by EC Sheedy
“What was your first?”
“Calling you.”
“Oh…” Yet another witty, sparkling reply.
“Is there anything else I can bring?” he asked. “This was my idea after all. I’m not sure your doing all the work is fair.”
His words bordered on formal, yet his voice radiated intimacy. Either that or her feminine tuner was set to pick up wishes and dreams, because suddenly her tummy felt like a just-filled champagne flute. She pressed her hand against it.
“No. Just bring yourself. That will be more than enough—I mean…” What was she saying? She coughed to cover her blooper. Not a nice ladylike cough—one more tubercular in nature, then she squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe some cool was hiding behind her lids. “I’ll see you at eight.”
After a brief silence, he said, “Tonight then,” and hung up.
When she clicked off the phone, she stood immobile, the receiver still in her hand. Tonight, he’d said. His low tone—or her imagination—making the word weighty and fearsome, like a threat…or a promise.
Little Deanne Moore had an honest-to-God date with Julius Zern. Unbelievable.
Gathering the remnants of her wits, she took a deep breath and settled herself. She hadn’t remembered Julius being so smooth and silky. While it aroused her in some strange way, it was a tiny bit frightening. The Julius she remembered—from ye olde tweener crush era—had ignored her, saw her for the awkward kid she was. Back then, he was seriously hot. She was in the warming oven. He was captain of the swim team, dating…anyone he wanted to. She hadn’t had her first period.
But she wasn’t that prepubescent girl anymore. She was a woman with all her working parts—well, whatever parts were left after her emotional bottoming out and disastrous marriage. And the grown-up Julius, except for the shadow in his eyes and the darkness in his heart that bred distance and steely reserve, was charming, sophisticated and utterly confident in his masculinity. Deanne knew that shadow, knew its origins lay in his tragic loss.
Unpacking the rest of the groceries, she wondered if Julius brought that aloofness and reserve to bed.
Maybe I should find out…She rubbed her warming cheeks. “You’re nuts, girlfriend. Totally nuts. Gotta be. You spent two years getting a grip on your whacked-out life. Only a certified nut-bar would risk all that for a night in bed with a childhood fantasy.” She opened a cupboard door, shoved in a box of crackers and a jar of jam. “It’s just dinner for God’s sake!” But it’s dinner with Julius…
She slammed the cupboard door closed, leaned her butt against the yellow counter and crossed her arms, shocked at her hormone-driven fantasies. She blew out a breath and looked at Samba, who she could see through the open laundry room door. “I’m crazy, aren’t I, mama-dog? I mean, really, look where sex got you.”
Samba raised her head and thumped her tail, and a couple of the sleeping pups started to wiggle. Deanne smiled.
She would swear Samba smiled back.
Kurt killed the dragon and ten mutant Orcs; the killings took him to level forty-five and set him up for the next quest. He sat back in his chair and rubbed his twitchy gut. He was starving. After camping his character in a safe place on the interactive game he’d been playing for the past four hours, he headed for the kitchen.
His dad had been gone over two weeks—wouldn’t be back for another two—so the kitchen was pretty much a goner. Dishes. Sticky floor. More dishes. And some garbage under the sink, reeking like dead rats wrapped in boiled cabbage. Hell, even he couldn’t eat with that fucking smell streaking up his nose. He decided to bag the crap and stash it on the back porch.
When he opened the door, Dev was coming up the back stairs.
“Hey, Kurt squirt, got a delivery for you.” He sniffed, grimaced. “Jesus, what ya got in there—” he jerked his chin at the untied black garbage bag, “—a load of ho panties?” He rubbed his nose.
With no answer to give, Kurt stacked the bag beside the others. The back porch was beginning to look like garbage-strike central. “What are you doing here?”
Dev handed Kurt a brown paper bag, lunch size. When Kurt didn’t reach for it ASAP, Dev shook the bag. “La Rocha…remember?”
The roofies. Kurt’s throat closed. Like his fists did at his sides. He couldn’t move.
“You look like bleached crap.” He shook the bag again. “Take the fucking stuff.”
