Kiss in the Dark (22 page)

“Um…uh…um…I just haven’t had a chance to hook them up yet,” he stammered. “I’ll get to it this week. I just went to the laundry place today…’cause it was just easier. I knew you guys were getting stuff ready for Dempsey’s party…so I just went to the laundry thing.”

Boston’s eyes narrowed. She studied him for a moment, noting the way he seemed to be having a hard time looking her in the eye. He was babbling, sort of like she babbled when she was wound up about something. The thought quickly passed through her mind that he was lying about his laundry, the Laundromat, and not having his appliances hooked up. Yet why would he lie about something like that?

“Come on,” he said, taking her arm and fairly dragging her toward her car. “I want you to get home and get warmed up.” They reached her car quickly, and he held a strong hand out to her, saying, “Keys?”

Carefully, Boston backed her car around so that she could drive out of Dempsey’s roundabout driveway the same way Vance had. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to see him safely home—needed to see that he was tucked in his new house all nice and cozy.

Yet as she followed quite a distance behind him, she was surprised when he passed Gem Lane. Gem Lane had been the delivery address on the furniture receipt she’d found in his wallet. Why wasn’t he going home?

Boston became more and more unsettled as Vance’s pickup meandered down into the south section of town—a very undesirable section indeed.

“What the heck?” she asked aloud as his pickup turned into the parking lot of a seedy motel.

Boston drove past the first entrance into the parking lot. She didn’t want Vance to see her—to figure out she was spying on him like some psycho ex-girlfriend. Slowly she pulled into the second entrance to the motel’s parking lot and parked out a ways away from the nearest parking lot light.

Boston watched as Vance pulled into a parking spot in front of a room. He turned off his pickup, pulled the two duffle bags out of the front seat, locked the vehicle, and headed for the motel room door.

Boston shook her head. Surely Vance hadn’t lied about more than his laundry? Surely he wasn’t staying in this roach motel?

Then, as realization began to seep into her mind, Boston’s stomach smoldered with a sick nausea. Surely Vance hadn’t moved out of Danielle’s nice, comfortable apartment and into this dive simply so Boston could escape from Steph. It couldn’t possibly be the reason—he hardly knew her! Well, they spent a great deal of time talking whenever Boston was at Danielle’s and Vance was home, and they had shared an intimate, delicious kiss the week before. But that had been after he’d already moved out. Certainly he hadn’t known her—still didn’t know her—well enough to make this sort of a sacrifice. And no guy left on earth was that chivalrous anymore.

Boston felt her eyes widen as something else occurred to her then. Perhaps Vance hadn’t even bought the house! Perhaps he’d just told Danielle he had—hoped he’d be able to buy it in a month’s time. Something had gone wrong with the sale. That was it—that had to be it!

Still, a tiny, nagging voice in Boston’s head maintained Vance had indeed moved into this motel so that Boston could move in with Danielle. She had to know! She had to confront him and find out why he’d moved out, why he was living in a motel.

As Boston stepped out of her car, locked it, and looked around, half expecting to be mugged, she hoped there was some other logical reason for finding Vance at the shabby place. Her heart twisted with guilt as she again wondered if Vance was here because of her.

It was so dark in the parking lot. Only a handful of the streetlights had bulbs in them. As Boston passed Vance’s pickup, she couldn’t help but pause to peer in through the driver’s side windshield. She grinned at the mess inside—Juicy Fruit wrappers strewn hither and yon, three empty sports drink bottles tossed on the passenger’s side floor. A parking pass for the zoo hung from the rearview mirror, and the ashtray under the center panel radio and temperature controls was pulled open and heaping with discarded change.

The fleeting thought that she would love to ride in the old pickup breezed through Boston’s mind, and she turned her attention to the door of Vance’s motel room.

Boston’s heart was pounding so violently within her chest she wondered if the entire motel complex could hear it. Naturally, the thought had never occurred to her—until that very moment—that Vance might be pretty ticked off when he found out she’d been spying on him, that she’d followed him home.

“Oh my heck!” Boston breathed. “I really have turned into Steph—a psycho, stalker type!”

She thought of turning, running, and hiding behind the nearby shrubbery and pretending that someone had only been ding-dong ditching. But it was too late—Vance opened the door.

He stood before her wearing only his jeans, having already stripped off his shirt in obvious preparation for retiring. He wore one other thing besides his jeans—an expression not so unlike that of a child having just been caught stealing cookies out of his mother’s cookie jar.

“Boston? What are you doing here?” he greeted, guilty as sin.

Boston studied him quickly—as usual, entirely impressed by the well-defined muscles of his upper body—as usual, entirely bashful because of them.

“What are
you
doing here? I mean…I followed you,” she flatly confessed. “I thought there was something fishy about the way you were acting at Dempsey’s…so I followed you.”

A purely mortifying thought drove its way into her tender brain then—a lewd, horrid, sickening thought that Boston hadn’t considered before. Perhaps—perhaps Vance didn’t live at the cheap motel. Perhaps he was only meeting someone there for one night! Though Boston’s heart didn’t want to even imagine that Vance Nathaniel was the kind of guy to meet a woman at a motel, her world-worn, Steph-poisoned mind began concocting all sorts of scenarios, including visions of exactly what kind of woman a man would meet at such a place and such a time.

Boston’s stomach churned and threatened to heave out its contents.

“My…uh…my house wasn’t quite ready…so I’m…I’m staying here until it is. Just…just for the next two weeks or so,” he answered, drawing her thoughts from streetwalkers and a
Law and Order
episode she remembered and back to reality.

“So you lied,” she said. “You lied to Danielle…and me. Please tell me you just couldn’t stand the estrogen level at the apartment. Don’t tell me you did this because you felt sorry for me.”

