by Mary McBride
She'd be lying if she denied it. If Sonny hadn't left of his own accord, if he'd argued and resumed touching her the way he had earlier, she'd have been a goner. Then she would have awakened hating herself this morning.
As it was, she wasn't all that wild about herself after not succumbing to his sexual charms. She felt on edge. Jittery. Tense. Oddly unfulfilled. Hell. She felt just plain horny.
She blamed her addled mental state on the hormones that Sonny had obviously stirred up. How could she have forgotten tonight's birthday bash when she had been the one to arrange the caterer and to address a hundred twenty-three invitations—in calligraphy, no less? She'd been looking forward to it for weeks, knowing it would be her last party before the pregnancy, kind of a swan song to her single lifestyle and a fanfare to imminent motherhood.
She even bought a new outfit specifically for tonight. A long, tiered denim skirt with the softest, most romantic white blouse. If she didn't wear them tonight, it would be a whole year before they'd fit again.
By God, she was going whether Sonny was there or not.
Still, it wouldn't hurt if she could head off anybody approaching his house who looked suspicious, as if they might be carrying a concealed invitation.
* * *
"Wait up, Mel. Where are you going?"
Damn. She thought she could sneak out to the car, start it, and back surreptitiously out of her driveway without being caught. No such luck.
"Out," she said, ignoring the black T-shirt molded to his chest and the faded jeans that adored—whoops, adorned his long legs. As he came closer, she also tried to ignore the worried creases around his eyes and the tautness around his mouth, always a sure sign of tension.
"Have you eaten breakfast yet?" he asked.
"Yep." She opened the door on the driver's side, but it closed when Sonny leaned a hip against it.
"I'm sorry about last night, babe." His voice rumbled in its deeper registers.
"No big deal."
"One of my snitches was in trouble and I—"
"You really don't have to explain, Sonny." She waved a hand, dismissing his apology, careful to not touch him for fear of catching fire again.
"I really have changed, Mel. Or at least I'm trying."
"Fine. Good for you. Congratulations. It just doesn't have anything to do with me, Sonny. How many times do I have to tell you?"
While he was ripping his fingers through his hair in frustration, Melanie spied one of the Wrenns out of the corner of her eye. God, those women were persistent!
"Get in the car," she told Sonny.
"What?"
"Get in the stupid car. I thought you wanted to take me to breakfast."
He practically vaulted over the Miata's hood and was in the passenger seat as quickly as Melanie could get behind the wheel. She started the engine, threw the stick in reverse, and watched Susan or Sandy leap out of her way as she backed out of the driveway.
It wasn't until she was making the turn onto Channing that it occurred to her that, to prevent Sonny from being at the party tonight, she'd just agreed to go out to breakfast with him.
"I'm glad you changed your mind, Mel." He sent one of his warmest, most dazzling smiles across to her side of the car.
Good God. Was it possible for hormones to actually eat away brain matter? she wondered. She felt as if she'd lost at least twenty or thirty IQ points in the past twenty-four hours.
* * *
Sonny wasn't exactly sure what Mel was up to, but as long as he was sitting next to her in a cozy booth at the Pancake Palace, he really didn't care. She looked almost as tired as he felt. Her blue eyes lacked their usual sparkle, and there were soft blue smudges beneath them that made him suspect she hadn't slept much last night. That made two of them.
"You've hardly touched your waffle," he said, pointing his fork at her plate. His own was nearly licked clean, he'd been so hungry.
"Here." She exchanged hers for his. "I don't know how you can consume so much food, Sonny, and mot weigh five thousand pounds."
"I burn it off, I guess."
"I guess you do." A sudden smile appeared and her eyes sparked just a bit. "Do you remember when…? Oh, forget it. Never mind."
"What?"
"I was just thinking about the time we went to the reception for Governor Ziele and you ate an entire tray of rumaki."
"Those little bacon deals?" he asked between bites of waffle. "They were great. Do you remember—?"
"No."
