“No buts, Lena. You intend to be in any kind of shape to get things straightened out tomorrow, you need a good night’s sleep.” Reaching over, he sweeps a tender thumb across my cheekbone. “If you can’t trust me on anything else, trust this. Things will feel clearer and not so unsettling once you’ve had some shut-eye.”
“I suppose.” I rest my head against the seat back. Then jerk upright once again as a thought suddenly occurs to me. “That witch! Just yesterday I paid her a week’s rent!”
“Don’t worry about that, either.” Booker’s expression, when he glances over at me, is all grim determination. “You don’t have to deal with her again. I’ll take care of getting your unused rent back.”
“Yeah? You may have noticed she wasn’t any more impressed with you than she was with me. So how do you plan to manage that?”
“The next time I land on her doorstep, I’ll be accompanied by the local bull.”
That has me sitting up. “A policeman?” I stare at him, my mouth dropping open, and I snap my teeth together. “Are you crazy, Booker? You do remember you run a speakeasy, right? I’m frankly surprised we haven’t been raided during the five weeks I’ve been with the club. Yet you plan to waltz up to a policeman and demand he go along with you to confront Mrs. Rodale?” Is this what comes of growing up the only son of the richest man in town?
Maybe Booker is rethinking his no harm can come his way delusion, though, for he doesn’t respond until he stops for a red light. Then he slowly turns his head to look at me. His face is all hard planes and angles in the red glow from the traffic light and the paler illumination off the nearest street light. It’s flat-out all business, and I marvel Mrs. Rodale could have mistaken him for anything other than the highly successful man he is, let alone treated him like some down-on-his-luck ruffian. Even Booker’s informal clothing is constructed of quality fabric and he commands an unmistakable air of authority only a fool would overlook.
“I haven’t been raided, doll,” he informs me drily, “because I pay the cops good money to keep the Dry Squad off my back. And I’m fairly friendly with a couple patrolmen.” He shrugs. “It won’t be difficult to talk one into accompanying me to get your refund.”
“Wow,” I breathe. Okay, so I was the naïve one here, not Booker. Still, how could I have known? I have worked a couple places that were raided. I was never arrested, of course, since it’s not illegal to drink or sing in a gin joint, just to sell booze. But I can see now that some of the places I worked, which weren’t raided, must have had similar arrangements as Booker’s. Even then, the transactions had to have taken place behind closed doors. Because it certainly wasn’t anything the employees ever talked about.
I rest my weary head back once more, then another stray thought breaks free and I tighten up all over again . “Remind me to check to make sure nothing was “misplaced” between the wardrobe and dresser in my room and my suitcases.”
Booker’s hot, rough-tipped fingers gently and much too swiftly caress the back of my hand fisted on my thigh. “Yet something else you can put off worrying about until tomorrow.”
“Easy for you to say, Mr. Big Shot,” I mutter. All the same, I must have dozed off, because those are the last words I remember from either of us. Not to mention I have no idea how we got from the red light to where I blink awake when Booker gently shakes my shoulder. Yawning, I straighten in my seat to see him squatting on a curb outside my open car door. I rub my eyes. “Where are we?”
“Home, sweet home.” He surges to his full height and steps back, offering a hand to help me out of the car.
“Which is where?” I yawn again. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Yeah, that’s always harder to do with your eyes closed.”
I give him a look and he shrugs. “West Boston Street on Magnolia Bluff.”
“Magnolia.” I look around as Booker walks back to pull my luggage from the trunk. The gaps between houses are large in this neighborhood, as if plots are still in the process of being parceled up. Evergreen trees dot the undeveloped land in small stands here and there and two maples display their red leaves beneath the glow of a streetlight. “I’ve never been over here. It’s very peaceful.” I inhale deeply through my nose. “And it smells divine.”
“Yeah, those are a couple of the things I like about the area as well. It’s close to downtown, yet it feels a lot more like living in the country.” He hands me the box holding my odds and ends again, then scoops up my suitcases as though they weigh nothing at all. “It probably has to do with the fact the neighborhood is on a peninsula with limited access.”
