I Brake For Bad Boys

by Foster, Lori

  In fact, it made him feel like five different kinds of shit.

  Her clothes were scattered all over the house. She searched for them feverishly, pulling them on as she found them. This was worse than she had ever dreamed. Painful memories crowded through her mind: Larry gently suggesting a fitness trainer, to “help get rid of that puppy fat.” An image consultant, for her clothes. A makeup expert, to teach her to compensate for her beauty problems. A wine-tasting course. Diction classes, to get rid of that lingering California college girl flavor in her accent. Larry believed in investing time, money, and effort in one’s greatest personal resource: oneself; and Tess’s mother had applauded his efforts. “It’s good that you have someone who pushes you to be the best that you can be, honey. A mother can only do so much.”

  Well, wasn’t that the truth, and thank God for it.

  She had to get out of here, before she started to sink into the cracks in the floorboards, the incredible shrinking Tess. Embarrassed to take up space, apologizing for the very air she breathed. She thought she had worked through these awful feelings and left them behind, but here they were, stronger than ever, and it was Jonah’s face, Jonah’s voice superimposed over Larry’s. And that was a thousand times worse.

  Jonah appeared at the foot of the stairs, watching as she broke down her massage table. He hadn’t bothered to dry himself. He just stood there, naked, a puddle forming around his feet. The silent reproach in his shadowy eyes tore at her. She had to get away before she shrank too small to even see over the dashboard of her VW Bug. There seemed to be no end to how bad she could feel about this.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  He did not reply for a long moment. “Me, too,” he said finally.

  It took over two and a half hours in the rain to get home, sniffling all the way. Trish turned away from the TV and regarded her with blank astonishment when she stumbled in the door.

  “What are you doing back already?”

  “It didn’t work out.” Her voice was dull and flat.

  Trish switched off the TV and stared at Tess with big, worried blue eyes. “Are you, um, OK?” she asked cautiously.

  “Let me give you the short version, because I can’t handle a full-scale debriefing right now. Did I earn four thousand bucks? No. Did I have sex? Yes. Was it good? Yes, it was so unbelievably good that it practically destroyed me. Do I want to jump off a bridge? Maybe.”

  “Oh, dear.” Trish bit her lip. “No money, hmm? How about the start-up? What are you going to tell your mom?”

  Trish let the massage table fall to the ground with a rattling thud. “I’ll tell her what I should’ve told her all along. That it’s none of her goddamn business. I’ll find the money some other way, in my own good time. And I am never, ever going to let anybody push me around, ever again. Not my parents, not Jonah, not Jeanette, not even you, Trish.”

  Trish blinked. “Not even me? That is some serious stuff, chica. I’m not sure whether to break out the champagne or dial 911.”

  Tess’s chin started to shake. “How about you just give me a hug?”

  Trish almost fell over her feet rushing to her.

  It was a damn good thing he had more important things to occupy his mind, he kept telling himself.

  Uh-huh. Yeah. Right. The fuck-up with Tess looped endlessly through his mind, whenever he wasn’t worrying about Granddad.

  It was driving him nuts. He didn’t need a woman like that in his life. Too much trouble, too oversensitive, too quick to take offense. Life was too short to spend it tiptoeing around her tender little feelings.

  But she was so sweet, and funny, and sensual. He’d never had sex like that in his life. He was ruined for normal women.

  His office staff were whispering and circling around him like he was a rabid animal. He kept calling the MMC, and slamming the phone down before it started to ring. He would have called her at home, if he had her number, but she wasn’t in the book, and he didn’t know the roommate’s last name, and besides, why bother? She had his number. If she wanted to talk to him, she could call him anytime.

  But she hadn’t. She wouldn’t. He had to get that through his thick skull, and let it go, and that left Granddad to worry about.

  Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Days ticked into nights that ticked relentlessly back into days again.

  Wednesday morning dawned. The day stretched out ahead of him, long and bleak. He had to sit through the surgery sharing the waiting room with his asshole cousins and their bitchy wives. Oh, it wasn’t that big of a deal. He’d survive. Those clowns didn’t make his life bad, they just made it stupid. He didn’t have the energy to deal with stupidity.

