Chapter Eleven
Wednesday, April 12 four p.m.
Peach wasn’t a coward. She could handle this. He got all he was going to get from her. If he kept pressing, he was going to find out why hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. “Morales,” she said. Her voice was all hard edges professional.
“Em. Thank God. When you didn’t call back, I worried something happened.”
“Anderson.”
“Baby, we need to talk.” His voice was seduction. That was Anderson. He’d perfected the “you catch more flies with honey than vinegar” tactic.
“Five hundred an hour. I’m starting the meter now. Talk.”
He let out a exasperated sigh. “Don’t be like that, baby. Em, honey, you know how I feel about you.”
She hated this—the repeated rehashing of history. “What do you want, Anderson?” Her voice broke. She hated that even more.
“I don’t want to do this over the phone. Come to my apartment where we can talk in private. I want to see you.”
“I’m in Tennessee, Anderson. There is no coming to your apartment. There is nothing talk to about.”
“Now, Em.” His voice fell in that way he had of telling her she was being unreasonable. “That’s just not true, and you know it. We have unfinished business.”
“As far as I’m concerned, we finished everything there was to finish on New Year’s Eve. Good bye, Anderson.”
“This isn’t the end—”
There was some satisfaction in hanging up. Still, it paled compared to the way her hands shook. And the crying. What was with that? Emotion overload. That had to be it. Once they had her uncle back, she’d be back to her normal, sane self.
She knocked once and went into Tom’s office. Office was the wrong word. On the other side of the closed door was a modern-day take on Frankenstein’s laboratory. Big equipment filled the room that was as large as the entire upstairs. The mad doctor sat in the center, where tables fashioned into a large square made up the actual office.
Tom was on the phone. Perfect, as she didn’t want conversation. She hurried to the nearest table, set her phone on it, and left, pretending not to see him gesturing for her to wait.
With no time to lose, she ran to the princess room and changed. She wanted to be out of the house before Tom finished his call, just in case he came looking.
She didn’t take her watch. She would run until she ran it out.
She didn’t take her music. She wouldn’t hear anything over the noise in her head.
The temperature was thirty—count them—thirty degrees warmer than when they left Greater Cleveland. It felt good to wear so little. She slid on sunglasses and jogged to the two dirt ruts separated by a raised line of stubborn grass.
The first few minutes were easy, just to warm up. Then things got hard. She didn’t want comfort; she wanted pain. She wanted to drive her body until her feet were as numb as her soul. Until her legs ached as much as her heart. He had lied to her.
Anderson Bingham on New Year’s Eve, with his styled hair and designer suit, stood beside her with the gin and tonic in his hand, laughing as his mother called her a mix-blooded child with more taste than talent. When she begged her son to get through this “little phase” and find a proper wife, he’d pet her hand, soothing her.
The image of herself that evening was branded in her mind. The fitted sequined dress she spent too much on and her hair so full of product it hung straight, nearly reaching her bottom. A ruby necklace rested on her décolletage, a loan from her widowed neighbor. It had been an anniversary present from her husband, and she’d been proud to have Peach wear it to such a sophisticated party. Despite everything she did, or maybe because of, she would never fit in there. No matter what Anderson whispered in the dark of night, he would never openly claim her to be his.
Embarrassment and humiliation fueled her legs. She, who laughed at the drama in which other women seemed to perpetually lived, had thrown her glass of red wine on Mommy Dearest and walked out.
Anderson hadn’t followed.
That was what hurt.
She rounded the corner at the front of the house, running along the endless line of black fence. A massive black dog with a lolling tongue leaped off the porch and sprinted across the lawn. He turned and ran with her a stride or two and then pulled away. She pushed harder, using the dog for pacing. Lengthening her stride, she tried to outrun the dog, tried to outrun the pain.
She followed the dog onto a narrower footpath. Tall scrub brush reached into the thin path, talon-like thorns ripping at the dog and woman alike. She let out an anguished cry. The more she demanded, the more her body gave. Her lungs weren’t burning. Her legs weren’t screaming.
