“You know exactly who I am.” He advanced on her like a purposeful panther, all barely restrained power and gliding athleticism. “I’m the cop who can’t keep his mind on his work because he’s worried about what some pain in the ass CPA is going to do next.”
“And this is my fault?” She glared at him. “No one asked you to worry.”
“That’s one of the things I worry about most.”
She straightened, stunned. His face was saying a lot more than that. It said he was totally into her. Every female part of her jumped up and down in response, going “Ooh, ooh!”
“This isn’t a game of Clue.” His tone approached growl. “Stay out of my investigation.”
“Need I remind you, you’re the one who dragged me into it? You’re the one who found my language skills so convenient.”
“Damn it, Holly. That’s not the point. Did you blank out the part where someone tried to run over you last night?”
“That was an accident.”
“An accident?” His hands swept through an exasperated motion. “What is it going to take to get through to you?”
“There’s nothing to get through.” She stabbed the air with her paintbrush for emphasis, which JC completely ignored.
“Someone tried to kill you. And what do you do? Do you take any precautions?” He threw out his hands. “Hell, no. Not only do you leave the damned door unlocked, you yell at the fucking thing for any maniac in the world to just ‘come on in.’”
“Yeah, and look at what maniac walked in.”
His eyes narrowed. “Lose the paintbrush and get down here.” He jabbed a finger at the floor. “Now.”
“No.” Her pulse pounded in her temples and her fingernails dug into her already sore palms. “I have stuff I need to do and it doesn’t involve you.”
“Like hell. You’re gonna tell me exactly what you’re up to.”
“I’m not up to anything. I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt me. I’m not convinced someone is.”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about.” He looked as though he was ready to pull her off the platform and shake her. “And if you halfway figure something out, would you tell me? Of course not.”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.” She glared at him through the charged atmosphere. “And for the record, I am not messing in your investigation.”
“Well, you’re sure as hell making someone nervous.”
“Sounds to me like that person is you. What’s the matter? Frustrated I won’t let you make up the rules anymore?”
“You’ve thrown that line in my face one time too many.” His chest rose and fell on sharp inhalations. His muscles bunched under his jacket, reminding her how powerful he was. “You may not like it, but I have rules for a reason, and it’s usually a good one.”
“Really.” She slammed her hands onto her hips and winced at the protest from her sore palm. “How frickin’ convenient. You have rules until they get in the way of something you want.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Figure it out. You’re the hotshot detective.”
He stalked across the floor, wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her off the scaffold.
“Get your hands off me.” She wiggled free, and shook the paintbrush at him.
He threw up his hands and headed wordlessly for the door.
“That’s right. Walk out. You’re good at that.” The words were out before she could swallow them.
He spun. “Wait. Are you saying I walked out on us? That it was my fault?” He gave her an incredulous stare. “That’s rich. Since you’ve conveniently forgotten, let me remind you. You dumped me. You left.”
She threw the paintbrush on the floor. Paint splattered, ignored. “Me? You have the nerve to stand there and blame our breakup on me?”
“I asked you to marry me. I wanted to build a life, a family, but all you could see was the big city and the bright lights.”
“And like a fool, I said yes to marriage, but after college. I asked you to come with me to Seattle, but, no, you always had to be the one in charge. It always had to be your way. And in case you’ve forgotten, I may have left, but I came back.”
She stopped, afraid angry tears might overwhelm her. She’d come home that night to talk to him, to surprise him. Well, she’d surprised him all right. She’d walked into his apartment and found him on the sofa with Meredith.
If he’d hoped to make her jealous, it hadn’t worked.
If he’d wanted to break her heart, it was an Oscar-winning performance.
“It didn’t mean anything.” He’d clearly followed her thoughts down memory lane.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Don’t you realize that makes it even worse?” She opened them to stinging pain. “You cheated on me. How was I supposed to trust you? And in case you’ve forgotten, you married her. I hope it meant something.”
“I screwed up! Is that what you want to hear?” With two quick steps, he towered over her. Anger radiated around him. “And yeah, when you dumped me, I got shit-faced drunk and turned to someone else. It was the biggest mistake of my life, and I’ve paid for it in more ways than you’ll ever know. But aren’t you forgetting something?”
“I remember every detail of that night.” Every heartbreaking, gut-wrenching second.
“No, you don’t. You remember what you wanted to see—me with someone else. That way you can lay all the blame on me.”
“You’re saying it was my fault you ran around behind my back?”
“I was with her because— You. Walked. Out.” His voice rose with each word until he was shouting.
“Did you come after me? Did you even try to call?” she yelled back. “Hell, no. I came home because like an idiot I thought we still had a chance to make things work. I’d been gone one goddamn day, and I found you screwing another woman!”
“You told me we were over. You threw the fucking ring at my head. I was angry. Hell, I was furious.”
“I asked for time to think and you said no.”
“Think about what? We were crazy in love.”
“That was never the question. At least I thought it wasn’t a question.”
“No,” he overrode her. “The question was, I asked you to marry me and you didn’t love me enough to say yes.”
“That’s not true. I’ve always loved you.”
