She shook her head and a blue feather flew in front of his face. Her words, mumbled into his shirt, weren’t easy to understand, but he thought he could make out, “She didn’t understand.”
“You have to give her a chance to understand.”
She lifted her head. “Only one person does.” A loud sniff. “You.” She tightened her grip on him. He winced as fingernails dug into his back.
Pretty much a replay of the conversation they’d had when she’d first found out he was back in town. He struggled for something to say that wouldn’t make him sound like as much of a jerk as he felt. Couldn’t come up with anything.
“I’m never going to be a mother.”
“C’mon. That’s not true.”
She nodded so hard, the feather thing gave up and flew off her head, landing on the floor. “I haven’t been able to get pregnant again since we — ” An agonized hiccup. “I can’t even s-say it.”
So he did. “Lost the baby.”
“The worst night of my life.” Another hiccup. She closed her eyes, leaning her head against his chest. He breathed in the flowery scent of her hair and flashed back a million years.
To the warm, biting reassurance of a fifth of bourbon going down his throat after he’d lost Tensley. The jolt when he’d climbed out of his fog the next morning to find Rhonda in his bed. The aching regret when Rhonda told him a month later that she was pregnant. The sound of fall leaves crunching beneath their shoes as they made their way up the steps to the courthouse and a quickie marriage, Rhonda in a white, tight dress and Max in his only suit.
The judge hadn’t looked at Max once during the brief ceremony. His eyes had been glued to Rhonda’s chest.
Not many weeks later, the argument. Max had come home the next morning to apologize and found her curled in a ball, eyes puffy and one ankle wrapped. She’d told him she’d been crying so hard the night before, she hadn’t seen the stairs. Until she’d tumbled down them.
It had been his fault. The fight, the miscarriage, the divorce after less than a year. The fact that he hadn’t been ready to be a husband, let alone a parent. Ever since he’d come back to town, she hadn’t let him forget it.
Not that he could have, no matter how much he’d moved on. She’d never let him. And neither would the guilt that twisted in him.
She sighed against his chest. “My sister-in-law told everybody at dinner that she’s pregnant again, but this one’s gonna be the last. My mother’s so happy, she’s asking, wouldn’t it be nice to name this one after his grandfather? It’s not like there’s going to be any more grandchildren. She said that looking straight at me.”
Max rolled his eyes, remembering his few encounters with Rhonda’s mother. “You can’t let her get to you.”
“I would have been such a good mom, Max.”
He put a hand up to touch her hair, but drew it back before making contact. “You will be.” His voice was gruff; his feet already inching toward the door.
“You ever think about what he would have looked like?”
He couldn’t let himself think about that.
“Bet he would’ve looked like you. Girls wouldn’t have been able to keep their hands off him.” A small choked sound. “We could have made it, you know. Been a family.” Her warm tears soaked through his shirt and onto his skin.
One drunken night might make a kid, but it didn’t make a family. Since he couldn’t bring himself to say that, though, he just let his shirt get wetter.
“You know, I never would have come all the way over to your place last night unless I really needed you — ”
What? “Hold on,” he interrupted. He stepped back, putting his hands on her shoulders. “You went to my apartment last night?”
“You weren’t there.”
“I told you I had to work.”
“You weren’t there at four A.M.”
“Rhonda.” It took effort to keep his tone even. As usual, she was taking a hammer to his patience. “You can’t just show up at my place. We aren’t married any more, remember?”
She threw her hands in the air. “You think I could forget? My husband doesn’t even bother to tell me he’s moved back to town. I have to find out from my father, like that wasn’t uncomfortable. Real nice, Max.”
“Former husband,” he corrected. And then, because he was pissed off she’d gone to his apartment, he added, “First in a series.”
“First, second, third, what difference does it make?” she bit out, jamming her hands on her hips. Then she seemed to think the better of it and when she spoke again, her tone had softened. “You’re the only one who ever mattered. You know that.”
He turned away, studying a necklace that looked as though it weighed as much as Rhonda. Where did she get this stuff, anyway? He picked it up and let it slip through his fingers to clatter onto a counter. “Husbands two and three might not agree.”
“Oh, very funny. I don’t even know where Jess is and Carl, well, you know what’s up with that.”
Unfortunately, he did. Carl, a more senior detective, had never gotten over the divorce and considered every male between the age of eighteen and eighty a rival for his ex-wife’s affections.
“Jealous?” Rhonda purred.
Hell, if he could figure out how to get her back together with Carl, he would. Max changed the subject. “So, how’s business?”
She brightened. “I have a blog.”
He picked up a pile of clothing and dropped it onto a table to get to the wooden chair beneath. Shiny stuff — glitter or something like it — shot upward. He dragged the chair out of the danger zone and straddled it, crossing his arms over the back. “What’s it about?”
“Fashion. How you can find great bargains and look amazing for not much money.” She clasped her hands together. “I already have about a zillion followers. It’s incredible.”
“That’s good.” She needed something in her life besides serial marriage.
“And I gave it the perfect name.” She paused, taking a deep breath, apparently to give the name a dramatic introduction. “Rhonda’s RearView.”
