A Date on Cloud Nine (22 page)

“Just try leaving without me.”

“Great.” The clicking never even slowed.

“You want breakfast?”

He grunted, which probably would tick off most women, but he’d spent so much time driving her around, doing what she needed to do, that she didn’t begrudge him his time now.

With the long shirttails skimming her thighs, Lilly darted around the kitchen, setting out bacon, eggs, and butter. Jake never seemed to hate cooking. Maybe she should give it a go—just this once. Otherwise they were going to starve, because she didn’t know any places nearby that delivered breakfast.

She preheated the Foreman for the bacon while she did
what she enjoyed in a kitchen, setting out plates and utensils and cups and everything else two starving people needed. She managed to close a drawer on a finger, which slowed her down quite a bit because the excessive pain—counterpoint to the extreme pleasures she got from food and sex—necessitated a few minutes of icing.

“Well, good mornin’, sugar.”

She whirled around to find Susannah standing just inside the back door, grinning at Lilly’s partially buttoned shirt with approval.

“I know it’s warmed up a bit, but you’ll still catch a chill dressed like that.”

Lilly’s fingers flew upward, poking buttons through what she hoped were corresponding holes. “I, uh, wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“Yes, I see that. Oh, don’t mind me, hon. I’m just dropping off some mail that was left in my box by mistake.”

“Excuse me,” Lilly said. “I’ll go put some clothes on.”

“Oh now, don’t you bother. I’ve known Jake since the day he was born, and it does this old woman a world of good to see that his heart’s finally healed. I was worried about him, don’t you know? All broken up after Angie walked out. This was before you married Brady, so I don’t suppose you knew her. Sweet girl, that one. Poor as a church mouse. Misguided notions of love, but her intentions were good, I suppose.”

It was none of Lilly’s business, really. She shouldn’t ask.

“Why’d she leave him?”

“Well, she felt she had to, I guess. She probably thought it was only fair, though if she had asked any one of us, we would have told her better. Oh my, Jake was a wreck after she left. Drinking and staying out all night. Why, some
times he wouldn’t come home for days on end. His poor mother didn’t know what to do with him. Even his father was at a loss, and you’d think men would know about what other men go through at a time like that, wouldn’t you?”

“But—”

“Brady Marquette was your husband, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have much nice to say about that family. But if it hadn’t been for Brady, I’m not sure Jake would be here today. I think the drinking would have done him in before too long. Drying him out and sending him to the West Coast was the best thing for him, and then—

“Oh my, listen to me going on and you standing there missing your husband. Well, sugar, I guess one way to look at it is that Brady saved Jake’s life—for you.” She looked rather pleased at that rosy conclusion.

“Susannah…”

“Yes, sugar?”

“Why did Angie leave Jake?”

“Why, don’t you know?”

Struck mute, Lilly shook her head, somehow knowing this was going to change her life.

Saddened, Susannah sank into a chair, as if the weight of the world were upon her in having to break this to Jake’s new love. “In her mind, I think she felt she didn’t have much choice in the matter. Oh, we didn’t know this at the time, you see, but Angie’s mother ran into the Murdochs later, and she told them. Angie thought leaving sooner would be easier on Jake than later—so he would remember her the way she was.”

“Susannah—”

“You see, she knew she was dying.”

“B
etsy, if you’re there, pick up.”

Cell phone in hand, Lilly sped along county streets in Jake’s taxi. To hell with her appointments. She was no longer interested in Christian Women for Emergency Relief or a program to promote diversity awareness. She’d thrown on jeans and an old T-shirt, and forgotten to comb her hair. So what?

Taking back streets, feeling as if she were driving a big yellow target, she nervously avoided traffic in hopes that nothing bad would happen to the taxi. Geez, give her an airplane over a car any day.

She hadn’t asked for the keys; didn’t have to this time. She’d found them on Jake’s dresser. So now she was a car thief. If John recalled her today, would she get into heaven?

Who the hell cares?

She had more important matters troubling her. More important than wondering what that gross crunch was on
the mat beneath her sandals. More important than Mooch curled up on the passenger seat, twitching his tail, blinking at her in a very feline message to deal with it, both the crunch and her messed-up life.

So…Angie had left Jake, and he’d gone off the deep end. He loved her now. When it was time for her to die, whether today or tomorrow or in a few months, it’d hit him just as hard, maybe more so. She was afraid he’d self-destruct all over again. This time Brady wouldn’t be around to rescue him. If he survived physically, he’d be twice-burned. Other women might regard him as high risk, or he might be afraid to commit himself ever again, either of which meant he’d never have the kids he so deserved.

Did she have nine months left to prepare him, to break down his system of nonbelief in
any
thing, to show him that there was a world beyond what he could analyze? Or merely a few days?

She needed to know, needed to prepare for the inevitable, but there was one factor she couldn’t work her mind around. Was she pregnant yet? How much time did she have?

If she was, should she leave now so she wouldn’t fuel Jake’s love with her presence day after day, every day? But leaving was what Angie had done, and look where that had gotten him. Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.

If she wasn’t, she couldn’t leave him yet, because John would rescind her earthly privileges and she’d die again right away, and Jake—the stubborn, opinionated, close-minded jackass—so wasn’t ready.

