by Porter, Jane
“But I do. And I haven’t said this to your dad yet, but I’m starting to look forward…forward to what comes next.”
“Heaven?” Kit said faintly.
“And seeing my mother and father, and Johnny. Miss Johnny. He was my baby brother. We were really close.”
Kit leaned over her mother, kissed her forehead, smoothed the fine hair back from her temple. “Do you really think it’ll be like that? That they’ll be there, waiting for you?”
“I do.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because love is so strong, it transcends death.”
Kit was not going to cry. She refused to cry. Her mom wasn’t gone, not yet. “You really think someday I’ll get to see you again?”
“Absolutely. There will be a big parade when you arrive, Kit, and I’ll be the first in line waving my straw hat and shouting, ‘It’s time for a Brennan Girls’ Getaway!’”
“You’re crazy, Mom.”
“I know. I’m crazy about you.”
Kit arrived back home just after lunch and it felt like she’d been gone a month instead of a week. She wandered around her quiet little house with its charming blue-and-white living room with the big Impressionist print hanging above the couch. Her house was sweet and petite and full of books and knickknacks, like her rock collection and the huge jar of sea glass collected over the years in Capitola, but it was quiet.
And empty.
And right now she felt empty.
She wanted a house like the one she’d grown up in. A house with life and love and people.
Kit needed people. She needed a family and she wanted to be a mother, and she hated having to wait weeks for the adoption interview, but it’s the way it worked. Adoption was slow. She’d probably still be waiting for a child a year from now.
She paced her house, exhausted, frustrated, frazzled. The little house, normally cozy, felt small and confining at the moment. She’d thought she wanted to be here, but now that she was back, she wanted to be anywhere but alone inside these four walls.
Impulsively, she grabbed her phone and sent Jude a text. I want to see you today.
Jude opened his fridge, stared at its contents—a couple of Miller beers, a half-eaten can of tuna, an old carton of sour cream, a jar of pickles—and shut the door.
Why didn’t he ever buy groceries? He was thirty-seven years old. He could certainly buy groceries for himself, couldn’t he?
Grimly Jude stalked through his house to his bedroom and checked his phone where he’d left it charging. He read Kit’s message for the tenth time.
I want to see you today.
And for the tenth time, he put the phone down and walked away. He hadn’t answered her, wasn’t going to answer her, wasn’t going to encourage her in something that just wasn’t going to work.
Jude walked back to his small living room and checked the score on the basketball game. It wasn’t at all close. His team was being blown away. What a lame game. He turned off the TV, walked around his house, hating Sundays.
He’d never liked Sundays—they were terrible, all of them. No, that wasn’t true; when he was a little kid they’d been special. Pancake Days, he used to call them, because his mom would be at the stove with her big frilly apron making them a hot breakfast and his dad would be at the table, reading the paper, joking with her, teasing Jude, who sat near him, poring over the comic strips. Pancake Days were happy, and he remembered that kitchen and how the sunlight came through the window and his mom’s and dad’s laughter would blend together, light and deep, like one of those orchestras with wind and string instruments.
But later, must have been in first or second grade, it all began to change. Dad wouldn’t be there, or if he was at the house, he didn’t eat with them. Mom would be making a hot breakfast but Dad would be passed out in bed, or on the couch. And then the quiet would get loud because the drinking would start again and that’s when Dad got mean. Mom was tough, though. She told Dad to take his bad attitude out of the house, or she’d leave.
And then one Sunday, he just never came home.
Got murdered on a Sunday morning and pretty much ruined Sundays forever.
So Jude didn’t like Sundays, and was always glad when they ended, happy to see Monday roll around. But this Sunday was worse than usual. There was Kit’s text earlier, which had done a number on him, and then there was the endless bullshit next door.