This wasn’t working.
Ahead, a tree with a long, low branch reached over the path. She leaped for it. A bolt of electricity raced down her arm when her bandaged palm slapped the rough bark. Throwing herself into a quick set of pull ups, the bough bent under her weight. She hung for a moment and caught her breath, then switched grips. She changed to a gymnastic move, one that required her to change between a hanging position and one where she was above the bough on braced arms. Her arms shook. Her abs ached, but the noise in her head thundered on. Stupid. Naïve. Humiliated. Her throat burned with bile. It sickened her to no end that she really thought he loved her. That the differences between them were to be cherished.
On the twelfth rep, her grip slipped.
Peach fell to the ground, landing flat on her back.
…
The screen on the desk asked if he wanted to play the video again. Tom didn’t see it. His gaze was out the window, where flowers danced in the sunshine. He needed to be reminded that there was warmth in the world, because at the moment, he was chilled to the bone. The recording on Peach’s phone was twenty-three minutes and eighteen seconds long.
It was everything he hoped for and nothing he imagined.
She had captured it all. The crane swept gracefully across the sky as the hoist raised and lowered the load. The abrasive brush of the wind provided the background music. And then there was her voice.
“Hello, my crazy uncle. Are you enjoying the weather today?” There was a chattering that could only be her teeth, but her voice was light, happy. He hadn’t heard that quality in the time he’d known her.
“It is a beautiful day for flying. I have the best job in the world. I can reach out and touch heaven.” Rico Morales, alive and enjoying his work. His voice had the same qualities as hers. Tom couldn’t see him. Peach had been too far away, and the zoom only did so much. She had framed it just right, intending to impress Poppy with the skills of their expert operator.
Rico provided information Tom needed. “That artistic pile of steel weighs half of my baby’s capacity. Add in the wind and you have a lift that eight out of ten operators wouldn’t make.” There was no worry. No contemplation of putting off the lift. He was confident in his skills, his equipment, and the men around him.
Then came the moment Tom waited for. He focused intently on the screen, on the part of the crane tower he’d isolated. It was visible from her elevated angle. There was nothing unusual…and then she screamed. She shouted her uncle’s name over and over as if that alone could stop the fall. It would have been heart wrenching coming from a stranger. The sound that came from his lover broke him. He closed his eyes against the hurt; the audio played on. Raw human pain, in its most elemental form, reverberated off the concrete and steel in the room. His hand rubbed his chest, over his heart, as he listened to a part of her dying.
A door slammed, and he opened his eyes. The image displayed the ceiling of the truck. It jumped as she raced down to the site, the landscape visible through a narrow band of the windshield. She carried the phone as she raced across the frantic job site. The screen was hard to watch, images of the ground and debris jumping as she ran. She stopped, and the picture focused on the lake. The phone was very close to her mouth, capturing the prayers that had yet to be answered.
The screen on the desk sat there, waiting for his answer. Did he want to play the video again?
No. God, no, he didn’t want to play it again. But he had to. He turned off the sound, pressed play, and then manipulated the slide bar to seconds before the tower began to rock. Without the sound, he could be distant, clinical. Without emotion, his mind could work. He made the images as large as possible and leaned forward, the table pressing into his gut. The tower listed over land, in the direction Tom had expected. He couldn’t see the wind, but he could see how the frame dangling from the hoist acted. Following the laws of aerodynamics, it lifted. The crane turned, the mast shifting over the building frame. Rico had tried to compensate, countering the wind. For a moment, it appeared to work. For three seconds, the tower stood vertical. Then suddenly, it folded.
He rewound it, looking at the point of failure. The image wasn’t clear enough. He needed to make it bigger, zoom it, like they did on those TV shows where a catastrophe was solved in sixty minutes, less time for commercials.
