by J. A. Coffey
"But I stayed there." He met her eyes. "The chief said an arsonist got out of prison last week. Anyone you know have a criminal past?"
She shook her head.
He raked his fingers through his hair in anguish and flinched when he touched his staples. "Ow. Anyway, they're going after this one suspect. They just don't know why it was your house." He tapped his skull and checked his fingers, presumably for blood.
Jess sobered and stroked Towie's fur. His ribs had been shaved in a large square surrounding the incision, which had been cleaned and stapled in a nice, even row. "Doctor says he can go home." Her lips pursed and quivered. "I don't have one, though, do I?" Tears dripped on Towie's fur, and one splattered on his newly-bare skin. She wiped it off, and her dog heaved a drug-induced sigh.
"You can stay with me. At Ollie's." He got down on his knees before her and took her hands in his in earnest. "I have a security system and a six foot tall wrought-iron spiked fence. Ollie has at least ten bedrooms up there. You'll have your pick."
She didn't know whether to feel relieved that he didn't push for a shared bedroom or jaded that he gave her a choice. Evasion seemed the best option. She fingered her t-shirt. "I only have the clothes on my back."
"Come on." He drew up upright. "Let's load up the pets and go home. I'll draw you a warm bath, wash your clothes. You can wear one of my shirts to bed. Tomorrow we'll see what we can salvage and what we need to buy."
Darius walked up to the counter and pulled out his wallet. It took her a moment before she realized he had slapped a charge card down on the counter.
"No, Darius, they're billing my store. I can cover this."
As the lobby was empty, there was no reason for Darius to ignore her, but he took up a pen and signed away, then slid his wallet back into his pocket. Seriousness edged his features when he stood before her. "I'll not have you paying for this, Jess. I feel like this was because of me, so I'm taking the blame. And the bill."
Four thousand dollars' worth of blame seemed a lot to absorb when it could have been a random neighborhood attack, but when she opened up her mouth to argue, Darius stood before her, arms crossed, brow cocked, daring her refute.
She was too damned tired to argue.
Jess picked up two of her cats in their new cardboard carriers while Darius draped a groggy Towie over his shoulder. When he bent to pick up the last carrier, Jess said, "I don't even know if I can access my bank accounts without ID."
"I grabbed your purse before I came here, once the guys let me in for my keys. But don't think for an instant I'm letting you pay for a damn thing. You're a guest in my house, and I'm going to take care of your every need."
Damned if she didn't fall asleep in the tub. Darius lounged in the doorway, listening to the sound of bubbles popping in the humid bathroom air as he watched Jess breathing evenly. Her strawberry hair had been washed and twisted up turban-style, and her knees poked out of the water. All else remained hidden by a thick layer of foam.
He stood there a few minutes, merely watching her breathe, and felt more relaxed and at home than he had been in his entire life. Ollie was dead, the house teemed with spiders and cobwebs, Jess' house had burned down, their problems with the inheritance seemed insurmountable, and all he could think about was how happy he felt having her here.
After a few more minutes of watching her, he ran the water and drained the tub. She stirred at the noise, but even knowing he'd been the only man to see her naked, he could tell she had no energy left to act affronted or shy at being naked before him.
He offered her a giant towel and pulled her upright to rinse the soapy water from her skin. He patted her dry, tugged an old t-shirt of his over her head, and carried her off to the room beside his.
He had already put the cats and dog in here, but saw no sign of the cats. Undertow- Towie, he corrected himself- lifted his head before flopping back down on the folded-up towels Darius gave him for a makeshift bed.
The hospital had donated a few cans of food and some cardboard skids for litter boxes, along with five pounds of litter. Enough to get them through a few days.
Darius lowered Jess to the mattress and pulled back the sheets. As he tucked her in, she groped for his hand. "Don't go."
Exhaustion lured him into bed with her. He raised the sheets and spooned her, too tired to even want to take full advantage of the opportunity.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Twice now in one week Jess woke up in a strange place. She felt a cat curled along her stomach and saw Victoria look up at her with loving eyes to blink slowly. The doctors warned her that her pets may develop asthma from smoke inhalation, but right now Victoria's purr rumbled along without a hitch.
