by J. R. Ward
It wasn’t going to start tonight, she knew that much.
Dressed in jeans and sweatshirt, she went downstairs and checked the clock on the microwave. Twenty-three minutes left of peace.
On that note, if she could get dinner organized, that would cut down the conversation. Opening the refrigerator door, she—
“Oh . . . God.”
Everything had been reorganized in there, the shelves moved up or down to accommodate a new arrangement of milk cartons and juice bottles and leftover containers. Shutting the thing, she went over to her cupboards on a hunch.
Yup. Her plates were—okay, all the way across the room now. Spices were in a different cupboard. Silverware had been put in plastic slides in a drawer that had previously been for hardware.
Great. How could she possibly have known that setting the don’t-touch-my-stuff boundary required an asterisk that included cupboards, closets, and drawers?
As her temper mounted up and got ready to ride the range, she knew she had to get out of the house. There was only one option.
Talk about the lesser of two evils.
After putting Soot in his crate, she scribbled a quick note on the other side of what her mom had written on, and then she set the security alarm and was out of the house like she’d stolen something.
The evening was going so well. Really.
chapter
33
Moose and Deandra’s ranch was halfway to Danny’s farm, located in a not-quite-rural, but definitely not suburban, zip code that had the houses spaced on overgrown lots of ten and twelve acres. It went without saying that the couple was not going to last here. This was Moose’s dream, what with the privacy and the space for his car-restoration equipment—but a nightmare for Deandra’s urban, upwardly mobile streak.
Danny knew Moose had bought the place without telling her, a Surprise, honey! that had been meant to show her he could afford big things. When she’d lost her shit, his response had been to lease a closeout BMW 3 Series for her.
When the oh-goody glow wore off that car, Moose was going to have a tiger by the tail, but that was his problem, not anybody else’s. Bad timing, though. Almost all firemen supplemented their income with second jobs in things like roofing or construction, and with the bad winter weather coming on, Moose was going to be forced to take on security work around the holidays to pay for keeping his wife in a good mood.
The guy hated walking warehouses alone, not because he was scared but because he needed constant stimulation.
Again, not Danny’s problem.
The road in was gravel, which had to be another negative in Deandra’s eyes, and as the curve rounded and the house was revealed, Danny laughed. A townie who was determined to elevate her status was going to see the otherwise perfectly nice ranch as a noose around her throat.
No Subaru parked off to the side on the mowed grass with the other trucks. But he hadn’t expected Anne to change her mind and come.
Parking himself next to Duff, he got out and tucked his shirt in. It was a brand-new button-down flannel, the kind of thing his boys wouldn’t notice and smack his ass about, but that he’d chosen in case Anne showed. And anyway, his mother had always said he should wear blues and grays because they brought out the color in his eyes.
Too bad the thing was green and black. But it did have a pinstripe of gray in between the—
Okay, he needed to quit the pathetic shit.
Walking over to the front door, he found things were open, a screen keeping out what few bugs were left from the hard frost the week before. He banged on the loose jamb and let himself in.
Holy. . . wow.
Even he, a confirmed bachelor with no fashion or decorating sense, knew the black and white furniture wasn’t appropriate—and not just because it was oversized, the bulky forms conceived for rooms that were three, four, five times the size of the single-story’s eight-by-twelves. The other problem was that everything was a cheap imitation: plastic made to look like leather, Plexiglas that didn’t fool the eye, and stretches of almost-chrome, like Deandra was trying to convince people that she was living in a Manhattan penthouse and working for a modern art gallery—instead of cooling her jets out here in the country and answering phones and taking messages at a second-tier spa and salon in New Brunie.
The knockoffs were striving rather than achievement. Which, on the theory that people’s houses reflected their identities, put paid to the couple.
And then there was the “art.” Christ, if he had to look at one more saccharine picture of her at their wedding from hell in a fake silver frame, he was going to hurl. The things were hung all over the walls and propped up on side tables, a shrine to the seven hours in Deandra’s life when she had been the princess, the winner of the beauty crown, the head of the line.
Did Moose ever notice that he had been cropped out of 90 percent of the photographs?
“Is that you, Danny?” the bride called out from the kitchen.
“Yeah. Hey, Deandra.”
He walked through to the back. The lady of the house was at the stove, a pair of pink hot pants upholstering her ass and legs, her silver lamé blouse so tight the only more revealing option was body paint.
As she turned around, he realized she’d gotten breast implants. And from the way she arched her back and pushed those bags of saline out at him, it was clear she wanted him to notice.
“Long time, no see.” She smiled, showing off caps. “Can I make you a drink?”
“Where’s Moose.”
“Out back. Where else would he be. It’s not like all of his friends are coming over and he’s expecting me to do all of the work by myself. Hey, why don’t you help me in here? I’ve got lasagna made with gluten-free noodles, and gluten-free bread, and I was just cutting up organic vegetables. You could toss my salad.”
Her hair was lighter by a couple of shades, and he wondered, if this trend kept up, whether she’d have a triple-H chest and Daenerys Targaryen’s coloring by Easter. And he knew exactly what she was playing at.
