by Alison Kent
The light wasn’t much, just enough to see the gleam in his eyes. “Why?”
He frowned. “Why what?”
“Why do you want to know what’s going on with me?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“A simple and straightforward one.”
“Fine,” he snapped, his jaw grinding. “Because.”
She blinked, staring up. “Because what?”
“That’s my simple straightforward answer to your simple straightforward question. Why? Because.” He shifted above her, his thighs moving to the outside of hers, his hipbones settling against her own. “I can be as coy and reticent as you.”
“You? Coy?”
A grin tipped the corner of his mouth. “Sure. There’s still a frat boy lurking beneath this thug.”
“I can see you as a cocky frat boy, but I will never think of you as coy,” she said, wishing unconscionably that she’d known him then, before his exterior persona had hardened into a shell.
He considered her a moment, released one of the wrists he held pinned to the bed, and brushed a chunk of hair from her forehead. “Do you think of yourself as coy?”
“When it suits my needs, I can be.”
“So I see.”
She smoldered when he didn’t say anything more. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Play games to get what you want.”
He paused a moment. “Games? You mean like Answering Twenty Questions with Twenty Questions? Or Let’s Make a Deal the Annabel Way?”
“That’s not funny.”
“Never said I was funny, sister. Simply horny and hung.” He ground his hips against hers as if to prove a point.
Thing was, his penis remained soft, obvious in its bulk, but not aroused. Her traitorous body warmed and grew liquid, yet she kept her response to herself.
“I want to know, Patrick. Why do you care what goes on with me?”
He gave an evasively careless shrug. “We thugs are like that.”
“You’re not a thug.”
“Since when?” he asked, frowning.
This time she was the one to employ evasive tactics by refusing to respond.
Patrick sighed. “We’re not going to get very far here if you won’t talk to me, sweetheart.”
The term of endearment, so commonly used, slid over her like a sweetly delivered Italian caress. She’d thought herself able to fend off such a ridiculous reaction; how sincere could a frat boy be?
She knew Patrick was much more than she’d ever expected. Yet still his wild streak, his seeming instability, ran too wide and too deep. She wasn’t ready to risk the high stakes of her future on a gamble with no guarantees.
She tried to roll away—and succeeded. He let her go and this time remained flat on his back on his side of the bed. He didn’t try to scoop her back into his body. In fact, after several long minutes of uncomfortable silence, he left the bed. Then the room. Then the loft.
Again he did it all with nary a sound except for what could have been a fist slamming into the elevator wall as the door closed.
ANNABEL TOOK A MINUTE to breathe deeply, absorbing the serenity of Devon’s gallery, a serenity her tempestuous soul welcomed more than ever this particular Tuesday morning.
She’d had her life course set for years, yet suddenly seemed rudderless, as if she’d been boarded by a pirate of her very own. Which, in a manner of speaking, she had.
She’d meant what she’d said to him last night about him not being a thug. She wasn’t certain when she’d changed her mind and, yes, that left her rather disconcerted. For the most part she was able to catalog her feelings. Or she had until Patrick left her so thoroughly blindsided.
She’d been staring at Devon’s Missedtakes for several minutes, amusing herself with a litany of “what if’s”…What if Patrick was only acting out and not the least bit wild or untamed?…when she realized she could hear quiet laughter in the background.
Female laughter. And male. The latter being her brother, but the former…Was that Chloe?
Annabel knew Chloe’s attention to detail with any project in which she was involved meant she would do a great job on the catering for Devon’s showing. But with Chloe and Eric, not to mention Devon and Trina, on the outs, Annabel sensed the gallery a fertile breeding ground for rebound romance.
And breeding of any sort was the last thing Chloe needed to flirt with. Pulling her attention away from the watercolors, Annabel headed toward the voices.
The tête-à-tête she’d been afraid she’d find was, instead, a ménage à trois. Devon stood in the alcove of Mina Sayid’s studio while she applied henna to the tops of Chloe’s feet. The attention of both women was fully engaged in the process.
Devon, however, had glanced up as Annabel rounded the corner of the mazelike hallway. She raised a finger to her lips; he honored her wishes and didn’t say a word.
Slowing her steps before the other women saw her, she motioned her brother away, backing deeper into the labyrinth of the gallery. He made his excuses, his footsteps echoing on the hardwood floors, growing louder as he neared. He met her in an intimately secluded corner where she’d stopped to sit on a simple stone bench.
The cool, smooth seat faced a karesansui garden, the dry landscape of rocks and crushed granite seeming to flow like water beneath potted juniper. Annabel could believe she was far removed from the city as she sat and listened to a soft breeze blowing on hidden chimes.
Devon sat beside her, curled his fingers over the lip of the bench and hung his head. “Let me see them.”
“See what?” she answered, pretending cluelessness.
“C’mon, Annie. Off with the shades.”
“Don’t call me Annie,” she barked softly as she pulled the glasses from her face and tucked them into her bag.
Devon gave her a sideways glance, then a shake of his head. “You better get some sleep between now and next week. If Luc Beacon gets a look at those purple half-moons, you’ll be kissing that shoot goodbye.”
