Believe It or Not

by Tawna Fenske

  Drew snorted. “He touched your arm at least a dozen times during dinner. He shared his sushi with you. I saw him look down your blouse twice. He thinks it was a date.”

  “He doesn’t—”

  “Trust me.”

  Violet shut up for a minute. “Well, that’s a good thing, then. If you’re right, I mean. I could do worse than a man like Dr. Abbott.”

  “Sure you could.”

  “He’s good marriage material, don’t you think?”

  Drew didn’t look up at her, but she saw his hands go still on the wire he’d been fiddling with. “Shouldn’t you be on a first-name basis with the guy before you start planning your wedding?”

  Violet ignored him. “Chris is a normal guy. A safe guy. A wholesome, healthy guy.”

  “You make him sound like a salad.”

  Violet glared at his back. Drew looked up and grinned. “Can I have a little more water, please? I’ve almost got you hooked up.”

  Violet grabbed the glass and marched back to the kitchen. “So what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You said you’ve been married before. How long?”

  “Two years. It was a while ago.”

  “What was she like?” Violet asked, turning the tap on and filling Drew’s glass.

  “You.”

  Violet shut off the tap, not sure she’d heard him right.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It sounded like you said ‘you.’”

  Drew shrugged. “She was very high-strung. Divorce attorney. She wanted me to have a career that didn’t involve sweeping peanut shells off the floor and hiring men to dance in their underwear twice a week.”

  “Imagine that.”

  Drew turned around and frowned at her, the playfulness suddenly gone from his expression. “I like my job. I worked hard to build this business, and I’m damn good at it.”

  Violet walked back to the living room and set the water down beside him, feeling cautious all of a sudden. “Hey, I’m not knocking it. You’ve built a pretty great place, from what I could see.”

  Drew took a sip of water, his happy-go-lucky expression back in place. “What you could see was filtered through four Manhattans, but thanks. Come over sometime. Sober, and not screaming at me. I’ll give you a tour of the place.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Drew finished fiddling with the wires and took a sip of water. He sat back on his heels and looked at her. “Okay, you want to choose your songs here?”

  Violet sat down on the sofa and picked up the wineglass she’d abandoned earlier. She took a small sip. “You choose. Something mellow. Something nice to listen to before bed.”

  Something flickered in Drew’s eyes on the word bed. Something warm and dark and predatory. Violet felt her pulse kick up and she gripped her wineglass tighter. Still, she didn’t look away. She held his eyes with hers and she thought about tearing her shirt off and begging him to touch her.

  Why was that a bad idea again?

  You’re a fake psychic.

  He wants to steal your mom’s shop space.

  He’s not the normal guy you’re looking for.

  “Get a grip.” She didn’t realize she’d said it aloud until Drew smiled.

  “Right. Good plan.” He looked down at the iPod. “Mellow bedtime music, coming right up.”

  Violet watched as he sat quietly scrolling and pressing buttons. His head was bent in concentration, the dark, tousled hair falling over his forehead. She stretched her legs out along the sofa as she stared at his fingers working the iPod controls. There was something oddly erotic about that, watching him push buttons and swirl his fingertip over the control wheel. Violet took another sip of wine and felt her skin tingle pleasantly as she flexed her bare feet.

  At last, Drew set the iPod down and stood up. He strode over to the sofa in three quick steps, then hesitated.

  “Need me to move my legs?” Violet asked.

  “Unless you’d like me to sit on them.”

  She grinned and started to draw her legs back toward her. That’s when the spasm gripped her calf.

  “Ow!” She yelped. “Dammit! Charley horse.”

  She started to set down her wine to massage the leg cramp, but Drew grabbed both her feet and pulled her legs straight. His hands were solid and commanding, and Violet went still at his touch.

  “Relax,” he said. “I’ve got it. Which one?”

  “Left,” she whimpered as the cramp twisted the muscle again. “Yeowch!”

