Chapter Fourteen
After Cole and Jami left, Frank propped his feet on the hassock, crossed his legs at the ankles, and patted his lap for Ruby. She jumped up, circled, then curled into a ball in the lee of his thighs.
“That went well. He was looking at her like she was a Ruby Special with extra bacon, don’t you think?”
Ruby sneezed delicately. He took it for agreement.
“Not that I’m not worried about Andrea. She’s a sweetie, and I didn’t like her Daddy.”
Ruby raised her head, stared at him, blinked, then set her chin against her paws once more.
“I’ll talk to Pete, and we’ll get it all cleared up about her brother. Then we can put that to bed. I swear, though”—he shook his finger at Ruby—“if I find out there’s anything hinky going on, I’ll call the cops.” Ruby yawned and smacked her jaws. “Until then, we’ll concentrate on getting Jami and Cole together.” He stroked a doggie ear, reminiscing. “They looked good walking out the door, didn’t they? She’ll be good for him.”
Ruby hadn’t known Stephie. She hadn’t known Cole before either. She didn’t know how hard Cole could laugh, till tears streamed from his eyes. Ruby only knew him the way he was now. Maybe Jami could help Cole find himself again. Maybe not. But she was the first woman Cole had noticed in years. It was worth a shot. Frank owed him that.
“And we love the big lug, too, don’t we Ruby, honey?”
This time Ruby puffed out a little doggie snort.
“He’s right about your toenails, though. They’re chipped. I’ll make an appointment with the groomer and get you fixed up.”
Ruby closed her eyes and slept.
* * * * *
Outside Frank’s house, after they’d both climbed into his truck, Jami put her hand on top of Cole’s as he went for the ignition. His brain misfired, and his heart started thumping like a kettle drum.
“You do think Frank’s overreacting, don’t you?” she asked.
With her so close and sweet smelling, he could barely remember how to pronounce the one-syllable word, but he managed. “Yes.”
She dropped her hand and sat back, leaning her shoulder against the seat and tucking a leg beneath her just as she had in Frank’s living room. He wondered what he could have said to keep her touching him. Ridiculous. He didn’t want her touching him. She was dangerous.
How could she always smell like vanilla shampoo? He didn’t think she’d washed her hair when she got home. It was as if her scent had seeped into his mind, and now he’d never get it out.
He’d never get her out.
“So you don’t think Andrea’s being abused or mistreated or...” She fluttered the fingers of one hand.
“No.” He looked out the windshield. It was easier than staring at her until his heart hurt. “She’s depressed. She doesn’t have a lot of friends.” He glanced at her, then retreated quickly. “Teenagers. Isn’t it normal to be out of sorts?”
“My oldest niece is twelve, and my friends at work said that having teenagers will age you fifty years. That’s the extent of my knowledge.”
“You were a teenager once.” Not that he could remember how he’d felt as a teenager. It was more than a lifetime ago.
She laughed. And he heard music in her voice. Beautiful music he hadn’t heard in so damn long.
“I was an extremely mature teenager,” she said primly, “always perfectly behaved, never a moment’s trouble to my mother, and I got straight A’s.”
He played with the steering wheel, running his hand over it. “There’s something about the words always and never that make me think nothing is always and never.” Except that he was always thinking about her lingering scent while knowing he should never touch her. One touch would be his downfall.
Starlight twinkled down through the oak branches. A car turned onto the street, its headlights flashing in his eyes.
“I was always good,” she repeated, her tone light, a hint of laughter.
He wanted to find out how good. How good her lips tasted, her kiss. He cut his musings off before he started wondering about the other things she’d be good at. “How many nieces and nephews do you have?”
She didn’t balk at the abrupt change. “Five. All nieces. My mother is still waiting for a grandson.”