“It’s called Photoshop, Devon. It cures a multitude of physical sins.” Though she knew her brother was right. The heavy makeup, hot lights and long hours of the shoot would exacerbate the problem. She definitely needed sleep.
“I don’t think physical sins are responsible for that shade of purple, sweetie. That’s more than late hours and too much nightlife.”
If only her brother had a clue as to what her nightlife entailed these days. “How’s Trina?”
“You’re not here to talk about Trina,” he said, moving his elbows to his knees and lacing his hands. “But you’re welcome to tell me about Chloe Zuniga.”
Annabel huffed and turned a sharp look on her brother. “Forget it. She’s involved, and is simply going through a minor crisis.”
“Hey, I’m involved and am simply going through a minor crisis.”
“Are you sure?”
Devon was silent for a moment before he picked up the Zen garden’s rake and began to drag it through the crushed gray-and-white granite. “It’s not minor, no. She met someone willing to give her what I won’t.”
“A ring.”
He nodded, continued to make random patterns with the rake as he combed it through the gritty sand.
“That was fast.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Seems it’s been going on awhile.”
Her brother grew silent, and Annabel wasn’t even sure she knew what to say. Neither of them had ever dealt well with emotional complications. What they both understood was work, pouring their energies into attaining success.
Setting goals, even when in grade school, had given brother and sister a strong sense of self and made them survivors. Which was why relinquishing that control to another—or for another—came at such a high price.
Placing her hand on his shoulder, she cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Devon. It’s for the best, obviously, but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept.”
“Accep
t what, exactly? That we’re both in our mid-thirties and no closer to being ready for a relationship than we were when we left home?”
Annabel gave a little laugh. “Which home would that have been? The one in Spokane? In San Francisco? In Portland? Vancouver? Fairbanks? Seatt—”
“Yeah, yeah. Point taken.” He dropped the rake back to the edge of the garden and pushed himself up. “It wasn’t the moving back to live with Grandmother I minded, you know?”
“I know.”
“It was just that there was never any real reason for it. Not a one of those men our mother went after was worth a flying f—fig.”
“Hmm. Is Trina responsible for your fruit curses?”
Devon blew out a huff. “She thought my language needed to be refined.”
Much the same way Annabel had been trying to civilize Patrick. She crossed one leg and swung her foot, shaking off the pinpricks of guilt shaming her into admitting she had no right to change him.
And then her foot stopped as realization dawned. She was trying to change him, to make him a clone of the masses so that he would bore her and she could regain control of her world. The world he’d turned upside down when he’d backed her into that alley wall and kissed her defenseless.
“Annie?”
“Don’t call me Annie.”
“Then don’t sit there and zone out on me.”
“I was just thinking that if your language was an issue with Trina, I can see why Chloe would snag your attention.”
“Liar. You weren’t thinking that at all.”
True, she wasn’t. She was thinking that it was time to flay herself open and expose the mess she was in. She took a deep breath, uncrossed her leg and laced her hands primly in her lap. “I’m in trouble, Devon. Big trouble. Trouble like I’ve never known before.”
His brow furrowed. “Man trouble.”
She nodded.
“You’re in love.”
She nodded, then just as quickly shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“What do you know?” he asked softly after a moment filled with only the sound of chimes in the wind.
“That I can’t stop thinking about him. That he makes me feel safe when I didn’t even know I felt otherwise. That he makes me smile.”
“And?”
“I let down my guard when I’m with him. Way too easily.” She sighed.
Devon chuckled. “Then good for him. It’s about time someone cracked those walls of Jericho you’ve built so high.”
“I built them for a reason.”
“I know.” He paused, went on. “But you’re not our mother, Annie. You’re not going to make the same stupid choices.”
“I’m afraid that’s what I’m doing now,” she said, so softly Devon moved back to sit at her side.
“Tell me about him.”
She wasn’t even sure she knew where to begin. “He’s younger.”
“A boy toy, huh?”
“Exactly what I thought at first.”
“And now?”
This time she was the one to reach for the rake and try to clear herself an obvious path through her personal quagmire. “Now I realize he’s more of a man than any of the ones I’ve known.”
“He must be quite impressive. After all, I’ve met a few of your beaux.”
“Beaux?” Annabel laughed. “Is that more of Trina’s influence?”
Devon shook his head. “No. That’s how I’ve thought of the men you’ve let into your life. They’ve wooed you, but have never become anything more to you than trophies. What I’ve never figured out is if it’s the chase that amuses you, or if it’s that they turn out to be less than you expected once you give in.”
“Are you accusing me of being a snob?”
“Aren’t you?”
She looked away because he was hitting too close to a truth she seemed to be holding in a rusty bucket, a truth that was seeping away as she lost more and more of the control that had kept her safe from men like those who had used their mother.
“His name is Patrick, by the way.”
“I know.”
She turned her head sharply, her raised brows questioning.
“Chloe mentioned him and the impact he appears to be having on you.” A slow, lazy grin spread over Devon’s face. “A good impact, Annie. Chloe said she’s never seen you so happy. Or so human.”
