Talking About Sex...

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  He couldn’t guarantee that wouldn’t happen. But he could guarantee that he would give everything he had to keep it from happening.

  KATIE WAS ON HER SECOND margarita, and the booze wasn’t working. She’d hoped by now she wouldn’t give a damn about much of anything, but instead she was more enraged with every minute that passed. She could have handled the disappointment of seeing the property sold. Maybe not right away but eventually, especially with the help of her exciting new relationship with Jess.

  But Jess, bless his black villain’s heart, had leaped at the chance to demolish the house. In so doing, he’d descended to the level of whale poop, and revenge would be hers. She and Ava, who had opted for iced tea as the designated driver, were busy plotting Jess’s downfall.

  They’d chosen to sit inside with air-conditioning instead of out on the patio. The October sun was blazing down, and Katie had enough problems without adding sweat to the list. Cheryl was due any minute.

  “Remember that old Dolly Parton movie, Nine to Five?” Katie asked Ava. Then she waved a hand in dismissal. “Forget it. That came out before you were born.”

  “That’s okay. I saw it on video.” Ava looked eager, as if she wanted to prove she was worthy of being part of the revenge plot. “I’m picking up what you’re putting down. We could do what they did to the boss, chain him up in a room somewhere.”

  “Exactly.” Except that reminded Katie of the handcuffs she’d worn last night, and she definitely didn’t want to think about that. Not ever again. “Nah, that’s not horrible enough for him. Let’s think of something worse.”

  “Sand in the gas tank of his car?”

  “That’s a start. And it would definitely have to be the Jag. Keep thinking. Oh, good. Here comes Cheryl.”

  Cheryl hurried over and reached down to wrap her arms around Katie. “I’m so sorry, pumpkin! I didn’t think he’d turn out to be such a bastard.”

  “A gold-plated bastard,” Ava said, nodding. “We’re working on a suitable revenge.”

  “I’m in.” Cheryl sat down and eyed Katie’s margarita. “I’d love one of those, but I’m due back in court at one-thirty, so I don’t dare. I’ll just get some lunch.”

  “I’m drinking my lunch.” Katie took another gulp of her margarita.

  “I don’t blame you,” Cheryl said. “It’s one thing if Jess’s company ends up building the parking garage, but I can’t believe he went after that demolition contract. He knows it’s your grandmother’s house, right? I can’t imagine that he would do that, knowing—”

  “Her grandmother’s house?” Ava leaned forward, eyes wide.

  “Yes.” Cheryl gazed at Katie. “I remember going over there when we were kids. I used to love those big heavy doors. And we’d play hopscotch on the tile floors. Remember how we—”

  “How about we stake him out on an anthill?” Katie didn’t want to talk about her grandmother’s house. “Only instead of burying him with his head sticking out, we bury him lengthwise with his tallywhacker sticking out.”

  Cheryl laughed. “Let’s try for something that won’t result in jail time, shall we?”

  “If he’s bulldozing your grandmother’s house, he deserves the anthill,” Ava said.

  “Oh, he deserves it.” Cheryl patted Katie on the shoulder. “Don’t get me wrong. I like the anthill. But I’m in favor of something that would cause him major embarrassment and wouldn’t send us to the slammer.”

  “I need more caffeine,” Ava said. “I can always think better when I—uh, oh.” She focused on the doorway of the restaurant.

  “What?” Katie didn’t turn around, though, because she knew what she’d find. She could sense Jess was there. Fury burned hot in her belly.

  “The anthillworthy guy is on his way to the table,” Ava said.

  Katie swore softly.

  Cheryl stood. “Don’t worry. He won’t get past me.”

  “No, I think you should let him come over,” Katie said. “My margarita will look great dripping down his face.”

  “I’m heading him off,” Cheryl said. “Ava, stay with Katie.”

  “Don’t head him off!” Katie stood and turned. Sure enough, here came Jess, looking disgustingly gorgeous in a snug knit shirt and worn jeans. Her body, a traitor to the cause, reacted to seeing him by getting all tingly and warm.