He realized he didn’t know a thing about her except the hearsay stuff Frank had told him. She’d never been married, she’d been an accountant, and was taking a break to find herself. And she found his CDs in a grab bag at a thrift store. He wanted to ask her why she’d really come looking for him. The honest-to-God reason, because what she’d told him was a little wacky.
“About Andrea”—because he shouldn’t want to know more about Jami—“she’s a private kid, and going on at her about what’s bothering her”—he glanced at her—“if something’s bothering her, will only make her close up.”
She leaned forward to touch his arm. God, he wished she wouldn’t do that. And he wished she’d do so much more.
“I’ve got it covered. Andrea and I are making a list.”
He tipped his head.
“You know, all the things you want to do before you die—” She stopped abruptly.
He could hear the thoughts tracking through her mind. Should she apologize because that word might have reminded him of Stephie? Frank had told her something; Cole just wasn’t sure how much, but he didn’t want to clarify or add to or talk about it.
“I’ve heard of making a list,” he said, trying to sound mild, though his heart was pounding. “Some self-help guru like Dr. Phil, right?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Well, maybe not Dr. Phil, I can’t remember who, but I told Andrea I had a list. It was a lie.” She shrugged in apology. “But whatever, I think it helped her a little. At least, I hope it did.”
“What did you tell her was on your list?”
“To walk the Great Wall of China.”
He turned in his seat. “The Great Wall? Why?”
“Because I helped build it in a past life.” She said it without even a trace of a smile.
“Which part did you work on?”
“Near Beijing. Only it wasn’t called Beijing back then.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No.”
The interior of the cab was dark against the night, and she sat in a deep shadow just beyond a shaft of lamplight. Only he could swear her eyes sparkled.
“What was it called?”
“You wouldn’t recognize the pronunciation.” She said a word he obviously didn’t recognize. “See? I told you it wouldn’t mean anything.”
“So you were a peasant guy working on the wall.”
“No, I was a woman in that life, too. A lot of peasant women worked on the Wall.”
“How many lives have you had?”
“Oh, a lot. I was on a wagon train in the 1850s. But I died. Starvation. It was awful. I still get dizzy sometimes.”
“How terrible for you.”
“No, no, the worst was my life before this one. I was a crippled boy, and my sister was very jealous of me, so she put me out on the end of a dock with my feet in the water, and a bunch of water moccasins bit me. I died.”
“And you told Andrea all this?”
“No. I only told her about wanting to walk the Great Wall.”
He didn’t have a single other question to ask. She was completely insane.
She leaned forward until the light fell across her cheeks. “You should see your face,” she said, laughter in every word. “You’re wondering whether I’m a crazy person, and you should call the white coats to come and haul me away in a straitjacket.”
“I don’t think they use straitjackets anymore.”
“It’s priceless. Really, it is.” Her smile was priceless.
He wanted to touch her so badly, his hand took on a life of its own. The softness of her skin amazed him as he stroked his fingers over her cheek. Her lips trembled against the pad of his thumb. He no longer cared about tomorrow; he
was simply a man that wanted now.
She tasted of the strawberry shake she’d sucked out of her straw. He took her lips lightly, then backed off to come at a different angle. Lingering kisses, a touch of his mouth to the corner of hers, unbearably light, exquisitely hot with promise.
He’d never a been a tongue-down-the-throat kinda guy, except deep in the heat of passion. Instead, he mixed it up, the tip of his tongue along the seam of her lips, a taste of her cheek, then back to her mouth. She moaned softly, almost nothing more than breath through her lips, but he wanted more. Yet he daren’t touch her anywhere else. If he did, he’d lose it.
She put her hand to the dashboard and held on. Almost as if she, too, knew that touching would cross a boundary.
He bent his head to her throat, licked, sucked, nipped. And back to her mouth, always her mouth.
Until the slam of a car door ripped him back to reality.
Her lipstick was gone, unless it was all over him. If it was, he wanted it there, a tangible reminder, even as he waited for the moment to get awkward.
“That was as good as I thought it would be,” she said.