Oh, shit. Had she said that out loud?
The expression on his face—shock, satisfaction, and—oh God, was that a smidge of hope?—said far too much.
Her throat tightened with a strangling squeeze. She swallowed past the painful lump. “The issue wasn’t love. It was you and your damn rules.”
Just like that, the spark in his eyes vanished.
She plowed ahead. She’d waited six long years to say this, and she was going to get it all out. “You wanted to decide everything. Where we lived. Where we worked. If I worked. Everything! You never listened to my dreams. Never cared what I wanted.”
They glared at each other, bristling like a pair of junkyard dogs.
Slowly his expression changed from furious to grim, a look of raw pain in his eyes.
She didn’t know what to say. In spite of everything he’d put her through—the tears, the hurt, the loneliness, all of it—she still loved him.
“I’m sorry I hurt you. Sorry it ended like that. But you hurt me too. I don’t think you’ve ever admitted you weren’t blameless. You broke my heart. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. I was too angry at the time to see that. And then it was too late.”
His words tore at her defenses. How had they managed to screw up so completely? Thrown away something so precious? “Why? Why was it too late? If you’d come after me. If you’d talked to me the way you are now…”
“I did come after you.”
Her hands covered her mouth. He had followed her that night. Stumbling. Half-naked. Zipping his jeans. At the time, it had only made her more furious. She’d run aw
ay, so hurt, so angry. Nothing he could have said then would’ve made it any better.
“When you wouldn’t talk to me…” He shook his head. “I was young and stupid. My pride wanted you to come back, to make the first move. By the time I’d cooled down enough to realize I was making the biggest mistake of my life, Meredith presented me with a bigger one.”
Her gaze snapped up to meet his. “What?”
“She told me she was pregnant.”
Hormones she didn’t know she possessed flooded her senses. With a creaking, groaning lurch, her long-dormant baby clock started a countdown. Jealousy burned through her veins.
Meredith the home wrecker—had his child?
Chapter Thirty-seven
“She was pregnant?” Holly swallowed the watermelon-sized lump lodged in her throat. Even saying the words was torture.
What was wrong with her? She’d never wanted children.
Never admitted she wanted children.
“You have a child?”
JC’s head twitched. A spasm rather than a shake. “No.”
Relief roared through her, followed by a spark of insight. “That’s why you married her.”
“It was the right thing to do.” He slumped against the scaffold, looking defeated. “She miscarried the next month. The marriage was a disaster from day one. I wanted an annulment. She wanted to hang in there, with me as her meal ticket.”
“Is that how—?”
“That’s not how I see all women. Just her.”
It sure explained some of his attitude toward women, though. “You never remarried?”
“I…” His face shut down. His expression shouted he’d already revealed too much.
The doorbell sputtered.
Holly ignored it. She’d rather hear what JC would say next.
“Are you expecting someone?”
“Yeah, I am.” Dammit, Laurie, have I told you lately your timing sucks?
JC released another deep breath. He crossed the room and jerked open the front door.
She really, really wanted to remind him to look to see who it was. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
Laurie stood on the porch. She rocked back on her crutches with a startled, “Oh. Am I interrupting?”
“No,” JC said at the same time Holly said, “Yes.”
“Glad we cleared that up.” Laurie rolled her eyes.
JC brushed past Laurie and shot one last, indecipherable look over his shoulder. “I’ll see you later. Lock the door after me.”
Frustration roared inside her. This conversation is so not over.
Laurie stared at his departing back, then turned to Holly with assessing eyes. “Well, well. This has the potential to be very interesting.”
“Don’t start with me. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You never do.” Laurie awkwardly poled her way into the living room. “Too bad I didn’t get here sooner. Apparently, I missed an enlightening show.”
Holly stormed across the room and turned the latch on the deadbolt. There. Dammit, JC, I hope you’re happy. “I didn’t know he planned to stop by. I don’t know what’s up with him.”
She retrieved her brush, noticed her hands were shaking, and dropped the brush into the paint can.
“You have any place to sit beside the floor?” Laurie glanced around.
Holly squinted her face and eyes into a Really? expression. “Picky, picky. How did you get here? I thought Gwen was bringing you.”
“She had other plans.”
“Gwen had plans?” She waved her hands around, blowing off her own question. “And you drove? With that cast?”
“It wasn’t that hard. Now quit stalling. Break out the pizza and tell me what was going on in here with JC.”
“I thought you were bringing the pizza.”
“Round Table delivers. Start talking.”
“Nothing is going on.” Holly grabbed her cell and called the pizza shop.
“Bull,” Laurie said the minute she finished placing the order. “The tension in here was off the Richter scale. Tell me, is this huge wall you put up to keep JC away related to him personally or is it because he’s a cop? ’Cause if it’s just the cop thing, you’re the dumbest smart woman I ever met.”
Holly stomped into the laundry room and returned with a folding chair and a handful of magazines. “Here. Improve your mind while I finish painting. But you know I have a completely valid reason not to like cops, so get off my case.”
“That asshole in Seattle? That guy just pissed you off.”
“Yeah, well. JC pisses me off too.”