He fell back in his chair, gaze still on the screen. Maybe Jeb had someone who could do that. The information was worth a few dollars of Fabrini’s money.
Beyond the monitor, Butch shot out of the farmhouse door. Jeb and his new brother-in-law Nate ran behind at full speed. With where he sat, they looked like they were running straight at him. Butch’s face was a mask of worried fury.
“Katie.” Tom leaped to his feet, sending his chair crashing into the table behind him. He hustled out the door. “What happened? It’s the baby, right? Is she okay?”
“She won’t be after I get my hands on her.” Butch hit the garage door with his shoulder. Tom chased Jeb and Nate inside.
He jumped in the truck a millisecond before the garage doorframe would have taken off the door. “Where are we going?”
“Firing range.”
…
It was a sweet set up. The small block building had actually been the door to an underground armory. It was Jeb’s, and it was totally stocked. Tall mounds of earth behind it made a firing range with targets just waiting for a customer. A permanent table built into the back of the block building had guns, ammunition, and eye and ear protection. Peach, once again, had to admire what Carolina had. The woman in question held the gun with the easy confidence of someone who had shot one a thousand times.
The woman next to her? Not so much. Katie McCormick squeezed the trigger, and the shot appeared on the fringe of Carolina’s target. “You messed with this, didn’t you?”
Peach bit her lip, trying not to laugh. Tom’s cousin was a spitfire, mouth and body in constant motion, and very pregnant. Katie explained that Carolina—cue eye roll—said gun fire could hurt the baby’s ears, hence they all used silencers. And that the lead in the casings—cue second eye roll—was also a threat, so she wore leather gloves. The oversize earmuffs across her belly were bonus protection. Peach half wondered how they stayed in place.
“You did something,” Katie said, glaring at her sister-in-law. “Trade me guns.”
Carolina gave a dirty look to the woman who barely came to her shoulder and took the gun. She aimed the weapon, pulled the trigger, and put a slug in the bull’s eye. “Nothing wrong with the gun. I wish I could say the same for the shooter.”
Peach aimed and fired, five rounds in rapid succession, with very satisfactory results. Shooting hadn’t come naturally to her. Like Katie, she preferred to move. To succeed on the firing range, she had to control her breath and her body. The discipline was necessary in military life and had come in useful as a civilian.
“You’re dancing around too much,” Peach said. “Calm down, breathe, and focus.”
“I am calm and focused, and you try breathing with seven pounds kicking your lungs.” Katie snatched the gun back from Carolina, hastily took a stance, and fired, missing the target all together.
“Really focus. Think of someone you hate. Someone you’d love to personally escort to the gates of hell. Put his face right in the center and then…pop.” One shot. One hit. “Your turn.”
Katie laughed and then fell silent under Peach’s gaze. She lifted the gun, focused, squeezed the trigger, and winged the outside edge of the target. “That would serve the bastard right for getting my car dirty.”
Not even close. Peach studied her face. She had quick, intelligent features and a perpetual smile. “Don’t you hate anybody?”
“Well, I hate lots of people in general but nobody in particular. It’s hard to hate somebody. You have to spend time and energy on them I’d rather spend in other places.”
Katie was wrong. Hating someone was easy. She took the gun from Katie, aimed, fired. And fired. And fired until the bull’s eye exploded in a cloud of dust.
“Oh my goodness,” Carolina said.
Katie snickered. “What was his name?”
“Anderson Bingham.”
“Katie McCormick!”
“Busted.” Katie shoved the gun at Peach then stripped the gloves and thrust them in her arms too. “Quick. Hide ’em.”
Peach reacted before she thought about it, putting it all behind her back. She stayed away, keeping the action in front of her. A silver pickup truck lumbered up the path, bouncing with every rut and rock. The man who hung out the window had his eyebrows pressed down so low he could have worn them as a moustache. The truck skidded to a stop, and the man leaped out, hurrying to loom over Katie.
