And the nun clicked another bead on her rosary.
As I stepped off the bus, I reached for my phone to give Nick a call. But there, as the haze of bus fumes cleared, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. Across the street, pulling out of Mr. Bozeman’s driveway, was a Cadillac. But not just any Cadillac. A white one, with spinning brass rims and a shellacked pair of longhorns wired to the grille.
It was the Texan.
Cue the magenta mist of rage.
I shoved my phone back in my purse and hustled across the street. There were cheesy fingerprints on Mr. Bozeman’s doorknob, and I growled when I saw them. When I walked inside, Mr. Bozeman stashed something under his afghan. Priscilla zoomed around the house, sniffing like crazy because someone new had been in her space. She found a cheese curl on the rug, nudged it with her nose, and sneezed.
I picked up the disgusting cheese curl with a piece of Kleenex, same as I would have done with a dead cockroach, and dropped it in the trash, forcing myself to take some deep breaths to calm myself. Once I had done eight counts of ten and straightened out the garbage bag in the bin, I sat down next to Mr. Bozeman on the sofa and did my best to keep my face absolutely neutral. “Don’t be mad,” he said.
“Of course I’m not mad.” Actually, I was unbelievably mad, but not with Mr. Bozeman. I was mad at the Texan—I detested him for being an opportunist and a fat wolf in even fatter sheep’s clothing. I’d been careful to never cross paths with him; he was like the Joseph Stalin of Albuquerque. You didn’t have to know him to steer clear. And he was just the sort of lousy, nasty SOB that Ruth and Roxie and I sometimes fantasized about taking down, with a handful of too-hot-to-fence diamonds and an anonymous call to the proper authorities.
But we’d never had a reason.
Yet.
Mr. Bozeman’s eyes were bloodshot, and he looked just as worried as I felt. He also looked tired and stressed. Everything an eighty-seven-year-old man deserved not to be anymore. He revealed what he’d stashed under his afghan. It was a betting slip, and he handed it to me. Elvis’s Girl, to win at the Ruidoso Downs Race Track. I closed my eyes. There was no need to panic. All we had to do was cancel the bet. I put my hands to my eyes and rubbed my eyebrows. “When is the race?”
But Mr. Bozeman didn’t answer. I looked up to find him staring openmouthed at the television. A clump of fast-moving horses galloped from left to right, and the bottom of the screen filled up with statistics—the names of the horses, jockeys, and owners, along with the final times. But then the camera zoomed in on a brown filly with pink blinders, with her jockey walking by her side.
“Don’t tell me . . .”
Mr. Bozeman scratched his thinning white hair and stayed glued on the screen. I envisioned his debt to the Texan growing like one of those godforsaken Magic Grow capsules that I played with when I was little, that started out looking like a brightly colored vitamin but ended up being a gigantic slippery brachiosaurus that took over half the bathtub. The Texan was like that—like a creature that became too big to ignore. On the bottom of the screen, it said ELVIS’S GIRL—SCRATCH.
I forced myself to turn over the betting slip. And there I saw an amount that made me gasp. Ten grand. Twice what I’d put in Mr. Bozeman’s Pyrex pans. “You don’t have this money.”
Mr. Bozeman hung his head. “No. He takes my social security checks as collateral.”
A wave of nausea tore through me. He hadn’t said will take, and he hadn’t said took. Instead, he’d said . . . “Takes? As in, ongoing?”
Mr. Bozeman nodded at the afghan in his lap as Priscilla pawed at his leg. “But I was sure I’d picked a winner this time. The Texan told me so himself.”
The magenta mist was swirling around me like a Category 5 highlighter-pink hurricane. As I stomped across the empty lot to my apartment, the possibility of stealing the North Star on my own began to take shape. We needed the money, now more than ever. There would be hospital bills, and God only knew what Mr. Bozeman owed the Texan in total. Roxie’s son was getting older, Ruth had already designed the freaking logo for Ohm Sweet Ohm, and every day that passed was one day closer to someone buying the Big Wide Open out from under me.
We were so close to such wonderful things. We couldn’t back down now. So I revved myself up, imagining myself dressed as Rosie the Riveter—Yes I can! Of course I could! It would be me, on my own, in California. Next week. Can do! It’d be bing, it’d be bang . . .
