by Jane Graves
“Renee—”
“Well, I’ve got news for you. None of them are going to overlook anything. Alex is going to think I’m a criminal until the day I die. And what about Dave? How’s he going to feel about having an ex-juvenile delinquent hanging around? Oh, hell, what am I saying? What about Brenda? If I show up at a family lunch, she’s liable to haul along an automatic weapon and blow my brains—”
“Renee!” John shouted. “Will you shut up for a minute?” She glared at him.
“You’re coming home with me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’m not asking. I’m telling.”
“Oh, really?”
“Really.”
Before she knew what was happening, he’d stood up, grabbed her arm, and hoisted her over his shoulder. A few seconds of sheer astonishment gave way to a surge of anger. She kicked and screamed, but he held on, his arm wrapped snugly around her thighs. He walked her through the club, past the prying eyes of every cross-dresser in town, giving them an unobstructed view right up her micro-miniskirt that probably made it quite clear that she really was here under false pretenses. He hauled her out the front door and strode down the street, then deposited her by the passenger door of his Explorer. He unlocked the door and yanked it open.
“Get in.”
“Forget it.”
“Renee—”
“I said no!”
He took a step toward her, backing her against the car, then took her face in his hands and slammed his mouth down on hers.
It happened so quickly that Renee didn’t even get a chance to take a breath. She’d thought about him kissing her again a hundred times since last night, just like this, hot and hard, his hands taking command of her body while his mouth devoured hers. The jolt of ecstasy she felt as fantasy became reality was almost too powerful to bear. She knew she should yank herself away and ask him how he dared kiss her after everything that had happened. She couldn’t let him get away with sweet-talking her, sweet-kissing her, because she knew she could never trust him when the chips were down.
Then she realized, as her brain started to feel woozy from lack of oxygen, that she really had no choice in the matter. He was going to kiss her until he decided to stop or she died of asphyxiation, whichever came first. Soon any inclination she’d had to fight him melted right out of her, and all she could do was let the feeling overtake her and hope she survived the experience.
Finally he pulled away, his breath still burning her lips. She took a huge, gasping breath, teetering on her high heels, her brain so fuzzy that she thought she just might pass out.
“Get in the car.”
Still a little woozy, she plopped herself down in the passenger seat and he closed the door behind her. He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car, yanking it sharply into gear and heading for his house. He pushed the limit all the way home, saying nothing, just staring straight ahead with a man-on-a-mission expression that made her very, very nervous.
Then all at once she had a flashback to the time he’d first dragged her to his house instead of to the police station. He’d led her through the kitchen, into his bedroom, and then...Oh, no. Surely he wasn’t thinking of that. Was he?
“John?” she said weakly, knowing he was a whole lot stronger than she was, and if he chose to do this, she’d never be able to stop him. “Where are your handcuffs?”
He turned to her with a small, wicked smile. “You’ll see.”
Renee looked at him with a mixture of disbelief and dread. Was she destined to live out the rest of her life handcuffed to this man’s bed?
He pulled into his garage, then dropped the automatic door behind them. He escorted her into the house, much as he had that first night, only this time, the moment they hit the door she heard shouting coming from one of the bedrooms. A lot of very angry shouting laced with profanity that just about peeled the paint off the walls.
She looked at John quizzically.
“Alex paid me a visit tonight, just like he promised.”
More shouting. More creative profanity in strange and startling combinations. More threats of extreme physical violence, all of them against John.
What was going on here?
Renee moved quietly down the hall toward John’s spare bedroom. Then she turned the comer, and she couldn’t believe what she saw.
Alex was handcuffed to John’s weight bench.
She blinked, thinking maybe she was seeing things. But there he was, his face all red with anger, looking like a bull ready to charge. Fortunately, he could charge only as far as the handcuffs would allow.
“He was going to stop me from going to the club tonight,” John said, coming up beside Renee at the door. “So I persuaded him to allow me to go after all.”
“Persuaded, my ass,” Alex muttered. “Of all the low-down, rotten things to do to your own brother—”
Renee stared at Alex in dumb disbelief. The implication of what John had done came to her in small bits, until finally she realized the truth: he’d put his neck on the line with his brother, his family, his job. For her.
She stood there, staring at Alex, feeling like the biggest fool alive. After everything she’d said to John at the club about not standing up to his brother, what was she supposed to say now?
She put her hand to her forehead, overcome by the feeling of her own stupid misconceptions flying right out of her brain. If only John had explained. If he’d just explained all this to her, then maybe she wouldn’t have prattled on, saying all those rotten things to him. But then again, she hadn’t given him much of a chance to explain, had she?
“What’s going on here?” Alex said.
“Renee is innocent,” John told him. “We found the guy who robbed that convenience store.”
Alex looked back and forth between them. “No way.”
“He’s in jail right now.”
“So she really didn’t do it?”
“Nope.”
Alex looked all red and flustered, as if he didn’t quite know how to respond to that. “Well, you were still wrong last night. You should have taken her in. And you sure as hell shouldn’t have done this. Now get these cuffs off me!”
John let out a reluctant sigh. “I guess I can’t leave him locked up forever,” he told Renee, extracting the key from his pocket. “Get ready to call 911.”