“We agreed no more shooting until after the baby is born.” He clamped his hand around Katie’s wrist when she lifted her hand to his hair. Peach might have thought he was angry, except for the quiver in his voice that he didn’t quite hide. He was scared.
Katie’s voice was calm, openly honest, and lying through her teeth. “I wasn’t shooting a gun.” They both looked down at the ear muffs on her belly. “I was watching. Besides, I never agreed to that—”
“You said ‘whatever’—”
“Exactly. Third. I don’t have a gun.” She held up her hands as proof.
“You mean to tell me if Jeb tests this gun for prints, he’s not going to find yours?”
“He will not. I one-hundred percent guarantee it.”
Peach tucked the gloves into the waist band of the shorts. She fired two shots to make sure it was her prints on the gun. Of course, that got everyone’s attention. “Sorry. I, uh, didn’t mean to interrupt.” Engaging the safety, she returned the gun to the table.
“Peach,” Katie said. “This is my husband, Butch. Butch, Peach. So how did the call go with the banker? Everything still good?”
Peach doubted it would work. Butch wore a mask of anxiety. His gray eyes were focused like laser beams, his mouth drawn tight as a drum, but Katie rose to her toes, kissed his chin, and he melted. Iceman to puddle of water in one-point-seven seconds.
Jeb had his brother’s back, positioning himself to help Butch or hold him back, whichever the situation dictated. He looked younger here, relaxed. With the situation de-escalated, he went to Carolina and helped return the guns to their cases.
Tom leaned against the truck, his arms crossed over his chest, with a smirk that said he was enjoying the show. He was a man worth a second look, broad shouldered and tall with that wavy hair that was just a little bit of a bad boy. Didn’t that suit the man she knew between the sheets?
The last man was a stranger. His cheeks and jaw were prominent in the lean face, one that was handsome enough to star in the next action-adventure blockbuster. His gaze flickered between the players like he was trying to figure out the rules to a game, too. He looked to her, and Peach shrugged. That earned her a charming, crooked smile. “I’m Nate, Carolina’s brother. She told me all about you.”
“Shame on her. She didn’t tell me a thing about you.”
Tom abruptly stepped in front of Nate, completely blocking him out. “I need you back at the house.” His arm wrapped around her waist, then looked behind her. “Why do you have driving gloves in your shorts?”
Tom drove with Peach riding shotgun and Butch and Katie in the back. It wouldn’t have been right to leave Jeb and Carolina to clean up except the newlyweds began shooting. He thought he heard talk of a strip-target shooting game. In the backseat, Katie worked to pacify Butch. There was a lot of “I knows” and several “I didn’t,” “I won’t,” and “I can’t.” Nate was squeezed in next to them, trying to be invisible. Tom couldn’t wait until the baby came and things got back to normal.
Peach sat in the passenger seat, rubbing her hands down her thighs. Her gaze kept flashing to him, her lips thin and tight. She glanced in the back and then leaned toward him. “What did you find? Did the video help you?”
Guilt struck as he realized he’d misled her. His words, misinterpreted, had turned her into a ball of nerves. “Your video is going to be a great help, but that’s not why I needed you. Relax.” He rubbed her hunched shoulder, noticing the scratches. “What happened to you? You’re covered in cuts.”
She sighed heavily, the tension in her easing. “Never let a dog pick your running route.” She rested her arm on the door, her fingers tapping out a rhythm. “I need a shower.”
The uneven ground made the going slow as he tried to keep it as smooth as he could for the passengers. In the quiet space, he saw Peach firing at the target. She wore a red sports bra and black and red shorts. The band sat well below her belly button and covered as little leg as possible. The rest of her was bare skin, perfect even with the scratches. In the firing stance, her belly was flat, tight, hard enough to bounce a quarter off. Her face was at ease, but her eyes blazed. He’d seen that determined look before, in the restaurant that very first night. He hoped she never used it on him, because he’d be a goner.