Oh shit. He got the really bad feeling there wasn’t going to be an awkward moment.
* * * * *
A deer-in-the-headlights look had stolen over Cole’s features.
Jami knew without a doubt he hadn’t meant to kiss her like that, as if she were a treat he wanted to savor rather than gobble whole hog. Maybe he hadn’t meant to kiss her at all. But he had kissed her. She wasn’t going to let him take it back. “I’ve never been kissed quite like that. Not even in a past life.”
He chuckled. Though it might have been a choked-off sob.
“Feel free to do it again whenever the mood strikes.” So...like...when had she gotten so forward? Yeah, Jami Baylor, the woman who worked a job she hated reporting to a Dick Head she didn’t respect for over a year. Not to mention living with a man who wouldn’t marry her, and dumped her when she finally had the gumption to ask after seven years. This was definitely out of the frying pan and into the fire. And she liked it.
She was a new woman. Not Jami Baylor the no-drama doormat, but Jami who did Easy Cheesy’s books and lived in a dead man’s room in Isadora Winter’s house. Yeah, someone with pizzazz!
“You better take me home now.” She turned in her seat and buckled herself in. “Because if you don’t, I might just jump your bones right here.”
This time, he coughed, couldn’t seem to stop, and she was sure those were tears of terror brimming his eyelids. She was about to slap him on the back, when he got himself under control.
“I can safely say I’ve never met anyone like you.”
He said it with such awe, she couldn’t help laughing. “My mother wouldn’t recognize me, honest. This is not my usual style.” She couldn’t quite believe anything she’d said to him, right from the moment she’d started telling him she’d built the Wall in a past life. “It’s just that for years, I’ve always done what I’m supposed to do and said what I’m supposed to say and acted the way I’m supposed to act.” She turned to him. “It’s okay, you can start the truck and drive while I talk.” She had the feeling he’d rather kick her out of the cab. Instead, he cranked the engine and pulled away from the curb.
“Anyway,” she went on, “I just said what the f—I mean, why bother. It’s not as if doing what everyone else thinks you should works in your favor anyway.”
He didn’t say a word, just drove the quiet neighborhood streets back to Isadora’s house. She didn’t think he was even listening so she let it all hang out. Letting it hang in certainly hadn’t done a damn thing for her.
“So my fiancé got his girlfriend pregnant. And hello”—she knocked her forehead—“I didn’t even have a clue he was cheating.”
Now that he heard, hitting the brakes a little too hard at the stop sign. Jami braced herself on the dashboard and tromped her foot down on the floor.
“That should have been my child. I was born to be a mom. I’d be a great mom.” She needed to shut up now.
The truck simply idled at the stop sign.
“I know,” she said. “You’re wondering how to get this crazy woman out of your truck. And really, I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” Except the whole past life thing had actually amused her quite a lot and somehow set her free. She could say anything.
A normal person would reassure her and say he didn’t mind listening—Go on, honey, unload all you need—while inside, of course, he was screaming. But Cole wasn’t normal either, and he didn’t say a thing, just took off from the stop sign as if he hadn’t almost thrown her into the windshield when he’d stopped at it.
As her mom always said, in a for a penny, in for a pound. So she told Cole everything. “I also got fired from my six-figure job. I didn’t tell Frank.” She perused his profile. “Do you think I should?” she asked, waiting a second before adding, “Or should I just consider it a bygone?”
She didn’t expect him to answer. Not after the length of his deafening silence. Besides, there was that pesky should, darn it. No more shoulds.
“You can tell Frank anything,” he said, “and if he likes you, he won’t care.”
Wow. It was a good answer, too. “So you’re saying he likes me?”
“He let you take care of Ruby.” That said it all.
“I am capable of taking care of the books, too.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“So I don’t want you to worry about that.”
“I’m not.”
He turned onto Isadora’s street.
