Cry Uncle (17 page)

Birdie fluttered her hand through the air,
waving away an explanation she obviously didn’t wish to hear. She’d
already said she thought Pamela was crazy. “You do what you must
do—as long as you make Joe happy. He’s a good man, your
husband.”

Pamela’s smile grew forced. She was supposed
to be pretending her marriage was real, so she really shouldn’t get
all huffy and defensive when someone commented that she and Joe
made a nice couple. If she could fool Birdie into thinking she and
Joe were alike, maybe they would be able to convince the social
workers and the family court judge.

But it was hard to pretend, hard to smile and
nod. The problem with Birdie’s comments was that they carried too
much truth. No amount of hammering and tearing and replastering, no
reconfiguration of rooms, no opening and brightening and
ventilating was going to alter the fact that Joe was Pamela’s
husband and he was a good man, and judging by her behavior last
night Pamela was a lousy wife, failing to make him happy. Jonas
Brenner had taken her as his bride and saved her life. He deserved
better.

Well, she would do what she could. She would
change her name, change her driver’s license and social security
data, and be as much of a mother figure to Lizard as possible. She
would act like a proper, stable wife and convince everyone that
Lizard belonged with her Uncle Joe.

Pamela could do that much for him. She would
try her best, within reason, to fool the world into believing she
and Joe were two of a kind.

***

HE WANTED TO CLEAR out of the house before
she got back with Lizard, but he couldn’t. He had promised to leave
the front door unlocked for her, and he couldn’t very well take off
while the house was unlocked. Not that he had much to steal, not
that he didn’t trust his neighbors, but Key West had been built by
pirates, and it was chronically overrun by mainlanders. People were
wise to lock up behind themselves.

He held the spare key in his
palm, flipping it over, tracing the notches and ridges with his
thumb. There were commitments and there were
commitments
. For some reason, giving a
woman the key to his home seemed like more of a commitment than
marrying her.

That was a stupid thought. Pam was his wife,
for crying out loud. Lizard’s aunt by marriage. One half of the
pretty little domestic scene he was going to present to the court.
He had to give her a key to the house that, at least for the sake
of appearances, was hers as much as his. He’d given her a ring,
hadn’t he?

And as soon as he gave her the damned key, he
could split for the day.

He needed distance. Perspective. A path back
to the self-control he’d felt around her before last night had
whacked him upside the head—or down below the belt. Hanging around
the house with Pam all day wasn’t going to cure him of lust. He
needed to stay away from her until he could think of her once again
as the too-slim, too-prim yuppie she’d been before he’d pulled that
idiotic newlywed stunt and carried her over the threshold.

The Shipwreck didn’t open for business until
noon, but Brick and Kitty would probably be there this morning,
cleaning up. God only knew how late the wedding celebration had
raged on last night. Joe’s friends weren’t the sort to stand on
ceremony. Just because the bride and groom had left didn’t mean the
party couldn’t keep going in their honor.

Things probably hadn’t wound down until the
wee hours. If Joe hadn’t gone and gotten himself hitched, he would
have remained till the bitter end.

The hell with it. So he was hitched. He could
still stay out late—he had to, and he would. Not just because his
job demanded it but because, if he wanted to preserve his sanity,
he would be best off steering clear of Pam until she was safely
tucked into her own bed, in her own room, with her door shut.

He heard voices through the
screened front door, Pamela’s and Lizard’s. Pamela sounded stern;
Lizard whined. “I
oh-weez
go to the beach. Every day. If you don’t take me
I’ll hate you forever.”

“
I’ve already told you,
Lizard, I’ve got to run some errands first. If you behave
yourself—”

“
I am behaving
myself!”

“
Then don’t behave yourself.
Behave some other way. Behave like a nice, quiet girl.”

“
I hate you!”

Joe shuddered. Things were worse than he’d
thought. Pamela was stuck not just with a man who had once regarded
her as too bony and now wanted only to jump her bones, but also
with a brat whose whine could shatter crystal a mile away. Joe
could apply the brakes to his sex drive, but after coping with the
Liz-Monster for a morning, Pamela might decide to pack her bags and
throw her lot in with the hit man in Seattle.

