by EC Sheedy
Dan chewed on his own frustration, tamped down his growing anger. “She isn’t here, is she?”
“No.”
“Where then, and with who?”
“Outside the city, with Erin and the new nanny we’ve hired.”
New nanny! Like his having Kylie was a done deal. Dan ignored the burn in his chest, but his words came out in a tough string. “You’re ahead of yourself, Grantman. Way ahead.”
“I’m ahead of most people, including you.” He looked so goddamned pleased with himself, it was all Dan could do not to wipe the smirk off his face with his fist.
Telling himself, again, this was neither the time nor the place to pop Kylie’s granddad, he strode across the study toward its exit, crossing two Persian rugs along the way. He stopped at the ceiling-height doors which he knew led to the marble-floored hall and grand staircase. And gilt, lots of gilt. Paul and Erin knew how to live—or at least thought they did.
“I came here directly from the airport,” Dan said, “to pay my respects and pick up Kylie. Seems I’ve failed on both counts. We’ll talk again, after the service.” He paused. “Holly wouldn’t want us at odds over this. She’d want what’s best for Kylie. And”—he again rubbed his unshaven jaw—“while I might not look the part, that little girl has called me Daddy for two years now. I don’t intend for that to change.” He lifted the ornate bronzed latch, opened the door a couple of inches, then decided on some conciliation. “I don’t intend to keep her from you. You care about her, I know that. So there’ll be no problem on that score.”
“Who the hell do you think you are? Granting me favors,” Paul snapped, his expression flat. “I was against her marrying you, you know.”
“I’d say you made that plain. Like I made it plain I didn’t give a good goddamn what you thought. Still don’t.” Dan looked across the spacious room to where his father-in-law stood by the fireplace. Its mantel was too high for him to rest an arm on, and he looked minimized and bleak in front of its carved oak facade, dwarfed by his possessions—and maybe by the death of the daughter he loved, in his own possessive way.
“You weren’t the man for her,” he said. “Always gone, never there for her. Holly hated being alone. You must have known that.”
Dan took a couple of seconds to conquer his unquiet breathing. He didn’t take his hand from the latch, thoughts of Holly, her cheating, and her mystery lover heating his mind. None of it anything Grantman needed to know.
It wasn’t the first time Dan had accepted his part in her infidelity; he had left her alone. It didn’t matter that she’d been the one pushing him to go this past year, didn’t matter that he’d tightened his schedule, shortened his times away by living on goddamn planes. He done that for Holly and for Kylie. Turned out Holly hated his impromptu arrivals home, and it was during one of them he’d found out why. His gut knotted. “As it turned out, you were right. I wasn’t the man for Holly. But I’m the father for Kylie. The only one.” He opened the door and walked out, his eyes dry, the knot in his gut barely perceptible now, probably because he’d been living with the damn thing for so goddamn long it was starting to feel natural. Shit!
In the cab taking him to his hotel, Dan put his head back, stared at two burn holes in the cab’s gray fabric head liner. Surprisingly, his eyes moistened with tears. He closed his lids against them, not sure what the hell he was feeling so rotten about, Holly’s death or his own guilt that the emptiness created by her death was only an enlargement of the wound her cheating had torn into his chest months before.
Paul was right. Dan wasn’t the man for Holly, and she wasn’t the woman for him.
They’d married, in a blur of lust and laughter, too damn fast. Dan thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He liked her lighthearted view of life, her great sense of humor, and he admired what a great mother she was. Not a believer in love, he’d figured he’d come as close to it as he was ever going to get with Holly Grantman. He was thirty-five, thought it was time to settle down. One woman. One man. Holly wanted stability for Kylie, or so she’d said. Honesty on both parts, he’d thought. Lots of liking. Lots of smart, logical talk. It all worked for him.
Looking back, he wondered now if maybe Holly hadn’t used him from the beginning. Maybe she married him to escape her father’s control. “Capricious” Paul had called Holly. Dan would grant him that.
He pressed the heels of his palms against his hot eyes before opening them to look out the cab window. They were passing Harvard Square. Except for the yellow leaves shifting along the gutters and between the benches, the day was dismal shades of gray.
