by Deanna Lee
“You loved him.” I took another swallow before she took the bottle. Since I figured she’d needed it, I didn’t protest.
“Yeah, I did. Loved him, thought I could change him. I seriously thought that if I could make him understand how much I loved him that it would be all right.”
“So, what’s up with the gun?”
“I thought he might come here.”
“Why did he call?”
“I refused delivery of his last two support checks.” She pursed her lips. “I can’t live with taking his money anymore, and with the show just around the corner, I figure I don’t have to.”
“You’ll be a very wealthy woman in a few weeks.”
“Yes. I’ve already gotten offers.” She laughed and shrugged. “I told them to contact you.”
“Some people have. So, he wanted to know why you refused his checks.”
“Yes.” She frowned and sighed. “And I foolishly told him.”
“You wanted to brag.”
“Fuck.” Lisa sat the bottle down and stood up. “Hell, yes, I wanted to brag. That bastard held me under his thumb for years. I couldn’t work, so I never had the money to leave.”
“Couldn’t work?”
“He sabotaged every job I had. Made it impossible for me to have friends. Then one day I was standing the bathroom of his house with a pregnancy test in my hand.”
“There was a baby?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Just a scare. After the first year of our marriage, I realized that I didn’t want to have children. I scrounged money from the grocery and household accounts to pay for birth control. He had no idea.”
“He wanted children.”
“He wanted another way to tie me up in his life.” She motioned toward the kitchen. “I have some glasses to drink from.”
I followed her into the kitchen and sat down in front of her while she poured me a generous drink. “I haven’t had hard liquor in quite a while.”
Lisa laughed softly. “Yeah, you do look like the wine type.”
I cupped the glass in both of my hands. “So, he called.”
“Yeah, he called. Today.”
“Why today?”
“In our divorce papers, I gave the court only one date where he hit me.”
“Today.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s the day he broke our marriage. It just took me five years to figure that out. I stood in front of that judge and told him I was a fool and an idiot. I didn’t even want spousal support, but the judge understood something I didn’t.”
“What’s that?”
“Greg made my life hell. That judge knew that getting a divorce from him wouldn’t heal all of my wounds. When I bought this house, I spent six months here. Never leaving. I had groceries delivered and had the security system installed.” She emptied her glass and grabbed the bottle. “Did you know I have proximity alarms? I know when a fucking car turns down my driveway.”
“Have you seen a therapist?”
Lisa sat back in her chair. “I had a therapist coming out here. The last day she said she was wasting her time. Then she said I should call her when I was ready to actually start getting over the bastard.”
“She thought you were still in love with him?”
“Yeah, little does she know that I plot his murder every morning in my shower.”
I grabbed the bottle when she reached for it and set it away from her. “I think you’ve had enough.”
“It usually takes the whole bottle.”
“Well, let’s pretend we drank it.” I took her glass and stood from the table. “Have you eaten today?”
“Sure. Sometime, probably.” She shrugged and glanced toward the bottle.
I walked back to the table and grabbed the bottle. “The man has turned you into a vicious and militant recluse. Don’t let him turn you into an alcoholic, too.”
“I’m not vicious.”
“You shot one of my buyers with a paintball gun. Hell, you’ve shot me with a paintball gun.”
“I gave you both fair warning.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and glared at the table in front of her. “I had toast and coffee for breakfast.”
I’d figured as much. I went to a pantry just off the kitchen and grabbed a loaf of bread. “I’ll make you a sandwich.”
“You weren’t with Shame tonight.”
“No.” I came out and went to the refrigerator. “I had a date.”
“Oh, yeah, Nerd of the Month.”
“That’s it. Both you and Jane are grounded and forbidden from speaking to each other.”
Lisa laughed softly and rubbed her face. “She’s a good lady, you’re very lucky to have her at the gallery.”
“I know.” I grabbed some cheese and sandwich meat and took it all to the table.
“You were raped.”
I paused and cleared my throat. “Yes.”
“Did you fight back?”
“Not as much as I’d always thought I would. Before that night, I would’ve told anyone that a man would have to kill me to rape me. But I was so devastated by it that I could barely think, much less fight.”
“He wasn’t a stranger.”
“No.”
“The bastard.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “How long have you suspected?”
“Since our first conversation that didn’t end with me shooting you with my paint gun.” Lisa shrugged and sighed. “If I ever decide to kill Greg, I’ll call you and get his name. If I’m going to go to prison, I might as well take out as many bastards as I can.”
“How do you know he isn’t in jail?” I put the plate with the sandwich on table in front of her and then set about fixing myself one.
She shrugged. “I just assumed. Bastards just seem to come out on top.”
“Well, you assumed correctly.” I sat down in front of her and took a bite of my sandwich. I seriously hoped that the food calmed my stomach. “So, my date was horrible.”
“I would assume so.” She stood up, walked to the pantry, and came back with a large bag of chips. “You were home early.”
“How did you know I wasn’t with Shame?”
