by Nora Roberts
Laps it right up, like always.
And it pays off. The little whore from the neighborhood finally gets a clue! Having her remembering, that was sweet, hell of a lot sweeter.
It’ll all turn around now. All the bad luck, all the bad breaks. It’ll all turn around.
It’ll all burn, including the little whore who started it all.
Reena had a head full of data, theories and worries when she walked into Sirico’s. It was usually what she needed to clear out the smears of a hard day. Tonight, she had the bonus of Bo meeting her there.
She didn’t spot him on the first scan of the tables, but did see the redhead—Mandy, she recalled—snuggled in a booth with a man of about thirty with light brown hair. J.Crew for him, retro hippie for her.
They were drinking the house red, and plastered together at the hip.
She also spotted John at one of the two-tops. Wending through the usual waves and greetings, she aimed for his table. “Just the man I wanted to see.”
“Clam sauce is good tonight.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She sat across from him, waved off the waitress who headed their way. “I’ve got something going.”
He forked up more linguini. “So I hear.”
She sat back. “Dad called you.”
“You think he wouldn’t? Why didn’t you?”
“I was going to. I need your ear, I need your brain, but not here and not now. Can we meet in the morning, hook up for breakfast? No, better, can you come to my place? I’ll cook you breakfast.”
“What time?”
“Can you make it early? Seven?”
“Probably work that into my schedule. Want to give me something to chew on meanwhile?”
She started to, but knew once she started he’d need it all. Just as she’d need to say it all. “I’d like to let this cook in my head overnight, organize it some.”
“Seven, then.”
“Thanks.”
“Reena.” He put a hand over hers as she started to rise. “Do I need to tell you to be careful?”
“No.” She got up, bent and kissed his cheek. “No, you don’t.”
She walked to the kitchen, made a kissy sound at Jack as he ladled sauce on a round of dough. “Have you seen Bo? I’m supposed to meet him here.”
“Back in the prep area.”
Curious, she walked around the work counter and into prep. Then just stood in the doorway, watching her father give Bo a lesson in the art of pizza.
“Gotta be elastic, or it won’t stretch right. You don’t want to pull it, see it pop full of holes.”
“Right, so I just . . .” Bo held a ball of dough from one of the oiled holding pans in the cooler. He began to stretch it, drawing it out.
“Now, use your fists like I showed you. Start shaping.”
Focused on the job at hand, Bo worked his fists under the dough, gently punching, turning—not bad for a beginner, Reena thought.
“Can I toss it?”
“You break it, you bought it,” Gib warned him.
“Okay, okay.” Legs spread, eyes narrowed in concentration, like a man, Reena decided, about to juggle flaming torches. Bo gave the dough a toss in the air.
A little higher than was wise, in Reena’s opinion, but he managed to catch it, keep turning, toss it again.
And the grin that popped out on his face had her biting back a laugh. No point in breaking his rhythm, but he looked like a boy who’d just mastered a two-wheeler for the first heady solo.
“This is so cool. But what the hell do I do with it now?”
“Use your eyeballs,” Gib told him. “You got a large going there?”
“Looks like. Looks about right.”
“On the board.”
“God, okay. Here we go.”
He flopped the dough on the board, absently wiping his hands on the short apron he wore. “It’s not what we’d call exactly round.”
“Not bad though, shape it up some. Give me the edges.”
“How many did he drop before he managed that one?” Reena asked as she stepped in.
Bo grinned over his shoulder. “I got this down. Mangled two, but nothing hit the floor.”
“He learns quick enough,” Gib said as he and Reena exchanged kisses.
“Who knew there was so much involved in making a pizza? You got your big-ass dough mixer there.” He nodded toward the stainless-steel machine used to mix massive amounts of flour, yeast, water. “You gotta get a couple of manly men to haul that bowl up on the counter.”
“Excuse me, but I’ve been in on that countless times, and I’m not in the least manly.”
