Tonight, now…he was a timeless magician whose body bent iron and sparked fire. Or was that the moonshine talking? She swore he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen: hard and sweet looking at the same time.
Tonight, although he’d unveiled another piece of his puzzle, he sat before her a mystery she desperately wanted to solve.
11
“Can’t sleep again?” Ive asked.
Uma replied, “Didn’t even try,” then seemed to remember something, her features tightening. She stood, pulled a wadded-up piece of paper from her pocket, and gave it to him. “Here. Take a look.” More carefully, she sat back down in her chair, and he glanced at the paper.
“What is… Oh.” Understanding dawned as he read it.
“You write that?”
He hesitated before shaking his head.
“What the hell?” she asked.
He looked away, feeling his cheeks heat with embarrassment.
“You do this for shits and giggles? Trying to torture a poor old lady?”
“No way,” he growled, seriously offended before tamping it down. It wasn’t her fault. He’d be pissed too in her shoes. With a groan, he rubbed a hand over his nape, slugged back half his beer, and told her, “I gave it to a friend. Had too much shit goin’ on and didn’t have time to deal with placin’ the ad again. She was headed to the Gazette anyway, said she’d ask ’em to run it again, but the stupid paper misplaced the old version, and when Binx went to—”
“Wait, Binx? From self-defense class?”
Shit. Hadn’t meant to let that out. “Yeah.” He sighed. “Don’t think she meant any harm by it; she just does stupid crap, y’know? Without thinking.”
Uma made a disbelieving little sound in her throat. “Why didn’t you have them pull it when you found out?”
“I did! ’Course I did, Uma.” The words came out defensive, so he pulled himself back. “Switched the ad as soon as I could. But the kid responsible for the ads kept screwing up and keepin’ the old one. Maybe he thought it was funny, maybe he had his hands full and kept forgettin’—whichever it was, took a few days before they finally got it right. Hell.” He looked at her. “I’ve been helpin’ Ms. Lloyd for years now, you know? She’s all alone. Can’t find anyone. The people she does get take advantage of her, steal shit. Not like she has anything worth taking, but… They treat her like shit, and she’s there all by herself, and one day, I’m gonna head over there and find her on the floor half-dead. And then I’ll have to go out and hunt down the fucker who did that to her. I wouldn’t want to put somethin’ out there that’d attract people who’d want to hurt her. I’d never do a fuckin’ thing like that.”
Uma leaned forward in her seat. “You could have told her, at least. Warned her about it.”
“No point hurtin’ her over something’ neither of us could change. And then you showed up, and I figured I didn’t need to.”
“Congratulations to Binx. You can tell her she managed to get half the loonies in the county calling Ms. Lloyd.”
“What?”
“Yeah. She hasn’t mentioned all the calls?”
“No.”
“Well, good job looking out for her.” She shifted back and drained her cup, leaving them in silence.
“I’m so damned sorry, Uma. If I’d a known…”
She eyed him a second before turning away, her features less angry if not entirely settled. “The ad got me here, didn’t it? At least for now. And I have no intention of hurting Ms. Lloyd, so…I guess it worked out for everybody. In the end.”
“True. Who’d have thought anybody’d be crazy enough to answer an ad like that?”
Her smile was a little bit sad. “Yeah, well, here I am.”
He pictured himself leaning forward to kiss it right off her face. “I’m sorry.”
With a toss of her hair, she puffed out a hard breath that changed the air in the room. “Guess I’m the only person crazy enough to answer that stupid ad.” There was a challenge in those words.
“Yeah.” He looked down at the paper in his hand and smirked. “Which part was it that sold you on the job? Kinky? Or maybe you’re into the old hag thing.”
“Oh please. Whatever.”
“No, seriously. What’d you think when you read it?”
“What did I think? Seriously? Hmm, let’s see. Why not? Love a good challenge.”
“Yeah?” he asked, not believing her but enjoying the back and forth.
“Yeah.”
Oh, he liked this Uma. A little pissed off and sarcastic, maybe flirty underneath. He narrowed his eyes and leaned in, head tilted at an angle, focus divided between her eyes and her lips. “So, princess, just how crazy are you?”
Why did that come out sounding like a challenge?
She must have felt it too, judging from the way she responded, her eyes darting over his face, assessing him openly before she responded. “Crazy as a shithouse rat. Still interested?” She imitated his tone, was better at it. “How about you, Ivan? How crazy are you?”
“Baby, you have no idea.”
Uma lifted her brows. “Did you call me baby?”
He stilled. Had he gone too far? Probably. He always did. But a closer look showed a new light in her eyes, bright and a little wild.
“Might have.”
Her chest rose and fell once, twice. She broke her gaze away from his, put her cup to her mouth, and took a gulp.
“Better than princess, I guess,” she said grudgingly but with a sharp stab of humor that he hadn’t realized was there. In that moment, Ive knew he was toast. He’d do whatever she wanted.
Whatever she needed.
He caught himself staring and had to turn away before she ran, screaming what everyone in Blackwood knew about him anyway—that he was a psychotic freak.