Human? Ha! Annabel blew out a gusty huff. “He’s dangerous, Devon. He’s wild. I wonder at times how close he is to coming unhinged. Or how much of that attitude is a ruse.”
“I’m sensing kindred spirits here.”
“That doesn’t mean we make a good fit.”
“It also doesn’t guarantee you won’t. Why don’t you give him a chance, Annie?”
She pulled in and blew out a long shuddering breath. “Because I’m scared?”
“Of getting hurt? Or of falling in love? Because I’ve gotta say, hurt shouldn’t be an issue. That’s one thing we both are experts on working our way through.”
“And falling in love?”
“Once you have an answer to that one, you let me know.”
8
CHLOE SAT AT THE FAR END of the horseshoe-shaped bar in Haydon’s Half-Time, going over the spreadsheet she’d written to keep track of the catering details for Devon Lee’s New Year’s Eve showing. Details such as linens and crystal and flatware. Alcohol and ice. Tables and uniforms and cleanup.
Sydney and Macy and Lauren and Poe would share the grunt work. Chloe only hoped the five of them would be able to manage, especially since Poe’s RSVP list had grown from sixty to eighty this past week alone. P might not literally stand for promptly in the acronym, but Sweet Pete in tennis shoes, what was up with all the last-minute decisions?
Sweet Pete in tennis shoes. See? She had it in her to curse creatively. She was doing her best to be the woman Eric wanted, to tone down her potty mouth—a toning-down she needed to do anyway, working with young girls as she did these days.
She knew Eric was proud of her for that, for following her heart and returning to school for her Master’s, for making the change from fashion career to establishing gUIDANCE gIRL’s mentoring model. And she hadn’t done it to impress him. She’d done it for herself. gUIDANCE gIRL was a program she could’ve used as a teen.
Making counseling and peer services available to troubled girls rather than advising on lip gloss and nail color went a long way to satisfying a restlessness Chloe had thought she would live with all of her life. A restlessness she’d battled until she’d met Eric, and he’d shown her that stability existed outside of fairy tales.
Now she had to figure out where her tranquility had gone.
She drummed her fingers along the sides of her laptop, staring at the screen and the numbers and schedules that no longer made any sense. And wasn’t that exactly the way her days were going lately—nothing making sense? Even the rusty-red henna designs on her palms were more ordered in their intricacy than her life seemed to be.
Glancing down the bar to where Eric stood, towel thrown over his shoulder, smile wide and eyes twinkling as he chatted up a group of regulars in for a beer and their nightly fix of ESPN, she thought back to the night almost two years ago she’d come to Haydon’s Half-Time to ask him to do her a favor.
He’d been wary of her and her favor, and the memory made her smile. Hell, she’d never expected he’d take her up on her three-dates-for-three-wishes offer. But she’d been scared of screwing up what she had at gIRL-gEAR back then, and desperate enough to ask for his help in salvaging her reputation and her bad-girl name.
For so long since then she’d thought she’d found her happily-ever-after, but now, watching Eric at work, seeing him in his element, she wasn’t sure of anything. He was the same man he’d always been, the one with whom she’d fallen in love. All she could wonder about was where she’d gone so wrong in making herself over that he didn’t love her as much anymore.
Sensing that he’d looked her way and caught her sightlessly
staring, she grabbed a cocktail napkin and feigned removing a speck of pretzel salt from her eye. Blinking away what she could of the moisture, she glanced up into Eric’s frown.
“What’s wrong, princess?”
She remembered how much she’d hated that endearment, yet now couldn’t imagine hearing anything else. “Nothing. I bit too hard into a pretzel and my contact lens caught the shrapnel.”
“Hmm,” Eric said, obviously aware there wasn’t a basket of pretzels within his arm’s length, much less hers. “I thought you might’ve been crying.”
“No. I’m not crying.” She was lying, of course, and wanting to rub his face in the fact that she was crying over him. But that was childish, and she was trying not to be, so instead she gave him her sexiest smile. “Is there anything I can do in the kitchen, maybe? To help you get out of here early?”
He seemed to consider her questions, but she was convinced that what he was considering instead was what lay in store should he have to spend time with her at home. Lately he worked at least six nights a week; she was certain he’d thought about working seven.
“It would be nice to have more time together, Eric.” He certainly didn’t have to stay until closing every night. He employed a perfectly competent manager who was up for the task. “I can’t make all those babies you used to talk about on my own, you know.”
“I dunno, Chloe.” Eric pulled the towel from his shoulder and wiped a circle on the bar surface next to where she’d set up her mini-office. “Tim mentioned cutting out early, and I pretty much told him to go for it.”
Nothing about the babies. Why wasn’t she surprised? “So you have to lock up. Again.”
Lips pressed together, Eric nodded almost curtly before tilting his head in the direction of her laptop. “Besides,” he said, his tone sharpening with more censure than she’d ever heard from him, “I figure you’re pretty busy with your party planning.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re still in a snit over my helping out Poe?”
“I don’t do snits, Chloe.”