It was hard to equate the woman at the firing range with the woman he heard on the video. Where did she put it? How did it not eat the hell out of her? Seeing her uncle…he couldn’t say die. Seeing her uncle fall just four days before, how was she sleeping without nightmares? She wasn’t cold, wasn’t heartless. He felt her pain through the recording. He couldn’t imagine functioning under the weight of the grief and memory.
He pulled the truck into the garage and then helped Katie to the ground. It was easier to focus on his cousin and her happy, if not slightly disruptive, condition than to think about Peach. She overwhelmed him with her strength. Butch followed Katie out of the truck, his arm supporting her. While Katie might push back at times, she now leaned into that support. Quietly relied on it.
He decided to be that for Peach. Walking by her side, he kept the conversation light. “Easier to run here than up north this time of year. Tennessee winters have spoiled me, but I still love Michigan summers.”
“Is that where you’re from? I thought maybe the accent was just educated out of you.”
“Nope. This is original. Except for ‘Clyde’ and the occasional ‘y’all’ that slips out between beers.” He opened the door to his wing and followed her up the stairs. “Do you cross-train?” While they talked about exercise, he led her into his rooms and started the bath.
She stared at the oversize bathtub, a cute frown on her face. “I was going to use the guest shower.”
He lifted her chin and brushed a kiss across those downturned lips. “This is better.” When the bath was ready, he added Epsom Salt and a little oil. A woman he once appreciated was big into homeopathy, and he’d picked up a trick or two.
“What are you pouring in it?”
“Just a little something. Let me look at those cuts. Why did you follow the dog?” He kept his touch soft, arousing, as he inspected her arms. “Turn around. You have dirt in these.” Moistening a washcloth in the bathwater, he gently cleaned her back.
“I…I slipped. Fell. Dog sat on me.” She was having trouble talking.
“Hmm. I’ve never been jealous of a dog.” He turned her around and dropped to his knees. He removed her shoes, then her socks, and began a slow foot massage. She swayed as he moved passed her knees to her thighs. The skin inside her legs was soft. Leaning in, his tongue drew a line from her knee to the bottom of those shorts. Her scent was wild and strong. His breathing came fast and shallow, his cock hardening beneath the denim of his jeans. Tending to her was going to be harder than he thought.
He drew the shorts down, leaving him a breath’s distance from her black curls. She placed a hand on his shoulder, and she stepped out of them. He didn’t put his mouth between her legs the way he wanted. He didn’t use his tongue to feast on her honey. But he did slip a finger in, toying with her little button, sliding into her tight body.
He wasn’t going to survive caring for her.
He stood, not trusting himself, and took her sports bra with him. Her breasts spilled against his chest. He cupped the soft mounds, teasing her nipples until they were as taut as he was. He stooped, his lips and his tongue worshipping her body. She swayed, and he wrapped her in his arms, indulging for a few more moments before he swept her off her feet.
The bath was full enough. He programmed the controls for the jets and created a jacuzzi, setting her in the center. The surprise on her face receded when he kicked his shoes off and went for the hem of his shirt.
“Go slow,” she said, sinking into the warm water. She winced a little, the salt doing its job on those abrasions. Lower and lower she went until the water danced around her shoulders. “I’m waiting.”
Total. Turn on. With the number of encounters Tom had, the removal of clothing was sometimes frenzied, sometimes foreplay. At times it had been clumsy, and once it had been perplexing. Never had it been scintillating. Just the way she looked at him made him nearly cum.
He turned his back to her, slowly raising his shirt. Tightening his abs, puffing out his chest, he rolled his hips. With each circle, he lifted the shirt higher.
He couldn’t see her and hoped to hell he looked as sexy as he felt. He wasn’t breathing, just for her.
“Turn around.” Her voice was deep, full of need.
He didn’t comply immediately but drew it out. Over his shoulder, he saw her face. Her lids were heavy as she licked her lips. Her cheeks were flushed, and he suspected it was from more than the bath.
