The waitress brought their drinks and salads, and while Angel speared a ranch-coated cherry tomato, she asked, “Why are you worried about the diner? Judging from the amount of time you spend there, I thought it was doing great.”
“I should be so lucky.” He unwrapped a Club cracker. He gave her the short version of the new highway project and how it was steadily choking the life out of Blue Moon’s downtown.
Eyebrows drawn, she said, “I might’ve only seen this on TV, but I thought renovated downtown areas—especially in quaint Southern towns, are all the rage. Put in a tearoom, antique and craft stores, a bed-and-breakfast and a few pricey boutiques, and voila—you’ve got a bona fide resort.”
“Makes sense to me. Sam swears our Boy Mayor must be getting under-the-table cash for ramrodding all these new developments through the building committee. But, so far, we don’t have a lick of proof other than a twenty-six-year-old mayor who drives a shiny new Jag on a miniscule official salary.”
“Sounds shady.”
“Yeah, we think so too, but we’re the only ones. Everyone else is thrilled to have a McDonald’s—except for me and the few remaining Main Street holdouts.”
When the shrimp arrived, they spent the next few minutes in companionable silence, finishing their salads, sipping colas, and peeling hulls.
“This is nice.” Angel’s smile did funny things to Jonah’s stomach. “Thanks for sharing at least one of your worries.” She ducked her gaze before adding, “For the first time since my accident, I feel like we’re starting to be a team, instead of strangers sharing a house and a baby but not a bed.”
“Is that bed so important?” Jonah popped a fat shrimp into his mouth, wishing his mind’s eye couldn’t all too easily see Angel naked in his arms, eyes hooded with pleasure.
“It shouldn’t be, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it is.” Lacing her sticky fingers with his, she said, “I’ve already lost my past with you, but I’ll be damned if I lose my future.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.” Among others… He shifted to a more comfortable position. How’d he got hard from holding hands?
“What?”
“You spend so much time worrying about what happened in the past, you’re losing sight of the future.”
“Easy enough for you to say. You obviously remember all of my faux pas. You not only remember them, but judging by your chill, you still hold them against me. Sometimes I catch you studying me, almost as if you’ve never really known me at all.”
“I’m sorry.” Jonah had never wished more that they were the real deal—a couple in every sense of the word. “Making you feel bad was never my intention. But, look, with this memory thing of yours, it is like we’re strangers. I’m seeing new facets of you every day.”
“Good ones, I hope?” Tears in her eyes, she stroked her fingertip in a slow, hot circle around his palm. The sensation delivered an erotic jolt that damn near shot him off his chair.
“Yeah…” he managed, voice raspy from lack of air—not to mention blood flow rushing in the wrong direction. He wasn’t sure how it’d happened, but even in the short time he’d known her, Angel had become more than a woman with a miraculous connection to his baby. She was now a woman he’d very much like to know—not for Katie’s sake, but his own.
Should Angel’s husband show up on his doorstep first thing tomorrow morning, Jonah would still be better off for having truly tried to know her for even this one shining day.
What the hell... Like that doctor said, release guilt, embrace hope. Face it, one of these days, probably sooner as opposed to later, Angel’s family would be found but, maybe, if her connection to him was close enough, if her true home wasn’t far enough, they could at least remain friends. She could at least maintain her bond with Katie.
As for his hungry erection getting fed? That wasn’t going to happen. The gentleman his momma had taught him to be wouldn’t allow it.
“Listen.” This time he was the one squeezing her shrimp-sticky fingers. “I really am sorry about the way I’ve been acting.”
She bowed her head, licked her lips. Stopped his heart with the way sunlight shone through the curtain of her hair. “Does this mean what I think it does? That you’re ready to resume our marriage? Our whole marriage?”
He silently groaned. If only you knew how much I’d like to kiss you all the way outside, then do you in my truck. “Now you’re moving a little fast. Let’s just take whatever it is we’re feeling slow. Let’s learn to be friends.” Because my already guilty conscience won’t let us be lovers.
