Jake quirked an eyebrow at her. Tess steeled herself to ignore how that simple expression made her belly do strangely pleasant swimmy things. “Blackmail. I like it. Yes, conversation’s the price. For now,” he added mock-ominously.
She rolled her eyes at him, but she was already putting on her boots.
Chapter Two
Jake led the way to his house, almost glad that Tess was behind him where he couldn’t see her. He had enough fantasies running in his mind already without spending the ten-minute walk contemplating Tess’ ass in tight, faded jeans. He couldn’t be entirely glad, of course. It would have been a sweet form of torture.
If Tess knew the things he wanted to do to that ass, she wouldn’t be walking in the woods alone with him in the gathering dusk.
She’s a brat, he admonished himself, and you don’t do brats.
“Oh wait!” Tess stage-whispered, and Jake turned to see her pointing into the woods. A fleeting glimpse of tan, a rustling sound…a deer, gone as soon as he spotted it.
She smiled at him then, and his heart ached as he smiled back. How long since he’d seen her grin like that? She looked like a happy little kid again for a few seconds. Then it faded, the smile slipping sideways, growing cynical, her tough mask fitting itself back over her face.
He considered challenging her to a race, like he would’ve in the old days. She’d light up every time then take off, sprinting as fast as the deer. For a while when they were ten and eleven or so, Tess was taller and could outrun him. She’d never stopped trying to get that edge back. Right now, however, she looked too tired to leap at a challenge. He didn’t think he could bear to see her fail to rise to such an occasion.
Jake sighed and started walking toward his house again.
The sight of his home never failed to cheer him up. Especially approaching it as they did now, when it was getting dark and chilly enough for the warmly lit windows to seem welcoming. He had admired the old farmhouse as a kid, and had spent the last three years lovingly restoring and modernizing it. There was still a lot to do, but the effort was paying off.
“Nice.” Tess followed him out of the woods and across his back lawn, but paused at the foot of the steps leading up to his deck. Jake wondered if there were some force field there he couldn’t sense, some threshold she feared to cross. “This was the McGinnis place, right?”
He leaned on the rail, in no hurry to go in. The evening was brisk but not yet truly cold. A faint hint of wood smoke carried on the breeze. “Yeah. Mr. McGinnis died about four years ago. The place was sitting empty for about a year before I bought it.”
“Looks like you’ve been busy.” She looked up at the house, eyes scanning the roofline, the windows, all the way back down to the deck he’d finished that summer. “She was my second-grade teacher.”
“Mine too. We were in the same class that year, remember?” Then he fell silent, hesitant to say too much more about Mrs. McGinnis. She had died within weeks of Tess and Lindy’s mother, also of cancer, the year Tess turned thirteen. Tess didn’t discuss that. It was one of several topics Tess didn’t discuss. “It’s a nice night. You want me to bring the wine out here or are we going inside?”
She shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “Inside, I guess. It’s chilly.”
“Come up the steps, Tess,” he suggested gently after another few seconds of silence. “We can proceed from there to the door whenever you’re ready. Enter freely, and of your own will.”
She snorted at the dumb vampire line and flung her silky dark hair over her shoulder, taking the four steps in two jumps and striding past him as if she had all the confidence in the world. In Jake’s experience, that usually indicated Tess’ confidence was nowhere to be found. But she faked it well, he had to give her that. She always had. She was a woman on a mission, even when she didn’t know what the mission was.
Jake had put his bags of groceries on his kitchen table during his brief stop home. He let Tess acclimate while he put away the food and opened the wine.
“Go ahead and look around,” he said. “Make yourself at home.”
She ventured out of the room and he could hear her footsteps, light treads on the restored wooden floors. Lighter than he liked to see her these days. She’d lost too much weight over the past year. He pictured her padding through the house barefoot, naked except for a collar. Exploring the way a pet would explore a new home. He’d want her to feel comfortable here, if she were his. He’d want to feed her. Soften her edges.
