by Pamela Morsi
She laughed, as he’d intended her to.
19
Beth Ann had baked a casserole and was delighted to share it with Eli.
“It’s the least we can do for all he’s done.”
Mazy raised an eyebrow. “What all has he done?”
“Oh, in the summer he mows my grass when he does his own. He’s the one I call if there’s a problem with the plumbing or the furnace. He trapped that raccoon that got in our attic. Whatever I need, I call him first.”
“Why would you do that?”
“You know Jonah and your dad were great friends. From the day I was widowed, Jonah always looked after us. He told me at the funeral that he knew if the positions were reversed, he would have counted on Truman to look after his wife and boys.”
“But that’s Jonah. How did Eli get involved?”
Beth Ann shrugged. “When Jonah’s health failed, Eli simply took over. That’s the kind of man he is, Mazy. Solid and dependable. The kind a smart woman would build a life with.”
Mazy was beginning to see the advantage of that. She’d been so eager to get to talk with him, be with him, that she’d gone straight to his workshop after work. And she certainly couldn’t deny the thrill of excitement that swept through her at the sight of him.
Was she falling for Termy?
It was hard to imagine, but it would be great if she was finally beginning to wise up.
When she arrived at Eli’s, the basement was unlocked, so she let herself in. She heard the shower running, so she went ahead with getting dinner ready for them. She had loved how neat and comfortable he kept his place. She was even more grateful for his sense of organization as she set the table and made the salad.
If he were surprised to find her puttering in his kitchen, he didn’t say so.
“Wow, a real sit-down dinner. And I thought you would be standing beside me at the sink.”
She laughed as she sat at the table.
“You know, a guy could really get used to this,” he told her.
Mazy thought she could get used to this, too.
It was comfortable but also intimate, eating together, chatting about nothing, talking about their day.
“This is great...great whatever it is.”
“I think Beth Ann calls it Swiss chicken, though I doubt it had its origins in any place more far away than Durham.”
“Are you as good a cook as your mom?” he asked her.
“Not even close,” Mazy answered. “I use exactly the same recipes, with the same ingredients in the same amounts, but somehow her food is always better.”
“It’s probably the pleasure of having somebody else cook,” he suggested.
“Could be. Beth Ann says that she puts love into every bite.”
“And you don’t?”
“I think I do,” Mazy said. “I certainly try to. I love cooking for Tru, knowing that what I feed him not only fills him up, but helps him grow. But I think the taste of my love must have a bitter quality to it.”
It was a joke. But it wasn’t.
Eli looked at her for an instant and then half stood to lean across the table and kiss her lips.
“Everything I taste is sweet.”
She laughed it off and changed the subject.
“So you and Tru spent the day stacking lumber?”
He explained Clark’s afternoon off to attend his daughter’s field trip. “Tru turned out to be a real help to me, getting all that wood inside. Without him, I’d probably still be out there trying to get it done in the dark.”
“Couldn’t Clark come back and help you?”
“He should have,” Eli admitted. “But it’s actually my business. Dad and Ida signed over equal shares to both of us, but I bought Clark out. He needed cash to buy a house and I’d been sticking money away in savings since I was a kid.”
“So Clark works for you.”
“Yeah. Which is the good news and the bad news. When he wants time off or to fool around all day getting nothing done, he acts like it’s still a family business and we’re equal partners and nobody tells him what to do. But when something has to get done, to meet a deadline or fulfill an order, then he’s all ‘I just work here. I’m off the clock.’”
“Why do you put up with that?”
“He’s my brother,” Eli answered. “He’s got a family and needs to make a living. It’s not like this town is swimming in job opportunities for a guy with his skills.”
“Couldn’t he do construction or cabinetry?”
“Of course he could,” Eli agreed. “He’s a pretty good woodworker. He’s never had the patience or the vision that’s really required for quality furniture. But he does know a lot about what we do and how it’s done. I mostly leave the sales to him, talking to the customers. He’s good at that.”
“Doesn’t that leave the actual furniture building to you? Like a one-man show?”
Eli nodded. “That’s pretty much the way it is. He does some things to help me. It’s not that he’s afraid to work. And he even enjoys it. But sometimes his priorities are all screwed up.” Eli shook his head almost apologetically. “If I was a regular boss, I’d straighten him out or send him on his way. But I’m not a regular boss. I’m his kid brother. Neither of us ever seem to forget that.”
As they got up from the table, Eli was stacking the plates to carry to the sink. Suddenly, as if he’d forgotten something, he set them back down on the table.
“Why don’t you take care of this,” he said. “I’ve got...I’ve got something I need to do. Rinse ’em off and put them in the dishwasher. That’ll be a treat for you. Beth Ann doesn’t have a dishwasher, right?”
“Ah, right.”
Eli walked into his bedroom and shut the door.
Mazy looked down at the dishes and mentally shrugged. No big deal. She did the dishes every night. And he was right, it was a novelty to use a dishwasher again.
The machine was running and she was wiping down the counter when he returned to the room. His expression was sheepish, guilty.