A band was setting up in the street, getting ready for the evening crowd, and two well-dressed couples met and greeted each other with hugs outside a restaurant, its glass doors already warmly lit from within.
Dan closed his eyes again. He wasn’t interested in the tidy, organized street scene; he was interested in getting his daughter and getting on a plane for the west coast, burying what regrets he had for his marriage along with his wife. He’d come close to loving Holly, or thought he had, but he’d lost her months before her death.
He did not plan on losing Kylie.
Light from the bedroom window streamed in and hit Adam Dunn’s closed eyelids with the heat and intensity of halogen.
Today is Holly’s funeral.
He risked opening an eye, took a direct thousand-kilowatt hit, and closed it again. He turned his head from the light, but his naked body was tangled in sheets and a woman.
He yawned, ran his free hand over her ass. Good ass. Almost as good this morning as last night. But, then, his chosen ass was always primo; he made sure of it. Grade A or nothing, that was his rule, and he stuck to it. He’d fucked the occasional ugly when he had to, but he’d hated every minute of it.
He squeezed the well-toned buttock under his hand and gave the woman a gentle shove, hoping she’d roll enough for him to extricate himself, but not wake up herself.
He wasn’t in the mood for talk.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he shoved his hair back from his face. Thick, straight, and cut to ear-lobe length, his dark chestnut hair, shot through with natural blond streaks, was tangled but shiny-clean. Women said they could never figure out whether he was more pirate or poet, but it didn’t matter to Adam what they thought. All he knew was that his hair was a hell of an asset.
That and a cock that had given him serious locker-room bragging rights.
When he’d discovered women went for both, he’d learned to let them have it—if there was something in it for him. When he was younger, sex, and lots of it, was enough of a payoff; now it was more complicated, his needs more material.
Still the whole business was getting predictable, and the time lapse between a woman stroking his hair to her stroking his dick, shorter.
“What time is it?” Her voice came from behind him, low and sleep-filled.
“Almost ten,” he said, getting up. “Which means I’ve got to go, baby.”
She pulled herself up, did a cat stretch, and put her back against the headboard. Her hair was a blur of dark blond tumbling to the rosy tips of her nipples. He studied her, let his gaze linger on her breasts. Nice. Very nice. And a first-class lay.
“I’ll make you breakfast.” She pushed the sheet down, touched her pussy and smiled at him. “All this, and I can cook, too.”
Shit! Here we go . . .
“Awful tempting.” He put one knee on the bed, leaned down, and kissed her forehead, as patiently and as gently as possible. They always loved this morning-after crap. “And you’re beyond beautiful. But—” Something sharp moved in his chest, stopped his breath, damn near stopped his heart.
But you’re not Holly.
Holly is dead. He hated thinking about that, because no matter how many women he’d married—two; lived with—maybe a half dozen; or fucked—uncountable, Holly was his touchstone. Losing her was like losing home base. Whatever the explosive compulsion between them, it k
ept them both coming back for more. More fights, more making up, more vows never to see each other again, more I-love-you’s . . . Marriages and other women put a few obstacles in the way of their hooking up, but despite these occasional snags, they hadn’t spent more than ten, eleven months away from each other since college. They always found each other. And now he’d never see her again. His breathing cratered as if he’d been sucker-punched in the chest. Not fair.
Because with her dead, the damn wedding was off.
But at least she’d finally told the truth, and that truth would do two things: in the short term it would get Lando Means off his ass, and in the long term—if he played it right—it would set him up for the rest of his life. He wanted to smile but couldn’t when he thought of Holly. He’d have preferred her being part of that life—her working Grantman instead of him—but that wasn’t to be. All he had now was the name of the lawyer he’d taken her to last week, and Holly’s word that she’d done the “right thing.”
Not that Holly always did what she said she’d do. He ignored the prickly sensation on his nape.
That goddamn lawyer was his first stop.