Shutting the trunk, he gives a jerk of his chin and says, “Follow me.” Then without so much as a glance back to determine if I’m following, he sets off along a narrow, paved path.
I shrug and follow as, with long-legged strides, Booker makes short work of the distance to a long set of stairs. Where else am I gonna go?
Reaching the steps, he stands aside for me to go first, and both of us are quiet as we climb it. At the top is a pretty yard hosting an even prettier house with a covered front porch. It, too, has stairs at one end, although not nearly as many as the ones we just hiked up from the street.
Booker unlocks the front door moments later and opens it. Reaching inside, he flips a switch, illuminating a small foyer. He opens the door wider with one hand and, with a tip of his head, gestures for me to precede him. “Come on in.” Following me with the luggage, he tosses his keys into a decorative bowl on the small Mission style entry table against the wall.
After Booker sets my luggage out of the way against another wall, he takes the box from me to add to the pile. “Wait here a second and I’ll turn on some lights.” He disappears into the room off the entry and light begins spreading a glow in his wake.
I follow him into what turns out to be the living room, where I stop in my tracks. “Oh,” I breathe, looking around. “This is really nice.”
“Thanks.” He shoots me a pleased smile. “I wanted something comfortably sized, but not a damn mansion like I grew up in.”
“Well, you certainly got it, because this is just perfect. It has such warmth, sort of like a hug.” I promptly squirm. Honestly, Lena? A hug?
But the way Booker’s face lights up, you’d think I had just uttered the most brilliant words in the English language. “That is exactly what I thought when the realtor first showed it to me. I took one look and it just felt like a home.”
It does feel homey. The ceiling is high, giving the room an open, spacious feel. The room is long and painted a cool-tone grayish green, the color warmed by all the wood trim in the windows and doorways, the baseboards and crown moldings, the mantel and surround over a tiled fireplace in the middle of the room, and in the beautiful built-in bookshelves on either side of the hearth.
“Oh, and look at this!” I walk up to the big front window. The top foot across its width is a beautifully worked leaded glass panel with an occasional pop of green, orange and gold stained glass highlighting its pattern. I turn in a circle, trying to take in everything at once. “You’re right. It does feel like a home.” Not that that is anything I’ve ever had a up-close relationship with. But, boy, do I envy Booker this place. And I wonder for a moment what it would be like to live here with him.
Oh, no, you don’t. I ruthlessly squash the thought. No, no, no, no, no! The idea of living happily ever after with Booker would have been realistic once.
But it has no relation to reality in whatever we can call this thing between us now. I turn back to him, but avoid meeting his eyes by gazing over his right shoulder. “Where do you want me to sleep?”
24
susan andersen
When did you quit liking sex?
BOOKER
Oh, baby. There was a loaded question. And before I can monitor the impulse, I give voice to the first thing that springs to mind: the truth. “In my bed.”
I manage not to cringe—or punch myself in the face—but, shit, really, J
ameson? I had smoother moves when I was eighteen. I haven’t even taken Lena on a damn date or done so much as buy her a burger at the stand on Fifth and Lenora. But, hey, I’m sure she’ll leap for joy at the mere thought of jumping in my bed.
Yeaaah...no. That is not gonna happen without some real effort—not to mention sincere wooing—on my part.
As if to underscore my internal conversation, Lena laughs in my face. When she gets control of herself she stares at me, her hands planted on her hips, her pale hair disheveled, her face rosy and those big, dark-rimmed blue eyes flashing with—hell—rage, probably.
“Uh, no,” she says flatly. “Thanks, anyway.” Her Cupid’s bow lips look as though she just took a bite of something nasty. “I’m not a huge fan of nookie. And I’m ab-so-tootly not a fan of whoring myself for the sake of a bed for the night.”