Was I out of my flipping mind?
“Obviously,” I growled as I trudged across the dusty ground. There was nothing on earth that I hated more than feeling helpless, cornered, and stuck. And I felt all three right then. I hated that feeling. So. Freaking. Much.
With the three of us, it would’ve been a risk. But going from a three-woman job to a solo heist would require an epic overhaul of every last detail. I focused on the cracks in the sidewalk as I rubbed my forehead and tried to decide where to begin.
Something on my front porch distracted me. At first, I couldn’t quite make it out, but as I got closer I saw it was a large, thin box, like a doughnut box, but bigger. Crouching down, I gently lifted the lid, and what I saw made my heart soar. Inside were a dozen beautiful, enormous, perfect chocolate-dipped strawberries. In the warmth of the afternoon, a thin layer of cool dew had gathered on the chocolate, making them look almost too perfect to be real.
Taped to the top of the box was a note. The writing was curly and feminine, belonging to the lady who had taken the order, but I knew exactly who it was from.
I already miss your beautiful face.
It hit me what he must have thought—it had been hours since he left that voice mail, hours since he’d laid himself bare . . . and he still hadn’t heard from me. So now, on top of feeling like I was hemmed in, cornered, and perilously close to giving up on all our dreams, he probably thought I was some kind of coldhearted, holier-than-thou betch who’d taken one look at his rap sheet and gone radio silent.
Nice work, Stella. Superfine. Ten out of ten.
There were a lot of things I couldn’t fix right then, but straightening things out with Nick would be a start. In one hand, I held my phone. In the other, I took one of the strawberries from the box, pinching the leaves and stem between three of my fingers. It was huge and luxurious, with white chocolate zigzags all over it. I sank my teeth into it and let the stress of the day fall out of my shoulders. I leaned against my front door, placing my forehead to the jamb as I chewed. And I gave him a call.
He answered after one ring. “Jesus Christ, I thought I’d never hear from you again.”
“Hi,” I said around my strawberry. “I’m sorry I went silent. Bad reception and then . . .” I envisioned the cheese curl in Mr. Bozeman’s garbage and the Texan’s stupid fingerprints on that stupid betting slip. “I didn’t mean to leave you hanging.”
“I’ve just been here pacing a hole in my carpet. No big deal.”
Cringe.
“Just give it to me straight.” He cleared his throat. “Is this hello . . . or goodbye?”
I let my forehead rest on my front door. It was such a relief to hear his voice—and a double relief knowing that if I didn’t want to, I didn’t have to pretend. I didn’t have to be upstanding or ordinary or act like I didn’t have a secret life. If I wanted to, I could tell him the God’s honest truth—I could say, I had a job all lined up and now it’s turned into a steaming pile of dog shit. Or, What are you up to tonight? How do you feel about some light vandalism? We can deflate all the Texan’s tires and then grab some dinner. Yay or nay? But then again, that might be coming at it a little bit hot. For the moment. So I went for something simpler. The simplest. “It’s hello.”
“Thank God,” he said, inhaling hard. “I’m sorry I dropped that on you in a fucking voice mail. I just didn’t want to lie to you. I like you way too much for that.”
The words made my heart sink. He had been brave and honest. He had laid it all out there. And right then, with that crazy d
ay behind me and that crazy plan in front of me, I wanted—desperately—to just be me. As I was. Without lying or pretending or making up some nonsense. I was tired; my friends had been hurt. My future was a jumble. And I needed someone to lean on.
“Nick, I actually . . . I understand.” Say something honest, say something true. “I’m not . . . see. I . . . you know . . . So I am actually a dog sitter, but I’m also . . .”
“Stella,” he said, his voice firm and steady, with maybe a hint of a smile. “I know.”
I shifted my eyes toward the phone, toward his voice. “You . . . what?”
He cleared his throat. “I saw what you did at the jeweler’s, and then today? Three women? One of them wearing a Converse size nine? News flash: this isn’t my first rodeo.”
My knees became instantly wobbly. Once or twice, I’d imagined telling someone about this secret life of mine—but my secret wasn’t like most secrets. I wasn’t divulging that I liked to drink a little too much, or that I had been married four times, or something not-quite-kosher but generally acceptable. Being a jewel thief was bad. Bad-bad. Felony-bad. It was the dark side of my moon, the thing that no man had ever known about me.
