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One Good Reason

Page 17

by Sarah Mayberry


  She ended the call and slid her phone into her pocket, clearly annoyed. “They promised me they’d have it done this afternoon. I should bill them for the taxi home,” she said. “Why don’t people ever do what they say they’ll do?”

  “I’ll give you a lift,” he offered before his brain had a chance to engage.

  There was a long pause before she spoke. “That would be great, thanks.”

  “Let me know when you want to leave.”

  “Actually, I was going to have an early night tonight. So I’m ready when you are.”

  “I’ll grab my gear.” He walked to his workbench to collect his jacket, wallet and keys.

  Given the kind of thoughts he’d been brooding over all day, he had no right to feel pissed that she’d had to think twice about accepting his offer. He should be glad she hadn’t been jumping up and down, leaping at the opportunity to spend more time with him.

  Except he wasn’t.

  He turned from pocketing his keys to find her standing outside her office, her purse in hand.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  The afternoon sun was beating down on the parking lot and the truck was warm when he opened it.

  “Give it a second to air out,” he said when Gabby started to climb in.

  She dutifully waited. He watched her through the cab. He studied the elegant slimness of her neck before letting his gaze drop to her breasts.

  In deference to the hot weather, she was wearing a green tank top with spaghetti straps, with a pink and green silk scarf around her neck. Unless he was wildly mistaken, she wasn’t wearing a bra. If anyone had ever told him that he could get hard in an instant over breasts that barely filled his palm, he would have laughed. He’d always been a breast man, and he’d always been attracted to women with generous cleavages. Yet Gabby’s handfuls were fast becoming an obsession for him. The delicate color of her nipples—the palest of peachy-pinks. The way they sat so high and firm on her chest, almost as though they were offering themselves up to him. The silkiness of her skin, so pale he was sure it had never felt the kiss of the sun.

  He lifted his gaze and realized that he’d been well and truly busted. Last night when he’d admired her breasts, she’d been aroused. Today, she glanced at her feet, fiddling with the strap on her handbag. He remembered that pause before she’d accepted his offer of a lift.

  “We’re probably fine now.” He climbed in and waited until she was settled, her seat belt on, before reversing. For the first few minutes the only sound was the hum of the engine and the sound of the air-conditioning blowing. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her hand moving restlessly on her thigh.

  She was nervous. Maybe even worried about something. He hated the thought that the something might be him—and not only because he wanted to sleep with her again. He reached out and caught her hand in his. Her hand tensed, her fingers flexing. He glanced at her but didn’t let go. Her wary golden eyes met his, and when she realized he wasn’t going anywhere, her hand slowly relaxed in his.

  By the time they stopped in front of her place, he’d only released her hand twice—once to make a turn, the other to change lanes—and both times her hand had tightened around his when he took it up again.

  “Would you like to come up?”

  He did. A lot. But he needed to know something first. “You hesitated before, when I offered you a lift home. But now you want me to come up?”

  “I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea.”

  “Right.”

  She twisted to face him more fully, her eyes scanning his face. “What do you think?”

  He almost smiled. Almost. Typical of Gabby to lob the hand grenade back his way.

  “I don’t know if it’s a good idea, either.”

  Her lips twisted into a wry smile. “Anyone ever told you you’re the master of the nonanswer?”

  “Anyone ever told you you’re great at answering a question with a question?”

  Her eyes crinkled attractively. He wondered how he’d ever managed to overlook her innate beauty.

  “We could go on all night like this,” he said.

  “We could.” She eyed him seriously for a second, her gaze searching. Then she leaned over the hand brake and kissed him. Her tongue traced the seam of his lips before he let her inside, then she slipped in deeper to tease him some more. He cradled her jaw in his palm and let his thumb sweep across her cheek. When she pulled back, she was flushed and her nipples were tight beneath the fabric of her top.

  “Come upstairs,” she said.

  He switched off the engine. She took his hand when he joined her on the sidewalk. The foyer to her building had a security keypad, he was happy to see, and he waited as she punched in her code.

  They took the elevator to the third floor. She searched for her keys in her bag. He stepped close and bent to kiss the vulnerable hollow at the nape of her neck. She shivered and offered him a small smile before unlocking the door. She led him into her apartment and waved an arm to her right.

  “Living room.”

  There were two couches placed either side of a fireplace, a two-seater in cream and a three-seater in charcoal. Bright cushions were scattered over both, a mixture of florals and stripes and polka dots. A deep green throw was folded over the arm of the charcoal couch, and a floor lamp that looked as though it had been made from a surveyor’s tripod filled one corner. Sunlight streamed through wide-slatted white blinds, crisscrossing a bookshelf full of paperbacks and knickknacks with golden light.

  Gabby pushed open a door on the right wall.

  “Dining room in here. It’s pretty pokey.”

  He glanced in to see a table with four mismatched antique chairs and a wall covered with an eclectic mix of photo frames. She retraced her steps before he had a chance to inspect her photos and waved toward another door.

  “Kitchen. Bedroom is at the end of the hall, and the bathroom.”

  She was nervous again, her hands fidgeting at her waist. “Do you want a drink? Juice? Water?”

