“Yes, Daddy, I do.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “Can I sleep over tonight?”
“You can move back in. I don’t like it when you have a boyfriend.”
“I’m not moving back in. Can we watch The Muppet Movie?”
“Whatever you want.”
She smiled, feeling marginally better. Sometimes a girl just needed her father, too.
*
Mike stared at a spot on his living room ceiling for hours. There was a smudge, a gray imperfection in the white paint. Focusing on it helped keep his mind off Ellis and the burning anger he felt whenever he thought about how quickly he’d screwed things up with her. He had been in love a little over a week and he sucked at it.
His mother had called him earlier even though Sunday was two days away. Their conversation was stilted. She tried to bring up his father but Mike shut her down. He didn’t want to get into it with her. He didn’t want to argue anymore that day. Not with another woman he loved. So he asked about his sisters, the floral shop, anything that didn’t require many words on his part. His mother obliged, filling him in on all the happenings around his hometown. But that thread of conversation ended quickly, and his mother brought up Ellis.
He hadn’t known the two of them had talked. Ellis hadn’t told him, but he shouldn’t be surprised by that. He wasn’t around for her to tell him. Apparently his mother really liked Ellis. He heard the smile return to her voice when she spoke of their long conversation. This time he didn’t stop his mother from talking about a subject that pained him. He didn’t have the heart to tell Margie that Ellis had dumped him. And he certainly didn’t want to share that their breakup was 99 percent his fault.
He needed to get her back. Hours of introspection and solitude told him that. He knew she had trust issues. He knew her last boyfriend had been a dick. He should have been there to reassure her. He should have talked to her, but he was no good at talking about his feelings.
A brisk knock on his door shook him from his depressed musings. He hoped it was Colin, there to distract him. He wished it was Ellis there to forgive him, but he knew that was an impossibility. She wouldn’t come back. If he wanted her he was going to have to get her. But how?
He opened the door finding neither of the people he expected. “Walter?”
Before he could process that Ellis’s father was at his door a fist flew in his face, knocking him off balance, physically and mentally. It was a really good hit. “What the fuck? You hit me!”
“She was crying.” Walter’s face was red. His lips smoothed in a tight line. “You made my daughter cry. You told me you cared for her. I thought you were going to be good to her. I thought you were going to make her happy. But you made her cry and you deserve to be punished.”
Mike was at least five inches taller and thirty years younger than the angry academic before him. He could destroy this man if he wanted, but he knew that that wouldn’t earn him any favors with Ellis. Still, getting punched in the face royally pissed him off.
“You tell your daughter that I didn’t want this breakup. That I admitted I don’t ever know what to do when it comes to her. That she makes me so fucking crazy I feel like beating my head into a goddamn wall. That being with her is not easy but it’s the only place I want to be.” He shook his head. “Shit! Don’t tell her any of that. You and your whole family need to leave me the hell alone.”
Walter blinked at him for a moment. “Phillipa makes me want to scream sometimes. There are times I want to stuff a sock in her mouth to prevent her from talking.” His expression grew thoughtful. “But when she is silent I need to hear her voice. When it first happened I thought she had bewitched me. She told me that I was in love with her. You must be in love with my daughter.”
“For the love of God, I’m not having this conversation with the man who just punched me.”
“You’re going to have a black eye. I suggest putting ice on it.” Walter nodded. “My mother made me take boxing lessons in high school. She was afraid I was going to get beat up because I am…” He blinked at Mike again. “Dina calls me a freaky brainiac. Would you like to accompany me to a bar? I will buy you a drink. Please do not take it as an apology, though. I am not sorry I punched you. I do not like to see my daughter cry. I will punch you again if it happens.”
The whole Garret/Gregory clan was insane. Not a normal one in the bunch, and yet he was prepared to be saddled with them for the rest of his life. Shit. He was going to have to marry Ellis. Not want to, but have to. She was that missing piece for him, and he needed to think of a way to get her back.