I planted my hand on the doorframe for support. He knew. He knew who I was. He knew who we were.
How did I feel about that? Should I hang up? Should I bolt? Should I pretend?
I looked down at the box of berries. At the note. And thought about how all this made me feel. And when I really boiled it down, I was shocked, I was rattled, and I was also just . . . relieved. “And that’s OK?”
Nick blew out a breath. “I want you. It’s that fucking simple.”
I closed my eyes hard, pinching them shut. Was I dreaming? Was this reality? Was I losing my mind? “You know who we are?”
On the other end of the line I heard the unmistakable noise of him running his rugged and sexy palm over his equally rugged and sexy stubble. And then he said, “I can’t do this on the phone. I’m coming over.” In the background, I heard the jingle of keys. “Even being two miles from you right now is way the fuck too far away.”
As he said it, I looked down at myself. I was in exactly the same clothes he’d seen me in yesterday and this morning. My hair felt limp. My skin felt greasy. I’d dribbled coffee on my shirt. And I hadn’t put on makeup in nearly forty-eight hours. “Hang on. Hold your horses. I need to shower and get cleaned up.”
“Fuck that. I’m just going to get you dirty again,” he said, his voice dark and thick and greedy.
Welp. That was that. For all the things that had been swirling around me in the magenta mist, one thing was very clear: I now knew exactly where my loins were.
However, for whatever else I was, I was—first and foremost—a Peretti. And when the going got tough—or confusing or tiring or overwhelming—the Perettis did one thing: they cooked. And that was exactly what I was going to do. “Let me make you dinner.” I made a mental scan through the fridge and freezer contents. It wouldn’t be fancy, but at least it would be delicious. “What’s your feeling on lasagna?”
He cleared his throat. He laughed a little. And then he said the thing that every cook on the planet wants to hear. “It’s my favorite.”
“Then I’ll see you at seven thirty.”
He groaned a little. “For real. You’re making me lasagna?”
I froze with my key halfway into the lock. “Unless you prefer risotto. Or maybe a nice pesto linguine. Or mussels in white wine?”
“Jesus Christ,” he groaned. “Where have you been all my life?”
18
NICK
Here was the thing about Stella Peretti: she might’ve been a badass, she might’ve been my Kryptonite, but she also fucking melted me, because when I got off my motorcycle, stuffed my jacket into my helmet, and grabbed the wine from the compartment under the seat, I heard it. All the way from across the parking lot.
She was singing.
I don’t mean some half-assed, half-hearted, unsure-about-the-lyrics singing; I mean a full-on, top-of-her-lungs, shatter-the-wineglasses, bring-the-house-down karaoke wail. As I neared her place, I realized I knew the song. She was roaring along with Tom Petty about running down the dream.
It was out of tune, it was over the top, and it was absolutely fucking fantastic.
I stood in front of her door, with my hand in a fist, ready to knock, but she was so into it—even doing the guitar solo, “Da-dun-da-dun-da-dun-dun!”—that I decided to wait it out. She sang with such pure, unapologetic joy that I just could not wipe the grin off my face. From my left came an old lady walking a small, fluffy white dog with a red beard and dark streaks under its eyes. I gave her a nod and kept on listening.
“She does it all the time. All the time!” she said in an adoring way. “You should hear her sing to Johnny Cash. She’d make June Carter so proud!” She chuckled a little, beamed at Stella’s closed apartment door, and then shuffled off.
Now Stella was at the bridge, and she was letting it rip. “Ooooh-oooooo,” she hollered with the chorus. “Ooooh-oooooo!” Finally, she really upped the ante, with a throaty croon that made her sound like a gospel singer taking it home for the congregation. “OOOOOH-OOOOOOO.”
And silence. Staring at the brass 3A on her apartment door, I tried to pull myself together. I tried to wipe the smile off my face. I could not do it. It was a state of being, and I knew I had zero chance whatsoever of playing the tough guy through happiness like this. So I didn’t, and I gave the door three solid knocks. I was smiling when she opened the door, and smiling even harder when I saw her. She was in a red polka-dot dress, barefoot. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and she was wearing a half apron that was printed to look like a hula skirt.