Lovers.
The very word made him catch his breath. No. Angel might be gorgeous, smart, a great cook and temporary mother, but one thing she would never be—should never be—was his lover.
“Guess I can live with that.” The smile she blasted him with was part sad, part hopeful, and ethereally beautiful.
“Toast?” He reached for his cola.
Clinking her glass with her husband’s, Angel tried being happy in the moment, but couldn’t help but feel that while his asking her to at least be his friend was progress, it wasn’t near enough. Failure mired in her veins, making her mind sluggish, as if her blood had been transfused with cold syrup.
Why won’t you love me? What did I do wrong?
You’ve done nothing wrong, baby. The voice was back. You’re a star. He’s a washed-up has-been. Let him go. Buy yourself a great outfit, five pair of Louboutins, then get thee to your nearest martini bar. No matter what he says, I say you deserve a celebration. I say you deserve a drink.
Stop! Angel willed the frightening voice to leave her alone. She didn’t know where the voice came from—didn’t want to know. Was it her former self trying to break through?
“You all right?” Her husband’s concern brought her rushing back to reality—which was where she planned to stay. Whatever happened to make them lose their way was blessedly in the past. From here on out, she’d view her memory loss as Heaven sent. A second chance she wouldn’t mess up.
Chapter Seventeen
“Damn these tears.” For someone who wasn’t supposed to even have eyes, let alone tears to fall out of them, lately Geneva sure had done an awful lot of blubbering.
A chord in Jonah’s speech had sounded familiar, probably because he’d said roughly the same thing the night before she left…
With Christmas Eve hours away, Jonah had taken her hands in his, after putting down the fragrant pine tree he’d cut from the back forty to stand back up in the living room. “Listen,” he’d said. “I know with you just having had Katie life seems a little rough.”
“A little?” She’d choked on her latest sip of the Bloody Mary Jonah thought was plain tomato juice. Breastfeeding, she wasn’t supposed to be drinking at all, but she’d figured, where was the harm in one small drink? After all, it was almost Christmas. “My life’s a freakin’ whirl of baby feeding, diapers and laundry. Look at me,” she’d fingered lifeless dishwater blond hair. “I haven’t washed my hair in three days. I’ve got no makeup on, no decent clothes to wear. I can’t remember the last time you looked at me.”
“I’m looking at you right now, aren’t I?’ He’d flashed her one of his disgustingly sweet grins.
“Stop that,” she’d said. “God, I’m so sick of your eternal patience. Let’s fight.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel like it. After, let’s have great sex. Slam-me-up-against-the-wall, take-me-right-here-in-the-living-room sex.”
He’d sharply looked away.
“What’s the matter, choir boy? Talk like that make you uncomfortable? Forgot what it feels like to fuck?”
He’d turned his back on her, heading toward the kitchen.
“Don’t walk away from me!”
“You’re drunk—and you shouldn’t even be drinking.”
“Am not!” She’d chased after him, not giving a damn that half her drink had sloshed out on his momma’s Oriental rug. His momma. Damn, she’d been so s
ick of being held up to that dead departed saint. If all he’d wanted from life was to be stuck with a carbon copy of his mother, why hadn’t he married that old hag across the street?
In the kitchen, she’d asked, “What’s it going to take for you to look at me like I’m a woman again—not just a mommy?”
“Is being a mom so bad?” He’d locked the back door and flicked off the lights. “You’re the mother of my child. Do you have any idea how much that means? You’re worth way more to me than a quick fuck on the living room floor. You’re worth roses and a soft bed covered in satin sheets.”
She’d shaken her head. “That stuff’s for movies and books.”
“So? Once you’ve healed from Katie’s delivery, who said we can’t copy ’em?”
“Life, that’s who. We can’t change who we are. It’s ingrained. Imprinted on our souls.”
“That from a movie?”
She’d shrugged and downed another gulp of her drink.