“I, uh, I had to make some phone calls,” he said by way of explanation.
“No big deal,” she said.
He smiled at her and took her hand, leading her to the couch where they snuggled up together.
“I believe you said you’d had a crap day,” Eli pointed out. “I’ve been talking all about myself and haven’t let you get any venting done.”
Mazy let out a groan and laid her head against his shoulder. “It was a frustrating ending to the week,” she said. “But it’s getting better hanging out with you.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Well, I can’t really tell you much,” Mazy said. “Client confidentiality.”
He murmured understanding. “You don’t really have the job where the clients are going to like you.”
“No, the client was okay,” she said. “I expect them to be defensive and angry and scared. It’s standard for financial troubles. We just have to work through that until they can learn to trust me. But with my history in this town, it may take longer than usual.”
“Your history is now ancient history. You have to treat it that way so that everybody else will.”
“Thanks. I’m trying,” she said. “Actually, the problem was with Tad. And, as you know, we share some of that history.”
“What’s got Driscoll teed off?”
“I left to do this client meeting,” Mazy told him. “The meeting went really well. I think the client believes I genuinely want to help and he offered to let me look over his books. So I stayed to do that, right then and there. I got a clearer picture of where things are. Hopefully, I’ll come up with some ideas to make things better. That’s all good.”
“Yeah, it sounds lik
e it.”
“When I got back to the bank, apparently my colleagues had all been to tattletale to Tad that I’d taken a three-hour lunch. He called me into his office and, without even giving me a chance to defend myself, tore into me.”
Beside her, she saw Eli’s jaw tighten.
“It was the whole ball of wax,” she said. “Sarcasm, shouting, threats. And all without letting me get a word in edgewise.”
“He’s a bully, Mazy,” Eli said. “He always was.”
She nodded. “I know. You’d think that after all these years, so much water under the bridge, his own personal tragedies like the deaths of his parents and his divorce from Genna, you’d think those things would have mellowed him, made him more thoughtful.”
“I don’t think that people really change,” Eli said. “The way we are, that’s the way we’ll always be.”
That statement caught Mazy up short. If it were true, she knew she was doomed. The shrink had assured her that people could change. More specifically that she could change. She was counting on that, for herself, for her son. If Eli was right, that meant that she’d continue screwing up her life over and over again. Always making the wrong choice, always heading down the wrong road. She shuddered against the possibility.
“You shouldn’t work for him,” Eli said. “He’s had a reputation as a bad boss for some time.”
She nodded. “I can really see that. The staff doesn’t seem like ‘mean girls,’ but they are all suspicious and secretive. That’s what you get in a workplace where stabbing your coworker in the back gets you farther than quietly doing your job.”
“You should quit,” Eli said.
“I need a job.”
“Working for Driscoll isn’t the only job,” he insisted. “I know people at the bank in Boone. I’m sure I could get you an interview there.”
Mazy chuckled. “And how would I get there?” she asked. “Beth Ann’s old Ford will barely get us to the supermarket and back. I can’t take up commuting in it.”
Eli barely hesitated. “You can take my truck until you can afford to buy your own vehicle.”
“Don’t be silly,” Mazy answered, laughing. “I am not mooching a car to drive fifty miles a day to a job when I already have one I can walk to.”
“Okay, the job doesn’t have to be banking, does it? Give me some copies of your résumé. Companies are always needing bookkeepers and accounting clerks. I can talk to some people, see what I can come up with.”
Mazy had no intention of doing that. Anybody who hired her would have the right to know about her conviction and her probation. And as soon as they saw her record, abetting theft, they’d not only pass on her job prospects, the story would be all over town. Her plan to clean up her reputation would only work if she stayed on the job and didn’t get into trouble. Plus, after today’s meeting, she was starting to feel as though she might actually be doing something worthwhile—and that she was pretty good at it.
“I’m not quitting,” she said. “I...I like my job.”
“You like foreclosing on people?”
“I’m not foreclosing. I’m trying to keep folks out of foreclosure. Seriously, I like working up there. I want to make a go of it.”
“You can make a go of it somewhere else.”
“No. It has to be there. It has to be at Farmers and Tradesmen.”
Eli was sitting forward looking directly in her eyes. She couldn’t quite meet his gaze. He knew something wasn’t quite right. She had never been able to lie to him. And she knew she shouldn’t. The right thing to do would be to tell him about her arrest. She should confess the whole sordid, crappy, stupid story and let the chips fall where they may. But she simply couldn’t. He’d always thought so well of her, he’d always believed the best of her. If he knew what a terrible person she truly was, he would be disgusted. And his disgust was more than she could bear.
Deliberately she pasted a big smile on her face. “No solutions needed, please. Only an ear so I can whine about all my daily job gripes. Now, what do you say, mister?” She ran her hand up his thigh. “It’s Friday night. Have you got something big tucked in these blue jeans that can take my mind off my workweek and get my weekend rated X?”