  Hah. Then why did he keep dialing the goddamn MMC?

  Maybe he could just drop by today, and ask her to wish him luck. There wouldn’t be any other friendly face to pat him on the back today, and he was going to sit in a hard plastic chair in a hospital waiting room, clutching an outdated Field & Stream magazine, facing his deepest fears today for God alone knew how many hours. It would be really nice to get a hug first. Just to have those strong, warm hands on him for a minute would soothe that jittery ache inside him. He had just enough time to go down to the MMC on the hour and catch her between clients before he headed to the hospital.

  He had to get over himself. Granddad was an old man; he had to go sometime. Everyone did. Just not quite yet. Please, not yet.

  He got there five minutes early, and was doomed to deal with the Martian receptionist. Great. As if he weren’t going to get enough hostile glares from his cousins at the hospital today.

  “She’s booked all day. And she’s with a client now,” the receptionist informed him, with a sugary, fuck-you smile. “And she can’t bag somebody else’s appointment for you, because Jeanette chewed her out for that last week. Big time. So don’t even think it.”

  He glanced at his watch, exercising all the self-control at his command. “Just tell her I’m here, please,” he said, rigidly polite.

  The receptionist rolled her eyes and flounced into the back rooms. She came back moments later, with a long-suffering look. He grinned at her with all his teeth. She got very busy with her appointment book.

  Tess came out a few moments later. Her hair was screwed into the most severe knot he had ever seen, and her face was pale, washed out by the white dress. Her rubber-soled shoes squeaked with every step. He glanced down at them. She’d either done a superhuman job getting the mud off, or she had more than one pair. They were snow white. As if the primeval sex in the forest had never happened.

  Her face was just like her shoes. She had an it-never-happened expression: cool, polite, ever so slightly strained. With a professional, can-I-help-you-you-pathetic-bastard smile.

  Dread gathered in his gut like an ice-cold stone. “Can I, uh, speak to you for a few minutes?”

  “I have a client, Jonah.”

  He clenched his teeth and he swallowed, resolved to see this through, one way or the other. “Please,” he said. “It’s important.”

  She sighed and circled the receptionist’s desk. The squeak-squeak-squeak of her shoes was driving him nuts. She stood in front of him in the waiting room, in front of everyone. Arms crossed over her chest. Waiting. Her foot would tap, if she weren’t so fucking polite.

  “Can we go someplace more private?” he asked.

  Her sensual mouth tightened to a thin line. “I have a client in the back room,” she said. “And if you want an emergency appointment, I’m very sorry, but I can’t accommodate you. Welcome to the real world. I’m sure it must be a rude shock, but sometimes mundane reality just can’t conform to Jonah Markham’s whims.”

  Shields up, shields up. The red alert went off in his head, but it was too late. The torpedo had already gone speeding straight in, dead on the mark, completely trashing his main reactor. He had no way of knowing what expression he had on his face as he backed away. All that was important was getting out that door.

  He jerked back as if she’d slapped him
, his face going pale and stiff, and a horrible realization yawned open inside her, as if she had just stepped over a cliff. She was hurtling down, down, with a sick, scared falling feeling in her stomach. She had made a terrible mistake.

  She lunged for him in a panic. “Oh, God. I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, Jonah. I just—”

  He wrenched his arm from her, backing away faster. “Never mind. I’m out of here. Sorry I bothered you.”

  She scrambled to intercept him at the door. “No. Please, tell me what’s wrong. Why—”

  “Never mind. I got my answer. Out of my way. I’m in a hurry.”

  She watched him run down the stairs and stride away, as utterly wretched as if she’d just killed something beautiful, out of pure, blind stupidity. Her body exploded into movement, pure instinct taking over. It knew what it wanted, knew what was right. It could not be reasoned with, or cowed. She raced after him, legs pumping, and tackled him from behind. She clung to his slippery canvas coat like a monkey.

  He cursed and tried to shake her off. “I don’t have time for your weird mind trips today, Tess.”