  Screw that. Her brain knew that he was no better than a glob of chewing gum she had to scrape off the bottom of her shoe. He might think he was going to come over and convince her that her grandmother’s house wasn’t worth breaking up over. Ha. That man was Dumpster-bound.

  He looked into her eyes with that sweet puppy gaze of his. He probably expected her to go all gooey inside when he did that. Unfortunately she did go all gooey inside. She’d work on that.

  Yet the longer she looked into his eyes, the more she found herself hoping it was all a mistake. Maybe she’d been misinformed. Maybe he’d come here to tell her that Edgecomb had gotten his facts wrong and some other company would handle the demolition.

  Cheryl stood on one side of Katie and Ava stood on the other. Her troops, Katie thought with affection. Just as Cheryl had said last Saturday, men might come and go, but girlfriends were forever. She wished that looking at Jess didn’t hurt so much, though. If he’d waited until she’d had another margarita, maybe the pain wouldn’t have been so bad.

  “You’re not welcome here, mister,” Cheryl said.

  Jess’s gaze flickered. “Nice to see you again, Cheryl. Congratulations on your career.”

  Ava’s chin lifted. “She doesn’t need congratulations from someone who can hardly wait to tear down Katie’s grandmother’s house.”

  “Ava’s right, Jess,” Cheryl said. “I thought it wouldn’t do any harm for Katie to get involved with you, but now I can see it’s hurt her. You used to be nicer back in high school. Now I wish I hadn’t signed your yearbook and I definitely wish I hadn’t said all those sweet things. I wish I’d—”

  “Shut up, Cheryl,” Katie said gently.

  “I didn’t grow up with Katie or anything,” Ava said, “but I can smell a rat when I see one. We know everything, and what you did stinks.”

  “You don’t know everything.” Jess gazed down at Katie. “Hey, Katie,” he said softly. “Please tell me you’re not going to judge me and declare me guilty before I have a chance to defend myself.”

  Katie finally found her voice. “Did you get the demolition contract?” She prayed that he’d tell her that he didn’t have that contract, that his foreman had acted for him and he’d since canceled the deal. She wanted to hear that he could never bring himself to demolish her grandmother’s house.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then there’s nothing more to say, is there?”

  He drew in a sharp breath. “You are ready to convict me just like that, aren’t you? Doesn’t matter what I have to say, does it?”

  She swallowed. “Not really.”

  “I thought we’d moved beyond that stage. I thought after what we’ve shared you might be willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, listen to my side of the story.”

  She was trembling, but somehow she managed to get the words out. “I don’t see that there’s any doubt to give you the benefit of, Jess. And I know your side of the story. The property’s sold, and you grabbed the chance to destroy that house. I hope it’s lucrative for you.” God, this was horrible. She hadn’t known she could suffer like this.

  His expression stiffened. “I thought you trusted me more than that.”

  “How can I trust you when you—”

  “Apparently you can’t.” Then he turned and walked out of the restaurant.

  She didn’t realize she was crying until the room began to blur.

  Cheryl wrapped an arm around her and got her back into her chair. “I’m reconsidering the anthill,” she said.

  JESS HAD EXPECTED HER TO be upset about the sale of the property. After all, she’d lost the battle she’d been fighting so fiercely, and
that had to hurt. But as for his role in the demolition, he’d expected disbelief, not a rush to judgment.

  Instead she’d heard the news and immediately thought the worst of him. It was prom night all over again. She hadn’t wanted to hear his reasons for doing what he’d done on that night long ago and she didn’t want to hear them now. She might lust after his body, but she didn’t seem to think much of him as a person.

  And here he’d believed they could build a life together. Although he hadn’t had time to make the reservations, he’d planned that tonight would be special, the beginning of a commitment. He wasn’t quite ready to propose, but he was damned close. Or he had been before he’d discovered that she didn’t trust him.

  Back at the job site he walked into the construction trailer and found Gabe eating a fast-food lunch. Jess knew Gabe being here was no accident. He was the only one who knew that Jess had gone to find Katie.

