“Maybe.” Putting it in reverse, she backed herself up. Standing, she opened the bottle. “Here.” She dropped two tablets into his palm.
He smiled.
She really should have stayed under the table. The smile was sweet, sexy, and everything she didn’t need. What she needed was vitamin C and the willpower she hadn’t been able to find while on her hands and knees.
“Good night.” She turned to go.
“Stay. Talk to me. Just talk.”
She turned around. Her gaze went to his bare chest and her heart raced. “Every time we do that I end up losing my shirt.”
He chuckled. “You could take it off now and save me the trouble.”
She frowned.
“Fine. Talk to me on the phone, like you have before. Neither of us can sleep. What would it hurt?”
“The last time I spoke to you on the phone, I was insulting your mom.”
He shook his head with amusement, then grinned fully as his gaze shifted to her pajamas. “Tightrope-walking elephants, huh?”
She walked into the kitchen and got a drink to swallow her pills. All vitamined up, she walked back and handed him the water. “Take your vitamins,” she commanded.
He looked down at his hand. “Only if you’ll talk to me. On the phone. Your shirt’s safe.”
“Then don’t take the vitamins.” She headed for her room. Alone. Shirt on. She was keeping things safe for herself.
“What if I get sick?” he called out. “Wouldn’t you feel terrible knowing all it would have taken was talking to me, and you could have prevented it?”
She swung around. “That’s emotional blackmail!”
“See what you’re driving me to?” He held out the pills. “Deal?” When she didn’t answer, he baited her. “I swear I feel a sore throat coming on.”
Jason gave Sue a minute alone in her bedroom before he called. He smiled the whole time. “Now, is this so bad?” he asked when she answered.
“What do you want to talk about?”
He lay back on the sofa. “You.”
“I’m not that interesting.”
“Not true. Maggie found you quite entertaining.”
“Please. She thinks I’m nuts.”
“No, she said you sounded like a good girl. Which is why I’m in trouble. She said I had to keep my tongue out of your mouth and stop pressuring you to go to bed with me.”
“You told her that I thought it was you?”
“She asked, and Maggie always knows if I’m lying.”
Sue paused. “She knows you that well, huh? When did you go to live with her?”
Jason didn’t want to talk about himself. But Sue had made it clear that if he wanted her to open up he would have to do the same. “Almost sixteen.”
“That old?” she asked. “How many foster homes did you live in?”
“It’s my time to ask a question,” he said.
“Oh. I didn’t know we were taking turns.”
“It’s only fair. You play fair, don’t you?”
“Okay. What do you want to know?”
He wanted to know about her ex but decided to start off small. He tried to think of a different question. Something lighter. “Why are you obsessive about not getting colds?” he asked. But when she didn’t have a quick reply he got a bad feeling.
“My father,” she finally said. “He died of complications from a cold.”
Real good, Dodd! “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“How could anyone know?” she said. “It was a damn cold. He shouldn’t have died.”
It was the first time he’d ever heard her use foul language. Pain echoed in her voice. “How old were you?” he asked.
“Eight.”
Her ache wrapped around his heart and became his own. He pictured the photograph of her standing beside her father’s grave. “Things like that just shouldn’t happen to kids,” he said.
“What happened to you? How did your parents die?”
Her question flipped around his head, landing like a dead fish on his heart. But he had to talk or she would shut up.
“I never knew my father. My mom had a drug problem. They put me into the foster program while she went to rehab. She didn’t come back.”
He closed his eyes. He’d never told anyone. Not even Maggie. Oh, he was certain she knew, but she hadn’t heard it from him. Things like that would have been in his file when Maggie first agreed to take him in. He still didn’t understand why Maggie had done so.
He remembered Sue was on the phone. “Not the Brady Bunch, either.”
“I’m so sorry.” Her words came heavy.
“Don’t be.” He hated the pity he heard in her voice. It was as bad as the condemnation. “I did fine.” He raked a hand over his face and shut his mind to the past. “My turn. Did you sleep with the foot doctor?”
“Maybe I’ll take the dare,” she said.
“The dare?” he asked.
“Aren’t we playing truth or dare, where you either answer a question or take a dare?”
She’d asked the question lightly, but he could still hear pity in her voice. Jason tried to think about what he could say to make her forget about his pitiful past. “I dare you to come out here naked and spend the night in my arms.”
“I never slept with him.”
He ran a hand over his chest, surprised but pleased. And he’d also gotten her to forget about him—which is what he’d truly wanted. “You dated him a whole month and never had sex?”
“We were going to Mexico to…make it a real relationship. Then he canceled. But I ‘d already made up my mind I wasn’t going.”
“Why?”
“Because I realized he had issues.”
“So you knew he was married and dating his nursing staff?”
“No. He has a foot fetish.”
Jason laughed. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but you do have sexy feet. And ears. I love your ears.”
“So I’ll add feet and ear fetishes to your issue list.”
He waited a second before asking, “My issue list? What are my issues? Besides not naming or knowing the sex of my cat. Which I really don’t think is a big deal.”