"Wait a minute. You don't even know what I was going to say."
"It doesn't matter. I don't want to remember." She picked up the napkin from her lap and did a quick but precise pass over her no-longer-smiling lips, then folded it perfectly and tucked it under his empty plate. "Are you almost done? I really need to get going."
They reached for the check at the same instant. Sonny had to tamp down on his natural instinct to capture her hand in his, which slowed him down just enough to let Melanie grab the check. He finished the last of the waffle while she put on her invisible green eyeshade and recalculated the total.
Same old Mel. She hadn't changed a bit since she'd left him. Hell, maybe he hadn't, either. Not really. Not enough.
Out in the parking lot, he let her walk a few feet ahead of him so that he could enjoy the view of her shiny hair swinging just above her shoulders and the little twitch of her backside that always signaled she had places to go, people to see, things to do, all in a particular order. When she got to the car, she reached casually into her handbag, then swore as she began to rummage around inside it.
"Dammit." She started putting things on the Miata's yellow hood. Her wallet. A checkbook. A pink comb. A small leather-bound planner with a pen nestled in a leather loop.
"What are you doing, Mel?"
"I can't find my keys." She said it in the same tone that Chicken Little might have used to announce, "The sky is falling."
"You probably left them in the restaurant," Sonny suggested.
"I never do that."
As it turned out, that's exactly what she had done. The cashier held up the key ring and jingled it the minute Sonny stepped back inside.
"I figured you'd be right back," the woman said. "This is the fourth set of keys this morning."
It was a first for Little Miss Perfect, though. It was almost a miracle. He whistled a happy little tune as he strolled back to the car where Melanie now had her head practically inside her purse.
"Keys," he said, dangling them above her.
"Oh. Thank God." She started tossing her belongings back into her bag in no particular order, then she held out her hand for the keys.
Sonny jingled them again. "Getting a little sloppy, aren't you, Mel?"
"It's your fault," she said. "You distracted me."
He lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah? Was it my scintillating conversation or just my physical presence?"
"Neither." She snatched the key ring out of his hand. "It was the aura of chaos that always surrounds you. You make me crazy, Sonny."
"No," he drawled as he opened the door for her. "I make you human, Superwoman. You need me. You know you do."
* * *
Like a hole in the head, Melanie thought as she gunned the engine and turned out of the Pancake Palace's parking lot. A hole in her head through which everything—all her careful plans and best intentions—seemed to be leaking. Pretty soon her brain would simply dry up and blow away like so much gray dust. She'd just lost her keys. God only knew what would be next.
The worst part of it was that Sonny was right. She had a tendency to be a pill. Okay. A pain in the ass. Her own father had been the first to point that out when she was a mere eleven years old, or "eleven going on forty-two" as he'd put it.
"Relax, little girl," he used to say. "Life won't fall to pieces if you ease your grip on it a bit."
She knew that. At least she knew it in her head. Her heart was another matter. And she didn't need a shrink to tell her that her compulsive natu
re was likely the result of losing her mother at such a young age and being left in charge of her disorganized father.
And, dammit, every single person who considered her such a pill and a pain in the ass was always falling - down - kissing - her - feet grateful for her pillness when it rescued their sloppy, disorganized butts.
"How could I have left my keys?" she moaned as she gave the steering wheel a flat-handed slap.
"Better slow down a little here, Mel. The speed limit's thirty-five."
Her gaze dropped to the speedometer that was registering a healthy fifty-two. She eased off the accelerator at the same moment she realized she'd once again driven past Channing. Way past. They were already five blocks south.
She was tempted to blame her ex-husband again, but she knew it was her own fault for letting him in the car in the first place.
"I must be losing my marbles," she said, checking the rearview mirror before flipping on the directional signal and pulling over to the curb. "You can get out here, Sonny. 'Bye. It's only a few blocks back to the square."
"Whoa. Wait a minute."
"Just get out, okay?"