  “Juice would be good.”

  “Do you want to stay for dinner? There’s a decent Chinese place around the corner. We’ll have to go pick it up, but it’s walking distance…”

  “Sounds good.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen to take care of the drinks. He used the opportunity to inspect her bookcase. Crime novels, a whole collection of vintage Nancy Drew hardcovers and a number of glossy coffee table books on interior design. As well as those, each shelf boasted a handful of trinkets—a glass paperweight with swirls of color trapped within it, two small but perfect teacups carved from what he assumed was jade, an old pipe made from burnished wood. It was the contents of the second top shelf that intrigued him the most, however—a collection of tin windup toys. A robot, a monkey, an elephant, a whale…

  He picked up the monkey and wound the spring and watched as it marched across the shelf.

  “Here you go.” Gabby’s gaze went to the marching monkey as she handed his drink over. “I used to collect them when I was a kid. I keep telling myself to throw them out but I guess I’m too sentimental…”

  He didn’t have a single memento from his childhood—unless he counted the small bump on his nose from when his father had broken it. Robert had been careful to rarely punish his sons to the point where they needed medical attention, but that one time he’d lost it completely and backhanded Jon across the face with all his strength.

  The monkey had hit the end of the shelf and Jon turned it around to let it walk the other way.

  “I like them. Especially this monkey,” he said.

  She passed him a folded menu but he handed it straight back to her.

  “You choose. I’ll eat anything.”

  “That’s pretty much a challenge for me to order something really weird, like chicken feet with congee, you know that, right?”

  “I dare you.”

  He wandered to the dining room while Gabby pondered the menu. He’d never paid much att
ention to the way people lived before but for some reason her apartment fascinated him. It was warm and eclectic and interesting and welcoming, full of little clues to her personality, like those whimsical windup toys.

  “When I bought this place I had big plans to knock that wall down, open this up,” she said, noting his interest in the smaller space.

  “What happened?” He surveyed the offending wall with a professional eye.

  “Oh, you know. Big plans, not enough money, not enough time.” She punched in a number and began to relay their order.

  He inspected the dividing wall from both sides, considered the ceiling and the layout, tapped on the plaster. “This isn’t load-bearing, so it wouldn’t cost you a lot to knock it down,” he said when she’d finished her call. “If you ran a lintel across here, you wouldn’t even have to get the ceiling replastered, which is good because period cornicing is hard to match.”

  She came to stand beside him, tilting her head to look at the ceiling then at him.

  “What are the odds, do you think, of it ever really happening?”

  There was so much wry self-knowledge in her comment and her expression. When he’d first met her, he’d thought she was uptight, that she didn’t have a sense of humor or know how to have fun. The truth was that she was funny and smart and she was more than up for a good time. As he knew only too well.

  He stepped closer, sliding his arms around her. Her eyes widened as he smoothed his hands onto her backside, cupping her cheeks and squeezing them lightly. He encouraged her closer, until his hips were pressing against hers. He watched her gaze grow smoky as she registered his erection.

  He kissed her, massaging her bottom, taking his time.

  “What about dinner?” she said as he started peeling her top over her head. “They said it would be ready in ten minutes…”

  He surveyed her breasts hungrily. “There’s this thing called a microwave.” He filled his hands with her breasts. His thumbs brushed over her nipples and he watched as they hardened. “You put the food in and push some buttons, and like magic the food gets—”

  She cut him off with a kiss. “You had me at microwave.” Then she took him by the hand and led him into her bedroom.

  THE SMELL OF LEMON DETERGENT was sharp. He was at the kitchen sink, washing the dishes with Tyler. He could hear the television in the other room but nothing else. A good sign—his parents weren’t fighting, which meant he and Tyler had a chance tonight.

  He was too small to reach the sink and had to stand on an old soft-drink crate to wash properly. Tyler was on drying duty, carefully returning each piece of crockery or cutlery to its rightful place. Jon wasn’t sure how the game started, whether he splashed Tyler first or the other way round. They stifled their laughter, not wanting to draw attention to themselves, splashing soap suds and water back and forth. Then Tyler upped the ante by twisting his wet tea towel and flicking it at Jon’s legs. Jon waited until Tyler was busy drying a cup before grabbing the other tea towel and returning fire.

  Tyler tried to dodge. His foot skidded on the soap-slicked floor. He flung out an arm to save himself and the cup in his hand hit the floor with a crack.

  It shattered instantly and he and Tyler skidded to a halt, staring at what Jon now recognized as one of his mother’s treasured Royal Doulton cups.

  Footsteps sounded in the living room. His tummy dipped with fear. He knew what was coming now.

  “Oh! What have you done?”

  It was his mother, hands pressed to her chest as she stared, aghast, at her precious teacup. Behind her, their father filled the doorway, his face already darkening with rage.

  “What’s going on? What have you been up to?”

  His gaze went from the china to their mother’s face to Tyler, still standing frozen above the mess.

  Jon opened his mouth to explain that it had been an accident, that it was his fault as well and that they hadn’t meant it, but their father was already reaching for his belt, pulling the thick leather clear of his trouser loops. Jon kept trying to get the words out—if only he could explain, make them see that he and Tyler hadn’t meant to be naughty, they’d only been playing—yet no sound came out.