Knowing whether she was pregnant would clue her in
to her next step. When the time came, she’d have to give Jake the only safety valve she had any control over. She’d have to make
him
leave
her
.

In the drugstore, she circumvented the feminine aisle twice. One of the ladies from her tennis club was there. Lilly didn’t need tongues to start wagging over why she was looking at home pregnancy tests just months after burying her husband. News like that would end up on her mother’s doorstep, even in Death Valley.

She speed dialed Betsy again. “Pick up, it’s an emergency.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m standing here in the store looking at about a dozen pregnancy tests. Which one do I buy?”

“Are you late?”

“How would I know?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. Well, could you have gotten pregnant in the last week?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s a waste of money.”

“What?” She whined without shame. “Why?”

“Well,
someone
forgot their high school biology.”

“You’re assuming I learned it in the first place.”

“And you and Brady never…”

“I always thought when the time was right, it’d happen.”

Betsy sighed, but she also took pity on her. “Okay, listen up, here goes. Unless they have quicker tests than I know about, it takes a week for a fertilized egg to reach your uterus, and
then
your body starts producing whatever it is that the test detects. Not before. So you could be pregnant and still get a negative.”

“Shit, I’m screwed.”

Betsy chuckled. “So I gathered.”

Lilly groaned, wondering whether to hang up on her best friend. “Hold on, I’ve got another call. Jake’s probably wondering where his taxi is.” She clicked over, eager to hear him, as always, in spite of the fact that he’d undoubtedly read her the riot act. “Hello?”

“Lilly, dear.”

“Donna,” she said without a hint of warmth. She’d rather get yelled at.

“Have you decided to come home yet?”

Lilly snickered. “Get real.”

“In light of the situation, we feel it’s our responsibility to protect your assets.”

“Well, it’s not. Forget it.”

Lilly started to click back to Betsy, until Donna said, “So we’re taking steps,” which made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning we’ll put pressure on Jake until you come home.”

“Tell you what, Donna.” Lilly took a moment, as if really putting thought into a compromise. “I’ll come home on my birthday.”

“At the rate you’re giving money away? I don’t think so, dear.”

“Well, it’s that or nothing.”

“I thought you might say that. Look out the window.”

She glanced out at the parking lot. There was a guy behind the wheel of Jake’s taxi, waving at her. “Hey!” she shouted, to no avail. She would’ve run after him, but he
was already pulling into the street. “Donna, that’s not Jake’s taxi, it’s his uncle’s.”

“It’s part of the collateral on the loan, dear.”

“Which you can’t just repossess when you feel like it.”

“Well, we’ll leave that up to the courts to settle. You know how long that can take. If you won’t come home, at least stop giving money away. Don’t make me take the next step.”

Late that night, a furious Jake finally tracked the taxi to a chain-link fenced lot behind an abandoned service station in a seedy neighborhood.

“Look at the bright side.” Lilly was worlds perkier than she had been of late, trying to ease the situation. “It’s a good thing you forgot to give Rachel her watch, or we’d never have found it.”

“I’m still mad at you.”

Though it didn’t temper his undying love for her. He couldn’t imagine ever not wanting to do what was best for Lilly.

She lapsed into silence, which would last all of five minutes before she took another stab at winning him over with her sweet talking ways. She’d been like that ever since she’d called him away from the computer. Lucky for him, one of the Murdoch Masons pickups was in the garage for the winter.

He’d donned his dad’s
Don’t mess with masons, we mortar our victims
T-shirt as a warning. But she ignored the hint.

Not that she was coming on to him, because nothing could be further from the truth. She’d securely stowed the
come-hither looks. In his experience, women didn’t pass up using pretty smiles and gentle nudges to gain forgiveness, especially when their quarry was as mad as he, but Lilly certainly wasn’t lowering herself.

“What the hell was so important at the store that you couldn’t wait five minutes for me to get off the computer?”

“Ha!”

“Okay, ten minutes.”

He was just beginning to think she’d chosen to be quiet after all, when she said, “Girl stuff. You sure it’s safe to be here?”

“Stay close to me.”

He should have his head examined for issuing the invitation when he didn’t want her there in the first place, but he needed a second driver.

For a defunct station, there were a lot of vehicles, maybe a dozen. The yellow taxi stood out like a sore thumb. They crouched near the fence.

“I sure hope you’re gonna pipe down and be useful,” he whispered.

“What can I do?”

“Pick the lock on that gate.”

She laughed lightly, then said, “Oh, you were serious,” when he didn’t join her.

“Well, as an alternative, can you hot-wire the car?”

“Uh, no, I always left that to the chauffeur.”

“Lucky you.”

“Are you trying to make me feel useless?”

“That’d be the plan, yes.”

He crept around the perimeter, searching for an easy way in, keeping his eyes open for evidence of a guard dog. “Well shit! Look what they did to my car.”

“What?”

“They wrecked it.”

“Eww, it looks worse than I thought.”

At that, he stopped dead in his tracks and turned, and Lilly ran smack into his chest. Would’ve felt good, too, if he weren’t having a bad day.