“If it is, I’ve got another line for you.” Removing the glass from her hand, he’d set it on the counter behind her, then settled his big hands around her waist. “I always thought life was what we make it.”
“What movie’s that from?”
Lowering his lips to that sexy indentation at the base of her throat, he’d said, “I forgot.”
“Mmm…” she’d abandoned herself to the erotic sensation. “Does this mean now we get to fuck?”
He’d frozen, then taken a step back. Eyes narrowed, he’d asked, “You don’t get it, do you?”
“What?”
“That as my wife, as the mother of my child, I want to make love to you. I want to put all this crap we’ve been fighting over for the past few months behind us and start over.”
She’d rolled her eyes. “You’re such a sap. What? Just because it’s almost Christmas, are we supposed to take our magic Santa wands and wipe away the past?”
“We could at least try.”
Snorting, she’d said, “Yeah, and while we’re at it, let’s call Jimmy Stewart over for beer and pizza.”
Jonah had quietly left the room.
“Hey!” she’d called after him. “He’s past his prime but, after we eat, wanna have a threesome?”
Geneva swiped the backs of her hands over her eyes. That night Jonah reached out to her, offered to treat her like a lady, and what had she done? Thrown that offer in his face.
She’d been a horrible person. Crass and mean.
For the first time in her life, or maybe that would be death, she was sorry. Truly, deeply sorry—not that that would do her much good now.
Far and away, Jonah and baby Katie had been the best things to ever happen to her, yet she’d been too wrapped up in her own self-pity to see it. What had she been depressed about? Had it really been so bad not driving the hottest car or living in a creaky old farmhouse instead of a high-rise condo? At least she’d been loved. And that was a helluva lot more than she could say right—
Her dreary cloud grew into a room filled with light. The sparkly kind that comes from giant disco balls at the very best nightclubs.
A black-velvet-curtained stage appeared at the end of the room and, through those curtains, swaggered young Elvis, sexy lip curl, tight black leather pants and white T-shirt, slicked-back hair, and all. “Evenin’, Geneva. How’s it goin’?”
She rubbed her eyes.
No way.
She’d seen a lot of strange things since she’d been dead, but this one took the cake. “Are you really Elvis?”
“Either that,” he said with a rogue’s wink, “or a darned good impersonator.”
“Does this mean for once I did something right?”
“Beats me. I show up wherever the Colonel says I have a gig.” He reached for a guitar perched on a nearby stand, slung it over his shoulder, and began strumming the tune to Love Me Tender. Soon he began to sing and the velvety depth of his voice, combined with the unfamiliar emotions in her heart, brought on more tears. But instead of cursing them away she embraced them, and herself, swaying in time with his words.
“Care to dance?” Teach stood beside her. Instead of his usual toga he wore faded jeans, black biker boots and a T-shirt similar to the King’s.
“This is too much…” She stepped into his arms.
“No, Ms. Geneva Kowalski-McBride, you’re too much. Congratulations. Though you went about it in an unconventional manner, you’ve finally managed to learn something. One lesson down, five to go.”
Chapter Eighteen
By the time Jonah pulled the truck into the drive, what had been a brilliant sunset had made room for a purple velvet blanket tucking in the mountain-ringed valley. At twilight, the yard’s night watcher used to come on, diluting the view, but it was burned out and he hadn’t had the energy to call the power company to fix it.
Angel was asleep again but this time with her head on his shoulder. They’d spent the afternoon talking, laughing, walking in a riverside park, celebrating simple things like a family of turtles sunning on a log and a barge passing through the lock and dam.
As if they’d been strangers on a blind date, they’d told each other their favorite things—or, in Angel’s case, she’d taken wild stabs at her favorite things, looking to Jonah for answers on the rest. He’d denied her request, putting the blame on her doctors for his not being able to instantly recall her past. At first helping her discover herself had been awkward, but then, the more they’d become friends, the more fun he’d had helping her write a new life-script.