Brat, brat, brat…
“Have you eaten dinner yet?” he called out.
“Not hungry.” Her voice seemed to come from the bookcase near the stairs. Jake stepped into the hallway and saw her kneeling there, looking at titles on the bottom shelf. The sight drew him up short, and he took a deep breath while the longing swept over him and lifted the tight lid off his control. Even fully clothed and acerbic as hell, she could still do this to him every time. His response to the least hint of submission from her was automatic, uncontrollable. It was like an allergic reaction.
“I didn’t ask if you were hungry,” he said patiently. “I asked if you had eaten dinner yet.”
The glare she shot him could’ve stripped paint. “No, Dad, I have not.”
In his mind he stripped her bare, held a bunch of grapes just out of reach, teased her until she begged for one juicy mouthful. One taste. What might she do to earn it, if the motivation were strong enough? What might he do to test her limits?
Perhaps something, some glint of his deeper nature, showed in his eyes because Tess bit her lip and looked back down at the books. That instinctive gesture from her, that simple flick of the eyes down and away, was almost too much.
She cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble.”
Jake prepared a tray with cheese and crackers, a few pears and a bunch of seedless red grapes. The wine was a Bordeaux with complex layers and a mellow finish. Tess sipped at the excellent vintage, rolling it in her mouth. Then she reached for the grapes, pulling a heavily laden branchlet off the bunch and tugging one of the plump fruits off with her teeth.
Jake coughed into his hand and put his wine down abruptly. “Sorry. I’m fine. I swallowed the wrong way.”
“Oh I hate that.”
“So do I. ”
“Of course you do,” she said. “You hate anything unpredictable.”
He shrugged and took up a pear and a knife, cutting a slice off and offering it to her. “I wouldn’t say that. I like that life offers us surprises now and then. But who likes swallowing the wrong way?”
Tess took the pear slice, tapered fingers plucking it from him without touching. Her hands looked wrong, somehow. It took him a few more minutes to realize what was missing.
Polish. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the adult Tess without a manicure. Without, in fact, being groomed to within an inch of her life. Lindy and Allison teased her about it, calling it a spa addiction. The Homecoming Queen Sheen.
Now that he looked—as Tess made wry comments about his literature selection—he saw other signs, subtle things he hadn’t noticed at first glance. Her nails weren’t just unpolished, they were uneven and a few looked bitten. Her hair, while still a gorgeous fall of bittersweet chocolate, seemed ragged and wispy at the edges, as if she was long overdue for a cut and hadn’t bothered to style it. And concealer couldn’t completely hide the dark circles under gray eyes that looked fever-bright. Her wrists seemed as fragile as bird wings, practically translucent.
“What?”
Her question brought him out of his reverie, and he blinked at his guest in puzzlement. “Huh?”
“You were staring at me like I’d grown another head.”
“Sorry. Just thinking. Here, have some cheese and crackers.” Once she was munching, listlessly but dutifully, he changed the subject. “So I hear Lindy got engaged at Halloween?”
“Mmph!” She swallowed then swigged some wine to wash it down. “Richard fucking D�
�Arco. God’s gift to women and the art world. After sleeping with him for like two months. She’s out of her fucking mind. And you want to know what pisses me off the most?”
“I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
“I am! What pisses me off most is that I think the big appeal for him is geographical convenience. She lives right across the hall from him. All he had to do was open the door and crook his disgusting slimeball finger at her.”
“Did it ever occur to you you’re not giving either of them much credit?” he asked mildly. He knew Lindy and Richard had been close friends for years before hooking up, but none of that time seemed to count for Tess.
For a split second he saw a panicked, uncertain expression flick across Tess’ face. She shook it off and doubled down. “She’s naive, and she’s going to get hurt. I only hope she doesn’t also get some nasty venereal disease.”
“I hope so too.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, noting that Tess shifted her posture to counter him. She pulled away into a slump, one hand still holding a wineglass but the other arm folded across her midsection. Guarding herself closely. “When was the last time you talked to her?”
