by Joss Wood
“God, don’t look at me like that,” Kai groaned.
Flick dropped her eyes and saw the telltale bulge in his pants. Flick deliberately touched the tip of her tongue to her top lip. “Looking at you how?”
“Like you want to lick me from head to toe.”
Oh, my. Yeah, she could imagine doing that. In fact, she wanted to do that. As soon as freaking possible. This rock was looking better and better . . . except that they could hear the low rumblings of people on the trail below. They’d be with them in a minute or two.
“Hold that thought,” Kai told her, resting his hands on her knees and leaning into her to drop a hard, promise-filled kiss on her lips. Flick ran her finger up the ridge in his pants.
“I intend to,” Flick replied as Kai groaned. “I have every intention of driving you crazy with nothing more than my tongue and my teeth.”
Flick laughed when Kai’s mouth dropped open. She smiled. “I’d sit down quickly unless you want to show the people coming up the path exactly how long six inches is.”
“Seven.” Kai dropped to the rock next to her and lifted his shoulders at her rolling eyes. “What?”
“You measured it?” Flick hissed as the approaching voices got louder.
“Don’t all guys?”
Flick gripped the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “Men are weird.”
“You have no idea.” Kai placed his hand on the back of her neck as a couple appeared on the trail. “Hi, folks. Nice day for a walk.”
Chapter Twelve
CaswallawnPR: As a community service, Caswallawn will be providing self-defense classes for women. Come and learn how to protect yourself. Wednesday, 6 p.m., Caswallawn gym. Ten places only, so register on our website. First come, first serve.
BoredWife: Thanks Caswallawn! Thoroughly overexcited.
***
Flick stood by the window of Gina’s hospital room and waited for the nurse to finish taking Gina’s blood pressure. Hurry up and get on with it, she thought. I have stuff to do, a house to sort out, a man who is cooking me supper and who will, before, during, or after supper—or any combination thereof—kiss me into a coma.
Flick couldn’t wait, but neither could this . . .let’s be positive and call it a discussion. Living with someone who barely spoke to her was dancing on her last nerve, and something needed to change. Immediately.
The nurse looked toward her. “Will the other Miss Sturgiss be joining you? Pippa?”
She didn’t have a clue. “I’m not sure.”
Gina’s sharp eyes narrowed in speculation. Huh. So Pippa hadn’t told her mom about their big blowout. Well, she wouldn’t be the blabbermouth in the room either.
“Mrs. Sturgiss will be transferred to the patient recovery retreat in the next few weeks. As you know, she needs intensive physiotherapy and additional care.” The nurse looked down at her clipboard. “I have been asked to please request that one of you contacts the accounts office—there seems to be a tiny confusion with payment.”
Flick nodded. “Certainly.”
When the nurse left Flick scowled at her aunt. “A problem with payment? I thought that you had insurance policies that covered medical bills.”
Gina stared down at her feet, refusing to meet Flick’s eyes. “I cashed them in. There was an estate sale . . .”
“Dear God.” Flick shoved her fingers into her hair and pulled. “There’s no money to cover your medical bills?”
“There was some money,” Gina protested and then her mouth fell. “I guess it’s finished now . . .”
“Good guess.” Flick placed her hands on the bed and stared at her aunt. Gina wasn’t meeting her eyes and she wished she could grab her chin and make her. “This is crazy, Gina. Why?”
“I’ve always liked pretty things.” Gina protested.
“A pretty thing is a china ornament, a crystal bowl. Not a house packed with furniture and stuff. That’s hoarding, Gina! It’s a psychological problem.”
Gina’s eyes flashed with fury. “I am not a hoarder; I don’t buy rubbish. I only ever buy quality, first and foremost.”
“You’ve bought a ridiculous amount of ‘quality.’” Flick used her fingers as air quotes. “I don’t understand any of this. Help me.”
