C's Comeuppance: A Bone Cold--Alive novel (19 page)

She dialed Norm’s number.

“Whatcha need, Jemma?”

Norm wouldn’t fix the lock on the side door to the house, choosing instead to block it with an old sofa, but he either had ESP or Caller-ID. Go figure.

“I’m returning your call. Or at least a call from your number. Did you forget you made it about thirty minutes ago?”

He humphed. “I was calling to do you a favor.”

“And which favor might that be? The one that has sullied my reputation and had my mother call me a whore? Would it be that favor, Norm?”

There was silence from the other end. “I think things got a bit out of hand over at DamSite. The stories might have got a little confused, what with such a crowd and so much to talk about.”

“Do tell.” She felt her ears get warm and heard her voice rise. “Norm, my mother and your wife were very close at one time. I spent lots of afternoons at your house when I was a very little girl. When you want to sell your house, who’s the only person you’ll trust, huh? Me. Do you not have any loyalty?”

“Now, Jemma, don’t go getting your knickers in a knot.”

“Why not?”

“Lord, girl, I’ve always thought of you like a niece, or at the very least, a favored child. But you’re fixin’ to let that man run all over you!”

“Well, he wouldn’t be the first one, would he? Does everyone around here have so little faith in me? Just because I haven’t dated every Tom, Dick, and no-good Harry who’s crossed my path here doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s what where men are concerned!”

“Hell, girl, you’re fixing to fall off the wagon and your what’s what’s gonna go splat!”
 “Maybe I want to!”

“It’s a long fall.”

“You fellows gave me my first push this afternoon. Maybe you should tell me what all went on.”

“Why don’t you ask lover-boy?”

“Because I’m talking to you.”

“If he was here, I’d put him on,” he humphed, “but he tore out of here before supper like his tail was on fire. Thought he’d gone to find you and square it before you found out what a big mouth he has. Think of this as your first clue as to what’s coming. You’ve been warned about him and what he’ll say.”

“Norm, did he say we were lovers?”

Silence.

“Did he? Did he say we’d been to bed together?”

“No.” He spat out the word.

“Did he say we were going to?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Then what did he say? In so many words.”

“That he was here to court you.”

“Court me. Not screw me.”

“That’s awfully crude language for a Sunday school teacher, Jemma.”

“Well, I can get cruder. Do I need to?”

She heard him swallow. “I’ll see if I can do some damage control. Things got out of hand, that’s all.”

“Never mind the damage control, Norm. Trying to repair this will only make it worse. I suggest you just keep your ideas and big mouth to yourself next time. Or, better yet, let’s not have a next time.”

“I’m not about to go letting people tell me what to think or do. And if you think you can turn that reprobate sonofabitch into a churchgoer, you’re making the same mistake women been making since sister-Eve!”

“Well, I’d sure be making the same mistake your wife did, wouldn’t I? I’m not out to reform anybody or anything. I just want to go on living in peace.”

“Well, you’ve got to get some living done to get to that point again, girl.” He chuckled deep in his throat. “Wouldn’t hurt you to loosen up some, Jemma.”

She hung up on him.

***

Her SUV wasn’t at Lake Country and the Quik-Lee parking lot was empty as well. C put his phone to good use and found the address with a web search, then linked to the map.

The two-story frame house was probably older than Jemma, he concluded, as he pulled to a stop across the street and cut the headlights. Rose trellises snaked all the way to the roof at irregular intervals. The detached garage’s doors were open, but the SUV didn’t reside there either. The driveway held a late-model silver import, and as he watched, a minivan full of teens bounced into the driveway. A house side door clattered closed, and the niece came into view and disappeared into the back of the vehicle. The van’s side windows were painted with appropriately encouraging signs of football team loyalty. C shook his head. Had he and T ever been that young?

He restarted the engine and found his way back to the main drag. Now where could she be? Lyla’s was a possibility, but she didn’t seem the sort to cry on someone else’s shoulder or seek comfort in a crowd. Jemma was a loner, just like he was. Maybe that was part of the attraction.