Danny shook his head. “I’m not good in the kitchen. Sorry.”
Deandra’s heavily lashed lids lowered, her smoky eye going down right stinky. “Anne’s not coming, you know. I spoke with her this afternoon.”
Ah, yes, all the charm I remember so fondly, he thought.
“She’s really busy.” He turned for the back door. “Let us know when the food’s on.”
If it had been anybody else, he would have stayed and helped because it was rude to have only one person cooking for five or six. But considering it was Deandra? He was going to follow Moose’s example.
Opening the slider, he stepped out into the unseasonably warm night. The back porch was half finished, the planks stopping halfway across the frame—and the project was going nowhere until after the winter, Danny was willing to bet.
Ah, yes, the sprawl was starting. The back acreage was all cleared meadow circled by a ring of forest, and Moose was starting to fill it with crap. The two-car garage had been turned into a car workshop and there was a commercial dumpster, a transport box trailer, two rusted-out cars, and half a dozen drums full of God only knew what metastasizing outward.
No doubt the guy was going to gradually fill the field to the property’s tree line with that kind of stuff.
Danny got to walking, closing in on the glow as Bruce Springsteen’s The River got louder.
“Dannyboy!” Moose’s voice boomed from the garage. “My man!”
The guy ducked out from under a raised, rusted out Shelby Mustang that was about as structurally complete as his porch and far, far older than he was. With a Bud in one hand and a wrench in the other, grease was his middle name: the stuff was on his UMass T-shirt and his old Levi’s and his work boots were black from gunk.
Danny clapped palms with him, nodded at Duff and Duff’s cousin T.J., and gave
Deshaun a bear hug. And he was surprised, in a good way, to see Jack, his supposed roommate.
“Where you been, asshole?” Danny gave Jack at hard embrace. “I keep thinking I hear you coming in at night, but nope.”
“At least I’m still paying rent.”
“Good point.”
“Beer?” When Danny nodded, Jack went over to the red-and-white cooler. “Coors Light?”
“You remembered. I’m touched.” As the longneck came flying at him, he caught it and cracked the thing open. “How’s your sister?”
Everyone got quiet, and Danny wanted to curse. Some things were best not asked about. On that note, he was hoping no one else brought up Anne.
“She’s the same. You know . . . the same.”
“I’m sorry.” He took a swig and looked at the car carcass. It had been blue once, and the engine as well as all four tires had been removed and were off in the corner. “So, Moose, what’s this mess?”
“Mess? Can you not see the potential?” The guy banged on the steel frame. “Come on, she’s a ’66 Shelby GT350, bitch—one of the first two hundred fifty-two that were ’65 Mustang K-Code Fastbacks before Shelby-American converted them.”
“Jesus Christ, Moose, how’d you get a hold of her?”
“I bought her out of Ohio and just shipped her in. She’s gonna be gorgeous.”
“After a lotta plastic surgery.”
“All women want that,” Moose muttered.
No, not all, Danny thought as he pictured Anne on that climbing wall. Some recognized they were perfect just the way God made ’em.
“So lemme help,” Danny said. “I like getting my hands dirty.”
* * *
As Anne parked her Subaru at the end of the lineup in Moose and Deandra’s front yard, there was only one truck that she saw. Getting out, she took a minute to pull up her jeans and make like she was checking out the land. Good bit of cleared acreage with a loose fringe of trees and underbrush, Mother Nature’s version of a chain-link fence.
Wow, nice cars, she thought as she came up the front walkway.
Moose’s eyesore of a Charger was next to a brand-new BMW. Wedding present? she wondered. Then what was the house—the honeymoon?
Knocking on the screen door, she waited. When there was no answer, she backed up and went around to the rear. It was a good guess. In the gloaming, the lights glowing in the open garage were intensifying and illuminating a classic male-bonding scene: dudes with beers around a car on a lift.
Of course Bruce was playing, what else would be? she thought.
And then it was a case of double takes on the part of the menfolk. Jack and Moose saw her first. Deshaun, second. Duff and T.J., his cousin, third. Danny had his head shoved into some part of the undercarriage, and it wasn’t until he stuck his hand out and no tool smacked into his palm that he bent over and looked around.
His face showed no reaction. His eyes went up and down her body.
“Hi,” she said to everybody. “Sorry to crash, but I decided to change my mind.”
“This is great!” Moose said. “Come here, lemme hug ya.”
She got wrapped in a bear hug, and then she was greeting the others, starting with Danny’s old roommate Jack. The SWAT team leader was as military-looking as ever, his dark hair buzzed so tight on the sides you could see his scalp, the top like a trimmed hedge. He was wearing an NBPD T-shirt that stretched over his heavy, tattooed arms and camos on the bottom. Even his treaded shoes looked like the kind you could climb Mount Kilimanjaro with.
“Jack, I haven’t seen you in forever.” As she hugged him, it was like trying to throw her arms around a house. “How you doing?”
“Same ol’, same ol’.” The guy forced a smile. “Everything’s great.”