Flick took Gina’s hand in hers and sighed when Gina didn’t respond with anything other than a stony look. “Gin, you’ve always been the model of propriety. You’ve done everything perfectly, all your life. You were the prettiest, most together mother, the person everyone ran to for help, or tea, or a chat. This . . . collecting . . . isn’t like you. Asking me to keep secrets isn’t like you. I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand. You just need to help me. Think of it as a little payback for the fact that I took you to your first spa treatment, helped you with your homework, picked you and your friends up from a party at three in the morning and told your father that you were home by eleven.” Gina covered her eyes with her hand and Flick could see that her fingers were trembling. “I can’t believe that I said that, that I’m throwing that in your face.” A tear tumbled down her cheek. “It hurts too much to explain why I’ve done what I’ve done. Can’t you just accept that?”
Gina placed both hands over her face and Flick closed her eyes when her aunt’s shoulders shook from the effort it took to keep her sobs under control. Gina seldom cried, and it was her fault for making the tears flow.
Nice, Flick.
Flick sat next to her aunt and wrapped her arms around her thin frame. “Okay, I’ll stop hassling you. Let’s try and find a way out of this. You need money, and fast.”
“Pippa doesn’t know that I’m broke, that I can’t pay for my medical care. She can’t know.”
“You should tell her, Gin. Apart from the fact that she knows that something is going on, she’s going to be hurt and furious and very upset that you turned to me and not her.”
Gina pushed her away and Flick noticed that her tears were drying up. After a long silence Gina spoke again, her voice not as strident as before. “I was such a crazy perfectionist, so incredibly anal. My house was never messy, I always looked good, my children were beautifully behaved. I created gorgeous meals, hosted sublime dinner parties. I researched sexual techniques and I mastered them. Dammit, I even let him try—”
Flick put her fingers in her ears. “Lalalalala.”
“I did everything right! Yet he still left me!”
Flick frowned. “It wasn’t like Roger wanted to have that heart attack, Gina.” Unlike her mom, Roger had been full of life.
“He left me. That night he had the heart attack? He had moved out that afternoon. He left me.”
Oh no, Gina. What was she supposed to say in response to that bomb? That she was sorry, that she couldn’t believe it? Except that she could believe it . . . In hindsight, she could understand Roger’s desire to get out of his marriage to Gina. Her jovial uncle hadn’t wanted a prefect wife, he’d just wanted a partner. It was a bitch living with perfection.
“You need money. And quickly.” Flick paced the area next to her bed. “Stocks? Shares? Money under the bed?”
Gina shook her head. “I was going to remortgage the house and was in the process of doing that when I had the accident.”
Pippa would freak right out of her little accountant’s shoes. Her childhood home was fully paid for and Gina’s last asset, apart from junk-filled rooms. Junk . . . I only buy quality, Gina had said. Like the Beretta shotgun Kai had drooled over.
If she could sell that, and quickly, even if for a fraction of its value, Gina would have some breathing room.
Flick nibbled the skin on the inside of her mouth before making the suggestion. “There’s an old gun in one of the rooms, a shotgun. My friend Kai said that it’s very valuable.”
“Speaking of that young man, who does he think he is, tell
ing me what to do? If I hear that he’s said a word about this I’ll sue him for defamation of character.”
“It’s not defamation if it’s true,” Flick replied, trying to hold onto her patience. “The gun, Gina. Do you remember it?”
Gina looked like she was going to rant again but Flick scowled at her and she settled down. “Silver engraving on the stock?”
“Yep.”
“I bought it at an estate sale, years ago. It was in an old tallboy cupboard. Guns aren’t my thing.”
Flick considered arguing, reminding Gina that she and Kai had seen a couple of guns at the house, but backed down. Gina’s thing seemed to be to collect as much as she could as fast as she could.
“Can I sell it on your behalf?”
“The shotgun?”
“No, the stuffed elephant!” In her frustration Flick resorted to sarcasm.
“I don’t remember a stuffed elephant. There is a head of a hippopotamus somewhere, who I call Hugo.”