Kurt stared at the bag, rubbed a hand over the thigh of his jeans and did what he was told. He took the pills—the very illegal pills. He didn’t speak, because he was afraid if he opened his mouth he’d squeak like a mouse.
“Wheeler says one’ll do it,” Dev said. “But there’s four of them in there. Insurance, he says.” Even Dev looked twitchy.
Jesus, four would fuckin’ kill her. “Where’d you get ’em?” Curious in spite of himself, he opened the bag. Inside was one of those clear prescription bottles a druggist uses. Four white pills lay innocent as shit on the bottom of it. He wondered how many years they’d put him in prison for if he got caught using the things.
A chill hustled up his spine and settled between his ears like brain freeze.
“The ‘where’s’ not your business.”
“Huh?” Kurt had forgotten his question.
“What’s with you anyway? You sniffing something?”
Kurt gave him what he knew was a blank stare.
Dev stepped up, into his face. “What I was saying was quit askin’ questions—stickin’ your nose in Wheeler’s business. You get that?” Dev acted tough, but he’d be shit on a stick if he didn’t hang with Wheeler.
“Yeah, I get it.” Kurt stuffed the bag in his pocket. He didn’t want to look at it anymore. Didn’t want to think about it. It mixed him up.
“And Wheeler wants to know about the dog.”
“Huh? What dog?”
“The one he cut. The one the woman’s got.”
“It’s okay. She called the vet.” Kurt liked Samba. Trouble was she didn’t like him, but something in him told him to shut up about the pups.
“That isn’t going to make Wheeler happy.”
“Then don’t tell him.” Just go…please. Just go. All Kurt wanted was to see his back. “We done?”
“I guess. But take care of those little white ones.” He jerked his chin in the general direction of Kurt’s pocket where the pill bottle bulged like a boil. “They’re Wheeler’s ticket to fame and fortune. He’s got some guy who’s going give him five grand for the tape. Or so he says.” Dev stopped at the door, flipped his car keys from hand to hand, looking like he was chewing on some beans he needed to spill. “Wheeler’s started packin’, you know. A Beretta.”
“Jesus! What for?”
“Didn’t ask.”
“Why’re you telling me?”
“I don’t know. So you won’t mess up, is all. Forget it, okay? And don’t tell him I told you.”
Wheeler Sachs with a fucking gun. And Kurt on his damn radar. Great. Just great. Forget that? Not likely. “Yeah.”
Kurt watched Dev go down the stairs, jump into his red Mazda MX-5 and torque out of the driveway, spitting gravel for a half mile. He hated Dev, but fuck, that car was hot.
And as to why Kurt was on Wheeler’s radar? His big mouth. He’d made the mistake of standing out from the school asswipers, by saying Wheeler’s new tattoo, a set of boobs with nipple rings he’d had inked on his back, was gross. Everybody else was smart enough to say either nothing at all or mumble how great it was. Nobody wanted to rile Wheeler—even before he had a fuckin’ gun. Kurt wouldn’t have either, if he hadn’t been doing the big-shot routine for Emma Jane. Now he was in crap up to his armpits.
As Dev shot out of Kurt’s yard, another car turned into Deanne’s driveway. A silver Mercedes SL600. Big Man was back.
Kurt didn’t know if what he felt was fear, frustration or plain stupid jealousy, but it didn’t matter because whatever he felt, it sucked. Like having your gut vacuumed.
And watching Deanne op
en the door and smile up at Zern sucked worst of all.
Deanne was pretty.
Emma Jane was pretty.
His mom was pretty…
Slide-show thoughts of his mother nearly brought him to his knees. Her fussing with those dried flowers of hers in the kitchen. Her smiling. Yelling. Not smiling. “You’ll be okay, Kurt. Now I need to be okay.” Her getting into a cab. Waving. The red sweater she left on the floor…
Just fuckin’ gone. Like she’d been vaporized.
Everybody had someone or something. Wheeler had his zombie fan boys, Dev had his hot car, and Big Man Zern had Deanne—and a hot car. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. All Kurt had was an AWOL dad, and an empty house Wheeler Sachs was going to torch—with him in it—if he didn’t get to fuck Deanne Moore. On camera.