He gave her one of his blue-eyed, Pound Puppy looks. "You're going to just kick me out of the car? Here?"
Melanie sighed. "Yes. Right here. If I take you all the way back, I'm going to be late."
"For what?" He chuckled. "More paint?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact." She didn't sound nearly as indignant as she felt. There was nothing wrong with knowing exactly what she wanted, then doing her very best to get it, for heaven's sake. "This paint is important to me."
"The baby-duck yellow."
"That's right," she snapped.
"Well, what if I told you I know a guy at a certain hardware store who claims to be the best paint mixer in town?"
"What guy?" she asked suspiciously. "What hardware store?"
He just smiled. Silently. All-knowingly. She really wanted to smack him.
"How do you know this guy?" she asked.
"He used to be one of my snitches. He was a house painter before he got busted for writing bad checks. Now he's on parole and works in a hardware store in the First Precinct."
"Okay. Okay. You win. You don't have to get out here. I'll drive you all the way back to the square. Where's this hardware store? How do I get there?"
Sonny shook his head at the same time he crossed his arms and kind of dug his shoulders into the seatback. "I'm not sure I remember the exact address. It's really off the beaten path, Mel. I'll have to show you."
"You jerk."
"I'm just trying to help you, babe. This guy … I think his name is Jerry. Ol' Jer can whip you up a gallon of baby-duck yellow with both eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back. You'll see. Trust me."
* * *
"Take a left on Sutton, Mel." Sonny pointed up ahead in traffic. "Then it's about halfway down the block on the right."
At least he hoped so. It had been a couple of years since he'd had any dealings with Jerry What's-His-Name.
"This is a terrible neighborhood," Melanie said for the third time, each one increasingly nervous. She'd hit the switch to lock the Miata's doors half a mile back. "It's one of the ones on Sam's Blight Bill."
Sonny was thinking that he was going to be on Mel's Blight Bill if this didn't pan out. "There it is. You can park right in front, babe."
He unhooked his seat belt as soon as she killed the engine. "Wait here. I'll run in and see if Jerry's working today."
"But I…"
"Just wait, Mel. And lock the doors."
It was a terrible neighborhood. Sonny gave the entire block a quick once-over before entering the store. "Is Jerry around?" he asked the woman at the checkout counter. She rolled her eyes, pointed toward the back, and sighed, "What's he done now?"
He made his way down a crammed aisle, at the end of which stood an Elvis clone with a cigarette dangling from his snarling lips and enough grease on his hair to slide the Titanic out of dry dock. "Jerry?"
The guy blinked his hooded eyes. "Hey, Lieutenant."
"I need a favor," Sonny said, and after he'd explained about Melanie and the color in her head, he added, "There's a hundred in it for you if you can come up with the right color."
"Hey. No problem, man."
* * *
"It's perfect. I can't believe it. It's just the color I imagined."
All the way home, Melanie could hardly keep her eyes on the road. She kept glancing at the back seat where some of the paint—the perfect baby-duck yellow—had dripped down the side of the can. As much as it galled her to apologize to her ex-husband, she dredged one up.
"I'm sorry, Sonny. I honest to God thought you were just sending me on some wild-goose chase."
"A wild baby-duck chase, Mel." He gave her one of his best smiles. "I told you to trust me."
"Well, I guess I will. At least where paint is concerned." She turned into her driveway.
"What are you doing this afternoon?" he asked, in no apparent rush to get out of the car.
Melanie reached back for the gallon can. "I'm painting."
"Need some help?"
"No, thanks."
She got out of the car and started toward her back door. "Thanks again, Sonny."
"Sure. Glad to help. Guess I'll see you at the party tonight, huh?"
Melanie almost lost her grip on the can. She'd just spent half a day trying to keep him from being invited to the birthday bash, and he'd already been asked!
"These block parties are usually pretty dull affairs," she said, hoping to discourage him.
"Good," he said, cheerfully and horribly undeterred. "Fits right in with my new style."
