Cry Uncle (32 page)

He didn’t want food. He wanted...her. Not her
pity, not—at that particular moment—her body, but her forgiveness.
Before she could reach the stairs he snagged her wrist, halting
her. “Listen, Pam—I’ve been a real jerk since the Prescotts showed
up.”

“
No more of a jerk than
usual,” she teased, although there wasn’t much humor in her
voice.

“
I mean it. I don’t know how
you can stand being around me. I sure can’t stand being around
myself.”

She smiled, a sad, beautiful smile. “The only
thing I can’t stand is your negativity. I haven’t known you very
long, but I think it’s safe to say pessimism isn’t your style. I
wish you’d stop assuming the worst.”

He gazed at her in the late-morning light.
She appeared completely transformed from the frightened, waif-like
creature who’d entered his bar little more than a month ago,
searching for a husband to hide behind. Her eyes were bright with
courage, her cheeks elegantly hollow, her hair brushed back and
held behind her ears with tortoise-shell clips. The top button of
her shirt was undone, and he could see the delicate flare of her
collarbones at the base of her throat.

For one strange, fleeting moment, he found
himself thinking that the worst thing in the world would be to lose
her, not Lizard.

The notion was gone as soon as it registered
on him, but it left in its wake a quiet warmth that comforted him
more than all Pamela’s words, her speeches and smiles. Joe and his
wife were friends. Pamela had become his partner in a very real
sense.

He pulled her gently into his arms and
dropped a light kiss onto her brow. She tilted her face to look at
him, and he realized that, while a few minutes with Pamela on the
nearest horizontal surface would do a hell of a lot to improve his
mood, holding her was nearly as effective.

“
I bet you didn’t realize
what you were taking on when you married me,” he
murmured.

She met his steady gaze without flinching. “I
was taking on a guy with an earring and a niece.”

“
And a double-shot of
negativity.” He shook his head and grinned. “And a couple of scary
in-laws.”

“
At least some of your
in-laws are pleasant.”

Thinking of Joyce and all the other pompous,
snobbish relatives of his late sister’s husband, Joe couldn’t come
up with a single pleasant in-law in the bunch. He frowned at
Pamela’s remark.

“
Your mother- and
father-in-law,” she explained. “They’re quite nice.”

“
Oh. Yeah.” He cracked a
smile. “They’re three thousand miles away, and I have nothing to do
with them. Of course I love them.”

Pamela eased out of his loose embrace and
sighed. “I think you’d like them, Joe. I miss them.”

“
Why don’t you give them a
call?” he suggested. Here he was, the only family she had for
miles—unless you counted Lizard—and he’d done nothing to create a
real sense of family. “I’ll even say hi to them,” he added with a
smile. It was the least he could do for Pamela.

She shook her head. “I haven’t spoken to them
since I left Seattle. I was afraid it might put them in danger.
Mick Morrow could go after them and make them tell him where I am,
and...” She shuddered. “I couldn’t put them at risk like that. So I
haven’t spoken to them at all. I communicate with them through my
lawyer. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve called him a few times from
here. I’ll reimburse you for the long-distance charges on your
bill—”

“
Over my dead body.” He
undercut the gruff words with a smile. “Why don’t you call your
parents now?” Even if Pamela didn’t think she was out of danger,
Joe knew she was. That police detective in Seattle had convinced
him.

Again she shook her head. “No. But maybe I’ll
call my lawyer. I haven’t talked to him in a while. What with the
Prescotts showing up and all.” She glanced at her watch. “I could
probably catch him at his desk. He tends to get into his office
early.”

“
Go ahead.” And if she said
one word about reimbursing him for the long-distance call, he’d
shut her up. With a kiss, a real one, one that would leave her too
breathless to speak, one that would lead to the nearest horizontal
surface.

She departed for the kitchen, leaving him to
shake off his lust. He stared through the front screen door at the
empty yard, trying to guess what the Prescotts were doing with
Lizard right now, what Mona Whitley was scribbling in her frickin’
notebook, what she would report to the judge.

“
What?” Pamela shrieked from
the kitchen. “My God! When?”

