by Julia London
“Well, sleep away, sleep until the next century for all I care. I won’t bother you.” He meant that sincerely. In fact, he’d lock her in the bedroom to make them both feel better.
She shifted her gaze to the cabinet again. “Am I in hell? Is this hell?” she asked the cabinet, her voice noticeably smaller.
Jake was about to suggest that perhaps he was the one in hell, but was startled by the realization that her chin was suddenly trembling. Trembling like she was about to cry. Before he could react, before he could bolt for the door and run screaming into the street, she turned big, wet blue eyes to him, blinking rapidly as she tried to keep tears from spilling. “I don’t have any coffee.”
That was definitely not what he expected her to say. Jake blinked, confused, “What?”
“I don’t have any coffee!” she shouted at him and began to cry. Cry. As in a river. Torrents of tears were suddenly washing down her face, and she collapsed, cross-legged, like a rag doll onto the kitchen floor and buried her face in her hands, sobbing. The woman he had pegged as potentially the biggest ballbuster this side of New York was suddenly blubbering all over the place.
“Yo, hey,” he said, laughing nervously to hide his sudden and intense discomfort. Women and tears—nothing could undo him faster than that, and he felt it coming at him like a bullet train. “Hey . . . hey there . . . uh . . . hey.” He waved his hand at her, only she didn’t see it, as her face was buried in her hands.
“Is it too much to ask?” she sobbed. “A lousy cup of coffee? This has been the worst day of my life! No wait, the worst night! No, oh no, why stop there? The worst weeeeek!”
Good God. “Might not be so bad if you’d just ratchet that throne of yours down a notch or two,” he offered helpfully.
She groaned. “I know, I know. Sorry,” she muttered grudgingly into her hands, and damn it if she didn’t almost sound sorry. But she kept crying.
“You know, I could go get you some coffee,” Jake offered reluctantly, mentally kicking himself the moment the words were out of his mouth.
The sobbing suddenly stopped on a strangled snort. She sniffed loudly, lifted her head, and rubbed her hand vigorously under her nose. “You would?” she asked with a soft hiccup. “You would do that for me after I was so . . . so . . .”
“So rude and obnoxious?”
“Yeah.”
He sighed wearily. Truthfully, he’d be doing Greater Houston a favor if he brought her something to help wash down her meds, because he was certain there was a boatload of them somewhere with her name written all over them. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll go.”
She considered him with big blue eyes. “But there’s nothing on this street.”
“No problem.” Well, not huge, anyway. “I’ll find something. Won’t take a minute.” Assuming there was a convenience store nearby. Which there wasn’t. Damn.
But then Robin Lear surprised him by smiling. Not just any smile, but one of those sweet female smiles. Up until that moment, he would have sworn she was incapable. “That would be sooo nice, you don’t even know!”
Jake took an unconscious step backward, uncertain if her fragile hold on this sudden happiness would take. “Well . . . okay, then. I’ll be back in a few.”
She startled him by suddenly coming to her feet and moving toward him. “I lost my wallet. I don’t have any cash—”
“Hey, it’s on me,” he said, quickening his step so that he might reach the door before she reached him, flinging his tool belt onto the counter without breaking stride.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly. “You’re a lifesaver.”
God, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He stepped through the door and walked briskly down the path to his bike.
“Mr. Manning?”
Jake risked a look over his shoulder.
She was standing in the doorway, her head poked out around the jamb to look at him. “Colombian, instead of French. I mean, if they have it. If they ask you, you could just say, Columbian.”
“Ah . . . sure.”
“And maybe a double mocha?”
Was that a 7-Eleven brand? Seeing as how his drink of choice was Mountain Dew, he rarely paid attention to the coffee bar in those stores, but he nodded all the same.
Robin Lear took a step outside.
Jake frantically shoved his hand into his pocket and tried to grab his keys at the same time he straddled his bike.
“Honestly? A skinny decaffeinated Colombian double mocha latte steamed and with nutmeg instead of chocolate would be great.” She smiled.