“I called his place looking for you. He said you had a date and had cancelled tonight’s session.”
“He sounded put out about it, didn’t he?”
“Shamus Montgomery doesn’t like to share.” She opened the bag, dumped some chips on her plate, and then laid the bag on the table in front of us. “So, yes, he sounded irritated.”
“I’m not involved with that man on a personal level.” When exactly had I become a bald-faced liar? Heat swept up my face when I glanced up and found her looking at me. “I mean it.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Look, he may be talented and sexy, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to fall at the man’s feet. I have more dignity than that.”
“Admitting that you want a man isn’t a weakness.”
I took another bite of my sandwich. “You aren’t one to criticize.”
“Yeah I know.” She shrugged. “Well, from one dysfunctional woman to another…you could do a lot worse than follow Shame Montgomery into his bed.”
“You’ve slept with him.”
“Yes, some years ago, when we were both young and full of artistic snobbery, we dabbled in bed.”
“Dabbled in bed.”
“Okay, we had fine, hot jungle sex for about six months.”
“And you are just friends now?”
“Yes, and have been for about ten years. We are both too old to play sex games. Nevertheless, it was fun then.” She smiled and then chuckled. “A lot of fun.”
“I don’t want to hear about the sex you had with Shame.”
“Ha, as if I’d sully the memory of it by sharing it.” She grinned then. “He really is beautiful, though.”
“Yes.”
“And for the record…he has none.”
“None of what?
”
“Shame.”
I turned over and punched at the pillow under my head. Lisa’s guest room was nicely decorated. It had surprised me because I sort of expected a cot in a room full of boxes. I could hear her moving around in the room next to me. I knew that she wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon.
I’d always expected that her marriage had been rough, I just honestly hadn’t thought it involved physical abuse. It certainly explained her militant behavior about her space and her privacy.
CHAPTER 6
S hame was putting up a new display when I arrived. I locked the door and jingled the key he’d left in the slot as I walked toward him. He looked perfectly delicious, and I was certainly hungry. I’d overslept, so food was also on my mind. I’d slipped out of Lisa’s house before she’d woke, mostly because I figured she would prefer it.
He offered me a smile and then finished arranging the smooth rosewood sculpture of woman and infant on the platform. “This has already been sold. But I couldn’t resist displaying it for the few weeks that it will remain with me.”
“It’s beautiful.” I walked to it and ran my hand along the sleek lines of the figures. The female figure emerged from the wood beautifully, and the infant was cradled close in her arms. “A commission?”
“Yes. A friend from college sent a picture of his wife and child to me and asked me if I could work with the picture. This is what I eventually came up with. I’ll be shipping it to him in a few weeks. He’s currently out of town on business.”
“A surprise?”
“Yes. A good one, I hope.”
“I couldn’t imagine her not being pleased.” I touched the infant’s face with one fingertip. “A girl?”
“Yes. The wife is Lily, and the child is Abigail.”
“It’s beautiful, and probably worth a fortune.”
Shame laughed softly. “Yes, I did warn Greg that he should refrain from mentioning where it came from.”
“Does it bother you being so sought after?”
“At times. I don’t regret the success I’ve had. It’d be rather difficult to. I’m able to support my grandparents and parents in a way that I’ve always wanted, and I’m doing something I love.”
“And being fawned over by beautiful women is a fringe benefit.”
He shot a glance my way and shrugged. “Yeah, something like that.”
I frowned and then looked away. Jealous over a man that I barely knew?
“Are you ready to go above?”
“Yes.” I still had his key. I offered it to him. His fingers brushed against mine as he took the key. I watched it disappear into the pocket of the loose linen pants he was wearing.
He looked so comfortable, I had the urge to pull the string on his pants and get him naked. Totally, completely naked. I went ahead of him up the stairs. The red chair was still in place. I wondered what he had planned for me. Walking toward the chair, I turned back to him.
“Well?”
“Let’s get some breakfast.”
I watched him walk toward the second set of stairs and raised an eyebrow. “Are you inviting me upstairs, Shame?”
He turned and looked me over. “It appears that I am.”
I dropped my purse in the chair and followed along after him. The loft space that served as his residence was open and furnished in groupings. A profoundly large television took up one section on the opposite side of a stone fireplace. His kitchen was also open, with a cooking island.
“So, how was your date last night?”
I pursed my lips to keep from telling him the truth. “It was fine.”
Shame laughed as he set out the eggs. “French toast?”
“Yeah.” I slipped up onto the stool. “Do you need me to do anything?”
“No.” He shook his head.
“Why did you laugh?”
“Fine is about the last term I’d ever want a woman to use when describing a date with me.”
“It was a perfectly nice evening.”
“Christ, Mercy, shut up before the cosmos opens up and destroys the poor man in absentia.” He looked toward me. “Please tell me you didn’t tell him you had a nice time.”
I winced and shrugged. “I did.”
“I’m never dating you.”
I laughed and inclined my head as I looked him over. “What makes you think I’d want to date you anyway?”