  Time slowed as his father wrapped the thick leather around his fist. Once, twice, three times, leaving the buckle end free. Then he stepped toward Tyler, grabbing him by the hair. Tyler’s face twisted with terror, his mouth opening wide, tears sliding down his cheeks. His eyes begged Jon to do something, anything, to stop the pain.

  Again Jon tried to speak, to make his heavy, leaden feet move but he was stuck to the floor, his tongue thick in his mouth, his throat tight.

  “Please. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it,” Tyler pleaded as their father bent him over and raised his arm for the first blow.

  Again those pleading eyes burned into Jon’s, begging for help. For a way out. For safety.

  Suddenly it was Gabby’s face he was staring into and she was the one pleading with him with her big golden eyes and it was her terror he was standing by and witnessing and not doing a goddamned thing about as the leather whistled through the air—

  “Jon. It’s a dream. You need to wake up.”

  Jon clawed his way to consciousness. It was dark and he was in an unfamiliar bed, Gabby leaning over him. His heart was racing, pounding against his breastbone, and his body was damp with sweat.

  “You’re okay,” Gabby soothed, her hand gentling his shoulder. “It was just a dream.”

  Shit.

  Shame prickled through his body. Two nights in a row. Gabby must think he was a complete freaking head case.

  “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

  She flicked the bedside lamp on and he blinked in the light. Her eyes were twin pools of concern as she watched him, her face tight with worry.

  “I’m fine.” He rolled out of the bed and looked around, disoriented.

  “That door,” she said quietly.

  He shut himself in her black-and-white-tiled bathroom. His face in the mirror was haggard, the echo of old terror still sitting in the back of his eyes. He ran the tap and scooped water to his mouth, drinking deeply. He washed his face, then sat on the edge of the tub and braced his elbows on his legs and stared at the floor.

  He couldn’t take much more of this. Something had to give.

  An image from his dream flashed across his mind’s eye—Gabby, pleading with him to save her.

  “Bloody hell.” He shut his eyes but it didn’t stop the tears from leaking from beneath his eyelids.

  He wanted it to stop. He wasn’t a saint, but he wasn’t an evil man, either. He’d never gone out of his way to hurt anyone, physically or emotionally. He gave to charities, wasn’t afraid to work hard, always did his part to chip in. He’d survived his childhood, made his own life, buried his father. And still it was with him. The guilt. The shame. The fear. And he just wanted it to stop.

  His breathing was choppy with suppressed emotion and he forced himself to breathe past the constriction in his throat until he felt his heart rate normalizing. Big belly breaths, sitting naked in Gabby’s bathroom while she worried about him on the other side of the door.

  After a few minutes he stood and opened the door. The last thing he wanted to do was face Gabby, but he knew he had to. He walked out. She was sitting in the middle of the bed, knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs.

  “You okay?” She unfolded her legs and moved toward him. She was going to hug him, he knew. To offer him comfort.

  He turned away and made a grab for his jeans. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gabby pause, undecided. He dragged his jeans on, then pulled his T-shirt over his head and grabbed his boots.

  “I’m going to go,” he said, not quite looking at her.

  “All right.”

  She pulled on a blue silk dressing gown and they walked to the door in silence.

  He paused on the threshold, trying to find something to say that would make any of this okay. He couldn’
t think of a single freaking thing.

  “Thanks for dinner,” he said.

  He leaned close and kissed her cheek, then ducked out the door. He stuffed his socks into his pocket and pulled his boots on in the elevator.

  Once he was in the safety of his truck he leaned against the seat and let his head fall back.

  Over the years, he’d called his father every name under the sun. He’d lain awake at night thinking of the things he wished he’d said and done to force his father to recognize his crimes against his own children. Jon had cursed the man, demonized him, tried to forget him—and even though he was dead and rotting in the ground, he’d never hated his father more than he did at this moment.

  He had something good here. He could feel it. The business with Tyler. Gabby. But he couldn’t get beyond this bullshit to let it happen because the past still owned him.

  And for the life of him he didn’t know how to break free.

  Bone weary, he started his truck and drove to his empty box. He would make it up to Gabby tomorrow. If she’d let him.

  GABBY STOOD AT THE WINDOW, watching Jon drive away. Everything in her had wanted to go down there and throw her arms around him and tell him it was going to be all right. But Jon didn’t want her comfort. He’d made that more than clear. He held himself as tightly as a fist and while he might let her in for sex, he wasn’t about to share the other parts of himself with her.

  Remind you of anyone?

  She’d already played this game with one Adamson. She didn’t think she had it in her to try again.

  And yet she remained at the window until Jon’s taillights disappeared into the night. Eyes gritty, she let the curtain fall. She made herself a cup of tea, working on autopilot.

  She understood now why Tyler had been so keen to have his brother on board that he’d agreed to Jon’s no salary stipulation. Jon was in crisis. The drinking, the not drinking, the weight loss, the nightmares… He put up a good front, standing around joking with the guys, arguing with her, sleeping with her, but he was in so much pain it was a wonder he could function.

 

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