“You can say that again. You divide it up, weigh it, stack the pans in the cooler, then you gotta cut the dough out after it rises. All that before you can start making the thing. I’m never taking pizza for granted again.”
“You can finish this one out front.” Gib picked up the board, carried it out to where Jack made room on the worktable.
“Ah, don’t watch me,” he said to Reena. “You’re making me nervous. I’ll clutch. Go on over and sit with Mandy and Brad.” He gestured.
“Sure.” She grabbed a soda, moved over to join them.
“Hey! You made it. Reena, this is Brad. Brad, Reena. I met Reena during one of my more embarrassing moments.”
“Then I’ll be dignified and counterbalance. Nice to meet you—in the flesh after all these years of hearing about Dream Girl.”
“You, too.” She sipped, smiled at Mandy. “When I was fifteen, I dropped my notebook rushing to class. It fell open and this guy—tall, nice shoulders, streaky blond hair, big blue eyes—named Chuck picked it up for me, before I could dive after it. Inside I’d filled pages with “Reena” and “Chuck,” and hearts with our initials in them, or just his name over and over the way you do.”
“Oh God, he saw it?”
“Hard to miss.”
“That was embarrassing.”
“I think my face went back to its normal color in about a month. So, now we’re even.”
26
She’d been right, Reena decided. The evening at Sirico’s had been exactly what she’d needed. Her mind had calmed down, her stomach had smoothed out.
It had been interesting and educational to spend an hour in the company of Bo’s closest friends.
Family, she thought. Those two were his family as much as her own brother and sisters were hers.
“I like your friends,” she told him as she unlocked her front door.
“Good, because if you didn’t, you and I would’ve been history.” He patted her butt when they walked inside. “No, seriously, I’m glad you all hit it off. They’re important to me.”
“And to each other.”
“Did you get that before or after they started slurping on each other?”
“Before.” She stretched her back. “When I walked in. Lust vibes.”
“I’m having a tough time getting around that.”
“That’s just because you’re used to seeing them as family, or you have since you and Mandy stopped hitting the sheets. But the fact that they’re now hitting them with each other doesn’t make them less yours.”
“I think I need to block the image of the sheets, at least for the time being.” He put his hands on her arms, rubbed them up and down. “Tired?”
“Not as much as I was. Got a fresh charge.” She clamped her hands on his hips. “Got something in mind as to what I should do with the energy?”
“Might. Come on out back. I’ve got something I want to show you.”
“You want to show it to me outside?” She laughed as he pulled her along. “What are you now, Nature Boy?”
“Sex, sex, sex, that’s all the woman thinks of. Thank you, Jesus.” He pulled her out the back door.
There was a nice half-moon shedding sharp white light. Flowers she’d managed to grab and plant on the run were spilling out of her patio pots.
The air was warm, a little close, and heavily sce
nted with the green smell of summer.
And there, under a leafy maple, was a glider.
“A glider! You got me a glider for the yard?”
“Got? Heresy. Guess I should’ve strapped on my tool belt.”
“You made it.” Her eyes misted, and now it was Reena dragging him. “You made me a glider? Oh my God, when? It’s beautiful. Oh, feel how smooth.” She ran her fingers over the wood. “It’s like silk.”
“Finished it up today, kept my mind off things. Want to try it out?”
“Are you kidding?” She sat, stretched her arms over the back and set it in motion. “It’s great, it’s wonderful. Another ten pounds of stress just fell off my shoulders. Bo.” She reached her hand out for his. “You sweetie.”
He sat beside her. “I was hoping it’d be a hit.”
“Major league.” She dropped her head on his shoulder. “This is fabulous. My own house, my own yard on a warm June night. And a sexy guy sitting with me on a glider he made with his own two hands. It makes everything that happened last night seem unreal.”
“I guess we both needed to box that away for a few hours.”
“And you spent yours building me this.”
“If you love what you do, it’s not really work.”
She nodded. “It’s satisfaction.”
