by Susan Stoker
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Blade forced himself to turn and walk toward his Jeep. He looked back once and saw that Wendy was still standing in the open doorway of her car. He waved and she raised her hand in return, then finally sat down and shut her door.
Blade watched until she started up her car and pulled out of the parking lot. He wanted to follow her. Wanted to talk to her some more. But knew he couldn’t.
Instead, he forced himself to start his own vehicle and calmly pull onto the road toward his condo.
That had gone much better than he’d hoped. Most of it was because of Wendy. She was easygoing and she hadn’t hesitated to apologize…even though technically he’d been the one to screw up at the bar in the first place.
Blade made a mental note to keep an eye out for when she might be going along with what he wanted just because she didn’t like conflict. She needed to learn to speak up when she didn’t like something or when she didn’t agree with him. Grinning, he decided he’d make it his mission to help her overcome her aversion to disagreeing with people. He hadn’t looked forward to something in a long time as much as he looked forward to getting to know Wendy.
Chapter Five
The next afternoon, Wendy was flitting around her apartment, stressing. After returning home, she’d worried that she’d been stupid in inviting Aspen over so soon, but Jackson had reassured her that it would be fine.
Wendy had been upset at her brother for talking to Aspen behind her back, but in the end, had to admit that it had actually been a good thing. She’d enjoyed talking to him and felt excited about hanging out with a man for the first time in a really long while.
She and Jackson had gone to the grocery store yesterday afternoon before she’d had to leave for her second job and had bought the stuff she needed to make the green bean dish and the rest of the dinner.
As of now, the beans were on the stove simmering and the pasta casserole she’d made to go with them was in the fridge, and all she had to do was preheat the oven and stick it in.
Aspen had sent a text saying he’d be there in about ten minutes.
So all that was left to do was freak out.
Wendy looked around her apartment and cringed. It wasn’t exactly a palace. In fact, it was kind of crappy, but it was cheap and allowed her to purchase things for Jackson that she wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Just this year, he’d joined the robotics club, and they were constantly taking trips to the home improvement store so he could get things to make electronics and prototypes.
He was also on the lacrosse team and half a dozen other clubs and programs at the school. He was way more popular than Wendy ever was, but she was as proud of him as she could be. There were many days when she didn’t see him more than a few minutes at the beginning or end of the day because their schedules didn’t mesh, but Wendy didn’t worry too much about him. Jackson was a good kid, and he deserved far more than he’d gotten in his short life so far. She aimed to do whatever it took, to sacrifice everything, so he’d be able to go to college and get the education that had been denied her.
Wendy shook off the morose thoughts. She had a good life and honestly wouldn’t change anything that she’d done. Yeah, she wanted a nicer place for them to live, but Jackson never complained.
But looking around as she waited for Aspen to arrive, Wendy realized just how small their apartment was. They had a little galley kitchen and an equally small dining area. It was just big enough to hold a circular table with three chairs, which she’d scrounged from next to the Dumpsters in their apartment complex.
The living area was just beyond that. It had a beat-up old couch and a recliner. The table had also been thrown away at one point by someone. But Wendy had sanded, painted, and generally spruced it up. They had a flat-screen television that she’d been able to purchase for a song from the retirement home when they were remodeling some of the rooms. She’d bought colorful rugs to put on top of the gross cream carpet that had been there when they’d moved in.
There were two bedrooms down the hallway. Neither was huge, but all they did in them was sleep, so they didn’t need to be large. She and Jackson shared a bathroom, which wasn’t as bad as it seemed, as she took her shower at night and Jackson showered in the mornings.
All in all, Wendy was proud of the home she’d made for herself and her brother with the little she had…but she didn’t know how Aspen would react.
A knock on the door brought her out of her musings and she took a deep breath. If he looked down on her because of where she lived, then she didn’t want to be friends with him anyway.
As she walked toward the door, she tried to calm down. Aspen was her friend. Nothing he’d said or done in the past led her to believe he’d turn up his nose at her living quarters.
Pausing for a moment in front of her door, Wendy put a hand on her belly and tried to will the churning to subside. Knowing she was only making herself more nervous by hesitating, she pasted a smile on her face and flung open the door.
* * *
Blade scowled as he looked around. Wendy had texted him last night and given him her address, and he’d immediately been concerned. It wasn’t in the best part of Temple, and he hated that.
When he’d driven up to the apartment complex, if it could be called that, he was even more worried. The older brick building needed work. Lots of it. Blade could see places where the brick was crumbling right off the side of the building. There were twelve doors, all on the outside, six on the bottom floor and six on the top.
He took a moment to be thankful that her apartment was on the second floor. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something. Blade eyed a man leaving one of the apartments on the first floor. He was unshaven and looked like he’d been wearing the same clothes for days. He was also wiping his nose…which could simply mean he’d just sneezed or he had a cold. But the furtive way he looked around as he walked toward his car told a different story.