Maybe things weren’t going to be as neat and tidy as they would have been if Holly had gotten rid of her husband and married him like they’d planned, but that paper at the lawyers with his name on it would have to do.
Damn you, Holly, you’d better have come through.
“Hello? Anybody there?” The blonde waved a hand in front of his face and gave him a puzzled look.
He refocused, smiled into her eyes, and made a circle around her nipple with his index finger. “Sorry, but a man looks at you, at this”—he pressed her nipple—“he can’t think straight.” He met her eyes, saw the sexual mist in them, noted her sharp intake of breath. She was hot, this one. Easy. They were all easy—if you did things right. “But much as I’d love to stay, I’ve got to go, sweetheart.” He grinned. “I take it I’m welcome back?”
She touched his face while her own turned serious. “You were fabulous last night, Adam. You did things—made me feel things—I’ve never felt before.” Running her index finger along his jaw, she added, “So the answer to your question is yes. You’re welcome back . . . anytime, anytime at all.”
“I wish that time was now, Lisa. I really do,” he added, careful to use her name, lace his tone with regret. The morning after with a woman was as important as the night before, and considering the crumbs it took to make them happy, the effort was worth it. It didn’t pay to piss them off; what paid was to keep them needy and dangling. A guy never knew when he might want to come back. He brushed his lips over hers.
“What’s so important, anyway?” She reached down and cupped his balls, played with them.
He let her, enjoying the touch of her soft, deft hands on his scrotum. Then he moved his knee off the bed, stood beside it, and smiled down at her. “Hey, you don’t play fair.” He picked up his jeans, glanced around, but couldn’t see his briefs, so he pulled cool morning denim over what was now a semi hard-on, and shrugged into his shirt.
She slid to the edge of the bed, spread her legs. “I repeat, what’s so important?”
He weakened, then shook his head in regret. “A funeral, baby. Anything less and I’d be right there.” He nodded appreciatively at her open legs, the curls at their apex, then buttoned his shirt, and stepped into his shoes. He gave her his best lingering kiss good-bye—because he wanted to borrow her car. But it wasn’t Holly’s funeral he was going to. Hell, Grantman would have apoplexy if he came within a mile of it.
No, the funeral he was going to was the one where he buried his debt.
He was outta here.
Lisa’s new BMW was in the bowels of the dimly lit parking lot. Jangling the keys, Adam rounded the cement pillar her car was parked behind.
“Hey, lover boy, we’ve been waiting for you.”
Although Adam hadn’t had breakfast yet, something in his stomach that felt like a bag of bricks dropped and rolled. His first instinct was to cut and run, but one look at the two goons leaning against Lisa’s car, and given that there wasn’t anywhere to run to, convinced him he had no choice but to stand where he was—three feet from the biggest trouble he’d ever been in. Two poster boys for Steroids-R-Us.
“And you are?” he said, trying like hell not to have his voice sound like a goddamn frog.
“Name’s Bob, and this here”—the man jerked his head toward his companion, who, wearing a white tee and black jeans, made a pro-wrestler look malnourished—“is Bill.”
“Bob and Bill. Catchy.”
“We think so.” Bob pushed away from the car, took a step toward Adam, and without a word, drove a right fist into his gut with the force of a wrecking ball.
Doubled over, gasping for breath, Adam stumbled back. He’d have hit the concrete floor if his shoulder hadn’t connected with the pillar he’d just rounded. He propped himself against it, tried to breathe.
“You okay?” Bill asked. “Bob didn’t hit you too hard, did he?”
“What . . . do you want?” Adam clutched his gut, fought a wave of nausea.
“Us?” Bob said and shook his head. “We don’t want nothing. Now our friend Lando, he wants his mommy’s money back.”
“I’ll get it. I told him that.” Adam knew damn well they were Lando’s boys, had to be, but hearing the name nearly had him filling his pants.
“And when exactly might that be?” Bob, who was wearing a suit and tie and looked more as if he were planning a day in church than a parking-lot roust, or worse, leaned against the BMW with his arms crossed.
“Soon. Real soon.” And goddamn you for dying, Holly!