So his sister had fallen off the wagon again. Poor man. He was more determined than that woman was to keep her alive and on track—and that was the root of his problem.
“Duff,” she said. “T.J., God, I haven’t seen you in forever, either.”
And then there was Danny.
He was back under the car again, his torso and legs coming out from the bottom like he’d mutated into the Transformers’ old grandpa.
“Hey, Danny,” she said. Back in the old days, whenever she’d been around the crew with him, she’d called him Dannyboy. But you could only do that if you were a member of the club and that was not her anymore.
“Can you hand me the five-eighths wrench?” he said.
“Yeah, sure.”
She went over to the beat-up built-in table, and of course, Moose’s tools were as organized as he was, everything in piles that made no sense. She weeded through, found the right one, and went back over to the Shelby Mustang fastback.
“Here.”
Danny’s dirty hand emerged, and man, she liked the looks of a calloused male palm. There was something erotic about the strength, the utility, the competence for practical things. The speculation about how it would feel across her naked skin.
She gave him the tool, but before she could get out of range, he looked out at her. “I need another hand in here.”
His eyes were not flirtatious. They were factual, and she ignored the flush of pride that came with being asked to help.
“Yeah, sure.”
Under the car, she was able to stand up all the way, and she inspected the automotive anatomy. They were stripping everything so that the rusted undercarriage and crappy floor pan could be cleaned with a wire wheel and drill, then resealed to form a stable, healthy foundation for the restored car. Danny was having trouble removing one of the corroded brackets.
“Here,” he said. “You hold, I torque.”
“Not going to work.” She leaned out from under the car. “Moose, you got a spot welder? We’ll be here ’til next week with this. Cutting it is the right call.”
“Yeah.” The guy glanced over from the tire he was splitting from its rim and nodded toward the table. “It’s there somewhere.”
“I’ll get it,” Danny said. “Hold this just in case?”
“Sure.”
Anne braced her hand where his had been, and when he shuffled out, their bodies brushed. Heat, fickle, subversive, and unwelcome, rippled through her.
Don’t get hot and bothered, she told herself. This is an excuse to get out of the house and nothing more.
chapter
34
Deandra was actually not a bad cook, Danny decided. It was her ingredients that were for shit.
Okay, fine, maybe it was a case of both a crappy chef and weird components.
As he sat with a plate on his lap in the living room, he picked around the sweaty mess with his fork . . . separating the “noodles” from the watery sauce and the cheese that somehow managed to be crumbly even after it had melted.
Across the way, Anne was in an armchair, and everyone else was in the kitchen at the table. Deandra had insisted that people eat inside even though it was one of the last warm nights of the year. Then again, Danny had the feeling she was showing off her furniture—which was why she’d insisted Anne and he go in here.
Jack entered with a second plateful and sat down next to Danny. “Man. What a meal.”
“Do not tell me you like this stuff?”
“Oh, no. I’m just starved. The ‘man’ was for what’s doing in there.”
Anne’s head nodded in that direction. “Awkward?”
“You could fry an egg on Deandra’s forehead, and meanwhile Moose is hammering beer, Deshaun has his coat on like he’s already out the door, and Duff and T.J. look like they want to kill themselves.”
Danny kept his wince to himself on that one. “I don’t get why Moose puts up with it.”
“Have you seen the way she’s built?” The man glanced at Anne. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Anne smiled. �
��And she was not built like that at the wedding.”
“Too right.” Jack methodically took forkfuls and put them in his mouth, chewing only once before the swallow like he was on Fear Factor. “So what are you working on at Fire and Safety, Anne? I like arson investigation. It’s fun.”
“Only you would put it like that.”
Danny gave up and put his plate down on the coffee table. At this point, he was hankering for a cigarette, but there was no way he was giving Jack a chance to sweet-talk his Anne.
Not that Anne was his. And not that Jack was sweet.
Anne started to talk about the warehouse fires, and Danny watched everything about her under the guise of paying attention to what she was saying. He didn’t hear a word. He watched her lips move. Her breathing. The way she fiddled with the thumb of her prosthesis.
Her legs as they crossed and uncrossed.
All he could think of was getting inside of her again. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair and he didn’t care. Except this time, he wanted her totally naked. And, like, not on his couch for a quickie that she no doubt was determined to pretend hadn’t happened.
He wanted memorable that lasted a lifetime.
From out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone lingering just outside the room.
Deandra was in the shadows, and she was staring at him in the same way he’d been looking at Anne.
* * *
The funny thing about Jack was that he was so easy to talk to.
Anne had to force herself to stop speaking. “Anyway, yeah, so I went up and saw Ripkin and he was bizarre.”
“What do you mean, bizarre?”
Even though she’d been addressing Jack, Danny was the one she was really aware of, and given the intense way he was looking at her, she decided it was best not to go into too many specifics. Especially about the threat against her mother.
He was liable to do something stupid. Like go up to Ripkin and throw him out his office window: One thing you could be sure of when it came to Danny Maguire? He stood up against what was wrong, no matter what it cost him.