  “I said I was sorry. I was a heinous bitch for saying that. You didn’t deserve it, and I’ll make it up to you somehow. And you are not getting away from me until you tell me what you came here for.”

  He tried halfheartedly to detach her clinging hands. “You’re strangling me, Tess,” he said wearily.

  She tightened her arms, pressing her wrist hard against his windpipe on purpose. “Tough titties.”

  His shoulders shook with silent laughter. He grabbed her forearms and pulled them down so that he could breathe. “My Granddad’s getting open-heart surgery today. I was just going to . . . oh, shit, I don’t know. Maybe ask you to come by the hospital later, if you have time. To sit with me while I wait. But you’re super busy, I can see that, so whatever. I didn’t have any reason to think you would want to. Just thought I’d ask.”

  “Oh, Jonah—”

  “Let go of me, for Christ’s sake. I feel bad enough as it is. And I want to get over there before they put him under.”

  “But Jonah, I didn’t mean to—”

  “No big deal.” His voice cut across hers. “Get on back to your client. Let go, Tess. I really don’t want to have to be rough with you.”

  She swung herself around, still clutching his arm. His face was like graven stone, turned resolutely away from her.

  “Can you wait a minute?” she pleaded. “Just long enough for me to grab my purse and tell my boss what happened?”

  “You don’t have to feel sorry for me,” he said. “I was an idiot to come here. I should have learned my lesson back at the lake.”

  She clung to his arm with all her strength. “Believe me, Jonah, there is nothing on earth I would rather do than go and wait at the hospital with you. Wait for me. Please.”

  The anguished doubt in his eyes tore at her. He had always seemed so strong, vital, and confident. It hurt like hell to see him in pain. What a thick-skulled idiot she’d been; so intent on protecting her own heart that it never occurred to her that she actually had the power to wound his.

  And the more jealously she guarded her heart, the more barren and cramped and arid it would be. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long until there was nothing left in there to protect.

  She raised his hand to her lips, dropping a supplicating kiss onto his knuckles. “Please,” she whispered.

  He closed his eyes. “I’ll wait two minutes. Then I’m out of here.”

  She didn’t even remember what she said in that mad flurry of explanations and apologies. Thank God she’d been lying about the client in the back room, and a quick glance at the schedule assured her that there was enough staff to cover her clients for the rest of the day. She grabbed her purse and ran, heedless of the protests that Lacey and Jeanette shouted after her. To hell with that stupid job. She’d been bullied, taken advantage of, overworked, and underpaid for too long, and she was sick to death of that ghastly white dress. She would find another job if her bridges burned this afternoon.

  Jonah was more important.

  She had to scurry to keep up with him as he strode through the corridors of the hospital. She clutched his rigid forearm and let him tow her along beside him. He beckoned her through a pair of big automatic doors, and finally they entered a room where a very pale elderly man with bushy white eyebrows and a hawklike nose lay on a gurney. His gray eyes glinted with anger, like a trapped animal. He saw Jonah, and his brows snapped together in a thunderous frown.

  Jonah pulled Tess until she stood next to him, in the old man’s line of sight. “Hi, Granddad,” Jonah said, in a cautious voice. “This is my girlfriend, Tess. We just wanted to wish you luck.”

  The old man’s eyes shot back to Tess, scrutinizing her with fierce concentration. She smiled at him. “Good to meet you, Mr. Markham.”

  His grizzled brows shot up, and his gaze dropped appreciatively down the length of her body. She could have sworn that he winked at her, but a nurse hustled into the room, clucking with disapproval.

  “Authorized surgical personnel only, at this point,” she said sternly. “Out you go.”

  “Sorry,” Jonah muttered to Tess as the nurse herded them out.

  “For what?” she asked.

  “For calling you my girlfriend. It just popped out.”

  She slid her arm around his waist. “I liked it,” she whispered.

  A flash of a smile crossed his pale face. “He likes you.”

  “How can you tell? He didn’t say a word.”