Joe sprinted down the hall to the kitchen,
wondering what had set her off. When she pivoted to face him, the
telephone receiver still pressed to her ear, she was beaming a
smile brighter than the Florida sun. She looked utterly
thrilled—and more gorgeous than a woman who was off-limits to him
ought to look.

What’s up?
he mouthed.

She held up her hand, signaling that she
would tell him in a minute. “You’re absolutely sure?” she
questioned Joe’s new in-laws. “And he’s going to stay there?” She
listened for a few seconds, then erupted in a joyous little jig.
“Okay, okay,” she said into the phone. “Of course I’ll sit tight.”
She recited Joe’s phone number, then said, “Keep me posted. And
give my love to my parents. Make sure they know about this.” She
hung up, stared at the phone in disbelief for a minute, and then
launched herself into Joe’s arms. “Mick Morrow’s in jail!”

“
Huh?” The impact of her mad
dash into his arms knocked the breath out of him—or maybe it was
just that her nearness, when she was so radiant and jubilant, took
his breath away.

“
Mick Morrow. The hit man.
He’s in jail!”

“
Really?”

“
He was stopped on a traffic
violation, and when he refused to let them search his car they
impounded it. They found a gun, so they rescinded his bail and
locked him up!” She started another jig, but with her arms around
Joe, it mutated into a kind of jitterbug.

“
They found a gun on him?”
Joe didn’t think that particular detail was cause for
mirth.

“
But now he’s locked up
until his new trial. I’m safe, Joe. I’m safe!”

Joe was glad for her...but not without
certain misgivings. Like, for instance, what were the implications
of this hit man driving around with a gun? Had he been trying to
track her down when he’d committed the traffic violation? How the
hell had he gotten hold of a gun if he was under police
surveillance? Had he intended to use it on Pamela?

If he had, he wasn’t going to have the
chance, thank God. She was thousands of miles away, and he was
behind bars.

And Joe was still going to lose Lizard.
Everything would work out perfectly for Pamela, and she’d return to
Seattle. And Joe was going to wind up alone.

Being alone had suited him well enough for
the first thirty years of his life—until he’d discovered that
raising a kid was more fun that being alone. Playing daddy for a
little girl had suited him well enough for the past three
years—until he’d discovered that marriage could turn a guy inside
out and upside down, could leave him hornier than he’d ever been
but more willing to go the distance, to have faith in a woman, to
take a chance on her...

Losing Pamela and Lizard at the same time
wasn’t going to suit him at all. It was going to devastate him.

“
So...” He extricated
himself from Pamela’s embrace, hating to remove her hands from him
but knowing he had to. “The creep’s in jail. What happens
next?”

“
My attorney will let me
know,” she said, still twinkling, exuding energy, reminding Joe of
a sparkler on the Fourth of July. “In all likelihood, they’ll push
up the date of Morrow’s new trial. I’ll have to go back to Seattle
to testify, but this time there won’t be any slip-ups. They’ll do
the job right.”

“
So, you’re going back to
Seattle.”

“
For the trial,” she said,
abruptly growing sober as the implications sank in. “Lizard’s fate
will be decided before the D.A. in Seattle can start a new trial in
Seattle. I’ll be with you for the custody hearing. And if you win,
and the Prescotts appeal, I’ll be back in time for that. I’ll only
have to be in Seattle a couple of days.” She peered up at Joe. Her
frown told him she was worried by what she saw in his face. “I’ll
get you through the custody battle, Jonas. I promised I would, and
I will.”

If he won. But what if he didn’t? Unlike the
Prescotts, he couldn’t afford to drag the process through endless
appeals. He would lose Lizard, and Pamela would have no reason to
stay in Key West and pretend to be his wife. She would go back to
Seattle to testify—and she wouldn’t come back.

Negativity. Pessimism. That about summed up
Joe’s mood.

Without a word, he stalked out of the
kitchen, no longer able to be in the same room with a woman whose
elation was directly related to her chance to clear out of his
life. He was angry, resentful, envious—and by storming out of the
room he was acting like an ass.

But he wasn’t going to stick around and let
her see his heart break.