Grinning, he pulled out a loaf of Texas toast bread and started cracking eggs into a bowl. “Get the cinnamon. It’s in that spice rack over there.”
I went and retrieved the cinnamon. “I met him at a speed-dating lunch.”
“You don’t strike me as the type of woman who has to resort to those kinds of things to get a man’s attention.”
I handed him the spice and went back to my place at the counter. “At any rate, it was uneventful.”
“Lisa Millhouse called here looking for you.”
“Yes.” I nodded and looked up to find him staring. “I suppose you know she was upset.”
“Yes. I offered to come out and sit with her, but I got the impression that my dick made me less-than-desirable company.”
“Her house is definitely a dick-free zone.” I watched him open the refrigerator and pull out a couple of bottles of water. I took one he offered. “I spent the night at her place.”
“The two of you don’t appear to have a lot in common.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.” I watched him maneuver bread into the frying pan in front of him. “She is a strong and thoughtful woman. I find her rather stimulating to be around.”
“You should have known her before she married Greg Carson.” He shook his head. “She was a wild and carefree woman. Had a smile for everyone and anyone. Couldn’t meet a stranger.”
“How well do you know her ex-husband?”
“Well enough to want to put my fist through his face.” He glanced back at me. “He’s a poor excuse for a man and a human being.”
“From what I’ve heard I can only agree.” I rolled the bottle of water between my hands. “You and she were lovers.”
“Yes, in college. I could hardly resist her.”
I smiled at his rueful tone. “So why didn’t the two of you end up together?”
“We had sex and art in common. It didn’t take us long to realize that was just about it. Still, I consider my relationship with her one of my best. She taught me a lot about women.”
“She thinks you’re beautiful.”
“I think the same of her.” He went to a cabinet and pulled out some plates. “I’m surprised she discussed our past with you.”
“It just came up.” I frowned.
“My sexual relationship with Lisa Millhouse just came up?” He raised one eyebrow. “Mercy, are you keeping something from me?”
“Women discuss a lot of things. There is no rhyme or reason to it.”
Having eaten my way through four slices of French toast, I found myself once more confronted with the chair. I turned to him. “Where do you want me?”
“The possible answers to that question boggle the mind.” He motioned at the chair. “Undress.”
I unbuttoned the front of my sundress and slipped it off my shoulders. Carrying it to the dressing screen, I tossed it across the top, and pushed off my shoes. Turning, I hooked my fingers into the small pair of cotton panties I still wore.
“Leave them on.” I fought the urge to cover my breasts as I walked to the chair. Why was I still so nervous? The man had seen everything I had. He’d also touched me in the most intimate way possible, even if the touch had been fleeting.
I sat down in the chair and looked toward the alabaster. It was a different shape now, with a defined, nearly square, bottom. The part that would eventually be me was shaped.
“Pull your legs up like you did last time.” He squatted down in front of me as I did what he as he said, “Good, now bring the arms around just as before.”
“Why like this?”
“Your
modesty is appealing and honest.” He pushed my hair off my shoulders and lifted my chin slightly. “Just like that. Let me know when you need a break.”
“Okay.”
I watched him pull on safety goggles and go to work. He focused, and after a while, it was as if I wasn’t even there. I’d been around art most of my life, knew more artists than other kinds of people. Still, watching him work was a unique experience for me. It was the first time I’d ever watched an artist work.
He stopped and looked at me. “Take off the panties.”
I flushed and let my legs go. Looking to him, I stood up from the chair. “Why?”
He pulled his safety goggles into place and watched as I did as he had requested. Glaring at him because he hadn’t answered my question, I slipped back into the chair and pulled my legs back up. I felt the difference, the vulnerability. I glanced in his direction and found him nodding. With a blush staining my face and neck, I placed my arms back around my legs as he’d positioned them.
“Tell me about your first sexual experience.”
I jumped a little, startled by his words, and made myself meet his gaze, my mouth dry. “I’d rather not.”
He chuckled. “Tell me anyway.”
I refused to meet his eyes. “I was sixteen.”
“Not a good experience, I take it.” He didn’t look to me as he spoke. “Tell me about your first real lover.”
My thoughts drifted to the young man I’d known in college. “It was in college. We were friends until the night we went to bed together. We were lovers until he graduated.”
“You enjoyed him?”
“Yes.” I had. Brian was a very good memory. “He had good hands and gave effortlessly in bed. He was the first man I’d ever been with where I was interested in his pleasure. He taught me a great deal about being a good lover.”
“Do you have a lover now, Mercy?”
“Not at the moment.” I wasn’t surprised by the question. I was, however, irritated that I had answered it so quickly.
“Why?”
I glared at him. “That is none of your business.”
Shame paused briefly and nodded as he went back to work. “Tell me, do you enjoy a woman in your bed as much as a man?”
“I’ve never been with a woman.” However, the thought had crossed my mind a time or two. I didn’t think I would ever sleep with a woman, but there was something about that taboo that I found interesting.