Was this chick for real? “Just one question,” Jake said. “Want me to handpick the beans, or can we just leave that to Juan Valdez and the donkey?” Before she could answer, Jake quickly revved his bike loud and long and took off so he couldn’t hear even a single word from that woman’s lips.
Double mocha was not a 7-Eleven coffee. When he paid for his soda, the clerk looked at him like he was an idiot and pointed him toward Java the Hut, “a couple of blocks” down.
Only a couple of blocks turned out to be several. By the time Jake found Java the Hut, he had forgotten the coffee instructions. “Colombian double chocolate,” he said.
“Dude!” the guy at the register exclaimed as he scratched around the earring in his nose. “Colombian double chocolate what?”
“Whatever you got. With nutmeg,” he said, proud that he’d remembered that, anyway. When he emerged at least a quarter of an hour later (the double chocolates had to wait behind everyone else, apparently) with his extra-wide whatever wrapped securely in a heat-containing cardboard sleeve, he was acutely conscious of how much additional time he’d lost in the course of being a good guy. He arrived in something of a huff at the house on North Boulevard a full forty minutes after he had walked out the door, no thanks to Miss Double Trouble Mocha, and paused now to listen for any signs of out-and-out insanity. Hearing none, he rapped lightly on the door.
No answer.
Jake knocked again for good measure, and when she didn’t answer, opened the door and cautiously peeked inside. It appeared empty.
Very carefully, he stepped inside, looked around. Maybe she’d left. Well, hell, she might have at least left a note since he’d gone to so much trouble to get her a hot chocolate thing. With a sigh of exasperation, he walked through the kitchen to the dining table and set the coffee down.
That was when he noticed his doughnuts were missing. Not missing, as in disappeared, but missing as in eaten. There was only one of the five plain glazed doughnuts he had brought for his midmorning snack and a few glazed crumbs.
He was still trying to absorb how a woman as svelte as Robin Lear could consume so many doughnuts—without even asking, for Pete’s sake—when he heard a noise that sounded remarkably like a snore. Jake looked down the hall, toward the bedroom, the only other furnished room in the house.
There it was again.
He walked quietly down the corridor, cautiously approaching the open bedroom door, and as he neared it, he could hear the sound of someone in the throes of a very deep sleep. He paused at one side of the open door, his back to the wall (just in case), then leaned over slowly and peeked inside.
Robin Lear was lying, facedown, atop the brocade coverlet on her bed, her arms flung wide. Her feet hung off the end and her hair was a mess of wet curls. But even more startling, she wore—and Jake had to look carefully to make sure he wasn’t seeing things—red pajamas covered in dozens of Curious George heads. Yep, that was Curious George, all right. But just his head(s).
Robin didn’t hear him, and in fact, he rather doubted she would have heard a nuclear blast in the adjoining bathroom. The barracuda was dead to the world, and he couldn’t help worry for a moment that she might suffocate, facedown as she was, but then she moved and turned her head to rest on one cheek instead of her face. It struck him then that in sleep, with her mouth shut, the ballbuster was actually a very pretty woman.
Satisfied that she would live to call him a pervert again, Jak
e quietly pulled the door to. Figuring he had some time before the monster awoke, Jake returned to the entry, where he proceeded to lay tarps, silently cursing Chuck Zaney’s name. Zaney had been his best friend since high school—they had played baseball together until Jake had gone on to the minors and Zaney had gone to the oil fields. When a torn Achilles tendon ended any hope he had of playing professional ball, Jake had gotten a job in construction.
He’d landed in the restoration and renovation business by accident, but one job led to another, and before long, he had enough to occupy himself full-time. It was a little lean now and again (now), but he was steadily building a business.
Then Zaney fell off a rig one day and landed on his head. No lie, the dude had landed on his head and had lived to tell about it. The only problem was, his brain was stuck somewhere between 1975 and 1996, and no one wanted to hear about the Clinton years. Jake had taken him on to help out a friend. It had been tough going at first, but he’d eventually discovered that once Zaney knew a task, he could do it well. He just wasn’t your go-to guy on something new.