“Yeah, let me get my jacket. I need to hear more about those boxing lessons.”
*
“Don’t be a putz. Men freak out all the time when they realize they are in love. Go tell him you’re sorry and get him back.”
Apparently Phillipa thought Ellis’s choice to end things with Mike was a bad idea but Ellis stayed firm with her decision. It was for the best. She wanted more from him than he was able to give her, and it was unfair of her to wish for things he clearly said he didn’t want. She deserved to be loved completely. It took her two years with the wrong man and a few weeks with the right one to realize that. Even though sadness made her heart heavy, she took her mind off it by throwing herself into her work. Before she knew it a week had passed.
Belinda’s mother came to the shop every day to help her with the tailoring that Ellis could no longer handle. Belinda and Cherri were doing a fabulous job running the shop. Thanks to her happy brides’ word-of-mouth advertising, business tripled. Clothes were flying off the racks and Ellis was getting offers to make more than just bridal gowns. One teenager begged her to make a gown for her Snowflake ball. The girl only had two hundred dollars and Ellis was swamped with work but she agreed to make it.
“See,” she mumbled as she stitched the sapphire-colored material, “you don’t have any time for men. Your career is booming. This is what you wanted.”
“Talking to yourself, Smelly?” Dina walked into her office, a pout on her pretty face.
“Hey,” she said, wondering why her sister was visiting her shop so early on a Saturday morning. “What’s up?”
“I broke up with him.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, about…” Ellis couldn’t remember the guy’s name at the moment. Pogo? Rory? Milo? She shook her head. “I’m sure you’ll find the right guy for you.” She had said that phrase so many times, the response had become automatic.
“I don’t know, Ellie.” She walked past Ellis and gracefully slumped onto the couch. “I’m going to be thirty-four next year. I think I might have already met the one and let him slip through my fingers.”
Ellis held in a long-suffering sigh. She was in no mood for Dina’s complaining. Ellis had been fighting back misery all week. Dina had no idea what it felt like to really be in pain, to really feel heartbreak.
“I should look up Mike.”
“Would you stop talking about Mike!” Something inside Ellis snapped. She was sick of hearing about Dina’s twisted fantasy of Mike, sick of her sister’s constant immature bullshit. “He dumped you nearly five years ago. Things would have never worked out between you two, and if he was so crazy about you he never would have left you in the first place. Mike Edwards does not want you. It’s time to grow up, Dina. It’s time for you to get a real job and stop asking Mom and Dad for money. It’s time you stop acting like a spoiled brat and behave like everybody else your age because at this rate you’re going to be forty years old and still hanging out in bars with kids half your age. And if you can’t see how pathetic that is, then God help you.”
Ellis clapped her hands over her mouth as soon as she heard the final word come out. She was supposed to be getting closer to her sister, not saying mean things, no matter how true they were.
“I’m sorry, Dina. I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t believe you’re such a nasty bitch.”
H
er sister’s words were like a slap in the face and for a moment Ellis was torn between anger and guilt. “I’m so sorry, honey.” She rushed to her sister’s side and gripped her hands. Guilt as usual won out. “Please, forgive me.”
“I don’t know if I can, Ellis.” She tore her hands away and stood. “I need some time to think about it.”
She stomped out of the room, reminding Ellis of the times she’d done so as a teenager. She had been too hard on Dina. Dina’s father never loved her like a father should, like Walter loved Ellis. Maybe she was entitled to act a little selfishly. And maybe Ellis was once again making excuses for her big sister.
Chapter Twenty-four
Mike scratched at the new growth on his chin. He’d neglected to shave that morning, as he had for the past two days. He looked like shit. His eye was still black from Walter’s punch. His head throbbed, and he hadn’t felt like himself. He was missing Ellis and part of him wanted to kick down her front door and force her to realize they belonged together. But the rational side of his brain held him back. She probably needed time to cool down. Or, the thought he hated to think, she didn’t love him. Not as much as he loved her. So he held off, biding his time, hoping that the shitty feeling would magically dissipate or that some other woman would come along and make him forget all about Ellis.
