“S-sure.” It was going to be his choice. She’d known her unwanted but undeniable attachment to him meant that she couldn’t have walked away, so she’d manipulated the situation to provide herself with the opportunity and him with the means to make the cold, clean break.
Except, God, it didn’t feel clean at all. It felt dirty. She felt dirty. Her stomach roiled and placing her palm over it, she glanced up the stairs again. Shit, what was taking so long?
When she turned back, Dean was looking up the stairway, too, but there wasn’t anything to see. Yet.
Damn it all.
Straightening, he shoved one hand in his pocket and she heard keys jangle. “I’m off then—”
“No!” He couldn’t leave now. He’d miss the show and she was certain she’d never manage a repeat performance. “No. Just a minute . . .”
And then it came. The sound of footsteps jogging down the carpet-covered stairs, the little jaunty whistle that used to make her nuts, but now just made her queasy.
“There you are!” Pharmaceutical Phil said, in the happy tones of a man who’d gotten lucky without having to work for it. His hair was damp from his shower—God, she’d forgotten how annoyingly long he liked his showers—and he had his suit jacket hooked over one finger. “I left my tie somewhere.”
Marlys moved her gaze to Dean’s face. “Try the kitchen counter.”
“Good idea.” Phil’s stride hitched as he suddenly seemed to realize there was someone in her doorway. “Uh, hey.”
“Hello.” There wasn’t a hint of heat or ice in Dean’s response, but when no one moved to make introductions, Phil continued on his way, jaunty whistle restarting.
He’s such a sap, Marlys thought. I can’t believe he bought a ring and ever thought I’d say yes.
“He doesn’t deserve you using him,” Dean said.
Guilt had no place here. “Believe me, I don’t think he’d complain.”
Dean’s eyebrows rose. “That good, huh?”
The cheerful whistle emerged from the kitchen and approached them again. Pharmaceutical Phil looked oblivious to the tension in the entryway—and damn self-satisfied, too. Marlys cast him a look, then sent a more pointed one at Dean. “What do you think?”
Phil leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Thanks for the . . .” He let the sentence trail off as if, again, he only now realized there was an audience.
Marlys rolled her eyes. “Boffing you was just what I needed this afternoon,” she replied. “Good-bye, Phil.”
Maybe, finally, the thick atmosphere registered in Phil’s thick skull. “Good-bye, Marlys.” He sketched a little wave, then ducked past the other man and headed toward the street where she’d instructed him to leave his car. She’d wanted to make this moment a complete surprise for Dean.
She squared her shoulders. “Would you like to come in?” she asked the man. Or he could do the big scene in the doorway. His pick.
“I think I’ll stay right here, if you don’t mind.”
“Fine.” Better than fine. Because in closer quarters they would both smell the scent of Phil’s Armani cologne on her skin. She’d selected it for him herself, as she recalled, but now the fragrance was like rotting fish to her senses. Her palms slid over flannel again and she thought of the shower upstairs with longing. She wanted to wash in the worst way, but she’d put it off for just this reason.
And after Dean got through with her, she’d probably want to shower away his loathing, too.
But he wasn’t gazing on her with revulsion like she’d planned. Instead, he was shaking his head and looking at her with . . . she didn’t know what to call it. Pity?
“Angel. I knew you were scared, but this? Why didn’t you just say something?”
“Say what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Panic was fluttering in her belly, same as every time he kissed her, same as every time she thought of him soldiering in Afghanistan. Screwing Phil was supposed to put a stop to that! Screwing Phil was supposed to get Dean out of her life, but instead he seemed to have grown roots in her porch in order to give his X-ray vision another chance at looking inside her soul.
The one she didn’t have, damn it.
“You’re terrified,” Dean said. “I had no idea how much this thing between us frightened you.”
“Hah,” she started, but then couldn’t think of any follow-up that wouldn’t sound desperate and hollow. “Hah,” she said again, fainter. It was embarrassing as hell that tough-skinned, tough-talking Marlys Marie Weston couldn’t come up with anything better than that.
“Oh, angel.”