Last night, Zaney had gone out for a few beers after work. He ended up, he’d told Jake at the detention facility this morning, at one of their old haunts on the east side of Houston, and had managed to get himself into a fight over a game of pool. In addition to a charge for public intoxication (for which Jake had bailed him out) and a mean hangover (for which Jake had given him two aspirin), Zaney had severely sprained his right arm (for which Jake had dropped him at the clinic).
Jake could not bear to think how far behind he was going to fall without Zaney. He tried to concentrate on the work in front of him. He was carefully removing years and layers of paint from these old brick walls, a tedious process that allowed him to save any gems of paper or paint he might find beneath the surface. Today, the work was made all the more tedious by the shrill beep of the answering machine picking up calls for Robin Lear.
The first call came from a guy named Evan who sounded totally gay to Jake. “Robin, it’s Evan. Pick up if you are there.”
“Robin won’t be picking up anything for a while, pal,” Jake muttered.
“Robbie, are you all right?” the guy asked breathlessly into the answering machine. “I heard about the fire, and I’m worried sick about you. Look, just call me, okay? I need to know you’re okay. Call me.”
Fire? That piqued Jake’s interest. Maybe she was arrested because she started a fire. That was an intriguing thought. A sexy arsonist . . .
The next call came from a woman who sounded like she soaked her Wheaties in Tabasco sauce every morning. “Where the hell are you, Robin? Jesus, you would not believe the calls the yard is getting about the fire!”
Must have been some fire.
“Everyone wants to know where you are, including me, thank you! Your grandma said you looked like hell—were you out drinking last night? Evan has called three times now and says he’s coming down tomorrow, so I booked him in at the Four Seasons, but they’re having a wedding or something and he can’t get his usual room, so he was all upset about that. Oh yeah, and Darren somebody from Atlantic? He’s called twice and wants you to call him as soon as possible. I told him about the fire, and he acted like I was bothering him. Man, where are you? I’m at the yard, and you know that guy, Albert? He—”
The answering machine clicked off, stayed silent for a while. Jake became engrossed in his work, digging through four layers of paint to old brick that was good quality, antique vintage.
The phone rang again. “Umm, hey, Robin . . . Bill Platthaus here. I’m back in New York. Long flight.” There was a pregnant pause; Jake picked up the Code Red he’d bought at 7-Eleven to wash down his doughnuts, waiting for the Platypus guy to ask about the fire. “Uh, listen, Robin, I have been trying to get hold of you for over a week now. . . .” He paused again, laughed nervously. “You know, I’m starting to wonder if maybe you don’t want to talk to me? I’m probably just imagining things, huh?”
Jake rolled his eyes, downed half the Code Red, and put it down. “You’re not imagining things, pal,” Jake said. “Consider yourself extremely lucky, because you have dodged a bullet.”
“Listen, I’d really appreciate it if you would give me a call. I’ll be home tonight. Let me make sure you have that number. 212-555 9249—”
“Don’t wait up,” Jake added, and wondered, as the guy repeated the number again, why he was not surprised that double-trouble mocha mama had a bunch of guys on a string.
The Platypus guy had hardly hung up the phone when it was ringing again. “Robbie, it’s your grandpa. You’re not in jail again, are you?” Grandpa laughed roundly at his own joke. “Well, I talked to the police, and they say it looks like the fire was probably an accident, so I guess no one was trying to kill you. Okay. Bye now.”
Big surprise there. But at least it explained the fire.
It was almost a half hour before the next call came. “Robin, it’s Bec. Hey, Mom said your office burned down and you were arrested for hitting an officer! God, what are you doing? Listen, I know you are having a bad day, but I really need to talk to you. Bud is already gone! That asshole didn’t have the decency to wait until I got home, just left Grayson with his mom—”
The sound of a large object crashing onto the floor in the bedroom covered up whatever else sister Bec might have said, as well as a string of very colorful profanities. Another crash, then Robin’s muffled shout. “Rebecca, are you there? Hey, I did not hit an officer! God, is that what Grandma is telling everyone?”