Fat chance. Other women didn’t exist for him.
“You okay, Mike?” Lester asked as they walked down Barnum Street. They were on their way to interview a suspect in a breaking and entering. The item stolen was a twenty-gallon fish tank filled with pricey saltwater fish. The suspect was the woman’s ex-husband. The case should be easy to solve.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You having woman problems?”
Mike shrugged, not wanting to talk about it with his partner.
“Me and my wife got into a huge fight before I proposed to her. It was about her loudmouth mother. I can’t stand that old bat. I was so glad when she moved to Boca Raton two years ago I nearly got down on my knees and kissed the ground.”
Mike tuned out as Lester went on in detail about his mother-in-law. Normally Mike found Lester’s stories amusing, but he couldn’t focus today. Instead he took in the scenery of Barnum Street. He hadn’t spent a lot of time in this part of town. It wasn’t as clean and shiny as the rest of Durant. It was nowhere near seedy, but the town’s one and only pawnshop was located on this block as well as some of the older shops.
His eyes fixed on a fat bald guy in a tracksuit walking out of a convenience store. The man looked familiar and Mike racked his brain trying to figure out where he knew him from.
And then it hit him like a MackTruck. He was the man who’d robbed Ellis’s store, the same man whose face he’d studied every morning for weeks.
“Motherfucker.” He took off toward the man, who was so startled that he didn’t even bother to run.
“What the fuck’s your problem, man?”
Mike punched the bastard in the face. “That woman you hit and robbed is my girlfriend.” He backhanded him. “How do you like being slapped around? Make you feel powerful, big man?”
“Mike!” Lester grabbed his arm before he could knock the guy out. “What the hell are you doing?”
“This is the guy who hurt Ellis. You saw her face. I’m going to kill him.”
“No! Wait!” The man put his hands up in defense. “He paid me to do it.”
“Who?”
“Her ex.”
*
Mike flew out of the police station as fast as humanly possible. He barely heard Lester’s warning for him to wait for him … or for backup. Probably both. Mike needed to get to Jack. He needed to find that weaselly smug punk ass.
The first place he thought to go was Agatha Toomey’s. Normally he would look the guy up in the database but he didn’t know Jack’s last name. The Jack Toomeys that came up didn’t fit the description and Mike didn’t have time to investigate. Jack’s aunt would know where he was.
He spotted a green VW Bug in the driveway and knew he was in the right place. He was going to have to play it cool with Mrs. Toomey. He couldn’t let his emotions rule him or else the woman would give him nothing. Maybe he should have waited for Lester or another officer to question her but his mind wasn’t functioning correctly. Jack had hurt Ellis for the last time.
He knocked on the door of the white Colonial and waited. When the door didn’t immediately open he knocked again, then he banged. This time the door opened, the skinny little hag’s face twisted with distaste as soon as she spotted him.
Calm down, he warned himself. Don’t let on.
“What do you want?”
Good question. Blood didn’t seem like the appropriate answer. He pulled out his badge. “I’m Detective Michael Edwards and I have a few questions for you.”
“Who is it, Aunt Aggie?”
Mike’s blood boiled. Jack stood behind his aunt in a three-piece suit. His face lost all signs of color.
“You fucking bastard.” He pushed past the lady, entering her home uninvited. Jack fled toward the back. “Coward,” Mike yelled. “You can’t even act like a man now.”
He caught up with Jack quickly in the den, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him into the wall so hard the plaster cracked. “You hurt her, you son of a bitch.” Mike smashed his fist into Jack’s face, hearing a satisfying thunk when his knuckles met Jack’s jawbone. “What kind of man does that to a woman? She didn’t deserve that.”
“She wasn’t supposed to get hurt. He was just supposed to scare her!”
“Jacky!” his aunt cried in the background.
“Scare her,” Mike roared. “He split her face open. She needed stitches. Now I’m going to do to you what he did to her.” He slapped Jack with the back of his hand, but this time Jack was prepared and delivered a punch of his own. Mike barely felt the impact. He was too pissed off.