“That’s the one. And hell, it looks like I’m going to score a new truck tomorrow.” His fingers toyed with the curling tips of her hair. “Your mom’s coming along. Her cousin’s a Dodge dealer.”
“My advice? Give her her head.” Something she’d planted smelled strong and sweet. Like a splash of vanilla on the warm air. “She’ll cut cousin Sal’s price down to the bone. Pull her back when you see tears leaking out of his eyes, but not before.”
“Check.”
“You’re handling this so well.”
“Not much else I can do.”
“Sure there is. You could rant, rave, put your fist through the wall—”
“Then I’d have to replaster.”
Her laugh came easily. “You’re steady, that’s what you are, Bowen. I know under it you’re enraged, but you’ve got the lid on it. You haven’t asked me if there’s been any progress on the whole mess.”
“I figured you’ll tell me.”
“I will. I need to talk to someone first, but after, I’ll tell you what I can. You make it easy for me.”
“I’ve got this whole love thing going on. Why would I make it hard for you?”
She turned her face into his shoulder for a moment, let the quiet thrill of him pour through her. It was unnerving how much she’d come to love him, how quickly it had lodged in her heart and spread so that there were times, like this, she would’ve sworn she felt that love pulsing in her fingertips.
“Destiny,” she whispered, and grazed her lips along his jaw. “I think you must be mine, Bo. I think you must be.”
She shifted around, straddled his lap, linked her hands behind his neck. “It’s a little bit scary,” she told him. “Just enough to add a nice edge. But mostly it’s sweet and it’s smooth. I feel like . . .” She let her head fall back, looked up at that slice of moon, the scatter of stars. “Not like I was waiting,” she continued, coming back up to look at his face. “Not like you stand and wait for a bus to come pick you up, take you where you want to go. But like I was driving myself, destination in mind, doing what I wanted. Then I thought, Hey, why don’t I take that road? That’s the one I’d like to travel. And there you were.”
He bent forward to press his lips to her collarbone. “Did I have my thumb out?”
“I think you were walking right along, destination in mind, too. We decided to share the wheel.” She cupped his face. “This wouldn’t be working if the only thing you saw when you looked at me was a girl in a pink top, across the room at a party.”
“I do see her, and who she was. And I see who she is now. I’m crazy about who she is now.”
She kept her hands on his face as she lowered her lips to his, as they sank into the kiss together. Into the warmth and the wet.
“You made a pizza,” she murmured dreamily.
“And it was good, despite Brad’s cracks about indigestion or possible ptomaine.”
“You made a pizza,” she repeated, brushing her lips over his cheeks, his temples, his lips, his throat. “And you built me a glider.” She caught his bottom lip between her teeth, tugged, then dipped her tongue into his mouth, focusing the world in that long kiss. “I’m about to express my sincere gratitude.”
“I’m about to accept it.” His voice had gone thick, and his hands were roaming. “Let’s go inside.”
“Mmm-mmm. I want to see how well this glider is built.” She tugged his shirt over his head, let it fly over her shoulder.
“Reena, we can’t—”
Her mouth stopped his. Her hands slid between them to flip open the button of his jeans. “Bet we can.” She bit his shoulder, tugged down his zipper. When she felt him tense, she clamped her hands on the back of the glider to keep him from lifting her up. Her eyes sparkled out of the dark.
“Relax. It’s just you and me.” She nipped at his jaw, seeped herself in the taste of him as she cruised her lips over his face. “We’re the whole world. Let’s glide,” she whispered, bringing his hands to her breasts. “Touch me. Keep touching me.”
He couldn’t stop. His hands slid under her shirt, but it wasn’t enough. Not now. He fought with buttons to find more, and take it. He cupped her, tasted her, while the glider gently rocked.
There was something witchy about it, the heavy air, the motion, the smell of grass and flowers and woman, and the taut ready feel of her under his hands.
They were the world in that moment, in the star-washed dark and the summer-scented air.
