“Okay, someone that I work with then, which is the same difference—Shit!” The man out in the hall knocked again. “I gotta get that.” Looking unaccustomedly frazzled, he bent and grabbed her sweater off the floor. “Here. Get dressed,” he said, tossing it to her. “We’ll talk as soon as I get rid of—” His sentence faded away as he strode from the room.
“No, I don’t think we will,” she said to herself, pulling the garment on over her head, then smoothing her hair as best she could. She pulled in deep and even breaths and exhaled them slowly in an attempt to calm herself. This was the second time he’d gotten her all worked up only to slap her down.
Looking around, she located her purse and the empty Trader Joe’s bag and snatched them up. She marched down the hallway and pushed past Jason and an older man, who stared at her openmouthed.
“Poppy, wait.”
Dodging Jason’s outstretched hand, she blew past the two men. Because she agreed with that old maxim. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
And damned if she intended to be a fool a third time.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I hate that this hurts so bad. It shouldn’t. I don’t know him well enough. But it does. It hurts like crazy.
“DAMN, JASE, I’M SORRY.”
Yeah, you and me both. Jase reached out and gently closed the door Poppy had just barreled through, resisting the urge to bang his head against the jamb. Man, she hadn’t even looked at him.
But he shrugged and led the way into his living room. “No need to be sorry,” he said. “Ms. Calloway was just leaving anyway.”
“O-kay.” Murphy gave him a who-do-you-thinkyou’re-kidding? look as he lowered himself onto the couch. “You might wanna let your woody go down and tuck your shirt back in your pants before you try floating that horseshit,” he said dryly. “Not to mention that grab you made for your lady friend to keep her from hoofing it out the door.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he said curtly. “In any case, it’s not a problem.”
“Hell, yeah, it’s a problem,” Murphy said indignantly. “I screwed up your evening.”
“No, you interrupted it. I did the screwing-up part all on my own.” Then he straightened. “No, dammit, it wasn’t a screwup. I just told her the truth. I shouldn’t have let things get started with her that I have no intention of continuing.”
“That you have no intention…?” Murph gave him an incredulous look. “Why the hell not? Are you blind, boy? Even with whisker rash all over her face, that was one seriously pretty young lady.”
Oh, man, you don’t know the half of it. A vision of Poppy’s eyes all heavy-lidded with arousal and of her lips, so pink and moist and swollen from his kisses, exploded like a hand grenade in his mind. He thought of her breasts, round and ripe and pale beneath her see-through lace bra, of their spiky little nipples and the wetness between her—
Sternly, he put the skids to those thoughts. Because it was pointless, wasn’t it? “She’s off-limits,” he said flatly. “I’m working with her.”
“Oh.” Murphy deflated. “Well, shit. That’s a cryin’ shame. So which case is she a part of?”
“It’s not exactly a case…”
Murph shot him the same level-eyed what-the-hell- are-you-talking-about stare he’d used to such good effect when Jase was a teen and the old man was on the job. “What exactly is it, then?”
Feeling defensive, as if he were somehow in the wrong, Jase said, “Look, she’s the one who used her influence with the mayor to pull me into this bullshit cleanup project with the taggers.” Only it turned out the project really wasn’t all that bullshit after all.
Murphy sat upright. “The Babe? That was the Babe?”
He shrugged his agreement.
“Whataya know.”
“It gets worse,” he said morosely, ignoring the speculative look on his friend’s face. “Turns out, she’s a frickin’ good girl.” Which he figured pretty much said it all.
Apparently, however, he seriously overestimated Murphy’s intelligence, because his longtime friend and mentor snapped, “So what?”
“So, get real, Murph. I’m freakin’-ass wrong for her.”
“Because she’s a good girl? What the hell does that even mean?”