“It’s a big deal. Plus, you look at women as bread! According to you, we go stale. And the longest relationship you’ve ever had was two months.”
He pushed his head back on his pillow. “I didn’t mean stale like that and you know it. And it was three months. It isn’t fair judging someone from their past. Damn! Why do women do this?”
Frustration built in his chest. For the first time, he accepted that Sue could really turn him away, really not let him get any closer. No making love. Worse, no Christmas. The realization brought a lump of regret into his stomach.
“Why do women do what?” she asked.
He sat up. “Try to see the future. What’s wrong with living for today? Enjoying what is right now?”
“Now doesn’t last very long,” she replied. “See? It’s already gone.”
“But what are you missing by not living in that moment?” Jason’s grip on his phone tightened. “Think about how many things you’ve enjoyed and experienced. How many of those things are still a part of your life?” He let out another sigh of frustration. “Things come and go, but to close yourself off because you can’t look into the future and find written guarantees…well, it’s fucking wrong. It’s cheating yourself out of life. Because nothing in this life comes with guarantees.”
“You’ve obviously never been in love,” she said. “You’ve never had your heart ripped into tiny pieces. Had everything you thought was real suddenly be…not real.” Her voice shook a little. “There are some things, Jason, that just aren’t worth the risk.”
He knew all about having his heart ripped out, and not by just any woman. “So I’m not worth the risk. Is that what you’re saying?” His mother sure as hell hadn’t thought so. He pushed a hand through his hair.
“No. I’m just not wanting to jump into someth
ing before…”
“Before what?”
“Before I’m sure.”
Hope and frustration fought for a spot in his chest. “How long before you’re sure? Because I’m sure right now. I’m sure I want you beside me. I want…” Christmases.
“Sex, right? You want sex.”
“That, too. But this isn’t just about sex, Sue. It never has been.”
He hung up, but as he did so, Jason realized the significance of what he’d said. Because it had always been about sex with him before. Always. It was a lot safer that way.
Looked like things just weren’t safe anymore.
If it wasn’t just about sex, what else was it about? That was the question that kept Sue up most of the night and even plagued her on Wednesday morning when they went to feed Lacy’s animals. Upon returning, even though she doubted she had one creative sentence in her, Sue barricaded herself in her office to write—though what she really intended was to ponder just a bit more. What were she and Jason all about?
It took her almost an hour before she came to an all-important realization: To get the answer, she’d have to ask Jason. Frankly, she wasn’t quite brave enough to do that.
She stepped out to find Jason on the sofa, reading her book. He was so focused that he didn’t hear her. Sue tried to see the page number, wondering where he was in the story and trying to read his reactions.
Writer’s insecurities, perhaps, but how could she not be insecure? He thought she wrote unrealistic plots. Even if it was his friend who’d given her information.
He chuckled and raised his eyes. “Hey.” He sat up, the humor still reflecting in his gaze.
“What’s so funny?”
“Your heroine jerked off the detective’s wig and tossed it to her dog.” He set the manuscript aside, stood, and a few steps later his lips were on hers. It happened so fast she never had a chance to argue.
And maybe she wouldn’t have. Who knew anymore?
She leaned in and accepted his kiss as part of right now.
Of course, she couldn’t help but wonder what else Jason’s “right now” included. Great sex? A few weeks of great sex? Months? More? Did he want a real relationship? Did it matter? Was she going to miss something wonderful with Jason because she was afraid it wouldn’t last? The saying, “Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” whispered through her mind. Not that this was about love.
Yet, she knew what a short trip it could be from infatuation to love. And she was already knee-deep in infatuation with Jason Dodd.
He brushed a finger over her ear. “You get some work done?”
“Not much.” She glanced at her window, which he’d covered with a piece of plywood he’d found in her garage. Then her thoughts went to the manuscript on the sofa. “So, are you finding more unrealistic scenes?”
He frowned. “If you are talking about what I said at my apartment the other day, I didn’t say they were unrealistic, I said they read a little more like fiction than fact.”
She arched an eyebrow accusingly. “Which is the definition of unrealistic.”
“Look, you don’t write unrealistic scenes. You just go weak on facts to inject humor. And the humor is great.”
“So what was it about the wig scene that bothered you?”
“That scene was perfect. I love your writing. I didn’t even really mean that—”
“I’m a big girl, Jason. Stop pretending and tell me.”
His expression changed from frustrated to something different. “Why should I tell you? You don’t want my opinion. You’ve got Chase. And now you have Danny.”
“I’m asking you, aren’t I?” Was that jealousy she heard in his voice? “Tell me where I used humor for humor’s sake. Come on.”
He hesitated. “Okay, it’s not a big deal, but the scene in the convenience store. When the heroine pulled out a tampon and passed it off as a gun. A true criminal would never buy that.”
“I’ll have you know, the medium extra absorbent HEB brand tampons are the same size as that gun I named in the book. I know this because I called a gun expert and got measurements. Then I bought an eon’s supply of tampons until I found one that measured right.”