She surprised him again when she abruptly shifted gears. “So, the beard. How’s it feel without it?”
“Pretty good,” he managed to say, rubbing his palm over his chin, assessing. “Weird, actually. Been a few years.”
“Yeah? How long?”
“Um, maybe six or so?”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. My nephew, Gabe? He’s never seen me without it.”
“Wow… Wow.”
She looked at him so hard he had to look away again. What was it about this woman that made him feel exactly like a teenager?
* * *
Uma couldn’t help but stare at his gorgeous face and wonder what would make a man as handsome as this one hide for so long. Mid-perusal, her eyes came to a stuttering halt.
Freckles. A sweet smattering of them danced across the bridge of his nose. Funny how she hadn’t noticed them when he’d had the beard. Shaving it off had uncovered more than his jaw. Layers of camouflage had peeled away to reveal a mass of contradictions. Freckles vs. scars. Soft, lush lips vs. hard, mean jaw.
Jesus, she wanted to see him in black and white, with such high contrast that the blue eye would be white and the freckles would pop like flecks of fairy dust. The other eye… Uma couldn’t picture how that whiskey color would photograph.
He must have caught something in her gaze, because he sort of squinted at her, shyly flirtatious. Like dipping your toe into hot water after years without a bath; everything south of her belly button went sloshy.
Crap, what was this? She looked away first, relieved to see him get up, grab her mug, and move to fetch a new round of drinks.
“You been married?” he asked from across the room.
She shook her head. Something about the way he asked made her counter, “You?”
“Nah.” He hesitated. “Came pretty close once, but—” He stopped short, and she could feel the story there.
Back on his crate, he handed her the cup and then reached his bottle out for a toast. “Here’s to being
crazy, right?”
They clinked, the sound reminiscent of a million toasts before.
Toasts her pops had shared with friends who stopped by for a drink after closing. Other toasts too: her mother and stepdad celebrating over mugs of whatever homebrew he’d made, before invariably spitting it out and lighting up a doobie.
There’d been toasts in college, with kids whose parents had no idea they were getting wasted on Mommy and Daddy’s dime. At least their folks would have cared. Uma’s mother didn’t give a shit what she did to her body, as long as she did yoga and ate organic.
And then the toasts with Joey. Uma’s mind wanted to shy away, but she forced it back.
New Uma faces the good and the bad, remember?
There’d been toasts in nice restaurants where he’d shown her off to his friends. Intimate dinners at his place, before it became their place. They’d toasted the future, kids, life together, love.
Toasted their tattoos. Together. Sure, he’d pressured her into it, but it had seemed fun, sweet. He’d gotten a massive UMA carved into his shoulder and insisted that she do the same. The JOEY on Uma’s back seemed so innocuous now, compared to the rest. A scrolling beacon of perfection lost among the barely legible scribbles that Joey had eventually drowned her in.
Uma’s mind skittered away from the forgive-me dinners she’d sat through. The nights she’d watched the food cool after slaving over it for hours, nights he’d stayed out with no explanation, times he’d come home drunk and coerced her into having sex with him. Those had been the worst. The feelings of confusion, distrust, even guilt, listening to him blame her for his bad behavior, his absences. She’d stopped forgiving him eventually and had, finally, tried to get away. That hadn’t gone over so well.
“So.” Ivan picked up the ad and shook it, yanking her back to the present. “Guess we got you here under false pretenses. Sorry about that.”
Uma blinked at him through the haze of memories. Something about this place had her disappearing into her head more than usual.
He didn’t look sorry, she noticed.
“I wouldn’t call it false pretenses. I’d say the description was pretty accurate. Besides, you don’t need to apologize to me,” she said, sounding snippier than she’d intended, “but you might want to say something to Ms. Lloyd.”
“Yeah. She know about it?”
“What do you think?”
“Damn. You tell her?”
“Of course I told her! I had to! You know what I called her? The day I got here?”
“What?”
“I called her an old hag.”
He sputtered midsip. “You’re shittin’ me!” There was laughter in his voice, lighting him from inside, and suddenly those sweet freckles made sense on that stern face.
Uma couldn’t help but smile along.
“Not shitting you at all. I called my boss an old hag. On my very first day of work.”
“Oh man. Wish I coulda seen her face.”
“It was like this.” Uma pursed her lips, made big eyes, and Ivan laughed—a round, delicious, velvety sound.
A thin veil of happiness skimmed over the ache inside her, shimmering between them.
Their eyes met, snagged, held, until Uma’s shied away, reaching for something, anything, to distract her from the palpable presence in the room—this unwelcome attraction. Her gaze settled on the bed, unmade, sheets a mess.
“Thanks for letting me sleep out here the other night.”
“Anytime, babe. Or should I go back to calling you princess?”
She made an irritated pfff sound that she didn’t really mean. Her brain was sluggish, slower than her mouth, which went ahead and asked questions she hadn’t even thought about yet. Silly things like “So, why don’t you have a wife, Ive?”
His eyebrows popped up into one of those sly, full-of-themselves looks guys sometimes had. “Why, you interested?”