Her skin, silvered by moonlight, dappled by leaf shadow, seemed to float over his. And his belly quivered—helpless need, when she rose, when she settled. When she surrounded.
She moaned, long and low. Her eyes were half closed as they watched each other. Watching each other as their mouths met and their sighs mingled. Pleasure and excitement tangled, built, trembled. She used that pleasure and the easy motion to rock them both. Sweet and slow, slow and sweet, so release was like a lazy slide over silk.
They melted together in a contentment as gentle as the sway of the glider.
“You do good work,” she whispered.
“Actually, I think you did most of it.”
She chuckled, nuzzled his neck. “I meant the glider.”
By seven in the morning, Reena had crisp bacon warming in the oven, coffee brewed, bagels sliced and the makings for an omelet set out.
She felt guilty about shoving Bo out the door at six-thirty with nothing but a hastily toasted bagel. But she wanted to talk to John alone.
She was already dressed for work, right down to her holster, where she would dash to as soon as her meeting with John was over.
He was prompt. She could count on him for that, as well as a hundred other things. “Thanks. Really.”
At the door, she kissed his cheek.
“I know it’s early, but I’m on eight-to-fours. O’Donnell’s got it covered if I need to squeeze in a little more time. I’m about to make you a first-class omelet for your trouble.”
“You don’t have to bother with that. We can do this over coffee.”
“Absolutely not.” She led the way to the kitchen. “I let this perk around in my head through the night. What I’d like to do is just pour it out on you.” She filled a coffee cup for him. “Okay?”
“Pour away.”
“It goes back, John, all the way back to the beginning.”
She made the omelet while she spoke. He didn’t interrupt, but let her lay it out as it came to her.
She moved like her mother, he thought. Fluidly, with those graceful gestures to punctuate the words. And thought like a cop—but then he’d seen that in her when she was a child. Logic and observation.
“We’re ch
ecking on the jewelry.” She set his plate down, settled in with her own breakfast of half a bagel and a single strip of bacon. “It may not have been from New York, but we’ll find where he lifted it. Getting a warrant out on him for that will help. It was a stupid move, and though he’s not stupid, it was like him. He needs to show off, pump himself up. Fire-starting plays into that,” she added. “A lot of the inner motivation for a fire-starter is the pump, and the showing off. But with him, it’s also a statement. My father did it, and so can I. Only bigger, better.”
“There’s more.”
“Yeah. These are vengeance fires, all of them. If I’m right, and I believe it, John. I believe it’s him. Maybe working with his father, maybe alone. Their revenge against me and mine, because to him we’re responsible for what happened to his father.”
“He’s too good at it to just have done this handful,” John commented. “Too organized, too focused and prepared.”
“Yeah. Maybe the New Jersey family’s used him as a torch, or he might have freelanced. He’s not afraid to wait. Sure, some of the gaps came about because he was inside, but he’s not afraid to wait, to pick his moment. He waited three months after his uncle kicked him out of the house to retaliate by setting his cousin’s house on fire. That had to be him.”
“I can help you with that one. I know some people in Frederick County.”
“I was hoping you did, and would. We’re reopening Josh Bolton’s case.” She sipped some of the Diet Pepsi she’d poured herself. “It’s going to be him there, John. If there’s nothing else that comes out of this, nothing else, I need to nail him for that.” She couldn’t stop the tremor in her voice, or in her heart. “For Josh.”
“You let it get personal, let it crawl in there, Reena, you’re playing into his hands.”
“I know it. I’m working on it. He wants me to know it’s him. No matter how he set the scenes, covered his tracks, he wants me to know. But why now? Why wait all these years, then move on me so directly? Something’s changed, something lit his fuse.”
Nodding, John forked up more eggs. “He’s kept you on his radar all this time, and slipped under yours to take hits at you. Maybe it’s something you’ve changed. Could be as simple as you buying this house. Getting involved with the guy next door.”