  Gabe put down his hamburger. “I’ll take a wild guess that things didn’t go well with Crazy Katie.”

  Sinking into one of the plastic chairs scattered around the trailer, Jess sighed. “Nope.”

  “So she doesn’t think you can move that house?”

  “She didn’t give me a chance to tell her that’s what I plan to do. She heard about the demolition contract and decided I was slime. End of story.”

  “Geez, I’m sorry.” Gabe studied him. “She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”

  Jess shrugged.

  “Hell, if she didn’t even give you a chance to explain, that’s pretty cold. I say good riddance.”

  “I could’ve forced an explanation on her.” Jess stared into space as he replayed that ugly scene in the restaurant. “But once I saw that she’d already made up her mind about me, I didn’t feel like it.”

  “No kidding, man. I hate to think what moving that house would have cost you. At least now you don’t have to do it.”

  “Oh, I’m still going to do it.”

  “Why?”

  Jess didn’t want to answer that question. “I just am. It’s the plan, and I’m sticking with the plan.”

  “Come on, Jess. You know it’s a dicey proposition to begin with. She obviously wouldn’t appreciate the effort and you could still end up with a pile of debris. Expensive debris, at that.”

  “Ah, it’ll be a challenge.” Jess mustered up a grin. “We can always use a challenge.”

  “You are one crazy son of a bitch.” Gabe shook his head. “But it’s your money. Me, I’d bulldoze the place.”

  Jess knew that was the practical thing to do, especially now. But Gabe was right about him. He was crazy—crazy in love with Katie. He couldn’t demolish the house she loved when he knew how that would hurt her.

  Moving a house was a tricky maneuver, though. Sometimes it slid right off the flatbed and ended up trashed anyway. What he proposed to do wasn’t a guaranteed fix, but it was the best he could do.

  AFTER THREE MARGARITAS, Katie switched to coffee. She had a show to do tonight, whether she felt like it or not. Her days of broadcasting from her grandmother’s house were numbered, so she might as well make the most of them.

  Ava drove her back to the station. They’d temporarily abandoned the revenge plot against Jess to brainstorm ideas for Katie’s show.

  “I suppose I have to cancel the interview with the guy who wrote Naked High-Rise Windows and Voyeurism.”

  “That sucks,” Ava said. “I’d like to hear what he has to say. I’m always looking in windows of tall buildings hoping to see something good. The best is if you’re in the building right across from it. If I lived in New York, I’d own a telescope, no question.”

  “Well, Edgecomb made it clear that if I didn’t change my tune on the show, I’d be fired. Besides, there’s no point in continuing my campaign anyway.”

  Ava turned into the KRZE parking lot. “It was good while it lasted.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Listen, I know a retired porn star, if you need someone to fill the slot tonight.”

  Katie sighed. “That would be great, Ava.”

  “I’ll keep thinking about the revenge plot, too. We could order a hundred pizzas delivered to his house tonight.”

  Katie gave her a tired smile. “I’ll think about it. For now, let’s go inside and you can hook me up with your retired porn star.”

  Once Katie had the new interview lined up and had jotted down the questions she wanted to ask, she had time on her hands. A practical person would use that time to sketch out ideas for future shows, now that her assault against high-rises was officially over. She wasn’t feeling practical.

  Instead she returned to her car and drove away from the station. She had no particular destination in mind, except that she needed to leave the construction site where Jess was working. In some ways changing locations in two weeks would be a blessing. She wouldn’t have to confront Jess’s project every day.

  When she found herself on the winding road up to “A” Mountain, she wasn’t surprised. As she and Jess had discovered the other day, hardly anyone went up there during the day, so it would be a good place to be alone. She had to get a grip on this new reality, and soon.

  Several times in the past few hours she’d been on the verge of tears. She couldn’t afford tears, especially when nine o’clock rolled around and she had a show to do. Therefore, if she planned to have a good cry, “A” Mountain was the perfect place for it.