“What? No.” I take a giant step toward her, then stop as if running into an invisible wall when I see her jerk back. Shit, shit, shit! She’s afraid of me? That is just all kinds of fucked up and I hold my hands up in what I hope is a See, just a harmless fella here gesture. “Jesus, Lena. Tell me you know I would never force myself on any woman, let alone you! Any bed you want in this house is yours, no strings attached. I never meant to imply sleeping in mine was a condition for staying here.” I thrust my fingers through my hair, knocking the fedora I forgot I was even wearing to the floor.
Then my mind gives birth to a thought that promptly exits my damn mouth. “When did you quit liking sex?” Another thought treads on the heels of the first and my uncharacteristic verbal spewage continues. “Did somebody hurt you, baby?” The very thought has my fists curling at my sides and I take a daddy-long-legged step in her direction.
“If by hurt you mean forced me, of course not. It never entered my mind you would do that.” She balloons her cheeks then slowly exhales through pursed lips. “And to be fair, I may have pretended to like it the one time you and I did...you know...the whole sex thing,” she says with a shrug. “But I didn’t. I always loved your kisses,” she admits, and the look she shoots up at me through her eyelashes damn near stops my heart. “And I gotta admit I really liked the touching and petting part that came before—” Lena’s distaste is clear in her wrinkled nose and curled upper lip “—that.”
“Then, why?”
Lena looks at me as if I’m an idiot, and, hell, maybe I am. God knows I’m totally at sea here.
For a second she looks uncharacteristically flustered. Then the real Lena comes roaring back, her chin thrusting a couple of notches upward as she drills me with a look that should have seared my eyeballs. “Well, come on,” she scoffs. “I doubt any woman likes the action that comes after the petting. It’s wicked uncomfortable and over before a girl can even recover from the way all the really good-feeling stuff was just killed dead.”
I choke. “Wait. You’re telling me the one time with me was the only time for you?” She’d been so sensual back then, it being a onetime only deal never even occurred to me. So, why does the mere thought, the possibility no other man has ever seen Lena, touched Lena, the way I did, make me want to thump my chest, throw back my head and roar like the goddamn king of the jungle?
Lena’s jaw goes slack and the look she gives me is so incredulous I have no problem reading her opinion of me. She thinks I’m too stupid to live.
For a second I worry she somehow read my mind, that she saw my primal reaction to discovering she’s only ever made love with me. Then she snaps her teeth together and makes a visibly concerted effort to relax the muscles in her face. And my brain finally kicks in, making me realize her response was to my question, not my primitive need to claim her.
She squares her shoulders, which make her breasts bounce, and now I’m the one having to make a concerted effort to keep my mind on the matter on hand. Still. Make no mistake. I am going to claim her.
‘Til death do us part claim her.
Clearly abandoning her effort for cool and collected, she says hotly, “For God’s sake, Booker, if I thought sex with you was a messy, uncomfortable waste of time, and I loved you then more than my next breath—“ Her voice trails away, but she takes a deep breath, then slowly exhales it. And asks with genuine bafflement. “Why on God’s green earth would I rush out to try it again with a stranger?”
I inch closer. “Honey, you had to have considered the fact we were teenagers when we made love. Inexperienced teenagers. Plus, it was your first time. From everything I’ve ever heard about losing one’s virginity, no girl’s first time is a huge success unless she’s lucky enough to have a man who has experience and control.”
“Well, it would’ve been nice if you’d told me that upfront,” she mutters.
“Hey, I only had hearsay to go on myself at the time.” I move close and tilt my head until my lips are near her ear. “But I can make it really good for you now.”
“Yeah,” Lena breathes, looking up at me, all baby vamp eyes and flushed cheeks. Then those eyes narrow down to dangerous little slits. “Because being reminded of all the women you practiced on is sure to get me in the mood.” She shoves me away. “Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.”
“So.” She takes a big step back. “Where’s a bed I can use? This night is beginning to feel forty hours long.