He held up both hands. “You know, I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation. Because I told you, I thought it was funny. I liked it.”
“But you didn’t believe it, did you?”
He frowned. “Maybe not, but I wouldn’t have changed it. I’m just saying as a cop, I couldn’t see it happening.”
He passed his hand over his face again. “A person who handles guns isn’t going to be fooled by a tampon. But for your scene, I can see why—”
“Really?” Sue walked to the breakfast table, grabbed her purse, and walked behind him. He swung around to face her. “No,” she said. “Let’s do a little test.”
“A test?”
“Turn around.” She nudged him.
“What kind of test?”
She nudged him again. “Just do it. Don’t you trust me?”
“It’s not me with the trust issues.” He swung around.
Ignoring his trust-issue comment, she pulled a tampon from her purse. Then she pulled out her gun.
She ripped the wrapper off the tampon, crinkling the paper to make sure he would hear it. Then, only giving the tampon so much pressure, she pressed it against his head.
“Now, Mr. Tough Guy, are you going to argue with me when I say, ‘Drop the gun, you lowlife slime ball or I’ll shoot?’ Wouldn’t you be scared?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
She was a flake with trust issues, but the cutest flake he’d ever known.
“Of course I’d be scared. You’re holding me up with a tampon. Nothing is scarier than a woman with PMS.” He turned around and his heart stopped when he saw the gun.
On automatic, he caught her by the wrist and pushed the gun downward. “What the hell are you doing?”
He jerked the gun away.
“See? I was right,” she said.
“Right?” He checked the gun for bullets and his blood pressure dropped a couple of points when he found it unloaded. But those couple of points didn’t drop his temper below a boil.
“Are you fucking nuts? You never point a gun at anyone unless you plan to use it.”
She smiled triumphantly. “I didn’t. I used this.” She held up the tampon. “But you weren’t sure, were you?”
“Damn it, Sue. You don’t play with guns.”
“It’s not loaded.”
“I don’t give a damn. Have you been carrying a weapon in your purse this whole time?”
“Someone is trying to kill me.”
“Do you even have a permit?”
“I have a license.” Annoyance edged her voice.
Jason didn’t give a flip about her annoyance. The woman had practically held a pistol to his head. “Having a license doesn’t allow you to carry it in your purse.”
“You’re just mad because I’m right.” She held up the tampon in one hand. “You thought I only had a tampon, and therefore you believed it was a tampon, but when you saw the gun you thought it was a gun.”
“I’m mad because you think this is a fucking toy!” He shook the gun.
“My point is,” she continued, “that if someone holds something to your head and says it’s a gun, you’re going to believe it.”
“Do you know how many presumably unloaded guns have killed people when they were doing something stupid like just now?”
“But I knew it wasn’t loaded.”
“How long have you had this?”
“I got it last Friday.”
“Have you ever even shot a gun?”
“Yes,” she said. “Okay, just once, but—”
“Could you use it if you had to?” He darted to the kitchen and placed her gun in a drawer. Then he swung back to her.
She fidgeted under his intense stare. “I think I could scare someone enough to back off.”
“It doesn’t work that way. People get shot with their own guns because they don’t intend to use them. And for God’s sake, don’t ever point it, or even pretend to point it, at someone!”
She got that really hurt, pissed-off look women get. Then she took off down the hall.
Shit. He’d been too hard on her. He took a step to go after her, then stopped. He hadn’t been too hard. Guns weren’t toys. She’d just have to be mad.
She swung around and came back to face him. Her pissed-off look had faded. Now she just looked hurt. Which made him feel terrible.
“Sue, I’m sorry—”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have pretended to point the gun at you. I wasn’t thinking. I probably shouldn’t have the gun, but I…” He could see it—she was going to cry. “Someone is threatening to kill me. I find out my boyfriend is married and cheating on me at the same time.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” he corrected.
“You tell me I don’t write realistically, and you…don’t name your cat, and I know I’m eventually going to wind up being leftover toast.”
He grinned. “Trust me, there would never be any leftovers where you’re concerned.” Then the expected sheen of tears appeared in her eyes, and his grin faded. He pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry I got mad.”
She fit against his chest as if she’d been made for it. He buried his face in her shampoo-scented hair. “You were right. I thought it was a tampon, but the moment I saw the gun I thought it was the gun.” He ran his hand over her shoulders. “And I never meant to insult your writing. You’re a great writer.”
She raised her face. “You’re just saying that because you want me to sleep with you.”
“No, I’m saying it because it’s true.”
Her blue eyes bright with unshed tears met his. “Too bad. It was almost working.”
“Really?” He lowered his face to kiss her, but the doorbell interrupted. He growled, “I’m going to kill whoever it is at the door.”
“Here, use this.” She dropped the tampon in his hand and stepped forward.
He caught her. “I answer the door, remember?” He tossed her the tampon and felt for his gun in his holster before looking out the side window.
“It’s FedEx,” he said. “Are you expecting something?”
Divorced, Desperate And Dating Page 22