“You
knew
it was wrecked?”

“Well…” She shifted from foot to foot. “I wasn’t sure. I heard this funny crash kind of noise about a block away from where he, you know, repossessed it.”

“Stole it.”

“Yeah that. I heard this huge bang and I saw a lot of commotion, people jumping out of their cars, running out of stores, that sort of thing. But I couldn’t see who it was. So I didn’t know for sure. And I didn’t want to tell you it was wrecked and then find out I’d worried you for nothing.”

“Oh man, if he killed somebody with my uncle’s taxi—”

“Relax. I’m sure there would’ve been an ambulance if he’d hurt anybody, and there wasn’t. Not even by the time you arrived.”

“You saying I was slow?”

“I’m saying you took so long, that by the time you arrived, a victim could’ve been reincarnated.”

“No such thing.”

She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Sometimes you make me so mad, I hope I turn into an angel right before your eyes.”

“You’re pretty much a devil right now.”

“You wish,” she said, and he caught her grin under the one unbroken lightbulb in a square block.

“Stop that. Let’s get in there and see if it’s driveable.”

“I thought you didn’t have a key.”

“Sure I do.”

“But you said—”

“I just wanted you to see how much trouble you caused.”

“And the lock on the gate? I know you don’t have a key to that.”

“Piece of cake.”

“Don’t tell me. You have some illegal, high-tech opener.” He said nothing. “So what’re we waiting for?”

“Oh, uh, checking things out takes time.”

“What d’you think?”

“I think it looks like he hit a telephone pole.”

“Hm.”

“
Did
he?”

Lilly shrugged, her head tipping toward one shoulder. It was little movements like that that were so endearing and made it difficult to stay mad at her.

“Better get your lock gizmo.”

Jake fetched what he needed from the pickup, feeling Lilly’s gaze resting on his back like a curious kid checking over Santa’s shoulder.

“That’s it?” she said.

“What?—it’s a work truck. A bolt cutter’s a tool.”

She snickered, and while he was absolutely positive she didn’t mean it to be sexy, it surely was. He was having a devil of a time staying mad at her, when he’d be perfectly justified in doing so.

“Let’s go,” he growled.

They were through the gate in seconds. Still no sign of
a dog, so maybe Mooch hadn’t gone far. As Jake strode over to the taxi, he could see he wouldn’t be driving off with it. He didn’t have to open the hood to know the radiator’d been smashed into a sieve.

He stared at it for a minute, then opened the trunk and handed Lilly a trash bag. “Bag up our stuff; otherwise we’ll never see it again. The merchandise, too. I’ll look for Mooch.”

He hunted for half an hour. Then he and Lilly sat side by side for another half hour, hoping Mooch would return to the familiar car, but he didn’t.

“I hate to say it, but this isn’t getting us anywhere.” It hurt to give up, but what was the point of sitting there all night? “We could be home making lost and found signs or something.”

“It’s all my fault,” Lilly said for the hundredth time as she climbed into the truck and slumped in her seat, brushing nonstop tears off her cheeks.

Jake drove away slowly, looking for eye shine under every bush, behind every barrel. “You say Donna had some guy take the car to make me mad and drive us apart so you’d come into line with her plans? Is that right?”

“That’s what she said on the phone. Right before, ‘Don’t make me take the next step.’”

“What a bitch.” He tugged at Lilly’s hand until she scooted across the seat, then he held her close, relishing how she eventually sighed and softened against him. “We’ll advertise under Lost and Found.”

“We can call the animal hospitals, too. Shoot, I feel so bad.”

“I know. Me too.”

He dipped his head and nuzzled the top of hers, and she pulled back,
just like that
, and said, “We need to talk.”

A frisson of fear leaped on top of his misery—and he’d thought things couldn’t get worse. “You’re breaking up with me?” “No!”

“Then
geez
, don’t say that.” He covered his pounding heart with his hand.

“You really thought I was breaking up with you?”

“Ye-es. What’s a guy supposed to think when a woman starts the ‘We need to talk’ speech?”

She bucked up with a sniffle, and grinned. “Heard that a lot, have you?”

“Once is all it takes. So what’s up?”

“I can deal with Donna picking on me. But having her cause you trouble…” She shifted away slightly, though the emotional distance was immeasurable. “I mean one day I’m independent and you’re going along fine, and then
bam
, all of a sudden, I’m living in your house, riding in your car, and Donna’s making your life a living hell.”

“C’mere.” He hugged her back to him as he drove, tucking her beneath his arm where she could rest her head on his chest.

“Maybe if I get my own place, she’ll let up on you.”

“No.” Maybe if he pounded Andrew into the ground, they’d think twice before making Lilly feel this bad again. “We’ll deal with it. Together.”

Two days later, Jake was slumped at Susannah’s kitchen table, absently toying with the saltshaker while he waited
for her to get ready. She was perched on the chair across from him, arranging a stack of coupons to correspond with the food aisles in Dierbergs.

He’d tried throwing himself into his work to forget his problems. Now that he’d seen his CATS program in action, up close and personal, he knew what else it needed to take it to the top, that one extra step that always put his work above everyone else’s.