by Bonnie Dee
All of a sudden, he seized my shoulders and pushed me away—hard. It took me a second to get my balance, I was leaning so far into him.
I blinked and opened my eyes to see Jonah’s shocked expression. His eyes were wide and even darker than usual, his pupils were so dilated. His lips glistened from our wet kisses, and when he ran his tongue over them, my humming body gave a fresh surge of hormones. Yes! I wanted that. I wanted him. Consequences be damned.
“We can’t.” His voice was so gritty and low, I could barely make out the words. “You work for me. I shouldn’t have…”
“You didn’t. I leaned in,” I pointed out too perkily, trying to make light of something that didn’t feel light or surface at all. The charged mood in the air was heavy with desire and possibility and feelings I couldn’t begin to inspect too closely.
“No harm, no foul,” I added, putting my palms up and stepping back farther.
Jonah was absolutely right. Going down this road would be a mistake for us both. We couldn’t have a little fling and be done with it. As long as I worked here, it would always hang there between us, an elephant in the room. And I needed this job too much to walk away from it.
But wasn’t the elephant already there? We’d ignored it, but now it had come trumpeting into the room and sat on both our faces—a kiss that couldn’t be forgotten no matter how hard both of us tried.
“Like it never happened,” Jonah murmured, still looking dazed and confused. “It’s better that way.”
“Agreed.” I nodded vigorously and turned to scurry into the living room, where Travis still lay sleeping on the couch. I needed to get out of this house, fast. I was embarrassed I’d thrown myself at Jonah. That kiss was all on me. I was the one who had leaned in to take it.
I quickly carried sleeping Travis to the foyer before remembering I still had to put on my coat and his snowsuit before I could flee. I looked around for a place to set him down.
Jonah was right there, holding out his arms. “Let me help you.”
Ah, but that was the whole trouble, wasn’t it? His continued acts of kindness that made me start to crush on this quiet, solitary man. Well, shit. Once again, I had no choice but to accept his aid.
I handed him Travis while I slipped on my coat and boots. Then I stuffed Travis’s legs into his snowsuit. Jonah finished getting his arms in the sleeves and zipped up the front. Travis whined and shifted but didn’t wake up.
I picked up the tote bag and held out my arms. “I’ll take him now.”
“That’s okay. You have your bag and your purse. I can carry him out.”
I looked pointedly at his bare feet.
Jonah stared down too, wiggled his toes, then jammed one foot after the other into the hulking pair of boots on the mat. Snow had melted from all our boots to practically ruin the foyer floor. I should mop up behind us all the way out the door, but right then all I wanted to do was put space between us and fast.
I trotted out to the Camry, put my bags inside, and opened the door for Jonah to put Travis into his car seat. A fresh wave of awww rushed through me at the sight. How could I not be touched by the careful yet competent way Jonah’s big hands handled my little angel?
“Thanks again,” I muttered. “I’ll be back next Tuesday.”
He nodded. I got into the car and started her up—so blissful to have an engine that started immediately and flawlessly every time.
As I drove away, I glanced in the rearview. Jonah stood in the midst of a light snow flurry, hands jammed in jeans pockets, sweater-clad shoulders lifted. He had to be freezing, but he didn’t go back inside before I turned out of the driveway.
Oh God, what can of worms had I reopened with that foolish kiss? It would be nearly impossible to go back to our casual friendship. I knew now I’d begun to like him too much. My control was slipping. My emotions were taking over. And that never ended well for me.
Chapter Eleven
Jonah
After Rianna and Travis left, I strode around the house like a caged cat for a few minutes, mentally kicking myself over and over. Why had I allowed that to happen? I’d never meant to cross the employer/employee line! Or had I? After all, I’d offered lunch, then practically forced Rianna to stick around and hang out with me. I’d opened the door to turn our precarious platonic friendship into something more.
I’d danced with her, for Chrissakes. And I’d wanted to kiss her. Even if she was the one who’d actually made the first move, it didn’t matter. I’d set the damn stage. Why was I doing this, playing with fire, prodding at emotions I’d never intended to unleash?