He covered his sudden, sharp laugh with a cough. “Nice,” he managed.
She flashed a dimple at him. “You should see my photo. Everyone says my ass is my best feature.” To illustrate her point, she thrust her hip toward him and turned, looking back over her shoulder. “Including you.”
“It is, yeah,” he said, “a good feature.” It was getting hot in this stockroom and the musty smell coming from all these clothes was starting to get to him. He stood, pushing the chair aside. “But don’t sell yourself short.”
“You can’t go.” Rhonda rushed over and grabbed hold of his jacket. “You just got here.”
He loosened her fingers. “Work to do.”
“I was in such a bad place last night, I couldn’t even trust myself. I was afraid of what what — I might do.”
Alarm shot through him. “Go to the therapist, Rhonda.”
“I told you. She doesn’t underst — ”
“Go. To the therapist. Call her.”
She let go of him and stepped back, tipping her head and looking up through her lashes. “Take me to dinner and I’ll think about it.”
Not gonna happen.
She must have read the answer on his face because she answered before he did. “Forget it. You don’t owe me anything. Even dinner.”
“Rhonda.” He stopped, not sure what to say.
She picked up a skirt, examining it. “Besides, I’m sure your girlfriend wouldn’t like it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“Whoever she is. The one you were with at four A.M.”
God help him if she ever found out. “Told you. I was working.” He had been. At first.
“You can’t fool a wife, Max Hunter.”
“Ex — ” He broke off. No point. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Go on then.” She fluttered her fingers, eyes still intent on the skirt. “I have to post on my
blog. Today it’s all about twenty things you can do with rhinestones.”
He hesitated. Being with Rhonda felt like opening a window part way only to have it slam shut on your fingers without warning. Part of him felt obligated to keep trying to open it again, while the other part yelled that only an idiot got his fingers broken more than once.
He made for the door. “Have fun.”
“Wait.” A squeak of panic in her voice. “Max?”
He stopped and turned. “Yeah?”
“Still friends, right?” Her eyes were too bright, shiny.
As if he had a choice. He flexed his fingers. “Sure.”
Relief crossed her face. “So then, go. Quit hanging around me so much.” She adjusted her huge tits, shooting him a mischievous look. “You might be getting in the way of wedding number four.”
“Oh God, Rhonda,” he groaned. “You’re not getting married again.” He’d heard Carl hurling verbal bullets yesterday, so it couldn’t be to him.
“Don’t worry, baby.” She flashed a grin and cooed, “There’s time. You’ve still got a chance.”
He couldn’t get out of the shop fast enough. Avril only managed the first syllable of goodbye before he shot through the front door.
Rhonda. Of all the ex-wives, in all the towns, in all the world, she had to be his.
• • •
This time, when Tensley called Kate’s office, she didn’t have to make up an ill pet to talk with the vet. She gave her name and was put right through.
Her friend dispensed with the preliminaries. “I’ve been worried about you.” In the background, a dog barked.
“Good. Because I’m worried about me, too.”
“What happened?”
Tensley sighed. “Let’s just say, he didn’t put his gun on the nightstand right away. Don’t think he had time, what with me ripping his clothes off and all.”
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off each other. I remember how you were in high school. Did I call it, or what?”
“You called it.”
“So you slept with Max.”
“There wasn’t much sleeping involved.”
Kate chuckled. “So that’s how you decided you could help him. Did it work? And was it crazy amazing, with fireworks? A Hallelujah chorus?”
Tensley sighed again and pressed a fist against her heart, remembering the way Max had left her. “For someone who’s supposed to be my best friend, you ask a lot of questions.”
“Oh.” A pause. “So no fireworks?”
“No, it’s not that.” Tensley shook her head and sat down on the bed. She gazed down at the white sheet and spread her fingers across it, as though she could hold the memory of him there. “It was incredible. On the scale of the monster fireworks that aren’t even legal.”
“Okay.” Kate’s voice softened. “Then what’s wrong?”
“He got a call and left.”
“Cops do that. All the time.”
“He turned into a different person when he answered his phone.” Tensley curled her fingers into a ball, pressing it hard into the mattress. “Couldn’t get out of here fast enough.” Gemini hopped up onto the bed with a soft thump and sat, watching her. “He said last night was a big mistake.”
The dog’s shrill barking escalated until Tensley could barely hear Kate’s sympathetic, “Oh, no.”
“His case is more important.”
“Then after the case is over — ”
“Bullshit. He just doesn’t want anyone to find out he was with a — stripper.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m pretty sure I do. The irony, of course, is that I’m not a stripper. Or at least I wasn’t until Madame Claire decided to screw with my life.”
A voice in the background paged Kate to an exam room. “Listen, Ten — ”
“You have to go.”
“I do. I’m sorry. A very sick Great Dane. We’ll talk more about this later, okay? I wish I knew what to say.”
“It’s okay. Not like I haven’t been down this road before.” Her attempt at sounding offhand fell to the floor with a splat.
“You don’t know what’s going on with him.”