He was doing it again. Making her feel soft and vulnerable and female. Here she was, standing with some other man’s smell on her and because Dean wasn’t turning away, she was so ridiculously grateful she felt like crying.
Even though she knew there were only more tears in her future if she didn’t get a hold of herself. If she let herself care for the man, this man going off to his soldier’s world, she’d be powerless. He could forget about her, he could find someone else, he could . . . he could . . .
He could die.
And the thought of that just . . . just . . . She reached in her robe pocket and squeezed the small silver pendant. The thought of that just pissed her off.
Tightening her hold on the anger, she put steel in her spine. “Dean—”
“Hey!” Pharmaceutical Phil was loping back up the driveway to stand in the circle of the porch light. “I almost forgot.”
She should have dumped him for his bad timing alone. “What? Your socks? Are your boxers under the bed?” Hearing herself, her face burned, but she couldn’t take the words back now.
“No, no,” Phil said. He reached in his jacket pocket and yanked out a small foil-covered box. “This was why I stopped by your boutique today, and then we got, um, sidetracked.”
Marlys reached around Dean to take the small gift. “Phil, you shouldn’t have.”
He looked embarrassed. “I probably should do something for you, but this isn’t from me. My brother asked me to give it to you. It’s those chocolate truffles you like.”
“Oh.” Marlys shoved the box in her pocket, going cold and queasy again. “Thanks. Great. See you later, Phil.”
“He had a message for you, too.”
“I’ll, um, get that from you later.” Because she had an idea of where Phil was going with this, she would love to slam the door in his face. But Dean was on the other side of it, too, and she had to finish things with him. “I’m—we’re kind of busy here,” she said, trying to send him a “get along little doggie” message with her eyes.
“It won’t take but a second. It’s about that story tip you passed along to him.”
Dense, dumb, thick-headed Phil. The only thing he was good for was a quick lay, no questions asked. “All right. Got it. See you later, Phil.”
“He said to tell you that the Juliet-and-the-general’s-aide thing was pure gold. November was turning into a real turkey—pun intended—in the gossip business until you dropped the juicy nugget.” With that, he was loping back down the driveway.
Before now, she’d never experienced a deafening silence. But there it was, as loud as a jetliner’s engines, roaring in her head with enough decibels to pop her eardrums.
Still, she could hear Dean’s voice over the inferno. “You didn’t.”
“Of course I did.” She swung her gaze toward him, defiant. “Just like I arranged for you to find me postcoital with some other man.”
Wasn’t that worse? But from the repulsion on his face, it looked like her little whisper to Phil’s brother had been what triggered Dean’s true ire.
His eyes glittered, his jaw was tense. “There were other ugly rumors, Noah told me. They called Juliet the Deal—”
“I had nothing to do with that,” Marlys interrupted, but then remembered she wanted him to reject her. She folded her arms across her chest. “But maybe it was me who called my friend last year and told him that the general’s
widow had been getting a Finnish mudbath while he took his final breath.”
“Jesus, Marlys.” Dean shoved a hand through his hair. “Jesus.”
She looked away. “I told you I was no angel.”
“But this!” He made an impatient gesture that she caught from the corner of her eye. “I thought . . . I thought you were like a friend of my younger sister’s. In her teens, she used to cut herself—they said she did it to release the pent-up feelings inside of her. I thought that’s what you’d done with that asshole this afternoon—that you’d turned self-destructive as a way of releasing your grief about your father and your fears about us.”
What was she supposed to say to that? She only stood there, mute, trembling a little beneath her robe because there was an icy frost in the air that had nothing to do with the evening temperature.
“But hell, Marlys. I was wrong. It’s not yourself that you injure. It’s other people that you use to take out your pain. You hurt other people so you don’t have to feel a goddamned thing.”
With that, he swung around and started off, then he stopped. Without turning around, he asked, “Jesus, Marlys, how could you?”
The answer was so simple. “You said it yourself, Dean. All’s fair in love and war.”