She put her arms up and pulled her hair off her neck. “You know what I like about working at Easy Cheesy?”
“I couldn’t even venture a guess.” Which sounded a tad sarcastic.
She told him anyway, because she needed to get it off her chest. “I like that I don’t know what day it is. It’s very liberating. I can’t remember a time where I haven’t known what day it was. Production meeting on Monday, staff meeting and planning review on Tuesday, customer service Wednesday. It just went on and on. You could never forget what day it was”—she gasped when he opened his mouth—“and don’t tell me either.”
“I was only going to ask if you knew why the cops would be sitting outside your house.”
Oh my God. A police car, its blue and red lights swirling in the night, sat curbside at Isadora’s house, a small crowd gathered beside it on the sidewalk.
What on earth had happened to Isadora?
Chapter Fifteen
Isadora’s bare feet appeared to be planted in the living room carpet. Her purple rubber-soled shoes, tipped sideways, sat by the front door. Hands to her mouth, her gaze seemed slightly glazed as if she were looking in rather than out.
“Ma’am,” the dark-haired officer said, “we can’t find any indication of a break-in.”
The second officer, a woman, placed a glass of water in Isadora’s hand. “Here you go, ma’am. Take a sip, and you’ll feel better.”
“Isadora, are you all right?” Jami didn’t wait to ask if she’d be destroying any evidence as she dashed to her favorite landlady’s side.
“Oh, Jami.” Isadora rushed forward, dropping the glass, which would have soaked the carpet if the policewoman hadn’t made a miraculous save.
“I went out for some tomato juice to thin out the lentil soup, and when I got back”—Isadora’s voice dropped to a whisper—“I heard someone up there.” She pointed upstairs as if the someone was still up there and might hear her. Or maybe she meant that God had talked to her from up there.
“Are you Mrs. Winter’s daughter?” the male officer asked.
“No, she’s my boarder, Jami Baylor.” Her voice short and crisp, Isadora seemed miffed the man talked over her as if she weren’t mentally all there.
“And him?”
For the first time Isadora saw Cole standing just outside the open front door. “I have no idea.”
Jami hadn’t noticed he�
��d followed her from the truck.
“Cole Amory,” he said for himself, without crossing the threshold.
“Her boyfriend?” The policeman pointed at Jami.
Cole took one second longer to answer than he needed to. “We work together at Easy Cheesy Burgers. I’m the cook, and she’s the bookkeeper.”
As if someone had plugged them into the same socket, both cops smiled at once.
“Oh man, I’d kill for a Ruby’s Special right now,” said the guy, then he spoke directly to Cole as if he was the only one worth talking to, most likely because he made the Ruby’s Specials. “So, we checked out the place, and there’s no one here. The back door was unlocked, so there’s no break-in. Nothing looks like it’s missing. So that’s the best we can do.”
“But I heard someone”—Isadora did the whisper-and-point again—“up there.”
Jami almost wondered aloud if it was Mr. Rogers—just because the thought amused her—but she didn’t want to make it sound like she as questioning the poor woman’s veracity. The sheer volume of Tom Jones paraphernalia was bad enough, not to mention the proliferation of purple in every hue imaginable, especially on Isadora’s person.
“Well, I’m home now so if we hear anything else, we’ll hear it together.” Jami eyed the two cops to show at least she believed Isadora. To date—okay, it wasn’t even a week—she’d witnessed nothing to make her doubt that Isadora had heard something. The little woman was actually quite down-to-earth.
So the police left, and the neighbors went back into their respective houses. And there was just the big guy out on Isadora’s front porch.
“Do you want me to check the house again, to be sure?” Cole asked as he stepped inside.
Gee, wasn’t it sweet humoring Isadora that way? He looked in the front coat closet, swishing garments to the side.
“Are you sure nothing’s missing, Isadora?”
She rolled her eyes at Jami. “Look at all the crap in here. Do you honestly think I would know for sure?”
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