“You’re wrong.”
The bleak words stopped Jim short. But then he shook his head. “You’re an angel, Adrian.”
“Am I?”
In a grim voice, Jim countered, “Well, put it like this…you better fucking be.”
After a tense silence, Jim’s mouth started moving, words coming out of it, sensible, chill-out syllables crossing the distance that separated them. But in the recesses of his mind, he sent up a prayer to whoever might be listening.
Devina was a parasite, the kind of thing that wheedled into people and infected them.
Made sense that someone emotionally compromised was more vulnerable.
The tragedy, however, was that he couldn’t have the enemy in his back pocket.
No matter how much he loved the guy.
Chapter Eight
“What happened to your eye?”
As Mels entered her mother’s kitchen, she didn’t answer the question, but went straight for the coffeepot. The fact that the thing was in the far corner, and she could drink her mug with her back to her mom, was just an added bonus to the caffeine.
Damn CoverGirl foundation. It was supposed to
“Mels?”
She didn’t need to turn around to see what was behind her: Her mom, trim and small, younger looking than her age, would be sitting at the table across the way, the
Her mother was one of those tiny little women who always looked made up even without makeup. Like she had been born with a can of spray starch and a hairbrush under each arm.
But she was fragile. Like a kind, compassionate figurine.
The china shop to the bull Mels’s father had been.
Very aware that the question was still out there, Mels poured. Sipped. Made busy work snagging a paper towel and wiping a counter that was clean and dry. “Oh, nothing—I slipped and fell. Knocked into the shower dial. It was so stupid.”
There was a moment of quiet. “You got in late last night.”
“I ended up at a friend’s house.”
“I thought you said it was a bar.”
“I went over there after the bar.”
“Oh. All right.”
Mels stared out the window over the sink. With luck, her aunt would call at any moment, as the woman usually did, and there wouldn’t be a need to lie about why she had to take a taxi into work.
The sounds of sipping and quiet crunching filled the kitchen, and Mels tried to think of something halfway regular to say. Weather. Sports—no, her mother wasn’t into organized activities that centered around fields, balls or pucks of any kind. Books would do it—although, Mels didn’t read anything other than crime statistics, and her mother was still on the Oprah’s Book Club train even though the locomotive didn’t have an engine or any tracks anymore.
God…times like this made her miss her father to the point where it hurt. The two of them had never had any awkwardness. Ever. They’d talked about the city, or his work as a cop, or school…or they’d not said a word—and it was cool either way. Her mother, on the other hand?
“So.” Mels took another draw on her mug. “Any big plans for the day?”
Some kind of answer came back, but she didn’t hear it because the urge to leave was too loud.
Finishing off the last of her black coffee—her mother took hers with cream and sugar—Mels put the mug in the dishwasher and braced herself.
“So I’ll see you tonight,” she said. “I won’t be late. Promise.”
Her mother’s eyes rose to meet her own. That bowl full of wholesome goodness had little pink flowers on it, and the tablecloth had tiny yellow ones, and the wallpaper had larger blue ones.
Flowers everywhere.
“Are you all right?” her mom asked. “Do you need to go to the doctor?”
“It’s just a bruise. Nothing special.” She glanced out through the dining room. On the far side of the doily- laden table, past the milky white privacy curtain, a bright yellow Chevrolet pulled up. “Taxi’s here. I left my car at the bar because I’d had two and a half glasses of wine.”
“Oh, you could have taken mine into work.”
“You’ll need it.” She looked to the horticultural calendar hanging on the wall, praying there was something there. “Today you have bridge at four.”
“I could have gotten a ride. I still can, if you want to—”
“No, it’s better this way. I can pick up my car and drive it home.”
Crap. She’d just boxed herself in. The only way Fi-Fi was going anywhere was if she were on the back of a flatbed—the poor thing had been auto-evac’d to a local service station.
“Oh. All right.”
As her mother fell silent, Mels wanted to apologize, but it was too hard to put the complicated
“I have to go. Thanks, though.”
“All right.”
“See you tonight.”
Mels kissed the soft cheek that was presented, and left through the front door in a hurry. Outside, the air was fresh and lovely, the sun bright enough to promise a warm lunch hour.
Getting in the back of the cab, she said, “
“You got it.”
Heading into town, the taxi had shock absorbers to rival cement blocks, and all the seat padding of a hardwood floor, but she didn’t care about the rough ride. Too much chaos in her brain to worry about her butt or her molars.
That man from the night before remained with her, sure as if he were sitting beside her.
It had been like that all night long.
Letting her head fall back, she closed her eyes and replayed the accident, double-checking, triple-checking that there was nothing she could have done to avoid hitting him. And then she got tied up in other things, like the way he had lain so still and watchful in that hospital bed.
Even injured, gravely so in some places, he’d still come across like…a predator.
A powerful male animal, wounded—
Okay, now she was really losing it. And maybe she needed to look closer at her dating life—which was nonexistent….
Too bad she couldn’t shake the conviction that he’d been strangely hypnotic, and wasn’t that tacky. What she should be concerned with was his health and well-being, and how likely he was to try to sue her for what little she had.
Instead, she lingered on the raspy sound of his voice, and the way he’d stared at her, as if every small thing about her had been a source of fascination and importance…
He’d been hurt a while ago, she thought. The scars at the side of his eye had healed up over time.