Kurt’s mom loved this house, just not the man living in it with her, or so she’d said when she walked out.
Or me, I guess.
Breathing heavy and sharp, and clamping his jaws tight against the thickness in his throat, he wished his dad was home. He swallowed hard, shoved the heels of his hands against his eyes. Shit, he didn’t cry. He never cried.
When he lowered his hands to his side, his right brushed against the pill bottle in his pocket. Fuck it. What difference did it make? What difference did anything make? Zern would get in Deanne’s pants, and so would Wheeler. Like his dad said, that’s what bitches were made for. It was no big deal. It wasn’t! And it would get Wheeler off his ass.
Fuck ’em. Fuck ’em all.
Suddenly, Friday night couldn’t come soon enough.
He cast a last glance toward the cottage, saw the door close behind the big guy, then plodded back into the still, quiet house, the dirty kitchen.
Later he’d head over to Deanne’s, check things out. He’d say he was coming to see the pups.
CHAPTER 7
Julius stepped into the room, and Deanne closed the door behind him; in the seconds his back was to her, her hands fluttered up to smooth her hair. The involuntary gesture made her think of an aged spinster caught loitering in the erotica stacks. She dropped her hands to her sides and resisted, pressing her palms against her quivery stomach.
Goddess, she was hopeless. After all the deep breathing she’d done before opening the door for him, she’d primed herself to be as cool and slick as an iced smoothie. She wasn’t. She felt more like a fragile glass bowl holding a bubbling concoction of anticipation, excitement and confusion. And worry. And a vague sense she was being dishonest by not telling him about her friendship with Amanda—her role on the day his family died. It had seemed best to ignore it when their relationship was strictly business, but things had changed. Her instincts might be sorely rusty, but they still knew their stuff. From here on whatever business she and Julius conducted, it would be much more complicated than the buying and selling of art.
And I’m okay with that…very much okay.
All she needed to do was convince her stomach it wasn’t Butterfly World. She reminded herself what she felt didn’t matter; it was what she did about those feelings that counted.
Julius held out the wine. “I hope you like it.” He didn’t smile exactly, but his eyes were warmer than yesterday. Much warmer. He wasn’t the least nervous, of course. Dressed in black slacks and a crisp open-necked white shirt, he was his usual tall, dark and handsome self.
The last thought startled her.
Two days ago she’d thought him…unpretty, tonight she thought him a cliché. Tall, dark and handsome… and magnetic. She risked another glance at his closely shaved face, the black lashes over his gray-green eyes, the strong slash of well-defined jaw, the sensuous line of his lips…Her breathing hitched. Well, if the cliché fit, wear it, she decided. Although unconventional in that his features were all hard lines and angles under the softness of his thick dark lashes, Julius fit right in with People magazine’s Top 100 Most Beautiful People.
Time to talk, Deanne. Either that or stand here and tremble like a virgin handed a ticket to Sin City.
“Thank you.” She took the offered wine. “I’m sure it’s perfect.” Probably best not to tell him she wouldn’t be above slapping a nipple on a bottle of hundred-proof bourbon and draining it—if it would settle her fraught nerves. She gestured toward the sofa. “I’m almost done in the kitchen…If you’d like to wait here, I’ll—”
“Why don’t I take that back—” he nodded at the wine bottle in her hands, “—join you in the kitchen and open it while you finish up?”
“Sounds like a plan.” She gestured toward the doorway leading to her tiny kitchen. “This way.”
“I know.”
“Yes…” She smiled at him and at herself for racking up her first, but probably not her last, inanity of the night. “But the house is so large, and Friday so long ago, I thought you might have forgotten.”
He looked down at her, his expression amused and oddly reflective, then took the wine bottle from her hand, his fingers briefly touching hers. “I don’t forget things, least of all meeting a beautiful woman.” He glanced around. “And I like your house, by the way. It’s comfortable.”
