Goes down easy(13)

The truth was that, at forty-eight years old, she didn’t know where to begin. Because somewhere along the line, the dynamics had changed. Now Perry was the one doing the looking after, a reality Della had come face-to-face with today. Into Perry’s life had walked the amazing Jack Montgomery, and what did Perry do but throw up a protective wall to keep him away.

As weak as Della had been feeling the last few days, from the migraines brought on by her visions, she appreciated the buffer her niece created for her between Sugar Blues and the world.

What she didn’t like was how Perry hid behind the wall as well. Which was why, when presented with the opportunity to play interfering, busybody matchmaker, Della had jumped at the chance. Now all she could do was hope her manipulative ways didn’t come back to haunt her.

Hearing the bell chime on the door as Book let himself in, Della hopped and limped back to the chaise lounge where she’d already spent too many hours. The aroma of the food he’d brought with him wafted ahead and made her realize that she was hungry after all.

But then, the empty sensation deepened, tightened. And none of what she was feeling had a thing to do with the food. It was a sense of anticipation she’d not let herself experience in years; a hope, a flutter of girlish excitement. And it hit her the moment he walked through the door that she’d loved him for a very long time.

He still wore his suit coat, though his shirt collar was unbuttoned and the knot of his tie hung loose. He’d wrapped one arm around the paper bag he carried, almost like he was charging ahead with a football.

It made her smile, the way he was so unequivocally male, the way her heart raced when she noticed. She laced her fingers tightly together in her lap and watched him come into the sitting room from the landing, well aware of the tension created by her invitation.

“That smells wonderful,” she said, hoping to put them both at ease. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was till you got here.”

“Good. Because I brought more than plenty.” He unloaded the containers onto the coffee table, surprising her with a six-pack of beer, then sliding the table closer to the chaise lounge and handing her a pair of chopsticks. Only then did he look around for a place to sit.

“Here. I’ll make room.” She shifted her legs to the side of the seat, and then she waited, her pulse accelerating, a sheen of perspiration breaking out between her breasts.

He hesitated, and she wasn’t sure of the cause until he said, “Do you need anything from the kitchen? Something other than beer? Do you want a glass? Do you need a fork or a knife?”

“I’m fine,” she said, still nervously waiting. “Book, I don’t bite.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” he said under his breath, causing her to wonder if he knew he’d spoken aloud.

But he did sit, and the world didn’t come to an end when his hips made contact with her legs. He pulled a bottle from the six-pack, twisted off the top and handed it to her.

Their fingers met when she took it from his hand, the bottle cold, his skin warm. She reacted strongly, a sharp shiver that caught her unawares. He held her gaze for a very long time before bringing his own bottle to his mouth and turning away to drink.

Della drank, too, hoping the buzz from the alcohol would ease what she was feeling, would soften the tension into something sweet. Right now it was unbearable, and she didn’t want anything about her time with Book to be that way.

“So, what did you bring me to eat?” she asked, setting her drink on the corner table at her shoulder and snapping her chopsticks together.

Book opened the closest carton. “Spring rolls.” Opened another. “Sesame chicken.” Opened a third. “Mongolian beef.” Opened a fourth. “Kung Pao shrimp.”

She leaned forward, clipped a spring roll with her chopsticks and sat back. “You know these things are my favorite foods in the world.”

Book chose the beef. “I seem to remember that. The last time we ate dinner together it was Chinese. You and the spring rolls were inseparable.”

“My weakness,” she said, sighing before biting down. “Mmm. I don’t know what it is, but I think I could live on these.”

“When was the last time you had them?”

She had to stop and think. “I believe it was the last time you brought them to me.”

“Sounds like it’s absence making the stomach grow fonder.”

She laughed. “Or it’s the company that makes everything taste so good.”

Book chuckled, dug through the beef and came up with a sliver of bok choy. “If I didn’t know you as well as I do, Della Brazille, I’d think you were flirting with me.”

She considered him over her bottle of beer. “Would that be a bad thing? If I were?”

He stopped chewing. He stopped picking through the meat and the vegetables. He stopped moving altogether, for a time that seemed longer than she was able to wait.

Finally, he set the carton of food on the table, his chopsticks sticking up like a television antenna, and cocked one knee as he shifted on the seat to face her.

She started counting the beats of his pulse at his temple, but lost track long before he spoke. “What are you asking me, Della?” He shook his head to delay her answer. “I mean, I heard you. I just don’t know how honest you want me to be.”

She closed her eyes because she already had her answer. She’d heard it in his words, in the tone he’d used when he’d spoken. But she’d seen it even more clearly in his expression, something she was certain he’d meant to hide.

Her gift was both a blessing and a curse. And right now, as in the kitchen earlier with Jack, she wished she was blind to the energy she was picking up from Book.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” she asked, opening her eyes again and taking him in. “How long we’ve known each other. The horrors we’ve shared. Yet we’ve never really been honest as a woman and a man.”

He hunched forward, his shoulders straining the fabric of his suit coat, and spread his hand on the seat cushion next to her leg, giving her the choice, to touch him, or not to touch him.

“Is that what you want?” He flexed his fingers in the fabric. “Do you want me to tell you the truth? To admit how much you mean to me?”

She placed her drink on the table at her side and straightened, covering his hand, wrapping her fingers around his, then reaching up to caress his cheek. She didn’t say a word. All she did was touch him, feel him, sense him.

And then he shook his head, a sly smile crossing his mouth. He turned his palm up and laced his fingers through hers. “I don’t have to tell you anything, do I? You already know.”

“I know, yes,” she admitted, hearing his breath catch, his pulse pound harder and faster. “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to hear it, anyway. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a man declare his feelings to me.”

He brought her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to the center of her palm. She couldn’t even begin to describe the winds of change sweeping through her.

“I’ve never been very good at expressing myself with words,” he admitted, his voice tight, his tone gruff.

Oh, but her heart was filled to the brim and on the verge of bursting. “That’s hard to believe, when you have such a very nice mouth.”

He arched a brow. “Then let me use it to show you how I feel.”





PERRY WOKE with a jolt, uncertain what had startled her from sleep, feeling as if she were in an unfamiliar place when she knew that she wasn’t. She was sleeping in her bed. In her room. In her own home, surrounded by all of her things. And then she remembered.

The thing that was different was Jack.

When she’d told him she wanted him to stay the night, he hadn’t reacted. At least not in the ways her limited experience with men had taught her to expect. He didn’t leer or make any sort of off-color remark about getting lucky.

He’d just shrugged, nodded and continued to hook up his equipment with no more than an agreeable, “Sure.”

She’d figured that feeding him would be the hospitable thing to do. Unfortunately, she wasn’t much of a cook. If she didn’t have salad fixings on hand or leftover containers of takeout, she usually did no more for herself than open a can of soup or make a turkey sandwich. Turkey and soup she had. The deli was her friend.

But the occasion had seemed to call for more effort. After all, Jack was the first man to sleep over since she’d purchased the town house. Not that he was sleeping with her, but he was company. And he had gone out of his way to take care of the repairs to Della’s kitchen door.

So she’d boiled pasta, opened and heated a jar of gourmet marinara sauce and grated fresh parmesan over the top. He’d thanked her and dug in, but hadn’t been much for conversation, intent instead on his research.

His focus had given her time to study him while eating in silence. Study, and wonder about the man he was. A man who would come into the lives of two women who were strangers, and make himself indispensable in less than two days.

Several minutes into their hushed meal, he’d reached into his laptop case for a pair of reading glasses, grimacing when she’d grinned at him putting them on.