He grinned a little, his eyes sort of twinkling with mischief. “I couldn’t stand the estrogen level at the apartment,” he said.

“I had no idea you were such a big, fat liar!” Boston exclaimed, relieved to know Vance wasn’t meeting some tramp—yet guilt-ridden too, for she knew the truth now.

Vance glanced past Boston a moment. She looked over her shoulder to see a rather unsavory looking man staring at her—specifically, staring at her rear end.

“Get in here,” Vance said, taking hold of her arm and pulling her into the room. He closed the door and twisted the deadbolt before turning to look at her once more.

“Now what are you doing here?” he asked. “Why did you follow me, and what does it matter if I’m not moved into my house yet?”

“You did this because of me,” she accused.

“I did this because of your pal Stephanie,” he corrected, folding strong arms across a chiseled, broad chest. He frowned and nearly growled, “Man, you had to get out from under that chick’s…sh-stuff! I couldn’t stand there and watch you take that any longer.” He ran one hand through his thick, dark hair, shook his head, and chuckled. “I knew you wouldn’t move in while I was still there…whether or not I slept on the couch. So I figured, what’s a couple of weeks here?” he asked, looking around. “I’m at work most of the time anyway. Danielle was all wound up over you too. You might as well have been letting that Steph chick beat you over the head with a shovel. So what’s sleeping here for a few weeks compared with all that?”

He was downplaying his own heroism—or he really didn’t see it as anything too concerning. As Boston’s heart swelled with appreciation, admiration, and delight, she smiled—and, unfortunately, spoke her thoughts aloud.

“Well, I’m not happy to find you living here. But I’m glad you’re actually
living
here and not just meeting someone,” she began, her tongue characteristically unleashed. “I mean, for a minute I had this horrible vision that you were meeting some hoochie here…you know…for…you know…for a reason I can’t even begin to verbalize because it would make me sick to talk about it…and to find out you’re living here instead of that…whew! I mean, I’m just so relieved about that…but I’m still mad at you for lying to us. You didn’t have to do this. I would’ve been fine…I could’ve just bunked in with Halle or something until your house was ready. I feel awful about this! In fact, the more I think about it, the worse I feel…but I’m just so glad you’re living here…you know…instead of…well, you know.”

“You thought I’d driven down to Central Street and pick up a hoo—” he began.

Boston’s hand clamping over his mouth silenced him, however—though it was obvious by the fury in his eyes that he was greatly offended.

“Don’t even say it!” Boston scolded. “I just watch too much
Law and Order
. You know I would never really think that you would—”

“You did!” he growled, pushing her hand from his mouth. “You thought I picked up some streetwalker and came back here to…I can’t believe you would think that of me!”

“I don’t!” Boston assured him emphatically. She shrugged with admitted guilt and said, “Well, I sort of did…but just for a minute…and just because I’ve watched too much TV lately. I swear it! I know you’re not that kind of guy.”

“Really?” he asked, scowling so thoroughly Boston looked around in search of a hole to crawl into. “Then what kind of a guy do you think I am? Obviously you think I’m scummy enough to—”

“I think you’re the kind of guy who lies to stupid girls who have stupid roommates and can’t handle their own stupid problems so that they don’t know he’s doing something to help them out…probably because you don’t like attention or some stupid thing like that,” she blurted. She felt the tears in her eyes—the ache in her heart—an emotional eruption of disbelief and gratitude welling up inside her. “I can’t believe you did this!” she said, her voice breaking as tears escaped her eyes and traveled over her cheeks. Boston brushed them away with the back of her hand, humiliated that she should show such weakness in front of him. However, her humiliation was not so great as to keep her tongue still, and she babbled on, glancing around the dim, shabby room.

“I mean…this cannot possibly be comfortable! And are there roaches? Oh my heck! I won’t be able to sleep at night if I know there’re roaches crawling all over you in here! Did you clean the bathroom before you used it the first time? Oh my heck! Did you wash the sheets? What are you doing here, Vance?” She bit the inside of her cheek and quit talking as he took hold of her shoulders.

“Hey, baby…dial it down a notch, okay?” he said, forcing her to look at him. He tweaked her nose as if she were a little girl and added, “It’s cool. It’s all good. First of all, it’s only for a couple more weeks. Second, I haven’t seen one roach…okay, maybe one. And I did clean the bathroom…and I’m even smart enough that I brought my own bedding. On the flip side, you’ve been liberated from that psycho chick you lived with…and Danielle can quit worrying.” He shrugged broad shoulders and shook his head. “I’m working so much and am so tired when I do get home that I don’t care where I crash.”

Boston, however, was little soothed. She turned away from him, brushing more tears from her cheeks. She couldn’t believe it! She couldn’t believe a guy she’d known only two weeks would make such a gesture of impeccable character. Furthermore, she still didn’t like the fact he was living in such ugly, frightening, and downright depressing circumstances—not to mention he was having to pay who knows how much to live there. Vance Nathaniel may have been working so hard that he didn’t care where he crashed, but Boston did care—and she knew she wouldn’t get a good night’s sleep as long as Vance was in the ratty motel.

“I…I can’t think of anything I can possibly do to thank you,” Boston said. “Not one thing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. She heard him yawn and turned back around to look at him. He did look tired. His hair was tousled, his eyelids kind of droopy. She suspected Dempsey’s party had worn him out. After all, Dempsey’s parties always wore everyone out—and it was very late.

Boston knew Vance was probably anxious to get to bed, but she couldn’t leave without somehow conveying her gratitude. The barrel of Tootsie Pops from Mustang was nothing compared with this! He had to know how she felt. She wanted to be sure he knew how truly heroic his behavior was.