Hearing the screen door slam, he stood and
left the kitchen for the hallway. “I’ll take Lizard to the beach,”
he offered, recalling that he’d promised Pamela he wouldn’t saddle
her with Lizard more than necessary. “You can do your errands. I’ll
take the kid.”

“
The kid,” Pamela responded,
glowering at Joe’s pouting niece, “has been surly and sassy and
doesn’t deserve to be rewarded. If she wants to go to the beach,
she can earn it by behaving nicely.”

“
You know what you are?”
Lizard howled, crossing her arms over her chest and sticking her
lower lip out as far as it could go. “You’re a twit.”

Joe relaxed. Lizard had picked up some nasty
language hanging out at the Shipwreck. He’d taught her not to use
bad words, but given how prickly she was at the moment, he had
expected her to tag Pamela with some X-rated expression.

“
Pam isn’t a twit,” he said.
“She’s my wife, Lizard, and I expect you to treat her with
respect.”

Lizard peered up with round, tear-filled eyes
, evidently hoping to find an ally in him. “You know what she is?
She’s a rotten tomato.”

“
That’s enough, Liz.” He
wasn’t sure whether he should leap right in and discipline the kid,
or let her work things out with Pamela. If he interfered, they
might never establish a truce on their own.

He glanced at Pamela, seeking guidance. But
when his gaze met hers, he saw only stunning silver eyes, soft pink
lips, a delicately sculpted chin, a slender throat begging to be
kissed.

Man, he was bitten. Here he was, stuck in the
middle of the first major quarrel that threatened to disrupt the
peaceful domestic unit he’d worked so hard to achieve, and all he
could think about was how this woman who was absolutely not his
type was turning him on like a blender at the Shipwreck, crushing
his resistance and pureeing his best intentions.

Pamela returned his gaze for a fraction of a
second, then broke from him and glared down at Lizard. “You don’t
win points with me for being obnoxious,” she said in a starchy
schoolmarm voice. “Right now, Lizard, you’re being obnoxious.”

“
So what? You’re noxious,
too.”

“
We’re going to run errands
whether you like it or not.”

“
I don’t like it! I don’t
like you! I think you’re gross.”

“
The feeling’s mutual.”
Pamela headed for the stairs, calling over her shoulder, “I’m going
to get my purse. If you can convince your uncle I’m noxious before
I return, more power to you.” Her footsteps receded as she reached
the top of the stairs. The house trembled slightly from the impact
of her slamming her door.

Joe allowed himself a private smile at her
long-distance show of anger. She’d kept her irritation in check
downstairs, but Lizard had obviously pushed her too far. He kind of
liked the idea of Pamela’s having a temper. He liked the idea that
she had all sorts of volatile emotions churning inside her, ready
to erupt at the slightest provocation.

Which wasn’t to say that Lizard was a slight
provocation. But he liked imagining Pam in the throes of some
wildly passionate emotion, even if it was anger.

He shouldn’t be imagining Pam in the throes
of anything. Squatting down, he stared Lizard in the eye. “Listen
up, toots: you aren’t winning any points with me, either.”

“
I don’t like her.” Lizard
sulked. “I was playing at Birdie’s with this pink clay that Birdie
said was magic, and we were going to make little dolls and bake
them and then say chants over them and make curses and stuff? And
she—” Lizard pointed accusingly up the stairs “—said I had to go
learn to drive with her.”

“
She already knows how to
drive,” Joe corrected Lizard. “And you’re about ten years too
young. What she’s got to do is get a Florida driver’s license. She
has to fill out some forms and pay some money at the Motor Vehicle
Bureau.”

“
Well, she coulda left me at
Birdie’s.”

“
What did Birdie say about
it?”

Lizard curled her lip. “She told me to go
with her.” She pointed toward the stairs again. “They were
whispering. They were plotting behind my back and everything.”

“
What were they
plotting?”