“It means her tough-girl attitude is all for show. She’s a goddamn marshmallow who undoubtedly plans to go the white-wedding-and-kids route one day. Not exactly the let’s-screw-our-brains-out-then-walk-away-withno-regrets-or-recriminations sort that I go for. Poppy’s…shiny. She’s all about the kids. And thanking people with home-cooked meals.” But mentioning that made something inside him hurt, so he repudiated it by pretending he hadn’t brought up the subject in the first place and that the event itself had never happened. “She does good works, for cri’sake.”
“I thought you said she was a rich-girl user.”
“I did.” An unamused laugh escaped him. “Yet another instance where I was wrong, which should probably give you a clue. She grew up in a fricking hippie commune and from the looks of things lives paycheck to paycheck. Her entire place is about the size of my living room, has shit for security and she drives a rattletrap that shouldn’t be allowed on the road.”
“I’m not gonna ask how you know all this. But you like her,” Murphy said shrewdly. “I’m guessing, too, that she must like you right back or I wouldn’t have interrupted the two of you about to get busy. So why not just relax and see where it takes you?”
“Because she’s a good girl!”
“And you’re a good boy!” Murphy roared.
“I’m a fucking de Sanges. I quit being a good boy around the time I turned eight.”
“That’s just horseshit. You were heading down the wrong track when I met you, but you were still a good kid then and you’re a good man now.” Murph scrubbed his hands over his cheeks and jaw, then lowered them to grip his knees. “Jesus,” he sighed irritably. “I have never met anyone who works as hard as you do to undercut his own happiness.”
“I’m happy!”
“No, you’re at best content—and only then if you’ve got a lot of work to keep you occupied.”
“Don’t tell me what I am, old man—I’m fuckin’ ecstatic!”
Murph snorted. “My ass. But, okay, we’re not going to fight about this, too. I’ll concede you’re happy, okay?”
“Damn straight,” he muttered, his stomach in knots.
“Trust me, kid, you’d be a whole lot happier with a woman in your life. Take it from someone who knows—being alone ain’t all that great. Maybe the Babe could put some balance in that all-work-and-no-play ethic you pass off as a lifestyle. And it seems to me a so-called good girl might actually be a positive thing to have in your corner, not the reverse. Didn’t I hear you say something about homemade food? That alone would be worth whatever it is you seem to see as the downside.”
Jase brooded about the conversation long after the old man had gone back to his apartment. Murphy simply didn’t understand. People who grew up with normal childhoods rarely did.
Until he’d met Murph, he’d run wild with no one to set him down and tell him in no uncertain terms that this, that or the other action would not be tolerated. He’d known deep down when he was doing wrong, of course—he wasn’t stupid—but no one had ever enforced a zero tolerance policy to reinforce that knowledge. And by the time Murph had come along and done so, it had been too late. By then nothing could completely eradicate the first fourteen and a half years of bad influence and worse genes.
Maybe if Murph had gotten his hands on him when he was younger, things would have been different. What was it the Jesuits said? Give me a child in his first seven years and he’ll be mine for life?
Well, Murphy hadn’t appeared until Jase was going on fifteen—so that made him the de Sanges’ for life. Nothing could eradicate his genetic makeup; that required constant vigilance to keep it from wrecking his world. He’d totally gotten it when his brother Joe had claimed to be a single bar fight a
way from his third strike—the one that would send him back to the pen for the rest of his natural-born days.
Because knowing the difference between right and wrong sure as hell didn’t deliver Jase from temptation. He was tempted to cut corners every damn day, to do whatever was necessary and not worry if it was right. He was always one false step away from blowing everything he’d worked so hard to build. Enticement was a constant siren singing its addictive song in his ear. It would be so easy to give in to the shortcuts that would get him his convictions, to take the occasional diamond bauble from a store that was already burgled instead of supporting his lifestyle by careful saving and controlled spending. He heard his dad’s and Pops’s voices in his head sometimes saying, “Go ahead, boy—take it. Who’s it gonna hurt?”