* * *
Chapter 6
« ^ »
This was the fifteenth annual Franklin Fayette Channing Birthday Blast, and as always it was hosted by Jeffrey and Helene Savin, who were among the neighborhood's pioneer residents. Their Second Empire town house on Channing wasn't only huge and stately, it was the envy of anyone who had ever pulled up a floor or knocked down a wall or hauled tons of rubble from a dank hundred-twenty-year-old basement.
Helene Savin was one of the city's foremost interior decorators, and her home stood as the showcase of her talent and exquisite taste. It didn't hurt at all that Jeffrey had the money to indulge that fine taste. From the quarter rounds on the glossy parquet floors to the intricate moldings that hugged the twelve-foot ceilings, not a single detail had been overlooked. Even the switchplates had been meticulously hand painted to match each room's décor. It was Melanie's kind of place.
She had planned to enjoy this party as a kind of send-off for her pregnancy. She had imagined herself savoring her final taste of wine while she discussed preschools and nannies and pediatricians with some of her female neighbors, women she didn't know all that well yet because her job at city hall left her with little free time and, up until now, she hadn't been interested in preschools and nannies and pediatricians. She had intended to change all that tonight.
But instead of the party being her salute to impending motherhood, it had turned out to be a celebration for the Cop on the Block.
"Good job, Melanie."
"We're just thrilled."
"We'll sleep better just knowing he's there."
"I'm looking forward to meeting him. Is he here yet?"
No, thank God.
After being congratulated by just about everyone in attendance, Melanie had finally positioned herself in a dim corner of the Savins' elegant music room from which she was able to train a wary eye on the foyer. If Sonny had already arrived, it hadn't been by the front door. She was certain of that.
"Helene outdid herself this year, don't you agree, liebchen?" Dieter attempted to juggle a wineglass and several canapés while he dragged a gilded folding chair close to Melanie's in the corner. "What are you doing back here in Siberia?"
"Hiding from my ex," she said. "You had the great misfortune of meeting him last night."
"Ja, I heard."
"I'm so sorry about what happened, Dieter."
He ate his last canapé and took a thoughtful sip of wine. "No need to apologize for him. No need at all. The man is obviously crazy for you."
"The man is obviously crazy period," she said, peering around the big Bavarian to check the foyer once more for new arrivals. "You haven't seen him this evening, have you?"
Dieter shook his head and glanced a bit nervously over his shoulder. "Nein. I saw him this afternoon at the Wrenns' house while I was out walking, but I immediately changed directions."
She tried to not look surprised, and hoped she was concealing her irritation when she asked, "What was he doing at the Wrenns'?"
"Well, to me it looked like he was checking windows. I thought that was one of the duties of the Cop on the Block. Checking homes to see if they are burglarproof or not."
It was. Melanie had written the guidelines herself, but she'd never in a million years imagined it would be Sonny checking out the Wrenns. Those two tootsies hadn't wasted any time taking advantage of his expertise. She wondered whether or not their windows and doors, along with their other parts, had passed muster.
"I think I'll wait a while before I request him to look at mine," the architect said. "I see you found the paint for the nursery."
"Excuse me?"
"The paint for the little one's room." He touched her hand. "You have yellow paint around your nails."
Melanie looked down. She hadn't even noticed it while she dressed for the party. Now, in addition to losing her mind, she was losing her eyesight.
Dieter finished the last of his wine in a single gulp. "I'm going back for some more of Helene's good Merlot. Can I bring you something, Melanie?"
"No, thanks."
After Dieter lumbered toward the bar that had been set up in the dining room, Melanie shrank back into her corner beside the perfectly groomed ficus in its big and expensive Chinese porcelain pot. She lifted her wineglass to her lips and then inspected the spot of yellow enamel decorating her right thumb. Sonny's paint maven, Jerry, claimed the only way he could come up with the perfect baby-duck yellow was with an oil-based paint rather than an easy latex, so Melanie had spent as much time cleaning up this afternoon as she'd spent painting one measly wall.