The shouting was suddenly crystal clear as the door to the bedroom was flung open, and Robin Lear emerged in her pajamas, her hair a riot of dark walnut–colored corkscrew curls spinning off in every direction. Oblivious to Jake, Robin and dozens of Curious Georges marched blindly down the corridor to the dining table, ear to the phone. “God, no, of course not!” she cried, falling into a chair. “I just sort of mouthed off to him, and—I was not drinking! Why does everyone keep asking me that?” She vigorously scratched her head.
Jake lowered his brush, aware that he was unable to keep from looking at her as she exclaimed at the fine of seven hundred fifty dollars for driving without a license or insurance. She was, admittedly, a very attractive woman in a wild, Curious George sort of way. She had slender feet, bright red toenails, and elegant hands. Her hair, while a little on the enormously untamed side, was actually very becoming on her, framing her ivory skin in dark brown curls. And her eyes were electric blue, which also seemed fitting, the lashes dark and thick, and her lips . . . well now, those were a pair of lips.
He watched her as she talked on the phone, still oblivious to him, her free hand slicing and dicing savagely into space as she expounded on her night in jail. Somehow, the conversation shifted to Bec’s woes with someone named Bud. Robin listened intently, squinting at the wall in front of her, exclaiming over and over again, without hesitation, that Bud was a huge prick. And then her voice changed again, to a soft, almost vulnerable voice, and she asked nervously, “How’s Dad?” Whatever she heard seemed to sadden her. Her shoulders slumped; she nodded, finally said, “I know. Yeah, I know.”
But Jake had the strong feeling that she really didn’t know, and against his better judgment, he felt a little sorry for her.
When Robin finally said good-bye, she carefully placed the phone down, rubbed her fists in her eyes, and looked up. That was when she saw him standing there, and she blinked, surprised. “What are you doing?”
“Working.”
She blinked again, nodded as that registered somewhere in her brain. After a moment, she asked, “Where’s my coffee?”
“Where are my doughnuts?”
She gave him a sheepish smile. “Okay, sorry about that. But I only had a couple. I was starving! Anyway, that was hours ago.”
Like the coffee wasn’t? “You ate more than a couple. You ate four.”
“Four?” she exclaimed, shocked. “Ohmigod, how many calories is that? Wait! What time i
s it?”
Confused, Jake glanced at his watch. “Quarter to five.”
“Oh jeeeez.” She sighed and ran her hands through her curls, making them look even bigger. “Shouldn’t you be wrapping it up for the day?” she asked, impatiently gesturing in a “wrap-it-up” way.
“Sorry, but I lost a little time going for coffee this morning,” he said, looking pointedly at the cup full of the cold mocha crap still on the table, “and I’m not to a place I can quit just yet.”
The phone rang; Robin started, glanced at the phone, then at Jake. It continued to ring, but she made no move to answer it, and shrugged. “I’m not in the mood to talk,” she said by way of explanation and let the phone ring until the answering machine picked up.
“Robin Elaine, this is your father! I know you are there, I just got off the phone with Rebecca! Now pick up the goddamn phone!”
Robin Elaine moved so fast that Jake unconsciously jumped back a step. She lunged at the phone, and in the process, sent the coffee sailing from the table across the tiled floor.
Chapter Six
Robin scarcely noticed the coffee or anything else other than her father’s voice blaring out of the answering machine. This was the call she had dreaded, the inevitability of it haunting her exhausted sleep. She grabbed the phone before Jake Manning heard Dad go off like a madman. “Dad?”
“What in the hell is going on?” he demanded the moment he heard her voice. “I heard the goddam office burned down and that you spent a night in jail for hitting a policeman!”
“I did not hit a policeman! I was arrested for driving without a license and—”
“How in the hell does someone get arrested for driving without a license!?”
Wincing at the sheer decibel level, Robin jerked the phone away from her ear for a split second, then cautiously put it back. “It’s a long story, Dad, and just a really stupid mistake. I sort of talked back to him—”
“Goddammit, Robin, that is exactly what I am talking about! You are too arrogant for your own good! You think you know better than everyone else!”