Queenie remained curled on a chair, glaring. She never did like change. As Jess sat up, Queenie hopped over, loudly demanding to be fed. Dovey poked her head out from under the dresser, then decided to go back under cover. Towie eased his sore bones from the towel bed and whined for Dovey to come out.
Just then the door inched opened, and Darius entered with a long white cotton robe. "Oh, thought you'd still be sleeping. Do you like coffee? I just made a pot."
"Yes. Yes, I do." She started to lift the sheets around her, but stopped, feeling non-threatened by his appearance.
He stepped in and placed the robe on her bed before crouching near the door. "Towie's the dog," he said, as her Corgi walked up to sniff him, wagging his non-existent tail.
"Undertow, yes." He laughed, and she smiled that he liked her choice of names. She added, "Winston of Phoenix's Undertow, if you wanted to know his registered name."
He stroked Towie's head and pointed to the two eyeballs peering out from under the dresser. "Dovey is the cat you made me run through fire for."
She nodded as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She felt like she'd had three too many tequilas. "Dovetail. And she's my first, my oldest cat."
He raised a brow. "Dovetail? As in, antique joinery?"
She gnawed her lip and pointed to the calico on the bed. "Victoria is eight. Queen Ann, the black one, is about to yodel for breakfast. She's five. Towie's the baby at three."
He studied her with dawning comprehension. "Even in pet names, I sense a theme, a passion for antiques."
Classic deflection technique: "Not the dog."
"No. Not the dog." He still studied her as he scrubbed the fur on Towie's rump. "Did I really have that much impact on your life? Was all this," he waved at the cats, presumably their names, "from meeting me that one time?"
She barely nodded.
He got up and sat on her bed, moving the robe closer to her. "I'm going to grab us some breakfast from the local coffee shop. I'm taking orders, then we can get groceries today." He considered her. "Or, maybe I'll grocery shop, since you intimidated me last time."
She smiled, too tired to go shopping.
"Then, we'll see about going to your place and grabbing what we can, or getting you some new clothes. Okay?"
"Okay." She placed her meal request, and by the time she cleaned up for breakfast and gave the pets their food and saw to Towie's needs, including potty, pain meds, and antibiotics, Darius had returned with their breakfast.
They ate in the kitchen, a cavernous room with silver everything, just as she envisioned. But the table was small and cozy and wood, with plain wooden chairs and white dishes. Darius found some frozen orange juice and set about opening cupboards to find a pitcher.
"So," he asked as he stirred the juice, "I take it you don't wake up in strange houses very often?"
She glowered at him. "Figured that out all by yourself?"
He grinned and poured her a glass.
"Just with you, I guess," she conceded.
He sat across from her, their knees touching. "How is it you managed to escape all those horny teenage boys in high school, let alone all those know-it-all men in college?"
She dunked her spoon in her coffee and stirred. And stirred. "Didn't date much, I guess."
"You were
a knock-out."
She looked up, and saw he meant every word. Still, she had to tease. "Were?"
He grinned, and she could tell he knew he had baited her. "Really, I know I wasn't the only one who was interested in you the night of Ollie's ball."
This was news to her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean..." he seemed a little embarrassed as he pulled a piece of bacon from his sandwich to nibble, "that I challenged Gabe Milliner that night. We tussled behind the garage. I won, but he popped the button on my blazer. Dad had a fit over it."
The look of Darius that night of the ball had been emblazoned in eternal memory. His white shirt had been fully displayed, instead of being covered by the vest, and she vividly recalled that one streak of dirt. "You challenged a guy just to meet me?"
"Not just to meet you, but to monopolize you for the evening, or have the right of first refusal."
She screwed up her face in confusion. "What's that?"
"The right to get rejected by you. The chance at taking the first shot."
"Really?"
"And I'd do it again." He sipped his coffee, clearly unrepentant. "He was good-looking and suave. Just the thought of him kissing you made me want to pound him."
She felt her brows dance at that. "Shocking."