“If she’d kept her mouth shut things would have been fine. I always told her that her big mouth was going to get her in trouble.”
Mike’s fist connected with his gut and Jack doubled over in pain.
“You leave him alone,” Agatha screamed. “My Jack was too good for that slut anyway.”
“Shut up, Aunt Aggie,” Jack cried. “You don’t get to talk about her like that. You know I love her.”
Love her? The words were like gasoline on a fire. Mike loved her. Jack had no idea what love was.
He body-checked Jack, sending the smaller man flying. He advanced on him, his heart pounding, his brain buzzing. No rational thought entered or left. Jack’s face twisted in fear.
Good, Mike thought, wickedly. Now he can feel what Ellis felt. Now he can know what it’s like to have his dignity robbed from him.
Jack staggered to his feet, grabbing a lamp off the nearest end table. “You stay away from me, you animal.” He threw it, and it exploded on the wall behind Mike, shards of it slapping Mike’s face. Warm blood trickled down his cheek but it didn’t stop him from moving toward Jack.
He picked up the antique table next. It struck Mike square in the chest but it didn’t stop him.
“Are you fucking RoboCop?”
He grabbed Jack again but not before the man delivered a quick punch to his eye. It started swelling immediately, making it hard for him to see. Mike rewarded that blow with two back-to-back punches, backing Jack up into the sofa. One of them tripped and they both went down. Jack tried to get in a few more punches as they landed, but Mike expected them and countered, knocking Jack’s head so hard on the floor that spit and blood flew from his mouth.
“You’re going to kill him,” he heard and then he felt a searing pain in his arm. The bitch did it. She stabbed him with a ballpoint pen.
*
“Mike’s been hurt. You need to get to the hospital.” It was the phone call every wife or girlfriend of a police officer dreaded.
Ellis said nothing to Lester’s statement. She just dropped her phone and left her store.
Les
ter was waiting for her at the emergency room, his face grim. She opened her mouth to speak but her heart was lodged in her throat. “How—what—Is he okay?”
“He looks like hell, but he’s a tough one. He’ll be fine.”
As soon as she heard those words a little bit of the pressure eased from her chest. “What happened?”
“Mike found the guy who robbed you. It turns out that your ex set up both of the robberies on St. Lucy Street as a scare tactic to get you back. When Mike found out, he found that sneaky bastard and beat the shit out of him.”
“Oh no.” Ellis grabbed her head. “Oh God.” She wasn’t really surprised that Jack had set her up. He was used to getting what he wanted no matter what he had to do to get it. But Mike … “He’s going to get into major trouble for this.”
“He’s going to prison.”
Ellis’s eyes shot up to Lester’s. “Mike’s going to prison?”
“No, sweetie. Your ex is, and so is the guy he hired to do the job. Toomey confessed. They are going to get some serious time for it. Mike’s just going to get his ass handed to him by our captain, but he ended up solving the case. Now folks around here won’t be so afraid anymore.”
Guilt pounded in her chest. “All of this happened because of me. I—I should move to Russia.”
“Don’t go blaming yourself. Seems to me like you’re the type of girl men lose their minds over.”
“Which is exactly why I should be single.”
Lester shook his head. “Go see your boyfriend and do us all a favor. Take him back. He’s been a mopey shithead all week.”
She nodded once before she turned away.
“Mike.” Tears flooded her eyes when she saw him. Horrible wasn’t a strong enough word to describe how he looked. His face was nearly unrecognizable. Both his beautiful eyes were blackened. His cheek had long red scrapes. His perfect lower lip was swollen.
He was surprised to see her, and her heart broke. He looked so alone sitting on that hospital bed, bare-chested and bruised, his arm bandaged and in a sling. “Elle.”
“What did you do?” she cried.
Dangerous Curves Ahead: A Perfect Fit Novel Mass Market Paperback Page 26