25
susan andersen
Like firing the first shot in a war
LENA
It feels like morning but is actually almost one-twenty in the afternoon when I track Booker down in the kitchen. I am feeling a tad on the disgruntled side. I admit some of my testiness centers around a need for coffee. But my mood mostly has to do with the nice day dress I donned to wear into work. I may not have a wealth of clothing, but I take care of what I do have. Yet this dress, I had to hang in the bathroom while I bathed to steam out the wrinkles Mrs. Rodale caused by stuffing everything I own in my suitcase. Even then, not all the wrinkles came out.
Seeing Booker at the stove, however, I can’t help but smile. Except for his suit jacket hanging over the back of a kitchen chair, he is already dressed for work in one of his beautiful suits—this one topped with a jury-rigged apron.
I can’t help but smile at the white bath towel wrapped around his lean hips and secured by a clothes peg. It protects his slacks as he scrambles a pan full of eggs, while bacon sizzles and occasionally pops grease in another pan on a back burner.
“I didn’t know you cooked.” I give him a glance of approval.
“Probably because I didn’t when you knew me,” he responds easily without turning around. “I learned a lot of skills living without staff.”
“What a coincidence. The lack of staff had the exact same effect on my skill levels, too.” I make a beeline for the newfangled percolator to pour myself a cuppa joe. “I love this thing,” I murmur, smiling happily at the amazing gadget after my first sip of coffee. Then I inhale deeply and murmur on the exhale, “Sure smells divine in here.”
Booker shoots me a lopsided grin over his wide shoulder. “Coffee and bacon,” he agrees. “Perfume of the gods. How’d you sleep?”
“Like a baby.” It surprised the heck out of me, too. I expected to have a hard time turning off all the thoughts spinning through my head when I went to bed. But— “You rich guys sure know how to do it up right. That was the nicest mattress and—omigosh—the softest sheets I have ever slept on.”
Booker seems to hesitate for a moment. Well, that or I’m overly aware of every move he makes, because the next thing I know, he gives me a nod and says easily, “I’m glad you enjoyed them.” He turns his attention back to his cooking but then jerks his chin in the direction of the first tall cupboard in the cabinets above the counter. The one he indicates is to the right of the sink. “Set the table?”
We sit down a few minutes later and have a surprisingly uneventful breakfast, considering how revved up the two of us can get in each other’s company. “You look nice,” Booker says as I get up after the meal to carry the dishes to the
sink. “You going somewhere with the Brasher sisters today?”
I try to push down my small surge of guilt over not having even rung them up yet to see if I can sleep on their couch until I hunt up new lodging. But I shrug it off, because what I do plan to do is more important. “Nope. I’m going with you to collect what’s owed me from Mrs. Rodale.”
His hands still mid-removal of the towel around his waist. “No. Leave that to me and Officer Miller.”
That is the ab-so-loot worst thing he could have said! “Like heck I will! Rodale kept my money, Booker, not yours. And not only did my newest toiletries disappear from my bath kit as well, but so did my brand-new cloche!” I’m livid all over again at the mere thought of my landlady pawing through my things and helping herself to my newest and best. The fact Mrs. Oh-so-self-righteous Rodale grabbed several of my smaller personal belongings was bad enough. But stealing my beautiful hat, to boot, after I had finally unclenched my purse strings to buy it? That’s firing the first shot in a war! It is my hat—how could she possibly think I wouldn’t notice it wasn’t included in the suitcases or the box she’d shoved out the door at me? Or had she simply assumed her respectability gave her the upper hand over a woman like me, on my own and working where I do?
I shoot him a fierce don’t-even-try-to-stop-me glare. As unfair as it might be, Booker reaps the brunt of my frustration over my ex-landlady’s shenanigans. “I’m coming with you and that is the end of the subject!”
He studies me for a moment, then nods. “Okay. But if you have things that need doing before we leave, now is the time to do them. “We’re meeting Officer Miller in front of the Women’s Residence at two-fifteen. In fact—” He looks at his watch then gives me a hard stare, which I’m embarrassed to admit makes me all kinda tingly. How dumb is that?
It Had to be You Page 14