Could she be at Bertie’s? He didn’t think they were that close. Norm’s? Not likely, but there was a bond of sorts between the two of them. The old man had made sure C understood there were certain rules where Jemma was concerned. Then the old bastard had gone and broken them in front of him and the DamSite audience. But he could check things out easily enough. He dialed Norm.

“Sitting on the phone, Norm?”

“Might as well be, for all it’s been ringing. You coming home tonight or do I need to hook the screen?”

“Do I have a curfew?”

“Are you coming home?”

“Yes. It’s just a little past eight. I should be in before I turn into a pumpkin at midnight.”

“Humph!” There was the clatter of silverware in the background. “Jemma called.”

“Looking for me?”

“Not necessarily. She vented on me so you owe me one.”

“Did she want me to call her?”

“Didn’t say.”

“Did she want to see me?”

“Didn’t say.”

“What did she say?”
“Woman’s got a tongue on her. Just like the rest of them.”

“Norm, are you going to be any help here or not?”

“Don’t go getting your tail in a crack. If you’re asking if I know where she’s at, I don’t. But she hasn’t gone far. You’re the one’s looking for her, you be the bloodhound. If you can’t find her now…”

C clicked the “end” button and tossed the phone into the passenger seat. He looked down the highway at the Red-i-Lee sign and knew where she was.

***

Jemma sat in her perch on the second floor of the Brady place and watched the headlights approach. They were low to the ground, halogens with running lights, just the thing a rented sports car would have. He’d found her.

Not that she’d made an attempt to hide. The SUV was parked close to the front door instead of around back as she’d first contemplated. But the thought of nails from the construction site giving her a flat tire halfway back to town had cooled her desire for total invisibility.

The almost-full moon hung heavy in the eastern sky and illuminated him as he pulled into the circular drive. He switched on his phone’s flashlight as he left the car.

“Jemma!” He flashed the light over her car, then in through its windows. Like she’d be sitting in it. Oh, please.

He entered the front doorway and made a circular field, shining first to the kitchen area, then through the living room. He wandered underneath her into the master bedroom and study, finally coming back out and standing where the staircase should have been.

Only then did he look up and shine the light first right past her, then back to find her sitting cross-legged with her car blanket draped around her shoulders, her expression serene.

“Want to tell me how you got up there?”

She shook the metal ladder by one leg and scooted it to the edge of the platform, letting him hear and see it.

“Very clever. Use the ladder. Haul it up there after you. And how were you going to get down?”

“Duh, C. Or should I continue to call you Charles after what I heard this afternoon and after what Mandy told me about who you would allow to use such a moniker?”

“Well, let me up there and we’ll discuss it.” He widened his stance and crossed his arms, propping the light to beam straight in her face. “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair.”

“You’re the one with the golden hair. Make your own damn ladder. And get that light off my face!”

“So you’re happy sitting out here in the dark?” She clicked on her flashlight, swept the floor about his feet, clicked it off. “Obviously, you’re not afraid of the big bad wolf.”

“Looks to me like he just drove up. Turn off your light.”

“Going to let down the ladder and let me up?”

“We can talk just fine this way.”

“Aren’t you cold?”
“I’ve got a blanket. It’s just in the sixties.”

“Well, I’m cold, let down the damn ladder.”

“Switch off the damn light.”

He did.

“Where’s the ladder?”

“Up here with me.”

“Catch!” He pocketed the phone and backed up. A second later, he made a running start for the edge of the landing and grabbed it, anchoring his fingers and bringing himself up with the strength in his arms. “You know,” he panted as his elbows appeared above the landing and then his face, “I could use some help here.”

“Oh, really.” She turned the light on for him and watched impassively as he struggled his way upwards.

“That wasn’t quite what I had in mind.” He bent and rested his hands on his knees. “We’re using the ladder to get down.” He plopped down beside her and matched

her body posture. “Now am I going to have to fight you for half the blanket?”
“You have a jacket.”

“Jemma—”

“Oh, all right!” She let go the edge of the blanket she held with her right hand and he took it, pulling it up and around his shoulders.

“There wouldn’t be such a stretch of the fabric if you’d sit in my lap.”