But that way lay disaster. So he’d long ago constructed a life built around rules. He’d erected a box for himself, and as long as he stayed within it, his life would stay on track. He had rules for work, rules for play—such as it was—and rules for the people he associated with.
Including women.
Hell, maybe especially women. Because one of the first rules he’d ever made for himself—and the one he still stuck to most rigidly—was his strict policy not to mess with the shiny girls.
He used to watch them back in middle and high school. They were the girls who came from families that he envisioned sitting around the dinner table every night, sharing a meal and discussing their expectations—the girls you just knew would go on to college and marry some decent schmoe and raise kids whom they could inoculate with the same values they’d learned from the cradle.
And for a short while he’d wanted that for himself. It had been a burning in his gut, a secret wish—a futile wish, and no one had to tell him so. He’d known it intuitively, which still hadn’t stopped him from going after one or two of the good girls.
Okay, who was he kidding—it had been exactly two. It wasn’t as if he’d forgotten either Hilary or Megan.
Because for a short while both relationships had actually worked out. He’d felt different when he was with those girls. Better about himself. He’d felt great.
But he’d learned the hard way that it didn’t pay to get in too deep, to grow too dependent. Because the minute he had, he’d done something, said something to bring the relationship to a screeching halt. The genes had won out every time. With Hilary it had been beating the crap out of an ape of a boy he’d caught bullying some runty kids for their lunch money; with Megan it was boosting a car to take her for a ride. But the grand theft auto, which luckily no one had caught him doing, was probably just extra nails—he was pretty sure his frank talk about having relatives in the pen had already slammed the lid on the coffin of that relationship.
In any case, in both instances his getting comfortable and acting like the de Sanges he was had signaled the end with the objects of his affection. Much to their families’ relief, he was sure. He’d finally wised up to the fact that good girls weren’t looking for a guy like him to chuck a spanner into their organized worlds…and their parents sure as hell weren’t looking for him to tarnish their sterling-silver daughters.
So, hey, big deal. If there was one thing he’d understood, even from a very young age, it was that disappointment happened. But life had ways of doling out compensations as well.
A big one, for him, had been the fact that he’d shot up and filled out when most boys were still standing eyeball-to-chin with their female counterparts. That’s probably how he’d attracted Hilary and Megan in the first place. But the real bennie of his taller, fitter body had been the loose girls who’d come sniffing around, ready and willing to take his mind off what he couldn’t have. All they’d wanted in return was to be shown a good time.
And he’d done his best to accommodate them. They’d taught him things beneath the bleachers and on musty gym mats stacked in the corners of school equipment rooms. He’d paid attention and he’d learned. Then he’d returned the favor in the backseat of his eleven-year-old Chevy Cavalier, which had been a piece of shit but his pride and joy all the same.
And thinking about it now, he realized it had been a while since he’d hooked up with the adult equivalent of those girls. Maybe it was time to go find himself a loose woman. Because Poppy’s kisses, her touch, had made him feel wild and reckless and dangerous. That session up against his fridge had built to blow-the-top-of-his-head-off proportions and he’d wanted nothing more than to step fast and furiously outside the box he’d constructed for himself with no concern for what the rules were, let alone adhering to them.
But he was damned if he intended to revert to that irresponsible kid. No one had been hurt by tonight’s episode, but that could change in a red-hot hurry if he continued to let Poppy cloud his brain. So his mind was made up: it wouldn’t happen again.
And as soon as he could free up a couple of hours he planned to head for the nearest cop bar and pick up a groupie.
No time like the present, boy.
“Jesus!” It wasn’t bad enough he heard Pops’s voice encouraging him into illegal activities, now he was hearing it in his fucking love life? That was just what he needed.
Well, he wasn’t about to be hustled into conforming to anyone’s schedule but his own. Hey, he would do it tonight…except he’d be lousy company. And if he had nothing else to offer, a woman at least deserved a guy who would pay attention and show her a good time for the short while she was with him.
So soon, for sure. God knew he needed to blow off some of this steam.