“Did they change your medication?” Flick demanded, utterly confounded. “What are you talking about?”
“Why am I the one who’s confused? One minute you’re talking about selling the gun, then you want to sell the elephant, except that it’s not an elephant, it’s a hippopotamus. One has a long trunk and tusks—”
“I know what a damn elephant looks like!”
“There’s no need to shout,” Gina said primly. “And no, you cannot sell Hugo. He’s in one of the storage units.”
Flick rubbed her temples with her fingers. At this rate she might have to break into the hospital’s drug room and self-medicate.
“I want to sell the Beretta rifle. It’s worth some money and it’ll tide you over for a little while.” She pushed the words out between clenched-together teeth.
Gina looked interested. “How much?”
No way was she going to tell her aunt that Kai had it valued for a hundred thousand. Then her aunt would want considerably more than that and she’d get stubborn and the bills would never get paid.
“Thirty thousand, maybe.” Devaluing it by a third seemed to be a sensible option. If she sold it for more, it would be a nice surprise.
Gina wrinkled her nose. “I don’t suppose I have much of a choice. It’s not the amount I was hoping for, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.”
What was she talking about? “What do you mean, Gina?” Gina turned away and Flick grabbed her arm and squeezed. “No, enough! Talk to me!”
Gina looked out of the window. “I suppose you deserve an explanation.”
“I do,” Flick replied, holding her breath. She sat down on the edge of the chair and crossed her legs.
“Roger really was the most infuriating man. And he never trusted my judgment. Every decision I made had to be run by him.”
Flick raised her eyebrows, not able to imagine her aunt being a subjugated wife.
“When we were newly married, we went to an estate sale and I begged him for money to buy a card table, labeled John and Thomas Seymour. It was fifteen dollars, Felicity!”
“Okay. So what?”
“He refused. Said it was a waste of money, that I didn’t know what I was talking about. Ten years later that eighteenth-century table sold for nearly six hundred thousand dollars!”
Holy moly. That was a hell of a return.
“Roger just said it was a fluke, that I wasn’t an antiques expert and that it was a random object and that it could never be repeated. I disagreed with him. I knew then, as I know now, that I have the ability to spot a bargain, to find treasure.”
Kai had said something similar. Gina did have an eye for quality. “When Roger died, I thought that I could use his money to show him—show myself—that it wasn’t a fluke. I was, am, still so angry that he left me, that he died, that we didn’t have time to resolve anything! I started thinking that if I could find that one object that was worth a bundle then it would prove . . .”
“Prove what?”
Gina shook her head. “Prove that I was right. That I was smart about this. But I got caught up in the buying, was so damn scared of missing out that I kept buying and buying and . . . I got a bit carried away.”
Just a tad, Flick thought.
Gina raised her chin. “I suppose you think that Roger was right. That it’s all junk and that I’m a silly old woman.”
“Actually I don’t.” Flick folded her arms, organizing her thoughts. “The rifle proves that you were onto something. Maybe there is something in there that might be worth massive money. It’s possible, but, more important, I think there are enough items for us to sell to get you out of this hole you’re in at the moment.” Flick pushed her hands into her hair. “It might be an idea to get someone into the house to do a valuation. There might be other items we could sell to raise some cash.”
“A valuer would talk.”
Back to the secrecy again. Lord, give her strength. “Gina, you’re going to have to decide what is more important—the secrecy or you going bankrupt and losing everything. Think about that.” Flick stood up and rubbed the back of her neck. “What if we photographed the pieces, or at least cataloged them?”
“You could do that.” Gina nodded.
“I cannot do it! I have a job and a life,” Flick snapped. She tapped her fingernail against her bottom lip. “But I have someone in mind to do it for you. She’s a young girl, new to town, and she needs work. She’s bright and she likes to work alone. I’ll pay her out of the money I raise from the gun.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Do you have a better one?” Flick demanded. “Look, Gina, you asked for my help and this is me helping. Take it or leave it.”