“
Something with Legos.”
Lizard scuffed her toe against the rug. “I wanna go to the beach,
Uncle Joe. Make her take me to the beach.”

“
I can’t make her do
anything.” How true, he thought with a sigh. “Pamela’s part of our
family now, and if Birdie thought you ought to spend the day with
her, Birdie must have known what she was doing. So my advice, Ms.
Monster, is, you go do errands with her, and if you don’t drive her
nutty, I bet she’ll take you to the beach this
afternoon.”

“
Why can’t you take me to
the beach?”

Because I can’t stay around
Pamela.
“I’ve got to go to the
Shipwreck.”

“
Bring me with you,” Lizard
pleaded, pressing her grimy little hands together prayerfully.
“I’ll help you. Please, Uncle Joe—”

Once again, he was faced with the option of
doing the right thing. Like last night, he chose correctly, even
though it broke his heart. “You’ve got to spend some time with
Pamela. How else are you two going to learn to get along?”

“
But I hate her!”

“
She probably hates you,
too. And given the way you’ve been acting toward her, I wouldn’t
blame her.”

“
I want her to hate me. Then
maybe she’ll go away and leave us alone.”

“
She’s not going to go
away,” Joe declared, hoping Pamela wouldn’t make a liar out of him.
“So you’d best make peace with her.”

Cocking her head, Lizard scrutinized him
dubiously. “Why won’t she go away? Cuz she’s in love with you?”

If only,
he thought, then scowled. He didn’t want her love. He only
wanted her help, right? Her help, her support, and her sleek body
wrapped around him at night. “Yeah,” he muttered, unable to
disguise the bitter disappointment shading his voice. “Pam and I
are a real love match. So get used to it, Lizzie. This is the way
it’s going to be.”

Deflated, Lizard slouched toward the kitchen.
“Well, if I gotta go do errands with her, the least she could do is
let me eat a cookie first.”

“
I don’t think she’ll kick
up too much of a fuss about that.” He watched his niece trudge
away, then gazed up the stairs in time to see Pamela begin her
descent. She carried her purse and wore sunglasses.

At the bottom of the stairs she faced him.
Her lips shaped a grim line; her skin smelled faintly of a
sun-screen lotion. “You mentioned something about having a key I
could use,” she said hesitantly.

Unfolding his hand made him aware of how
tight his fist had been. The key was warm from his grip, and his
palm bore its outline. “Here,” he said, dropping it into her hand
so he wouldn’t have to touch her.

“
Thank you.”

“
I’m sorry about
Lizard.”

“
She’s going through a lot.
I guess she’s entitled to have a snit.”

“
Sometimes I think she was
born with PMS.”

Pamela gave him a faint smile. “All females
are born with PMS, Jonas.” She stashed the key in the pocket of her
shorts, drawing his attention to her long legs. They were too pale,
but a few more days of Florida sunshine would rectify that. Her
calves, while slender, had muscle to them, and her knees shaped
perfect ovals. Her thighs—

“
I’ve got to go to the bar,”
he said abruptly.

She looked at her watch. “It’s ten in the
morning.”

“
People in these parts tend
to start drinking early.”
Especially when
they’re in a state of intense sexual frustration,
he added silently. “I’ll be home late. The
Shipwreck closes around two a.m., depending on how many customers
are in a take-his-keys-and-call-a-cab state.”

Pamela nodded.

“
So I won’t be home till
very late. No need to wait up.”

She nodded again. Evidently she understood
what he was really saying: that he didn’t want to have to see her
when he rolled home. “Well,” she said, then mulled over her
thoughts for a minute. “Have fun.”

“
You have fun,
too.”

“
I’m sure the Department of
Motor Vehicles will be a barrel of laughs,” she said dryly. “The
next time you see me, all my documents will say I’m Pamela
Brenner.”

His wife. His partner. His legal mate.

The woman living on the other end of the
house.

He strode out of the house without bothering
to shout a farewell to Lizard. Let the two females with their PMS
forge a truce. Let them find a way to coexist. Joe had already
found his way to coexist with Pamela: stay as far away from her as
he could.