He unlocked the cuff. The moment it fell away, Alex whipped around, coming to his feet as if they still had a score to settle. Renee wedged herself between them.
“Stop!”
Her top-of-her-lungs command halted Alex in his tracks, his eyes flying open with surprise. “Wait just a—”
“No, you wait,” Renee said, jabbing her finger at his chest. “You’re not going to lay one finger on him!”
Alex stared at her, dumbfounded.
“Now, listen up. You may be twice my size, but if you so much as touch him, I’ll make you sorry you were ever born. I’ll find ways to torment you that you can’t even imagine. I’ll make your life miserable. Death will seem like a relief after what I’m going to do if you touch one hair on his head. Do you understand?”
Alex leaned away from her slightly, a look of utter astonishment on his face. He turned his gaze to John, then back to Renee. Finally he rubbed his wrist and let out a breath of disgusted resignation.
“Jesus, John,” he muttered. “She’s as insane as you are.”
John glanced back at Renee, who was still huffing from her attack on Alex. That microscopic red dress made her look like a little blond devil who’d risen up from the underworld to give his brother holy hell. She was actually an angel in disguise, but it was going to take Alex a while to figure that out.
“We can consider this matter closed, then,” Renee said, her angry gaze still boring into Alex. “Is that correct?”
“Oh, all right,” he muttered, then glared at John. “But I swear to God, if you tell a solitary soul what happened here tonight, nothing will be able to save yo
ur ass. Not even your crazy girlfriend.”
John smiled. “I wouldn’t think of it.”
“Yeah, I’ll just bet you wouldn’t.” He started toward the door, shooting them both nasty looks. “I’ve had to pee for the last hour. If you’ll excuse me?”
He left the room, and John turned slowly to face Renee. “Does this mean I’m forgiven for last night?”
She walked over and slid into his arms, and John felt such an outpouring of relief that he could barely contain it. He held her so tightly he was almost afraid of hurting her, but when he thought about how close he’d come to losing her, anything less just wasn’t enough. He couldn’t believe they’d actually found the person who committed that robbery. He couldn’t believe she was back here with him again.
He couldn’t believe she’d stopped Alex from murdering him. “Thanks for sticking up for me, sweetheart. If you hadn’t, you just might be taking me to the hospital right about now.”
“Nah. He’s not so tough.”
No, he’s not. Not compared to you.
After what she’d been through in the past several days, still she managed to go to that club tonight to try to prove her innocence, and he felt nothing but shame that he hadn’t stood by her. That was a mistake he intended never to make again.
John heard the bathroom door open, and then Alex stomping down the hall toward the living room. The front door opened, then slammed so hard the pictures rattled on the walls.
“I guess he’s still a little mad, huh?” Renee said.
“He’ll get over it.” John took Renee’s face in his hands and kissed her gently. “I need to go to the station. Make sure we get that confession out of Steve. You’ll stay right here until I get back, won’t you?”
She leaned close and whispered in his ear that yes, she would, and precisely where in his house she’d be, and that it had just become and would forever remain a no-handcuff zone.
When John returned home an hour and a half later, he found Renee asleep in his bed. That hot little red dress was tossed on his dresser, along with those pink undies of hers, and the purple hat was in the trash can. He sat down on the bed beside her. She stirred and turned over, and that was when he realized that she hadn’t bothered to put on one of his shirts. She hadn’t bothered to put on anything.
A very nice surprise.
He touched her shoulder, and her eyes blinked open. She smiled up at him.
“Everything’s okay, sweetheart,” he said, brushing a strand of blond hair away from her cheek. “Steve confessed.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. He wasn’t too sure he wanted to, but then Tom came down to the station and added a little extra persuasion. You’re off the hook.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her body going limp with relief.
“I owe my life to you,” she whispered.
He felt a shiver when she said that, thinking about how anything in the past few days could have taken a wrong turn and maybe they wouldn’t have discovered the truth. Renee might have run so far that he never would have found her, or she’d have eventually gotten caught and he’d have had to live with the knowledge that she was inside prison walls and he hadn’t been able to do anything to stop it.
“Come on, sweetheart. You were the one who took out a rabid bounty hunter and extracted a confession from an armed robber. You didn’t need me.”
“Yes, I did. I needed a man who couldn’t take me to jail when he knew I was innocent, no matter what the rest of the world said.” She laid her palm against his cheek. “I love you, John. I know that’s hard to believe after so short a time, but I do.”
He didn’t realize until this moment how desperately he’d wanted to hear her say that. But still he felt uneasy. “Are you sure it isn’t just gratitude?”
He’d asked her that once before, when they were on the verge of making love for the first time, and that same doubt was creeping in again. He was afraid to ask the question. Afraid to find out it wasn’t really love on her part, because he’d fallen so hard for her that if she didn’t feel the same, he wasn’t sure he’d ever pick himself back up again.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s not just because of what you did. It’s because of who you are. It’s because you were willing to risk everything that’s important to you. For me.” She lay back against the pillow, smiling sleepily. “Now, will you please take off your clothes and come to bed?”