That look again. Like a camera shutter, opening and closing so quickly that if he’d blinked, he’d have missed the misery. “About three weeks ago, why?”
“No reason. So when is all your stuff supposed to get here? Do you need to borrow anything in the meantime?”
“Day after tomorrow.” She relaxed a little. “And no thanks, but that’s right neighborly of ya.”
He grinned and tipped an imaginary hat, soaking in her swift smile as a reward and wondering why on earth he was even letting his mind move in this dangerous direction. Picturing her in his house, imagining things that might happen between them. It couldn’t end well. But with Tess here, in front of him, he felt a compulsion.
She’s not a brat, she’s the walking wounded and she’s falling apart. You don’t do that either. Sex doesn’t fix people who are broken.
But it’s Tess.
And somewhere under there, under the layers of unresolved grief and anger and defensiveness, the makeup and nail polish she usually wore and the giant chip on her shoulder…he could still see Tess. The Tess he’d known for so long, the one he’d always wanted. The one he’d always liked, when she wasn’t putting up a wall of protective hostility.
If her hard shell was finally crumbling—her world falling apart as the people she’d grown up taking care of found lives of their own without her—he wanted to be first in line when the Tess he knew finally broke free. Wanted to help her push her way out of that shell, preferably with a flogger, a paddle, a bamboo cane and his rock-hard penis.
The only difficult part would be getting Tess to let him.
* * * * *
Jake walked her home in the dark after they killed the bottle. Opened the door for her and glanced through the rooms to check for monsters before he finally left with a reminder to lock up behind him. Tess was full, sleepy and more content than she could remember feeling in years. Sitting around and talking with a friend—one who wasn’t interested in discussing wedding plans—had done wonders.
Her contentment lasted only until she checked her email.
From: Allison Moore
To: Tess Moore
Subject: Where the hell are you???!!!
Hey Tess, You didn’t answer my last email. I’ve tried calling your cell and I keep getting that “unavailable” message. Is it working? Wish you hadn’t had to give up your work number already. Rotten timing! I know you’re finishing up stuff there, but do you think you could let me know if Mikey still wants to be an usher? I don’t have his email address. We’d love to have him! We need to add a boutonniere to the order if he’s going to do it (if Jan’s Flowers can even swing a last-minute change like that). It doesn’t have to match the orchid ones, a red rosebud or something would be fine. Or should we then do roses for ALL the ushers? Ugh. Too complicated. Whatever. Make sure if he’s going to do it, we know, so he has a flower. Okay?
OMG getting so excited! Can’t wait to see you, it seems like ages since we’ve talked. We need to work in a spa day during “prep week”. Oh wait…no spa in Cranston :-( LOL We’ll figure something out though.
Love, Ally
P.S. Make sure Mike and your dad take their suits to the cleaners! Does Mikey have a suit?
Allison was not a bride from hell, Tess reminded herself. She was actually a pretty easygoing bride. Her excitement and one-track mind were only to be expected. But was it seemly for a college professor to use terms like LOL and OMG, even in an email to a cousin? And so many exclamation points…
She shot back a brief reply, unwilling to promise anything immediate but including her little brother’s email address. As she typed, and thought how one might approximate a spa day in Cranston, she noticed her ragged nails. Her hands looked like a stranger’s. She tried to recall when her last manicure had been, but couldn’t bring up anything more recent than summer.
Then she remembered, and fought back a wave of emotions she didn’t want to examine.
She’d been with her sister Lindy that day—Lindy, who had never cared about that sort of thing before sleeping with Richard d’Arco, but now seemed quite the regular at her local day spa. Lindy had told her, with giddy enthusiasm, all about the plan she and Richard had come up with to buy their lofts now that their building was going condo, and remodel them into one big apartment.
“We might as well,” Lindy pointed out, “since we’re back and forth between the two places all day anyway. And this way we could do a bigger kitchen and enlarge both our workspaces. All industrial style. Richard thinks he can get a lot of materials at a salvage place he knows. He’s planning this amazing sculpture around one of the columns.”