  He dropped onto the sofa and pulled both her legs onto his lap. He slid up the hem of her silk pajama pants to reveal her calves, and Violet said a silent prayer of thanks she’d remembered to shave. She expected his touch, but still gasped as his fingers slid over her bare skin. He cupped her left calf in one oversized palm and began to knead the muscles with his thumbs.

  His hands were warm and skilled, and Violet stifled the urge to whimper. She lay back against the sofa cushions, enjoying the firm pressure of his fingertips, the squeeze of his palms, the roughness of his hands against the twisted muscle of her calf. She closed her eyes and sighed in bliss.

  “God, that feels good,” she murmured.

  “The four second-best words in the English language.”

  “What are the four best?”

  “Fuck me again, please.”

  She laughed in spite of herself. “Pervert. Did you make that up just then?”

  “Not bad, huh?”

  Violet smiled as her calf muscle began to relax under his touch. He could probably tell the cramp was gone, but seemed in no hurry to bring the massage to an end. His touch had lightened now, and he was no longer kneading deeply into the muscle with his thumbs. Instead, he traced his fingertips over her flesh, fluttering across her shin bones, dipping into the delicate hollow of her ankle, moving across the arch of her foot. His fingers were so light, so gentle, that Violet had to open her eyes to see what he was doing.

  Drew was watching her.

  He smiled. “Better?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “I haven’t learned to decode your groans just yet, but I’ll assume that’s a yes.”

  She closed her eyes again. “Yes. Oh, God—yes.”

  He laughed and shifted her feet in his lap. She expected him to stop massaging, but instead he moved on to the other calf.

  “Wonder what causes that?” Drew mused. “Charley horses, I mean.”

  “The most common causes are hormonal imbalance, dehydration, a buildup of lactic acid after exercise, or low levels of potassium or calcium in the blood,” Violet replied dreamily. “Studies have shown vitamin B complex can occasionally alleviate them, as well as quinine, which has obvious side effects, and—”

  “How about I just keep massaging,” Drew said. “Since I don’t happen to have quinine or vitamin B complex.”

  “Okay.”

  Violet sighed as she basked in the feel of his hands on her skin, the smell of rain pattering the ferns outside the open window, the sound of the music from Moonbeam’s ancient stereo.

  “Interesting musical choice,” she murmured.

  “How so?”

  “Peter Gabriel’s ‘Mercy Street,’” she replied. “You remind me of John Cusack.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  She gave a blissful sigh, then hoped he didn’t mistake it for impatience. “There’s that scene in the movie Say Anything where he stands outside her window with a boom box playing a Peter Gabriel song.”

  “‘In Your Eyes,’ right,” Drew said, squeezing her calf. “I can change the song and go get a boom box, if you want.”

  Violet laughed and took another sip of wine. “I appreciate the offer, but you’re fine right where you are.”

  “So when will Moonbeam be able to get back to work?”

  “They want to keep her at the hospital for a few more days and then transfer her to rehab. There’s a sort of rehab halfway house near the hospital w
here she may end up going. That way she’s close by and we don’t have to shuttle her back and forth or make the house wheelchair friendly right away.”

  “How long can you be away from your other job?”

  “They’ve been good about letting me work remotely so far,” she said. “I’ve been stockpiling vacation time for years though, so I can dip into that if I have to.”

  “You don’t take vacations?”

  “Not much. I visit Moonbeam a few times a year.”

  “No beachcombing in the Caribbean? Hiking in the Alps? Leisurely stays at your favorite nudist colony?”

  Violet shrugged. “I work a lot.”

  “Because you like it or because you have to?”

  “Both.”

  Drew was studying her with a funny expression, and Violet felt oddly self-conscious. She sipped at her wine again, grateful for the steady pressure of Drew’s hands on her calves. He trailed his fingers along her left shin and Violet gasped. He smiled and did it again to the other calf.

  Maybe she should plan a vacation. She’d never seen Greece. She’d always wanted to go—

  “Isn’t there an expression about not taking vacations?” Drew said, interrupting her fantasy. “Something like ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’”

  “If I’m supposed to be Jack here, that’s not such a bad thing.”

