”

  For a moment it appeared that she would defy him. But then she picked up her spoon and eyed her oat-meal as if it were a summit to be scaled.

  “I can do this.” She dug in.

  “It’s oatmeal, Angela, not Armageddon.”

  She ate the whole bowl and cleared the dishes without saying a word. Then she began washing them with the smooth movements of someone who’d done chores all her life.

  J.T. wasn’t used to having someone else around who wasn’t Freddie or Rosalita. He felt uncomfortable and, worse, self-conscious. Virginia etiquette crept up and tapped him on the shoulder. He should put on a shirt. He should put on shoes. He should pull out a chair for the nice young lady, offer her lemonade, comment on her beauty, and talk about the weather.

  “Why move to Arizona?” Angela asked. She stacked the rinsed dishes noisily beside the sink. Her bruised wrist didn’t seem to bother her.

  “No helmet laws.”

  “Oh.” She’d run out of things to say. He’d run out of them a long time ago himself. He began ticking off the seconds in his mind. He’d hit only six when she shut off the water and pinned him with a determined look.

  “I’m not going to leave,” she announced. “I need your help. Sooner or later you’ll realize that.”

  “I’m not going to realize any such thing. You’re lying to me through your teeth.”

  Her lips thinned. “You don’t want the truth. I know men like you. You don’t want to become involved. You think you’re happy living in a self-pitying vacuum.”

  “Self-pity, that’s what’s wrong with me? First, it’s drinking, now self-pity. Do you watch a lot of Oprah?”

  “You think you’ll be better off if you never care again.”

  “Can you prove otherwise?”

  “I don’t need you to care, Mr. Dillon. I don’t need you to give a . . . a rat’s ass about me. I want you to train me anyway.”

  “You want me to be a lapdog,” he corrected her. “You want me to listen to your lies, do as you ask, and never question a thing. I know how it works. I’ve seen Oprah too.”