“Hi!” she said. She was breathless, her cheeks were flushed, and with every gasp her beautiful cleavage compressed against the scoop neck of her dress.
I handed over the bottle of wine and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You should take that show on the road.”
She took the bottle from me, looking a little shy. “You were listening.”
No point in playing this one cool, either. I wasn’t going to lie to her about the big stuff or the small stuff. “Yep. The whole thing.”
She cringed and then giggled at herself. “I get a little carried away. Come in,” she said, and opened the door wider. She had the Christmas lights that hung over the television plugged in, and the shades were drawn. The light was soft, the place was tidied up, and it smelled amazing. Inside the oven was a huge pan of lasagna, bubbling away. A big bowl of salad was ready to go on the table. And Christ almighty, garlic bread.
I could barely keep the drool from spilling out of my mouth, and then she turned around, revealing the back of the dress, which was backless except for a braided crisscross of thin polka-dotted straps. No bra, just a creamy white tan line still left over from summer. “You look gorgeous,” I said, taking her by the hips and looping my fingers over the apron tie. I brought my lips to hers, teasing her before I went in for the kiss. A nose to her cheek, my fingers in the curls at the base of her neck. But then I did kiss her. Kissed her hard and passionately and like I hadn’t been missing her for hours but for days, for weeks, for forever. Her body collided with the fridge, and it rocked behind her. I ran my hands down the pleats of her skirt and grabbed her ass, hoisting her up into my arms. Magnets fell off the fridge, and David went cockeyed.
“Does this mean we’re not eating yet?” she asked, with a laugh in her voice.
I hooked one arm underneath her, and she linked her ankles together. As I carried her through the kitchen, I paused in front of the oven long enough to hit the “Off” button, which beeped under my fingertip as I kissed her. Then I pulled my mouth away from her sweet lips to tell her, “You’re not gonna eat right now. But I am.”
19
STELLA
I undid the buttons on his dress shirt so fast it was a miracle I didn’t yank them right off and send them pinging around the room l
ike a handful of Skittles. But I could not get my fingers to move quickly enough, and halfway down I gave up and slid my hand across his bare chest. His abs. His Adonis belt, a mythical thing that had only existed on Tumblr before I met him. That body, Lord have mercy on me and his body.
Using my calves, he pulled me to the edge of the bed, and my skirt rode up. It was a retro thing, complete with a single layer of crinoline underneath, to give the skirt a little lift. He went to his knees on the carpet and opened my legs. His hands slid up my thighs and pulled my panties down halfway. He situated my legs so that my knees bent over his shoulders, and then his face disappeared under my skirt. When his tongue touched me, I moaned . . . and he groaned. The only word for him, bare chested, on his knees, doing magical things with his tongue to me was . . . hungry.
So, so hungry. Just for me.
I pulled up my skirt so that I could see him. His eyes appeared above the ruffles, and I felt his smile against my clit. In the full-length mirror that I had on my wall, I saw him from behind too. Every detail was sexier than the last. His thick, meaty thighs pulling the fabric of his dress pants tight. The curve of his ass. Dress shoes tonight, not his boots, with scuffed leather soles. The clean, sharp line of his hair, just above his shirt collar. And my feet, dangling over his shoulders.
Whatever he was doing with his mouth was making the room shake already, and to steady myself I hung on to his forearms. The contrast of his ink against my skin sent my brain whirring into outer space.
His eyes were closed in the most delicious pleasure, and he used the widest, strongest part of his tongue to press against my clit. As the tip moved along my slit, I let my head fall back onto the mattress.
Again, though, the nerves that had psyched me out last time were gaining on me. I knew I could do it, but I didn’t want to wear him out. “I don’t know how long I’m going to take. I’m not used to coming like this,” I whispered at the ceiling.
The pressure on my clit stopped, and he pulled his face away. He didn’t wipe his mouth off on my thighs, but he did kiss the inside of the left one. And then he said, “I don’t fucking care if it takes all night, gorgeous. Just relax. Let go. I’ve got you,” and tugged my skirt from my hands, letting it cover his head completely. And got back to work.
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