She ran a finger over where he’d touched her, leaving a spark that still heated the back of her hand. “I like it too—or will, when I get it finished. I have lots to do yet, as you can see—painting, window coverings. The kitchen sink needs to be replaced. I’ve barely started, really. I need more furniture and—” And there she was marching double-time into babble zone. She stopped. “I’m talking too much.”
Julius dropped his gaze to her still-idly stroking finger, waited a beat and said, “You’re nervous.”
She opened her mouth to deny it, then nodded. “You’re right. I am.”
“Why?”
“I’m not absolutely sure…yet.” Which was as close as she’d go to the truth. Yet.
A slight, slow smile that barely tilted his lips brought his dark features to a brilliance that made her blink and slowed her brain waves to a crawl. “If it makes you feel better,” he said, “I’m a bit nervous myself.”
“Why do I doubt that?”
“I don’t know. Why would you?” His eyes held a hint of tease.
“Maybe because,” she said, “while I feel like a Hell’s Kitchen chef about to serve an armed dictator puffer-fish sushi, you look as relaxed as a panther after a good meal?” Or maybe because I’m still looking at you through the eyes of that long-ago, awestruck girl, a girl far too young to have been thinking what she was thinking about her best friend’s older brother.
He chuckled low in this throat. “Then I’m doing a hell of a job playing it cool—because this panther is definitely hungry.” He ran a finger along her jaw, down her throat to her collar. His gaze followed the trail. “Very hungry.”
His touch was a laser, sharp and hot. Deanne felt the beginning of it and the end, the whole burning line of it shimmering along her jaw and blushing neck. “And not for pasta, I take it.”
“I love pasta.” Again that brief, enigmatic smile. “But then I love a lot of things.”
“Like?” Okay, if she were smart she’d have let the pasta comment go, rather than encourage him to run a lane rocky with innuendo and double entendres. But at the moment, she didn’t feel like being smart. She felt like placing her toe on the starting line of that path—and getting a breakaway. She felt a little bit crazed.
“You already know the answer to that.” His gaze was direct.
“I suppose I do, but I was hoping we’d…skirt the issue for a while.”
“Maybe we should define issue.”
“Maybe we should…but not yet.”
“Fair enough.” He paused. “We’ll do it your way. We’ll ‘skirt the issue’ until after dinner.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“Not a chance. I’m not brave enough for that.”
Deanne gave him what her mother used to call her skinny-eyed look. “You’re not going to be easy to handle, are you?” And yo
u move fast. At that thought her skin shivered.
“Is that what you do, Deanne, ‘handle’ men?” The question was posed as innocently as if he’d asked her the time of day. Only the glint in his eye gave him away.
“That depends on the man.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that—that she’d been so bold. Her next thought was, thank God. Maybe the past two years of soul-searching, clawing her way out of despair—taking charge of her life—had finally immunized her against the me-second virus, an affliction that came with the constant urge to wait for what she was given, instead of going after what she wanted. And it felt good, as if a foot-long hypodermic had been withdrawn from her spirit.
“I’m glad you’re discerning.” He lifted the bottle. “Corkscrew?”
“Follow me…Trouble.”
He laughed and did what he was told—followed her into the kitchen, the wine bottle swinging from his hand.
The door was open to the laundry room; Samba looked up from her pups and eyed the new entrant into the room. After a second or two of consideration, she honored Julius with a couple of tail wags. He immediately put the wine on the table, went to her and got down on his haunches. From a couple of feet away, he spoke to the dog. “Those are fine pups, girl. Almost as beautiful as their mama.”
That got him another swish of tail, so he moved closer, and offered her the back of his hand to sniff. The sniffing done, the extended hand was accepted, and Samba allowed him to stroke her head. Julius continued to speak to her as if she were the most brilliant, glorious creature ever created—and the first dog to give birth in the last millennium. His voice was like dark velvet, low, smooth and caressing.
Deanne couldn’t help but think that if he spoke to her like that, she’d turn as foolish as Samba, who for a moment seemed to forget she had a mob of feeding puppies locked on to her midsection and stretched out along her whelping bed as if hoping for a good belly rub. Julius went for her ears instead, giving them a good scratch before gently massaging her back, continuing to soothe and praise in deep, calm tones.