She didn’t have to ask twice.
Epilogue
Renee had survived a false criminal accusation and three run-ins with a bounty hunter who was out for blood, then single-handedly choked a confession out of an armed robber, but going to Aunt Louisa’s house the next Sunday for lunch was still one of the most nerve-racking experiences of her life. Even though John assured her that he’d told his family the whole story, Renee still felt uneasy.
“This is so weird,” Renee whispered to John as they took their places at the table.
“Relax,” he whispered back. “I told you everything’s fine.”
“Alex is giving me the evil eye.”
“That’s the way he looks at everybody.”
“Are you sure they want me here?”
“Trust me, sweetheart. Everything’s okay.”
The family had greeted her in a perfectly gracious manner, but now that they knew everything about her, she couldn’t help but think they’d never again look at her as favorably as they had the first time they’d met her. Did they still think she was the woman for John? Or did they hope he’d eventually come to his senses and dump her?
Everyone stuck their napkins in their laps, and Aunt Louisa started the mashed potatoes around. Brenda picked up the platter of fried chicken, took a couple of wings, then handed it to Alex.
“Hey, Alex,” she said offhandedly. “Been meaning to ask you. Where did you get that bruise around your wrist?”
Alex froze for a moment, then grabbed three or four chicken legs and deposited them on his plate, saying nothing.
“Yeah,” Dave said. “I was looking at that myself. I cuffed a guy once who was resisting arrest. He flipped out. When I finally turned him loose, his wrists looked just like that.”
“Handcuffs?” Sandy said, looking bewildered. “It couldn’t be. I mean, when’s the last time you saw a cop in handcuffs?”
“I’ll be over tomorrow evening to help you fix that door frame,” Eddie told John. “It’s a shame it got beat up that way. What did you say happened again?”
“Oh, all right” Alex turned to glare at John. “You couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you?”
John shrugged. “Something may have slipped out.”
“Thanks one hell of a lot,” Alex muttered. “Now I suppose the whole world is going to know about it.”
“Nope,” Sandy said. “If we tell everyone you were outwitted by your brother and spent three hours handcuffed to his weight bench, we’d also have to say why you were handcuffed to the weight bench, which means we’d have to tell the world what was going on with John and Renee, and we’re not going to go there, are we?”
“But that doesn’t mean it can’t become family legend,” Brenda said.
“Of course not,” Sandy said. “We reserve the right to give him a hard time about it at every family gathering from now until the end of time.”
“Especially the part about Renee wearing the purple satin hat when she slapped Alex down,” Brenda said. “I love that part.”
“With pearls,” Sandy added.
“Of course,” Brenda said.
The tight knot of anxiety Renee had felt since she walked in the door slowly unfurled, exposing a sense of belonging she’d wanted desperately to feel. She glanced at Sandy, then Brenda, and they both smiled at her. She smiled back. Furtively, of course. It wouldn’t do for Alex to see that she was enjoying this.
“Well, we’re certainly glad to have Renee with us again, aren’t we?” Aunt Louisa said.
Everyone nodded. Enthusiastically
, even. Well, almost everyone. She thought Alex kind of twitched a little, but she couldn’t be sure.
Then Aunt Louisa got a bewildered look on her face. “But you know, John, you told us something about Renee growing up, something about when she was a teenager....”
Renee frowned, feeling all that anxiety crawl right back inside her again.
“But for some reason,” Aunt Louisa went on, “I just can’t seem to remember what it was.” She shook her head. “I suppose I’m just getting old. Do you remember, Sandy?”
Sandy pondered that for a moment, then shrugged. “Seems to have slipped my mind, too. Dave?”
“Sorry. I don’t remember either.”
“Me either,” Brenda said, then turned to Alex with a pointed stare. “How about you, Alex?”
Alex’s mouth twisted with disgust. Brenda kicked him under the table.
“Can’t remember a thing,” he muttered.
Then Grandpa and Eddie voiced the same memory loss that, tragically, appeared to run in the DeMarco family. Only Grandma looked around the table with a perplexed expression.
“What’s the matter with you people?” she said. “She was a rotten little juvenile delinquent with a rap sheet so long you could measure it with a yardstick.”
The whole family froze, then turned their gazes to Renee. She knew she should be mortified, and a week ago she might have been. But now she just couldn’t help it. She smiled. Then Brenda smiled, too, and Sandy snickered a little. Then everybody else joined in, and before long the walls were shaking with laughter. Grandma looked at everyone as if they were nuts, and Renee realized it had been a very long time since she’d laughed so hard her sides hurt, and it felt good.
When the laughter finally died down, Alex gave everyone a roundhouse glare. “So where’s everybody’s selective memory loss when I need it?”
“Renee left all that stuff behind her when she was a teenager,” Sandy said. “You, on the other hand, were a jerk just last week.”
Everyone nodded again, then resumed munching on Aunt Louisa’s fried chicken. They speculated about how well the Cowboys might hold up against the Steelers this afternoon, and soon a heated discussion erupted, with one person quoting quarterback statistics, another reciting injury lists. And Renee couldn’t believe how wonderful it felt to be part of the family rather than an outsider looking in.