Outside the door of Malibu & Ewe, Juliet glimpsed her reflection in the plateglass door and tugged on the jacket hem of her champagne-colored suit. The silk shell she wore underneath it was the same color and her only jewelry was the pearl choker that Wayne had given her for their first anniversary. It was an exquisite outfit and one of her husband’s favorites. She’d worn it to his memorial service.
It had felt right to wear tonight at the book launch party.
But she didn’t look right in it, she thought, frowning at herself in the glass.
Maybe it was too fussy for Malibu.
Maybe it was too formal for what was supposed to be a celebration.
But there wasn’t time to drive home and restart the wardrobe selection process. With a deep breath, she pushed open the door.
Cassandra and Nikki immediately looked over, but it was her youngest sister’s disapproving expression that tripped her pulse. “What? What’s gone wrong?”
Nikki shook her head. “It’s just that you’re so, uh . . . one-color.”
Oh, damn, Juliet thought, looking down. Beige.
“Maybe that’s good,” she said, tugging at the jacket’s hem again. “You know, ‘Move along, nothing scandalous to see here.’ ”
“Your face is pale, too, though. Somehow the corpse bride thing isn’t working for me.”
Juliet groaned. “All right. I’ll have to speed back and—”
“Relax.” Cassandra came forward, a delicate confection of blue and green knitted yarn in her hands. “We can liven things up with this,” she said, arranging the scarf over Juliet’s shoulders. “There. That’s better.”
Chin to chest, Juliet tried assessing the change. “You think?”
“Beautiful,” a man’s voice pronounced.
Her head jerked up, a flush washing her body in heat. There went the pale problem, too, thanks to Noah. He’d come from the direction of the shop’s small kitchen, carrying a silver beverage urn. Only a few hours had passed since he’d left her house, but it wasn’t the afternoon she was recalling.
Instead, she was remembering the night before, when they’d filled the big tub in the master bath with hot water, bubbles, and then themselves. Hands slick with soap and water, she’d explored every inch of his skin in detail, even tracing the tattooed name, date of birth, and serial number inked on his sleek side under his arm, until he’d laughed and caught her hand. Then he’d reciprocated by inspecting every curve and fold of her flesh.
Now, his face clear of telltale expression—Was she the only one who couldn’t forget the sight of his hands sliding over her breasts to brush away the bubbles?—Noah just stared back at her. Then he quirked an eyebrow, and a shiver tickled down her center like the stroke of a calloused fingertip.
Nikki snickered. “Wouldn’t I like to be a fly on the wall of her thoughts.”
“Oh, stop,” Cassandra scolded. “No teasing tonight.”
“I don’t think it’s my teasing that’s on our big sister’s mind,” Nikki retorted. “But I don’t want to ruffle your celibate sensibilities, Froot Loop, so let’s get back to work.”
With a laugh, she ducked the skein of soft yarn that Cassandra tossed at her, and it sailed through the air only to land with a plop against the cardboard-backed photo Gabe was lugging in.
Everyone stared at the blowup of Wayne’s photograph—the same that was on the back cover of the book. The colossal-sized blowup. In life, Wayne had been a lean five foot ten. In this cardboard version, he was closer to nine feet tall.
“Gabe!” Cassandra exclaimed. “What were you thinking? Inflate that thing and it could be one of the balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.”
Gabe propped it against a wall. “What’s wrong with it?”
Astounded, Juliet stared into the one-dimensional eyes of her much-enlarged husband. Then she laughed. “Oh, my God.” Her hand over her mouth, she couldn’t stop more laughter from bubbling up.
The others watched her in wary silence.
Nervous hysteria, she figured they were thinking. It made her laugh even more. “No, no,” she said, when she could breathe. “I’m sorry, it’s just too good. Wayne would certainly approve.”
Cassandra and Nikki exchanged another worried glance.
“Really. Noah, remember the flat-screen TV discussion?”
He frowned. “He wanted seventy inches. You thought—what?—thirty-two?”
She laughed again, she couldn’t help herself.
Noah appeared perplexed. “I remember you snickering then, too, now that I think of it. What’s so funny about that?”