Uma flushed again, hoping he couldn’t read how quickly her mind slotted herself neatly into the big, white house behind them.
“Nooo.” She drew it out, sounding petulant rather than cool. “You just… You’re a good-looking guy. Aren’t there women around here?”
“Haven’t met the right one, is all.” His eyes were still warm when they focused fully on Uma, making her nervy with expectation. “Wouldn’t mind a family one day, though.”
She went for a joke, way too uncomfortable with the whole conversation. “Well, you’ve got that house up there. The tricycle. You’ve practically got a little sign that says ‘Insert wife here.’” When no response came, she got fidgety under his gaze and eventually looked away. “This place is great, though. Really great.”
Ivan nodded. Uma nodded. It was like a fucking bobblehead convention.
“How old are you?” she asked, thinking he looked a little old to only now be thinking about starting a family.
“Thirty-two.”
“Oh.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I look older?”
“Not really. Without the beard, you look about twelve, but before…not so much old as impossible to tell. And then there’re those bruises, the…” She let the words trail off as she indicated his scar. Some people didn’t want their scars pointed out to them—herself included.
His smile said he wasn’t easily offended. At least, not about his looks. “One of the perks of my job, I guess.” He indicated the anvil behind him. It did seem pretty dangerous—literally playing with fire. “There’s also the fightin’.”
“Yeah. So I saw. Do you get hurt a lot?”
Uma remembered his limbs entwined with his opponent’s, the sound of a hard tussle, and that smell.
Oh man. If she ever got ahold of a camera again, that would be her first stop—back to the gym to capture it all. There was nothing like the challenge of communicating those indescribable elements through a photo: the sounds, the smells, the adrenaline, and, above all, this man, the way nature surely meant for him to be. Uma wanted that so badly, she could feel the camera’s absence prickle her hand like a phantom limb.
Fuck Joey. Just fuck him. For destroying my equipment, for taking my soul away from me.
“Yeah. Keeps me outta trouble.”
“So, you make a living doing this?”
“Yep.”
Feeling fidgety, she stood and crossed to the long wall that held the enormous set of gates she’d admired before, intricate and beautiful and masculine. “You’re an artist.”
“Nah. I just pound metal.”
Her fingers lit on a piece of the gate, following it from the top to halfway down. It ran smooth and shiny black, graceful and strong, coming together with the other pieces in waves, without any of the scrolling curlicues you might associate with the medium.
“This is amazing.”
“It’s for out front.”
“Here?”
He nodded, and she could see those gates framing the end of the driveway, facing the street, keeping out intruders. A strong statement.
She took a turn around the room, admiring other bits of ironwork and random things that had nothing to do with metal. An African-looking wooden statue of a pregnant woman, her large breasts brazenly nude and not remotely sexual. A pair of mercury glass hurricane lamps, the melted candles inside saying they’d seen lots of use. A dog bed in the corner, with a big black cat snoozing comfortably. Funny that the animal had gone completely unnoticed. She squatted and ran a hand over its sleek fur. No response—just the slow, steady breathing of deep, unworried sleep.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
“Is this cat alive?” When she looked up, Ivan’s eyes were on her, warm and familiar.
“Gertie? Yeah. Doesn’t move much.”
“Is she old?”
He shrugged. “Had the vet out here to check on my animals. Said she’s geriatric.”<
br />
“I saw all the food bowls. How many animals do you have?”
“Well, got Squeak. And a few cats. There’s a wild pony—call him Marley, ’cause of the dreads. The chickens…they’re just the girls. Rooster, skunk, you know… Whoever shows up lookin’ for chow.”
“That’s quite a menagerie.”
“Somebody’s gotta feed ’em.”
“And pay for medical care.”
“Vet gives me a break. I made him a railing for his new house. And a fence. Few other things.”
She smiled, then stood and moved back to the armchair, feeling his eyes on her. “You barter with the vet.”
“It’s the country, princess.”
“Guess I’m not in Kansas anymore.”
Their eyes met and held, the warmth in his evident. Uma wondered if he could tell how much she liked him—not just as a man, but as a person.
He leaned in and asked, “So, how long you plannin’ on stickin’ around?”
“I’m not. I’ve got…something to do, and then I’m gone.” Even as she said it, she hated the thought. Leaving this place. It sounded awful.
His expression hardened. “I don’t know what happened with the asshole you’re runnin’ from, Uma, but I can tell it wasn’t good.” He canted even closer. “I know I’m big an’ ugly, but I don’t hurt women. You got that? Ever,” he said fervently. “I will tear some shit up in a fight. I mean, I’ve been stupid as hell in my life, but never with a woman. Never.”
“Okay,” she mumbled, oddly emotional about this outburst.
“Not sayin’ it to make you feel bad. I’m just…” She could see him searching for words. “I don’t want you scared of me.”
“I get it.”
He nodded and relaxed onto his crate. Uma sank back into the armchair, letting go of muscles that must have bunched during his tirade. What had happened in his life to rile him up like this?
Under Her Skin Page 11