He’d reported the domestic violence to his department twice, back in December when they first moved in, and then again last week, and he’d been home both times the patrol car had pulled up to the Dempsey house to investigate the disturbance. But Missy and Howard Dempsey always presented a united front to the police, with Missy denying that anything had happened. When questioned about her bruises, she said they were from falling off the porch while she was sweeping. Klutzy her. The officers couldn’t do anything if no crime had been committed and so the patrol car would slowly pull away and Jude would feel sick because he knew the violence would just continue.
It was starting up again now. Even with his door shut, he could hear their voices go back and forth. His. Hers. Dempsey’s. Missy’s. Sometimes Delilah’s before someone screamed at her to shut up.
They’d fought from the very first moment they moved in, but these past couple of weeks it’d been nonstop. Daily. Hourly. Fighting. Screaming. Weeping.
He hated living next to it. Would move if he could. He couldn’t. Not because the department would stop him—hell, they didn’t care what he did as long as he continued doing his part—but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t abandon a woman and a girl to a monster. And Dempsey was a monster. Someone needed to hunt him down, take him out.
Abruptly the raised voices went silent.
Jude opened the door, stepped outside, walked down the cement steps. His grass was scraggly, studded with weeds and dandelions. He stood on the edge of his lawn. Waited.
And still the house next door was quiet. That could mean any number of things. Good. As well as bad.
The front door of the little white house flew open and a terrified face appeared—Delilah’s—before she was jerked back inside and the door slammed shut.
Delilah’s expression was like a knife in his gut. He’d had it with their craziness, had it with the yelling and screaming and terrified weeping.
Jude grabbed the big trash can that was still on the curb in front of his house and hurled it across the yard, right at Howard’s town car. Bingo. The trash can hit the car trunk, bounced off, leaving a dent.
The car’s siren began to screech.
That should get Dempsey, Jude thought, leaning over to pick up the trash can.
The front door flew open and Howard Dempsey came running out. “What the fuck?” he shouted at Jude as Jude wheeled the trash can back to his house.
“Stupid kids,” Jude said, shaking his head, “throwing shit around.”
Howard circled his car. “They hit my car?”
“You weren’t the only one.” Jude pointed up the street. “They were doing crazy-ass pranks over there, too.”
“Goddammit. Look at my trunk!”
Jude screwed up his face, faking worried. “You think they can pound it out? Or is that whole piece going to need to be replaced.”
“Did you see these kids?” Howard demanded.
“Yeah. They were on bikes. Five or six of them.”
“White, black, Mexican, what?”
“A little of everything.”
“Really?”
“They were punks. Had attitude.”
Howard fished for his keys. “I’m going to go find those bastards. Make them pay.”
“I know what they look like. Want me go with you?”
“Good idea.”
Jude ended up spending the next two hours cruising San Leandro and east Oakland with Howard Dempsey, and the two hours bullshitting with the man didn’t make Jude like him any better.
They ended up stopping at one of Jude’s favori
te dive bars on the way home. Howard didn’t seem to mind and they sat at the counter, drinking beers, telling stories, acting like they were old friends.
Once Jude was sure Howard had cooled completely off, he suggested they head back home. “Should we get back? Make sure those punks didn’t come around a second time?”
“Good thinking,” Dempsey said, slapping him on the back.
Once home, Jude showered and brushed his teeth but he couldn’t seem to scrub Dempsey’s evil stink off him.
He glanced at his phone between showering and shaving and found another text from Kit. Jude, are you there?
Jude stared at the phone, wanting her, but not wanting to want her, and wanting to protect her, which meant staying away from her…
But it was killing him staying away from her. He didn’t like ignoring her. Didn’t like hurting her feelings in any way.
Goddammit.
He wanted Kit. He wanted her, plain and simple. And he’d wanted her since first laying eyes on her in Capitola.
So why was he taking the high ground and giving her up? Did he really think some other dickhead could love her better than he could? That some other dickhead could protect her better than he could?
No.
If any dickhead was going to love Kit, it was going to be him.