***

LIZARD CAME HOME that afternoon with a Barbie
doll. “How nice,” Pamela said through gritted teeth as Lizard
displayed her prize. “Did the Prescotts buy that doll for you?”

Lizard—weed gardener, skinny-dipper and
feather wearer—grinned proudly. “Uh-huh! Look at this, Pam: you can
put these earrings on her by just sticking ‘em through her ear.
Isn’t that awesome?” She proceeded to poke a doll-size earring
through Barbie’s ear, as if she were skewering one of Birdie’s
Voodoo dolls. “I’m gonna name her Snoot, and tomorrow I’m gonna
tape feathers all over her. She can be a biker.”

“
Wonderful.” Pamela regarded
the doll, still new and virginal in her dream-date dress, and
sighed. She herself had owned a Barbie when she’d been not much
older than Lizard. She had adored dressing her doll in a variety of
outfits, fitting tiny doll-shoes onto Barbie’s permanently
high-heeled feet and parading her around the house. But Pamela had
been a very different child than Lizard.

What if Lizard discovered she actually loved
playing with a fashion doll more than traipsing around Birdie’s
house with an army of cats, or gobbling pink food, or romping in
the mud? What if Lizard turned into a child like Pamela—the kind
who would thrive in the affluent suburban surroundings of her aunt
and uncle’s home in California?

“
Did you have fun with the
Prescotts?” Pamela asked carefully.

“
Yeah. They bought me
lick-rish, too.It turned my tongue black” She stuck her stained
tongue out at Pamela, clearly delighted.

Pamela watched her romp back outside. She was
glad Joe had left for the Shipwreck early, if only so he would be
spared the sight of his niece waxing rhapsodic about the Prescotts’
generosity.

Pamela’s euphoria over Mick Morrow’s
incarceration had been short-lived. After Joe had left for work,
she’d telephoned the D.A.’s office in Seattle. He’d confirmed her
lawyer’s news and told her he was hoping to put together a new
trial within a month or so. “Now that you’re safe from Mr. Morrow,”
he said, “perhaps you’d be willing to tell me your whereabouts, so
I can contact you when it’s time to bring you back to Seattle to
testify.”

Pamela supplied him with Joe’s address and
telephone number. “I’m using the name Pamela Brenner, now,” she
added.

“
Oh?”

“
Didn’t my lawyer tell you?
I got married.”

“
Yes, he mentioned something
about that. A phony marriage, to help hide your identity. Well, you
won’t have to worry about hiding anymore.”

Pamela nodded. In a sense, she felt she’d
stopped hiding the minute she’d told the D.A. she was married. Now
it was truly public information, not just in Key West but in
Seattle. Now her marriage wasn’t just legal; it was real.

Or maybe it had become real last night, when
Joe had made love to her.

No. That had been an aberration, a bit of
foolishness. And if it had been an incredibly pleasurable
aberration and foolishness, so what? A real marriage had to be
grounded in love, and Joe had never said anything about love.

Refusing to dwell on her own tortured
feelings about Joe, Pamela went off in search of Lizard. Exiting
through the screened porch, she spotted the kid in the weed garden,
taping two bright yellow dandelion blossoms to her doll’s bosom. A
third blossom was taped between the doll’s legs, giving the doll
the appearance of a stripper about halfway through her act.

Pamela stifled a chuckle. Apparently,
acquiring a fashion doll had failed to civilize Lizard. “Nice
outfit,” she joked. “What do you think your Aunt Joyce would say if
she saw it?”

“
She’d hate it.”

Pamela allowed herself a small grin at
Lizard’s perceptiveness. “You’re right. I think you’d better make
sure Barbie—I mean, Snoot—is always fully clothed when your Aunt
Joyce is around.”

“
Why? I don’t care if she
hates it. She hates lots of neat stuff.”

“
Oh?”

“
Like, she hates seaweed
when it piles up on the sand and gets all smelly. She told me she
hates that. And she hates the Three Stooges. She says they’re dumb.
Uncle Joe and I watch the Three Stooges all the time. And she hates
the name Lizard. She always calls me Betsy, which is gross. And she
hates strawberry yogurt. She’s icky.”

“
She loves you very much,”
Pamela said, not thrilled at having to defend the woman to
Lizard.