I gave a roar of frustrated anger—at myself for being an idiot, but also at the aborted end of the pseudo date. I wanted more. My body still wanted more. A lot.
One thing I knew for sure. I had to get out of the house and do something before I went crazy. I dressed appropriately for the weather this time and set out for town. The roads were too dangerous to drive all the way to the city. I’d be content with whatever entertainment I could find nearby.
There was a place I could visit. A whorehouse, I suppose, except no one referred to it that way. It was an average farmhouse in the country, but local men knew its reputation. A guy could pay for a massage with a happy ending, or more. I’d used the services myself on rare occasions. This day, I decided sexual relief was exactly what I needed to get thoughts of Rianna out of my mind.
I meandered down the snowy hillside, guiding the SUV carefully around each sharp curve, and found myself hoping Rianna’s little Camry was doing okay in the snow. Immediately, I shoved my fears aside. I had to stop worrying about this woman and feeling compelled to take care of her and her boy. It muddied the water, blurring the line between housekeeper and something else.
I would never get involved with a woman. I’d intentionally arranged my life to avoid all feminine complications. Sex was a business transaction like everything else. Romantic notions were just that—notions¸ make-believe, and not to be trusted. Women were changeable, dangerous creatures, and having feelings for one would inevitably bring pain.
At last I pulled to a stop in the rutted yard of the house. Despite the bad weather, there were a couple of other cars. The women who shared the house generally parked in back, leaving the front for visitors. I sat with the engine running, staring at a Chrysler with duct tape over a crack in the windshield, and several rusted and dented Chevy and Ford pickups. I could already picture their owners, as beat down by life as their vehicles, and the ladies who entertained them, providing a mechanical service for a price. They could easily be girls like Rianna, fighting against life’s deck stacked against them, doing what they felt they must to make ends meet.
My libido shut down as if I’d been hit in the dick with a cattle prod. I put the car in gear and drove away.
I wasn’t ready to be at home again, so I stopped by Jagger’s, a dive bar that made Cock Teasers look like the Taj Mahal. I wasn’t a regular. I only had a drink when meeting with a business client, or maybe one or two beers during a baseball game. Liquor wasn’t a vice I ever cared to indulge in, not after seeing how it could turn a man into a monster. But that afternoon, I sat at the bar and ordered a Jack Daniels on the rocks. Then another. Before I hit a third, I decided I’d better get myself home and finish my drinking there.
I stopped at the liquor store and drove home, but still wasn’t ready to go inside. Snow was softly falling, but the wind had died down, and it wasn’t all that cold, so I decided to hike some old familiar trails. I crunched through a layer of snow and underbrush along the deer path I usually followed. The clean white shroud made the dark woods glow even though it was nearly dusk. Even when the last of the weak sunlight died, I’d be able to find my way. These woods were my home.
The whiskey burned a path to the pit of my stomach and sat there warming me. I pushed aside a branch, and a puff of snow fell on my face. I licked the crystals that landed on my lips and remembered melting snow for drinking water when I camped in winter to
avoid home. My normal tight hold on my thoughts and feelings began to loosen. My mind spun out of my control and skittered over a lot of subjects I normally avoided.
I remembered the day I realized I couldn’t just go off by myself the way I did. I had a responsibility to look after Micah and especially J.D. and make sure they were safe. Mom wasn’t there to intervene anymore. So, if I was camping, they were camping too. And if we were at home and things blew up with Dad, I’d yell at Micah to take J.D. out and I’d handle whatever the old man was dishing out. Sometimes the boys went to our camp. Sometimes they visited a friend in the trailer park. Sometimes they just hunkered down nearby, waiting for the storm to blow over so they could come back home.
I tripped over a log buried in the snow, got my balance, and took another drink. God, I hated the taste and the sharp smell of the stuff. Jack Daniels was our dad’s drink of choice. I didn’t know why I’d picked a bottle of this over anything else in the store.