Juliet looked over at her sisters. “The TV room at that house is something like twelve-by-twelve feet.” Then she glanced at Noah. “But both you and Wayne insisted that bigger was far, far better.”
Cassandra grinned. “And they say women think size matters.”
Jay walked through the door at that moment, and his gaze snagged on the massive cardboard likeness. “Whoa,” he said, taking a step back. Then he smiled in approval. “Looks perfect, Gabe.”
When the three sisters failed to hold back their laughter, he frowned. “What?”
Looking bewildered, Gabe and Noah shook their heads and Cassandra, Nikki, and Juliet just laughed some more.
Perfect was right though, Juliet thought, as she continued smiling through the last of the party setup. The couches had been pushed to the edges of the room and they unfolded chairs to form rows that faced a podium backed by Wayne’s hulking photograph. A table at the rear of the shop had been stocked with refreshments. The register was manned by a clerk from a local bookstore and she was surrounded by stacks of General Matters.
The party preparations looked perfect and the friendship and laughter Juliet shared with the people around her was going to make tonight her chance to sail through this turning point. The event would mark the moment she’d let go of her grief, she’d decided. Of course she’d always mourn Wayne and the time together they would never have, but after tonight she’d be able to move on from the past years of illness and sadness.
Across the room, Noah lifted a small table to shoulder level, the muscles in his back flexing as he carried it over a row of chairs to reposition it on the other side of the room. Tonight she’d start saying her good-byes to Noah, too. When he left her—and it would be soon, just yesterday he’d told her he’d taken a position in the county D.A.’s office—she’d be able to let him go as well.
Cold swamped her skin, but she told herself it was just those nerves kicking in, because at that same instant the door to the shop opened and a group walked inside. The clock read seven on the dot.
After that, Malibu & Ewe filled almost as fast as the guests filled their plates with Nikki’s
appetizers and desserts. The bookstore clerk was busy, too, ringing up sales, and Cassandra and Jay, favored children of Malibu, chatted up the locals Juliet suspected they’d arm-twisted into attending. Even Gabe came out of the shadows long enough to lead a reporter and photographer from a coastal-living magazine over to her.
She tried not to appear stiff as she posed with a copy of Wayne’s book and she was just leaning forward to answer the reporter’s question when Cassandra drew her toward the podium. “It’s time,” she said, turning her to face the rows of occupied chairs. “Slay ’em, sister.”
Cold washed over her again as she looked out at the crowd. Joining the locals she’d noticed before was a plethora of media types. Microphones bristled from the front of the podium. Two men with video cameras perched on their shoulders hovered at the rear of the room. Another stood at her left.
Jay had promised that the NYFM interview would trigger even more press attention and apparently he was right. On top of that, she knew he’d made some calls—she’d made a couple herself—that appeared to have paid off as well. Still, it must have been a slow SoCal news day, because this exceeded her highest expectations.
Or getting a glimpse of the Deal Breaker and the Happy Widow was more intriguing than she’d imagined.
Remembering the ugly nicknames froze her for a moment. Her mouth dried and her fingers curled around the copy of the book that was set on the podium. She clutched it as tightly as she’d wanted to hold Wayne in this life.
But then movement in her peripheral vision jerked her out of her paralysis. Nikki set a glass of water onto the podium beside Juliet’s white-knuckled hands. “Page thirty-two,” she whispered. “Noah says to start there.”
Her gaze sought him out, standing at the back of the room. His expression serious, he looked like the ex-soldier he was, his legs braced, his arms crossed over his chest. He made a small gesture with his chin. Go ahead.
She’d sticky-noted a different section to read, but instead turned to page thirty-two. She smiled, recognizing the passage, and without making any opening remarks, she cleared her throat and began to read. It was a humorous account of Wayne’s first day at a boot camp he’d attended in Junior ROTC. The people in Malibu & Ewe laughed at the appropriate moments, and she was gratified. Despite the humor, she didn’t think they could miss what came through so clearly in Wayne’s own words as well—the caliber and remarkable quality of the man himself.
Unravel Me Page 23
