Once Upon A Half-Time 2(102)
I moved from the bed. Pride got me to my feet, but stupidity opened my mouth.
“You don’t have to explain.” I grunted. “Just figured you’d miss me or something. Been a year, Sweets.”
“Yeah. A long year.”
She reached over a laundry basket filled with spare bags of flour to search for clothes. Something to hide her delicates. Josie and lingerie didn’t mix—not around open flame and splattering bacon and pancake breakfasts. That was fine. I preferred her padding in the bedroom wearing only my shirt.
Josie wrapped herself in a robe instead, a frustratingly oversized puff ball that hid everything I took beneath a force-field of a fuzzy, knotted belt.
Point taken.
I followed her to the kitchen though I tugged on my jeans before I bobbed cock-first after her. I wasn’t some lovesick puppy, but I deserved more than shifting from the heat between her legs to enduring a cold shoulder.
She aimed for the flour—her usual stress relief. I preferred working out, hitting a punching bag until my fists bled. Josie kneaded instead. Piping bags and sugar crowded her countertops. She didn’t have enough room for a rolling pin between the wall and the sink. A tower of unevenly stacked baking sheets threatened to topple.
This wasn’t a good apartment for her. Hell, even her oven door came with a bungie cord.
I pointed at the make-shift solution. “Broken? I can fix it for you.”
Josie didn’t look at me. “It’s not big enough for a standard cookie sheet. I bungie the door closed when I bake.”
“You’re shitting me.”
She studied her ingredients. “I don’t have an industrial kitchen anymore.”
I asked the question that burned me since I got to town. “Why didn’t you rebuild the shop?”
“No money.”
“Insurance?”
This apparently wasn’t her favorite subject. She turned, clutching a bag of sugar. “Do you want the long or short version?”
“It’s just a question, Sweets.”
“Granddad got hurt in the fire. Bad. By the time the fire marshal was done with the investigation and the insurance paid out for the arson…” She swallowed. “We had medical bills. You know how it is.”
No. I didn’t. She was lying to me. Josie never fibbed because she couldn’t pull it off. A year away hadn’t changed that.
She set a mixing bowl on the counter and measured her flour. Her hand trembled as she dumped more ingredients into the bowl.
Why was she scared?
I thought a year separated from her would kill me. This was worse. I hated to bring up the fire, but I had no idea what else might have frightened her so much. I folded my arms. Didn’t help. Now my scars flexed, raw and ugly. They gave me cred in jail, but I wasn’t looking for confrontation now.
I just wanted my girl in my arms.
“What do you remember from that night?” I regretted the question as soon as I asked it.
She answered immediately, like a reflex. “Nothing. I woke up in the hospital after the fire. Can you please pass me the egg beaters? They’re on top of the fridge.”
She was no bigger than half a bite of cookie, but she could damn well reach. She meant to change the subject.
She was lying again.
What the hell.
“What are you making?” I asked.
“Cookies.”
“Why?”
“The pay is good.”
This wasn’t my Josie. My girl never shut up. She rambled about recipes and imported chocolates and ideas for her newest creations. Before her, I never gave a shit about the girls I slept with. Wouldn’t have talked to them, and they had nothing worthy to say. But once I fell for Josie, I gained five pounds and a new appreciation for the Belgians and their cocoa powder.
She tugged at her robe. Her lip trembled. It took a lot to make Josie cry, not when she had enough ideas and ambition to exhaust every plan before letting a tear escape. In her kitchen, crying was for spilled milk. And shattered sugar sculptures. And the DeAngelos dropped wedding cake.
I’d only ask it once. “What’s wrong?”
She stared at her bowl of flour. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Want me to go?”
That she hedged. “We broke up, Maddox. Remember? Before the fire? You were…” She hugged herself. “You got so mad.”
“Because I knew what we had. I knew we were wrong to let it go. I wanted to make it work.”
“Me too. I tried. But you’re…”
“What?”
“No one in the town trusted you. They said you were dangerous. And then you got arrested…”
“I was innocent.”
“Not to the town. Or the judge.”
“What about you?”