He set down his coffee and watched her, looking bemused. "Why would you say that?"
She picked up hers to sip, avoiding his gaze. "Because I thought you were good-looking and suave." She blew on her coffee and sipped.
Darius studied her. "Were?"
She grinned into her cup, refusing to look up.
"So, back to you not dating."
Only Jeremy knew the truth, and even then, only partially. Jess took a bite of her bacon and egg sandwich, chewing slowly as she tried to formulate her words. "A whole lot of bad experiences during the formative years, I guess."
Darius swallowed his mouthful. "I want specifics. You've held out twenty-six years. You've a good reason, I know it. And," he grinned, "as flattered as I am, I know it can't all be about me."
"Initially it was." She pulled off tiny pieces of her bun to eat and talk simultaneously. "I mean, actually, it started with Jeremy. I had this wild crush on him for years, only to find out he was gay. I was devastated as only a teenage girl can be."
"Nah," he shook his head. "You would have moved on. I've met too many boy-crazy girls. Look at your Faith, there. I bet you were just like her at that age."
"I was." She grinned, finished her sandwich, then fished out a doughnut from the bag. "The four of us were called JASP in high school. The Fab Four. Jessalyn, Allison, Stephanie, Patrice. Allison and I were the closest, but we all hung out together, did everything together."
Clouds seemed to move in over the table, darkening the room despite the reflective silver appliances and gleaming cupboards surrounding them. Jess picked apart her doughnut, separating it so the cream filling lay exposed to the morning air. "Allison had been dating this guy we all liked. She was so happy with him. Jacob Tetterman. Super nice. They slept together for the first time on their six-month anniversary. She got pregnant." She met his eyes briefly, then looked down again to dab at the cream filling.
"Her parents were super religious. They sent her away to live with her aunt during the pregnancy. As luck would have it, she gave birth to a little girl on her own birthday. Her parents forced her to give her up for adoption. When Allison came home, we just held each other and cried and cried. Jacob got sent off to juvey hall for sex with a minor. He was only thirteen months older than her, but her parents had some clout."
She felt the anger rising. "Allison was never the same after that. She was just a shell. All life and joy had left her. She never wanted to do anything with us anymore. Dropped out of drama class. Stopped playing piano." She swallowed. "The day before her birthday she invited me over, pretty happy for a change. She gave me a bunch of stuff, things I always liked, like her purse, some albums, a bunch of clothes, even though the next day was her birthday. And the baby's."
She met Darius' eyes as the tears gathered. "For her seventeenth birthday, she gave herself the gift of suicide."
Darius gasped and touched her hand. "I'm so sorry."
She nodded but looked down, dabbing away at her cream filling. "At the funeral, her parents kept harping on the evils of premarital sex. How Jacob ruined her and caused her death, how it was all Allie's and Jacob's choices that brought them to ruination and damnation." She shook her head, her mouth moving with rue. "I'm not sure, but in my grief, some of that belief might have stuck."
She sensed more than felt his shoulders drop at her words.
"I didn't even look at a boy for a good year after that."
She heard him heave a breath, watched his chest rise and fall. She looked down and continued her trials of youth. "Stephanie we always suspected of being molested by someone in her family. She took boy-crazy to a whole new level. And she talked about guys in a very callous, almost disassociated manner. By seventeen I swear her phone number had been inked on every boy's bathroom wall. She dropped out the first year of college, started turning tricks and doing drugs. I've heard she gets picked up a lot for prostitution. Sometimes she calls me, looking for bail money."
"Wow."
Jess licked her lips, already ticking off number three on her fingers. "Patrice. Man, that was one athletic girl. Cheerleading coach, played soccer for a few years. Got forced by a guy on the football team, one night after the playoffs. She never said anything, but we all suspected. Another girl, luckily, came forward, and the bastard served a few years in jail. But Patrice transferred to an all-girls college right afterwards." Jess licked her lips, and her voice dropped. "She works for a rape-crisis center now."
He heaved a breath, seeming to understand her choices. "No wonder you relegated men to the back burner."