  “Yeah, he’s still pissed with me. I wouldn’t take over for him at Markham Savings & Loan, so he still won’t speak to me. Stubborn old bastard. But he likes you. Believe me, I can tell.”

  Shortly afterward, the waiting room began to fill. Two middle-aged men, one paunchy, the other thin and balding, and two women of the same age filed into the room, all talking in loud voices and staring at Jonah and her with what could only be described as pure hostility.

  It was disconcerting. She glanced at Jonah, but he either hadn’t noticed them or was pretending not to. His eyes were closed. She leaned closer to him. “Who are those rude, horrible people?” she whispered.

  Jonah opened his eyes and shot them a weary glance. “My cousins, John and Steve, and their wives, Marilyn and Sandra. They’re jealous of me, because I was Granddad’s first choice to head up his company. Even though I turned it down and went my own way. They hate my guts. Long, boring story. Try to ignore them. That’s what I do.”

  She slid a protective arm around his shoulder as one of the women came over, a well-dressed, strained-looking blond with a stringy neck. “Jonah, it’s really very selfish of you to insist on being here when you know perfectly well that it upsets Frank to see you.”

  The woman’s voice had the studied forcefulness that comes from assertiveness training workshops. Tess should know, since Larry had insisted that she take one “to increase her confidence and personal effectiveness.” Tess tightened her arm around Jonah’s shoulders and decided to put everything she had learned in that workshop to use.

  “Why don’t you just piss off?” she asked, in a calm, well-modulated voice. She gave the blond woman a dazzling smile.

  The blond’s mouth dangled open for a moment. It snapped shut. The nostrils of her pinched, narrow nose flared unpleasantly.

  She glared down at Jonah. “Who is this person?”

  Jonah looked at Tess. His weary, drawn face relaxed into a smile so radiant and beautiful that she almost burst into tears.

  “Sandra, meet my girlfriend, Tess Langley,” he said. “And she’s just made a truly excellent suggestion. Piss off.”

  His arms wrapped around Tess, sealing them into a private space where the shrill, hostile voices squawking across the room were less important than the sound of faraway cars honking.

  Time passed differently in their hushed, magical intimacy. She held his hand and contemplated the huge tenderness she felt for him, ama
zed that she had not allowed herself to acknowledge it until now. She wanted to protect, to heal, to comfort him. She couldn’t fight against it, and she didn’t want to. All she could do was hang on to his hand and try to breathe around the soft, melting feeling in her heart that kept getting bigger with each passing minute. She kept reminding herself that to cry would be self-indulgent and inappropriate. She had to keep it together, for Jonah’s sake.

  Hours went by. Cups of coffee, hushed conversation. Jonah’s relatives looked glum and stressed, sniping at each other.

  Jonah straightened up when the surgeon came out, relaxing visibly when he saw the smile on the man’s face. Frank was doing well, the surgeon told them. The procedure had gone smoothly, his vital signs were stable, and they didn’t expect any complications.

  Jonah pressed his face against her shoulder, and her eyes overflowed. She couldn’t hold it back any longer. The soft feeling in her chest made her feel strong. No more incredible shrinking Tess. She finally understood the puzzle that had confounded her for so long.

  Her love for Jonah made her bigger, stronger. More of everything that was right and good and real.

  She shifted, anxious not to let him think even for a fleeting second that she was pushing him away, and slid herself onto his lap. She fit his head under her chin, inhaling his warm scent. Delicious and satisfying.

  He smelled like home.

  He was out there, in orbit. Way beyond civilized, normal conversation. Emotions roared through him: relief at having the fear of losing Granddad lifted, and jagged, edgy exultation at having Tess in his grip again. She was looking at him with those glowing eyes that made him want to fling himself at her feet and clutch at her ankles.

  He should be charming her, thanking her, he thought dimly. She’d been really sweet to him, sticking by him, defending him from Sandra and the rest. He should be making nice, thinking of something impressive to cook for her, being witty and urbane. Earning points.

  It wasn’t happening. All he could do was bundle her into his car, sweep her away to his lair, and use every trick that came to him to keep her there. Whatever it took to persuade her that she belonged with him.