Tensley straightened. “Well, you know what? I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I can’t afford to. So I won’t.”
Kate’s voice was rueful. “Let me know how that goes.”
“You’ll know. Because I need a favor. Can I stay with you for a few days until I figure some things out?”
“Of course. Come by and I’ll give you a key to my place. You can have the guest bedroom.”
“Can Gemini come, too?” She couldn’t just leave the cat.
“What do you think? Of course.”
Relief surged through Tensley. “Thanks. I don’t want to be here when Razor comes around. Or Max. Not that he — you know, will. But I want to make sure anything I do to help him is all business.”
The overhead voice that paged Kate this time sounded less patient.
“I have to go,” Kate said. “But think about one thing.” She paused. “Maybe he’s afraid of what he’s feeling. And that’s why he left.”
Tensley’s laugh was sharp. “Are you kidding me? Max Hunter,” she said, “is a lot of things, but afraid is never one of them.”
• • •
Max Hunter was, for the first time in his life, scared shitless. How could one guy screw up his life this bad in one night?
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shove aside the memory of Tensley’s body against his, the feel of her mouth on him, the roller coaster thrill of being inside her, the fierce need they’d shared. Like two people stuck in a desert who’d finally found a drink of cool water.
His mouth went dry and he broke into a sweat every time he thought about last night, which was … . Every. Single. Minute.
“Hey, Hunter,” an officer said as he walked by. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Max said without looking up.
“Good,” came the retort. “’Cause you look like crap.”
Max zeroed in on his computer monitor, but the letters swam in front of him. Random, meaningless words about the hardware store Burns owned. He had to make sense of them. Fast.
And he had to stop thinking about her. Fast.
He’d call another woman. A cop never lacked for phone numbers; he had tons of them. Like maybe that cute little barista at the coffee shop who’d written her number on the side of his paper cup last week and slid it over to him with a smile, letting her fingers linger on his. That apron didn’t begin to cover her sexy little ass, which he’d enjoyed watching as she’d walked away.
Her ass didn’t come close to being as sexy as Tensley’s, but still — Fu-u-ck. Get your head in the game, Hunter.
From the corner of his eye, he saw movement. He looked up. In front of his desk stood a hulking man in an expensive dirt-brown suit, with a scowl that took up every inch of real estate on his face.
You have got to be kidding me.
“Yeah. I’m just as happy to see you, Sunshine,” Rhonda’s Husband Number Three, otherwise known as Detective Carl Cole, drawled. “But apparently you need help from someone who knows what the hell he’s doing.”
Seriously. This day just could not get any better.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I don’t need help.” Max stood and gathered his papers, shoving them into a file.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Carl said, scraping a chair’s legs across the floor to pull it in front of Max’s desk. He sat down hard, dwarfing the chair with his size. “Captain says you do. And then he tells me it’s my lucky day. I’m the one who’s gotta do the helping.”
Max stopped, leveling a gaze at the detective, who worked in the investigations unit that handled fraud and forgery. “I’ve got it handled. You can leave.”
The other man leaned back and templed his fingers. “It’s not like I want to be here. I’ve got real work
to do. Instead, I’ve gotta be wasting my time with some shit strip club. And you.”
Asshole. Max narrowed his eyes. On the up side, Carl had more experience than Max did with this kind of thing. On the down side, he was Carl. Who still thought Rhonda was the love of his life and that any other guy, but especially one who had also been married to her, was an obstacle. “So get me somebody else.”
The other man snorted. “Like we have a ton of guys sitting around waiting for — ”
“Got it. You’re the only one who has time on his hands.”
Carl opened his mouth and paused, obviously confused. The scowl returned. “Listen,” he said. “You don’t get to disrespect an order. And neither do I. So sit your ass back down and tell me what you’ve got.”
Max realized he wasn’t going to get out of this. Shit. Why couldn’t Rhonda marry outside the force? A firefighter, for once.
He put both hands on the desk and leaned in toward Carl. “I respect orders, but I sure as hell don’t take them from you. Are we clear on that much?”
“Crap.” Carl scowled and adjusted his belt. “You could spend your whole life tryin’ and not learn half of what I know — ”
Max cut him off with, “You going to bitch all day or are you going to help?”
He took Carl’s irritated grunt as assent.
• • •
Tensley picked up the key to Kate’s place and then wove her way through traffic to arrive at a new high rise not far from the downtown core. “Not bad,” she said to herself, peering up at the endless bank of windows.
In Tensley’s former life, Kate had bought a craftsman-style house in an older part of town. The two of them had had several debates about house vs. apartment, but Kate had finally decided to take the homeowner plunge and ended up loving the place.
Tensley wondered why things were different now.
She followed the instructions her best friend had written out for parking and then lugged her suitcase to the entrance, plugging in the code she’d been given. After the door clicked open, she walked into a high-ceilinged lobby furnished with plush rugs, elegant chairs and sofas, and large mirrors edged in a subdued gold. Tensley stopped and closed her eyes, breathing in a scent of furniture polish mingled with vanilla.
Careful What You Kiss For Page 18