Tess didn’t know why she’d said it. She wanted to say something pleasant and neutral, like normal people would say. But what came out was, “Yeah, I’ll bet Richard the starving artist has all sorts of plans for remodeling the place. But who’s going to be making the payments?”
“You’re my baby sister,” she’d meant. “I had to raise you even though I didn’t know how, and what if I’ve raised you to make terrible choices? You can’t be renovating lofts yet. We can’t be that far along in our lives already! You and I are all that’s left of Mom, and I’m not ready to let you or her go like this.”
She hadn’t been to the spa since. And now Lindy and Richard were engaged. Despite what she’d told Jake, despite her own concerns about Richard’s character, Tess thought they seemed happy. Richard was one of those men Tess had always avoided dating, a man she feared she might get lost in. He reminded her of Jake in some ways, that same calm, steely core, that same hidden edge she was tempted to test for sharpness. She knew she was probably jealous of Lindy for having the ability to brave a relationship with a man like that.
And Richard wasn’t really starving; in fact, he was gaining a national reputation and the commissions were rolling in. He’d been a player back in college but he seemed to have grown into a one-woman guy, with eyes only for Tess’ sister.
Tess wanted Lindy to be happy, more than anything. Part of her wished someone would call her out for the things she said, but Lindy rarely did. Allison rarely did. They just looked at her, sometimes hurt but lately more often resigned. Dismissive, even. They spent less and less time with her, and she didn’t blame them one bit. She would avoid herself too if she could.
So why the hell am I alone with me in a one-bedroom house in the middle of the woods?
Chapter Three
Jake knocked on the door, shivering against the morning frost. The temperature had dropped sharply overnight, and today promised to be a good twenty degrees colder than yesterday. Tess’ moving company had accidentally sent her stuff halfway to Idaho through a manifest mix-up, so a week after her official move to the tiny cottage and she still didn’t have her bed or extra blankets. No heavy coat either. None of the things she’d
probably need for the sudden chill.
Every day during the last week he’d invited her for dinner or a drink, and every time he’d also offered to loan her at least a cot and some sheets. She’d taken the food and wine but declined on the home goods, claiming she enjoyed her distraction-free writing retreat. He knew she was lying, because she didn’t seem to be enjoying herself at all. Tess was clearly miserable about something, but she’d resisted his efforts to get her to talk about it.
This morning, she might be regretting her choice to forego material luxury and wallow in self-imposed starkness until her own things arrived. He wondered if Tess knew how the wood stove in her cottage worked.
She opened the door wrapped in her sleeping bag, shivering and looking extremely grumpy, which suggested she did not.
Whatever she’d planned to say, she did a double take at the sight of what was in Jake’s hands and opened the door wide to admit him. The temperature inside wasn’t much warmer than outside.
“Coffee, oh my god coffee, I love you so much!” She snatched one Styrofoam cup from the cardboard carrier and hunched over it, cuddling it to her chest inside the sleeping bag.
“I also brought donuts.”
“I love those too. But right now I really love coffee, because coffee’s hot and it’s so f-f-fucking c-c-cold in here.”
“I can fix that too.”
Within a few minutes he had the fire burning, and Tess groaned in blissful relief as she warmed her hands in front of the safety panel.
Jake hesitated before pulling up the one chair to sit beside her. He had intended to drop off the breakfast then leave, so he didn’t really have a plan for what to do if he stayed. He preferred to have a plan. Also, a gentleman would offer Tess the chair.
She was already sitting on the floor, he told himself. If she’d wanted the chair, she would’ve taken it.
It was too tempting to sit there though. He’d tried to avoid fantasizing during those dinners and long conversations, but this was too much to resist. Tess by his feet in her nest of padded down, her head leaning oh so close to his knee. Close enough that he could stroke her hair, were he so inclined. When she reached up to take the donut he offered, his fingers brushed hers and concern replaced his daydreaming.
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