  Once again the area was deserted. If she’d had some romantic idea that Jess would get some sort of telepathic message and meet her up here, she’d been watching too many chick flicks. And what if he met her up here? So what? They’d be in the same fix as before.

  Parking her car near the rock retaining wall, she gave in to some self-pitying tears. Eventually that got old, so she found a tissue in the glove compartment and blew her nose. Then she climbed out of the car and walked over to the wall.

  Good thing she didn’t want to end it all, because this would be a rotten place to jump. If she stood on top of the low parapet and leaped, she’d only land in a bunch of bushes and cactus about three feet below her. Then she might roll a ways more, but she’d never heard of someone rolling to her death.

  She didn’t want to end it all anyway. She still loved her job and her friends. Unfortunately she also loved Jess Harkins, and he’d turned into a first-class jerk. She should have known better than to think they could start over.

  Once again he’d let her down at a critical time in her life. Once again he’d been a part of ruining something special. Oh, sure, he probably had some explanation for it, just as he’d had an explanation for rejecting her on prom night. But she couldn’t imagine what he could say that would make any difference.

  She hadn’t given him a chance to say it, though. She sort of wished she had. As she stared at the downtown skyline, she picked out the spot where Jess’s building would go up once the foundation was finished. Although she couldn’t see him, she could imagine him down there, yellow hard hat on as he directed his crew in work that he obviously loved.

  What had he wanted to tell her when he’d shown up at Jose’s? He’d answered her question about the demolition contract with a yes. There had also been a but attached to it. She’d cut him off. She had judged him without listening to his reasons, exactly as he’d accused her of doing.

  He could have insisted that she listen to him, but that wasn’t Jess. He was too proud to do that. Thirteen years ago he’d wanted to explain about prom night, and she hadn’t listened then either.

  Then she faced another hard truth. She hadn’t been willing to listen thirteen years ago because she’d been afraid of what she’d hear—that he didn’t love her enough. It was the same today. She was afraid that he’d say that her feelings about her grandmother’s house weren’t that important in the grand scheme of things.

  Life was easier if she got on her high horse, and she was riding high on it now. But damn it, he had snapped up the demolition contract. How could any discussion
of that turn out well? Better to leave things as they were.

  Returning to her car, she drove back down the mountain. Stupid as it was, she watched for Jess’s truck the entire way. Of course she never saw it. She really had been watching too many chick flicks.

  20

  BECAUSE IT WAS A WEEKNIGHT, only a few cars were parked on “A” Mountain when Jess arrived a little before nine. Anybody who knew the situation would call him a masochist for driving up here, but he’d been going stir-crazy at home and he wasn’t in the mood for company. So here he was, parked a distance away from the other cars.

  He noticed that a few windows were rolled down to catch the evening breeze, and he didn’t want to eavesdrop, so he switched on the radio. Oh, who the hell was he kidding? All along he’d known he would listen to Katie’s program. Listening to it up here on “A” Mountain seemed stupidly appropriate.

  Maybe she wouldn’t be on tonight. The last time he’d seen her, she was headed for Margaritaville. KRZE might have a canned program they could plug in if Katie wasn’t up to broadcasting her show. Once the news was over, he held his breath, waiting to hear her voice.

  “Hello, Tucson! Crazy Katie, here, broadcasting from the beautiful downtown studio of KRZE talk radio on this gorgeous Wednesday night. All you lovers up on ‘A’ Mountain, do you know where your condoms are?”

  Jess let out his breath in a rush. If he’d been worried about Katie, he didn’t need to be. She was tough, tough enough to make a reference to “A” Mountain as if it held no special meaning for her.

  Then again, she might be hoping he was listening. At this point, she wouldn’t be above giving him a dig or two—or a couple dozen. Imagining her trying to get in a few personal jabs at him while she did her show was some comfort. He’d rather have her mad at him than not thinking about him at all.

  As for him, he was thinking about her constantly. He didn’t know what to do about that. It just happened on a regular basis, like breathing. If he knew how to stop obsessing, he would go that route, but he was clueless. He’d never been in this situation before.