“Well, that is just what I want to do, too!” She made no attempt to hide the sarcasm. “I will admit to a certain amount of softening on my part where you were concerned. That is until my mother and Norm got hold of me this evening. But if you think I’m going to sit in your lap after all the damage you’ve done to me, buddy—” She glared at him. “And give me back my blanket!” She jerked it out of his hand and off his shoulders, pulling it back around herself and securing it under her legs.

C set his lips and narrowed his eyes at her. It took all his will power to bite back the words he was about to fling, starting with the untimely phrase: Lady, there’s a cure for what ails you and I got it right between my legs! That was not going to get him anywhere but pushed off the landing and he’d bet she’d not even call an ambulance. She had the right to be mad at him.

“So why don’t you just say what’s on your mind?”

“Like you could stop me!” She tightened the blanket about herself.

“Do it! What’s stopping you? What’s keeping you from telling me what you really want to say? Certainly not me! I’m here! I’m all ears! I’ve probably even heard it before and from women with vocabularies more profane than yours! Trust me, there’s nothing I haven’t been called.”

“And deserved to be called!”

“Amen!” He threw up his hands. “How bad can this be?”

“My mother called me a whore!”

His automatic denial caught in his throat. The hurt in her eyes was evident even by the light of the moon. “I swear, Jemma, I swear the conversation went everywhere but there. Never did I hear that word. Your mother’s sources are foul. Maybe they’re just trying to hurt you. Hurt your mother. I admit to saying things I shouldn’t have. But nothing crude about you came out of my mouth. Nothing. I swear.”

“On what do you have to swear?”

The question brought him up short. What was sacred enough to him to swear by? “My music. My talent. My career. My ability to hear two notes and make two hundred flow from them. I swear by my music that I didn’t hurt you in that office this afternoon. Your mother needs to re-examine her relationship with these so-called friends.”

“And Norm?”

“You’ve known Norm longer than I have. What do you think?”

“He’ll do and say what he can get away with. Like Bertie, but cruder.”

“I’ve seen nothing to tell you otherwise.”

She looked away from him. He raised his hand to stroke her hair, realized he didn’t have that right, returned it to rest on his knee.

“Jemma, I never meant for this to happen. Hell, you’re having all the misery of an affair and none of the pleasure!” His laughter was cut short by her pointed look. “The town already thinks we’ve tumbled.”

“From what you’ve said?”

“I told Norm what I told you, that I’d come to court you. I think the good people of Jinks have put us on the fast track.”

“The whore track. Why else would someone like you want to have anything to do with someone like me except as an easy lay? You must have already been through the Hollywood phone book.”

“Why? Don’t you think I’ve asked myself why? We would seem to be so different, but there’s something there. You know it as well as I do or we wouldn’t be sitting here as mad as we both are.” He raised his hand to the side of her face, curled his fingers to stroke her cheek gently, nudged the single tear that fell onto his thumb, took it, tasted it. “As to an easy lay—hell, the word ‘easy’ sure has nothing to do with this bit of fun. I’ve never been in more trouble over so little ta—” he caught and corrected himself, “over so little as I am now.”

“Small comfort!” She pulled the blanket tighter.

“Will you forgive me? Where’s that old softening of the heart you admitted to?” He turned toward her, sensing an easing of her defenses. He kissed his thumb, touched it to her lips, traced them. “I know I can’t kiss you until you say I can, so this is the best I can do.” He let his voice be soft, placating. Did he feel just the tiniest bit of pressure from her lips on his thumb?

“I think you should go now,” she whispered.

“And so should you.”

“No, I mean, really go. Leave town.”

“Yeah, that’s what T said. I should apologize, offer to leave town, and hope you’d kiss me good-bye.” He let an edge of humor into his voice and caught the upturn of the corners of her mouth.

“But I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“If I kiss you, you’ll leave town?”

“Not a chance in hell. I don’t run. And you shouldn’t either. We’ll brave this thing out together. I have, after all, stated my full and honorable intentions in the offices of DamSite Realty. I am a man committed to the cause of courting you.” He warmed to the possibilities. “Flowers, candy, dinners out. Hell, I’ll even stand in your mama’s living room and charm the pants off her!”