Contract Pending Read online

  It was different than it had been with Bradley. He was different. He knew just what to do, where to touch, the right words to whisper in my ear; hot, dark words that made my insides melt and my skin tingle and my mind go blank, words that made me forget everything but the longing, the desire, the absolute need to have him inside me.

  And then he was there, and he did fit, if just barely, and that was all it took for the explosions, and the fireworks, and the colored confetti to rain down... and I clutched at him while I shuddered and laughed and tried to catch my breath.

  I would have forgiven him for thinking I had lost my mind, but he didn’t seem to find anything strange in my reaction. He smiled, pleasure mixing with the desire in his eyes. “Darlin’, you’re easy.”

  I stretched against him, enjoying the feel of his hard muscles sliding against my body, and the heavy bulk of him, still inside me. “Bradley didn’t think so.” In fact, this had rarely happened with Bradley.

  “Fuck Bradley,” Rafe said.

  “No thanks.” I sucked my breath in when he moved. “I’d rather...”

  I couldn’t get my tongue to wrap around the words, but he knew. His lips curved. “I’m good for a few more times tonight.”

  “Really?”

  Another thrust, another gasp from me. “And a few in the morning.”

  “Really?”

  He smiled. “I told you I’d make you forget Bradley.”

  “Bradley who?” I managed, and made him laugh.

  Chapter 13

  I woke up with a sense of déjà vu. Same warm bed, same sun slanting through the blinds, same smell, same warm presence behind me. Same muscular arm, this time wrapped around me possessively. And for a second, I thought I’d dreamed it all.

  As soon as I tried to move, I knew I hadn’t. I was sore in places I didn’t know existed. And the places that weren’t sore were so lax I had a hard time turning over.

  Rafe, who had worked even harder than me last night, still had his eyes closed, and his breathing was slow and even. I settled back down, in the curve of his arm, and looked at him.

  The dark hair falling over his forehead made him look younger, and there was a softness to his face in sleep that I hadn’t seen since we were both in high school, before life and prison took its toll on him. He had a scar on his temple that I hadn’t noticed before; it was old and faded, but from up close, I could see that it was jagged, not clean. From a broken bottle, maybe, rather than a slice from a knife. Maybe from that bar fight when he was eighteen, the one that had sent him to prison for two years. Although I had heard a list of his injuries from that fight, and this cut hadn’t been among them, so maybe it had come later.

  There were other scars in other places. One I’d recognized, many I hadn’t. The one I did know about, the most recent, had come from a bullet from Perry Fortunato’s gun, which had grazed his side just under two months ago. The scar was still pink, not yet faded to white. I’d kissed it at some point during the night, sometime in the middle of one of the three—or was it four?—times we’d made love.

  And that wasn’t all I’d kissed.

  Lord, what had I done?

  Last night, all I’d been able to think about was getting here. Getting away from Todd and Sweetwater, getting to Nashville, to Rafe. Finishing what we’d started two days ago, because I hadn’t been able to think about anything else since. Hoping that if we just finished it, if I experienced being with him, I’d be able to move on, put it aside. Get past it. Past him.

  So much for that idea. After making love four times last night, all I wanted was to do it again. I choked back a sound that was just as much a sob as a laugh. “I am so screwed!”

  Rafe didn’t open his eyes, but his lips curved appreciatively. I punched him in the shoulder. If he was awake, I might as well. I wanted to hit someone, and he was available. And it wasn’t like I could hurt him, was it? Punching his shoulder was like punching the wall. “Not like that, you idiot. What’s my mother going to say when she finds out about this?”

  He opened his eyes. They were still sleepy, with heavy lids. “You planning to tell her, darlin’?”

  “Of course not,” I said.

  “Then how’s she gonna know?” He let go of me to flop back on the bed, one arm thrown across his face in protection against the sharp morning sun, and that viper tattoo staring at me through slitted eyes and sticking out its little forked tongue.