Blade’s hands clenched on the steering wheel. Jesus. He didn’t like the thought of Wendy living here, especially not when the signs were pointing to drug activity going on in the apartments around her.
Taking a deep breath, Blade climbed out of his Jeep and locked it…briefly wondering if it would still be there when he left for the evening. He slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor and got upset all over again. The railing was loose, and he knew all it would take was someone stumbling into it and it’d collapse, sending that person tumbling to the ground. The concrete under his feet was chipped and broken as well.
Wendy lived in an absolute shithole, and he couldn’t help but be appalled. He didn’t want to believe that a woman and a teenager actually chose to live here. It was unacceptable and dangerous—and there wasn’t a damn thing Blade could do about it.
He knocked on Wendy’s door…and sent a vicious glare toward the man who’d left the downstairs apartment and was now sitting in his car watching him. Within seconds, the man backed up and peeled out of the small parking area.
Just when Blade lifted his hand to knock again, the door opened and Wendy stood in front of him with a smile on her face. It was strained though; that was easy to see.
“Hi, Wen,” Blade said.
“Hey, Aspen,” she greeted. “Come in.”
He followed her through the door, noting that she immediately locked both the deadbolt and the doorknob after he’d entered. At least that was something.
“It smells wonderful,” he told her.
The smile on her face grew, and her shoulders dropped with a decrease in tension. “Thanks. It’s the basil on the green beans. You want to come and sit? It’s a bit early to put the casserole in, but Jack should be home soon.”
“Sure.” Blade followed Wendy through the tiny front area and into the living room. The kitchen was attached, and there was a small table and some chairs behind the couch.
“I’m sorry it’s not much,” Wendy said, shrugging. “But it’s home.”
And it was. Blade lo
oked around in surprise. The difference between the outside of the building and inside this space was amazing. She’d truly made this a comfortable home.
The bright rugs on the floor lightened up the room. There were photos on almost every available surface and wall. A red blanket was draped over the back of the sofa and the pot of flowers she’d had with her yesterday was now sitting on the small white table in the middle of the living area.
All in all, it looked restful and homey. Blade immediately felt comfortable there, and he was ashamed of his earlier thoughts. Oh, he still didn’t like that Wendy and her brother were renting a place in the shitty complex, but this was more of a home than his condo. This was warm and lived in. His place was sterile and cold.
“It’s nice,” Blade said softly.
“Really?” Wendy asked.
“Really.”
“I know the outside is crappy, but the price is right and I’ve done what I can to make the inside comfortable.”
“You’ve succeeded, sweetheart,” Blade told her, turning to her again. He was struck anew at the attraction between them. She was wearing another pair of jeans, but this afternoon she had on a blouse that bared her shoulders. It had sleeves, but it looked like the material on her shoulders had been cut out. It was a light gray color and amazingly brought out the shade of her deep brown eyes more than ever.
Her skin was pale and looked silky smooth. Her hair was down around her shoulders, the first time he’d seen it that way, and Blade wanted to run his fingers through it to see if it was as soft as it looked. She didn’t have any shoes on, and seeing her small painted toenails seemed intimate.
“You look nice,” he said belatedly, realizing he’d been staring at her for longer than was appropriate.
“Thanks. You too.”
Blade chuckled at that. He was wearing much what he did any time he got home and took off his uniform. Jeans and a T-shirt.
“You want something to drink?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve got beer, coffee, tea, water, and apple juice.”
“A beer sounds great. I’ll switch to water with dinner.” He watched as she walked to the old white fridge and got out a beer for him. She used the bottle opener stuck to the door then handed him the bottle.
“I hope Shiner Bock is all right. It’s my favorite.”
“It’s great,” Blade told her. He’d had her pegged as a wine or water girl, but there was something very down-to-earth about her popping the top off her own bottle and taking a long swallow of the yeasty brew.
“You worry about having the beer around your brother?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Why would I?”
“Because he’s a teenager? Because he might decide to get drunk one night when you’re at work?”
Wendy smiled and shook her head. “No, I’m not worried about that at all.”
“Why not?”
“When you meet him, you’ll understand. He’s an old soul. He’d no sooner get drunk for the sake of getting drunk than I would.”
Blade thought she was being a bit naïve, but didn’t call her on it. He merely took another drink.
“I can tell you don’t believe me,” she said. “It might be uncommon, but he’s been drinking beer and wine since he was thirteen. I don’t mean like chugging beers or doing keg stands every night, but I’ve let him taste the beer I’ve brought home, and we even did a wine tasting thing one day when he was fifteen. I figure if he sees what it’s all about, and I don’t make a big fuss over it, he won’t be as interested in going behind my back and getting drunk. I thought about how kids overseas have much more access to beer than kids over here in the US, and I wanted him to have the same ‘whatever’ attitude about alcohol that they do…or that I imagine they do.”
“And is it working?”