  “You want to be dull?”

  “I want to be normal.”

  Drew laughed. “I don’t know about normal, but you’re the furthest thing from dull I’ve ever seen.”

  Violet looked down at her wine, pretty sure she’d just been complimented. He slid his fingertips into the hollow at the back of her knee and she gasped.

  “Ticklish?”

  “No.”

  “Want me to stop?”

  “No. Please.”

  He laughed and kept stroking her calf. The Peter Gabriel song ended, and Violet waited to hear what would start playing next. She wasn’t sure if Drew had made a playlist or if he just programmed the iPod to pick songs to match the first one selected. She still wasn’t certain when Howard Jones began singing “The Prisoner.”

  Drew looked at her, his expression serious all of a sudden. “So you want a normal life with a normal guy in a normal house in a normal town.”

  “I could do with an abnormal house. All the rest, pretty much.”

  Drew laughed. “At least you’re honest.”

  Violet felt a small stab of guilt somewhere in the vicinity of her spleen. Honest. She was impersonating a psychic to support a business she wasn’t sure she believed in. How honest was that?

  Drew shifted a little, moving her feet closer to his knees. She glanced at his lap and resisted the urge to smile. Was it her imagination, or was Drew getting turned on? She couldn’t quite tell, with the fly of his jeans in the way, but it looked like—

  “You can’t ogle my ass when I’m sitting down, so now you’re staring at my crotch?”

  She looked up and blinked. “What?”

  “You know what.” He squeezed her calf, but didn’t stop massaging. “You have a filthy mind, but you won’t admit it. You also have a master plan for your life with no room for spontaneity.”

  “No,” Violet said, hoping that covered both statements.

  Yes, screamed her body.

  Violet ignored her body.

  Drew, however, did not. He slid his fingers farther up her leg, lingering for a few seconds in the hollow behind her knee before traveling higher. Her pajama pants were hiked above her knees now, exposing the bottoms of her thighs. Drew’s fingers drifted there, stroking, teasing. Violet felt her pulse kick up. She was breathing fast now, her head swimming in a cloud of lust and a desperate urge to be touched.

  She didn’t bother to stifle the moan as his fingers traced the sensitive curve of her thigh. She closed her eyes again and leaned back against the arm of the sofa.

  “Violet…”

  “Yes?”

  “I should probably stop.”

  “Oh, please don’t—”

  “Violet,” he repeated, his voice tense now.

  Violet opened her eyes and looked at him. His jaw was rigid, his eyes dark and dangerous. She watched him swallow, his eyes never leaving her face. “If I don’t stop now, I’m not going to—”

  “Don’t stop,” she said. “Please?”

  They stared at each other for a few beats, neither willing to be the first to move.

  Somewhere in a far corner of the house, Tarzan began to yodel.

  Violet groaned, not in the good way this time.

  “What is that?” Drew asked, sounding a little dazed.

  “That’s the boring factory ringtone you were so certain I had,” she replied as she reluctantly lifted her legs off his lap. “And I’d better answer. It might be the hospital.”

  She stumbled to the entryway, where she’d hung her purse, her brain still fuzzy with lust and heat. Grabbing the cell phone, she fumbled with the buttons, not recognizing the phone number on the readout.

  “Hello, this is Violet McGinn speaking.”

  There was a short pause, followed by an angry-sounding grunt. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Chapter 6

  When Violet hung up the phone, she didn’t look good. Her face was pale, and her bottom lip looked like she’d been biting it for the last five minutes. Actually, that’s exactly what she’d been doing. Drew had watched from his perch on the sofa, trying hard to focus on whatever grave news she was getting instead of on his fascination with her mouth.

  Violet set the phone down and walked wordlessly back to the living room. Her posture was stiff, like someone had fused a stripper pole to her spine.

  Hardly the woman who’d been melting into his lap mere minutes before.