Dropping his towel from his hips, he stepped into clean jeans, dragged his wet hair back from his face, and reached for his phone, sent her a text, telling her to meet him at Jump’n Java on Shattuck in Oakland at five.
She answered immediately. Meet you there.
Jude was heading outside to his bike when he spotted Delilah standing with a hose at the fence watering the scraggly rosesbushes Howard had been buying and planting since moving in.
“Hey, Delilah,” he said to her.
“Hey, Jude.” She moved the hose to another rosebush.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Your mom okay?”
“She’s alive.”
“That’s good.”
Delilah shot him a knowing glance. “Saw what you did to Howie’s car with the garbage can.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Right.” She rolled her eyes. “It was pretty stupid.”
“Uh-huh.”
She suddenly grinned. “And really awesome.” She giggled. “I’ve never seen Howie run that fast in my entire life. Looked like he was training for the Olympics.”
Jude suppressed a smile. She was a funny kid. Too bad most of the time she reminded him of a young alley cat. Scrawny and sad. “If things get weird, Delilah, you get out of there, hear me?”
“Things are already weird, Jude.”
“If things get weirder.”
“Not going to leave my mama.”
“Delilah, if she doesn’t save you, you’ve got to save yourself.”
She moved the hose to another hole, hunched her shoulders. “You better go. I can feel Howie watching.”
Jude climbed on his bike, pulled on his helmet, and Delilah was right: as he backed his bike out of his driveway he saw Howard standing at the window.
Jude suggested a coffee place in north Oakland, and Kit was glad. She liked Piedmont, north Oakland, and Berkeley, and loved all the funky little coffeehouses there as they reminded her of the ones she hung out in during college.
But when Jude arrived at Jump’n Java, he walked in the front door with an edge and an attitude. Kit didn’t know what was going on inside his head, only that something was. He still had that heat in his eyes when he looked at her, but when his mouth curved, it didn’t look totally friendly.
“You don’t seem happy to be here,” she said, after ten minutes of uncomfortable conversation.
“I’m not.”
She sucked in her bottom lip, chewing on it, trying to figure out what to do now. “What did I do, that night at my house, to turn you off this much?”
He was silent so long Kit didn’t think he was going to answer. And then he stretched out his long legs, putting one boot over the other, and said, “Not turned off, Kit.” He dragged a hand through his thick black hair, drawing it back from his broad forehead. Muscles bunched in his quadriceps. “Not at all.”
She shifted in her chair, feeling a little hotter and a little more bothered than just seconds before. “What’s going on, then? It seemed like you liked me—”
“Oh, I do like you. I like you a lot. I like you so much that I’d love to take you back to my house right now and throw you on the bed and peel your pants off and take you all night long.” He paused, and his lips curled, but there was a dangerous light in his dark eyes. “And maybe that sounds good to you right now, but Kit Kat, that’s all you’re ever going to get with me. Hard sex, hot sex, a lot of sex, but no tenderness, no commitment, and no relationship.”
Kit stared at him, hearing him, but for whatever reason she didn’t believe him. Something else was going on here. “What if I was good with that? What if that’s all I wanted? Hot sex…frequent sex…and no commitments?”
“You don’t.”
“You can’t say that. You don’t know me. I might just be a sex addict.” She leaned back in her chair, gave him a cool look, the same kind he’d been giving her ever since he arrived. “See, that’s the thing, Jude. You just don’t know.”
Jude stared at her and it was all he could do not to crack a smile. He’d arrived here still really pissed off and yet she was making him want to laugh.
“Really?” he drawled, wondering just how far she’d take it. “Let’s do a quick recap to make sure we’re on the same page. You’re not into relationships. You don’t do commitments. You just like it raw. Hot. Hard. And sweaty.”
And oh, Kit, God love her, she blushed, from her delicate little chin to the roots of her dark red hair, and nibbled on her bottom lip, making him rock hard. Not fair. He wanted to be the one nibbling on that lip. And then sucking her tongue into his mouth before taking her mouth—
“Yes,” she said firmly, her blue gaze locking on his. “Raw. Hard. Hot and sweaty. Couldn’t pick four adjectives that describe the way I like sex better.”