20
An hour later, the two lay naked, snuggled up together in the middle of Eli’s bed. He was relaxed, sated, exhausted. Beside him, his beautiful Mazy made the very tiniest of breathing sounds. It was too gentle to be called a snore, but more than simply inhale/exhale. He decided that he loved the sound. He wanted to never sleep without it. He should record it, so the nights when she couldn’t be here, he could play it back to lull him to sleep. His eyelids were so heavy. He loved the weight of her against his chest. The scent of her, mixed with the smell of sex. Everything was warm and sticky, but in such a good way. Like melting caramel or hot fudge. He eased her closer, laying his hand on her bare bottom. Her skin was so soft. His eyes closed again. He was drifting on a cloud. Picturing her face smiling at him. Teasing him. Laughing with him. Picturing her face flushed and taut as orgasm pulsed through her. And then afterward, all loose-limbed and satisfied as she looked into his eyes with something that felt close, so very close, to love.
The sweetest sleep enveloped him and he almost slid contently into it when suddenly another image interfered.
Her face when she had lied to him.
His eyes came open. He held his body rigid.
When Mazy had told him about her day, he had wanted to drive over to Driscoll’s house and piss on his lawn. But of course, he couldn’t really do that. Even if Mazy was his wife, which she still was not, a man didn’t have the luxury of avenging every guy that deserved it.
The best that could be done was to deprive the creep of the opportunity to insult her further. That’s what he wanted to do. He’d immediately thought of the bank in Boone. It was where he banked. She was right about the commuting, it probably wouldn’t have worked. And it was true that a little town like Brandt Mountain wasn’t awash in good job openings.
But when she said that she “liked” working at the bank—when she wouldn’t consider looking for something else—there was a deception behind her eyes, something that was not being told. Eli saw it as clear as a billboard. He could only wonder what it said.
He’d asked her point-blank the first day he’d seen her if she wanted to get back with Tad. She’d said definitely not. She hadn’t been lying then. He was sure of it.
But there was something different now. What had happened? Had being around Driscoll rekindled the old fires? What fires? Good grief, he’d burned her to a sexual cinder just minutes ago. He’d keep her so satisfied she wouldn’t be able to think about another man.
Maybe it wasn’t sex, though. Maybe it was never sex. Tad was a seriously selfish guy. Too selfish to ever be much of a lover. And the two of them had been teenagers when they were together—an era much more about quantity than quality. No, it was something else.
It was the whole ball of wax, she’d said. Sarcasm, shouting, threats.
He had berated her. He had bullied her. And as the obvious explanation dawned on Eli, he moaned aloud.
She had liked it.
He was being beaten at his own game. Driscoll, the natural a-hole, was besting him on the being-a-jerk front. Competition meant he’d have to dial it up. And he was already failing from time to time. At dinner, he was having such a good time he’d completely forgotten to treat her badly at all. He’d almost cleaned up the dishes like a perfectly good guy would. He’d been clumsy about dumping the work on her. Then even after hiding out for fifteen minutes in his bedroom, the excuse he’d intended to use was, “I told this gal I’d call her.” After days of not calling Mazy, his eagerness to share that would be pretty crappy. And allowing Mazy to clean his kitchen while he flirted-up somebody else—that would be a serious sleezeball move. But
he hadn’t been up to the challenge. His mumbling about “had to make a phone call” didn’t really convey that he was talking to some other woman. And she’d obviously not taken it that way.
If Driscoll had the luxury of screaming at her at work five days a week, he was going to really have to get a lot meaner.
Under the covers, he found her naked behind again. This time he didn’t bother to caress the soft skin, instead he gave it a vigorous swat.
She startled awake. “Huh?”
“Okay, babe. Time to go home.”
“Huh,” she asked again, groggily.
“Time to go home.”
“What?”
“You fell asleep.”
She sat up groggily, the sheet falling down to her waist. Even in the darkness he could see the enticing curve of her breasts. He clicked on the bedside lamp for a better view.
She made a moan of protest and covered her eyes.
“See, you shouldn’t have fallen asleep. It’ll be harder for you to go home.”
In the yellow glow of the light, her bare flesh looked creamy and her mussed hair was more sexy than simply disarrayed.
He’d thought his body was as done as a doornail, but he stirred at the sight of her.
“Babe, you have to get going now,” he said firmly.
She slowly peeled her hands from her eyes, still squinting against the light. “No, no. It’s Friday,” she reminded him. “I don’t have work tomorrow.”
“Well, I do,” he said. “And I need a good sleep.”
“You work on Saturdays?”
“Some Saturdays,” he hedged.
“That doesn’t mean I have to leave,” she said. “I can have coffee with you in the morning and leave after that.”
“No...I don’t think so. Mazy, I sleep alone,” he offered finally. “It’s my policy. I don’t let women sleep over.”
“Your policy?”
Hearing it on her lips, it did sound ridiculous.
“Truth is, I can’t sleep with anybody else,” he said. “I don’t get any rest unless I’m alone in the bed. So, no, I don’t allow women to stay the night.”