  “That didn’t sound good,” Drew said, watching her step into the living room. “Are you okay?”

  Violet didn’t say anything. She just sat down beside him and picked up her wineglass. Without a word, she tipped it back and drained the rest of it in one gulp. Drew watched her throat as she swallowed, feeling edgy.

  Violet set the wineglass down and looked at him. Her expression was perfectly calm, but her eyes flashed fire. Drew scooted back a little, moving all extremities out of her reach.

  “That was Frank,” she said at last.

  “Frank?”

  “Mrs. Rivers’s professional squash partner. You mentioned him the other day when Mrs. Rivers came in for a reading and I told her Frank was cheating?”

  “Sure, Frank. How’s he doing?

  Violet stared at him, unblinking. He saw her fingers clench in a fist. When she spoke, her voice was icy.

  “Do you think, perhaps, that when you mentioned that Mrs. Rivers’s cheating man was her professional squash partner, maybe that would have been a good time for you to mention the fact that he’s also the owner of our entire fucking building?”

  The last three words came out in a snarl. Drew tried to edge back farther, but his spine was already pressed against the arm of the sofa.

  “I figured you knew.”

  “How the hell would I know something like that?”

  “Well,” Drew said carefully, “I assumed Moonbeam would have told you. Or that if she hadn’t, your psychic powers might have clued you in.”

  The last words were a cheap shot, so he should have expected the blow. Even so, he didn’t duck fast enough when the throw pillow came hurtling toward him. It grazed the side of his head, smacking his left ear. Drew reached back and caught the pillow before it hit the ground.

  “Ouch,” he said dryly.

  “What am I going to do?” she cried. “He’s mad as hell. He wants to see me as soon as he gets back from Chicago. He said we’re running a crooked operation and that he has every right to kick me out of the building.”

  “He said that?”

  “He’s pissed. He’s a professional athlete, and I told his partner he was cheating. Wouldn’t you be mad?”
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  Drew tucked the throw pillow under one arm and considered the question. “Did he deny cheating?”

  “What?”

  “At squash. Did he tell you he wasn’t cheating?”

  Violet rolled her eyes. “We didn’t discuss the fine points of the game.”

  “Did it occur to you that if he’s that angry, you were right? He is cheating.”

  Violet stared at him, her expression still panicked. “How do you know that?”

  “Cheaters get angry. Don’t you remember anything from schoolyard politics?”

  “Even if that’s true, how does it help? He still hates my guts now and wants to kick us out of the building.”

  “He won’t do that. He needs the tenants.”

  “But that’s what he threatened.”

  Drew shrugged. “So what’s the worst-case scenario? Moonbeam can move.”

  “You don’t understand. She’s been there for thirty years. Her location is everything. It’s not just the auras and the alignment of the space with the moons of Jupiter and the feng shui—it’s the walk-in traffic she gets from being right on the edge of the Pearl District.”

  “Okay, I see what you mean. Still, it’s a moot point. He’s not going to kick you out. He’s just mad now, but he’ll cool off.”

  Violet looked at him uncertainly. Now that she’d stopped spitting fire, he almost wanted to hug her. Maybe pick up where they’d left off. The thought of taking her in his arms and stroking her back, then maybe sliding his hands down and cupping her—

  He stopped, aware that his eyes were probably starting to glaze over. “Look, Violet,” he said. “Just talk to him. Explain that you got a bad deck of tarot cards or your crystal ball was cloudy or something. Call Mrs. Rivers and tell her the whole thing was a big misunderstanding. I doubt she’s reported it to the Professional Squash Association. I’m sure it’s not that big a deal.”

  “You want me to lie,” she said flatly. He saw her grip the remaining throw pillow so hard that her knuckles turned white.

  “Well what the hell was the first reading, the biblical truth?”

  She frowned. “Just because you’re a nonbeliever doesn’t mean—”

  “Come on, Violet.”

  She didn’t say anything for a minute. He expected her to keep fighting, but she just sat there, looking glum.