The world was beginning to spin, and I plopped down on a stump to wait for it to get straight again. Another swig of the whiskey, and now my mind fixated on That Day. I’d been planting seedling pot plants in the field when Micah came screaming to find me. His face was beet red, much redder than his hair, and tears streaked his cheeks. He could hardly put two clear words together as he wailed that he’d found Mom.
“Found her where? What happened?” I grabbed his shoulders and shook him to snap him out of his panic. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s… I think she’s dead. She’s just lying there. It doesn’t look like she’s breathing. And there’s an empty pill bottle…”
He didn’t have to draw me a diagram. I’d seen Mom passed out before. I was sure Micah had too, but for whatever reason, he was freaking out this time.
“Don’t worry about it. She’ll wake up after a while.” I glanced at the Styrofoam cups of seedlings. I only had a few more to plug into the ground and wanted to get it done today.
“No.” Micah shook his head. “No. You have to come.”
A chill rippled through me. His blue eyes were serious. And it wasn’t like Micah to fall apart like this. He might be crazily impulsive, but he was pretty smart and levelheaded for a ten-year-old. Maybe something really was wrong.
He grabbed my arm. “Come on, man.”
When my brain reached the part where I saw her lying there, it sort of glossed over the image as it always did. I could never look too closely at that scene or what immediately followed. I remember calling 911, and I remember covering her with a blanket, but that’s about all.
And after they’d taken her away, we made a pact—Micah, me, and even my asshole dad. We’d tell J.D. she had a heart attack. Why make it worse for him by saying she’d left us by her own choice? Kid was only seven. He deserved a better memory than that.
My stomach growled, the whiskey churning and burning and…oh God, starting to rise up my throat. I lurched off the stump into a snowdrift on my hands and knees and vomited most of the half a bottle I’d swallowed.
When I’d expelled all that poison, I crawled a little distance away and collapsed with my face into a clean pile of snow. It felt good and cold, clean in my mouth. I stayed there till my face was numb, then finally dragged myself upright and staggered back down the hill toward home.
I had a home now, a safe, secure, private dwelling that I could keep exactly the way I liked. No screwed-up parents or demanding younger brothers. It was all mine, quiet and peaceful. And I wasn’t lonely there at all. I didn’t need any other people making my life complicated. I certainly didn’t need some woman running a vacuum cleaner or a kid making loud dinosaur noises.
I dropped my boots at the door and left a trail of my snow-soaked coat and damp jeans and wet socks all the way to the den. I found the album I needed to hear and set it on the turntable. Though still dizzy from drink, I was careful when I set the needle to play. Then I dropped into my comfortable armchair, covered up with a woolly throw, and closed my eyes.
The soft ethereal tones of Enya filled the room and calmed my mind. Yes, Enya, that mid-nineties New Age-slinging vocalist that no self-respecting dude would ever listen to. But she’d been one of my mom’s favorites, so I still had the album. And nothing was more soothing when my head ached and I felt like I might puke again. She was a cool drink of water to my parched soul.
I lay back in the recliner with my eyes closed and the dark world rotating on its axis all around me and got carried away to someplace magical. In that magical place, a pair of clear gray eyes looked into mine with deep understanding. A pretty mouth smiled and soft hands touched me. Rianna haunting my dreams again.
What had prompted her to kiss me? It was obvious the attraction went both ways. We’d been dancing, then swaying, then holding still and looking at each other, and it just…happened, as easy as our small talk about baseball and music. She was a lovely woman, a good mother, easy to get along with, if a little pigheaded sometimes.
A door with creaky hinges screeched slowly open inside me, and behind it was what if.
I’d always been so adamant about not becoming emotionally involved with women. Hell, with people in general. But things were starting to change in my life. I was changing my business plan, giving up weed to make whiskey. Why couldn’t I change some other things too?
On my recent visit to Chicago, I’d seen how transformed Micah and J.D. were by the women they’d brought into their lives. Maybe I could have that too. Maybe I could risk the pain for the chance at some sort of deeper happiness. Maybe I’d found a woman who was worth that risk.
Or maybe I was just a drunken fool, listening to too much Enya and spinning daydreams.