Their gazes locked and Flick felt the urge to look away, knowing that if she did, she’d lose everything she’d gained in the past hour. She needed to win this battle.
Gina eventually sighed and broke their standoff. She waved a hand. “Do what you have to do.”
“I will.”
“Do not sell Hugo.”
“Who the hell is Hugo?” Pippa demanded from the doorway.
She wasn’t going to answer that. Gina could lie to her daughter if that was what she wanted but Flick wouldn’t. “Ask your mother.”
Pippa stepped into the room, her face pinched with anger. “I’m asking you. Or is this just something else you can’t tell me?”
“Talk to your mom, Pips,” Flick replied, infinitely weary. She picked up her bag and brushed past her cousin.
“Mom? What’s going on?” Flick heard Pippa’s questions and waited, praying, for her answer.
“I have no idea what she’s talking about,” Gina answered and Flick silently cursed. Gina, Gina, Gina.
One step forward, six back.
***
Flick cursed when she couldn’t find a parking spot in the lot adjacent to Caswallawn’s office and circled the block, finding an empty space down the road. Grabbing a bag of chocolate chip cookies, she allowed Rufus to jump out before slamming her door shut. Rufus sniffed the bag and looked up at her with imploring doggy eyes. She wouldn’t give in, she wouldn’t—
“Chocolate is bad for dogs,” she told him.
Rufus batted his eyelashes and put on his I’m-so-sweet-and-innocent face. She couldn’t resist so she opened the bag and tried to see if there was a cookie with fewer chocolate chips than the others. There wasn’t, so she pulled one out and snapped it in half before holding it out to her dog, who pulled it, rather delicately for a thug and a monster, from her fingers. Flick looked at the piece of cookie in her hand, shrugged and took a bite. They were great cookies. . . .
And Kai loved them. Her caramel cupcakes and her chocolate chip cookies had to be among his top three things in the world. He ordered a dozen every few days and their time in bed was fueled by cookie-and-milk breaks. Well
, in her case, it was a wine break, and she was making a dent in Kai’s collection. He didn’t seem to mind. As long as she kept him supplied with sugar and chocolate, and sex, the man was happy.
Happy? Well, happier than he was when he’d first arrived back in Mercy. The pinched look was gone from his eyes and while he was never going to be known as Mr. Chatty, he wasn’t as standoffish or as intimidating as before. But, best of all, he didn’t play games and she always knew where she stood with him. He never said anything he didn’t mean or make promises he couldn’t keep. They were having an affair and he never made any references to a future together. He was very different from her previous lovers. He wasn’t demanding, needy, or annoying. He didn’t text or IM unless it was very necessary—SOS! I’m out of cookies! Or, another favorite: I need coffee, STAT—but they’d spent every evening together for the past week. At his house, because she and Pippa were still engaged in their Cold War.
Well, Pippa was—Flick would gladly surrender if her cousin would stop being so damn stubborn.
Flick walked toward Caswallawn, Rufus pulling her arm from her socket in his eagerness to get to Kai. Her dog had almost as big a crush as she did. They were both idiots and they were going to get their hearts broken if they didn’t pull themselves together. Easier said than done, Flick admitted. Sure, she loved the sex—she really loved the sex—but Kai was a fascinating man; smart, capable, determined. He was a grown-up, not a whiny wimp, and his strength of character was a huge mental turn-on. Despite what he thought, he would be very easy to love. Not that she was going to allow herself to do that . . .
Or, truthfully, she was trying not to do that. Loving Kai would lead to a battered and bruised heart. She didn’t want that, so she couldn’t fall in love with him.
Simple to think, difficult to do.
Flick approached the parking lot to Caswallawn and saw Tally walking toward her from the opposite direction. Rufus lunged forward, placed his paws on Tally’s shoulders, and licked the side of her face. Dog and human were practically the same size.