  “I figured anyone who looked at me would know.” And not just because of the marks his hands and mouth had made on me, but because I probably glowed. Or something.

  Rafe opened his eyes again, and inspected me with interest. “You do have the look of someone who’s been...” he paused, “well-loved.”

  I felt myself blushing. “Gee. Such a way with words.”

  “I thought you’d prefer it to ‘fucked blind.’” He lifted both arms over his head and stretched.

  “I do. Thanks.” It was getting increasingly difficult to keep my mind on the conversation as muscles rippled and the sheet fell away from more and more of his body.

  “My pleasure.” He grinned, trailing a teasing fingertip down my cheek, then down my throat, and then further down. Curling around the top of the blanket. “So, seeing as you’re a fallen woman anyway...”

  “Mmm?”

  “I’m all rested up. I promised you I’d be ready to go again this morning.” He tugged on the blanket. As it fell away and he moved closer, all I could think was, Thank God!

  Eventually, though, we had to get out of bed and face reality.

  I put it off as long as I could, long enough to have sex—all right, make love—twice more. But eventually, it was necessary to get up. Specifically, when a knock on the door downstairs heralded the arrival of Spicer and Truman, come to dig that bullet out of the wall.

  Rafe shrugged on his jeans and a fresh T-shirt from the drawer. I waited until he’d left the room to scurry out of bed and into the bathroom for a three minute shower. If I didn’t leave bed now, I’d be there all day, and that’d be bad. Good, but bad. After wrapping a towel around myself, I ran back into the bedroom and contemplated my options. I could put the dress from yesterday back on, with yesterday’s strappy sandals, but it was rather worse for wear. That kind of dress isn’t supposed to be bunched in someone’s hands and tugged and tossed on the floor in a heap. It was wrinkled and looked horrible, and as I thought about walking past Spicer and Truman in it—Spicer and Truman, who had seen me in it last night—I couldn’t do it. All right, so they had to know I was still here—my car was still parked out front—but I didn’t want to go downstairs wearing the same thing I’d worn last night.

  Mrs. Jenkins was barely five feet tall, and she wore nothing but ugly house-dresses, which would hit me at mid-thigh. And Marquita was twice my weight, aside from the fact that borrowing her clothes gave me a bad taste in my mouth. That left Rafe’s clothes. I had pulled my panties back on—wincing while I did it, because putting on dirty underwear is just nasty—along with a plain, white T-shirt from his bureau, by the time he came back into the room.

  He grinned when he saw me. “Looks good on you.”

  “Surely not.” The T-shirt was several sizes too big, and hung like a sack. Down past my derriere, but not so far past that I could wear it as a dress. I needed something else. And a pair of Rafe’s jeans would not only be too big around, but eight inches too long.

  “You wearing anything under that?” He reached out. I stepped back. If I let him, he’d talk me right back into bed, and then where would I be?

  “Underwear. But I need a pair of pants. Or a skirt or something.”

  “I’ll see what Marquita’s got.” He turned, but not before I’d seen the shutters slam down in his eyes, leaving them opaque. I bit my lip as I watched him walk out of the room, wanting nothing more than to call him back and let him tumble me onto the bed, but if I did, I knew I’d never get out of here again.

  He was back in a minute, carrying a pair of drawstring
pants—pink with little hearts on them, the bottom half of a pair of scrubs—that looked like they’d fit an elephant. By the time I’d tucked in the T-shirt and cinched the waist, they worked, though. Well enough to get me home and into more appropriate clothes of my own.

  I looked up and met his eyes. He’d been watching me the whole time I fiddled with the pants, perhaps waiting for me to speak. To say something. Anything. About last night, about what would happen now. But I didn’t know what to say. So I plastered a bright, polite, social smile on my face, just like mother taught me. (Although I don’t think she ever considered I would need it in a situation like this.)

  “I really need to go.”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  “Thank you for...” ...the clothes, for giving me a place to stay, for not kicking me out, for last night... “—everything.”