“Yup.” Wendy beamed at him. “Sometimes he asks to have a beer with dinner, but he mostly sticks to water or juice. I’m aware that it’s illegal for me to supply him with it, and some would call it irresponsible, but so far, he hasn’t abused the privilege. Believe me, when I was a teenager, I was sneaking out of the house to go to parties and get drunk…I thought it was so grown-up and cool to drink beer. I’m trying to teach him that isn’t the case.”
Blade shivered with the thought of a teenager sneaking out of the apartment in this part of town. “Does he sneak out?” he asked, gripping his sweaty beer tightly.
“No.” Wendy held up a hand as if to forestall the question she thought he wanted to ask. “And before you ask, I know he’s not, because for a while I booby-trapped the door. I bought one of those things you put in the doorjamb that make a noise if the seal is broken. Not once did he leave the apartment in the middle of the night.”
“Why did you think he might sneak out in the first place?”
Wendy’s eyes left his and Blade got a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew she was about to be dishonest. He’d seen enough people lie in his lifetime to recognize the signs.
“Oh, you know. Because he’s a teenager. You know how they are.”
“No, not really. Did he give you a reason to think that?”
Wendy shook her head, then shrugged. “I just wanted to make sure.”
Blade didn’t particularly like her answer. He wasn’t going to judge her if her brother snuck out here and there. Hell, he’d done it a few times himself when he was Jack’s age. Was she embarrassed? Did she think he’d blame her? Blade wasn’t sure what she was hiding, but once again he felt she was keeping things from him.
He tried to blow it off, telling himself they’d just met and there was no reason for her to tell him everything about her life. But a wary feeling remained, even as she continued on as if he hadn’t asked the question.
She looked down at her beer and picked at the label on the bottle. “Besides, he knows how dangerous it is out there. He told me once that I didn’t need to keep the dinger thing on the door because there was no way he’d ever leave me here in the apartment by myself.”
Blade’s heart swelled in his chest. Jack sounded a lot like him with Casey. He’d always worried about his sister, even though she was only two years younger than him. He supposed he always would, regardless that she was with one of his Delta teammates now.
“That’s great, sweetheart. He sounds like a levelheaded, good kid,” he told her honestly.
“He is. And he’s smart. He’s in the robotics club at school. They don’t make toys either. Right now, they’re working on an artificial arm. It’s super cool what this thing can do.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.” She smiled at him, then looked at her watch. “I’m going to preheat the oven and put the casserole in. It’ll be ready when Jack gets home. Is that all right?”
“Of course. Can I help?”
“No, I got it. You can go and sit if you want. We only have a few channels that come in, but we’ve got lots of DVDs if you want to watch something else.”
“I’m okay with talking if you are.”
“Sure, although I’m not that interesting.”
“Wendy…” Blade drew the word out in disbelief.
“What?”
She stood in the kitchen with one hand on the handle of the refrigerator. Her head was cocked in question.
“We’ve done nothing but talk over the phone for the last couple months. Why would you think you aren’t interesting?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know…it seems different now.”
Blade set his beer down and walked up to her. He put his hands on either side of her neck and tilted her head up to his. “The only thing that’s different now is that I have a face to put to the beautiful voice I’ve been talking to over the last two months. Everything about you fascinates me, Wen. From the way you’ve made a shithole of an apartment into a cozy home, to the way you’ve raised what sounds like a mature, well-rounded brother. Don’t ever think you’re not interesting. I have a feeling the more I learn about you, the more interesting you’ll b
ecome. And I want to know everything.”
She’d looked relaxed as he’d spoken, but after the last sentence, she tensed under him.
“I’m just like any other woman, Aspen. Don’t look too deeply into it.”
He stared at her, wishing he could read her mind. Something was bothering her. If he wasn’t mistaken, he saw fear lurking in the depths of her eyes. The thought that she was hiding something grew into a certainty. But the fact that he was doing something to scare her was abhorrent. Dropping his hands, Blade immediately took a step away, giving her space. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he soothed. “I won’t pry.”
Wendy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she turned to the fridge, opening it and reaching for the casserole dish. She gave a little forced laugh as she stood. “Of course it’s okay. Excuse me, I don’t want to drop this.”
Blade stepped farther out of her way and picked up his beer once more. He wandered over to the couch and sat on one end. He didn’t like the barrier she’d thrown up between them, but he refused to get upset about it. This was truly their first date, and they were still getting to know each other. She’d learn that she could trust him. That he’d never do anything to bring her or her brother harm. Whatever secrets she had would be his secrets too.
Eventually, she ran out of things to fiddle with in the kitchen, and she wandered into the small living area and sat on the other end of the couch. “How was your day?” she asked.
Blade closed his eyes for a brief second then opened them. “I love when you ask me that.”
“Why?”
“Because you sound like you truly want to know when you ask. Just as when you ask me how I am, or if I’m feeling okay.”
“Of course I want to know. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
“Most people ask just because it’s the socially correct thing to do.”
“So? How was your day?” Wendy asked again.
“It was good. Got more shit from my friends about taking a few hours off this afternoon.”
“They don’t want you to see me?”