Jude bit down hard on his back molars, sucked in air, fighting with everything he had to keep from laughing. Felt like he’d explode if he didn’t laugh soon. Kit was perfect.
“This could work,” he said, when he trusted himself to speak. “I think we should give it a go. Anything else you want to tell me before our first hookup?”
“Such as?”
“Quirks? Preferences? Fetishes? Limits?”
She smiled serenely. “No. I like it all.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“So how old were you when you first had sex?”
Kit squirmed. “Why?”
“Just wanted to compare notes.”
She stared at him, blue eyes wide. Angelic.
“I was nineteen,” he said. “All my friends had been doing it for years. But I’d wanted to wait until I married.”
“Did you?”
His lips curved into a crooked smile. “I didn’t make it to my wedding night, but at least my first time was with my future wife.”
“You were married?”
He nodded. “Seven years. And I’ve been widowed eight.”
“How did she die?”
“Car accident. Died on the operating table.” He dragged his feet back under the table, miserable now, wishing he hadn’t brought Amy up. Talking about Amy never made anything better.
“How devastating.”
“I’m not playing a sympathy card here, Kit Kat. I was a shitty husband. I made her life hell.” He leaned forward, looked her in the eye. “And if you fall for me, I’ll make your life hell, too.”
She didn’t flinch, didn’t back away. “What did you do as a husband that was so bad? Sleep around? Take drugs? Steal? Rob? Rape?”
He leaned even closer to her and tapped the back of her hand. “I worked ridiculously long hours. Took every promotion t
hat came along. Put in so many hours at work that I began to sleep there at night, just so I’d already be there in the morning. And before you say anything, I want you to know that I knew what I was doing, and I knew it was wrong to Amy, to our marriage, to our future. I didn’t care. I didn’t care that she was lonely. I didn’t care that she felt like she was losing me. I took those promotions anyway. I wanted them. I needed them. It was all about me. It’s the kind of person I am.”
Kit stared at the back of her hand.
“I’m not going to change,” he added, leaning in even closer, his big shoulders square, practically pinning her to her chair. “It’s too late for that.”
Her head jerked up and she looked him in the eye, her gaze unwavering even though her cheeks were a dusky pink. “I haven’t asked you to change.”
“No, but you will. Or you’ll want to save me, because good girls like you try to save those that have fallen. But people like me aren’t worth your time, angel. Leave me where you found me and take care of those who can be helped.”
Her eyes searched his. He didn’t know what she was looking for, but he let her look. She had beautiful eyes. He could stare into her eyes all day.
“I’m not sitting here because I want to save you,” she said after an endless moment. “And I’m not here because I want to help you. I’m here for completely selfish reasons.”
“Oh?”
“You don’t think I can be selfish, too?”
“No.”
“You’re wrong. Because I’m not here for you, I’m here for me. I like you, Jude. I enjoy being around you. And I’m thinking, you just might be good for me.”
“And tell me how, angel, I could possibly be good for you?”
She got in his face then, her slim shoulders touching his, her breasts practically smashed to his chest. He could see the tiny purple flecks against the blue of her eyes and the scattered silver bits, too. “I need to have some fun, Jude Knight. I’m a little lonely. I work too much. My mom’s not well. And I really, really could use some of your raw, hard, hot, sweaty sex.”
He cupped the back of her head, angled his mouth over hers, and kissed her.
It wasn’t a hard kiss, or fierce. Had nothing raw about it. No, he kissed her slow and sexy and sweet, so slow and sexy and sweet that her mouth parted, and her lips trembled beneath his, and the air caught in her throat, and the kiss went on and on like that, the two of them making out like teenagers in Jump’n Java, as if there was no one else around, instead of folks at every table.