  “My pleasure.”

  He had his hands in his pockets. I would have liked to think it was because he wanted to keep himself from grabbing me and throwing me down on the bed, but it probably wasn’t. He must be used to this, this awkward morning after, of women saying goodbye. Most of them probably wanted to stay. Most of the women he slept with, at least the ones I’d met, seemed only too eager to have at him again. And God—I cringed inside when I realized that I was now in the same category as Elspeth Caulfield and Yvonne McCoy; running after him, practically begging for more of his attention.

  I wouldn’t do that. Not in a million years. And this morning, it felt like it would take at least that long for me to get over what had happened between us. Suddenly Elspeth’s carrying a torch for him for twelve years didn’t seem absurd at all.

  And because thinking about it, about what he’d done to me, what he’d made me feel, made my heart speed up and my breath stutter, I gestured to the door. “I should...”

  He nodded. “Don’t let me keep you, darlin’.”

  He stepped aside politely, waiting for me to precede him through the door. I did, holding my head high as I walked out of his bedroom, for the last time.

  “Guess I’ll see you around,” he said when we were downstairs, with the front door open. Spicer and Truman had come and gone, with their bullet, and my Volvo was the only car in the driveway.

  “I’m sure you will.” I managed another bright, polite smile, even as the thought of it made my stomach churn. How would I be able to see him around, to look at him, to remember what we’d done last night, and act like nothing had happened? Like I didn’t want to do it again?

  “Take care of yourself, darlin’.”

  I nodded, avoiding his eyes. “You too. Stay out of the way of stray bullets.”

  “You do the same.”

  I managed a smile. “Don’t worry. No one’s out to get me.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure,” Rafe said and closed the door. Politely, but with a distinct click. I walked down the stairs and over to the car, my silver sandals sinking into the gravel and ruining the heels. I couldn’t find it in me to care.

  It’s a miracle I didn’t have an accident on the way to my apartment, because I was not paying attention to where I was going at all. I made it, though, and parked in the lot, before I let myself into the building. I knocked before I fitted the key in the door upstairs, just in case Officer Slater was there. It would be rude to just walk in on her.

  As it turned out, she wasn’t there, but her things were. I ignored them, just went to change my clothes. Marquita’s pants went into the laundry basket along with my panties, and Rafe’s shirt was headed in the same direction when I caught myself. If I washed it, it would smell like me. My laundry detergent, my dryer sheets. And although I’d washed the scent of him off my body and out of my hair, I wasn’t quite ready to let the shirt go. So I folded it, carefully, and put it into my underwear drawer. And then I took it out again, stuck it in a gallon sized Ziploc freezer bag, closed the zipper, and tucked it away.

  I was dressed, in a prim skirt and primmer blouse, with patent leather Mary Janes on my feet—Manolos, of course; I have standards, last night to the contrary—and on my way out the door, when the phone rang. My heart sank. Here it came. Mother was calling to ask why I hadn’t accepted Todd’s proposal and made her the happiest woman in the world.

  The area code was right, but it wasn’t mother’s number. It wasn’t Todd’s either, and I breathed a double sigh of relief.

  “You OK, sis?” were the first words out of Dix’s mouth.

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Todd said you left the Wayside Inn by nine last night. And mother said you never came back to the house.”

  It hadn’t even crossed my mind that anyone would worry. “Todd proposed,” I said.

  “That’s what he said,” Dix answered.

  “I needed some time to think. And I knew if I went back to the house, mother would talk me into it. Or at least try to. So I went home.”

  “To Nashville? You didn’t spend the night with Collier, did you?” He laughed.

  “I’m in my apartment,” I said. It was the truth.

  “I was joking, sis.” He paused, probably searching for the right words. “Todd said you didn’t accept.”

  “I didn’t decline, either. I just said I needed time to think.”

  “That’s what he said.” Dix fell silent again. I stood it for as long as I could before I started babbling.