After buying six ice cream cones from a street vender, they’d decided her favorite was strawberry cheesecake. For choosing her favorite movie, he’d given her butchered outlines of popular films, many of which she had enough memory of to decide she liked The Notebook best, because it was about love. From the sea of human and animal traffic cruising the park, she’d decided she loved small dogs and was scared of big ones.
Jonah had confessed he’d never had time for either.
When he’d pressed her for her favorite color, she’d looked to the cloudless sky and announced blue. But then she’d looked at the spongy moss carpeting the rock they were perching on to finish their ice cream and changed her answer to green. Later, when a red tugboat had passed through the lock, she’d changed her mind again to red.
She’d asked so many questions. How old was Katie, when was her birthday and their anniversary? What was her own age and birthday? Katie’s vitals had been easy enough to furnish. As for their anniversary, he’d taken the easy way out by providing his and Geneva’s October thirty-first date. He’d been more for the Valentine’s Day romance theme, but Geneva being Geneva had wanted devilish fun. As for Angel’s birthday, he’d reported that the doctor had forbidden him to tell her any personal information since it would be healthier for her to remember that sort of thing on her own.
She’d pouted for a good fifteen minutes over his lack of cooperation but had eventually got over it, immersing herself in picking a new favorite song.
Jonah turned off the truck’s ignition, closing his eyes to invite the image of her clad in buttery soft red leather. Did she have any idea how hot she’d looked that first night? If she was married, what kind of husband would let her out of his sight for even a second dressed in such a racy number?
Hell, for such a careless move, he deserved to have her snatched up by another man.
Whoa.
Jonah’s old friend guilt slugged him in the gut. Nobody was talking about snatching anyone. He and Angel were friends, period. He owed her at least that much. And as for what she looked like in red leather, one of Geneva’s old sundresses, or even a halter and faded jeans— it didn’t matter. Not because he didn’t care, but because he couldn’t.
“We home?” Her voice sounded scratchy from sleep. He expected her to rise up and scoot to her end of the bench seat. Instead, she pressed her hand to his chest, snuggling deeper into his loose hold.
“Yeah…” He did his damnedest to ignore th
e tightening in his groin. Hoping to ease the pressure, he shifted positions, but that only worsened his condition by releasing the floral scent of her shampoo, which had never come close to smelling this good on Geneva. “We ought to get inside. I’ll bet Esther’s running out of steam.”
“Sure. But before we go, I have something to say.”
Hand already on the door handle, he said, “Shoot.”
Using his chest for leverage, evidently not noticing—or not caring—about his thundering heart, she pushed herself to his eye level. Never had he wished more for the obnoxious white glare of the night watcher. But then, what did he need light for when his senses told him everything and more that he needed to know? Her lightest touch burned through his cotton shirt.
Her breath smelled minty sweet, like the peppermints the waitress at the seafood place had left on the tray with their bill. Jonah, never a big fan of peppermint, had planned on leaving them, but Angel had scooped them up, telling him they’d be good later. On her, he had to agree.
Even in the dark, he felt her stare. Felt her moving closer, closer. He told himself to move, get out of the truck. But that invisible stare grew into a superhuman seat belt, rendering him powerless to move.
“Thank you.” Her mouth was close enough to his that her minty breath caressed his lips. “It’s been a really nice day.”
“Y-yes, it has.” What was happening? How come, where he once felt strong in his resolve to steer clear of this woman, he now felt marshmallow weak?
She froze, close enough for butterfly wisps of her hair to tickle his cheeks.
Go away, his conscience screamed. She was the temptation in his own private Eden. His erection now painful, he wasn’t sure how much more he could bear. What if she kissed him? Did he return the favor, or hold strong to his convictions that being with her wouldn’t be right?
Lucky for him—or, unlucky as the case may be—she resolved the whole issue by sliding to her side of the seat and opening her door, leaving him cold, starving for her slightest touch, irrationally mad, and a whole lot thankful for the dark, so she couldn’t see either his flushed face or raging boner.
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