She twirled her doughnut on the plate, smearing the frosting as she went. "You want to know the sad thing? Out of all of us, I always felt like they pitied me the most."
"Why is that? Because of Jeremy?"
She met his eyes and measured her words. "Because Cinderella danced with her Prince Charming, only to have a dragon come and lock him away." When his mouth dropped open in shock, she continued, "It went against every single fairy tale."
His mouth twisted a bit, and she thought she knew then what had driven him to her shop the day of their zoo date. She challenged him. "What brought you to my store on Tuesday?"
He looked down.
"I told you something that not even Jere-"
"My father."
She sat back, ready for his story. She could tell he needed time to formulate his words, so she nibbled her food while she waited.
"He's an alcoholic. And a bastard, as you've unfortunately learned first-hand."
She merely inclined her head for him to continue.
Now it was his turn in the hot seat. He shifted, uncomfortable, but Jess knew he would reveal the truth to her. "He called me up at the hospital, right as I was being discharged, doing what he does best."
"Which is?" She popped a piece of doughnut in her mouth.
"Chew me out. Swearing. Rue the day I was born." He met her eyes, and his voice dropped with the pain she could tell he still felt. "Tell me how much I've ruined his life."
Now she reached for his hand. "Oh, Darius, that's awful."
He nodded and studied her hand on his. "He was pissed about the inheritance." He covered her hand with his other one, caressing her skin lightly with his fingertips.
She leaned back. "Now he has even more reasons to hate me, right? He was originally the one who didn't want you to even be seen with me. And he's the one contesting the antiques coming to me, right? You just happened to be the one to show up at my store."
"No, it was me contesting them," he admitted with a soft voice, and she felt they might be nearing the end of their squabble. He looked down, stirring his coffee. "It's more than that. I received...things that my father wanted."
&n
bsp; "Oh. Well, if they're just things, can't you just give them to him? Or buy him similar ones?"
He almost smiled. "It's not that simple."
She sniffed out a laugh. "It's always simple. What does he want that you got? Cars? I'm sure you can spare one. This table? Get him one just like it at a thrift store and play it off as original. Another antique? Let him buy it off you. How hard can it be?"
He studied her, watching with an amused expression she couldn't place. Finally he smiled. "You think it's always easy?"
"I said simple, not easy." She smiled at him.
He drew tantalizing circles on the back of her hand, making her acutely aware of his touch. "Our situation is not simple and may drag on and on," he whispered.
She settled, her unspoken concern adroitly answered right there. "Touché."
"He wants the inheritance."
He bit it out, and she could tell he tested her with the truth he had held close to the vest. "The house?" She looked around and heaved a sigh. "It would be sad not visiting here ever again, but," she managed a shrug, "as long as I could visit you, I'd be okay with it."
He softened, and his smile warmed her.
But she felt that was not all of it and plowed ahead. "Or did you mean the antiques?" She forced out her breath and tipped her head with feigned exhaustion. "He's going to have to take a number, wait in line."
He watched her, and she could tell he weighed out his words. "He wants the money. All of it."
Oh. She stared at him, now fully understanding what he hadn't wanted to say. "Ollie was rich."
"Incredibly."
"Oh." She spun her doughnut around the plate. "I guess he's not going to settle with a check, huh."
"He wants it all, so he can gamble that away as well." His pain at his father's weakness reflected in the gaze he tried to keep carefully averted from her.
"Oh no."
"Oh, yes." Darius tore off a piece of his doughnut to chew, still not looking at her. "I guess the mere five hundred thousand wasn't enough to cover his debts. He wants all of it."
She figured, based on his father's greed, that Darius probably inherited at least two million. She made good money; her store grossed almost half that each year. She knew how lucky she was to have reliable and trustworthy staff. The thought of having anything less than that in her life gave her a new appreciation for Darius' struggle. Still, her imp side appeared. "So, what I'm hearing is that you're getting all the money from Ollie. If that's the case..." she leaned back and smiled to taunt him, "you can certainly afford to buy the whole collection off me." It would defeat her purpose of bringing them out to the public, but at least this way she could still support the zoo.