  “I’m not sure I’m ready to get remarried. Life with Bradley was no picnic.”

  “But this is Todd,” Dix pointed out.

  “I know that.”

  “You’ve known him your whole life.”

  “I know.”

  “There won’t be any surprises.”

  “None.” And he said it like it was a good thing. Not that I’d enjoyed learning that my husband had been cheating on me and wanted a divorce. That was a surprise I could have done without. Still, surprises can be nice things. Life with someone can be a little stale without the occasional surprise.

  “He loves you.”

  “I know he does. He told me.”

  “Don’t you love him?” Dix asked, point blank. I hesitated.

  “I’ve known him my whole life, so of course I love him. I’m just not sure I love him the way I need to, to spend the rest of my life with him.”

  Dix didn’t answer, and I added, “Do you love Sheila?”

  “Of course I love Sheila. I married her, didn’t I?”

  “I married Bradley.”

  “And divorced him,” Dix said. “Sheila and I aren’t getting divorced.”

  “I didn’t think you were. It’s just... when mother explained the facts of life to me, she didn’t say anything about my having to be in love with my husband. And I just sort of assumed I would be, if he was my husband.”

  “And you weren’t?” Dix said.

  “I can’t imagine I was. If I had been, I think I would have been devastated when he told me he wanted a divorce. Don’t you? Instead of just embarrassed and afraid that anyone would find out that he wasn’t happy with me.”

  Dix was silent for a second. “That makes sense,” he admitted.

  “It isn’t that I don’t like Todd. Or that I don’t care for him. We get along perfectly well, and we have a lot in common, and I know it would make everyone happy if we got married. I just don’t want to be in another relationship where we’re polite and perfectly appropriate to one another, but nothing more. Is it so wrong to want—I don’t know—passion?”

  “No,” Dix said, “I don’t think it is. But Todd loves you. There’ll be passion.” He sounded embarrassed to be talking about it.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I shouldn’t be laying all this on you. He’s your best friend.”

  “And you’re my sister. Besides, I was the one who called. I just wanted to make sure you were OK.”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  “You didn’t answer the phone earlier,” Dix said.

  “You called? When?”

  “At least four times
. Starting at eight thirty, when I got to the office and Todd called me.”

  “I didn’t...” I stopped myself before I told him I hadn’t heard the phone. Small wonder, when I’d left it in my purse in Rafe’s kitchen, while we’d been upstairs in the bedroom totally consumed with other things. “I turned it off because I wanted to think, and I just turned it on again now. Sorry.”

  “As long as you’re fine,” Dix said.

  “I am. Really. I’m back home, in my apartment. I was just on my way out the door to go see Tamara Grimaldi.”

  “Don’t let me keep you,” Dix said. “I have things to do, too.” He paused. “So what do you want me to tell Todd? And mom?”

  I took a deep breath. “That I’m fine. That I’ll be in touch. And tell mom I’m sorry for leaving all my things there. I just didn’t want to go back to the house and have to explain. You know. After...”

  “I understand,” Dix said. “I’ll let them know.”

  “I’ll drive back down to pick up my things. In a day or two. There are things I need there. I just don’t want to face anyone right now. Until I’ve had some time to think.”

  “I’ll cover for you,” Dix promised. “Call me if you want to talk, all right, sis? I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” I said, touched. And then, as I closed the cell phone, I wondered if he’d still love me if he knew where—and how—I’d spent the night.

  Tamara Grimaldi was at her desk when I arrived at her office at Police Plaza in downtown. The desk staff must be used to seeing me, because they let me walk through the warren of desks and cubicles without an escort.

  “There you are,” she said when I stopped in the doorway. “I wondered when I’d be seeing you. You all right?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered, sitting down in one of the chairs in front of her desk. Properly, the way they taught us in finishing school. Without looking, back straight, folding one leg over the other and making sure the skirt covered the knee. “I almost got shot last night.”