He bent one knee to remove his sock. There was no sexy way to remove a sock, so he just did it fast. He raised his arms, showing off the results of time invested in the gym. His stomach carried a six-pack over his long frame; he tightened it, posed as if for a magazine. Then came his pants. The button at the top went in one move. His gaze was on her as the zipper went down…down…down. Her breathing was faster now, her eyes dazed. One hand gripped the edge of the tub and the other…
His mouth went dry. “Where…where is your hand?”
A slow, sultry smile curled her mouth. “Some things…a man should find out for himself.”
His jeans hit the bathroom door, his underwear landed in the toilet, and he was in the water. It lapped over the edge, slapping at the tiled rim. He was painfully hard, and the water sent a jolt through him. His hands found her leg beneath the tumultuous surface and traced it down. He found her hand cupping those treasured curls, her finger working her most sensitive spot.
“Let me give you a hand.” He wrapped his over hers, his fingers trapping her.
She dropped her head back, eyes closing. “You think you can do this better than me? It’s my equipment.”
“What you take for granted, I fantasize about three times a day.” He changed the angle, varied his speed, worked all of her. He had never seen anything as sexy as the look in her eyes. The hunger that was just for him. He was tempted to dive, just to taste her, to see if he could.
“Oh God.” She panted now. Her chest rose, bringing those gorgeous breasts to the water’s edge. Her nipples peeked at him, begging for attention.
He kept her hand beneath his and added his thumb. His mouth captured her breast and suckled. She liked him hard and demanding. He’d learned that. She wasn’t a woman to tip-toe through life, careful and gentle. She liked sex like she lived—vivaciously. With each swipe of his tongue on the hard peak of her nipple, she inhaled. With each breath, she arched more. As close to the edge as she was, she vibrated with need. He switched breasts and pressed two fingers deep within her body.
She came off the seat, her body curling around his as wave and wave washed through her. He felt each one as they tried to strangle his fingers, but he didn’t retreat. He drove her farther and faster, needing to hear it. “Say my name.”
Her response was immediate. “Tom.” She said it on a rapid exhalation; the sound torn from her throat was elemental. Still he didn’t let her go. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. His name was her every breath. She flung herself forward, his name bouncing off the tiled walls before her teeth found his shoulder.
He held her close, in awe of what they created together. His mouth found her shoulder, tasted the salt on her skin. She slid against him, and he tightened his grip, not wanting her to slip beneath the water.
In slow, languid movements, she straddled him. Her fingers brushed his chest, flirted down his stomach. She lifted her head and turned the full power of her gaze on him as she took him inside.
“My turn.” Her hands fisted in his hair, making it clear who was in control.
He was too close to the edge. He wanted this to last forever, being at her mercy, subject to her imagination. There was no doubt she was a creative partner in the bedroom, and he wanted to see all her tricks. He needed to get that book, the Kama Sutra. They had to try every position.
His arms around her hips, he pulled her down, driving deeper. Her rounded ass filled his hands. Her core was hot, wet, and so tight.
“My name. Say it,” she commanded, clamping down and swiveling her hips.
He couldn’t say it. She’d stolen his breath. His muscled locked, his hips bucked, but he couldn’t breathe. Her name was on his lips. When she kissed him, he gave it to her. “My Peach.”
Air flooded his lungs as the orgasm subsided. Panting, his head dropped into the corner of her throat. “You drained me.”
She chuckled, the sound resonating deep in her chest—hot sex on a sultry night. “I think we drained the tub.”
They could have spilled enough water to float an ark. He didn’t care. Performing a feat of strength, he lifted his head. “Sex with you is incredible.”
She kissed him again, this time quick and playful, satisfaction shining in her brilliant eyes. “What did you expect? I am incredible.”
Her quick mind and fast tongue aroused him nearly as much as her body. He brushed his mouth against hers and nibbled, showing his appreciation. “What am I?”
“You’re getting there. With a little bit of time and the right woman to guide you, you just might be worth keeping.”