Poppy’s flushed, willing expression again flashed through his consciousness, but he sternly pushed it away. Not, however, before he felt a fierce tug of desire.
He set his jaw. Hell, yes; he’d say it again. He had to blow off some steam.
Before he did something stupid.
“WHAT THE HECK are you doing?”
Poppy jerked, slopping a bit of the paint she’d been loading onto her roller brush over the edge of the pan. She scowled over at Jane, who stood in the doorway of the Wolcott mansion’s upstairs bedroom. “What does it look like?” she snapped, turning back to wipe the edge of the pan with the wet cloth in her hand before shoving it in her lab coat pocket and rolling another swath of April Mist onto the wall. “Painting.”
“Feeling a bit peckish, are we.” It wasn’t a question and, giving Poppy’s lousy mood the zero attention only a close friend dared, Jane strolled into the room, her dark hair gleaming beneath the overhead lights. “You gonna snap my head off if I ask why? It’s almost ten o’clock at night.”
“I know what time it is!” Then, sighing, she set the roller back in the paint pan and turned back to her friend.
“I’ve let my obligations here slide, and this is the time I had available,” she said with hard-won composure, firmly quashing her conscience when it urged her to expand her answer.
But that wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t as if she’d told a lie. Perhaps she hadn’t told the entire truth, but she was behind in her obligations to the mansion’s restoration project and she had been meaning to get over here to start painting. She had simply allowed herself to be sidetracked.
But she felt no burning urge to admit to a foible that she was so over.
“You know what Ava would say, don’t you?” Jane demanded, closing the distance separating them with long-legged strides.
“You’ll have to narrow that down a little for me,” she said dryly. “Ava would—and does—say a great many things.”
“I’m talking about if she saw you painting this room all by yourself. She’d say that when Miss Agnes requested you be in charge of decorating the mansion she never intended for you to manually do every room yourself. And that we should hire someone.”
The last of Poppy’s ire collapsed, and she felt as if she were about to follow in its footsteps, suddenly so fatigued she could barely hold her head up. “That would be nice. Great, actually. I don’t mind doing a portion of it myself, but I get worn to a nub just thi
nking about doing the entire thing.” She perked up a little. “Hey, maybe I can hire my taggers. They’ve proven to be halfway decent house painters and surprisingly responsible. Plus, they could probably use the money.” Well, Cory and Henry could, at least. She didn’t know what Danny’s story was, but she doubted a lack of money factored anywhere into it.
“Uh, I hate to pull a de Sanges, but I have to ask if it’s safe to have those kids in the house.”
“They’re not thieves, Janie. But, okay, I understand your concerns—you don’t know them and you’ve been burned by one thief already. Most of your collections are in the parlor, though, right? We could close the pocket door and keep that area locked.” She sighed, weary to the bone.
“So now that we’ve got that settled, what’s really bothering you?” Jane asked out of the blue, and only fast reflexes kept Poppy from bobbling her roller.
Mind spinning, she bought herself a second by carefully placing the roller in its paint tray once again, aligning it just so. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have a problem dumping news of tonight’s events all over one of her best friends. And if what she felt was merely anger, she probably would have started doing precisely that the minute Jane cleared the door. Because anger was empowering. She never felt girlie or weak when she was pissed.
And God knew she was furious that Jason had kissed her—more than kissed her—twice now, only to reject her. But there was a healthy dose of hurt mixed into her fury and that wasn’t something she longed to share. She knew Janie wouldn’t think any less of her for it, but right or wrong, she felt diminished by her own weakness.
Diminished by him.
She knew better than to lie about it, however. The three of them had been friends forever and had a sixth sense about each other’s emotional vulnerabilities. “I can’t discuss it, Janie,” she admitted quietly. “Not tonight, anyhow.” When her friend gave an understanding nod, she said, “What are you doing here, anyway? It’s just as late for you to be dropping by as it was for me.”
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