“I’d say he turns you on. In a major way. In fact, I’d say if I got here thirty seconds later, you two would’ve been doing the nasty right here on the floorboards.”
Holly ignored her, and instead concentrated on climbing back onto the scaffold. She’d already cycled through angry and hurt before ending up completely confused about everything related to JC.
Laurie propped her crutches against the wall, squirmed around on the folding chair and thumbed through a magazine. “Oh, look. A dating guide. Should we take some quizzes and figure out what your problem is?”
“I’m not the problem.” Holly picked up the brush and smoothed paint onto the wall.
Long silent minutes followed.
“This is ridiculous.” Laurie tossed the magazine on the floor. “Okay, how’s this for a relationship assessment? You and JC were both young back then. Too young. You were completely in love, but you screwed up and it fell apart.”
“He screwed up,” Holly muttered. But did JC have a point? Had her actions pushed him into Meredith’s arms? Okay. Maybe. Yeah, they had a huge fight. But would he have gone there if he really loved her?
“Sweetie, it’s time to deal with whatever that asshole in Seattle did to you. And we definitely need to talk about your feelings for JC.” Laurie smiled, a Cheshire cat grin. “Those could be quite interesting.”
“Well, Ms. Sigmund Freud-ette. You’re wrong. I’m not interested in JC.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Shut up, she grumped at the nagging voice in her head. It wasn’t her friggin’ pants that were on fire.
“Could’ve fooled me. There was some seriously interesting chemistry in the air.”
“Yeah, it’s called fury.”
“I really don’t understand you sometimes.”
Holly glanced over her shoulder, then turned.
Lips pursed, Laurie regarded her seriously. “You’ve got a second chance with the man who turns you on mentally as well as physically, but son of a bitch, he’s a cop.” She brushed her hands in a dismissive move. “So you’re going to use that excuse to ignore him. Instead of dealing with what broke you apart the first time, you’re going to walk away from him. Again.”
Holly stared at her best friend. “I cannot believe you said that.”
The doorbell sputtered.
Talk about saved by the bell. Holly dropped the brush into the paint can and awkwardly climbed off the scaffold.
“We aren’t finished,” Laurie warned.
“Hush.” Holly grabbed her wallet, crossed the foyer and peeked out the side window. Rather than a deranged assailant, a teenager holding a pizza box stood on the porch.
She opened the door. On the street, behind the teenager, a car slowed to a crawl. Not just any car—a Richland police cruiser.
“Everything okay here?” the officer called.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Holly blurted. Fury clenched her fists, squinted her eyes, and sent blood surging through her face to her head.
“What?” The pizza kid took a step back. His head swiveled between Holly and the cop, flight written all over his face.
“Not you,” Holly waved the hand clutching the cash. “Here.”
The kid grabbed the money and bolted for his car. The police officer threw a casual salute and continued up the road.
Holly slammed the door, stormed into the
kitchen, and threw the pizza box onto the counter.
“What’s the matter?” Laurie trailed behind her.
“I cannot believe he did that without telling me. He had no right.”
“Who did what?”
“JC. That’s exactly where things went to hell with Frank.” She stomped a circuit around the kitchen.
“Slow down. Start at the beginning.” Laurie propped her crutches against the wall and sat on one of the counter stools.
“The beginning…” Holly opened the refrigerator and grabbed a couple of beers. “Which beginning? Frank? What happened in Seattle?”
“Either one. Both.”
A cascade of memories swamped her anger.
“Frank.”
The name was still bitter in her mouth. She opened the bottles and pulled glasses from the cabinet. With a sigh, she rounded the counter, plopped onto the seat beside Laurie, and handed her a beer. “The beginning with Frank was pretty normal. He seemed fun, intelligent. I was working a lot, so for the first few months, we only went out occasionally. But gradually he started getting possessive and making comments like he was planning our future. I told him to slow down and claimed I was busy the next time he called. The coffee thing was already creeping me out—”
“The coffee thing?” Laurie asked.
Holly slumped against the counter stool and explained about the controlling coffee breaks. “He was already trying to make decisions for me—for both of us—in too many areas.”
“I’m hearing annoying, but not scary.” Laurie poured her beer into her glass.
“There’s more. I went to the drugstore late one night. He called while I was in the store. What was I doing shopping so late?” Holly mimed staring at a cell phone clutched in her upturned hand. “I thought WTF? How did he even know I was out?”
“Okay, that’s stepping over the line. What did you do?” Laurie asked.
Holly’s hand waved in a brushing motion. “He had an excuse, said he’d had a call for service in the area and swung by to see if I was awake and wanted to get coffee or food and saw me leave. He did this whole ‘I’m concerned’ thing. There’d been some ‘incidents’ in the area, yada yada, so I didn’t yell at him about it then, even though it really bothered me. Seeing me leave is different than following me to the store. And it kept getting worse. Every time I went somewhere other than the office, he’d call. What was I doing? Where was I going? With who? I don’t like that person. I’d rather you didn’t hang out with them. He pushed and pushed to put me in a box. Control what I did and who I saw.”
So About the Money Page 25