I got up and went for my cell phone in my coat pocket before I could talk myself out of it. I dialed, and the phone rang about six times before a confused and sleepy-sounding voice answered. “Hello? Mr. Wyatt?”
“Yes. No. I mean, don’t call me Mister. Just Jonah, you can call me.” I pressed my mouth into my hand to muffle a burp.
“Are you…are you drunk?”
“No. Maybe a little. Hi. I just called you.”
“Yes, you did. Do you have any idea what time it is?”
I looked at the blackness between the drapes. “Night. It’s nighttime.”
“It’s almost one in the morning. Is there something important you need?”
You. “No. I just wanted to tell you…” What did I want to tell her? I didn’t have a plan in place before I dialed. “I wanted…”
“Tell me this isn’t a booty call. I have a kid. I don’t invite men to come over.”
“No! No booty.”
“Look, I know I sort of started things by kissing you today. I’m sorry about that. I crossed a line. It was very unprofessional. It won’t happen again. Please don’t fire me. I really need the job.”
Job. Right. She worked for me, which was why I wasn’t supposed to say, “Will you go out with me? That’s why I called.”
“You called to ask me out?”
“Yes. On a real date. Maybe up to Lexington. At a nice restaurant with flowers and champagne and a violinist. And we could go to a movie or a play, or the ballet or something. Do you like musicals? I don’t, or at least I don’t think I do. But if you wanted to go to, uh, Wicked or something, I’d take you. If it was summer, we could go to a ball game. With Travis. But maybe he’d be bored because he’s too little. Still, if you think he’d like it, we could take him. But for this first time, maybe it should just be you and me on the date…at Wicked…or whatever.” I fizzled out at last, very aware even in my inebriated state that I’d just made a fool of myself.
A choked sound came from my phone. It took me a few seconds to recognize it as laughter.
“That sounds interesting,” Rianna managed to say. “Maybe we should discuss this date idea tomorrow. Right now, it’s pretty late, and I have a little boy who gets up at the crack of dawn.”
“Oh right. I shouldn’t have called. I had no idea what time it was. I’
m sorry.”
“But, Jonah.” She interrupted me. “Thank you for asking. And I will consider it. Good night.”
I loved the way she said that word, sweet and soft, like a good-night kiss was contained in it. “Good night,” I mumbled back, but she’d already hung up.
I crawled back into my recliner and underneath my blanket and closed my eyes. Enya continued to sing about spaces that existed beyond logic or reason or measurements of time, and I drifted back into my dream of pale gray eyes and soft lips.
Chapter Twelve
Rianna
Drunk dialing is never attractive, and I shouldn’t have been so amused and pleased by the sound of Jonah’s slurred voice in my ear in the middle of the night. Yet somehow he charmed me with his run-on sentences and the eager hopefulness in his voice when he asked me out. He sounded open, unguarded, and much more vulnerable than the confident and controlled man I knew. I liked it.
Still, I fully intended to nix the idea when we talked about it later. Heck, by the time he was sober, he might not remember the call or might wish to take it back. But in the end, whether it was smart or stupid, when Jonah called me the following day to apologize and confirm his offer of a date, I said yes.
A few days later, I got dressed for the first date I’d been on since I was a teenager, not counting the times I sat in a bar watching Clay get drunk and lose money at pool. In the year we were together, he never took me for a real night out. To him, I was an appendage he’d accidentally gotten stuck with, like a third arm or something. Honestly, his one stinging slap across my face was almost a blessing, waking me up sharply from the haze I’d lived in and forcing me to take action.
I stared at myself in the mirror on the back of my bedroom door, wondering if I was dressed appropriately for an evening in Lexington. I was almost as excited at the prospect of seeing the city as I was about going out with Jonah. We were going to a show. Not a musical, but Jonah had promised there would be dancing. I’d never been to a fancy theater in my life. Was my dress good enough? I’d paired it with thick leggings underneath because it was simply too cold to go out with bare legs. Now I second-guessed my decision and peeled the woolly layer off. Let the wind fly up my skirt for the sake of fashion.