“Soon?” Bob looked at Bill, made a big thing out of frowning. “You think that’s a good answer, Bill? You think Lando will go for ‘soon’?”
Bill moved like a snake on speed, grabbed a fistful of Adam’s hair, yanked it, then rammed his head against the pillar. Adam didn’t see stars; he saw the entire blazing universe. When he started to drop, Bill held him by his hair and set his face less than an inch from Adam’s; the scent of last night’s garlic floated up Adam’s nose.
“Lando is fresh out of patience. He says he’s screwed with you long enough. He wants his mother’s money.” Bob spoke while Bill held him. “Now if it were up to us, we’d have some fun making porridge of that pretty face of yours, but Lando says no. Says you need that face for all those pussies you work on. Says you’ll need it to get his money.”
Bob looked at Bill and jerked his head.
In turn, Bill twisted his fingers deeper into Adam’s hair and yanked, fast and hard, then let him go. Adam sagged against the pillar, stars spinning, bile rising.
“Lando says you’ve got a month to make things right for his mama or you’ll be—how’d he say it now?—oh, yeah, eating your own balls for breakfast. Bill and I, we’ll help with that.” Bob, scratching his jaw, looked at Bill. “You got any ideas on how this piece of crap here”—he nodded at Adam—“is going to come up with a half mil in four weeks?”
Bill shook his head.
Bob smiled at Adam. “Maybe him and me are going to get to make that porridge after all.” Again, he drove his fist into Adam’s stomach, and this time they let him fall to the concrete floor. “See you around.” They walked to a car a couple of spaces down, got in, and screeched off.
Adam curled into a ball, sealed his eyes shut, and moaned.
“Damn you, Holly . . .”
Chapter 6
Camryn sat quietly in the rental car’s passenger seat while a morose and brooding Sebastian Solari slowed for the final turn into the cemetery. They drove through an ornate pair of wrought-iron gates.
If there was such a thing as a perfect day for a funeral, this was it: a pale sun, billowy gray clouds spotting a soft blue sky, and barely breeze enough to stir or loosen the summer-burnt leaves still clinging to the trees scattered among the gravesites. Sad and unlucky trees, Camryn thought, to seed in a burial ground, their
twisted roots going ever deeper into the soil, curling into old bones, new deaths.
“You okay?” Sebastian asked, driving at a snail’s pace along the road taking them to Holly’s service.
“Been better. You?”
“I’ll make it.”
The conversation faltered, so Camryn changed course. “How’s Delores these days. Any change?”
He slanted her a glance. “Delores? Change? You’re kidding, right?”
Okay, wrong course. “I talked to Gina the other day. I wanted to visit, but she—”
When Sebastian’s jaw set hard, she stopped midsentence.
“She put you off, didn’t she?” he said. “Made some lame excuse about her being too busy.” His hands clenched and unclenched on the steering wheel. “She’s bad, you know, and getting worse every day.” He glanced out the driver’s-side window. “Makes me nervous as hell.”
“How so?”
“Like mother, like daughter?”
Camryn shuddered at the thought. “What about the doctor you found for her? Isn’t he helping?”
“Same old story. Can’t help people who won’t help themselves. I think she’s playing him. And me.” Irritation replaced concern, but he still looked like a man dangling from the end of a frayed rope. It struck Camryn there was something dark and dire about all the Solaris, as if they’d all eaten too much bitter pie. Or someone had thrown acid in their gene pool.
“If there’s anything I can do, Seb, you only have to ask. You know that.”
If anyone could play a psychiatrist, Camryn thought, it would be Gina. She was sharp, clever, intuitive—and a brilliant lawyer, or had been until, inexplicably, she walked out on her firm and what Camryn had thought was a stellar career and returned to the lake to live with Delores. Which, knowing Gina’s feelings toward her mother, had shocked Camryn senseless. Then, less than a month after her coming home, there’d been that awful shooting that left Delores in a wheelchair.
The Solaris weren’t only dark; it seemed they were also doomed.
“Thanks, but my family is my problem.” His answer was curt, and he went back to staring at the road ahead.
